Thousandstar (#4 of the Cluster series) (13 page)

Heem suppressed a wash of pleasure. What did he care what this alien thought? "That is why they selected me. I have skill in piloting and in combat—skills unusual in my species."

He perceived another clot-incipience, and positioned his ship accordingly. This time he found a channel through the middle of the jam and blasted through with precise timing. Eight more ships were passed.

'Beautiful, absolutely beautiful!' Jessica exclaimed. 'But suddenly I feel dizzy! What is happening?'

"We got a taste of jet exhaust," Heem explained. "The backlash of each ship is flavored with chemical wastes, and the velocity of those gases also affects our own propulsion. It is unpleasant to be directly in the exhaust of another ship. The effect dissipates rapidly with distance, however, as the exhaust fans out and soon departs the main channel. Otherwise it would be difficult to maintain a column in space."

'Yes,' she agreed. 'No doubt tempers get short when the ships get too crowded.'

"Tastes become volatile," Heem jetted. "This causes errors. Errors lead to clots that should not otherwise occur. There is an error now." He made a mental taste-blip to indicate the location.

One of the ships they had passed was accelerating at a good three gravities, rapidly overhauling the others. "Roll out of my way, you sours!" the ship's spacespray sprayed.

'I didn't know the ships could communicate with each other!' Jessica remarked, surprised.

"Of course they can; this is mandatory in space. These vessels are normally employed for courier duty, and on occasion get disabled or shy of fuel. They must be able to spray interplanetary distances. But this requires energy, so few are spraying during this race."

The speeding ship came up behind Heem's. "Move it, H-sixty-six!" its pilot sprayed with the flavor of acute annoyance.

Heem obligingly jetted slightly to the side, giving the ship clearance. "I move it, H-sixty."

'Why did you let that oaf through?' Jessica demanded. 'That was Soop of Soulwet, who took the ship you were about to guess. You should have given him a good taste of exhaust! Isn't it his job to maneuver around the ships he passes, instead of making
them
waste fuel for his benefit?'

"True. But he will gain us much more ahead," Heem assured her. "Taste."

'All right, I'll watch. But it seems crazy to me, and it galls me to let that particular nut through unscathed.'

The speeding ship closed the gap on the two ships ahead. The spot-flavors identified these as H-54 and H-55: Vice and Knyfh in his memory, for the concepts that had won them. Heem ordinarily did not have that precise a memory, but he had put extraordinary concentration into his pattern-analysis effort in the later stages. These two ships had been taken almost together, and now were traveling together: probably a cooperating pair. That could mean trouble for a third party.

Indeed it did. H-54 and H-55 did not follow Heem's polite example; they held firm in their places, effectively blocking the channel.

The irate H-60 was moving too fast to swerve around them in the room he had. Maneuvers that could be readily accomplished at low velocity became more difficult at higher velocities; this was one of the variables it was easy for an inexperienced pilot to forget—until too late. H-60 did not even try to dodge around; he shot right between the two. The aperture was so narrow that the three blips merged on the space-taste as a single mass.

And fissioned in an awkward explosion. One ship shot forward, one backward, and the third skewed to the side.

Smoothly Heem veered, for he had room to maneuver. The backward-jetting ship, H-55, shot past, creating an eddy current that shook Heem's vessel. 'What happened?' Jessica cried.

Heem veered again, to avoid the sidewise ship, H-54, then accelerated fiercely. "When two ships pass too close to each other under acceleration, their cone-wakes interact. That speeding H-sixty abruptly put three ships together within strong interaction range, since the other two were already at minimum safe separation. That, coupled with a fair velocity differential, fouled up all three drives. One cut out entirely."

'The one going to the side,' she said.

"No. That one remains under normal acceleration; it merely drifts to the side from the lateral confusion. Probably its pilot is unconscious, unable to correct course."

'But the other two are both accelerating, one forward, one back. The one going back is gaining speed—'

"The one going back has lost its drive. Thus it is drifting at constant velocity, directly on course. The rest of us are all accelerating at one g, leaving it behind more rapidly with every passing moment."

'Oh—I see. Of course you're right. I keep forgetting that we're constantly speeding up, not just traveling.'

"It is an easy thing to confuse, for one unfamiliar with space," Heem jetted charitably. He still felt the ebb-wash of pleasure from her prior compliment.

He received another dose. 'I can certainly see why they wanted you for this mission. You're really expert!'

"Yes. But I deceived them nevertheless. I can pilot a ship as well as I ever could, but I can no longer defeat a Squam in single combat."

'If you could do it before, you can do it now, can't you?'

Heem did not respond. The driverless ship was disrupting the column behind, but he was more concerned with the column ahead. The speeder, H-60, had survived the encounter with the other two ships, and had not improved his manner. "Roll out, noxious!" H-60 sprayed on the spacespray as he charged into the rear of a tight line. Several ships tried to, realizing that it was better to give way, as Heem had, than to suffer rear collision. H-60 was crazy, but dangerous. But they, too, had been tasting ahead rather than behind, and perceived the speeder too late. H-60 shot up the line, extremely close.

The effect was disastrous. Ships were jerked out of their courses, drifting from the channel in all directions. Some lost power and fell back. One meandered erratically, as though its pilot were crazed. Two retained control—but were angry. They were H-45 and H-41. "Let's put that monster away!" H-45 sprayed.

"They are all fools," Heem jetted privately to Jessica. "They are not reacting as they would on land. They can only put themselves away."

The two ships accelerated, jumping to three g. Slowly they abated their rate of loss and began gaining on the speeder. But now other ships were being disturbed, and at three g the pilots were under heightened stress, and suffered diminished responsiveness. They cruised too close to the other ships, and angled out of the channel, while H-60 zoomed on ahead.

Heem, analyzing the pattern of disarray, jetted carefully forward at one and a quarter g, threading safely through the clutter. He managed to pass seven more ships before another pilot tasted his technique.

"Where are you rolling, Sixty-six?" the other HydrO demanded, accelerating to cut him off. It was H-49.

'That's Czeep of Czealake," Jessica commented. She seemed to have a good memory; maybe that had enhanced Heem's own memory.

Heem deftly maneuvered his ship to place it behind a third ship, H-46. H-49 swerved to follow him.

'H-Forty-six—that's Swoon of Sweetswamp!' Jessica said. 'But she doesn't know us, because she was gone before we got our ship.'

"Let her remain in ignorance; we are not cooperating anymore," Heem jetted to Jessica. "Must avoid rolling into a clot."

'Yes, indeed,' she agreed. 'These column-dynamics are getting fierce.'

But H-49 was determined. The ship jetted forward and across, seeking to bathe Heem's ship in its exhaust. Heem avoided it adroitly, but this was costing him fuel. Even though he used less fuel than 49 did, he could not win the race by getting caught in this sort of thing.

He was saved by the first speeder, H-60. The foolish pilot finally crashed into another ship that was unable to move aside in time. The resulting confusion disrupted the entire line, sending so many ships into erratic maneuvers that there was no point in individual competition. Heem's full attention was taken up by the sudden challenge of merely staying clear of the mess.

'Look at H-Forty-six go,' Jessica exclaimed. 'Swoon can really pilot, when she sees her chance.'

Heem ignored that. Ships Sixty and Forty-nine were derelicts, coursing back along the line without power, their relative velocity seeming to grow as they went. The ships coming up on them jetted violently out of the way, their pilots panicking. They should have made minor course corrections to allow the derelicts to slide by, as Heem was doing. Now Heem had to correct for the motions of the reacting ships, and since he was close to the center column, this was difficult. They tended to fling out randomly, posing a hazard to traffic.

But he was not so preoccupied that he neglected to take advantage of his opportunities to pass a few more ships. By the time the column firmed, he was forty-fifth in the line of HydrOs. Swoon of Sweetswamp was far ahead. Unfortunately, there were two other columns to contend with, and now they were converging.

Heem analyzed the pattern of convergence. There was promise there. The ships had to form a single column for maximum efficiency, and were vying for position as they merged. "What has rolled before was the polite preparation," Heem jetted. "Now the real competition begins."

'You've done very well so far,' Jessica commented. 'With all this new confusion, you should be able to do better yet.'

"I've been competing with the less intelligent entries of my own species. Now I'm rolling up against the smarter ones toward the front of the line—and the smarter ones of two other species. This will not be quite so much fun."

'I have confidence in you.'

"Your confidence is desperation. I am an excellent pilot, and in an even race I could probably prevail, though it is evident that some expert pilots have been transferred in. Swoon of Sweetswamp, in H-Forty-six, must have been the top pilot of the Star she represents; she was biding her time, waiting for disruption, before showing her expertise. There are others like that. Starting where I did, it will take a great deal more than confidence to make sufficient progress."

Jessica made a mental shrug—a distinctly odd experience for Heem. She was retaining her confidence.

Now that he was committed to the race, Heem intended to put his best effort into it. He had not boasted idly about his skill; in a fundamental sense he lived for space. All HydrOs had evolved for this destiny: to travel between planets. All HydrOs hoped to pilgrimage in space before they achieved the second metamorphosis.

'Metamorphosis?' Jessica inquired.

"Get out of my mind!" Heem needled.

'I wish I could. Your body is a horror to me!'

Heem concentrated his taste on the race. His ship was coming up to the mergence of the three columns. "The sensible procedure is to give way to the Erb and Squam ships that intersect our route," he jetted. "Unfortunately this will cause our position to suffer, and we will have no chance to make the cut."

'So the only safe course is unreasonable?'

"No. The safe and reasonable course is not to race."

'Do you want me to scream again?' she inquired sweetly.

"The only thing worse than a Squam is a female Squam." Heem needled the controls, and the ship angled forward responsively, seeking an opening in the threatening clot.

'Better than a blind male blob!' she retorted, but he had already forgotten what she was responding to.

The blips were taste-coded to show species as well as number. Heem experienced involuntary constriction of his jet-apertures as he identified the Squam ships. He did not like Squams, even in the form of spaceships. Jessica's resemblance to a Squam constituted a significant portion of his objection to her. He knew, intellectually, that she was an alien of quite another type, but the fact that her natural body had eyes and hands and consumed physical substance—appalling! And to be, in addition—

'Your thought processes are about as subtle as a clout on the head.'

"I don't have a head."

'Which is part of your problem.'

The mergence of columns loomed. Heem knew that once he got locked into the enlarged column, he would have little opportunity to move up without prohibitive waste of fuel. Yet to break out of the buoyed route would also cost too much.

'There has got to be some way!' Jessica cried.

"There is, but not a way you will like."

'To hell with what I like! Try me and see. Anything's better than—this!'

"I take you at your taste," Heem jetted, and cut into the heart of the massing pattern. The taste-blips of the competition suddenly surrounded his ship.

'I think I'm going to regret opening my big mouth,' Jessica said. But then she was distracted by the blip pattern. 'Oh, they're so close, so close! I think I'm beginning—beginning to see them, a little. The merest suggestion. Focus the image, so I can—'

Heem concentrated, not entirely to please the alien. For the kind of maneuvering he contemplated, he needed to have acute spatial awareness. If she wanted to think of that as an "image" she was welcome. Maybe it would keep her from pestering him so much.

'Oh, it is beginning to shape. Like a surrealist dream, not quite clear but significant—I have to connect my sight awareness to your taste inputs—tricky, but with my mind's eye—'

Heem ignored her. He had a race to roll! The mergence of the three columns caused Squam and Erb ships to close in about him, vying for position. The blips were now so close to his own ship that they were merging on his space-taste. Heem experienced the mounting tension of competition; he liked this. To be in space, maneuvering against others in space—here was the essence of living!

'The essence of masculine foolishness,' Jessica said sourly. But again, she was distracted by what she perceived. 'The Erb ships—they are like opening flowers— only they're flying sidewise!'

"Their energy-receptors orient on the Star, of course," Heem needled. "They need to augment their energy as much as possible, to make the artificial power last. It can readily make the difference between victory and defeat."