Thousandstar (#4 of the Cluster series) (30 page)

"I think you are spraying nonsense," Heem jetted. "Yet you make me feel like continuing the struggle."

'Oh, good, Heem! I admit I am selfish, because I want to survive myself, but I do think you have a lot to offer your culture, and—'

"You alien thing, I think I—what is that concept you have?'

She was startled. 'What concept?'

"As a male for a female, beyond the term of convenience."

'Beyond the—oh, you must mean love.'

"Love, yes, as we discussed before. It is a concept limited in my kind, because it cannot be fully associated with propagation, since—" He flooded out that concept, but part of Geel's explosion seeped through to awareness anyway. "But just as I am coming to comprehend the alien perception of vision, now I am coming more properly to feel—"

'No, Heem, no!' she protested. 'You can't love me! I'm alien—'

"Does the concept now repulse you?"

'But when we discussed it before, we didn't know how—what happened to HydrO females when—we really are so different, Heem, and not merely physically!'

"And your discussion just now of the wasted sperms and eggs of your kind—that was not true?"

She capitulated. 'No, Heem, it was true. I think maybe I love you too, impossible as it is. I mean, even if we could physically meet—there's just no way—and here we are stuck in just one body—oh, this is ridiculous!'

"So we remain at impasse."

'As always.'

"Yet the emotion is to an extent independent of the body. Your Solarian body would be a horror to me. But you, yourself—"

'I know, Heem. I feel the same.'

That was as far as they could take it. Once more, there was nothing to do except drop the subject.

They moved on. The fuel dropped lower in the machine's tank, until there was enough only for very limited maneuvers. "We are not going to travel a great deal farther in this vehicle," Heem sprayed, disappointed. "We may have gained on the others, but not enough."

'We're not out of it yet,' Jessica said reassuringly. 'According to the map, we're nine tenths there. Only one bad ridge to cross—'

"We shall have to roll it alone—and that will be very slow." Heem ground the tractor up over another elevation. As he crested it, the motor choked to a stop. The fuel was gone.

They coasted down until the path leveled. 'That's it,' Jessica said. 'One thing in our favor: that ridge is not far ahead, and it crosses three of the routes. I doubt any tractor will have enough fuel to get over it. The other two routes are blocked by a large river. Do Squams or Erbs swim?'

"No. They will have difficulty crossing."

'So we're still in the game. Let's roll!'

They rolled. Heem jet-rolled up the next incline, then free-rolled down the next decline. As he passed the lowest point, he jetted to speed up, so as to continue his roll on over the next crest with minimal effort. Since the route was generally declining, they made good progress.

'This is really a pretty efficient mode of travel,' Jessica admitted. 'You conserve momentum, and really move quite swiftly. As fast as the tractor did, I believe.'

"In terrain like this, HydrOs are among the fastest travelers in Segment Thousandstar," Heem jetted with a certain pride-of-species. "But the tractor helped in gaining me the elevation necessary to roll efficiently on my own. It would be very slow if I had a prolonged uphill slant to traverse."

They passed a stalled tractor. It had the flavor of Squam, but was empty. The Squam had slithered forward under its own power, and could not be too far ahead. 'I believe we are about to pass another contestant,' Jessica observed. 'Don't pause to quarrel, now. We don't have your sight well enough coordinated, yet, to handle a Squam.'

"You assume I am a quarrelsome male!"

'Of course. The terms are virtually identical, aren't they?'

He needled her with a mental jet that lacked more than tickling force, and she screamed a small scream that shook no nerves. Things were back to normal.

They continued along the trail. Soon they did overhaul the Squam, who was slithering with fair dispatch up the incline but could not match Heem's accumulated velocity. True to Jessica's stricture, Heem did not pause. He did not even squirt an insulting needle at the creature as he rolled by. This was not Slitherfear, after all, and there was a certain limited merit in the Solarian's opinion about differences between individuals.

'
Limited
merit?'

But a short distance thereafter he had to stop. Another tractor was stalled in the path—and the path itself terminated ahead of it. Heem tasted and Jessica looked, and they could not perceive any trail beyond. It ended in a blank wall of stone.

"That is more of a ridge than the map suggests," Heem sprayed.

An Erb stood beside the machine, surveying the situation. It had a map, and Heem could tell from the disturbance in the taste-pattern that it was playing its gaze over this map. The Erb's light receptors were on little stalks at the center of its flower; when it folded its petal-leaves to drill something, its eye-patches were protected, though its sight was then limited. In this case its petals were spread, and rotating slowly.

Heem had not brought his map along, of course, but retained a good memory of it. HydrOs seldom had to carry things with them, since they had no need of the food or shelter other species required, and retained in memory most of what they had use for. Only in special situations, such as the transfer of fuel between tractors, did HydrOs ever need to transport objects—and in that recent case, the tractor's winch had done the work. Heem's memory-map indicated that the trail proceeded straight ahead. Obviously the Erb was similarly baffled.

'It occurs to me that someone in the Competition Authority made quite certain the tractors would not make it all the way to the Ancient site,' Jessica said. 'They wanted this to be an all-around challenge, so they put little surprises in the map.'

"I could climb that mountain," Heem sprayed. "But it would take so long I would surely lose the race. It would have been better to choose a route that terminated in a river."

'Had we but known,' Jessica agreed. 'HydrOs can roll under water, right? Drawing hydrogen from bubbles in the water? But that's the luck of the draw.'

Heem considered. "We cooperated with a Squam before, to cross the lava-flow. I wonder whether it is possible to cooperate with an Erb—or what we might gain from it?"

'Heem, you are becoming astonishingly liberal! But yes: they have true sight, don't they? And they can drill things. I think we could benefit from those talents.'

"But Erbs hate HydrOs."

'Easily solved. Let the transferees do the dealing. This is not supposed to be a contest against Erbs and HydrOs, but of all the Thousand Stars against each other, using particular hosts.'

Dubiously, Heem agreed. "You do the communicating."

'Fine. We alien things must stick together.' She paused. 'Oops, I forgot one detail. I don't know the language. Will the tractor transmitter translate?'

"Not unless it receives a signal. The impulses are coded, and translated into the operator's language."

This is crazy. It will translate a broadcast, but not a direct dialogue? Before, we did okay.'

"At the lava-crossing we had two tractors, translating each other's broadcasts. Here we have only one."

'Maybe we could use it to broadcast, then play back its own message in translation. Trick it into becoming a translator.'

"Doubtful. We had better try Thousandstar common code."

Jessica probed his thought. 'Oh—like that truce-knocking the Squam did before. A small vocabulary of set signals for any species. So how do we proffer truce to the Erb? It can't taste us and we can't see it, not directly.' She was, however, forming a picture of the creature.

"We roll in the truce-pattern," Heem sprayed. He initiated the roll.

The Erb drew back, scuttling along on its little roots, its stout stem swaying. 'That needs no translation,' Jessica said. 'It's afraid of you.'

"I am not surprised. Erbs are skittery creatures."

'What about that one who tried to run us down?'

"In a tractor, it is a different matter. Your point about variation between individuals—"

'Well, try again. Move slowly, so as not to alarm it. We need to make contact.'

Heem started the truce-roll again, performing it slowly. This time the creature held its ground.

But before the Erb could respond, the Squam arrived. "Is there difficulty in communication?" a device sprayed.

"You have a translation unit!" Heem sprayed back. "Three languages?"

"I try to be prepared," the Squam replied. "I anticipated problems in this competition. Are you amenable to a truce for the purpose of advancing mutual progress toward the site?"

"Yes," Heem agreed. "At the site itself it must end. But if we do not make progress now, none of us will be in contention for victory. I have been trying to signal the Erb to this effect."

The translation unit rendered his spray into flashes of light for the Erb. Now the creature acceded. "However, I prefer not to associate too closely with the HydrO," it amended. "That breed is not to be trusted."

"Not to be trusted!" Heem exploded. "You hypocrite of a plant! Back there in the trail—"

"Truce, truce!" the Squam interposed. "We have been in competition, but must abate that temporarily."

"And I prefer not to associate with a Squam," Heem sprayed. "But we must associate with each other if we are to travel. Let us agree on this: if one of us attacks another, the third will be obliged to attack the aggressor. That way we are all protected; only peace will help us all."

'Say, that's a neat device!' Jessica exclaimed. 'Whoever starts trouble will regret it. I'm glad to see you are now able to view Squams rationally.'

"Equitable," the Squam agreed.

"Shall we review options and assets? I am Sickh of Sleekline, an unmated female who—"

"Female!" Heem interjected.

The Squam swiveled to orient her pincers on him. "You object?" her translator needled.

'
Do
you?' Jessica needled from within.

Heem rolled back. "Merely surprise. I had thought few females would enter this highly competitive mission."

"A number of the species of Thousandstar have highly competitive females, and their representatives reflect this, and require female hosts," the Squam responded. "You, a male, have inadequate means to appreciate the devious qualities of the mystique."

'Ha!' Jessica exclaimed.

Heem was silent/tasteless externally. Internally, he sprayed, "This Squam sounds just like you."

Jessica was chagrined. 'Not really?'

He had mercy. "Not really. She believes she has a mental as well as physical advantage over me. It will be best not to disabuse her."

'You're learning, Heem! I'll watch her closely. We may make a better team than we knew.'

The Squam resumed her introduction. "I am a specialist in geological manifestations, and my transferee is an archaeologist. I believe we can fathom an excellent route to the site, recovering time, but it is apt to be hazardous for a single entity."

That was a potent combination for a mission like this. Geologist and archaeologist would be extraordinarily quick to perceive signs of the Ancients that others might miss. Theoretically this was a race to a marked site, but one could never be certain, with the Ancients. Also, the prior Squam had made quite an accurate guess at the prospective hazards of leaving the prepared path; this one's warning of hazard could be well conceived.

'Yes,' Jessica agreed. 'Awful smart girl, there.'

The Erb flashed at the translator, and it emitted a spray for Heem and sounds for Sickh Squam: a versatile instrument. "I am Windflower, also female at this stage of my growth. I am a student of the material and theory of the Ancients, and my transferee specializes in transfer technology."

An even more potent set! The Ancients were the past masters of transfer—one reason their sites were so eagerly sought. But how much did these specialized fields help in the actual competition to reach the site? It seemed the experts had not been quite practical enough. This was, Heem understood, a common failing of experts throughout the Cluster.

Heem's turn. "I am Heem of Highfalls, male, a specialist in space piloting and combat. My transferee is an analyzer of patterns."

"Excellent," the Squam said. "Now let us consider how we may forward mutual progress. The routing delineated by the map is suitable for tractors; it would be possible to shape a ramp against the face of the cliff and employ the winch to assist the steep ascent, but this would expend both fuel and time. Windflower's machine cannot have much fuel remaining."

"True," the Erb agreed. "Insufficient for such purposes. We drove well and carefully, but the map deceived us."

Well and carefully indeed, Heem thought. This tractor must have come farther and faster than any other. These two creatures had to be among the most skilled and clever in the competition: a fact not to be forgotten.

"Therefore, we must proceed independently, either following the marked route or devising one of our own. The marked route curves somewhat; a direct approach could cut the travel distance to a third."

"The direct route is over the most extreme elevation of the ridge," the Erb flashed.

"Therefore not feasible,” Sickh asserted. “But my preliminary analysis suggests that this ridge is porous. There should be caves penetrating it, some of which could emerge quite close to our objective."

'This is one smart creature!' Jessica repeated.

"My kind depends on the ambiance of light, except in quite close quarters," the Erb protested. "We have no liking for nether regions, and are not competent therein."

"This is one reason you can benefit by cooperating with us," the Squam pointed out. "My kind is quite facile in subterranean situations, so long as they are dry and reasonably firm in structure. We utilize sound to explore the reaches. We are shaped conveniently to traverse small passages. However, there may be constrictions too narrow for me to pass—"