Thousandstar (#4 of the Cluster series) (37 page)

He reached the top—victory!—and halted. He had won the Ancient site for Star HydrO—and for Jessica's survival. But where was the Competition Authority representative that was supposed to be here to verify the identity of the winner? The top of the tower was a level platform surrounded by a low ridge, with a metallic dome raised above it. That was all.

Slitherfear charged up. 'Heem—with no entity here to keep score—no competition monitor—suppose the Squam doesn't stop?'

Suppose? Obviously Slitherfear would be governed by no law other than force. The Squam intended to throw Heem off the tower and claim the site for his own Star—which Heem was sure was Star Squam itself.

'Why, the utter freak!' Jessica exclaimed indignantly. 'He's going to cheat!'

"We have resources," Heem assured her. "I can hold him off with my accurate needles, and there's an Erb behind him."

'The thing to do is change the dial setting,' she said.

'Dump them all at the bottom, while we stay up here.'

"He is already beside the top dial; we cannot reach it."

Heem braced himself. Slitherfear came forging to the top, limbs folded.

Heem needled the most convenient extremity, but it was not extended and the overlapping scales protected every part of the Squam in this position. From the side Heem might have been effective, but endwise there was no purchase for a needle.

'He has to breathe, doesn't he?' Jessica asked even as Heem needled.

Good notion! Heem jetted voluminously at the creature's air intake, which was a small tube projecting from the top of the central hump. The Squam choked. He halted at the edge of the platform, unfolding all three arms.

Heem jetted him again, not with needle force, because the angle was still wrong. But the Squam deflected the water with one pincer. 'We can't stop him on the ramp,' Jessica said. 'His armor is too strong. But if we let him up here, where we have more room to maneuver for position—'

"He's got his own problem. That Erb is on his tail." Slitherfear realized this. He pulled in his limbs and slithered rapidly forward. Heem could do nothing to stop him. The Squam nosed into the open chamber that was the apex of the tower, under the dome.

The Erb was right behind. As it arrived at the top of the ramp, its drill formed. Now the Squam had to unfold his limbs again, lest the plant catch him and destroy him. For a moment the three of them paused, dispersed in a triangle about the enclosure.

'And it is a triangle, or a vicious circle, with each entity capable of destroying another,' Jessica said.

"I think we have an advantage," Heem sprayed. "We know how to fight the Squam."

'Still, Slitherfear is treacherous, unscrupulous, and dangerous,' she said darkly. 'And there's something funny about that Erb. Isn't his stem sort of thick?'

Heem checked. The taste of the stem was strange. "He's wearing a protective shield, so he can't be needled there!" Heem jetted. "That means he will not be easy to eliminate."

'It is not surprising that some pretty tough characters are in this competition. I wonder how he smuggled that jacket in? Maybe tossed it over the line, then picked it up.'

"In addition to that—what use to clear off the others, if more keep coming up the ramp. We need to reverse the ramp, while we wait for the Competition Authority to arrive and verify. But now the Erb stands near the dial, blocking us off."

'I'm not sure we can reach that dial anyway, without getting on the ramp—and then
we
would get dumped.' Jessica raised a mental pair of hands to tug at mental hair. 'Why, oh why isn't a representative of the Competition Authority here to verify the winner? This whole thing is amazingly sloppy.'

Heem could only agree. Had the competition been properly organized, the present predicament would never have arisen.

The three creatures remained poised, no one taking the initiative. It was clear why: anyone who eliminated another would be vulnerable to the third, since the circle would then be broken. The Erb held the Squam in check; if the HydrO needled the Erb, the Squam might then be the winner. Except for Heem's special talent: the ability to fight a Squam. And the Erb's evident protection against a HydrO. That complicated the issue.

'You're right, Heem; first we'd better secure the top of this tower against further intrusions; then we can worry about the other two up here. We don't want to weaken ourselves fighting these two, only to get wiped out by the next one up the ramp. Maybe if it remains a standoff long enough, the Competition Authority representative will get off his lunch break and report back for duty.'

Heem made an involuntary spray of mirth. What an insult she had dealt the errant representative, implying that he was a food-eater!

And—the next competitor was already coming up the ramp. Swoon of Sweetswamp, who had evidently paused along the way to note and memorize the dial settings. How would her presence further complicate this situation?

The Erb, feeling most immediately threatened despite his shield, was first to act. He lunged his drill at Swoon. The attack caught her by surprise; Erbs hardly ever initiated hostilities against HydrOs, since the result was almost certainly disastrous for the Erbs. She didn't realize that this one was no ordinary Erb. She paused at the top of the ramp.

The Erb lunged again. Swoon retreated. The globe was immediately behind her. Suddenly Heem recognized the Erb's strategy: to force Swoon into the globe, by her contact changing the setting—and dumping her at the base of the tower. That would eliminate one competitor for a time—perhaps a long time, if she had trouble remounting because of competition below.

Heem could have warned her, but held his jet. He did not want her competition either. He wanted as few creatures up here as possible. In this he was in agreement with the Erb. With only three here, he could act against the Erb, then turn his full attention to the Squam. Swoon banged against the globe.

The bottom dropped out of the platform they stood on. HydrO, Squam and Erb were in free-fall, dropping down inside the tower.

'From above, it reverses!' Jessica exclaimed. 'Instead of down outside, down inside!' She had a mental picture of her Solarian body, blue hair floating upward with the force of the fall, legs kicking beneath the cone of material that surrounded them. Her dress, skirt, slip, clothing, apparel female Solarians wore was supposed to conceal the upper sections of her lower legs, lest observing males of her species become unduly intrigued. Alien it was, but now Heem found the image peculiarly attractive. She was probably a creature of considerable physical appeal to her own kind.

'I would be, if I ever had a chance to be myself, instead of a fake man. But I guess it was out of the frying pan and into the fire.' Now her image was of the falling Solarian female descending from a large rimmed disk into the leaping flames of some nether conflagration. 'From male apparel to a male host.'

The flames were consuming her dress, exposing more of her upper legs. Heem found those legs quite interesting. Now the upper section of her garment was also disintegrating, exposing—

"Heem!" she cried, and he broke off his mental gaze. "Heem—we're still falling!"

So they were. But they were falling slowly. "This is not free-fall—it's counter-gravity!" Heem sprayed.

'There is no such thing as anti-gravity!' But her protest lacked force, as they floated down. Ancient science seemed to mock the limitations of the moderns.

They came to rest in a cylindrical chamber beneath the base of the tower. Its walls were of a material similar to that of the dial-globes outside: they were clearly perceptible to all senses. Five passages led out from the central plaza. There was no dust, and the air was pleasant.

Here it was—an entire, functional Ancient complex to be explored. A treasure of a magnitude found only once in a millennium in any given galaxy. But they could not explore it; they had to settle which Star had the right to exploit this site. For that Star would shortly be the dominant one of this Segment. The vicious triangle remained.

Not quite. There was another creature present. Its torso was vaguely like a stem, but thicker; at the base were several little feet, not roots; at the center were several manipulative appendages, not Squam-limbs; and the apex terminated in a complex spiral wire.

"An Ancient?" Heem sprayed, startled.

¿Hardly!¿ the creature jetted back at him. ¿I am the Competition Authority Representative, a native of Segment Fa¿, selected as an objective arbiter for your Segment's activity. I was examining a decorative globe near the access ramp, when I was precipitated here, and was unable to return.¿

Heem relaxed. 'So that's what happened to the Representative!' Jessica exclaimed. 'He must have been brought by floatercraft, and not realized the significance of the dials.'

The creature carried a translator, from which emerged the jets and other modes of communication. It was evident that the Squam and Erb understood him also. ¿Which of you was first to achieve the apex of the tower¿

"I was," Slitherfear answered immediately.

"You falsify!" the Erb flashed indignantly. "
I
was first."

The representative oriented on Heem. ¿You make a similar claim?¿

'Brother!' Jessica exclaimed. Heem only sprayed agreement.

¿We shall then await arrival of the Competition Authority Vehicle, and convey the three of you to an interrogation station, where the truth shall be ascertained. Analysis of your aural printouts will immediately—¿

The communication was cut off by Slitherfear's action. The Squam lunged into the Fa¿, knocking him down. One limb reached for the apex-spiral, and the pincer clamped on it and wrenched it out of the body.

Both Heem and the Erb moved forward, but Slitherfear was already slithering away. One pincer grasped the translator. "There will be no aural printouts," the Squam said. "I have nullified the Fa¿."

"You have not nullified
us!
" Heem jetted, his shock at this horrendous deed converting to cold anger. "
We
know the truth, not the Fa¿."

The Squam's body heaved. His stomach extruded— and it was no living membrane, but a fiber sac. That meant that Heem's action, there in the valley of Morning-mist, had been effective; the Squam had had to have his stomach amputated. He probably lived on artificial infusions of chemicals.

From the sac tumbled a cylindrical object. The fiber stomach was then sucked back in, and Slitherfear picked up the object. It fitted neatly in one set of pincers the three surfaces holding it without slippage. "So nice of you to allow me leisure to extract my tool. You, HydrO, will murder the Fa¿ by needling him through the torso; he is only comatose while his spiral perceptor is disconnected. I will then have to kill you and the Erb in defense of self."

'This is so dastardly it's crazy!' Jessica exclaimed. 'Heem, you're not about to murder the Competition Authority Representative!'

"I believe you are overly optimistic," the Erb flashed at the Squam. "I was not first to the apex of the tower, but if you kill the HydrO, he will be eliminated by death and you by disqualification, and I will become the legitimate winner. My aural printout will show the validity of my claim. I believe you have already disqualified yourself by your attack on the Fa¿."

Slitherfear aimed his cylinder at the prone creature. A needle of water shot out, piercing the Fa¿. The torso humped in agony, the limbs thrashing; then it subsided. The taste of mortality suffused the air. "As you can perceive the Representative has been needled to death," Slitherfear said. He put a second pincer to his weapon, clamping on it and breaking it apart. He threw it to the floor.

Abruptly the weapon burst into flame. The heat was fierce but brief; then nothing remained but the dissipating taste of combustion. It had been a self-destruct item.

"This remains unclear to me," the Erb flashed. "You may frame the HydrO and kill him—but you cannot also kill me. And if you could, you would still be subject to the aural printout yourself."

"This is part of my expertise for this mission," Slitherfear said. "I am the Star Squam representative; I have no transferee. Instead I have an aural scrambler. No clear printout is possible. The truth can not be had from me."

"An aural scrambler!" Heem jetted. "This would affect the scruples, even the sanity of any entity who employed it for any prolonged period."

'Like a pact with the devil,' Jessica agreed. 'The devil takes your soul in return for material gain.'

The implication had not been lost on the Erb. He flashed at the translator, but his message was for Heem. "HydrO, we compete with a mad creature. I think you and I had better form a—"

The translator crashed to the floor. Its message ceased. The Squam had destroyed it, too, before Erb and HydrO could come to an agreement.

The Erb formed his drill and moved purposefully toward the Squam. Slitherfear retreated quickly into the passage behind him. His sanity was evidently not so far eroded as to make him that foolish. He had to kill the Erb, but could hardly do so in a direct, fair encounter. He would avoid contact until he could obtain some illicit advantage. Perhaps he had another weapon hidden in his pseudostomach.

'Do you think we can trust the Erb?' Jessica asked worriedly. 'He can win only by seeing us both killed.'

"True. He did try to falsify his order of arrival to the Competition Authority Representative. He may balk at murder, but we can not safely assume so. He may even be a decent sort, like Windflower, but he's not here to be decent. We had best stay clear of him. We don't need to attack him, even assuming we can penetrate his protective shield. All we need do now is survive until Competition Authority reinforcements come; then we shall be adjudged the victors."

'Maybe it would be smartest simply to retreat for the time being,' she said. 'Let the other two fight it out, while we wait for the Authority. You don't have to kill Slitherfear directly, even if the Erb doesn't catch him; just by surviving, you will finish him, because he is guilty of murdering a neutral sapient entity. You can be sure he won't get off
this
rap; it would make an inter-Segment incident. His scrambler will do him no good, if you are present to testify.'