Cluster Page 18

  "I know!" This card was so relevant it was stifling. The Polarian went on quickly. "This is behind you, that which has just passed." And it was a charging chariot.

  "Enough!" Flint cried against the floor, not caring to expose his experiences in the Eye of the Charioteer on System Capella. They had been good experiences, with a strong-Kirlian Dragon and a Kirlian queen who had, as promised, been very young in bed. These cards, seeming to orient on him with demonic perception, were striking entirely too close to the mark.

  "This is before you," the Hierophant said, dealing the next immediately. "Perhaps it represents your next mission." It was a human heart, pierced by three swords. "Three of Gas, meaning sorrow." This time the dealer did not dally, but proceeded to the next four keys in succession—and the animation plate became subdivided so that all four were evident at once.

  One was a Polarian suspended by its trunk so that its wheel could not touch the ground, rendering it helpless, yet it did not seem to be in distress: "This is yourself, unable to make an informed decision." Next a tower being blasted by lightning: "Yet your illusions will soon be destroyed to make way for new understanding." Then a pattern of six swords, their points touching within a cross: "The Six of Gas—your hopes and fears expressed within the concept of science. Your mission surely involves some modern technological concept." And the last: a dancing human skeleton wielding a scythe. "A strange animation—we Polarians have no bones—but it represents what is to be, the culmination of all these influences. And it is—"

  "I see it!" Flint cried. "Death!"

  "Not necessarily," the Hierophant hastened to clarify. "It is also called Transformation, a shifting from one plane to another. All of us die a little with every experience, and are reborn a little. Life itself may be considered as the process of dying."

  "Maybe so," Flint agreed. "I'm not sure this is getting us anywhere, though. It's all drawn from my own mind, isn't it? That's why it seems so damned relevant. So it represents what I think will happen, nothing more. The reality could turn out entirely differently."

  "What will happen is governed by what we are," the Hierophant explained. "And you are very special. The reading does not predict the future, it only tells what is in you. On its own terms it is valid. Your mission is important; you cannot give it up."

  "I wasn't about to. But what I need are specifics. Such as who exactly is this Queen of Energy who is balking me? Can you name her?"

  "No. I do not pretend to comprehend the full meaning of your reading. But you can identify her. Here, let me take this key as the Significator and further define it, using the keys as you have arranged them." The other images faded and the flaming Queen formed. "This covers her." And the next image showed: a huge, goatlegged, horned creature, laughing.

  "The Devil!" Flint exclaimed. "And look—he has us chained to his post—" For there were two small human figures manacled to the Satanic perch, and they seemed familiar.

  "Satan is God as seen by the ignorant," the Hierophant murmured. "You see the male and female figures as you and the Queen of Energy?"

  "Yes I do—and now I know who she is!" Flint paused. "No, I don't know; I have never seen her in her natural form, or in human incarnation. But she tried to kill me twice, and may be after me a third time. How can I stop her?"

  "We shall see. This crosses her." And it was four swords. "The Four of Gas. It means truce. You cannot destroy her, you can only neutralize her—declare a cessation of hostilities, if she agrees."

  "Ha! I can deal with her if I can identify her. Can we verify her Polarian identity, or find out whether she's here at all?"

  "We can try. Where do you see her influence?"

  "In the key for the near future—Three of Gas. Sorrow. If she's here, she will cause me sorrow, all right. And the first thing I have to do is complete my mission."

  "You have a good memory for the layout," the Hierophant remarked. It was actually Flint's eidetic memory in operation that seemed to accompany him regardless of the brain of his host. "As you wish: Three of Gas the Significator." The triply pierced heart returned. "This covers it." And it was overlaid by—"The Queen of Liquid."

  "Not the Queen of Energy!" Flint said, surprised.

  "Definitely a different female. Do you know one with the qualities of water? Soft, supple, beautiful, pliable, loving, with an affinity for flowing streams, not intelligent but wise in her timeless fashion, virtuous, the ideal spouse—"

  "Honeybloom!" Flint cried with a pang, looking at the triply pierced heart within the Queen's bosom, struggling to continue its beating despite its transfixion. "I was to marry her, before this. But she would never hurt me!"

  "Not intentionally, perhaps. This crosses her."

  Flint cried out in horror. For ten terrible swords converged to pierce the Queen's body, destroying her.

  "There certainly is much Gas in your reading," the Hierophant remarked. "And that is the suit of Trouble. This is the Ten—signifying ruin. Not of you—of her. Are you sure you have not—"

  "I have to return to her!" Flint cried. "Poor, sweet Honeybloom, my green girl! She waits for me—"

  "The Tarot—which I remind you is merely the animation of information you already possess—suggests it is already too late."

  "I don't believe it! Right after this mission, I don't care what the Imps say—that's what I should be checking. My mission! Let's have a supplementary reading on that."

  "We shall have to select a Significator for your mission—"

  "It has to do with the Big Wheel. I must see him—now."

  "The Big Wheel! That would be the Key Ten, the Wheel of Fortune, the most important one to Polarians." It formed: a huge wheel surmounted by a sphinx. "Your Sphere Sol images are fascinating; I have never seen them animated so neatly. I refer to content as well as clarity of image. The Founder—"

  "Get on with it."

  "This covers him." Four staffs appeared, with a castle in the background. "Four of Energy. Completion, peace—"

  "That's it. On."

  "This crosses him." A woman, bound in front of a line of tall swords. "Eight of Gas. Interference, accidental yet—"

  "I know who's been trying to interfere, maybe well intentioned. A Polarian female, young, pretty—"

  "Has she borne issue?"

  "Had children, you mean? I don't think so. She's really very sweet, in a down-to-ground sort of way, but not—"

  "Page of Solid, then, for her Significator." The image formed. Tsopi.

  "Yes—that's her! Check her out—I want to know if she's my enemy."

  "This defines her." The image was of two overflowing cups. "Two of Liquid, signifying love, harmony. There is no enmity here."

  "So she's innocent!"

  "So you believe. I would be inclined to trust that judgment."

  "What crosses her?"

  "This crosses her. Two of Solid, signifying change. Not really a negative indication—"

  Flint had had enough. "Thanks, but I have to be on my way. Can you direct me to the location of the Big Wheel?"

  "I don't really advise—"

  "I know you don't. But you have helped me—you really have!—and it's my decision."

  The Hierophant glowed, resigning himself. "We do not impose advice beyond the Querent's desire. I shall show you a map."

  The map was a pattern of tastes on a sphere, unlike anything Flint had used before but quite adequate to the present need.

  He soon found himself at the entrance to the palace of the Big Wheel. "I have important information for His Rondure."

  The guard was unimpressed. "Your identity?"

  "Emissary from Sphere Sol, transferred."

  The guard checked as though this were routine. "The Wheel regrets he cannot interview you at this time."

  "He can't speak with a Spherical Emissary?" Flint demanded incredulously. "This is important!"

  "There is an unexpiated debt."

  "Well, I'll see him anyway." And Flint shoved by.

  "P
lease desist," the guard replied. "I do not wish to incapacitate you."

  But Flint continued on into the palace, certain that no attack would be made against an identified agent of a friendly Sphere.

  The guard shot him on the wheel with a jet of frictive powder.

  The effect was immediate and alarming. A patch of the surface of his ambulation ball became painfully rough, preventing him from controlling it properly. Uniformity of friction was vital to the control of the spherical wheel; the body was always making small adjustments of balance. When the compensation for a slippery surface was applied to a rough surface, that section grabbed and threw the body to the side. But adjustment for extra friction fouled up the minimum-friction surfaces too. The result was an increasingly erratic motion, ending in an ignominious crash.

  Then Tsopi was there. No doubt the guard had notified her as soon as Flint identified himself. "Plint!" she cried on his prostrate hulk. "How did this happen?"

  "The watch-cog bit me, Topsy," he explained wryly.

  "He tried to see the Big Wheel," the guard explained. He did not react to Flint's pun, as there was no similarity in Polarian to the words for "dog" and "cog." Concepts could be translated; puns were lost. There were, however, dogs in this Sphere; they were twi-wheeled, fast-rolling carnivores, readily amenable to domestication.

  Tsopi glowed with distress. "You cannot see him yet! I thought you understood that"

  "I thought you understood that I have to see him. My mission—"

  "It means that much to you?" she asked. "You risk injury—?"

  "Cutespin, it means that much."

  She glowed with vexation. "Then I shall not clog your roller. Come." She wrapped her supple tail about his torso and drew him upright. Her touch was delightful.

  "Page of Solid," he murmured against her skin as he tested his wheel. The friction was wearing off, being diluted and cleaned away by his body, and he was able to function—carefully. "I'm glad I can trust you."

  "You have been to the Tarot Temple!" she murmured back. "I never thought to look there, Knight of Gas."

  "No, I'm the Hermit," he said. But he remembered how often the Gas cards, indicated by the flashing swords (the symbolism being the way they sliced through air?), had shown up in his reading.

  "Not any more. You're not giving me the slip again." She drew up before a large door. "You're sure you—?"

  "Yes." Could it suddenly be this easy?

  She pushed through the door. It rotated very like some he had seen on Planet Earth. Of course, even stick figures employed some circular devices, and Polarians used some back-and-forth mechanisms. Nothing was pure. He followed her.

  Inside was the throne: a high, ornate ramp set above a lovely alien garden. On it was the Big Wheel; actually a rather faded old Polarian.

  "Your Rondure, I bring you Plint of Outworld, Envoy of Sphere Sol," she announced.

  The monarch glowed with interest. "Has your debt been abated so quickly?"

  Tsopi hesitated.

  "Well, speak up!" the Wheel snapped.

  "I—yield it," Tsopi whispered against the floor behind her, very like a guilty cur.

  "You what?" The Wheel rolled close, looming over them on the high ramp.

  "I—"

  "I heard you the first time! Female, do you seek to dishonor your Revolver as well as yourself? You yield nothing to me! The moment the individual gives way to society, our Sphere becomes frictive." That was an allusion Flint would not have understood prior to his experience with the powder. Friction meant disaster! "What would the Big Stick of Sphere Sol say if we treated his envoy so abrasively? Stop spuming around uselessly. Abate that debt! I want his mission done and you back in service soon, or I'll dewheel you myself! You've already wasted several hours twiddling your tail while he gossipped with the Hierophant—and the secret of transfer is of the highest rotation."

  "Your Rondure," Flint said. "I only want to—"

  "Oh, get this lamewheel out of here," the Big Wheel said impatiently.

  Tsopi drew Flint out. "He's got a terrible, uncircular temper when he gets mad," she murmured almost inaudibly against his hide.

  "You bet your little bare bearing he does!" the Wheel blasted behind them. He had put his ball against the Royal Ramp, and it acted as a sounding board to amplify the volume alarmingly. Royalty had its prerogatives.

  They coasted out of the palace. "All right, you explain," Flint said. "I'll listen."

  "Well, it's not easily explainable," she said. "Let's go somewhere private."

  An unusual request, from a company-loving Polarian. "Somewhere private it is," he agreed. "But then you'll make it clear?"

  "I'll certainly try," she said. "But there may be a cultural barrier."

  "I've experienced cultures odder than this," he said, thinking of the triple-sexed Spicans.

  "Your own is odd enough," she agreed with a flash of her normal humor. He thought of Earth and Capella, and had to agree.

  They rolled up to an elevator. An aperture opened in the round chamber, then closed pneumatically when they were inside. There was an abrupt wrenching. Then the portal opened and they rolled out—into a wheelwhirling wilderness.

  Flint skidded to a halt. "This is another planet!"

  "Of course. No satisfactory wilderness remains on the Home Ball. This is a little resort world fifteen parsecs out, very posh. Don't you like it?"

  "We mattermitted fifty light-years just like that?"

  "Why not? What's the use of technology, except to bring nature closer?"

  "The cost—it must be a trillion dollars to move the pair of us—"

  "As I tried to explain before, our values differ from yours. We like company, not crowding—but a certain concentration is necessary for ideal efficiency. So we precess, we compromise. Better to expend energy than live in discomfort."

  "That's irresponsible waste!"

  "Not as we scent it. Letting a star's light proceed uselessly into space, unharnessed—that's waste. We save that stellar energy and turn it to our purposes. But transfer would be better, we agree. We have already noted how well it works for you."

  "That's what I'm trying to bring to you! Why won't you listen?"

  "That's part of the explanation. Come, let's enjoy it."

  He followed her along the path into the forest. The trees were neither vine nor wood, but humps of spongy substance bearing large sunlight-collecting disks. They resembled the sentient Polarians in broad outline, just as the trees of Earth resembled men, with their leglike roots and armlike branches and stiffly erect bearing. Evidently this planet had been seeded with Polarian vegetation centuries ago. Yes it had; now that he worked it out for himself, his host-memory confirmed it. But already what he saw was merging with what he remembered: these were trees, perfectly natural.

  "You called me Knight of Gas," he said. "How did you derive it?"

  "Tarotism came here three centuries ago; it was really one of our first direct contacts with Sphere Sol culture," she said. "It has never been really popular as a cult, but it has a certain circularity. It has become established, and the cards do make a compelling entertainment for many who ascribe no philosophical value to them—as in your own Sphere. The animation effect is the main attractant, I think. Thus many of us have had readings," and some adopt the Tarotism precepts. So we pick up bits about the cards. Males and females who have reproduced are Kings and Queens; those who have not are Knights and Pages. We retain the original Solarian nomenclature, you see. The suits are determined by the qualities of character and situation. Thus I, as a basically planet-bound creature, am Solid or Ground, while you, as a highly mobile off-planet creature, your essence expressed wholly by your Kirlian aura, are Gas or Air. In the archaic Solarian terms, I'm a Coin and you're a Sword."

  "You certainly are a coin," he agreed. "You roll and you're precious."

  "Thank you," she said, vibrating her ball against his trunk in a most stimulating way.

  "And I have seen some combat in my t
ime, so I'm a Sword. In fact, I'm a flintsmith—I make weapons. Good ones, too."

  "I am aware. I knew you then. Remember?"

  "So you did." He paused. "You knew me as a human being. So to you I'm a stick figure, all angles and bones. Doesn't it bother you?"

  "No. We believe in outside contacts, in exogamous cooperation. It's part of our nature. We have known of the nature of Solarians for many centuries. The Tarot itself has prepared the way, for we associate ourselves with the circular Coins and Solarians with the thrust of Swords. The message of the Tarot is that all systems are valid, no matter how strange some may seem at first. I know you are a fine person in alien guise. And we have a common debt. And now you are here in rotary form, visiting my Suit of Solid as it were, and it is good."

  "Yet you will not let me—the Big Wheel will not let me complete my mission."

  She drew up on a fine expanse of hard foliage overlooking a flowing stream. Paddlewheeled waterfowl disported on its surface, and two-wheeled animals moved away, alarmed by the intrusion of sapients. Originally all creatures of the Solarian home planet had been bicycled, but in time the sapients had lifted one wheel, becoming unicycled, freeing the other to become the communicatory ball. The pattern seemed familiar to Flint; human beings had progressed similarly, from quadruped to biped status.

  "Try to understand," she said. "To us, the individual is paramount in the circuit. Government exists only to serve the needs of the citizens. Where the interests of a single entity conflict with that of society, the entity takes precedence."

  "That's backwards! Government must always serve the good of the greatest number."

  "In a thrust-culture, perhaps that is so. Here, no." She made a little gesture with her tail, much as a human used hands to augment a difficult point. "What is good for the individual is good for the society."

  "But centralized society would collapse!" Flint was not used to debating economics or political science, yet his point seemed irrefutable.