Thousandstar (#4 of the Cluster series) Read online

  They settled under the water at the site, hoping the monster would come soon. Heem, required to be still and communicative for an indefinite period in the proximity of potential danger, found his thoughts turning to fundamental speculations. Where had he and his siblings come from? How had they known how to intercommunicate? What was their destiny?

  The third question had an obvious and ugly answer: they were destined to die. Most had succumbed already. Perhaps escape from the valley was their only hope of survival. Heem felt his own mortality, the incipience and inevitability of death. Was there any point in opposing it? Why, then, was he opposing it?

  But he rebounded from this line of thinking. He must be suffering the chill of the water, of immobility. He raised his metabolic level slightly, hoping the increased flavor diffusing about him would not be noticeable to his companions. Maybe they were doing the same.

  Now he pursued the other questions. Communication? Somehow they had always known how to spray and jet and needle flavor at each other, and quickly learned to interpret the nuances of taste to obtain meaning. Certain flavors portended certain things, as was natural. Sweetness denoted affirmation, bitterness negation. From that point, the shades of taste flowed naturally to ever-greater definition. Why this was so seemed inherent in the nature of the species.

  What was their origin? They had all appeared together in the valley, as nearly as he could ascertain. All had been physically small; he knew that because landmarks, boulders, and such things that had once seemed large now seemed small, and it seemed reasonable that it was the living things who had changed. All had been able to fend for themselves from the outset, lacking only the cautions of experience. Any could have saved themselves from any of the demises that had taken them, had they possessed Heem's present knowledge then. Surely they had come, innocently, from somewhere—but where? There was no answer; that was beyond the beginning.

  There had to be an origin, he decided. Sapient creatures did not appear from nowhere. Otherwise more creatures of his kind would have appeared. This had not happened. So it seemed they had all been spontaneously generated in one single burst of creation. Or they had all been placed here, and left to their own survival. Heem found the latter alternative more convincing. That explained what had happened, but not why. Why would anyone or anything do this?

  No matter how he reasoned it out, Heem could not roll up with an explanation he liked. Whatever had done this thing was evil. If he ever found opportunity to fight back—

  The monster was coming! Heem felt the vibration in the water, separate from the vibration in the air, as the thing settled low. The massive jets blasted down into the water, initiating turbulence that was uncomfortably forceful. Only jets of phenomenal power could create reaction of this magnitude, and it was growing rapidly.

  Heem was abruptly afraid. He had suppressed his nervousness before; now it burst out into uncontrolled random jetting. All his small pores opened, and the sphincter muscles of his body forced his reserves of water out. It was a panic reaction, accomplishing nothing except the depletion of his immediate motive fluid.

  With an effort he controlled himself, and became aware of the diffusing taste of the exudates of his companions. They had wet down too, though that was anomalous here within water. That reassured him considerably. Almost enough to make him want to roll on, on through this wild scheme.

  The flatfloater was gliding in for its submergence much faster than any sapient creature could. Before Heem could formulate some objection, some reason to quit this project, the huge disk cut into the water and planed down. The turbulence was suddenly terrible. Bubbles swirled by in such profusion as to make froth of the water. Heem was rolled right out of his niche by the bubble current and wafted upward a short distance. He drifted momentarily in the eddy, perceiving his companions in similar straits, before stabilizing. But he realized that this was fortunate, because otherwise he could have been stuck directly below the settling monster. Its weight would not be oppressive, buoyed by the water; but if it remained long, the four of them would have been trapped. The warmth of its gross body might keep them from cooling to the point of deterioration, which was good, but the low hydrogen of its elimination could stifle them.

  The floater drifted to the bottom. The eddy drew Heem in toward the creature's surface, and this was another excellent roll. With minimal guidance, Heem was able to sink onto the upper surface of the disk. His companions did the same. They had in this surprisingly simple fashion achieved the first stage of their objective.

  Yet the remainder hardly seemed promising. It was one thing to contemplate riding a floater, but quite another to do it. The many uncertainties of the venture loomed much larger now. How would they stay on, if the monster maneuvered violently? Suppose it did not respond to their guidance?

  The floater gave them little time to reflect. Its intakes were on the upper side, and though it lacked the acute perception of the sapients, it could hardly miss their presence in this case. Alarmed, it jetted upward, its progress slanting because of the resistance of the water. The current across its surface became fierce, but at the same time the suction of its large intakes held them against it. They could not roll off—not while the floater's metabolism was active.

  The flatfloater rose out of the water with a burst of meaningless spray. Sapients sprayed only for communication, emitting multiple fine jets of water flavored with the chemical nuances that constituted meaning. It was an effective mode. If the neighbor to be addressed was too far distant for spray, a specific squirt could serve as well; in fact, such solitary jets were employed when the conversation was private. Once the residue flowed off the receiving skin, it lost its meaning in the welter of background contaminants, leaving news only that there had been communication. Thus public and private dialogues were matters of focus. Especially pointed or private messages were needled, as with insults during a fracas.

  Heem had pondered whether a better system could exist, and concluded that this was unlikely. In fact, he suspected that intelligent dialogue would be almost impossible by any other means. The fact that none of the animals or plants had either sapience or precise communication mechanisms bolstered his view. Sapience and language and refined taste went together.

  But such conjectures were out of place amidst violent action. Airborne, the floater was now fully aware of its burden, and did not seem to like it. Their four bodies had to be hampering its intake, though the majority of its pores remained uncovered. The monster cut its jets, then fired them all at once, bucking with horrible force.

  Haam, nearest the rim, lost purchase and rolled off. Heem picked up the spray of Haam's despairing exclamation, for they were now high up. The fall would surely be fatal. The sapients of Highfalls were now abruptly reduced to three.

  Again Heem experienced a wash of emotion, as though he had been doused with burning liquid. (This had happened once, when he ventured too near a source of hot water in the valley. Two companions had perished then, but his burns had been survivable. It had been just one more episode in his education.) Who had been responsible for Haam's demise? Not the floater, who only reacted to the unfamiliar burden on it. Not Hiim or Hoom or Heem himself, who only tried to get out of this dangerous valley. Who but the mysterious entity who had deserted them here!

  The floater, under the impression it had dislodged its burden, smoothed its flight and settled nearer to land. Even with its great strength of jet, it could not maintain high elevation long. Its most effective traveling mode was close enough to the ground so that the backwash of its gaseous emission provided additional buoyancy. That was why they had not anticipated the kind of hazard Haam had experienced: fall from a height. What other surprises were coming?

  There was a spray on Heem's skin, distorted by the velocity of air passage. "Guidance," the spray communicated, once he made it out. It bore Hoom's stigma.

  Ah, yes. In the excitement of this adventure, he had forgotten that they planned to control the direction of motion of the m
onster. Could it actually be done?

  After a brief exchange, they decided to let Hoom make the first try, since it had been his idea. Hoom flattened himself, overlapping more intake area of the floater, so that he was better anchored by suction, and let fly with what was calculated to be a painful needle jet.

  The reaction was immediate and formidable. The floater took off exactly as they had surmised, but much more powerfully than anticipated. Hiim, caught unprepared, ripped free of the suction and dropped off the back. He did not even have time to make his despairing spray, or if he did, it was lost in the wind. Would he survive? It was possible, depending on the terrain he struck and his velocity of impact. Possible, but not likely. HydrOs had soft bodies, easily damaged by concussion. More than one of Heem's former siblings had destroyed themselves by rolling accidentally into rocks and splattering themselves across the landscape.

  Now they were two. Heem and Hoom clung by staying flat against a broad section of suction. Soon the monster slowed, satisfied that it had escaped its threat. It was terribly stupid.

  They relaxed slightly and surveyed the terrain. They were moving through the merged tastes of the exudates of hillside plants, and the trace reduction of atmospheric pressure verified the elevation. The mass of the moving floater compressed the air ahead of it, and waves of this compression reflected from the irregularities of the landscape. In short, they had an excellent vibration-perception of the scene to buttress the typical taste of it.

  Heem was sorry his friends had fallen off, but there was nothing he could do about it. He was all too likely to be the next. He did not know how he could get off the back of the monster safely—and after what had happened, he didn't want to. If he desisted now, all their effort and losses would have been in vain. He had to go on, to taste the other side of the mountain.

  Hoom had come to a similar conclusion. "We cannot guide this creature to any gentle halt," he sprayed. "We have to go on until it tires."

  Heem angled a moderately sharp jet into the hide of the floater. The monster veered, fleeing this new irritation. They had control, of a sort.

  "Up, over the mountain," Heem sprayed. "We have to know what lies beyond."

  Unwittingly responsive to their directives, the flat-floater jetted up the slope.

  * * *

  Heem broke from his memory-dream, sweating. His body was soaked with the fluid of his meaninglessly leaking jets. Why did he have to keep remembering? Not only was it illegal, it was quite awkward. He knew with a sick certainty that he would soon experience the continuation of that memory, and he hoped it wouldn't happen at a bad time.

  Now he had a more immediate concern. Still semiconscious in the acclimatization chamber, Heem reviewed his situation. He had been fleeing the confinement and danger of his home valley, there in his memory-dream; now he was still fleeing it, in a more complicated fashion. He was in trouble with the law/custom and had to get off-planet soon. The technological equivalent of a flatfloater was a spaceship; instead of escaping one valley, he had to escape one planet. Only through this specialized mission could he get a ship. So he had volunteered for host-duty, and qualified on the basis of his background, and entered the transfer chamber to receive his transfer aura.

  And instead had received a staggering aural blow. Only sheer determination had carried him here before consciousness departed. What had happened?

  He knew what had not happened. He had not received his transferee—and without that alien aura, he would be disqualified for the mission, and be planet-bound. That was doom.

  He had wasted half his private orientation time, just recovering from the shock. He had never tasted news of a transfer failure like this before. Normally a transferee either arrived safely with the host, or it bounced, in which case the host felt nothing. The days of warring between transfer and host were over; Melody of Mintaka of far Segment Etamin had arranged that. Today the host-entity always had control. He could yield it to the transfer identity, but could take it back at will. The transferee could not knock him out. Therefore how could the act of transfer hit him like that?

  Could it have been a function of his malady? Another aspect of the thing that had cost him his combat ability? He had been one of the leading combat specialists of his kind, owing to his superlatively sharp and accurate needles. He had become one of the few who could expect to overcome a healthy Squam in fair encounter. Normally a HydrO could beat an Erb, and a Squam could beat a HydrO, and an Erb could beat a Squam, making a vicious circle in this local eddy of the Segment. But exceptional individuals could break that circle, and Heem of Highfalls had been one. That was why he had qualified for this mission.

  The mission was shrouded in secrecy, no faintest taste of its specific nature seeping out. But it was rumored that it involved Planet Ggoff, in a neutral tract of Segmentary space. Fifty or more of the thousand species of Thousandstar might survive and reproduce on Ggoff without technological aids, but there were only three within convenient access range, so those three were the obvious hosts: Erb, Squam, and HydrO.

  Logic filled in much of the rest. There was something on Ggoff that virtually every species in the Segment desperately wanted, so by Segment custom more binding than war, a competition was being held. It might be a good Iridium mine, or a safe mutation-inducing chemical, or a superior and useful species of vegetation; protocol was the same. Competitions were the chief source of Segment entertainment and status, and the near presence of one caused waves of excitement to wash through local Systems. It had been Heem's fortune that a competition utilizing HydrO hosts had occurred at this time; without this avenue offplanet, he would have been sunk in a dire mire.

  Of course he had fashioned much of this luck himself. He had remained in hiding while keeping constantly alert for any means of departure, and had made sure no news of his disability reached the administration files. He had waited to file for the competition until the last mini-chronospray, so that there would not be time for the Competition Index to assimilate his legal compromise before approving him.

  "Time to proceed to mission orientation and transfer verification," the chamber sprayed.

  Already! That jolt had disrupted his time sense, too. Not only did he lack a transferee, he had no notion how he was going to proceed.

  Only one thing was certain: he had to get into the competition. Because he had to have a spaceship. He could not roll offplanet by his own jets!

  The competition participants were moving toward the indoctrination rendezvous. Heem rolled out of his chamber and joined the throng. The liquid of group motion was washing over the floor as each person jet-rolled forward, confusing individual identities. That was good; Heem did not wish to meet anyone who knew him.

  But such confusion would not help him get through the transfer recheck. There would be no anonymity there. The moment they discovered he had no transferee, he would be voided for the competition—and subject to the local law. He had to pass this mountain, lest he perish in the valley.

  The passage debouched into an assembly chamber. The HydrO hosts spread out across it and occupied depressions in the floor keyed by impregnated taste. Heem found niche 39 and settled into place exactly like a legitimate host. He was fortunate that the indoctrination came before verification. Now he had a mini-spray more time to think. He had, in effect, to devise a way of riding the floater out of this valley, bypassing transferee verification.

  The large ceiling public-spray system blasted on. The mechanically flavored spume wafted down like the effusion of a flatfloater, raucous and barely intelligible.

  Heem's immediate neighbor, number 38, jetted a semi-private groan at him: "Why the rot can't they fix their churned-up nozzles? This is a pain in my skin!"

  Heem jetted back a needle of agreement, but his mind was elsewhere. How could he pass the checkpoint without a transfer aura? He might finesse it, for the personality, claiming he was spraying for his visitor. But there could be no fooling the aura-pattern analysis of the machine.

  "
YOU WILL BE (UNINTELLIGIBLE) IN ORDER DURING THIS (UNINTELLIGIBLE) BRIEFING," the froth proclaimed.

  "Shall I fill in the blanks?" 38 inquired acidly. "You will be dismembered in order during this disgusting briefing."

  Heem squirted a polite chuckle. HydrOs did not have members, so this was either a peculiarly obscene implication, or an image drawn from the mind of 38's transferee, who could indeed be a membered species. Regardless, the translation was clever.

  Could Heem profit by the confusion engendered by the poor public spray? Unlikely; the machines didn't care about communication, just auras.

  "The outline of the competition is this," the public spray continued, abating its volume and gaining clarity in the process. There had been too much water in the spray, before. Machines normally became more intelligible as they flowed, cleaning out pockets of dead fluid and contamination. "Nominal three hundred thirty-three host-transfer sets of three physical species will proceed individually to spaceport where sixty-six single-entity space vessels await arrival of entrants."

  "Sixty-six!" 38 jetted. "That's only enough for one in five of us!"

  One in five. So this was to be a stages competition, with established elimination points. That made Heem's situation rougher yet. He had thought that all qualified HydrO entrants would receive spaceships, and would rendezvous at Planet Ggoff for the competition proper. But it seemed there was to be a contest for the ships themselves.