Thousandstar (#4 of the Cluster series) Read online

  He could not afford the slightest delay in processing, for only the first entities to reach the ships would make the cut. Once he got offplanet, it wouldn't matter much if he didn't make the next cut; he would be on his own. Right now he had to move—fast. Somehow. He could not simply roll out early and go for the spaceport; they would have safeguards against that sort of thing.

  "This start is being duplicated at the selected sites in colonies Squam and Erb," the public spittle continued. "The total number of ships is two hundred, fairly divided between the three hosts. Those who acquire ships will jet off for a planet preprogrammed in the guidance systems. The specific route can be modified marginally by the participants; some will arrive earlier than others. At the landing site there will be fifty single-entity tractors programmed for the competition objective."

  "One in four!" 38 squirted. "That reduces it to one in twenty, onsite."

  "They have to reduce it to one in a thousand before it finishes," Heem needled irritably. "That's the object."

  "Swish, that's right," 38 agreed, surprised.

  But the public spray was still spuming. "Onplanet, you will proceed as rapidly as possible to the site. The tractors will require one refueling en route; fuel is available in limited quantity at selected stations. We anticipate that only ten tractors will achieve the objective, perhaps less, perhaps none."

  "Then the competition intensifies," 38 needled.

  "Why not let your transferee jet for a while?" Heem needled back. "Let him stretch his limbs."

  That taste-faded his loquacious neighbor. None of the hosts were giving away the identities of their transferees. If it were known who represented what Star, a given contestant's liabilities could be fathomed, to his disadvantage. For example, the citizens of System Mebr were glassy, easily shattered in their natural state; they tended to shy away from rocky terrain, even when occupying hosts who were not shatterable, such as HydrOs. If Heem had to compete with a Mebr, he would try to force it into a canyon. But if he thought it was a Mebr, and went the rocky route, and it turned out to be a mineral-eating Tuvn, Heem would be the one at a disadvantage. Tuvns became highly excited by the presence of naked rock and put on their greatest energy in canyon situations. A competing HydrO could get himself splattered, crowding such a creature. So this competition would begin with the strategy of knowing one's rivals. And 38 had already given away part of the nature of his transferee.

  Heem himself was secure in that sense. No one could fathom the liabilities of his transferee—because he had none. That was the greatest liability of all.

  "Swoon of Sweetswamp, report for verification," a taste drifted through. Heem was irritated; private calls were supposed to dissipate without impinging on neighboring sites. The public spray descended on all, but spot needles were strictly one-person efforts.

  "Are there any questions?" the public spray inquired. Then, after a pause: "We are in receipt of several questions, which we shall answer in order. First, what is the object of this competition? Answer: that information is classified. You will be informed when you are in flight to the target planet."

  Now Heem got a squirt from one side and a drift from the other: "Probably hunting sapient flatfloaters in hostile wilderness."

  "Swoon of Sweetswamp, number 40, report for verification. Second jet."

  Why didn't Swoon of Sweetswamp answer? He was likely to find himself washed out of the contest before it even started. His transferee-Star wouldn't like that! "Sweetswamp, roll your hulk over there!" Heem jetted at the errant neighbor.

  There was no response. Heem was tempted to let Swoon wash out, but decided to give him one more chance. He jetted out of his niche and rolled the short distance across to nudge the inattentive HydrO—and found the spot empty.

  No wonder Swoon hadn't answered his summons! Swoon was absent from his assigned place. Probably he had gotten confused and settled out of place, in niche 4 or 400 instead of forty. That had been foolish. Of course a foolish HydrO would be a poor host, and would wash out of the competition rapidly, so perhaps it made no difference. Only one of the thousand would prevail, and the sooner the fools were eliminated, the better it would be for the real contenders.

  Except that Heem himself, no fool, was just as likely to wash out now as was Swoon. Because there seemed to be no way to get past the transferee verification. How ironic that he, who for all they knew was the most able entrant-host, should be eliminated by a transfer malfunction. Had he been in Swoon's situation, he would not have squandered his chance like this.

  "Swoon of Sweetswamp. Third jet. Report for verification, or forfeit."

  Suddenly Heem rolled rapidly from this region. He had a notion, a slim chance hardly worth tasting, but if it worked—

  He rolled up to the nearest open verification alcove. "Swoon of Sweetswamp reporting as summoned," he squirted.

  "Put your transferee on," the alcove jetted impersonally.

  "Transferee communicating," Heem squirted after a pause. He made the squirt deliberately sloppy, as if an alien mind were operating it.

  "State your home-Star, transferee."

  "I will not!" Heem squirted, almost missing the alcove receptor-surface in his supposed clumsiness. "I will not give away my nature to your government. Use your programmed aura cross-check; that is all that is permitted."

  The beauty of it was that if the machine malfunctioned, Heem would be through verification. But if, as was far more likely, the machine showed that only a single aura occupied this body, it would be Swoon of Sweetswamp who was disqualified, not Heem of Highfalls. In this manner he could gamble and lose without paying the penalty. Of course, he would still have to figure out some other way to fool the machine, but he would worry about that in due course. Maybe they didn't really have aura readouts here; they might be depending on self-identification. So if he could pretend that—

  "You are Heem of Highfalls," the alcove jetted. "What are you attempting?"

  The taste of success dissipated. They had cross-checked his aura, and nabbed him. Now all he could do was ad lib. "Swoon's name was called, and he was absent, so I tried to cover the taste for him so he would not be unfairly eliminated."

  "Swoon is a friend of yours?"

  "Indubitably." He could hardly afford the truth. "Of course, we are competing against each other—that is, our transferees are—but here at the initial stage we are cooperating. You know how it is." But he knew the machine would not know how it was.

  "You are lying, Heem. You were not aware that Swoon is female."

  This was no machine jetting! The anonymous interviewer was entirely too clever, setting traps for him. But Heem fought it through: "So I tried to get processed before my turn. My transferee wants to win this competition, for his Star."

  The alcove sprayed out a rude profusion of mirth. "For his Star? Not likely!"

  Something was wrong here. All the HydrOs were merely hosts for the representatives of the Thousand Stars. Why should his endorsement of the obvious be so humorous—unless the interviewer knew he had no transferee? Yet why continue this dialogue, in that case? They should just roll him out. So Heem waited without responding, knowing they had caught him—and that they had something else in mind. He knew there was heavy politicking in any Segment competition, and possibly he was about to get a taste of it here.

  "You are aware that three species are serving as hosts for this engagement," the alcove jetted. "Roughly one third of the thousand are HydrO. All are good, healthy, apt specimens, approved by the Society of Hosts; there is no foolishness there. But there is one exception. No entity with a criminal record is permitted in a competition."

  Oh, they really had him!

  "You, of course, are the exception," the alcove continued. "The law awaits you outside. You lack Society of Hosts approval. Your entire career betrays an unscrupulous and low-cunning personality. You possess a combat skill that is suspicious; you could not maintain it legally. You made application to enter this competition under false pretenses
. In summation, you are a disreputable entity."

  "You were aware of that when you admitted me?" Heem inquired, surprised.

  "It was your primary recommendation."

  The wrongness magnified. "I am not certain I comprehend your direction."

  "A little individual background, Heem. You are aware that there are approximately one thousand entrants to this competition, utilizing three host species, the Star of representation determined by the transfer entity."

  "I am aware," Heem jetted nervously. Why were they repeating this basic information? Had they nulled his transfer deliberately, punishing him?

  "But the three host species—what of their entrants?"

  "Same applies," Heem sprayed. "Transfer in another entity of the same species, to be the representative. Two minds are still better than one, if their skills are complementary."

  "Or use the host as the representative, and transfer in an alien expert."

  Heem considered that. "Could be quite a combination! If you transferred a renegade Squam into a dominant HydrO host, he'd be a potent competitor against both Squams and HydrOs."

  "Precisely. Odds against the success of that combination would decline from one in a thousand to one in one hundred or so, perhaps ever lower, with the right combination."

  "Still, one chance in a hundred is a long one. Any one of the thousand could do as well merely by cheating a little."

  "Oh, there is no cheating in a Segment competition," the interviewer squirted hastily. "That would lead to voiding of any success achieved."

  "Could be hard to watch every detail, though," Heem suggested, intrigued by the theoretical situation. "This thing is basically a race, and I've been in enough local races to know that the winner is seldom completely clean." He remembered how Hoom had needled him, back in the juvenile stage at Highfalls. His experience in subsequent life had shown him this was typical; the scrupulous seldom finished first.

  "You are an excellent racer," the interviewer jetted in an aside. "This was salient in your profile."

  "Are you implying I am unclean?"

  "The Competition Authority does not accept unclean individuals. We merely have need of a completely competent representative, with the strongest motive to succeed. Naturally we will tolerate no evidence of wrong-rolling, but since it would be an embarrassment to Star HydrO to have a winner with a soiled record, a pardon for your past activities has been filed. You are completely clean."

  Now Heem was catching on. "You are entering me as the Star HydrO representative?"

  "I thought that was understood. Surely you realized that your transferee is extra-Segment, though you covered that information beautifully."

  Extra-Segment? Heem set that aside for the moment. "And if I happen not to overcome the odds—"

  "It is possible that a clerical error would be uncovered, voiding your pardon, and you would again be subject to local System justice."

  The taste was coming through more clearly. "And if I should, just by way of farfetched example, be caught employing unclean means in the competition—"

  "The Competition Authority would deal with you in its own fashion. We certainly would not support such behavior."

  So he had been admitted to the competition because of his record, and was expected to employ his nefarious skills to win for Star HydrO, without being caught. They had certainly given him an incentive: glory, honor, and a clean record if he won without fouling out; confinement or worse if he failed.

  "I believe I comprehend the situation," he jetted, subdued.

  "We rather thought you would, Heem."

  "But a great deal depends on the transferee." There seemed to be no reason now not to advise them of the failure; they would merely put him through the machine again and be sure the transfer took, this time.

  "Do not underestimate your transferee," the alcove jetted. "He is a highly trained and motivated Solarian of Segment Etamin, apt at riddles and competitive strategy. We estimate that his presence will quadruple your chances for success. As you sit, you should have one chance in twenty-five to win—and perhaps you will be fortunate enough to improve on that."

  By cheating. Yes, he just might accomplish that; he did indeed know many little trick rolls of the trade that could not be readily exposed as illicit. "There is just one problem—"

  "We realize that it is difficult at first to come to terms with a completely alien mind, and the Solarians are as alien as any in the Galaxy," the alcove jetted. "By the same token taste, the strategy directed by this entity will be virtually incomprehensible to your Segment Thousandstar competitors. Learn to employ this alienness to your advantage, and—"

  "Verification is complete except for those eliminated by default," the public spray proclaimed. "Prepare for onset of competition."

  "But for this first stage, your own expertise is best," the alcove finished hurriedly. "Now return to your niche for the onset of the competition. Do not fail us, and we shall not fail you."

  A pretty direct reminder! "I'm trying to jet you that your alien Solarian transfer never—"

  "If you miss the initial keying, you are unlikely to obtain a ship."

  Heem realized that an alien transferee would have little notion of local conventions, so would be no help in the first stage of competition. What could a Solarian of Etamin do in the Sphere of Star HydrO? He did not need the Solarian expert. Not to get offplanet. Once he had a spaceship, he wouldn't need the Solarian anyway. If he washed out of the competition, he could set down somewhere else, anywhere else but here, and they would never bother to extradite him. So what did he care if his transfer had failed? With no visiting mind to prod him, no inter-Segment involvement, he was on his own. That was the way he preferred it.

  But he was dawdling, wasting invaluable time. Heem rolled swiftly back to his assigned niche. He should consider himself lucky that they had been so concerned with the cleverness of their hold over him that they had forgotten to verify his transferee aura. Maybe his attempt to borrow Swoon of Sweetswamp's identity had served him well, even in its failure. The anonymous interviewer had outsmarted himself. The authorities did not have a punishing hold on Heem; they had the illusion of a hold.

  Heem reached his niche and settled in. "Ascent is correct," the public spray announced. "Biim of Broadsea is granted the key to the sixth ship."

  There was a winner—evidently the sixth. Heem had missed five successful responses, in the little time he had delayed, and had no idea of the pattern that might be developing. That put him at a crucial disadvantage, lowering his chances of success. He could wash out right here, before ever getting started. The one thing he could not afford.

  "So you are back," his neighbor jetted. Not the communicative 38, who was now concentrating on the competition, but the one who had been absent before. Number 40, Swoon of Sweetswamp. The female he had tried to impersonate, who had never answered her summons for verification.

  "Descent is incorrect," the public spray proclaimed. "Maan of Makerain is disqualified." There was a brief pause, then: "Hard is incorrect. Soft is incorrect. Kreep of Kinglake and Toot of Tangspray are eliminated. Please depart promptly."

  So Ascent was a winner, but Descent and Soft were losers. Not enough information yet for him to form a notion of the pattern. He had to get a listing of the prior winners and losers so he could compete on an even basis. "Swoon, would you provide me with a rehearsal of the prior—"

  Her jet struck his skin before he finished. "You stole my verification! Now I can't compete!"

  "Bold is incorrect," the public spray announced. "Deeb of Deepocean is retired."

  "I did not steal your verification!" Heem protested.

  "Yes you did!" she countered furiously, her jet warm with emotion. There was a special female flavor to her emissions that would have been quite interesting in another circumstance. "Fuun informed me you had rolled for my summons."

  Fuun must be the loquacious 38 on the other side. Infernal loudsquirt! "I merely tried to cover for you.
But they fathomed my identity. Your qualification has not been compromised." Yet if she had missed verification, she had been eliminated by default.

  "Joy is incorrect," the public spray wafted. "Haav of Healthjuice is dismissed."

  "I don't believe you," Swoon jetted, but there was a tinge of doubt. "I was delayed by a malfunctioning door on my chamber, and only arrived here as the concepts commenced."

  "Then you are not at fault. Go to the verification alcove," Heem urged. "It is not yet too late." He hoped. "But first give me the data."

  "Dense is incorrect," the spray announced. "Poon of Puddlelove has washed out."

  She hesitated then decided. "I will give you the data— after I qualify. So if you attempt to betray me again—"

  Heem did not debate the point. "Advise them Heem of Highfalls rolled you to them. Hurry."

  She rolled out with dispatch, for she was as eager as he to win a spaceship.

  There was a pause. Six entrants had been eliminated in succession, so the others were getting more conservative. Once a contestant committed himself to a guess, he was either a winner or a loser; he had no second chance. It was evident that the odds against a right answer by pure guess were at least six to one, since that was the ratio of failures to successes he had noted so far. But the odds would be much better for a smart entity, or for a pair of entities (host and transferee working in tandem), and Heem did not care to gamble that so many others would wash out that any ships would be left over for easy taking. Even if there were ten ships remaining, and all entrants washed out except himself, he would still have to fathom the key before he got a ship. If he took a day to do it, he would be so far behind the other ships that he would never catch up before the race was over. So he had to fathom the pattern and get his ship early.

  "Grief is incorrect," the public spray sprayed. "Fuun of Flowjet is finished."

  "May the monstrous amorphous Deity spray poison acid on us all!" 38 sprayed explosively, and there was a neighborhood stir of shock at his obscenity. "Joy was third, so I was sure the antonym had to be sixth."