Thousandstar Read online

'An operative Ancient site!' Jessica exclaimed. 'That's the most important thing there is!' Then she realized: 'Which means this is going to be the most savagely contested competition of the century....'

  "Agreed," Heem jetted glumly. "There will be murder."

  'We had better get moving right away, then.'

  "No. I mean to roll along sedately at the end of the line, vying with no one for position."

  'I don't understand.'

  "This ship is last among the HydrOs in a race that is guaranteed to be savage. I cannot win the race; therefore I must secure my own survival. I can do this best by conserving fuel, proceeding to Planet Eccentric, landing in a wilderness region—which is not hard to do, since it is a wilderness planet—and preparing to survive the winter. If I retain sufficient fuel, I may be able to use the ship to expedite my construction."

  Her reaction was oddly constrained. 'You are aware that this means my death? I cannot survive indefinitely in an alien host.'

  "I am aware. But since I can save you only by winning the competition, and I cannot win, I must at least save myself."

  There was a pause. Then: 'If you are proceeding to Eccentric anyway, why can't you race there? You might do well enough to make the next cut, and get a tractor. If not, you'd still be on the planet.'

  "And under the control of the Competition Authority, who would return me to my own planet. Had the destination been Ggoff, which is further distant, I might have had play to travel there fast enough; I have been there before. But the route to Eccentric is so restricted it must be buoyed, and I cannot gain sufficiently. I will arrive too late, so prefer to make it later yet, to avoid the Competition Authority."

  'Oh.' She considered some more. 'You mentioned a hard winter on Eccentric. Are there colonists there who might help you? I mean, you wouldn't have to go home? You could volunteer to be a settler—'

  "No. No colonists. The winter is too difficult."

  'Then why would you want to suffer that winter alone?'

  "It is preferable to what awaits me on Impasse, and winter is some time distant. At least I will have the long summer free."

  'Followed by the long winter.'

  "Short winter. Short but intense."

  'I don't understand. Winter doesn't come to an entire planet; when it is winter in one hemisphere, it will be summer in the other. So you could travel—'

  "Winter comes all over the planet, simultaneously."

  That doesn't—does Eccentric have an orbit that is— oh, of course! Eccentric! Like a comet or planetoid. With a short, hot summer during the near approach to the sun, and—but you said a short winter.'

  "This is a double system," Heem explained wearily. "Holestar. One Star and one Hole. Eccentric orbits—"

  'One hole?' she inquired, perplexed.

  "So designated. A collapsed star so dense that light cannot escape from it."

  'Oh, yes—what we call a black hole. I wouldn't want to get near one of those!'

  "Eccentric is near one. It orbits both Star and Hole, and periodically the Hole eclipses the Star. Then—"

  Then all light is trapped by the hole! That would be one hell of a shadow!'

  "A distasteful winter," Heem agreed.

  "What about Planet Impasse? Winter should be just as—'

  "No. Impasse orbits the binary at an angle. It is never eclipsed by the Hole, so its winters are normal."

  'Two different orbital planes,' Jessica murmured. 'A star and a black hole. This is some system!'

  "Correct. Eccentric is currently on the far side of the binary. The ships must skirt the Hole to reach it. Hence the buoys marking the most direct course that remains safe. The wise pilot will not stray far from the marked channel; he would either lose position or fall into the power of the Hole."

  'Yes, I can appreciate the need for caution,' she agreed. 'I suppose technically an orbit about a black hole is no more hazardous than one about a normal star. But emotionally it's horrifying!'

  "Not to me," Heem jetted, relaxing. "I find it rather intriguing. I would be interested to explore within the range of no return, except—"

  'Damn it, I don't want to die blind!' she screamed suddenly, jarring his nerves. 'You've got to win that competition!'

  "Why should I roll away my chance for life, in a futile effort to promote yours?" Heem needled irritably. "You're nothing but a Squam in alien guise."

  'I'm not a Squam. I'm a human being!'

  "As I described. A female alien food-eating—"

  'Oh, so that's it again! You just can't stand the thought of an objective female intellect in your sordid masculine brainless brain!'

  This was useless, but he continued. "Females just don't belong in sapient minds."

  'Sapients don't belong in male minds!'

  "Flavor it as you wish. You do not belong in my mind."

  'That's what I'm saying! I'm desperate to get out of your roly-poly mind before I go crazy!'

  "You are already half there."

  'Well, I'm not going crazy alone! If you don't at least try to get me transferred home, I'm taking you with me wherever I do go. Right into insanity if need be. See how you like that!'

  "If you would rather be crazed than dead, roll on."

  'I'm liable to get difficult. I'm very good at that, Heem.'

  "Be as difficult as you want. I control my body."

  'Fair warning: I'll scream.'

  "I don't even know what a scream is."

  Jessica screamed. Her sound was transformed to his perception of taste, and it was horrendous. The savage impulses scoured their paths along his nerves. Her terror became indistinguishable from his own emotion; he suffered increasing apprehension and fear, though he knew there was no proper basis for such emotions. Her scream compelled them.

  She really could roll him with her! Because she was inside his mind; he could not close her out. Soon he would be as demented as she.

  "Mute your taste!" he sprayed violently. "I will try the competition!"

  The scream-taste abated instantly. 'How very sweet of you, Heem.'

  She resembled a Squam, all right.

  Chapter 3

  Space Race

  Heem activated the space-taste spray. The flavor of System Holestar was emitted by the machine. There was the fleet of ships strung out ahead; his own was the last. There to the side was—

  'I don't understand!' Jessica cried, disrupting his perception. 'What do all those tastes mean? If only I could see!'

  She was really rolled up about her lost perception! "Why don't you just try tasting?" Heem inquired, irritated. "It is really quite sufficient."

  'My system is not oriented on taste,' she retorted. 'Except when I eat—'

  "Ugh!" Heem spat, repulsed.

  'Well, if you find it hard to think of eating, I find it just as hard to see by tasting. I naturally associate taste with eating.'

  "Taste is civilized! Eating is—eating!" He could think of no worse insult than the term itself.

  'Eating is fun, if you just had an open mind about it.'

  "Never!" How like a Squam she was! "Then why don't you go dream of eating or whatever other abomination pleases you, and let me concentrate on the position of the ships of the fleets? I can do it very well by taste."

  'Because my life is at stake! If you don't win this competition, my aura will fade and fade until it is gone, and I'll be dead. I don't want to die blind!' Her emotion, verging on another scream, threatened to overwhelm his equilibrium again. She was correct: she was very good at being difficult.

  "I am willing to make the attempt to win the contest. But two hundred entrants remain, of which I am at or near the end. Chances are not at this moment good."

  'Well, if I could see, I could help.'

  Heem doubted that, but thought it better to placate this temperamental alien if he could. She really was no more guilty in the arrangement of this situation than he was, and he did not want her demise on his conscience. Also, she was raising an intolerable taste in his
mind. "Perhaps we could manage to translate the taste into sight. The data are similar—the ship's sensors actually utilize radiation, which they translate into taste. In interplanetary space, radiation is superior to taste for transmission of information."

  She fixed on that eagerly. 'Yes, maybe it could be done. After all, the human eye merely translates light into patterns of nerve impulses for the brain to interpret; it is really the brain that makes the comprehensive image. Just as your brain does for taste. It isn't taste that has meaning for you, it is the pattern that it dictates in your brain. So if we interpret your signals in terms of sight rather than taste—'

  "It seems worth an attempt. But at the moment we have a race to roll."

  'A race to run!' she cried.

  "As of what occasion do spaceships run? That mode is ungainly enough when executed by the species that do it, but no spaceship has legs, or ground to apply them to."

  'No space ship rolls, either! Not the way you mean. You need ground to roll on, too.'

  "If we exhaust our time debating cultural figures of taste—"

  'Figures of speech!'

  "We shall never have a chance to compete in this competition."

  She pondered momentarily. 'You do make obnoxious sense. All right, operate your spaceship. For now. But tell me what's happening.'

  It was a fair compromise. Heem reactivated the space-taste. "There are three fleets comprising the roster of this competition. They—"

  'Three fleets?'

  "The sixty-six ships of the HydrOs, sixty-six of the Erbs, and sixty-seven of the Squams," Heem explained, irritated again. "This is a three-host mission."

  'Oh, I suppose that makes sense. A variety of hosts offers more—variety. But why didn't we see any of the others before? They can't have come from different planets; that would take years at sublight velocities.'

  "No, many of the Stars of Thousandstar are closely set. Separated by a quarter parsec or less. Ggoff could be reached in several macro-chronosprays—"

  'I can't make head or tail of your units of time.'

  "There are several other planets in System Holestar, and they are only—I do have some notion of your time-scale—only light hours distant. But you are correct; these fleets all derive from Planet Impasse."

  'Three totally different sapient species couldn't have evolved on a single planet!'

  "They did not. This is a colony system, occupied by three Stars under terms arranged millennia ago. The Erbs have the tropic region, where there is the strongest starlight; we HydrOs have the temperate zone, and the Squams have the polar regions. We are all able to survive similar climate and atmosphere, but prefer what we have chosen."

  'Three technologically sapient species sharing a planet? Whatever for?'

  "It dates from the years of Sphere formation. The planet was within the expansion area of all three, habitable by all three. Warfare threatened, for this was before Segment Thousandstar was firm. Yet war between Stars would have been disastrous; it would have weakened us all, allowing other Spheres to surpass us. We desired neither to fight nor to yield a valuable planet and system. It was an impasse."

  'There's its name! Impasse!'

  "Rolled on. So the compromise came, and war was averted. But it put the three species into direct physical contact with each other, rather than merely transfer-contact—and we did not get along well. The planetary boundaries have been freely violated, and there have been periodic outbreaks of localized war. The impasse has remained for many centuries, and we have come to know our companion-species rather well, but it has not brought amity."

  'So now your three species are the focus of a Segment competition for a prize of Cluster significance,' Jessica said.

  "Yes. It will come to personal combat at the Ancient site. The HydrO authority knew this, and this is the reason they selected me to represent the home species."

  'You are good at combat?'

  "So they believe."

  'Why would they believe it if it were not so?'

  "That becomes complex to explain. We had better get in the race at this time."

  'You can be the most infuriating creature! Every time something interesting comes up, you get interested in the race.'

  "There will be occasion to review matters of interest. Now we are perhaps last of two hundred ships, and must pass a hundred and fifty of them before we reach Eccentric."

  'A hundred and ninety-nine ships.'

  "What?"

  'You said there are sixty-six HydrOs, sixty-six Erbs, and sixty-seven Squams. That's a total of one hundred ninety-nine, not two hundred.'

  "Will you stop quibbling while I'm trying to race? I should have jetted sixty-seven Erb ships."

  'Well, maybe I can still help, somehow. How do you do this race? I mean, are there special tricks, or what?'

  "A million. But most of the others in the race are well aware of them. You can be sure every transferee is a good pilot."

  'Then how can we gain on them? How can we pass one hundred forty-nine competent pilots piloting ships identical to ours?'

  "There are ways," he assured her. "But not all of them are strictly ethical."

  'Which is another reason they selected you,' she said. 'They expect you to come out ahead without getting caught in any infractions.'

  "Correct. This is what I propose to do, since you compel me to compete in an unwinnable race."

  'But that's cheating! I won't countenance that!'

  "They expect you, as a typical Solarian, to apply the notorious cunning of your kind to the same flavor."

  'Are you implying that Solarians are unethical?' she demanded, stamping one of her imaginary feet. Heem was intrigued by the concept.

  "Are they ethical?" She hesitated.

  'Some are. I am.'

  "You consider it ethical to impersonate another individual, assuming a mission for which you are not qualified, for the sake of—"

  'Enough!' she cried. 'I withdraw the claim.'

  "Like a Squam, you slither away when challenged to justify your—"

  'We have a race to run!' she cried.

  "Precisely. I would think the most ethical thing you could do would be to make every effort to complete the mission you undertook."

  She was silent, and he proceeded to his business. He set the ship on the ideal course, as marked by space buoys that the ship's sensors read. He angled his canopy for maximum absorption of radiation from the Star. And he waited.

  The space-taste indicated one column of ships rising from the equatorial zone of Planet Impasse, the individual craft strung out like floatpods along a succulent vine. These were the Erbs. Their vessels opened like flowers toward the Star, gathering extra energy. Another column extended from near the north polar region, its members strewn into a serpentine array: the Squams. The third was the HydrOs, from the temperate latitude, Heem's own ship trailing.

  'Why aren't you accelerating?' Jessica demanded. 'We're way behind; if we don't even try to catch up—'

  "Taste those two other columns; they will converge on us shortly, seeking the ideal channel."

  'All the more reason to hurry!' she cried. 'Can't this ship go any faster? We can take more than one g, can't we?'

  "We have a limited amount of fuel," Heem explained patiently. "If we squander it with foolish acceleration, we will roll out prematurely."

  'But how can we ever race, then? If only the first fifty have a chance for the tractors—'

  "The race began with the concept-pattern riddle. The first to gain their ships won a decided advantage. But it is possible to make up in this roll of the race what we lost in the prior one. Careful management is the key, along with a little bit of luck."

  'You're planning something sneaky,' she said accusingly. 'I'm getting to know you, Heem. You have a disreputable masculine mind.'

  "If you prefer that I give up the race—"

  'No!'

  Heem made a mental flavor of mirth. He was learning how to manage his transferee, alien though she
might be.

  'That's what you think,' she muttered irately. 'If it weren't a matter of life and death—'

  Heem accelerated slightly, concentrating on the flavor of the spaceship pattern. A bunch was forming near the head of the line, as foolish pilots vied with each other for the lead. All ships were accelerating at close to one gravity—one Planet Impasse gravity, he clarified before the alien could interject a remark—obviating the need for rotation; it was a fuel-inefficient way to travel, but only a ship in full free-fall could be truly efficient, and free-fall was not much good for a race. But those pilots who jumped the acceleration rate were consuming fuel too rapidly in proportion to their gain in velocity; they could exhaust their tanks before the target planet was reached. Those who conserved too much fuel would finish too far back. It was a delicate judgment, and the pilots who were most apt at rolling this line would gain position.

  'I'm picking up some of that,' Jessica said. 'Your conscious thoughts are open to me, as I suppose mine are to you. But the background remains opaque. If the most efficient mode, all things considered, is a straight-line acceleration and deceleration, and all ships have the same mass and fuel, how can anyone hope to gain position? Skill in making the judgment between velocity and fuel economy is fine, but that can only make a marginal difference, and we need a gross difference. How can we gain? If we use extra fuel, we'll run out; if we don't, we'll lose the race! So why should we even try to do anything special?'

  Heem, concentrating on the pattern of ships, did not respond to her reiteration of the problem. He was studying the flux developing in the line ahead, shrewdly judging at what point a wrinkle would manifest.

  'But I suppose that's exactly what a lot of pilots will think,' Jessica continued. 'So they won't try, especially the ones up front, assuming their place is secure. So if someone behind has a smart idea, like shooting ahead and messing up a leading ship, so maybe a friend can pass them both up and...'

  Heem upped his acceleration a trifle more. 'Aren't you wasting fuel?' Jessica demanded. 'You're edging up past one g and closing on the next ship ahead.' Still he did not answer. He nudged the ship to the side of the buoyed route, using more fuel. His velocity was now substantially greater than that of the several ships immediately ahead of him, but he was somewhat outside the ideal route.