Thousandstar (#4 of the Cluster series)

by Piers Anthony

  "But the concept at issue now is the seventh," the HydrO behind Heem sprayed in a stage whisperjet.

  "And the sixth was Ascent," another sprayed. "That was the antonym to none of the prior concepts."

  "Dry skin!" Fuun swore scatologically as he rolled away. "I misremembered and misfigured! What a dehydrant am I!"

  "On that, at least, he is correct," another sprayed.

  Nevertheless, it was valuable information for Heem. Now he knew that Joy had been third, and suspected that there had been at least one pair of antonyms among the others. Joy third, Ascent sixth. Descent had been wrong, so there could not be adjacent antonyms. Probably the key lay elsewhere. If only he had the full list!

  "Brittle is correct," the public spray came. "Mees of Mistfog has Ship Seven."

  Ascent followed by Brittle. What did the two have in common? They were two entirely different types of concept. Heem's mind labored vainly to spot something obvious. It couldn't be that successive concepts had to differ in nature, because then several of the guesses following Ascent would have been correct. Hard, Soft, Bold, Joy, Dense, Grief—three were descriptions of physical properties, three related to feelings or personality of living conscious entities. Brittle clearly fit into the former category. Why, then, was Brittle correct, while Hard, Soft, and Dense were incorrect? And how had Mees of Mistfog fathomed the distinction? The guess had come after a fair pause, as though Mees had taken time to figure it out. What did Mees know that Heem didn't?

  Obviously, the first correct and incorrect guesses: Mees knew them, Heem didn't. Heem had to have them, but did not want to betray his ignorance by inquiring of another contestant. Any of them might inform him incorrectly, so as to cause him to eliminate himself by a miscalculated guess, and perhaps make it easier for them. There was no rule against discussion and cooperation, but ultimately each entrant had to be for himself, and for his represented Star. No one could be trusted.

  Where was Swoon of Sweetswamp? Could he trust her? He would have to! She obviously was not the brightest HydrO extant, or she would not have gotten lost coming to her niche. He was sure it had been confusion, not door malfunction, that had delayed her. She would need help getting a good guess. He would give her the correct sequence occurring during her absence, and she would give him the correct original sequence. If he could crack the code for himself, he could do it for her too; two answers were as easy as one. If she gave him incorrect information, it would only wash them both out. So she could probably be trusted.

  "Power is incorrect," the spray announced. "Sheev of Shadylake is out."

  This was awful! Heem, ordinarily apt at this sort of thing, could not get a jet on it. If he was too late getting the early sequence, too many others would solve the pattern before him.

  "Justice is incorrect. Food is incorrect. Descent is incorrect," the spray sprayed, following with the names of the unsuccessful entrants.

  "Humor is correct," the spray then came. "Bloop of Blisswater has Ship Eight. Direction is correct; Poos of Peacepond has Ship Nine. Sour is correct; Zaas of Zoomjet has Ship Ten."

  Three in a row! Obviously one person had found the key, and given it to his friends, so that all three had won together. Much more of that and all the ships would go in a few big rolls! Yet these three would now find themselves racing against each other; their friendship would suffer rapid attrition. Since each host had a different transferee, representing a different Star, there could be no long-term collusion.

  "Ocean is incorrect," the spray announced. "Season is incorrect. Hate is incorrect. Love is incorrect."

  Four more washouts in rapid order. That could be a group who had cooperated and lost. But the key remained opaque. With a sequence of ten winners and several times that many losers, Heem should be able to determine the pattern. If only he had all the data!

  There was another pause, a long one. Evidently the other contestants were as confused as Heem. That was good; that would give Swoon of Sweetswamp time to get verified and return to her niche. It was also bad; all the ships already acquired were zooming off to the rendezvous, becoming more and more difficult to catch.

  Heem waited impatiently, making little restless jets that rolled him about within his niche, rotating his body in place. Baffled by the mystery of the pattern, his searching mind veered off, and he found himself remembering again. He had been in a kind of competition before, as mystifying as this one, and somewhat more final in its decisions. The competition of juvenile survival. He remembered how he and Hoom had ridden the back of the flatfloater as it jetted powerfully up the slope of the mountain range beside Highfalls. Their companions Haam and Hiim had fallen off, and now the two of them were the only sapients remaining in the valley. They had to know whether they were alone, or whether others like them existed elsewhere.

  The flatfloater wavered, not liking the tremendous effort of the climb. Heem needled in on the lower edge of its disk, and it shot forward again, seeking to escape the irritation. Again Heem appreciated the stupidity of the monster, which made it so readily subject to manipulation.

  Was it possible that the two sapients were also stupid, being manipulated by some power beyond their comprehension? Surely the valley of Highfalls had not been stocked with hundreds of their kind, most of whom would die at the outset, only to have them all die out eventually. Yet it had almost happened, and might happen yet.

  With amazing swiftness, the taste of the top of the range approached. It was uncomfortably dry up here, and the air pressure was low, causing his body to fluff out. The ambient taste of vegetation was diffuse. Heem did not like it, but was determined to go on. He knew now that they could not have made it by themselves; only the gross power of the floater sufficed. Even that would fail if they did not surmount the ridge soon, for the monster was tiring. It too was suffering from the rare air; fragments of its body were falling off, propelled by the uncontrolled expansion of its gases. Heem and Hoom were both working hard to keep it moving; soon even the sharpest needles would not be enough.

  The flatfloater balked. Now all their prodding was vain; the monster's jets were exhausted, its body overheated to the point of shutdown. It crashed into the slope. Heem and Hoom rolled forward and off, jetting desperately to regain equilibrium and avoid a competing collision.

  In due course Heem rolled to a stop, his body half-flattened against the tilt of the ground. The wind was cold against his skin, the taste strange. Perhaps it was some breed of swamp vegetation, fuzzed by distance.

  Swamp? This draft was coming down the mountain. Was there swamp up there? Hardly! Where, then?

  It had to be from the far side. A draft across the strange swamp, with its different flavor, up over the mountain ridge, down this side. If he rolled into the draft, he would find that swamp. All he had to do was keep rolling until he got there; the wind would guide him.

  Beside him, Hoom was reviving. "Do you survive, Heem?" he sprayed weakly.

  "Yes," Heem replied. "We must go on."

  "We must go back! This diminished pressure is awful! The air is dry and cold."

  "Because we are near the top of the ridge! A little farther, and we will crest it. The flatfloater has done all it can; we must not throw away what it has given us."

  "I'm tired," Hoom protested. "I cannot climb anymore; I must roll down."

  "Then roll alone. I will cross the mountain."

  "But suppose you never return? I would be alone in the valley!"

  "Yes," Heem jetted forcefully, starting his roll uphill. He was bluffing; if Hoom did not come...

  Reluctantly, Hoom joined him. Heem made a private jet of relief. He had not wanted to risk this venture alone, yet had not wanted to give it up so close to success. Now he had won; he had assumed the leadership, and Hoom would have to follow.

  They forged up the slope. Abruptly the ground leveled, then angled down. They had crested the ridge! They had been virtually at the brink. What irony if they had given up when the flatfloater did!

  There was a
lesson in this, Heem thought. One must not give up an effort prematurely; success might be incipient, though it seemed otherwise.

  What a relief to roll downhill! The slope was steep, forcing them to brakejet firmly, but progress was excellent.

  "We made it!" Hoom sprayed jubilantly. "We conquered!" He seemed to have forgotten his prior reticence. But that was the way Hoom was; his attention span was brief. He never brooded on the ultimate meaninglessness of things the way Heem did.

  For example, Hoom was now happy to be rolling downhill. Heem was concerned what they might encounter at the base of this slope. The valley of Highfalls had its perils, enough to eliminate all but two of possibly two hundred original HydrOs who had started there. Could this nameless new valley be any safer? Probably it was worse, for them, because they would not be familiar with its perils.

  Yet this venture had to be made. Whatever the meaning of life might be, this exploration would help him to discover it.

  The slope leveled, but the ground was too high yet for this to be the base. A variance in the mountain, after which the descent should resume.

  Suddenly both of them blasted water violently forward, coming to a halt. There was something strange, alien, and horrible ahead. Both of them knew instantly it was an enemy. It exuded a taste of sheerest menace. They also knew they could not fight it; the thing was too horrible to oppose. Their only choice was to flee.

  They tried. But progress up the steep slope was agonizingly slow. The thing rolled up behind them—no, even more horrible, it did not roll, its locomotion was part of its alien quality. It did not jet, it—it slithered. Heem had never imagined such a means of transport, but the faint, awful taste of this thing's presence evoked memories buried in his evolution. This creature—it had been the implacable foe of Heem's kind for an interminable time!

  "Cease your struggle, HydrO prey," the jet of the alien came. Even its communication was oddly sinister. There was a cold metallic flavor. The alien did not use jets for communication; Heem knew this too. Therefore this command was impossible—yet it had come.

  Heem ignored it, naturally. He jetted so hard he practically flatfloated up the slope. Hoom was right beside him. Terror gave them strength.

  "Cease, lest I destroy you," the alien jetted.

  Hoom had enough attention left to loft a hurried spray at Heem. "How can it jet? It has no jets!"

  "With my machine, HydrO prey!" the alien jetted. "Last warning: desist or die."

  But Heem knew with the certainty of thousands of generations of his kind—it was amazing how self-realization came at a moment like this!—that there was no way to trust this alien. "Divide!" he sprayed, warned by that instinct. He jetted at right angles to his former course and rolled to the side, separating from Hoom.

  Even as he did so, there was an explosive spray from Hoom. "Oh, it burns!" Then nothing—and Heem knew his friend was dead.

  Heem dodged again, changing his angle of escape with his strongest jet. Then the alien's machine-jet grazed him, just touching a small patch of his skin.

  "Oh, it burns!" Heem sprayed and collapsed. It did burn, but his exclamation was more cunning than pain, a ploy of desperation. Let the alien assume he was dead; perhaps the killing shot would be withheld. It was his only chance.

  He felt the slight vibration of the ground as the alien approached. It came to Heem first, its body emitting its faint but awful taste. It was difficult to fathom the nature of this dread creature, but as it came near the separate small indications of its mechanism evoked the instinctive memories in Heem's mind. The thing was long and slender, an undulating rope of flesh tapering into a rough point at either extreme. There was armor on it, mail formed from bone: the hardened tissue employed by some animals to stiffen and shield their anatomies. It moved by shoving its smooth, hard torso against irregularities in the ground, and sliding its dry scales past these irregularities. It was, Heem realized, a bit like rolling; instead of employing sensible jets of water to push its body around and forward, it employed natural objects. But it remained a horrifyingly alien mode of propulsion.

  The thing slithered up to Heem, who dared not squirt even the tiniest jet. He knew, again by instinct, that he would remain alive only if this monster thought him already dead. He had to stay dead to stay alive.

  The thing lurked beside him, a ghastly alien presence. Heem no longer had volition; even his hydrogen absorption was suspended. The monster unfolded three gross limbs, their nature shaped in Heem's mind by sound, ambient taste, and instinct memory. Pincers extended, three sturdy metallic claws, grasping Heem's vulnerable body, hauling one section of it into the air. Yet Heem did not react.

  For a moment the monster held him there, pincers cutting cruelly into Heem's tender flesh. The taste-ambience was much stronger now, evoking a vivid picture of this creature's nature. The bone-plates were intricately overlapped and interlocked so as to be highly flexible and invulnerable to any needlejet. The appendages were sensitive to vibration in much the fashion Heem's own skin was, so the thing could—could—here another concept struggled and finally burst out: a discreet new sense. The thing could hear. Hearing was more than feeling, operating at a greater distance. The creature could perceive its environment by hearing rather than tasting; its scales were impervious to sapient communication—no, that was confusing.

  The thing had no jets, yet it had jetted. Instead it had a machine, which Heem now realized was a construct of inanimate substance that squirted intelligible jets. Thus the monster could talk despite its lack of natural means. By putting acid in that machine, it could burn and kill. Heem's skin still hurt fiercely from that glancing jet.

  The monster opened its pincers, letting Heem drop. It slithered across to locate Hoom. Vibration commenced, and a terrible taste drifted across. The awful exudate of fresh wounds in HydrO flesh.

  The thing was cutting up Hoom's body with its pincers! Hoom's natural juices were squirting into the air, spreading the horrible taste of death. By vibration and taste, Heem was treated to the most terrible experience of his career. The monster, not satisfied with killing his friend, was now destroying the body.

  The utter alienness of this action made Heem's jet apertures lose control, and some of his reserve water leaked out. Still he could do nothing, not even move.

  Efficiently, the monster reduced Hoom's body to juicy pieces. Then the most sickening thing of all occurred. The thing extruded its own internal membrane and spread it over Hoom's pieces. Heem tasted the vile acids; their vapors burned his skin anew. A poison jet was bad enough, but this complete inundation was appalling. What possible purpose could there be in it? Nothing in his experience accounted for anything like this. His instinct-memory offered no clue; whatever it was was too horrible even to comprehend.

  Heem's discomfort was growing. He had to breathe or he would perish anyway. Cautiously he took in air, circulating the molecules of it through his system. Energy was harvested, and water flowed, restoring his power. But what good did this do him? The alien could shoot him down again with that mechanical jet. Heem stayed still.

  The ghastly process of demolition continued. Heem found himself becoming inured to it; it was impossible to maintain a condition of total horror indefinitely. Hoom was dead; he had accepted that, and with the flow of energy through his system he was better able to tolerate it. The experience and memory were awful and would remain so, but Heem could at least function. He had, after all, tasted the deaths of his companions many times before, from many different causes.

  Suddenly he realized that the alien was temporarily restricted. How could it move rapidly, while its insides were outside? Perhaps it could still use its weapon, but it could not pursue a rolling object.

  To wait here was to risk getting cut up and destroyed in the manner Hoom had been. There was really no choice. The alien had thought Heem dead, since it lacked proper taste; when Heem remained limp, he had been set aside while the other victim was verified. The alien was not omniscient; it had to chec
k things physically. So Heem had fooled it—and now might escape it.

  Heem blasted out his jets, initiating a violent roll down the slope. If the acid did not strike him in the first moment, he should escape it entirely. And—it did not strike. He had fooled the enemy and won his freedom.

  Now he was rolling down the steep incline, much faster than was comfortable or safe, yet he dared not brake. Better the risk of getting smashed against a rock, than of waiting for an acid bath.

  But as he became assured of escape, his concern about his high-velocity roll grew. He had to slow, but his momentum was such that his jets seemed to have no effect.

  Still the slope catapulted him down. Heem bounced, his skin abrading. A welter of tastes impinged on his awareness: animals, plants, minerals, not-quite familiar. The tastes of this strange valley, only a little different from Highfalls, yet remarkable because it was the first foreign valley he had known. A region he could live in, if he could only enter it safely.

  He tried again, without effect. The slope was simply too steep! Now he tasted the spume of broken water. There was a river here, rocky, with falls, like that in his own valley; he would smash into it and die, for water could not sufficiently cushion his present plunge.

  Heem jetted with all his strength to one side. His plummet veered, and he rolled on a slant down the mountain. Now at last he could gain a little purchase. He veered further, beginning to catch the ground; in a moment he would be rolling back uphill, and gravity would help stay his motion. Why hadn't he thought of this before? He slowed, curved—

  And dropped off another ledge, one that ran parallel to his original line of descent. He jetted wildly in all directions, accomplishing nothing, and splashed into deep water.

  Dizzy, exhausted, he struggled to the surface—and could not maintain the elevation. Slowly he sank down into the depths, losing all control. There was hydrogen here, plenty of it, but he lacked the energy to process it properly at this depth. He was in danger of drowning.