Thousandstar (#4 of the Cluster series)

by Piers Anthony

  Heem and Jessica spotted the ships. Heem used the ship's computer to calculate the velocity of each vessel as it turned over, while Jessica kept track of the leaders. It turned out that ten of the apparent leaders were over-velocity and were unlikely to finish; but fifteen ships behind Heem's own turned about on a schedule that would normally put them in the first fifty. Some of these might be within-velocity, but actually be scant on fuel—but others might be below-velocity and have reserves of fuel, enabling them to gain at the end. Strategies varied, and it was necessary to make educated guesses. There could be a lot of shifting of places at the end of the race, as all velocities were reduced.

  The best finish Heem could reasonably hope for was sixty-one. That represented an excellent gain, from his start at or near two hundred—but not quite enough.

  'But if you do some more clever maneuvering, antagonize a few more pilots—' Jessica said.

  "I might gain four, five, possibly even six places, no more," Heem jetted. "We are not competing against fools and amateurs now; these are the natural spacers like myself. They will not react, they will not be deceived; they know they have the advantage, and they will maintain it. I used up my surplus fuel getting to this stage; this is my maximum position. To push beyond this place in the column would be to disqualify myself for inadequate fuel, or to crash." He needled the buttons, and the ship abruptly changed course without turning about.

  'Is something wrong?' Jessica inquired worriedly. The ship doesn't seem to have reversed. It's still accelerating forward, angling out of the column.'

  "The ship is responsive. It is on course for my destination."

  'But there is no habitable planet in that direction, is there?'

  "Correct. And if there were, I would not have the fuel to make a safe landing, after correcting for a non-buoyed and therefore inefficient course."

  'Then where are you going?' Her alarm was burgeoning, anticipating his answer.

  "Into the Hole."

  Chapter 4:

  Holestar Abyss

  She did not taste very much different than a male, in general flavor. But the distinction was instantly manifest. Every jet she made possessed the female attribute, clear only to another HydrO but extremely significant to that HydrO. Heem had never before encountered a female of his species, but from the outset he had not the slightest doubt of her nature.

  "Who are you, who preserves me from demise?" Heem inquired as he recovered his equilibrium.

  "I am Moon of Morningmist," she responded with a jet so diffident he hardly felt it. She, too, was acutely aware of the presence of the alternate gender.

  "I am Heem of Highfalls." He paused, absorbing further impressions of her, and discovered an urge he had not felt before. "You are the first female I have encountered in my life. Shall we indulge in sexual play?"

  "Of course," she agreed.

  "Is this valley otherwise occupied?" He was not certain why he inquired, but knew it was important.

  "Four of my sister-siblings remain."

  Therefore he knew that there would be no reproduction. He needled a splash of purest lust at her, the product of a lifetime of innocent abstinence, but did not include the key flavor of his signature. She responded with a passionate spray that soaked him with her essence. The result was a pleasure so novel and intense that he gave himself entirely up to it. He knew that Moon was reacting similarly.

  'You just met her, and you copulated?' Had Heem needled that question to himself? Mentally he answered it. As a juvenile he had no reservations about pleasure, and sexual gratification was the most available and harmless of pleasures. It was practiced as a routine courtesy whenever male and female HydrOs associated with each other on an individual or group basis. As an adult he discovered that many other sapient Cluster species regarded sex in another flavor. But alien ways were alien ways; why any creatures should choose to restrict something as natural and necessary as this was not a thing he needed to make the effort to understand. Alien species had a number of strange or appalling attitudes, such as eating or—

  'Doesn't that leave offspring littering the landscape?' the internal needle came quickly.

  Naturally not! Sexual interplay was a prerequisite for procreation, but not identical to it. Reproduction occurred only when the male included his unique signature in the needlejet and when the female accepted that flavor. Neither would do this unless the habitat were suitable. Reproduction, unlike copulation, was a serious matter.

  'I suppose it really is the same with us,' the mental jet continued. 'We invoke contraceptive measures so that we can indulge in similar play without conceiving offspring. Nevertheless, we do have a certain discretion about the choice of partners for such intimacies. Sex, to us, is not a casual matter, even without procreation.'

  Heem ignored the alien taste and continued his forbidden memory-dream. After sating himself pleasantly with Moon, he rolled with her on a tour of the valley of Morningmist. It resembled Highfalls, but lacked the great central river; instead small streams fed into a good-sized lake, from which mildly flavored vapors rose in the early section of each day. Heem soon became acclimatized to the variant tastes of this region, which were not far distinct from those of his own valley.

  The sapient inhabitants of Morningmist were female, as only one gender was littered in any one site. Heem met them singly and needled each courteously with lust, and each responded with a spray of gratification more passionate than his own gesture. This was natural, for he was recently sated while they were not. In due course all rolled together beside the lake and Heem, with a special effort, sprayed all five simultaneously with passion. They needled him back, all together, and his pleasure was so strong that he rolled into the water and sank to the bottom. They shoved him back to land cheerily. It had been a wonderful occasion.

  'Simultaneous group sex with five females?' the interfering thought came. 'This is beyond the capacity, if not the aspiration, of our males.'

  It would have been embarrassing had it been beyond the capacity of Heem, for the females of Morningmist were all deserving. It would have been a shame to exclude any from the polite welcome.

  'Some polite welcome!' the private needle came. While they toured the valley, he jetted conversationally with them, learning about their situation. It was similar to his own. They too had been seeded in their valley and left to develop independently; they too had suffered crucial attrition from hundreds to the present five. In crossing the mountain range he had learned only that the next valley was different in detail, not nature. He had not solved the mystery of his existence.

  "What of your valley?" Moon jetted delicately after they had satisfied themselves with another copulation and settled for the night in her cave. "How did you travel to ours?"

  "Two of us rode a flatfloater up the mountain slope," he jetted back. "The floater lost propulsion near the apex, and we managed to roll on over the top. My sibling was slain by an alien monster. I am the last survivor of my valley, I believe."

  "Slitherfear!" she sprayed with horror. "The nemesis that—" She nerved herself for the foul taste. "That eats."

  "You know of him? We did not know his name."

  "He has no name we can conceive. He is a dread Squam, predator on our species. We named him for his attributes. He has been preying on our number since he appeared recently in our valley. Every several days he destroys another sister, most horrendously."

  "We tried to escape him, but he was too strong for us. He had a thing he called a machine that jetted burning fluid. He killed my sibling Hoom and—did something horrible."

  "Yes," she sprayed. "We try to hide, but somehow the alien finds us, and consumes us. It is invulnerable to needles; we cannot oppose it or escape it."

  "I know." The horror of Morningmist was worse than that of Highfalls. "I escaped only by pretending to be dead, while it consumed my companion."

  They were tasteless for a time, unwilling to dwell further on the horror. Then Moon inquired with a diffident jet, "Di
d you spray that Highfalls is vacant?"

  "I believe it is. Only four of us survived before we boarded the flatfloater; then Haam fell from a height and Hiim fell when the floater moved away at sudden speed. Hiim may have survived, but this is unlikely."

  She emitted a cute spray of revelation. "A vacant valley, with no Squam menace, is suitable for a litter of HydrOs!"

  Heem realized that it was; his instinct told him so. Secure, sapient-devoid places existed only to be seeded with sapients. Part of the riddle of his own origin had been answered. "But should Hiim survive—"

  "We must go there and verify this. He might have survived the fall but be injured, then roll victim to a predator. Then we would seed the empty valley and depart. It is the HydrO way."

  Heem recognized the validity of her point, but remained reluctant. "This mountain is high and steep, too difficult for us to cross."

  "We could harness a flatfloater, as you and your siblings did."

  "Half of us died in the effort—and another died on the mountain."

  "Yes, it is dangerous. But we must do it."

  She was correct; HydrO instinct required this effort. Still, he balked. "No. I will not do it."

  Genuinely perplexed, she sprayed her gentle query, tinged with her sex appeal. For the first time, Heem appreciated the subtle power the female could exert. He felt cruel and guilty, opposing her. "Why not, Heem? Are you ill, or of suspect stock?"

  "I am not physically ill," he jetted, working his rationale out as much for himself as for her. "I have no reason to question my stock; my siblings perished from external causes, not from any internal malaise. But I have experienced the horrors of growing up among peers. Of two hundred or more, I alone remain. All the others fell horribly to predators or accidents—because there was no adult sapient to care for them. I have always hated the power that placed us in that situation, and now I cannot do the same thing to my own offspring."

  "But it is the HydrO way!" she jetted back, working out her own rationale. "Any couple who discovers a suitable and vacant place must repopulate—"

  "No!" he needled so sharply that she made a little spray of pain. "I will not contribute to such an infernal system!"

  "It is—it is natural selection. You survived in the valley of Highfalls because you were—were the fittest in the region," she insisted, her jets overlapping each other. "And I—I am among the fittest also, for I am among the few remaining sisters of Morningmist."

  "I survived because I was lucky. I have no special merit." Yet he remembered occasions when he had avoided some threat that others had fallen prey to, because he had been more intelligent. And his needles had always been among the most accurate. Luck could not account for all of it. "And I refuse to believe that it has to be this way—the ignorant generating new litters of the helpless, never staying to help, to teach—" He damped his jet, thinking of another aspect. "Why could we not remain in Highfalls, to instruct—"

  "That is not the HydrO way!" she sprayed, shocked.

  So it was an impasse. He was silent, frustrated.

  "We will jet on this another time," she jetted, meaning that she would be trying again to change his mind. They settled down to sleep, irreconciled.

  Heem woke to the alarm of the ship. A quick savoring of the composite flavor assured him that he was on course. His course. The ship, naturally, assumed he was unintentionally drifting into danger.

  "H-Sixty-six, are you in control?" It was H-46 on the taste net. Swoon of Sweetswamp, the female he had helped get her ship. The one with sex-appeal flavor like no one since Moon of Morningmist. He regretted he would never have occasion to roll Swoon up on her offer of further cooperation; it would almost certainly have been fun.

  "I am in control, H-forty-six," he responded. It was nice of her to express concern for him. She knew his identity because of his prior antics in the column; she would have tasted all the intership signals. But they were competitors now, and she had turned out to be a superlative pilot. "Congratulations on advancing into the first fifty. You made the cut; I did not. I wish you further success."

  "Just don't drift too far toward the Hole before the Competition Authority rescues you," Swoon jetted. "We may yet meet again, after this is over."

  It was a strongly flavored reminder. She remained grateful. But Heem did not answer, for he knew he would never be able to indulge himself of that offer.

  The ship was angling toward the Hole. The turnover point of the race was at the closest buoyed approach to the primary pair, since the destination planet was at the moment across the System from Impasse. Acceleration had been aided by the fall toward the primary, and deceleration would be aided by the climb away from it. But it was not safe to pass too close, for within a certain radius the well of the Hole became total: not even radiation could escape.

  Now, suddenly, the Hole seemed much more powerfully flavored. Growingly huge yet tasteless, it loomed upon the ship: the region of No Return. Though Heem's ship was now in free-fall, it was accelerating—toward the abyss.

  The alien transferee within him took one translated look and retreated in numb horror to her own nightmare. Heem found himself drawn into it, as it were into an internal Hole.

  * * *

  Cloning was done to safeguard the ancient and dwindling lineages of the aristocracy of System Capella. It was not that these few scions were more subject to premature demise, but rather that when such demise occurred the consequences were more formidable. With cloning, there was always a replacement with full status.

  The problem was that in the absence of demise, there was a duplicate heir. The purpose in preserving these lives was not to subdivide the estates. Therefore the clones who married were permitted only one offspring. That infant was cloned well before infancy. After that, both parents were sterilized. The line continued—rigidly. Since only the clones who married other clones could carry the inheritance, the great old estates did not stray from the original bloodlines. They shuttled back and forth within the aristocracy. The names might change, but not the blood.

  Sometimes only one clone married legitimately, releasing the other to take a commoner-spouse. Any taint of commoner blood negated the heritage; no issue of that union could inherit. Yet it was mooted that those "adulterous" marriages were often the happiest. Clones knew each other too well for there to be many attractive mysteries.

  There was an occasional hitch in the process. In the current generation there were too many males. The gender of the offspring could be controlled, but some didn't bother until an imbalance occurred; then the ratio shifted to compensate. But there could be one or two left over, of either gender. If there were too many females, it was not serious, since the estate merged with that of the male, and the clone of a male could not marry adulterously while any female estate remained unattached. But in this case all the females would be taken, while some male or males would have to marry adulterously—thereby forfeiting their estates. That was very bad.

  The progenitor of Jess had anticipated such a bind. He desired to retain the estate within his own named family, as it was the choicest (though not the richest) estate of them all: the original palace of Good Queen Bess. But to sire a male offspring was to risk losing both name and blood. Thus the progenitor hedged his bet by producing a male heir, with a female clone. If the male could not find a clone-mate, the female would assume the office and merge with another estate. There would be no forfeit.

  It was an extremely neat device, but there were certain practical problems. The female split was secret, for too early a revelation could cause other families to produce similarly split clones, complicating or nullifying the advantage. Both clones were listed as male, and both adopted the dress and manner of males. In private it was otherwise, and among commoners Jessica could adopt a pseudonym and be fully female. This was encouraged, for if she ever had to assume the burden of the blood, she would need to be a fully conversant woman, desirable as such and able to perform. But when among cloned aristocracy, she was
always male.

  This became awkward at times, especially as Jess grew to maturity. Jesse and Jessica were both on the sterility diet, of course; only in marriage could the counteractant be prescribed. But she was expected to play the role of a male in the clone society. She had to defer to females with mock archaic gallantry, and run her eyes over the girls' covert spots with evident lust, and pinch their haunches just as her brother did—because he did. Because to fail in the male mannerism was to betray her nature prematurely, perhaps hampering her brother's chance to make a suitable marriage.

  'You are female—yet you acted in the manner of a male?'

  "I had to! At first it was a game, but when I grew older I hated it, yet I still had to do it." She found herself reacting to the skepticism in the theoretical question.

  'Yet it was only a matter of role—a part in a drama, of no private consequence. You would inevitably mate as a female, with a male opposite, when that occasion came. No cause for distress.'

  Was she baiting herself? No cause for distress! "Here's how it was!" she snapped back, and opened a long-suppressed memory of herself at fifteen. She and her half attended a clone ball put on by Cyrus and Cyron, age sixteen. It was titled Cyclone, naturally, and had a storm motif.

  Jesse and Jessica traveled together, as was the fashion for clones, in a closed dragon-drawn coach. Closed to conceal their doubled nature from the prying gaze of commoners; dragon-drawn to show their aristocratic heritage and affluence. A modern float-car would have been more comfortable, much faster, and less expensive, but Jessica had to admit the rented dragon had more class. The coach was of one-way foam fiber, insulating and reflective externally, pervious internally, so that they could see without being seen.

  The landscape was lovely. This was part of the Nature Reserve that had been set aside a millennium ago when the rising population of System Capella had threatened to spoil the planet. The huge old estates suffused the region, and the aristocracy maintained the native wilderness as part of their system. No one hunted here, or mined, or built cities—no one except the clones themselves, whose damage was minimal. Thus the mountains were largely unspoiled, the trees enormous, the rivers clean. Jessica touched a section of the coach wall, dilating it with the fingers of her hand so that a fresh gust of air came through to caress her face. That breeze was redolent of pinesap and Capellabloom, and for a moment she closed her eyes and let it transport her. Here, forever, swaying on the suspension of the coach, breathing sap and bloom...