"Oh, Heem!" Jessica continued. "Now at last I can spray love with you! Quickly, before the Competition Authority arrives and transfers me back to Capella. Come, my love—"
But Heem's awareness was fuzzing, the tastes overlapping each other. The Ancient complex seemed to be rotating around him, expanding and contracting, its strange half-flavors confusing him.
"Heem—what's the matter?" Jessica sprayed, alarmed. "Are you badly injured? Oh, Heem, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to tax your energies beyond—"
He marshaled himself with a desperate effort. "It is the metamorphosis," he sprayed. "It was incomplete before, because I had unresolved compulsions. Slitherfear—" He found himself sagging into incomprehensibility, and tried again. "Murders not avenged, would not let go, undermined the memory-blank of maturity. Vengeance is immature, yet there is justice. I became a juvenile masquerading as adult, much as you masqueraded as male. Now all is resolved, and I am whole, and my metamorphosis is becoming complete—"
"But then you will forget all that has happened here!" she protested.
A third, fading effort. "I—will forget. The rigors and complexes of the juvenile state are too strong to permit maturity, and must be cast aside. But you must inform them—"
"Oh, Heem, I will, I will! I'll tell them how you won, for Star HydrO. Swoon's Star gets no share; she betrayed you, she forfeits. But Sickh and Windflower were true—the relay race hypothesis is valid, Heem, I'm sure of it. Do you mind if I include them for shares? Heem, can you hear me. I mean, can you taste me?"
Heem tasted her, and sweet she was indeed, but no longer could he answer. Consciousness was departing, and with it his entire immature existence. He was about to be adult.
"Oh, Heem, I'll never see you again! Not as I have known you! You won't even remember me, and I can't remind you because that might undo your maturity." She paused, in the far and fading distance. "Yet maybe that is best. Our love was hopeless from the beginning. We should never have allowed it to happen. This way you, at least, will not suffer, and I'm glad for that."
* * *
Then she was gone from his awareness, except for one especially strong concluding needle of flavor that momentarily banished his opacity: "I love you, Heem of Highfalls. Farewell!"
Epilogue
Jessica, in male guise, greeted each clone-pair arrival at the entrance to the main ballroom. The motif was HydrO-clone, but as co-hosts the Jesses remained human. This ball was in nominal celebration of Jesse's successful mission to Thousandstar; no Capella-clone had ever before made such a coup. The financial aspect was theoretically unimportant; it was the notoriety that counted. (Yet the completion payment had been welcome, buttressed as it was by appreciation bonuses from Stars Salivar and Ffrob, who had been granted partial shares in the enterprise. )
A pair of mock-HydrOs arrived in bulky costume that almost concealed the extremities. A concealed bulb squirted Jessica in the face. "HydrO you do!" a clone exclaimed genially.
Jessica made an insignificant gesture with her little finger. A torrent of warm water shot out of a supposedly decorative nozzle set in the wall, thoroughly dousing both jokers. "The warmest, wettest welcome to you, HydrOs!" she said calmly.
"To be sure." But their enthusiasm for the humor seemed somewhat dampened.
A pair of Squams arrived next, their tails carried over their third arms. They had noted the foregoing exchange of pleasantries. They glanced with concealed non-Squam eyes at the enormous decorative pincers also set in the wall, and elected not to attempt a practical joke. Jessica smiled somewhat grimly as they proceeded directly toward the mock-up of an Ancient site in the center, where the refreshments were being served. The old retainer, Flowers, was in charge there, keeping a benign but discreet eye on the proceedings. He was garbed as a dominant sapient of Segment Fa¿, with many little hands and feet, and a spiral wire rising from his head. He was, of course, the Competition Authority Representative; who else would be in charge of an Ancient site?
"Squams do like to eat, you know," the Squam-clones explained as they moved on.
"Disgusting," Jessica agreed, smiling. Yet there was a masked sadness. She did not find quite the pleasure in food she once had.
Jessica turned her attention to the next arrivals, a set of pseudo-Erbs, waving great leaf-petals that could hardly be formed into an effective drill. She thought of Windflower, and Sickh, of her pleasant girl-talk session with them in the flooded conduit. How much more meaningful that had seemed than this empty clonish banter! Sickh had had a family, back on Planet Impasse, with two active young Squams; she had undertaken this mission because her mate was ill and in need of expensive treatment, and this had been the only way to afford it. Windflower had been compelled by the challenge—but it had turned out to be more challenge than she had anticipated. Jessica had shared both motives, and envied Sickh her family in courteous fashion, and the three had agreed that the universe was, after all, growing smaller. She had had, however briefly, a friendship she valued—a friendship that transcended the barrier of species. What she had here in Cloneville was comparatively sterile.
Oh, Heem! she thought, inevitably orienting on her keenest loss. You have forgotten me, and I'm glad of that, have to be glad of that, but I love you yet—and am glad of that too. Even though it reopened the wound of her grief. Was it really better to have loved and lost?
In due course the ballroom was filled with the celebrating clones. Couples were wandering to the adjacent rooms in normal fashion, trying out new partners. The Bessies had latched on to a new set of males, and were pumping up their bosoms to the bursting point. Jessica was as disgusted as ever, but had to maintain the front. She was Jesse, tonight; he had not yet recovered from his accident with the laser saw, and was confined to a floating support: a flatfloater, of course. This made an obvious difference between them, so they could not substitute for each other at key moments. Fortunately, as host, Jess was not required to mix in the side rooms. Clothes made the man, and the clothes were not coming off. She was safe.
Safe—for what? The gender-ratio had not balanced as the clones paired off in marriages. Two more unions had been announced in the past week, and one female estate-holder had declared against clone-marriage, forfeiting her estate. Three younger clones had matured enough to enter the sexual lists—but two of those sets were males. The constriction was tightening; it would be a decade before the ratio shifted back. Too many of the senior clones had opted for male offspring, and their children were paying the price.
Jesse, neither a hulking brute to attract the scant-witted females, nor the possessor of a rich estate, was faced with the likely choice of marrying a cow like Bessy, or waiting the better part of that decade for a younger clone. Even then, there would be competition, for a number of the mature clones preferred juvenile females, and there was a rough hierarchy of seniority, and some of the youngsters were very pretty children. The best of the nymphs would be taken before they became available to Jesse.
All of which meant, in this decadent situation, that Jessica would probably have to carry the burden. She would have to expose her nature and suffer herself to be chosen by an eligible male and make the best marriage she could—for the sake of the estate. Because though it was not a rich estate, it was a fine one that had to be preserved. She could make an excellent liaison, she was sure, for the same imbalance that militated against Jesse's success militated in favor of hers: the scarcity of desirable females. She had everything to gain—yet she was fundamentally dissatisfied.
She did not want the estate; she wanted adventure. She did not want a good marriage; she wanted love. For a brief period she had had both adventure and love—and lost them. How could she remain in an alien body across the Milky Way Galaxy? How could she love a creature who resembled a squirting jellyfish? It was all impossible, and properly over—yet there was now little flavor to human existence. Heem, Heem!
The sound of one more dragon-coach came. Another guest, arriving late? Jessica checked her tally;
all the usual crowd were accounted for. She pushed another button on her hand unit, reminded poignantly of the way a HydrO would have needled that button with a jet of water, and got the readout: Morrow.
Morrow? He was an older clone, married, not given to attending the basically juvenile functions of the young clones. If there were such a thing as metamorphosis among human beings, Morrow had passed it, and put aside childish things. Also, his attractive clone-wife would not approve of his frolicking among the nymphs at this stage.
The sound of the approach became loud enough for all to hear: not a single-dragon coach, but a grandiose four-dragon chariot. Only a man like Morrow had either the money or the nerve to use such an artifact; dragons could get quarrelsome in teams. But Morrow—was Morrow.
Jessica walked over and consulted with her brother. "Morrow coming; know what to make of it?"
"Morrow!" he exclaimed. "So soon out of mourning!"
"Mourning?"
"Where have you been the past fortnight? Across the Galaxy? Morrow's wife got hit by a runaway dragon-et she thought was tame. They destroyed the animal, of course, but she was too badly injured; she took euth."
"Euthanasia? She died?"
"Successful euth usually is fatal, yes, brother," Jesse agreed. He never called her "sister" in company. "Some clones have consideration enough to honor such a request, instead of gallivanting off to far places on vacation."
"Some vacation!" she muttered, hitting him lightly on the shoulder in masculine fashion. She was glad she had saved her brother, and not been a murderess, and knew he was glad too; that lightened her mood. She had gambled and won, in this respect, at least.
Flowers moved across from the refreshment site as well as his several little feet permitted. Flowers put up with a lot of indignity for the sake of his charges. Without his discretion and help, Jessica could never have managed her transfer ruse. Flowers had insisted on taking care of the vacant host at home, so that the Society of Hosts had no knowledge of the exchange or of Jessica's gender. Had the truth come out, Flowers could have been disbarred as a retainer, but he had taken the risk, for the sake of the estate. Other clones had in the past proffered very good terms for his service, but he had been loyal to this estate, and to the Jess-clones.
"The Lord Morrow grieves for his cherished wife, but needs another," Flowers said gravely. "His estate is large, and his son is yet a child."
"He could hire a nurse," Jessica pointed out. "God knows he's rich enough! He certainly doesn't need to preempt another clone-female from an already critically short supply." She felt a genuine indignity.
"Lord Morrow is not a reasonable man," Flowers replied, in a typical understatement. There had been stories of Morrow in his younger days, taming rogue dragons, substituting for a gladiator in a genuine contest and winning, traveling the Cluster in transfer for the mere sake of adventure. Neither caution nor finance had ever stopped him from indulging his mood of the moment, until his slip of a wife had twined him about her finger. Morrow's weakness had at last been exposed: he could not deny the woman he loved. Now it seemed he had been loosed again, having been also unable to deny his wife her demand for death.
Jessica remembered another male who had been that way, to a certain extent. Tough to the point of foolishness, but weak against females of any species. Heem...
"Actually, it will be a good deal for the one he chooses," Jesse remarked. "Even if he takes a child bride, he has a lot to offer, both physically and socially. I understand he's very gentle, at home."
"But an ogre in public," Jessica amended. She nerved herself, and glided to the ballroom entrance to greet the widower.
Morrow was a huge, dusky man, black of beard, with muscles like those of the gladiator he had impersonated. It was rumored that he still exerted himself with archaic barbell weights by way of entertainment or meditation. Certainly no runaway baby dragon would have crushed him. Jessica was daunted by his gruff power that seemed to radiate from his body.
"Welcome to HydrO-clone Ball, my Lord Morrow," she said formally, showing the deference due an elder clone. Actually, he was only a decade older than she, but age was not the only distinction. "This is an unexpected pleasure."
The giant stared at her, his eyes narrowed appraisingly. "I like your costume not," he said. "Remove it."
Jessica smiled in her masculine mode, though she felt an ugly chill. There was something about this man, a barely leashed violence. "My Lord?"
Morrow shot forward a monstrous hand, catching her forearm with a punishing grip. "Off with the mask, hypocrite!"
Jessica choked off her scream, for it would have betrayed her nature instantly. She struggled ineffectively to free herself. "My Lord Morrow!"
The entire ballroom quieted. The clones were watching the scene, smiling, assuming it was a programmed skit for their entertainment. Only Flowers realized that this was no skit, and knew the possible consequence. He started forward, his extra feet bumping against his real ones.
Morrow grasped the lapel of Jessica's suit with his other hand and exerted his horrible muscles. The flimsy material tore lengthwise down the front, exposing her strapped halter.
"What is this?" Morrow demanded, as the smiles of the clones broke into appreciative laughs. Nakedness was nothing, but involuntary nakedness was exciting, even in a skit. "A bandage on the uninjured man?"
"Yes," Jessica cried, numbed. "An injury—" An injury to her spirit more than to her body.
Flowers arrived. "My Lord, if you please—"
Morrow hooked two fingers in the strap and ripped down. The material tore, and suddenly both Jessica's breasts were bared. Now she screamed.
"See what we have hiding here!" Morrow bellowed, tearing away the remainder of her suit and turning her around for all the clones to view. Flowers tried to cover her with his jacket, which he had providently collected on the way, but Morrow shoved him gently but forcefully away. "I would not hurt you, old man; I seek your service for my own estate. But stand clear." And the retainer had to withdraw.
"See!" Morrow repeated, half cupping one of Jessica's breasts with an open hand.
For a moment the clones stared in disbelief. Then one whistled. "Those are real!" he exclaimed, laughing. Jessica found herself too numb to protest.
"Yes, it is funny, is it not?" Morrow roared. With a bound and reach of surprising swiftness he approached and caught the laughing young man. "We laugh as we strip away our pretenses, do we not?" And he tore the man's Squam-costume lengthwise.
The young clone, cowed, clutched his tattered costume to his body.
"Laugh!" Morrow bellowed, ripping away more of it.
The lad laughed, somewhat hysterically, now standing naked.
Morrow lurched to the side, catching a girl in a HydrO costume. He ripped it off her. "Laugh!" he commanded. She shrieked her embarrassed laughter.
The huge man whirled on the rest of them. "Off, off with it all! Laugh! Laugh! It is funny, is it not?"
And in moments he had the whole room naked, himself included, everyone laughing nervously.
Morrow returned to Jessica, who had remained frozen. Her nightmare had finally become literal, and it was every bit as bad as she had ever feared. "You I claim," Morrow announced, like a dragon roaring over a fresh kill. "I found you, and you are female and you are fair, most fair, and what shame remains to you that these others do not share?"
"You think that's reason to marry a monster?" Jessica demanded, flushing to the waist. How had this brute known her secret? Why had he come for her, instead of for one of the nymphs who would have been glad to have him? Not that he was unattractive, or his attention unflattering, but—
"Not entirely. Yet I promised you this needling of your fundamental shame, and you promised to accept it in the proper spirit. Do you renege, alien female?"
"Alien female!" she repeated. "What address is this?"
Morrow drew her inexorably in toward him. "Do you forget so quickly, creature-who-eats? Did you lie when you claim
ed your kind suffered no metamorphosis? After we solved the riddle of concepts, threaded Star and Hole, and fought the monsters? You taught me vision, you taught me love, you addicted me to these things, that I can never experience as a HydrO, and now I come to spray with you—do you dare reject me, image-of-Squam?"
"Heem!" she cried, belief and disbelief colliding. "But it can't be—you metamorphosed—"
"Alas, it reverted again. The first time the immaturity of the need for vengeance nullified it; the second time, the alienness of love. I could not yield that emotion, and so it undermined my maturity, and I remembered, and I knew what I had lost, and so I traveled in transfer to seek out my second nemesis and conquer her."
She felt dizzy. "But what of Morrow?"
"You also taught me how truce could be made, even with aliens, even with creatures of anathema, who are no longer evil when understood. I promised the sufferer a good wife, one he would appreciate when his grief abated; he promised me the first month. Thereafter we share. He is a good creature, though he eats; but he is bereft of his love, as I am."
Flowers drew near again. "Jess, is this man hurting you? I have fetched a laser weapon—"
She faced her old retainer. She took a deep breath, for the first time unashamed to show her bosom in public. "Flowers, don't ask questions. Just pick up the largest bowl of pseudofruit punch you can heft, bring it here, and dump it over our heads. Now!"
Bewildered but loyal, Flowers did as he was told. As the other naked clones stared, the sweetened fluid washed over their two heads and bodies, soaking them with its flavor.
"Now we spray together," Jessica said, kissing the creature she loved.
Author's Note
This is the fourth novel in the Cluster series, but I don't regard it as exactly a sequel. The first three built up to ever-increasing galactic threats to be negotiated by the highest auras of their day. This one, in contrast, is a local story set comfortably within that framework, and aural intensity is not an issue. No galaxies are threatened; it is merely about a contest to win power for a local culture. So it was bound to be a lesser effort.
Thousandstar (#4 of the Cluster series) Page 31