Thousandstar (#4 of the Cluster series) (40 page)

"You are charming, Heem, in your naivete." She extended a section of herself toward the machine's globe.

Heem rolled for her, but she was too fast. She banged the activator-globe. Power lurched out from the lens, bathing him, but a flashback also bathed Swoon. There was a terrible wrenching.

In a moment—perhaps more than that, for Heem could not judge how long he had been unconscious, if indeed at all—he recovered his orientation. He remained on the floor, and Swoon remained at the machine. His aura had not been abolished. The neutral setting—

Then he became aware of something else. He was whole, yet there was an absence, a loss—

"Jessica!" he sprayed desperately.

There was no answer. He felt for her presence in his being, and found nothing. He was alone.

"Oh, alien female!" he sprayed. "That Ancient machine did function—weakly! It did not abolish me, it abolished the less-entrenched aura. It wiped you out!"

Yet self-preservation still motivated him. No, not that; rather it was the need for vengeance. Swoon had murdered Jessica; Swoon must pay the penalty.

Heem surveyed the physical situation. Swoon still hunched by the machine. A backlash of power had encompassed her; she had evidently been stunned. He could kill her now. He did not care about his own ultimate fate. He intended to punish Jessica's murderer. He would needle her at close range, without mercy.

He rolled in close. Swoon stirred. He readied his needles—but had to orient carefully, because now he lacked the visual coordination he had come to depend on. He was blind. His needles would not have their former accuracy and timing. He must do this with extreme concentration—

"Heem," she sprayed weakly.

"Do not plead for mercy," he sprayed savagely. He knew he should simply needle her, but was compelled by his nature to communicate, to justify himself, even to his enemy. "You killed my love; I shall kill you. You took the light from my perception; I shall destroy your perception. You betrayed—"

"Heem—wait. I am Jessica."

"Do not seek to deceive me again!" he raged, his spray so hot it vaporized close to his body. "I believed you once. I am not twice a fool!" Then he froze.
How had she known of Jessica?

"Heem—I was retransferred," she sprayed. "The machine setting—the two-balled line—it must have meant not neutral, but exchange."

He hardly dared believe, yet he so much wanted to. "Prove this to me."

"Your nightmare of the Squam—your illegal memories—"

"You could have guessed of those! You may have suffered another incomplete metamorphosis!"

"Then
my
nightmare, as a Solarian—clone masquerading as a male—a strange man tearing off my garb, betraying my secret in public—"

Heem's doubt collapsed. "
No
one else could know of that! Yet how could you have been exchanged, and not me. And not the two female auras of Swoon's host? They are not with me."

"Because we are all females, Heem, and you are male. The two other auras bounced; they remain here in this host, stunned by my forced arrival. You also bounced, having no male host available within the focus of the machine. Only I was female, with a female host to transfer to. Only I was able to move when compelled. You and I have been through something like this before; we recovered from the shock more quickly. I have assumed control of this body."

A tremendous relief washed through him. Jessica had survived! He had revenge on Slitherfear. He had won the competition, and would be restored to favor among his kind. All his frustrations had abruptly been abated. Never had he felt so good!

"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.