Thousandstar (#4 of the Cluster series) (9 page)

Numb, Heem rested in place.
Potence was not a repeat; it was an advance guess
, the taste in his mind jetted.
Out of place, therefore wrong
—
before
.

Hardly believing it, Heem lurched out of his niche and rolled to pick up the key to Ship Sixty-six.

 

*
 
*
 
*

 

The key was a simple yet unguessable taste-code that would admit him to Ship Sixty-six and no other. Heem rolled rapidly out to it, jetted the key, and rolled up the ramp that opened out to him. He entered the ship, squeezed into the control chamber, and settled into the acceleration cup. No one but a HydrO could use a HydrO ship; the bodies of other sapients differed too grossly. He jetted the TAKEOFF button. The ship's acceleration panels closed in about him, sealing the chamber; water flooded the compartment, and the huge gaseous jets blasted at the ground. Like a flatfloater, the ship hurled itself into the sky.

Heem could do nothing for the moment. The ship would remain on automatic pilot until it achieved escape velocity; only then would the controls be returned to the passenger. Initial acceleration was always a compression; fortunately the HydrO physique, when properly supported, was ideally suited to it. Only a creature who could survive in fluid could accelerate rapidly; other forms were severely handicapped, lacking the ability to use hydraulic support for living tissues. Yet somehow many other species had achieved space.

That thought put Heem into a muse: how had his kind really come to space? The HydrO species could hardly have evolved for it on the surface of a planet. Yet this almost perfect adaptation to the conditions of space could hardly be coincidental.

No, of course it was not coincidental. The awareness of outer space had not come easily to the HydrO kind, because the radiation of stars was not directly perceivable to HydrO senses. A star could not be tasted; it had no characteristic vapor, no vibration; it could not be touched. The home-Star, HydrO, was perceived through its caloric ambiance; it heated the land and air by day. This, of course, had been the key, though Heem had spent his juvenile state on a colony world, and had never tasted the environs of Star HydrO itself. If a thing that was too far away to be touched made the difference between comfort and discomfort, that thing was important enough to be studied. Suppose Star HydrO were to depart or fade? It had been necessary for Heem's ancestors to roll into a situation where this could not happen.

So those ancestors had studied Star HydrO, and discovered marvelous qualities in it. Generations were lost in the pursuit of this knowledge, but in time the conceptual framework was secure. Star HydrO not only related to day and night (i.e., the alternating periods of warmth and cool), it bore on the seasons of the year, and the larger cycles of climate. The perfection of this comprehension was fraught with error, but at the end of that long roll, the nature of the modern universe had become quite clearly flavored.

The HydrOs had realized that there had to be other life in the universe, just as there are other Stars. Nothing appeared alone; like juveniles in a valley, there were always one or two hundred. Indeed, there were ancient ruins within System HydrO, unmistakable remnants of the onetime presence of a highly technological alien species. On a planet orbiting another star (a star was a great radiating ball of gas; a Star was a star with an associated sapient life-form) within Sphere HydrO were the remnants of an entire life-ecology, once flourishing but now completely obliterated. Painstaking analysis of the traces indicated that the aliens had utilized other perceptions than taste. They seemed to have been able to perceive directly the reflected radiation of the stars. Since such radiation, according to HydrO research, propagated directly and rapidly—far more so than the vapors and currents of taste—this had enabled the aliens to react much more swiftly to stellar phenomena. In fact, this ability might be a formidable asset to spacefaring creatures, and might even be of use on the surface of planets. So the HydrOs had developed machines to perceive this radiation, and translated it to the molecules of taste, coding it much as Heem had coded the concepts of the contest. This had led to an enormous increase in astronomical information.

'I can't see!' he thought despairingly.

What? Of course he couldn't see; that was the term for the direct perception of radiation of certain wavelengths, that only machines and aliens seemed to have, as though to compensate them for their inadequate resources of taste. No HydrOs could duplicate the feat, had they desired to; the instruments were quite satisfactory to make the effects of radiation comprehensible. If he were ever deprived of his sense of taste, he would have reason to despair; but why bemoan the lack of an alien perception?

'I'm blind!' he thought again.

Blind: a manufactured term relating to that deficiency of radiation perception. It might, in a crude manner, resemble tastelessness—at least to a species so foolish as to depend on radiation perception for primary awareness. Such loss might be very disturbing. But not to Heem, who had never had such ability, and never desired it.

Maybe this was some anomaly of his thinking, spawned by the pressure of acceleration. Heem had been to space before without any problem like this, but it was possible that his secret incapacity touched this too. Was he suffering a lapse of sanity?

"I can feel, I can taste," he sprayed, though his spray could hardly be effective in this water ambience of acceleration. He remembered waiting for the flatfloater, long ago as a juvenile, and feeling a similar restriction. "That is all I require."

'Not you, idiot!
I'm
the one who's blind!' Was he jetting to himself? He had always been full of thoughts, but seldom tried to spray them to himself, before.

'I never realized it would be like this! No eyes, no ears—I'm locked in a dark and silent cell. I'm going crazy!'

"So I
am
jetting to myself," Heem jetted, answering himself in the same fashion. "If I am losing my sanity, as I suspect, at least I am doing it in space instead of in confinement." Technically there was nothing quite so confining as space travel; no claustrophobic creature could pilot a spaceship. But beyond that close and pressured metal lay the glorious vastness of space, the ultimate in unconfinement. "But why am I so concerned about—what were those organs of radiation?"

'Eyes! Ears! To see and hear. How can you stand it, blind and deaf, without even hands?'

"Hands! The only creature I have encountered with such awful appendages is—"

'
All
sapient creatures have hands! Or opposed thumbs, or the equivalent. So they can handle tools, build buildings, operate machines, so they can develop Cluster-level technology.'

"This is not my thinking!" Heem jetted violently. "I may be losing my taste perspective, but not my common sense. HydrOs have no hands, yet we are among the most technologically advanced species of Segment Thousandstar. Here I am, piloting a HydrO spaceship—no-handed."

'Of course it's not your thinking. It's mine. I never thought it would be like this!'

The taste of comprehension flooded across his surface. "The transferee! It arrived after all!"

'It—I mean I—arrived almost dead. I'm hardly conscious now. I'm operating solely on temporary nerve; in a few hours, if I'm not out of this nightmare, I'll collapse entirely. I can operate on nerve for a little while; I can endure anything so long as I know it's temporary. But once my strength gives out—'

"That's why I was not disqualified by the Competition Authority! I had another aura!"

'That's the way transfer works, isn't it? What did you expect?'

"I expected a visiting personality. I received a near-knockout blow."

'Me too,' the transferee jetted. Except that it really was not a jet. It was an internal communication most resembling a thought.

"You're—the Solarian? Trained in intrigue?"

'Have you had transferees before? Is it always like this?'

"I have not hosted before. But none of the other hosts seemed to have trouble. I thought I had received no aura. But you have not answered: are you the Solarian?"

'I am Solarian.' There was a complex wash of thought and feeling, indecipherable.

"Control your reactions!" Heem needled. "When you think a dozen alien thoughts at once, I cannot decipher any of them."

'Well, at least I have some privacy.'

"You weren't transferred to my body for privacy. We have a competition to win!"

'Well, yes, I know about that. And I've been helping, I think.'

"Helping! By knocking me out just before the opening challenge?"

'Knocking
you
out!' the alien responded indignantly. 'I barely fought back to partial consciousness in time to solve the concept-pattern—and the effort made me lose consciousness again. The horror of blindness—'

"
You
solved the pattern?
I
analyzed it, and—"

'And tried to disqualify yourself with a repeat, then balked at the final concept as though you had a death wish.
I
don't have a death wish! I had to jam the winning concept through your stalled alien brain, or whatever it is.
Do
you have a brain?'

It was a serious question. "If by that you mean an organizing intelligence, I do. It is diffused through my body, relating to every aspect, as it should. Are Solarians differently organized?"

'We certainly are! We have a head, with most of our specialized organs of external perception there, next to the brain, up where they can be used most effectively.'

"Up? You have a—a permanent upper side to your body?"

'Of course we do! Don't you?'

"Of course not. How could anyone roll, if one side had to be always up?"

'Who would
want
to roll? Oh, don't answer that! What are you doing serving as host, if you don't know the nature of your transferee?'

"What are you doing transferring, not knowing you were entering a sightless host?"

'Touché,' the creature agreed. 'But I asked first.'

"The identities of the transferees were kept secret, so that no favoritism could be applied. I was not aware that I was to be the HydrO representative, until the presentation. All I know of Solarians is that they are a wild, undisciplined species, given to low-cunning plotting and warfare." He paused. "No offense intended to you, Transferee."

The Solarian's burgeoning anger converted to mirth. 'No offense, slugball! It is an apt synopsis.'

"We shall be some time in initial maneuvers. We must acquaint each other with ourselves, so that we can integrate properly for the competition. The other competitors had time back onplanet to do this, but we are late. When the ship achieves escape velocity and a stable trajectory, it will acquaint us with the location of the target planet and the nature of the quest. Then we shall be very busy, for we are the last ship to take off. We shall have to pilot with consummate skill so as to pass three quarters of the other ships and gain a tractor on the planetary surface."

'We? I know nothing of spaceship piloting!'

Heem had feared that. "Then we must come to an understanding before then, so that I will not be distracted. I am an excellent pilot, but there will be a considerable challenge."

'Yes.' The alien paused. 'There is something you should know, and something I must know.'

"Make your statement and query efficiently, then."

'I—am an imposter. I'm not qualified for this mission.'

"Impossible. You were transferred. That could not be a mistake. Segment Etamin would not cheat in a matter like this."

'I—the real transferee was unable to perform. So I— substituted.'

"Impossible," Heem repeated. "They don't accept unqualified substitutes."

'They did not know. I used the identity of the proper person.'

"The machine would not have transferred your aura. There is no way to deceive an aura verification. I should know; I was trying to do it myself, not long ago."

'My aura is—very similar to his. The machine couldn't tell the difference.'

"Something's rolling very strangely here. Solarians may be backward, but not
that
clumsy. Obviously you are the entity selected and sent; it could hardly be otherwise, considering the verifications applied at your end and this end. Unless you are a construct of my tortured imagination. Is that what you are jetting? That you are not real?"

'I am real. I am Solarian. I am a transferee. But I am not the one trained for this mission. Not the one who was supposed to be sent here. I'm sorry.'

Heem pondered, becoming intrigued. "Now I can appreciate why I might choose to imagine that I had a transferee; it might give me valuable confidence to proceed with this mission. I can taste why such an invented visitor would try to convince me of his authenticity; the ruse would not be effective if I did not believe. But I can not perceive why such an invention would attempt to discredit himself. That would only subvert—"

'Himself?'

"Yes, himself. I am not questioning your validity,
you
are. By insisting on an obvious flaw in your story. So—"

'Oh, figure of speech. Male-person singular, standard convention.'

Heem let that roll by. The transferee was attempting to divert him with quibbles, while the significant matter receded. He picked up the taste again. "So I doubt you are from my imagination; my mind is too logical to account for you. That means you must be real."

'What do you mean, too logical for me? I am every bit as logical as you are!'

"That is what we are in the process of ascertaining. I accept you as real, but your logic is suspect. You claim that you deceived an undeceivable machine."

'I did deceive it!'

"Are you not aware that no two auras are alike, and that the machines type the auras infallibly? Otherwise they could not transfer them."

'Yes, of course I'm aware. But this is a special case.'

"It would have to be extraordinarily special."

'It is.'