Thousandstar (#4 of the Cluster series)

by Piers Anthony

  "This is the luck of the situation," the other HydrO sprayed. "I am out of the race."

  So she was. There was no way now to get her vehicle across. Heem addressed the Squam again. "May we help remove you from your vehicle?"

  "This would be appreciated," the Squam agreed. "I am in some pain, and greater freedom would enable me to alleviate it somewhat."

  They used the other HydrO's winch to haul large fragments of lava-rock away, then jetted the sand and dust clear. Jessica watched with interest; she admitted to wondering how handless creatures moved things, and now saw the technique of jetting out small debris from beneath so that the large pieces could roll.

  In due course they had excavated a tunnel under the inverted tractor. The Squam dropped down and hauled himself along by means of two limbs. The third was broken, and a section of his body was indeed crushed, with ichor leaking slowly from it.

  They helped the Squam get set up beside his tractor.

  "This is an unanticipated kindness, from your species," the Squam remarked.

  "We operate under truce," Heem reminded him. "You were assisting us; now we assist you."

  "It is good that you are not like so many of your kind, who hate my kind without reason."

  Heem felt like needlejetting the monster's remaining limbs, but Jessica restrained him. 'He is not Slitherfear! He has played straight with us! Don't you forget that!'

  "There is honor apart from species," Heem sprayed. "I am not partial to your kind, but there is also your transferee to consider." And my own! he thought savagely at Jessica.

  "Then I will assist you," the Squam replied. "My transferee is Trant of Trammel, who has made a study of the habitats of sapients. He informs me that this cave has the aspect of a suitable breeding locale for HydrOs."

  The female HydrO reacted. "I am Geel of Gemflower. In what way is this cave proof against the ravage of winter?"

  "It is heated by the subterranean lava-flow," Trant of Trammel responded via the Squam. "Protected from exterior storms, it maintains a survivable ambience even in the depths of the eclipse. Note that fungoid growth exists here that is several seasons' culmination. Your kind, independent of light and food, can survive here—at least for the brief period of extreme cold on the surface."

  "It is true!" Geel sprayed. "By happenstance we have come upon the means to colonize this plant! We must seed it!"

  'Brother!' Jessica remarked. 'Talk about single-minded females!'

  Heem felt suddenly tight. Thus abruptly, the issue of reproduction was upon him again. "It is not a vacant region," he protested. "The Squam is here."

  "We are aware of your concern," the Squam communicated. "Squams have been known to prey on the young of your kind, though this is forbidden by the articles of compromise of Planet Impasse. I point out, however, that even were I an outlaw individual, I am largely immobile, probably incapable of catching a rolling HydrO of any size. In any event, if you notify the Competition Authority of my presence here, I will be removed, and the cave will then be secure."

  How neatly the creature had refuted his objection! Heem was forced to confront again the issue that had destroyed him before. Should he allow himself to reproduce his kind, or remain firm in his negation? If he refused again, even victory in the competition would not absolve him; but if he acceded—

  'Oh, go ahead, Heem, do it!' Jessica said.

  That was a shock. "I thought you agreed with my position!"

  'I do agree. But this is a different situation. There are no natural predators here. You can seal off this cave, and after the competition you can return to rejoin the female and raise your offspring yourself. Heem, you have a chance to do it right, this time—and in the process to make a good life for yourself if you don't win the contest. You won't have to die in the Eccentric winter!'

  This was a new flavor. She was correct. He could alleviate his major objection to the HydrO mode of reproduction, and exonerate his treason—without sacrificing his chance in the competition. Still, he hesitated. "You cannot survive, if—"

  'This makes no difference to my survival, Heem! If you win the competition, I live; if you lose, I die. The only thing you can safeguard is your own survival and status.'

  "If anything happened, and I could not return—"

  'Geel of Gemflower will still be here, won't she? Her tractor is stuck on the wrong side of the bubble; she can't cross, and probably doesn't have enough fuel to make it back to the spacefield. She has to stay—and what mother wouldn't?'

  "My mother wouldn't!" Heem needled. "Neither parent remained in Highfalls—or in Morningmist. Adult HydrOs do not remain where they seed; they leave it empty, letting the offspring suffer without protection, without information. Geel will depart with the Competition Authority when it comes to pick up Trant of Trammel and his Squam host."

  'Well, maybe so, for her. But this time it will still be different—because you'll be in charge, Heem.'

  Something was still bothering him. "You—how can you, a female in my mind, that I supposed was interested in—how can you favor—?" His thought became inchoate.

  'What do you think I am—a jealous bitch? Don't answer that! You want the truth, you deserve the truth. I am jealous—but I am also mighty curious about exactly how the HydrOs reproduce. I can't learn it from your mind, because you honestly don't know all of it. I want to know, because—' Here she paused, and a flavor of defiant shame washed through them. 'Because I might want to do it myself, someday, if there were ever opportunity. I know that will never be, so it is academic, a pipe dream, but if I admit that, I'm really admitting that I'm not going to survive. Hell, Heem, maybe I just want a surrogate experience. It might be better than nothing, which is what I face otherwise. Or maybe I want to see what it's like from the male view, watching you. I've had to fake the male view for so long, I—I don't claim my motives are all pure and innocent and uncomplicated. Maybe I am a voyeur at heart. Anyway, I really think you should do it—then get on with the competition. Because I'm not forgetting for a moment that I'll never get home unless you win!'

  Yet Heem could not come to a decision. Something still bothered him about this. "We must inspect the cave," he sprayed externally. "It may prove to be less suitable than anticipated." The cave—or the situation?

  He and Geel rolled around the cave. It was large, with many bypasses and alternate chambers, but there seemed to be no exits not blocked by hot lava rivulets except the one the tractor had made. The cold would undoubtedly enter that hole, in winter, but there seemed to be a number of alcoves beside hot lava that would remain warm regardless. There would need to be a constant source of hydrogen, and the hole would provide that; frozen gases would enter and evaporate and suffuse the passages. Fungus grew profusely in many places, and there were no predatory creatures. Then, in the spring, the great outdoors would come to life, an entire world open to the emerging juvenile HydrOs. It was, by HydrO definition, ideal.

  'So what's bothering you?' Jessica demanded. 'Still shy about letting me snoop on your act of procreation?'

  "Perhaps," he admitted.

  'Well, do it anyway. You can't let foolish foibles restrain you.'

  Then he had it. "They will all be of one gender. Where will any of them find mates?"

  'The first visiting HydrO of the right gender from Impasse will take care of that—if there is a suitable place,' she pointed out. 'If not, then it hardly matters; HydrOs don't reproduce unless the locale exists.'

  Heem tasted no alternative. Urged from without and within by these two females, and pushed by his own nature, which did indeed feel the imperative to seed so suitable a place, he had to do it. Yet he did not like being trapped by circumstance. "If ever there is occasion for me to needle one of your fundamental shames—" Heem thought viciously at Jessica.

  'When that time comes, I'll take my medicine like a good girl. But it won't. You'd have to catch me in human guise and rip my clothes off in public while everyone laughed, just as in my nightmare, and there's reall
y no way, let's face it. Now you stop stalling and do what has to be done.'

  She was baiting him, and they both knew it. Still, there was a bitter taste of wrongness in Heem. He feared some catastrophe, yet could not define it.

  Gradually, as he explored the caves, Jessica's logic prevailed. His objections to his species' mode of reproduction had been alleviated. If he failed to win the competition, he could still return here, secure from his own kind, and attend to the growing offspring. He could warn them about the coming whiter, if they did not know, so that none would be caught outside. He could alert them to the threat of Squams, and instruct them how best to defend themselves.

  'And if you lose the competition, I will remain with you until my aura fades,' Jessica reminded him. 'I will help you raise your juveniles.'

  And how could he tell her no? If he sent her back to her own body, he would be prisoner, and not be able to return to his litter. The trap was inevitably closing.

  They returned to the tractor, where the Squam waited. "You were correct, Squam," Geel sprayed. "This region must be seeded; it will preserve our litter through the winter, and in spring they can spread again across the planet."

  "Only be sure that you have me removed," the Squam replied. "Then you need have no concern about the natural menaces."

  Smart Squam! He no longer had to take the assistance of the HydrOs on faith; he knew they would see to his rescue. Was that the real reason he had identified this ideal habitat?

  Heem found himself at the point of decision—and found that it had already passed. He was ready to seed this cave. This readiness was a phenomenal relief to him. It had not been easy or comfortable to oppose the tradition and urge of his culture and kind.

  Geel of Gemflower rolled close to him, spraying out her copulative flavor. It was not as enticing as that of Moon of Morningmist, but it was quite adequate to the occasion. 'So that's what females do to males,' Jessica remarked. 'I always thought of the sexual come-on as a game, but the game is much more serious from the male view.'

  Heem ignored her. He responded to the overture by jetting a more intense taste at Geel. She caught that taste and sprayed it back to him, modified to signal receptivity. No conscious decisions were required; nature was well familiar with the mechanism.

  'Why, it's beautiful!' Jessica said. 'The dialogue of complete commitment.'

  Abruptly, involuntarily, Heem needled Geel with his signature: the precise taste of his being, from which his individuality could be reproduced. In casual copulation this signature was always withheld by the male, or rejected by the female. Geel accepted it, merging it with her own essence throughout her body.

  'This is just like human reproduction. The male essence joining the female essence in the body of the female, sperm meeting egg, fertilizing it—'

  Geel exploded. Fragments of her splattered the tractor, the floor, the cave roof, and flew far down the main passage. Several struck the Squam and Heem himself. Nothing of her original body remained.

  The Squam was astonished. "She is destroyed!"

  'What happened?' Jessica demanded, horrified.

  For an instant Heem thought some other Squam had come upon them with a weapon. But there was no such intrusion. Numbly, he understood. "The parts of the female—become the seeding. That is why no female HydrO remains to care for her offspring. And the male—must become part of civilization. That is why there are more adult male HydrOs than females. Neither can remain—lest they betray the truth to the new generation, and add yet one more horror to the process."

  "I regret I did not know," the Squam communicated, still going through the unit on Geel's tractor. "I lacked intent to destroy the female. Perhaps my transferee knew—yet we operate under truce."

  "None of us knew," Heem sprayed. "Certainly Geel did not." Yet had he, Heem, suspected? That bitter taste that had restrained him before—had that been it?

  'Heem, I'm sorry,' Jessica said, and her emotion was strong and real. 'It's my fault. I meddled when I shouldn't have, pushing you into it.'

  "You did not know, because I did not know," he jetted, trying to reassure her. But it was a weak effort, in the roll of this disastrous revelation. Geel's transferee had perished too, unknowingly. All the horror he had felt before had been restored to him. This time the Solarian and the Squam shared the guilt.

  'Now we know that your sibling Hiim was dead,' Jessica said in a feminine irrelevance. 'Because Meen of Morningmist would have mated, had she found him—and she survived to become an adult. You saved her life, at least, Heem.'

  Yet this locale had been seeded, in the fashion of his kind. Heem now understood another reason for metamorphosis: to erase the knowledge of what was entailed in seeding from the memory of the male, so that the species would innocently continue to propagate itself. Since it was always done in the absence of other HydrOs, and only the male survived, the secret was thus fairly safe.

  He no longer felt the urge to return here to educate his offspring, who were now picking themselves from their falls and making their first uncertain rolls. He would help as many as possible to get down from the ceiling safely and from any crevices in which they had lodged, and set them rolling in the safest section of the cave, but after that it was up to them. What could he teach them, that they would want to know? Let them grow in innocence.

  'In innocence,' Jessica repeated. She was crying.

  Chapter 7:

  Nether Trio

  They managed to transfer surplus fuel from the two other tractors to Heem's machine, and proceeded at wasteful velocity to the depot. Heem reported the location and plight of the Squam, and received assurance that the creature would be salvaged. Then they moved across more lava-bridges and on up the mountain, following the trail.

  They came to the place where the cutoff could be made to the better trail. But the map had been deceptive: it was a steep bank. It would be possible for the tractor to slide down it, but the risk of disaster was great, and no travel in the opposite direction was possible. No one could cross to this path.

  'I'm suspicious,' Jessica said. 'Why should they make it possible to get off this bad trail, but not to get on it?'

  "Because others might realize, late, the significance of the elevation. No one who has not selected this trail at the outset can achieve its benefit."

  Which meant there would be little competition here. There might be three tractors ahead of them, no more, and none coming from behind. But this could be deceptive, for the real competition could be on the four other paths.

  They climbed. By the time they reached the top, their fuel was low. Heem had sacrificed time in favor of fuel, adding to the reserve he had built up before, but not much of that remained. He hoped he had more fuel now than the tractor ahead of him. He wanted very badly to pass the bridge-sabotaging Erb.

  The downward slope of the hill enabled him to turn off the motor and coast for fair stretches, conserving more fuel. Now this choice of routes was paying off. They had to be gaining on the tractors on the other trails, and he hoped also on the three ahead of him on this trail. Any traffic blockages occurring elsewhere were to his advantage. But he had lost time in the cavern-dome; was his present progress enough?

  They glided up to a stalled tractor. 'Out of fuel!' Jessica exclaimed. 'Stopped by that little ridge ahead. It's working, Heem; we're outlasting the others!'

  So it seemed. Heem caught the taste of Erb: the other driver. The one who had bypassed him, and set the trap of the bridge.

  'Leave him alone!' Jessica warned. 'He's out of the race, harmless to you now; just let him stew. Don't risk your own tractor by trying to ram him.' She had caught Heem's thought, and somewhat guiltily he agreed to pass on by. That should be satisfaction enough. After all, this Erb had showed him that these creatures could be dangerous too; he had taken Erbs too lightly before.

  But as they approached, the other tractor came to life and lurched into their path. Heem swerved, but so did the other. Jessica screamed as the two collided, sides
wiping each other.

  Suddenly angry, Heem accelerated his tractor, drawing on his skill in piloting. He shoved the other vehicle back. 'Now don't get male impetuous!' Jessica cried uselessly.

  But the Erb was skilled too, and was not thrown out of control. Now they were racing down the slope under power, side by side, the path barely wide enough.

  'But why is the Erb doing this?' Jessica demanded plaintively.

  "He thinks to prevail by destroying all who follow him."

  'But that's crazy! He needs to gain on those ahead of him.'

  "Erbs are a crazy species. Vegetable synapses are not the best." Heem was too occupied by his driving to argue the point with more precision. "We must disengage before we both are destroyed; this is wasting precious fuel. But the pattern of tastes ahead is unclear."

  "I'll help! This is a slope—feed that pattern to me, for visual adaptation—that's right! I can see it now. The path curves ahead; there's a sidewise slope to it that reverses—'

  "I see," Heem agreed. He accelerated again as they approached the first tilt, shoving the other tractor, then braked suddenly as the Erb shoved back. The shove and reversing tilt caused the other tractor to cut in front of Heem momentarily. Then Heem banged its rear, forcing it into the vegetation at high speed.

  The Erb plowed into the ferns, lost momentum, and stalled. "He will not get out of that soon," Heem sprayed with satisfaction. "He will waste much fuel. I'm sorry I did not overturn him."

  'Me too,' Jessica agreed. 'We tried to pass him by without trouble, but he wouldn't have it that way. He's responsible for killing one of his own kind, injuring a Squam, and—' She did not rethink the seeding matter, quite; it was just a flavor-color of numbness. 'You know, Heem, I don't dislike the Squams the way you do. I mean I am more like a Squam than you, but that one at the cave seemed basically decent. I think Squams differ just as other sapients do, and there are some good ones and some bad ones. To judge the whole species by a single individual, or by the mere fact it can defeat your kind in—'