Cluster c-1

by Piers Anthony

  “Our Spheres maintain diplomatic channels,” the other replied. “We were advised of your coming by matter-mission capsule, and I was summoned from the Fringe to escort you.”

  Now he contemplated his companion. He had no eyes, but his skin-surface was a radiation receptor that provided a less specific but quite adequate notion, somewhat like human peripheral vision extended into a full circle—or rather, a full sphere. He could literally see in all directions at once. He was in the presence of a female Polarian, shaped like a huge chocolate candy kiss and very nicely proportioned from little ball to great wheel. In fact, she was beautiful. “Then you know that I am Flint of Sphere Sol,” he said. “May I know you?”

  “I am Tsopi of Sphere Polaris,” she replied.

  Something clicked. “Topsy—of Outworld?”

  She glowed good-naturedly. “The same, Plint.”

  “But you should be out at the Fringe, two hundred light-years from—”

  “I claimed preemptive right. We are debt-siblings.”

  Oh, yes. She had attached some importance to that, he recalled. They had saved each other’s lives from Old Snort. Still… “And your government mattermitted you two hundred light-years to nursemaid me?”

  “It is our way,” she said. “I will see to all your needs.”

  Several trillion dollars’ worth of energy expended to bring her here—because it was their way. Yet he found he liked that. It was not just that she was the prettiest entity in the limited memory of his host-body; it was also that he knew her from his human experience, and respected her. This was the first time he had seen a creature from both the human and the transfer views; it provided an added perspective.

  But business first. “I must deliver the secret of transfer to your government.”

  “There will be occasion for that,” she said. “We shall meet with the Big Wheel himself in a few days.” Local days, his memory informed him, were somewhat longer than those of either Outworld or Earth, but the essence was similar.

  His communication ball made a sound like a human fingernail rasping across slate. (He noted peripherally that the little talk-ball was termed a ball, while the ambulation-ball was called a wheel, though both were spherical. And the tentacle-appendage was a male trunk, or a female tail.) “A few days! Topsy, this is urgent!”

  “There will be occasion,” she repeated, like a nurse calming a distraught patient.

  Flint let it drop for the moment. Tsopi knew him, and shared a bond with him that was evidently important to her. Was she trying to tell him something? After the mannered intrigues of System Capella, he was not surprised to find complications here in Sphere Polaris, but he was disappointed.

  She showed him the way through the building. It reminded him strongly of its counterpart at Earth-Prime, with its broad halls, high ceilings, forced-circulation air and lack of growing things. What was there about civilization that made it so restrictive? Yet his host-mind informed him that this was natural to Polarians, even pleasant; individuals of this species, like native Earthians, liked to be massively enclosed by their architecture.

  How did no-handed creatures manage to build such edifices? Again his memory provided the answer: Polarians were adept at circular manipulation of objects and concepts. They did not carry building blocks into place, they rolled building spheres into place. Where men laid bricks, Polarians rolled stones. Where men hammered nails, Polarians squeezed glue. The end result was rather similar, as though civilization shaped itself into certain configurations regardless of the sapient species invoking it. Here there were no square skyscrapers, but domed dunes serving the same purpose.

  They passed down a smooth ramp, where on Earth there would have been stairs. Of course; ramps were better for wheels, stairs for legs. Ramps were everywhere, contributing to the fluidity of the architectural design.

  They had to roll single file, for efficient progress through the throng. Tsopi’s trail just ahead of him was sweet; she had a tantalizingly feminine taste.

  Taste? Flint concentrated, and it came: Polarians laid down taste trails with their wheels, much as humans laid down scent. No, more than that: These were actual, conscious signatures of passage, like the trails of Earthly snails. He remembered the first snail he had seen, beside the huge water of the ocean inlet, under the odd blue sky of Earth. Today he didn’t even notice the color of the sky of a given planet; sky was sky color, right for its world. But this taste; every Polarian was really a super-bloodhound, sniffing out every other, all the time. It was the natural way. In fact, it was already difficult to imagine how it could be otherwise.

  “These are our power generators,” Tsopi murmured against his hide, flinging back her tail in a very fetching way. This mode of communication was pleasantly ultimate: touch and speech together. In fact, Polarians were a togetherness species, expecting and requiring closer camaraderie than the creatures of Sphere Sol. “Orbiting micro-satellites reflect half the sunlight passing near our planet into our generators, and that fuels our matter transport system. Our remaining energy needs are met by—”

  “The center of power,” Flint said, rolling his own ball on her surface. My, this was fun! “The highest Minister, Regent, ruler—”

  “Big Wheel,” she supplied. “He’s really more of a coordinator, a converger of spirals. We don’t have your sort of—”

  “Whatever you call him: the one to whom I should report. He’s in this vicinity?”

  “Yes, the Wheel is here. But there is no—”

  “I’m sorry if I affront your sensitivities,” Flint said. “I like your company a lot, and do want to learn about your Sphere. But my mission is of galactic importance. Business before pleasure.” And he broke away from her, dodging into the nearest crosshall.

  “You do not understand,” she buzzed against the floor, dodging after him. “With us, there is no separation between—first there must be—”

  But Flint, in any body, was adept at pursuit and eluding. He accelerated, getting the feel of his wheel—and it was a good wheel, even though it was spherical. Tsopi could outspeed his human body on level ground, but his mind in a healthy Polarian body was too much for her. He zipped around another corner, shot across the ramp, and damped out his scent amidst a welter of tastes on a well-used trail. In moments he had lost her, as surely as he had lost his pursuers on Luna, back three worlds ago.

  Yet he had not, in the end, been able to escape his fate, there on Earth’s huge barren moon. He had carried his destiny within himself. Poor parallel, though; now he was not running from, but rolling to his mission.

  He paused to reflect, working out his rationale after the fact. Flint trusted his primitive instincts, but his mind refused to give them complete play without comprehending them. There were civilized aspects to his mind, like them or not, and he had to give them their turn. Why had he needed to free himself of so helpful and lovely a creature as Tsopi? Especially since he had known her back home on Planet Outworld and chased a dinosaur with her. Rather, had been chased with her; nobody chased Old Snort!

  Because she was threatening to interfere with the performance of his mission, yes. Perhaps not intentionally. But it would be very easy to become romantically distracted by her, because she was not only sweet to the taste, she was genuinely nice. He did not want to sully his memory of Honeybloom by chasing after the first pretty tail he met. Yet he should have been able to persuade her of his mission’s importance, had he really tried. So that was not the whole reason. He had to dig deeper.

  And it came: Tsopi knew too much about him. That made her dangerous, however well-meaning she might be. Until he confronted the authorities of this Sphere, he was vulnerable; if anything happened to him, Polaris would be lost to the galactic coalition. Sol had now tried other agents, sending them to other Spheres such as huge Sador, and they had not returned. Remembering his misadventures in Canopus and Spica Spheres, Flint could understand why failure would be common. Only Flint himself had been able to negotiate the intricacies of t
ransfer to alien bodies and cultures and return to Sol. He had succeeded twice, as much by luck as by skill, and this one promised to be his easiest mission yet—but he could take nothing for granted. He could not afford the risk of delay, however attractive it might seem at the moment.

  Yet even this was not the whole problem. Every time he scraped to the bottom of his apprehension, he found a deeper level. Was Tsopi a well-meaning innocent—or was she in fact an active anticoalition agent, either native or possessed by alien transfer? She did not have a potent Kirlian aura—but he could not assume that the Polarian-body perceptions could pick this up, or that it was impossible to conceal such an aura. If she were possessed, could she really be ¢le of A[th], or Llyana the Undulant of Spica—the persona that had animated them? Even the least-threatening situation could have its complications. Perhaps it was his slightly paranoid suspicions that had enabled him to survive while others perished. If Tsopi were actually a transferee, she was extremely dangerous. Of course the chance of her being possessed by that malignant yet intriguing alien-Sphere entity who had tried to kill him before seemed remote, as he had anchored that female to the host-body for some time to come, but much could have happened, such as the accidental death of the infant, freeing the mother. Or a similar entity could have taken over. They knew how to locate him; the question was, how badly did they want him?

  Yet Tsopi had been here before him. Unless the spies had access to Sphere Sol information, that virtually eliminated possession. They could not trace his transfer before he transferred! Nevertheless it was a risk, for no one had told him he would be expected in Sphere Polaris. Of course it could be an administrative foulup; they happened often enough. It would be just like Earth’s Council of Ministers to have forgotten to inform him, the most critical party, of their plans for him. Or maybe the Polarians had such a good intelligence network that they had tapped in on Sol’s secret and acted on it. If it turned out Tsopi were innocent, he would apologize to her most handsomely—after the Big Wheel had the technology of transfer.

  Meanwhile, he was lost and alone—as usual. It didn’t bother him. He could best proceed on his own.

  Exactly where would the Big Wheel be? Since Tsopi would undoubtedly raise the hue and cry for him—or whatever rolling equivalent Polarians had—he had to act fast. Somewhere in his host-memories would be the information he needed, but he had already expended too much time exploring his own motives and could not take time to sift tediously through the host-library now. What he really needed was time; his prior missions had taught him to avoid acting precipitously. At the same time he had to complete his mission immediately—a paradox.

  He crossed a scent-trail that offered a safe temporary haven for troubled entities. It was a priestly taste, consciously laid down—perhaps a Polarian monk. Since Flint dared act neither slowly nor ignorantly, perhaps this would help. He wheeled to follow the trail.

  With this guidance, it took only moments to thread the network of ramps and locate the sanctuary.

  At its portal he paused, for suddenly the taste gave warning. It was the flavor of a foolish young creature, ambitious and intelligent but about to roll off a precipice. Associated with it were the burning of fire, the fluidity of water, the rarefaction of air, and the solidity of ground. The overall suggestion of the taste was not merely haven, but knowledge—more than the average intellect might crave.

  But no danger per se. Flint did not fear knowledge; on the contrary, he craved it He rolled across the threshold.

  And the ramp collapsed. He dropped sickeningly into darkness—Polarians being every bit as vulnerable to a fall as Solarians—and flung out his trunk to catch any available support. But there was none.

  Then his wheel touched something. It was a wall, or a steeply inclined plane. Too steep to travel on. But to prevent himself from scraping, he spun his wheel against it, letting it guide him down. This might not make much sense if he were about to crash, but it was a largely automatic reflex. Polarians preferred to die with their wheels turning.

  The slant changed; the wall was angling into a surface he could almost grip. It was tasteless; no one could have passed this way recently. Now it was a steep channel, actually enabling him to slow his fall somewhat.

  Gradually the channel leveled, though it remained uncomfortably barren of taste. He came to a smooth stop at the base. He had fallen a considerable distance, but was after all unharmed. Good enough; the threshold warning had been accurate. No one else was likely to follow precipitously—unless there were an alternate entrance. No—his host-memory, keyed by the dramatic fall, indicated that visitors always used this aperture. They left by another, equally single-directional, completing the circuit forcefully. It was common knowledge, available to him had he but known where in his mind to look. Which was why he did not want to act before exploring that mind. The next pitfall might not be as safe.

  Sometime he’d have to find a way around that initial informational block. It was like learning all the rules of a complex new game at once, or trying to chew too big a nut so that his mouth wouldn’t close or gain purchase. Though he now had no mouth. If there were a shorthand, an instant keying system—but if there were, Llyana the Undulant surely would have used it to avoid the romantic trap he had sprung on her. Maybe this problem had helped him more than it hindered him.

  But now he had arrived—somewhere. His host-memory could not help him, for the host had never actually been inside a Tarotist temple. Not that it was any great secret; it was just one of those experiences, like dropping into a deep hole, or sleeping in a haunted cave, that hadn’t seemed necessary.

  Tarotism—there, inadvertently delivered, was the name. It was the cult, a system of beliefs he had heard mentioned in passing back on Earth. Its prime tenet was supposed to be that all concepts of divinity were legitimate. The concept translated into taste—yet unmistakable because of the symbol at the door. The first key of the pack, the Fool. He should have made the connection before, for that had been a human memory. What use to delve into the confused recesses of his host’s brain, when he was neglecting his own?

  And what in the galaxy was Tarotism doing here? A human religion among the Polarians? There had hardly been that much contact, not between the Sphere centers. Humans and Polarians merged amicably on Etamin’s planet Outworld, Flint’s home at the fringe of each of their Spheres—but Tarotism had not yet reached that world. So how—?

  A dark Polarian stood before him. Flint had not been aware of the entity’s approach. More likely he had been there from the start, and only now showed himself in the brightening light. That was a thing Flint missed: the acute, direct binocular vision of the human eyes, eyes difficult to fool. The Polarian light awareness was serviceable in most instances, but useless for fine definition in a crisis. This body was taste-oriented; sight, touch, and hearing were secondary.

  “I am the Hierophant,” the entity said. “What is your Significator?”

  Flint applied his ball to his own skin. His host-memory was blank; no help there. “I do not understand.”

  “This is the Temple of Comprehension,” the Hierophant replied. “Do you wish your nuclear identity to be open or hidden?”

  “Hidden,” Flint said. He was not about to betray his origin and mission to this priest.

  “Then we shall ask the Arcana to select your Significator—that symbol of yourself. Actually it is you who make the selection, random though it seems; your Kirlian aura will not be comfortable with any but the appropriate representation.”

  Kirlian aura! How much did the Hierophant know?

  “I know little; the sacred books know much,” the Hierophant answered. “Do not be alarmed; we mean you no ill, and shall not detain or importune you. We seek only to provide the aid you came for.”

  “I came for solitude, a chance to explore my mind,” Flint said. That much was safe enough to say.

  “Precisely. Now if you will shuffle the Tarot symbols…”

  How did a no-handed creature sh
uffle anything? But now Flint’s host-memory provided the answer, for this related to an everyday problem of manipulation. He used his trunk to work the control of the mechanical shuffler on a pedestal beside him. This was no random effort; by expert twitches of his ball he made the printed cards in the lighted chamber riff through each other again and again, until they were hopelessly mixed. Then he picked one randomly by touching another surface; the card flipped out of the pack to present itself for identification.

  He ran his ball over it. It portrayed a lone Polarian whose trunk reached out to hold a lamp, whose source of light was a bright star. A simple figure, on the surface—yet as a parallel symbol there was a single swimming sperm cell.

  Flint’s mission was to bring secret information to foreign Spheres—news that would transform them, enabling them to expand their influence enormously, and to merge into a single galactic coalition. He was a tiny sperm cell coming to the huge egg of each Sphere to fertilize it in unique fashion. His knowledge was the illumination of a star—faint in the distance, yet of tremendous significance. How well the Tarot had chosen!

  “You are the Hermit—the ninth key,” the Hierophant said. “Alone, concealed, not what you seem, bringer of light. You say, ‘Where I am, you may also be.’ Though you walk in seeming isolation, your light shows the way for the multitude.”

  How much did this bastard know? (Though there was no concept of bastardy in the Polarian intellect; that was a purely human derogation.)

  “Please do not insult the Temple by your suspicion,” the Hierophant said. “We respect your privacy, and we are politically and socially neutral. The Temple of Tarot transcends matters of mundane import. If the key seems apt, it is because you have chosen it so, not we.”

  “Sorry,” Flint said. “It is apt.”

  “Hermit, we shall now accede to your will,” the Hierophant continued. “You may have a private cell for meditation, or a reading of the Arcana to facilitate your thought.”