Thousandstar

  The Erb, like the Squam, reacted angrily, trying to get out of the shadow. Heem maneuvered to keep it shaded. Erbs, more than most creatures, were extremely sensitive to radiation, as it was their main source of body energy. Heem had counted on that. The longer he shaded E-38, the more irritated the Erb would become.

  'Now there's all kinds of things wrong with that!' Jessica protested. 'First, why upset the Erb when you can't gain anything for yourself? All you can do is invite retribution that will cost you both energy. Second, the light-energy involved is small, and the Erb knows that. The Erb can see, after all, just as I can in my own body; it knows exactly how much light is worth. It won't do anything foolish just because you shade it.'

  "We shall taste," Heem jetted, feeling the thrill of incipient challenge.

  'All right. I'll watch. But I don't see what you hope to accomplish.'

  E-38 suddenly veered, trying to leap out of the shadow. In the process it moved into the path of a HydrO ship just overtaking it. The HydrO ship veered. "Get your mass out of my way, E-Thirty-eight," the HydrO sprayed.

  The ships were so congested here that the erratic motions of the two were now interfering with several others. "Keep a straight course, fools!" S-47 sprayed.

  'Do Squams spray too?' Jessica asked. 'I thought you said they used sound.'

  "They do. The three-species communication grid renders their barbaric noise into intelligible taste. The same is true for the radiation emitted by the Erbs. HydrO taste is changed into their noise and radiation in their ships, too. No doubt the tractors on the surface of Eccentric will have a similar system."

  She subsided, and he concentrated on the race. The disruption he had started had spread along a fair segment of the column. Ships were jerking in and out, and there was a medley of three-species cursing on the taste net. Heem remained safely out of it.

  Suddenly he angled in just ahead of the melee, boosting his acceleration. "Look what I did to you, you idiot pilots!" he sprayed into space. "Not one of you has the wit to run a true course!"

  'What are you doing!' Jessica cried, horrified. 'You're stirring up a hornets' nest! They'll group against you an wipe you out!'

  "That's HydrO-Sixty-six," a Squam exclaimed. "He started this!"

  There was a smear of responses. Soon a minor fleet of irate ships came after Heem.

  Heem positioned himself in the center of the buoyed channel. "You imposters can't even catch me! What do you think you're trying to do? Turn about and go home before you get lost in space!"

  'This is absolutely crazy!' Jessica cried. They'll kill us!'

  "Lost in space!" a HydrO sprayed indignantly. "We'll lose you in space, foulspray!"

  'They have nothing to lose,' Jessica said. 'They know they're too far back to win. They need a scapegoat. They'll use up their fuel going after you, instead!'

  "So they will," Heem agreed. "I did advise you that you would not enjoy this aspect of the race."

  'You sure did,' she agreed glumly.

  A Squam ship shot out of the pack, accelerating at several gravities to catch Heem. But as it came near, Heem angled his drive-jet to give it an unhealthy taste of exhaust. "Eat that, fool!" he sprayed.

  "A foul! A foul!" another Squam cried as the first Squam lost power and fell back through the column. "Did you perceive that? H-Sixty-six deliberately exhausted that ship!"

  "What?" Heem inquired with mock innocence. "I merely adjusted course to avoid collision. Nothing other than that can be proved."

  'Ooooh!' Jessica cried, half angry, half applauding.

  "This is foul!" the Squam exclaimed.

  "Squams are foul!" Heem sprayed. "What else except the foulest would eat animal tissue and excrete compost?"

  'A Solarian would!' Jessica objected.

  "H-Sixty-six has a good roll on that," a HydrO sprayed. "Squams are basically disgusting."

  "Look who's squirting!" another Squam retorted. "Any creature who slimes continuously and rolls about like a loose rock—"

  "The truth is obvious," an Erb glinted. "Both Squams and HydrOs are disgusting."

  "Especially incompetent ones like all of you," Heem sprayed.

  "First we must dispatch this troubler," S-52 said. "Then we can debate esthetics."

  "You could not dispatch a dead plant, Squam!" Heem sprayed.

  'Why do you keep antagonizing them?' Jessica demanded. 'Do you have a death wish? You're starting a race riot!'

  "Angry creatures are not sensible creatures," Heem explained.

  'That is my point! They will destroy us!'

  Two more ships shot out of the mass at high acceleration. They drew up parallel to Heem, then angled across. They were S-44 and E-49. "We'll knock you out of space, H-Sixty-six!" the Squam cried.

  Heem juggled his ship precisely. The two attackers missed, closed on each other, and rebounded apart, out of control.

  'What happened?' Jessica demanded. 'They didn't crash, they didn't foul up on their own exhausts; they bounced apart without touching!'

  "Each ship has a repulser shield to ward off meteorites and prevent collisions. This is necessary and standard with narrow-channel interplanetary traffic. None of these ships will crash into each other."

  She sighed. 'These little details you assume I already know! But they—something happened to them, more than just bouncing.'

  "The repulsers can be harsh, especially when the effect is unanticipated. Those two pilots are probably unconscious."

  'So you knocked out two more rivals who were already behind us! What does it gain you?'

  "The pattern will emerge." Heem turned his attention to the other ships again. "Real amateurs!" he sprayed derisively. "Unfit to clutter space."

  There was a confusion of tastes, sounds, and glints on the communication net. Then six ships were accelerating rapidly toward Heem's ship. "Close him in," S-51 directed. "Do not let him escape again!"

  'Now you've done it!' Jessica said. 'You are positively suicidal! Just like a male!'

  "A number of these competitors are female," Heem remarked. He noted the ominous convergence of ships, but did not attempt evasive action.

  "You want to accelerate?" the Squam demanded. "We shall provide you acceleration!" The six ships formed a tight ring around Heem's ship, battering him with their massed repulser fields.

  'What are they doing?' Jessica cried, alarmed.

  "They're giving us a ride."

  'A ride? That doesn't make sense!"

  The six ships jumped their acceleration. Heem's ship, shoved violently by the repulsers, leaped forward, pinned within their cone. The acceleration climbed to three g, then four g, then five g.

  The other ships of the column got hastily out of the way and fell behind.

  Then the ring of ships contracted. The pressure became intense. 'They're crushing us to death!' Jessica cried.

  "That is the intent," Heem responded. "They are using the positioned repulsers to compact us, to put us under such pressure that we can not resist what they will do next."

  'Do next? There's worse coming?'

  "They will hurl us out of the column, into the Star or the Hole. With luck, we will not recover in time to jet out of that well—or if we do, we will lack sufficient fuel to make it safely to planetfall. In any event, we will be out of the race."

  'Can't we do anything?'

  "Have no concern. I flavored the text on space maneuvers."

  'You flavored—oh, you mean you wrote the book on dirty tactics! Well, I certainly hope you know what you're doing. All I can see is that your insults are getting us further behind and deeper into trouble.'

  Heem jetted a complex pattern on the button controls. Water swished into the compartment.

  'But this is the acceleration protection!' Jessica cried. 'For takeoff and landing, when you have to withstand up to ten gravities—' She broke off her thought, reconsidering. 'Oh—to withstand the repulser pressure. How clever. But then you can't maneuver the ship; it's on automatic.'

  "I
have just preprogrammed the ship to cut the main drive and stabilize with the side jets after acceleration. After that it will return to pilot-control phase."

  'But that won't stop them from hurling us out of the channel!'

  "Their operation is based on the assumption that I will maintain normal acceleration, or raise it up several gravities in a vain attempt to escape them. The reactions of a pilotless, driveless ship are quite different."

  'Quite helpless, it seems to me!'

  The pressure exerted by the six ships continued, but now Heem hardly felt it. The fluid of the ship held him cushioned. The drive cut off abruptly, releasing his body from gravity. There was a jolt as the six ships took up the slack, shoving his ship forward with the same acceleration.

  'What's happening?' Jessica demanded. 'I was just beginning to see, but now there is no input. Just the blank-ness of suspension.'

  "They are boosting us forward at about three gravities," Heem explained, basing his judgment on experience as he felt the diminished impact of the thrust. "They aren't skilled enough to coordinate the package for a turn, so they're trusting to random imbalances in thrust to cause us to veer out of the channel. But my ship is stable and precisely on course, so we are progressing due forward. They think that my cutting off the main thrust means that I have lost control; now they are shoving a derelict."

  'Aren't they?'

  The extreme impetus continued for some time, then ceased with a jerk. "Now they have turned us loose. They are probably almost out of fuel themselves; pushing a spaceship is immensely wasteful." The liquid drained, freeing him for action. Heem activated the space-taste. "Taste where we are now!" he jetted jubilantly, picking up the pattern of blips.

  Jessica looked. 'We're halfway up the line!'

  Heem cut in the main jet. "And we have saved a fair margin of fuel. We can now accelerate at a slightly greater rate without exhausting our available supply."

  'But that means those six ships really helped us, while using up their own reserves!'

  "As I jetted before: they are fools. Had they boosted one of their own number similarly, they could have vaulted him back into contention. But they allowed my impertinence to befuddle their rational processes."

  'They certainly did! Imagine allowing the quest for short-term vengeance to ruin your own chances! I would not have believed it possible.' She paused. 'No, it is possible. My own people are like that. Through history deeds are done that should not be, in the name of vengeance, while positive and necessary things are left undone. Billions for defense and not one cent for improvement. But it's still a ridiculous way to operate!'

  Heem found he agreed intellectually, but not emotionally. He had been motivated to avenge what Slitherfear Squam had done, and this had profoundly influenced his entire life. He could not claim this was wrong; there needed to be justice, and without retribution there would be no justice.

  'Oh, I don't agree with that!' Jessica protested.

  "You hardly need to." Heem angled back into the line so that his blip would not be so obvious to the others. There had been no reaction from the six ships who had boosted him; they had realized that they had been outmaneuvered the moment his main jet came back on, and they were not eager to advertise the manner in which they had been fooled.

  Heem, accelerating at a steady 1.1 g, was passing ships steadily now. Here in the midsection of the column they were strung out more evenly, and less given to direct rivalries. In short, they were more intelligent, disciplined competitors, which was one reason they were here, making a fair roll for it.

  It was a long, steady movement. Heem, tired, slept. Jessica, deprived of Heem's sensory input, slept also.

  Heem, like most sapients, dreamed. Dreaming was a kind of sifting and tagging of recent experiences, identifying the important ones in key respects so they could be cross-referenced and filed safely in memory. Often Heem's dreams were unpleasant, for his life had not been generally satisfactory to him. Quite a number of his dreams were of the illegal variety. This time, however, his sleep imaginings were strange and pleasant.

  He found himself riding a docile flatfloater, one that obeyed his every needlejet without quarrel. But he did not needle it; he let it take its initiative. Together they sailed over slopes and ridges, slid down into a river valley, and across the river. The scenery was delicious, with the vegetation spraying gentle wafts of delicate flavor in waves. He was back in his juvenile phase, happy, careless of the future. His juvenile siblings were with him, here in the valley of Highfalls.

  "Make it go faster, Jess!" his companion jetted.

  "It's already at its cruising velocity, Jess. It can't safely accelerate."

  "Cruising velocity? Dragons have no cruising velocity! They just accelerate till they can't go any faster!"

  "Well, that's how fast I want to go, clone-brother!"

  Clone-brother? This is not my dream! Heem needled internally. But he did not wake. His dream shifted into another reality. He was rolling desperately toward freedom in the recurrent nightmare reenactment of his escape from captivity. Yet the deepest element of that experience was not the physical escape, for that had succeeded. It was the emotional escape that had failed.

  He rolled up to a safecage and needled his signature-flavor into its lock. Its mechanism took a moment to absorb this. Then the lock released and the gate fell open. Heem rolled in, and his weight caused the gate to counterbalance, sliding back into position and relocking.

  Now he was safe for the night. The cage was designed to keep Squams out; Erbs of course were no threat. He could rest and sleep, letting his guard relax. Of course the lock now had his flavor, and that would alert the authorities to his location, but the flavor-credits were collected only once a day, and by the time his flavor was fed into the credit computer, he would be gone. His credit was good; it was his citizen's status that was invalid.

  Now for a good evening meal. He punched the food display, summoning a pseudosteak and sparkledrink, gray-flavored. He picked up the drink—

  Eating? In absolute shock and revulsion Heem voided all his jet-reserves. The ship, responsive to random commands resulting from this explosion, damped its main drive and veered. Suddenly he was in free-fall and fully awake.

  He reacted with experienced proficiency, quickly restoring the drive and stabilizing the ship. Then he turned inward. "Solarian, that was your dream, was it not?"

  'Yes—at the end. I'm sorry—I did not realize—'

  "It is not bad enough that your female alien presence intrudes on my mind, but to have your Squam-begotten dreams polluting my sleep—eating! You make my imagination unclean!"

  'I see that. I'm sorry. But I do not control my dreams.'

  Heem's attention was already on the column of ships. It had thinned out; now all ships were single file and well spaced. "We are rolling to the midpoint; now we shall discover how we situate."

  Translating his taste, Jessica looked at the scene. 'We slept longer than I supposed! We're halfway there already?'

  "The time sense is distorted under constant acceleration. We have been half a day in space, and now approach a velocity of one thirty-fifth light speed."

  'Half a day? Twelve hours?'

  "As I recall the Solarian scale, correct. If a day on your home-planet is similar to a day on mine—"

  'I—I can't tell, but from your feeling about it, it feels the same. Let's assume a day is a day the Galaxy over, and go from there.'

  "We accelerate for half a day, and decelerate for half a day, our full course between planets being about one seventy-second of a light day."

  'I—see,' she said uncertainly. 'We accelerate to only a fraction of light speed, so it takes us much more time to travel the distance light does. I think your planets must be about as far from their primary as ours, and ours are only a few light minutes from—'

  "Your distances are irrelevant," Heem needled in impatiently. "The moment of truth is upon us."

  'But the course is only half run. You sa
id—'

  "It is not yet half rolled. There will be a period of free-fall; ships who do not utilize this will be short of fuel. But it is the point at which approximately half our fuel has been expended. We can gain on the other ships only if we have more fuel. The initial bunching and column-merging is done, and the fools have been eliminated. From this point in, only power and margin suffice."

  'Oh, yes, I see that. But we're well up in the line, now, aren't we? We don't need to win at this stage; all we have to do is finish in the top fifty.'

  "Yes. Therefore we now assess ships to determine our place. This is most accurately done at the moment of turnabout, for only then do the other ships betray their situation. They must turn on schedule."

  'Suppose they don't? I mean, suppose they coast a little longer at top speed, then brake more suddenly at the end, gaining a few places?'

  "Some will try that, especially if they are just behind the fifty-cut position. But if they cannot decelerate to landing velocity—"

  'Crash,' she said. 'That's a risky game.'

  "Extremely. Most will roll it safely, not endangering their lives for the gain of one or two places." He needled the buttons, establishing a composite flavor for the ships of the column ahead and behind. He wanted every one of them in mind, for this critical survey.

  'I see the ships!' she exclaimed. 'It's almost like having eyes now! But why are you surveying the ones behind us also? We don't have to worry about them, do we?'

  "We do not yet know who is ahead and behind," he explained. "Their present position in space is deceptive. Some have too much velocity; they will not finish."

  'Oh, I begin to understand. If they're too fast at the turnover, they can't decelerate in time to land. I mean, they might decelerate to landing velocity, but only some distance beyond the planet, which would be no good. They won't really crash, will they?'