Thousandstar

  But there were more rats charging down the hall. They were small, but there was something peculiarly horrible about that footed travel. 'The commotion has attracted the whole neighborhood of monsters,' Jessica said. 'They'll never stop coming. We've got to get out of here before they overwhelm us.'

  "They don't like water," Heem announced to the others. "They shy away from even my glancing jets. We must retreat to the sewer."

  They retreated. Heem got nipped several more times; the creatures darted in so swiftly it was hard to needle each one in time. He was sure the Erb was having a similar problem. Only the Squam was immune—which was fortunate, because the Squam could not remain long in the protective water.

  They reached the water and immersed themselves. The rats lined up at the edge, flashing their little beams, balked.

  "It seems we are secure for the moment," Sickh flashed. "But how are we to progress to our objective?"

  "You can progress," Heem jetted from that part of him that remained above the water. "They cannot penetrate your armor."

  "I may not progress alone; this was our covenant. We must free all of us—or none of us."

  'She means it,' Jessica said. There's nothing holding her here but honor.'

  "Honor in a Squam!" he sprayed, marveling.

  'It was not so funny in the lava-dome! You're still trying to judge a whole species by a single individual.'

  "We can retreat the way we came," the Erb flashed.

  "And yield our chance in the competition," Heem jetted.

  "These vermin are discouraged by water," Sickh said. "Our friend the HydrO fathomed that, most astutely. Perhaps we can make further use of this."

  "The monster is seeking to compliment me," Heem sprayed internally to Jessica. "Exactly as you had me do to the Erb."

  'And you like being on the receiving end, don't you—even from a Squam?'

  Heem made a taste-wash sigh. "Yes. I am an easy wash for female folk."

  'As I have known for some time.' But her spirit was momentarily light. 'Underneath all that gruff jetting, you're a pretty nice guy, Heem.'

  "Now you're doing it!"

  'Well, Squams of a feather...'

  "Feather?"

  "Never mind.'

  "Would it be possible to flood the passage?" Windflower inquired. "This might eliminate the vermin."

  "Excellent notion!" the Squam agreed. "Yet it could be difficult to do what the eons have not done."

  "We might employ the grates we removed, buttressed by other materials, to block the main drain, forcing the water level to rise," the Erb continued. "It would be difficult, perhaps hazardous. But for me, too-long-continued confinement in darkness is also hazardous and most unpleasant."

  'I know exactly how she feels!' Jessica said.

  "There will also be a problem making the water barrier tight," the Squam agreed. "Yet the alternative—"

  "I can make it tight," Heem sprayed. "With my body, spread over a mesh."

  "With your body!" Sickh exclaimed. "We would not require such sacrifice!"

  "I intend no sacrifice," Heem needled at the translator. "The HydrO body is constructed to withstand slow pressure, and to adapt shape to need. Were a suitable framework in place, such as one of those grates, I could spread across it, sealing it, cutting off the flow of water until such time as it were advisable to release the flow."

  "How would you escape, when that time came? The pressure would hold you firm."

  "No, the HydrO body can also pass through a mesh, slowly. I have but to allow holes to open—"

  "Then you could have proceeded without us," the Erb flashed. "You did not need to have the grates removed."

  "Not so," Heem sprayed, embarrassed. "Our covenant—"

  'Yes indeed,' Jessica said smugly.

  "What I cannot do," Heem jetted, "is set the framework in place."

  "I can do that," the Squam said. "But I could not remain to anchor it as the water rose. I must have access to air."

  Strange, Heem thought, how he, who lived entirely on gas, could immerse himself indefinitely in water; while the Squam, who was only partially dependent on gas, had to have it regularly. This was worth noting, should he find himself in conflict with a Squam near water. Even a brief immersion might seriously handicap the creature.

  "I can anchor it," the Erb volunteered.

  "Then I believe we have a feasible course of action," Sickh concluded. "If we can flood this passage high enough to drive the vermin completely out, we may be able to traverse it before they return. If we then cannot win through to the surface near the site, we shall have to retreat to the tractor and await assistance by the Competition Authority, for we will be out of the race."

  Heem moved down inside the main conduit, exploring by touch and taste. They were in luck; the tube narrowed shortly below their crossing. There seemed to be a huge old valve, half buried by sediment, whose operation was beyond their power, but whose constriction provided a certain lodging site for their grates. He rolled back and reported.

  "Two grates are sufficient?" the Squam inquired.

  "One grate will cover it," Heem assured her. "But there are holes in the grates Windflower removed, where her drill lodged. Better to use both grates, overlapping, to cancel out the holes and make it more secure. They will have to be held in place until pressure builds behind them."

  "And when that occurs, pressure will diminish in front of them," Sickh said. "There will be air there, perhaps."

  "There is a pocket of air at the valve now," Heem jetted, remembering. "Trapped where the conduit bulges and narrows. It is usable; I tasted it."

  They worked out the details quickly and went to work. Windflower lifted and carried the grates slowly to the valve and leaned them beside it. Then she hauled Sickh down on the cable—actually, the Erb anchored it, and the current brought the Squam along. Sickh helped move the two grates into precise place, then fastened her pincers on them and held her air intake high so as to reach the pocket of air. Windflower set her roots firmly in the sediment below and twined her smaller upper tendrils into the grates, anchoring the metal upright. And Heem spread himself flat, forming a wide but shallow disk across the face of the grates-network, preventing the water from passing through.

  Immediately the pressure rose. There had been a fair current here, signifying a considerable flow of water. Now this water was backing up, rising in the side passages. Because the slant of those passages was slight, a small rise should advance the water considerably along those tunnels. But how far would it have to go to remove all the vermin? If it flooded in the direction of the large central hall instead, they would never get their smaller passage cleared. They had to hope that the small passage ahead was at a lower level than the one behind them. Heem thought it was.

  "It seems we must wait a time," the Squam said. "Shall we distract ourselves by conversing? If you, Heem, are able to spray from your dry side, and if you, Windflower, can angle a vane through here—"

  They managed it. The Erb poked a vane through a space between grate and curved wall, while Heem sealed over the rest. They were in physical contact with each other, but were accustomed to this now.

  "I am curious, Heem, how your kind developed space technology," Sickh remarked in what Heem presumed was a standard interspecies conversational gambit. "We had assumed, until experience with the sapients of other Stars showed otherwise, that it was necessary to possess an accurate vibration or radiation perception, and to possess well-coordinated manipulative extremities. Yet HydrOs have neither. I realize you are quite competent with spaceships, tractors, and other tools—but how were you able to construct these in the beginning?"

  "This is not obvious?" Heem sprayed, surprised.

  'Of course it's not obvious, dope!' Jessica said from within. 'We Solarians always made similar assumptions. How can you grow, hunt, gather or prepare food, for example, if you don't have—oops.'

  However, this provided Heem with the key for his reply to the Squam. "HydrOs a
re not burdened with the liabilities of food consumption or need for shelter that certain other creatures are," he sprayed delicately. "Consequently the whole of our attention may be freed for intellectual and tactical challenges. We can move objects of considerable size by pushing or rolling them, but preferred to develop machines to do such brute work for us."

  "Yet how did—" the Squam began.

  Heem found himself enjoying this. "We taste-analyzed a variety of substances, and found that some possessed traits that would serve. Jetting certain stones with certain force caused them to yield trace electrical currents we could taste—"

  'Semiconductor diodes!' Jessica exclaimed. "And certain metals conducted currents from one region to another, with particular arrangements causing this flow to change its nature, dissipating itself in heat or causing an attractive force for other substances—"

  'Wires, transformers, resistors, magnets,' Jessica continued. There you have the basis for the electric motor!'

  "And the appropriate combination of such substances and currents led to the first crude electrical machines. It really was not difficult, since we could taste the nature of each circuit and flow quite readily. Our small machines were employed to construct our larger machines, in a progression extending ultimately to space itself. It has been a matter of conjecture to us how creatures possessing no refined analytic taste, so as to be unable to comprehend the finer properties of matter, could ever achieve a similar level of technology."

  "You are marvelously lucid," Sickh said. "I grasp now that you proceeded from the molecular level to the macroscopic level—a sensible procedure. My kind went the reverse route, utilizing the principles of gross leverage and exploitation of combustible substances to fashion large, crude machines, which we then refined to smaller, more precise ones. We progressed most rapidly in sonics, but did in time achieve some competence in other technical fields."

  'As her multi-species translator attests,' Jessica remarked. 'That's a pretty neat gadget, you know, considering its small size.'

  "And we Erbs," Windflower flashed, "commenced with optics. We were aware of the stars of the universe from earliest times; indeed our constant observation of these nocturnal phenomena may have been the primary stimulus for our achievement of mobile status. We desired to explore those lights more closely, and early realized that each was as bountiful a source of life-giving light as our own near Star. We commenced with optics; from simple reflection, such as we do in ordinary communication, we progressed to laser technology, then spread our leaves to intercept the illumination of other disciplines. We were amazed to discover that sapience was possible without vision. Yet it would seem, in retrospect, that sapience can arise from virtually any form, when conditions are otherwise appropriate."

  "Even among species who are sighted, limbed, and consume food," Heem agreed.

  'I'll get you for that!' Jessica said.

  "We do seem to achieve the ultimate unity in sapience, however divergent our origins," Sickh agreed. "It is possible that not all of us will survive. In the event I do not emerge from this situation, I ask the survivors to let it be known what happened to me and my transferee, who has of course supported our effort and assumed identical risks. She is Hov of Star Salivar; her species, she regrets, somewhat resembles the vermin of this passage, physically, but she is a very pretty personality."

  "Physical substance means nothing," Windflower flashed. "There are plants that focus light indiscriminately, burning everything about them, and other plants who are constructively sapient. We are glad to know you, Hov of Salivar."

  "Appreciation, Windflower of Erb."

  "My transferee also wishes to be known," the Erb continued. "She is Wryv of Star Ffrob, a fungoid sapience."

  They exchanged polite greetings with Wryv.

  Heem's turn. "Should we inform them?" he asked Jessica.

  'Oh, go ahead! I want to be known too—at least to these friends. Spill the beans.'

  Heem was momentarily repulsed by her image of food, but proceeded. "I am the HydrO species representative," he sprayed. "My transferee is not of Thousandstar. She is Jessica of Star Sol of Segment Etamin, similar in biology to the Squam, but possessed of sight, and female."

  There was a pause. "Do I miscomprehend?" Sickh inquired at last. "I know of Segment Etamin of the barely known Far Galaxy, and vaguely of Sphere Sol in the stellar wilderness. But I had understood you to be male."

  "It is unusual, but we do have a female transferee in a male host," Heem sprayed.

  "Unusual!" the Squam cried. "This is the understatement of the—"

  "Why then," Windflower flashed. "I should not fear you. A sighted female—"

  "This is female illogic," Heem jetted. "Typical also of my transferee."

  'All right!' Jessica snapped. 'If it gives her comfort, let it be.'

  Sickh was more serious. "Does this remarkable juxtaposition account for your transition from the robust personality of Ship H-Sixty-six to the thoughtful individual who summoned assistance for one of my kind? There would seem to be the touch of the female there."

  "I was not inclined to assist your kind," Heem admitted. "She urged me to it."

  "Let her flash with us!" Windflower pleaded.

  Heem turned over the body to Jessica. If these creatures supposed he had been pretending, and thought to trap him by means of female dialogue, they would be disappointed.

  "Hello, girls," Jessica said. And they proceeded to a merry trialogue while Heem snoozed.

  He was jolted back to awareness by a question addressed directly to him. Jessica had returned the body to him. "Is the water level high enough?" the Squam inquired. "We cannot afford too much passage of time, lest others reach the site ahead of us and bring our entire effort to nothing."

  Heem tasted the water. "The flavor of the drainage indicates that a considerable expanse of formerly dry passage has been covered, and some vermin have perished. But there seem to be more remaining."

  "Let us wait a small delay longer," Sickh decided. "The vermin must all be removed."

  "Not too much longer," Windflower flashed. "I have been some time out of light, and have expended energy; I weaken."

  "And I begin, pardon the expression, to hunger," the Squam agreed. "Yet there will be inadequate time to feed. Do you suppose, then, that it is safe now to let the water ebb?"

  "Safe, no," Heem opined. "But if the vermin are sub-sapient, they may not realize when the flow reverses, and will remain clear for a time."

  "Let us gamble, then. We face a crisis of another kind if we delay too long."

  The crisis of a hungry Squam? Heem drew in his body, letting the water leak through the valve. He wanted to drain the reserve rapidly, to give the vermin less time to discover the change.

  This turned out to be no gentle flow. A fierce current manifested, tearing at their bodies. Heem tried to slow it by spreading himself again, but was unable; already the grates were being shoved sidewise, and he had to disengage quickly or be carried away himself. He flattened himself against the wall of the valve instead, half surrounding the Erb. Something clamped painfully on his flesh, giving him a taste-memory of his fight with Slitherfear on the Squam's machine-floater so long ago. He hung on as the turbulence tore at him. All their tedious labor, about to go for nothing, as they got carried down the conduit! Because of a single error of judgment on his part. 'Don't blame yourself, Heem,' Jessica said. 'Nobody anticipated this.'

  "But I am accustomed to fluid dynamics. I should have been careful!"

  'How often have you dealt with minion-year-old sewer systems? We all make mistakes, especially when we're in a hurry. Just hang on!'

  He hung on, as she put it At last the turbulence eased. The water was returning to its original level, though not to its original taste. The sediment had been swirled up and resuspended, changing the flavor. Heem also tasted the juices of dead vermin, carried along by the current. At least something had been accomplished.

  He discovered that one of Sickh's p
incers was clamped on his flesh. That was what he had felt, in the melee. The grip was painful—yet he knew it had been desperation, for otherwise the Squam would have been carried away. The Erb moved up toward the side tube. Heem started to follow—and was balked by the Squam. 'She is unconscious,' Jessica said. 'Maybe drowned. We've got to get her out of the water, Heem!'

  Heem tried. The cable was gone, and the translation unit; he could not even ask the Squam to let go—and if she did, she would be lost, for he could not carry her. He rolled forward, jetting forcefully through the water, heaving her body around and over him. The water made her light; he could do it. When she was before him, he rolled over her; no way to crush her armored body! Then another heave. This was excruciating, but he was making progress. He wrestled Sickh around the corner and up the exit tube. At last they emerged into air.

  Windflower was there, but could not see them in the dark. Her tendrils ran over them worriedly, finding the clamped pincers. Then she knew. Her drill formed, the hard point nudging into the pincers, and suddenly they spread. Heem was free.

  The Erb picked up the Squam's body with an effort of convolution, and shook it. Water dripped out of its orifices. Sickh stirred, responding weakly.

  'She's alive,' Jessica said, relieved. 'It would have been terrible if she'd drowned.'

  Heem had to agree. He would not have believed he would ever feel that way about a Squam, but of course he had never interacted with a lady Squam before. This one had complimented him with obvious artifice, yet he had been swayed.

  Now they were here in the vermin-passage, without cable or translator. They had to go on. Heem hoped there would be no more problems; the present ones were almost overwhelming.

  Sickh recovered enough to slither. They moved forward as rapidly as they could. Heem led the way, knowing that the Erb could no longer see, while his own perception was unimpaired; he could discover any hazard in time to block her off from it. The Squam could perceive well too, but was not strong now.