'Now look, Heem. You're being unreasonable. What do you have against me? Maybe I can alleviate it.'

Heem formulated a savage needlejet, thought better of it, and sprayed irately,

"You're alien! I don't want you poking into my mind."

'I think we've been over that, Heem. What either of us wants in that respect is pretty well irrelevant. You knew there'd be an alien transferee—'

"Not a female one!"

'Oh, now we have it, do we? It isn't just the shock of encountering a female where you didn't expect one. You're a male chauvinist!'

"Females are all right in their place."

'And what is that place? In the steaming kitchen, the nursery, the laundry room—'

Heem interrupted her with a spray of pure incomprehension. "What is a kitchen? A nursery? A laundry?"

'Oh, my. Maybe I'd better find out more about your females! Let's start with the basic common ground. Your females do bear children, don't they, so—'

"They do produce litters." But he did not want to discuss that aspect. It was a private female thing about which he knew no details. "What is this kitchen your females belong in? This laundry?"

They don't belong in—oh, never mind. It's where we fix our meals and clean our clothing.'

"Meals? Clothing?"

'You know. We just covered that. Food, to eat, and—'

"You are not revolted?"

'Let's leave the ramifications for later. What do you really have against females?'

"I do not—"

'Yes you do. You are against me not because I'm alien, but because I'm female. I mean to get to the root of this. Why don't you want to associate with a female?'

"Because you invade my privacy! There are thoughts that are not meant to be known to your kind."

'Thoughts? It's not as if I were parading nude in public! I—'

"Nude?"

'Without clothing. Exposed.'

"We wear no such encumbrance. Our bodies are always exposed. Why should any creature not be exposed?"

'Well, we Solarians do have some exposure. I meant in a sexual connection.

Copulating in public, that sort of thing.'

"What is private about copulation?"

'Oh, my! I think I see the problem. To Solarians, sexual activity is generally private—even the necessary organs are called privates—while thoughts may be disseminated freely to an audience of millions. To you HydrOs, I gather—'

"Thoughts are private!" Heem sprayed, shocked. "Among comprehending males, thoughts may on occasion be broadcast. But never in mixed company!"

'And I, as a female able to read many of your thoughts—I guess that has a certain effect on you, as it would on me if I were thrown naked into the men's room at a busy hour.'

"I do not comprehend your analogy, but your emotion seems equivalent."

'Uh, yes. And I must admit your view makes about as much sense as mine. Bodies are not obscene, really; it's only the mind that makes them so. I'd hate to have my thoughts advertised at certain times.'

"You do not object to a male fathoming your most private thoughts?" Heem found the notion incredible.

'Well, you're alien. Your metabolism is completely different from mine. I wouldn't object to walking naked before a dog or a horse or a dragon of either sex; they're different creatures. But the cynosure of my own kind would be devastating. Now you—you're alien, but you're also sapient. That makes it hard to judge. But I think you would hardly care about my human attributes, so it wouldn't matter if you saw them. If you could see.'

Heem pondered that. She only minded being perceived by those who comprehended what they saw? She was certainly alien! Yet her rationale made a certain devious sense. She was so far removed from him that she had little comprehension of his concerns. What relevance, then, did her sex have? He began to feel easier.

In a moment the fluid cushion of the acceleration compartment drained, and Heem found himself in near-free-fall, in control of the ship. He jetted the Mission button. "Welcome to the competition," the ship's nozzle sprayed. "The target planet is Eccentric, in this System. The three host species are HydrO, Erb, and Squam."

"Eccentric!" Heem exploded. "I anticipated Ggoff!"

'I am not familiar with your local geography,' Jessica said. 'I presume this is System HydrO, so Planet Eccentric must be fairly close to your home-world. But where is Ggoff?'

"This is not System HydrO!" Heem corrected her. "This is the colony System of Holestar, shared by three species. My home-world is Impasse. Ggoff is in System Erb, adjacent to us."

'I'm getting confused already!'

"Ggoff really is as close to us as to the Erbs; closer, considering that we have a better established sub-Sphere here. Ggoff is habitable by both Erbs and HydrOs, so—"

'Since we're not going to Ggoff, stop confusing me with irrelevancies. What about Eccentric?'

"Eccentric is quite a different roll."

"The objective is an Ancient site," the ship's spray continued after its reasonable pause. "Suspected of being in operable condition."

'An operative Ancient site!' Jessica exclaimed. 'That's the most important thing there is!' Then she realized: 'Which means this is going to be the most savagely contested competition of the century....'

"Agreed," Heem jetted glumly. "There will be murder."

'We had better get moving right away, then.'

"No. I mean to roll along sedately at the end of the line, vying with no one for position."

'I don't understand.'

"This ship is last among the HydrOs in a race that is guaranteed to be savage. I cannot win the race; therefore I must secure my own survival. I can do this best by conserving fuel, proceeding to Planet Eccentric, landing in a wilderness region—which is not hard to do, since it is a wilderness planet—and preparing to survive the winter. If I retain sufficient fuel, I may be able to use the ship to expedite my construction."

Her reaction was oddly constrained. 'You are aware that this means my death? I cannot survive indefinitely in an alien host.'

"I am aware. But since I can save you only by winning the competition, and I cannot win, I must at least save myself."

There was a pause. Then: 'If you are proceeding to Eccentric anyway, why can't you race there? You might do well enough to make the next cut, and get a tractor. If not, you'd still be on the planet.'

"And under the control of the Competition Authority, who would return me to my own planet. Had the destination been Ggoff, which is further distant, I might have had play to travel there fast enough; I have been there before. But the route to Eccentric is so restricted it must be buoyed, and I cannot gain sufficiently. I will arrive too late, so prefer to make it later yet, to avoid the Competition Authority."

'Oh.' She considered some more. 'You mentioned a hard winter on Eccentric. Are there colonists there who might help you? I mean, you wouldn't have to go home?

You could volunteer to be a settler—'

"No. No colonists. The winter is too difficult."

'Then why would you want to suffer that winter alone?'

"It is preferable to what awaits me on Impasse, and winter is some time distant.

At least I will have the long summer free."

'Followed by the long winter.'

"Short winter. Short but intense."

'I don't understand. Winter doesn't come to an entire planet; when it is winter in one hemisphere, it will be summer in the other. So you could travel—'

"Winter comes all over the planet, simultaneously."

That doesn't—does Eccentric have an orbit that is— oh, of course! Eccentric!

Like a comet or planetoid. With a short, hot summer during the near approach to the sun, and—but you said a short winter.'

"This is a double system," Heem explained wearily. "Holestar. One Star and one Hole. Eccentric orbits—"

'One hole?' she inquired, perplexed.

"So designated. A collapsed star so dense that light cannot escape from it."

'Oh, yes—what we call a black hole. I wouldn't want to get near one of those!'

"Eccentric is near one. It orbits both Star and Hole, and periodically the Hole eclipses the Star. Then—"

Then all light is trapped by the hole! That would be one hell of a shadow!'

"A distasteful winter," Heem agreed.

"What about Planet Impasse? Winter should be just as—'

"No. Impasse orbits the binary at an angle. It is never eclipsed by the Hole, so its winters are normal."

'Two different orbital planes,' Jessica murmured. 'A star and a black hole. This is some system!'

"Correct. Eccentric is currently on the far side of the binary. The ships must skirt the Hole to reach it. Hence the buoys marking the most direct course that remains safe. The wise pilot will not stray far from the marked channel; he would either lose position or fall into the power of the Hole."

'Yes, I can appreciate the need for caution,' she agreed. 'I suppose technically an orbit about a black hole is no more hazardous than one about a normal star.

But emotionally it's horrifying!'

"Not to me," Heem jetted, relaxing. "I find it rather intriguing. I would be interested to explore within the range of no return, except—"

'Damn it, I don't want to die blind!' she screamed suddenly, jarring his nerves.

'You've got to win that competition!'

"Why should I roll away my chance for life, in a futile effort to promote yours?" Heem needled irritably. "You're nothing but a Squam in alien guise."

'I'm not a Squam. I'm a human being!'

"As I described. A female alien food-eating—"

'Oh, so that's it again! You just can't stand the thought of an objective female intellect in your sordid masculine brainless brain!'

This was useless, but he continued. "Females just don't belong in sapient minds."

'Sapients don't belong in male minds!'

"Flavor it as you wish. You do not belong in my mind."

'That's what I'm saying! I'm desperate to get out of your roly-poly mind before I go crazy!'

"You are already half there."

'Well, I'm not going crazy alone! If you don't at least try to get me transferred home, I'm taking you with me wherever I do go. Right into insanity if need be. See how you like that!'

"If you would rather be crazed than dead, roll on."

'I'm liable to get difficult. I'm very good at that, Heem.'

"Be as difficult as you want. I control my body."

'Fair warning: I'll scream.'

"I don't even know what a scream is."

Jessica screamed. Her sound was transformed to his perception of taste, and it was horrendous. The savage impulses scoured their paths along his nerves. Her terror became indistinguishable from his own emotion; he suffered increasing apprehension and fear, though he knew there was no proper basis for such emotions. Her scream compelled them.

She really could roll him with her! Because she was inside his mind; he could not close her out. Soon he would be as demented as she.

"Mute your taste!" he sprayed violently. "I will try the competition!"

The scream-taste abated instantly. 'How very sweet of you, Heem.'

She resembled a Squam, all right.

Chapter 3: Space Race

Heem activated the space-taste spray. The flavor of System Holestar was emitted by the machine. There was the fleet of ships strung out ahead; his own was the last. There to the side was—

'I don't understand!' Jessica cried, disrupting his perception. 'What do all those tastes mean? If only I could see!'

She was really rolled up about her lost perception! "Why don't you just try tasting?" Heem inquired, irritated. "It is really quite sufficient."

'My system is not oriented on taste,' she retorted. 'Except when I eat—'

"Ugh!" Heem spat, repulsed.

'Well, if you find it hard to think of eating, I find it just as hard to see by tasting. I naturally associate taste with eating.'

"Taste is civilized! Eating is—eating!" He could think of no worse insult than the term itself.

'Eating is fun, if you just had an open mind about it.'

"Never!" How like a Squam she was! "Then why don't you go dream of eating or whatever other abomination pleases you, and let me concentrate on the position of the ships of the fleets? I can do it very well by taste."

'Because my life is at stake! If you don't win this competition, my aura will fade and fade until it is gone, and I'll be dead. I don't want to die blind!'

Her emotion, verging on another scream, threatened to overwhelm his equilibrium again. She was correct: she was very good at being difficult.

"I am willing to make the attempt to win the contest. But two hundred entrants remain, of which I am at or near the end. Chances are not at this moment good."

'Well, if I could see, I could help.'

Heem doubted that, but thought it better to placate this temperamental alien if he could. She really was no more guilty in the arrangement of this situation than he was, and he did not want her demise on his conscience. Also, she was raising an intolerable taste in his mind. "Perhaps we could manage to translate the taste into sight. The data are similar—the ship's sensors actually utilize radiation, which they translate into taste. In interplanetary space, radiation is superior to taste for transmission of information."

She fixed on that eagerly. 'Yes, maybe it could be done. After all, the human eye merely translates light into patterns of nerve impulses for the brain to interpret; it is really the brain that makes the comprehensive image. Just as your brain does for taste. It isn't taste that has meaning for you, it is the pattern that it dictates in your brain. So if we interpret your signals in terms of sight rather than taste—'

"It seems worth an attempt. But at the moment we have a race to roll."

'A race to run!' she cried.

"As of what occasion do spaceships run? That mode is ungainly enough when executed by the species that do it, but no spaceship has legs, or ground to apply them to."

'No space ship rolls, either! Not the way you mean. You need ground to roll on, too.'

"If we exhaust our time debating cultural figures of taste—"

'Figures of speech!'

"We shall never have a chance to compete in this competition."

She pondered momentarily. 'You do make obnoxious sense. All right, operate your spaceship. For now. But tell me what's happening.'

It was a fair compromise. Heem reactivated the space-taste. "There are three fleets comprising the roster of this competition. They—"

'Three fleets?'

"The sixty-six ships of the HydrOs, sixty-six of the Erbs, and sixty-seven of the Squams," Heem explained, irritated again. "This is a three-host mission."

'Oh, I suppose that makes sense. A variety of hosts offers more—variety. But why didn't we see any of the others before? They can't have come from different planets; that would take years at sublight velocities.'

"No, many of the Stars of Thousandstar are closely set. Separated by a quarter parsec or less. Ggoff could be reached in several macro-chronosprays—"

'I can't make head or tail of your units of time.'

"There are several other planets in System Holestar, and they are only—I do have some notion of your time-scale—only light hours distant. But you are correct; these fleets all derive from Planet Impasse."

'Three totally different sapient species couldn't have evolved on a single planet!'

"They did not. This is a colony system, occupied by three Stars under terms arranged millennia ago. The Erbs have the tropic region, where there is the strongest starlight; we HydrOs have the temperate zone, and the Squams have the polar regions. We are all able to survive similar climate and atmosphere, but prefer what we have chosen."

'Three technologically sapient species sharing a planet? Whatever for?'

"It dates from the years of Sphere formation. The planet was within the expansion area of all three, habitable by all three. Warfare threatened, for this was before Segment Thousandstar was firm. Yet war between Stars would have been disastrous; it would have weakened us all, allowing other Spheres to surpass us. We desired neither to fight nor to yield a valuable planet and system. It was an impasse."

'There's its name! Impasse!'

"Rolled on. So the compromise came, and war was averted. But it put the three species into direct physical contact with each other, rather than merely transfer-contact—and we did not get along well. The planetary boundaries have been freely violated, and there have been periodic outbreaks of localized war.

The impasse has remained for many centuries, and we have come to know our companion-species rather well, but it has not brought amity."

'So now your three species are the focus of a Segment competition for a prize of Cluster significance,' Jessica said.

"Yes. It will come to personal combat at the Ancient site. The HydrO authority knew this, and this is the reason they selected me to represent the home species."

'You are good at combat?'

"So they believe."

'Why would they believe it if it were not so?'

"That becomes complex to explain. We had better get in the race at this time."

'You can be the most infuriating creature! Every time something interesting comes up, you get interested in the race.'

"There will be occasion to review matters of interest. Now we are perhaps last of two hundred ships, and must pass a hundred and fifty of them before we reach Eccentric."

'A hundred and ninety-nine ships.'

"What?"

'You said there are sixty-six HydrOs, sixty-six Erbs, and sixty-seven Squams.

That's a total of one hundred ninety-nine, not two hundred.'

"Will you stop quibbling while I'm trying to race? I should have jetted sixty-seven Erb ships."

'Well, maybe I can still help, somehow. How do you do this race? I mean, are there special tricks, or what?'

"A million. But most of the others in the race are well aware of them. You can be sure every transferee is a good pilot."

'Then how can we gain on them? How can we pass one hundred forty-nine competent pilots piloting ships identical to ours?'

"There are ways," he assured her. "But not all of them are strictly ethical."

'Which is another reason they selected you,' she said. 'They expect you to come out ahead without getting caught in any infractions.'

"Correct. This is what I propose to do, since you compel me to compete in an unwinnable race."

'But that's cheating! I won't countenance that!'

"They expect you, as a typical Solarian, to apply the notorious cunning of your kind to the same flavor."

'Are you implying that Solarians are unethical?' she demanded, stamping one of her imaginary feet. Heem was intrigued by the concept.

"Are they ethical?" She hesitated.

'Some are. I am.'

"You consider it ethical to impersonate another individual, assuming a mission for which you are not qualified, for the sake of—"

'Enough!' she cried. 'I withdraw the claim.'

"Like a Squam, you slither away when challenged to justify your—"

'We have a race to run!' she cried.

"Precisely. I would think the most ethical thing you could do would be to make every effort to complete the mission you undertook."

She was silent, and he proceeded to his business. He set the ship on the ideal course, as marked by space buoys that the ship's sensors read. He angled his canopy for maximum absorption of radiation from the Star. And he waited.

The space-taste indicated one column of ships rising from the equatorial zone of Planet Impasse, the individual craft strung out like floatpods along a succulent vine. These were the Erbs. Their vessels opened like flowers toward the Star, gathering extra energy. Another column extended from near the north polar region, its members strewn into a serpentine array: the Squams. The third was the HydrOs, from the temperate latitude, Heem's own ship trailing.

'Why aren't you accelerating?' Jessica demanded. 'We're way behind; if we don't even try to catch up—'

"Taste those two other columns; they will converge on us shortly, seeking the ideal channel."

'All the more reason to hurry!' she cried. 'Can't this ship go any faster? We can take more than one g, can't we?'

"We have a limited amount of fuel," Heem explained patiently. "If we squander it with foolish acceleration, we will roll out prematurely."

'But how can we ever race, then? If only the first fifty have a chance for the tractors—'

"The race began with the concept-pattern riddle. The first to gain their ships won a decided advantage. But it is possible to make up in this roll of the race what we lost in the prior one. Careful management is the key, along with a little bit of luck."

'You're planning something sneaky,' she said accusingly. 'I'm getting to know you, Heem. You have a disreputable masculine mind.'

"If you prefer that I give up the race—"

'No!'

Heem made a mental flavor of mirth. He was learning how to manage his transferee, alien though she might be.

'That's what you think,' she muttered irately. 'If it weren't a matter of life and death—'

Heem accelerated slightly, concentrating on the flavor of the spaceship pattern.

A bunch was forming near the head of the line, as foolish pilots vied with each other for the lead. All ships were accelerating at close to one gravity—one Planet Impasse gravity, he clarified before the alien could interject a remark—obviating the need for rotation; it was a fuel-inefficient way to travel, but only a ship in full free-fall could be truly efficient, and free-fall was not much good for a race. But those pilots who jumped the acceleration rate were consuming fuel too rapidly in proportion to their gain in velocity; they could exhaust their tanks before the target planet was reached. Those who conserved too much fuel would finish too far back. It was a delicate judgment, and the pilots who were most apt at rolling this line would gain position.

'I'm picking up some of that,' Jessica said. 'Your conscious thoughts are open to me, as I suppose mine are to you. But the background remains opaque. If the most efficient mode, all things considered, is a straight-line acceleration and deceleration, and all ships have the same mass and fuel, how can anyone hope to gain position? Skill in making the judgment between velocity and fuel economy is fine, but that can only make a marginal difference, and we need a gross difference. How can we gain? If we use extra fuel, we'll run out; if we don't, we'll lose the race! So why should we even try to do anything special?'

Heem, concentrating on the pattern of ships, did not respond to her reiteration of the problem. He was studying the flux developing in the line ahead, shrewdly judging at what point a wrinkle would manifest.

'But I suppose that's exactly what a lot of pilots will think,' Jessica continued. 'So they won't try, especially the ones up front, assuming their place is secure. So if someone behind has a smart idea, like shooting ahead and messing up a leading ship, so maybe a friend can pass them both up and...'

Heem upped his acceleration a trifle more. 'Aren't you wasting fuel?' Jessica demanded. 'You're edging up past one g and closing on the next ship ahead.'

Still he did not answer. He nudged the ship to the side of the buoyed route, using more fuel. His velocity was now substantially greater than that of the several ships immediately ahead of him, but he was somewhat outside the ideal route.

'This is crazy!' Jessica cried. 'I can pick up a vague picture from your comprehension. You are deliberately putting this ship into a bad position. Too fast, too soon, and out-of-channel. If you were the leader, you'd be throwing away your chances; as it is—'

The line of ships rippled. A clot developed near the end. Suddenly three ships were flying side by side, forming a triangle, almost touching hulls, blocking the main channel. Four more ships closed in on them, becoming part of the jam.

The taste-blips that were the reproductions of these ships wavered and blurred as they came too close together; their pilots jetted desperately to avoid near collision. Several tried to accelerate out of the clot; others tried to decelerate.

'A traffic jam!' Jessica exclaimed, finally seeing it. 'We have those in System Capella, when too many ground-cars try to navigate an intersection.'

Heem needled the control buttons. The ship surged forward, increasing its acceleration to 1.5 g, and shot past the jam. Three, four, five, six ships fell behind. Then Heem eased back to a single g and angled smoothly into the main channel.

'Very nice maneuver,' Jessica said. 'You bypassed the jam and passed six ships for the price of one, and probably wasted no more fuel in getting ahead than any of them did in getting behind. Perfect timing! But how did you know the jam was coming? You were creeping up on it before it ever happened.'

"Flow dynamics," Heem replied. "Though each ship is separately piloted, the channel for maximum efficiency is extremely narrow, so the ships are forced into a column. They are thus subject to the flows of channelization. I happen to have a talent for analyzing such flows."

'I can see that,' Jessica agreed. 'My own talent is art, but it is really more static. Once you completed your maneuver, I could appreciate the precision and beauty of it, but I could not have executed it myself. But will there be enough jamming for you to pass another hundred and forty-four ships?'

"Doubtful. The smart ones will stay out of clots and pull ahead; I cannot gain on them unless they foul each other up."

'I was pessimistic a while ago,' she said. 'Now I have hope. You have real skill, Heem.'

Heem suppressed a wash of pleasure. What did he care what this alien thought?

"That is why they selected me. I have skill in piloting and in combat—skills unusual in my species."

He perceived another clot-incipience, and positioned his ship accordingly. This time he found a channel through the middle of the jam and blasted through with precise timing. Eight more ships were passed.

'Beautiful, absolutely beautiful!' Jessica exclaimed. 'But suddenly I feel dizzy! What is happening?'

"We got a taste of jet exhaust," Heem explained. "The backlash of each ship is flavored with chemical wastes, and the velocity of those gases also affects our own propulsion. It is unpleasant to be directly in the exhaust of another ship.

The effect dissipates rapidly with distance, however, as the exhaust fans out and soon departs the main channel. Otherwise it would be difficult to maintain a column in space."

'Yes,' she agreed. 'No doubt tempers get short when the ships get too crowded.'

"Tastes become volatile," Heem jetted. "This causes errors. Errors lead to clots that should not otherwise occur. There is an error now." He made a mental taste-blip to indicate the location.

One of the ships they had passed was accelerating at a good three gravities, rapidly overhauling the others. "Roll out of my way, you sours!" the ship's spacespray sprayed.

'I didn't know the ships could communicate with each other!' Jessica remarked, surprised.

"Of course they can; this is mandatory in space. These vessels are normally employed for courier duty, and on occasion get disabled or shy of fuel. They must be able to spray interplanetary distances. But this requires energy, so few are spraying during this race."

The speeding ship came up behind Heem's. "Move it, H-sixty-six!" its pilot sprayed with the flavor of acute annoyance.

Heem obligingly jetted slightly to the side, giving the ship clearance. "I move it, H-sixty."

'Why did you let that oaf through?' Jessica demanded. 'That was Soop of Soulwet, who took the ship you were about to guess. You should have given him a good taste of exhaust! Isn't it his job to maneuver around the ships he passes, instead of making them waste fuel for his benefit?'

"True. But he will gain us much more ahead," Heem assured her. "Taste."

'All right, I'll watch. But it seems crazy to me, and it galls me to let that particular nut through unscathed.'

The speeding ship closed the gap on the two ships ahead. The spot-flavors identified these as H-54 and H-55: Vice and Knyfh in his memory, for the concepts that had won them. Heem ordinarily did not have that precise a memory, but he had put extraordinary concentration into his pattern-analysis effort in the later stages. These two ships had been taken almost together, and now were traveling together: probably a cooperating pair. That could mean trouble for a third party.

Indeed it did. H-54 and H-55 did not follow Heem's polite example; they held firm in their places, effectively blocking the channel.

The irate H-60 was moving too fast to swerve around them in the room he had.

Maneuvers that could be readily accomplished at low velocity became more difficult at higher velocities; this was one of the variables it was easy for an inexperienced pilot to forget—until too late. H-60 did not even try to dodge around; he shot right between the two. The aperture was so narrow that the three blips merged on the space-taste as a single mass...

And fissioned in an awkward explosion. One ship shot forward, one backward, and the third skewed to the side.

Smoothly Heem veered, for he had room to maneuver. The backward-jetting ship, H-55, shot past, creating an eddy current that shook Heem's vessel. 'What happened?' Jessica cried.

Heem veered again, to avoid the sidewise ship, H-54, then accelerated fiercely.

"When two ships pass too close to each other under acceleration, their cone-wakes interact. That speeding H-sixty abruptly put three ships together within strong interaction range, since the other two were already at minimum safe separation. That, coupled with a fair velocity differential, fouled up all three drives. One cut out entirely."

'The one going to the side,' she said.

"No. That one remains under normal acceleration; it merely drifts to the side from the lateral confusion. Probably its pilot is unconscious, unable to correct course."

'But the other two are both accelerating, one forward, one back. The one going back is gaining speed—'

"The one going back has lost its drive. Thus it is drifting at constant velocity, directly on course. The rest of us are all accelerating at one g, leaving it behind more rapidly with every passing moment."

'Oh—I see. Of course you're right. I keep forgetting that we're constantly speeding up, not just traveling.'

"It is an easy thing to confuse, for one unfamiliar with space," Heem jetted charitably. He still felt the ebb-wash of pleasure from her prior compliment.

He received another dose. 'I can certainly see why they wanted you for this mission. You're really expert!'

"Yes. But I deceived them nevertheless. I can pilot a ship as well as I ever could, but I can no longer defeat a Squam in single combat."

'If you could do it before, you can do it now, can't you?'

Heem did not respond. The driverless ship was disrupting the column behind, but he was more concerned with the column ahead. The speeder, H-60, had survived the encounter with the other two ships, and had not improved his manner. "Roll out, noxious!" H-60 sprayed on the spacespray as he charged into the rear of a tight line. Several ships tried to, realizing that it was better to give way, as Heem had, than to suffer rear collision. H-60 was crazy, but dangerous. But they, too, had been tasting ahead rather than behind, and perceived the speeder too late. H-60 shot up the line, extremely close.

The effect was disastrous. Ships were jerked out of their courses, drifting from the channel in all directions. Some lost power and fell back. One meandered erratically, as though its pilot were crazed. Two retained control—but were angry. They were H-45 and H-41. "Let's put that monster away!" H-45 sprayed.

"They are all fools," Heem jetted privately to Jessica. "They are not reacting as they would on land. They can only put themselves away."

The two ships accelerated, jumping to three g. Slowly they abated their rate of loss and began gaining on the speeder. But now other ships were being disturbed, and at three g the pilots were under heightened stress, and suffered diminished responsiveness. They cruised too close to the other ships, and angled out of the channel, while H-60 zoomed on ahead.

Heem, analyzing the pattern of disarray, jetted carefully forward at one and a quarter g, threading safely through the clutter. He managed to pass seven more ships before another pilot tasted his technique.

"Where are you rolling, Sixty-six?" the other HydrO demanded, accelerating to cut him off. It was H-49.

That's Czeep of Czealake," Jessica commented. She seemed to have a good memory; maybe that had enhanced Heem's own memory.

Heem deftly maneuvered his ship to place it behind a third ship, H-46. H-49

swerved to follow him.

'H-Forty-six—that's Swoon of Sweetswamp!' Jessica said. 'But she doesn't know us, because she was gone before we got our ship.'

"Let her remain in ignorance; we are not cooperating anymore," Heem jetted to Jessica. "Must avoid rolling into a clot."

'Yes, indeed,' she agreed. 'These column-dynamics are getting fierce.'

But H-49 was determined. The ship jetted forward and across, seeking to bathe Heem's ship in its exhaust. Heem avoided it adroitly, but this was costing him fuel. Even though he used less fuel than 49 did, he could not win the race by getting caught in this sort of thing.

He was saved by the first speeder, H-60. The foolish pilot finally crashed into another ship that was unable to move aside in time. The resulting confusion disrupted the entire line, sending so many ships into erratic maneuvers that there was no point in individual competition. Heem's full attention was taken up by the sudden challenge of merely staying clear of the mess.

'Look at H-Forty-six go,' Jessica exclaimed. 'Swoon can really pilot, when she sees her chance.'

Heem ignored that. Ships Sixty and Forty-nine were derelicts, coursing back along the line without power, their relative velocity seeming to grow as they went. The ships coming up on them jetted violently out of the way, their pilots panicking. They should have made minor course corrections to allow the derelicts to slide by, as Heem was doing. Now Heem had to correct for the motions of the reacting ships, and since he was close to the center column, this was difficult.

They tended to fling out randomly, posing a hazard to traffic.

But he was not so preoccupied that he neglected to take advantage of his opportunities to pass a few more ships. By the time the column firmed, he was forty-fifth in the line of HydrOs. Swoon of Sweetswamp was far ahead.

Unfortunately, there were two other columns to contend with, and now they were converging.

Heem analyzed the pattern of convergence. There was promise there. The ships had to form a single column for maximum efficiency, and were vying for position as they merged. "What has rolled before was the polite preparation," Heem jetted.

"Now the real competition begins."

'You've done very well so far,' Jessica commented. 'With all this new confusion, you should be able to do better yet.'

"I've been competing with the less intelligent entries of my own species. Now I'm rolling up against the smarter ones toward the front of the line—and the smarter ones of two other species. This will not be quite so much fun."

'I have confidence in you.'

"Your confidence is desperation. I am an excellent pilot, and in an even race I could probably prevail, though it is evident that some expert pilots have been transferred in. Swoon of Sweetswamp, in H-Forty-six, must have been the top pilot of the Star she represents; she was biding her time, waiting for disruption, before showing her expertise. There are others like that. Starting where I did, it will take a great deal more than confidence to make sufficient progress."

Jessica made a mental shrug—a distinctly odd experience for Heem. She was retaining her confidence.

Now that he was committed to the race, Heem intended to put his best effort into it. He had not boasted idly about his skill; in a fundamental sense he lived for space. All HydrOs had evolved for this destiny: to travel between planets. All HydrOs hoped to pilgrimage in space before they achieved the second metamorphosis.

'Metamorphosis?' Jessica inquired.

"Get out of my mind!" Heem needled.

'I wish I could. Your body is a horror to me!'

Heem concentrated his taste on the race. His ship was coming up to the mergence of the three columns. "The sensible procedure is to give way to the Erb and Squam ships that intersect our route," he jetted. "Unfortunately this will cause our position to suffer, and we will have no chance to make the cut."

'So the only safe course is unreasonable?'

"No. The safe and reasonable course is not to race."

'Do you want me to scream again?' she inquired sweetly.

"The only thing worse than a Squam is a female Squam." Heem needled the controls, and the ship angled forward responsively, seeking an opening in the threatening clot.

'Better than a blind male blob!' she retorted, but he had already forgotten what she was responding to.

The blips were taste-coded to show species as well as number. Heem experienced involuntary constriction of his jet-apertures as he identified the Squam ships.

He did not like Squams, even in the form of spaceships. Jessica's resemblance to a Squam constituted a significant portion of his objection to her. He knew, intellectually, that she was an alien of quite another type, but the fact that her natural body had eyes and hands and consumed physical substance—appalling!

And to be, in addition—

'Your thought processes are about as subtle as a clout on the head.'

"I don't have a head."

'Which is part of your problem.'

The mergence of columns loomed. Heem knew that once he got locked into the enlarged column, he would have little opportunity to move up without prohibitive waste of fuel. Yet to break out of the buoyed route would also cost too much.

'There has got to be some way!' Jessica cried.

"There is, but not a way you will like."

To hell with what I like! Try me and see. Anything's better than—this!'

"I take you at your taste," Heem jetted, and cut into the heart of the massing pattern. The taste-blips of the competition suddenly surrounded his ship.

'I think I'm going to regret opening my big mouth,' Jessica said. But then she was distracted by the blip pattern. 'Oh, they're so close, so close! I think I'm beginning—beginning to see them, a little. The merest suggestion. Focus the image, so I can—'

Heem concentrated, not entirely to please the alien. For the kind of maneuvering he contemplated, he needed to have acute spatial awareness. If she wanted to think of that as an "image" she was welcome. Maybe it would keep her from pestering him so much.

'Oh, it is beginning to shape. Like a surrealist dream, not quite clear but significant—I have to connect my sight awareness to your taste inputs—tricky, but with my mind's eye—'

Heem ignored her. He had a race to roll! The mergence of the three columns caused Squam and Erb ships to close in about him, vying for position. The blips were now so close to his own ship that they were merging on his space-taste.

Heem experienced the mounting tension of competition; he liked this! To be in space, maneuvering against others in space—here was the essence of living!

'The essence of masculine foolishness,' Jessica said sourly. But again, she was distracted by what she perceived. 'The Erb ships—they are like opening flowers—

only they're flying sidewise!'

"Their energy-receptors orient on the Star, of course," Heem needled. "They need to augment their energy as much as possible, to make the artificial power last.

It can readily make the difference between victory and defeat."

'Oh, of course. You've kept us in the sun right along, haven't you!'

Idiot comment! Heem angled to put a hooded Squam blip, S-47, in shadow.

'And the Squam ships are like cobras!' Jessica continued blithely. 'Oh, you may not know about them, Heem. They're original Solarian reptiles—here, I'll project a picture.' She formed a composite taste that did vaguely resemble a Squam.

The Squam ship reacted angrily to the shade. It twitched out of the way, trying to get around Heem to cut off his Star radiation. But the Squam misjudged Heem's acceleration and missed. Heem made a flavor of satisfaction: the Squam had expended more energy in the attempted retribution than it ever could have gained in Star radiation. It would exhaust its fuel that much sooner.

Actually, there was little to be gained by interfering with ships here at the merger. Few if any of them would be in contention for the lead, and if he allowed himself to remain at this stage of the column he would fail to make the next cut. He had to pass these, get into the first fifty, and do it without consuming too much fuel or gaining too much velocity.

'Too much velocity?' Jessica inquired. She had a way of accenting her concepts that annoyed him. 'Don't you want to go fast?'

"Not so fast that I cannot decelerate on target," Heem jetted gruffly.

"Accelerating is only half the job."

'Oh, I see! Yes, of course! I'm used to land, to the planetary surface, where you will always coast to a stop if you stop pushing. But in space, with the conservation of angular momentum—'

"No. This is a powered trajectory, not an orbit."

'Anyway, you can't stop unless you decelerate, so you must save half your fuel, or—Heem, what happens if you miscalculate?'

"We may have occasion to taste that before the race is done."

She moved away from that aspect. 'The picture is coming in better, now! All the ships—it's like watching a holograph through a fog, but I'm really beginning to see! Oh, Heem, this makes it so much better! I don't feel so blind anymore!'

Heem intercepted the Star radiation of another ship, this one an Erb, E-38. He was accelerating marginally faster than the ships of the main column, but was outside the ideal channel. His freedom of travel counterbalanced his loss of the best route, so the only way he could gain was by shading the others. This was hardly enough by itself to enable him to win—but he had a strategy in mind.

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 said—'

"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?'

"They should signal for a fuel recharge—after the cut has been made. They will not crash, but they will be out of the race."

Heem and Jessica spotted the ships. Heem used the ship's computer to calculate the velocity of each vessel as it turned over, while Jessica kept track of the leaders. It turned out that ten of the apparent leaders were over-velocity and were unlikely to finish; but fifteen ships behind Heem's own turned about on a schedule that would normally put them in the first fifty. Some of these might be within-velocity, but actually be scant on fuel—but others might be below-velocity and have reserves of fuel, enabling them to gain at the end.

Strategies varied, and it was necessary to make educated guesses. There could be a lot of shifting of places at the end of the race, as all velocities were reduced.

The best finish Heem could reasonably hope for was sixty-one. That represented an excellent gain, from his start at or near two hundred—but not quite enough.

'But if you do some more clever maneuvering, antagonize a few more pilots—'

Jessica said.

"I might gain four, five, possibly even six places, no more," Heem jetted. "We are not competing against fools and amateurs now; these are the natural spacers like myself. They will not react, they will not be deceived; they know they have the advantage, and they will maintain it. I used up my surplus fuel getting to this stage; this is my maximum position. To push beyond this place in the column would be to disqualify myself for inadequate fuel, or to crash." He needled the buttons, and the ship abruptly changed course without turning about.

'Is something wrong?' Jessica inquired worriedly. The ship doesn't seem to have reversed. It's still accelerating forward, angling out of the column.'

"The ship is responsive. It is on course for my destination."

'But there is no habitable planet in that direction, is there?'

"Correct. And if there were, I would not have the fuel to make a safe landing, after correcting for a non-buoyed and therefore inefficient course."

'Then where are you going?' Her alarm was burgeoning, anticipating his answer.

"Into the Hole."

Chapter 4: Holestar Abyss

She did not taste very much different than a male, in general flavor. But the distinction was instantly manifest. Every jet she made possessed the female attribute, clear only to another HydrO but extremely significant to that HydrO.

Heem had never before encountered a female of his species, but from the outset he had not the slightest doubt of her nature.

"Who are you, who preserves me from demise?" Heem inquired as he recovered his equilibrium.

"I am Moon of Morningmist," she responded with a jet so diffident he hardly felt it. She, too, was acutely aware of the presence of the alternate sex.

"I am Heem of Highfalls." He paused, absorbing further impressions of her, and discovered an urge he had not felt before. "You are the first female I have encountered in my life. Shall we indulge in sexual play?"

"Of course," she agreed.

"Is this valley otherwise occupied?" He was not certain why he inquired, but knew it was important.

"Four of my sister-siblings remain." Therefore he knew that there would be no reproduction. He needled a splash of purest lust at her, the product of a lifetime of innocent abstinence, but did not include the key flavor of his signature. She responded with a passionate spray that soaked him with her essence. The result was a pleasure so novel and intense that he gave himself entirely up to it. He knew that Moon was reacting similarly.

'You just met her, and you copulated?' Had Heem needled that question to himself? Mentally he answered it. As a juvenile he had no reservations about pleasure, and sexual gratification was the most available and harmless of pleasures. It was practiced as a routine courtesy whenever male and female HydrOs associated with each other on an individual or group basis. As an adult he discovered that many other sapient Cluster species regarded sex in another flavor. But alien ways were alien ways; why any creatures should choose to restrict something as natural and necessary as this was not a thing he needed to make the effort to understand. Alien species had a number of strange or appalling attitudes, such as eating or—

'Doesn't that leave offspring littering the landscape?' the internal needle came quickly.

Naturally not! Sexual interplay was a prerequisite for procreation, but not identical to it. Reproduction occurred only when the male included his unique signature in the needlejet and when the female accepted that flavor. Neither would do this unless the habitat were suitable. Reproduction, unlike copulation, was a serious matter.

'I suppose it really is the same with us,' the mental jet continued. 'We invoke contraceptive measures so that we can indulge in similar play without conceiving offspring. Nevertheless, we do have a certain discretion about the choice of partners for such intimacies. Sex, to us, is not a casual matter, even without procreation.'

Heem ignored the alien taste and continued his forbidden memory-dream. After sating himself pleasantly with Moon, he rolled with her on a tour of the valley of Morningmist. It resembled Highfalls, but lacked the great central river; instead small streams fed into a good-sized lake, from which mildly flavored vapors rose in the early section of each day. Heem soon became acclimatized to the variant tastes of this region, which were not far distinct from those of his own valley.

The sapient inhabitants of Morningmist were female, as only one sex was littered in any one site. Heem met them singly and needled each courteously with lust, and each responded with a spray of gratification more passionate than his own gesture. This was natural, for he was recently sated while they were not. In due course all rolled together beside the lake and Heem, with a special effort, sprayed all five simultaneously with passion. They needled him back, all together, and his pleasure was so strong that he rolled into the water and sank to the bottom. They shoved him back to land cheerily. It had been a wonderful occasion.

'Simultaneous group sex with five females?' the interfering thought came. 'This is beyond the capacity, if not the aspiration, of our males.'

It would have been embarrassing had it been beyond the capacity of Heem, for the females of Morningmist were all deserving. It would have been a shame to exclude any from the polite welcome.

'Some polite welcome!' the private needle came. While they toured the valley, he jetted conversationally with them, learning about their situation. It was similar to his own. They too had been seeded in their valley and left to develop independently; they too had suffered crucial attrition from hundreds to the present five. In crossing the mountain range he had learned only that the next valley was different in detail, not nature. He had not solved the mystery of his existence.

"What of your valley?" Moon jetted delicately after they had satisfied themselves with another copulation and settled for the night in her cave. "How did you travel to ours?"

"Two of us rode a flatfloater up the mountain slope," he jetted back. "The floater lost propulsion near the apex, and we managed to roll on over the top.

My sibling was slain by an alien monster. I am the last survivor of my valley, I believe."

"Slitherfear!" she sprayed with horror. "The nemesis that—" She nerved herself for the foul taste. "That eats."

"You know of him? We did not know his name."

"He has no name we can conceive. He is a dread Squam, predator on our species.

We named him for his attributes. He has been preying on our number since he appeared recently in our valley. Every several days he destroys another sister, most horrendously."

"We tried to escape him, but he was too strong for us. He had a thing he called a machine that jetted burning fluid. He killed my sibling Hoom and—did something horrible."

"Yes," she sprayed. "We try to hide, but somehow the alien finds us, and consumes us. It is invulnerable to needles; we cannot oppose it or escape it."

"I know." The horror of Morningmist was worse than that of Highfalls. "I escaped only by pretending to be dead, while it consumed my companion."

They were tasteless for a time, unwilling to dwell further on the horror. Then Moon inquired with a diffident jet, "Did you spray that Highfalls is vacant?"

"I believe it is. Only four of us survived before we boarded the flatfloater; then Haam fell from a height and Hiim fell when the floater moved away at sudden speed. Hiim may have survived, but this is unlikely."

She emitted a cute spray of revelation. "A vacant valley, with no Squam menace, is suitable for a litter of HydrOs!"

Heem realized that it was; his instinct told him so. Secure, sapient-devoid places existed only to be seeded with sapients. Part of the riddle of his own origin had been answered. "But should Hiim survive—"

"We must go there and verify this. He might have survived the fall but be injured, then roll victim to a predator. Then we would seed the empty valley and depart. It is the HydrO way."

Heem recognized the validity of her point, but remained reluctant. "This mountain is high and steep, too difficult for us to cross."

"We could harness a flatfloater, as you and your siblings did."

"Half of us died in the effort—and another died on the mountain."

"Yes, it is dangerous. But we must do it."

She was correct; HydrO instinct required this effort. Still, he balked. "No. I will not do it."

Genuinely perplexed, she sprayed her gentle query, tinged with her sex appeal.

For the first time, Heem appreciated the subtle power the female could exert. He felt cruel and guilty, opposing her. "Why not, Heem? Are you ill, or of suspect stock?"

"I am not physically ill," he jetted, working his rationale out as much for himself as for her. "I have no reason to question my stock; my siblings perished from external causes, not from any internal malaise. But I have experienced the horrors of growing up among peers. Of two hundred or more, I alone remain. All the others fell horribly to predators or accidents—because there was no adult sapient to care for them. I have always hated the power that placed us in that situation, and now I cannot do the same thing to my own offspring."

"But it is the HydrO way!" she jetted back, working out her own rationale. "Any couple who discovers a suitable and vacant place must repopulate—"

"No!" he needled so sharply that she made a little spray of pain. "I will not contribute to such an infernal system!"

"It is—it is natural selection. You survived in the valley of Highfalls because you were—were the fittest in the region," she insisted, her jets overlapping each other. "And I—I am among the fittest also, for I am among the few remaining sisters of Morningmist."

"I survived because I was lucky. I have no special merit." Yet he remembered occasions when he had avoided some threat that others had fallen prey to, because he had been more intelligent. And his needles had always been among the most accurate. Luck could not account for all of it. "And I refuse to believe that it has to be this way—the ignorant generating new litters of the helpless, never staying to help, to teach—" He damped his jet, thinking of another aspect.

"Why could we not remain in Highfalls, to instruct—"

"That is not the HydrO way!" she sprayed, shocked.

So it was an impasse. "We will jet on this another time," she jetted, meaning that she would be trying again to change his mind. They settled down to sleep, irreconciled.

Heem woke to the alarm of the ship. A quick savoring of the composite flavor assured him that he was on course. His course. The ship, naturally, assumed he was unintentionally drifting into danger.

"H-Sixty-six, are you in control?" It was H-46 on the taste net. Swoon of Sweetswamp, the female he had helped get her ship. The one with sex-appeal flavor like no one since Moon of Morningmist. He regretted he would never have occasion to roll Swoon up on her offer of further cooperation; it would almost certainly have been fun.

"I am in control, H-forty-six," he responded. It was nice of her to express concern for him. She knew his identity because of his prior antics in the column; she would have tasted all the intership signals. But they were competitors now, and she had turned out to be a superlative pilot.

"Congratulations on advancing into the first fifty. You made the cut; I did not.

I wish you further success."

"Just don't drift too far toward the Hole before the Competition Authority rescues you," Swoon jetted. "We may yet meet again, after this is over."

It was a strongly flavored reminder. She remained grateful. But Heem did not answer, for he knew he would never be able to indulge himself of that offer.

The ship was angling toward the Hole. The turnover point of the race was at the closest buoyed approach to the primary pair, since the destination planet was at the moment across the System from Impasse. Acceleration had been aided by the fall toward the primary, and deceleration would be aided by the climb away from it. But it was not safe to pass too close, for within a certain radius the well of the Hole became total: not even radiation could escape.

Now, suddenly, the Hole seemed much more powerfully flavored. Growingly huge yet tasteless, it loomed upon the ship: the region of No Return. Though Heem's ship was now in free-fall, it was accelerating—toward the abyss.

The alien transferee within him took one translated look and retreated in numb horror to her own nightmare. Heem found himself drawn into it, as it were into an internal Hole.

Cloning was done to safeguard the ancient and dwindling lineages of the aristocracy of System Capella. It was not that these few scions were more subject to premature demise, but rather that when such demise occurred the consequences were more formidable. With cloning, there was always a replacement with full status.

The problem was that in the absence of demise, there was a duplicate heir. The purpose in preserving these lives was not to subdivide the estates. Therefore the clones who married were permitted only one offspring. That infant was cloned well before infancy. After that, both parents were sterilized. The line continued—rigidly. Since only the clones who married other clones could carry the inheritance, the great old estates did not stray from the original bloodlines. They shuttled back and forth within the aristocracy. The names might change, but not the blood.

Sometimes only one clone married legitimately, releasing the other to take a commoner-spouse. Any taint of commoner blood negated the heritage; no issue of that union could inherit. Yet it was mooted that those "adulterous" marriages were often the happiest. Clones knew each other too well for there to be many attractive mysteries.

There was an occasional hitch in the process. In the current generation there were too many males. The sex of the offspring could be controlled, but some didn't bother until an imbalance occurred; then the ratio shifted to compensate.

But there could be one or two left over —of either sex. If there were too many females, it was not serious, since the estate merged with that of the male, and the clone of a male could not marry adulterously while any female estate remained unattached. But in this case all the females would be taken, while some male or males would have to marry adulterously—thereby forfeiting their estates.

That was very bad.

The progenitor of Jess had anticipated such a bind. He desired to retain the estate within his own named family, as it was the choicest (though not the richest) estate of them all: the original palace of Good Queen Bess. But to sire a male offspring was to risk losing both name and blood. Thus the progenitor hedged his bet by producing a male heir, with a female clone. If the male could not find a clone-mate, the female would assume the office and merge with another estate. There would be no forfeit.

It was an extremely neat device, but there were certain practical problems. The female split was secret, for too early a revelation could cause other families to produce similarly split clones, complicating or nullifying the advantage.

Both clones were listed as male, and both adopted the dress and manner of males.

In private it was otherwise, and among commoners Jessica could adopt a pseudonym and be fully female. This was encouraged, for if she ever had to assume the burden of the blood, she would need to be a fully conversant woman, desirable as such and able to perform. But when among cloned aristocracy, she was always male.

This became awkward at times, especially as Jess grew to maturity. Jesse and Jessica were both on the sterility diet, of course; only in marriage could the counteractant be prescribed. But she was expected to play the role of a male in the clone society. She had to defer to females with mock archaic gallantry, and run her eyes over the girls' covert spots with evident lust, and pinch their haunches just as her brother did—because he did. Because to fail in the male mannerism was to betray her nature prematurely, perhaps hampering her brother's chance to make a suitable marriage.

'You are female—yet you acted in the manner of a male?'

"I had to! At first it was a game, but when I grew older I hated it, yet I still had to do it." She found herself reaching to the skepticism in the theoretical question.

'Yet it was only a matter of role—a part in a drama, of no private consequence.

You would inevitably mate as a female, with a male opposite, when that occasion came. No cause for distress.'

Was she baiting herself? No cause for distress! "Here's how it was!" she snapped back, and opened a long-suppressed memory of herself at fifteen. She and her half attended a clone ball put on by Cyrus and Cyron, age sixteen. It was titled Cyclone, naturally, and had a storm motif.

Jesse and Jessica traveled together, as was the fashion for clones, in a closed dragon-drawn coach. Closed to conceal their doubled nature from the prying gaze of commoners; dragon-drawn to show their aristocratic heritage and affluence. A modern float-car would have been more comfortable, much faster, and less expensive, but Jessica had to admit the rented dragon had more class. The coach was of one-way foam fiber, insulating and reflective externally, pervious internally, so that they could see without being seen.

The landscape was lovely. This was part of the Nature Reserve that had been set aside a millennium ago when the rising population of System Capella had threatened to spoil the planet. The huge old estates suffused the region, and the aristocracy maintained the native wilderness as part of their system. No one hunted here, or mined, or built cities—no one except the clones themselves, whose damage was minimal. Thus the mountains were largely unspoiled, the trees enormous, the rivers clean. Jessica touched a section of the coach wall, dilating it with the fingers of her hand so that a fresh gust of air came through to caress her face. That breeze was redolent of pinesap and Capellabloom, and for a moment she closed her eyes and let it transport her.

Here, forever, swaying on the suspension of the coach, breathing sap and bloom...

Then they rounded a turn, and she almost fell into her brother, embarrassingly.

Her eyes snapped open, and she spied the head of the dragon, normally hidden beyond the mass of its body. Its breath was jetting up and back, forming diffuse vapor-cloudlets that were dispersed by the beat of its vestigial wings. The dragon was not really a magical creature, of course; it was a native animal that happened to resemble a creature of Solarian folklore, so naturally it had assumed the appropriate name.

Yet perhaps, she thought, reconsidering, there was magic in it, for it was largely the mystique of the dragon that had created this pastoral reserve.

Dragons required large foraging grounds; to intrude on this space with too much civilization would have been to destroy the unique creatures. Man had already committed genocide too many times, inadvertently; there had to be a halt. Star Capella was the fabled Eye of the Charioteer—and what was a chariot without a dragon to draw it? So it was a mark of System pride that the dragons flourish, and to ensure that, it had become necessary to preserve a major portion of the planet's original ecology. That was magic seldom seen in Sphere Sol!

Now the site of Cyclone came into view, one of the fine old castles, dating from the age of Queen Bess. It had been decked out garishly with tattered storm-warning flags, as though the eye of a hurricane had passed and left its mark. The embrasures were crossed by crudely nailed boards, mock protection for nonexistent glass.

"Cy and Cy have already had their ball," Jesse muttered. "Beyond a certain point, a motif becomes inane."

Jessica agreed, as was her wont; she was as close to her half as it was possible for another person to be. She should have been identical, but for that matter of sex, and that was really the gift (curse?) of the laboratory. Genetic surgery, adding one X chromosome—that sort of thing had not been possible until recently, and was no simple procedure today. The waning fortune of this estate had been further impoverished to finance that operation.

Knowing she had to compensate for the sex-change, she had tried very hard to emulate her brother, and so was in certain respects closer to him than normal male-male or female-female clones were to their respective halves. As it was, she was less enthusiastic about this party than her male half was. This was not merely because she was female, but because she was anonymously so. She could not let herself go; she had to guard her every reaction, lest she betray the secret of this cloning.

She was used to this, of course. She had played this role from infancy. She could emulate her half's mannerisms with such precision that not even other clones could tell them apart. But most of that experience had been before the onset of sexual maturity.

Now Jesse and Jessica were past puberty, and the secret had become enormously more challenging to keep. She was slightly shorter than he, now, though for a time she had been taller; special elevated shoes made up for that. She had developed breasts, now, and other distinctly distaff attributes, as that X

chromosome did its relentless work. Jesse had playfully complimented her more than once in this connection. "Now I know how great I look in femme," he told her. "But if I were you, which I almost am, I'd strap my udders down with a belt and put a bra on my glutes..." She had hit him with a pillow, of course; that was protocol.

They had had to move to specially designed clothing to retain their symmetry of appearance. She wore a body-sock girdle to flatten her breasts into a male-type chest; he wore padding to amplify his hips and buttocks. Now they both resembled a slightly overweight male, and neither liked this—but the secret had to be preserved until the pairing of clones was far enough along. If he failed to come to terms with a female, she would have to do so with a male. If they revealed this option prematurely, the other clones might force a clone-marriage on her, preventing him from carrying the estate name to his heir. Jessica wanted him to succeed; she liked none of the male clones available. She actually preferred more mature men, but the older clones were all committed. Thus she felt her best course was to retire into anonymity with some handsome commoner.

The dragon steamed into the terminal and stopped. Attendants took over, leading it to pasture after the passengers disembarked. Dragons were omnivorous, preferring to chase down the fat monster caterpillars that stood the height of a man, but also grazing on the plentiful pine needles. They preferred the needles fallen, and aged somewhat, so the dragons never harmed the trees. Their teeth were phenomenal, for there was enormous difference between the soft flesh of caterpillars and the toughness of dried pine needles. It seemed the dragons had evolved as herbivores, but developed cutting teeth for combat purposes, then discovered that those specialized teeth could be adapted for masticating meat.

"Snap to, Half," Jesse said brightly. A necessary caution; she was becoming moody and introspective these days, while he retained his surface awareness. Was this a sexual difference, or did it derive from her natural distaste for her masquerade?

The entrance passage was decorated with artfully placed fallen timbers and floodwater stains. There was even an alluvial delta at one end. Then they had to climb through the wreckage of a ship to enter the main chamber.

Jesse paused just before taking the final step. He grasped a splintered pole and used it to poke up into the ceiling. A plastic bucket of water tipped down, splashing on the floor. "Saw the stain from the last splash," he remarked wisely, completing his entrance, and got soaked by the second bucket of water.

Jessica then stepped out. She had noted the splash too—such things were ubiquitous at clone balls—but still had residual caution. A soaking could have interfered with her camouflage clothing. Now, unfortunately, they were readily distinguishable: Jess-wet from Jess-dry. That could be awkward.

There was a stiff breeze inside, consistent with the motif. Jesse shivered as his clothing evaporated, and hurried to the refreshment alcove for a mildly intoxicating Cyclomate beverage. Jessica had to accompany him and take one also, but she imbibed it far more cautiously. It was considered humorous to spike these drinks with hallucinogens or aphrodisiacs. She still felt nervous, afraid someone would see her flattened breasts sneaking some stray bulge through her masculine shirt.

As Jesse consumed his drink he became more sociable. Jessica grew alarmed in corresponding proportion. Her situation forced her to be less and less like him, so that she could seem more and more like him. If he got careless, talked too much—

They circulated, chatting with other clones. The older ones were married, each member accompanying his/her spouse; the child-level ones, already bored with the introductions, were playing noisy team-tag in the basement. Jesse and Jessica were among the select minority of adolescents; in self-defense they tended to associate with these.

"Hey, Jess! Where were you, Screwball?" a husky male bawled, clapping Jessica jarringly on the back. Her drink slopped onto the floor: no loss. Her fear was growing, as she noted her brother's unconscious fidgeting, that the juice really had been spiked.

"We were indisposed, Jules," she responded. Actually they had skipped the Scrub-clones' party, titled Screwball, because of the maturation problem. But too many skips would become suspicious, and the last thing they wanted was suspicion. Theoretically all the unmarried clones of any age were eagerly mixing, trying to line up the best marital alliances early. It was a bit like musical chairs, with the "music"—i.e., intense social and sexual interplay

—continuous, and the competitors eager to be the first to drop out by pairing off. The ones who played too long, or not enough, might not make their necessary connections. So the Jess-clones had had to make Cyclone, ready or not. Jesse was all too ready; Jessica was not.

Jules leaned down confidentially. "You missed some real screwing, Jess! But you can make it up this time, eh?" And he aimed another devastating smash at her back. She ducked neatly to avoid it, dinking him in the stomach with three stiffened fingers. He thought his pun about "making it up" was terribly clever; she thought it proved him a bore.

"Eh," she agreed, emulating Jesse.

Privately, she was disgusted. Sex was not only fairly open, it was expected. How else, the theory went, could the clones find suitable partners for marriage?

Jesse was quite interested in the subject now; he hardly needed the stimulation of an aphrodisiac drink to get him going. Jessica, even had she been overtly female, would have preferred to wait. It was inherent in the Solarian species, she decided: it was the male's prerogative to seed whatever furrow he could find, and to do that all he needed was a wandering nature and a ready tool. It was the female's duty to bear and raise the young; for that she needed to stay at home and work. So the male craved sexual expression constantly, lest his tool sag from neglect, while the female could take it or leave it, as befitted the situation. She hoped the situation never befitted a marriage with Jules; she couldn't stand him.

A well-developed pair sashayed up. "Jess! We've been looking for you!"

"And we for you, Bessy!" Jesse responded, his eyes ogling the left Bess with more than mock appreciation. Jessica hurled another mental curse at that drink.

The Bess clones took pride in their purported resemblance to their namesake ancestor, Good Queen Bess; possibly this was valid, assuming the Queen had been voluptuous and stupid. Jessica, her annoyance verging on wrath, painted an ogle similar to her brother's on her own face. The Bessies were only a few months older than the Jesses, but their female attributes had manifested explosively.

They would never be able to pass for males!

The Bessies took a deep tandem breath, causing their four mammaries to overflow their costumes dangerously. "Shall we try it out?" And they winked in broad unison, though that was hardly necessary.

Jessica wondered: what was it that she had been thinking about the woman's role?

The Bessies were coming on with disgusting directness. And Jesse, damn him, was raptly interested! She nudged him warningly with her elbow, but he was so absorbed by the quadruple revelation that he ignored her. He was male, therefore he chose a woman by shape, not intellect or personality. By shape! How foolish was it possible to get?

The Bessies took firm hold of the Jesses and propelled them toward the private rooms. Jessica could not resist effectively, since Jesse was eager enough to go.

But the thing was impossible!

'What is impossible? Sexual play is natural.'

"Not between females!" Jessica retorted.

"Beg pardon?" Bessy inquired, already half disrobed. Jesse and the other Bessy had vanished to the adjacent chamber.

Even had it not been impossible, it would have been undesirable. Bessy was a cow, huge of haunch and udder (exactly as Jesse liked to pretend his sister was; she was definitely not!), scant of intellect, basic of instinct. At least Jesse should have evinced some taste in bovines!

Shape. It was so damned stupid! As well to judge a drink by the contour of its container.

'Yes. Taste is the only criterion—'

"Oh, shut up!" she snapped.

"But I wasn't speaking," Bessy protested, hurt.

"Uh, I mean shut off the light." Jessica lurched to wave her hand across the illumination control, and the light faded.

"Oh, in the dark," Bessy cried. "How quaint!"

"Yes. It's the newest fashion," Jessica said. "Give me a moment to get ready."

She moved silently to the door between rooms. It was a privacy curtain, fortunately: opaque, but of no substance. She stepped through.

And was momentarily blinded by the light. Jesse, unclothed, was just rising from his willing conquest. That drink had given him jet propulsion!

'Your kind employs jets?'

"In a manner of speaking," she answered, this time silently. "The male's role—oh, never mind!"

'And the female remains to care for the offspring. This is a desirable procedure.'

"That depends." Jessica closed out the nagging thoughts and returned to her dream, though it horrified her.

Bessy's eyes were closed, her body open. Jessica suppressed another surge of revulsion. She understood, to a certain extent, the male imperative; sex was an inherent hunger that he sought to gratify. But this type of female, who surely had no similar incentive—why was she so eager for it? It had to be a perverse pride of conquest: she bolstered her undeserving ego by proving that men found her desirable. But she wasn't desirable; she was a great mass of incipiently sagging flesh. A sow.

Jesse spied Jessica, his brows lifting questioningly, but almost immediately he understood. The abatement of his lust allowed his mind to function again, making him aware of her predicament. He rose from Bessy, gestured Jessica to take his place, picked up his clothes and tiptoed through the curtain to join the other Bessy. How he would perform there Jessica could not say; presumably he would stall until he was able to rise again to the occasion. Served him right.

Jessica sat beside Bessy, afraid to arouse suspicion by turning off this light.

She took her clothing partly off, to look as if it had been hastily donned, and waited.

Bessy stirred, eyes still closed. "Am I a good lay, Jess?"

Jessica experienced the mental image of a monstrous laser beam destroying the whole castle. But her voice was controlled, artificially sincere. "As good as any I've had," she replied, biting her lip. Another wash of furious frustration and jealousy suffused her—and the very existence of that reaction made her more angry yet. No, she didn't want to be like Bessy—did she? "How am I as a stud?"

"Oh, the best, the best! Sort of quick, though." Bessy opened her eyes. "How did you get dressed so soon?"

"Part of the art," Jessica said with assumed smugness. "If you'd kept your eyes closed another moment, I'd have tucked in my shirt before you ever noticed." She did so now.

"Some trick! You dress almost as fast as you perform." Bessy stretched languorously. "If you were to marry me, it would be like this every day. More often if you wanted."

Age fifteen, so hot to get married to a clone! The artifice was so obvious it was painful. "If I were to marry you, I couldn't have it with all the other girls anymore," Jessica said with simulated regret. When she got home, she intended to wash her mouth out with detergent.

Bessy sighed. Her wit was not sufficient to cope with that rejoinder. Her expertise hardly extended beyond disrobing and spreading her legs. She closed her eyes again. "Stroke me again, Jess, as you did before."

Jessica gritted her teeth. How far did she have to carry this infernal charade?

She knew where her half would have stroked this bovine. He would have milked her.

Jessica closed her fist, aiming it—no. This was a temptation to which she could not afford to yield, lest she betray her affinity. For Jessica was really another female mammal.

She put out her hand. In her imagination it held a butcher's knife. Let me carve you, cowpig! From here a fine juicy steak; from there a fat roast...

"Oh, Jess, you really know how to do it," Bessy said.

Jessica wrenched her eyes open from the nightmare— and found she had no eyes.

She screamed—and had no voice. She had only touch and taste—mainly the latter.

"Will you stop it?" Heem demanded. "You are burning out my nerves!"

The horror subsided slowly. 'I was dreaming, reliving—'

"I perceived, sharing your horror. Impersonating the alternate sex—I comprehend how revolting that would be, though it surely prepared you for your cross-sexual transfer. But to imagine carving eating-chunks from the flesh of a sapient—"

'Bessy was not very sapient.'

"But the most remarkable thing—I almost thought I could see."

'Of course you can see—when you're snooping on my dream! Because my mind is oriented on seeing and hearing, and the impulses translate.'

"Horrible," Heem jetted.

'You, blind and deaf, talk of horror? You, who diverted this ship into—' But she did not voice the concept.

"You are aware of my rationale," he reminded her. "Better to die cleanly and honorably in space, than in confinement."

'What could be more comforting than a black hole?' The scream was forming again, causing him to wince internally. She had a considerable weapon, there!

"A thorough and honorable death is not confining," he informed her. "It is an excellent liberation from an intolerable situation."

They oriented their attention on the Hole ahead. The Hole itself was blank to the ship's instrumentation, because it was what it was; but there were considerable phenomena at its fringe that were perceptible.

'I don't resign myself to this at all, you know,' Jessica said tersely, and indeed there was an undercurrent of purpose in her being that was alarming in its strength. 'There has to be some escape. If only I could see it!' She considered in her brief, Solarian, feminine way. 'Heem, you have to develop sight. That's all there is to it. I absolutely refuse to die blind. I want to see what I'm getting into.'

"I am having difficulty making you understand that I have no perception of sight. In this competition, only Erbs see. Squams hear and HydrOs taste."

'Well, Solarians see, hear, and taste. And feel. We have senses bristling out all over! And right now I want to see.'

"It is impossible!"

'I'll scream!'

The ultimate argument! "There are some things, like sexual identity and fundamental perception, that simply cannot be changed. You may scream the nerves right out of my body, but you can't make me see. Why not at least permit us to die in dignity?"

She assumed a pose of reasonableness, but that chill current remained beneath.

'It is possible to alter sexual identity, because I am an example. It should be possible to adapt the informational channels and impulses to a new configuration. The brain does it. All it needs is discipline. If you work with me, I should be able to see— and so should you. We're doing it already some in our dreams. If we work at it—'

"No!"

'Oh, come on now, Heem! I'm not trying to pry into your doubtless guilty secrets. I don't care about your secrets. What difference do they make, if we are about to die? You want to die in space; I want to die with sight. Because I'm an artist at heart, visually oriented. The least you can do is try to learn to see.'

Heem did not follow all her alien logic, but there seemed to be some sense there. "I will try to see," he sprayed with resignation. Obviously she would not allow him to die in peace if he did not make this effort.

'Good. Let's start with that—that thing out there. The main ball of it can't be seen or perceived at all, directly, because it is what it is, by definition unperceivable. But around the edge—what is there?'

Heem tasted the impulses the ship fetched in. He tried to suppress his taste sensation, allowing information to remain just that: information without perception. An increasing bulk of it was non-information, as the Hole made its massive non-presence felt.

Around the fringe of that vast blankness were lesser phenomena. Matter was being drawn from the Star to spiral into the Hole. It was a gradual process, for only the substance erupted from solar flares escaped the Star's own gravitational well—to be captured by the smaller but deeper well of the Hole. Ribbons of gas formed concentric rings about it, admixed with meteoric rock and other debris.

The radius of no-return was much larger for solid matter than for gas, and smaller for energy. They were now at the fringe of the solid limit for chemical propulsion; a really powerful jet-drive might enable H-66 to break free. But that was not what they had. They had barely enough fuel left to decelerate for a planetary landing, academic as that had become.

And—Heem almost began to see it. He knew he was merely picking up the feedback from Jessica's effort of imagination, but she did know how to see, which was something no HydrO knew, and she did have a fine, focusing mind. When not distracting herself with pointless jealousy of more lushly fleshed females of her kind.

'I heard that!'

"You were snooping."

'Oh, I suppose I can't deny all the Bessies of this galaxy their right to use what little they have to better their situation. It's just that I wish other things counted for more.'

"Flavor counts for more."

'Go to hell.'

She was determined to expire in her own style, though what he grasped of her image of hell was not far removed from the Hole they were entering. She wanted to distract herself from the reality of death. That was something Heem should be doing too; his weakness was—

A planetoid loomed near, its rocky surface cratered and ragged. The light of Holestar reflected from it, making it sparkle. There must be reflective minerals—

Shock ran through him. He had seen it! He had seen glints of brightness, rather than tasting nodules of flavor. He—no, of course he hadn't. He had no—

'Oh, now you've spoiled it!' Jessica cried. 'Just when it was coming clear!'

So he had. "Seeing—it just is not natural," Heem sprayed apologetically.

'Maybe not to you. Why don't you just tune out for an hour or so while I play with it? I promise I'll wake you in plenty of time for your demise.' Now there was a brittle-ness to her cleverness. She was angry about dying.

"I shall," he agreed. And relaxed into memory. These recollections might be forbidden and unsocial and illegal—but what did such things matter now?

Moon of Morningmist woke him with a fine-spraycaress that proceeded quickly to further copulation. She tasted wonderful. Then they rolled out to interact again with her siblings, Miin, Maan, Muun, and Meen. Heem, fresher this morning than he had been on the prior day, doused them all with a splendid sex spray, and they needled him back delightedly. There was no joy in life to match that of such a welcome!

They toured the further aspects of the valley of Morningmist, paying special attention to the swamp that degenerated from the nether end of the lake. There were flatfloaters in it, big, healthy ones, that took easy jaunts over the surface of the water, swamp, and land.

"Heem came over the mountain on a flatfloater," Moon sprayed proudly. She had a proprietary attachment to him, for he had encountered her first, and he chose to copulate with her for pleasure rather than mere politeness. "The creatures can be guided by jets. We can do it too, with courage—"

"My brothers died!" Heem interjected. She was spraying as though she had entirely forgotten their dialogue of the night.

'Females do that,' a thought needled him. 'Be assured she has not forgotten a thing.'

"Therefore your valley of Highfalls is empty, and requires seeding," Moon concluded firmly, demonstrating the accuracy of his thought-warning.

"No! We are not sure of that!" But they were not convinced; he could taste it even without their sprays of demurral. "And—I am afraid to risk my life on another flatfloater." That was a half-truth, but it would have to do.

"Yes, there is fear," Moon agreed.

They continued the tour of Morningmist, visiting its pleasant seclusions, playing challenging games, comparing personal histories. It was very like his prior life, with the added dimension of sexuality. Heem enjoyed it greatly. In fact, tasting back later, he was to conclude that this was the happiest of his forbidden memories.

Yet after the first full day he began to wonder: was this all there was to life?

Residing in one valley or another, sporting, while things like Slitherfear Squam consumed them one by one? Where was the meaning in that? Maybe he was wrong about repopulation. If he were to procreate, seeding his valley of Highfalls, then stay to protect and guide his offspring—he knew Moon would not agree to that, for she had already jetted that it was not the HydrO way, but if he deceived her into thinking that he was departing the valley, then secretly returned—

No. Deception was not his way. He had to convince her, or not seed the valley at all.

'That is an honorable sentiment, Heem.'

There went his thought again. Still, the impasse remained. Suppose Moon could not be convinced? He found himself yielding, preparing to follow the HydrO way.

It was better than being idle.

Next day they came across the remains of Miin. Slitherfear had descended to the valley floor and caught her as she slept. The Squam had not been hungry enough to consume her entirely, so had left half of her lying in her burrow. That was how they knew what had happened. Usually members of their number had just distasted, with no indication of the manner of their demise.

They rolled rocks to block up Mini's burrow, sealing her in. Her body would decompose into its components in the natural way. It was all they could do for her. They sprayed about the nice things she had done in life, the sweet thoughts she had jetted, how pleasant she had been to associate with, and their grief at her loss. Then they tried to forget her. After all, almost two hundred of her sisters had died before her; it was hard to keep track of them all, or to feel prolonged sorrow for each individual.

Heem's resolve hardened. This was what unsupervised seeding meant! Never would he contribute to this dread cycle!

Moon importuned him between and during copulations. "If not with me, with one of my sisters," she pleaded. "With Maan, maybe. Ride a flatfloater over the mountain. There is an even slope we can indicate for you, making an easier crossing. We could all go, and at least look."

Grudgingly, he agreed. It was difficult to jet no to a female in the throes of copulation.

'Uh-huh.'

They scouted the swamp, and located a suitable floater, and made arrangements to get aboard it. Heem's prior experience would help them do it correctly. The important thing was not to get careless; they would have to spread themselves across as many of its intakes as possible, to that its suction held them secure.

Its reduced efficiency, because those covered intakes were inoperative, would also help them to stay on—in sudden bursts of motion like those that had wiped out two of Heem's brothers.

Then Maan was discovered, a quarter consumed. Slitherfear, again.

'I am coming to understand your intense aversion to eating.'

"We have the wrong priority!" Heem needled the others. "First we must deal with the Squam enemy, then go exploring. No seeding is worthwhile if it is only to be prey to the Squam, as your siblings have been."

But the females were afraid. They sealed in Maan with ceremonial sorrow, and resumed work on the flatfloater. Heem, Meen, Muun, and Moon hid under the water in the place the monster most often rested, ready to board it.

Experience did help. Heem knew exactly how to prod the monster to keep it from bolting. Their ride was successful. They cruised around the valley, then guided it back to the water and rolled off. Success!

Next day they did it again with another flatfloater. The females learned to control it. It was really fairly easy, once the trick was mastered.

"Now we have transportation over the mountain," Moon sprayed. "We can verify that Highfalls is vacant."

Whereupon they would renew the cycle of innocence and grief. "We are dealing with Slitherfear first," he reminded them. He sprayed them with erotic flavor: he had learned how to make a convincing argument!

"But we only have to verify it! Maybe your brother Hiim is alive."

"Then there is no present point in going to Highfalls; it remains occupied."

"No, one of us could join Hiim, and seed that valley," Muun sprayed. "It is the HydrO way."

"How do any of us really know the HydrO way?" he needled back. "We have never encountered any other HydrOs!"

"It is inherent," Moon replied. "We know what is fit." It was hard to argue against absolute knowledge, but he tried. "You call it fit—to subject another litter to the suffering we have had?"

"It is the HydrO way."

"Then maybe the HydrO way is wrong!"

For that blasphemy they had no answer except shock.

"Maybe," Moon sprayed at last, "we should deal with Slitherfear first Then the valley will be safe for our kind."

Heem refrained from reminding her that this was exactly the case he had been arguing.

'You're getting smarter, Heem.'

But of course after the Squam was gone, Heem would be committed to the seeding.

He had won only a partial victory.

All three females were terrified, and Heem himself was afraid, but they did go after the dread Squam. Each rode on a flatfloater. Their plan was to crash the flatfloaters into the Squam, crushing him again and again until he expired.

'That's simplistic. I don't trust it.'

But Heem kept his private doubts tasteless from his companions, lest they lose nerve entirely. Taming the floaters had been easier than anticipated; maybe killing Slitherfear would be the same.

It was not hard to locate the Squam. Never before had they actually looked for him, and he had no fear of them, therefore no reason to hide. They found him by a cave in the slope of the mountain, doing something with a structure made of metal. There was a strange taste in the air not merely of the metal; it was a little like burning, yet of no fire they knew.

They charged in on their mounts, going for the freshest taste. Heem felt a cold fear of the monster. Yet that fear was what had brought him here; better to attack in a group than to wait for Slitherfear to murder them singly.

The Squam stood still for a moment, as if not believing what was happening. Then it fired out its mechanical spray. "Shy off, or I destroy!"

Heem suffered an acute memory of his brother Hoom, shot down at a distance by this alien. Rage suffused him, almost abolishing his reasonable fear. He needled his floater, directing it straight at the Squam.

Heat struck him. This was no spray; it was like concentrated Star-energy! Heem experienced the taste of his own burning flesh—not acid-burning this time, but fire-burning. His floater swerved, dropped, and crashed into the ground, and Heem rolled violently and helplessly forward. That new weapon was potent!

He tasted Moon and Meen and Muun gliding past him, orienting on the monster.

Then he fetched up against the entrance to the cave and lay stunned. His skin was flaming with pain on the side that had been struck.

The attack was being carried forward without him. Heem felt a surge of pleasure in the courage of these females, for he knew how frightened they were. The three swooped their beasts at Slitherfear. The Squam's weapon flashed—

Flashed?

Radiated. He felt the slight additional heat from its operation, and then the shudder in the ground as another flatfloater fell.

Then came the awful taste of death and it bore the flavor of Moon of Morningmist. The Squam's terrible weapon had destroyed her.

Meen's mount bolted. Heem picked up the lingering trace of its explosive jet, and knew she had lost control. Only Muun remained to attack the Squam.

Muun crashed in, almost striking Slitherfear. But the creature dropped low to the ground, letting the floater pass over, then fired the weapon again. The taste of scorching flesh drifted out; then that floater was gone from perception range. Was Muun alive or dead?

Heem was now alone with the dread Squam. But Slitherfear was not paying attention to him. Laboriously, Heem rolled into the cave, trying to hide, his burned skin hurting and leaking.

There was machinery inside the cave. Heem had no notion what it was for or how it operated, but it was all associated with Slitherfear, and therefore was cold and hideous.

Somehow the Squam used this equipment, as the HydrOs had learned to use the flatfloaters. Therefore, destroying this machinery might be like shooting down a floater. If he only had some way—

Heem fought back the pain of his burn. His jet-pores remained functional, and his internal system was strong; his injury was after all superficial. He could do something—if he could only figure out what. Before Slitherfear returned to his cave, forcing Heem to fight for his life.

Heem jetted softly, rolling slowly, exploring the situation with the caution of fear and ignorance. He knew so little about this stuff. Would a sharp needlejet in the right place have an effect? Or would it be better simply to push an item over?

Experimentally he needled a crevice. Nothing happened.

He rolled to the side, found another crevice, and needled again. Still nothing.

There were irregularities all around the machine, but its cold metal was like the Squam's overlapping scales, proof against mere jets of water.

Then another taste wafted in to him. He recognized it instantly, from his prior experience with the Squam, when Hoom died. Slitherfear was eating.

And the only body the monster had to eat was Moon of Morningmist.

Heem forgot his physical pain. He jetted forward with such force that he crashed into the machine and knocked it over. It crashed on the ground, emitting sparks of energy. But Heem was beyond it, caroming toward the Squam, heedless of any consequence.

Slitherfear had extruded his stomach to consume Moon. He could not react with his usual speed. Heem rolled in, oriented, and struck with his sharpest, hottest needle, right at that extruded tissue. There were no scales to protect this organ! Again and again he lanced into that vulnerable material, holing it, cooking it, cutting it to pieces.

Then, before the dread Squam could recover, Heem rolled away. Slitherfear was not dead, only injured, as Heem was. The weapon jetted its disaster at Heem, but scored only peripherally. It must be hard, Heem thought with a certain grim satisfaction, to concentrate on a fleeing target when one's innards have been shredded.

So he escaped. He rolled into the swamp, letting the water cool his burns. He was fortunate; they were not serious. They would heal.

A day later Meen found him. "I am sorry, Heem," she jetted. "I tried to turn the flatfloater, but—"

"I know. The thing bolted. At least it carried you out of danger."

"I feared you were dead. I tasted your fall—"

"My floater took the brunt. I was only burned and stunned."

"My sister Moon—"

"Dead. I attacked Slitherfear while he was eating her. I did not kill him, but he will not eat soon again. Muun was also hit; what became of her?"

"I found her body this morning. The burn was too much; she rolled off her floater and died."

What devastation, from that brief encounter! The Squam had killed two, injured one, and driven away the floater of the last. How could they kill it?

Meen suffered grief for her sisters. But soon the deeper implication came to her. "The valley of Morningmist is now vacant," she sprayed. "We must seed it."

Not again! "I will not seed after the misery I experienced in these two valleys," Heem needled. "My siblings dead, yours also—"

"But it is the HydrO way!"

"It is not my way! I have another mission: to abate the menace of the Squam, the evil thing who slew my brother, your sisters, and my love."

"We tried to kill Slitherfear—and lost all but us two. He is too strong for us."

Probably true. Yet Heem could not give up. "I shall find out how to kill him.

Maybe he will die from the injury I did him. If not, I will find another way."

"But first we must seed the valley!" Meen was as single-minded about this as Moon had been.

"No! Not now, not ever!"

"Then I must go over the mountain into Highfalls. Perhaps your brother survives, and he and I can seed that valley." And she rolled away to find her flatfloater.

She did not return, somewhat to Heem's relief. Had he seeded with anyone, he would have preferred Moon; her cruel death rendered him desolate. Now he intended to achieve revenge. It was all that was left.

He studied Slitherfear from the concealment of the swamp. The Squam was sound-oriented, not taste-oriented, so could not detect him if he remained quite still. It was easy to stay still while his burns healed. Since Heem was taste-oriented, the air brought him constant news of his enemy's activity. So he had an advantage— for the moment.

Slitherfear had been wounded, no doubt about it. He moved awkwardly, and had not eaten further of Moon's body. Even so, there was a certain sinister grace about him. His metallic scales overlapped, allowing his body to flex. He moved by pressing against objects and irregularities in the ground. He only unfolded his three limbs when he had use for them—moving some object, operating his machinery, clipping sections from plants.

Why would any creature want to clip sections from plants and run them through machines? Did the machines need to eat too? Strange, morbid mystery!

'Obviously surveying the vegetation, among other things. Taking samples, analyzing them, classifying and storing the information. Environmental impact study, perhaps—'

When the Squam was moving, he was sealed in his scales, invulnerable. But when he brought his limbs out, the grooves where they had been lacked scales. What would a needle of water do right in one of those joints or crevices?

The Squam could hear when its limbs were put away. Heem had some understanding of hearing; it was a refinement of his own awareness of vibration. A shudder in the ground or air that he could detect at close range, the Squam could detect at distant range. The sense seemed quite crude when compared to taste as a primary mode of perception. How could the flavor of one individual of a species be distinguished from another? How could mere vibration be adapted to communication? No wonder the Squam depended on machines to generate taste!

Did it hear all over its body, as Heem did, feeling the vibration in its skin?

But Heem's body was soft and sensitive, while the Squam's was hard. So probably the creature had a specialized sensor, a point receptor. If Heem could locate that, and strike it with a needlejet, perhaps a hot one—

Here, Heem was forced to admit, the perception of taste was less than ideal.

Through taste he could analyze the nature of things carefully, even when the things had departed from the locale. But it was extremely difficult to pinpoint something. For that, he would have to approach and bounce an analytic needlejet off it, reading the changes the subject wrought. He hardly dared come that close to Slitherfear!

Yet there were indications. The Squam normally folded his arms for traveling—but not always. Once when he traveled toward the cave, folded, a vibration had come from the swamp, as of a flatfloater dropping to the water. Immediately Slitherfear had paused, lifted his foresegment, unfolded all three arms—

'How did you know it was three, not two or one arm? You could not see them.'

He knew because of the variations in the taste pattern carried by the wind. A single obstruction had a typical configuration of taste; two had another, and three another. This had matched the three-configuration perfectly, and the typical taste of the Squam's interior-space, stronger than the flavor of the external scales had come—

'You could determine that sort of detail from taste alone?'

Yes, he could—once he had thoroughly familiarized himself with the nature of the Squam. Heem had had many days in the swamp, lying quite still, healing his body, with no distraction save his study of that monster. He had become highly attuned to the nature of his enemy—an attunement that had enabled him to deal with Squams much better, later in life. Very few HydrOs ever had an opportunity to study any Squam in such detail, and fewer yet ever availed themselves of it when that opportunity came. Because HydrOs were afraid of Squams, and avoided them whenever possible.

So now he knew the Squam could hear while folded and traveling, but not well.

For full definition it had to pause and open out its arms, becoming vulnerable.

That was an important piece of information!

So the organs of hearing were in the arms, or in the grooves the arms covered.

Those organs had to be vulnerable, otherwise they would have been situated more conveniently for use while traveling. A needlejet could probably damage them.

And a deaf Squam would be like a tasteless HydrO: virtually helpless.

Slitherfear's typical taste had changed. There was the flavor of stomach about him, emanating from the aperture where he extruded his innards to digest his prey. That aperture was at the end of his snout, his foremost extremity; normally closed, it now periodically emitted bursts of taste. Another aperture at the rearmost extremity excreted decomposed material.

How, then, should Heem attack? For there was no question of fleeing; he intended to kill the foul Squam, even if that effort cost Heem his own life. His burned skin had sloughed off and healed in these past days; soon he would be back in full health. Then—

Then Slitherfear readied a machine that had the aspect of a flatfloater. It jetted massively, clouds of mechanical gas tasting faintly of combustion.

A flatfloater machine? That must mean the Squam planned to ride it—and depart the valley. Because he had run out of HydrO prey, or his business here was finished, or his injury in the stomach was causing him to starve. Whatever his reason, his departure would mean a reprieve from Heem's vengeance. Heem had to roll now!

The Squam was just sliding onto the floater. Heem rolled forward violently, jetting as hard as he could, using the full accumulation of water he had amassed while recuperating. He wanted to arrive before Slitherfear unfolded his three arms. But the Squam heard him, sound traveling faster than taste, and snapped open as Heem arrived.

They collided. They were of similar mass, and Heem's impetus shoved the Squam partly off the floater. One tri-formed pincer closed on the surface of the floater, another clamped on Heem's flesh, and the third waved about randomly.

Heem was fortunate: he had caught the monster by surprise, without his burning weapon.

The floater took off. It had the same brute power the living floater did, but it was really a cold metal platform. Heem jetted to maintain his orientation, lest he roll off, but he was held in place also by the Squam's cruel claw-pincer grip. He tried to needle the floater to establish control, but the metal was unresponsive. They sailed up and away, across the valley of Morningmist.

Heem tried to orient to needle Slitherfear, but still that awful grip interfered. Heem was accustomed to rolling, to get his position, so he could aim his needlejets; now he could not roll. He became dangerously hot trying. The Squam was horribly strong, gripping him with devastating authority. How foolish it had been to engage this monster in direct physical combat!

Then Heem realized: Slitherfear's hold on him was not the grip of authority, but the clutch of desperation. The Squam was afraid of falling off the floater, and was holding Heem so that the two would fall together. Heem actually had the advantage. He had caught the Squam weaponless, unbalanced, in the air; now it was body-to-body strife, elemental, with death to the one who first fell. A true rolldown between them!

This gave Heem confidence. He was desperately afraid of the Squam, and afraid of falling, but he would be satisfied to die himself, so long as he killed the Squam too. Since Slitherfear obviously preferred to live, Heem had a powerful tactical advantage.

He jetted more carefully, causing his body to exert rolling force in one direction and then another. The Squam's single claw hurt him as he put force against it, but he felt it give. As he reversed his thrust again, the enemy was forced to bring his free appendage down to grip the surface of the floater, lest his whole body be dislodged. The floater had irregularities suitable for the attachment of three-digited appendages. Heem was pursuing an initiative, forcing the Squam to react!

Now Heem's taste informed him that the groove from which that arm unfolded was in range. He oriented carefully and fired his sharpest needle directly into that cleft. The water was so hot it was starting to vaporize, like a jet from a floater. The effect was instant: the Squam snapped that limb back into its groove.

Encouraged, Heem jetted into the groove of another limb. This was an imperfect shot, glancing, but the effect was similar. He was not certain whether it was the impact, or the wetness, or the heat that was responsible, but he could provide plenty of each. The claw released him as the limb retracted. Now Slitherfear was clinging only to the floater, not to Heem.

Heem needled the third limb. But the position was wrong; he could not reach the groove from which it folded. Nevertheless, that limb quivered. The Squam lost his remaining grip on the floater and began to slide off it. Heem, acutely aware of his advantage, jetted forcefully, rolling his body into that of the Squam, trying to shove it off the floater. The Squam was solid; a fall should hurt him as much as it would hurt Heem. Perhaps more. But Slitherfear slithered forward and hunched his body, and it was Heem who overbalanced and fell off. He tasted the floater zooming ahead, while he angled down. He tasted vegetation below—and a streak of open water to one side. Heem jetted explosively on one side, nudging his body toward the water—and plunged into it with a terrific splash. His consciousness departed.

'So you survived,' the alien Jessica said. 'For a while there I wasn't sure!'

"I survived—but so did Slitherfear. I failed to kill him, and he escaped the valley." And Heem was savagely sorry.

'But you were young then, inexperienced! He was a representative of a technologically developed species. It was not an equal contest.'

"It was still failure. The penalty is—"

'You take failure pretty seriously, don't you.'

"It is more than that. To fail in this competition is doom for me. To fail to kill the Squam—" He let his taste dilute into amorphous suggestion.

'I don't see why,' she persisted annoyingly.

"It was not merely personal failure. It was treason to my species."

That's nonsense! How can it be treason, when you tried as hard as you could?'

"Because no successful reseeding of Morningmist Valley could occur, while Slitherfear was there—or while he could return."

'Of course it couldn't. You were quite right about that. But you didn't want to seed the valley anyway.'

"Therefore, treason—and now at last I pay the penalty." He tasted ahead, admiring the looming blot of the Hole. "Soon, now, we will spiral into the range of the killer tide, and be torn apart. Already I feel the first twinges."

'This is ridiculous!' she cried. 'You can't equate the black hole to some prior failure! You can't accept death just because you were unable to do the impossible!'

"Equate it as you will. It is the end."

'But I didn't fail! Why should I die too? I have a right to fight for my life!'

Heem considered. "There is a certain alien justice in your view. But how can you save yourself, if I perish in the Hole?"

'I can't!' she admitted, suppressing waves of anger, frustration, and terror.

'But at least if I must die, I want to know why. You haven't said anything that makes sense to me.'

"It is clear enough. I refused to reseed the valley. Then I failed to kill the Squam."

'That is as clear as homogenized mud!'

"Any creature of my culture would comprehend."

'I am not of your culture! I'm an alien thing! Your rationale is insanity to me!'

Again, she had some justice. But there really was nothing he could do to alleviate her situation.

They watch-tasted the looming Hole. Already they were beyond the ship's propulsive recovery; even if he turned the ship and expended all their remaining fuel in a jet, going straight out from the Hole, it would not suffice. The doom had been committed. Increasingly he felt the nag of the tide within his body.

'Do you know,' she said after a time, 'I have had a recurring nightmare, like yours, only mine isn't a bad memory, it's a bad anticipation. You know how I've been masquerading as a man, to match my clone-brother, keeping our secret?'

"I know," Heem agreed. At least she wasn't screaming.

'I hate that masquerade. Yet I understand it. I must maintain it, until the time is right. Yet I keep wishing I could end it, or have it ended for me, so I would not be guilty. So in this dream—'

"A dream of ending it would be a good dream."

'No. Because of the social situation. To end it at the wrong time, in the wrong manner—that would be disaster and shame. In my dream, I'm attending one of these damn clone balls, those masterworks of frivolity and waste, and this strange, huge yet handsome man comes up and rips off my dress and exposes my nakedness, and everyone sees me for a female, and they all laugh and I'm so mortified I want to die...'

"Ridicule before your peers," Heem agreed. "This I comprehend. Violation of cultural mores."

'But the strange thing is, now that my nightmare wish is being granted and I know I am going to die, really going to die, that dream doesn't frighten me anymore. Here I've told it to you, and it doesn't bother me at all. You could laugh, and I'd just laugh too. Because showing or not showing my natural body is a pretty silly thing to get tight about. Because I don't really want to die. I'd be happy to suffer such shame, if only I could live."

Then she was crying, and now Heem comprehended this too, and her alienness diminished in his perception. She seemed less like a Squam and more like Moon of Morningmist, whom he had wronged by his denial, until her death made it too late. Now he wished he could spare this feeling female, even at the price of shame. But he could not. The abyss was absolute. All he could hope to do was to make her understand. Heem made a special effort. "My kind must seed any suitable habitat. This is how we propagate our kind. Any isolated region of sufficient size is suitable—when it is vacant. When Meen and I were the only remaining HydrOs in Morningmist, we had to seed the valley and depart. She was ready. I refused."

'I've got that,' Jessica said.

"But there was an exoneration. The presence of Slitherfear made the valley unsuitable. I had therefore to eliminate him. Then the valley would be suitable.

But I failed. Thus I neither seeded the valley nor enabled anyone else to seed it in my stead."

'But you tried! You risked your life attacking that monster, twice. No one could ask more of you than that!'

"I could."

'And anyway, you weren't going to reseed the valley, even before you fought the Squam, and there was no other male to do it, so your failure to kill Slitherfear made no difference.'

"Therein lies my treason. Had I been willing to seed, but found it necessary to eliminate Slitherfear first, my failure would have been honest. But as it was—"

'I begin to see. You failure may have been because you wanted to fail, just as my nightmare was a reflection of my desire to be exposed. So your failure became an extension of your treason.'

"Now you roll it."

'I wanted to roll it. To grasp it. It is like my own shame. I am not truly afraid of nakedness or exposure of my nature; I'm really sort of proud of my sex and my body. My true shame is in my desire to abrogate my responsibility to my estate.'

"And if you so abrogated, then you might truly wish to die."

'So I might. I know my brother wished to die, and he is me.' She was silent a time, her thoughts too complex for Heem to follow. Then she addressed him again.

'I'm glad I understand, Heem. Because now I can say without fear of successful contradiction that your whole death wish is unfounded. You committed no treason.'

"An alien could hardly be expected to comprehend civilized rationale." Yet he was disappointed; he had wanted her to understand, and thought she did.

'I am a civilized alien! You have to understand that the HydrO way is not the way in the universe. What is treason to you could be honorable to me. Honorable to the majority of sapient creatures in the Milky Way Galaxy. Your horizons are too limited.'

"You prevaricate charmingly. But this is my occasion for truth. All my quasi-adult life I have concealed the flavor of my treason; now in death I can finally cleanse myself with the truth. I should have seeded Morning-mist."

'No, you're wrong! I mean you're right! Right not to seed Morningmist!'

Heem issued a confused jet, thinking he had misunderstood her. "Right—to commit treason?"

'It wasn't treason! You suffered terribly in your juvenile state, not knowing where you came from or what your purpose was, all your brothers dying one by one. That's a barbaric way to raise children! You resolved not to perpetuate that horror—as any sapient creature would. I would never reproduce in such a fashion. It is the standard of your society that is treasonable, not you.'

Amazing! "You—now that you know the truth—do not condemn me?"

'Condemn you? Heem, I applaud you! Despite all the urgings of your culture, you held to what was right.'

"This cannot be true," he jetted disbelievingly. "You grasp—you roll the wrong, you have a similar horror in your own experience—"

'It cannot be false! How could I lie to you, being resident in your mind? My own horror is not similar; it is a private wish to see my own lot improve at the expense of my estate. A selfish wish. You, in contrast, stood up for what was right despite the pressures of convenience and social opprobrium. You held to what was proper despite personal sacrifice. There's a world of difference!'

She had to be right. She shared his brain, his nerves. He might not understand her nature, but he knew her emotion. She was speaking truth, as she understood it.

Still, it could hardly be. "Because of me, neither Morningmist nor Highfalls was seeded. I violated the cardinal rule of our species."

'You upheld a cardinal rule of our species, and of many others, perhaps the majority of all sapient species: not to throw babies to the wolves. I think you acted honorably. Maybe it is against your culture's law or custom, but it remains a fundamentally decent attitude. If I have to die, I'm glad I am dying in support of such an attitude.'

She meant it. She was an alien sapient, and she endorsed his secret shame—as an open virtue. She was not revolted.

'And did it ever occur to you, Heem, that you were not really depriving those valleys of HydrO litters? Meen may have crossed over into Highfalls and found Hiim and seeded it; or two other HydrOs could have come in from elsewhere and seeded both valleys. The future of your species was not at stake; those valleys were bound to be populated. The only question was, by whom? So you elected not to participate; that was the fortune of someone else, not treason. Nothing was changed, except your affirmation of your own morality.'

"This is stupid," Heem needled himself. "What is it to me, what one alien thinks?"

But it was the first such affirmation he had ever had. He cared.

Chapter 5: Threading the Needle

'Now you don't have to die,' Jessica said. 'You have no guilt to expiate.'

Heem was still sifting through his gratified amazement, but he had not lost the taste of reality. "I may have no guilt to expiate. Therefore I can die satisfied."

'You could save yourself, if you really wanted to. I'm sure of it.'

Foolish female! "The Hole can not be escaped—and if it could, there would remain the problem of the competition, whose cut we have missed, and the incarceration that awaits me at home. I still prefer the Hole."

'I've been thinking about that, Heem, while I worked on the problem of vision, while you fought the Squam in memory. I think we just might win that contest!'

"I have accepted the inevitable. You evince grandiose hopes." Yet there was an insidious lure to it. The fact that a single sapient creature believed in his decision not to seed the valley—this had an extraordinary effect on his will to live. If one believed, wasn't it possible that others might also believe?

This black hole—it's really a shortcut to Planet Eccentric. We are cutting across the Holestar System disk, instead of orbiting around it the way the other ships are. And the combined pull of Star and Hole is giving us tremendous velocity. If we could just zip through and come out the other side, we'd be first there, wouldn't we?'

"We are already within the point of no return for this spaceship. We cannot—"

'But we can loop between Hole and Star! Don't you see, Heem—the point of no return would be much closer to the Hole, when opposed by the Star, since the Hole is really orbiting the Star. And if we go on through, all our present velocity counts for us, not against us, and will translate into velocity away from the Hole on the other side. We have not really been captured at all! We can thread the needle through!'

Heem was amazed at the audacity, simplicity, and naivete of this proposal. "To attempt such a thing is almost certain death!"

'You forget where we are. For us not to attempt it is certain death!'

She was, of course, correct. At this stage there was absolutely nothing to lose.

"Still, it is hopeless," he sprayed. "The interaction of tides and stellar wind and radiation, velocity vectors— this is beyond my power to assimilate and control, in a ship of this simplicity."

'You only think it is beyond your power. You have more resources than you appreciate. Think of it as a huge Squam to be challenged: you can beat it if you only try hard enough.'

"I am an experienced pilot, among the best of my species," he sprayed. "I am not modest about my abilities in this regard. I may no longer be able to defeat a Squam in fair combat, but my piloting ability is undiminished. No HydrO could navigate clear of the Hole from this point; therefore I cannot."

'Well, a Solarian could!' she retorted. 'And I think that your piloting is diminished, because if you lost talent in personal combat, you must have lost it generally, if only in little ways you aren't aware of. And you know what you lack? It is sight. Vision. If you could see what you're doing, you could pilot this ship right between the Hole and the Star, balancing their gravity wells against each other so we don't fall into either.'

"For a species who sees, you evince little respect for radiation. To pass that close to the Star would be to be blasted by intolerable levels. Even if the ship were precisely on course, we would emerge dead."

She pondered that. 'I'm not so sure. There's a lot of gas and dust spiraling between Star and Hole. It could act as a radiation shield, preventing the ship from getting too hot or absorbing too much in the lethal ranges. It would not be a long passage. Maybe a little key maneuvering. All you'd need to do is watch for suitable clouds, and go through them.'

She was so foolishly determined! "It is theoretically possible. But I cannot see, so—"

'But I can! I can show you how. I can do it for you. I'm your transfer half of the team; together we can do it!'

Her ridiculous enthusiasm burgeoning along his nerves was contagious. His new urge to live caused him to consider even such an extreme. "Such a thing—it would be an extremely long roll."