[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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."
a
a
T
T
n
n
s
s
F
F
f
f
o
o
D
D
r
r
P
P
m
m
Y
Y
e
e
Y
Y
r
r
B
B
2
2
.
.
B
B
A
A
Click here to buy
Click here to buy
w
w
m
m
w
w
o
o
w
w
c
c
.
.
.
.
A
A
Y
Y
B
B
Y
Y
B
B
r r
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.
a
a
T
T
n
n
s
s
F
F
f
f
o
o
D
D
r
r
P
P
m
m
Y
Y
e
e
Y
Y
r
r
B
B
2
2
.
.
B
B
A
A
Click here to buy
Click here to buy
w
w
m
m
w
w
o
o
w
w
c
c
.
.
.
.
A
A
Y
Y
B
B
Y
Y
B
B
r r
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.'
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]