Anthony, Piers Cluster 4 Thousandstar

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Heem tried, but the momentary flash he had had, had faded. "I am not certain I really-whatever it was,
is gone."
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'But you did have it, Heem! I'm sure! Try again!'
He did, but got nowhere.
'Very well-we'll have to approach this obliquely,' she decided. 'Let's-I'll tell you what, we can
exchange images. You were beginning to see in the memory passages; you can take it further now.'
"First allow me to orient the ship," Heem jetted. He maneuvered carefully, aligning the ship with the
nebula-bowl taste, then let it drift. He was conserving fuel, now that he might have need of it.
'Now-I'll visualize key scenes from my past, and you taste scenes from yours, and we'll try to get them
both aligned with sight,' she said. 'I don't know if this is scientific, but I have a gut feeling about it.
Once you can see your own past, you should be able to see anything- and there's our key to survival.
Maybe I'll be able to taste my own past too, and get some idea what is entailed.'
"It must be accomplished before we reach that cup-nebula," Heem jetted. "Once there, I shall have to
guide this ship through, and prevent it from falling into either gravity well. Small adjustments will be
critical. If I fail, all else is for nothing."
'How much time do we have?'
Heem did some translating. "I judge two chronosprays-about an hour, as you reckon time. We have
been approaching steadily, and are now accelerating in free-fall; our approach will be extremely rapid,
compared to our past velocity."
'An hour!' she exclaimed. 'Well, let's get right on it, then!' She delved into her first vision, rolling him
along.
Jessica faced her brother defiantly. "Jesse, I absolutely refuse to go through that ever again! That
awful cow-how could you?"
Her clone-brother spread his hands placatingly. He was a slight but handsome young man, with dark
blue hair falling in curls to his light blue neck, his eyes a matching blue. His features were even,
almost nondescript in their regularity. There was nothing typically aggressive or masculine about him.
Which was, of course, a blessing, for her facial features were identical. Yet when she donned a
feminine wig, she was fully female.
"That cow is quite a conquest, Jessica. If you were a man, you'd understand. Not the sort I'd care to
stay with, but hoo-hoo! What a place to visit!"
"Well, I'm not a man, and I don't understand! Why should I have to cover for your slumming? I've got
a life of my own to lead, you know!"
"Not as my clone, you don't."
"Damn you! You always bring that up! Suppose you had been my clone? It's easier to delete an X
chromosome than to add one."
He raised one eyebrow. "That depends, clone-sister dear, on the technology. In this case they found it
more feasible to merge the X factor from another sperm cell in the same bank with the cloned
embryo, so-"
'I don't see it,' Heem complained. 'I taste the dialogue, but the color of fur-of hair-it isn't working.'
"It's just the beginning," Jessica told him. "Just the initial alignment. Go into your memory, and I'll try
to-to make it visible. We'll keep switching back and forth, until we connect."
The arena was in neutral territory: the tropic region of the Erbs. Erbs filled the spectator section, their
roots twining eagerly into the supportive soil. They enjoyed watching Squams battle HydrOs.
Heem rolled out to encounter his opponent. The dispute concerned five valleys along the boundary:
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were they to be controlled by HydrO or Squam? Squams had been surveying the region, presuming
they would possess it; Heem had experienced part of that effort. Which was why he was here; he had
a very special motive. This match would decide whether Slitherfear's labor paid off for the Squams.
It was not, unfortunately, Slitherfear who was to fight this duel, but another Squam champion. The
creature slithered forward with confidence, almost disdain, knowing that no HydrO could hurt a
Squam. But no Squam had encountered a HydrO with the motive and experience Heem possessed...
'No, not that memory; that's too much action and not enough scenery. We need strong visual imagery,
color, texture. Go back to Highfalls.'
Heem went back to Highfalls, though he would have liked to show off his victory over the Squam
champion-the event that had made Heem a hero among his kind. For a while.
He recalled the taste of his awakening under water, realizing that he had survived his encounter with
Slitherfear, but had failed to kill the Squam. The taste of the surrounding water was soured by his
awareness of that failure.
'But water can be seen, too,' Jessica said. 'It's greenish, sometimes blue-'
"Tastes green," Heem jetted.
'No, no! Looks green. Like this.' And she conjured the vision of the small lake on her human estate.
"Green." She made an annoyed mental headshake. "Oh, now I've taken over the memory! This is
supposed to be your vision. I'm just the observer." She concentrated. "Here, I'll retreat to the
background-ah, like this.' [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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