Read Thousandstar (#4 of the Cluster series) for Free Online Page B

response. Heem was tempted to let Swoon wash out, but decided to give him one more chance. He jetted out of his niche and rolled the short distance across to nudge the inattentive HydrO—and found the spot empty.
    No wonder Swoon hadn't answered his summons! Swoon was absent from his assigned place. Probably he had gotten confused and settled out of place, in niche 4 or 400 instead of forty. That had been foolish. Of course a foolish HydrO would be a poor host, and would wash out of the competition rapidly, so perhaps it made no difference. Only one of the thousand would prevail, and the sooner the fools were eliminated, the better it would be for the real contenders.
    Except that Heem himself, no fool, was just as likely to wash out now as was Swoon. Because there seemed to be no way to get past the transferee verification. How ironic that he, who for all they knew was the most able entrant-host, should be eliminated by a transfer malfunction. Had he been in Swoon's situation, he would not have squandered his chance like this.
    "Swoon of Sweetswamp. Third jet. Report for verification, or forfeit."
    Suddenly Heem rolled rapidly from this region. He had a notion, a slim chance hardly worth tasting, but if it worked—
    He rolled up to the nearest open verification alcove. "Swoon of Sweetswamp reporting as summoned," he squirted.
    "Put your transferee on," the alcove jetted impersonally.
    "Transferee communicating," Heem squirted after a pause. He made the squirt deliberately sloppy, as if an alien mind were operating it.
    "State your home-Star, transferee."
    "I will not!" Heem squirted, almost missing the alcove receptor-surface in his supposed clumsiness. "I will not give away my nature to your government. Use your programmed aura cross-check; that is all that is permitted."
    The beauty of it was that if the machine malfunctioned, Heem would be through verification. But if, as was far more likely, the machine showed that only a single aura occupied this body, it would be Swoon of Sweetswamp who was disqualified, not Heem of Highfalls. In this manner he could gamble and lose without paying the penalty. Of course, he would still have to figure out some other way to fool the machine, but he would worry about that in due course. Maybe they didn't really have aura readouts here; they might be depending on self-identification. So if he could pretend that—
    "You are Heem of Highfalls," the alcove jetted. "What are you attempting?"
    The taste of success dissipated. They had cross-checked his aura, and nabbed him. Now all he could do was ad lib. "Swoon's name was called, and he was absent, so I tried to cover the taste for him so he would not be unfairly eliminated."
    "Swoon is a friend of yours?"
    "Indubitably." He could hardly afford the truth. "Of course, we are competing against each other—that is, our transferees are—but here at the initial stage we are cooperating. You know how it is." But he knew the machine would not know how it was.
    "You are lying, Heem. You were not aware that Swoon is female."
    This was no machine jetting! The anonymous interviewer was entirely too clever, setting traps for him. But Heem fought it through: "So I tried to get processed before my turn. My transferee wants to win this competition, for his Star."
    The alcove sprayed out a rude profusion of mirth. "For his Star? Not likely!"
    Something was wrong here. All the HydrOs were merely hosts for the representatives of the Thousand Stars. Why should his endorsement of the obvious be so humorous—unless the interviewer knew he had no transferee? Yet why continue this dialogue, in that case? They should just roll him out. So Heem waited without responding, knowing they had caught him—and that they had something else in mind. He knew there was heavy politicking in any Segment competition, and possibly he was about to get a taste of it here.
    "You are aware that three species are serving as hosts for this engagement," the