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Heem needled the tractor's information bank, and it sprayed a display of variegated flavors. "This is
the pattern of the landscape," he advised her. "The keyed tastes mark fuel deposits, hazards, safe
passages-"
'Oh, a map!' she exclaimed. 'I'm good at maps. Let me visualize it-there.' A colored picture-chart
formed.
They contemplated it. The map indicated that they were on a large island girded with volcanic
mountains, long rivers, broad plains, and deep jungles. At the center of the island was the destination,
the object of the competition. The Ancient site. Heem felt a thrill of excitement run through him as he
saw/tasted it, and was not certain whether it was his reaction or hers.
'Both,' Jessica said. 'The fascination of the Ancients appeals to all the sapient species of the Cluster.
Even if it wasn't a race, I'd have to hurry to that site.'
"You know of the Ancients in your section of the Galaxy?" Heem inquired, teasing her.
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'Of course we know of the Ancients! What do you think we are, savages? It was the Solarian Flint of
Outworld who saved the Milky Way in the First War of Energy by penetrating an Ancient site. And I
am descended from that great man, and my home is the castle where he liaisoned with Good Queen
Bess and started my family line.'
"Roll cool, alien female! So a Solarian has tasted a site. Who knows, some century the Solarians may
even achieve sapience."
She fired a mental needle-kick at him. 'You bastard! Just like a male!'
"You invite it. Just like a female."
She needled him again, but this time it was a more friendly jab, with a faint and intriguing flavor of
sex appeal. Alien she might be, but she was reminding him more strongly of Moon of Morningmist.
He remembered those first happy hours in the new valley, of association and copulation.
'Just as though there is nothing in the universe except sex,' Jessica said severely.
"Is there?"
'Oh, pay attention to your map! You're running into a mountain.'
So he was, in a manner of tasting. Heem guided the tractor to the side, skirting the ridge ahead.
"According to the map, this is one trail of five threading through the terrain to the site. The problem
is, with fifty tractors and narrow trails, it may become crowded."
'Crowded? It must be a thousand kilometers to the site! That's one tractor per fifty miles, average.'
Heem struggled with the alien measurements, unable to reconcile them with each other or with his
own frame. He had knowledge of Solarian time-scales, but not distance-scales. "It is about two days'
travel by machine, if there are not too many interruptions. But the tractors will not be evenly spaced;
they are beginning clustered and will proceed at similar rates, since all are set at the same level of
propulsion. There will be blockages at the difficult passes. If we get trapped behind such a block, the
tractors on all the other trails will proceed beyond us. Then we will lose, regardless of what else
happens on our own trail."
'Oh, I see. So we'd better pick a trail that isn't much used-or go cross-country.'
"No cross-country. Taste these intense lines on the map? Those are lava runnels. This planet is
actively volcanic. We can cross only at the bridges."
'So there is still a good deal of luck involved,' she said. 'Those who happen to be in the wrong line,
lose out.'
"We must arrange not to be in the wrong line. That way we mitigate chance."
'Gotcha. Let's study that map more closely.'
Heem pulled the tractor off the trail and parked it behind the large clump of ferns. "We dare not
proceed too far on this trail until we are sure," he jetted. "I dislike delaying, but since the trails do not
intersect again until after the fuel depots-"
'Fuel depots?'
"We shall have to refuel once. Machines are not civilized; they must consume physical chemicals
constantly, like Squams."
'Go ahead and needle it, chauvinist! Like Solarians too! Machines eat.'
Yet her words were pleasant, in contrast to her thought. He liked that counterpoint. In fact, despite
what he knew of her nature, he liked her. She seemed so much less like a Squam than she had, now
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that he was well past the superficial points. After all, there were quite a number of species in the
Cluster that consumed physical substance. Not all creatures who ate and had limbs were inherently
evil.
'I should hope not,' Jessica said.
He kept forgetting that she could taste his superficial thoughts. Not that it mattered, anymore.
"The most direct route seems to be this one," Heem jetted, mentally indicating a line on the map.
"Almost level, no swamps, only two lava bridges. Therefore a disproportionate number will follow
it."
'Which makes it a bad route,' she said. 'Now here is the longest, windingest, hilliest route, with six
lava crossings. No one will take that one!'
"Because anyone who does, will lose the race. Unless all four alternate routes get clogged."
'Which they might, if all the traffic goes on them. But what's to stop spaceship arrival number one
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