Between the Strokes of Night

Glug was revolting, but Peron thought it would still make the final list. Sy had even voted to make it his first choice. Maybe his complex thought processes had discovered something about Glug that could be turned to his advantage. Lum had pointed it out long ago to Peron and Kallen: Sy did not need an edge over others to win; all he needed was a situation that cancelled the handicap of his withered arm. Given that, he would wipe the floor with all of them. Some of the others had also cast a tentative vote in favor of Glug; for by the time the contestants went there they had already visited some choice specimens: Boom-Boom — constant volcanic activity and earthquakes; an ambient noise level that seemed to shatter eardrums; foul, sulphurous air and treacherous terrain, where fragile crusts of solidified lava stood above molten slag.

Firedance — only microscopic animal life, and at any time one sixth of the vegetation that covered the whole world was a smoldering, charred mass: the rest was bone dry and ready to spring to blazing life after any random lightning stroke; ribbons of flame danced and crackled their twisting paths along the surface, changing direction unpredictably and moving far faster than a running human.

Fuzzball — every living thing, every plant or animal that lived under or on the surface, or in the salty seas of Fuzzball, served as a host to a single species of fungal growth; evolutionary adaptation appeared complete, so that the fungus did no harm; but its white, hair-fine tendrils sprouted from every inch of skin, and every animal’s ears and nostrils carried their own harvest of delicate, trailing fronds; the prospect had been too much for the contestants, even though Gilby assured them that the fungus could be removed from them completely after leaving the planet. Fuzzball had received zero votes.

Goneagain sounded tolerable; but that little world had been ruled out by simple geometry. Its orbit was wildly eccentric, carrying it tens of billions of kilometers away from Cassay and Cassby. It would not return to the Inner System for another three thousand years.

And then there was Whirlygig. Peron peered ahead through the faceplate of his suit. Three hours to go, then he would be landing there — without a ship. Later (if all went according to plan) he would leave in the same way. Meanwhile, there was not a thing to be done until the moment of grazing impact was reached. Peron — not for the first time — wondered about his velocity calculation. He had checked it ten times, but if he were off by a few meters a second… He resolutely turned his mind to their earlier travels, and struggled to put Whirlygig out of his thoughts for the next three hours.

There were plenty of other things to think about. For the first two weeks of the journey away from Pentecost, privacy had been impossible for all of them. The shuttle vessel was impressively big, but with thirty people squeezed into a space intended for three crew and cargo, the contestants had been shoulder to shoulder. Not until transfer to the big Inter-System ship, after a short visit to Little Moon, did they have room to spare. And at last Peron had been able to compare notes with the others.

By careful cross-checking that had taken them several days, Lum and Kallen had accounted for all the winners. Wilmer was the only bogus contestant. They had also confirmed Peron’s first impression: no one had been with Wilmer in any trial, and he had been suspiciously fresh after all of them. But the reason for his presence among them? No ideas from anyone. And to add to the mystery, Wilmer certainly had been with them on all the activities since they lifted off from Pentecost — which had sometimes been dangerous, as well as unpleasant. Wilmer’s innocent request to Gilby that they be allowed to visit The Ship, along with Gilby’s answer, had registered on both Peron and Elissa. Someone wanted the winners to know that The Ship was off-limits. But again, what did it mean? How was it connected with the fact that some previous winners of the Planetfest games had not returned to Pentecost?

Peron had bounced the questions off Sy, when they had a few minutes of privacy in the Inter-System ship. Sy had stood motionless, his eyes aloof. “I don’t know why The Ship is off-limits,” he said at last. “But I agree with you that Gilby was prompted to tell us that. Let me tell you of a bigger mystery. After the off-planet trials the Immortals will supposedly appear. We are told that they will come from the stars, after a journey that will take just a few days. Do you believe that?”