Free Heaven's Reach by David Brin Page B

feelings—as if he had just received the worst insult—and highest praise—of his life. The effect was to make him more determined than ever.
    Perhaps Wer’Q’quinn had intended that, all along.
    I hate you
, he thought at the ridiculous, offensive yellow peels. On some level, they might be neutral twists of space, described by cold equations. But they seemed to taunt him by appearing the way they did, provoking an intimate abhorrence that Harry used to his advantage, piloting around the traps as if each success humiliated a real enemy.
    His body grew sweaty and warm. A musty odor filled the cupola as one tense, cautious hour passed into the next.
    Finally, with a nimble hop, he stepped his spindly vehicle away from the last obstacle, breathing a deep sigh, feeling tired, smelly, and victorious. Perhaps at some level the reef allaphors knew they had lost, for at that moment the “peels” began transforming from yellow and brown starfish forms into another shape, one with curls and spikes.…
    Harry didn’t wait to see what they would become. He ordered the pilot program to hurry away from there.
    It took a while to get past the green “sea monster,” ducking through a gap between two of its slowly undulating coils. The passage made Harry nervous, staring up at portions of that mammoth, living conceptual torso. But then he was free at last to race for open territory. The purple plain swept by as he aimed for the most promising vantage point—a stable-looking brown hillock, too barren and mundane to attract any hungry memoids. A place where he might settle down to watch his assigned patrol zone in peace.
    The prominence lay quite some distance away—several miduras of subjective duration, at least. Meanwhile, the surrounding tableland appeared placid. The few allaphorical beings he did spy moved quickly out of the way. Most types of predatory memes disliked the simplistic scents of metal and other hard stuff intruding from other levels of reality.
    Harry deemed it safe to go below and take a shower. Then, while combing knots out of his fur, he ordered something to eat from the autochef. He considered taking a nap, but found he was still too keyed up. Sleep, under such conditions, would be dream-racked and hardly restful. Anyway, it might be wiser to supervise while the ship was in motion. Pilot mode could not be counted on to notice everything.
    The decision proved fortuitous. He returned upstairs to find his trusty vessel already much closer to its destination than expected.
That’s quick progress. We’re already halfway up the hill
, he thought, surveying the view from each window.
This should offer an ideal surveillance site.
    Several instruments on Harry’s console suddenly began whirring and chirping excitedly. Checking the telltales, he saw that something made mostly of solid matter lay just ahead, over the ridge top. It did not seem to be from any of the other sapiency orders, but showed all the suspicious-familiar signs he was trained to look for in a ship from the Civilization of Five Galaxies.
    Oxies
, he realized.
    Gotcha!
    Harry felt a thrill while checking his weapon systems. This was what he had trained for. An encounter with his own kind of life, moving through a realm of space where protoplasmic beings did not belong. He relished the prospect of stopping and inspecting a ship from some highfalutin clan, like the Soro or Tandu. They might even gag on the disgrace of being caught and fined by a mere chimpanzee from the wolfling clan of Terra.
    You aren’t really here to fight
, Harry remindedhimself as the station’s armaments reported primed and ready.
    Your primary mission is to observe and report.
    Still, he was an officer of the law, empowered to question oxy-beings who passed this way. Anyway, preparing weapons seemed a wise precaution. Scouts often disappeared during missions to E Level. Being attacked by some band of criminals might seem