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     The Legend of Miaree by
          Zach Hughes
                           Chapter One

   You must understand, my children, that a fable is merely a fable.
Understand, too, that although I am old, and reputed, by former
students of certain perceptiveness, to know everything, there are things
that even I do not understand. The best mind can be befuddled, for
example, by the mere existence of the Q.S.S.'s beyond Cygnus,
unbelievably far, unusually bright, deliciously mysterious.

   We men are arrogant creatures. We measure and guess, within plus
or minus a few light years, their distance, those objects which we cannot
explain. We speculate endlessly. Ah, how we do speculate.

   The fable. You have read your first assignment, of course. I think not
even the most daring of you would face me had you not.

   In reading the table you must remember that the world, this world,
that world, any world, was once young. Yes, even Trojan V, my young
Alaxender. Once we crawled, we men, on the surface of the old earth,
and even then we could look up and see the colliding galaxies in Cygnus.

  Have you considered, Elizabeth, why man had to go to Cygnus?

   Ah, primitivism, you say. The urge to hear and see the big bang. Yes,
that is the nature of man. When star meets star—picture it, a giant and
ancient blue star sending out a corona at fifty hundred degrees thousand
degrees centigrade toward a cooler red star with a surface of only fifteen
 hundred degrees—man must be there to measure. We are the
inchworms of the universe, glorying in our ability to be there, feeling
superior as we observe the paroxysm of two island galaxies wheeling
ponderously into the ultimate death dance.

   Because of the myth of understanding, you say, Julius. Yes, you too,
Leslie, know that myth. Know the parts to understand the whole. See
stricken stars surge into death and know the secret of creation.

  Has that theory worked in practice, my lovely Stella?

  Are we more than we were, John of Selbelle III?

   We live. I am proof of that. We spread the dubious vitality of mankind
to the far ends of this galaxy. We have heard, not with our inferior ears,
but with instruments, the scream of a planet seared in the rush of an
expanding nova, and we have probed into the old star fields at the center
to find—what? What, Elana?

  The dead planets? Death?

  Ah, how alone we are.

  But the question was this—about Cygnus: Do we understand the
whole more for having been to far Cygnus?

    At first we tried to go back in time, to measure the prime big bang of
creation. Unable to do so, unable to find help in our quest from races
other than our own, we poured a portion of the wealth of an empire of
worlds into a Cygnus expedition, and we found a burning world and
this. This treasury of words. Oh you may, at any time, by appointment
(since it is a popular pastime and in great demand), see in the viewing
rooms the ponderous dance of the dying galaxies, speeded into a motion
which our frail life-span could not cover. This theory and that theory
come forth and we know one more tiny part of our universe, but we are
still unable to define it, no more than primitive man with his theory of
the universe folding back upon itself.

  Why do you shiver, Martha from Terra II? Why? Is it the fear of an
emptiness beyond the range of our strongest instruments?

   We are mobile to an unbelievable degree. Parsecs are but moments to
us in our known blink patterns. Yet the unknown exists,
representing—what? Death? Fear? We whistle into the dark maw of
creation and further our knowledge. For what? For pure knowledge? Ah,
we have planets devoted to the worship of data. We usurp a world to
store our facts. We have a planet with machines to work endlessly,
simply to relate out vast store of words.

   Our parent sun, my young Healer from the old world, is said to be
billions of years old, and it is a Population I sun, a young star. There at
the center, where the Dead Worlds mock us, the stars are ancient, but
where there was once life there are only death and silence and a hell of
radiation from the densely packed fields of stars, and in all the universe
we are, father and son, my young Healer, still alone.

   Forgive me, I ramble. The question of ultimate creation is not
scheduled to be solved this early in the semester. Yes, you may laugh,
Cecile. I congratulate you on being able to understand that I make a
pleasantry.

   We are here to discuss a fable, for so your learned men have labeled it,
this story of Miaree, this slim volume, this handful of words. Consider it
and what went into the making of it. It is the product of two
civilizations. Made by one, salvaged from a charred world by another.

   What does it mean? I will not have the arrogance to tell you that. It is
for you to decide.

   First, we must remember that the words are only our words, and
thus, a feeble substitute for reality. The words are not necessarily those
of Miaree, for we found the fable to be totally incapable of literal
trainslation. There is, as a result, a certain lack of preciseness, and
absence of definition. There are questions left unanswered. Was Rei a
man, much like us, Alfred? Ah, you can't say? Don't be ashamed. Neither
can I. Yet I can see him and I know him. He lives in my mind, and thus,
although he is separated by an eon of time and by endless light years
from our pleasant rooms, he exists, does he not?

   "When our race was young it looked up and saw the colliding
galaxies. They will be colliding long after you and I, young friends, have
joined Miaree in past time. And then, as now there will be many
questions and few answers; hopefully, men will still be trying to find
answers, perhaps, as we do, through literature. For I consider literature
to be a minute island of sanity in a sea of excesses of cold measurement
and frantic amassing of data. We live, through literature, many lives.
This is a blessing, I feel, comparable to those bestowed by our medical
miracles, which give us the longevity to travel to Cygnus for the sole
purpose of watching stars mash each other, and which allow us a
surplus of years so that we may squander the youth of our children in
studying a fable which gives no answers.

   I was asked once, by a scientist, the purpose of my seat here. I
confessed that I had no answer. I said that my work would not chart the
voids beyond our deepest blink. I said that my teachings would not
explain any reasons. The universe, I said, will continue to expand as I
talk and after I cease to talk, and someday, if you are right, my scientist
friend, it will slowly, over endless eons, slow, fail, and fall, to start the
cycle again. Will you be there to measure that primeval rebirth? You
say, I told him, that all matter began with hydrogen. If so, explain what
happens when all the matter in the universe coagulates into one infinite
mass and goes Boom!

   In the face of such monumental questions, we are more
concerned—are we not?—with today's lunch menu in the dining hall. Life
is measured in microseconds in the day of the universe, and our sun is
but a second in its life, my children. We must be content to live our lives
on the rolling seas of the endless eons and to be thankful, as Miaree was
thankful.

    Thomax, would you please shake your friend LaConius and remind
him that sleeping is best done in barracks? Ah, thank you. Now,
LaConius, since you exhibit such interest, perhaps you would condescend
to open your volume to page 1 and begin to read, that we might savor
the literary style of the translator computer so well developed by your
fellows on Tigian.




                           Chapter Two

   In the beginning, God set the heavens aglow with a golden light to
guide the feet of nocturnal travelers and to light the dense juplee forests so
that hungry ifflings might continue their feasting on broad, fat leaves.
   It was a blessing, the light, the broad splash of fire which appeared low
in the evening sky and grew with the movement of The World to burn
night away and to cover the dome of the sky with its glory.

   From the lowly ifflings, God created Artonuee to love the beauty which
fought the darkness. The light was good. And the Artonuee flourished and
partook of God's wisdom and flew on the wings of the sun and, coming too
near, angered Her.

  For to gain a world, and another, Artonuee forsook God and, in
punishment, were doomed.

  She spake: From the ifflings you came. To the ifflings return, and in the
end, to eternal fire.

   And the fires in the darkness grew as the Artonuee grew, and their
thunder could be heard, and the end was ordained not quickly, but with
inevitable slowness—eternal death marching down the blackness, sending
messengers of light and radiation to remind the Artonuee of their
transgressions.

   Struggling against God's anger, the Artonuee bellowed out into the cold
void in drivers and sought refuge, but did not find it, being limited by
God's divine will.




                         Chapter Three

  "Forgive me, Mother. I sin."

   She bowed before the shrine of Her dwelling, released her prayer.
Around her, the soft silk of the walls glowed warmth and comfort, and
through the spun covering of the viewer the fires of the night glowed the
earth.

  She had risen at a predawn hour in order to catch the shuttle driver.

   Dressed for flight, her fragility cocooned in the protection of spacecloth,
she pushed against the diaphragm of the entrance, felt it give, open,
caress, close behind her. There in the night the sky was a sea of fires in
blues and reds and yellows. She tuned her multi-faceted eyes to drink the
beauty and the awesome power of it, the variance of color and frequency,
and the grim reminder, in halos of burning carbons and metals and gases,
of the slow march of eternity. In her ears was the voice of God, on a
non-utilitarian frequency, the scream of it, the roar of it; the tortured
stars were knifing into her universe edge on, slightly inclined, wheeling
star on star, worlds burning in terrible beauty.

  She was young. As did all Artonuee, she reckoned her twenty years by
The World out there up wind, where the ifflings crawled and fed on leaves.
Maturing, she was considered beautiful. Life was sweet.

  All senses open, she studied God's grandeur. The night sky reflects the
power of God, and Her anger.

  She looked on it as a child, wide-round eyes registering all, ears
operative on all frequencies, and she was as a child, lying on a mossy hill
behind her Chosen Mother's dwelling, hands under her head, looking up.

    Individual, near stars were dimmed. The dome burned. And yet it was
all so distant, the nearest flare magnified out of its importance by relative
nearness. Small, insignificant stars streaming toward each other,
blending, blossoming into space-eating hugeness. Flying downwind from
such small stars would be, she knew, an exercise for a novice.

  But to fly before the combined fury of their meeting?

   She shivered. To be alive when the masses struck, to fly before the
storm of winds then. On that wind she would fly forever into the
impenetrable depths where life was too short. But to fly, once, on such
force! To feel the beat of the wind on the wings of her flyer.

   Such thoughts angered God. She pressed herself, indicating her
defenseless heart to God. She felt deliciously sacreligious.

   The words of the priests came back to her. "Space is God's dwelling,"
they said. Why, she asked, are males so much more devout than females?
"You flaunt your sin before Her, flying. It is an arrogant repetition of the
original sin, and it is useless. Have we not determined that we cannot flee
Her? Forsake the ways of the wicked. Fight the whim in you, female, which
calls you to defy Her."
   "I die," she answered. "All Artonuee die. We see our doom in the night
sky. Our world dies day by day. Our death comes toward us slowly, as
stellar distances are measured, but inevitably. Our instruments can
measure it. We ourselves can sense it. I, of course, will not be alive, in this
body, at the end. That is Her will. But were I alive, I would watch the
nearing of the colliding star through the thick viewer of my flyer. I would
sail before it, the end, using its winds. I would watch the tendrils of the
solar flames reach out, touch our worlds. And as I flew there, deep in
space, all wings spread, catching the fury of the death of all, using it to
reach a depth never before achieved by flyer, by Artonuee, I would ask
Her: Why, Mother? No. I refuse to see that my flying makes the original
sin—if, indeed, it were sin—any more reprehensible. Can we be punished
more than once? We die. Meanwhile, I fly."

   "God, in Her mercy, could decide to forgive." they said.

   Males. Weak. Foolish. But then, they were changed without wings,
never knowing the soar of it, the view of The World from aloft on the
gentle winds of the air. "I read the Book," she told them. "It foretells all
things and I find no promise of forgiveness. Can God, Herself, find a
reversal for the inexorable movements of the universe?"

  "Sacrilege," cried the male teachers, hiding their eyes from the
possibility of God's immediate fury.

   It was the nature of the female to think, to seek. During long hours
under the night sky she watched the march of the galaxies and, in theory
classes, talked of ways to beat God's laws. That she could not overcome the
limitation of the speed of light saddened her, as it had saddened
generations of Artonuee females. Yet, saddened, she still faced the
impossible distance between the Artonuee galaxy and the nearest giant
wheel which swam in clean space immune to the angry retribution of the
Artonuee God.

   Once, with her soul mate, she calculated the size of a driver large
enough to carry juplee leaves for two ifflings and a host on a voyage
through time to the far galaxy. Ifflings, given an unlimited supply of food,
lived through the centuries. The host could be in dormant state.

   The cubic area required for food alone dwarfed her imagination. Only
the growing juplee forests could supply a greedy iffling with his food, and
it was beyond Artonuee technology to transship a growing forest. Not even
an imaginative Artonuee female could counter the immutable laws of a
vengeful God.

    You think thus, if you're an Artonuee female standing under the fires of
the night. You shiver in your spacecloth and press your heart and force the
sacrilege far down inside you and think, perhaps, of the long life which the
race has already enjoyed and of how far it has flown from The World,
green, cool, damp, how far from the ifflings the race has risen. Yet, one is
not allowed to be prideful for more than a moment, for it is there, moving
at thirty-five thousand miles per second, great sheets of stellar flame as
stars embrace in paroxysmal finality. It is impossible to deny it. Not even
if you are Miaree, aged twenty and feeling the first thrust of the formation
of pre-eggs in your body. So you tuck your tiny, now useless wings close
under the snug spacecloth, pick your way down the dew-dampened vault
of the garden past the night-blooming flowers. You lean now and then, if
you're Miaree and twenty, for there is no one out to see and laugh as you
revert to childhood and, with your long, graceful, and marvelously flexible
lips, drink nectar and laugh at yourself.

   Up there the sun is beginning to light the tops of the low hills. The
World wakens slowly. The first red rays reach and pierce and do battle
with the cold light of the evil stars, and you tune out evil, using only part
of your senses, and you run lightly to the roller where the meter shows
more than enough charge to last the few moments of predawn required to
drive the empty thoroughfare, wind moving the fine tendrils of your hair,
dawning streets, an early riser keening a greeting, and in the burst of
dawn the driver pointed upward, phallic, male, waiting and reaching.




                          Chapter Four

   Stinkpot driver pounding upward on primitive fire blackening the
atmosphere. But even pollution can, at times, be beautiful, and the pull of
the enforced gravity of the drive does not detract from the sheer joy of
looking back to see the long trail as the driver gains cold air and speeds,
screaming, into the dark side. Behind, as night moves in a knife-edge line,
the distant stream of the contrail and the silk-puff clouds which are once
individual and soft, looking as if one could walk, and then, from the
heights, solid blankets, and then, higher still, overall whorls and patterns
of the planet's weather. A huge circular movement on the southern seas,
the shine of the ice cap of the north as the driver reaches height and
apparent motion ceases, only the swimming of New World below giving an
illusion of life in the stillness of near space.

   The shuttle is not crowded. The days of leisure are ahead, but below the
Artonuee labor industriously and only a few, on holiday, may seek the
frivolity of work-period flying. To her left, a matronly woman, grown thick
in age, soon to feel the debilitating call back home. In the seat to her rear
a young girl, wearing the red-and-yellow badge of the learner, slightly
nervous. First solitary flight, guesses Miaree, and feels a surge of empathy,
a need to reach out and touch. Her mind seeks, is greeted. "Love, don't be
afraid."

   A burst of corrective fire, sending a tremble through the driver, and the
lingering, in the nostrils, of the smell of New World, gradually replaced,
cycled out, as the air is reconditioned. And in the huge forward viewer,
Flyer Haven. In the time it takes to reach it, drifting at mechanical speeds,
she could have soared past Outworld. But there is patience mixed with her
anticipation, for she has a long holiday. The Rim Star is provisioned and
ready, according to her advance orders.

   Flyer Haven gleams with inner light. The dome, slightly frosted by
condensation from the interior, is a silver jewel in the black fur of the
outer night. The main spread of the distant fires is hidden behind the
planetary bulk, but shines out at the rims, haloing the globe, refracting
blue on the fringes of the atmosphere. The good blue world, a paradise of
hills and water and multicolored plant life, home, now. And out there, a
half-inch circle of reflected light. The World.

   A shuddering braking fire, then silence and a slightly discernable bump
and the metallic sounds of the locks engaging, and she is standing, smiling
encouragingly toward the novice, nodding with respect toward the graying
veteran who amasses her carry baggage and nods in return, sending a
pleasant "Good soar."

    Ah, God, the wonderful smell of it. Flyer Haven. Enclosed, safe, old but
constantly renewed. Flyer Haven, a senseless squandering of the wealth of
the Artonuee, according to the reactionary males, who, from their
minority seats in the Interplanetary Council, mount annual battles against
it, for their natural caution and the slowness of their reactions bars them
from partaking of what it offers. Flyer Haven, catharsis, reward, blood of
life to those who have known the spread of thousands of yards of golden
sail running before a sun storm.

   Reused air, sweet, but marked by its mechanical treatment. A
decorative and expensive touch there, at the inner lock, a planter of pleele,
sweetest of the sweet, the look of which causes a stirring in the female
breast and the breath of which, when pre-eggs are lodged and forming, is
the most lovely of aphrodisiacs. She paused, closed her eyes in ecstasy,
breathed long and deep. Then moving on the conveyor past the shops on
the outer layer, the smell of a welder, acrid, cold, burning. The feel of a
charge in the air as a convertor is tested, raising goose bumps on her,
causing the fine, smooth fur of her body to ripple in sensation.

   She stepped off the conveyor at Operations, left her carry baggage
outside, stood before the officious male at the desk. "Miaree of the Rim
Star. Ten days' provisions in place?"

   "Ah." An incline of the head. Indifference. But, about her, a lingering
aroma of pleele flowers. A widening of the eyes. "Miaree." The name is
hissed.

   It is, she suspects, closer than she thinks, although reading, she cannot
tell. But this reaction from a young male tells her. She has seen it. And
within her there is a fierce pride as she tilts her beautifully molded head
imperiously and smiles. Poor male. When the time is near, he will be at his
duty on Flyer Haven and she…

   On Outworld there are meadows nestled among the crags on which
grow the Outworld wonders, the zoological garden of the Artonuee, a
world given over to the fashioning of beautiful objects and to love…

   Close. She shakes her head. The heavy, flowing yellow of her hair moves,
as if in slow motion, about her radiant face. Huge blue eyes blink, open to
reflect, from their multifacets, the charge light of the arcs.

   He is checking off the list. His male lips—why are they so suddenly of
interest?—say the words. Food. Necessities.

  "Ah, yes, ten days, Lady. Your credit voucher please?"

   Even old Beafly notices. "The pleele flower is sweet," he says, as she
stands next to him in his shop. He tinkers with a control circuit board
from a Class II, a beginner's flyer with a feeble little convertor suitable only
for orbital flights. "Yes, my daughter?"

   "Indeed," she admits. "You finished the major on Rim Star?"

  "Ah, a sweet ship." His hand trembles as he steadies a tool and jabs
expertly into the innards of a complicated Mires expander. She, saddened,
smells the age of him. "I have shared her secrets with young Runder."

   "So soon, Beafly?" From her blue eyes the dew of the sadness she feels.

   "It comes to all," he says, not looking at her. "Smelling the pleele as it
clings to you, telltale, exciting, is my only reason for sadness."

   "Perhaps…" She pauses. It was Beafly who checked her out in her first
Class II.

  "No, daughter. See how the hand rebels?" He held it out in front of him.
And she touched it. He smiled. "Could I but wait, I would break the rules
and choose one of your ifflings, daughter."

   "Thank you."

  "A ten-day holiday?" He was at his work, not looking into her wide eyes.
"Ten days. The signs are good. Weather predicts a flare."

  "I know. I timed it so." She put her hand on his shoulder. "I am sorry,
Beafly. Do you know when?"

   "I want to walk, not crawl." He sighed. "Before you have flown and
returned."

   "Ah, no."

    "I will like being there, once more. I find myself dreaming of the soft
shade of the juplee. I hunger for the taste of the fruit and the coolness of
its waters in my throat. Do you remember, daughter, how it tastes, the
water?"

   "Yes." Winglings hover and dive, splashing, thin membranes then
weighted and grounded until the sun, stronger there on The World, dries
them, and as they wait, the sweet fruit, snatched playfully from the
powerful maw of a hapless iffling, the smell of the flowers, the taste of the
water.

   She had not kissed a male. "Beafly?" He turned, faced her. The thought
caused her shapely backside to twitch, put life into muscles not yet used.
He looked and smiled.

  "Three times I have been chosen," he said. "Never did I see one so
beautiful."

  She leaned. Her long, flexible lips touched. He sighed and touched her;
her thin waist felt the shaking of his old hands. And the agitated
chemistry of her body flowed pleele flower aroma and filled the grimy
workshop and left him dazed and weak as she broke the kiss.

  "I would consider you," she said.

  "I seek my ifflings happily," he said. His eyes were down.

  "Perhaps I will see you in—someone—somewhere. I will know, should it
happen."

  "I pray so, daughter. May my iffling be kind. May I be wingling and like
you, daughter."

   Eyes turned as she passed, weeping. But one does not weep long on
Haven. There is too much life. An exultant novice, being toasted at the
head of a dock, having her hair sprinkled with wine. A grizzled veteran
standing before a trim Class VI, spacecloth immaculate.

  "Sister," Miaree greeted, pausing. "She is very lovely."

  "She tends to yaw on a sunward track."

  "But lovely. And such a flaw can be tuned out."

   "My second Bertt," the veteran flyer said. "Good man, but I think
influenced by the cold of Five. Too much weight in the insulation, I fear."

  "My first was a Bertt," Miaree said. "A sweet Class II."

  "And now?"

  "A Corleu."
   "Five?"

   "Six."

  "Ah. You have more hours than your youth would lead one to believe."
There was a new respect in the older female's eyes. "I wanted a Corleu. The
waiting list is unbelievable."

    "I was lucky," Miaree said, putting one delicate foot on the outer rim of
the Bertt VI, standing casually, spacecloth draping her form, eyes drinking
it in, the long lines of sports flyers at the docks, the hustle and bustle of the
Haven, the chargy smell of it, the feel of space outside pressing down, the
nearness of the power of the sun, the feel of it through the dome warming
her skin under her delicate fur.

    "I wish more females would go into building," the veteran said. "There
is a lightness. The feel of the wings, I suppose."

   "Yes."

   "Well, good flight."

   Down the line a flyer warming, converters charging at peak, rocking the
ship at its moorings. The prickly feel of the charge restoring a full cheer to
Miaree. And there, at the end of Dock Ten, Rim Star, the shape of the egg
of an Artonuee female, graceful, shining outer hull decorated with the
business instruments of flying, viewer large and all-encompassing, sail
storage areas bulging like juplee fruit about to burst.

   Inside, cushioned in the seat, checking the list. Nothing forgotten. She
did not want to have to abort her ten-day flight. Not because some dock
hand had made a bad count. Provisions, however, checked. "Operations,
thank you. Check and receive."

   "Acknowledged, Rim Star."

   "Rim Star warming."

   "Acknowledged and granted."

   The purr of it, the great, sweet hum of it. Servos cutting in. Power
crackling, making that delicious prickling feeling on her inner skin.
Charges building. Weather on one frequency saying confirmation of the
forecast with figures which sent a thrill of elation through her.

   "Storm warnings for classes II through IV. Classes II and III limited to
local flying not exceeding ten minutes return."

  Poor novice. The one on the shuttle.

   "Class V warning. Winds may exceed structural design limitations in
the vicinity of One Planet."

  "Rim Star warmed. Charge check. Converters check. Sails check.
Navigation request, unlimited. Request clearance and lift."

  "Acknowledged and granted, Rim Star."

   Ahead of her the Bertt VI, lifted on the arms of the giant crane, cradled
tenderly in padded holds.

  "Stand by, Rim Star."

    Dock boys appearing, chattering, running, laughing. Lucky lads.
Sacrificing immortal souls to work on the fringes of wonder, to see the
flyers being lifted, to hear the hum of converters. The muted contact of the
lift arms, movement. Above, the lock. Front view. Frosted dome. A push
and contact with the lock and an end to the artificial gravity of Haven. A
lifting in her seat against the belts, the freedom of space. A surge of
elation and the hiss of evacuating air and then the instruments registering
the cold of naked space on the hull and the converters humming. The
outer door opening and out there down the tunnel of the lock the cold
stars, the lock faced away from New World.

  "Guidance jets ready," she sent.

  "Cleared."

  "Charging."

  "Acknowledged."

   "Mass unit one-minus and lowering." The meters spinning, measuring
mass of the flyer, minutely calibrated, dials glowing, hands making swift
revolutions and her wide eyes following. "God, they're cooking today." The
exclamation thoughtless. No place for personal observations and chat-chat
on the control channels. "Sorry, control."

  "Converter efficiency?" asked the cold, male voice of control.

  "Eighty-five-point-nine and lowering."

  "Cleared."

  "Ninety and lowering."

  "Good flight, Rim Star."

  "Ninety-eight-point-nine, steady. Expel, please."

  "Acknowledged."

   A movement. There is a strange feel about a flyer at charge. Skin
tingles. Hair seemed to be individually electric. Fur is alive. With
satisfaction she noted the excellence of old Beafly's tune-up. Mass lowered,
as the flyer moved along the tube and leaped. Never had she seen the
convertors working so efficiently. The mass of her flyer, and herself, and all
the provisions and the bottle of jenk liquor in her carry baggage, all
lowered, lowered to within a few points of nonexistence. The miracle of
Lonwee the Ancient, the conversion of mass, the Lonwee principle which
made flying possible.

  "Rim Star clear. Sails."

    Click. Servos moving in near silence, sensed by feel. The gravitational
field of New World the controlling factor as she unfurled billowing yards of
diaphanous sails, extending the area of space commanded by Rim Star
tenfold, a hundredfold, and more. The weak force of New World's gravity
now negated as the winds of the sun blew, and off on a wing, sails tilted,
Haven diminishing in an instant. Massive acceleration as the quiet wind
moved.

   She entered a new world. A world of quiet and peace. One last word.
"Haven, Rim Star. Systems check. Exit path 180 reverse from Haven.
Sunward inclination 45. Rim Star out, requesting privacy. Emergency
frequency seven on monitor."
  "Rim Star, good flight."

   The World was in opposition, on the away side of the sun. First Planet
was oblique on its near orbit, a growing dot as wind speeds were achieved,
the flyer drifting across the wind on a tight tack, orbit spiraling,
decreasing. Rim Star was a mote in space, near weightlessness, near zero
inertia. Huge sails were battered by the force of the eternal wind, the flow
of particles from the furnace which grew and gained a corona visible to
the naked eye. And it was her world, her life. Below, she was valuable, a
worker. Here she was Miaree of the Artonuee, female, free, flying. Here
there was a play for all her senses, measuring, sensing, feeling, tasting,
calculating. Fingers flew at the console keys, asking the lightning synapses
of the mechanics to aid her own senses, for at wind speeds the brain was a
poor, slow thing. And the distances, interplanetary, which once had cost
lives and the wealth of The World, which were fearful chasms for the
primitive drivers, were but winged thoughts for a mote flying at wind
velocity, even beating sunward as the computer lowered mass reduction to
use the gravity of the sun itself to hasten the fall toward the burning light.

   First Planet grew. Barren. Magnified by the scope of the viewer, it
glared reflected light and spun its flattened hills there so near the furnace
that no life grew and surface temperatures reached fearful intensity on
sunside.

    The chronometer clicked. But it alone measured time. For Miaree, time
was back there, on New World and Haven. When she was hungry, she ate.
When she was thirsty, she drank. The flyer was cramped, but she was at
home in it. As she established a spiral approach and locked in, she sang.
The tune was old, old as The World, a melody keened by winglings
learning. And as her heart soared, she slipped the spacecloth and was
herself, slim, delicately formed, shapely. She stretched her long legs and, in
unashamed narcissism, admired them, the knees, perfect. The long
muscles slim and graceful. Slim waist. Lovely torso. Long neck. And all of
it furred sweetly, delicately, electric to the touch as her hands smoothed it
from its long captivity in the spacecloth.

   Naked Miaree, freed in space in the wings of Rim Star. Keening melody
from her throat. Reaching for the jenk liquor and sipping, for she needed
no further intoxication toward happiness. Happiness was flying out there
close to God, and if God, being a selfish wench, abhorred company and
doomed a race for Her privacy, a pox on her.
   For she was Artonuee and female and daring and was not to be held to
the ground. Had not God Herself instilled the love of flight? God wanted
Artonuee to fly, so She gave them wings and then, in a fit of rancor, took
them, leaving only the memory; and when males said the driver was
ultimate and took the race from The World to New World, Outworld, and
Five, the great Lonwee said nay, and made the first convertor and flew
alone and gave back the gift taken by God in spite.

   She was Artonuee and doomed, but she flew, and the sun gave her
energy and the sails used it and the convertors hummed and gravity was
the rudder, and down, down, down she soared on the wings of the solar
wind, until with First Planet on the sunward wing, sails baffling on a hard
tack, she was near, near to the source, the heat of it, the power of it.

   And to the appointed minute, the storm rose out of the white fury of
the sun, an enormous flare, a hurricane of energy. Vast thermonuclear
fusion reactions gutted a portion of the sun's disc, and she felt it, felt her
naked fur stand and quiver, and sails set, she waited as the winds came
blasting up at thirty-seven thousand miles per second, and mass reduced
to the limit of the straining convertors, the Rim Star leaped before the
storm, a mote in darkness, and fled down the wind, leaving First World in
the distance and passing the orbit of The World as Miaree sang the song
of flight and felt the sails strain under the onslaught.

   She drank jenk as she flew past New World, letting the sweet bite of it
add to her exhilaration, a tipsy, slim, beautiful Artonuee female in flight,
soaring on the light of the sun, riding the most wonderful storm she'd ever
had the fortune to meet. Singing, feeling the pre-eggs in her lower
abdomen, letting the jenk liquor surge through her bloodstream,
disobeying the rules of flight but high, high, loving it, singing it, lithe and
naked in the padded chair, watching the flow of particles with a part of
her senses and seeing New World pass swiftly and looking off on a tangent
to sight Outworld and, thrilled, remembering the sweetness of it on the
viewers and knowing that she'd be there soon, not merely passing it on the
fury of a solar storm, but there, on its surface.

   Three days later, when the wind speed had dropped to a mere one
million miles per hour, lonely in the outback, past the orbit of Outworld
and nearing the area of Five, where the strange male builder, Bertt, chose
to set up his flyer works in the eternal cold, she was feeding on
concentrated fuplee fruit and feeling mournful, for soon the wild ride
would cease to be free and easy, and the major portion of her holiday
would be spent in beating back, laboriously and with a tedious slowness,
toward New World and Haven. Yet that in itself was pleasure, the ultimate
challenge. Only a Class VI could do it. Only a Corleu VI, female built, could
do it in the time allotted to her.

   Now there was time, full time, boring time, time to be devoted to study
of her techniques and time to merely sit, viewer on full magnification, and
look at the lights of God, for out here they seemed so near. Like a broad
band of arcs, they covered the viewer, sharp outlines undistorted by
atmosphere. And she could see the titanic joining of two globular clusters
on the angle of the far rim, thick with stars in collision, the single loudest
object in the near sky.

  She herself, in Rim Star, had moved faster than the stars.

    There were times, in contemplation, when she fought against the
traditional sense of doom. Galactic distances are not compatible with the
life-span of even an Artonuee female, and it was, in a sense, strange to
know the racial feeling of impending death when generation upon
generation would crawl and fly and walk and return and there would be no
apparent change in the fires of the night. It was all relative, and the
approach of death for the race, at thirty-five thousand miles per second,
was a chilling concept unless one related it to time, and then, if one were
irresponsible—and, at times, during flight, the female can be
irresponsible, witness her flouting of the ironclad rule against intoxicating
liquids aboard a flyer—it could be ignored.

   True, determine the ages before the good sun burned and fused, and it
seemed futile to carry the load of doom on shapely, winged shoulders. And
yet, nagging at her was that racial consciousness, that something, that
link.

   All Artonuee being one, riding the single life-force allotted to
them—and, perhaps, to the entire galaxy, since all attempts at
communication with intelligent races theorized to inhabit other systems
had failed— there was the heaviness of knowledge that the beauty would
die, that life would cease and be replaced by the fires of God in cold space.

   Thus, with a mercurial change of mood, she saddened and remembered
the old mech at Haven, bless him. Old Beafly and his appointment on The
World. It came to all. It would come to her and that part of her which was
aware would sink, be replaced with another awareness, and although there
was a link, a feeling of oneness, Miaree as Miaree would cease to be.

   But not now. Not with the wings atilt and beating up the wind slowly,
gaining speed as the computer advanced mass just enough to seize the
sun's far pull and use it. Not with the planets wheeling in the viewer. Not
with the pre-eggs making themselves felt and the lingering scent of pleele
in her, somewhere. Now she lived and flew, and Rim Star strained and
creaked its hull as opposing forces buffeted it, and she was near Outworld,
homebound, able to see the Outworld shuttle belch upward on an arc of
fire and to see Outgate swimming in space, destination of lovers.

   In the storm, the interplanetary magnetic fields were strengthened, and
reading them, she knew once again the love of her system, knew the
prickling of its forces, and it was impossible to be melancholy.

   She sang.

   A song of love, of dreams, of endless bliss.

   Between the orbits of Outworld and home, she flitted among
moon-sized planetoids, playing with disaster casually, displaying a
navigational skill attained by few flyers as, just for the pure hell of it, she
did a complete orbit of a jagged, spinning, juggernaut of death in the form
of a rock which would have filled the inland sea of The World. Rim Star
could do it. She could do it. So that made it necessary for them to do it
and laugh, the slow wheeling of the jagged rock portside, near, so near she
could see, slightly magnified, that diamonds studded the barren rock. She
noted and ran the orbit of the rock into her onboard course recorder. It
would be duly reported and, perhaps, if the find was important enough,
would add to her flight time in the form of a reward for exploitable
discovery. It was highly unusual, the find. And it was sheer accident,
happy accident. The asteroid belt had been picked clean, said the
veterans, who spent much time there in the early days of flight.

    And that made the long flight something to be remembered. She would
not let her high hopes build to a level of potential disappointment, but
there was the possibility. It was a small rock, and that, perhaps, explained
its being unknown, uncharted. And yet there was a possibility that some
flyer in centuries past had found it, reported it, and had been
disappointed to find, after exploration by a mining driver, that it was not
worthy of exploitation.
   She luffed, drew closer. Fist-sized stones, gleaming and, to her eyes,
perfect, shone in the viewer at full magnification. She rechecked the
inflight recorder, making sure that the coordinates recorded there would
lead a mining driver to the rock.

    She had lost speed. To regain it, it was necessary to orbit with the belt,
mass equalized with pull. And a new course had to be plotted. Busy with
it, she started when, with a piping complaint, the sensors told of another
flyer, approaching from outward. She noted its distance, continued with
her calculations. Finished, she addressed herself to the intruder.

   Amazingly, it was approaching on a direct line, heading toward the
asteroid belt at storm speed. No, faster. Unbelievingly, she watched as her
instruments confirmed the speed and bulk. No flyer, that. Not driving
directly into the wind. And a driver coming head on at the belt? Were they
mad?

   "Danger, danger," she sent, on all frequencies, emergency and
communicative. "To unknown driver in Area Y-23-5-A, you are on
collision course with belt. Veer off."

   She listened. From Outworld she heard communicators. A mining
driver in the belt identified itself. There was no communication from the
driver, which, at strange speeds, came toward her.

  She turned communicators to maximum peak, repeated her warning.
And now the viewer picked up the approaching driver and measured it.
Mass, size. Incredible. Her heart leaped. God!

   In all of the system there was no driver of that size. In all of the system
no driver of that configuration.

   She flashed the system-wide danger signal in all forms, visual, auditory.
Light flared from the nose of the driver, and it was braking, but too late. It
swept into the belt at a speed which she had not matched at the height of
the storm's fury, going outward. With its speed and mass, it weaved only
slightly, picking its way. It passed within thirty thousand miles of her, and
at first she hoped that due to its incredible maneuverability, it would pass
through untouched. The brief bursts of light, comparable to the light of
flares on the sun, seemed to be immensely powerful. The driver was using
the force of the sun and that made it absolutely certain that it was not of
the Artonuee system. And there was a feeling of awe about her, watching,
praying. Behind, the blackness of space was fired by the massed, exploding
stars and there, in local blackness, the fires of a miniature sun as the alien
blasted a terrible curve past still another hard, faceted chunk of rock; she
could not believe that anything could withstand the stresses of that curve.
And then it was making it, followed by her instruments, a blip now on the
full screen of the viewer, but almost past, free, almost, in the emptiness of
interplanetary space toward New World, a shower of tiny particles, a wall
of inertial force as tangents merged and the alien struck, small asteroids
bouncing away, larger ones doing terrible damage, and with a crunching
finality, the almost head-on contact, at that awesome speed, with the
parent rock of the cluster. The alien spun, wheeled ponderously, regained
straight-line flight, but it was visibly limping, losing air into all-devouring
space as Miaree accelerated, tacking toward it. Her speed matching the
speed of the alien now, then overtaking.

   Something had spewed into space. Her sensors warned, and she
avoided the trail of entrails. Maximum magnification showed the objects
to be inanimate, some mechanical, parts ripped and torn from the skin of
the alien driver.

   With a start, she saw the front of the driver light, braking again. Now it
was in the pull of the sun and its original speed was a terrible handicap.
The lights of the braking were seemingly weaker. Again and again they
flashed, as if in desperation. Still the sunward momentum was in
command.

   And there was nothing she could do. Even an Artonuee driver could not
outdistance a flyer on a sunward track. And as the alien driver
accelerated, she saw it pull away.

   God, it was unfair. All the years of speculation, of hope, of effort. All the
wealth poured into sending unreturned signals into space. And there it
was, a driver, a driver from out, and it was diving for the sun on a straight
line and would plunge into the furnace in—she calculated—three days.

   It was unfair to her and to all Artonuee and it was unfair to the beings
on board the doomed flyer. For there, in that battered hulk, was the secret
to resist God. To come to the Artonuee system, the driver had had to cross
interstellar space. And, unless it was an incredibly old robot machine, it
had had to fly at a speed which proved, with finality, that God's laws were
not absolute.
   These were her thoughts as she chased futilely after the runaway
miracle from the stars. And as it passed the orbit of New World, no longer
blinking in that desperate effort to break its fall into the sun, she felt a
surge of despair.

    Lost. Irretrievably lost. Salvation for the race within her sight and now
gone. A blip on the viewer, a tiny particle lost in the vastness of space.
Accelerating with the sun's pull. Leaving her behind as she forgot her
flight plan and went past New World in the desperate hope that, at the
last minute, a miracle would happen.

   She lost the driver in the fires of the sun as it passed the orbit of First
Planet, and far from home, overdue, she once again rode the winds
outward, but no longer ebullient. Saddened. Shamed at her inability to
help.

   They were broadcasting her call when she opened the communicators.
She edged into Haven, a half-day overdue. The committee awaited at the
dock. A stern male boarded Rim Star and confiscated the in-flight
recorder.

   She was numbed, helpless. It was only when the controller picked up
the empty bottle, the jenk liquor bottle, that she was able to submerge her
sadness in common sense. The flight recorder would contain her frantic
messages to the alien, the messages which had been, apparently, unheard.
And such things were not for mere males. There was meaning here. Males,
hearing her description of the alien, would say, "It is only the jenk."

   "I plead immunity on the grounds of discovery." she said, as the
stern-faced male looked at her.

   "That is a serious statement. Don't make it worse, my daughter, by
clutching at motes in the wind."

  "Nevertheless, I plead." she said. "And I request direct transport to
Nirrar to report my discovery." There was the diamond asteroid, of
course, but it was not that now diminished discovery which concerned
her. She wanted to talk with Mother Aglee. The asteroid would cover her
movements.

   "And this?" The controller was holding the empty bottle. "Does
pleading discovery excuse this flagrant breach of regulations?"
  "I will face that." she said. "I will accept my penalty."

  "It is usual to withdraw flying rights."

  "For how long?" Her heart was hurting. Not to fly?

  "A year. More."

  Oh, no, she thought. Oh, no.

  "We will put a seal on the flyer." the controller said, "until the hearing."




                              Chapter Five

   The small executive driver which lowered her to the Nirrar port was
luxurious and comfortable, but the pleasure was lost on her. In her mind,
she could hear the disintegrating whine of metals, the crackle of liquid
fire, could imagine the terminal pain of burning. She could see, with her
large eyes lidded, the strangely fashioned driver as it plunged sunward.
She closed off all sensation, became encased in her body, suffered with the
beings aboard the driver, dead by now.

   She lifted her privacy screen only when the crush of deceleration
weighted her body. She was alone in the passenger section, was standing
when the flight crew sent clearance and the outer door hissed, then
lowered. Laden with carry luggage, still dressed in spacecloth, she walked
from the pad, registered incoming, saw the fare charged to her personal
credit. In the warm sun of New World, she stood, hair mussed, smelling
chargy from ten days of flying, waved to a public roller.

   She knew the city well. They gave the driver directions, waved aside his
objections. "It's shorter to take the river road, lady," he said.

  "And fight bumper to bumper traffic as the home-bound government
employees are released," she said. "The Western Circle, then Lonwee
Avenue."

  "It's your credit, Lady."
   Her own dwelling was on the outskirts to the north, in the residential
complex around Research Quad. Just off the Western Circle, the new route
finished only years in the past, was the home of her Chosen Mother, where
she had learned and where she had grown. There were the schools, the
parks, the playgrounds.

   Near the port, the industrial complexes towered cleanly over the even
elevation of the Nirrar Plateau, a site chosen for the capital city of the
Northern Continent, a site picked after two centuries of unplanned city
development proved to be disastrous for the newly settled planet. Nirrar
was new, and yet it was old. In the Nirrar Hall of Wonders she had stood,
with youthful awe, before the ancient and battered driver which, two
thousand years ago, had first orbited New World. The Hall, itself, was of
neo-silk construction and bore a date, over its ornate entrance panel,
which established it as one of the first constructions of New Nirrar,
following the first two centuries of planetary exploitation which had
almost devoided New World of its native flora and fauna.

    She loved the city, had roamed its avenues and byways, knew the
secrets of its hidden, small dining halls, its tiny, out of the way shops
where the exotic products of the five-planet system were on display. She
had taken University at The School of the Artonuee, New World, in Nirrar
Gardens, to the south of the main complex. Between her fourteenth and
fifteenth years, she had served her mandatory aideship in the Hall of
Government, starting as a mere clerk and, in one short year, had
established a rank which had, to a young girl just out of University,
seemed exalted. As assistant to the Charge Advisor in the government of
Mother Aglee, she had appeared before the Planetary Legislature to testify
on the negative results of the work of government scientists. She had been
complimented by Mother Aglee herself on the clarity of her report on the
ill-fated expedition to the sunside of First Planet. At the end of her year,
she was offered permanent tenure and stood in line to be Charge Advisor
when Lady Jonea, who was aging, should hear the call home. Her rank,
when she reluctantly refused the permanent appointment, opting to
pursue her chosen career in research, was awarded on a nonpension basis,
but that rank, she knew, would assure her an audience with the Mother.

  "Lady," the roller driver said, as he cruised Lonwee Avenue in ideal
conditions, "I bow to you."

  She accepted the compliment. He had the accent of the cold outworld,
Five. "Just in?" she asked.

  "A year, just shy," he said. "It would have taken a half-hour longer my
way."

   Since no vehicles were allowed in the Government Quad, she stepped
out of the roller at the Southern Gate, had her credit stamped, joined a
throng of sightseers on the public conveyors as they moved into the
building complex past the impressive neo-silk and metal monuments to
past Artonuee heroines. She soon branched into lesser-used paths,
entering, at last, an executive conveyor, after showing her pass of
permanent rank, and was whisked into the heart of the Quad. The Palace
of the Mother towered over all in shining beauty, tall, many-viewered,
guarded more out of ancient ceremony than of necessity, by the brightly
uniformed Home Squad, tall, young men of seemingly equal
attractiveness.

  "I am Miaree, Rank Three, former assistant to Charge Advisor Jonea. I
would see the Mother." She stood at respectful attention before the
appointment clerk, which in itself was not a small feat, having required an
hour of rank-pulling and demands.

   "Your purpose?" asked the clerk.

   "A matter of security," said Miaree. "Pass my name. Tell the Mother
that I, Miaree, assure her of the urgency of my business. This I pledge."

   The clerk looked at papers. "Could it have to do with a charge of
intoxication while flying?"

  Miaree's eyes changed from blue to an imperial purple, flashing anger.
"Don't talk like a male fool."

   To the female clerk, it was the ultimate insult. Her honey-colored neck
fur undulated as she swallowed her furious reply, for the rude female was
Rank Three, permanent.

   "I will not accept the responsibility." the clerk said, her thoughts
colored with fire.

  "Will you pass the responsibility, then?" Her tone told the clerk she had
best do it.
   "Wait, Lady." The title was delivered in a surge of sarcasm. The clerk
disappeared into her inner office. Miaree put her carry baggage on the
floor and waited impatiently. "Lady Jonea will see you," the clerk said,
after an interminable period of time.

   "I know the way," Miaree said, picking up her carry luggage and
walking, back straight, rear tucked arrogantly, past the clerk's desk into
the great hall.

  Lady Jonea rose, extended both arms, embraced her. "Ah, the
charginess of you," she said.

  "I came in great haste, Lady," Miaree said. "Forgive my spacecloth."

   "The smell of you takes me back to my youth," Jonea said. She was
gray. The look of her shocked Miaree. She had a flash of old Beafly. Now he
was carrion on The World. "You come directly from flying?"

  "Yes, Lady. I—"

   "Good soar? Tell me." Jonea had embraced her, released her, regained
her seat behind the huge desk with a sigh of weariness. "I have not
flown…" She let her eyes lid, dreaming of it.

  "Lady, I must see the Mother on a matter of utmost urgency."

  "She will see you, of course."

  "It grieves me to rush," Miaree said.

   "I understand." The instrument on her desk was a direct link. It
accomplished the results within seconds.

   "Come with me," Miaree requested, "for the information I have is
directly related to your work. Our work." And there were three of them in
the surprisingly small office when Miaree began her report by playing
back the in-flight recordings of her warning message to the driver
pounding into the belt.

   Lady Jonea was stiffly upright in her chair. Mother Aglee, younger than
Jonea, but showing tired lines around her mobile lips, rested her chin in
her hand.
   Miaree waited comment. There was none. Jonea looked at her, face
drawn in thought. "Ladies," Miaree said, "it was not an Artonuee driver."

  "No," Mother Aglee said simply.

  "I beg your pardon?" Miaree asked, surprised by the lack of reaction.

   "A tragedy," Mother Aglee said, shaking her handsome head. "A
tragedy."

   "Mother, please, do you understand?" Miaree was leaning forward in
her intensity. "It was not an Artonuee driver. It used as power a source
which gave the same radiations as the sun, though not so intense, of
course."

   Mother Aglee rose, ran a delicate hand down the front of her robe of
state. She opened a drawer, withdrew a carefully protected packet,
motioned toward Miaree. Miaree rose, accepted the packet, looked at
Mother Aglee questioningly. "Open it," Mother Aglee said.

   The pictures were on duppaper, slick, indistinct in image. "We received
these three years ago," Lady Jonea said. "There are many more. These
were the first and came from a great distance."

   The pictures were simple drawings, reproduced in dots on the
duppaper. There were scars and slashes of static, but the images were
discernible. A planet circled a sun, a rim sun, position indicated by a
superimposed drawing of the galactic wheel. Picture two was three
figures. Biped. Different, yet near the Artonuee form. A larger figure,
naked, male genitalia evident. A medium-sized figure, the male
identification absent. A small figure with smaller male genitalia.

   Stunned, Miaree looked up. Mother Aglee smiled encouragingly. "Life,"
she said. "Intelligent life."

   Miaree turned the next image. Stylized stars in collision, an arrow
locating the planet. So near. Strange figures along the arrow.

   "We think the figure represents God's Constant," Lady Jonea said. "We
have been working on it. Note that there are stylized rays alongside the
figure."
  "Yes," Miaree breathed. "It would be less than one unit, but are their
units the same?"

   "God's Constant would be measured, in all probability, in relation to
the planetary year. We would have to know—"

  "The constellation of Delan!" Miaree said. "Figure of the mythical
beast."

  "Yes."

  "But we have not been able to see it since—"

   "Since the collision in Delan," Lady Jonea said. "Over two thousand
years ago."

  "Then they are dead," Miaree said.

  "The last image," Mother Aglee said.

   From the planet, a blunt arrow. Behind the arrow, a glare of light. A
driver. Beside it more figures.

  "As nearly as we can guess," Lady Jonea said, "this figure represents a
multiple of God's Constant."

  "Yes," Miaree said. "It would have to be. But—"

   "Two years ago we started receiving these," Mother Aglee said,
thrusting another packet onto Miaree. Miaree opened, looked.

  "A course in language?" Miaree asked.

  "For children," Lady Jonea said. "Basic numerology. The next one
advances to the periodic table, a universal language."

  "I don't understand," Miaree said. "No one knew. I mean, there was no
word."

  "We thought it best," Mother Aglee said.

  "But everyone could hear. These are strong."
   "How often do you monitor the electromagnetic bands above thirty
thousand megacycles?"

   "Not since University," Miaree admitted. "Not since we studied the
attempts at interstellar communications." She fidgeted. "But I still don't
understand. Why would you keep such a great event a secret?"

   "Look at the first picture," Mother Aglee said. "The first one in the
second packet."

   It was past the language lessons. There was, once again, that obviously
male figure, hand extended. On one side of the figure was the planet in
Delan. On the other, an unmistakable representation of the Artonuee
system. Miaree recognized the drawing of her system. It was a copy of the
elementary messages sent during the abortive attempt at interstellar
communications.

  "It is a friendly gesture," she said, indicating the man's outstretched
hand.

  "Perhaps." Mother Aglee admitted. "Other observations?"

   "An opporunity to learn their secrets. The power of the sun in some sort
of driver engine. Speeds which would free us—"

  "More basic observations, please," Mother Aglee said.

  "I don't understand."

  "He is quite obviously male," Lady Jonea said.

   "I see," Miaree said, nodding. "And in the group picture, he is
represented first. A male-dominated society?"

    "With the scientific knowledge to negate God's Constant," Mother Aglee
said. "And you yourself made an astute observation when you first looked
at the selection of messages which were obviously sent from a driver in
flight between stars. You said, as I recall, that it was a language for
children."

   "No," Miaree said. "It was Lady Jonea who said it was a lesson for
children. I merely looked on it as being basic."
  "Nevertheless," said Mother Aglee, "we must, in contacting such a race,
behave with extreme caution. Observe the configuration of the alien male.
Long, powerful arms, rounded. Like our males and yet unlike them, more
powerful by far, it would seem. We must consider this apparent
advantage. As we must consider others. Obviously, their technology is
advanced. If they can best God's Constant, what else can they do?"

   "Perhaps." Miaree said, "they have not been shackled in their research
by hysterical males who scream sacrilege each time someone suggests that
a new idea is not a repetition of the cardinal sin."

  "Be that as it may," Mother Aglee said, "we are faced with a problem."

   "It would seem to me, Mother, that our problem now is reduced to
floating atomic particles on the surface of the sun," Miaree said.

   "It is?" The older female sighed. "The planet of the aliens, in Delan, is
very near the impact point of the stars. I feel that an advanced society,
capable of star flight, will not be content with sending one driver to dive
into the sun. That we must accept as very possible fact. I feel, daughters,
that we will yet have our opportunity to meet these males from Delan face
to face. We must be prepared. It is fortunate that it was you, Miaree, who
saw the alien driver, for I have been considering, with much mental
anguish, the necessity of sharing our secret with someone, someone
capable of taking the alien messages and absorbing this language lesson
for children. It was to be someone in the Research Quad, of course, but
until today, I must confess that you had not occurred to me. Since you
know, and are qualified, the choice is now made."

  "There is one possible complication, Mother," Miaree said.

   "Yes," Mother Aglee said, "under the aroma of charge I did detect it.
Congratulations, daughter. Your ifflings will be a welcome addition to the
stores of Artonuee life. I think, however, that you will find time for both."

  "I will try," Miaree said, bowing her head.




                            Chapter Six
   Thank you, LaConius, you read well, even if your Tigian accent is a
bit much at times. You must work on that, you know. Provincialism is
the bane of our growing family of worlds. Unarrested, it could lead to
dire results. Examples of provincialism, Alaxender?

  Sir, the War of Zede II would be an example.

  A good one. Thank you, Alaxender. Provincialism leads to
nationalism. On the isolated planet of Zede II it was allowed to grow.
Until, as one would cut out a cancerous growth, we eliminated it. But we
are diverted. Impressions and summation, if you please, in the time
remaining to us today. Cecile?

  I like her. I like her very much.

  Not the most astute of comments, Cecile. Why do you like her?

  I don't know, really. She's young and beautiful and intelligent.
Everything a woman should be.

  But is she a woman?

  Obviously. Different, but still beautiful.

  Describe Miaree. Julius?

  I donno—

  Don't know.

  I don't know, sir. I see sort of a—well, she's sorta weird.

  Sort of. Yes, Stella.

   Not weird at all. Not like us, naturally, having evolved on a totally
different planet, under totally different evolutionary conditions. I see her
as being light and almost elfin.

  The term elfin is not definite, but is merely a word out of mythology.
Continue, Stella.

  Well, sir, she's almost birdlike.
   No.

   Yes, LaConius?

   Sir, like a Tigian butterfly.

   Ah!

   Even to the life cycle. She has wings. And the— what are they? The
winglings. They fly. And I see the i&ings as caterpillars, crawling around
the woods eating leaves.

   Yes, but if you had finished your assignment, LaConius, you would
have seen, although there is a certain correlativity, that ifflings are not
caterpillars.

   Well, sir, maybe not in the same shape. But the cycle is the same.
Butterflies begin as eggs and then go through the larval stage, then into
chrysalis, and finally emerge as winged creatures, fully adult.

   But the writer speaks of a third change in the Artonuee.

   Sir.

   Elizabeth.

   Since the Artonuee are much more complicated beings, perhaps the
third change is necessary. In fact, in chapter—

  Good, Elizabeth. Since you have obviously read ahead, describe
Miaree.

    I agree with LaConius, that she is like a butterfly. She has a sort of
light fur. It could be like the minute scales on a butterfly. It's soft and not
at all unbeautiful. And she has those long lips. She drank from a flower.
Yet it was a thing she did only under cover of darkness and in privacy,
indicating to me that it is only the young of the species, the winglings,
who live on flower nectar. I think Miaree must be biped, for she is so
described. And she apparently has only two arms. There is a hint toward
her general shape in the mention of her—ah—rear. Apparently, the rear
is, perhaps, more developed than in our races. And apparently, sexual
connotations were present, since Miaree is aware of something, the eggs
in her.

   Very good. Any additions?

  She has beautiful eyes, quite like the eyes of an insect, I think, large
and blue and pretty.

   Yes, Leslie. John?

   We have butterflies on Selbelle III. I think they were imported from
LaConius' home world, because our native life forms are rather like
lizards. I thought of them when I drew Miaiee. Would you like to see?

   With pleasure.

   Ah, you will be an artist, John?

   Sir, I am an artist. I am from Selbelle III.

   My mistake, sir. Yes, I agree. Class?

   I think the head should be larger.

   The rear should be more pronounced, like the body of a butterfly.

  She should have a large head. And I think she should be slimmer,
more graceful.

   I think John has done a wonderful job with her. She's just as I see her.
I could love her, I think.

   Ah, Alfred, I see that you, too, have completed the assignment.
Already thinking ahead? Romantically inclined. We have not heard from
Clear Thought.

   Sir, one thing we've not mentioned. She has at least rudimentarily
developed telepathic abilities. She sent a message, while on the shuttle
driver, to a novice flyer.

   Good point, my young Healer.

   Sir, I think her voice would be of great interest. The word keening is
used at least once. As a musician, I think she would sing her speech much
like the birds of the old worlds. A musical, high tone. Perhaps, as Clear
Thought suggests, partially mixed with telepathy.

   Very good, Elana. Now, from Miaree let us turn to the Artonuee
society. Tomax?

   A matriarchy, sir. With no real equality between the sexes. The males,
I gather, are lesser creatures, unable to do some of the skilled things done
by the females. The males are slower of reflex and exhibit some of the
weaknesses usually associated with women.

  Weaknesses? Ha!

  Please don't interrupt, Cecile. Go on, Tomax.

   The males are involved in the religion to a greater extent than the
females; in fact, they seem to have put brakes on the development of
Artonuee technology by imposing a set of taboos. I get the impression
that since the Artonuee are acutely aware of a very slow process of
destruction of their galaxy, they are an old race. We know, for example,
that the city of Nirrar is almost two thousand years old, and the
Artonuee went out to the planets from their home world at least two
thousand years before the time of the story. So, their technology,
although spectacular in some areas—notably the development of the
convertors which reduce the mass and inertial forces of the flyers—must
have developed slowly. I would guess that the beauty-loving females,
although curious, showed little interest in technology prior to the
invention of the flyer. The slow and dependable drivers are, I'd think, the
products of the male mind. Yet, the males, in the hold of their
superstitions, refuse to think in terms of overcoming the limitation of the
speed of light, or, as they call it, God's Constant. There is evidence, in the
reading so far, that the females, somewhat less inhibited by the burden
of their God, are thinking in terms of advancements; but they, too, being
products of their own civilization with its built-in limitations, find it
difficult to accept, even in their irreverence, the possibility of God's being
proven wrong in something so basic as the Constant. I think they're in
for one hell of a cultural shock when the word gets out beyond
government circles that someone, the men from Delan, has bested God's
Constant.

  Anything to add to that, Alaxender?
   The females seem to be happy, sir, in their little flyers, loafing around
the system like Sunday sailors on a lake. In a very feminine way, I think,
they actually rather enjoy the drama of being doomed and aren't too
eager to change the status quo.

  Yes, Elizabeth.

   I don't want to make this a battle of the sexes, but it is the females
who are advancing the civilization. Not the males. They, pardon the
expression, man the Research Quad and the government and they have
the sense of adventure. The males plod and pray.

  Who do you think wrote about Miaree? Yes, Martha.

  A female, obviously. Otherwise, the flying segment could not have
been so vividly described. A male who had never flown in a flyer could
not have done it.

  And the purpose of the book? Leslie.

   It has the ring of truth. And it was obviously left purposely. One
structure on a planet and one object inside. I think the Artonuee left
behind the book as a history of their race. As a message to anyone who
might come after they were gone.

  Only the Artonuee?

   Sir, since the structure housing the book withstood some considerable
heat for a long period of time, since it was unlike anything described in
the Artonuee culture, I think that leaving the book was a joint effort by
the Artonuee and the Delanians.

   Perhaps. But I see that our time is up. Tomorrow, we will study the
next segment. Please reread it, keeping in mind our discussion of today.
As you have already noted, no doubt, there is a change in viewpoint;
before our discussion period begins, I will want you to consider why this
was desirable. And give some thought, please, since this is a literature
class, to the artistic integrity of the abrupt change of view. And one
more request. Please remember my age, my young friends, and do not
trample me on the way to the dining hall.
                         Chapter Seven

   There was no sense of urgency. It was dreamlike, unreal; but no
problem to Rei, for man conquers. Daily man vanquishes all the ills to
which he is heir. He had that sort of confidence here. Where? Brown
atmosphere. Sand. Water somewhere.

   He was there and his friend was there. Who? There was a warm feeling
of comradeship. They had to get the hell out of there, but they could do it.

  There was a tunnel arrowing into blackness. It was lined with light. He
went, confident, flying. The tunnel closed and filled. Huge forces shook
him. His friend was gone, swallowed up by blackness. There was no face,
only an awareness, a knowledge that his friend had surrendered.

  Outside the tunnel the world was brown. There was water somewhere.
The sky was there, but unseen.

   He knew immediately that they were mother and daughter. The
younger one was attractively slim with a multicolored soft fur for skin. The
older one was woman with a trace of the hardness which sometimes
comes with maturity, but still woman, convincing, alluring. They didn't
speak. It was a long time before he heard them, but they were telling him.

  "Come, come."

  He was not ready.

   With no sense of urgency he was in a long room. Ahead of him
stretched stainless steel cases, boxes, all on legs to raise them to face- and
chest-level. He understood that he was to progress from station to station.
He stood before the first case, the line of steel enclosures perspecting away
to the far end of the room where a man in a white lab coat puttered,
clipboard in hand.

    An automated hypodermic needle swung out from the steel and jabbed
at him. He sensed, feared evil. He pushed. There was no sound as the case
fell. He pushed, pushed, fighting now, for he knew that it was urgent. He
knew this place. Case after case fell with no sound, crashing noiselessly,
surprisingly fragile, dominoing case after case until, near the end of the
long room, he stood in the shambles as the white-smocked man advanced,
a long needle menacingly ready.

   He ran. A door opened into a cul-de-sac, a molding, musty,
cement-walled room of damp threat with corpses, and they were there, the
two women, one young and full-lipped and beautiful, although strange, the
other only slightly less beautiful but possessed of that warning hint of
mastery.

   They clung to him. He knew the woman-warmth was hypocrisy, far
removed from reality, a force holding him through the engendered male
response to femininity. The long, shining needle pierced his arm, going
deep; no, his thigh. On each side. He was walking, one of them on either
side, clinging, immobilizing his arms, leaving them to hang weakly as they
moved timelessly across the brown with water somewhere and the sky not
seen and they were thinking, feeling.

  "Come, come."

   There was the aura of cruelty about the mother, a beautiful and mature
being. Her daughter, young, fresh, gave him something approaching
empathy. She cared. She didn't like what she was doing, but it was the
nature of things. There was something between them, him and the
daughter, something indefinable. Her grasp was less possessive, less
limpet-like.

  He had to get away.

   He could fly. By pumping his legs he built something, compressions,
something, underneath. He went up. Three trees stood apart from the
forest. The younger one seized on. He tried to dislodge her before the cruel
one came.

  "Come. Come."

   She was almost gentle, but there was the older one, clamping onto his
bare thigh, making herself one huge mouth which sucked, buried itself
leech-like in the thin pad of flesh over his hip joint. Pain. Not blood being
sucked but something more vital. They were bearing him down, weighting
him, ending the flying. Almost reluctantly the young one ceased being a
woman and became that leech-mouth feeding on something vital, digging
hurtingly into the flesh over the opposite hip joint, and he was going,
hearing them more clearly, although there were no words.

  "Come. Come."

   Brownness. Brown sand and water somewhere, and they were sapping
him, the sucking maws obscene, evil, limpets clinging as if to wet rock,
impossible to displace although his fingers dug and dug into his own skin
and got a nailhold under the soft one, the young one who exuded that
feeling of near empathy.

   He did not want to go. He had things to do. She, the younger one, was
also reluctant, not liking what she was doing to him. She was the weaker
of the two, weaker than the sucking, strong, cruel mother-thing which
made the brown come near with her enervating bite. He screamed in pain.
His fingers dug until, with a sucking sound, the younger one let go and
was in his hand, a thing, unidentifiable but alive and sinister, pulsing, red
maw underneath.

   No. He would not go. Man conquers. Man, all men, materialized in him,
reminding him of his mission. With a final, wrenching effort, he displaced
the other thing which had existed, once, in the guise of woman. The two
things in his hands fought. He knew his time was short, measured in
seconds, although all was timeless as he forced the two sucking things
maw to maw and felt them shudder as mutual force destroyed them. He
had won.

  He could fly again.

   Lift under him, tired, not able to fly as he once could fly, he saw the
water underneath. The things were melting, but still living. He could see
their gory hearts hanging like melting ice. The water was the place for
them, far out. But he could not make it. The calm water was close. The
younger one was thinking, feeling. Her being alive terrified him.

  "Come. Come."

  He cast them, bound together by their own force, into the smooth
water, and then he was sinking. He fell only feet from them. The shore was
near. He swam. He could hear the younger one calling.

  "Come. Come."
  Mindless.

   Ahead of him in the smooth, perfumed water, was the broad, flat back
of a Bolun, familiar, ancient, kept alive, some eons past, by love and daily
medication. Old, fine, loved pet. He put him to sleep, the finest Bolun in
the system, and he cried. The Bolun knew what was happening. After
dozens of trips to the veterinarian, the Bolun knew what was happening,
for he'd never complained before, never wept that howling wail before. The
Bolun had struggled against needles and rectum worm checks and
parasite removal and all such indignities, but he knew that this was more
than just one more needle. It wouldn't hurt going into the tough,
fight-scarred scruff of the neck, but the Bolun knew that this was the final
needle, and the world's finest Bolun howled because his friend didn't have
the guts to stay there and watch him die. Howl in his ears going out the
door with tears forming in his eyes, and ahead of him in the perfumed
water the broad, fat, black back, swimming. How could it be? And the
young thing calling.

  "Come. Come."

   Far down the light-lined tunnel were the doors to the universe. He
screamed and reached for them, his arm stretching, stretching, falling
short. Inside those doors, warmth, love, safety.

  "He got away."

  "Who got away?"

  "Him."

   His hand went through the doors. All he ever wanted was inside, all of it
there. Behind him the water. He turned his head and listened. A keening
in his ears. Musical.

  "Come. Come." The dark voice under the music.

   He knew who he was not by name, not by identity, and there it all was
behind him inside the doors, and he could open them, only his hand went
through the doorknob, and out there were the things from which he'd
escaped, and the water had not always been perfumed. The water was
timeless until it began to boil and steam as a world died. The mad,
grasping, deadly feel of it.
   The brown coming back, misty, and he could no longer fly, and if the
things were not to take him, then what? He had escaped to what?




                         Chapter Eight

   To unbearable pain. To perfumed water being sprinkled on his lips. To
fever and heat and a burning sun and drenching rains and endless pain
and the taste of an alien sweetness as he opened his mouth, seeing his
action from a distance, eyes closed, feeling it. A twittering, keening
musical presence. Breeze fanned into his burning face and the festering of
the terrible wound and the raw hurt of his hip joints and a weakness.

   He screamed soundlessly, for he knew the room, the long, cold room
with steel cabinets. The needles to draw fluid from lifeless bodies. The first
expedition, racked by internal explosion, body parts strewn, the ship
towed home and the parts gathered and boxed in steel cases and
embalmed, since no one knew the force which destroyed them and autopsy
was necessary.

   His strong body fighting the wounds. Mind imprisoned. Fighting to be
free, but weakened by the total war his cells fought against the infections.
Boji, Boji, fat, black Bolun.

   Perfumed water, pure, alien. And the alien sweetness. Mouth dry,
swallowing. Body wastes accumulating. Unable to move. Stinking. Sun
after sun.

   "The goddamned sensors failed!" Terror. Feverish activity. The rumble
of the engines.

  Wham!

  Soundless scream as walls buckled, compartments burst. The ring of
impact at speed.

  "Brake, Rei. Full brake."

  Birds. No. Insects. Beautiful. Lovely eyes. Tiny. Twittering. Long,
flexible lips on tiny faces. The sprinkle of sweetness.

   And his body fighting, strong, healthy, fantastically versatile in healing
itself. Endless suns and the cooling rain and the washing away of filth and
the sound of children's voices fading into that tuneless, musical keening
and wings beating like giant moths and a part of his mind alive, now.

   He tried to focus his eyes. His lips moved. A croaking sound which
stopped the musical twittering.

   They were dead.

   All of them, dead, and with them had died hope and the excitement of
discovery. The first men to find an alien civilization and all dead. Free
electrons floating on the surface of a sun.

   It was clear. He could not see, but it was clear. The impact had ripped
the engineering section, taking three men with the shattered bits of rock
and metal which burst into free space. The panel erupting in his face, a
long, hot sliver piercing him. Juanna screaming, "Suits!" Suits mandatory
on planetary approach, but Juanna holed by a rock which penetrated the
hull as if it were so much soft flesh, her blood spewing as she was exposed
to hard vacuum.

   The engines, the remaining port-side pair, screaming, failing as servos
went with the rain of space debris. And the sun ahead. His suit patch,
automated, holding. Bleeding inside the suit, the warm fluid sinking to his
feet and wetting them until, with concentration, he closed the veins and
hit the engines, screaming, "Start, damn you. Start."

  Screaming into the dead communications system. "Engines!" No
answer. A dimming scanner showing the gutted compartment and a
smear of red on the jagged edge of the gaping hole in the hull.

  The ship was dead. It shot past a small, sunside planet and the heat
built as he armed the mechanical demo release of the escape hatch. His
hands weak, trembling.

   Then he was aspin in space, traveling the arc of the dying ship into the
sun. Hope. He could tell them. Ah, the rotten luck of it. Valuable tools and
equipment going into that goddamned sun. But they had the means to
send a lightspeed message. There was hope. Five worlds there. Four
life-zone worlds, packed closely around a fine, stable sun.

   Nothing vital had been ruptured in the circuits of the suit and the
backpack made sounds inside the suit, fighting the pull of the sun and
winning, accelerating, as he browned out. Heat straining the capacity of
the suit but cooling as the sun world swam past. And there would be, in a
civilization which could beam messages into interstellar space, people on
the second world.

   After a long period of sleep he awoke with the wetness on his lips and
looked into the multifaceted eyes of a tiny angel. Long, soft lips almost
touched his, loosing the rain of sweetness. Tiny hands pushed the fruit
into his lips. Around him they swarmed in dozens.

  "Thank you," he said. The sound sent them skittering on a flare, leaving
him alone. Had they, or he, lifted his visor? God, he stank.

  His left leg was useless. The abdominal wounds were scabbed over,
healing. His head was clear.

   Around him an empty world, the six-inch winged angels hovering at a
distance. Across the water, trees, dense, thick-leaved. A part of his dream.
Things crawled on the limbs. "Come. Come." He rested.

   On a limb overhanging the lake something moved, jerked, pulsed. With
a feeble hand he closed his visor. He thumbed magnification into it and
watched, the hours meaningless, his body using the time to heal. The
movement came from a rounded node on the limb, white, silken. And as
hours flowed, a tiny hand emerged, clutched, rested, as he rested. A head.
Wet antennae unfolded in the heat of the sun. A struggle. One of the
winged angels, fully formed, sat, in exhaustion, on the limb. Wings wet,
folded. Fascinated, he did not take his eyes off the tiny, beautiful creature
until it flexed its drying wings, launched itself into air, fell, caught, soared,
wings beating, keening voice singing a note of joy.

  A world of butterflies. A goddamned world of bugs. Where were the
people who sent the message?

  His chronometer said that he'd been healing for fourteen standard
days.

   On the fifteenth day, he struggled out of the stinking, soiled suit,
crawled to the water's edge. He checked it carefully. But he'd been in that
water. It was unhospitable to the sucking things which crawled the trees
and munched leaves on the other side of the lake. He pulled himself in,
bathed, discarding his clothing, letting the perfumed water cool his
burning, scabbed wounds.

   His movements frightened the tiny winged creatures. No longer did
they bring him food. At a distance, he watched them, saw among them
creatures, less delicate, unwinged, who walked the ground on two legs,
much like men.

   He had swum ashore to a grassy knoll. From the top, gained by much
effort, pulling his still mending leg behind him, he could see a plain of
flowers. The flowers were alive with the winged angels.

    He could not get far from water, not in his condition. But he had to
have food. Apparently, the angels had fed him their own food, nectar. He
grinned, his face feeling crackly under his fifteen-day beard. Kept alive for
fifteen days by a bunch of bugs feeding him flower juice.

   He reached the near flowers. They smelled sweet and the nectar was a
cluster of grains, pulpy, in the stamen. He ate. Around him the angels
twittered and seemed to laugh.

    "Good," he said to them, scattering them. "Very good. You live quite the
life, don't you?"

  The flowers, themselves, offered more bulk and were quite tasty.

   In the evening he sat on top of the knoll. The angels circled him at a
distance. He waved to them, motioned them to come closer. One, with a
head larger than the others, a head so heavy that she flew rather clumsily,
approached. He made motions to his mouth. They had to have some
intelligence to know that he required food to live, water to survive. They'd
kept him alive. The angel with the large head twittered and keened. He
repeated the eating motions.

   She had tiny hands, perfectly formed. Her legs, tucked up, seemed less
well formed. They had given him something other than flower nectar. He
made the motions. He started to speak, but remembered that the sound of
his voice frightened them. He'd seen the fruit on the large trees across the
lake. He pointed, shaped his hands in the circle of the fruit, motioned.
   The angel keened, flew heavily across the water. Others followed. It took
three of them, working together, to bring a whole fruit. They placed it a
few yards away and retreated. He crawled to it. Ate with relish. The fruit
was good. The juice ran down his chin. He motioned again and the same
three angels brought a second fruit. He smiled, waved. He took the second
fruit and crawled back down the hill. The chill of evening was upon him.
He crawled into the suit and slept.

   He awoke with the sun in his eyes and they were there, at the top of the
knoll. Some of the wingless ones carried a shapeless mass, placed it there
on the smooth grass. He crawled to it. It was flesh, but flesh of a sort he'd
never seen. He tasted it cautiously. It was spicy, chewy. Yet it was new. He
ate the fruit, left the flesh. He'd been fantastically lucky. The flower food
and the fruit were compatible with his system. The flesh was strange. He
withdrew to bathe in the lake. The wingless ones came to the flesh and,
gesturing, ate of it. Finding that he'd had no ill effects from the bite he'd
sampled that morning, he tried some of it for lunch, ate hungrily.

   By the twentieth day, the large-headed angel would approach to within
a few feet of him, stand erect on her legs, which seemed to be developing,
and twitter at him. Her head was growing. Now she was so heavy that she
walked, instead of flying.

    He was able to make the link between the crawling things of the trees
and the winged angels. Butterflies in metamorphosis. The round, mawed
things the larvae, the rounded sac the chrysalis—the sac he'd observed as
it gave birth to a fully formed angel. But this change which took place
from day to day in his large-headed friend with the feminine features, the
large eyes, the cute, protruding rear? After perfection, what?

   When he was able, after twenty-five days, to limp on his leg, the
flowered plain drew him, led him away from the lake, water stored in his
suit-pack. He carried fruit and a hunk of the spicy flesh. He traveled
slowly. Ahead were low hills and beyond, mountains. He walked through a
grove of the thick-leaved trees and looked warily for the crawling larvae.
Apparently there was some natural boundary, some natural rule. Only the
winged angels and the walking ones, looking much like tiny men, watched
his passage. The trees supplied him with fruit.

   His large-headed friend paced him. Flying now and then, walking
tiredly most of the time. She was growing visibly and flying became more
and more difficult for her as the third day of his journey took him past
clear, perfumed streams and groves of the fruited trees. They seemed to
know no season; young pips of fruit mixed with maturing and ripened
fruit on the same branch.

   He was following the sun. It led him up steep hills to the crest of the low
range and before him was the sea and there, far below, was movement. He
used the magnifier in his visor and saw them, angels, grown large, wings
tiny on their backs.

   Steep cliffs ran along the shore. The descent to them was tortuous. The
large-headed angel glided down on the updrafts, body ungainly in flight,
too big for flight. He, being a mere man, had to walk, crawl, slide.

   A wind came off the sea into his face. There was a perfume in it. And,
using his magnifier, he saw that the sea was not an ocean. There, on the
far horizon, was land.

   Around him, the angels, all grown, wings dwarfed, heads heavy,
twittered, seemed to ignore him. They were few in numbers, so few that he
thought he could identify his traveling companion. Grown to the size of a
ten-year-old child, she was preening herself. The delicate, multicolored fur
shredded away. He watched with amazement as she seemed to expand, to
grow.

   Nearby, the process of molting completed, an angel launched herself off
the cliff. She was so large that her tiny wings could not possibly hold her;
he thought she had leaped to her death, far below in the waves which
pounded the rocks, pushed by the constant wind. But she steadied in her
downward flight, circled, soared, wings almost motionless, riding the
updraft and then gliding off on a wing toward the distant land.

   Head large, eyes glowing, his friend pushed down the last remnant of
her outer skin, kicked it aside. He'd seen women take off a skirt with
identical motions.

  "Wait; please wait," he called.

   She did not look at him, her eyes fixed on the distant land. And, as he
moved toward her, she was gone. Falling, then feeling the updraft, gliding,
impossibly heavy for such flight, but flying, soaring, becoming small in the
distance.
   There was no food on the barren shore. The water, if it were fresh, was
far below. He climbed the hill, found food, running water, and spent the
days sitting on the hilltop, watching as the angels molted, leaped, soared.

   It took two weeks, fourteen standard days, for the angel, the newly
changed Artonuee female, to develop her powers of communication to the
point where she could tell of the strange male who escaped the ifflings and
fed on nectar and fruit and the flesh food of the walking males.




                           Chapter Nine

   "We know, dear," said First Mother Piiree, when, with much agitation
and self-pleasure, the third-change infant formed her first coherent
message in a keening mixture of sweet sounds and labored thoughts.
"Concern yourself with the application of the sound eeeeen. Now, now, he
is well. He is being watched. He is feeding." Lovely, thought First Mother
Piiree, to be fortunate enough to share these lovely children's first odd and
ancient joys. Unfortunate that this group of changelings should have had
their wingling stage complicated by the presence of the alien. The trauma
of it could color their future lives, and the life of each was a precious jewel
to be treasured, protected. Now that the three pleasant worlds of the
Artonuee were population-stabilized, the flow of changelings through the
Development Center was slow and carefully regulated.

   There were times when Piiree wished that she had lived during the
period of expansion, when the Artonuee were peopling new worlds. She
herself had voted, at the last Public Opinion, to expand Five, cold as it
was. She had argued against the quality-of-life advocates, stating with
some force that she knew from her personal experience and her graduate
research that a one-on-one relationship at the iffling stage was no more
desirable than multiple relationships. The age of expansion, she had said,
should prove to even the most skeptical that the life force was powerful
enough to give being to two, three, even as many as five ifflings. The great
Lonwee was a fiveling. It was a terrible waste to allow only one iffling the
gift of advancement when an Artonuee came home.

  Just last night she had talked about it with the Lady from Nirrar. "It is
not as if we are denying them life." the Lady said. "We are merely
postponing it. Look at it this way. In our mythology, the Lady Andee
suckled fifty ifflings. Each became great. I agree that it is possible to
advance more than one or two ifflings with each homecoming, but is it
desirable? Part of our history is the sad story of the age of overpopulation,
of rampant changeling mortality. Rather than condoning artificial
concern with unfertilized eggs and unadvanced ifflings I, personally, would
advise a continuation of careful control, of watchfulness, of Artonueeistic
benevolence in regard to those who are allowed the gift of sentient life."

   The Lady was high in the government, and in her position, had access
to information unavailable to Piiree. She bowed. Moreover, the Lady was
carrying a wing load of sorrow. It registered there around her eyes, in the
sad purse of her lovely lips.

   "Your load is heavy, Lady," Piiree said, in consideration. "I will allow
you to retire, with just one more question. The meaning of the alien's
presence on The World, Lady?"

   For an unguarded moment, there was a chaos of thought, then the Lady
controlled herself. "Great change, First Mother. For good or for ill. At best,
your wishes granted in a staggering surplus." Pictures of thousands,
millions of changelings. An outflowing of changelings to live great and
exciting lives of—Piiree was lost.

   "I will wish for it," Piiree said, leaving the chamber as the tired Lady,
clad in official purple, keened goodnight.

   Still, Piiree resented the presence of the alien, the male. He sat, a
malignancy in paradise, atop the Cliffs of Flight, eating the fruit which
properly belonged to the trekking changelings. Piiree had a healthy
respect for the ability of the male of the species, as long as he stayed in his
place. This alien male was definitely out of his place. She was glad, after so
many days of suspense and anxious watching, that the government had, at
last, sent someone to deal with the situation. All she wanted was for the
alien to be removed so that her changelings would not have, as one of their
first memories, the image of him in their minds.

   Behind her, the Lady could not sleep. To one who knew her, a dullness
of eye, there in the outer facets, would have told of her fatigue, and of
other things. To a soul mate—one who could, upon invitation, come into
her head—all would have been revealed and then tears would have fallen,
for the Lady had sacrificed much to be on The World, to hear the eager,
childish voices of the changelings, to smell the drift of the aroma of the
pleele flowers and the fuplee forests across the inland sea. The pleele smell
saddened her most.

   Sleepless, she activated the darkened arcs and, from her carry case,
extracted papers and leaned over them as she sat in her bed. Her lips
formed sounds, unnatural sounds, guttural and strange and, although
systematized, wounding to her ears still. And some of the sounds were
incapable of being formed by her frail vocal chords. Some had to be
thought, motioned. This gave her doubt. The mind which was the target of
these sounds was unknown. Would her mixture of thought and sounds
make sense to it?

   It was an old worry and she had to live with it for yet a few hours, until
the dawn and after the floater trip across the inland sea. And if she could
not communicate, then it had all been for nothing. She felt a wave of
unaccustomed bitterness.

   No. She would not be able to bear failure. She would not even think of
failure, not after the long days of work and the sleepless nights and the
frightful psychic pain which still, in unguarded moments, smote her with
a hurtful blow.

   Still, there was the possibility of failure. For the first time in history,
the Artonuee were exposed to the concept of linguistics, a term which she
herself had coined in the first dramatic days of her study of the alien
messages in that section of the Research Quad which had been turned
over to her. The Artonuee, of course, had always had language. The
libraries of Outworld were filled with the written word of the Artonuee,
going back, in the ancient picture form of the language, over three
hundred thousand Artonuee years to the days of the first tool users. But
even in that early, rudimentary form of the language there was no
difficulty, for the written pictures were merely graphic transcriptions of
the pictures of the mind. It was thought in University circles that a
primitive Artonuee female, from the early days of self-spun nests, would be
able to converse with a modem-day Artonuee in basic terms, leaving out
the additions to the language caused primarily by technological
development.

   It was true that in the era of the attempted space communications
experiments, some thought had been given to the possibility that another
intelligent race, out among the stars, would have different sounds in
communication, even different ways of making communicative sounds.
Yet the early language scientists—if such a title could, indeed, be bestowed
upon those who formulated the messages to be sent into space—assumed
that mind pictures of universal things, moons, stars, suns, words, people,
would be universally understood. So it was that the interstellar messages
were sent in primitive Artonuee picture writing.

   And so it was that the answers were in basic pictures and, thus, easily
understandable. That is, the first answers were in basic pictures, and the
newest Artonuee changeling would have been able to see that the pictures
indicated a sentient being of a race having two sexes and having young of
the same form. From there it was easy. The system of numbers fell into
place with a quickness which pleased Miaree. Within days she was able to
determine that the speed of the Delanian rays of light was, on a scale
accurate to the fifth decimal point, exactly the value of God's Constant,
thus, the speed of light. In another day she knew and reported that the
elements of the Delanian periodic table corresponded almost exactly with
those of the Artonuee table, with some notable exceptions in the heavy
metal end.

   So far she was dealing with pictures and with numbers. It was when
she waded into the stacked pages of duppaper dealing with language that
she ran into problems. In one of her early reports, she illustrated her
difficulty by enclosing a copy of an illustration from a Delanian message.
Having mastered the Delanian alphabet, she was able to translate the
words with the picture of a band of colors. It was labeled The Visible
Spectrum. It was composed of waves measuring from 760 millimicrons to
385 millimicrons, and the band itself was labeled with meaningless
names: Red, White, Green, Blue. Violet.

   The finding had to do with more than language. In her report she
wrote: It is obvious that the Delanian eye is an imperfect instrument with
limited capability; this basic difference in the structure of a sense organ
will make communication difficult, if not impossible, in matters
pertaining to the wavelengths of light. Since there is such a basic
difference in the physical make-up of this one important sense organ, it is
to be assumed that other basic differences will also be present. In this
specific instance, how can an Artonuee with diapasonic sight explain what
she sees to a being with limited vision?

  She was to find, as she plowed into the technical material, that,
although Delanians could not see other wavelengths, they knew of their
existence and could measure them with instruments, so that minor
difficulty was overcome, but there were others.

   Since Delanians saw light differently, she theorized, they would have an
entirely different concept of the universe. Such thinking revealed to her
one of the basic rules of language, while demolishing the
common-language theories of the scientists who had worked on the
communications project. She quickly learned that there is no relationship,
in alien languages, between any label and the object for which it stands.
There was no similarity between the Delanian and Artonuee words for
star, for example.

   The smaller figure in the three-person picture was called by various
names: boy, son, young man, youth. There was no equivalent for any of
those terms in the Artonuee language.

   As the days passed and the beautiful unrest grew in her body, she
began to understand the overwhelming task which awaited her. In
desperation, she turned to the sound tapes which had been transmitted
from the Delanian driver approaching the system. She had listened,
briefly, before, had had her ears jarred by static and by the unmusical,
growling, offensive sounds of the Delanian voice. Slowly, painfully, she
began to relate the sounds to the Delanian alphabet, for the early
broadcasts were, again, language lessons for beginners. And just as she
put two sounds together and got star ship for driver, she knew that she
would have to put aside the research.

   Inside her slim body the eggs were forming, and as she worked, the
chemical changes in her body imitated in smell the sweet, potent aroma of
the pleele. The most glorious adventure of an Artonuee female called her.
She dreamed of the love parks of Outworld. Artonuee males, in the Quad,
catered to her, bowed to her, followed her. Small bouquets of pleele
appeared on her desk, placed by male assistants, by males with whom she
had never come into personal contact. On her brief outings into the city,
males would pause, smile, keen a greeting, for she had not loosed her
wings from her garment, had not displayed the sign that she had chosen,
and in the ancient tradition, she was looking.

   The attentions she received were her due. It was the right of any male
to state his case. And yet, it interfered with her work and left her
breathless and expectant, and she found herself wasting valuable time
watching the flex of the leg muscles of the young male who served her
needs in her personal office, lifting, carrying, running.

   It was her right, as a young female feeling the strength of nature's call
to fertilization, to freetime. Special transportation awaited her and her
chosen. Outworld called. There the entire landscape had been modeled
after The World's mating parks. There the planet was devoted to love and
the creation of life and beauty. There the artistic minds of the four
habitable worlds gathered and created music and the magic of words and
objects of delight and there the lovers strolled and kissed and…

   She had already been robbed of a part of it. She had planned her
method of selection, from among the artists of Outworld, for she wanted
her eggs to carry the seeds of beauty. She should have been on Outworld
for weeks, selecting, rejecting, choosing. Her body cried out for love. It was
ready, and hours of joy had been stolen from her by the hateful sounds of
the Delanian voice on the sound tapes. She would endure no longer.

   Yet, when she sent her application for freetime, it was not returned
automatically. She had sent her physician's certificate, telling of her
readiness, of her sacrifice in staying with the project to date. Yet the
automatic approval did not come. Instead, an official courier brought an
oral summons.

   She had never known that so many handsome males walked the streets
of Nirrar. She had never known that the male smile could be so pleasing.

  "Lady," said the roller driver who took her to the Government Quad, "I
know it is chill, but either I open the viewer or I faint."

  The musky smell of pleele filled the compartment. She smiled and
nodded.

   The members of the guard were so beautiful they took her breath away.
Tall, handsome, strong. They shone in their uniforms like beacons on the
road to joy. And, superbly disciplined, they didn't turn a hair, although, as
she wafted past, the delicious smell of pleele perfumed the air, leaving
behind the slim, graceful lady a lingering, wistful sadness.

    "Mother," she said, without waiting. "I must go. I must. There is so
little time."
  There was a sadness in Mother Aglee's eyes. They were alone in the
Mother's office. Mother Aglee did not speak. Instead, she handed Miaree a
packet.

  "No, no," Miaree said. "I will not look."

  "Open it, daughter," Mother Aglee said sadly.

   It was, of course, the alien. Duppaper pictures, taken from afar with the
long lens of an optical recorder.

  "No, no," Miaree keened.

   "You were making splendid progress," Mother Aglee said. "It was felt
that no additional pressures were needed."

  "Someone else will have to take over. There are my notes."

  "You have the mind for it, daughter. You are one in a million."

   "He survived all this time?" Miaree asked, feeling an interest in spite of
the torturing storm in her mind, in her body.

   "On The World. He was there three days before the disturbance in the
thought flow alerted us. He was gravely injured."

  "And you didn't pick him up immediately?"

  Mother Aglee smiled. "Would our physicians have known how to heal
him? Look."

   Miaree saw the terrible wound, scabbed. She saw the broken, useless
limb. "He is made from the same stuff, but his flesh is different," Mother
Aglee said. "He loosed two ifflings, forced them from him, survived."

  "No one looses an iffling." Miaree said. "He is different."

   "He was healing when we found him. He was being fed by winglings,
and nectar and fruit and flesh seemed to allow him to thrive. We thought
to move him and submit him to the artificial foods of the adults could be
worse than leaving him. The climate was mild. The rains tended to cleanse
him. He is possessed of a powerful body with some unknown means of
healing itself. We thought that his nature, even on an alien world, would
know more than we. But now he is healed. He awaits on the Cliffs of Flight.
Once he attempted to swim the island sea, and we feared that we would
have to save him before you were ready, but he quickly saw the
impossibility of swimming against the wind and the currents and turned
back."

  "Mother, I am not ready. I know barely two words of his language. I
cannot communicate."

   "That is why, my daughter, I must ask you to make the ultimate
sacrifice."

  Weakened, shocked, Miaree sat heavily.

   "He is disturbing the wakening ids of the changelings, but that is a
small matter. He grows impatient, but that, too, is not our concern. We
received this," Mother Aglee said, handing over a single duppaper, "only
yesterday. I would like you to confirm my impressions."

  Miaree looked, and, with sinking heart, nodded. "Yes," she said, with
dull resignation. "It means what you think."

   The pictures showed a fleet of Delanian drivers moving through space
in stylized simplicity. An inset showed the inside of a driver. Many
Delanians, males, females, young.

    Mother Aglee smiled weakly. "The fact that we have not invited them to
visit us in such numbers seems irrelevant. I see this fleet as a threat. You
know that we are limiting the advancement of ifflings to mere
replacements. Now our worlds are pleasant. We have room to breathe and
walk and the leisure to fly. What will our people say if they are told that
they must share our life, our good worlds, with thousands of aliens? What
is the rate of population growth with these aliens? How strong are they?
Will they ask, or will they demand? Can we say no or will we be forced?"

   "No, no," Miaree said, absorbing the words, but thinking, very
privately, of herself. "Oh, no."

   "My daughter," Mother Aglee said, standing, moving to put a soft hand
on Miaree's shoulder. "We must talk with this alien. We must find out all
we can about his people. How I wish I could say, 'Look, the fleet will not be
here for a year; go to Outworld, daughter, and love.' But I cannot. Judging
from the messages and the time element with the first driver, we cannot
take that risk. It is the future of our race, of our system that we face,
Miaree. I must ask. Yes, I have no choice. I must."

  "I understand." Miaree said.

  The simple operation was performed by the best doctors in the most
modern hospital in the system. Lady Jonea was by her side. The Mother,
herself, greeted her when she awoke from the mild, induced sleep.

  "Miaree," Mother Aglee said, with deep emotion. "Oh, my daughter."

  And from inside her, from an emptiness, came a vast, keening wail.




                          Chapter Ten

   "Animals," she gasped, when she finally got the meaning. "They are
animals."

   "An interesting word," said her assistant, Lady Belfae. "A word out of
prehistory."

  "Their young are…" She hesitated, searching for an Artonuee word.
"Changed alive. They are ripped from the mother's body alive."

  "Animals," agreed Lady Belfae.

   It was the only analogy. The early writings told of them. Small,
scurrying things on the old World, things which preyed on the unhatched
eggs of the Artonuee. Things which, in self-defense, they exterminated.

  She was healed. The operation left no scars. It had merely removed her
unfertilized eggs artificially. But there was a scar inside, on her mind.

  She hated them, the Delanians. Loathesome, animalistic, ugly.

  Not true. Not ugly.

  Before her, to help her understand, were pictures. The alien at rest,
walking, moving, undressed showing his maleness, standing on the Cliffs
of Flight looking out over the inland sea. Not ugly. Tall, powerful, graceful
in his way. Not much thicker in torso than an Artonuee male and
possessed of the same general features, although his eyes were small and
his legs longer, seemingly made for the covering, in a short time, of vast
distances.

   But not ugly.

  And, in all fairness, it was his evolution which determined that he
would be ripped alive from his mother's body like an animal.

   "That there is evolution is undeniable," a consultant told her. "Fossil
remains show us our ancestors, incredibly ancient, small, ill-formed,
brains the size of a jenk seed. And there are other evidences. The forms of
the exterminated animals of the old World changed over the ages. In
defense of your alien, I wonder what the ages would have done to the
animals if we had not destroyed them?"

   "He is an intelligent being," she told herself, listening to a voice on the
tapes, the grating sounds no longer so painful. "In many ways he must be
superior to us, at least in technology, for he has traveled the stars. I must
give him his due. I must approach him as an equal."

   And, when she could think in Delanian, although that term was no
longer relevant, since she now knew the names with which the aliens
labeled themselves, she told herself that she was ready. She had learned
much.

   The existence of two sexes was more important to the Delanians than
to the Artonuee. Language was feminine in the Artonuee system. The
Delanians differentiated in their language. Hers and his were the same,
only different. Since there was no evidence of being able to share thoughts
among the Delanians, their language was far more complicated. Concepts
which were expressed among the Artonuee with one quick
picture—perhaps, in some cases, combined with sound—required long,
complicated, roundabout explanation in the words of the Delanians.

   It was only with the help of the Research Quad main computer and
through long, hard hours of concentration that she was able to board the
driver to The World with some confidence that she would be able to
converse intelligently with the alien.
   And on the night prior to the meeting, there was still some doubt in her
mind. She tried to master it. Then she tried to sleep with that aching
loneliness inside her, that feeling of loss. She awoke irritable, feeling the
effect of planet change. On New World, she would be in the middle of a
work day. Here at home—this merely a phrase, since she had not seen the
surface of The World since her days as a changeling—it was dawn. The sun
was warmer, more friendly. As it began to light the darkness, it seemed to
be more powerful, dimming the evil fire of the collisions in its brilliance.
She bowed to the shrine provided in each guest room.

   "Be with me, Mother." The prayer was brief, but in a very real way, her
very thoughts were a continuation of her supplication. Perhaps the priests
of her youth were right. Perhaps it was possible for God to forgive. Old
Jarvel, senior member of the male minority in the Interplanetary Council,
called in to hear the astounding news that the Artonuee were not alone in
facing God's Fires, paled, fell to his knees.

    "They are God's messengers," old Jarvel said, spittle running down his
chin. He was long overdue for his homecoming, but his importance as the
leading spokesman for Artonuee males seemed, somehow, to put renewed
life into his ancient carcass. "If it is indeed true that they have bested
God's Constant, that must be construed as a sign."

   When he had gone, however, the Lady Jonea, with a wry smile, said,
"Or it is a sign that God, all along, has been largely in the minds of the
Artonuee."

  Cynicism seemed to increase with age in a female, Miaree observed.

   But she did not voice her hopes in prayer to the shrine. Instead, she
paid lip service to God and, as she robed herself in purple, wings hidden in
modesty, she indulged in an if-you-are-really-there soliloquy. If you are
really there you must be God of the Delanians, too, for our concept of an
omnipotent God is incompatible with the idea that another race in our
own galaxy would find a different God. It was, she felt, an all-or-nothing
thing. Either God was God of all the universe or was God of nothing. And,
even more daringly, if God were God of the Artonuee alone, then Her
power was limited and therefore subject to dispute.

   The males said that the seeds of atheism were in every female and that
the very act of flying was in defiance of God. So, she decided, since she had
been fighting God all her life, she would now carry with her across the
inland sea a will to fight harder than ever, to use the chink in God's
armor—namely the fact that the Delanians had traveled in space at
multiples of light speed—to destroy God's last hold over the Artonuee.
With the help of the Delanians' vast power, that power which blinked with
the forces of a living sun, she would rescue the life force of the Artonuee
from the doom which, as the sun burned through a morning ground haze,
dimmed into insignificance in the bright, daytime sky.

   "Mother Piiree," she said, having finished her breakfast which included
the rare treat of ripe juplee fruit, "you may tell the workers that I am
ready."

   The small floater, with two young and curious males as crew, flew
before the wind which blew, ever constant, toward the Cliffs of Flight. The
sea was white-capped. The unaccustomed motion, however, could not
break through Miaree's concentration as she rehearsed her welcoming
speech to the man from the Constellation of Delan. The floater's storage
cells fed on the energy of the sun, pushed the floater with pumped jets of
water, hummed quietly. The wind cooled her, fluttered her purple robe.
Overhead, a female changeling soared, ungainly on her tiny wings,
ignoring the floater as she sped across the waters to her destiny. And
ahead, the cliffs rose from the sea, tall, barren, harsh.

   The alien had shed his bulky space suit and was standing on a high
crag, eyes shaded against the morning sun.

   The landing point was a distance to his right. He noted the direction of
the boat, walked along the top of the cliffs, careful not to disturb the
changelings as they shed their baby skin in graceful, feminine movements.
He awaited as Miaree climbed a rude flight of steps carved into the rock.
He had not known what to expect, but he had formed a theory. He was not
surprised to see, standing before him, slim and regal, soft, flexible lips
fixed in a formal smile, a perfected adult of the charming little creatures
who had fed him, who had wet his parched lips with sweet water. He
extended both hands in a gesture of friendship.

   "On behalf of the Interplanetary Council and The Mother, I extend you
greetings," Miaree said.

  "You, my dear," said Rei, known as the Delanian, "are indescribably
beautiful."
                          Chapter Eleven

  And so much, my young friends, for interplanetary diplomacy. Or
was it, Stella, the most propitious thing that Rei could have said?

  I think it was sweet.

  Your powers of expression overwhelm me. A male viewpoint, please.
Tomax?

   I have to commend Rei for his patience. After all, he was nearly killed
in the asteroid belt, narrowly escaped falling into the Artonuee sun. He
lay in a stinking space suit with his own wastes for days, severely
wounded. He has had nothing to eat but butterfly food for—how long?
Over fifty days. In that position I might not feel like being formal and
diplomatic.

  Elizabeth.

  He is a man and his response to Miaree's greeting is quite manlike,
quite condescending. I think it was an insult.

  Yes, LaConius.

   I think it was merely an honest reaction to Miaree. I would think she'd
be pleased.

   It is, isn't it, a rather minor question? Let us review the segment of the
fable which we've read together today. The most impressive aspect,
John?

  I'm intrigued by the continued mention of the art planet of Outworld.

  Naturally. Leslie?

  I would have liked more detail on Miaree's work in learning the
Delanian language.

  An interesting aspect. Some thoughts on language, Clear Thought the
Healer?

   In our legends there is mention that the old ones spoke in many
tongues. It is a concept which says much. It rather staggers the
imagination. I know something of the difficulty of learning a language,
although I have some advantage. Being able to communicate in mind
pictures makes it unnecessary for the old race to know words, but in
practice we have found it advantageous to use our tongues rather than
our minds. We know the rules of privacy, as legislated following the
reconciliation. In cases of emergency, or with permission, I am allowed
to enter a mind. Otherwise, I speak. And I can understand Miaree's
problems. One picture is worth many words; able to communicate with
what apparently is a mixture of telepathy and sounds, she is
handicapped in her contact with the alien by having to use his words.
She has observed, or the writer has observed, that one simple concept
which could be flashed instantly mind-to-mind takes a circuitous route
through the maze of Delanian words.

   Thank you, Clear Thought, you do very well with our primitive
language. Without stating it is a concept that you must accept simply
because I state it, I would like to observe that we are deficient in the field
of language. I sometimes wonder if the universal language law should
have been passed. We stem, of course, from a common source, all of us,
from the rim worlds to the outposts toward the center. But as the
centuries passed, as worlds became more isolated and independent from
the parent civilization around Terra II, we began to develop variations
in language. New materials, new life forms, new concepts on a hundred
different worlds created words which had meaning only in one specific
area of the empire. Accents changed. Although it never reached the point
where one man could not understand another, there was a different ring
in the ear when one conversed, for example, with a rimmer and with a
center worlder. A child born the rim might say mumu as his first word,
while a toddler from the center would say mama. Planetary influences
changed speech. I once met a man from Big. That, incidentally, is a
beautiful example of descriptive naming. Big is a giant planet in the
second arm which circles its sun with astounding slowness. Men are
born and die before one Big year is complete. My friend from Big told me
that the planet's leisurely plodding through space has influenced its
peoples. And, indeed, he spoke so slowly. One wanted to help him, put
words into his mouth. He made a two-syllable word out of now. Yet,
aside from the drawling sound of his words, his pronunciation is much
like yours or mine. We have acknowledged our interdependency.
Although we have armaments which can kill a planet, we have not used
them since the War with Zede If we number in the billions and yet we
are alone. We still have our alarmists who cite the dead worlds to justify
our so-called preparedness or the continued production of weapons of
destruction. Perhaps this vague outside threat is what helps hold us
together. We are, in spite of our far-flung travels, one people. And the
lengths to which we have gone to keep it that way, among them the
enforcement of the standard language regulations, are for the good.
Except, as in the case of the Miaree manuscript, when we run into
something totally new and different I have read that the computers used
in translating this small book ran continuously for eleven years before
one single key was found. The number of problems presented to the
computers was astronomical. The final solution is required study for
programmers to the present date. If you think Miaree was astounding in
her ability to decipher the Delanian language, think what a task she
would have faced had not the Delanians sent pictures, the alphabet,
carefully-thought-out keys to their language. But my point is this. By
killing initiative in the creation of new language, by smoothing over the
language of a galaxy, we left ourselves without a science of linguistics
and faced a grave challenge when the Miaree manuscript was brought
home from Cygnus. Now I am sure that, somewhere out there, there are
others. Someday we will meet them. An alien race can be warlike or
peaceful. We will have to assess their intentions rapidly, when we meet
them. If we came face to face with the planet-killers and one of them
said, 'stand or I fire!' we would not, of course, have time to learn
language. We would have to make a spot assessment of his intentions
and fire or be fired upon; however, I think that contact will not be
sudden and unexpected, but will come, as it came to Miaree, with
advance warning. And, thanks to Miaree and her book, we now have the
capacity to study and solve an alien language in a mere fraction of the
time it took to translate the legend. So you see, the study of literature is
not just entertainment, is it?

   Sir, there are other languages. The language of the eye. It spoke to Rei
when Miaree came to him. It spoke in the form of beauty. And it is
established that Miaree does not consider Rei ugly, although he is
different.

  Ah, John, the eye of the artist, eh? Yes, and the language of movement.
There are certain signs which would be universal to an intelligent being.
But the wormfly of Omaha III was beautiful before it was exterminated.
It had lovely red wings and a soft, furry body and the early settlers
considered it harmless, even beneficial, until they learned that in its
breeding stage it carefully numbed the skin of its human victims and
injected rather nasty little parasites which delighted in feeding on the
tissue of the inner eye. And it is said the women of Zede II were beautiful
beyond compare. Yet they formed the suicide fleet and almost broke
through the blockade into the undefended worlds. Question. Any
comment on the manner of Rei's escape from his dying ship? LaConius?

    Rather simple, sir. A rocket pack on his space suit. Evidently just
enough power to take him to the New World—no, I mean The World, the
original planet. I was a bit confused, at first, by the initial sequence, but
it became clear when I got the picture of how the Artonuee develop. It is,
as I said, very much like the Tigian butterfly, with an initial stage, the
egg; a larval stage, the iffling; a stage of chrysalis, the sac which Rei
saw hatching a wingling; and a butterfly stage, the winglings, before the
final change into the semi-adult Artonuee. I presume the males follow
much the same pattern, but since this book was written by an Artonuee
female, the males get short shrift.

  The room with the steel cabinets, Elana?

   It's explained. It was sort of a funeral hall. Or a medical hall where
victims of some space accident were brought. Evidently Rei was there at
the time and was much impressed, for his dream of death and the room
came, I'd guess, from his subconscious while he was trying to fight off
the ifflings.

  How do you feel about the ifflings? Martha?

    Rather crawly. But I was impressed by Miaree's repugnance toward
the so-called animal method of birth. I suppose, to a butterfly, with its
clean and non-bloody laying of eggs, live birth would seem as horrible as
the concept of giving poor old Beafly, still alive, to the cannibalistic
ifflings.

  Do the ifflings eat flesh, then? Julius?

  No. I don't think so. I got the idea that they were just taking
something intangible—the life force, as it were.
  Comment, Alfred.

   I think they'd have to take the Artonuee equivalent of genes, or at least
DNA messengers. Because it is apparent that the activity of the early
forms of the Artonuee stems from instinctive knowledge rather than
learned knowledge. And I got a hint, in the Rei sequence, that there is
some sort of continuous line of awareness running through all of the
Artonuee. The ifflings which were fastened to Rei seemed to have some
form of thought, at least enough for him to sense that they were female.
A younger one and an older one.

  And why were the ifflings female, Cecile?

    Coincidence, maybe. Or, perhaps, controlled coincidence, since the
female of the species seems to he dominant and more aggressive. It could
be concluded from the state of the society that since the adult females are
the stronger, the ifflings carrying female genes or whatever would also
he stronger, more aggressive, more likely to tackle an unfamiliar form of
life.

  Yes, Alaxender.

  I think it's interesting to find that the two life forms, Artonuee and
Delanian, are so compatible that the ifflings could attack Rei's life force.

   A good point, and one which could have bearing on the relationship
between Rei and Miaree. Now, a quick summation. Overall impressions.
Leslie.

  I think the most important fact which is presented—

  Fact, Leslie?

  Idea, then. I think it's quite impressive that the Artonuee galaxy
should have two intelligent life forms.

   But was it the Artonuee galaxy? Could not the Delanians have come
from the colliding galaxy?

   No, because the pictures showed their planet to be in a constellation
long known by the Artonuee.
    I am not saying that you are wrong, Leslie. No one can say that
you're wrong. It is a question that still interests some of our best minds.
It has a bearing on the origin of life throughout the universe. Let me put
it this way. A race with the capacity of star travel could have moved into
the Artonuee galaxy from the colliding galaxy. There is a theory that
some unknown controlling force in each galaxy determines the direction
of life.

  But, sir, the Dead Worlds—

    Ah, yes, Tomax, the Dead Worlds. Definitely non-humanoid. So
different, so alien that a thousand studies have produced almost as many
possible descriptions of the inhabitants. Actually, I mentioned the
one-race theory to test you. We have proof, in our own galaxy, that two
very dissimilar races can develop. So, I am not saying that the Artonuee
and the Delanians were from different galaxies. I am merely mentioning
that it is possible that the Delanians could have moved into the Artonuee
galaxy from the rim of the colliding galaxy. But I agree with Leslie that
it is a fascinating idea to think that one galaxy could produce two
intelligent life forms. And that brings up an interesting question. Why
are we so all-fired interested in contacting another intelligent race? Are
we, like Artonuee females, still undecided about God? Do we need contact
with another race, with a different background, to say, 'Hey, old fellow,
about God...'

  Tomorrow then, my young friends. I understand that we're having
Vegan steak, eh?




                       Chapter Twelve

   She stood with her delicate feet slightly apart, left foot advanced. Her
feet were bare. One toe curled nervously. The purple silk gown moved
lightly in the onshore wind, caressing her articulated ankles. The gown
clung to narrow shoulders, bulged gracefully over folded wings, and the
color showed through the thin material, iridescent blues, muted yellows. A
pulse beat in her long, slender neck. The gossamer fur of her upper torso,
exposed by the cut of the gown, was a lovely mixture of colors. And her
eyes. Her eyes were the stars of the night, captured in individual facets in
deep blue. Her face, ovate, delicate, showed that formal little smile. He
answered it with a broad grin, showing white teeth.

  "Those," he said, pointing to graceful antennae which sprouted from
her forehead above the inner readies of each eye, "are they sense organs?"

  "They measure waves of the length of…"

  He shook his head. Her speech reminded him of the music of home. But
her attempts at the technical words left something to be desired.

  "Forgive me," he said. "I am Rei, Captain of the Fleet. Native of…" To
her, there was a gap, the strange sound losing itself on her ears. "I come in
peace and friendship. I bring best greetings from the Council of Worlds
and our Joint Leaders. We come from-—"

  "We call it the constellation Delan."

  "I like the sound."

  "I extend the apologies of our worlds for having left you alone so long. It
was felt—"

  "That the alien knew more about healing himself than you?"

   She lidded her eyes, paying compliment to his understanding. The soft
velvet of her lids was an extension of her beauty. She was, to Rei, a lovely
thing out of a fairy tale. A creature of sugar and delicate silken threads.

  "You are female," he said.

  "Yes," she said, in Artonuee.

  "Yes," he repeated. "A beautiful language."

  "The sound is made thus," she said, repeating it for him. "High in the
mouth."

  "There is a thickness to my tongue," He said.

  "There is time for learning," she said. "Now, we must go. A place has
been prepared for us."
   She led the way. He followed down the crude, carved steps. In the small
floater, he had to sit close to her.

  "My companions were killed," he said, as the floater pushed against the
wind with silent force.

  "It is sad."

  "The fleet," he said. "Have they contacted you?"

   She glanced at him, her eyes turning a deeper shade of blue. Was it the
light? He was to learn, later, that her eyes were reflections of her emotions.

  "They send messages. The messages disturb us."

   "I can understand," he said. He was beginning to realize that some of
the sounds were unheard when she spoke. Interesting. Yet he understood.
"We come as uninvited guests. But you must know from what we flee."

  "Yes. We call them God's Fires."

  "You understand our plight, then."

  "Are there not other worlds?"

  "You are in space," he replied.

   She was silent. To reveal the lack of star flight in her technology would
be to admit a weakness.

   "At the moment." he said, when he was sure that she was not going to
volunteer any information, "we are limited in our choices. The worlds
between here and— how do you say it? Delan? Are limited. And, perhaps,
we are afraid. Perhaps we seek the advice and the support of the only
other intelligent race we have encountered. Although some of our systems
are now unsuited for life, we, the Artonuee and Men, face the same threat.
Should we not compare notes? Should we not work together?"

  "You give us little choice," Miaree said. "The fleet signals."

   "Please understand," he said, looking into her eyes. "Our people are
dying. Radiations are sweeping many of our worlds. On the rims of the
galaxies two great globular clusters are already exchanging sheets of solar
flame among their outer members. When the critical moment is reached,
and our science is not capable of producing an exact prediction, the
worlds of Men will flame and smoke and die."

  "It is God's will," Miaree said, for lack of anything else.

  "It is an accident of the universe," Rei said, with some force.

   The floater was some distance from the rocks. One crag protruded from
the water, an offshore upthrusting. Miaree spoke quietly to the younger
male crewman. He produced a small, hand-held weapon. There was a flash
and the rocky crag glowed, fused, melted with hissing steam into the
water.

   Rei controlled his impulse to start. He looked thoughtfully back at the
steaming water. Then he looked at Miaree, his face grave.

  "The decision is made?" he asked.

    "We Artonuee are a carefully molded society. We have learned from the
ages of our existence that order, peace, planned progress are necessary.
Our life form is delicately balanced by the forces of natural evolution. As it
is, it is stable, but we know from past disasters of our fragility, of the
tenuous hold we have on life."

  "You have five planets." Rei said.

   "To each a purpose." Miaree said. "Each carefully balanced and a part
of the whole."

   Rei was silent. The floater, the hum of the drive sucked behind them by
the wind, seemed to move on nothingness, rocked slightly by the running
waves which sent spray from the prow. He was impressed by the beautiful
female's poise, as he had been impressed by the demonstration of the
hand weapon. The weapon, he reasoned, was light, a tight beam. The
principle was not unfamiliar to him. Each of the approaching star ships,
with its precious cargo, was armed with weapons based on the same
physical principle. Each skip was capable of destroying anything in its
path. Had there been time, for example, he could have burned his way
through the asteroid belt which killed his own ship.

  When the distant shore was close enough for him to see with his naked
eye the forms of other Artonuee waiting at the dock, he spoke again. "Has
the decision been made?"

   She was not ready to answer, but his directness demanded it. She
looked back at the high cliffs and sighed. "We have made no decisions."

  "You have five worlds," Rei said. "Each is thinly populated."

  "Please," Miaree said. "Not here."

  He glanced at the two male crewmen. Sullen faces returned his look.
The male eyes were smaller, but of the same general construction. Only the
outer circle of facets were missing.

   Forbidden to talk, he observed. The female sat with a straight back, her
face in profile to him. The air was cool and pleasant on his face. He
contented himself with watching the activity on the shore, seeing adult
females herd scampering young ahead of them as if to prevent contact
with the alien. When the floater drew abreast of the dock there were only
two females and a contingent of males on the structure.

   Miaree stood, motioned him to precede her. He climbed out of the
floater and extended both his hands toward the assembled group. The
males stared at him dourly. The tallest of the two females smiled and
imitated his motion, both delicate hands extended.

   Miaree did not speak. She indicated the passage leading from the dock
into a gleaming structure. The doors leading off the passageway were
closed. Behind them he heard the musical voices of the young. From the
front, as he boarded a ground vehicle, he could see the vast extent of the
complex of buildings on the shore of the inland sea. He seated himself in
the rear next to Miaree.

   The roller moved smoothly over the terrain. There were no roads.
However, the ground showed indications of former passage of vehicles
and, rounding a hill, he saw something which sent a shock of disbelief
through him. It was a primitive rocket. Flared tubes indicated that it was
chemical. It was an anachronistic monster in gleaming metals, totally out
of keeping with his preconceived ideas about a race which sent messages
to the stars. He said nothing, however, since his escort seemed disinclined
to talk. He climbed the series of steps to the entrance port, entered, saw
the passenger compartment and was taken back in time. Vehicles such as
this were rare at home, to be seen only in the best museums which housed
the antiquities of his race.

   He was alone with the female. He heard the rumble of the engines, felt
the lift. He felt a bit like biting his fingernails, but forced himself to be
calm until the bellowing of the engines had reached a peak and they had
muted themselves. It took long minutes. Afloat in space, he asked,
"Chemical fuels?"

   She looked at him. Her lips were closed in a tight line.

   "Our engines are powered by fusion." he said.

   "Yes," she said, in his language.

  He spoke in technical terms. He was no atomic expert, but he had
passed a basic course before joining the fleet.

   "Your faster-than-light ships operate on the same principle, I assume?"
he asked.

   "Of course," she said.

   He did not smile, although he'd thrown into his discourse on engines
some hopelessly muddled gobble de gook. Obviously, the female had either
been ordered not to share knowledge, or—as it seemed likely from the
primitive rocket, which was now approaching an artificial satellite—these
lovely Artonuee knew nothing about atomics, were not in deep space, but
were limited to chemical travel between their rather closely situated
worlds.

   He turned his attentions to the docking and was pleased with its
smoothness. At least they knew what they were doing with the old
fire-burners.

   The satellite itself was well-built, had, surprisingly, artificial gravity.
This was inconsistent. If they could produce a gravity, why couldn't they
find a more efficient means of lifting from a planet?

   "Come, please," Miaree said, leading the way from the rocket.

   Curious bystanders, mostly males, watched them as she led the way
past shops and quarters buildings to the flyer docks. There, on the satellite
of The World, the flyer facilities were few, largely emergency repair
facilities. There was no regular traffic to The World-gate, but if a lady
were in trouble she could come in for first aid to a reluctant converter.
There was only one flyer at the dock. Rim Star.

   "We could have gone by driver," Miaree said, as she opened the
entrance hatch and motioned Rei in. "But drivers are slow and I abhor
them."

   His interest soared. He noted that the second seat within the small ship
seemed to be jury-rigged, set back at an angle behind the pilot's seat. He
took his place and Miaree sat in front of him. He looked past her shoulder.
The instruments were unfamiliar to him. The ship was too small for
atomics. He guessed that the dials measured some electromagnetic force.
He watched and listened with great interest as she moved her hands,
activating machinery within the hull, sending a crawl of some force over
his skin to leave chill bumps there. She spoke into an instrument with her
musical, birdlike voice, was answered. The check-out was businesslike.
The girl knew what she was about. And then, with clankings and jerkings,
they were lifted, pushed, expelled. The full force of the sun came into the
front viewer and he yelled in pain, his eyes unprotected. With impressive
speed, she closed the viewer, hooding it to expel rays which were harmful
to his eyes.

   "Sorry." she said.

  "You can take that stuff?" he asked. He'd closed his eyes before damage
was done, but there were sun-ghosts dancing there.

   He'd missed the unfolding of the wings. They billowed out in an
impressive array, thin, almost invisible through the darkened viewer.
Looking back, the satellite was already lost in the distance. This thing, he
thought, really moves.

   She was busy for a few moments, then, with a nod of her graceful head,
she turned to him, loosing her belts. "It will not be a long flight," she said.
"But perhaps we can use the time to some advantage." Her lips were held
in, her eyes darkening in her intensity of manner. "You asked if there had
been a decision. I said there had not been. That was only partially true.
Whatever decision is made will, in the main, be dependent on what I can
learn from you."
  "We come in peace," he said.

  "But you come."

  "The fleet carries only a few," he said.

  "May I ask how many is a few?"

    "Ten thousand," he said, waiting for her reaction. "They are mainly
technicians, but they have brought their families. It was felt that if,
working together, we"—he used her term for it—"Delanians and you
Artonuee could not find some solution to our problem, then our race could
at least survive here among you."

  Her yellow hair framed her eyes, which had gone deep purple.

   "And in a hundred years," she asked, "how many will your ten thousand
be then?" She turned, checked instruments. Flying down the solar wind,
the Rim Star had reached maximum speed.

  "Surely you can share a world with us," he said. "In the name of
common humanity."

  "And if we say no?"

  "I can only hope that you won't," he said.

  "But?" She was looking at him, her eyes dark.

  "We must survive," he said.

   And Miaree shuddered inwardly. His race knew the power source of a
sun. The application of such force for purposes of destruction was not an
impossible concept. Had not the Artonuee exterminated a life form on The
World to protect their eggs? That very subject had been discussed in her
last meeting with Mother Aglee. The Artonuee had not used force against
any life form in the past few thousand years.

   "But," asked Lady Jonea, "if we were faced with a choice between
extermination of our own life form and the destruction of another, would
we hesitate?"

  "We have no weapons," Miaree said.
   "We have tools," Mother Aglee said. "Consider the destructive force of
the mining torch applied to a life form."

   And so it was that Miaree had taken to The World with her a hand-held
mining torch. So it was that she had ordered a crewman to demonstrate
the tool's capabilities. But in all of the Artonuee worlds there were only a
few such tools. And fewer men who knew how to operate them. What
weapons had this alien at his disposal?

   It had been decided that she should run a strong bluff. As she watched
the disc of New World expand, she looked to it. "Should we so choose." she
said carefully, "we could destroy your fleet in space, before it reaches the
orbit of Five."

  Actually, the mining torch had no such capability. It was a tool, not a
weapon. It was designed for close-up work on the rocks of the asteroid belt
and in the tunnels which bored into the earth.

   Rei's estimate of the technological abilities of the Artonuee was
confused. First a chemical rocket, then a vehicle which flew, apparently,
on the solar wind, a vehicle which hummed with a power unknown to him.
It was just possible that they had such weapons. He would, he decided,
withhold his threats. He would walk softly and learn.

    "We do not," Miaree said, "wish to do so, of course, but we are faced
with a difficult decision. As I have told you, our worlds are a part of a
whole. Each has its place in the scheme of things. You saw vast, empty
space on The World. Yet that space is not a luxury, but a necessity. Our
ifflings require huge amounts of food, and they eat only the juplee leaf.
You may think, perhaps, that a colony of Delanians on The World would
be acceptable? Not so. There is delicate balance. And, such an event would
strike straight to the heart of our beliefs, for it is a religious experience
when an Artonuee goes home."

  "I am not familiar with your terms," Rei said.

   Miaree sighed. "I'm sorry. You must understand, then, why we have
decided that a long and private series of talks is desirable before we
discuss the disposal of your people? Before we can talk rationally, we must
know each other. We must know our mutual problems. For example, we
Artonuee have long since conquered disease, but suppose your people
bring in new strains from Delan? Suppose you yourself have contaminated
The World, the heart of our life?"

   "I agree that we must talk," Rei said. "That was the purpose of sending
our ship ahead of the fleet. We were to make known our peaceful
intentions, trade technical knowledge. It was our hope that your own
space explorations had discovered habitable planets toward the far rim. If
not, we had hoped that we could combine our resources in such a search.
For, as you must know, the worlds of the Artonuee will be bathed in deadly
radiations when the giant globular clusters reach a critical mass."

  She looked at him swiftly, swirls of red in the deep purple of her eyes.

  "You don't know?" he asked.

  "The Fires of God are still distant," she said.

   "Miaree, I must tell you. We, being closer, having observed the collision
for a millennium, know the forces involved. To date, the collisions have
been minor, and yet you can see them in the night sky. In each of the
globular clusters there are a million stars, huge, hot, young, fully fueled
stars. It is not a matter, when stars collide, of simple one-plus-one
equals-two. The increase is geometric. Our astrophysicists estimate that
the final explosion will make two thirds of the galaxy uninhabitable."

  "Our scientists see no such immediate danger." Miaree said, hiding her
shock, her doubt.

   "Then you must take me to them," he said. "I can understand, now,
your reluctance to welcome us. Your scientists must know that the end will
come, but they are figuring the approach of the fires at a constant speed,
right? They have no conception of the multiplication of effect?"

  "For that," she said pointedly, "we have only your word. And you have
something to gain."

  "But I can prove it, with data, with the results of our observations. My
god, haven't you sent ships toward the collisions to measure?"

  She turned away. He knew, then.

  "You don't have star travel," he said.
   She looked at him. "Now do you see why we must talk first?"

  He shrugged. "So we are further advanced in one field than you. You
have your own advances. This ship, for example. It operates on a principle
which is unknown to me. But our weapons are similar. That is, the weapon
which you so pointedly demonstrated to me is similar to the weapons of
our own fleet. Yet we work for the same thing, for survival of our races.
Can't you see that we have that, at least, in common?"

   "We have that in common," she agreed. "We will talk of it."

   "I am willing to talk," he said. "I will be eager to meet your scientists, to
compare notes. I will be more than pleased to send the greeting of our
people to your Interplanetary Council, to your leaders. I will open my heart
to convince them of our good intentions."

   "First," Miaree said, "you must convince me."

   He touched her hand. She withdrew it quickly, but the touch, to him,
was pleasant. He had been wanting to touch her, to see if she were as soft
as she looked. Her fine fur was a tactile pleasure on his fingers.

  "Miaree, am I to understand that you are not taking me to the seat of
your government?"

   "We are going," she said, "to Outworld, where we will have guarded
privacy for our talks."

  He accepted it. He smiled. "I could not ask for a more beautiful
companion. And I pray that there is time."




                       Chapter Thirteen

  She had visited Outworld as a student. She was familiar with Outworld
Gate, a clean, modern facility which was the pride of Artonuee technology.
Outgate differed from the satellites of the other planets to an astounding
degree. Outgate was sheer luxury. Nothing had been spared in its
building, for through Outgate passed the most meaningful beings in
Artonuee society, the egg-carrying females bound for their tryst with
nature, and a chosen male. Leaving Outgate were the products of a planet
devoted to beauty. Outworld diamond sculptors, for example, sent their
creations through Outgate to grace the dwellings of the scientists and
workers on New World, to lighten the darkness and chill of Five.

   Outgate had been seeded with the profuse botanical wonders of the
four worlds. It bloomed. It sent a fragrance of flowers into the nostrils of
the visitor when the hatch opened and gave vivid promise of the beauty
lying below on the garden planet.

   The commercial docks of Outgate were lighted around the clock and
heavy, utilitarian drivers had right of way approaching the satellite.
Monitoring the traffic, Miaree heard departure instructions for a driver of
the Fashion Guild, a ship laden with the soft, clinging cloaks and the other
garments which were so beloved of the Artonuee female; she heard the
arrival of a cargo driver from the belt, its cargo jewels destined for the
workshops of the stone craftsmen.

   Rei was much impressed by the density of the traffic and admired
Miaree's skill in holding the flyer off Outgate until, after a lengthy wait,
she was given permission to approach. Ahead of them and behind them
flyers drifted, guidance jets being activated to leave a mist in space for a
moment before the vacuum ate it.

   The flyer docks were crowded, bustling with arrivals and departures.
Females with the exciting aroma of pleele passed them as Miaree and Rei
stood, watching the dock boys secure Rim Star in her berth, and Miaree's
heart sank, for the smell, the joyous, expectant look on the faces of her
sisters, reminded her of her loss.

   Four members of the guard converged on them, voicing their greetings
to Miaree, bowing respectfully. Their drop to planetside interrupted the
busy schedule of Outgate, for no other passengers were allowed. They had
an entire shuttle to themselves, with only the four guardsmen for
company.

   And so, Miaree came back to Outworld. Leaving the terminal, they
passed a driver being loaded with light paintings, visible in their
transparent crates. Rei, astounded, paused. The guardsmen shuffled
uncertainly. Miaree, lost in her misery, stood impatiently as the alien
examined the glowing, ever-changing works of art. The air of Outworld
was sweet to her. There was the buzz of insects and the song of the small,
flying creatures and the feeling of peace. She had sacrificed all of it for
what? For him? For the alien who stood, eyes wide, watching the workmen
load the light paintings?

   She moved a few paces ahead, looked out beyond the bounds of the
terminal to the countryside. She must stop thinking thus, she told herself.
It was past. Her time would come again, when all this was settled. And
then out of her would flow life, the glowing, ruby globes of life in the form
of fertilized eggs. Out of her they would flow and they would be carefully
tested and the accepted ones would be crated lovingly and flown to the old
home planet, there to hatch and join the billions of ifflings as they waited
for a homecoming. She would then have made her contribution to the
continuity of life. Small copies of her consciousness would be crawling the
limbs of the huge trees, eating endlessly of the juicy leaves, waiting,
waiting, waiting.

   She remembered old Beafly, the mechanic, and wondered if his desire
had been fulfilled. Had his iffling been female, producing a wingling, as
he'd wished? And what would be the fate of her ifflings? Would they
produce dull males or flashing beauty in the form of winglings?

  As she dreamed, she felt a familiar stirring. "Ah, no," she said aloud.
"No, no, no."

   They had warned her. "There is always the possibility, my dear," said
the doctor who had taken her eggs unripened from her body, "that certain
side effects will be manifest. False readiness occurs in about one out of five
such cases. It usually is triggered by an emotional experience, simulates
the real thing to an amazing degree. Should this happen, there are drugs.
Of course, there is a very real desire to mate. But such a mating is a
sterile, joyless event. It is to be avoided." Drugs. Yes. She would seek a
doctor. But the twinge of almost joyful pain in her was gone and the alien
was walking toward her, his mouth moving in the barbaric sounds of the
Delanians. She put her fear, her doubt, behind her, smiled formally, and
motioned the alien toward the waiting roller. The driver had his
instructions. He was silent, glancing with interest at the purple-clad lady
and the strange creature who was so like him and yet so different. His
instructions did not include an explanation His was not to question.

   The route led them through dense forests, past secluded Jove nests and
artistically designed dwellings, shops, studios. Flowers perfumed the way.
Once Miaree saw a lady and her chosen walking hand in hand along a
by-path, and there was once again a twinge of sadness in her.

    She diverted her mind by explaining Outworld to the alien. She pointed
out the juplee trees from the World; the pleele, native to Outworld; the
strange, mosslike growths from Five. She talked of the flying creatures and
the insects and explained that all of Outworld was a storage house for the
life forms, bird, insect and plant, from the entire system. She explained
the technique of light painting and talked of jewel sculpture and, as they
passed a settlement of musicians, tried to explain the twenty-tone scale
used in Artonuee music. He was baffled as she illustrated by singing the
scale, for the upper reaches of the scale were beyond his range of hearing.

   He in turn hummed a Delanian air which, to her ears, was strange and
rather beautiful, in spite of its simplicity.

   They crossed a great river, the roller floating on its huge wheels. Plains
of flowers stretched before them, and there, on a hilltop in the midst of the
Great Bloom, was the dwelling assigned to them.

   The roller stopped before the entrance and the guardsmen, who had
followed in a larger vehicle, took their posts as Miaree led the alien into
the dwelling.

   She greeted the male domestic staff and had one of the males show the
alien to his room. In her own room, she freshened herself, changed from
the official purple to a sheer gown which let the colors of her body show
through, accepted a tray from a domestic, and ate lightly, forcing herself
to take nourishment, for she was not hungry. Finished, she inspected the
conference room, large, airy. From the front viewer she could look over the
Great Bloom. Far away, almost swallowed by distance, a couple ran
through the flowers, halted, merged into one, then parted. She felt a
joyous leaping in her lower abdomen, smiled, then frowned. The feeling
was short-lived. She started to summon a domestic, to send him for the
drugs, but the feeling was gone and, hopefully, would not come back. She
promised herself to control her emotions. That was all it was, just the
emotional experience of coming to Outworld so soon after…

   She busied herself in preparation for the first conference. When the
instruments, carefully concealed, were ready, she called a domestic. "You
may escort the—" She almost said alien. "You may escort our guest to join
me."
   Seated opposite her, looking at her across the large, lovingly polished
table, Rei saw the change in her eyes. They went from blue to dark as he
looked and her face was serious.

   "We will begin," she said, "with your telling me, in as much detail as
you can, the history of your people, the life style, the philosophies, the
dreams, the achievements, anything which comes into your mind."

   His first words chilled her. "There are thirty billion of us," he said. "We
live on twelve planets of seven closely grouped stars."

   Thirty billion. Why, they must breed like the insect of the flower fields.

   "We trace our history back over a millennium," he continued. "We have
been in deep space for a hundred thousand years. It was made possible by
the invention of the hydrogen engine. Star travel was long in coming to us,
and it came when the race was overflowing the planets of our original
system. Our planners were not as wise as yours, apparently, for we had no
system of birth control, and it was a race to determine whether or not we
reached the stars or bred ourselves into extinction. Fortunately, the drive
was perfected and we spread to the near stars, relieving our population
problems. We knew, of course, of the dangers of the collisions. We viewed
them, then, as a future problem. Then a multiple collision near our parent
system showed us the effect of star union. We lost over two million dead.
We had been searching the near stars for habitable planets. It seemed, as
we looked, sending ships out into the emptiness, that some benevolent god
had created us in the midst of plenty, for our systems were the only
habitable systems in a radius of many light years. And, try as we might,
we could not improve the drive, which has limitations, to the point of
making it possible to explore the entire galaxy, much less leave the galaxy
for a universe where the collisions would be left far behind. We had new
hope when we received the messages from your people. We were not alone.
Perhaps you had answers. But when it was determined that your messages
were sent at mere light speed, we questioned the value of them and came
to your system only as a last resort."

   His words were recorded. His face was captured on film. He talked
easily, changing his position in the chair only occasionally, his eyes
sincere, looking mostly into Miaree's colorful orbs. And from generalities,
he moved into specifics, talking about the Delanian way of life. Miaree got
a picture of a network of worlds connected by the faster-than-light drivers,
busy worlds, thickly populated worlds devoted to commerce and industry
and expansion. The Delanians, she felt, made the Artonuee seem
dilettante. Artonuee history, it was true, did not go back a million years,
but in a hundred thousand years the Delanians had colonized the planets
of seven stars. She felt weak and helpless before him. Her people could not
possibly stand before a determined onslaught of even one minor extension
of such a power, the approaching fleet of Delanian ships.

   She slept fitfully, woke with a curious taste in her mouth. The sweetness
of pleele. Dawn was red outside. She stood before an open viewer and
stretched her wings. When they folded, they formed the love circle around
her shapely rear. Alarm spread through her as her body sent waves of
yearning. She shook her head and walked, straight-backed, into the
shower, cooling her body with the perfumed water. Fur wet, she stood
before a mirror and looked at herself. There was a look about her. A look
which she knew.

   As the first full day of talks continued, she began to form a picture of
the Delanians. It was a portrait in mixed shock and admiration. The
Delanian society was full of contrasts.

   "We have our poor," Rei said. And she had to search, then ask, for a
meaning for the word. It was inconceivable to her to think of people going
hungry in the midst of plenty. On the Artonuee worlds, all peoples shared
in the bounty of the good planets. Idleness was unknown to the Artonuee.
There was no such thing as an unproductive Artonuee. Even severely
handicapped persons found a niche in life, gave their share toward the
well-ordered continuity of Artonuee society.

   Then, while reviewing more Delanian history, Rei talked of the Great
War. Again, Miaree had to search out meaning. And there was a wave of
sickness in her when she grasped the concept of war. At that moment, she
was almost ready to call a halt to the talks, to message the Mother to start
the research people to working around the clock to improve the mining
torch, to produce weapons capable of blasting the Delanian fleet out of
existence before such animals could enter the peaceful Artonuee system.
And as she choked back her dismay, Rei continued. The war had
devastated three planets, leaving the Delanian society in shock, setting
back space exploration for decades.

  "We decided then," Rei concluded, "that man would never kill man
again. And in fifty thousand years there has been no war."
   In present times, the entire Delanian industrial system was working full
scale to construct star ships. Before the end came, a percentage, a
disastrously low percentage, of the population would be in space.

    The idea of vast workshops clanking, pressing, erecting the impressive
Delanian drivers took Miaree's mind off the horror of the war and caused
a flicker of admiration. She listened. She questioned. She ended the day
with mixed emotions. On the one hand, she deplored the Delanians. But
she had to be impressed with their racial drive. They were, after all, a race
which had sought the far stars. Now, in all their billions, they faced
extinction. The concept was too vast to grasp.

  Alone in her room, she sought relaxation with jenk. She was feeling the
exhilarating lift of the liquor when she joined Rei for the evening meal.
They ate in courteous silence, then sat on the outside deck, watching the
Great Bloom fade in twilight, silent as the Fires of God rose and gleamed
and towered in the sky.

  "We have talked little of you, and your people," Rei said.

   She talked. Relaxed, sipping jenk, her guest also partaking of the liquor,
she spoke mostly of Outworld, her voice low and musical. She told of the
great poets who had lived on Outworld spoke samples of their works. At
her orders, the domestics played music tapes. She mentioned that
Outworld was the planet of love, and Rei asked for explanation. That led to
an extended conversation regarding the life cycle of the Artonuee, from
egg to adult.

   Rei talked of his experience with the two ifflings. Miaree listened with
great interest, for that was an experience which she would face, in time.
And no Artonuee had been able to talk with personal knowledge of the
feelings one has when an iffling is celebrating its chance at sentient life.
She was much impressed to learn that Rei had seemed to receive some
form of thought from the ifflings.

   "It is strange," Rei said. "You feel such a tenderness for them, while I
feel only dread and revulsion. I can still see those terrible maws, so
powerful that they cut through the material of my space suit to clamp
onto my flesh."

   "When two races meet, there is much strangeness," Miaree said, rather
defensively. "We find it difficult to accept your method of bearing young.
Only our extinct animals bore live young on The World."

   But both spoke of the distasteful things with great respect, with a
measure of acceptance. A brief session of technical talk, during the day,
had impressed Rei with Miaree's power of understanding. She displayed
quick comprehension of atomic theory, exchanged some information on
electromagnetic wave theory which explained, in part, the motive power of
the flyer which had brought them to Outworld. The talks had done one
thing. They had convinced each participant that the other was to be
respected. Rei had wanted to delve further into the technology of the
converters which powered the flyers. But Miaree cut the technical talk
short, to get back to gathering information about Delanian society.

   Now it was evening. A soft breeze cooled them. Jenk liquor relaxed
them. The scent of the ever-blooming flowers drifted on the wind. The
night sky was a thing of awesome beauty. Miaree fell silent, thinking, as
she looked at the alien, about his explanation of the breeding process of
the Delanians. It seemed to be a cold, sterile relationship. Mates were
chosen by vast computers which looked down to the lowest level of the
reproductive system to match genes, to refine the race, as Rei put it, to
promote racial excellence. The selected breeding pair produced an allowed
number of offspring, usually two. The relationship for breeding was often
brief, lasting just long enough to fertilize the female. However, in some
cases a permanent relationship was formed.

   She was favorably impressed when Rei explained that the two sexes
were equal in all ways. The idea of male dominance was a false one, she
was told. In fact, the crew of the ill-fated star ship on which Rei had come
to the Artonuee system had been integrated. Pleasure relationships were
permitted.

   This concept shocked her, too. Couples did not merge for pleasure,
although there was joy in the fertilization process. But for simple
self-gratification? Unthinkable. Artonuee females ripened on a cycle which
varied, but which usually produced eggs once every five years. Then, and
only then, did an Artonuee female seek a male.

  Thinking in a spirit of scientific inquiry only, she decided to question
Rei further. "You mentioned the female Juanna. Was she your pleasure
companion aboard the driver?"

  "We were very close," Rei said.
   "And did you produce offspring?"

   "No. My children were not yet allotted," Rei said.

   "I don't understand the pleasure relationship," Miaree said.

   "I can see why. Your methods are so much more efficient." He chuckled.
"If we were constructed as you are, we would be in the far galaxies by
now."

   "Explain?"

   "A joke," he said. "Our wise men often say that we are too involved in,
ah, pleasure. They say we spend too much time enjoying our, shall I say,
biological differences. They say if we'd applied the same amount of energy
to research, our advances would have been much greater."

   "This pleasure relationship," Miaree asked. "How does it differ from the
actual mating?"

   "In results only," Rei answered. "The male is chemically treated so that
there is no fertilization of the female."

   She looked at him wonderingly. "The process is the same?"

   "Exactly."

   "Could you explain, in detail, how the merging is accomplished?"

  He laughed. "The male genitalia hardens and is inserted into the female
genitalia."

   "So. It is thus in our race." She mused. "In fact, as I studied pictures of
you without clothing I noted that your male genitalia is very similar to the
organs of our males, although differently placed."

   "I would be interested in knowing something of your reproductive
process," Rei said.

  "It is quite different," she said. "First there is the ritual of courtship.
The male fondles the female to excite her."

   "I left out that detail," Rei said. "It is thus with us."
   "Is there attraction, then, between a Delanian female and her mate?"

   "We call it love," Rei said.

   "An interesting word."

   "An interesting process," Rei said.

   "And the physical merging," Miaree went on. "How is it accomplished?
I mean, where are the female genitalia located in your females?"

   "In the vee between the legs," Rei said.

   "Strange." Miaree rose. Without speaking, she slipped out of her gown,
stood before Rei naked, wings unfolding. She turned. Her rear was
exposed by the unfolding of her wings. Her body, graceful, slim, was a
rainbow display of colors as she said, "The Artonuee female's reproductive
organs are located with an opening at the lower rear. Do you see?"

   "Yes," Rei said. He swallowed. And an entertaining thought came to
him. Astoundingly, the opening to Miaree's lower body was strikingly
similar to the sex organ of the females of his race. He did not know about
depth, but in size he knew that their organs would be compatible.

   "You are very beautiful, you know," he said.

   "Thank you." She shrugged into her gown, covering her wings.

   "In size and shape I think that we could blend."

    "There would be no fertilization," she said matter-of-factly. "Although
in the future I'm sure that we will experiment with artificial fertilization.
There is certain evidence, from your encounter with the ifflings, that the
life force is similar in our races. It would be most interesting to see what
would happen should an Artonuee egg be exposed to the seed of a
Delanian male."

   "Most interesting," Rei mused.

  And so the differences and the similarities were discovered, expounded
upon, and digested. For three more days they talked. And the evenings
were quiet, relaxed.
   In her daily progress reports, Miaree became more and more
optimistic. She left nothing out, reporting the Great War as an indication
of the danger, but moderating the fact with information regarding the
great vitality of the Delanians. She reported in full on their anatomy
discussion and received a request from a medical doctor in Government
Quad for more information regarding the physical make-up of the alien.
At the start of their morning conference she said, "I have a request for
physical measurements. Would you please remove your clothing?"

  He grinned, rose, and dropped the loose-fitting Artonuee robe with
which he had been provided. Miaree, tape measure in hand, measured
chest, head, neck, stomach, biceps, thighs. She lifted his limp sexual organ
and measured it. He watched musingly.

  "It hardens?" she asked.

  "Yes."

  "What stimulus would be required?" She was smiling up at him. "The
medical people specifically requested the hardened measurements."

   Rei laughed. Her hand was cupping the organ. "Just a bit more of
that," he said.

  She looked at him quizzically. "Only this?"

   The organ grew. Dutifully, she measured it. "Ah," she said. "Only
slightly larger than the average male organ of our people."

  Rei was laughing uncontrollably. He sat down weakly and looked at her.

  "I fail to see the reason for mirth," she said, frowning.

  That night he dreamed of her.

  And that night, she had a severe attack of the ripeness.

  And on the following evening, they blended.

   There was no religious taboo against it. There were religious taboos
against many things, but not against blending during a period of false
ripeness. It wasn't that it was taboo, it was just that it wasn't done. The
Artonuee female wasn't constructed that way. True, there was great joy in
the act of fertilization, but it was not for the joy that the act was
performed. And there was little data on mergings which happened during
false ripeness, for the unfertilized removal of eggs was a medical rarity.
There was a certain sterility about the act. There was no possibility of
fertilization, so the act was useless, a waste of time. However, she told
herself, it was an experiment in racial compatibility, and as such,
worthwhile.

   The muscles in Miaree's lower abdomen were long, smooth muscles
which, in addition to encasing the digestive tract, formed a circle of very
articulate tissue centering on her reproductive canal. In ripeness, the
lower muscles were extremely active. Made lubricious by glandular
secretions, the muscles moved when stimulated by contact with the male
genitalia, simulating the rolling of continuous bands of softness which,
during fertilization, moved the male organ ever deeper into the cavity. To
Rei, who was not unaccustomed to sexual acts, the effect was miraculous.
And the flexibility of the ripe, distended, rounded, lovely bottom of the
Artonuee female allowed for approach from both front and rear. In the
frontal position, lips pressed on lips, the female's soft, erotically muscled
rear twisted forward between her slim legs. From the rear, the softness
pressed upward, engulfing all of Rei's sexual apparatus.

  But how had it happened?

  It began with a discussion of poetry. "Poetry is beauty, and thus you are
poetry," Rei said.

   "There is a certain impreciseness of meaning in your language," Miaree
said, watching the Fires in the dome, sipping jenk, fighting the ripe, full
feeling, trying to drown, in jenk, the urge to run into the Great Bloom to
find her chosen.

  "You are poetry and can be translated," he said. "Would you like a
demonstration?"

  "By all means," she said.

  "This is you," he said, lifting from his set of notes a duppaper sheet,
hand-inscribed.

                        Your lips are caramel, my dear
 Full, mellow, sweet, deep gossamer

           A myriad thing

            A plural one

    A juplee ripening in the sun.

   Your eyes are innocent and low

 As arc burned briefly holds its glow

           And lashes sing

         And brows two plus

   Make triad tongue, gratuitous.

  You are, my dear, a lovely theme

   Artonuee music, endless dream

         Of light and sound

         And blended reeds

  And ripened scent of pleele seeds.

    Part of a whole, yet idioblast

 Descended from a wholesome past

         Of strength to hope

          And sense to fear

The march of doom across our sphere.

 But smiles, my dear? You have a few

  Each look distinct, vermillion hue

        They bridge the gap
                              And draw us close

                      And that is when I love you most.

  "It has a certain rhythm," Miaree said.

   "When a lady has a poem written about her, the poet expects more
than cold analysis." Rei smiled.

   "The lady is appreciative," Miaree said. Her eyes were light blue. Her
smile was genuine. But had he noted the aroma of pleele about her? Had
she told the alien that such an aroma had a significance? She couldn't
remember. Yet it was strange that he would speak of the scent of pleele.

   She had been remiss in her duty. A simple order. A dosage of a
prescribed drug. She had been warned. One out of five experienced the
false ripeness, and ripeness, the most emotional experience an Artonuee
female could have, deadened the brain, left it floating in the soft sea of
desire.

   "Would you walk?" she asked. He arose. As they descended the stairs he
put his hand on her arm. Her soft fur was sweet to his touch, and his
touch sent cascades of fire leaping through her veins. "Please," she said,
pushing his hand away.

  For the touch was an important part of the ritual, the ritual she'd
missed, the pleasure of which she'd been robbed by duty.

   And the Great Bloom was fragrant in her nose, soft under her bare feet.
Her gown flowed. Her wings strained to be free, to show the glowing colors
of ripeness. Well, she thought, why not? The alien did not know the
symbolic meaning of freed wings. It was dark. The domestic staff was in
quarters. No one would see. She loosed her gown, let the wings flow,
flexing them.

  "Lovely," Rei said. "Why do you ever cover them?"

  "Tradition," she said.

  "A foolish tradition, to hide such beauty."

  She walked ahead, realizing, as she did, that her wings were forming
the curl of invitation at their lower extremities. But again, it would have
no meaning for the alien. Only an Artonuee male would know, and there
were no males about.

   Head up, eyes measuring the evil gleam of the Fires, she ran lightly
ahead, wanting to be alone. Her foot, as she ran, sought the earth, found
only a slight drop as she ran over a depression, went down, down. She
tumbled into the flowers and lay there, momentarily breathless. She felt
strong arm's lift her, heard his voice.

  "Are you all right?"

   His hands were heated as she sensed them through her sheer gown. His
arms were powerful. His body and his breath warmed her. A vast,
all-devouring weakness surged through her, and she opened her lips,
keened a love song. It was eerily beautiful. It silenced him. He knew it
wasn't pain she sang, but he did not know the full meaning, save that it
sent a wave of emotion through him.

  "You're not hurt?" he asked.

  "No, no," she breathed, her lips parting, extending.

  "What is it? What's wrong?"

   In answer she lifted her head, cradled as she was in his arms. Her long,
sensitive lips touched. She keened through them, the beautiful love sound.
And as he kissed her, her wings fluttered wildly, wildly, and her hand
touched him, ran under his robe to press against his warm skin.

  He carried her to the dwelling. Her lips continued to seek his, her mind
overpowered, her body in command. Ripeness sent its sweet smell into the
warm, night air.

  "Thus, and thus," she instructed him, in the darkness of her room. His
hand following her hints, caressing, feeling the smoothness of her fur.
"And thus," she whispered as, naked, she knew the joy of merge.




                      Chapter Fourteen
   And so, my young friends, we have been introduced, through the
conversations of Rei and Miaree, to the Delanian society. Discussion,
please. Alaxender?

   All the data is not in, sir. However, I see the Delanian society as being
much like ours. It is based on trade and commerce among scattered
worlds. The colonialization of distant star systems has been made
possible through the development of a faster-than-light drive of some
sort, although the Delanian star ships seem to be more severely limited
in their range. I would suspect that the use of a fusion engine indicates
that the Delanians did not possess anything similar to the blink drive. If
they were using anything similar to the blink principle, such vast
amounts of power would not be necessary. I would guess that the
Delanians approached the problem by the application of brute force.
There is a formula—

  Yes, Alaxender, we know your Trojan genius for mathematics.

   Brifley, sir, although small multiples of light speed are possible
through the application of force, if one considers the Auguste Loophole,
the results tend to diminish to the point of no return when the speed
nears three parsecs per year. Giving the Delanians, then, a speed of light
times ten, that would place the Delanian systems about thirty light years
away from the Artonuee. If I am right in assuming that the translation
equates all time and all figures and measurements to our standards, it
took Rei three years to reach the Artonuee system. The fleet was about a
year behind Rei's scout ship. I would assume the Artonuee galaxy to be
roughly the same size as our own, about eighty thousand light years in
diameter, so that places both of the civilized systems in one small sector
of the galaxy, likely in one spiral arm.

  Yes. Your point, Alaxender?

   Sorry, sir; I was rambling, wasn't I? I was merely trying, in my
mind, to get the picture. We know now that there is a more imminent
danger than expected by Artonuee scientists, that the collisions are
expected to become more intense and to produce some sort of a
multiplying effect. However, the explosion of a super nova moves
through space at less than light speed. I fail to see how the Artonuee
system is endangered, at least immediately. Rei speaks of two giant
globular clusters in collision. Incidentally, this is quite a thought. We
know the power of a super nova. It is difficult to imagine the
simultaneous explosion of a million suns, but it happened, as witness the
time-lapse film which we have all seen. But sir, assuming that this
collision, which we have recorded, is the one which caused Rei to fear the
destruction of all the inhabited areas of his galaxy, how long would it
take the explosion to reach the Artonuee system? If the exploding
material expanded at light speed, it would be thirty plus years. Since
such material travels at considerably less than light speed, there was no
need for panic, because the Artonuee worlds would have been safe for a
hundred, perhaps even two hundred years.

  Comment, Elizabeth?

  I think Alaxender is forgetting that the Artonuee are a very old race,
with a different sense of time. They have a written history which goes
back further than our own. To them, with their over-all sense of history
and destiny, two hundred years would seem but a moment.

  Well taken, Elizabeth. Yes, Julius?

    The Delanian system is much nearer the point of collision, and their
sense of doom must be much more acute than that of even the Artonuee. I
am surprised at Rei's patience during the long talk session with Miaree.
If I had been in his place, I would have been screaming and yelling. I'd
have said, "Look, you dumb bitch"—pardon me—"you dumb female, my
people are going to die."

  Yes, Alaxender?

   Sir, I have calculated the total energy necessary to be a threat to the
Artonuee worlds from the given distance. It is in the order of 3 X 6 to the
8th solar masses of hydrogen.

  Ah,

  My point, sir. I think Rei, for some reason, is lying.

  Ah?

  Oh, no.

  Leslie.
   He wasn't lying. Perhaps he was unduly alarmed. But he was so very,
very sincere in his relationship with Miaree. I think it's just beautiful the
way they fell in love.

  You are not the first, Leslie. Stella?

  I think Rei's seduction of Miaree was a superb example of chauvinism
and I agree with Alaxender. Rei is up to something.

  3 x 10 to the 6th solar masses of hydrogen, sir, is about equal to a
small galaxy.

   Alaxender, perhaps you would like to propose this problem to your
astrophysics class. Let us confine ourselves to the analysis of Delanian
society and the implications of the facts brought forth in the preceding
section of the fable, John?

   It wasn't a bad poem, sir. And I was astounded by the very pleasing
naivete displayed by Miaree. She reminds me of a sweet, innocent child.
I think it is rather touching that these two, one far from home, his
friends dead, the other a victim of a personal tragedy of deep meaning to
her, should find pleasure in each other.

  Elana?

   I think the seduction scene reveals something of Rei's character.
Miaree is merely a victim of her biological urge. But Rei has real
freedom of choice, and he chooses to seduce her. Put my vote with
Alaxender and Stella's. Rei is up to something. I have the impression that
Rei's society swings free and easy where sex is concerned. While we
know that Artonuee youngsters are placed with what they call a Chosen
Mother, thus getting some form of family liie, we have no clue so far as
to the disposition of the Delanians' carefully programmed children. It
has been demonstrated throughout our history that the family unit is
beneficial. I suspect any society which ignores the family-unit concept.

  Do we condemn Miaree for her actions? Martha?

   Negative, sir. Although she finds it necessary, probably after the fact,
to rationalize her actions, she is, as Elana said, a victim of her biology.
Further, there are no taboos against sex for the sake of mere pleasure in
the Artonuee society, so she is treading new ground. Although she did
not have complete freedom of choice in the first instance, in later
instances—

  Let us not get ahead of our reading. Clear Thought?

   For good or ill, Rei has, I think, convinced Miaree of the good
intentions of the Delanians.

   Excuse me. LaConius. Sleep does not come easy to you in the comfort
of your bed?

  Sorry, sir. Just resting my eyes. You were asking?

   Just for a comment, LaConius. If you can keep your eyes open that
long.

  Sir, you mentioned it yourself. The wormfly of Omaha III.

  I did, some twenty-four hours past.

   Let's consider the wormfly, sir. It was beautiful. It was deadly. It was
prolific. To irradiate an entire planet was impossible. Insecticides also
destroyed the beneficial insects imported to pollinate the crops. To
control the wormfly, the farmers of Omaha III bred a huge number of
sterile male wormflies and released them.

   Since the female wormfiy mated only once before death, a mating
with a sterile male prevented a hatch of wormfly larvae. The fly was
exterminated within a few years.

  Ah. Have you been reading ahead, then, LaConius?

   Ah, no sir. I haven't. I'm doing a term paper for astrophysics on the
Q.S.S. phenomenon, and there is so much intriguing material that I
haven't had time to do more than read the assigned material for this
class, sir. Incidentally, I'd like to thank you for putting me onto the
subject of my paper with your mention of the Q.S.S.'s.

  My pleasure. But if you have not read ahead, LaConius, you are very
perceptive. Has the thought occurred to anyone else that the mating of
Rei and Miaree could have more than personal consequence? Ah,
Martha, you have read the entire legend? Good. Tomorrow, you may
begin our class reading, since you are so familiar with the material.




                        Chapter Fifteen

  The eggs were the color of dead flesh.

  Paying tribute to age-old feelings, she had fashioned a nest of silken
bed coverings. The process was painless and somewhat erotic.

  But there was no joy.

   A living egg was, to all females, a thing of beauty. Glowing, a living egg
seemed to pulse with life, emanating that most odd and lovely ruby
radiance, the ancient, all-sacred color.

   Although she had known what to expect—she was not the first—she
could not control the tears which flowed from her disturbed deep purple,
faceted eyes. The color of dead flesh. Inert. Lifeless.

   She left them in the silken nest as she cleansed herself. Aside from a
pulsing weakness in her lower rear, she was normal. She stood, wings
furled, beside the bed. She had known what to expect. She lidded her eyes,
pushing away the tears, bent, scooped the dead eggs into her hands, and
walked slowly to the disposer. Then within seconds it was over.

  Outside, a world was in the process of change. As she listened to the
hum of the disposer, she could hear, above the soft, final sound, the
ramble of industry, the movement of vehicles, the low roar of an engine
under test.

  She told herself that she was very young, that there would be time.

   Her eyes changed, became intense blue. A look of determination firmed
her lips. She donned gown and cloak. In the style of the new female, her
wings were freed, gleaming with the ever-present colors of happiness.
Outside, the weather of the narrow equatorial temperate zone was at its
best, the sun, although distant, warm and cheerful. There was a briskness
in the moderate temperature, the hint of cold from the frozen poles. The
horizon was near, surprisingly near. It was a small world. And it was
throbbing with vitality.




                       Chapter Sixteen

   Bertt, designer and builder of the finest flyers, was an unhappy man.
Not content with changing his world—a world which he had chosen for its
remoteness, for its limitless spaces—they were now changing his life and,
indeed, his very way of thinking. Although Bertt was not an introspective
man—male (he corrected his use of the alien term)—this was perhaps the
most disturbing thing of all; to have the thought patterns of a lifetime
shattered so casually.

   Surely, he thought, God would move. Surely, even a God who had in the
recent past shown little interest in the Artonuee, leaving them to the doom
signaled by the Fires, would be too proud to see her daughters flaunting
themselves, wings unfurled and displayed outside their cloaks, simpering
and fawning over and being pawed by the muscular Delanians. Had the
entire race gone mad? Did thousands of years of tradition and common
sense have so little value?

   But it was not only the shamelessness of the new breed of Artonuee
females which upset Bertt. He had not been able to get away from his
shop, to go roving, solitary and in communication with his God, for
months. And the last time he had ventured up into the Big Cold he had
been forced to detour away from one of his favorite routes, bumping and
sliding over unexplored ice fields, because of the presence of one of the
several industrial plants which were springing up from the wild regions of
his world like noxious metal growths.

   It was his clean air which was being spoiled by the refuse of the huge,
clanking plants, by the exhausts of the heavy traffic in drivers. And the
temperate zone was becoming impossible. Hastily erected dwellings in
multiple units were taking all available land areas, denuding the virgin
growth of stunted trees. They were even building into the shallow waters
of the equatorial sea, hiding its blue waters beneath metal platforms,
defiling even the depths in their efforts to gather more raw materials for
the building of still more plants and still more dwellings and
administration buildings. Now there was talk of melting the northern ice
cap to uncover more usable land.

   As a member of the Council of Five, Bertt had protested mightily.
Melting the ice cap, he said, would submerge the tiny amount of
temperate land at the equator. No, they told him—the Lady Miaree
speaking for the slick-faced aliens—the surplus water would be evaporated
and pumped into space. The ladies in Nirrar, he was to discover, while
exposing their wings in invitations to the aliens, had decided that this
world, his Five, was expendable. His planet, his chosen home, that once
empty, beautiful, inhospitable but glorious world, was to be gutted.

   "We must stand," he told his fellow male members of the Council of
Five (Five was primarily a male world). "We might fight them."

    They reacted as frightened walklings. They stuttered and vacillated and
wavered and backed down. And his world was changed, almost overnight
it seemed, although it had only been four years since the fleet landed on
the frozen wastes and disgorged thousands of aliens, men, women and
children.

   Still, it was impossible not to be impressed by the purpose. He was
firmly convinced that it was against God's,will, but nevertheless, the idea
was inspiring. And already the fabric of his religion had been ripped by
the mere revelation that the aliens could, with their awesome power
sources, prove that God's Constant was not sacred. And it was
exhilarating, in a way, to work with the aliens. He prided himself on being
able to grasp immediately the complicated process of their power source,
and he was more than equal to them in other fields. Even the most
brilliant among them had difficulty in connecting the loose principles
which went into the fashioning of a mires expander; but to give credit
where credit was due—he was a fair man—once grasped, the principles
swirled around in the alien brain and came out with twists which, once
expounded, seemed so elementary that he was ashamed of not having
thought of them himself.

  Yes, there were compensations. He himself had flown. He, Bertt, the
builder, had been forced to admit that he was wrong and he, being the
male that he was and prideful of it, admitted that he was wrong. Perhaps
newness was not all that undesirable when it produced a machine like the
Rim Star II.
   Aboard that small vessel, he, along with the man called Rei and the
Lady Miaree, had vaulted further from the home worlds than any
Artonuee male. And now the combination of converters, expanders, and
power which had made the Rim Star II blast effortlessly into deep space,
eating distance at a God-defying rate, was being developed to power vast
star ships, the size of which dwarfed anything ever dreamed. And
that—that vast, unbelievable project—was only the beginning.

   In spite of his misgivings and his sadness at seeing his world changed,
Bertt could not conceal his eagerness. He considered the nights to be
wasted, slept only the minimum number of hours, was at his shop before
the Fires cooled in the warmth of the distant sun. More often than not he
found Untell there ahead of him.

   She was there, alien woman, hair chopped carelessly close to her scalp,
fleshy body bent over a work bench, on a morning in the beginning of the
year, probing into the intricacies of a mires expander, her eyes reddened
by sleeplessness. She had been his work mate for four years, and his
revulsion toward her largeness, her alien fleshiness, had gradually
changed, first into a grudging admission that the alien had a brain, and
then into an admiration which, as the months passed, wiped from his
mind all his conscious awareness of their differences. Together, they were
changing more than a world.

   "You have not slept," he said.

   "Didn't want to lose it," she said, not looking up. "I think we can test as
soon as I…" She applied a cold torch, fused tiny contact points.

   "The new circuit was satisfactory?" Bertt asked, pushing his arms into
his working garment and leaning down, head close to Untell's.

   "Perfect," she said.

  "Resistance readings?" he asked, watching her fingers move with a
nimbleness which he envied.

   She chuckled. "As predicted."

  He breathed deeply and allowed himself a smile. He had mistrusted his
own figures.
   His momentary irritation at finding Untell still in the shop faded before
his interest, for if he were right— and it was his theory, developed after
having his mind opened through contact with the almost heretical
courage and intellectual curiosity of the alien woman—he, Bertt, would
have a place in the combined history of the Artonuee and Delanian races.
If he were right, he, Bertt, the builder, would also bring further curses
down on his head from the priests, for his discovery, if it tested, would
open new avenues of thinking which would relegate the vengeful God of
the Artonuee to a position even more inferior than She now held.

   But Bertt was not thinking of God as he busied himself. He was
thinking of the fantastic force held there, within the altered mires
expander, in two tiny bits of red-brown metal machined to be exactly a
0.1-inch cube.

   Untell assisted as he made the last connections, his blunt fingers less
nimble, but sure. Then they stood before the assembled expander and the
alien smiled and shrugged.

   Permission for the test had already been granted by the Lady Miaree,
Overlady of Five. The drone driver was fueled and waiting, an obsolete
vehicle not deemed worthy of conversion to the new power source. All test
units within the driver had been tested and checked repeatedly by
assistants.

   Bertt summoned a young male, a bright lad fresh from his Chosen
Mother, supervised the careful placement of the expander onto a small
roller, rode the roller, with Untell by his side, to the launch pad. It took
just thirty minutes to install the expander. It took just under four hours to
run a last-minute check on all systems, then, protected behind a thick
viewer, they watched the drone fire, lift, and disappear.

   When the drone, moving at driver speed and thus taking long, long
hours (during which Untell napped and Bertt paced nervously) reached
empty space beyond the orbit of Five, he ordered an assistant to report
readiness to the Lady Miaree, who had expressed a desire to witness the
test. When she arrived, robed in purple, comely beyond his belief,
accompanied by the alien, Rei, he nodded to Untell, awake, tense, seated
at the main console.

   A signal lifted from the surface of Five, flashed through empty space,
activated a trigger mechanism on the drone. The altered circuits on and in
the mires expander reacted instantly, and briefly measured, a force of six
hundred trillion tons—blasting from Bertt's 0.1-inch cube of metal of
atomic weight 63.54—was met by equal force coming from the electrons in
an exactly similar cube at the other end of the complicated mires circuit.

   It happened so tremendously fast that only instruments could measure.

   To the viewers, it seemed that the drone merely disappeared, but
during a disheartening post-mortem, the instruments showed a tiny
increase in the drone velocity which, upon examination, put the fire back
into Bertt's eyes. The force of the electrons had not, as it seemed, merely
ripped apart all the atoms in their immediate vicinity. No. For a
millisecond, that incredible force had been channeled. For one tiny
moment Bertt's theory had worked.

  Seeing the telltale figures, he looked up at Untell. His face, which had
been downcast, brightened. She nodded, understanding.

   But the Overlady had questions.

  "My Lady," Bertt said, "you can see. For an instant we had it. For a
measurable instant we were in control of a force which staggers the
imagination."

   "Dear Bertt," the Overlady said. He lowered his eyes. He did not like the
use of terms of affection. That was a Delanian characteristic, and
unbecoming in an Artonuee. "When you approached me on this subject,
telling me of the possibilities, I warned you then that we have no time for
pure research. We have present capability to fulfill our plans. We must
concentrate on the known. Your services are badly needed. The services of
the worthy Untell have been sorely missed. How much longer can we spare
you?"

   A month, Lady. Give us another month. We are so very near." He bowed
respectfully.

   "No longer, Bertt. In one month the engines will be ready for
installation in the first of the giant star ships. In two months, another fleet
arrives, and your knowledge will be much in demand as we share our
progress with the newly arrived scientists."

   "Yes, Lady," Bertt said, shifting impatiently. Red tape, he was thinking.
Bureaucratic thinking. He longed for the peace and quiet of his world as it
had been before the arrival of the aliens, altered that to wish for unlimited
time and the help of his new friend, Untell. Give them a month, a year,
and they would beat God, the bureaucrats, and space itself.




                     Chapter Seventeen

   Evening. A swollen, yellow sun half-high. Five's South Cold. Desolate.
Beautiful. Humidity in the air tinged golden yellow, bursting, flaring,
raying the sun's light into streaks of red-gold fire and shadows on the ice
ranging from black to purple and, far away, his movement. He was one of
a restless breed. But, oh, Lady Mother, God of Artonuee, he was beautiful.

   Lost from view behind an ice upthrusting. A hint of the cold loss of
sadness in her until he reappeared, nearing.

   Bundled into cold-wear, he appeared to be a furry beast picking his way
across the eternal ice, and try as she might, she could not bring her eyes to
lower, to study the urgent reports lying on her knees. She was desolated
without him. The basic chemistry of her blood cried out for him.

   "Lady," she mused aloud, "You are in a position of responsibility." Thus
driven, she picked up the first report.

   At New Nirrar, on the western equatorial land mass, a clash between
two groups of females. Words. Reliable witnesses reported that the
Delanian women had first resorted to violence. However, one witness, a
reliable Artonuee male, said that the violence was the result of dire
provocation on the part of the Artonuee females, who taunted the
Delanians as animals of the ancient past, bringing their young into the
world bloody and wet with vile body juices.

   The Artonuee male, one Bruun, technician, said in his statement:
"Seeing that an incident was brewing I, as a responsible adult male, tried
to avert unpleasantness. Speaking only logic—" How very malelike, Miaree
thought, "I tried to dissuade the emotional women and females from
further insults and was rewarded by being called a rather derogatory
Delanian name, a name with which we males have become familiar
through the discourtesy of the aliens, a name I choose not to repeat."

    For the record, the investigating official had inserted an explanation.
Bruun, the technician, was called a cannibal, referring, of course, to the
instinctive behavior of the Artonuee walkling in consuming the
iffling-preserved flesh of a homecomer.

   "At this juncture," Bruun continued, "one of the females rose
unnecessarily to my defense, saying words to the effect that I, Bruun, was
a respected member of the Artonuee community and not subject to
ridicule by creatures who carried their young living in their bellies. Before
I could speak, blows were exchanged."

   Angrily, Miaree tossed the report aside.

   Rei was near. She rose, waved. She keened the love greeting and
received, in answer, a loud shout. Then he became interested in a curious
ice formation, and she, with a sigh, picked up the discarded report. The
females involved were wing-flaunters, of course. She used the term in her
mind without censure, for her own wings were outside her cloak.

   She dictated recommendations. Extra work tours for the Artonuee
females. Punishment to be deemed just for the Delanians by the Delanian
local Board of Control.

   Next, a request from Plant Seven for a rush allotment of diamond drills.

   For the first time in years she remembered her rock, the rock she'd
discovered in the asteroid belt so long, long ago. She chastised herself for
forgetfulness, for diamonds were in great demand, made a mental note to
check her old flight log for the coordinates of the asteroid and to send a
driver, priority class, to mine the jewels.

  It was amusing, in a way. Once the diamond asteroid had meant only
more flight time to her. Now it could aid in the greatest undertaking ever
conceived by the best minds of two great races.

   A progress report on installation of engines in the first giant star ship,
revolutionary engines, engines which were a direct result of her alliance
with Rei, the Delanian.

   But, Mother God, she was tired. She lidded her eyes. Her head rested on
the velvety cushion of her chair and she allowed herself the luxury of pure
idleness. Musing, she remembered Rei's excitement.

    She was taken back, in memory, to Outworld. The first days. The golden
flush of joy at their first merge. The splendor of love. Love. A word which
was now as much Artonuee as Delanian. Love. A sweet sound on the lips. A
touch. The electric stir of fur to the touch of a skinned hand, a hand so
strong, so tender. Then, time had no meaning. Then, before the arrival of
the first fleet and the nervous confrontation of two separate races, it was
only Rei and Miaree and the flood of well-being which his kiss engendered
in her and the pleasure of shared knowledge and intimacies and endless
days of talk as they sat, or lay, or walked in the Bloom and then, with
Mother Aglee becoming querulous in demanding a report, the lovely flight
from Outworld to New World and the pride she felt in Rei when he
mastered the techniques of flying so easily. It was then, during the long,
upwind flight, that he discovered the possibilities. As Miaree and Rei
merged into one, so the technology of the two races merged and brought
forth not dead-flesh eggs, but a triumph of engineering. For the mires
expander and the converters, lowering, as they did, the mass of the flyer,
eliminating inertia, fitted with the fusion engine of the Delanians as Rei
fitted with Miaree.

   When she explained, he fell into deep thought, and suddenly, ignoring
the view of New World ahead, he was busily scratching figures and
formulas and trying to explain to her that with nearly zero mass a ship
could be pushed to twice the current speeds of the Delanian drivers.
Moreover, the limitations on the size of a star ship were completely
removed. With the new system, a ship could be built as large as technology
allowed, as big as a planet.

   Changes. Vast upheavals in thought, in the Artonuee way of life. The
area of space which could be explored was suddenly doubled. A single
technological breakthrough, a single instance of cooperation between
races, and a civilization groaned and, in spite of the obstructions of the
priests, began a change which would affect every individual on four
worlds.

   There were times, during the hectic course of a day, when she wished
for the old, peaceful times when God was God and the Fires were there,
unchanging, eternal, approaching with deadly slowness. She had almost
snared the fears of the priests when, with near-silent and awesome power,
the fleet landed on the hastily prepared pads on the out planet, cold Five.
They were many in their thousands, and all were powerful. The women,
although considered beautiful, were oversized, fleshy. They worked
alongside the men in an impressive display of vitality to build dwellings.

   It was she who took the problem of combining the flyer with a Delanian
engine. Appointed by Mother Aglee as Overlady of Five, charged with
coordinating the peaceful integration of the aliens into the life of the
planet, she sought out Bertt, explained all to him, asked respectfully for his
assistance. To expedite the trial of a new ship, she submitted Rim Star to
alterations and, crowded into the small space inside the year, saw the
distortions of faster-than-light speed, pushed the tiny ship to light times
twenty and looked at the home worlds from a distance which reduced the
sun to a tiny, insignificant star lost in the vastness of the galaxy.

   She remembered the near revolt of the priest-led males when it was
announced that the Delanian fleet was only the first of many to leave the
constellation of Delan at one-year intervals. She remembered the all-night
sessions of the Council, the heated discussions among the inner circle, the
final decision, hastened by astronomical observations of the collisions
which confirmed Rei's warning of impending disaster.

   And she remembered how Mother Aglee had wept while announcing
the decision.

   "This," Mother Aglee had said—and five years later Miaree
remembered every word—"is a time of crisis. It is a time for difficult,
sometimes terrible decisions. Our talks with the Delanian authorities are
now concluded, and to reassure my people, let me say that the Delanians
are aware of and have empathy for our peculiar and necessary
arrangements of life on our habitable worlds. The sacred groves of The
World will not be disturbed by alien tread. The ordered life of New World
will not be shattered by uncontrolled settlement of aliens. The beauty of
Outworld will be held inviolate.

   "Yet, since our races face a common danger, we must not turn our
backs on fellow sentient beings. We must make a place for the Delanians
in our society, thus enabling us to work together with them against our
common doom. It has been decided to allow the Delanian fleet to land on
Five. There, on that cold and inhospitable planet, we will begin our work
together."
    "It has been said that Five will be changed. I cannot deny this fact. And
Five is an Artonuee world, thinly populated though it may be, cold and
desolate though it may be. Let those who cry out sacrilege and bewail the
coming of the Delanians remember that, save by a quirk of God or nature,
it could be Artonuee fleeing from the Fires of God, seeking haven. And let
us remember that the Delanians come in peace, seeking only our
friendship, our help, our cooperation in working together to escape the
destruction of our worlds."

   "I am able to tell you, at this time, that two of our fellows, a Delanian
and an Artonuee, working together as we must work together, have made
possible a dream. It is obvious to all that the Delanians have mastered star
travel. Yet they are limited, to a degree, by God's Constant. This mutual
discovery by members of two cooperating races has, in effect, doubled the
range and the speed of the Delanian light ships. Let us remember, as we
hope the Delanians will remember, that it was Artonuee technology,
combined with their own, which made such a giant leap forward
possible."

    Changes. Necessary changes. In order to produce synthetic foods, the
Delanians needed certain raw materials. A portion of the Artonuee fleet of
drivers was required, while plans were being drawn for the construction of
new drivers, new factories. Artonuee scientists were at first uprooted from
their dwellings near the Research Quad and flown to Five to consult with
the Delanians. Then, with an absence of equipment on the cold planet,
with the meeting of the two races proceeding smoothly, Delanians were
allowed on New World to work in the Quad with their Artonuee
counterparts. Delanian botanists were escorted to Outworld. After an
angry meeting of the Council, a Delanian scientist was given permission to
study the feeding habits of the ifflings on The World. The Council of Five
appointed two Delanian representatives. The two races worked together in
harmony, coming closer, ever closer, but not without clashes. When the
second Delanian fleet, carrying twenty thousand male workers, arrived on
Five, crowds of alarmed Artonuee males paraded past Government Quad.
But the decision had been made. The twenty thousand workers were
welcomed, for the drain on Artonuee manpower was severe, the demand
for raw materials ever increasing as work proceeded on the building of the
first huge star ships. The colony of Delanians on New World numbered
over two thousand after the arrival of the second fleet, doubled with the
arrival from deep space of the third fleet in the third year following Rei's
arrival. Three thousand Delanian men on New World began to contribute
to the most profound change in Artonuee life.

    It was a change with which Miaree was familiar, for she had been the
first to experience it. The wonder of it never left her, was with her, full
force, as from the viewer-enclosed snugness of her South Cold weekend
retreat on Five, she watched Rei bend and examine an ice formation. It
was a basic chemical change in her body, a change which altered a
thousand centuries of evolution. It was a simple, unpredictable change
involving the interaction of Delanian sperm with the reproductive organs
of the Artonuee female. Simply put, the alkaline seminal fluid of Rei
reacted with female hormones to cause a slight irritation of inner tissue.
The irritation was identical, in all respects save one, with the natural
change which indicated the formation of eggs in the female body. The
effect was to induce an artificial state of ripeness in the Artonuee female
which had all of the emotional force of the actual thing. Once injected
with Delanian seminal fluid, an Artonuee female walked in a constant
aroma of pleele and experienced, with her lover, all the joys of merge.

   The cyclical mating urge of the Artonuee female, all-powerful, was now
a permanent part of Miaree's life. And looking at Rei's powerful back as he
bent, she would not change it, would not trade it for the most perfect of
ruby eggs. And her discovery of bliss was shared by others, many others,
more and more as the number of Delanian males increased in the system.
The love of a female for her man was a heady, irresistible drug. It was an
obsession which could be mastered temporarily, to allow a female to
function in society, as long as her lover was near, as long as the night
could be filled with that most lovely of experiences, love. And if the price
to be paid came in the shape of a sacred egg the color of dead flesh, there
were billions of ifflings, and it had been proven that abstinence lessened
the irritation, allowed the female to function as nature had intended.

   In a time of racial excitement, of new and rewarding experiences, of
hope, of a lessening of respect for the discredited Artonuee God, there was
a future. For the first time since Artonuee astronomers had understood
the meaning of the Fires of God, the race could look forward to something
other than eventual extinction. There was a vast storage world of life,
teeming with ifflings. The flow of winglings and walklings did not lessen.
The decrease in the number of ifflings was insignificant. The stars called.
The greatest building program in the history of the race was underway,
centered on Five, an Artonuee world already transformed beyond
recognition. Destiny called, and destiny, for multiple numbers of Artonuee
females, involved that new and exciting word, love. Alliances were made
and sundered. Since neither race had evolved into permanent
relationships between the sexes, the alliances were often multiple. No
Delanian man was deprived of the beauty of the Artonuee females. Even
Mother Aglee took a Delanian lover, and keened sweetly of his love.

   The elected leader of four populated worlds appeared at functions of
state with her colorful wings exposed.

   And gradually, Artonuee men accepted the change. They too found
compensation. It began with the workers on Five. Stimulated constantly
by the pleele aroma exuded by artificially ripe females, they found that the
Delanian women were not resentful of their men's attention to the
Artonuee females. In fact, the alien women found the males of Artonuee to
be fair and took them to bed and suffered none of the chemical changes
which altered the Artonuee female.

   The first Delanian child to be born on Five arrived days after the
landing of the fleet. At first, in the confusion, there were no reliable
records of Delanian population increase. When a census was taken some
three years later, it was discovered that the birth rate of the Delanian
women was 1.2 children every two years. Yet the numbers were relatively
small. It was only with the arrival of the fourth fleet, with entire families,
that the Interplanetary Council recognized the problem and issued a
request that Delanians control their population at zero growth. The
request was promptly acknowledged and accepted. A potential crisis was
averted. The good intentions of the aliens were reaffirmed.

  "Ah, love, love," she keened, as Rei entered. She met him with open
arms, felt the strength of his body. His lips fired her heart. The long night
was ahead, the urgent reports forgotten, put aside for the morrow. In his
arms she was not Overlady of Five. She was simply female, and loved.

   In his arms no fears were allowed, doubts were banished. Gentle,
loving, true, giving his love only to her, he was incapable of hurt. She
would trust him with her life. And because he was a representative of his
race, all of his race was good.

   One day she would deprive herself of his love long enough to produce
her contribution of ruby eggs. One day. Meantime, the work load was
frightful and the nights were too short and she was merely a female, loved
and loving and thankful to her God for her good fortune.
                      Chapter Eighteen

   Assembled in space, it stretched over five miles in length. Square angles
allowed utilization of all areas. Connected sections contributed to the
length, but were removable. Huge enough to transport a section of juplee
forest, powerful enough to push past the side portal of God's Constant, it
gleamed in the harsh, unfiltered sun, absorbed the blackness of space on
the out-sun side. It was ready.

   In Rim Star II she floated near, saw the towering walls of the ship
extend above her. Skillfully she circled it, admired it, measured it with her
eyes. Pride pounded in her breast. She put her hand on Rei's and smiled.
He understood.

  "Yes," he said. "The first. The first of many."

   Monitoring the communications frequencies, she knew it was time. She
withdrew to a safe distance. Searing light flared from the trailing engine
compartments. Aboard, outsized converters hummed. The movement was
slow and majestic at first; then, with an acceleration which left her
breathless, the star ship dwindled to nothingness. She followed it on her
instruments, saw it. As it hit the side portal of the Constant, it
disappeared.

    Three years in the future, it would be back. It would carry a host of
workers, workers sorely needed to mine the asteroid belt, to continue the
gutting of hot First Planet for its metals and materials, to dig into the
center of Five, to man the assembly lines and operate the mining drivers
and labor at the thousand-and-one tasks ahead during the construction of
a fleet of like ships which would release millions of Delanians and
Artonuee from certain death before the Fires brought their doom. And
while in the Delanian systems, it would serve as a prototype for a million
of its kind. The entire resources of thirty billion Delanians would be
diverted into building the star ships. The vast fleet would sweep outward,
following the lead of scout ships which, at that very moment, were
searching the stars toward the opposite end of the Galaxy for habitable
planets. Planets would be found. Planets would be settled. Together,
Artonuee and Delanian would spread across the empty reaches, planet to
planet, system to system, taking with them their life, their technology.
Doom would be thwarted. Life would go on. And in the end, the labors of
such as Bertt and Untell would allow an escape from the doomed galaxies,
would allow life to be eternal in safe, green worlds of promise far from the
Fires.

   Meanwhile, there was endless work and continual problems and Rei's
love to inspire her. A day seemed endless, yet the days became weeks and
the weeks years, and the first star ship returned to disgorge eager workers
and the dread information—information which traveled at light speed and
thus had not reached the Artonuee system—that the collision of the two
globular clusters just outside the spiral arm had begun. Death raced
toward the Delanian worlds. There, a crash program of building was
underway, which, by the time the star ship reached Five at light times
twenty, produced thousands of ships. The first of the final wave would be
arriving in less than a year's time.

   The knowledge stunned Miaree. Somewhere there, where her eye could
not see, billions of beings were to die. And she was helpless to prevent it.
She wept for them, Rei's strong arms comforting her. And she worked
harder than she had thought possible, for the Artonuee, luckier than the
Delanians, had been given time. The first waves of radiation and fire
would strike the outlying Delanian worlds in less than three years.
Artonuee would have a minimum of twenty times that time span in which
to prepare to evacuate the system. Although she wept for the Delanians,
she rejoiced for the Artonuee. In sixty years she could build enough star
ships to save all, to forest a ship with juplee and select prime ifflings for
the long trek to safer planets. She could build a ship designed to salvage
the artistic beauty of Outworld—flora, fauna, artifacts, art works. God was
good. God had forgiven.

   Thankful that she was young and able to cope with the long hours, she
was everywhere. Inspired by Rei's presence at her side, she was capable of
going thirty-six hours without sleep. Her mind, expanded by the learned
knowledge of Rei's people, could absorb the most difficult of technical
problems.

   Miaree was forty, just at the end of her young adulthood, when Mother
Aglee kissed her lover one final time and boarded a ship for the last flight.
With the office of the Mother vacant, the five worlds of the Artonuee
throbbing with frenzied activity, Miaree agreed to allow powerful
members of the Interplanetary Council to advance her name for election.
Because of her travels and her prominence in the building program, she
won easily.

   Only ten days after Mother Aglee sought her iffling, Mother Miaree,
wearing the robes of the first lady of all the Artonuee, entered a large
conference room to be briefed on the state of the system. She had been so
involved in the administration of the factory planet, Five, that she had not
been able to keep abreast of problems outside her own field. The sobering
facts which were thrust upon her from first one serious-faced official and
then another left her in a state of shock and sorrow.

   Spant, Delanian, Co-administrator of Space Exploration: "Lady, more
than two thousand Light Twenty Scouts are in the outer stars. Although
good news could be reported at any time, the results to date are
discouragingly negative. As you know, the formation of planets is a rarity,
requiring such a combination of conditions as to make only one star out of
a half-million a planet producer. Aside from two planets in the early stages
of producing water, no habitable worlds have been discovered. I request
the authorization for the construction of an additional five hundred
scouts."

   Rei, by appointment of the Mother, Supervisor of Raw Materials:
"Lady, time is too short. We must consider the exploration program a
failure in its present form and adopt Contingency Plan Two."

   Mother Miaree: "For those of you who are not briefed on Contingency
Plan Two, it is simply this. Should the exploration program fail, as it has
failed to this date, at the time of final decision, when the exploding stellar
material begins to threaten our system, we embark on the fleet of star
ships and use the fleet, itself, as an exploration tool. Perhaps a word from
Bertt, Star Fleet Overlord."

   Bertt, Star Fleet Overlord: "Ladies, males, Delanians. Although
passenger space is the primary object in the construction of a star ship, it
has long been recognized that long periods of travel could be necessary.
We never had any guarantee that good worlds would be discovered within
a reasonable distance. Thus, we have constructed each ship to have the
capacity to live in space almost indefinitely. Unfortunately, the space
required for growing synthetic foods, and for the other life support
systems required, cuts down severely on the space to be allotted to
passengers. Should disaster strike immediately, we would be able to save
only a small percentage of the combined populations of our races.
However, it is estimated that we have a minimum of twenty years to
complete our building program. Should we make certain technological
breakthroughs, the picture could be improved. If we allotted more of our
time and our available resources to research—"

   Mother Miaree: "Dear Bertt, that is an old argument, one which was
settled long ago."

   Belle, Overlady of Outworld: "Lady Mother, attention is required to the
continued destruction of our most beautiful planet. As you know, the
Council opened Outworld to Delanian settlement some ten years past.
Since then, the Delanian population has grown out of control with new
arrivals. Delanians outnumber Artonuee on Outworld ten to one. Their
numbers strain the resources of the planet. We have been forced to utilize
for dwellings and industry a large percentage of our natural parklands.
Where once the Great Bloom stretched for five hundred miles, unbroken,
sprawling cities now soil the air. This desecration—"

   Argun, President of the Delanian People in Exile: "Would the lady
prefer that two billion Delanians die on the home worlds?"

  Mother Miaree: "None of us would wish such a tragedy. Too many
Delanians died. Their death saddens all of us."

   Caee, Overlady of The World: "Mother, it is true that we are all
saddened by the tragedy which has swept the home systems of the
Delanians. I deplore before God the sad fact that, together, we were able to
save not more than one-fifth of the total population before the Fires
destroyed all who were left. It is truly a cosmic tragedy. However, six
billion Delanians were saved by the star ships which were built here, by
our people and their people, and by the star ships which were built in the
Delanian systems. We Artonuee have opened our arms to our Delanian
friends. We have welcomed them in their billions to our small worlds, and
we have paid a terrible price. I do not deplore the sacrifice of the
Artonuee. No. Indeed, we owe a vote of thanks to the Delanians for
alerting us to the doom which we had considered to be remote, a
happening of the distant future. So our lots are cast together. It is not
merely petty thinking, then, when I say that I must insist that action be
taken regarding the production of Delanian children on The World. I do
not, of course, have to tell the Mother the grim statistics of iffling
mortality—"
   Mother Miaree: "Perhaps you do. Remember, I have spent my time on
Five and in space."

  Caee: "The information is classified."

  Mother Miaree: "All here are suited to receive classified information.
They would not be here if they were not."

  Caee: "Yes, Lady. If you would care to read the last report."

    Mother Miaree: "I do, indeed, care to read the last and all reports
regarding alterations to The World. I want all material pertaining to
tampering with the life cycle on our home planet in my office immediately
following this meeting. In the meantime, perhaps you would be so kind as
to inform me when it was decided and who decided to allow even one
iffling to die."

   Caee: "Mother, I am sorry. I thought you had been informed. It was
decided by the Interplanetary Council, at the urging of Mother Aglee, to
allow iffling reserves to fall to a working one-on-one level some seven years
past. At first, this was easily accomplished by the mere nonreplenishment
of stock as homecomings lowered the iffling population. Thus it was
possible to utilize a portion of the juplee forests—"

   Mother Miaree: "Am I to understand that the sacred juplee forests have
been leveled?"

  Caee: "Mother, there are five hundred million Delanians on The
World."

  Mother Miaree: "God the Mother!"

   Argun: "Lady, it was a difficult and terrible decision for your
predecessor and for the Council. It was felt—"

  Mother Miaree: "Damn you all, tell me. Iffling mortality?"

  Caee: "Mortality is at a low level, and selected females are being
commissioned to produce fertile eggs to replenish—"

  Mother Miaree: "How low is low? What is the state of the iffling
population?"
   Caee: "Lady, a blight, thought to be the result of atmospheric pollution,
has hit the forest. Ifflings are dying at a rate which reduces the population
by approximately seven percent a year."

  Mother Miaree: "And the growth rate of the Delanians on The World?"

  Argun: "In accordance with our agreement, we are holding all
Delanians to zero population growth."

  Mother Miaree: "As of now, there will be no child births allowed to
Delanians on The World."

  Rei: "Lady, is this not a harsh decision?"

   Mother Miaree: "Dear Rei, I did not assume this office to preside over
the death of all the Artonuee. All my life I have faced the fact that,
someday, the Fires would end Artonuee life, but I will not accept a slow
and lingering withering of our race through the destruction of that which
is most sacred to us, our home world. We have sacrificed. Our worlds
bulge with six billion Delanians. No. Now it is time to call on the
Delanians on The World for a sacrifice on their part. Argun, I respectfully
direct you to issue orders preventing any further conception on our home
world."

  Argun: "It will be done, Lady."

   Mother Miaree: "Caee, I want daily reports from you on this situation. I
will not be satisfied until there is no iffling mortality. Do you understand?
And Belle, I appoint you to personally select females to produce fertilized
eggs. You may ask for volunteers. That failing, you have the authority of
this office to use any means to insure that the iffling population is
maintained at a safe level. If it requires the incarceration of suitable
females until their ripeness produces fruit, then consider it an order."

  Caee: "Yes, Lady."

  Mother Miaree: "For the information of all, a report, from the
Supervisor of Raw Materials."

   Rei: "Lady, before this conference began, Fleet Overlord Bertt reported
to me that construction is at a halt on the three hundred star ships
nearing completion, and new starts have been postponed indefinitely. The
fact is that we're running out of materials. Although some exploration
continues in the asteroid belt, for all practical purposes the belt has been
mined empty. Our prime source for the needed metal is now First Planet,
and conditions there, so near the sun, are, to say the least, bad. Our
engineers are working on methods to mine the sunside of the planet, but
such efforts are not expected to produce returns for another five years or
more. Meanwhile, the further explorations for metals on Five produce
nothing. Five is a gutted planet. The mines of New World, Outworld, and
the small area where mining is permitted on The World are spent,
produce only low grade ores which do not meet the demand. The star
ships drafted into temporary duty as mining ships, traveling to the three
arid planets of the star Seberian, require months for a round trip.
Nevertheless, they are providing us with our main bulk of useable metals.
There is a severe shortage of diamond drills, and I would respectfully
request the Mother to issue a statement asking all citizens to make
available for industrial use their private jewels."

   Mother Miaree: "Noted and done."

   Rei: "Although we have not, as yet, experienced food shortages, an
agricultural crisis is imminent. Arable land has been used to build
factories and dwellings. Ninety-five percent of our basic foodstuff is now
being dredged from the seas, and the heavy use of shallow water growth
for synthetics threatens to unbalance the growth cycle of the salt water
agricultural areas. I would think that consideration of food rationing
should be undertaken by the Council during the next session."

   Mother Miaree: "I will talk with Council leaders."

   Bertt: "Lady Mother. I have watched my chosen world be stripped of its
resources and its beauty. Although this saddens me, I do not regret it, for
will not my Five be consumed, seared, destroyed, when the Fires reach us?
And is it not true that all our old worlds will meet their ends in the Fires? I
agree, of course, that The World must be preserved until the exodus to
insure the continuation of our race. However, with a present capacity to
move only sixty percent of our combined populations, and the future grim,
as far as raw materials are concerned, would it not be wise to lift the
exploitation limitations of the two planets which still offer prospects of
production? I refer, of course, to New World and Outworld."

  Belle, Overlady of Outworld: "Our garden world is already spoiled
beyond hope. Would you put mining shafts in the last remaining
parklands? Would you ship ore in huge rollers down the streets of our
cities?"

   Bertt: "Would you have millions burn in the Fires, sitting happily in the
last remaining parklands atop the metals which could have saved them?"

   Mother Miaree: "Your point is well taken, Bertt, but such decisions are
a matter for the Council. If you will prepare your proposals I will present
them."

   Jenee, Overlady of the City of Nirrar: "Lady, it is a small matter,
perhaps, since we are faced with problems of cosmic size, but would you
express an opinion on the desirability of posting members of the guard at
strategic locations throughout the city? As you may know, the exuberant
spirits of the Delanian young sometimes take a destructive course. The
problem is not a major one, but their activities have been known to
interfere with the administration of the city, which is, as you know, vastly
overcrowded. Destruction of property and forced merge are merely two of
the symptoms."

  Mother Miaree: "Perhaps the President of the Delanians has a
comment?"

  Argun: "Lady, give me as many guards as you can. I will augment their
number with enough Delanians to stop such outrageous activities."

   Mother Miaree: "Done, Argun. Thank you for your help. We Artonuee
have not faced such problems in the past and would scarcely know how to
handle them. Now, it has been a long and tiring day. My office will be
open to any of you, but now I suggest that we all seek our dwellings, since
the hour is late."




                      Chapter Nineteen

   Five's nightside sparkled with the lights of industry. The atmosphere,
artificially thickened to produce a greenhouse effect, caused the glow to be
diffused, hid the equatorial low lands, behind their huge dikes, under
swirls of cloud. Incoming from New World and Mother Miaree's first
top-level conference, Bertt swung his flyer into dayside, called Fivegate for
landing clearance, and then, waiting, let his eyes feast on the inspiring
sight of a million star ships, lined up like great beasts of black space in a
holding orbit.

   The construction area, just past Fivegate, was visible as he landed.
Cargo shuttles crowded the gate, idle. Bertt walked rapidly to the control
center. A star ship from the ore planets of Seberian was within
communications range. Soon the smelters would glow again and work
could continue on the hundreds of ships in various stages of completion.

   In spite of the hectic events of the past twenty years, Bertt was still
uncomfortable in closed spaces. Although it was gratifying to be able to
man a powered flyer, he was not a space nut. And the closed atmosphere
of the gate was heavy in his mind. He boarded a shuttle as quickly as
possible, and already anticipating a few hours of luxurious freedom from
responsibility, began to draw, for perhaps the millionth-plus time, the
circuits of a mires expander in his mind.

  Once he had seen the release of unbelievable power.

   Once, with his Delanian friend, Untell, he had been on the verge of the
greatest discovery of all.

   Delanian power was an improvement. And the combination of the
converters and the Delanian power had reduced the shuttle ride to
planetside to minutes. Great strides had been taken in space travel. Still,
the two cooperating races faced an uncertain future of star-roving in that
ponderous fleet which was being assembled in orbit around Five.

   He was thinking of the prospect of finishing out his allotted time in a
closed atmosphere. Huge as the star ships were, he, lover of spaces and the
lost solitude of his old world, did not relish the idea of a lifetime of
imprisonment in a star ship.

   Because of his position and his need for privacy, he had been allowed to
keep his old dwelling. It was small, but it sat in the midst of an acre of
undisturbed land. And adjoining it was the old workshop where he had
designed and built the finest flyers ever to ride the solar winds. He ate the
tasteful synthetics, sipped synthetic jenk, dozed in his chair to recover
from the shock of planet change, but his mind would not be idle.
  The dream was always with him.

  They had been so close.

  A year and they would have had it. Working with Untell, he, Bertt,
would have created a source of power so vast that the universe would have
been opened to exploration.

   Sighing, he rose and stretched tiredly. He shrugged into a work
garment and trudged into the shop. He mused before his bench for long
minutes, his eyes following the convolutions of the incredibly complicated
circuitry of the altered expander which had once released the energies of
the electrons in two tiny cubes of soft metal. Once, twice, three times he
had watched with the same results. A significant and measurable
channeling of the force and then disintegration.

  Where had they gone wrong?

   He had traced the theory in its complications thousands of times. He
traced it once again. In the mind, on duppaper, it worked. What was the
hidden fault?

   When his assistant came in search of him next morning, Bertt was
discovered sleeping, his head on the workbench. The assistant smiled
sadly. The old man was still playing with his toy.




                       Chapter Twenty

    Argun, President of the Delanian People in Exile, was a virile man in
the prime of his life. Although he carried a heavy responsibility, he lived
with an élan that kept his outlook youthful and optimistic. As a youth, he
had helped to tame a world which had presented more problems than the
little ice ball the Artonuee had loved so much before Delanian vitality had
made the place liveable. His genes were the finest, and even before leaving
the home worlds, he had been allowed four offspring with four different
chosen women. Two of his sons were among those selected to live. And
Argun had sired a daughter and a son since coming to the Artonuee
system. His seed would be preserved and preserved well. He took great
pride in that.

   At his headquarters in the Government Quad in Nirrar City, adjacent
to the Mother's building, he maintained two Artonuee mistresses and was
not averse to spreading that particular form of Delanian joy to others,
casual acquaintances longing for a dose of the Delanian drug.

   For his personal staff, he had selected the strongest and wisest, both
men and women. He was a man with a purpose, and he worked toward
that purpose with untiring vigor. He had seen enough death. Those who
had not been on the home worlds at the end could not possibly
understand.

   Seated with Argun was young Rei, who warmed the Mother's bed.

   "You have completed the assignment?" Argun asked.

  "It is confirmed." Rei said. He sipped the Artonuee liquor, for which he
had acquired a taste, while Argun drank heartily from a mug of synthetic
Delanian grog.

   "Quite a dish, no?" Argun asked.

   "She was a good specimen," Rei said.

  "Indeed," Argun said. "I know. I envy you the fob of knocking her up.
Would have done it myself, but I don't want it said that I take undue
advantage of my position."

   "Your fairness to our people has never been in doubt." Rei said.

   "But not the Artonuee, huh?" Argun said, laughing. "My boy, you're too
soft."

  "I was the first to land on an Artonuee world," Rei said softly. "I have
worked closely with them for twenty years. They are an admirable people."

   "Ah, that Artonuee cunt," Argun said. "Now that is admirable." He
drained his mug and set it down with a clank. "But I have six billion
people to worry about."

   "Sir—"
    "Six billion," Argun said. "And I watched twenty-four billion die. I saw
it, damn it. I was there. I heard my own son cry when he was told that he
had not been selected. I had to deny his last minute plea. I gave the orders
which brought instant death to thousands in the port riots. I saw my men
turn their weapons on their own people, brothers, sisters, lovers. Have you
ever seen flesh after it's hit with a burner? It stinks. It's the color of dirt.
And when the ray hits, the flesh crawls and jumps and moves even after
the brain is dead. And I had to say, "open fire!" I had to give the order."

   "It was a tragedy, sir," Rei said.

   "Tragedy? Damn, man, it was horror. Can you comprehend the death of
twenty-four billion people? No one can. It staggers the imagination. We
can understand the death of a man, or a few men. You helped in the
post-mortem of the first expedition, didn't you? I thought so. You saw the
way the limbs were torn from bodies. Did it affect you?"

   "It affected me," Rei said.

   "Think of two billion more bodies. Think of them dying slowly from
radiation and then being seared by flame. Is that a pleasant picture?"

   "No, it is not. But neither—"

   "There is no alternative," Argun said, standing. "Of course, if you
should volunteer to stay—" He grinned as Rei shifted uneasily. "Goodnight,
then, my boy. It is not pleasant for any of us. We must do as we think best
for all of our people. In the meantime, we drink, no?"

   "We drink," Rei said, gulping the jenk.

   "And our geneticist wants another chip off the old Rei block," Argun
said, showing his teeth suggestively. "Up to another session tonight?"

   "I think not, sir."

  "Soon, then. She's a knockout. A farm girl from old Tagour. Knockers
out to here. Huh?"

   "Yes," Rei said. "Soon."

   Later, fanned by Miaree's ecstatically fluttering wings, hearing her love
keenings, he shut his mind and lost himself in her living, moving softness.




                   Chapter Twenty-One

   You read well, my dear. Thank you. We have covered much ground
today, and there is little time. I hope that all of you have been thinking
ahead toward the paper which I told you I would ask you to write giving
your conclusions and your feelings toward the fable. Now. In form, the
section of the fable we have covered today is somewhat episodic. By
slaps and starts, it covered a period of how many years, Tomax?

  Twenty, sir.

   Are there any among you who have not been stimulated to the point
of being forced to finish the final portion? Ah? Elizabeth? LaConius. But
LaConius knows, eh, LaConius?

  Sir?

  Elizabeth, no curiosity?

   Sir, I was dying to finish it, to find out what happens, but the dorm
matron forced me to observe lights-out, and the charger in my privacy
light has failed, so I could not read under the sheets.

   Then we will allow you to read the conclusion tomorrow. Now, in the
brief time remaining before we partake of sauteed olix steak, fresh in
from Alaxender's home on Trojan, I would like you to consider this
passage, or this series of excerpts, from a paper done by our sleepy
LaConius. For which, incidentally, he has earned the honors in this
particular project. LaConius has handed me the paper, a project
undertaken in his astrophysics class, with a request for proofreading. I
fear that our LaConius is a rather atrocious speller. Nonetheless, the
paper is of some interest. The subject is the Q.S.S. phenomenon. Q.S.S. or
Quasi-stellar Radio Sources, are rather puzzling astronomical objects
located—as determined by the calculations of the red shift—some one
billion light years away from our galaxy in the general direction of the
constellation Cygnus.
   But let me quote young LaConius: 'Radio generation in the Q.S.S's,
broadcast on every frequency known to man, is thought to be the result
of acceleration of ultra-high-speed electrons moving in a powerful
magnetic field. Although a thorough and lengthy study of the Q.S.S's has
failed to provide a range of answers, it is believed by authorities in the
field that the electrons were freed in some cataclysmic explosion. The
release of energy is not a strange happening in a universe built on the
explosive energy of the hydrogen atom, but the amount of energy
radiating from a Q.S.S. has led astrophysicists to believe that the energy
originated from an entirely new type of energy source. The power
generated by a typical Q.S.S. is measured in the area of 4 X 10 to the
46th power ergs per second, or ten times the amount of energy radiated
by the largest known galaxy.

    "The bafflng thing about the Q.S.S. is that a typical diameter
measures only fifty light years. When we consider that our own galaxy
is eighty thousand light years in diameter, the amount of power
emanating from the relatively tiny Q.S.S. becomes even more
astounding. Estimating mass from the observed size of a typical Q.S.S.,
the amount of energy released totals more than the energy in all of the
available electrons. If a small galaxy were exploded by thermonuclear
processes, the energy released would not equal that of a Q.S.S.
Spectrography indicates that the Q.S.S.'s are moving away from our
galaxy at a uniform speed. Emission lines in the optical spectrum
indicate the presence of hydrogen, magnesium, ionized neon, oxygen,
and other gases."

   There is more, but I think that much will give you the idea. Questions?
Alexender?

  I can only conclude, sir, that a Q.S.S. cannot possibly exist, and yet it
does.

  Yes. Ah. The dining hall signals its readiness.




                   Chapter Twenty-Two

  Miaree, First Lady of five worlds, had a tendency to calculate time from
the arrival of Rei. The calendar systems of both races were bulky and
unwieldy, both measuring years, as they did, into six figures, seven in the
case of the Delanians. There were shortened forms of writing a date, of
course, but it was convenient to think in simple terms. Rei plus twenty.
Rei plus twenty-five.

   In the year of Rei, twenty-five, the Mother of the Artonuee received a
request from an old friend, Bertt the builder, Star Fleet Overlord.

   "Feeling the approach of my time," Bertt wrote, "it is with much regret
that I request to be relieved of my duties."

  Sadly, she sent her permission. "It would be a great honor, my dear
Bertt, to have you stay in my dwelling on your way home."

   Since the jobs were so interconnected, it seemed logical to appoint her
consort Rei to fill Bertt's position. This meant, of course, that they were
often apart, and separations were agony for her. It was a time of sacrifice,
however, for the distant astronomical observatories in space sent daily
reports of the swelling explosions in the constellation of Delan, The
Delanian scientists had been accurate to within twenty percent in their
predictions of the multiplication effects of the violent coming together of
the two giant clusters. Their margin of error was on the conservative side.
In the path of the expanding jets of energy, stars, fed by the debris, joined
in the paroxysm. The night time sky was a thing of harsh and terrible
beauty.

  These were, then, the last days.

   On The World, giant machines burrowed under the deep roots of the
juplee trees, lifted tree and earth to waiting cargo drivers. In orbit around
the Artonuee home world, a hundred star ships waited, holds prepared, to
become the home in space for a virgin forest. The World was being sacked
that the Artonuee might live. And as the forests were moved, miners
followed, destroying all in their path, for there was no longer need to
preserve a world which was facing doom.

  For those Artonuee who worked on The World, it was a traumatic
experience.

  The shortage of raw materials was an ever-present irritation. Rei
chafed, shouted at his subordinates, drove the miners who were at last
allowed to gut the home world. The twenty-percent error in prediction of
the time left meant uncertainty and terror. Even the crash program of
utilizing all available materials would fall short.

   The drivers which had once worked the asteroid belt, a vast fleet, were
being melted down for their metals. Nothing was spared. The Evacuation
Committee, headed by Argun, President of the Delanians, was assembling
the land and air vehicles necessary to transport the population to the
waiting star ships, and all vehicles not needed in that effort were
expendable.

   In Nirrar, the decorative metal fronts of government buildings were
being pulled down. Monuments to past Artonuee greatness toppled from
their pedestals and joined private flyers, rollers, all scrap metals in the
melting vats.

   Food rationing was in effect, for the vast food storehouses of the star
ships were being filled. Enumeration of the population was almost
complete. Each individual member of both races carried and guarded his
assignment card, for it meant life. On all five of the worlds, practice
evacuations were being carried out to familiarize the people with the
methods of loading.

   Loading would be a lengthy and complicated process. Miaree, burdened
with the endless details of office and carrying, along with all her race, the
sadness of the coming departure, left details of that massive operation to
the Evacuation Committee. She was only one female. She could not attend
personally to all details.

   She thanked God for the strength and vitality of the Delanian men, for
without them the work would never have been accomplished.
Outnumbering Artonuee males by almost six to one, they bore the main
burden of labor.

  It was not a time for crisis, but then crisis has never been possessed of a
conscience, and when the Delanian women began their revolt there was
nothing to do but deal with it.

  It began on Five. Led by Untell, who had once worked with the builder
Bertt, mobs of women paraded past government houses demanding
change.
  Miaree considered the spokeswoman's demands.

   "For too long have we, the flower of Delanian womanhood, suffered at
the hands of the shameless Artonuee females. Our men, lured into liaison
with the Artonuee, have all but deserted us. We face a long journey into
the unknown, and we refuse to undertake this journey in the company of
Artonuee females who, because of the peculiarities of their anatomy, are
such attractive temptation for our men. We demand total segregation of
races aboard the star ships."

   "A bunch of featherheads," said Argun in conference. "This protest is
an isolated event and will pass. Our races work too well together to allow a
few hotheads to spoil the partnership which has developed."

   "They are your women." Miaree said. "I bow to your knowledge of
them."

   However, as the situation worsened, she was forced to reconsider. A
half-million Delanian women stormed Government Quad, threw stones
through the viewers of the buildings, severely mauled members of the
guard.

   It was the same on all inhabited planets. Everywhere Delanian women
rose up, demanding that the relationship between Artonuee females and
Delanians be sundered aboard the star fleet.

  "Oh, Darling." Miaree said, in the privacy of her dwelling. "It would
mean—"

   "They will not force us to part." Rei said. "But your own president often
states that a leader cannot ask something of his people which he himself
would not share. How could I tear my sisters from their lovers and, in all
conscience, remain with you?"

  "There will be a way," Rei said, closing her lips with his.

   To placate the Delanian women (whose activities were throwing the
overall plan out of balance, delaying the plantings of the fuplee trees in
their assigned ships, forcing cancellation of practice loadings) the joint
governments of the two races announced that racial integrity was to be
maintained aboard the fleet.
   To give her forlorn sisters hope—for they were, she knew, as devastated
as she—the Mother announced, "New worlds will be found. There the two
races will live side by side. In times of peace and plenty, the harsh
measures required by present-day conditions will doubtless be rescinded."

   With Belle, Overlady of Outworld, Miaree considered the problem of
space for the treasure stores of Artonuee art.

   "Sadly," she told Belle, "we are forced to abandon much. For you see,
the building program has been slowed by the lack of materials. The
accelerated approach of the Fires has caught us short. I weep to think of
the necessity to leave the paintings of Janlee and Peeri. We must pick and
choose, dear Belle, and control our emotions, for is not life the important
thing? Would you trade one life, say, for the jewel-sculpture portrait of
Lady Andee?"

   Her conference with the weeping Belle was shortened by an urgent
request from one Runder, assistant to the Overlord of the Fleet, who cited
urgency and priority as his reason for demanding time with The Mother.

   Runder was a young male in his prime, a male who had adopted the
dress fashions of the Delanians. He stood respectfully before Miaree's desk.
"Lady," said he, "I am Runder. Before the time of change I worked on Flyer
Haven. I had the pleasure of servicing My Lady's personal flyer when she
was but a youth."

  "You were chosen by old Beafly," Miaree said. "I remember." She
smiled. "You tuned Rim Stai well."

   "Lady, I have always done my best. I have been rewarded by being
allowed to perform tasks of responsibility and value. There have been no
complaints. Thus, I have allowed myself the self-gratification of presuming
on the Lady's time to ask why I have been so summarily relieved of my
duties. If I have presumed too much, I am sorry."

  Miaree frowned. "My dear Runder. This office, I fear, is a demanding
one. It does not lessen the importance of the position you have held when I
confess that I know nothing of what you state. Could you brief me?"

  "Yes, Lady."

  "First, please sit."
    "Thank you, Lady. I was appointed to my position by Overlord Bertt
these six years past. Since Bertt's primary interest was in the star fleet, the
responsibility of seeing to the administrative duties of the Overlord's office
fell to me. When the honorable Bertt retired to his workshop—"

   "Hold, Runder. Would you repeat that?"

   "I said, 'When the honorable Bertt retired to his workshop—' "

  "It was my understanding that he was preparing for homecoming."
Miaree said.

   "I am sorry." Runder's face was mobile, showing his sorrow. "I did not
intend to violate a confidence."

   "Then Bertt is not ready for homecoming?"

   "He is well, Lady. I'm sorry that I mentioned it. However, since I have…
He was tired. Since the population of Five is largely Delanian, he asked
that I forego my rights of senority and allow the appointment of a
Delanian Overlord. I agreed. However, events of the past days—"

   "Forgive me, Runder. I am interested in Bertt. It is not like him to
forsake his important duties without reason. Your thinking, please."

   "Lady, I fear that the pressure has touched Bertt. For years he has
pushed himself too hard. No one can say that he did not do his assigned
job well. In fact, it is my opinion, enforced by my personal observations,
that Bertt should be named a Hero of the Artonuee for his administration
of the building of the fleet. However, during the years of crisis, Bertt
pursued his dream in addition to doing his tasks. I fear the toll on his
health was too great."

   "His dream?"

   "As I remember, Lady, you were present when Bertt and the Delanian
woman Untell conducted tests of an altered mires expander in conjunction
with the electron forces of a soft metal."

   "Yes."

   "He has never abandoned the idea that he could make it work, Lady, He
spent many hours, sleepless nights, in his private workshop. He is there
now, puttering, sleeping little, working on his hopeless task."

   "Poor Bertt." She shook her head sadly. "But Runder, your reason for
requesting this appointment, please."

   "As I said, Lady, I agreed to allow the appointment of a Delanian
Overlord in the dual capacity of Five Overlord and Overlord of the Fleet. I
continued to handle the administrative duties of the planet. It was only
when I questioned the release of Artonuee males from positions of
responsibility in the fleet that a coldness developed between my office and
the Delanian Overlord. I received no satisfactory explanation of the
dismissals, and when I insisted on an inquiry, I was summarily notified on
the stationery of your office, Lady, that my services were no longer
required."

  "This office?" Miaree inquired.

  "Yes, Lady."

  "I signed no such order," she said.

  Runder was silent.

   Miaree placed a graceful finger to her nose, mused. Then, with a
decisive movement, she pushed a communicator and asked Rei to come
into the office.

   As he entered, the load of responsibility seemed to Runder to melt from
her lovely face. Her smile was a thing of beauty. "This is the worthy
Runder," she said, "Assistant Overlord of the Fleet. He has a legitimate
inquiry. It seems that I somehow agreed to release him from his duties
without justification."

  "Not you, Lady," Rei said, returning her smile. "It was I."

  Miaree's brows lifted in question.

   Rei turned to Runder. "Your haste in coming to Nirrar prevented you
from finding further orders in your slot," he said. "Although I do not
remember exactly, I am sure, considering your position of responsibility
and your experience, that you are among those who are assigned to
supervise the migration of Artonuee from Five."

  Runders brows knit in question. "May I ask, sir, for more details?"

   Rei was leafing through a thick process book. "Yes," he said. "Here it is.
Runder, Assistant Overlord, transferred to Migration Fleet in the capacity
of First Officer."

  Miaree, too, was puzzled. However, she kept her silence, knowing that
Rei would explain.

   "My Lady," Rei said, "this was the subject of the afternoon conference
which I had requested. Runder's problem is connected with the
recommendation which we were to discuss. Would you care to hear it in
brief at this time?" She nodded. "To facilitate the final loading, in
accordance with the joint decision to segregate races aboard the fleet, it is
advised by fleet officials that all Artonuee first be moved to the home
world, leaving New World, Outworld, and Five as assembly points for the
loading of Delanians. Thus, all Artonuee will be in that section of the fleet
which contains the juplee ships. Artonuee and their juplee ships will be a
unit."

  "It is logical," Miaree said.

  "Since the population of Artonuee is lowest on Five," Rei continued, "it
would be best to begin there."

  "I agree," Miaree said. "Does this answer your inquiry, Runder?"

  The young male bowed. "Yes, Lady."

   "The movement of Artonuee from Five to The World will be a dress
rehearsal for the final flight." Rei said. "As you examine your orders,
Runder, you will see specific requests for detailed reports covering many
subjects. Not one of these subjects is unimportant. The information we
can gather during this short movement can be extremely valuable when
we begin the final movement."

  "I understand," Runder said, standing, backing toward the door. "I beg
My Lady's forgiveness for intruding."

  "It was good to see an old friend," Miaree said. "Please feel free to
contact this office at any time." Alone with Rei, she voiced a bright note of
love, smiled. He leaned to touch her lips with his. "Since I'm here." he said,
"I should broach another subject which, I have been told, will be brought
up this afternoon."

   "Oh, Rei, I wish it were over." she said. "I wish it would turn out to be a
dream and that I'd awaken with the smell of the Bloom in my nostrils and
you beside me, back on Outworld."

   "Yes, darling," he said. "But the conference."

   "Damn the conference," she said.

   "The Evacuation Committee is going to make a recommendation to cut
the size of the juplee fleet in half," Rei said.

   Jolted back to reality, she stiffened. "That, of course, is impossible," she
said.

    "Lady, remember that some members of the committee, Argun among
them, were on the Delanian worlds at the end. They saw thousands of their
brothers burned down when, in panic, they tried to storm the ports in an
effort to squeeze aboard the already laden ships. They saw the first of our
worlds begin to smoulder, and the smoke of the planets was the death pyre
of twenty-four billion Delanians. They are not unjust men, but they
question the giving over of so much space to trees and a billion and a half
ifflings."

   "All this has been explained to them," Miaree said. "The transportation
of the ifflings and the source of their food is not open to negotiation."

   "I know," Rei said softly. "But I merely wanted you to be prepared."

  She was prepared. She delayed her entrance to the conference room
until all were present and seated. Then she swept in, robed in official
purple. They rose, Artonuee and Delanians, bowed their heads in respect.
She motioned them to be seated, waited for the shuffling noises to cease.

   "Before we begin," she said, standing regally at the head of the large
table, "I will comment on one item which appears on the agenda. I am
sure that the concern of our Delanian comrades is genuine and without
malice. However, the fact is that we have covered all details of the
transportation of our ifflings, and the subject is no longer open for
discussion. I will add only this. The best minds of our people have worked
for twenty-four years on this problem, and their conclusions cannot be
questioned. One hundred star ships are the absolute minimum required to
transport the juplee forests. Even with the addition of this one hundred to
the number of ships required to transport the entire Artonuee people, the
portion of the fleet alloted to the Artonuee is less than one-sixth the size of
the entire fleet. Proportionally, according to the relative numbers of our
two peoples, we would be entitled to more ships. It is fortunate that the
food and air requirements of the Artonuee are measureably less than those
of the Delanians. Thus we are able to load more Artonuee per ship. While
we have always labored to the utmost to be fair and more than fair, we will
not consider cutting the size of the fuplee and iffling reserves." She sat.
The members of the conference were silent.

   "May we proceed with other business?" she asked, smiling. "The first
item on the agenda deals with the readiness of the star fleet, I believe."

   Argun, President of the Delanians, cleared his throat. "Lady," he said,
and Miaree, looking at Rei, saw Rei's eyes shift quickly to Argun. "Our
scientists, too, have studied the matter of Artonuee reproduction. It is
their conclusion that the continuation of the Artonuee race can be assured
with half the number of ifflings, and thus, half the number of ships
devoted to the growing of juplee trees."

   "Argun," she said. "I have made clear our feeling. It is unthinkable to an
Artonuee not to have an iffling waiting. The ratio has already been
reduced from surplus to one iffling for each Artonuee. Our people would
not agree to such a course of action. There are deep religious
convictions—"

   "Damn religion," Argun said, his deep voice harsh. "We're talking about
the lives of living Delanians, not bugs crawling around eating tree leaves."

   In the shocked silence, Miaree looked wide-eyed at Rei. There was a
pained expression on his face.

   "Let's remember this," Argun said. "Since there are 6 billion of us and
only 1.5 billion of you, we have agreed that all Artonuee go. Do you know
what this means? It means, short of a miracle which I don't think is going
to happen, that over a billion more of our people will have to be left
behind. Over a billion people, sizzling on worlds which are not even their
own. Do you like that picture?"

   He was addressing Miaree. "No, Argun." she said. "It is a terrible
picture."

  "It is a picture which I do not intend to see," Argun said, his voice low.

  "We will continue to build to the end," Rei said. "There is hope."

   "Build with what?" Argun demanded. "Dirt and straw?" He rose. "Our
miners are working in heat which kills. We've burrowed so deeply into five
planets that we're near the heated magma. We've lost ten thousand men
on that damned sun planet. And we're not producing enough metal per six
months to build one star ship."

  "We're putting more ships on the Seberian run," Miaree said.

  The others were quiet, faces moving to follow the three way dialog.

   "The Artonuee female lays six or more eggs," Argun said. "On a fertile
planet the transplanted juplee trees carried by the fleet are capable of
doubling themselves in fifteen years. By cutting the juplee fleet in half we
do not threaten the race. When we find new planets, the iffling population
can be replenished within two years."

   "It is a matter of age-old belief," Miaree said, looking toward Rei for
help.

    "Beliefs change," Argun said harshly. "I have issued orders to convert
fifty juplee ships to carry people. People. Living, intelligent beings."

  "You have ordered," Miaree gasped, standing to face the tall Delanian.
"How dare you?"

   "I dare because there is necessity," Argun said. "I dare because I have
seen enough of my people die."

  "Your orders will be rescinded," Miaree said, her eyes purple with
anger.

   "Other instructions went out with that order." Argun said. "Delanians,
stand."
   Around the table the aliens rose, Rei among them. And as they stood,
the eyes of the Artonuee present were drawn to evil-looking hand weapons,
revealed when the Delanians opened their ceremonial cloaks.

  "You have diverted resources to the making of weapons?" Miaree asked,
unbelieving.

    "They came with us," Argun said. "They occupied little space, added
little weight. Not one Delanian was left behind because of the weapons.
And because of the weapons, not one Delanian will be left behind when the
fleet abandons the Artonuee system."

  "Rei," Miaree whispered, looking at him. He could not meet her eye.
"Oh, Rei."




                 Chapter Twenty-Three

   Five was a world in the grip of organized chaos. With all but official
roller vehicles long since consigned to the smelters to reclaim their metals,
the artificially heated landscape flowered with the brilliance of Artonuee
females moving toward central points. For some, there had been tearful
farewells. For others, fortune had not even allowed that much. With them
now were the stolid males of the race, grey, serious, silent. Already the
shuttles were lifting, burning the atmosphere and gliding out of sight
toward dark space, where the star fleet orbited. From the loading points,
ranks of the huge ships were grouped in squadrons, closely packed. The
laden ships hummed with life. There, inside the metal wombs which
would carry the race through endles space, the sorrow of leave-taking was
eased somewhat by the excitement of discovery, by carefully trained
wardens who ordered and begged and yelled and coaxed the incomers into
their proper compartments.

  Dress rehearsal for the great adventure.

   There in space, where the Fires of God gleamed in deadly nearness, the
Artonuee tasted destiny.

  Below, a heavy, aged male crouched over a workbench, ignoring the
sounds from the outside world. Bertt had been notified. Already his
section of the planet had been evacuated of Artonuee. In the dwelling
around him Delanians prowled, seeking useful objects discarded by the
departing Artonuee. A mile away, a section of the dwelling area burned,
and there were none to halt the spread of the flames. Indeed, there was
little need, for the fires were small in relation to the flames of doom which
flickered in the sky, strong enough now to be visible, dwarfing the distant
sun.

  Bertt worked on.

   "I am Bertt, once Overlord of the Fleet," he had told them when they
stood, armed, on his portal and demanded that he join the others in the
long line toward the shuttle pads.

  "You are Artonuee, and you will leave with the others." he was told.

   But rank had its privileges. A quick call to planet headquarters, and he
was left in peace. Even the Delanians remembered that it was Bertt who
had wedded the convertors to the fusion engine, making possible the giant
ships which sparkled in near space, visible to the naked eye now that
loading was underway.

  Once before he had been given a deadline. Then he had failed.

   There was the possibility of failure now, he admitted, as his shaking
fingers made the last cold connection. What he planned was risky. The
work of a lifetime depended on the function of a tiny loop added to the
altered mires expander before him. That insignificant looking bit, encased
in cold plastics, would have strained Bertt's ability to communicate, had
he been asked to explain. It was the result of months of work, years of
thought, and its simplicity, when added to Bertt's theory, wrought a
tremendous change in the actions of the circuits. Basically, the loop fed
electrons back onto themselves in a uni-field, a closed area which was
physically no bigger than the ball of Bertt's spatulatey fourth finger, but
which had shown infinite capacity in his tests.

  Bertt, himself, did not understand. But it was not necessary to
understand. It was necessary only to make the final test.

  Finished, he called, absently left his communicator on as he waited.
There would be no one there, once he had gone, to use the instrument.
   There was more difficulty as he joined the Artonuee packed into orderly
lines at the shuttle pads, but once again, although he felt guilty to pass up
the staring eyes of his fellows, rank allowed privilege, and he was escorted
by two armed Delanian men to the work shuttle, allowed to carry his small
case containing a few tools and the expander.

  He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that his personal powered flyer
was still in its dock. Then he was inside, moving under control direction
past the shuttles, the waiting star ships with air locks connected to other
shuttles which disgorged Artonuee into the five-mile-long hulls.

   His flight plan had listed Nirrar as his destination, but once free of
Fivegate control, he executed a smooth turn and pointed the rounded nose
of his flyer toward deep space. Once there, he allowed the flyer to drift
powerless as he made the substitution, his altered expander replacing the
mires expander in the flyer's power system.

   Once his fingers would have flown over the work and the change would
have been done in minutes. Now his hands shook with age and the task
was irksome. When it was completed, he rested, his eyes closed, his heart
laboring. When his pulse had slowed, he refreshed himself, then punched
test circuits into play and watched with squinted lids, the results. They
were satisfactory. He breathed deeply, ran the convertor to full power, the
fusion engine giving headway toward deep space. His course had been
planned years previously, a course which punched a straight-line hole
through space for a distance of ten parsecs. The line ended outside the
bounds of the galaxy, near a small, isolated cluster. The distance was
incredibly far, roughly equivalent to the distance which separated the
Artonuee system from the dead worlds of the Delanians, worlds now
consumed in a huge ball of stellar fire which filled that sector of the
galaxy. It was a distance which would take a light twenty ship over a year
and a half to travel.

   Bertt covered the distance in the time it took him to exhale after
activating the drive. He rode, inertialess, on the force of the electrons in
two 0.1-inch cubes of red metal. Against such force even God's Constant
was insignificant. With the activation of the altered mires expander,
changed beyond dreams by Bertt's theory and a small, plastic-enclosed
loop which became a hole in space, Bertt the builder unleashed a new
force into the universe and rode it like a thought down a line ten parsecs
long, and then, waiting for something to happen, not realizing that it had,
he looked out to see a sky unlike any he'd ever known. Ahead and to his left
was the cluster, huge now, individual stars distinct, the nearer ones
disced. Behind him was his galaxy. With the viewer on magnification, he
could see the collisions as the two galaxies edged into each other, the point
of star impact a mass of fire.

   The man who had made infinite star travel possible, the male who,
upon his return, would relieve two races of the necessity of decades,
perhaps centuries of travel in the star ships, that male, Bertt, feeling joy in
his heart, knelt before his flyer's controls and made a prayer to God.

   His prayer of thanks still in his mind, he returned in a wink to the
original position just outside the orbit of gutted Five, performed the
journey again and again, leaping parsecs instantly, not even feeling the
vast power which defied every known physical law. Emboldened by the
ease of it, he calculated an extended course and in the same wink of time
blasted past the distant globular cluster into intergalactic space, there to
see, for the first time, the wheels of the colliding galaxies small in the
viewer's magnification.

   From afar, they were an object of mere astronomical beauty, cold,
distant. It was difficult to think that twenty-four billion minds had
perished there on the Delanian worlds, almost impossible to leave the
triumph of deep space for the sorrow and turmoil of the home worlds. In a
wink, he could be there, in a far galaxy. He could leave it all behind and be
the first Artonuee to explore the vast deeps of the universe.

   But he was Bertt, builder, and he had built the ultimate vehicle, and he
would share his joy with them, his people, and with his friends, the
Artonuee,

   The fusion-powered journey from the orbit of Five to New World and
then down to Government Quad at Nirrar consumed enough time for
Bertt to circumnavigate the known universe.




                   Chapter Twenty-Four

   Miaree lived a nightmare. For the first time in the history of the
Artonuee, the dwelling of the Mother was under armed guard. And the
guards were powerful, uniformed Delanians. Although, on the surface,
nothing had changed, she felt undercurrents of threat, felt fur-tingling
moments of dread.

   "Lady." Rei had assured her, "it is for your own protection. Many of our
people have seen the Fires. Many left the home worlds just ahead of
destruction. They had to bid farewell to friends and sons, knowing that
they would never see them again. Now they are told that the tragedy must
be repeated. True, it will be on a smaller scale, but those who have
experienced the terror, who were lucky enough to be given space on a ship
once, fear with knowledge that they might be selected out this second
time."

  "Does this, then, justify the wanton slaughter of Artonuee on
Outworld?" Miaree asked, shaking her head tiredly.

   "An isolated incident. We moved the Army in as soon as reports of the
violence reached us."

  "The Army," she said. "There is not even such a word in our language."

  Rei turned from her, paced to a viewer, looked down moodily onto the
Quad below.

   "The evacuation from Five continues to be orderly and effective," he
said at last.

   "So it begins," she said. She was thinking of the females of Five, torn
from the arms of the lovers who had become their lives. And a future of
infinite sadness loomed before her.

   "There is much to consider." Rei said. "The Light Twenty Scouts in the
second arm have made astronomical findings which are encouraging.
Their scannings have located no less than five stars whose orbital
movements indicate the presence of planets."

   She would grow old without him. She would seek her iffling in the
confines of a metal ship and not under the warm sun of the Artonuee.
Never again would she walk the Great Bloom. Five Hatchings, and she had
yet to look on the beauty of a living egg.
   On Outworld, the planet of art and beauty, Delanian women had first
torn the wings from and then killed a female caught in a love merge with a
Delanian man. And the violence had spread to terrorize an entire dwelling
area. Now the star ships were converging on Outworld to move those who
loved it most forever, first to The World, then—

   "Old Bertt has been asking for an audience," Rei said. "Have you yet
seen Kim?"

  "I have not been informed." So, at last, he was homecoming. She did
not want to see him, did not want to have to face that last bit of sadness.
Yet, she had invited. "Will you have him called?"

   He was aged and stooped. When she saw him last, he showed his
maturity, and she had not suspected that homecoming was so near for
him; but with a male, especially, the end, once upon him, approached with
astounding suddenness. "Dear Bertt," she said, rising, touching his
shaking arm. "We will provide you with transportation. The fleet lies, half
loaded, off The World. The ifflings crunch happily in the lighted holds.
There you will seed the life which will fly with us."

  "I have waited for five days, Lady," Bertt said.

  "Here?" She was puzzled.

   "First the Delanian guards. Then, when I was passed, the Delanians
below, in the lower levels. Has the Mother, then, been relegated to a small
office in an upper floor, there to consort with her man," he spat the word,
"and forget the greatness of our race?"

   "Discourtesy does not become you," she said, saddened. "I accept your
censure, however, as mine. The duties of the office…" She paused, for there
was a vacant look on Bertt's face. Was there so little time for him?

   "I could have stayed," he said, his lips scarcely moving. "I could have
traveled like the wings of thought to see the heart of the universe, to
search out the nooks and hiding places of creation itself."

   God, she thought, he is already rambling. Then, as she reached out to
him, he straightened, became for a moment the Bertt of old. Pride
gleamed in his eyes. "Let it be recorded," he said, "that an Artonuee male
made it. That Bertt, the builder, did it."
   "Bertt?"

   "You once gave me a month, Lady, to change the known universe. It
took longer, I fear." He chuckled. "But I, Bertt, have flown—no, not flown,
for it is more than that. I have been moved by a power which dwarfs the
fusion engines of the Delanians. I have traveled a hundred parsecs in the
wink of an eye, My Lady."

  There was a feeling about him. She shared it, felt his triumph, believed
him. "Bertt," she whispered. "It works?"

   He nodded, his shoulders slumping. "May I sit, Lady?"

   "Of course," she said, taking his arm to lead him to a chair.

  To share the news, she called a hasty conference. When it was
convened, there were only her Artonuee officials and advisors present.

  "The Delanians sent word that they had more important things," said
Lady Caee.

   "Rei, too?" Miaree asked.

   "He, at least, was more polite," Caee answered. "He begged to be
excused for an hour, until the council of the Delanian chiefs is ended."

  "Perhaps," Miaree said, with a shiver of dread, "it is best that we first
share the joy of Bertt, the builder, among ourselves."

   Bertt stood proudly. His words brought a hush over the gathered
Artonuee.

   When he had finished, it was the priest, Ceelen, who spoke. "God has
indeed forgiven us."

   "Where was God," asked Lady Belle, "when the Delanian women pulled
the wings from dozens of our females?" Belle had changed. Her eyes
brooded purple, her face showed the harsh lines of tension. "Lady Mother,
I respectfully suggest that we consider keeping this an Artonuee secret."
There was a gasp around the table. "Over two hundred Artonuee died on
Outworld, Lady. More will die. I feel it. There is talk in the streets that it
will be Artonuee who face the Fires, not Delanians, as we now believe."
  "That is nonsense," Miaree said.

   "Is it nonsense, Lady," asked Bertt, "to see the Government Quad
swarm with armed Delanians, to see Artonuee excluded from their own
seat of government?"

   "Already, they have struck at the heart of our life, at our most basic
beliefs," said Diere, Overlady of Research. "The order to cut the
juplee-carrying ships by half their number was issued without
consultation with us."

   "Millions of sacred things will perish," said Caee. "If the Delanians are
capable of that, of what else are they capable?"

  "We have worked together, my children," the priest Ceelen said, "but at
what cost?"

   "It is possible, Lady," Bertt said. "The fleets will be segregated. We will
be alone. The necessary hardware can be produced in the ships' shops, and
the installation can be made while in flight. Then, at the appointed time,
the Delanians will merely see nothing. The Artonuee fleet will disappear
into deep space in the wink of a lash, and there, with unlimited mobility,
we can seek new worlds. The universe will be open to us. No longer will we
be faced with the Fires of God, for we can leave these doomed galaxies. We
can seek over numberless parsecs, and in the vast universe find homes
which will see the continuation of Artonuee life for an eternity."'

   "And leave the Delanians to roam empty space at light-times-twenty
for, perhaps, centuries?" She shook her head. "Have you no shame, any of
you?"

   "I have merely to look at our worlds," Caee said. "I have merely to
remember how a young female, wings plucked from her, wept not for her
pain but for the loss of her man. Those of us who are free of the
Delanians"—she cast a meaningful glance toward Miaree—"know that our
relationship with them was a terrible drug which distracted us from our
purpose in life. It is said, among some of our people, that the universal
attempt to bed our Artonuee females was indeed a plot to love us out of
existence. I, for one, do not know whether there was a plot, but there
might as well have been: Delanian-induced sterility in our females was a
fact. No female, on her own, had the will power to sunder herself from her
lover long enough to produce fertile eggs. In a generation, had not the
threat of the Fires forced the Delanians to take more direct action, we
would have been extinct."

    "Nonsense," Miaree said heatedly. "Don't you see, all of you, that dear
Bertt's invention has solved all our problems? We have been allowed a bit
more time, thanks to God. It is enough. If the conversion is so simple, then
it can be accomplished in months. The first ships can be operating on
Bertt's principle within weeks. At speeds which shrink the galaxy to
insignificance, our ships can explore millions of stars. And before it is too
late, before a single Delanian or a single Artonuee dies in the Fire, we can
have located habitable planets. At Bertt's speeds, we can make many trips
to and from those planets. We can move everyone. We can move the entire
juplee forest. We can move the art treasures from Outworld. No one will
die. Don't you see?"

  "Yes." said Ceelen. "It is God's will."




                   Chapter Twenty-Five

   Rei himself almost came to think of it as God's will. Soon, he chuckled,
as he watched the production lines pour out the altered circuits and
hardware for the Bertt Engine, I'll be praying to the God of the Artonuee.
For he had flown in Bertt's own ship, had seen the universe dwindle, had
felt an exultation which filled him even now, as he pursued his new task of
seeing to the installation of the new expanders on all of the fleet.

   But, if the God of the Artonuee was great, that made old Bertt greater,
didn't it? Bertt had beat God at Her own game.

   There was a light in Miaree's eyes. She bloomed. The cares of the past
years seemed to fall from her, leaving her as he had known her first, there
on Outworld. Nor was he the only one to see the light of love and joy in
Artonuee eyes. Quietly, privately, Delanian officials, who had obeyed their
own edict to leave off their delightful activities with the daughters of the
Artonuee, were reclaiming their mistresses. Argun, bellowing with
pleasure, had immediately summoned his favorite.

  The news had been spread. The sense of fear and doom which had hung
over the five worlds was lessened to an almost carnival atmosphere. The
evacuation of Artonuee from Outworld and New World, under way, was
proceeding in a spirit of good will and the lines of boarding Artonuee
could be heard to sing.

   No one was happier than Rei. A terrible burden had been lifted from
him. No longer would he be forced to hide his true feelings from Miaree.
In short weeks, they would embark together on the greatest of all
adventures. Together, they would explore the universe.

   At the end of a rewarding day, he made his way to her rooms and there,
in a glow of love, idled away the evening, resenting it with all his heart
when the communication room allowed a call from Argun to be put
through. He was a Delanian, and when he was called by his President, he
went.

   He found Argun with his female, nude, sated. The female was
dismissed, and she smiled back at them as she stepped lightly from the
room. Argun shrugged into a robe and drank. "Damn." he said, "I'm glad I
found that one. She's a freak. Two sets of those incredible muscles." He
laughed with gusto. "She's pleased as hell that she's going on the ship with
me."

  "Oh?" Rei asked. "I've seen no indication that the segregation order has
been rescinded."

   "Damn, man, you've had it good. While the rest of us were going
without Artonuee cunt for the sake of appearances, you were warming the
bed of one of the best-looking bugs I've seen."

  Rei hid his displeasure.

   "Sure," Argun said. "I'm taking her. She's young. Just off The World.
Just finished her education. She'll last me the rest of my life before she
fades."

  "Will others be granted this same privilege?" Rei asked. For the
question of his being with Miaree on the flight was still unresolved. As
Mother of all the Artonuee she could order him to be with her, but he
knew she would not do so unless the same was allowed for all her sisters.

  "We'll have room for almost a million of them," Argun said. "Mostly
female, although some of the higher placed women might want to take
along a little male pet."

  Rei felt his neck tingle. He felt cold. "That's changed, sir. That's all
changed."

   Argun roared. "Damn, boy, I told you long ago that you're too soft.
You've let this female-dominated society get to you." He looked directly
into Rei's eye. "Nothing has changed. From the time you submitted your
first report to me, outlining your plan to fuck the Artonuee out of
existence by loving hell out of all the females, it hasn't changed. Damn,
man, our women won't stand still for this type of crap forever. We've got
the universe open to us. You want to throw away the chance to populate it
with Delanians because of a sweet little bug with an active cunt?"




                     Chapter Twenty-Six

   "Lady," said Diere, Overlady of Research, "it is a curious thing, this. I
have been checking the reports of the Light Twenty Scout ships which
have for years past been searching the near stars for habitable planets. I
discover that all of the scouts now on station are manned by our people, by
Artonuee males. And it has struck me that times have changed. In years
past, we females were the daring ones, the flyers. Males plodded on the
earth and, at best, worked the mining drivers and operated the slow,
ponderous shuttle craft."

   "It is for the best," Miaree said wearily. "We have learned well from the
Delanians. Now male and female work side by side in our society as in
theirs." Then she paused, mused. "All scouts on station are flown by
Artonuee?"

   "Here is the list," Diere said.

   She took the duppaper copies and ran her eyes down. The most distant
scouts were years of travel time from the home worlds. All of the small
ships were flown by Artonuee. A terrible thought came to her, a thought
which she would not, could not accept. Instead, she tossed her head and
smiled. "We must send orders for all of them to return. Their slow
progress through the stars is no longer necessary. See to it, Diere." On
second thought. "Make a memo to Rei to suggest that during their
scouting runs the new Bertt ships rendezvous with the most distant scouts
and pick them up."

  "It will be done." Diere said.

   The evacuation of Outworld was complete. A full half of the total
number of Artonuee were back home. The shuttles were at work all over
New World, lifting the remaining Artonuee to the waiting star ships for
the short trip to the home planet. In Government Quad, thousands of
clerks were transferring the records of the Artonuee to microtape so that
history would ride with the race on the journey into the distant stars. The
seat of Artonuee government would soon be abandoned, the Mother
herself taking her place with her people on The World.

   Rei was absent, with the fleet at Five. Although she missed him with all
her heart, she was proud that her man was taking such a vital part in this
moment of history. Rei would plan and dispatch the Bertt ships to move
instantly through the galaxy. Miaree was confident that within a short
time the good news would come winging back, the news of the discovery of
a suitable number of good planets. Then, with time to spare, the
movement of peoples would begin, the huge ships making trip after trip,
shifting populations and their goods. Nothing need be left behind.

   She busied herself checking the lists being prepared by her staff, lists of
government files and machinery which would be salvaged once the point
of destination had been determined. She would move only those records
necessary for immediate administration to The World for the brief stay
there. Later, the entire bulk of government would be moved, intact, to a
new home on a new world.

   It was a time-consuming task. Meanwhile, she was kept abreast of
evacuation on the planet and was pleased to see that it went smoothly. The
efficient Delanians had learned well from the evacuation of Five and
Outworld, and a planet was emptied of its original inhabitants within
weeks of the beginning of the movement. She herself waited only for the
return of Rei, to hear his personal report of the departure of the first Bertt
ships to seek new worlds.

  From her high rooms, she could look down onto the spaces of the Quad.
There was an eerie feeling of strangeness about it, for there were only
Delanians there. Another Artonuee world had been given over, if only
temporarily, to the aliens.

    Once, while resting, she saw a lone female, wings exposed in the style of
the Delanian-mated, being escorted by a tall man. She knew that some
alliances had been renewed when the news of Bertt's miraculous
breakthrough was announced, but she noted that where the pair walked,
the heads of Delanian women followed them. She shuddered involuntarily,
thinking of the violent treatment of Artonuee females on Outworld.

   She was isolated in her tower. She had communication with the
administration offices on The World, but feeling rather guilty for not
being there, she left the settlement of her people on their home world to
assistants. She was, she knew, being frightfully self indulgent by staying on
New World, but she rationalized her failure to be with her people by
telling herself that it was important that the first lady know all details of
the explorations. This time of trial and sadness would pass, and on new
worlds the Artonuee, the universe opened to them, would rise to a
greatness never before dreamed.

   It was old Bertt who brought the terrible news. He had been
supervising the installation of the last new expanders. He flew into Nirrar
in his own vehicle, forced his way through the armed guards at no little
cost to his temper and his dignity, and faced her, his male eyes reddened
with madness.

   "Lady," he said, his voice strange, "star ships are being loaded on both
Five and Outworld."

  "The explorers," Miaree said.

  "Population," Bertt said. "Delanians."

   Her hand at her throat, she felt weakness. "There must be a reason,"
she said.

  "Even now the final off-loading of Artonuee is being completed on The
World." Bertt said. "Do you have explanation for this, Lady?"

   Miaree, fighting the dread, punched the communicator. "Please get me
Fleet Overlord Rei, on the planet Five." she ordered, her voice firm in spite
of her fears.
   "Sorry, baby," a male Delanian voice said. "They've taken away all your
toys."

  "I beg your pardon?" Miaree said. "Where is Tanle, my
communications officer? I want to speak with her."

  "There is no one here," the voice said. The communicator fell silent.

   Eyes darkened with fear and rage, she ran to the door, into the hallway.
Diere's office was empty. The personal art objects always clearly visible on
Diere's desk were missing. As she ran out of the empty office, she almost
screamed with delight, for Rei was coming out of the lift, tall, handsome.
Rei would explain. Rei would reprimand the Delanians below who had
been discourteous. Rei would assure her that Bertt's information was not
what it seemed. She ran to him, threw herself into his arms. He held her
close, and then looked down into her disturbed eyes.

   Bertt stood in the doorway of Miaree's office. Looking over Miaree's
head, Rei saw the grimness of the old male's face. "You know, then," he
said softly to Miaree.

  The Fires of God would have been more merciful. They, at least, would
have been quick and final. In the Fires, she would not have become a
walking dead female.

  "Why?" she asked simply, not weeping.

  "It was not my decision," he said. "You must believe that."

  "Please," she said. "I want to be with my people, if you don't mind."

  "No," he said gently.

  She looked into his eyes.

  "You may take anything you like, things of a personal nature." Rei said.
"We will be together."

  "And my people?" she asked.

  "You told me once, Miaree, of the extermination of the animals of The
World."
  "We are not animals," she said calmly.

  "No, of course you are not. But there was a choice. It was a terrible
choice. The decision of our leaders was dictated by the death of
twenty-four billion Delanians."

  "But there is time. The new ships—"

  "I asked them to give you just one ship," he said. "I begged them. I
begged for just one ship to allow the race to live."

  "We can find planets. We can shuttle people. There is time."

   He shook his head sadly. "Our people are filled with fear. The Fires can
be seen, as they were seen on the home worlds. We began the loading on
Five to prevent the outbreak of a popular uprising."

  "In the name of God," she said, "there is room in the universe for all."

   "Once we had gods. There was a god for every purpose. The gods lived
up there, in the Fires. When we were a young race and saw the Fires
moving gradually, slowly, crawling toward us, our cultists rejoiced and
said that the gods were favoring us, moving their dwelling to be nearer our
planet. When we went into space on primitive rockets, it was to search for
the gods, and we found only cold death and terrible vacuum. By then we
understood that there were no gods living in the Fires unless they ate
ionized electrons and thrived on hard radiation and swam on the seas of a
burning star. There is no God, Miaree, only radiation and cold and fire
and death and the accident of life, which is precious only to those who are
strong enough to fight for it. We have fought and we have lost. We have
paid a terrible price in dead, and we have learned that the universe is
basically inhospitable to life and only the strongest will survive.

   "The decision to abandon the Artonuee was not coldly selfish. There is
real doubt that your race would survive transplanting. Your life chain is
fragile, depending on an exact set of conditions, soil, air, sun, which may
not be matchable anywhere in the universe. The percentage of rare earths
in the soil of The World is a unique situation. Have you never wondered
why the juplee forests were confined to The World, why it was necessary to
lavish constant care on the trees which were taken, for example, to
Outworld, for decorative and spiritual purposes? No. It was decided, by
those in command, that moving the Artonuee was a gamble. And we
would have been gambling with over a billion more Delanian lives. It is
regrettable and tragic, but there is no escape from the basic fact that we
Delanians are more suited for the rigors of space and planet change."

  She had ceased to listen. She had pulled away, looking at him in horror.
Behind her, Bertt was weeping silently. She turned to him, took his arm.

  "I will come for you," Rei said. "And for the worthy Bertt, who will rest
here with you until it is time."

   She escorted the old male to her chambers, seated him comfortably.
His eyes were wet with his weeping. "It was I," he said. "I made it possible.
First I gave them the union of convertor and fusion, then I gave them the
power of unopposed electrons. It was I who gave, My Lady."

   "Yes, yes, you meant well, Bertt. You are not to be blamed."

    He dried his eyes, his cheeks. A strength seemed to flow into his old
body. There was a look of pride and decision on his face. "I gave," he said,
"but I saw the contempt on their faces. Once, while I was Overlord of the
Fleet, I heard workers talking. 'All of the bugs,' they said; they called us
bugs, a Delanian word full of derision. 'All of the bugs are going,' they said.
And I recognized then the basis of our relationship, but I would not admit
it. I worked with Untell. I shared my bed with Untell and it was good. And
I would not open my eyes to see that they were using us, that they were
taking the last resources of our worlds, using our worlds as a base for a
further leap away from the Fires. There were jokes, even then, about loving
the Artonuee out of existence. But I told myself that a great race, a race
which could reach the stars, could not commit such a vast conspiracy."

   "Have you thought, dear Bertt, that our priests have been proven
right?" She was numb. Her heart beat, but she was dead. "Nothing has
changed, really. Before they came we were to face the Fires. Now we still
face the Fires. It is even ironically fitting that we face them on the old
world, the home planet."

   Bertt seemed not to hear. He sat straight, eyes hard, glittering. "I would
not believe until, finished with the installation of my gift on all the star
ships, I saw with my own eyes the loading of Delanians on Five. And then I
praised that male jealousy which had forced me to do it."

   "What did you do?"
   "Do you think we males have enjoyed seeing you, our Mother, seeing
our females going to the Delanian men with such joy? Oh, we took the
lesser prize, the Delanian women, and we told ourselves that we were
enjoying the best of two worlds, for the women were ever ready for
pleasure and the eternal stink of pleele, the stifling smell of our females'
constant readiness-yes, I say stink. Once it was a pleasure, but in massive
amounts as it radiated out from all females, it became a stink in our
nostrils and it insured our own constant readiness, which we burned on
the bodies of the fleshy women. And we knew in our hearts that the
pleasures of flesh were not God's will, not the destiny of the Artonuee, and
we grieved privately. And I thought of this as I designed the fleet. Thank
God, I thought of it."

  "I don't understand," Miaree said.

   "You will, my daughter. They need me, for I alone know the secrets of
the altered expanders. So I will be carried along, a prize, a slave, a worker
to teach their technicians the secrets of my inventions. You will go—"

  "No," she said.

  "Yes, you must. I am too old. I might fail, there in the depths of space. I
might seek my iffling and find no iffling to accept the life force which cries
out to be exchanged. And then you will have to complete the job."

   "What job?" She stood before him. "Are these just the ramblings of an
old male? Explain to me, Bertt. Tell me."

  "When the time is right," Bertt said, and would speak no more.




                 Chapter Twenty-Seven

   Poised in deep space off the orbit of Five, the fleet stretched into the
distance, its numbers, rank on rank, assembled in order, under the direct
control of the flagship on the center point. Behind it, four worlds were
empty. A fifth, The World, swarmed with the total population of the
Artonuee. There, hunger stalked, for a gutted world, its surface scarred by
strip mining, its resources melted now into the metal hides of the fleet,
could not support the race. The mutilated juplee forests were but a
fraction of their former glory. Artonuee died and their loves were dead
with them, their life force wasted, fading into empty air in the absence of
ifflings; for in the end, the loaded iffling ships had belched their sacred
cargo out into a spiral orbit leading to eventual disintegration in the sun.
A forest of juplee, emptied into cold space, made but a minor ripple on the
surface of the Artonuee star. Ifflings, long dead in the vacuum, were mere
motes as they were drawn into the furnace.

   Her cubicle was small. She was allowed freedom, but she was among
aliens who looked at her and resented her presence. There were others of
her kind, the mistresses of the high officials, but when she passed them
she lowered her eyes, shamed to be one of them. Bertt was there, treated
with a certain condescending honor. Once she heard Argun speak to the
old male.

   "Good work," the tall Delanian said, when Bertt had finished an
adjustment to the expander. "I'm glad you're here to see it."

    Then, when Bertt, older and weaker, had shambled away, Argun
laughed. "Of course, we'd have discovered it sooner or later, eh? And after
all, he probably laid the foundation for it when he was working with our
Untell."

   Bertt seemed to accept the situation. He was interested in nothing but
his work. A short jump was scheduled to test the central control system;
the fleet had never operated as a unit, and in order to maintain contact in
the spaces between galaxies—it having been announced that the plan was
to leave the stricken galaxies far behind and seek entire new
universes—the expanders of all ships were now linked to central control.
The short test jump was calculated to end within distances which could be
covered by communication, thus allowing any ship left behind by a
malfunctioning expander to rejoin the fleet.

   There was perfection. With the touch of a button, Bertt sent a fleet
numbering in six figures, possessing a mass equal to that of a small
planet, leaping the specified distance to come out of the jump in perfect
formation, not one ship out of line.

   On a course plotted to close on a distant galaxy across parsecs of space,
the fleet leaped again, taking the distance in fractions of the total journey,
lest miscalculation send the fleet, like a colliding galaxy, into the midst of
dense stars. It was then, at the end of the first huge jump, that a minor
malfunction disrupted instruments at the control center on the flagship.
There was a worried look on the cold face of Argun as Bertt ran tests with
his slow, shaking fingers. After a series of adjustments, Bertt stood erect.

   "I will need the aid of an Artonuee," he said. "We have techs who can
help you," Argun said.

  "The female, Miaree," Bertt insisted. "It is a delicate adjustment
needing the abilities of the Artonuee eye. Bring her."

   She was summoned from her cubicle. She had not seen Rei since the
loading, but he was there, standing beside Bertt in front of the exposed
wiring of the console. She averted her eyes.

   Bertt spoke to her in the language of the Artonuee, a mixture of
thought and sound undetectable to the alien ears. He chose his words
carefully, not using sounds which could have given any clue to his
meaning. His words were old, old language, bringing with them a glow of
pride. Even in defeat, Miaree saw, the Artonuee were great.

  "It is time, Mother Miaree."

   At first she thought that he was speaking personally, for his face was
gaunt and strained. His physical movements were slow and tortured. For
weeks he had seemed to live on will alone, long past his appointed time,
far from the ravaged world of the ifflings.

    But, no. Speaking now in Delanian, he said, "I require a measure of the
field of the fleet. My flyer is based in Scout Bay Five. Board it. Remove
yourself to a distance of—"

  "Hold it," Argun said. "That can be done by a man."

   "Can the eyes of a man see a magnetic field?" Bertt asked. He turned
his back on the tall man. "When you are at the assigned point, we will
communicate."

   She looked toward Argun for confirmation. Her heart pounded.
Although Bertt had not explained his reasons, she sensed that the time,
the time he had promised, was near.
  "We must hurry," he said. "Hurry, my daughter. I fail."

  "Speak Delanian, damn you," Argun said.

   Ignoring him, Bertt caught himself, lest he fall in weakness. "You will
teach them, my Mother Miaree. You will return home."

  "Stop that damned squeaking," Argun said angrily.

  Miaree bowed respectfully toward the leader. "He is old, Lord. His mind
rambles."

  "Then move, bitch, before he dies on us," Argun ordered.

   As she turned, her eyes flashed across his face. There was a coldness
there. The coldness was ice in her heart. The flyer to be used for scouting
was an old Bertt, Class VI, improved. Conversion had been so rapid that
time had not allowed for removal of its sails. After it was expelled from the
lock of the star ship it handled beautifully.

   She had not been in a flyer, alone in space, for many years. Space was
dark and warmer than the hearts of the Delanians. It was familiar. It was
loved. With deft fingers she burned the fusion engine, took her position.
She saw the fleet through the viewer, individual ships magnified to the
size of her fingertips. The units of the fleet covered volumes of space, each
squadron separated by a distance which once would have taken days to,
travel. She activated her communication system.

  "I am in position," she said.

  It was Rei's voice. "The old man is ill."

  "God," breathed Miaree silently.

  "Wait," Rei said. "I will hold the communicator to his mouth."

   "Tell them," she heard in Artonuee. "Tell them." There were shuffling
sounds, Bertt's voice, weak, quavering, speaking Delanian now, "Hold me
to the console."

  "He is standing," Rei said.

  "Expanding," Bertt mumbled. "Read, daughter."
   With tears in her eyes, knowing his terrible pain, she read the field of
the fleet, her eyes opening to see. She reported.

  "Jump… one-tenth unit…" He was speaking Artonuee.

  She heard Argun's harsh voice. "Now wait a minute," he said.

   She jumped. She turned the flyer. The fleet was now distant, tiny in the
viewer.

  "Time." she heard the weak, tired voice say. "Tell—"

  "He has fainted." Rei said. "What else did he want, Miaree?"

  "I don't know." she said. Was it, then, to end like this?

  "He speaks." Rei said. "Wait."

  "I cannot…" Bertt said, his voice weak. "I fail, Mother."

   "You cannot fail," she said, Her voice musical, sweet, in the native
language. "Bertt, hear me. There is one thing to do. You alone know.
Speak. Move, Bertt. Stand for one last time."

  "I cannot, Lady. But the power is also yours. On the expander controls
you will see… a switch."

  "Bertt…"

  Silence.

  "He is dead, Miaree."

  "God rest," she said.

   She was an old flyer hand. She had noted the switch. And the tiny
symbol engraved on it, the ancient, religious symbol denoting God's Fires.
Hidden under an overhanging bank of controls, it would have defied a
casual glance from any but Artonuee. And she had guessed.

  She, too, had the power.

  Before her, the fleet stretched, its squadrons ordered. Six billion beings
breathed and felt fears and knew hopes and enjoyed the love which was
now denied her.

  "Miaree, you may return. He is dead."

  Rei's voice.

  Rei's living voice, living after him.

   The lag of long seconds as his voice came at light speed brought his last
words to her just ahead of the birth of a thousand new stars in the velvet
blackness of intergalactic space. Rei himself was gone before his words
came to her, was nothing more than scattered particles before the fires
blossomed.

   The old male, knowing well the forces trapped within his cold plastic
holes which led into a space not known to the universe, knowing the
destructive forces of unopposed electrons in the millions of cubes of soft
metal which were a vital part of all the fleet's expanders, knowing all this,
and knowing, too, his long, logical hatred, the old male had planned well.
Unchanneled, the incredible forces of unopposed electrons had, with the
touch of her finger on a tiny switch, returned sanity to a universe gone
mad.

   The vast explosions had imparted motion before total disintegration.
The vectors were random, scattering the electrons of the fleet in a flaring
pattern which moved away from the home galaxies in the direction of the
expansion of the universe.

   The released energies rushed out toward her distant flyer at sub-light
speeds, giving her moments to watch in awe as the final construction of
Bertt, the builder, avenged the Artonuee.

   Yes, she would tell them. She would tell her people that they did not
face doom in vain. She would tell them that their betrayal by those who
had used love against them was avenged. She would say that the God of
the Artonuee, although vengeful, was still God, allowing this one last
gesture by Her doomed people. She would return to the ravaged planets
and await, with her people, the Fires, knowing that the Delanians had
howled themselves into oblivion before her.

  Proud, straight in the control seat of the flyer, she watched the growing
bloom of fire. She allowed herself only one moment of sadness. In that
moment she saw his face, as he had looked that first night on Outworld.

  Rei.

  But nothing had changed. God had promised Fire. The coming of the
Delanians had not changed, had only seemed to alter the inevitable. The
Artonuee had seen the coming of an alien race, had loved with its
members, had hoped; and there were still the Fires.

  Miaree, proud Artonuee female, sat with exposed wings, with straight
back.

  God was God and was triumphant.

  But there remained one final moment before she went home, there to
muse, to repent, to communicate with that silent, all-powerful God.

   In the early days, an ancient sister Artonuee had flown in space, using
the wings of a sun, committing the original sin and exulting in it.

   In the moments of the last days, a large-eyed, beautiful, prideful
Artonuee female once again defied God. There were no tears as she
watched the spread of the paroxysm which, in the wink of an eye,
destroyed a race. There was a selfish, very Artonueeistic glow of exuberant
joy as the debris of a fleet and of six billion Delanians and one old, tired,
dead male Artonuee swept out toward the Bertt flyer, sails set, waiting to
ride the whirlwind of the most titanic storm since the birth of the
universe.




                  Chapter Twenty-Eight

   Ahxender has prepared some figures for us, my young friends.
Perhaps they will be of interest even to those among you who, according
to my informants, are having difficulty in electronic theory. Although I,
being merely a literature teacher, have difficulty comprehending the
theory of electricity—for the life of me I don't understand how something
can move without anything moving—Alaxender sports the highest marks
in his classes and he assures me that there is small chance of error in his
figures.

   The young man of Trojan has also written something regarding a
new dimension, pertaining to what is called, in the text, Bertt's cold
plastic hole in space; but such theories befuddle me even more than the
proven ones, so we will confine ourselves to this. According to Alaxender,
the soft metal used by Bertt could be nothing other than common copper.
And much is known about that metal. For example, it is a fundamental
law that an electron at rest, in copper, exerts a certain force on every
other electron at rest, repelling its fellows in inverse proportion to the
square of the distance between them. This force is measurable; it is
8.038 x 10 to the -26 pounds.

  When I first read young Alaxender's explanation of Bertt's Engine, I
asked him, 'If there is such immense force there, why isn't every piece of
copper blasted apart by it?' He assures me—and I am pleased to learn it,
having an aversion to being penetrated by frying particles of
copper—that there is a counter force, represented by a proton. A proton
exactly balances an electron, very exactly indeed. If the repulsion of the
protons were not exactly balanced against that of the electrons, then we
could have a release of some rather impressive forces.

   More figures, my young friends: We have read, in translation, the
value of the force generated by the mutual repulsion of electrons in two
one-tenth-of-an-inch cubes of copper placed one inch from each other.
That force was six hundred billion tons. I hesitate to attempt the simple
multiplication of the force if the cubes of copper had been, say, one inch
to a side, much less six inches or a foot.

   Alaxender assures me that, given the correctness of the translation,
the force used by Bertt to drive his star ships and to destroy the
Delanians could have been none other than that of the electrons in
copper, somehow released by neutralizing the balancing force of the
protons.

   I am not qualified to comment on this. Others have commented,
endlessly, before us. I understand that vast amounts of money have been
spent in an effort to duplicate Bertt's discovery without success. I do not
know enough about either subject to venture an opinion (I refer not only
to our research, but also to Alaxender's conclusion that it was electron
force which pushed the star ships.) Frankly, I don't see any reason for us
to seek such power, the blink drive being as efficient as it is, and
hydrogen power being as easily produced as it is.

   About LaConius' conclusion that the Q.S.S. phenomenon is explained
by the legend, I make no statement beyond saying that perhaps the
computer translators erred in the rendering of the title of this small
volume. Could it be The Story of Miaree? Could it be The Life of Miaree?
Or do we accept what literature classes have accepted for years and
continue to call this book The Legend of Miaree?

   If it is legend, why were the vast research projects instituted in an
effort to discover Bertt's power?

  Ah, but I express an opinion, after all.

   There will be no class tomorrow. You may use this time to begin your
final papers on the work, we have just completed. Now, shall we break
five minutes early? My favorite table in the dining hall has been usurped,
of late, by a certain chemistry teacher. Today, perhaps, I can take
possession before she arrives.