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 encourag
ing. 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.
The Legend of Miaree Page 15