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.
