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
