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
