The Legend of Miaree

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.