The Legend of Miaree

Chapter Nineteen

Five’s nightside sparkled with the lights of industry. The atmosphere, artificially thickened to produce a greenhouse effect, caused the glow to be diffused, hid the equatorial low lands, behind their huge dikes, under swirls of cloud. Incoming from New World and Mother Miaree’s first

top-level conference, Bertt swung his flyer into dayside, called Fivegate for landing clearance, and then, waiting, let his eyes feast on the inspiring sight of a million star ships, lined up like great beasts of black space in a holding orbit.

The construction area, just past Fivegate, was visible as he landed. Cargo shuttles crowded the gate, idle. Bertt walked rapidly to the control center. A star ship from the ore planets of Seberian was within communications range. Soon the smelters would glow again and work could continue on the hundreds of ships in various stages of completion.

In spite of the hectic events of the past twenty years, Bertt was still uncomfortable in closed spaces. Although it was gratifying to be able to man a powered flyer, he was not a space nut. And the closed atmosphere of the gate was heavy in his mind. He boarded a shuttle as quickly as possible, and already anticipating a few hours of luxurious freedom from responsibility, began to draw, for perhaps the millionth-plus time, the circuits of a mires expander in his mind.

Once he had seen the release of unbelievable power.

Once, with his Delanian friend, Untell, he had been on the verge of the greatest discovery of all.

Delanian power was an improvement. And the combination of the converters and the Delanian power had reduced the shuttle ride to planetside to minutes. Great strides had been taken in space travel. Still, the two cooperating races faced an uncertain future of star-roving in that ponderous fleet which was being assembled in orbit around Five.

He was thinking of the prospect of finishing out his allotted time in a closed atmosphere. Huge as the star ships were, he, lover of spaces and the lost solitude of his old world, did not relish the idea of a lifetime of imprisonment in a star ship.

Because of his position and his need for privacy, he had been allowed to keep his old dwelling. It was small, but it sat in the midst of an acre of undisturbed land. And adjoining it was the old workshop where he had designed and built the finest flyers ever to ride the solar winds. He ate the tasteful synthetics, sipped synthetic jenk, dozed in his chair to recover from the shock of planet change, but his mind would not be idle.

The dream was always with him.

They had been so close.

A year and they would have had it. Working with Untell, he, Bertt, would have created a source of power so vast that the universe would have been opened to exploration.

Sighing, he rose and stretched tiredly. He shrugged into a work garment and trudged into the shop. He mused before his bench for long minutes, his eyes following the convolutions of the incredibly complicated circuitry of the altered expander which had once released the energies of the electrons in two tiny cubes of soft metal. Once, twice, three times he had watched with the same results. A significant and measurable channeling of the force and then disintegration.

Where had they gone wrong?

He had traced the theory in its complications thousands of times. He traced it once again. In the mind, on duppaper, it worked. What was the hidden fault?

When his assistant came in search of him next morning, Bertt was discovered sleeping, his head on the workbench. The assistant smiled sadly. The old man was still playing with his toy.