The Legend of Miaree

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Poised in deep space off the orbit of Five, the fleet stretched into the distance, its numbers, rank on rank, assembled in order, under the direct control of the flagship on the center point. Behind it, four worlds were empty. A fifth, The World, swarmed with the total population of the Artonuee. There, hunger stalked, for a gutted world, its surface scarred by strip mining, its resources melted now into the metal hides of the fleet, could not support the race. The mutilated juplee forests were but a fraction of their former glory. Artonuee died and their loves were dead with them, their life force wasted, fading into empty air in the absence of ifflings; for in the end, the loaded iffling ships had belched their sacred cargo out into a spiral orbit leading to eventual disintegration in the sun. A forest of juplee, emptied into cold space, made but a minor ripple on the surface of the Artonuee star. Ifflings, long dead in the vacuum, were mere motes as they were drawn into the furnace.

Her cubicle was small. She was allowed freedom, but she was among aliens who looked at her and resented her presence. There were others of her kind, the mistresses of the high officials, but when she passed them she lowered her eyes, shamed to be one of them. Bertt was there, treated with a certain condescending honor. Once she heard Argun speak to the old male.

"Good work," the tall Delanian said, when Bertt had finished an adjustment to the expander. "I’m glad you’re here to see it."

Then, when Bertt, older and weaker, had shambled away, Argun laughed. "Of course, we’d have discovered it sooner or later, eh? And after all, he probably laid the foundation for it when he was working with our Untell."

Bertt seemed to accept the situation. He was interested in nothing but his work. A short jump was scheduled to test the central control system; the fleet had never operated as a unit, and in order to maintain contact in the spaces between galaxies—it having been announced that the plan was to leave the stricken galaxies far behind and seek entire new universes—the expanders of all ships were now linked to central control. The short test jump was calculated to end within distances which could be covered by communication, thus allowing any ship left behind by a malfunctioning expander to rejoin the fleet.

There was perfection. With the touch of a button, Bertt sent a fleet numbering in six figures, possessing a mass equal to that of a small planet, leaping the specified distance to come out of the jump in perfect formation, not one ship out of line.

On a course plotted to close on a distant galaxy across parsecs of space, the fleet leaped again, taking the distance in fractions of the total journey, lest miscalculation send the fleet, like a colliding galaxy, into the midst of

dense stars. It was then, at the end of the first huge jump, that a minor malfunction disrupted instruments at the control center on the flagship. There was a worried look on the cold face of Argun as Bertt ran tests with his slow, shaking fingers. After a series of adjustments, Bertt stood erect.

"I will need the aid of an Artonuee," he said. "We have techs who can help you," Argun said.

"The female, Miaree," Bertt insisted. "It is a delicate adjustment needing the abilities of the Artonuee eye. Bring her."

She was summoned from her cubicle. She had not seen Rei since the loading, but he was there, standing beside Bertt in front of the exposed wiring of the console. She averted her eyes.

Bertt spoke to her in the language of the Artonuee, a mixture of thought and sound undetectable to the alien ears. He chose his words carefully, not using sounds which could have given any clue to his meaning. His words were old, old language, bringing with them a glow of pride. Even in defeat, Miaree saw, the Artonuee were great.

"It is time, Mother Miaree."

At first she thought that he was speaking personally, for his face was gaunt and strained. His physical movements were slow and tortured. For weeks he had seemed to live on will alone, long past his appointed time, far from the ravaged world of the ifflings.

But, no. Speaking now in Delanian, he said, "I require a measure of the field of the fleet. My flyer is based in Scout Bay Five. Board it. Remove yourself to a distance of—"

"Hold it," Argun said. "That can be done by a man."

"Can the eyes of a man see a magnetic field?" Bertt asked. He turned his back on the tall man. "When you are at the assigned point, we will communicate."

She looked toward Argun for confirmation. Her heart pounded. Although Bertt had not explained his reasons, she sensed that the time, the time he had promised, was near.

"We must hurry," he said. "Hurry, my daughter. I fail."

"Speak Delanian, damn you," Argun said.

Ignoring him, Bertt caught himself, lest he fall in weakness. "You will teach them, my Mother Miaree. You will return home."

"Stop that damned squeaking," Argun said angrily.

Miaree bowed respectfully toward the leader. "He is old, Lord. His mind rambles."

"Then move, bitch, before he dies on us," Argun ordered.

As she turned, her eyes flashed across his face. There was a coldness there. The coldness was ice in her heart. The flyer to be used for scouting was an old Bertt, Class VI, improved. Conversion had been so rapid that time had not allowed for removal of its sails. After it was expelled from the lock of the star ship it handled beautifully.

She had not been in a flyer, alone in space, for many years. Space was dark and warmer than the hearts of the Delanians. It was familiar. It was loved. With deft fingers she burned the fusion engine, took her position. She saw the fleet through the viewer, individual ships magnified to the size of her fingertips. The units of the fleet covered volumes of space, each squadron separated by a distance which once would have taken days to, travel. She activated her communication system.

"I am in position," she said.

It was Rei’s voice. "The old man is ill."

"God," breathed Miaree silently.

"Wait," Rei said. "I will hold the communicator to his mouth."

"Tell them," she heard in Artonuee. "Tell them." There were shuffling sounds, Bertt’s voice, weak, quavering, speaking Delanian now, "Hold me to the console."

"He is standing," Rei said.

"Expanding," Bertt mumbled. "Read, daughter."

With tears in her eyes, knowing his terrible pain, she read the field of the fleet, her eyes opening to see. She reported.

"Jump... one-tenth unit." He was speaking Artonuee.

She heard Argun’s harsh voice. "Now wait a minute," he said.

She jumped. She turned the flyer. The fleet was now distant, tiny in the viewer.

"Time." she heard the weak, tired voice say. "Tell—"

"He has fainted." Rei said. "What else did he want, Miaree?"

"I don’t know." she said. Was it, then, to end like this?

"He speaks." Rei said. "Wait."

"I cannot." Bertt said, his voice weak. "I fail, Mother."

"You cannot fail," she said, Her voice musical, sweet, in the native language. "Bertt, hear me. There is one thing to do. You alone know. Speak. Move, Bertt. Stand for one last time."

"I cannot, Lady. But the power is also yours. On the expander controls you will see. a switch."

"Bertt."

Silence.

"He is dead, Miaree."

"God rest," she said.

She was an old flyer hand. She had noted the switch. And the tiny symbol engraved on it, the ancient, religious symbol denoting God’s Fires. Hidden under an overhanging bank of controls, it would have defied a casual glance from any but Artonuee. And she had guessed.

She, too, had the power.

Before her, the fleet stretched, its squadrons ordered. Six billion beings

breathed and felt fears and knew hopes and enjoyed the love which was now denied her.

"Miaree, you may return. He is dead."

Rei’s voice.

Rei’s living voice, living after him.

The lag of long seconds as his voice came at light speed brought his last words to her just ahead of the birth of a thousand new stars in the velvet blackness of intergalactic space. Rei himself was gone before his words came to her, was nothing more than scattered particles before the fires blossomed.

The old male, knowing well the forces trapped within his cold plastic holes which led into a space not known to the universe, knowing the destructive forces of unopposed electrons in the millions of cubes of soft metal which were a vital part of all the fleet’s expanders, knowing all this, and knowing, too, his long, logical hatred, the old male had planned well. Unchanneled, the incredible forces of unopposed electrons had, with the touch of her finger on a tiny switch, returned sanity to a universe gone mad.

The vast explosions had imparted motion before total disintegration. The vectors were random, scattering the electrons of the fleet in a flaring pattern which moved away from the home galaxies in the direction of the expansion of the universe.

The released energies rushed out toward her distant flyer at sub-light speeds, giving her moments to watch in awe as the final construction of Bertt, the builder, avenged the Artonuee.

Yes, she would tell them. She would tell her people that they did not face doom in vain. She would tell them that their betrayal by those who had used love against them was avenged. She would say that the God of the Artonuee, although vengeful, was still God, allowing this one last gesture by Her doomed people. She would return to the ravaged planets and await, with her people, the Fires, knowing that the Delanians had howled themselves into oblivion before her.

Proud, straight in the control seat of the flyer, she watched the growing

bloom of fire. She allowed herself only one moment of sadness. In that moment she saw his face, as he had looked that first night on Outworld.

Rei.

But nothing had changed. God had promised Fire. The coming of the Delanians had not changed, had only seemed to alter the inevitable. The Artonuee had seen the coming of an alien race, had loved with its members, had hoped; and there were still the Fires.

Miaree, proud Artonuee female, sat with exposed wings, with straight back.

God was God and was triumphant.

But there remained one final moment before she went home, there to muse, to repent, to communicate with that silent, all-powerful God.

In the early days, an ancient sister Artonuee had flown in space, using the wings of a sun, committing the original sin and exulting in it.

In the moments of the last days, a large-eyed, beautiful, prideful Artonuee female once again defied God. There were no tears as she watched the spread of the paroxysm which, in the wink of an eye, destroyed a race. There was a selfish, very Artonueeistic glow of exuberant joy as the debris of a fleet and of six billion Delanians and one old, tired, dead male Artonuee swept out toward the Bertt flyer, sails set, waiting to ride the whirlwind of the most titanic storm since the birth of the universe.