"I could have stayed," he said, his lips scarcely moving. "I could have traveled like the wings of thought to see the heart of the universe, to search out the nooks and hiding places of creation itself."
God, she thought, he is already rambling. Then, as she reached out to him, he straightened, became for a moment the Bertt of old. Pride gleamed in his eyes. "Let it be recorded," he said, "that an Artonuee male made it. That Bertt, the builder, did it."
"Bertt?"
"You once gave me a month, Lady, to change the known universe. It took longer, I fear." He chuckled. "But I, Bertt, have flown—no, not flown, for it is more than that. I have been moved by a power which dwarfs the fusion engines of the Delanians. I have traveled a hundred parsecs in the wink of an eye, My Lady."
There was a feeling about him. She shared it, felt his triumph, believed him. "Bertt," she whispered. "It works?"
He nodded, his shoulders slumping. "May I sit, Lady?"
"Of course," she said, taking his arm to lead him to a chair.
To share the news, she called a hasty conference. When it was convened, there were only her Artonuee officials and advisors present.
"The Delanians sent word that they had more important things," said Lady Caee.
"Rei, too?" Miaree asked.
"He, at least, was more polite," Caee answered. "He begged to be excused for an hour, until the council of the Delanian chiefs is ended."
"Perhaps," Miaree said, with a shiver of dread, "it is best that we first share the joy of Bertt, the builder, among ourselves."
Bertt stood proudly. His words brought a hush over the gathered Artonuee.
When he had finished, it was the priest, Ceelen, who spoke. "God has indeed forgiven us."
"Where was God," asked Lady Belle, "when the Delanian women pulled the wings from dozens of our females?" Belle had changed. Her eyes brooded purple, her face showed the harsh lines of tension. "Lady Mother, I respectfully suggest that we consider keeping this an Artonuee secret." There was a gasp around the table. "Over two hundred Artonuee died on Outworld, Lady. More will die. I feel it. There is talk in the streets that it will be Artonuee who face the Fires, not Delanians, as we now believe."
"That is nonsense," Miaree said.
"Is it nonsense, Lady," asked Bertt, "to see the Government Quad swarm with armed Delanians, to see Artonuee excluded from their own seat of government?"
"Already, they have struck at the heart of our life, at our most basic beliefs," said Diere, Overlady of Research. "The order to cut the juplee-carrying ships by half their number was issued without consultation with us."
"Millions of sacred things will perish," said Caee. "If the Delanians are capable of that, of what else are they capable?"
"We have worked together, my children," the priest Ceelen said, "but at what cost?"
"It is possible, Lady," Bertt said. "The fleets will be segregated. We will be alone. The necessary hardware can be produced in the ships’ shops, and the installation can be made while in flight. Then, at the appointed time, the Delanians will merely see nothing. The Artonuee fleet will disappear into deep space in the wink of a lash, and there, with unlimited mobility, we can seek new worlds. The universe will be open to us. No longer will we be faced with the Fires of God, for we can leave these doomed galaxies. We can seek over numberless parsecs, and in the vast universe find homes which will see the continuation of Artonuee life for an eternity."’
"And leave the Delanians to roam empty space at light-times-twenty for, perhaps, centuries?" She shook her head. "Have you no shame, any of you?"
"I have merely to look at our worlds," Caee said. "I have merely to remember how a young female, wings plucked from her, wept not for her pain but for the loss of her man. Those of us who are free of the Delanians"—she cast a meaningful glance toward Miaree—"know that our relationship with them was a terrible drug which distracted us from our purpose in life. It is said, among some of our people, that the universal attempt to bed our Artonuee females was indeed a plot to love us out of existence. I, for one, do not know whether there was a plot, but there might as well have been: Delanian-induced sterility in our females was a fact. No female, on her own, had the will power to sunder herself from her lover long enough to produce fertile eggs. In a generation, had not the
threat of the Fires forced the Delanians to take more direct action, we would have been extinct."
"Nonsense," Miaree said heatedly. "Don’t you see, all of you, that dear Bertt’s invention has solved all our problems? We have been allowed a bit more time, thanks to God. It is enough. If the conversion is so simple, then it can be accomplished in months. The first ships can be operating on Bertt’s principle within weeks. At speeds which shrink the galaxy to insignificance, our ships can explore millions of stars. And before it is too late, before a single Delanian or a single Artonuee dies in the Fire, we can have located habitable planets. At Bertt’s speeds, we can make many trips to and from those planets. We can move everyone. We can move the entire juplee forest. We can move the art treasures from Outworld. No one will die. Don’t you see?"
"Yes." said Ceelen. "It is God’s will."
Chapter Twenty-Five
Rei himself almost came to think of it as God’s will. Soon, he chuckled, as he watched the production lines pour out the altered circuits and hardware for the Bertt Engine, I’ll be praying to the God of the Artonuee. For he had flown in Bertt’s own ship, had seen the universe dwindle, had felt an exultation which filled him even now, as he pursued his new task of seeing to the installation of the new expanders on all of the fleet.
But, if the God of the Artonuee was great, that made old Bertt greater, didn’t it? Bertt had beat God at Her own game.
There was a light in Miaree’s eyes. She bloomed. The cares of the past years seemed to fall from her, leaving her as he had known her first, there on Outworld. Nor was he the only one to see the light of love and joy in Artonuee eyes. Quietly, privately, Delanian officials, who had obeyed their own edict to leave off their delightful activities with the daughters of the Artonuee, were reclaiming their mistresses. Argun, bellowing with pleasure, had immediately summoned his favorite.
The news had been spread. The sense of fear and doom which had hung
over the five worlds was lessened to an almost carnival atmosphere. The evacuation of Artonuee from Outworld and New World, under way, was proceeding in a spirit of good will and the lines of boarding Artonuee could be heard to sing.
No one was happier than Rei. A terrible burden had been lifted from him. No longer would he be forced to hide his true feelings from Miaree.
In short weeks, they would embark together on the greatest of all adventures. Together, they would explore the universe.
At the end of a rewarding day, he made his way to her rooms and there, in a glow of love, idled away the evening, resenting it with all his heart when the communication room allowed a call from Argun to be put through. He was a Delanian, and when he was called by his President, he went.
He found Argun with his female, nude, sated. The female was dismissed, and she smiled back at them as she stepped lightly from the room. Argun shrugged into a robe and drank. "Damn." he said, "I’m glad I found that one. She’s a freak. Two sets of those incredible muscles." He laughed with gusto. "She’s pleased as hell that she’s going on the ship with me."
"Oh?" Rei asked. "I’ve seen no indication that the segregation order has been rescinded."
"Damn, man, you’ve had it good. While the rest of us were going without Artonuee cunt for the sake of appearances, you were warming the bed of one of the best-looking bugs I’ve seen."