When he had gone, however, the Lady Jonea, with a wry smile, said,
"Or it is a sign that God, all along, has been largely in the minds of the Artonuee."
Cynicism seemed to increase with age in a female, Miaree observed.
But she did not voice her hopes in prayer to the shrine. Instead, she paid lip service to God and, as she robed herself in purple, wings hidden in modesty, she indulged in an if-you-are-really-there soliloquy. If you are really there you must be God of the Delanians, too, for our concept of an omnipotent God is incompatible with the idea that another race in our own galaxy would find a different God. It was, she felt, an all-or-nothing thing. Either God was God of all the universe or was God of nothing. And, even more daringly, if God were God of the Artonuee alone, then Her power was limited and therefore subject to dispute.
The males said that the seeds of atheism were in every female and that the very act of flying was in defiance of God. So, she decided, since she had been fighting God all her life, she would now carry with her across the
inland sea a will to fight harder than ever, to use the chink in God’s armor—namely the fact that the Delanians had traveled in space at multiples of light speed—to destroy God’s last hold over the Artonuee.
With the help of the Delanians’ vast power, that power which blinked with the forces of a living sun, she would rescue the life force of the Artonuee from the doom which, as the sun burned through a morning ground haze, dimmed into insignificance in the bright, daytime sky.
"Mother Piiree," she said, having finished her breakfast which included the rare treat of ripe juplee fruit, "you may tell the workers that I am ready."
The small floater, with two young and curious males as crew, flew before the wind which blew, ever constant, toward the Cliffs of Flight. The sea was white-capped. The unaccustomed motion, however, could not break through Miaree’s concentration as she rehearsed her welcoming speech to the man from the Constellation of Delan. The floater’s storage cells fed on the energy of the sun, pushed the floater with pumped jets of water, hummed quietly. The wind cooled her, fluttered her purple robe. Overhead, a female changeling soared, ungainly on her tiny wings, ignoring the floater as she sped across the waters to her destiny. And ahead, the cliffs rose from the sea, tall, barren, harsh.
The alien had shed his bulky space suit and was standing on a high crag, eyes shaded against the morning sun.
The landing point was a distance to his right. He noted the direction of the boat, walked along the top of the cliffs, careful not to disturb the changelings as they shed their baby skin in graceful, feminine movements. He awaited as Miaree climbed a rude flight of steps carved into the rock. He had not known what to expect, but he had formed a theory. He was not surprised to see, standing before him, slim and regal, soft, flexible lips fixed in a formal smile, a perfected adult of the charming little creatures who had fed him, who had wet his parched lips with sweet water. He extended both hands in a gesture of friendship.
"On behalf of the Interplanetary Council and The Mother, I extend you greetings," Miaree said.
"You, my dear," said Rei, known as the Delanian, "are indescribably beautiful."
Chapter Eleven
And so much, my young friends, for interplanetary diplomacy. Or was it, Stella, the most propitious thing that Rei could have said?
I think it was sweet.
Your powers of expression overwhelm me. A male viewpoint, please. Tomax?
I have to commend Rei for his patience. After all, he was nearly killed in the asteroid belt, narrowly escaped falling into the Artonuee sun. He lay in a stinking space suit with his own wastes for days, severely wounded. He has had nothing to eat but butterfly food for—how long? Over fifty days. In that position I might not feel like being formal and diplomatic.
Elizabeth.
He is a man and his response to Miaree's greeting is quite manlike, quite condescending. I think it was an insult.
Yes, LaConius.
I think it was merely an honest reaction to Miaree. I would think she'd be pleased.
It is, isn't it, a rather minor question? Let us review the segment of the fable which we've read together today. The most impressive aspect, John?
I'm intrigued by the continued mention of the art planet of Outworld.
Naturally. Leslie?
I would have liked more detail on Miaree's work in learning the Delanian language.
An interesting aspect. Some thoughts on language, Clear Thought the
Healer?
In our legends there is mention that the old ones spoke in many tongues. It is a concept which says much. It rather staggers the imagination. I know something of the difficulty of learning a language, although I have some advantage. Being able to communicate in mind pictures makes it unnecessary for the old race to know words, but in practice we have found it advantageous to use our tongues rather than our minds. We know the rules of privacy, as legislated following the reconciliation. In cases of emergency, or with permission, I am allowed to enter a mind. Otherwise, I speak. And I can understand Miaree's problems. One picture is worth many words; able to communicate with what apparently is a mixture of telepathy and sounds, she is handicapped in her contact with the alien by having to use his words. She has observed, or the writer has observed, that one simple concept which could be flashed instantly mind-to-mind takes a circuitous route through the maze of Delanian words.
Thank you, Clear Thought, you do very well with our primitive language. Without stating it is a concept that you must accept simply because I state it, I would like to observe that we are deficient in the field of language. I sometimes wonder if the universal language law should have been passed. We stem, of course, from a common source, all of us, from the rim worlds to the outposts toward the center. But as the centuries passed, as worlds became more isolated and independent from the parent civilization around Terra II, we began to develop variations in language. New materials, new life forms, new concepts on a hundred different worlds created words which had meaning only in one specific area of the empire. Accents changed. Although it never reached the point where one man could not understand another, there was a different ring in the ear when one conversed, for example, with a rimmer and with a center worlder. A child born the rim might say mumu as his first word, while a toddler from the center would say mama. Planetary influences changed speech. I once met a man from Big. That, incidentally, is a beautiful example of descriptive naming. Big is a giant planet in the second arm which circles its sun with astounding slowness. Men are born and die before one Big year is complete. My friend from Big told me that the planet's leisurely plodding through space has influenced its peoples. And, indeed, he spoke so slowly. One wanted to help him, put words into his mouth. He made a two-syllable word out of now. Yet, aside from the drawling sound of his words, his pronunciation is much like yours or mine. We have acknowledged our interdependency. Although we have armaments which can kill a planet, we have not used them since the War with Zede If we number in the billions and yet we are alone. We still have our alarmists who cite the dead worlds to justify our so-called preparedness or the continued production of weapons of destruction. Perhaps this vague outside threat is what helps hold us together. We are, in spite of our far-flung travels, one people. And the lengths to which we have gone to keep it that way, among them the enforcement of the standard language regulations, are for the good. Except, as in the case of the Miaree manuscript, when we run into something totally new and different I have read that the computers used in translating this small book ran continuously for eleven years before one single key was found. The number of problems presented to the computers was astronomical. The final solution is required study for programmers to the present date. If you think Miaree was astounding in her ability to decipher the Delanian language, think what a task she would have faced had not the Delanians sent pictures, the alphabet, carefully-thought-out keys to their language. But my point is this. By killing initiative in the
creation of new language, by smoothing over the language of a galaxy, we left ourselves without a science of linguistics and faced a grave challenge when the Miaree manuscript was brought home from Cygnus. Now I am sure that, somewhere out there, there are others. Someday we will meet them. An alien race can be warlike or peaceful. We will have to assess their intentions rapidly, when we meet them. If we came face to face with the planet-killers and one of them said, 'stand or I fire!' we would not, of course, have time to learn language. We would have to make a spot assessment of his intentions and fire or be fired upon; however, I think that contact will not be sudden and unexpected, but will come, as it came to Miaree, with advance warning. And, thanks to Miaree and her book, we now have the capacity to study and solve an alien language in a mere fraction of the time it took to translate the legend. So you see, the study of literature is not just entertainment, is it?
Sir, there are other languages. The language of the eye. It spoke to Rei when Miaree came to him. It spoke in the form of beauty. And it is established that Miaree does not consider Rei ugly, although he is different.
Ah, John, the eye of the artist, eh? Yes, and the language of movement. There are certain signs which would be universal to an intelligent being.
But the wormfly of Omaha III was beautiful before it was exterminated. It had lovely red wings and a soft, furry body and the early settlers considered it harmless, even beneficial, until they learned that in its breeding stage it carefully numbed the skin of its human victims and injected rather nasty little parasites which delighted in feeding on the tissue of the inner eye. And it is said the women of Zede II were beautiful beyond compare. Yet they formed the suicide fleet and almost broke through the blockade into the undefended worlds. Question. Any comment on the manner of Rei's escape from his dying ship? LaConius?
Rather simple, sir. A rocket pack on his space suit. Evidently just enough power to take him to the New World—no, I mean The World, the original planet. I was a bit confused, at first, by the initial sequence, but it became clear when I got the picture of how the Artonuee develop. It is, as I said, very much like the Tigian butterfly, with an initial stage, the egg; a larval stage, the iffling; a stage of chrysalis, the sac which Rei saw hatching a wingling; and a butterfly stage, the winglings, before the final change into the semi-adult Artonuee. I presume the males follow much the same pattern, but since this book was written by an Artonuee female, the males get short shrift.
The room with the steel cabinets, Elana?
It's explained. It was sort of a funeral hall. Or a medical hall where victims of some space accident were brought. Evidently Rei was there at the time and was much impressed, for his dream of death and the room came, I'd guess, from his subconscious while he was trying to fight off the ifflings.
How do you feel about the ifflings? Martha?
Rather crawly. But I was impressed by Miaree’s repugnance toward the so-called animal method of birth. I suppose, to a butterfly, with its clean and non-bloody laying of eggs, live birth would seem as horrible as the concept of giving poor old Beafly, still alive, to the cannibalistic ifflings.
Do the ifflings eat flesh, then? Julius?
No. I don't think so. I got the idea that they were just taking something intangible—the life force, as it were.
Comment, Alfred.
I think they’d have to take the Artonuee equivalent of genes, or at least DNA messengers. Because it is apparent that the activity of the early forms of the Artonuee stems from instinctive knowledge rather than learned knowledge. And I got a hint, in the Rei sequence, that there is some sort of continuous line of awareness running through all of the Artonuee. The ifflings which were fastened to Rei seemed to have some form of thought, at least enough for him to sense that they were female.
A younger one and an older one.
And why were the ifflings female, Cecile?
Coincidence, maybe. Or, perhaps, controlled coincidence, since the female of the species seems to he dominant and more aggressive. It could be concluded from the state of the society that since the adult females are the stronger, the ifflings carrying female genes or whatever would also he stronger, more aggressive, more likely to tackle an unfamiliar form of
life.
Yes, Alaxender.
I think it's interesting to find that the two life forms, Artonuee and Delanian, are so compatible that the ifflings could attack Rei’s life force.
A good point, and one which could have bearing on the relationship between Rei and Miaree. Now, a quick summation. Overall impressions. Leslie.
I think the most important fact which is presented—
Fact, Leslie?
Idea, then. I think it's quite impressive that the Artonuee galaxy should have two intelligent life forms.
But was it the Artonuee galaxy? Could not the Delanians have come from the colliding galaxy?
No, because the pictures showed their planet to be in a constellation long known by the Artonuee.
I am not saying that you are wrong, Leslie. No one can say that you're wrong. It is a question that still interests some of our best minds. It has a bearing on the origin of life throughout the universe. Let me put it this way. A race with the capacity of star travel could have moved into the Artonuee galaxy from the colliding galaxy. There is a theory that some unknown controlling force in each galaxy determines the direction of life.
But, sir, the Dead Worlds—
Ah, yes, Tomax, the Dead Worlds. Definitely non-humanoid. So different, so alien that a thousand studies have produced almost as many possible descriptions of the inhabitants. Actually, I mentioned the one-race theory to test you. We have proof, in our own galaxy, that two very dissimilar races can develop. So, I am not saying that the Artonuee and the Delanians were from different galaxies. I am merely mentioning that it is possible that the Delanians could have moved into the Artonuee galaxy from the rim of the colliding galaxy. But I agree with Leslie that it is a fascinating idea to think that one galaxy could produce two intelligent life forms. And that brings up an interesting question. Why are we so all-fired interested in contacting another intelligent race? Are we, like Artonuee females, still undecided about God? Do we need contact with another race, with a different background, to say, 'Hey, old fellow, about God... '
Tomorrow then, my young friends. I understand that we're having Vegan steak, eh?
Chapter Twelve
She stood with her delicate feet slightly apart, left foot advanced. Her feet were bare. One toe curled nervously. The purple silk gown moved lightly in the onshore wind, caressing her articulated ankles. The gown clung to narrow shoulders, bulged gracefully over folded wings, and the color showed through the thin material, iridescent blues, muted yellows. A pulse beat in her long, slender neck. The gossamer fur of her upper torso, exposed by the cut of the gown, was a lovely mixture of colors. And her eyes. Her eyes were the stars of the night, captured in individual facets in
deep blue. Her face, ovate, delicate, showed that formal little smile. He answered it with a broad grin, showing white teeth.
"Those," he said, pointing to graceful antennae which sprouted from her forehead above the inner readies of each eye, "are they sense organs?"
"They measure waves of the length of."
He shook his head. Her speech reminded him of the music of home. But her attempts at the technical words left something to be desired.
"Forgive me," he said. "I am Rei, Captain of the Fleet. Native of." To her, there was a gap, the strange sound losing itself on her ears. "I come in peace and friendship. I bring best greetings from the Council of Worlds and our Joint Leaders. We come from—"
"We call it the constellation Delan."
"I like the sound."
"I extend the apologies of our worlds for having left you alone so long. It was felt—"
"That the alien knew more about healing himself than you?"
She lidded her eyes, paying compliment to his understanding. The soft velvet of her lids was an e
xtension of her beauty. She was, to Rei, a lovely thing out of a fairy tale. A creature of sugar and delicate silken threads.
"You are female," he said.
"Yes," she said, in Artonuee.
"Yes," he repeated. "A beautiful language."
"The sound is made thus," she said, repeating it for him. "High in the mouth."
"There is a thickness to my tongue," He said.
"There is time for learning," she said. "Now, we must go. A place has been prepared for us."
She led the way. He followed down the crude, carved steps. In the small floater, he had to sit close to her.
"My companions were killed," he said, as the floater pushed against the wind with silent force.
"It is sad."
"The fleet," he said. "Have they contacted you?"
She glanced at him, her eyes turning a deeper shade of blue. Was it the light? He was to learn, later, that her eyes were reflections of her emotions.
"They send messages. The messages disturb us."
"I can understand," he said. He was beginning to realize that some of the sounds were unheard when she spoke. Interesting. Yet he understood. "We come as uninvited guests. But you must know from what we flee."
"Yes. We call them God’s Fires."
"You understand our plight, then."
"Are there not other worlds?"
"You are in space," he replied.
She was silent. To reveal the lack of star flight in her technology would be to admit a weakness.
"At the moment." he said, when he was sure that she was not going to volunteer any information, "we are limited in our choices. The worlds between here and— how do you say it? Delan? Are limited. And, perhaps, we are afraid. Perhaps we seek the advice and the support of the only other intelligent race we have encountered. Although some of our systems are now unsuited for life, we, the Artonuee and Men, face the same threat. Should we not compare notes? Should we not work together?"
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