Seed of the Gods

tried to kill a planet, either. I believe that I could kill anyone, even you, to prevent such a disaster. Please don't make me decide before you listen.» «Hold,» Cele said, to the ratings who were edging nervously toward Toby as he stood with his blaster in Babra's back. «And if we listen, then what?» «I can't answer that,» Toby said. «I ask only that you see and hear a tricording made on the Planet of Cities.» «Impossible,» Cele said, quickly calculating the time which had elapsed since the scout blinked out of the Orton system. «Are you telling me you've been to the Planet of Cities?» «We have,» Toby said. «And we have here a tricording which will change the course of history,» He lowered his blaster. «Will you see it, Lady?» «Your trickery will avail you nothing,» Cele said. «However, I am a reasonable woman. I will see your tricording if you first yield your weapon.» «Don't do it,» Jay said. «Remember that she promised a fair hearing and yet she trained the ship's blasters on me when I approached.» Toby felt a cold sweat of indecisiveness break out on his forehead. Babra turned, held out her hand grimly. «Give it to her, Toby,» Sooly said. «I don't think your Lady will forget your honor twice.» The decision made for him, Toby handed the weapon to the Manto. «We will view your nonsense,» Cele said. Jay, his troleen losing its effectiveness, weakly handed the tricording to a rating, who inserted it in the projector. «As I thought,» Cele said, when the image of the beautiful woman appeared on the ship's screens, «look at the small eyes. An Orton woman.» «Wait,» Toby begged. «Children,» said the image, and, as she viewed it through, Cele Mantel's pride began to shatter. It was a different woman who called the Ship's Board of Officers into session, with Jay, Toby and Sooly present, to show the tricording again. Babra Larkton was furious with hate. She could not contain it, breaking out before the second showing was finished. «Trickery,» she shouted, «a cheap trick, filmed on the planet below, to save their own necks and postpone the inevitable justice which the demons on Orton deserve.» «Can you be sure?» Cele asked sadly. «Can we continue with the plan of sterilization as long as there is the slightest doubt?» «No, Lady,» Toby said, feeling sympathy for the Garge. He, too, had known the painful, humiliating agony she was enduring. «I don't think you realize what this means, Cele,» Babra said. «It means that we not only call these Ortonian barbarians equals and allow our men to opt with them, but we actually acknowledge them as our superiors in some ways.» «Not superiors,» Sooly said. «Equals, yes. But not in knowledge. You have knowledge we can't imagine. But she, the woman on the Planet of Cities, wants us to work together. We go into the future together, side by side. We both have something to contribute.» «If it is true,» Cele said, «then we are both imperfect creations and, although I would like to believe that Ankani life sprang into being fully formed and the masters of the Galaxy, we have not been able to solve the riddle of the Wasted Worlds. We have not advanced as rapidly as the Ortonians. On a relative scale, the achievements of the Ortonians in the past two thousand years make us look like backward people.» «No, Cele,» Babra cried. «Babra, didn't you feel it? Didn't you experience the emotions of the woman as she showed what she and her race considered the ultimate in human achievement? Have you ever experienced pleasure in that degree? That alone is enough to convince me that the matter must have further investigation.» She sighed. «And we dare not ignore the threat of the aliens. If it is true, they've had half a million years to arm themselves, to prepare. It is a risk we cannot take.» The Entil, not yet fully loaded, blinked sluggishly through the stars. Even with her beliefs crumbling around her, Cele could not bring herself to believe the story told by the ratings of blinking out into inter-Galactic space. She would not risk her ship and her crew on untried experiments. And there was another advantage to the slow, eye-popping blink home, the multiple layovers while the huge tanker's power banks charged. It gave her time to talk with the Ortonian woman, to analyze her, to see for herself, with the aid of the educator, the memories buried deep in the girl's brain. It was astounding to think that any brain could hold more than the million-billion impressions which were accumulated in an average Ortonian brain during a lifetime, but this brain could and did and when she saw, after a long, awesome session, the ships unloading the hordes of people on the green valley floor of the Ortonian continent called Africa, she was, at last, fully convinced. Alone in her quarters, she looked at herself in the mirror. Those eyes, age-old symbols of the beauty of Ankani women, were artificial things engineered to see on dim planets—an imperfect creation—product of the very techniques which were the most odious concept in Ankani thinking. They were weak, incomplete, unable to follow the parent race into eternal bliss. She wept with her shame. She looked ahead and saw the inevitable changes, for she was certain that investigation of the circular room in the star tower on the Planet of Cities would find the engraved words there on the indestructible walls. Yes, her entire world was changing, even as the Entil shivered and jerked into another blink. It would never be the same and she mourned the passing of ideas which had been perfected, a meaningless word, over fifty millennia. Ankani men, always tainted with that puzzling hunger for newness, would flock to do the bidding of that woman in white with her breasts shamelessly exposed. And the planets of the distant stars would be peopled with their sons and daughters, not with pure Ankani blood. The fair skin of the Ankanis would be darkened by alien suns, browned by the mixture of bloods. «Oh, winds of Ankan,» she whispered aloud. For the first time in her life she allowed her brain to become befuddled with stimulant, tossing down good Ankan brew, equivalent to wine, until she slept. She awoke to the realization that her bloodshot Ankani eyes had to be indicative of the Galaxy's most infernal hangover, but even though thinking was painful, she was more ready to accept. After all, past experience had proven that Ankani genes were dominant in some matters. Ankani-Ortonian girls would have large eyes and if, in exchange, they received the almost frightening vitality of the Ortonians, well, it would be a fair trade. And the outward movement toward the rim of the Galaxy would require huge new ships. Expo ships. By the time the Entil startled port officers by blinking in months ahead of schedule, Cele was fully recovered. She entered the emergency meeting of Fleet Board dressed in the gorgeously understated colors of the Entil and enjoyed the envious glances of the shore-duty officers in their shabby uniforms. Her head high, eyes blazing with excitement, she mounted the hearing platform. «Ladies,» she said, her voice proud, unflappable, «I, Garge Cele Mantel, commanding the U. A. T. Entil, report respectfully that with the aid of my crew I have solved the mystery of the Wasted Worlds.» The gasps which came from the gathered ladies of the Fleet Board made the whole thing worthwhile. Chapter Twenty-One «Toby Wellti,» Sooly said in a teasing voice, as Toby primped before the