Zach Hughes - The Stork Factor

that such as this could exude the life force, for his body was a wreck, a vast open sore of disease and disorder. Luke, rising to the heavens on a cloud, like the Christ resurrected, was in a state of near shock. Ecstasy bubbled in words of praise. At first, he begged the angel to save Caster, but since God lived, since God cared,

since God was lifting him to the heavens, it really did not matter if Caster perished down below, for she would gain eternal life with Him. And the words tumbled from his slack lips in a paroxysm of religious bliss as he

rose and rose and rose and the angel, serene, blindingly beautiful, held his arm and lifted him to—a huge sphere which opened to them and closed behind and heaven was functional metal and materials unrecognizable to him and he was being led by the angel to a small room where a small bed shared space with weird machines which moved toward him, extending tendrils and, suddenly, he was horribly frightened, for heaven was not machines and hard metals and cold surfaces. «Please,» he said, «please, please…» He was being pushed down onto the bed and the machines were closing and he screamed, once, before his mind fuzzed, darkened, went black. She had to stay in the room for decontamination. The sub-being had brought with him a wide array of microorganisms and some of them were already infecting her body. She utilized maximum life force, cleansed herself. The machines were at work. The sub-being was being subjected to an analysis and a purification process. And it was writhing and gasping. Life force, please. But do only the necessary. Its heart— Was failing. She looked into it. The heart was enlarged, weakened. She made minimum repairs. The being was eased and ceased writhing. She left the room, leaving the being to the machines for analysis and study. She stripped out of the long, comfortable garment. She felt unclean. Later, she communicated with the computer. She was vastly relieved when the computer, having contacted the central section on A-l, announced immediate departure. It would require a more thorough study, but the preliminary findings, having compared the brain structure and function of the sub-being aboard the ship with the living brains of a random selection of the population below, indicated that the male aboard the ship was a one-in-a-billion mutation. That, in itself, was cause for concern. Back on A-l, responsible authorities were being brought out of Trang to consider the implications. If cold machines could have expressed consternation the words would have been impossible, incredible. In a way, consternation was expressed in frenzied activity as entire planetary systems of automation and empire wide networks of computers were checked and rechecked. Automated servomechanisms replaced millions of components, discarding any one item which was not one-hundred percent efficient and yet the answer was the same. The odds against a being on Planet 3 of Section G-1034876, Star R-875948 developing even an erratic, uncontrollable life-force potential was expressed in astronomical numbers. Aboard a huge ship of the line, the woman whose mind emanated a beautiful, rosy glow stood over the being who was causing so much activity throughout an empire which spread over the central portions of the galaxy. Her face expressionless, she examined his thin body, his pocked face. There was a smell about him. She felt a mixture of revulsion and pity. He was of a form to the race. His physical makeup was the same down to the minute cells. Yet, he was different. It was more, this difference, than a general wasting of the body mechanisms. The poor condition of every functioning aspect of his being was the most evident defect, but there was a more important one. On a scale of mental ability he would, when compared to the race, rate so low as to be almost off the scale. Before she saw him, this being who had emanated the life force, she'd had fleeting thoughts of having someone for company on the long, boring ride back to the home system? Now, having seen him, having looked into the shallow, worse than retarded mind, she was moodily irritated. The ship made its first jump. Behind them, the star R-875948 was lost amid thousands of other stars. Ahead was a long, deadly period of waiting. She prowled the living quarters, scorning the entertainment possibilities of the central memory bank, thinking now of the male from A-7 who had been free, for some rotations now, to make a new commitment. Her frustration caused a slight acid unbalance in her stomach. Impatiently, she adjusted. Her mind, usually a bright, rosy glow, was aureate, a blaze. For lack of something better to do, she forwarded a bitter protest regarding the thoughtless, absolutely punitive lack of Trang aboard the ship. It was explained, once again, that the old-empire planners had deemed it necessary for the autosystems aboard a ship of the line to be backed up by an alert member of the race. It was explained to her, as if she were a child, that emergencies in space can happen with a devastating swiftness. In the time it would take for a member of the race to recover from the euphoria of Trang, an entire ship could be lost in the event of a major system failure. And when has there ever been a systems failure? Never. So it is impossible. On the contrary. It is almost inevitable. Explain. This ship was built in— The date had meaning only to a member of the race. She was surprised. So long ago? No ship has left the old empire in— Again, she was surprised. But no wonder. Who would want to leave? Space was cold and lifeless and lonely and endless and dull. Space was endless sun after endless sun. Space was dull, dead planets and sworls of cosmic dust and beyond the boundaries of the empire there was only

worlds such as the third planet of that sick little yellow sun she'd just left behind. Who would want to leave the comfort and the euphoria and the bliss of eternal love? She had not closed the communications circuit. And a machine, the huge, eternal central computer said, They did. And her mind was filled with a series of outward movements, the first swing into space in quaint, accident-prone chemical vehicles, the first leap to a near star, the vast enthusiasm of exploration and the zesty battles of conquest as one segment of the empire fought another for domination. They did. Ancient barbarians. Who built an empire which covers vast distances, a starfield of glory and achievement. Achievement? You're programmed for the past. We'll have to see about changing your mode. I am programmed for all contingencies which would affect the well-being of the race. The well-being of the race is Trang. And love. We do not need to go out to the stars anymore. Why do we need more planets ? Yes. With Trang we have reached the highest limits of racial fulfillment. The empire was projected into her mind, far-flung systems peopled by the race, all beautiful, all Trangized, scattered widely, isolated in pairs in splendid structures on a thousand thousand worlds. Exactly, she sent. Would you want it differently? I am not programmed for emotions. But she was shown vast autosystems lying idle. Sections capable of directing the landing and takeoff of one ship per heartbeat from a million ports were idle. Fleets of ships were stationary on the ground. Vast places for the making of a million things were silent. I don't care. What right have you, a mere machine, to chide me, a member of the race? Angered, she broke off. She paced the spacious room. She was dressed in a close-fitting singlet which showed her beautiful form to perfection and there was no one to see. She, the most desirable woman on the old, home planet, perhaps in the original system, was alone. With only a sub-being within countless light years. But the sub-being was a male. Once, when she committed with a male from an outlying planet, she was told of an ancient custom. Women of the planet, in the early days of the lovely Trang euphoria, in order to experience the completeness of sexual love, had, said the male, experimented with a form of animal life, an upright animal covered with hair. At the time it had seemed deliciously funny. A woman couple with an animal? Now she was to be isolated on a ship of the line for long, long revolutions with a sub-being. If members of the race had once coupled with animals. It could be amusing, in a revolting sort of way. She stood before him, radiant in a tightly fitted one-piece thing which clung to rounded curves. She had had to wait for the machines to finish with him. Now he had been examined, rated, cataloged. She was not interested in that. She was alone. She was bored. It would be a long, long time before she was back on A-l and it would be in the middle of a commitment period and she would have to join in the conference regarding these sub-beings from Section G-1034876 and, meanwhile, he was looking at her with a stupid, wide-eyed stare, making sounds with his mouth like an animal. An animal. She would pretend that he was one of the hairy, upright beasts of the outlying planets. I am—her mind spread out—Blaze. He made sounds with his mouth. He fell to his knees and held his hands clasped in front of him. She projected the idea she had in mind in all its sweet possibilities. He made noises with his mouth. She moved toward him in a graceful, floating, sensuous walk. She was, to him, eye-burningly beautiful. He'd never seen so perfect a woman before. And, although heaven was, apparently, a thing of metals and other materials he didn't know with machines which probed and searched him and machines which fed and watched him, she was divine, an angel sent from God. Blaze—wants you. Blaze—soft and warm and willing—will make things so nice for you. He cringed away from her. She couldn't read him. Inside his head were the usual arrangements of