Zach Hughes - The Stork Factor

And, at the end of galactic distance, the signal was being received by other sensor instruments untended by living beings. And there was motion, activity. On a lonely, automated planet near the core of the spiral of stars which made up Luke Parker's galaxy, an alarm flashed, sent signals deeper into the heart of the cluster. Automatic instruments began to double check, to trace back the call to the ancient sensor stationed near a planetary system out near the end of a spiral arm. The checks proved the sensor to be in perfect working condition. Since the language of the signals was similar to but beyond electronics, there could have been no exact translation to a language spoken by man. Roughly, the alarm which went from the automated planet into the heart of the cluster would be read as: ALARM RED. PLANET KILLER. SECTION G-1034876. STAR R-875948 PLANET 3. CHAPTER FIVE Before coupling with the handsome male from A-7, a union computed to be on a superior scale because of the similarity of their gangliogroupings, she reduced gravity in her bedchamber to one-fourth normal. It was more restful. It tired one less when one became excited and went spastic-wild. The arrangement had been completed via warpsignal only the period previous and she was still in stage one of the euphoric, always new sensation of total union. The male from A-7 was as computed, total, willing to commit, sensuous to an extravagant degree. Together, with the atmosphere odorous with trang, they had built rapidly to maximum potential and then, their systems reinforced by the trang, past maximum to a paralyzing ecstasy which they prolonged by shared mental

patterns of past couplings with others. It was as if they were able to couple with dozens, hundreds simultaneously. It was a good union and the trang, sweet, potent, euphoric trang, made time timeless and a period passed with nerves screaming at full climactic capability and that was but the beginning. Period after period they would lie, coupled, moving at times, wild at times, passive at times, minds woven, bodies clasped. Thus it was and thus it had always been and thus it would ever be and she knew no other way and would have wanted no other way. She was uncommitted for two stellar circuits and the delightful fusing of their gangliogroupings indicated that two circuits might not be enough. This male from A-7 was, indeed, superior. Around them, around the soft-hard couch, the chamber was softly feminine in glowing star colors. Alter rhythmic sounds sent languor to ears; aromas of life and goodness blended with the trang. And the room changed, pulsingly, with irregular pleasing patterns of color and form. Timeless time passed and the good coupling made her alive with pure sentience. «I will cancel my next commitment.» She didn't say words. She knew no language. Her mental pattern told him and it was the greatest of compliments. «I knew of you.» He communicated. «I made no commitments.» «And when we tire I will lie in numbness and remember.» His mind sent a message meaning long, long circuits, a great lapse of time, contentment, total caress. She had no name, as such. Her mental patterns were distinctive and by them she was known. In the mind of her lover she made a bright, rosy glow. By that pattern she was known. His mind was hard, masculine, metal. Trang infused her, made her all mental, removed her from the physical and made her endless nerve pathways for voluptuousness. A servomech extended a mobile arm. A sweet taste in her mouth. Liquid. Servomechs tending to the physical, outside of her responsibility, automatic. He was served likewise. On the world outside a red sun gleamed, died. A crowded sky lit the dark period with huge, near stars. Three moons chased across the night. Her structure was atop a hill overlooking a valley of trees with fernfrond limbs, a stream. Small furry things played. Winged nightbirds swept the air. No light showed from the structure. It was dark, permanent, private, isolated. Around the planet, at intervals of hundreds of miles, other structures reared darkly from scenic spots. A few floating structures were scattered over a great, single sea. Water creatures swam in the sea and feral things roamed the night and there was no other movement except in the chambers of the structures. There couples lay, trangized, libidinous, living, living, living. Servomechs coiled silently to serve, to nourish. A network of giant stations drew power from the crowding stars and sent it winging to keep alive the structures, the servomechs. And all around the blazing stars crowded in a fairyland density and no ships cruised the space between for commitment time had come and gone and the ships rested at darkened ports awaiting the next shifting of male to female, female to male. On one planet, however, near the heartland, there was movement. It was a light period, although that made no difference to the automated things which rolled and tested waving fields of green with nodules of gold ripening atop some of the fields and careful machines gleaning the golden buds tenderly and transporting them. Soon ships would flash from the planet Trang. Soon the mobile computer machines would send the Trang fleet moving out, scattering in hundreds over the widespread field at the heart of the galaxy to deliver golden euphoric Trang to each world, to each structure scattered widely over the populated planets, to bring Trang. At the end of harvest time, ancient, self-servicing traffic computers would sense the arrival of a single ship where once there had been frantic movement. Traffic computers designed to handle the landing and takeoff of one ship per heartbeat would put into action their vast capabilities to land one, single, small automated freighter with one small vital cargo. Trang. And servocenters would channel the new Trang to the isolated structures and local servomechs would grind it, sort it, feed it into the perpetually burning Trangers. And those without names would breathe and know maximum contentment, would breathe and live, would

continue, circuit after solar circuit, to know bliss in the arms of a fellow being with sympathetic gangliogroupings. Thus it was and thus it had always been in the memory of those who were Tranged, but in the nonemotional memory bank of the great port computers there were records of more than that, records of vast, restless movement, of a reaching out, of conquest and power and vitality. Then a simple cereal grass mutated on the planet Trang. A tranquil, vast, far-flung system of worlds was connected, at harvest time, by the small, flashing ships. An entire planet was sown in Trang. The galaxy wheeled on its axis and planets whirled around suns and there was no change as the endless present moved forward in a straight-curved line toward another harvest time, another flashing out of the Trang ships, another commitment time. Meantime, worlds peopled by perfect, beautiful beings Tranged through eternity glutting on the two most pleasant experiences known to cellular beings. Euphoria, Copulation. Then from the rim of the galaxy, an ancient sensor flashed: ALARM RED. PLANET KILLER SECTION G-1034876. STARR-875948 PLANET 3. Where the stars began to thicken, a relay station picked up the signal, backchecked to find the ancient sensor in perfect working order, forwarded the signal to the heartland. On what had once been the central planet, in what had once been the greatest city in the galaxy, but which was now a deserted, quiet, machine-controlled metal desert of structures, a huge central computer received the signal, backchecked to find the relay station in perfect working order, sent instant orders to working parts, sorted the mind patterns of the population, and came up with a pattern which exuded a soft, rosy glow. A female member of the old civilization, relatively nearby on A-l. The computer, programmed by Old Kingdom scientists to stand guard over the Tranged worlds, took steps. In a glossy, dark, isolated structure a servomech extinguished the flame in the Tranger. Her body was wet. She felt cramped. She was being almost strangled by the male from A-7. With an unfamiliar irritation, she shoved him away. They analyzed it together. «The Trang—» Never, in her memory, had the Trang stopped. She felt panic, an emotion which was new and terrible to her. She wanted to scream. The male from A-7 wasn't taking it any better. He looked as if he were ready to bolt. But bolt to where? Without Trang— She leaped from the couch. This era, the style was small breasts, big hips, small waist. Red hair was in. She gasped. She breathed Trangless air and heard the male from A-7 gasping, making little choking sounds. «Servomech check!» she sent. «Servomech check! Malfunction!» Trang, she had to have Trang. On the near wall there was a regular flashing. Into her panic, her