"The Bridge" (or "Minnie's Crew")

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"The Bridge" (or "Minnie's Crew")

Post by jeffrey-dallas » Fri Jul 31, 2020 2:34 am

In all of the reading that I do, I've found a couple of professional stories involving SW and GTS themes. Enjoy please and thank you!


"THE BRIDGE" (or "MINNIE'S CREW")
A short (no pun intended) story in 8 parts
Some comments from the writer Piers Anthony:


"... This story was bounced at Nova, Playboy, Cavalier. F&SF, Knight and Evergreen Review. I had supposed that the sexy male mags would appreciate truly fantastic sex. I was wrong.

"Meanwhile, changes were occurring in the SF magazine circuit. Galaxy Publications had been bought out... and the new editor was Ejler Jakobsson. Ejler came to a writers' conference in my area, and I dropped in and met him on June 12, 1969. He wanted material. I was then mostly into novels, but I did have a couple of last year's provocative pieces still bouncing around. One was "Minnie's Crew." Somewhat warily I mentioned it. After all, new editor or not, Galaxy Publications was not your avant-garde publisher. Ejler wanted to see it. Okay, he had asked for it. I sent it. Within a week he phoned me, accepting it. A regular SF outfit was buying the story that had scared off the horny male mags! A special kind of history was in the making here. He retitled it, of course, as "The Bridge" and published it in Worlds of Tomorrow as the cover story. Yes, this time I even got my name on the cover, printed right under Minnie's pert breasts. No, I can't really argue with the new title, for once; my "Mini-screw" was a bit too cute.

"Reader, be advised: this just may be the wildest sex ever to see print in a conventional genre magazine."
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"Worlds of Tomorrow" cover -- Minnie
"Worlds of Tomorrow" cover -- Minnie
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"You're like, really tiny."
"Thanks. I had no idea."

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Re: "The Bridge" (or "Minnie's Crew")

Post by ensmallen » Fri Jul 31, 2020 2:46 am

“Tall Troy’s on fire.”

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Re: "The Bridge" (or "Minnie's Crew")

Post by jeffrey-dallas » Fri Jul 31, 2020 3:08 am

“Tall Troy’s on fire.”
:D
"You're like, really tiny."
"Thanks. I had no idea."

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Re: "The Bridge" (or "Minnie's Crew")

Post by jeffrey-dallas » Sat Aug 01, 2020 1:36 am

1. Petite Dream-Girl

"Please." The voice was small but distinctly feminine and seemed to emanate inches from his ear. "Please, Mr. Fowler, please wake up."

"Burg to my friends," he muttered sleepily. He was one of those bachelors the men's magazines declined to acknowledge -- the kind that works for a living and sleeps alone. On weekends such as this he liked to sleep late in spite of an early bedtime. This was partly to get back at the alarm clock and partly because it made the day shorter. At the moment he was in that transitional state he sometimes achieved upon such lazy awakening -- in it he could hear and to a certain extent control intriguing dream dialogue.

"Please, Mr. Fowler. We only have an hour. Please look at me."

"Sure, honey," he murmured, eyes closed. The voice was absolutely lovely and remarkably convincing, as though a beautiful woman lay beside him. He had never before indulged in such a pleasant trance. But he knew that it would dissipate the moment he opened his eyes. All that shared his bedroom by daylight were dirty socks, clean shirts, a portable radio afflicted with intermittent static and last night's cold-slopped coffee. And, of course, the book he had read himself to sleep on. What was it? He couldn't remember.

Something soft touched his right ear.

He twitched his head aside, instantly alert. Light blinded him, forcing his eyes shut again. This had never been part of a dialogue! Had a moth gotten in?

He turned his head carefully and squinted.

Suddenly he remembered what he had been reading. It was a text from a night course in British poetry. He had signed up in the hope that he might meet his dream girl on the college campus, since he hadn't met her elsewhere. Unfortunately it developed that few women took night courses and those who did were mostly centenarian schoolteachers in for recency-of-credit. But he had discovered serendipitously that old-time verse was not entirely dull; indeed, it was as though the poets were men very like himself, bound by similar frustrations but with the wit to make them elegant. Andrew Marvell complained about his coy mistress (at least he had one); Lord Byron rhapsodized about a maid of Athens; Dante Gabriel Rossetti (always learn the full name, the professor admonished the class) commented on a goblet supposedly molded in the shape of the breast of Helen of Troy. That was the poem Burg had fallen asleep on: Troy Town.

Heavenborn Helen, Sparta's queen / (O Troy Town!) / Had two breasts of heavenly sheen / …

He couldn't remember the rest.

He had seen those two breasts, those images of man's desire. Supple yet voluptuous, firm yet perfect. Just now.

"That's not fair, Mr. Fowler. You didn't really look."

He opened his eyes fully. A doll stood on his pillow. A nine-inch high, gracefully woman-shaped figurine dressed in yellow. Its proportions were so accurately and lovingly rendered that the effect was rather like contemplating a real woman from a distance. This replica had everything. In fact, it was very like his fanciful ideal.

"I can explain," the doll said in that same delightful voice. "I thought you'd like to see me nude but since you shut your eyes again so quickly I decided --"

Burgess Fowler rolled off the bed and stumbled to the bathroom. He ran the sink full of cold water and dunked his face in it open-eyed. Then, absolutely awake, he performed certain other routine morning chores and returned in his pajamas to the bedroom.

"We have only fifty minutes left," she complained. "You're not being very cooperative, Mr. Fowler."

He sat down on the bed. "Troy Town!" He was not a swearing man ordinarily. "I don't touch drugs of any kind, so it isn't that. I drink only in moderation and never alone. I am not overtired and when I am I'm not much given to hallucinations. I --"

The doll stamped her little foot on the top sheet. Her heel made a pinpoint dent.

"The committee went to a great deal of trouble to locate you and learn your tastes and -- and get me here," she said. "You're wasting invaluable time, Mr. Fowler. Please listen to --"

Burg brought her to him with a sweep of his left hand. "Now, my little practical joke!" he said. "We'll see what makes you operate --"

She was not doll-like to the touch. His hand enclosed her torso and his thumb was aware of two singularly realistic breasts -- the same he had seen in the first bright glimpse? -- rising and falling under the dress while his palm felt the rondure of a sweet derriere. Her waist was lithe and narrow, her hips soft and broad. She was warm and she smelled of perfume -- a brand he could not name, but liked.

He set her down, disgruntled.

"You can't be alive."

She rearranged her apparel and combed the tangles out of her hair. Her tresses were the precise shade of brown he liked, curled in just-so.

"If you will only pay attention, Mr. Fowler!"

"I'm trying to -- but you're hard to believe at one sitting."

"I know I'm a little small for you but it was the best they could do. There is so little time. Please help me, Mr. Fowler."

Burg would still have dismissed her as some kind of a powered toy, except for the remembered feel of her body and her present too-human animation. A doll did not breathe, and certainly did not react as directly and specifically as she was doing. "All right, I'll help you, mini-girl whoever you are. Whatever you say your crew sent you for. What do you want?"

"I want," she said seriously, "to make love."
"You're like, really tiny."
"Thanks. I had no idea."

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Re: "The Bridge" (or "Minnie's Crew")

Post by jeffrey-dallas » Sun Aug 02, 2020 12:58 am

2. Animate Senescence

The Council of Oomus foregathered in tired splendor. All of the scions of the leading lines were present: the ranking scientists, philosophers and economists of the world. Here in the temple of the ancients, within a chamber overlooking the effete surging of the Sea of Life, they harkened to momentous developments.

The chairman withdrew his perception from the demesnes of that waning Source and broadcast for attention. Once such a signal might have bathed the planet -- now it was barely sufficient to alert those nearest. The minds within the great old hall yielded courteously.

Please review the discussion of our last Assembly, the chairman thought.

The Recorder now projected his summary. At our last Assembly, three years ago, we received the report of the Committee on the State and Sadness of our World. We reluctantly accepted the verdict of our brothers: that our present misfortune is due to a condition of animate senescence. Unless rejuvenation occurs within our lifetime, the critical point will pass and our form of life, including the animation of all our world, will inexorably perish. Therefore we agreed to undertake radical measures and invest our remaining reserves in a project promising relief. This consists of negotiating and expediting an exchange with a world possessing a surplus of the animus we require.

An Economist interjected: Omission! We cannot permit specific communication with another realm, though extinction be the forfeit. So has our inviolable custom been; so it must remain.

Correction incorporated, the Recorder explained. The exchange was to be instituted in such a way that our identity is never betrayed, yet complete satisfaction rendered to the other party. Above all, it is our custom to be ethical. Yet satisfaction may be achieved in diverse ways. Such a program was instituted by an ad hoc Committee and the Assembly adjourned.

The Chairman thanked the Recorder. Then: What is the report of that duly constituted Expeditionary Committee?
"You're like, really tiny."
"Thanks. I had no idea."

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Re: "The Bridge" (or "Minnie's Crew")

Post by jeffrey-dallas » Mon Aug 03, 2020 3:18 am

3. Courtship

"Mini-girl -- mind if I call you Minnie? There are things that I might do for you. and gladly," Burg said. "But making love is not among them. For that you need a man. A man your size, I mean."

"Oh, no, Mr. Fowler," she protested, laying a tiny hand on his little finger. "It must be you. They were very clear about that. You have just the right-I mean, I exist only for you. I love you."

There was, then, an ulterior motive of some sort. The crew that had sent her to him had a price for its service. He was not, however, obliged to accept it, since this was unsolicited merchandise. She could charm him as she wished, but that would be all. He was not going to pay any exorbitant fee for this doll, or sign any dubious documents.

The strange thing was that, whatever her secret, she did conform to his ideals of femininity. Had she been full-size, her measurements would have been about 36-24-36, or perhaps a trifle more generous, with all the other physical attributes congenial. More than that, there was an intangible charm about her, a symmetry of manner and proportion that evoked pleasure in the contemplation. Her attire complemented her features perfectly, and her face had just that quality of imperfect maturity he preferred. Even her little mannerisms, such as the conservative-yet exciting-way she put her slender fingers on him and the lift of her fine chin when she spoke-all of it was the kind of thing he had been searching for and had, in his not-so-secret heart, never expected to attain. For if such a woman were ever to appear before him, he could be certain she would be snapped up by a more wealthy, muscular or articulate male. Yet here she was.

And when she claimed to love him, he felt an adolescent thrill, square as he knew this reaction to be in an adult.

But...

"I feel complimented," he told her gently. "But I have to point out that there are sharp limits --"

"No. No limits. And we have only forty minutes. Please, Mr. Fowler, we have to get started." She sat down on the coverlet and removed her shoes. One thigh showed alluringly as her leg lifted.

He chucked her under the chin with a careful finger. "There has to be a misunderstanding, sweetheart. You're very pretty and I like you but-maybe you'd better tell me exactly what you mean by 'making love.'"

She stood up. She ran a hand down her side and her yellow dress fell open. She shrugged out of it, folded it meticulously (he liked that, too) and stood before him in bra and petticoat. She drew the petticoat over her head.

"I fear our definitions coincide," Burg said quickly. It was as though a real woman were baring herself and he wasn't used to it. "But-surely you see that it's impossible. Physically impossible. You and I -- well, it's impossible."

"No, it isn't," she said confidently, as she reached behind to unfasten the bra. "You're a man and I'm a woman and I love you." The bra came free, revealing that spectacular scale-model bosom. Then she dropped her panties.

Ah, yes -- complete and desirable in every respect.

And nine inches tall.

"Now it's your turn," she said.

"Look, Minnie-this is ridiculous. I can't --"

"Please, Mr. Fowler!" she urged him. "Get undressed."

"You don't understand --"

She dabbed her face with a handkerchief the size of a postage stamp. "You don't love me! You won't even give me a ch-chance!"

Feeling like both fool and heel, he removed his pajamas. Of all the ways to be spending a Saturday morning!

"Good," she said, looking him over demurely. "Now lie down."

He lay on his back next to her.

She trotted up and leaned against his chin. "You haven't shaved."

"I'll go take care of it right now," he said, grateful for the pretext to remove himself from this embarrassing charade.

"No -- there isn't time. Kiss me," she said, and leaned over his face to plant her full red lips against his mouth. Her breasts nudged his cheek and she had one bare foot braced in his ear, but the overall effect, oddly, was potent.

Then she climbed up a little more so that her breasts hung above his mouth. Suddenly some more of the poem popped into his mind. Queen Helen's commentary on her own physique.

Yea, for my bosom here I sue: / (O Troy Town!) / Thou must give it where 'tis due, / Give it there to the heart's desire. / Whom do I give my bosom to? / (O Troy's down, / Tall Troy's on fire!)

It was given to Burg. The breasts pressed down between his lips, their miniature nipples touching his tongue. He couldn't help warming to the sensual impact of her body.

He licked the heart's desire.

"You do want me, don't you?" she inquired.

What could he say? He was drinking from Helen's goblet and Tall Troy was on fire.
"You're like, really tiny."
"Thanks. I had no idea."

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Re: "The Bridge" (or "Minnie's Crew")

Post by jeffrey-dallas » Tue Aug 04, 2020 12:03 am

4. Expedition

The Thoughtsman for the ad hoc Expeditionary Committee presented his report. We divided our mission into two prime areas of endeavor: first, the arrangements for the emissary to solicit a suitable exchange; second, the mechanical provisions for transfer of the shipment. Both areas had unique problems. We could not send one of our own number as emissary, for reasons hitherto discussed, so we formulated a matrix of suitable configuration and cultured it remotely to serve in lieu of direct confrontation. The proteins for the multicellular entity were garnered from the substances available on that world --

Several interjections: Multicellular entity? Why attempt such an unwieldy construction? Surely there is a less tedious way!

The Thoughtsman waited for the commentary to subside. Compatriots, our need is massive and immediate. We felt that our purpose would best be served by dealing with one of the larger species, one capable of delivering the entire shipment in a matter of hours. If our present, admittedly ambitious, scheme succeeds, we should have complete delivery by the terminus of this Assembly.

There was a complimentary aura of awe.

Then another protest: But at what price, Thoughtsman? We shall have to mortgage our entire resources for a thousand generations even to approach a fair exchange for such immediate service!

Not so, the Thoughtsman replied. We need only agree to mutually beneficial terms. In this case we believe our emissary will be able to give satisfactory value. Therefore the shipment should cost us nothing more than the effort of obtaining it.

But we cannot offer in exchange any information about ourselves or deriving from our researches! What else, apart from physical goods, could the emissary arrange for?

Love, the Thoughtsman replied.
"You're like, really tiny."
"Thanks. I had no idea."

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Re: "The Bridge" (or "Minnie's Crew")

Post by jeffrey-dallas » Wed Aug 05, 2020 1:44 am

5. Act of Love

Minnie trotted down Burg's chest, stomach and abdomen, her bare feet pattering ticklishly. When she reached the major bifurcation she kneeled in the brush, wrapped her arms about the cannon she found there, and pressed her resilient breasts against it.

Troy had never stood taller.

In the living room the clock chimed eight.

This abrupt reminder of the real world brought the weirdness of the situation home to him with renewed force. There was of course no mini-woman; he was lying steeped in his own concupiscence and he had better get up before he fouled the sheet. It had been a fabulous fantasy, ridiculous but exciting -- but there were limits.

"You'll have to sit up, Mr. Fowler," she said. "The angle is wrong, this way."

Burg lifted his head and saw her: a lushly naked woman straddling the canting trunk of a leaning beech tree as though it were a seesaw.

He sat up carefully, swinging his gross feet off the side of the bed while she clung to her support with arms and legs. He didn't know what to do except comply with her requests; the truth was too incredible to argue with.

"Give me your hand," she said.

He put out a hand and she braced herself against his thumb. She climbed just high enough to sit on the apex of the now-vertical stump, her slim legs coming down on either side. He could feel her smooth muscular buttocks and the moist warmth of her cleft as she squirmed around to seat herself firmly, facing him. Her waist was no larger than the purple hassock she bestrode.

She squirmed some more and the action was almost painfully titillating. He began to comprehend how physical intercourse could take place between them: her aperture, properly positioned, might match and seal over the vent in the hydrant.

Burg closed his eyes and let her proceed as she wished. Astonishingly, this enhanced the sensation; it felt as though she were gradually enclosing him. Tip, glans, stem, stage by stage. This was utterly impossible; Minnie's entire torso was hardly four inches long.

He felt the ejaculation coming on -- but that brought him to his senses again. So there was a doll-woman perched on the tower; accepting that much, the force of the incipient eruption would surely skewer her. That would not be funny at all. He remembered reading about one of the Nazi atrocities. They had taken one of the death-camp inmates, a young girl, forced the nozzle of a fire-hose into her vagina, tied it in place and turned the water on full force. That image made him recoil all over; it applied too specifically.

"Mr. Fowler!" Minnie cried.

Burg opened his eyes, then his mouth. The girl was squatting in his lap -– and tall Troy was into her a good three inches, yet her torso retained its original and delectable dimensions. It was as though his substance vanished once it penetrated her.

"Mr. Fowler -- you're shrinking."

So he was; that torture-image and now his amazement at what he saw had taken the starch from his ardor.

"Look, Minnie -- what if I should -- ?"

"We only have a few minutes," she said reproachfully. "You can't fail me now."

Detumescence continued, however, and her whole body tilted to one side as her support became jelly.

"But the -- where will it go?" he demanded academically. What did not come, could not go. "You'll be -- hurt."

She brought her knees together, putting pressure on the portion of him that remained within her. His flesh responded mechanically to the kneading of her well-formed limbs and began to grow again.

"Minnie, don't you know what happens when --"

"When the semen comes? Of course I know. And it has to be within five minutes or it's all wasted. Please, Mr. Fowler -- you have to help, you know."

He saw his member expanding enormously under this stimulation, pushing back into the space between her thighs. She bounced her body, taking in yet more of him. Penetration was back to three inches and still she flexed her legs and slid farther down the tower.

Burg made a last effort to get through to her intellectually before the automatic process took over. "Minnie, there's going to be a lot of-pressure. Are you sure you have -- room?"

"Do you love me?" she asked.

So even dream-girls had feminine foibles. "Yes, I -- I guess I do. It's crazy and backwards -- but I love you. You're my ideal, Minnie, in miniature."

"I'm so glad," she said, smiling. "And I love you, Burg." She was finally using his first name, as though his confession of love justified an intimacy of address that the prior circumstance had not. "And will you let me keep everything that comes?"

"It's a love offering," he said. "The truest kind. You can keep all you can hold, now and forever."

"Shake on it?" She proffered a doll-like hand.

He put out his right forefinger and she grasped the fingernail and tugged it solemnly up and down. They could not shake hands properly, he thought, but they could fornicate. What next?

"Then it's all right," she said. "Thank you, Burg."

And she straightened out both legs in an L-formation, scissored them wide and slid pneumatically down as though his manhood were a greased piston. Her dainty bottom landed warmly against his scrotum.

Her four-inch torso had absorbed him -- yet remained as slender and virginal as ever.
"You're like, really tiny."
"Thanks. I had no idea."

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Re: "The Bridge" (or "Minnie's Crew")

Post by jeffrey-dallas » Thu Aug 06, 2020 12:34 am

6. Pipeline

The mechanical aspect is even more critical, the Thoughtsman explained. The research required to locate a suitable and amenable subject could be done by straight observation and analysis but the physical construction of such a massive pipeline was an appalling project. Transmission has to be virtually instantaneous because of the perishability of the merchandise and the sheer volume also generates terrific problems. We have constructed a series of gateways, transfer-points to accommodate and differentiate the ingredients of the shipment. The first stage, located on the alien planet for convenience, connects directly to the input transmitter and is exceedingly large, since it must dock the alien tanker itself. Within it is a smaller transmitter to handle the cargo alone. The second stage, based on a world of our own system, is to receive and divide the mass into a number of lesser segments, each of which is retranslated individually. At this point the packaging material is also filtered out so that -–

Not clear, a chorus of thoughts came. Illustrate it.

The Thoughtsman projected a diagram:

(SEE ATTACHMENT)

Now there was an aura of comprehension.

Because of the vagaries of planetary motion and interstellar transmission conditions, the Thoughtsman continued, precise timing is essential. The other world, being of a larger order than our own, possesses a differential of duration with respect to ours that affects transmission. Our emissary has been most intricately programmed and is fully competent, but because of those time and size differentials is working under disadvantage.

A chorus of thoughts interjected. Are you implying that this could fail? That our tremendous effort and investment may be wasted? That you are gambling with our vital resources?

No, no! the Thoughtsman protested. But the truth was out: the success of the entire project depended on the performance of a disadvantaged representative and they did not have sufficient resource to make a second attempt.

At any rate, the Thoughtsman finished, we shall know very shortly. This Assembly chamber overlooks one of the five thousand output apertures distributed throughout our world. We shall witness success or failure before we disperse.

There was nothing more to discuss. Tensely they concentrated on the aperture and waited for the verdict. Success would preserve their existence by providing the necessary hedge against continuing animate senescence; failure would bring them that much closer to extinction.
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"You're like, really tiny."
"Thanks. I had no idea."

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Re: "The Bridge" (or "Minnie's Crew")

Post by jeffrey-dallas » Thu Aug 06, 2020 11:58 pm

7. Climax

She sat upon him, her knees drawn up with her arms around them. "It's almost time, Burg," she said. "We'd better start now. Put your hand around me."

Start?

He curved his fingers around her body as she let go her knees to accommodate his embrace. He was amazed that she remained so delicate. He throbbed deep within her. By rights he should be projecting beyond her head, yet this was not the case.

Minnie took his fingers and pressed them against her breast and thighs. Sensitive now to the nuances of her tiny body, he reacted to the tender flesh as though it were full-size. Large or small, she was his dream-girl and he did love her. Culmination was incipient.

"Now!" she cried, flexing her entire body against him. "Please, Burg, now!"

Stimulated by the frenzy of her flesh he let himself go. She clung to his fingers, kissing them and biting them.

Like the rumble of a live volcano it came, throbbing up from the fundament, pressuring chthonic valves, gathering into an irresistible swell. A steaming geyser distended the conduit and burst into individuality. And after it a second thrust pumped up from the depths to lay waste all hesitation. And a third, a fourth, and a fifth, spewed torrentially out in as many seconds. Then, with decreasing force, three more. And finally two others that oozed along as though squeezed from a tube of toothpaste, and apathy set in.

Troy was down.

Minnie slumped as he did, a weary but satisfied smile on her lovely face.

"We did it, Burg," she whispered. "We did it."

As though, he thought, a great deal more had been at stake than an act of physical love between two people.
"You're like, really tiny."
"Thanks. I had no idea."

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Re: "The Bridge" (or "Minnie's Crew")

Post by jeffrey-dallas » Sat Aug 08, 2020 2:05 am

(And now the conclusion...)

8. Denouement

Stage I was almost entirely filled by the tremendous turgid purple tanker from the alien world and when the first bolus avalanched from the gaping slit of its orifice the impact was such as virtually to sunder the cylinder. But the baffles held and the second transmitter channeled the viscous mass through in its entirety. The Stage II receiver, light-years distant, filtered and funneled it into the myriad subtransmitters and it emerged at last in fractional spurts into the Sea of Life.

There was a collective sigh of minds as the Council of Oomus perceived the blast of plasma from the adjacent aperture. The shipment had come: ten thousand viable entities in this subsection alone, each living body over a foot in diameter with a flexing tail forty feet long, driving heedlessly forward as it encountered the living water.

Tall Troy's on fire! the Thoughtsman reflected for no sensible reason. What was fire? What was Troy?

And the giant, tired egg-matrices of Oomus were waiting for the amalgamation, for the vigor of new life, new notions, new chromosomes. All over the world, surrounding five thousand apertures, they were ready. Semisentient masses capable of adapting if only granted a fresh blueprint in place of the senescent retreads of the past billion years. Now that rejuvenating strain had come -- from a source whose monstrosity defied the imagination.

An hour later the second bolus arrived, as brisk and massive as the first. And an hour after that, the third.

The council remained for the full twelve hours the complete shipment took, perceiving every aspect raptly, though the last two surges were but gentle swells with little content. In all, five hundred million swimming sperm cells came, enough for every available egg. It meant salvation for Oomus. Not life as it had been, for these were alien chromosomes; but their uniformity guaranteed that every developing egg would be compatible with those of its generation. A new animation had replaced and improved the old.

And what of the emissary? the chairman inquired of the Thoughtsman as they basked in the ambient grandeur of the alien gift.

Contact has been broken, the Thoughtsman replied. We could not maintain it longer; our mechanisms were out of power. She will have to remain there.

Can she exist alone?

Oh yes -- she is of otherworld substance but based on our own cellular design. She cannot imbibe nourishment in the alien manner but any future shipments she is able to procure will be conserved in Stage I and routed back to animate her own flesh. That segment of the equipment draws its power from the alien world and will function indefinitely. She can endure, theoretically, for a long time -- many thousands of our years -- if she is only able to obtain chromosome rejuvenation regularly.

I fear that is impossible, the chairman thought. What alien would donate a cargo sufficient to reanimate an entire world just to oblige a creature like that? I deeply regret that, in our urgency to save our form of existence, we were forced to create such an ungainly multicelled monster doomed to a brief and miserable existence.

It is hardly fair, the Thoughtsman agreed morosely. She does have a good mind and strong feelings, since these were part of the necessary specifications for success. Had I not been preoccupied with our own concerns I would have remembered her situation and in mercy terminated her life as the mission ended. Even a monster does not deserve to suffer unnecessarily.

But it was a minor sadness, in the face of their new joy.
"You're like, really tiny."
"Thanks. I had no idea."

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