"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.
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:
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 programed 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.
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.
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.