Mote In God's Eye, The - Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
The Mote In God's Eye
Authors: Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
Prologue
"Throughout the past thousand years of history it has been traditional to regard the Alderson Drive as an unmixed blessing. Without the faster than light travel Alderson's discoveries made possible, humanity would have been trapped in the tiny prison of the Solar System when the Great Patriotic Wars destroyed the CoDominium on Earth. Instead, we had already settled more than two hundred worlds.
"A blessing, yes. We might now be extinct were it not for the Alderson Drive. But unmixed? Consider. The same tramline effect that colonized the stars, the same interstellar contacts that allowed the formation of the First Empire, allow interstellar war. The worlds wrecked in two hundred years of Secession Wars were both settled and destroyed by ships using the Alderson Drive.
"Because of the Alderson Drive we need never consider the space between the stars. Because we can shunt between stellar systems in zero time, our ships and ships' drives need cover only interplanetary distances. We say that the Second Empire of Man rules two hundred worlds and all the space between, over fifteen million cubic parsecs.
"Consider the true picture. Think of myriads of tiny bubbles, very sparsely scattered, rising through a vast black sea. We rule some of the bubbles. Of the waters we know nothing...
- from a speech delivered by Dr. Anthony Horvath at the Blaine Institute, A.D. 3029.
Chapter 1 - A.D. 3017 - The Crazy Eddie Probe
Chapter 1 - A.D. 3017 - The Crazy Eddie Probe
A.D. 3017
THE CRAZY EDDIE PROBE
Command
"Admiral's compliments, and you're to come to his office right away," Midshipman Staley announced.
Commander Roderick Blaine looked frantically around the bridge, where his officers were directing repairs with low and urgent voices, surgeons assisting at a difficult operation. The gray steel compartment was a confusion of activities, each orderly by itself, but the overall impression was of chaos. Screens above one helmsman's station showed the planet below and the other ships in orbit near MacArthur, but everywhere else the panel covers had been removed from consoles, test instruments were clipped into their insides, and technicians stood by with color-coded electronic assemblies to replace everything that seemed doubtful. Thumps and whines sounded through the ship as somewhere aft the engineering crew worked on the hull.
The scars of battle showed everywhere, ugly burns where the ship's protective Langston Field had overloaded momentarily. An irregular hole larger than a man's fist was burned completely through one console, and now two technicians seemed permanently installed in the system by a web of cables. Rod Blaine looked at the black stains that had spread across his battle dress. A whiff of metal vapor and burned meat was still in his nostrils, or in his brain, and again he saw fire and molten metal erupt from the hull and wash across his left side. His left arm was still bound across his chest by an elastic bandage, and he could follow most of the previous week's activities by the stains it carried.
And I've only been aboard an hour! he thought. With the Captain ashore, and everything a mess, I can't leave now! He turned to the midshipman. "Right away?"
"Yes, sir. The signal's marked urgent."
Nothing for it, then, and Rod would catch hell when the Captain came back aboard. First Lieutenant Cargill and Engineer Sinclair were competent men, but Rod was Exec and damage control was his responsibility, even if he'd been away from MacArthur when she took most of the hits.
Rod's Marine orderly coughed discreetly and pointed to the stained uniform. "Sir, we've time to get you more decent?"
"Good thinking." Rod glanced at the status board to be sure. Yes, he had half an hour before he could take a boat down to the planet's surface. Leaving sooner wouldn't get him to the Admiral's office any quicker. It would be a relief to get out of these coveralls. He hadn't undressed since he was wounded.
They had to send for a surgeon's mate to undress him. The medic snipped at the armor cloth embedded in his left arm and muttered. "Hold still, sir. That arm's cooked good." His voice was disapproving. "You should have been in sick bay a week ago."
"Hardly possible," Rod answered. A week before, MacArthur had been in battle with a rebel warship, who'd scored more hits than she ought to have before surrendering. After the victory Rod was prize master in the enemy vessel, and there weren't facilities for proper treatment there. As the armor came away he smelled something worse than week-old sweat. Touch of gangrene, maybe.
"Yessir." A few more threads were cut away. The synthetic was as tough as steel. "Now it's gonna take surgery, Commander. Got to cut all that away before the regeneration stimulators can work. While we got you in sick bay we can fix that nose."
"I like my nose," Rod told him coldly. He fingered the slightly crooked appendage and recalled the battle when it was broken. Rod thought it made him look older, no bad thing at twenty-four standard years; and it was the badge of an earned, not inherited, success. Rod was proud of his family background, but there were times when the Blaine reputation was a bit hard to live up to.
Eventually the armor was cut loose and his arm smeared with Numbitol. The stewards helped him into a powder blue uniform, red sash, gold braid, epaulettes; all wrinkled and crushed, but better than monofiber coveralls. The stiff jacket hurt his arm despite the anesthetic until he found that he could rest his forearm on the pistol butt.
When he was dressed he boarded the landing gig from MacArthur's hangar deck, and the coxswain let the boat drop through the big flight elevator doors without having the spin taken off the ship. It was a dangerous maneuver, but it saved time. Retros fired, and the little winged flyer plunged into atmosphere.
NEW CHICAGO: Inhabited world, Trans-Coalsack Sector, approximately 20 parsecs from Sector Capital. The primary is an F9 yellow star commonly referred to as Beta Hortensis.
The atmosphere is very nearly Earth-normal and breathable without aids or filters. Gravity is 1.08 standard. The planetary radius is 1.05, and mass is 1.21 Earth-standard, indicating a planet of greater than normal density. New Chicago is inclined at 41 degrees with a semi-major axis of 1.06 AU, moderately eccentric. The resulting variations in seasonal temperatures have confined the inhabited areas to a relatively narrow band in the south temperate zone.
There is one moon at normal distance, commonly called Evanston. The origin of the name is obscure.
New Chicago is 70 percent seas. Land area is mostly mountainous with continuing volcanic activity. The extensive metal industries of the First Empire period were nearly all destroyed in the Succession Wars; reconstruction of an industrial base has proceeded satisfactorily since New Chicago was admitted to the Second Empire in AD. 2940. Most inhabitants reside in a single city which bears the same name as the planet. Other population centers are widely scattered, with none having a population over 45,000. Total planet population was reported as 6.7 million in the census of 2990. There are iron mining and smelting towns in the mountains, and extensive agricultural settlements. The planet is self-sufficient in foodstuffs.
New Chicago possesses a growing merchant fleet, and is located at a convenient point to serve as a center of TransCoalsack interstellar trade. It is governed by a governor general and a council appointed by the Viceroy of TransCoalsack Sector, there is an elected assembly, and two delegates have been admitted to the Imperial Parliament.
Rod Blaine scowled at the words flowing across the screen of his pocket computer. The physical data were current, but everything else was obsolete. The rebels had changed even the name of their world, from New Chicago to Dame Liberty. Her government would have to be built all over again. Certainly she'd lose her delegates; she might even lose the right to an elected assembly.
He put the instrument away and looked down. They were over mountainous country, and he saw no signs of war. There hadn't been any area bombardments, thank God.
It happened sometimes: a city fortress would hold out with the aid of satellite-based planetary defenses. The Navy had no time for prolonged sieges. Imperial policy was to finish rebellions at the lowest possible cost in lives-but to finish them. A holdout rebel planet might be reduced to glittering lava fields, with nothing surviving but a few cities lidded by the black domes of Langston Fields; and what then? There weren't enough ships to transport food across interstellar distances. Plague and famine would follow.
Yet, he thought, it was the only possible way. He had sworn the Oath on taking the Imperial commission. Humanity must be reunited into one government, by persuasion or by force, so that the hundreds of years of Secession Wars could never happen again. Every Imperial officer had seen what horrors those wars brought; that was why the academies were located on Earth instead of at the Capital.
As they neared the city he saw the first signs of battle. A ring of blasted lands, mined outlying fortresses, broken concrete rails of the transportation system; then the almost untouched city which had been secure within the perfect circle of its Langston Field. The city had taken minor damage, but once the Field was off, effective resistance had ceased. Only fanatics fought on against the Imperial Marines.
They passed over the ruins of a tall building crumpled over by a falling landing boat. Someone must have fired on the Marines and the pilot hadn't wanted his death to be for nothing...
They circled the city, slowing to allow them to approach the landing docks without breaking out all the windows. The buildings were old, most built by hydrocarbon technology, Rod guessed, with strips torn out and replaced by more modem structures. Nothing remained of the First Empire city which had stood here.
When they dropped onto the port on top of Government House, Rod saw that slowing hadn't been required. Most city windows were smashed already. Mobs milled in the streets, and the only moving vehicles were military convoys. Some people stood idly, others ran in and out of shops. Gray-coated Imperial Marines stood guard behind electrified riot fences around Government House. The flyer landed.
Blaine was rushed down the elevator to the Governor General's floor. There wasn't a woman in the building, although Imperial government offices usually bristled with them, and Rod missed the girls. He'd been in space a long time. He gave his name to the ramrod-straight Marine at the receptionist's desk and waited.
He wasn't looking forward to the coming interview, and spent the time glaring at blank walls. All the decorative paintings, the three-d star map with Imperial banners floating above the provinces, all the standard equipment of a governor general's office on a Class One planet, were gone, leaving ugly places on the walls.
The guard motioned him into the office. Admiral Sir Vladimir Richard George Plekhanov, Vice Admiral of the Black, Knight of St. Michael and St. George, was seated at the Governor General's desk. There was no sign of His Excellency Mr. Haruna, and for a moment Rod thought the Admiral was alone. Then he noticed Captain Cziller, his immediate superior as master of MacArthur, standing by the window. All the transparencies had been knocked out, and there were deep scratches in the paneled walls. The displays and furniture were gone. Even the Great Seal crown and spaceship, eagle, sickle and hammer-was missing from above the duralplast desk. There had never in Rod's memory been a duralplast desk in a governor general's office.
"Commander Blaine reporting as ordered, sir."
Plekhanov absently returned the salute. Cziller didn't look around from the window. Rod stood at stiff attention while the Admiral regarded him with an unchanging expression. Finally: "Good morning, Commander."
"Good morning, sir."
"Not really. I suppose I haven't seen you since I last visited Crucis Court. How is the Marquis?"
"Well when I was last home, sir."
The Admiral nodded and continued to regard Blaine with a critical look. He hasn't changed, Rod thought. An enormously competent man, who fought a tendency to fat by exercising in high gravity. The Navy sent Plekhanov when hard fighting was expected. He's never been known to excuse an incompetent officer, and there was a gunroom rumor that he'd had the Crown Prince-now Emperor-stretched over a mess table and whacked with a spatball paddle back when His Highness was serving as a midshipman in Plataea.
"I have your report here, Blaine. You had to fight your way to the rebel Field generator. You lost a company of Imperial Marines."
"Yes, sir." Fanatic rebel guardsmen had defended the generator station, and the battle had been fierce.
"And just what the devil were you doing in a ground action?" the Admiral demanded. "Cziller gave you that captured cruiser to escort our assault carrier. Did you have orders to go down with the boats?"
"No, sir."
"I suppose you think the aristocracy isn't subject to Navy discipline?"
"Of course I don't think that, sir."
Plekhanov ignored him. "Then there's this deal you made with a rebel leader. What was his name?" Plekhanov glanced at the papers. "Stone. Jonas Stone. Immunity from arrest. Restoration of property. Damn you, do you imagine that every naval officer has authority to make deals with subjects in rebellion? Or do you hold some diplomatic commission I'm not aware of, Commander?"
"No, sir." Rod's lips were pressed tightly against his teeth. He wanted to shout, but he didn't. To hell with Navy tradition, he thought. I won the damned war.
"But you do have an explanation?" the Admiral demanded.
"Yes, sir."
"Well?"
Rod spoke through tightening throat muscles. "Sir. While commanding the prize Defiant, I received a signal from the rebel city. At that time the city's Langston Field was intact, Captain Cziller aboard MacArthur was fully engaged with the satellite planetary defenses, and the main body of the fleet was in general engagement with rebel forces. The message was signed by a rebel leader. Mr. Stone promised to admit Imperial forces into the city on condition that he obtain full immunity from prosecution and restoration of his personal property. He gave a time limit of one hour, and insisted on a member of the aristocracy as guarantor. If there were anything to his offer, the war would end once the Marines entered the city's Field generator house. There being no possibility of consultation with higher authority, I took the landing force down myself and gave Mr. Stone my personal word of honor."
Plekhanov frowned. "Your word. As Lord Blaine. Not as a Navy officer."
"It was the only way he'd discuss it, Admiral."
"I see." Plekhanov was thoughtful now. If he disavowed Blaine's word, Rod would be through, in the Navy, in government, everywhere. On the other hand, Admiral Piekhanov would have to explain to the House of Peers. "What made you think this offer was genuine?"
"Sir, it was in Imperial code and countersigned by a Navy intelligence officer."
"So you risked your ship -- "
"Against the chance of ending the war without destroying the planet. Yes, sir. I might point out that Mr. Stone's message described the city prison camp where they were keeping the Imperial officers and citizens."
"I see." Plekhanov's hands moved in a sudden angry gesture. "All right. I've no use for traitors, even one who helps us. But I'll honor your bargain, and that means I have to give official approval to your going down with the landing boats. I don't have to like it, Blaine, and I don't. It was a damn fool stunt."
One that worked, Rod thought. He continued to stand at attention, but he felt the knot in his guts loosen.
The Admiral grunted. "Your father takes stupid chances. Almost got us both killed on Tanith. It's a bloody wonder your family's survived through eleven marquises, and it'll be a bigger one if you live to be twelfth. All right, sit down."
"Thank you, sir." Rod said stiffly, his voice coldly polite.'
The Admiral's face relaxed slightly. "Did I ever tell you your father was my commanding officer on Tanith?" Plekhanov asked conversationally.
"No, sir. He did." There was still no warmth in Rod's voice.
"He was also the best friend I ever had in the Navy, Commander. His influence put me in this seat, and he asked to have you under my command."
"Yes, sir." I knew that. Now I wonder why.
"You'd like to ask me what I expected you to do, wouldn't you, Commander?"
Rod twitched in surprise. "Yes, sir."
"What would have happened if that offer hadn't been genuine? If it had been a trap?"
"The rebels might have destroyed my command."
"Yes." Plekhanov's voice was steely calm. "But you thought it worth the risk because you had a chance to end the war with few casualties on either side. Right?"
"Yes, sir."
"And if the Marines were killed, just what would my fleet have been able to do?" The Admiral slammed both fists against the desk. "I'd have had no choices at all!" he roared. "Every week I keep this fleet here is another chance for outies to hit one of our planets! There'd have been no time to send for another assault carrier and more Marines. If you'd lost your command, I'd have blasted this planet into the stone age, Blaine. Aristocrat or no, don't you ever put anyone in that position again! Do you understand me?"
"Yes, sir". He's right. But- What good would the Marines have been with the city's Field intact? Rod's shoulders slumped. Something. He'd have done something. But what?
"It turned out well," Plekhanov said coldly. "Maybe you were right. Maybe you weren't. You do another stunt like that and I'll have your sword. Is that understood?" He lifted a printout of Rod's service career. "Is MacArthur ready for space?"
"Sir?" The question was asked in the same tone as the threat, and it took Rod a moment to shift mental gears. "For space, sir. Not a battle. And I wouldn't want to see her go far without a refit." In the frantic hour he'd spent aboard, Rod had carried out a thorough inspection, which was one reason he needed a shave. Now he sat uncomfortably and wondered. MacArthur's captain stood at the window, obviously listening, but he hadn't said a word. Why didn't the Admiral ask him?
As Blaine wondered, Plekhanov made up his mind. "Well? Bruno, you're Fleet Captain. Make your recommendation."
Bruno Cziller turned from the window. Rod was startled: Cziller no longer wore the little silver replica of MacArthur that showed him to be her master. Instead the comet and sunburst of the Naval Staff shone on his breast, and Cziller wore the broad stripes of a brevet admiral.
"How are you, Commander?" Cziller asked formally. Then grinned. That twisted lopsided grin was famous through MacArthur. "You're looking all right. At least from the right profile you do. Well, you were aboard an hour. What damage did you find?"
Confused, Rod reported the present condition of MacArthur as he'd found her, and the repairs he'd ordered. Cziller nodded and asked questions. Finally: "And you conclude she's ready for space, but not war. Is that it?"
"Yes, sir. Not against a capital ship, anyway."
"It's true, too. Admiral, my recommendation. Commander Blaine is ready for promotion and we can give him MacArthur to take for refit to New Scotland, then on to the Capital. He can take Senator Fowler's niece with him."
Give him MacArthur? Rod heard him dimly, wonderingly. He was afraid to believe it, but here was the chance to show Plekhanov and everyone else.
"He's young. Never be allowed to keep that ship as a first command," Plekhanov said. "Still and all, it's probably the best way. He can't get in too much trouble going to Sparta by way of New Caledonia. She's yours, Captain." When Rod said nothing, Plekhanov barked at him. "You. Blaine. You're promoted to captain and command of MacArthur. My writer will have your orders in half an hour."
Cziller grinned one-sided. "Say something," he suggested.
"Thank you, sir. I- I thought you didn't approve of me."
"Not sure I do," Plekhanov said. "If I had any choice you'd be somebody's exec. You'll probably make a good marquis, but you don't have the Navy temperament. I don't suppose it matters, the Navy's not your career anyway."
"Not any more, sir," Rod said carefully.
It still hurt inside. Big George, who filled a room with barbells when he was twelve and was built like a wedge before he was sixteen-his brother George was dead in a battle halfway across the Empire. Rod would be planning his future, or thinking wistfully about home, and the memory would come as if someone had pricked his soul with a needle. Dead. George?
George should have inherited the estates and titles. Rod had wanted nothing more than a Navy career and the chance to become Grand Admiral someday. Now less than ten years and he'd have to take his place in Parliament.
"You'll have two passengers," Cziller said. "One you've met. You do know Lady Sandra Bright Fowler, don't you? Senator Fowler's niece."
"Yes, sir. I hadn't seen her for years, but her uncle dines at Crucis Court quite often...then I found her in the prison camp. How is she?"
"Not very good," Cziller said. His grin vanished. "We're packing her home, and I don't have to tell you to handle with care. She'll be with you as far as New Scotland, and all the way to the Capital if she wants. That's up to her. Your other passenger, though, that's a different matter."
Rod looked up attentively. Cziller looked to Plekhanov, got a nod, and continued, "His Excellency, Trader Horace Hussein Bury, Magnate, Chairman of the Board of Imperial Autonetics, and something big in the Imperial Traders Association. He stays with you all the way to Sparta, and I mean he stays aboard your ship, do you understand?"
"Well, not exactly, 'sir," Rod answered.
Plekhanov sniffed. "Cziller made it clear enough. We think Bury was behind this rebellion, but there's not enough evidence to put him in preventive detention. He'd appeal to the Emperor. All right, we'll send him to Sparta to make his appeal. As the Navy's guest. But who do I send him with, Blaine? He's worth millions. More. How many men would turn down a whole planet for a bribe? Bury could offer one."
"I-yes, sir," Rod said.
"And don't look so damned shocked," Plekhanov barked. "I haven't accused any of my officers of corruption. But the fact is, you're richer than Bury. He can't even tempt you. It's my main reason for giving you command of MacArthur, so I don't have to worry about our wealthy friend."
"I see. Thank you anyway, sir." And I will show you it was no mistake.
Plekhanov nodded as if reading Blaine's thoughts. "You might make a good Navy officer. Here's your chance. I need Cziller to help govern this planet. The rebels killed the Governor General."
"Killed Mr. Haruna?" Rod was stunned. He remembered the wrinkled old gentleman; well over a hundred when he came to Rod's home- "He's an old friend of my father's."
"He wasn't the only one they killed. They had the heads strung up on pikes outside Government House. Somebody thought that'd make the people fight on longer. Make 'em afraid to surrender to us. Well, they have reason to be afraid now. Your deal with Stone. Any other conditions?"
"Yes, sir. It's off if he refuses to cooperate with Intelligence. He has to name all the conspirators."
Plekhanov looked significantly at Cziller. "Get your men on that, Bruno. It's a start. All right, Blaine, get your ship fixed up and scoot." The Admiral stood; the interview was over. "You'll have a lot to do, Captain. Get to it."
Chapter 2 - The Passengers
Chapter 2 - The Passengers
Horace Hussein Chamoun al Shamlan Bury pointed out the last of the articles he would take with him and dismissed the servants. He knew they would wait just outside his suite, ready to divide the wealth he was leaving behind, but it amused him to make them wait. They would be all the happier for the thrill of stealing.
When the room was empty he poured a large glass of wine. It was poor quality stuff brought in after the blockade, but he hardly noticed. Wine was officially forbidden on Levant, which meant that the hordes of wine sellers foisted off anything alcoholic on their customers, even wealthy ones like the Bury family. Horace Bury had never developed any real appreciation for expensive liquors. He bought them to show his wealth, and for entertaining; but for himself anything would do. Coffees were a different matter.
He was a small man, as were most of the people of Levant, with dark features and a prominent nose, dark, burning eyes and sharp features, quick gestures, and a violent temper that only his intimate associates suspected. Alone now, he permitted himself a scowl. There was a printout from Admiral Plekhanov's writers on the desk, and he easily translated the formally polite phrases inviting him to leave New Chicago and regretting that no civilian passage would be available. The Navy was suspicious, and he felt a cold knot of rage threaten to engulf him despite the wine. He was outwardly calm, though, as he sat at the desk and ticked off points on his fingers.
What had the Navy on him? There were the suspicions of Naval Intelligence, but no evidence. There was the usual hatred of the Navy for Imperial Traders, compounded, he thought, because some of the Navy staff were Jews, and all Jews hated Levantines. But the Navy could have no real evidence or he wouldn't be going aboard MacArthur as a guest. He'd be in irons. That meant Jonas Stone still kept his silence.
He ought to keep silence. Bury had paid him a hundred thousand crowns with a promise of more. But he had no confidence in Stone: two nights before, Bury had seen certain men on lower Kosciusko Street and paid them fifty thousand crowns, and it shouldn't be long until Stone was silent forever. Let him whisper secrets in his grave.
Was there anything else undone? he wondered. No. What would come would come, glory be to Allah...He grimaced. That kind of thinking came naturally, and he despised himself for a superstitious fool. Let his father praise Allah for his accomplishments; fortune came to the man who left nothing to chance; as he had left few things undone in his ninety standard years.
The Empire had come to Levant ten years after Horace was born, and at first its influence was small. In those days Imperial policies were different and the planet came into the Empire with a standing nearly equal to more advanced worlds. Horace Bury's father soon realized Imperialism could be made to pay. By becoming one of those the Imperials used to govern the planet, he had amassed immense wealth: he'd sold audiences with the governor, and hawked justice like cabbages in the market place, but always carefully, always leaving others to face the wrath of the hardnosed men of the Imperial service.
His father was careful with investments, and he'd used his influence to have Horace Hussein educated on Sparta. He'd even given him a name suggested by an Imperial Navy officer; only later did they learn that Horace was hardly common in the Empire and was a name to be laughed at.
Bury drowned the memory of early days in the Capital schools with another beaker of wine. He'd learned! And now he'd invested his father's money, and his own. Horace Bury wasn't someone to laugh at. It had taken thirty years, but his agents had located the officer who'd given him that name. The stereographs of his agony were hidden in Bury's home on Levant. He'd had the last laugh.
Now he bought and sold men who laughed at him, as he bought votes in Parliament, bought ships, and had almost bought this planet of New Chicago. And by the Prophet-blast!-by damn he'd own it yet. Control of New Chicago would give his family influence here beyond the Coal Sack, here where the Empire was weak and new planets were found monthly. A man might look to-to anything!
The reverie had helped. Now he summoned his agents, the man who'd guard his interests here, and Nabil, who would accompany him as a servant on the warship. Nabil, a small man, much smaller than Horace, younger than he looked, with a ferret face that could be disguised many ways, and skills with dagger and poison learned on ten planets. Horace Hussein Bury smiled. So the Imperials would keep him prisoner aboard their warships? So long as there were no ships for Levant, let them. But when they were at a busy port, they might find it harder to do.
For three days Rod worked on MacArthur. Leaking tankage, burned-out components, all had to be replaced. There were few spares, and MacArthur's crew spent hours in space cannibalizing the Union war fleet hulks in orbit around New Chicago.
Slowly MacArthur was put back into battle worthy condition. Blaine worked with Jack Cargill, First Lieutenant and now Exec, and Commander Jock Sinclair, the Chief Engineer. Like many engineering officers, Sinclair was from New Scotland. His heavy accent was common among Scots throughout space. Somehow they had preserved it as a badge of pride during the Secession Wars, even on planets where Gaelic was a forgotten language. Rod privately suspected that the Scots studied their speech off duty so they'd be unintelligible to the rest of humanity.
Hull plates were welded on, enormous patches of armor stripped from Union warships and sweated into place. Sinclair worked wonders adapting New Chicago equipment for use in MacArthur, until he had built a patchwork of components and spares that hardly matched the ship's original blueprints. The bridge officers worked through the nights trying to explain and describe the changes to the ship's master computer.
Cargill and Sinclair nearly came to blows over some of the adaptations, Sinclair maintaining that the important thing was to have the ship ready for space, while the First Lieutenant insisted that he'd never be able to direct combat repairs because God Himself didn't know what had been done to the ship.
"I dinna care to hear such blasphemy," Sinclair was saying as Rod came into range. "And is it nae enough that I ken wha' we hae done to her?"
"Not unless you want to be cook too, you maniac tinkerer! This morning the wardroom cook couldn't operate the coffeepot! One of your artificers took the microwave heater. Now by God you'll bring that back...
"Aye, we'll strip it oot o' number-three tank, just as soon as you find me parts for the pump it replaces. Can you no be happy, man? The ship can fight again. Or is coffee more important?"
Cargill took a deep breath, then started over. "The ship can fight," he said in what amounted to baby talk, "until somebody makes a hole in her. Then she has to be fixed. Now suppose I had to repair this," he said, laying a hand on something Rod was almost sure was an air adsorber converter. "The damned thing looks half-melted now. How would I know what was damaged? Or if it were damaged at all? Suppose..."
"Man, you wouldna' hae troubles if you did nae fash yoursel' wi..."
"Will you stop that? You talk like everybody else when you get excited!"
"That's a damn lie?'
But at that point Rod thought it better to step into view. He sent the Chief Engineer to his end of the ship and Cargill forward. There would be no settling their dispute until MacArthur could be thoroughly refitted in New Scotland's Yards.
Blaine spent a night in sickbay under orders from the surgeon lieutenant. He came out with his arm immobile in a tremendous padded cast like a pillow grafted on him. He felt mean and preternaturally alert for the next few days; but nobody actually laughed out loud in his hearing.
On the third day after taking command Blaine held ship's inspection. All work was stopped and the ship given spin. Then Blaine and Cargill went over her.
Rod was tempted to take advantage of his recent experience as MacArthur's Exec. He knew all the places where a lazy executive officer might skimp on the work. But it was his first inspection, the ship only just under repair from battle damage, and Cargill was too good an officer to let something pass that he could possibly have corrected. Blaine took a leisurely tour, checking the important gear but otherwise letting Cargill guide him. As he did, he mentally resolved not to let to be a precedent. When there was more time, he'd go over the ship and find out everything.
A full company of Marines guarded the New Chicago spaceport. Since the city's Langston-Field generator had fallen there had been no resurgence of hostilities. Indeed, most of the populace seemed to welcome the Imperial forces with an exhausted relief more convincing than parades and cheering. But the New Chicago revolt had reached the Empire as a stunning surprise; resurgence would be no surprise at all.
So Marines patrolled the spaceport and guarded the Imperial boats, and Sally Fowler felt their eyes as she walked with her servants through hot sunlight toward a boat-shaped lifting body. They didn't bother her. She was Senator Fowler's niece; she was used to being stared at.
Lovely, one of the guards was thinking. But no expression. You'd think she'd be happy to be out of that stinking prison camp, but she doesn't look it. Perspiration dripped steadily down his ribs, and he thought, She doesn't sweat. She was carved from ice by the finest sculptor that ever lived.
The boat was big, and two-thirds empty. Sally's eyes took in two small dark men-Bury and his servant, and no doubt about which was which-and four younger men showing fear, anticipation, and awe. The mark of New Chicago's outback was on them. New recruits, she guessed.
She took one of the last seats at the back. She was not in a conversational mood. Adam and Annie looked at her with worried expressions, then took seats across the aisle. They knew.
"It's good to be leaving," said Annie.
Sally didn't respond. She felt nothing at all.
She'd been like this ever since the Marines had burst into the prison camp. There had been good food, and a hot bath, and clean clothes, and the deference of those about her...and none of it had reached her. She'd felt nothing. Those months in the prison camp had burned something out of her. Perhaps permanently, she thought. It bothered her remotely.
When Sally Fowler left the Imperial University at Sparta with her master's degree in anthropology she had persuaded her uncle that instead of graduate school she should travel through the Empire, observe newly conquered provinces, and study primitive cultures first hand. She would even write a book.
"After all," she had insisted, "what can I learn here? It's out there beyond the Coal Sack that I'm needed."
She had a mental image of her triumphant return, publications and scholarly articles, winning a place for herself in her profession rather than passively waiting to be married off to some young aristocrat. Sally fully intended to marry, but not until she could start with more than her inheritances. She wanted to be something in her own right, to serve the realm in ways other than bearing it sons to be killed in warships.
Surprisingly, her uncle had agreed. If Sally had known more of people instead of academic psychology she might have realized why. Benjamin Bright Fowler, her father's younger brother, had inherited nothing, had won his place a leader of the Senate by sheer guts and ability. With no children of his own, he thought of his brother's only surviving child as his daughter, and he had seen enough young girls whose only importance was their relatives and their money. Sally and a classmate had left Sparta with Sally's servants, Adam and Annie, headed for the provinces and the study of primitive human cultures that the Navy was forever finding. Some planets had not been visited by starships for three hundred years and more, and the wars had so reduced their populations that savagery returned.
They were on their way to a primitive colony world, with a stopover at New Chicago to change ships, when the revolution broke out. Sally's friend Dorothy had been outside the city that day, and had never been found. The Union Guards of the Committee of Public Safety had dragged Sally from her hotel suite, stripped her of her valuables, and thrown her into the camp.
In the first days the camp was orderly. Imperial nobility, civil servants, and former Imperial soldiers made the camp safer than the streets of New Chicago. But day after day the aristocrats and government officials were taken from the camp and never seen again, while common criminals were added to the mixture. Adam and Annie found her somehow, and the other inhabitants of her tent were Imperial citizens, not criminals. She had survived first days, then weeks, finally months of imprisonment beneath the endless black night of the city's Langston Field.
At first it had been an adventure, frightening, unpleasant, but no worse. Then the rations had been reduced, and reduced again, and the prisoners began to starve. Near the end the last signs of order had disappeared. Sanitary regulations were not enforced. Emaciated corpses lay stacked by the gates for days before the death squads came for them.
It had become an unending nightmare. Her name was posted at the gate: the Committee of Public Safety wanted her. The other camp inmates swore that Sally Fowler was dead, and since the guards seldom entered the compound she was saved from whatever fate had overtaken other members of governing families.
As conditions became worse, Sally found a new inner strength. She tried to set an example for others in her tent. They looked to her as their leader, with Adam as her prime minister. When she cried, everyone was afraid. And so, at age twenty-two standard years, her dark hair a tangled mess, her clothes filthy and torn and her hands coarse and dirty, Sally could not even throw herself into a corner and weep. All she could do was endure the nightmare.
Into the nightmare had come rumors of Imperial battleships in the sky above the black dome-and rumors that the prisoners would be slaughtered before the ships could break through. She had smiled and pretended not to believe it could happen. Pretended? A nightmare was not real.
Then the marines had crashed through, led by a big blood-covered man with the manners of the Court and one arm in a sling. The nightmare had ended then, and Sally waited to wake up. They'd cleaned her, fed her, clothed her-why didn't she wake up? Her soul felt wrapped in cotton.
Acceleration was heavy on her chest. The shadows in the cabin were sharp as razors. The New Chicago recruits crowded at the windows, chattering. They must be in space. But Adam and Annie watched her with worried eyes. They'd been fat when first they saw New Chicago. Now the skin of their faces hung in folds. She knew they'd given her too much of their own food. Yet they seemed to have survived better than she.
I wish I could cry, she thought. I ought to cry. For Dorothy. I kept waiting for them to tell me Dorothy had been found. Nothing. She disappeared from the dream. A recorded voice said something she didn't try to catch. Then the weight lifted from her and she was floating.
Floating. Were they actually going to let her go?'
She turned abruptly to the window. New Chicago glowed like any Earthlike world, its distinctive patterns unreadable. Bright seas and lands, all the shades of blue smeared with the white frosting of cloud. Dwindling. As it shrank, she stared out, hiding her face. Nobody should see that feral snarl. In that moment she could have ordered New Chicago burned down to bedrock.
After inspection, Rod conducted Divine Worship on the hangar deck. They had only just finished the last hymn when the midshipman of the watch announced that the passengers were coming aboard. Blaine watched the crew scurry back to work. There would be no free Sundays while his ship wasn't in fighting trim, no matter what service traditions might say about Sundays in orbit. Blaine listened as the men went past, alert for signs of resentment. Instead he heard idle chatter, and no more than the expected grumbling.
"All right, I know what a mote is," Stoker Jackson was saying to his partner. "I can understand getting a mote in me eye. But how in God's Name can I get a beam there? You tell me that, now, how can a beam get in a man's eye and him not know it? Ain't reason;"
"You're absolutely right. What's a beam?"
"What's a beam? Oh ho, you're from Tabletop, aren't you? Well, a beam is sawn wood-wood. It comes from a tree. A tree, that's a great, big..
The voices faded out. Blaine made his way quickly back to the bridge. If Sally Fowler had been the only passenger he would have been happy to meet her at the hangar deck, but he wanted this Bury to understand their relationship immediately. It wouldn't do for him to think the captain of one of His Majesty's warships would go out of his way to greet a Trader.
From the bridge Rod watched the screens as the wedge-shaped craft matched orbit and was winched aboard, drifting into MacArthur between the great rectangular wings of the hangar doors. His hand hovered near the intercom switches. Such operations were tricky.
Midshipman Whitbread met the passengers. Bury was first, followed by a small dark man the Trader didn't bother to introduce. Both wore clothing reasonable for space, balloon trousers with tight ankle bands, tunics belted into place, all pockets zipped or velcroed closed. Bury seemed angry. He cursed his servant, and Whitbread thoughtfully recorded the man's comments, intending to run them through the ship's brain later. The midshipman sent the Trader forward with a petty officer, but waited for Miss Fowler himself. He'd seen pictures of her.
They put Bury in the Chaplain's quarters, Sally in the First Lieutenant's cabin. The ostensible reason she got the largest quarters was that Annie, her servant, would have to share her cabin. The menservants could be bunked down with the crew, but a woman, even one as old as Annie, couldn't mingle with the men. Spacers off-planet long enough develop new standards of beauty. They'd never bother a senator's niece, but a housekeeper would be something else. It all made sense, and if the First Lieutenant's cabin was next to Captain Blaine's quarters, while the Chaplain's stateroom was a level down and three bulkheads aft, nobody was going to complain.
"Passengers aboard, sir," Midshipman Whitbread reported.
"Good. Everyone comfortable?"
"Well, Miss Fowler is, sir. Petty Officer Allot showed the Trader to his cabin..."
"Reasonable." Blaine settled into his command seat. Lady Sandra-no, she preferred Sally, he remembered- hadn't looked too good in the brief moments he'd seen her in the prison camp. The way Whitbread talked, she'd recovered a bit. Rod had wanted to hide when he first recognized her striding out of a tent in the prison camp. He'd been covered with blood and dirt-and then she'd come closer. She'd walked like a lady of the Court, but she was gaunt, half-starved, and great dark circles showed under her eyes. And those eyes. Blank. Well, she'd had two weeks to come back to life, and she was free of New Chicago forever.
"I presume you'll demonstrate acceleration stations for Miss Fowler?" Rod asked.
"Yes, sir," Whitbread replied. And null gee practice too, he thought.
Blaine regarded his midshipman with amusement. He had no trouble reading his thoughts. Well, let him hope, but rank hath its privileges. Besides, he knew the girl; he'd met her when she was ten years old.
"Signal from Government House," the watch reported.
Cziller's cheerful, careless voice reached him. "Hello, Blaine! Ready to cast off?" The fleet Captain was slouched bonelessly in a desk chair, puffing on an enormous and disreputable pipe.
"Yes, sir." Rod started to say something else, but choked it off.
"Passengers settled in all right?" Rod could have sworn his former captain was laughing at him.
"Yes, sir."
"And your crew? No complaints?"
"You know damned well- We'll manage, sir." Blaine choked back his anger. It was difficult to be angry with Cziller; after all he'd given him his ship, but blast the man! "We're not overcrowded, but she'll space."
"Listen, Blaine, I didn't strip you for fun. We just don't have the men to govern here, and you'll get crew before any get to us. I've sent you twenty recruits, young locals who think they'll like it in space. Hell, maybe they will. I did."
Green men who knew nothing and would have to be shown every job, but the petty officers could take care of that. Twenty men would help. Rod felt a little better.
Cziller fussed with papers. "And I'll give you back a couple squads of your Marines, though I doubt if you'll find enemies to fight in New Scotland."
"Aye aye, sir. Thank you for leaving me Whitbread and Staley." Except for those two, Cziller and Plekhanov had stripped off every midshipman aboard, and many of the better petty officers as well. But they had left the very best men. There were enough for continuity. The ship lived, although some berths looked as if she'd lost a battle.
"You're welcome. She's a good ship, Blaine. Odds are the Admiralty won't let you keep her, but you may get lucky. I've got to govern a planet with my bare hands. There's not even money! Only Republic scrip! The rebels took all the Imperial crowns and gave out printed paper. How the blazes are we going to get real money in circulation?"
"Yes, sir." As a full captain, Rod was in theory equal in rank to Cziller. A brevet appointment to admiral was for courtesy only, so that captains senior to Cziller could take orders from him as fleet Captain without embarrassment. But a naval promotion board had yet to pass on Blaine's admission to post rank, and he was young enough to worry about the coming ordeal. Perhaps in six weeks time he would be a commander again.
"One point," said Cziller. "I just said there's no money on the planet, but it's not quite true. We have some very rich men here. One of them is Jonas Stone, the man who let your Marines into the city. He says he was able to hide his money from the rebels. Well, why not? He was one of them. But we've found an ordinary miner dead drunk with a fortune in Imperial crowns. He won't say where he got the money, but we think it was from Bury."
"Yes, sir."
"So watch His Excellency. OK, your dispatches and new crewmen will be aboard within the hour," Cziller glanced at his computer. "Make that forty-three minutes. You can boost out as soon as they're aboard." Cziller pocketed the computer and began tamping his pipe. "Give my regards to MacPherson at the Yards, and keep one thing in mind: if the work on the ship drags, and it will, don't send memos to the Admiral. It only gets MacPherson mad. Which figures. Instead, bring Jamie aboard and drink scotch with him. You can't put away as much as he can, but trying to do it'll get you more work than a memo."
"Yes, sir," Rod said hesitantly. He suddenly realized just how unready he was to command MacArthur. He knew the technical stuff, probably better than Cziller, but the dozens of little tricks that you could learn only through experience
Cziller must have been reading his mind. It was an ability every officer under him had suspected. "Relax, Captain. They won't replace you before you get to the Capital, and you'll have had a lot of time aboard Old Mac by then. And don't spend your time boning the board exams, either. It won't do you a bit of good." Cziller puffed at the huge pipe and let a thick stream of smoke pour from his mouth. "You've work to do, I won't keep you. But when you get to New Scotland, make a point of looking at the Coal Sack. There are few sights in the galaxy to equal it. The Face of God, some call it." Cziller's image faded, his lopsided smile seeming to remain on the screen like the Cheshire cat's.
Chapter 5 - The Face of God
Chapter 5 - The Face of God
Blaine made his way quickly to the bridge and strapped himself into the command chair. As soon as he was settled he reached for the intercom unit. A startled Midshipman Whitbread looked out of the screen from the Captain's cabin.
Blaine gambled. "Read it to me, Mister."
"Uh-sir?"
"You have the regs open to the standing orders on alien contact, don't you? Read them to me, please." Blaine remembered looking them up, long ago, for fun and curiosity. Most cadets did.
"Yes, sir." Visibly, Whitbread wondered if the Captain had been reading his mind, then decided that it was the Captain's prerogative. This incident would start legends. "'Section 4500: First contact with nonhuman sentient beings. Note: Sentient beings are defined as creatures which employ tools and communication in purposeful behavior. Subnote: Officers are cautioned to use judgment in applying this definition. The hive rat of Makassar, as an example, employs tools and communication to maintain its nest, but is not Sentient.
"'Section One: Upon encounter with sentient nonhuman beings, officers will communicate the existence of such aliens to nearest Fleet command. All other objectives will be considered secondary to this accomplishment.
Section Two: After the objective described in section one is assured, officers will attempt to establish communication with the aliens, provided however that in so doing they are not authorized to risk their command unless so ordered by higher authority. Although officers will not initiate hostilities it must be assumed that nonhuman sentient creatures may be hostile. Section Three-'"
Whitbread was cut off by the final acceleration warning.
Blaine nodded acknowledgment to the middle and settled back in his couch. The regulations weren't likely to be much use anyway. They mostly dealt with initial contact without prior warning, and here Fleet command pretty well knew MacArthur was going out to intercept an alien vessel.
Ship's gravity edged upward, slowly enough to give the crew time to adjust, a full minute to rise to three gravities.
Blaine felt two hundred sixty kilos settling into his acceleration couch. Throughout the ship men would be moving with the wary attention one gives to lifting weights, but it was not a crippling acceleration. Not for a young man. For Bury it would be rough, but the Trader would be all right if he stayed in his gee bed.
Blaine felt very much at ease in his contoured armchair. It had headrest and fingertip controls, lapboard, power swiveling so that the entire bridge was in view without effort, even a personal relief tube. Warships are designed for long periods of high gravity.
Blaine fiddled with his screen controls to produce a 3-d graph overhead. He cut in the privacy switch to hide his doodles from the rest of the crew. Around him the bridge officers attended to their duties, Cargill and Sailing Master Renner huddled together near the astrogation station, Midshipman Staley settled next to the helmsman ready to assist if needed but mostly there to learn how to handle the ship. Blaine's long fingers moved over the screen controls.
A long green velocity line, a short lavender vector pointing in the opposite direction-with a small white ball between. So. The intruder had come straight from the direction of the Mote and was decelerating directly into the New Cal system...and it was somewhat bigger than Earth's Moon. A ship-sized object would have been a dimensionless point.
A good thing Whitbread hadn't noticed that. There'd be gossip, tales to the crew, panic among the new hands...Blaine felt the metallic taste of fear himself. My God, it was big. "But they'd have to have something that big," Rod muttered. Thirty-five light years, through normal space!
There never had been a human civilization that could manage such a thing. Still-how did the Admiralty expect him to "investigate" it? Much less "intercept" it? Land on it with Marines?
What in Hannigan's Hell was a light sail?
"Course to Brigit, sir," Sailing Master Renner announced.
Blaine snapped up from his reverie and touched his screen controls again. The ship's course appeared on his screen as a pictorial diagram below tables of figures. Rod spoke with effort. "Approved." Then he went back to the impossibly large object on his view screen. Suddenly he took out his pocket computer and scribbled madly across its face. Words and numbers flowed across the surface, and he nodded.
Of course light pressure could be used for propulsion.
In fact MacArthur did exactly that, using hydrogen fusion to generate photons and emitting them in an enormous spreading cone of light. A reflecting mirror could use outside light as propulsion and get twice the efficiency. Naturally the mirror should be as large as possible, and as light, and ideally it should reflect all the light that fell on it.
Blaine grinned to himself. He had been nerving himself to attack a space going planet with his half-repaired battle cruiser! Naturally the computer had pictured an object that size as a globe. In reality it was probably a sheet of silvered fabric thousands of kilometers across, attached by adjustable shrouds to the mass that would be the ship proper.
In fact, with an albedo of one- Blaine sketched rapidly.
The light sail would need about eight million square kilometers of area. If circular, it would be about three thousand klicks across.
It was using light for thrust, so...Blaine called up the intruder's deceleration, matched it to the total reflected light, divided...so. Sail and payload together massed about 450 thousand kilograms.
That didn't sound dangerous.
In fact, it didn't sound like a working spacecraft, not one that could cross thirty-five light years in normal space. The alien pilots would go mad with so little room-unless they were tiny, or liked enclosed spaces, or had spent the past several hundred years living in inflated balloons with filmy, lightweight walls...no. There was too little known and too much room for speculation. Still, there was nothing better to do. He fingered the knot on his nose.
Blaine was about to clear the screens, then thought again and increased the magnification. He stared at the result for a long time, then swore softly.
The intruder was heading straight into the sun.
MacArthur decelerated at nearly three gravities directly into orbit around Brigit; then she descended into the protective Langston Field of the base on the moonlet, a small black dart sinking toward a tremendous black pillow, the two joined by a thread of intense white. Without the Field to absorb the energy of thrust, the main drive would have burned enormous craters into the snowball moon.
The fueling station crew rushed to theft tasks. Liquid hydrogen, electrolized from the mushy ice of Brigit and distilled after liquefaction, poured into MacArthur's tankage complexes. At the same time Sinclair drove his men outside. Crewmen swarmed across the ship to take advantage of low gravity with the ship dirtside. Boatswains screamed at supply masters as Brigit was stripped of spare parts.
"Commander Frenzi requests permission to come aboard, sir," the watch officer called. Rod grimaced. "Send him up." He turned back to Sally Fowler, seated demurely in the watch midshipman's seat.
"But don't you understand, we'll be accelerating at high gees all the way to intercept. You know what that feels like now. Besides, it's a dangerous mission!"
"Pooh. Your orders were to take me to New Scotland," she huffed. "They said nothing about stranding me on a snowball."
"Those were general orders. If Cziller's known we'd have to fight, he'd never have let you aboard. As captain of this ship, it's my decision, and I say I'm not about to take Senator Fowler's niece out to a possible battle."
"Oh." She thought for a moment. The direct approach hadn't worked. "Rod. Listen. Please. You see this as a tremendous adventure, don't you? How do you think I feel? Whether those are aliens or just lost colonists trying to find the Empire again, this is my field. It's what I was trained for, and I'm the only anthropologist aboard. You need me."
"We can do without. It's too dangerous."
"You're letting Mr. Bury stay aboard."
"Not letting. The Admiralty specifically ordered me to keep him in my ship. I don't have discretion about him, but I do about you and your servants -- "
"If it's Adam and Annie you're worried about, we'll leave them here. They couldn't take the acceleration anyway. But I can take anything you can, Captain My Lord Roderick Blaine. I've seen you after a hyperspace Jump, dazed, staring around, not knowing what to do, and I was able to leave my cabin and walk up here to the bridge! So don't tell me how helpless I am! Now, are you going to let me stay here, or...
"Or what?"
"Or nothing, of course. I know I can't threaten you. Please, Rod?" She tried everything, including batting her eyes, and that was too much, because Rod burst out laughing.
"Commander Frenzi, sir," the Marine sentry outside the bridge companionway announced.
"Come in, Romeo, come in," Rod said more heartily than he felt. Frenzi was thirty-five, a good ten years older than Blaine, and Rod had served under him for three months of the most miserable duty he could ever recall. The man was a good administrator but a horrible ship's officer.
Frenzi peered around the bridge, his jaw thrust forward. "Ah. Blaine. Where's Captain Cziller?"
"On New Chicago," Rod said pleasantly. "I'm master of MacArthur now." He swiveled so that Frenzi could see the four rings on each sleeve.
Frenzi's face became more craggy. His lips drooped.
"Congratulations." Long pause. "Sir." "Thanks, Romeo. Still takes getting used to myself."
"Well, I'll go out and tell the troops not to hurry about the fueling, shall I?" Frenzi said. He turned to go.
"What the hell do you mean, not to hurry? I've got a double-A-one priority. Want to see the message?"
"I've seen it. They relayed a copy through my station, Blaine-uh, Captain. But the message makes it clear that Admiral Cranston thinks Cziller is still in command of MacArthur. I respectfully suggest, sir, that he would not have sent this ship to intercept a possible alien if he knew that her master was-was a young officer with his first command. Sir."
Before Blaine could answer, Sally spoke. "I've seen the message, Commander, and it was addressed to MacArthur, not Cziller. And it gives the ship refueling priority...
Frenzi regarded her coldly. "Lermontov will be quite adequate for this intercept, I think. If you'll excuse me, Captain, I must get back to my station." He glared at Sally again. "I didn't know they were taking females out of uniform as midshipmen."
"I happen to be Senator Fowler's niece and aboard this ship under Admiralty orders, Commander," she told him sternly. "I am astonished at your lack of manners. My family is not accustomed to such treatment, and I am certain my friends at Court will be shocked to find that an Imperial officer could be so rude."
Frenzi blushed and looked around wildly. "My apologies, my lady. No insult intended, I assure you...I was merely surprised we don't very often see girls aboard warships certainly not young lathes as attractive as you I beg your pardon..." His voice trailed off, still without punctuation, as he withdrew from the bridge.
"Now why couldn't you react like that?" Sally wondered aloud.
Rod grinned at her, then jumped from his seat. "He'll signal Cranston that I'm in command here! We have what, about an hour for a message to get to New Scotland, another for it to get back." Rod stabbed at the intercom controls. "ALL HANDS. THIS IS THE CAPTAIN. LIFT-OFF IN ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES. LIFT-OFF IN ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES. IF YOU'RE NOT ABOARD WE'LL LEAVE YOU BEHIND."
"That's the way," Sally shouted as encouragement. "Let him send his messages." While Blaine turned to hurry his crew along, she left the bridge to go hide in her cabin.
Rod made another call. "Commander Sinclair. Let me know if there's any delay out there." If Frenzi slowed him down, Blaine just might be able to get him shot. He'd certainly try...long ago he'd daydreamed of having Frenzi shot.
The reports came in. Cargill came onto the bridge with a sheaf of transfer orders and a satisfied look. MacArthur's boatswains, copies of the priority message in hand, had gone looking for the best men on Brigit.
New crew and old hands swarmed around the ship, yanking out damaged equipment and hurriedly thrusting in spares from Brigit's supply depot, running checkout procedures and rushing to the next job. Other replacement parts were stored as they arrived. Later they could be used to replace Sinclair's melted-looking jury rigs...if anyone could figure out how. It was difficult enough telling what was inside one of those standardized black boxes. Rod spotted a microwave heater and routed it to the wardroom; Cargill would like that.
When the fueling was nearly finished, Rod donned his pressure suit and went outside. His inspection wasn't needed, but it helped crew morale to know that the Old Man was looking over everyone's shoulder. While he was out there, Rod looked for the intruder.
The Face of God stared at him across space.
The Coal Sack was a nebular mass of dust and gas, small as such things go-twenty-four to thirty light years thick-but dense, and close enough to New Caledonia to block off a quarter of the sky. Earth and the Imperial Capital, Sparta, were forever invisible on its other side. The spreading blackness hid most of the Empire, but it made a fine velvet backdrop for two close, brilliant stars.
Even without that backdrop, Murcheson's Eye was the brightest star in the sky-a great red giant thirty-five light years distant. The white fleck at one edge was a yellow dwarf companion star, smaller and dimmer and less interesting: the Mote. Here the Coal Sack had the shape of a hooded man, head and shoulders; and the off-centered red supergiant became a watchful, malevolent eye.
The Face of God. It was a famous sight throughout the Empire, this extraordinary view of the Coal Sack from New Cal. But standing here in the cold of space it was different. In a picture it looked like the Coal Sack. Here it was real.
And something he couldn't see was coming at him out of the Mote in God's Eye.
Chapter 6 - The Light Sail
Chapter 6 - The Light Sail
One gravity only-with queasy sensations as MacArthur lined up on her proper interception course. Elastic webbing held him in the acceleration chair during these few moments of changing but normal gravity-minutes, Rod suspected, that he'd soon look back on with wistful longing.
Kevin Renner had been mate of an interstellar trading vessel before -joining MacArthur as her sailing master. He was a lean man with a narrow face, and he was ten years older than Blaine. As Rod steered his acceleration chair up behind him, Renner was matching curves in a view screen; and his self-satisfied grin was not the expression of a Navy man.
"Got our course, Lieutenant Renner?"
"Yes, sir," Kevin Renner said with relish. "Right into the sun at four gees!"
Blaine gave in to the desire to call his bluff. "Move her."
The warning alarms sounded and MacArthur accelerated. Crew and passengers felt their weight settle gradually deeper into beds and chairs and couches, and they nerved themselves for several days of weighing far too much.
"You were joking, weren't you?" Blaine asked.
The Sailing Master looked at him quizzically. "You knew we were dealing with a light-sail propulsion system, sir?"
"Naturally."
"Then look here." Renner's nimble fingers made a green curve on the view screen, a parabola rising sharply at the right. "Sunlight per square centimeter falling on a light -- sail decreases as the square of the distance from the star. Acceleration varies directly as the sunlight reflected from the sail."
"Of course, Mr. Renner. Make your point."
Renner made another parabola, very like the first, but in blue. "The stellar wind can also propel a light sail. Thrust varies about the same way. The important difference is that the stellar wind is atomic nuclei. They stick where they hit the sail. The momentum is transferred directly-and it's all radial to the sun."
"You can't tack against it," Blaine realized suddenly. "You can tack against the light by tilting the sail, but the stellar wind always thrusts you straight away from the sun." -
"Right. So, Captain, suppose you were coming into a system at 7 percent of the speed of light, God forbid, and you wanted to stop. What would you do?"
"Drop all the weight I could," Blaine mused. "Hmm. I don't see how it'd be a problem. They must have launched the same way."
"I don't think they did. They're moving too fast. But pass that for a minute. What counts is they're moving too fast to stop unless they get very close to the sun, very close indeed. The intruder is in fact -- diving right into the sun. Probably it will tack hard after the sunlight has decelerated it enough -...provided the vessel hasn't melted and the shrouds haven't parted or the sail ripped. But it is such a close thing that they simply have to skydive; they have no choice."
"Ah," said Blaine.
"One need hardly mention," Renner added, "that when we match course with them, we too will be moving straight toward the sun...
"At 7 percent of the speed of light?"
"At 6. The intruder will have slowed somewhat by then. It will take us one hundred twenty-five hours, doing four gees most of the way, slowing somewhat near the end."
"That's going to be hard on everybody," Blaine said. And suddenly he wondered, belatedly, if Sally Fowler had in fact gotten off. "Especially the passengers. Couldn't you give me an easier course?"
"Yes, sir," Renner said instantly. "I can pull alongside in one hundred and seventy-hours without ever going over two and a half gees-and save some fuel too, because the probe will have more time to slow down. The course we're on now gets us to New Ireland with dry tanks, assuming we take the intruder under tow."
"Dry tanks. But you liked this course better." Rod was learning to dislike the Sailing Master and his grin that constantly implied that the Captain had forgotten something crucial and obvious. "Tell me why," he suggested.
"It occurred to me the intruder might be hostile."
"Yes. So?"
"If we were to match courses with him and he disabled the engines...
"We'd be falling into the sun at 6 percent of light speed. Right. So you match us up as far from Cal as possible, to leave time to do something about it."
"Yessir. Exactly."
"Right. You're enjoying this, aren't you, Mr. Renner?"
"I wouldn't have missed it for anything, sir. What about you?"
"Carry on, Mr. Renner." Blaine guided his acceleration chair to another screen and began checking the Sailing Master's course. Presently he pointed out that the Sailing Master could give them nearly an hour at one gee just before intercept, thereby giving everyone a chance to recuperate. Renner agreed with idiot enthusiasm and went to work on the change.
"I can use friends aboard my ship," Captain Cziller used to tell his midshipmen, "but I'd sell them all for a competent sailing master." Renner was competent. Renner was also a smartass; but that was a good bargain. Rod would settle for a competent smartass.
At four gravities nobody walked; nobody lifted anything. The black box replacements in the hold stayed there while MacArthur ran on Sinclair's makeshifts. Most of the crew worked from their cots, or from mobile chairs, or didn't work at all.
In crew sections they played elaborate word games, or speculated on the coming encounter, or told stories. Half the screens on the ship showed the same thing: a disc like the sun, with Murcheson's Eye behind it and the Coal Sack as background.
The telltales in Sally's cabin showed oxygen consumption. Rod said words of potent and evil magic under his breath. He almost called her then, but postponed it. He called Bury instead.
Bury was in the gee bath: a film of highly elastic mylar over liquid. Only his face and hands showed above the curved surface. His face looked old-it almost showed his true age.
"Captain, you chose not to put me off on Brigit. Instead, you are taking a civilian into possible combat. Might I ask why?"
"Of course, Mr. Bury. I supposed it would be most inconvenient for you to be stranded on a ball of ice with no assured transportation. Perhaps I was mistaken."
Bury smiled-or tried to. Every man aboard looked twice his age, with four times gravity pulling down on the skin of his face. Bury's smile was like weight lifting. "No, Captain, you were not mistaken. I saw your orders in the wardroom. So. We are on our way to meet a nonhuman spacecraft."
"It certainly looks that way."
"Perhaps they will have things to trade. Especially if they come from a nonterrestrial world. We can hope. Captain, would you keep me posted on what is happening?'
"I will probably not have the time," Blaine said, choosing the most civil of several answers that occurred to him.
"Yes, of course, I didn't mean personally. I only want access to information on our progress. At my age I dare not move from this rubber bathtub for the duration of our voyage. How long will we be under four gees?"
"One hundred and twenty-five hours. One twenty-four, now."
"Thank you, Captain." Bury vanished from the Screen.
Rod rubbed thoughtfully at the knot on his nose. Did Bury know his status aboard MacArthur? It couldn't be important. He called Sally's cabin.
She looked as if she hadn't slept in a week or smiled in years. Blaine said, "Hello, Sally. Sorry you came?"
"I told you I can take anything you can take," Sally said calmly. She gripped the arms of her chair and stood up. She let go and spread her arms to show how capable she was.
"Be careful," Blaine said, trying to keep his voice steady. "No sudden moves. Keep your knees straight. You can break your back just sitting down. Now stay erect, but reach behind you. Get both the chair arms in your hands before you try to bend at the waist -- "
She didn't believe it was dangerous, not until she started to sit down. Then the muscles in her arms knotted, panic flared in her eyes, and she sat much too abruptly, as if MacArthur's gravity had sucked her down.
"Are you hurt?"
"No," she said. "Only my pride."
"Then you stay in that chair, damn your eyes! Do you see me standing up? You do not. And you won't!"
"All right." She turned her head from side to side. She was obviously dizzy from the jolt.
"Did you get your servants off?"
"Yes. I had to trick them-they wouldn't have gone without my baggage." She laughed an old woman's laugh. "I'm wearing everything I own until we get to New Caledonia."
"Tricked them, did you? The way you tricked me. I should have had Kelley put you off." Rod's voice was bitter. He knew he looked twice his age, a cripple in a wheel chair. "All right, you're aboard. I can't put you off now."
"But I may be able to help. I am an anthropologist." She winced at the thought of trying to get up again. "Can I get you on the intercom?"
"You'll get the middie of the watch. Tell him if you really need to talk to me. But, Sally-this is a warship. Those aliens may not be friendly. For God's sake remember that; my watch officers haven't time for scientific discussion in the middie of a baffle!"
"I know that. You might give me credit for a little sense." She tried to laugh. "Even if I don't know better than to stand up at four gees."
"Yeah. Now do me another favor. Get into your gee bath."
"Do I have to take my clothes off to use it?"
Blaine couldn't blush; there wasn't enough blood flowing to his head. "It's a good idea, especially if you've got buckles. Turn off the vision pickup on the phone."
"Right."
"And be careful. I could send one of the married ratings to help -- "
"No, thank you."
"Then wait. We'll have a few minutes of lower gee at intervals. Don't get out of that chair alone in high gee!"
She didn't even look tempted. One experience was enough.
"Lermontov's calling again," Whitbread announced.
"Forget it. Don't acknowledge."
"Aye aye, sir. Do not acknowledge."
Rod could guess what the cruiser wanted. Lermontov wanted first crack at the intruder-but MacArthur's sister ship wouldn't even get close to the aliens before the approach to the sun was just too close. Better to intercept out where there was some room.
At least that's what Rod told himself. He could trust Whitbread and the communications people; Lermontov's signals wouldn't be in the log.
Three and a half days. Two minutes of 1.5 gee every four hours to change the watch, grab forgotten articles, shift positions; then the warning horns sounded, the jolt meters swung over, and too much weight returned.
At first MacArthur's bow had pointed sixty degrees askew of Cal. They had to line up with the intruder's course. With that accomplished, MacArthur turned again. Her bow pointed at the brightest star in the heavens.
Cal began to grow. He also changed color, but minutely. No one would notice that blue shift with the naked eye. What the men did see in the screens was that the brightest star had become a disc and was growing hourly.
It didn't grow brighter because the screens kept it constant; but the tiny sun disc grew ominously larger, and it lay directly ahead. Behind them was another disc of the same color, the white of an F8 star. It, too, grew hourly larger. MacArthur was sandwiched between two colliding suns.
On the second day Staley brought a new midshipman up to the bridge, both moving in traveling acceleration chairs. Except for a brief interview on Brigit, Rod hadn't met him: Gavin Potter, a sixteen-year-old boy from New Scotland. Potter was tall for his age; he seemed to hunch in upon himself, as if afraid to be noticed.
Blaine thought Potter was merely being shown about the ship; a good idea, since if the intruder turned out hostile, the boy might have to move about MacArthur with total familiarity-possibly in darkness and variable gravity.
Staley obviously had more in mind. Blaine realized they were trying to get his attention. "Yes, Mr. Staley?"
"This is Midshipman Gavin Potter, sir," Staley said. "He's told me something I think you ought to hear."
"All right, go ahead." Any diversion from high gravity was welcome.
"There was a church in our street, sir. In a farm town on New Scotland." Potter's voice was soft and low, and he spoke carefully so that he blotted out all but a ghostly remnant of the brogue that made Sinclair's speech so distinctive.
"A church," Blaine said encouragingly. "Not an orthodox church, I take it -- "
"No, sir. A Church of Him. There aren't many members. A friend and I snuck inside once, for a joke."
"Did you get caught?"
"I know I'm telling this badly, sir. The thing is- There was a big blowup of an old holo of Murcheson's Eye against the Coal Sack. The Face of God, just like on postcards. Only, only it was different in this picture. The Eye was very much brighter than now, and it was blue green, not red. With a red dot at one edge."
"It could have been a portrait," Blaine suggested. He took out his pocket computer and scrawled "Church of Him" across its face, then punched for information. The box Linked with the ship's library, and information began to roll across its face. "It says the Church of Him believes that the Coal Sack, with that one red eye showing, really is the Face of God. Couldn't they have retouched it to make the eye more impressive?" Rod continued to sound interested; time enough to say something about wasting his time when the middies were through. If they were wasting time...
"But -- " said Potter.
"Sir -- " said Staley, leaning too far forward in his chair.
"One at a time. Mr. Staley?"
"I didn't just ask Potter, sir. I checked with Commander Sinclair. He says his grandfather told him the Mote was once brighter than Murcheson's Eye, and bright green. And the way Gavin's describing that holo-well, sir, stars don't radiate all one color. So -- "
"All the more reason to think the holo was retouched. But it is funny, with that intruder coming straight out of the Mote...
"Light," Potter said firmly.
"Light sail!" Rod shouted in sudden realization. "Good thinking." The whole bridge crew turned to look at the Captain. "Renner! Did you say the intruder is moving faster than it ought to be?"
"Yes, sir," Renner answered from his station across the bridge. "If it was launched from a habitable world circling the Mote."
"Could it have used a battery of laser cannon?"
"Sure, why not?" Renner wheeled over. "In fact, you could launch with a small battery, then add more cannon as the vehicle got farther and farther away. You get a terrific advantage that way. If one of the cannon breaks down you've got it right there in your system to repair it."
"Like leaving your motor home," Potter cried, "and you still able to use it."
"Well, there are efficiency problems. Depending on how tight the beam can be held," Renner answered. "Pity you couldn't use it for-braking, too. Have you any reason to believe -- "
Rod left them telling the Sailing Master about the variations in the Mote. For himself, he didn't particularly care. His problem was, what would the intruder do now?
It was twenty hours to rendezvous when Renner came to Blaine's post and asked to use the Captain's screens. The man apparently could not talk without a view screen connected to a computer. He would be mute with only his voice.
"Captain, look," he said, and threw a plot of the local stellar region on the screen. "The intruder came from here. Whoever launched it fired a laser cannon, or a set of laser cannon-probably a whole mess of them on asteroids, with mirrors to focus them-for about forty-five years, so the intruder would have a beam to travel on. The beam and the intruder both came straight in from the Mote."
"But there'd be records," Blaine said. "Somebody would have seen that the Mote was putting out coherent light."
Renner shrugged. "How good are New Scotland's records?"
"Let's just see." It took only moments to learn that astronomical data from New Scotland were suspect, and no such records were carried in MacArthur's library because of that. "Oh, well. Let's assume you're right."
"But that's the point: it's not right, Captain," Renner protested. "You see, it is possible to turn in interstellar space. What they should have done -- "
The new path left the Mote at a slight angle to the first. "Again they coast most of the way. At this point" -- where the intruder would have been well past New Cal -- "we charge the ship up to ten million volts. The background magnetic field of the Galaxy gives the ship a half turn, and it's coming toward the New Caledonia system from behind. Meanwhile, whoever is operating the beam has turned it off for a hundred and fifty years. Now he turns it on again. The probe uses the beam for braking.
"You sure that magnetic effect would work?"
"It's high school physics! And the interstellar magnetic fields, have been well mapped, Captain."
"Well, then, why didn't they use it?"
"I don't know," Renner cried in frustration. "Maybe they just didn't think of it. Maybe they were afraid the lasers wouldn't last. Maybe they didn't trust whoever they left behind to run them. Captain, we just don't know enough about them."
"I know that, Renner. Why get in such a sweat about it? If our luck holds, we'll just damn well ask them."
A slow, reluctant smile broke across Renner's face. "But that's cheating."
"Oh, go get some sleep."
Rod woke to the sound of the speakers: "GRAVITY SHIFT IN TEN MINUTES. STAND BY FOR CHANGE TO ONE STANDARD GRAVITY IN TEN MINUTES."
Blaine smiled-one gravity-and felt the smile tighten. One hour to match velocities with the intruder. He activated his watch screens, to see a blaze of light fore and aft. MacArthur was sandwiched between two suns. Now Cal was as large as Sol seen from Venus, but brighter.
Cal was a hotter star. The intruder was a smaller disc, but brighter still. The sail was concave.
It was effort merely to use the intercom. "Sinclair."
"Engineering, aye aye, Captain."
Rod was pleased to see that Sinclair was in a hydraulic bed. "How's the Field holding, Sandy?"
"Verra well, Captain. Temperature steady."
"Thank you." Rod was pleased. The Langston Field absorbed energy; that was its basic function. It absorbed even the kinetic energy of exploding gas or radiation particles, with an efficiency proportional to the cube of the incoming velocities. In battle, the hellish fury of hydrogen torpedoes, and the concentrated photon energies of lasers, would strike the Field and be dispersed, absorbed, contained. As the energy levels increased, the Field would begin to glow, its absolute black becoming red, orange, yellow, climbing up the spectrum toward the violet.
That was the basic problem of the Langston Field. The energy had to be radiated away; if the Field overloaded, it would release all the stored energy in a blinding white flash, radiating inward, as well as outward. It took ship's power to prevent that-and that power was added to the Field's stored energies as well. When the Field grew too hot, ships died. Quickly.
Normally a warship could get hellishly near a sun without being in mortal danger, her Field never growing hotter than the temperature of the star plus the amounts added to maintain control of the Field. Now, with a sun before and another behind, the Field could radiate only to the sides-and that had to be controlled or MacArthur would experience lateral accelerations. The sides were getting narrower and the suns bigger and the Field hotter. A tinge of red showed on Rod's screens. It wasn't an impending disaster, but it had to be watched.
Normal gravity returned. Rod moved quickly to the bridge and nodded to the watch midshipman. "General quarters. Battle stations."
Alarms hooted through the ship.
For 124 hours the intruder had shown no awareness of MacArthur's approach. It showed none now; and it drew steadily closer.
The light sail was a vast expanse of uniform white across the aft screens, until Renner found a small black dot. He played with it until he had a large black dot, sharp edged, whose radar shadow showed it four thousand kilometers closer to MacArthur than the sail behind it.
"That's our target, sir," Renner announced. "They probably put everything in one pod, everything that wasn't part of the tail. One weight at the end of the shrouds to hold the sail steady."
"Right. Get us alongside it, Mr. Renner. Mr. Whitbread! My compliments to the Yeoman of Signals, and I want to send messages in clear. As many bands as he can cover, low power."
"Yes, sir. Recording."
"Hello, light-sail vessel. This is Imperial Ship MacArthur. Give our recognition signals. Welcome to New Caledonia and the Empire of Man. We wish to come alongside. Please acknowledge. Send that in Anglic, Russian, French, Chinese, and anything else you can think of. If they're human there's no telling where they're from." Fifteen minutes to match. Ship's gravity changed, changed again as Renner began to match velocities and positions with the intruder's cargo pod instead of the sail.
Rod took a moment to answer Sally's call. "Make it fast, Sally. If you please. We're under battle conditions."
"Yes, Rod, I know. May I come to the bridge?"
"Afraid not. All seats occupied."
"I'm not surprised. Rod, I just wanted to remind you of something, don't expect them to be simple."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Just because they don't use Alderson Drive, you'll expect them to be primitive. Don't. And even if they were primitive, primitive doesn't mean simple. Their techniques and ways of thought may be very complex."
"I'll keep it in mind. Anything else? OK, hang on, Sally. Whitbread, when you've got no other duties, let Miss Fowler know what's going on," He closed the intercom from his mind and looked at the stern screen even as Staley shouted.
The intruder's light sail was rippling. Reflected light ran across it in great, ponderous, wavy lines. Rod blinked but it didn't help; it is very difficult to see the shape of a distorted mirror. "That could be our signal," Rod said. "They're using the mirror to flash -- "
The glare became blinding, and all the screens on that side went dead.
The forward scanners were operative and recording. They showed a wide white disc, the star New Caledonia, very close, and approaching very fast, 6 percent of the velocity of light; and they showed it with most of the light filtered away.
For a moment they also showed several odd black silhouettes against that white background. Nobody noticed, in that terrible moment when MacArthur was burned blind; and in the next moment the images were gone.
Kevin Renner spoke into the stunned silence: "They didn't have to shout," he complained.
"Thank you, Mr. Renner," Rod said icily. "Have you other, perhaps more concrete suggestions?"
MacArthur was moving in erratic jolts, but the light sail followed her perfectly. "Yes, sir," Renner said. "We'd do well to leave focus of that mirror."
"Damage control, Captain," Cargill reported from his station aft. "We're getting a lot of energy into the Field. Too much and damned fast, with none of it going anywhere. If it were concentrated it would burn holes in us, but the way it washes across, we can hold maybe ten minutes."
"Captain, I'll steer around behind the sail," Renner said. "At least we've got sun-side scanners, and I can remember where the pod was -- "
"Never mind that. Take us through the sail," Rod ordered.
"But we don't know -- "
"That was an order, Mr. Renner. And you're in a Navy ship."
"Aye aye, sir." -- -
The Field was brick red and growing brighter; but red wasn't dangerous. Not for a while.
As Renner worked the ship, Rod said casually, "You may be assuming the aliens are using unreasonably strong materials. Are you?"
"It's a possibility, sir." MacArthur jolted; she was committed now. Renner seemed to be bracing himself for a shock.
"But the stronger the materials are, Mr. Renner, the thinner they will spread them, so as to pick up the maximum amount of sunlight for the weight. If they have very strong thread they will weave it thin to get more square kilometers per kilo, right? Even if meteors later get a few square km of sail, well, they still made a profit, didn't they? So they'll make it just strong enough."
"Yes, sir," Renner sang. He was driving at four gees, keeping Cal directly astern; he was grinning like a thief, and he was no longer bracing himself for the crash.
Well, I convinced him, Rod thought; and braced himself for the crash.
The Langston Field was yellow with heat.
Then, suddenly, the sunward scanners showed black except for the green-hot edge of MacArthur's own Field, and a ragged blazing silhouette of white where MacArthur had ripped through the intruder's sail.
"Hell, we never felt it!" Rod laughed. "Mr. Renner. How long before we impact the sun?"
"Forty-five minutes, sir. Unless we do something about it."
"First things first, Mr. Renner. You keep us matched up with the sail, and right here." Rod activated another circuit to reach the Gunnery Officer. "Crawford! Put some light on that sail and see if you can find the shroud connections. I want you to cut the pod off that parachute before they fire on us again!"
"Aye aye, sir." Crawford seemed happy at the prospect. There were thirty-two shrouds in all: twenty-four around the edge of the circular fabric mirror and a ring of eight nearer the center. Conical distortions in the fabric told where they were. The back of the sail was black; it flashed to vapor under the pinpoint attack of the forward laser batteries.
Then -- the sail was loose, billowing and rippling as it floated toward MacArthur. Again the ship swept through, as if the light sail were so many square kilometers of tissue paper.
And the intruder's pod was falling loose toward an F8 sun.
"Thirty-five minutes to impact," Renner said without being asked.
"Thank you, Mr. Renner. Commander Cargill, take the con. You will take that pod in tow."
And Rod felt a wild internal glee at Renner's astonishment.
Chapter 7 - The Crazy Eddie Probe
Chapter 7 - The Crazy Eddie Probe
"But -- " said Renner and pointed at Cal's growing image on the bridge screens. Before he could say anything else MacArthur leaped ahead at six gees, no smooth transition this time. Jolt meters swung wildly as the ship hurtled straight toward the looming sun.
"Captain?" Through the roaring blood in his ears Blaine heard his exec call from the after bridge. "Captain, how much damage can we sustain?"
It was an effort to speak. "Anything that'll get us home," Rod gasped. -- -
"Roger." Cargill's orders sounded through the intercom. "Mr. Potter! Is hangar deck clear to vacuum? All shuttles stowed?"
"Yes, sir." The question was irrelevant under battle conditions, but Cargill was a careful man.
"Open the hangar doors," Cargill ordered. "Captain, we might lose the hangar deck hatches."
"Rape 'em."
"I'm bringing the pod aboard fast, no time to match velocities. We'll take damage -- "
"You have the con, Commander. Carry out your orders." There was a red haze on the bridge. Rod blinked, but it was still there, not in the air but in his retinas. Six gravities was too much for sustained effort. If anyone fainted-well, they'd miss all the excitement.
"Kelley!" Rod barked. "When we turn ship, take the Marines aft and stand by to intercept anything coming out of that pod! And you'd better move fast. Cargill won't hold acceleration."
"Aye aye, sir." Six gravities and Kelley's gravel rasp was the same as ever.
The pod was three thousand kilometers ahead, invisible even to the clearest vision, but growing steadily on the bridge screens, steadily but slowly, much too slowly, even as Cal seemed to grow too fast.
Four minutes at six gravities. Four minutes of agony, then the alarms hooted. There was a moment of blessed relief. Kelley's Marines clattered through the ship, diving in the low, shifting gravity as MacArthur turned end for end. There wouldn't be acceleration couches back there where the Marines would cover hangar deck. Webbing straps to suspend the men in corridors, others in the hangar space itself hung like flies in a spider web, weapons ready- ready for what?
The alarms sounded, and jolt meters swung again as MacArthur braked toward the pod. Rod turned his screen controls with an effort. There was hangar deck, cold and dark, the fuzzy outline of the inner surface of the ship's defensive field an impossible black. Good, he thought. No significant heat storage. Plenty of capacity to take up the rotational energy of the pod if it had any, slow down the impact to something that MacArthur might be able to handle.
Eight minutes at six gees, the maximum the crew would be able to stand. Then the intruder was no longer ahead as MacArthur turned and fell toward it sidewise. The crushing acceleration ended, then there was low side thrust as Cargill fired the port batteries to slow their headlong rush to the pod.
It was cylindrical, with one rounded end, tumbling through space. As it turned Rod saw that the other end was jagged with a myriad of projections-thirty-two projections? But there should have been shrouds trailing from those knobs, and there was nothing.
It was moving up to MacArthur far too fast, and it was too big to fit in the hangar deck. The thing was massive, too damn massive! And there was nothing to brake with to the sides but the port batteries!
It was here. Hangar deck camera showed the rounded end of the intruder, dull and metallic, pushing through the Langston Field, slowing, the rotation stopping, but still it moved relative to MacArthur. The battle cruiser surged sidewise, terribly, throwing the crew against their harness straps, while the rounded end of the pod grew and grew and-CRUNCH!
Rod shook his head to clear it of the red mist which had formed again. "Get us out of here. Mr. Renner, take the con!"
Jolt meters swung before the acceleration alarms; Renner must have set up the course in advance and slapped the keys the instant he was given control. Blaine peered at the dials through the crimson mist. Good, Renner wasn't trying anything fancy; just blast lateral to MacArthur's course and let the sun whip her around. Were they accelerating in the plane of Cal's planets? Be tricky to rendezvous with Lermontov for hydrogen. If they couldn't bring Mac in on this pass, she'd have dry tanks...fuzzily Blaine touched display controls and watched as the main computer showed a course plot. Yes. Renner had set it up properly, and fast work too.
Let him do it, Rod thought. Renner's competent, better astrogator than I am. Time to inspect the ship. What happened to her when we took that thing aboard? But all the screens covering that area were blank, cameras burned off or smashed. Outside it wasn't much better. "Fly her blind, Mr. Renner," Blaine ordered. "Cameras would just boil off anyway. Wait until we're moving away from Cal."
"Damage report, Skipper."
"Go ahead, Commander Cargill."
"We've got the intruder clamped in with the hangar doors. It's jammed in solid, I don't think we can rattle it around with normal acceleration. I don't have a full report, but that hangar deck will never be the same, sir."
"Anything major, Number One?"
"No, sir. I could give you the whole list-minor problems, things jarred loose, equipment failed under impact stress-but it boils down to this: if we don't have to fight, we're in good shape."
"Fine. Now see what you can get me from the Marines. The corn lines to Kelley's station seem to be out."
"Aye aye, sir."
Somebody would have to move around at six gees to carry out that order, Blaine thought. Hope to God he can do it in a travel chair. A man might just slither along under that strain, but he wouldn't be good for much afterwards. Was it worth it? For probably negative information? But suppose it wasn't negative...
"Marine Corporal Pietrov reporting to Captain, sir." Thick accent of St. Ekaterina. "No activity from intruder, sir."
"Cargill here, Captain," another voice added.
"Yes."
"Do you need Kelley? Mr. Potter was able to get a line to Pietrov without leaving his scooter, but there's a problem if he has to go further."
"Pietrov's fine, Number One. Good work, Potter. Corporal, can you see Mr. Kelley? Is he all right?"
"The Gunner's waved at me, sir. He is on duty in number-two air lock."
"Good. Report any activity by intruder immediately, Corporal." Blaine switched off as the warning horns sounded again. Fifty kilos lifted from his chest as the ship's acceleration cased. Tricky thing, this, he thought. Got to balance between getting too close to Cal and cooking the crew, and just killing everybody from the gee stress.
At his station forward, one of the helmsmen leaned against the padding of his couch. His partner leaned against him to touch helmets. For an Instant they cut their mikes while Quartermaster's Mate First Class Orontez spoke to his partner. "My brother wanted me to help him with his wet-ranch on Aphrodite and I thought it was too goddamn dangerous. So I joined the flipping Navy."
"Commander Sinclair, have we enough energy for a report to Fleet?"
"Aye, Skipper, the engines hold verra well indeed. Yon object is nae so massive as we thought, and we've hydrogen to spare."
"Good." Blaine called the communications room to send out his report. Intruder aboard. Cylinder, ratio of axes four to one. Uniform metallic in appearance but close inspection impossible until acceleration eases off. Suggest Lermontov attempt to recover the sail, which would decelerate rapidly with no pod ahead of it. Estimated time of arrival, New Scotland...suggest MacArthur put into orbit around uninhabited moon of New Scotland. No evidence of life or activity aboard alien, but...-
It was a very large "but," Rod thought. Just what was that thing? Had it fired on him deliberately? Was it under command, or what kind of robot could pilot it across light years of normal space? What would it, whoever or whatever was commanding it, think of being stuffed into the hangar deck of a battle cruiser, cut loose from its shrouds.
Hell of an undignified end to thirty-five light years of travel.
And there was nothing he could do! to find out. Nothing at all. MacArthur's situation wasn't so critical, Renner had her well under control; but neither Blaine nor Cargill could leave his station, and he wasn't about to send junior officers to investigate that thing.
"Is it over?" Sally's voice was plaintive. "Is everything all right?"
"Yes." Rod shuddered involuntarily as he thought of what might have happened. "Yes, it's aboard and we've seen nothing about it other than its size. It won't answer signals." Now why did he feel a little twinge of satisfaction because she'd just have to wait like the rest of them?
MacArthur plunged on, whipping around Cal so close that there was a measurable drag from the corona; but Renner's astrogation was perfect and the Field held nicely.
They waited.
At two gravities Rod could leave the bridge. He stood with an effort, transferred to a scooter, and started aft. The elevators let him "down" as he moved through the ship, and he stopped at each deck to note the alert crewmen still at their posts despite being at general quarters too long. MacArthur had to be the best ship in the Navy...and he'd keep her that way!
When he reached Kelley's position at the air lock to hangar deck, there was still nothing new.
"You can see there's hatches or something there, sir,"
Kelley said. He pointed with a flash. As the light flicked up the alien craft Rod saw the ruins of his boats crushed against the steel decks.
"And it's done nothing?"
"Not one thing, Captain. It come in, whapped against the decks-like to threw me into a bulkhead; that thing didn't come in fast but she come down hard. Then, nothing. My files, me, the middies who keep swarming around here, none of us seen a thing, Cap'n,"
"Just as well," Rod muttered. He took out his own light and played it on the enormous cylinder. The upper half vanished into the uniform black of the Field.
His light swept across a row of conical knobs; each a meter in diameter and three times that in length. He searched, but there was nothing there-no tag ends of the shrouds which ought to be hanging from them, no visible opening in the knob through which the shroud could have been reeled. Nothing.
"Keep watching it, Kelley. I want continuous surveillance." Captain Rod Blaine went back to the bridge with no more information than he'd had before and sat staring at his screens. Unconsciously his hand moved to rub the bridge of his nose.
Just what in God's name had he caught?
Chapter 9 - His Highness Has Decided
Chapter 9 - His Highness Has Decided
The Viceregal Palace dominated New Scotland's only major city. Sally stared in admiration at the huge structure and excitedly pointed out the ripple of colors that changed with each motion of the flyer.
"How did it get that effect?" she asked. "It doesn't seem like an oil film."
"Cut from good New Scot rock," Sinclair answered. "You've nae seen rock like this before. There was nae life here until the First Empire seeded the planet; yon palace is rock wi' all the colors just as it boiled out of the interior,"
"It's beautiful," she told him. The Palace was the only building with open space around it. New Scotland huddled in small warrens, and from the air it was easy to see circular patterns like growth rings of a tree circle making the construction of larger field generators for protection of the city. Sally asked, "Wouldn't it be simpler to make a city plan using right angles now?"
"Simpler, aye," Sinclair answered. "But we've been through two hundred years of war, lass. Few care to live wi' nae Field for protection-not that we do no trust the Navy and Empire," he added hastily. "But 'tis no easy to break habits that old. We'd rather stay crowded and ken we can fight."
The flyer circled in to rest on the scarred lava roof of the Palace. The streets below were a bustle of color, tartans and plaids, everyone jostling his neighbor in the narrow streets. Sally was surprised to see just how small the Imperial Sector Capital was.
Rod left Sally and his officers in a comfortable lounge and followed starched Marine guides. The Council Chamber was a mixture of simplicity and splendor, walls of unadorned rock contrasting with patterned wool carpets and tapestries. Battle banners hung from high rafters.
The Marines showed Rod to a seat. Immediately in front of him was a raised dais for the Council and its attendants, and above that the viceregal throne dominated the entire chamber; yet even the throne was overshadowed by an immense solido of His Most Royal and Imperial Highness and Majesty, Leonidas IX, by Grace of God Emperor of Humanity. When there was a message from the Throne world the image would come alive, but now it showed a man no more than forty dressed in the midnight black of an Admiral of the Fleet, unadorned by decorations or medals. Dark eyes stared at and through each person in the chamber.
The chamber filled rapidly. There were Sector Parliament members, military and naval officers, scurrying civilians attended by harried clerks. Rod had no idea what to expect, but he noted jealous glances from those behind him. He was by far the most junior officer in the front row of the guest seats, Admiral Cranston took a seat two places to Blaine's left and nodded crisply to his subordinate.
A gong sounded. The Palace major-domo, coal black, symbolic whip thrust into his belted white uniform, came onto the platform above them and struck the stage with his staff of office. A line of men filed into the room to take their places on the dais. The Imperial Councilors were less impressive than their titles, Rod decided. Mostly they seemed to be harried men-but many of them had the same look as the Emperor's portrait, the ability to look beyond those in the chamber to something that could only be guessed at. They sat impassively until the gong was struck again.
The major-domo took a pose and struck the stage three times with his staff. "HIS MOST EXCELLENT HIGHNESS STEFAN YURI ALEXANDROVITCH MERRILL, VICEROY TO HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY FOR THE REALM BEYOND THE COAL SACK. MAY GOD GRANT WISDOM TO HIS MAJESTY AND HIS HIGHNESS."
Everyone scrambled to his feet. As Rod stood he thought of what was happening. It would be easy to be cynical. After all, Merrill was only a man; His Imperial Majesty was only a man, they put their trousers on one leg at a time. But they held responsibility for the destiny of the human race. The Council could advise them. The Senate could debate. The Assembly could shout and demand. Yet when all the conflicting demands were heard, when all the advice was pondered, someone had to act in the name of mankind...No, the ceremonial entrance wasn't exaggerated. Men who had that kind of power should be reminded of it.
His Highness was a tall, lanky man with bushy eyebrows. He wore the dress uniform of the Navy, sunbursts and comets on his breast, decorations earned in years of service to the Realm. When he reached his throne, he turned to the solido above it and bowed. The major-domo led the pledge of allegiance to the Crown before Merrill took his seat and nodded to the Council.
Duke Bonin, the elderly Lord President of the Council, stood at his place at the center of the big table. "My lords and gentlemen. By order of His Highness the Council meets to consider the matter of the alien vessel from the Mote. This may be a long session," he added with no trace of sarcasm.
"You all have before you the reports of our investigation of the alien ship. I can summarize them in two significant points: the aliens have neither the Alderson Drive nor the Langston Field. On the other hand, they appear to have other technologies considerably in advance of anything the Empire has ever had-and I include in that the First Empire."
There were gasps in the chamber. The First Empire was held in almost mystical reverence by many Imperial governors and most subjects. Bonin nodded significantly. "We now consider what we must do. His Excellency Sir Traffin Geary, Sector Minister for External Affairs."
Sir Traffin was nearly as tall as the Viceroy, but the resemblance ended there. Instead of His Highness' trim, athletic figure, Sir Traffin was shaped like a barrel. "Your Highness, my lords and gentlemen. We have sent a courier to Sparta and another will be dispatched within the week. This probe was slower than light, and launched well over a hundred years ago. We need do nothing about it for a few months. I propose that we make preparations here for an expedition to the Mote, but otherwise wait for instructions from His Majesty." Geary jutted his under lip truculently as he looked around the Council Chamber. "I suspect this comes as a surprise to many of you who know my temperament, but I think it wise to give this matter extended thought. Our decision may affect the destiny of the human race."
There were murmurs of approval. The President nodded to the man at his left. "My Lord Richard MacDonald Armstrong, Sector Minister of War."
In contrast to the bulk of Sir Traffin, the War Minister was almost diminutive, his features small to match his body, not finely chiseled, so that there was an impression of softness in the face. Only the eyes were hard, with a look to match those of the portrait above him.
"I full well understand the views of Sir Traffin," Armstrong began. "I do not care for this responsibility. It is great comfort to us to know that on Sparta the wisest men of the race will backstop our failures and mistakes."
Not much New Scot to his accent, Rod thought. Only a trace, but the man was obviously a native. Wonder if they can all talk like the rest of us when they have to?
"But we may not have the time," Armstrong said softly. "Consider. One hundred and thirteen years ago, as best our records show, the Mote glowed so brightly that it outshone Murcheson's Eye. Then One day it went out. That would no doubt be when the probe was ready to turn end for end and begin deceleration into our system. The lasers that launched that thing had been on a long time. The builders have had a hundred and fifty years at least to develop new technology. Think of that, my lords. In a hundred and fifty years, men on Earth went from windpowered warships to a landing on Earth's Moon. From gunpowder to hydrogen fusion. To a level of technology which might have built that probe-and in no more than a hundred and fifty years after that, had the Alderson Drive, the Field, ten interstellar colonies, and the CoDominium. Fifty years later the fleet left Earth to found the First Empire. That is what a hundred and fifty years can be to a growing race,: my lords. And that's what we're faced with, else they'd have been here before.
"I say we can't afford to wait!" The old man's voice lashed out to fill the chamber. "Wait for word from Sparta? With all respect to His Majesty's advisers, what can they tell us that we won't know better than they? By the time they can reply we'll have sent more reports. Perhaps things will have changed here and their instructions will make no sense. God's teeth, it's better to make our own mistakes!"
"Your recommendation?" the Council President asked dryly.
"I have already ordered Admiral Cranston to assemble all the warships we can spare from occupation and patrol duties. I have sent to His Majesty a most urgent request that additional forces be assigned to this sector. Now I propose that a naval expedition go to the Mote and find out what's happening there while the Yards convert enough vessels to be sure that we can destroy the alien home worlds if necessary."
There were gasps in the chamber. One of the Council members rose hurriedly to demand recognition.
"Dr. Anthony Horvath, Minister of Science," the President announced.
"Your Highness, my lords, I am speechless," Horvath began.
"Would to God you were," Admiral Cranston muttered at his seat to Rod's left.
Horvath was an elderly, carefully dressed man with precise gestures and every word spoken just so, as if he intended to say just that and no more. He spoke quietly but every word carried through the room perfectly. "My lords, there is nothing threatening about this probe. It carried only one passenger, and it has had no opportunity to report to those who sent it." Horvath looked signifcantly at Admiral Cranston. "We have seen absolutely no signs that the aliens have faster-than-light technology, nor the slightest hint Of danger, yet My Lord Armstrong speaks of assembling the Fleet. He acts as if all humanity were threatened by one dead alien and a light sail! Now I ask you, is this reasonable?"
"What is your proposal, Dr. Horvath?" the President asked.
"Send an expedition, yes. I agree with Minister Armstrong that it would be pointless to expect the Throne to issue detailed instructions from that great distance in time. Send a Navy ship if it makes everyone more comfortable. But staff it with scientists, foreign office personnel, representatives of the merchant class. Go in peace as they came in peace, don't treat these aliens as if they were outie pirates! There won't ever be an opportunity like this again, my lords. The first contact between humans and intelligent aliens. Oh, we'll find other sentient species, but we'll never find a first one again. What we do here will be in our history forever. Do not make a blot on that page!"
"Thank you, Dr. Horvath," the President said. "Are there other comments?"
There were. Everyone spoke at once until order was established at last. "Gentlemen, we must have a decision," Duke Bonin said. "What is the advice you wish to offer His Highness? Do we send an expedition to the Mote or no?"
That was settled quickly. The military and science groups easily outnumbered Sir Traffin's supporters. Ships would be sent as soon as feasible.
"Excellent." Bonin nodded. "And perhaps the character of the expedition? Shall it be naval or civil?"
The major-domo struck the stage with his staff. Every head turned toward the high throne where Merrill had sat impassively through the debate. "I thank the Council, but I shall need no advice concerning this final matter," the Viceroy said. "Since the question concerns the safety of the Realm there can be no problem of sector prerogatives involved." The stately address was spoiled as Merrill ran his fingers through his hair. He dropped his hand hurriedly to his lap as he realized what he was doing. A thin smile came to his face. "Although I suspect the Council's advice might be the same as my own. Sir Traffin, would your group favor a purely scientific expedition?"
"No, Your Highness."
"And I think we need not ask My Lord Minister of War for his opinion. Dr. Horvath's group would be outvoted in any event. As planning an expedition of this nature requires something less than the full Council, I will see Dr. Horvath, Sir Traffin, My Lord Armstrong, and Admiral Cranston in my office immediately. Admiral, is the officer you spoke of here?"
"Yes, Your Highness."
"Bring him with you." Merrill stood and strode from the throne so quickly that the major-domo had no chance to do his ceremonial office. Belatedly he struck the stage with his staff and faced the Imperial portrait. "IT IS HIS
HIGHNESS' PLEASURE THAT THIS COUNCIL BE DISMISSED. MAY GOD GRANT WISDOM TO HIS HIGHNESS. GOD SAVE THE EMPEROR."
As the others left the Chamber, Admiral Cranston took Rod's arm and led him through a small door by the stage. "What'd you think of all this?" Cranston asked.
"Orderly. I've been in Council meetings on Sparta where I thought they'd come to blows. Old Bonin knows how to run a meeting."
"Yeah. You understand this political crap, don't you? Better'n I do, anyway. You may be a better choice than I thought."
"Choice for what, sir?"
"Isn't it pretty obvious, Captain? His Nibs and I decided last night. You're going to take MacArthur to the Mote."
Chapter 10 - The Planet Killer
Chapter 10 - The Planet Killer
Viceroy Merrill had two offices. One was large, ornately furnished, decorated with gifts and tributes from a score of worlds. A solido of the Emperor dominated the wall behind a desk of Samualite teak inlaid with ivory and gold, flowering carpets of living grasses from Tabletop provided soft footing and alr purification, and tri-v cameras were invisibly recessed into New Scot rock walls for the convenience of newsmen covering ceremonial events.
Rod had only a brief glance at His Highness' place of splendor before he was led through it to a much smaller room of almost monastic simplicity. The Viceroy sat at a huge duroplast desk, His hair was a tangled mess. He had opened the collar of his uniform tunic and his dress boots stood against the wail.
"Ah. Come in, Admiral. See you brought young Blaine. How are you, boy? You won't remember me. Only time we met you were, what, two years old? Three? Damned if I can remember. How's the Marquis?"
"Very well, Your Highness. I'm sure he would send -- "
"Course, of course. Good man, your father. Bar's right over there." Merrill picked up a sheaf of papers and glanced quickly through the pages, turning them so rapidly they were a blur. "About what I thought." He scrawled a signature on the last page; the out basket coughed and the papers vanished.
"Perhaps I should introduce Captain Blaine to..." Admiral Cranston began.
"Course, of course. Careless of me. Dr. Horvath, Minister Armstrong, Sir Traffin, Captain Blaine, MacArthur. Marquis of Crucis' boy, you know."
"MacArthur." Dr. Horvath said it contemptuously. "I see. If Your Highness will excuse me, I can't think why you'd want him here."
"Can't, eh?" Merrill asked. "Use some logic, Doctor. You know what the meeting's about, right?"
"I can't say I care for the conclusion I get, Your Highness. And I still see no reason why this-militaristic fanatic should be part of planning an expedition of such vast importance."
"Is this a complaint against one of my officers, sir?" Admiral Cranston snapped. "If so, may I ask you -- "
"That will do," Merrill drawled. He tossed another thick packet of papers into the out basket and thoughtfully watched it vanish. "Dr. Horvath, suppose you state your objections and be done with it." It was impossible to tell whom Merrill intended his thin smile for.
"My objections are obvious enough. This young man may have engaged the human race in war with the first intelligent aliens we've ever found. The Admiralty has not seen fit to cashier him, but I will strenuously object to his having any further contact with the aliens. Sir, don't you appreciate the enormity of what he's done?"
"No, sir, I dinna see the point," War Minister Armstrong interjected.
"But that ship came thirty-five light years. Through normal space. Over a hundred and fifty years in flight! An achievement that the First Empire couldn't match. And for what? To be crippled at its destination, fired on, stuffed into the hold of a battleship and ferried to -- " The Science Minister ran out of breath.
"Blaine, did you fire on the probe?" Merrill asked.
"No, Your Highness. It fired on us. My orders were to intercept and inspect. After the alien vessel attacked my ship, I cut it loose from the light sail it was using as a weapon."
"Leaving you no choice but to take it aboard or let it burn up," Sir Traffin added. "Good work, that."
"But unnecessary if the probe hadn't been crippled," Horvath insisted. "When it fired On you why didn't you have the good sense to get behind the sail and follow it? Use the sail as a shield! You didn't need to kill it."
"That thing fired on an Imperial warship," Cranston exploded. "And you think one of my officers would -- "
Merrill held up his hand. "I'm curious, Captain. Why didn't you do what Dr. Horvath suggested?"
"I -- " Blaine sat rigidly for a moment, his thoughts whirling. "Well, sir, we were low on fuel and pretty close to Cal. If I'd kept pace with the probe I'd have ended up out of control and unable to keep station on it at all, assuming that McArthur's Drive didn't burn up the sail anyway. We needed the velocity to get back out of Cal's gravity well...and my orders were to intercept." He stopped for a moment to finger his broken nose.
Merrill nodded. "One more question, Blaine. What did you think when you were assigned to investigate an alien ship?"
"I was excited at the chance of meeting them, sir."
"Gentlemen, he doesn't sound like an unreasoning xenophobe to me. But when his ship was attacked, he defended her. Dr. Horvath, had he actually fired on the probe itself-which was surely the easiest way to see that it didn't damage his ship-I would personally see that he was dismissed as unfit to serve His Majesty in any capacity whatsoever. Instead he carefully cut the probe loose from its weapon and at great risk to his own ship took it aboard. I like that combination, gentlemen." He turned to Armstrong. "Dickie, will you tell them what we've decided about the expedition?"
"Yes, Your Highness." The War Minister cleared his throat. "Two ships. The Imperial battleship Lenin and the battle cruiser MacArthur. MacArthur will be modified to suit Dr. Horvath's requirements and will carry the civilian personnel of this expedition. That is to include scientists, merchants, Foreign Office people, and the missionary contingent His Reverence demands, in addition to a naval crew. All contact with the alien civilization will be conducted by MacArthur."
Merrill nodded in emphasis. "Under no circumstances will Lenin take aliens aboard or place herself in danger of capture. I want to be sure we get some information back from this expedition."
"Bit extreme, isn't it?" Horvath asked.
"No, sir." Sir Traffin was emphatic. "Richard is primarily concerned that the aliens have no opportunity to obtain either the Langston Field or the Alderson Drive from us, and I am in full agreement."
"But if they-suppose they capture MacArthur?" Horvath asked.
Admiral Cranston exhaled a stream of blue pipe smoke. "Then Lenin will blast MacArthur out of space."
Blaine nodded. He'd already figured that out.
"Take a good man to make that decision," Sir Traffin observed. "Who are you sending in Lenin?"
"Admiral Lavrenti Kutuzov. We sent a courier ship for him yesterday."
"The Butcher!" Horvath set his drink on the table and turned in fury to the Viceroy. "Your Highness, I protest! Of all the men in the Empire there's not a worse choice! You must know that Kutuzov was the man who-who sterilized Istvan. Of all the paranoid creatures in the-Sir, I beg you to reconsider. A man like that could- Don't you understand? These are intelligent aliens! This could be the greatest moment in all history, and you want to send off an expedition commanded by a subhuman who thinks with his reflexes! It's insane."
"It would be more insane to send an expedition commanded by the likes of yourself," Armstrong replied. "I dinna mean it as an insult, Doctor, but you see aliens as friends, you look to the opportunities. You dinna see the dangers. Perhaps my friends and I see too many o' them, but I'd rather be wrong my way than yours."
"The Council..." Horvath protested feebly.
"Not a matter for the Council," Merrill stated. "Matter of Imperial Defense. Safety of the Realm and all that, you know. Be a neat question just how much the Imperial Parliament on Sparta has to say about it. As His Majesty's representative in this sector, I've already decided."
"I see." Horvath sat in dejection for a moment, then brightened. "But you said that MacArthur would be modified to suit the scientific requirements. That we can have a full scientific expedition."
Merrill nodded. "Yes. Hope we won't have anything for Kutuzov to do. Up to your people to sec to it he doesn't have to take action. Just there as a precaution."
Blaine cleared his throat carefully.
"Speak up, laddie," Armstrong said.
"I was wondering about my passengers, sir."
"Course, of course," Merrill answered. "Senator Powler's niece and that Trader fellow. Think they'd want to go along?"
"I know Sally-Miss Fowler will," Rod answered. "She's turned down two chances to get to Sparta, and she's been going to Admiralty headquarters every day."
"Anthropology student," Merrill murmured. "If she wants to go, let her. Won't do any harm to show the Humanity League we aren't sending a punitive expedition, and I can't think of a better way to make that obvious. Good politics. What about this Bury fellow?"
"I don't know, sir."
"See if he wants to go," Merrill said. "Admiral, you haven't got a suitable ship headed for the Capital, have you?"
"Nothing I'd want to trust that man in," Cranston answered. "You saw Plekhanov's report."
"Yes. Well, Dr. Horvath wanted to take Traders. I'd think His Excellency would welcome the opportunity to be there...just tell him one of his competitors could be invited. Ought to do it, eh? Never saw a merchant yet who wouldn't go through hell to get an edge on the competition."
"When will we leave, sir?" Rod asked.
Merrill shrugged. "Up to Horvath's people. Lot of work to do, I expect. Lenin ought to be here in a month. It'll pick up Kutuzov on the way. Don't see why you can't go as soon after that as you think MacArthur is ready."
Chapter 11 - The Church of Him
Chapter 11 - The Church of Him
At a hundred and fifty kilometers an hour the monorail car moved with a subdued hissing sound. The Saturday crowd of passengers seemed to be enjoying themselves in a quiet way. They did little talking. In one clump near the back a man was sharing a flask around. Even this group wasn't noisy; they only smiled more. A few well-behaved children at window seats craned their necks to see out, pointed, and asked questions in incomprehensible dialect.
Kevin Renner behaved in much the same fashion. He leaned sideways with his head against the clear plastic window, the better to see an alien world. His lean face bore an uncomplicated smile.
Staley was on the aisle, apparently sitting at attention. Potter sat between them.
The three were not on leave; they were off duty and could be recalled via their pocket computers. Artificers at the New Scotland Yards were busy scraping the boats off the walls of MacArthur's hangar deck and making other, more extensive repairs under Sinclair's supervision. Sinclair might need Potter, in particular, at any moment; and Potter was their native guide. Perhaps Staley was remembering this; but his rigid posture was no sign of discomfort. He was enjoying himself. He always sat that way.
Potter was doing most of the talking and all the pointing. "Those twin volcanoes; d'ye see them, Mr. Renner? D'ye see yon boxlike structures near the peak of each one? They're atmosphere control. When yon volcanoes belch gas, the maintenance posts fire jets of tailored algae into the air steam. Without them our atmosphere would soon be foul again."
"Um. You couldn't have kept them going during the Secession Wars. How did you manage?"
"Badly."
The landscape was marked by queer sharp lines. Here there was the green patchwork quilt of cultivated fields, there a lifeless landscape, almost lunar but for the softening of erosion. It was strange to see a broad river meandering unconcerned from cultivation to desert. There were no weeds. Nothing grew wild. The forest grove they were passing now had the same sharp borders and orderly arrangement as the broad strips of flower beds they had passed earlier.
"You've been on New Scotland for three hundred years,"• said Renner. "Why is it still like this? I'd think there'd be topsoil by now, and scattered seeds. Some of the land would have gone wild."
"How often does it happen that cultivated land turns to wild life on a colony world? For aye our history the people hae spread faster than the topsoil." Potter suddenly sat up straight. "Look ahead. We're coming into Quentin's Patch."
The car slowed smoothly. Doors swung up and a handful of passengers filtered out. The Navy men moved away with Potter in the lead. Potter was almost skipping. This was his home town.
Renner stopped suddenly. "Look, you can see Murcheson's Eye in daylight!"
It was true. The star was high in the east, a red spark just visible against blue sky.
"Can't make out the Face of God, though."
Heads turned to look at the Navy men. Potter spoke softly. "Mr. Renner, you must not call it the Face of God on this world."
"Huh? Why not?"
"A Himmist would call it the Face of Him. They do not refer directly to their God, A good Church member does not believe that it is anything but the Coal Sack."
"They call it the Face of God everywhere else. Good Church member or not."
"Elsewhere in the Empire there are no Himmists. If ye walk this way, we should reach the Church of Him before dark."
Quentin's Patch was a small village surrounded by wheat fields. The walkway was a broad stream of basalt with a ripple to its surface, as if it were a convenient lava flow. Renner guessed that a ship's drive had hovered hem long ago, marking out the walkways before any buildings were erected. The surface bore a myriad of spreading cracks. With the two- and three-story houses now lining both sides, the walk could hardly be repaired in the same manner.
Renner asked, "How did the Himmists get started?"
"Legend has it," Potter said, and stopped. "Aye, it may not be all legend. What the Himmists say is that one day the Face of God awoke."
"Um?"
"He opened His single eye."
"That would figure, if the Moties were actually using laser cannon to propel a light sail. Any dates on that?"
"Aye." Potter thought. "It happened during the Secession Wars. The war did us great damage, you know. New Scotland remained loyal to the Empire, but New Ireland did not. We were evenly matched. For fifty years or thereabouts we fought each other, until there were nae interstellar ships left and nae contact with the stars at all. Then, in 2870, a ship fell into the system. 'Twas the Ley Crater, a trading ship converted for war, with a working Langston Field and a hold full of torpedoes. Damaged as she was, she was the most powerful ship in New Caledonia System; we had sunk that low. With her aid we destroyed the New Irish traitors."
"That was a hundred and fifty years ago. You told it like you lived through it."
Potter smiled. "We take our history verra personally here."
"Of course," said Staley.
"Ye asked for dates," said Potter. "The university records do no say. Some o' the computer records were scrambled by war damage, ye know. Something happened to the Eye, that's sure, but it must have happened late in the war. It would not have made that big an impression, ye ken."
"Why not? The Face of-the eye is the biggest, brightest thing in your sky."
Potter smiled without mirth. "Not during the war. I hae read diaries. People hid under the university Langston Field. When they came out they saw the sky as a battlefield, alive with strange lights and the radiations from exploding ships. It was only after the war ended that people began to look at the sky. Then the astronomers tried to study what had happened to the Eye. And then it was that Howard Grote Littlemead was stricken with divine inspiration."
"He decided that the Face of God was just what it looked like."
"Aye, that he did. And he convinced many people. Here we are, gentlemen."
The Church of Him was both imposing and shabby, It was built of quarried stone to withstand the ages, and it had done so; but the stone was worn, sandblasted by storms; there were cracks in the lintel and cornices and elsewhere; initials and obscenities had been carved into the walls with lasers and other tools.
The priest was a tall, round man with a soft, beaten look to him. But he was unexpectedly firm in his refusal to let them in. It did no good when Potter revealed himself as a fellow townsman. The Church of Him and its priests had suffered much at the hands of townsmen.
"Come, let us reason together," Renner said to him. "You don't really think we mean to profane anything, do you?"
"Ye are nae believers. What business hae ye here?"
"We only want to see the picture of the Co-of the Face of Him in its glory. Having seen this, we depart. If you won't let us in, we may be able to force you by going through channels. This is Navy business."
The priest looked scorn. "This is New Scotland, not one 0' yer primitive colonies wi' nae government but blasphemin' Marines. 'Twould take the Viceroy's orders to force yer way here. And ye're but tourists."
"Have you heard of the alien probe?"
The priest lost some of his assurance. "Aye."
"We believe it was launched by laser cannon. From the Mote."
The priest was nonplussed. Then he laughed long and loud. Still laughing, he ushered them in. He would say no word to them, but he led them over the chipped tiles through an entry hail and into the main sanctuary. Then he stood aside to watch their faces.
The Pace of Him occupied half the wall. It looked like a huge holograph. The stars around the edge were slightly blurred, as would be the case with a very old holograph. And there was the holograph sense of looking into infinity.
The Eye in that Face blazed pure green, with terrifying intensity. Pure green with a red fleck in it.
"My God!" Staley said, and hastily added, "I don't mean it the way it sounds. But-the power! It'd take the industrial might of an advanced world to put out that much light from thirty-five light years away!"
"I thought I had remembered it bigger than it was," Potter whispered.
"Ye see!" the priest crowed. "And ye think that could baa been a natural phenomenon! Well, hae ye seen enough?"
"Yah," said Renner, and they left.
They stopped outside in the failing sunlight. Renner was shaking his head. "I don't blaine Littlemead a damn bit," he said. "The wonder is he didn't convince everyone on the planet."
"We're a stubborn lot," said Potter. "Yon squinting silhouette in the night sky may hae been too obvious, too..."
"Here I am, stupid!" Renner suggested.
"Aye. New Scots dinna like being treated as dullards, not even by Him."
Remembering the decayed building with its shabby interior, Rennet said, "The Church of Him seems to have fallen on evil days since Littlemead saw the light."
"Aye. In 2902 the light went out. One hundred and fifteen years ago. That event was verra well documented. 'Twas the end o' astronomy here until the Empire returned."
"Did the Mote go out suddenly?"
Potter shrugged. "None know. It must hae happened around the other side o' the world, you see. Ye must hae noticed that civilization here is but a spreading patch on a barren world. Mr. Renner. When the Coal Sack rose that night it rose like a blinded man. To the Hinimists it must hac seemed that God had gone to sleep again."
"Rough on them?"
"Howard Grote Littlemead took an overdose of sieeping pills. The Himmists say he hastened to meet his God."
"Possibly to demand an explanation," said Renner. "You're very quiet, Mr. Staley."
Horst looked up grim-faced. "They can build laser cannon that fill the sky. And we're taking a military expedition there."
Chapter 12 - Descent into Hell
Chapter 12 - Descent into Hell
It was just possible to assemble everyone on hangar deck. The closed launching hatch doors-repaired, but obviously so-were the only open space large enough for the ship's company and the scientific personnel to gather, and it was crowded even there. The hangar compartment was stuffed with gear: extra landing craft, the longboat and the cutter, crated scientific equipment, ship's stores, and other crates whose purpose even Blaine didn't know. Dr. Horvath's people insisted on carrying nearly every scientific instrument used in their specialties on the chance that it might be useful; the Navy could hardly argue with them, since there were no precedents for an expedition of this kind.
Now the huge space was packed to overflowing. Viceroy Merrill, Minister Armstrong, Admiral Cranston, Cardinal Randolph, and a host of lesser officials stood confusedly about while Rod hoped that his officers had been able to complete preparations for the ship's departure. The last days had been a blur of unavoidable activities, mostly social, with little time for the important work of preparing his ship. Now, waiting for the final ceremonies, Rod wished he'd got out of Capital social life and stayed aboard his ship like a hermit. For the next year or so he'd be under the command of Admiral Kutuzov, and he suspected that the Admiral was not wholly pleased with his subordinate ship commander. The Russian was conspicuously absent from the ceremonies on MacArthur's hangar doors.
No one had missed him. Kutuzov was a massive, burly man with a heavy sense of humor. He looked like something out of a textbook of Russian history and talked the same way. This was partially due to his upbringing on St. Ekaterina, but mostly through his own choice. Kutuzov spent hours studying ancient Russian customs and adopted many of them as part of the image he projected. His flagship bridge was decorated with icons, a samovar of tea bubbled in his cabin, and his Marines were trained in what Kutuzov hoped were fair imitations of Cossack dances.
Navy opinion on the man was universal: highly competent, rigidly faithful to any orders given him, and so lacking in human compassion that everyone felt uncomfortable around him. Because the Navy and Parliament officially approved of Kutuzov's action in ordering the destruction of a rebel planet-the Imperial Council had determined that the drastic measure had prevented the revolt of an entire sector-Kutuzov was invited to all social functions; but no one was disappointed when he refused his invitations.
"The main problem is yon loony Russian customs," Sinclair had offered when MacArthur's officers were discussing their new admiral.
"No different from the Scots," First Lieutenant Cargill had observed. "At least he doesn't try to make us all understand Russian. He speaks Anglic well enough."
"Is that meant to say we Scots dinna speak Anglic?" Sinclair demanded.
"I'll let you guess." But then Cargill thought better of it. "Of course not, Sandy. Sometimes when you get excited I can't understand you, but...here, have a drink."
That, thought Rod, had been something to see, Cargill trying his best to be friendly with Sinclair. Of course the reason was obvious. With the ship in New Scotland's Yards under the attention of Yardmaster MacPherson's crews, Cargill was at pains not to irritate the Chief Engineer. He might end up with his cabin removed-or worse.
Viceroy Merrill was saying something. Rod snapped out of his reverie and strained to listen in the confused babble of sounds.
"I said, I really don't see the point to all this, Captain. Could have had all this ceremony on the ground-except for your blessing, Your Reverence."
"Ships have left New Scotland without my attentions before," the Cardinal mused. "Not, perhaps, on a mission quite so perplexing to the Church as this one. Well, that will be young Hardy's problem now." He indicated the expedition chaplain. David Hardy was nearly twice Blaine's age, and his nominal equal in rank, so that the Cardinal's reference had to be relative.
"Well, are we ready?"
"Yes, Your Eminence." Blaine nodded to Kelley. "SHIP's COMPANY, ATTEN-SHUT!" The babble stilled, trailing off rather than being cut off as it would if there weren't civilians aboard.
The Cardinal took a thin stole from his pocket, kissed the hem, and placed it over his neck. Chaplain Hardy handed him the silver pail and asperger, a wand with a hollow ball at the end. Cardinal Randolph dipped the wand in the pail and shook water toward the assembled officers and crew. "Thou shalt purge me, and I shall be clean. Thou shalt wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Glory be to the Father, the Son, •and the Holy Ghost."
"As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, worlds without end, amen." Rod found himself responding automatically. Did he believe in all that? Or was it only good for discipline? He couldn't decide, but he was glad the Cardinal had come. MacArthur might need all the benefits she could get...
The official party boarded an atmosphere flyer as warning horns sounded. MacArthur's crew scrambled to leave hangar deck, and Rod stepped into an air-lock chamber. Pumps whined to empty the hangar space of air, then the great double doors opened. Meanwhile, MacArthur lost her spin as th6 central flywheels whirred. With only naval people aboard, an atmosphere craft might be launched through the doors under spin, dropping in the curved -relative to MacArthur- trajectory induced by the Coriolis effect, but with the Viceroy and the Cardinal lifting out that was out of the question. The landing craft lifted gently at 150 cm/sec until it was clear of the hangar doors.
"Close and seal," Rod ordered crisply. "Stand by for acceleration." He turned and launched himself in null gravity toward his bridge. Behind him telescoping braces opened across the hangar deck space-guy wires and struts, braces of all kinds-until the hollow was partly filled. The design of a warship's hangar space is an intricate specialty, since spotting boats may have to be launched at a moment's notice, yet the vast empty space needs to be braced against possible disaster. Now with the extra boats of Horvath's scientists in addition to the full complement of MacArthur's own, the hangar deck was a maze of ships, braces, and crates.
The rest of the ship was as crowded. In place of the usual orderly activity brought on by acceleration warning, MacArthur's corridors were boiling with personnel. Some of the scientists were half in battle armour, having confused acceleration warning with battle stations. Others stood in critical passageways blocking traffic and unable to decide where to go. Petty officers screamed at them, unable to curse the civilians and also unable to do anything else.
Rod finally arrived at the bridge, while behind him officers and boatswains shamefacedly worked to clear the passageways and report ready for acceleration. Privately Blaine couldn't blaine his crew for being unable to control the scientists, but he could hardly ignore the situation. Moreover, if he excused his staff, they would have no control over the civilians. He couldn't really threaten a Science Minister and his people with anything, but if he were hard enough on his own crew, the scientists might cooperate in order to spare the spacers...It was a theory worth trying, he thought. As he glanced at a tv monitor showing two Marines and four civilian lab technicians in a tangle against the after messroom bulkhead, Rod silently cursed and hoped it would work. Something had to.
"Signal from flag, sir. Keep station on Redpines."
"Acknowledge, Mr. Potter. Mr. Renner, take the con and follow the number-three tanker."
"Aye aye, sir." Renner grinned. "And so we're off. Pity the regulations don't provide for champagne at a time like this."
"I'd think you'd have your hands full, Mr. Renner. Admiral Kutuzov insists we keep what he calls a proper formation."
"Yes, sir. I discussed that with Lenin's Sailing Master last night."
"Oh." Rod settled back in his command chair. It would be a difficult trip, he thought. All those scientists aboard. Dr. Horvath had insisted on coming himself, and he was going to be a problem. The ship was so swarming with civilians that most of MacArthur's officers were doubled up in cabins already too small; junior lieutenants slung hammocks in the gun room with midshipmen; Marines were packed into recreation quarters so that their barracks rooms could be stuffed with scientific gear. Rod was beginning to wish that Horvath had won his argument with Cranston. The scientist had wanted to take an assault carrier with its enormous bunk spaces.
The Admiralty had put a stop to that. The expedition would consist of ships able to defend themselves and those only. The tankers would accompany the fleet to Murcheson's Eye, but they weren't coming to the Mote.
In deference to the civilians, the trip was at 1.2 gee.
Rod suffered through innumerable dinner parties, mediated arguments between scientists and crew, and fended off attempts by Dr. Buckman the astrophysicist to monopolize Sally's time.
First Jump was routine. The transfer point to Murcheson's Eye was well located. New Caledonia was a magnificent white point source in the moment before MacArthur Jumped. Then Murcheson's Eye was a wide red glare the size of a baseball held at arm's length.
The fleet moved inward.
Gavin Potter had traded hammocks with Horst Staley.
It had cost him a week's labor doing two men's laundry, but it had been worth it. Staley's hammock had a view port.
Naturally the port was beneath the hammock, in the cylindrical spin floor of the gun room. Potter lay face down in the hammock to ldbk through the webbing, a gentle smile on his long face.
Whitbread was face up in his own hammock directly across the spin floor from Potter. He had been watching Potter for several minutes before he spoke.
"Mr. Potter."
The New Scot turned only his head. "Yes, Mr. Whitbread?"
Whitbread continued to watch him, contemplatively, with his arms folded behind his head. He was quite aware that Potter's infatuation with Murcheson's Eye was none of his damned business. Incomprehensible, Potter remained polite. How much needling would he take?
Entertaining things were happening aboard MacArthur, but there was no way for midshipmen to get to them. An off-duty middie must make his own entertainment.
"Potter, I seem to remember you were transferred aboard Old Mac on Dagda, just before we went to pick up the probe." Whitbread's voice was a carrying one. Horst Staley, who was also off duty, turned over in what had been Potter's bunk and gave them his attention. Whitbread noticed without seeming to.
Potter turned and blinked. "Yes, Mr. Whitbread. That's right."
"Well, somebody has to tell you, and I don't suppose anyone else has thought of it. Your first shipboard mission involved diving right into an F8 sun. I hope it hasn't given you a bad impression of the Service."
"Not at all. I found it exciting," Potter said courteously.
"The point is, diving straight into a sun is a rare thing in the Service. It doesn't happen every trip. I thought someone ought to tell you."
"But, Mr. Whitbread, are we no about to do exactly that?"
"Hah?" Whitbread hadn't expected that.
"No ship of the First Empire ever found a transfer point from Murcheson's Eye to the Mote. They may no have wanted it badly, but we can assume they tried somewhat," Potter said seriously. "Now, I have had verra little experience in space, but I am not uneducated, Mr. Whitbread. Murcheson's Eye is a red supergiant, a big, empty star, as big as the orbit of Saturn in Sol System. It seems reasonable that the Alderson Point to the Mote is within yon star if it exists. Does it not?"
Horst Staley rose up on an elbow. "I think he's right. It would explain why nobody ever plotted the transfer point. They all knew where it was -- "
"But nobody wanted to go look. Yes, of course he's right," Whitbread said in disgust. "And that's just where we're going. Whee! Here we go again."
"Exactly," said Potter; and smiling gently, he turned on his face again.
"It's most unusual," Whitbread protested. "Doubt me if you must, but I assure you we don't go diving into stars more than two out of three trips." He paused. "And even that's too many."
The fleet slowed to a halt at the fuzzy edge of son's Eye. There was no question of orbits. At this distance the supergiant's gravity was so feeble that have taken years for a ship to fail into it.
The tankers linked up and began to transfer fuel.
An odd, tenuous friendship had grown between Horace Bury and Buckman, the astrophysicist. Bury had sometimes wondered about it. What did Buckman want with Bury?
Buckman was a lean, knobby, bird-boned man. From the look of him he sometimes forgot to eat for days at a time. Buckman seemed to care for nobody and nothing in what Bury considered the real universe. People, time, power, money, were only the means Buckman used to explore the inner workings of the stars. Why would he seek the company of a merchant?
But Buckman liked to talk, and Bury at least had the time to listen. MacArthur was a beehive these days, frantically busy and crowded as hell. And there was room to pace in Bury's cabin.
Or, Bury speculated cynically, he might like Bury's coffee. Bury had almost a dozen varieties of coffee beans, his own grinder, and filter cones to make it. He was quite aware of how his coffee compared with that in the huge percolators about the ship.
Nabil served them coffee while they watched the fuel transfer on Bury's screen. The tanker fueling MacArthur was hidden, but Lenin and the other tanker showed as two space-black elongated eggs, linked by a silver umbilicus, silhouetted against a backdrop of fuzzy scarlet.
"It should not be that dangerous," said Dr. Buckman.
"You're thinking of it as a descent into a sun, Bury. Which it is, technically. But that whole vast volume isn't all that much more massive than Cal or any other yellow dwarf. Think of it as a red-hot vacuum. Except for the core, of course; that's probably tiny and very dense.
"We'll learn a great deal going in," he said. His eyes were alight, focused on infinity. Bury, watching him sidewise, found the expression fascinating. He had seen it before, but rarely. It marked men who could not be bought in any coin available to Horace Bury.
Bury had no more practical use for Buckman than Buckman had for Bury. Bury could relax with Buckman, as much as he could relax with anybody. He liked the feeling.
He said, "I thought you would already know everything about the Eye."
"You mean Murcheson's explorations? Too many records have been lost, and some of the others aren't trustworthy. I've had my instruments going since the Jump. Bury, the proportion of heavy particles in the solar wind is amazingly high. And helium-tremendous. But Murcheson's ships never went into the Eye itself, as far as we know. That's when we'll really learn things." Buckman frowned. "I hope our instruments can stand up to it. They have to poke through the Langston Field, of course. We're likely to be down in that red-hot fog for some considerable time, Bury. If the Field collapses it'll ruin everything."
Bury stared, then laughed. "Yes, Doctor, it certainly would!"
Buckman looked puzzled. Then, "Ah. I see what you mean. It would kill us too, wouldn't it? I hadn't thought of that."
Acceleration warnings sounded. MacArthur was moving into the Eye.
Sinclair's thick burr sounded in Rod's ear. "Engineering report, Captain. All systems green. Field holding verra well, 'tis nae so warm as we feared."
"Good," Blaine replied. "Thanks, Sandy." Rod watched the tankers receding against the stars. Already they were thousands of kilometers away, visible only through the telescopes as bright as points of light.
The next screen showed a white splotch within a red fog: Lenin leading into the universal red glare. Lenin's crew would search for the Alderson point-if there were such a point.
"Still, 'tis certain the Field will leak inward sooner or later," Sinclair's voice continued. "There's no place for the heat to go, it must be stored. 'Tis no like a space battle, Captain. But we can hold wi' no place to radiate the accumulated energy for at least seventy-two hours. After that-we hae no data. No one has tried this loony stunt before."
"Yes."
"Somebody should have," Renner said cheerfully. He had been listening from his post on the bridge. MacArthur was holding at one gee, but it took attention: the thin photosphere was presenting more resistance than expected. "You'd think Murcheson would have tried it. The First Empire had better ships than ours."
"Maybe he did," Rod said absently. He watched Lenin move away, breaking trail for MacArthur, and felt an unreasonable irritation. MacArthur should have gone first...
The senior officers slept at their duty stations. There wasn't much anyone could do if the Field soaked up too much energy, but Rod felt better in his command seat. Finally it was obvious that he wasn't needed.
A signal came from Lenin and MacArthur cut her engines. Warning horns sounded, and she, came under spin until other hoots signaled the end of unpleasant changes in gravity. Crew and passengers climbed out of safety rigglng.
"Dismiss the watch below," Rod ordered. Renner stood and stretched elaborately. "That's that, Captain. Of course we'll have to slow down as the photosphere gets thicker, but that's all right. The friction slows us down anyway." He looked at his screens and asked questions with swiftly moving fingers. "It's not as thick as, say, an atmosphere out there, but it's a lot thicker than a solar wind."
Blaine could see that for himself. Lenin was still ahead, at the outer limit of detection, and her engines were off. She was a black splinter in the screens, her outlines blurred by four thousand kilometers of red-hot fog.
The Eye thickened around them.
Rod stayed on the bridge another hour, then persuaded himself that he was being unfair. "Mr. Renner."
"Yes, sir?"
"You can go off watch now. Let Mr. Crawford take her."
"Aye aye, sir." Renner headed for his cabin. He'd reached the conclusion that he wasn't needed on the bridge fifty-eight minutes before. Now for a hot shower, and some sleep in his bunk instead of the conning chair.
The companionway to his cabin was jammed, as usual. Kevin Renner was pushing his way through with singleminded determination when someone lurched hard against hint.
"Dammit! Excuse me," he snarled. He watched the miscreant regain his feet by hanging onto the lapels of Renner's uniform. "Dr. Horvath, isn't it?"
"My apologies." The Science Minister stepped back and brushed at himself ineffectually. "I haven't gotten used to spin gravity yet. None of us have. It's the Coriolis effect that throws us off."
"No. It's the elbows," Renner said. He regained his habitual grin. "There are six times as many elbows as people aboard this ship, Doctor. I've been counting."
"Very funny, Mr. Renner, isn't it? Sailing Master Renner. Renner, this crowding bothers my personnel as much as yours. If we could stay out of your way, we would. But we can't. The data on the Eye have to be collected. We may never have such a chance again."
"I know, Doctor, and I sympathize. Now if you'll -- " Visions of hot water and clean bedding receded as Horvath clutched at his lapels again.
"Just a moment, please." Horvath seemed to be making up his mind about something. "Mr. Renner, you were aboard MacArthur when she captured the alien probe, weren't you?"
"Hoo Boy, I sure was."
"I'd like to talk to you."
"Now? But, Doctor, the ship may need my attention at any moment -- "
"I consider it urgent."
"But we're cruising through the photosphere of a star, as you may have noticed." And I haven't had a hot shower in three days. as you may also have noticed...Renner took a second look at Horvath's expression and gave up. "All right, Doctor. Only let's get out of the passageway."
Horvath's cabin was as cramped as anything on board, except that it had walls. More than half of MacArthur's crew would have considered those walls an undeserved luxury. Horvath apparently did not, from the look of disgust and the muttered apologies as they entered the cabin.
He lifted the bunk into the bulkhead and dropped two chairs from the opposite wall. "Sit down, Renner. There are things about that interception that have been bothering me. I hope I can get an unbiased view from you. You're not a regular Navy man."
The Sailing Master did not bother to deny it. He had been mate on a merchant ship before, and would skipper one when he left the Navy with his increased experience; and he could hardly wait to return to the merchant service.
"So," said Horvath, and sat down on the very edge of the foldout chair. "Renner, was it absolutely necessary to attack the probe?"
Renner started to laugh.
Horvath took it, though he looked as if he had eaten a bad oyster.
"All right," said Renner. "I shouldn't have laughed. You weren't there. Did you know the probe was diving into Cal for maximum deceleration?"
"Certainly, and I appreciate that you were too. But was it really that dangerous?"
"Dr. Horvath, the Captain surprised me twice. Utterly. When the probe attacked, I was trying to take us around the edge of the sail before we were cooked. Maybe I'd have got us away in time and maybe not. But the Captain took us through the sail. It was brilliant, it was something I should have thought of, and I happen to think the man's a genius. He's also a suicidal maniac."
"What?"
On Renner's face was retrospective dread. "He should never have tried to pick up the probe. We'd lost too much time. We were about to ram a star. I wouldn't have believed we could pick up the damned thing so fast...
"Blaine did that himself?"
"No. He gave the job to Cargill. Who's better at tight high-gravity maneuvers than anybody else aboard. That's the point, Doctor. The Captain picked the best man for the job and got out of the way."
"And you would have run for it?"
"Forthrightly and without embarrassment."
"But he picked it up. Well." Horvath seemed to taste something bad. "But he also fired on it. The first -- "
"It shot first."
"That was a meteor defense!"
"So what?"
Horvath clamped his lips.
"All right, Doctor, try this. Suppose you left your car on a hill with the brakes off and the wheels turned the wrong way, and suppose it rolled down the hill and killed four people. What's your ethical position?"
"Terrible. Make your point, Renner."
"The Moties are at least as intelligent as we are. Granted? OK. They built a meteor defense. They had an obligation to see to it that it did not fire on neutral space craft."
Horvath sat there for what seemed a long time, while Kevin Renner thought about the limited capacity of the hot-water tanks in officers' country. That bad-taste expression was natural to Horvath, Renner saw; the lines in his face fell into it naturally and readily. Finally the Science Minister said, "Thank you, Mr. Renner."
"You're welcome." Renner stood.
An alarm sounded.
"Oh, Lord. That's me." Renner dashed for the bridge.
They were deep within the Eye: deep enough that the thin starstufi around them showed yellow. The Field indicators showed yellow too, but with a tinge of green.
All this Renner saw as he glanced around at half a dozen screens on the bridge. He looked at the plots on his own screens; and he did not see the battleship. "Lenin's Jumped?"
"Right," Midshipman Whitbread said. "We're next, sir." The red-haired middie's grin seemed to meet at the back of his head.
Blaine sailed into the bridge without touching the companionway sides. "Take the con, Mr. Renner. The pilot ought to be at your station now."
"Aye aye, sir," Renner turned to Whitbread. "I relieve you." His fingers danced across the input keys, then he hit a line of buttons even as the new data flowed onto his screen. Alarms went off in rapid succession: JUMP STATIONS, BATTLE STATIONS, HEAVY ACCELERATION WARNING.
MacArthur prepared herself for the unknown.
Chapter 13 - Look Around You
Chapter 13 - Look Around You
THE CRAZY EDDIE POINT
Look Around You
She was the first to find the intruders.
She had been exploring a shapeless mass of stony asteroid that turned out to be mostly empty space. Some earlier culture had carved out rooms and nooks and tankages and storage chambers, then fused the detritus into more rooms and chambers, until the mass was a stone beehive. It had all happened very long ago, but that was of no interest to her.
In later ages meteoroids had made dozens of holes through the construct. Thick walls had been gradually thinned so that air might be chemically extracted from the stone. There was no air now. There was no metal anywhere. Dry mummies, and stone, stone, little else and nothing at all for an Engineer.
She left via a meteoroid puncture; for all the air locks had been fused shut by vacuum welding. A long time after that someone had removed their metal working parts.
After she was outside, she saw them, very tar away, a tiny glimmer of golden light against the Coal Sack. It was worth a look. Anything was worth a look.
The Engineer returned to her ship.
Telescope and spectrometer failed her at first. There were two of the golden slivers, and some bulk inside each of them, but something was shutting out her view of the masses inside. Patiently the Engineer went to work on her instruments, redesigning, recalibrating, rebuilding, her hands working at blinding speed guided by a thousand Cycles of instincts.
There were force fields to be penetrated. Presently she had something that would do that. Not well, but she could see large objects.
She looked again.
Metal. Endless, endless metal.
She took off immediately. The call of treasure was not to be ignored. There was little of free will in an Engineer.
------
Blaine watched a flurry of activity through a red fog as he fought to regain control of his traitor body after return to normal space. An all-clear signal flashed from Lenin, and Rod breathed more easily. Nothing threatened, and he could enjoy the view.
It was the Eye he saw first. Murcheson's Eye was a tremendous ruby, brighter than a hundred full moons, all alone on the black velvet of the Coal Sack.
On the other side of the sky, the Mote was the brightest of a sea of stars. All systems looked this way at breakout: a lot of stars, and one distant sun. To starboard was a splinter of light, Lenin, her Langston Field radiating the overload picked up in the Eye.
Admiral Kutuzov made one final check and signaled Blaine again. Until something threatened, the scientists aboard MacArthur were in charge. Rod ordered coffee and waited for information.
At first there was maddeningly little that he hadn't already known. The Mote was only thirty-five light years from New Scotland, and there had been a number of observations, some dating back to Jasper Murcheson himself. A G2 star, less energetic than Sol, cooler, smaller and a bit less massive. It showed almost no sunspot activity at the moment, and the astrophysicists found it dull.
Rod had known about the gas giant before they started. Early astronomers had deduced it from perturbations in the Mote's orbit around the Eye. They knew the gas giant planet's mass and they found it almost where they expected, seventy degrees around from them. Heavier than Jupiter, but smaller, much denser, with a degenerate matter core. While the scientists worked, the Navy men plotted courses to the gas giant, in case one or the other warship should need to refuel. Scooping up hydrogen by ramming through a gas giant's atmosphere on a hyperbolic orbit was hard on ships and crew but a lot better than being stranded in an alien system.
"We're searching out the Trojan points now, Captain," Buckman told Rod two hours after breakout
"Any sign of the Mote planet?"
"Not yet." Buckman hung up.
Why was Buckman concerned with Trojan points? Sixty degrees ahead of the giant planet in its orbit, and sixty degrees behind, would be two points of stable equilibrium, called Trojan points after the Trojan asteroids that occupy similar points in Jupiter's orbit. Over millions of years they ought to have collected dust clouds and clusters of asteroids. But why would Buckman bother with these?
Buckman called again when he found the Trojans. "They're packed!" Buckman gloated. "Either this whole system is cluttered with asteroids from edge to edge or there's a new principle at work. There's more junk in Mote Beta's Trojans than has ever been reported in another system. It's a wonder they haven't all collected to form a pair of moons -- "
"Have you found the habitable planet yet?"
"Not yet," said Buckman, and faded off the screen. That was three hours after breakout.
He called back hail an hour later. "Those Trojan point asteroids have very high albedos, Captain. They must be thick with dust. That might explain how so many of the larger particles were captured. The dust clouds slow them down, then polish them smooth -- "
"Dr. Buckman! There is an inhabited world in this system and it is vital that we find it. These are the first intelligent aliens -- "
"Dammit Captain, we're looking! We're looking!" Buckman glanced to one side, then withdrew. The screen was blank for a moment, showing only a badly focused shot of a technician in the background.
Blaine found himself confronting Science Minister Horvath, who said, "Please excuse the interruption, Captain~ Do I understand you are not satisfied with our search methods?"
"Dr. Horvath, I have no wish to intrude on your prerogatives. But you've taken over all my instruments, and I keep hearing about asteroids. I wonder if we're all looking for the same thing?"
Horvath's reply was mild. "This is not a space battle, Captain." He paused. "In a war operation, you would know your target. You would probably know the ephemeris of the planets in any system of interest -- "
"Hell, survey teams find planets."
"Ever been on one, Captain?"
"Well, think about the problem we face. Until we located the gas giant and the Trojan asteroids we weren't precise about the plane of the system. From the probe's instruments we have deduced the temperature the Modes find comfortable, and from that we deduce how far from their sun their planet should be-and we still must searth out a toroid a hundred and twenty million kilometers in radius. Do you follow me?"
Blaine nodded.
"We're going to have to search that entire region. We know the planet isn't hidden behind the sun because we're above the plane of the system. But when we finish photographing the system we have to examine this enormous star field for the one dot of light we want."
"Perhaps I was expecting too much."
"Perhaps. We're all waiting as fast as we can." He smiled-a spasm that lifted his whole face for a split second-and vanished.
Six hours after breakout Horvath reported again. There was no sign of Buckman. "No, Captain, we haven't found the inhabited planet. But Dr. Buckman's time-wasting observations have identified a Motie civilization. In the Trojan points."
"They're inhabited?"
"Definitely. Both Trojan points are seething with microwave frequencies. We should have guessed from the high albedos of the larger bodies. Polished surfaces are a natural product of civilization-I'm afraid Dr. Buckman's people think too much in terms of a dead universe."
"Thank you, Doctor. Is any of that message traffic for us?"
"I don't think so, Captain. But the nearest Trojan point is below us in this system's plane-about three million kilometers away. I suggest we go there. From the apparent density of civilization in the Trojan points it may be that the inhabited planet is not the real nexus of Motie civilization. Perhaps it is like Earth. Or worse."
Rod was shocked. He had found Earth herself shocking, not all that many years ago. New Annapolis was kept on Manhome so that Imperial officers would know just how vital was the great task of the Empire.
And if men had not had the Alderson Drive before Earth's last battles, and the nearest star had been thirtyfive light years away instead of four- "That's a horrible thought."
"I agree. It's also only a guess, Captain. But in any event there is a viable civilization nearby, and I think we should go to it."
"I-just a moment." Chief Yeoman Lud Shattuck was at the bridge companionway gesturing frantically at Rod's number-four screen.
"We used the message-sending locator scopes, Skipper," Shattuck shouted across the bridge. "Look, sir."
The screen showed black space with pinhole dots of stars and a blue-green point circled by an indicator lightring. As Rod watched, the point blinked, twice.
"We've found the inhabited planet," Rod said with satisfaction. He couldn't resist. "We beat you to it, Doctor."
After all the waiting, it was as if everything broke at once.The light was first. There might have been an Earthilke world behind it; there probably was, for it was in the doughnut locus Horvath was searching. But the light hid whatever was behind it, and it wasn't surprising that the communications people had found it first. Watching for signals was their job.
Cargill and Horvath's team worked together to answer the pulses. One, two, three, four blinked the light, and Cargill used the forward batteries to send five, six, seven. Twenty minutes later the light sent three one eight four eleven, repeated, and the ship's brain ground out: P1, base twelve. Cargill used the computer to find e to the same base and replied with that.
But the true message was, We want to talk to you. And MacArthur's answer was, Fine. Elaborations would have to wait.
And the second development was already in.
"Fusion light," said Sailing Master Renner. He bent close over his screen. His fingers played strange, silent music on his control board. "No Langston Field. Naturally. They're just enclosing the hydrogen, fusing it and blasting it out. A plasma bottle. It's not as hot as our drives, which means lower efficiency. Red shift, if I'm reading the impurities right...it must be aimed away from us."
"You think it's a ship coming to meet us?"
"Yessir. A small one. Give us a few minutes and I'll tell you its acceleration. Meanwhile, we assume an acceleration of one gee...Renner's fingers had been tapping all the while "...and get a mass of thirty tons. Later we'll readjust that."
"Too big to be a missile," Blaine said thoughtfully. "Should we meet him halfway, Mr. Renner?"
Renner frowned. "There's a problem. He's aiming at where we are now. We don't know how much fuel he's got, or how bright he is."
"Let's ask, anyway. Eyes! Get me Admiral Kutuzov." The Admiral was on his bridge. Blurs out of focus behind him showed activity aboard Lenin. "I've seen it, Captain," Kutuzov said. "What do you want to do about it?"
"I want to go meet that ship. But in case it can't change course or we can't catch it, it will come here, sir. Lenin could wait for it."
"And do what, Captain? My instructions are clear, Lenin is to have nothing to do with aliens."
"But you could send out a boat, sir. A gig, which we'll pick up with your men. Sir."
"How many boats do you think I have, Blaine? Let me repeat my instructions. Lenin is here to protect secret of Alderson Drive and Langston Field. To accomplish task we will not only not communicate with aliens, we will not communicate with you when message might be intercepted."
"Yes, sir." Blaine stared at the burly man on the screen. Didn't he have a shred of curiosity? Nobody could be that much of a machine...or could he? "We'll go to the alien ship, sir. Dr. Horvath wants to anyway."
"Very good, Captain. Carry on."
"Yes, sir." Rod cut off the screen with relief, then tuned to Renner. "Let's go make first contact with an alien, Mr. Renner."
"I think you just did that," said Renner. He glanced nervously at the screens to be sure the Admiral was gone.
Horace Bury was just leaving his cabin-on the theory that he might be less bored somewhere else-when Buckman's head popped out of a companionway.
Bury changed his mind at once. "Dr. Buckman! May I offer you coffee?"
Protuberant eyes turned, blinked, focused. "What? Oh. Yes, thank you, Bury. It might wake me. There's been so much to do-I can only stay a moment -- "
Buckman dropped into Bury's guest chair, limp as a physician's display skeleton. His eyes were red; his eyelids drooped at half-mast. His breathing was too loud. The stringy muscle tissue along his bare arm drooped. Bury wondered what an autopsy would show if Buckman were to die at this moment: exhaustion, malnutrition, or both?
Bury made a difficult decision. "Nabil, some coffee. With cream, sugar, and brandy for Dr. Buckman."
"Now, Bury, I'm afraid that during working hours-Oh, well. Thank you, Nabil." Buckman sipped, then gulped. "Ah! That's good. Thank you, Bury, that ought to wake me."
"You seemed to need it. Normally I would never adulterate good coffee with distilled spirits. Dr. Buckman, have you been eating?"
"I don't remember."
"You haven't. Nabil, food for our guest. Quickly."
"Bury, we're so busy, I really haven't time. There's a whole solar system to explore, not to mention the jobs for the Navy-tracing neutrino emissions, tracking that damned light -- "
"Doctor, if you were to die at this moment, many of yours notes would never be written down, would they?"
Buckman smiled. "So theatrical, Bury. But I suppose I can spare a few minutes. All we're doing now is waiting for that signal light to go off."
"A signal from the Mote planet?"
"From Mote Prime, yes, at least it came from the right place. But we can't see the planet until they turn off the laser, and they won't. They talk and talk, and for what? What can they tell us if we don't speak a common language?"
"After all, Doctor, how can they tell us anything until they teach us their language? I presume that's what they're trying to do now. Isn't anyone working on that?"
Buckman gave a feral snarl. "Horvath has all the instruments feeding information to Hardy and the linguists. Can't get any decent observations of the Coal Sack-and no one's ever been this close to it before!" His look softened. "But we can study the Trojan asteroids."
Buckman's eye took on that look, the focus on infinity. "There are too many of them. And not enough dust. I was wrong, Bury; there's not enough dust to capture so many rocks, or to polish them either. The Modes probably did the polishing, they must be all through those rocks, the neutrino emissions are fantastic. But how did so many rocks get captured?"
"Neutrino emissions. That means a fusion technology."
Buckman smiled. "One of a high order. Thinking of trade possibilities?"
"Of course. Why else would I be here?" And I would be here even if the Navy had not made it clear that the alternative was a formal arrest...but Buckman wouldn't know that. Only Blaine did. "The higher their civilization, the more they'll have to trade," And the harder they'd be to cheat; but BuckmEn wouldn't be interested in such things.
Buckman complained, "We could move so much faster if the Navy didn't use our telescopes. And Horvath lets them! Ah, good." Nabil entered, pushing a tray.
Buckman ate like a starved rat. Between ntouthfuls he said, "Not that all the Navy's projects are totally without interest. The alien ship -- "
"Ship?"
"There's a ship coming to meet us. Didn't you know?"
"No.."
"Well, its point of departure is a large, stony asteroid well outside the main cluster. The point is, it's very light. It must have a very odd shape, unless there are gas bubbles all through the rock, which would mean -- "
Bury laughed outright. "Doctor, surely an alien space craft is more interesting than a stony meteorite!"
Buckman looked startled. "Why?"
The slivers turned red, then black. Clearly the things were cooling; but how had they become hot in the first place?
The Engineer had stopped wondering about that when one of the slivers came toward her. There were power sources inside the metal bulks.
And they were self-motivated. What were they? Engineers, or Masters, or senseless machinery? A Mediator on some incomprehensible task? She resented the Mediators, who could so easily and so unreasonably interfere with fin portant work.
Perhaps the slivers were Watchmakers; but more likely they contained a Master. The Engineer considered running, but the approaching bulk was too powerful. It ac celerated at 1.14 gravities, nearly the limit of her ship. There was nothing for an Engineer to do but meet it.
Besides...all that metal! In useful form, as far as she could tell. The Clusters were full of metal artifacts, but in alloys too tough to convert.
All that metal.
But it must meet her, not the other way around. She had not the fuel or the acceleration. She worked out turnover points in her head. The other would do the same, of course. Luckily the solution was unique, assuming constant acceleration. There would be no need for communication.
Engineers were not good at communication.
Chapter 14 - The Engineer
Chapter 14 - The Engineer
The alien ship was a compact bulk, irregular of shape and dull gray in color, like modeling clay molded in cupped hands. Extrusions sprouted at seeming random: a ring of hooks around what Whitbread took for the aft end; a thread of bright silver girdling its waist; transparent bulges fore and aft; antennae in highly imaginative curves; and dead aft, a kind of stinger: a spine many times the length of the hull, very long and straight and narrow.
Whitbread coasted slowly inward. He rode a space-to-space taxi, the cabin a polarized plastic bubble, the short hull studded with "thruster clusters" -- arrays of attitude jets. Whitbread had trained for space in such a vehicle. Its field of view was enormous; it was childishly easy to steer; it was cheap, weaponless, and expendable.
And the alien could see him inside. We come in peace, with nothing hidden-assuming its alien eyes could see through clear battle plastic.
"That spine generates the plasma fields for the drive," his communicator was saying. There was no screen, but the voice was Cargill's. " We watched it during deceleration. That spiggot device beneath the spine probably feeds hydrogen into the fields."
"I'd better stay out of its way," said Mr. Whitbread.
"Right. The field intensity would probably wreck your instruments. It might affect your nervous systems too."
The alien ship was very close now. Whitbread fired bursts to slow himself. The attitude jets sounded like popcorn popping.
"See any signs of an air lock?"
"No, sir."
"Open your own air lock. Maybe that will get the idea across."
"Aye aye, sir." Whitbread could see the alien through the forward bubble. It was motionless, watching him, and it looked very like the photographs he had seen of the dead one in the probe. Jonathon Whitbread saw a neckless, lopsided head, smooth brown fur, a heavy left arm gripping something, two slender right arms moving franticallyfast, doing things out of his field of vision.
Whitbread opened his air lock. And waited.
At least the Motie hadn't started shooting yet.
The Engineer was captivated. She hardly noticed the tiny vehicle nearby. There were no new principles embodied there. But the big ship!
It had a strange field around it, something the Engineer had never believed possible. It registered on half a dozen of the Engineer's instruments. To others the force envelope was partly transparent. The Engineer knew enough about the warship already to scare the wits out of Captain Blaine if he'd known. But it was not enough to satisfy an Engineer.
All that gadgetry! And metal!
The small vehicle's curved door was opening and closing now. It flashed lights on and off. Patterns of elect electromagnetic force radiated from both vehicles. The signals meant nothing to an Engineer.
It was the ship's gadetry that held her attention. The Field itself, its properties intriguing and puzzling, its underlying principles a matter of guesswork. The Engineer was ready to spend the rest of her life trying. For one look at the generator she would have died. The big ship's motive force was different from any fusion plant the Engineer had ever heard of; and its workings seemed to use the properties of that mysterious force envelope.
How to get aboard? How to get through that envelope? The intuition that came was rare for an Engineer. The small craft...was it trying to talk to her? It had come from the large craft. Then...
The small craft was a link to the larger ship, to the force envelope and its technology and the mystery of its sudden appearance.
She had forgotten danger. She had forgotten everything in the burning urge to know more about that field. The Engineer opened her air-lock door and waited to see what would happen.
"Mister Whitbread, your alien is trying to use probes on MacArthur," Captain Blaine was saying, "Commander Cargill says he has them blocked. If that makes the alien suspicious, it can't be helped. Has he tried any kind of probe on you?"
"No, sir."
Rod frowned and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "You're sure?"
"I've been watching the instruments, sir."
"That's funny. You're smaller, but you're close. You'd think he -- "
"The air lock!" Whitbread snapped. "Sir, the Motie's opened his air lock."
"I see it. A mouth opened in the hull. Is that what you me an?"
"Yessir. Nothing coming out. I can see the whole cabin through that opening. The Motie's in his control cabin- permission to enter, sir?"
"Hmm. OK. Watch yourself. Stay in communication. And good luck; Whitbread."
Jonathon sat a moment, nerving himself. He had half hoped the Captain would forbid it as too dangerous. But of course midshipmen are expendable...Whitbread braced himself in the open air lock. The alien ship was very close. With the entire ship watching him, he launched himself into space.
Part of the alien's hull had stretched like skin, to open into a kind of funnel. A strange way to build an air lock, thought Whitbread. He used backpack jets to slow himself as he drifted straight into the funnel, straight toward the Motie, who stood waiting to receive him.
The alien wore only its soft brown fur and four thick pads of black hair, one in each armpit and one at the groin. "No sign of what's holding the air in, but there's got to be air in there," Whitbread told the mike. A moment later he knew. He had run into invisible honey.
The air lock closed against his back.
He almost panicked. Caught like a fly in amber, no forward, no retreat. He was in a cell 130 cm high, the heightof the alien. It stood before him on the other side of the:mnvisibte wall, blank-faced, looking him over.
The Motie. It was shorter than the other, the dead one in the probe. Its color was different: there were no white markings through the brown fur. There was another, subtler, more elusive difference...perhaps the difference between the quick and the dead, perhaps something else.
The Motie was not frightening. Its smooth fur was like one of the Doberman pinschers Whitbread's mother used to raise, but there was nothing vicious or powerful looking about the alien. Whitbread would have liked to stroke its fur.
The face was no more than a sketch, without expression, except for a gentle upward curve of the lipless mouth, a sardonic half-smile. Small, fiat-footed, smooth-furred, almost featureless- It looks like a cartoon, Whitbread thought. How could he be afraid of a cartoon?
But Jonathon Whitbread was crouched in a space much too small for him, and the alien was doing nothing about it.
The cabin was a crowded patchwork of panels and dark crevasses, and tiny faces peered at him from the shadows.
Vermin! The ship was infested with vermin. Rats? Food supply? The Motie did not seem disturbed as one flashed into the open, then another, more dancing from cover to cover, crowding close to see the intruder.
They were big things. Much bigger than rats, much smaller than men. They peered from the corners, curious but timid. One dodged close and Whitbread got a good look. What he saw made him gasp. It was a tiny Motie!
It was a difficult time for the Engineer. The intruder's entry should have answered questions, but it only raised more.
What was it? Big, big-headed, symmetrical as an animal, but equipped with its own vehicle like an Engineer or a Master. There had never been a class like this. Would it obey or command? Could the hands be as clumsy as they looked? Mutation, monster, sport? What was it for?
Its mouth was moving now. It must be speaking into a communications device. That was no help. Even Messengers used language.
Engineers were not equipped to make such decisions; but one could always wait for more data.
Engineers had endless patience.
"There's air," Whitbread reported. He watched the telltales that showed in a mirror just above his eye level. "Did I mention that? I wouldn't want to try breathing it. Normal pressure, oxygen around 18 percent, CO2 about 2 percent, enough helium to register, and -- "
"Helium? That's odd. Just how much?"
Whitbread switched over to a more sensitive scale and waited for the analyzer to work. "Around 1 percent. Just under."
"Anything else?"
"Poisons. SO2, carbon monoxide, nitrous oxides, ketones, alcohols, and some other stuff that doesn't read out with this suit. The light blinks yellow."
"Wouldn't kill you fast, then. You could breathe it a while and still get help in time to save your lungs."
"That's what I thought," Whitbread said uneasily. He began loosening the dogs holding down his faceplate.
"What does that mean, Whitbread?"
"Nothing, sir." Jonathon had been doubled over far too long. Every joint and muscle screamed for surcease. He had run out of things to describe in the alien cabin. And the thrice-damned Motie just stood there in its sandals and its faint smile, watching, watching...
"Whitbread?"
Whitbread took a deep breath and held it. He lifted the faceplate against slight pressure, looked the alien in the eye, and screamed ail in one breath, "Will you for God's sake turn off that damned force field!" and snapped the faceplate down.
The alien turned to his control board and moved something. The soft barrier in front of Whitbread vanished.
Whitbread took two steps forward. He straightened up a half-inch at a time, feeling the pain and hearing the cracking of unused joints. He had been crouched in that cramped space for an hour and a half, examined by half a dozen twisted Brownies and one bland, patient alien. He hurt!
He had trapped cabin air under his faceplate. The stink caught at his throat, so that he stppped breathing; then self-consciously he sniffed at it in case anyone wanted to know what it was.
He smelled animais and machines, ozone, gasoline, hot oil, halitosis, old sweat socks, burning, glue, and things he had never smelled before. It was unbelievably rich-and his suit was removing it, thank God.
He asked, "Did you hear me yell?"
"Yes, and so did everyone in this ship," said Cargill's voice. "I don't think there's a man aboard who isn't following you, unless it's Buckman. Any result?"
"He turned off the force field. Right away. He was just waiting for me to remind him.
"And I'm in the cabin now. I told you about the repairs? It's all repairs, all hand made, even the control panels. But it's all well done, nothing actually in the way, for a Motie, that is. Me, I'm too big. I don't dare move.
"The little ones have all disappeared. No, there's one peeping out of a corner..the big one is waiting to see what I do. I wish he'd stop that."
"See if he'll come back to the ship with you -- "
"I'll try, sir."
The alien had understood him before, or seemed to, but it did not understand him now. Whitbread thought furiously. Sign language? His eye fell on something that had to be a Motie pressure suit.
He pulled it from its rack, noting its lightness: no weaponry, no armor. He handed it to the alien, then pointed to MacArthur beyond the bubble.
The alien began dressing at once. In literally seconds it was in full gear, in a suit that, inflated, looked like ten beach balls glued together. Only the gauntlets were more than simple inflated spheres.
It took a transparent plastic sack from the wall and reached suddenly to capture one of the 1/2 -meter-high miniatures. He stuffed it into the sack headfirst while the miniature wriggled, then turned to Whitbread and rushed at the middle with lightning speed. It had reached behind Whitbread with two right hands and was already moving away when Whitbread reacted: a violent and involuntary yip.
"Whitbread? What's hapening? Answer me!" Another voice in the background of Whitbread's suit said crisply, "Marines, stand by."
"Nothing, Commander Cargill. It's all right. No attack, I mean,I think the alien's ready to go-no, it isn't. It's got two of the parasites in a plastic sack, and it's inflating the sack from an air spiggot. One of the little beasts was on my back. I never felt it.
"Now the alien's making something. I don't understand what's keeping it. It knows we want to go to MacArthur-it put on a pressure suit."
"What's it doing?"
"It's got the cover off the control panel. It's rewiring things. A moment ago it was squeezing sliver toothpaste in a ribbon along the printed circuitry. I'm only telling you what it looks like, of course. YIPE!"
"Whitbread?"
The midshipman was caught in a hurricane. Arms and legs flailing, he snatched frantically for something, anything solid. He was scraped along the side of the air lock, reached and found nothing to grasp. Then night and stars whirled past him.
"The Motie opened the air lock," he reported. "No warning. I'm outside, in space." His hands used attitude jets to stop his tumbling. "I think he let all the breathing air out. There's a gteat fog of ice crystals around me, and-Oh, Lord, it's the Motie! No, it isn't, it's not wearing a pressure suit. There goes another one.
"They must be the little ones," Cargill said.
"Right He's killed all the parasites. He probably has to do it every so often, to clear them out. He doesn't know how long he'll be aboard MacArthur and he doesn't want them running wild. So he's evacuated the ship."
"He should have warned you."
"Damn right he should!. Excuse me, sir."
"Are you all right, Whitbread?", A new voice. The Captain's.
"Yessir. I'm approaching the alien's ship. Ah, here he comes now. He's jumping for the taxi." Whitbread stopped his approach and turned to watéh the Motie. The alien sailed through space like a cluster of beach balls, but graceful, graceful. Within a transparent balloon fixed to its torso, two small, spidery figures gestured wildly. The alien paid them no attention.
"A perfect jump," Whithread muttered. "Unless-he's cutting it a bit fine. Jesus!" The alien was still decelerating as it flew through the taxi door, dead centered, so that it never touched the edges. "Ho must be awfully sure of his balance."
"Whitbread, is that alien inside your vehicle? Without you?"
Whitbread winced at the bite in the Captain's voice. "Yes, sir. I'm going after him."
"See you do, Mister."
The alien was at the pilot's station, studying the controls intensely. Suddenly it reached out and began to turn the quick fasteners at the panel's edge. Whitbread yelped and rushed up to grab the alien's shoulder. It paid no attention. Whitbread put his helmet against the alien's. "Leave that to hell alone!" he shouted. Then he gestured to the passenger's saddle. The alien rose slowly, turned, and straddled the saddle. It didn't fit there. Whitbread took the controls gratefully and began to maneuver the taxi toward MacArthur.
He brought the taxi to a stop just beyond the neat hole Sinclair had opened in MacArthur's Field. The alien ship was out of sight around the bulk of the warship. Hangar deck was below, and the midshipman yearned to take the gig through under her own power, to demonstrate his ability to the watching alien, but he knew better. They waited.
Suited spacers came up from the hangar deck. Cables trailed behind them. The spacers waved. Whitbread waved back, and seconds later Sinclair started the winches to tug the gig down into MacArthur. As they passed the hangar doors more cables were made fast to the top side of the gig. These pulled taut, slowing the taxi, as the great hangar doors began to close.
The Motie was watching, its entire body swiveling from side to side, reminding Whitbread of an owl he had once seen in a zoo on Sparta. Amazingly, the tiny creatures in the alien's bag were also watching; they aped the larger alien. Finally they were at rest, and Whitbread gestured toward tha air lock. Through the thick glass he could see Gunner Kelley and a dozen armed Marines.
There were twenty screens in a curved array m front of Rod Blaine~ and consequently every scientist aboard MacArthur wanted to sit near him. As the only possible way to settle the squabbleg Rod ordered the ship to battle stations and the bridge cleared of all civilian personnel. Now he watched as Whitbread climbed aboard the gig.
Through the camera eye mounted on Whitbread's helmet Blaine could see the alien seated in the pilot's chair, its image seemng to grow as the middie rushed toward it. Blaine turned to Renner "Did you see what it did?"
"Yah. Sir. The alien was-Captain I'd swear it was trying to take the-gig's controls apart."
"So would I." They watched in frustration as Whitbread piloted the gig toward MacArthur. Blaine couldn't blaine the boy for not looking around at his passenger while trying to steer the boat, but,. best leave him alone. They waited while the cables were made fast to the gig and it was winched down into MacArthur.
"Captain!" It was Staley, midshipman of the watch, but Rod could -see it too. Several screens and a couple of minor batteries were trained on the gig, but the heavy stuff was all almed at the alien ship; and it had come to life.
A streamer of blue light glowed at the stem of the alien craft. The color of Cherenkov radiation, it flowed parallel to the slender silver spine at the tail. Suddenly there was a line of intense white light beside it.
"Yon ship's under way, Captain," Sinclair reported.
"God damn it to hell!" His own screens showed the same thing, also that the ship's batteries were tracking the alien craft.
"Permission to fire?" the gunnery officer asked.
"No!" But what was the thing up to? Rod wondered. Time enough when Whitbread got aboard, he supposed. The alien ship couldn't escape. And neither would the alien.
"Kelley!"
"Sir!"
"Squad to the air lock. Escort Whitbread and that thing to the reception room. Politely, Gunner. Politely, but make sure it doesn't go anywhere else."
"Aye aye, Captain."
"Number One?" Blaine called.
"Yes, sir," Cargill answered.
"You were monitoring Whitbread's helmet camera the entire time he was in that ship?"
"Yes, sir."
"Any chance there was another alien aboard?"
"No, sir. There wasn't room. Right, Sandy?"
"Aye, Captain," Sinclair answered. Blaine had activated a com circuit to both the after bridge and the engine room. "Not if that beastie were to carry fuel too. And we saw nae doors."
"There wasn't any air-lock door either, until it opened," Rod reminded him. "Was there anything that might have been a bathroom?"
"Captain, did we nae see the w.c.? I took the object on port side near the air lock to be such."
"Yeah. Then that thing's on autopilot, would you both agree? But we didn't see him program it."
"We saw him practically rebuild the controls, Captain," Cargill said. "My Lord! Do you think that's how they control..."
"Seems verra inefficient, but the beastie did nae else that could hae been the programming of an autopilot," Sinclair mused. "And 'twas bloody quick about it, sir. Captain, do ye think it built an autopilot?"
There was a glare on one of Rod's screens. "Catch that? A blue flare in the alien ship's air lock. Now what was that for?"
"To kill yon vermin?" Sinclair asked.
"Hardly. The vacuum would have done," Cargill answered.
Whitbread came onto the bridge and stood stiffly in front of Blaine's command chair. "Reporting to Captain, sir."
"Well done, Mr. Whitbread," Rod said. "Uh-have you any ideas about those two vermin he brought abroad? Such as why they're here?"
"No, sir-courtesy? We might want to dissect one?"
"Possibly. If we knew what they were. Now take a look at that." Blaine pointed at his screens.
The alien ship was turning, the white light of its drive drawing an arc on the sky. It seemed to be heading back to the Trojan points.
And Jonathon Whitbread was the only man alive who had ever been inside. As Blaine released the crew from action stations, the red-haired midshipman was probably thinking that the ordeal was over.
Chapter 16 - Idiot Savant
Chapter 16 - Idiot Savant
Dr. Buckman was on duty in the observation room when the blinding laser signal from the inner system went out.
There was a planet there all right, about the size of Earth, with a distorting fringe of transparent atmosphere...Jfenadded in satisfaction; that was a lot of detail to see.iCthis distance. The Navy had good equipment and they used it well, Some of the petty officers would make good astronomical assistants; pity they were wasted here
What was left of his astronomy section went to work analyzing data from observations of the planet, and Buckman called Captain Blaine.
"I wish you'd get me back some of my men," he complained. "They're all standing around the lounge watching the Mode."
Blaine shrugged. He could hardly order the scientists around. Buckman's management of his department was his own affair. "Do the best you can, Doctor. Everyone's curious about the alien. Even my Sailing Master, who's got no business down there at all. What have you got so far? Is it a terrestrial planet?"
"In a manner of speaking. A touch smaller than Earth, with a water-oxygen atmosphere. But there are traces in the spectrum that have me intrigued. The helium line is very strong, far too strong. I suspect the data."
"A strong helium line? One percent or thereabouts?"
"It would be if the reading were correct, but frankly-Why did you say that?"
"The breathing air in the Motie ship was 1 percent helium, with some rather odd components; I think your reading is accurate."
"But, Captain, there's no way a terrestrial planet could hold that much helium! It has to be spurious. Some of the other lines are even worse."
"Ketones? Hydrocarbon complexes?"
"Yes!"
"Dr. Buckman, I think you'd better have a look at Mr. Whitbread's report on the atmosphere in the Mote ship. You'll find it in the computer. And take a neutrino reading, please."
"That won't be convenient, Captain."
"Take it anyway," Rod told the stubborn, bony face on the intercom screen. "We need to know the state of their industry."
Buckman snapped, "Are you trying to make war on them?"
"Not yet," Blaine answered; and let it go at that. "While you've got the instrumention set up, take a neutrino reading on the asteroid the Motie ship came from. It's quite a way outside the Trojan point cluster, so you won't have a problem with background emissions."
"Captain, this will interfere with my work!"
"I'll send you an Officer to help out." Rod thought rapidly, "Potter. I'll give you Mr. Potter as an assistant." Potter should like that. "This work is necessary, Dr. Buckman. The more we know about them, the more easily we can talk to them. The sooner we can talk to them, the sooner we can interpret their own astronomical observations." That ought to get him.
Buckman frowned. "Why, that's true. I hadn't thought of that at all."
"Fine, Doctor." Rod clicked off before Buckman could voice a further protest. Then he turned to Midshipman Whitbread in the doorway. "Come in and sit down, Mr. Whitbread."
"Thank you, sir." Whitbread sat. The chairs in the Captain's watch cabin were nettng on a steel frame, lightweight but comfortable. Whitbread perched on the very edge of one. Cargill handed him a coffee cup, which he held in both hands. He looked painfully alert.
Cargill said, "Relax, boy."
Nothing happened.
Rod said, "Whitbread, let me tell you something. Everyone on this ship wants to pick your brain, not later, but now. I get first crack because I'm Captain. When we're finished, I'll turn you over to Horvath and his people. When they're finished with you, if ever, you'll go off watch. You'll think then that you're about to get some sleep, but no. The gun room will want the whole story. They'll be coming off watch at staggered intervals, so you'll have to repeat everything half a dozen times. Are you getting the picture?"
Whitbread was dismayed-as he ought to have been.
"Right, then. Set your coffee down on the niche. Good. Now slide back until your spine touches the chair back. Now relax, daminit! Close your eyes."
For a wonder, Whitbread did. After a moment he smiled blissfully.
"I've got the recorder off," Blaine told him-which wasn't true. "We'll get your formal report later. What I want now is facts, impressions, anything you want to say. My immediate problem is whether to stop that Mote ship."
"Can we? Still? Sir?"
Blaine glanced at Cargill. The First Lieutenant nodded. "It's only half an hour away. We could stop it any time in the next couple of days. No protective Field, remember? And the hull looked to be flimsy enough through your helmet camera. Two minutes from the forward batteries would vaporize the whole ship, no sweat."
"Or," Blaine said, "we could catch up with it, knock out its drive, and take it in tow. The Chief Engineer would give a year's salary to take that electromagnetic fusion system apart. So would the Imperial Traders' Association; that thing's perfect for asteroid mining."
"I'd vote against that," Whitbread said with his eyes closed. "If this were a democracy. Sir."
"It isn't, and the Admiral's inclined to grab that Mote ship. So are some of the scientists, but Horvath's against it. Why are you?"
"It would be the first hostile act, sir. I'd avoid that right up until the Moties tried to destroy MacArthur." Whitbread opened his eyes. "Even then, wouldn't the Field scare them off? We're in their home system, Captain, and we did come to see if we could get along with them-at least I think we did, sir."
Cargill chuckled. "Sounds just like Dr. Horvath, doesn't he, Skipper?"
"Besides, sir, what is the Motie ship doing that might interfere with us?"
"Going home alone, probably with a message."
"I don't think there was a message, sir, He didn't do anything that might have been writing, and he didn't talk at all."
"She," Elaine told him. "The biologists say the Motie is female. Both of the little ones are too, and one is pregnant."
"Pregnant. Should I have noticed that, sir?"
Blaine grinned. "What would you have looked for? And where? You didn't even notice that all the little ones have four arms each."
"Four-?"
• "Never mind that, Mr. Whitbread. You saw no messages, but then you didn't know the Motie was programming-or building-an autopilot until the ship took off. And an empty ship is a message all by itself. We ready for visitors, Jack?"
Cargill nodded. "And if we're not, you can bet Lenin is."
"Don't count on too much help from Lenin, Number One. Kutuzov thinks it might be interesting to see what kind of account of herself MacArthur could give against the Moties. He might not do anything but watch, then run for home."
"Is that-that doesn't sound much like the Admiral, sir," Cargill protested.
"It sounds like him if you'd overheard the fight he had with Dr. Horvath. Our Minister of Science keeps telling the Admiral to keep out of the way, and Kutuzov is about to take him at his word." Blaine turned to his midshipman. "You don't have to spread this around the gun room either, Whitbread."
"No, sir."
"Now, while we've got the time, let's see what you can remember about that Motie ship." Blaine touched controls and several views of the alien craft appeared on his wall screens. "This is what the computer knows so far," Rod explained. "We've mapped some of the interior already. There was no shielding from our probes, nothing to hide, but that doesn't make it all that easy to understand."
Blaine took up a light pointer. "These areas held liquid hydrogen. Now there was heavy machinery here; did you see any of it?"
"No, sir, but that back panel looked as if it would roll up."
"Good." Blake nodded and Cargill sketched it in with the screen stylus.
"Like that?" the First Lieutenant asked. "Fine." He touched the record button. "Now, we know there was quite a lot of hydrogen fuel hidden away. And that drive of theirs ionizes, heats, and enriches the hydrogen with hot carbon vapor. It takes a lot of machinery to do that. Where was it?"
"Sir, shouldn't the Chief Engineer be here?"
"He should be here, Mr. Whitbread. Unfortunately there are about ten things happening at once on this ship, and Commander Sinclair is needed elsewhere. He'll get his chance at you soon enough- Jack, let's not forget the Mote design philosophy. We keep looking for separate mechanisms to do each job, but on that probe, everything did four or five overlapping things at once, so to speak. It could be we're looking for too much machinery."
"Yes, sir-but, Captain, no matter how you slice it, that ship had to perform a minimum number of functions. Had to. And we can't find equipment enough for half of them."
"Not with our technology, anyway," Blaine said thoughtfully. Then he grinned, a young man's broad and impertinent grin. "We may be looking for a combination microwave oven, fuel ionizer, and sauna. OK, now the alien herself. Your impressions, Whitbread. Is it that intelligent?"
"She didn't understand anything I said. Except that one time, when I screamed 'Turn off the force field!' She understood that right away. Otherwise nothing."
"You've edited that a bit, lad," Cargill said. "But never mind. What do you think, boy? Does the alien understand Anglic? Is she faking?"
"I don't know. She didn't even understand my gestures, except once. That was when I handed her her own suit- and that's a pretty pointed hint, sir."
"She may simply be stupid," Rod said.
"She's an asteroid miner, Captain," Cargill said slowly. "That's fairly certain. At least that's an asteroid miner's ship. The hooks and clamps at the stern have to be for hanging on durable cargo, like ore and air-bearing rock."
"So?" Elaine prompted.
"I've known some asteroid miners, Skipper. They tend to be stubborn, independent, self-reliant to the point of eccentricity, and close-mouthed. They'll trust each other with their lives, but not with their women or property. And they forget how to talk out there; at least it seems that way."
They both looked hopefully at Whitbread, who said, "I don't know, sir. I just don't know. She's not stupid. You should have seen her hands moving around in the guts of the instrument panel, rewiring, making new circuits, recalibrating half a dozen things at once, it looked like. Maybe-maybe our sign language just doesn't work. I don't know why."
Rod pushed a finger along the knot in his nose. "It might be surprising if it did work," he said thoughtfully. "And this is one example of a completely alien race. If we were aliens and picked up an asteroid miner, what conclusions would we draw about the Empire?" Blaine filled his coffee cup, then Whitbread's. "Well, Horvath's team is more likely to come up with something than we are, they have the Motie to work with."
Sally Fowler watched the Motie with a feeling of deep frustration. "I can't decide whether she's stupid or I am. Did you see what happened when I drew her a diagram of the Pythagorean Theorem?"
"Uh huh." Renner's grin was no help at all. "She took your pocket computer apart and put it back together again. She didn't draw anything. She's stupid in some ways, though," he said more seriously. "Meaning no insult to our eminently trustworthy selves, she's too damned trusting. Maybe she's low on survival instincts."
Sally nodded and watched the Motie at work.
"She's a genius at building things," Renner said. "But she doesn't understand language, gestures, or pictures. Could the bloody alien be a genius and a moron at the same time?"
"Idiot savant," Sally murmured. "It happens with humans, but it's quite rare. Imbecile children with the ability to extract cube roots and do logarithms in their heads. Mathematical whizzes who can't buckle their shoes."
"It's a difference in perceptions." Horvath had been engaged in a more thorough study of the small Moties. "One has to learn that a picture is a picture. Your drawings- Good God, what's it doing now?"
Someone screamed in the companionway.
Ostensibly Cargill was delivering Whitbread to the scientists. Actually, he had no doubt that Whitbread could have found his way to the wardroom where they had brought the Moties while artificers built a cage for the miniatures in the petty officers' lounge. But Jack Cargill was curious.
Halfway through the companionway he caught his first sight of the alien. It was disassembling the wardroom coffee maker-an act of malice made all the more diabolical by the innocence of her smile.
She cringed away at Cargill's yell-and the First Lieutenant saw that it was too late. Tiny screws and parts were scattered across the table. The alien had broken the percolator tube, possibly to analyze the soldering technique. Bits of the timing mechanism were neatly arrayed. The Motie had pulled the cylindrical shell open along its welded seam.
Cargill found that the Science Minister had him by the arm. "You're frightening the alien," Horvath said in a low voice. "Go away, please."
"Doctor, have the goodness to tell me -- "
"Elsewhere." Horvath propelled him to the other end of the room. Cargill glimpsed the miniature aliens squatting on the games table, surrounded by members of the life sciences group and by samples from the galley: grain, bread, carrots and celery, defrosted raw and cooked meat. "Now," said Horvath. "What do you mean by barging into -- "
"That monster ruined the wardroom coffee maker!"
"We're lucky," Midshipman Whitbread said irreverently.
"She was trying to take apart the number-four air lock mechanism until I stopped her."
"All she's interested in is tools." Horvath was pointedly ignoring Cargill's agitation. "For once I even agree with Admiral Kutuzov. The alien must not be allowed to see the Alderson Drive or the Field generators. She seems able to deduce what a thing is for and how it works almost without touching it."
"Never mind that!" Cargill said. "Couldn't you have given the Motie something else to play with? That coffee maker is half repairs anyway. Nobody could figure out how it's made since Sandy Sinclair finished with it. And the Motie's broken some of the parts."
"If they were that easy to break, they can probably be fixed," Horvath said soothingly. "Look, we can give you one of the urns from the labs, or have one of our techs- Ah, Miss Fowler, has the alien calmed down? Now, Mr Whitbread? We're glad you're here; we've been waiting for you, as the only man to have actually communicated with the alien. Here, Commander Cargill, please stay away from the Motie -- "
But Cargill was halfway across the room. The alien cringed a bit, but Cargill stayed well out of her reach. He glowered at her as he considered his coffee maker. It had been reassembled.
The Motie pulled away from Sally Fowler. She found a conical plastic container, filled it with tap water, and used it to fill the coffee maker. One of the wardroom stewards sniggered.
The Motie poured in two containers of water, inserted the grounds basket, and waited.
The amused steward looked to Cargill, who nodded. The messboy dug out the tin of ground coffee, used the measuring spoon, and started the urn. The alien watched closely all the while. So did one of the miniatures, despite the distraction of a biologist waving a carrot in her face. "It did that before, watched me make the coffee, sir," the steward said. "Thought it might want some, but the scientists didn't offer it none."
"We may have a godawful mess here in a minute, Ernie. Stand by to clean up." Cargill turned to Sally. "How good is that monster at putting things together again?"
"Quite good," Sally told him. "She fixed my pocket computer."
The percolator bubbled, and the water in the indicator tube turned brown. Cargill hesitantly poured a cup and tasted. "Why, that's all right," he said. He handed the cup to the Mode.
She tasted the black, bitter brew, squawled, and threw the cup at the bulkhead.
Sally led Whitbread into the wardroom pantry. "You made the Motie understand you. How?"
"It was only that once," Whitbread said. "I've been wondering if I made a mistake. Could she have decided to let me loose about the time I opened my helmet and screamed?"
Sally scowled. "She just stands there. She doesn't even seem to know we're trying to talk to her. And she never tries to talk back..." She dropped her voice, muttering mostly to herself. "It is a basic characteristic of intelligent species that they attempt to communicate. Whitbread, what's your first name?"
Whitbread was startled. "Jonathon, my lady."
"All right, Jonathon, I'm Sally. As man to woman, Jonathon, what in blazes am I doing wrong? Why won't she try to talk to me?"
"Well, Sally," Whitbread said tentatively. He liked the taste of the name. And she wasn't more than a couple of years older than he was- "Sally, I could think of half a dozen reasons. Maybe she reads minds."
"What would that have to do with -- "
"She wouldn't know about language, would she? What you're trying to teach wouldn't make sense. Maybe she can only read our minds when we're screaming mad, like I was."
"Or Commander Cargill was -- " Sally said thoughtfully. "She did move away from the coffee maker. But not for long. No, I don't believe it."
"Neither do I. I think she's lying."
"Lying?"
"Playing dumb. She doesn't know what to tell us, so she tells us nothing. Plays for time. She is interested in our machinery. This gives her time to learn about it."
Sally nodded slowly. "One of the biologists had the same idea. That she's waiting for instructions, and learning as much as she can until they come- Jonathon, how would we catch her at it?"
"I don't think we do," Whitbread said slowly. "How would you catch an intelligent mouse playing dumb, if you'd never seen a mouse and neither had anyone else?"
"Blazes. Well, we'll just have to keep on trying." She frowned, thinking of the Motie's performance with the coffee maker, then gave Whitbread a long, thoughtful look. "You're exhausted. Go get some sleep, there's nothing you need to tell us right away, is there?"
"No." Whitbread yawned. There was a scampering sound behind him and they both turned quickly, but there was nothing there. "Speaking of mice," Whitbread said.
"How can they live on a steel ship?" Sally asked.
Whitbread shrugged. "They come aboard with the food supplies, even in personal gear. Once in a while we evacuate portions of the ship, move the crew around, and open up to space, to control them, but we never get them all. This trip, with all the extra personnel aboard, we haven't even been able to do that."
"Interesting." Sally nodded. "Mice can live almost anywhere humans can-you know, there are probably as many mice in the galaxy as people? We've carried them to nearly every planet. Jonathon, are the miniatures mice?"
Whitbread shrugged. "She certainly didn't care about them. Killed all but two-but why bring two aboard? And a randomly selected two at that."
Sally nodded again. "We watched her catch them." She laughed suddenly. "And Mr. Renner was wondering if they were baby Moties! Get to sleep, Jonathon. We'll see you in ten hours or so."
Chapter 17 - Mr. Crawford's Eviction
Chapter 17 - Mr. Crawford's Eviction
Midshipman Jonathon Whitbread reached his hammock much sooner than he had expected. He sagged blissfully into the netting and closed his eyes...and opened one, feeling other eyes upon him.
"Yes, Mr. Potter," he sighed.
"Mr. Whitbread, I would be obliged if you would talk to Mr. Staley."
It was not what he expected. Whitbread opened his other eye. "Uh?"
"Something's upset him. You know how he is, he won't complain, he'd rather die. But he walks around like a robot, hardly speaks to anyone except politely. He eats alone...you've known him longer than I have, I thought you might find out why."
"All right, Potter. I'll try. When I wake up." He closed his eyes. Potter was still there. "In eight hours, Potter, It can't be that urgent."
In another part of MacArthur Sailing Master Renner tossed fitfully in a stateroom not much larger than his bunk. It was the Third Lieutenant's berth, but two scientists had Renner's cabin, and the Third had moved in with a Marine officer.
Renner sat up suddenly in the darkness, his mind hunting for something that might have been a dream. Then he turned on the light and fumbled with the unfamiliar intercom panel. The rating who answered showed remarkable self-control: he didn't scream or anything. "Get me Miss Sally Fowler," Renner said.
The rating did, without comment. Must be a robot, Renner thought. He knew how he looked.
Sally was not asleep. She and Dr. Horvath had just finished installing the Motie in the Gunnery Officer's cabin. Her face and voice as she said "Yes, Mr. Renner?" somehow informed Renner that he looked like a cross between a man and a mole-a remarkable feat of nonverbal communication.
Renner skipped it. "I remembered something. Have you got your pocket computer?"
"Certainly." She took it out to show him.
"Please test it for me."
Her face a puzzled mask, Sally drew letters on the face of the flat box, wiped them, scrawled a simple problem, then a complex one that would require the ship's computer to help. Then she called up an arbitrary personal data file from ship's memory. "It works all right."
Renner's voice was thick with sleep. "Am I crazy, or did we watch the Mode take that thing apart and put it back together again?"
"Certainly. She did the same with your gun."
"But a pocket computer?" Renner stared. "You know that's impossible, don't you?"
She thought it was a joke. "No, I didn't."
"Well, it is. Ask Dr. Horvath." Renner hung up and went back to sleep.
Sally caught up with Dr. Horvath as he was turning into his cabin. She told him about the computer.
"But those things are one big integrated circuit. We don't even try to repair them." Horvath muttered other things to himself.
While Renner slept, Horvath and Sally woke the physical sciences staff. None of them got much sleep that night.
"Morning" on a warship is a relative thing. The morning watch is from 0400 to 0800, a time when the human species would normally sleep; but space knows nothing of this. A full crew is needed on the bridge and in the engine rooms no matter what the time. As a watchkeeping officer, Whitbread stood one watch in three, but MacArthur's orderly quarter bill was confused beyond repair. He had both the morning and forenoon watches off, eight glorious hours of sleep; yet, somehow, he found himself awake and in the warrant officers' mess at 0900.
"There's nothing wrong with me," Horst Staley protested. "I don't know where you got that idea. Forget it."
"OK, Whitbread said easily. He chose juice and cereal and put them on his tray. He was just behind Staley in the cafeteria line, which was natural enough since he had followed Staley in.
"Though I appreciate your concern," Staley told him. There was no trace of emotion in the voice.
Whitbread nodded agreeably. He picked up his tray and followed Staley's unnaturally straight back. Predictably, Staley chose an empty table. Whitbread joined him.
In the Empire were numerous worlds where the dominant races were white caucasian. On such worlds the pictures on Navy enlistment posters always looked like Horst Staley. His jaw was square, his eyes icy blue. His face was all planes and angles, bilaterally symmetrical, and without expression. His back was straight, his shoulders broad, his belly was fiat and hard and ridged with muscle. He contrasted sharply with Whitbread, who would fight a weight problem all his life, and was at least slightly rounded everywhere.
They ate in silence, a long breakfast. Finally, too casually, Staley asked, as if he had to ask, "How went your mission?"
Whitbread was ready. "Rugged. The worst hour and a half the Motie spent staring at me. Look." Whitbread stood. He twisted his head sideways and let his knees sag and shoulders slump, to fit him into an invisible coffin 130 cm high. "Like this, for an hour and a half." He sat down again. "Torture, I tell you. I kept wishing they'd picked you."
Staley flushed. "I did volunteer."
Bull's-eye. "It was my turn. You were the one who accepted Defiant's surrender, back off New Chicago."
"And let that maniac steal my bomb!"
Whitbread put his fork down. "Oh?"
"You didn't know?"
"Of course not. Think Blaine would spread it all over the ship? You did come back a bit shaken after that mission. We wondered why."
"Now you know. Some jackass tried to renege. Defiant's captain wouldn't let him, but he might have." Staley rubbed his hands together, painfully hard. "He snatched the bomb away from me. And I let him! I'd have given anything for the chance to -- " Staley stood up suddenly, but Whitbread was quick enough to catch him by the arm.
"Sit down," he said. "I can tell you why you weren't picked."
"I suppose you can read the Captain's mind?" They kept their voices low by tacit consent. MacArthur's interior partitions were all sound-absorbent anyway, and their voices were very clear, if soft.
"Second-guessing officers is good practice for a middie," said Whitbread.
"Why, then? Was it because of the bomb?"
"Indirectly. You'd have been tempted to prove yourself. But even without that, you're too much the hero, Horst. Perfect physical shape, good lungs-ever meet an admiral with a soft voice?-utter dedication, and no sense of humor."
"I do too have a sense of humor." -
"No, you don't."
"I don't?"
"Not a trace. The situation didn't call for a hero, Horst. It called for sotheone who didn't mind being made ridiculous in a good cause."
"You're kidding. Damn, I never know when you're kidding'
"Now would be a poor time. I'm not making fun of you, Horst. Listen, I shouldn't have to explain this. You watched it all, didn't you? Sally told me I was on all the intercom screens, live, in color and 3D."
"You were." Staley smiled briefly. "We should have had a view of your face. Especially when you started swearing. We got no warning at all. The view jumped a bit, then you screamed at the alien, and everybody cracked up."
"What would you have done?"
"Not that. I don't know. Followed orders, I guess." The icy eyes narrowed. "I wouldn't have tried to shoot my way out, if that's what you're thinking."
"Maybe a second of cutting laser into the control panel? To kill the force field?"
"Not without orders."
"What about the sign language? I spent some time making gestures, hoping the alien would understand me, but it never did."
"We couldn't see that. What about it?"
"I told you," Whitbread-said. "The mission took someone willing to make a fool of himself in a good cause. Think about how often you heard people laugh at me while I was bringing back the Motie."
Staley nodded.
"Now forget them and think about the Mode. What about her sense of humor? Would you like a Mode laughing at you, Horst? You might never be sure if she was or wasn't; you don't know what it looks like or sounds like -- "
"You're being ridiculous."
"All anyone knew was that the situation called for someone to find out whether the aliens were willing to talk to us. It didn't need someone to uphold the Imperial honor. Plenty of time for that after we know what we're facing~ There'll be room for heroes, Horst. There always is."
"That's reassuring," said Staley. He had finished breakfast. Now he stood and walked out fast, with his back very straight, leaving Whitbread wondering.
Oh, well, Whitbread thought. I tried. And just maybe...
Luxury in a warship is relative.
Gunnery Officer Crawford's stateroom was the size of his bed. When the bed was up, he had room to change clothes and a small sink to brush his teeth. To lower the bed for sleeping he had first to step into the corridor; and being tall for a Navy man, Crawford had learned to sleep curled up. -- - -
A bed and a door with a lock on it, instead of a hammock or one tier of many bunks: luxury. He would have fought to keep it; but he had lost the toss. Now he bunked in MacArthur's cutter while an alien monster occupied his quarters.
"She's only a little more than a meter tall, of course she fits," Sally Fowler said judiciously. "Still, it's only a tiny room. Do you think she can stand it? Otherwise we'll have to keep her in the lounge."
"I saw the cabin of her ship. It wasn't any bigger. She can stand it," Whitbread said. It was too late to try sleeping in the gun room, and he was supposed to tell the scientists everything he knew: at least that ought to work if Cargill asked why he'd been pestering Sally. "I suppose you've got someone watching her through the intercom?"
She nodded. Whitbread followed her into the scientists' lounge. Part of the room had been screened off with wire netting and the two miniatures were in there. One was nibbling at a head of cabbage, using four arms to hold it to her chest. The other, her abdomen swollen with pregnancy, was playing with a flashlight.
Just like a monkey, Whitbread thought. It was the first chance he'd had to look at the miniatures. Their fur was thicker, and mottled brown and yellow where the large one was uniformly soft brown. The four arms were nearly alike, five fingers on the left hands and six on the rights; but the arms and fingers were identically slender, identically jointed. Yet the muscles of the upper left shoulder were anchored to the top of the skull. Why, if not for greater strength and leverage?
He was delighted when Sally led him to a small corner table away from where the biosciences people were scratching their heads and arguing loudly. He got coffee for both of them and asked her about the strange musculature of the miniatures; it wasn't what he'd really like to talk to her about, but it was a start...
"We think it's vestigial," she said. "They obviously don't need it; the left arms aren't sized for heavy work anyway."
"Then the little ones aren't monkeys! They're an offshoot of the big ones."
"Or they're both an offshoot of something else. Jonathon, we've got more than two classifications already. Look." She turned to the intercom screen and a view of the Motie's room appeared.
"She seems happy enough," said Whitbread. He grinned at what the Motie had been doing. "Mr. Crawford isn't going to like what she's done to his bunk."
"Dr. Horvath didn't want to stop her. She can fiddle with anything she likes as long as it isn't the intercom.
Crawford's bunk had been shortened and contoured. The contours were exceedingly strange, not only because of the complex joints in the Motie's back, but also because she apparently slept on her side. The mattress had been cut and sewn, the underlying steel bent and twisted. Now there were grooves for two right arms and a pit for a projecting hipbone and a high ridge to serve as a pillow- "Why would she sleep only on her right side?" Whitbread asked.
"Maybe she'd rather defend herself with her left, if she happened to be surprised in her sleep. The left is so much stronger."
"Could be. Poor Crawford. Maybe she's expecting his to try and cut her throat some night." He watched the alien at work on the overhead lamp. "She does have one-track mind, doesn't she? We could get some good out of this. She might improve something."
"Perhaps. Jonathon, did you study sketches of the dissected alien?"
She sounded like a schoolmistress. She was old enough to be one, too; but much too pretty, Whitbread thought He said, "Yes, ma'am."
"Do you see any differences?"
"The color of the fur is different. But that's nothing. The other one was in suspended animation for hundred of years."
"Anything else?"
"The other one was taller, I think. I wouldn't swear."
"Look at her head."
Whitbread frowned. "I don't see it."
Sally used her pocket computer. It hummed slightly, indicating that it was in communication with the main ship's memory. Somewhere in MacArthur a laser moved across holographic lines. The ship's memory held everything humanity knew of Moties-such as it was. It found the information Sally asked for and sent it to her pocket computer; a sketch appeared on the face of the flat box.
Whitbread studied the sketch, then looked to the screen and the Motie. "Her forehead. It slopes!"
"That's what we thought, Dr. Horvath and I."
"It's not easy to see. The Motie's head is so flunking lopsided anyway!'
"I know. But it's there. We think there's a difference in the hands, too, but it's very small." Sally frowned and three short grooves appeared between brown eyes. She'd cut her hair short for space, and the frown and short hair made her look very efficient. Whitbread didn't like it. "That gives us three different kinds of Motie," she said. "And only four Moties. That's a high mutation rate, wouldn't you say?"
"I...wouldn't be surprised." Whitbread remembered the history lessons Chaplain Hardy had held for the midshipmen during the trip out. "They're trapped in this system. Bottled up. If they had an atomic war, they'd have to live with it afterwards, wouldn't they?" He thought of Earth and shuddered.
"We haven't seen any evidence of atomic wars."
"Except the mutation rate."
Sally laughed. "You're arguing in circles. Anyway, it doesn't hold up. None of these three types is a cripple, Jonathon. They're all very well adapted, all healthy-except the dead one, of course, and she hardly counts. They wouldn't choose a cripple to pilot the probe."
"No. So what's the answer?"
"You saw them first, Jonathon. Call the one in the probe Type A. What was the relationship between Types B and C?"
"I don't know."
"But you saw them together."
"It didn't make sense. The little ones stayed out of the big one's way, at first, and the big one let them alone. Then I signaled the big one that I wanted her to go with me to MacArthur. She forthwith picked the first two little ones that came to hand, made sure they were safe, and killed the rest without warning!"
Whitbread paused, thinking of the whirlwind that had blown him out the Motie ship air lock. "So you tell me. What are the little ones? Pets? Children? But she killed them. Vermin? Why save two of them? Food animals? Have you tried that?"
Sally grimaced. It was almost a snarl, remarkable on her pretty face, an expression she would never have worn any social occasion. "Tried what? Fricassee one of I little beasts and offer it to the big one? Be reasonable."
The alien in Crawford's room poured a handful of some kind of seed-and ate it. "Popcorn," said Sally. "We tried it on the little ones first. Maybe that's what they were for, food testers."
"Maybe."
"She eats cabbage too. Well, she won't starve, but she may die of vitamin deficiencies. All we can do is watch and wait- I suppose we'll go to the alien's home planet pretty soon. In the meantime, Jonathon, you're the only man who's seen the Motie ship. Was the pilot's seat contoured? I only got a glimpse of it through your helmet camera."
"It was contoured. In fact, it fitted her like a glove. I noticed something else. The control board ran along the right side of the seat. For right hands only...
He remembered a great deal about the mining ship, it turned out. It kept him in Lady Sally's enjoyable company until he had to go on watch. But none of it was particularly useful.
Whitbread had no sooner taken his station on the bridge than Dr. Buckman called for the Captain.
"A ship, Blaine," Buckman said. "From the inhabited world, Mote Prime. We didn't find it because it was hidden by that damned laser signal."
Blaine nodded. His own screens had shown the Motie ship nine minutes before; Chief Shattuck's crew wasn't about to let civilians keep a better watch than the Navy.
"It will reach us in about eighty-one hours," Buckman said. "It's accelerating at point eight seven gees, which is the surface gravity of Mote Prime by some odd coincidence. It's spitting neutrinos. In general it behaves like the first ship, except that it's far more massive. I'll let you know if we get anything else."
"Fine. Keep an eye on it, Doctor." Blaine nodded and Whitbread cut the circuit. The Captain turned to his exec. "Let's compare what we know with Buckman's file, Number One."
"Aye aye, sir." Cargill toyed with the computer controls for a few minutes. "Captain?"
"Yes?"
"Look at the starting time. That alien ship got under way in not much more than an hour after we broke out."
Blaine whistled to himself. "Are you sure? That gives ten minutes to detect us, another ten for us to dee them, and forty minutes to get ready and launch. Jack, what kind of ship launches in forty minutes?"
Cargill frowned. "None I ever heard of. The Navy could do it, keep a ship with a full crew on ready alert...
"Precisely. I think that's a warship coming at us, Number One. You'd better tell the Admiral, then Horvath. Whitbread, get me Buckman."
"Yes?" The astrophysicist looked harried.
"Doctor, I need-~everything your people can get about that Motie ship. Now. And would you give some thought to their rather strange acceleration?"
Buckman studied the numbers Blaine sent down to his screen. "This seems straightforward enough. They launched from Mote Prime or a closely orbiting moon forty minutes after we arrived. What's the problem?"
"If they launched that fast, it's almost certainly a warship. We'd like to believe otherwise."
Buckman was annoyed. "Believe what you like, but you'll ruin the math, Captain. Either they launched in forty minutes, or...well, you could start the Motie vehicle something over two million kilometers this side of Mote Prime; that would give them' more time...but I don't believe it."
"No more do I. I want you to satisfy yourself about this, Dr. Buckman. What could we assume that would give them more time to launch?"
"Let me see...I'm not used to thinking in terms rocketry, you know. Gravitational accelerations are more my field, if you'll pardon the pun. Hmmm." Buckman's eyes went curiously blank. For a moment he looked like an idiot. "You'd have to assume a period of coasting. And a much higher acceleration in the launching mechanism. Much higher."
"How long to coast?"
"Several hours for every hour you want to give them make up their minds. Captain, I don't understand your problem. Why can't they have launched a scientific survey ship in forty minutes? Why assume a warship? After all, MacArthur is both, and it took you an unreasonably long time to launch. I was ready days early."
Blaine turned him off. I'll break his scrawny neck, I told himself. They'll court-martial me, but I'll claim justifiable homicide. I'll subpoena everyone who knew him. They're bound to let me off. He touched keys. "Number One, what have you got?"
"They launched that ship in forty minutes."
"Which makes it a warship."
"So the Admiral thinks, sir. Dr. Horvath wasn't convinced."
"Neither am I, but we'll want to be ready for them. And we'll want to know more about Moties than Horvath's people are learning from our passenger. Number One, want you to take the cutter and get over to that asteroid the Motie came from. There's no sign of activity there, it should be safe enough-and I want to know just what the Motie was doing there. It might give us a clue."
Chapter 18 - The Stone Beehive
Chapter 18 - The Stone Beehive
Horace Bury watched the foot-high Moties playing behind the wire screen. "Do they bite?" he asked.
"They haven't yet," Horvath answered. "Not even when the biotechs took blood samples." Bury puzzled him. Science Minister Horvath considered himself a good judge of people-once he'd left science and gone into politics he'd had to learn fast-but he couldn't fathom Bury's thought processes. The Trader's easy smile was only a public face; behind it, remote and emotionless, he watched the Moties like God judging a dubious creation.
Bury was thinking, My but they're ugly. What a shame. They'd be useless as house pets, unless- He checked himself and stepped forward to reach through a gap in the netting large enough for an arm but not a Motie.
"Behind the ear," Horvath suggested.
"Thank you." Bury wondered if one would come to investigate his hand. The thin one came, and Bury scratched her behind the ear, carefully, for the ear looked fragile and delicate. But she seemed to enjoy it.
They'd make terrible pets, Bury thought, but they'd sell for thousands each. For a while. Before the novelty wore off. Best to hit every planet simultaneously. If they breed in captivity, and if we can keep them fed, and if I sell out before people stop buying- "Allah be-! She took my watch!."
"They love tools. You may have noticed that flashlight we gave them!'
"Never mind that, Horvath. How do I get my watch back? In Allah's- How did the catch come unfastened?"
"Reach in and take it. Or let me." Horvath tried. The enclosure was too big, and the Motie didn't want to give up the watch. Horvath dithered. "I don't want to disturb them too much."
"Horvath, that watch is worth eight hundred crowns! It not only tells the time and the date, but -- " Bury paused. "Come to that, it's also shockproof. We advertise that a shock that will stop a Chronos will also kill the own~ She probably can't hurt it much."
The Motie was examining the wrist watch in a sober, studious manner. Bury wondered if others would find the manner captivating. No house pet behaved like that, even cats.
"You have cameras on them?"
"Of course," said Horvath.
"My firm may want to buy this sequence. For advertising purposes." That's one thing, Bury thought. Now there was a Motie ship coming here, and Cargill taking the cutter somewhere. He'd never get anywhere pumping Cargill, but Buckman was going. There might be returns from the coffee the astrophysicist drank after all
The thought saddened him obscurely.
The cutter was the largest of the vehicles in hanger deck. She was a lifting body, with a flat upper surface that fitted flat against one wall of hangar deck. She had her own access hatches, to join the cutter's air locks to the habitable regions of MacArthur because hangar deck was usually in vacuum.
There was no Langston Field generator aboard the cutter, and no Alderson Drive. But her drive was efficient and powerful, and her fuel capacity was considerable even without strap-on tanks. The ablative shielding along her nose was good for one (1) reentry into a terrestrial atmosphere at up to 20 km/sec, or many reentries if things could be taken more slowly. She was designed for a crew of six, but would carry more. She could go from planet to planet, but not between stars. History had been ma again and again by spacecraft smaller than MacArthur's cutter.
There were half a dozen men bunking in her now. Or had been kicked out to make room for Crawford win Crawford was kicked out of his own stateroom by a three armed alien.
Cargill smiled when he saw that. "I'll take Crawford, he decided. "Be a shame to move him again. Lafferty coxswain. Three Marines..." He bent over his crew list. "Staley as midshipman." He'd welcome a chance to prove himself, and was steady enough under orders.
The cutter's interior was clean and polished, but there was evidence of Sinclair's oddball repairs along the port wall where Defiant's lasers had flashed through the ablative shielding; even at the long distances from which the cutter engaged, the damage had been severe.
Cargill spread his things out in the only enclosed cabin space and reviewed his flight plan options. Over that distance they could go at three gees all the way. In practice, it might be one gee over and five back. Just because the rock didn't have a fusion plant didn't mean it was uninhabited.
Jack Cargill remembered the speed with which the Motie had rebuilt his big percolator. Without even knowing what coffee was supposed to taste like! Could they be beyond fusion? He left his gear and put on a pressure suit, a skintight woven garment that was just porous enough to allow sweat to pass; it was a self-regulating temperature control, and with the tightly woven fabric to assist, his own skin was able to stand up to space. The helmet attached to a seal at the collar. In combat heavy armor would go over the whole mess, but this was good enough for inspections.
From the outside there was no evidence of damage or repair. Part of the heat shield hung below the cutter's nose like a great shovel blade, exposing the control room blister, windows, and the snout of the cutter's main armament: a laser cannon.
In battle the cutter's first duty was to make observations and reports. Sometimes she'd try to sneak in on a torpedo run on a blinded enemy warship. Against Motie ships with no Field, that cannon would be more than enough.
Cargill inspected the cutter's weapons with more than usual thoroughness. Already he feared the Moties. In this he was almost alone; but he would not be so forever.
The second alien ship was larger than the first, but estimates of its mass had a high finagle factor, depending on the acceleration (known), fuel consumption (deduced from drive temperature), operating temperature (deduced from the radiation spectrum, whose peak was in the soft x-ray region) and efficiency (pure guesswork). When ii was all folded together the mass seemed much too small: about right for a three-man ship.
"But they aren't men," Renner pointed out. "Four Moties weigh as much as two men, but they don't need as much room. We don't know what they're carrying for equipment, or armament, or shielding. Thin walls don't seem to scare them, and that lets them build bigger cabins -- "
"All right." Rod cut him off. "If you don't know, just say so."
"I don't know."
"Thank you," Rod said patiently. "Is there anything you are sure of?"
"Oddly enough, there is, sir. Acceleration. It's been constant to three significant figures since we spotted the ship. Now that's odd," Renner said. "Normally you fool with the drive to keep it running at peak, you correct minor errors in course...and if you leave it alone, there's still variation. To keep the acceleration that constant they must be constantly fiddling with it."
Rod rubbed the bridge of his nose. "It's a signal. They're telling us exactly where they're going."
"Yes, sir. Right here. They're saying to wait for them." Renner wore that strange, fierce grin. "Oh, we know something else, Captain. The ship's cross-sectional profile has decreased since we sighted it. Probably they've ditched some fuel tanks."
"How did you get that? Don't you have to have the target transit the sun?"
"Usually, yes. Here it blocks the Coal Sack. There's enough light bouncing off the Coal Sack to give us a good estimate of that ship's cross-sectional area. Haven't you noticed the colors in the Coal Sack, Captain?"
"No." Blaine rubbed at his nose again. "Throwaway fuel tanks doesn't make them sound like a warship, does it? But it's no guarantee. All it really tells us is that they're in a hurry."
Staley and Buckman occupied the rear seats in the cutter's triangular control cabin. As the cutter pulled away at one gee, Staley watched MacArthur's Field close behind them. Against the black of the Coal Sack the battle cruiser seemed to go invisible. There was nothing to look at but the sky.
Half that sky was Coal Sack, starless except for a hot pink point several degrees in from the edge. It was as if the universe ended here. Like a wall, Horst thought.
"Look at it," said Buckman, and Horst jumped. "There are people on New Scotland who call it the Face of God. Superstitious idiots!"
"Right," said Horst. Superstitions were silly.
"From here it doesn't look at all like a man, and it's ten times as magnificent! I wish my sister's husband could see it. He belongs to the Church of Him."
Horst nodded in the semidarkness.
From any of the known human worlds, the Coal Sack was a black hole in the sky. One would expect it to be black here. But now that Horst's eyes were adjusting, he saw traces of red glowing within the Coal Sack. Now the nebular material showed like layer after layer of gauzy curtains, or like blood spreading in water. The longer he looked, the deeper he could see into it. Eddies and whorls and flow patterns showed light years deep in the vacuumthin dust and gas.
"Imagine, me stuck with a Himmist for a brother-in-law! I've tried to educate the fool," Buckman said energetically, "but he just won't listen."
"I don't think I've ever seen a more beautiful sky. Dr. Buckman, is all that light coming from Murcheson's Eye?"
"Doesn't seem possible, does it? We've tried to find other sources, fluorescence, UV stars deep in the dust, like that. If there were masses in there we'd have found them with mass indicators. Staley, it's not that unlikely. The Eye isn't that far from the Coal Sack."
"A couple of light years."
"Well, what of it? Light travels farther than that, giver a free path!" Buckman's teeth glowed in the faint multi. colored light of the control panel. "Murcheson lost golden opportunity by not studying the Coal Sack when he had the chance. Of course he was on the wrong side of the Eye, and he probably didn't venture very far from the breakout point...and it's our luck, Staley! There's never been an opportunity like this! A thick interstellar mass, and a red supergiant right at the edge for illumination! Look, look along my arm, Staley, to where the currents flow toward that eddy. Like a whirlpool, isn't it? I your captain would stop twiddling his thumbs and give mc access to the ship's computer, I could prove that that eddy is a protostar in the process of condensation! Or that it isn't."
Buckman had a temporary rank higher than Staley's, but he was a civilian. In any case, he shouldn't be talking about the Captain that way. "We do use the computer for other things, Dr. Buckman."
Buckman let go of Staley's arm. "Too damned many.' His eyes seemed lost; his soul was lost in that enormous veil of red-lit darkness. "We may not need it, though. The Moties must have been observing the Coal Sack for at their history; hundreds of years, maybe thousands. Especially if they've developed some such pseudoscience as astrology. If we can talk to them..." He trailed off.
Staley said, "We wondered why you were so eager to come along."
"What? Do you mean jaunting off with you to see that rock? Staley, I don't care what the Motie was using it for, I want to know why the Trojan points are so crowded.'
"You think there'll be clues?"
"Maybe, in the composition of the rock. We can hope so.,,
"I may be able to help you there," Staley said slowly. "Sauron-my home-has an asteroid belt and mining industries. I learned something about rock mining from my uncles. Thought I might be a miner myself, once." He stopped abruptly, expecting Buckman to bring up an unpleasant subject.
Buckman said, "I wonder what the Captain expects to find there?"
"He told me that. We know, just one thing about that rock," said Staley. "A Motie was interested in it. When we know why, we'll know something about Moties."
"Not very much," Buckman growled.
Staley relaxed. Either Buckman didn't know why Sauron was infamous, or...no. Tactful? Buckman? Not hardly.
The Motie pup was born five hours after MacArthur's cutter left for the asteroid. The birth was remarkably doglike, considering the mother's distant relationship to dogs; and there was only the one pup, about the size of a rat.
The lounge was very popular that day, as crew and officers and scientists and even the Chaplain found an excuse to drop by.
"Look how much smaller the lower left arm is," said Sally. "We were right, Jonathan. The little ones are derived from the big Moties."
Someone thought of leading the large Motie down to the lounge. She did not seem the least interested in the new miniature Motie; but she did make sounds at the others. One of them dug Horace Bury's watch out from under a pillow and gave it to her.
Rod watched the activities around the Motie pup when. he could. It seemed very highly developed for a newborn; within hours of its birth it was nibbling at cabbages, and it seemed able to walk, although the mother usually carried it with one set of arms. She moved rapidly and was hardly hampered by it at all.
Meanwhile, the Motie ship drew nearer; and if there was any change in its acceleration, it was too small for MacArthur to detect.
"They'll be here in seventy hours," Rod told Cargill via laser message. "I want you back in sixty. Don't let Buckman start anything he can't finish within the time limit. If you contact aliens, tell me fast-and don't try to talk them unless there's no way out."
"Aye aye, Skipper."
"Not my orders, Jack. Kutuzov's. He's not happy about this excursion. Just look that rock over and get back."
The rock was thirty million kilometers distant from MacArthur, about a twenty-five-hour trip each way at C gee. Four gravities would cut that in half. Not enough, Staley thought, to make it worthwhile putting up with four gees.
"But we could go at 1.5 gee, sir," he suggested to Cargill. "Not only would the trip be faster, but we'd get there faster. We wouldn't move, around so much. The cut wouldn't seem so crowded."
"That's brilliant," Cargill said warmly. "A brilliant suggestion, Mr. Staley."
"Then we'll do it?"
"We will not."
"But-why not, sir?"
"Because I don't like plus gees. Because it uses fuel and if we use too much MacArthur may have to dive into the gas giant to get us home. Never waste fuel, Mr. Staley. You may want it someday. And besides, it's nitwit idea."
"Yes, sir."
"Nitwit ideas are for emergencies. You use them when you've got nothing else to try. If they work, they go in the Book. Otherwise you follow the Book, which is largely collection of nitwit ideas that worked." Cargill smiled at Staley's puzzled look. "Let me tell you about the one got in the Book..."
For a midshipman it was always school time. Staley would hold higher ranks than this one, if he had the ability, and if he lived.
Cargill finished his story and looked at the time. "Get some sleep, Staley. You'll have the con after turnover."
From a distance the asteroid looked dark, rough, and porous. It rotated once in thirty-one hours; oddly slow, according to Buckman. There was no sign of activity: motion, no radiation, no anomalous neutrino flux. Horst Staley searched for temperature variations but there were none.
"I think that confirms it," he reported. "The place must be empty. A life form that evolved on Mote Prime would need heat, wouldn't it, sir?"
"Yes."
The cutter moved in. Stippling which had made the rock look porous at a distance became pocks, then gaping holes of random size. Meteors, obviously. But so many?
"I told you the Trojan points were crowded," Buckman said happily. "Probably the asteroid passes through the thick of the Trojan cluster regularly...only, give me a close-up of that big pock there, Cargill."
Two powers higher, and the screen was half filled by a black pit. Smaller pits showed around it.
"No sign of a crater rim," Cargill said.
"Noticed that, did you? Damn thing's hollow. That's why the density is so low. Well, it's not inhabited now, but it must have been once. They even went to the trouble of giving it a comfortable rotation." Buckman turned. "Cargill, we'll want to search through that thing."
"Yes, but not you. A Navy crew will board the rock."
"This is my field of competence, damn it!"
"Your safety's mine, Doctor. Lafferty, take us around the rock."
The back of the asteroid was one enormous cup-shaped crater.
"Pocked with little craters...but they are craters. Not holes," said Cargill. "Doctor, what do you make of that?"
"I can't imagine. Not if it's a natural formation -- "
"It was moved!" Staley exclaimed.
"Oddly enough, just what I was thinking," Cargill said. "The asteroid was moved using thermonuclear devices, exploding the bombs progressively in the same crater to channel the blast. It's been done before. Get me a radiation reading, Midshipman."
"Aye aye, sir." He left, and returned in a minute. "Nothing, sir. It's cold."
"Really?" Cargill went to check that for himself. When he finished he looked at his instruments and frowned. "Cold as a pirate's heart. If they used bombs, they must have been goddamn clean. That shouldn't surprise me."
The cutter circled farther around the flying mountain.
"That could be an air lock. There." Staley pointed at a raised cap of stone surrounded by an archery target in faded orange paint.
"Right, but I doubt if we'd get it open. We'll go in through one of the meteor holes. Still...we'll look it over. Lafferty, take us in."
In their reports they called it Beehive Asteroid. The rock was all many-sided chambers without floors linked by channels too small for men, all choked with dried asymmetrical mummies. Whatever miracles the builders had made, artificial gravity was not one of them. The corridors went in all directions; the larger chambers and storage rooms were studded everywhere with knobs for hand holds, anchor points for lines, storage niches.
The mummies floated everywhere, thin and dried, with gaping mouths. They varied from a meter to a meter and a half in height. Staley chose several and sent them back to the cutter.
There was machinery too, all incomprehensible to Staley and his men, all frozen fast by vacuum cementing. Staley had one of the smaller machines torn from the wall. He chose it for strangeness, not potential use; none of the machines was complete. "No metal," Staley reported. "Stone flywheels and things that look like they might be integrated circuits-ceramics with impurities, that kind of thing. But very little metal, sir."
They moved on at random. Eventually they reached a central chamber. It was gigantic, and so was the machine that dominated it. Cables that might have been power superconductors led from the wreck, convincing Staley that this was the asteroid's power source; but it showed no trace of radiation.
They worked through narrow passages between incomprehensible blocks of stone, and found a large metallic box.
"Cut into that," Staley ordered.
Lafferty used his cutting laser. They stool around watching the narrow green beam do nothing to the silvery casing. Staley wondered: where was the energy going? Could they be pumping power into it, somehow? Warmth on his face hinted at the answer.
He took a thermometer reading. The casing was just less than red-hot, all over. When Lafferty turned off the laser the casing cooled rapidly; but it maintained the same temperature at every point.
A superconductor of heat. Staley whistled into his suit mike and wondered if he could find a smaller sample. Then he tried using pliers on the casing-and it bent like tin. A strip came away in the pliers. They tore sheets off with their gauntleted hands.
It was impossible to map the Beehive with its tight, curving corridors. It was hard to tell where they were; but they marked their paths as they went, and used proton beam instruments to measure distances through walls.
The corridor walls were eggshell thin throughout the interior. They were not much thicker outside. Beehive Asteroid could not have been a safe place to live.
But the wall beneath the crater was many meters thick. Radiation, Staley thought. There must have been residual radiation. Otherwise they would have carved this wail out the way they did all the others, to make room for themselves.
There must have been a wild population explosion here.
And then something killed them all off.
And now there was no radiation at all. How bong ago did it all happen? The place was covered with small meteor holes; scores of holes in the walls. How long?
Staley looked speculatively at the small, heavy Motie artifact Lafferty and Sohl were manhandling through the corridor. Vacuum cementing-and the wandering of elementary particles across an interface. That might tell MacArthur's civilian scientists just how long Beehive Asteroid had been abandoned; but already he knew one thing. It was old.
Chapter 19 - Channel Two's Popularity
Chapter 19 - Channel Two's Popularity
Chaplain David Hardy watched the miniatures only through the intercom because that way he wasn't involved in the endless speculations on what Moties were. It was a question of scientific interest to Horvath and his people; but to Chaplain Hardy there was more than intellectual curiosity at stake. It was his job to determine if Moties were human. Horvath's scientists only wondered if they were intelligent.
The one question preceded the other, of course. It was unlikely that God had created beings with souls and no intelligence; but it was quite possible that He had created intelligent beings with no souls, or beings whose salvation was brought about by ways entirely different from those of mankind. They might even be a form of angel, although an unlikelier-looking set of angels would be hard to imagine. Hardy grinned at the thought and went back to his study of the miniatures. The big Motie was asleep.
The miniatures weren't doing anything interesting at the moment either. It wasn't necessary for Hardy to watch them continuously. Everything was holographed anyway, and as MacArthur's linguist, Hardy would be informed if anything happened. He was already certain the miniatures were neither intelligent nor human.
He sighed deeply. What is man that Thou art mindful of him, 0 Lord? And why is it my problem to know what place Moties have in Thy plan? Well, that at least was straightforward. Second-guessing God is an old, old game. On paper he was the best man for the job, certainly the best man in Trans-Coalsack Sector.
Hardy had been fifteen years a priest and twelve years a Navy chaplain, but he was only beginning to think of it as his profession. At age thirty-five he had been a full professor at the Imperial University on Sparta, an expert in ancient and modern human languages and the esoteric art called linguistic archeology. Dr. David Hardy had been happy enough tracing the origins of recently discovered colonies lost for centuries. By studying their languages and their words for common objects he could tell what part of space the original colonists had come from. Usually he could pinpoint the planet and even the city.
He liked everything about the university except the students. He had not been particularly religious until his wife was killed in a landing boat crash; then, and he was not sure even yet how it happened, the Bishop had come to see him, and Hardy had looked long and searchingly at his life
-and entered a seminary. His first assignment after ordination had been a disastrous tour as chaplain to students. It hadn't worked, and he could see that he was not cut out for a parish priest. The Navy needed chaplains, and could always use linguists...
Now, at age fifty-two, he sat in front of an intercom screen watching four-armed monsters playing with cabbages. A Latin crossword puzzle lay on the desk at his left hand, and Hardy played idly with it. Domine, non sum...
"Dignis, of course." Hardy chuckled to himself. Precisely what he had said when the Cardinal gave him the assignment of accompanying the Mote expedition. "Lord, I am not worthy..."
"None of us is, Hardy," the Cardinal had said. "But then we're not worthy of the priesthood either, and that's more presumption than going out to look at aliens."
"Yes, my lord." He looked at the crossword puzzle again. It was more interesting than the aliens at the moment.
Rod Blaine would not have agreed, but then the Captain didn't get as many 'chances to watch the playful little creatures as the Chaplain did. There was work to do but for now it could be neglected. His cabin intercom buzzed insistently, and the miniatures vanished to be replaced by the smooth round face of his clerk. "Dr. Horvath insists on speaking with you."
"Put him on," said Rod.
As usual, Horvath's manner was a study in formal cordiality. Horvath must be getting used to getting along with men he could not allow himself to dislike. "Good morning, Captain. We have our first pictures of the alien ship. I thought you'd like to know."
"Thank you, Doctor. What coding?"
"They're not filed yet. I have them right here." The image split, Horvath's face on one half, and a blurred shadow on the other. It was long and narrow, with one end wider than the other, and it seemed to be translucent. The narrow end terminated in a needle spine.
"We caught this picture when the alien made mid-course turnover. Enlargement and noise eliminators gave us this and we won't have better until it's alongside." Naturally, Rod thought. The alien ship would now have its drive pointed toward MacArthur.
"The spine is probably the Motie fusion drive." An arrow of light sprang into the picture. "And these formations at the front end- Well, let me show you a density pattern."
The density pattern showed a pencil-shaped shadow circled by a row of much wider, almost invisible toroids. "See? An inner core, rigid, used for launching. We can guess what's in there: the fusion motor, the air and water regeneration chamber for the crew. We've assumed that this section was launched via linear accelerator at high thrust."
"And the rings?"
"Inflatable fuel tanks, we think. Some, of them are empty now, as you can see. They may have been kept as living space. Others were undoubtedly ditched."
"Uh huh." Rod studied the silhouette while Horvath watched him from the other side of the screen. Finally Rod said, "Doctor, these tanks couldn't have been on the ship when it was launched."
"No. They may have been launched to meet the core section. Without passengers, they could have been given a much higher thrust."
"In a linear accelerator? The tanks don't look metallic."
"Er-no. They don't seem to be metallic."
"The fuel has to be hydrogen, right? So how could those have been launched?"
"We...don't know." Horvath hesitated again. "There may have been a metal core. Also ditched."
"Urn. All right. Thank you."
After some thought, Rod put the pictures on the intercom. Nearly everything went on the intercom, which served as library, amusement center, and communications for MacArthur. In intervals between alerts, or during a battle,, one channel of the intercom~ might show anything. Canned entertainments. Chess tournaments. Spatball games between the champions of each watch. A play, if the crew had that much time on their hands-and they did, sometimes, on blockade duty.
The alien ship was naturally the main topic of conversation in the wardroom.
"There are shadows in yon hollow doughnuts," Sinclair stated. "And they move."
"Passengers. Or furniture," Renner said. "Which means that at least these first four sections are being used as living space. That could be a lot of Moties."
"Especially," Rod said as he entered ,"if they're as crowded as that mining ship was. Sit down, gentlemen. Carry on." He signaled to a steward for coffee.
"One for every man aboard MacArthur," Renner said. "Good thing we've got all this extra room, isn't it?".
Blaine winced. Sinclair looked as if the next intercom event might star the Chief Engineer and the Sailing Master, fifteen rounds...
"Sandy, what do you think of Horvath's idea?" Renner asked. "I don't care much for his theory of launching the fuel balloons with a metal core. Wouldn't metal shells around the tanks be better? More structural support. Unless..."
"Aye?" Sinclair prompted. Renner said nothing.
"What is it, Renner?' Blaine demanded
"Never mind, sir. It was a real blue-sky thought. I should learn to discipline my mind."
"Spill it, Mr. Renner."
Renner was new to the Navy, but he was learning to recognize that tone. "Yessir. It occurred to me that hydrogen is metallic at the right temperature and pressure. If those tanks were really pressurized, the hydrogen would carry a current-but it would take the kind of pressures you find at the core of a gas giant planet."
"Renner, you don't really think -- "
"No, of course not, Captain. It was just a thought."
Renner's oddball idea bothered Sandy Sinclair well into the next watch. Engineer officers normally stand no watches on the bridge, but Sinclair's artificers had just finished an overhaul of the bridge life-support systems and Sinclair wanted to test them. Rather than keep another watch officer in armor while the bridge was exposed to vacuum, Sandy took the watch himself.
His repairs worked perfectly, as they always did. Now, his armor stripped off, Sinclair relaxed in the command chair watching the Moties. The Motie program had tremendous popularity throughout the ship, with attention divided between the big Motie in Crawford's stateroom and the miniatures. The big Motie had just finished rebuilding the lamp in her quarters. Now it gave a redder, more diffused light, and she was cutting away at the length of Crawford's bunk to give herself nearly a square meter of working space. Sinclair admired the Motie's work; she was deft, as sure of herself as anyone Sinclair had ever seen. Let the scientists debate, Sandy thought; that beastie was intelligent.
On Channel Two, the miniatures played. People watched them even more than the big Motie; and Bury, watching everyone watch the little Moties, smiled to himself.
Channel Two caught Sinclair's eye and he looked away from the big Motie,' then suddenly sat bolt upright. The miniatures were having sexual intercourse. "Get that off the intercom!" Sinclair ordered. The signal rating looked pained, but switched the screen so that Channel Two went blank. Moments later, Renner came onto the bridge.
"What's the matter with the intercom, Sandy?" he asked.
"There is nothing wrong with the intercom," Sinclair said stiffly.
"There is too. Channel Two is blank."
"Aye, Mr. Renner. "Tis blank at my orders." Sinclair looked uncomfortable.
Renner grinned. "And who did you think would object to the-ah, program?" he asked.
"Mon, we will nae show dirty pictures aboard this ship-and with a chaplain aboard! Not to mention the lady." The lady in question had been watching Channel Two also, and when it faded Sally Fowler put down her fork and left the mess room. Beyond that point she practically ran, ignoring the looks of those she passed. She was puffing when she reached the lounge,where the miniature Modes were still in flagrante delicto. She stood beside the cage and watched them for almost a minute. Then she said, not to anyone in particular, "The last time anyone looked, those two were both female."
Nobody said anything.
"They change sex!" she exclaimed. "I'll bet it's pregnancy that triggers it. Dr. Horvath, what do you think?"
"It seems likely enough," Horvath said slowly. "In fact I'm almost sure the one on top was the mother of the little one." He seemed to be fighting off a stutter. Definitely he was blushing.
"Oh, good heavens," said Sally.
It had only just occurred to her what she must have looked like. Hurrying out of the mess room the moment the scene went off the intercom. Arriving out of breath. The Trans-Coalsack cultures had almost universally developed intense prudery within their cultures..
And she was an Imperial lady, hurrying to see two aliens make love, so to speak.
She wanted to shout, to explain. It's important! This change of sex, it must hold for all the Moties. It will affect their life styles, their personalities, their history. It shows that young Moties become nearly independent at fantâstically low ages...Was the pup weaned already, or did the "mother," now male, secrete milk even after the sex change? This will affect everything about Moties, everything. It's crucial. That's why I hurried- Instead, she left. Abruptly.
Chapter 21 - The Ambassadors
Chapter 21 - The Ambassadors
As the Motie ship made its final approach, all details of its construction remained hidden by the flaring drive. MacArthur watched with screens up and charged. A hundred kilometers away, Lenin watched too.
"Battle stations, Mr. Staley," Blaine ordered softly.
Staley grasped the large red handle which now pointed to Condition Two and moved it all the way clockwise. Alarms trilled, then a recorded trumpet sang "To Arms!," rapid notes echoing through steel corridors.
"NOW HEAR THIS. NOW HEAR THIS. BATTLE STATIONS, BATTLE STATIONS. CONDITION RED ONE."
Officers and crew rushed to action stations-gun crews, talkers, torpedomen, Marines. Shipfitters and cooks and storekeepers became damage-control men. Surgeon's mates manned emergency aid stations throughout the ship-all quickly, all silently. Rod felt a burst of pride. Cziller had given him a taut ship, and by God they still were taut.
"COM ROOM REPORTS CONDITION RED ONE," the bridge talker announced. The quartermaster's mate third class said words given him by someone else, and all over the ship men rushed to obey, but he gave no orders of his own. He parroted words that would send MacArthur leaping across space, fire laser cannon and launch torpedoes, attack or withdraw, and he reported results that Blaine probably already knew from his screens and instruments. He took no initiative and never would, but through him the ship was commanded. He was an all-powerful mindless robot.
"GUNNERY STATIONS REPORT CONDITION RED ONE."
"MARINE COMMANDER REPORTS CdNDITION RED ONE."
"Staley, have the Marines not on sentry duty continue the search for those missing aliens," Blaine ordered.
"Aye aye, sir."
"DAMAGE CONTROL REPORTS. CONDITION RED ONE."
The Motie ship decelerated toward MacArthur, the fusion flame of its drive a blaze on the battle cruiser's screens. Rod watched nervously. "Sandy, how much, of that drive could we take?"
"It's nae too hot, Captain," Sinclair reported through the intercom. "The Field can handle all of that for twenty minutes or more. And 'tis nae focused, Skipper, there'd be nae hot spots."
Blaine nodded. He'd reached the same conclusion, but it was wise to check when possible. He watched the light grow steadily.
"Peaceful enough," Rod told Renner. "Even if it is a warship."
"I'm not so sure it is one, Captain." Renner seemed very much at ease. Even if the Motie should attack he'd be more a spectator than a participant. "At least they've aimed their drive flame to miss. Courtesy counts."
"The hell it does. That flames spreads. Some of it is spilling onto our Langston Field, and they can observe what it does to us."
"I hadn't thought of that."
"MARINES REPORT CIVILIANS IN CORRIDORS, B DECK BULKHEAD TWENTY."
"God damn it!" Blaine shouted. "That's astronomy. Get those corridors cleared!"
"It'll be Buckman," Renner grinned. "And they'll have their troubles getting him to his stateroom..."
"Yeah. Mr. Staley, tell the Marines to put Buckman in his cabin even if they have to frogmarch him there."
Whitbread grinned to himself. MacArthur was in free fall, all her spin gone. Now how would the Marines frogmarch the astrophysicist in that?
"TORPEDO ROOMS REPORT CONDITION RED ONE. TORPEDOES ARMED AND READY."
"One of the leading cooks thinks he saw a miniature," Staley said. "The Marines are on the way."
The alien ship drew closer, her drive a steady white blaze. She was cutting it very fine, Blaine thought. The deceleration hadn't changed at all. They obviously trusted everything-their drives, their computers, sensors...
"ENGINE ROOM REPORTS CONDITION RED ONE. FIELD AT MAXIMUM STRENGTH."
"The Marines have Dr. Buckman in his stateroom," Staley said. "Dr. Horvath is on the intercom. He wants to complain."
"Listen to him, Staley. But not for long."
"GUNNERY REPORTS ALL BATTERIES LOCKED ONTO ALIEN CRAFT. LOCKED ON AND TRACKING."
MacArthur was at full alert. All through the ship her crew waited at action stations. All nonessential equipment located near the ship's hull had been sent below.
The tower containing Blaine's patrol cabin stuck out of the battle cruiser's hull like an afterthought. For spin gravity it was conveniently far from the ship's axis, but in a battle it would be the first thing shot off. Blaine's cabin was an empty shell now, his desk and the more important gear long since automatically raised into one of the nullgravity recreation areas.
Every idle compartment at the ship's core was jammed, while the outer decks were empty, cleared to make way for damage-control parties.
And the Motie ship was approaching fast. She was still no more than a brightening light, a fusion jet fanning out to splash MacArthur's Langston Field.
"GUNNERY REPORTS ALIEN SHIP DECELERATING AT POINT EIGHT SEVEN ZERO GRAVITIES."
"No surprises," said Renner sotto voce.
The light expanded to fill the screen-and then dimmed. Next moment the alien ship was sliding precisely alongside the battle cruiser, and its drive flame was already off.
It was as if the vessel had entered an invisible dock predetermined six days ago. The thing was at rest relative to MacArthur. Rod saw shadows moving within the inflated rings at its fore end.
Renner snarled, an ugly sound. His face contorted. "Goddamn show-offs!"
"Mr. Renner, control yourself."
"Sorry, sir. That's the most astounding feat of astrogation I've ever heard of. If anyone tried to tell me about it, I'd call him a liar. Who do they think they are?" Renner was genuinely angry. "Any astrogator-in-training that tried a stunt like that would be out on his tail, if he lived through the crash."
Blaine nodded. The Motie pilot had left no margin of error at all. And- "I was wrong. That couldn't possibly be a warship. Look at it."
"Yah. It's as fragile as a butterfly. I could crush it in my hand."
Rod mused a moment, then gave orders. "Ask for volunteers. To make first contact with that ship, alone, using an unarmed taxi. And...keep Condition Red One."
There were a good many volunteers.
Naturally Mr. Midshipman Wbitbread was one of them. And Whitbread had done it before.
Now he waited in the taxi. He watched the hangar doors unfolding through his polarized plastic faceplate.
He had done this before. The Motie miner hadn't killed him, had she? The black rippled. Sudden stars showed through a gap in the Langston Field.
"That's big enough," Cargill's voice said in his right ear. "You may launch, Mr. Whitbread. On your way-and Godspeed."
Whitbread fired thruster clusters. The taxi rose, floated through the opening into starry space and the distant glare of Murcheson's Eye. Behind him the Langston Field closed. Whitbread was sealed outside.
MacArthur was a sharply bounded region of supernatural blackness. Whitbread circled it at leisure. The Mote flashed bright over the black rim, followed by the alien ship.
Whitbread took his time. The ship grew slowly. Its core was as slender as a spear. Functional marking showed along its sides: hatch covers; instrument ports, antennae, no way to tell. A single black square fin jutted from near the midpoint: possibly a radiator surface.
Within the broad translucent doughnuts that circled the fore end he could see moving shapes. They showed clearly enough to arouse horror: vaguely human shadows twisted out of true.
Four toroids, and shadows within them all. Whitbread reported, "They're using all their fuel tanks for living space. They can't expect to get home without our help."
The Captain's voice: "You're sure?"
"Yes, sir. There could be an inboard tank, but it wouldn't be very large."
He had nearly reached the alien craft. Whitbread slowed to a smooth stop just alongside the inhabited fuel tanks. He opened his air-lock door.
A door opened immediately near the fore end of the metal core. A Motie stood in the oval opening; it wore a transparent envelope. The alien waited.
Whitbread said, "Permission to leave the -- "
"Granted. Report whenever convenient. Otherwise, use your own judgment. The Marines are standing by, Whitbread, so don't yell for help unless you mean it. They'll come fast. Now good luck."
As Cargill's voice faded, the Captain came on again. "Don't take any serious risks, Whitbread. Remember, we want you back to report."
"Aye aye, sir."
The Motie stepped gracefully out of his way as Whitbread approached the air lock. It left the Motie standing comically on vacuum, its big left hand gripping a ring that jutted out from the hull. "There's stuff poking out all over," Whitbread said into his mike. "This thing couldn't have been launched from inside an atmosphere."
He stopped himself in the oval opening and nodded at the gently smiling alien. He was only half sardonic as he asked formally, "Permission to come aboard?"
The alien bowed from the waist-or perhaps it was an exaggerated nod? The joint in its back was below the shoulders. It gestured toward the ship with the two right arms.
The air lock was Motie-sized, cramped. Whitbread found three recessed buttons in a web of silver streamers. Circuitry. The Motie watched his hesitation, then reached past him to push first one, then another.
The lock closed behind him.
The Mediator stood on emptiness, waiting for the lock to cycle. She wondered at the intruder's queer structure, the symmetry and the odd articulation of its bones. Clearly the thing was not related to known life. And its home ship had appeared in what the Mediator thought of as the Crazy Eddie point.
She was far more puzzled at its failure to work out the lock circuitry without help.
It must be here in the capacity of a Mediator. It had to be intelligent. Didn't it? Or would they send an animal first? No, certainly not. They couldn't be that alien; it would be a deadly insult in any culture.
The lock opened. She stepped in and set it cycling. The intruder was waiting in the corridor, filling it like a cork in a bottle. The Mediator took time to strip off her pressure envelope, leaving her naked. Alien as it was, the thing might easily assume she was a Warrior. She must convince the creature that she was unarmed.
She led the way toward the roomier inflated sections. The big, clumsy creature had trouble moving. it did not adapt well to free fall. It stopped to peer through window panels into sections of the ship, and examined mechanism the Browns had installed in the corridor...why would an intelligent being do that?
The Mediator would have liked to tow the creature, but it might take that as an attack. She must avoid that at all costs.
For the present, she would treat it as a Master.
There was an acceleration chamber: twenty-six twisted bunks stacked in three columns, all similar in appearance to Crawford's transformed bunk; yet they were not quit identical, either. The Motie moved ahead of him, graceful as a dolphin. Its short pelt was a random pattern curved brown and white stripes, punctuated by fot patches of thick white fur at the groin and armpits. Whibread found it beautiful. Now it had stopped to wait for him-impatiently, Whitbread thought.
He tried not to think about how thoroughly he was trapped. The corridor was unlighted and claustrophobically narrow. He looked into a line of tanks connected by pumps, possibly a cooling system for hydrogen fuel. It would connect to that single black fin outside.
Light flashed on the Motie.
It was a big opening, big enough even for Whitbread. Beyond: dim sunlight, like the light beneath a thunderstorm. Whitbread followed the Motie into what had to be one of the toroids. He was immediately surrounded by aliens.
They were all identical. That seemingly random pattern of brown and white was repeated on every one of them. At least a dozen smiling lopsided faces ringed him at a polite distance. They chattered to each other in quick squeaky voices.
The chattering stopped suddenly. One of the Moties approached Whitbread and spoke several short sentences that might have been in different languages, though to Whitbread they were all meaningless.
Whitbread shrugged, theatrically, palms forward.
The Motie repeated the gesture, instantly, with incredible accuracy. Whitbread cracked up. He sprawled helplessly in free fall, arms folded around his middle, cackling like a chicken.
Blaine spoke in his ear, his voice sober and metallic. "All right, Whitbread, everyone else is laughing too. The question is -- "
"Oh, no! Sir, am I on the intercom again?"
"The question is, what do the Moties think you're doing?"
"Yessir. It was the third arm that did it." Whitbread had sobered. "It's time for my strip-tease act, Captain. Please take me off that intercom...
The telltale at his chin was yellow, of course. Slow poison; but this time he wasn't going to breath it. He took a deep breath, undogged, and lifted his helmet. Still holding his breath, he took SCUBA gear from an outside patch of his suit and fitted the mouthpiece between his teeth. H turned on the air; it worked fine.
Leisurely he began to strip. First came the baggy coverall that contained the suit electronics and support gear. Then he unsnapped the cover, strips that shielded the zippers, and opened the tight fabric of the pressure suit itself. The zippers ran along each limb and up the chest; without them it would take hours to get in and out of suit, which looked like a body stocking or a leotard. The elastic fibers conformed to every curve of his musculature as they had to, to keep him from exploding in vacuum with their support, his own skin was in a sense his pressure suit, and his sweat glands were the temperature regulating system.
The tanks floated free in front of him as he struggled out of the suit. The Moties moved slowly, and one Brown, no stripes, identical to the miner aboard Mac Arthur came over to help.
He used the all-purpose goop in his tool kit to stick his helmet to the translucent plastic wall. Surprisingly it did not work. The brown Motie recognized his difficulty instantly. He (she, it) produced a tube of something and dabbed it on Whitbread's helmet; now it stuck. Jonathon faced the camera toward him, and stuck the rest of his suit next to it.
Humans would have aligned themselves with their head at the same end, as if they must define an up direction before they could talk comfortably. The Moties were at all angles. They clearly didn't give a damn. They waited, smiling.
Whitbread wriggled the rest of the way out of his suit until he wore nothing at all.
The Moties moved in to examine him.
The Brown was startling among all the brown-and white patterns. It was shorter than the others, with slightly bigger hands and an odd look to the head, as far as Whitbread could tell, it was identical to the miner. The others looked like the dead one in the Motie light-sail probe.
The brown one was examining his suit, and seemed to be doing things to the tool kit; but the others were prodding at him, seeking the musculature and articulations of his body, looking for places where prodding would produce reflex twitching and jumping.
Two examined his teeth, which were clenched. Others traced his bones with their fingers: his ribs, his spine, the shape of his head, his pelvis, the bones of his feet. They palpated his hands and moved the fingers in ways they were not meant to go. Although they were gentle enough, it was all thoroughly unpleasant.
The chattering rose to a crescendo. Some of the sounds were so shrill they were nearly inaudible shrieks and whistles, but behind them were melodious mid-range tones. One phrase seemed to be repeated constantly in high tenor. Then they were all behind him, showing each other his spine. They were very excited about Whitbread's spine. A Motie signaled him by catching his eye and then hunching back and forth. The joints jutted as if its back were broken in two places. Whitbread felt queasy watching it, but he got the idea. He curled into fetal position, straightened, then curled up again. A dozen small alien hands probed his back.
Presently they backed away. One approached and seemed to invite Whitbread to explore his (her, its) anatomy. Whitbread shook his head and deliberately looked away. That was for the scientists.
He received his helmet and spoke into the mike~ "Ready to report, sir. I'm not sure what to do next. Shall I try to get of them to come back to MacArthur with me?"
Captain Blaine's voice sounded strained "Definitely not. Can you get outside their ship?"
"Yes, sir, if I have to."
"We'd rather you did. Report on a secure line, Whitbread."
"Uh-yes, sir." Jonathon signaled the Moties, pointed to his helmet and then to the air lock. The one who had been conducting him around nodded. He climbed back into his suit with help from the brown Motie, dogged the fastenings and attached his helmet. A Brown-and-white led him to the air lock.
There was no convenient place outside to attach the safety line, but after a glance his Motie escort glued hook onto the ship's surface. It did not look substantial, that hook. Jonathon worried about it briefly. Then frowned. Where was the ring the Motie had held when Whitbread first approached? It was gone. Why?
Oh, well. MacArthur was close. If the hook broke they would come get him. Gingerly he pushed away from the Motie ship until he hung in empty space. He used helmet sights to line up exactly with the antenna protruding from MacArthur's totally black surface. Then touched the SECURITY stud with his tongue.
A thin beam of coherent light stabbed out from his helmet. Another came in from MacArthur, following his own into a tiny receptacle set into the helmet. A ring around that receptacle stayed in darkness; if there we any spillover the tracking system on MacArthur would correct it or, if the spill touched still a third ring around Whitbread's receiving antenna, cut off communication entirely.
"Secure, sir," he reported. He let an irritated but puzzled note creep into his voice. After all, he thought, I'm entitled to a little expression of opinion. Aren't I?"
Blaine answered immediately. "Mr. Whitbread, the reason for, this security is not merely to make you uncomfortable. The Moties do not understand our language now, but they can make recordings; and later they will understand Anglic. Do you follow me?"
"Why-yes sir." Ye gods, the Old Man was really thinking ahead.
"Now, Mr. Whitbread, we cannot allow any Motie aboard MacArthur until we have disposed of the problem of the miniatures, and we will do nothing to let the Moties know we have such a problem. Is that understood?"
"Yes, sir."
"Excellent. I'm sending a boatload of scientists your way-now that you've broken the ground, so to speak. By the way, well done. Before I send the others, have you further comments?".
"Um. Yes, sir. First, there are two children aboard. I saw them clinging to the backs of adults. They're bigger than miniatures, and colored like the adults."
"More evidence of peaceful intent," Blaine said. "What else?"
"Well, I didn't get a chance to count them, but it looks like twenty-three Brown-and-whites and two brown asteroid-miner types. Both of the children were with the Browns. I've been wondering why."
"Eventually we'll be able to ask them. All right, Whitbread, we'll send over the scientists. They'll have the cutter. Renner, you on?"
"Yes, sir."
"Work out a course. I want MacArthur fifty kilometers from the Motie ship. I don't know what the Moties will do when we move, but the cutter'll be over there first."
"You're moving the ship, sir?" Renner asked incredulously. Whitbread wanted to cheer but restrained himself
"Yes."
Nobody said anything for a long moment.
"AU right," Blaine capitulated. "I'll explain. The Admiral is very concerned about the miniatures. He thinks they might be able to talk about the ship. We've orders to see that the escaped miniatures have no chance to communicate with an adult Motie, and one klick is just a bit close."
There was more silence.
"That's all, gentlemen. Thank you, Mr. Whitbread," Rod said. "Mr. Staley, inform Dr. Hardy that he can get aboard the cutter any time."
"Well, you're on," Chaplain Hardy thought to himself. He was a round, vague man, with dreamy eyes and red hair just beginning to turn gray. Except for conducting the Sunday worship services he had deliberately stayed in his cabin during most of the expedition.
David Hardy was not unfriendly. Anyone could come to his cabin for coffee, a drink, a game of chess, or a long talk, and many did. He merely disliked people in large numbers. He could not get to know them in a crowd.
He also retained his professional inclination not to discuss his work with amateurs and not to publish results until enough evidence was in. That, he told himself, would be impossible now. And what were the aliens? Certain they were intelligent. Certainly they were sentient. And certainly they had a place in the divine scheme of the universe. But what?
Crewmen moved Hardy's equipment aboard the cutter. A tape library, several stacks of children's books, reference works (not many; the cutter's computer would be able draw on the ship's library; but David still liked books, impractical as they were). There was other equipment: two display screens with sound transducers, pitch reference electronic filters to shape speech sounds, raise or low pitch, change timbre and phase. He had tried to stow the gear himself, but First Lieutenant Cargill had talked him out of it. Marines were expert at the task, and Hardy's worries about damage were nothing compared to theirs; if anything broke they'd have Kelley to contend with.
Hardy met Sally in the air lock. She was not traveling light either. Left to herself, she'd have taken everything, even the bones and mummies from the Stone Beehive; but the Captain would only allow her holographs, and even those were hidden until she could learn the Moties attitude toward grave robbers. From Cargill's description of the Beehive, the Moties had no burial customs, but that was absurd. Everyone had burial customs, even the most primitive humans.
She could not take the Motie miner, either, or the remaining miniature, which had become female again. And the ferrets and Marines were searching for the other miniature and the pup (and why had it run away with the other miniature, not its mother?). She wondered if the fuss she had made about Rod's orders to the Marines might be responsible for the ease with which she won her place on the cutter. She knew she wasn't really being fair to Rod. He had his orders from the Admiral. But it was wrong. The miniatures weren't going to hurt anyone. It took a paranoid to fear them.
She followed Chaplain Hardy into the cutter's lounge. Dr. Horvath was already there. The three of them would be the first scientists aboard the alien ship, and she felt a surge of excitement. There was so much to learn!
An anthropologist-she thought of herself as fully qualified now,, and certainly ,there was no one to dispute it-a linguist, and Horvath, who had been a competent physicist before going into administration. Horvath was the only useless one in the group, but with his rank he was entitled to the seat if he demanded it. She did not think the same description applied to herself, although half the scientists aboard MacArthur did.
Three scientists, a coxswain, two able spacers, and Jonathon Whitbread. No Marines, and no weapons aboard. Almost, the excitement was enough to cover the fear that welled up from somewhere in her insides. They had to be unarmed, of course; but she would have felt better, all the same, if Rod Blaine had been aboard. And that was impossible.
Later there would be more people on the cutter. Buckman with a million questions once Hardy cracked the communications problem. The biologists would come in force. A Navy officer, probably Crawford, to study the Motie weapons. An engineering officer. Anyone, but not the Captain. It was unlikely that Kutuzov would allow Rod Blaine to leave his ship no matter how peaceful they might find the Moties.
She was suddenly homesick. On Sparta she had a home, Charing Close, and within minutes was the Capital. Sparta was the center of civilization-but she seemed to be living in a series of space craft of diminishing sizes, with the prison camp thrown in for variety. When she graduated from the university she had made a decision: she would be a person, not an ornament to some man's career. Right now, though, there was much to be said for being an ornament, especially for the right man, only- No. She must be her own woman.
There was a crash couch and a curved instrument board at one end of the cutter's lounge. It was the fire-control bridge-some lounge! But there were also couches and recessed tables for games and dining.
"Have you been through this boat?" Horvath was asking her.
"I beg your pardon?" Sally answered.
"I said, 'Have you been through this boat?' It has gun emplacements all over it. They took out the works, but they left enough to show there were guns. Same with the torpedoes. They're gone, but the launch ports are still there. What kind of embassy ship is this?"
Hardy looked up from a private reverie. "What would you have done in the Captain's place?"
"I'd have used an unarmed boat."
"There aren't any," Hardy replied softly. "None you could live on, as you'd know if you spent any time on hangar deck." Chapel was held on hangar deck, and Horvath had not attended. That was his business, but no harm in reminding him.
"But it's so obviously a disarmed warship!"
Hardy nodded. "The Moties were bound to discover our terrible secret sooner or later. We are a warlike species. Anthony. It's part of our nature. Even so, we arrive in a complete disarmed fighting vessel. Don't you think that's a significant message for the Moties?"
"But this is so important to the Empire!"
David Hardy nodded assent. The Science Minister was right, although the Chaplain suspected he had the wrong reasons.
There was a slight lurch, and the cutter was on her way. Rod watched on the bridge screens and felt helpless frustration. From the moment the cutter came alongside the Motie vessel, one of Crawford's batteries would be locked onto her-and Sally Fowler was aboard the frail, disarmed ship.
The original plan had the Moties coming aboard MacArthur, but until the miniatures were found that was impossible. Rod was glad that his ship would not be host to the aliens. I'm learning to think paranoid, he told himself. Like the Admiral.
Meanwhile, there was no sign of the miniatures, Sally wasn't speaking to him, and everyone else was edgy.
"Ready to take over, Captain," Renner said. "I relieve you, sir."
"Right. Carry on, Sailing Master."
Acceleration alarms rang, and MacArthur moved smoothly away from the alien vessel-and away from the cutter, and Sally.
Chapter 23 - Eliza Crossing the Ice
Chapter 23 - Eliza Crossing the Ice
During the weeks that followed MacArthur was a bustle of activity. Every scientist worked overtime after each data transmission from the cutter, and every one of them wanted Navy assistance immediately. There was also the problem of the escaped miniatures, but this had settled to a game, with MacArthur losing. In the mess room it was even money that they were both dead, but no bodies were found. It worried Rod Blaine, but there was nothing he could do.
He also allowed the Marines to stand watches in normal uniform. There were no threats to the cutter, and it was ridiculous to keep a dozen men uncomfortable in battle armor. Instead he doubled the watch keeping surveillance around MacArthur, but no one-or no thing-tried to approach, escape, or send messages. Meanwhile the biologists went wild over clues to Motie psychology and physiology, the astronomy section continued to map Mote Prime, Buckman dithered whenever anyone else used the astronomical gear, and Blaine tried to keep his overcrowded ship' running smoothly. His appreciation of Horvath grew every time he had to mediate a dispute between scientists.
There was more activity aboard the cutter. Commander Sinclair had gone aboard and been immediately taken to the Motie ship. Three days passed before a Brown-and-white began following Sinclair around, and it was a peculiarly quiet Motie. It did seem interested in the cutter's machinery, unlike the others who had assigned themselves to a human. Sinclair and his Fyunch(click) spent long hours aboard the alien ship, poking into corners, examining everything.
"The lad was right about the tool room," Sinclair told Blaine during one of his daily reports. "It's like the nonverbal intelligence tests BuPers worked up for new recruits. There are things wrong wi' some o' the tools, and 'tis my task to put them right."
"Wrong how?"
Sinclair chuckled, remembering. He had some difficulty explaining the joke to Blaine. The hammer with the big, flat head would hit a thumb every time. It needed to be trimmed. The laser heated too fast...and that was a tricky one. It had generated the wrong frequency of light. Sinclair fixed it by doubling the frequency-somehow. He also learned more about compact lasers than he'd ever known before. There were other tests like that. "They're good, Captain. It took ingenuity to come up wi' some of the testing gadgets wi'out giving away more than they did. But they canna keep me from learning about their ship...Captain, I already ken enough to redesign the ship's boats to be more efficient. Or make millions o' crowns designing miner ships."
"Retiring when we go back, Sandy?" Rod asked; but he grinned widely to show he didn't mean it.
In the second week, Rod Blaine also acquired a Fyunch(click).
He was both dismayed and flattered. The Motie looked like all the others: brown-and-white markings, a gentle smile in a lopsided face just high enough above the deck that Rod could have patted her on the head-if he'd ever seen the Motie face to face, which he never would.
Each time he called the cutter she was there, always eager to see Blaine and talk to him. Each time he called, her Anglic was better. They would exchange a few words, and that was that. He didn't have time for a Fyunch(click), or a need for one either. Learning Motie language wasn't his job-from the progress made, it wasn't anyone's job- and he only saw her through a phone link. What use was a guide he would never meet?
"They seem to think you're important," was Hardy's dead-pan answer.
It was something to think about while he presided over his madhouse of a ship. And the alien didn't complain at all.
The month's flurry of activity hardly affected Horace Bury. He received no news at all from the cutter, and had nothing to contribute to the scientific work on the ship. Alert to rumors, which were always helpful, he waited for news to filter down through the grapevine; but not very much did. Communications with the cutter seemed to stop with the bridge, and he had no real friends among the scientists other than Buckman. Blaine had given up putting everything on the intercom. For the first time since he left New Chicago, Bury felt imprisoned.
It bothered him more than it should have, although he was introspective enough to know why. All his life he had tried to control his environment as far as he could reach: around a world, across light years of space and decades of time-or throughout a Navy battle cruiser. The crew treated him as a guest, but not as a master; and anywhere he was not master, he was a prisoner.
He was losing money, too. Somewhere in the restricted sections of MacArthur, beyond the reach of all but the highest-ranking scientists, physicists were studying the golden stuff from the Stone Beehive. It took weeks of effort to pick up the rumor that it was a superconductor of heat.
That would be priceless stuff, and he knew he must obtain a sample. He even knew how it might be done, but forced himself to idleness. Not yet! The time to steal his sample would be just before MacArthur docked in New Scotland. Ships would be waiting there despite the cost, not only a ship openly acknowledging him as owner, but at least one other. Meanwhile, listen, find out, know what else he should have when he left MacArthur.
He had several reports on the Stone Beehive to crosscheck against each other. He even tried to gain information from Buckman; but the results were more amusing than profitable.
"Oh, forget the Stone Beehive," Buckman had exclaimed. "It was moved into place. It's no damned use at all. The Beehive's got nothing to do with the formation of the Trojan point clusters, and the Moties have messed up the internal structure to the point where you can't tell anything about the original rock..."
So. The Moties could and did make superconductors of heat. And there were always the little Moties. He enjoyed the search for the escaped miniatures. Naturally most of the Navy personnel were silently rooting for the underdog, the fleeing miniature and the child, Eliza crossing the ice. And the miniature was winning. Food disappeared from odd places: staterooms, lounges, everywhere but the kitchen itself. The ferrets could find no scent. How could the miniatures have made truce with the ferrets? Bury wondered. Certainly the aliens were...alien, yet the ferrets had had no trouble scenting them the first night.
Bury enjoyed the hunt, but...He took the lesson: a miniature was harder to catch than to keep. If he expected to sell many as pets he had better sell them in foolproof cages. Then there was the matter of acquiring a breeding pair. The longer the miniatures remained free, the less grew Bury's chances of persuading the Navy that they were harmless, friendly pets.
But it was fun seeing the Navy look foolish. Bury rooted for both sides, and practiced patience; and the weeks went on.
While six Fyunch(click)s bunked aboard the cutter, the rest of the Moties worked. The interior of the alien ship changed like dreams; it was different every time anyone went aboard. Sinclair and Whitbread made a point of touring it periodically to see that no weapons were built; perhaps they would have known and perhaps not.
One day Hardy and Horvath stopped by the Captain's watch cabin after an hour in MacArthur's exercise rooms.
"The Moties have a fuel tank coming," Horvath told Rod. "It was launched at about the same time as their own ship, by linear accelerator, but in a fuel-saving orbit. It should arrive in two weeks."
"So that's what it is." Blaine and his officers had worried about that silent object coasting at leisure toward their position.
"You knew about it? You might have mentioned it to us.'
"They'll need to retrieve it," Blaine speculated. "Hmm. I wonder if one of my boats might get it for them. Would they let us do that?"
"I see no reason why not. We'll ask," said David Hardy. "One more thing, Captain."
Rod knew something tricky was coming. Horvath had Dr. Hardy ask for all the things Rod might refuse.
"The Moties want to build an air-lock bridge between the cutter and the embassy ship," Hardy finished.
"It's only a temporary structure and we need it." Horvath paused. "It's only a hypothesis, you understand, but, Captain, we now think that every structure is only temporary to them. They must have had high-gee couches at takeoff, but they're gone now. They arrived with no fuel to take them home. They almost certainly redesigned their life-support system for free fall in the three hours following their arrival."
"'And this too shall pass away,'" Hardy added helpfully. "But the idea doesn't bother them. They seem to like it."
"It's a major departure from human psychology," Horvath said earnestly. "Perhaps a Motie would never try to design anything permanent at all. There will be no sphinx, no pyramids, no Washington Monument, no Lenin's Tomb."
"Doctor, I don't like the idea of joining the two ships."
"But, Captain, we need something like this. People and Moties are constantly passing back and forth, and they have to use the taxi every time. Besides, the Moties have already started work -- "
"May I point out that if they join those two ships, you and everyone aboard will thenceforth be hostage to the Moties' good will?"
Horvath was ruffled. "I'm sure the aliens can be trusted, Captain. We're making very good progress with them."
"Besides," Chaplain Hardy added equably, "we're hostage now. There was never a way to avoid the situation. MacArthur and Lenin are our protection, if we need protection. If two battleships don't scare them-well, we knew the situation when we boarded the cutter."
Blaine ground his teeth. If the cutter was expendable, the cutter's personnel were not. Sinclair, Sally Fowler, Dr. Horvath, the Chaplain-MacArthur's most valuable people were living aboard the cutter. Yet the Chaplain was clearly right. They were all subject to murder at any moment, save for the risk of MacArthur's vengeance.
"Tell them to go ahead," Rod said. The air-lock bridge would not increase the danger at all.
The lock was begun as soon as Rod gave permission. A tube of thin metal, flexibly jointed, jutting from the hull of the Motie ship, it snaked toward them like a living creature. Moties swarmed around it in fragile-seeming suits. As seen from the cutter's main port, they might almost have been men-almost.
Sally's eyes blurred as she watched. The lighting was strange-dim Mote light and space-black shadows, and occasional flares of artificial light, everything reflected from the bright, curved metal surface. The perspective was all wrong, and it gave her a headache.
"I keep wondering, where they're getting the metal," said Whitbread. He sat near her, as he usually did when they were both between jobs. "There wasn't any spare mass aboard the ship, not the first time I went through it and not now. They must be tearing their ship apart."
"That would fit," said Horvath.
They had gathered around the main window after dinner, with tea and coffee bulbs in their hands. The Moties had become tea and chocolate fanciers; they could not stomach coffee. Human, Motie, human, Motie, they circled the window on the horseshoe-shaped free-fall bench. The Fyunch(click)s had learned the human trick of aligning themselves all in the same direction.
"Look how fast they work," Sally said. "The bridge seems to grow before your very eyes." Again her eyes tried to cross. It was as if many of the Moties were working farther back, well behind the others. "The one marked with the orange strips must be a Brown. She seems to be in charge, don't you think?"
"She's also doing most of the work," said Sinclair. "That makes an odd kind of sense," said Hardy. "If she knows enough to give the orders, she must be able to do the work better than any of the others, too, wouldn't you think?" He rubbed his eyes. "Am I out of my mind, or are some of those Moties smaller than others?"
"It does look that way," said Sally.
Whitbread stared at the bridge builders. Many of the Moties seemed to be working a long way behind the embassy ship-until three of them passed in front of it Carefully he said, "Has anyone tried watching this through the scope? Lafferty, get it on for us, will you?"
In the telescope screen it was shockingly clear. Some of the Motie workmen were tiny, small enough to crawl into any crevice. And they had four arms each.
"Do-do you often use those creatures as workmen?, Sally asked her Fyunch(click).
"Yes. We find them very useful. Are there not-equal creatures in your ships?" The alien seemed surprised. Of all the Moties, Sally's gave the impression of being most often surprised at the humans. "Do you think Rod will be worried?"
"But what are they?" Sally demanded. She ignored the question the Motie had asked.
"They are-workers," the Motie answered. "Useful animals. You are surprised because they are small? Yours are large, then?"
"Uh, yes," Sally answered absently. She looked to the others. "I think I'd like to go see these-animals -- close up. Anyone want to come along?" But Whitbread was already getting into his suit, and so were the others.
"Fyunch(click)," said the alien.
"God Almighty!" Blaine exploded. "Have they got you answering-the phones now?"
The alien spoke slowly, with care for enunciation. Her grammar was not perfect, but her grasp of idiom and inflection was freshly amazing every time she spoke. "Why not? I talk well enough. I can remember a message. I can use the recorder. I have little to do when you are not available."
"I can't help that."
"I know." With a touch of complacence the alien added, "I startled a rating."
"God's teeth, you startled me. Who's around?"
"Coxswain Lafferty. All the other humans are absent."
They have gone to look at the tunnel. When it is finished the ratings will not have to go with them when they wish to visit the other ship. Can I pass on a message?"
"No, thanks, I'll call back."
"Sally should be back soon," said Blaine's Motie. "How are you? How goes the ship?"
"Well enough."
"You always sound so cautious when you speak of the ship. Am I stepping on Navy secrets? It-is not the ship that concerns me, Rod. I'm Fyunch(click) to you. It means considerably more than just guide." The Motie gestured oddly. Rod had' seen her do that before, when she was upset or annoyed.
"Just what does Fyunch(click) mean?"
"I am assigned to you. You are a project, a masterwork. I am to learn as much about you as there is to know. I am to become an expert on you, My Lord Roderick Blaine, and you are to become a field of study to me. It-is not your gigantic, rigid, badly designed ship that interest-ss me, it-ss your attitudes toward that ship and the humans aboard, your degree of control over them, your interess-t in their welfare, et cetera."
How would Kutuzov handle this? Break contact? Hell. "Nobody likes being watched. Anyone would feel a bit uncomfortable being studied like that."
"We guessed you would take it that way. But, Rod, you're here to study us, are-unt you? Surely we are, entitled to study you back."
"You have that right." Rod's voice was stiff despite himself. "But if someone becomes embarrassed while you're talking to him, that's probably the reason."
"God damn it to hell," said Blaine's Motie. "You are the first intelligent beings we've ever met who are-unt relatives. Why should you expect to be comfortable with us?" She rubbed the flat center of her face 'with her upper right forefinger, then dropped her hand as if embarrassed. It was the same gesture she'd used a moment before.
There were noises off screen. Blaine's Motie said, "Hang on a moment. Okay, it-ss Sally and Whitbread." Her voice rose. "Sally? The Captain's on screen." She slid out of the chair. Sally Fowler slid in. Her smile seemed forced as she said, "Hello, Captain. What's new?"
"Business as usual. How goes it at your end?"
"Rod, you look flustered. It's a strange experience, isn't it? Don't worry, she can't hear us now."
"Good. I'm not sure I like an alien reading my mind that way. I don't suppose they really read minds."
"They say not. And they guess wrong sometimes." She ran a hand through her hair, which was in disarray, perhaps because she had just doffed a pressure suit helmet. "Wildly wrong. Commander Sinclair's Fyunch(dick) wouldn't talk to him at first. They thought he was a Brown; you know, an idiot carpenter type. How are you doing with the miniatures?"
That was a subject they'd both learned to avoid. Rod wondered why she'd brought it up. "The loose ones are still loose. No sign of them. They might even have died somewhere we wouldn't find them. We've still got the one that stayed behind. I think you'd better have a look at her, Sally, next time you're over. She may be sick."
Sally nodded. "I'll come over tomorrow. Rod, have you been watching the alien work party?"
"Not particularly. The air lock seems almost finished already."
"Yes...Rod, they've been using trained miniatures to do part of the work."
Rod stared stupidly.
Sally's eyes shifted uneasily. "Trained miniatures. In pressure suits. We didn't know there were any aboard. I suppose they must be shy; they must hide when humans are aboard. But they're only animals, after all. We asked."
"Animals." Oh my God. What would Kutuzov say?
"Sally, this is important. Can you come over tonight and brief me? You and anyone else who knows anything about this."
"All right. Commander Sinclair is watching them now. Rod, it's really fantastic how well the little beasts are trained. And they can get into places where you'd have to use jointed tools and spy eyes."
"I can imagine. Sally, tell me the truth. Is there the slightest chance the miniatures are intelligent?"
"No. They're just trained."
"Just trained." And if there were any alive aboard MacArthur they'd have explored the ship from stem to stern. "Sally, is there the slightest chance that any of the aliens can hear me now?"
"No. I'm using the earphone, and we haven't allowed them to work on our equipment."
"So far as you know. Now listen carefully, then I want to talk privately to everyone else on that cutter, one at a time. Has anyone said anything-anything at all-about there being miniatures loose aboard MacArthur?"
"No-oo. You told us not to, remember? Rod, what's wrong?"
What's wrong? "For God's sake, don't say anything about the loose miniatures. I'll tell the others as you put them on. And I want to see all of you, everyone except the cutter's regular crew, tonight. It's time we pooled our knowledge about Moties, because I'm going to have to report to the Admiral tomorrow morning." He looked almost pale. "I guess I can wait that long."
"Well, of course you can," she said. She smiled enchantingly, but it didn't come off very well. She didn't think she'd ever seen Rod so concerned, and it upset her. "We'll be over in an hour. Now here's Mr. Whitbread, and please, Rod, stop worrying."
Chapter 25 - The Captain's Motie
Chapter 25 - The Captain's Motie
"I appreciate your concern for the safety of the Empire, Admiral," Horvath said. He nodded sagely at the glowering figure on MacArthur's bridge screen. "Indeed I do. The fact remains, however, that we either accept the Moties' invitation or we might as well go home. There's nothing more to learn out here."
"You, Blaine. You agree with that?" Admiral Kutuzov's expression was unchanged.
Rod shrugged. "Sir, I have to take the advice of the scientists. They say that we've got about all we're going to get from this distance."
"You want to take MacArthur into orbit around the Mote planet, then? That is what you recommend? For the record?"
"Yes, sir. Either that or go home, and I don't think we know enough about the Moties simply to leave."
Kutuzov took a long, slow breath. His lips tightened.
"Admiral, you have your job, I have mine," Horvath reminded him. "It's all very well to protect the Empire against whatever improbable threat the Moties pose, but I must exploit what we can learn from Motie science and technology. That, I assure you, isn't trivial. They're so far advanced, in some respects that I-well, I haven't any words to describe it, that's all."
"Exactly." Kutuzov emphasized the word by pounding the arm of the command chair with his closed fists. "They have technology, beyond ours. They speak our language and you say we will never speak theirs. They know the Alderson effect, and now they know Langston Fields exist. Perhaps, Dr. Horvath, we should go home. Now."
"But -- " Horvath began.
"And yet," Kutuzov continued. "I would not like to fight war with these Moties without knowing more about them. What are planetary defense? Who governs Moties? I notice for all your work you cannot answer that question. You do not even know who is commanding that ship of theirs."
"True." Horvath nodded vigorously. "It's a very strange situation. Sometimes I honestly think they don't have a commander, but on the other hand they do seem to refer back to their ship for instructions sometimes...and then
There's the sex matter."
"You play games with me, Doctor?"
"No, no," Horvath said with irritation. "It's quite straightforward. All of the Brown-and-whites have been female' since their arrival. In addition, the brown female has become pregnant and has given birth to a brown-and-white pup. Now it's a male."
"I know of sex changes in aliens. Perhaps one Brown-and-white was male until shortly before embassy ship arrived?"
"We thought of that. But it seems more likely that the Brown-and-whites haven't been breeding because of population pressure. They all stay female-they may even be mules, since a Brown is mother of one. Crossbreed between the Brown and something else? That would point to a something else aboard the embassy ship."
"They got an admiral aboard their ship," Kutuzov said positively. "Just as we do. I knew it. What do you tell them when they ask of me?"
Rod heard a snort behind him and guessed that Kevin Renner was strangling. "As little as possible, sir," Rod said. "Only that we're subject to Orders from Lenin. I don't think they know your name, or if there's one man or a council aboard."
"Just so." The Admiral almost smiled. "Just what you know about their command, da? You watch, they got an admiral aboard that ship, and he's decided he wants you closer to their planet. Now my problem is, do I learn more by letting you go than he learns by getting you there?"
Horvath turned away from the screen and sent a pleading look to Heaven, Its Wonders, and All the Saints. How could he deal with a man like that, the look asked.
"Any sign of little Moties?" Kutuzov asked. "Have you still Brownies aboard His Imperial Majesty's General Class battle cruiser MacArthur?"
Rod shuddered at the heavy sarcasm. "No, sir. I've evacuated the hangar deck and opened everything in it space. Then I put all MacArthur's passengers and crew into hangar deck and opened up the ship. We fumigated the plant rooms with ciphogene, poured carbon monoxide through all the vents, opened to space again, and after we came back from hangar deck we did the same thing there. The miniatures are dead, Admiral. We have the bodies. Twenty-four of them, to be exact, although we didn't find one of them until yesterday. It was pretty ripe after three weeks..."
"And there are no signs of Brownies? Or of mice?"
"No, sir. Rats, mice, and Moties-all dead. The other miniature, the one we had caged-it's dead too, sir. The vet thinks it was old age."
Kutuzov nodded. "So that problem is solved. What adult alien you have aboard?"
"It's sick," Blaine said. "Same symptoms as the miniature had."
"Yes, that's another thing," Horvath said quickly. I want to ask the Moties what to do for the sick miner, but Blaine won't let me without your permission."
The Admiral reached somewhere off screen. When he faced them again he held a glass of tea, which he blew on noisily. "The others know you have this miner aboard?"
"Yes," Horvath said. When Kutuzov glared, the Science Minister continued quickly, "They seem to have always known it. None of us told them, I'm sure of that."
"So they know. Have they asked for the miner? Or to see it?"
"No." Horvath frowned deeply again. His voice was incredulous. "No, they haven't. In fact, they haven't shown the least concern about the miner; no more than they might have for the miniatures-you'll have seen the pictures of the Moties evacuating their ship, Admiral? They have to kill off the little beasts too. The things must breed like hive rats." Horvath paused, his brow wrinkled even more deeply. Then, abruptly, "Anyway, I want to ask the others what to do for the sick miner. We can't just let it die."
"That might be best for all," Kutuzov mused. "Oh, very well, Doctor. Ask them. It is hardly admitting anything important about Empire to tell them we do not know proper diet for Moties. But if you ask and they insist on seeing that miner, Blaine, you will refuse. If necessary, miner will die-tragically and suddenly, by accident, but die. Is that clearly understood? It will not talk to other Moties, not now and not ever."
"Aye aye, sir." Rod sat impassively in his command chair. Now, do I agree with that? he thought. I should be shocked, but-
"Do you still wish to ask under those circumstances, Doctor?" Kutuzov asked.
"Yes. I expected nothing else from you anyway." Horvath's lips were pressed tightly against his teeth. "We now have the main question: the Moties have invited us to take orbit around their planet. Why they- have done so is a matter for interpretation. I think it is because they genuinely want to develop trade and diplomatic relations with us, and this is the logical way we should go about it. There is no evidence for any other view. You, of course, have your own theories..."
Kutuzov laughed. It was a deep, hearty laugh. "Actually, Doctor, I may believe same as you. What has that to do with anything? Is my task to keep Empire safe. What I believe has no importance." The Admiral stared coldly into the screens. "Very well. Captain, I give you discretion to act in this situation. However, you will first arm torpedo-destruct systems for your ship. You understand that MacArthur cannot be allowed to fall into Motie hands?"
"Yes, sir."
"Very well. You may go, Captain. We will follow in Lenin. You will transmit records of all information you obtain every hour-and you understand that if there is threat to your ship, I will not attempt to rescue you if there is any possibility of danger to Lenin? That my first duty is to return with information including, if this is so, how you were killed?" The Admiral turned so that h gazed directly at Horvath. "Well, Doctor, do you still want to go to Mote Prime?"
"Of course."
Kutuzov shrugged. "Carry on, Captain Blaine. Carry on."
MacArthur's towboats had retrieved an oil-drum-shape cylinder half the size of the Motie embassy ship. It was very simple: a hard, thick shell of some foamed material heavy with liquid hydrogen, spinning slowly, with a bleeder valve at the axis. Now it was strapped to the embassy ship aft the toroidal living spaces. The slender spine meant to guide the plasma flow for the fusion drive had beer altered too, bent far to the side to direct the thrust through the new center of mass. The embassy ship was tilted far back on her drive, like a smaller but very pregnant woman trying to walk.
Moties-Brown-and-whites, guided by one of the Browns-were at work disassembling the air-lock bridge melting it down, and reshaping the material into ring shaped support platforms for the fragile toroids. Others worked within the ship, and three small brown-and-white shapes played among them. Again the interior changed like dreams. Free-fall furniture was reshaped. Floors were slanted, vertical to the new line of thrust.
There were no Moties aboard the cutter now; they were all at work; but contact was maintained. Some of the midshipmen took their turns doing simple muscle work aboard the embassy ship.
Whitbread and Potter were working in the acceleration chamber, moving the bunks to leave room for three smaller bunks. It was a simple rewelding job, but it took muscle. Perspiration collected in beads inside their filter helmets, and soaked their armpits.
Potter said, "I wonder what a man smells like to a Motie? Dinna answer if you find the question offensive,' he added.
"'Tis a bit hard to say," Potter's Motie answered. "My duty it is, Mr. Potter, to understand everything about my Fyunch(click). Perhaps I fit the part too well. The smell of clean sweat wouldna offend me even if ye had nae been working in our own interest. What is it ye find funny, Mr. Whitbread?"
"Sorry. It's the accent."
"What accent is that?" Potter wondered.
Whitbread and Whitbread's Motie burst out laughing. "Well, it is funny," said Whitbread's Motie. "You used to have trouble telling us apart."
"Now it's the other way around," Jonathon Whitbread said. "I have to keep counting hands to know if I'm talking to Renner or Renner's Motie. Give me a hand here, will you, Gavin?...And Captain Blaine's Motie. I have to keep shaking myself out of the Attention position, and then she'll say something and I'll snap right back into it. She'll give orders like she's master of the cutter, and we'll obey, and then she'll say, 'Just a minute, Mister, and order us to forgive her. It's confusing."
"Even so," said Whitbread's Motie, "I wonder sometimes whether we've really got you figured out. Just because I can imitate you doesn't mean I can understand you..."
"'Tis our standard technique, as old as the hills, as old as some mountain ranges. It works. What else can we do?" asked Jonathon Whitbread's Fyunch(click).
"I wondered, that's all. These people are so versatile. We can't match all of your abilities, Whitbread. You find it easy to command and easy to obey; how can you do both? You're good with tools -- "
"So are you," said Whitbread, knowing it was an understatement.
"But we tire easily. You're ready to go on working, aren't you? We're not."
"And we aren't good at fighting...Well, enough of that. We play your part in order to understand you, but you each seem to play a thousand parts. It makes things difficult for an honest, hardworking bug-eyed monster."
"Who told you about bug-eyed monsters?" Whitbread exclaimed.
"Mr. Renner, who else? I took it as a compliment- that he would trust my sense of humor, that is."
"Dr. Horvath would kill him. We're supposed to be tippy-toe careful in our relationship with aliens. Don't offend taboos, and all that."
"Dr. Horvath," Potter said. "I am reminded that Dr. Horvath wanted us to ask you something. Ye' know that we have a Brown aboard MacArthur."
"Sure. A miner. Her ship visited MacArthur, then came home empty. It was pretty obvious she'd stayed with you."
"She's sick," Potter said. "She has been growing worse. Dr. Blevins says it has the marks of a dietary disease, but he has nae been able to help her. Hae you any idea what it is that she might lack?"
Whitbread thought he knew why Horvath had not asked his Motie about the Brown; if the Moties demanded to see the miner, they must be refused on orders from the Admiral himself. Dr. Horvath thought the order was stupid; he would never be able to defend it. Whitbread and Potter were not called upon to try. Orders were orders.
When the Moties did not answer at once, Jonathon said, "Between them the biologists have tried a lot of things. New foods, analysis of the Brown's digestive fluids, x-rays for tumor. They even changed the atmosphere in her cabin to match the Mote Prime atmosphere. Nothing works. She's unhappy, she whines, she doesn't move around much. She's getting thin. Her hair is coming out.
Whitbread's Motie spoke in a voice gone oddly flat. "You haven't any idea what might be wrong with her?"
"No," said Whitbread.
It was strange and uncomfortable, the way the Moties were looking at them. They seemed identical now, floating half-crouched, anchored by hand holds: identical pose, identical markings, identical faint smiles. Their individual identities didn't show now. Perhaps it was all a pose- "We'll get you some food," Potter's Motie said suddenly. "You may hae guessed right. It may be her diet."
Both Moties left. Presently Whitbread's Motie returned with a pressure bag that contained grain and plum-sized fruits and a chunk of red meat. "Boil the meat, soak the grain, and give her the fruit raw," she said. "And test the ionization in her cabin air." She ushered them out.
The boys boarded an open scooter to return to the cutter. Presently Potter said, "They behaved verra strangely. I canna but think that something important happened a minute ago."
"Yah."
"Then what was it?"
"Maybe they think we've been mistreating the Brown. Maybe they wonder why we won't bring her here. Maybe the other way around: they're shocked that we take so much trouble for a mere Brown."
"And perhaps they were tired and we imagined it." Potter fired thruster clusters to slow the scooter.
"Gavin. Look behind us."
"Not now. I must see to the safety o' my command." Potter took his time docking the scooter, then looked around.
More than a dozen Moties had been working outside the ship. The bracing for the toroids was conspicuously unfinished...but the Moties were all streaming into the airlock..
The Mediators came streaming into the toroid, bouncing gently from the walls in their haste to get out of each other's way. Most of them showed in one way or another that they were Fyunch(click) to aliens. They tended to underuse their lower right arms. They wanted to line themselves with their heads pointing all in the same direction.
The Master was white. The tufts at her armpits and groin were long and silky, like the fur of an Angora cat. When they were all there, the Master turned to Whitbread's Motie and said, "Speak."
Whitbread's Motie told of the incident with the midshipmen. "I'm certain they meant it all," she concluded.
To Potter's Motie the Master said, "Do you agree?"
"Yes, completely."
There was a panicky undercurrent of whispers, some Motie tongues, some in Anglic. It cut off when the Master said, "What did you tell them?"
"We told them the disease might well be a diet deficiency -- "
There was shocked human-sounding laughter amoung the Mediators, none at all among the few who had not been assigned Fyunch(click)s.
" -- and gave them food for the Engineer. It will not help, of course."
"Were they fooled?"
"Difficult to tell. We are not good at lying directly. It is not our specialty," said Potter's Motie.
A buzz of talk rose in the toroid. The Master allots it for a time. Presently she spoke. "What can it mean? Speak of this."
One answered. "They cannot be so different from us. They fight wars. We have heard hints of whole plan rendered uninhabitable."
Another interrupted. There was something gracefully human-feminine, in the way she moved. It seemed grotesque to the Master. "We think we know what causes humans to fight. Most animals on our world and the have a surrender reflex that prevents one member of a species from killing another. Humans use weapons instinctively. It makes the surrender reflex too slow."
"But it was the same with us, once," said a third. "Evolution of the Mediator mules put an end to that. Do you say that humans do not have Mediators?"
Sally Fowler's Motie said, "They have nothing that bred for the task of communicating and negotiating between potential enemies. They are amateurs at everything, second-best at everything they do. Amateurs do their negotiating. When negotiations break down, they fight.
"They are amateurs at playing Master, too," one said. Nervously she stroked the center of her face. "They take turns at playing Master. In their warships they station Marines between fore and aft, in case the aft section should wish to become masters of the ship. Yet, when Lenin speaks, Captain Blaine obeys like a Brown. It is," she said, "difficult to be Fyunch(click) to a part-time Master."
"Agreed," said Whitbread's Motie. "Mine is not a Master, but will be someday."
Another said, "Our Engineer has found much that needs improvement in their tools. There is now no class to fit Dr. Hardy -- "
"Stop this," said the Master, and the noise stopped. "Our concern is more specific. What have you learned of their mating habits?"
"They do not speak of this to us. Learning will be difficult. There seems to be only one female aboard."
"ONE female?"
"To the best that we can learn."
"Are the rest neuters, or are most neuters?"
"It would seem that they are not. Yet the female is not pregnant, has not been pregnant at any time since our arrival."
"We must learn," said the Master. "But you must also conceal. A casual question. It must be asked very carefully, to reveal as little as possible. If what we suspect is true-can it be true?"
One said, "All of evolution is against it. Individuals that survive to breed must carry the genes for the next generation. How, then-?"
"They are alien. Remember, they are alien," said Whitbread's Motie.
"We must find out. Select one among you, and formulate your question, and select the human you will ask. The rest of you must avoid the subject unless the aliens introduce it."
"I think we must conceal nothing." One stroked the center of her face as if for reassurance. "They are alien. They may be the best hope we have ever had. With their help we may break the ancient pattern of the Cycles."
The Master showed her surprise. "You will conceal the crucial difference between Man and ourselves. They will not learn of it."
"I say we must not!" cried the other. "Listen to me! They have their own ways-they solve problems, always -- " The others converged on her. "No, listen! You must listen!"
"Crazy Eddie," the Master said wonderingly. "Confine her in comfort. We will need her knowledge. No other must be assigned to her Fyunch(click), since the strain has driven her mad."
Blaine let the cutter lead MacArthur to Mote Prime at.780 gee. He was acutely aware that MacArthur was at alien warship capable of devastating half the Motie planet, and did not like to think of what weaponry might be trained on her by uneasy Moties. He wanted the embassy ship to arrive first-not that it would really help, but it might.
The cutter was almost empty now. The scientific personnel were living and working aboard MacArthur, reading endless data into the computer banks, cross-checking and codifying, and reporting their findings to the Captain for transmission to Lenin. They could have reported directly, of course, but there are many privileges to rank, MacArthur's dinner parties and bridge games tended to become discussion groups.
Everyone was concerned about the brown miner. She became steadily worse, eating as little of the food provided by the Moties as she had of MacArthur's provisions. It was frustrating, and Dr. Blevins tried endless tests with no results. The miniatures had waxed fat and fecund while loose aboard MacArthur, and Blevins wondered if they had been eating something unexpected, like missile propellant, or the insulation from cables. He offered her a variety of unlikely substances, but the Brown'5 eyesight grew dim, her fur came out in patches, and she howled. One day she stopped eating. The next she was dead.
Horvath was beside himself with fury.
Blaine thought it fitting to call the embassy ship. The gently smiling Brown-and-white that answered could only be Horvath's Motie, although Blaine would have been hard-pressed to say how he knew. "Is my Fyunch(click) available?" Rod asked. Horvath's Motie made him uncomfortable.
"I'm afraid not, Captain."
"All right. I called to report that the Brown we had aboard this ship is dead. I don't know how much it means to you, but we did our best. The entire scientific staff of MacArthur tried to cure her."
"I'm sure of that, Captain. It doesn't matter. May we have the body?"
Rod considered it a moment. "I'm afraid not." He couldn't guess what the Moties could learn from the corpse of an alien that had never communicated when alive; but perhaps he was learning from Kutuzov. Could there have been microtattooing below the fur...? And why weren't the Moties more concerned about the Brown? That was something he certainly couldn't ask. Best to be thankful they weren't upset. "Give my regards to my Fyunch(click)."
"I have bad news also," said Horvath's Motie. "Captain, you no longer have a Fyunch(click). She has gone mad."
"What?" Rod was more shocked than he would have believed. "Mad? Why? How?"
"Captain, I don't imagine you can grasp what a strain it has been for her. There are Moties who give orders and there are Moties who make and fix tools. We are neither: we communicate. We can identify with a giver of orders and it is no strain, but an alien giver of orders? It was too much. She- How shall I put it? Mutiny. Your word is mutiny. We have none. She is safe and under confinement, but it is best for her that she does not speak with aliens again."
"Thank you," Rod said. He watched the gently smiling image fade from the screen and did nothing more for five minutes. Finally he sighed and began dictating reports for Lenin. He worked alone and it was as if he had lost a part of himself and was waiting for it to come back.
Chapter 27 - The Guided Tour
Chapter 27 - The Guided Tour
Renner was up before dawn. The Moties chose and set out clothing for him while he was bathing in the remarkable tub. He let their choice stand. He would indulge them; they might be the last nonmilitary servants he would ever have. His sidearm was discreetly laid out with his clothing, and after a lot of thought, Renner buckled it under a civilian jacket woven from some marvelous shining fibers. He didn't want the weapon, but regulations were regulations
The others were all at breakfast, watching the dawn through the big picture window. It came on like sunset, in all the shades of red. Mote Prime's day was a few hours too long. At night they would stay up longer; they would sleep longer in the mornings and still be up at dawn.
Breakfast featured large, remarkably egg-shaped boiled eggs. Inside the shell it was as if the egg came prescrambled, with a maraschino cherry buried off-center. Renner was told that the cherry thing was not worth eating, and he didn't try.
"The Museum is only a few blocks from here." Dr. Horvath's Motie rubbed her right hands briskly together. "Let's walk. You'll want warm clothes, I think."
The Moties all had that problem: which pair of hands to use to imitate human gestures? Renner expected Jackson's Motie to go psychotic. Jackson was left-handed.
They walked. A cold breeze whipped them from around corners. The sun was big and dim; you could look directly at it this early in the day. Tiny cars swanned six feet below them. The smell of Mote Prime air seeped faintly through the filter helmets, and so did the quiet hum of cars and the fast jabber of Motie voices.
The group of humans moved among crowds of Moties of all colors-and were ignored. Then a group of white furred pedestrians turned a corner and lingered to examine them. They chattered in musical tones and stared curiously.
Bury seemed uncomfortable; he stayed within the group as much as he could. He doesn't want eye tracks all over him, Renner decided. The Sailing Master found himself being examined by a very pregnant White, the bulge of her child high up above the complexities of the major joint in her back. Renner smiled at her, squatted on his heels, and turned his back to her. His Fyunch(click) sang in low tones, and the White moved closer, then half a dozen white Moties were running a dozen small hands over his vertebrae.
"Right! A little lower," said Renner. "OK, scratch right there. Ahh." When the Whites had moved on, Renner stretched his long legs to catch up with the tour. His Motie trotted alongside.
"I trust I will not learn your irreverence," his Fyunch(click) said.
"Why not?" Renner asked seriously.
"When you are gone there will be other work for us. No, do not be alarmed. If you are capable of satisfying the Navy, I can have no more trouble keeping the givers of orders happy." There was an almost wistful tone, Renner thought-but he wasn't sure. If Moties had facial expressions, Renner hadn't learned them.
The Museum was a good distance ahead of them. Like other buildings it was square-built, but its face was glass or something like it. "We have many places that fit your word 'museum,'" Horvath's Motie was saying, "in this and other cities. This one was closest and specializes in painting and sculpture."
A juggernaut loomed over them, three meters tall, and another meter beyond that because of the cargo on its head. It-she, Renner noted from the long, shallow bulge of pregnancy high on her abdomen. The eyes were soft animal eyes, without awareness, and she caught up with them and passed, never slowing.
"Carrying a child doesn't seem to slow a Motie down," Renner observed.
Brown-and-white shoulders and heads turned toward him. Renner's Motie said, "No, of course not. Why should it?"
Sally Fowler took up the task. She tried carefully to explain just how useless pregnant human females were. "It's one reason we tend to develop male-oriented societies. And -- " She was still lecturing on childbirth problems when they reached the Museum.
The doorway would have caught Renner across the bridge of his nose. The ceilings were higher; they brushed his hair. Dr. Horvath had to bend his head.
And the lighting was a bit too yellow.
And the paintings were placed too low.
Conditions for viewing were not ideal. Aside from that, the colors in the paints themselves were off. Dr. Horvath and his Motie conversed with animation following his revelation that blue plus yellow equals green to a human eye. The Motie eye was designed like a human eye, or an octopus eye, for that matter: a globe, an adaptable lens, receptor nerves along the back. But the receptors were different.
Yet the paintings had impact. In the main hall-which had three-meter ceilings and was lined with larger paintings-the tour stopped before a Street scene. Here a Brown-and-white had climbed on a car and was apparently haranguing a swarm of Browns and Brown-and-whites, while behind him the sky burned sunset-red. The expressions were all the same flat smile, but Renner sensed violence and looked closer. Many of the crowd carried tools, always in their left hands, and some were broken. The city itself was on fire.
"It's called 'Return to Your Tasks.' You'll find that the Crazy Eddie theme recurs constantly," said Sally's Motie. She moved on before she could be asked to explain further.
The next painting in line showed a quasi-Motie, tall and thin, small-headed, long-legged. It was running out of a forest, at the viewer. Its breath trailed smoky-white behind it. "The Message Carrier," Hardy's Motie called it.
The next was another outdoor scene: a score of Browns and Whites eating around a blazing campfire. Animal eyes gleamed red around them. The whole landscape was dark red; and overhead Murcheson's Eye gleamed against the Coal Sack.
"You can't tell what they're thinking and feeling from looking at them, can you? We were afraid of that," said Horvath's Motie. "Nonverbal communication. The signals are different with us."
"I suppose so," said Bury. "These paintings would all be salable, but none especially so. They would be only curiosities...though quite valuable as such, because of the huge potential market and the limited source. But they do not communicate. Who painted them?"
"This one is quite old. You can see that it was painted on the wail of the building itself, and -- "
"But what kind of Motie? Brown-and-whites?"
There was impolite laughter among the Moties. Bury's Motie said, "You will never see a work of art that was not made by a Brown-and-white. Communication is our specialty. Art is communication."
"Does a White never have anything to say?"
"Of course. He has a Mediator say it for him. We translate, we communicate. Many of these paintings are arguments, visually expressed."
Weiss had been trailing along, saying nothing. Renner noticed. Keeping his voice down, he asked the man, "Any comments?"
Weiss scratched his jaw. "Sir, I haven't been in a museum since grade school...but aren't some paintings made just to be pretty?"
"Umm."
There were only two portraits in all the halls of paintings. Brown-and-whites both, they both showed from the waist up. Expression in the Moties must show in body language, not faces. These portraits were oddly lighted and their arms were oddly distorted. Renner thought them evil.
"Evil? No!" said Renner's Motie. "That one caused the Crazy Eddie probe to be built. And this was the designer of a universal language, long ago."
"Is it still used?"
"After a fashion. But it fragmented, of course. Languages do that. Sinclair and Potter and Bury don't speak the same language you do. Sometimes the sounds are similar, but the nonverbal signals are very different."
Renner caught up with Weiss as they were about to enter the hail of sculpture. "You were right. In the Empire there are paintings that are just supposed to be pretty. Here, no. Did you notice the difference? No landscape without Moties doing something in it. Almost no portraits, and those two were slanted pictures. In fact, everything's slanted." He turned to appeal to his Motie. "Right? Those pictures you pointed out, done before your civilization invented the camera. They weren't straight representations."
"Renner, do you know how much work goes into a painting?"
"I've never tried. I can guess."
"Then can you imagine anyone going to that much trouble if he doesn't have something to say?"
"How about 'Mountains are pretty'?" Weiss suggested.
Rennet's Motie shrugged.
The statues were better than the paintings. Differences in pigment and lighting did not intrude. Most did show Moties; but they were more than portraits. A chain of Moties of diminishing size, Porter to three Whites to nine Browns to twenty-seven miniatures? No, they were all done in white marble and had the shape of decision makers. Bury regarded them without expression and said, "It occurs to me that I will need interpretations of any of these before I could sell them anywhere. Or even give them as gifts."
"Inevitably so," said Bury's Motie. "This, for instance, illustrates a religion of the last century. The soul of the parent divides to become the children, and again to become the grandchildren, ad infinitum."
Another showed a number of Moties in red sandstone. They had long, slender fingers, too many on the left hand, and the left arm was comparatively small. Physicians? They were being killed by a thread of green glass that swept among them like a scythe: a laser weapon, held by something offstage. The Moties were reluctant to talk about it. "And unpleasant event in history," said Bury's Motie, and that was that.
Another showed fighting among a few marble Whites and a score of an unrecognizable type done in red sandstone. The red ones were lean and menacing, armed with more than their share of teeth, and claws. Some weird machine occupied the center of the melee. "Now that one is interesting," said Renner's Motie. "By tradition, a Mediator-one of our own type-may requisition any kind of transportation he needs, from any decision maker. Long ago, a Mediator used his authority to order a time machine built. I can show you the machine, if you will travel to it; it is on the other side of this continent."
"A working time machine?"
"Not working, Jonathon. It was never completed. His Master went broke trying to finish it."
"Oh." Whitbread showed his disappointment.
"It was never tested," said the Mode. "The basic theory may be flawed."
The machine looked like a small cyclotron with a cabin inside. It almost made sense, like a Langston Field generator.
"You interest me strangely," Renner said to his Mode. "You can requisition any transportation, any time?"
"That's right. Our talent is communication, but our major task is stopping fights. Sally has lectured us on your, let's say, your racial problems involving weapons and the surrender reflex. We Mediators evolved out of that. We can explain one being's viewpoint to another. Noncommunication can assume dangerous proportions sometimes-usually just before a war, by one of those statistical flukes that make you believe in coincidence. If one of us can always get to transportation-or even to telephones or radios-war becomes unlikely."
There were awed expressions among the humans, "Vee-erry nice," said Renner. Then, "I was wondering whether you could requisition MacArthur."
"By law and tradition, yes. In practice, don't be a fool."
"OK. These things fighting around the time machine -- "
"Legendary demons," Bury's Motie explained. "They defend the structure of reality."
Renner remembered ancient Spanish paintings dating from the time of the Black Plague in Europe, paintings of living men and women being attacked by the revived and malevolent dead. Next to the white Moties these red sandstone things had that impossibly lean, bony look, and a malevolence that was almost tangible.
"And why the time machine?"
"The Mediator felt that a certain incident in history had happened because of a lack of communication. He decided to correct it." Renner's Motie shrugged-with her arms; a Motie couldn't lift her shoulders. "Crazy Eddie. The Crazy Eddie probe was like that. A little more workable, maybe. A watcher of the sky-a meteorologist, plus some other fields-found evidence that there was life on a world of a nearby star. Right away this Crazy Eddie Mediator wanted to contact them. He tied up enormous amounts of capital and industrial power, enough to affect most of civilization. He got his probe built, powered by a light sail and a battery of laser cannon for -- "
"This all sounds familiar."
"Right. The Crazy Eddie probe was in fact launched toward New Caledonia, much later, and with a different pilot. We've been assuming you followed it home."
"So it worked. Unfortunately the crew was dead, but it reached us. So why are you still calling it the Crazy Eddie probe? Oh, never mind," said Renner. His Motie was chortling.
Two limousines were waiting for them outside the Museum and a stairs had been erected leading down to street level. Tiny two-seater cars zipped around the obstruction without slowing down, and without collisions.
Staley stopped at the bottom. "Mr. Renner! Look!"
Renner looked. A car had stopped alongside a great blank building; for there were no curbs. The brown chauffeur and his white-furred passenger disembarked, and the White walked briskly around the corner. The Brown disengaged two hidden levers at the front, then heaved against the side of the car. It collapsed like an accordian, into something half a meter wide. The Brown turned and followed the white Motie.
"They fold up!" Staley exclaimed.
"Sure they do," said Renner's Motie. "Can you imagine the traffic jam if they didn't? Come on, get in the cars."
They did. Renner said, "I wouldn't ride in one of those little death traps for Bury's own petty-cash fund."
"Oh, they're safe. That is," said Renner's Motie, "it isn't the car that's safe, it's the driver. Browns don't have much territorial instinct, for one thing. For another, they're always fiddling with the car, so nothing's ever going to fail."
The limousine started off. Browns appeared behind them and began removing the stairs.
The buildings around them were always square blocks, the streets a rectangular grid. To Horvath the city was clearly a made city, not something that had grown naturally. Someone had laid it out and ordered it built from scratch. Were they all like this? It showed none of the Browns' compulsion to innovate.
And yet, he decided, it did. Not in basics, but in such things as street lighting. In places there were broad electro luminescent strips along the buildings. In others there were things like floating balloons, but the wind did not move them. Elsewhere, tubes ran along the sides of the streets, or down the center; or there was nothing at all that showed in the daytime.
And those boxlike cars-each was subtly different, in the design of the lights or the signs of repairs or the way the parked cars folded int~themse1ves.
The limousines stopped. "We're here;" Horvath's Motie announced. "The zoo. The Life Forms Preserve, to be more exact. You'll find that it is arranged more for the convenience of the inhabitants than for the spectators."
Horvath and the rest looked about, puzzled. Tall rectangular buildings surrounded them. There was no open space anywhere.
"On our left. The building, gentlemen, the building! Is there some law against putting a zoo inside a building?"
The zoo, as it developed, was six stories tall, with ceilings uncommonly high for Moties. It was difficult to tell just how high the ceilings were. They looked like sky. On the first floor it was open blue sky, with drifting clouds and a sun that stood just past noon.
They strolled through a steamy jungle whose character changed as they moved. The animals could not reach them, but it was difficult to see why not. They did not seem aware of being penned up.
There was a tree like a huge bullwhip, its handle planted deep in the earth, its lash sprouting clusters of round leaves where it coiled around the trunk. An animal like a giant Motie stood flat-footed beneath it, staring at Whitbread. There were sharp, raking talons on its two right hands, and tusks showed between its lips. "It was a variant of the Porter type," said Horvath's Motie, "but never successfully domesticated. You can see why."
"These artificial environments are astounding!" Horvath exclaimed. "I've never seen better. But why not build part of the zoo in the open? Why make an environment when the real environment is already there?"
"I'm not sure why it was done. But it seems to work out."
The second floor was a desert of dry sand. The air was dry and balmy, the sky baby blue, darkening to yellow brown at the horizon. Fleshy plants with no thorns grew through the sand. Some were the shape of thick lily pads. Many bore the marks of nibbling teeth. They found the beast that had made the tooth marks, a thing like a nude white beaver with square protruding teeth. It watched them tamely as they passed.
On the third floor it was raining steadily. Lightning flashed, illusory miles away. The humans declined to enter, for they had no rain gear. The Moties were half angry, half apologetic. It had not occurred to them that rain would bother humans; they liked it.
"It's going to keep happening, too," Whitbread's Motie predicted. "We study you, but we don't know you. You're missing some of the most interesting plant forms too. Perhaps another day when they have the rain turned off...
The fourth floor was not wild at all. There were even small round houses on distant illusory hills. Small, umbrella-shaped trees grew red and lavender fruits beneath a flat green disc of foliage. A pair of proto-Moties stood beneath one of these. They were small, round, and pudgy, and their right arms seemed to have shrunk. They looked at the tour group with sad eyes, then one reached up for a lavender fruit. Its left arm was just long enough.
"Another unworkable member of our species," said Horvath's Motie. "Extinct now except in life forms preserves." He seemed to want to hurry them on. They found another pair in a patch of melons-the same breed of melon the humans had eaten for dinner, as Hardy pointed out.
In a wide, grassy field a family of things with hooves and shaggy coats grazed placidly-except for one that Stood guard, turning constantly to face the visitors.
A voice behind Whitbread said, "You're disappointed. Why?"
Whitbread looked back in surprise. "Disappointed? No! It's fascinating."
"My mistake," said Whitbread's Motie. "I think I'd like a word with Mr. Renner. Care to trail along?"
The party was somewhat spread out. Here there was no chance of getting lost, and they all enjoyed the feel of grass beneath their feet: long, coiled green blades, springier than an ordinary lawn, much like the living carpets in houses of the aristocracy and the wealthier traders.
Renner looked amiably about when he felt eyes on him. "Yes?"
"Mr. Renner, it strikes me that you're a bit disappointed in our zoo."
Whitbread winced. Renner frowned. "Yah, and I've been trying to figure it out. I shouldn't feel this way. It's a whole alien world, all compacted for our benefit. Whitbread, you feel it too?"
Whitbread nodded reluctantly.
"Hah! That's it. It's an alien world, all compacted for our benefit, right? How many zoos have you seen on how many worlds?"
Whitbread counted in his head. "Six, including Earth."
"And they were all like this one, except that the illusion is better. We were expecting something a whole order of magnitude different. It isn't. It's just another alien world, except for the intelligent Moties."
"Makes sense," said Whitbread's Motie. Perhaps her voice was a little wistful, and the humans remembered that the Moties had never seen an alien world. "Too bad, though," the Motie said. "Staley's having a ball. So are Sally and Dr. Hardy, but they're professionals."
But the next floor was a shock.
Dr. Horvath was first out of the elevator. He stopped dead. He was in a city street. "I think we have the wrong door..." he trailed off. For a moment he felt that his mind was going.
The city was deserted. There were a few cars in the streets, but they were wrecks, and some showed signs of fire. Several buildings had collapsed, filling the Street with mountains of rubble. A moving mass of black chittered at him and moved away in a swarm, away and into dark holes in a slope of broken masonry, until there were none left.
Horvath's skin crawled. When an alien hand touched his elbow he jumped and gasped.
"What's the matter, Doctor? Surely you have animals evolved for cities."
"No," said Horvath.
"Rats," said Sally Fowler. "And there's a breed of lice that lives only on human beings. But I think that's all."
"We have a good many," said Horvath's Motie. "Perhaps we can show you a few...though they're shy."
At a distance the small black beasts were indistinguishable from rats. Hardy snapped a picture of a swarm that was scrambling for cover. He hoped to develop a blowup later. There was a large, flattish beast, almost invisible until they were right in front of it. It was the color and pattern of the brick it was clinging to.
"Like a chameleon," Sally said. Then she had to explain chameleons.
"There's another," Sally's Motie said. She pointed out a concrete-colored animal clinging to a gray wall. "Don't try to disturb it. It has teeth."
"Where do they get their food?"
"Roof gardens. Though they can eat meat. And there's an insectivore..." She led them to a "rooftop" two meters above street level. There were grain and fruit trees gone riot, and a small, armless biped that fired a coiled tongue over a meter long. It looked as if it had a mouthful of walnuts.
Bitter cold met them on the sixth floor. The sky was leaden gray. Snow blew in flurries across an infinity of icy tundra. Hardy wanted to stay, for there wag considerable life in that cold hell; bushes and tiny trees growing through the ice, a large, placid thing that ignored them, a furry, hopping snowshoe rabbit with dish-shaped ears and no front legs. They almost had to use force to get Hardy out; but he would have frozen in there.
Dinner was waiting for them at the Castle: ship's stores, and slices of a flat green Motie cactus 75 cm across and 3 thick. The red jelly inside tasted almost meaty. Renner liked it, but the others couldn't eat it at all. The rest they ate like starved men, talking animatedly between mouthfuls. It must have been the extra-long day that made them so hungry.
Rennet's Motie said, "We have some idea what a tourist wants to see in a strange city, at least we know what you show in your travel films. Museums. The place of government. Monuments. Unique architecture. Perhaps the shops and night clubs. Above all, the way of life of the native." She gestured deprecatingly. "We've had to omit some of this. We don't have any night clubs. Too little alcohol doesn't do anything to us. Too much kills. You'll get a chance to hear our music, but frankly, you won't like it."
"Government is Mediators meeting to talk. It might be anywhere. The decision makers live where they like, and they generally consider themselves bound by the agreements of their Mediators. You'll see some of our monuments. As for our way of life, you've been studying that for some time."
"What about the way of life of a White?" Hardy asked. Then his mouth opened in a bone-cracking yawn.
"He's right," Hardy's Motie broke in. "We should be able to see a giver of orders' family residence at work. It may be that we can get permission -- " The alien broke into a high gabble.
The Moties considered. Sally's Motie said, "It should be possible. We'll see. In the meantime, let's call it a day."
For the time change had caught the humans. Doctors Horvath and Hardy yawned, blinked, looked surprised, made their excuses, and departed. Bury was still going strong. Renner wondered what rotation his planet had. He himself had had enough space going training to adapt to any schedule.
But the party was breaking up. Sally said her good nights and went upstairs, swaying noticeably. Renner suggested folk singing, got no response, and quit.
A spiral stair ran up the tower. Renner turned off into a corridor, following his curiosity. When he reached an air lock he realized that it must lead to the balcony, the flat ring that circled the tower. He did not care to try the Mote Prime air. He wondered if the balcony was meant to be used at all...and then thought of a ring encircling a slender tower, and wondered if the Moties were playing games with Freudian symbolism.
Probably they were. He continued to his room.
Renner thought at first he was in the wrong room. The color scheme was striking: orange and black, quite different from the muted pale browns of this morning. But the pressure suit on the wall was his, his design and rank markings on the chest. He looked about him, trying to decide whether he liked the change.
It was the only change-no, the room was warmer. It had been too cold last night. On a hunch, he crossed the room and checked the Moties' sleeping alcove. Yes, it was chilly in there.
Renner's Motie leaned against the doorjamb, watching him with the usual slight smile. Renner grinned shamefacedly. Then he continued his inspection.
The bathroom-the toilet was different. Just as he had sketched it. Wrong; there wasn't any water in it. And no flush.
What the hell, there was only one way to test a toilet.
When he looked, the bowl was sparkling clean. He poured a glass of water into it and watched it run away without leaving a drop. The bowl was a frictionless surface.
Have to mention this to Bury, he thought. There were bases on airless moons, and worlds where water, or energy for recycling it, was scarce. Tomorrow. He was too sleepy now.
The rotation period of Levant was 28 hours, 40.2 minutes. Bury had adjusted well enough to MacArthur's standard day, but it is always easier to adjust to a longer day than to a shorter.
He waited while his Fyunch(click) sent their Brown for coffee. It made him miss Nabil...and wonder if the Brown had more of Nabil's skills. He had already seriously underestimated the power of the Brown-and-whites. Apparently his Motie could commandeer any vehicle on Mote Prime, whether or not it had been built yet; even so, he was an agent for someone Bury had never seen. The situation was complex.
The Brown returned with coffee and another pot, something that poured pale brown and did not steam. "Poisonous? Very likely," his Fyunch(click) said. "The pollutants might harm you, or the bacteria. It's water, from outside."
It was not Bury's habit to come too quickly to business.
An overeager businessman, he felt, was easily gulled. He was not aware of the thousands of years of tradition behind his opinion. Accordingly he and his Mode liaison talked of many things..."'Of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings,'" he quoted, and he identified all of these, to his Motie's evident interest. The Motie was particularly interested in the various forms of human government.
"But I don't think I should read this Lewis Carroll," he said, "until I know considerably more of human culture."
Eventually Bury raised the subject of luxuries again.
"Luxuries. Yes, I agree, in principle," said Bury's Motie. "If a luxury travels well, it can pay for itself merely in diminished fuel costs. That must be true even with your Crazy Eddie Drive. But in practice there are restrictions between us."
Bury had already thought of a few. He said, "Tell me of them."
"Coffee. Teas. Wines. I presume you deal in wines also?"
"Wine is forbidden to my religion." Bury dealt indirectly in the transfer of wines from world to world, but he could not believe the Moties would want to deal in wines.
"It doesn't matter. We could not tolerate alcohol, and we do not like the taste of coffee. The same would probably apply to your other luxury foods, though they may be worth a try."
"And you do not yourselves deal in luxuries?"
"No. In power over others, in safety, in durability of customs and dynasties...as usual, I speak for the givers of orders. We deal in these, for their benefit, but we also deal in diplomacy. We trade durable goods and necessities, skills- What do you think of our works of art?"
"They would sell at good prices, until they became common. But I think our trade will be more in ideas, and designs."
"Ah?"
"The frictionless toilet, and the principle behind it. Various superconductors, which you fabricate more efficiently than we. We found a sample in an asteroid. Can you duplicate it?"
"I'm sure the Browns will find a way." The Motie waved a languid hand. "There will be no problem here. You certainly have much to offer. Land for instance. We will want to buy land for our embassies."
Probably that would be offered gratis, Bury thought. But to this race land would be literally priceless; without the humans they could never have more than they had at the moment. And they would want land for settlements. This world was crowded. Bury had seen the city lights from orbit, a field of light around dark oceans. "Land," he agreed, "and grain. There are grains that grow beneath suns like yours. We know that you can eat some of them. Might they grow here more efficiently than yours? Bulk food would never be shipped at a profit, but seeds may be."
"You may also have ideas to sell us."
"I wonder, your inventiveness is enormous and admirable."
The Motie waved a hand. "I thank you. But we have not made everything there is to make. We have our own Crazy Eddie Drive, for example, but the force field generator that protects -- "
"If I should be shot, you would lose the only merchant in this system."
"Allah's- I mean to say, are your authorities really so determined to guard their secrets?"
"Perhaps they will change their minds when they know you better. Besides, I'm not a physicist," Bury said blandly.
"Ah. Bury, we have -not exhausted the subject of art. Our artists have a free hand and ready access to materials, and very little supervision. In principle the exchange of art between Mote and Empire would facilitate communication. We have never yet tried to aim our art at an alien mind."
"Dr. Hardy's books and education tapes contain many such works of art."
"We must study them." Bury's Motie sipped contemplatively at his dirty water, "We spoke of coffees and wines. My associates have noticed-how shall I put it?-a strong cultural set toward wines, among your scientists and Navy officers."
"Yes. Place of origin, dates, labels, ability to travel in free fall, what wines go with what foods." Bury grimaced. "I have listened, but I know nothing of this. I find it annoying and expensive that some of my ships must move under constant acceleration merely to protect a wine bottle from its own sediments. Why can they not simply be centrifuged on arrival?"
"And coffees? They all drink coffee. Coffee varies according to its genetics, soil, climate, method of roasting. I know this is so. I have seen your stores."
"I have much greater variety aboard MacArthur. Yes and there is variety among coffee drinkers. Cultural differences. On an American-descended world like Tabletop they would not touch the oily brew preferred in New Paris, and they find the brew of Levant much too sweet and strong."
"Have you heard of Jamaica Blue Mountain? It grows on Earth itself, on a large island; the island was never bombed, and the mutations were weeded out in the centuries following the collapse of the CoDominium. It cannot be bought. Navy ships carry it to the Imperial Palace on Sparta."
"How does it taste?"
"As I told you, it is reserved for the Royal -- " Bury hesitated. "Very well. You know me that well. I would not pay such a price again, but I do not regret it."
"The Navy misjudges your worth because you lack knowledge of wines." Bury's Motie did not seem to be smiling. Its bland expression was a Trader's: it matched Bury's own. "Quite foolish of them, of course. If they knew how much there was to learn about coffee -- "
"What are you suggesting?"
"You have stores aboard. Teach them about coffee. Use your own stores for the purpose."
"My stores would not last a week among the officers of a battle cruiser!"
"You would show them a similarity between your culture and theirs. Or do you dislike that idea? No, Bury, I am not reading your mind. You dislike the Navy; you tend to exaggerate the differences between them and you. Perhaps they think the same way?"
"I am not reading your mind." Bury suppressed the fury building in him-and at that moment he saw it. He knew why the alien kept repeating that phrase. It was to keep him off balance. In a trading situation.
Bury smiled broadly. "A week's worth of good will. Well, I will try your suggestion when we are back in orbit and I dine aboard MacArthur. Allah knows they have much to learn about coffee. Perhaps I can even teach them how to use their percolators correctly."
Chapter 28 - Kaffee Klatsch
Chapter 28 - Kaffee Klatsch
Rod and Sally sat alone in the Captain's patrol cabin. The intercom screens were off, and the status board above Rod's desk showed a neat pattern of green lights. Rod stretched his long legs out and sipped at his drink. "You know, this is about the first time we've had alone together since we left New Caledonia. It's nice."
She smiled uncertainly. "But we don't have very long-the Moties are expecting us to come back, and I've got dictating to do...How much longer can we stay in the Mote system, Rod?"
Blaine shrugged. "Up to the Admiral. Viceroy Merrill wanted us back as soon as possible, but Dr. Horvath wants to learn more. So do I. Sally, we still don't have anything significant to report! We don't know whether the Moties are a threat to the Empire or not."
"Rod Blaine, will you stop acting like a Regular Navy officer and be yourself? There is not one shred of evidence that the Modes are hostile. We haven't seen any signs of weapons, or wars, or anything like that -- "
"I know," Rod said sourly. "And that worries me. Sally, have you ever heard of a human civilization that didn't have soldiers?"
"No, but Moties aren't human."
"Neither are ants, but they've got soldiers- Maybe you're right, I'm catching it from Kutuzov. Speaking of which, he wants more frequent reports. You know that every scrap of data gets transmitted raw to Lenin inside an hour? We've even sent over samples of Mode artifacts, and some of the modified stuff the Brownies worked on..."
Sally laughed. Rod looked pained for a moment, then joined her. "I'm sorry, Rod. I know it must have been painful to -have to tell the Tsar that you had Brownies on your ship-but it was funny!"
"Yeah. Funny. Anyway, we send everything we can to Lenin-and you think I'm paranoid? Kutuzov has everything inspected in space, then sealed into containers filled with ciphogene and parked outside his ship! I think he's afraid of contamination." The intercom buzzed. "Oh, damn." Rod tuned to the screen. "Captain here."
"Chaplain Hardy to see you, Captain," the Marine sentry announced. "With Mr. Renner and the scientists."
Rod sighed and gave Sally a helpless look. "Send them in and send in my steward. I imagine they'll all want a drink."
They did. Eventually everyone was seated, and his cabin was crowded. Rod greeted the Mote expedition personnel, then took a sheaf of papers from his desk. "First question: Do you need Navy ratings with you? I understand they've nothing to do."
"Well, there's no harm in their being there," Dr. Horvath said. "But they do take up room the scientific staff could use."
"In other words, no," Rod said. "Fine. I'll let you decide which of your people to replace them with, Dr. Horvath. Next point: Do you need Marines?"
"Good heavens, no," Sally protested. She looked quickly to Horvath, who nodded. "Captain, the Moties are so far from being hostile, they've built the Castle for us. It's magnificent! Why can't you come down and see it?"
Rod laughed bitterly. "Admiral's orders. For that matter, I can't let any officer who knows -how to construct a Langston Field go down." He nodded to himself. "The Admiral and I agree on one point: If you do need help, two Marines won't be any use-and giving the Moties a chance to work that Fyunch(click) thing on a pair of warriors doesn't seem like a good idea. That brings up the next point. Dr. Horvath, is Mr. Renner satisfactory to you? Perhaps I should ask him to leave the room while you reply."
"Nonsense. Mr. Renner has been very helpful. Captain, does your restriction apply to my people? Am I forbidden to take, say, a physicist to Mote Prime?"
"Yes."
"But Dr. Buckman is counting on going. The Moties have been studying Murcheson's Eye and the Coal Sack for a long time...how long, Mr. Potter?"
The midshipman squirmed uncomfortably before answering. "Thousands of years, sir," he said finally. "Only..."
"Only what, Mister?" Rod prompted. Potter was a bit shy, and he'd have to outgrow that. "Speak up."
"Yes, sir. There are gaps in their observations, Captain. The Modes hae never mentioned the fact, but Dr. Buckman says it is obvious. I would hae said they sometimes lose interest in astronomy, but Dr. Buckman can nae understand that."
"He wouldn't," Rod laughed. "Just how important are those observations, Mr. Potter?"
"For astrophysics, perhaps verra important, Captain. They hae been watching yon supergiant for aye their history as it passed across the Coal Sack. 'Twill go supernova and then become a black hole-and the Moties say they know when."
Midshipman Whitbread laughed. Everyone turned to stare at him. Whitbread could hardly control his features. "Sorry, sir-but I was there when Gavin told Buckman about that. The Eye will explode in A.D. 2,774,020 on April 27 between four and four-thirty in the morning, they say. I thought Dr. Buckman was going to strangle himself. Then he started doing his own checking. It took him thirty hours -- "
Sally grinned. "And he almost killed the Fyunch(click) doing it," she added. "Had Dr. Horvath's Motie translating for him when his own came apart."
"Yes, but he found out they were right," Whitbread told them. The midshipman cleared his throat and mimicked Buckman's dry voice. "Damned close, Mr. Potter. I've got the mathematics and observations to prove it."
"You're developing a talent for acting, Mr. Whitbread," First Lieutenant Cargill said. "Pity your work in astrogation doesn't show a similar improvement. Captain, it seems to me that Dr. Buckman can get everything he needs here. There's no reason for him to go to the Mode planet."
"Agreed. Dr. Horvath, the answer is no. Besides-do you really want to spend a week cooped up with Buckman? You needn't answer that," he added quickly. "Whom will you take?"
Horvath frowned for a moment. "De Vandalia, I suppose."
"Yes, please," Sally said quickly. "We need a geologist. I've tried digging for rock samples, and I didn't learn a thing about the make-up of Mote Prime. There's nothing but ruins made up of older ruins."
"You mean they don't have rocks?" Cargill asked.
"They have rocks, Commander," she answered. "Granite and lava and basalts, but they aren't where whatever formed this planet put them. They've all been used, for walls, or tiles, or roofs. I did find cores in a museum, but I can't make much sense out of them."
"Now wait a minute," said Rod. "You mean you go out and dig at random, and wherever you dig you find what's left of a city? Even out in the farm lands?"
"Well, there wasn't time for many digs. But where I did dig, there was always something else underneath. I never knew when to stop! Captain, there was a city like A.D. 2000 New York under a cluster of adobe huts without plumbing. I think they had a civilization that collapsed, perhaps two thousand years ago."
"That would explain the observation lapses," Rod said. "But-they seem brighter than that. Why would they let a civilization collapse?" He looked to Horvath, who shrugged.
"I have an idea," Sally said. "The contaminants in the air-wasn't there a problem with pollution from internal combustion engines on Earth sometime during the CoDominium? Suppose the Modes had a civilization based on fossil fuels and ran out? Mightn't they have dropped back into an Iron Age before they developed fusion power and plasma physics again? They seem to be awfully short on radioactive ores."
Rod shrugged. "A geologist could help a lot, then-and he has far more need to be on the spot than Dr. Buckman does. I take it that's settled, Dr. Horvath?"
The Science Minister nodded sourly. "But I still don't like this Navy interference with our work. You tell him, Dr. Hardy. This must stop."
The Chaplain linguist looked surprised. He had sat at the back of the room, saying nothing but listening attentively. "Well, I have to agree that a geologist will be more useful on the surface than an astrophysicist, Anthony. And-Captain, I find myself in a unique position. As a scientist I cannot approve of all these restrictions placed on our contact with the Moties. As a representative of the Church I have an impossible task. And as a Navy officer
-I think I have to agree with the Admiral."
Everyone turned toward the portly Chaplain in surprise. "I am astonished, Dr. Hardy," Horvath said. "Have you seen the smallest evidence of warlike activities on Mote Prime?"
Hardy folded his hands carefully and spoke across the tops of his fingertips. "No. And that, Anthony, is what concerns me. We know the Moties do have wars: the Mediator class was evolved, possibly consciously evolved, to stop them. I do not think they always succeed. So why are the Moties hiding their armaments from us? For the same reason we conceal ours, is the obvious answer, but consider: we do not conceal the fact that we have weapons, or even what their general nature is. Why do they?"
"Probably ashamed of them," Sally answered. She winced at the look on Rod's face. "I didn't really mean it that way-but they have been civilized longer than we have, and they might be embarrassed by their violent past."
"Possibly," Hardy admitted. He sniffed his brandy speculatively. "And possibly not, Sally. I have the impression the Moties are hiding something important-and hiding it right under our noses, so to speak."
There was a long silence. Horvath sniffed loudly. Finally the Science Minister said, "And how could they do that, Dr. Hardy? Their government consists of informal negotiations by representatives of the givers of orders class. Every city seems to be nearly autonomous. Mote Prime hardly has a planetary government, and you think they're able to conspire against us? It is not very reasonable."
Hardy shrugged again. "From what we have seen, Dr. Horvath, you are certainly correct. And yet I cannot rid myself of the impression that they are hiding something."
"They showed us everything," Horvath insisted. "Even givers of orders' households, where they don't normally have visitors."
"Sally was just getting to that before you came in," Rod said quickly. "I'm fascinated-how does the Mode officer class live? Like the Imperial aristocracy?"
"That's a better guess than you might think," Horvath boomed. Two dry martinis had mellowed him considerably. "There were many similarities-although the Moties have an entirely different conception of luxuries from ours. Some things in common, though. Land. Servants. That sort of thing." Horvath took another drink and warmed to his subject.
"Actually, we visited two households. One lived in a skyscraper near the Castle. Seemed to control the entire building: shops, light industry, hundreds of Browns and Reds and Workers and-oh, dozens of other castes. The other one, though, the agriculturist, was very like a country baron. The work force lived in long rows of houses, and in between the row houses were fields. The 'baron' lived in the center of all that,"
Rod thought of his own family home. "Crucis Court used to be surrounded by villages and fields-but of course all the villages were fortified after the Secession Wars. So was the Court, for that matter."
"Odd you should say that," Horvath mused. "There was a sort of square fortified shape to the 'barony' too. Big atrium in the middle. For that matter, all the residential skyscrapers have no windows on the lower floors, and big roof gardens. Quite self-sufficient. Looked very military. We don't hive to report that impression to the Admiral, do we? He'd be sure we'd discovered militaristic tendencies."
"Are you so sure he'd be wrong?" Jack Cargill asked. "From what I've heard, every one of those givers of orders has a self-sufficient fortress. Roof gardens. Brownies to fix all the machinery-too bad we can't tame some of them to help Sinclair." Cargill noted his captain's -black look and hurriedly added, "Anyway, the agriculturist might have a better chance in a fight, but both those places sound like forts. So do all the other residential palaces I've heard about."
Dr. Horvath had been struggling to control himself, while Sally Fowler attempted without success to hide -- her amusement. Finally she laughed. "Commander Cargill, the Moties have had space travel and fusion power for centuries. If their buildings still have a fortress look, it must be traditional -there's no possible purpose! You're the military expert, just how would building your house that way help you against modern weapons?"
Cargill was silenced, but his expression showed he wasn't convinced.
"You say they try to make their houses self-sufficient?" Rod asked. "Even in the city? But that is silly. They'd still have to bring in water."
"It rained a lot," said Renner. "Three days out of six." Rod looked at the Sailing Master. Was he serious? "Did you know there are left-handed Moties?" Renner continued. "Everything reversed. Two six-fingered left hands, one massive right arm, and the swelling of the skull is on the right."
"It took me half an hour to notice," Whitbread laughed. "The new Motie behaved just like Jackson's old one. He must have been briefed."
"Left-handed," said Rod. "Why not?" At least they'd changed the subject. The stewards brought in lunch and everyone fell to. When they finished it was time to leave for the Mote.
"A word with you, Mr. Renner," Rod said as the Sailing Master was about to go. He waited until everyone but Cargill was gone. "I need an officer down there, and you're the one senior man that I can spare who meets the Admiral's restrictions. But although you've no weapons but your side arms, and no Marines, that's a military expedition, and if it comes to it, you're in charge."
"Yes, sir," Renner said. He sounded puzzled.
"If you had to shoot a man or a Motie, could you do it?"
"Yes, sir."
"You answered that very quickly, Mr. Renner."
"I thought it over very slowly, some time past, when I knew I was joining the Navy. If I had decided I was incapable of shooting anyone, I'd have had to make damned sure the Captain knew it."
Elaine nodded. "Next question. Can you recognize the need for military action in time to do something? Even if what you do is hopeless?"
"I think so. Captain, can I bring up something else? I do want to go back, and -- "
"Speak your piece, Mr. Renner."
"Captain, your Fyunch(click) went mad."
"I'm aware of that," Captain Elaine said coldly.
"I think the Tsar's hypothetical Fyunch (click) would go mad much faster. What you want is the one officer aboard this ship who is least inclined to the military way of thinking."
"Get aboard, Mr. Renner. And good luck."
"Aye aye, sir." Renner made no attempt to hide his lopsided grin as he left the cabin.
"He'll do, Captain," Cargill said.
"I hope so, Number One. Jack, do you think it was our military manner that drove my Mode crazy?"
"No, sir." Cargill seemed positive.
"Then what did?"
"Captain, I don't know. I don't know a lot of things about those bug-eyed monsters. There's only one thing I am sure of, and that is they're learning more about us than we are about them."
"Oh, come on, Number One. They take our people anywhere they ask to go. Sally says they're bending over backwards-well, for them, that isn't so hard to do-but anyway, she says they're very cooperative. Not hiding a thing. You've always been scared of the Moties, haven't you? Any idea why?"
"No, Captain." Cargill looked closely at Blaine and decided that his boss wasn't accusing him of funk. "I just don't like the feel of this." He glanced at his pocket computer to note the time. "I've got to hurry, Skipper. I'm supposed to help Mr. Bury with that coffee business."
"Bury- Jack, I've been meaning to speak to you about him. His Motie lives on the~ embassy ship now. Bury's moved to the cutter. What do they talk about?"
"Sir? They're supposed to be negotiating trade deals -- "
"Sure, but Bury knows a lot about the Empire. Economy, industry, general size of the Fleet, how many outies we've got to deal with, you name it and he'd probably know it."
Cargill grinned. "He hasn't let his right hand know how many fingers there are on the left, Captain. What's he going to give the Motie for free? Besides, I've sort of made sure he won't say anything you wouldn't approve of."
"Now how did you do that?"
"I told him we'd bugged every inch of the cutter, sir." Cargill's grin broadened. "Sure, he knows we can't listen to every one of those bugs every time, but -- "
Rod returned the grin. "I expect that'll work. OK, you'd better move along to the Kaffee Klatsch-you sure you don't mind helping with this?"
"Hell, Skipper, it was my idea. If Bury can show the cooks how to make better coffee during combat alerts, I might even change my opinion of him. Just why is he being kept a prisoner on this ship, anyway?"
"Prisoner? Commander Cargill?"
"Skipper, everybody in the crew knows there's something funny about that man's being aboard. The grapevine has it he's implicated in the New Chicago revolt and you're hanging onto him for the Admiralty. That's about right, isn't it?"
"Somebody's doing a lot of talking, Jack. Anyway, I can't say anything about it."
"Sure. You've got your orders, Skipper. But I notice you aren't trying to deny it. Well, it figures. Your old man is richer than Bury-I wonder how many Navy people might be for sale? It scares me, having a guy who could buy a whole planet as our prisoner." Cargill moved quickly through the companionway to the main crew kitchen.
The night before, the dinner party conversation had somehow turned to coffee, and Bury had lost his usual bored detachment when he spoke at length on the subject. He had told them of the historic Mocha-Java blend still grown in places like Makassar, and the happy combination of pure Java and the gnua distilled on Prince Samuai's World. He knew the history of Jamaica Blue Mountain although; he'd said, not its taste. As dessert was ending he suggested a "coffee tasting" in the manner of a winetasting party.
It had been an excellent ending to an excellent dinner, with Bury and Nabil moving like conjurors among filter cones and boiling water and hand-lettered labels. All the guests were amused, and it made Bury a different man somehow; it had been hard to think of him as a connoisseur of any kind.
"But the basic secret is to keep the equipment truly clean," he had said. "The bitter oils of yesterday's coffee will accumulate in the works, especially in percolators."
It had ended with Bury's offer to inspect MacArthur's coffee-making facilities the next day. Cargill, who thought coffee -- as vital to a fighting- ship as torpedoes, accepted happily. Now he watched as the bearded Trader examined the large percolator and gingerly drew a cup.
"The machine is certainly well kept," he said. "Very well kept. Absolutely clean, and the brew is not reheated too often. For standard coffee, this is excellent, Commander."
Puzzled, lack Cargill drew a cup and tasted it. "Why, that's better than the stuff the wardroom gets."
There were sidelong glances among the cooks. Cargill noticed them. He noticed something else, too. He ran a finger along the side of the percolator and brought it away with a brown oilstain.
Bury repeated the gesture, sniffed at his finger, and touched the tip of his tongue to it. Cargill tasted the oil in his hand. It was like all the bad coffee he had ever swallowed for fear of falling asleep on duty. He looked again at the percolator and stared at the spigot handle.
"Miniatures," Cargill growled. "Take that damned thing apart."
They emptied the machine and disassembled it-as far as it would go. Parts made to unscrew were now a fused unit. But the secret of the magic percolator seemed to be selective permeability in the metal shell. It would pass the older oils.
"My company would like to purchase that secret from the Navy," said Bury. "We'd like to have it to sell. OK, Ziffren, how long has this been going on?"
"Sir?" The petty officer cook seemed to be thinking. I don't know, sir. Maybe two months."
"Was it this way before we sterilized the ship and killed off the miniatures?" Cargill demanded.
"Uh, yessir," the cook said. But he said it hesitantly, and Cargill left the mess with a frown.
Chapter 35 - Run Rabbit Run
Chapter 35 - Run Rabbit Run
They saw the other midshipmen near the cathedral. Horst Staley's boots clumped hollowly as they approached. Whitbread looked up, noticed the Motie's walk, and said "Fyunch(click) ?"
"Fyunch (click)."
"We've been exploring your -- "
"Jonathon, we don't have time," the Motie said. The other Brown-and-white eyed them with an air of impatience.
"We're under a death sentence for trespassing." Staley said flatly. "I don't know why."
There was silence. Whitbread said, "Neither do I.This is nothing but a museum -- "
"Yes," Whitbread's Motie said. "You would have to land here. It's not even bad luck. Your dumb animal miniatures must have programmed the reentry cones not to hit water or cities or mountain peaks. You were bound to come down in farm lands. Well, that's where we put museums."
"Out here? Why?" Potter asked. He sounded as if he already knew. "There are nae people here -- "
"So they won't get bombed."
The silence was part of the age of the place. The Motie said, "Gavin, you aren't showing much surprise."
Potter attempted to rub his jaw. His helmet prevented it. "I don't suppose there's any chance of persuading you that we hae learned nothing?"
"Not really. You've been here three hours."
Whitbread broke in. "More like two. Horst, this place is fantastic! Museums within museums; it goes back incredibly far-is that the secret? That civilization is very old here? I don't see why you'd hide that."
"You've had a lot of wars," Potter said slowly.
The Motie bobbed her head and shoulder. "Yah."
"Big wars."
"Right. Also little wars."
"How many?"
"God's sake, Potter! Who counts? Thousands of Cycles. Thousands of collapses back to savagery. Crazy Eddie eternally trying to stop it. Well, I've had it. The whole decision-maker caste has turned Crazy Eddie, to my mind. They think they'll stop the pattern of Cycles by moving into space and settling other solar systems."
Horst Staley's tone was flat. As he spoke he looked carefully around the dome and his hand rested on his pistol butt. "Do they? And what is it we know too much on"
"I'm going to tell you. And then I'm going to try to get you to your ship, alive -- " She indicated the other Motie, who had stood impassively during the conversation. Whitbread's Motie whistled and hummed. "Best call her Charlie," she said. "You can't pronounce the name. Charlie represents a giver of orders who's willing to help you. Maybe. It's your only chance, anyway -- "
"So what do we do now?" Staley demanded.
"We try to get to Charlie's boss. You'll be protected there. (Whistle, click, whistle.) Uh, call him King Peter.
We don't have kings, but he's male now. He's one of the most powerful givers of orders, and after he talks to you he'll probably be willing to get you home."
"Probably," Horst said slowly. "Look, just what is this secret you're so afraid of?"
"Later. We've got to get moving."
Horst Staley drew his pistol. "No. Right now. Potter, is there anything in this museum that could communicate with Lenin? Find something."
"Aye aye-do ye think ye must hae the pistol?"
"Just find us a radio!"
"Horst, listen," Whitbread's Motie insisted: "The decision makers know you landed near here somewhere. If you try to communicate from here, they'll cut you off. And if you do get a message through, they'll destroy Lenin." Staley tried to speak, but the Motie continued insistently. "Oh, yes, they can do it. It wouldn't be easy. That Field of yours is pretty powerful. But you've seen what our Engineers can come up with, and you've never seen what the Warriors can do. We've seen one of your best ships destroyed now. We know how it can be done. Do you think one little battleship can survive against fleets from both here and the asteroid stations?"
"Jesus, Horst she may be right," Whitbread said.
"We've got to let the Admiral know." Staley seemed uncertain, but the pistol never wavered. "Potter, carry out your orders."
"You'll get a chance to call Lenin as soon as it's safe," Whitbread's Mode insisted. Her voice was almost shrill for a moment, then fell to a modulated tone. "Horst, believe me, it's the only way. Besides, you'll never be able to operate a communicator by yourself. You'll need our help, and we aren't going to help you do anything stupid. We've got to get out of here!"
The other Mode trilled. Whitbread's Motie answered, and they twittered back and forth. Whitbread's Mode translated. "If my own Master's troops don't get here, the Museum Keeper's Warriors will. I don't know where the Keeper stands on this. Charlie doesn't know either. Keepers are sterile, and they're not ambitious, but they're very possessive of what they already have."
"Will they bomb us?" Whitbread asked.
"Not as long as we're in here. It would wreck the museum, and museums are important. But the Keeper will send troops-if my own Master's don't get here first."
"Why aren't they here yet?" Staley demanded. "I don't hear anything."
"For God's sake, they may be coming already! Look, my Master-my old Master-won jurisdiction over human studies. She won't, give that up, so she won't invite anybody else in. She'll try to keep the locals out of this, and since her holdings- are around the Castle it'll take a while to get Warriors her& It's about two thousand kilometers."
"That plane of yours was a fast one," Staley said flatly.
"An emergency Mediator's vehicle. Masters forbid each other to use them. Your coming to our system almost started a war over jurisdiction anyway, and putting Warriors in one of those could certainly do it..
"Don't your decision makers have any military planes at all?" Whitbread asked.
"Sure, but they're slower. They might drive you to cover anyway. There's a subway under this building -- "
"Subway?" Staley said carefully. Everything was happening too fast. He was in command here, but he didn't know what to do.
"Of course. People do visit museums sometimes. And it'll take a while to get here by subway from the Castle. Who knows what the Keeper will be doing meantime? He might even forbid my Master's invasion. But if he does, you can be sure he'll kill you, to keep any other Masters from fighting here."
"Find anything, Gavin?" Staley shouted.
Potter appeared at the doorway of one of the modernistic glass-and-steel pillars. "Nothing I can operate as a communicator. Nothing I can even be sure is one. And this is all the newer stuff, Horst. Anything in the older buildings may be rusted through."
"Horst, -- we've got to get out of here!" Whitbread's Motie insisted again. "There's no time for talk -- "
"Those Warriors could come in planes to the next station and then take the subway from there," Whitbread reminded them. "We'd better do something, Horst."
Staley nodded slowly. "All right. How do we leave? In your plane?"
"It won't hold all of-us," Whitbread's Mode said. "But we can send two with Charlie and I could -- "
"No." Staley's tone was decisive. "We stay together. Can you call a larger plane?"
"I can't even be sure that one would escape. You're probably right. It would be better to stay together. Well, there's nothing left but the subway." -
"Which might be full of enemies right now." Staley thought for a moment. The dome was a bomb shelter and the mirror was a good defense against lasers. They could hole up here-but for how long? He began to feel the necessary paranoia of a soldier in enemy territory.
"Where do we have to go to get a message through to Lenin?" he demanded. That was obviously the first thing.
"King Peter's territory. It's a thousand kilometers, but that's the only place you could get equipment to send a message that couldn't be detected. Even that might not do it, but there's certainly nowhere else."
"And we can't go by plane-OK. Where's the subway? We'll have to set up an ambush."
"Ambush?" The Motie nodded agreement. "Of course. Horst. I'm not good at tactics. Mediators don't fight. I'm just trying to get you to Charlie's Master. You'll have to worry about them trying to kill us on the way. How good are your weapons?"
"Just hand weapons. Not very powerful."
"There are others in the museum. It's part of what museums are for. I don't know which ones still work."
"It's worth a try. Whitbread. Potter. Get to looking for weapons. Now where's that subway?"
The Modes looked around. Charlie evidently understood what was said, although she attempted no word of Anglic. They twittered for a moment, and Whitbread's Mode pointed. "In there." She indicated the cathedral-like building. Then she pointed at the statues of "demons" along the cornices. "Anything you see is harmless except those. They're the Warrior class, soldiers, bodyguards, police. They're killers, and they're good at it. If you see anything like that, run."
"Run, hell," Staley muttered. He clutched his pistol. "Sec you below," he called to the others. "Now what about your Brown?"
"I'll call her," Whitbread's Motie said. She trilled.
The Brown came inside carrying several somethings, which she handed to Charlie. The Modes inspected them I for a moment, and Whitbread's Mode said, "You'll want these. Air filters. You can take off the helmets and wear these masks."
"Our radios -- " Horst protested.
"Carry them. The Brown can work on the radios later, too. Do you really want your ears inside those damn helmets? The air bottles and filters can't last anyway."
"Thanks," Horst said. He took the filter and strapped it on. A soft cup covered his nose, and a tube led to a small cannister that attached to his belt. It was a relief to get the helmet off, but he didn't know what to do with it. Finally he tied it to his belt, where it bobbled along uncomfortably. "OK, let's get moving." It was easier to speak without the helmet, but he'd have to remember not to breathe through his mouth.
The ramp was a spiral leading down. Far down. Nothing big moved in the shadowless lighting, but Staley pictured himself as a target to anyone below. He wished for grenades and a troop of Marines. Instead there was only himself and his two brother midshipmen. And the Moties. Mediators. "Mediators don't fight," Whitbread's Mode had said. Have to remember that. She acted so like Jonathon Whitbread that he had to count arms to be sure whom he was talking to, but she didn't fight. Browns didn't fight either.
He moved cautiously, leading the aliens down the spiral ramp with his pistol drawn. The ramp ended at a doorway and he paused for a moment. There was silence beyond it. Hell with it, he thought and moved through.
He was alone in a wide cylindrical tunnel with tracks along the bottom and a smoothed ramp to one side. To his left the tunnel ended in a wall of rock, The other end seemed to stretch on forever into darkness. There were scars in the tunnel rock where ribs would have been in a giant whale.
The Motie came up behind him and saw where he was looking. "There was a linear accelerator here; before rising civilization robbed it for metal."
"I don't see any cars. How do we get one?"
"I can call -- one. Any Mediator can." /
"Not you, Charlie," Horst said. "Or do they know she's in the conspiracy too?"
"Horst, if we wait for a car, it'll be full of Warriors. The keeper knows you opened his building. I don't know why his people aren't here yet. Probably a jurisdictional fight between him and my Master. Jurisdiction is a big thing with decision makers...and King Peter will be trying to keep things confused too."
"We can't escape by plane. We can't walk across the fields. And we can't call a car," Staley said. "OK. Sketch a subway car for me."
She drew it on Staley's- hand computer screen. It was a box on wheels, the universal space-filling shape of vehicles that must hold as many as possible and must be parked in limited space. "Motors here on the wheels. Controls may be automatic -- "
"Not on a war car."
"Controls here at the front, then. And the Browns and Warriors may have made all kinds of changes. They do that, you know...
"Like armor. Armored glass and sides. Bow guns." The three Moties stiffened and Horst listened. He heard nothing.
"Footsteps," the Motie said, "Whitbread and Potter." "Maybe." Staley moved catlike toward the entrance. "Relax, Horst. I recognize the rhythms."
They had found weapons. "This one's the prize," said Whitbread. He held up a tube with a lens in the business end and a butt clearly meant for Mode shoulders. "I don't know how long the power lasts, but it cut a hole all the way through a thick stone wall. Invisible beam."
Staley took it. "That's what we need. Tell me about the others later. Now get into the doorway and stay there." Staley positioned himself where the passenger ramp ended, just to one side of the tunnel entrance. Nothing would see him until it was coming out of that tunnel. He wondered how good Motie armor was. Would it stop an x-ray laser? There was no sound, and he waited, impatiently.
This is silly, he told himself. But what else is there? Suppose they come in planes and land outside the dome? Should have closed the door and left somebody. Not too late for that, either.
He started to turn toward the others behind him, but then he heard it; a low bumming from far down the track.
It actually relaxed him. There were no more choices to make. Horst moved cautiously and took a better grip on the unfamiliar weapon. The car was coming fast...
It was much smaller than Staley had expected: a toy of a streetcar, whistling past him. Its wind buffeted his face. The car stopped with a jerk, while Staley waved the gun like a magician's wand, back and forth across it. Was anything coming out the other side? No. The gun was working properly. The beam was invisible, but crisscross lines of red-hot metal lined the vehicle. He swiped the beam across the windows, where nothing showed, and along the roof, then stepped quickly out into the tunnel and fired down its length.
There was another car there. Staley ducked back to cover most of his body but continued to fire, aiming the gun at the oncoming car. How the hell would he know when the battery-or whatever it used for power-quit? A museum piece, for God's sake! The second car was past, and there were cherry-red lines across it. He swept the weapon along it, then stepped out to fire down the tunnel again. There was nothing there.
No third car. Good, Systematically he fired at the second car. Something had stopped it just behind the first-some kind of collision avoidance system? He couldn't know. He ran toward the two cars. Whitbread and Potter came out to join him.
"I told you to stay put!"
Whitbread said, "Sorry, Horst."
"This is a military situation, Mr. Whitbread. You can call me Horst when people aren't shooting at us."
"Yes, sir. I wish to point out that nobody has fired except you."
There was a smell from the car: burning meat. The Moties came out from hiding. Staley carefully approached the cars and looked inside. "Demons," he said.7
They examined the bodies with interest. Except for statues they'd never seen the type before. Compared to the Mediators and Engineers they seemed wire-thin and agile, like greyhounds next to pugs. The right arms were long, with short thick fingers and only one thumb; the other edge of the right hand was smooth with callus. The left arm was longer, with fingers like sausages. There was something under the left arm.
The demons had teeth, long and sharp, like true monsters from childhood books and half-forgotten legends.
Charlie twittered to Whitbread's Motie. When there was no answer she twittered again, more shrill, and waved at the Brown. The Engineer approached the door and began to examine it closely. Whitbread's Mode stood petrified, staring at the dead Warriors.
"Look out for booby traps!" Staley yelled. The Brown paid no attention and began to feel cautiously at the door.
"Watch out!"
"They will have traps, but the Brown will see them," Charlie said very slowly. "I will tell her to be careful." The voice was precise and had no accent at all.
"You can talk," Staley said.
"Not well. It is difficult to think in your language."
"What's wrong with my Fyunch(click)" Whitbread demanded.
Instead of answering, Charlie twittered again. The tones rose sharply. Whitbread's Motie seemed to jerk and turned toward them.
"Sorry," she said. "Those are my Master's Warriors. Damn, damn, what am I doing?"
"Let's get in there," Staley said nervously. He raised his gun to cut through the side of the car. The Brown was still inspecting the door, very carefully, as if afraid of it.
"Allow me, sir." Whitbread must have been kidding. He was holding a thick-handled short sword. Horst watched him cut a square doorway in the metal side of the subway car with one continuous smooth, slow sweep of the blade.
"It vibrates," he said. "I think."
A few smells got through theft air filters. It must have been worse for the Moties, but they didn't seem to mind. They crawled inside the second car.
"You better look these over," Whitbread's Motie said. She sounded much better now. "Know your enemy." She twittered at the Brown, and it went to the controls of the car and examined them carefully, then sat in the driver's seat. She had to toss a Warrior out to do it.
"Have a look under the left arm," Whitbread's Motie said. "That's a second left arm, vestigial in most Mote subspecies. Only thing is, it's all one nail, like a -- " She thought for a moment. "A hoof. It's a gutting knife. Plus enough muscle to swing it."
Whitbread and Potter grimaced. At Staley's direction they began to heave demon bodies out the hole in the side of the car. The Warriors were like twins of each other, all identical except for the cooked areas where the x-ray laser had swept through them. The feet were sheathed in sharp horn at toe and heel. One kick, backward or forward, and that Would be all. The heads were small.
"Are they sentient?" Whitbread asked.
"By your standards, yes, but they aren't very inventive," Whitbread's Mode said. She sounded like Whitbread reciting lessons to the First Lieutenant, her voice very precise but without feelings. "They can fix any weapon that ever worked, but they don't tend to invent their own. Oh, and there's a Doctor form, a hybrid between the real Doctor and the Warrior. Semisentient. You should be able to guess what they look like. You'd better have the Brown look at any weapons you keep -- "
Without warning the car began to move. "Where are we going?" Staley asked.
Whitbread's Mode twittered. It sounded a little like a mockingbird whistle. "That's the next city down the line..."
"They'll have a roadblock. Or an armed party waiting for us," Staley said. "How far is it?"
"Oh-fifty kilometers."
"Take us halfway and stop," Staley ordered.
"Yes, sir." The Mode sounded even more like Whitbread. "They've underestimated you, Horst. That's the only way I can explain this. I've never heard of a Warrior killed by anything but another Warrior. Or a Master, sometimes, not often. We fight the Warriors against each other. It's how we keep their population down."
"Ugh," Whitbread muttered. "Why not just-not breed them?"
The Motie laughed. It was a peculiarly bitter laugh, very human, and very disturbing. "Didn't any of you ever wonder what killed the Engineer aboard your ship?"
"Aye." "Of course." "Sure." They all answered together. Charlie twittered something.
"They may as well know," Whitbread's Mode said. "She died because there was nobody to get her pregnant." There was a long silence. "That's the whole secret. Don't you get it yet? Every variant of my species has to be made pregnant after she's been female for a while. Child, male, female, pregnancy, male, female, pregnancy, 'round and 'round. If she doesn't get pregnant in time, she dies. Even us. And we Mediators can't get pregnant. We're mules, sterile hybrids."
"But -- " Whitbread sounded like a kid just told the truth about Santa. "How long do you live?"
"About twenty-five of your years. Fifteen years after maturity. But Engineers and Farmers and Masters-especially Masters!-have to be pregnant within a couple of our years. That Engineer you picked up must have been close to the deadline already."
They drove on in silence. "But-good Lord," Potter said carefully. "That's terrible."
"'Terrible.' You son of a bitch. Of course it's terrible. Sally and her -- "
"What's eating you?" Whitbread demanded.
"Birth control pills. We asked Sally Fowler what a human does when she doesn't want children just yet. She uses birth control pills. But nice girls don't use them. They just don't have sex," she said savagely.
The car was speeding down the tracks. Horst sat at the rear, which was now the front, staring out with his weapon poised. He turned slightly. The Modes were both glaring at the humans, their lips parted slightly to show teeth, enlarging their smile, but the bitterness of the words and tones belied the friendly looks. "They just don't have sex!" Whitbread's Motie said again. "Pyoofwuffle" (whistle) I "Now you know why we have wars. Always wars..."
"Population explosion," Potter said.
"Yeah. Whenever a civilization rises from savagery, Moties stop dying from starvation! You humans don't know what population pressure is! We can keep the numbers down in the lesser breeds, but what can the givers of orders do about their own numbers? The closest thing we've got to a birth control pill is infanticide!"
"And you can nae do that," Potter said. "Any such instinct would be bred out o' the race. So presently everyone is fighting for what food is left."
"Of course." Whitbread's Motie was calmer now. "The higher the civilization, the longer the period of savagery. And always there's Crazy Eddie in there pitching, trying to break the pattern of the Cycles, fouling things up worse. We're pretty close to a collapse now, gentlemen, in case you didn't notice. When you came there was a terrible fight over jurisdiction. My Master won -- "
Charlie whistled and hummed for a second.
"Yeah. King Peter tried for that, but he couldn't get enough support. Wasn't sure he could win a fight with my Master...What we're doing now will probably cause that war anyway. It doesn't matter. It was bound to start soon."
"You're so crowded you grow plants on the rooftops," said Whitbread.
"Oh, that's just common sense. Like putting strips of cropland through the cities. Some always live, to start the Cycles over."
"It must be tough, carving out a civilization without even radioactives," said Whitbread. "You'd have to go direct to hydrogen fusion every time?"
"Sure. You're getting at something."
"I'm not sure what."
"Well, it's been that way for all of recorded history, -- a long time by your standards. Except for one period when they found radioactives in the Trojan asteroids. There were a few alive up there and they brought civilization here.
The radioactives had been pretty thoroughly mined by some older civilization, but there were still some there."
"God's eyes," said Whitbread. "But -- "
"Stop the car, please," Staley ordered. Whitbread's Mode twittered and the car came smoothly to a halt. "I'm getting nervous about what we're running into," Staley explained. "They must be waiting for us. Those soldiers we killed haven't reported in-and if those were your Master's men, where are the Keeper's? Anyway, I want to test the Warriors' weapons."
"Have the Brown look them over," Whitbread's Mode said. "They may be rigged."
They looked deadly, those weapons. And no two were identical. The most common type was a slug thrower, but there were also hand lasers and grenades. The butt of each weapon had been individualized. Some balanced only against the upper right shoulder, some squared against both. The gun sights differed. There were two left-handed models. Staley dimly remembered heaving out a lefthanded body.
There was a rocket launcher with a fifteen-centimeter aperture. "Have her look at this," Staley said.
Whitbread's Motie handed the weapon to the Brown, accepting a slug thrower in return which she put under a bench. "This was rigged." The Brown looked at the rocket launcher and twittered. "OK," Whitbread's Mode said.
"How about the loads?" Staley passed them over. There were several different kinds, and none exactly alike. The Brown twittered again.
"The biggest rocket would explode if you tried to load it," Whitbread's Motie said. "They may have figured you right at that. Anyway, they certainly prepared enough traps. I've been assuming that the Masters think you're a kind of inept Mediator. It was what we thought, at first. But these traps mean they think you could kill Warriors."
"Great. I'd rather they thought we were stupid. We'd still be dead without the museum weapons. Come to that, Why keep live guns in a museum?"
"You don't see the point of a museum, Horst. It's for the next rise in the Cycles. Savages come to put together another civilization. The faster they can do it, the longer it'll be before another collapse because they'll be expanding their capabilities faster than the population. See? So the savages get their choice of a number of previous civilizations, and -the weapons to put a new one into action. You noticed the lock?"
"I did," said Potter. "You need some astronomy to solve it. I presume that's to keep the savages from getting the goods before they're ready."
"Right." The Brown handed over a big-nosed rocket with a twitter. "She fixed this one. It's safe. What are you planning to do with it, Horst?"
"Pick me some more. Potter, you carry that x-ray laser. How close are we to- the surface?"
"Oh. Hm. The" -- Bird Whistle -- "terminus is only one flight of stairs below the surface. The ground is pretty level in that region. I'd say we're three to ten meters underground."
"How close to other transportation?"
"An hour's walk to- Bird Whistle. Horst, are you going to damage the tunnel? Do you know how long this subway has been in use?"
"No." Horst slid through the makeshift hatch in the side of the car. He walked a score of meters back the way they had come, then doubled that. The weapons could still be booby-trapped.
The tunnel was infinitely straight ahead of him. It must have been trued with a laser, then dug with something like a hot rock boring machine.
Whitbread's Motie's voice carried down the tunnel. "Eleven thousand years!"
Staley fired.
The projectile touched the roof of the tunnel, far down. Horst curled up against the shock wave. When he raised his eyes there was considerable dirt in the tunnel.
He chose another projectile and fired it.
This time there was reddish daylight. He walked down to look at the damage. Yes, they could climb that slope.
Eleven thousand years,
Chapter 37 - History Lesson
Chapter 37 - History Lesson
There was a three-meter-high wall around (Bird Whistle) city. It might have been stone, or a hard plastic; the structure was difficult to see in the red-black light of Murcheson's Eye. Beyond it they could see great oblong buildings. Yellow windows loomed over their heads.
"The gates will be guarded," Whitbread's Mode said. "I'm sure," Staley muttered. "Does the Keeper live here too?"
"Yes. At the subway terminal. Keepers aren't allowed farm lands of their own. The temptation to exploit that kind of sell-sufficiency might be too much even for a sterile male."
"But how do you get to be a Keeper?" Whitbread asked. "You're always talking about competition among Masters, but how do they compete?"
"God's eyes, Whitbread!" Staley exploded. "Look, what do we do about that wall?"
"We'll have to go through it," Whitbread's Motie said. She twittered to Charlie for a moment. "There are alarms and there'll be Warriors on guard."
"Can we go over it?"
"You'd pass through an x-ray laser, Horst."
"God's teeth. What are they so afraid of?"
"Food riots."
"So we go through it. Any one place better than another?"
The Moties shrugged with Whitbread's gestures. "Maybe half a kilometer farther. There's a fast road there."
They walked along the wall, "Well, how do they compete?" Whitbread insisted. "We've got nothing better to talk about."
Staley muttered something, but stayed close to listen.
"How do you compete?" Whitbread's Mode asked. "Efficiency. We have commerce, you know. Mr. Bury might be surprised at just how shrewd some of our Traders are. Partly, Masters buy responsibilities-that is, they show they can handle the job. They get other powerful givers of orders to support them. Mediators negotiate it. Contracts-promises of services to be delivered, that kind of thing-are drawn up and published. And some givers of orders work for others, you know. Never directly. But they'll have a job they take care of, and they'll consult a more powerful Master about policy. A Master gains prestige and authority when other givers of orders start asking her for advice. And of course her daughters help."
"It sounds complex," Potter said. "I think o' nae time or place similar in human history."
"It is complex," said Whitbread's Mode. "How could it be anything else? How can a decision maker be anything but independent? That's what drove Captain Blaine's Fyunch(dick) insane, you know. Here was your Captain, Absolute Master on that ship-except that when whoever it-was on Lenin croaked frog, Captain Blaine hopped around the bridge."
"Do you really talk about the Captain that way?" Staley asked Whitbread.
"I refuse to answer on the grounds that it might tend to get me dumped into the mass converter," Whitbread said. "Besides, we're coming to a bend in the wail.
"About here, Mr. Staley," Whitbread's Mode said. "There's a road on the other side."
"Stand, back." Horst raised the rocket launcher and fired. At the second explosion light showed through the wail. More lights rippled along its top. Some shone out into the fields, showing crops growing to the edge of the wail. "OK, get through fast," Staley ordered.
They went through the gap and onto a highway. Cars and larger vehicles whizzed past, missing them by centimeters as they cowered against the wall. The three Moties walked boldly into the road.
Whitbread shouted and tried to grab his Fyunch(click). She shook him off impatiently and strolled across the street. Cars missed her narrowly, cunningly dodging past the Moties without slowing at all.
On the other side the Brown-and-whites waved theft left arms in an unmistakable sign: Come on!
Light poured through the gap in the wail. Something was out there in the fields where they'd been. Staley waved the others into the street and fired back through the gap. The rocket exploded a hundred meters away, and the light went out.
Whitbread and Potter walked across the highway.
Staley loaded the last round into the rocket launcher, but saved it. Nothing was coming through the gap yet. He stepped out into the street and began to walk. Traffic whizzed past. The urge to run and dodge was overwhelming, but he moved slowly, at constant speed. A truck whipped past in a momentary hurricane. Then others.
After a lifetime he reached the other side, alive.
No sidewalks. They were still in traffic, huddled against a grayish concrete-like wall.
Whitbread's Motie stepped into the street and gave a curious three-armed gesture. A long rectangular truck stopped with screeching brakes. She twittered to the drivers and the Browns immediately got out, went to the back of the truck, and began removing boxes from the cargo compartment. The traffic streamed past without slowing at all.
"That ought to do it," Whitbread's Mode said briskly. "The Warriors will be coming to investigate the hole in the wall -- "
• The• humans got in quickly. The Brown who'd followed them patiently from the museum climbed• into the right-hand driver's seat. Whitbread's Mode started for the other driver's seat, but Charlie twittered at her. The two Brown-and-whites whistled and chirped, and Charlie gestured vehemently. Finally Whitbread's Mode climbed into the cargo compartment and closed the doors. As she did the humans saw the original drivers walking slowly down the street away from the truck.
"Where are they going?" Staley asked.
"Better than that, what was the argument about?" Whitbread demanded.
"One at a time, gentlemen," Whitbread's Mode began. The truck started. It jolted hard, and there was humming from the motors and the tires. Sounds of myriads of other vehicles filtered in.
Whitbread was jammed between hard plastic boxes, with about as much room as a coffin. It reminded him unpleasantly of his situation. The others had no more room, and Jonathon wondered if they had thought of the analogy. His nose was only centimeters from the roof.
"The Browns will go to a transport pool and report that their vehicle was commandeered by a Mediator," Whitbread's Mode said. "And the argument was over who'd stay up front with the Brown. I lost."
"Why was it an argument?" Staley demanded. "Don't you trust each other?"
"I trust Charlie. She doesn't really trust me-I mean, how could she? I've walked out on my own Master. As far as she's concerned, I'm Crazy Eddie. Best to see to things herself."
"But where are we going?" Staley asked.
"To King Peter's territory. Best available way."
"We can't stay in this vehicle long," Staley said. "Once those Browns report, they'll be looking for it-you must have police. Some way to trace a stolen truck. You do have crime, don't you?"
"Not the way you think of it. There aren't really any laws-but there are givers of orders who have jurisdiction over missing property. They'll find the truck for a price. It'll take tithe, for my Master to negotiate with them, though. First she'll have to show that I've gone insane."
"I don't suppose there's a space port here?" Whitbread asked.
"We couldn't use it anyway," Staley said flatly.
They listened to the hum of traffic for awhile. Potter said, "I thought of that too. A spacecraft is conspicuous. If a message would bring an attack on Lenin, 'tis certain we'd nae be allowed to return ourselves."
"And how are we going to get home?" Whitbread wondered aloud, He wished he hadn't asked.
"'Tis a twice-told tale," Potter said unhappily, "We know aye more than can be allowed. And what we ken is more important than our lives, is it nae so, Mr. Staley?"
"Right."
"You never know when to give up, do you?" Whitbread's voice said from the dark. It took a moment for them to realize it was the Motie speaking. "King Peter may let you live, He may let you return to Lenin. If he's convinced that's best, he can arrange it. But there's no way you will send a message to that battleship without his help."
"The hell we won't," Staley said. His voice rose. "Get this through your ear flap. You've been square with us-I think. I'll be honest with you. If there's a way to get a message out I'm going to send it."
"And after that, 'tis as God wills," Potter added,
They listened to the humming of the traffic. "You won't have the chance, Horst," Whitbread's voice said.
"There's no threat you can make that would get Charlie or me to have a Brown build you the equipment you'd need. You can't use our transmitters if you could find one-even I couldn't use strange gear without a Brown to help. There might not even be the proper communications devices on this planet, for that matter."
"Come off it," Staley said. "You've got to have space communications, and there are only so many bands in the electromagnetic spectrum."
"Sure. But nothing stays idle here. If we need something, the Browns put it together. When it's not needed any more, they build something else out of the parts. And you want something that'll reach Lenin without letting anyone know you've done that"
"I'll take the chance. If we can broadcast a warning to the Admiral, he'll get the ship home." Horst was positive. Lenin might be only one ship, but President Class battlewagons had defeated whole fleets before. Against Modes without the Field she'd be invincible. He wondered why he'd ever believed anything else. Back at the museum there'd been electronics parts, and they could have put together a transmitter of some kind. Now it was too late; why had he listened to the Motie?
They drove on for nearly an hour. The midshipmen were cramped, jammed between hard boxes, in the dark. Staley felt his throat tighten and was afraid to talk any more. There might be a catch in his voice, something to communicate his fears to the others, and he couldn't let them know he was as afraid as they were. He wished for something to happen, a fight, anything- There were starts and stops. The truck jerked and turned, then came to a halt. They waited. The sliding door opened and Charlie stood framed in light.
"Don't move," she said. There were Warriors behind her, weapons ready. At least four.
Horst Staley growled in hatred. Betrayed! He reached for his pistol, but the cramped position prevented him from drawing it.
"No, Horst!" Whitbread's Mode shouted. She twittered. Charlie hummed and clacked in reply. "Don't do anything," Whitbread's Mode said. "Charlie has commandeered an aircraft. The Warriors belong to its owner. They won't interfere as long as we go straight from here to the plane."
"But who are they?" Staley demanded. He kept his grip on the pistol. The odds looked impossible-the Warriors were poised and ready, and they looked deadly and efficient.
"I told you," Whitbread's Mode said. "They're a bodyguard. All Masters have them. Nearly all, anyway. Now get out, slowly, and keep your hands off your weapons. Don't make them think you might try to attack their Master. If they get that idea, we're all dead."
Staley estimated his chances. Not good. If he had Kelley and another Marine instead of Whitbread and Potter- "OK," he said. "Do as she says." He climbed slowly out of the van.
They were in a luggage-handling area. The Warriors stood in easy postures, leaning slightly forward on the balls of their wide, horned feet. It looked, Staley thought, like a karate stance. He caught a glimpse of motion near the wall. There were at least two more Warriors over there, under cover. Good thing he hadn't tried to fight.
The Warriors watched them carefully, falling in behind the strange procession of a Mediator, three humans, another Mediator, and a Brown. Their weapons were held at the ready, not quite pointing at anyone, and they fanned out, never bunching up.
"Will nae yon decision maker call your Master when we are gone?" Potter asked.
The Modes twittered together. The Warriors seemed to pay no attention at all. "Charlie says yes. She'll notify both my Master and King Peter. But it gets us an airplane, doesn't it?"
The decision maker's personal aircraft was a streamlined wedge attended by several Browns. Charlie twittered at them and they began removing seats, bending metal, working at almost blinding speed. Several miniatures darted through the plane. Staley saw them and cursed, but softly, hoping the Moties wouldn't know why. They stood waiting. near the plan; and the Warriors watched them the whole time.
"I find this slightly unbelievable," said Whitbread "Doesn't the owner know we're fugitives?"
Whitbread's Motie nodded. "But not his fugitives. He only runs the (Bird Whistle) airport baggage section. He wouldn't assume the prerogatives of my Master. He's also talked to the (Bird Whistle) airport manager, and they both agree they don't want my Master and King Peter fighting here. Best to have us all out of here, fast."
"Ye're the strangest creatures I hae ever imagined," Potter said. "I can no see why such anarchy does nae end in -- " he stopped, embarrassed.
"It does," Whitbread's Motie said. "Given our special characteristics, it has to. But industrial feudalism works better than some things we've tried."
The Browns beckoned. When they entered the airplane there was a single Mode-shaped couch starboard aft. Charlie's Brown went to it. Forward of that were a pair of human seats, then a human seat next to a Mode seat. Charlie and another Brown went through the cargo compartment to the pilot's section. Potter and Staley sat together without conversation, leaving Whitbread and his Mode side by side. It reminded the midshipman of a more pleasant trip that had not been very long ago.
The plane unfolded an unbelievable area of wing surface. It took off slowly, straight up. Acres of city dwindled beneath them, square kilometers of more city lights rose above the horizon. They flew over the lights, endless city stretching on and on with the great dark sweep of farm land. falling far behind. Staley peered through the view port and thought he could see, away to the left, the edge of the city: beyond it was nothing, darkness, but level. More farm lands.
"You say every Master has Warriors," Whitbread said. "Why didn't we ever see any before?"
"There aren't any Warriors in Castle City," the Mode said with obvious pride.
"None?"
"None at all. Everywhere else, any holder of territory or important manager goes about with a bodyguard. Even the immature decision maker is guarded by his mother's troops. But the Warriors are too obviously what they are. My Master and the decision makers concerned with you and this Crazy Eddie idea got the others in Castle City to agree, so that you wouldn't know just how warlike we are."
Whitbread laughed. "I was thinking of Dr. Horvath."
His Motie chuckled. "He had the same idea, didn't he? Hide your paltry few wars from the peaceful Moties. They might be shocked. Did I tell you the Crazy Eddie probe started a war all by itself?"
"No. You haven't told us about any of your wars."
"It was worse than that, actually. You can see the problem. Who gets put in charge of the launching lasers? Any Master or coalition of them will eventually use the lasers to take over more territory for his clan. If Mediators run the installation, some decision maker will take it away from them."
"You'd just give it up to the first Master who ordered you to?" Whitbread asked incredulously.
"For God's sake, Jonathon! Of course not. She'd have been ordered not to to begin with. But Mediators aren't good at tactics. We can't handle battalions of Warriors."
"Yet you govern the planet...
"For the Masters. We have to. If the Masters meet to negotiate for themselves, it always ends up in a fight. Anyway. What finally happened was that a coalition of Whites was given command of the lasers and their children held as hostages on Mote Prime. They were all pretty old and had an adequate number of children. The Mediators lied to them about how much thrust the Crazy Eddie probe would need. From the Masters' point of view the Mediators blew up the lasers five years early. Clever, huh? Even so..."
"Even so, what?"
"The coalition managed to salvage a couple of lasers. They had Browns with them. They had to. Potter, you're from the system the probe was aimed at, aren't you? Your ancestors must have records of just how powerful those launching lasers were."
"Enough to outshine Murcheson's Eye. There was even a new religion started about them. We had our own wars, then -- "
"They were powerful enough to take over civilization, too. What it amounts to is that the collapse came early that time, and we didn't fall all the way back to savagery. The Mediators must have planned it that way from the beginning."
"God's teeth," Whitbread muttered. "Do you always work that way?"
"What way, Jonathon?"
"Expecting everything to fall apart at any minute. Using the fact."
"Intelligent people do. Everyone but the Crazy Eddies. I think the classic case of the Crazy Eddie syndrome was that time machine. You saw it in one of the sculptures."
"Some historian decided that a great turning point in history had come about two hundred years earlier. If he could interfere with that turning point, all of Mote history from that point on would be peaceful and idyllic. Can you believe it? And he could prove it, too. He had dates, old memoranda, secret treaties..."
"What was the event?"
"There was an-Emperor, a very powerful Master. All of her siblings had been killed and she inherited jurisdiction over an enormous territory. Her mother had persuaded the Doctors and Mediators to produce a hormone that must have been something like your birth control pills. It would stimulate a Master's body into thinking she was pregnant. Massive shots, and after that she would turn male. A sterile male. When her mother died, the Mediators had the hormone used on the Emperor."
"But you do have birth control pills then!" Whitbread said. "You can use them to control the population -- "
"That's what this Crazy Eddie thought. Well, they used the hormone for something like three generations in the Empire. Stabilized the populations, all right; Not very many Masters there. Everything peaceful. Meanwhile, of course, the population explosion was happening on the other continents. The other Masters got together and invaded the Emperor's territory. They had plenty of Warriors-and plenty of Masters to control them. End of Empire. Our time machine builder had the idea she could set things up so that the Empire would control all of Mote Prime." Whitbread's Motie snorted in disgust. "It never works. How are you going to get the Masters to become sterile males? Sometimes it happens anyway, but who'd want to before having children? That's the only time the hormone can work."
"Right. Even if the Emperor had conquered all of Mote Prime and stabilized the population-and think about it, Jonathon, the only way to do that would be for the rulers to pass control on to breeders while never having any children themselves-even if they did, they'd have been attacked by the asteroid civilizations."
"But man, it's a start!" said Whitbread. "There's got to be a way -- "
"I am not a man, and there doesn't got to be a way. And that's another reason I don't want contact between your species and mine. You're all Crazy Eddies. You think every problem has a solution."
"All human problems hae at least one final solution," Gavin Potter said softly from the seat behind them.
"Human, perhaps," the alien said. "But do Moties have souls?"
"'Tis nae for me to say," Potter answered. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "I am no a spokesman for the Lord."
"It isn't for your chaplain to say either. How can you expect to find out? It would take revealed knowledge-a divine inspiration, wouldn't it? I doubt if you'll get it."
"Hae ye nae religion at all, then?" Potter asked incredulously.
"We've had thousands, Gavin. The Browns and other semisentient classes don't change theirs much, but every civilization of Masters produces something else. Mostly they're variants of transmigration of souls, with emphasis on survival through children. You can see why."
"You didn't mention Mediators," Whitbread said.
"I told you-we don't have children. There are Mediators who accept the transmigration idea. Reincarnation as Masters. That sort of thing. The closest thing to ours I've heard of in human religions is Lesser-Way Buddhism. I talked to Chaplain Hardy about this. He says Buddhists believe they can someday escape from what they call the Wheel of Life. That sounds an awful lot like the Cycles. I don't know, Jonathon. I used to think I accepted reincarnation, but there's no knowing, is there?"
"And you hae nothing like Christianity?" Potter demanded.
"No. We've had prophecies of a Savior who'd end the Cycles, but we've had everything, Gavin. It's for damn sure there's been no Savior yet."
The endless city unrolled beneath them. Presently Potter leaned back in his chair and began to snore softly. Whitbread watched in amazement.
"You should sleep too," said the Motie. "You've been up too long."
"I'm too scared. You tire easier than we do-you ought to sleep."
"I'm too scared."
"Brother, now I'm really scared." Did I really call him brother? No, I called her brother. Hell with it. "There was more to your museum of art than we understood, wasn't there?"
"Yeah. Things we didn't want to go into detail about. Like the massacre of the Doctors. A very old event, almost legend now. Mother Emperor, sort of, decided to wipe the entire Doctor breed off the planet. Damn near succeeded, too." The Motie stretched. "It's good to talk to you without having to lie. We weren't made to lie, Jonathon."
"Why kill off the Doctors?"
"To keep the population down, you idiot! Of course it didn't work. Some Masters kept secret stables, and after the next collapse they -- "
" -- were worth their weight in iridium."
"It's thought that they actually became the foundation of commerce. Like cattle on Tabletop."
The city fell behind at last, and the plane moved over oceans dark beneath the red light of Murcheson's Eye. The red star was setting, glowing balefully near the horizon, and other stars rose in the east below the inky edge of the Coal Sack.
"If they're going to shoot us down, this is the place," Staley said. "Where the crash won't hit anything. Are you sure you know where we're going?"
Whitbread's Mode shrugged. "To King Peter's jurisdiction. If we can get there." She looked back at Potter. The midshipman was curled into his seat, his mouth slightly open, gently snoring. The lights in the plane were dim and everything was peaceful, the only jarring note the rocket launcher that Staley clutched across his lap. "You ought to get some sleep too."
"Yeah" Horst leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. His hands never relaxed their tight grip on the weapon.
"He even sleeps at attention," Whitbread said. "Or tries to. I guess Horst is as scared as we are."
"I keep wondering if any of this does any good," the alien said. "We're damned close to falling apart anyway. You missed a couple of other things in that zoo, you know. Like the food beast. A Motie variant, almost armless, unable to defend itself against us but pretty good at surviving. Another of our relatives, bred for meat in a shameful age, a long time ago
"My God." Whitbread took a deep breath. "But you wouldn't do anything like that now,"
"Oh, no."
"Then why bring it up?"
"A mere statistical matter, a coincidence you may find interesting. There isn't a zoo on the planet that doesn't have breeding stock of Meats. And the herds are getting larger..."
"God's teeth! Don't you ever stop thinking about the next collapse?"
"No."
Murcheson's Eye had long since vanished. Now the east was blood-red in a sunrise that still startled Whitbread. Red sunrises were rare on inhabitable worlds. They passed over a chain of islands. Ahead to the west lights glowed where it was still dark. There was a cityscape like a thousand Spartas set edge to edge, crisscrossed everywhere by dark strips of cultivated land. On man's worlds they would be parks. Here they were forbidden territory, guarded by twisted demons.
Whitbread yawned and looked at the alien beside him. "I think I called you brother, some time last night."
"I know. You meant sister. Gender is important to us, too. A matter of life and death."
"I'm not sure I mean that either. I meant friend," Whitbread said with some awkwardness.
"Fyunch(click) is a closer relationship. But I am glad to be your friend," said the Motie. "I wouldn't have given up the experience of knowing you."
The silence was embarrassing. "I better wake up the others," Whitbread said softly.
The plane banked sharply and turned northwards, Whitbread's Mode looked out at the city below, across to the other side to be sure of the location of the sun, then down again. She got up and went forward into the pilot's compartment, and twittered. Charlie answered and they twittered again.
"Horst," Whitbread said. "Mr. Staley. Wake up."
Horst Staley had forced himself to sleep. He was still as rigid as a statue, the rocket launcher across his lap, his hands gripping it tightly.
"Yeah?"
"I don't know. We changed course, and now-listen," Whitbread said. The Moties were still chattering. Their voices grew louder.
Chapter 38 - Final Solution
Chapter 38 - Final Solution
Whitbread's Mode came back to her seat. "It's started," she said. She didn't sound like Whitbread now. She sounded like an alien. "War."
"Who?" Staley demanded.
"My Master and King Peter. The others haven't joined in yet, but they will."
"War over us?" Whitbread asked incredulously. He was ready to cry. The transformation in his Fyunch(click) was too much to bear.
"Over jurisdiction over you," the Motie corrected. She shivered, relaxed, and suddenly Whitbread's voice spoke to them from the half-smiling alien lips. "It's not too bad yet. Just Warriors, and raids. Each one wants to show the other what she could do, without destroying anything really valuable. There'll be a lot of pressure from the other decision makers to keep it that way They don't want to be in a fallout pattern."
"God's teeth," said Whitbread. He gulped. "But-welcome back, brother."
"Where does that leave us?" Staley demanded. "Where do we go now?"
"A neutral place. The Castle."
"Castle?" Horst shouted. "That's your Master's territory? His hand was very near his pistol again.
"Think the others would give my Master that much control over you? The Mediators you met were all part of my clan, but the Castle itself belongs to a sterile decision maker. A Keeper."
Staley looked distrustful. "What do we do once we're there?"
The Motie shrugged "Wait and see who wins. If King Peter wins he's going to send you back to Lenin. Maybe this war will convince the Empire that it's better to leave us alone. Maybe you can even help us." The Motie gestured disgustedly. "Help us. He's Crazy Eddie too. There'll never be an end to the Cycles."
"Wait?" Staley muttered. "Not me, damn it. Where is this Master of yours?"
"No!" the Motie shouted. "Horst, I can't help you with something like that. Besides, you'd never get past the Warriors. They're good, Horst, better than your Marines; and what are you? Three junior officers with damn little experience and some weapons you got from an old museum."
Staley looked below. Castle City was ahead. He saw tile space port, an open space among many, but gray, not green. Beyond it was the Castle, a spire circled by a balcony. Small as it was, it stood out among the industrial ugliness of the endless cityscape.
There was communications gear in their baggage. When Renner and the others came up, the Sailing Master had left everything but their notes and records in the Castle. He hadn't said why, but now they knew: he wanted the Moties to think they would return.
There might even be enough to build a good transmitter. Something that would reach Lenin. "Can we land in the street?" Staley asked.
"In the street?" The Motie blinked. "Why not? If Charlie agrees. This is her aircraft." Whitbread's Mode trilled. There were answering hums and clicks from the cockpit.
"You're sure the Castle is safe?" Staley asked. "Whitbread, do you trust the Moties?"
"I trust this one. But I may be a little prejudiced, Hor-Mr. Staley. You'll have to make your own judgment."
"Charlie says the Castle is empty, and the ban on Warriors in Castle City still holds," Whitbread's Motie said. "She also says King Peter's winning, but she's only hearing reports from her side."
"Will she land near to the Castle?" Staley asked.
"Why not? We have to buzz the street first, to warn the Browns to look up." The Motie trilled again.
The grumble of motors died to a whisper. Wings spread again, and the plane dipped lower, falling almost straight down to pull level with a swoop. It whizzed past the Castle, giving them a view of its balconies. Traffic moved below, and Staley saw a White on the pedestrian walkway across from the Castle. The Master ducked quickly into a building.
"No demons," Staley said. "Anybody see Warriors?"
"No." "Nae." "Me neither."
The plane banked sharply and fell again. Whitbread stared wide-eyed at the hard concrete sides of skyscrapers whipping past. They watched for Whites-and Warriors- but saw neither.
The plane slowed and leveled off two meters above the ground. They glided toward the Castle like a gull above waters. Staley braced himself at the windows and waited. Cars came at them and swerved around.
They were going to hit the Castle, he realized. Was the Brown trying to ram their way through like the cutter into MacArthur? The plane dropped joltingly and surged against brakes and thrust reverses. They were just beneath the Castle wall.
"Here, trade with me, Potter." Staley took the x-ray laser. "Now move out." The door wouldn't work for him and he waved at the Motie.
She threw the door wide. There was a two-meter space between wingtip and wall, making twenty-five meters in all. That wing of the aircraft had folded somehow. The Motie leaped into the street.
The humans dashed after her, with Whitbread carrying the magic sword in his left hand. The door might be locked, but it would never stand up to that,
The door was locked. Whitbread hefted the sword to hew through it, but his Mode waved him back. She examined a pair of dials set in the door, took one in each of the right hands, and as she twirled them turned a lever with her left arm. The door opened smoothly. "Meant to keep humans out," she said.
The entryway was empty. "Any way to barricade that damn door?" Staley asked. His voice sounded hollow, and he saw that the furnishings were gone from the room.
When there was no answer, Staley handed Potter the x-ray laser. "Keep guard here. You'll need the Moties to tell if someone coming through is an enemy. Come on, Whitbread." He turned and ran for the stairs.
Whitbread followed reluctantly. Horst climbed rapidly, leaving Whitbread out of breath when they reached the floor where their rooms were. "You got something against elevators?' Whitbread demanded. "Sir?"
Staley didn't answer. The door to Renner's room stood open, and Horst dashed inside. "God damn!"
"What's the matter?" Whitbread panted. He went through the door.
The room was empty. Even the bunks were removed.
There was no sign of the equipment Renner had left behind. "I was hoping to find something to talk to Lenin with," Staley growled. "Help me look. Maybe they stored our stuff in here somewhere."
They searched, but found nothing. On every floor it was the same: fixtures, beds, furniture, everything removed. The Castle was a hollow shell. They went back downstairs to the entryway.
"Are we alone?" Gavin Potter asked.
"Yeah," Staley replied. "And we'll starve pretty bloody quick if nothing worse. The place has been stripped."
Both Modes shrugged. "I'm a little surprised," Whitbread's Motie said. The two Moties twittered for a moment. "She doesn't know why either. It looks like the place won't be used again -- "
"Well, they damn well know where we are," Staley growled. He took his helmet from his belt and connected the leads to his radio. Then he put the helmet on. "Lenin, this is Staley. Lenin, Lenin, Lenin, this is Midshipman Staley. Over."
"Mr. Staley, where in hell are you?" It was Captain Blaine.
"Captain! Thank God! Captain, we're holed up in- Wait one moment, sir." The Moties were twittering to each other, Whitbread's Mode tried to say something, but Staley didn't hear it. What he heard was a Mode speaking with Whitbread's voice- "Captain Blaine, sir. Where do you get your Trish Mist? Over."
"Staley, cut the goddamn comedy and report! Over."
"Sorry, sir, I really must know. You'll understand why I ask. Where do you get your Irish Mist? Over."
"Staley! I'm tired of the goddamn jokes!"
Horst took the helmet off. "It isn't the Captain," he said. "It's a Motie with the Captain's voice. One of yours?" he asked Whitbread's Motie.
"Probably. It was a stupid trick. Your Fyunch(click) would have known better. Which means she's not cooperating with my Master too well."
"There's no way to defend this place," Staley said. He looked around the entryway. It was about ten meters by thirty, and there was no furniture at all. The hangings and pictures which adorned the walls were gone. "Upstairs," Horst said. "We've got a better chance there." He led them back up to the living quarters floor, and they took positions at the end of the hail where they could cover the stairwell and elevator.
"Now what?" Whitbread asked.
"Now we wait," both Moties said in unison. A long hour passed.
The traffic sounds died away. It took -- them a minute to notice, then it was obvious. No-thing moved outside.
"I'll have a look," Staley said. He went to a room and peered carefully out the window, standing well inside so that he wouldn't expose himself. -- - -
Demons moved on the street below. They came forward in a twisting, flickering quick run, then suddenly raised their weapons and fired down the street. Horst turned and saw another group melting for cover; they left a third of their number dead. Battle sounds filtered through the thick windows.
"What is it, Horst?" Whitbread called. "It sounds like shots."
"It is shots. Two groups of Warriors in a battle. Over us?"
"Certainly," Whitbread's Motie answered. "You know what this means, don't you?" She sounded very resigned.
- When there was no answer she said, "It means the humans won't be coming back. They're gone."
Staley cried, "I don't believe it! The Admiral wouldn't leave us! He'd take on the whole damn planet -- "
"No, he wouldn't, Horst," Whitbread said. "You know his orders."
Horst shook his head, but he knew Whitbread was right. He called, "Whitbread's Motie! Come here and tell me which side is which."
"No."
Horst looked around. "What do you mean, no? I need to know who to shoot at!"
"I don't want to get shot."
Whitbread's Motie was a coward! "I haven't been shot, have I? Just don't expose yourself."
Whitbread's voice said, "Horst, if you've exposed an eye, any Warrior could have shot it out. Nobody wants you dead now. They haven't used artillery, have they? But they'd shoot me."
"All right. Charlie! Come here and -- "
"I will not."
Horst didn't even curse. Not cowards, but Brown-and whites. Would his own Motie have come?
The demons had all found cover: cars parked or abandoned, doorways, the fluting along the sides of one building. They moved from cover to cover with the flickering speed of houseflies. Yet every time a Warrior fired, a Warrior died. There had not been all that much gunfire, yet two thirds of the Warriors in sight were dead. Whitbread's Motie had been right about -their marksmanship. It was inhumanly accurate.
Almost below Horst's window, a dead Warrior lay with its right arms blown away. A live one waited for a lull, suddenly broke for closer cover-and the fallen one came to life. Then it happened too fast to follow: the gun flying, the two Warriors colliding like a pair of buzz saws, then flying away, broken dolls still kicking and spraying blood.
Something crashed below. There were sounds in the stairwell. Hooves clicked on marble steps. The Moties twittered. Charlie whistled, loudly, and again. There was an answering call from below, then a voice spoke in David Hardy's perfect Anglic.
"You will not be mistreated. Surrender at once."
"We've lost," Charlie said.
"My Master's troops. What will you do, Horst?"
For answer Staley crouched in a corner with the x-ray rifle aimed at the stairwell. He waved frantically at the other midshipmen to take cover.
A brown-and-white Mode turned the corner and stood in the hallway. It had Chaplain Hardy's voice, but none of his mannerisms. Only the perfect Anglic, and the resonant tones. The Mediator was unarmed. "Come now, be reasonable. Your ship has gone. Your officers believe you are dead. There is no reason to harm you. Don't get your friends killed over nothing, come out and accept our friendship."
"Go to hell!"
"What can you gain by this?" the Motie asked. "We only wish you well -- "
There were sounds of firing from below. The shots rebounded through the empty rooms and hallways of the Castle. The Mediator with Hardy's voice whistled and clicked to the other Moties.
"What's she saying?" Staley demanded. He looked around: Whitbread's Motie was crouched against the wall, frozen. "Jesus, now what?"
"Leave her alone!" Whitbread shouted. He moved from his post to stand beside the Motie and put his arm on her shoulder. "What should we do?"
The battle noises moved closer, and suddenly two demons were in the hallway. Staley aimed and fired in a smooth motion, cutting down one Warrior. He began to swing the beam toward the other. The demon fired, and Staley was flung against the far wall of the corridor. More demons bounded into the hallway, and there was a burst of fire that held Staley upright for a second. His body was chewed by dragon's teeth, and he fell to lie very still. Potter fired the rocket launcher. The shell burst at the end of the hallway. Part of the walls fell in, littering the floor with rubble and partly burying the Mediator and Warriors.
"It seems to me that no matter who wins yon fight below, we know aye more about the Langston Field than is safe," Potter said slowly. "What do ye think, Mr. Whitbread? 'Tis your command now."
Jonathon shook himself from his reverie. His Motie was stock-still, unmoving- Potter drew his pistol and waited. There were scrabbling sounds in the hallway. The sounds of battle died away.
"Your friend is tight, brother," Whitbread's Mode said. She looked at the unmoving form of Hardy's Fyunch(click). "That one was a brother too..."
Potter screamed. Whitbread jerked around.
Potter stood unbelieving, his pistol gone, his arm shattered from wrist to elbow. He looked at Whitbread with eyes dull with just realized pain and said, "One of the dead ones threw a rock."
There were more Warriors in the hall, and another Mediator. They advanced slowly.
Whitbread swung the magic sword that would cut stone and metal. It came up in a backhanded arc and cut through Potter's neck-Potter, whose religion forbade suicide, as did Whitbread's. There was a burst of fire as he swung the blade -- at his own neck, and two clubs smashed at his shoulders. Jonathon Whitbread fell and did not move.
They did not touch him at first except to remove the weapons from his belt. They waited for a Doctor, while the rest held off King Peter's attacking forces. A Mediator spoke quickly to Charlie and offered, a communicator
-there was nothing left to fight for. Whitbread's Motie remained by her Fyunch(click).
The Doctor probed at Whitbread's shoulders. Although she had never had a human to dissect, she knew everything any Motie knew about human physiology, and her hands were perfectly formed to make use of a thousand Cycles of instincts. The fingers moved gently to the pulverized shoulder joints, the eyes noted that there was no spurting blood. Hands touched the spine, that marvelous organ she'd known only through models.
The fragile neck vertebrae had been snapped. "High velocity bullets," she hummed to the waiting Mediator. "The impact has destroyed the notochord. This creature is dead."
The Doctor and two Browns worked frantically to build a blood pump to serve the brain. It was futile. The communication between Engineer and Doctor was too slow, the body was too strange, and there was too little equipment in time.
They took the body and Whitbread's Motie to the space port controlled by their Master. Charlie would be returned to King Peter, now that the war was finished. There were payments to be made, work in cleaning up after the battle, every Master who had been harmed to be satisfied; when next the humans came, there must be unity among Moties.
The Master never knew, nor did her white daughters ever suspect. But among her other daughters, the brown-and-white Mediator who served her, it was whispered that one of their sisters had done that which no Mediator had ever done throughout all the Cycles. As the Warriors hurried toward this strange human; Whitbread's Motie had touched it, not with the gentle right hands, but with the powerful left.
She was executed for disobedience; and she died alone. Her sisters did not hate her, but they could not bring themselves to speak to one who had killed her own Fyunch(click).