The Mote in God's Eye (27 page)

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 completely 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.

The shower: a plastic bag of soapy water with a young man in it, the neck of the bag sealed tight around the man’s neck. Whitbread used a long-handled brush to scratch himself everywhere he itched, which was everywhere. There was pleasure in the pulling and stretching of muscles. It was so finking small in the Motie ship! So claustrophobic-cramped!

When he was clean he joined the others in the lounge. The Chaplain and Horvath and Sally Fowler, all wearing sticky-bottomed falling slippers, all aligned in the up direction. Whitbread would never have noticed such a thing before. He said, “Science Minister Horvath, I am to place myself under your orders for the time being.”

“Very well, Mr. . . . Whitbread.” Horvath trailed off. He seemed worried and preoccupied. They all did.

The Chaplain spoke with effort. “You see, none of us really knows what to do next. We’ve never contacted
aliens
before.”

“They’re friendly. They wanted to talk,” said Whitbread.

“Good. Good, but it leaves me entirely on the hook.” The Chaplain’s laugh was all nerves. “What was it like, Whitbread?”

He tried to tell them. Cramped, until you got to the plastic toroids . . . fragile . . . no point in trying to tell the Moties apart except the Browns were somehow different from the Brown-and-whites. . . “They’re unarmed,” he told them. “I spent three hours exploring that ship. There’s no place aboard that they could be hiding big weapons.”

“Did you get the impression they were guiding you away from anything?”

“No-oo.”

“You don’t sound very certain,” Horvath said sharply.

“Oh it isn’t that, sir. I was just remembering the tool room. We wound up in a room that was all tools, wall and floor and ceiling. A couple of walls had simple thing on them: hand drills, ripsaws with odd handles, screw and a screwdriver. Things I could recognize. I saw nail and what I think was a hammer with a big flat head. It all looked like a hobby shop in somebody’s basement. But there were some really complex things in there too, things I couldn’t figure at all.”

The alien ship floated just outside the forward window. Inhuman shadows moved within it. Sally was watching them too . . . but Horvath said dryly, “You were saying that the aliens were
not herding
you.”

“I don’t think they led me
away
from anything. I’m sure I was led to that tool room. I don’t know why, but I think it was an intelligence test. If it was, I flunked.”

Chaplain Hardy said, “The only Motie we’ve questioned so far doesn’t understand the simplest gestures. Now you tell me that these Moties have been giving you intelligence tests—”

“And interpreting gestures. Amazingly quick to understand them, in fact. Yes, sir. They’re
different
. You saw the pictures.”

Hardy wound a strand of his thinning red hair around a knobby finger and tugged gently. “From your helmet camera? Yes, Jonathon. I think we’re dealing with two kinds of Moties. One is an idiot savant and doesn’t talk. The other . . . talks,” he finished lamely. He caught himself playing with his hair and smoothed it back into place. “I hope I can learn to talk back.”

They’re all dreading it, Whitbread realized. Especially Sally. And even Chaplain Hardy, who never gets upset about anything. All dreading that first move. Horvath said, “Any other impressions?”

“I keep thinking that ship was designed for free fall. There are sticky strips all over. Inflated furniture likewise. And there are short passages joining the toroids, as wide as the toroids themselves. Under acceleration they’d be like open trap doors with no way around them.”

“That’s strange,” Horvath mused. “The ship was under acceleration until four hours ago.”

“Exactly, sir. The joins must be new.” The thought hit Whitbread suddenly. Those joins must be new.

“But that tells us even more,” Chaplain Hardy said quietly. “And you say the furniture is at all angles. We all saw that the Moties didn’t care how they were oriented when they spoke to you. As if they were peculiarly adapted to free fall. As if they
evolved
there...”

“But that’s impossible,” Sally protested. “Impossible but—you’re right, Dr. Hardy! Humans
always
orient themselves. Even the old Marines who’ve been in space all their lives! But nobody can evolve in free fall.”

“An old enough race could,” Hardy said. “And there are the non-symmetric arms. Evolutionary advancement? It would be well to keep the theory in mind when we talk to the Moties.” If we can talk to them, he added to himself.

“They went crazy over my backbone,” Whitbread said. “As if they’d never seen one.” He stopped. “I don’t know whether you were told. I stripped for them. It seemed only fair that they . . . know what they’re dealing with.” He couldn’t look at Sally.

“I’m not laughing,” she said. “I’m going to have to do the same thing.”

Whitbread’s head snapped up. “
What?
”

Sally chose her words with care; remember provincial mores, she told herself. She did not look up from the deck. “Whatever Captain Blaine and Admiral Kutuzov choose to hide from the Moties, the existence of two human sexes isn’t one of them. They’re entitled to know how we’re made, and I’m the only woman aboard
MacArthur
.”

“But you’re Senator Fowler’s niece!”

She did smile at that. “We won’t tell them.” She stood up immediately. “Coxswain Lafferty, we’ll be going now.” She turned back, very much the Imperial lady, even to her stance, which gave no sign that she was in free fall. “Jonathon, thank you for your concern. Chaplain, you may join me as soon as I call.” And she went.

A long time later Whitbread said, “I wondered what was making everyone so nervous.”

And Horvath, looking straight ahead, said, “She insisted.”

Sally called the cutter when she arrived. The same Motie who had greeted Whitbread, or an identical one, bowed her aboard in a courtly fashion. A camera on the taxi picked that up and caused the Chaplain to lean forward sharply. “That half-nod is very like you, Whitbread. He’s an excellent mimic.”

Sally called again minutes later, by voice alone. She was in one of the toroids. “There are Moties all around me. A lot of them are carrying instruments. Hand-sized. Jonathon, did—”

“Most of them didn’t have anything in their hands. These instruments, what do they look like?”

“Well, one looks like a camera that’s been half taken apart, and, another has a screen like an oscilloscope screen.” Pause. “Well, here goes. Fowler out.” Click.

For twenty minutes they knew nothing of Sally Fowler. Three men fidgeted, their eyes riveted to a blank intercom screen.

When she finally called, her voice was brisk. “All right, gentlemen, you may come over now.”

“I’m on.” Hardy unstrapped and floated in a slow arc to the cutter air lock. His voice, too, was brisk with relief. The waiting was ended.

There was the usual bustle of bridge activities around Rod, scientists looking at the main view screens, quartermasters securing from
MacArthur
’s fifty-kilometer move. To keep occupied Rod was having Midshipman Staley run through a simulated Marine assault on the Motie ship. All purely theoretical, of course; but it did help keep Rod from brooding about what was happening aboard the alien vessel. The call from Horvath was a welcome distraction, and Rod was ebulliently cordial as he answered.

“Hello, Doctor! How are things going?”

Horvath was almost smiling. “Very well, thank you, Captain. Dr. Hardy is on his way to join Lady Sally. I sent your man Whitbread along.”

“Good.” Rod felt tension pain where it had settled above and between his shoulder blades. So Sally had got through that...

“Captain, Mr. Whitbread mentioned a tool room aboard the alien ship. He believes that he was being tested for his tool-using ability. It strikes me that the Moties may be judging us all on that ability.”

“Well they might. Making and using tools is a basic—”

“Yes, yes, Captain, but none of us are toolmakers! We have a linguist, an anthropologist, an administrator—me—and some Navy warriors. The joke is on us, Captain. We spent too much consideration on learning about Moties. None on impressing them with
our
intelligence.”

Blaine considered that. “There are the ships themselves . . . but you have a point, Doctor. I’ll send you someone. We’re bound to have someone aboard who can do well on such a test.”

When Horvath was off the screen, Rod touched the intercom controls again. “Kelley, you can take half your Marines off alert now.”

“Aye aye, Captain.” The Gunner’s face showed no signs of emotion, but Rod knew just how uncomfortable battle armor was. The entire Marine force of
MacArthur
was wearing it on full alert in hangar deck.

Then, thoughtfully, Blaine called Sinclair. “It’s an unusual problem, Sandy. We need someone who’s generally good with tools and willing to go aboard the Motie ship. If you’ll pick me some men, I’ll ask for volunteers.”

“Never mind, Captain. I’ll go myself.”

Blaine was shocked. “
You
, Sandy?”

“Aye and why not, Captain? Am I no skilled with tools? Can I no fix anything that ever worked in the first place? My laddies can handle aye that could go wrong wi’
MacArthur
. I’ve trained them well. Ye will no miss me...”

“Hold on a minute, Sandy.”

“Aye, Captain?”

“OK. Anybody who’d do well in a test will know the Field and Drive. Even so, maybe the Admiral won’t let you go.”

“There’s nae another aboard who’ll find out
everything
about yon beasties’ ship, Captain.”

“Yeah—OK, get the surgeon’s approval. And give me a name. Whom shall I send if you can’t go?”

“Send Jacks, then. Or Leigh Battson, or any of my lads but Thumbs Menchikov.”

“Menchikov. Isn’t he the artificer who saved six men trapped in the after torpedo room during the battle with
Defiant
?”

“Aye, Captain. He’s also the laddie who fixed your shower two weeks before that battle.”

“Oh. Well, thanks, Sandy.” He rang off and looked around the bridge. There was really very little for him to do. The screens showed the Motie ship in the center of
MacArthur
’s main battery fire pattern; his ship was safe enough from anything the alien vessel could do, but now Sally would be joined by Hardy and Whitbread... He turned to Staley. “That last was very good. Now work out a rescue plan assuming that only half the Marines are on ready alert.”

Sally heard the activity as Hardy and Whitbread were conducted aboard the Motie ship, but she barely glanced around when they appeared. She had taken the time to dress properly, but grudged the necessity, and in the dim and filtered Motelight she was running her hands over the body of a Brown-and-white, bending its (her) elbow and shoulder joints and tracing the muscles, all the while dictating a running monologue into her throat mike.