The Mote in God's Eye (7 page)

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 their 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 ladies 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.

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.