The Mote In God's Eye

by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle

  "I'm aware of it." Hardy was serious. "It's influence I didn't ask for, Anthony. But I'm aware of the situation."

  "All right." Horvath wasn't a pusher either. Or tried not to be, although sometimes he got carried away. Since he'd gone into scientific administration he'd had to learn to fight for his budgets, though. He sighed deeply and changed tactics. "I wish you'd help me with something right now. I'd like to take these statuettes back with us."

  “Why not wish for the whole ship?" Hardy asked. "I do." He sipped his brandy again and cleared his throat. It was much easier to talk about Moties than about Imperial policies. "I noticed you were giving rather a lot of attention to the blank areas on the figures," he said mischievously.

  Horvath frowned. "I did? Well, perhaps. Perhaps I did."

  "You must have spent considerable time thinking about it. Didn't it strike you as odd that that's another area of Motie reticence?"

  "Not really."

  "It did me. It puzzles me."

  Horvath shrugged, then leaned forward to pour more brandy for both of them. No point in saving it to be abandoned later. "They probably think their sex lives are none of our business. How much detail did we give them?"

  "Quite a lot. I had a long and happy married life," said Chaplain Hardy. "I may not be an expert on what makes a happy love life, but I know enough to teach Moties all they'll ever need to know. I didn't conceal anything, and I gather Sally Fowler didn't either. After all, they're aliens—we're scarcely tempting them with prurient desire." Hardy grinned.

  Horvath did too. "You have a point, Doctor." He nodded thoughtfully. "Tell me, David—why did the Admiral insist on blasting the bodies after the funeral?"

  "Why, I should have thought that—ah. Yes. And no one protested. We didn't want aliens dissecting our comrades."

  "Precisely. Nothing to hide, just squeamish about aliens dissecting dead men. One thing the Tsar and I could agree on. Now, David, could the Moties feel the same way about reproductions of themselves?"

  Hardy thought about that for a moment. "Not impossible, as well you know. Plenty of human societies have felt the same way about, say, photographs. Many still do." He sipped the brandy again. "Anthony, I just don't believe it. I don't have anything better to offer, but I don't believe you've put your finger on it. What we need is a long conference with an anthropologist."

  "The damned Admiral wouldn't let her come aboard," Horvath growled, but he let the anger pass quickly. "I'll bet she's still fuming."

  Chapter Forty-two

  A Bag of Broken Glass

  Sally wasn't fuming. She'd exhausted her vocabulary earlier. While Hardy and Horvath and the others merrily explored the alien gifts, she had to be content with holographs and dictated reports.

  Now she couldn't concentrate. She found she'd read the same paragraph five times and threw the report across the cabin. Damn Rod Blaine. He had no right to snub her like that. He had no right to get her brooding over him either.

  There was a knock at her stateroom door. She opened it quickly. "Yes—Oh. Hello, Mr. Renner."

  "Expecting someone else?" Renner asked slyly. “Your face fell a full klick when you saw it was me. Not very flattering."

  "I'm sorry. No, I wasn't expecting anyone else. Did you say something?"

  "No."

  "I thought—Mr. Renner, I thought you said 'extinct.' "

  "Getting any work done?" Renner asked. He glanced around her cabin. Her desk, usually orderly, was a litter of paper, diagrams, and computer printouts. One of Horvath's reports lay on the steel deck near a bulkhead. Renner twisted his lips into what might have been a half-smile.

  Sally followed his gaze and blushed. "Not much," she admitted. Renner had told her he was going to visit Rod's cabin, and she waited for him to say something. And waited. Finally she gave up. "All right. I'm not getting anything done, and how is he?"

  "He's a bag of broken glass."

  "Oh." She was taken aback.

  "Lost his ship. Of course he's in bad shape. Listen, don't let anyone tell you that losing a ship is like losing your wife. It isn't. It's a lot more like seeing your home planet destroyed."

  "Is— Do you think I can do anything?"

  Renner stared at her. "Extinct, I tell you. Of course there's something you can do. You can go hold his hand, for God's sake. Or just sit with him. If he can go on staring at the bulkhead with you in the room, he must have got hit in the fire fight."

  "Hit? He wasn't wounded—"

  "Of course not. I mean he must have got— Oh, skip it. Look, just go knock on his door, will you?" Kevin steered her out into the corridor, and without quite knowing how she found herself propelled to its end. When she looked puzzled, Renner indicated the door. "I'm going for a drink."

  Well, she thought. Now merchant captains are telling the aristocracy how to be polite to each other . . . There was no point in standing in the corridor. She knocked.

  "Come in."

  Sally entered quickly. "Hi," she said. Oh, boy. He looks awful. And that baggy uniform—something's got to be done about that. "Busy?"

  "No. I was just thinking about something Mr. Renner said. Did you know that deep down underneath Kevin Renner really believes in the Empire?"

  She looked around for a chair. No point in waiting for him to invite her. She took a seat. "He's a Navy officer, isn't he?"

  "Oh, yeah, of course he supports the Empire or he wouldn't have taken a commission—but I mean, he really believes we know what we're doing. Amazing."

  "Don't we?" she asked uncertainly. "Because if we don't, the whole human race is in big trouble."

  "I remember thinking I did," Rod said. Now this was faintly ridiculous. There had to be a long list of subjects to discuss with the only girl in ten parsecs before it got to political theory. "You look nice. How do you do it? You must have lost everything."

  "No, I had my travel kit. Clothes I took to the Mote, remember?" Then she couldn't help herself and laughed. "Rod, have you any idea of just how silly you look in Captain Mikhailov's uniform? You two aren't the same size in any dimension. Whoa! Stop it! You will not begin brooding again, Rod Blaine." She made a face.

  It took a moment, but she'd won. She knew it when Rod glanced down at the huge pleats he'd tucked in the tunic so that it wouldn't be quite so much like a tent. Slowly he grinned. "I don't suppose I'll be nominated for the Times's list of best-dressed men at Court, will I?"

  "No." They sat in silence as she tried to think of something else to say. Now blast it, why is it hard to talk to him? Uncle Ben says I talk too much anyway, and here I can't think of a thing to say. "What was it Mr. Renner said?"

  "He reminded me of my duties. I'd forgotten I still had some. But I guess he's right, life goes on, even for a captain who's lost his ship . . ." There was more silence, and the air seemed thick and heavy again.

  Now what do I say? "You—you'd been with MacArthur a long time, hadn't you?"

  "Three years. Two as exec and a year as skipper. And now she's gone— I better not get started on that. What have you been doing with yourself?"

  "You asked me, remember. I've been studying the data from Mote Prime, and the reports on the gift ship—and thinking of what I can say that will convince the Admiral that we have to take the Motie ambassadors back with us. And we must convince him, Rod, we've just got to. I wish there were something else we could talk about, and there will be, there'll be lots of time after we leave the Motie system." And we'll have a lot of it together, too, now that MacArthur's gone. I wonder. Honestly, am I a little glad my rival's dead? Boy, I better never let him think I even suspect that about myself. "Right now, though, Rod, there's so little time, and I haven't any ideas at all—"

  Blaine fingered the knot on his nose. About time you stopped being the Man of Sorrows and started acting like the future Twelfth Marquis, isn't it? "All right, Sally. Let's see what we can come up with. Provided that you let Kelley serve us dinner here."

  She smiled broadly. "My lord, you have got you
rself a deal."

  Chapter Forty-three

  Trader's Lament

  Horace Bury was not a happy man.

  If MacArthur's crew had been difficult to deal with, Lenin's was an order of magnitude worse. They were Ekaterinas, Imperial fanatics, and this was a picked crew under an admiral and a captain from their home world. Even the Spartan Brotherhoods would have been easier to influence.

  Bury knew all this in advance, but there was this damnable urge to dominate and control his environment under all circumstances; and he had almost nothing to work with.

  His status aboard was more ambiguous than before. Captain Mikhailov and the Admiral knew that he was to remain under Blaine's personal control, not charged with any crime, but not allowed freedom either. Mikhailov had solved the problem by assigning Bury Marine servants and putting Blaine's man Kelley in charge of the Marines. Thus, whenever he left his cabin, Bury was followed through the ship.

  He tried to talk to Lenin's crewmen. Few would listen. Perhaps they had heard rumors of what he could offer, and were afraid that MacArthur's Marines would report them. Perhaps they suspected him of treason and hated him.

  A Trader needs patience, and Bury had more than most. Even so, it was hard to control himself when he could control nothing else; when there was nothing to do but sit and wait, his hair-trigger temper would flare into screaming rages and smashed furniture, but never in public. Outside his cabin Bury was calm, relaxed, a skilled conversationalist, comfortable even with—most especially with—Admiral Kutuzov.

  This gave him access to Lenin's officers, but they were very formal, and suddenly busy when he wanted to talk. Bury soon found that there were only three safe subjects: card games, Moties, and tea. If MacArthur had been fueled by coffee, Lenin's drive operated on tea; and tea drinkers are more knowledgeable about the subject than coffee drinkers. Bury's ships traded in tea as they traded in anything else men would pay for, but he was carrying none, and he did not drink it.

  Thus Bury spent endless hours at the bridge table; in threes, officers of both Lenin and MacArthur were willing to sit with him in his cabin, which was always less crowded than the wardroom. It was easy to talk to Lenin's officers about Moties, too—always in groups, but they were curious. After ten months in the Motie system, most had never seen a Motie. Everyone wanted to hear about aliens, and Bury was ready to tell them.

  The intervals between rubbers stretched as Bury spoke animatedly of the Motie world, the Mediators who could read minds though they said they could not, the zoo, the Castle, the baronial estates with their fortified look—Bury had certainly noticed that. And the conversation would move to the dangers. The Moties had not sold weapons or even shown them, because they planned an attack and would keep its nature a surprise. They had seeded MacArthur with Brownies—it was almost the first act of the first Motie they'd ever encountered—and the insidiously helpful and likable beasts had seized the ship and nearly escaped with all the military secrets of the Empire. Only Admiral Kutuzov's vigilance had prevented total disaster.

  And the Moties thought themselves more intelligent than humans. They saw humanity as beasts to be tamed, with gentleness if possible, but tamed, converted into another caste to serve the nearly invisible Masters.

  He spoke of Moties and he hated them. Pictures flashed through his mind, sometimes at the mere thought of a Motie, and always at night when he tried to sleep. He had nightmares of a Marine space suit and battle armor. It approached from behind, and three tiny pairs of eyes glittered through the faceplate. Sometimes the dream would end in a cloud of spidery six-limbed aliens thrashing, dying in vacuum, flopping around a human head; and Bury would sleep. But sometimes the nightmare ended with Bury mutely screaming at Lenin's guards while the suited figure entered the battleship, and Bury would wake in cold sweat. The Ekaterinas had to be warned.

  They listened, but they did not believe. Bury sensed it. They had heard him screaming before he came aboard, and they had heard the screams at night; and they thought he was mad.

  More than once Bury thanked Allah for Buckman. The astrophysicist was a strange person, but Bury could talk to him. At first the Marine "honor guard" that stood outside Bury's door had puzzled Buckman, but before long the scientist ignored it as he ignored most inexplicable activities of his fellow men.

  Buckman had been going over the Moties' work on Murcheson's Eye and the Coal Sack. "Fine work! There are some things I want to check for myself, and I'm not sure about some of their assumptions . . . but that damned Kutuzov won't let me have Lenin's telescope facilities."

  "Buckman, is it possible that the Moties are more intelligent than we are?"

  "Well, the ones I dealt with are brighter than most of the people I know. Take my brother-in-law . . . But you mean in general, don't you?" Buckman scratched his jaw thinking. "They could be smarter than I am. They've done some damn fine work. But they're more limited than they know. In all their million years, they've had a chance to examine only two stars close up."

  Buckman's definition of intelligence was a limited one.

  Bury early gave up trying to warn Buckman against the Motie threat. Buckman too thought Bury was crazy; but Buckman thought everyone was crazy.

  Thank Allah for Buckman.

  The other civilian scientists were friendly enough, but with the exception of Buckman they wanted just one thing from Bury: an analysis of trade possibilities with Moties. Bury could give that in six words: Get them before they get us! Even Kutuzov thought that judgment premature.

  The Admiral listened politely enough, and Bury thought he had convinced him that the Motie ambassadors should be left behind, that only idiots like Horvath would take an enemy aboard the only ship capable of warning the Empire about the aliens; but even that wasn't certain.

  It all made for a splendid opportunity for Horace Bury to practice patience. If his patience ever cracked, only Nabil knew it; and Nabil was beyond surprise.

  Chapter Forty-four

  Council of War

  There was a picture of the Emperor in Lenin's wardroom. Leonidas IX stared down the length of the long steel table, and ranked on both sides of his image were Imperial flags and battle banners. Paintings of naval battles from the history of both the First and Second Empire hung on all the bulkheads, and in one corner a candle burned before an icon of St. Katherine. There was even a special ventilation system to keep it burning in zero gee.

  David Hardy could never help smiling at that icon. The thought of such an image aboard a ship with that name was amusing; he supposed that either Kutuzov knew nothing of the history of communism —after all, it had been a very long time ago—or his Russian nationalistic sympathies overcame it. Probably the former, since to most Imperials Lenin was the name of a hero from the past, a man known by legend but not detail. There were many such: Caesar, Ivan the Terrible, Napoleon, Churchill, Stalin, Washington, Jefferson, Trotsky, all more or less contemporaries (except to careful historians). Preatomic history tends to compress when seen from far enough away.

  The wardroom began to fill up as the scientists and officers entered and took their places. Marines reserved two seats, the head of the table and the place immediately to its right, although Horvath had tried to take that seat. The Science Minister shrugged when the Marine objected with a stream of Russian, and went to the other end, where he displaced a biologist, then chased another scientist from the place to his right and invited David Hardy there. If the Admiral wanted to play games of prestige, let him; but Anthony Horvath knew something of that business too.

  He watched as the others came in. Cargill, Sinclair, and Renner entered together. Then Sally Fowler, and Captain Blaine—odd, Horvath thought, that Blaine could now enter a crowded room with no ceremonial at all. A Marine indicated places to the left of the head of the table, but Rod and Sally sat in the middle. He can afford to, Horvath thought. He was born to his position. Well, my son will be too. My work on this expedition should be enough to get me on the next honors list . . .
>
  "Attention!"

  The officers stood, as did most of the scientists. Horvath thought for a moment and stood as well. He looked at the door, expecting the Admiral, but Captain Mikhailov was the only one there. So we have to go through this twice, Horvath thought.

  The Admiral fooled him. He came in just as Mikhailov reached his seat, and muttered, "Carry on, gentlemen," so quickly that the Marine gunner had no chance to announce him. If anyone wanted to snub Kutuzov, they'd have to find another opportunity.

  "Commander Borman will read from the expedition orders," Kutuzov said coldly.

  "'Section Twelve. Council of War. Paragraph One. The Vice Admiral Commanding shall seek the advice of the scientific staff and senior officers of MacArthur except when delay would in the Admiral's judgment, and his alone, endanger the safety of the battleship Lenin.

  "'Paragraph Two. If the senior scientist of this expedition shall disagree with the Vice Admiral Commanding, he may request a formal Council of War to render advice to the Admiral. The senior scientist may—'"

  "That will be sufficient, Commander Borman," Kutuzov said. "Pursuant to these orders and upon formal request of Science Minister Horvath, this Council of War is convened to render advice on subject of aliens requesting passage to the Empire. Proceedings will be recorded. Minister Horvath, you may begin as you will."

  Oh, wow, Sally thought. The atmosphere in here's like the chancel of St. Peter's during High Mass in New Rome. The formality ought to intimidate anyone who disagreed with Kutuzov.

  "Thank you, Admiral," Horvath said politely. "Given that this may be a long session—after all, sir, we are discussing what may be the most important decision any of us will ever reach—I think refreshments might be in order. Could your people provide us with coffee, Captain Mikhailov?"