"But—" Renner looked around the room for help, but there wasn't any. Rod Blaine was holding a paper—what was it? Renner's discharge! As Kevin watched, Blaine tore the document to shreds.
"All right, dammit!" Renner could see no mercy from them. "But as a civilian!"
"Oh, sure," Fowler agreed. "Well, you'll hold a commission in Naval Intelligence, but it won't show."
"God's navel." The phrase gave Bury a start. Renner grinned. “What's the matter, Excellency? God doesn't have a navel?"
"I foresee interesting times," Bury said slowly. "For both of us."
Chapter Fifty-eight
And Maybe the Horse Will Sing
Bright sunlight sparkled on the Palace roof. Fleecy, impossibly white clouds scudded overhead, but there was only a gentle breeze across the landing deck. The sunlight felt very warm and pleasant.
An admiral and two captains stood at the entryway to a landing boat. They faced a small group of civilians, three aliens wearing dark goggles, and four armed Marines. The Admiral carefully ignored the Moties and their escort as he bowed to the civilians. "Your pardon, my lady. My lord. It appears I will not be present at wedding after all. Not that
I will be missed, but I regret taking your friends so soon." He indicated the two captains and bowed again. "I leave them to make farewells."
"Good luck, Admiral," Rod said quietly. "Godspeed."
"Thank you, my lord," Kutuzov said. He turned and entered the boat.
"I will never understand that man," Sally said.
"You are correct." Jock's voice was bluntly factual.
Sally looked at the alien in surprise before turning to the other officers. She extended her hand. "Good luck, Jack. Sandy."
"You too, Sally." Cargill glanced at the braid on his sleeves. The four rings of a post captain were bright and new. "Thanks for getting me a ship, Rod. I thought I was stuck in BattleOps forever."
"Thank the Admiral," Rod answered. "I recommended you but he decided. Sandy's the one who'll have to sweat. He'll be in the flagship."
Sinclair shrugged. "As Engineer of the Fleet I expect to put in time aboard other ships," he said. "Best observation point for new tricks'll be inside the Eye. So I'll be wi' this Sassenach, and that's nae bad thing. It would no do to hae his ship come apart."
Cargill ignored him. "Sorry to miss the wedding, Sally. I intend to claim a guest's privilege, though." He leaned forward to brush Sally's cheek with his lips. "If you get tired of him, there are other captains in the Navy."
"Aye," Sinclair agreed. "And my commission was signed two minutes before Cargill's. You will no forget that, Jack."
"How can I? You just remember that Patton's my ship. We'd best be off, Skipper. The rendezvous's going to be tricky as it is. Goodbye, Jock. Charlie." Cargill hesitated, then saluted awkwardly.
"Farewell," Charlie answered. Ivan twittered, and Jock added, "The Ambassador wishes you Godspeed and good luck."
"I wish I could be sure you meant that," Cargill said.
"Of course we mean it," said Charlie. "We want you to feel safe."
Cargill turned away looking thoughtful. He climbed aboard the boat. Sinclair followed and the ratings closed the entryway. Engines whined, and humans and Moties retreated into a shelter. They watched in silence as the boat lifted from the roof and vanished into the bright skies.
"It will work," Jock said.
"You do read minds, don't you?" Rod asked. He stared off into the sky but there was nothing to see but clouds.
"Of course it's going to work," Sally said. Her voice was emphatic.
"I think I understand you humans at last," Charlie told them. "Have you ever read your ancient histories?"
Rod and Sally looked blankly at the Motie. "No."
"Dr. Hardy showed us a key passage," Charlie said. She waited as the elevator arrived. Two Marines entered, and after the Moties and humans were inside, the others followed. Charlie continued the story as if armed guards were not present. "One of your most ancient writers, a historian named Herodotus, tells of a thief who was to be executed. As he was taken away he made a bargain with the king: in one year he would teach the king's favorite horse to sing hymns."
"Yes?" Sally prompted. She seemed puzzled and looked anxiously at Charlie. She seemed calm enough, but Dr. Hardy said he was worried about the aliens . . .
"The other prisoners watched the thief singing to the horse and laughed. ‘You will not succeed,' they told him. 'No one can.' To which the thief replied, 'I have a year, and who knows what might happen in that time. The king might die. The horse might die. I might die. And perhaps the horse will learn to sing.'"
There was polite laughter. "I didn't tell it very well," Charlie said. "I wasn't trying to be humorous anyway. That story made me realize at last just how alien you humans are."
There was an embarrassed silence. As the elevator stopped Jock asked, "How goes your Institute?"
"Fine. We've already sent for some of the department heads." She laughed, embarrassed. "I have to work fast: Rod won't let me think about the Institute after the wedding. You are coming, aren't you?"
The Mediators shrugged in unison, and one looked at the Marines. "We will be delighted if we are allowed to attend," Jock answered. "But we have no gifts for you. There is no Brown to make them."
"We'll get along without," Rod said. The elevator door stood open, but they waited for two of the Marines to inspect the corridor.
"Thank you for allowing me to meet Admiral Kutuzov," Jock said. "I have waited to speak with him since our embassy ship arrived alongside MacArthur."
Rod looked at the aliens in wonder. Jock's conversation with Kutuzov had been brief, and one of the most important questions the Motie had asked was, "Do you like lemon in tea?"
They're so damned civilized and likable, and because of that they're going to spend the few years they've got left under guard while the Information Office blackguards them and their race. We've even hired a writer to script a play on the last hours of my midshipmen.
"It was little enough to do," Rod said. “We—"
"Yes. You can't let us go home." Charlie's voice changed to that of a New Scot youth. “We know aye more about humans than is safe." She gestured smoothly to the Marines. Two walked ahead into the hall, and the Moties followed. The other guards closed behind, and the procession marched through the corridor until they reached the Motie quarters. The elevator door closed softly.
Epilogue
Defiant lay nearly motionless in space at the outer fringes of the Murcheson System. There were other ships grouped around her in battle formation, and off to starboard hung Lenin like a swollen black egg. At least half the main battle fleet was in readiness at all times, and somewhere down in the red hell of the Eye other ships circled and waited. Defiant had just completed a tour with the Crazy Eddie Squadron.
That term was very nearly official. The men tended to use a lot of Motie terms. When a man won a big hand at poker he was likely to shout "Fyunch(click)!" And yet, Captain Herb Colvin mused, most of us have never seen a Motie. We hardly see their ships: just targets, helpless after transition.
A few had made it out of the Eye, but every one had been so badly damaged that it was hardly spaceworthy. There was always plenty of time to warn the ships outside the Eye that another Motie was on the way—if the Eye hadn't killed them first.
The last few ships had emerged from the Crazy Eddie point at initial velocities up to a thousand km per second. How the hell could the Moties hit a Jump point at such speeds'? Ships within the Eye couldn't catch them. They didn't need to, with the Motie crews—and autopilots —helpless in Jump shock and unable to decelerate. The fleeing black blobs had run up through the rainbow and exploded every time. Where the Moties used their unique expanding fields, they exploded sooner, picking up heat faster from the yellow-hot photosphere.
Herb Colvin laid down the latest report on Motie tricks and technology. He'd written a lot of it himself, and it all added up to hopeless odds
against the Moties. They couldn't beat ships that didn't have to carry an Alderson Drive, ships on station and waiting for Moties who still didn't suspect the Jump disorientation ... he could almost feel sorry for them.
Colvin took a bottle from the cabinet on the bulkhead of his patrol cabin and poured expertly despite the Coriolis forces. He carried his glass to his chair and sank into it. A packet of mail lay on his desk, the most recent letter from his wife already ripped open so that he could be sure there was nothing wrong at home. Now he could read the letters in order. He raised his glass to Grace's picture on the desk.
She hadn't heard much from New Chicago, but things were all right there the last time her sister had written. Mail service to New Scotland was slow. The house she'd found was outside the New Scot defensive system, but she wouldn't worry because Herb had told her the Moties couldn't get through. She'd taken a lease for the whole three years they'd be out here.
Herb nodded in agreement. That would save money—three years on this blockade, then home, where he'd be Commodore of New Chicago's Home Fleet. Put the Alderson engines back in Defiant: she'd be flagship when he took her home. A few years on blockade service was a small price to pay for the concessions the Empire offered.
It took the Moties to do it, Herb thought. Without them we'd still be fighting. There were still worlds outside the Empire and always would be, but in Trans-Coalsack unification was proceeding smoothly and there was more jawboning than fighting. The Moties did that for us, anyway.
A name caught Herb Colvin's eye. Lord Roderick Blaine, Chairman of the Imperial Commission Extraordinary— Colvin looked up at the bulkhead to see the familiar spot where Defiant had been patched following her battle with MacArthur. Blaine's prize crew had done that, and a pretty good job it was. He's a competent man, Colvin admitted reluctantly. But heredity's still a hell of a way to choose leaders. The rebel democracy in New Chicago hadn't done too well either. He went back to Grace's letter.
My Lord Blaine had a new heir, his second. And Grace was helping out at this Institute Lady Blaine had set up. His wife was excited because she often talked with Lady Sally and had even been invited out to the manor house to see the children . . .
The letter went on, and Colvin dutifully read it, but it was an effort. Would she never get tired of gushing about the aristocracy? We'll never agree on politics, he decided and looked up fondly at her picture again. Lord, I miss you—
Chimes sounded through the ship and Herb stuffed the letters into his desk. It was time to go to work; tomorrow Commodore Cargill would come aboard for Fleet inspection. Herb rubbed his hands in anticipation. This time he'd show the Imperials just how a ship ought to be run. The winner of this inspection would get extra time ashore next leave, and he intended to have that for his crew.
As he stood a small yellow-white point of light flashed through the view port. One of these days, Herb thought. Someday we're going in there. With all the talent the Empire's got working on the problem we'll find a way to govern the Moties.
And what will we call ourselves then? he wondered. The Empire of Man and Motie? He grinned and went out to inspect his ship.
Blaine Manor was large, with sheltered gardens overhung with trees to protect their eyes from the bright sun. Their quarters were very comfortable, and the Mediators had become accustomed to the ever present Marine guards. Ivan, as always, treated them as he would his own Warriors.
There was work. They had daily conferences with the Institute scientists, and for the Mediators there were the Blaine children. The oldest could speak a few words of Language and could read gestures as well as a young Master.
They were comfortable, but still it was a cage; and at nights they saw the brilliant red Eye and its tiny Mote. The Coal Sack was high in the night sky. It looked like a hooded Master blind in one eye.
"I fear," said Jock. "For my family, my civilization, my species, and my world."
"That's right, think large thoughts," said Charlie. "Why waste your mighty brain on little things? Look you—" Her voice and posture changed; she would speak of serious matters. "We've done what we can. This Institute of Sally's is a trivial fiasco, but we continue to cooperate. We show how friendly and harmless and honest we are. And meanwhile the blockade works and it will always work. There's not a hole in it."
"There is," said Jock. "No human seems to consider that the Masters might reach the Empire through normal space."
"There is no hole," Charlie repeated. She shifted two arms for emphasis. "No breach before the next collapse. Curse! Who could build another Crazy Eddie probe before the famines begin? And where would they send it? Here, into their fleets?" She signaled contempt. "Perhaps into the Coal Sack, toward the heart of the Empire? Have you thought of the launching lasers—far greater to compensate for the dust in the Coal Sack? No. We have done what we can, and the Cycles have begun again."
"Then what can we anticipate?" Jock's right arms were folded, her left extended and open: ready for attack, and thus projecting rhetorical mercilessness. "There may be unsuccessful attempts to penetrate the blockade. Wasted effort. The collapse will he hastened. Then, a long period in which the Empire can half forget that we exist.
"New technologies rise, warlike as rising technologies are always. They would know of humanity. Perhaps they can preserve or reinvent the Field. When they reach the height of their power, before the decline, they will breed Warriors and come forth conquering everything: Mote Prime, asteroids, all. And on to the Empire."
Charlie listened after a hurried glance at the Master. Ivan lay impassive, listening to the chatter of the Mediators as Masters often did, and it was impossible to know what he thought.
"Conquest," Jock said. "But the more progress they make against the Empire, the more thoroughly will the Empire retaliate. They have numbers. For all their talk of limiting populations, they have numbers and all of space. Until we can escape human space entirely and breed, they will always have the numbers. They bottle us up until we overbreed, and then collapse. And with the next collapse—extermination!"
Charlie's knees were against her belly, right arms pulled tight against her chest, left arm protecting her head. An infant about to be born into a cruel world. Her voice was muffled. "If you had better ideas, you should have raised them."
"No. There are no better ideas."
"We bought time. Hundreds of years of time. Sally and her silly Institute will have hundreds of years to study the problem we raise for humans. Who knows, perhaps the horse will learn to sing hymns."
“Would you bet on it?"
Charlie looked out of the curve of her arm. "At these odds? Curse, yes!"
"Crazy Eddie!"
“Yes. A Crazy Eddie solution. What else is there? One way or another, the Cycles end now. Crazy Eddie has won his eternal war against the Cycles."
Jock looked to Ivan and met a shrug. Charlie had gone Crazy Eddie. It hardly mattered now; it was, in fact, a fine and enviable madness, this delusion that all questions have answers, and nothing is beyond the reach of a strong left arm.
They would never know. They would not live that long. But they had bought time; the Blaines knew what they must find, and their children would grow up to know Moties as more than a legend. Two generations of power would not hate Moties.
If anyone could teach a horse to sing hymns, it would be a trained Mediator.
Larry Niven
www.larryniven.net
www.spectrumliteraryagency.com/Niven.htm
Born April 30, 1938 in Los Angeles, California. Attended California Institute of Technology; flunked out after discovering a book store jammed with used science fiction magazines. Graduated Washburn University, Kansas, June 1962: BA in Mathematics with a Minor in Psychology, and later received an honorary doctorate in Letters from Washburn. Interests: Science fiction conventions, role playing games, AAAS meetings and other gatherings of people at the cutting edges of science. Comics. Filk singing. Yoga and other approaches to longevity. Moving mankind into
space by any means, but particularly by making space endeavors attractive to commercial interests. Several times we’ve hosted The Citizens Advisory Council for a National Space Policy. I grew up with dogs. I live with a cat, and borrow dogs to hike with. I have passing acquaintance with raccoons and ferrets. Associating with nonhumans has certainly gained me insight into alien intelligences.
Jerry Pournelle
www.jerrypournelle.com
www.spectrumliteraryagency.com/pournelle.htm
Jerry Pournelle is the author of the popular Janissaries and CoDominium series and co-author with Larry Niven of several bestselling science fiction novels, including INFERNO, FOOTFALL, LUCIFER'S HAMMER, OATH OF FEALTY, THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE, THE GRIPPING HAND, THE BURNING CITY, BURNING TOWER and ESCAPE FROM HELL. Dr. Pournelle has advanced degrees in engineering, political science, statistics and psychology. As an aerospace Systems Analyst he participated in the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs. Following a brief tour in academia he was the Executive Assistant to the Mayor of Los Angeles. He was the Science Editor for Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine. He has written columns on political and technology issues for decades, in addition to his career as a fiction writer. His columns for Byte magazine have been an internet staple for many years. The author has been involved in the development of government policy on space enterprises and defense, and he is active on several committees for the advancement of science and space exploration.
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