Chris as a Navy officer knew that he didn't have Bury's authority. If Bury saw no way to stop her or them, how could Chris? He'd have to use persuasion—
Outmaneuvered. Joyce was gone, Eudoxus leading and a Warrior behind. Bury and Omar followed at a leisurely pace, chatting, Bury carrying Ali Baba. They left Chris and Cynthia to bring up the rear.
* * *
After fifteen hours in the hidden depths of Cerberus, Victoria arrowed through the airlock with the agility of a Messenger. Glenda Ruth was jolted.
"Victoria: Victoria, what are th—"
"We have to talk. Ambassadors are arriving."
"Ambassadors from where?"
"Second, from the kingdom that allies with your ships called Sinbad and Atropos, henceforth Medina Trading Company."
Jennifer smiled acknowledgment. "Medina—"
"Later," Victoria said. "The Medina ship will rendezvous here; Vermin City makes a convenient target. But the first is already aboard. He speaks for former allies of Medina, henceforth East India Trading Company. The two are now involved in a dominance dance. We must settle certain matters before he may see you. We've been verbal-dancing for some days."
Glenda Ruth looked at the screen that hid Terry and Doctor Doolittle. "Can we summon a human doctor?"
"He is in no more danger than you are," Victoria said. "How is it that one of our Engineers has turned male without first giving birth?"
"Oops," Jennifer said.
"And so has one of our Warriors," Victoria said, "and although Watchmakers are difficult to keep track of—"
"How do you feel?"
"We must settle this now. Have you brought alien death among us? What did you say, Glenda Ruth?"
"How do you feel, Victoria?"
The Mediator tasted the question, as if she found the flavor novel and fascinating. "I feel good. Motivated. The air is sweet, our food seems up to specs, my appetite—" Victoria suddenly reached between her legs. "Talk fast," she said. "For your lives."
"I have a recording to play for you."
BLAINE INSTITUTE REPORTS, Volume 26. Number 5, Imperial Library number ACX-7743DL-235910:26:5
Approaches to Stability of the Mote Civilization
Ishikara, Mary Anne; Dashievko, Ahmed; Grodnik, Vladimir I.; Lambert, George G.; Rikorsky, W. L.; and Talbot. Fletcher E.
"The C-L Symbiote."
Research reported in this document was funded by grants irom the Imperial Ministry oi Defense, the Imperial Select Commission ior Governing Relations with Aliens, and the Blaine Foundation.
Summary
The Blaine Symbiote or C-L (Contraceptive-Longevity) worm is bioengineered from a Motie benign parasitic organism similar to platyhelminths. The resulting C-L organism is a symbiote that lives in the Motie body and produces the same hormone that the male testes produce.
The original symbiotes were universally present in the intestinal tracts oi all Moties studied, The first forms were detected in the Motie Engineer taken aboard MacArthur, but none of those specimens survived. The current C-L symbiote has been bred trom a strain taken irom the Motie known as Ivan. It is known to survive in Mediator castes, and there is no reason to suppose it will not thrive in all Motie castes.
In all Motie castes so far examined there has been one testis, and the documents brought by the Motie ambassadors, and the Moties themselves, do not contradict this. This testis normally withers. Hapgood et. al. (1) have speculated that this withering is triggered in part by pheromones given off by a pregnant female, but it is known (see Ivanov and Spector, (2)) that the process is more complex than that.
Upon withering of the single testis. the Motie turns female. Pregnancy must follow soon after or the Motie sickens and dies, with symptoms not unlike vitamin deficiency. See Renner, K. (3), Fowler, S. (4), and Blaine and Blaine (5), as well as The Report of the MacArthur Expedition (6), for details. The process of giving birth excites cells in the birth canal, and more male testes form.
The C-L symbiote normally sites itself anywhere in the body cavity and does not wither. Present data indicate that several C-Ls have no more effect than one. It is believed that this is due to excretion of surplus hormone via Plumbing-Six, tentatively the kidney.
We have observed no signs that C-L will breed in a host Motie, undoubtedly due to inhibition by the hormone itself. Consequently C-L must be bred externally in an environment that provides sufficient fluid around them to flush the hormone.
Video Report (Reuters)
Blaine Institute Announces New Developments in Bioenglneering
(Film clip: Lord and Lady Blaine, the Hon. Glenda Ruth Blaine, students at the Blaine Institute, and His Excellency the Ambassador from Mote Prime, announcing publication of results of bioengineering development.)
"Of course that record could have been made at any time," Victoria said.
"It has me in it."
"Or a very good double, Glenda Ruth. It would take much forethought to plan far in advance to deceive us into believing that a Mediator can survive this long—but your Empire has both means and motive."
"I'm in the pictures, too," Jennifer said.
"Yes. You would require two doubles and two surgical alterations of adults. Is this beyond your capability?"
Freddy's eyes wandered from the screen to Glenda Ruth to the screen . . . and he shook his head.
Victoria, watching him carefully, said, "Jock's survival surprised you, Freddy, when you learned of it from Jennifer and Glenda Ruth. With her training, could Glenda Ruth deceive you? And Jennifer?"
"It's not that. Think, Victoria. If that's not Jennifer and Glenda Ruth, then it's two actors just out of surgery who have to fool Motie Mediators, and know they've done it!"
Good, Freddy! "This game gives us no profit," Glenda Ruth said. "Victoria, you already feel better than you have in years! And your Engineer, and your Warrior, are they sick?"
"Is this reversible in fertile castes?" Victoria demanded.
"Probably. With difficulty, but very probably. Is the native parasite endemic to space civilizations?"
"If so, I do not know of it. It is no skill of mine. Would I be infected with a parasite and not know?"
"Why not? People often are," Freddy said.
"Even those who live in isolation? I see you believe so." The Motie paused, and whatever expressions Glenda Ruth had been able to read were replaced by a different mask. "I must think on this."
"Wait. There." She could have remained silent-—
Too late. Victoria turned. "What?"
"I don't have any better argument than that." Glenda Ruth pointed. "On the screen, Victoria."
The busy spacecraft of Captor Fleet had torn away a tremendous strip of the city's skin. Pandemonium lay exposed, a hive of cells still sparking with defenses. Corpses floated away in a pestilential cloud of black dots. The ships pulled a square kilometer of transparent skin over the wound and moved inside to work. Nothing was to be lost.
"That's your past, a million years or more of your past. Breeding yourselves into a starving cannibal horde, then tearing your numbers down in blood. Vermin City. That's your future, forever, without us." Glenda Ruth waved at the screens. "It's Vermin City or the Crazy Eddie Worm."
4
Messages
Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.
—Benjamin Franklin,
Poor Richard's Almanac
"Chris, it's time," Kevin Renner said. "Tell me about you and Joyce."
Blaine looked from Renner to Horace Bury. No help there. Sinbad's lounge had grown larger yet; it seemed very large, and very empty.
"All right, Captain, we were sleeping together, so to speak, and then we weren't. I'm more worried about what the Moties might get out of her."
"So am I. Try again."
Chris Blaine saw no point in pretending to misunderstand. "I got to know her. I could see what she was looking for in me, in a man, and when I got some free time, I, hell. I let her see it. But when we reached MGC
-R-31 and Motie ships came spitting out . . ." How to put this?
"She wanted you to keep your promises."
Chris gaped. "Well, but I never—"
The Captain said, "What she wants from a man is knowledge and power. That was what you let her see. But when Moties appeared, she wanted in on the action. You couldn't give her that. You couldn't even let her keep interrupting you while you were on duty. What else couldn't you give her?"
"Aw, hell. Captain, she wanted to know what my sister's bringing. I don't know! Not certainly, I only know what Dad and Mom, what the Institute, wanted."
"Which is enough," Renner said.
"Well, no . . . well. That was the trouble. I couldn't tell her as much as I do know because the Mediators would read her. They'd be doing that now if she knew anything. Now she won't talk to me at all."
"Chris, you did make promises. You used body language and nuances and all the things Jock and Charlie taught you. You've got to be more careful of how you use people."
Chris's ears burned.
"If you told her anything, if she learned anything that the Moties shouldn't know, tell me now."
"Captain, she heard you talking about Crazy Eddie's worm. She was sure I must know all about it. There was nothing I could do to tell her different."
"She's a reporter. She must have met every brand of liar there is."
" . . . Yeah. I thought it must be Mom's C-L worm. I didn't tell her that. Now she thinks I'm dirt. Yes, she's right, I lied to her. I had to."
Captain Renner studied him and presently sighed. "All right, Lieutenant. Now what the hell else is going on? What's your reading of this situation with the Crimean Tartars?"
"I think Omar is as confused as we are," Blaine said. "Glenda Ruth must have done something to shake them up."
"We may well be able to guess what it is," Bury said. "Which could leave her in some danger."
"Whether or not the worm works as advertised," Chris said.
"Yeah, I'd thought of that," Renner said. "But so far—"
"So far no harm has come to them," Bury said. "And time is very much on our side. The Empire, for all its divisions, remains a nearly unified force. We have no need to negotiate alliances to gain great strength. With the Moties it is not so."
"Horace, what will happen to the Moties?" Renner demanded. "What should happen to them?"
"I truly do not know."
"You'll pardon me, but you don't seem quite the fanatic you used to be."
"Kevin, how could I be? I see here a tragedy, a people not unlike my own, with few resources, divided against themselves."
"Finding the whole place shot through with Bury Mediators might have changed your perspective?"
"Don't miss the implication," Chris said. "They can swallow His Excellency's views and not choke. That tells us a lot about them."
"Yeah, but does it tell us enough? Horace, I can't believe you've changed that much."
"I bow to Allah's will. Kevin, the Empire barely had the resources to guard one gate, and that one through a sun. Shall it now have two blockade fleets, one to hold a volume of normal space? Perhaps, but at great cost, and for how long? Kevin, the Moties are no less a threat than ever, but our ability to contain them is not adequate to the task."
"So now what?"
Bury looked through the Mosque's picture window and made a face. Somewhere on the pale face of Base Six was Joyce Mei-Ling Trujillo, unreachable.
He said, "One day's work at a time. We are to compose a message, which the Moties will attempt to send for us. What shall we say?"
"Think we're secure here?" Renner asked.
Bury shrugged. "All of Nabil's skills were unable to detect listening devices. I do not believe the Moties can be so confident that they could plant a device with the certainty that we would not find it. If we found one, it would very much affect our relationship. Let us act as if there are no Moties listening, but not act as if we were certain of it."
"On that score, what happens when Ali Baba's with us?" Renner demanded.
"Then we are faithful allies of East India," Bury said. "Motie Mediators serve their own Masters."
Renner nodded. "Blaine. Message."
"A quick description of the situation, with all of the Alderson geometry data we have," Blaine said. "Including all that data from the Alexandria Library. That will make it a lot easier to get the Fleet in here. Of course there's not much chance it will happen. Admiral the Honorable Sir Harry Weigle. Sent out after Joyce Trujillo's first articles. Assigned to clean up the corruption, put some discipline back in the Crazy Eddie Squadron. He's doing a good job at that, but he's not big on disobeying orders."
"And his orders are to maintain the blockade," Renner said.
"Just so."
"What can we do to convince him?"
Blaine thought for a moment. "He'd have to be convinced that he had a higher duty than carrying out his orders."
"Could you persuade him?"
Chris thought that one over. "Possibly. I can't reach him. You can. So let's look at what he knows. The Alderson point back to New Cal has moved. So has the Jump to the Mote, and he'll know that, but he probably hasn't found it. It's dancing around down there inside a red giant star."
"MacArthur found it easily enough thirty years ago," Bury reminded them.
"Different geometry. No jittery new star to distort the path," Renner said. "Not that bloody easily, either. Trust me."
Blaine nodded. "MacArthur and Lenin were specially equipped and had some of the Empire's best scientists aboard, along with a top navigator. Even then it took them a while to find the old one. So. We're going to help him find the new Crazy Eddie point. That will start him off thinking right. We give him information that helps him in his mission."
Renner's nod prompted Blaine to continue: "The tricky thing is to be sure we don't ask him to violate orders. Such as letting anything get out of the star and through to New Cal."
"So if we ask him to listen before he shoots."
"He might do that," Blaine said. "It's worth a try."
* * *
Eudoxus led her down and slantwise from the lounge. Vacuum gear waited in an alcove a hundred meters below the Mosque. Joyce was taken aback. This hadn't come from Sinbad!
Eudoxus was watching. That irritating smile . . . hah. Joyce recorded, "The Motie smile is rigid. It's always there. You don't see it on a Mediator unless she's not sending any other signal,"
Joyce donned a skintight pressure suit (it felt funny, comfortable though), fishbowl helmet, thermal oversuit (lighter than she'd expected), and mirror cloak. They looked archaic: they almost matched Empire Navy specs of thirty years ago, altered to alien tastes.
"Comfortable?"
"Yes," she told Eudoxus. She was relieved. She'd thought they would have to return to the Mosque. The helmet would reveal her face for the pickup camera.
Two of the little Messengers joined them. The party returned to the tunnel as five puffy silver dolls. They passed through three doors of a massive airlock and out onto an icy surface.
Frozen hydrogen, she remembered: fluffy, loosely packed, not visibly different from water ice. Maybe crusted in water ice. How could you tell? She didn't feel the cold.
"These are handholds, all but the green and red," Eudoxus said. "Don't lose your grip, Joyce. The base is under acceleration."
Joyce gripped a yellow-and-orange line. "Green and red?"
"Green is superconductor cables. Red is fuel." Eudoxus was already moving, jumping along the surface, the cable sliding through her hands. "And the big translucent tubes are for transport."
The gray ice curved sharply. The top of a dome showed beyond the curve. In another direction, the Mosque cradled Sinbad. A bright red spark looked over its shoulder: the Eye. In another, a violet horizon-glow that had to be the fusion motors pushing Inner Base Six.
Fabulous pictures! The kind of thing careers are founded on! She chuckled to herself. Chris Blaine's frantic look! As if he'd told
me anything to begin with. As if the Moties could read my mind . . . or my face. What could Eudoxus see, anyway? I'm a big silver pillow.
But if Joyce could see the Motie smile . . . less irritating, now that she understood it . . . then Eudoxus could see her face, too.
Eudoxus was taking them away from the motors: forward. Joyce followed. The Warrior followed her, and the Messengers.
The cable split; they followed yellow. It led over a small dome. Moties looked up at Joyce through a glass bull's-eye and a forest of dark green moss: three whites, a Warrior, a Messenger, some Watchmakers.
Eudoxus asked, "Joyce, what's with Horace Bury?"
"What do you mean?"
"Thirty years ago he thought the Mote system was the way to get rich. He couldn't see enough of anything. Now he seems much calmer, less ambitious, more like a Keeper. But—"
Joyce was amused. "He was already older than a man can get without serious medical help. It's thirty years later."
"There's more. He flinches when a Warrior comes near. All right, so do you, I can understand that." Eudoxus had lost all trace of accent, Joyce realized suddenly. "But he flinches from Watchmakers. Even from the newborn, until he knows they are not Watchmakers."
"They blindside him. His eyes can't be all that—"
"No, Joyce, it's not their size. He likes the little Mediator pups, once he knew what they are."
Bury's attitude toward Moties was no secret within the Empire. Rather the opposite. "He has always been afraid of you," Joyce said. “Terrified, even. Since he returned from the first Mote expedition. But that's changing. I can see it."
"Why?"
Joyce thought it over. Bury's attitude toward Moties was no secret, but the cause of MacArthur's death was a Navy secret; secret from the Moties, by order of the privy council. It was a good question, though. What was changing Horace Bury? Greed, probably. "There are still vast fortunes to be made. Power and influence, for Bury and his relatives."
The Gripping Hand Page 33
