The Mote in God's Eye (19 page)

Blaine took up a light pointer. “These areas held liquid hydrogen. Now there was heavy machinery
here
; did you see any of it?”

“No, sir, but that back panel looked as if it would roll up.”

“Good.” Blake nodded and Cargill sketched it in with the screen stylus.

“Like that?” the First Lieutenant asked. “Fine.” He touched the record button. “Now, we know there was quite a lot of hydrogen fuel hidden away. And that drive of theirs ionizes, heats, and enriches the hydrogen with hot carbon vapor. It takes a lot of machinery to do that. Where was it?”

“Sir, shouldn’t the Chief Engineer be here?”

“He
should
be here, Mr. Whitbread. Unfortunately there are about ten things happening at once on this ship, and Commander Sinclair is needed elsewhere. He’ll get his chance at you soon enough— Jack, let’s not forget the Mote design philosophy. We keep looking for separate mechanisms to do each job, but on that probe, everything did four or five overlapping things at once, so to speak. It could be we’re looking for too much machinery.”

“Yes, sir—but, Captain, no matter how you slice it, that ship had to perform a minimum number of functions.
Had
to. And we can’t find equipment enough for half of them.”

“Not with our technology, anyway,” Blaine said thoughtfully. Then he grinned, a young man’s broad and impertinent grin. “We may be looking for a combination microwave oven, fuel ionizer, and sauna. OK, now the alien herself. Your impressions, Whitbread. Is it
that
intelligent?”

“She didn’t understand anything I said. Except that one time, when I screamed ‘Turn off the force field!’ She understood that right away. Otherwise nothing.”

“You’ve edited that a bit, lad,” Cargill said. “But never mind. What do you think, boy? Does the alien understand Anglic? Is she faking?”

“I don’t know. She didn’t even understand my gestures, except once. That was when I handed her her own suit—and that’s a pretty pointed hint, sir.”

“She may simply be stupid,” Rod said.

“She’s an asteroid miner, Captain,” Cargill said slowly. “That’s fairly certain. At least that’s an asteroid miner’s ship. The hooks and clamps at the stern have to be for hanging on durable cargo, like ore and air-bearing rock.”

“So?” Blaine prompted.

“I’ve known some asteroid miners, Skipper. They tend to be stubborn, independent, self-reliant to the point of eccentricity, and close-mouthed. They’ll trust each other with their lives, but not with their women or property. And they forget how to talk out there; at least it seems that way.”

They both looked hopefully at Whitbread, who said, “I don’t know, sir. I just don’t know. She’s not stupid. You should have seen her hands moving around in the guts of the instrument panel, rewiring, making new circuits, recalibrating half a dozen things at once, it looked like. Maybe—maybe our sign language just doesn’t work. I don’t know why.”

Rod pushed a finger along the knot in his nose. “It might be surprising if it did work,” he said thoughtfully. “And this is one example of a completely alien race. If we were aliens and picked up an asteroid miner, what conclusions would we draw about the Empire?” Blaine filled his coffee cup, then Whitbread’s. “Well, Horvath’s team is more likely to come up with something than we are, they have the Motie to work with.”

Sally Fowler watched the Motie with a feeling of deep frustration. “I can’t decide whether she’s stupid or I am. Did you see what happened when I drew her a diagram of the Pythagorean Theorem?”

“Uh huh.” Renner’s grin was no help at all. “She took your pocket computer apart and put it back together again. She didn’t draw anything. She’s stupid in some ways, though,” he said more seriously. “Meaning no insult to our eminently trustworthy selves, she’s too damned trusting. Maybe she’s low on survival instincts.”

Sally nodded and watched the Motie at work.

“She’s a genius at building things,” Renner said. “But she doesn’t understand language, gestures, or pictures. Could the bloody alien be a genius and a moron at the same time?”

“Idiot savant,” Sally murmured. “It happens with humans, but it’s quite rare. Imbecile children with the ability to extract cube roots and do logarithms in their heads. Mathematical whizzes who can’t buckle their shoes.”

“It’s a difference in perceptions.” Horvath had been engaged in a more thorough study of the small Moties. “One has to
learn
that a picture is a picture. Your drawings— Good God, what’s it doing now?”

Someone screamed in the companionway.

Ostensibly Cargill was delivering Whitbread to the scientists. Actually, he had no doubt that Whitbread could have found his way to the wardroom where they had brought the Moties while artificers built a cage for the miniatures in the petty officers’ lounge. But Jack Cargill was curious.

Halfway through the companionway he caught his first sight of the alien. It was disassembling the wardroom coffee maker—an act of malice made all the more diabolical by the innocence of her smile.

She cringed away at Cargill’s yell—and the First Lieutenant saw that it was too late. Tiny screws and parts were scattered across the table. The alien had broken the percolator tube, possibly to analyze the soldering technique. Bits of the timing mechanism were neatly arrayed. The Motie had pulled the cylindrical shell open along its welded seam.

Cargill found that the Science Minister had him by the arm. “You’re frightening the alien,” Horvath said in a low voice. “Go away, please.”

“Doctor, have the goodness to tell me—”

“Elsewhere.” Horvath propelled him to the other end of the room. Cargill glimpsed the miniature aliens squatting on the games table, surrounded by members of the life sciences group and by samples from the galley: grain, bread, carrots and celery, defrosted raw and cooked meat. “Now,” said Horvath. “What do you mean by barging into—”

“That monster ruined the wardroom coffee maker!”

“We’re lucky,” Midshipman Whitbread said irreverently. “She was trying to take apart the number-four air lock mechanism until I stopped her.”

“All she’s interested in is tools.” Horvath was pointedly ignoring Cargill’s agitation. “For once I even agree with Admiral Kutuzov. The alien must not be allowed to see the Alderson Drive or the Field generators. She seems able to deduce what a thing is for and how it works almost without touching it.”

“Never mind that!” Cargill said. “Couldn’t you have given the Motie something else to play with? That coffee maker is half repairs anyway. Nobody could figure out how it’s made since Sandy Sinclair finished with it. And the Motie’s broken some of the parts.”

“If they were that easy to break, they can probably be fixed,” Horvath said soothingly. “Look, we can give you one of the urns from the labs, or have one of our techs— Ah, Miss Fowler, has the alien calmed down? Now, Mr Whitbread? We’re glad you’re here; we’ve been waiting for you, as the only man to have actually communicated with the alien. Here, Commander Cargill, please stay away from the Motie—”

But Cargill was halfway across the room. The alien cringed a bit, but Cargill stayed well out of her reach. He glowered at her as he considered his coffee maker. It had been reassembled.

The Motie pulled away from Sally Fowler. She found a conical plastic container, filled it with tap water, and used it to fill the coffee maker. One of the wardroom stewards sniggered.

The Motie poured in two containers of water, inserted the grounds basket, and waited.

The amused steward looked to Cargill, who nodded. The messboy dug out the tin of ground coffee, used the measuring spoon, and started the urn. The alien watched closely all the while. So did one of the miniatures, despite the distraction of a biologist waving a carrot in her face. “It did that before, watched me make the coffee, sir,” the steward said. “Thought it might want some, but the scientists didn’t offer it none.”

“We may have a godawful mess here in a minute, Ernie. Stand by to clean up.” Cargill turned to Sally. “How good is that monster at putting things together again?”

“Quite good,” Sally told him. “She fixed my pocket computer.”

The percolator bubbled, and the water in the indicator tube turned brown. Cargill hesitantly poured a cup and tasted. “Why, that’s all right,” he said. He handed the cup to the Motie.

She tasted the black, bitter brew, squawled, and threw the cup at the bulkhead.

Sally led Whitbread into the wardroom pantry. “You made the Motie understand you. How?”

“It was only that once,” Whitbread said. “I’ve been wondering if I made a mistake. Could she have decided to let me loose about the time I opened my helmet and screamed?”

Sally scowled. “She just
stands
there. She doesn’t even seem to know we’re
trying
to talk to her. And she never tries to talk back . . .” She dropped her voice, muttering mostly to herself. “It is a basic characteristic of intelligent species that they attempt to communicate. Whitbread, what’s your first name?”

Whitbread was startled. “Jonathon, my lady.”

“All right, Jonathon, I’m Sally. As man to woman, Jonathon, what in blazes am I doing wrong? Why won’t she try to talk to me?”

“Well, Sally,” Whitbread said tentatively. He liked the taste of the name. And she wasn’t more than a couple of years older than he was— “Sally, I could think of half a dozen reasons. Maybe she reads minds.”

“What would that have to do with—”

“She wouldn’t know about language, would she? What you’re trying to teach wouldn’t make sense. Maybe she can only read
our
minds when we’re screaming mad, like I was.”

“Or Commander Cargill was—” Sally said thoughtfully. “She did move away from the coffee maker. But not for long. No, I don’t believe it.”

“Neither do I. I think she’s lying.”

“Lying?”

“Playing dumb. She doesn’t know what to tell us, so she tells us nothing. Plays for time. She is interested in our machinery. This gives her time to learn about it.”

Sally nodded slowly. “One of the biologists had the same idea. That she’s waiting for instructions, and learning as much as she can until they come— Jonathon, how would we catch her at it?”

“I don’t think we do,” Whitbread said slowly. “How would you catch an intelligent mouse playing dumb, if you’d never seen a mouse and neither had anyone else?”

“Blazes. Well, we’ll just have to keep on trying.” She frowned, thinking of the Motie’s performance with the coffee maker, then gave Whitbread a long, thoughtful look. “You’re exhausted. Go get some sleep, there’s nothing you need to tell us right away, is there?”

“No.” Whitbread yawned. There was a scampering sound behind him and they both turned quickly, but there was nothing there. “Speaking of mice,” Whitbread said.

“How can they live on a steel ship?” Sally asked.

Whitbread shrugged. “They come aboard with the food supplies, even in personal gear. Once in a while we evacuate portions of the ship, move the crew around, and open up to space, to control them, but we never get them all. This trip, with all the extra personnel aboard, we haven’t even been able to do that.”

“Interesting.” Sally nodded. “Mice can live almost anywhere humans can—you know, there are probably as many mice in the galaxy as people? We’ve carried them to nearly every planet. Jonathon, are the miniatures
mice
?”

Whitbread shrugged. “She certainly didn’t care about them. Killed all but two—but why bring two aboard? And a randomly selected two at that.”

Sally nodded again. “We watched her catch them.” She laughed suddenly. “And Mr. Renner was wondering if they were baby Moties! Get to sleep, Jonathon. We’ll see you in ten hours or so.”

Midshipman Jonathon Whitbread reached his hammock much sooner than he had expected. He sagged blissfully into the netting and closed his eyes . . . and opened one, feeling other eyes upon him.

“Yes, Mr. Potter,” he sighed.

“Mr. Whitbread, I would be obliged if you would talk to Mr. Staley.”

It was not what he expected. Whitbread opened his other eye. “Uh?”

“Something’s upset him. You know how he is, he won’t complain, he’d rather die. But he walks around like a robot, hardly speaks to anyone except politely. He eats alone . . . you’ve known him longer than I have, I thought you might find out why.”

“All right, Potter. I’ll try. When I wake up.” He closed his eyes. Potter was still there. “In eight hours, Potter. It can’t be
that
urgent.”

In another part of
MacArthur
Sailing Master Renner tossed fitfully in a stateroom not much larger than his bunk. It was the Third Lieutenant’s berth, but two scientists had Renner’s cabin, and the Third had moved in with a Marine officer.

Renner sat up suddenly in the darkness, his mind hunting for something that might have been a dream. Then he turned on the light and fumbled with the unfamiliar intercom panel. The rating who answered showed remarkable self-control: he didn’t scream or anything. “Get me Miss Sally Fowler,” Renner said.

The rating did, without comment.
Must be a robot,
Renner thought. He knew how he looked.

Sally was not asleep. She and Dr. Horvath had just finished installing the Motie in the Gunnery Officer’s cabin. Her face and voice as she said “Yes, Mr. Renner?” somehow informed Renner that he looked like a cross between a man and a mole—a remarkable feat of nonverbal communication.

Renner skipped it. “I remembered something. Have you got your pocket computer?”

“Certainly.” She took it out to show him.

“Please test it for me.”

Her face a puzzled mask, Sally drew letters on the face of the flat box, wiped them, scrawled a simple problem, then a complex one that would require the ship’s computer to help. Then she called up an arbitrary personal data file from ship’s memory. “It works all right.”

Renner’s voice was thick with sleep. “Am I crazy, or did we watch the Motie take that thing apart and put it back together again?”

“Certainly. She did the same with your gun.”

“But a
pocket computer
?” Renner stared. “You know that’s impossible, don’t you?”