The Mote in God's Eye (26 page)

She was far more puzzled at its failure to work out the lock circuitry without help.

It must be here in the capacity of a Mediator. It had to be intelligent. Didn’t it? Or would they send an animal first? No, certainly not. They couldn’t be that alien; it would be a deadly insult in any culture.

The lock opened. She stepped in and set it cycling. The intruder was waiting in the corridor, filling it like a cork in a bottle. The Mediator took time to strip off her pressure envelope, leaving her naked. Alien as it was, the thing might easily assume she was a Warrior. She must convince the creature that she was unarmed.

She led the way toward the roomier inflated sections. The big, clumsy creature had trouble moving. It did not adapt well to free fall. It stopped to peer through window panels into sections of the ship, and examined mechanisms the Browns had installed in the corridor . . . why would an intelligent being do that?

The Mediator would have liked to tow the creature, but it might take that as an attack. She must avoid that at all costs.

For the present, she would treat it as a Master.

There was an acceleration chamber: twenty-six twisted bunks stacked in three columns, all similar in appearance to Crawford’s transformed bunk; yet they were not quite identical, either. The Motie moved ahead of him, graceful as a dolphin. Its short pelt was a random pattern curved brown and white stripes, punctuated by four patches of thick white fur at the groin and armpits. Whibread found it beautiful. Now it had stopped to wait for him—impatiently, Whitbread thought.

He tried not to think about how thoroughly he was trapped. The corridor was unlighted and claustrophobically narrow. He looked into a line of tanks connected by pumps, possibly a cooling system for hydrogen fuel. It would connect to that single black fin outside.

Light flashed on the Motie.

It was a big opening, big enough even for Whitbread. Beyond: dim sunlight, like the light beneath a thunderstorm. Whitbread followed the Motie into what had to be one of the toroids. He was immediately surrounded by aliens.

They were all identical. That seemingly random pattern of brown and white was repeated on every one of them. At least a dozen smiling lopsided faces ringed him at a polite distance. They chattered to each other in quick squeaky voices.

The chattering stopped suddenly. One of the Moties approached Whitbread and spoke several short sentences that might have been in different languages, though to Whitbread they were all meaningless.

Whitbread shrugged, theatrically, palms forward.

The Motie repeated the gesture, instantly, with incredible accuracy. Whitbread cracked up. He sprawled helplessly in free fall, arms folded around his middle, cackling like a chicken.

Blaine spoke in his ear, his voice sober and metallic. “All right, Whitbread, everyone else is laughing too. The question is—”

“Oh, no! Sir, am I on the intercom again?”

“The question is, what do the Moties think you’re doing?”

“Yessir. It was the third arm that did it.” Whitbread had sobered. “It’s time for my strip-tease act, Captain. Please take me off that intercom...”

The telltale at his chin was yellow, of course. Slow poison; but this time he wasn’t going to breath it. He took a deep breath, undogged, and lifted his helmet. Still holding his breath, he took SCUBA gear from an outside patch of his suit and fitted the mouthpiece between his teeth. He turned on the air; it worked fine.

Leisurely he began to strip. First came the baggy coverall that contained the suit electronics and support gear. Then he unsnapped the cover, strips that shielded the zippers, and opened the tight fabric of the pressure suit itself. The zippers ran along each limb and up the chest; without them it would take hours to get in and out of suit, which looked like a body stocking or a leotard. The elastic fibers conformed to every curve of his musculature, as they had to, to keep him from exploding in vacuum; with their support, his own skin was in a sense his pressure suit, and his sweat glands were the temperature regulating system.

The tanks floated free in front of him as he struggled out of the suit. The Moties moved slowly, and one
—
a Brown, no stripes, identical to the miner aboard
MacArthur
—
came over to help.

He used the all-purpose goop in his tool kit to stick his helmet to the translucent plastic wall. Surprisingly it did not work. The brown Motie recognized his difficulty instantly. He (she, it) produced a tube of something and dabbed it on Whitbread’s helmet; now it stuck. Jonathon faced the camera toward him, and stuck the rest of his suit next to it.

Humans would have aligned themselves with their head at the same end, as if they must define an up direction before they could talk comfortably. The Moties were at all angles. They clearly didn’t give a damn. They waited, smiling.

Whitbread wriggled the rest of the way out of his suit until he wore nothing at all.

The Moties moved in to examine him.

The Brown was startling among all the brown-and-white patterns. It was shorter than the others, with slightly bigger hands and an odd look to the head, as far as Whitbread could tell, it was identical to the miner. The others looked like the dead one in the Motie light-sail probe.

The brown one was examining his suit, and seemed to be doing things to the tool kit; but the others were prodding at him, seeking the musculature and articulations of his body, looking for places where prodding would produce reflex twitching and jumping.

Two examined his teeth, which were clenched. Others traced his bones with their fingers: his ribs, his spine, the shape of his head, his pelvis, the bones of his feet. They palpated his hands and moved the fingers in ways they were not meant to go. Although they were gentle enough, it was all thoroughly unpleasant.

The chattering rose to a crescendo. Some of the sounds were so shrill they were nearly inaudible shrieks and whistles, but behind them were melodious mid-range tones. One phrase seemed to be repeated constantly in high tenor. Then they were all behind him, showing each other his spine. They were very excited about Whitbread’s spine. A Motie signaled him by catching his eye and then hunching back and forth. The joints jutted as if its back were broken in two places. Whitbread felt queasy watching it, but he got the idea. He curled into fetal position, straightened, then curled up again. A dozen small alien hands probed his back.

Presently they backed away. One approached and seemed to invite Whitbread to explore his (her, its) anatomy. Whitbread shook his head and deliberately looked away. That was for the scientists.

He received his helmet and spoke into the mike. “Ready to report, sir. I’m not sure what to do next. Shall I try to get of them to come back to
MacArthur
with me?”

Captain Blaine’s voice sounded strained. “Definitely not. Can you get outside their ship?”

“Yes, sir, if I have to.”

“We’d rather you did. Report on a secure line, Whitbread.”

“Uh—yes, sir.” Jonathon signaled the Moties, pointed to his helmet and then to the air lock. The one who had been conducting him around nodded. He climbed back into his suit with help from the brown Motie, dogged the fastenings and attached his helmet. A Brown-and-white led him to the air lock.

There was no convenient place outside to attach the safety line, but after a glance his Motie escort glued a hook onto the ship’s surface. It did not look substantial, that hook. Jonathon worried about it briefly. Then frowned. Where was the ring the Motie had held when Whitbread first approached? It was gone. Why?

Oh, well.
MacArthur
was close. If the hook broke they would come get him. Gingerly he pushed away from the Motie ship until he hung in empty space. He used helmet sights to line up exactly with the antenna protruding from
MacArthur
’s totally black surface. Then he touched the SECURITY stud with his tongue.

A thin beam of coherent light stabbed out from his helmet. Another came in from
MacArthur
, following his own into a tiny receptacle set into the helmet. A ring around that receptacle stayed in darkness; if there were any spillover the tracking system on
MacArthur
would correct it or, if the spill touched still a third ring around Whitbread’s receiving antenna, cut off communication entirely.

“Secure, sir,” he reported. He let an irritated but puzzled note creep into his voice. After all, he thought, I’m entitled to a
little
expression of opinion. Aren’t I?

Blaine answered immediately. “Mr. Whitbread, the reason for this security is not merely to make you uncomfortable. The Moties do not understand our language now, but they can make recordings; and later they will understand Anglic. Do you follow me?”

“Why—yes sir.” Ye gods, the Old Man was really thinking ahead.

“Now, Mr. Whitbread, we cannot allow any Motie aboard
MacArthur
until we have disposed of the problem of the miniatures, and we will do nothing to let the Moties know we have such a problem. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Excellent. I’m sending a boatload of scientists your way—now that you’ve broken the ground, so to speak. By the way, well done. Before I send the others, have you further comments?”

“Um. Yes, sir. First, there are two children aboard. I saw them clinging to the backs of adults. They’re bigger than miniatures, and colored like the adults.”

“More evidence of peaceful intent,” Blaine said. “What else?”

“Well, I didn’t get a chance to count them, but it looks like twenty-three Brown-and-whites and two brown asteroid-miner types. Both of the children were with the Browns. I’ve been wondering why.”

“Eventually we’ll be able to ask them. All right, Whitbread, we’ll send over the scientists. They’ll have the cutter. Renner, you on?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Work out a course. I want
MacArthur
fifty kilometers from the Motie ship. I don’t know what the Moties will do when we move, but the cutter’ll be over there first.”

“You’re moving the ship, sir?” Renner asked incredulously. Whitbread wanted to cheer but restrained himself.

“Yes.”

Nobody said anything for a long moment.

“All right,” Blaine capitulated. “I’ll explain. The Admiral is very concerned about the miniatures. He thinks they might be able to talk about the ship. We’ve orders to see that the escaped miniatures have no chance to communicate with an adult Motie, and one klick is just a bit close.”

There was more silence.

“That’s all, gentlemen. Thank you, Mr. Whitbread,” Rod said. “Mr. Staley, inform Dr. Hardy that he can get aboard the cutter any time.”

“Well, you’re on,” Chaplain Hardy thought to himself. He was a round, vague man, with dreamy eyes and red hair just beginning to turn gray. Except for conducting the Sunday worship services he had deliberately stayed in his cabin during most of the expedition.

David Hardy was not unfriendly. Anyone could come to his cabin for coffee, a drink, a game of chess, or a long talk, and many did. He merely disliked people in large numbers. He could not get to know them in a crowd.

He also retained his professional inclination not to discuss his work with amateurs and not to publish results until enough evidence was in. That, he told himself, would be impossible now. And what
were
the aliens? Certainly they were intelligent. Certainly they were sentient. And certainly they had a place in the divine scheme of the universe. But what?

Crewmen moved Hardy’s equipment aboard the cutter. A tape library, several stacks of children’s books, reference works (not many; the cutter’s computer would be able draw on the ship’s library; but David still liked
books
, impractical as they were). There was other equipment: two display screens with sound transducers, pitch reference electronic filters to shape speech sounds, raise or low pitch, change timbre and phase. He had tried to stow the gear himself, but First Lieutenant Cargill had talked him out of it. Marines were expert at the task, and Hardy’s worries about damage were nothing compared to theirs; if anything broke they’d have Kelley to contend with.

Hardy met Sally in the air lock. She was not traveling light either. Left to herself, she’d have taken
everything
, even the bones and mummies from the Stone Beehive; but the Captain would only allow her holographs, and even those were hidden until she could learn the Moties attitude toward grave robbers. From Cargill’s description of the Beehive, the Moties had no burial customs, but that was absurd.
Everyone
had burial customs, even the most primitive humans.

She could not take the Motie miner, either, or the remaining miniature, which had become female again. And the ferrets and Marines were searching for the other miniature and the pup (and
why
had it run away with the other miniature, not its mother?). She wondered if the fuss she had made about Rod’s orders to the Marines might be responsible for the ease with which she won her place on the cutter. She knew she wasn’t really being fair to Rod. He had his orders from the Admiral. But it was wrong. The miniatures weren’t going to hurt anyone. It took a paranoid to fear them.

She followed Chaplain Hardy into the cutter’s lounge. Dr. Horvath was already there. The three of them would be the first scientists aboard the alien ship, and she felt a surge of excitement. There was so much to learn!

An anthropologist—she thought of herself as fully qualified now, and certainly there was no one to dispute it—a linguist, and Horvath, who had been a competent physicist before going into administration. Horvath was the only useless one in the group, but with his rank he was entitled to the seat if he demanded it. She did not think the same description applied to herself, although half the scientists aboard
MacArthur
did.

Three scientists, a coxswain, two able spacers, and Jonathon Whitbread. No Marines, and no weapons aboard. Almost, the excitement was enough to cover the fear that welled up from somewhere in her insides. They had to be unarmed, of course; but she would have felt better, all the same, if Rod Blaine had been aboard. And that was impossible.