The Mote in God's Eye (52 page)

Almost below Horst’s window, a dead Warrior lay with its right arms blown away. A live one waited for a lull, suddenly broke for closer cover—and the fallen one came to life. Then it happened too fast to follow: the gun flying, the two Warriors colliding like a pair of buzz saws, then flying away, broken dolls still kicking and spraying blood.

Something crashed below. There were sounds in the stairwell. Hooves clicked on marble steps. The Moties twittered. Charlie whistled, loudly, and again. There was an answering call from below, then a voice spoke in David Hardy’s perfect Anglic.

“You will not be mistreated. Surrender at once.”

“We’ve lost,” Charlie said.

“My Master’s troops. What will you do, Horst?”

For answer Staley crouched in a corner with the x-ray rifle aimed at the stairwell. He waved frantically at the other midshipmen to take cover.

A brown-and-white Motie turned the corner and stood in the hallway. It had Chaplain Hardy’s voice, but none of his mannerisms. Only the perfect Anglic, and the resonant tones. The Mediator was unarmed. “Come now, be reasonable. Your ship has gone. Your officers believe you are dead. There is no reason to harm you. Don’t get your friends killed over nothing, come out and accept our friendship.”

“Go to hell!”

“What can you gain by this?” the Motie asked. “We only wish you well—”

There were sounds of firing from below. The shots rebounded through the empty rooms and hallways of the Castle. The Mediator with Hardy’s voice whistled and clicked to the other Moties.

“What’s she saying?” Staley demanded. He looked around: Whitbread’s Motie was crouched against the wall, frozen. “Jesus, now what?”

“Leave her alone!” Whitbread shouted. He moved from his post to stand beside the Motie and put his arm on her shoulder. “What should we do?”

The battle noises moved closer, and suddenly two demons were in the hallway. Staley aimed and fired in a smooth motion, cutting down one Warrior. He began to swing the beam toward the other. The demon fired, and Staley was flung against the far wall of the corridor. More demons bounded into the hallway, and there was a burst of fire that held Staley upright for a second. His body was chewed by dragon’s teeth, and he fell to lie very still. Potter fired the rocket launcher. The shell burst at the end of the hallway. Part of the walls fell in, littering the floor with rubble and partly burying the Mediator and Warriors.

“It seems to me that no matter who wins yon fight below, we know aye more about the Langston Field than is safe,” Potter said slowly. “What do ye think, Mr. Whitbread? ‘Tis your command now.”

Jonathon shook himself from his reverie. His Motie was stock-still, unmoving— Potter drew his pistol and waited. There were scrabbling sounds in the hallway. The sounds of battle died away.

“Your friend is right, brother,” Whitbread’s Motie said. She looked at the unmoving form of Hardy’s Fyunch(click). “That one was a brother too...”

Potter screamed. Whitbread jerked around.

Potter stood unbelieving, his pistol gone, his arm shattered from wrist to elbow. He looked at Whitbread with eyes dull with just realized pain and said, “One of the dead ones threw a rock.”

There were more Warriors in the hall, and another Mediator. They advanced slowly.

Whitbread swung the magic sword that would cut stone and metal. It came up in a backhanded arc and cut through Potter’s neck—Potter, whose religion forbade suicide, as did Whitbread’s. There was a burst of fire as he swung the blade at his own neck, and two clubs smashed at his shoulders. Jonathon Whitbread fell and did not move.

They did not touch him at first except to remove the weapons from his belt. They waited for a Doctor, while the rest held off King Peter’s attacking forces. A Mediator spoke quickly to Charlie and offered a communicator—there was nothing left to fight for. Whitbread’s Motie remained by her Fyunch(click).

The Doctor probed at Whitbread’s shoulders. Although she had never had a human to dissect, she knew everything any Motie knew about human physiology, and her hands were perfectly formed to make use of a thousand Cycles of instincts. The fingers moved gently to the pulverized shoulder joints, the eyes noted that there was no spurting blood. Hands touched the spine, that marvelous organ she’d known only through models.

The fragile neck vertebrae had been snapped. “High velocity bullets,” she hummed to the waiting Mediator. “The impact has destroyed the notochord. This creature is dead.”

The Doctor and two Browns worked frantically to build a blood pump to serve the brain. It was futile. The communication between Engineer and Doctor was too slow, the body was too strange, and there was too little equipment in time.

They took the body and Whitbread’s Motie to the space port controlled by their Master. Charlie would be returned to King Peter, now that the war was finished. There were payments to be made, work in cleaning up after the battle, every Master who had been harmed to be satisfied; when next the humans came, there must be unity among Moties.

The Master never knew, nor did her white daughters ever suspect. But among her other daughters, the brown-and-white Mediators who served her, it was whispered that one of their sisters had done that which no Mediator had ever done throughout all the Cycles. As the Warriors hurried toward this strange human, Whitbread’s Motie had touched it, not with the gentle right hands, but with the powerful left.

She was executed for disobedience; and she died alone. Her sisters did not hate her, but they could not bring themselves to speak to one who had killed her own Fyunch(click).

“Boats report no trace of our midshipmen, my Admiral.” Captain Mikhailov’s tone was both apologetic and defensive; few officers wanted to report failure to Kutuzov. The burly Admiral sat impassively in his command chair on
Lenin
’s bridge. He lifted his glass of tea and sipped, his only acknowledgment a brief grunt.

Kutuzov turned to the others grouped around him at staff posts. Rod Blaine still occupied the Flag Lieutenant’s chair; he was senior to Commander Borman, and Kutuzov was punctilious about such matters.

“Eight scientists,” Kutuzov said. “Eight scientists, five officers, fourteen spacers and Marines. All killed by Moties.”

“Moties!” Dr. Horvath swiveled his command chair toward Kutuzov. “Admiral, nearly all those men were aboard
MacArthur
when you destroyed her. Some might still have been alive. As for the midshipmen, if they were foolish enough to try to land with lifeboats...” His voice, trailed off as Rod turned dead eyes toward him. “Sorry, Captain. I didn’t mean it that way. Truly, I am sorry. I liked those boys too. But you can’t blame the Moties for what happened! The Moties have tried to help, and they can do so much for us— Admiral, when can we get back to the embassy ship?”

Kutuzov’s explosive sound might have been a laugh. “Hah! Doctor, we are going home as soon as boats are secured. I thought I had made that clear.”

The Science Minister pressed his lips tightly against his wide teeth. “I was hoping that you had regained your sanity.” His voice was a cold, feral snarl. “Admiral, you are ruining the best hopes mankind ever had. The technology we can buy—that they’ll give us!—is orders of magnitude above anything we could expect for centuries. The Moties have gone to enormous expense to make us welcome. If you hadn’t forbidden us to tell them about the escaped miniatures I’m sure they’d have helped. But you had to keep your damned secrets—and because of your stupid xenophobia we lost the survey ship and most of our instruments. Now you antagonize them by going home when they planned more conferences— My God, man, if they
were
warlike nothing could provoke them as you have!”

“You are finished?” Kutuzov asked contemptuously.

“I’m finished for now. I won’t be finished when we get back.”

Kutuzov touched a button on the arm of his chair. “Captain Mikhailov, please make ready for departure to the Alderson entry point. One and one-half gravities, Captain.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“You are determined to be a damn fool, then,” Horvath protested. “Blaine, can’t you reason with him?”

“I am determined to carry out my orders, Doctor,” Kutuzov said heavily. If Horvath’s threats meant anything to him, he didn’t show it. The Admiral turned to Rod. “Captain, I will welcome your advice. But I will do nothing to compromise safety of this ship, and I cannot allow further personal contact with Moties. Have you suggestions, Captain Lord Blaine?”

Rod had listened to the conversation without interest, his thoughts a confused blur. What could I have done? he asked himself endlessly. There was nothing else to concern him. The Admiral might ask his advice, but that was courtesy. Rod had no command and no duties. His ship was lost, his career finished— Brooding in self-pity wasn’t doing any good, though. “I do think, sir, that we should try to keep the Moties’ friendship. We shouldn’t make the Government’s decisions...”

“You are saying I do that?” Kutuzov demanded.

“No, sir. But it is likely the Empire will want to trade with the Mote. As Dr. Horvath says, they have done nothing hostile.”

“What of your midshipmen?”

Rod swallowed hard. “I don’t know, sir. Possibly Potter or Whitbread weren’t able to control their lifeboats and Staley tried a rescue. It would be like him—”

Kutuzov scowled. “Three lifeboats, Captain. All three reenter, and all three burn.” He examined the displays around him. A boat was being winched into
Lenin
’s hangar deck, where Marines would flood it with poison gas. No aliens would get loose in
his
flagship! “What would you like to say to Moties, Doctor?”

“I won’t tell them what I’d
like
to say, Admiral,” Horvath said pointedly. “I will stay with your story of plague. It’s almost true, isn’t it? A plague of miniatures. But, Admiral, we must leave open the possibility of a returning expedition.”

“They will know you lie to them,” Kutuzov said flatly. “Blaine, what of that? Is better Moties hear explanations they do not believe?”

Damn it, doesn’t he know I don’t want to think about Moties? Or anything else? What good is my advice? Advice from a man who lost his ship— “Admiral, I don’t see what harm it would do to let Minister Horvath speak to the Moties.” Rod emphasized “Minister”; not only was Horvath a ranking Council Minister, but he had powerful connections with the Humanity League, and influence in the Imperial Traders’ Association as well. That combination had nearly as much clout as the Navy. “Somebody ought to talk to them, it doesn’t matter much who. There’s not a man aboard who can lie to his Fyunch(click).”

“Very well. Da. Captain Mikhailov, please have communications call Mote embassy ship. Dr. Horvath will speak to them.”

The screens lit to show a brown-and-white half-smiling face. Rod grimaced, then glanced up quickly to confirm that his own image pickup wasn’t on.

The Motie looked at Horvath. “Fyunch(click).”

“Ah. I was hoping to speak to you. We are leaving now. We must.”

The Motie’s expression didn’t change. “That seemed obvious, but we are very distressed, Anthony. We have much more to discuss, trade agreements, rental of bases in your Empire—”

“Yes, yes, but we haven’t the authority to sign treaties or trade agreements,” Horvath protested. “Really, we did accomplish a lot, and now we
have
to go. There was plague on
MacArthur
, something new to our doctors, and we don’t know the focal infection center or the vector. And since this ship is our only way home, the Ad—our decision makers think it best we leave while there is a full astrogation crew. We’ll be back!”

“Will you come yourself?” the Motie asked.

“If at all possible. I’d love to.” He had no trouble sounding sincere about
that
.

“You will be welcome. All humans will be welcome. We have great hopes for trade between our races, Anthony. There is much we can learn from each other. We have gifts as well—can you not take them on your ship?”

“Why, thank you—I—” Horvath looked at Kutuzov. The Admiral was about to explode. He shook his head violently.

“It would not be wise,” Horvath said sadly. “Until we know what caused the plague, it is best we add nothing we have not already been exposed to. I’m very sorry.”

“So am I, Anthony. We have noted that your engineers are—how can I put this delicately? Are not so advanced as ours in many ways. Underspecialized, perhaps. We have thought partially to remedy this with our gifts.”

“I—excuse me a moment,” Horvath said. He turned to Kutuzov after switching off the sound pickup. “Admiral, you cannot refuse such an opportunity! This may be the most significant event in the history of the Empire!”

The Admiral nodded slowly. His dark eyes narrowed. “It is also true that Moties in possession of Langston Field and Alderson Drive may be most significant threat in history of human race, Minister Horvath.”

“I’m aware of it,” Horvath snapped. He turned the sound pickup on. “I am afraid that—”

The Motie interrupted. “Anthony, can you not inspect our gifts? You may take pictures of them, learn them well enough to duplicate them later. Surely that would be no danger to persons who have been on the Mote planet itself?”

Horvath thought furiously. He
had
to have those! The pickup was switched off, and Horvath smiled thinly at the Admiral. “He’s right, you know. Can’t we put them in the cutter?”

Kutuzov seemed to taste sour milk. Then he nodded. Horvath turned back to the Motie in relief. “Thank you. If you will place the gifts in the cutter, we will study them on the way out and you may retrieve both the gifts and the cutter, our gift to you, at the Crazy Eddie point in two and a half weeks.”

“Excellent,” the Motie said warmly. “But you will not need the cutter. One of our gifts is a space craft with controls suitable for human hands and minds. The others will be aboard it.”

Kutuzov looked surprised and nodded quickly. Horvath caught it with an inward smile. “That’s wonderful. We will bring gifts for you on our return. We want very much to repay your hospitality—”