The Mote in God's Eye (54 page)

“Me?” Rod laughed. “Kevin, I’m not an expert on anything. The first thing I’ve got to do when we get back is convince a court-martial—”

“Oh, rape the court-martial,” Renner said impatiently. “Really, Captain, are you sitting here brooding over that formality? God’s teeth!”

“And what do you suggest I brood over, Lieutenant Renner?”

Kevin grinned. Better Blaine irritated than the way he’d been. “Oh, about why Sally’s so glum this afternoon—I think she’s hurt because you’re mad at her. About what you’re going to say when Kutuzov and Horvath have it out over the Motie ambassadors. About revolts and secessions in the colony worlds, or the price of iridium, or inflation of the crown—”

“Renner, for God’s sake shut up!”

Kevin’s grin broadened. “—or how to get me out of your cabin. Captain, look at it this way. Suppose a court finds you guilty of negligence. Certainly nothing worse. You didn’t surrender the ship to an enemy or anything. So suppose they seriously want your scalp and they hang that on you. Worse thing they could do would be ground you. They wouldn’t even cashier you. So they ground you, and you resign—you’re still going to be Twelfth Marquis of Crucis.”

“Yeah. So what?”

“So what?” Renner was suddenly angry. His brows knitted, and one fist clenched. “So what? Look, Captain, I’m just a merchant skipper. All my family’s ever been, and all we ever want to be. I put in a hitch in the Navy because we all do—maybe back home we’re not so thick on Imperialism as you are in the Capital, but part of that’s because we trust you aristocrats to run the show. We do our part, and we expect you characters with all the privileges to do yours!”

“Well—” Blaine looked sheepish, and a little embarrassed by Renner’s outburst. “And just what do you see as my part?”

“What do you think? You’re the only aristocrat in the Empire who knows a bloody thing about Moties, and you’re asking me what to do? Captain, I expect you to put your arse in gear, that’s what. Sir. The Empire’s got to develop a sensible policy about Moties, and the Navy’s influence is big— You can’t let the Navy get its views from Kutuzov! You can start by thinking about those Motie ambassadors the Admiral wants to leave stranded here.”

“I’ll be damned. You really are worked up about this, aren’t you?”

Renner grinned. “Well, maybe a little. Look, you’ve got time. Talk to Sally about the Moties. Go over the reports we sent up from Mote Prime. Learn about them so when the Admiral asks your advice you’ll have some sensible arguements to give him. We’ve got to take those ambassadors back with us—”

Rod grimaced. Moties aboard another ship! Good Lord—

“And stop thinking like that,” Renner said. “They won’t get loose and multiply all over
Lenin
. They wouldn’t have time, for that matter. Use your head, sir. The Admiral will listen to you. He’s got it in for Horvath, anything Doc suggests the Tsar’s going to turn down, but he’ll listen to you...”

Rod shook his head impatiently. “You’re acting as if my judgment were worth something. The evidence is against that.”

“Good Lord. You’re really down in the dumps, aren’t you? Do you know what your officers and men think of you? Have you any idea? Hell, Captain, it’s because of guys like you that I can accept the aristocracy—” Kevin stopped, embarrassed at having said more than he intended. “Look, the Tsar’s got to ask your opinion. He doesn’t have to take your advice, or Horvath’s, but he does have to ask both of you. That’s in the expedition orders—”

“How the devil do you know that?”

“Captain, my division had the job of rescuing the logs and order books from
MacArthur
, remember? They weren’t marked SECRET.”

“The hell they weren’t.”

“Well, maybe the light was bad and I didn’t see the security stamps. Besides, I had to be sure they had the right books, didn’t I? Anyway, Dr. Horvath knows all about that regulation. He’s going to insist on a council of war before Kutuzov makes a final decision on the ambassador question.”

“I see.” Rod fingered the bridge of his nose. “Kevin, just who put you up to coming in here? Horvath?”

“Of course not. I thought of it myself.” Renner hesitated. “I did have some encouragement, Captain.” He waited for Blaine to respond, but got only a blank stare. Renner snorted. “I sometimes wonder why the aristocracy isn’t extinct, the lot of you seem so stupid sometimes. Why don’t you give Sally a call? She’s sitting in her cabin with a bleak look and a lot of notes and books she can’t get interested in right now—” Renner stood abruptly. “She could use some cheering up.”

“Sally? Worried about—”

“Jee-sus Christ,” Renner muttered. He turned and strode out.

Lenin
moved toward the Crazy Eddie point at one and a half gees. So did the gift ship.

The gift ship was a streamlined cylinder, swollen at the many-windowed nose, like a minaret riding a fusion flame. Sally Fowler and Chaplain Hardy were highly amused. Nobody else had noticed the clumsy phallicism—or would admit to it.

Kutuzov hated the gift ship. The Motie ambassadors could be dealt with simply by following orders, but the gift ship was something else again. It had caught up with
Lenin
, taken station three kilometers away, and broadcast a cheery message, while
Lenin
’s gunners tracked it helplessly. Kutuzov had told himself it couldn’t carry a large enough weapon to penetrate
Lenin
’s Field.

There was a better reason to hate that ship. It was tempting Kutuzov to violate his orders. The
MacArthur
crewmen volunteers who went over to test it were enthusiastic about everything on it. The controls resembled a Navy cutter, but the drive was a standard Motie fusion drive, long, slender stinger guiding a plasma flow at enormous efficiencies. There were other details, all of them valuable; Admiral Lavrenti Kutuzov wanted to take that ship home.

And he was afraid to let it get near his command.

After the naval officers tested it, the civilians had to go aboard. All this traffic made nonsense of the thin fiction of plague aboard
MacArthur
, and Kutuzov knew it; but at least he wouldn’t have to explain it to any Motie. He didn’t intend to communicate with them. Let Horvath read him the expedition orders and demand his council of war. There would be no aliens aboard
Lenin
while Kutuzov lived. That ship, though— He looked at it floating in his screens as scientific personnel were ferried to it. They’d come to
Lenin
for the requiem services, and now hurried back to resume their studies of their new toy.

Every report showed that it was filled with marvels of enormous value to the Empire, yet how did he dare take it aboard? It was no good seeking advice. Captain Blaine might have been of help, but no, he was a broken man, doomed to sink deeper into his own failures, useless just when his advice might be needed. Horvath had blind faith in the good intentions of everything Motie. Then there was Bury, with equally blind hatred, despite all the evidence showing that the Moties were friendly and harmless.

“Probably they are,” Kutuzov said aloud. Horace Bury looked up in surprise. He had been drinking tea with the Admiral on the bridge while they watched the Motie gift ship. The Trader shot an inquiring look at the Admiral.

“Probably the Moties are friendly. Harmless,” Kutuzov repeated.

“You can’t believe that!” Bury protested.

Kutuzov shrugged. “As I have told the others, what I believe is of no importance. Is my task to maximize information brought back to Government. With only this ship, any chance of loss means loss of all information. But that Motie space craft would be very valuable, would it not, Your Excellency? What would you pay to the Navy for license to produce ships with that drive?”

“I would pay much more to see the Motie threat ended forever,” Bury said earnestly.

“Um.” The Admiral was inclined to agree. There were enough problems in the Trans-Coalsack Sector. God only knew how many colonies were revolting, how many of the outies had made common cause against the Empire; aliens were a complexity the Navy did not need. “But still—the technology. The trade possibilities. I should think you would be interested.”

“We can’t trust them,” Bury said. He was very careful to speak calmly. The Admiral was not impressed with men unable to control their emotions. Bury understood him very well—his own father had been the same way.

“Admiral? They have killed our midshipmen. Surely you do not believe that fable about reentry? And they released those monsters on
MacArthur
, and almost succeeded in getting them aboard
Lenin
.” The Trader shuddered imperceptibly. Tiny glowing eyes. It had been that close— “Surely you will not allow these aliens into the Empire. You will not let them board your ship.” Mind-reading monsters. Telepathic or not, they read minds. Bury fought to control his desperation: if even Admiral Kutuzov was beginning to believe the alien lies, what chance had the Empire? The new technology would excite the Imperial Traders Association as nothing ever had, and only the Navy had enough influence to overcome the demands for commerce the ITA would make. Beard of the Prophet, something had to be done! “I wonder if you are not being unduly influenced by Dr. Horvath?” Bury asked politely.

The Admiral scowled, and Horace Bury smiled behind his face. Horvath. That was the key, play Horvath against the Admiral. Someone had to...

Anthony Horvath was at that moment feeling very pleased and comfortable despite the 1.5 gee acceleration. The gift ship was roomy, and it had studied touches of luxury among its endless marvels. There was the shower, with half a dozen adjustable heads set at different angles, and a molecular sieve to reclaim the water. There were stocks of prefrozen Motie dinners which needed only the microwave ovens to make a variety of meals. Even the culinary failures were . . . interesting. There was coffee, synthetic but good, and a well-stocked wine locker.

To add to his ease,
Lenin
and Kutuzov were comfortably distant. Aboard the battleship everyone was stuffed together like cargo pods in a merchantman, crowded into cabins and sleeping in corridors, while here Horvath lolled at his ease. He drew the microphone closer and resumed dictating with another sigh of contentment. All was well with the worlds—

“Much of what the Moties construct has multiple purposes,” he told his computer box. “This ship is an intelligence test
per se
, whether or not so intended. The Moties will lean much about our abilities by observing how long it takes our crew to control the drive properly. Their own Browns, I suspect, would have had it working perfectly in an hour, but to be fair, a Brown would have no difficulty concentrating on the telltales for days at a stretch. Humans intelligent enough for such tasks find them excruciatingly boring, and it is our own custom to have crewmen stand watches while their officers remain on call to deal with any problems. We thus respond more slowly, and require more personnel, to perform tasks that individual Moties find exceedingly simple.

“The Moties have also told us a great deal about themselves. For example, we employ humans as a backup to automatic systems, although we will often omit the automation in order to give constant employment to humans needed for emergencies but otherwise superfluous. The Moties appear deficient in computer technology, and seldom automate anything. Instead, they employ one or more subspecies as biological computers, and they seem to have an adequate supply of them. This is hardly an option left open for human use.” He paused for thought and looked around the cabin.

“Ah. Then there are the statuettes.” Horvath lifted one and smiled. He had them arrayed like toy soldiers on the table before him: a dozen Motie figurines of transparent plastic. Internal organs showed through in vivid color and detail. He looked at them again contentedly, then grimaced slightly. These
had
to be brought back.

Actually, he admitted to himself, they didn’t. There was nothing special about the plastic, and the statuettes were recorded in every detail; any good plastic former could be programmed to turn out thousands an hour, the same way these probably were made in the first place. But they were
alien
, and they were gifts, and he wanted them for his desk, or for the New Scotland Museum. Let Sparta have copies for a change!

He could identify most of the forms at a glance: Engineer, Mediator, Master; the huge Porter form; an overmuscled Engineer with broad, stubby-fingered hands and big splayed feet, probably a Farmer. A tiny Watchmaker (damn the Brownies! twice damn the Admiral who wouldn’t let the Moties help with their extermination). There was a small-headed long-fingered Physician. Next to it was the spindly Runner who seemed to be all legs. Horvath spoke to his computer box again.

“The Runner’s head is small, but there is a distinctly bulging forehead. It is my belief that the Runner is nonsentient but has the verbal capacity to memorize and deliver messages. It can probably carry out simple instructions. The Runner may have evolved as a specialized message carrier before civilization reached the telephone stage, and is now kept for traditional functions rather than utility. From the brain structure it becomes fairly clear that the Brownie or Watchmaker could never have memorized or delivered messages. The parietal lobe is quite undeveloped.”
That
for Kutuzov.

“These statuettes are extremely detailed. They disassemble like puzzles to reveal internal details. Although we do not yet know the function of most internal organs, we may be sure they divide differently from those of human organs, and it is possible that the Moties’ conscious design philosophy of overlapping multiple functions is duplicated in their gross anatomy as well. We have identified the heart and lungs, the latter consisting of two distinct lobes of unequal size.”

Chaplain Hardy braced himself in the doorway when the ship’s acceleration dropped, then surged. After the engineers had steadied it he came into the lounge and sat quietly without speaking. Horvath waved and continued his dictation.

“The only area where the statuettes are vague and undifferentiated is in the reproductive organs.” Horvath smiled and winked at the Chaplain. He really did feel contented. “The Moties have always been reticent about sex. These statuettes may be educational toys for children; certainly they were mass produced. If this is the case—we really must ask the Moties if we get a chance—it implies that the Mote culture shares some similarities with that of humans.” Horvath frowned. Sex education for the young was a periodic thing among humanity. Sometimes it was quite explicit and widespread, and at other periods of history it was nonexistent. In the civilized portions of the Empire such things were left to books at present, but there were plenty of newly discovered planets where the whole topic was forbidden knowledge to subadolescents.