The Mote in God's Eye (55 page)

“Of course, it may be simple efficiency,” Horvath continued. “Statuettes made to differentiate the sex organs would require three times as many figurines, a set for the male, another for the female, and a third for the reproductive phase itself. I note that there is a single developed mammary gland on all the forms, and I believe we were told that all Moties can suckle young.” He stopped dictating and punched in codes on his computer. Words flowed across the screen. “Yes. And the single working teat is always on the right side, or at least on the side opposite the single heavy-work arm. Thus the pups may be held with the strong arm, while the right arms are available for petting and grooming; this is very logical, given the ultrasensitivity and dense sensory nerve endings in the right hands.” He cleared his throat and reached for the brandy snifter, waving at Hardy to help himself.

“The single teat on the higher forms argues strongly that multiple birth must be extremely rare among the upper-caste Moties. However, litters must be common with the Watchmaker caste, at least this must be the case after the creature has produced several offspring. We can be sure that the vestigial teats down the right side of the miniature develop into working organs at some stage of their development; otherwise their numbers could not have increased so rapidly aboard
MacArthur
.” He set the box down. “How goes it, David?”

“Fairly well. That Motie toy has me fascinated. It’s a game of logic, no question about it, and a very good one at that. One player selects some rule to sort the various objects into categories, and the other players attempt to deduce the rule and prove it. Very interesting.”

“Ah. Perhaps Mr. Bury will want to market it.”

Hardy shrugged. “The Church might buy a few—to train graduate theologians. I doubt if there’d be much mass popular interest. Too tough.” He looked at the statuettes and frowned. “There seems to be at least one missing form, did you notice?”

Horvath nodded. “The nonsentient beast we saw in the zoo. The Moties wouldn’t talk about it at all while we were there.”

“Or afterward either,” Hardy added. “I asked my Fyunch(click) but she kept changing the subject.”

“Another mystery for future investigation,” Horvath said. “Although we might do well to avoid the subject in the presence of Moties. We wouldn’t want to ask their ambassadors, for example.” He paused invitingly.

David Hardy smiled softly but didn’t take the invitation.

“Well,” Horvath said. “You know there aren’t many things the Moties didn’t want to talk about. I wonder why they’re so shy about that caste? I’m fairly sure the thing wasn’t an ancestor of the other Motie forms—not an ape or monkey, so to speak.”

Hardy sipped his brandy. It was very good, and he wondered where the Moties had obtained a supply for a model. This was undoubtedly a synthetic, and Hardy thought he could detect the difference, but he had to strain. “Very thoughtful of them to put this aboard.” He sipped again.

“Too bad we’ll have to leave all this,” Horvath said. “We’re doing all right with the recording, though. Holograms, x-rays, mass densities, radon emissions, and anything that comes apart we take apart and holo the contents. Commander Sinclair has been very helpful—the Navy can be very helpful sometimes. I wish it were always so.”

Hardy shrugged. “Have you thought about the problem from the Navy’s view? If you guess wrong, you’ve lost some information. If they guess wrong, they’ve endangered the race.”

“Bosh. One planetful of Moties? No matter how advanced they are, there just aren’t
enough
Moties to threaten the Empire. You know that, David.”

“I suppose, Anthony. I don’t think the Moties are a threat either. On the other hand, I can’t believe they’re quite as simple and open as you seem to think. Of course I’ve had more time to think about them than you have.”

“Eh?” Horvath prompted. He liked Chaplain Hardy. The clergyman always had interesting stories and ideas. Of course he’d be easy to talk to, his profession demanded it, but he wasn’t a typical priest—or a typical Navy blockhead either.

Hardy smiled. “I can’t perform any of my regular jobs, you know. Linguistic archeology? I’ll never even learn the Motie language. As to the commission the Church gave me, I doubt if there’s enough evidence to decide
anything
. Ship’s chaplain isn’t that time-consuming—what’s left but to think about Moties?” He grinned again. “And contemplate the problems the missionaries will have on the next expedition—”

“Think the Church will send a mission?”

“Why not? Certainly no theological objections I can raise. Probably useless, though.” Hardy chuckled. “I recall a story about missionaries in Heaven. They were discussing their former work, and one told of the thousands he’d converted. Another boasted of a whole planet of the fallen whom he had brought back to the Church. Finally they turned to this little chap at the end of the table and asked him how many souls he’d saved. ‘One.’ Now that story is supposed to illustrate a moral principle, but I can’t help thinking that the missions to Mote Prime may produce it in, uh, real life...”

“David,” Horvath said. There was a note of urgency in his voice. “The Church is going to be an important influence on Imperial policy regarding Moties. And I’m sure you know that the Cardinal will give great weight to your opinions when he reports to New Rome. Do you realize that what you conclude about Moties will be as influential as— Damn it, more influential. More influential than the scientific report, or perhaps even the Navy’s.”

“I’m aware of it.” Hardy was serious. “It’s influence I didn’t ask for, Anthony. But I’m aware of the situation.”

“All right.” Horvath wasn’t a pusher either. Or tried not to be, although sometimes he got carried away. Since he’d gone into scientific administration he’d had to learn to fight for his budgets, though. He sighed deeply and changed tactics. “I wish you’d help me with something right now. I’d like to take these statuettes back with us.”

“Why not wish for the whole ship?” Hardy asked. “I do.” He sipped his brandy again and cleared his throat. It was much easier to talk about Moties than about Imperial policies. “I noticed you were giving rather a lot of attention to the blank areas on the figures,” he said mischievously.

Horvath frowned. “I did? Well, perhaps. Perhaps I did.”

“You must have spent considerable time thinking about it. Didn’t it strike you as odd that that’s another area of Motie reticence?”

“Not really.”

“It did me. It puzzles me.”

Horvath shrugged, then leaned forward to pour more brandy for both of them. No point in saving it to be abandoned later. “They probably think their sex lives are none of our business. How much detail did
we
give
them
?”

“Quite a lot. I had a long and happy married life,” said Chaplain Hardy. “I may not be an expert on what makes a happy love life, but I know enough to teach Moties all
they’ll
ever need to know. I didn’t conceal anything, and I gather Sally Fowler didn’t either. After all, they’re
aliens
—we’re scarcely tempting them with prurient desire.” Hardy grinned.

Horvath did too. “You have a point, Doctor.” He nodded thoughtfully. “Tell me, David—why did the Admiral insist on blasting the bodies after the funeral?”

“Why, I should have thought that—ah. Yes. And no one protested. We didn’t want aliens dissecting our comrades.”

“Precisely. Nothing to hide, just squeamish about aliens dissecting dead men. One thing the Tsar and I could agree on. Now, David, could the Moties feel the same way about reproductions of themselves?”

Hardy thought about that for a moment. “Not impossible, as well you know. Plenty of human societies have felt the same way about, say, photographs. Many still do.” He sipped the brandy again. “Anthony, I just don’t believe it. I don’t have anything better to offer, but I don’t believe you’ve put your finger on it. What we need is a long conference with an anthropologist.”

“The damned Admiral wouldn’t let her come aboard,” Horvath growled, but he let the anger pass quickly. “I’ll bet she’s still fuming.”

Sally wasn’t fuming. She’d exhausted her vocabulary earlier. While Hardy and Horvath and the others merrily explored the alien gifts, she had to be content with holographs and dictated reports.

Now she couldn’t concentrate. She found she’d read the same paragraph five times and threw the report across the cabin. Damn Rod Blaine. He had no right to snub her like that. He had no right to get her brooding over him either.

There was a knock at her stateroom door. She opened it quickly. “Yes— Oh. Hello, Mr. Renner.”

“Expecting someone else?” Renner asked slyly. “Your face fell a full klick when you saw it was me. Not very flattering.”

“I’m sorry. No, I wasn’t expecting anyone else. Did you say something?”

“No.”

“I thought—Mr. Renner, I thought you said ‘extinct.’”

“Getting any work done?” Renner asked. He glanced around her cabin. Her desk, usually orderly, was a litter of paper, diagrams, and computer printouts. One of Horvath’s reports lay on the steel deck near a bulkhead. Renner twisted his lips into what might have been a half-smile.

Sally followed his gaze and blushed. “Not much,” she admitted. Renner had told her he was going to visit Rod’s cabin, and she waited for him to say something. And waited. Finally she gave up. “All right. I’m not getting anything done, and how is he?”

“He’s a bag of broken glass.”

“Oh.” She was taken aback.

“Lost his ship. Of course he’s in bad shape. Listen, don’t let anyone tell you that losing a ship is like losing your wife. It isn’t. It’s a lot more like seeing your home planet destroyed.”

“Is— Do you think I can do anything?”

Renner stared at her. “Extinct, I tell you. Of course there’s something you can do. You can go hold his hand, for God’s sake. Or just sit with him. If he can go on staring at the bulkhead with you in the room, he must have got hit in the fire fight.”

“Hit? He wasn’t wounded—”

“Of course not. I mean he must have got— Oh, skip it. Look, just go knock on his door, will you?” Kevin steered her out into the corridor, and without quite knowing how she found herself propelled to its end. When she looked puzzled, Renner indicated the door. “I’m going for a drink.”

Well,
she thought. Now merchant captains are telling the aristocracy how to be polite to each other... There was no point in standing in the corridor. She knocked.

“Come in.”

Sally entered quickly. “Hi,” she said. Oh, boy. He looks awful. And that baggy uniform—something’s got to be done about
that
. “Busy?”

“No. I was just thinking about something Mr. Renner said. Did you know that deep down underneath Kevin Renner really believes in the Empire?”

She looked around for a chair. No point in waiting for him to invite her. She took a seat. “He’s a Navy officer, isn’t he?”

“Oh, yeah, of course he
supports
the Empire or he wouldn’t have taken a commission—but I mean, he really believes we know what we’re doing. Amazing.”

“Don’t we?” she asked uncertainly. “Because if we don’t, the whole human race is in big trouble.”

“I remember thinking I did,” Rod said. Now this was faintly ridiculous. There had to be a long list of subjects to discuss with the only girl in ten parsecs before it got to political theory. “You look nice. How do you do it? You must have lost everything.”

“No, I had my travel kit. Clothes I took to the Mote, remember?” Then she couldn’t help herself and laughed. “Rod, have you any idea of just how silly you look in Captain Mikhailov’s uniform? You two aren’t the same size in
any
dimension. Whoa! Stop it! You will not begin brooding again, Rod Blaine.” She made a face.

It took a moment, but she’d won. She knew it when Rod glanced down at the huge pleats he’d tucked in the tunic so that it wouldn’t be quite so much like a tent. Slowly he grinned. “I don’t suppose I’ll be nominated for the
Times
’s list of best-dressed men at Court, will I?”

“No.” They sat in silence as she tried to think of something else to say. Now blast it, why is it hard to talk to him? Uncle Ben says I talk too much anyway, and here I can’t think of a thing to say. “What was it Mr. Renner said?”

“He reminded me of my duties. I’d forgotten I still had some. But I guess he’s right, life goes on, even for a captain who’s lost his ship.” There was more silence, and the air seemed thick and heavy again.

Now what do I say? “You—you’d been with
MacArthur
a long time, hadn’t you?”

“Three years. Two as exec and a year as skipper. And now she’s gone— I better not get started on
that
. What have you been doing with yourself?”

“You asked me, remember. I’ve been studying the data from Mote Prime, and the reports on the gift ship—and thinking of what I can say that will convince the Admiral that we have to take the Motie ambassadors back with us. And we must convince him, Rod, we’ve just got to. I wish there were something else we could talk about, and there will be lots of time after we leave the Motie system.” And we’ll have a lot of it together, too, now that
MacArthur
’s gone. I wonder. Honestly, am I a little glad my rival’s dead? Boy, I better never let him think I even suspect that about myself. “Right now, though, Rod, there’s so little time, and I haven’t any ideas at all—”

Blaine fingered the knot on his nose. About time you stopped being the Man of Sorrows and started acting like the future Twelfth Marquis, isn’t it? “All right, Sally. Let’s see what we can come up with. Provided that you let Kelley serve us dinner here.”

She smiled broadly. “My lord, you have got yourself a deal.”

Horace Bury was not a happy man.

If
MacArthur
’s crew had been difficult to deal with,
Lenin
’s was an order of magnitude worse. They were Ekaterinas, Imperial fanatics, and this was a picked crew under an admiral and a captain from their home world. Even the Spartan Brotherhoods would have been easier to influence.

Bury knew all this in advance, but there was this damnable urge to dominate and control his environment under all circumstances; and he had almost nothing to work with.