The Mote in God's Eye (68 page)

“Just how long?” Senator Fowler asked.

Horvath looked uncomfortable. “Possibly a million years.”

There was silence. Sally shook her head sadly. Cooped up in one tiny system for a million years—a million
civilized
years! The
patience
they must have learned!

“No wars in all the time since?” Fowler asked. “Really?”

“Yes, damn it, they’ve had wars,” Horvath answered. “At least two of the kind that Earth went through at the close of the CoDominium period. But that was a long time ago!” He had to raise his voice to carry across Sally’s startled gasp. There were mutters around the table.

“One of those was enough to make Earth damn near uninhabitable,” Ben Fowler said slowly. “How long ago are you talking about? Million years again?”

Horvath said, “Hundreds of thousands, at least.”

“Thousands, probably,” Chaplain Hardy said carefully. “Or less. Sally, have you revised your estimates of the age of that primitive civilization you dug up?”

Sally didn’t answer either. There was an uncomfortable silence.

“For the record, Father Hardy,” Senator Fowler asked, “are you here as Commission staff?”

“No, sir. Cardinal Randolph has asked me to represent the Church to the Commission.”

“Thank you.”

There was more silence.

“They had nowhere to go,” Anthony Horvath said. He shrugged nervously. Someone giggled, then fell silent when Horvath continued. “It’s obvious that their first wars were a very long time ago, in the million-year range. It shows in their development. Dr. Horowitz has examined the expedition biological findings and—well, you tell them, Sigmund.”

Horowitz smiled in triumph. “When I first examined the probe pilot I thought it might be a mutation. I was right. They are mutations, only it all happened a long time ago. The original animal life on Mote Prime is bilaterally symmetric, as on Earth and nearly everywhere. The first asymmetric Motie must have been a drastic mutation. Couldn’t have been as well developed as the present forms, either. Why didn’t it die out? Because there were deliberate efforts to obtain the asymmetric form, I think. And because everything else was mutating also. The competition for survival was low.”

“But that means they had civilization when the present forms developed,” Sally said. “Is that possible?”

Horowitz smiled again.

“What about the Eye?” Sally asked. “It must have irradiated the Mote system when it went supergiant.”

“Too long ago,” Horvath said. “We checked. After all, we’ve got the equivalent of five hundred years’ observation of the Eye in data from our explorer ships, and it checks with the information the Moties gave Midshipman Potter. The Eye’s been a supergiant for six million years or more, and the Moties haven’t had their present form anything like that long.”

“Oh,” said Sally. “But then what caused the—”

“Wars,” Horowitz announced. “General increase in radiation levels, planet-wide. Coupled with deliberate genetic selection.”

Sally nodded reluctantly. “All right—they had atomic wars. So did we. If the CoDominium hadn’t developed the Alderson Drive we’d have exterminated ourselves on Earth.” She didn’t like the answer, though. It was hard to accept. “Couldn’t there have been another dominant species that killed itself off, and the Moties developed later?”

“No,” Horvath said carefully. “Your own work, Lady Sally: you’ve shown just how well adapted the Motie form is to using tools. The mutation must have been a tool user to begin with—or was controlled by tool users. Or both.”

“That’s one war,” Senator Fowler said. “The one that created the Moties as we see ‘em. You said two.”

Horvath nodded sadly. “Yes, sir. The presently evolved Moties must have fought with atomic weapons. Later there was another period of radiation that split the species into all those castes—both the civilized forms and the animals. Plus intermediates like Watchmakers.” Horvath looked apologetically at Blaine, but there was no sign of emotion.

Sigmund Horowitz cleared his throat. He was clearly enjoying this. “I believe the Browns were the original form. When the Whites became dominant they bred the other subspecies to their own uses. Controlled evolution again, you see. But some forms evolved by themselves.”

“Then the asymmetric animals are not ancestors to Moties?” Senator Fowler asked curiously.

“No.” Horowitz rubbed his hands together and fingered his pocket computer in anticipation. “They are degenerate forms—I can show you the gene mechanisms.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Senator Fowler said hastily. “So we have two wars. Presumably the Mediators could have been bred in the second one—”

“Better make it three wars,” Renner put in. “Even if we assume they ran out of radioactives in the second one.”

“Why?” Sally demanded.

“You saw the planet. Then there’s the adaptation to space,” Renner said. He looked expectantly at Horvath and Horowitz.

Horowitz’ triumphant grin was even broader now. “Your work again, my lady. The Moties are so well adapted to space that you wondered if they’d evolved there. They did.” The xenobiologist nodded emphatically. “But not until they’d had a long evolutionary period on the planet itself. Want me to review the evidence? Physiological mechanisms that adjust to low pressure and no gravity, intuitive astrogation—”

“I believe you,” Sally said quietly.

“Mars!” Rod Blaine shouted. Everyone looked at him. “Mars. Is that what you’re thinking, Kevin?”

Renner nodded. He seemed to be a man in conflict, his mind racing ahead and not liking what it found. “Sure,” he said. “They fought at least one war with asteroids. Just look at the surface of Mote Prime, all torn by overlapping circular craters. It must have damn near wiped out the planet. It scared the survivors so much they moved all the asteroids out to where they couldn’t be used that way again—”

“But the war killed off most of the higher life on the planet,” Horowitz finished. “After a long time the planet was repopulated by Moties who’d adapted to space.”

“But a very long time ago,” Dr. Horvath protested. “The asteroid craters are cold and the orbits are stable. All this happened long ago.”

Horvath didn’t seem very comfortable with his conclusions, and Rod scratched a note. Not good enough, Rod thought. But—there must be
some
explanation...

“But they could still fight with asteroids,” Horvath continued. “If they wanted to. It would take more energy, but as long as they’re in the system they can be moved. We’ve no evidence of recent wars, and what has all this to do with us anyway? They used to fight, they evolved the Mediators to stop it, and it worked. Now they don’t fight any more.”

“Maybe,” Senator Fowler grunted. “And maybe not.”

“They didn’t fight
us
,” Horvath insisted.

“Battle cruiser got destroyed,” Fowler said. “OK, spare me the explanations. There’s the midshipmen, and yeah, I’ve heard all the stories about them. The fact is, Dr. Horvath, if Moties fight each other you know damn well one faction’s going to pick up allies among the outies and rebels. Hell, they might even
encourage
revolts, and by God’s teeth we don’t need that! There’s another thing bothers me, too—have they got a planetary government?” There was more silence.

“Well, Sally?” the Senator demanded. “It’s your field.”

“They— Well, they have a kind of planetary government. Jurisdiction. A Master or a group of them takes jurisdiction over something and the rest go along.”

Ben Fowler scowled at his niece. “Hell, we don’t even let
humans
wander around the universe until they’ve got planetary governments. Can’t you just see some Motie colony deciding to help a faction back home on Mote Prime?” He looked around the table and scowled again. “Damn it, don’t all of you look at me like that. You’d think I wanted to shoot Father Christmas! I want trade with the Moties, but let’s not forget the Prime Directive of the Empire.”

“We need more time,” Horvath protested. “You can’t decide anything right now.”

“We don’t have the time,” Rod said quietly. “You must be aware of the pressures, Doctor. You helped create them. Every interest group m this sector is demanding immediate action.” Rod had been getting daily calls from the Humanity League, and he was certain that Minister Horvath had been feeding information to the group.

“What’s bothering you is the potential birth rate,” Horvath said. “I’m sure you realize that they
must
be able to control their population. They’d not have survived this long if they couldn’t.”

“But they may not
want
to,” Fowler said. “Could we
make
them do it? Rod, has your Commander Cargill done any more work on that threat estimate?”

“Refinements only, Senator. His original calculations hold up pretty well.”

“So it’d take a big fleet operation to compel the Moties—and that’s with their present resources. What kind of problems are we handing our grandchildren if we help ‘em get colonies?”

“You can’t prevent them from getting out now,” Horvath protested. “Capt—My Lord Blaine’s analysis proved that. They’ll eventually get the Langston Field, and they’ll come out. We
must
have friendly relations with them before then. I say let’s start trading with them right now and work out our problems as they come up. We can’t solve everything at once.”

“That’s your recommendation?” Fowler asked.

“Yes, sir. Mine, the Humanity League’s, the Imperial Traders—”

“Not all of ‘em,” Rod interrupted. “Their local council’s divided. A sizable minority wants nothing to do with Moties.”

“So they’re in industries that will be ruined by Motie technology,” Horvath said with a shrug. “We can handle that problem. Senator, the Moties will inevitably develop
something
that gets them out of their system. We should get them so bound to the Empire that their interests are ours before it happens.”

“Or take ‘em into the Empire and be done with it,” Fowler muttered. “I thought of that one last night. If they can’t control their population, we can do it for them—”

“But we know they can,” Horvath protested. “We’ve proved they’ve been civilized a
long
time in one system. They’ve learned—” He stopped for a moment, then continued excitedly. “Has it occurred to you that they may have population allotments? The Moties on that expedition ship may have been required to have their children at a certain time, or not at all. So they had them aboard ship.”

“Hmm,” Fowler said. His scowl vanished. “Maybe you’ve got something there. We’ll—
I’ll
—ask the Moties when they come in. Dr. Hardy, you’ve been sitting there like a man about to be hanged in low gravity. What’s got you upset?”

“Rats,” the Chaplain said carefully.

Horvath looked around quickly, then nodded in submission. “They disturbed you also, David?”

“Of course. Can you find the file, or must I?”

“I have it,” Horvath sighed. He scrawled numbers on the face of his pocket computer. It hummed and the wall screens lit . . . a Motie city, struck by disaster. Cars overturned and rusted through littered broken streets. Crashed aircraft were imbedded in the ruins of fire-scorched buildings. Weeds grew from cracks in the pavement. In the center of the picture was a sloping mound of rubble, and a hundred small black shapes darted and swarmed over it.

“It’s not what it looks like. It’s one floor of the Motie zoo,” Horvath explained. He touched his controls and the image zoomed closer to focus on a single black shape which grew until the outlines were fuzzy: a pointed, ratlike face, with wicked teeth. But it was not a rat.

It had one membranous ear, and five limbs. The foremost limb on the right side was not a fifth paw; it was a long and agile arm, tipped with claws like hooked daggers.

“Ah,” Horowitz exclaimed. He looked accusingly at Horvath. “You didn’t show me this one . . . more wars, eh? One of the wars must have wiped out so much life that ecological niches were left empty. But this— Did you get a specimen?”

“Unfortunately no.”

“What did it degenerate from?” Horowitz asked wonderingly. “A long step from the intelligent Motie to—to
that
. Is there a Motie caste you have not shown me? Something similar to that?”

“No, of course not,” Sally said.

“No one would breed selectively for those things,” Horowitz mused. “It must have been natural selection—” He smiled in satisfaction. “More proof, if it were needed. One of their wars almost depopulated their planet. And for a very long time, too.”

“Yah,” Renner said quickly. “So while these things took over Mote Prime the civilized Moties were out in the asteroids. They must have bred out there for generations, Whites and Browns and Watchmakers and maybe some things we didn’t see because we didn’t get to the asteroid civilization.”

“But a long time ago, again,” said Horvath. “Very long— Dr. Buckman’s work on asteroid orbits—well. Perhaps the Mediators were evolved in space before they resettled the planet. You can see they were needed.”

“Which makes the Whites as warlike now as then,” Senator Fowler pointed out.

“Now they have Mediators, Uncle Ben,” Sally reminded him.

“Yeah. And maybe they’ve solved their population pressure— Doctor, get that goddamn thing off the screen! It gives me the willies. Why the
hell
would anyone put a ruined city in a zoo anyway?”

The feral image vanished and everyone seemed relieved. “They explained that.” Horvath seemed almost cheerful again. “Some of their forms evolved for cities. A thorough zoo would have to include them.”

“
Ruined
cities?”

“Maybe to remind them of what happens when they don’t listen to the Mediators,” Sally said quietly. “A horrible example to keep them scared of war.”

“It’d do it, too,” Renner said. He shuddered slightly.

“Let’s sum this up. The Moties are due in a few minutes,” Senator Fowler said. “One. The potential reproductive rate is enormous, and the Moties are willing to have kids in places we wouldn’t.

“Two. The Moties lied in a way that concealed their high birth-rate potential.

“Three. Moties have had wars. At least three big ones. Maybe more.