The Mote In God's Eye

"I suppose you can read the Captain's mind?" They kept their voices low by tacit consent. MacArthur's interior partitions were all sound-absorbent anyway, and their voices were very clear, if soft.

"Second-guessing officers is good practice for a middie," said Whitbread.

"Why, then? Was it because of the bomb?"

"Indirectly. You'd have been tempted to prove yourself. But even without that, you're too much the hero, Horst. Perfect physical shape, good lungs-ever meet an admiral with a soft voice?-utter dedication, and no sense of humor."

"I do too have a sense of humor."-

"No, you don't."

"I don't?"

"Not a trace. The situation didn't call for a hero, Horst. It called for someone who didn't mind being made ridiculous in a good cause."

"You're kidding. Damn, I never know when you're kidding'

"Now would be a poor time. I'm not making fun of you, Horst. Listen, I shouldn't have to explain this. You watched it all, didn't you? Sally told me I was on all the intercom screens, live, in color and 3D."

"You were." Staley smiled briefly. "We should have had a view of your face. Especially when you started swearing. We got no warning at all. The view jumped a bit, then you screamed at the alien, and everybody cracked up."

"What would you have done?"

"Not that. I don't know. Followed orders, I guess." The icy eyes narrowed. "I wouldn't have tried to shoot my way out, if that's what you're thinking."

"Maybe a second of cutting laser into the control panel? To kill the force field?"

"Not without orders."

"What about the sign language? I spent some time making gestures, hoping the alien would understand me, but it never did."

"We couldn't see that. What about it?"

"I told you," Whitbread-said. "The mission took someone willing to make a fool of himself in a good cause. Think about how often you heard people laugh at me while I was bringing back the Motie."

Staley nodded.

"Now forget them and think about the Mode. What about her sense of humor? Would you like a Mode laughing at you, Horst? You might never be sure if she was or wasn't; you don't know what it looks like or sounds like-"

"You're being ridiculous."

"All anyone knew was that the situation called for someone to find out whether the aliens were willing to talk to us. It didn't need someone to uphold the Imperial honor. Plenty of time for that after we know what we're facing~ There'll be room for heroes, Horst. There always is."

"That's reassuring," said Staley. He had finished breakfast. Now he stood and walked out fast, with his back very straight, leaving Whitbread wondering.

Oh, well, Whitbread thought. I tried. And just maybe...

Luxury in a warship is relative.

Gunnery Officer Crawford's stateroom was the size of his bed. When the bed was up, he had room to change clothes and a small sink to brush his teeth. To lower the bed for sleeping he had first to step into the corridor; and being tall for a Navy man, Crawford had learned to sleep curled up. - - -

A bed and a door with a lock on it, instead of a hammock or one tier of many bunks: luxury. He would have fought to keep it; but he had lost the toss. Now he bunked in MacArthur's cutter while an alien monster occupied his quarters.

"She's only a little more than a meter tall, of course she fits," Sally Fowler said judiciously. "Still, it's only a tiny room. Do you think she can stand it? Otherwise we'll have to keep her in the lounge."

"I saw the cabin of her ship. It wasn't any bigger. She can stand it," Whitbread said. It was too late to try sleeping in the gun room, and he was supposed to tell the scientists everything he knew: at least that ought to work if Cargill asked why he'd been pestering Sally. "I suppose you've got someone watching her through the intercom?"

She nodded. Whitbread followed her into the scientists' lounge. Part of the room had been screened off with wire netting and the two miniatures were in there. One was nibbling at a head of cabbage, using four arms to hold it to her chest. The other, her abdomen swollen with pregnancy, was playing with a flashlight.

Just like a monkey, Whitbread thought. It was the first chance he'd had to look at the miniatures. Their fur was thicker, and mottled brown and yellow where the large one was uniformly soft brown. The four arms were nearly alike, five fingers on the left hands and six on the rights; but the arms and fingers were identically slender, identically jointed. Yet the muscles of the upper left shoulder were anchored to the top of the skull. Why, if not for greater strength and leverage?

He was delighted when Sally led him to a small corner table away from where the biosciences people were scratching their heads and arguing loudly. He got coffee for both of them and asked her about the strange musculature of the miniatures; it wasn't what he'd really like to talk to her about, but it was a start...

"We think it's vestigial," she said. "They obviously don't need it; the left arms aren't sized for heavy work anyway."