The Mote In God's Eye

"Behind the ear," Horvath suggested.

"Thank you." Bury wondered if one would come to investigate his hand. The thin one came, and Bury scratched her behind the ear, carefully, for the ear looked fragile and delicate. But she seemed to enjoy it.

They'd make terrible pets, Bury thought, but they'd sell for thousands each. For a while. Before the novelty wore off. Best to hit every planet simultaneously. If they breed in captivity, and if we can keep them fed, and if I sell out before people stop buying- "Allah be-! She took my watch!."

"They love tools. You may have noticed that flashlight we gave them!'

"Never mind that, Horvath. How do I get my watch back? In Allah's- How did the catch come unfastened?"

"Reach in and take it. Or let me." Horvath tried. The enclosure was too big, and the Motie didn't want to give up the watch. Horvath dithered. "I don't want to disturb them too much."

"Horvath, that watch is worth eight hundred crowns! It not only tells the time and the date, but-" Bury paused. "Come to that, it's also shockproof. We advertise that a shock that will stop a Chronos will also kill the own~ She probably can't hurt it much."

The Motie was examining the wrist watch in a sober, studious manner. Bury wondered if others would find the manner captivating. No house pet behaved like that, even cats.

"You have cameras on them?"

"Of course," said Horvath.

"My firm may want to buy this sequence. For advertising purposes." That's one thing, Bury thought. Now there was a Motie ship coming here, and Cargill taking the cutter somewhere. He'd never get anywhere pumping Cargill, but Buckman was going. There might be returns from the coffee the astrophysicist drank after all

The thought saddened him obscurely.

The cutter was the largest of the vehicles in hanger deck. She was a lifting body, with a flat upper surface that fitted flat against one wall of hangar deck. She had her own access hatches, to join the cutter's air locks to the habitable regions of MacArthur because hangar deck was usually in vacuum.

There was no Langston Field generator aboard the cutter, and no Alderson Drive. But her drive was efficient and powerful, and her fuel capacity was considerable even without strap-on tanks. The ablative shielding along her nose was good for one (1) reentry into a terrestrial atmosphere at up to 20 km/sec, or many reentries if things could be taken more slowly. She was designed for a crew of six, but would carry more. She could go from planet to planet, but not between stars. History had been ma again and again by spacecraft smaller than MacArthur's cutter.

There were half a dozen men bunking in her now. Or had been kicked out to make room for Crawford win Crawford was kicked out of his own stateroom by a three armed alien.

Cargill smiled when he saw that. "I'll take Crawford, he decided. "Be a shame to move him again. Lafferty Coxswain. Three Marines..." He bent over his crew list. "Staley as midshipman." He'd welcome a chance to prove himself, and was steady enough under orders.

The cutter's interior was clean and polished, but there was evidence of Sinclair's oddball repairs along the port wall where Defiant's lasers had flashed through the ablative shielding; even at the long distances from which the cutter engaged, the damage had been severe.

Cargill spread his things out in the only enclosed cabin space and reviewed his flight plan options. Over that distance they could go at three gees all the way. In practice, it might be one gee over and five back. Just because the rock didn't have a fusion plant didn't mean it was uninhabited.

Jack Cargill remembered the speed with which the Motie had rebuilt his big percolator. Without even knowing what coffee was supposed to taste like! Could they be beyond fusion? He left his gear and put on a pressure suit, a skintight woven garment that was just porous enough to allow sweat to pass; it was a self-regulating temperature control, and with the tightly woven fabric to assist, his own skin was able to stand up to space. The helmet attached to a seal at the collar. In combat heavy armor would go over the whole mess, but this was good enough for inspections.

From the outside there was no evidence of damage or repair. Part of the heat shield hung below the cutter's nose like a great shovel blade, exposing the control room blister, windows, and the snout of the cutter's main armament: a laser cannon.

In battle the cutter's first duty was to make observations and reports. Sometimes she'd try to sneak in on a torpedo run on a blinded enemy warship. Against Motie ships with no Field, that cannon would be more than enough.

Cargill inspected the cutter's weapons with more than usual thoroughness. Already he feared the Moties. In this he was almost alone; but he would not be so forever.