The Mote in God's Eye

“Then you stay in that chair, damn your eyes! Do you see me standing up? You do not. And you won’t!”

“All right.” She turned her head from side to side. She was obviously dizzy from the jolt.

“Did you get your servants off?”

“Yes. I had to trick them—they wouldn’t have gone without my baggage.” She laughed an old woman’s laugh. “I’m wearing everything I own until we get to New Caledonia.”

“Tricked them, did you? The way you tricked me. I should have had Kelley put you off.” Rod’s voice was bitter. He knew he looked twice his age, a cripple in a wheel chair. “All right, you’re aboard. I can’t put you off now.”

“But I may be able to help. I am an anthropologist.” She winced at the thought of trying to get up again. “Can I get you on the intercom?”

“You’ll get the middie of the watch. Tell him if you really need to talk to me. But, Sally—this is a warship. Those aliens may not be friendly. For God’s sake remember that; my watch officers haven’t time for scientific discussion in the middle of a battle!”

“I know that. You might give me credit for a little sense.” She tried to laugh. “Even if I don’t know better than to stand up at four gees.”

“Yeah. Now do me another favor. Get into your gee bath.”

“Do I have to take my clothes off to use it?”

Blaine couldn’t blush; there wasn’t enough blood flowing to his head. “It’s a good idea, especially if you’ve got buckles. Turn off the vision pickup on the phone.”

“Right.”

“And be careful. I could send one of the married ratings to help—”

“No, thank you.”

“Then wait. We’ll have a few minutes of lower gee at intervals. Don’t get out of that chair alone in high gee!”

She didn’t even look tempted. One experience was enough.

“Lermontov’s calling again,” Whitbread announced.

“Forget it. Don’t acknowledge.”

“Aye aye, sir. Do not acknowledge.”

Rod could guess what the cruiser wanted. Lermontov wanted first crack at the intruder—but MacArthur’s sister ship wouldn’t even get close to the aliens before the approach to the sun was just too close. Better to intercept out where there was some room.

At least that’s what Rod told himself. He could trust Whitbread and the communications people; Lermontov’s signals wouldn’t be in the log.

Three and a half days. Two minutes of 1.5 gee every four hours to change the watch, grab forgotten articles, shift positions; then the warning horns sounded, the jolt meters swung over, and too much weight returned.

At first MacArthur’s bow had pointed sixty degrees askew of Cal. They had to line up with the intruder’s course. With that accomplished, MacArthur turned again. Her bow pointed at the brightest star in the heavens.

Cal began to grow. He also changed color, but minutely. No one would notice that blue shift with the naked eye. What the men did see in the screens was that the brightest star had become a disc and was growing hourly.

It didn’t grow brighter because the screens kept it constant; but the tiny sun disc grew ominously larger, and it lay directly ahead. Behind them was another disc of the same color, the white of an F8 star. It, too, grew hourly larger. MacArthur was sandwiched between two colliding suns.

On the second day Staley brought a new midshipman up to the bridge, both moving in traveling acceleration chairs. Except for a brief interview on Brigit, Rod hadn’t met him: Gavin Potter, a sixteen-year-old boy from New Scotland. Potter was tall for his age; he seemed to hunch in upon himself, as if afraid to be noticed.

Blaine thought Potter was merely being shown about the ship; a good idea, since if the intruder turned out hostile, the boy might have to move about MacArthur

with total familiarity—possibly in darkness and variable gravity.

Staley obviously had more in mind. Blaine realized they were trying to get his attention. “Yes, Mr. Staley?”

“This is Midshipman Gavin Potter, sir,” Staley said. “He’s told me something I think you ought to hear.”

“All right, go ahead.” Any diversion from high gravity was welcome.

“There was a church in our street, sir. In a farm town on New Scotland.” Potter’s voice was soft and low, and he spoke carefully so that he blotted out all but a ghostly remnant of the brogue that made Sinclair’s speech so distinctive.

“A church,” Blaine said encouragingly. “Not an orthodox church, I take it—”

“No, sir. A Church of Him. There aren’t many members. A friend and I snuck inside once, for a joke.”

“Did you get caught?”

“I know I’m telling this badly, sir. The thing is— There was a big blowup of an old holo of Murcheson’s Eye against the Coal Sack. The Face of God, just like on postcards. Only, only it was different in this picture. The Eye was very much brighter than now, and it was blue green, not red. With a red dot at one edge.”