The Mote in God's Eye

At first there was maddeningly little that he hadn’t already known. The Mote was only thirty-five light years from New Scotland, and there had been a number of observations, some dating back to Jasper Murcheson himself. A G2 star, less energetic than Sol, cooler, smaller and a bit less massive. It showed almost no sunspot activity at the moment, and the astrophysicists found it dull.

Rod had known about the gas giant before they started. Early astronomers had deduced it from perturbations in the Mote’s orbit around the Eye. They knew the gas giant planet’s mass and they found it almost where they expected, seventy degrees around from them. Heavier than Jupiter, but smaller, much denser, with a degenerate matter core. While the scientists worked, the Navy men plotted courses to the gas giant, in case one or the other warship should need to refuel. Scooping up hydrogen by ramming through a gas giant’s atmosphere on a hyperbolic orbit was hard on ships and crew but a lot better than being stranded in an alien system.

“We’re searching out the Trojan points now, Captain,” Buckman told Rod two hours after breakout.

“Any sign of the Mote planet?”

“Not yet.” Buckman hung up.

Why was Buckman concerned with Trojan points? Sixty degrees ahead of the giant planet in its orbit, and sixty degrees behind, would be two points of stable equilibrium, called Trojan points after the Trojan asteroids that occupy similar points in Jupiter’s orbit. Over millions of years they ought to have collected dust clouds and clusters of asteroids. But why would Buckman bother with these?

Buckman called again when he found the Trojans. “They’re packed!” Buckman gloated. “Either this whole system is cluttered with asteroids from edge to edge or there’s a new principle at work. There’s more junk in Mote Beta’s Trojans than has ever been reported in another system. It’s a wonder they haven’t all collected to form a pair of moons—”

“Have you found the habitable planet yet?”

“Not yet,” said Buckman, and faded off the screen. That was three hours after breakout.

He called back half an hour later. “Those Trojan point asteroids have very high albedos, Captain. They must be thick with dust. That might explain how so many of the larger particles were captured. The dust clouds slow them down, then polish them smooth—”

“Dr. Buckman! There is an inhabited world in this system and it is vital that we find it. These are the first intelligent aliens—”

“Dammit Captain, we’re looking! We’re looking!” Buckman glanced to one side, then withdrew. The screen was blank for a moment, showing only a badly focused shot of a technician in the background.

Blaine found himself confronting Science Minister Horvath, who said, “Please excuse the interruption, Captain. Do I understand you are not satisfied with our search methods?”

“Dr. Horvath, I have no wish to intrude on your prerogatives. But you’ve taken over all my instruments, and I keep hearing about asteroids. I wonder if we’re all looking for the same thing?”

Horvath’s reply was mild. “This is not a space battle, Captain.” He paused. “In a war operation, you would know your target. You would probably know the ephemeris of the planets in any system of interest—”

“Hell, survey teams find planets.”

“Ever been on one, Captain?”

“No.”

“Well, think about the problem we face. Until we located the gas giant and the Trojan asteroids we weren’t precise about the plane of the system. From the probe’s instruments we have deduced the temperature the Moties find comfortable, and from that we deduce how far from their sun their planet should be—and we still must search out a toroid a hundred and twenty million kilometers in radius. Do you follow me?”

Blaine nodded.

“We’re going to have to search that entire region. We know the planet isn’t hidden behind the sun because we’re above the plane of the system. But when we finish photographing the system we have to examine this enormous star field for the one dot of light we want.”

“Perhaps I was expecting too much.”

“Perhaps. We’re all waiting as fast as we can.” He smiled—a spasm that lifted his whole face for a split second—and vanished.

Six hours after breakout Horvath reported again. There was no sign of Buckman. “No, Captain, we haven’t found the inhabited planet. But Dr. Buckman’s time-wasting observations have identified a Motie civilization. In the Trojan points.”

“They’re inhabited?”

“Definitely. Both Trojan points are seething with microwave frequencies. We should have guessed from the high albedos of the larger bodies. Polished surfaces are a natural product of civilization—I’m afraid Dr. Buckman’s people think too much in terms of a dead universe.”

“Thank you, Doctor. Is any of that message traffic for us?”