The Mote in God's Eye

“I don’t think so, Captain. But the nearest Trojan point is below us in this system’s plane—about three million kilometers away. I suggest we go there. From the apparent density of civilization in the Trojan points it may be that the inhabited planet is not the real nexus of Motie civilization. Perhaps it is like Earth. Or worse.”

Rod was shocked. He had found Earth herself shocking, not all that many years ago. New Annapolis was kept on Manhome so that Imperial officers would know just how vital was the great task of the Empire.

And if men had not had the Alderson Drive before Earth’s last battles, and the nearest star had been thirty-five light years away instead of four— “That’s a horrible thought.”

“I agree. It’s also only a guess, Captain. But in any event there is a viable civilization nearby, and I think we should go to it.”

“I—just a moment.” Chief Yeoman Lud Shattuck was at the bridge companionway gesturing frantically at Rod’s number-four screen.

“We used the message-sending locator scopes, Skipper,” Shattuck shouted across the bridge. “Look, sir.”

The screen showed black space with pinhole dots of stars and a blue-green point circled by an indicator lightring. As Rod watched, the point blinked, twice.

“We’ve found the inhabited planet,” Rod said with satisfaction. He couldn’t resist. “We beat you to it, Doctor.”

After all the waiting, it was as if everything broke at once.The light was first. There might have been an Earthlike world behind it; there probably was, for it was in the doughnut locus Horvath was searching. But the light hid whatever was behind it, and it wasn’t surprising that the communications people had found it first. Watching for signals was their job.

Cargill and Horvath’s team worked together to answer the pulses. One, two, three, four blinked the light, and Cargill used the forward batteries to send five, six, seven. Twenty minutes later the light sent three one eight four eleven, repeated, and the ship’s brain ground out: Pi, base twelve. Cargill used the computer to find e

to the same base and replied with that.

But the true message was, We want to talk to you. And MacArthur’s answer was, Fine. Elaborations would have to wait.

And the second development was already in.

“Fusion light,” said Sailing Master Renner. He bent close over his screen. His fingers played strange, silent music on his control board. “No Langston Field. Naturally. They’re just enclosing the hydrogen, fusing it and blasting it out. A plasma bottle. It’s not as hot as our drives, which means lower efficiency. Red shift, if I’m reading the impurities right… it must be aimed away from us.”

“You think it’s a ship coming to meet us?”

“Yessir. A small one. Give us a few minutes and I’ll tell you its acceleration. Meanwhile, we assume an acceleration of one gee…” Renner’s fingers had been tapping all the while “…and get a mass of thirty tons. Later we’ll readjust that.”

“Too big to be a missile,” Blaine said thoughtfully. “Should we meet him halfway, Mr. Renner?”

Renner frowned. “There’s a problem. He’s aiming at where we are now. We don’t know how much fuel he’s got, or how bright he is.”

“Let’s ask, anyway. Eyes! Get me Admiral Kutuzov.”

The Admiral was on his bridge. Blurs out of focus behind him showed activity aboard Lenin. “I’ve seen it, Captain,” Kutuzov said. “What do you want to do about it?”

“I want to go meet that ship. But in case it can’t change course or we can’t catch it, it will come here, sir. Lenin could wait for it.”

“And do what, Captain? My instructions are clear, Lenin is to have nothing to do with aliens.”

“But you could send out a boat, sir. A gig, which we’ll pick up with your men. Sir.”

“How many boats do you think I have, Blaine? Let me repeat my instructions. Lenin

is here to protect secret of Alderson Drive and Langston Field. To accomplish task we will not only not communicate with aliens, we will not communicate with you when message might be intercepted.”

“Yes, sir.” Blaine stared at the burly man on the screen. Didn’t he have a shred of curiosity? Nobody could be that much of a machine… or could he? “We’ll go to the alien ship, sir. Dr. Horvath wants to anyway.”

“Very good, Captain. Carry on.”

“Yes, sir.” Rod cut off the screen with relief, then tuned to Renner. “Let’s go make first contact with an alien, Mr. Renner.”

“I think you just did that,” said Renner. He glanced nervously at the screens to be sure the Admiral was gone.

Horace Bury was just leaving his cabin—on the theory that he might be less bored somewhere else—when Buckman’s head popped out of a companionway.

Bury changed his mind at once. “Dr. Buckman! May I offer you coffee?”

Protuberant eyes turned, blinked, focused. “What? Oh. Yes, thank you, Bury. It might wake me. There’s been so much to do—I can only stay a moment—”