The Mote in God's Eye

They were big things. Much bigger than rats, much smaller than men. They peered from the corners, curious but timid. One dodged close and Whitbread got a good look. What he saw made him gasp. It was a tiny Motie!

It was a difficult time for the Engineer. The intruder’s entry should have answered questions, but it only raised more.

What was it? Big, big-headed, symmetrical as an animal, but equipped with its own vehicle like an Engineer or a Master. There had never been a class like this. Would it obey or command? Could the hands be as clumsy as they looked? Mutation, monster, sport? What was it for?

Its mouth was moving now. It must be speaking into a communications device. That was no help. Even Messengers used Language.

Engineers were not equipped to make such decisions; but one could always wait for more data.

Engineers had endless patience.

“There’s air,” Whitbread reported. He watched the telltales that showed in a mirror just above his eye level. “Did I mention that? I wouldn’t want to try breathing it. Normal pressure, oxygen around 18 percent, CO₂ about 2 percent, enough helium to register, and—”

“Helium? That’s odd. Just how much?”

Whitbread switched over to a more sensitive scale and waited for the analyzer to work. “Around 1 percent. Just under.”

“Anything else?”

“Poisons. SO₂, carbon monoxide, nitrous oxides, ketones, alcohols, and some other stuff that doesn’t read out with this suit. The light blinks yellow.”

“Wouldn’t kill you fast, then. You could breathe it a while and still get help in time to save your lungs.”

“That’s what I thought,” Whitbread said uneasily. He began loosening the dogs holding down his faceplate.

“What does that mean, Whitbread?”

“Nothing, sir.” Jonathon had been doubled over far too long. Every joint and muscle screamed for surcease. He had run out of things to describe in the alien cabin. And the thrice-damned Motie just stood there in its sandals and its faint smile, watching, watching…

“Whitbread?”

Whitbread took a deep breath and held it. He lifted the faceplate against slight pressure, looked the alien in the eye, and screamed all in one breath, “Will you for God’s sake turn off that damned force field!” and snapped the faceplate down.

The alien turned to his control board and moved something. The soft barrier in front of Whitbread vanished.

Whitbread took two steps forward. He straightened up a half-inch at a time, feeling the pain and hearing the cracking of unused joints. He had been crouched in that cramped space for an hour and a half, examined by half a dozen twisted Brownies and one bland, patient alien. He hurt!

He had trapped cabin air under his faceplate. The stink caught at his throat, so that he stopped breathing; then self-consciously he sniffed at it in case anyone wanted to know what it was.

He smelled animais and machines, ozone, gasoline, hot oil, halitosis, old sweat socks, burning, glue, and things he had never smelled before. It was unbelievably rich—and his suit was removing it, thank God.

He asked, “Did you hear me yell?”

“Yes, and so did everyone in this ship,” said Cargill’s voice. “I don’t think there’s a man aboard who isn’t following you, unless it’s Buckman. Any result?”

“He turned off the force field. Right away. He was just waiting for me to remind him.

“And I’m in the cabin now. I told you about the repairs? It’s all repairs, all hand made, even the control panels. But it’s all well done, nothing actually in the way, for a Motie, that is. Me, I’m too big. I don’t dare move.

“The little ones have all disappeared. No, there’s one peeping out of a corner… the big one is waiting to see what I do. I wish he’d stop that.”

“See if he’ll come back to the ship with you—”

“I’ll try, sir.”

The alien had understood him before, or seemed to, but it did not understand him now. Whitbread thought furiously. Sign language? His eye fell on something that had to be a Motie pressure suit.

He pulled it from its rack, noting its lightness: no weaponry, no armor. He handed it to the alien, then pointed to MacArthur beyond the bubble.

The alien began dressing at once. In literally seconds it was in full gear, in a suit that, inflated, looked like ten beach balls glued together. Only the gauntlets were more than simple inflated spheres.