The Mote in God's Eye

It took a transparent plastic sack from the wall and reached suddenly to capture one of the 1/2-meter-high miniatures. He stuffed it into the sack headfirst while the miniature wriggled, then turned to Whitbread and rushed at the middie with lightning speed. It had reached behind Whitbread with two right hands and was already moving away when Whitbread reacted: a violent and involuntary yip!

“Whitbread? What’s happening? Answer me!” Another voice in the background of Whitbread’s suit said crisply, “Marines, stand by.”

“Nothing, Commander Cargill. It’s all right. No attack, I mean, I think the alien’s ready to go—no, it isn’t. It’s got two of the parasites in a plastic sack, and it’s inflating the sack from an air spiggot. One of the little beasts was on my back. I never felt it.

“Now the alien’s making something. I don’t understand what’s keeping it. It knows we want to go to MacArthur

—it put on a pressure suit.”

“What’s it doing?”

“It’s got the cover off the control panel. It’s rewiring things. A moment ago it was squeezing sliver toothpaste in a ribbon along the printed circuitry. I’m only telling you what it looks like, of course. YIPE!”

“Whitbread?”

The midshipman was caught in a hurricane. Arms and legs flailing, he snatched frantically for something, anything solid. He was scraped along the side of the air lock, reached and found nothing to grasp. Then night and stars whirled past him.

“The Motie opened the air lock,” he reported. “No warning. I’m outside, in space.” His hands used attitude jets to stop his tumbling. “I think he let all the breathing air out. There’s a great fog of ice crystals around me, and— Oh, Lord, it’s the Motie! No, it isn’t, it’s not wearing a pressure suit. There goes another one.

“They must be the little ones,” Cargill said.

“Right. He’s killed all the parasites. He probably has to do it every so often, to clear them out. He doesn’t know how long he’ll be aboard MacArthur and he doesn’t want them running wild. So he’s evacuated the ship.”

“He should have warned you.”

“Damn right he should! Excuse me, sir.”

“Are you all right, Whitbread?” A new voice. The Captain’s.

“Yessir. I’m approaching the alien’s ship. Ah, here he comes now. He’s jumping for the taxi.” Whitbread stopped his approach and turned to watch the Motie. The alien sailed through space like a cluster of beach balls, but graceful, graceful. Within a transparent balloon fixed to its torso, two small, spidery figures gestured wildly. The alien paid them no attention.

“A perfect jump,” Whithread muttered. “Unless—he’s cutting it a bit fine. Jesus!” The alien was still decelerating as it flew through the taxi door, dead centered, so that it never touched the edges. “He must be awfully sure of his balance.”

“Whitbread, is that alien inside your vehicle? Without you?”

Whitbread winced at the bite in the Captain’s voice. “Yes, sir. I’m going after him.”

“See you do, Mister.”

The alien was at the pilot’s station, studying the controls intensely. Suddenly it reached out and began to turn the quick fasteners at the panel’s edge. Whitbread yelped and rushed up to grab the alien’s shoulder. It paid no attention. Whitbread put his helmet against the alien’s. “Leave that to hell alone!” he shouted. Then he gestured to the passenger’s saddle. The alien rose slowly, turned, and straddled the saddle. It didn’t fit there. Whitbread took the controls gratefully and began to maneuver the taxi toward MacArthur.

He brought the taxi to a stop just beyond the neat hole Sinclair had opened in MacArthur’s Field. The alien ship was out of sight around the bulk of the warship. Hangar deck was below, and the midshipman yearned to take the gig through under her own power, to demonstrate his ability to the watching alien, but he knew better. They waited.

Suited spacers came up from the hangar deck. Cables trailed behind them. The spacers waved. Whitbread waved back, and seconds later Sinclair started the winches to tug the gig down into MacArthur. As they passed the hangar doors more cables were made fast to the top side of the gig. These pulled taut, slowing the taxi, as the great hangar doors began to close.

The Motie was watching, its entire body swiveling from side to side, reminding Whitbread of an owl he had once seen in a zoo on Sparta. Amazingly, the tiny creatures in the alien’s bag were also watching; they aped the larger alien. Finally they were at rest, and Whitbread gestured toward tha air lock. Through the thick glass he could see Gunner Kelley and a dozen armed Marines.

There were twenty screens in a curved array in front of Rod Blaine and consequently every scientist aboard MacArthur wanted to sit near him. As the only possible way to settle the squabbling Rod ordered the ship to battle stations and the bridge cleared of all civilian personnel. Now he watched as Whitbread climbed aboard the gig.