The Mote in God's Eye

“Doesn’t seem possible, does it? We’ve tried to find other sources, fluorescence, UV stars deep in the dust, like that. If there were masses in there we’d have found them with mass indicators. Staley, it’s not that unlikely. The Eye isn’t that far from the Coal Sack.”

“A couple of light years.”

“Well, what of it? Light travels farther than that, giver a free path!” Buckman’s teeth glowed in the faint multi-colored light of the control panel. “Murcheson lost a golden opportunity by not studying the Coal Sack when he had the chance. Of course he was on the wrong side of the Eye, and he probably didn’t venture very far from the breakout point… and it’s our luck, Staley! There’s never been an opportunity like this! A thick interstellar mass, and a red supergiant right at the edge for illumination! Look, look along my arm, Staley, to where the currents flow toward that eddy. Like a whirlpool, isn’t it? If your captain would stop twiddling his thumbs and give me access to the ship’s computer, I could prove that that eddy is a protostar in the process of condensation! Or that it isn’t.”

Buckman had a temporary rank higher than Staley’s, but he was a civilian. In any case, he shouldn’t be talking about the Captain that way. “We do use the computer for other things, Dr. Buckman.”

Buckman let go of Staley’s arm. “Too damned many.’ His eyes seemed lost; his soul was lost in that enormous veil of red-lit darkness. “We may not need it, though. The Moties must have been observing the Coal Sack for at their history; hundreds of years, maybe thousands. Especially if they’ve developed some such pseudoscience as astrology. If we can talk to them…” He trailed off.

Staley said, “We wondered why you were so eager to come along.”

“What? Do you mean jaunting off with you to see that rock? Staley, I don’t care what the Motie was using it for, I want to know why the Trojan points are so crowded.”

“You think there’ll be clues?”

“Maybe, in the composition of the rock. We can hope so.”

“I may be able to help you there,” Staley said slowly. “Sauron—my home—has an asteroid belt and mining industries. I learned something about rock mining from my uncles. Thought I might be a miner myself, once.” He stopped abruptly, expecting Buckman to bring up an unpleasant subject.

Buckman said, “I wonder what the Captain expects to find there?”

“He told me that. We know just one thing about that rock,” said Staley. “A Motie was interested in it. When we know why, we’ll know something about Moties.”

“Not very much,” Buckman growled.

Staley relaxed. Either Buckman didn’t know why Sauron was infamous, or… no. Tactful? Buckman? Not hardly.

The Motie pup was born five hours after MacArthur’s cutter left for the asteroid. The birth was remarkably doglike, considering the mother’s distant relationship to dogs; and there was only the one pup, about the size of a rat.

The lounge was very popular that day, as crew and officers and scientists and even the Chaplain found an excuse to drop by.

“Look how much smaller the lower left arm is,” said Sally. “We were right, Jonathan. The little ones are derived from the big Moties.”

Someone thought of leading the large Motie down to the lounge. She did not seem the least interested in the new miniature Motie; but she did make sounds at the others. One of them dug Horace Bury’s watch out from under a pillow and gave it to her.

Rod watched the activities around the Motie pup when. he could. It seemed very highly developed for a newborn; within hours of its birth it was nibbling at cabbages, and it seemed able to walk, although the mother usually carried it with one set of arms. She moved rapidly and was hardly hampered by it at all.

Meanwhile, the Motie ship drew nearer; and if there was any change in its acceleration, it was too small for MacArthur to detect.

“They’ll be here in seventy hours,” Rod told Cargill via laser message. “I want you back in sixty. Don’t let Buckman start anything he can’t finish within the time limit. If you contact aliens, tell me fast—and don’t try to talk them unless there’s no way out.”

“Aye aye, Skipper.”

“Not my orders, Jack. Kutuzov’s. He’s not happy about this excursion. Just look that rock over and get back.”

The rock was thirty million kilometers distant from MacArthur, about a twenty-five-hour trip each way at one gee. Four gravities would cut that in half. Not enough, Staley thought, to make it worthwhile putting up with four gees.

“But we could go at 1.5 gee, sir,” he suggested to Cargill. “Not only would the trip be faster, but we’d get there faster. We wouldn’t move around so much. The cutter wouldn’t seem so crowded.”

“That’s brilliant,” Cargill said warmly. “A brilliant suggestion, Mr. Staley.”

“Then we’ll do it?”

“We will not.”

“But—why not, sir?”

“Because I don’t like plus gees. Because it uses fuel and if we use too much MacArthur may have to dive into the gas giant to get us home. Never waste fuel, Mr. Staley. You may want it someday. And besides, it’s nitwit idea.”