The Mote in God's Eye

MacArthur was a sharply bounded region of supernatural blackness. Whitbread circled it at leisure. The Mote flashed bright over the black rim, followed by the alien ship.

Whitbread took his time. The ship grew slowly. Its core was as slender as a spear. Functional marking showed along its sides: hatch covers, instrument ports, antennae, no way to tell. A single black square fin jutted from near the midpoint: possibly a radiator surface.

Within the broad translucent doughnuts that circled the fore end he could see moving shapes. They showed clearly enough to arouse horror: vaguely human shadows twisted out of true.

Four toroids, and shadows within them all. Whitbread reported, “They’re using all their fuel tanks for living space. They can’t expect to get home without our help.”

The Captain’s voice: “You’re sure?”

“Yes, sir. There could be an inboard tank, but it wouldn’t be very large.”

He had nearly reached the alien craft. Whitbread slowed to a smooth stop just alongside the inhabited fuel tanks. He opened his air-lock door.

A door opened immediately near the fore end of the metal core. A Motie stood in the oval opening; it wore a transparent envelope. The alien waited.

Whitbread said, “Permission to leave the—”

“Granted. Report whenever convenient. Otherwise, use your own judgment. The Marines are standing by, Whitbread, so don’t yell for help unless you mean it. They’ll come fast. Now good luck.”

As Cargill’s voice faded, the Captain came on again. “Don’t take any serious risks, Whitbread. Remember, we want you back to report.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

The Motie stepped gracefully out of his way as Whitbread approached the air lock. It left the Motie standing comically on vacuum, its big left hand gripping a ring that jutted out from the hull. “There’s stuff poking out all over,” Whitbread said into his mike. “This thing couldn’t have been launched from inside an atmosphere.”

He stopped himself in the oval opening and nodded at the gently smiling alien. He was only half sardonic as he asked formally, “Permission to come aboard?”

The alien bowed from the waist—or perhaps it was an exaggerated nod? The joint in its back was below the shoulders. It gestured toward the ship with the two right arms.

The air lock was Motie-sized, cramped. Whitbread found three recessed buttons in a web of silver streamers. Circuitry. The Motie watched his hesitation, then reached past him to push first one, then another.

The lock closed behind him.

The Mediator stood on emptiness, waiting for the lock to cycle. She wondered at the intruder’s queer structure, the symmetry and the odd articulation of its bones. Clearly the thing was not related to known life. And its home ship had appeared in what the Mediator thought of as the Crazy Eddie point.

She was far more puzzled at its failure to work out the lock circuitry without help.

It must be here in the capacity of a Mediator. It had to be intelligent. Didn’t it? Or would they send an animal first? No, certainly not. They couldn’t be that alien; it would be a deadly insult in any culture.

The lock opened. She stepped in and set it cycling. The intruder was waiting in the corridor, filling it like a cork in a bottle. The Mediator took time to strip off her pressure envelope, leaving her naked. Alien as it was, the thing might easily assume she was a Warrior. She must convince the creature that she was unarmed.

She led the way toward the roomier inflated sections. The big, clumsy creature had trouble moving. It did not adapt well to free fall. It stopped to peer through window panels into sections of the ship, and examined mechanisms the Browns had installed in the corridor… why would an intelligent being do that?