The Mote in God's Eye

Their supper was plain, and they hurried through it compare notes. Mercifully the others left him alone until he’d eaten, Horvath taking the lead in shushing everyone although he was obviously the most curious of the lot. Even though the utensils were designed for free-fall conditions, none of the others were used to long periods zero gravity, and eating took new habits that could be learned only through concentration. Finally Hardy let one of the crewmen remove his lap tray and looked up. Three eager faces telepathically beamed a million questions at him.

“They learn Anglic well enough,” David said. “I wish I could say the same for my own progress.”

“They work at it,” Whitbread wondered. “When you give them a word, they keep using it, over and over, trying it out in sentences, trying it out on everything around whatever you showed them—I never saw anything like it.”

“That’s because you didn’t watch Dr. Hardy very long,” Sally said. “We were taught that technique in school, but I’m not very good at it.”

“Young people seldom are.” Hardy stretched out to relax. That void had been filled. But it was embarrassing—the Moties were better at his job than he was. “Young people usually haven’t the patience for linguistics. In this case, though, your eagerness helps, since the Moties are directing your efforts quite professionally. By the way Jonathon, where did you go?”

“I took my Fyunch(click) outside and showed him around the taxi. We ran out of things to show the Motic in their own ship and I didn’t want to bring them here. Can we do that?”

“Certainly.” Horvath smiled. “I’ve spoken to Captain Blaine and he leaves it to our judgment. As he says there’s nothing secret on the cutter. However, I’d like there to be something a little special—some ceremony, wouldn’t you think? After all, except for the asteroid miner the Moties have never visited a human ship.”

Hardy shrugged. “They make little enough of our coming aboard their craft. You want to remember, though, unless the whole Motie race is fantastically gifted at languages—a hypothesis I reject—they’ve had their special ceremony before they lifted off their planet. They’ve put language specialists aboard. I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that our Fyunch(click)s are the Motie equivalent of full professors.”

Whitbread shook his head. The others looked at him, and finally he spoke. He was rather proud of having worked out a technique to let a junior officer interrupt the others. “Sir, that ship left the Mote planet only hours

—maybe less than one hour—after MacArthur appeared in their system. How would they have time to gather specialists?”

“I hadn’t known that,” Hardy said slowly. “But these must be specialists of some kind. What use would such fantastic linguistic abilities be among the general population? And fantastic is not too strong a word. Still and all, we’ve managed to puzzle them slightly, or did the rest of you notice?”

“The tool room?” Sally asked. “I guess that’s what you’d call it, although I don’t think I’d have figured it out if Jonathon hadn’t given me the clue first. They took me there just after I left you, Dr. Hardy, and they didn’t seem puzzled to me. I noticed you stayed a lot longer than I did, though.”

“What did you do there?” David asked.

“Why—nothing. I looked at all the gadgetry. The whole place was covered with junk—by the way, those wall clamps weren’t substantial enough to take real gravity, I’m sure of that. They must have built that room after they got here. But anyway, since there wasn’t anything I could understand I didn’t pay much attention to the place.”

Hardy folded his hands in an attitude of prayer, then looked up embarrassed. He’d got into that habit long before he entered the priesthood, and somehow could never break himself of it; but it indicated concentration not reverence. “You did nothing, and they were not curious about it.” He thought furiously for long seconds. “Yet I asked the names of the equipment, and spent quite long time there, and my Fyunch(click) seemed very surprised. I could be misinterpreting the emotion, but I really think my interest in the tools unsettled them.”‘

“Did you try to use any of the gadgets?” Whitbread asked.

“No. Did you?”

“Well, I played around with some of the stuff…”

“And were they surprised or curious about that?”

Jonathon shrugged. “They were all watching me all the time. I didn’t notice anything different.”

“Yes.” Hardy folded his hands again, but this time didn’t notice he was doing it. “I think there is something odd about that room and the interest they showed in our interest in it. But I doubt that we’ll know why until Captain Blaine sends over his expert. Do you know who’s coming?”

Horvath nodded. “He’s sending Chief Engineer Sinclair.”

“Hmmm.” The sound was involuntary. The others looked at Jonathon Whitbread, who grinned slowly. “If the Moties were puzzled by you, sir, just think what’ll go through their heads when they hear Commander Sinclair talk.”