The Mote in God's Eye

“And that’s neither your decision nor mine, Doctor. Besides, I’ve got some questions I want answered before I decide that the Moties are nothing more than steadfast friends.” Rod let his gaze go past the Chaplain, and his eyes focused a long way off. I’m not sorry it’s not my decision, he thought. But ultimately they’re going to ask me. As future Marquis of Crucis, if nothing else.

He had known the subject would come up, and would again, and he was ready. “First, why did they send us a ship from Mote Prime? Why not from the Trojan cluster? It’s much closer.”

“I’ll ask them when I can.”

“Second, why four Moties? It may not be important, but I’d like to know why they assigned one to each of you scientists, one to Whitbread, and none to any of the crew.”

“They were right, weren’t they? They set guides on the four people most interested in teaching them—”

“Exactly. How did they know? Just for example, how could they have known Dr. Horvath would be aboard? And the third question is, what are they building now?”

“All right, Captain.” Hardy looked unhappy, not angry. He was and would be harder to refuse than Horvath… partly because he was Rod’s confessor. And the subject would come up again. Rod was sure of that.

23. Eliza Crossing the Ice

During the weeks that followed MacArthur

was a bustle of activity. Every scientist worked overtime after each data transmission from the cutter, and every one of them wanted Navy assistance immediately. There was also the problem of the escaped miniatures, but this had settled to a game, with MacArthur losing. In the mess room it was even money that they were both dead, but no bodies were found. It worried Rod Blaine, but there was nothing he could do.

He also allowed the Marines to stand watches in normal uniform. There were no threats to the cutter, and it was ridiculous to keep a dozen men uncomfortable in battle armor. Instead he doubled the watch keeping surveillance around MacArthur, but no one—or no thing—tried to approach, escape, or send messages. Meanwhile the biologists went wild over clues to Motie psychology and physiology, the astronomy section continued to map Mote Prime, Buckman dithered whenever anyone else used the astronomical gear, and Blaine tried to keep his overcrowded ship’ running smoothly. His appreciation of Horvath grew every time he had to mediate a dispute between scientists.

There was more activity aboard the cutter. Commander Sinclair had gone aboard and been immediately taken to the Motie ship. Three days passed before a Brown-and-white began following Sinclair around, and it was a peculiarly quiet Motie. It did seem interested in the cutter’s machinery, unlike the others who had assigned themselves to a human. Sinclair and his Fyunch(click) spent long hours aboard the alien ship, poking into corners, examining everything.

“The lad was right about the tool room,” Sinclair told Blaine during one of his daily reports. “It’s like the nonverbal intelligence tests BuPers worked up for new recruits. There are things wrong wi’ some o’ the tools, and ‘tis my task to put them right.”

“Wrong how?”

Sinclair chuckled, remembering. He had some difficulty explaining the joke to Blaine. The hammer with the big, flat head would hit a thumb every time. It needed to be trimmed. The laser heated too fast… and that was a tricky one. It had generated the wrong frequency of light. Sinclair fixed it by doubling the frequency—somehow. He also learned more about compact lasers than he’d ever known before. There were other tests like that. “They’re good, Captain. It took ingenuity to come up wi’ some of the testing gadgets wi’out giving away more than they did. But they canna keep me from learning about their ship… Captain, I already ken enough to redesign the ship’s boats to be more efficient. Or make millions o’ crowns designing miner ships.”

“Retiring when we go back, Sandy?” Rod asked; but he grinned widely to show he didn’t mean it.

In the second week, Rod Blaine also acquired a Fyunch(click).

He was both dismayed and flattered. The Motie looked like all the others: brown-and-white markings, a gentle smile in a lopsided face just high enough above the deck that Rod could have patted her on the head—if he’d ever seen the Motie face to face, which he never would.

Each time he called the cutter she was there, always eager to see Blaine and talk to him. Each time he called, her Anglic was better. They would exchange a few words, and that was that. He didn’t have time for a Fyunch(click), or a need for one either. Learning Motie language wasn’t his job—from the progress made, it wasn’t anyone’s job—and he only saw her through a phone link. What use was a guide he would never meet?

“They seem to think you’re important,” was Hardy’s dead-pan answer.

It was something to think about while he presided over his madhouse of a ship. And the alien didn’t complain at all.