The Mote in God's Eye

Bury found his friend in an ugly mood. “Pack everything that can’t stand hard vacuum,” Buckman was muttering. “Get everything that can ready for it. No reason. Just do it.” He poked at gadgetry. He had already packed a good deal in boxes and big plastic bags.

Bury’s own tension may have showed. Senseless orders, a guard outside the door… he was feeling like a prisoner again. It took him quite a while to calm Buckman down. Finally the astrophysicist slumped into a chair and lifted a cup of coffee. “Haven’t seen you much,” he said. “Been busy?”

“There is really very little for me to do in this ship. Few tell me anything,” Bury said equably—and that took self-control. “Why must you be ready for hard vacuum here?”

“Hah! I don’t know. Just do it. Try to call the Captain, he’s in conference. Try to complain to Horvath, and he’s in conference. If they aren’t available when you need them, just what use are they, anyway?”

Sounds came through from the corridor outside: heavy things were being moved. What could it be about? Sometimes they evacuated ships to get rid of rats…

That

was it! They were killing off the miniatures! Allah be praised, he had acted in time. Bury smiled widely in relief. He had a better idea of the value of the miniatures since the night he had left a box of bhaklavah next to the open faceplate of his personal pressure suit. He’d almost lost it all.

To Buckman he said, “How did you make out in the Trojan point asteroids?”

Buckman looked startled. Then he laughed. “Bury, I haven’t thought about that problem in a month. We’ve been studying the Coal Sack. We’ve found a mass in there… probably a protostar. And an infrared source. The flow patterns in the Coal Sack are fantastic. As if the gas and dust were viscous. Of course it’s the magnetic fields that make it act like that. We’re learning wonderful things about the dynamics of a dust cloud. When I think of the time I wasted on those Trojan point rocks… when the whole problem was so trivial!”

“Well, go on, Buckman. Don’t leave me hanging.”

“Uh? Oh, I’ll show you.” Buckman went to the intercom and read out a string of numbers.

Nothing happened.

“That’s funny. Some idiot must have put a RESTRICTED on it.” Buckman closed his eyes, recited another string of numbers. Photographs appeared on the screen. “Ah. There!”

Asteroids tumbled on the screen, the pictures blurred and jumpy. Some were lopsided, some almost spherical, many marked with craters.

“Sorry about the quality. The near Trojans are a good distance away… but all it took was time and MacArthur’s telescopes. Do you see what we found?”

“Not really. Unless…” All of them had craters. At least one crater. Three long, narrow asteroids in succession, and each had a deep crater at one end. One rock twisted almost into a cashew shape; and the crater was at the inside of the curve. Each asteroid in the sequence had a big deep crater in it; and always a line through the center would have gone through the rock’s center of mass.

Bury felt fear and laughter rising in him. “Yes, I see. You found that every one of those asteroids had been moved into place artificially. Therefore you lost interest.”

“Naturally. When I think that I was expecting to find some new cosmic principle—” Buckman shrugged. He swallowed some coffee.

“I don’t suppose you told anyone?”

“I told Dr. Horvath. Why, do you suppose he put the RESTRICTED designation on it?”

“It may be. Buckman, how much energy do you think it would take to move such a mass of rocks around?”

“Why, I don’t know. A good deal, I think. In fact…” Buckman’s eyes glowed. “An interesting problem. I’ll let you know after this idiocy is over.” He turned back to his gear.

Bury sat where he was, staring at nothing. Presently he began to shiver.

25. The Captain’s Motie

“I appreciate your concern for the safety of the Empire, Admiral,” Horvath said. He nodded sagely at the glowering figure on MacArthur’s bridge screen. “Indeed I do. The fact remains, however, that we either accept the Moties’ invitation or we might as well go home. There’s nothing more to learn out here.”

“You, Blaine. You agree with that?” Admiral Kutuzov’s expression was unchanged.

Rod shrugged. “Sir, I have to take the advice of the scientists. They say that we’ve got about all we’re going to get from this distance.”

“You want to take MacArthur into orbit around the Mote planet, then? That is what you recommend? For the record?”

“Yes, sir. Either that or go home, and I don’t think we know enough about the Moties simply to leave.”

Kutuzov took a long, slow breath. His lips tightened.

“Admiral, you have your job, I have mine,” Horvath reminded him. “It’s all very well to protect the Empire against whatever improbable threat the Moties pose, but I must exploit what we can learn from Motie science and technology. That, I assure you, isn’t trivial. They’re so far advanced, in some respects that I—well, I haven’t any words to describe it, that’s all.”