The Mote in God's Eye

“And we aren’t good at fighting… Well, enough of that. We play your part in order to understand you, but you each seem to play a thousand parts. It makes things difficult for an honest, hardworking bug-eyed monster.”

“Who told you about bug-eyed monsters?” Whitbread exclaimed.

“Mr. Renner, who else? I took it as a compliment—that he would trust my sense of humor, that is.”

“Dr. Horvath would kill him. We’re supposed to be tippy-toe careful in our relationship with aliens. Don’t offend taboos, and all that.”

“Dr. Horvath,” Potter said. “I am reminded that Dr. Horvath wanted us to ask you something. Ye’ know that we have a Brown aboard MacArthur.”

“Sure. A miner. Her ship visited MacArthur, then came home empty. It was pretty obvious she’d stayed with you.”

“She’s sick,” Potter said. “She has been growing worse. Dr. Blevins says it has the marks of a dietary disease, but he has nae been able to help her. Hae you any idea what it is that she might lack?”

Whitbread thought he knew why Horvath had not asked his Motie about the Brown; if the Moties demanded to see the miner, they must be refused on orders from the Admiral himself. Dr. Horvath thought the order was stupid; he would never be able to defend it. Whitbread and Potter were not called upon to try. Orders were orders.

When the Moties did not answer at once, Jonathon said, “Between them the biologists have tried a lot of things. New foods, analysis of the Brown’s digestive fluids, x-rays for tumor. They even changed the atmosphere in her cabin to match the Mote Prime atmosphere. Nothing works. She’s unhappy, she whines, she doesn’t move around much. She’s getting thin. Her hair is coming out.

Whitbread’s Motie spoke in a voice gone oddly flat. “You haven’t any idea what might be wrong with her?”

“No,” said Whitbread.

It was strange and uncomfortable, the way the Moties were looking at them. They seemed identical now, floating half-crouched, anchored by hand holds: identical pose, identical markings, identical faint smiles. Their individual identities didn’t show now. Perhaps it was all a pose—

“We’ll get you some food,” Potter’s Motie said suddenly. “You may hae guessed right. It may be her diet.”

Both Moties left. Presently Whitbread’s Motie returned with a pressure bag that contained grain and plum-sized fruits and a chunk of red meat. “Boil the meat, soak the grain, and give her the fruit raw,” she said. “And test the ionization in her cabin air.” She ushered them out.

The boys boarded an open scooter to return to the cutter. Presently Potter said, “They behaved verra strangely. I canna but think that something important happened a minute ago.”

“Yah.”

“Then what was it?”

“Maybe they think we’ve been mistreating the Brown. Maybe they wonder why we won’t bring her here. Maybe the other way around: they’re shocked that we take so much trouble for a mere Brown.”

“And perhaps they were tired and we imagined it.” Potter fired thruster clusters to slow the scooter.

“Gavin. Look behind us.”

“Not now. I must see to the safety o’ my command.” Potter took his time docking the scooter, then looked around.

More than a dozen Moties had been working outside the ship. The bracing for the toroids was conspicuously unfinished… but the Moties were all streaming into the airlock.

The Mediators came streaming into the toroid, bouncing gently from the walls in their haste to get out of each other’s way. Most of them showed in one way or another that they were Fyunch(click) to aliens. They tended to underuse their lower right arms. They wanted to line themselves with their heads pointing all in the same direction.

The Master was white. The tufts at her armpits and groin were long and silky, like the fur of an Angora cat. When they were all there, the Master turned to Whitbread’s Motie and said, “Speak.”

Whitbread’s Motie told of the incident with the midshipmen. “I’m certain they meant it all,” she concluded.

To Potter’s Motie the Master said, “Do you agree?”

“Yes, completely.”

There was a panicky undercurrent of whispers, some Motie tongues, some in Anglic. It cut off when the Master said, “What did you tell them?”