The Mote in God's Eye

39. Departure

“Boats report no trace of our midshipmen, my Admiral.” Captain Mikhailov’s tone was both apologetic and defensive; few officers wanted to report failure to Kutuzov. The burly Admiral sat impassively in his command chair on Lenin’s bridge. He lifted his glass of tea and sipped, his only acknowledgment a brief grunt.

Kutuzov turned to the others grouped around him at staff posts. Rod Blaine still occupied the Flag Lieutenant’s chair; he was senior to Commander Borman, and Kutuzov was punctilious about such matters.

“Eight scientists,” Kutuzov said. “Eight scientists, five officers, fourteen spacers and Marines. All killed by Moties.”

“Moties!” Dr. Horvath swiveled his command chair toward Kutuzov. “Admiral, nearly all those men were aboard MacArthur when you destroyed her. Some might still have been alive. As for the midshipmen, if they were foolish enough to try to land with lifeboats…” His voice, trailed off as Rod turned dead eyes toward him. “Sorry, Captain. I didn’t mean it that way. Truly, I am sorry. I liked those boys too. But you can’t blame the Moties for what happened! The Moties have tried to help, and they can do so much for us— Admiral, when can we get back to the embassy ship?”

Kutuzov’s explosive sound might have been a laugh. “Hah! Doctor, we are going home as soon as boats are secured. I thought I had made that clear.”

The Science Minister pressed his lips tightly against his wide teeth. “I was hoping that you had regained your sanity.” His voice was a cold, feral snarl. “Admiral, you are ruining the best hopes mankind ever had. The technology we can buy—that they’ll give us!—is orders of magnitude above anything we could expect for centuries. The Moties have gone to enormous expense to make us welcome. If you hadn’t forbidden us to tell them about the escaped miniatures I’m sure they’d have helped. But you had to keep your damned secrets—and because of your stupid xenophobia we lost the survey ship and most of our instruments. Now you antagonize them by going home when they planned more conferences— My God, man, if they were warlike nothing could provoke them as you have!”

“You are finished?” Kutuzov asked contemptuously.

“I’m finished for now. I won’t be finished when we get back.”

Kutuzov touched a button on the arm of his chair. “Captain Mikhailov, please make ready for departure to the Alderson entry point. One and one-half gravities, Captain.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“You are determined to be a damn fool, then,” Horvath protested. “Blaine, can’t you reason with him?”

“I am determined to carry out my orders, Doctor,” Kutuzov said heavily. If Horvath’s threats meant anything to him, he didn’t show it. The Admiral turned to Rod. “Captain, I will welcome your advice. But I will do nothing to compromise safety of this ship, and I cannot allow further personal contact with Moties. Have you suggestions, Captain Lord Blaine?”

Rod had listened to the conversation without interest, his thoughts a confused blur. What could I have done? he asked himself endlessly. There was nothing else to concern him. The Admiral might ask his advice, but that was courtesy. Rod had no command and no duties. His ship was lost, his career finished— Brooding in self-pity wasn’t doing any good, though. “I do think, sir, that we should try to keep the Moties’ friendship. We shouldn’t make the Government’s decisions…”

“You are saying I do that?” Kutuzov demanded.

“No, sir. But it is likely the Empire will want to trade with the Mote. As Dr. Horvath says, they have done nothing hostile.”

“What of your midshipmen?”

Rod swallowed hard. “I don’t know, sir. Possibly Potter or Whitbread weren’t able to control their lifeboats and Staley tried a rescue. It would be like him—”

Kutuzov scowled. “Three lifeboats, Captain. All three reenter, and all three burn.” He examined the displays around him. A boat was being winched into Lenin’s hangar deck, where Marines would flood it with poison gas. No aliens would get loose in his flagship! “What would you like to say to Moties, Doctor?”

“I won’t tell them what I’d like to say, Admiral,” Horvath said pointedly. “I will stay with your story of plague. It’s almost true, isn’t it? A plague of miniatures. But, Admiral, we must leave open the possibility of a returning expedition.”

“They will know you lie to them,” Kutuzov said flatly. “Blaine, what of that? Is better Moties hear explanations they do not believe?”

Damn it, doesn’t he know I don’t want to think about Moties? Or anything else? What good is my advice? Advice from a man who lost his ship— “Admiral, I don’t see what harm it would do to let Minister Horvath speak to the Moties.” Rod emphasized “Minister”; not only was Horvath a ranking Council Minister, but he had powerful connections with the Humanity League, and influence in the Imperial Traders’ Association as well. That combination had nearly as much clout as the Navy. “Somebody ought to talk to them, it doesn’t matter much who. There’s not a man aboard who can lie to his Fyunch(click).”

“Very well. Da. Captain Mikhailov, please have communications call Mote embassy ship. Dr. Horvath will speak to them.”

The screens lit to show a brown-and-white half-smiling face. Rod grimaced, then glanced up quickly to confirm that his own image pickup wasn’t on.

The Motie looked at Horvath. “Fyunch(click).”

“Ah. I was hoping to speak to you. We are leaving now. We must.”

The Motie’s expression didn’t change. “That seemed obvious, but we are very distressed, Anthony. We have much more to discuss, trade agreements, rental of bases in your Empire—”

“Yes, yes, but we haven’t the authority to sign treaties or trade agreements,” Horvath protested. “Really, we did accomplish a lot, and now we have to go. There was plague on MacArthur, something new to our doctors, and we don’t know the focal infection center or the vector. And since this ship is our only way home, the Ad—our decision makers think it best we leave while there is a full astrogation crew. We’ll be back!”

“Will you come yourself?” the Motie asked.

“If at all possible. I’d love to.” He had no trouble sounding sincere about that.

“You will be welcome. All humans will be welcome. We have great hopes for trade between our races, Anthony. There is much we can learn from each other. We have gifts as well—can you not take them on your ship?”

“Why, thank you—I—” Horvath looked at Kutuzov. The Admiral was about to explode. He shook his head violently.

“It would not be wise,” Horvath said sadly. “Until we know what caused the plague, it is best we add nothing we have not already been exposed to. I’m very sorry.”

“So am I, Anthony. We have noted that your engineers are—how can I put this delicately? Are not so advanced as ours in many ways. Underspecialized, perhaps. We have thought partially to remedy this with our gifts.”

“I—excuse me a moment,” Horvath said. He turned to Kutuzov after switching off the sound pickup. “Admiral, you cannot refuse such an opportunity! This may be the most significant event in the history of the Empire!”

The Admiral nodded slowly. His dark eyes narrowed. “It is also true that Moties in possession of Langston Field and Alderson Drive may be most significant threat in history of human race, Minister Horvath.”

“I’m aware of it,” Horvath snapped. He turned the sound pickup on. “I am afraid that—”

The Motie interrupted. “Anthony, can you not inspect our gifts? You may take pictures of them, learn them well enough to duplicate them later. Surely that would be no danger to persons who have been on the Mote planet itself?”

Horvath thought furiously. He had to have those! The pickup was switched off, and Horvath smiled thinly at the Admiral. “He’s right, you know. Can’t we put them in the cutter?”

Kutuzov seemed to taste sour milk. Then he nodded. Horvath turned back to the Motie in relief. “Thank you. If you will place the gifts in the cutter, we will study them on the way out and you may retrieve both the gifts and the cutter, our gift to you, at the Crazy Eddie point in two and a half weeks.”

“Excellent,” the Motie said warmly. “But you will not need the cutter. One of our gifts is a space craft with controls suitable for human hands and minds. The others will be aboard it.”

Kutuzov looked surprised and nodded quickly. Horvath caught it with an inward smile. “That’s wonderful. We will bring gifts for you on our return. We want very much to repay your hospitality—”

Admiral Kutuzov was saying something. Horvath leaned away from the screen pickup to listen. “Ask about the midshipmen,” the Admiral commanded.

Horvath gulped and said, “Is there any other word about our midshipmen?”

The Motie’s voice took on a pained note. “How could there be, Anthony? They were killed attempting reentry, and their craft burned away completely. We have sent you pictures, did you not receive them?”

“Uh—I didn’t see them,” Horvath replied. Which was true, but it didn’t make saying it any easier. The damned Admiral didn’t believe anything! What did he think, that the boys were captured somewhere and being tortured for information? “I’m sorry, I was instructed to ask.”

“We understand. Humans are very concerned about their young decision makers. So are Moties. Our races do have much in common. It has been good to speak with you again, Anthony. We hope you will return soon.”

An alarm flashed on the bridge consoles. Admiral Kutuzov frowned and listened attentively to something Horvath couldn’t hear. Simultaneously a speaker announced the quartermaster’s report. “Ship’s boats secure, sir. Ready to depart.”

The Motie had evidently overheard. She said, “The gift ship is quite capable of catching up with you, provided you do not accelerate at more than”—there was a pause as the Motie listened to something—”three of your gravities.”

Horvath shot an inquiring eye at the Admiral. The officer was brooding heavily, evidently about to say something. Instead he nodded to Horvath. “One and a half of our gees for this trip,” Horvath told the Motie.

“Our gifts will join you in five hours,“ the Motie said. The screens flashed and Horvath’s pickup went dead.

Admiral Kutuzov’s voice grated in the Minister’s ear. “I am informed that a ship has left Mote Prime and is traveling toward Alderson point at one point seven four of our gravities. Two Mote gravities. You will please have them explain what that ship is doing.” The Admiral’s voice was calm enough, but the tone was imperative.

Horvath gulped and turned back to the Motie. His screen came active again. He asked hesitantly, afraid to offend them. “Do you know?” he finished.

“Certainly,” the Motie replied smoothly. “I have only just learned of it myself. The Masters have sent our ambassadors to the Empire to rendezvous with you. There will be three of them, and we request that you convey them to your Imperial capital where they will represent our race. They have full authority to negotiate for us.”

Kutuzov took a deep breath. He seemed about to scream, and his face was almost purple with effort, but he only said, very quietly so that the Motie could not hear, “Tell them we must discuss this. Captain Mikhailov, accelerate when convenient.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“We’re leaving now,” Horvath told the Motie. “I—we—must discuss the question of ambassadors. This is a surprise—I would have hoped that you would come yourself. Will there be any of our Fyunch(click)s sent as ambassadors?” He spoke rapidly as the warning tones sounded behind him.

“There will be time for any discussions needed,” the Motie assured him. “And no, no Motie ambassador could identify with any individual human; all must represent our race, surely you can understand that? The three have been selected to represent all views, and unanimously acting they can commit all Moties to an agreement. Given the plague menace, they would expect to be quarantined until you are certain they are no threat to your health—” A loud tone sounded through Lenin. “Farewell, Anthony. To all of you. And return soon.”

The final warning horns blared and Lenin surged forward. Horvath stared at the blank screen as behind him the others broke into astonished chatter.

40. Farewell

His Imperial Majesty’s President Class battleship Lenin was packed, crammed to capacity and beyond with MacArthur’s crew and the scientists who had been aboard her. Able spacers shared hammocks in rotation with their duties. Marines slept in corridors, and officers were stuffed three and more into staterooms meant for one. There were Motie artifacts salvaged from MacArthur in her hangar deck, which Kutuzov insisted be kept in vacuum, constantly under guard, with inspections. There was no place aboard where the ship’s company could be assembled.

If there had been an assembly point it would not have been used. Lenin would remain at battle stations until she left the Mote system, even during the funeral services, conducted by David Hardy and Lenin’s chaplain, George Alexis. It was not an unusual situation for either; although it was traditional for the ship’s company to assemble when possible, burial services were often conducted with the ship at battle stations. As he put on a black stole and turned to the missal a rating held open for him, David Hardy reflected that he had probably conducted more requiems this way than before an assembly.

A trumpet note sounded through Lenin. “Ship’s company, at ease,” the Chief Boatswain ordered quietly.

“Eternal rest grant them, O Lord,” Hardy intoned.

“And let light perpetual shine upon them,” Alexis answered. Every verse and response was familiar to anyone who had been in the Navy long enough to be part of Lenin’s crew.

“I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord. Whosoever believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die.”

The service went on, with the spacers responding from their duty stations, a low murmur through the ship.

“I heard a voice from Heaven saying unto me, Write. From henceforth blessed are the dead who die in the Lord: even so saith the Spirit; for they rest from their labors.”

Rest, Rod thought. There’s that, anyway, rest for the kids. He shivered. I’ve seen plenty of ships lost, and plenty of men under my command have bought it a hundred parsecs from home. Why is this one getting to me? He took a deep breath but the tightness in his chest remained unchanged.

Lights dimmed throughout Lenin, and the recorded voices of the Imperial Navy choir chanted a hymn in which the crewmen joined. “Day of wrath, and doom impending, David’s words with Sybil’s blending: Heavens and worlds in ashes ending…”

Sybil? Rod thought. God, that must be ancient. The hymn went on and on, ending in a burst of male voices.

Do I believe any of this? Rod wondered. Hardy does, look at his face. And Kelley, ready to launch his comrades out the torpedo tubes. Why can’t I believe as they do? But I do, don’t I? I always thought I did, there’s got to be some purpose in this universe. Look at Bury. This isn’t even his religion, but it’s getting to him. Wonder what he’s thinking?

Horace Bury stared intently at the torpedo tubes. Four bodies and a head! The head of a Marine the Brownies had used for a Trojan horse. Bury had seen it only once, spinning through space in a cloud of fog and shattered glass and kicking, thrashing, dying Brownies. He remembered a square jaw, a wide, slack mouth, glittering dead eyes. Allah be merciful to them, and may His legions descend on the Mote…

Sally’s taking it better than I am, Rod thought, and she’s a civilian. We both liked those boys… Why don’t I worry about the others? Five Marines killed getting the civilians out. It wouldn’t be so bad if the middies had been killed in action. I expected losses when I sent the rescue party in with the cutter. I wasn’t sure the kids would ever get out of Mac at all. But they did, they were safe!

“Unto Almighty God we commend the souls of our brothers departed, and we commit their bodies to the deeps of space; in sure and certain hope of the resurrection unto eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ; at whose coming in glorious majesty to judge the worlds, the seas shall yield their dead, and the deeps give forth their burdens…”

Kelley pressed the keys and there was a soft whoosh, another—three, four, five. Only four bodies and a head recovered out of twenty-seven dead and missing.

“Ship’s Company, atten-shut!”

“Shoot!”

And what will the Moties make of that? Rod wondered. Three broadsides fired off into space at nothing—except the third, which would vaporize the bodies launched a moment ago. The Admiral had insisted, and no one had argued.

Contralto trumpet notes died away as Lenin’s trumpeter and MacArthur’s ended taps in duet. The ship was still for a moment.

“Ship’s company, dismissed!”

The officers moved silently away from the torpedo room. Lights brightened in the corridors and men hurried back to their action stations or their crowded rest areas. Navy routine continues, Rod thought. Funeral services are part of the Book too. There is a regulation for everything: birth aboard ship, registration of; burial, with or without bodies; and one for captains who lose their ships. The Book demands a court-martial for that one.

“Rod. Wait a minute, Rod. Please.”

He stopped at Sally’s call. They stood in the corridor while the other officers and crew split around them. Rod wanted to join them, to get back to the solitude of his cabin where no one would ask him what happened aboard MacArthur. Yet here was Sally, and something way inside wanted to talk to her, or just be close to her—

“Rod, Dr. Horvath says the Moties have sent ambassadors to meet us at the Crazy Eddie point, but Admiral Kutuzov won’t let them aboard! Is that right?”

Damn! he thought. Moties again, Moties— “It’s right.” He turned away.

“Rod, wait! We’ve got to do something! Rod, where are you going?” She stared at his back as he walked rapidly away. Now what did I do? she wondered.

Blaine’s door was closed but the telltale showed that it wasn’t locked. Kevin Renner hesitated, then knocked. Nothing happened. He waited a moment, then knocked again.

“Come in.”

Renner opened the door. It seemed strange to walk directly into Blaine’s cabin: no Marine sentry on duty, none of the mysterious aura of command that surrounds a captain. “Hi, Captain. Mind if I join you?”

“No. Can I get you anything?” Blaine clearly didn’t care one way or another. He didn’t look at Renner, and Kevin wondered what would happen if he took the polite offer seriously. He could ask for a drink…

No. Not time to push. Not just yet. Renner took a seat and looked around.

Blaine’s cabin was big. It would have been a tower room if Lenin had been designed with a tower. There were only four men and one woman who rated cabins to themselves, and Blaine wasn’t using the precious room; he looked to have been sitting in that chair for hours, probably ever since the funeral services. Certainly he hadn’t changed. He’d had to borrow one of Mikhailov’s dress uniforms and it didn’t fit at all.

They sat silently, with Blaine staring into some internal space-time that excluded his visitor.

“I’ve been going over Buckman’s work,” Renner said at random. He had to start somewhere, and it probably shouldn’t be with Moties.

“Oh? How goes it?” Blaine asked politely.

“Way over my head. He says he can prove there’s a protostar forming in the Coal Sack. In a thousand years it’ll be shining by its own light. Well, he can’t prove it to me, because I don’t have the math.”

“Um.”

“How are you making out?” Renner showed no indication of leaving. “Enjoying your vacation from duties?”

Blaine finally lifted haunted eyes. “Kevin, why did the kids try to do a reentry?”

“God’s eyes, Captain, that’s plain silly. They wouldn’t have tried anything of the kind.” Jesus, he’s not even thinking straight. This is going to be tougher than I thought.

“Then you tell me what happened.”

Renner looked puzzled, but obviously Blaine meant it. “Captain, the ship was lousy with Brownies—everywhere nobody was looking. They must have got to the lifeboat storage area pretty early. If you were a Motie, how would you redesign an escape craft?”

“Superbly.” Blaine actually smiled. “Even a dead man couldn’t pass up a straight line like that.”

“You had me wondering.” Renner grinned, then turned serious. “No, what I mean is, they’d redesign for every new situation. In deep space the boat would decelerate and scream for rescue. Near a gas giant it would orbit. Always automatic, mind, because the passengers could be hurt or unconscious. Near a habitable world the boat would reenter.”

“Eh?” Blaine frowned. There was a spark of life in his eyes. Renner held his breath,

“Yeah, but Kevin, what went wrong? If the Brownies got to the boats they’d have designed them right. Besides, there’d be controls; they wouldn’t make you reenter.”

Renner shrugged. “Can you figure out Motie control panels at a glance? I can’t, and I doubt that the middies could. But the Brownies would expect them to. Captain, maybe the boats weren’t finished, or got damaged in a fire fight.”

“Maybe—”

“Maybe a lot of things. Maybe they were designed for Brownies. The kids would have had to crowd in, rip out a dozen fifteen-centimeter Motie crash couches or something. There wasn’t much time, with the torpedoes due to go in three minutes.”

“Those goddamn torpedoes! The casings were probably full of Brownies and a rat ranch, if anyone had looked!”

Renner nodded. “But who’d know to look?”

“I should have.”

“Why?” Renner asked it seriously. “Skipper, there’s—”

“I’m not a skipper.”

Aha! Renner thought. “Yes, sir. There’s still not a man in the Navy who’d have looked. Nobody. I didn’t think of it. The Tsar was satisfied with your decontamination procedure, wasn’t he? Everybody was. What bloody good does it do to blame yourself for a mistake we all made?”

Blaine looked up at Renner and wondered. The Sailing Master’s face was slightly red. Now why’s he so stirred up? “There’s another thing,” Rod said. “Suppose the lifeboats were properly designed. Suppose the kids made a perfect reentry, and the Moties lied.”

“I thought of that,” said Renner. “Do you believe it?”

“No, but I wish I could be sure.”

“You would be if you knew Moties as well as I do. Convince yourself. Study the data. We’ve got plenty aboard this ship, and you’ve got the time. You’ve got to learn about Moties, you’re the Navy’s heaviest expert on them.”

“Me?” Rod laughed. “Kevin, I’m not an expert on anything. The first thing I’ve got to do when we get back is convince a court-martial—”

“Oh, rape the court-martial,” Renner said impatiently. “Really, Captain, are you sitting here brooding over that formality? God’s teeth!”

“And what do you suggest I brood over, Lieutenant Renner?”

Kevin grinned. Better Blaine irritated than the way he’d been. “Oh, about why Sally’s so glum this afternoon—I think she’s hurt because you’re mad at her. About what you’re going to say when Kutuzov and Horvath have it out over the Motie ambassadors. About revolts and secessions in the colony worlds, or the price of iridium, or inflation of the crown—”

“Renner, for God’s sake shut up!”

Kevin’s grin broadened. “—or how to get me out of your cabin. Captain, look at it this way. Suppose a court finds you guilty of negligence. Certainly nothing worse. You didn’t surrender the ship to an enemy or anything. So suppose they seriously want your scalp and they hang that on you. Worse thing they could do would be ground you. They wouldn’t even cashier you. So they ground you, and you resign—you’re still going to be Twelfth Marquis of Crucis.”

“Yeah. So what?”

“So what?” Renner was suddenly angry. His brows knitted, and one fist clenched. “So what? Look, Captain, I’m just a merchant skipper. All my family’s ever been, and all we ever want to be. I put in a hitch in the Navy because we all do—maybe back home we’re not so thick on Imperialism as you are in the Capital, but part of that’s because we trust you aristocrats to run the show. We do our part, and we expect you characters with all the privileges to do yours!”

“Well—” Blaine looked sheepish, and a little embarrassed by Renner’s outburst. “And just what do you see as my part?”

“What do you think? You’re the only aristocrat in the Empire who knows a bloody thing about Moties, and you’re asking me what to do? Captain, I expect you to put your arse in gear, that’s what. Sir. The Empire’s got to develop a sensible policy about Moties, and the Navy’s influence is big— You can’t let the Navy get its views from Kutuzov! You can start by thinking about those Motie ambassadors the Admiral wants to leave stranded here.”

“I’ll be damned. You really are worked up about this, aren’t you?”

Renner grinned. “Well, maybe a little. Look, you’ve got time. Talk to Sally about the Moties. Go over the reports we sent up from Mote Prime. Learn about them so when the Admiral asks your advice you’ll have some sensible arguements to give him. We’ve got to take those ambassadors back with us—”

Rod grimaced. Moties aboard another ship! Good Lord—

“And stop thinking like that,” Renner said. “They won’t get loose and multiply all over Lenin. They wouldn’t have time, for that matter. Use your head, sir. The Admiral will listen to you. He’s got it in for Horvath, anything Doc suggests the Tsar’s going to turn down, but he’ll listen to you…”

Rod shook his head impatiently. “You’re acting as if my judgment were worth something. The evidence is against that.”

“Good Lord. You’re really down in the dumps, aren’t you? Do you know what your officers and men think of you? Have you any idea? Hell, Captain, it’s because of guys like you that I can accept the aristocracy—” Kevin stopped, embarrassed at having said more than he intended. “Look, the Tsar’s got to ask your opinion. He doesn’t have to take your advice, or Horvath’s, but he does have to ask both of you. That’s in the expedition orders—”

“How the devil do you know that?”

“Captain, my division had the job of rescuing the logs and order books from MacArthur, remember? They weren’t marked SECRET.”

“The hell they weren’t.”

“Well, maybe the light was bad and I didn’t see the security stamps. Besides, I had to be sure they had the right books, didn’t I? Anyway, Dr. Horvath knows all about that regulation. He’s going to insist on a council of war before Kutuzov makes a final decision on the ambassador question.”

“I see.” Rod fingered the bridge of his nose. “Kevin, just who put you up to coming in here? Horvath?”

“Of course not. I thought of it myself.” Renner hesitated. “I did have some encouragement, Captain.” He waited for Blaine to respond, but got only a blank stare. Renner snorted. “I sometimes wonder why the aristocracy isn’t extinct, the lot of you seem so stupid sometimes. Why don’t you give Sally a call? She’s sitting in her cabin with a bleak look and a lot of notes and books she can’t get interested in right now—” Renner stood abruptly. “She could use some cheering up.”

“Sally? Worried about—”

“Jee-sus Christ,” Renner muttered. He turned and strode out.

41. Gift Ship

Lenin moved toward the Crazy Eddie point at one and a half gees. So did the gift ship.

The gift ship was a streamlined cylinder, swollen at the many-windowed nose, like a minaret riding a fusion flame. Sally Fowler and Chaplain Hardy were highly amused. Nobody else had noticed the clumsy phallicism—or would admit to it.

Kutuzov hated the gift ship. The Motie ambassadors could be dealt with simply by following orders, but the gift ship was something else again. It had caught up with Lenin, taken station three kilometers away, and broadcast a cheery message, while Lenin’s gunners tracked it helplessly. Kutuzov had told himself it couldn’t carry a large enough weapon to penetrate Lenin’s Field.

There was a better reason to hate that ship. It was tempting Kutuzov to violate his orders. The MacArthur crewmen volunteers who went over to test it were enthusiastic about everything on it. The controls resembled a Navy cutter, but the drive was a standard Motie fusion drive, long, slender stinger guiding a plasma flow at enormous efficiencies. There were other details, all of them valuable; Admiral Lavrenti Kutuzov wanted to take that ship home.

And he was afraid to let it get near his command.

After the naval officers tested it, the civilians had to go aboard. All this traffic made nonsense of the thin fiction of plague aboard MacArthur, and Kutuzov knew it; but at least he wouldn’t have to explain it to any Motie. He didn’t intend to communicate with them. Let Horvath read him the expedition orders and demand his council of war. There would be no aliens aboard Lenin while Kutuzov lived. That ship, though— He looked at it floating in his screens as scientific personnel were ferried to it. They’d come to Lenin for the requiem services, and now hurried back to resume their studies of their new toy.

Every report showed that it was filled with marvels of enormous value to the Empire, yet how did he dare take it aboard? It was no good seeking advice. Captain Blaine might have been of help, but no, he was a broken man, doomed to sink deeper into his own failures, useless just when his advice might be needed. Horvath had blind faith in the good intentions of everything Motie. Then there was Bury, with equally blind hatred, despite all the evidence showing that the Moties were friendly and harmless.

“Probably they are,” Kutuzov said aloud. Horace Bury looked up in surprise. He had been drinking tea with the Admiral on the bridge while they watched the Motie gift ship. The Trader shot an inquiring look at the Admiral.

“Probably the Moties are friendly. Harmless,” Kutuzov repeated.

“You can’t believe that!” Bury protested.

Kutuzov shrugged. “As I have told the others, what I believe is of no importance. Is my task to maximize information brought back to Government. With only this ship, any chance of loss means loss of all information. But that Motie space craft would be very valuable, would it not, Your Excellency? What would you pay to the Navy for license to produce ships with that drive?”

“I would pay much more to see the Motie threat ended forever,” Bury said earnestly.

“Um.” The Admiral was inclined to agree. There were enough problems in the Trans-Coalsack Sector. God only knew how many colonies were revolting, how many of the outies had made common cause against the Empire; aliens were a complexity the Navy did not need. “But still—the technology. The trade possibilities. I should think you would be interested.”

“We can’t trust them,” Bury said. He was very careful to speak calmly. The Admiral was not impressed with men unable to control their emotions. Bury understood him very well—his own father had been the same way.

“Admiral? They have killed our midshipmen. Surely you do not believe that fable about reentry? And they released those monsters on MacArthur, and almost succeeded in getting them aboard Lenin.” The Trader shuddered imperceptibly. Tiny glowing eyes. It had been that close— “Surely you will not allow these aliens into the Empire. You will not let them board your ship.” Mind-reading monsters. Telepathic or not, they read minds. Bury fought to control his desperation: if even Admiral Kutuzov was beginning to believe the alien lies, what chance had the Empire? The new technology would excite the Imperial Traders Association as nothing ever had, and only the Navy had enough influence to overcome the demands for commerce the ITA would make. Beard of the Prophet, something had to be done! “I wonder if you are not being unduly influenced by Dr. Horvath?” Bury asked politely.

The Admiral scowled, and Horace Bury smiled behind his face. Horvath. That was the key, play Horvath against the Admiral. Someone had to…

Anthony Horvath was at that moment feeling very pleased and comfortable despite the 1.5 gee acceleration. The gift ship was roomy, and it had studied touches of luxury among its endless marvels. There was the shower, with half a dozen adjustable heads set at different angles, and a molecular sieve to reclaim the water. There were stocks of prefrozen Motie dinners which needed only the microwave ovens to make a variety of meals. Even the culinary failures were… interesting. There was coffee, synthetic but good, and a well-stocked wine locker.

To add to his ease, Lenin and Kutuzov were comfortably distant. Aboard the battleship everyone was stuffed together like cargo pods in a merchantman, crowded into cabins and sleeping in corridors, while here Horvath lolled at his ease. He drew the microphone closer and resumed dictating with another sigh of contentment. All was well with the worlds—

“Much of what the Moties construct has multiple purposes,” he told his computer box. “This ship is an intelligence test per se, whether or not so intended. The Moties will lean much about our abilities by observing how long it takes our crew to control the drive properly. Their own Browns, I suspect, would have had it working perfectly in an hour, but to be fair, a Brown would have no difficulty concentrating on the telltales for days at a stretch. Humans intelligent enough for such tasks find them excruciatingly boring, and it is our own custom to have crewmen stand watches while their officers remain on call to deal with any problems. We thus respond more slowly, and require more personnel, to perform tasks that individual Moties find exceedingly simple.

“The Moties have also told us a great deal about themselves. For example, we employ humans as a backup to automatic systems, although we will often omit the automation in order to give constant employment to humans needed for emergencies but otherwise superfluous. The Moties appear deficient in computer technology, and seldom automate anything. Instead, they employ one or more subspecies as biological computers, and they seem to have an adequate supply of them. This is hardly an option left open for human use.” He paused for thought and looked around the cabin.

“Ah. Then there are the statuettes.” Horvath lifted one and smiled. He had them arrayed like toy soldiers on the table before him: a dozen Motie figurines of transparent plastic. Internal organs showed through in vivid color and detail. He looked at them again contentedly, then grimaced slightly. These had to be brought back.

Actually, he admitted to himself, they didn’t. There was nothing special about the plastic, and the statuettes were recorded in every detail; any good plastic former could be programmed to turn out thousands an hour, the same way these probably were made in the first place. But they were alien, and they were gifts, and he wanted them for his desk, or for the New Scotland Museum. Let Sparta have copies for a change!

He could identify most of the forms at a glance: Engineer, Mediator, Master; the huge Porter form; an overmuscled Engineer with broad, stubby-fingered hands and big splayed feet, probably a Farmer. A tiny Watchmaker (damn the Brownies! twice damn the Admiral who wouldn’t let the Moties help with their extermination). There was a small-headed long-fingered Physician. Next to it was the spindly Runner who seemed to be all legs. Horvath spoke to his computer box again.

“The Runner’s head is small, but there is a distinctly bulging forehead. It is my belief that the Runner is nonsentient but has the verbal capacity to memorize and deliver messages. It can probably carry out simple instructions. The Runner may have evolved as a specialized message carrier before civilization reached the telephone stage, and is now kept for traditional functions rather than utility. From the brain structure it becomes fairly clear that the Brownie or Watchmaker could never have memorized or delivered messages. The parietal lobe is quite undeveloped.” That for Kutuzov.

“These statuettes are extremely detailed. They disassemble like puzzles to reveal internal details. Although we do not yet know the function of most internal organs, we may be sure they divide differently from those of human organs, and it is possible that the Moties’ conscious design philosophy of overlapping multiple functions is duplicated in their gross anatomy as well. We have identified the heart and lungs, the latter consisting of two distinct lobes of unequal size.”

Chaplain Hardy braced himself in the doorway when the ship’s acceleration dropped, then surged. After the engineers had steadied it he came into the lounge and sat quietly without speaking. Horvath waved and continued his dictation.

“The only area where the statuettes are vague and undifferentiated is in the reproductive organs.” Horvath smiled and winked at the Chaplain. He really did feel contented. “The Moties have always been reticent about sex. These statuettes may be educational toys for children; certainly they were mass produced. If this is the case—we really must ask the Moties if we get a chance—it implies that the Mote culture shares some similarities with that of humans.” Horvath frowned. Sex education for the young was a periodic thing among humanity. Sometimes it was quite explicit and widespread, and at other periods of history it was nonexistent. In the civilized portions of the Empire such things were left to books at present, but there were plenty of newly discovered planets where the whole topic was forbidden knowledge to subadolescents.

“Of course, it may be simple efficiency,” Horvath continued. “Statuettes made to differentiate the sex organs would require three times as many figurines, a set for the male, another for the female, and a third for the reproductive phase itself. I note that there is a single developed mammary gland on all the forms, and I believe we were told that all Moties can suckle young.” He stopped dictating and punched in codes on his computer. Words flowed across the screen. “Yes. And the single working teat is always on the right side, or at least on the side opposite the single heavy-work arm. Thus the pups may be held with the strong arm, while the right arms are available for petting and grooming; this is very logical, given the ultrasensitivity and dense sensory nerve endings in the right hands.” He cleared his throat and reached for the brandy snifter, waving at Hardy to help himself.

“The single teat on the higher forms argues strongly that multiple birth must be extremely rare among the upper-caste Moties. However, litters must be common with the Watchmaker caste, at least this must be the case after the creature has produced several offspring. We can be sure that the vestigial teats down the right side of the miniature develop into working organs at some stage of their development; otherwise their numbers could not have increased so rapidly aboard MacArthur.” He set the box down. “How goes it, David?”

“Fairly well. That Motie toy has me fascinated. It’s a game of logic, no question about it, and a very good one at that. One player selects some rule to sort the various objects into categories, and the other players attempt to deduce the rule and prove it. Very interesting.”

“Ah. Perhaps Mr. Bury will want to market it.”

Hardy shrugged. “The Church might buy a few—to train graduate theologians. I doubt if there’d be much mass popular interest. Too tough.” He looked at the statuettes and frowned. “There seems to be at least one missing form, did you notice?”

Horvath nodded. “The nonsentient beast we saw in the zoo. The Moties wouldn’t talk about it at all while we were there.”

“Or afterward either,” Hardy added. “I asked my Fyunch(click) but she kept changing the subject.”

“Another mystery for future investigation,” Horvath said. “Although we might do well to avoid the subject in the presence of Moties. We wouldn’t want to ask their ambassadors, for example.” He paused invitingly.

David Hardy smiled softly but didn’t take the invitation.

“Well,” Horvath said. “You know there aren’t many things the Moties didn’t want to talk about. I wonder why they’re so shy about that caste? I’m fairly sure the thing wasn’t an ancestor of the other Motie forms—not an ape or monkey, so to speak.”

Hardy sipped his brandy. It was very good, and he wondered where the Moties had obtained a supply for a model. This was undoubtedly a synthetic, and Hardy thought he could detect the difference, but he had to strain. “Very thoughtful of them to put this aboard.” He sipped again.

“Too bad we’ll have to leave all this,” Horvath said. “We’re doing all right with the recording, though. Holograms, x-rays, mass densities, radon emissions, and anything that comes apart we take apart and holo the contents. Commander Sinclair has been very helpful—the Navy can be very helpful sometimes. I wish it were always so.”

Hardy shrugged. “Have you thought about the problem from the Navy’s view? If you guess wrong, you’ve lost some information. If they guess wrong, they’ve endangered the race.”

“Bosh. One planetful of Moties? No matter how advanced they are, there just aren’t enough Moties to threaten the Empire. You know that, David.”

“I suppose, Anthony. I don’t think the Moties are a threat either. On the other hand, I can’t believe they’re quite as simple and open as you seem to think. Of course I’ve had more time to think about them than you have.”

“Eh?” Horvath prompted. He liked Chaplain Hardy. The clergyman always had interesting stories and ideas. Of course he’d be easy to talk to, his profession demanded it, but he wasn’t a typical priest—or a typical Navy blockhead either.

Hardy smiled. “I can’t perform any of my regular jobs, you know. Linguistic archeology? I’ll never even learn the Motie language. As to the commission the Church gave me, I doubt if there’s enough evidence to decide anything. Ship’s chaplain isn’t that time-consuming—what’s left but to think about Moties?” He grinned again. “And contemplate the problems the missionaries will have on the next expedition—”

“Think the Church will send a mission?”

“Why not? Certainly no theological objections I can raise. Probably useless, though.” Hardy chuckled. “I recall a story about missionaries in Heaven. They were discussing their former work, and one told of the thousands he’d converted. Another boasted of a whole planet of the fallen whom he had brought back to the Church. Finally they turned to this little chap at the end of the table and asked him how many souls he’d saved. ‘One.’ Now that story is supposed to illustrate a moral principle, but I can’t help thinking that the missions to Mote Prime may produce it in, uh, real life…”

“David,” Horvath said. There was a note of urgency in his voice. “The Church is going to be an important influence on Imperial policy regarding Moties. And I’m sure you know that the Cardinal will give great weight to your opinions when he reports to New Rome. Do you realize that what you conclude about Moties will be as influential as—Damn it, more influential. More influential than the scientific report, or perhaps even the Navy’s.”

“I’m aware of it.” Hardy was serious. “It’s influence I didn’t ask for, Anthony. But I’m aware of the situation.”

“All right.” Horvath wasn’t a pusher either. Or tried not to be, although sometimes he got carried away. Since he’d gone into scientific administration he’d had to learn to fight for his budgets, though. He sighed deeply and changed tactics. “I wish you’d help me with something right now. I’d like to take these statuettes back with us.”

“Why not wish for the whole ship?” Hardy asked. “I do.” He sipped his brandy again and cleared his throat. It was much easier to talk about Moties than about Imperial policies. “I noticed you were giving rather a lot of attention to the blank areas on the figures,” he said mischievously.

Horvath frowned. “I did? Well, perhaps. Perhaps I did.”

“You must have spent considerable time thinking about it. Didn’t it strike you as odd that that’s another area of Motie reticence?”

“Not really.”

“It did me. It puzzles me.”

Horvath shrugged, then leaned forward to pour more brandy for both of them. No point in saving it to be abandoned later. “They probably think their sex lives are none of our business. How much detail did we give them?”

“Quite a lot. I had a long and happy married life,” said Chaplain Hardy. “I may not be an expert on what makes a happy love life, but I know enough to teach Moties all they’ll ever need to know. I didn’t conceal anything, and I gather Sally Fowler didn’t either. After all, they’re aliens—we’re scarcely tempting them with prurient desire.” Hardy grinned.

Horvath did too. “You have a point, Doctor.” He nodded thoughtfully. “Tell me, David—why did the Admiral insist on blasting the bodies after the funeral?”

“Why, I should have thought that—ah. Yes. And no one protested. We didn’t want aliens dissecting our comrades.”

“Precisely. Nothing to hide, just squeamish about aliens dissecting dead men. One thing the Tsar and I could agree on. Now, David, could the Moties feel the same way about reproductions of themselves?”

Hardy thought about that for a moment. “Not impossible, as well you know. Plenty of human societies have felt the same way about, say, photographs. Many still do.” He sipped the brandy again. “Anthony, I just don’t believe it. I don’t have anything better to offer, but I don’t believe you’ve put your finger on it. What we need is a long conference with an anthropologist.”

“The damned Admiral wouldn’t let her come aboard,” Horvath growled, but he let the anger pass quickly. “I’ll bet she’s still fuming.”

42. A Bag of Broken Glass

Sally wasn’t fuming. She’d exhausted her vocabulary earlier. While Hardy and Horvath and the others merrily explored the alien gifts, she had to be content with holographs and dictated reports.

Now she couldn’t concentrate. She found she’d read the same paragraph five times and threw the report across the cabin. Damn Rod Blaine. He had no right to snub her like that. He had no right to get her brooding over him either.

There was a knock at her stateroom door. She opened it quickly. “Yes— Oh. Hello, Mr. Renner.”

“Expecting someone else?” Renner asked slyly. “Your face fell a full klick when you saw it was me. Not very flattering.”

“I’m sorry. No, I wasn’t expecting anyone else. Did you say something?”

“No.”

“I thought—Mr. Renner, I thought you said ‘extinct.’ ”

“Getting any work done?” Renner asked. He glanced around her cabin. Her desk, usually orderly, was a litter of paper, diagrams, and computer printouts. One of Horvath’s reports lay on the steel deck near a bulkhead. Renner twisted his lips into what might have been a half-smile.

Sally followed his gaze and blushed. “Not much,” she admitted. Renner had told her he was going to visit Rod’s cabin, and she waited for him to say something. And waited. Finally she gave up. “All right. I’m not getting anything done, and how is he?”

“He’s a bag of broken glass.”

“Oh.” She was taken aback.

“Lost his ship. Of course he’s in bad shape. Listen, don’t let anyone tell you that losing a ship is like losing your wife. It isn’t. It’s a lot more like seeing your home planet destroyed.”

“Is— Do you think I can do anything?”

Renner stared at her. “Extinct, I tell you. Of course there’s something you can do. You can go hold his hand, for God’s sake. Or just sit with him. If he can go on staring at the bulkhead with you in the room, he must have got hit in the fire fight.”

“Hit? He wasn’t wounded—”

“Of course not. I mean he must have got— Oh, skip it. Look, just go knock on his door, will you?” Kevin steered her out into the corridor, and without quite knowing how she found herself propelled to its end. When she looked puzzled, Renner indicated the door. “I’m going for a drink.”

Well, she thought. Now merchant captains are telling the aristocracy how to be polite to each other… There was no point in standing in the corridor. She knocked.

“Come in.”

Sally entered quickly. “Hi,” she said. Oh, boy. He looks awful. And that baggy uniform—something’s got to be done about that. “Busy?”

“No. I was just thinking about something Mr. Renner said. Did you know that deep down underneath Kevin Renner really believes in the Empire?”

She looked around for a chair. No point in waiting for him to invite her. She took a seat. “He’s a Navy officer, isn’t he?”

“Oh, yeah, of course he supports the Empire or he wouldn’t have taken a commission—but I mean, he really believes we know what we’re doing. Amazing.”

“Don’t we?” she asked uncertainly. “Because if we don’t, the whole human race is in big trouble.”

“I remember thinking I did,” Rod said. Now this was faintly ridiculous. There had to be a long list of subjects to discuss with the only girl in ten parsecs before it got to political theory. “You look nice. How do you do it? You must have lost everything.”

“No, I had my travel kit. Clothes I took to the Mote, remember?” Then she couldn’t help herself and laughed. “Rod, have you any idea of just how silly you look in Captain Mikhailov’s uniform? You two aren’t the same size in any dimension. Whoa! Stop it! You will not begin brooding again, Rod Blaine.” She made a face.

It took a moment, but she’d won. She knew it when Rod glanced down at the huge pleats he’d tucked in the tunic so that it wouldn’t be quite so much like a tent. Slowly he grinned. “I don’t suppose I’ll be nominated for the Times’s list of best-dressed men at Court, will I?”

“No.” They sat in silence as she tried to think of something else to say. Now blast it, why is it hard to talk to him? Uncle Ben says I talk too much anyway, and here I can’t think of a thing to say. “What was it Mr. Renner said?”

“He reminded me of my duties. I’d forgotten I still had some. But I guess he’s right, life goes on, even for a captain who’s lost his ship.” There was more silence, and the air seemed thick and heavy again.

Now what do I say? “You—you’d been with MacArthur a long time, hadn’t you?”

“Three years. Two as exec and a year as skipper. And now she’s gone— I better not get started on that. What have you been doing with yourself?”

“You asked me, remember. I’ve been studying the data from Mote Prime, and the reports on the gift ship—and thinking of what I can say that will convince the Admiral that we have to take the Motie ambassadors back with us. And we must convince him, Rod, we’ve just got to. I wish there were something else we could talk about, and there will be lots of time after we leave the Motie system.” And we’ll have a lot of it together, too, now that MacArthur’s gone. I wonder. Honestly, am I a little glad my rival’s dead? Boy, I better never let him think I even suspect that about myself. “Right now, though, Rod, there’s so little time, and I haven’t any ideas at all—”

Blaine fingered the knot on his nose. About time you stopped being the Man of Sorrows and started acting like the future Twelfth Marquis, isn’t it? “All right, Sally. Let’s see what we can come up with. Provided that you let Kelley serve us dinner here.”

She smiled broadly. “My lord, you have got yourself a deal.”

43. Trader’s Lament

Horace Bury was not a happy man.

If MacArthur’s crew had been difficult to deal with, Lenin’s was an order of magnitude worse. They were Ekaterinas, Imperial fanatics, and this was a picked crew under an admiral and a captain from their home world. Even the Spartan Brotherhoods would have been easier to influence.

Bury knew all this in advance, but there was this damnable urge to dominate and control his environment under all circumstances; and he had almost nothing to work with.

His status aboard was more ambiguous than before. Captain Mikhailov and the Admiral knew that he was to remain under Blaine’s personal control, not charged with any crime, but not allowed freedom either. Mikhailov had solved the problem by assigning Bury Marine servants and putting Blaine’s man Kelley in charge of the Marines. Thus, whenever he left his cabin, Bury was followed through the ship.

He tried to talk to Lenin’s crewmen. Few would listen. Perhaps they had heard rumors of what he could offer, and were afraid that MacArthur’s Marines would report them. Perhaps they suspected him of treason and hated him.

A Trader needs patience, and Bury had more than most. Even so, it was hard to control himself when he could control nothing else; when there was nothing to do but sit and wait, his hair-trigger temper would flare into screaming rages and smashed furniture, but never in public. Outside his cabin Bury was calm, relaxed, a skilled conversationalist, comfortable even with—most especially with—Admiral Kutuzov.

This gave him access to Lenin’s officers, but they were very formal, and suddenly busy when he wanted to talk. Bury soon found that there were only three safe subjects: card games, Moties, and tea. If MacArthur had been fueled by coffee, Lenin’s drive operated on tea; and tea drinkers are more knowledgeable about the subject than coffee drinkers. Bury’s ships traded in tea as they traded in anything else men would pay for, but he was carrying none, and he did not drink it.

Thus Bury spent endless hours at the bridge table; in threes, officers of both Lenin and MacArthur were willing to sit with him in his cabin, which was always less crowded than the wardroom. It was easy to talk to Lenin’s officers about Moties, too—always in groups, but they were curious. After ten months in the Mote system, most had never seen a Motie. Everyone wanted to hear about aliens, and Bury was ready to tell them.

The intervals between rubbers stretched as Bury spoke animatedly of the Motie world, the Mediators who could read minds though they said they could not, the zoo, the Castle, the baronial estates with their fortified look—Bury had certainly noticed that. And the conversation would move to the dangers. The Moties had not sold weapons or even shown them, because they planned an attack and would keep its nature a surprise. They had seeded MacArthur with Brownies—it was almost the first act of the first Motie they’d ever encountered—and the insidiously helpful and likable beasts had seized the ship and nearly escaped with all the military secrets of the Empire. Only Admiral Kutuzov’s vigilance had prevented total disaster.

And the Moties thought themselves more intelligent than humans. They saw humanity as beasts to be tamed, with gentleness if possible, but tamed, converted into another caste to serve the nearly invisible Masters.

He spoke of Moties and he hated them. Pictures flashed through his mind, sometimes at the mere thought of a Motie, and always at night when he tried to sleep. He had nightmares of a Marine space suit and battle armor. It approached from behind, and three tiny pairs of eyes glittered through the faceplate. Sometimes the dream would end in a cloud of spidery six-limbed aliens thrashing, dying in vacuum, flopping around a human head; and Bury would sleep. But sometimes the nightmare ended with Bury mutely screaming at Lenin’s guards while the suited figure entered the battleship, and Bury would wake in cold sweat. The Ekaterinas had to be warned.

They listened, but they did not believe. Bury sensed it. They had heard him screaming before he came aboard, and they had heard the screams at night; and they thought he was mad.

More than once Bury thanked Allah for Buckman. The astrophysicist was a strange person, but Bury could talk to him. At first the Marine “honor guard” that stood outside Bury’s door had puzzled Buckman, but before long the scientist ignored it as he ignored most inexplicable activities of his fellow men.

Buckman had been going over the Moties’ work on Murcheson’s Eye and the Coal Sack. “Fine work! There are some things I want to check for myself, and I’m not sure about some of their assumptions… but that damned Kutuzov won’t let me have Lenin’s telescope facilities.”

“Buckman, is it possible that the Moties are more intelligent than we are?”

“Well, the ones I dealt with are brighter than most of the people I know. Take my brother-in-law… But you mean in general, don’t you?” Buckman scratched his jaw, thinking. “They could be smarter than I am. They’ve done some damn fine work. But they’re more limited than they know. In all their million years, they’ve had a chance to examine only two stars close up.” Buckman’s definition of intelligence was a limited one.

Bury early gave up trying to warn Buckman against the Motie threat. Buckman too thought Bury was crazy; but Buckman thought everyone was crazy.

Thank Allah for Buckman.

The other civilian scientists were friendly enough, but with the exception of Buckman they wanted just one thing from Bury: an analysis of trade possibilities with Moties. Bury could give that in six words: Get them before they get us! Even Kutuzov thought that judgment premature.

The Admiral listened politely enough, and Bury thought he had convinced him that the Motie ambassadors should be left behind, that only idiots like Horvath would take an enemy aboard the only ship capable of warning the Empire about the aliens; but even that wasn’t certain.

It all made for a splendid opportunity for Horace Bury to practice patience. If his patience ever cracked, only Nabil knew it; and Nabil was beyond surprise.

44. Council of War

There was a picture of the Emperor in Lenin’s wardroom. Leonidas IX stared down the length of the long steel table, and ranked on both sides of his image were Imperial flags and battle banners. Paintings of naval battles from the history of both the First and Second Empire hung on all the bulkheads, and in one corner a candle burned before an icon of St. Katherine. There was even a special ventilation system to keep it burning in zero gee.

David Hardy could never help smiling at that icon. The thought of such an image aboard a ship with that name was amusing; he supposed that either Kutuzov knew nothing of the history of communism—after all, it had been a very long time ago—or his Russian nationalistic sympathies overcame it. Probably the former, since to most Imperials Lenin was the name of a hero from the past, a man known by legend but not detail. There were many such: Caesar, Ivan the Terrible, Napoleon, Churchill, Stalin, Washington, Jefferson, Trotsky, all more or less contemporaries (except to careful historians). Preatomic history tends to compress when seen from far enough away.

The wardroom began to fill up as the scientists and officers entered and took their places. Marines reserved two seats, the head of the table and the plate immediately to its right, although Horvath had tried to take that seat. The Science Minister shrugged when the Marine objected with a stream of Russian, and went to the other end, where he displaced a biologist, then chased another scientist from the place to his right and invited David Hardy there. If the Admiral wanted to play games of prestige, let him; but Anthony Horvath knew something of that business too.

He watched as the others came in. Cargill, Sinclair, and Renner entered together. Then Sally Fowler, and Captain Blaine—odd, Horvath thought, that Blaine could now enter a crowded room with no ceremony at all. A Marine indicated places to the left of the head of the table, but Rod and Sally sat in the middle. He can afford to, Horvath thought. He was born to his position. Well, my son will be too. My work on this expedition should be enough to get me on the next honors list.

“Attention!”

The officers stood, as did most of the scientists. Horvath thought for a moment and stood as well. He looked at the door, expecting the Admiral, but Captain Mikhailov was the only one there. So we have to go through this twice, Horvath thought.

The Admiral fooled him. He came in just as Mikhailov reached his seat, and muttered, “Carry on, gentlemen,” so quickly that the Marine gunner had no chance to announce him. If anyone wanted to snub Kutuzov, they’d have to find another opportunity.

“Commander Borman will read from the expedition orders,” Kutuzov said coldly.

“ ‘Section Twelve. Council of War. Paragraph One. The Vice Admiral Commanding shall seek the advice of the scientific staff and senior officers of MacArthur except when delay would in the Admiral’s judgment, and his alone, endanger the safety of the battleship Lenin.

“Paragraph Two. If the senior scientist of this expedition shall disagree with the Vice Admiral Commanding, he may request a formal Council of War to render advice to the Admiral. The senior scientist may—’ ”

“That will be sufficient, Commander Borman,” Kütuzov said. “Pursuant to these orders and upon formal request of Science Minister Horvath, this Council of War is convened to render advice on subject of aliens requesting passage to the Empire. Proceedings will be recorded. Minister Horvath, you may begin as you will.”

Oh, wow, Sally thought. The atmosphere in here’s like the chancel of St. Peter’s during High Mass in New Rome. The formality ought to intimidate anyone who disagreed with Kutuzov.

“Thank you, Admiral,” Horvath said politely. “Given that this may be a long session—after all, sir, we are discussing what may be the most important decision any of us will ever reach—I think refreshments might be in order. Could your people provide us with coffee, Captain Mikhailov?”

Kutuzov frowned, but there was no reason to reject the request.

It also lowered the frost level in the compartment. With stewards bustling about, and the smell of coffee and tea in the air, a lot of the frigid formality evaporated, as Horvath had intended.

“Thank you.” Horvath beamed. “Now. As you know, the Moties have requested that we convey three ambassadors to the Empire. The embassy party will, I am told, have full authority to represent the Mote civilization, sign treaties of friendship and commerce, approve cooperative scientific efforts—I needn’t go on. The advantages of presenting them to the Viceroy should be obvious. Are we agreed?”

There was a murmur of assent. Kutuzov sat rigid, his dark eyes narrowed behind craggy brows, the face a mask molded from ruddy clay.

“Yes,” Horvath said. “I should think it quite obvious that if there is any way we can do it, we ought to extend every courtesy to the Motie ambassadors. Wouldn’t you agree, Admiral Kutuzov?”

Caught in his own trap, Sally thought. This is recorded—he’ll have to make sense.

“We have lost MacArthur,” Kutuzov said gruffly. “We have only this one vessel. Dr. Horvath, were you not present at conference when Viceroy Merrill planned this expedition?”

“I was not, but I have been told of it.”

“Was it not made plain then that no aliens were to board this vessel? I speak of direct orders of Viceroy himself.”

“Well—yes, sir. But the context made it very clear what he meant. There would be no aliens allowed aboard Lenin because it was possible they would prove hostile; thus, no matter what they did, Lenin would be safe. But now we know the Moties are not hostile. In the final expedition orders, His Highness left the decision to you; there’s no prohibition like that in the order book.”

“But he did leave it to me,” Kutuzov said triumphantly. “I fail to see how that is different from oral instructions. Captain Blaine, you were present: Am I mistaken in impression that His Highness said ‘under no circumstances’ would aliens board Lenin?”

Rod swallowed hard. “Yes, sir, but—”

“I think this matter is finished,” the Admiral said.

“Oh, no,” Horvath said smoothly. “Captain Blaine, you were about to continue. Please do so.”

The wardroom was still. Will he do it? Sally wondered. What can the Tsar do to him? He can make it tough for him in the Navy, but— “I was only going to say, Admiral, that His Highness was not so much giving orders as laying out guidelines. I think that if he had intended you to be bound by them, he’d not have given you discretion, sir. He’d have put it in the order book.”

Good for you, Sally cheered silently.

Kutuzov’s eye slits narrowed even further. He gestured to a steward for tea.

“I think you underestimate the confidence His Highness has in your judgment,” Horvath said. It sounded insincere and he knew it instantly. The point ought to have been made by someone else—Hardy, or Blaine—but Horvath had been afraid to prime them for this meeting. Both were far too independent.

The Admiral smiled. “Thank you. Perhaps he has more confidence in me than you, Doctor. So. You have demonstrated that I can act against express wishes of Viceroy. Certainly I will not do so lightly, and you have yet to convince me of necessity. Another expedition can bring back ambassadors.”

“Will they send any after an insult like that?” Sally blurted. Everyone looked at her. “The Moties haven’t asked for much, Admiral. And this request is so reasonable.”

“You think they will be offended if we refuse?”

“I—Admiral, I don’t know. They could be, yes. Very offended.”

Kutuzov nodded, as if he could understand that. “Perhaps it is lesser risk to leave them here, my lady. Commander Cargill. Have you made study I requested of you?”

“Yes, sir.” Jack Cargill spoke enthusiastically. “The Admiral asked me to assume the Moties have the secrets of the Drive and Field and estimate their military potential under those circumstances. I’ve plotted their naval strength—” He gestured to a petty officer and a graph appeared on the wardroom intercom screen.

Heads turned, and there was a moment of shocked silence. Someone gasped. “That many?”—“Good God!”—“But that’s bigger than the sector fleet—”

The curves rose steeply at first, showing conversion of Motie passenger and cargo ships to navy vessels. Then they flattened out, but began rising again.

“You can see the threat is quite high,” Cargill said smoothly. “Within two years the Moties could put together a fleet that would be a significant challenge to the entire Imperial Navy.”

“This is ridiculous,” Horvath protested.

“Oh, no, sir,” Cargill answered. “I was quite conservative in my estimate of their industrial capacities. We have the neutrino readings, and a good estimate of their energy generation—number of fusion plants, thermal output—and I assumed efficiencies no greater than our own, although I suspect they’re better than that. God knows they’ve no shortage of skilled workmen.”

“Where do they get the metals?” de Vandalia demanded. The geologist sounded puzzled. “They’ve mined everything on the planet and, if we can believe what they told us, on the asteroids.”

“Conversion of existing stuff. Luxury items. Superfluous transportation vehicles. Right now every Master has a fleet of cars and trucks that could be consolidated. They’d have to do without some things, but remember—the Moties have all the metals of a whole planetary system already mined out.” Cargill was glib, as if he’d expected all this. “A fleet uses a lot of metal, but it’s not really very much compared to an entire industrial civilization’s resources.”

“Oh, all right!” Horvath snapped. “I’ll grant you the capability estimates. But how the devil can you call it a threat estimate? The Moties aren’t a threat.”

Cargill looked annoyed. “It’s a technical term. ‘Threat’ in intelligence work refers to capabilities—”

“And not intentions. You’ve told me that before. Admiral, all this means is that we’d better be polite to their ambassadors, so they won’t go all out building warships.”

“That is not my interpretation,” Kutuzov said. He seemed less imperious now; his voice was more smoothly modulated, whether because he wanted to convince the others or because he was more confident was not clear. “It means to me that we take every precaution to prevent Moties from obtaining secret of Langston Field.”

There was more silence. Cargill’s graphs were frightening in their simplicity. The Mote fleet was potentially larger than those of all the outies and rebels in the sector combined.

“Rod—is he right?” Sally asked.

“The figures are right,” Blaine muttered grimly. “But— OK. Here goes.” He raised his voice. “Admiral, I’m not certain we can protect the Field in any case.”

Kutuzov turned toward him in silence and looked expectant.

“First, sir,” Rod said carefully, “there is the risk that the Moties have already obtained that secret. From the Brownies.” Pain crossed Rod’s face, and he had to make an effort not to finger the bridge of his nose. “I don’t believe they did, but it’s possible. Second, they may have obtained it from the missing midshipmen. Both Whitbread and Staley knew enough to give them a good start…”

“Aye. Mr. Potter knew more,” Sinclair seconded. “He was a verra studious lad, sir.”

“Or Potter, then,” Rod said. “I don’t believe it happened, but it could.”

“Ridiculous”—“As paranoid as the Tsar”—“They’re dead.” Several civilians spoke at once. Sally wondered what Rod was doing, but stayed quiet.

“Finally, the Moties know the Field exists. We’ve all seen what they can do—frictionless surfaces, differential permeabilities, realignment of molecular structures. Look what the Brownies did with Mac’s generator! Frankly, Admiral, given that they know the Field is possible, it’s only a question of time before their Engineers build one. Therefore, while protection of our technological secrets is important, it can’t be the only consideration.”

There was more excited chatter around the table, but the Admiral wasn’t listening. He seemed to be thinking about what Rod had said.

Horvath took a breath to speak but controlled himself. Blaine had made the first visible impression on the Admiral, and Horvath was realist enough to know that anything he said would be rejected automatically. He nudged Hardy. “David, can’t you say something?” he pleaded.

“We can take any precautions you like,” Sally announced. “They accept the plague story, whether they believe it or not. They said their ambassadors would expect to be quarantined—surely they can’t escape your security people, Admiral. And we won’t have them long, you can Jump as soon as they’re aboard.”

“That is true,” Hardy said thoughtfully. “Of course, we may irritate the Moties even more by taking their ambassadors—and never returning them.”

“We wouldn’t do that!” Horvath protested.

“We might, Anthony. Be realistic. If His Majesty decides that the Moties are dangerous and the Navy decides they know too much, they’ll never be allowed to return.”

“So there’s no risk at all,” Sally spoke quickly. “No threat to Lenin from Moties confined to quarantine. Admiral, I’m sure the lesser risk is to take them. That way we don’t risk offending them until Prince Merrill—or His Majesty—can make decisions about the future.”

“Um.” Kutuzov sipped tea. His eyes showed interest. “You are persuasive, my lady. As are you, Captain Blaine.” He paused. “Mr. Bury was not invited to this conference. I think it is time to hear from him. Boatswain, you will bring His Excellency to wardroom.”

“Da, Admiral!”

They waited. The silence was broken by a dozen muttered conversations around the table.

“Rod, you were brilliant.” Sally beamed. She reached under the table and squeezed his hand. “Thanks.”

Bury entered, followed by the inevitable Marines. Kutuzov waved dismissal and they retired, leaving the Trader blinking at the end of the room. Cargill stood to give him his place at the table.

Bury listened attentively as Commander Borman summarized the arguments. If Bury was surprised by what he heard, he showed nothing, his expression remaining polite and interested.

“I ask for your advice, Excellency,” Kutuzov said when Borman was finished. “I confess I do not want these creatures aboard this ship. Yet. Unless they are threat to safety of Lenin I do not believe I am justified in refusing Minister Horvath’s request.”

“Ah.” Bury stroked his beard as he attempted to marshal his thoughts. “You are aware that in my opinion the Moties can read minds?”

“Ridiculous,” snapped Horvath.

“Hardly ridiculous, Doctor,” Bury said. His voice was calm and unruffled. “Improbable, perhaps, yet there is evidence of a rather unreliable human ability.” Horvath started to say something but Bury continued smoothly, “Not conclusive evidence, of course, but evidence. And by reading minds I do not necessarily imply telepathy. Consider: the Moties’ skill in the study of individual humans is such that they can literally play that person’s role; play it so well that his friends cannot detect the difference. Only their appearance betrays them. How often have you seen ratings and Marines automatically obey the orders of a Motie mimicking an officer?”

“Make your point,” Horvath said. He could hardly argue with that; what Bury said was common knowledge.

“Therefore: whether they do so by telepathy, or by perfect identification with human beings, they read minds. Thus they are the most persuasive creatures anyone will ever encounter. They know precisely what motivates us, and precisely what arguments to make.”

“For God’s sake!” Horvath exploded. “Are you saying they’ll talk us into giving them Lenin?”

“Can you be certain they can’t? Certain, Doctor?”

David Hardy cleared his throat. Everyone turned toward the Chaplain, and Hardy seemed embarrassed. Then he smiled. “I always knew study of the classics would have some practical value. Are any of you familiar with Plato’s Republic? No, of course not. Well, on the first page, Socrates, conceded to be the most persuasive man who ever lived, is told by his friends that either Socrates will stay overnight with them, or his friends will compel him to do so by force. Socrates asks reasonably if there is not an alternative—can he not persuade them to let him go home. The reply, of course, is that he won’t be able to because his friends won’t listen to him.”

There was a short silence.

“Oh,” said Sally. “Of course. If the Moties never meet Admiral Kutuzov, or Captain Mikhailov—or any of Lenin’s crew—how could they talk them into anything? Surely, Mr. Bury, you don’t imagine they could persuade MacArthur’s crew to mutiny?”

Bury shrugged. “My lady, with all respect, have you thought of what the Moties can offer? More wealth than exists in the Empire. Men have been corrupted by far less—”

And you’ve done it, too, Sally thought.

“If they’re that good, why haven’t they done it already?” Kevin Renner’s voice was mocking, just short of insubordination. With his discharge due as soon as they returned to New Scotland, Renner could afford any action that wouldn’t get him formally charged.

“Possibly they have not yet needed to do so,” Bury said.

“More likely they can’t do it,” Renner retorted. “And if they can read minds, they’ve already got every secret we have. They associated with Sinclair, who knows how to fix everything in the Navy—they had a Fyunch(click) assigned to my Lord Blaine, who’s got to know every political secret—”

“They were never in direct contact with Captain Blaine,” Bury reminded him.

“They had Miss Fowler for as long as they needed.” Renner chuckled at some interior joke. “She must know more about Empire politics than most of us. Mr. Bury, the Moties are good, but they’re not that good, at persuasion, or at mind reading.”

“I would be inclined to agree with Mr. Renner,” Hardy added. “Although certainly the precautions suggested by Miss Fowler would be in order. Confine contact with the aliens to a select few: myself, for example. I doubt that they could corrupt me, but even if they could, I have no command authority. Mr. Bury, if he’ll accept. Not, I suggest, Dr. Horvath or any scientist with access to complex equipment, and no ratings or Marines except under supervision both direct and by intercom. It may be rather hard on the Moties, but I think there could be little danger to Lenin.”

“Um. Well, Mr. Bury?” Kutuzov asked.

“But—I tell you, they’re dangerous! The technological abilities are beyond belief. Allah the Merciful, who can know what they can construct from harmless items? Weapons, communications equipment, escape gear—” Bury’s calm manner was evaporating and he struggled to contain himself.

“I withdraw the suggestion that Mr. Bury be given access to the Moties,” Hardy said carefully. “I doubt if they would survive the experience. My apologies, Your Excellency.”

Bury muttered in Arabic. Too late he realized that Hardy was a linguist.

“Oh, surely not,” Hardy said with a smile. “I know my ancestry much better than that.”

“I can see, Admiral,” Bury said, “that I have not been sufficiently persuasive. I’m sorry, because for once I have no motives but the welfare of the Empire. If I were interested only in profits— I am not slow to realize the trade potentials and the wealth to be made from the Moties. But I consider them the greatest danger the human race has ever faced.”

“Da.” Kutuzov spoke decisively. “On that we may possibly agree, if we add one word: potential danger, Excellency. What we consider here is lesser risk, and unless there is risk to Lenin I am now persuaded that lesser risk is to transport these ambassadors under conditions suggested by Chaplain Hardy. Dr. Horvath: you agree?”

“If that’s the only way we can take them, yes. I think it’s shameful to treat them this way—”

“Bah. Captain Blaine. Do you agree?”

Blaine stroked the bridge of his nose. “Yes, sir. Taking them is the lesser risk—if Moties are a threat, we can’t prove it, and we may learn something from the ambassadors.”

“My lady?”

“I agree with Dr. Horvath—”

“Thank you.” Kutuzov seemed to be sucking lemons. His face puckered into near-agony. “Captain Mikhailov. You will make preparations for confinement of Moties. The fiction is risk of plague, but you will see that they cannot escape. Captain Blaine. You will inform Moties that we will take their ambassadors aboard, but it is possible they will not wish to come once they know conditions we must impose. No tools. No weapons. Baggage to be inspected and sealed, not available to them on voyage. No miniatures or other inferior castes, only ambassadors. Give them what reasons you like, but those conditions are not subject to change.” He stood abruptly.

“Admiral, what about the gift ship?” Horvath asked. “Can’t we take—” His voice trailed off, because there was no one to speak to. The Admiral had stalked out of the wardroom.

45. The Crazy Eddie Jump

Kutuzov called it the Alderson point. MacArthur’s refugees tended to call it the Crazy Eddie point, and some of Lenin’s crew were catching the habit. It was above the plane of the Mote system, and usually rather hard to find.

It would be no problem this time.

“Just project the path of the Motie ship until it intersects the direct line between the Mote and Murcheson’s Eye,” Renner told Captain Mikhailov. “You’ll be close enough, sir.”

“Motie astrogation is that efficient?” Mikhailov asked incredulously.

“Yah. It’s enough to drive you crazy, but they can do it. Assume constant acceleration.”

“There is another ship approaching that point from the Mote,” Kutuzov said. He reached past Captain Mikhailov to adjust the bridge screen controls, and vectors flashed in front of them. “It will not arrive until well after we have departed.”

“Fuel ship,” Renner said positively. “And I’ll bet anything you like that the ship carrying the ambassadors is light, transparent, and so obviously harmless that no one could suspect it of anything, sir.”

“Not even me, you mean,” Kutuzov said. Renner saw no smile to accompany the words. “Thank you, Mr. Renner. You will continue to assist Captain Mikhailov.”

They had left the Trojan asteroids behind. Every scientist aboard wanted Lenin’s telescopes to examine those asteroids and the Admiral had made no objections. It was not clear whether he feared a last-minute attack from the asteroids, or shared the civilians’ wish to know everything about Moties, but Buckman and the others had their chance.

Buckman soon lost interest. The asteroids were thoroughly civilized and their orbits had been shaped. They weren’t worth anything at all. The others didn’t share that view. They watched the light of Motie fusion drives, measured neutrino fluxes from power stations, saw flecks of light that showed a dark spectrum around the chlorophyll green band, and wondered. Huge plant farms were under domes there—it was the only possible conclusion. And on every rock large enough to see, there was the characteristic single crater proving conclusively that the asteroid had been moved.

Once Buckman regained his interest. He had been examining the asteroid orbits as a favor to Horvath; suddenly his eyes went blank. Then he feverishly punched codes into the computer and watched the results. “Incredible.”

“What’s incredible?” Horvath asked patiently.

“The Stone Beehive was dead cold.”

“Yes.” Horvath had experience drawing information out of Buckman.

“Assume the rest of the asteroids are. I believe it. Those orbits are perfect—project them back or forward as far as you like, they’ll never have collisions. Those things could have been up there a long time.”

Horvath went away talking to himself. Just how old was that asteroid civilization? Buckman thought in stellar lifetimes! No wonder the Stone Beehive had been cold: the Moties made no orbit corrections. They just put them where they wanted them— Well, he thought, time to get back to the gift ship. It won’t be long before we have to abandon it—wonder if Blaine’s making any progress?

Rod and Sally were at the moment in conference with the Admiral. They met on the bridge: to the best of Rod’s knowledge, no one but the Admiral and his steward had ever seen the inside of Kutuzov’s cabin. Possibly not even the Admiral, as he seemed always to be on the bridge, watching the screens like any scope dope, perpetually looking for Motie treachery.

“It is pity,” Kutuzov was saying. “That ship would be valuable. But we cannot risk it aboard. Mechanisms—who knows what they are for? And with Moties here to take advantage?” Kutuzov shuddered.

“Yes, sir,” Rod agreed affably. He doubted that the gift ship was any threat, but there were assemblies not even Sinclair could understand. “I was thinking of some of the other artifacts. Small parts. Those statuettes Chaplain Hardy is so fond of. We could seal everything in plastic, then weld it all inside grounded steel containers and strap the whole works on the hull inside the Field. If the Moties have anything that’ll hurt us after those precautions, maybe it’s better we don’t go home.”

“Um.” The Admiral fingered his beard. “You believe these artifacts valuable?”

“Yes, sir.” When Kutuzov said valuable, he meant something different from what Sally or Horvath implied. “The more we know about Motie technology, the better threat estimates Cargill and I can make, sir.”

“Da. Captain, I wish your honest opinion. What do you think of Moties?”

Sally controlled herself with an effort. She wondered what Rod would say. He was proving to be an absolute genius at maneuvering the Admiral.

Rod shrugged. “I can agree with both Dr. Horvath and yourself, sir.” When Kutuzov’s eyes widened, Rod hastened to add, “They could be the greatest potential danger we have ever faced, or the greatest potential opportunity we’ve ever found. Or both. Either way, the more we know about them, the better—provided we take precautions against the dangers.”

“Uh. Captain, I value your opinion. If I give permission, will you take personal responsibility for neutralization of any threat from Motie artifacts taken from that ship? I want more than obedience. I demand your cooperation, and your word that you will take no risks.”

That isn’t going to make me popular with Horvath, Rod reflected. At first the Science Minister will be glad to take anything; but it won’t be long before he’ll want something I can’t be sure of. “Yes, sir. I’ll go over and see to it myself. Uh—I’ll need Miss Fowler.”

Kutuzov’s eyes narrowed. “Bah. You will be responsible for her safety.”

“Of course.”

“Very well. Dismissed.” As Rod and Sally left the bridge, Commander Borman looked curiously at his Admiral. He wondered if he saw a grin. No, of course not. It simply wasn’t possible.

If there had been an officer of higher rank than Blaine present at the time, Kutuzov might have explained, but he would not discuss a captain—and future marquis—with Borman. What he might have said, though, was, “It is worth risk of Miss Fowler to keep Blaine active. When he does not brood, he is good officer.” Kutuzov might never leave the bridge, but the morale of his officers was part of his duty; and like all duties he took it seriously.

The conflicts developed immediately, of course. Horvath wanted everything, and assumed that Rod had merely been humoring the Admiral; when he found that Blaine took his promise seriously, the honeymoon was over. He was midway between rage and tears as Blake’s crewmen began to disassemble the gift ship, ripping apart delicate assemblies—sometimes cutting at random to prevent the possibility that the Moties had predicted what humans would do—and packing them in plastic containers.

For Rod, it was a period of useful activity again; and this time he had Sally for company. They could talk for hours when they were not working. They could drink brandy, and invite Chaplain Hardy in. Rod began to learn something of anthropology as he listened to Sally and Hardy argue over theoretical niceties of cultural development.

As they approached the Crazy Eddie point, Horvath became almost frantic. “You’re as bad as the Admiral, Blaine,” he charged as he watched an artificer use a cutting torch on an assembly that generated the complex field altering molecular structures in another magic coffeepot. “We’ve already got one of those aboard Lenin. What harm would another do?”

“The one we have wasn’t designed by Moties who knew it would go aboard the battleship,” Sally answered. “And this one is different.”

“Everything the Moties make is different,” snapped Horvath. “You’re the worst of the lot—more cautious than Blaine, by God. I’d have thought you’d know better.”

She smiled demurely and tossed a coin. “Better cut it there too,” she told the artificer.

“Yes, miss.” The spacer shifted his torch and began again.

“Bah.” Horvath stamped out to find David Hardy. The chaplain had assumed the role of peacemaker, and it was just as well; without him communications on the cutter would have ceased within hours.

The spacer finished slicing the assembly and packed it into the waiting box. He poured plastic around it and sealed the lid. “Got a steel crate outside, sir. I’ll just go weld it in.”

“Good. Carry on,” Blaine told him. “I’ll inspect it later.” When the spacer had left the cabin, he turned to Sally. “You know, I never noticed, but Horvath’s right. You are more cautious than I am. Why?”

She shrugged. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I won’t, then.”

“There’s Buckman’s protostar,” she said. She flicked off the lights, then took his hand and led him to the viewport. “I never get tired of looking at it.”

There were a few moments before their eyes adjusted and the Coal Sack was more than endless blackness. Then the reds began to show, and there was a small whirlpool of red on black.

They stood very close. They did a lot of that lately, and Rod liked it. He ran his fingers up her spine until he was scratching her gently beneath the right ear.

“You’ll have to tell the Motie ambassadors pretty soon,” she said. “Thought of what you’ll say to them?”

“More or less. Might have been better to give them some warning, but—well, the Admiral’s way may be safer.”

“I doubt if it makes any difference. It will be nice to get back where there are more stars. I wonder— Rod, what do you think the Motie ambassadors will be like?”

“No idea at all. I guess we’ll know soon enough. You talk too much.”

“That’s what Uncle Ben tells me.”

They were quiet for a long time.

“Stand by. They’re coming aboard.”

“OPEN HANGAR DECK HATCHES. LINE CARRIERS AWAY.”

“STAND BY WINCHES.”

The gig was brought down into Lenin’s maw. Another boat stood by with the Moties’ baggage; everything, even the pressure suits the Moties had worn aboard the gig, had been transferred over in a separate boat. The passenger gig landed on the steel decks with a clunk.

“Ship’s company, ATTENTION.”

“Marines, PRESENT ARMS!”

The air lock opened and a full boatswains’ chorus sounded the pipes. A brown-and-white face appeared. Then another. When the two Mediators were entirely outside the gig, the third Motie emerged.

It was pure white, with silky tufts at the armpits, and there was gray around the muzzle and dotted through the torso.

“An older Master,” Blaine whispered to Sally. She nodded. Cosmic ray impact on hair follicles had the same effects on Moties as on humans.

Horvath strode forward to the end of the line of Marines and side boys. “Welcome aboard,” he said. “I’m very glad to see you—this is a historic moment.”

“For both races, we hope,” the lead Mediator replied.

“On behalf of the Navy, welcome aboard,” Rod said. “I must apologize again for the quarantine precautions, but—”

“Don’t worry about it,” one Motie said. “I am called Jock. And this is Charlie.” She indicated the other Mediator. “The names are just a convenience; you couldn’t pronounce ours.” She turned to the white Master and twittered, ending with “Captain Roderick Blaine and Minister Anthony Horvath,” then turned back to the humans. “My Lord Minister Horvath, I present the Ambassador. He requests that you call him Ivan.”

Rod bowed. He had never been face to face with a Motie, and he felt an urgent impulse to reach forward and stroke the fur. A male White.

“The honor guard will conduct you to your quarters,” Rod said. “I hope they will be large enough; there are two adjacent cabins.” And four cursing officers who were displaced from them, too; the ripples of that had run down through the Navy pecking order until a junior lieutenant found himself in the gun room with Lenin’s middies.

“One cabin would be sufficient,” Charlie said calmly. “We do not need privacy. It is not one of our species’ requirements.” There was something familiar about Charlie’s voice, and it bothered Rod.

The Moties bowed in unison, perfect copies of Court behavior; Rod wondered where they’d learned that. He returned the bow, as did Horvath and the others in hangar deck, then the Marines led them away, another squad falling in at the rear of the procession. Chaplain Hardy would be waiting for them in their cabins.

“A male,” Sally mused.

“Interesting. The Mediators called it ‘the Ambassador,’ yet the Moties implied that the three had equal powers. We were told they have to act in unison to sign treaties—”

“Maybe the Mediators aren’t his Mediators,” said Sally. “I’ll ask—I’m sure I’ll get the chance. Rod, are you sure I can’t go up there with them? Now?”

He grinned. “You’ll get your shot. Let Hardy have his for the moment.” Hangar deck was clearing rapidly now.

There hadn’t been a single Lenin crewman there, or in the boats that met the Motie ship. The baggage gig was winched into place and sealed off.

“NOW HEAR THIS. MAN YOUR JUMP STATIONS, STAND BY FOR ALDERSON DRIVE. MAN YOUR JUMP STATIONS.”

“Not wasting any time, is he?” Sally said.

“None at all. We’d better hurry.” He took her hand and led her toward his cabin as Lenin began slowing her rotation to zero gravity. “I suspect the Moties didn’t need the spin,” Rod said as they reached the cabin door. “But that’s the Admiral. If you’re going to do something, do it right.”

“STAND BY FOR ALDERSON DRIVE. MAN YOUR JUMP STATIONS.”

“Come on,” Rod urged. “We’ve just time to get the Motie cabin on the intercom.” He turned the controls until the Motie quarters were in view.

Chaplain Hardy was saying, “If you need anything, there will be orderlies outside your door at all times, and that button and switch will connect directly to my cabin. I’m your official host for this trip.”

Tones sounded through the ship. Hardy frowned. “I’ll go to my cabin now—you’ll probably prefer to be alone for the Alderson shift. And I suggest you get in your bunks and stay there until the shift is over.” He caught himself before he could say anything else. His instructions were clear: the Moties learned nothing until they were out of their home system.

“Will it take long?” Jock asked.

Hardy smiled thinly. “No. Good-bye, then.”

“Auf Wiedersehen,” said Jock.

“Auf Wiedersehen.” David Hardy left with a puzzled look. Now just where had they learned that?

The bunks were wrongly proportioned, and too hard, and made no provision for individual differences among the Moties. Jock swiveled her torso and waved her lower right arm, so, indicating displeasure with the situation but surprise that things were not worse. “Obviously copied from something for a Brown.” Her tones indicated positive knowledge deduced but not observed directly. The voice changed to conversational mode. “I wish we had been able to bring our own Brown.”

Charlie: “I also. But we would not be trusted with a Brown. I know.” She began a new thought, but the Master spoke.

Ivan. “Was the human Master among those waiting to meet us?”

Jock: “No. Curse! So long I have tried to study him, and still I have not met him nor even heard his voice. For all of me, he may be a committee, or one Master subject to discipline from the humans. I would wager much of my anatomy that he is human.”

Ivan spoke. “You will make no attempt to contact the Master of Lenin. Should we meet him, you will not become his Fyunch(click). We know what happens to the Fyunch(click)s of humans.”

It was not necessary to speak in response. The Master knew he had been heard, and thus would be obeyed. He went to his bunk and looked with distaste.

Alarms rang, and human speech came through loud-speakers.

“Prepare for Crazy Eddie Drive. Final Warning,” one translated. They lay on the bunks. A louder tone sounded through the ship.

Then something horrible happened.

46. Personal and Urgent

“Rod! Rod, look at the Moties!”

“Uh?” Blaine struggled for control of his traitor body. Awareness was difficult; concentration was impossible. He looked across to Sally, then followed her gaze to the intercom screen.

The Moties were twitching uncontrollably. They’d drifted free of their bunks, and the Ambassador floated about the cabin in complete disorientation. He caromed off a bulkhead and drifted toward the other side. The two Mediators watched, unable to do anything and in trouble themselves. One cautiously reached for the Master but lost her grip on the fur. All three were drifting helplessly about the compartment.

Jock was the first to anchor herself to a hand hold. She whistled and snorted, then Charlie drifted toward the Master. She caught his fur in the left arm, and Jock, holding the bulkhead with two rights, extended his left until Charlie could grasp it. They painfully worked their way back to the bunks and Jock strapped Ivan in. They lay disconsolately, whistling and clucking.

“Shouldn’t we help?” Sally asked.

Rod flexed his limbs and took a square root in his head. Then he tried two integrals and got them right. His mind was recovering enough to pay attention to Sally and the Moties. “No. Nothing we could do anyway—there’s no permanent effect ever been observed, barring a few who just go insane and never get back in contact with reality.”

“The Moties haven’t done that,” Sally said positively. “They acted purposefully, but they weren’t very good at it. We recovered much quicker than they did.”

“Nice to see something we’re better at than Moties are. Hardy ought to show up pretty soon—it’ll take him a while longer than us, though. He’s older.”

“ACCELERATION WARNING. STAND BY FOR ONE GRAVITY. ACCELERATION WARNING.” A Mediator twittered something, and the Master responded.

Sally watched them awhile. “I guess you’re right. They don’t seem in too much trouble, but the Master’s still a little twitchy.”

A tone sounded. Lenin jolted, and weight returned. They were under command and headed home. Rod and Sally looked at each other and smiled. Home.

“What could you do for the Master anyway?” Rod asked.

She shrugged helplessly. “Nothing, I suppose. They’re so different. And—Rod, what would you do if you were Imperial Ambassador to another race and they locked you in a little cabin with not one, but two spy eyes in each compartment?”

“I’ve been waiting for them to smash the damn things. They saw them, of course. We didn’t try to hide them. But if they said anything to Hardy we must have missed it.”

“I doubt if they did. They don’t act as if they care about them. Privacy ‘is not one of our species’ requirements,’ Charlie said.” Sally shuddered, “That’s really different.”

A buzzer sounded and Rod automatically turned toward his cabin door before he realized it had come over the intercom. One of the Moties walked carefully across the cabin and opened her door. Hardy came in.

“Everything all right?” he asked warily.

“You might have warned us about that,” Jock said. There was no accusation in the voice; it was a simple statement of fact. “Does the Crazy Eddie Drive affect humans like that?”

“Like what?” Hardy asked innocently.

“Disorientation. Vertigo. Inability to concentrate. Muscles out of control. Nausea. Death wish.”

Hardy looked surprised. Probably he was, Rod thought. The Chaplain wouldn’t watch the Moties without telling them he was doing it, even though half a dozen pairs of eyes would be staring at the screens every watch. “There is an effect on humans, yes,” came Hardy’s voice. “Not so violent as you describe. The Drive causes disorientation and a general inability to concentrate, but the effect passes rapidly. We didn’t know how it would affect you, but in all our history there have been few cases of irreversible effects, and those were all, uh, psychological.”

“I see,” said Charlie. “Dr. Hardy, if you will excuse us, we do not yet feel up to conversation. Perhaps in a few hours. And next time we will take your advice and be in our bunks, strapped down, and asleep, when you turn on your Crazy Eddie machine.”

“I’ll leave you then,” Hardy said. “Could we—is there anything you require? Is the Ambassador all right?”

“He is well enough. Thank you for your concern.”

Hardy left, and the Moties went back to their bunks. They twittered and whistled.

“And that,” Rod said, “is that. I can think of a lot of more interesting things to do than watch Moties lie around chattering in a language I don’t understand.”

And there’s plenty of time to study the Moties, Sally thought. For a wonder, we don’t either one of us have duties right now—and we do have privacy. “So can I,” she said demurely.

Despite the cubic kilometers of yellow-hot flame around her, Lenin was a happy ship. Kutuzov relaxed his vigil and let the crew resume normal watches for the first time since the destruction of MacArthur. Although the ship was deep within a sun, she had fuel, and her problems were in the Book. Navy routine would deal with them. Even the scientists forgot their disappointment at leaving the alien system with unanswered questions: they were going home.

The only woman in ten parsecs would have been a subject for speculation under any circumstances. Fights might have started over either of two questions. What are my/your chances with her? and Is she being wasted? But Sally had clearly chosen her man. It made life easier for those who worry over such problems, and for those whose duty it is to stop fist fights.

The first night after the Jump, Kutuzov held a dinner party. It was formal, and most of the guests did not enjoy themselves much; the Admiral’s table talk was confined to professional matters. However, he left early, and a much wilder party developed.

Rod and Sally stayed for three hours. Everyone wanted to talk about Moties, and Rod was surprised to find himself discussing them with only a hint of the dull pain that had formerly come over him when he thought of the aliens. Sally’s enthusiasm was enough in itself—and besides, she seemed as worried about him as about the aliens. She had even spent hours remaking Mikhailov’s extra dress uniform so that it almost fit.

When they left the party, neither Moties nor the Mote were mentioned during the hours they were together before going to their separate cabins.

The ship moved outward. Eventually the yellow beyond the Field turned to orange, then brick-red, and Lenin’s probes reported her Field hotter than the photosphere around her. Scientists and crew alike eagerly watched the screen, and when stars appeared against a red-black background everyone had a drink in celebration. Even the Admiral joined them, his features a broad and heavy smile.

Shortly afterward the communications officer established contact with a waiting tanker. There was also a small message sloop, fast, manned by young crewmen in perfect physical condition. Kutuzov dictated his report and sent it with two of his midshipmen, and the sloop accelerated at three gravities, racing for the Alderson point where it would Jump to the New Caledonia System and deliver the report of mankind’s first contact with an alien civilization.

The tanker carried mail and nearly a year’s worth of news. There had been more revolts in the sector. A former colony had allied with an armed outie system and defied the empire. New Chicago was occupied by the Army, and although the economy was working again much of the population was resentful of Imperial paternalism. The inflation of the crown was under control. Her Imperial Majesty had given birth to a boy, Alexander, and Crown Prince Lysander was no longer the only insurance of the present imperial line. That news was worth another celebration on Lenin, and it got so big that Mikhailov had to borrow MacArthur crewmen to man his ship.

The sloop returned with more messages masered even before the message ship could rendezvous. The Sector Capital was wild with enthusiasm, and the Viceroy was planning a gala reception for the Motie ambassadors. War Minister Armstrong sent a muted “well done” and a thousand questions.

There was also a message for Rod Blaine. He learned of it when he was summoned to Kutuzov’s cabin by the Admiral’s Marine orderly.

“This is probably it,” Rod told Sally. “Put Blaine under arrest until he can be tried by court-martial.”

“Don’t be silly.” She smiled encouragement. “I’ll wait for you here.”

“If they ever let me come back to my cabin.” He turned to the Marine. “Lead on, Ivanov.”

When he was let into the Admiral’s cabin it was a shock. Rod had expected a bare room, functional and cold; instead it was a bewildering variety of colors, oriental carpets, tapestries on the walls, the inevitable icon and portrait of the Emperor but much more. There were even leather-bound books in a shelf above Kutuzov’s desk. The Admiral indicated a Spartan rose teak chair. “Will you have tea?” he asked.

“Well—thank you, sir.”

“Two glasses tea, Keemun.” The steward drew them from a silver thermos shaped like an ancient Russian samovar, and served the tea in crystal cups.

“You may go. Captain Blaine, I have orders concerning you.”

“Yes, sir.” Rod said. He might at least have waited until I’d enjoyed the tea.

“You will be leaving this ship. As soon as the sloop makes rendezvous you are to go aboard for return to New Caledonia at maximum acceleration flight surgeon will approve.”

“Yes, sir—are they that eager to haul me in front of a court-martial?”

Kutuzov looked puzzled. “Court-martial? I do not think so, Captain. There must be formal court of inquiry, certainly. That is in regulations. But I would be surprised if court of inquiry made charges against you.”

Kutuzov turned to his elaborately carved desk. There was a message tape on the polished wood surface. “This is for you. It is marked ‘personal and urgent’ and doubtless it will explain.”

Rod took the tape and examined it curiously.

“It is in commanding-officer code, of course,” the Admiral said. “My flag secretary will assist you if you like.”

“Thank you.”

The Admiral used the intercom to summon a lieutenant, who fed decoding tapes into the code machine. It clattered out a thin form.

“Will that be all, Admiral?” the Lieutenant asked.

“Yes. Captain, I leave you to read your message. Good morning.” Admiral and lieutenant left the cabin as the code machine continued to chatter. The message flimsy wormed out of the machine’s innards.

Rod tore it off and read in growing wonder.

He read it again on his way back to his cabin. Sally stood when he came in. “Rod, that’s the strangest look I’ve ever seen!”

“Got a letter,” he said.

“Oh—news from home?’

“Sort of.”

She smiled, but her voice was puzzled. “How is everyone? Your father all right?” Rod seemed very nervous and excited, but he was too cheerful to have got bad news. So what was upsetting him? It was as if he had some task to carry out, something he wanted to do but was afraid of—

“My family’s fine. So is yours—you’ll know about that soon enough. Senator Fowler is in New Scotland.”

She looked at him incredulously. “Uncle Ben is out here? But why?”

“He says he got worried about you. Nobody to take care of you, so he had to—”

She put her tongue out at him and grabbed for the message blank. Rod dodged nimbly despite the gravity-and-a-half acceleration.

“All right,” he told her. He laughed, but it was strained. “The Emperor sent him. As his personal representative, to chair an Imperial Commission to negotiate with the Moties.” Rod paused. “We’re both appointed to the Commission.”

She looked at him blankly. Slow comprehension invaded her eyes. This was professional recognition beyond anything she’d imagined.

“Congratulations, Commissioner,” Rod laughed. He caught her wrist in both hands and held her at arm’s length. “The Lord President of His Majesty’s Commission Extraordinary also asks me when we’re getting married. I think it’s a pretty fair question.”

“But—I—Rod—we—” She caught her breath.

“By God, I’ve got you at a loss for words. Just once you’re not talking.” He took advantage of the opportunity to kiss her. Then again. That lasted a long time.

“I think I’d better read that letter,” she said when they parted. “If you please.”

“You still haven’t answered your uncle’s question, and I won’t let you read it until you do.”

“His question!” Her eyes flashed. “Rod Blaine, if I do marry anyone—if, mind you—he’s going to ask me himself!”

“All right. Lady Sandra Liddell Leonovna Bright Fowler, will you marry me?” The banter was gone from his voice, and although he tried to keep his grin he lost that too. He looked like a four-year-old about to sit on Father Christmas’ lap for the first time. “When we get back to New Scotland—”

“Yes, of course I’ll marry you—New Scotland? Rod, your father will expect us to be married at Court. All our friends are on Sparta—”

“I think maybe you’d better read that message, sweetheart. We may not get to Sparta for a while.” He handed her the flimsy and perched on the arm of the chair she sank into. “It’s this part.” He pointed.

FIRST REACTION HERE UNCERTAIN WHETHER TO MAKE YOU HERO OR VILLAIN STOP LOSS OF MACARTHUR NOT GREETED WITH JOY AT ADMIRALTY STOP CRANSTON EXPLODED STOP ARMSTRONG SAID QUOTE HOW IN HELL CAN ANYONE LOSE A BATTLE CRUISER CLOSE QUOTE STOP

PARAGRAPH KUTUZOV REPORT IN YOUR FAVOR STOP KUTUZOV TAKES FULL RESPONSIBILITY FOR LOSS STOP KUTUZOV REPORTS POSSIBLE SUPERIOR CASTES MOTIES COULD HAVE CLEARED MACARTHUR OF VERMIN BUT HIS DECISION RISK OF COMPROMISE OF IMPERIAL TECHNOLOGICAL SECRETS TOO GREAT STOP KUTUZOV STILL UNDECIDED EXTENT OF MOTIE THREAT BUT SUGGESTS ADMIRALTY ASSEMBLE LARGE BATTLE FLEET STOP HORVATH REPORT STATES MOTIES FRIENDLY NO FLEET NEEDED AND MOTIES QUOTE GREATEST OPPORTUNITY IN HISTORY CLOSE QUOTE STOP PROBLEM IN MY LAP STOP

“Ours too,” Rod said. “Read on.”

PARAGRAPH BY ORDER OF SOVEREIGN I AM NOW LORD PRESIDENT OF IMPERIAL COMMISSION EXTRAORDINARY FOR NEGOTIATING WITH ALIENS STOP BY PERSONAL DIRECTION OF HIS MAJESTY RODERICK LORD BLAINE DASH THAT IS YOU BUT YOU ALMOST BLEW IT LOSING YOUR SHIP STOP DO NOT MAKE HABIT OF THAT DASH AND LADY SANDRA BRIGHT APPOINTED COMMISSIONERS STOP COMMISSION HAS FULL AUTHORITY TO ACT IN NAME OF SOVEREIGN STOP COMMISSIONERS WILL REMAIN IN NEW SCOTLAND UNLESS ADVISABLE CONVEY ALIEN REPRESENTATIVES TO SPARTA STOP

PARAGRAPH IF COMMISSION CONCLUDES ALIENS POSE THREAT OR POTENTIAL THREAT TO EMPIRE COMMISSION WILL ACT IN CONCERT WITH VICEROY TRANSCOALSACK TO TAKE SUCH IMMEDIATE MEASURES AS SEEM ADVISABLE STOP ANY SUGGESTIONS INTERROGATIVE PARAGRAPH ROD UNLESS THOSE MOTIES ARE SIMPLE FARMERS AND THIS PROBE MAKES ME SURE THEY AINT YOU AND SALLY ARE GOING TO BE OUT HERE A LONG TIME STOP PRESUME YOU HAVE RETAINED SANITY SO ARE ENGAGED TO SALLY STOP WHEN IS WEDDING INTERROGATIVE YOUR FATHER SENDS BLESSINGS STOP SO DO I STOP MARQUIS EXPECTS YOU TWO WILL BE MARRIED BY NEXT TIME HE SEES YOU STOP IF YOU THINK MARQUIS AND I HAVE ARRANGED THIS YOU AINT SEEN NOTHING YET STOP HIS MAJESTY APPROVES IMMEDIATE WEDDING STOP YOUR MOTHER AND EMPRESS SEND BLESSINGS STOP

“But what if I said no?” Sally demanded. “That’s the most arrogant thing I’ve ever seen!”

“But you didn’t say no. You said yes.” He leaned down to kiss her hard.

She struggled away and he saw she was genuinely angry. “Damn it.” Her voice was very low and clear. “Damn. ‘His Majesty approves’—God’s teeth! If I turned you down now it’d be high treason!”

“I did ask first,” he pointed out. “And you answered first.”

“That was clever. Oh, stop looking like a little boy. Yes, I want to marry you. I don’t much like being commanded to do something I wanted to do anyway.”

He studied her. “You were out from under for a long time. I never was.”

“What?”

“The obligations that go with the titles. First you were en route to study primitive cultures—your own free choice. I went to the Academy for my Wanderjahr. Then you were in the prison camp, but even in that hellhole you weren’t under any authority you could respect.” He was choosing his words with great care. Sally was red with anger.

“Then MacArthur, as a guest. Under my authority then, remember? And you respected the fact to such an extent—”

“All right, I stowed away when we captured the Crazy Eddie probe. You know why.”

“Too right. Then New Scotland, where you were practically the highest rank around. You enjoyed that, didn’t you? The few people above you weren’t interested in making you do anything. And on to Mote Prime, doing exactly what you wanted to do in life. You were out from under for a long time. Now you’re back in the box.”

“That’s what it feels like.”

Rod flicked the flimsy in her hand. “Arrogant as hell. Right. It jarred me, but not the way it got to you. I’ve been under orders for a long time. All my life.”

“It’s the first time you’ve been ordered to marry any one, I take it.”

“Yeah. But we’ve both been expecting something like that, haven’t we? Politically, from an Empire standpoint, our marriage is just too good an alliance to pass up. We get the privileges, the property, the titles, and now the bill comes in. Blind luck we love each other, because we owe it to—”

“To whom?” she demanded.

Rod ginned helplessly. The idea was irresistibly funny. “To Kevin Renner. The Empire exists for the purpose of making it easier for Renner to play tourist. We owe this to Renner, and we’re paid well for the privilege, and he’s gonna collect.”

She was awed. “Does he really think that way? My God, he does! He ordered me to your cabin!”

“What? He what?”

She giggled. “Fantastic. We ought to ask him and see what he does. Let me finish reading this, Rod.”

PARAGRAPH I HAVE DISCRETION IN NAMING OTHER MEMBERS OF COMMISSION STOP WILL EXPECT YOUR HELP STOP EVERYBODY IN FIFTY PARSECS WANTS ON COMMISSION STOP GIVEN POWERS HIS MAJESTY DELEGATED TO US DONT BLAME THEM STOP YOUR FIRST TASK IS HELPING ME TO FILL OUT COMMISSION STOP SECOND WILL BE ARRANGING EVIDENCE AND WITNESS LIST STOP

PARAGRAPH ADMIRAL KUTUZOV HAS ORDERS TO PUT YOU ABOARD MESSAGE SLOOP FOR RETURN BEST POSSIBLE SPEED TO NEW SCOTLAND STOP BRING SALLY IF YOU THINK BEST AND FLIGHT SURGEON APPROVES STOP ADMIRAL WILL ASSUME RESPONSIBILITY FOR HORACE BURY STOP GET MOVING STOP KISS SALLY FOR ME STOP BREAK BREAK REGARDS

BENJAMIN BRIGHT FOWLER COMMA SENATOR OPEN PARENTHESES LORD PRESIDENT IMPERIAL COMMISSION EXTRAORDINARY ACTING FOR HIS MAJESTY LEONIDAS IX CLOSE PARENTHESES BREAK MESSAGE ENDSXX

“Am I going in the message sloop?” she asked.

“That’s up to you. You’re in condition. Want to?”

“Yes—there are a lot of things to arrange before the Moties get there— My God, we’ve got to settle things about the Moties, and there’s the wedding— Rod, do you realize how big a deal the marriage of Crucis Court and the Fowler heir will be in a provincial capital? I’ll need three secretaries, Uncle Ben’s not going to be any use, and we’ve got to arrange for a reception for the Moties and— Oh, all right. Where were we?”

47. Homeward Bound

Kutuzov and Mikhailov went all out in preparing for Rod and Sally’s farewell dinner party. Lenin’s cooks worked all day to turn out a traditional Ekaterina banquet: dozens of courses, soups, pastries, roasts, stuffed grape leaves from the hydroponics farm, shish kebab, an endless stream of food; and between courses there were thimble glasses of vodka. It was impossible to talk during the meal, for as soon as one course was finished MacArthur’s stewards brought another; or, to give a respite for digestion, Lenin’s Marines performed dances transported from the Russian steppes to St. Ekaterina’s hills and preserved nine hundred years by fanatics like Kutuzov.

Finally the bandsmen left and the stewards removed the dishes, leaving the guests with tea and more vodka. Lenin’s junior midshipman toasted the Emperor, and Captain Mikhailov toasted the Tsarevitch Alexander, while the Admiral beamed.

“He can put on quite a show when he’s not scared silly,” Renner whispered to Cargill. “Never thought I’d say that— Here it comes. The Tsar himself’s going to give a toast. Who’s left?”

The Admiral stood and lifted his glass. “I will reserve my toast for one moment,” he said thickly. It was possible that the endless glasses of vodka had affected him, but no one could be certain. “Captain Blaine, when next we meet roles will be reversed. Then you must tell me how to deal with Moties. I do not envy you that task.”

“What’s Horvath scowling about?” Cargill whispered. “He looks like somebody put a frog in his bunk.”

“Aye. Is it nae possible he wants a place on yon Commission?” Sinclair asked.

“Bet that’s it,” Renner put in. “I wouldn’t mind being on it myself—”

“You and everybody else,” Cargill said. “Now shut up and listen.”

“There is more we must congratulate Lord Blaine about,” Kutuzov was saying, “and that is why I reserve toast. Chaplain Hardy has announcement.”

David Hardy stood. His smile was broad and merry. “Lady Sandra has given me the honor of formally announcing her engagement to Lord Commissioner Blaine,” Hardy said. “I’ve already extended my private congratulations—let me be the first to give them publicly.”

Everyone spoke at once, but the Admiral cut them off. “And now my toast,” Kutuzov said. “To the future Marquise of Crucis.”

Sally blushed as she sat while the others stood and lifted their glasses. Well, it’s official now, she thought. No way to get out of it if I wanted to—not that I do, but it’s so inevitable now…

“Also to Lady Commissioner,” Kutuzov added. Everyone drank again. “And to Lord Commissioner. Long life and many children. May you protect our Empire when you negotiate with Moties.”

“Our thanks,” Rod said. “We’ll do our best, and of course I’m the luckiest man alive.”

“Perhaps her ladyship will speak,” Kutuzov prompted.

She stood but she could think of nothing to say. “Thank you all,” she blurted and sat.

“Out of words again?” Rod asked wickedly. “And with all these people around—I’ve lost a rare opportunity!”

After that the formality vanished. Everyone pressed around them. “All the happiness in the world,” Cargill said. He pumped Rod’s hand vigorously. “I really mean that, sir. And the Empire couldn’t have made a better choice for the Commission.”

“You will nae be married before we arrive?” Sinclair asked. “Twould nae be fair, to be married in my city wi’out me present.”

“We don’t quite know when,” Sally told him. “But certainly not before Lenin gets in. You’re all invited to the wedding, of course.” So are the Moties, she added to herself. And I wonder what they’ll make of it?

The party dissolved into a kaleidoscope of small groups with Rod and Sally at the focus. The wardroom table was lowered into the deck to give them more room as stewards circulated with coffee and tea.

“You will of course allow me to offer my congratulations,” Bury told them smoothly. “And I hope you will not think I am trying to bribe you when I send a wedding gift.”

“Why would anyone think that?” Sally asked innocently. “Thank you, Mr. Bury.” If her first remark had been ambiguous, her smile was warm enough to cover it. Sally didn’t care for Bury’s reputation, but he’d been charming enough while she’d known him; if only he’d get over this insane fear of Moties!

Eventually Rod was able to move away from the center of the party. He found Dr. Horvath in a corner of the room. “You’ve been avoiding me all night, Doctor,” Rod said affably. “I’d like to know why.”

Horvath tried to smile but realized it was thin. His brows knitted for a moment, then relaxed in decision. “No point in anything but honesty. Blaine, I didn’t want you on this expedition. You know why. OK, your man Renner convinced me you couldn’t have done anything else about the probe. We’ve had our differences, but all in all I have to approve of the way you’ve handled the command. With your rank and experience it was inevitable that you’d be given a place on the Commission.”

“I hadn’t expected it,” Rod answered. “In hindsight and from Sparta’s viewpoint I suppose you’re right. Is that why you’re upset with me?”

“No,” Horvath said honestly. “As I said, it was inevitable, and I don’t let laws of nature upset me. But I expected a place on that Commission, Blaine. I was senior scientist on this expedition. I had to fight for every scrap of information we got. By God, if they’re giving two seats to expedition members I’ve earned a place.”

“And Sally hasn’t,” Rod said coldly.

“She was very useful,” Horvath said. “And she’s charming and bright, and of course you’re hardly going to be objective about her—but honestly, Blaine, do you really equate her competence with mine?”

Rod’s frown vanished. He smiled broadly, and almost laughed. Horvath’s professional jealousy was neither comic nor pathetic, merely inevitable; as inevitable as his belief that the appointment questioned his competence as a scientist. “Relax, Doctor,” Rod said. “Sally isn’t on that Commission because of scientific ability any more than I am. The Emperor’s not concerned with competence, but interest.” He almost said loyalty, but that wouldn’t have done at all. “In a way, your not being named immediately”—Rod emphasized that word—“is a compliment.”

Horvath’s brows shot up. “I beg your pardon?”

“You’re a scientist, Doctor. Your whole training and really your whole philosophy of life is objectivity, right?”

“More or less,” Horvath agreed. “Although since I left the laboratory…”

“You’ve had to fight for budgets. Even then you’ve been involved in politics only to help your colleagues do the things you’d do if you were free of administrative duties.”

“Well—yes. Thank you. Not many people seem to realize that.”

“Consequently, your dealings with Moties would be the same. Objective. Nonpolitical. But that may not be the best course for the Empire. Not that you’d be lacking in loyalty, Doctor, but His Majesty knows Sally and I put the Empire first. We’ve been indoctrinated that way from the day we were born. We can’t even pretend to scientific objectivity where Imperial interests are concerned.” And if that doesn’t smooth his feathers, the hell with him.

It did, though. Horvath still wasn’t happy, and be obviously wasn’t going to give up trying for a seat on the Commission; but he smiled and wished Rod and Sally a happy marriage. Rod excused himself and went back to Sally with a feeling of accomplishment.

“But can’t we even say good-bye to the Moties?” she was pleading. “Rod, can’t you convince him?”

Rod looked helplessly at the Admiral.

“My lady,” Kutuzov said heavily. “I do not wish to disappoint you. When Moties arrive in New Scotland they will be your concern, not mine, and you will then tell me what to do about them. Until that time, Moties are my responsibility, and I intend no changes in policies agreed before they came aboard. Dr. Hardy can deliver any message to them.”

What would he do if Rod and I ordered him to let us see them? she thought. As Commissioners. But that would make a scene, and Rod seems to think the Admiral’s a pretty useful man. They could never work together again if we did that. Besides, Rod might not do it even if I ask him to. Don’t push.

“It’s not as if these Moties were special friends,” Hardy reminded her. “They’ve had so little contact with people I hardly know them myself. I’m sure that will change when we get to New Scotland.” Hardy smiled and changed the subject. “I trust you will keep your promise and wait for Lenin before you’re married.”

“But I insist you marry us,” Sally said quickly. “We’ll have to wait for you!”

“Thank you.” Hardy was going to say something else, but Kelley came purposefully across the wardroom and saluted.

“Cap’n, I’ve got your gear sent off to Hermes, and Lady Sally’s as well, and them orders did say ‘soonest.’ ”

“My conscience,” Rod laughed. “But he’s right. Sally, we’d better get ready.” He groaned. “It’s going to be tough facing three gravs after that dinner—”

“I must leave also,” Kutuzov said. “I have dispatches to put aboard Hermes.” He smiled awkwardly. “Farewell, my lady. And you also, Captain. Godspeed. You have been good officer.”

“Why— Thank you, sir.” Rod looked around the wardroom and spotted Bury across the compartment. “Kelley, the Admiral’s assuming responsibility for His Excellency—”

“With your permission I will continue Gunner Kelley in command of Marine guards,” Kutuzov said.

“Certainly, sir. Kelley, be damn careful when we get to New Scotland. He may or may not try to escape. I don’t have any idea of what he’s got to face when we get there, but the orders are plain enough, we’re to keep him in custody. He may try to bribe one of your men—”

Kelley snorted. “He’d better not.”

“Yeah. Well, so long, Kelley. Don’t let Nabil put a dagger in your ribs. I’ll want you with me on New Scotland.”

“Yes, sir, you be careful, Captain. The Marquis will kill me if something happens to you. Told me that before we left Crucis Court.”

Kutuzov cleared his throat loudly. “Our guests must leave immediately,” he announced. “With our final congratulations.”

Rod and Sally left the wardroom to a chorus of shouts, some overloud. The party seemed destined to last a long time.

The message sloop Hermes was a tiny affair. Her living space was no larger than MacArthur’s cutter, although overall she was much bigger. Aft of the life-support systems she was tankage and engines and little else but access crawlways. They were hardly aboard before they were under way.

There was little to do in the tiny ship, and the heavy acceleration made real work impossible anyway. The surgeon’s mate examined his passengers at eight-hour intervals to be sure they were able to take Hermes’ three gees, and approved Rod’s request that they get it over with sooner and boost up to 3.5 gravs. Under that weight it was better to sleep as much as possible and confine mental activities to light conversation.

Murcheson’s Eye was enormous behind them when they reached the Alderson Point. An instant later, the Eye was only a bright red star against the Coal Sack. It had a small yellow mote.

48. Civilian

They were rushed aboard a landing craft the instant Hermes made orbit around New Scotland. Sally barely had time to say her farewells to the sloop’s crew, then they were strapped in.

“VISITORS CLEAR LANDING BOAT. PASSENGERS SECURE FOR REENTRY.”

There were clunks as the air locks were closed. “Ready, sir?” the pilot called.

“Yeah—”

The retros fired. It wasn’t a smooth reentry at all; the pilot was in too much of a hurry, They dropped low over New Scotland’s craggy rocks and spouting geysers. When they arrived at the city they still had too much speed and the pilot had to circle twice; then the boat came in slowly, hovered, and settled on the roof landing port of Admiralty House.

“There’s Uncle Ben!” Sally shouted. She rushed forward to fling herself into his arms.

Benjamin Bright Fowler was eighty standard years old, and looked it; before regeneration therapy men would have guessed he was fifty and in his prime intellectual years. They would have been right about the latter guess.

He stood 174 cm and massed ninety kilos: a portly, short man, nearly bald, with a fringe of dark hair graying around a shiny dome. He never wore a hat except in the coldest weather, and usually forgot it then.

Senator Fowler was dressed outlandishly in baggy trousers flaring over soft, polished leather boots. A knee length and very battered camel’s-hair coat covered his upper body. His clothes were very expensive and never properly cared for. His dreamy eyes that tended to water and his rumpled appearance did not make him an impressive figure, and his political enemies had more than once made the mistake of taking his looks as a sign of his abilities. Sometimes, when the occasion was important enough, he’d let his valet choose his clothes and dress him properly, and then, for a few hours at least, he looked appropriate; he was, after all, one of the most powerful men in the Empire. Usually, though, he put on the first thing he found in his wardrobe, and since he would never let his servants throw out anything he’d once liked, he often wore old clothes.

He grasped Sally in a bear hug while she kissed his forehead. Sally was taller than her uncle and was tempted to plant a kiss on the top of his head, but she knew better. Benjamin Fowler neglected his appearance and became angry if anyone reminded him of that, but actually he was a little sensitive about his baldness. He also absolutely refused to allow cosmetic physicians to do anything for it.

“Uncle Ben, I’m glad to see you!” Sally pushed herself away before he crushed a rib. Then, with mock anger: “You’ve been rearranging my life! Did you know that radiogram would make Rod propose to me?”

Senator Fowler looked puzzled. “You mean he hadn’t already?” He pretended to examine Rod with microscopic care. “He looks normal enough. Must be internal damage. How are you, Rod? You look good, boy.” He enfolded Rod’s hand in his own. His grip was strong enough to hurt. With his left hand Fowler extracted his pocket computer from beneath the disreputable folds of his thick coat. “Sorry to rush kids, but we’re late. Come on, come on—” He turned and darted for the elevator, leaving them to follow helplessly.

They went down twelve floors and Fowler led them around twists of corridors. Marines stood guard outside a door. “Inside, inside,” the Senator urged. “Can’t keep all those admirals and captains waiting. Come on, Rod!”

The Marines saluted and Rod absently responded. He entered in bewilderment: a large room, paneled in dark wood, with an enormous marble table across its length.

Five captains and two admirals were seated at the table. A legal officer sat at a smaller desk, and there were places for a recorder and clerks. As soon as Rod entered someone intoned, “This Court of Inquiry is now in session. Step forward and be sworn. State your name.”

“Your name, Captain,” the Admiral at the center of the table snapped. Rod didn’t recognize him; he knew only half the officers in the room. “You do know your name, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir— Admiral, I wasn’t told I was coming directly to a Court of Inquiry.”

“You know it now. Please state your name.”

“Roderick Harold, Lord Blaine, Captain, Imperial Space Navy; formerly master aboard INS MacArthur.”

“Thank you.”

They shot questions at him. “Captain, when did you first learn that the miniature aliens were capable of using tools and performing useful work?” “Captain, please describe the sterilization procedures you employed.” “Captain, in your judgment, did the aliens outside the ship ever know you had miniatures loose aboard your vessel?”

He answered as best he could. Sometimes one officer would ask a question, only to have another say, “That’s in the report, damn it. Didn’t you listen to the tapes?”

The inquiry moved at blinding speed. Suddenly it was over. “You may retire for the moment, Captain,” the presiding Admiral said.

Sally and Senator Fowler were waiting in the hall. There was a young woman in kilts with a businesslike brief case standing with them.

“Miss McPherson. My new social secretary,” Sally introduced her.

“Very pleased to meet you, my lord. My lady, I had best be—”

“Certainly. Thank you.” McPherson left with a click of heels on marble floors. She had a nice walk. “Rod,” Sally said. “Rod, do you know how many parties we’ve got to go to?”

“Parties! My God, woman, they’re deciding my fate in there and you—”

“Nonsense,” Senator Fowler snapped. “That was decided weeks ago. When Merrill, Cranston, Armstrong, and I listened to Kutuzov’s report. There I was, your appointment from His Majesty in my pocket, and you’d gone and lost your ship! It’s a good thing your Admiral’s an honest man, boy. Damn good thing.”

The door opened. “Captain Blaine?” a clerk called.

He entered to stand in front of the table. The Admiral held up a paper and cleared his throat.

“Unanimous findings of a special Court of Inquiry convened to examine the circumstances surrounding the loss of His Imperial Majesty’s General Class battle cruiser MacArthur. One. This Court finds that the vessel was lost through accidental infestation by alien life forms and was properly destroyed to prevent contamination of other vessels. Two. This Court honorably acquits her master, Captain Roderick Blaine, ISN, of negligence. Three. This Court orders the surviving officers of MacArthur to prepare a detailed report of procedures whereby such losses can be prevented in future. Four. This Court notes that the search and sterilization of MacArthur was hindered by the presence of a large number of civilian scientists and their equipment property aboard, and that Minister Anthony Horvath, senior scientist, protested the sterilization and advised minimum disruption of the civilian experiments. Five. This Court notes that Captain Blaine would have been more diligent in searching his vessel except for the difficulties noted in point four; and this court recommends no reprimand for her master. These findings being unanimous, this Court is adjourned. Captain, you may go.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Yeah. That was pretty sloppy, Blaine. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir.” My God, how many times have I thought about it?

“But I doubt if anyone in the Navy could have done better. The ship must have been a madhouse with all those civilians aboard. All right, Senator, he’s all yours. They’re ready in Room 675.”

“Good. Thank you, Admiral.” Fowler hustled Blaine out of the hearing room and down the corridor to the elevator. A petty officer had one waiting.

“Now where are we going?” Rod demanded. “Six seventy five? That’s retirement!”

“Of course,” the senator said. They entered the elevator. “You didn’t think you could stay in the Navy and be on that Commission, did you? That’s why we had to hurry that Inquiry through. Until it was on the record you couldn’t be retired.”

“But, Senator—”

“Ben. Call me Ben.”

“Yes, sir. Ben, I don’t want out! The Navy’s my career—”

“No more.” The elevator stopped and Fowler hustled Rod out. “You’d have had to leave eventually. Family’s too important. Can’t have the peers neglecting government to go chasing around in those ships all their lives. You knew you’d have to retire early.”

“Yes, sir. After my brothers were killed there wasn’t any question of it. But not yet! Look, can’t they give me a leave of absence?”

“Don’t be an idiot. The Motie question’s going to be with us a long time. Sparta’s too far away to handle it. Here we are.” Fowler led him through the door.

His retirement papers were already made out. Roderick Harold, Lord Blaine: to be promoted to Rear Admiral and placed on the inactive list by order of His Imperial Majesty. “Retirement pay to be sent where, sir?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You’re entitled to retirement pay. Where do you want us to send it, my lord?” To the Yeoman clerk Rod was already a civilian.

“Can I donate it to the Navy Relief Fund?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do that.”

The clerk wrote rapidly. There were other questions, all trivial. The documents were made out and thrust at him, and the Yeoman held out a pen. “Just sign here, my lord.”

The pen was cold in his hand. Rod didn’t want to touch it.

“Come on, come on, there’re a dozen appointments waiting,” Senator Fowler urged. “You and Sally both. Come on, boy, sign!”

“Yes, sir.” No point in delaying. There’s nothing to argue about. If the Emperor himself named me to that damned Commission— He scrawled rapidly; then placed his thumb print on the papers.

A taxi whisked them through New Scotland’s narrow streets. Traffic was thick and the cab had no official flags to open holes for them. It was an unusual experience for Rod to travel this way; usually he’d had Navy fliers to take him from rooftop to rooftop, and the last time in New Scotland he’d had his own gig with waiting crew. No more, no more.

“I’ll have to buy a flier and get a chauffeur,” Rod said. “I take it Commissioners rate an air transport license?”

“Surely. You rate anything you want,” Senator Fowler said. “In fact the appointment carries a titular baronage, not that you need it, but it’s another reason why we’re getting so popular lately.”

“Just how many Commissioners will there be?”

“I’ve got discretion on that, too. We won’t want too many.” The taxi lurched as the driver nearly hit a pedestrian. Fowler took out his pocket computer. “Late again. Appointments at the Palace. You’ll be staying there, of course. Servant’s quarters will be crowded, but we’ll squeeze your man in—got anybody, or you want my secretary to arrange it?”

“Kelley’s in Lenin. I guess he’ll stay with me.” Another good man lost for the Navy.

“Kelley! How is the old scoundrel?”

“He’s fine.”

“Glad to hear that. Your father wanted me to ask about him, now I think of it. You know that Marine’s my age? I can remember him in uniform when your father was a lieutenant, and that was a long time ago.”

“Where’s Sally?” When Rod came out of 675 she had been gone. He’d been just as pleased; with his retirement papers bulging in his tunic he didn’t feel much like talking.

“Out shopping for clothes, of course. You won’t have to do that. One of my people got your sizes from Navy records and brought you a couple of suits. They’re at the Palace.”

“Ben—you’re moving pretty fast, Ben,” Rod said carefully.

“Have to. By the time Lenin orbits we need some answers. Meanwhile you’ve got to study the political situation out here. It’s all tied together. ITA wants trade, soonest. Humanity League wants cultural exchanges, ditto. Armstrong wants his fleet to deal with outies, but he’s scared of Moties. That’s got to be settled before Merrill can get on with the reconquest of Trans-Coalsack. Stock markets from here to Sparta are jumpy—just what will Motie technology do to the economy? What blue-chip companies are going to get ruined? Who gets rich? And every damn bit of that’s in our hands, boy. We’ve got to make the policies.”

“Oof.” The full impact was just hitting him. “What about Sally? And the rest of the Commission?”

“Don’t be stupid. You and I are the Commission. Sally will do what’s needed.”

“You mean what you want her to do. I wouldn’t be too sure of that—she’s got a mind of her own.”

“Think I don’t know that? I’ve lived with her long enough. Hell, you’re independent too. I don’t expect I can dictate to you.”

You’ve been doing a good enough job so far, Rod thought.

“You can guess about the commission, can’t you?” Ben asked pointedly. “Parliament’s been concerned about Imperial prerogatives. If there’s anything that’s pure prerogative it’s defense against aliens. But if they’re peaceful and all that, Parliament wants a say in the trade deals. Emperor isn’t about to turn the Motie question over to Government until we’re sure what we’re up against. But he can’t manage this from Sparta. Can’t come out here himself—boy, that would cause problems at the Capital. Parliament couldn’t stop him from turning it over to Crown Prince Lysander, but the boy’s too young. Deadlock. His Majesty’s one thing, but appointed agents with Imperial powers are another. Hell, I don’t want to give Imperial authority to anybody but the Royal Family. One man, one family, can’t personally exercise too much power no matter how much they’ve got in theory, but give them appointed agents and it’s another matter.”

“What about Merril? It’s his sector.”

“What about him? Same objections to him as anybody else. More. Viceroy’s job is pretty carefully defined. Dealing with aliens isn’t. Merrill wouldn’t get too big for his britches and try to set up his own little Empire out here, but history shows one thing damn clear, you got to watch out for that. So it had to be a Commission. Parliament’s not about to approve that much power for any single man, not even me. Made me chairman since I’ve got the votes. Put my niece on it—my brother was more popular than I am, we needed a woman, and here’s Sally just been to the Mote. Fine. But I can’t stay out here too long, Rod. Somebody’s got to. That’s you.”

“I saw that coming. Why me?”

“You’re a natural. Needed your old man’s support to get the Commission approved anyway. Marquis is pretty popular right now. Done some good work consolidating his sector. Good war record. Besides, you’re almost Royal Family. You’re in line the Throne—”

“About twenty-eighth. My sister’s boy has a better claim than I do.”

“Yeah, but it’s not spreading the prerogative too far. The peers trust you. Baronage likes your father; Commons too, and nobody’s going to think you want to be king out here, you’d lose Crucis Court. So now the problem is to find a couple of local dummies who’ll take their baronages and go along with you after I leave. You’ll have to find yourself a replacement before you can go home, but you’ll manage that. I did.” Fowler smiled beatifically.

The Palace loomed up ahead of them. Kilted guards stood outside in ceremonial uniforms, but the officer who checked their credentials against his appointment list before waving them through the gates was a Marine.

“Got to hurry,” Senator Fowler said as they drove around the circular way to the bright red-and-yellow-rock steps. “Rod, if those Moties are a threat, could you order Kutuzov in there with a battle fleet?”

“Sir?”

“You heard me. What are you smiling about?”

“I had this conversation with one of my officers back at Mote Prime. Only I was in your seat. Yes, sir. I wouldn’t want to, but I could. And I can answer so fast because I decided the question on the way home, otherwise I’d have had to tell you to stuff your Commission.” He paused a moment. “Sally couldn’t, though.”

“Wouldn’t expect her to. She wouldn’t fight it, either. Any evidence that would make you or me order something like that would make her resign. Look, I’ve been over those reports until I’m deaf and blind, and I don’t find much wrong—there are a few things, though. Like your middies. I’m having trouble swallowing that frog.”

“So am I—”

The cab pulled up at the Palace steps and the driver opened the doors for them. Rod fished for bills to pay the fare, and he gave too large a tip because he wasn’t used to riding in cabs.

“Will that be all, my lord?” the waiter asked.

Rod glanced at his pocket computer. “Yes, thank you. We’re going to be late, Sally.” He made no attempt to stand. “Angus—we’ll have coffee. With brandy.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Rod, we really will be late.” Sally didn’t get up either. They looked at each other and laughed. “When was the last time we had lunch together?” she asked.

“A week? Two? I don’t remember. Sally, I’ve never been so busy in my life. Right now a main fleet action would be a relief.” He grimaced. “Another party tonight. Lady Riordan. Do we have to go?”

“Uncle Ben says Baron Riordan is very influential on New Ireland, and we may need some support there.”

“Then I suppose we have to.” Angus arrived with coffee. Rod tasted it and sighed in satisfaction. “Angus, that is the best coffee and brandy I’ve ever had. Your quality has improved in the last week.”

“Yes, my lord. It is reserved for you.”

“For me? Sally, is this your—?”

“No.” She was as puzzled as he. “Where did you get it, Angus?”

“A merchant captain personally brought it to Government House, my lady. He said it was for Lord Blaine. The chef tried it and said it was fit to serve.”

“And that it is,” Rod agreed enthusiastically. “Who was the captain?”

“I’ll find out, my lord.”

“Some officer seeker,” Rod said thoughtfully after the waiter left. “Although you’d think he’d have let me know—” He glanced at his computer again. “I suppose we haven’t long. We can’t keep the Viceroy waiting all afternoon.”

“We might as well. You and Uncle Ben won’t agree to my suggestion, and—”

“Let’s leave that until the conference, sweetheart.” The Viceroy was demanding an immediate Commission decision on what to do about the Moties. He was only one of many. War Minister Armstrong wanted to know how large a battle fleet it would take to disarm the Moties—just in case, he said, so that Admiral Cranston’s War Plans Division could go to work.

The Imperial Traders’ Association insisted that everything Bury knew about trade possibilities be made available to all members. The Grand Deacon of the Church of Him wanted proof that the Moties were angels. Another Himmist faction was sure they were devils and the Empire was suppressing the information. Cardinal Randolph of the Imperial Church wanted tapes of Motie life broadcast on tri-v to finish the Himmists once and for all.

And everyone in two hundred parsecs wanted a seat on the Commission.

“At least we’ll be in the same meeting,” Sally said.

“Yeah.” Their Palace quarters were in the same corridor but they never saw each other except at parties. During the confused blur of the past weeks Rod and Sally had seldom been in the same conferences.

Angus returned and bowed. “Captain Anderson, Ragnarok, my lord.”

“I see. Thank you, Angus. That’s an Imperial Autonetics ship, Sally.”

“Then Mr. Bury sent the coffee and brandy! That was very nice of him—”

“Yeah.” Rod sighed. “We really do have to go.”

They went upstairs from the executive dining room to Viceroy Merrill’s working office. Senator Fowler, War Minister Armstrong, and Fleet Admiral Cranston were waiting impatiently.

“Our first lunch together in two weeks,” Rod explained. “My apologies.” They sounded perfunctory.

“It won’t be so bad when Lenin gets in,” Senator Fowler said. “Horvath’s scientists can make most of the public appearances… they’ll eat it up.”

“Assuming you give them permission to appear,” Prince Merrill drawled. “You haven’t let your protégés say much for all the talking they’ve done.”

“Your pardon, Highness,” Admiral Cranston said. “I’m in a hurry. What do I do about Lenin’s arrival? The ship orbits in sixty hours, and I have to send orders to Kutuzov.”

“We’d have that settled if you’d agree to my suggestion, Uncle Ben,” said Sally. “Give them quarters in the Palace, assign them servants and guards, and let the Moties decide whom they want to see.”

“She has a point, Benjie,” Merrill observed. “After all, they are the representatives of a sovereign power. Hard to justify keeping them penned up, eh? Make a big stink, and for what?”

“Admiral Kutuzov is convinced the Moties are a threat,” the War Minister said. “He says they are very persuasive. Give them a chance to speak to whom they will and there is no telling what they might do. They could make political trouble for us, Your Highness, and we do no need that.”

“But you have to agree that three Moties aren’t any military threat,” Sally insisted.

Benjamin Fowler sighed heavily. “We’ve been over this before. It isn’t the military threat I worry about! If we turn the Moties loose they will make deals. Bury’s report convinces me of that. The Moties can get interest groups formed to support them. Negotiate trade agreements.”

“The Commission has a veto on any agreement, Uncle Ben.”

“Harder to kill a deal than see one isn’t made to begin with. Look, if the Moties are everything Horvath thinks they are: peaceful, anxious to sell or give us new technology, no competition for living space—and how in hell can he know that?—no military threat, never going to ally with the outies…”

Admiral Cranston growled deep in his throat.

“And all the rest of it, even if they’re all that and more, they are still problems. For one thing, their technology’s going to shake up the whole Empire. We can’t just turn all that loose without some plans for readjustment.”

“Labor people are on to that,” Merrill said dryly. “President of IF of L was in here not an hour ago demanding that we bottle up the Moties until his staff can study unemployment problems. Not against new technology, but wants us to be cautious. Can’t say I blame him.”

“The ITA isn’t solid any more either,” Rod added. “At Lady Malcolm’s last night a couple of Traders told me they’ve got second thoughts about Moties.” Rod fingered the lapels of his brightly colored knit tunic. Civilian clothes fit better and should have been more comfortable than Navy uniform, but they didn’t seem more comfortable. “Damn it, I don’t know what to say! I’ve been so busy with meaningless speeches and conferences and these goddamn parties I haven’t had a chance to do any constructive thinking.”

“Course, of course,” Merrill soothed. “Still and all, my lord, my orders from HM are clear. I have to take the advice of your Commission. And I am still waiting for that advice. Lady Sandra—”

“Sally. Please.” She’d never liked her given name, for no reason she could have told anyone.

“Lady Sally has at least offered us something. Senator, you and Blaine have to do more than protest that you don’t know enough!”

“There is the small matter of my fleet,” Armstrong put in. “I must know if Cranston’s battleships can go back to chasing outies, or must they stand by in this corner of the sector? We’ll have more revolts if we do no show the flag in the distant provinces…”

“Same demands?” Rod asked.

“Aye. They want ships o’ their own. More say in Imperial policy too, but mostly the ships. ‘Tis enough to drive me mad! They hae control o’ their internal affairs. They do no pay more taxes than we. When the outies stir about they shout for the Navy and we come. But these are no your problems, my lord. If we need ships to defend mankind from alien monsters I’ll find them for you if I hae to work in MacPherson’s yards myself.”

“Would almost be worthwhile if the Moties were hostile,” Merrill said thoughtfully. “A real threat to the Empire would consolidate the provinces— Wonder if we could sell that story to the barons?”

“Your Highness!” Sally protested.

“Just a thought, just a thought.”

“Dazzle ‘em with footwork,” Fowler growled. They all turned to stare at him. “It’s obvious. Let the press corps have a field day. When Lenin gets in, we’ll put on a show like New Scotland’s never seen. Big reception for the Moties. Full honors. Lots of formalities, parades, reviews, tours. Conferences with the Foreign Office people. Nobody can object if the Motie public appearances are ceremonial and the Foreign Office monopolizes the rest of their time. Meanwhile, we get to work. Your Highness, we’ll have advice for you as soon as possible, but Leoni—His Majesty did not send me out here to make snap judgments. Until I know more, we’ll just have to make do.”

49. Parades

The landing boat settled on the roof of the Palace with a high-pitched whine of jets dying to a low rumble, then silence. A long roll of drums began outside. The martial sound filtered into the cabin, then blared as the entryway was opened.

David Hardy blinked into morning sunlight bright on the varicolored stones of the Palace. He sniffed fresh air with no smell of ships and men and filters, and felt the warmth of New Cal. His feet sensed solid rock below. Home!

“HONOR GUARD, ATTENTION!”

Oh, Lord, they’re going all out, David thought. He squared his shoulders and moved down the ramp as cameramen focused their zoom lenses. Other naval officers and civilians followed. Dr. Horvath was the last, and when he appeared David nodded to the officer in charge.

“PRESENT ARMS!” Snap! Crack! Fifty pairs of white gloves made identical motions and slapped their weapons at identical times. Fifty scarlet sleeves heavy with gold braid poised in geometrical precision. The drum roll swelled louder and faster.

The Moties came down the ramp. They blinked at New Cal sunlight. Trumpets blared a salute, them halted with the drum roll. The silence was broken only by faint traffic sounds from streets half a kilometer away. Even the newsmen on their high platform were still. The Moties swiveled their bodies rapidly about.

Curiosity! A human world at last, and humans who governed; yet what were they doing? Ahead were two lines of twenty-five Marines in rigid pose, their weapons held in what could not be a comfortable position, all identical and obviously not threatening anyone; but Ivan automatically swiveled to look behind for his Warriors.

To their right were more of these Marines but they carried noisemakers, not weapons, and several carried banners with colors dipped; three more carried weapons and a fourth held up a larger banner that was not dipped: symbols they’d seen before. Crown and spaceship, eagle, sickle-and-hammer.

Directly ahead, past the clump of people from Lenin and MacArthur, were more humans in a wild array of clothing. They were obviously waiting to speak to the Moties, but they did not speak.

“Captain Blaine and Miss Fowler,” Jock twittered. “Their posture indicates that the two in front of them receive deference.”

David Hardy led the Moties forward. The aliens were still wrinkling their noses, and they chattered among themselves in musical tones. “If the air is distasteful,” David said, “we can build filters. I hadn’t noticed that ship’s air distressed you.” He took another lungful of the clean precious stuff.

“No, no, it’s only a bit flat and tasteless,” said a Mediator. It was impossible to tell the two apart. “Then there’s the extra oxygen. I think we’ll need that.”

“Gravity?”

“Right.” The Motie squinted toward the sun. “We’ll also need dark glasses.”

“Certainly.” They reached the end of the lines of honor guards. Hardy bowed to Merrill. Both Mediators did likewise in perfect imitation. The White stood erect for a moment, then bowed, but not so deeply as the others.

Dr Horvath was waiting. “Prince Stefan Merrill, Viceroy to His Imperial Majesty for Trans-Coalsack Sector,” Horvath announced. “Your Highness, the Ambassador from Mote Prime. He is called Ivan.”

Merrill bowed formally, then indicated Benjamin Fowler. “Senator Benjamin Bright Fowler, Lord President of the Imperial Commission Extraordinary. Senator Fowler is empowered to speak with you in the name of the Emperor, and he has a message for you from His Majesty.”

The Moties bowed again.

Senator Fowler had allowed his valet to dress him properly; all the billions of humanity would eventually see recordings of this meeting. He wore a dark tunic with no decoration but a small golden sunburst on the left breast, his sash was new, his trousers fit perfectly and vanished into the tops of glove-soft, gleaming boots. He thrust a black Malacca cane with carved gold head wider his left arm as Rod Blaine held out a parchment.

Fowler read in his “official speeches” voice; in debates he was a firebrand, but his formal speeches were stilted. This one was no exception.

“Leonidas IX by Grace of God Emperor of Humanity to the representatives of the Mote Civilization, Greetings and Welcome. For a thousand years mankind has searched for brothers in the universe. We have dreamed of them for all our history…” The message was long and formal, and the Moties listened in silence. To their left a knot of men hustled and whispered together, and there were some pointed instruments the Moties recognized as badly designed tri-v cameras. There was a forest of cameras and far too many men; why did the humans need so many to do a simple task?

Fowler finished the message. He followed the Motie gaze without turning his head. “The gentlemen of the press,” he murmured, “We’ll try to keep them from bothering you.” Then he held up the parchment to show the Imperial Seal, and presented it to the Moties.

“They obviously expect a reply. This is one of the ‘formal’ events Hardy warned us of. I have no idea what to say. Have you?”

Jock: “No. But we must say something.”

The Master spoke. “What have they said to us?”

“I could translate but it would be meaningless. They have welcomed us in the name of their Emperor, who appears to be an over-Master. The short, round one is Mediator to this Emperor.”

“Ah. We have at last found one who can communicate. Speak to her.”

“But he has said nothing!”

“Say nothing in return.”

“We are very grateful for your Emperor’s welcome. We believe this first meeting between intelligent races will be a historic occasion, perhaps the most important event in all our histories. We are eager to begin trade and the mutual enrichment of Moties and Mankind.”

“You sound like Horvath.”

“Of course. Those were his words. He used them often before the humans destroyed their lesser ship. We must know why they did that.”

“You will not ask until we know more of humans.”

The Moties stood blinking in a silence that stretched embarrassingly. They obviously had no more to say.

“Doubtless you are tired from your journey,” Merrill said. “You will want to rest in your quarters before the parade begins.” When the Moties did not reply, Merrill waved his hand slightly. The band struck up a march and the Moties were ushered toward an elevator.

“We’ll get you away from the goddamn press corps,” Fowler muttered. “Can’t do anything in a goldfish bowl.” He turned to smile for the cameras. So did the others, and they were still smiling as the elevator door closed in the faces of the reporters who had rushed forward when they saw that the Moties were leaving.

There were no obvious spy eyes in the rooms, and the doors had inside locks. There were many rooms, all with very high ceilings. There were three rooms with what the humans thought were beds for Moties, and each of those rooms was adjoined by a room with waste disposal and washing facilities. In another room were a refrigerator, flame and microwave stoves, large stocks of food including the stores brought by the Moties, implements for eating, and equipment they did not recognize. Still another room, the largest of all, held a big polished wood table and both Motie and human chairs.

They wandered through the vast spaces.

“A tri-v screen,” Jock exclaimed. He turned the controls, and a picture appeared. It was a tape of themselves listening to the message from the Emperor. Other channels showed the same things, or men talking about the Motie arrival or—

A big man in loose clothing was shouting. His tones and gestures indicated rage. “Devils! They must be destroyed! The Legions of Him will go forth against the Legions of Hell!”

The shouting man was cut off and replaced by another man, also in loose clothing, but this one did not shout. He spoke calmly. “You have heard the man who calls himself the Voice of Him. It is of course not necessary for me to say it, but speaking for the Church I can assure you that the Moties are neither angels nor devils; merely intelligent beings much like us. If they are a threat to humanity it is not a spiritual one, and His Majesty’s servants will certainly be more than adequate to deal with them.”

“Cardinal Randolph, has the Church determined the, ah, status of Moties? That is, their place in the theology of—”

“Of course not. But I can say they are hardly supernatural beings.” Cardinal Randolph laughed and so did the commentator. There was no sign of the man who had been screaming in rage.

“Come,” the Master said. “You will have time for this later.” They went into the large room and sat at the table. Charlie brought grain from their food supply.

“You have smelled the air,” Jock said. “No industrial development. The planet must be nearly empty! Room for a billion Masters and all their dependents.”

“Too much of this sunlight would make us blind. The gravity would shorten our lives.” Charlie inhaled deeply. “But there is room and food and metal. The gravity be cursed with the sunlight. We’ll take it.”

“I must have missed hearing the offer.” Jock gestured amusement. “I do not believe the three of us will take it by force.”

“These humans drive me to thoughts of Crazy Eddie! Did you see? Did you hear? The Mediator for the Emperor detests the operators of the tri-v cameras, yet he makes expression of pleasure for them and implies that he may not have the power to prevent them from annoying us.”

“They have given us a tri-v,” the Master said.

“And it is obviously what the humans watch. There were spokesmen for many Masters. You saw.” Jock indicated pleasure. “I will have many opportunities to discover how humans are ruled and how they live.”

“They have given us a source of information which they do not control,” the Master said. “What does this mean?”

The Mediators were silent.

“Yes,” said Ivan. “If we are not successful in our mission, we will not be permitted to return.” He indicated indifference. “We knew this before we left. Now it is more vital than ever that we establish trade with humans as quickly as possible; or determine that intercourse with humans is undesirable and find a way to prevent it. You must act quickly.”

They knew. The Mediators who proposed their mission and the Masters who consented had recognized the time limits before they left Mote Prime. There were two: the life span of a Mediator was not long, and the Master would die at nearly the same time. The massive hormone imbalance which made him sterile and permanently male would kill him. But only mules and a sterile Keeper could be sent, for no Master would entrust any but a Keeper with this task; and only a Keeper could survive without breeding.

The span of the second time limit was not so predictable, but it was no less sure: Civilization was again doomed on the Mote. Another Cycle was turning, and despite the inevitable Crazy Eddies there would be no halting it. After the collapse the humans would see Moties in savagery. The Race would be helpless, or nearly so; and what would the humans do then?

No one knew and no Master would risk it.

“The humans have promised discussions of trade. I presume the Mediator will be their instrument. Also perhaps Mr. Bury or another like him.” Jock left his chair and examined the paneled walls. There were buttons concealed in filigree and he pressed one. A panel slid open to reveal another tri-v and Jock operated it.

“What is there to discuss?” the Master demanded. “We need food and land, or we must be left alone with the Cycles. We must conceal the urgency of our needs and their reasons. We have little to trade but ideas; there are no resources to expand. If humans wish durable goods they must bring us the metals to make them from.”

Any drain of resources from the Mote would prolong the next collapse; and that must not be.

“The Navy’s keeping it a big hush-hush, but I can tell you this, they’ve got technology beyond anything the First Empire ever had,” a Commentator on the view screen said. He seemed awed.

“The humans no longer possess much of what they had,” said Jock. “Once, during the period they call the First Empire, they had food-conversion machinery of amazing efficiency. It required only power and organic matter, garbage, weeds, even deceased animals and humans. Poisons were removed or converted.”

“Do you know the principles? Or how widespread was its use? Or why they no longer possess it?” the Master demanded.

“No. The human would not speak of it.”

“I heard,” Charlie added. “He was a rating named Dubcek, and he was attempting to conceal the obvious fact that humans have Cycles. They all do.”

“We know of their Cycles,” Ivan said. “Their oddly erratic Cycles.”

“We know what the midshipmen told us in their last hours. We know what the others have implied. We know they are in awe of the power of their First Empire, but have little admiration of their previous civilizations. Little more. Perhaps with the tri-v I can learn.”

“This food machine. Will others know more of it?”

“Yes. If we had a Brown, and with what the humans know of the principles, it is possible that—”

“Make me joyful beyond dreams,” said Charlie. “Cease to wish we had Browns.”

“I can’t help it. I have only to lie on their couches, or sit in this chair, and somehow my thoughts turn—”

“A Brown would die revealingly. Two Browns would breed and breed and breed and if prevented from breeding would die revealingly. Shut up about Browns.”

“I will. But that one food machine would stave off any new Cycle for half a 144-years.”

“You will learn all you can about the machine,” Ivan directed. “And you will cease to speak of Browns. My couch is as badly designed as yours.”

The grandstand was in front of the Palace gates, and it was filling with humans. More temporary structures stretched in both directions down the roadway, as far as the Moties could see from their place in the front row. Humans swarmed around and into them.

Ivan sat impassively. There was no understanding the purpose of all this, but the humans were attempting to observe the proprieties. As they left their rooms they were followed by humans with weapons, and the men did not watch the Moties; they looked unceasingly at the crowds around them. These Marines were not impressive and they would be as Meats in the hands of Warriors, but at least the human Masters had provided a bodyguard. They were trying to be polite.

The Mediators chattered as Mediators always did, and Ivan listened carefully. Much could be learned from Mediator conversations.

Jock: “These are the over-Masters of this planet, of twenty planets and more. Yet they have said that they must do this thing. Why?”

Charlie: “I have theories. Notice the patterns of deference as they approach their seats. Viceroy Merrill assists Sally to climb the stairs. Titles are omitted by some and always used by others, and given redundantly in full over the loudspeakers. The ‘gentlemen of the press’ would seem to have no status at all, yet they stop whom they please, and although the others will prevent them from going where they will, they are not punished for trying.”

Jock: “What pattern do you see? I find none.”

Ivan: “Have you conclusions?”

“Only interesting questions,” Charlie replied.

Ivan: “Then allow me my own observations.”

Jock changed to the Trailing Trojans Recent tongue. “What pattern do you see?”

Charlie answered in the same language. “I see a complex netting of obligations, but within it there is a pyramid of power. No one is truly independent, but as you near the top of the pyramid power increases enormously; however, it is seldom used to its fullest. There are lines of obligations that reach in all directions, upwards, downwards, sideways in a totally alien manner. Where no Master works directly for any other, these humans all work for each other: Viceroy Merrill answers commands from above and obligations from below. The Browns and Farmers and Warriors and Laborers demand and receive periodic accounting of the doings of their Masters.”

Jock (astonishment): “It is too complex. Yet we must know or we cannot predict what the humans will do.”

Charlie: “The patterns change as we look. And there is this attitude they call ‘formality’—Shock!”

Jock: “Yes, I saw. The small female who ran in front of the car. Look, the men in the car are shaken, perhaps injured. The car stopped very suddenly. What prerogatives could that female have?”

Jock: “If that is her parent carrying her away, then she is a proto-Engineer. Except that she is a small female and they have few female Engineers, and that Master’s car stopped to avoid striking her, to the detriment of the Master. Now I understand why their Fyunch(click)s go mad.”

The stand was nearly full, and Hardy returned to his place beside them. Charlie asked, “Can you explain again what is to happen here? We did not understand, and you had little time.”

Hardy thought about it. Every kid knew what a parade was, but nobody ever told children; you took them to one instead. Children liked them because there were strange and wonderful things to watch. Adults—well, adults had other reasons.

He said, “A lot of men are going to walk past us in regular patterns. Some will play musical instruments. There will be vehicles carrying displays of handiwork and agriculture and art. There will be more men walking, and groups of them will be identically dressed.”

“And the purpose?”

Hardy laughed. “To do you honor, and to honor each other and themselves. To display their skills.” And maybe to show their power… “We’ve been having parades since history began, and there’s no sign we’re about to give them up.”

“And this is one of those ‘formal’ events you spoke of?”

“Yes, but it’s supposed to be fun too.” Hardy smiled benevolently at his charges. They did look funny in their brown-and-white fur and their bulbous black goggles, held on by straps because they had no noses to support ordinary glasses. The goggles gave them an unnaturally solemn look.

Hardy glanced at a rustle behind him. The Admiralty staff were taking their places. Hardy recognized Admiral Kutuzov with fleet Admiral Cranston.

And the Moties were chattering among themselves, their voices warbling up and down the scales, their arms flickering…

“It is he! It is Lenin’s Master!” Jock stood upright and stared. The arms indicated surprise, joy, wonder.

Charlie studied the attitudes of the humans as they moved in the broken space of the grandstand. Who deferred to whom? In what fashion? The similarly dressed ones reacted predictably, and designs on their clothing gave their exact status. Blaine had once worn such clothing and while he did he fitted into the place theory would assign him. Now he did not wear it, and the patterns were different for him. Even Kutuzov had bowed to him. And yet: Charlie observed the actions of the others, and the facial attitudes, and said, “You are correct. Be cautious.”

“Are you certain?” the White demanded.

“Yes! He is the one I have studied for so long, from so far away, solely from the behavior of those who took his orders. Look, the broad stripe on his sleeve, the ringed planet symbol on his chest, the deference of Lenin’s Marine guards—certainly it is he. I was correct from the first, one being, and human!”

“You will cease to study him. Turn your eyes front.”

“No! We must know of this type of human! This is the class they choose to command their ships of war!”

“Turn around.”

“You are a Master but you are not my Master.”

“Obey,” said Ivan. Ivan was not good at argument.

Charlie was. As Jock twitched and stammered in internal conflict, Charlie switched to an ancient, half-forgotten language, less for concealment than to remind Jock how much they had to conceal. “If we had many Mediators the risk would be tolerable; but if you should go mad now, policy would be decided by Ivan and me alone. Your Master would not be represented.”

“But the dangers that threaten our world—”

“Consider the record of your sisters. Sally Fowler’s Mediator now goes about telling Masters that the world could be made perfect if they would exercise restraint in their breeding. Horace Bury’s Mediator—”

“If we could learn—”

“—cannot be found. He sends letters to the most powerful Masters asking for offers should he change allegiance, and pointing out the value of information he alone possesses. Jonathon Whitbread’s Mediator betrayed her Master and killed her own Fyunch(click)!” Charlie’s eyes flickered to Ivan. The Master was watching but he would not understand.

Charlie changed to the common tongue. “Captain my Lord Roderick Blaine’s Mediator went Crazy Eddie. You were present. Gavin Potter’s Mediator is Crazy Eddie. Sinclair’s Mediator is useful in society, but quite mad.”

“This is true,” said the White. “We have placed her in charge of a project to develop force shielding such as the humans possess. She works startlingly well with Browns and uses tools herself. But with her Master and her sister Mediators she talks as if her parietal lobe were damaged.”

Jock sat down suddenly, eyes front.

“Consider the record,” Charlie continued. “Only Horst Staley’s Mediator is sane by any rational standard. You must not identify with any human. Certainly this should pose no hardship. There cannot be any evolved instinct in us to identify with humans!”

Jock changed back to Trailing Trojans Recent. “But we are alone out here. What, then, should I be Fyunch(click) to, Ivan?”

“You will be no human’s Fyunch(click),” Ivan stated. He had heard only the concealing language change. Charlie made no answer.

Glad that’s over, whatever it was, Hardy thought. The Motie conversation had lasted only half a minute, but there must have been a lot of information exchanged—and the emotional content was high. David was certain of that although he could as yet recognize only a few phrases of any Motie tongue. He had only recently become certain that there were many still in current use.

“Here come the Viceroy and the Commissioners,” Hardy said. “And the bands are starting. Now you’ll know what a parade is like.”

It seemed to Rod that the very rock of the Palace trembled from the sound. A hundred drummers paced by in thunder, and behind them a brass band blared some march ancient in CoDominium times. The leader raised his mace and the group countermarched before the reviewing stand to polite applause. Batons swirled as girls tossed them high in the air.

“The Ambassador asks if these are Warriors,” Charlie shouted.

Rod almost laughed but carefully controlled his voice. “No. This is the John Muir High School band—a youth group. Some of them may become warriors when they’re older, and some of ‘em will be farmers, or engineers, or—”

“Thank you.” The Moties twittered.

Not that we haven’t had warriors, Rod thought. With this reception sure to have the biggest tri-v audience in the history of the Empire, Merrill wasn’t going to neglect the opportunity to display a glimpse of the mailed fist. It might make prospective rebels think twice. But there hadn’t been much military equipment displayed, and there’d been more young girls with flowers than Marines and soldiers.

The parade was interminable. Every provincial baron had to show off; every guild, corporation, town, school, lodge—anything, they all wanted in the act and Fowler’d said let them all come.

The John Muir School band was followed by a half battalion of Covenanter Highlander troops with kilts, more drums, and squealing bagpipes. The wild music grated on Rod’s nerves but he was careful to control himself; although Covenant was on the other side of the Coal Sack the Highlanders were naturally popular on New Scotland, and all New Scots either loved or professed to love the pipes.

The Highlanders carried swords and pikes, and wore bearskin shakos nearly a meter high. Waves of bright plaids streamed from their shoulders. There was no threat visible, but the reputation of the Covenanters was threat enough; no army in the known worlds would relish tangling with them when they took off their ceremonial finery and put on body armor and battle dress; and Covenant was loyalist to the core.

“Those are warriors?” Charlie asked.

“Yes. They’re part of Viceroy Merrill’s ceremonial guard,” Rod shouted. He stood to attention as a color party marched past, and had to make a strong effort to keep his hand from rising to the salute. Instead he took off his hat.

The parade went on: a flower-covered float from some New Irish barony; artisans’ guilds displays; more troops, Friedlanders this time, marching awkwardly because they were artillerists and tankers and hadn’t their vehicles. Another reminder to the provinces of just what His Majesty could send against his enemies.

“What do the Moties make of all this?” Merrill asked out of the corner of his mouth. He acknowledged the colors of another baronial float.

“Hard to say,” Senator Fowler replied.

“More to the point is what the provinces will make of it,” Armstrong said. “This show will be worth a visit by a battle cruiser many places. And ‘tis far cheaper.”

“Cheaper for the government,” Merrill said. “Hate to think what was spent on all this. Luckily, I didn’t have to spend it.”

“Rod, you can make your exit now,” Senator Fowler said. “Hardy’ll make your excuses to the Moties.”

“Right. Thanks.” Rod slipped away. Behind him he heard the sounds of the parade and the muted conversation of his friends.

“I never heard so many drums in all my life,” Sally said.

“Bosh. Goes on every Birthday,” Senator Fowler reminded her.

“Well, I don’t have to watch all of it on Birthdays.”

“Birthday?” Jock asked.

Rod left as Sally was trying to explain patriotic holidays and a hundred pipers tramped past in Gaelic splendor.

50. The Art of Negotiation

The little group moved in angry silence. Horowitz’ hostility was just short of audible as he led the way deeper underground. I am the most competent xenologist in Trans-Coalsack, he was thinking. They’ll have to go to Sparta to find anyone better. And this goddamn lordling and his half-educated lady doubt my professional word.

And I have to put up with it.

There wasn’t much doubt about that, Horowitz reflected. The University President had personally made it clear. “For God’s sake, Ziggy, do what they want! This Commission is a big deal. Our whole budget, not to mention your department, is going to be affected by their reports. What if they say we don’t cooperate and ask for a team from Sparta?”

So. At least these young aristocrats knew his time was valuable. He’d told them half a dozen times on the way to the labs.

They were deep underground in the Old University, walking on worn rock floors carved an age before. Murcheson himself had paced these corridors before the terraforming of New Scotland was complete, and legend had it that his ghost could still be seen prowling through the rock-walled passageways: a hooded figure with one smoldering red eye.

And just why is this so damned important anyway? Balaam’s ass, why does the girl make such a big deal out of it?

The laboratory was another room quarried from living rock. Horowitz gestured imperiously and two graduate assistants opened a refrigerated container. A long table slid out.

The pilot of the Crazy Eddie probe lay disassembled on the smooth white plastic surface. Its organs were arranged in a semblance to the positions they’d had before dissection, with black lines drawn across the flayed skin to join them to points on the skin and the exploded skeleton. Light red and dark red and grayish green, improbable shapes: the components of a Motie Mediator were all the colors and textures of a man hit by a grenade. Rod felt his belly twist within him and remembered ground actions.

He winced as Sally leaned forward impatiently for a better look. Her face was set and grim—but it had been that way back at Horowitz’ office.

“Now!” Horowitz exploded in triumph. His bony finger jabbed at peanut-sized slime-green nodes within the abdomen. “Here. And here. These would have been the testes. The other Motie variants have internal testes too.”

“Yes—” Sally agreed.

“This small?” Horowitz asked contemptuously.

“We don’t know.” Sally’s voice was still very serious. “There were no reproductive organs in the statuettes, and the only Moties the expedition dissected were a Brown and some miniatures. The Brown was female.”

“I’ve seen the miniatures,” Horowitz said smugly.

“Well—yes,” Sally agreed. “The testes in male miniatures were big enough to see—”

“Much bigger than this in proportion. But never mind. These could not have produced sperm. I have proved it. That pilot was a mule!” Horowitz slapped the back of his hand against his open palm. “A mule!”

Sally studied the exploded Motie. She’s really upset, Rod thought.

“Moties start male, then turn female,” Sally mumbled, almost inaudibly. “Couldn’t this one have been immature?”

“A pilot?”

“Yes, of course—” She sighed. “You’re right, anyway. It was the height of a full-grown Mediator. Could it have been a freak?”

“Hah! You laughed at me when I suggested it might have been a mutation! Well, it isn’t. While you were off on that jaunt we did a bit of work here. I’ve identified the chromosomes and gene-coding systems responsible for sexual development. This creature was a sterile hybrid of two other forms which are fertile.” Triumph.

“That fits,” Rod said. “The Moties told Renner the Mediators were a hybrid—”

“Look,” Horowitz demanded. He activated a lecture screen and punched in codes. Shapes flowed across the screen. Motie chromosomes were close-packed discs connected by thin rods. There were bands and shapes on the discs—and Sally and Horowitz were speaking a language Rod didn’t understand. He listened absently, then found a lab assistant making coffee. The girl sympathetically offered a cup, the other assistant joined them, and Rod was pressed for information about Moties. Again.

Half an hour later they left the university. Whatever Horowitz had said, Sally was convinced.

“Why so upset, sweetheart?” he asked. “Horowitz is right. It makes sense for the Mediators to be mules.” Rod grimaced at the memory. Horowitz had pointedly added that being mules, the Mediators wouldn’t be influenced by nepotism.

“But my Fyunch(click) would have told me. I’m sure she would. We did talk about sex and reproduction and she said—”

“What?”

“I don’t remember exactly.” Sally took out her pocket computer and scrawled the symbols for information recall. The gadget hummed, then changed tone to indicate it was using the car’s radio system to communicate with the Palace data banks. “And I don’t remember just when she said it—” She scrawled something else. “I should have used a better cross-reference system when I filed the tape.”

“You’ll find it. Here’s the Palace—we’ve got a conference with the Moties after lunch. Why don’t you ask them about it?”

She grinned.

“You’re blushing.”

Sally giggled. “Remember when the little Moties first coupled? It was the first positive indication we’d had of sex changes in adult Moties, and I went running down to the lounge—Dr. Horvath still thinks I’m some kind of sex maniac!”

“Want me to ask?”

“If I don’t. But, Rod, my Fyunch(click) wouldn’t lie to me. She just wouldn’t have.”

They ate in the executive dining room, and Rod ordered another brandy and coffee. He sipped and said thoughtfully, “There was a message with this—”

“Oh? Have you talked to Mr. Bury?”

“Only to thank him. The Navy’s still entertaining him as a guest. No, the message was the gift itself. It told me he could send messages, even before Lenin made orbit.”

She looked shocked. “You’re right—why didn’t we—”

“Too busy. By the time I thought of it, it didn’t seem important enough to report, so I haven’t. The question is, Sally: What other messages did he send, and why did he want me to know he could do it?”

She shook her head. “I’d rather try to analyze the motivations of aliens than of Mr. Bury. He’s a very strange man.”

“Right. But not a stupid one.” He stood and helped Sally out of her chair. “Time for the conference.”

They met in the Motie quarters of the Palace. This was supposed to be a working conference, and Senator Fowler was running political interference elsewhere so that Rod and Sally could ask questions.

“I’m glad you co-opted Mr. Renner for the advisory staff,” Sally told Rod as they got off the elevator. “He’s got a—well, a different outlook about the Moties.”

“Different. That’s the word.” Rod had also been assigned others from the expedition: Chaplain Hardy, Sinclair, and several scientists. Until Senator Fowler made up his mind about Dr. Horvath’s request for Commission membership they couldn’t use him, though; the Science Minister might refuse to become a subordinate to the Commissioners.

The Marines outside the Motie quarters snapped to attention as Rod and Sally approached. “See. You worry too much,” Rod said as he acknowledged the salutes. “The Moties haven’t complained about the guards.”

“Complained? Jock told me the Ambassador likes having guards,” Sally said. “I guess he’s a little afraid of us.”

Rod shrugged. “They watch a lot of tri-v. God knows what they think of the human race now.” They entered to hear an animated conversation in progress.

“Of course I expected no direct evidence,” Chaplain Hardy was insisting. “But although I didn’t expect it, I would have been pleasantly surprised to find something concrete: scripture, or a religion similar to ours, something like that. But expect it, no.”

“I still wonder what you think you could have found,” Charlie said. “Were it my problem to prove that humans had souls, I shouldn’t know where to begin looking.”

Hardy shrugged. “Nor do I. But begin with your own beliefs—you think you possess something like an immortal soul.”

“Some do, some don’t,” Charlie said. “Most Masters believe it. Like humans, Moties do not care to think their lives are purposeless. Or that they can and will be terminated. Hello, Sally. Rod. Please be seated.”

“Thanks.” Rod nodded greetings to Jock and Ivan. The Ambassador looked like a surrealist rendition of an Angora cat as he lay sprawled on the edge of a couch. The Master flicked the lower right hand, a gesture which Rod had learned meant something similar to “I see you.” There were evidently other greetings, but they were reserved for other Masters: equals, not creatures with whom Mediators discussed business.

Rod activated his pocket computer to get the agenda for the day’s meeting. The readout was coded to remind him of both the formal items for discussion and the questions Senator Fowler wanted answered without the Moties’ knowing the questions had been asked; questions such as why the Moties hadn’t ever asked about the fate of the Crazy Eddie probe. That one needed no code at all; Rod was as puzzled as the Senator. He was also reluctant to get the Moties asking, since he would have to explain what he’d done to the probe.

“Before we begin,” Rod said. “The Foreign Office requests that you attend a reception tonight. For the baronage and some representatives of Parliament.”

The Moties twittered. Ivan twittered back. “We will be honored,” Jock said formally. There was no expression in the voice.

“OK. So now we’re back to the same problems we’ve always had. Are you a threat to the Empire, and just what will your technology do to our economy.”

“Oddly enough,” Jock said, “the same questions concern us. Except in reverse.”

“But we never seem to settle anything,” Sally protested.

“How could we?” Hardy asked reasonably. “Assuming that the threat question is negligible, until we know what our friends will sell the economists can’t predict what they’ll do to us—and the Moties have the same difficulty.”

“They aren’t as concerned about them as we are,” Renner said impatiently. “I’m with Sally. We talk a lot, but we don’t get much done.”

“We won’t get any of it done if we don’t get started.” Rod looked at his computer readout. “The first item is superconductors. The physics boys are happy enough, but the econ section wants better cost data. I’m supposed to ask—” He touched the control to let the questions roll across the tiny screen.

“Are you mules?” Sally blurted.

There was silence. Hardy’s eyes narrowed slightly; otherwise he didn’t react. Renner lifted his left eyebrow. They stared, first at Sally, then at the Moties.

“You mean Mediators,” Jock said carefully. “Yes. Of course.”

There was more silence. “All of you?” Renner asked.

“Certainly. We are hybrid forms. None of you seem to like that answer. Sally, what is troubling you? Mediators were a late evolutionary development, and evolution is by groups and tribes as often as by individuals—that’s true for humans too, isn’t it?”

Hardy nodded. “Not only us. Most alien life forms we’ve found, too.”

“Thank you. We assume that tribes with Mediators survived better than those without. We have never seen a fertile Mediator, but if ever there were one, she must have acted in her children’s interests rather than the tribe’s.” The Motie shrugged. “That’s all speculation, of course. Our history doesn’t go back that far. As for me, I would like to have children, but I have always known I would not—” The Motie shrugged again. “Still, it is a pity. The sex act is the ultimate in enjoyment. We know this. We empathize all too well with Masters.”

There was more silence. Hardy cleared his throat but said nothing.

“Sally, while we are speaking of Motie problems, there is something else you must know about us.”

You could cut the gloom in here with a knife, Rod thought. Now just why is it so depressing that…

“Compared with your species, ours is short-lived. We three were chosen for our experience and intelligence, not our youth. We have considerably fewer than ten years to live.”

“But— No!” Sally was visibly shaken. “All of you?”

“Yes. I would not raise such a painful topic, but we all think it wise to tell you. Your parades, these formal receptions, all of this baffles us most pleasantly. We anticipate great pleasure in solving the mystery of why you do these things. But we also must establish trade and diplomatic relations with you, and there is a definite time limit—”

“Yes,” said Sally “Yes, of course. Not even ten years!”

Jock shrugged. “Mediators live a total of twenty-five. Win a few, lose a few. You presumably have your own problems,” The alien voice took on a note of grim amusement. “Such as the wars you suffer through lack of Mediators!”

The Motie looked around the conference mom. There was more silence, and blank stares. “I’ve distressed you all. I am sorry, but it had to be said. Let us resume tomorrow, when you’ve had time to think about this.” She uttered a high, sweet note, and Charlie and Ivan followed her through a paneled doorway into the Motie private quarters. The door closed gently behind them.

As they walked to Ivan’s room Charlie twittered to the Master. They entered and closed the door; and although they were certain the room had no spy or listening devices, they spoke in a high grammar rich with poetic allusions. The humans could never decipher it.

The Master’s posture was a demand for explanation.

“There was not time to consult,” Jock cried. “I had to speak at once before they placed too much importance on the question.”

“You told them yes,” Ivan said. “You might have said no. Or maybe. Or some are, and some not…”

Charlie said, “You might have told them we don’t discuss such things. You know humans do not like to speak openly of sexual matters.”

“They can when they want to,” Jock protested. “And their next request would have been that we submit to examination by their xenologists. We have already submitted to their physicians—how could we refuse now?”

Ivan: “Their xenologists would find nothing. A male would show zero sperm count, but you are female.”

Charlie pantomimed ritual sorrow: Circumstances force me to disagree with you, Master. “Their original examinations were directionless. Can you say they would be less thorough now? That they would not find that all three of us suffer from hormone imbalances?” Charlie’s arms moved, so, to indicate apology for reminding the Master of his sterility; moved again to indicate pressing importance. “The same imbalance that they detected in the Brown miner. Imbalances that were not present when they found the miner, but which developed before she died aboard MacArthur.”

The others were suddenly quiet. Charlie continued inexorably. “They are not stupid. They may well have connected these disturbances with sexual abstinence. What have they discovered about Watchmakers? They must have had Watchmakers to examine; the miner would have brought them aboard as a matter of course.”

“Curse!” Ivan assumed a pose of thought. “Would they cage the Watchmakers separately?”

Both Mediators gestured lack of knowledge. “Jock was right to answer as she did,” Charlie said. “They have the body that was aboard the Crazy Eddie probe. There must have been one, and it must have been a Mediator, a young one with a long life so that he could negotiate with whomever the probe might find here.”

“But our records show that Mediator would be dead,” Jock said. “He must have been; the humans learned nothing from him. Curse! If only the records were complete—”

“If only the records were complete. If only we had a Brown. If only the humans would tell us what they have done with the probe. If only the humans would tell us why they destroyed MacArthur. You will cease these meaningless phrases. You must have learned them from humans.” Ivan commanded with finality. “Speak of what the humans have learned from the pilot of the probe.”

Charlie: “They would dissect the pilot. Their biological sciences are as advanced as ours. More advanced. They speak of genetic engineering techniques not recorded in any museum, and certainly not discovered in this Cycle. Thus we must assume their xenobiologists could learn that the pilot was sterile. Renner’s Fyunch(click) told him that Mediators were hybrids.”

“Crazy Eddie. Even then,” Ivan said. “Now she argues incessantly with her Master.” He paused, thinking, his arms waving for silence. “You have done well,” he told Jock. “They would learn you are sterile in any case. It is crucial that they do not learn how important that is. Does this tell humans that Fyunch(click)s can and do lie to humans?”

Silence. Finally Jock spoke. “We do not know. Sally’s Fyunch(click) spoke to her of sex, but the conversation was aboard the human ship. We have no record, only what was reported to us.”

“Reported by a Crazy Eddie,” Ivan said.

Jock said, “I did my utmost to distract them.”

“But did you succeed?”

“Yes. It was evident in their faces.”

Ivan could not read a human face, but he understood the concept: there were muscles around human eyes and mouth used for signaling emotions, like Motie gestures. Mediators could read them. “Go on.”

“Direct reference to the sex act to slow their minds. Then the fact of our life spans, delivered as one might admit to having a terminal disease. Now these long-lived creatures will mourn for us.”

“Well they might,” said Charlie.

“They will pity us for our handicaps. They might even attempt to remedy them.”

Ivan turned quickly to Jock. “Do you believe they can do so?”

“Master, no! Am I Crazy Eddie?”

Ivan relaxed. “You will consider this matter carefully. You will discuss the evidence the humans have, and what they may deduce from it. Were there not two Engineers as well as your Master aboard the embassy ship that met MacArthur?”

Jock: “Affirm.”

“Curse. And how many Mediator pups when they returned?”

“I had four sisters.”

“Curse!” Ivan wanted to say more; but to state the obvious would have lost Jock’s loyalty forever; it might even have shocked Charlie into abnormalities. Curse! Mediators identified with Masters. They held the usual Master emotions about children.

Though sterile from an early age, Ivan was not immune to those emotions; but he knew. The children should have been spaced.

51. After The Ball Is Over

“No point in sitting here,” Renner announced.

“Yeah.” Rod led the way to the Commission’s office suite in the Palace. Sally followed silently.

“Kelley, I think you’d better bring a round of drinks,” Rod said when they were seated at the conference table. “Make mine a double.”

“Aye aye, my lord.” Kelley gave Rod a puzzled look. Was Lady Sally giving him problems already? And them not even married yet?

“Twenty-five years!” Sally exploded. There was bitter anger in her voice. She said it again, this time to Chaplain Hardy. “Twenty-five years?” She waited for him to explain a universe in which there was so much injustice.

“Maybe it’s the price they pay for better than human intelligence,” Renner said. “It’s heavy.”

“There are compensations,” Hardy said thoughtfully. “Their intelligence. And their love of life. They talk so fast, they probably think fast as well. I expect that Moties pack a lot into their few years.”

There was more silence. Kelley returned with a tray. He set down the glasses and left, his face screwed into puzzled disapproval.

Renner glanced at Rod, who was in Thinker position: elbow on chair arm, chin on closed fist, face brooding.

Kevin lifted his glass. “Here’s to the wake.”

No one responded. Rod left his drink untouched. A man could live a good, useful life in a quarter of a century, he thought. Didn’t people live about that long in preatomic days? But it couldn’t be complete. I’m twenty-five now, and I haven’t raised a family, or lived with a woman I love, or even begun my career in politics. He watched Sally rise and pace the floor What does she think she’s doing? Is she going to solve that problem for them? If they can’t, how could we?

“This isn’t getting us anywhere,” Renner said. He lifted his glass again. “Look, if it doesn’t upset the Mediators that they’re short-lived mules, why should we—” He stopped in mid-sentence. “Mules? Then the pup Mediators on the embassy ship must have been children of the two Browns and the hidden White.”

They all looked at him. Sally stopped her pacing and took her seat again. “There were four pups when we got back to Mote Prime,” she said. “Weren’t there?”

“Indeed,” Hardy said. He swirled brandy in his glass. “That is rather a high birth rate.”

“But they’ve so little time,” Sally protested.

“One would be a high birth rate in that ship. On that mission.” Renner sounded positive. “Chaplain, what do you think of that as an ethical situation? You’re going to meet a strange well-armed race. You’re in a fragile toy of an unarmed ship. So you have children all over the place…”

“I see your point,” said David Hardy. “But I’ll want to think about it. Perhaps—”

He was interrupted by fists slamming on the table. Two fists. Sally’s. “God’s teeth!” She seized the stylus and scribbled symbols on the face of her computer. It hummed and flashed. “We were waiting for the transfer ship. I know I didn’t misunderstand. I couldn’t have.”

Hardy looked puzzlement at Sally. Renner looked a question at Rod. Rod shrugged and watched his girl. “Her Motie never told her they were mules,” he explained to the others.

The computer hummed again. Sally nodded and keyed in instructions. A screen on the back wall lit to show Sally Fowler, eight months younger, talking to a brown-and-white alien. The voices were eerily identical.

Motie: But you marry to raise children. Who raises children born without marriage?

Sally: There are charities.

Motie: I take it you’ve never—

Sally: No, of course not.

The living Sally was almost blushing, but her face remained grim.

Motie: How not? I don’t mean why not, I mean how?

Sally: Well—you know that men and women have to have sexual relations to make a baby, the same as you—I’ve examined you pretty thoroughly…

“Perhaps not thoroughly enough,” Hardy commented.

“Apparently not,” Sally said. “Shh.”

Motie: Pills? How do they work? Hormones?

Sally: That’s right.

Motie: But a proper woman doesn’t use them.

Sally: No.

Motie: When will you get married?

Sally: When I find the right man… I may have found him already.

Someone was chuckling. Sally looked around, to see Rod looking beatifically unconcerned, Hardy smiling gently, and Renner laughing. She looked curses at the Sailing Master, but he obstinately refused to vanish in black smoke.

Motie: Then why don’t you marry him?

Sally: I don’t want to jump into anything. “Marry in haste, repent at leisure.” I can get married any time. Well, any time within the next five years. I’ll be something of a spinster if I’m not married by then.

Motie: Spinster?

Sally: People would think it odd. What if a Motie doesn’t want children?

Motie: We don’t have sexual relations.

There were various clunks, and the screen went blank

“The literal truth,” she mused. “ ‘We don’t have sexual relations.’ They don’t either, but not by choice.”

“Really?” David Hardy sounded puzzled “The statement in context with the question is highly misleading…”

“She didn’t want to talk about it any more,” Sally insisted. “And no wonder. I just misunderstood, that’s all.”

“I never misunderstood my Motie,” Renner said. “Sometimes she understood me all too well…”

“Look. Let’s drop it.”

“The day we went down to Mote Prime. You’d known each other for months,” Renner mused. “Chaplain, what do you think?”

“If I understand you properly, the same as you.”

“Just what are you hinting at, Mr. Renner? I said let’s drop it.” The Lady Sandra was incensed. Rod steeled himself for what was coming: ice or explosion, or both.

“I’m not hinting it, Sally,” Renner said with sudden decision. “I’m saying it. Your Motie lied to you. Deliberately and with forethought.”

“Nonsense. She was embarrassed—”

Hardy shook his head slightly. It was a tiny motion, but it stopped Sally. She looked at the priest. “I think,” David said, “I can recall only one occasion when a Motie was embarrassed. It was at the Museum. And all of them acted the same way there—nothing like your Fyunch(click) did just now, Sally. I’m afraid it’s very probable that Kevin is right.”

“And for what reason?” Sally insisted. “Just why would my—almost my sister—why would she lie to me? About that?”

There was silence. Sally nodded in satisfaction. She couldn’t snap at Chaplain Hardy; not that she had that much respect for his office, but for him. Renner was another matter. “You will tell me if you find an answer to that question, Mr. Renner.”

“Yah. Sure.” Renner’s expression made him look oddly like Buckman: Bury would have recognized it at once. He had barely heard her.

They left the glittering ballroom as soon as they could. Behind them a costumed orchestra played waltzes, while the Moties were introduced to a seemingly endless line. There were provincial barons, Parliament leaders, traders, people with friends in the protocol office, and assorted party crashers. Everyone wanted to see the Moties.

Rod took Sally’s hand as they walked through deserted Palace corridors toward their quarters. An ancient waltz faded hollowly behind them.

“They’ve so little time to live, and we’re wasting it with—that,” Sally muttered. “Rod, it’s not fair!”

“Part of their mission, sweetheart. What good would it do them to agree with us if we can’t hold the baronage? Even with the Throne behind us we’re safer playing the political game. And so are they.”

“I suppose.” She stopped him and leaned against his shoulder. The Hooded Man was fully risen, black against the stars, watching them through the stone arches. A fountain splashed in the courtyard below. They stood that way in the deserted corridor for a long time.

“I do love you,” she whispered. “How can you put up with me?”

“That’s pretty easy.” He bent down to kiss her, desisted when there was no response.

“Rod, I’m so embarrassed… how am I ever going to apologize to Kevin?”

“To Kevin? You’re kidding. Have you ever seen Renner apologize to anyone? Just forget it. Talk as if it had never happened next time you see him.”

“But he was right—you knew, didn’t you? You knew it then!”

He started her walking again. Their footsteps echoed through the corridors. Even in the dim lights the rock walls flashed iridescent colors as they moved. Then a wall blocked the smoldering gaze of the Hooded Man, and they were at the stairs.

“I suspected it then. Just from the reports and the brief relationship I had with my Motie. After you left this afternoon I did some checking. They lied to you.”

“But why, Rod? I can’t understand it—” They climbed another flight in silence.

“You aren’t going to like the answer,” Rod said as they reached their floor. “She was a Mediator. Mediators represent Masters. She was ordered to lie to you.”

“But why? What possible reason could they have for concealing that they were mules?”

“I wish I knew.” Or that I didn’t know, he thought. But there was no point in telling Sally until he was sure. “Don’t take it so hard, sweetheart. We lied to them, too.”

They reached his door and he put his hand on the identiplate. The door swung open to reveal Kelley, tunic unfastened, sprawled in an easy chair. The Marine leaped to his feet.

“Good God, Kelley. I’ve told you not to wait up for me. Go to bed.”

“Important message, my lord. Senator Fowler will be here later. He asks you to wait for him. Wanted to be sure you got the message, my lord.”

“Yeah.” Rod’s voice was lemon-sour. “OK. I got the message. Thanks.”

“I’ll stay to serve you.”

“No, you won’t. No sense in everybody staying up all night. Get out of here.” Rod watched the Marine vanish into the corridor. When he was gone Sally giggled loudly. “I don’t see what’s so damned funny,” Rod snapped.

“He was protecting my reputation,” Sally laughed. “What if you hadn’t got the message and Uncle Ben came chargin’ in here and we—”

“Yeah. Want a drink?”

“With Uncle Ben coming in a few minutes? Waste of good liquor. I’m going to bed.” She smiled sweetly. “Don’t stay up too late.”

“Wench.” He took her shoulders and kissed her. Then again. “I could set the door so he can’t get in—”

“Good night, Rod.”

He watched until she was inside her own suite across the hall from his, then went back inside to the bar. It had been a long dull evening, with only the thought of leaving the party early to look forward to.

“Damn!” he said aloud. He tossed off a brimming glass of New Aberdeen Highland Cream. “God damn it to hell!”

Senator Fowler and a preoccupied Kevin Renner came in after Rod had poured his second drink. “Sorry about the hour, Rod,” Fowler said perfunctorily. “Kevin tells me something interesting happened today—”

“He did, uh? And he suggested this conference, right?” When Benjamin Fowler nodded, Rod turned to his former sailing master. “I’ll fix you for this, you—”

“We haven’t got time for games,” Fowler said. “Got any more of that Scotch?”

“Yeah.” Rod poured for both of them, tossed off his drink, and poured himself another. “Have a seat, Ben. You too, Mr. Renner. I won’t apologize for letting the servants go to bed—”

“Oh, that’s all right,” Renner said. He lapsed back into whatever reverie was consuming him, sank into a chair, then grinned in astonishment. He’d never been in a massage chair before, and obviously enjoyed it.

“OK,” Senator Fowler said. “Tell me what you think happened this afternoon”

“I’ll show it to you.” Rod manipulated his pocket computer and the wall screen came on. The picture was not good; it had been recorded by a small camera built into a decoration on Rod’s tunic, and the viewpoint was limited. The sound was excellent, though.

Fowler watched in silence. “Let’s see that again,” he said. Rod obligingly ran the conference once more. While Fowler and Renner watched he went to the bar, decided against another Scotch, and poured himself coffee.

“Now just why do you think this was so all-fired important?” Fowler demanded.

Kevin Renner shrugged. “It’s the first proof we have that they lie to us. What else haven’t they told us?”

“Hell, they haven’t told us much of anything;” Fowler said. “And was that a lie?”

“Yeah,” Rod said quietly. “By implication, anyway. It wasn’t misunderstanding. I’ve checked on that. We’ve got too many records of conversations where the Moties implied something false, realized they’d done it from watching our reactions, and corrected themselves. No. That Motie deliberately encouraged Sally to believe something that isn’t true.”

“But what the hell does it do for us to know Mediators don’t have kids?” Fowler demanded.

“It tells us two Browns and a White had four children,” Renner said slowly. “On a small ship. In space. Under dangerous conditions. Not to mention crowded.”

“Yeah.” Ben Fowler stood and removed his dress tunic. The shirt underneath was old, very soft, and carefully patched in three places. “Rod, just what do Moties think of their kids?” Fowler asked. “Maybe they think they’re nothing much until they can talk. Expendable.”

“Wrong,” said Renner.

“The tactful way,” Rod said quietly, “the polite way to disagree with the Senator would be to say, ‘That turns out not to be the case.’ ”

Renner’s face lit up. “Hey. I like that. Anyway, the Senator’s wrong. The Moties think everything of their children. The only religion they ever told me about teaches that their souls divide to enter their children. They practically worship the little darlings.”

“Uh.” Fowler held out his glass for a refill. He scowled impatiently. “Could it be they like ‘em so much they have kids whenever they get the chance?”

“Possible,” Rod said. “And from that the threat is obvious. But—”

“But exactly,” Fowler said. “Then that planet’s got to be crowded. Which it was. Which means the Moties have got population pressure problems like we’ve never had…”

“Presumably they can control them,” Rod said carefully. “Because if they can’t— They’ve been cooped up in that system a long time.”

“With what results?” Fowler demanded. “What do we know of Motie history?”

“Not a lot,” Renner said. “They’ve been civilized a long time. Really long. They were moving asteroids in bunches at least ten thousand years ago. I’m almost afraid to think how much history they’ve had.” Kevin wriggled in the chair to get the full effects of the massage. “So they’ve had plenty of time to solve their population problems. Just from the time they launched that Crazy Eddie probe to now they could have filled up the planet. They didn’t, so they can control population…”

“But they don’t want to,” Ben announced. “And what does that mean? If they get out here into the Empire, how long before they outnumber us?” Senator Fowler toyed thoughtfully with a worn spot on his shirt. “Maybe that’s what they’re trying to hide. High birth rate and a lack of desire to do anything about it.” He stood in sudden decision, no longer pensive. “Rod, get your people looking into this. I want everything we’ve got about Motie history.”

“Yes, sir,” Rod said unhappily. And what is this going to do to Sally when we get it? Because—

“You sound like the prosecutor in a murder trial,” Renner said. “Good Lord, Senator, they’ve got a long history. Of course they’ve solved the population pressure problem.”

“Fine. How?” Fowler snapped.

“I don’t know. Ask ‘em,” said Renner.

“I intend to. But since we know they can and do lie to us— Now just why would that surprise a politician?” Ben wondered. “Anyway. Now that we know that, I want to have my ducks in a row before I go in there and confront the Moties.”

“The opportunities for trade are fabulous,” Jock announced. The arms indicated excitement. “These humans are indescribably inefficient in the use of their resources. They have no instinct for complex tools.”

“None?” demanded Ivan.

“None that I have seen.” Jock indicated the tri-v. “They must train their young in every trade. Many of the programs on this set are for that purpose.”

“They have time to learn,” Charlie reflected. “They live very long. Longer than any Master.”

“Yes, but what a waste. They have no Browns, and no Watchmakers—”

Ivan interrupted. “You are certain they have no Watchmakers?”

“Yes. We saw no signs on the ships, nor have there been any on the tri-v, nor are there the expected products of Watchmakers. There are no individualized personal items—”

“I have seen such. The guards who attended us on Lenin carried such and many wore such footgear.”

“Made by our own Watchmakers—”

“Precisely,” said Ivan. “Now we know why they destroyed MacArthur. And why they fear us.”

The Mediators jabbered excitedly until Ivan cut them off again. “You agree?” he asked in the tone commanding information to be confirmed.

“Yes!” they said in unison. Charlie spoke rapidly, drowning Jock out. “The Brown miner they took aboard would have carried a breeding pair of Watchmakers. The humans know nothing of Watchmakers and would have allowed them to escape. And given free run of the ship and much time to adapt to it—”

“Yet we were told they have Watchmakers,” Ivan said.

Jock took a pose indicating memory recall. After a second he said, “No. Sally allowed us to assume that they have them. When her Fyunch(click) suggested that human Watchmakers were large, Sally agreed.”

“And the midshipmen seemed startled when we spoke of them regarding construction of their lifeboats,” Charlie said flatly. “Yes. You are certainly correct.”

There was silence. Ivan thought. Then he said, “They know we have a prolific subspecies. You will reflect on this.”

“They fear that we deliberately caused the destruction of MacArthur,” Charlie said. “Curse! If only they had told us. We could have told them of the dangers, and the humans would have nothing to fear. Curse! Why did the universe arrange that the first Motie they met was a Brown?”

“They said MacArthur was infested with plague,” Jock mused. “And so it was, although we did not believe them. A plague of Watchmakers. Yet. If they truly believe we deliberately destroyed their ship, or allowed it to be destroyed, why have they not said so? Why did they not ask?”

“They conceal their vulnerabilities,” said Charlie. “And they never admit defeat. Even in their final minutes the midshipmen refused to surrender.”

There was silence. Ivan spoke. “The humans did not wish us to know there were Watchmakers aboard until they had killed them. They were certain they could do that. Then, after, they did not wish us to know Watchmakers could destroy their ships.”

“Fools!” Charlie shouted. “Watchmakers given time to adapt can destroy any ship. They contribute greatly to a collapse. If they were not so useful we would have them exterminated.”

“That’s been done,” Jock said. He gestured dry humor. “With the usual result. Another Master kept hers—”

“Silence,” Ivan demanded. “They fear us. Speak of that.”

“Do you know of what the humans call ‘fiction’?” Charlie asked. “Deliberately constructed legends. Both those who hear and those who tell them know they are false.”

Ivan and Jock indicated they were familiar with the concept.

“There was a tri-v program last evening. It was fiction as are many of the broadcasts. This one was called ‘Istvan Dies.’ When it was completed the commentator spoke as if the major action of the story were true.”

“I did not see,” Jock said. “Viceroy Merrill wished me to meet some Traders before the reception for the Barons. Curse! These endless formalities consume our time and we learn nothing from them.”

“I did not tell you of this program,” Charlie said. “The principal actor portrayed a man obviously intended to be Admiral Kutuzov.”

Jock signaled astonishment and lament for lost opportunities.

“You have a point?” Ivan demanded.

“Yes. The story was one of conflicting motives. The admiral in command did not wish to do what he did. There was war between humans: between the Empire and those outies they fear so greatly.”

“Could we not come to terms with the outies?” Jock demanded.

“How?” Ivan said. “They control all access to us. If they suspect we would ever do so, they would do anything to prevent it. Do not even think of such things. Tell me of your program.”

“In this war there was revolt of a planet. Other planets would soon revolt. What was a small war could become a very large war, with many planets involved. The admiral detected a way to prevent that, and decided it was his duty. With five ships like Lenin he killed all life on a planet inhabited by ten millions of humans.”

There was long silence.

“They are able to do this?” Ivan demanded.

“I believe so,” Charlie answered. “I am not a Brown to be certain, but—”

“You will reflect on this. Remember that they fear us. Recall that they now know we have a prolific subspecies. Recall also that from study of the probe they placed this man in charge of the expedition to our system. Fear for your Masters and your sisters.” Ivan went to his chamber. After a long time the Mediators began to speak rapidly, but very softly.

52. Options

Heavy clouds raced across New Scotland skies. They parted to let New Cal’s bright rays slant warmingly into the paneled conference room. Bright objects flashed momentarily before the windows polarized. Outside there were deep shadows in the Palace grounds, but the sunlight was yet bright in the narrow streets where government offices emptied for the day. Kilted crowds jostled and milled as the sector bureaucracy hurried home to their families, a drink, and tri-v.

Rod Blaine stared moodily through the windows. Down below a pretty secretary hurried out of the Palace, so frantic to reach a people-mover that she nearly bowled over a senior clerk. An important date, Rod thought. And the clerk will have a family… all those people. My responsibility, and that may be just too damn bad for the Moties.

There was a bustle of activity behind him. “You got arrangements for feedin’ the Moties?” Kelley demanded.

“Yes sir,” a steward answered. “The chef would like to do something with that mush they eat, though—spices, something. He don’t feel right, just putting meat and grain in a pot and boilin’ it.”

“He can get artistic some other time. The Commissioners don’t want anything fancy tonight. Just be able to feed ‘em all if they want it.” Kelley glanced at the magic coffeepot to be sure it was full, then glared at an empty space next to it. “Where’s the goddamn chocolate?” he demanded.

“It’s comin’, Mr. Kelley,” the steward said defensively.

“Right. See that it’s here before the Moties come in. That’ll be an hour.” Kelley glanced at the wall clock. “OK. I guess we’re ready. But make sure of that chocolate.”

Since they’d discovered it aboard Lenin the Moties had become addicted to hot chocolate. It was one of the few human beverages they liked; but the way they liked it! Kelley shuddered. Butter he could understand. They put butter in chocolate aboard the Limey ships. But a drop of machine oil in every cup?

“Ready for us, Kelley?” Rod asked.

“Yes, my lord,” Kelley assured him. He took his place at the bar and pressed a button to signal that the conference could begin. Somethin’ botherin’ the boss, he decided. Not his girl, either. Glad I don’t have his problems.

A door opened and the Commission staff came in, followed by several of Horvath’s scientists. They took seats along one side of the inlaid table and laid their pocket computers in front of them. There were soft hums as they tested their linkup with the Palace computer system.

Horvath and Senator Fowler were still arguing as they entered. “Doctor, it takes time to process these things—”

“Why?” Horvath demanded. “I know you don’t have to check with Sparta.”

“All right. It takes me time to make up my mind, then,” Fowler said irritably. “Look: I’ll see what I can do for you next Birthday. You had a gong coming even before the Mote expedition. But, damn it, Doctor, I’m not sure you’re temperamentally suited for a seat on—” He broke off as heads turned toward them. “We’ll finish this later.”

“All right.” Horvath looked around the room and went to a seat directly across from Ben’s. There was a quick reshuffle as the Science Minister arranged his staff on his side of the table.

Others came in—Kevin Renner, Chaplain Hardy, both still in Navy uniform. A secretary. Stewards entered and there was more confusion as Kelley sent coffee around.

Rod frowned as he took his seat, then smiled as Sally entered hastily. “Sorry I’m late,” she panted. “There was—”

“We haven’t started yet,” Rod told her. He indicated a place next to his.

“What’s all this about?” she asked quietly. There was something in Rod’s manner that worried her, and she studied him carefully. “Why is Uncle Ben so interested in Motie history? Just what happened last night?”

“You’ll see. The Senator’s about to start.” And I hope it’ll be all right, sweetheart, but I doubt it. What happens to us after this? Rod turned grimly to the conference. I wonder what my Fyunch(click) is doing now? It’d be nice to send a representative to this and—

“Let’s get moving,” Senator Fowler said brusquely. “This meeting of the Lords Commissioners Extraordinary representing His Imperial Majesty to the inhabitants of the Mote System is convened. Please write your names and the organizations you represent.” There was a second of silence broken by the soft hums of the computer links.

“We’ve got a lot to cover,” the Senator continued. “Last night it became obvious that the Moties lie to us about certain critical matters—”

“No more than we’ve done to them,” Dr. Horvath interrupted. Blast! I have to control myself better than that. The point must be made, but if the Senator gets really irritated—

“It’s what they lie about that concerns us, Doctor,” Fowler said smoothly. He paused a moment, and power seemed to gather around him. The dumpy old man in baggy clothing vanished. The Prime Minister spoke. “Look, all of you, I like things informal. If you’ve got something to say, spit it out. But let me finish my sentences first.” There was a thin smile, wintry cold. “Anybody else you can interrupt, if you’re big enough. Now, Dr. Horvath, just what are the Moties hiding from us?”

Anthony Horvath ran his slim fingers through thinning hair. “I need more time, Senator. Until this morning it hadn’t occurred to me that the Moties were hiding anything.” He glanced nervously at Chaplain Hardy, but the priest said nothing.

“It was a bit of a surprise to all of us,” Fowler said. “But we’ve got evidence that Moties breed at a godawful rate. The question is, could we make them keep their numbers down if they don’t want to? Rod, could the Moties have been hiding weapons from us?”

Rod shrugged. “In a whole system? Ben, they could hide damn near anything they wanted to.”

“But they are utterly unwarlike,” Horvath protested. “Senator, I am as concerned for the safety of the Empire as anyone in this room. I take my duties as a Sector Minister quite seriously, I assure you.”

You’re not assurin’ us, you’re talkin’ for the record, Kelley thought. Cap’n Blaine knows it, too. What’s botherin’ the boss? He looks like he does before an action.

“—no evidence of warlike activities among the Moties,” Horvath finished.

“That turns out not to be the case,” Renner put in. “Doc, I like Moties as well as you do, but something produced the Mediators.”

“Oh, well, yes,” Horvath said easily. “In their prehistory they must have fought like lions. The analogy is quite apt, by the way. The territorial instinct shows up still in their architecture and in their social organization, for example. But the combats were a long time ago.”

“Just how long?” Senator Fowler asked.

Horvath looked uncomfortable. “Possibly a million years.”

There was silence. Sally shook her head sadly. Cooped up in one tiny system for a million years—a million civilized years! The patience they must have learned!

“No wars in all the time since?” Fowler asked. “Really?”

“Yes, damn it, they’ve had wars,” Horvath answered. “At least two of the kind that Earth went through at the close of the CoDominium period. But that was a long time ago!” He had to raise his voice to carry across Sally’s startled gasp. There were mutters around the table.

“One of those was enough to make Earth damn near uninhabitable,” Ben Fowler said slowly. “How long ago are you talking about? Million years again?”

Horvath said, “Hundreds of thousands, at least.”

“Thousands, probably,” Chaplain Hardy said carefully. “Or less. Sally, have you revised your estimates of the age of that primitive civilization you dug up?”

Sally didn’t answer either. There was an uncomfortable silence.

“For the record, Father Hardy,” Senator Fowler asked, “are you here as Commission staff?”

“No, sir. Cardinal Randolph has asked me to represent the Church to the Commission.”

“Thank you.”

There was more silence.

“They had nowhere to go,” Anthony Horvath said. He shrugged nervously. Someone giggled, then fell silent when Horvath continued. “It’s obvious that their first wars were a very long time ago, in the million-year range. It shows in their development. Dr. Horowitz has examined the expedition biological findings and—well, you tell them, Sigmund.”

Horowitz smiled in triumph. “When I first examined the probe pilot I thought it might be a mutation. I was right. They are mutations, only it all happened a long time ago. The original animal life on Mote Prime is bilaterally symmetric, as on Earth and nearly everywhere. The first asymmetric Motie must have been a drastic mutation. Couldn’t have been as well developed as the present forms, either. Why didn’t it die out? Because there were deliberate efforts to obtain the asymmetric form, I think. And because everything else was mutating also. The competition for survival was low.”

“But that means they had civilization when the present forms developed,” Sally said. “Is that possible?”

Horowitz smiled again.

“What about the Eye?” Sally asked. “It must have irradiated the Mote system when it went supergiant.”

“Too long ago,” Horvath said. “We checked. After all, we’ve got the equivalent of five hundred years’ observation of the Eye in data from our explorer ships, and it checks with the information the Moties gave Midshipman Potter. The Eye’s been a supergiant for six million years or more, and the Moties haven’t had their present form anything like that long.”

“Oh,” said Sally. “But then what caused the—”

“Wars,” Horowitz announced. “General increase in radiation levels, planet-wide. Coupled with deliberate genetic selection.”

Sally nodded reluctantly. “All right—they had atomic wars. So did we. If the CoDominium hadn’t developed the Alderson Drive we’d have exterminated ourselves on Earth.” She didn’t like the answer, though. It was hard to accept. “Couldn’t there have been another dominant species that killed itself off, and the Moties developed later?”

“No,” Horvath said carefully. “Your own work, Lady Sally: you’ve shown just how well adapted the Motie form is to using tools. The mutation must have been a tool user to begin with—or was controlled by tool users. Or both.”

“That’s one war,” Senator Fowler said. “The one that created the Moties as we see ‘em. You said two.”

Horvath nodded sadly. “Yes, sir. The presently evolved Moties must have fought with atomic weapons. Later there was another period of radiation that split the species into all those castes—both the civilized forms and the animals. Plus intermediates like Watchmakers.” Horvath looked apologetically at Blaine, but there was no sign of emotion.

Sigmund Horowitz cleared his throat. He was clearly enjoying this. “I believe the Browns were the original form. When the Whites became dominant they bred the other subspecies to their own uses. Controlled evolution again, you see. But some forms evolved by themselves.”

“Then the asymmetric animals are not ancestors to Moties?” Senator Fowler asked curiously.

“No.” Horowitz rubbed his hands together and fingered his pocket computer in anticipation. “They are degenerate forms—I can show you the gene mechanisms.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Senator Fowler said hastily. “So we have two wars. Presumably the Mediators could have been bred in the second one—”

“Better make it three wars,” Renner put in. “Even if we assume they ran out of radioactives in the second one.”

“Why?” Sally demanded.

“You saw the planet. Then there’s the adaptation to space,” Renner said. He looked expectantly at Horvath and Horowitz.

Horowitz’ triumphant grin was even broader now. “Your work again, my lady. The Moties are so well adapted to space that you wondered if they’d evolved there. They did.” The xenobiologist nodded emphatically. “But not until they’d had a long evolutionary period on the planet itself. Want me to review the evidence? Physiological mechanisms that adjust to low pressure and no gravity, intuitive astrogation—”

“I believe you,” Sally said quietly.

“Mars!” Rod Blaine shouted. Everyone looked at him. “Mars. Is that what you’re thinking, Kevin?”

Renner nodded. He seemed to be a man in conflict, his mind racing ahead and not liking what it found. “Sure,” he said. “They fought at least one war with asteroids. Just look at the surface of Mote Prime, all torn by overlapping circular craters. It must have damn near wiped out the planet. It scared the survivors so much they moved all the asteroids out to where they couldn’t be used that way again—”

“But the war killed off most of the higher life on the planet,” Horowitz finished. “After a long time the planet was repopulated by Moties who’d adapted to space.”

“But a very long time ago,” Dr. Horvath protested. “The asteroid craters are cold and the orbits are stable. All this happened long ago.”

Horvath didn’t seem very comfortable with his conclusions, and Rod scratched a note. Not good enough, Rod thought. But—there must be some explanation…

“But they could still fight with asteroids,” Horvath continued. “If they wanted to. It would take more energy, but as long as they’re in the system they can be moved. We’ve no evidence of recent wars, and what has all this to do with us anyway? They used to fight, they evolved the Mediators to stop it, and it worked. Now they don’t fight any more.”

“Maybe,” Senator Fowler grunted. “And maybe not.”

“They didn’t fight us,” Horvath insisted.

“Battle cruiser got destroyed,” Fowler said. “OK, spare me the explanations. There’s the midshipmen, and yeah, I’ve heard all the stories about them. The fact is, Dr. Horvath, if Moties fight each other you know damn well one faction’s going to pick up allies among the outies and rebels. Hell, they might even encourage revolts, and by God’s teeth we don’t need that! There’s another thing bothers me, too—have they got a planetary government?” There was more silence.

“Well, Sally?” the Senator demanded. “It’s your field.”

“They— Well, they have a kind of planetary government. Jurisdiction. A Master or a group of them takes jurisdiction over something and the rest go along.”

Ben Fowler scowled at his niece. “Hell, we don’t even let humans wander around the universe until they’ve got planetary governments. Can’t you just see some Motie colony deciding to help a faction back home on Mote Prime?” He looked around the table and scowled again. “Damn it, don’t all of you look at me like that. You’d think I wanted to shoot Father Christmas! I want trade with the Moties, but let’s not forget the Prime Directive of the Empire.”

“We need more time,” Horvath protested. “You can’t decide anything right now.”

“We don’t have the time,” Rod said quietly. “You must be aware of the pressures, Doctor. You helped create them. Every interest group m this sector is demanding immediate action.” Rod had been getting daily calls from the Humanity League, and he was certain that Minister Horvath had been feeding information to the group.

“What’s bothering you is the potential birth rate,” Horvath said. “I’m sure you realize that they must be able to control their population. They’d not have survived this long if they couldn’t.”

“But they may not want to,” Fowler said. “Could we make them do it? Rod, has your Commander Cargill done any more work on that threat estimate?”

“Refinements only, Senator. His original calculations hold up pretty well.”

“So it’d take a big fleet operation to compel the Moties—and that’s with their present resources. What kind of problems are we handing our grandchildren if we help ‘em get colonies?”

“You can’t prevent them from getting out now,” Horvath protested. “Capt—My Lord Blaine’s analysis proved that. They’ll eventually get the Langston Field, and they’ll come out. We must have friendly relations with them before then. I say let’s start trading with them right now and work out our problems as they come up. We can’t solve everything at once.”

“That’s your recommendation?” Fowler asked.

“Yes, sir. Mine, the Humanity League’s, the Imperial Traders—”

“Not all of ‘em,” Rod interrupted. “Their local council’s divided. A sizable minority wants nothing to do with Moties.”

“So they’re in industries that will be ruined by Motie technology,” Horvath said with a shrug. “We can handle that problem. Senator, the Moties will inevitably develop something that gets them out of their system. We should get them so bound to the Empire that their interests are ours before it happens.”

“Or take ‘em into the Empire and be done with it,” Fowler muttered. “I thought of that one last night. If they can’t control their population, we can do it for them—”

“But we know they can,” Horvath protested. “We’ve proved they’ve been civilized a long time in one system. They’ve learned—” He stopped for a moment, then continued excitedly. “Has it occurred to you that they may have population allotments? The Moties on that expedition ship may have been required to have their children at a certain time, or not at all. So they had them aboard ship.”

“Hmm,” Fowler said. His scowl vanished. “Maybe you’ve got something there. We’ll—I’ll—ask the Moties when they come in. Dr. Hardy, you’ve been sitting there like a man about to be hanged in low gravity. What’s got you upset?”

“Rats,” the Chaplain said carefully.

Horvath looked around quickly, then nodded in submission. “They disturbed you also, David?”

“Of course. Can you find the file, or must I?”

“I have it,” Horvath sighed. He scrawled numbers on the face of his pocket computer. It hummed and the wall screens lit… a Motie city, struck by disaster. Cars overturned and rusted through littered broken streets. Crashed aircraft were imbedded in the ruins of fire-scorched buildings. Weeds grew from cracks in the pavement. In the center of the picture was a sloping mound of rubble, and a hundred small black shapes darted and swarmed over it.

“It’s not what it looks like. It’s one floor of the Motie zoo,” Horvath explained. He touched his controls and the image zoomed closer to focus on a single black shape which grew until the outlines were fuzzy: a pointed, ratlike face, with wicked teeth. But it was not a rat.

It had one membranous ear, and five limbs. The foremost limb on the right side was not a fifth paw; it was a long and agile arm, tipped with claws like hooked daggers.

“Ah,” Horowitz exclaimed. He looked accusingly at Horvath. “You didn’t show me this one… more wars, eh? One of the wars must have wiped out so much life that ecological niches were left empty. But this— Did you get a specimen?”

“Unfortunately no.”

“What did it degenerate from?” Horowitz asked wonderingly. “A long step from the intelligent Motie to—to that. Is there a Motie caste you have not shown me? Something similar to that?”

“No, of course not,” Sally said.

“No one would breed selectively for those things,” Horowitz mused. “It must have been natural selection—” He smiled in satisfaction. “More proof, if it were needed. One of their wars almost depopulated their planet. And for a very long time, too.”

“Yah,” Renner said quickly. “So while these things took over Mote Prime the civilized Moties were out in the asteroids. They must have bred out there for generations, Whites and Browns and Watchmakers and maybe some things we didn’t see because we didn’t get to the asteroid civilization.”

“But a long time ago, again,” said Horvath. “Very long— Dr. Buckman’s work on asteroid orbits—well. Perhaps the Mediators were evolved in space before they resettled the planet. You can see they were needed.”

“Which makes the Whites as warlike now as then,” Senator Fowler pointed out.

“Now they have Mediators, Uncle Ben,” Sally reminded him.

“Yeah. And maybe they’ve solved their population pressure— Doctor, get that goddamn thing off the screen! It gives me the willies. Why the hell would anyone put a ruined city in a zoo anyway?”

The feral image vanished and everyone seemed relieved. “They explained that.” Horvath seemed almost cheerful again. “Some of their forms evolved for cities. A thorough zoo would have to include them.”

“Ruined cities?”

“Maybe to remind them of what happens when they don’t listen to the Mediators,” Sally said quietly. “A horrible example to keep them scared of war.”

“It’d do it, too,” Renner said. He shuddered slightly.

“Let’s sum this up. The Moties are due in a few minutes,” Senator Fowler said. “One. The potential reproductive rate is enormous, and the Moties are willing to have kids in places we wouldn’t.

“Two. The Moties lied in a way that concealed their high birth-rate potential.

“Three. Moties have had wars. At least three big ones. Maybe more.

“Four. They’ve been around a long time. Really long. That argues that they’ve got their population under control. We don’t know how they do it, but it might tie in to why they have kids on dangerous missions. We have to ask. OK so far?”

There was a chorus of muttered assents. “Now to options. First, we could take Dr. Horvath’s advice and negotiate trade agreements. The Moties have asked for permanent stations, and the right to look for and settle on uncolonized worlds inside the Empire and beyond. They don’t insist on the interior space, but they’d like stuff we don’t use, such as asteroids and terraformable rocks. They offer a lot in exchange.”

He paused for comments, but there weren’t any. Everyone was content to let the Senator do the summation for the record.

“Now that course of action means turning the Moties loose. Once they have bases where we don’t control access to them, outies and rebels are certain to dicker with the Moties. We have to outdicker, and it’s possible that being generous now will get their gratitude later. Immediate agreement has the support of Commissioner Sandra Bright Fowler. We still OK so far?”

There were more nods and yeses. A few of the scientists looked curiously at Sally. Dr. Horvath gave her an encouraging smile.

“Second option. We take the Moties into the Empire. Install a governor general, at least on any Mote colony, possibly on Mote Prime itself. This would be expensive, and we don’t know what happens if the Moties resist. Their military potential is damn high.”

“I think that would be terribly unwise,” Anthony Horvath said. “I can’t believe the Moties would submit and—”

“Yeah. I’m trying to lay out the possibilities, Doter. Now that you’ve entered your objection I may as well state that this plan has the tentative approval of the War Ministry and most of the Colonial Office people. No Commissioners yet, but I intend to put it to the Moties as a possibility. Hell, they might want in.”

“Well, if they voluntarily enter the Empire, I’d support the action,” Horvath said.

“So would I,” Sally added.

Ben Fowler screwed his heavy features into a mask of contemplation. “Me, I don’t think it would work,” he mused. “We generally govern through locals. Now just what reward can we promise for cooperation with us against a conspiracy by their whole race? But we’ll ask them.”

Fowler straightened in his chair. The amused, thoughtful smile vanished. “Possibility three. The hoof-and-mouth disease remedy.”

There were gasps. Horvath’s lips were tightly drawn and he took a deep breath. “Does that mean what I think, Senator?”

“Yeah. If there isn’t any hoof-and-mouth disease, there won’t be any. If there aren’t any Moties, there won’t be a Motie problem.”

David Hardy’s voice was low but very firm. “The Church would object to that very strongly, Senator. With every means we have.”

“I am aware of that, Father. I’m aware of the Humanity League’s feeling too. As a matter of fact, unprovoked extermination isn’t a real alternative. Not that we can’t physically do it, but politically, no. Unless the Moties are a direct and immediate threat to the Empire.”

“Which they aren’t,” Horvath said positively. “They’re an opportunity. I wish I could make you see that.”

“Doctor, I may see things as well as you do. Ever think of that? Now those are the possibilities. Are we ready for the Moties, or has anybody got something else to bring up?”

Rod took a deep breath and glanced at Sally. She’s not going to like this— “Senator, have we forgotten Sally’s dig? Where she found a primitive civilization not more than a thousand years old? How were the Moties primitive so recently?”

More silence. “Had to be wars, didn’t it?” Rod asked.

“No!” Sally said. “I’ve thought about that—the Moties have zoos, right? Couldn’t I have found—well, a reservation for primitives? We have them all over the Empire, cultural preserves for people who don’t want to be part of technological civilization—”

“After a million years of civilization?” Renner asked. “Lady Sally, do you really believe that?”

She shrugged. “They’re aliens.”

“I hadn’t forgotten it,” Ben Fowler said. “OK, let’s discuss it. Sally, your notion’s silly. You know what happened, they moved the asteroids around so long ago the pits are cold. Then, about the time of the CoDominium, they blasted themselves into a new Stone Age. Doesn’t argue too strong they’ve learned not to fight, does it?”

“We did the same thing then,” Sally said. “Or would have, if we’d been trapped in a single system,”

“Yeah,” Fowler answered. “And if I was a Commissioner for a Motie Empire, I wouldn’t let humans wander around space without a keeper. Anything else?”

“Yes, sir,” Rod told him. “Sally, I don’t like this, but—”

“Get on with it,” Fowler growled.

“Yes, sir.” Am I losing her because of Moties? But I can’t just forget it. “Dr. Horvath, you seemed very uncomfortable after we agreed that the Moties have been civilized for millennia. Why?”

“Well—no reason, actually—except—well, I need to do more checking, that’s all.”

“As Science Minister, you’re responsible for technological forecasts, aren’t you?” Rod asked.

“Yes,” Horvath admitted unhappily.

“Where do we stand with respect to the First Empire?”

“We haven’t caught up with them yet. We’ll get there in another century.”

“And where would we be if there hadn’t been the Secession Wars? If the old Empire’d been going along without interruption?”

Horvath shrugged. “You’re probably right, my lord. Yes. It bothered me also. Senator, what Blaine implies is that the Moties aren’t advanced enough to have had civilization for a million years. Or even ten thousand. Possibly not for a thousand.”

“Yet we know they moved those asteroids at least ten thousand years ago,” Renner exclaimed. His voice showed excitement and wonder. “They must have recolonized the Mote about the same time the Alderson Drive was developed on Earth! The Moties aren’t really much older than we are!”

“There’s another explanation,” Father Hardy pointed out. “They recolonized much earlier than that—and they have a new set of wars every millennium.”

“Or even more often,” Senator Fowler added softly. “And if that’s the case, we know how they control their population, don’t we? Well, Dr. Horvath? What’s your advice now?”

“I—I don’t know,” the Science Minister stammered unhappily. He picked at his nails, realized he was doing it, and laid his hands on the table where they wandered like small wounded animals. “I think we have to be sure.”

“So do I,” the Senator told him. “But it wouldn’t hurt to—Rod, tomorrow you’ll work with the Admiralty.”

“I remind you, Senator, that the Church will forbid any member to take part in the extermination of the Moties,” Hardy said carefully.

“That’s pretty close to treason, Father.”

“Perhaps. It’s also true.”

“Anyway, it wasn’t what I had in mind. Maybe we have to take the Moties into the Empire. Whether they like it or not. Maybe they’ll submit without a fight if we go in there with a big enough fleet.”

“And if they don’t?” Hardy asked.

Senator Fowler didn’t answer.

Rod looked at Sally, then around the table, finally at the paneled walls.

It’s such an ordinary room, he thought. There’s nothing special about the people in it either. And right here, in this stupid little conference room on a barely habitable planet, we’ve got to decide the fate of a race that may be a million years older than we are.

The Moties aren’t going to surrender. If they’re what we think they are, they won’t be beaten either. But there’s only the one planet and some asteroids. If they’re gone…

“Kelley, you can bring the Moties in now,” Senator Fowler said.

The last of New Cal’s dying rays fell into the room. The Palace grounds outside turned purple in shadow.

53. The Djinn

They were following their escorts through the Palace corridors. As they walked, Jock spoke to the Ambassador. “Something has changed. This Marine who summoned us looks at us differently, as might a Warrior at another Warrior.”

They entered the conference room. A sea of human faces. “Yes,” Jock said. “Much is different. We must be on guard.”

“What may they know?” Ivan demanded.

Jock indicated lack of knowledge. “Some fear us. Others pity us. All try to hide their changed emotional state.”

The Marine conducted them to badly designed couches at one end of a large conference table. “Humans are addicted to these tables,” Charlie twittered. “Sometimes the shape of them is very important, for reasons I have been unable to know.”

There were the meaningless greetings the humans called “formalities”: insincere inquiries into the state of health, nebulous benedictions and hopes for past well-being; all compensations for the lack of human Mediators. Charlie attended to these as Jock continued to speak to the Master.

“The human at the opposite end of the table is an unimportant clerk. On our two-hand side at the center is the power. The Emperor’s Mediator has reached some decision. Lord Blaine reluctantly shares it. Sally disagrees, very much, but is unable to argue. She wishes for reasons to object. We may need to find them for her. Opposite the Emperor’s Mediator are the scientists, and they share Sally’s emotions. They do not feel as involved in the decision as she. The others are of no importance except the priest. I am still unable to determine his importance, but it has increased since last we saw him. He may be more dangerous to us than all the rest—”

“Can he understand our language?” Ivan demanded.

“Not if we speak rapidly and with formal grammar. He detects elementary emotional content, and is aware that we are exchanging much information in a short time.”

“Find out what disturbs the humans.” Ivan curled on his couch and surveyed the room with distaste. Keepers sometimes spoke directly with Mediators from many Masters, but it was never a pleasant experience. All negotiation with humans was painfully slow. Their thoughts crept like liquid helium, and often they had no conception of their own interests.

But he could not simply instruct the Mediators. They were unstable, increasingly so. They must be controlled directly. And the Race must be preserved…

“This meeting may be more pleasant than the others,” Charlie said.

Senator Fowler looked startled. “Why do you say that?”

“From your expressions you are determined to achieve decisions at this meeting,” Charlie answered. “You have told us that the meeting will be long, lasting even through dinner. Your tri-v tells us that you are under great pressure to conclude an agreement with us. We are slowly learning your ways, and coming to enjoy them; but our training, our whole reason for existence, is to reach agreements. So far you have been careful to avoid them.”

“Blunt enough,” Fowler muttered. And intended to put us a bit ill at ease, wasn’t it, my friend? You’re smooth. “We need information first. About your history.”

“Ah.” Charlie hesitated only a second, but she saw the signals Jock gestured, and the Master’s finger movements. “You are concerned about our wars?”

“Damn right,” Senator Fowler agreed. “You hid damn near your whole history. Lied about what you did tell us.”

There were mutters of disapproval. Dr. Horvath shot Fowler a disgusted look. Didn’t the man know anything about negotiations? But of course he did, which made such rudeness even more puzzling…

Charlie gave a human shrug. “As you did with us, Senator. Our history: very well. Like you humans, we have had periods of warfare. Often over religions. Our last great wars were several of your centuries ago—since that time we have managed to control ourselves. But we have rebellions from time to time. Masters much like your outies, who place independence ahead of the good of the race. It is then necessary to fight them—”

“Why didn’t you just admit that in the first place?” Rod demanded.

The Motie shrugged again. “What did we know of you? Until you gave us the tri-v and let us see you as you are, what could we know? And we are as ashamed of our conflicts as many of you are of yours. You must understand, nearly all Mediators serve Masters who have no connection with war. We were instructed to assure you of our peaceful intentions toward your race. Our internal conflicts did not seem to be any of your business.”

“So you hid your weapons?” Rod asked.

Charlie looked to Jock. The other Mediator answered. “Those we have. We are inhabitants of a single star system, my lord. We have no racial enemies and few resources to devote to naval vessels—our military forces, such as they are, are more similar to your police than to your Navy and Marines.” The Motie’s gentle smile said nothing more, but somehow conveyed another thought: They would be fools to let the humans know how much or how little armament they had.

Sally smiled happily. “I told you, Uncle Ben—”

Senator Fowler nodded. “One other little point, Charlie. Just how often do your reproductive castes breed, anyway?”

It was Jock who answered. When Charlie hesitated, David Hardy watched with interest—was there communication by gesture? “When they are allowed to,” the alien said smoothly. “Don’t yours?”

“Eh?”

“You control your populations through economic incentives and forced emigration. Neither alternative is available to us, yet our reproductive drives are no less strong than yours. Our Masters breed when they can.”

“You mean you have legal mechanisms to restrict population?” Horvath asked.

“Essentially yes.”

“And why didn’t you say that before?” Senator Fowler demanded.

“You didn’t ask.”

Dr. Horvath was grinning now. So was Sally. Relief showed around the room. Except— “You deliberately misled Lady Sally,” Chaplain Hardy said carefully. “Please tell me why.”

“That Mediator served Jock’s Master,” Charlie answered. “She should speak to you of this. And please excuse us, I must tell the Ambassador what has been said.” Charlie twittered.

“Jock, you must take great care. We have won their sympathy. They want reasons to believe us. These humans have almost as much empathy as Mediators when they are in the proper mood, but they can change instantly.”

“I have listened,” Ivan said. “Do what you can to reassure these humans. If we are ever once away from their control we will be useful to all of them, and we will be an economic necessity to powerful groups of humans.”

“She felt the truth would upset you,” Jock answered. “I am not sure what was said. It was not discussed with me. We do not often discuss sex and reproduction within our family groups and almost never beyond them. The subject is— You do not have the emotion. It is similar to embarrassment but not identical. And you must realize how closely a Mediator will identify with her Fyunch(click). Lady Sally does not easily discuss sexual matters, nor does she enjoy doing so; her Mediator would feel the same emotions, and would know that the sterility of Mediators would upset Sally if she knew—as it did, when you learned of it. I say all this, but I do not know for certain: the matter was never thought important.”

“All that suspicion,” Sally said. “Just to spare me. I’m glad we cleared it up.”

The Motie shrugged. “Despite our abilities, some misunderstandings between alien species are inevitable. Remember the toilet doors?”

“Yes.” Sally could see what Ben Fowler was going to ask next. She spoke quickly to cut him off. “Now that we’ve got that straight, just what do your Masters do when they don’t want children yet?” She felt a rush of blood and suspected her cheeks were growing red. Dr. Horvath eyed her curiously. Lecherous old man, she thought. Of course that isn’t really being fair to him.

The Moties twittered for a moment. “Abstinence is common,” Jock said. “We also have chemical and hormonal methods like yours. Do you wish the mechanics discussed here?”

“I’m more interested in the incentives,” Senator Fowler said heavily. “What happens to Masters, or Browns, or whatever, if they start having children every six months?”

“Would you not define that as an action placing independence as more important than the interests of the race?” Jock asked.

“Yeah.”

“So do we.”

“And that’s how you get wars started,” Dr. Horvath concluded. “Senator, with all respect I think we’ve got the answers to our questions. The Moties control their populations. When individuals fail to go along, there’s conflict. Sometimes that leads to wars. Just how is this different from humans?”

Benjamin Fowler laughed. “Doctor, you keep asking me to see your point of view, which is based on ethics. You never see mine, which isn’t. I never claimed the human race was superior to Moties—in ethics, or intelligence, or anything else. I only claim it’s my race, and I’m charged with protecting human interests.”

He turned back to the Moties. “Now that you’ve seen us in operation,” Fowler continued, “what do you think of our Empire?”

Jock chuckled. “Senator, what do you expect me to say? You have us in your power—the three of us, and all of our people. Your warships control the Crazy Eddie point leading to our system. You could presumably exterminate us, and I’ve heard speeches demanding just that on your tri-v.”

“Not from anyone important,” Anthony Horvath protested. “From nuts and cranks—”

“Certainly. But it was said. Thus any answer I give to the Senator’s question will be what I believe he wants to hear. How could it be otherwise?”

“Well said,” Ivan twittered. “Humans appear to respect admission of truth contrary to interests. In this case they inevitably would know anyway. But take care.”

“Trust my skills, Master. Note that most have relaxed. Only the clergyman and the naval officer called Renner are not satisfied. The Emperor’s Mediator is now undecided, and when we came into this room he had decided against us.”

Charlie: “I am fearful. Would it not be best to tell them all, now that they know so much? How can we long keep our Cycles and our reproductive patterns secret? My Master wished to tell them all—”

“You will be silent and allow Jock to speak to the humans. Defer questions which upset you to her.”

“I will, Master. I was instructed to obey you. But I am still of the opinion that my Master was correct.”

“And if he has assessed the humans incorrectly?” Jock asked. “If they see us as a threat to their descendants? May they not destroy us all now, while they are able?”

“Silence. Speak to the humans.”

“The Ambassador points out that as the Empire is both the most powerful association of humans and the group closest to our home, it is to our interest to be in alliance with your Empire, regardless of our opinions. We’re surrounded.”

“And that’s a fact,” Sally agreed. “Uncle Ben, how long does this go on? We have the draft agreements worked out by the economics technicians. Can’t we get to the details of that?”

Fowler was not satisfied. It showed in the set of his heavy jowls, the tense shoulders. There was trouble in the Empire without Moties. Add Motie technology in the hands the outies and rebels, and anything could happen.

“There is a draft agreement,” Senator Fowler said carefully. “Before we put that to you, I’ve another proposition. Have you any interest in joining the Empire? As a Class One system member, for example? You’d have home rule, representation on Sparta, and access to most of the Imperial markets.”

“We have considered it. It would take time to work out details—”

“No,” Senator Fowler said positively. “That’s the one thing it won’t take. Your pardon, but we have no intention of letting your Engineers invent the Field and construct a war fleet. The first condition would be immediate admission of Imperial observers to every point in your system.”

“Disarmament. Trust in your good intentions,” Jock said. “Would you submit to such terms?”

“I haven’t been asked to,” Ben said. “You have.”

“I said they would make this offer,” Charlie twittered.

“We cannot accept,” Ivan answered flatly. “We would be helpless. Assume the humans are sincere. Assume the Empire would not destroy us when our true nature became obvious. Can we believe that many generations from now the Empire will be ruled by benevolence? It is a risk we cannot take. The Race must be assured of survival.”

“There is no assurance!”

“We must get out of our system and into the universe. When we are firmly established in many systems, the humans will not dare attack any of them,” Jock said. Her gestures showed impatience.

“You are convinced that we cannot accept this offer?” Charlie asked.

Jock: “We have discussed this before. The humans will be thorough. They will want to disarm the Warriors. Before that happens, the Masters will fight. There will be war, precisely when the humans expect it. They are not fools; and their naval officers are afraid of us. Overwhelming force would back up the observers. If we pretend to accept, they will feel justified in destroying us: remember the fate of human planets in rebellion. This offer cannot even buy time.”

“Then give the answer we agreed upon,” commanded Ivan.

“The Ambassador regrets that any such agreement would exceed his authority. We can speak for all the Moties, but only within certain limits; placing our entire race at your mercy is beyond them.”

“You can’t blame them for that,” Dr. Horvath said. “Be reasonable, Senator.”

“I’m trying to be reasonable and I didn’t blame them. I made them an offer, that’s all.” He turned back to the aliens. “Planets have been brought into the Empire against their will. They don’t get anything like the privileges I offered you—”

Jock shrugged. “I cannot say what the Masters would do if you attempted conquest of our system. I suspect they would fight.”

“You’d lose,” Senator Fowler said flatly.

“We’d hate that.”

“And in losing you might suck up so much of our strength that we’d lose most of this sector. Set the unification drive back a century, maybe. Conquest is expensive.” Senator Fowler didn’t add that sterilization wasn’t; but the unspoken thought hung heavily in the brightly lit room.

“Can we make a counteroffer?” Jock said. “Allow us to set up production centers on uninhabitable worlds. We will terraform them: for every world you give us, we will terraform another for you. As to the economic dislocations, you can form companies to hold a monoply on trade with us. Part of the stock could be sold publicly. The balance could be held to be given as compensation to the companies and workers displaced by our competition. I think you would find that this would minimize the disadvantages of our new technology, while giving you all the benefits.”

“Brilliant,” Horvath exclaimed. “Just what my staff is working on right now. You would agree to this? Trade with no one but authorized companies and the Imperial Government?”

“Certainly. We would also pay the Empire for naval protection of our colony worlds—we have no desire to keep fleets in your parts of space. You could inspect the colony shipyards to be certain.”

“And the home world?” Fowler asked.

“Contact between Mote Prime and the Empire would be minimal, I presume. Your representatives would be welcome, but we would not wish to see your warships near our homes—I may as well tell you, we were very much concerned over that battleship in orbit about our planet. It was obvious that it carried weapons that could make Mote Prime nearly uninhabitable. We submitted, even invited you closer, precisely to show you that we have little to hide. We are no threat to your Empire, my lords. You are a threat to us, as you well know. Yet I think we can agree to our mutual advantage—and our mutual safety—without unduly straining either race’s trust in the benevolence of the other.”

“And you’ll terraform one planet for us for every one you take over?” Horvath asked. He thought of the advantages: incalculable. Few stellar systems had more than one inhabitable world. Interstellar trade was hideously expensive compared with interplanetary travel, but terraforming operations were even more costly.

“Is that not enough?” Jock asked. “Surely you appreciate our position. We have now only one planet, some asteroids, and a gas giant which is beyond even our ability to make habitable. It is worth an enormous investment in resources to double what we have available. I say this because it is obvious, although I am told that your trading procedure does not usually include admission of disadvantages. On the other hand—” The Motie looked curiously at her three hands. The humans did likewise and there was laughter. Which was the other hand for a Motie? “Your uninhabitable planets in suitable orbits must not be of much value to you, or you would have terraformed them yourselves. You get, then, something for nothing, where we get a great deal for great effort. Surely a fair bargain?”

“Damn good for the Navy,” Rod said. “Practically a new fleet paid for by the Moties…”

“Hold it,” Senator Fowler said. “We’re haggling over the price when we haven’t decided what we are yet.”

Jock shrugged. “I made you an offer, that’s all.” His imitation of the Senator’s voice and mannerisms brought laughter. Ben Fowler frowned for a moment, then laughed with the others.

“Well,” Fowler said. “Don’t know that everything’s settled, but I do know I’m gettin’ hungry. Kelley, bring our guests some of that chocolate and ring down for dinner. We may as well be comfortable while we finish this discussion.”

54. Out of the Bottle

“It is close,” Jock reported. “Almost the Senator agrees. Sally already has.”

“And Blaine?” Ivan demanded.

“He will do as the Senator wishes, although he would rather agree with Sally. He likes us, and he sees an advantage for the Navy. It is unfortunate that his Fyunch(click) went insane; she would be of great use here.”

“Can it work?” Charlie asked. “Jock, how can it work? Before the new colonies are established, the Imperials will see us as we are. They will visit our system, and they will know. And then?”

“They will never know,” Jock said. “Their own Navy will prevent it. There will be visits by unarmed ships, but they will risk no more naval vessels. Can we not deceive a few ships full of humans? They can never speak our language. We will have time to prepare for them. We will never let them see Warriors. How will they learn? Meanwhile the colonies will be established. The humans can have no conception of how quickly we can establish colonies, or how quickly they will be able to build ships. We will be in a much better bargaining position then, in contact with many humans—and we can offer them anything they want. We will have allies, and we will be spread far enough that not even the Empire could exterminate us. If they cannot do it with certainty they will not attempt it. That is how these humans think.”

The Marine brought them the drink humans called chocolate, and they drank with pleasure. Humans were omnivores like Moties, but the flavors humans preferred were generally tasteless. Chocolate, though: that was excellent, and with extra hydrocarbons to simulate the waters of the home world, it was incomparable.

“What alternatives have we?” Jock demanded. “What would they do if we told them everything? Would they not dispatch their fleet to destroy us all and save their descendants from our threat?”

“I approve this agreement,” Ivan said. “Your Master will also.”

“Perhaps,” Charlie said. She thought, falling into a pose that excluded the world around her. She was the Master— “I can agree,” she said. “It is better than I had hoped. But the danger!”

“There has been danger since the humans first came to the Mote system,” Jock said. “It is less now than before.”

Ivan observed carefully. The Mediators were excited. The strain had been great, and despite their outward control they were close to the edge. It was not part of his nature to wish for what could not be, but he hoped that the efforts to breed a more stable Mediator would succeed; it was difficult to work with creatures who might suddenly see an unreal universe and make judgments based on it. The pattern was always the same. First they wished for the impossible. Then they worked toward it, still knowing it to be impossible. Finally they acted as if the impossible could be achieved, and let that unreality influence every act. It was more common with Mediators than any other class, but it happened to Masters also.

These Mediators were close to the edge, but they would last. The Race would be preserved. It must be.

“A thousand crowns for your thoughts.” Sally said. Her eyes twinkled with happiness—and relief.

Rod turned from the window to grin at her. The room was large, and the others were gathered near the bar, except for Hardy, who sat near the Moties listening to their chatter as if he might understand a word or two. Rod and Sally were effectively alone. “You’re very generous,” he said.

“I can afford it. I’ll pay you just after the wedding…”

“With the income from Crucis Court. I haven’t got it yet, don’t be so anxious to kill Dad off. We may be living on his generosity for years.”

“What were you thinking about? You look so serious.”

“How I’m going to vote on this if the Senator won’t agree.”

She nodded soberly. “I thought so—”

“I could lose you over this, couldn’t I?”

“I don’t know, Rod. I guess it would depend on why you rejected their offer. And what you agreed to in its place. But you aren’t going to reject it, are you? What’s wrong with what they propose?”

Rod stared at the drink in his hand. It was some kind of nonalcoholic gup Kelley had brought; the meeting was too important for Scotch. “Nothing wrong, maybe. It’s the maybe, Sally. Look out there.” He pointed to New Scotland’s streets.

There were few people at this hour. Theater and dinner goers. Sightseers come to view the Palace after dark. Sailors with their girls. Covenanter guardsmen in kilts and bearskins standing rigidly at the sentry box near the driveway entrance. “If we’re wrong, their kids are dead.”

“If we’re wrong, the Navy takes it on the chin,” Sally said slowly. “Rod, what if the Moties come out, and in twenty years they’ve settled a dozen planets. Built ships. Threaten the Empire? The Navy can still handle them—you won’t have to, but it could be done.”

“Sure about that? I’m not. I’m not sure we could defeat them now. Exterminate them, yeah, but whip them? And twenty years from now? What would the butcher’s bill be? New Scotland for sure. It’s in their way. What other worlds would go?”

“What have we got for choices?” she asked. “I— Rod, I worry about our kids too. But what can we do? You can’t make war on the Moties because they might be a threat someday!”

“No, of course not. Here’s dinner. And I’m sorry I spoiled your happy mood.”

They were all laughing before the dinner ended. The Moties put on a show: imitations of New Scotland’s most famous tri-v personalities. In minutes they had everyone at the table gasping helplessly.

“How do you do it?” David Hardy asked between fits of laughter.

“We have been studying your humor,” Charlie answered. “We subtly exaggerate certain characteristics. The cumulative effect should be amusing if our theory was correct; apparently it was.”

Horvath said, “You can make a fortune as entertainers no matter what else you have to trade.”

“That, at least, will have little effect on your economy. We will require your aid in scheduling release of our technology, however.”

Horvath nodded gravely. “I’m glad you appreciate the problem. If we just dump everything you have on the market, it would make chaos out of the market—”

“Believe me, Doctor, we have no desire to make problems for you. If you see us as an opportunity, think of how we see you! To be free of the Mote system after all these centuries! Out of the bottle! Our gratitude is unbounded.”

“Just how old are you?” David Hardy asked.

The Motie shrugged. “We have fragments of records that indicate times a hundred thousand years ago, Dr. Hardy. The asteroids were already in place then. Others may be older, but we can’t read them. Our real history starts perhaps ten thousand years ago.”

“And you’ve had collapses of civilization since then?” Hardy asked.

“Certainly. Entrapped in that system? How could it be otherwise?”

“Do you have records of the asteroid war?” Renner asked.

Jock frowned. Her face wasn’t suited for it, but the gesture conveyed distaste. “Legends only. We have— They are much like your songs, or epic poems. Linguistic devices to make memorization easier. I do not think they are translatable, but—” The Motie paused for a moment. It was as if she were frozen into the position she’d happened to be in when she decided to think. Then:

The alien paused grimly. “I’m afraid that’s not very good, but it’s all I can do.”

“It’s good enough,” Hardy said. “We have such poetry too. Stories of lost civilizations, disasters in our prehistory. We can trace most of them to a volcanic explosion about forty-five hundred years ago. As a matter of fact, that seems to be when men got the idea that God might intervene in their affairs. Directly, as opposed to creating cycles and seasons and such.”

“An interesting theory—but doesn’t it upset your religious beliefs?”

“No, why should it? Can’t God as easily arrange a natural event to produce a desirable effect as He could upset the laws of nature? In fact, which is the more miraculous, a tidal wave just when it is needed, or a supernatural once-only event? But I don’t think you have time to discuss theology with me. Senator Fowler seems to have finished his dinner. So if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be away a few minutes, and I think we’ll get started again—”

Ben Fowler took Rod and Sally to a small office behind the conference room. “Well?” he demanded.

“I’m on record,” Sally said.

“Yeah. Rod?”

“We’ve got to do something, Senator. The pressure’s getting out of hand.”

“Yeah,” Ben said. “Damn it, I need a drink. Rod?”

“Thanks, I pass.”

“Well, if I can’t think straight with a good belt of Scotch in me the Empire’s already collapsed.” He fumbled through the desk until he found a bottle, sneered at the brand, and poured a stiff drink into a used coffee cup. “One thing puzzles me. Why isn’t the ITA making more trouble? I expected them to give us the most pressure, and they’re quiet. Thank God for what favors we have.” He tossed off half the cup and sighed.

“What harm does it do to agree now?” Sally asked. “We can change our minds if we find out anything new—”

“Like hell, kitten,” Ben said. “Once something specific is in the works, the sharp boys’ll think how to make a crown out of it, and after they’ve got money invested—I thought you learned more about elementary politics than that. What do they teach in the university nowadays? Rod, I’m still waiting for something out of you.”

Rod fingered his bent nose. “Ben, we can’t stall much longer. The Moties must know that—they may even cut their offer once they see just how much pressure we’re under. I say let’s do it.”

“You do, huh. You’ll make your wife happy anyway.”

“He’s not doing it for me!” Sally insisted. “You stop teasing him.”

“Yeah.” The Senator scratched his bald spot for a moment. Then he drained his cup and set it down. “Got to check one or two things. Probably be okay. If they are— I guess the Moties have a deal. Let’s go in.”

Jock gestured rapture and excitement. “They are ready to agree! We are saved!”

Ivan eyed the Mediator coldly. “You will restrain yourself. There is much to do yet.”

“I know. But we are saved. Charlie, is it not so?”

Charlie studied the humans. The faces, the postures— “Yes. But the Senator remains unconvinced, and Blaine is afraid, and—Jock, study Renner.”

“You are so cold! Can you not rejoice with me? We are saved!”

“Study Renner.”

“Yes… I know that look. He wears it playing poker, when his down card is an unexpected one. It does not help us. But he has no power, Charlie! A wanderer with no sense of reponsibility!”

“Perhaps. We juggle priceless eggs in variable gravity. I am afraid. I will taste fear until I die.”

55. Renner’s Hole Card

Senator Fowler sat heavily and looked around the table. The look was enough to still the chatter and get everyone’s attention. “I guess we know what we are all after,” he said. “Now comes haggling over the price. Let’s get the principles set, uh? First and foremost. You agree not to arm your colonies and to let us inspect ‘em to be sure they aren’t armed?”

“Yes,” Jock said positively. She twittered to the Master. “The Ambassador agrees. Provided that the Empire will, for a price, protect our colonies from your enemies.”

“We’ll certainly do that. Next. You agree to restrict trade to companies chartered by the Imperium?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s the main points,” Fowler announced. “We’re ready for the small stuff. Who’s first?”

“Can I ask what kind of colony they’ll set up?” said Renner.

“Eh? Sure.”

“Thank you. Will you be bringing representatives of all your classes?”

“Yes…” Jock hesitated. “All that are relevant to the conditions, Mr. Renner. We’d hardly take Farmers to a nonterraformed rock until the Engineers had built a dome.”

“Yeah. Well, I was wondering, because of this.” He fumbled with his pocket computer and the screens lit. They showed an oddly distorted New Cal, a brilliant flash, then darkness. “Woops. Wrong place. That was when the probe fired on Captain Blaine’s ship.”

“Ah?” Jock said. He twittered to the others. They answered. “We had wondered what was the fate of the probe. Frankly, we believed you had destroyed it, and thus we did not wish to ask—”

“You’re close,” Renner said. More images flashed on the screen. The light sail was rippling. “This is just before they shot at us.”

“But the probe would not have fired on you,” Jock protested.

“It did. Thought we were a meteor, I guess,” Rod answered. “Anyway—”

Black shapes flowed across the screen. The sail rippled, flashed, and they were gone. Renner backed the tape until the silhouettes were stark against the light, then stopped the film.

“I must warn you,” Jock said. “We know little about the probe. It is not our specialty, and we had no chance to study the records before we left Mote Prime.”

Senator Fowler frowned. “Just what are you getting at, Mr. Renner?”

“Well, sir, I wondered about the images.” Renner took a light pointer from a recess in the table. “These are various Motie classes, aren’t they?”

Jock seemed hesitant. “They appear to be.”

“Sure they are. That’s a Brown, right? And a Doctor.”

“Right.” The light pointer moved. “Runner,” Jock said. “And a Master…”

“There’s a Watchmaker.” Rod almost spat it. He couldn’t hide his distaste. “The next one looks like a Farmer. Hard to tell from a Brown but—” His voice went suddenly uneasy. “Renner, I don’t recognize that next one.”

There was silence. The pointer hovered over a misshapen shadow, longer and leaner than a Brown, with what seemed to be thorns at the knees and heels and elbows.

“We saw them once before,” Renner said. His voice was almost automatic now. Like a man walking through a graveyard on a bet. Or the point man advancing over the hill into enemy territory. Emotionless, determined, rigidly under control. It wasn’t like Renner at all.

The screen divided, and another image appeared: the time-machine sculpture from the museum in Castle City. What looked like a junk-art sculpture of electronic parts was surrounded by things bearing weapons.

At his first sight of Ivan, Rod had felt an embarrassingly strong urge to stroke the Ambassador’s silky fur. His impulse now was equally strong: he wanted to be in karate stance. The sculpted things showed in far too much detail. They grew daggers at every point, they looked hard as steel and stood like coiled springs, and any one of them would have left a Marine combat instructor looking as if he’d been dropped into a mowing machine. And what was that under the big left arm, like a broad-bladed knife half concealed?

“Ah,” said Jock, “a demon. I suppose they must have been dolls representing our species. Like the statuettes, to make it easier for the Mediator to talk about us.”

“All of those?” Rod’s voice was pure wonder. “A shipload of full-sized mockups?”

“We don’t know they were full-sized, do we?” asked Jock.

“Fine. Assume they were mockups,” Renner said. He went on relentlessly. “They were still models of living Motie classes. Except this one. Why would that one be in the group? Why bring a demon with the rest?”

There was no answer.

“Thank you, Kevin,” Rod said slowly. He didn’t dare look at Sally. “Jock, is this or is it not a Motie class?”

“There’s more, Captain,” Renner said. “Look real close at the Farmer. Now that we know what to look for.”

The image wasn’t very clear, little more than a fuzzy edged silhouette; but the bulge was unmistakable on the full profile view.

“She’s pregnant,” Sally exclaimed. “Why didn’t I think of that! A pregnant statuette? But— Jock, what does this mean?”

“Yeah,” Rod asked coldly.

But it was impossible to get Jock’s attention.

“Stop! Say no more!” Ivan commanded.

“What would I say?” Jock wailed. “The idiots took a Warrior! We are finished, finished, when moments ago we had the universe in our hand!” The Motie’s powerful left hand closed crushingly on air.

“Silence. Control yourself. Now. Charlie, tell me what you know of the probe. How was it built?”

Charlie gestured contempt interrupted by respect. “It should be obvious. The probe builders knew an alien species inhabited this star. They knew nothing more. Thus they must have assumed the species resembled ours, if not in appearance, then in the essentials.”

“Cycles. They must have assumed Cycles,” Ivan mused. “We had yet to know that all races are not condemned to the Cycles.”

“Precisely,” said Charlie. “The hypothetical species had survived. It was intelligent. They would have no more control of their breeding than we, since such control is not a survival characteristic. Thus the probe was launched in the belief that this star’s people would be in collapse when the probe arrived.”

“So.” Ivan thought for a moment. “The Crazy Eddies put pregnant females of every class aboard. Idiots!”

“Give them credit. They did their best,” said Charlie. “The probe must have been rigged to dump the passengers into the sun the instant it was hailed by a space-traveling civilization. If the hypothetical aliens were that advanced, they would find, not an attempt to take over their planet with the light sail as a weapon, but a Mediator sent on a peaceful errand.” Charlie paused for thought. “An accidentally dead Mediator. The probe would have been set to kill her, so the aliens would learn as little as possible. You are a Master: is this not what you would do?”

“Am I also Crazy Eddie, to launch the probe at all? The strategy did not work. Now we must tell these humans something.”

“I say tell them all,” Charlie said. “What else can we do? We are caught in our own lies.”

“Wait,” Ivan commanded. Only seconds had passed, but Jock was normal again. The humans were staring curiously. “We must say something momentous. Hardy knows we are excited. True?”

“Yes,” Charlie gestured.

“What discovery could so have excited us?”

“Trust me,” Jock said quickly. “We may yet be saved. Demon worshipers! We told you we have no racial enemies, and this is true; but there is a religious faction, secret, which makes gods of the time demons. They are vicious, and very dangerous. They must have seized the probe before it left the asteroid belt. Secretly, perhaps—”

“Then the passengers and crew were alive?” Rod asked.

Charlie shrugged. “I believe so. They must have committed suicide. Who knows why? Possibly they thought we had developed a faster-than-light drive and were waiting for them. What did you do when you approached them?”

“Sent messages in most human languages,” Rod answered. “You’re sure they were alive?”

“How would we know?” Jock asked. “Do not be concerned about them.” The voice was filled with contempt. “They were not proper representatives of our race. Their rituals include sacrifice of sentient classes.”

“Just how many of these demon worshipers are there?” Hardy asked. “I was never told of them.”

“We are not proud of their existence,” Jock answered. “Did you tell us of outies? Of the excesses of Sauron System? Are you pleased that we know humans are capable of such things?”

There were embarrassed murmurs.

“Damn,” Rod said quietly. “They were alive after all—after all that distance.” The thought was bitter.

“You are distressed,” Jock said. “We are pleased that you did not speak to them before you met us. Your expedition would have been of quite a different character if you had—”

She stopped, watching curiously. Dr. Sigmund Horowitz had risen from his seat and was bent against the screen, examining the time-machine picture. He fingered the screen controls to enlarge one of the demon statuettes. The silhouette from the probe faded, leaving half the screen blank, then another picture came on and grew and grew—a sharp-fanged, rat-faced creature squatting on a pile of rubble.

“Aha!” Horowitz shouted in triumph. “I wondered what the ancestry of the rats could be! Degenerate forms of this…” He turned to the Moties. There was nothing in his manner but curiosity, as if he’d paid no attention to the conversation before. “What do you use this caste for?” he asked. “Soldiers, aren’t they? Have to be. What else would they be good for?”

“No. They are only myths.”

“Balderdash. Demons with weapons? Father Hardy, can you imagine devils carrying blast rifles?” Horowitz fingered the controls again and the probe silhouette appeared. “Abraham’s Beard! That’s no statue. Come now, this is a Motie subspecies. Why do you hide it? Fascinating— I’ve never seen anything so well adapted for…” Horowitz’ voice trailed off.

“A Warrior caste,” Ben Fowler said slowly. “I don’t wonder that you hid it from us. Dr. Horowitz, would you suppose that—creature—is as prolific as we know the other Moties can be?”

“Why not?”

“But I tell you the demons are legendary,” Jock insisted. “The poem. Dr. Hardy, you recall the poem? These are the creatures who made the skies fall.”

“I believe that,” Hardy said. “I’m not sure I believe they’re extinct. You keep their feral descendants in zoos. Anthony, I put a hypothetical question to you: If the Moties have a very prolific caste devoted to warfare; their Masters have pride in independence similar to terran lions; they have had several disastrous wars; and they are hopelessly trapped in a single planetary system: what is the most reasonable projection of their history?”

Horvath shuddered. So did the others. “Like—MacArthur,” Horvath answered sadly. “Cooperation among Masters must break down when population pressures become severe enough… if that’s really a current caste, David.”

“But I tell you again, they are legendary demons,” Jock protested.

“I’m afraid we don’t believe everything you tell us,” Hardy said. There was deep sadness in his voice. “Not that I ever accepted everything you said. Priests hear a lot of lies. But I always did wonder what you were hiding. It would have been better if you’d shown us some kind of military or police forces. But you couldn’t, could you? They were—” he gestured at the screen. “Those.”

“Rod,” Senator Fowler said. “You look pretty grim.”

“Yes, sir. I was thinking what it would be like to fight a race that’s bred Warriors for ten thousand years. Those things must be adapted to space warfare too. Give the Moties Field technology, and—Ben, I don’t think we could beat them! It’d be like trying to fight millions of Sauron cyborgs! Hell, the couple of thousand they had were enough to keep the war going for years!”

Sally listened helplessly. “But what if Jock’s telling the truth? Couldn’t she be right? There was a Warrior caste, it’s extinct now, and outlaw Moties—want to bring them back.”

“Easy enough to find out,” Fowler muttered. “And best done fast, before the Motie Browns build a fleet that could stop us.”

“If they haven’t already,” Rod muttered. “They work so fast. They rebuilt the embassy ship while it was on its way to MacArthur. A complete overhaul, with two Browns and some Watchmakers. I think Commander Cargill’s threat estimate may be a bit conservative, Senator.”

“Even if it isn’t,” said Renner, “we still have to picture every ship captained and crewed by Admiral Kutuzov.”

“Right. Okay, Jock. You see our situation,” said the Senator.

“Not really.” The Motie was crouched forward and looked very alien.

“I’ll spell it out. We don’t have the resources to fight a million critters evolved for warfare. Maybe we’d win, may be not. If you keep those things around, it’s because you need ‘em; your system’s too crowded to keep useless mouths. If you need ‘em, you fight wars.”

“I see,” Jock said carefully.

“No, you don’t,” the Senator growled. “You know something about the Sauron System, but not enough. Jock, if you Moties breed Warrior castes, our people are goin’ to identify you with Saurons, and I don’t think you appreciate just how much the Empire hated them and their superman ideas.”

“What will you do?” Jock asked.

“Take a look at your system. A real look.”

“And if you find Warriors?”

“We don’t need to look, do we?” Senator Fowler demanded. “You know we’ll find ‘em.” He sighed heavily. His pause for thought was very short—no more than a second. Then he stood and went to the view screen, walking slowly, like a juggernaut—

“What will we do? Can we not stop him?” Jock wailed.

Ivan remained calm. “It would do no good, and you could not do it. That Marine is no Warrior, but he is armed and his hand is on his weapon. He fears us.”

“But—”

“Listen.”

“Conference call,” Fowler told the Palace operator. “I want Prince Merrill and War Minister Armstrong. Personally, and I don’t give a damn where they are. I want ‘em now.”

“Yes, Senator.” The girl was young, and frightened by the Senator’s manner. She fumbled with her equipment, and the room was still for a time.

Minister Armstrong was in his office. His tunic was missing and his shirt unbuttoned. Papers littered his desk. He looked up in irritation, saw who was calling, and muttered, “Aye?”

“A moment,” Fowler said brusquely. “I’m getting the Viceroy on a conference circuit.” There was another long wait.

His Highness came on; the screen showed his face only. He seemed breathless. “Yes, Senator?”

“Your Highness, you have seen my Commission from the Emperor?”

“Yes.”

“You accept my authority in all matters having to do with the aliens?”

“Of course.”

“As representative of His Imperial Majesty I order you to assemble the sector battle fleet as quickly as possible. You will place Admiral Kutuzov in command to await my orders.”

There was more silence on the screens. An irritating babble filled the conference room. Ben gestured imperiously for silence and it cut off.

“As a matter of form, Senator,” Merrill said carefully, “I will require confirmation of that order from another member of the Commission.”

“Yeah. Rod.”

And here it is, Rod thought. He didn’t dare look at Sally. A race of Warriors? Independent Masters? We can’t let them get out into human space. We wouldn’t last a century.

The Moties are frozen stiff. They know what we’ll find. Unrestricted breeding and demons. Every nightmare every kid ever had… but I like Moties. No. I like the Mediators. I’ve never known any of the others. And the Mediators don’t control the Mote civilization. Carefully he looked down at Sally. She was as unmoving as the Moties. Rod drew in a deep breath.

“Your Highness, I approve.”

56. Last Hope

Their quarters seemed small now, despite the high ceilings. Nothing had changed. There were all the delicacies the Empire could find to put in their kitchen. A single push on a button would summon a dozen, a hundred servants. The Marines in the corridor outside were polite and respectful.

And they were trapped. Somewhere at the edges of New Cal’s system, at a base called Dagda, the Empire’s warships were summoned; and when they had arrived…

“They will not kill them all,” Charlie gibbered.

“But they will.” Jock’s voice was a wail, quavering.

“The Warriors will fight. The Navy will lose ships. And Kutuzov will be in command. Will he risk his ships to spare any of us? Or will he reduce our planet to iridescent slag?”

“The asteroids as well?” Charlie whimpered. “Yes. There has never been a Cycle in which both were gone. Master, we must do something! We cannot allow this! If we had been truthful with them—”

“Their fleet would even now be on its way instead of merely ordered to assemble,” Jock said contemptuously. “It was so close! I had them!” Three fingers the size of knackwurst closed, empty. “They were ready to agree, and then—and then—” She whimpered on the edge of madness but recoiled from the brink. “There must be something we can do.”

“Tell them all,” Charlie said. “What harm can it do? Now they see us as evil. At least we can explain why we lied to them.”

“Think of what we can offer them,” Ivan ordered. “Consider their interests and think of ways to protect them without destroying the Race.”

“Help them?” Jock asked.

“Of course. Help them to be safe from us.”

“It is the Warriors they fear. Would the Masters agree to kill all the Warriors? We could then join the Empire.”

“Crazy Eddie!” Charlie screamed. “And how many Masters would keep Warrior breeding stock?”

“It has been attempted before,” Ivan said. “Think of something else.”

“Can we make them believe we cannot build the Fields?” Charlie asked.

“To what end? They will know soon enough. No. They will not enter our system again until their fleet is ready; and then they will take it all. A dozen battleships. If that fleet enters our system, the Warriors will fight and the Race will die. They must not send it. THEY MUST NOT.”

Jock used a half-forgotten tongue, not known to Masters. “He is nearly insane.”

“As are we.” Charlie wriggled in bitter, silent Motie laughter. “Pity the Master. His fears are our own, plus the fear that we will go mad. Without us he would be mute, watching the fleet assemble, unable to say a word in protest.”

“Think!” Ivan ordered. “They are sending Kutuzov. He destroyed a human planet—what mercy will he show to aliens? Think! Think or the Race is doomed!”

As Sally entered Rod’s office she heard him speaking into the phone. He hadn’t seen her. For a moment she hesitated, then stood motionless, listening.

“I agree, Lavrenti. The asteroid civilization must be covered in the first sweep. It may even be their prime naval base.”

“I do not like to divide fleet,” the heavily accented voice said from the phone. “You give me two missions, Lord Blaine. They are not compatible. To fall upon Moties and cripple them without warning—yes, that is possible. To invite their attack before we react—that will cost lives and ships we cannot spare.”

“You’ll plan it that way nonetheless.”

“Yes, my lord. My officers will bring you preliminary plans in the morning. They will also bring you loss estimates. What officer do you suggest I place in command of decoy vessel, my lord? Classmate of yours? Stranger? I await your suggestions.”

“Damn it!”

“Please excuse my impertinence, my lord. Your commands will be obeyed.”

The screen went dark. Rod sat staring at its blank face until Sally came in and sat across from him. The Warrior statuettes were vivid behind his eyes.

“You heard?”

“Some of it—is it really that bad?”

Rod shrugged. “Depends on what we’re up against. It’s one thing to go in shooting, blast our way in and saturate the planet and asteroids with hellburners. But to send the fleet in, give the Moties warning of what we’re up to, and wait for them to attack us? The first hostile move could be from the laser cannon that launched the probe!”

She looked at him miserably. “Why do we have to do it at all? Why can’t we just let them alone?”

“So that one of these days they can come out here and chop up our grandkids?”

“Why does it have to be us?”

“It was, though. Tell me, Sally, is there any doubt about it? About what the Moties really are?”

“They’re not monsters!”

“No. Just our enemies.”

She shook her head sadly. “So what will happen?”

“The fleet goes in. We demand they surrender to the Empire. Maybe they accept, maybe not. If they do, suicide crews go in to supervise the disarmament. If they fight, the fleet attacks.”

“Who— Who’s going to land on Mote Prime? Who’ll be in charge of the— No! Rod, I can’t let you do that!”

“Who else could it be? Me, Cargill, Sandy Sinclair— MacArthur’s old crew will land. Maybe they’ll really surrender. Somebody’s got to give them that chance.”

“Rod, I—”

“Can we have the wedding soon? There’s no heir to either of our families.”

“No use,” said Charlie. “Taste the irony. For millions of years we have been in a bottle, its shape has shaped our species to our detriment. Now we have found the opening, and now the Navy pours through to burn our worlds.”

Jock sneered, “How vivid and poetic are your images!”

“How fortunate we are to enjoy your constructive advice! You—” Charlie stopped suddenly. Jock’s walk had turned strange. She paced with her hands twisted uncomfortably behind her, head bent forward, feet close together to render her stance as precarious as a human’s.

Charlie recognized Kutuzov. She made a peremptory shushing motion to stop Ivan from commenting.

“I need a human word,” said Jock. “We never heard it, but they must have it. Summon a servant,” she snapped in Kutuzov’s voice, and Charlie leaped to obey.

Senator Fowler sat at a small desk in the office next to the Commission conference room. A large bottle of New Aberdeen Highland Cream stood on the otherwise bare oak desk. The door opened and Dr. Horvath came in. He stood expectantly.

“Drink?” Fowler asked.

“No, thank you.”

“Want to get down to it, eh. Right. Your application for membership on this Commission is denied.”

Horvath stood rigid. “I see.”

“I doubt it. Sit down.” Fowler took a glass from the desk drawer and poured. “Here, hold this anyway. Pretend you’re drinking with me. Tony, I’m doing you a favor.”

“I do not see it that way.”

“Don’t, eh? Look. The Commission’s going to exterminate the Moties. Just what’s that going to do for you? You want to be part of that decision?”

“Exterminate? But I thought the orders were to bring them into the Empire.”

“Sure. Can’t do anything else. Political pressure’s too big to just go in and wipe ‘em out. So I got to let the Moties draw some blood. Including the father of the only heir I’ll ever have.” Fowler’s lips were tightly drawn. “They’ll fight, Doc. I just hope they don’t make a phony surrender offer first, so Rod’ll have a chance. You really want to be part of that?”

“I see… I guess I really do see. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Fowler reached into his tunic and took out a small box. He opened it for a second to look inside, closed it, and scaled it across the desk to Horvath. “There. That’s yours.”

Dr. Horvath opened it and saw a ring with a large blank green stone.

“You can carve a baron’s crest on that next Birthday,” Fowler said. “Do not bind the mouths and all that. Satisfied?”

“Yes. Very. Thank you, Senator.”

“No thanks needed. You’re a good man, Tony. OK, let’s get in there and see what the Moties want.”

The conference room was nearly filled. The Commissioners, staff, Horvath’s scientists, Hardy, Renner—and Admiral Kutuzov.

Senator Fowler took his seat. “Lords Commissioners representing His Imperial Majesty are now convened. Write your names and organizations.” He paused briefly as they scrawled on their computers. “The Moties have requested this meeting. They didn’t say why. Anybody got anything to bring up before they get here? No? OK, Kelley, bring ‘em in.”

The Moties were silent as they took their places at the end of the table. They looked very alien; the human mimicry was gone. The permanent smiles were still painted on, and the fur was combed sleek and shiny.

“Your ball,” the Senator said. “I may as well tell you we’re unlikely to believe anything you say.”

“There will be no more lies,” Charlie said. Even voice was different; the Mediator sounded alien, not like a blend of all the voices the Moties had ever heard, but with a distinct— Rod couldn’t trace it. Not an accent. It was almost perfection, the ideal of Anglic.

“The time for lies is finished. My Master thought so from the beginning, but Jock’s Master was given jurisdiction over negotiations with humans, as you were given such jurisdiction for your Emperor.”

“Faction fight, eh?” Fowler said. “Pity we didn’t meet your boss. A bit late now, isn’t it?”

“Perhaps. But I will now represent him. You may call him King Peter if you like; the midshipmen did.”

“What?” Rod stood at his seat, and the chair fell backward to crash to the floor. “When?”

“Just before they were killed by Warriors,” Charlie said. “Attacking me will gain you no information, my lord; and it was not my Master’s Warriors who killed them. Those who did were ordered to take them alive, but the midshipmen would not surrender.”

Rod carefully retrieved his chair and sat. “No. Horst wouldn’t,” he muttered.

“Nor would Whitbread. Nor Potter. You may be as proud of them as you wish, Lord Blaine. Their last moments were in the finest traditions of the Imperial Service.” There was no trace of irony in the alien voice.

“And just why did you murder those boys?” Sally demanded. “Rod, I’m sorry. I—I’m sorry, that’s all.”

“It wasn’t your fault. The lady asked you a question, Charlie.”

“They had discovered the truth about us. Their landing boats took them to a museum. Not one of the places of amusement that we allowed you to visit. This one has a more serious purpose.” Charlie spoke on, in a low voice. She described the museum and the battle there; the flight across Mote Prime, the beginning of the war between Motie factions, and the landing in the street outside the Castle. She told of the final battle.

“My own Warriors lost,” she finished. “Had they won, King Peter would have sent the midshipmen back to you. But once they were dead—it seemed better to attempt to deceive you.”

“Lord God,” Rod whispered. “So that’s your secret. And we had all the clues, but—”

Someone was murmuring across the room. Chaplain Hardy. “Requiem aeternam donum est, Domine, et lux perpetuae…”

“Just how the hell do you think telling us this will help you?” Senator Fowler asked.

Charlie shrugged. “If you’re going to exterminate us, you may as well know why. I’m trying to explain that the Masters will not surrender. King Peter might, but he doesn’t control Mote Prime, much less the asteroid civilization. Someone will fight.”

“As I predicted, my lords,” Kutuzov said heavily. “And men and ships sent to accept surrender will be doomed. Perhaps Fleet as well. If we enter Mote System, it must be in full attack.”

“Oh, boy,” Senator Fowler muttered. “Yeah. I see your plan. You think we can’t order an unprovoked attack, and maybe we won’t send in a suicide mission first. Well, you read us wrong, Charlie. It’ll mean my head, maybe, but all you’ve convinced me of is to give the Admiral his way. Sorry, Father, but that’s the way I see it.”

The Senator’s voice crackled across the room. “Admiral Kutuzov. You will hold your fleet in readiness, and it will accept no communications from any source without my prior approval. And I mean any source. Understood?”

“Aye aye, Senator.” Kutuzov raised a communicator to his lips. “Mikhailov. Da.” He spoke fluid syllables. “It is done, Senator.”

“I have not finished,” Charlie said. “You have another alternative.”

“And what’s that?” Fowler demanded.

“Blockade.”

57. All The Skills of Treason

They stood for a long time on the balcony outside Rod’s suite. Faint sounds of a city after dark floated up to them. The Hooded Man rose high in the sky, his baleful red eye watching them with indifference: two human lovers, who would send squadrons of ships into the Eye itself and keep them there, until they too passed away…

“It doesn’t look very big,” Sally murmured. She moved her head against his shoulder and felt his arms tighten around her. “Just a fleck of yellow in Murcheson’s Eye. Rod, will it work?”

“The blockade? Sure. We worked out the plan at Fleet Battle Ops. Jack Cargill set it up: a squadron inside the Eye itself to take advantage of the Jump shock. The Moties don’t know about that, and their ships won’t be under command for minutes at best. If they try to send them through on automatic it just makes it worse.”

She shivered against him. “That wasn’t really what I meant. The whole plan—will it work?”

“What choices have we?”

“None. And I’m glad you agree. I couldn’t live with you if— I couldn’t, that’s all.”

“Yeah.” And that makes me grateful to the Moties for thinking up this scheme, because we can’t let the Moties get out. A galactic plague—and there are only two remedies for that kind of plague. Quarantine and extermination. At least we’ve got a choice.

“They’re—” She stopped and looked up at him. “I’m afraid to talk to you about it. Rod, I couldn’t live with myself if we had to—if the blockade won’t work.”

He didn’t say anything. There was a shouted laugh from somewhere beyond the Palace grounds. It sounded like children.

“They’ll get past that squadron in the star,” Sally said. Her voice was tightly controlled.

“Sure. And past the mines Sandy Sinclair’s designing too. But where can they go, Sally? There’s only one exit from the Eye system, they don’t know where it is, and there’ll be a battle group waiting for them when they find it. Meanwhile they’ve been inside a star. No place to dissipate energy. Probably damaged. There’s nothing you can think of that we haven’t considered. That blockade’s tight. I wouldn’t approve it otherwise.”

She relaxed again and leaned against his chest. His arms encircled her. They watched the Hooded Man and his imperfect eye.

“They won’t come out,” Rod said.

“And they’re still trapped. After a million years—what will we be like in a million years?” she wondered. “Like them? There’s something basic we don’t understand about Moties. A fatalistic streak I can’t even comprehend. After a few failures they may even just—give up.”

He shrugged. “We’ll keep the blockade anyway. Then, in about fifty years, we’ll go in and see what things are like. If they’ve collapsed as thoroughly as Charlie predicts, we can take them into the Empire.”

“And then what?”

“I don’t know. We’ll have to think of something.”

“Yes.” She drew away from him and turned excitedly. “I know! Rod, we have to really look at the problem. For the Moties. We can help them.”

He looked at her wonderingly. “I think the best brains in the Empire are likely to be working on it.”

“Yes, but for the Empire. Not for the Moties. We need—an Institute. Something controlled by people who know the Moties. Something outside of politics. And we can do it. We’re rich enough…”

“Eh?”

“We can’t spend half of what we have between us.” She dashed past him and into his suite, then through it and across the corridor to her own. Rod followed to see her burrowing among the stacks of wedding gifts that littered the large rose-teak table in her entry hail. She grunted in satisfaction when she found her pocket computer.

Now should I be irritated? Rod thought. I think I’d better learn to be happy when she’s like this. I’ll have a long time to do it. “The Moties have been working on their problem awhile,” he reminded her.

She looked up with faint irritation. “Pooh. They don’t see things the way we do. Fatalism, remember? And they’ve had nobody to force them into adopting any solutions they do think up.” She went back to scribbling notes. “We’ll need Horowitz, of course. And he says there’s a good man on Sparta, we’ll have to send for him. Dr. Hardy. We’ll want him.”

He regarded her with awe and wonder. “When you get going, you move.” And I better move with you if I’m going to have you around all my life. Wonder what it’s like to live with a whirlwind? “You’ll have Father Hardy if you want him. The Cardinal’s assigned him to the Mote problem—and I think His Eminence has something bigger in store. Hardy could have been a bishop long ago but he doesn’t have the normal share of miterosis. Now I don’t think he’s got much choice: First apostolic delegate to an alien race, or something.”

“Then the Board will be you and me, Dr. Horvath, Father Hardy—and Ivan.”

“Ivan?” But why not? And as long as we’re doing this, we may as well do it right. We’ll need a good executive director, Sally’s no use as an administrator, and I won’t have time. Horvath, maybe. “Sally, do you know just how much we’re up against? The biology problem: how to turn a female to male without pregnancy or permanent sterility. But even if you find something, how do we get the Moties to use it?”

She wasn’t really listening. “We’ll find a way. We’re pretty good at governing—”

“We can hardly govern a human empire!”

“But we do, don’t we? Somehow.” She pushed a stack of gaily wrapped packages aside to make more room. A large box almost fell and Rod had to catch it as Sally continued to scrawl notes into her computer’s memory bank. “Now just what’s the code for Imperial Men and Women of Science?” she asked. “There’s a man on Meiji who’s done some really good work in genetic engineering, and I can’t remember his name…”

Rod sighed heavily. “I’ll look him up for you. But there’s one condition.”

“What’s that?” She looked up in curiosity,

“You finish this up by next week, because, Sally, if you take that pocket computer on our honeymoon, I’ll throw the goddamn thing into the mass converter!”

She laughed, but Rod didn’t feel reassured at all. Oh well. The computers weren’t expensive. He could buy her a new one when they got back. In fact, maybe he ought to make a deal with Bury; he might need the things in shipload lots if they were ever going to have a family…

Horace Bury followed the Marine guards through the Palace, pointedly ignoring the other Marines who’d fallen in behind him. His face was calm, and only a close study of his eyes could show the despair that bored through him.

As Allah wills, he sighed, and wondered that he no longer resented the thought. Perhaps there would be comfort in submission… there was little else to console him. The Marines had brought his servant and all his baggage down on the landing ship, and then separated him from Nabil at the Palace roof. Before they did, Nabil had whispered his message: Jonas Stone’s confession was even now reaching the Palace.

Stone was still on New Chicago, but whatever he had told Naval Intelligence was important enough to be put on a message sloop. Nabil’s informant didn’t know what the rebel leader had said, but Bury did, as surely as if he could read the coded tapes. The message would be brief, and it would contain death by hanging for Horace Bury.

So this is the end of it all. The Empire acts swiftly against treason: a few days, a few weeks. No more. There is no chance to escape. The Marines are polite, but very alert. They have been warned, and there are many of them, too many. One might accept a bribe, but not when his comrades are watching.

As Allah wills. But it is a pity. Had I not been so concerned with the aliens, had I not done the Empire’s work with the Traders, I would long since have escaped. Levant is large. But I would have had to leave New Scotland, and it is here the decisions will be made—what point to escape when the aliens may destroy us all?

The Marine Sergeant conducted him to an ornate conference room and held open the door until Bury went inside. Then, incredibly, the guards retired. There were only two men in the room with him.

“Good morning, my lord,” Bury said to Rod Blaine. His words were even and smooth, but his mouth felt dry, and there was a sharp taste in the back of his throat as he bowed to the other man. “I have not been introduced to Senator Fowler, but of course his face is known to everyone in the Empire. Good morning, Senator.”

Fowler nodded without rising from his seat at the big conference table. “Good morning, Excellency. Good of you to come. Have a seat, won’t you?” He waved to a place opposite his.

“Thank you.” Bury took the indicated chair. Then more astonishment, as Blaine brought coffee. Bury sniffed carefully and recognized it as a blend he had sent to the Palace chef for Blaine’s use.

In the Name of Allah. They are playing games with me, but to what end? He felt rage mingled with fear, but no hope at all. And a wild, bubbling laugh rose in his throat.

“Just so we know where we stand, Excellency,” Fowler said. He waved, and Blaine activated a wall screen. The bulky features of Jonas Stone loomed out into the ornately paneled room. There was sweat on the brow and along the cheekbones, and Stone’s voice alternately boomed and pleaded.

Bury listened impassively, his lip curled in contempt for Stone’s weakness. There was no doubt at all: the Navy had more than enough evidence to send him to a traitor’s death. Still the smile did not fade from Bury lips. He would give them no satisfaction. He would not plead.

Eventually the tape ended. Fowler waved again and the rebel leader’s image vanished. “Nobody’s seen that but the three of us, Excellency,” Fowler said carefully.

But no. What do they want? Is there hope after all?

“I don’t know that it needs discussing,” the Senator continued. “Me, I’d rather talk about Moties.”

“Ah,” said Bury. The tiny sound almost stuck in his throat. And do you wish to deal, or do you taunt me with the final horror? He swallowed coffee to moisten his tongue before he spoke. “I am sure that the Senator is aware of my views. I consider Moties the greatest threat humans have ever faced.” He looked at the two men opposite him, but there was nothing to be read in their faces.

“We agree,” Blaine said.

Quickly, while hope rose in Bury’s eyes, Fowler added, “There’s not much question about it. They’re locked into a permanent state of population explosion followed by total war. If they ever get out of their system— Bury, they’ve got a soldier subspecies that puts the Saurons to shame. Hell, you’ve seen them.”

Blaine did things to his pocket computer and another picture appeared: the time-machine sculpture.

“Those? But my Motie said they—” Bury stopped himself in realization. Then he laughed: the laugh of a man who has nothing more to lose. “My Motie.”

“Precisely.” The Senator smiled faintly. “I can’t say we have much trust in your Motie. Bury, even if it were only the miniatures that got loose, we could lose whole worlds. They breed like bacteria. Nothing big enough to see breeds like that. But you know.”

“Yes.” Bury gathered himself with difficulty. His face smoothed, but behind his eyes was a myriad of glittering tiny eyes. Splendor of Allah, I almost brought them out myself! Praise and glory to the One who is merciful…

“Dammit, stop shivering,” Fowler commanded.

“My apologies. You will doubtless have heard of my encounter with miniatures.” He glanced at Blaine and envied his external calm. Miniatures could be no less unpleasant to the commander of MacArthur. “I am pleased to hear that the Empire recognizes the dangers.”

“Yeah. We’re going to blockade the Moties. Bottle ‘em up in their own system.”

“Would it not be better to exterminate them while we can?” Bury asked quietly. The voice was calm, but his dark eyes blazed.

“How?”

Bury nodded. “There would be political difficulties, of course. But I could find men to take an expedition to Mote Prime, and given the proper orders—”

Fowler gestured dismissal. “I’ve got my own agents provocateurs if I need ‘em.”

“Mine would be considerably less valuable.” Bury looked pointedly at Blaine.

“Yeah.” Fowler said nothing more for a moment, and Blaine stiffened visibly. Then the Senator continued: “Better or worse, Trader, we’ve decided on the blockade. Government’s shaky enough without being accused of genocide. Besides, I don’t know as I like the idea of unprovoked attack on intelligent beings. We’ll do it this way.”

“But the threat!” Bury leaned forward, unmindful of the fanatical gleam in his eyes. He knew he was close to madness, but he no longer cared. “Do you think you have locked the djinn away because the cork is back in the bottle? What if another another generation does not see the Moties as we do? What if they let the djinn loose again? Glory of Allah! Picture swarms of their ships. They pour into the Empire, each commanded by things that looked like that and think like Admiral Kutuzov! Specialized Warriors more than the equals of Sauron Death’s-heads! And you will let them live? I tell you they must be destroyed…”

No! Men are never persuaded simply because they must believe. They will not listen when— Visibly he relaxed. “I see that you have decided. How may I be of assistance?” Or do you wish anything of me at all? Is this a game?

“I think you already have,” Blaine said. He lifted his coffee and sipped. “And I thank you for the gift.”

“Blockade’s about the most expensive kind of naval action there is,” Fowler mused. “Never very popular either.”

“Ah.” Bury felt the tension die within him. They held his life, but they needed him—perhaps he could keep far more than his life. “You are concerned about the Imperial Traders’ Association.”

“Exactly.” There was no reading Fowler’s expression.

Relief. For this I will build a mosque. It would make my father gloriously happy, and who knows? Perhaps Allah exists after all. That bubbling laugh was still there in his throat, but he knew that if he began he would never stop. “I have already pointed out to my colleagues the disadvantages of unrestricted trade with Moties. I have my share of success, although too many traders are like the neighbor who followed Aladdin into the magician’s cave. Incalculable wealth glitters more brightly than the dangers.”

“Yeah. But can you hold ‘em? Find out who intends to sabotage us and squash their schemes?”

Bury shrugged. “With some assistance. It will be very expensive. I assume I will have the use of secret funds…”

Fowler grinned evilly. “Rod, what else was it Stone said? Something about—”

“It will not be necessary to bring up that man’s ravings,” Bury protested. “I believe I have sufficient wealth.” He shuddered. What would he have when this was done? Fowler wouldn’t care if he bled Bury to death. “If there is something that requires resources beyond mine—”

“We’ll discuss it then,” Fowler said. “There will be, too. For instance, this blockade’s going to suck up a lot of resources Merrill thought he’d have for the unification of Trans-Coalsack. Now it seems to me a smart Trader might just have a few contacts among the rebels. Might even be able to persuade ‘em to our point of view. I don’t know how that would work, of course.”

“I see.”

Fowler nodded. “Thought you might. Rod, take that tape and see it’s put in a good safe place, will you? I doubt if we’ll be needing it again.”

“Yes, sir.” Rod did things to his pocket computer. The machine hummed: a tiny whine that signaled a new kind of life for Horace Bury.

There will be no evasions, Bury thought. Fowler will accept only results, not excuses; and my life will be at stake in this game. It will not be easy to be this man’s political agent. Yet what choice is there? On Levant I could only wait in fear. At least this way I will know how they are dealing with the Moties… and perhaps change their policies as well.

“One more thing,” the senator said. He gestured and Rod Blaine went to the office door. Kevin Renner entered.

It was the first time any of them had seen the Sailing Master in civilian clothing. Renner had chosen bright plaid trousers and an even brighter tunic. His sash was some silklike material that looked natural but probably was synthetic. Soft boots, jewelry; in short, he looked like most of Bury’s successful merchant captains. Trader and shipmaster eyed each other wonderingly.

“Yes, sir?” Renner asked.

“Bit premature, aren’t you, Kevin?” Rod asked. “Your discharge isn’t effective until this afternoon.”

Renner grinned. “Didn’t think the Provost would mind. And it sure feels good. Morning, Excellency.”

“You know Trader Bury, then,” Fowler said. “Good enough, since you’ll be seeing a lot of each other.”

“Uh?” Renner’s face took on a wary look.

“The Senator means,” Rod explained, “that he’d like to ask you a favor. Kevin, do you recall the terms of your enlistmnent?”

“Sure.”

“Four years, or the duration of a Class One Imperial emergency, or the duration of a formal war,” Rod said. “Oh, by the way, the Senator has declared the Motie situation a Class One emergency.”

“Now wait a minute!” Renner shouted. “You can’t do that to me!”

“Yes, I can,” said Fowler.

Renner sagged into a chair. “Oh, my God. Well, you are the expert.”

“Haven’t made it public yet,” Senator Fowler said. “Wouldn’t want to panic anybody. But you’ve been officially notified now.” Fowler waited for that to sink in. “Of course, we might have an alternative for you.”

“Bless you.”

“Bitter, aren’t you?” Rod said. He was cheerful. Renner hated him.

“You did us a good piece of work, Renner,” Fowler said. “Empire’s grateful. I’m grateful. You know, I brought a hatful of blank Imperial patents when I came out… how’d you like to be a baron come next Birthday?”

“Oh, no! Not me! I’ve put in my time!”

“But surely you’d find the privileges enjoyable,” Rod said.

“Damn! So I should have waited until morning to bring the Senator to your room. I knew I should have waited. No, sir, you’ll not make any aristocrat out of Kevin Renner! I’ve got too much of the universe to explore! I don’t have time for all the work…”

“It might spoil your carefree life,” Senator Fowler said. “Anyway, it wouldn’t be so easy to arrange. Jealousy and such. But you’re too useful, Mr. Renner, and there is the Class One emergency.”

“But—but…”

“Civilian ship captain,” Fowler said. “With a knighthood. And an understanding of the Motie problem. Yep, you’re just what we need.”

“I haven’t got any knighthood.”

“You will. You can’t turn that down. Mr. Bury’ll insist that his personal pilot have at least the St. Michael and St. George. Won’t you, Excellency?”

Bury winced. It was inevitable that the Empire would assign men to watch him, and they would want a man who could talk to the merchant captains. But this—harlequin? Beard of the Prophet, the man would be intolerable! Horace sighed to the inevitable. At least he was an intelligent harlequin. Perhaps he would even be useful. “I think Sir Kevin would be an admirable man to command my personal ship,” Bury said smoothly. There was only a trace of distaste in the voice. “Welcome to Imperial Autonetics, Sir Kevin.”

“But—” Renner looked around the room for help, but there wasn’t any. Rod Blaine was holding a paper—what was it? Renner’s discharge! As Kevin watched, Blaine tore the document to shreds.

“All right, dammit!” Renner could see no mercy from them. “But as a civilian!”

“Oh, sure,” Fowler agreed. “Well, you’ll hold a commission in Naval Intelligence, but it won’t show.”

“God’s navel.” The phrase gave Bury a start. Renner grinned. “What’s the matter, Excellency? God doesn’t have a navel?”

“I foresee interesting times,” Bury said slowly. “For both of us.”

58. And Maybe The Horse Will Sing

Bright sunlight sparkled on the Palace roof. Fleecy, impossibly white clouds scudded overhead, but there was only a gentle breeze across the landing deck. The sunlight felt very warm and pleasant.

An admiral and two captains stood at the entryway to a landing boat. They faced a small group of civilians, three aliens wearing dark goggles, and four armed Marines. The Admiral carefully ignored the Moties and their escort as he bowed to the civilians. “Your pardon, my lady. My lord. It appears I will not be present at wedding after all. Not that I will be missed, but I regret taking your friends so soon.” He indicated the two captains and bowed again. “I leave them to make farewells.”

“Good luck, Admiral,” Rod said quietly. “Godspeed.”

“Thank you, my lord,” Kutuzov said. He turned and entered the boat.

“I will never understand that man,” Sally said.

“You are correct.” Jock’s voice was bluntly factual.

Sally looked at the alien in surprise before turning to the other officers. She extended her hand. “Good luck, Jack. Sandy.”

“You too, Sally.” Cargill glanced at the braid on his sleeves. The four rings of a post captain were bright and new. “Thanks for getting me a ship, Rod. I thought I was stuck in BattleOps forever.”

“Thank the Admiral,” Rod answered. “I recommended you but he decided. Sandy’s the one who’ll have to sweat. He’ll be in the flagship.”

Sinclair shrugged. “As Engineer of the Fleet I expect to put in time aboard other ships,” he said. “Best observation point for new tricks’ll be inside the Eye. So I’ll be wi’ this Sassenach, and that’s nae a bad thing. It would no’ do to hae his ship come apart.”

Cargill ignored him. “Sorry to miss the wedding, Sally. I intend to claim a guest’s privilege, though.” He leaned forward to brush Sally’s cheek with his lips. “If you get tired of him, there are other captains in the Navy.”

“Aye,” Sinclar agreed. “And my commission was signed two minutes before Cargill’s. You will no’ forget that, Jack.”

“How can I? You just remember that Patton’s my ship. We’d best be off, Skipper. The rendezvous’ going to be tricky as it is. Good-bye, Jock. Charlie.” Cargill hesitated, then saluted awkwardly.

“Farewell,” Charlie answered. Ivan twittered, and Jock added, “The Ambassador wishes you Godspeed and good luck.”

“I wish I could be sure you meant that,” Cargill said.

“Of course we mean it,” said Charlie. “We want you to feel safe.”

Cargill turned away looking thoughtful. He climbed aboard the boat. Sinclair followed and the ratings closed the entryway. Engines whined, and humans and Moties retreated into a shelter. They watched in silence as the boat lifted from the roof and vanished into the bright skies.

“It will work,” Jock said.

“You do read minds, don’t you?” Rod asked. He stared off into the sky but there was nothing to see but clouds.

“Of course it’s going to work,” Sally said. Her voice was emphatic.

“I think I understand you humans at last,” Charlie told them. “Have you ever read your ancient histories?”

Rod and Sally looked blankly at the Motie. “No.”

“Dr. Hardy showed us a key passage,” Charlie said. He waited as the elevator arrived. Two Marines entered, and after the humans and Moties were inside, the others followed. Charlie continued the story as if the armed guards were not present. “One of your most ancient writers, a historian named Herodotus, tells of a thief who was to be executed. As he was taken away he made a bargain with the king: in one year he would teach the king’s favorite horse to sing hymns.”

“Yes?” Sally prompted. She seemed puzzled and looked anxiously at Charlie. He seemed calm enough, but Dr. Hardy said he was worried about the aliens…

“The other prisoners watched the thief singing to the horse and laughed. ‘You will not succeed,’ they told him. ‘No one can.’ To which the thief replied, ‘I have a year, and who knows what might happen in that time. The king might die. The horse might die. I might die. And perhaps the horse will learn to sing.’ ”

There was polite laughter. “I didn’t tell it very well,” Charlie said. “I wasn’t trying to be humorous anyway. That story made me realize at last just how alien you humans are.”

There was an embarrassed silence. As the elevator stopped Jock asked, “How goes your Institute?”

“Fine. We’ve already sent for some of the department heads.” She laughed, embarrassed. “I have to work fast: Rod won’t let me think about the Institute after the wedding. You are coming, aren’t you?”

The Mediators shrugged in unison, and one looked at the Marines. “We will be delighted if we are allowed to attend,” Jock answered. “But we have no gifts for you. There is no Brown to make them.”

“We’ll get along without,” Rod said. The elevator door stood open, but they waited for two of the Marines to inspect the corridor.

“Thank you for allowing me to meet Admiral Kutuzov,” Jock said. “I have waited to speak with him since our embassy ship arrived alongside MacArthur.”

Rod looked at the aliens in wonder. Jock’s conversation with Kutuzov had been brief, and one of the most important questions the Motie had asked was “Do you like lemon in tea?”

They’re so damned civilized and likable, and because of that they’re going to spend the few years they’ve got left under guard while the Information Office blackguards them and their race. We’ve even hired a writer to script a play on the last hours of my midshipmen.

“It was little enough to do,” Rod said. “We—”

“Yes. You can’t let us go home.” Charlie’s voice changed to that of a New Scot youth. “We know aye more about humans than is safe.” She gestured smoothly to the Marines. Two walked ahead into the hall, and the Moties followed. The other guards closed behind, and the procession marched through the corridor until they reached the Motie quarters. The elevator door closed softly.

Epilogue

Defiant lay nearly motionless in space at the outer fringes of the Murcheson System. There were other ships grouped around her in battle formation, and off to starboard hung Lenin like a swollen black egg. At least half the main battle fleet was in readiness at all times, and somewhere down in the red hell of the Eye other ships circled and waited. Defiant had just completed a tour with the Crazy Eddie Squadron.

That term was very nearly official. The men tended to use a lot of Mote terms. When a man won a big hand at poker he was likely to shout “Fyunch(click)!” And yet, Captain Herb Colvin mused, most of us have never seen a Motie. We hardly see their ships: just targets, helpless after transition.

A few had made it out of the Eye, but every one had been so badly damaged that it was hardly spaceworthy. There was always plenty of time to warn the ships outside the Eye that another Motie was on the way—if the Eye hadn’t killed them first.

The last few ships had emerged from the Crazy Eddie point at initial velocities up to a thousand km per second. How the hell could the Moties hit a Jump point at such speeds? Ships within the Eye couldn’t catch them. They didn’t need to, with the Motie crews—and autopilots—helpless in Jump shock and unable to decelerate. The fleeing black blobs had run up through the rainbow and exploded every time. Where the Moties used their unique expanding Fields, they exploded sooner, picking up heat faster from the yellow-hot photosphere.

Herb Colvin laid down the latest report on Motie tricks and technology. He’d written a lot of it himself, and it all added up to hopeless odds against the Moties. They couldn’t beat ships that didn’t have to carry an Alderson Drive, ships on station and waiting for Moties who still didn’t suspect the jump disorientation… He could almost feel sorry for them.

Colvin took a bottle from the cabinet on the bulkhead of his patrol cabin and poured expertly despite the Coriolis forces. He carried his glass to his chair and sank into it. A packet of mail lay on his desk, the most recent letter from his wife already ripped open so that he could be sure there was nothing wrong at home. Now he could read the letters in order. He raised his glass to Grace’s picture on the desk.

She hadn’t heard much from New Chicago, but things were all right there the last time her sister had written. Mail service to New Scotland was slow. The house she’d found was outside the New Scot defensive system, but she wouldn’t worry because Herb had told her the Moties couldn’t get through. She’d taken a lease for the whole three years they’d be out here.

Herb nodded in agreement. That would save money—three years on this blockade, then home, where he’d be Commodore of New Chicago’s Home Fleet. Put the Alderson engines back in Defiant: she’d be flagship when he took her home. A few years on blockade service was a small price to pay for the concessions the Empire offered.

It took the Moties to do it, Herb thought. Without them we’d still be fighting. There were still worlds outside the Empire and always would be, but in Trans-Coalsack unification was proceeding smoothly and there was more jawboning than fighting. The Moties did that for us, anyway.

A name caught Herb Colvin’s eye. Lord Roderick Blaine, Chairman of the Imperial Commission Extraordinary— Colvin looked up at the bulkhead to see the familiar spot where Defiant had been patched following her battle with MacArthur. Blaine’s prize crew had done that, and a pretty good job it was. He’s a competent man, Colvin admitted reluctantly. But heredity’s still a hell of a way to choose leaders. The rebel democracy in New Chicago hadn’t done too well either. He went back to Grace’s letter.

My Lord Blaine had a new heir, his second. And Grace was helping out at this Institute Lady Blaine had set up. His wife was excited because she often talked with Lady Sally and had even been invited out to the manor house to see the children…

The letter went on, and Colvin dutifully read it, but it was an effort. Would she never get tired of gushing about the aristocracy? We’ll never agree on politics, he decided and looked up fondly at her picture again. Lord, I miss you—

Chimes sounded through the ship and Herb stuffed the letters into his desk. It was time to go to work; tomorrow Commodore Cargill would come aboard for Fleet inspection. Herb rubbed his hands in anticipation. This time he’d show the Imperials just how a ship ought to be run. The winner of this inspection would get extra time ashore next leave, and he intended to have that for his crew.

As he stood a small yellow point of light flashed through the view port. One of these days, Herb thought. Someday we’re going in there. With all the talent the Empire’s got working on the problem we’ll find a way to govern the Moties.

And what will we call ourselves then? he wondered. The Empire of Man and Motie? He grinned and went out to inspect his ship.

Blaine Manor was large, with sheltered gardens overhung with trees to protect their eyes from the bright sun.

Their quarters were very comfortable, and the Mediators had become accustomed to the ever present Marine guards. Ivan, as always, treated them as he would his own Warriors.

There was work. They had daily conferences with the Institute scientists, and for the Mediators there were the Blaine children. The oldest could speak a few words of Language and could read gestures as well as a young Master.

They were comfortable, but still it was a cage; and at nights they saw the brilliant red Eye and its tiny Mote. The Coal Sack was high in the night sky. It looked like a hooded Master blind in one eye.

“I fear,” said Jock. “For my family, my civilization, my species, and my world.”

“That’s right, think large thoughts,” said Charlie. “Why waste your mighty brain on little things? Look you—” Her voice and posture changed; she would speak of serious matters. “We’ve done what we can. This Institute of Sally’s is a trivial fiasco, but we continue to cooperate. We show how friendly and harmless and honest we are. And meanwhile the blockade works and it will always work. There’s not a hole in it.”

“There is,” said Jock. “No human seems to consider that the Masters might reach the Empire through normal space.”

“There is no hole,” Charlie repeated. She shifted two arms for emphasis. “No breach before the next collapse. Curse! Who could build another Crazy Eddie probe before the famines begin? And where would they send it? Here, into their fleets?” She signaled contempt. “Perhaps into the Coal Sack, toward the heart of the Empire? Have you thought of the launching lasers—far greater to compensate for the dust in the Coal Sack? No. We have done what we can, and the Cycles have begun again.”

“Then what can we anticipate?” Jock’s right arms were folded, her left extended and open: ready for attack, and thus projecting rhetorical mercilessness. “There may be unsuccessful attempts to penetrate the blockade. Wasted effort. The collapse will be hastened. Then, a long period in which the Empire can half forget that we exist.

“New technologies rise, warlike as rising technologies are always. They would know of humanity. Perhaps they can preserve or reinvent the Field. When they reach the height of their power, before the decline, they will breed Warriors and come forth conquering everything: Mote Prime, asteroids, all. And on to the Empire.”

Charlie listened after a hurried glance at the Master. Ivan lay impassive, listening to the chatter of the Mediators as Masters often did, and it was impossible to know what he thought.

“Conquest,” Jock said. “But the more progress they make against the Empire, the more thoroughly will the Empire retaliate. They have numbers. For all their talk of limiting populations, they have numbers and all of space. Until we can escape human space entirely and breed, they will always have the numbers. They bottle us up until we overbreed, and then collapse. And with the next collapse—extermination!”

Charlie’s knees were against her belly, right arms pulled tight against her chest, left arm protecting her head. An infant about to be born into a cruel world. Her voice was muffled. “If you had better ideas, you should have raised them.”

“No. There are no better ideas.”

“We bought time. Hundreds of years of time. Sally and her silly Institute will have hundreds of years to study the problem we raise for humans. Who knows, perhaps the horse will learn to sing hymns.”

“Would you bet on it?”

Charlie looked out of the curve of her arm. “At these odds? Curse, yes!”

“Crazy Eddie!”

“Yes. A Crazy Eddie solution. What else is there? One way or another, the Cycles end now. Crazy Eddie has won his eternal war against the Cycles.”

Jock looked to Ivan and met a shrug. Charlie had gone Crazy Eddie. It hardly mattered now; it was, in fact, a fine and enviable madness, this delusion that all questions have answers, and nothing is beyond the reach of a strong left arm.

They would never know. They would not live that long. But they had bought time; the Blaines knew what they must find, and their children would grow up to know Moties as more than a legend. Two generations of power would not hate Moties.

If anyone could teach a horse to sing hymns, it would be a trained Mediator.