MOTE PRIME: Marginally habitable world in the Trans-Coalsack Sector. Primary: G2 yellow dwarf star approximately ten parsecs from the Trans-Coalsack Sector Capital New Caledonia. Generally referred to as the Mote in Murcheson’s Eye (q.v.) or the Mote. Mass 0.91 Sol; luminosity 0.78 Sol.
Mote Prime has a poisonous atmosphere breathable with the aid of commercial or standard Navy issue filters. Contraindicated for heart patients or where emphysema problems exist. Oxygen: 16 percent. Nitrogen: 79.4 cent. C02: 2.9 percent. Helium: 1 percent. Complex hydrocarbons including ketones: 0.7 percent.
Gravity: 0.780 standard. The planetary radius is 0.84 and mass is 0.57 Earth standard; a planet of normal density. Period: 0.937 standard years, or 8,750.005 hours. The planet is inclined at 18 degrees with semimajor of 0.93 AU (137 million kilometers). Temperatures cool, poles uninhabitable and covered with ice. Equatorial and tropical regions are temperate to hot. The local day is 27.33 hours.
There is one moon, small and close. It is asteroidal in origin and the back side bears the characteristic indented crater typical of planetoids in the Mote system. The moon based fusion generator and power-beaming station are critical sources for the Mote Prime civilization.
Topography: 50 percent ocean, not including extensive ice caps. Terrain is flat over most of the land area. Mountain ranges are low and heavily eroded. There are few forests. Arable lands are extensively cultivated.
The most obvious features are circular formations which are visible everywhere. The smallest are eroded to the limits of detection, while the largest can be seen only from orbit.
Although the physical features of Mote Prime are of some interest, particularly to ecologists concerned with the effects of intelligent life on planetography, the primary interest in the Mote centers on its inhabitants.
Two scooters converged at the cutter and suited figures climbed aboard. When both humans and Moties had checked over the ship, the Navy ratings who had brought her to orbit gratefully turned her over to the midshipmen and returned to MacArthur. The middies eagerly took their places in the control cabin and examined the landscape below.
”We’re to tell you that all contact with you will be through this ship,” Whitbread told his Motie. “Sorry, but we can’t invite you aboard MacArthur.”
Whitbread’s Motie gave a very human shrug to express her opinion of orders. Obedience posed no strain on either her or her human. “What will you do with the cutter when you leave?”
“It’s a gift,” Whitbread told her. “Maybe you’ll want it for a museum. There are things the Captain wants you to know about us-“
“And things he wants to conceal. Certainly.”
From orbit the planet was all circles: seas, lakes, an arc of a mountain range, the line of a river, a bay. There was one, eroded and masked by a forest. It would have been undetectable had it not fallen exactly across a line of mountains, breaking the backbone of a continent as a man’s foot breaks a snake. Beyond, a sea the size of the Black Sea showed a flattish island in the exact center.
”The magma must have welled up where the asteroid tore the crust open,” said Whitbread. “Can you imagine the sound it must have made?”
Whitbread’s Motie nodded.
“No wonder you moved all the asteroids out to the Trojan points. That was the reason, wasn’t it?”
“I don’t know. Our records aren't complete from that long ago. I imagine the asteroids must have been easier to mine, easier to make a civilization from, once they were lumped together like that.”
Whitbread remembered that the Beehive had been stone cold without a trace of radiation. “Just how long ago did all this happen?”
“Oh, at least ten thousand years. Whitbread, how old are your oldest records?”
“I don’t know. I could ask someone.” The midshipman looked down. They were crossing the Terminator-which was a series of arcs. The night side blazed with a galaxy of cities. Earth might have looked this way during the CoDominium; but the Empire’s worlds had never bee so heavily populated.
“Look ahead.” Whitbread’s Motie pointed to a fleck o flame at the world’s rim. “That’s the transfer ship. Nov we can show you our world.”
“I think your civilization must be a lot older than ours,” said Whitbread.
Sally’s equipment and personal effects were packed and ready in the cutter’s lounge, and her minuscule cabin seemed bare and empty now. She stood at the view port and watched the silver arrowhead approach MacArthur Her Motie was not watching.
“I, um, I have a rather indelicate question,” Sally’s Fyunch(click) said.
Sally turned from the view port. Outside, the Motie ship had come alongside and a small boat was approaching from MacArthur. “Go ahead.”
“What do you do if you don’t want children yet?”
“Oh, dear,” said Sally, and she laughed a little. She was the only woman among nearly a thousand men-and in a male-oriented society. She had known all this before she came, but still she missed what she thought of as girl talk. Marriage and babies and housekeeping and scandals: they were part of civilized life. She hadn’t known how big a part until the New Chicago revolt caught her up, and she missed it even more now. Sometimes in desperation she had talked recipes with MacArthur’s cooks as a poor substitute, but the only other feminine-oriented mind within light years was-her Fyunch(click).
“Fyunch(click),” the alien reminded her. “I wouldn’t raise the subject but I think I ought to know-do you have children aboard MacArthur?”
“Me? No!” Sally laughed again. “I’m not even married.”
“Married?”
Sally told the Motie about marriage. She tried not to skip any basic assumptions. It was sometimes hard to remember that the Motie was an alien. “This must sound a bit weird,” she finished.
“’Come, I will conceal nothing from you,’ as Mr. Renner would say.” The mimicry was perfect, including gestures. “I think your customs are strange. I doubt that we’ll adopt many of them, given the differences in physiology.”
“Well-yes.”
“But you marry to raise children. Who raises children born without marriage?”
“There are charities,” Sally said grimly. Her distaste was impossible to disguise.
“I take it you’ve never . . .” The Motie paused delicately.
“No, of course not.”
“How not? I don’t mean why not, I mean how?”
“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.”
“So that if you aren’t married you just don’t-get together?”
“That’s right. Of course, there are pills a woman can take if she likes men but doesn’t want to take the consequences.
“Pills? How do they work? Hormones?” The Motie seemed interested, if somewhat detached.
“That’s right.” They had discussed hormones. Motie physiology employed chemical triggers also, but the chemicals were quite different.
“But a proper woman doesn’t use them,” Sally’s Motie suggested.
“When will you get married?”
“When I find the right man.” She thought for a moment, hesitated, and added, “I may have found him already.” And the damn fool may already be married to his ship, she added to herself.
“Then why don’t you marry him?”
Sally laughed. “I don’t want to jump into anything. ‘Marry in haste, repent at leisure.’ I can get married an time.” Her trained objectivity made her add, “Well, an time within the next five years. I’ll be something of spinster if I’m not married by then.”
“Spinster?”
“People would think it odd.” Curious now, she asked, “What if a Motie doesn’t want children?”
“We don’t have sexual relations,” Sally’s Motie said primly.
There was an almost inaudible clunk as the ground-to orbit ship secured alongside.
The landing boat was a blunt arrowhead coated with ablative material. The pilot’s cabin was a large wrap-around transparency, and there were no other windows. When Sally and her Motie arrived at the entryway; she was startled to see Horace Bury just ahead of her.
“You’re going down to the Mote, Your Excellency? Sally asked.
“Yes, my lady.” Bury seemed as surprised as Sally. He entered the connecting tube to find that the Moties had employed an old Navy trick-the tube was pressurize with a lower pressure at the receiving end, so that the passengers were wafted along. The interior was surprisingly large, with room for all: Renner, Sally Fowler, Chaplain Hardy-Bury wondered if they would ship him back up to MacArthur every Sunday-Dr. Horvath, Midshipmen Whitbread and Staley, two ratings Bury did not recognize-and alien counterparts for all but three of the humans. He noted the seating arrangements with an amusement that only partly covered his fears: four abreast, with a Motie seat beside each of the human seats~. As they strapped in he was further amused. They were one short.
But Dr. Horvath moved forward into the control cabin and took a seat next to the brown pilot. Bury settled into the front row, where seats were only two abreast-and a Motie took the other. Fear surged into his throat. Allah is merciful, I witness that Allah is One- No! There was nothing to fear and he had done nothing dangerous.
And yet-he was here, and the alien was beside him, while behind him on MacArthur, any accident might bring the ship’s officers to discover what he had done to his pressure suit.
A pressure suit is the most identity locked artifact a man of space can own. It is far more personal than a pipe or a toothbrush. Yet others had exposed their suits to the ministrations of the unseen Brownies. During the long voyage to Mote Prime, Commander Sinclair had examined the modifications the Brownies had made.
Bury had waited. Presently he learned through Nabil that the Brownies had doubled the efficiency of the recycling systems. Sinclair had returned the pressure suits to their owners-and begun modifying the officers suits in a similar fashion.
One of the air tanks on Bury’s suit was now a dummy. It held half a liter of pressurized air and two miniatures in suspended animation. The risks were great. He might be caught. The miniatures might die from the frozen-sleep drugs. Someday he might need air that was not there. Bury had always been willing to take risks for sufficient profit.
When the call came, he had been certain he was discovered. A Navy rating had appeared on his room screen, said, “Call for you, Mr. Bury,” smiled evilly, and switched over. Before he could wonder Bury found himself facing an alien.
“Fyunch(click) ,” said the alien. It cocked its head and shoulders at him. “You seem confused. Surely you know the term.”
Bury had recovered quickly. “Of course. I was not aware that any Motie was studying me.” He did not like the idea at all.
“No, Mr. Bury, I have only just been assigned. Mr. Bury, have you thought of coming to Mote Prime?”
“No, I doubt that I would be allowed to leave the ship.”
“Captain Blaine has given permission, if you're willing. Mr. Bury, we would deeply appreciate your comments regarding the possibilities for trade between the Mote and the Empire. It seems likely we would both profit.”
Yes! Beard of the Prophet, an opportunity like that- Bury had agreed quickly. Nabil could guard the hidden Brownies.
But now, as he sat aboard the landing boat, it was difficult to control his fears. He looked at the alien beside him.
“I am Dr. Horvath’s Fyunch(click),” the Motie said. “You should relax. These boats are well designed.”
”Ah,” said Bury, and he relaxed. The worst was hours away. Nabil had by now safely removed the dummy tank into MacArthur’s main air lock with hundreds of others, and it would be safe. The alien ship was undoubtedly superior to similar human craft, if for no other reason than the Moties’ desire to avoid risk to the human ambassadors. But it was not the trip down that kept fear creeping into his throat until it tasted bright and sharp like new copper-there was a slight lurch. The descent had begun.
To everyone’s surprise it was dull. There were occasional shifts in gravity but no turbulence. Three separate times they felt almost subliminal clunks, as of landing gear coming down-and then there was a rolling sensation. The ship had come to rest.
They filed out into a pressurized chamber. The air was good but scentless, and there was nothing to see but the big inflated structure around them. They looked back at the ship and stared unashamedly.
It was gull-winged now, built like a glider. The edges of the crazy arrowhead had sprouted a bewildering variety of wings and flaps.
“That was quite a ride,” Horvath said jovially as he came to join them. “The whole vehicle changes shape. There aren’t any hinges on the wings-the flaps come out as if they were alive! The jet scoops open and closes like mouths! You really should have seen it. If Commander Sinclair ever comes down we’ll have to give him the window seat,” he chortled. He did not notice the glares.
An inflated air lock opened at the far end of the building, and three brown-and-white Moties entered. Fear rose in Bury’s throat again as they separated, one joining each of the Navy ratings, while the other came directly to Bury.
“Fyunch(click),” it said.
Bury’s mouth was very dry.
”Don’t be afraid,” said the Motie. “I can’t read your mind.”
It was definitely the wrong thing to say if the Motie wanted Bury at ease. “I’m told that is your profession.”
The Motie laughed. “It’s my profession, but I can’t do it. All I will ever know is what you show me.” It didn’t sound at all as Bury sounded to himself. It must have studied humans in general; only that.
“You’re male,” he noticed.
“I am young. The others were female by the time they reached MacArthur. Mr. Bury, we have vehicles outside and a place of residence for you nearby. Come and see our city, and then we can discuss business.” It took his arm in two small right arms, and the touch was very strange. Bury let himself be led to the air lock.
“Don’t be afraid. I can’t read your mind,” it had said, reading his mind. On many rediscovered worlds of the First Empire there were rumors of mind readers, but none had ever been found, praise the mercy of Allah. This thing claimed that it was not; and it was very alien. The touch was not abhorrent, although people of Bury’s culture hated to be touched. He had been among far too many strange customs and peoples to worry about his childhood prejudices. But this Motie was reassuringly strange-and Bury had never heard of anybody’s Fyunch(click) acting that way. Was it trying to reassure him?
Nothing could have lured him but the hope of profit-profit without ceiling, without limit, profit from merely looking around. Even the terraforming of the New Caladonia worlds by the First Empire had not shown the industrial power that must have moved the asteroids to Mote Beta’s Trojan points.
“A good commercial product,” the Motie was saying “should not be bulky or massive. We should be able to find items scarce here and plentiful in the Empire, or vice versa. I anticipate great profit from your visit. . .”
They joined the others in the air lock. Large windows showed the airfield. “Blasted show-offs,” Renner muttered to Bury. When the Trader looked at him quizzically Renner pointed. “There’s city all around, and the airport’~ got not one meter of extra space.”
Bury nodded. Around the tiny field were skyscrapers, tall and square-built, jammed close together, with only single belt of green running out of the city to the east. II there were a plane crash it would be a disaster-but the Moties didn’t build planes to crash.
There were three ground cars, limousines, two for passengers and one for luggage, and the human seats took up two-thirds of the room in each. Bury nodded reflectively Moties didn’t mind being crowded together. As soon as they took their seats the drivers, who were Browns, whipped the cars away. The vehicles ran soundlessly, with a smooth feeling of power, and there was no jolt at all. The motors were in the ‘hubs of the tall balloon tires, much like those of cars on ‘Empire worlds.
Tall, ugly buildings loomed above them to shoulder out the sky. The black streets were wide but very crowded and the Moties drove like maniacs. Tiny vehicles passed each other in intricate curved paths with centimeters of clearance. The traffic was not quite silent. There was a steady low hum that might have been all the hundreds of motors sounding together, and sometimes a stream of high-pitched gibberish that might have been cursing.
Once the humans were able to stop wincing away from each potential collision, they noticed that all the other drivers were Browns, too. Most of the cars earned a passenger, sometimes a Brown-and-white, often a pure White. These Whites were larger than the Brown-and-whites, and their fur was very clean and silky-and they were doing all the cursing as their drivers continued in silence.
Science Minister Horvath turned back to the humans in the seats behind him. “I had a look at the buildings as we came down-roof gardens on every one of them. Well, Mr. Renner, are you glad you Came? We were expecting a Navy officer, but hardly you.”
“It seemed most reasonable to send me,” Kevin Renner said. “I was the most thoroughly available officer aboard, as the Captain put it. I won’t be needed to chart courses for a while.”
“And that’s why they sent you?” Sally asked.
“No, I think what really convinced the Captain was the way I screamed and cried and threatened to hold my breath. Somehow he got the idea I really wanted to come. And I did.” The way the navigating officer leaned forward in his seat reminded Sally of a dog sticking its head out of a car window into the wind.
They had only just noticed the walkways that ran one floor up along the edges of the buildings, and they could not see the pedestrians well at all. There were more Whites, and Brown-and-whites, and...others.
Something tall and symmetrical came walking like a giant among the Whites. Three meters tall it must have been, with a small, earless head that seemed submerged beneath the sloping muscles of the shoulders. It carried a massive-looking box of some kind under each of two arms. It walked like a juggernaut, steady and unstoppable.
“What’s that?” Renner asked.
“Worker,” Sally’s Motie replied. “Porter. Not very intelligent.”
There was something else Renner strained to see, for its fur was rust-red, as if it had been dipped in blood. It was the size of his own Motie, but with a smaller head, and as it raised and flexed its right hands it showed fingers so long and delicate that Renner thought of Amazon spiders. He touched his Fyunch (click)’s shoulder and pointed. “And that?”
“Physician. Emm Dee,” Renner’s Motie said. “We’re a differentiated species, as you may have gathered by now. They’re all relatives, so to speak. .
“Yah. And the Whites?”
“Givers of orders. There was one aboard ship, as I’m sure you know.”
“Yah, we guessed that.” The Tsar had, anyway. What else was he right about?
“What do you think of our architecture?”
“Ugly. Industrial hideous,” said Renner. “I knew your ideas of beauty would be different from ours, but-on your honor. Do you have a standard of beauty?”
“Come, I will conceal nothing from you. We do, but it doesn’t resemble yours. And I still don’t know what you people see in arches and pillars-“
“Freudian symbolism,” Renner said firmly. Sally snorted.
“That’s what Horvath’s Motie keeps saying, but I’ve never heard a coherent explanation,” Renner’s Motie said. “Meanwhile, what do you think of your vehicles?”
The limousines were radically different from the two-seaters that zipped past them. No two of the two-seaters were alike either-the Moties did not seem to have discovered the advantages of standardization. But all the other vehicles they had seen were tiny, like a pair of motorcycles, while the humans rode in low-slung stream- lined vehicles with soft curves bright with polish.
“They’re beautiful,” said Sally. “Did you design them just for us?”
“Yes,” her Motie replied. “Did we guess well?”
“Perfectly. We’re most flattered,” Sally said. “You must have put considerable expense into . . . this...” She trailed off. Renner turned to see where she was looking, and gasped.
There had been castles like this in the Tyrolean Alps of Earth. They were still there, never bombed, but Renner had only seen copies on other worlds. Now a fairy-tale castle, graceful with tall spires, stood among the square buildings of the Motie city. At one corner a reaching minaret was circled by a thin balcony.
“What is that place?” Renner asked.
Sally’s Motie answered. “You will stay there. It is pressurized and self-enclosed, with a garage and cars for your convenience.”
Horace Bury spoke into the admiring silence. “You are most impressive hosts.”
From the first they called it the Castle. Beyond question it had been designed and built entirely for them. It was large enough for perhaps thirty people. Its beauty and luxury were in the tradition of Sparta-with a few jarring notes.
Whitbread, Staley, Sally, Drs. Hardy and Horvath-they knew their manners. They kept firm rein on their laughter as their Fyunch(click) s showed them about their respective rooms. Able Spacers Jackson and Weiss were awed to silence and wary of saying something foolish. Horace Bury’s people had rigid traditions of hospitality; aside from that, he found all customs strange except on Levant.
But Renner’s people respected candor; and candor, he had found, made life easier for everyone. Except in the Navy. In the Navy he had learned to keep his mouth shut. Fortunately his Fyunch(click) held views similar to his own.
He looked about the apartment assigned him. Double bed, dresser, large closet, a couch and coffee table, all vaguely reminiscent of the travelogues he had shown the Moties. It was five times the size of his cabin aboard MacArthur.
“Elbow room,” he said with great satisfaction. He sniffed. There was no smell at all. “You do a great job of filtering the planet’s air.”
“Thanks. As for the elbow room-“ Rennet’s Motie wiggled all her elbows. “We should need more than you, but we don’t.”
The picture window ran from floor to ceiling, wall to wall. The city towered over him; most of the buildings in view were taller than the Castle. Rennet found that he was looking straight down a city street toward a magnificent sunset that was all the shades of red. The pedestrian level showed a hurrying horde of colored blobs, mostly Reds and Browns, but also many Whites. He watched for a time, then turned back.
There was an alcove near the head of his bed. He looked into it. It held a dresser and two odd-looking pieces of furniture that Renner recognized. They resembled what the Brown had done to the bed in Crawford’s stateroom.
He asked, “Two?”
“We will be assigned a Brown.”
“I’m going to teach you a new word. It’s called ‘privacy.’ It refers to the human need-“
“We know about privacy.” The Motie did a double take. “You aren’t suggesting it should apply between a man and his Fyunch(click)!”
Rennet nodded solemnly.
“But ... but . . . Renner, do you have any respect for tradition?”
“Do I?”
“No. Dammit. All right, Renner. We’ll sling a door there. With a lock?”
“Yah. I might add that the rest probably feel the same way, whether they say so or not.”
The bed, the couch, the table showed none of the familiar Motie innovations. The mattress was a bit too firm, but what the hell. Renner glanced into the bathroom and burst out laughing. The toilet was a free-fall toilet, somewhat changed from those in the cutter; it had a gold flush, carved into the semblance of a dog’s head. The bathtub was . . . strange.
“I’ve got to try that bathtub,” said Rennet.
“Let me know what you think. We saw some pictures of bathtubs in your travelogues, but they looked ridiculous, given your anatomy.”
“Right. Nobody’s ever designed a decent bathtub. There weren’t any toilets in those pictures, were there?”
“Oddly enough, there weren’t.”
“Mmm.” Renner began sketching. When he had finished, his Motie said, “Just how much water do these Use?”
“Quite a lot. Too much for space craft.”
“Well, we’ll see what we can do.”
“Oh, and you’d better hang another door between the bathroom and the living room.”
“More privacy?”
“Yah.”
Dinner that night was like a formal dinner in Sally’s old home on Sparta, but weirdly changed. The servants-silent, attentive, deferential, guided by the host who in deference to rank was Dr. Horvath’s Motie-were Laborers a meter and a half tall. The food was from MacArthur’s stores-except for an appetizer, which was a melon like fruit Sweetened with a yellow sauce. “We guarantee it nonpoisonous,” said Rennet’s Motie. “We’ve found a few foods we can guarantee, and we’re looking for more. But you’ll have to take your chances on the taste.” The sauce killed the melon’s sour taste and made it delicious.
“We can use this as a trade item,” said Bury. “We would rather ship the seeds, not the melon itself. Is it hard to grow?”
“Not at all, but it requires cultivation,” said Bury’s Motie. “We’ll give you the opportunity to test the soil. Have you found ether things that might be worth trading?”
Bury frowned, and looked down at his plate. Nobody had remarked on those plates...they were gold: plates, silverware, even the wine goblets, though they were shaped like fine crystal. Yet they couldn’t be gold, because they didn’t conduct heat; and they were simple copies of the plastic free-fall utensils aboard MacArthur’s cutter, even to the trademarks stamped on the edges.
Everyone was waiting for his answer. Trade possibilities would profoundly affect the relationship between Mote and Empire. “On our route to the Castle I looked for signs of luxuries among you. I saw none but those designed specifically for human beings. Perhaps I did not recognize them.”
“I know the word, but we deal very little in luxuries. We-I speak for the givers of orders, of course-we put more emphasis on power, territory, the maintenance of a household and a dynasty. We concern ourselves with providing a proper station in life for our children.”
Bury filed the information: “We speak for the givers of orders.” He was dealing with a servant. No. An agent. He must keep that in mind, and wonder how binding were his Fyunch(click)’s promises. He smiled and said, “A pity. Luxuries travel well. You will understand my problem in finding trade goods when I tell you that it would hardly be profitable to buy gold from you.”
“I thought as much. We must see if we can find something more valuable.”
“Works of art, perhaps?”
“Art?”
“Let me,” said Renner’s Motie. She switched to a high-pitched, warbling language, talked very fast for perhaps twenty seconds, then looked about at the assembled company. “Sorry, but it was quicker that way.”
Bury’s Motie said, “Quite so. I take it you would want the originals?”
“If possible.”
“Of course. To us a copy is as good as the original. We have many museums; I’ll arrange some tours.”
It developed that everyone wanted to go along.
When they returned from dinner, Whitbread almost laughed when he saw there was now a door on the bathroom. His Motie caught it and said, “Mr. Renner had words to say about privacy.” She jerked a thumb at the door that now closed off her alcove.
“Oh, that one wasn’t necessary,” said Whitbread. He was not used to sleeping alone. If he woke in the middle of the night, who would he talk to until he fell asleep again?
Someone knocked on the door. Able Spacer Weiss- from Tabletop, Whitbread recalled. “Sir, may I speak with you privately?”
“Right,” said Whitbread’s Motie, and she withdrew to the alcove. The Moties had caught on to privacy fast. Whitbread ushered Weiss into the room.
“Sir, we’ve got sort of a problem,” Weiss said. “Me and Jackson, that is. We came down to help out, you know, carrying luggage and cleaning up and like that.”
“Right. You won’t be doing any of that. We’ve each been assigned an Engineer type.”
“Yes, sir, but it’s more than that. Jackson and me, we’ve been assigned a Brown each too. And, and-“
“Fyunch (click) s.”
“Right.”
“Well, there are certain things you can’t talk about.” Both ratings were stationed in hangar deck and wouldn’t know much about Field technology anyway.
“Yes, sir, we know that. No war stories, nothing about ship’s weapons or drive.” -
“All right. Aside from that, you’re on vacation. You’re traveling first class, with a servant and a native guide. Enjoy it. Don’t say anything the Tsar would hang you for, don’t bother to ask about the local red-light district, and don’t worry about the expense. Have a ball, and hope they don’t send you up on the next boat.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Weiss grinned suddenly. “You know? This is why I joined the Navy. Strange worlds. This is what the enlistment men promised us.”
“’Golden cities far. . .’ Me too.”
Afterwards Whitbread stood by the picture window. The city glowed with a million lights. Most of the tiny cars had disappeared, but the streets were alive with huge silent trucks. The pedestrians had slacked off somewhat. Whitbread spotted something tall and spindly that ran among the Whites as if they were stationary objects. It dodged around a huge Porter type and was gone.
Renner was up before dawn. The Moties chose and set out clothing for him while he was bathing in the remarkable tub. He let their choice stand. He would indulge them; they might be the last nonmilitary servants he would ever have. His sidearm was discreetly laid out with his clothing, and after a lot of thought, Renner buckled it under a civilian jacket woven from some marvelous shining fibers. He didn’t want the weapon, but regulations were regulations
The others were all at breakfast, watching the dawn through the big picture window. It came on like sunset, in all the shades of red. Mote Prime’s day was a few hours too long. At night they would stay up longer; they would sleep longer in the mornings and still be up at dawn.
Breakfast featured large, remarkably egg-shaped boiled eggs. Inside the shell it was as if the egg came prescrambled, with a maraschino cherry buried off-center. Renner was told that the cherry thing was not worth eating, and he didn’t try.
“The Museum is only a few blocks from here.” Dr. Horvath’s Motie rubbed her right hands briskly together. “Let’s walk. You’ll want warm clothes, I think.”
The Moties all had that problem: which pair of hands to use to imitate human gestures? Renner expected Jackson’s Motie to go psychotic. Jackson was left-handed.
They walked. A cold breeze whipped them from around corners. The sun was big and dim; you could look directly at it this early in the day. Tiny cars swarmed six feet below them. The smell of Mote Prime air seeped faintly through the filter helmets, and so did the quiet hum of cars and the fast jabber of Motie voices.
The group of humans moved among crowds of Moties of all colors-and were ignored. Then a group of white furred pedestrians turned a corner and lingered to examine them. They chattered in musical tones and stared curiously.
Bury seemed uncomfortable; he stayed within the group as much as he could. He doesn’t want eye tracks all over him, Renner decided. The Sailing Master found himself being examined by a very pregnant White, the bulge of her child high up above the complexities of the major joint in her back. Renner smiled at her, squatted on his heels, and turned his back to her. His Fyunch(click) sang in low tones, and the White moved closer, then half a dozen white Moties were running a dozen small hands over his vertebrae.
”Right! A little lower,” said Renner. “OK, scratch right there. Ahh.” When the Whites had moved on, Renner stretched his long legs to catch up with the tour. His Motie trotted alongside.
“I trust I will not learn your irreverence,” his Fyunch(click) said.
“Why not?” Renner asked seriously.
“When you are gone there will be other work for us. No, do not be alarmed. If you are capable of satisfying the Navy, I can have no more trouble keeping the givers of orders happy.” There was an almost wistful tone, Renner thought-but he wasn’t sure. If Moties had facial expressions, Renner hadn’t learned them.
The Museum was a good distance ahead of them. Like other buildings it was square-built, but its face was glass or something like it. “We have many places that fit your word ‘museum,’” Horvath’s Motie was saying, “in this and other cities. This one was closest and specializes in painting and sculpture.”
A juggernaut loomed over them, three meters tall, and another meter beyond that because of the cargo on its head. It-she, Renner noted from the long, shallow bulge of pregnancy high on her abdomen. The eyes were soft animal eyes, without awareness, and she caught up with them and passed, never slowing.
“Carrying a child doesn’t seem to slow a Motie down,” Renner observed.
Brown-and-white shoulders and heads turned toward him. Renner’s Motie said, “No, of course not. Why should it?”
Sally Fowler took up the task. She tried carefully to explain just how useless pregnant human females were. “It’s one reason we tend to develop male-oriented societies. And-“ She was still lecturing on childbirth problems when they reached the Museum.
The doorway would have caught Renner across the bridge of his nose. The ceilings were higher; they brushed his hair. Dr. Horvath had to bend his head.
And the lighting was a bit too yellow.
And the paintings were placed too low.
Conditions for viewing were not ideal. Aside from that, the colors in the paints themselves were off. Dr. Horvath and his Motie conversed with animation following his revelation that blue plus yellow equals green to a human eye. The Motie eye was designed like a human eye, or an octopus eye, for that matter: a globe, an adaptable lens, receptor nerves along the back. But the receptors were different.
Yet the paintings had impact. In the main hall-which had three-meter ceilings and was lined with larger paintings-the tour stopped before a Street scene. Here a Brown-and-white had climbed on a car and was apparently haranguing a swarm of Browns and Brown-and-whites, while behind him the sky burned sunset-red. The expressions were all the same flat smile, but Renner sensed violence and looked closer. Many of the crowd carried tools, always in their left hands, and some were broken. The city itself was on fire.
“It’s called ‘Return to Your Tasks.’ You’ll find that the Crazy Eddie theme recurs constantly,” said Sally’s Motie. She moved on before she could be asked to explain further.
The next painting in line showed a quasi-Motie, tall and thin, small-headed, long-legged. It was running out of a forest, at the viewer. Its breath trailed smoky-white behind it. “The Message Carrier,” Hardy’s Motie called it.
The next was another outdoor scene: a score of Browns and Whites eating around a blazing campfire. Animal eyes gleamed red around them. The whole landscape was dark red; and overhead Murcheson’s Eye gleamed against the Coal Sack.
“You can’t tell what they’re thinking and feeling from looking at them, can you? We were afraid of that,” said Horvath’s Motie. “Nonverbal communication. The signals are different with us.”
“I suppose so,” said Bury. “These paintings would all be salable, but none especially so. They would be only curiosities . . . though quite valuable as such, because of the huge potential market and the limited source. But they do not communicate. Who painted them?”
“This one is quite old. You can see that it was painted on the wail of the building itself, and-“
“But what kind of Motie? Brown-and-whites?”
There was impolite laughter among the Moties. Bury’s Motie said, “You will never see a work of art that was not made by a Brown-and-white. Communication is our specialty. Art is communication.”
“Does a White never have anything to say?”
“Of course. He has a Mediator say it for him. We translate, we communicate. Many of these paintings are arguments, visually expressed.”
Weiss had been trailing along, saying nothing. Renner noticed. Keeping his voice down, he asked the man, “Any comments?”
Weiss scratched his jaw. “Sir, I haven’t been in a museum since grade school . . . but aren’t some paintings made just to be pretty?”
“Umm.”
There were only two portraits in all the halls of paintings. Brown-and-whites both, they both showed from the waist up. Expression in the Moties must show in body language, not faces. These portraits were oddly lighted and their arms were oddly distorted. Renner thought them evil.
“Evil? No!” said Renner’s Motie. “That one caused the Crazy Eddie probe to be built. And this was the designer of a universal language, long ago.”
“Is it still used?”
“After a fashion. But it fragmented, of course. Languages do that. Sinclair and Potter and Bury don’t speak the same language you do. Sometimes the sounds are similar, but the nonverbal signals are very different.”
Renner caught up with Weiss as they were about to enter the hail of sculpture. “You were right. In the Empire there are paintings that are just supposed to be pretty. Here, no. Did you notice the difference? No landscape without Moties doing something in it. Almost no portraits, and those two were slanted pictures. In fact, everything’s slanted.” He turned to appeal to his Motie. “Right? Those pictures you pointed out, done before your civilization invented the camera. They weren’t straight representations.”
“Renner, do you know how much work goes into a painting?”
“I’ve never tried. I can guess.”
“Then can you imagine anyone going to that much trouble if he doesn’t have something to say?”
“How about ‘Mountains are pretty’?” Weiss suggested.
Rennet’s Motie shrugged.
The statues were better than the paintings. Differences in pigment and lighting did not intrude. Most did show Moties; but they were more than portraits. A chain of Moties of diminishing size, Porter to three Whites to nine Browns to twenty-seven miniatures? No, they were all done in white marble and had the shape of decision makers. Bury regarded them without expression and said, “It occurs to me that I will need interpretations of any of these before I could sell them anywhere. Or even give them as gifts.”
“Inevitably so,” said Bury’s Motie. “This, for instance, illustrates a religion of the last century. The soul of the parent divides to become the children, and again to become the grandchildren, ad infinitum.”
Another showed a number of Moties in red sandstone. They had long, slender fingers, too many on the left hand, and the left arm was comparatively small. Physicians? They were being killed by a thread of green glass that swept among them like a scythe: a laser weapon, held by something offstage. The Moties were reluctant to talk about it. “And unpleasant event in history,” said Bury’s Motie, and that was that.
Another showed fighting among a few marble Whites and a score of an unrecognizable type done in red sandstone. The red ones were lean and menacing, armed with more than their share of teeth, and claws. Some weird machine occupied the center of the melee. “Now that one is interesting,” said Renner’s Motie. “By tradition, a Mediator-one of our own type-may requisition any kind of transportation he needs, from any decision maker. Long ago, a Mediator used his authority to order a time machine built. I can show you the machine, if you will travel to it; it is on the other side of this continent.”
“A working time machine?”
“Not working, Jonathon. It was never completed. His Master went broke trying to finish it.”
“Oh.” Whitbread showed his disappointment.
“It was never tested,” said the Mode. “The basic theory may be flawed.”
The machine looked like a small cyclotron with a cabin inside. It almost made sense, like a Langston Field generator.
”You interest me strangely,” Renner said to his Mode. “You can requisition any transportation, any time?”
”That’s right. Our talent is communication, but our major task is stopping fights. Sally has lectured us on your, let’s say, your racial problems involving weapons and the surrender reflex. We Mediators evolved out of that. We can explain one being’s viewpoint to another. Noncommunication can assume dangerous proportions sometimes-usually just before a war, by one of those statistical flukes that make you believe in coincidence. If one of us can always get to transportation-or even to telephones or radios-war becomes unlikely.”
There were awed expressions among the humans, “Vee-erry nice,” said Renner. Then, “I was wondering whether you could requisition MacArthur.”
“By law and tradition, yes. In practice, don’t be a fool.”
“OK. These things fighting around the time machine—“
“Legendary demons,” Bury’s Motie explained. “They defend the structure of reality.”
Renner remembered ancient Spanish paintings dating from the time of the Black Plague in Europe, paintings of living men and women being attacked by the revived and malevolent dead. Next to the white Moties these red sandstone things had that impossibly lean, bony look, and a malevolence that was almost tangible.
”And why the time machine?”
“The Mediator felt that a certain incident in history had happened because of a lack of communication. He decided to correct it.” Renner’s Motie shrugged-with her arms; a Motie couldn’t lift her shoulders. “Crazy Eddie. The Crazy Eddie probe was like that. A little more workable, maybe. A watcher of the sky-a meteorologist, plus some other fields-found evidence that there was life on a world of a nearby star. Right away this Crazy Eddie Mediator wanted to contact them. He tied up enormous amounts of capital and industrial power, enough to affect most of civilization. He got his probe built, powered by alight sail and a battery of laser cannon for-“
”This all sounds familiar.”
“Right. The Crazy Eddie probe was in fact launched toward New Caledonia, much later, and with a different pilot. We’ve been assuming you followed it home.”
”So it worked. Unfortunately the crew was dead, but it reached us. So why are you still calling it the Crazy Eddie probe? Oh, never mind,” said Renner. His Motie was chortling.
Two limousines were waiting for them outside the Museum and a stairs had been erected leading down to street level. Tiny two-seater cars zipped around the obstruction without slowing down, and without collisions.
Staley stopped at the bottom. “Mr. Renner! Look!”
Renner looked. A car had stopped alongside a great blank building; for there were no curbs. The brown chauffeur and his white-furred passenger disembarked, and the White walked briskly around the corner. The Brown disengaged two hidden levers at the front, then heaved against the side of the car. It collapsed like an accordian, into something half a meter wide. The Brown turned and followed the white Motie.
“They fold up!” Staley exclaimed.
“Sure they do,” said Renner’s Motie. “Can you imagine the traffic jam if they didn’t? Come on, get in the cars.”
They did. Renner said, “I wouldn’t ride in one of those little death traps for Bury’s own petty-cash fund.”
“Oh, they’re safe. That is,” said Renner’s Motie, “it isn’t the car that’s safe, it’s the driver. Browns don’t have much territorial instinct, for one thing. For another, they’re always fiddling with the car, so nothing’s ever going to fail.”
The limousine started off. Browns appeared behind them and began removing the stairs.
The buildings around them were always square blocks, the streets a rectangular grid. To Horvath the city was clearly a made city, not something that had grown naturally. Someone had laid it out and ordered it built from scratch. Were they all like this? It showed none of the Browns’ compulsion to innovate.
And yet, he decided, it did. Not in basics, but in such things as street lighting. In places there were broad electro luminescent strips along the buildings. In others there were things like floating balloons, but the wind did not move them. Elsewhere, tubes ran along the sides of the streets, or down the center; or there was nothing at all that showed in the daytime.
And those boxlike cars-each was subtly different, in the design of the lights or the signs of repairs or the way the parked cars folded int~themse1ves.
The limousines stopped. “We’re here;” Horvath’s Motie announced. “The zoo. The Life Forms Preserve, to be more exact. You’ll find that it is arranged more for the convenience of the inhabitants than for the spectators.”
Horvath and the rest looked about, puzzled. Tall rectangular buildings surrounded them. There was no open space anywhere.
“On our left. The building, gentlemen, the building! Is there some law against putting a zoo inside a building?”
The zoo, as it developed, was six stories tall, with ceilings uncommonly high for Moties. It was difficult to tell just how high the ceilings were. They looked like sky. On the first floor it was open blue sky, with drifting clouds and a sun that stood just past noon.
They strolled through a steamy jungle whose character changed as they moved. The animals could not reach them, but it was difficult to see why not. They did not seem aware of being penned up.
There was a tree like a huge bullwhip, its handle planted deep in the earth, its lash sprouting clusters of round leaves where it coiled around the trunk. An animal like a giant Motie stood flat-footed beneath it, staring at Whitbread. There were sharp, raking talons on its two right hands, and tusks showed between its lips. “It was a variant of the Porter type,” said Horvath’s Motie, “but never successfully domesticated. You can see why.”
“These artificial environments are astounding!” Horvath exclaimed. “I’ve never seen better. But why not build part of the zoo in the open? Why make an environment when the real environment is already there?”
“I’m not sure why it was done. But it seems to work out.”
The second floor was a desert of dry sand. The air was dry and balmy, the sky baby blue, darkening to yellow brown at the horizon. Fleshy plants with no thorns grew through the sand. Some were the shape of thick lily pads. Many bore the marks of nibbling teeth. They found the beast that had made the tooth marks, a thing like a nude white beaver with square protruding teeth. It watched them tamely as they passed.
On the third floor it was raining steadily. Lightning flashed, illusory miles away. The humans declined to enter, for they had no rain gear. The Moties were half angry, half apologetic. It had not occurred to them that rain would bother humans; they liked it.
“It’s going to keep happening, too,” Whitbread’s Motie predicted. “We study you, but we don’t know you. You’re missing some of the most interesting plant forms too. Perhaps another day when they have the rain turned off. .
The fourth floor was not wild at all. There were even small round houses on distant illusory hills. Small, umbrella-shaped trees grew red and lavender fruits beneath a flat green disc of foliage. A pair of proto-Moties stood beneath one of these. They were small, round, and pudgy, and their right arms seemed to have shrunk. They looked at the tour group with sad eyes, then one reached up for a lavender fruit. Its left arm was just long enough.
“Another unworkable member of our species,” said Horvath’s Motie. “Extinct now except in life forms preserves.” He seemed to want to hurry them on. They found another pair in a patch of melons-the same breed of melon the humans had eaten for dinner, as Hardy pointed out.
In a wide, grassy field a family of things with hooves and shaggy coats grazed placidly-except for one that Stood guard, turning constantly to face the visitors.
A voice behind Whitbread said, “You’re disappointed. Why?”
Whitbread looked back in surprise. “Disappointed? No! It’s fascinating.”
“My mistake,” said Whitbread’s Motie. “I think I’d like a word with Mr. Renner. Care to trail along?”
The party was somewhat spread out. Here there was no chance of getting lost, and they all enjoyed the feel of grass beneath their feet: long, coiled green blades, springier than an ordinary lawn, much like the living carpets in houses of the aristocracy and the wealthier traders.
Renner looked amiably about when he felt eyes on him. “Yes?”
“Mr. Renner, it strikes me that you’re a bit disappointed in our zoo.”
Whitbread winced. Renner frowned. “Yah, and I’ve been trying to figure it out. I shouldn’t feel this way. It’s a whole alien world, all compacted for our benefit. Whitbread, you feel it too?”
Whitbread nodded reluctantly.
“Hah! That’s it. It’s an alien world, all compacted for our benefit, right? How many zoos have you seen on how many worlds?”
Whitbread counted in his head. “Six, including Earth.”
“And they were all like this one, except that the illusion is better. We were expecting something a whole order of magnitude different. It isn’t. It’s just another alien world, except for the intelligent Moties.”
“Makes sense,” said Whitbread’s Motie. Perhaps her voice was a little wistful, and the humans remembered that the Moties had never seen an alien world. “Too bad, though,” the Motie said. “Staley’s having a ball. So are Sally and Dr. Hardy, but they’re professionals.”
But the next floor was a shock.
Dr. Horvath was first out of the elevator. He stopped dead. He was in a city street. “I think we have the wrong door. . .” he trailed off. For a moment he felt that his mind was going.
The city was deserted. There were a few cars in the streets, but they were wrecks, and some showed signs of fire. Several buildings had collapsed, filling the Street with mountains of rubble. A moving mass of black chittered at him and moved away in a swarm, away and into dark holes in a slope of broken masonry, until there were none left.
Horvath’s skin crawled. When an alien hand touched his elbow he jumped and gasped.
“What’s the matter, Doctor? Surely you have animals evolved for cities.”
“No,” said Horvath.
“Rats,” said Sally Fowler. “And there’s a breed of lice that lives only on human beings. But I think that’s all.”
“We have a good many,” said Horvath’s Motie. “Perhaps we can show you a few . . . though they’re shy.”
At a distance the small black beasts were indistinguishable from rats. Hardy snapped a picture of a swarm that was scrambling for cover. He hoped to develop a blowup later. There was a large, flattish beast, almost invisible until they were right in front of it. It was the color and pattern of the brick it was clinging to.
“Like a chameleon,” Sally said. Then she had to explain chameleons.
“There’s another,” Sally’s Motie said. She pointed out a concrete-colored animal clinging to a gray wall. “Don’t try to disturb it. It has teeth.”
“Where do they get their food?”
“Roof gardens. Though they can eat meat. And there’s an insectivore...” She led them to a “rooftop” two meters above street level. There were grain and fruit trees gone riot, and a small, armless biped that fired a coiled tongue over a meter long. It looked as if it had a mouthful of walnuts.
Bitter cold met them on the sixth floor. The sky was leaden gray. Snow blew in flurries across an infinity of icy tundra. Hardy wanted to stay, for there wag considerable life in that cold hell; bushes and tiny trees growing through the ice, a large, placid thing that ignored them, a furry, hopping snowshoe rabbit with dish-shaped ears and no front legs. They almost had to use force to get Hardy out; but he would have frozen in there.
Dinner was waiting for them at the Castle: ship’s stores, and slices of a flat green Motie cactus 75 cm across and 3 thick. The red jelly inside tasted almost meaty. Renner liked it, but the others couldn’t eat it at all. The rest they ate like starved men, talking animatedly between mouthfuls. It must have been the extra-long day that made them so hungry.
Rennet’s Motie said, “We have some idea what a tourist wants to see in a strange city, at least we know what you show in your travel films. Museums. The place of government. Monuments. Unique architecture. Perhaps the shops and night clubs. Above all, the way of life of the native.” She gestured deprecatingly. “We’ve had to omit some of this. We don’t have any night clubs. Too little alcohol doesn’t do anything to us. Too much kills. You’ll get a chance to hear our music, but frankly, you won’t like it.”
“Government is Mediators meeting to talk. It might be anywhere. The decision makers live where they like, and they generally consider themselves bound by the agreements of their Mediators. You’ll see some of our monuments. As for our way of life, you’ve been studying that for some time.”
“What about the way of life of a White?” Hardy asked. Then his mouth opened in a bone-cracking yawn.
“He’s right,” Hardy’s Motie broke in. “We should be able to see a giver of orders’ family residence at work. It may be that we can get permission-“ The alien broke into a high gabble.
The Moties considered. Sally’s Motie said, “It should be possible. We’ll see. In the meantime, let’s call it a day.”
For the time change had caught the humans. Doctors Horvath and Hardy yawned, blinked, looked surprised, made their excuses, and departed. Bury was still going strong. Renner wondered what rotation his planet had. He himself had had enough space going training to adapt to any schedule.
But the party was breaking up. Sally said her good nights and went upstairs, swaying noticeably. Renner suggested folk singing, got no response, and quit.
A spiral stair ran up the tower. Renner turned off into a corridor, following his curiosity. When he reached an air lock he realized that it must lead to the balcony, the flat ring that circled the tower. He did not care to try the Mote Prime air. He wondered if the balcony was meant to be used at all . . . and then thought of a ring encircling a slender tower, and wondered if the Moties were playing games with Freudian symbolism.
Probably they were. He continued to his room.
Renner thought at first he was in the wrong room. The color scheme was striking: orange and black, quite different from the muted pale browns of this morning. But the pressure suit on the wall was his, his design and rank markings on the chest. He looked about him, trying to decide whether he liked the change.
It was the only change-no, the room was warmer. It had been too cold last night. On a hunch, he crossed the room and checked the Moties’ sleeping alcove. Yes, it was chilly in there.
Renner’s Motie leaned against the doorjamb, watching him with the usual slight smile. Renner grinned shamefacedly. Then he continued his inspection.
The bathroom-the toilet was different. Just as he had sketched it. Wrong; there wasn’t any water in it. And no flush.
What the hell, there was only one way to test a toilet.
When he looked, the bowl was sparkling clean. He poured a glass of water into it and watched it run away without leaving a drop. The bowl was a frictionless surface.
Have to mention this to Bury, he thought. There were bases on airless moons, and worlds where water, or energy for recycling it, was scarce. Tomorrow. He was too sleepy now.
The rotation period of Levant was 28 hours, 40.2 minutes. Bury had adjusted well enough to MacArthur’s standard day, but it is always easier to adjust to a longer day than to a shorter.
He waited while his Fyunch(click) sent their Brown for coffee. It made him miss Nabil . . . and wonder if the Brown had more of Nabil’s skills. He had already seriously underestimated the power of the Brown-and-whites. Apparently his Motie could commandeer any vehicle on Mote Prime, whether or not it had been built yet; even so, he was an agent for someone Bury had never seen. The situation was complex.
The Brown returned with coffee and another pot, something that poured pale brown and did not steam. “Poisonous? Very likely,” his Fyunch(click) said. “The pollutants might harm you, or the bacteria. It’s water, from outside.”
It was not Bury’s habit to come too quickly to business.
An overeager businessman, he felt, was easily gulled. He was not aware of the thousands of years of tradition behind his opinion. Accordingly he and his Mode liaison talked of many things ...”’Of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings,’” he quoted, and he identified all of these, to his Motie’s evident interest. The Motie was particularly interested in the various forms of human government.
“But I don’t think I should read this Lewis Carroll,” he said, “until I know considerably more of human culture.”
Eventually Bury raised the subject of luxuries again.
“Luxuries. Yes, I agree, in principle,” said Bury’s Motie. “If a luxury travels well, it can pay for itself merely in diminished fuel costs. That must be true even with your Crazy Eddie Drive. But in practice there are restrictions between us.”
Bury had already thought of a few. He said, “Tell me of them.”
“Coffee. Teas. Wines. I presume you deal in wines also?”
“Wine is forbidden to my religion.” Bury dealt indirectly in the transfer of wines from world to world, but he could not believe the Moties would want to deal in wines.
“It doesn’t matter. We could not tolerate alcohol, and we do not like the taste of coffee. The same would probably apply to your other luxury foods, though they may be worth a try.”
“And you do not yourselves deal in luxuries?”
“No. In power over others, in safety, in durability of customs and dynasties . . . as usual, I speak for the givers of orders. We deal in these, for their benefit, but we also deal in diplomacy. We trade durable goods and necessities, skills- What do you think of our works of art?”
“They would sell at good prices, until they became common. But I think our trade will be more in ideas, and designs.”
“Ah?”
“The frictionless toilet, and the principle behind it. Various superconductors, which you fabricate more efficiently than we. We found a sample in an asteroid. Can you duplicate it?”
“I’m sure the Browns will find a way.” The Motie waved a languid hand. “There will be no problem here. You certainly have much to offer. Land for instance. We will want to buy land for our embassies.”
Probably that would be offered gratis, Bury thought. But to this race land would be literally priceless; without the humans they could never have more than they had at the moment. And they would want land for settlements. This world was crowded. Bury had seen the city lights from orbit, a field of light around dark oceans. “Land,” he agreed, “and grain. There are grains that grow beneath suns like yours. We know that you can eat some of them. Might they grow here more efficiently than yours? Bulk food would never be shipped at a profit, but seeds may be.”
“You may also have ideas to sell us.”
“I wonder, your inventiveness is enormous and admirable.”
The Motie waved a hand. “I thank you. But we have not made everything there is to make. We have our own Crazy Eddie Drive, for example, but the force field generator that protects-“
“If I should be shot, you would lose the only merchant in this system.”
“Allah’s- I mean to say, are your authorities really so determined to guard their secrets?”
“Perhaps they will change their minds when they know you better. Besides, I’m not a physicist,” Bury said blandly.
“Ah. Bury, we have -not exhausted the subject of art. Our artists have a free hand and ready access to materials, and very little supervision. In principle the exchange of art between Mote and Empire would facilitate communication. We have never yet tried to aim our art at an alien mind.”
“Dr. Hardy’s books and education tapes contain many such works of art.”
“We must study them.” Bury’s Motie sipped contemplatively at his dirty water, “We spoke of coffees and wines. My associates have noticed-how shall I put it?-a strong cultural set toward wines, among your scientists and Navy officers.”
“Yes. Place of origin, dates, labels, ability to travel in free fall, what wines go with what foods.” Bury grimaced. “I have listened, but I know nothing of this. I find it annoying and expensive that some of my ships must move under constant acceleration merely to protect a wine bottle from its own sediments. Why can they not simply be centrifuged on arrival?”
“And coffees? They all drink coffee. Coffee varies according to its genetics, soil, climate, method of roasting. I know this is so. I have seen your stores.”
”I have much greater variety aboard MacArthur. Yes and there is variety among coffee drinkers. Cultural differences. On an American-descended world like Tabletop they would not touch the oily brew preferred in New Paris, and they find the brew of Levant much too sweet and strong.”
“Have you heard of Jamaica Blue Mountain? It grows on Earth itself, on a large island; the island was never bombed, and the mutations were weeded out in the centuries following the collapse of the CoDominium. It cannot be bought. Navy ships carry it to the Imperial Palace on Sparta.”
“How does it taste?”
“As I told you, it is reserved for the Royal-“ Bury hesitated. “Very well. You know me that well. I would not pay such a price again, but I do not regret it.”
“The Navy misjudges your worth because you lack knowledge of wines.” Bury’s Motie did not seem to be smiling. Its bland expression was a Trader’s: it matched Bury’s own. “Quite foolish of them, of course. If they knew how much there was to learn about coffee-“
“What are you suggesting?”
“You have stores aboard. Teach them about coffee. Use your own stores for the purpose.”
“My stores would not last a week among the officers of a battle cruiser!”
“You would show them a similarity between your culture and theirs. Or do you dislike that idea? No, Bury, I am not reading your mind. You dislike the Navy; you tend to exaggerate the differences between them and you. Perhaps they think the same way?”
“I am not reading your mind.” Bury suppressed the fury building in him-and at that moment he saw it. He knew why the alien kept repeating that phrase. It was to keep him off balance. In a trading situation.
Bury smiled broadly. “A week’s worth of good will. Well, I will try your suggestion when we are back in orbit and I dine aboard MacArthur. Allah knows they have much to learn about coffee. Perhaps I can even teach them how to use their percolators correctly.”
Rod and Sally sat alone in the Captain’s patrol cabin. The intercom screens were off, and the status board above Rod’s desk showed a neat pattern of green lights. Rod stretched his long legs out and sipped at his drink. “You know, this is about the first time we’ve had alone together since we left New Caledonia. It’s nice.”
She smiled uncertainly. “But we don’t have very long-the Moties are expecting us to come back, and I’ve got dictating to do . . . How much longer can we stay in the Mote system, Rod?”
Blaine shrugged. “Up to the Admiral. Viceroy Merrill wanted us back as soon as possible, but Dr. Horvath wants to learn more. So do I. Sally, we still don’t have anything significant to report! We don’t know whether the Moties are a threat to the Empire or not.”
“Rod Blaine, will you stop acting like a Regular Navy officer and be yourself? There is not one shred of evidence that the Modes are hostile. We haven’t seen any signs of weapons, or wars, or anything like that-“
“I know,” Rod said sourly. “And that worries me. Sally, have you ever heard of a human civilization that didn’t have soldiers?”
“No, but Moties aren’t human.”
“Neither are ants, but they’ve got soldiers- Maybe you’re right, I’m catching it from Kutuzov. Speaking of which, he wants more frequent reports. You know that every scrap of data gets transmitted raw to Lenin inside an hour? We’ve even sent over samples of Mode artifacts, and some of the modified stuff the Brownies worked on...”
Sally laughed. Rod looked pained for a moment, then joined her. “I’m sorry, Rod. I know it must have been painful to -have to tell the Tsar that you had Brownies on your ship-but it was funny!”
“Yeah. Funny. Anyway, we send everything we can to Lenin-and you think I’m paranoid? Kutuzov has everything inspected in space, then sealed into containers filled with ciphogene and parked outside his ship! I think he’s afraid of contamination.” The intercom buzzed. “Oh, damn.” Rod tuned to the screen. “Captain here.”
“Chaplain Hardy to see you, Captain,” the Marine sentry announced. “With Mr. Renner and the scientists.”
Rod sighed and gave Sally a helpless look. “Send them in and send in my steward. I imagine they’ll all want a drink.”
They did. Eventually everyone was seated, and his cabin was crowded. Rod greeted the Mote expedition personnel, then took a sheaf of papers from his desk. “First question: Do you need Navy ratings with you? I understand they’ve nothing to do.”
“Well, there’s no harm in their being there,” Dr. Horvath said. “But they do take up room the scientific staff could use.”
“In other words, no,” Rod said. “Fine. I’ll let you decide which of your people to replace them with, Dr. Horvath. Next point: Do you need Marines?”
“Good heavens, no,” Sally protested. She looked quickly to Horvath, who nodded. “Captain, the Moties are so far from being hostile, they’ve built the Castle for us. It’s magnificent! Why can’t you come down and see it?”
Rod laughed bitterly. “Admiral’s orders. For that matter, I can’t let any officer who knows -how to construct a Langston Field go down.” He nodded to himself. “The Admiral and I agree on one point: If you do need help, two Marines won’t be any use-and giving the Moties a chance to work that Fyunch(click) thing on a pair of warriors doesn’t seem like a good idea. That brings up the next point. Dr. Horvath, is Mr. Renner satisfactory to you? Perhaps I should ask him to leave the room while you reply.”
“Nonsense. Mr. Renner has been very helpful. Captain, does your restriction apply to my people? Am I forbidden to take, say, a physicist to Mote Prime?”
“Yes.”
“But Dr. Buckman is counting on going. The Moties have been studying Murcheson’s Eye and the Coal Sack for a long time. . . how long, Mr. Potter?”
The midshipman squirmed uncomfortably before answering. “Thousands of years, sir,” he said finally. “Only...”
”Only what, Mister?” Rod prompted. Potter was a bit shy, and he’d have to outgrow that. “Speak up.”
“Yes, sir. There are gaps in their observations, Captain. The Modes hae never mentioned the fact, but Dr. Buckman says it is obvious. I would hae said they sometimes lose interest in astronomy, but Dr. Buckman can nae understand that.”
“He wouldn’t,” Rod laughed. “Just how important are those observations, Mr. Potter?”
“For astrophysics, perhaps verra important, Captain. They hae been watching yon supergiant for aye their history as it passed across the Coal Sack. ‘Twill go supernova and then become a black hole-and the Moties say they know when.”
Midshipman Whitbread laughed. Everyone turned to stare at him. Whitbread could hardly control his features. “Sorry, sir-but I was there when Gavin told Buckman about that. The Eye will explode in A.D. 2,774,020 on April 27 between four and four-thirty in the morning, they say. I thought Dr. Buckman was going to strangle himself. Then he started doing his own checking. It took him thirty hours-“
Sally grinned. “And he almost killed the Fyunch(click) doing it,” she added. “Had Dr. Horvath’s Motie translating for him when his own came apart.”
“Yes, but he found out they were right,” Whitbread told them. The midshipman cleared his throat and mimicked Buckman’s dry voice. “Damned close, Mr. Potter. I’ve got the mathematics and observations to prove it.”
“You’re developing a talent for acting, Mr. Whitbread,” First Lieutenant Cargill said. “Pity your work in astrogation doesn’t show a similar improvement. Captain, it seems to me that Dr. Buckman can get everything he needs here. There’s no reason for him to go to the Mode planet.”
“Agreed. Dr. Horvath, the answer is no. Besides-do you really want to spend a week cooped up with Buckman? You needn’t answer that,” he added quickly. “Whom will you take?”
Horvath frowned for a moment. “De Vandalia, I suppose.”
“Yes, please,” Sally said quickly. “We need a geologist. I’ve tried digging for rock samples, and I didn’t learn a thing about the make-up of Mote Prime. There’s nothing but ruins made up of older ruins.”
“You mean they don’t have rocks?” Cargill asked.
“They have rocks, Commander,” she answered. “Granite and lava and basalts, but they aren’t where whatever formed this planet put them. They’ve all been used, for walls, or tiles, or roofs. I did find cores in a museum, but I can’t make much sense out of them.”
“Now wait a minute,” said Rod. “You mean you go out and dig at random, and wherever you dig you find what’s left of a city? Even out in the farm lands?”
“Well, there wasn’t time for many digs. But where I did dig, there was always something else underneath. I never knew when to stop! Captain, there was a city like A.D. 2000 New York under a cluster of adobe huts without plumbing. I think they had a civilization that collapsed, perhaps two thousand years ago.”
“That would explain the observation lapses,” Rod said. “But-they seem brighter than that. Why would they let a civilization collapse?” He looked to Horvath, who shrugged.
“I have an idea,” Sally said. “The contaminants in the air-wasn’t there a problem with pollution from internal combustion engines on Earth sometime during the CoDominium? Suppose the Modes had a civilization based on fossil fuels and ran out? Mightn’t they have dropped back into an Iron Age before they developed fusion power and plasma physics again? They seem to be awfully short on radioactive ores.”
Rod shrugged. “A geologist could help a lot, then-and he has far more need to be on the spot than Dr. Buckman does. I take it that’s settled, Dr. Horvath?”
The Science Minister nodded sourly. “But I still don’t like this Navy interference with our work. You tell him, Dr. Hardy. This must stop.”
The Chaplain linguist looked surprised. He had sat at the back of the room, saying nothing but listening attentively. “Well, I have to agree that a geologist will be more useful on the surface than an astrophysicist, Anthony. And-Captain, I find myself in a unique position. As a scientist I cannot approve of all these restrictions placed on our contact with the Moties. As a representative of the Church I have an impossible task. And as a Navy officer
-I think I have to agree with the Admiral.”
Everyone turned toward the portly Chaplain in surprise. “I am astonished, Dr. Hardy,” Horvath said. “Have you seen the smallest evidence of warlike activities on Mote Prime?”
Hardy folded his hands carefully and spoke across the tops of his fingertips. “No. And that, Anthony, is what concerns me. We know the Moties do have wars: the Mediator class was evolved, possibly consciously evolved, to stop them. I do not think they always succeed. So why are the Moties hiding their armaments from us? For the same reason we conceal ours, is the obvious answer, but consider: we do not conceal the fact that we have weapons, or even what their general nature is. Why do they?”
“Probably ashamed of them,” Sally answered. She winced at the look on Rod’s face. “I didn’t really mean it that way-but they have been civilized longer than we have, and they might be embarrassed by their violent past.”
“Possibly,” Hardy admitted. He sniffed his brandy speculatively. “And possibly not, Sally. I have the impression the Moties are hiding something important-and hiding it right under our noses, so to speak.”
There was a long silence. Horvath sniffed loudly. Finally the Science Minister said, “And how could they do that, Dr. Hardy? Their government consists of informal negotiations by representatives of the givers of orders class. Every city seems to be nearly autonomous. Mote Prime hardly has a planetary government, and you think they’re able to conspire against us? It is not very reasonable.”
Hardy shrugged again. “From what we have seen, Dr. Horvath, you are certainly correct. And yet I cannot rid myself of the impression that they are hiding something.”
“They showed us everything,” Horvath insisted. “Even givers of orders’ households, where they don’t normally have visitors.”
“Sally was just getting to that before you came in,” Rod said quickly. “I’m fascinated-how does the Mode officer class live? Like the Imperial aristocracy?”
“That’s a better guess than you might think,” Horvath boomed. Two dry martinis had mellowed him considerably. “There were many similarities-although the Moties have an entirely different conception of luxuries from ours. Some things in common, though. Land. Servants. That sort of thing.” Horvath took another drink and warmed to his subject.
“Actually, we visited two households. One lived in a skyscraper near the Castle. Seemed to control the entire building: shops, light industry, hundreds of Browns and Reds and Workers and-oh, dozens of other castes. The other one, though, the agriculturist, was very like a country baron. The work force lived in long rows of houses, and in between the row houses were fields. The ‘baron’ lived in the center of all that,”
Rod thought of his own family home. “Crucis Court used to be surrounded by villages and fields-but of course all the villages were fortified after the Secession Wars. So was the Court, for that matter.”
“Odd you should say that,” Horvath mused. “There was a sort of square fortified shape to the ‘barony’ too. Big atrium in the middle. For that matter, all the residential skyscrapers have no windows on the lower floors, and big roof gardens. Quite self-sufficient. Looked very military. We don’t hive to report that impression to the Admiral, do we? He’d be sure we’d discovered militaristic tendencies.”
“Are you so sure he’d be wrong?” Jack Cargill asked. “From what I’ve heard, every one of those givers of orders has a self-sufficient fortress. Roof gardens. Brownies to fix all the machinery-too bad we can’t tame some of them to help Sinclair.” Cargill noted his captain’s -black look and hurriedly added, “Anyway, the agriculturist might have a better chance in a fight, but both those places sound like forts. So do all the other residential palaces I’ve heard about.”
Dr. Horvath had been struggling to control himself, while Sally Fowler attempted without success to hide - her amusement. Finally she laughed. “Commander Cargill, the Moties have had space travel and fusion power for centuries. If their buildings still have a fortress look, it must be traditional -there’s no possible purpose! You’re the military expert, just how would building your house that way help you against modern weapons?”
Cargill was silenced, but his expression showed he wasn’t convinced.
“You say they try to make their houses self-sufficient?” Rod asked. “Even in the city? But that is silly. They’d still have to bring in water.”
”It rained a lot,” said Renner. “Three days out of six.” Rod looked at the Sailing Master. Was he serious? “Did you know there are left-handed Moties?” Renner continued. “Everything reversed. Two six-fingered left hands, one massive right arm, and the swelling of the skull is on the right.”
“It took me half an hour to notice,” Whitbread laughed. “The new Motie behaved just like Jackson’s old one. He must have been briefed.”
“Left-handed,” said Rod. “Why not?” At least they’d changed the subject. The stewards brought in lunch and everyone fell to. When they finished it was time to leave for the Mote.
“A word with you, Mr. Renner,” Rod said as the Sailing Master was about to go. He waited until everyone but Cargill was gone. “I need an officer down there, and you’re the one senior man that I can spare who meets the Admiral’s restrictions. But although you’ve no weapons but your side arms, and no Marines, that’s a military expedition, and if it comes to it, you’re in charge.”
“Yes, sir,” Renner said. He sounded puzzled.
“If you had to shoot a man or a Motie, could you do it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You answered that very quickly, Mr. Renner.”
“I thought it over very slowly, some time past, when I knew I was joining the Navy. If I had decided I was incapable of shooting anyone, I’d have had to make damned sure the Captain knew it.”
Elaine nodded. “Next question. Can you recognize the need for military action in time to do something? Even if what you do is hopeless?”
“I think so. Captain, can I bring up something else? I do want to go back, and-“
“Speak your piece, Mr. Renner.”
“Captain, your Fyunch(click) went mad.”
“I’m aware of that,” Captain Elaine said coldly.
“I think the Tsar’s hypothetical Fyunch (click) would go mad much faster. What you want is the one officer aboard this ship who is least inclined to the military way of thinking.”
“Get aboard, Mr. Renner. And good luck.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Renner made no attempt to hide his lopsided grin as he left the cabin.
“He’ll do, Captain,” Cargill said.
“I hope so, Number One. Jack, do you think it was our military manner that drove my Mode crazy?”
“No, sir.” Cargill seemed positive.
“Then what did?”
“Captain, I don’t know. I don’t know a lot of things about those bug-eyed monsters. There’s only one thing I am sure of, and that is they’re learning more about us than we are about them.”
“Oh, come on, Number One. They take our people anywhere they ask to go. Sally says they’re bending over backwards-well, for them, that isn’t so hard to do-but anyway, she says they’re very cooperative. Not hiding a thing. You’ve always been scared of the Moties, haven’t you? Any idea why?”
”No, Captain.” Cargill looked closely at Blaine and decided that his boss wasn’t accusing him of funk. “I just don’t like the feel of this.” He glanced at his pocket computer to note the time. “I’ve got to hurry, Skipper. I’m supposed to help Mr. Bury with that coffee business.”
“Bury- Jack, I’ve been meaning to speak to you about him. His Motie lives on the~ embassy ship now. Bury’s moved to the cutter. What do they talk about?”
“Sir? They’re supposed to be negotiating trade deals-“
“Sure, but Bury knows a lot about the Empire. Economy, industry, general size of the Fleet, how many outies we’ve got to deal with, you name it and he’d probably know it.”
Cargill grinned. “He hasn’t let his right hand know how many fingers there are on the left, Captain. What’s he going to give the Motie for free? Besides, I’ve sort of made sure he won’t say anything you wouldn’t approve of.”
“Now how did you do that?”
“I told him we’d bugged every inch of the cutter, sir.” Cargill’s grin broadened. “Sure, he knows we can’t listen to every one of those bugs every time, but-“
Rod returned the grin. “I expect that’ll work. OK, you’d better move along to the Kaffee Klatsch-you sure you don’t mind helping with this?”
“Hell, Skipper, it was my idea. If Bury can show the cooks how to make better coffee during combat alerts, I might even change my opinion of him. Just why is he being kept a prisoner on this ship, anyway?”
“Prisoner? Commander Cargill?”
“Skipper, everybody in the crew knows there’s something funny about that man’s being aboard. The grapevine has it he’s implicated in the New Chicago revolt and you’re hanging onto him for the Admiralty. That’s about right, isn’t it?”
“Somebody’s doing a lot of talking, Jack. Anyway, I can’t say anything about it.”
“Sure. You’ve got your orders, Skipper. But I notice you aren’t trying to deny it. Well, it figures. Your old man is richer than Bury-I wonder how many Navy people might be for sale? It scares me, having a guy who could buy a whole planet as our prisoner.” Cargill moved quickly through the companionway to the main crew kitchen.
The night before, the dinner party conversation had somehow turned to coffee, and Bury had lost his usual bored detachment when he spoke at length on the subject. He had told them of the historic Mocha-Java blend still grown in places like Makassar, and the happy combination of pure Java and the gnua distilled on Prince Samuai’s World. He knew the history of Jamaica Blue Mountain although; he’d said, not its taste. As dessert was ending he suggested a “coffee tasting” in the manner of a wine-tasting party.
It had been an excellent ending to an excellent dinner, with Bury and Nabil moving like conjurors among filter cones and boiling water and hand-lettered labels. All the guests were amused, and it made Bury a different man somehow; it had been hard to think of him as a connoisseur of any kind.
“But the basic secret is to keep the equipment truly clean,” he had said. “The bitter oils of yesterday’s coffee will accumulate in the works, especially in percolators.”
It had ended with Bury’s offer to inspect MacArthur’s coffee-making facilities the next day. Cargill, who thought coffee - as vital to a fighting- ship as torpedoes, accepted happily. Now he watched as the bearded Trader examined the large percolator and gingerly drew a cup.
“The machine is certainly well kept,” he said. “Very well kept. Absolutely clean, and the brew is not reheated too often. For standard coffee, this is excellent, Commander.”
Puzzled, lack Cargill drew a cup and tasted it. “Why, that’s better than the stuff the wardroom gets.”
There were sidelong glances among the cooks. Cargill noticed them. He noticed something else, too. He ran a finger along the side of the percolator and brought it away with a brown oilstain.
Bury repeated the gesture, sniffed at his finger, and touched the tip of his tongue to it. Cargill tasted the oil in his hand. It was like all the bad coffee he had ever swallowed for fear of falling asleep on duty. He looked again at the percolator and stared at the spigot handle.
“Miniatures,” Cargill growled. “Take that damned thing apart.”
They emptied the machine and disassembled it-as far as it would go. Parts made to unscrew were now a fused unit. But the secret of the magic percolator seemed to be selective permeability in the metal shell. It would pass the older oils.
“My company would like to purchase that secret from the Navy,” said Bury. “We’d like to have it to sell. OK, Ziffren, how long has this been going on?”
“Sir?” The petty officer cook seemed to be thinking. I don’t know, sir. Maybe two months.”
“Was it this way before we sterilized the ship and killed off the miniatures?” Cargill demanded.
“Uh, yessir,” the cook said. But he said it hesitantly, and Cargill left the mess with a frown.
Cargill made his way to Rod’s cabin. “I think we’ve got Brownies again, Skipper.” He told why.
“Have you talked to Sinclair?” Rod asked. “Jesus, Number One, the Admiral will go out of his mind. Are you sure?”
“No, sir. But I intend to find out, Skipper, I’m positive we looked everywhere when we cleaned out the ship. Where could they have hidden?”
“Worry about that when you know we’ve got them. OK, take the Chief Engineer and go over this ship again, lack. And make damned sure this time.”
“Aye aye, Skipper.”
Blaine turned to the intercom screens and punched inputs. Everything known about miniatures flashed across the screen. There was not very much.
The expedition to Mote Prime had seen thousands of the miniatures throughout Castle City. Renner’s Motie called them “Watchmakers,” and they functioned as assistants to the brown “Engineers.” The big Moties insisted the Watchmakers were not intelligent but inherited an ability to tinker with tools and equipment, as well as the typical Motie instinct of obedience to the higher castes. They required training, but the adult Watchmakers took care of most of that. Like other subservient castes they were a form of wealth, and the ability to support a large household of Watchmakers, Engineers, and other lower forms was one measure of the importance of a Master. This last was a conclusion of Chaplain Hardy, and not definitely confirmed.
An hour passed before Cargill called. “We’ve got ‘em, Skipper,” the First Lieutenant said grimly. “The B-deck air absorber-converter-remember that half-melted thing Sandy repaired?”
“Yes.”
”Well it doesn’t stick out into the corridor any more. Sandy says it can’t possibly work, and he’s digging into it now-but it’s enough for me. We’ve got ‘em.”
“Alert the Marines, Number One. I’m going to the bridge.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Cargill turned back to the air maker. Sinclair had the cover off and was muttering to himself as he examined the exposed machinery.
The guts had changed. The casing had been reshaped. The second filter Sinclair had installed was gone, and the remaining filter had been altered beyond recognition. Goop seeped from one side into a plastic bag that bulged with gas; the goop was highly volatile.
“Aye,” Sinclair muttered. “And the other typical signs, Commander Cargill. Screw fastenings fused together. Missing parts and the rest.”
“So it’s Brownies.”
“Aye,” Sinclair nodded. “We thought we’d killed the lot months ago-and my records show this was inspected last week. T’was normal then.”
“But where did they hide?” Cargill demanded. The chief Engineer was silent. “What now, Sandy?”
Sinclair shrugged. “I’d say we look to hangar deck, sir. ‘Tis the place least used aboard this ship.”
“Right.” Cargill punched the intercom again. “Skipper, we’re going to check hangar deck-but I’m afraid there’s no question about it. There are live Brownies aboard this ship.”
“Do that, lack. I’ve got to report to Lenin.” Rod took a deep breath and gripped the arms of his command chair as if he were about to enter combat. “Get me the Admiral.”
Kutuzov’s burly features swam on the screen. Rod reported in a rush of words. “I don’t know how many, sir,” he finished. “My officers are searching for additional signs of the miniatures.”
Kutuzov nodded. There was a long silence while the Admiral stared at a point over Blaine’s left shoulder. “Captain, have you followed my orders concerning communications?” he asked finally.
“Yes, sir. Constant monitoring of all emissions to and from MacArthur. There’s been nothing.”
“Nothing so far as we know,” the Admiral corrected. “We must assume nothing, but it is possible that these creatures have communicated with other Moties. If they have, we no longer have any secrets aboard MacArthur. If they have not- Captain, you will order the expedition to return to MacArthur immediately, and you will prepare to depart for New Caledonia the instant they are aboard. Is this understood?”
“Aye aye, sir,” Blaine snapped.
“You do not agree?”
Rod pondered for a moment. He hadn’t thought beyond the screams he’d get from Horvath and the others when they were told. And, surprisingly, he did agree. “Yes, sir. I can’t think of a better course of action. But suppose I can exterminate the vermin, sir?”
“Can you know you have done that, Captain?” Kutuzov demanded. “Nor can I know it. Once away from this system we can disassemble MacArthur piece by piece, with no fear that they will communicate with others. So long as we are here, that is constant threat, and it is risk I am not prepared to take.”
“What do I tell the Moties, sir?” Rod asked.
“You will say there is sudden illness aboard your vessel, Captain. And that we are forced to return to Empire. You may tell them your commander has ordered it and you have no other explanation. If later explanations are necessary, Foreign Office will have time to prepare them. For now, this will do.”
“Yes, sir.” The Admiral’s image faded. Rod turned to the watch officer. “Mr. Crawford, this vessel will be leaving for home in a few hours. Alert the department heads, and then get me Renner on Mote Prime.”
A muted alarm sounded in the Castle, Kevin Renner looked up sleepily to see his Mode at the intercom screen that formed inside one of the decorative paintings on the wall.
Renner glanced at his pocket computer. It was almost noon on MacArthur but the middle of the night in Castle City. He climbed sleepily to his feet and went to the screen. The expression on Blaine’s face brought him to full alert. “Yes, Skipper?”
“There’s a small emergency aboard, Mr. Renner. You’ll have to ask the Moties to send up all our personnel. Yourself included.”
“Dr. Horvath won’t want to come, sir,” Renner said. His mind raced furiously. There was something very wrong here, and if he could read it, so could the Moties.
Blaine’s image nodded. “He’ll have to nonetheless, Mister. See to it.”
“Yes, sir. What about our Moties?”
“Oh, they can come up to the cutter with you,” Blaine said. “It’s not all that serious. Just an OC matter.”
It took a second for that to sink in. By the time it did, Renner was in control of himself. Or hoped he was. “Aye aye, Captain. We’re on the way.”
He went back to his bunk and sat carefully on the edge. As he put on his boots he tried to thin-k. The Moties couldn’t possibly know the Navy’s code designations, but OC meant top military priority . . . and Blaine had been far too casual when he had said that.
OK, he thought. The Moties know I’m acting. They have to. There’s a military emergency out there somewhere, and I’m to get the hostages off this planet without letting the Modes know it. Which means the Moties don’t know there’s a military emergency, and that doesn’t make sense.
“Fyunch(dick),” his Mode reminded him. “What is the matter?”
“I don’t know,” Renner replied. Quite honestly.
“And you do not want to know,” the Motie said. “Are you in trouble?”
“Don’t know that either,” Renner said. “You heard the Captain. Now how do I go about getting everybody moving in the middle of the night?”
“You may leave that to me,” said Renner’s Mode.
The hangar deck was normally kept in vacuum. The doors were so huge that a certain amount of leakage was inevitable. Later, Cargill would supervise as hangar deck was put under pressure; but for now he and Sinclair carried out their inspection in vacuum.
Everything seemed in order, nothing out of place as they entered. “Now,” said Cargill. “What would you fiddle with if you were a miniature Motie?”
“I would put the boats on the hull and use the hangar deck as a fuel tank.”
“There are ships like that. Be a big job for a swarm of Brownies, though.” Cargill strolled out onto the hangar doors. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, and was never sure why he looked down at his feet. It took him a moment to realize that something was wrong.
The crack that separated the two huge rectangular doors...wasn’t there.
Cargill looked about him, bewildered. There was nothing. The doors were part of the hull. The hinge motors, weighing several tons apiece, had vanished.
“Sandy?”
“Aye?”
“Where are the doors?”
“Why, y’re standing on them, ye bloody- I don’t believe it.”
“They’ve sealed us in. Why? How? How could they work in vacuum?”
Sinclair ran back to the air lock. The air-lock door controls- “The instruments read green,” said Sinclair. “Everything’s fine, as far as they know. If the Brownies can fool instruments, they could have had the hangar deck under pressure until just before we arrived.”
“Try the doors.” Cargill swung up onto one of the retractable bracings.
“The instruments show the doors opening. Still opening . . . complete.” Sinclair turned around. Nothing. A vast expanse of beige-painted floor, as solid as any part of the hull.
He heard Cargill curse. He saw Cargill swing down from the huge retractable brace and drop onto what had been a hangar door. He saw Cargill drop through the floor as if it had been the surface of a pond.
They had to fish Cargill out of the Langston Field. He was chest deep in formless black quicksand, and sinking, his legs very cold, his heart beating very slowly. The Field absorbed all motion.
“I should have got my head into it,” he said when he came round. “That’s what all the manuals say. Get my brain to sleep before my heart slows down. But God’s teeth! How could I think?”
“What happened?” Sinclair asked.
Cargill’s mouth opened, closed, opened again. He managed to sit up. “There aren’t words. It was like a miracle. It was like I was walking on water when they took away my sainthood. Sandy, it was really the damnedest thing.”
“It looked a mite peculiar too.”
“I bet. You see what they did, don’t you? The little bastards are redesigning MacArthur! The doors are still there, but the ships can go through them now. In an emergency you don’t even have to evacuate hangar deck.”
“I’ll tell the Captain,” Sinclair said. He turned to the intercom.
“Where the hell did they hide?” Cargill demanded. The engineering ratings who had pulled him out stared blankly. So did Sinclair. “Where? Where didn’t we look?”
His legs still felt cold. He massaged them. On the screen he could see Rod Blaine’s pained expression. Cargill struggled to his feet. As he did, alarms hooted through the ship.
“NOW HEAR THIS. INTRUDER ALERT. ALL COMBAT PERSONNEL WILL DON BATTLE ARMOR. MARINES REPORT TO HANGAR DECI~ WITH HAND WEAPONS AND BATTLE ARMOR.”
“The guns!” Cargill shouted.
“I beg your pardon?” Sinclair said. Blaine’s image focused on the First Lieutenant.
“The guns, Skipper! We did not look in the guns. Damn, I’m a bloody fool, did anyone think of the guns?”
“It may be,” Sinclair agreed. “Captain, I request that you send for the ferrets.”
“Too late, Chief,” Blaine said. “There’s a hole in their cage. I already checked.”
“God damn,” Cargill said. He said it reverently. “God damn them.” He turned to the armed Marines swarming onto hangar deck. “Follow me.” He was through treating the miniatures as escaped pets, or as vermin. As of now they were enemy boarders.
They rushed forward to the nearest turret. A startled rating jumped from his post as the First Lieutenant, Chief Engineer, and a squad of Marines in battle armor crammed into his control room.
Cargill stared at the instrument board. Everything seemed normal. He hesitated in real fear before he opened the inspection hatch.
The lenses and focus rings were gone from Number 3 Battery. The space inside was alive with Brownies. Cargill jumped back in horror-and a thread of laser pulse splashed against his battle armor. He cursed and snatched a tank of ciphogene from the nearest Marine and slammed it into the gap. It wasn’t necessary to open the stopcock.
The tank grew hot in his hand, and one laser beam winked through and past him. When the hissing died he was surrounded by yellow fog.
The space inside 3 Battery was thick with dead miniatures and filthy with bones. Skeletons of rats, bits of electronic gear, old boots-and dead Brownies.
“They kept a herd of rats in there,” Cargill shouted. “Then they must have outgrown the herd and eaten them all. They’ve been eating each other-“
“And the other batteries?” Sinclair said in wonder. “We’d best be hasty.”
There was a scream from the corridor outside. The Navy rating who’d been displaced from his post fell to the deck. A bright red stain appeared at his hip. “In the ventilator,” he shouted.
A Marine corporal tore at the grating. Smoke flashed from his battle armor and he jumped back. “Nipped me, by God!” He stared incredulously at a neat hole in his shoulder as three other Marines fired hand lasers at a rapidly vanishing shape. Somewhere else in the ship an alarm sounded.
Cargill grabbed an intercom. “Skipper-“
“I know,” Blaine said quickly. “Whatever you did has them stirred up all over the ship. There are a dozen fire fights going on right now.”
“My God, sir, what do we do?”
“Send your troops to Number 2 Battery to clean that out,” Blaine ordered. “Then get to damage control.” He turned to another screen. “Any other instructions, Admiral?”
The bridge was alive with activity. One of the armored helmsmen jumped from his seat and whirled rapidly.
”Over there!” he shouted. A Marine sentry pointed his Brownie-altered weapon helplessly.
“You are not in control of your vessel,” Kutuzov said flatly.
“No, sir.” It was the hardest thing Blaine had ever had to say.
”CASUALTIES IN CORRIDOR TWENTY,” the bridge talker announced.
“Scientist country,” Rod said. “Get all available Marines into that area and have them assist the civilians into pressure suits. Maybe we can gas the whole ship-“
“Captain Blaine. Our first task is to return to Empire with maximum information.”
“Yes, sir-“
“Which means civilians aboard your vessel are more important than a battle cruiser.” Kutuzov was calm, but his lips were tight with distaste. “Of second priority are Motie artifacts not yet transferred to Lenin. Captain, you will therefore order all civilians off your vessel. I will have Lenin’s boats outside our protective field. You will have two reliable officers accompany civilians. You will then secure any Motie artifacts you think important for shipment to Lenin, You may attempt to regain control of your vessel in so far as that is consistent with these orders-but you will also act swiftly, Captain, because at first sign of any transmission from your vessel other than through secure circuit direct to me, I will blast MacArthur out of space.”
Blaine nodded coldly. “Aye aye, sir.”
“We understand each other, then,” The Admiral’s expression didn’t change at all. “And Godspeed, Captain Blaine.”
“What about my cutter?” Rod asked. “Sir, I have to talk to the cutter.”
“I will alert the cutter personnel, Captain. No. There will be no transmission from your ship.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Rod looked around his bridge. Everyone was staring wildly about. The Marines’ weapons were drawn, and one of the quartermasters was fussing over a fallen companion.
Jesus, can I trust the intercom? Rod wondered. He shouted orders to a runner and waved three Marines to accompany the man.
“Signal from Mr. Renner, sir,” the bridge talker announced.
“Don’t acknowledge,” Blaine growled.
“Aye aye, sir. Do not acknowledge.”
The battle for MacArthur raged on.
There were a dozen humans and two Brown-and-whites aboard the cutter. The other ground party Moties had reported directly to the embassy ship, but Whitbread’s and Sally’s Fyunch(click)s had stayed aboard. “No point,” said Whitbread’s Motie. “We’ve been seeing the decision maker every day.” Perhaps there was a point. The cutter was crowded, and the taxi to MacArthur had not arrived.
“What’s holding them up?” Renner said. “Lafferty, put in a call.” Lafferty, the cutter’s pilot, was largely unemployed these days. He used the communications beam.
“No answer, sir,” he said. He sounded puzzled.
“You’re sure the set’s working?”
“It was an hour ago,” Lafferty said. “Uh-there’s a signal. It’s from Lenin, sir.”
Captain Mikhailov’s face appeared on the screen. “You will please request aliens to leave this vessel,” he said.
Somehow the Moties conveyed amusement, surprise, and a slightly hurt look all at once. They left with a backward look and a signaled query. Whitbread shrugged. Staley didn’t. When the Moties were in the air-lock bridge, Staley closed the door behind them.
Kutuzov appeared. “Mr. Renner, you will send all personnel aboard to Lenin. They will wear pressure suits, and one of my boats will arrive to get them. Civilians will cross on a line and will then obey orders of my boat’s pilot. They must carry sufficient air for one hour in space. Meanwhile, you will make no attempt to communicate with MacArthur. Is this understood?”
Renner gulped. “Aye aye, sir.”
“You will not admit aliens until further notice.”
“But what do I tell them, sir?” Renner asked.
“You will tell them Admiral Kutuzov is a paranoid fool, Mr. Renner. Now carry out your orders,”
“Aye aye, sir.” The screen went blank. Renner looked pale. “Now he’s reading minds-“
“Kevin, what’s going on here?” Sally demanded. “Get us up in the middle of the night, rush us up here- Now Rod won’t answer us, and the Admiral wants us to risk our lives and offend the Moties.” She sounded very much like Senator Fowler’s niece; an Imperial lady who had tried to cooperate with the Navy and now had had enough.
Dr. Horvath was even more indignant. “I will not be a party to this, Mr. Renner, I have no intention of putting on a pressure suit.”
“Lenin’s moving alongside MacArthur,” Whitbread said casually. He stared out the view port. “The Admiral has her ringed with boats-I think somebody’s carrying a line over.”
Everyone turned to the view ports. Lafferty focused the cutter’s telescope and flashed the results on the ship’s bridge screens. After a while figures in space suits began moving along lines toward Lenin’s boats, which then moved away to let others take their places.
“They’re abandoning MacArthur,” Staley said wonderingly. He looked- up, his angular face contorted. “And one of Lenin’s boats is headed this way. My lady, you’ll have to hurry. I don’t think there’s much time.”
“But I told you, I am not going,” Dr. Horvath insisted.
Staley fingered his pistol. The cabin grew tense.
“Doctor, do you remember the orders Viceroy Merrill gave Admiral Kutuzov?” Renner asked Carefully. “As I recall, he was to destroy MacArthur rather than let the Moties obtain any important information.” Renner’s voice was cool, almost bantering.
Horvath tried to say something else. He seemed to be having difficulty controlling his features. Finally he turned to the pressure suit locker without a word. After a moment, Sally followed him.
Horace Bury had gone to his cabin after the coffee demonstration. He liked to work late at night and sleep after lunch, and although there wasn’t anything to work on at the moment, he’d kept the habit.
The ship’s alarms woke him. Somebody was ordering the Marines into combat uniform. He waited, but nothing else happened for a long time. Then came the stench. It choked him horribly, and there was nothing like it in any of his memories. Distilled quintessence of machines and body odor-and it was growing stronger.
More alarms sounded. “PREPARE FOR HARD VACUUM. ALL PERSONNEL WILL DON PRESSURE SUITS. ALL MILITARY PERSONNEL WILL DON BATTLE ARMOR. PREPARE FOR HARD
VACUUM.
Nabil was crying in panic. “Fool! Your suit!” Bury screamed and ran for his own. Only after he was breathing normal ship’s air did he listen for the alarms again.
The voices didn’t sound right. They weren’t coming through the intercom, they were-shouted through the corridors. “CIVILIANS WILL ABANDON SHIP. ALL CIVILIAN PERSONNEL, PREPARE TO ABANDON SHIP.”
Really. Bury almost smiled. This was a first time-was it a drill? There were more sounds of confusion. A squad of Marines in battle armor, weapons clutched at the ready, tramped past. The smile slipped and Bury looked about to guess what possessions he might Save.
There was more shouting, An officer ~appeared in the corridor outside and began shouting in an unnecessarily loud voice. Civilians would be leaving MacArthur on a line. They could take one bag each, but would require one hand free.-
Beard of the Prophet! What could cause this? Had they saved the golden asteroid metal, the superconductor of heat? Certainly they would not save the precious self-cleaning percolator. What should he try to save?
The ship’s gravity lessened noticeably. Flywheels inside her were rotating to take off her spin. Bury worked quickly to throw together items needed by any traveler without regard to their price. Luxuries he could buy again, but- The miniatures. He’d have to get that air tank from D air lock. Suppose he were assigned to a different air lock?
He packed in frenzy. Two suitcases, one for Nabil to carry. Nabil moved fast enough now that he had orders, There was more confused shouting outside, and several times - squads of Navy men and Marines floated past the Stateroom door. They all carried weapons and wore armor.
His suit began to inflate. The ship was losing pressure, and all thought of drill or exercise left him. Some of the scientific equipment couldn’t stand hard vacuum-and nobody had once come into the cabin to check his pressure suit. The Navy wouldn’t risk civilian Jives in drills.
An officer moved into the corridor. Bury heard the harsh voice speaking in deadly calm tones. Nabil stood uncertainly and Bury motioned to him to turn on his suit communications.
“ALL CIVILIAN PERSONNEL, GO TO YOUR NEAREST AIR LOCKS ON THE PORT FLANK,” the unemotional voice said. The Navy always spoke that way when there was a real crisis. It convinced Bury utterly. “CIVILIAN EVACUATION WILL BE THROUGH PORT-SIDE LOCKS ONLY. IF YOU ARE UNSURE OF YOUR DIRECTION ASK ANY OFFICER OR RATING.
PLEASE PROCEED SLOWLY. THERE IS TIME TO EVACUATE ALL PERSONNEL.” The officer floated past and turned into another corridor.
Port side? Good. Intelligently, Nabil had hidden the dummy tank in the nearest air lock. Praise to the Glory of Allah that had been on the port side. He motioned to his servant and began to pull himself from hand hold to hand hold along the wall. Nabil moved gracefully; he had had plenty of practice since they had been confined.
There was a confused crowd in the corridor. Behind him Bury saw a squad of Marines turn into the corridor. They faced away and fired in the direction they’d come. There was answering fire and bright blood spurted to form ever diminishing globules as it drifted through the steel ship. The lights flickered overhead.
A petty officer floated down the corridor and -fell in behind them. “Keep moving, keep moving,” he muttered. “God bless the joeys-.”
“What are they shooting at?” Bury asked.
“Miniatures,” the petty officer growled. “If they take this corridor, move out fast, Mr. Bury. The little bastards have weapons.”
“Brownies?” Bury asked incredulously. “Brownies?”
“Yes, sir, the ship’s got a plague o’ the little sons of bitches. They changed the air plants to suit themselves... Get movin’, sir. Please. Them joeys can’t hold long.”
Bury tugged at a hand hold and sailed to the end of the corridor, where he was deftly caught by an able spacer and passed around the turn. Brownies? But, they’d been cleared Out of the ship...
There was a crowd bunched at the air lock. More civilians were coming, and now noncombatant Navy people began to add to the press. Bury pushed and clawed his way toward the air-bottle locker. Ah. It was still there. He seized the dummy and handed it to Nabil, who fastened it to Bury’s suit.
“That won’t be necessary, sir,” an officer said. Bury realized he was hearing him through atmosphere. There was pressure here-but they hadn’t come through any pressure-tight doors! The Brownies! They’d made the invisible pressure barrier that the miner had on her survey ship! He had to have it! “One never knows,” Bury muttered to the officer. The man shrugged and motioned another pair into the cycling mechanism. Then it was Bury’s turn. The Marine officer waved them forward.
The lock cycled. Bury touched Nabil on the shoulder and pointed. Nabil went, pulling himself along the line into the blackness outside. Blackness ahead, no stars, nothing. What was out there? Bury found himself holding his breath. Praise be to Allah, I witness that Allah is One- No! The dummy bottle was on his shoulders, and inside it two miniatures in suspended animation. Wealth untold! Technology beyond anything even the First Empire ever had! An endless stream of new inventions and design improvements. Only. . . just what kind of djinn bottle had he opened?
They were through the tightly controlled hole in MacArthur’s Field. Outside was only the blackness of space- and a darker black shape ahead. Other lines led to it from other holes in MacArthur’s Field, and minuscule spiders darted along them. Behind Bury was another space-suited figure, and behind that, another. Nabil and the others ahead of him, and .... His eyes were adjusting rapidly now. He could see the deep red hues of the Coal Sack, and the blot ahead must be Lenin’s Field. Would he have to crawl through that? But no, there were boats outside it, and the space spiders crawled into them.
The boat was drawing near. Bury turned for a last look at MacArthur. In his long lifetime he had said good-by to countless temporary homes; MacArthur had not been the best of them. He thought of the technology that was being destroyed. The Brownie-improved machinery, the magical coffeepot. There was a twinge of regret. MacArthur’s crew was genuinely grateful for his help with the coffee, and his demonstration to the officers had been popular. It had gone well. Perhaps in Lenin...
The air lock was tiny now. A string of refugees followed him along the line. He could not see the cutter, where his Motie would be. Would he ever see him again?
He was looking, directly at the space-suited figure behind him. It had no baggage, and it was overtaking Bury because it had both hands free. The light from Lenin was shining on its faceplate. As Bury watched, the figure’s head shifted slightly and the light shone right into the faceplate.
Bury saw at least three pairs of eyes staring back at him. He glimpsed the tiny faces.
It seemed to Bury, later, that he had never thought so fast in his life. For a heartbeat he stared at the thing coming up on him while his mind raced, and then- But the men who heard his scream said that it was the shriek of a madman; or a man being flayed alive.
Then Bury flung his suitcase at it.
He put words into his next scream. “They’re in the suit! They’re inside it!” He was wrenching at his back now, ripping the air tank loose. He poised the cylinder over his head, in both hands, and pitched it.
The pressure suit dodged his suitcase, clumsily. A pair of miniatures in the arms, trying to maneuver the fingers...it lost its hand hold, tried to pull itself back. The metal cylinder took it straight in the faceplate and shattered it.
Then space was filled with tiny struggling figures, flailing six limbs as a ghostly puff of air carried them away. Something else went with them, something football shaped, something Bury had the knowledge to recognize. That was how they had fooled the officer at the air locks. A severed human head.
Bury discovered he was floating three meters from the line. He took a deep, shuddering breath. Good: he’d thrown the right air tank. Allah was merciful.
He waited until a man-shaped thing came out of Lenin’s boat on backpack jets and took him in tow. The touch made him flinch. Perhaps the man wondered why Bury peered so intently into his faceplate. Perhaps not.
MacArthur lurched suddenly. Rod clawed at the intercom and shouted, “Chief Sinclair! What are you doing, Chief?”
The reply was barely audible. “’Tis nae my doin’, Captain. I hae nae control o’ the altitude jets, and precious little o’ anything else.”
“Oh, Lord God,” Elaine said. Sinclair’s image faded from the screens. Other screens faded. Suddenly the bridge was dead. Rod tried alternate circuits. Nothing.
“Computer inactivated,” Crawford reported. “I get nothing at all.”
“Try the direct wire, Get me Cargill,” Rod told his talker.
“I have him, Captain.”
“Jack, what’s the situation back there?”
“Bad, Skipper. I’m beseiged in here, and I don’t have communications except for direct wires-not all of them.” MacArthur lurched again as something happened aft. “Captain!” Cargill reported excitedly. “Lieutenant Piper reports the Brownies are fighting each other in the main crew kitchen! Real pitched battle!”
“Jesus, Number One, how many of those monsters do we have aboard?”
“Skipper, I don’t know! Hundreds, maybe. They must have hollowed out every gun on the ship, and they’ve spread to everywhere else too. They’re-“ Cargill’s voice cut off.
“Jack!” Rod shouted. “Talker, have we got an alternate line to the First Lieutenant?”
Before the Quartermaster’s Mate could answer, Cargill came on the line again. “Close one, Skipper. Two armed miniatures came out of the auxiliary fire-control computer. We killed ‘em.”
Blaine thought furiously. He was losing all his command circuits, and he didn’t know how many men he had left. The computer was bewitched. Even if they did regain possession of MacArthur there was a good chance she couldn’t be made spaceworthy again. “You still on, Number One?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m going down to the air lock to talk to the Admiral. If I don’t call you in fifteen minutes, abandon ship. Fifteen minutes, Jack. Mark.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“And you can start rounding up the crew now. Port side only, Jack-that is, if she stays oriented where she is. The lock officers have orders to close the holes in the Field if she shifts.”
Rod motioned to his bridge crew and began working his way toward the air locks. The corridors were in confusion. Yellow clouds filled several-ciphogene. He’d had hopes for ending the Motie threat with gas, but it hadn’t worked and he didn’t know why.
The Marines had ripped out a number of bulkheads and barricaded themselves behind the debris. They poised watchfully, weapons ready.
“Civilians out?” Rod asked the officer in charge of the lock.
“Yes, sir. Far as we know. Skipper, I had the men make one sweep through that territory, but I don’t like to risk another. The Brownies are thick in civilian country-like they were living there or something.”
“Maybe they were, Piper,” Blaine said. He moved to the air lock and oriented his suit toward Lenin. The communication laser winked on, and he hung in space, holding himself steady to keep the security circuit open.
“Your situation?” Kutuzov demanded. Reluctantly, knowing what it would mean, Rod told him.
“Recommended action?” the Admiral snapped.
“MacArthur may never sail again, sir. I think I’ll have to abandon her and scuttle as soon as I’ve made a sweep to rescue any trapped crewmen.”
“And where will you be?”
“Leading the rescue party, sir.”
“No.” The voice was calm. “I accept your recommendation, Captain, but you are hereby ordered to abandon your ship. Log that order, Commander Borman,” he added to someone on his bridge. “You will issue the order to abandon and scuttle, turn over command to your First Lieutenant, and report aboard Lenin’s number-two cutter. Immediately.”
• “Sir, Sir, I request permission to remain with my ship until my crew, is safe.”
“Denied, Captain,” the merciless voice snapped. “I am quite aware that you have courage, Captain. Have you enough to live when you lose your command?”
“Sir-“ Oh, God damn him to hell! Rod turned toward MacArthur, breaking the secure circuit. There was fighting at the air lock. Several miniatures had dissolved the bulkhead opposite the Marines’ barricade, and the joeys were pouring fire into the gap. Blaine gritted his teeth and turned away from the battle. “Admiral, you cannot order me to leave my crew and run!”
“I cannot? You find it hard to live now, Captain? You think they will whisper about you the rest of your life, and you, are afraid of, that? And you tell this to me? Carry out your orders, Captain My Lord Blaine.”
“No, sir.”
“You disobey direct order, Captain?”
“I can’t accept that order, sir. She’s still my ship.”
There was a long pause. “Your devotion to Navy tradition is admirable, Captain, but stupid. It is possible that you are only officer in Empire who can devise defense against this menace. You know more about aliens than anyone else in fleet. That knowledge is worth more than your ship. It is worth more than every man aboard your ship, now that civilians are evacuated. I cannot allow you to die, Captain. You will leave that ship even if I am required to send new commanding officer into her.”
“He’d never find me, Admiral. Excuse me, sir, I have work to do.”
“Stop!” There was another pause. “Very well, Captain. I will make agreement with you. If you will stay in communication with me, I will allow you to remain aboard MacArthur until you have abandoned and scuttled. At instant that you are no longer in communication with me, that is moment at which you no longer command MacArthur. Need I send Commander Borman there?”
The trouble is, Rod thought, he’s right. MacArthur’s doomed. Cargill can get the crew out as well as I can. Maybe I do know something important. But suds my ship! “I’ll accept your proposition, sir. I can direct operations better from here anyway. There’s no communications left on the bridge.”
“Very well. I have your word, then.” The circuit went dead.
Rod turned back to the air lock. The Marines had won their skirmish, and Piper was waving to him. Rod went aboard. “Commander Cargill here,” the intercom said. “Skipper?”
“Yeah, Jack?”
“We’re fighting our way to port side, Skipper. Sinclair’s got his people ready to leave. Says he can’t hold the engine rooms without reinforcements. And a runner tells me there are civilians trapped in the starboard petty officers’ lounge. A Marine squad is there with them, but it’s a tough fight.”
“We’ve been ordered to abandon ship and scuttle, Number One.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We have to get those civilians out. Can you hold a route from bulkhead l60 forward? Maybe I can get some help in to let the scientists get that far.”
”I think we can, sir. But, Captain, I can’t get to the Field generator room! How do we scuttle?”
“I’ll take care of that, too. Get moving, Number One.”
”Aye aye, Skipper.”
Scuttle. The word had an unreal sound. Rod breathed deeply. The suit air had a sharp metallic taste. Or perhaps it wasn’t the air at all.
It was nearly an hour before one of Lenin’s boats pulled alongside the cutter. They watched it approach in silence.
”Relay from MacArthur through Lenin, sir,” the coxswain said. The screen lit.
The face on the screen wore Rod Blaine’s features but it wasn’t his face. Sally didn’t recognize him. He looked older, and the eyes were-dead. He stared at them, and they stared back. Finally Sally said it. “Rod, what’s happening?”
Blaine looked her in the eyes, then looked away. His expression hadn’t changed. He reminded Sally of something pickled in a bottle at the Imperial Museum. “Mr. Renner,” the image said. “Send all personnel over the line to Lenin’s boat. Gear the cutter. Now all of you, you’re going to get some funny orders from the boat’s pilot. Obey them, exactly as given. You won’t have a second chance, so don’t argue. Just do as you’re told.”
“Now, just a minute,” Horvath bellowed. “I-“
Rod cut him off. “Doctor, for reasons you will understand later, we are not going to explain a damned thing. Just do as you’re told.” He looked back to Sally. His eyes changed, just a little. Perhaps there was concern in them. Something, a tiny spark of life, came into them for a moment, anyway. She tried to smile, but failed. “Please,
“Sally,” he said. “Do exactly as Lenin’s pilot instructs you. All right. Out. Now.”
They stood immobile. Sally took a deep breath and turned toward the air lock. “Let’s go,” she said. She tried again to smile, but it only made her look more nervous.
The starboard air lock had been reconnected to the embassy ship. They left by the port side. Lenin’s boat crew had already rigged lines from the auxiliary vessel to the cutter. The boat was almost a twin for MacArthur’s cutter, a flat-topped lifting body with a shovel-blade reentry shield hanging below the nose.
Sally pulled herself gently along the cable to Lenin’s cutter, then cautiously moved through the hatch, She was halted when she entered the airlock. The mechanism cycled, and she felt pressure again.
Her suit was a woven fabric that fitted like an extra skin. A baggy protective garment covered that. The only space inside her suit that she didn’t fill was the helmet that joined the skintight body stocking with a neck seal.
“It will be necessary to search you, my lady,” a guttural-voiced officer said. She looked around: two armed
Marines stood in the air lock with her. Their weapons weren’t aimed at her-not quite. But they stood alertly, and they were afraid.
“What is this?” she demanded.
“All in good time, my lady,” the officer said. He assisted her in detaching the air-bottle backpack from her suit. It was thrust into a transparent plastic container. The officer looked into her helmet after he took that off, then put it in with the backpack and her coveralls. “Thank you,” he muttered. “You will please now go aft. The others will join you there.”
Renner and the other military personnel were treated differently. “Strip,” the officer said. “Everything, if you please.” The Marines did not even do them the courtesy of pointing their weapons slightly away. When they had removed everything-Renner even had to put his signet ring into the plastic container-they were sent forward. Mother Marine officer indicated battle armor, and two Marines helped them into it. There were no weapons in sight now.
“Damnedest strip-tease act I ever saw,” Renner said to the pilot. The coxswain nodded. “Mind telling me what it’s about?”
“Your captain will explain, sir,” the coxswain said.
“More Brownies!” Renner exclaimed.
“Is that it, Mr. Renner?” Whitbread asked from behind him. The midshipman was climbing into battle armor as instructed. He hadn’t dared ask anyone else, but Renner was easy to talk to.
Renner shrugged. There was an air of unreality about the situation. The cutter was packed with Marines and armor-many were MacArthur’s Marines. Gunner Kelley watched impassively from near the air lock, and he held his weapon trained at its door.
“That’s all of them,” a voice announced.
“Where is Chaplain Hardy?” Renner asked.
“With the civilians, sir,” the coxswain said. “A minute, please.” He worked at the communications gear. The screen lit with Blaine’s face.
“Secure circuit, sir,” the coxswain announced.
“Thank you. Staley.”
“Yes, Captain?” the senior midshipman answered.
“Mr. Staley, this cutter will shortly come alongside Lenin. The civilians and cutter crew except Cox’n Lafferty will transfer to the battleship, where they will be inspected by security personnel. After they have left, you will take command of Lenin’s number-one cutter and proceed to MacArthur. You will board MacArthur from the starboard side immediately aft of the starboard petty officers’ lounge. Your purpose is to create a diversion and engage any surviving enemies in that area in order to assist a group of civilians and Marines trapped in the lounge to escape. You will send Kelley and his Marines into that lounge with pressure suits and battle armor for twenty-five men. The equipment is already aboard. Send that party forward. Commander Cargill has secured the way forward of bulkhead one six zero.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Staley sounded incredulous. He stood at near-rigid attention despite the absence of gravity in the cutter.
Blaine almost smiled. At least there was a twitch to his lips. “The enemy, Mister, is several hundred miniature Moties. They are armed with hand weapons. Some have gas masks. They are not well organized, but they are quite deadly. You will satisfy yourself that there are no other passengers or crew in the midships starboard section of MacArthur. After that mission is accomplished, you will lead a party into the midships crew mess and send out the coffeepot. But be damned sure that pot is empty, Mr. Staley.”
“Coffeepot?” Renner said incredulously. Behind him Whitbread shook his head and murmured something to Potter.
“Coffeepot, Mr. Renner It has been altered by the aliens, and the technique used could be of great value to the Empire. You will see other strange objects, Mr. Staley. Use your judgment about bringing them out-but under no circumstances will you send out anything that might contain a live alien. And watch the crewmen. The miniatures have killed several people, used their heads as decoys, and inhabited their battle armor. Be sure that a man in armor is a man, Mr. Staley. We haven’t seen them try that trick with a skintight pressure suit yet, but be damned careful.”
“Yessir,” Staley snapped. “Can we regain control of the ship, sir?”
“No.” Blaine fought visibly for control of himself. “You will not have long, Mister. Forty minutes after you enter MacArthur, activate all conventional destruct systems, then start the timer on that torpedo we rigged. Report to me in the main port entryway when you’ve got it done. Fifty-five minutes after you enter, Lenin will commence firing on MacArthur in any event. You have that?”
“Yes, sir,” Horst Staley said quietly. He looked at the others. Potter and Whitbread looked back uncertainly.
“Captain,” Renner said. “Sir, I remind you that I’m senior officer here.”
“I know that, Renner. I have a mission for you too. You will take Chaplain Hardy back aboard MacArthur’s cutter and assist him in recovering any equipment or notes that might be required. Another of Lenin’s boats will come for that, and you will see that everything is packed into a sealed container the boat will bring.”
“But-sir, I should be leading the boarding party!”
“You’re not a combat officer, Renner. Do you recall what you told me at lunch yesterday?”
Renner did. “I did not tell you I was a coward,” he grated.
“I’m aware of that. I am also aware that you are probably the most unpredictable officer I have. The Chaplain has been told only that there is a plague epidemic aboard MacArthur, and that we’re going back to the Empire before it spreads to everybody. That will be the official story to the Moties. They may not believe it, but Hardy’ll have a better chance of selling it to them if he believes it himself. I have to have somebody who knows the real situation along too.”
“One of the midshipmen-“
“Mr. Renner, get back aboard MacArthur’s cutter. Staley, you have your orders.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Renner departed, seething.
Three midshipmen and a dozen Marines hung from crash webbing in the main cabin of Lenin’s cutter. The civilians and regular crew were gone, and the boat moved away from Lenin’s black bulk.
“All right, Lafferty,” Staley said. “Take us to MacArthur’s starboard side. If nothing attacks us, you will rain, aiming for the tankage complex aft of bulkhead 185.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Lafferty did not react noticeably. He was a big-boned man, a plainsman from Tabletop. His hair was ash-blond and very short, and his face was all planes and angles.
The crash webbing was designed for high impacts. The midshipmen hung like flies in some monstrous spider web. Staley glanced at Whitbread. Whitbread looked at Potter.
Both looked away from the Marines behind them. “OK. Go,” Staley ordered. The drive roared.
The real defensive hull of any warship is the Langston Field. No material object could withstand the searing heat of fusion bombs and high energy lasers. Since anything that can get past the Field and the ship’s defensive fire will evaporate anything below, the hull of a warship is a relatively thin skin. It is, however, only relatively thin. A ship must be rigid enough to withstand high acceleration and jolt.
Some compartments and tanks, however, are big, and in theory can be crushed by enough impact momentum. In practice nobody had ever taken a combat party aboard a ship that way as far as Staley’s frantically searching memory could tell him. It was in the Book, though. You could get aboard a crippled ship with her Field intact by ramming. Staley wondered what damn fool had first tried it.
The long black blob that enclosed MacArthur became a solid black wall without visible motion. Then the shovel blade reentry shield went up. Horst watched blackness grow on the forward view screen as he peered over Lafferty’s shoulder.
The cutter surged backward. An instant of cold as they passed through the Field, then the screaming of grinding metal. They stopped.
Staley unclasped his crash webbing. “Get moving,” he ordered. “Kelley, cut our way through those tanks.”
“Yes, sir.” The Marines swept past. Two aimed a large cutting laser at the buckled metal that had once been the interior wall of a hydrogen tank. Cables stretched from the weapon back into the mangled cutter.
The tank wall collapsed, a section blown outward and narrowly missing the Marines. More air whistled out, and dead miniature Moties blew about like autumn leaves.
The corridor walls were gone. Where there had been a number of compartments there was a heap of ruins, cutoff bulkheads, surrealistic machinery, and everywhere dead miniatures. None seemed to have had pressure suits.
“Christ Almighty,” Staley muttered. “OK, Kelley, get moving with those suits. Let’s go.” He charged forward across the ruins to the next airtight compartment door. “Shows pressure on the other side,” he said. He reached into the communications box on the bulkhead and plugged in his suit mike. “Anybody there?”
“Corporal Hasner here, sir,” a voice answered promptly. “Be careful back there, that area’s full of miniatures.”
“Not now,” Staley answered. “What’s your status in there?”
“Nine civilians without no suits in here, sir. Three Marines left alive. We don’t know how to get them scientist people out without suits.”
“We’ve got suits,” Staley said grimly. “Can you protect the civilians until we can get through this door? We’re in vacuum.”
“Lord, yes, sir. Wait a minute.” Something whirred. Instruments showed the pressure falling beyond the bulkhead companionway. Then the dogs turned. The door opened to reveal an armored figure inside the petty officers’ mess room. Behind Hasner two other Marines trained weapons on Staley as he entered. Behind them-Staley gasped.
The civilians were at the other end of the compartment. They wore the usual white coveralls of the scientific staff. Staley recognized Dr. Blevins, the veterinarian. The civilians were chattering-among themselves- “But there’s no air in here!” Staley yelled.
“Not here, sir,” Hasner said. He pointed. “Some kind of box thing there, makes like a curtain, Mr. Staley. Air can’t get through it but we can.”
Kelley growled and moved his squad into the mess room. The suits were flung to the civilians.
Staley shook his head iii wonder. “Kelley. Take charge here. Get everybody forward-and take that box with you if it’ll move!”
“It moves,” Blevins said. He was speaking into the microphone of the helmet Kelley had passed him, but he wasn’t wearing the helmet. “It can be turned on and off, too. Corporal Hasner killed some miniatures who were doing things to it.”
“Fine. We’ll take it,” Staley snapped. “Get ‘em moving, Kelley.”
“Sir!” The Marine Gunner stepped gingerly through the invisible barrier. He had to push. “Like-maybe kind of like the Field, Mr. Staley. Only not so thick.”
Staley growled deep in his throat and motioned to the other midshipmen. “Coffeepot,” he said. He sounded as if he didn’t believe it. “Lafferty. Kruppman. Janowitz. You’ll come with us.” He went back through the companionway to the ruins beyond.
There was a double-door airtight companionway at the other end, and Staley motioned Whitbread to open it. The dogs turned easily, and they crowded into the small air lock to peer through the thick glass into the main starboard connecting corridor.
“Looks normal enough,” Whitbread whispered.
It seemed to be. They went through the air lock in two cycles and pulled themselves along the corridor walls by hand holds to the entryway into the main crew mess room.
Staley looked through the thick glass into the mess compartment. “God’s teeth!”
“What is it, Horst?” Whitbread asked. He crowded his helmet against Staley’s.
There were dozens of miniatures in the compartment. Most were armed with laser weapons-and they were firing at each other. There was no order to the battle. It seemed that every miniature was fighting every other, although that might have been only a first impression. The compartment drifted with a pinkish fog: Mode bloat Dead and wounded Moties flopped in an insane dance as the room winked with green-blue pencils of light.
“Not in there,” Staley whispered. He remembered he was speaking through his suit radio and raised his voice. “We’d never get through that alive. Forget the coffeepot.” They moved on through the corridor and searched for other human survivors.
There were none, Staley led them back toward the crew messroom. “Kruppman,” he barked. “Take Janowitz and get this corridor into vacuum. Burn out bulkheads, use grenades-anything, but get it into vacuum. Then get the hell off this ship.”
“Aye aye, sir.” When the Marines rounded a turn in the steel corridor the midshipmen lost contact with them. The suit radios were line-of-sight only. They could still hear, though. MacArthur was alive with sound. High-pitched screams, the sounds of tearing metal, hums and buzzes- none of it was familiar.
“She’s not ours any more,” Potter murmured.
There was a whoosh. The corridor was in vacuum. Staley tossed a thermite grenade against the mess-room bulkhead and stepped back around a turn. Light flared briefly, and Staley charged back to fire his hand laser at the still-glowing spot on the bulkhead. The others fired with him.
The wall began to bulge, then broke through. Air whistled into the corridor, with a cloud of dead Modes. Staley turned the dogs on the companionway but nothing happened. Grimly they burned at the bulkhead until the hole was large enough to crawl into.
There was no sign of live miniatures. “Why can’t we do that all over the ship?” Whitbread demanded. “We could get back in control of her...
“Maybe,” Staley answered. “Lafferty. Get the coffee maker and take it port side. Move, we’ll cover you.”
The plainsman waved and dove down the corridor in the direction the Marines had vanished. “Had we nae best be goin’wi’ him?” Potter asked.
“Torpedo,” Staley barked. “We’ve got to detonate the torpedo.”
“But, Horst,” Whitbread protested. “Can’t we get control of the ship? 1 haven’t seen any miniatures with vacuum suits
“They can build those magic pressure curtains,” Staley reminded him.”
“Besides, we’ve got our orders.” He pointed aft, and they moved ahead of him. Now that MacArthur was clear of humans they hurried, burning through airtight compartments and grenading the corridors beyond. Potter and Whitbread shuddered at the damage they were doing to the ship. Their weapons were not meant to be used aboard a working spacecraft.
The torpedoes were in place: Staley and Whitbread had been part of the work crew that welded them on either side of the Field generator. Only-the generator was gone. A hollow shell remained where it had been.
Potter was reaching for the timers that would trigger the torpedo. “Wait,” Staley ordered. He found a direct wire intercom outlet and plugged his suit in. “Anyone, this is Midshipman Horst Staley in the Field generator compartment. Anyone there?”
“Aye aye, Mr. Staley,” a voice answered. “A moment, sir, here’s the Captain.” Captain Blaine came on the line.
Staley explained the situation. “The Field generator’s gone, sir, but the Field seems strong as ever. .
There was a long pause. Then Blaine swore viciously, but cut himself off. “You’re overtime, Mr. Staley. We’ve orders to close the holes in the Field and get aboard Lenin’s boats in five minutes. You’ll never get out before Lenin opens fire.”
“No, sir. What should we do?”
Blaine hesitated a moment. “I’ll have to buck that one up to the Admiral. Stay right where you are.”
A sudden roaring hurricane sent them scurrying for cover. There was silence, then Potter said unnecessarily, “We’re under pressure. You Brownies must have repaired one or another door.”
“Then they’ll soon be here.” Whitbread cursed, “Damn them anyway.” They waited. “What’s keeping the Captain?” Whitbread demanded. There was no possible answer, and they crouched tensely, their weapons drawn, while around them they heard MacArthur coming back to life. Her new masters were approaching.
“I won’t leave without the middies,” Rod was saying to the Admiral.
“You are certain they cannot reach after port air lock?” Kutuzov said.
“Not in ten minutes, Admiral. The Brownies have control of that part of the ship. The kids would have to fight all the way.”
“Then what do you suggest?”
“Let them use the lifeboats, sir,” Rod said hopefully. There were lifeboats in various parts of the ship, with a dozen not twenty meters from the Field generator compartment. Basically solid-fuel motors with inflatable cabins, they were meant only to enable a refugee to survive for a few hours in the event that the ship was damaged beyond repair-or about to explode. Either was a good description of MacArthur’s present status.
“The miniatures may have built recording devices and transmitters into lifeboats,” Kutuzov said. “A method of giving large Moties all of MacArthur’s secrets.” He spoke to someone else. “Do you think that possible, Chaplain?”
Blaine heard Chaplain Hardy speaking in the background. “No, sir. The miniatures are animals. I’ve always thought so, the adult Modes say so, and all the evidence supports the hypothesis. They would be capable of that only if directly ordered-and, Admiral, if they’ve been that anxious to communicate with the Moties, you can be certain they’ve already done it.”
“Da,” Kutuzov muttered. “There is no point in sacrificing these officers for nothing. Captain Blaine, you will instruct them to use lifeboats, but caution them that no miniatures must come out with them. When they leave, you will immediately come aboard Lenin.”
“Aye aye, sir,” Rod sighed in relief and rang the intercom line to the generator compartment. “Staley: the Admiral says you can use the lifeboats. Be careful there aren’t any miniatures in them, and you’ll be searched before you board one of Lenin’s boats. Trigger the torpedoes and get away. Got that?”
“Aye aye, sir.” Staley turned to the other middies. “Lifeboats,” he snapped. “Let’s...-“
Green light winked around them. “Visors down!” Whitbread screamed. They dove behind the torpedoes while the beam swung wildly around the compartment. It slashed holes in the bulkheads, then through compartment wails beyond, finally through the hull itself. Air rushed out and the beam stopped swinging, but it remained on, pouring energy through the hull into the Field beyond.
Staley swung his sun visor, up. It was fogged with silver metal deposits. He ducked carefully under the beam to look at its source.
It was a heavy hand laser. Half a dozen miniatures had been needed to carry it. Some of them, dead and dry, clung to the double hand hold.
“Let’s move,” Staley ordered. He inserted a key into the lock on the torpedo panel. Beside him Potter did the same thing. They turned the keys—and had ten minutes to live. Staley rushed to the intercom. “Mission accomplished, sir.”
They moved through the airtight open compartment’s door into the main after corridor and rushed sternward, flinging themselves from hand hold to hand hold. Null-gee races were a favorite if slightly non-regulation game with midshipmen, and they were glad of the practice they’d had. Behind them the timer would be clicking away- “Should be here,” Staley said. He blasted through an airtight door, then fired a man-sized gap through the outer hull itself. Air whistled out-the miniatures had somehow again enclosed them in the stinking atmosphere of Mote Prime even as they had come aft, Wisps of ice-crystal fog hung in the vacuum.
Potter found the lifeboat inflation controls and smashed the glass cover with his pistol butt. They stepped out of the way and waited for the lifeboats to inflate.
Instead the flooring swung up. Stored beneath the deck was a line of cones, each two meters across at the base, each about eight meters long.
“The Midnight Brownie strikes again,” said Whitbread.
The cones were all identical, and fabricated from scratch. The miniatures must have worked for weeks beneath the deck, tearing up the lifeboats and other equipment to replace them with-these things. Each cone had a contoured crash chair in the big end and a flared rocket nozzle in the point.
“Look at the damn things, Potter,” Staley ordered. “See if there’s anywhere Brownies could hide in them.” There didn’t seem to be. Except for the conical hull, which was solid, everything was open framework. Potter tapped and pried while his friends stood guard.
He was looking for an opening in the cone when he caught a flicker of motion in the corner of his eye. He snatched a grenade from his belt and turned. A space suit floated-out of the corridor wall. It held a heavy laser in both hands.
Staley’s nerves showed in his voice. “You! Identify yourself!”
The figure raised its weapon. Potter threw the grenade.
Intense green light lashed out through the explosion, lighting the corridor weirdly and tearing up one of the conical lifeboats. “Was it a man?” Potter cried. “Was it? The arms bent wrong! Its legs stuck straight out-what was it?”
“An enemy,” Staley said. “I think we’d better get out of here. Board the boats while we’ve still got ‘em.” He climbed into the reclined contour seat of one of the undamaged cones. After a moment the others each selected a seat.
Horst found a control panel on a bar and swung it out in front of him. There were no labels anywhere. Sentient or nonsentient, all Moties seemed to be expected to solve the workings of a machine at a glance.
“I’m going to- try the big square button,” Staley said firmly. His voice sounded - oddly hollow through the suit radio. Grimly he pushed the button.
A section of the hull blew away beneath him. The cone swung out as on a sling. Rockets flared briefly. Cold and blackness-and he was outside the Field.
Two other cones popped out of the black sea. Frantically Horst directed his suit radio toward the looming black hulk of Lenin no more than a kilometer away. “Midshipman Staley here! The lifeboats have been altered. There are three of us, and we’re alone aboard them-.”
A fourth cone popped from the blackness. Staley turned in his seat. It looked like a man- Three hand weapons fired simultaneously. The fourth cone glowed and melted, but they fired for a long time. “One of the-uh-“ Staley didn’t know what to report. His circuit might not be secure.
“We have you on the screens, Midshipman,” a heavily accented voice said. “Move away from MacArthur, and wait for pickup. Did you complete your mission?”
“Yes, sir.” Staley glanced at his watch. “Four minutes to go, sir.”
“Then move fast, mister,” the voice ordered.
But howl Staley wondered. The controls had no obvious function. While he searched frantically, his rocket fired. But what-he hadn’t touched anything.
“My rocket’s firing again,” said Whitbread’s voice. He sounded calm-much calmer than Staley felt.
“Aye, and mine,” Potter added. “Never look a gift horse in the mouth. We’re movin’ away from you ship.”
The rumble continued. They were accelerating together at nearly a standard gee, with Mote Prime a vast green crescent to one side. On the other was the deep black of the Coal Sack, and the blacker mass of Lenin. The boats accelerated for a long time.