The Mote In God's Eye

"Sorry, sir." Whitbread fiddled with the input controls again. The screen became a black volume filled with blobs and lines of colored light. Big blobs were stars colored for type, velocity vectors were narrow green lines, acceleration vectors were lavender, projected paths were dimly lit red curves. The long green line- Blaine looked at the screen in disbelief, then laid his finger along the knot in his nose. "From the Mote. Well, I will be go to hell. From the Mote, in normal space." There was no known tramline to the intruder's Star. It hung in- isolation, a yellow fleck near the super giant Murcheson's Eye. Visions of octopoids danced in his head.

Suppose they were hostile? he thought suddenly. If Old Mac had to fight an alien ship, she'd need more work. Work they'd put off because it ought to be done in orbit, or dirtside, and now they'd have to do it at two plus gee.

But it was MacArthur's baby-and his. Somehow they'd do it.

5 The Face of God

Blaine made his way quickly to the bridge and strapped himself into the command chair. As soon as he was settled he reached for the intercom unit. A startled Midshipman Whitbread looked out of the screen from the Captain's cabin.

Blaine gambled. "Read it to me, Mister."

"Uh-sir?"

"You have the regs open to the standing orders on alien contact, don't you? Read them to me, please." Blaine remembered looking them up, long ago, for fun and curiosity. Most cadets did.

"Yes, sir." Visibly, Whitbread wondered if the Captain had been reading his mind, then decided that it was the Captain's prerogative. This incident would start legends. "'Section 4500: First contact with nonhuman sentient beings. Note: Sentient beings are defined as creatures which employ tools and communication in purposeful behavior. Subnote: Officers are cautioned to use judgment in applying this definition. The hive rat of Makassar, as an example, employs tools and communication to maintain its nest, but is not Sentient.

"'Section One: Upon encounter with sentient nonhuman beings, officers will communicate the existence of such aliens to nearest Fleet command. All other objectives will be considered secondary to this accomplishment.

Section Two: After the objective described in section one is assured, officers will attempt to establish communication with the aliens, provided however that in so doing they are not authorized to risk their command unless so ordered by higher authority. Although officers will not initiate hostilities it must be assumed that nonhuman sentient creatures may be hostile. Section Three-‘"

Whitbread was cut off by the final acceleration warning.

Blaine nodded acknowledgment to the middle and settled back in his couch. The regulations weren't likely to be much use anyway. They mostly dealt with initial contact without prior warning, and here Fleet command pretty well knew MacArthur was going out to intercept an alien vessel.

Ship's gravity edged upward, slowly enough to give the crew time to adjust, a full minute to rise to three gravities.

Blaine felt two hundred sixty kilos settling into his acceleration couch. Throughout the ship men would be moving with the wary attention one gives to lifting weights, but it was not a crippling acceleration. Not for a young man. For Bury it would be rough, but the Trader would be all right if he stayed in his gee bed.

Blaine felt very much at ease in his contoured armchair. It had headrest and fingertip controls, lapboard, power swiveling so that the entire bridge was in view without effort, even a personal relief tube. Warships are designed for long periods of high gravity.

Blaine fiddled with his screen controls to produce a 3-d graph overhead. He cut in the privacy switch to hide his doodles from the rest of the crew. Around him the bridge officers attended to their duties, Cargill and Sailing Master Renner huddled together near the astrogation station, Midshipman Staley settled next to the helmsman ready to assist if needed but mostly there to learn how to handle the ship. Blaine's long fingers moved over the screen controls.

A long green velocity line, a short lavender vector pointing in the opposite direction-with a small white ball between. So. The intruder had come straight from the direction of the Mote and was decelerating directly into the New Cal system... and it was somewhat bigger than Earth's Moon. A ship-sized object would have been a dimensionless point.

A good thing Whitbread hadn't noticed that. There'd be gossip, tales to the crew, panic among the new hands...Blaine felt the metallic taste of fear himself. My God, it was big. "But they'd have to have something that big," Rod muttered. Thirty-five light years, through normal space!

There never had been a human civilization that could manage such a thing. Still-how did the Admiralty expect him to "investigate" it? Much less "intercept" it? Land on it with Marines?

What in Hannigan's Hell was a light sail?

"Course to Brigit, sir," Sailing Master Renner announced.