The Mote In God's Eye

"Well, sir, I wondered about the images." Renner took a light pointer from a recess in the table. "These are various Motie classes, aren't they?"

Jock seemed hesitant. "They appear to be."

"Sure they are. That's a Brown, right? And a Doctor."

"Right." The light pointer moved. "Runner," Jock said. "And a Master..."

"There's a Watchmaker." Rod almost spat it. He couldn't hide his distaste. "The next one looks like a Farmer. Hard to tell from a Brown but-" His voice went suddenly uneasy. "Renner, I don't recognize that next one."

There was silence. The pointer hovered over a misshapen shadow, longer and leaner than a Brown, with what seemed to be thorns at the knees and heels and elbows.

"We saw them once before," Renner said. His voice was almost automatic now. Like a man walking through a graveyard on a bet. Or the point man advancing Over the hill into enemy territory. Emotionless, determined, rigidly under control. It wasn't like Renner at all.

The screen divided, and another image appeared: the time-machine sculpture from the museum in Castle City. What looked like a junk-art sculpture of electronic parts was surrounded by things bearing weapons.

At his first sight of Ivan, Rod had felt an embarrassingly strong urge to stroke the Ambassador's silky fur. His impulse now was equally strong: he wanted to be in karate stance. The sculpted things showed in far too much detail. They grew daggers at every point, they looked hard as steel and stood like coiled springs, and any one of them would have left a Marine combat instructor looking as if he'd been dropped into a mowing machine. And what was that under the big left arm, like a broad-bladed knife half concealed?

"Ah," said Jock, "a demon. I suppose they must have been dolls representing our species. Like the statuettes, to make it easier for the Mediator to talk about us."

"All of those?" Rod's voice was pure wonder. "A shipload of full-sized mockups?"

"We don't know they were full-sized, do we?" asked Jock.

"Fine. Assume they were mockups," Renner said. He went on relentlessly. "They were still models of living Motie classes. Except this one. Why would that one be in the group? Why bring a demon with the rest?"

There was no answer.

"Thank you, Kevin," Rod said slowly. He didn't dare look at Sally. "Jock, is this or is it not a Motie class?"

"There's more, Captain," Renner said. "Look real close at the Farmer. Now that we know what to look for."

The image wasn't very clear, little more than a fuzzy edged silhouette; but the bulge was unmistakable on the full profile view.

"She's pregnant," Sally exclaimed. "Why didn't I think of that! A pregnant statuette? But- Jock, what does this me an?"

"Yeah," Rod asked coldly.

But it was impossible to get Jock's attention.

"Stop! Say no more!" Ivan commanded.

"What would I say?" Jock wailed. "The idiots took a Warrior! We are finished, finished, when moments ago we had the universe in our hand!" The Motie's powerful left hand closed crushingly on air.

"Silence. Control yourself. Now. Charlie, tell me what you know of the probe. How was it built?"

Charlie gestured contempt interrupted by respect. "It should be obvious. The probe builders knew an alien species inhabited this star. They knew nothing more. Thus they must have assumed the species resembled ours, if not in appearance, then in the essentials."

"Cycles. They must have assumed Cycles," Ivan mused. "We had yet to know that all races are not condemned to the Cycles."

"Precisely," said Charlie. "The hypothetical species had survived. It was intelligent. They would have no more control of their breeding than we, since such control is not a survival characteristic. Thus the probe was launched in the belief that this star's people would be in collapse when the probe arrived."

"So." Ivan thought for a moment. "The Crazy Eddies put pregnant females of every class aboard. Idiots!"

"Give them credit. They did their best," said Charlie. "The probe must have been rigged to dump the passengers into the sun the instant it was hailed by a space-traveling civilization. If the hypothetical aliens were that advanced, they would find, not an attempt to take over their planet with the light sail as a weapon, but a Mediator sent on a peaceful errand." Charlie paused for thought. "An accidentally dead Mediator. The probe would have been set to kill her, so the aliens would learn as little as possible. You are a Master: is this not what you would do?"

"Am I also Crazy Eddie, to launch the probe at all? The strategy did not work. Now we must tell these humans something."

"I say tell them all," Charlie said. "What else can we do? We are caught in our own lies."

"Wait," Ivan commanded. Only seconds had passed, but Jock was normal again. The humans were staring curiously. "We must say something momentous. Hardy knows we are excited. True?"

"Yes," Charlie gestured.

"What discovery could so have excited us?"

"Trust me," Jock said quickly. "We may yet be saved.