The Mote in God's Eye

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

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

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

“Yes—” Sally agreed.

“This small?” Horowitz asked contemptuously.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“A pilot?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What?”

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

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

She grinned.

“You’re blushing.”

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

“Want me to ask?”

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

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

“Oh? Have you talked to Mr. Bury?”

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

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

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

She shook her head. “I’d rather try to analyze the motivations of aliens than of Mr. Bury. He’s a very strange man.”

“Right. But not a stupid one.” He stood and helped Sally out of her chair. “Time for the conference.”