The Mote in God's Eye

There was work. They had daily conferences with the Institute scientists, and for the Mediators there were the Blaine children. The oldest could speak a few words of Language and could read gestures as well as a young Master.

They were comfortable, but still it was a cage; and at nights they saw the brilliant red Eye and its tiny Mote. The Coal Sack was high in the night sky. It looked like a hooded Master blind in one eye.

“I fear,” said Jock. “For my family, my civilization, my species, and my world.”

“That’s right, think large thoughts,” said Charlie. “Why waste your mighty brain on little things? Look you—” Her voice and posture changed; she would speak of serious matters. “We’ve done what we can. This Institute of Sally’s is a trivial fiasco, but we continue to cooperate. We show how friendly and harmless and honest we are. And meanwhile the blockade works and it will always work. There’s not a hole in it.”

“There is,” said Jock. “No human seems to consider that the Masters might reach the Empire through normal space.”

“There is no hole,” Charlie repeated. She shifted two arms for emphasis. “No breach before the next collapse. Curse! Who could build another Crazy Eddie probe before the famines begin? And where would they send it? Here, into their fleets?” She signaled contempt. “Perhaps into the Coal Sack, toward the heart of the Empire? Have you thought of the launching lasers—far greater to compensate for the dust in the Coal Sack? No. We have done what we can, and the Cycles have begun again.”

“Then what can we anticipate?” Jock’s right arms were folded, her left extended and open: ready for attack, and thus projecting rhetorical mercilessness. “There may be unsuccessful attempts to penetrate the blockade. Wasted effort. The collapse will be hastened. Then, a long period in which the Empire can half forget that we exist.

“New technologies rise, warlike as rising technologies are always. They would know of humanity. Perhaps they can preserve or reinvent the Field. When they reach the height of their power, before the decline, they will breed Warriors and come forth conquering everything: Mote Prime, asteroids, all. And on to the Empire.”

Charlie listened after a hurried glance at the Master. Ivan lay impassive, listening to the chatter of the Mediators as Masters often did, and it was impossible to know what he thought.