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"The honor guard will conduct you to your quarters," Rod said. "I hope they will be large enough; there are two adjacent cabins." And four cursing officers who were displaced from them, too; the ripples of that had run down through the Navy pecking order until a junior lieutenant found himself in the gun room with Lenin's middies.
"One cabin would be sufficient," Charlie said calmly. "We do not need privacy. It is not one of our species' requirements." There was something familiar about Charlie's voice, and it bothered Rod.
The Moties bowed in unison, perfect copies of Court behavior; Rod wondered where they'd learned that. He returned the bow, as did Horvath and the others in hangar deck, then the Marines led them away, another squad falling in at the rear of the procession. Chaplain Hardy would be waiting for them in their cabins.
"A male," Sally mused.
"Interesting. The Mediators called it ‘the Ambassador,' yet the Moties implied that the three had equal powers. We were told they have to act in unison to sign treaties-"
"Maybe the Mediators aren't his Mediators," said Sally. "I'll ask-I'm sure I'll get the chance. Rod, are you sure I can't go up there with them? Now?"
He gri
There hadn't been a single Lenin crewman there, or in -the boats that met the Motie ship. The baggage gig was winched into place and sealed off.
"NOW HEAR THIS. MAN YOUR JUMP STATIONS, STAND BY FOR ALDERSON DRIVE. MAN YOUR JUMP STATIONS."
"Net wasting -any time, is he?" Sally said.
"Non at all. We'd better hurry." He took her hand and led her toward his cabin as Lenin began slowing her rotation to zero gravity. "I suspect the Moties didn't need the spin;" Rod said as they reached the cabin door. "But that's the Admiral. If you're going to do something, do it right."
"STAND BY FOR ALDER5ON DRIVE. MAN YOUR JUMP STATIONS."
"Come on," Rod urged. "We've just time to get the Motie cabin on the intercom." He turned the controls until the Motie quarters were in view.
Chaplain Hardy was saying, "If you need anything, there will be orderlies outside your door at all times, and that button and switch will co
Tones sounded through the ship. Hardy frowned. "1111 go to my cabin now-you'll probably prefer to be alone for the Alderson shift. And I suggest you get in your bunks and stay there until the shift is over." He caught himself before he could say anything else. His instructions were clear: the Moties learned nothing until they were out of their home system.
"Will it take long?" Jock asked.
Hardy smiled thinly. "No. Good-by, then."
"Auf Wiedersehen," said Jock.-
"Auf Wiedersehen." David Hardy left with a puzzled look. Now lust where had they learned that?
The bunks were wrongly proportioned, and too hard, and made no provision for individual differences among the Moties. Jock swiveled her torso and waved her lower right arm, so, indicating displeasure with the situation but surprise that things were not worse. "Obviously copied from something for a Brown." Her tones indicated positive knowledge deduced but not observed directly. The voice changed to conversational mode. "I wish we had been able to bring our own Brown."
Charlie: "I also. But we would not be trusted with a Brown I know". She began a new thought, but the Master spoke.
Ivan. "Was the human Master among those waiting to meet us?"
Jock: "No. Curse! So long I have tried to study him, and still I have not met him nor even heard his voice. For all of me, he may be a committee, or one Master subject to discipline from the humans. I would wager much of my anatomy that he is human."
Ivan spoke. "You will make no attempt to contact the Master of Lenin. Should we meet him, you will not become his Fyunch(click). We know what happens to the Fyunch(click)s of humans."
It was not necessary to speak in response. The Master knew he had been heard, and thus would be obeyed. He went to his bunk and looked with distaste.
Alarms rang, and human speech came through loud-speakers.
"Prepare for Crazy Eddie Drive. Final Warning," one translated. They lay on the bunks. A louder tone sounded through the ship.
Then something horrible happened.
46 Personal and Urgent
"Rod! Rod, look at the Moties!"
"Uh?" Blaine struggled for control of his traitor body. Awareness was difficult; concentration was impossible. He looked across to Sally, then followed her gaze to the intercom screen.
The Moties were twitching uncontrollably. They'd drifted free of their bunks, and the Ambassador floated about the cabin in complete disorientation. He caromed off a bulkhead and drifted toward the other side. The two Mediators watched, unable to do anything and in trouble themselves. One cautiously reached for the Master but lost her grip on the fur. All three were drifting helplessly about the compartment.
Jock was the first to anchor herself to a hand hold. She whistled and snorted, then Charlie drifted toward the Master. She caught his fur in the left arm, and Jock, holding the bulkhead with two rights, extended his left until Charlie could grasp it. They painfully worked their way back to the bunks and Jock strapped Ivan in. They lay disconsolately, whistling and clucking.
"Shouldn't we help?" Sally asked.
Rod flexed his limbs and took a square root in his head. Then he tried two integrals and got them right. His mind was recovering enough to pay attention to Sally and the Moties. "No. Nothing we could do anyway-there's no permanent effect ever been observed, barring a few who just go insane and never get back in contact with reality."
"The Moties haven't done that," Sally said positively. "They acted purposefully, but they weren't very good at it. We recovered much quicker than they did."
"Nice to see something we're better at than Moties are. Hardy ought to show up pretty soon-it'll take him a while longer than us, though. He's older,"
"ACCELERATION WARNING. STAND BY FOR ONE GRAVITY. ACCELERATION WARNING." A Mediator twittered - something, and the Master responded.
Sally watched them awhile. "I guess you're right. They don't seem in too much trouble, but the Master's still a little twitchy."
A tone sounded. Lenin jolted, and weight returned. They were under command and headed home. Rod and Sally looked at each other and smiled. Home.
"What could you do for the Master anyway?" Rod asked.
She shrugged helplessly. "Nothing, I suppose. They're so different. And-Rod, what would you do if you were Imperial Ambassador to another race and they locked you in a little cabin with not one, but two spy eyes in each compartment?"
"I've been waiting for them to smash the damn things. They saw them, of course. We didn't try to hide them. But if they said anything to Hardy we must have missed it."
"I doubt if they did. They don't act as if they care about them. Privacy ‘is not one of our species' requirements,' Charlie said." Sally shuddered, "That's really different."
A buzzer sounded and Rod automatically turned toward his cabin door before he realized it had come over the intercom. One of the Moties walked carefully across the cabin and opened her door. Hardy came in.
"Everything all right?" he asked warily.
"You might have warned us about that," Jock said,
There was no accusation in the voice; it was a simple statement of fact. "Does the Crazy Eddie Drive affect humans like that?"
"Like what?" Hardy asked i
"Disorientation. Vertigo. Inability to concentrate. Muscles out of control. Nausea. Death wish."
Hardy looked surprised. Probably he was, Rod thought. The Chaplain wouldn't watch the Moties without telling them he was doing it, even though half a dozen pairs of eyes would be staring at the screens every watch. "There is an effect on humans, yes," came Hardy's voice. "Not so violent as you describe. The Drive causes disorientation and a general inability to concentrate, but the effect passes rapidly. We didn't know how it would affect you, but in all our history there have been few cases of irreversible effects, and those were all, uh, psychological."