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"Why?" Horvath demanded. "I know you don't have to check with Sparta."
"All right. It takes me time to make up my mind, then," Fowler said irritably. "Look: I'll see what I can do for you next Birthday. You had a gong coming even before the Mote expedition. But, damn- it, Doctor, I'm not sure you're temperamentally suited for a seat on-" He broke off as heads turned toward them. "We'll finish this later."
"All right." Horvath looked around the room and went to a seat directly across from Ben's. There was a quick reshuffle as the Science Minister arranged his staff on his side of the table.
Others came in-Kevin Re
Rod frowned as he took his seat, then smiled as Sally entered hastily. "Sorry I'm late," she panted. "There was-"
"We haven't started yet," Rod told her. He indicated a place next to his.
"What's all this about?" she asked quietly. There was something in Rod's ma
"You'll see. The Senator's about to start." And I hope it'll be all right, sweetheart, but I doubt it. What happens to us after this? Rod turned grimly to the conference. I wonder what my Fyunch(click) is doing now? It'd be nice to send a representative to this and- "Let's get moving," Senator Fowler said brusquely.
"This meeting of the Lords Commissioners Extraordinary representing His Imperial Majesty to the inhabitants of the Mote System is convened. Please write your names and the organizations you represent." There was a second of silence broken by the soft hums of the computer links.
"We've got a lot to cover," the Senator continued. "Last night it became obvious that the Modes lie to us about certain critical matters-"
"No more than we've done to them," Dr. Horvath interrupted. Blast! I have to control myself better than that. The point must be made, but if the Senator gets really irritated-
"It's what they lie about that concerns us, Doctor," Fowler said smoothly. He paused a moment, and power seemed to gather around him. The dumpy old man in baggy clothing vanished. The Prime Minister spoke. "Look, all of you, I like things informal. If you've got something to say, spit it out. But let me finish my sentences first" There was a thin smile, wintry cold. "Anybody else you can interrupt, if you're big enough. Now, Dr. Horvath, just what are the Moties hiding from us?"
Anthony Horvath ran his slim fingers through thi
"It was a bit of a surprise to all of us," Fowler said. "But we've got evidence that Moties breed at a godawful rate. The question is, could we make them keep their numbers down if they don't want to? Rod, could the Modes have been hiding weapons from us?"
Rod shrugged. "In a whole system? Be; they could hide damn near anything they wanted to."
"But they are utterly unwarlike," Horvath protested. "Senator, I am as concerned for the safety of the Empire as anyone in this room. I take my duties as a Sector Minister quite seriously, I assure you."
You're not assurin' us, you're talkin' for the record, Kelley thought. Cap'n Blaine knows it, too. What's botherin' the boss? He looks like he does before an action.
"-no evidence of warlike activities among the Modes," Horvath finished.
"That turns out not to be the case," Re
"Oh, well, yes," Horvath said easily. "In their prehistory they must have fought like lions. The analogy is quite apt, by the way. The territorial instinct shows up still in their architecture and in their social organization, for example. But the combats were a long time ago."
"Just how long?" Senator Fowler asked.
Horvatli looked uncomfortable. "Possibly a million years."
There was silence. Sally shook her head sadly. Cooped up in one tiny system for a million years-a million civilized years! The patience they must have learned!
"No wars in all the time since?" Fowler asked. "Really?"
"Yes, damn it, they've had wars," Horvath answered. "At least two of the kind that Earth went through at the close of the CoDominium period. But that was a long time ago!" He had to raise his voice to carry across Sally's startled gasp. There were mutters around the table.
"One of those was enough to make Earth damn near uninhabitable," Ben Fowler said slowly. "How long ago are you talking about? Million years again?"
Horvath said, "Hundreds of thousands, at least."
"Thousands, probably," Chaplain Hardy said carefully. "Or less. Sally, have you revised your estimates of the age of that primitive civilization you dug up?"
Sally didn't answer either. There was an uncomfortable silence.
"For the record, Father Hardy," Senator Fowler asked, "are you here as Commission staff?"
"No, sir. Cardinal Randolph has asked me to represent the Church to the Commission."
"Thank you."
There was more silence.
"They had nowhere to go," Anthony Horvath said. He shrugged nervously. Someone giggled, then fell silent when Horvath continued, "It's obvious that their first wars were a very long time ago, in the million-year range. It shows in their development. Dr. Horowitz has examined the expedition biological findings and-well, you tell them, Sigmund."
Horowitz smiled in triumph. "When I first examined the probe pilot I thought it might be a mutation. I was right. They are mutations, only it all happened a long time ago. The original animal life on Mote Prime is bilaterally symmetric, as on Earth and nearly everywhere. The first asymmetric Motie must have been a drastic mutation. Couldn't have been as well developed as the present forms, either. Why didn't it die out? Because there were deliberate efforts to obtain the asymmetric form, I think. And because everything else was mutating also. The competition for survival was low."
"But that means they had civilization when the present forms developed," Sally said. "Is that possible?"
Horowitz smiled again.
"What about the Eye?" Sally asked. "It must have irradiated the Mote system when it went supergiant."
"Too long ago," Horvath said. "We checked. After all, we've got the equivalent of five hundred years' observation of the Eye in data from our explorer ships, and it checks with the information the Moties gave Midshipman Potter. The Eye's been a supergiant for six million years or more, and the Moties haven't had their present form anything like that long."
"Oh," said Sally. "But then what caused the-"
"Wars," Horowitz a
Sally nodded reluctantly. "All right-they had atomic wars. So did we. If the CoDominium hadn't developed the Alderson Drive we'd have exterminated ourselves on Earth." She didn't like the answer, though. It was hard to accept. "Couldn't there have been another dominant species that killed itself off, and the Moties developed later?"
"No," Horvath said carefully. "Your own work, Lady Sally: you've shown just how well adapted the Motie form is to using tools. The mutation must have been a tool user to begin with-or was controlled by tool users. Or both."
"That's one war," Senator Fowler said. "The one that created the Moties as we see ‘em. You said two."
Horvath nodded sadly. "Yes, sir. The presently evolved Modes must have fought with atomic weapons. Later there was another period of radiation that split the species into all those castes-both the civilized forms and the animals. Plus intermediates like Watchmakers." Horvath looked apologetically at Blaine, but there was no sign of emotion.