The Mote In God's Eye

Whitbread and Potter were working in the acceleration chamber, moving the bunks to leave room for three smaller bunks. It was a simple rewelding job, but it took muscle. Perspiration collected in beads inside their filter helmets, and soaked their armpits.

Potter said, "I wonder what a man smells like to a Motie? Di

"'Tis a bit hard to say," Potter's Motie answered. "My duty it is, Mr. Potter, to understand everything about my Fyunch(click). Perhaps I fit the part too well. The smell of clean sweat wouldna offend me even if ye had nae been working in our own interest. What is it ye find fu

"Sorry. It's the accent."

"What accent is that?" Potter wondered.

Whitbread and Whitbread's Motie burst out laughing. "Well, it is fu

"Now it's the other way around," Jonathon Whitbread said. "I have to keep counting hands to know if I'm talking to Re

"Even so," said Whitbread's Motie, "I wonder sometimes whether we've really got you figured out. Just because I can imitate you doesn't mean I can understand you..."

"'Tis our standard technique, as old as the hills, as old as some mountain ranges. It works. What else can we do?" asked Jonathon Whitbread's Fyunch(click).

"I wondered, that's all. These people are so versatile. We can't match all of your abilities, Whitbread. You find it easy to command and easy to obey; how can you do both? You're good with tools-"

"So are you," said Whitbread, knowing it was an understatement.

"But we tire easily. You're ready to go on working, aren't you? We're not."

"And we aren't good at fighting...ell, enough of that. We play your part in order to understand you, but you each seem to play a thousand parts. It makes things difficult for an honest, hardworking bug-eyed monster."

"Who told you about bug-eyed monsters?" Whitbread exclaimed.

"Mr. Re

"Dr. Horvath would kill him. We're supposed to be tippy-toe careful in our relationship with aliens. Don't offend taboos, and all that."

"Dr. Horvath," Potter said. "I am reminded that Dr. Horvath wanted us to ask you something. Ye' know that we have a Brown aboard MacArthur."

"Sure. A miner. Her ship visited MacArthur, then came home empty. It was pretty obvious she'd stayed with you."

"She's sick," Potter said. "She has been growing worse. Dr. Blevins says it has the marks of a dietary disease, but he has nae been able to help her. Hae you any idea what it is that she might lack?"

Whitbread thought he knew why Horvath had not asked his Motie about the Brown; if the Moties demanded to see the miner, they must be refused on orders from the Admiral himself. Dr. Horvath thought the order was stupid; he would never be able to defend it. Whitbread and Potter were not called upon to try. Orders were orders.

When the Moties did not answer at once, Jonathon said, "Between them the biologists have tried a lot of things. New foods, analysis of the Brown's digestive fluids, x-rays for tumor. They even changed the atmosphere in her cabin to match the Mote Prime atmosphere. Nothing works. She's unhappy, she whines, she doesn't move around much. She's getting thin. Her hair is coming out.

Whitbread's Motie spoke in a voice gone oddly flat. "You haven't any idea what might be wrong with her?"

"No," said Whitbread.

It was strange and uncomfortable, the way the Moties were looking at them. They seemed identical now, floating half-crouched, anchored by hand holds: identical pose, identical markings, identical faint smiles. Their individual identities didn't show now. Perhaps it was all a pose- "We'll get you some food," Potter's Motie said suddenly. "You may hae guessed right. It may be her diet."

Both Moties left. Presently Whitbread's Motie returned with a pressure bag that contained grain and plum-sized fruits and a chunk of red meat. "Boil the meat, soak the grain, and give her the fruit raw," she said. "And test the ionization in her cabin air." She ushered them out.

The boys boarded an open scooter to return to the cutter. Presently Potter said, "They behaved verra strangely. I ca

"Yah."

"Then what was it?"

"Maybe they think we've been mistreating the Brown. Maybe they wonder why we won't bring her here. Maybe the other way around: they're shocked that we take so much trouble for a mere Brown."

"And perhaps they were tired and we imagined it." Potter fired thruster clusters to slow the scooter.

"Gavin. Look behind us."

"Not now. I must see to the safety o' my command." Potter took his time docking the scooter, then looked around.

More than a dozen Moties had been working outside the ship. The bracing for the toroids was conspicuously unfinished....ut the Moties were all streaming into the airlock..

The Mediators came streaming into the toroid, bouncing gently from the walls in their haste to get out of each other's way. Most of them showed in one way or another that they were Fyunch(click) to aliens. They tended to underuse their lower right arms. They wanted to line themselves with their heads pointing all in the same direction.

The Master was white. The tufts at her armpits and groin were long and silky, like the fur of an Angora cat. When they were all there, the Master turned to Whitbread's Motie and said, "Speak."

Whitbread's Motie told of the incident with the midshipmen. "I'm certain they meant it all," she concluded.

To Potter's Motie the Master said, "Do you agree?"

"Yes, completely."

There was a panicky undercurrent of whispers, some Motie tongues, some in Anglic. It cut off when the Master said, "What did you tell them?"

"We told them the disease might well be a diet deficiency-"

There was shocked human-sounding laughter among the Mediators, none at all among the few who had not been assigned Fyunch(click)s.

"-and gave them food for the Engineer. It will not help, of course."

"Were they fooled?"

"Difficult to tell. We are not good at lying directly. It is not our specialty," said Potter's Motie.

A buzz of talk rose in the toroid. The Master allots it for a time. Presently she spoke. "What can it mean? Speak of this."

One answered. "They ca

Another interrupted. There was something gracefully human-feminine, in the way she moved. It seemed grotesque to the Master. "We think we know what causes humans to fight. Most animals on our world and the have a surrender reflex that prevents one member of a species from killing another. Humans use weapons instinctively. It makes the surrender reflex too slow."

"But it was the same with us, once," said a third. "Evolution of the Mediator mules put an end to that. Do you say that humans do not have Mediators?"

Sally Fowler's Motie said, "They have nothing that bred for the task of communicating and negotiating between potential enemies. They are amateurs at everything, second-best at everything they do. Amateurs do their negotiating. When negotiations break down, they fight.

"They are amateurs at playing Master, too," one said. Nervously she stroked the center of her face. "They take turns at playing Master. In their warships they station Marines between fore and aft, in case the aft section should wish to become masters of the ship. Yet, when Lenin speaks, Captain Blaine obeys like a Brown. It is," she said, "difficult to be Fyunch(click) to a part-time Master."