"I suppose we think he's crazy." Silence prompted her to continue, "Not all that crazy, though. Our cycles of history, they go up and down but generally up. A spiral. We don't just go round and round. We learn."
"So you use the term without embarrassment. Crazy Eddie point our term, yes, but you don't flinch from it. Crazy Eddie Squadron. Joyce, you've studied the Crazy Eddie Squadron?"
"My views are on record, Eudoxus, and you can't have the records. Navy matters." How the hell had Eudoxus learned that? Was there a hole Chris hadn't plugged? So to speak.
"We are allies. It seems unfair that we cannot know what you have told every casual inhabitant of the Empire."
"Unfair. Yes, it is, but it's still not my decision, Eudoxus. I took an oath."
The Motie said, "Yes, of course. Joyce, nobody loves blockade duty. The Squadron is crumbling, isn't it? The opening of the Sister is not a bad thing for you, but how can your companions expect to create stability here?"
Good question, and Joyce didn't know. The Empire had something, though. Something to do with the Institute, Joyce thought, and the Crazy Eddie Worm. Joyce knew only the name, and even that she must keep secret. Why? But the Mediator was behind her; her view was of Joyce's feet, not her face.
"Mote Prime sent you ambassadors," Eudoxus said. A Keeper and two Mediators. You've had thirty years to study them. We've studied billions of ourselves for millions of years. What can you possibly have learned that we could not?"
"Eudoxus, I am not supposed to talk about this."
"The Imperials have told you very little, haven't they, Joyce? They didn't trust you to keep secrets."
"That's right. So there's not much point in this, is there?"
"Yet you are a public opinion specialist. You are heard throughout the Empire. Joyce, it is clear that your Empire is united as the Moties have never been, but not every family is obedient. Has your Empire the strength to exterminate us? Is this your real plan?"
"No, we don't plan that!"
"Are you so sure? No secret weapons? Ah, but they would not tell you. Joyce, look ahead and up."
The ball of crumpled tinsel was a larger point among the stars. Violet sparks were rising from it. Joyce trained her pickup and spoke for continuity. "Spacecraft are rising to meet us, bringing the human hostages captured by the group our Motie allies call the Crimean Tartars. The humans are Glenda Ruth Fowler Blaine. The Hon. Frederick Townsend. Jennifer Banda of the Blaine Institute. And an engineer crewman, Terry Kakumi... Eudoxus, when can we talk to them? To the people who were in that ship? Did they get any pictures of the war rats? What are war rats?"
"In due time. When your friends arrive. For now-we should show you the motors."
Joyce looked up. The crumpled ball and its sparks were setting, and the violet-white glow of Base Six's motors was coming into view ahead. "Yes," said Joyce. "Please."
Eudoxus spoke into his hand. Mediators ruled all transport, Joyce remembered. And sometimes sat in judgment. The wind that moved them almost died; then the tube branched, and pressure wafted them left.
"We knew that Glenda Ruth Blaine must be daughter to Sally Fowler and Roderick Blaine, and the Honorable Frederick Townsend son to another powerful master, but we don't know of a Blaine Institute
"It's a school, but it does research."
"I thought you called such organizations ‘universities.'"
"Yes, that's right, the Blaine Institute is like a university, deliberately located next to a university, but universities everything. The Blaine Institute has only one purpose. To study Moties."
"Ah. Was this Institute responsible for the blockade?"
"No, that was Imperial policy. Although Lord and Lady Blaine helped set the policy even as they were founding the Institute. And Lady Blaine's uncle. But the blockade was proclaimed before I was born." Instead of an extermination fleet. The Mediator still couldn't see her face: right. "You can't imagine the impact you made on the Empire. Just your existence."
"Do you have children?"
"No. Not yet."
"You will have?"
"Let's leave it at ‘not yet.'"
Neither do I, of course. But I'll see your Motie impact on the Empire and raise you not getting pregnant until you happen to feel like it!"
Jennifer's ears felt scorched.
Eudoxus said, "Never mind. I might guess the Empire's reaction, knowing that we've solved your inbuilt reason for making war and then invented our own."
"How so?"
"Mediators prevent misunderstanding," Eudoxus said. "Moties will fight for territory and power and resources for their descendants, but if there's a way to avoid fighting, the Mediators will find it. You fight because messages are badly worded."
"Oh. And invented your own, yes, of course. If you don't get pregnant, you die. And Mediators don't get pregnant." I should just shut my face and give it a vacation, Joyce thought.
"The Institute, is it considered a success?"
"It gets the best minds in the Empire."
"Yes. But such structures always freeze up, don't they? They get old and can't react anymore, like the Blockade Fleet."
"Oh... generally." But she hadn't heard that about Blaine Institute. "Ossified is the word you want."
"So they study Moties and nothing else, and they have not yet become ossified. Will they study ways to kill Moties?"
"Don't be absurd! You've met Chris Blaine. His parents own the Institute. What do you think?"
"I think he has secrets, some terrible," Eudoxus said.
So do I. Maybe enough of this. But... she can't see my face, so what is she reading?
But I'm a reporter, I'm as good at controlling my face as any politico or poker player. But they put me in a silver balloon and let me get complacent and then snaked me out of it, and who ever taught me to control the muscles in my damn feet?
"Joyce, it's important. What did you tell them?" Renner asked.
"Nothing at all," she said, and laughed. "Look, you don't have to keep asking. I taped it all. Here."
"Thanks. Blaine, let's look at this."
The voices were identicaclass="underline" Joyce Trujillo's voice, recognizable Empire-wide. The only way to tell them apart was through context. This was the alien speaking: "I think he has secrets, some terrible."
"What do you think she meant?" Renner asked.
Chris Blaine frowned. "I don't know. But notice the context, just after Eudoxus asked if the Institute was set up to find ways to kill Moties. If I'm reading Eudoxus right-pity the camera wasn't on her much-"
"How could it have been?"
"I know, Joyce. Now, if I read this right, Eudoxus is convinced that Joyce doesn't believe the Institute is for making Moties extinct, but that hasn't laid all suspicions to rest."
"Anything we can do about that?"
"I'll think on it. I have some general recordings about the Institute, mostly promo stuff, but they might help. We'll give them to Eudoxus."
"Better review them first."
"Sir, I did already. There's nothing about the Empire they won't already know. I was holding off in case I might be wrong, but now..."
"Okay. Sounds reasonable. Anything else?"
"Only the message to Weigle. It should go while East India is still willing and able to deliver it."
"That should do it," Chris Blaine said. He held a message cube. "All the Alderson data we can find including the stuff from Alexandria. The Admiral shouldn't have any trouble finding the new Crazy Eddie point. Now it's your turn, Captain. Remember, heavy on duty. You can't lay that on too thick."
Renner took the cube. "Thanks. I'll be a while, and I have to be alone." He waited until the others had left, then inserted the cube into the recorder and began to dictate.
"And that's the situation as we see it," he concluded. "The Moties are ripe for an alliance. It's dicey, but there may never be a better chance.