The Doctor probed at Whitbread’s shoulders. Although she had never had a human to dissect, she knew everything any Motie knew about human physiology, and her hands were perfectly formed to make use of a thousand Cycles of instincts. The fingers moved gently to the pulverized shoulder joints, the eyes noted that there was no spurting blood. Hands touched the spine, that marvelous organ she’d known only through models.
The fragile neck vertebrae had been snapped. “High velocity bullets,” she hummed to the waiting Mediator. “The impact has destroyed the notochord. This creature is dead.”
The Doctor and two Browns worked frantically to build a blood pump to serve the brain. It was futile. The communication between Engineer and Doctor was too slow, the body was too strange, and there was too little equipment in time.
They took the body and Whitbread’s Motie to the space port controlled by their Master. Charlie would be returned to King Peter, now that the war was finished. There were payments to be made, work in cleaning up after the battle, every Master who had been harmed to be satisfied; when next the humans came, there must be unity among Moties.
The Master never knew, nor did her white daughters ever suspect. But among her other daughters, the brown-and-white Mediators who served her, it was whispered that one of their sisters had done that which no Mediator had ever done throughout all the Cycles. As the Warriors hurried toward this strange human, Whitbread’s Motie had touched it, not with the gentle right hands, but with the powerful left.
She was executed for disobedience; and she died alone. Her sisters did not hate her, but they could not bring themselves to speak to one who had killed her own Fyunch(click).
PART FOUR
Crazy Eddie’s Answer
39. Departure
“Boats report no trace of our midshipmen, my Admiral.” Captain Mikhailov’s tone was both apologetic and defensive; few officers wanted to report failure to Kutuzov. The burly Admiral sat impassively in his command chair on Lenin’s bridge. He lifted his glass of tea and sipped, his only acknowledgment a brief grunt.
Kutuzov turned to the others grouped around him at staff posts. Rod Blaine still occupied the Flag Lieutenant’s chair; he was senior to Commander Borman, and Kutuzov was punctilious about such matters.
“Eight scientists,” Kutuzov said. “Eight scientists, five officers, fourteen spacers and Marines. All killed by Moties.”
“Moties!” Dr. Horvath swiveled his command chair toward Kutuzov. “Admiral, nearly all those men were aboard MacArthur when you destroyed her. Some might still have been alive. As for the midshipmen, if they were foolish enough to try to land with lifeboats…” His voice, trailed off as Rod turned dead eyes toward him. “Sorry, Captain. I didn’t mean it that way. Truly, I am sorry. I liked those boys too. But you can’t blame the Moties for what happened! The Moties have tried to help, and they can do so much for us— Admiral, when can we get back to the embassy ship?”
Kutuzov’s explosive sound might have been a laugh. “Hah! Doctor, we are going home as soon as boats are secured. I thought I had made that clear.”
The Science Minister pressed his lips tightly against his wide teeth. “I was hoping that you had regained your sanity.” His voice was a cold, feral snarl. “Admiral, you are ruining the best hopes mankind ever had. The technology we can buy—that they’ll give us!—is orders of magnitude above anything we could expect for centuries. The Moties have gone to enormous expense to make us welcome. If you hadn’t forbidden us to tell them about the escaped miniatures I’m sure they’d have helped. But you had to keep your damned secrets—and because of your stupid xenophobia we lost the survey ship and most of our instruments. Now you antagonize them by going home when they planned more conferences— My God, man, if they were warlike nothing could provoke them as you have!”
“You are finished?” Kutuzov asked contemptuously.
“I’m finished for now. I won’t be finished when we get back.”
Kutuzov touched a button on the arm of his chair. “Captain Mikhailov, please make ready for departure to the Alderson entry point. One and one-half gravities, Captain.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“You are determined to be a damn fool, then,” Horvath protested. “Blaine, can’t you reason with him?”
“I am determined to carry out my orders, Doctor,” Kutuzov said heavily. If Horvath’s threats meant anything to him, he didn’t show it. The Admiral turned to Rod. “Captain, I will welcome your advice. But I will do nothing to compromise safety of this ship, and I cannot allow further personal contact with Moties. Have you suggestions, Captain Lord Blaine?”
Rod had listened to the conversation without interest, his thoughts a confused blur. What could I have done? he asked himself endlessly. There was nothing else to concern him. The Admiral might ask his advice, but that was courtesy. Rod had no command and no duties. His ship was lost, his career finished— Brooding in self-pity wasn’t doing any good, though. “I do think, sir, that we should try to keep the Moties’ friendship. We shouldn’t make the Government’s decisions…”
“You are saying I do that?” Kutuzov demanded.
“No, sir. But it is likely the Empire will want to trade with the Mote. As Dr. Horvath says, they have done nothing hostile.”
“What of your midshipmen?”
Rod swallowed hard. “I don’t know, sir. Possibly Potter or Whitbread weren’t able to control their lifeboats and Staley tried a rescue. It would be like him—”
Kutuzov scowled. “Three lifeboats, Captain. All three reenter, and all three burn.” He examined the displays around him. A boat was being winched into Lenin’s hangar deck, where Marines would flood it with poison gas. No aliens would get loose in his flagship! “What would you like to say to Moties, Doctor?”
“I won’t tell them what I’d like to say, Admiral,” Horvath said pointedly. “I will stay with your story of plague. It’s almost true, isn’t it? A plague of miniatures. But, Admiral, we must leave open the possibility of a returning expedition.”
“They will know you lie to them,” Kutuzov said flatly. “Blaine, what of that? Is better Moties hear explanations they do not believe?”
Damn it, doesn’t he know I don’t want to think about Moties? Or anything else? What good is my advice? Advice from a man who lost his ship— “Admiral, I don’t see what harm it would do to let Minister Horvath speak to the Moties.” Rod emphasized “Minister”; not only was Horvath a ranking Council Minister, but he had powerful connections with the Humanity League, and influence in the Imperial Traders’ Association as well. That combination had nearly as much clout as the Navy. “Somebody ought to talk to them, it doesn’t matter much who. There’s not a man aboard who can lie to his Fyunch(click).”
“Very well. Da. Captain Mikhailov, please have communications call Mote embassy ship. Dr. Horvath will speak to them.”
The screens lit to show a brown-and-white half-smiling face. Rod grimaced, then glanced up quickly to confirm that his own image pickup wasn’t on.
The Motie looked at Horvath. “Fyunch(click).”
“Ah. I was hoping to speak to you. We are leaving now. We must.”
The Motie’s expression didn’t change. “That seemed obvious, but we are very distressed, Anthony. We have much more to discuss, trade agreements, rental of bases in your Empire—”