The Mote in God's Eye - Larry Niven [109]
Moties—Brown-and-whites, guided by one of the Browns—were at work disassembling the air-lock bridge, melting it down, and reshaping the material into ring shaped support platforms for the fragile toroids. Others worked within the ship, and three small brown-and-white shapes played among them. Again the interior changed like dreams. Free-fall furniture was reshaped. Floors were slanted, vertical to the new line of thrust.
There were no Moties aboard the cutter now; they were all at work; but contact was maintained. Some of the midshipmen took their turns doing simple muscle work aboard the embassy ship.
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? Dinna answer if you find the question offensive,” he added.
“‘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 funny, Mr. Whitbread?”
“Sorry. It’s the accent.”
“What accent is that?” Potter wondered.
Whitbread and Whitbread’s Motie burst out laughing. “Well, it is funny,” said Whitbread’s Motie. “You used to have trouble telling us apart.”
“Now it’s the other way around,” Jonathon Whitbread said. “I have to keep counting hands to know if I’m talking to Renner or Renner’s Motie. Give me a hand here, will you, Gavin?... And Captain Blaine’s Motie. I have to keep shaking myself out of the Attention position, and then she’ll say something and I’ll snap right back into it. She’ll give orders like she’s master of the cutter, and we’ll obey, and then she’ll say, 'Just a minute, Mister,' and order us to forgive her. It’s confusing.”
“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, Jonathan 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... Well, 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. Renner, who else? I took it as a compliment—that he would trust my sense of humor, that is.”
“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