The Mote in God's Eye - Larry Niven [174]
“Staley! I’m tired of the goddamn jokes!”
Horst took the helmet off. “It isn’t the Captain,” he said. “It’s a Motie with the Captain’s voice. One of yours?” he asked Whitbread’s Motie.
“Probably. It was a stupid trick. Your Fyunch(click) would have known better. Which means she’s not cooperating with my Master too well.”
“There’s no way to defend this place,” Staley said. He looked around the entryway. It was about ten meters by thirty, and there was no furniture at all. The hangings and pictures which adorned the walls were gone. “Upstairs,” Horst said. “We’ve got a better chance there.” He led them back up to the living quarters floor, and they took positions at the end of the hall where they could cover the stairwell and elevator.
“Now what?” Whitbread asked.
“Now we wait,” both Moties said in unison. A long hour passed.
The traffic sounds died away. It took them a minute to notice, then it was obvious. Nothing moved outside.
“I’ll have a look,” Staley said. He went to a room and peered carefully out the window, standing well inside so that he wouldn’t expose himself.
Demons moved on the street below. They came forward in a twisting, flickering quick run, then suddenly raised their weapons and fired down the street. Horst turned and saw another group melting for cover; they left a third of their number dead. Battle sounds filtered through the thick windows.
“What is it, Horst?” Whitbread called. “It sounds like shots.”
“It is shots. Two groups of Warriors in a battle. Over us?”
“Certainly,” Whitbread’s Motie answered. “You know what this means, don’t you?” She sounded very resigned.
When there was no answer she said, “It means the humans won’t be coming back. They’re gone.”
Staley cried, “I don’t believe it! The Admiral wouldn’t leave us! He’d take on the whole damn planet—”
“No, he wouldn’t, Horst,” Whitbread said. “You know his orders.”
Horst shook his head, but he knew Whitbread was right. He called, “Whitbread’s Motie! Come here and tell me which side is which.”
“No.”
Horst looked around. “What do you mean, no? I need to know who to shoot at!”
“I don’t want to get shot.”
Whitbread’s Motie was a coward! “I haven’t been shot, have I? Just don’t expose yourself.”
Whitbread’s voice said, “Horst, if you’ve exposed an eye, any Warrior could have shot it out. Nobody wants you dead now. They haven’t used artillery, have they? But they’d shoot me.”
“All right. Charlie! Come here and—”
“I will not.”
Horst didn’t even curse. Not cowards, but Brown-and-whites. Would his own Motie have come?
The demons had all found cover: cars parked or abandoned, doorways, the fluting along the sides of one building. They moved from cover to cover with the flickering speed of houseflies. Yet every time a Warrior fired, a Warrior died. There had not been all that much gunfire, yet two thirds of the Warriors in sight were dead. Whitbread’s Motie had been right about their marksmanship. It was inhumanly accurate.
Almost below Horst’s window, a dead Warrior lay with its right arms blown away. A live one waited for a lull, suddenly broke for closer cover—and the fallen one came to life. Then it happened too fast to follow: the gun flying, the two Warriors colliding like a pair of buzz saws, then flying away, broken dolls still kicking and spraying blood.
Something crashed below. There were sounds in the stairwell. Hooves clicked on marble steps. The Moties twittered. Charlie whistled, loudly, and again. There was an answering call from below, then a voice spoke in David Hardy’s perfect Anglic.
“You will not be mistreated. Surrender at once.”
“We’ve lost,” Charlie said.
“My Master’s troops. What will you do, Horst?”
For answer Staley crouched in a corner with the x-ray rifle aimed at the stairwell. He waved frantically at the other midshipmen to take cover.
A brown-and-white Motie turned the corner and stood in the hallway. It had Chaplain Hardy’s voice, but none of his mannerisms. Only the perfect Anglic, and the resonant tones. The Mediator was