The Mote in God's Eye - Larry Niven [224]
Motie: How not? I don’t mean why not, I mean how?
Sally: Well—you know that men and women have to have sexual relations to make a baby, the same as you—I’ve examined you pretty thoroughly...
“Perhaps not thoroughly enough,” Hardy commented.
“Apparently not,” Sally said. “Shh.”
Motie: Pills? How do they work? Hormones?
Sally: That’s right.
Motie: But a proper woman doesn’t use them.
Sally: No.
Motie: When will you get married?
Sally: When I find the right man... I may have found him already.
Someone was chuckling. Sally looked around, to see Rod looking beatifically unconcerned, Hardy smiling gently, and Renner laughing. She looked curses at the Sailing Master, but he obstinately refused to vanish in black smoke.
Motie: Then why don’t you marry him?
Sally: I don’t want to jump into anything. “Marry in haste, repent at leisure.” I can get married any time. Well, any time within the next five years. I’ll be something of a spinster if I’m not married by then.
Motie: Spinster?
Sally: People would think it odd. What if a Motie doesn’t want children?
Motie: We don’t have sexual relations.
There were various clunks, and the screen went blank
“The literal truth,” she mused. “ ‘We don’t have sexual relations.’ They don’t either, but not by choice.”
“Really?” David Hardy sounded puzzled “The statement in context with the question is highly misleading...”
“She didn’t want to talk about it any more,” Sally insisted. “And no wonder. I just misunderstood, that’s all.”
“I never misunderstood my Motie,” Renner said. “Sometimes she understood me all too well...”
“Look. Let’s drop it.”
“The day we went down to Mote Prime. You’d known each other for months,” Renner mused. “Chaplain, what do you think?”
“If I understand you properly, the same as you.”
“Just what are you hinting at, Mr. Renner? I said let’s drop it.” The Lady Sandra was incensed. Rod steeled himself for what was coming: ice or explosion, or both.
“I’m not hinting it, Sally,” Renner said with sudden decision. “I’m saying it. Your Motie lied to you. Deliberately and with forethought.”
“Nonsense. She was embarrassed—”
Hardy shook his head slightly. It was a tiny motion, but it stopped Sally. She looked at the priest. “I think,” David said, “I can recall only one occasion when a Motie was embarrassed. It was at the Museum. And all of them acted the same way there—nothing like your Fyunch(click) did just now, Sally. I’m afraid it’s very probable that Kevin is right.”
“And for what reason?” Sally insisted. “Just why would my—almost my sister—why would she lie to me? About that?”
There was silence. Sally nodded in satisfaction. She couldn’t snap at Chaplain Hardy; not that she had that much respect for his office, but for him. Renner was another matter. “You will tell me if you find an answer to that question, Mr. Renner.”
“Yah. Sure.” Renner’s expression made him look oddly like Buckman: Bury would have recognized it at once. He had barely heard her.
They left the glittering ballroom as soon as they could. Behind them a costumed orchestra played waltzes, while the Moties were introduced to a seemingly endless line. There were provincial barons, Parliament leaders, traders, people with friends in the protocol office, and assorted party crashers. Everyone wanted to see the Moties.
Rod took Sally’s hand as they walked through deserted Palace corridors toward their quarters. An ancient waltz faded hollowly behind them.
“They’ve so little time to live, and we’re wasting it with—that,” Sally muttered. “Rod, it’s not fair!”
“Part of their mission, sweetheart. What good would it do them to agree with us if we can’t hold the baronage? Even with the Throne behind us we’re safer playing the political game. And so are they.”
“I suppose.” She stopped him and leaned against his shoulder. The Hooded Man was fully risen, black against the stars, watching them through the stone arches. A fountain splashed in the courtyard below. They stood that way in the deserted corridor for a long time.
“I do love you,” she whispered. “How can