The Mote in God's Eye - Larry Niven [230]
Horvath said, “Hundreds of thousands, at least.”
“Thousands, probably,” Chaplain Hardy said carefully. “Or less. Sally, have you revised your estimates of the age of that primitive civilization you dug up?”
Sally didn’t answer either. There was an uncomfortable silence.
“For the record, Father Hardy,” Senator Fowler asked, “are you here as Commission staff?”
“No, sir. Cardinal Randolph has asked me to represent the Church to the Commission.”
“Thank you.”
There was more silence.
“They had nowhere to go,” Anthony Horvath said. He shrugged nervously. Someone giggled, then fell silent when Horvath continued. “It’s obvious that their first wars were a very long time ago, in the million-year range. It shows in their development. Dr. Horowitz has examined the expedition biological findings and—well, you tell them, Sigmund.”
Horowitz smiled in triumph. “When I first examined the probe pilot I thought it might be a mutation. I was right. They are mutations, only it all happened a long time ago. The original animal life on Mote Prime is bilaterally symmetric, as on Earth and nearly everywhere. The first asymmetric Motie must have been a drastic mutation. Couldn’t have been as well developed as the present forms, either. Why didn’t it die out? Because there were deliberate efforts to obtain the asymmetric form, I think. And because everything else was mutating also. The competition for survival was low.”
“But that means they had civilization when the present forms developed,” Sally said. “Is that possible?”
Horowitz smiled again.
“What about the Eye?” Sally asked. “It must have irradiated the Mote system when it went supergiant.”
“Too long ago,” Horvath said. “We checked. After all, we’ve got the equivalent of five hundred years’ observation of the Eye in data from our explorer ships, and it checks with the information the Moties gave Midshipman Potter. The Eye’s been a supergiant for six million years or more, and the Moties haven’t had their present form anything like that long.”
“Oh,” said Sally. “But then what caused the—”
“Wars,” Horowitz announced. “General increase in radiation levels, planet-wide. Coupled with deliberate genetic selection.”
Sally nodded reluctantly. “All right—they had atomic wars. So did we. If the CoDominium hadn’t developed the Alderson Drive we’d have exterminated ourselves on Earth.” She didn’t like the answer, though. It was hard to accept. “Couldn’t there have been another dominant species that killed itself off, and the Moties developed later?”
“No,” Horvath said carefully. “Your own work, Lady Sally: you’ve shown just how well adapted the Motie form is to using tools. The mutation must have been a tool user to begin with—or was controlled by tool users. Or both.”
“That’s one war,” Senator Fowler said. “The one that created the Moties as we see ‘em. You said two.”
Horvath nodded sadly. “Yes, sir. The presently evolved Moties must have fought with atomic weapons. Later there was another period of radiation that split the species into all those castes—both the civilized forms and the animals. Plus intermediates like Watchmakers.” Horvath looked apologetically at Blaine, but there was no sign of emotion.
Sigmund Horowitz cleared his throat. He was clearly enjoying this. “I believe the Browns were the original form. When the Whites became dominant they bred the other subspecies to their own uses. Controlled evolution again, you see. But some forms evolved by themselves.”
“Then the asymmetric animals are not ancestors to Moties?” Senator Fowler asked curiously.
“No.” Horowitz rubbed his hands together and fingered his pocket computer in anticipation. “They are degenerate forms—I can show you the gene mechanisms.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Senator Fowler said hastily. “So we have two wars. Presumably the Mediators could have been bred in the second one—”
“Better make it three wars,” Renner put in. “Even if we assume they ran out of radioactives in the second one.”
“Why?” Sally demanded.
“You saw the planet.