The Mote in God's Eye - Larry Niven [257]
Charlie’s knees were against her belly, right arms pulled tight against her chest, left arm protecting her head. An infant about to be born into a cruel world. Her voice was muffled. “If you had better ideas, you should have raised them.”
“No. There are no better ideas.”
“We bought time. Hundreds of years of time. Sally and her silly Institute will have hundreds of years to study the problem we raise for humans. Who knows, perhaps the horse will learn to sing hymns.”
“Would you bet on it?”
Charlie looked out of the curve of her arm. “At these odds? Curse, yes!”
“Crazy Eddie!”
“Yes. A Crazy Eddie solution. What else is there? One way or another, the Cycles end now. Crazy Eddie has won his eternal war against the Cycles.”
Jock looked to Ivan and met a shrug. Charlie had gone Crazy Eddie. It hardly mattered now; it was, in fact, a fine and enviable madness, this delusion that all questions have answers, and nothing is beyond the reach of a strong left arm.
They would never know. They would not live that long. But they had bought time; the Blaines knew what they must find, and their children would grow up to know Moties as more than a legend. Two generations of power would not hate Moties.
If anyone could teach a horse to sing hymns, it would be a trained Mediator.
Table of Contents
THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE
Chronology
Prologue
PART ONE: The Crazy Eddie Probe
1 Command
2 The Passengers
3 Dinner Party
4 Priority OC
5 The Face of God
6 The Light Sail
7 The Crazy Eddie Probe
8 The Alien
9 His Highness Has Decided
10 The Planet Killer
11 The Church of Him
12 Descent into Hell
PART TWO: The Crazy Eddie Point
13 Look Around You
14 The Engineer
15 Work
16 Idiot Savant
17 Mr. Crawford’s Eviction
18 The Stone Beehive
19 Channel Two’s Popularity
20 Night Watch
21 The Ambassadors
22 Word Games
23 Eliza Crossing the Ice
24 Brownies
25 The Captain’s Motie
PART THREE: Meet Crazy Eddie
26 Mote Prime
27 The Guided Tour
28 Kaffee Klatsch
29 Watchmakers
30 Nightmare
31 Defeat
32 Lenin
33 Planetfall
34 Trespassers
35 Run Rabbit Run
36 Judgment
37 History Lesson
38 Final Solution
PART FOUR: Crazy Eddie's Answer
39 Departure
40 Farewell
41 Gift Ship
42 A Bag of Broken Glass
43 Trader’s Lament
44 Council of War
45 The Crazy Eddie Jump
46 Personal and Urgent
47 Homeward Bound
48 Civilian
49 Parades
50 The Art of Negotiation
51 After The Ball Is Over
52 Options
53 The Djinn
54 Out of the Bottle
55 Renner’s Hole Card
56 Last Hope
57 All The Skills of Treason
58 And Maybe The Horse Will Sing
Epilogue