The Mote in God's Eye - Larry Niven [50]
Blaine found himself confronting Science Minister Horvath, who said, “Please excuse the interruption, Captain. Do I understand you are not satisfied with our search methods?”
“Dr. Horvath, I have no wish to intrude on your prerogatives. But you’ve taken over all my instruments, and I keep hearing about asteroids. I wonder if we’re all looking for the same thing?”
Horvath’s reply was mild. “This is not a space battle, Captain.” He paused. “In a war operation, you would know your target. You would probably know the ephemeris of the planets in any system of interest—”
“Hell, survey teams find planets.”
“Ever been on one, Captain?”
“No.”
“Well, think about the problem we face. Until we located the gas giant and the Trojan asteroids we weren’t precise about the plane of the system. From the probe’s instruments we have deduced the temperature the Moties find comfortable, and from that we deduce how far from their sun their planet should be—and we still must search out a toroid a hundred and twenty million kilometers in radius. Do you follow me?”
Blaine nodded.
“We’re going to have to search that entire region. We know the planet isn’t hidden behind the sun because we’re above the plane of the system. But when we finish photographing the system we have to examine this enormous star field for the one dot of light we want.”
“Perhaps I was expecting too much.”
“Perhaps. We’re all waiting as fast as we can.” He smiled—a spasm that lifted his whole face for a split second—and vanished.
Six hours after breakout Horvath reported again. There was no sign of Buckman. “No, Captain, we haven’t found the inhabited planet. But Dr. Buckman’s time-wasting observations have identified a Motie civilization. In the Trojan points.”
“They’re inhabited?”
“Definitely. Both Trojan points are seething with microwave frequencies. We should have guessed from the high albedos of the larger bodies. Polished surfaces are a natural product of civilization—I’m afraid Dr. Buckman’s people think too much in terms of a dead universe.”
“Thank you, Doctor. Is any of that message traffic for us?”
“I don’t think so, Captain. But the nearest Trojan point is below us in this system’s plane—about three million kilometers away. I suggest we go there. From the apparent density of civilization in the Trojan points it may be that the inhabited planet is not the real nexus of Motie civilization. Perhaps it is like Earth. Or worse.”
Rod was shocked. He had found Earth herself shocking, not all that many years ago. New Annapolis was kept on Manhome so that Imperial officers would know just how vital was the great task of the Empire.
And if men had not had the Alderson Drive before Earth’s last battles, and the nearest star had been thirty-five light years away instead of four— “That’s a horrible thought.”
“I agree. It’s also only a guess, Captain. But in any event there is a viable civilization nearby, and I think we should go to it.”
“I—just a moment.” Chief Yeoman Lud Shattuck was at the bridge companionway gesturing frantically at Rod’s number-four screen.
“We used the message-sending locator scopes, Skipper,” Shattuck shouted across the bridge. “Look, sir.”
The screen showed black space with pinhole dots of stars and a blue-green point circled by an indicator lightring. As Rod watched, the point blinked, twice.
“We’ve found the inhabited planet,” Rod said with satisfaction. He couldn’t resist. “We beat you to it, Doctor.”
After all the waiting, it was as if everything broke at once.The light was first. There might have been an Earthlike world behind it; there probably was, for it was in the doughnut locus Horvath was searching. But the light hid whatever was behind it, and it wasn’t surprising that the communications people had found it first. Watching for signals was their job.
Cargill and Horvath’s team worked together to answer the pulses. One, two, three, four blinked the light, and Cargill used