The Mote in God's Eye - Larry Niven [69]
“If they launched that fast, it’s almost certainly a warship. We’d like to believe otherwise.”
Buckman was annoyed. “Believe what you like, but you’ll ruin the math, Captain. Either they launched in forty minutes, or . . . well, you could start the Motie vehicle something over two million kilometers this side of Mote Prime; that would give them more time. . . but I don’t believe it.”
“No more do I. I want you to satisfy yourself about this, Dr. Buckman. What could we assume that would give them more time to launch?”
“Let me see... I’m not used to thinking in terms of rocketry, you know. Gravitational accelerations are more my field, if you’ll pardon the pun. Hmmm.” Buckman’s eyes went curiously blank. For a moment he looked like an idiot. “You’d have to assume a period of coasting. And a much higher acceleration in the launching mechanism. Much higher.”
“How long to coast?”
“Several hours for every hour you want to give them make up their minds. Captain, I don’t understand your problem. Why can’t they have launched a scientific survey ship in forty minutes? Why assume a warship? After all, MacArthur is both, and it took you an unreasonably long time to launch. I was ready days early.”
Blaine turned him off. I’ll break his scrawny neck, he told himself. They’ll court-martial me, but I’ll claim justifiable homicide. I’ll subpoena everyone who knew him. They’re bound to let me off. He touched keys. “Number One, what have you got?”
“They launched that ship in forty minutes.”
“Which makes it a warship.”
“So the Admiral thinks, sir. Dr. Horvath wasn’t convinced.”
“Neither am I, but we’ll want to be ready for them. And we’ll want to know more about Moties than Horvath’s people are learning from our passenger. Number One, I want you to take the cutter and get over to that asteroid the Motie came from. There’s no sign of activity there, it should be safe enough—and I want to know just what the Motie was doing there. It might give us a clue.”
18 The Stone Beehive
Horace Bury watched the foot-high Moties playing behind the wire screen. “Do they bite?” he asked.
“They haven’t yet,” Horvath answered. “Not even when the biotechs took blood samples.” Bury puzzled him. Science Minister Horvath considered himself a good judge of people—once he’d left science and gone into politics he’d had to learn fast—but he couldn’t fathom Bury’s thought processes. The Trader’s easy smile was only a public face; behind it, remote and emotionless, he watched the Moties like God judging a dubious creation.
Bury was thinking, My but they’re ugly. What a shame. They’d be useless as house pets, unless— He checked himself and stepped forward to reach through a gap in the netting large enough for an arm but not a Motie.
“Behind the ear,” Horvath suggested.
“Thank you.” Bury wondered if one would come to investigate his hand. The thin one came, and Bury scratched her behind the ear, carefully, for the ear looked fragile and delicate. But she seemed to enjoy it.
They’d make terrible pets, Bury thought, but they’d sell for thousands each. For a while. Before the novelty wore off. Best to hit every planet simultaneously. If they breed in captivity, and if we can keep them fed, and if I sell out before people stop buying— “Allah be—! She took my watch!”
“They love tools. You may have noticed that flashlight we gave them?”
“Never mind that, Horvath. How do I get my watch back? In Allah’s— How did the catch come unfastened?”
“Reach in and take it. Or let me.” Horvath tried. The enclosure was too big, and the Motie didn’t want to give up the watch. Horvath dithered. “I don’t want to disturb them too much.”
“Horvath, that watch is worth eight hundred crowns! It not only tells the time and the date, but—” Bury paused. “Come to that, it’s also shockproof. We advertise that a shock that will stop a Chronos will also kill the owner. She probably can’t hurt it much.”
The Motie was examining the wrist watch in a sober, studious manner. Bury wondered if others