The Mote in God's Eye - Larry Niven [8]
“Man, you wouldna’ hae troubles if you did nae fash yoursel’ wi...”
“Will you stop that? You talk like everybody else when you get excited!”
“That’s a damn lie!”
But at that point Rod thought it better to step into view. He sent the Chief Engineer to his end of the ship and Cargill forward. There would be no settling their dispute until MacArthur could be thoroughly refitted in New Scotland’s Yards.
Blaine spent a night in sickbay under orders from the surgeon lieutenant. He came out with his arm immobile in a tremendous padded cast like a pillow grafted on him. He felt mean and preternaturally alert for the next few days; but nobody actually laughed out loud in his hearing.
On the third day after taking command Blaine held ship’s inspection. All work was stopped and the ship given spin. Then Blaine and Cargill went over her.
Rod was tempted to take advantage of his recent experience as MacArthur’s Exec. He knew all the places where a lazy executive officer might skimp on the work. But it was his first inspection, the ship only just under repair from battle damage, and Cargill was too good an officer to let something pass that he could possibly have corrected. Blaine took a leisurely tour, checking the important gear but otherwise letting Cargill guide him. As he did, he mentally resolved not to let this be a precedent. When there was more time, he’d go over the ship and find out everything.
A full company of Marines guarded the New Chicago spaceport. Since the city’s Langston Field generator had fallen there had been no resurgence of hostilities. Indeed, most of the populace seemed to welcome the Imperial forces with an exhausted relief more convincing than parades and cheering. But the New Chicago revolt had reached the Empire as a stunning surprise; resurgence would be no surprise at all.
So Marines patrolled the spaceport and guarded the Imperial boats, and Sally Fowler felt their eyes as she walked with her servants through hot sunlight toward a boat-shaped lifting body. They didn’t bother her. She was Senator Fowler’s niece; she was used to being stared at.
Lovely, one of the guards was thinking. But no expression. You’d think she’d be happy to be out of that stinking prison camp, but she doesn’t look it. Perspiration dripped steadily down his ribs, and he thought, She doesn’t sweat. She was carved from ice by the finest sculptor that ever lived.
The boat was big, and two-thirds empty. Sally’s eyes took in two small dark men—Bury and his servant, and no doubt about which was which—and four younger men showing fear, anticipation, and awe. The mark of New Chicago’s outback was on them. New recruits, she guessed.
She took one of the last seats at the back. She was not in a conversational mood. Adam and Annie looked at her with worried expressions, then took seats across the aisle. They knew.
“It’s good to be leaving,” said Annie.
Sally didn’t respond. She felt nothing at all.
She’d been like this ever since the Marines had burst into the prison camp. There had been good food, and a hot bath, and clean clothes, and the deference of those about her . . . and none of it had reached her. She’d felt nothing. Those months in the prison camp had burned something out of her. Perhaps permanently, she thought. It bothered her remotely.
When Sally Fowler left the Imperial University at Sparta with her master’s degree in anthropology she had persuaded her uncle that instead of graduate school she should travel through the Empire, observe newly conquered provinces, and study primitive cultures first hand. She would even write a book.
“After all,” she had insisted, “what can I learn here? It’s out there beyond the Coal Sack that I’m needed.”
She had a mental image of her triumphant return, publications and scholarly articles, winning a place for herself in her profession rather than passively waiting to be married off to some young aristocrat. Sally fully intended to marry, but not until she could start with more than her inheritances. She wanted