by Larry Niven
"What were you thinking about? You look so serious."
"How I'm going to vote on this if the Senator won't agree."
She nodded soberly. "I thought so-"
"I could lose you over this, couldn't I?"
"I don't know, Rod. I guess it would depend on why you rejected their offer. And what you agreed to ± in its place. But you aren't going to reject it, are you? What's wrong with what they propose?"
Rod stared at the drink in his hand. It was some kind of nonalcoholic cup Kelley had brought; the meeting was too important for Scotch. "Nothing wrong, maybe. It's the maybe, Sally. Look out there." He pointed to New Scotland's streets.
There were few people at this hour. Theater and dinner goers. Sightseers come to view the Palace after dark. Sailors with their girls. Covenanter guardsmen in kilts and bearskins standing rigidly at the sentry box near the driveway entrance. "If we're wrong, their kids are dead."
"If we're wrong, the Navy takes it on the chin," Sally said slowly. "Rod, what if the Moties come out, and in twenty years they've settled a dozen planets. Built ships. Threaten the Empire? The Navy can still handle them-you won't have to, but it could be done."
"Sure about that? I'm not. I'm not sure we could defeat them now. Exterminate them, yeah, but whip them? And twenty years from now? What would the butcher's bill be? New Scotland for sure. It's in their way. What other worlds would go?"
"What have we got for choices?" she asked. "I- Rod, I worry about our kids too. But what can we do? You can't make war on the Moties because they might be a threat someday!"
"No, of course not~ Here's dinner. And I'm sorry I spoiled your happy mood."
They were all laughing before the dinner ended. The Moties put on a show: imitations of New Scotland's most famous tri-v personalities. In minutes they had everyone at the table gasping helplessly.
"How do you do it?" David Hardy asked between fits of laughter.
"We have been studying your humor," Charlie answered. "We subtly exaggerate certain characteristics. The cumulative effect should be amusing if our theory was correct; apparently it was."
Horvath said, "You can make a fortune as entertainers no matter what else you have to trade."
"That, at least, will have little effect on your economy. We will require your aid in scheduling release of our technology, however."
Horvath nodded gravely. "I'm glad you appreciate the problem. If we just dump everything you have on the market, it would make chaos out of the market-"
"Believe me, Doctor, we have no desire to make problems for you. If you see us as an opportunity, think of how we see you! To be free of the Mote system after all these centuries! Out of the bottle! Our gratitude is unbounded."
"Just how old are you?" David Hardy asked.
The Motie shrugged. "We have fragments of records that indicate times a hundred thousand years ago, Dr. Hardy. The asteroids were already in place then. Others may be older, but we can't read them. Our real history starts perhaps ten thousand years ago."
"And you've had collapses of civilization since then?" Hardy asked.
"Certainly. Entrapped in that system? How could it be otherwise?"
"Do you have records of the asteroid war?" Renner asked.
Jock frowned. Her face wasn't suited for it, but the gesture conveyed distaste. "Legends only. We have- They are much like your songs, or epic poems. Linguistic devices to make memorization easier. I do not think they are translatable, but-" The Motie paused for a moment. It was as if she were frozen into the position she'd happened to be in when she decided to think. Then:
"It is cold and the food is gone, the demons rove the land.
Our sisters die and the waters boil, for the demons make the skies fall,"
The alien paused grimly. "I'm afraid that's not very good, but it's all I can do."
"It's good enough," Hardy said. "We have such poetry too. Stories of lost civilizations, disasters in our prehistory. We can trace most of them to a volcanic explosion about forty-five hundred years ago. As a matter of fact, that seems to be when men got the idea that God might intervene in their affairs. Directly, as opposed to creating cycles and seasons and such."
"An interesting theory-but doesn't it upset your religious beliefs?"
"No, why should it? Can't God as easily arrange a natural event to produce a desirable effect as He could upset the laws of nature? In fact, which is the more miraculous, a tidal wave just when it is needed, or a super- ± natural once-only event? But I don't think you have time to discuss theology with me. Senator Fowler seems to have finished his dinner. So if you'll excuse me, I'll be away a few minutes, and I think we'll get started again-"
Ben Fowler took Rod and Sally to a small office behind the conference room. "Well?" he demanded.
"I'm on record," Sally said.
"Yeah. Rod?"
"We've got to do something, Senator. The pressure's getting out of hand."
"Yeah," Ben said. "Damn it, I need a drink. Rod?"
"Thanks, I pass."
"Well, if I can't think straight with a good belt of Scotch in me the Empire's already collapsed." He fumbled through the desk until he found a bottle, sneered at the brand, and poured a stiff drink into a used coffee cup. "One thing puzzles me. Why isn't the ITA making more trouble? I expected them to give us the most pressure, and they're quiet. Thank God for what favors we have." He tossed off half the cup and sighed.
"What harm does it do to agree now?" Sally asked.
"We can change our minds if we find out anything new-"
"Like hell, kitten," Ben said. "Once something specific is in the works, the sharp boys'll think how to make a crown out of it, and after they've got money invested-I thought you learned more about elementary politics than that. What do they teach in the university nowadays? Rod, I'm still waiting for something out of you."
Rod fingered his bent nose. "Ben, we can't stall much longer. The Moties must know that-they may even cut theft offer once they see just how ± much pressure we're under. I say let's do it."
"You do, huh. You'll make your wife happy anyway."
"He's not doing it for me!" Sally insisted. "You stop teasing him."
"Yeah." The Senator scratched his bald spot for a moment. Then he drained his cup and set it down. "Got to check one or two things. Probably be okay. If they are- I guess the Modes have a deal. Let's go in."
Jock gestured rapture and excitement. "They are ready to agree! We are saved!"
Ivan eyed the Mediator coldly. "You will restrain yourself. There is much to do yet."
"I know. But we are saved. Charlie, is it not so?"
Charlie studied the humans. The faces, the postures-."Yes. But the Senator remains unconvinced, and Blaine is afraid, and-Jock, study Renner."
"You are so cold! Can you not rejoice with me? We are saved!"
"Study Renner."
"Yes... I know that look. He wears it playing poker, when his down card is an unexpected one. It does not help us. But he has no power, Charlie! A wanderer with no sense of responsibility!"
"Perhaps. We juggle priceless eggs in variable gravity. I am afraid. I will taste fear until I die."
55 Renner's Hole Card
Senator Fowler sat heavily and looked around the table. The look was enough to still the chatter and get everyone's attention. "I guess we know what we are all after," he said. "Now comes haggling over the price. Let's get the principles set, uh? First and foremost. You agree not to arm your colonies and to let us inspect ‘em to be sure they aren't armed?"
"Yes," Jock said positively. She twittered to the Master. "The Ambassador agrees. Provided that the Empire will, for a price, protect our colonies from your enemies."
"We'll certainly do that. Next. You agree to restrict trade to companies chartered by the Imperium?"
"Yes."
"Well, that's the main points," Fowler announced. "We're ready for the small stuff. Who's first?"
"Can I ask what kind of colony they'll set up?" sa
id Renner.
"Eh? Sure."
"Thank you. Will you be bringing representatives of all your classes?"
"Yes..." Jock hesitated. "All that are relevant to the conditions, Mr. Renner. We'd hardly take Farmers to a nonterraformed rock until the Engineers had built a dome."
"Yeah. Well, I was wondering, because of this." He fumbled with his pocket computer and the screens lit. They showed an oddly distorted New Cal, a brilliant flash, then darkness. "Woops. Wrong place. That was when the probe fired on Captain Blaine's ship."
"Ah?" Jock said. He twittered to the others. They answered. "We had wondered what was the fate of the probe. Frankly, we believed you had destroyed it, and thus we did not wish to ask-"
"You're close," Renner said. More images flashed on the screen. The light sail was rippling. "This is just before they shot at us."
"But the probe would not have fired on you," Jock protested.
"It did. Thought we were a meteor, I guess," Rod answered. "Anyway-"
Black shapes flowed across the screen. The sail rippled, flashed, and they were gone. Renner backed the tape until the silhouettes were stark against the light, then stopped the film.
"I must warn you," Jock said. "We know little about the probe. It is not our specialty, and we had no chance to study the records before we left Mote Prime."
Senator Fowler frowned. "Just what are you getting at, Mr. Renner?"
"Well, sir, I wondered about the images." Renner took a light pointer from a recess in the table. "These are various Motie classes, aren't they?"
Jock seemed hesitant. "They appear to be."
"Sure they are. That's a Brown, right? And a Doctor."
"Right." The light pointer moved. "Runner," Jock said. "And a Master..."
"There's a Watchmaker." Rod almost spat it. He couldn't hide his distaste. "The next one looks like a Farmer. Hard to tell from a Brown but-" His voice went suddenly uneasy. "Renner, I don't recognize that next one."
There was silence. The pointer hovered over a misshapen shadow, longer and leaner than a Brown, with what seemed to be thorns at the knees and heels and elbows.
"We saw them once before," Renner said. His voice was almost automatic now. Like a man walking through a graveyard on a bet. Or the point man advancing Over the hill into enemy territory. Emotionless, determined, rigidly under control. It wasn't like Renner at all.
The screen divided, and another image appeared: the time-machine sculpture from the museum in Castle City. What looked like a junk-art sculpture of electronic parts was surrounded by things bearing weapons.
At his first sight of Ivan, Rod had felt an embarrassingly strong urge to stroke the Ambassador's silky fur. His impulse now was equally strong: he wanted to be in karate stance. The sculpted things showed in far too much detail. They grew daggers at every point, they looked hard as steel and stood like coiled springs, and any one of them would have left a Marine combat instructor looking as if he'd been dropped into a mowing machine. And what was that under the big left arm, like a broad-bladed knife half concealed?
"Ah," said Jock, "a demon. I suppose they must have been dolls representing our species. Like the statuettes, to make it easier for the Mediator to talk about us."
"All of those?" Rod's voice was pure wonder. "A shipload of full-sized mockups?"
"We don't know they were full-sized, do we?" asked Jock.
"Fine. Assume they were mockups," Renner said. He went on relentlessly. "They were still models of living Motie classes. Except this one. Why would that one be in the group? Why bring a demon with the rest?"
There was no answer.
"Thank you, Kevin," Rod said slowly. He didn't dare look at Sally. "Jock, is this or is it not a Motie class?"
"There's more, Captain," Renner said. "Look real close at the Farmer. Now that we know what to look for."
The image wasn't very clear, little more than a fuzzy edged silhouette; but the bulge was unmistakable on the full profile view.
"She's pregnant," Sally exclaimed. "Why didn't I think of that! A pregnant statuette? But- Jock, what does this me an?"
"Yeah," Rod asked coldly.
But it was impossible to get Jock's attention.
"Stop! Say no more!" Ivan commanded.
"What would I say?" Jock wailed. "The idiots took a Warrior! We are finished, finished, when moments ago we had the universe in our hand!" The Motie's powerful left hand closed crushingly on air.
"Silence. Control yourself. Now. Charlie, tell me what you know of the probe. How was it built?"
Charlie gestured contempt interrupted by respect. "It should be obvious. The probe builders knew an alien species inhabited this star. They knew nothing more. Thus they must have assumed the species resembled ours, if not in appearance, then in the essentials."
"Cycles. They must have assumed Cycles," Ivan mused. "We had yet to know that all races are not condemned to the Cycles."
"Precisely," said Charlie. "The hypothetical species had survived. It was intelligent. They would have no more control of their breeding than we, since such control is not a survival characteristic. Thus the probe was launched in the belief that this star's people would be in collapse when the probe arrived."
"So." Ivan thought for a moment. "The Crazy Eddies put pregnant females of every class aboard. Idiots!"
"Give them credit. They did their best," said Charlie. "The probe must have been rigged to dump the passengers into the sun the instant it was hailed by a space-traveling civilization. If the hypothetical aliens were that advanced, they would find, not an attempt to take over their planet with the light sail as a weapon, but a Mediator sent on a peaceful errand." Charlie paused for thought. "An accidentally dead Mediator. The probe would have been set to kill her, so the aliens would learn as little as possible. You are a Master: is this not what you would do?"
"Am I also Crazy Eddie, to launch the probe at all? The strategy did not work. Now we must tell these humans something."
"I say tell them all," Charlie said. "What else can we do? We are caught in our own lies."
"Wait," Ivan commanded. Only seconds had passed, but Jock was normal again. The humans were staring curiously. "We must say something momentous. Hardy knows we are excited. True?"
"Yes," Charlie gestured.
"What discovery could so have excited us?"
"Trust me," Jock said quickly. "We may yet be saved.
Demon worshipers! We told you we have no racial enemies, and this is true; but there is a religious faction, secret, which makes gods of the time demons. They are vicious, and very dangerous. They must have seized the probe before it left the asteroid belt. Secretly, perhaps-"
"Then the passengers and crew were alive?" Rod asked. Charlie shrugged. "I believe so. They must have committed suicide. Who knows why? Possibly they thought we had developed a faster-than-light drive and were waiting for them. What did you do when you approached them?"
"Sent messages in most human languages," Rod answered. "You're sure they were alive?"
"How would we know?" Jock asked. "Do not be concerned about them." The voice was filled with contempt. ~~They were not proper representatives of our race. Their rituals include sacrifice of sentient classes."
"Just how many of these demon worshipers are there?" Hardy asked. "I was never told of them."
"We are not proud of their existence," Jock answered. "Did you tell us of outies? Of the excesses of Sauron System? Are you pleased that we know humans are capable of such things?"
There were embarrassed murmurs.
"Damn," Rod said quietly. "They were alive after all- after all that distance," The thought was bitter.
"You are distressed," Jock said. "We are pleased that you did not speak to them before you met us. Your expedition would have been of quite a different character if you had-"
She stopped, watching curiously. Dr. Sigmund Horowitz had risen from his seat and was bent against the screen, examining the time-machine picture. He fingered the screen controls
to enlarge one of the demon statuettes. The silhouette from the probe faded, leaving half the screen blank, then another picture came on and grew and grew-a sharp-fanged, rat-faced creature squatting on a pile of rubble.
"Aim!" Horowitz shouted in triumph. "I wondered what the ancestry of the rats could be! Degenerate forms of this He turned to the Moties. There was nothing in his manner but curiosity, as if he'd paid no attention to the conversation before. "What do you use this caste for?" he asked. "Soldiers, aren't they? Have to be. What else would they be good for?"
"No. They are only myths."
"Balderdash. Demons with weapons? Father Hardy, can you imagine devils carrying blast rifles?" Horowitz fingered the controls again and the probe silhouette appeared. "Abraham's Beard! That's no statue. Come now, this is a Mode subspecies. Why do you hide it? Fascinating- I've never seen anything so well adapted for . .." Horowitz' voice trailed off.
"A Warrior caste," Ben Fowler said slowly. "I don't wonder that you hid it from us. Dr. Horowitz, would you suppose that-creature—is as prolific as we know the other Moties can be?"
"Why not?'
"But I tell you the demons are legendary," Jock insisted. "The poem. Dr. Hardy, you recall the poem? These are the creatures who made the skies fall."
"I believe that," Hardy said. "I'm not sure I believe they're extinct. You keep their feral descendants in zoos. Anthony, I put a hypothetical question to you: If the Moties have a very prolific caste devoted to warfare; their Masters have pride in independence similar to terran lions; they have had several disastrous wars; and they are hopelessly trapped in a single planetary system: what is the most reasonable projection of their history?"
Horvath shuddered. So did the others. "Like-MacArthur," Horvath answered sadly. "Cooperation among Masters must break down when population pressures become severe enough... if that's really a current caste, David."
"But I tell you again, they ate legendary demons," Jock protested.
"I'm afraid we don't believe everything you tell us," Hardy said. There was deep sadness in his voice. "Not that I ever accepted everything you said. Priests hear a lot of lies. But I always did wonder what you were hiding.