The Mote in God's Eye (43 page)

“Corporal Hasner here, sir,” a voice answered promptly. “Be careful back there, that area’s full of miniatures.”

“Not now,” Staley answered. “What’s your status in there?”

“Nine civilians without no suits in here, sir. Three Marines left alive. We don’t know how to get them scientist people out without suits.”

“We’ve got suits,” Staley said grimly. “Can you protect the civilians until we can get through this door? We’re in vacuum.”

“Lord, yes, sir. Wait a minute.” Something whirred. Instruments showed the pressure falling beyond the bulkhead companionway. Then the dogs turned. The door opened to reveal an armored figure inside the petty officers’ mess room. Behind Hasner two other Marines trained weapons on Staley as he entered. Behind them—Staley gasped.

The civilians were at the other end of the compartment. They wore the usual white coveralls of the scientific staff. Staley recognized Dr. Blevins, the veterinarian. The civilians were chattering among themselves— “But there’s no air in here!” Staley yelled.

“Not here, sir,” Hasner said. He pointed. “Some kind of box thing there, makes like a curtain, Mr. Staley. Air can’t get through it but we can.”

Kelley growled and moved his squad into the mess room. The suits were flung to the civilians.

Staley shook his head in wonder. “Kelley. Take charge here. Get everybody forward—and take that box with you if it’ll move!”

“It moves,” Blevins said. He was speaking into the microphone of the helmet Kelley had passed him, but he wasn’t wearing the helmet. “It can be turned on and off, too. Corporal Hasner killed some miniatures who were doing things to it.”

“Fine. We’ll take it,” Staley snapped. “Get ‘em moving, Kelley.”

“Sir!” The Marine Gunner stepped gingerly through the invisible barrier. He had to push. “Like—maybe kind of like the Field, Mr. Staley. Only not so thick.”

Staley growled deep in his throat and motioned to the other midshipmen. “Coffeepot,” he said. He sounded as if he didn’t believe it. “Lafferty. Kruppman. Janowitz. You’ll come with us.” He went back through the companionway to the ruins beyond.

There was a double-door airtight companionway at the other end, and Staley motioned Whitbread to open it. The dogs turned easily, and they crowded into the small air lock to peer through the thick glass into the main starboard connecting corridor.

“Looks normal enough,” Whitbread whispered.

It seemed to be. They went through the air lock in two cycles and pulled themselves along the corridor walls by hand holds to the entryway into the main crew mess room.

Staley looked through the thick glass into the mess compartment. “God’s teeth!”

“What is it, Horst?” Whitbread asked. He crowded his helmet against Staley’s.

There were dozens of miniatures in the compartment. Most were armed with laser weapons—and they were firing at each other. There was no order to the battle. It seemed that every miniature was fighting every other, although that might have been only a first impression. The compartment drifted with a pinkish fog: Motie blood. Dead and wounded Moties flopped in an insane dance as the room winked with green-blue pencils of light.

“Not in there,” Staley whispered. He remembered he was speaking through his suit radio and raised his voice. “We’d never get through that alive. Forget the coffeepot.” They moved on through the corridor and searched for other human survivors.

There were none, Staley led them back toward the crew messroom. “Kruppman,” he barked. “Take Janowitz and get this corridor into vacuum. Burn out bulkheads, use grenades—anything, but get it into vacuum. Then get the hell off this ship.”

“Aye aye, sir.” When the Marines rounded a turn in the steel corridor the midshipmen lost contact with them. The suit radios were line-of-sight only. They could still hear, though.
MacArthur
was alive with sound. High-pitched screams, the sounds of tearing metal, hums and buzzes—none of it was familiar.

“She’s not ours any more,” Potter murmured.

There was a
whoosh
. The corridor was in vacuum. Staley tossed a thermite grenade against the mess-room bulkhead and stepped back around a turn. Light flared briefly, and Staley charged back to fire his hand laser at the still-glowing spot on the bulkhead. The others fired with him.

The wall began to bulge, then broke through. Air whistled into the corridor, with a cloud of dead Moties. Staley turned the dogs on the companionway but nothing happened. Grimly they burned at the bulkhead until the hole was large enough to crawl into.

There was no sign of live miniatures. “Why can’t we do that all over the ship?” Whitbread demanded. “We could get back in control of her...”

“Maybe,” Staley answered. “Lafferty. Get the coffee maker and take it port side. Move, we’ll cover you.”

The plainsman waved and dove down the corridor in the direction the Marines had vanished. “Had we nae best be goin’wi’ him?” Potter asked.

“Torpedo,” Staley barked. “We’ve got to detonate the torpedo.”

“But, Horst,” Whitbread protested. “Can’t we get control of the ship? I haven’t seen any miniatures with vacuum suits.”

“They can build those magic pressure curtains,” Staley reminded him. “Besides, we’ve got our orders.” He pointed aft, and they moved ahead of him. Now that
MacArthur
was clear of humans they hurried, burning through airtight compartments and grenading the corridors beyond. Potter and Whitbread shuddered at the damage they were doing to the ship. Their weapons were not meant to be used aboard a working spacecraft.

The torpedoes were in place: Staley and Whitbread had been part of the work crew that welded them on either side of the Field generator. Only—the generator was gone. A hollow shell remained where it had been.

Potter was reaching for the timers that would trigger the torpedo. “Wait,” Staley ordered. He found a direct wire intercom outlet and plugged his suit in. “Anyone, this is Midshipman Horst Staley in the Field generator compartment. Anyone there?”

“Aye aye, Mr. Staley,” a voice answered. “A moment, sir, here’s the Captain.” Captain Blaine came on the line.

Staley explained the situation. “The Field generator’s gone, sir, but the Field seems strong as ever...”

There was a long pause. Then Blaine swore viciously, but cut himself off. “You’re overtime, Mr. Staley. We’ve orders to close the holes in the Field and get aboard
Lenin
’s boats in five minutes. You’ll never get out before
Lenin
opens fire.”

“No, sir. What should we do?”

Blaine hesitated a moment. “I’ll have to buck that one up to the Admiral. Stay right where you are.”

A sudden roaring hurricane sent them scurrying for cover. There was silence, then Potter said unnecessarily, “We’re under pressure. You Brownies must have repaired one or another door.”

“Then they’ll soon be here.” Whitbread cursed. “Damn them anyway.”

They waited. “What’s keeping the Captain?” Whitbread demanded. There was no possible answer, and they crouched tensely, their weapons drawn, while around them they heard
MacArthur
coming back to life. Her new masters were approaching.

“I won’t leave without the middies,” Rod was saying to the Admiral.

“You are certain they cannot reach after port air lock?” Kutuzov said.

“Not in ten minutes, Admiral. The Brownies have control of that part of the ship. The kids would have to fight all the way.”

“Then what do you suggest?”

“Let them use the lifeboats, sir,” Rod said hopefully. There were lifeboats in various parts of the ship, with a dozen not twenty meters from the Field generator compartment. Basically solid-fuel motors with inflatable cabins, they were meant only to enable a refugee to survive for a few hours in the event that the ship was damaged beyond repair—or about to explode. Either was a good description of
MacArthur
’s present status.

“The miniatures may have built recording devices and transmitters into lifeboats,” Kutuzov said. “A method of giving large Moties all of
MacArthur
’s secrets.” He spoke to someone else. “Do you think that possible, Chaplain?”

Blaine heard Chaplain Hardy speaking in the background. “No, sir. The miniatures are animals. I’ve always thought so, the adult Moties say so, and all the evidence supports the hypothesis. They would be capable of that only if directly ordered—and, Admiral, if they’ve been
that
anxious to communicate with the Moties, you can be certain they’ve already
done
it.”

“Da,” Kutuzov muttered. “There is no point in sacrificing these officers for nothing. Captain Blaine, you will instruct them to use lifeboats, but caution them that no miniatures must come out with them. When they leave, you will immediately come aboard
Lenin
.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Rod sighed in relief and rang the intercom line to the generator compartment. “Staley: the Admiral says you can use the lifeboats. Be careful there aren’t any miniatures in them, and you’ll be searched before you board one of
Lenin
’s boats. Trigger the torpedoes and get away. Got that?”

“Aye aye, sir.” Staley turned to the other middies. “Lifeboats,” he snapped. “Let’s—”

Green light winked around them. “Visors down!” Whitbread screamed. They dove behind the torpedoes while the beam swung wildly around the compartment. It slashed holes in the bulkheads, then through compartment walls beyond, finally through the hull itself. Air rushed out and the beam stopped swinging, but it remained on, pouring energy through the hull into the Field beyond.

Staley swung his sun visor up. It was fogged with silver metal deposits. He ducked carefully under the beam to look at its source.

It was a heavy hand laser. Half a dozen miniatures had been needed to carry it. Some of them, dead and dry, clung to the double hand hold.

“Let’s move,” Staley ordered. He inserted a key into the lock on the torpedo panel. Beside him Potter did the same thing. They turned the keys—and had ten minutes to live. Staley rushed to the intercom. “Mission accomplished, sir.”

They moved through the airtight open compartment’s door into the main after corridor and rushed sternward, flinging themselves from hand hold to hand hold. Null-gee races were a favorite if slightly non-regulation game with midshipmen, and they were glad of the practice they’d had. Behind them the timer would be clicking away—

“Should be here,” Staley said. He blasted through an airtight door, then fired a man-sized gap through the outer hull itself. Air whistled out—the miniatures had somehow again enclosed them in the stinking atmosphere of Mote Prime even as they had come aft. Wisps of ice-crystal fog hung in the vacuum.

Potter found the lifeboat inflation controls and smashed the glass cover with his pistol butt. They stepped out of the way and waited for the lifeboats to inflate.

Instead the flooring swung up. Stored beneath the deck was a line of cones, each two meters across at the base, each about eight meters long.

“The Midnight Brownie strikes again,” said Whitbread.

The cones were all identical, and fabricated from scratch. The miniatures must have worked for weeks beneath the deck, tearing up the lifeboats and other equipment to replace them with—these things. Each cone had a contoured crash chair in the big end and a flared rocket nozzle in the point.

“Look at the damn things, Potter,” Staley ordered. “See if there’s anywhere Brownies could hide in them.” There didn’t seem to be. Except for the conical hull, which was solid, everything was open framework. Potter tapped and pried while his friends stood guard.

He was looking for an opening in the cone when he caught a flicker of motion in the corner of his eye. He snatched a grenade from his belt and turned. A space suit floated out of the corridor wall. It held a heavy laser in both hands.

Staley’s nerves showed in his voice. “You! Identify yourself!”

The figure raised its weapon. Potter threw the grenade.

Intense green light lashed out through the explosion, lighting the corridor weirdly and tearing up one of the conical lifeboats. “Was it a man?” Potter cried. “Was it? The arms bent wrong! Its legs stuck straight out—what was it?”

“An enemy,” Staley said. “I think we’d better get out of here. Board the boats while we’ve still got ‘em.” He climbed into the reclined contour seat of one of the undamaged cones. After a moment the others each selected a seat.

Horst found a control panel on a bar and swung it out in front of him. There were no labels anywhere. Sentient or nonsentient, all Moties seemed to be expected to solve the workings of a machine at a glance.

“I’m going to try the big square button,” Staley said firmly. His voice sounded oddly hollow through the suit radio. Grimly he pushed the button.

A section of the hull blew away beneath him. The cone swung out as on a sling. Rockets flared briefly. Cold and blackness—and he was outside the Field.

Two other cones popped out of the black sea. Frantically Horst directed his suit radio toward the looming black hulk of
Lenin
no more than a kilometer away. “Midshipman Staley here! The lifeboats have been altered. There are three of us, and we’re alone aboard them.”

A fourth cone popped from the blackness. Staley turned in his seat. It looked like a man— Three hand weapons fired simultaneously. The fourth cone glowed and melted, but they fired for a long time. “One of the—uh—” Staley didn’t know what to report. His circuit might not be secure.

“We have you on the screens, Midshipman,” a heavily accented voice said. “Move away from
MacArthur
, and wait for pickup. Did you complete your mission?”

“Yes, sir.” Staley glanced at his watch. “Four minutes to go, sir.”

“Then move fast, Mister,” the voice ordered.

But how? Staley wondered. The controls had no obvious function. While he searched frantically, his rocket fired. But what—he hadn’t touched anything.

“My rocket’s firing again,” said Whitbread’s voice. He sounded calm—much calmer than Staley felt.

“Aye, and mine,” Potter added. “Never look a gift horse in the mouth. We’re movin’ away from you ship.”

The rumble continued. They were accelerating together at nearly a standard gee, with Mote Prime a vast green crescent to one side. On the other was the deep black of the Coal Sack, and the blacker mass of
Lenin
. The boats accelerated for a long time.