"Yes, sir. Who are we fighting?"
"There are a whole bunch of factions." Renner's fingers danced. "I made notes. Here."
"Got it." Rawlins's eyes focused offstage. "Oh boy."
"And that's just the important ones."
"Khanate's got the comet...obody cares... the Tartars hold the new Jump point, and a ship... oh, my God."
"Yeah. Hecate is a civilian ship piloted by the Honorable Frederick Townsend with Chris Blaine's sister, Glenda Ruth Fowler Blaine, aboard as passenger."
"Oh, my God. Captain, Lord Blaine isn't going to be happy about that! Are we going to rescue them?"
"Could we?"
Rawlins was quiet for a moment. "I don't know, but I'd sure as hell hate to go back without trying."
"I see your point, but Eudoxus doesn't ships even with yours. Right now the best safe, and our Motie allies are trying to deal while, we're headed for a Medina Traders was a joint base with East India Trading, been a readjustment of that alliance."
"Readjustment?'
"That's the word Eudoxus used.'
"Somebody else to fight?"
"Maybe."
Chris Blaine came to the bridge and took a place near Renner.
Commander Rawlins said, "Are things usually this complicated with Moties? Captain, what the hell is our objective?"
"Good question," Renner said. "First is to survive. Second, get Glenda Ruth Blaine back. She's got a cargo that may change things...may affect our third objective, which is bringing order out of chaos."
"Cargo?"
Rennor said, "Lieutenant Blaine?"
"Yes, sir. As Captain Renner said, there's another objective to consider. The Moties are loose, and that's got to be dealt with, by us or a battle fleet."
"Only there's no battle fleet." Renner sighed. "Okay, Chris. The cargo." Renner caught Cynthia's eye; he negotiated for coffee.
Blaine nodded. "Commander Rawlins, just how much do you know about Moties?"
"Not much. I skipped the classes on Motie society back in the blockade squadron. Studied their tactics, but I didn't see any need to understand them, since all we were supposed to do was kill them."
"Yes, sir. You must have a crewman who was that curious. Find him. Meanwhile, I lecture."
"To begin with, we all know Moties are a strongly differentiated species. Masters are the only Motie class that really counts; whereas the Mediators do all the communicating. Mediators are so likable that we tend to forget that they're not really in charge, that they take orders from Masters
"But not always," Renner said
"Okay, consider the three Moties sent to the Empire. Two of King Peter's Mediators, with an older Master related to King Peter but not previously in charge of Jock and Charlie. That gave Jock and Charlie some leeway. They didn't have to obey every order Ivan gave, although they usually did. There must have been rules, but I never learned them. Ivan only lasted six years, and then they were on their own.
"I once asked Jock what Ivan's last orders were. Jock told me, ‘Act in such a way as to decrease the risk to our kind in the long term. Keep each other sane. Make us look good.' I think she left out considerable detail. And Mediators would lie to us if Ivan had told them to,
"So here we are back in Mote system and everything we know is a little bit wrong. We're dealing with a space civilization, not a planet. All the Classes will be a little different, some a lot different, even including the Masters. Motie civilization is old. The asteroids have been settled for over a hundred thousand years, time enough for evolutionary changes, and we know the Moties have used radical breeding programs on themselves as well."
"Like Saurons," Rawlins said.
"Well, not really," Renner said. "Different objectives, different reasons."
"Yes, sir." Rawlins didn't sound convinced.
"We've had one piece of luck, maybe," Blaine said. "Horace Bury's Mediator apparently left King Peter entirely and sold her services to the highest bidder. Bury-trained Mediators seem to be swapped around out here like money."
"Must make His Excellency happy," Rawlins said. "Is that the reason for all the Arab names they give themselves?"
Chris's forefinger wagged. "No, no! Skipper, these names were all chosen by Medina's Bury-trained Mediator, Eudoxus, probably for their emotional impact on Horace Bury. Tartars are enemies of Arabs. Medina Traders sounds good to an Arab. Eudoxus was a famous Levantine trader who operated out of the Red Sea and discovered the original Arab trade route to India."
"Ho, ho," Rawlins said. "And of course Bury knew that."
"Of course. There is another thing. Motie Masters don't really form societies the way we do. The subordinate classes generally obey the Masters, but Masters don't have any instinct to obey each other, and whatever it is about humans that makes us form societies is largely missing in Masters. Motie Masters will cooperate, and one will take a subordinate position to another, but as far as I can make out, the only loyalties are to a gene line. There's no loyalty at all to any abstraction like an empire, or a city. That's more like an Arab civilization than it's like the Empire, which may account for the popularity of Bury Mediators. Mister Bury is likely to understand things here better than any of us."
"Including you, Blaine?" Rawlins demanded. "The Word in the fleet was that you were raised by Moties."
"Somewhat," Chris Blaine said. "We were still in New Caledonia and my father was on the High Commission until I was six years old. It was when we got back to Sparta and my parents set up the Institute that I got to see the Moties every day. Ivan was dead by then, and Glenda Ruth was just born. She saw a lot more of Jock and Charlie and never met Ivan at all."
"Um. Now what about Hecate's cargo?"
Renner said. "Chris, let me. You've never even seen the Crazy Eddie Worm. You were on blockade-"
"Hold it, Captain." There was a snap in Blaine's voice. "Commander Rawlins, the Worm is a hole card of sorts. Sir, are you sure you want to know more?"
Though he was pretty sure lieutenants didn't talk that way to captains, Renner held his tongue. Rawlins said frostily, "Why wouldn't I want to know, Lieutenant?"
"If you know and you talk to Moties, they'll learn it," Blaine said. "Commander, until you've been around Moties, you just can't understand how quickly they learn to interpret everything you say or do."
"I may have an idea," Rawlins said. "A year aboard my ship and nobody in the wardroom will play poker with you."
"Yes, sir. They may learn from Captain Renner anyway, but probably not. He's had more experience dealing with Moties. They won't learn from His Excellency. Or me."
"Won't learn what?"
They turned to see Joyce Mei-Ling coming into Sinhad's lounge. "All right," Rawlins said. "I'll take your word for it, it's valuable, and it's better that I don't know about this Crazy Eddie Worm. Captain Renner, if the objective is to recover Miss Blaine and her cargo, how do we go about doing it?"
"That's the question," Renner said.
"We negotiate." Bury was onscreen. "Forgive me, I was invited to listen. Commander Rawlins, what is important now is that we appear to be ready to fight, and that the Moties believe that overwhelming Imperial forces will come to our rescue in the not too distant future, so that it is better for the Moties to conclude an agreement with us now while they still have strength."
"Yeah. And that they don't learn just how far the Blockade Fleet is from us. Only it's not so far, sir. Into the Crazy Eddie point and back with the Squadron."
"Except that whatever's left there will shoot before listening. There's no real way to tell a Motie ship from an Imperial," Renner said.