"Naturally."
"And this is maybe fifty degrees from Beta."
"Unstable. Had to be nudged, right, Jacob? Anything else, Rawlins?"
"Yeah, my Sailing Master is a science buff, and he hasn't stopped playing with that since he got it."
Eudoxus's sneer was clear and blatant, if hard to describe. "'Library at Alexandria,' forsooth! Their claim would have been valid once. They're near broken, now. They still had some of their wealth ten years ago."
"That would be when they bought a Bury Mediator," Kevin surmised.
The Motie didn't visibly react. "Yes, they bought their Bury Fyunch(click) from Persia. They were maintaining their ancient tradition of collecting and codifying knowledge. Perhaps they still are.
"They're the oldest family we know of. They've traded in information throughout history. They've had to move countless times. They were in the Leading Trojans of Beta eight thousand years ago, at the killing of the Doctors."
"We heard of that," Renner said. Something made him add, "No, I guess we didn't."
"Was there a Killing of the Doctors on Mote Prime? I'm not surprised," Eudoxus said. "It must seem so obvious. Doctors make population problems worse, yes?"
"Obvious, right,"
"Here it was very successful. Alexandria refused to participate and so did some other forgotten civilizations; they must all have been destroyed by the victors. Alexandria alone kept their Doctors. Afterward they bred a basic stock and sold crossbreeds and tailored mutations. But other cultures have sequestered their own breeding stock, Doctors and other rare castes, and Alexandria has fallen on hard times."
"Should we be dealing with them?" Renner asked. He noticed Bury's attention fully on the screen.
"It does no harm," Eudoxus said. "They are considered-a bit strange. But they're no threat, and they can be useful."
Bury was nodding to himself. When Renner broke the connection with Eudoxus, Bury said, "Interesting. Strange. No threat. Librarians. Kevin, this group is poor, but it is permitted to keep its resources." He smiled softly, "Whatever our final decisions, they should include Alexandria."
"Okay, we're closing on it," Buckman said. He image on the screen: a dark object surrounded by "And now Eudoxus is relaying a better picture."
The Motie ship had run on ahead and was nearly Motie base. The screens showed a ring of fusion fire linking black candle flames: fusion rocket motors, forty or more, bright enough to wash out the sensors.
The light washed out some detail, but... the motors ringed one side of a highly regular iceball. Most of the iceball was webbed in colored lines and studded here and there with domes connected by bright bands on the surface. Some of the domes were transparent. There were ships, too, scores of them on the ice and in the space around it.
The instruments aboard Atropos were superior to what Sinbad carried. A man aboard Atropos was relaying data. "Mass: sixty-five thousand tonnes. One klick by half a klick by half a klick. Albedo: ninety-Six percent."
"My God, it's huge," Renner said. "Not so bloody big for a comet, but it's not a comet anymore. It's a carrier spacecraft! Joyce, did the Empire ever build-"
The image became a black ball with only the engine-glare protruding. The proprietors had closed the Field.
Eudoxus appeared. "That's Inner Base Six," she said. "Maneuver to the gripping side in this plane."
From Atropos: "The surface is foamed hydrogen ice. We think the interior is hydrogen ice; the mass is about right. The jets are hydrogen fusion with some refinements."
Renner said, "The Crazy Eddie Probe looked bigger than that. Way bigger, but it turned out to be only a lightsail. I remember before we found that out, Captain Blaine was wondering if we'd have to land on it with Marines."
"This time we do land, I think," Horace Bury said.
Half an hour later, Sinbad was close enough to feel the iceball's minuscule gravity. "Here goes," Renner said.
"Yes, sir," Commander Rawlins said. "Sir, I agree it's best to get Sinbad under a powerful Langston Field, but I won't be sorry to keep Atropos out here where I can maneuver, Captain, they've got a lot of ships and guns in there. There's no way I could force them to let you out."
"Right," Renner said
"We can presume that Hecate's crew are in similar circumstances," Blaine said.
"The Moties of Mote Prime were gracious hosts," Bury said. "We believe these Moties are even more similar to Arabs."
"Yeah. Well, it's one way to find out if Moties have the same ideas about hospitality that Arabs do," Renner said.
"As Allah wills. I am ready, Kevin."
The black shield disappeared. Sinbczd sank toward Base Six. Phidippides moved ahead, veering away toward its own mooring.
Chris pointed. "I think that must be ours."
Renner laughed. "Yeah. My God, it's a mosque."
It was magnificent. It was human, the only shape down there that wasn't utilitarian and alien. Light and airy, a bubble of painted masonry afloat on the ice field. The structure couldn't have been marble; it might well have been carved ice. It was far more mosquelike than the castle King Peter's people had built them on Mote Prime, and considerably smaller. A mosque with a cavity in it... a vertical channel or well, from which cables were even now snaking toward Sinbad.
The black Field closed over the black sky: the stars disappeared. Atropos, on station well away from Base Six, was now out of communication. Renner felt Sinbad's vulnerability.
Sinbad was winched toward the well in the Mosque. It would fit exactly.
"Close fit," Buckman said. "After what we saw on Mote Prime, there isn't much Motie Engineers can do that would surprise me- looks like they have transfer bays matching the airlocks."
Sinbad was pulled inexorably into the docking bay. Those transfer bays were unfinished, mere holes. And Motie Engineers were waiting in the bays, prepared to finish them on the spot.
Fuel began to flow into Sinbad. Good: they'd kept that promise.
It was nearly an hour before the Moties finished connecting Sinbad to an antenna extended through the restored Field. By then Renner was savage with impatience. He pulled himself under control-because if he didn't, Rawlins wouldn't!-and said, "Atropos, this is Sinbad. Testing."
"Atropos here, sir. Locked on. Stand by for-"
"I'm here," said Rawlins.
"Right. Commander, we can figure that anything said monitored by the Moties. I want you to keep testing this circuit. Be sure we have communications."
"Yes, sir. And if we don't?"
"Try to reestablish, but the instant you're out of touch with Sinbad, you're in command. Do what you think best. You'll recall the last orders you got from Balasingham. Of course you'll stay at full-alert status unless I tell you to stand down."
"Yes, sir. Understood. Do you expect real trouble, Captain Renner?"
"Not from here. I think the Moties here will be perfect hosts. Of course they told us they had a major readjustment of their relationship with the East India Company. That sounded sticky."
"Yes, sir."
"And I'll try to find out what that involved. I'll leave the circuits open on standby." Renner touched switches. "And that's done. Horace, I think it's time. Joyce, do you really want to carry-"
"It only masses eight kilograms." Joyce hefted the gyro-stabilized pickup camera. It wriggled within its sleeve like a thing alive.
Renner touched indicators: inner lock, override, outer lock. Sinbad's air-lock doors swung in and out... on a corridor decorated in Moorish abstracts, and good air with a trace of chemicals in it.
Chris Blaine waited impatiently as Eudoxus explained to Horace Bury. "We really don't have room for your Warriors to accompany us," she said. "Of course you don't expect to be escorted by Warriors any more than I do, but a Master of your importance would. My Master will have his Warriors present when you meet."