He looked about the apartment assigned him. Double bed, dresser, large closet, a couch and coffee table, all vaguely reminiscent of the travelogues he had shown the Moties. It was five times the size of his cabin aboard MacArthur.
“Elbow room,” he said with great satisfaction. He sniffed. There was no smell at all. “You do a great job of filtering the planet’s air.”
“Thanks. As for the elbow room—” Renner’s Motie wiggled all her elbows. “We should need more than you, but we don’t.”
The picture window ran from floor to ceiling, wall to wall. The city towered over him; most of the buildings in view were taller than the Castle. Renner found that he was looking straight down a city street toward a magnificent sunset that was all the shades of red. The pedestrian level showed a hurrying horde of colored blobs, mostly Reds and Browns, but also many Whites. He watched for a time, then turned back.
There was an alcove near the head of his bed. He looked into it. It held a dresser and two odd-looking pieces of furniture that Renner recognized. They resembled what the Brown had done to the bed in Crawford’s stateroom.
He asked, “Two?”
“We will be assigned a Brown.”
“I’m going to teach you a new word. It’s called ‘privacy.’ It refers to the human need—”
“We know about privacy.” The Motie did a double take. “You aren’t suggesting it should apply between a man and his Fyunch(click)!”
Renner nodded solemnly.
“But… but… Renner, do you have any respect for tradition?”
“Do I?”
“No. Dammit. All right, Renner. We’ll sling a door there. With a lock?”
“Yah. I might add that the rest probably feel the same way, whether they say so or not.”
The bed, the couch, the table showed none of the familiar Motie innovations. The mattress was a bit too firm, but what the hell. Renner glanced into the bathroom and burst out laughing. The toilet was a free-fall toilet, somewhat changed from those in the cutter; it had a gold flush, carved into the semblance of a dog’s head. The bathtub was… strange.
“I’ve got to try that bathtub,” said Renner.
“Let me know what you think. We saw some pictures of bathtubs in your travelogues, but they looked ridiculous, given your anatomy.”
“Right. Nobody’s ever designed a decent bathtub. There weren’t any toilets in those pictures, were there?”
“Oddly enough, there weren’t.”
“Mmm.” Renner began sketching. When he had finished, his Motie said, “Just how much water do these use?”
“Quite a lot. Too much for space craft.”
“Well, we’ll see what we can do.”
“Oh, and you’d better hang another door between the bathroom and the living room.”
“More privacy?”
“Yah.”
Dinner that night was like a formal dinner in Sally’s old home on Sparta, but weirdly changed. The servants—silent, attentive, deferential, guided by the host who in deference to rank was Dr. Horvath’s Motie—were Laborers a meter and a half tall. The food was from MacArthur’s stores—except for an appetizer, which was a melon-like fruit sweetened with a yellow sauce. “We guarantee it nonpoisonous,” said Renner’s Motie. “We’ve found a few foods we can guarantee, and we’re looking for more. But you’ll have to take your chances on the taste.” The sauce killed the melon’s sour taste and made it delicious.
“We can use this as a trade item,” said Bury. “We would rather ship the seeds, not the melon itself. Is it hard to grow?”
“Not at all, but it requires cultivation,” said Bury’s Motie. “We’ll give you the opportunity to test the soil. Have you found other things that might be worth trading?”
Bury frowned, and looked down at his plate. Nobody had remarked on those plates… they were gold: plates, silverware, even the wine goblets, though they were shaped like fine crystal. Yet they couldn’t be gold, because they didn’t conduct heat; and they were simple copies of the plastic free-fall utensils aboard MacArthur’s cutter, even to the trademarks stamped on the edges.
Everyone was waiting for his answer. Trade possibilities would profoundly affect the relationship between Mote and Empire. “On our route to the Castle I looked for signs of luxuries among you. I saw none but those designed specifically for human beings. Perhaps I did not recognize them.”
“I know the word, but we deal very little in luxuries. We—I speak for the givers of orders, of course—we put more emphasis on power, territory, the maintenance of a household and a dynasty. We concern ourselves with providing a proper station in life for our children.”
Bury filed the information: “We speak for the givers of orders.” He was dealing with a servant. No. An agent. He must keep that in mind, and wonder how binding were his Fyunch(click)’s promises. He smiled and said, “A pity. Luxuries travel well. You will understand my problem in finding trade goods when I tell you that it would hardly be profitable to buy gold from you.”
“I thought as much. We must see if we can find something more valuable.”
“Works of art, perhaps?”
“Art?”
“Let me,” said Renner’s Motie. She switched to a high-pitched, warbling language, talked very fast for perhaps twenty seconds, then looked about at the assembled company. “Sorry, but it was quicker that way.”
Bury’s Motie said, “Quite so. I take it you would want the originals?”
“If possible.”
“Of course. To us a copy is as good as the original. We have many museums; I’ll arrange some tours.”
It developed that everyone wanted to go along.
When they returned from dinner, Whitbread almost laughed when he saw there was now a door on the bathroom. His Motie caught it and said, “Mr. Renner had words to say about privacy.” She jerked a thumb at the door that now closed off her alcove.
“Oh, that one wasn’t necessary,” said Whitbread. He was not used to sleeping alone. If he woke in the middle of the night, who would he talk to until he fell asleep again?
Someone knocked on the door. Able Spacer Weiss—from Tabletop, Whitbread recalled. “Sir, may I speak with you privately?”
“Right,” said Whitbread’s Motie, and she withdrew to the alcove. The Moties had caught on to privacy fast. Whitbread ushered Weiss into the room.
“Sir, we’ve got sort of a problem,” Weiss said. “Me and Jackson, that is. We came down to help out, you know, carrying luggage and cleaning up and like that.”
“Right. You won’t be doing any of that. We’ve each been assigned an Engineer type.”
“Yes, sir, but it’s more than that. Jackson and me, we’ve been assigned a Brown each too. And, and—”
“Fyunch(click)’s.”
“Right.”
“Well, there are certain things you can’t talk about.” Both ratings were stationed in hangar deck and wouldn’t know much about Field technology anyway.
“Yes, sir, we know that. No war stories, nothing about ship’s weapons or drive.”
“All right. Aside from that, you’re on vacation. You’re traveling first class, with a servant and a native guide. Enjoy it. Don’t say anything the Tsar would hang you for, don’t bother to ask about the local red-light district, and don’t worry about the expense. Have a ball, and hope they don’t send you up on the next boat.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Weiss grinned suddenly. “You know? This is why I joined the Navy. Strange worlds. This is what the enlistment men promised us.”