"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?" said 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."