Herb Colvin laid down the latest report on Motie tricks and technology. He'd written a lot of it himself, and it all added up to hopeless odds against the - Modes. They couldn't beat ships that didn't have to carry an Alderson
Drive, ships on station and waiting for Modes who still feel sorry for them.
Colvin took a bottle from the cabinet on the bulkhead of his patrol cabin and poured expertly despite the Coriolis forces. He carried his glass to his chair and sank into it. A packet of mail lay on his desk, the most recent letter from -his wife already ripped open so that he could be sure there was nothing wrong at home. Now he could read the letters in order. He raised his glass to Grace's picture on the desk.
She hadn't heard much from New Chicago, but things were all right there the last time her sister had written. Mail service to New Scotland was slow. The house she'd found was outside the New Scot defensive system, but she wouldn't won)' because Herb had told her the Moties couldn't get through. She'd -taken a lease for the whole three years they'd be out here.
Herb nodded in agreement. That would save money- three years on this blockade, then home, where he'd be Commodore of New Chicago's Home Fleet. Put the Aldemon engines back in Defiant: she'd be flagship when he took her home. A few years on blockade service was a small price to pay for the concessions the Empire offered.
It took the Moties to do it, Herb thought. Without them we'd still be fighting. There were still worlds outside the Empire and always would be, but in Trans-Coalsack unification was proceeding smoothly and there was more jawboning than fighting. The Moties did that for us, anyway.
A name caught Herb Colvin's eye. Lord Roderick Blaine, Chairman of the Imperial Commission Extraordinary- Colvin looked up at the bulkhead to see the familiar spot where Defiant had been patched following her battle with MacArthur. Blame's prize crew had done that, and a pretty good job it was. He's a competent man, Colvin admitted reluctantly. But heredity's still a hell of a way to choose leaders. The rebel democracy in New Chicago hadn't done too well either. He went back to Grace's letter.
My Lord Blaine had a new heir, his second. And Grace was helping out at this Institute Lady Blaine had set up.
His wife was excited because she often talked with Lady Sally and had even been invited out to the manor house to see the children.
The letter went on, and Colvin dutifully read it, but it was an effort. Would she never get tired of gushing about the aristocracy? We'll never agree on politics, he decided and looked up fondly at her picture again. Lord, I miss you- Chimes sounded through the ship and Herb stuffed the letters into his desk. It was time to go to work; tomorrow Commodore Cargill would come aboard for Fleet inspection. Herb rubbed his hands in anticipation. This time he'd show the Imperials just how a ship ought to be run. The winner of this inspection would get extra time ashore next leave, and he intended to have that for his crew.
As he stood a small yellow point of light flashed through the view port. One of these days, Herb thought. Someday we're going in there. With all the talent the Empire's got working on the problem we'll find a way to govern the Moties.
And what will we call ourselves then? he wondered. The Empire of Man and Motie? He grinned and went out to inspect his ship.
Blaine Manor was large, with sheltered gardens overhung with trees to protect their eyes from the bright sun.
Their quarters were very comfortable, and the Mediators had become accustomed to the ever present Marine guards. Ivan, as always, treated them as he would his own Warriors.
There was work. They had daily conferences with the Institute scientists, and for the Mediators there were the Blaine children. The oldest could speak a few words of Language and could read gestures as well as a young Master.
They were comfortable, but still it was a cage; and at nights they saw the brilliant red Eye and its tiny Mote. The Coal Sack was high in the night sky. It looked like a hooded Master blind in one eye.
"I fear," said Jock. "For my family, my civilization, my species, and my world."
"That's right, think large thoughts," said Charlie. "Why waste your mighty brain on little things? Look you-" Her voice and posture changed; she would speak of serious matters. "We've done what we can. This Institute of Sally's is a trivial fiasco, but we continue to cooperate. We show how friendly and harmless and honest we are. And meanwhile the blockade works and it will always work. There's not a hole in it."
"There is," said Jock. "No human seems to consider that the Masters might reach the Empire through normal space."
"There is no hole," Charlie repeated. She shifted two arms for emphasis. "No breach before the next collapse. Curse! Who could build another Crazy Eddie probe before the famines begin? And where would they send it? Here, into their fleets?" She signaled contempt. "Perhaps into the Coal Sack, toward the heart of the Empire? Have you thought of the launching lasers-far greater to compensate for the dust in the Coal Sack? No. We have done what we can, and the Cycles have begun again."
"Then what can we anticipate?" Jock's right arms were folded, her left extended and open: ready for attack, and thus projecting rhetorical mercilessness. "There may be unsuccessful attempts to penetrate the blockade. Wasted effort. The collapse will be hastened. Then, a long period in which the spire can half forget that we exist.
"New technologies rise, warlike as rising technologies are always. They would know of humanity. Perhaps they can preserve or reinvent the Field. When they reach the height of their power, before the decline, they wilt breed Warriors and come forth conquering everything: Mote Prime, asteroids, all. And on to the Empire."
Charlie listened after a hurried glance at the Master. Ivan lay impassive, listening to the chatter of the Mediators as Masters often did, and it was impossible to know what he thought.
"Conquest," Jock said. "But the more progress they make against the Empire, the more thoroughly will the Empire retaliate. They have numbers. For all their talk of limiting populations, they have numbers and all of space. Until we can escape human space entirely and breed, they will always have the numbers. They bottle us up until we overbreed, and then collapse. And with the next collapse-extermination!"
Charlie's knees were against her belly, right arms pulled tight against her chest, left arm protecting her head. An infant about to be born into a cruel world. Her voice was muffled. "If you had better ideas, you should have raised them."
"No. There are no better ideas."
"We bought time. Hundreds of years of time. Sally and her silly institute will have hundreds of years to study the problem we raise for humans. Who knows, perhaps the horse will learn to sing hymns."
"Would you bet on it?"
Charlie looked out of the curve of her arm. "At these odds? Curse, yes!"
"Crazy Eddie!"
"Yes. A Crazy Eddie solution. What else is there? One way or another, the Cycles end now. Crazy Eddie has won his eternal war against the Cycles."
Jock looked to Ivan and met a shrug. Charlie had gone Crazy Eddie. It hardly mattered now; it was, in fact, a fine and enviable madness, this delusion that all questions have answers, and nothing is beyond the reach of a strong left arm.
They would never know. They would not live that long. But they had bought time; the Blains knew what they must find, and their children would grow up to know Moties as more than a legend. Two generations of power would not hate Moties.
If anyone could teach a horse to sing hymns, it would be a trained Mediator.