Larry Niven - The Mote in God's Eye

The first dish was brought in, an enormous platter with a heavy cover that looked like beaten gold. Golden dragons chased each other around the perimeter, while the good fortune hexagrams of the I Ching floated benignly above them. Fashioned on Xanadu, the dish and cover were worth the price of one of MacArthur ’s gigs. Gunner Kelley stood behind Blaine, imperious in dress whites and scarlet sash, the perfect major-domo. It was difficult to recognize him as the man who could make new recruits faint from his chewing out, the sergeant who had led MacArthur ’s Marines in battle against the Union Guard. Kelley lifted the cover with a practiced flourish.

“Magnificent!” Sally exclaimed. If she was only being polite, she carried it off well, and Kelley beamed. A pastry replica of MacArthur and the black-domed fortress she had fought, every detail sculpted more carefully than an art treasure in the Imperial Palace, lay revealed on the platter. The other dishes were the same, so that if they hid yeast cake and other drab fare, the effect was of a banquet. Rod managed to forget his concern and enjoy the dinner.

“And what will you be doing now, my lady?” Sinclair asked. “Hae you been to New Scotland before?”

“No, I was supposed to be traveling professionally, Commander Sinclair. It wouldn’t be flattering to your homeland for me to have visited there, would it?” She smiled, but there were light-years of blank space behind her eyes.

“And why would nae we be flattered from a visit by you? There’s nae place in the Empire that would no think itself honored.”

“Thank you—but I’m an anthropologist specializing in primitive cultures. New Scotland is hardly that,” she assured him. The accent sparked professional interest. Do they really talk that way in New Scotland? The man sounds like something from a pre-Empire novel. But she thought that very carefully, not looking at Sinclair as she did. She could sense the engineer’s desperate pride.

“Well said,” Bury applauded. “I seem to have met a number of anthropologists lately. Is it a new specialty?”

“Yes. Pity there weren’t more of us earlier. We’ve destroyed all that was good in so many places we’ve taken into the Empire. We hope never to make those mistakes again.”

“I suppose it must be something of a shock,” said Blaine, “to be brought into the Empire, like it or not, without warning—even if there weren’t any other problems. Perhaps you should have stayed on New Chicago. Captain Cziller said he was having trouble governing the place.”

“I couldn’t.” She looked moodily down at her plate, then glanced up with a forced smile. “Our first rule is that we must be sympathetic toward the people we study. And I hate that place,” she added with venomous sincerity. The emotion felt good. Even hatred was better than emptiness.

“Aye,” Sinclair agreed. “Anyone would, being kept in prison camp for months.”

“Worse than that, Commander. Dorothy disappeared. She was the girl I came with. She just—vanished.” There was a long silence, and Sally was embarrassed. “Please, don’t let me spoil our party.”

Blaine was searching for something to say when Whitbread gave him his opportunity. At first Blaine saw only that the junior midshipman was doing something under the edge of the table—but what? Tugging at the tablecloth, testing its tensile strength. And earlier he’d been looking at the crystal. “Yes, Mr. Whitbread,” Rod said. “It’s very strong.”

Whitbread looked up, flushing, but Blaine didn’t intend to embarrass the boy. “Tablecloth, silverware, plates, platters, crystal, all have to be fairly durable,” he told the company at large. “Mere glassware wouldn’t last the first battle. Our crystal is something else. It was cut from the windscreen of a wrecked First Empire reentry vehicle. Or go I was told. It’s certain we can’t make such materials any longer. The linen isn’t really linen, either; it’s an artificial fiber, also First Empire. The covers on the platter are crystal-iron electroplated onto beaten gold.”

“It was the crystal I noticed first,” Whitbread said diffidently.

“So did I, some years ago.” Blaine smiled at the middies. They were officers, but they were also teenage boys, and Rod could remember his days in the gunroom. More courses were brought, to meet with shoptalk scaled down for laymen, as Kelley orchestrated the dinner. Finally the table was clear except for coffee and wines.

“Mr. Vice,” Blaine said formally.

Whitbread, junior to Staley by three weeks, raised his glass. “Captain, my lady. His Imperial Majesty.” The officers lifted their glasses to their sovereign, as Navy men had done for two thousand years.

“You’ll let me show you around my homeland,” Sinclair asked anxiously.

“Certainly. Thank you, but I don’t know how long we’ll be there.” Sally looked expectantly to Blaine.

“Nor I. We’re to put in for a refit, and how long that takes is up to the Yard.”

“Well, if it’s not too long, I’ll stay with you. Tell me, Commander, is there much traffic from New Scotland to the Capital?”

“More than from most worlds this side of the Coal Sack, though that’s nae saying a lot. Few ships with decent facilities for carrying passengers. Perhaps Mr. Bury can say more; his liners put into New Scotland.”

“But, as you say, not to carry passengers. Our business is to disrupt interstellar trade, you know.” Bury saw quizzical looks. He continued, “Imperial Autonetics is the business of transporting robotic factories. Whenever we can make something on a planet cheaper than others can ship it in, we set up plants. Our main competition’s the merchant carriers.”

Bury poured himself another glass of wine, carefully selecting one that Blaine had said was in short supply. (It must be a good one; otherwise the scarcity wouldn’t have bothered the Captain.) “That’s why I was on New Chicago when the rebellion broke out.”

Nods of acceptance from Sinclair and Sally Fowler; Blaine with his posture too still and face too blank; Whitbread nudging Staley— Wait’ll I tell you —gave Bury most of what he wanted to know. Suspicions, but nothing confirmed, nothing official. “You have a fascinating vocation,” he told Sally before the silence could stretch. “Tell us more, won’t you? Have you seen many primitive worlds?”

“None at all,” she said ruefully. “I know about them only from books. We would have gone on to visit Harlequin, but the rebellion—” She stopped.

“I was on Makassar once,” said Blaine.

She brightened instantly. “There was a whole chapter on that one. Very primitive, wasn’t it?”

“It still is. There wasn’t a big colony there to begin with. The whole industrial complex was smashed down to bedrock in the Secession Wars, and nobody visited the place for four hundred years. They had an Iron Age culture by the time we got there. Swords. Mail armor. Wooden seagoing sailing ships.”

“But what were the people like?” Sally asked eagerly. “How did they live?”

Rod shrugged, embarrassed. “I was only there a few days. Hardly time enough to get the feel of a world. Years ago, when I was Staley’s age. I remember mostly looking for a good tavern.” After all, he wanted to add, I’m not an anthropologist.

The conversation drifted on. Rod felt tired, and looked for a polite opportunity to bring the dinner to a close. The others seemed rooted to their seats.

“Ye study cultural evolution,” Sinclair was saying earnestly, “and perhaps that’s wise. But could we nae have physical evolution as well? The First Empire was verra large and sparsely spread, with room enough for almost anything. May we no find somewhere, off in some neglected corner of the old Empire, a planet full o’ supermen?”