The Mote in God's Eye Read Free

what would my fleet have been able to do?” The Admiral slammed both fists against the desk. “I’d have had no choices at all!” he roared. “Every week I keep this fleet here is another chance for outies to hit one of our planets! There’d have been no time to send for another assault carrier and more Marines. If you’d lost your command, I’d have blasted this planet into the stone age, Blaine. Aristocrat or no, don’t you ever put anyone in that position again! Do you understand me?”
    “Yes, sir”. He’s right. But —  What good would the Marines have been with the city’s Field intact? Rod’s shoulders slumped. Something. He’d have done something. But what?
    “It turned out well,” Plekhanov said coldly. “Maybe you were right. Maybe you weren’t. You do another stunt like that and I’ll have your sword. Is that understood?” He lifted a printout of Rod’s service career. “Is MacArthur ready for space?”
    “Sir?” The question was asked in the same tone as the threat, and it took Rod a moment to shift mental gears. “For space, sir. Not a battle. And I wouldn’t want to see her go far without a refit.” In the frantic hour he’d spent aboard, Rod had carried out a thorough inspection, which was one reason he needed a shave. Now he sat uncomfortably and wondered. MacArthur ’s captain stood at the window, obviously listening, but he hadn’t said a word. Why didn’t the Admiral ask him ?
    As Blaine wondered, Plekhanov made up his mind. “Well? Bruno, you’re Fleet Captain. Make your recommendation.”
    Bruno Cziller turned from the window. Rod was startled: Cziller no longer wore the little silver replica of MacArthur that showed him to be her master. Instead the comet and sunburst of the Naval Staff shone on his breast, and Cziller wore the broad stripes of a brevet admiral.
    “How are you, Commander?” Cziller asked formally. Then grinned. That twisted lopsided grin was famous through MacArthur . “You’re looking all right. At least from the right profile you do. Well, you were aboard an hour. What damage did you find?”
    Confused, Rod reported the present condition of MacArthur as he’d found her, and the repairs he’d ordered. Cziller nodded and asked questions. Finally: “And you conclude she’s ready for space, but not war. Is that it?”
    “Yes, sir. Not against a capital ship, anyway.”
    “It’s true, too. Admiral, my recommendation. Commander Blaine is ready for promotion and we can give him MacArthur to take for refit to New Scotland, then on to the Capital. He can take Senator Fowler’s niece with him.”
    Give him MacArthur ? Rod heard him dimly, wonderingly. He was afraid to believe it, but here was the chance to show Plekhanov and everyone else.
    “He’s young. Never be allowed to keep that ship as a first command,” Plekhanov said. “Still and all, it’s probably the best way. He can’t get in too much trouble going to Sparta by way of New Caledonia. She’s yours, Captain.” When Rod said nothing, Plekhanov barked at him. “You. Blaine. You’re promoted to captain and command of MacArthur . My writer will have your orders in half an hour.”
    Cziller grinned one-sided. “Say something,” he suggested.
    “Thank you, sir. I —  I thought you didn’t approve of me.”
    “Not sure I do,” Plekhanov said. “If I had any choice you’d be somebody’s exec. You’ll probably make a good marquis, but you don’t have the Navy temperament. I don’t suppose it matters, the Navy’s not your career anyway.”
    “Not any more, sir,” Rod said carefully.
    It still hurt inside. Big George, who filled a room with barbells when he was twelve and was built like a wedge before he was sixteen — his brother George was dead in a battle halfway across the Empire. Rod would be planning his future, or thinking wistfully about home, and the memory would come as if someone had pricked his soul with a needle. Dead. George?
    George should have inherited the