The Gripping Hand

by Larry Niven

  "You said, what is in safebox is trade goods. We should not take without giving. Cocoa in safe?"

  "Yes."

  Victoria brought her flat face close. "Trade space with us! Past the starhole is all the worlds, all within your gripping hand. Give us the worlds, take what you want. Take tools you see, tell tools you want, Engineers make that. Take any caste of us, tell what shape and kind you want, you wait, your children will have."

  Glenda Ruth said, "This is not so simple. We know how your numbers grow."

  Stillness.

  "We think we have an answer, but it's still not easy. Many Motie families will need to work together. As Moties do not always do."

  "Glenda Ruth, who is Crazy Eddie you speak of?"

  Glenda Ruth was only surprised for a moment. "Planet-dwelling Moties told us about Crazy Eddie. Maybe you know him with another name."

  "Maybe"

  "Crazy Eddie isn't one person, he is a kind of person. The kind who... who tries to stop change when change is too massive to stop."

  "We tell children about Sfufth, who throws away garbage because it smells bad."

  "Something like that." Sfufth? Shifufsth? She couldn't quite make that sound.

  Jennifer had rejoined them, and now she carried the older pup. She said, "We had a very powerful Master, long ago. Joseph Stalin had the power of life and death over all of his people, in hundreds of millions." Jennifer glanced at Glenda Ruth: stop or go? Uncertain, Glenda Ruth nodded.

  Jennifer went on, "Advisers told Stalin that there was a shortage of copper tube in his domain. Stalin gave his orders. Everywhere across a tenth of the land area of our world, what was made of copper was melted down to make tubes. Communication lines disappeared. Tractor parts, other tools. Wherever copper was needed, it was made pipes instead."

  "Sfufth. We know him," Victoria said. "Sfufth is found everywhere, in every caste. Sfufth breeds Watchmakers for sale to other nests. No need for cage, they take care of selves."

  Jennifer was delighted. "Yes! There's a painting in a museum on Mote Prime." She was about to convey an unfortunate nuance, and Glenda Ruth couldn't stop her. "A burning city. Starving Moties in riot. A Mediator stands on a car to be seen and heard and shouts, ‘Return to your tasks!'"

  Victoria nodded head and shoulders. "When possibilities close, Crazy Eddie doesn't see."

  Glenda Ruth said, "In Stalin's domain, fifty years after. Things changed. More communication, better tools and transport. Their Warriors ate half their resources for all that long time, but the weapons they made were second best. Lesser domains began splitting off. Some older Masters acted to take charge of the domain and turn it all back. The Gang of Crazy Eddies."

  Had she got her point across? Years of watching Jock and Charlie weren't helping enough. Too much of Mediator body language was conscious; was arbitrary. She said, "When possibilities open, Crazy Eddie doesn't see."

  The Mediator thought that over. She said. "Make cocoa to look at first. For safety."

  For poison, she meant.

  So Freddy made cocoa for the four of them-"Make it hot," Glenda Ruth whispered-and an extra bulbful for analysis.

  "Too hot," Victoria said when she touched it. She gave it to the Engineer, who carried it into the hidden part of Cerberus. The human crew huddled with their heads together, sipping, their shoulders shutting out the aliens around them. Freddy had a crime drama running on a monitor; Victoria might have been watching it, and Merlin watched intermittently, but no human was.

  "How are you doing?" Freddy asked.

  Glenda Ruth said, "I'm dancing as fast as I can, but the pace is too damned slow. Jennifer, what were they eating?"

  Jennifer was running her hand along the pup's back as if it were a cat; but her hand kept stopping to feel the weird geometry. She said, "Just one dish. A gray crust around gray-green paste that looked a lot like basic protocarb."

  "Jen, did it steam? Was it hot?"

  "It wasn't hot. What do you want to know?"

  She dared not tell them too much, but she had to know this. "Do they cook?"

  "Glenda Ruth, the air coming through the new lock is warmer than it is here, but there's no smell of cooking."

  "Okay." She looked at the faces around her. Open, honest faces shadowed by every passing thought. Did they understand, would they reveal, too much?

  Engineer and Warrior were certainly infected. The worm eggs might well infect every Motie form in Cerberus's cabin. If that didn't reach a Master, then an Engineer might have passed it on by now. But if a Mediator wasn't infected soon... there wouldn't be anything to talk about. Just a Master turned sterile male, and other forms showing the same symptoms, and the blame very clear.

  2 Vermin City

  And in that state of nature, no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitarv, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

  Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

  From the beginning Freddy Townsend had been concerned about his equipment. "I know we're prisoners," he told Victoria as soon as the Mediator would understand. "I know you can take what you want."

  "Leave your stuff alone if play to win," Victoria said. Need some stuff for now."

  "Good. You think about future. You want us happy for future?"

  "Say instead we want you not hating us for future."

  "Good. Good. Then get them to leave my telescope the hell alone! It's this whole complex, here and here, all this stuff-"

  "Engineers make it better."

  "Don't want better. Want this stuff the way it is," Freddy said distinctly. He had watched what happened to Hecate. He believed-and so did Glenda Ruth-that the Moties would strip the telescope of anything they wanted, leaving a tube and two lenses to be improved to their hearts' content.

  They must have convinced Victoria; Victoria must have convinced one of the Masters. Days later, the scope and its computerized direction-finding and data-recording systems still matched Empire racing specs.

  Freddy's fingers behind her ear teased Glenda Ruth awake.

  The smaller pup was clinging to his back, a tiny skewed head above his left shoulder, wearing the generic smile; but Freddy looked quite solemn. Glenda Ruth followed his pointing finger to a screen and... what? Display of a broken kaleidoscope? Numbers indicated that she was looking aft, under one-hundred-power magnification, via Freddy's telescope.

  "We're decelerating. Whole fleet. To that," Freddy said.

  A shattered mirror on star-dusted black... mirrors, lots of mirrors, circles and ribbons and scraps and one great triangle. The mirrors weren't rotating, but some of what they illuminated was, on an eccentric axis. Sunlight off the mirrors set it to glowing like the City of God.

  "Schizophrenia City," Jennifer said.

  Glenda Ruth winced. "Pandemonium," she said. John Milton's capital of Hell. If this was Captor Fleet's home base, they were indeed mad.

  Pandemonium was backlit, showing mostly black, but she could see the lack of pattern. There were blocks and spires and tubes, considerable fine structure, very spread out. As an artistic whole... it wasn't whole.

  Jennifer said, "Cities do grow this way, if there's no street plan. But in space? That's dangerous."

  "Dangerous," her pup said emphatically. Freddy's pup peeked out of his arms and nodded wisely.

  Glenda Ruth called, "Victoria?"

  "Something's happening," Terry Kakumi said.

  Light flashed here, there. A chunk of Pandemonium City broke free, 6 percent or 8 percent of the whole; rotated to use its section of mirror as a shield, and pulled away. Ruby light sputtered at it, belatedly.

  "Civil war, maybe. Maybe a lifeboat running away from us. I don't think they see Captor Fleet as friends."

  "Yeah, Terry. Maybe it's how Motie cities breed? But whose city? Victoria?" No answer came. Glenda Ruth said, "Likely she's asleep." Moties needed their sleep, or at least Mediators did.

  Terry said, "We've been decelerating f
or two hours now. Matching velocities. Glenda Ruth, we have to see this-" Terry's arm flashed up to block her eyes. A ruby glare filled the cabin. An instant later all screens were black.

  "Langston Field," Terry said. "Ours. Don't think that place has one. Sorry. Are you okay?"

  Freddy said, "Hell, we're under attack!"

  "But by what?" Jennifer asked.

  "Good question.'

  When nothing further happened, Terry presently cut bricks of basic protocarb for their breakfast. They watched the screen, but it remained dark.

  Victoria emerged from the airlock. The Mediator skimmed along one of the big vines, picking red berries, then veered to join them. She asked, "Do you take chocolate for breakfast?"

  Glenda Ruth spoke before Terry Kakumi could. "Sure. Freddy? Make it lukewarm, then we can heat ours. Victoria, does your Engineer say it's safe?"

  "Yes."

  Terry couldn't stand it. "We're pulling near a large structure. Is it your home?"

  A moment's pause, then Victoria said, "No. Chocolate?"

  Freddy didn't move until Glenda Ruth opened the cocoa and pushed it into his hands. No, he couldn't read minds, but she made eye contact and thought hard: Yes, Freddy, Victoria's trying to distract us, yes, she's hiding something, Freddy love, but we want the lizard-raping chocolate!

  Freddy set to work, meticulously measuring powder, shaking it with boiled water, adding the basic protocarb product most crew called milk. He poured it into squeezers and handed one, lukewarm, to the Mediator. The others he set heating in the microwave.

  Victoria sipped without waiting. Her eyes widened. "Strange. Good." She sipped again. "Good."

  "This is the least of what the Empire can offer. More to the point is the meeting of unlike minds. And elbow space."

  Terry's patience was short. "The city?"

  "It's resources, Terry," Victoria said. "We will take them."

  "Uh-huh. We want to observe the battle on-site," Terry Kakumi said. "If-"

  "Not a battle, Terry. Pest control. No Master in there, no Mediators, not even Engineers."

  "What are they, then? They're shooting at us."

  "Watchmakers and... I don't know your word. Only animals. Destructive small animals, dangerous when cornered. Use resources we need."

  "Vermin," Glenda Ruth said.

  "Thank you. Vermin. Yes, they're shooting, but we can protect ourselves. What is it you want?"

  "I want to go in with you, with a camera." Terry took the bulb Glenda Ruth handed him, but didn't drink. She sipped the chocolate: a bit too hot, and that was good. Heat would kill what her fingertip had added to the cocoa powder.

  "You would see our weapons in use. I know your nature, Terry Kakumi. Warrior-Engineer, as close as your generalist species comes. But able to talk well."

  Freddy suppressed a smile; but Terry showed his teeth. "You wouldn't use your serious weapons for varmint control, Victoria. Whatever it is that has you so embarrassed, it's something we have to know. Later would be worse. Nasty surprises breed nasty surprises."

  The screen cleared. Pandemonium glowed before its mirrors. Cerberus's Watchmakers had pushed a probe through the Field.

  Victoria sipped, and thought, and said, "I will ask Ozma."

  Merlin nested in the forepart of the cabin. He was young, with clean white fur you ached to touch; he had never been female. He spent much of his time watching the humans and-if Glenda Ruth was indeed learning some basic captor language, if she'd correctly judged his body language-discussing them with Victoria, the Doctor, the Engineers, the Warriors. Masters asked questions and gave orders. They did not seem inclined to needless conversation, even with other Masters. But they did talk.

  Ozma, an older and clearly superior Master to Merlin (parent?), lived somewhere out of sight beyond Cerberus's big new airlock. Thence Victoria went. An hour later, the spidery Messenger scuttled through and summoned Merlin from his place in the forecabin.

  Terry Kakumi slept curled in his couch like an egg in an egg cup. Glenda Ruth watched for dreams to chase themselves across his round features, but really, he was remarkably relaxed for a man who was about to enter mystery.

  "He does that better than anyone I know," Freddy said. "If he knows nothing is going to happen for twenty minutes, he's out like a light. I guess that's what they mean by old campaigner."

  "You think it's a warrior's skill?"

  "It never would have occurred to me before. Sauron, heh?"

  The chaotic industrial complex was considerably closer now. Its shape had changed, had closed around the gap left by the one departing section, which was still in view a few kilometers away, under desultory thrust. There was motion on the surface, a doubly silent rustling: windows glinting (not many), small vehicles racing along wire tracks, mirrors rippling as they swung to block a laser spear, a sudden spray of... missiles? Tiny ships?

  Sporadic ruby beams bathed Cerberus with no effect. Just once the entire mirror-sail complex focused white light with enough energy that the cameras had to be pulled in. Several minutes later the screen was glowing with just a touch of red heat. More minutes later the probe was out again, and Pandemonium showed almost unchanged.

  "They ran out of power," Jennifer surmised. "What do you suppose is in there? Watchmakers and what?"

  "Maybe nothing we know about," Glenda Ruth said. "Watchmakers alone might have built this. You saw Renner's recording: they ran riot through MacArthur and finally turned it into something alien."

  A tube poked from near the center of the structure, and extended, longer and longer. Like a cannon. "Grab something," Jennifer said, and reached to tighten Terry's straps. His eyes opened; with a shrug he freed his arms and folded Jennifer into his chest.

  The screen went dark. In the airlock Merlin snapped some command; every Motie form snatched for handholds. Cerberus torqued about them. In the screen was a red glow...orange, yellow...holding.

  Victoria popped up beside Merlin, with several other Motie shapes behind her. They all held close to their handholds. A Messenger was towing one of their pressure suits.

  "Terry, you may travel with us, unarmed," Victoria said. "You'll want hands for your camera anyway. We have restored it to the state you are accustomed to. Don't try to leave your escorts."

  Terry took the camera from the Engineer. He made adjustments. One of the screens lit with a close view of Victoria, blurred, then sharper. Terry said, "How long?"

  "Suit up now"

  The Field was orange and cooling.

  Terry and Freddy examined the suit, whispering. Hecate's pressure suits had been confiscated and stowed on the other side of the oval airlock. They were hard suits, rigid pieces shaped to slide over one another, with a fishbowl helmet. Now green-gray sludge in a flaccid plastic bag rode the jet pack on the suit's back. The helmet's view had been expanded; the sunblind visor was gone; the helmet itself was no longer quite symmetrical.

  "You trust it?"

  "No choice, boss. I'm bored." Terry worked his way into the suit. Before he'd finished, the Engineer and three Watchmakers were already at work on him. Freddy and Jennifer smiled to watch. Glenda Ruth's stomach was a hard knot.

  He could die

  Terry was zipped up when the alarms sounded again. He knew that one: Anchor against attack!

  When the screen cleared, Pandemonium was very close. The pipe still protruded near the center of the complex, but it pointed askew of Cerberus. More conspicuously, the mirrors were gone...shredded, trailing outward in comet's configuration.

  "It was a double attack on us," Terry said for his companions' benefit. "The laser cannon isn't maneuverable, but you had to take out the mirrors, too, right, Victoria?"

  She waved it off. "Battle is no skill of mine."

  Motion swarmed around the shreds of mirror. Glimmers and flashes: they began to re-form. The laser cannon jerked into sudden motion, too slow to catch Cerberus drifting around the city's edge. Others of Captor Fleet were moving into position.

  "Come," V
ictoria said. She leapt for the airlock, and Terry, almost as agile, followed.

  The Moties could hardly be unaware that they were showing him Cerberus's Motie sections for the first time, and on record. Terry waved his camera where he would. He was not trying for detail, but rather looking for whatever would bear further investigation.

  He didn't get much of that. He was in a tube that curved like a loop of intestine. Here a dark opening, here a bulge and an armed Warrior clinging to handholds, here a lighted opening and a first glimpse of an older Master. "Studying me. I'd better not stop," he said. "Victoria isn't."

  The tube ended in a canister full of Warriors in armored pressure suits.

  Victoria waved him in. The Warriors watched him, every one. "Forty armed and armored Warriors, no two weapons alike, no two suits alike, and... that one's pregnant, and that one." Distinct bulges in the armor, where a human heart would be. Terry let the camera hold on four others: "And I don't know what to make of those."

  There was a couch just for him. It had an orthopedic look and a plenitude of straps. Terry gave the camera a good look before he strapped in. "Looks like an Engineer and Doctor tried to design this for a human spine. Let's see... Not bad. Not many humans build chairs this good."

  The airlock was sealed and Victoria was gone.

  "Three windows, one fore and one aft... whichever... and this.

  "Considerate bastards." The amidships window was right before his face. One of the odd ones handed Terry a big folded umbrella, nearly weightless. "They've taken me for a Pom."

  He was being judged. He chattered because of nerves.

  The tradition of Terry Kakumi's family was never to dwell on tradition. Flexibility was a virtue. Landing on one's feet was a graceful thing to do. In anarchy and in war and in the Empire's peace, on Tanith and a score of other worlds, their numbers had grown. But he and they knew their ancestry.

  The Kakumis were of Brenda Curtis's line.

  Brenda Curtis had lived nearly four hundred years ago. She'd had six children of her own, and over two hundred had passed through her orphanage farm on their path to adulthood. They tended to intermarry because they understood each other.