The Gripping Hand

by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle

  "Two hundred hours . . . okay. I'd like Sinbad and Atropos refueled as soon as we arrive."

  "I'll pass the word. We will do other things for you, too."

  "The war . . ."

  "Yes. Certain power structures in the Mote Gamma clusters—East India Company, Grenada, the Khanate—watched us build ships, move them into finicky position, make them disappear forever; we even armed and launched a comet that way. Wasn't that why some ancient comic named it the Crazy Eddie point? These pirates coveted what we were destroying in what must have appeared to be a form of potlatch. They thought they must have better use for such vast wealth."

  "Potlatch?" Renner said. "A Motie word?"

  Joyce stage-whispered, "Human. American Indian. Conspicuous consumption. Humiliate your enemies by destroying your own wealth."

  Renner nodded. "Mote Gamma. Eudoxus, we didn't know about a Mote Gamma."

  "As I said." The Motie was all unhurried patience now. "A gasball planet, three times the mass of Mote Prime, twice as far from the Mote as the greater gasball you've named Mote Beta. Gamma is much smaller, with two big moons and some gravel, all chewed to death by a million years of mining. I'll send you the mass—" The picture went dark with a snap.

  Renner said, "Buckman? What?"

  "It just cut off. Maybe she doesn't want to answer," Buckman said.

  "No, she's under attack." Lieutenant Blaine pointed out a score of stars blazing dangerously bright. "That's good targeting. The enemy's a good quarter AU behind us. Sinbad can't shoot back, Captain."

  "Not at that range. We've got the overpowered signal laser . . ." A glance at Bury: had he held anything back? "And the flinger, and they're way out of range for either of those."

  The light wavered. It wasn't getting brighter. Probably a whole cluster of enemy ships was firing . . . and if those lasers were free to converge on distant Phidippides, then Medina's fleet must no longer be a threat.

  Phidippides's drifting star thrust sideways; drifted behind Atropos. Now Atropos became dark red, then cherry red, while Phidippides cooled.

  "Phidippides calling," Buckman said.

  "Good. Eudoxus, what's your status?"

  "Temperature down. Can your warship handle the flux?"

  "Sure, Atropos has more mass and bigger accumulators than you do . . . and the enemy's breaking off. But dammit, there aren't any of your forces left at the comet, are there?"

  Eudoxus shuddered. "Comet! We abandoned the comet as soon as you appeared. What need, when we had Crazy Eddie's Sister to find and protect? Let the Khanate have it. But a splinter group formerly belonging to the Khanate has virtually destroyed our main fleet and now holds the Sister.

  "Call them the Crimean Tartars, for the moment. They're new to us. The Crimeans hold the new Jump point to the red dwarf, and there's reason to think they know what they have. They'll be hard to dislodge."

  Blaine was radiating distress. Renner said, "If they're there when Glenda Ruth comes through, we will all regret it."

  "I will inform Medina's Warriors. After that it is out of my hands. Give me a moment."

  The picture went dark. Kevin Renner clicked off, then turned to his people. "Horace? Anything? I don't even have intelligent questions. It's frustrating."

  "Kevin, I have a thousand questions, but none are urgent. You will note the selection of names for the various groups. All from classic history, all having one way or another impacted on Arab civilization, some like the Khanate quite devastatingly. It is cleverly done."

  "Eudoxus fully understands Hecate's importance," Chris Blaine said. "It's still worth remembering, Mediators don't do war. I'm not sure what they'll do now that their fleet is knocked out. Send an embassy group, probably including one trained by Eudoxus . . . hmm."

  "What?"

  "It seems probable that the Tartars will capture Hecate," Blaine said.

  "You're calm enough about it," Joyce said.

  Blaine shrugged without quite using his shoulders. "It's a problem that needs fixing, Joyce, not a bloody funeral. Yet."

  "There's certainly nothing we can do about it," Renner said. "We're headed away from the Sister at high acceleration, and our friends don't have any ships left. So what happens?"

  Blaine shrugged. "So the Tartars will take possession of Hecate. Medina will send Mediators, one of whom probably knows Anglic. We might be able to get a message to Glenda Ruth. At least tell—yes. Captain, assuming that the Tartars will not allow Eudoxus's friends to brief Glenda Ruth, have Eudoxus instruct his Anglic-speaking Mediator to use the expression 'rape my lizard.' Either in Glenda Ruth's hearing, or as an expression she will be asked to explain."

  "What in the world . . . ?" Renner demanded.

  "It is recent slang, not used before this generation."

  "Ah," Bury said. "Miss Blaine will know that the Moties never learned to say that from the MacArthur-Lenin expedition, therefore that this is a message from us. Subtle, Lieutenant. My congratulations."

  "Thank you," Chris said.

  "What else?" Renner asked. "What use can we make of the Crazy Eddie Worm?"

  "What's that?" Joyce asked.

  "Later," Chris Blaine said. "I don't know, Captain. Glenda Ruth may think of something. She thinks more like a Motie than I do, and she's seen it."

  "Allah is merciful," Bury said. "But He expects us to use His gifts wisely. Lieutenant, where did Eudoxus learn about the protostar's future? I am certain my Fyunch(click) knew nothing of it."

  "Not when you knew him," Blaine said. "Later . . ."

  "Perhaps so. But perhaps very much later," Bury said. "Perhaps not until leaving the service of Byzantium. I need not tell you there are complexities here."

  "Yeah, you must love it," Renner said.

  * * *

  Medina Trading's main base was a billion kilometers from the light and warmth of the Mote, and ten degrees up from the plane of Mote system. It was at the inner edge of the cold and emptiness that lie beyond the farthest planets: the inner cometary halo. Medina's Master could hold such a domain because there was so little of value. But Medina Trading needed a base nearer where the Sister would form.

  But matter closer to the Mote moves in faster orbits.

  In the thirty years since Empire ships appeared in Mote system, Medina Trading had claimed six comets as temporary bases.

  Claim a comet; build defenses and a mining operation. Pressure domes would expand to become homes. Finished products would arrive from Medina Main Base: food, metals, technology for working hydrogen, energy-shield generators, in exchange for spheroids of refined hydrogen ice. Some of Byzantium's tribute to Medina would be diverted to the inner base, and that could include power in the form of a collimated sunbeam. The base would house Watchmakers and Engineers, many ships, a few Warriors, more Masters, and always, at least one pair of Mediators. More would be better.

  Before the base could drift so far from Crazy Eddie's unborn Sister as to be useless, the comet would be mined almost to nothing. Medina would claim another.

  Ten years ago East India Company won the battle for the Crazy Eddie point. Medina's Master had been forced to make them a partner . . . but hardly an equal partner. East India Company used its own wealth to test the Crazy Eddie point, while they watched for the Sister in the wrong place. But they also demanded representation at Inner Base Five and, later, Six. Unwanted representatives to be housed at Medina's expense, a family and entourage of spies.

  Therefore Inner Base Six became a peaceful industrial installation with a secondary purpose; eventual contact with the Empire through Crazy Eddie's Sister. Dozens of spacecraft were always about. These were harmless mining and transport ships, weaponless, with big bubble cabins. The Sister might open at any time, and then these ships must carry Mediators to meet the Empire of Man. Base Six's Master kept Mediators ready at all times; so did the East India presence.

  But contingency plans were made that East India Company was to know nothing of.

  6

  Hostile T
akeover

  Power consists in one's capacity to link his will with the purpose of others, to lead by reason and a gift of cooperation.

  —Woodrow Wilson

  The great black blot must be Agamemnon. It was twenty klicks away and drifting closer, dead slow. Three much smaller ships were clustered nearby. Freddy expanded the view.

  "Alien," he said.

  "Moties," Jennifer Banda said. Her grin was enormous, red mouth and white teeth in a dark face lit only by starlight from the viewport. "Glenda Ruth, they look like the ships your father saw. At least, that one does. Those others . . ."

  That one had a crude look. Most of it was a spherical tank. Forward, a smaller, more elaborate container (a cabin?) bristled with sensors; it looked as if it could detach. Aft was a fat doughnut and a spine like a long, long stinger, a magnetic guide for a fusion flame.

  A second had a similar spherical tank and a smaller cabin, plus a tube that might be a cargo hold. A third was all tori and looked as if it would spin for gravity, but was attached to a round-bottomed cone . . . a lander?

  "All different," Glenda Ruth said.

  "Will the Navy let us talk to them?" Jennifer asked.

  "I don't see why not," Freddy said.

  "HECATE THIS IS AGAMEMNON, OVER."

  "Frederick Townsend here. Centering communications beam. Locked on. Over."

  "Locked on. I'm Commander Gregory Balasingham, Mr. Townsend."

  "I take it the Moties have got loose," Freddy said.

  "I wouldn't put it that way. There's a new Alderson path from this system to the Mote, but no Motie ships have got past us here."

  "So far as you know," Glenda Ruth said.

  "Ma'am?"

  "I see three ships of three radically different designs," Glenda Ruth said. "The message here is that you can't predict what they'll send next, Commander. Maybe something with a lightsail and crew in frozen sleep. Maybe anything. And of course you didn't see all the ships that came through."

  There was a long pause. "Miss Blaine, we have a recorded message for you."

  "Thank you."

  "Stand by to record."

  "Standing by," Freddy said. "Got it. Thanks."

  "Commander, can we talk to the Moties?" Glenda Ruth asked.

  Another pause. "Yes, but I want to listen in."

  "That's all right," Glenda Ruth said. "Maybe you'll hear something I haven't. We don't have a lot of time."

  "I'll connect you after you've read your message."

  "Thank you. We'll call you back," Freddy said. "Give us half an hour. By the way, what time are you on?' "

  "It's seventeen fifty-two here."

  "Thank you, we'll synchronize." Ship's time for Hecate was 1430, early afternoon. They'd been on a twenty-four-hour ship's day since they left Sparta. "Commander, would you or any of your officers care to join us for dinner?"

  "Thank you, Mr. Townsend, but we're on general alert here. For all we know, there may be a fleet of Motie warships bearing down on us."

  "Oh. Yes, of course. Thank you. Half an hour, then."

  "Not much here," Glenda Ruth said. "Chris says the Moties came through, seven unarmed ships. One:—hah."

  "Hah?"

  "One asked for Horace Bury. First thing they said."

  Freddy chuckled. Then he laughed. "Wow. Glenda Ruth, I've listened to you and Jennifer trying to convince people how smart the Moties are—"

  "Actually, it was the only thing to do," Jennifer said. "Now that I think of it. Look, if no one was waiting here, they'd go on into the Empire and—what? Who might be glad to see them? Traders! And Bury's the only trader they know about."

  "Well, all right, but I still wish I could have seen his face when they asked for him," Freddy said. "What else do we have?"

  Glenda Ruth hesitated, then said, "Jennifer, it isn't really. Obvious. They didn't ask for Imperial Autonetics. They asked for the oldest man on the expedition, a full Motie lifetime ago!"

  "Mediator lifetime."

  "Whatever. Have you considered who they didn't ask for? Dad. Mom. Bishop Hardy. Admiral Kutuzov! People who could exterminate them or save them from someone else. Oh, hell, I don't have an answer. Chris wants us thinking about it."

  Jennifer was nodding. "A puzzlement. Hey . . . Fyunch(click)s to humans can go mad."

  "Oh, come on! And Horace Bury's is the one that stayed sane? I just . . . Let's all keep thinking, okay?"

  "Okay. The message?"

  "Not much more. Kevin Renner's in charge of the expedition. I always thought—"

  "Yes?"

  "Let's say it doesn't astound me that he's in charge. Renner left orders to Balasingham to let us into the Mote system unless he has good reason not to. Freddy, he won't want to let us go."

  "We'll see," Freddy said. "I sure can't fight him."

  "Run away," Jennifer said. "He has to stay to guard the Moties, and he won't shoot at us."

  "Don't be silly," Freddy said. "Loaded down the way we are, that cruiser's boats could catch us with a long head start. Glenda Ruth, are you sure we want to go to the Mote?"

  "I'm sure," Jennifer said.

  "Chris wants us. Freddy, what do they have to bargain with? The Crazy Eddie Worm might make all the difference."

  "Shouldn't we leave a breeding set here?"

  "Pointless," Glenda Ruth said. "It won't be that long before the Institute ship gets to New Cal. My parents, and all the worms you'd ever want. But meanwhile, Bury and Renner may need bargaining chips fast."

  Freddy mulled it over. "Well, all right. Look, how big a hurry are we in?"

  "The quicker the better. Why?"

  "Then we spend some time here." Freddy touched the intercom button. "Kakumi, it's time to lighten ship. Strip down to racing trim. Leave that special cargo in place, but otherwise lighten ship's stores."

  Jennifer caught his grimace. "What?"

  "George. He didn't volunteer for this. I'll leave him with the Navy if they'll let me. I sure hope one of you can cook!"

  * * *

  Hecate was in shambles. Freddy and Terry Kakumi worked to strip out bulkheads, rearrange equipment, and neither wanted help from Glenda Ruth or Jennifer. Glenda Ruth watched Freddy connect a hose to the foam wall, suck the air out all in one shoomph, roll it up and expose the master bedroom to all and sundry. Kakumi moved in with the hose, mated it to the bed, and shoomph.

  To Hades with it, she thought. I'm going to take a shower while there's still a shower facility.

  She felt superfluous. The Navy had no objections to Glenda Ruth's talking to the Moties, but the Moties were taking their time about answering the invitation. Why? Motie Mediators always wanted to talk; the decision must come from the Master, the one called Marco Polo.

  Explorer and ambassador. The first expedition to the Mote had consisted of two Imperial warships, MacArthur and Lenin, with Lenin forbidden to talk to the Moties at all, and MacArthur greatly restricted in what information could be passed along. The Moties had obtained several books of human history from Chaplain Hardy of the MacArthur, but none covered events as recent as the invention of the Alderson Drive. That left them a limited number of human names and cultures to draw on.

  They had chosen: Marco Polo, the Master. Sir Walter Raleigh, the senior Mediator. Interesting choice of names

  Glenda Ruth heard Jennifer's voice as she wriggled out of the shower bag. "Yes. Henry Hudson? Yes, of course . . . No, I can't promise that, Mr. Hudson, but I can let you talk to my superior." Jennifer's arm semaphored in frantic circles.

  Glenda Ruth slid quickly into a towelsuit and moved up beside her.

  Henry Hudson was a young Motie furred in brown and white; the pattern didn't match Glenda Ruth's memories of Jock and Charlie. Family markings differed, maybe. The creature seemed both strange and familiar. This one was probably no more than twelve Mote Prime years old, but Moties matured much faster than humans.

  And Mediators aboard the other Motie ships would be watching everything. Glenda Ruth felt a surge o
f stage fright . . . nothing to what Jennifer must be feeling.

  "Good day to you, Ms. Ambassador," the Motie said. Brown-irised manlike eyes looked directly into hers. "Jennifer tells me you are Glenda Ruth Blaine, addressed formally as the Honorable Ms. Blaine. I call myself Henry Hudson, and I speak for Marco Polo, my Master. Might I know the nature and extent of your political power?"

  Glenda Ruth smiled with the hint of a deprecating shrug. "Through family relationships, but none given formally. We came in some haste. I'll be granted some decision power just because I was here and others weren't, and my family . . ." She trailed off. It felt like talking to a squid: the creature wasn't reacting right.

  She was vaguely aware that behind her Jennifer was speaking rapidly and quietly into a mike. A middie was in the second viewscreen; then an officer; then Balasingham himself. Good. He didn't try to interrupt.

  The Motie said, "It delights me to speak to you regardless." The creature's Anglic was textbook perfect. Her arms . . . "Your progenitors visited us before my birth! Including your—father?"

  "Father and mother."

  "Ah. How did it change them?" Arms, shoulders, head, moved wrongly, with a momentary illusion of broken joints, and Glenda Ruth was suddenly terribly aware of her own arms, shoulders, fingers, body language . . . moving without conscious thought, in a language learned from Charlie and Jock. And suddenly she understood.

  "You were not trained by a human's Fyunch(click)!"

  "No, milady." The Motie moved its arms in a pattern unfamiliar to Glenda Ruth. "I have been taught your language, and some of your customs. I am aware that you do not experience our cycle of reproduction, and that your power structures are different from ours, but I have been assigned no one human to study."

  "As yet."

  "As you say. Not until we meet the givers of orders in your Empire." It paused. "You do not speak for your Masters. I have been told that I would meet—humans—who were neither Mediator nor Master, but I confess that the experience is stranger than I had anticipated."

  "You speak for . . . ?"