The Gripping Hand

by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle

  "I want his name," Sally said.

  "Huh?"

  "Whoever let them through. There's got to be a Navy man in charge out there, and he let our daughter go into the Mote system in an unarmed yacht. I want his name."

  "Sally . . ."

  "Yes, I know, he thought he had a good reason."

  "Maybe he did."

  "It wouldn't matter, would it? When was the last time you won an argument with her? I still want his name. Fyunch(click)!"

  "Yes, madame?"

  "Is our car ready?"

  "Yes, madame."

  "Tell Wilson we'll be leaving in an hour. Get clearances for the west entrance to the Palace."

  "Yes, madame."

  "So what do we take?" Sally said. "Jock. Fyunch(click), we want to talk to Jock. Wake him up, but check with the doctors first."

  "Good thinking," Rod said. "Sally, we can't take him with us."

  "No, but we can get him to record something to prove he's still alive," Sally said.

  "What?" Rod held a sheath of facsimile papers. "The last report says, and I quote: 'The Honorable Glenda Ruth Blaine, on the basis of brief conversations with the Motie representatives, has concluded that although these Moties know Anglic and have some familiarity with the Empire, they are not part of any Motie group previously encountered.' I don't think they believe her."

  "More fools they."

  "Madame," the ceiling said. "Jock has been awakened. Do you want visuals?"

  "Yes, thank you."

  Brown and white fur streaked with gray. "Good morning, Sally. If you don't mind, I'll have chocolate while we talk."

  "By all means. Good morning. Jock, the Moties are loose."

  "Ah?"

  "You knew about the protostar."

  "I know what you have told me about the protostar. You said that it would collapse within the next hundred years. I take it that was wrong? That it has already happened?"

  "You got it," Rod said. "Jock, we have a problem. Moties that Glenda Ruth believes aren't part of King Peter's group have got out of the Mote system. So far they appear to be stuck in a red dwarf backwater, but we all know the Empire can't keep up two blockades."

  "And you and Sally have been given the problem of what to do about the Moties," Jock said. "Have they made you an admiral yet?"

  "No."

  "They will. And they'll give you a fleet." Jock's hand moved expressively. "At least it's not Kutuzov. Of course they want you to leave immediately. I am afraid I cannot accompany you."

  "No, the Jump shock would kill you."

  "Are the children well? They must have involved themselves by now."

  Sally said, "They've gone to the Mote."

  "I did not think you could surprise me," Jock said, "But you have. I see. Give me an hour. I will make what records I can."

  "In what language?" Rod asked.

  "In several. I will need recent pictures of Chris and Glenda Ruth, as well as of myself."

  "We have a meeting."

  "Of course. We will discuss this when you're done with that." The Motie paused, and somehow the Motie smile was a grin of triumph. "So the horse learned to sing after all."

  * * *

  "I hadn't expected this," Jennifer said. "We're infested with Moties! Freddy . . . Freddy, I can't keep thinking of this ship as Hecate!"

  Freddy Townsend looked around. "Yeah. Hecate's cabin mounted on a ship of unknown name. Bandit-One? And we'll just hang numbers on the rest of the fleet."

  Glenda Ruth said, "We could ask—"

  And she shied back before he snarled, "I won't ask Victoria. She'd give us the name of this Motie ship, like we're strap-on cargo."

  Jennifer said, "A two-headed ship. Two captains. We've never seen the Master that gives the orders. Cerberus?"

  Five Watchmakers, two Warriors, three Engineers nursing two Mediator pups, the old Mediator they now called Victoria, a Master, a Doctor, and a lean, spidery variant that scuttled back and forth through Cerberus's big new airlock, perhaps bearing messages, had all made their nests in the cabin.

  The change had come gradually, while they slept. Glenda Ruth remembered waking from time to time in a shifting pattern of variously shaped Moties. Twelve hours of that, then she woke choking and weeping. The Doctor had examined them and then meeped at the young male Master they'd named Merlin, who warbled at the Engineers, who readjusted the air and sewage recyclers until the air was back to standard . . . but it was still thick with Motie smells, and every human's eyes were still red.

  The green strips painted along the walls had grown into vines, furry green tubes as thick Glenda Ruth's leg. The various Moties used the lines to mark off their territories.

  They'd turned Cerberus's original airlock into a toilet: one toilet with a variety of attachments. The Engineers had worked on Cerberus's original toilet, too. It worked better now.

  "They've put screens up. Both toilets," Glenda Ruth said. "We're talking now."

  "Can you tell them to leave us some room?"

  "I'll give it another try, but you can guess the answer. This much is more personal room than they've ever seen in one spot."

  An Engineer arrived with food. All of the Moties converged except one Warrior. Glenda Ruth said, "Jennifer, go and see what they're eating."

  The meal was democratic: the young Master called Merlin supervised distribution and sent a Watchmaker with food for the Warrior on guard. Merlin looked around when Jennifer came near. Victoria said he was a young male; this was not obvious, given he was helping to nurse the Mediator pups. The human presence didn't disturb him. Jennifer looked about her; spoke a few words to Victoria.

  The Mediator swam to join Glenda Ruth. Victoria had been learning Anglic much faster than Glenda Ruth could learn Oort Cloud Recent.

  She said, "About food? I think, thought you have your own."

  "I'd like to know if this is like what we eat," she told it.

  "Will ask Doctor and Engineer."

  "I would like to feed you cocoa."

  "Why?"

  "On the planet they liked cocoa. If you like cocoa, we have something to trade."

  "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 everywh
ere, in every caste. Sfufth breeds Watchmakers for sale to other nests. No need for cage, they take care of serves."

  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, solitary, 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 of 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 for 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."

&nb
sp; 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.