The Gripping Hand (35 page)

"A what?"

"Normally they'd give us a laser spot to follow. This close, with 100x mag, I should see something that big directly . . . unless the Langston Field is up. Nice that we were expected, though. And it's a request, at least so far."

"They've gone stealth," Glenda Ruth said. "And no comment regarding
Sinbad
or my brother. Freddy, I think it's happened. The Moties are loose."

"Uh-huh." He tapped at console keys. "ACCELERATION WARNING. Stand by for half-standard gravity."

"The Fyunch(click)s of humans were very diverse," Eudoxus said, "and so were their various fates. Captain Roderick Blaine's went mad. Sally Fowler's remained sane enough to advise, but was rarely considered trustworthy. Jacob Buckman's never had a problem. Chaplain Hardy's played abstract intellectual games; even some of the Masters found them interesting. Kevin, yours won so many arguments that she was made a teacher, but always under supervision."

"Flattering," Renner said. "Did you meet her?"

"No. I know these things due to observations by Horace Bury's Fyunch(click). That individual—shall we call her Bury-One? She was young, male, when he studied Horace Bury.

"After
MacArthur
's departure he saw a ruinous war shaping itself. He made some efforts to avert it, then to shape any kind of refuge for knowledge that would be lost. When these attempts had clearly failed, Bury-One left her Master. With a tangle of alliances and bluffs collapsing about her, she built and provisioned a spacecraft, reached the asteroids, and announced that her services were for sale."

Eudoxus waited patiently through Kevin Renner's laughter. Others were laughing, too, and even Bury was smiling in . . . pride? Presently Renner said, "I take it your Medina Trading—"

"No, Kevin, Medina hadn't the wealth or position by then. A civilization we will call Byzantium won the bidding among those who could not be driven off or barred by distance or shortfall of delta-vee."

Chris Blaine was listening patiently, taking it all in and giving nothing. Joyce huddled in one corner of the bridge, whispering frantically into her recorder. Bury was smiling, enjoying Kevin's discomfiture. Bury had played this game before.

None of Renner's crew were going to be any help at all . . . unless one of Cynthia's agonizing massages could put him back together, sometime in the indefinite future.

Byzantium? Renner rubbed his aching temples and considered ordering
Atropos
to blow
Phidippides
out of the sky. At least he'd know who his enemies were then. And the next alien who tried to parley might feel impelled to give him more information.

Some of this may have showed even through static, to a trained Mediator. Eudoxus said, "Please, Kevin, let me try to give you some picture of the extraplanetary civilizations."

"Try it."

"On Mote Prime they tend to big, sprawling cultures," Eudoxus said. "They use more intricate interlockings of obligations, bigger and more extensive families controlling wider, better-defined territories than we do. We don't go near Mote Prime. The planetbound are too powerful, and also not mobile enough to threaten us.

"In the asteroids and the moon clusters of Mote Beta and Mote Gamma—"

"Gamma," Buckman said. "So it does exist. A gas giant?"

"Yes, approximately twice the distance from the Mote as Mote Beta. It has an extensive system of moons. In those and Beta's moons the families are small, independent, and not inclined to trust outsiders to supply needed resources."

"Any idea why?"

"We can't make maps out here. There's no way to define a territory. Everything changes shape constantly. Trade routes depend on fuel expenditure, on position and energy considerations, and both are constantly shifting. Your Alderson Field has made it even more complex, because now even the waste areas may yield mass."

"I was going to ask, who is Byzantium? But rape that. Who are you?"

"Medina Traders. Byzantium is an ally."

"Yeah."

"An important ally. When
MacArthur
arrived in our system nearly twenty-seven Mote Prime years ago, Medina Traders was a family of . . . how to describe? . . . well, twenty to thirty Masters and equivalent subgroups, perhaps two hundred of every class excluding Watchmakers. Our position in Mote Beta's Trailing Trojans was gradually slipping. The geometrical relationship of the various rocks had gone through some crucial changes. Our lore included detailed knowledge of failed investigations of the Crazy Eddie Drive, and also of the Curdle in the Coal Sack. We recognized your ships for what they were, from your appearance in the Crazy Eddie point right down to the black-box glow of your Langston Fields."

"I expect you weren't born yet." Any Mediator alive then would be dead by now.

"Oh, no. I was taught these things because His Excellency would insist on knowing the flow of our politics. Kevin, may I talk to His Excellency?"

"For the moment, no." The Mediator would have more trouble reading Renner's thoughts and emotions. Bury, of course, was watching the monitor; he could interrupt if he saw need.

The Motie nodded brusquely. "The advent of interstellar aliens changed everything. We retreated from our position in the Trailing Trojans in good order. Medina lost considerable valuable resources, but we were able to hold on to some by going before there was need. The usurper family, call them Persia, were as eager as we were to avoid noisy space battles that might attract
Lenin
's attention. We may call this Period One, from the Empire's arrival to
Lenin
's departure.

"My Master established us in the inner halo of comets, beyond both the old and the expected new Crazy Eddie points. She had a gripping hand on considerable territory when she died, a vast volume enclosing little mass, near to nothing valuable at all. But in thirty years we would be just outward from the access point to the human-ruled Empire. You follow? We would command Crazy Eddie's Sister when the Curdle collapsed and the Sister appeared.

"Resources are thin where we settled. During the twelve years following
Lenin
's departure, we did well. Call that Period Two. We were able to expand Medina's base due to alliances formed with Byzantium in the moon system of Mote Beta. We shared our knowledge with Byzantium. The family Byzantium is large and powerful and can afford what she sends us, even though half of the resources they send go to support Medina Traders and to increase our strength. Of course they expect to share in the rewards, once our way opens to the worlds of the Empire.

"When Horace Bury's Fyunch(click) appeared, Byzantium was able to block other competitors and acquire her. This worked out well for us. With Bury-One to advise them, Byzantium felt more secure in our partnership."

Bury was nodding, smiling. Politics. Eudoxus continued, "Medina Trading spent Period Two sending ships to test the strength of the Empire's defense of the Eye. All the tricky stunts tried in that period were of our working, using resources that flowed from Byzantium."

"From what we saw, that was a lot of resources," Renner said.

"Indeed," Eudoxus said. "A great deal of wealth was lost forever." The alien conveyed sorrow and resignation. "So. We agitated for a Bury's Motie, but many years passed before Byzantium would release one to us. He was Bury-One's first apprentice. Of course Bury-One was already training a second, and the first began at once to train me. Call her Bury-2A, my teacher."

"I don't see where the fighting comes in yet."

"Am I to feel hurried, Kevin? You'll be two hundred hours en route. We don't intend to keep this acceleration any longer than we have to."

"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?"