The Gripping Hand (48 page)

"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," Victoria 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.

Brenda Curtis had been a Sauron superman.

Current tales of the Sauron breeding centers were entirely imaginary. Terry had no idea what his ancestor had escaped from. Only the bald fact of her origin was known, and only to her children . . . and their fathers? Who could tell, now?

But twenty-four gene-tailored Motie Warriors were about to learn whether a child of Brenda Curtis could take care of himself.

He was not required to fight, Terry reminded himself. He would be judged by whether he survived.

The canister surged. Aft defined itself: the window was wreathed in pale flame. Terry's chair rotated; the others didn't. "They're pampering me, I think."

His eye and camera found a broad patch of black against the stars, and a scattering of blunt cylinders accelerating alongside his own. The black edged across the stars. The troopship struck it with a surge and an ominous crunch.

The troopship turned powerfully. Thrust distorted Terry's voice. "We've punched through the mirror. It's stronger than I expected. Maybe they reinforced it after
Cerberus
's attack. I can see a ragged black hole—ooppshit!" Pellets blasted through the cabin.

Terry hadn't even had a chance to curl around himself. He took a moment to understand that he was alive, unhurt. The rest—

"Some Warriors are hit, but they're ignoring it." He let the camera watch Warriors place meteor patches in a tearing hurry. "The ship's decelerating hard. The hailstorm isn't over. Maybe you can hear the impacts, but the pellets aren't hitting the life support system anymore. We're thrusting, too. Something—" Terry grabbed handholds.

The ship smacked nozzles-first into a wall, with a booming recoil.

Terry's vision cleared quickly. One of the odd ones had already cut the ship's hull wide open, and the Warriors were pouring through. Terry searched for a strap release.

The four odd ones moved last.

Terry cut himself free and followed them out. "I'd bet anything that one's a Warrior-Doctor," he told his audience. "Those two are officers: better armor, and the widgetry they're carrying looks like communications, not weapons." The officers separated quickly. The last Motie was more compact, larger head, the hands more delicate. "That one looks like a cross between Warrior and Engineer. I'll follow it."

The starscape was gaudy, but the mirrors were brighter yet. Terry opened his silver umbrella . . . his laser shield.

Pandemonium was brilliantly backlit by the mirrors. The troops were jetting into a madman's maze. One and another Warrior flashed red, then puffed neon-red gas. Answering fire made actinic flares among the spires and blocks. Warrior troops swarmed from other directions. The ships of Captor Fleet were on all sides of Pandemonium.

Once Terry looked back. He reported, "The troopship's wrecked and nobody cares. They must be counting on their Warrior-Engineer to build them a way home. They'll guard him pretty carefully." But Terry was no longer sure of that. Pandemonium was very close.

They were approaching a windowless wall. The lasers that menaced them were suddenly unable to reach them, except for stragglers . . . such as Terry Kakumi, crouched behind his umbrella. A red dot played across it, and then he, too, was out of the lasers' view. He moved his umbrella-mirror and saw a bulging crater in the wall, and Captor troops diving through.

Too fast. He activated his backpack jets, then swore luridly for his audience and posterity. "Sorry. I'm getting low thrust. Watchmakers must have fixed my bloody jet pack." The crater came up, too fast, and he steered to miss the edge. "Must think I don't mass that much after all." He clutched his camera to his chest, pointing down into the dark.