The Gripping Hand Read online

  "You've kept that promise," Mercer said. "Now may I offer you more? I have long intended to go to New Caledonia. I would be more than pleased to have you as a guest for the journey."

  "That's generous," Mercer said. "I'd like to accept."

  "But you do not?" Bury asked.

  Mercer sighed. "Excellency, I'm a politician. Successful, I think, but still a politician. I don't know how it happened, but you have made a very powerful enemy."

  "Captain Blaine," Renner said.

  "Earl Blaine. Precisely. I need not tell anyone in this room just how powerful the Blaine family is. As the first members of the Imperial Commission, they set the policies on our relations with the Moties. The old Marquis has a standing invitation at the Palace. Frankly, I can't afford to have their opposition."

  "No argument there," Cziller said.

  Mercer shrugged. "Excellency, I can see great benefits to having your friendship, and a comfortable and expeditious journey is probably the least of them, but what can I do?"

  "Let me get something straight," Cziller said. "His Excellency's-uh, strong distrust-of Moties is well known. My last assignment was in BuPolDoc-excuse me, the Navy's Bureau of Policy and Doctrines-and Bury, you had half a dozen expensive Imperial Autonetics PR types trying to convince everyone in the Navy."

  "I suppose I became something of a joke," Bury said.

  "Not that, Excellency. Hardly that. But maybe we stopped giving your holos quite as high a priority when they mentioned Moties. Kevin, I never knew you considered Moties a threat. Your video report sure doesn't come across that way."

  Renner nodded. "I had a wonderful time on the Mote expedition, and I guess that's what showed. That report was for the media. I didn't make it for the Navy. For that matter, I have to calm Bury down sometimes.

  "Even so, at Maxroy's Purchase I was the one who ran around shrieking, ‘The Moties are coming!' I'm not blind. A couple of points, okay? I love Mediators. Especially my own Fyunch(click), and I suppose that's just my natural narcissism. We all felt that way. Every so often I have to remind myself that everyone who thinks he likes Moties actually likes Motie Mediators. They're the ones who do all the talking. But the Masters make all the decisions, and they only talk to and through Mediators. Clear?"

  "A point worth noting," Czifler said. "My Lord, did you know that the Blaine children had Motie nannies when they were growing up? It wasn't generally publicized."

  Renner said, "Yeah. Second. I like Bury. Tastes differ, but I like Horace Bury just fine. You didn't know that, did you, Bury?"

  Bury felt his cheeks warming. "You've never said that."

  "Yeah. But he's dangerous. Check his record. The Moties are likewise dangerous, and I don't mean Mediators now, I mean a dozen species that think like robber barons and build like idealized engineers and carry a ton of stuff on their shoulders and do their farming with an inborn green thumb and fight like God knows what. We've never seen Warriors fight, but if they're as good at war as Engineers are at tinkering, yuk."

  "One must not forget their sexual cycle," Bury said.

  "Yeah. If they don't get pregnant, they die horribly. Population problem, or what?"

  Cziller waved that away. "We don't need that lecture. Everybody knows it. We know how they solve it, too. Wars. It's why we had to lock them up in the first place. Damn! I suppose it is... scary, to think of Mediators lecturing at Blaine Institute and raising little Blaines. There was a Master, too, but I hear he died early."

  "The Blaine children. We met young Glenda Ruth. She was grateful for a present I provided."

  Cziller looked thoughtful. "My Lord, you said you could see advantages to His Excellency's friendship."

  "Well-"

  Pardon me, my Lord. I wasn't arguing. I can see advantages, too." Cziller looked grim. "Look, I'm as loyal as anybody, but I'm not blind. The Empire just isn't as efficient as it was thirty years ago. When the Moties were first discovered, Merrill was Viceroy out there behind the Coal Sack. Old Navy man. He had a battle fleet together before Sparta even knew there was a problem. You couldn't do that now, my Lord."

  "No, Admiral, I probably couldn't," Mercer said.

  "You can't even get Sparta to react that fast," Cziller said. "It's like we've got fat in the arteries. My Lord, if the Moties really are dangerous, and that damn star really is about to let them out, you're going to need all the clout you can get. Blaine and Bury together wouldn't be too much."

  Mercer nodded. "I can't argue, but I can't think what to do, either. I don't know why the Earl so thoroughly disapproves of Trader Bury."

  "I do," Cziller said. "Damn all, I promised Jennifer I wouldn't get into this. Excellency, would you ask your computer to help me place a call? Blaine Manor."

  "You can get through?" Renner asked.

  "Once. I can't abuse the privilege or they'll change the codes on me." He turned to Bury. "Excellency, I think it's about time you and Rod Blaine had a talk about New Chicago."

  Ice ran up Bury's spine, and he saw his indicators jump.

  6 The Seeds of Treason

  Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man.

  Mark Twain

  The informal luncheon room of the Drakenberg Club was paneled in walnut, then decorated with a theme Renner didn't recognize: pictures of men in strange uniforms, carrying odd implements that included oversize gloves for one hand, and a small white ball.

  The club steward ushered him to a table. Glenda Ruth Blaine was already there. The steward bowed formally. "My Lady, your guest."

  "Thank you, William," she said. "William, this is my brother's godfather, Sir Kevin Renner."

  "Ah. Pleased to meet you, Sir Kevin. Shall I send the waiter, my Lady?"

  "Please." Glenda Ruth waited until the steward was gone, then flashed a hefty grin. "Made his day, we did. William does love rubbing elbows with the aristocracy."

  Kevin Renner sat. He couldn't help thinking what a remarkably pretty girl Glenda Ruth was. Not beautiful in the fashion-magazine sense, something else, something about her infectious smile. Of course she was only seventeen standard years old, but she seemed older. Influence of the Moties? Her mother hadn't been a lot older, no more than twenty-five, when she'd gone to the Mote world. Renner tried to remember what Sally Fowler had been like.

  He indicated the half dozen forks at his place. "Bit fancy for lunch?"

  Glenda Ruth winked at him. "Stuffy place, but it was the only one I could think of where you can't possibly grab the check."

  "Is that important?"

  Her smiled faded slightly. "It might be. Daddy doesn't want us accepting favors from Horace Bury. We're guessing you have an expense account."

  "I do, but this isn't business. Or is it?"

  She shrugged. "It might be. I took Admiral Cziller's call. After he talked to Daddy. I called him back."

  "Yeah, I suppose you would know him."

  "You could say that." She chuckled. "I called him Uncle Bruno until I was ten- Here's the waiter. Champagne cocktail for me. Kevin?"

  "Bit early for drinking. Coffee, please."

  "Yes, sir."

  Glenda Ruth was grinning at him again. "You don't need to be so adult."

  "Eh?"

  "They know how old I am. My champagne cocktail won't have alcohol in it. Of course some kids just slip in vodka from a flask."

  "Will you?"

  "I don't even own a flask."

  "Motie influence?"

  "No, none of them ever mentioned it."

  Hmm? But she didn't drink. But- "Yeah. They wouldn't see the point. They eat, drink, breathe industrial poison. If you aren't tough enough, you die. Why go looking for more?"

  She nodded. "That sounds right."

  Kevin looked around the room. Typical aristocratic luncheon place. Expensive women and very busy men. He didn't really notice them. He looked away from the table so he wouldn't look as if he were starin
g at the girl he was with, and the truth was that he very much wanted to stare at her. She was far and away the most attractive woman in the room. Probably the most expensive, too, Kevin thought. Her clothes were simple enough, a dark wool afternoon dress that fit perfectly, emphasizing her femininity without being overtly sexy. The skirt was just knee length, slightly conservative by current fashions, but that tended to emphasize the calves and ankles. Her jewelry was simple, but included a matched pair of earrings of Xanadu firestones worth enough to buy a house on Renner's home planet.

  "Quite a long way from Maxroy's Purchase," Renner said.

  "Or from New Caledonia."

  "True. How long were you there?"

  "I barely remember it," Glenda Ruth said. "Dad thought Kevin Christian and I ought to grow up on Sparta instead of in the provinces." She shrugged. "I suppose he was right, but-I worry about the Moties, now that Mother and Dad aren't on the Commission."

  "They're not on the Commission, but they still have plenty of influence," Renner said. "As Bury and I found out."

  "Yeah. Sorry about that."

  "So. What did you want to see me about?" Renner asked.

  "Crazy Eddie."

  "Uh?"

  "You said back at the Institute that we don't understand Crazy Eddie. He's supposed to fail?"

  "Yes, I guess I said that."

  "I've only known three Moties," she said. "I think I understand Crazy Eddie, but I'm not sure. You knew a lot of Moties-"

  "Not for long. Not very well."

  "Well enough to understand Crazy Eddie."

  "Not understand, exactly."

  "You know what I mean. There were a dozen stories about Crazy Eddie. Most were recorded, and I have them. There was the story they told you, for instance." She took out her pocket computer and scribbled on it for a moment. An image rose out of the tablecloth.

  Rennet had taken this sequence straight from MacArthur's records as beamed to Lenin. A twisted shape in brown-and-white fur, a Motie Mediator, was speaking. "Renner, I must tell you of a creature of legend.

  "We will call him Crazy Eddie, if you like. He is a... he is like me, sometimes, and he is a Brown, an idiot savant tinker, sometimes. Always he does the wrong things for excellent reasons. He does the same things over and over, and they always bring disaster, and he never learns."

  The image jumped a bit. Renner had edited this for Summer Vacation. "When a city has grown so overlarge that it is an immediate danger of collapse... when food and clean water flow into the city at a rate just sufficient to feed every mouth, and every hand must work constantly to keep it that way... when all transportation is involved in moving vital supplies, and none is left over to move people out of the city should the need arise... then it is that Crazy Eddie leads the movers of garbage out on strike for better working conditions."

  Glenda Ruth turned it off. Rennet said, "I remember. My introduction to Crazy Eddie. Once we knew what to ask for, we got more. Jock Sinclair's Motie spoke of melting down your supply of screws to make a screwdriver. Father Hardy's Mediator talked about a religion that preached abstention from sex. We didn't know how bizarre that was, for Moties."

  "Yes, but you know, we never did learn much more about it," Glenda Ruth said. "So why did you say that Crazy Eddie is supposed to fail? Don't the Moties admire Crazy Eddie? Jock certainly does."

  "You'd know more than me. But yes, I think they all admire anyone mad enough to think all problems have solutions. Which doesn't mean that they expect the universe to cooperate."

  "No, of course not. But I still wonder,"

  "The Cycles," Renner said. "It's all they have for history. Crazy Eddie thinks he can change all that. End the Cycles. Of course they admire him. They also know he's crazy, and it won't happen."

  "But maybe we have the solution now. The parasite."

  "Yeah, I've wondered about that," Renner said. The waiter brought coffee, and a tall champagne glass with something sparkling and pink for Glenda Ruth. Kevin ordered absently, his mind far from food.

  "You knew two Mediators," Rennet said. "Of course you didn't get to know Ivan."

  "No. He was more aloof. Masters are."

  "And the Mediators speak for them," Renner said. "That's more obvious on the Mote than it would have been to you. But it's something you don't dare forget. Take your parasite. Jock can't make any deal that's binding on Masters back on the Mote."

  "Yes-"

  "There's also the question of how your parasite would get to the Mote. I doubt the Navy will let any ships go there."

  "I talked to Uncle Bruno this morning," Glenda Ruth said.

  "Eh?"

  "The protostar. When it ignites, the Moties will come out. We have to do something before that happens. I'm sure Admiral Cziller is talking to all his classmates right now."

  "Will something happen soon?"

  "Of course not. Sparta isn't like that. It will have to be discussed in the Navy, then at the Palace, then the politicians will get in the act."

  "Fortunately it may not collapse soon. Or does Jock know something?"

  She shook her head. "He doesn't know, and he wouldn't have known. Ivan may have known things we weren't supposed to find out, but Jock and Charlie never did. And Ivan was no astronomer. He wouldn't be. Keepers aren't usually curious." The waiter brought lunch. Glenda Ruth talked all during lunch, drawing Renner out, until he realized he had told her nearly everything he'd ever thought about the Mote.

  She's a damned good listener. Cares what you say. Of course she would-it's hard to tell what's an act and what isn't. Maybe none of it is.

  She waited until dessert before she said, "Bruno said he wished he could go with you. To the Mote."

  "We're not going to the Mote. Just to the Crazy Eddie Squadron-maybe not there, if your father doesn't lift his veto. You know he's blocking the trip. Can you talk to him?"

  "I can talk. It won't help. They don't much listen to me. But I'll try-if I get Daddy to say yes, can I go with you?"

  Rennet managed to set the coffee cup down without spilling any.

  Glenda Ruth looked defiantly at her mother. "Aaall right. You won't let Kevin and Horace Bury go. Fine, I won't go with them. I'll go with Freddy."

  "Freddy!"

  "Certainly. He has a ship."

  "Pretty good one, too," Rod Blaine said. Sally's look silenced him before he could say anything else.

  "You are not going halfway across the galaxy with that-"

  Glenda Ruth cocked her head. "Freddy? You can hardly complain about his social standing. His family is as prominent as ours. About as rich, too. We went out beyond the moon for a week during Spring vacation. You didn't search wildly for an appropriate insult then."

  "Did-" Sally caught herself. "It's a bit different, being in a small ship for months."

  "If it's my reputation that worries you, we can take a chaperone. Or one of my friends from the Institute. Jennifer. And her mother."

  "That's absurd. Jennifer can't afford that."

  "I can, Mother. I'll be eighteen in two weeks, and I'll have my own money. Uncle Ben left me quite a lot, you know."

  Rod and Sally exchanged looks.

  "What does Freddy's father have to say about this?" Sally demanded.

  "For that matter, have you asked Freddy?" Rod asked. "I know you haven't asked Bury."

  "She doesn't think she has to ask anyone," Sally said.

  Glenda Ruth laughed. "Freddy will be glad to take me anywhere, and you know it. And his father doesn't care what he does, if he won't join the Navy."

  "Which he won't," Rod said.

  "Because he knows he wouldn't be any good at it," Glenda Ruth said.

  Sally shook her head. "I don't see what you see in Freddy Townsend-"

  "You wouldn't, Mother. He's not a hero like you. Or Daddy. But I like him. He's funny. And Jock likes him."

  "You must like him a lot if you're willing to be cooped up in that yacht of his for several months," Rod said. "And I don't think you would for a tri
p to Saint Ekaterina. Widget-"

  "Please don't call me that."

  "Sorry, Princess.

  "Go ahead and wriggle, my Lord, but you'll have to think of me as an adult soon or sooner. Two weeks to practice, My Lord Blaine."

  Blaine recovered fast, but for an instant he'd been jolted. Then, "Glenda Ruth, I know why Bury wants to go to New Caledonia. He wants to inspect the Blockade Fleet. But why you? Freddy's ship can't go to the blockade point! It's inside a star, and last time I looked there wasn't any Langston Field on that yacht."

  "I want to see my brother. I don't have to visit the Blockade Fleet for that. He gets to New Cal twice a year

  Sally snorted. "Brother. What you want to do is go to the Mote."

  "Chris would, too," Rod said. "But neither of you is going to do it."

  "She's persuasive," Sally said. "And so is Chris. Together-"

  "Separately or together our children aren't going to talk the Navy into that," Rod said. "Prin-Glenda Ruth, this is silly. You're upsetting your mother. You are not going to New Caledonia."

  "I am, yes. I don't want to start a big fight, but really, how can you stop me? In two weeks I'll have my own money." She grinned. "Of course I could marry Freddy."

  Sally looked horrified, then laughed. "Serve you right if you did."

  "Anyway, I don't have to."

  "You've already been accepted at the University," Sally said.

  "Yes, and I'll go, but not just now." Glenda Ruth shrugged. "Lots kids take a wanderjahre before starting college. Why not me?"

  "All right. Let's be serious," Rod said. "Why?"

  Glenda Ruth said, "I'm worried about the Moties."

  "Why should you be worried about the Moties?" Sally asked.

  "Politics. Growing up in this house, I've seen a lot of politics go past my nose. When the Parliament starts debating the cost of the Blockade Fleet, anything can happen. Anything! Suppose they think it costs too much? They aren't going to just pull the fleet back to New Cal. You know they won't. They'll-" She caught herself.

  "They'll what?" Sally asked.

  Her voice was no more than a whisper. "They'll send for Kutuzov."

  Sally frowned and looked to Rod.