The Gripping Hand Read online

  "Of course we can't send all our ships against any single attempt," Blaine said. "There always has to be a reserve. Since there's no possible way the information could get back to the Mote, I suppose it's safe to say that sometimes that reserve has gotten critically thin."

  Chris sounds better, surer. This part he knows, Renner thought; it's the cover-up he doesn't like. "He's pretty good," he said to Ruth Cohen.

  "Given his training, he damned well ought to be," Ruth replied. The presentation continued. There were clips of the men amusing themselves on long watches. Then more battle scenes.

  "Lately the Moties have a new trick," Blaine said. "They're sending what we've termed ‘token ships.' These are unmanned ships, really only the framework of a ship, just an Alderson Drive and two tanks and a fusion motor. With this one, the sixth, we held off to see if it would do anything."

  It didn't. They saw an absurd stick-figure of a ship pop into existence at low velocity and immediately begin to melt.

  Mercer cleared his throat. "Commander, do you have any theories on why they would send such things?"

  "No, Your Highness. They come one at a time; no Field, they're easy to shoot down. No attempt to send messages. If they wanted us off guard, why send anything at all? It's as if they want us to be alert. We've speculated that they may want to locate the Alderson point more precisely-at their end, in Mote system-but they know that well enough to send ships through at point one percent of lightspeed. We can't do that."

  "Hah," Renner said. Everyone looked in his direction. "I think I know-"

  "Yes, of course," Buckman said. He stood up. "Sir Kevin is right."

  "Jacob-" Bury said. His voice was surprisingly strong.

  "Oh. Um. Yes, of course. Cal-Your Highness, should I explain?"

  Mercer was nodding gloomily. No surprises here. "Please do, Dr. Buckman."

  "They're not trying to locate the Alderson point, they're proving that it's still there."

  "Still there?" Jack Cargill sounded shocked. "Excuse me, Dr. Buckman, but why the devil shouldn't it be there?'

  "Because it will move when the protostar collapses," Buckman said. "Renner, you seem to be good at talking to amateurs. Maybe you ought to tell them."

  They listened as Kevin Renner talked. Kevin watched their eyes for bewilderment or comprehension, watching-he didn't realize it at first-for Kevin Christian Blaine's surprise or disbelief. But Blaine's eyes widened in a slap-my-head Eureka! reaction: old knowledge falling into place. Oh, Lord, he believes it.

  "I see," Bishop Hardy said. "I think I understand. But as the least technical person on the Commission, perhaps I should summarize and the experts can tell me if I've left anything out."

  "Please," Mercer said.

  "We are now convinced that the Moties deceived us about their stellar observations, particularly regarding the protostar. They convinced Dr. Buckman that the protostar will not ignite for from centuries to millennia. It now appears that it may collapse and ignite at any time. Might even have done so already."

  "Yes," Buckman said. His voice was grim. "I have to give young Arnoff credit. He was right."

  "When it ignites," Hardy said, "the Eleventh Fleet will be guarding an entry point that no longer exists."

  "Well, may not, and will have moved a considerable distance in any case," Buckman said. "I've been working on the geometry, but with much of the data suspect it's hard to be exact. Everything depends on the violence of the collapse and the brightness of the new star."

  "Yes," Hardy said. "In any event, their first warning would be when the Jump point in Murcheson's Eye moves. Meanwhile, we expect at least one more unguarded Alderson point leading from the Mote into normal space rather than to the inside of a star. And since Alderson Path events happen nearly instantaneously, all this will happen before any light from the protostar reaches us-or reaches the Mote. And therefore you have concluded that the Moties are hurling these cheap probes, these tokens, through periodically to see if the old Point has moved."

  "Precisely," Buckman said.

  There was a long, low whistle from the skipper of Agamemnon.

  "Your pardon, Highness."

  "Not at all, Commander Balasingham, I nearly did the same myself," Mercer said. "The situation appears serious indeed. One question. The Navy has ways to determine the location, and thus presumably the existence, of Alderson points without sending ships through them. Don't we?"

  "Yes, Your Highness," Commander Balasingham said. He nervously stroked his thick mustache.

  "So why the tokens?"

  "Disturbances?" Renner said.

  "Sir Kevin?"

  "Back when I was a navigator, finding an Alderson point was one of the trickiest things we could do. It's never easy, and it's impossible during heavy sunspot activity or during a battle, because Alderson events are very responsive to thermonuclear fluxes."

  "You think there may be thermonuclear bombs going off in the Mote system?"

  "It wouldn't surprise me, sir."

  "Nor me," Bishop Hardy said.

  Joyce Mel-Ling Trujillo had sat quietly during all this. Now she came to her feet. "May I ask..."

  "Please," Mercer said.

  "You're suggesting that the Moties are about to get out."

  Renner said, "Right."

  "But that's-" She looked at Bury, who was staring ahead with unseeing eyes, his breathing carefully controlled. "Shouldn't we do something?"

  Everyone spoke at once. And Bury's eyes flicked up at her. Rage and despair, and a sudden twitch of a mad smile.

  Mercer tapped on the table with his gavel. "Of course Ms. Trujillo is correct," he said. "We should do something. The question is what? And I'm not certain that subject needs debate in a public meeting."

  "Why not? Who doesn't belong here?" Trujillo demanded.

  "Well, you for one," Commissioner MacDonald said. "I dinna believe we need the press here. Your Highness, I move that we adjourn this public meeting and go into executive session."

  "I expected something like this," Joyce Mei-Ling Trujillo said.

  Commissioner MacDonald seemed astonished. "That's more than I did."

  "Cover-up all the way. Corruption in the fleet, so hide it with something else. Mr. Bury, your reputation precedes you."

  Bury glared. Mercer said, "Madame, I was well aware that the Moties had lied to us. That was a secondary purpose for this meeting. I... would have thought we'd have more time. These ‘tokens'-"

  "Your Highness, I've found enough evidence of corruption that they can smell the stench on Sparta. In a sense I've caused this commission, and in the first meeting you want to go into executive session! So far as I am concerned, the council has evaded the question of corruption in the Crazy Eddie Fleet. Do you really expect me to go along with this massive sense of urgency?"

  In the moment before anyone could explode, Kevin Blaine caught Mercer's eye. "Excuse me, my Lord, but she does have a point."

  Looks of fury turned on Blaine, but MacDonald said, "In what fashion, Lieutenant?"

  "Urgency. Let us look at this as a gambling situation. What's the expected return here, the pot odds? The Moties persuaded Dr. Buckman that Mote system could be bottled up for between five hundred and two thousand years. If they thought that lie was worth telling, the expected date must be conspicuously sooner. It can't be much more than a hundred years, could it? That gap wouldn't be worth hiding.

  "Call it thirty to seventy years. We've eaten thirty. Twenty years left, with a fat margin of error. Why the rush?" Blaine turned to Trujillo. "Right?"

  "And we know it hasn't gone off yet!"

  "Well, not last month. There'd be some delay before we heard from the Crazy Eddie Fleet. The Jump point from the Eye to here would move. But the urgency is because of these token ships. They indicate that the Moties are ready now. The margin of error could still be large, of course," Blaine was talking directly to Trujillo now, "but we're in a maniacal rush so we can get something into place. Anything. Ultimately we'll
move some ships from the Crazy Eddie Squadron so they can sit on their asses for twenty years. Or forty, fifty-"

  "Or twenty days," Bury muttered.

  "And why shouldn't the press be watching that?" Mei-Ling demanded. "Nothing said here can get back to the Moties. You're only keeping secrets from the public!"

  "What's said here can get back to Outies," MacDonald said. "And to traitors who might well like to see harm come to the Empire while our strength is massed against the Moties. It's no been so long since the New Irish threw bombs at the Governor General, you know. Madam, I've no doubt of your loyalty, but I do believe you have heard aye more than is safe already. I would no care to see any of this on the tri-vee. Were it left to me-"

  "Commissioner MacDonald has a point," Mercer said. "Miss Trujillo, I must ask you to hold what you have heard here in strict confidence."

  "Suppress a good story?" She smiled thinly. "I wonder if you can make me do that?"

  Commissioner MacDonald said, "Your Highness, the law is very clear regarding threats to the Empire. Is this no a state of emergency? You have but to declare one."

  "Even that can't stop me from writing about corruption and this council's evasions," Trujillo said. She paused to let that sink in. "But I'm willing to cooperate. Of course there's a condition."

  "What is your condition?" Mercer asked.

  "Let me find out the rest of the story."

  "What?" MacDonald was outraged.

  "Let me finish," she said. "I'll take whatever oath you like- oath of the privy council, isn't it?-and promise not to publish anything, including what I've already heard, until you agree it's safe. But I want to know. I want to be in on the whole story, Moties, corruption in the fleet, all of it."

  "Hmm." Mercer looked around the room, then down at the screen set discreetly into the table in front of him. "It would appear that you are the only problem guest, Ms. Trujillo. Everyone else here is already under one or another obligation to keep the secrets of the Empire."

  "Him?" Trujillo pointed at Horace Bury.

  "As a condition of my accompanying him on his journey to this system, His Excellency and all his crew consented to the conditions of the privy council," Mercer said. It would have made for an uncomfortable trip without that."

  "I see. All right. Anyway, I've said I'll take your oath."

  "Commander Cohen?" Mercer said. "I make no doubt the Navy has already done a thorough investigation of Miss Trujillo. Has your service any objections?"

  "I don't think so. Joyce, you do understand what you're doing? You are voluntarily placing yourself under the restrictions of the Official Secrets Acts. The penalties can include exile for life on any world of His Majesty's choosing."

  "Yes, I know. Thank you for the warning. But this is the only way I'll ever find out, isn't it? And if the Moties really are coming out, that will be the biggest story ever."

  "If the Moties really are coming out, it will mean war," MacDonald said. "And you'll be under wartime restrictions."

  "Are you objecting to including Ms. Trujillo in our official family of advisers?" Mercer asked.

  "No, my Lord. Not really."

  "All right," Mercer said. "Let's get on with it. Mr. Armstrong, if you'll do the honors."

  The Commission secretary fingered his own computer controls. "Miss Trujillo, if you will face His Highness. Raise your right hand and read from the screen in front of you."

  "First things first," Mercer said. "Admiral Cargill, I presume you've sent a standby signal to every ship in the system? Thank you. So just what ships have we?"

  "It's bad timing," Cargill said. "We've got three frigates in transit from the Crazy Eddie Squadron to New Cal-"

  "God is good," Bury muttered. The other three turned to him, and he grinned like a death's head. "They came through. The Jump point hasn't moved since ... two weeks ago?"

  "Yes, but the ships themselves are all in need of repair. Not a lot of use. Then, a sovereign-class battleship with three general class battle cruisers and assorted light escort ships jumped out to the Eye three hundred hours ago. There's no way to recall them except to send a messenger ship after them. Nothing else closer than the Crazy Eddie Squadron. Doctor, do we have any damn idea where we'd want to put a second fleet?"

  "This is only a first cut," Buckman said.

  After a moment Cargill said, "Cut away."

  Jacob Buckman tapped at keys. A string of numbers appeared on all the consoles. "There. And maybe there."

  "Uh." Renner looked at the screen. "Right. We'll almost certainly get a Jump point at MGC-R-31. That's a smallish star eleven light-years toward the hem of the Hooded Man figure. Eight light years from the Mote. Then we might get one at MGC-R-60, a brighter star a little nearer the Mote, but that one would lead into Murcheson's Eye. Beyond that ....acob? Something in the Coal Sack itself?"

  "Probably not, but even so, Murcheson's Eye dominates."

  "So it's just this... red dwarf," Mercer said. "Well, we've got to put something there, and I prefer it be now. So what do we have?"

  "There's Balasingham's Agomemnon," Cargill said. "A Menulaus-class cruiser. Good ship. I presume you're ready, Balasingham?"

  "Admiral, we can boost out as soon as I'm aboard," Commander Balasingham said. "I sent up orders to round up the crew and refuel as soon as I understood what Dr. Buckman was saying."

  "Then there's the Atropos frigate," Cargill said.

  "Sir, I took the liberty of asking her skipper to put that ship on full alert, too," Balasingham said.

  "Good," Cargill said. ‘Unfortunately, Your Highness, except for some messenger boats and merchantmen, there isn't anything else. The battle cruiser Marlborough is in the Yards, but it will take a minor miracle to get her out in under a month."

  "Nothing coming in?"

  "Not for a month," Cargill said. "We'll send messengers out to scrape up what we can find, but-"

  "The upshot is that we've little enough to send to watch the new Alderson point," Mercer said. "Two ships."

  "Three, Your Highness," Bury said.

  Mercer looked at him sharply. "Horace, are you all right?"

  Bury tried to laugh. The sound that came out was more ghastly than humorous. "Why should I not be? Highness, the worst has happened. The Moties are loose."

  "We don't know that," someone said.

  "Know?" Bury demanded. "Of course we don't know. But it is easier to think that way. Highness, there is no time to waste. Let us take whatever we have to the new Alderson point. Kevin, I presume you and Jacob know where it will appear?"

  "Close enough for government work. It isn't a point, it's an arc four light-minutes long," Renner said.

  "We go, then. Agamemnon, Atropos, and Sinbad."

  "Why Sinbad?" Commander Balasingham asked. "She's not even armed!"

  "You might be surprised," Mercer said. "Jacob, will you go with them?"

  Buckman nodded. "I expected to. And I'd much prefer to work aboard Sinbad than a Navy ship. I remember trying to work aboard MacArthur. Everyone felt entitled to get in my way, block my sightings, move my equipment-"

  "Renner, you can't keep up with us," Balasingham said.

  Renner shrugged. "We won't be all that far behind. At worst, we're witnesses, we can report back. Your destruction will make prime-time news."

  Bury scowled. "I suppose the Trujillo woman... yes, of course. She would have gone with us to the Eye, after all. We should be on our way now. Now. Allah is merciful. We may yet be there before the Moties. We must be there before the Moties."

  3 Communications

  In the name of Allah, most benevolent, ever merciful.

  Say: I seek refuge with the Lord of men,

  The King of men,

  From the evil of him who breathes temptations into the

  minds of men,

  Who suggests evil thoughts to the hearts of men-

  From among the djinns and men.

  al-Qur'an

  On their last night together, Kevin told Ruth, "
I'd take you with me if I could find any kind of excuse. Good or bad."

  "Would you?"

  "Yeah. We're crowded as hell, you know. We've dropped part of the kitchen, we're carrying a drop tank..."

  She wasn't buying it. "Love, when we get back into the Empire, it'll make the news. Contact me then? You've got my work number."

  "I gave you mine."

  She looked down at her sleeves. The three rings of a full commander had just been sewn on. "Of course we're likely to be in different solar systems."

  And it really felt like good-bye.

  From New Scotland to the Jump would take nearly two weeks. Agamemnon and Atropos started later, but were moving at two gravities of thrust; they would Jump just ahead of Sinbad. Sinbad could beat them there with the drop tank's extra fuel, but Kevin refused to subject Bury to more than one gee. He would have preferred less.

  This trip wasn't like the voyage from Sparta. Sinbad felt like a different ship. Attitudes had changed.

  With Mercer gone, the kitchen storage region could carry cargo more appropriate to their mission. It didn't matter much. Sinbad's kitchen was styled to feed Horace Bury: to create small, healthful meals rich in flavor for a man whose taste buds were almost dead of old age. Now that program served Renner, too. Renner could diet between suns, when fresh food was unavailable anyway. Blaine, a lord's son but also Navy, expected no better. Buckman never noticed what he ate, and as for Joyce Mei-Ling Trujillo...

  "Ms. Trujillo, are you getting fed all right?"

  "Lieutenant Blaine asked me that, too. I eat whatever's where the story is, Mr. Renner. I'd say you set a fine table, but-have you ever eaten streaker rat? By the way, you'll be calling me Joyce eventually, won't you? Start now."