The Gripping Hand Read online

  "I do not want that man out there! Our son is in that fleet."

  "I thought of that."

  "He's a traitor," Sally said. "All right, we use him, but he doesn't have any real loyalty to the Empire. Money." She sniffed. "That's all he cares about. He'd sell us to the Moties for enough money."

  Rod nodded thoughtfully. "I expect it would do no harm to have a few words with our friends in the Palace." He grinned.

  "That's an evil look."

  "His Excellency is due for a shock."

  "Yes-are you sure you want to tell him?"

  "Sally, we'll be announcing it in four days. Bury will know. We might as well get some mileage out of telling him. Hell, he may know already."

  "No, I don't believe that."

  "Anyway-Sally, he committed treason a quarter of a century ago, but he's right this time. The blockade bought time, but it's no solution. Sooner or later, either we'll have an Empire of two intelligent species, or a war of extermination. Sally, the Empire's going to have plenty of people who think like Bury. At least he's been there! Maybe he could be useful."

  "I'd sooner convert hive rats to the Church," Sally said. "But you're right, he'll find out sooner or later, and he's a good test case. I want to see his face. We'll know how good his spies are then..."

  * * *

  Jennifer Banda was an inch over Renner's height, lean and dark, with just enough length of hair to suggest a white ancestor. When they were introduced, she was polite to Ruth Cohen, deferential to Renner, and almost fawned on Horace Bury.

  Watusi genes, Renner speculated. If she's not dark enough, it's Sparta's weak excuse for a star.

  "What would you like to see?" Jennifer had asked, and when no one knew what to say, she continued, "We can start with some of the specimen collections. There's sort of a meeting in the grad student lounge in about an hour. Would you like to go to that?"

  "Yes, please," Renner said quickly.

  "'About,' "Ruth Cohen said, mimicking the odd way that Jennifer had pronounced the word. "Vancouver, New Washington."

  Jennifer Banda turned, startled. "Yes-"

  Ruth grinned. "I'm from Astoria. Glad you weren't playing basketball when we had to play Vancouver."

  Renner watched Jennifer moving ahead of him to the elevators. Nice sway to the girl. Good muscular control... and New Washington gravity had about .93 standard gee. She must have been one hell of an athlete. She must also have had a hell of a time adjusting to Spartan gravity, but clearly she'd done it.

  The elevator opened onto a corridor lined with display cases. Jennifer led the way past them. She turned at the far end to find Renner ambling at leisure, peering at Mai Tai parasol fungi and huge-headed glider snakes and ponds of oddly colored water with microscope screens attached... He sighed and moved briskly to join them.

  At the far end was a conference room with refreshments, a large table, and a hologram wall.

  "We've got specimens from four hundred Imperial worlds and thirty Outie planets," Jennifer said. "Too many. There's no room to set up live demonstrations, so mostly we have holograms. Wanora!"

  "Ready," the ceiling said.

  "My sequence one, please."

  "Certainly."

  A series of holograms formed at the far end of the room.

  "These are from water worlds," Jennifer said. "Just about every one alike. Four fins, a head, and a tail. Like us."

  Another series of holograms formed. "Then there are forms evolved from planets without much water. Theory says they crawled out earlier. Six: and eight-limbed forms. The Tabletop Crazylegs with eighteen. But again all symmetric."

  "You have holograms of-how many do you have?" Bury asked.

  "Excellency, we try to be complete."

  "Do you have the Levantine Honeypot?"

  "Mmm? Wanora! Levantine Honeypot."

  The holograph display showed what looked like a grossly misshapen barrel, with bright flowers at its top. Small birdlike creatures fluttered around it. Abruptly, slender tendrils shot up from the edge of the barrel to entangle one of the fliers and drag it out of sight.

  "What is that?" Ruth Cohen asked.

  "I confess it's new to me," Jennifer said. Text was scrolling across the screen: "Kaybo Sietzus. Local Anglic name is the Levantine Honeypot. Largely sessile carnivorous animal.

  "The Honeypot is one of the largest known animal life-forms to display radial but not bilateral symmetry. Its biochemistry was thought to be unique until 3030 when Ricardo haLevy described the life cycle of the Tabletop Ground Hag, whose larval form uses similar enzyme processes."

  "Ugly thing," Renner said.

  "They're not very common," Bury said. "Never more than one in an oasis. Usually none at all. They can't move fast, and dogs like to eat them." He read quickly. "Interesting. When I was in school, the Honeypot was used as an example of why panspermia wasn't true. Totally unique and all that. I hadn't heard there was anything like it. I take it that the Elaine Institute accepts the panspermia theory?"

  "Most of us, Excellency," Jennifer said.

  Bury chuckled at the note of surprise. "Traders do not spend all their time reading commodity price reports."

  "Clearly."

  "Panspermia?" Ruth Cohen said.

  "An old theory, from before CoDominium times," Jennifer Banda said. "The notion is that life is so improbable that it can happen only once in a galaxy."

  "Omnia cellula e cellula," Renner muttered.

  Ruth frowned at him.

  "Sorry. A phrase they taught in school, All cells come from cells. No spontaneous generation of life. It was an early experiment in scientific discovery."

  "Right," Jennifer said. "So the theory is that eventually all successful life-forms evolve a means of reproducing across interstellar distances. When we got out into space, we found there were organics all over the place, and they could cross interstellar distances by hopping rides with comet clouds. Sometime back then, I guess during the early days of the First Empire, a scientist named Sir Fred Hoyle postulated that an intelligent entity was deliberately sending biochemical messages through the galaxy."

  "You don't believe that, do you?" Ruth asked.

  Jennifer shrugged. "Not really, but you know, for all that people keep saying Sir Fred must have been off his head, we've never been able to disprove it. Space is just rich with improbable organics." She paused for a moment. "I think the Moties believe it."

  Bury looked at her critically. "How could you possibly know that?"

  "Oh. Sorry. I've been trying to think like a Motie so long sometimes I forget. I mean, I think the Moties will believe it."

  The holograms continued. A score of worlds had jet black plants. "It's based on selenium and it's a lot more complicated than chlorophyll," Jennifer said. "But again we can find copies in interstellar organics. If this stuff gets rooted first, chlorophyll doesn't have a chance because the black plants use yellow sunlight better.

  "Dry worlds are different. More limbs, usually. But still symmetry," Jennifer said. "Always symmetry. That's the puzzle. If only you'd brought back some seeds or something from Mote Prime!"

  Renner laughed (and Bury didn't). "Admiral Kutuzov went to great lengths to prevent that. Jennifer, we pretty well accepted that all the asymmetrical forms were derived from the Engineer class, and they evolved the three arms after they were intelligent."

  "Yes, they believe that, too. But of course they don't remember."

  Bury looked at her quickly, but she had turned back to the holographic displays.

  3 Jock

  When We said to the angels:

  "Bow before Adam in adoration,"

  they all bowed but Iblis.

  He was one of the djinni and rebelled

  against his Lord's command.

  And yet you take him and his offspring

  us your friends.

  Al-Qur'an

  "This way," Jennifer Banda said. She ushered them into a twenty-fourth-floor windowed room that ran most of the length o
f the Institute. A dozen people in their twenties sat at tables or poured themselves coffee from an Imperial Autonetics urn. One wall of the room was French doors leading onto a veranda cantilevered out over the beach area far below. The brisk wind smelled of seawater.

  "Quite a view," Ruth Cohen said.

  Kevin Renner nodded absently. The atmosphere was odd. A dozen graduate students. They all knew that Kevin Renner and Horace Bury had been to Mote Prime-and they were all looking at each other, or out at a spectacular view that they had certainly seen before.

  "McQuorquodale. Philosophic Journal, about six months ago," someone said. "Studies of a humming dragon in motion."

  "But it's not my field."

  "It'll still be on the test. Depend on it."

  Jennifer led them out to the balcony. Renner went to the rail and looked over, then noticed that Ruth Cohen had stayed near the door.

  "Acrophobia?"

  "Maybe a little." She sat at a table near the wall, and after a moment Bury wheeled his travel chair to join her. Renner leaned against the railing and enjoyed the view while listening to the conversations behind him.

  A female voice waxed eloquent about the importance of parasites in ecologies, while her male companion pretended interest. Renner remembered similar conversations when he was that age and sympathized.

  Two students at the next table sipped tea. "I still say it isn't fair. I'm in political science, for God's sake. I'll never need to know anything about organic chemistry that I can't find on the computer."

  "That's what you get to prove next week," another said. He chuckled. "I offered to help, Miriam Anne."

  Renner took a seat between Ruth Cohen and Jennifer Banda. "Nice place." He scratched his head. "Okay, I give up."

  Jennifer Banda raised an eyebrow.

  "This is Blaine Institute, the primary center for the study of Moties. Here are two people who've been on Mote Prime. And no one's interested in us."

  "Polite," Jennifer said. "They were warned not to bother you."

  "Ah." It was the explanation Renner had expected, but he still felt something was wrong.

  "We've all studied your flick, Sir Kevin. And every Imperial Autonetics report that mentions the Mote."

  "Commendable," Bury said. "And of course you had the Moties to study. I presume holograms were made of everything they said."

  Jennifer's answer was drowned out as the girl at the next table choked on her drink, then set it down with exaggerated care.

  "What have you learned?" Bury asked.

  "Well, we've compiled a general history of the Mote," Jennifer said. "As much as Jock and Charlie could remember."

  "Jock and Charlie?" Ruth asked.

  "Jock and Charlie and Ivan were the ambassadors from Mote Prime," Jennifer said. "Admiral Kutuzov couldn't refuse them. But you have to remember, they don't represent the whole system; not even the planet. Just one government, or even one extended family, among maybe tens of thousands."

  "King Peter," Bury said, "Of course he wasn't really a king and the government wasn't really a monarchy, but that is the name they chose in hopes that it would sound familiar to us. They knew us that well, even then."

  Jennifer nodded. "They certainly learned more about us than we did about them. They sent three ambassadors, a Master and two Mediators. Ruth, you know about Masters and Mediators? Moties are a differentiated species with a lot of different castes. The Masters give the orders and the Mediators talk for them. Anyway, they called the Master Ivan-probably because Admiral Kutuzov was in charge of the expedition and they thought the Russians were Masters in the Empire-and the Mediators got the names Jock and Charlie. Ivan died first, but he never talked much except through the Mediators so we didn't learn much from him. Then-anyway, as His Excellency said, we made holos of everything we could. Of course, once you get back a couple of cycles there wasn't much detail."

  "Cycles," Ruth said. "I saw a lot about that in school. It's about all I remember about Moties."

  "Too right," Renner said. "Everything about the Mote was cycles. Civilizations rise and fall."

  "Sometimes incredibly fast," Jennifer said. "And they tried everything! Industrial feudalism, communism, capitalism, things we never even thought of. Anyway, we got lots of stories, what we'd call folk legends, but not much history."

  "There couldn't be," Ruth Cohen said. "It takes continuity to make history. I can feel sorry for the Moties."

  "I pity them, too," Bury said. "Who could not? They die in agony if they can't become pregnant and give birth. Endless population expansion, endless wars for limited resources. Sometimes I fear that only I can see how dangerous that makes them. Jennifer, we visited Mote Prime. A world crowded beyond description, with complex competitions for power and prestige. We were told it would collapse soon, and I believed them. We also saw signs of a civilization in the asteroid belt. Jacob Buckman told me that many of the asteroids had been moved."

  "I'm surprised he noticed," Renner said.

  "He lost interest in them after he found out," Bury said.

  Jennifer laughed. The couple at the next table had fallen silent. They were joined by two other students who also pretended not to listen.

  "We learned nothing important about the asteroid civilization," Bury said. "That has always concerned me. Perhaps you know more, now?"

  "Not a lot," Jennifer said. "The-our Moties had never visited the asteroids. Jock believed that the Trailing Trojans were in an ascendant imperial phase, but he was never certain."

  "The industrial feudalism on Mote Prime will long since have collapsed," Bury said. "Other systems will be emerging. Or perhaps nothing but savagery."

  "Oh, surely not," the girl at the next table said.

  "Circles," Renner said. "You didn't see them."

  "Circles?" Ruth Cohen asked.

  Before Renner could answer, the girl at the next table stood and bowed slightly. "Miriam Anne Vukcik. Political history. This is Tom Boyarski. May we join you?"

  "Please do," Bury said.

  "Circles?" Ruth asked again.

  Renner said, "The circles were the first thing you saw from orbit. Craters everywhere, big and little, and all old, all across Mote Prime. Seas and lakes. One lopsided crater skewed by an earthquake fault line, one across a mountain range... you get the idea."

  "The great asteroid war. Our Moties didn't remember anything about it," Miriam said.

  "They think in circles, too. Cycles. Rise and fall. Population growth and then a war. They keep their museums to help the next civilization get itself together. They don't even try to stop it anymore. They're too old. It's been going on too long."

  Miriam said, "Crazy Eddie-"

  "Yeah, Crazy Eddie tries to stop it."

  "I don't think I understand the Crazy Eddie myth-figure. We have plenty of legends about the coming of the Messiah and about holy madmen, but no human culture ever pinned all its hopes for the future on a savior who had to be crazy."

  "Don Quixote?" Ruth Cohen grinned.

  Jennifer nodded agreement. "Good point."

  "Humans try the impossible. It's part of our nature," Tom Boyarski said. "Submitting to the inevitable is a big part of Motie nature."

  "But Jock really liked Don Quixote," Jennifer Banda said.

  "They liked the Persian story about the man who told the king he could teach a horse to sing," Tom said. "And maybe they understood intellectually. But not at a gut level." He laughed. "That's all right. We know a lot about them, too, but deep down they're still a big mystery."

  "And always will be," Miriam said.

  "No," Tom said. "Next time, we'll know more about what to study. Next time we'll find out."

  "Next time," Bury said. "You are planning a new expedition to the Mote?"

  Tom looked startled, then laughed. "I don't have the funding." For a moment he must have considered; but he wasn't young enough to suggest that Horace Bury did. "No one is," Tom said. "No one I know of, anyway. But sooner or later there's got to be one."
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  Jennifer Banda's pocket computer chimed. She looked embarrassed, but she stood up and said, "Excuse me, people. I was told to take you back to Lady Blaine's office."

  Bury set his chair in motion. Renner stood up. "You don't understand, and that's the truth," he said. "Crazy Eddie is supposed to fail."

  Instead of the receptionist, there was another woman, younger and blond and expensively dressed, in the receiving area outside Lady Sally Blaine's office. Renner had seen a picture of Glenda Ruth Fowler Blaine, but he wouldn't have needed that. She had the same finely chiseled features and penetrating eyes as her mother.

  "Sir Kevin, Your Excellency," she said. Her eyes twinkled. "I thought I'd introduce myself before my parents made it all formal." Her smile was infectious. "Kevin, I'm delighted to meet you! Your Excellency, did you know my brother was named for your pilot?'

  "No, my Lady-"

  She nodded. Kevin Christian. "We mostly call him Chris. Mom doesn't like us chattering about family. Did they ever tell you, Kevin? But you guessed anyway. Kevin, I still have the christening cup you sent. Thank you, and thank you, too, Your Excellency! There wasn't anything like that for sale for years."

  "It was crafted in our laboratories, my Lady," Bury said. His smile was genuine. "I'm pleased that you remembered."

  "It still delivers the best-tasting milk on Sparta." Glenda Ruth pointed to the wall clock display of the dark and light areas of Sparta. "They're waiting for us. Uh-I'm not supposed to tell, but I hope you're prepared for a surprise." She held the door open for Bury's travel chair.

  There was something about Jennifer Banda's smile as she and Glenda Ruth ushered them into Lady Blaine's office. Both Blaines were wearing that same conspiratorial smile. The air of mystery was getting on Renner's nerves.

  There was another occupant.

  He stood up slowly from his oddly designed travel chair, and bowed. A hairy, grinning, hunchbacked dwarf, not just short but grotesquely misshapen, too. You don't stare at a dwarf, and Renner was in control of his expression, but he lost it all when the stranger bowed. His backbone jutted, broken in two places.