The Gripping Hand (12 page)

"Enough," Bury said. Moderate personal wealth, and he wouldn't become Viceroy until he reached New Caledonia. He wouldn't be traveling in any lavish style. Bury smiled thinly.

We have explained in various ways all things to men in this Qur'an; but of all things man is most contentious

—al-Qur'an

The bus was supposed to land on the hotel roof at 0830. Kevin and Ruth got there five minutes early. A dozen others waited for the tour to start.

The rooftop was still shadowed by the mountains to the east, but south and west the harbor was in bright sunshine. Even this early the vast harbor bay was lined with the wakes of both big ships and sailing craft. A warren of small boats, power and sail, many of them multihulled, jammed much of the docking area nearest the hotel. Most appeared to be yachts, but there were also square-hulled junks covered with laundry and children.

The tops of the mountains to the east and north were hidden in clouds.

Renner pointed. Far to the south they could see where the continent ended in steep mountains. "Blaine Institute is down there. According to the maps it's over a hundred kilometers to the ocean."

"One benefit of empire," Ruth said. Renner raised an eyebrow. "Clear air. Out in the new provinces they're still burning coal."

"True enough. Bury makes a fortune bringing in fusion plants and power satellites. It helps if your customers have to buy—"

"They don't have to buy from Bury. And even if they did, hey, it's worth it!"

Renner took a deep breath. "Sure."

The bus landed on the hotel roof at exactly 0830. When Kevin and Ruth got on, a small man with a round face and red-veined nose looked at them quizzically. "Sir Kevin Renner?"

"That's me."

"Durk Riley. I'm your guide, sir. And you must be Commander Cohen."

"Did we order a guide?" Ruth asked.

"Nabil," Renner said.

"I've reserved you seats, sir." Riley indicated three places near the front of the bus. "Always like to have Navy people with me. I put in nearly forty years. Retired as coxs'n about twenty years ago. I'd have stayed in, but my wife talked me out of it. Civilian life's no good, you know. Nothing to do. Nothing important. Well, I don't mean that the way it sounds."

Ruth smiled. "We understand."

"Thank you, ma'am. I don't usually talk so much about myself. Sure glad to see Navy people. You Navy, Sir Kevin?"

"Reserve. Sailing Master. I went inactive about the same time you retired."

Kevin and Ruth took their seats and settled back. Riley produced a hip flask. "Little nip?"

"Thank you, no," Kevin said.

"You're thinking it's a bit early. Guess it is, even for Sparta, but with the short days we tend to do things a little different here."

"Well, why not?" Kevin reached for the flask. "Good stuff. Irish?"

"What they call Irish most places. We just call it whiskey. Better strap in."

The sky was as crowded as the sea. The bus rose through a swarm of light planes and heavy cargo craft and other airfoil-contoured buses, curved wide away from an empty area a minute before some kind of spacecraft came whistling through it, and went east toward the mountains. It followed the tiers of houses and estates up into the clouds. They broke through cloud cover to see that the black mountaintops went up high above them.

"That's pretty," Ruth said. "What do you call those mountains?"

"Drakenbergs," Riley said. "Run down most of the length of the Serpens. Serpens is the continent."

"Barren up here," Renner said.

The Serpens had a sharp-curled spine, black mountain flanks bare of life. Sparta hadn't developed foliage to handle that soil, and it held too much heavy metal for most earthly plants. The tour director told them that and more as they flew along the spine of the continent.

The bus dropped back below the tablecloth of clouds and followed the curve of the mountains to where they dipped into the ocean, dropped to half a kilometer altitude, and headed south across the harbor.

"That's Old Sparta to the left," Riley said. "Parts date back to CoDominium days. See that green patch with tall buildings around it? That's the Palace area."

"Will we go closer?" Ruth asked.

" 'Fraid not. There are Palace tours, though."

Boats of every size moved randomly across the calm water. They continued south. The calm water of the tremendous harbor changed from green to blue, sharply. The sea bottom was visible, still shallow; the boats were fewer, and larger.

"It doesn't show," Ruth said.

"Yeah." Renner had guessed what she meant. "They rule a thousand worlds from here, but . . . It's like the zoo on Mote Prime.
Sure
it's a different world, sure there's nothing like it anywhere in the universe, but you get used to that when you travel enough. You expect
major
differences. But it's not fair, Ruth. We look for worlds like Earth because that's where we can live."

Riley was staring. Other heads had turned from windows.
Zoo on Mote Prime?

"Defenses," Ruth said. "
There's
a difference. Sparta must be the most heavily defended world of all."

"Yeah. And all that means is, there are places the bus won't go. And questions Mr. Riley won't answer."

Riley said, "Well, of course."

Ruth was smiling. "Don't test that, all right? I know you. We're on holiday."

"Okay."

"I don't know anything about Sparta's defenses anyway," Riley said uncomfortably. "Mr. Renner? You were on the Mote expedition?"

"Yup. Riley, I didn't keep any secrets, and it's all been declassified. You can get my testimony under
What I Did on My Summer Vacation
, by Kevin Renner. Published by Athenaeum in 3021. I get a royalty."

There was a storm to the east. The bus flew west and dropped even lower (the ride became bumpy) to fly above a huge cargo ship. Big stabilizer fins showed with the roll of the waves, waves the size of small hills. There were pleasure boats, too, graceful sailing boats that rolled as they climbed up and down the water mountains; their sails were constantly shifting along the masts.

The bus skimmed over a big island patterned in rectangles of farmland. "That's the Devil Crab," Riley said. "Two sugarcane plantations and maybe a hundred independents. I'd love to be a farmer. They don't pay taxes."

Renner jumped. "Hey?"

"Population's dense on Sparta. The cost of land on Serpens is . . . well, I never tried to buy any, but it's way up there. If the farmers didn't get some kind of break, they'd all sell out to the people who build hotels. Then all the food would have to be shipped in from far away, and where would the Emperor get his fresh fruit?"

"Wow! No taxes. What about these guys below us?"

"They don't pay either. Transport costs are high, and the produce isn't as fresh when it gets to Serpens. The Serpens farmers can still compete. Even so, this is the way I'd go. Lease an island a thousand klicks from Serpens and raise beef. There's no room to raise red meat on this part of Serpens."

They veered away from another rocky island that seemed to be covered with a patchwork of concrete slabs and domes. "There's some of the defense stuff," Renner said. "Battle management radars, and I'd bet there are some pretty hefty lasers in there."

"It's a good guess, but I wouldn't know," Riley said.

Presently the bus turned north and east and flew toward the narrow hooked spit that enclosed the harbor from the west. "That was the prison colony back in CoDominium days," Riley said. "If you look close, you can see where the old wall was. Ran right across the peninsula."

"There? It's mostly parks," Ruth said. "Or—"

"Rose gardens," Riley said. "When Lysander II tore down the old prison walls, he gave all that area to the public. There's the rose festival every year. Citizen fraternities compete, and it's a big deal. We do tours every other day, if you're interested."

"Where's Blaine Institute?" Ruth asked.

"Off east. To the right there. See that mountain covered with buildings?"

"Yes—it looks like an old painting I saw once."

"
That's
the Blaine Institute?" Renner said. "Captain Blaine's richer than I suspected. And to think I knew him . . ."

"Did you, sir?" Riley sounded impressed. "But that's the Biology section of Imperial University. The Institute is the smaller area next to it." He offered his binoculars. "And Blaine Manor sits on the hill just east of that. Would you like a tour of the Institute?"

"Thanks, we'll be there this afternoon," Ruth said.

The bus crossed the narrow spit and then stayed well out over the harbor. The sun had burned off most of the cloud cover over the city. The skyline was a jumble of shapes: in the center and to the south were massive square skyscrapers, thin towers, tall buildings connected by bridges a thousand feet above street level. North of that were lower granite buildings in a classic style. In the center were the green parks of the Palace district.

Renner looked thoughtful. "Ruth, think about it.
The Emperor
is over there. Just lob a big fusion bomb in the general direction of the Palace . . ."

He stopped because everyone on the bus was looking at him.

"Hey! I'm a Naval Reserve officer!" he said quickly. "I'm trying to figure out how you keep someone else from doing it. With this many people on Sparta, and visitors from everywhere, there's bound to be crazies."

"We get our share,
Sir
Kevin." Riley emphasized the title so everyone would hear it.

"We do check on people coming to Sparta," Ruth said. Her voice had dropped. "And it's not all that easy to buy an atom bomb."

"That might stop amateurs."

"Oh, all right," Ruth said. "Drop it, huh? It's a depressing thought."

"It's something we live with," Riley said. "Look, we have ways to spot the crazies. And generally professionals won't try because it won't do them any good. Everybody knows the royal family's never all in the same place. Prince Aeneas doesn't even live on this planet. Blow up Serpens and you'll get the Fleet mad as hell, but you won't kill the Empire. One thing we do not do—sir—is tell everybody on a random tour bus all about the defenses!"

"And one thing I don't do," Renner answered, and his voice had dropped low, "is guard my mouth. It would prevent me from learning things. Even so: sorry."

Riley grunted. "Yes, sir. Look over there. Those are the fish farms." He pointed to a series of brightly colored sea patches divided by low walls. "That's another good racket. Fish from offplanet don't do well out in Sparta's oceans. You want sea bass or ocean cat, it'll come from here or someplace like it."

The limousine was waiting at the hotel. Bury wasn't smiling. When they were airborne, he looked to Ruth. "What did Kevin do this time?"

"Eh?"

"The Secret Service asked me to verify that this was indeed my pilot, Sir Kevin Renner. Asked
me
."

"Oh," Ruth said. "Well, he did talk about lobbing an atom bomb at the Palace."

Bury did not look amused. "I would prefer not to be thrown off this planet."

"It wouldn't help my career much," Ruth said. "Look, maybe I better talk to them."

"You need not bother," Bury said. "Once they were certain of his identity they lost interest."

"Now I know I want to see your file, Kevin," Ruth said.

The limousine stayed low over the outskirts of the central district. Massive granite buildings stood next to parks.

Ruth stared through binoculars. "Department of Public Health," she read. "Stock Exchange. Wow, that's the Colonial Office! It doesn't look big enough."