The Gripping Hand (27 page)

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 . . . Jacob? 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
Agamemnon
," Cargill said. "A
Menalaus
-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."

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."

Perhaps Bury derived some satisfaction from what Joyce didn't know she was missing. He made no great effort to avoid her; he wasn't agile enough. In her presence he could be affable, but he called her Trujillo.

And so the ship was settling down, and Kevin Renner was enjoying his freedom.

Freedom. Ridiculous. He was surrounded by people, by walls, by obligations . . . and yet this was his place of power. Horace Bury's ship; but then, he was Bury's superior officer in the Secret Service.
Sinbad
went where he willed . . . except that with the Empire of Man at stake, his will had best take
Sinbad
straight through to MGC-R-31.