The Gripping Hand (38 page)

"Very good. Also, if you have chocolate or oranges aboard
Agamemnon
, we'll need it all."

Balasingham was beyond surprise. "I'll find out. Godspeed,
Hecate
."

"Thank you."

"I-point dead ahead," Freddy said. "Jump in ten minutes. Terry, secure for Alderson Jump. Ladies, strap in good."

Hecate
was an empty shell. The main cabin area was crisscrossed by nemourlon webbing. The elaborate shower was gone. Of the cooking gear, only a heater remained. With the walls gone, the oversize water tank made a conspicuous bulge.

Glenda Ruth and Jennifer used the harness attachments at the center of the web. Freddy typed instructions to the ship as Terry Kakumi went from system to system, manually shutting each down to prevent accidental activation following the Jump.

"We shouldn't find any trouble," Glenda Ruth said. "Henry Hudson said that Medina controls the space around the Jump point . . . Crazy Eddie's Sister. I have recognition signals."

"Why do I feel you lack confidence?" Jennifer asked.

"No messages," Glenda Ruth said. "Renner, my brother, Bury— they'd try to get a message through, and even if they didn't manage it, the skipper of
Atropos
—Rawlins—would have been ordered to get a message out. Freddy, doesn't
Atropos
carry a boat that could do that?"

"Yep. Longboats on light cruisers have both Field and Drive."

"Fuel?" Jennifer wondered.

"There'd be enough to pop through and squirt a message," Freddy said. "Clear enough they couldn't do that. We might guess that somebody won't let 'em."

"Which means—we're about to Jump into what?" Jennifer asked. "Maybe they'll shoot first! Like we do at the blockade!"

"Not likely." Freddy turned back to his console.

"He's right," Glenda Ruth said. "Look at it. They sent the unarmed embassy fleet. What could they gain by luring ships into the Mote system and destroying them? That wouldn't make sense."

"And we know Moties always make sense," Jennifer said banteringly. "Don't we?"

"Want to go home?" Glenda Ruth asked.

"Humpf."

"Here we go," Freddy said. "We'll go through at nine kilometers a second relative to the Mote. That's close enough to orbital velocity at the other end. Should keep us from running into anything. Other hand, it'll make it easy for anyone to catch us. That okay, Glenda Ruth?"

"Yes."

If the tiny note of uncertainty in her voice upset him, Freddy Townsend didn't show it. "Stand by, then. Here we go."

Crazy Eddie's Sister was a hundred hours and more than a hundred million kilometers behind
Sinbad
. Almost everyone was asleep. Buckman was on watch, and Joyce Trujillo had wakened long before she wanted to. She saw it first.

Indicators blinking in the display in front of Buckman. Faerie lights glowing in the magnified display aft, colored balloons, a flash. "Jacob? Isn't that—"

"Activity at the I-point," Buckman said. His voice was thick with fatigue. "We're getting a relay. It's six light-minutes to the I-point, don't know how far the relay ship is from it.
Kevin! Captain!"

Everyone crowded into the lounge. Kevin Renner blinked at the displays while Buckman spoke rapidly. "It's a battle, of course. Looks like a third fleet just arriving."

"See if you can get me Eudoxus," Renner said.

"There's a ship!" Joyce said.

"No Field. Not a Navy ship," Blaine said.

The ship's entry triggered events in ever-widening circles. Motie ships changed course. Some fired on others. Those near the intruder—

"Bombs," Buckman said.

The newcomer rotated, tumbled, rotated—

"That's
Hecate
," Blaine said.

"How do you know?" Joyce demanded.

"Well, it's an
Empire-style racing yacht
, Joyce."

Joyce was silent. Renner said, "I can't do anything about this myself. Chris, shall we tell them what the treasure is? It might motivate them."

Blaine thought about it. His lips moved rapidly, talking silently to himself; then he said, "No sir. Let me talk to Eudoxus; you're asleep. But we're in a better bargaining position if they don't know about the Worm. We'll let Glenda Ruth work her end."

"If she lives."

The Master of Base Six, Mustapha Pasha as he would be called when the humans arrived, was lactating. With a babe cradled in his right arms and the urge to mate rising in him, he was not in a proper mood for crisis. Emergencies never happen at a convenient time.

He'd been given this much luck: East India Trading's Masters had no wish to be in Mustapha's company at such a time. Most of them were keeping to their own dome and domains when East India's signal arrived. They must have heard in the same instant that Mustapha did: the Crazy Eddie point had moved.

If it was a false alarm, Medina Trading would lose much bargaining power. Mustapha Pasha would likely die, executed for murder.

Such was luck and such was life. Mustapha began issuing orders. Only details were needed; these plans were years and decades old.

First: bumblebee-sized missiles sprayed the East India dome. Four got through. Most of East India's Masters had been in the ruptured dome, and a third of their Warriors, too, kept as a guard.

East India's remaining Warriors reacted at once; but Mustapha's Warriors were already attacking. Bombs and energy beams tore the Base Six iceball and its fragile housing. Clouds of ice crystals exploded from the surface; colored flashes lit them from within. A kamikaze attack destroyed one of the farming domes. Without orders to guide them, East India's Warriors were going berserk. It didn't matter. They would have had to die, each and all of them, regardless.

Of other Classes, many died, too. Mustapha Pasha had enough of Engineers and Doctors and the space-specialized Farmers, who tended the agricultural domes. The remaining Masters of East India Company were held safe, and enough others to give them an entourage. They would serve as hostages until new terms could be made.

After all, East India and Medina were not in fundamental disagreement. They must redivide certain resources and assign access to the powerful aliens on the far side of the Sister; but this was best thought of as a gambling game waged with lasers and gamma beams and projectiles, technology and false maps and treachery.

As for those with whom you have made a treaty and who abrogate it every time, and do not fear God, If you meet them in battle, inflict on them such a defeat as would be a lesson for those who come after them, and that they may be warned. For God does not like those who are treacherous.

 

— al-Qur'an

 

Freddy always recovered first.

And Freddy was swearing in a lurid mumble as his fingers wobbled over the controls.
Hecate
's oversize attitude jets kicked the racing yacht about like a windball. Glenda Ruth surged in the elastic web, her vision wobbling about the cabin, uncontrolled. Jennifer was whimpering, trying to curl up. Terry offered no resistance to the turbulence, waiting until his body would obey him.

"Feddy lub," Glenda Ruth said, her tongue like a foreign invader in her mouth, "
Freddy!
Calm down and talk to me about it!"

"Talk." Another surge, milder this time. "We're surrounded. Embedded in an armada of teeny warships fighting another armada of teeny warships, Coal Sack direction. Nukes going flash. Radiation count is scary. I'm trying . . . I've got the water tank between us and that, if I can stop the
lizard-raping rotation!"
He was wailing like a child.

"That will do it?"

"Yeah. The water—the water tank. That's what it's for, partly, stop us from getting fried. Partly, when I dive near a sun—that's got it! And there goes another bomb,
flash,
wouldn't you know, but I think it's blocked, too." He bashed at keys again. "Damn!" Held one key down. "There. Now I think it's safe to wake up the computer, but I'll send it a test problem before I give it control. . . .

"Not yet. Another minute. Anyway, when we dive near a sun to get a gravity assist, I don't want solar radiation sleeting through
Hecate
, so I mounted this mucking great water tank alongside the cabin for a shield. And I freeze it. Then the hull's superconducting, of course, so I can cool the hull by running a wire into the water tank. I can do serious aerobraking or get awfully close to a sun because it can't fry us without first boiling all that thermal mass of water, and even then I can vent the steam—" Freddy sagged back. "And I guess the battle isn't going to fry us, but those ships might unless you talk to them. Computer's safe now. How are you doing?"

"How do I sound?"

"Lucid."

"I'll try talking to them. I don't think I want to move, though. Can you connect me?"

"Sure—one moment. Terry? . . . No answer. He stays out longer than me. All right, you're on the frequency Henry Hudson gave us."

She spoke the syllables she'd been told would show her to be an honored guest of Medina Traders. Nothing. She spoke again.

"That got a reaction," Freddy said. "Two of the ships out there— they've changed course. Others are shooting at them—Wups!"

"What?"

A fierce green blaze bathed Freddy's face, from a screen she couldn't see. "Someone just tried to boil us! No real damage, but I sure hope they don't do it again. And—look here. Can you see the screen?"

An alien face. A brown-and-white, a Mediator. It spoke alien words. Nothing she recognized at all. It spoke again—

"They hit us again!" Freddy said. "Not so hard, but do something!"

"Surrender," she said. "There's a word—"

"Use it! We can't take many more hits like that!"

"Right. Freddy, we'll have to open the airlock. Both doors."

He did things to the controls. "Whenever you say. Jennifer and Terry are sealed in, suit integrity checks. Yours too. Whenever you say."

"Leave the light on in the airlock. No other lights."

"Romantic."

She considered various answers and chose, "Yeah."

"Let me get this straight," Renner said. "You want me to rig something that makes static and simulates a failure in the communication system."

"Only in the transmission system," Bury said. "Elementary politeness, Kevin. I wish sometimes to be able to observe the Moties while we are not ourselves observed. Let them see static, while we continue to receive their signals. Give the control to me, and do not use it except as I direct. Can you do this?"

"Sure. It
could
even be real, once or twice, but won't they be suspicious?"

"Of course they will be suspicious. Thank you."

"Need it right now?"

"It would do no harm."

"There are now three fleets at Crazy Eddie's Sister," Eudoxus said. "The new faction we will call the East India Trading Company, a group based in the Belt asteroids, but with many ships. East India was a nominal ally of ours until a few hours ago."

"What happened then?" Renner demanded.

"They will be allies again when we have negotiated new changes in status. I will explain later. In any event East India appears to be losing. So are we. The Crimean Tartars retain possession of your third ship."

"Three fleets. One's yours. Do you have any ships left?"

"One intelligence ship, with a Mediator aboard who is relaying data. Our other warships could do no good and have been ordered to retreat. No fighting ships remain near Crazy Eddie's Sister."