The Gripping Hand (44 page)

"The token ships. Mere shells," Blaine said. "They could have but one purpose."

"Exactly," Eudoxus said. "Had East India sent substantial ships, the Empire would not have guessed, and our ships would be well into Imperial space."

"Where are the ships now?" Wordsworth asked. "Our embassy to humans, do they live or die? I ask the humans to answer."

"No Motie ships have been destroyed," Blaine said. "One hides in the asteroids of the red dwarf. The others wait with an Imperial cruiser for escort by the main battle fleet."

"And East India's representative?"

"You will forgive us, but until this moment we did not know that East India had representatives aboard those ships," Blaine said.

Eudoxus spoke slowly in a language of emphatic consonants: like popcorn popping. Her white-furred Master listened carefully, then spoke in the same language.

"Admiral Mustapha says that both the East India Mediators are safe. There would be no reason to harm them. The Mediators aboard our ships had orders to keep contact with the Empire to a minimum until they could speak with someone in high authority. At that time the East India Mediators will be given the rights we agreed on."

Wordsworth looked to Chris Blaine. "Does he tell true? No powerful Empire person was there, far side of Sister?"

"Captain Renner and His Excellency were the highest authorities present."

"Thank you. I must ask now, what have you agreed with Medina?"

Blaine looked to Bury, then back. "We agreed to come with them. I think it is no secret that we expected to be taken to Mote Prime. Before we could find our balance"—he had almost said footing—"one of our ships and the Sister had both been lost to the Crimean Tartars. Medina has agreed to assist in rescuing the crew and passengers of
Hecate
. This seems fair. Their duplicity caused our loss."

"Can you speak for your Empire?"

"No, but if all of us here are agreed, that will have great influence. I am Kevin Christian Blaine, son of Lord Roderick Blaine. Commodore Renner has influence with the Navy. His Excellency controls the directors of the Imperial Traders Association. Joyce Mei-Ling Trujillo speaks for the news services, Empire-wide. What we agree to will be heard at all levels of the Empire."

Wordsworth asked, "How do we stand, measured along Medina Trading? Have Medina told you? Is there agreement about us, you and Medina Trading?"

"No. We were told that you were partners with Medina, and that a readjustment of status was being negotiated."

"I do not understand."

"That you and Medina are partners now talking about changes in agreements."

"That is spoke with massive delicacy," Wordsworth said. He spoke slowly to his Master and received a lengthy reply. "We can agree to readjustment," Wordsworth said. "We know we do not have equals with Medina, but we insist we be heard in all discussions."

"You are not in a position to insist," Eudoxus said.

Wordsworth gave the Motie equivalent of a shrug. "For us has been worse. Crimean Tartars flee from their former ganglords. They need to know. They need friends. How if they come to us for refuge? If they carry to us human guests and gripping hand on the Sister to trade? We—"

"You could not."

"Medina lost the Crazy Eddie point because too many Masters, too little wealth, move in awkward orbits." Resources badly handled, Chris translated . . . tentatively. "Was bad mistake. Do not do it again. East India yet has wealth like yours in mass. Crimean Tartars do not know value of what they took. East India can work with Crimean Tartars and humans, or we can work with humans, or we can work with humans and Medina. What do you wish?"

The silence that followed was not empty. Warriors and Mediators and Masters shifted constantly: handholds and footholds, positions, flickering fingers and arms. Chris let it run for several seconds; but he couldn't read the silence, so he broke it.

"What is it you're dividing? Do you know?"

"Access to the Empire and the stars beyond our own," Eudoxus said instantly.

"Your Fyunch(click)'s student's third student tells us Empire would agree with all Moties," Wordsworth said. "All, never less. A stepping . . . a hierarchy of sorts would look good to you, yes? So, we speak, we mediate, we argue for command over Mote system, too. Some Motie families will control Mote system. We wish will be part of families."

"The highest possible stakes," said Eudoxus. Before Chris or anyone could answer—if he had had an answer—both Mediators had turned to talk to their respective Masters.

Joyce whispered, "At least they agree on that."

Blaine nodded. He was more interested in getting Horace Bury's reaction. Bury caught the query (eyebrow lift, tilt of head) and said, "There's motive here for an arbitrarily large number of murders."

Eudoxus's head and shoulders suddenly snapped around to face Joyce Trujillo. "What do you know of our breeding habits?"

Chris considered throwing his arm across her face. Too bloody late . . . and it would have told the Mediators what he knew. Eudoxus didn't even wait for her answer, only for the emotions that chased across her face. "So. You would deal with the Moties united. How can you expect us to stay united? Our histories tell that we've tried to unite before, and failed always."

"Neither problems nor opportunities last forever," Bury said. "And what neither Moties nor humans can do, Moties and humans together may accomplish. Allah is merciful."

"King Peter's ambassadors must have told you much," Eudoxus said. "What happened to them?"

"They were well treated," Joyce said. "One was still alive a few years ago, as I remember. At the Blaine Institute. Lieutenant Blaine could tell you more."

"As His Excellency says, everything has changed," Blaine said. "When there was one point to blockade, and that one easily defended, blockade was an effective way to gain time. Now there are two paths to block. There must be a better way, better for humans and Moties. If not . . ."

"Your battle fleets will come," Eudoxus said. "War in the Mote system, and you to exterminate us. Bloody hands forever, but else we escape to the rest of the universe. That is your terror." She had spoken truth; she must have seen it in their faces. "Our numbers increase. Our domains. In a thousand years we enclose you. Yes, we must seek a better answer."

Take up the White Man's burden— Send forth the best ye breed— Go bind your sons to exile To serve your captives' need;
The ports ye shall not enter, The roads ye shall not tread, Go make them with your living, And mark them with your dead!

 

—Rudyard Kipling
"The White Man's Burden"
"The United States and
the Philippine Islands, 1899"

 

Knowledge is valuable when charity informs it.

 

—St. Augustine,
City of God

 

Through the windows they could see the beheaded corpse of
Hecate
.

A scar gaped along half its length: the gap where
Hecate
's cabin had been. The rest of the hull had been mounted alongside a silver sausage, one of their captors' ships. It flew three hundred meters distant, keeping pace with their own captor. A slender spine projected aft. The drive flame was a faint violet-white glow running along the spine.

Hecate
's severed cabin rode the flank of another such sausage. From inside they could see almost nothing of that: just a silver membrane bulging with fluid, centimeters away, and a rigid cabin forward.

But they saw
Hecate
's host ship well enough. Freddy had set their remaining telescope to following it. The sausage was banded with color-coded lines and chains of handholds and catwalks, and Moties. The maze ran round
Hecate
, too. Moties in pressure suits moved over the hull like lice.

They found the lightsail, Freddy's spinnaker. In minutes they had spread several acres of silver film to inflate ahead of the nose.

"That won't add much to the thrust," Jennifer said. "Why . . . ?"

"Why not? It's there," Terry Kakumi said. "Blink and it's a signal device, blink again and it's heat shielding. They do Jove to fiddle."

"It'll heat their cabin some," Freddy said.

Hecate
rotted before their eyes. Engineers and tiny Watchmakers stripped away sections of hull and plated them over their own ship. They found automated cameras at nose and tail and amidships, an officially approved model, all identical, which the Moties seemed to find confusing.
Hecate
's fuel tank they studied and then left intact. They worked inside the cut end until the Engineer was able to pull loose a glass tank festooned with tubing—

"Dammit. That's our sewage recycling system," Freddy said. "We'll starve."

"We have the goodies locker," Jennifer said. "A week's supplies, maybe."

"It's a double time limit. Will the sewage crowd us out before we starve for lack of basic protocarb? Stay tuned."

The men were edgy, talking to distract themselves. But Jennifer was calm, even happy, cradling a six-kilogram alien who clung to her with three arms, watching her face intently, sometimes trying to imitate the sounds she made. And Glenda Ruth . . . was frightened when she thought about it, and frustrated, and uncomfortable; and alive as never before, playing a game she'd begun learning in the cradle.

She worked on Freddy's back, running her thumbs along basic shoulder muscles, probing deep. Freddy subsided with a grunt of unwilling satisfaction. He asked, "Do you suppose they'll keep the data cubes? I've got some good recordings of the battle."

Hecate
dwindled. They took half the hull to make a curved mirror to relay light from the light-sail. Kilometers of wiring went into the nose of the captor craft. A small craft arrived from somewhere else; some of the wiring, four cameras, and all of
Hecate
's little attitude jets went aboard; the Engineer pilot traded places with a replacement, and away it went.

The Moties exposed
Hecate
's drive; moved it aft; set it to firing. Then they were all over it, tuning, testing. Presently their own drive went off, leaving
Hecate
's running.

"Something of a compliment," Glenda Ruth said. Freddy nodded.

Jennifer asked, "Does it bother you?
Hecate
 . . ."

Freddy's shoulders set hard. He said, "Not all that much. A racing yacht, we change anything at the slightest excuse. The idea's to win. It's not like"—to Glenda Ruth—"not like your dad losing his battleship, his first command."

"He still flinches if you mention
MacArthur
." Glenda Ruth resumed trying to soften the knots in Freddy's shoulders.

They could hear the rustling. Engineers and Watchmakers were moving over the surface of their own life bubble. What was happening out there?

"Then again,
Hecate
is where you and I got together. I do hate—"

"The bed's quite safe."

His tension softened. "We get it back from Balasingham, we can build a ship around it."

The Mediator pup looked into Jennifer's eyes and said, distinctly. "Go eat." Jennifer let go, and the pup pushed off from Jennifer's chest, setting her rotating, sailing unerringly to impact the Engineer.

The cabin was aswarm with Moties. The Warrior would remain in place for minutes at a time, then bound about the cabin like a spider on amphetamines, and presently come to rest again. The Engineer and three skinny half-meter Watchmakers, and a slender creature with a harelip and long, delicate fingers and toes, had reshaped the hole in the cabin wall into an oval airlock. The Engineer had found the safe near the cabin's forward cone, tapped at the code readout, then left it alone. Now the Moties had peeled the cabin walls away and were going through the air and water regeneration systems. From time to time there came a whiff of chemical strangeness.

"Too many of them. They'll strain the air changers," Freddy said.