The Gripping Hand (6 page)

"I did. So far I got nothing."

"Me either," Renner said. "So I'll keep poking around."

Shopping centers had never come into vogue on the Purchase. Big and little shops were scattered through the city, a sudden surprise among the houses.

Here: four huge rock slabs leaned against each other at the tops, with window glass in narrow triangles where the rock didn't meet. The boutique was a block from the Pitchfork River, in a neighborhood that had once been fashionable and was now getting to be again. Kevin Renner glanced in and saw a squarish chunk of white rock glittering with opal colors.

He walked in. Chimes sounded above his head.

He paid little attention to the cookware, lamps, rifles. Here was a row of glittering white pipes with amber bits, and one, isolated, that was fiery opal in a black matrix. Some were carved in intricate fashion: faces, animals, and one flattened tube shaped like an Imperial skip-glide fighter.

A short, muscular, balding man emerged from somewhere aft. His eyes scanned Renner in genial fashion. He said, "The pipes."

"Too right. What kind of prices do these things carry? The black one, for instance."

"Oh, no, sir. That's a used pipe. Mine. After I close up, then it comes out of the case. It's there for display."

"Um. How long . . ."

The old man had it out on the counter. It had been carved into a face, a lovely woman's face. Long, wavy hair ran down the bit. "I've been smoking Giselle here for twenty-six years. But it doesn't take that long. A year, year and a half, the matrix will blacken up nicely. Longer for the larger pipes."

"Longer if I like switching pipes, too. How—"

"You'll find you smoke just the one pipe at home, sir. Opal meerschaum doesn't go stale after a few thousand puffs. Briar is what you'll take on trips."

Interesting. You took the cheaper pipes on trips, of course, and the little ones. Big pipes were more awkward but smoked better. But most of the pipes in view were pocket-size.

"Do you keep the bigger ones somewhere else?"

"No, sir, this is all we have."

"Mmm. That big one?"

"Nine hundred crowns." The proprietor moved it to the counter. It was an animal's head, vaguely elephantine.

"That's high. I've seen better carving," Renner said.

"On opal meerschaum?"

"Well, no. Is it difficult to carve?"

The old man smiled. "Not really. Local talent. It may be you'd want to buy a blank, like this." It was bigger yet, with a bowl bigger than Renner's fist and a long shank and short bit. "Take it to another world. Give it to a better carver."

"How much?"

"Thirteen fifty."

It wasn't Kevin's money. Very little of what passed through his fingers was Kevin's money. There would be a Navy pension, and he might be in Bury's will . . . but this would be charged to expenses. Nonetheless Kevin shook his head and said, "Wow."

"Higher on other worlds. Much higher. And the value goes up as you smoke it." The man hesitated, then said, "Twelve hundred."

"Would you go a thousand?"

"No. Look into some other stores. Come back if you change your mind."

"Rape it. Sell me that. Do you have tobacco, too?" Kevin handed over his pocket computer and waited while the proprietor verified the transfer, wrapped the pipe, handed it across. And added a tin of local tobacco, gratis.

Kevin knew what he wanted to ask next . . . and suddenly knew that he didn't have to. He just grinned and let silence stretch until the old man grinned back and said, "Nobody knows."

"Well, how does it come in?"

"Private fliers. Men go out and come back with the stone. Are you thinking that they could be made to talk?"

"Well . . . ?"

"There are criminal elements in Pitchfork River. They don't control the opal meerschaum and never have. My suppliers say they don't know where it comes from; they always bought it from somewhere else. I've heard it so often I'm beginning to believe it. I helped finance some geologists once, when I was younger. They never found anything. Money into a rat hive."

"Too bad."

"You won't find a shop that sells only the opal meerschaum. It's sporadic. There hasn't been a new source in twenty years, that's why it's so high. Some of us think it comes from the north. The north is more geologically active, and the fliers mostly go out in that direction."

"But he was willing to bargain," Renner told his pocket computer, set to RECORD. "Two other dealers offered me deals, too. That's three out of four. I think they're expecting a new source anytime now. That would drop the price. It would fit the cycles you noticed, slow rise in price, peak, steep drop, every twenty years or so."

He put the computer away. The taxi settled and let him out. He was in a narrow wedge of manicured forest, in Tanner Park, and a bridge was in view of the north.

Across the bridge: the spill. It wasn't quite a slum; but the houses crowded too close, and potholes and broken lightstrips weren't repaired at once, and the crime rate was high. Renner hadn't wanted to get out of a taxi here. He strolled through the streets, looking for what there was to see.

That sign: THE MAGUEY WORM, on a tall concrete building painted in garish murals. Surely that was where he had fried his brains, night before last? Not that it mattered much. Renner went in.

Midafternoon. Not much of a crowd: four at the bar, two at a big table, all men. Working men, by their look: comfortable, durable clothes. Renner ordered waterwing liqueur and settled back to soak up atmosphere.

There are those who prey on tourists. . . .

But nobody made a move. He might have been invisible.

Renner unwrapped his package. Carefully he filled the bowl of the pipe with tobacco, then lit up.

Staring is a universal insult, and nobody was; but others had become aware of his existence. Renner said aloud, "The old guy was right. That's a terrific smoke." It was true.

"I wouldn't know," the bartender said, and a brawny guy two chairs down said, "Amen." He was wearing several layers of clothing, like the hunters of two nights ago. Geared for cold, wearing it all because it was the easiest way to carry it.

Renner looked disconcerted. "Oops. I should have asked—"

"Smoking's allowed in the Maguey Worm." The bartender jerked his thumb upward, at the high ceiling and slowly turning fans. "Go ahead, it'll give the place a bit of class. I'm told you should be drinking skellish with that, for the taste. Or B and B."

"Pour me a skellish, then, bubble on the side. A round for the house. You, too."

"The house thanks you," the bartender said. "Amen," said six customers, and the house became busy.

One of the hunters raised his glass to Renner. "You were in here—what, two nights ago?"

"Wednesday," the bartender said. "We don't get a lot of off-planet trade here." His voice was friendly, but it held a question.

Renner shrugged.

The hunter came over to Renner's table. "Mind? . . . Thanks." He sat and looked pointedly at Renner's pipe. "He sure ain't broke."

Renner grinned. "I got lucky once." The trick is to imply that
anyone
can get lucky. "I'm a rich man's pilot. I can play tourist when I'm on a planet, while Bury busts his ass making more money."

"You want local color, you came to the right place. I'm Ajax Boynton."

"Kevin Renner."

"Sir Kevin," Boynton said. "Saw you on tri-vee. Hey, fellows, we got a celebrity."

Renner grinned. "Pull up a chair. Tell me tall tales." He waved to the bartender, who had politely moved out of earshot. "Another round."

Four more joined him. Two ordered straight orange juice. It cost as much as liquor. They introduced themselves as the Scott brothers, James and Darwin.

"I take it things are slow?" Kevin asked.

"A little," Darwin Scott said. He shrugged massive shoulders. "Snow ghost hunting's a chancy thing. Get a good one and you make money, but you don't always."

"Then what?"

"Then you wait for somebody to stake you," Ajax Boynton said. "You looking to invest some money?"

Renner looked thoughtful. "Truth is, I'd like to own a snow ghost fur and I'd like to shoot it myself. What would it cost me?"

"Five thousand buys a quarter share," Boynton said. "Ten thousand buys forty percent."

"Why—"

"With ten thousand worth of gear we have a better chance of getting a ghost."

"Oh. Plausible."

"Still interested?"

"Sure, if I get to come along."

Boynton looked annoyed. "Hunting ghosts isn't dude work. We lose people."

"You keep saying that. With IR gear, and—"

"And sonar, and the best damn acoustic gear we can come up with," James Scott said. "And we lose people, because it's a long way north. The aurora mucks up electronics. And—"

"And ghosts move fast," his brother said. "They dig in near tree roots, where you can't get a good sonar map. They stay down in the snow so the IR doesn't spot them. And they can swim under snow faster than you can walk. Forget it, Mister."

"Let's see, now. I back you for ten thousand worth of gear, which I leave behind when the ship lifts. A good ghost fur costs . . . what? Straight from you, no retailer."

Darwin Scott said, "I'd get around twenty thousand."

Renner's sources were accurate. "So call it another twenty thousand when I get back, and call that incentive to bring the greenhorn back alive. Total, thirty thousand." They were trying to maintain poker faces, but he surely had their interest. "Just that, and you keep your sixty percent, but I expect you to indulge yet another whim."

Three men sighed. Renner said, "See, I can't think of any reason not to hunt snow ghosts where I might stumble across some opal meerschaum, too."

Three men were hiding smiles. Ajax Boynton said, "Me neither. If you've got a place in mind, I'll tell you if there are snow ghosts there."

"Let's find a map."

Have you not seen how your Lord lengthens out the shadow? He could have kept it motionless if he liked. Yet We make the sun its pilot to show the way.

 

—al-Qur'an

 

Is this wise?" Bury sipped at coffee and examined the map projected on the wall. "It will certainly not be comfortable."

Renner shrugged. "I like comfort. But hey, if I can get a snow ghost fur, it'll sure keep me warm enough."

"So will synthetics, and they are much cheaper. Why the area between the glaciers?"

"Oh, Hell, Bury. How do you know Reuben Fox is hiding something but he isn't stealing and can't be bribed? Brains and instinct and technique. It took me all afternoon. We talked. The Scott brothers switched from orange juice to tea . . . the Maguey Worm has a magic coffeepot variation. Gilbey makes a liter of tea and then lets the caffeine filter out through the wall. Takes five minutes."

"More Motie influence."

"Right off of your ships, Horace! Anyway. I pointed at various parts of the map, all of it in the region where the northern lights play, but that's fairly large. Snow ghosts? Yes. No. Maybe. They'd never live here, they've been hunted out there, my brother got one here a year ago."

"I wish you had a fast-forward switch, Kevin."

"By and by, Boynton said he'd heard opal meerschaum came from under the Hand Glacier. The Scott brothers said it didn't, it had been searched by an uncle or something, and besides, the place had been hunted out of snow ghosts twenty years ago. So I went on pointing, and every place I pointed, the Scott brothers thought I might find a snow ghost there."