The Gripping Hand (8 page)

The brothers had only grinned and kept working. There was
certainly work enough for four. They'd laid a fire; they'd cut wood
and built a platform to hang half the carcass over it. The sunset
afterlight was dwindling and the cooking meat smelled wonderful,
and Renner was going to hurt tomorrow.

It was a matter of pride. You ate the meat when you killed a ghost, they'd told him. You opened cans when you'd failed.

"It feels like I've been diddled, and I don't know how or why," Renner told his pocket computer. No way of knowing if it was getting through. "There should be more to it. But we're going back to Zion tomorrow unless I see some way around it."

He closed the computer. He was ravenous. The meat would take another hour to cook through. Would it taste as good as dinner at the palace?

Less well seasoned, maybe, less well cooked, but fresher. And there was the "sauce": exhaustion and hunger. Four men would be hard put to make a dent in that much meat.

That much meat. He flipped the computer open. The ship would be halfway to the horizon, dammit. "The ghost was well fed. Why didn't it attack like the one we watched at the palace? I didn't blow a heart open. It lived too long. It acted . . . drugged. The Scott brothers didn't seem weary enough, either. If I'm not seeing mirages . . . there'd have to be a lot of men involved. This is big."

They collapsed the tent and loaded it with the fur and the snow buggies into the cargo compartment of the plane. The snow ghost meat was lashed to the struts holding the landing skids. Boynton climbed in and sat in the pilot's seat.

"Hey," Darwin Scott said.

"Oh, Hell, I'll fly," Boynton said. "I didn't do anything else to earn my keep. Son of a bitch, I'd never have believed that big a ghost would be in here. Farther south, yeah, but not just here."

"Why didn't we land farther south?" Renner asked.

"Lakes are too big," Boynton said. "Lots of warm streams from the volcanoes. Most lakes don't even freeze, and they're all
deep
. You want to go down there, you land here and take a long trip on a snow buggy." He spat through the window. "Which I had intended to do. Son of a bitch."

James laughed. "Renner? I wanted to see how you moved before we got into real danger. I didn't expect any snow ghost, not there."

The Scott brothers climbed in. James took the right-hand seat next to Boynton.

"I'm a pilot," Renner said.

"Next time," James Scott said. "This is tricky, with the plane loaded down . . ."

"He's right," Boynton agreed. "You ever fly one of these things? . . . Didn't think so. I'll check you out in Zion. Right now we ought to get that fur somewhere it'll be properly treated. That's a good fur."

Renner strapped in behind James Scott and waited until Boynton had the plane airborne. "Hey, Ajax, take us over the woods where I shot the ghost."

Boynton grinned. "Right. Want to have a look myself."

"We really ought to be getting in," Darwin Scott said.

"Hell, the man wants to see the place," James said. "Would myself. Good shooting, Mr. Renner."

"We'll just circle and go on," Darwin Scott said. "That's a good fur."

"It is that," Boynton agreed.

There had been light snow that night, but Renner could still make out their snow buggy tracks in places. The area where they had stopped was clearly marked, and so were some of their snow-shoe tracks.

"Must have been a lot of wind through here," Boynton muttered.

Renner frowned. Boynton was right. There was very little snow caught in the trees here. In the woods near the lake where they'd landed, there had been a lot more. Here there was less in the trees, more on the ground. Mmm?

"Right down there," James Scott said. "Here, I'll take it a moment." The plane banked and turned in a tight spiral so that Renner could see down to the scene of his triumph.

Boynton was on the high side of the plane. He craned up and looked off to the left. "What the hell . . . ?"

"What?" Renner demanded. He craned past Boynton.

"Tracks?"

South of the forest the snow looked chewed. Snowmobile tires, men's footprints, the blurred circle where a helicopter must have come down and taken off. A hell of a lot of activity. Renner said, "Okay, take us—"

Darwin Scott drove his elbow into Renner's stomach. Renner gasped, and a sickly sweet smell filled his lungs. He sat back with a sappy grin on his face. "Peace . . . Sam," he said.

"What the hell?" Boynton demanded.

"Gentile friend, you have seen nothing," Darwin Scott said.

"Gentile. Church business?"

"He is not a gentile," James Scott said. "Lapsed, but he was born to the Church."

"I must think on this," Darwin said.

A part of Renner's mind told him that Boynton was acting strangely, and so were the Scotts, but he didn't really care. When the plane banked slightly so that his head rolled, he saw that Darwin was holding a pistol. Renner giggled.

"Use the spray," James Scott said. "I have the controls."

"Hey, I don't want to be no giggling idiot," Boynton said. "Look, if this is Church business—hell, give me the skin and my share of the gear, and it's quits for me. I'll say we got a ghost, and the dude wanted to hunt some more, so we split up. You took the dude off to a place you didn't want me to know about. After that it's up to you."

"It would even be true," Darwin Scott said. "We must think on this."

"While you're thinking, where the hell are we going?" Boynton demanded.

"Outside Zion there is a small lake," Darwin Scott said. "Land on that."

Come, come, ye Saints, no toil or labor fear;
but with joy wend your way;
Though hard to you this journey may appear,
Grace shall be as your day.
Tis far better for us to strive,
Our useless cares from us to drive;
Do this, and joy your hearts will swell—
All is well, all is well!

 

—Hymns of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints

 

A tiny red light danced in Ruth Cohen's eyes, then the massive door opened before she could touch the bell. The butler was dressed in a traditional manner. Ruth hadn't seen anyone in that costume except in Government House and tri-vee shows. "Welcome, Commander. His Excellency has been expecting you."

Ruth glanced down at her best civilian dress and grinned wryly.

The butler took her overcoat and handed it to another servant. "His Excellency is in the library," he said, and ushered her down the hall.

Bury was in his travel chair, not at the desk but at an elaborately inlaid game table. "You will forgive me if I do not stand? Thank you. Would you care for a drink? We have an excellent Madeira. Not from Earth, I fear, but from Santiago, which many say is not greatly inferior."

"I would really prefer coffee."

Bury smiled. "Turkish or filtre? . . . Filtre. Cynthia, the Kona, I believe. And my usual. Thank you." Bury indicated a chair. "Please be seated, Commander. Thank you."

Ruth smiled. "Your hospitality is a bit overwhelming."

Bury's expression didn't change. "Thank you, but I am certain that a vice admiral's daughter has seen better. Now, what can I do for you?"

Ruth looked pointedly around the paneled room.

Bury grinned mirthlessly. "If anyone can listen to me without my knowledge and consent, some very expensive experts will regret it."

"I suppose. Your Excellency, Kevin—Sir Kevin invited me to dinner. Now I'm probably not the first girl he ever stood up, but there's a matter of his reports as well. And when I called here, no one seemed to know where he was." She shrugged. "So I came looking."

Bury's lips twitched. "And I presume you have left messages with the Imperial Marines in case you also vanish?"

Ruth blushed slightly.

Bury laughed. "Renner said you were clever. The truth is, Commander, I was about to call you. I don't know where he is either."

"Oh."

"You put a very great deal of expression into that syllable. You are fond of my—impetuous—pilot?"

"I don't have to say."

"Indeed."

"And he was supposed to make reports—"

"I have them. Recorded," Bury said. "Renner concocted a scheme for exploring the outback with three snow ghost hunters. He was suspicious of two. They left three days ago. I have received no coherent message since."

"You have a ship in orbit."

"Indeed, and Renner's pocket computer was programmed to remind him of the times when
Sinbad
would be above the area in which they would be hunting. At least once we received garbled signals that we assume were from Renner."

"You didn't go look for him?"

Bury indicated his travel chair. "That is hardly my way. What I did was invite Captain Fox to dinner."

"Have you learned anything else about our . . . problem?"

"A great deal, but nothing about Renner," Bury said.

Renner was glad of the blindfold. A blindfold could mean they didn't intend to kill him. On the other hand, it might mean that they wanted him to think that.

On the gripping hand: the snow ghost. They'd made massive efforts to keep him alive up to now.

His mind was clearing; the drug had worn off to that extent. But he couldn't walk.

He was strapped to a gurney and carried from the lake where they landed to a closed vehicle. The only time anyone spoke to him was when he tried to ask where he was. Then a voice he hadn't heard before said, "We understand that two doses of Peaceable Sam within a few hours produces a terrible hangover. You'd best be quiet." He decided that was good advice and concentrated on remembering everything he could.

The snow tractor drove for about ten minutes, then he was outside briefly. They went in, and down in an elevator, and presently he felt smooth acceleration.

Subway train? They're really organized.
He had about decided he was wrong when he felt deceleration and heard the sounds of electrically operated doors. Someone started to speak and was shushed.

They carried him to another elevator, which went down a long way, then he was rolled down a long corridor with only gentle turns, then to another elevator, and after that he was maneuvered around often enough that he lost all sense of direction.

"So," a new voice said. "Let us see what you have brought us. Remove the blindfold and straps."

Renner blinked. The room was large, and completely enclosed, doors but no windows. He was at one end of a long conference table. They indicated a chair and helped him sit in it. His legs still didn't want to do what he told them to.

Four men sat at the other end of the table. Bright light glared past them into Renner's face so that he could see them only in outline.

The Scott brothers stood next to him. One held a spray can. The other had a pistol.

They'd dressed him in someone else's clothes and removed everything he'd been carrying. Renner felt for the alarm tooth and bit it.

There was a chuckle from the end of the table. "If you have a transmitter that can send a message from here, I will buy it from you no matter what it costs."

"One hundred thousand crowns," Renner said.

"I appreciate humor, but perhaps we are short of time. Have you anything serious to say before we fill you with Serconal?"

"You've been busting your asses to keep me alive. You had to find a decent snow ghost, herd him north into the forest, wait till he killed something, drug him, hover over the trees on a helicopter to shake the snow down to cover him up . . . Twenty or thirty men, a dozen snow buggies, and a helicopter. Indeed, I'm honored."