Renner grinned slightly and looked to be sure that she was recording. Good. That gave them an extra copy for insurance. It would take study to be certain he understood everything Eudoxus was saying.
"Period Three opens around a hundred thousand hours ago," Eudoxus continued. "We prepared to exploit the new opening. Medina Traders began sending probes solely to determine whether the Crazy Eddie point had jumped. From your viewpoint these ships would still have come sporadically, and we still shaped them to shake the Empire's composure. You were not to notice a difference. We could afford nothing so flamboyant as the iceball fleet . . . Did that have any success?"
Chris Blaine wiggled his eyebrows, offstage. Bury said. "Only in exciting our admiration."
"Our later probes were cheaper, but still our resources were not expanding to match our tasks. While our estimates were better than King Peter's, we made ready too early, and it was costly to remain in a state of readiness. Power shifted among the Mote Gamma families. Medina's behavior was becoming too conspicuous, our security was getting less attention than—"
Bury said, "You were expanding too fast."
Eudoxus—Bury 3A—nodded reluctantly. "Wealth that should have gone to security went to feed our growing numbers. Eighty thousand hours ago, East India Company surged out of the Mote Gamma Leading Trojans and took possession of the Crazy Eddie point. They replenished the cost of that mighty battle by dismantling two of our probes already en route to the Eye."
"Where was your ally Byzantium?"
"Far around its orbit, too distant to interfere directly, preoccupied with local problems, and unable to send a large battle fleet. They were not happy, and they blamed us for our carelessness. But the Curdle's collapse was slow in coming, and nobody loves blockade duty."
That's for damn sure, Renner thought, and caught an answering nod from Chris Blaine.
"Having been dispossessed, we did what we could to recover our position. Medina Traders brought the East India Company in on part of the secret. Having taken the old Crazy Eddie point, East India Company was given the obligations, too. Byzantium gave them your Fyunch(click)'s second student's third apprentice."
Kevin said, "Just so I don't get lost . . ."
"Bury-One has died. Medina Traders has Bury 3A, me. Byzantium still has Bury 2 and Bury 3B. Byzantium's Bury 3C went to East India Company. Another family bought Bury 3D while they still had wealth; they may have sold some Bury-Fours. Byzantium may be training others."
Bury stared at the misshapen shadow in wonder. "Have I become the basis of your economy?"
"Not extensively, Excellency, not yet. Of course I am become immensely more valuable since I have had the honor of speaking with you directly."
"Wonderful."
"Our own problem was that East India Company sent the cheapest possible probes. You were bound to notice. I expect that was why you arrived so rapidly? . . . Yes. But having a Horace Bury Fyunch(click) made East India Company more confident than they should have been—-as we intended. Their Bury student is not an astronomer. We gave them a wrong mapping for the expected new Crazy Eddie point, and they accepted it."
"They may be annoyed with you. They are attacking these interlopers, the Crimean Tartars, but whom were they sent to attack?"
"Excellency, you may well— Excuse me," Eudoxus said, and the monitor screen went dark.
Kevin said, "Blaine?"
Chris Blaine said, "The Motie ships got easier to hit nine years ago. Before my time, but the records show. The Crazy Eddie Squadron thought it was because we were getting better at it."
Bury was nodding, enjoying himself. "The word Byzantine might have been invented just for Moties," he said. "Well, Kevin?"
"We can make maps. Computer maps, holograms that move. We should."
"Yes. Jacob?"
"I've been doing that. Horace, I think your interests and mine may have converged at last. Have a look at this." All the monitors suddenly bloomed with an axial view of the Mote system. For a moment it held, then began turning like a sluggish whirlpool.
"Now, note." Buckman's pointer traced along the shaded ring of comets. "Mote Gamma is resources for anyone in this region. A better source than the nearby comets, right? Because comets are so far apart. Where Mote Gamma is passing, there's an economic boom. When Gamma's gone, there's a recession. Sanity check, Horace?"
"Very likely. The boom would stretch over perhaps twenty degrees of arc before costs grow too great. Mote Beta would be too close to the sun for such an effect. And if . . . what are these marks? The old Jump point to the Eye, the new one . . ."
"Right."
They weren't moving. Matter flowed around and past them.
"The Crazy Eddie points. And the new Jump to the red dwarf, Crazy Eddie's Sister. Thirty degrees around from Mote Gamma, and up ten degrees along the Mote's axis. Medina Trading had no easy access to the Mote Gamma resources."
Renner watched the map display rotate. The Crazy Eddie point, not far outward from Mote Beta's orbit, had moved a few hundred thousand klicks when Buckman's Protostar (the Curdle) became Buckman's Star. But the Sister was a billion klicks away, above the plane of the system and well beyond Mote Gamma.
Eudoxus was back. "Excellency, Captain, my Master will act to recover your people and goods. Our bargaining position is worsening. Hecate is in flight with a Crimean Tartar escort, twelve ships of varying size, running out from the sun and wide of the Khanate positions. It seems the Tartars have severed relations with the Khanate. Thirty-six Tartar ships remain in command of the Sister. The East India Company contingent has fled."
Bury's eyes met Kevin's; he didn't speak.
The Motie said, "Your lost ship should be safe in the hands of the Crimean Tartars. No player in this game would risk harm to something so valuable, not even pirate groups
like the Khanate, who can only guess Hecate's value from the maneuvering of others . . . We'll negotiate how to bring you together."
Of course a Mediator would negotiate, Kevin thought. She could hardly plan a war, though if she could estimate relative strengths . . . but if Hecate must be rescued, it must be up to the Empire ships.
"So you had East India watching the wrong part of the sky," he said. "And now they're pissed?"
"Just so. But they don't command the wealth they had when they wrested the Crazy Eddie point from us. They sent cheap token ships to the Eye, and they can't afford a real war fleet either."
"Tell me about the Khanate."
"Ah, yes, the Khanate. You see, Medina Trading's main base is deep among the comets, not conveniently close to the Sister. A succession of large comets have served as inner bases, generally a few light-minutes from the Sister. We're en route for Inner Base Six even now, and more of our ships will meet us there. But as an immediate source of volatiles and water and ores, we sometimes move a small comet head to pass very near the expected Sister.
"The Khanate is based in a cluster of comets outward and forward of Medina Trading. They expect wealth to surge their way when Mote Gamma moves into place in fifty thousand hours. Meanwhile they survive as bandits. They must have wondered at the mad placement of our small comet, but they covet the resources. But the Crimean Tartars seem to know why we wanted resources in place."
Bury asked, "Might they be working with someone else?"
"Instruct me," said the Motie.
"Merely a question, Eudoxus. Who knew of the Sister? Medina and Byzantium and East India, and whoever else might deduce the truth from observation. East India was given a false locus for the Sister, but were you truly prepared to deal fairly with Byzantium?"
"Of course," Eudoxus said.
"Any Motie family could learn the truth by observation and deduction," Bury said. "But Byzantium already knew. Perhaps Byzantium grew unhappy with the notion that Medina would command the Sister, so far from Byzantium's sway. Then Byzantium might seek allies easier to dominate."
"Ah."
"Only a passing thought. Finish your tale, Eudoxus."
The Motie needed a moment to react. "Tale? . . . Easily told. We were already embattled when East India signaled that a token ship intended for the Crazy Eddie point had failed to pop through to the Eye. We sent tokens along the arms of the arc where the Sister was to be expected. An expedition of ten ships was launched after, provisioned and manned well in advance, and all running from the firelight with the Khanate fleet. The rest of the Medina fleet followed in a guarded retreat, abandoning our little comet, intending to take possession of Crazy Eddie's Sister.
"By then East India Company's neutrino gauges and telescopes must have seen the action. They have reason for complaint, as you point out. They took our territory by force. Then they donated resources to the exercise: ten years' or more worth of their pitiful token ships. Now they learn that the Sister is not where they were told, but Medina's fleet is in place. They sent ships.
"None of this surprised us much. But when the Crimean Tartars fleet followed us, we were taken by surprise. Medina expected the entire Khanate fleet to remain with the comet. When our first ship disappeared, the Tartars were seen to correct course. They must have known what they were doing."
Jacob Buckman's head popped up at Renner's ear. "They knew better than Medina."
Renner turned. "Talk to me."
"Why did the Khanate attack now? Now puts the Tartars in just the right position to take the Sister. It looks like some genius among the Tartars—"
"Figured out exactly when the Curdle would collapse. Uh-huh. Eudoxus, you concur?"
"It's not my field, Captain Renner. I'll ask. Or they might have been told."
"By whom?"
"By anyone! Do you believe I have told you of all the families here?"
"Okay. Go on."
"The Tartars destroyed two of the ten Medina expedition ships. One missed the Sister. The rest of us reached the orange dwarf. Our fleet tried to hold the Sister until Byzantium's reinforcements could arrive, but these were not expected soon, or with confidence. Mote Beta is too far. But they held long enough for us all to pop through into an ongoing battle."
"But not long enough to protect Hecate."
"No. And that brings us to present time. In ten hours we will reach Inner Base Six."
8
Medina Base Six
Rebellious angels are worse than unbelieving men.
—St. Augustine, City of God
Base Six had changed. Shaped charges blasted most of the unworked mass of what had been a comet into shards. A snowstorm of dirty ice and ammonia and rock, all useful ores until the advent of the Sister, expanded in the direction of the battle raging at the Sister. If the detritus didn't shield Base Six from weapons, it would at least blind all watchers. Only Medina's Masters would guess what was happening here, and they only because they had shared in the planning.
The white sphere that remained was colder than a comet need be. East India had known of the refineries that made hydrogen and the ships that took it away, but had never known of the heat pumps. The hydrogen hadn't all been used to fuel ships, and most of the ships hadn't gone all the way out to Medina Trading.
Medina Base Six had become a compact hydrogen iceball with a shell of foamed hydrogen ice. Thus insulated and minutely cooled by evaporation, it would hold its cold for decades; possibly centuries. Buried in the iceball was an industrial-sized Empire-style shield generator that had served all six inner bases.
Base Six was too close to the action, too vulnerable.
Its three dozen ships were mostly disassembled. They always had been, always visibly under repair. East India's
visiting Master had complained of this, but had never seen the significance of all those dismounted rocket motors.
Now Medina's Engineers mounted forty-one fusion motors in a ring aft of the half-klick snowball. In hours. Base Six had become a warship. It began accelerating immediately, outward, toward Medina Trading.
Most of Base Six's ships, and the hydrogen they carried, had traveled only as far as the odd-shaped black bubble Mustapha thought of as the Storehouse: odd shaped to avoid detection by radar and other means. Within the Storehouse was a growing store of hydrogen, and a population of Warriors that did not grow because tournaments kept their numbers steady.
Now troopships full of Warriors moved to rendezvous with Base Six. Some would land, some would orbit.
Base Six was an armed carrier and fuel dump and warship, the heart of a fleet capable of defending whatever treasure had emerged from Crazy Eddie's Sister.
* * *
Sinbad accelerated at .8 gravities, comfortable enough for Moties, not too great a strain on Bury. Behind them the Mote was not much more than a star. It had a barely discernible disk and was just too bright for unprotected human eyes. Murcheson's Eye was a dull red smear off beyond the Mote.
Four Motie ships, with Eudoxus in the lead; then Sinbad, closely followed by Atropos; finally, four more Motie warships.
"That's all I can detect, Captain Renner," Commander Rawlins said. "I have the general impression there are more ships moving around out there. We get a sudden detection flash, but nothing we can lock onto. Like . . . stealthed ships that change shape?"
"Thank you."
"Sir. We watched the Motie ships during the battle. This gives us another look."
"Have any conclusions?"
"They're pretty good. High performance. We saw nothing but gun actions, no torpedoes. Their ships tend to be small. We could certainly defeat any four of what we've seen so far, barring big surprises."
"I would not rule out surprises."
"No, sir, I sure don't. Captain, can you explain what's going on?"
"Do I detect a note of pathos? All right. It's time for a council of war while we have secure communications." Renner thumbed the intercom. "Please have Lieutenant Blaine come up, and if His Excellency is up to a conversation, he ought to listen in.
"Rawlins, we're not going to Mote Prime. They're out of it. The important players are all offplanet civilizations, and there are a lot of those. The one that was best prepared for the new I-point is Medina Trading, ruled by Caliph Almohad, and his chief negotiator is Eudoxus, the Mediator we're following, all names chosen by Eudoxus. Okay so far?"
"Yes, sir. Who are we fighting?"
"There are a whole bunch of factions." Renner's fingers danced. "I made notes. Here."
"Got it." Rawlins's eyes focused offstage. "Oh boy."
"And that's just the important ones."
"Khanate's got the comet . . . nobody cares . . . the Tartars hold the new Jump point, and a ship . . . oh, my God."
"Yeah. Hecate is a civilian ship piloted by the Honorable Frederick Townsend with Chris Blaine's sister, Glenda Ruth Fowler Blaine, aboard as passenger."
"Oh, my God. Captain, Lord Blaine isn't going to be happy about that! Are we going to rescue them?"
"Could we?"
Rawlins was quiet for a moment. "I don't know, but I'd sure as hell hate to go back without trying."
"I see your point, but Eudoxus doesn't think we have enough ships even with yours. Right now the best evidence is that they're safe, and our Motie allies are trying to deal with the Tartars. Meanwhile, we're headed for a Medina Traders base. Until recently it was a joint base with East India Trading, but apparently there's been a readjustment of that alliance."
"Readjustment?"
"That's the word Eudoxus used."
"Somebody else to fight?"
"Maybe."
Chris Blaine came to the bridge and took a place near Renner.
Commander Rawlins said, "Are things usually this complicated with Moties? Captain, what the hell is our objective?"
"Good question," Renner said. "First is to survive. Second, get Glenda Ruth Blaine back. She's got a cargo that may change things . . . may affect our third objective, which is bringing order out of chaos."
"Cargo?"
Renner said, "Lieutenant Blaine?"
"Yes, sir. As Captain Renner said, there's another objec
tive to consider. The Moties are loose, and that's got to be dealt with, by us or a battle fleet."
"Only there's no battle fleet." Renner sighed. "Okay, Chris. The cargo." Renner caught Cynthia's eye; he negotiated for coffee.
Blaine nodded. "Commander Rawlins, just how much do you know about Moties?"
"Not much. I skipped the classes on Motie society back in the blockade squadron. Studied their tactics, but I didn't see any need to understand them, since all we were supposed to do was kill them."
"Yes, sir. You must have a crewman who was that curious. Find him. Meanwhile, I lecture.
"To begin with, we all know Moties are a strongly differentiated species. Masters are the only Motie class that really counts; whereas the Mediators do all the communicating. Mediators are so likable that we tend to forget that they're not really in charge, that they take orders from Masters."
"But not always," Renner said.
"Okay, consider the three Moties sent to the Empire. Two of King Peter's Mediators, with an older Master related to King Peter but not previously in charge of Jock and Charlie. That gave Jock and Charlie some leeway. They didn't have to obey every order Ivan gave, although they usually did. There must have been rules, but I never learned them. Ivan only lasted six years, and then they were on their own.
"I once asked Jock what Ivan's last orders were. Jock told me, 'Act in such a way as to decrease the risk to our kind in the long term. Keep each other sane. Make us look good.' I think she left out considerable detail. And Mediators would lie to us if Ivan had told them to.
"So here we are back in Mote system and everything we know is a little bit wrong. We're dealing with a space civilization, not a planet. All the classes will be a little different, some a lot different, even including the Masters. Motie civilization is old. The asteroids have been settled for over a hundred thousand years, time enough for evolutionary changes, and we know the Moties have used radical breeding programs on themselves as well."
"Like Saurons," Rawlins said.
"Well, not really," Renner said. "Different objectives, different reasons."
The Gripping Hand Page 26
