The Gripping Hand

by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle

  * * *

  "That should do it," Chris Blaine said. He held a message cube. "All the Alderson data we can find including the stuff from Alexandria. The Admiral shouldn't have any

  trouble finding the new Crazy Eddie point. Now it's your turn, Captain. Remember, heavy on duty. You can't lay that on too thick."

  Renner took the cube. "Thanks. I'll be a while, and I have to be alone." He waited until the others had left, then inserted the cube into the recorder and began to dictate.

  "And that's the situation as we see it," he concluded. "The Moties are ripe for an alliance. It's dicey, but there may never be a better chance.

  "I don't believe we have the power to exterminate the Moties. There are too many of them, too many independent families, scattered through the rocks and the moons and the comets.

  "We can't exterminate them, and we never expected to maintain the blockade forever, and now we'd need two blockades. My assessment is that we'd do better to try for an alliance using the Crazy Eddie Worm to help control Motie breeding. Of course we don't know what the Motie reaction to the worm will be, and we won't know for another forty or fifty hours. I don't think I should wait that long. Right now Medina Trading and East India are cooperating to send this, and they have the means to get the message through. God knows what can happen in fifty hours.

  "Kevin J. Renner, Captain, Imperial Navy Intelligence; Acting Commodore, Second Mote Expedition. Authentication follows."

  The authentication was more trouble than the message had been. Renner stretched a metallic band around his forehead and attached its cable to a small handheld computer. Then he plugged in earphones and leaned back to relax.

  "Hi," a contralto voice said. "Your name?"

  "Kevin James Renner."

  "Do you eat live snails?"

  "I'll eat anything."

  "Where were you born?"

  "Dionysius."

  "Are you alone?"

  "Quite alone."

  "What's the word?"

  "Hollyhocks."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Sure I'm sure, you stupid machine."

  "Let's try it again. What's the word?"

  "Hollyhocks."

  "Sure it's not rosebuds?"

  "Hollyhocks."

  "My instructions are to be certain you are calm and uncoerced."

  "Damn it, I am calm and uncoerced."

  "Right. If you'll attach me to the message cube recorder . . ."

  "You're on."

  "Stand by. This may take a while."

  Renner waited as seven minutes went by.

  "Done. You may disconnect."

  Renner took out the message cube. It was encrypted in a code that could only be read by an admiral or at a Navy Sector Headquarters; and the authentication code identified it as coming from a very senior official of Imperial Naval Intelligence. The only way to get that authentication was to convince the encrypting device that you really wanted it done. Any deviation from the script would have produced an authentication sequence that proclaimed the sender was under duress or wasn't the proper sender. Or so Renner had been told.

  Renner punched the intercom. "Okay, Blaine, here it is. You sure the Moties can manage to duplicate this at long range?" If the Moties couldn't do that, the cube itself would have to be sent, and that would take days, if it got through at all.

  "They're sure. We sent the details of the message cube system to the East India group at the Crazy Eddie point. They've built a recording device. Now we send the encrypted message, they record it onto a cube and pop it through."

  "Fine."

  "Now what?" Joyce asked.

  "Now we wait," Renner said. "For the Tartars."

  5

  The Guns of Medina Mosque

  Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" whilst you find a rock.

  —Attributed to Talleyrand

  A day or three ago, the Great Hall must have been solid ice. This day it occupied half the volume of the Mosque. It was lavishly decorated: Renner recognized a modified illustration from A Thousand Nights and a Night. Tapestries with fantastic decorations: a djinn, a roc, Baghdad as it might have been in the twelfth century. The carpets were soft with unmistakably Saracen designs. There were also certain anachronisms: the big viewscreen on one wall, the opposite wall a vast curve of glass looking out onto the ice.

  The screen showed another region of Inner Base Six, and a ship dropping through the iceball's black Langston Field sky.

  Horace Bury paced, looking very relaxed, bobbing as if underwater in the low gravity of Base Six. He hadn't noticed that Joyce's pickup camera was on him. Ali Baba bobbed along beside him, a perfect half-scale mime.

  It was a funny sight. Kevin Renner saw that, but he found that command has its own emotions: he had to look beyond humor, and beyond calling attention to humor. There was a lot at stake here, and the responsibility fell

  squarely on Kevin Renner. And that's what Captain Blaine felt, back at the Mote. That, and his reluctant tolerance for the smartass Sailing Master . . .

  "Almost neutral territory," Eudoxus said. "Our base, but your part of it, a place where Commodore Renner may come and yet retain control of his ship. Excellency, this is to be a formal reception. Are you certain you will not invite any of the crew of Atropos? To act as entourage. Warriors, for instance."

  "Is that really important?" Renner asked.

  "It is important," Horace Bury said. "But it is also important that all Motie groups understand us as we begin to understand you. Moties and humans must modify their customs when they meet. Let us begin now."

  Eudoxus bowed. "As you wish."

  Chris Blaine watched the alien ship descend. "Looks like a racing yacht," Blaine said. "But bigger."

  Eudoxus said, "I had wondered at the strange design. The Crimean Tartars must have taken considerable resources from the vermin city."

  And your Engineers will already be examining everything about that ship, Renner thought. Moties aren't just innovative, they're adaptive.

  The ship docked in a pattern of concentric scarlet circles, onto a platform that began to descend at once. As it sank from sight, Eudoxus listened to a handset. "They're down. Do you wish to see your friends disembark?"

  "Of course," Renner said. Bury and Ali Baba turned as one.

  The screen blinked, then showed an opening airlock. A Warrior emerged into the pressurized reception lock, then a Mediator with an odd marking pattern. Glenda Ruth Blaine followed, clutching a sealed carrying case to her chest. After her came a young man in space coveralls who carried a Mediator pup in his arms. Two Warriors and a young Master followed them.

  "Only two." Bury and Ali Baba were bristling. "We had understood there were four?"

  "Yes, Excellency. We are only now learning the details. One of the four insisted on filming the cleansing of Vermin City. He was hurt. His wounds were serious, life threatening. The Tartars have not ceased to tell us of the resources expended in saving his life.

  "But when the Khanate ships were seen to be attacking, all realized that Terry Kakumi would not survive the acceleration required to escape. He was cast adrift. His female companion insisted on accompanying him."

  "And thereby hangs a tale," Renner said. He looked at Blaine and got a slight nod. "And what has happened to them since then?"

  "I have not been told," Eudoxus said.

  The handset squawked. Eudoxus listened for a moment. "Your friends seem to be of two minds. They wish to see you immediately, but they are concerned that their appearance might lead you to suspect they have not been well treated."

  "Tell 'em we've already seen them on-screen," Renner said. "With war fleets coming at us from all directions I don't think we have a lot of time to waste washing up. Eudoxus, can Medina Trading send someone to rescue the other humans?"

  "I will learn."

  " 'Adrift,' you said," Joyce noted.

  Eudoxus shrugged. "What better word?"

  Blaine said, "Cast loose at low thrust,
concealed but with a transponder beacon that will answer if pulsed with the right signals. Right?"

  "I have not been told, but I assume so. We will do what we can to rescue them, but I suspect we must simply buy them from the Khanate."

  "Buy how?" Joyce demanded.

  "A matter for negotiation," Eudoxus said. "And not yet."

  Renner prompted her. "Why not yet?"

  "Kevin, the Khanate Axis cannot themselves know what they will want. You have seen the pattern of their movement as well as I." She gestured toward the screen, which now showed points of light clustered around nothing whatever. "They wished to control the Sister. This they attained. Now they assemble their strength so that they can send through their war fleet. They wish to escape into your Empire, as we would have done if you had not been present

  to meet us, but the Khanate will not talk or bargain first. They have this advantage over us: they know that ships went through and lived to return, something that no ship ever did before. Now they believe that surprise is their best weapon, victory their best bargaining tool. Is it not clear to you?"

  Blaine nodded. "Clear enough."

  "But that's horrible!" Joyce said. "Captain Renner, shouldn't you be doing something?"

  Renner's eyes fell on her without interest; wandered back to the screen. Mediators ruled information flow; this would be as good as anything Atropos could tell him. The Khanate was gathering. They would involve all the allies they could persuade to break free into the wide universe: every family within a billion miles, likely, excepting those who flew Medina's banner. All ready to flash through to MGC-R-31, where Balasingham waited with Agamemnon and whatever reinforcements might have reached him. If they broke past Agamemnon, they would be loose in the Empire.

  The Khanate Axis. How would they work it? By long odds, they would soon have Jennifer Banda to describe Agamemnon and MGC-R-31 as she'd last seen them. Terry Kakumi might be used to persuade her. By now one of their allies might have brought a Bury Fyunch(click) to read her face. Jennifer could translate, could convey surrender terms . . . in either direction.

  But what was Commodore Renner to do about it? He must talk to Glenda Ruth, soon. Was Agamemnon holding the MGC-R-31 system alone, or did other Navy ships arrive before Hecate came through? What had she done with the C-L worm? "Eudoxus . . ."

  "We will fight, of course," Eudoxus said. "All of the strength of East India and Medina assembles. We have sent messages to Byzantium, and their war fleets are gathering. The Khanate Axis will send their Warriors through to fight whatever they find on the far side of the Sister, but they must leave their Masters safe on this side. Those ships we can attack, but we must know what contributions you humans can make."

  "War for the stars," Joyce said, awed.

  "Here are your friends," Eudoxus said. The outer door

  of the Great Hall opened. It had been made wide, so that a number could come through it at once.

  Warriors streamed in and took places along the walls. They were followed by Admiral Mustapha Pasha, Master of Base Six. Behind that group came new, strange Moties, and two humans; and with them were other Mediators, a small group of Warriors who huddled around two Masters, and a scattering of other forms including a Doctor.

  That must be Freddy Townsend, with a Mediator pup riding his shoulder. The box in Glenda Ruth's arms threw her balance off. She settled it and stepped away. She was radiating joy like a summer day as she turned to her brother; but Lieutenant Blaine was entirely absorbed by the Moties.

  Eudoxus spoke slowly, formally, in the trade language. The visiting Mediator answered. "Victoria," Glenda Ruth said, and waved, but Victoria didn't notice. East India spoke. Blaine was trying to follow it, and so was Glenda Ruth . . . and then brother and sister grimaced at each other because all the Mediators were talking faster and faster. Twisted bodies shifted, danced. Renner was awed. Before his eyes and Joyce's camera, they were turning the skeletal trade koine into a language. The Mediators broke off to speak to the Masters, then resumed their gabble. The Masters spoke, first one of the newcomers, then Admiral Mustapha.

  And every Warrior jumped straight into the air.

  Glenda Ruth screamed, "No, no, it's a gun, Victoria! You point it!"

  The Warriors ringed the ceiling and their weapons ringed the humans. They could fire, now, without hitting each other. Two Engineers and a dozen Watchmakers scrambled forward. Victoria shouted at the Masters, at the other Mediators. They gabbled, while Watchmakers surrounded Glenda Ruth's box and began spraying it with plastic foam. Every Motie Warrior held a weapon, and every weapon was pointed at a human.

  Kevin hadn't gone for his pistol, and neither had anyone else. His only real weapon was Atropos. If the Masters had cut his communications, then Atropos would be on alert status now.

  "I presume there is an explanation for this rather startling behavior," Bury said.

  "Your Crazy Eddie Worm," Eudoxus said. "A boon to Mediators! But terrible for Masters. You knew of it and did not tell us. Joyce knew and would not tell us."

  Joyce drew in a breath to speak but held it in. Her neck and cheeks flushed pink, then red.

  "Our natural suspicion," Eudoxus continued, apparently to all of them, "is that your altered parasite is a means of making Motie life extinct. You would not consider this suggestion insane, would you, knowing what Victoria has just told us? Kevin, you did not instantly describe the Crazy Eddie Worm. You were much disturbed when you knew that you were going not to Mote Prime, where winds might distribute your parasite, but to a domain where spacecraft must bring the worm to an infinity of closed environments—I see my point is made. So. I fear some tension remains, Excellency, until we again reach understanding. It is, after all, not too late for us to join forces with the Khanate."

  "Endless war," Chris Blaine said.

  "Preferable to extinction. Glenda Ruth, what did you mean—"

  She cried, "But it's for you! It doesn't reproduce except under controlled conditions. You can point it, like a gun. You win a battle, you don't have to kill your enemies. You give them the Crazy Eddie Worm instead, and now they're Keepers, conservative—"

  Eudoxus waved her silent. He spoke rapidly to Victoria. They gabbled. A Master spoke. Eudoxus asked Glenda Ruth, "Do you wish to change anything you told Victoria? , . . So. Lieutenant Blaine, tell me what you know of this. Quickly."

  "His Excellency knows more than I do."

  "Excellency?" The tone held respect; but the Warriors clung to the roof, their weapons tracking back and forth among the humans.

  Quietly, calmly, moving slowly so as not to startle any Warrior, Bury had linked himself to Nabil's medical package. The displays were alive and the lines they drew were turning jagged. Bury wasn't as calm as he looked. Ali Baba regarded the displays with interest.

  Bury said, "I know this. One of King Peter's Mediators was alive when I was last on Sparta. Less than a Mote year ago. Alive. I was told that this was due to the action of a genetically altered parasite."

  "And you believe this?" Omar asked. "Truly, Excellency?”

  "Certainly those who told me believed it, as do all those here. Yes. I believe."

  "You fear Moties," Eudoxus said. "The Bury who came to Mote Prime did not, but you do. When we first spoke to you, I was surprised to see that. Yet since you came here, that, too, has changed. What has happened to change you, you of all humans, not once but twice? Speak truth, Excellency."

  "The first is a Navy secret," Bury said.

  Enough. Kevin Renner said, "Watchmakers destroyed the battleship MacArthur. Civilians had to be evacuated by lines across vacuum to Lenin. Horace was almost there when he realized that the man crawling up behind him was a pressure suit full of Watchmakers. He fought them off with his suitcase and his oxygen tank. Okay, Horace?"

  "No longer secret, then." The lines were turning choppy. "There was worse. I had intended to bring Watchmakers to the Empire, to aid in building my fortune. Then I saw the danger. The war of all against all, and I nearl
y caused it."

  "We have pictures to top that," Glenda Ruth said. "Wait'll you see Vermin City, Your Excellency!"

  Bury looked at her. "Wonderful." To Eudoxus: "You must understand, I enjoy the company of Mediators. Even half-grown Mediators, yes, Ali Baba?"

  "Certainly, Excellency—"

  "And Watchmakers would be fantastically useful, fantastically valuable in Empire space. But that was not to be. Your society—is much like that of the Arabs before the Prophet. Infanticide. Genocide. No other way to control your population. And after the Prophet, we burst forth to conquer, but we had not learned how to live with other cultures." Bury shrugged. "Nor had others learned to live

  with us, and this was still true when I last visited your star system."

  "And you have learned now?" Eudoxus demanded.

  "Yes. We have learned, the Empire has learned. The Arabs have found a place within the Empire. We are not yet as honored as we would wish to be, but we have a place that is not without honor. We are free to govern ourselves, and we can travel among the Imperial planets. As you see that I do."

  "You are tolerated."

  "No, Eudoxus, we are accepted. Not by all, of course, but by enough, and that, too, will change."

  "And you see us in that role?"

  "Provided that you accept our terms."

  Eudoxus turned and spoke slowly in the newly adapted trade language. Admiral Mustapha spoke briefly. Eudoxus turned. The Warriors had not moved.

  "Your terms?" Eudoxus demanded.

  Bury smiled. "Of course we cannot speak for the Empire, but I know what those terms will be. First, there is to be one Motie government. That government will see that no Motie leaves the Mote system without carrying the stabilizing parasite. Within the Mote system—well, I suspect that is all negotiable. Kevin, would you not agree?"

  "Mmm . . . yes. The notion is generally that you keep your own house clean. Mote system is to be one government, kept that way by Mote citizenry. We've had at least one piece of luck, Eudoxus. Mote Prime is . . . eighty, ninety percent of your population? But they're not a consideration because Medina Concordance can keep them bottled up. That is, if you can hold the rest of the system in your gripping hand."