The Gripping Hand

by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle

  "We can see that. Blaine, who am I?"

  "Captain Damon Collins," Blaine's voice answered quickly.

  "Right. Blaine, tell me something a Motie wouldn't know."

  "Poker. That first game. I know how you beat me, Captain."

  "Remind me."

  Renner made sure the mike was off. "I hope it's not a long story."

  But Blaine was talking fast. "I'd never played Big Squeeze before. High-low, six cards plus a replacement. We had our six. I was showing two little pair up, and two down cards. You had three hearts and a something, club six maybe—"

  "It's coming back."

  "—nothing bigger than a nine. I threw a down card. You threw the nine of hearts. Pulled the jack of hearts. We declared, both high. You had the flush."

  "You swore you'd never figure out how I did that."

  "I worked it out after the next game. What happened was, you already had your flush, but you had a shot at low hand, too. I was betting like I had a full house. You believed me. You threw your flush away and got it back with your low hand ruined. 'Rape my lizard,' you said to yourself—"

  "And beat you for the very last time."

  " Fyunch(click)."

  "Enough," another voice said. "Is it Blaine?"

  "Definitely, Admiral."

  "Sinbad and Atropos. Converge on the Flag. We're sending escorts. All squadrons, engage enemy closely."

  Epilogue

  ENDGAME

  To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labour.

  —Robert Louis Stevenson

  Inner Base Six had lost 80 percent of its mass. Its skin was wrinkled and folded. Despite the Engineers' busy maintenance, pipes and lines were bent in curves and loops, and domes edged against each other. The sky was clotted with spacecraft waiting to be refueled.

  From the stretched-taffy look of the ice around the Mosque, it must have been twisted almost horizontal, then later pulled back to true. No damage showed. If anything, it had been improved.

  The tremendous space of the Great Hall now sprouted semicircular balconies at every level. Men and Moties clustered on the balconies in groups of three or ten, sometimes shouting or even jump-flying from balcony to balcony. Diplomacy moved at a breakneck pace here, slowing down at times to accommodate human minds.

  What Joyce was doing wouldn't have worked in the older Mosque; wouldn't have worked without the gyrostabilized camera either.

  In the diminished gravity Joyce Mei-Ling Trujillo was leaping from balcony to balcony, stopping to swing the camera at Nabil and a handful of Moties, again with Glenda Ruth and her brother to do a short interview, then leaping

  on. She looked like some lovely goddess moving from cloud to cloud, gradually approaching earth.

  She reached the floor flushed with the exercise, started to say something to Kevin, then swung toward the great monitor screen.

  The great blue-and-white sphere filled most of the view. Cloud patterns streamed sluggishly across continents whose borders were marked all in circles. "That's Mote Prime! Isn't it, Kevin? I can see the craters. I came to see Mote Prime, and we've been here seven bloody months without coming anywhere near it!"

  He put a hand out to steady her in the minuscule gravity. "You won't get any closer this trip. The good news is, they still don't seem to have any kind of access to space. That footage was taken from a Medina ship skimming just above the clouds, pole to pole, and nobody tried to shoot back."

  "I would have loved to see the Zoo."

  "Probably gone by now. Things don't last among Moties."

  Joyce and camera faced him. "So it's a blockade again, but with Moties in charge."

  "Subject to approval from home."

  "Of course." Joyce switched off the camera. "Off the record? You don't have any doubts, do you, Kevin?"

  "Plenty. How do we use the worm here? We could pick a faction on Mote Prime—maybe King Peter's family survived—and distribute it. Or not. Or not yet. The Crazy Eddie Worm is still experimental. Say . . ."

  "What?"

  "Bear with me a second, Joyce. Victor! Dammit, that worm's done it. Mediators really do all look alike now. Victor? All just out of adolescence."

  The Mediator who had been the Tartars' Victoria bounded toward them in a low arc. "Kevin?"

  "Yeah. Victor, sooner or later you'll be in contact with Mote Prime. We want certain bodies returned to us for proper burial. Three human males, Midshipmen Potter, Staley, Whitbread. They may have been dissected, God knows what, but please retrieve them at your earliest convenience."

  "It will be done. If there is any successor to the group that held them. Things change rapidly there."

  "Some don't. Try."

  "Yes. Anything else?"

  ". . . Yeah. Joyce, guess what the Bandit Group was guarding?"

  "Some weapons cache that was too far away to use," Joyce said promptly.

  "No. It was the Khanate's main base, including all their wealth. They offered it all as bribes to their allies, and the allies have turned it all over to Medina. Victor, did your people find any surprises?"

  "Not to us. We'll make holos, Kevin. Their Engineers are ingenious; you'll see some interesting innovations in the hardware."

  Joyce considered the nuances. She turned the camera on Victor. "Then it's over? The Khanate didn't just surrender, they meant it."

  Kevin caught Glenda Ruth Blaine's semaphore wave, halfway up the Great Hall's curved roof, and her all-too-knowing smile. Kevin grinned and waved back. No hiding anything. Dammit, Joyce had caught it, too.

  "We control all of what was Khanate wealth," Victor answered. "The families have returned from hiding at Bury's Star, and all of them now carry the worm. I see no way in which they could harm us or you, ever again. Their line is at an end, unless we choose differently; would not that satisfy Horace Bury's anger?"

  Joyce answered carefully. "As much as I came to know Bury, I think he had no anger left for Moties. This was his last corporate war. I believe he enjoyed it very much."

  The Motie smiled and moved on. Kevin felt his eyes begin to sting. He said, "That was wonderfully well said."

  "Thank you. I actually miss him, Kevin. Not like you, I expect. Almost thirty years."

  "Yeah. But he did go out a winner, and . . . I can't seem to decide how to feel about finally being free of the old man's power games. Life is about to turn simpler."

  "What was the smirk about?"

  "Smirk?" Joyce's black eyebrows came together and he said, "It's a secret. There are still secrets. Dammit, Joyce, is every woman going to go around reading my mind for the rest of my life?"

  "This isn't any diplomatic secret, Kevin. And it isn't a scandal because you'd never be stupid enough . . . you wouldn't."

  "Joyce, there is a secret you should not hear. Just like last time, when Eudoxus read your feet."

  She swallowed her first answer. "Maybe, but I have to have it."

  "Okay." Kevin Renner began to talk.

  * * *

  Inner Base Six had been following the Empire ships. Renner took his own sweet time returning thence, sending the Blockade Fleet ships on ahead, thrusting at half a gee while he and his people healed. It still took him only eight days.

  On the afternoon of the sixth day he found Glenda Ruth perched on the arm of his chair with a tray in her hand. He settled in with his lunch and said, "Talk."

  She didn't seem able to.

  "Freddy," he said. "Aristocrat. Just a touch lazy by my admittedly rigorous standards. Didn't want to join the Navy. He'll have precious little choice now. They'll hit him with major medals and a Reserve commission."

  "Good motivation," Glenda Ruth said. "Put him in charge of avoiding a war so he won't have to work."

  "He tenses up when you're around. What's he afraid of? You're too sensitive?"

  "Squeamish," she said. "Whoever gets hurt around me, child or adult or cat or Motie, I feel it. But I had as much to do with saving us as he did. More. Kevin�
�"

  "Glenda Ruth . . ."

  "Oh. Sorry." She shifted to the navigator's empty chair and slumped a little and smiled at him.

  "I was going to say . . . oh." That wide, her smile looked a little vacuous. "You got it."

  Glenda Ruth said, "Please turn down the sex appeal because it makes me uncomfortable."

  "Yeah. And I don't doubt you could turn it up again if I need to remember what gender I am."

  "Maybe not. Kevin, you've stopped thinking of me as not quite human."

  "Don't test that out, okay?" Unless you mean it . . . no,

  dammit, seducing Lord Blaine's daughter is one of the many things I'm going to skip in this life. "Sure you're human. You may be a great many humans. Every child does a lot of role-playing. You and Chris would do it better than most. What kind of role have you been playing with Freddy?"

  "I haven't been playing! Uncle Kevin, I was running a game on the Tartars, for our lives and the Empire. There wasn't room to play that many games. He's seen what I am. I'm squeamish. When it all gets too much for me, I hide."

  "You could get him back. He can't drop you, he's got obligations, and if you work on him for an hour, he'll never want to again. So what's really bothering you, Glenda Ruth? Turn it off!"

  She shifted in her chair. The blood was thundering in Renner's ears. To his skewed perception she was going off and on like a light bulb. She asked, "What if I'm serious?"

  "Get frivolous!"

  "You're so wary of rubbing up against a lord's daughter. I can talk anyone into anything, Kevin. I can make mistakes and damage people, and I've done it, and so's Chris. You'd think I was a real fool, wouldn't you, if I weren't testing my limits?"

  Kevin considered retreating to his own cabin and locking his door. But first he said, "I'm not just your randomly chosen dirty old man. I'm the junior officer who ordered Lady Sally Fowler to Captain Roderick Blaine's room when I felt it necessary to their survival. You're my responsibility."

  She stared, then burst out laughing. That was better. He asked, "What do I have to do to get you to turn off?"

  She was off. She said, "I'm sorry."

  "I'm human. You don't need proof."

  "I've been in Freddy's bed. He'd have gone crazy . . . well, antisocial, at least, if I hadn't. But I've only just got some freedom. What I think I want to do is turn Freddy loose with the option to marry him later. But he saw me do something he didn't like, and now I could lose him."

  "Let's see. He'd marry you—"

  "Because he'd have to."

  "You're a nineteen-year-old girl. Being confused is part of the game. But look: he thinks he'd like to avoid you for a while. Let him. You free him of all obligation, you make it clear you mean it, and you're not mad. He'll be meeting you for years, lady! You're the heroes of the Mote Conquest! When you want him back, flash him. Agh! Not me!"

  "Yes, Uncle."

  "I think you'll want him. Good genes, good attitude, your families will approve, and in a pinch you're both survivors. Finding that out can be very expensive."

  "Still breeding Blaines, are we, Uncle?" And she'd gone away. And Kevin Renner was suddenly very tired . . .

  * * *

  "So I went for a nap. And two hours later you were at my door—"

  "Horny as hell."

  "Suddenly taken horny, and curious, too. You wouldn't let me get back to sleep after—"

  "We didn't just talk."

  "No."

  "And nobody smirked when I moved into your cabin."

  "They were much relieved. Two extra cubic inches for everyone aboard Sinbad. Luxury beyond your wildest dreams. But—"

  "I can't think what took me so long," Joyce Mei-Ling said. "I guess I was still mad at Chris. No, he didn't lie to me, I guess—"

  "Sure he—"

  "But this is no secret, Kevin! You and Glenda Ruth know something."

  "But do you remember what I asked you?"

  Her brow furrowed. She said, "Where did I just come from? I was in the galley with a tea bulb. Where was Glenda Ruth Blaine? Having tea with me. You laughed. Then I rubbed up against you and the conversation went all to hell."

  "She sent you. She was grateful, so she sent me a gift."

  "Oh, the hell she did! Kevin, all we talked about . . ."

  He waited for her to finish. Presently he said, "All I had to ask was, “Who were you talking to a moment ago?' "

  "But I just . . . came to realize. You're the quintessence of availability. No visible ties, wealth, heroism, and you know more about current Mote affairs than any other human being in the Empire of Man! Glenda Ruth didn't . . . we only talked about . . . dammit."

  "I don't really know if you'll ever want to see me again, Joyce. But if you do, there are secrets that you should not know, and by God I will keep the next one."

  * * *

  There were two message cubes labeled and dated. One had been given to Nabil for safekeeping aboard Base Six. The other was dictated during the long chase across the Mote system and completed just before Sinbad jumped across into Murcheson's Eye.

  "Should we be looking at this?" Renner asked. "I thought we were supposed to wait for lawyers."

  Nabil's leathery face was a mask. "Commodore, His Excellency has instructed on the package that you review this immediately." He pointed to a scrawl in Arabic. "This is your name."

  "Okay."

  "It also instructs me to invite witnesses, specifically Glenda Ruth Blaine and Frederick Townsend, and as many alliance Motie Mediators as may conveniently be assembled," Nabil said. "Beyond that I know nothing."

  They began with the cube dictated aboard Sinbad. It showed Bury in his couch. His face was drawn and his voice exhausted. The authenticity of the cube was witnessed by Joyce Mei-Ling Trujillo and Glenda Ruth Blaine.

  "That's one picture of me I'll never put on the news," Joyce said.

  "I am Horace Hussein al-Shamlan Bury, trader, Magnate Citizen of the Empire of Man, pasha and citizen of the planetary principality of Ikhwan al-Muslimun, known commonly as Levant.

  "This is a codicil to my will and testament left in the safekeeping of my true and faithful servant Nabil Ahmed Khadurri. I hereby confirm all bequests made in that previous testament, except as may be directly and explicitly contradicted in this codicil. I dictate this document in the full knowledge that neither it nor this ship is likely to survive our present mission; but Allah may will differently.

  "I hereby name Kevin Renner, Commodore of the Imperial Space Navy, as executor to my will and confer on him full executive power to execute my wishes and dispose of my property in accordance with my original will as amended by this codicil. This supersedes the appointment of ibn-Farouk named as executor in the original testament. Kevin, I suggest but do not require that you delegate the detailed implementation of my will, and particularly supervising the bequests of entailed property on Levant, to the law firm of Farouk, Halstead, and Harabi, and I commend to you its senior partner, ibn-Farouk, as a longtime friend and counselor. I believe you will recall meeting him from time to time.

  "I confirm the bequest of my house, my lands, and all entailed properties on Ikhwan al-Muslimun shall be divided among my blood relatives by the laws of my home planet; except that to my great-nephew Elie Adjami I leave the sum of one crown and what he has stolen from me. It is less than the law would have given him, but the choice was his.

  "It is my strong recommendation to the Empire that Kevin Renner be appointed the first governor of the Mote system, and it is my belief that the Empire will make that appointment."

  "Great Ghu," Renner said.

  "My God, Kevin, I think they will," Joyce said.

  "Governor or not, I know that Kevin Renner will be ridden by demons if he cannot observe future events in the Mote system. I confess I wish I could be there myself. To aid Kevin Renner in satisfying his compulsive curiosity, I bequeath to him my personal ship known as Sinbad; and since I know that he has not stolen any of my money, and certainly has not enough to ope
rate my ship, I leave to him the sum of ten million crowns in cash to be paid after liquidation of assets other than Imperial Autonetics as described in the main body of my will, such to be deducted from the residual properties; and also I leave to Kevin Renner ten thousand and one shares of voting stock in Imperial Autonetics. Kevin, that's five percent plus one share of the company, and there's a reason I want you to have it.

  "The balance of my holdings of Imperial Autonetics,

  amounting to an additional sixty-five percent of the total voting stock, shall be divided as follows:

  "To my oldest living grandson, thirty-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine shares. To Eudoxus as representative of the Motie family known as Medina Traders, thirty thousand shares. To Omar as representative of the Motie Family known as the East India Company, twenty thousand shares. To Victoria as representative of the Motie Family known as the Crimean Tartars, five thousand shares. To the Motie Mediator known as Ali Baba, thirty thousand shares."

  Bury's image chuckled. And well he might, Renner thought. "The remaining shares are held by partners, banks, business concerns, and other humans scattered through the Empire. If you care to contemplate the possible voting blocks, you will find the combinations interesting. Kevin, Allah has willed that you shall live in interesting times, and I do no more than abet His will.

  "One final bequest: to Roderick, Lord Blaine, onetime captain of the Imperial cruiser MacArthur, I bequeath the personal sealed files designated with his name. They contain information about agents who have been useful to the Empire of Man, but who may now be dangerous. I know that Lord Blaine will satisfactorily carry the moral obligations of this knowledge.

  "As for the rest, you will find the details in the cube I have entrusted to Nabil. I have provided generously for those who have served me faithfully. I believe that I have faithfully discharged my duties to Allah, to my compatriots, and to the Empire; and whatever Allah wills for my future, I am content that we have done all we could do.

  "Witness my voice and signature, Horace Hussein al-Shamlan Bury, aboard the ship Sinbad somewhere in the Mote system."