The Gripping Hand (20 page)

"Last month," Buckman said.

Mercer looked puzzled. "Then
it
could already have happened and we would not know. I think you said your protostar was light-years from any observer?"

"Oh," Cziller said. "No, my Lord. It has been known since Co-Dominium times that Alderson tramlines form as nearly instantaneously as anything can be in this universe."

"There's a propagation speed," Buckman said. "We just don't know what it is. No way to measure it." The astrophysicist looked thoughtful. "All the really interesting events happen in the last dozen years."

"Now. They could be happening now," Renner said. "You know what this means? It may be important to have a ship from the Crazy Eddie Squadron pop into the Mote system long enough to get data on the protostar."

"Allah be merciful," Bury said. He straightened visibly. "Well, my Lord, I promised you an entertaining dinner."

"You've kept that promise," Mercer said.

"Now may I offer you more? I have long intended to go to New Caledonia. I would be more than pleased to have you as a guest for the journey."

"That's generous," Mercer said. "I'd like to accept."

"But you do not?" Bury asked.

Mercer sighed. "Excellency, I'm a politician. Successful, I think, but still a politician. I don't know how it happened, but you have made a very powerful enemy."

"Captain Blaine," Renner said.

"Earl Blaine. Precisely. I need not tell anyone in this room just how powerful the Blaine family is. As the first members of the Imperial Commission, they set the policies on our relations with the Moties. The old Marquis has a standing invitation at the Palace. Frankly, I can't afford to have their opposition."

"No argument there," Cziller said.

Mercer shrugged. "Excellency, I can see great benefits to having your friendship, and a comfortable and expeditious journey is probably the least of them, but what can I do?"

"Let me get something straight," Cziller said. "His Excellency's—uh, strong distrust—of Moties is well known. My last assignment was in BuPolDoc—excuse me, the Navy's Bureau of Policy and Doctrines—and Bury, you had half a dozen expensive Imperial Autonetics PR types trying to convince everyone in the Navy."

"I suppose I became something of a joke," Bury said.

"Not that, Excellency. Hardly that. But maybe we stopped giving your holos quite as high a priority when they mentioned Moties. Kevin, I never knew you considered Moties a threat. Your video report sure doesn't come across that way."

Renner nodded. "I had a wonderful time on the Mote expedition, and I guess that's what showed. That report was for the media. I didn't make it for the Navy. For that matter, I have to calm Bury down sometimes.

"Even so, at Maxroy's Purchase I was the one who ran around shrieking, 'The Moties are coming!' I'm not
blind
. A couple of points, okay? I love Mediators. Especially my own Fyunch(click), and I suppose that's just my natural narcissism. We all felt that way. Every so often I have to remind myself that everyone who thinks he likes Moties actually likes Motie Mediators. They're the ones who do all the talking. But the Masters make all the decisions, and they only talk to and through Mediators. Clear?"

"A point worth noting," Cziller said. "My Lord, did you know that the Blaine children had Motie nannies when they were growing up? It wasn't generally publicized."

Renner said, "Yeah. Second. I like Bury. Tastes differ, but I like Horace Bury just fine. You didn't know that, did you, Bury?"

Bury felt his cheeks warming. "You've never said that."

"Yeah. But he's
dangerous
. Check his record. The Moties are likewise
dangerous
, and I don't mean Mediators now, I mean a dozen species that think like robber barons and build like idealized engineers and carry a ton of stuff on their shoulders and do their farming with an inborn green thumb and fight like God knows what. We've never seen Warriors fight, but if they're as good at war as Engineers are at tinkering, yuk."

"One must not forget their sexual cycle," Bury said.

"Yeah. If they don't get pregnant, they die horribly. Is that a population problem, or what?"

Cziller waved that away. "We don't need
that
lecture. Everybody knows it. We know how they solve it, too. Wars. It's why we had to lock them up in the first place. Damn! I suppose it is . . . scary, to think of Mediators lecturing at Blaine Institute and raising little Blaines. There was a Master, too, but I hear he died early."

"The Blaine children. We met young Glenda Ruth. She was
grateful for a present I provided."

Cziller looked thoughtful. "My Lord, you said you could see advantages to His Excellency's friendship."

"Well—"

"Pardon me, my Lord. I wasn't arguing. I can see advantages, too." Cziller looked grim. "Look, I'm as loyal as anybody, but I'm not blind. The Empire just isn't as efficient as it was thirty years ago. When the Moties were first discovered, Merrill was Viceroy out there behind the Coal Sack. Old Navy man. He had a battle fleet together before Sparta even knew there was a problem. You couldn't do that now, my Lord."

"No, Admiral, I probably couldn't," Mercer said.

"You can't even get Sparta to react that fast," Cziller said. "It's like we've got fat in the arteries. My Lord, if the Moties really are dangerous, and that damn star really is about to let them out, you're going to need all the clout you can get. Blaine and Bury together wouldn't be too much."

Mercer nodded. "I can't argue, but I can't think what to do, either. I don't know why the Earl so thoroughly disapproves of Trader Bury."

"I do," Cziller said. "Damn all, I promised Jennifer I wouldn't get into this. Excellency, would you ask your computer to help me place a call? Blaine Manor."

"You can get through?" Renner asked.

"Once. I can't abuse the privilege or they'll change the codes on me." He turned to Bury. "Excellency, I think it's about time you and Rod Blaine had a talk about New Chicago."

Ice ran up Bury's spine, and he saw his indicators jump.

Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man.

 

—Mark Twain

 

The informal luncheon room of the Drakenberg Club was paneled in walnut, then decorated with a theme Renner didn't recognize: pictures of men in strange uniforms, carrying odd implements that included oversize gloves for one hand, and a small white ball.

The club steward ushered him to a table. Glenda Ruth Blaine was already there. The steward bowed formally. "My Lady, your guest."

"Thank you, William," she said. "William, this is my brother's godfather, Sir Kevin Renner."

"Ah. Pleased to meet you, Sir Kevin. Shall I send the waiter, my Lady?"

"Please." Glenda Ruth waited until the steward was gone, then flashed a hefty grin. "Made his day, we did. William does love rubbing elbows with the aristocracy."

Kevin Renner sat. He couldn't help thinking what a remarkably pretty girl Glenda Ruth was. Not beautiful in the fashion-magazine sense. Something else, something about her infectious smile. Of course she was only seventeen standard years old, but she seemed older. Influence of the Moties? Her mother hadn't been a lot older, no more than twenty-five, when she'd gone to the Mote world. Renner tried to remember what Sally Fowler had been like.

He indicated the half dozen forks at his place. "Bit fancy for lunch?"

Glenda Ruth winked at him. "Stuffy place, but it was the only one I could think of where you can't possibly grab the check."

"Is that important?"

Her smiled faded slightly. "It might be. Daddy doesn't want us accepting favors from Horace Bury. We're guessing you have an expense account."

"I do, but this isn't business. Or is it?"

She shrugged. "It might be. I took Admiral Cziller's call. After he talked to Daddy, I called him back."

"Yeah, I suppose you would know him."

"You could say that." She chuckled. "I called him Uncle Bruno until I was ten— Here's the waiter. Champagne cocktail for me. Kevin?"

"Bit early for drinking. Coffee, please."

"Yes, sir."

Glenda Ruth was grinning at him again. "You don't need to be so adult."

"Eh?"

"They know how old I am. My champagne cocktail won't have alcohol in it. Of course some kids just slip in vodka from a flask."

"Will you?"

"I don't even own a flask."

"Motie influence?"

"No, none of them ever mentioned it."

Hmm? But she
didn't
drink. But— "Yeah. They wouldn't see the point. They eat, drink,
breathe
industrial poison. If you aren't tough enough, you die. Why go looking for more?"

She nodded. "That sounds right."

Kevin looked around the room. Typical aristocratic luncheon place. Expensive women and very busy men. He didn't really notice them. He looked away from the table so he wouldn't look as if he were staring at the girl he was with, and the truth was that he very much wanted to stare at her. She was far and away the most attractive woman in the room. Probably the most expensive, too, Kevin thought. Her clothes were simple enough, a dark wool afternoon dress that fit perfectly, emphasizing her femininity without being overtly sexy. The skirt
was
just knee length, slightly conservative by current fashions, but that tended to emphasize the calves and ankles. Her jewelry was simple, but included a matched pair of earrings of Xanadu firestones worth enough to buy a house on Renner's home planet.

"Quite a long way from Maxroy's Purchase," Renner said.

"Or from New Caledonia."

"True. How long were you there?"

"I barely remember it," Glenda Ruth said. "Dad thought Kevin Christian and I ought to grow up on Sparta instead of in the provinces." She shrugged. "I suppose he was right, but—I worry about the Moties, now that Mother and Dad aren't on the Commission."

"They're not on the Commission, but they still have plenty of influence," Renner said. "As Bury and I found out."

"Yeah. Sorry about that."

"So. What did you want to see me about?" Renner asked.

"Crazy Eddie."

"Uh?"

"You said back at the Institute that we don't understand Crazy Eddie. He's supposed to fail?"

"Yes, I guess I said that."

"I've only known three Moties," she said. "I think I understand Crazy Eddie, but I'm not sure. You knew a lot of Moties—"

"Not for long. Not very well."

"Well enough to understand Crazy Eddie."

"Not understand, exactly."

"You know what I mean. There were a dozen stories about Crazy Eddie. Most were recorded, and I have them. There was the story they told you, for instance." She took out her pocket computer and scribbled on it for a moment. An image rose out of the tablecloth.

Renner had taken this sequence straight from
MacArthur
's records as beamed to
Lenin
. A twisted shape in brown-and-white fur, a Motie Mediator, was speaking. "Renner, I must tell you of a creature of legend.

"We will call him Crazy Eddie, if you like. He is a . . . he is like me, sometimes, and he is a Brown, an idiot savant tinker, sometimes. Always he does the wrong things for excellent reasons. He does the same things over and over, and they always bring disaster, and he never learns."

The image jumped a bit. Renner had edited this for
Summer Vacation
. "When a city has grown so overlarge that it is in immediate danger of collapse . . . when food and clean water flow into the city at a rate just sufficient to feed every mouth, and every hand must work constantly to keep it that way . . . when all transportation is involved in moving vital supplies, and none is left over to move people out of the city should the need arise . . . then it is that Crazy Eddie leads the movers of garbage out on strike for better working conditions."