The Gripping Hand (3 page)

Bury wore his public, noncommittal smile. He appeared to be no more than an old, bearded man with a very prominent nose and a soft smile, all giving the lie to his reputation. "I often inspect ships I own. How else may I know of problems in my organization?"

"Excellency, I have no problems!"

"I know. You have a good record, trouble free. Tell me a little about normal operations of your ship."

"Let us sit down." Fox dropped heavily into a chair. Bury was in fact already seated. He was an old man, and he used a travel chair when he could.

Fox said, "We are an all-purpose cargo ship. What is often called a tramp steamer. The name comes from the days before space flight. We take orders for cargo to be brought here, and when we have sufficient cargo or passengers to make the trip profitable, we go to Darwin. Sometimes we go as far as Xanadu, and once to Tabletop, but generally only to Darwin."

"And within this system as well, I suppose?"

"Not often," Fox said. "If we have cargo within the Purchase system, we can alter our course to the Jump point and use the flinger."

Bury had glanced through computer views of
Nauvoo Vision
on the way here. The ship was versatile, a winged water-landing craft with interstellar capability but no Langston Field. There were fittings for an expanded passenger cabin or cargo hold, but either would have to be added in orbit.

The flinger (or spit gun, or AWOL tube) was a linear accelerator. A row of mountings ran the full length of the hull, and the electromagnetic rings were stored on board. Flingers were common aboard ships that ran a fixed route in heavily populated systems. They could launch lifecraft, too. Nonetheless Bury asked, "Do you make much use of the flinger? Is it really worth carrying its mass?"

"Yes, Excellency. Purchase system is short of metals. There's not much in the way of mines. Not much in the way of asteroids, either, but they'll last us the next ten thousand years. The mines have to be supplied."

Bury had noticed, in his quick perusal of
Nauvoo
's records, that rings and fittings in the flinger had been replaced twice in thirteen years. A fitting had lost alignment and was waiting for replacement at this moment. Payments from the mines did back up Fox's claim of heavy use.

"You have a full complement of crew?"

"Three missing. I like to hire good Church members, but sometimes they backslide. We're not supposed to drink alcohol, and most of us never do, but everyone is curious . . ."

The Captain tended to explain before he was asked. It was the kind of thing Bury noticed. "Have you been Mormon all your life?"

"Not as you think Mormon," Fox said. "My ancestors had fundamental differences with the Church on Earth. They came to Maxroy's Purchase to establish the true faith. That was some six hundred years ago. We were fairly settled when the CoDominium sent us a hundred thousand transportees. Evil men and women with evil habits. They brought alcohol and drugs. The Church tried to keep control of the government, but there were too many transportees. Too many for our missionaries to convert. Some of the Elders took the true Church to the outback." Fox grinned triumphantly. "When the Secession Wars began, the false temples in the cities were destroyed, but the true Temple remained. It is the governing Temple for Maxroy's Purchase to this day, our Temple in Glacier Valley."

Bury nodded agreement. "It was much the same with the true servants of Islam. They fled from cities to country, often from world to world. Have I not heard of a
New Utah
?"

"Excellency, I've read about New Utah in history class. It is an outie world, settled from the Purchase at the same time that the Elders moved to Glacier Valley. There were close relations with New Utah, until the Alderson tram lines to it were lost sometime during the Secession Wars. Stellar geometry changes slowly, but with enough time—"

"Your crew is all Mormon, then?" Bury interrupted.

"Yes, Excellency. I am a bishop of the Church. My crew is obedient and cheerful. Don't our records show that?"

"They do," Bury said. "It is not uncommon. What do you do when you have passengers who are not of your church?"

"I know many restaurant owners," Captain Fox said. "I find Church members who are accustomed to serving gentiles, who would not want to be permanent crew. They come for one voyage." He smiled. "They are eager. What other chance has a restaurateur to see another sky? It may be unusual practice, but it works."

"In fact nothing about this ship or its practices is unusual. If three of the crew of this ship had not tried to kidnap you, perhaps to force their way into my bed chamber," Bury said, "there would be no reason to be suspicious of Reuben Fox." Cynthia moved around Bury like a tailor, dressing him. Bury stood to get his pants on, then sat again.

Renner was already dressed, elegantly but without his usual flamboyance. He sat down on the bed. "Uh-huh. Could those three have been moonlighting? Back in port, looking for a little fun, someone offers them money to break a kneecap. . . . No? I know that smile, Horace."

"I tend to notice numbers."

"Well?"

"Small Small World, Mountain Movers, Cutty on the Rocks, and others: these are the big asteroid mining concerns in Purchase system. All old. Mountain Movers is over five hundred years old. They used well-established techniques developed by the early Co-Dominium, and were cautious about upgrading." Bury's fingers were dancing while he spoke. Data flashed on-screen and were gone before Renner could quite integrate them. "But what of these?

Hannefin Mines, General Metals, Union Planetoids, Tanner Metals . . . this sequence, seven in all. What do you see?"

"Unimaginative names."

"I didn't notice that."

"Short-lived. A few years each. Um . . . they are in sequence. One disappears before the next is registered. Up to twenty years apart. Bury, I don't see that any of them went bankrupt."

"That would be the obvious assumption, would it not? A scam. Many names, one man. But for a hundred and ten years? And evidently they paid their bills on time. At least they've paid decent sums to
Nauvoo Vision
for cargoes delivered across the system."

"Taxes?"

"They paid their taxes."

"Offices were all here in Pitchfork River City. Check the addresses." Renner watched Bury's fingers. Sometimes the old man's hands shook; his servants learned to half-fill his cup so it didn't spill. But Bury's hands became wonderfully agile on a computer keyboard. "What does it mean?"

"No such present address . . . none of them. I'll have Nabil search out older records. It means I've been paid for nothing."

"Huh?"

"I was joking.
Nauvoo Vision
's flinger has seen hard use. Cargoes have been launched across the system, but not targeted at asteroid mines, not these mines. Where, then?"

"There were extensive civilizations in the asteroids of Mote system." Renner saw Bury's hands begin to shake and said, "Just a thought. Outies is the way to bet. The rebels are back."

"I do not bet the future of humanity at any odds, Kevin." Bury leaned back, took a deep breath. "Well. We'll be a few minutes early for dinner if we start now."

"I gather that's the custom here."

"Yes. Let us see what we can learn at the Governor's Palace."

The first adventurer was a nuisance. I am sure he acted against his mother's, his wife's, and the council of old men's strict orders when he did it; but it was he that found where the mammoths die and where after a thousand years of use there was still enough ivory to equip the entire tribe with weapons. Such is the ultimate outline of the adventurer; society's benefactor as well as pest.

 

—William Bolitho,
Twelve Against the Gods

 

The reception line was mercifully short. Governor Sir Lawrence Jackson, a former Navy man who'd gone into politics. Lady Marissa Jackson. Renner thought she looked Eurasian. Norvell White Muller, the president of the local branch of the Imperial Traders Association. Half a dozen other local officials.

"Sir Kevin Renner," the protocol officer announced.

"Welcome to Maxroy's Purchase, Sir Kevin," the Governor said.

"Actually, I don't use the title much, Governor. Thank you for the reception. Glad to be here."

"A bit tame for someone who has been to Mote Prime, I imagine," Lady Jackson said.

There was something familiar about the Governor's voice, but before Renner could study the Governor's face more closely, the people behind him had moved up, and he was swept past the reception line and out into the main hall.

The reception hall was large and spacious. Between the big windows that overlooked the city and the Pitchfork River were "windows": holograms of scenes from elsewhere on the planet.

Here, half a dozen spectacular waterfalls plunged from orange cliffs. Silver shapes leaped and danced in the pools below the falls.

Here, a sea serpent chased a school of miniature dolphin shapes; then the dolphins turned and attacked the serpent with vicious fangs. The serpent dived to escape. The viewpoint followed it down . . . followed and closed in, until the serpent's tail seemed about to plunge out of the wall. The view shifted: the serpent was pulled tail first onto the deck of a boat, imprisoned by a tethered collar.

Renner found himself next to a pretty girl in Imperial Navy uniform. She seemed young to be a lieutenant commander. "Spectacular," he said.

"Of course holograms for palace decorations went out of fashion on Sparta ten years ago," she said. "Hello, Sir Kevin. I'm Ruth Cohen."

One of the "windows" looked out on a sparse forest carpeted in snow. Something like a thick-furred snake lifted a great, flattened head . . . no, that was a neck! The creature itself was lying flat in the snow, like a gigantic white bear rug. The narrow, pointed head lifted high and rotated to look almost backward, suspiciously, straight into the reception hall. Black-pupiled eyes bulged. The head settled; again the animal was invisible in thick snow.

"What ship, Commander?" Renner asked.

She shook her head. "Governor's office. Intelligence liaison." She glanced around to see that they were alone. "We would have met soon enough anyway. I arranged to sit next to you at dinner."

"Good." Purely business? "We'll have time to—God!"

The pointed head snapped up, the flattened bear's short legs shot backward, and it took off. It was
fast
. It might have been gliding, using its flattened torso like an airfoil. Three muffled hunters fired almost at the same moment, then turned and ran, dividing, dodging among the trees. The creature smashed into a sapling, rebounded, and collapsed. So did the tree.

"Wow!" Renner said. "What was that?"

"Snow ghost," Ruth Cohen said.

"Dangerous."

"Oh, yes. The fur's quite valuable, though. They shed their furs in the summer, but they're just as dangerous."

"You don't have a Purchase accent," Renner said.

She laughed softly. "You wouldn't believe what it cost my parents to—" She grinned. "Actually, if I have a home planet, it's New Washington. My father retired there. This is my first tour on Maxroy's Purchase. I've been here a year."

"Seems a nice place."

"I'm glad somebody thinks so," Ruth said.

"Governor Jackson. There's something familiar about him," Renner said.

"Could you have known him? He was Navy Reserve for a long time. Retired as a commander, I think."

"How did he get to be Governor?"

"It's an interesting story," she said. "Get me a drink and I'll tell you."

"Oh—sorry." Renner whistled to one of the circulating robots. "We seem to have Old Fashioned, Martini, and something green."

"I'll have the green one. It'll be watering liqueur. It's sweet, but there's a nice flavor."

Renner took two of the green drinks and sipped carefully. It tasted of ginger and something indefinable. "Not bad. I wonder if Bury knows about this."