The Gripping Hand (30 page)

Dinner appeared from somewhere. Renner would have ignored it, but Buckman hadn't even looked up. Better to eat, and make Buckman eat too.

And breakfast . . . but by then they were done. Renner sighed in relief. He opened the door to the lounge and announced, "Nothing. We're here first."

"Allah is merciful," Bury said.

"How sure are you?" Joyce Trujillo asked.

Chris Blaine said, "Good question. You can't know where the Alderson point is going to be."

"I do know that there is no new Alderson point in this region," Buckman said. "As to where the incipient point will be, I've had to change the locus because of the companion. Not much. Brown dwarf stars don't radiate much. It's still an arc along here, still about a million klicks long. I moved it by a couple of light-minutes. And it isn't there."

The arc Buckman's cursor made across the screen stretched away from the orange-white glare of MGC-R-31, toward the Coal Sack and an off-centered red peephole into Hell: Murcheson's Eye.

Renner touched a button on the console. "
Agamemnon
, this is
Sinbad
. We get a clean sweep. Do you? Over."

Agamemnon
had popped out a few minutes ahead of
Sinbad
, separated by no more than the gap between Earth and Earth's moon. Now they were a few tens of thousands of miles apart, while
Atropos
moved ahead toward the hypothetical I-point.
Agamemnon
's response came immediately.

"
Sinbad
this is
Agamemnon
. Affirmative. I say again, affirmative, there are no signs of any ships in this system. We are definitely here first. Is Lieutenant Blaine available?"

"Right here."

"Please stand by for the skipper."

"Right."

"So that's that," Joyce Trujillo said. She was all business now, as Blaine was all officer.

"For the moment," Bury said. "They will come. But now—now I believe Allah has given us this chance. We may yet lose it, but we have the opportunity."

"God is merciful," Joyce said. "He will not do everything and thus take away our free will and that share of glory that belongs to us."

"Biblical?" Renner asked.

She laughed. "Niccolo Machiavelli."

"Arrgh! Joyce, you have done it to me again."

Buckman said, "Horace? I've listed it as Bury's Infrastar. Your ship, your crew, your discovery."

Seconds late, Bury reacted. He smiled with effort and said, "Thank you, Jacob."

"Here's the skipper," the comm set announced.

"Blaine?"

"Yes, sir. We're all here."

"Some of my officers are suggesting this is a wild-goose chase."

"I would like nothing better, Commander," Horace Bury said. "But I do not believe that."

"Don't guess I do either. We're wondering what to do next. I don't mind admitting this isn't a situation I was trained to deal with," Balasingham said.

"Nothing complicated about it," Buckman said. "Renner has us on a course to coast along the arc over the next . . ."

"Fifteen days."

"Fifteen days. Your other ships have our data."

Chris Blaine took over. "Sir, we've sent the data to
Atropos
, so he'll take up station ahead of us. The I-point will be in this region. I suggest that
Agamemnon
stay behind, that is, between us and the path back to New Caledonia. Maybe they can intercept. As for us, we make repeated passes until the I-point appears."

"All right," Balasingham said. "For now, anyway. The Viceroy's sending more ships." Short pause. "What if a Motie fleet comes through shooting?"

"Then we do what we can," Bury said.

"And maybe the horse will sing," Renner muttered.

Bury shrugged. He seemed amazingly calm. "The Moties have no control over the protostar. This will be as Allah wills, and Allah is merciful."

If Buckman turned off his intercom, as he frequently did, the only way to find out what he was doing was to bang on his door and risk his acerbic comments about disturbing his work.

He had left the compartment door open this morning. Buckman had been constantly in his laboratory or the adjacent lounge for over thirty hours. Kevin Renner and Chris Blaine had alternated waiting just outside the lab door, and it was Chris's turn. He'd been there an hour, with nothing to do. Then he heard a shout.

"By God!"

Chris went to the compartment door. Buckman was hunched
over a console. His grin was wide. "What is it?" Chris asked.

"It's happening."

Chris didn't ask what. "How far away?"

"I'm only getting a flux reading. It's not stable yet, but it will be. It's tremendous! By God! Blaine, this is the best record of a new Alderson event anyone has ever got! Now we can set up for the visuals."

"How far away, Doctor Buckman?"

Buckman shook his head vigorously. "It's wobbling back and forth! The new star must be pulsing. It's traversing the arc. Half a million kilometers of sweep. More. We could conceivably Jump while it passes us, if it was anything like stable yet."

"I'll tell the other ships."

"It's strong enough that even Navy instruments should pick it up, but go ahead." Buckman went back to his console.

Blaine used the lounge intercom. "Kevin. Buckman says this is it. I'll alert
Agamemnon
."

"
Agamemnon
this is
Sinbad
. Alderson event detected in our vicinity. Buckman data attached to this message. Suggest you converge on probable Alderson point location. I am also sending this message to
Atropos
. Blaine."

They waited. Two minutes later the answer came. "
Sinbad
this is
Agamemnon
. We are under way at three gee, I say again, three standard gravities. We'll move toward you, but I will remain between the I-point and the exit to New Cal."

"Doesn't take him long to make decisions," Renner said. "He's about twenty light-seconds behind us, but he's not going where we are. He can get to the New Cal Jump point in"—he typed rapidly—"about five hours, starting now. And
Atropos
is ahead of us. I don't know the best tactics."

"Depends too much on what comes through," Chris Blaine said crisply.

"What is it? What's happening?" Joyce eeled out of her cabin, hurriedly adjusting her clothing. "Moties? They've come through?"

"Not yet," Blaine said. "They will."

"Yeah," Renner said. "Dr. Buckman, have things stabilized at all?"

"Beginning to, yes, Kevin. Do you see how the I-point comes
fast
toward us along the arc and
slow
going back? I expect we're seeing irregular pulses on the protostar."

"Yeah.
Boom
and it settles down,
boom
and it settles down,
boom
. When the protostar stops flaring . . ."

"Well, for the next hundred thousand years it won't quite."

"Eases off, then. The I-point will be ahead of us, won't it? Closer to
Atropos
than us, and still wobbling a bit."

"At a guess, Kevin. This is a first in every way. The collapse of Buckman's Protostar into Buckman's Star."

"It's all guesses, but give
Atropos
about four and a half hours. At one gee we'll take about eight."

"But you and Buckman don't think we have four hours," Blaine said.

Renner said, "I know, can't push much more than a gee without killing Bury."

"Do not worry about me," Bury said from behind him. "I will be in my water bed. Nabil is bringing it to the lounge now."

"One and a half, then. No more," Renner said. "Okay, as soon as you get in it—"

"Stabilized!" Buckman shouted.

"How do you know?"

"A ship came through. There's another! A light-second or two apart."

Renner brought the images up on his screen. "About three light-seconds ahead of us. Closer to us than
Atropos
—three ships." Renner's fingers were dancing. An alarm wheeped; Renner slapped the volume down.
Secure for acceleration.
"Four ships. Five."

Sinbad
's motor lit. Objects drifted aft.

"They're well separated. The star must be still flaring, the I-point's still drifting."

"Mercy of Allah," Bury muttered. "Quickly, Nabil, get me into my water bed."

"I must secure it to the deck," Nabil said calmly. The little old assassin moved easily under what had become half a gee of pull.

"Six. Seven," Renner said. "Seven so far. Blaine, you'd better get
Atropos
on line."

"Roger. Doing it."

"What's happening?" Joyce Mei-Ling demanded from the lounge door.

"Secure for acceleration, dammit!" Renner shouted. "All hands, secure. Nabil, let me know when it's safe!"

"The bed is secured. If you do not turn too much, I can put him in it when we are under way."

"I'll hold it at one gee until you've got him set. Everyone secure? Buckman, you holding on to something? Here we go."

Sinbad
eased up to one gee. "They're scattering," Renner said.

"Must have come through with different velocities," Blaine said. "It's just drift so far."

"Sure."

"They will scatter," Bury said. "Of course they will. Seven ships. They have been preparing for this for years. Kevin, can we intercept them all?"

"Not likely. Moties can't take as much gee stress as we can, but there's no way three ships can chase down seven. Not given that much head start."

"
Sinbad
this is
Agamemnon
. What's happening, Blaine?"

"Seven Motie ships so far," Blaine said. "Beyond us, and drifting in seven directions. I'll squirt up the data we have." He pressed keys, and the computer sent out what it had. Data twenty-plus seconds out-of-date would be better than nothing.

Nearly a minute went by. "Blaine, they'll have plenty of time to recover from Jump shock before we get there," Balasingham's voice said. "Assuming each one accelerates along its present course, and giving them anything like the performance Motie ships had at the blockade point, we aren't going to catch more than four. Five tops, and that assumes we can cripple them without too much of a fight, which is assuming a lot.
Damnation
—"

Pause; then Balasingham said, "I think it's time to change tactics. I'm ordering
Atropos
to move toward the I-point and prepare to chase Motie ships. That gets him close to you. I'm taking
Agamemnon
back to block the way out of this system. Our entry point won't have changed enough to matter. We'll never catch them all, but maybe we can bottle them up in here."

"Not bloody likely," Blaine muttered. "But I suppose it's the best thing to try."

"Captain Renner," Balasingham continued. "You were given sealed orders when you left New Scotland. To be opened on my instructions. My orders said to have you do that when the situation got beyond my control. I hereby instruct you to open those orders.

"You'll find that your Reserve commission as Captain is activated, and you're in command of this expedition with the titular rank of commodore. I don't know what you can do, but I sure can't think of anything. I'm ordering Commander Rawlins in
Atropos
to put himself under your direction.

"Sir, I am now changing course to guard the Alderson point to New Caledonia. If you want me to do something else, tell me what it is.
Agamemnon
out."