The Gripping Hand (63 page)

Freddy was avoiding Glenda Ruth, just a bit. Joyce was willing to learn why, but she hadn't thought of an excuse to probe. And Freddy would clam up a bit when Joyce was wearing her "reporter" hat.

But he would talk to both women. Joyce found herself coming on to him a little; when she caught herself at that, or when Glenda Ruth did, she would back off; but she could loosen his tongue that way. There was so much to understand, and Freddy was her best source of information.

"But this is the part we're wondering about," Freddy said, and with a woman peering over each shoulder, he moved his cursor about the screen. "Here, a quarter of the fleet turned around to chase us. Another third went on to join the Bandit cluster, the Khanate allies that never went through. What are they after? Why did they think they'd find
Sinbad
and
Atropos
in that direction?"

"Fuel," Kevin Renner said without turning around. "They must be desperate for fuel by now. They're trading time for fuel."

"The rest of them turned off their drives. That lasted for hours. Then we got this." Freddy put the cursor on a tight pattern of blue-white points, like a cityscape or the work lights on a half-built factory. "And that's been following us, changing as it goes."

Again Kevin spoke without turning. "We think those ships are all linked up into one framework. They'd have broken up some ships to build it. It took them ten hours. Then they came after us."

"If Empire ships tried that, they'd come apart like nose wipes in the rain," Freddy said. "Even so, they're only doing a fifth of a gee. Hundreds of ships are following them from Bandit cluster, linking up."

"Fuel ships, of course. I bet they're dropping stuff on the way, too. Empty ships. Spare troops. They'll keep some framework to make their structure stronger. Unless I'm crazy. Jesus, Freddy, I wish we could see that thing better."

"It looks a lot like Vermin City, backlit," Freddy said. "Not much pattern, and that changes every minute. Okay, Joyce, Group A is still in the lead. They'll reach us first, yes? We have to outrace them."

"First, but with dry tanks. Group A can't maneuver," Kevin said. "That's not going to hurt them, unfortunately, because they've guessed where we're going. Group B might get to us late, but with fuel to maneuver."

"You're guessing, Commodore."

"But it's what Moties would do," Glenda Ruth said. "The ships they start with won't be the ships that attack you."

"Keep a watch. I want to close my eyes for an hour."

"Yessir. Hold it! Commodore?"

Drive lights flared where the cursor lay. "I see it," Kevin said. "See if you can get a better picture. I have the watch."

"What is it, Kevin?" Bury demanded. "Won't know for an hour," Renner said.

They were building a sketchy dinner when they heard Freddy whoop. Joyce reset the oven before she followed Glenda Ruth.

Freddy was grinning. "Sanity check. We've been right all along. What do you see?"

Behind the tight pattern of blue lights that was Khanate Group B was a looser pattern, a score of drive lights well spread out and shifting in intensity. Kevin said, "Two of those just went out. Shot down by our guys?"

Freddy looked. "Our allies aren't anywhere near. It's possible, of course. Warriors are just bloody damned good at killing. . . . Enhanced view, Screen Two."

"Right. Khanate rescue ships, Freddy. They're towing that cylinder now. Rescue or salvage. And the rest are still coming . . . and there goes another pair. They're merging. Group B must be leaving garbage and personnel clear across the sky."

"That'll hurt 'em."

"It will if our allies have anything to say about it. They're losing mass, losing numbers, losing firepower, all to get the fuel to reach us. You agree? It's us the Warrior ships are after. The Empire ships."

"Yessir."

"I should talk to
Atropos
."

Joyce found the next hour even more confusing. It was frustrating: she had her news equipment, nothing was being kept from her, but she wasn't getting a story she could tell.

"The only thing that still concerns me is this," she heard Renner telling
Atropos
. "When we go through the Crazy Eddie point, we have to know that no Master ship has given the Warrior ships new orders. Otherwise we'll be abandoning the Mote system to the Khanate."

And that made sense, but how to lay it out for a viewer?
If we lose, you'll never know it. Even we may never know. If we returned via New Cal and that little orange star, a year from now we could be talking to a replacement Eudoxus speaking for a replacement Medina. All Moties look alike, but these are the good guys and—?

"Maybe later," she said to Bury. "Maybe I'll understand later."

"And perhaps you never will," Bury said.

"If we lose—"

"Yes, of course, but even if we win. It has happened to me." And he launched into another tale of his terrible past, a skewed view of Empire history that Joyce could never have bought with pearls and rubies.

There had been incidents. Sometimes the Khanate fleet beamed laser light at them, forcing
Sinbad
and
Atropos
to take turns shadowing each other. Renner and Townsend had at first considered this a mere annoyance.

"Probably tryin' to distract us," Freddy said in one of the rare intervals he was off duty. Commodore Renner kept Freddy Town-send busy. When he did get a break, he often used the opportunity to talk to Horace Bury; and when that happened, Joyce invited herself into the party.

"They've scattered their fleet," Joyce said. "Some of the ships used all their power and now can't keep up. Why would they do that, Freddy?"

Freddy said, "I can tell you what they're doing, but why is out of my department. You'll be famous even if you don't know why."

Horace Bury chuckled. "I should instruct my brokers to invest in your network. You will have the highest ratings in Imperial history, I think."

"A few weeks ago I would have resented your saying that," Joyce said. "And even more resented it if you'd actually bought stock in IBC."

"And now?"

Joyce shrugged. "It's your ship, and we're all on it."

"Besides, his brokers will already have made the investments," Glenda Ruth said.

"Cautiously. They'll buy too little," Bury said. "After all, it was not certain that we would be bringing Miss Trujillo to the Mote."

"Or that we'd come out alive," Joyce said.

"Well, if we don't, it won't matter if the investment's no good," Freddy said.

"Oh, Freddy, that's silly," Glenda Ruth said. "His Excellency—" "Acceleration warning. Action stations." "Oh, Lord, what now?" Freddy demanded.

"It's a big mess of junk under high velocity," Renner said.

Most of the leading Khanate ships were in deceleration mode at high thrust. Most of them. A few were burning fuel at a prodigious rate and converting that to energy beamed at
Sinbad
; and out of the glare of that beam came a dark mass on a collision course.

"We'll have to dodge," Freddy said.
Sinbad
began to turn.

"Yeah. Horace, Group A ran up to maximum velocity and then stripped their ships. It could be mostly fuel tanks. Freddy's turning the ship."

"It won't cost us too much fuel."

"No, but I should—
Atropos
calling, good." Joyce heard Renner setting a direction for the other ship.
Sinbad
and
Atropos
would diverge.

Four minutes later—the lightspeed gap—Group A's junk pile pulled into two masses. They'd armed it with motors. Freddy spoke of raping his lizard; Renner called
Atropos
and ordered a laser barrage.

Four minutes later the junk pile flared with the light of
Atropos
's barrage. An instant later it flashed a hundred times as bright! The camera overloaded and burned out before Freddy could enfold
Sinbad
in the Langston Field. Glenda Ruth was cowering with an arm over her eyes, and Joyce was waiting for glowing spots to disappear. She knew better than to interrupt Freddy or Kevin.

Freddy spoke anyway. "They had a mirror. The clever little . . . nightmares waited for our beam and then threw it back at us. It's way dimmer now, but they're still throwing sunlight at us. It's nothing, Glenda Ruth. Just another goddamn nuisance attack."

And more to understand. Medina Alliance ships trailed the Khanate fleet, darted in toward it with a reckless expenditure of resources, fired lasers and missiles, then darted away again, fuel gone, coasting away from the battle to be rescued by unarmed ships from other clans.

"Another major development," Joyce dictated. "There's a big fleet, two hundred ships and more, trailing the Khanate war fleet. They're rescuing ships that run out of fuel. Khanate and Alliance ships alike, they're retrieving stragglers. We thought they were Khanate allies, but they're not. They're neutrals.

"We've changed Mote politics like nothing else in their history. A hundred families and clans in cooperation, hundreds more gathering their strength, but all of them staying uncommitted.

"Our Motie allies say this is a good sign.

"Joyce Mei-Ling Trujillo, Imperial Post-Tribune Syndicate."

"We are ninety minutes from the Alderson point everyone calls the Crazy Eddie point. The Moties are getting nervous. No one likes Jump shock much, but our Motie friends really dread it. We can hope the prospect makes the Khanate Warriors nervous.

"The situation is this:
Sinbad
and
Atropos
are on course for the Jump point and decelerating. The leading elements of a war fleet from Byzantium, the most powerful of our allies, have already reached the Crazy Eddie point and are standing by for orders.

"Meanwhile, things are happening in the pursuing fleet." Joyce zoomed in on a screen.

The structure they'd been calling Khanate B was under heavy deceleration. The tremendous junk pile was no longer a single object. The bright sparks of fusion drives were separating in pairs.

Another screen showed a blurry picture relayed from
Atropos
: two Khanate ships docked and remained docked until one reconstructed ship began to decelerate, leaving part of its mass as debris.

"We don't know what this means," Joyce said.
Reporterspeak for I don't know.
Kevin and Freddy had given over arguing about it, but Renner had taken time off to talk with Bury. Marooned faceup in a water bed at high gee, Horace Bury could at least use the entertainment. Joyce turned the camera on them; they didn't notice.

"So what have we got?" Renner said. "Group A boosted to high velocity, coasted, and is now under deceleration. Classic. They'd get to the Crazy Eddie point about the same time we do, but we can fix that."

Bury wasn't asking, so Joyce did. "How?"

Renner's glance showed his irritation. "Low thrust deceleration now, high thrust later, brings us in sooner. They can't play that game. They're at max thrust with no spare fuel."

"But high thrust—"

"As Allah wills, Joyce. What of Group B, Kevin?"

"Aye, there's the rub. They never turned off their drives. They did low thrust forever, right up to midpoint turnover, and dropped mass every step of the way. Fuel tanks, Engineers, that mirror thing, who knows? It looks like they'll get to the Crazy Eddie point just behind Group A, but with plenty of fuel to spare. If we miss our Jump, I'd say we're dead. So, we're forced to jump."

"If so, Kevin, they've made themselves very vulnerable to Medina. The Medina forces will face seven hundred Khanate ships strung in a long line. Is this a winning strategy? They must do more than silence all human voices. They must control the Sister. When the Empire comes again, the Khanate must speak first."

"You're missing something," said Glenda Ruth Blaine.