The Gripping Hand (64 page)

An odd source, but— Kevin said, "Okay. What?"

"I don't know." She perched on the edge of the water bed and scratched behind Ali Baba's ear. "But they're Warriors. They're following a Master's orders, but that doesn't make them silly. Remember their mission and look again."

Cynthia knew how to prepare Turkish coffee. Bury sipped his and said, "Fuel matters here. The Khanate ships are depleted. Are we? Base Six is following us, of course."

"They'll be a hundred and ten hours late. They can rescue any ship that ran dry, but that doesn't help us fight. Still, we could refuel from a Medina ship. I don't think we even need to. And we'll go through the Crazy Eddie point at three hundred per, just like last time, with the East India ships to triangulate for us."

"Ah!"

Cynthia snapped alert. "Excellency?"

"I'm all right, Cynthia. Kevin, the debris. The mass, the junk left over when two ships merged at a thousand klicks per second. Set
Atropos
to tracking the course of the junk. You'll find that a mass equivalent to over a hundred spacecraft is on course to pass straight through the Crazy Eddie point just when we would like to do that."

"Okay, lie down already. Freddy?"

"I'm on it." Freddy Townsend was working his control board hard. A screen lit: Rawlins's talker.

Now why am I less scared than I was?
Renner wondered.
Because my people are getting the right answers?

No, more: because Horace Bury's mind is alive and alert.

While Freddy was at work, Renner said, "Omar, I need that debris blocked somehow. The only ships that have to go through the Crazy Eddie point are
Atropos
and
Sinbad
. Will you inform Medina's Masters?"

"I will learn," Omar said.

Now no one had time to explain things, and her questions were distracting. Joyce could only record everything and hope to make sense of it later. "We've heard about the 'fog of war,' " Joyce dictated. "It's all too real. I don't know what's going on, and neither does anyone else, not really. Sometimes you just have to make choices and stick with them."

With twenty minutes to go, Kevin gave the order to strap in. The Khanate ships' stream of high-V debris couldn't be far away.

"I have a feed from
Atropos
," Freddy said. "On Screen Three."

Star-sprinkled black. Kevin said, "I don't . . ." One bluer than the others. That stellar background . . .? "Freddy, it's a Master ship that's just popped through. Now prove me wrong."

Medina called. "We have a Khanate Master ship just emerged from the Sister. One ship only. It made no attempt to communicate, so our man has fired on it. He reports an overpowered shield."

"One lousy Master. That's all it takes," Renner said. "We're dead."

Bury was chuckling. "Why, Kevin?"

"This whole thing falls apart if the Khanate Warriors get the right orders. Here's a Master, just in time, and hell, it's even too late for us to abort!"

Bury was laughing with some effort. "Yes, Kevin, they can send orders to their Warriors, but what would they say? What can they learn in time, across a lightspeed gap of thirty-eight minutes?"

Medina was still speaking, had said something about the barrage. Renner hadn't caught it. "What did he say, Freddy?"

"The Warriors will solve it. Hold to the plan."

Pity Omar hadn't been at the comm. The lightspeed gap was already too great to get any answers. Eight minutes. Everyone strapped in? "Joyce! Strap in!"

"Okay, Skipper." She'd been standing on her chair to get altitude, photographing them at work. She dropped and strapped in, cheerful as hell, hugging the camera like her own baby.

The Khanate Master ship was still in view, glowing fiercely bright in green. Medina's forces must be bathing her in energy. She'd never get a message through that.

The feed from twenty East India ships was providing good triangulation: he would hit the point dead center. Bury was doing sava-sama, but his heartbeat and brain-wave displays were all over the place. Scared. Calling his attention to it would be worse than useless. Behind
Sinbad
a darkness was growing . . . black dots crowding out the stars. What the hell?

Two minutes. And weird lighting effects among the black dots, sparks in rainbow colors.

The Byzantium fleet! They were blocking the Khanate barrage, catching the stuff with their Langston Fields.

And the Crazy Eddie point was here, now, unseen, passing at three hundred klicks per second as Freddy touched the contact.

Orange murk looked in through the screens. Renner, bemused and groggy, enjoyed the appearance of a mechanical hell in which men and monsters writhed in torment and confusion. But his memory was already organizing itself, and he barked, though it came out a croak, "Townsend."

"Renner. Captain. Get us behind
Atropos
?"

"When I start the drive."

Sinbad
was coming alive again, but slowly. Now
Atropos
was a black near-circle against white light, unmistakable, a few hundred miles distant . . . almost toward the core of Murcheson's Eye, according to
Sinbad
's instruments.

Fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes to get ready, then all hell. There was a lot to do, but some of it would have to wait for the Motie Engineers, and they were flat out of action.

Communications. "
Atropos
, this is
Sinbad
.
Atropos
, this is Sin-bad,
Sinbad
,
Sinbad
 . . ."

It would just be dawning on Joyce Mei-Ling Trujillo that they were inside a star. Wonder and terror and a reflex reach for the camera. Glenda Ruth was a basket case, no better off than the Moties. "
Atropos
, this is
Sinbad
 . . ." Others were moving. Renner craned his head around. At least Bury wasn't thrashing. "
Atropos
, this is
Sinbad
 . . ."

Bury was too still. "Cynthia!"

She was already loose, pulling herself against him, fingers on his throat. "No pulse."

"Do something. Sorry, of course you will." The drive test lights blinked green. Renner enabled the drive. "Move her, Townsend."

"Aye, aye. Acceleration. Stand by."

"
Sinbad
, this is
Atropos
."

"Blaine. Good. Situation unchanged as of our Jump time."

"Unchanged as of your Jump time. Acknowledged, sir."

"Report."

"Yes, sir. We're broadcasting on Fleet hailing frequencies. Nobody's shot at us yet. That may be a good sign."

"Not shooting, but not answering."

"No answer yet, Commodore."

Where the hell was Weigle and the Crazy Eddie Squadron? Silly question. Weigle could be anywhere. "Keep trying. We'll hide behind you when we get there."

"Right. I'll leave the channel open."

More movements behind him. Cynthia had reattached the medical systems to Bury. He thrashed suddenly, and quieted. Electric shock. Still dead. Skeletal metal arms lifted from the box, for the first time in Kevin's memory, and began to work on Horace Bury.

Ali Baba howled in terror.

"Victoria. Glenda Ruth. Anyone," Kevin shouted.

"Yes, Kevin." Renner turned joyfully. It was Bury's voice! It was Omar.

Not Omar's fault. Renner said, "When the Engineers recover, make sure the Flinger is ready and loaded, and keep double-checking the Field generator." They had rebuilt the Field generator, altered it so that it would not expand and present a larger surface area to the wispy superhot starstuff around them. Now it matched all the Crazy Eddie Squadron ships, including
Atropos
.

"Stand clear!" Cynthia shouted. "Glenda Ruth, take Ali Baba! Clear!" Horace Bury thrashed again. Once more.

Glenda Ruth made crooning noises. The medical-panel lights glowed, but no sign of heart or brain activity. Dead panel, or—

Glenda Ruth said, "Kevin, Cynthia, my God, stop! He's dead!"

You never know— Kevin bit it back. She would know.

They were alongside
Atropos
now. Townsend matched velocities.

"Stay alongside," Renner said. "Blaine."

"Sir?"

"I'm changing the plan. If I'm going to use the Flinger at all, it'll have to be before we build up too much heat, so we'll stay alongside you for the first phase of the battle."

"Yes, sir?"

"Keep relaying data."

"Aye, aye, sir. Data relay set," Blaine said.

"Got it. Any luck contacting the Fleet?"

"Not yet. Any further orders, sir?"

Renner looked back into the cabin once more. "Yes. I'm canceling the instructions on avoiding high gees. Use any acceleration the tactical situation demands."

They saw through the eyes of
Atropos
. A black dot popped into place, then another, then two more. A green thread from
Atropos
to one of the intruders. The intruder's Field flared, expanded.

"It's working," Renner said. "The Khanate ships have an expanding Langston Field, which is great for most battles, but in here when it expands, it picks up even more heat."

"Could they have done what you did?" Joyce asked. "Got their Engineers to rebuild it?"

"Omar?"

"No data. I would not have thought of it."

More black dots. "Freddy, stand by the flinger. We'll aim for the center of the cluster."

"Right."

The black dot expanded, ran through colors, and vanished.
Atropos
's green thread moved to another ship.

"
Atropos
."

"Aye, aye, Commodore."

Not Blaine. "Tell your skipper we'll commence firing when we have twenty-five targets. Watch the data link for exact time."

"You will fire when you have twenty-five, that's two five, targets. Observe data link for exact time. Aye, aye, sir."

Joyce's camera was running. Why not? What could it matter now if everyone learned that
Sinbad
carried nuclear weapons?"

"We've got another edge," Renner said. "Imperial Autonetics has developed a ship's coating that only becomes a superconductor at forty-four hundred Kelvin. That's two hundred degrees cooler than what it takes to soften the hull. I can run a superconducting wire into
Sinbad
's water tank and then vent the steam.

"In short, we can stay alive a long time."

"We may need to," Freddy said. "Twenty-four."

"Load."

"Erecting the Flinger. Loading. Wow, it's warm out there. Fire. Retracting the Flinger into the Field."

A timer began on Renner's console. Twenty-nine seconds. Twenty-eight . . .

A bright star within the star. Twenty black dots expanded, stretched, added their stored heat to the white glare. Green lines converged on another. It flashed and was gone.

And thirty more ships appeared.

"Stand by Flinger," Renner said.

Scattered across a brilliant orange sky were sixty to seventy colored balloons. The eye couldn't tell their distance: sizes varied too widely. Most were red. Fewer were orange, and those faded into invisibility until they grew hotter. A handful were green and blue, inflating as their temperature rose, until one or another made a brief nova. It was a kindergarten astronomy class, the stars color-coded to their places on the Hertzsprung-Russel diagram.