The Gripping Hand

"Heavenly," Bury said.

"Stand by." Weight returned slowly.

"There," Freddy said. "You can unstrap now. It should be steady enough."

Behind Sinbud, little dots of fusion flame now numbered over a hundred and rising. As many more Khanate ships had not turned: they were still on route toward the massed Khanate allies, Bandits One-Two-Three. Other lights... what were they doing? Converging, then going out one by one.

Renner said, "Omar, get on the horn to our forces around the Sister. Orders unchanged: leave the main fleet alone, but watch for stragglers. Keep it expensive going through the Sister, but stay alive."

"Fleet in being," Victoria said.

"Right-where did you learn that phrase?"

"It was in one of the books MacArthur left behind. The reference was to sea power, but-"

"Mahan," Joyce said. "He wrote before space travel."

"Oh. Victoria, I need your help."

"Yes, Kevin."

"I need some work done. Get the Engineers on it. We need some alterations in Sinbad's Langston Field. Townsend can show you what we need."

"Right away."

"Horace, how are you feeling?"

"I've been better, Kevin. I've been altering my will. I will need you to witness that it is my work, and that I am in my right mind."

"Bizarre. You never were before."

"Kevin, you will need to be convincing. Truly. Now say, ‘Horace Bury was in his right mind,' without smiling."

"Maybe another approach. Tonight, Igor, we must build a convincing duplicate of Kevin Renner."

"May we have doglike devotion this time, Master? I wanted doglike devotion last time."

Glenda Ruth was staring. It was something, to have shaken Glenda Ruth Blaine.

"But it might interfere with his sense of humor, Igor!"

"Yes, Master, yes, yes! Please may we interfere with his sense of humor... . I don't have the energy, Kevin."

"Yeah. Give me a sanity check, Horace. Glenda Ruth, listen up. Here's what I have in mind...."

Joyce's hand was steady as she poured tea into Cynthia's cup. Acceleration was down to one-half gravity for the moment, but she didn't expect that to last. For the past ten hours there had been sudden and random accelerations as Sinbad avoided different attacks from the hundreds of ships following.

"If someone tells me that ‘a stern chase is a long chase' one more time," Joyce said, "I'll scream." She sipped carefully, then looked at the older woman, not bothering to conceal her curiosity. "You've been with Bury a long time. Is it always like this?"

Cynthia's smile might have been painted on. "Not precisely. When my uncle Nabil offered me service with His Excellency, I knew we would face many enemies, but few of them had warships. Mostly we are concerned with assassination."

"What's it like, working for a man who has that many enemies?"

"He has enemies because he is a great man," Cynthia said. "I feel honored to serve him. When I graduated from medical school-"

Joyce was startled and showed it despite her news training. "You're a doctor?"

"Yes. Does that seem so unlikely?"

"Well, no, but-yes, actually. I thought you were a bodyguard."

Cynthia's smile softened. "I do that as well. But you were supposed to assume I am a concubine. Thank you, I will have more tea."

"I'm supposed to think you're a concubine. Are you?"

"The appearance is a professional duty. Nothing else is required."

Which could mean anything. "It must be a strange career for a doctor."

"Call it my first career. I will have others after I retire from His Excellency's service. And think of the stories I can tell my children!" Cynthia's laugh was almost inaudible. "Of course first I will have to find a father for them."

Joyce laughed. "Looking at you, I wouldn't think that would be so hard to do."

Cynthia shrugged. "I have no difficulty finding lovers. And our culture is changing. Not just on Levant."

"That's for sure." Joyce looked around Sinbad's crowded lounge, humans and aliens, magnate and aristocrats and naval officer, and grinned. "That's for damned sure."

The Empire ships fled across the Mote system. For Joyce it had been three days of trying to make sense out of myriad details.

Sinbad and Atropos had jumped into Mote system, then accelerated toward the inner system for forty-five minutes, then coasted. Minutes later the Khanate Warrior ships had poured through an invisible hole, paused, then blasted away in the wrong direction. They'd used up an hour's fuel-but at low thrust-before they found Sinbad and Atropos.

Since then it had been a race; but there were nuances.

Bury's couch was located near the door to the control cabin. It made a convenient gathering point when the cabin door was open. When Freddy went over to tell Bury what was happening, Joyce went to listen-and noticed that Glenda Ruth didn't come over until after Joyce had joined the party.

"We laid low. Got them moving in the wrong direction for a while," Freddy said. "Odds are they can recognize our exhaust, so we didn't give them one. Maybe they found Atropos's old-style Langston Field. But this much for sure, they're chasing us."

"Flattering," Glenda Ruth said.

Freddy didn't answer.

"Getting all our enemies into one bunch," Bury said. "It is not the first time. On Tabletop-but that was a long time ago."

"Yeah. Well, it isn't quite working," Freddy said. "We've got maybe a hundred twenty on our tail, out of a thousand. Three hundred kept going; they've just about reached the Bandit cluster. We still don't know what they think they're guarding, but never mind that. I've lost five hundred of the buggers."

Kevin Renner said, "They haven't disappeared. It only means they're not under thrust."

"What are they doing?" Glenda Ruth asked.

Freddy shrugged. Kevin said, "Something else. Something interesting."

Horace Bury spoke suddenly. "The thing to remember is that we've won."

Joyce said, "I beg your pardon?"

"The Khanate Axis will not pass Agamemnon. Will not burst free into the Empire. They can never reclaim that option. Now their only hope is to replace the Medina Alliance. Well, what of that? They must reproduce Medina's agreements and fulfill them as best they can. They must even be over cooperative, to cover promises they might be expected to remember."

Joyce thought that through. "But they'd have to kill us all. And our friends."

"Silence every voice, yes. But the Empire of Man is safe now. The Mote will be organized according to our wishes and custom. We have won that war now," said Horace Bury. "We have protected the Empire of Man, indeed."

And Kevin Renner was trying to swallow a laugh; but why?

Wait- "You could do it!" Joyce cried. "I mean, I'm being very unprofessional here, but-if push came to shove, if they've got us in a box, you could still negotiate. The Empire could get what it wants from the Khanate instead."

They were looking at her. Joyce was sorry she'd spoken. Nobody spoke until Renner said, "Yup."

"Would you? Rather than, um, die?"

"No."

Now the eyes turned away, and only Glenda Ruth sighed in relief. Joyce thought, Why not? and said, "Okay."

"We don't want to teach the wrong lesson here, Joyce. Treachery can become habit-forming."

Five days: part acceleration, part coasting, Sinbad and Atropos led the enemy fleet across Motie space. Five days to observe, not just the battle, but the people.

Freddy Townsend was busy, too busy to talk... but it was more than that.

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.