The Gripping Hand

"Well, you for one," Commissioner MacDonald said. "I di

"I expected something like this," Joyce Mei-Ling Trujillo said.

Commissioner MacDonald seemed astonished. "That's more than I did."

"Cover-up all the way. Corruption in the fleet, so hide it with something else. Mr. Bury, your reputation precedes you."

Bury glared. Mercer said, "Madame, I was well aware that the Moties had lied to us. That was a secondary purpose for this meeting. I... would have thought we'd have more time. These ‘tokens'-"

"Your Highness, I've found enough evidence of corruption that they can smell the stench on Sparta. In a sense I've caused this commission, and in the first meeting you want to go into executive session! So far as I am concerned, the council has evaded the question of corruption in the Crazy Eddie Fleet. Do you really expect me to go along with this massive sense of urgency?"

In the moment before anyone could explode, Kevin Blaine caught Mercer's eye. "Excuse me, my Lord, but she does have a point."

Looks of fury turned on Blaine, but MacDonald said, "In what fashion, Lieutenant?"

"Urgency. Let us look at this as a gambling situation. What's the expected return here, the pot odds? The Moties persuaded Dr. Buckman that Mote system could be bottled up for between five hundred and two thousand years. If they thought that lie was worth telling, the expected date must be conspicuously sooner. It can't be much more than a hundred years, could it? That gap wouldn't be worth hiding.

"Call it thirty to seventy years. We've eaten thirty. Twenty years left, with a fat margin of error. Why the rush?" Blaine turned to Trujillo. "Right?"

"And we know it hasn't gone off yet!"

"Well, not last month. There'd be some delay before we heard from the Crazy Eddie Fleet. The Jump point from the Eye to here would move. But the urgency is because of these token ships. They indicate that the Moties are ready now. The margin of error could still be large, of course," Blaine was talking directly to Trujillo now, "but we're in a maniacal rush so we can get something into place. Anything. Ultimately we'll move some ships from the Crazy Eddie Squadron so they can sit on their asses for twenty years. Or forty, fifty-"

"Or twenty days," Bury muttered.

"And why shouldn't the press be watching that?" Mei-Ling demanded. "Nothing said here can get back to the Moties. You're only keeping secrets from the public!"

"What's said here can get back to Outies," MacDonald said. "And to traitors who might well like to see harm come to the Empire while our strength is massed against the Moties. It's no been so long since the New Irish threw bombs at the Governor General, you know. Madam, I've no doubt of your loyalty, but I do believe you have heard aye more than is safe already. I would no care to see any of this on the tri-vee. Were it left to me-"

"Commissioner MacDonald has a point," Mercer said. "Miss Trujillo, I must ask you to hold what you have heard here in strict confidence."

"Suppress a good story?" She smiled thinly. "I wonder if you can make me do that?"

Commissioner MacDonald said, "Your Highness, the law is very clear regarding threats to the Empire. Is this no a state of emergency? You have but to declare one."

"Even that can't stop me from writing about corruption and this council's evasions," Trujillo said. She paused to let that sink in. "But I'm willing to cooperate. Of course there's a condition."

"What is your condition?" Mercer asked.

"Let me find out the rest of the story."

"What?" MacDonald was outraged.

"Let me finish," she said. "I'll take whatever oath you like- oath of the privy council, isn't it?-and promise not to publish anything, including what I've already heard, until you agree it's safe. But I want to know. I want to be in on the whole story, Moties, corruption in the fleet, all of it."

"Hmm." Mercer looked around the room, then down at the screen set discreetly into the table in front of him. "It would appear that you are the only problem guest, Ms. Trujillo. Everyone else here is already under one or another obligation to keep the secrets of the Empire."

"Him?" Trujillo pointed at Horace Bury.

"As a condition of my accompanying him on his journey to this system, His Excellency and all his crew consented to the conditions of the privy council," Mercer said. It would have made for an uncomfortable trip without that."

"I see. All right. Anyway, I've said I'll take your oath."

"Commander Cohen?" Mercer said. "I make no doubt the Navy has already done a thorough investigation of Miss Trujillo. Has your service any objections?"

"I don't think so. Joyce, you do understand what you're doing? You are voluntarily placing yourself under the restrictions of the Official Secrets Acts. The penalties can include exile for life on any world of His Majesty's choosing."

"Yes, I know. Thank you for the warning. But this is the only way I'll ever find out, isn't it? And if the Moties really are coming out, that will be the biggest story ever."

"If the Moties really are coming out, it will mean war," MacDonald said. "And you'll be under wartime restrictions."

"Are you objecting to including Ms. Trujillo in our official family of advisers?" Mercer asked.

"No, my Lord. Not really."

"All right," Mercer said. "Let's get on with it. Mr. Armstrong, if you'll do the honors."

The Commission secretary fingered his own computer controls. "Miss Trujillo, if you will face His Highness. Raise your right hand and read from the screen in front of you."

"First things first," Mercer said. "Admiral Cargill, I presume you've sent a standby signal to every ship in the system? Thank you. So just what ships have we?"

"It's bad timing," Cargill said. "We've got three frigates in transit from the Crazy Eddie Squadron to New Cal-"

"God is good," Bury muttered. The other three turned to him, and he gri

"Yes, but the ships themselves are all in need of repair. Not a lot of use. Then, a sovereign-class battleship with three general class battle cruisers and assorted light escort ships jumped out to the Eye three hundred hours ago. There's no way to recall them except to send a messenger ship after them. Nothing else closer than the Crazy Eddie Squadron. Doctor, do we have any damn idea where we'd want to put a second fleet?"

"This is only a first cut," Buckman said.

After a moment Cargill said, "Cut away."

Jacob Buckman tapped at keys. A string of numbers appeared on all the consoles. "There. And maybe there."

"Uh." Re

"Probably not, but even so, Murcheson's Eye dominates."

"So it's just this... red dwarf," Mercer said. "Well, we've got to put something there, and I prefer it be now. So what do we have?"

"There's Balasingham's Agomemnon," Cargill said. "A Menulaus-class cruiser. Good ship. I presume you're ready, Balasingham?"

"Admiral, we can boost out as soon as I'm aboard," Commander Balasingham said. "I sent up orders to round up the crew and refuel as soon as I understood what Dr. Buckman was saying."

"Then there's the Atropos frigate," Cargill said.

"Sir, I took the liberty of asking her skipper to put that ship on full alert, too," Balasingham said.