The Gripping Hand

"Now, note." Buckman's pointer traced along the shaded ring of comets. "Mote Gamma is resources for anyone in this region. A better source than the nearby comets, right? Because comets are so far apart. Where Mote Gamma is passing, there's an economic boom. When Gamma's gone, there's a recession. Sanity check, Horace?"

"Very likely. The boom would stretch over perhaps twenty degrees of arc before costs grow too great. Mote Beta would be too close to the sun for such an effect. And if... what are these marks? The old Jump point to the Eye, the new one ..."

"Right."

They weren't moving. Matter flowed around and past them.

"The Crazy Eddie points. And the new Jump to the red dwarf, Crazy Eddie's Sister. Thirty degrees around from Mote Gamma, and up ten degrees along the Mote's axis. Medina Trading had no easy access to the Mote Gamma resources."

Re

Eudoxus was back. "Excellency, Captain, my Master will act to recover your people and goods. Our bargaining position is worsening. Hecate is in flight with a Crimean Tartar escort, twelve ships of varying size, ru

Bury's eyes met Kevin's; he didn't speak.

The Motie said, "Your lost ship should be safe in the hands of the Crimean Tartars. No player in this game would risk harm to something so valuable, not even pirate groups like the Khanate, who can only guess Hecate's value from the maneuvering of others... we'll negotiate how to bring you together."

Of course a Mediator would negotiate, Kevin thought. She could hardly plan a war, though if she could estimate relative strengths but if Hecate must be rescued, it must be up to the Empire ships.

"So you had East India watching the wrong part of the sky," he said. "And now they're pissed?"

"Just so. But they don't command the wealth they had when they wrested the Crazy Eddie point from us. They sent cheap token ships to the Eye, and they can't afford a real war fleet either."

"Tell me about the Khanate."

"Ah, yes, the Khanate. You see, Medina Trading's main base is deep among the comets, not conveniently close to the Sister. A succession of large comets have served as i

"The Khanate is based in a cluster of comets outward and forward of Medina Trading. They expect wealth to surge their way when Mote Gamma moves into place in fifty thousand hours. Meanwhile they survive as bandits. They must have wondered at the mad placement of our small comet, but they covet the resources. But the Crimean Tartars seem to know why we wanted resources in place."

Bury asked, "Might they be working with someone else?"

"Instruct me," said the Motie.

"Merely a question, Eudoxus. Who knew of the Sister? Medina and Byzantium and East India, and whoever else might deduce the truth from observation. East India was given a false locus for the Sister, but were you truly prepared to deal fairly with Byzantium?"

"Of course," Eudoxus said.

"Any Motie family could learn the truth by observation and deduction," Bury said. "But Byzantium already knew. Perhaps Byzantium grew unhappy with the notion that Medina would command the Sister, so far from Byzantium's sway. Then Byzantium might seek allies easier to dominate.

"Only a passing thought. Finish your tale, Eudoxus."

The Motie needed a moment to react. "Tale? Easily told. We were already embattled when East India signaled that a token ship intended for the Crazy Eddie point had failed to pop through to the Eye. We sent tokens along the arms of the arc where the Sister was to be expected. An expedition of ten ships was launched after, provisioned and ma

"By then East India Company's neutrino gauges and telescopes must have seen the action. They have reason for complaint, as you point out. They took our territory by force. Then they donated resources to the exercise: ten years' or more worth of their pitiful token ships. Now they learn that the Sister is not where they were told, but Medina's fleet is in place. They sent ships.

"None of this surprised us much. But when the Crimean Tartars fleet followed us, we were taken by surprise. Medina expected the entire Khanate fleet to remain with the comet. When our first ship disappeared, the Tartars were seen to correct course. They must have known what they were doing."

Jacob Buckman's head popped up at Re

Re

"Why did the Khanate attack now? Now puts the Tartars in just the right position to take the Sister. It looks like some genius among the Tartars-"

"Figured out exactly when the Curdle would collapse. Uh-huh. Eudoxus, you concur?"

"It's not my field, Captain Re

"By whom?"

"By anyone! Do you believe I have told you of all the families here?"

"Okay. Go on."

"The Tartars destroyed two of the ten Medina expedition ships. One missed the Sister. The rest of us reached the orange dwarf. Our fleet tried to hold the Sister until Byzantium's reinforcements could arrive, but these were not expected soon, or with confidence. Mote Beta is too far. But they held long enough for us all to pop through into an ongoing battle."

"But not long enough to protect Hecate."

"No. And that brings us to present time. In ten hours we will reach I

8 Medina Base Six

Rebellious angels are worse than unbelieving men.

St. Augustine, City of God

Base Six had changed. Shaped charges blasted most of the worked mass of what had been a comet into shards. A snowstorm of dirty ice and ammonia and rock, all useful ores until the advent of the Sister, expanded in the direction of the battle raging at the Sister. If the detritus didn't shield Base Six from weapons, it would at least blind all watchers. Only Medina's Masters would guess what was happening here, and they only because they had shored in the pla

The white sphere that remained was colder than a comet need be. East India had known of the refineries that made hydrogen and the ships that took it away, but had never known of the heat pumps. The hydrogen hadn't all been used to fuel ships, and most of the ships hadn't gone all the way out to Medina Trading.

Medina Base Six had become a compact hydrogen iceball with a shell of foamed hydrogen ice. Thus insulated and minutely cooled by evaporation, it would hold its cold for decades; possibly centuries. Buried in the iceball was an industrial-sized Empire style shield generator that had served all six i

Base Six was too close to the action, too vulnerable.

Its three dozen ships were mostly disassembled. They always had been, always visibly under repair. East India's visiting Muster had complained of this, but had never seen the significance of all those dismounted rocket motors.