The Gripping Hand

Chris Blaine smiled thinly. "Not all details have been resolved," he said. "Yet we can agree, there has never been a better time to unite all Moties. Mote Prime is not a factor. The Empire has many ships. With Medina and East India, and allies you may bring..."

Omar moved closer to Bury. The Mediator pup stretched toward him. Absently Bury's hand reached out, touched the pup's fur, drew back.

"Excellency," Omar said. "Let us speak seriously. Medina and East India are powerful if united, yet it must be obvious to all that even united we are not the greatest power among the space dwellers."

"King Peter wasn't the most powerful Master on Mote Prime," Chris Blaine said.

Bury spoke softly. "Medina and East India were the first to understand the implications of the protostar. Your ships even now negotiate with the Empire. Why should you not have the rewards of prescience?" He deliberately scratched behind the pup's oversize ear. "May I choose a name? Ali Baba, I think." Bury smiled. "Of course there is a small favor we require."

Eudoxus said, "We have begun to speak with the Crimean Tartars. It goes slowly. They know only obsolete languages."

"Obsolete to you," Omar said. "Not to us. One of my sisters has spoken with the Tartars, and I received word moments before I landed here. Excellency, the Tartars are afraid. They find that every Motie's hand is against them, and they do not know what they have. Only that it is important, and holding it is dangerous."

"They're holding a wolf by the ears," Joyce said.

The hull clonked

In Hecate's cabin, they waited.

A Warrior bounded through the new air lock, scuttled about the cabin, and presently settled. It exchanged words with the Warrior already present. It emitted a warbling whistle.

Other Moties entered: a Master, a meter and a half tall and clad in thick white fur, and a smaller Motie furred in a dense brown-and-white pattern: a Mediator.

"We're in business," Glenda Ruth said.

Two Engineers followed, towing a glass cylinder with green goo sloshing in it: Hecate's sewage recycler. Six-fingered hands had been at work on it, but it didn't seem greatly changed.

"Another compliment," Freddy said. "Given what that cost me, I'd have been surprised if they could make it much more efficient."

Glenda Ruth felt Freddy's relief; she even shared it. Their life spans had just been extended by several weeks. More important was the timing.

"We thank for glorious gift," she said in the language Jock and Charlie had taught her, King Peter's language, from Mote Prime.

The Mediator's stance indicated receptivity but no understanding.

Damn! But free-fall might alter a Motie's body language. (Stance, indeed!) Or her words might be wrong, or her own gestures. How would a crippled Mediator speak, one with a missing arm?

Two of those little Moties with the Engineers weren't Watchmakers; they were Mediator pups. Je

Okay. Glenda Ruth released her seat belts to give her body full play, worked her foot under a strap for anchorage, and said, palms facing out, regal-but-unarmed. "Our lives much improved by generous-"

The Moties converged on her.

Glenda Ruth had to remember to resume breathing. She was very aware of the spiky Warriors. They shifted constantly to keep a free path between prisoners and weapons. The four humans held quite still as six-fingered hands moved over them.

They had guessed this might happen. Glenda Ruth's mother, the only woman aboard MacArthur, had stripped so that Moties could learn something of human anatomy. Je

It didn't matter. The caste that Je

Je

They turned and twisted for the Doctor. The Mediator and Master hung back, watching.

Human vertebrae fascinated them, as they had thirty years before, when MacArthur's crew met Moties from Mote Prime. Evolution had not taken that path on the Mote. Motie life-forms had spines of solid bone and heavy, complex joints.

The brown-and-white pup jumped from human to human, sniffing, feeling, comparing. Even the Master, judging it safe, moved forward to run its right hands along Glenda Ruth's spine. Je

(Outside the museum on Mote Prime, a Master's dozen fingers explored Kevin Re

They couldn't talk under such circumstances. Glenda Ruth tried. They had to educate the Mediator, give it words to learn... but the others' embarrassment was just too strong. Glenda Ruth quickly gave up.

The Doctor and Engineer began talking to the Master. Pointing, demonstrating, explaining. The white-furred Motie took it all in. It asked short questions (that one inflection, query, brought verbal responses, where another, command, caused action), and the Moties resumed their examination. One question sent the Engineer to join its Watchmakers at work in the air recycler. Another had it comparing Freddy and Terry, Je

The Mediator watched.

And finally they were allowed, to put their clothes on. They found it hard to look at each other. The Master and its attendants were still talking.

"We should have guessed," Glenda Ruth said. "Masters do talk. It's different from the Mediator skill. They have to organize data from a dozen different castes... professions."

Clothed, it was all right to speak again. Je

The adult Mediator took the second Mediator pup from its Engineer parent. She crossed to the bridge, caught herself, and offered the little Motie to Freddy: clearly an offer, not a demand.

Freddy looked at Glenda Ruth. He was showing surprise, no distaste, and a touch of hope. She said, "Take it." Why Freddy? Freddy immediately reached out, smiling, and accepted the thing into his arms.

Why Freddy? Why not me?

It clung with five limbs, its hands exploring Freddy's head and shoulders, where his skin was exposed. Presently it pulled back to watch his face. Moties caught on to that one quick, the notion of a mobile face. Why not me, or Terry?

The Master spoke. The Engineer led the Mediator to the door. The Mediator began playing with the code readout.

"Damn," Glenda Ruth said. The others looked at her.

If she let the others know exactly what she had in mind, a Mediator would know it now or later. Could she get some help on this? She pointed at the safe and shouted, "Show signs of distress, dammit! It's too soon!"

Distress, right. Freddy spasmed, pointed to the safe with an outflung arm, and flung the other across his averted eyes, crying, "Weep! Wail!" Glenda Ruth choked back a laugh. The pup was trying to imitate him, right arms pointing, left across its eyes.