The Gripping Hand

"Too hot," Victoria said when she touched it. She gave it to the Engineer, who carried it into the hidden part of Cerberus. The human crew huddled with their heads together, sipping, their shoulders shutting out the aliens around them. Freddy had a crime drama ru

"How are you doing?" Freddy asked.

Glenda Ruth said, "I'm dancing as fast as I can, but the pace is too damned slow. Je

Je

"Jen, did it steam? Was it hot?"

"It wasn't hot. What do you want to know?"

She dared not tell them too much, but she had to know this. "Do they cook?"

"Glenda Ruth, the air coming through the new lock is warmer than it is here, but there's no smell of cooking."

"Okay." She looked at the faces around her. Open, honest faces shadowed by every passing thought. Did they understand, would they reveal, too much?

Engineer and Warrior were certainly infected. The worm eggs might well infect every Motie form in Cerberus's cabin. If that didn't reach a Master, then an Engineer might have passed it on by now. But if a Mediator wasn't infected soon... there wouldn't be anything to talk about. Just a Master turned sterile male, and other forms showing the same symptoms, and the blame very clear.

2 Vermin City

And in that state of nature, no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitarv, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

From the begi

"Leave your stuff alone if play to win," Victoria said. Need some stuff for now."

"Good. You think about future. You want us happy for future?"

"Say instead we want you not hating us for future."

"Good. Good. Then get them to leave my telescope the hell alone! It's this whole complex, here and here, all this stuff-"

"Engineers make it better."

"Don't want better. Want this stuff the way it is," Freddy said distinctly. He had watched what happened to Hecate. He believed-and so did Glenda Ruth-that the Moties would strip the telescope of anything they wanted, leaving a tube and two lenses to be improved to their hearts' content.

They must have convinced Victoria; Victoria must have convinced one of the Masters. Days later, the scope and its computerized direction-finding and data-recording systems still matched Empire racing specs.

Freddy's fingers behind her ear teased Glenda Ruth awake.

The smaller pup was clinging to his back, a tiny skewed head above his left shoulder, wearing the generic smile; but Freddy looked quite solemn. Glenda Ruth followed his pointing finger to a screen and... what? Display of a broken kaleidoscope? Numbers indicated that she was looking aft, under one-hundred-power magnification, via Freddy's telescope.

"We're decelerating. Whole fleet. To that," Freddy said.

A shattered mirror on star-dusted black... mirrors, lots of mirrors, circles and ribbons and scraps and one great triangle. The mirrors weren't rotating, but some of what they illuminated was, on an eccentric axis. Sunlight off the mirrors set it to glowing like the City of God.

"Schizophrenia City," Je

Glenda Ruth winced. "Pandemonium," she said. John Milton's capital of Hell. If this was Captor Fleet's home base, they were indeed mad.

Pandemonium was backlit, showing mostly black, but she could see the lack of pattern. There were blocks and spires and tubes, considerable fine structure, very spread out. As an artistic whole... it wasn't whole.

Je

"Dangerous," her pup said emphatically. Freddy's pup peeked out of his arms and nodded wisely.

Glenda Ruth called, "Victoria?"

"Something's happening," Terry Kakumi said.

Light flashed here, there. A chunk of Pandemonium City broke free, 6 percent or 8 percent of the whole; rotated to use its section of mirror as a shield, and pulled away. Ruby light sputtered at it, belatedly.

"Civil war, maybe. Maybe a lifeboat ru

"Yeah, Terry. Maybe it's how Motie cities breed? But whose city? Victoria?" No answer came. Glenda Ruth said, "Likely she's asleep." Moties needed their sleep, or at least Mediators did.

Terry said, "We've been decelerating for two hours now. Matching velocities. Glenda Ruth, we have to see this-" Terry's arm flashed up to block her eyes. A ruby glare filled the cabin. An instant later all screens were black.

"Langston Field," Terry said. "Ours. Don't think that place has one. Sorry. Are you okay?"

Freddy said, "Hell, we're under attack!"

"But by what?" Je

"Good question.'

When nothing further happened, Terry presently cut bricks of basic protocarb for their breakfast. They watched the screen, but it remained dark.

Victoria emerged from the airlock. The Mediator skimmed along one of the big vines, picking red berries, then veered to join them. She asked, "Do you take chocolate for breakfast?"

Glenda Ruth spoke before Terry Kakumi could. "Sure. Freddy? Make it lukewarm, then we can heat ours. Victoria, does your Engineer say it's safe?"

"Yes."

Terry couldn't stand it. "We're pulling near a large structure. Is it your home?"

A moment's pause, then Victoria said, "No. Chocolate?"

Freddy didn't move until Glenda Ruth opened the cocoa and pushed it into his hands. No, he couldn't read minds, but she made eye contact and thought hard: Yes, Freddy, Victoria's trying to distract us, yes, she's hiding something, Freddy love, but we want the lizard-raping chocolate!

Freddy set to work, meticulously measuring powder, shaking it with boiled water, adding the basic protocarb product most crew called milk. He poured it into squeezers and handed one, lukewarm, to the Mediator. The others he set heating in the microwave.

Victoria sipped without waiting. Her eyes widened. "Strange. Good." She sipped again. "Good."

"This is the least of what the Empire can offer. More to the point is the meeting of unlike minds. And elbow space."

Terry's patience was short. "The city?"

"It's resources, Terry," Victoria said. "We will take them."

"Uh-huh. We want to observe the battle on-site," Terry Kakumi said. "If-"

"Not a battle, Terry. Pest control. No Master in there, no Mediators, not even Engineers."

"What are they, then? They're shooting at us."

"Watchmakers and... I don't know your word. Only animals. Destructive small animals, dangerous when cornered. Use resources we need."

"Vermin," Glenda Ruth said.

"Thank you. Vermin. Yes, they're shooting, but we can protect ourselves. What is it you want?"

"I want to go in with you, with a camera." Terry took the bulb Glenda Ruth handed him, but didn't drink. She sipped the chocolate: a bit too hot, and that was good. Heat would kill what her fingertip had added to the cocoa powder.

"You would see our weapons in use. I know your nature, Terry Kakumi. Warrior-Engineer, as close as your generalist species comes. But able to talk well."

Freddy suppressed a smile; but Terry showed his teeth. "You wouldn't use your serious weapons for varmint control, Victoria. Whatever it is that has you so embarrassed, it's something we have to know. Later would be worse. Nasty surprises breed nasty surprises."