The Gripping Hand

The screen cleared. Pandemonium glowed before its mirrors. Cerberus's Watchmakers had pushed a probe through the Field.

Victoria sipped, and thought, and said, "I will ask Ozma."

Merlin nested in the forepart of the cabin. He was young, with clean white fur you ached to touch; he had never been female. He spent much of his time watching the humans and-if Glenda Ruth was indeed learning some basic captor language, if she'd correctly judged his body language-discussing them with Victoria, the Doctor, the Engineers, the Warriors. Masters asked questions and gave orders. They did not seem inclined to needless conversation, even with other Masters. But they did talk.

Ozma, an older and clearly superior Master to Merlin (parent?), lived somewhere out of sight beyond Cerberus's big new airlock. Thence Victoria went. An hour later, the spidery Messenger scuttled through and summoned Merlin from his place in the forecabin.

Terry Kakumi slept curled in his couch like an egg in an egg cup. Glenda Ruth watched for dreams to chase themselves across his round features, but really, he was remarkably relaxed for a man who was about to enter mystery.

"He does that better than anyone I know," Freddy said. "If he knows nothing is going to happen for twenty minutes, he's out like a light. I guess that's what they mean by old campaigner."

"You think it's a warrior's skill?"

"It never would have occurred to me before. Sauron, heh?"

The chaotic industrial complex was considerably closer now. Its shape had changed, had closed around the gap left by the one departing section, which was still in view a few kilometers away, under desultory thrust. There was motion on the surface, a doubly silent rustling: windows glinting (not many), small vehicles racing along wire tracks, mirrors rippling as they swung to block a laser spear, a sudden spray of... missiles? Tiny ships?

Sporadic ruby beams bathed Cerberus with no effect. Just once the entire mirror-sail complex focused white light with enough energy that the cameras had to be pulled in. Several minutes later the screen was glowing with just a touch of red heat. More minutes later the probe was out again, and Pandemonium showed almost unchanged.

"They ran out of power," Je

"Maybe nothing we know about," Glenda Ruth said. "Watchmakers alone might have built this. You saw Re

A tube poked from near the center of the structure, and extended, longer and longer. Like a ca

The screen went dark. In the airlock Merlin snapped some command; every Motie form snatched for handholds. Cerberus torqued about them. In the screen was a red glow...orange, yellow...holding.

Victoria popped up beside Merlin, with several other Motie shapes behind her. They all held close to their handholds. A Messenger was towing one of their pressure suits.

"Terry, you may travel with us, unarmed," Victoria said. "You'll want hands for your camera anyway. We have restored it to the state you are accustomed to. Don't try to leave your escorts."

Terry took the camera from the Engineer. He made adjustments. One of the screens lit with a close view of Victoria, blurred, then sharper. Terry said, "How long?"

"Suit up now"

The Field was orange and cooling.

Terry and Freddy examined the suit, whispering. Hecate's pressure suits had been confiscated and stowed on the other side of the oval airlock. They were hard suits, rigid pieces shaped to slide over one another, with a fishbowl helmet. Now green-gray sludge in a flaccid plastic bag rode the jet pack on the suit's back. The helmet's view had been expanded; the sunblind visor was gone; the helmet itself was no longer quite symmetrical.

"You trust it?"

"No choice, boss. I'm bored." Terry worked his way into the suit. Before he'd finished, the Engineer and three Watchmakers were already at work on him. Freddy and Je

He could die

Terry was zipped up when the alarms sounded again. He knew that one: Anchor against attack!

When the screen cleared, Pandemonium was very close. The pipe still protruded near the center of the complex, but it pointed askew of Cerberus. More conspicuously, the mirrors were gone...shredded, trailing outward in comet's configuration.

"It was a double attack on us," Terry said for his companions' benefit. "The laser ca

She waved it off. "Battle is no skill of mine."

Motion swarmed around the shreds of mirror. Glimmers and flashes: they began to re-form. The laser ca

"Come," Victoria said. She leapt for the airlock, and Terry, almost as agile, followed.

The Moties could hardly be unaware that they were showing him Cerberus's Motie sections for the first time, and on record. Terry waved his camera where he would. He was not trying for detail, but rather looking for whatever would bear further investigation.

He didn't get much of that. He was in a tube that curved like a loop of intestine. Here a dark opening, here a bulge and an armed Warrior clinging to handholds, here a lighted opening and a first glimpse of an older Master. "Studying me. I'd better not stop," he said. "Victoria isn't."

The tube ended in a canister full of Warriors in armored pressure suits.

Victoria waved him in. The Warriors watched him, every one. "Forty armed and armored Warriors, no two weapons alike, no two suits alike, and... that one's pregnant, and that one." Distinct bulges in the armor, where a human heart would be. Terry let the camera hold on four others: "And I don't know what to make of those."

There was a couch just for him. It had an orthopedic look and a plenitude of straps. Terry gave the camera a good look before he strapped in. "Looks like an Engineer and Doctor tried to design this for a human spine. Let's see... Not bad. Not many humans build chairs this good."

The airlock was sealed and Victoria was gone.

"Three windows, one fore and one aft... whichever... and this.

"Considerate bastards." The amidships window was right before his face. One of the odd ones handed Terry a big folded umbrella, nearly weightless. "They've taken me for a Pom."

He was being judged. He chattered because of nerves.

The tradition of Terry Kakumi's family was never to dwell on tradition. Flexibility was a virtue. Landing on one's feet was a graceful thing to do. In anarchy and in war and in the Empire's peace, on Tanith and a score of other worlds, their numbers had grown. But he and they knew their ancestry.

The Kakumis were of Brenda Curtis's line.

Brenda Curtis had lived nearly four hundred years ago. She'd had six children of her own, and over two hundred had passed through her orphanage farm on their path to adulthood. They tended to intermarry because they understood each other.

Brenda Curtis had been a Sauron superman.

Current tales of the Sauron breeding centers were entirely imaginary. Terry had no idea what his ancestor had escaped from. Only the bald fact of her origin was known, and only to her children...and their fathers? Who could tell, now?

But twenty-four gene-tailored Motie Warriors were about to learn whether a child of Brenda Curtis could take care of himself.

He was not required to fight, Terry reminded himself. He would be judged by whether he survived.