The Gripping Hand

A fireball blasted out of Pandemonium, half behind an angular bulge. Terry didn't bother with it. The camera recorded the shock wave surging through the city.

His breathing was going ragged; he'd have to stop talking soon. But: "They don't fit the suits. There are slack parts. Six-limbed suits, Watchmaker suits, with one limb tied down, and-" He coughed and stopped trying. Let the camera speak for him.

They wore borrowed pressure suits with the lower left arm tied down. Half of them had used up their jets and jumped anyway. Animals. Others were fleeing the light; but three turned and made for Terry. He held the camera on them and slashed them with high-V pellets.

Nice. Two merely died, but one silver suit, filleted, puffed its occupant thrashing into space. They weren't Watchmakers at all.

They were something nastier.

"I never saw …" Freddy peered at the display. "Victoria? What in Hell-" Victoria was missing. "Glenda Ruth? I've seen ‘em before."

She didn't want to look. She made herself look and considered what she was seeing. She said, "The Zoo on Mote Prime," and watched them remembering.

Fourth floor: a Motie city, struck by disaster. Cars overturned and rusted in littered, broken streets. Aircraft had embedded their wreckage in the ruins of fire-scorched buildings. Weeds grew from cracks in the pavement. In the center of the picture was a sloping mound of rubble, and a hundred small black shapes darted and swarmed over it.

Every student at the Institute had studied that scene. The Motie cycle of boom and bust was so dependable that plants and animals had evolved specifically for ruined cities!

One had a pointed, ratlike face with wicked teeth. But it was not a rat. It had one membranous ear, and five limbs. The foremost limb on the right side was not a fifth paw; it was a long and agile arm, tipped with claws like hooked daggers.

"But those were quite different," Je

"They're changed," Glenda Ruth said. "Evolution must have moved much faster for them. Shorter generations, bigger litters. Why not? Freddy, I've got to get Victoria."

Terry Kakumi's voice was much weakened. "I don't know how to tell Warriors that I need medical help. Freddy, if you're still hearing me, s-s-s—" Coughing.

Freddy nodded. He floated toward the airlock, slowly, hands visible for the Warrior on duty. When Freddy reached the lock, the Warrior put his gunpoint in Freddy's ribs.

Freddy put his head in the lock and yelled, "Victoria! Now! Terry's been shot! Do you hear me?"

A lopsided face wreathed in white fur confronted him. Freddy wondered if he was seeing Ozma. The Master spoke a word to the Warrior, who pointed its gun elsewhere. The Master turned full away and hiss-whistled.

Victoria came. Freddy explained rapidly; Victoria translated; the Master went away; so did Victoria. The Warrior reached, turned Freddy around, and pushed him back to the control center.

On-screen, a pair of Warriors had retrieved Terry. Freddy could glimpse them at the screen's edge, towing him. Voiceless, Terry pointed the camera to pick up: A snowstorm of dead war rats, big as greyhounds and small as puppies, all armed with edged weapons, some armed with guns.

A factory, empty, scaled down. That looked to be a distillery; that, a smelter. Even in the asteroid mines of most systems, humans would align their furniture. Here boilerplate-bulky machines pointed off at all angles, leaving almost no waste space.

A sudden firefight receded as Terry's escorts made for safety. A Warrior's grenade opened a wall to space. War rats blew past them toward the stars. Warriors picked off the few in stolen suits.

Victoria was back. "Ozma has told the Chief, but-" She saw the screen. "That's better. Your friend was inside too many walls. Ozma has also summoned a hybrid who might help your friend, an interbreeding of Doctor and Master. We only have one."

Freddy nodded and said appropriate things. Glenda Ruth only watched. The camera didn't seem to be pointing at anything interesting anymore.

3 Chocolate

And there're a

hun-dred-mil-lion-oth-ers, like

all of you successfully if

delicately gelded (or spaded)

gentlemen (and ladies)

e. e. cummings

When the Doctor-Master arrived, Freddy had anticipated him. He had library medical tapes already ru

The Doctor was a young male, Victoria told them. "Doctor Doolittle," Glenda Ruth named him, and saw Je

Glenda Ruth wondered why Captor Fleet had chosen to feed such a peculiarity when they were so obviously short of resources. As if they had known aliens were coming... known ten years ago. Where the hell was Terry?

Terry was alive, technically, when they brought him in nearly two hours later. A misshapen Warrior was pumping his rib cage, breathing for him, Glenda Ruth looked at him and gave up hope.

Doctor Doolittle spoke rapidly.

The Warrior slashed the front of Terry's suit and pulled him out. A pair of Watchmakers pulled a black pressure balloon open and fished out transparent tubes and a canister. The little Doctor-Master wrapped itself around Terry's head and shoulders, planted his ear on Terry's torso, and listened. Then it pulled his head far back and fed the tube into his nose.

Terry thrashed weakly. Red flowed down the tube. The Motie watched for a few minutes, then spoke. The Warrior had gone back to breathing for Terry, flexing his chest, on and on, without fatigue. The Watchmakers fished out a squeezebulb of clear fluid.

Glenda Ruth stopped watching. She couldn't stand it.

Freddy pulled his shorts on and left it at that; the Motie Doctor might need to compare again. He caught her eye as she turned away, and she knew another moment of dread.

"Glenda Ruth-"

She turned away as the strange doctor spoke softly to the Warriors.

Captor Fleet was at work beyond Cerberus's windows. From all they could see, the War Rats and Watchmakers were no longer to be feared. Larger ships had moved in. Altered troopships and tinier ships yet moved in a cloud around Pandemonium. An Engineer with a crew of Watchmakers worked on one of the damaged troopships. Large Moties from time to time came out of the ruins with-things. Broken machinery. Tankage. Plastic bags.

Je

"Your point?"

"Well, Victoria keeps calling them animals. She especially likes the word vermin. Maybe because they don't care how much stuff they throw away, even if it can be recycled. That's what all those little ships are doing, chasing down stuff that got loose during the fight."

Glenda Ruth nodded. "Yeah. How's Terry?"

"Breathing on his own. I want a human doctor."

"Hang in there. Terry's tough."

Silence.

"I couldn't watch."

"I noticed," Je

"You think he's not feeling anything, and you're almost right, he won't remember how bad it is. But his body, his nerves, he's hurt, Je