The Gripping Hand

"No. Victoria, thanks, but-"

"You will not save your friend by being captured by the Khanate," Victoria said. "And they might not be quite as understanding about the benefits of your cocoa. I am afraid I can leave you no choice here. Your friends will forgive us for leaving behind one human, wounded in activities he insisted on joining. They will not be so kind if we abandon you all. Come."

"I'm staying," Je

"Stay with Je

"Whatever we do, it must be done quickly," Victoria warned. "A Khanate battle squadron approaches, and your friends are impatient to talk to you."

"Battle squadron. How reasonable will they be?" Glenda Ruth demanded. "Would they talk?"

"Mediators will always talk when there is not active fighting. Sometimes then. Whether the Mediator with this expedition can speak your language is another matter, of course. You will have Pollya

"I will help you talk," the Mediator pup hugged her.

She said, "You're not trying to talk me out of staying."

"I had hoped you would stay," Victoria said. "Your Terry might then survive until Medina can buy him back from the Khanate. Without your help I do not think so."

"I don't like this much," Freddy said. "Glenda Ruth?"

"Victoria, how will you leave them?'

Victoria chattered rapidly to a Warrior. The Warrior answered briefly. Victoria said, "We can leave you Cerberus, minus our own life support segments, and a Warrior pilot and motors to give half a gee... in fact, you should have Hecate's motor of alien design, to indicate your nature. Je

"What are their chances of escape?" Glenda Ruth persisted.

"Not good," Freddy said. "Stealthing is fine, but Cerberus needs thrust to get away from here, and they'll see that."

Victoria shrugged. "This is likely. If we delay much longer, none of this will matter. I will also leave recordings in the trade language, informing the Khanate that they have a valuable possession which those more powerful than the Khans will wish to buy back, but only if intact."

"Go on, Glenda Ruth," Je

"Come," said the Mediator. "Come meet the representatives of your friends."

The Warrior led; then Joyce, then Eudoxus, all in skintights and helmets. Air pressure wafted them down the tube. Their insulating oversuits followed, collapsed, with two little Messengers to tend them.

Eudoxus said, "Bury's Fyunch(click) brought us tales of swimming. Is it like this?"

"A little," Joyce said. The currents kept her from brushing the sides. She drifted like seaweed, in a dead man's float.

An industrial complex wafted by, brightly lighted. Where the tube curved, she could see Watchmakers following her, a swarm of them bracketed by two Engineers.

"Crazy Eddie always misreads the turning of the cycles," Eudoxus said. "Crazy Eddie tries to arrest the turning, to make a civilization that will last for all time. What do humans think of Crazy Eddie, Joyce?"

"I suppose we think he's crazy." Silence prompted her to continue, "Not all that crazy, though. Our cycles of history, they go up and down but generally up. A spiral. We don't just go round and round. We learn."

"So you use the term without embarrassment. Crazy Eddie point our term, yes, but you don't flinch from it. Crazy Eddie Squadron. Joyce, you've studied the Crazy Eddie Squadron?"

"My views are on record, Eudoxus, and you can't have the records. Navy matters." How the hell had Eudoxus learned that? Was there a hole Chris hadn't plugged? So to speak.

"We are allies. It seems unfair that we ca

"Unfair. Yes, it is, but it's still not my decision, Eudoxus. I took an oath."

The Motie said, "Yes, of course. Joyce, nobody loves blockade duty. The Squadron is crumbling, isn't it? The opening of the Sister is not a bad thing for you, but how can your companions expect to create stability here?"

Good question, and Joyce didn't know. The Empire had something, though. Something to do with the Institute, Joyce thought, and the Crazy Eddie Worm. Joyce knew only the name, and even that she must keep secret. Why? But the Mediator was behind her; her view was of Joyce's feet, not her face.

"Mote Prime sent you ambassadors," Eudoxus said. A Keeper and two Mediators. You've had thirty years to study them. We've studied billions of ourselves for millions of years. What can you possibly have learned that we could not?"

"Eudoxus, I am not supposed to talk about this."

"The Imperials have told you very little, haven't they, Joyce? They didn't trust you to keep secrets."

"That's right. So there's not much point in this, is there?"

"Yet you are a public opinion specialist. You are heard throughout the Empire. Joyce, it is clear that your Empire is united as the Moties have never been, but not every family is obedient. Has your Empire the strength to exterminate us? Is this your real plan?"

"No, we don't plan that!"

"Are you so sure? No secret weapons? Ah, but they would not tell you. Joyce, look ahead and up."

The ball of crumpled tinsel was a larger point among the stars. Violet sparks were rising from it. Joyce trained her pickup and spoke for continuity. "Spacecraft are rising to meet us, bringing the human hostages captured by the group our Motie allies call the Crimean Tartars. The humans are Glenda Ruth Fowler Blaine. The Hon. Frederick Townsend. Je

"In due time. When your friends arrive. For now-we should show you the motors."

Joyce looked up. The crumpled ball and its sparks were setting, and the violet-white glow of Base Six's motors was coming into view ahead. "Yes," said Joyce. "Please."

Eudoxus spoke into his hand. Mediators ruled all transport, Joyce remembered. And sometimes sat in judgment. The wind that moved them almost died; then the tube branched, and pressure wafted them left.

"We knew that Glenda Ruth Blaine must be daughter to Sally Fowler and Roderick Blaine, and the Honorable Frederick Townsend son to another powerful master, but we don't know of a Blaine Institute

"It's a school, but it does research."

"I thought you called such organizations ‘universities.'"

"Yes, that's right, the Blaine Institute is like a university, deliberately located next to a university, but universities everything. The Blaine Institute has only one purpose. To study Moties."

"Ah. Was this Institute responsible for the blockade?"

"No, that was Imperial policy. Although Lord and Lady Blaine helped set the policy even as they were founding the Institute. And Lady Blaine's uncle. But the blockade was proclaimed before I was born." Instead of an extermination fleet. The Mediator still couldn't see her face: right. "You can't imagine the impact you made on the Empire. Just your existence."

"Do you have children?"

"No. Not yet."

"You will have?"

"Let's leave it at ‘not yet.'"

Neither do I, of course. But I'll see your Motie impact on the Empire and raise you not getting pregnant until you happen to feel like it!"

Je

Eudoxus said, "Never mind. I might guess the Empire's reaction, knowing that we've solved your inbuilt reason for making war and then invented our own."