The Gripping Hand

There were two message cubes labeled and dated. One had been given to Nabil for safekeeping aboard Base Six. The other was dictated during the long chase across the Mote system and completed just before Sinbad jumped across into Murcheson's Eye.

"Should we be looking at this?" Re

Nabil's leathery face was a mask. "Commodore, His Excellency has instructed on the package that you review this immediately." He pointed to a scrawl in Arabic. "This is your name."

"Okay."

"It also instructs me to invite witnesses, specifically Glenda Ruth Blaine and Frederick Townsend, and as many alliance Motie Mediators as may conveniently be assembled," Nabil said. "Beyond that I know nothing."

They began with the cube dictated aboard Sinbad. It showed Bury in his couch. His face was drawn and his voice exhausted. The authenticity of the cube was witnessed by Joyce Mei-Ling Trujillo and Glenda Ruth Blaine.

"That's one picture of me I'll never put on the news," Joyce said.

"I am Horace Hussein al-Shamlan Bury, trader, Magnate Citizen of the Empire of Man, pasha and citizen of the planetary principality of Ikhwan al-Muslimun, known commonly as Levant.

"This is a codicil to my will and testament left in the safekeeping of my true and faithful servant Nabil Ahmed Khadurri. I hereby confirm all bequests made in that previous testament, except as may be directly and explicitly contradicted in this codicil. I dictate this document in the full knowledge that neither it nor this ship is likely to survive our present mission; but Allah may will differently.

"I hereby name Kevin Re

"I confirm the bequest of my house, my lands, and all entailed properties on Ikhwan al-Muslimun shall be divided among my blood relatives by the laws of my home planet; except that to my great-nephew Elie Adjami I leave the sum of one crown and what he has stolen from me. It is less than the law would have given him, but the choice was his.

"It is my strong recommendation to the Empire that Kevin Re

"Great Ghu," Re

"My God, Kevin, I think they will," Joyce said.

"Governor or not, I know that Kevin Re

"The balance of my holdings of Imperial Autonetics, amounting to an additional sixty-five percent of the total voting stock, shall be divided as follows:

"To my oldest living grandson, thirty-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine shares. To Eudoxus as representative of the Motie family known as Medina Traders, thirty thousand shares. To Omar as representative of the Motie Family known as the East India Company, twenty thousand shares. To Victoria as representative of the Motie Family known as the Crimean Tartars, five thousand shares. To the Motie Mediator known as Au Baba, thirty thousand shares."

Bury's image chuckled. And well he might, Re

"One final bequest: to Roderick, Lord Blaine, onetime captain of the Imperial cruiser MacArthur, I bequeath the personal sealed files designated with his name. They contain information about agents who have been useful to the Empire of Man, but who may now be dangerous. I know that Lord Blaine will satisfactorily carry the moral obligations of this knowledge.

"As for the rest, you will find the details in the cube I have entrusted to Nabil. I have provided generously for those who have served me faithfully. I believe that I have faithfully discharged my duties to Allah, to my compatriots, and to the Empire; and whatever Allah wills for my future, I am content that we have done all we could do.

"Witness my voice and signature, Horace Hussein al-Shamlan Bury, aboard the ship Sinbad somewhere in the Mote system."

Look round our world; behold the chain of love.

Confirming all below and all above,

See plastic nature working to his end,

The single atoms each to other tend,

Attract, attracted to, the next in place

Form'd and impell'd its neighbor to embrace.

See matter next, with various life endu'd

Press to one center still, the gen'ral good.

See dying vegetables life sustain,

See life dissolving vegetate again;

All forms that perish other forms supply,

(By turns we catch the vital breath and die)

Like bubbles on the sea of matter born,

They rise, they break, and to that sea return.

Nothing is foreign; parts relate to whole;

One all-extending all-preserving soul

Co

Made beast in aid of man and man of beast;

All serv'd, all serving! nothing stands alone;

The chain holds on, and where it ends, unknown.

Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man