The Gripping Hand

PART 2 - SPARTA

Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason?

For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.

Sir John Harington

1 Capital

For forms of government let fools contest:

What're is best administered is best.

City

Alexander Pope, ‘Epistle III, Of the Nature and

State of Man with Respect to Society"

AD. 3046

Imperial University

The Imperial University was founded in CoDominium times as the University of Sparta and enjoyed close ties to several Earth institutions including the University of Chicago, Stanford University, Columbia, Westinghouse Institute, and the University of Cambridge. In exchange for the privilege of appointing a majority of the regents, the first kings of Sparta endowed the University of Sparta with extensive lands in the hill regions south and east of the capital. Much of that land was subsequently leased to commercial institutions, so that the University enjoys a large income not under political control. The name was changed to Imperial University during the early years of the First Empire,

The capital has also expanded to engulf lands previously granted to the aristocracy, some of whom retain estates now surrounded by city buildings.

The study at Blaine Manor looked like what the designer had imagined were the rooms of an Oxford don in the nineteenth century. The furniture was leather and dark wood. Holograms of books lined the seven-meter walls, and a rolling ladder stood in one corner. Roderick, Lord Blaine, Earl of Acrux, DSC, GCMG, Captain ISN (Ret.), frowned at it as he went past. Nobody ever used it except to maintain the hologram generators. He'd sworn a dozen times to have the place redecorated to something more functional, but so far nothing that appealed to him was satisfactory to Sally, and it did show images of real books in his library. As usual he looked over some of the titles. Macaulay's History of England stood next to Gibbon Crofton's Guide to the CoDominium. Savage's classic Lysunder the Great. Ought to read that one again...

Blaine crossed the study and went into the small office off to one side. "I thought I heard a door slam."

Sally Blaine looked up from the computer. "Glenda Ruth."

"Another fight?"

"Let's just say our daughter is not entirely happy with the rules at Blaine Manor."

"Independent sort. Reminds me of someone I used to know."

"Used to know? Thank you."

Rod grinned and put a hand on her shoulder. "Still do. You know what I mean."

"I suppose-you didn't come in here to talk about Glenda Ruth."

"No, but maybe I ought to have a word with her."

"I wish you would, but you never do. What's up?"

"Got a message. Guess who's coming to visit?"

Sally Blaine looked back at the computer screen and scowled. "Thank you very much. I've just managed to straighten out our social schedule. Who?"

"His Excellency Horace Hussein al-Shamlan Bury, Magnate. And Kevin Renner."

Sally thought. "It'd be nice to see Mr. Renner again. And, Bury comes with him, I seem to remember. Watchdog. I suppose-"

"I won't have Bury in our home. He was one of the instigators of the New Chicago revolt." Lady Blaine froze.

He squeezed her shoulder. "Sorry."

"I'm all right." She patted his hand, then ran fingertips up into the loose sleeve of his dressing gown. Smooth, ridged, hairless. "Your scars are real."

"You spent weeks in a prison camp, and you lost your friend."

"It was a long time ago, Rod. I can't even remember Dorothy's face. Rod, I'm glad you didn't tell me then. Nine months on MacArthur with Horace Bury. I'd have spit in his face."

"No, you wouldn't. You won't now. I know you. I suppose we'll have to see him, but we'll keep it to a minimum. I gather Bury's done some good work for the Secret Service."

"Let me think about it. At the worst we can take them to dinner. Someplace neutral. I do want to see... Sir Kevin?"

"Right again, I'd forgotten. I want to see him, too." Blaine smiled. "For that matter, so will Bruno Cziller. I better tell him his crazy navigator is in town. Tell you what, love. Since the news came through the Institute, I'll invite them to the Institute. They may regret that. Everyone and his dog will want to interview them."

When Sally turned around, she was smiling broadly. "Yes, the Institute. We have a surprise for His Excellency, don't we?"

"What-hey! He'll think he's back in MacArthur. We'll test out his bioheart!"

***WARNING***

You have entered the controlled zone of the Imperial capital.

It is strictly forbidden to remain in this star system without permission. Notify the Navy ships on patrol at the Alderson entry points and follow instructions. The Navy is authorized to use deadly force against uncooperative intruders.

Transmit your identification codes immediately

**YOU WILL RECEIVE NO FURTHER WARNING MESSAGES**

Cruising through Sparta system could make a man nervous.

The sky was no different, except in that all skies are different. Stars formed new patterns. The little KO star Agamemnon was a bright white flare growing to become a sun. The companion star Menalaus was a fat red spark. Asteroids sparkled well below Sinbad's path, and then tiny crescents that showed as ringed and banded gas giants in the screens.

That was how star travel was. Cruise outward, find the Jump point, Jump across interstellar distance in a wink. Blast across space to the next Jump point. Then cruise inward through the new system, new planets, toward a new world with different climate, customs, attitudes

But Sparta was the capital of the Empire of Man.

The black sky was as peaceful as it would have been anywhere; but there were voices. Alter course. Increase deceleration. Watch your exhaust vector, Sinbad! Warning. Identify. Those gas giants, so peculiarly and conveniently close to Sparta's orbit with their massive atmospheres of spacecraft fuel and industrial chemicals, were surrounded by great naval installations massively guarded. Ships guarded the score of Jump points that led everywhere in the Empire. Eyes watched Sinbad as Renner brought the yacht inward.

Renner maintained his cool as best he could. His image was at stake... and Ruth was having a wonderful time, but Bury needed calming. Horace Bury didn't like being watched, particularly by weapons that could tear the skin off a continent.

Sparta was white on blue, the colors of a nearly typical water world. Renner glimpsed the curled shape of Serpens, the mainland; the rest was one tremendous ocean with a few dots of island. The planet's near vicinity swarmed with ships and orbital junk, growing thicker in geosynchronous orbit.

Customs kept changing Renner's path to avoid collisions as he moved inward. He didn't see much of what he was avoiding, though he did come in view of a tremendous wheel-shaped space station. Most of this was military stuff, he thought. Most incoming ships had to park on the moon; but Customs knew Horace Bury.

They knew him well, and not as an agent of the Secret Service. They were beginning their search of Sinbad as Renner took the shuttle out of its bay and started his descent.

It was his first sight of Sparta, and Ruth's, too. They watched avidly as the world came close.

Water. Sparta seemed all ocean, what he could see through the clouds. The shuttle moved into darkness and he saw only a smooth black curve.

Then: rough edges on the horizon. Then: lights. Islands, myriads of them, all tiny, all glowing; and a shape like a coiled snake on fire. Sparta was tectonically active, but lava had boiled up preferentially on this limb of the planet. Serpens, the Australia sized mainland, had one terrific harbor: the land was stretched into a mountainous rugged helix. Mountain ridges were dark patches in the luminescence. Farmland was rectangular patterns of tiny lights. There was a lot of it. Cityscape blazed; there was a lot of city, too. Even the water crawled with tiny moving lights.

The capital of an interstellar Empire was bound to be crowded.

He steered wide of Serpens, circling the coast as he shed speed. The radio was quacking at him; he tried not to say anything amusing. He'd never found a Customs officer with a sense of humor, not on any world.

He was low enough to see phosphorescent wakes behind some of the hundreds of ships. There were barges floating on the water, houses and bigger habitats. Population: 500 million, most of it gathered in this one spot. It struck Renner that if he flew a sonic boom straight across the mainland, Bury would be wiped out by the fines.

"Horace? How are you doing?"

"Fine, Kevin, fine. You're a good pilot."

Bury had been affable with Customs, but when they hung up, Renner had heard esoteric cursing. Now he asked, "What did Customs do to get you so upset?"

"Nothing. You know where to land?"

"They're telling me yet again. Black water, just ahead of us. We'll come down outside the harbor and spiral in like a big boat. I wonder where they'd put me down on a rough day"

Bury said nothing for a bit. Then, "On Sparta I am a second class citizen. Only here, but forever. Department-store clerks will serve me, and I can bribe a headwaiter and hire my own car. But there are parts of Sparta I may never see, and on the slidewalks…"

"You're getting mad before anyone's insulted you. Oh, well, why wait till the last minute?"

"I've been to Sparta before. Why in Allah's Merciful Name couldn't Cunningham see me today?"

"Maybe he thinks he's giving you a day's rest."

"He's making me wait. Damn him. My superior. Bless you for not using that word, Ruth, but I knew what you were thinking."

Ruth said, "It's a technical term."

"Of course."

On Serpens the flat land had been occupied long ago, as farmland or baronial estates. New buildings such as the Imperial Plaza Hotel tended to cling to the sides of cliffs. The Plaza stood eighty stories tall on the low side, sixty-six on the high.

Bury's agent had rented the lowest of the suites, the seventy-first floor. It had been fully furnished, and servants were in residence; but only two were awake when they arrived.

Through the picture wall they could see a vastness of sea and islands and a hundred shapes of boats and ships, and Sparta's gross red sun easing clear of the water. It was five in the morning of a twenty-hour day. By ship's time it was close to noon. "I feel like a serious breakfast," Renner said. "Coffee. Real cream, not protocarb milk. Restaurant probably isn't open, though."

Bury smiled. "Nabil-"

The kitchen staff had to be awakened. Breakfast took over an hour to appear, while they emptied their suitcases and settled in. Lots of luggage. No telling how long they would be on Sparta. How persuasive would Bury need to be?

Maniac. But was he wrong? It might be vital that a Master Trader send himself to inspect the Crazy Eddie Fleet on patrol at Murcheson's Eye. But if the Secret Service wanted something else from him... well, they had something on Bury. Probably something political.

They'd all learn tomorrow.

"Every little boy and girl wants to see Sparta," Renner told Ruth.

"What do we want to see first?"

Bury said, "The Institute doesn't open until noon. We'll have four hours to play in, I think. I expect I'll drop in at the Traders Guild and make some waves. Ah, here's Nabil."

Breakfast featured two species of eggs and four varieties of sausage and two liters of milk. The fruits all looked familiar. So did the eggs: chicken and quail. Life on Sparta (Renner now remembered reading) had never really conquered the land. There wasn't enough land to make it cost-effective. The planet had been seeded with a variety of Terran wildlife, and an ecology established itself with little native competition.

"They eat two meals on Sparta, breakfast and dinner. We should eat our fill," Bury told them.

"The milk's a little odd," Ruth said.

"Different cows eating different grass. Mark of authenticity, Ruth. Protocarb milk always tastes the same, every ship in the universe."

"Honestly, Kevin, I like protocarb milk."

The coffeepot was tall and bulbous. Bury looked underneath it. "Wideawake Enterprise," he said.

"You don't sound happy about it," Ruth Cohen said.

"Motie technology," Renner said. "Probably common here."

"Very common here," Bury said. "Nabil, do we have a computer?"

"Yes, Excellency. The call name is Horvendile."

"Horvendile, this is Bury."

"Confirm," a contralto voice said from the ceiling.

"Horvendile, this is His Excellency Bury," Nabil said.

"Accepted. Welcome to the Imperial Plaza, Your Excellency."

"Horvendile, phone Jacob Buckman, astronomer, associated with the University."

A moment passed. Then a somewhat waspish voice said, "This is Jacob Buckman's auxiliary brain. Dr. Buckman is asleep. Your Excellency, he thanks you for the gifts. Is there sufficient urgency to wake him?"

"No. I am at the Imperial Plaza and will be on Sparta for a week. I would like an appointment when convenient. Social hours."

"Dr. Buckman has meetings Wednesday afternoon and evening, and nothing else."

"I suggest Thursday afternoon and dinner Thursday night."

"I will tell him. Do you wish to record a message?"

"Yes. Jacob, I'd like to see you before one of us dies of old age and sloppy medical techniques. I told your machine Thursday, but any time will do. Message ends."

"Is there anything else?" Buckman's voice asked.

"Thank you, no."

"I will inform Horvendile when the appointment is confirmed. Good day."

"Horvendile."

"Your Excellency."

"Appointment with Dr. Jacob Buckman at his convenience, highest social priority."

"Acknowledged."

"Thank you, Horvendile. Now get me an appointment with the president of the Traders Guild."

The contralto voice said, "That is His Excellency Benjamin Sergei Sachs, chairman of Union Express. When did you wish to see him?"

"As soon as possible."

There was a pause. "His computer reports this morning is free. Shall I ask for an immediate appointment?"

"Yes, Horvendile." Bury sipped coffee. "Where will you go?"

Renner shrugged. "Doubtless we'll think of something. Are you sure you'll be able to see the president of the ITA on such short notice?"

Bury's smile was thin. "Kevin, I control seven seats on the board. Not a majority, but more than enough to veto a candidate for president. Yes, I think Ben Sachs will see me."

"His Excellency will be delighted to see you at any time, Your Excellency," the ceiling said. "If you wish, he will send a limousine."

"Please ask him to do so. Thank you, Horvendile."

The exterior facade of the clubrooms of the Imperial Traders Association alternated phases of opulent ostentation and quiet elegance, It had recently been redecorated in plain white marble. The severe lines extended into the lobby, but beyond the Members' door were the familiar walnut-paneled walls and original oil paintings Bury remembered from the last time he was there.

The President was waiting for him in a private conference room and stood when Bury drove his travel chair into the room. He was a large man, impeccably dressed in a dark tunic and matching trousers. A yellow sash broke the monotony of colors. Excellency. Good to see you. All well, I take it?" -

"Yes, thank you, Your Excellency. And yourself? Splendid."

Bury indicated his travel chair. "Sparta gravity."

"Of course. Some days I wouldn't mind getting around in a travel chair myself. What can I do for you, Excellency?"

"Thank you, nothing. I have only come to see my colleagues and enjoy my club."

"I'm glad you can find the time. But if there is anything at all we can do..."

"Well, perhaps there is a small favor you could do for me."

"Your Excellency has only to name it."

"How well do we get along with the government this year?"

Sachs shrugged. "Probably as well as we ever do. Of course they will never love us."

"It may be that you could help me. I wish to visit the blockade fleet off Murcheson's Eye."

Sachs's eyes widened. "The Navy has never been fond of us."

Bury snorted. "They hate us."

"Many do."

"I hope to persuade the Navy," Bury said. "What I must be sure of is expeditious service from the bureaucracy when I need the formal documents."

Sachs grinned broadly. Clearly he had been expecting a more difficult task. "Ah. That should be no problem. Your Excellency, I think you should meet the Honorable George Hoskins, our Vice President for Public Affairs."

"George Hoskins. Of Wideawake Enterprises?"

"Yes, Excellency." Sachs looked thoughtful. "His company does compete with yours, but then nearly everyone does! Have you met him?"

"I never had the pleasure."

"Then I must introduce you. I will send for him"

Bury touched the keys of the shorthand ball built into his travel chair. After a moment a voice spoke quietly in his ear:

"Wideawake Enterprises. Founded in 3021 by George Hoskins (now the Honorable George Hoskins, PC), formerly of New Winchester. The company's first product was a coffee-filtering system based on Motie technology. Imperial Autonetics asked for an injunction prohibiting sale of the Wideawake Coffeepot on the grounds that IA had exclusive license to exploit Motie technology, but this was rejected by the Imperial Court of Appeals on the grounds that all Motie technology had been obtained by the Navy, and any unclassified knowledge was therefore public domain.

"IA investigation revealed that Hoskins had a brother-in-law aboard INSS Hadley at the time that the ship's coffee-making system disappeared, and that the redesign which made the coffeepot easier to reproduce was primarily the work of Harvey Lavrenty, married to Hoskins's daughter Miriam.

"Aggressive marketing combined with a readiness of the civilian economy to accept the Wideawake Coffee System resulted in unprecedented sales and-"

Bury switched off the voice. He remembered the rest. Two years and a million crowns to master the secrets of the magic coffeepot. Nearly 50 million to expand and reconvert factories. The Navy had bought coffeepots as fast as Imperial Autonetics could make them and paid well; but the real money would have been in selling to civilians. Then Hoskins and Wideawake burst on the scene.

Imperial Autonetics had done Hoskins's advertising for him. Civilians had been hearing about the Navy's magic coffeepots for two years. IA remained second in sales to this day.

Bury said, "I look forward to meeting the Honorable Mister Hoskins with great pleasure."

The Honorable George Hoskins was a round, cheerful man, expensively dressed. He had a wide smile and a handshake of great enthusiasm. After introductions, Sachs excused himself and left them in the conference room.

Hoskins bubbled. "You're a legend, you know, throughout the Empire. Can I get you coffee?" A wide-open face that showed every thought, and guilt was not there. A man who never remembered a crime. Horace Bury at least knew when he had something to hide!

"Thank you. I'll serve myself," Bury said. "Would you care for some waterwing liqueur? I had a case sent over." Wherever Sinbad set down, Bury would buy several cases of something distinctive. They made easy gifts.

There had been a time when Turkish coffee wasn't available at the ITA, but that was before Bury controlled seven seats on the board. Now there were three varieties. Bury chose a Mocha Sumatra mix and sipped while Sachs perched at the edge of a massage chair

"I'd give half my fortune to visit Mote Prime," he said. "What's really like?"

Bury had heard that question too often. "Light gravity. Sunset all the time, from the red sun in daytime and Murcheson's Eye at night. The air is slow poison, but masks were all we needed. Architecture straight out of nightmares, and nightmare shapes moving through it. I was frightened all the time, and you know, they did murder three midshipmen who strayed out of open territory through no fault of their own."

"I know. Still, we should go back. What they could teach us!"

Hoskins was among the most enthusiastic supporters of that faction, the Traders who wanted open contact with the Mote. Small wonder. Still-could he be talked around?

"You made your fortune in Motie technology, Mister Hoskins. You counted coup on me, in fact. Has it crossed your mind that someone might take new Motie technology and do the same to you? Some Motie entrepreneur?"

Hoskins chuckled. "Oh, Excellency, how would they-Motie entrepreneurs?"

"You have read of the Motie Mediators? They are assigned to study important visitors. Study is not strong enough. They learn everything they can, until they think like the subject of their attentions.

"One was assigned to me."

Hoskins had been listening with a puzzled expression. Now it changed to alarm. "There will be Moties who think the way you do?"

"It seems likely. Worse, from your view. They will think the way I did in those times, when I was younger and more aggressive." He did not add that his Fyunch(click) was certainly dead by now.

"It's tough enough competing with you," Hoskins said. "A Motie who thinks like you and has Motie technology would be- formidable."

Bury smiled in satisfaction. "I hoped you might see it that way. Now there is another matter. What are the disturbing rumors I hear concerning the Blockade Fleet's budget?"

Hoskins shrugged. "Certainly many of the stories we have heard about waste and inefficiency were not rumors. Have you seen the series by Alysia Joyce Mei-Ling Trujillo in the Capital Update?"

"Summaries."

"Ms. Trujillo has found corruption, inefficiency, waste-more than enough to justify an investigation."

"You want to cut the Blockade Fleet budget?" Bury asked.

"Certainly. When did we ever support larger appropriations for the Navy?"

"When we run into Outies. When our trade ships are threatened by pirates."

"I see. This is serious, then."

"Serious enough that they're sending a new Viceroy to New Caledonia," Hoskins said. "Baron Sir Andrew Calvin Mercer. Do you know him?"

"No."

"Sorry, of course you wouldn't. He spent most of his time in the Old Earth sector. Would you like to meet him? He's introducing our guest speaker at the dinner tonight. I can arrange to have you at the head table if you like."

Tonight? And the University this afternoon. A busy day, but this was urgent. "I would be honored," Bury said.

Bury settled into the limousine.

"Imperial Plaza to collect Sir Kevin Renner," he told the driver. "Then to the Blaine Institute."

"Yes, sir."

The limousine's bar held local liquors, rum, and vodka, and a Mote-technology thermos of coffee made by Nabil before Bury left, but he selected a bulb of fruit juices. A bottle of evil-tasting tonic rested beside the thermos. Bury poured a shot glass full and drank with a grimace, then killed the taste with fruit juice.

A small price to pay for a clear head and good memory at my age. He reached for his shorthand ball and let his fingers play over the keys. He had mastered the modern practice of conversing with computers, but he often preferred keyboards. They made the machines seem less human. He liked that.

"Sir Andrew Mercer, Baron Calvin," the computer said into his ear. "Distantly related to the Imperial family on his mother's side. Widower. Two children. Lieutenant Commander the Honorable Andrew Calvin Mercer, Jr., serves aboard INSS Terrible. Dr. Jeana Calvin Ramirez is Associate Professor of History at Undine University on Tanith.

"Appointed a junior officer in the Department of Commonwealth Affairs upon graduation from New Harvard University in 3014 and has remained continuously in the civil service from then to present. Inducted as a Commander of the Imperial Order, 3028; Knight of St. Michael and St. George, 3033. Succeeded to status of civil baron on the death of his father in 3038.

"Series of staff offices until appointed Lieutenant Governor of Franklin in 3026. When the Governor was killed in an Outie attack, Mercer became Acting Governor and was confirmed in post of Governor in 3027. Rapid promotions thereafter. Was Chief of Mission with rank of Ambassador in the negotiations leading to the reincorporation of New Washington in 3037. Privy Counselor after 3038. Secretary of State for Trans-Coal Sack Affairs, 3039 to present. Member of board of directors, Blaine Institute, 3040 to present.

"Appointment as Viceroy, Trans-Coal Sack Sector, to take effect upon his arrival at New Caledonia."

"More," Bury muttered. "Motivations and ambitions?"

"Moderate personal wealth. Prefers honors to increase in fortune. Has written two articles purporting to prove that his family held title of marquis during the First Empire. He hopes to regain the title."

"Evidence?"

"Calvin has become a client of Haladay Genealogical Services, and a member of the Augustan Society. He has made no secret of his ambition. Haladay is a subsidiary of Confidential Services, Inc."

"Enough," Bury said. Moderate personal wealth, and he wouldn't become Viceroy until he reached New Caledonia. He wouldn't be traveling in any lavish style. Bury smiled thinly.

2 Tourists

We have explained in various ways all things to men in this Qur'an; but of all things man is most contentious.

al-qur'an

The bus was supposed to land on the hotel roof at 0830. Kevin and Ruth got there five minutes early. A dozen others waited for the tour to start.

The rooftop was still shadowed by the mountains to the east, but south and west the harbor was in bright sunshine. Even this early the vast harbor bay was lined with the wakes of both big ships and sailing craft. A warren of small boats, power and sail, many of them multihulled, jammed much of the docking area nearest the hotel. Most appeared to be yachts, but there were also square-hulled junks covered with laundry and children.

The tops of the mountains to the east and north were hidden in clouds.

Renner pointed. Far to the south they could see where the continent ended in steep mountains. "Blaine Institute is down there. According to the maps it's over a hundred kilometers to the ocean."

"One benefit of empire," Ruth said. Renner raised an eyebrow. "Clear air. Out in the new provinces they're still burning coal."

"True enough. Bury makes a fortune bringing in fusion plants and power satellites. It helps if your customers have to buy-"

"They don't have to buy from Bury. And even if they did, hey, it's worth it!"

Renner took a deep breath. "Sure."

The bus landed on the hotel roof at exactly 0830. When Kevin and Ruth got on, a small man with a round face and red-veined nose looked at them quizzically. "Sir Kevin Renner?"

"That's me."

"Durk Riley. I'm your guide, sir. And you must be Commander Cohen."

"Did we order a guide?" Ruth asked.

"Nabil," Renner said.

"I've reserved you seats, sir." Riley indicated three places near the front of the bus. "Always like to have Navy people with me. I put in nearly forty years. Retired as coxs'n about twenty years ago. I'd have stayed in, but my wife talked me out of it. Civilian life's no good, you know. Nothing to do. Nothing important. Well, I don't mean that the way it sounds."

Ruth smiled. "We understand."

"Thank you, ma'am. I don't usually talk so much about myself. Sure glad to see Navy people. You Navy, Sir Kevin?"

"Reserve. Sailing Master. I went inactive about the same time you retired."

Kevin and Ruth took their seats and settled back. Riley produced a hip flask. "Little nip?"

"Thank you, no," Kevin said.

"You're thinking it's a bit early. Guess it is, even for Sparta, but with the short days we tend to do things a little different here."

"Well, why not?" Kevin reached for the flask. "Good stuff. Irish?"

"What they call Irish most places. We just call it whiskey. Better strap in."

The sky was as crowded as the sea. The bus rose through a swarm of light planes and heavy cargo craft and other airfoil-contoured buses, curved wide away from an empty area a minute before some kind of spacecraft came whistling through it, and went east toward the mountains. It followed the tiers of houses and estates up into the clouds. They broke through cloud cover to see that the black mountaintops went up high above them.

"That's pretty," Ruth said. "What do you call those mountains?"

"Drakenbergs," Riley said. "Run down most of the length of the Serpens. Serpens is the continent."

"Barren up here," Renner said.

The Serpens had a sharp-curled spine, black mountain flanks bare of life. Sparta hadn't developed foliage to handle that soil, and it held too much heavy metal for most earthly plants. The tour director told them that and more as they flew along the spine of the continent.

The bus dropped back below the tablecloth of clouds and followed the curve of the mountains to where they dipped into the ocean, dropped to half a kilometer altitude, and headed south across the harbor.

"That's Old Sparta to the left," Riley said. "Parts date back to CoDominium days. See that green patch with tall buildings around it? That's the Palace area."

"Will we go closer?" Ruth asked.

"‘Fraid not. There are Palace tours, though."

Boats of every size moved randomly across the calm water. They continued south. The calm water of the tremendous harbor changed from green to blue, sharply. The sea bottom was visible, still shallow; the boats were fewer, and larger.

"It doesn't show," Ruth said.

"Yeah." Renner had guessed what she meant. "They rule a thousand worlds from here, but... it's like the zoo on Mote Prime. Sure it's a different world, sure there's nothing like it anywhere in the universe, but you get used to that when you travel enough. You expect major differences. But it's not fair, Ruth. We look for worlds like Earth because that's where we can live."

Riley was staring. Other heads had turned from windows. Zoo on Mote Prime?

"Defenses," Ruth said. "There's a difference. Sparta must be the most heavily defended world of all."

"Yeah. And all that means is, there are places the bus won't go. And questions Mr. Riley won't answer."

Riley said, "Well, of course."

Ruth was smiling. "Don't test that, all right? I know you. We're on holiday."

"Okay."

"I don't know anything about Sparta's defenses anyway," Riley said uncomfortably. "Mr. Renner? You were on the Mote expedition?"

"Yup. Riley, I didn't keep any secrets, and it's all been declassified. You can get my testimony under What I Did on My Summer Vacation, by Kevin Renner. Published by Athenaeum in 3021. I get a royalty,"

There was a storm to the east. The bus flew west and dropped even lower (the ride became bumpy) to fly above a huge cargo ship. Big stabilizer fins showed with the roll of the waves, waves the size of small hills. There were pleasure boats, too, graceful sailing boats that rolled as they climbed up and down the water mountains; their sails were constantly shifting along the masts.

The bus skimmed over a big island patterned in rectangles of farmland. "That's the Devil Crab," Riley said. "Two sugarcane plantations and maybe a hundred independents. I'd love to be a farmer. They don't pay taxes."

Renner jumped. "Hey?"

"Population's dense on Sparta. The cost of land on Serpens is... well, I never tried to buy any, but it's way up there. If the farmers didn't get some kind of break, they'd all sell out to the people who build hotels. Then all the food would have to be shipped in from far away, and where would the Emperor get his fresh fruit?"

"Wow! No taxes. What about these guys below us?"

"They don't pay either. Transport costs are high, and the produce isn't as fresh when it gets to Serpens. The Serpens farmers can still compete. Even so, this is the way I'd go. Lease an island a thousand klicks from Serpens and raise beef. There's no room to raise red meat on this part of Serpens."

They veered away from another rocky island that seemed to be covered with a patchwork of concrete slabs and domes. "There's some of the defense stuff," Renner said. "Battle management radars, and I'd bet there are some pretty hefty lasers in there."

"It's a good guess, but I wouldn't know," Riley said.

Presently the bus turned north and east and flew toward the narrow hooked spit that enclosed the harbor from the west. "That was the prison colony back in CoDominium days," Riley said. "If you look close, you can see where the old wall was. Ran right across the peninsula."

"There? It's mostly parks," Ruth said. "Or-"

"Rose gardens," Riley said. "When Lysander II tore down old prison walls, he gave all that area to the public. There's rose festival every year. Citizen fraternities compete, and it's a deal. We do tours every other day, if you're interested."

"Where's Blaine Institute?" Ruth asked.

"Off east. To the right there. See that mountain covered with buildings?"

"Yes-it looks like an old painting I saw once."

"That's the Blaine Institute?" Renner said. "Captain Blaine's richer than I suspected. And to think I knew him..."

"Did you, Sir?" Riley sounded impressed. "But that's the Biology section of Imperial University. The Institute is the smaller area next to it." He offered his binoculars. "And Blaine Manor sits on the hill just east of that. Would you like a tour of the Institute?"

"Thanks, we'll be there this afternoon," Ruth said.

The bus crossed the narrow spit and then stayed well out over the harbor. The sun had burned off most of the cloud cover over the city. The skyline was a jumble of shapes: in the center and to the south were massive square skyscrapers, thin towers, tall buildings connected by bridges a thousand feet above street level. North of that were lower granite buildings in a classic style. In the center were the green parks of the Palace district.

Renner looked thoughtful. "Ruth, think about it. The Emperor is over there. Just lob a big fusion bomb in the general direction of the Palace..."

He stopped because everyone on the bus was looking at him.

"Hey! I'm a Naval Reserve officer!" he said quickly. "I'm trying to figure out how you keep someone else from doing it. With this many people on Sparta, and visitors from everywhere, there's bound to be crazies."

"We get our share, Sir Kevin." Riley emphasized the title so everyone would hear it.

"We do check on people coming to Sparta," Ruth said. Her voice had dropped. "And it's not all that easy to buy an atom bomb."

"That might stop amateurs."

"Oh, all right," Ruth said. "Drop it, huh? It's a depressing thought."

"It's something we live with," Riley said. "Look, we have ways to spot the crazies. And generally professionals won't try because it won't do them any good. Everybody knows the royal family's never all in the same place. Prince Aeneas doesn't even live on this planet. Blow up Serpens and you'll get the Fleet mad as hell, but you won't kill the Empire. One thing we do not do-sir-is tell everybody on a random tour bus all about the defenses!"

"And one thing I don't do," Renner answered, and his voice had dropped low, "is guard my mouth. It would prevent me from learning things. Even so: sorry."

Riley grunted. "Yes, sir. Look over there. Those are the fish farms." He pointed to a series of brightly colored sea patches divided by low walls. "That's another good racket. Fish from offplanet don't do well out in Sparta's oceans. You want sea bass or ocean cat, it'll come from here or someplace like it."

The limousine was waiting at the hotel. Bury wasn't smiling. When they were airborne, he looked to Ruth. "What did Kevin do this time?"

"Eh?"

"The Secret Service asked me to verify that this was indeed my pilot, Sir Kevin Renner. Asked me."

"Oh," Ruth said. "Well, he did talk about lobbing an atom bomb at the Palace."

Bury did not look amused. "I would prefer not to be thrown off this planet."

"It wouldn't help my career much," Ruth said. "Look, maybe I better talk to them."

"You need not bother," Bury said. "Once they were certain of his identity they lost interest."

"Now I know I want to see your file, Kevin," Ruth said.

The limousine stayed low over the outskirts of the central district. Massive granite buildings stood next to parks.

Ruth stared through binoculars. "Department of Public Health," she read. "Stock Exchange. Wow, that's the Colonial Office! It doesn't look big enough."

"Nor is it," Bury said. "That building houses the offices that might be of interest to the general public, and the secretary of state. The computer and most of the offices are scattered all over the city. Many are below ground."

"Maybe someday they'll build a new building and put everything in one place," Ruth said,

Bury chuckled. "That is the new building. You would not suppose its cost, most of it paid for by taxes on interstellar trade."

"It doesn't look new," Renner said.

"No government building looks new," Bury said. "They are deliberately done in classical styles. Some show Russian influence."

"I see plenty of skyscrapers and tall walls, though," Renner said.

"Certainly. Sparta is the financial center of the Empire," Bury said. "Land near the city is very costly. Only the government could afford anything as inefficient as classical architecture. Ah. To illustrate-"

He pointed. "The Blaine Institute."

The Institute looked south at ocean beaches. The complex of buildings rose up the side of a steep cliff. Balconies broke the steep lines, and halfway up was a large flat roof dotted with small trees and picnic tables.

The limousine landed on the roof. Two ramrod-straight young men opened the doors and helped Bury into his travel chair. The ocean breeze was brisk on the rooftop. Sunlight danced on wavetops below, Ruth stretched and took a deep breath. She turned to Renner, but he wasn't looking at her.

Renner stared at a large elderly man in police uniform coming toward them. "Kelley," he said. "Gunner Kelley."

"That's me, Sir Kevin. Your Excellency."

"By damn, it is you. Ruth, this is Gunner Kelley. Imperial Marines. He was in MacArthur. Kelley, this is Lieutenant Commander Ruth Cohen."

"Pleased to meet you, ma'am."

"I thought that was a police uniform," Renner said.

"Well, it sort of is," Kelley said. "I'm security chief here at the Institute. But there's not a lot of need for that, so I've got plenty of time to greet visitors. The Earl will be glad to see you."

"Earl?" Renner said. "Isn't Blaine Marquis of Crucis?"

"No sir," Kelley said. "Not yet. The Marquis isn't as young as he used to be, but he still gets to Parliament." He gestured. One of the uniformed staff opened the door to the interior. Another guided Bury's travel chair.

The inside corridor was short. Scenes from Mote Prime decorated the walls. At the end of the corridor was a semicircular reception desk. The receptionist wore a skirted version of Kelley's uniform, and a businesslike sidearm. She held out thick badges on a tray. Their names and pictures were already on the badges.

"Welcome, Your Excellency. Sir Kevin. Commander Cohen," the receptionist said. "If you'll just thumbprint the badges..."

When Renner touched his thumb to the badge, it glowed softly green.

"Thank you. Please be sure to wear these at all times. Enjoy your stay."

There were three elevators beyond the reception desk. Kelley passed them all and indicated a fourth around the corner, marked PRIVATE. Renner noted buttons for thirty-eight floors. Kelley used a key before punching the button for twenty-four.

When they were inside, Renner frowned. "I thought you said there wasn't much need for security."

"No, I said there wasn't much need for a security chief," Kelley said. "And there isn't. I've got a good staff."

"Do you often have trouble, then?" Bury asked.

"Not too much, Your Excellency. But we have had some threats. There are people who don't like Moties. Don't want us studying them."

The twenty-fourth floor was paneled in dark wood, and thickly carpeted. The walls were hung with photographs. Ruth stared at one of them. "Kevin-Kevin, that's you."

Renner looked. "Yep, in the Museum on Mote Prime. That statue-that was the time machine."

"What?" She started to laugh, changed her mind, and looked more carefully.

"Didn't work."

"Ugh. What are those things attacking? The, uh, time machine?"

"Evil, aren't they? The Moties told us they were mythical demons defending the structure of reality. Later we found out they were Warrior-class Moties. You would not want those loose in the Empire."

Kelley led them to the end of the corridor, knocked, and opened a walnut door. "My Lady. M'Lord, your visitors."

Rod Blaine stood as the others entered. He was far enough away that he didn't have to shake hands. "Welcome to the Institute, Your Excellency. Delighted to see you again. Kevin, you're looking good. Civilian life must suit you.'

Bury managed to stand and bow. "My Lady. Lord Blaine. And may I present Lieutenant Commander Ruth Cohen. She is traveling with us." Kelley excused himself and closed the door.

"My Lady," Ruth said. She bowed to Rod.

Rod took her hand and kissed it. "Welcome to the Institute, Commander." Her ears were turning pink. Easily flustered, Rod thought. Traveling with Kevin Renner should have cured her of that.

Bury sat carefully. "If you'll excuse me."

"Oh, certainly," Sally said.

"It's been a while," Rod said. "Kevin, how have things worked out for you?"

"Not as bad as I thought they would. By the way, Ruth knows our dread secret. Most of it, anyway." Renner turned to Sally. "We heard about your uncle. Sorry. He was a good man, even if he did force me into a career of espionage."

Sally nodded. "Thank you. Uncle Ben never would take care of himself."

Ruth looked wide-eyed. "Uncle Ben-that would be Senator Benjamin Fowler. Kevin, the Prime Minister recruited you into the Secret Service?"

Renner laughed. "No, Lord Blaine did that. Senator Fowler declared an emergency so my discharge wasn't any good."

"What can we do for you, Excellency?" Rod asked.

"Why, nothing, really..."

"Your Excellency, it has been a busy day, and while I understand the custom of circumnavigating the subject before mentioning it, Lady Sally and I have a great deal more work to do."

"Ah. Thank you, my Lord," Bury said. His smile didn't seem forced. "I hope to persuade you to use your influence with the Navy. My Lord, the blockade is now a quarter of a century old. We do not agree about the Moties. You see opportunities where I see threats. Yet you agreed to bottle them within their own solar system. As did you, my Lady. We are all agreed that the situation cannot continue forever."

"Yeah, we can accept that," Rod said. "We bought some time."

"What do you want from us?" Sally asked. She was no longer trying to be polite.

"More time," Bury said firmly. "My lady, I must know that the blockade is effective. I wish to look for myself. I wish to talk to those closest to the problem. I want to look for alternatives, to see what we-what the Empire of Man-can do to be certain that the Moties will not free themselves and explode through the Empire."

"That's a big order," Rod said.

Bury said nothing.

"Horace wants Navy clearance to go have a look at the Crazy Eddie Squadron," Renner said.

Bury nodded in tiny motions. "Precisely."

"Not our decision," Sally said quickly.

Bury looked steadily at Rod Blaine.

Rod spread his hands without shrugging. "As Lady Sally says, it isn't our decision. We gave up our seats on the Commission years ago, when we moved the Institute to Sparta. But consider this, Excellency. How could anyone prove that the Moties are safely locked up?"

Bury ignored Blaine's tone. "I must see." The trader looked terribly old, terribly tired. "I have defended the Empire. I have ignored the real threat while I confined myself to thwarting treason and Outie plots. Nuisances. I will continue to do so, but I must know that the real border is defended. You think I can never be satisfied. You may even be right. But I must see for myself. I have earned that right."

Rod looked at Sally

"Earned it," Bury insisted. "I doubt that the Empire enjoys a more effective intelligence team than Kevin Renner and me. And I tell you, Lord Blaine, I must see!"

"You've made your point," Rod said. "I understand that you find this a serious matter." He looked at Sally again. "We have some developments here, too."

Sally cleared her throat. "Rod, we've got a meeting."

Rod glanced at the clock on the wall. "Sorry, I'm letting the time get away. Excellency, we're delighted to see you, but we do have a meeting with a parliamentary committee. Would you like to see what we're doing here?"

"I sure would, Captain," Renner said. "I mean, my Lord."

Blaine chuckled. "Good. We thought you might." He looked up at the ceiling. "Fyunch(click)."

The ceiling answered. "Sir."

"Ask Jennifer to come in. I'm sure you'll all like your guide. She's a graduate student in xenosociology, and she's been dying to meet the other people who've been to the Mote."

"Rod-"

Blaine waited until the door closed behind Renner. "Yeah."

"I do not want that man out there! Our son is in that fleet."

"I thought of that."

"He's a traitor," Sally said. "All right, we use him, but he doesn't have any real loyalty to the Empire. Money." She sniffed. "That's all he cares about. He'd sell us to the Moties for enough money."

Rod nodded thoughtfully. "I expect it would do no harm to have a few words with our friends in the Palace." He grinned.

"That's an evil look."

"His Excellency is due for a shock."

"Yes-are you sure you want to tell him?"

"Sally, we'll be announcing it in four days. Bury will know. We might as well get some mileage out of telling him. Hell, he may know already."

"No, I don't believe that."

"Anyway-Sally, he committed treason a quarter of a century ago, but he's right this time. The blockade bought time, but it's no solution. Sooner or later, either we'll have an Empire of two intelligent species, or a war of extermination. Sally, the Empire's going to have plenty of people who think like Bury. At least he's been there! Maybe he could be useful."

"I'd sooner convert hive rats to the Church," Sally said. "But you're right, he'll find out sooner or later, and he's a good test case. I want to see his face. We'll know how good his spies are then..."

Jennifer Banda was an inch over Renner's height, lean and dark, with just enough length of hair to suggest a white ancestor. When they were introduced, she was polite to Ruth Cohen, deferential to Renner, and almost fawned on Horace Bury.

Watusi genes, Renner speculated. If she's not dark enough, it's Sparta's weak excuse for a star.

"What would you like to see?" Jennifer had asked, and when no one knew what to say, she continued, "We can start with some of the specimen collections. There's sort of a meeting in the grad student lounge in about an hour. Would you like to go to that?"

"Yes, please," Renner said quickly.

"'About,' "Ruth Cohen said, mimicking the odd way that Jennifer had pronounced the word. "Vancouver, New Washington."

Jennifer Banda turned, startled. "Yes-"

Ruth grinned. "I'm from Astoria. Glad you weren't playing basketball when we had to play Vancouver."

Renner watched Jennifer moving ahead of him to the elevators. Nice sway to the girl. Good muscular control... and New Washington gravity had about .93 standard gee. She must have been one hell of an athlete. She must also have had a hell of a time adjusting to Spartan gravity, but clearly she'd done it.

The elevator opened onto a corridor lined with display cases. Jennifer led the way past them. She turned at the far end to find Renner ambling at leisure, peering at Mai Tai parasol fungi and huge-headed glider snakes and ponds of oddly colored water with microscope screens attached... He sighed and moved briskly to join them.

At the far end was a conference room with refreshments, a large table, and a hologram wall.

"We've got specimens from four hundred Imperial worlds and thirty Outie planets," Jennifer said. "Too many. There's no room to set up live demonstrations, so mostly we have holograms. Wanora!"

"Ready," the ceiling said.

"My sequence one, please."

"Certainly."

A series of holograms formed at the far end of the room.

"These are from water worlds," Jennifer said. "Just about every one alike. Four fins, a head, and a tail. Like us."

Another series of holograms formed. "Then there are forms evolved from planets without much water. Theory says they crawled out earlier. Six: and eight-limbed forms. The Tabletop Crazylegs with eighteen. But again all symmetric."

"You have holograms of-how many do you have?" Bury asked.

"Excellency, we try to be complete."

"Do you have the Levantine Honeypot?"

"Mmm? Wanora! Levantine Honeypot."

The holograph display showed what looked like a grossly misshapen barrel, with bright flowers at its top. Small birdlike creatures fluttered around it. Abruptly, slender tendrils shot up from the edge of the barrel to entangle one of the fliers and drag it out of sight.

"What is that?" Ruth Cohen asked.

"I confess it's new to me," Jennifer said. Text was scrolling across the screen: "Kaybo Sietzus. Local Anglic name is the Levantine Honeypot. Largely sessile carnivorous animal.

"The Honeypot is one of the largest known animal life-forms to display radial but not bilateral symmetry. Its biochemistry was thought to be unique until 3030 when Ricardo haLevy described the life cycle of the Tabletop Ground Hag, whose larval form uses similar enzyme processes."

"Ugly thing," Renner said.

"They're not very common," Bury said. "Never more than one in an oasis. Usually none at all. They can't move fast, and dogs like to eat them." He read quickly. "Interesting. When I was in school, the Honeypot was used as an example of why panspermia wasn't true. Totally unique and all that. I hadn't heard there was anything like it. I take it that the Elaine Institute accepts the panspermia theory?"

"Most of us, Excellency," Jennifer said.

Bury chuckled at the note of surprise. "Traders do not spend all their time reading commodity price reports."

"Clearly."

"Panspermia?" Ruth Cohen said.

"An old theory, from before CoDominium times," Jennifer Banda said. "The notion is that life is so improbable that it can happen only once in a galaxy."

"Omnia cellula e cellula," Renner muttered.

Ruth frowned at him.

"Sorry. A phrase they taught in school, All cells come from cells. No spontaneous generation of life. It was an early experiment in scientific discovery."

"Right," Jennifer said. "So the theory is that eventually all successful life-forms evolve a means of reproducing across interstellar distances. When we got out into space, we found there were organics all over the place, and they could cross interstellar distances by hopping rides with comet clouds. Sometime back then, I guess during the early days of the First Empire, a scientist named Sir Fred Hoyle postulated that an intelligent entity was deliberately sending biochemical messages through the galaxy."

"You don't believe that, do you?" Ruth asked.

Jennifer shrugged. "Not really, but you know, for all that people keep saying Sir Fred must have been off his head, we've never been able to disprove it. Space is just rich with improbable organics." She paused for a moment. "I think the Moties believe it."

Bury looked at her critically. "How could you possibly know that?"

"Oh. Sorry. I've been trying to think like a Motie so long sometimes I forget. I mean, I think the Moties will believe it."

The holograms continued. A score of worlds had jet black plants. "It's based on selenium and it's a lot more complicated than chlorophyll," Jennifer said. "But again we can find copies in interstellar organics. If this stuff gets rooted first, chlorophyll doesn't have a chance because the black plants use yellow sunlight better.

"Dry worlds are different. More limbs, usually. But still symmetry," Jennifer said. "Always symmetry. That's the puzzle. If only you'd brought back some seeds or something from Mote Prime!"

Renner laughed (and Bury didn't). "Admiral Kutuzov went to great lengths to prevent that. Jennifer, we pretty well accepted that all the asymmetrical forms were derived from the Engineer class, and they evolved the three arms after they were intelligent."

"Yes, they believe that, too. But of course they don't remember."

Bury looked at her quickly, but she had turned back to the holographic displays.

3 Jock

When We said to the angels:

"Bow before Adam in adoration,"

they all bowed but Iblis.

He was one of the djinni and rebelled

against his Lord's command.

And yet you take him and his offspring

us your friends.

Al-Qur'an

"This way," Jennifer Banda said. She ushered them into a twenty-fourth-floor windowed room that ran most of the length of the Institute. A dozen people in their twenties sat at tables or poured themselves coffee from an Imperial Autonetics urn. One wall of the room was French doors leading onto a veranda cantilevered out over the beach area far below. The brisk wind smelled of seawater.

"Quite a view," Ruth Cohen said.

Kevin Renner nodded absently. The atmosphere was odd. A dozen graduate students. They all knew that Kevin Renner and Horace Bury had been to Mote Prime-and they were all looking at each other, or out at a spectacular view that they had certainly seen before.

"McQuorquodale. Philosophic Journal, about six months ago," someone said. "Studies of a humming dragon in motion."

"But it's not my field."

"It'll still be on the test. Depend on it."

Jennifer led them out to the balcony. Renner went to the rail and looked over, then noticed that Ruth Cohen had stayed near the door.

"Acrophobia?"

"Maybe a little." She sat at a table near the wall, and after a moment Bury wheeled his travel chair to join her. Renner leaned against the railing and enjoyed the view while listening to the conversations behind him.

A female voice waxed eloquent about the importance of parasites in ecologies, while her male companion pretended interest. Renner remembered similar conversations when he was that age and sympathized.

Two students at the next table sipped tea. "I still say it isn't fair. I'm in political science, for God's sake. I'll never need to know anything about organic chemistry that I can't find on the computer."

"That's what you get to prove next week," another said. He chuckled. "I offered to help, Miriam Anne."

Renner took a seat between Ruth Cohen and Jennifer Banda. "Nice place." He scratched his head. "Okay, I give up."

Jennifer Banda raised an eyebrow.

"This is Blaine Institute, the primary center for the study of Moties. Here are two people who've been on Mote Prime. And no one's interested in us."

"Polite," Jennifer said. "They were warned not to bother you."

"Ah." It was the explanation Renner had expected, but he still felt something was wrong.

"We've all studied your flick, Sir Kevin. And every Imperial Autonetics report that mentions the Mote."

"Commendable," Bury said. "And of course you had the Moties to study. I presume holograms were made of everything they said."

Jennifer's answer was drowned out as the girl at the next table choked on her drink, then set it down with exaggerated care.

"What have you learned?" Bury asked.

"Well, we've compiled a general history of the Mote," Jennifer said. "As much as Jock and Charlie could remember."

"Jock and Charlie?" Ruth asked.

"Jock and Charlie and Ivan were the ambassadors from Mote Prime," Jennifer said. "Admiral Kutuzov couldn't refuse them. But you have to remember, they don't represent the whole system; not even the planet. Just one government, or even one extended family, among maybe tens of thousands."

"King Peter," Bury said, "Of course he wasn't really a king and the government wasn't really a monarchy, but that is the name they chose in hopes that it would sound familiar to us. They knew us that well, even then."

Jennifer nodded. "They certainly learned more about us than we did about them. They sent three ambassadors, a Master and two Mediators. Ruth, you know about Masters and Mediators? Moties are a differentiated species with a lot of different castes. The Masters give the orders and the Mediators talk for them. Anyway, they called the Master Ivan-probably because Admiral Kutuzov was in charge of the expedition and they thought the Russians were Masters in the Empire-and the Mediators got the names Jock and Charlie. Ivan died first, but he never talked much except through the Mediators so we didn't learn much from him. Then-anyway, as His Excellency said, we made holos of everything we could. Of course, once you get back a couple of cycles there wasn't much detail."

"Cycles," Ruth said. "I saw a lot about that in school. It's about all I remember about Moties."

"Too right," Renner said. "Everything about the Mote was cycles. Civilizations rise and fall."

"Sometimes incredibly fast," Jennifer said. "And they tried everything! Industrial feudalism, communism, capitalism, things we never even thought of. Anyway, we got lots of stories, what we'd call folk legends, but not much history."

"There couldn't be," Ruth Cohen said. "It takes continuity to make history. I can feel sorry for the Moties."

"I pity them, too," Bury said. "Who could not? They die in agony if they can't become pregnant and give birth. Endless population expansion, endless wars for limited resources. Sometimes I fear that only I can see how dangerous that makes them. Jennifer, we visited Mote Prime. A world crowded beyond description, with complex competitions for power and prestige. We were told it would collapse soon, and I believed them. We also saw signs of a civilization in the asteroid belt. Jacob Buckman told me that many of the asteroids had been moved."

"I'm surprised he noticed," Renner said.

"He lost interest in them after he found out," Bury said.

Jennifer laughed. The couple at the next table had fallen silent. They were joined by two other students who also pretended not to listen.

"We learned nothing important about the asteroid civilization," Bury said. "That has always concerned me. Perhaps you know more, now?"

"Not a lot," Jennifer said. "The-our Moties had never visited the asteroids. Jock believed that the Trailing Trojans were in an ascendant imperial phase, but he was never certain."

"The industrial feudalism on Mote Prime will long since have collapsed," Bury said. "Other systems will be emerging. Or perhaps nothing but savagery."

"Oh, surely not," the girl at the next table said.

"Circles," Renner said. "You didn't see them."

"Circles?" Ruth Cohen asked.

Before Renner could answer, the girl at the next table stood and bowed slightly. "Miriam Anne Vukcik. Political history. This is Tom Boyarski. May we join you?"

"Please do," Bury said.

"Circles?" Ruth asked again.

Renner said, "The circles were the first thing you saw from orbit. Craters everywhere, big and little, and all old, all across Mote Prime. Seas and lakes. One lopsided crater skewed by an earthquake fault line, one across a mountain range... you get the idea."

"The great asteroid war. Our Moties didn't remember anything about it," Miriam said.

"They think in circles, too. Cycles. Rise and fall. Population growth and then a war. They keep their museums to help the next civilization get itself together. They don't even try to stop it anymore. They're too old. It's been going on too long."

Miriam said, "Crazy Eddie-"

"Yeah, Crazy Eddie tries to stop it."

"I don't think I understand the Crazy Eddie myth-figure. We have plenty of legends about the coming of the Messiah and about holy madmen, but no human culture ever pinned all its hopes for the future on a savior who had to be crazy."

"Don Quixote?" Ruth Cohen grinned.

Jennifer nodded agreement. "Good point."

"Humans try the impossible. It's part of our nature," Tom Boyarski said. "Submitting to the inevitable is a big part of Motie nature."

"But Jock really liked Don Quixote," Jennifer Banda said.

"They liked the Persian story about the man who told the king he could teach a horse to sing," Tom said. "And maybe they understood intellectually. But not at a gut level." He laughed. "That's all right. We know a lot about them, too, but deep down they're still a big mystery."

"And always will be," Miriam said.

"No," Tom said. "Next time, we'll know more about what to study. Next time we'll find out."

"Next time," Bury said. "You are planning a new expedition to the Mote?"

Tom looked startled, then laughed. "I don't have the funding." For a moment he must have considered; but he wasn't young enough to suggest that Horace Bury did. "No one is," Tom said. "No one I know of, anyway. But sooner or later there's got to be one."

Jennifer Banda's pocket computer chimed. She looked embarrassed, but she stood up and said, "Excuse me, people. I was told to take you back to Lady Blaine's office."

Bury set his chair in motion. Renner stood up. "You don't understand, and that's the truth," he said. "Crazy Eddie is supposed to fail."

Instead of the receptionist, there was another woman, younger and blond and expensively dressed, in the receiving area outside Lady Sally Blaine's office. Renner had seen a picture of Glenda Ruth Fowler Blaine, but he wouldn't have needed that. She had the same finely chiseled features and penetrating eyes as her mother.

"Sir Kevin, Your Excellency," she said. Her eyes twinkled. "I thought I'd introduce myself before my parents made it all formal." Her smile was infectious. "Kevin, I'm delighted to meet you! Your Excellency, did you know my brother was named for your pilot?'

"No, my Lady-"

She nodded. Kevin Christian. "We mostly call him Chris. Mom doesn't like us chattering about family. Did they ever tell you, Kevin? But you guessed anyway. Kevin, I still have the christening cup you sent. Thank you, and thank you, too, Your Excellency! There wasn't anything like that for sale for years."

"It was crafted in our laboratories, my Lady," Bury said. His smile was genuine. "I'm pleased that you remembered."

"It still delivers the best-tasting milk on Sparta." Glenda Ruth pointed to the wall clock display of the dark and light areas of Sparta. "They're waiting for us. Uh-I'm not supposed to tell, but I hope you're prepared for a surprise." She held the door open for Bury's travel chair.

There was something about Jennifer Banda's smile as she and Glenda Ruth ushered them into Lady Blaine's office. Both Blaines were wearing that same conspiratorial smile. The air of mystery was getting on Renner's nerves.

There was another occupant.

He stood up slowly from his oddly designed travel chair, and bowed. A hairy, grinning, hunchbacked dwarf, not just short but grotesquely misshapen, too. You don't stare at a dwarf, and Renner was in control of his expression, but he lost it all when the stranger bowed. His backbone jutted, broken in two places.

The mind would always misinterpret that first sight.

It stood four and a half feet tall. It was hairy. The brown and white markings were still visible, though they had shaded mostly to white. There was one big ear on the right side, and no room for one on the left; the massive shoulder muscles ran right up to knobs at the top of the misshaped skull. There were two slender right arms. The dolphin-grin was simply the shape of its face.

Renner gaped. For a moment he couldn't take his eyes off it and then he remembered Bury.

Horace Bury's face was all the wrong colors. He'd opened the case in the arm of his travel chair, but his hands were shaking too badly to deal with the diagnostic sleeve. Renner slipped it into place. The system began feeding Bury tranquilizers at once. Renner studied the readings for a moment before he looked up.

"Captain, that was nasty. I mean my Lord. My Lord Blaine, you could have killed him, dammit!"

"Dad, I told you-"

Earl Blaine nibbled his lip. "I hadn't thought. Your Excellency..."

Bury was furious, but he had it under control. "An excellent joke, my Lord. Excellent. Who are you?"

The Motie said, "I'm Jock, Excellency. It's good to see you in such health."

"Yes. It must be, considering. I find it stunning to see you in such health. Did you lie to us? Mediators die around age twenty-five, you said. All Moties die if they cannot be made pregnant, and the Mediators are mules. Sterile, you said."

Renner said, "Between the legs."

Bury looked. "Male? Allah's... blessing. Lord Blaine-Lady Blaine-this is a stunning achievement. How?"

Sally Blaine said, "Fyunch(click), give us Charlie 490."

There was a holowall. Understandably, Renner had not noticed it. Now it showed what looked to be shadows of a CAT scan, the interior of something not human. A Motie, of course. The hips: one intricate and massive joint in backbones as solid as the bones of a human leg. Mote Prime had never invented vertebrae.

The camera zoomed within the abdomen. A white arrowhead pointed to tiny tadpole-shapes clinging to the abdominal wall.

"That," Lady Sandra Fowler Blaine said, "is the C-L worm. We did gene-tailoring on a symbiote in the digestive tract. Now it secrets male hormone. It was already secreting something a lot like it. This wasn't the first thing we tried, but we tried all kinds of things, and this didn't get enough attention. Ivan died before we were ready. We think Charlie was killed by the physiological change, female to male. He was too old."

Bury's color was better. "You've broken the Motie breeding cycle."

"We've repaired the cycle, Your Excellency," Lady Blaine said coolly. "It's broken in Mediators. Child, male, female, pregnant, male, female, pregnant, that's how it goes with Motie classes. But Mediators are sterile mules, so they're only male once, and they die young.

"We only had three Moties to test, but we could ask questions. When a Motie's been male awhile, the single testis withers and the Motie goes female. Giving birth excites cells in the birth canal, and more testes form, but only one grows to term."

"He's carrying more than one of your worms," Renner pointed out.

"We worried about that, but it's not a problem," Glenda Ruth said. "The kidney flushes the extra hormone. This is an old, well established Motie parasite. It had already evolved practically to symbiote stage. It won't overbreed inside its host. The hormone itself inhibits that, and the worm long ago developed other mechanisms to protect the host."

Bury's eyes flicked to Renner's. They must have been thinking exactly alike: there'd be no problem transporting the symbiote.

Bury said, "What next, my Lady?"

Sally nibbled her lip. "We don't know. Kevin? I think you understood the Crazy Eddie concept better than most of us. Would they want this?"

"Of course they will!" Glenda Ruth said.

Sally looked at her daughter coldly, then turned back to Renner.

"Does this make them fertile?" Renner asked.

"No. Not Mediators, anyway," Sally said.

"Keepers," Renner said.

Bury nodded. Keepers were sterile male Masters, less ambitiously territorial than most Motie Masters. The title came from the Keepers of the Museums and other public facilities, and three Imperial midshipmen had died to find that out.

Renner grinned suddenly. "Mediators would want it. Masters would want it for their enemies. But you don't know it works on Masters."

"No. But it does work on Mediators. And if we had a Master to test..."

"Kevin," Bury said.

"Yeah?" Bury still looked sick, Renner glanced at the clock face on the travel chair. A dull orange light glowed on its face. "Yeah, you've got to get ready for dinner at the Traders Guild. My Lord, my Lady-"

"We should speak further on this." Bury seemed to have trouble manipulating his lips. "Later. You have a, an exceedingly powerful... tool."

"We know it," Rod Blaine said. "We won't forget. How long will you be on Sparta, Kevin?'

"Say two weeks. Maybe three." As long as it takes, Renner thought. Now, if not before.

"Kevin, let's have dinner," Glenda Ruth said. "I mean, no one can get mad if a girl has dinner with her brother's godfather." She looked at her mother and smiled sweetly. "Can they?"

Renner was sleeping like a baby, but the door chime snapped him awake. He asked, "Horvendile, is Bury present?"

"His Excellency has just entered."

Ruth stirred. "Kevin? What is it?"

"I think I should go hold Bury's hand."

Nabil passed him at the door to the parlor. Renner asked, "How is he? Is he likely to want to talk?"

"He ordered hot chocolate," Nabil said.

"Okay. Two."

The travel chair was in the middle of the rug. Bury was looking straight ahead, motionless, like a stuffed dummy. Presently he said, "I was affable."

"I'm impressed. What was His Highness like?"

"He will not become ‘His Highness' until he assumes his duties as Viceroy." Bury shook his head slightly. "We were at the same table, but several seats apart. Later, many crowded around him in the clubrooms. I formed the impression of intelligence and charisma, but that would be apparent from his career. Really I learned nothing I had not known, but at least we have been formally introduced, and I detected no signs of distaste."

"So what's next?"

"I persuaded him to come to dinner Thursday. It was the only time slot he had. He can listen to me and Jacob reminisce."

"That'll tell him if he wants to travel with us to New Cal."

"Yes. Horvendile, determine Lord Andrew Mercer Calvin's preferences in food and entertainment. Kevin, we must go. These happy lords never really saw the problem, and now they think they have a solution!"

"You've got to admit, they've got a piece of one."

"Hoskins sees profit from the Mote. The Blaines will want to try out their new toy. The graduate student, Boyarski, wants to play tourist. He was right. There will certainly be another expedition, if the blockade doesn't fail first."

"I know. What people know how to do, they do eventually. Look at Earth."

"There's another thing. The Blaine girl will want to go to the Mote. With her family's influence-"

"Yep. She'll inherit power all right. Glenda Ruth. Nice of her to remember our present."

"Kevin, of course she remembers, because she knows it gives you pleasure that she does. As she was delightfully at the edge of informal familiarity with me."

It took Renner a moment to see what he meant. "Oh, my God. Raised by Motie Mediators. She's going to make one hell of a diplomat."

Nabil brought mugs of chocolate. Bury used his to warm his hands. "The Crazy Eddie Squadron. If they know how important their work is. The expedition to the Mote, when it comes, would have to go through the blockade."

"Forget it, Horace. The Navy obeys orders."

"They swear an oath." Bury tapped at the keyboard in his chair. The wall lit.

"I solemnly swear to uphold and defend the Empire of Man against all enemies foreign and domestic and to extend the protection of the Empire to all humans; to obey the lawful orders of my superiors, and to uphold and defend as sovereign the legitimate heirs descendant of Lysander the Great; and to bring about the unity of mankind within the Empire of Man."

"You see? Their oath would force them to halt the expedition, if I show it to be a danger."

"Forget it, Horace. Oaths are one thing, courts-martial are another. But look at it this way. If worse came to worst-say, if an expedition actually went and brought back a Master and his household. Or if a Motie ship got through the Jump points and as far as New Cal and as far as, oh, personal conducted interviews with the interstellar news media. It could become politically impossible to just wipe them out. You've had such thoughts, haven't you?"

"I have. A Motie household with a Mediator to swear that they left their Warriors-and Watchmakers-home."

"But now we could sterilize them without hurting them. It's better, Horace. Now, why don't you go to sleep. The Secret Service expects us to be bright eyed and bouncy tomorrow."

The look Bury gave him would have imbued a stone statue with pity, or at least fear.

4 Veto

I have lived to thank God that all my prayers have not been answered.

Jean Ingelow

The Yeoman First Class was clearly impressed. Bury guessed that she'd never before met an Imperial Magnate; she was certainly unfamiliar with his titles. Even so, she worked at being casual, and at covering the fact that Bury was kept waiting ten minutes past the time of his appointment

"Captain Cunningham will see you now, Your Excellency," she said. I'm sorry about the delay. We've been really busy this week, I've never seen anything like it." She got up and opened the door to Cunningham's office as Bury directed his travel chair.

In twenty-five years Bury had only had three case officers, he had no trouble recognizing Captain Raphael Cunningham. They'd never met, but there had been hologram messages. Cunningham looked like a child: a head round as a bowling ball, ringed in fluffy white, and a button nose and pursed mouth. Bury knew everything published about Cunningham's background and career; additionally, what he knew of the officer's childhood and family connections might or might not have startled his case officer. Presumably the Navy understood that Horace Bury left little to chance.

His investigations had been disappointing if unsurprising. There were few levers on Raphael Cunningham. His forty-year Navy career was not particularly distinguished, but it was certainly unblemished. Bury's agents suspected that Cunningham had not been entirely faithful to his wife, but they couldn't prove it.

Fools, Bury thought. The Navy cared more about appearances than reality.

It was an effort to stand in Sparta's gravity, but Bury managed it without a grimace. He bowed slightly; he had learned long ago to wait for some gesture before offering his hand to any Imperial officer.

Cunningham's smile was broad, and he came from behind his desk to go to Bury. "Excellency, it's a pleasure to meet you after all these years." His handshake was firm but brief.

So, Bury thought. I am kept waiting for ten minutes, but his secretary apologizes. He will meet me halfway. A very correct man is Captain Cunningham.

"Excellency, I confess I never expected to meet you."

"Regrettably, my work does not permit me to visit Sparta often."

"I took the liberty of ordering coffee." Cunningham touched a square inlaid on his desk, and an orderly came in with a tray. He put a large Navy mug on Cunningham's desk, and a smaller cup of black Turkish coffee at Bury's elbow.

"Thank you." Bury raised his cup. ‘To our continued cooperation."

"I can certainly wish for that," Cunningham said.

Bury sipped his coffee. "Of course, cooperation may be too strong a word. Given the costs and rewards..."

Cunningham frowned slightly. "I expect I don't know all the costs, but as to rewards, I confess some puzzlement, Excellency. We don't have much besides honors to give. Your work in the Maxroy's Purchase affair merits commendation, but you have refused additional honors. May I ask why?"

Bury shrugged. "I am certainly not unappreciative of Imperial honors, but perhaps they have less-utility-to me. I thank you for the offers, but there is something else I desire a great deal more."

Cunningham raised an eyebrow.

"Captain, you will long have known that I consider Mote Prime the greatest threat to humanity since the Dinosaur Killer struck Earth sixty-five million years ago."

"We differ there. Your Excellency, I like the notion that we're not alone in the universe. Different minds, with insights different from ours. Was it the MacArthur thing? The little Watchmaker creatures swarming all through the ship?"

Bury repressed a shudder. Cunningham likes Moties. A change of subject was in order. "My record shows that I am not a fool. I believe it is no more than a simple statement of fact that the Empire has never had a more effective intelligence officer than me."

"I can't quarrel with that. Can't offer counterexamples, anyway. Bizarre, the way you can- I gather you see patterns in the flow of money. Is that the way of it?"

"Money, goods, attitudes. One can see changes in local attitudes by changes in a world's imports or the inflation rate. I followed these matters long before I joined your office," Bury said. "Twenty-five years ago I was-persuaded-to aid the Empire. I seek Outie plots and heresies and treason so that the Empire may concentrate on the real threat. The Moties! Of course you've read my report on Maxroy's Purchase."

Cunningham smiled, "'Gripping Hand.' But the Moties hadn't busted loose after all, had they?"

"No. Not this time, Captain, but-how can I put this? I-"

"You were frightened."

Bury glared. Cunningham raised a big, thick-fingered hand. "Don't be offended. How would anyone have reacted? Little bitty lopsided faces looking out of a pressure suit, crawling up a rope just behind you. Christ! Anyone else might have wound up in a mental institution. You-" Cunningham laughed suddenly. "You wound up in the Secret Service. Minor differences."

Bury spoke low. "Very well. I'm frightened again. I'm frightened for the Empire of Man."

"So much so that you can't do your work? I must say, Your Excellency, that I don't see supervising a long-term naval blockade operation as... requiring your special expertise."

Cunningham already knew. Bury said, "When I was brought into the Secret Service, I had no choice. Since then conditions have changed. Do you believe you could force me to do your will now?"

Cunningham stiffened. "Excellency, we have never forced you into anything. You go where you will."

Bury laughed. "A pity Senator Fowler is not alive to hear you say that. In any event, my status has gradually become that of a volunteer."

Cunningham shrugged. "It always has been."

"Exactly. And you agree that I am valuable to the Empire?"

"Of course."

"Invaluable and inexpensive, in fact," Bury mused. "So. I will continue to be. But now I want something."

"There is no need to be so aggressive. You want a ticket to the Blockade Squadron," Cunningham said softly.

"Precisely. Did you learn from Blaine or the ITA?"

Cunningham laughed. "The Traders don't talk to us. You're serious about this, aren't you?"

"Captain-" Bury paused. "Captain Cunningham, one of your most effective agents is concerned about a potential threat to the Empire. I am as serious as any other of your madmen. I do not ask for funds, I am quite capable of paying my own expenses. I control seats on the ITA Board, and I have-influence-with several members of Parliament."

Cunningham sighed. "We're worried about the blockade, too."

"Oh?" There was something! Bury would not lose face by reaching for his diagnostic sleeve; not yet.

"There's a threat to the blockade, yes. Of sorts. Maybe we can deal. Have you read the recent news stories by Alysia Joyce MeiLing Trujillo?"

"You are the second person to ask me that in as many days. No, but I shall as soon as I return to my rooms."

"Good. Excellency, that-investigative reporter has been giving us pure holy hell. I won't say she hasn't found some reason to, but God damn it! The Crazy Eddie Squadron has been out there forever. Blockade duty is the worst kind of duty the Navy can assign. Constant possibility of danger, but mostly boredom. Nothing happens, and nothing happens, and then-"

"You were there?"

"Fifteen years ago. Worst year of my life. I was lucky, it was just a training assignment. Some ships and crews are stuck out there for years! Have to be-if we rotate them too often, there's nobody with experience. Leave them too long though, and-Hell, Excellency, it's no wonder she's found people screwing things up. Everybody's tempted. I'm surprised it's not worse. But she's making us look very bad."

Bury knew he should have read this Mei-Ling's articles last night. He'd been too upset. "Her dispatches come from New Scotland, don't they? What has she found? Bribery, inefficiency, price fixing? Nepotism? Old-boy networking-"

"All of that. We've got no choice, we have to give her a ticket to visit the Squadron. It occurred to me that it would be no bad thing if you took her there."

Bury mulled it. "The more she learns, the more damage she can do."

"She might. Or she might see dedicated Navy men holding the line against a credible threat. And I am told you have means of persuasion. We can give you very complete files on the young lady. And her family. And friends."

Bury smiled thinly. He had no doubt that this room was secure, and that his travel chair would be subject to magnetic fields that would erase all possible recordings of the conversation; in fact he hadn't even tried making one. He said, "And for two or three months there would be no dispatches at all."

Cunningham nodded. "By the time she sees New Scotland again, we'll clean up most of what she's complaining about."

"I will do my best. We haven't met, of course. She may detest me on sight."

Cunningham smiled. "If you can't charm her, Kevin Renner can. We're agreed, then? Then I want to talk to Sir Kevin, and with luck the rest is formality."

"Formality?"

Cunningham shrugged. "Lord Blaine has asked that he be informed. Surely he would have no objections? I understand you have known him for many years."

"More than twenty-five years, Captain," Bury said; and he felt a cold chill in his stomach.

It was standard practice to interview intelligence officers one at a time no matter how closely they might work together. They'd been polite enough to bring Renner and Bury in by separate entrances. Renner glimpsed Bury's travel chair as it wheeled into the reception room. Then he was ushered into Cunningham's office.

Cunningham stood. "Greetings, Captain. Trust you're well."

"Fine." Kevin looked wryly at his expensive civilian clothes. "Didn't know the rank showed."

Cunningham frowned a question.

"Forget it." Renner sat in the visitor's chair and took out a pipe.

"Mind?"

"No, go ahead." Cunningham glanced at the ceiling. "Georgio, exhaust fans if you please." He tapped keys below a screen that faced away from Renner. "Georgia" set a brisk breeze moving. "Now, Captain, if you could just clear up a couple of points about Maxroy's Purchase..."

"...I'm sure aren't worth worrying about," Renner concluded. "My formal opinion's on record. Governor Jackson not only can handle the situation, he'll have New Utah voluntarily in the Empire in ten years without anyone firing a shot."

Cunningham scratched at the computer entry pad with his stylus. "Thank you. Excellent report of a very creditable job. I can tell you privately that the Admiral's pretty well decided to endorse your report."

"That ought to make Jackson happy."

Cunningham nodded. "Now. What can you tell us about this latest scheme of Bury's?"

Renner spread his hands. "My fault. I came staggering home at one in the morning, dead drunk and covered with blood, shook the old man awake and told him, ‘The gripping hand!' Dammit, the whole planet was talking like they've got three arms! Time I finished talking, we were both convinced the Moties were in Purchase system."

"But they weren't."

"No. But they might be somewhere else. I'm with Bury. I want to know the blockade works."

"It works."

"You can't verify that."

"Captain-"

"When did you last visit the blockade? Spend long enough to be sure it's puncture proof? Who was minding the store while you were there? Have you seen clips of the Motie Warriors?" Renner waved it away with a slicing gesture. "Never mind, Captain. The point is, Bury's determined. I haven't even tried to talk him out of it. I don't want to."

"In other words, he'll go whether we like it or not?"

"Let's say he's determined. Besides, what harm can it do? There aren't many secrets he doesn't know, and of all people he's unlikely to give the Moties anything. For that matter, if the blockade personnel ever needed a pep talk, you wouldn't find anyone better than me and Horace Bury ....mm ....ith a tranquilizer drip, maybe."

"I take it you intend to go along, then?" Cunningham glanced at the readout screen inlaid on his desk. "You've three times requested retirement and then changed your mind. God knows nothing's stopping you."

Renner chuckled. "What would I retire for? I like what I'm doing, and this way someone else pays the bills. Sure I'll go. I'd like to go back to the Mote."

"Nobody's planning that!"

"Not now, maybe, but you'll have to one day."

"You've been with him a long time. Is he-all right?"

"He's death on Moties. He can smell the money currents between the stars. Your office never made a better deal."

"I mean loyal.'

"I know what you meant," Renner said. "And the answer is yes. He wasn't always, maybe, but he is now. And why shouldn't he be? He's put this much of his life into making the Empire stronger. Why throw it away?'

"Okay." Cunningham looked up. "Georgio. Call Admiral Ogarkov, please."

After a few moments a voice boomed.

"As we agreed, sir," Cunningham said. "Bury clearance to visit the Blockade Fleet. He may solve the Mei-Ling Trujillo problem for us, and he and Sir Kevin may pep up the Crazy Eddie Squadron. It can't hurt to let him try."

"All right. Talk to Blaine."

"Admiral-"

"He won't bite. Thanks. Good-bye." Cunningham made a face.

"You don't get along with the Captain?" Renner asked.

"Earl. Don't have that much to do with him," Cunningham said. "He's not Navy. Was once, I know, but he hasn't been for a long time. Georgio, polite mode. I'd like to speak with Lord Blaine. The Earl, not the Marquis. At his earliest convenience. I think he's expecting the call."

Bury had hooked up his diagnostic sleeve as soon as he left Cunningham's office. Cunningham's secretary was trying not to stare. He wanted to tell her that he wasn't upset-that he only expected to be upset.

Would Blaine say no?

He practiced deep breathing until his pulse was steady, then fingered the control ball.

"Alysia Joyce Mei-Ling Trujillo. Present age twenty-seven Standard years. Feature columnist Imperial Post-Tribune Syndicate, special features reporter, Hochsweiler Broadcasting Network. Highly rated.

"Born New Singapore. Parents Ito Wang Mem-Ling and Regina Trujillo. One older brother. Ito Wang Mei-Ling is the founder of Mei-Ling Silicon Works, New Singapore, publicly traded, current price thirty-one and one-eighth."

Bury fingered in two questions.

"Six million shares, of which he retains forty-five percent. Adding the mother's name is not customary on New Singapore.

"Alysia Joyce attended Hamilton Prep on Xanadu and graduated cum laude in journalism from the Cornish School on Churchill. When she arrived on Sparta, her account in the local branch of the Bank of New Singapore was opened with a letter of credit for three hundred thousand crowns. She worked as a volunteer research assistant to Andrea Lundquist of Hochsweiler at a nominal salary of fifty crowns per week until her news analysis series was sponsored by Wang Factoring."

Bury nodded as he listened. New money. Oriental princess out to save the Empire with her father's money and her mother's name.

Bury glanced down at the telltales. Blood pressure, heartbeat, adrenaline level: all acceptable. Why not? Mei-Ling was an investigative reporter, no different from any other. She thought her wealth protected her, and surely did not think that it also made her vulnerable. Her family was worth a hundred million crowns. Only a hundred million crowns.

What was she doing that the Navy feared? No time to read everything now, that would have to wait, but he could begin on the summaries.

"Digest: Series filed from New Caledonia by Alysia Joyce MelLing Trujillo. Series title: ‘The Wall of Gold.'

Bury listened intently, but there was little to surprise him. Markups on maintenance and repair. Luxury supplies sent to the blockade squadron, most obtained without competitive bids. Imperial Autonetics coffeepots, heh heh.

Graft... she'd already gotten four men arrested. And several fired from the Navy shipworks on Fomor.

On Levant, bureaucrats were expected to support themselves by bribes and extortion and favors. It was a different system, a mere matter of viewpoint, and not the black-versus-white ethical situation perceived by the Imperial Navy.

This kind of thing wouldn't destroy the blockade... not if it were being run by Levantines. Bury's people had a sense of proportion.

Then again, too much graft could bleed any military effort white. Then any kind of enemy could charge through the tissue-thin corpse. According to Trujillo, the grafters were interfering with supplies to the Blockade Fleet! Freeze-dried food stocks, blackbox replacements. One David Grant, high in the Planetary Governor's office, had taken half a billion crowns to replate the blockade ships with Motie superconductor. The scheme existed only in spurious computer memory, praise Allah. There was no superconductor plating in the blockade-and shouldn't be on ships that must regularly descend into a red supergiant star! But what might that stolen money have bought to strengthen the fleet?

What if she was right?

He had to speak to Trujillo. He'd go to New Scotland no matter what Earl Blaine said; and then perhaps there would be a way into the blockade. He should learn that anyway, to probe for ways out. So search for a handle on Mei-Ling Trujillo. Two hundred million crowns would buy control of her father's company. Who owned the outstanding stock? Bury tapped keys. Might as well find out.

The computer scrolled... and here:

"Ito Wang Mei-Ling has retained the services of Reuben Weston Associates."

Hah. Most people had never heard of Reuben Weston, but those who had knew his group as one of the most effective-and expensive-public relations firms in the Empire. They specialized in building contacts at Court. A New Singapore electronics company wouldn't need that kind of service; a provincial mini-tycoon with ambitions to increase his rank most certainly would.

And Bury might help the man ... but not until he knew how Mei-Ling Trujillo felt about her father. And he could do nothing while marooned in this anteroom. What was taking Renner so long?

Cunningham hung up. "Blaine won't have it," he said.

"Damn," Renner said.

"Yeah. What is it? They were together on the Mote Prime expedition-"

"No. Something from before. Rumors-" Renner stopped.

"Something I should know?"

"Evidently not. Well, Bury's going to be disappointed, and what happens after that ... I don't know." But he sure won't give up easily..."

5 Passengers

For he possessed the happy gift

Of unaffected conversation;

To skim one topic here, one there,

Keep silent with an expert's air

In too exacting disputation.

Alexander Pushkin

Watching news broadcasts over many years had taught Kevin Renner this much: styles mutated like crazy on Sparta. He knew his clothes didn't look funny because Cunningham's secretary had steered him to Cunningham's tailor. His problem was in identifying a maitre d'. A maitre d' should stand out.

He watched the other customers.

She was a lovely statuesque blonde wearing a pantsuit with shoulder frills, but the tour young men ahead of Renner weren't ogling her, just waiting to catch her eye. None of the other women in his view wore shoulder frills. She walked briskly to a small waist-high desk. The space above the desk was a faint rainbow blur from where Renner was standing, but from her viewpoint it would be a data display with a mug shot for identification.

She led the four away, then came back for Renner. "Good morning. Table, sir?'

"A table sounds useful. Kevin Renner, and I'll be joined by a Bruno Cziller."

She didn't have to tap keys; she just looked. The computer was programmed to pick up names. "Welcome to the Three Seasons, Sir Kevin. I'm very sorry, we don't have your table just yet. Admiral Cziller hasn't arrived. Would you care to wait in the lounge?"

"I'll wait here, thank you." He could see empty tables. He watched her lead another couple past him. Higher rank? But they didn't walk that way. They were trying to keep up and still watch faces without being caught. Celebrity hunters.

"Kevin?"

"Captain!"

Cziller wrung his hand. He looked old, softening in the face, but his hand was still a vise. His voice had turned husky. "Call me Bruno. I've never seen you in civvies. My, you do like colors!"

"Is it-"

"No, you look fine. Hey, I studied your report on Mote Prime, the one with the funny title. Did you ever think you'd be playing tourist with another species?"

"Never did. I owe it all to you."

The statuesque maitre d' led them to a table next to a floor-to-ceiling window, with a terrific view out over the harbor. Renner waited until she was gone, then said, "She gave away some tables before she let us have one. I wondered why."

"Rank."

"Well, that's what I thought, but-"

"Serves you right for getting a knighthood. You had to have a window. Wouldn't do to have you sitting with the misters. Sparta's very rank conscious, Kevin."

"Uh-huh. The computer says you married."

"I'd have brought Jennifer, but... her sense of humor isn't...mmm"

"Isn't there?"

"Right."

"Okay, and I'd have brought one Ruth Cohen, but she's taking a quickie training course at where she works. How are you holding up otherwise?"

"I get the impression I'll last awhile, but-no, never mind."

"You sick, Bruno?"

"Not sick. But the last time I went off planet, my doctor gave me pure hell, and so did Jennifer, of course. Wasn't the gravity, that was fine, but the longer day had me exhausted half to death. I came back with walking pneumonia. I can't travel anymore. I'm getting cabin fever. It's a small world, Kevin."

"Mmm. You could be in a worse place. You get all the news that's fit to broadcast, and all the museums worth visiting-"

"Not all. Tell me about the museum on Mote Prime."

"That was different. They took us there in big limousines they made just for us. The other cars were all teeny, and they collapsed flat. Even the limousine could fold smaller. The museum was all enclosed. One big building. Artificial environments inside. In one room it was raining buckets. Moties wanted to lead us in anyway."

Cziller laughed.

"We saw too much to take it all in. There was stuff we should have noticed. There was a wild Porter. Tame Porters are like two-fifty centimeters tall, with two arms, and they carry things. This thing had three arms, and tusks and claws. It was a little smaller."

A tubby robot wheeled up, took a drink order, and produced whiskey screwdrivers. A live waiter followed. A local seabeast was on the menu, and Renner ordered that. The other offerings were Earth life, uninteresting.

He said, "One whole floor was a mockup of a ruined city. There were big five-limbed rats and a camouflaged predator and a lot of other stuff, a whole ecology evolved to live in ruined cities. We didn't see the implications right away. We may not know them all yet... . No telling what they've been learning at the Institute, of course. But Horowitz swore that the city rats are related to the Warriors. We haven't ever seen a live Warrior yet, but we had the Time Machine sculpture and a silhouette of the Warrior aboard the colony ship they sent to New Cal-"

"War. Continual war."

"Yeah. With their population problem it's hardly surprising. Bruno, do you suppose it's possible to find the man who invented the condom? He deserves a statue somewhere."

Bruno laughed a long, throaty laugh. "I've missed you, Kevin."

Food arrived. Kevin listened while they ate, a habit so old that he'd have had to concentrate not to listen. At the next table some lordling was complaining bitterly about... what? Fishing rights up in the upper Python River. His family had had exclusive rights, and they'd been rescinded. Something about the salmon breeding cycle: some lowborn bureaucrat had decided that the Dinsmark family wasn't keeping the upstream route sufficiently open.

His companion was insufficiently sympathetic. Kurt Dinsmark wouldn't have had fishing rights anyway, he was a younger son...

And on the gripping hand, Renner thought, they're talking privileges instead of duties. How common is that? "We pay the nobles one hell of a stiff fee for running civilization," he said.

"I rarely hear it put that way. So?"

"Oh, I like to keep track of whether they're doing their job. In fact, it's part of my job, which is nice, because I was doing it anyway. But what I'm hearing about is privileges."

"Give ‘em a break. They're off duty. There was another museum."

Renner nodded slightly. "Yeah. That one's hearsay, and from Moties at that. The Moties killed the midshipmen who stumbled onto it. This one wasn't your ordinary museum. The idea was to help the survivors rebuild civilization."

"Heh." Cziller drained his glass. "If I hadn't got stuck trying to rebuild New Chicago..."

Renner made sympathetic noises. "Understand you did a pretty good job, though. Hey, I just had a thought. I'm on duty myself in a couple of hours, but... do you get nostalgic for spaceports? And spacecraft?"

"Sure. The new port is in the old crater where the Halfway Dome blew up, and sometimes I go out there just to- What's your thought?"

Renner put down his fork, fished out his comcard. "Get me Horace Bury."

He set the comcard on the table while he finished his meal. It took a while, but presently the card said, "What is it, Renner?"

"I had a thought, Excellency."

"Praise Allah, my training has not been for nothing."

"We're taking Buckman and Mercer up for dinner tonight. Would you consider another guest? It's Bruno Cziller, retired as admiral. He was my captain before he handed me to Blaine. Turned MacArthur over to Blaine, too. The Earl's first ship. I've been trying to tell Bruno about Mote Prime, but hey, why not let him listen while you and I and Buckman reminisce? An appreciative audience can be a good thing."

Momentary pause. Bury too was rank conscious. "Good. Put him on, please."

Renner passed the comcard across. Bruno Cziller said, "Excellency?"

"Admiral, we'd be delighted if you could join us for dinner tonight aboard Sinbad. The next Viceroy of Trans-Coal Sack will be present. Jacob Buckman is the astronomer who traveled with us to the Mote. We became friends on that trip. You'll hear as much about the Mote system as you can learn outside the Institute."

"Capital. Thank you, Excellency."

"Will you be accompanied?"

"Thank you, no, Excellency. Mrs. Cziller has appointments for the evening."

"Admiral, I'm handing you over to the computer to order your dinner. We'll want a chance to put food stores aboard."

Cziller's eyebrows went up. Rennet said, "Bury's got a good chef. Test him out."

Cziller nodded, and did. Presently he passed the comcard back. "Kevin, you never used to be subtle."

"I may have picked up something in a quarter century with Bury. Mercer will be happier if a higher rank is there. And Bury might tell you how he spent his time on Mote Prime. He's never told me."

"Oh?"

"Moties scare him. He'd rather not remember. It's worth a try. Besides, I've got to get to the spaceport early to get the shuttle ready. Why don't-"

"Why don't I come with you to supervise."

"Right. And now I have another thought."

"Expound."

"A month ago we thought we'd found Moties loose in the Empire."

Melon arrived, and Kevin talked while they ate. He had Bruno Cziller chortling. "Now Bury wants to visit the blockade, be sure it's leak proof. So do I, Bruno. Maxroy's Purchase was scary."

"And?"

"Rod Blaine has vetoed it. I'd like to give Bury a shot at changing his mind."

Bruno Cziller was studying him like a lab specimen, or perhaps like the man across from him at a poker table. "I'm the man who gave the Earl his ship and his Sailing Master. I also wished a prisoner on him. Horace Bury was traveling as a prisoner on MacArthur. Do you know why?"

"Nope."

"After twenty-five years?"

"I might not have liked it. I've got to live with him, Bruno."

"The question is, why should I get involved?"

"I haven't thought of that part yet."

The coffee arrived. "Real cream,' Renner said.

Cziller smiled faintly. "I'd be glad to get used to basic protocarb milk if I could go to space again."

Renner studied his coffee for a moment. "Look, shall I tell Bury you already turned me down, so you don't have to go through this twice?"

Bruno said, "Yes." And they moved on to other matters.

"Smooth," Jacob Buckman said.

Horace Bury looked up in momentary puzzlement, then nodded. The transition to weightlessness had been quite smooth, but Bury was used to Renner's skillful management of the shuttle, He felt tiny accelerations, then the chimes announced they were docked with Sinbad. The connecting hatchways swung open. A crewman brought a towline from Sinbad into the shuttle and made it fast. "All correct, Excellency," he said.

Bury waited a moment to allow Nabil and his assistants to go ahead, then disconnected himself from his couch. It was good to fly free of the travel chair. "Welcome," he said. "Does anyone wish assistance?"

"Thank you, Excellency," Andrew Mercer Calvin said. He unsnapped his seat belt and allowed himself to drift into the center of the passenger bay. He grasped the towline and tugged himself toward the ship.

Bury followed. As he did, the connecting hatchway to the pilot's compartment opened. Cziller and Renner came out. "My congratulations, Kevin," Bury said. "Dr. Buckman remarked on the smoothness of our ride."

"Not my doing," Renner said.

"Guess I haven't lost all my skills," Cziller said smugly.

In fact there was little for humans to do beyond giving directions to the computer. Or- Bury wondered. Had Cziller flown by direct control? Would Renner have let him, given who their passenger was? Yes. Yes, he would.

They clung to a score of handholds while Sinbad spun up. Then Bury led the way into the interior, moving smoothly if not quickly in 60 percent of standard gravity. Aaah.

"When I was twenty-six years old," he said to nobody in particular, "the natives of Huy Brasil took exception to some of my policies. They attacked me in the desert east of Beemble Town. I beat them into town, doubled through some alleys, and was back in the desert heading for my shuttle. I outran them all. Sometimes I do miss being young."

"Amen," Cziller said.

"I had to outrun an earthquake once," Buckman said. "I got downstairs and out of the observatory before it shook down on me. I think I could still do it. I run every day." He stopped walking. "Roomy. I knew you were rich, Bury."

Sinbad's lounge was big. Two recessed rails ran down the center, chairs and couches on either side. "Please be seated, and consider this your home," Bury said. "Hazel will take your drink orders."

Bury tended to employ women of great beauty. It wasn't his first priority, but it could help a business transaction to run more smoothly. Mercer was looking at Hazel when he said, "Bury, I like your ship."

"Thank you. It's roomier than it seems. I can attach a pod the size of this lounge and open up that entire oval area in the floor, which is the hull side, of course. The cabins don't become any roomier, but you don't have to spend all your time in them."

Mercer laughed. "I'm surprised you bother with hotels."

"Not always our choice," Renner said. "Customs isn't always as efficient as they were today."

"Ah. Hazel, what do you suggest?"

"We have a good stock of wines, my Lord."

Mercer smiled broadly. "Just what I've missed on Sparta. Dry sherry?"

"Me, too," Cziller said. "Kevin, do you always live like this? I haven't had a decent sherry in five years." He stretched. "Got good legs on this ship?"

"Not bad," Renner said. "She's no battle cruiser, but we can pull a full gee for a long way. The drop tank fits behind the add-on cabin, and it almost doubles our delta-vee."

"And of course you won't have a Langston Field generator in Sparta system," Cziller prompted.

"The Navy approves licenses for private ownership of Field generators sometimes," Renner said. "Outside the Capital. One of Bury's engineering ships will meet us."

"As well," Bury said smoothly. "We were running low on Sumatra Lintong coffee."

Bury watched Mercer and thought he detected envy. He asked, "Will you be leaving for New Caledonia soon, my Lord?"

"There's a Hamilton Lines passenger ship in three weeks," Mercer said. "Or I can go with the Navy relief squadron next month. Haven't quite decided."

Bury nodded in satisfaction.

At point six gee, food stayed on the plates, wine stayed in the glasses.

Mercer had had an ulcer in 3037 and a recurrence in 3039. Modern medicine could make those go away, but nothing could cure a high-pressure lifestyle. And Bury was old, and so was Buckman. For them Sinbad's chef had prepared a mild chicken curry.

Cziller had asked for sea grendel, an air-breathing Spartan seabeast on the endangered species list. Sea grendels were being raised in a small bay on Serpens. They were for sale, but the price was high. Renner got it, too. He didn't have to order. His tastes were known; he would eat anything he couldn't pronounce.

"Good," he said. "Really good. Were they hunted to extinction?"

Cziller finished chewing and put his fork down with a broad smile. "Haven't had that since we were invited to the Palace. No, it wasn't overharvesting. The orcas have learned to hunt sea grendel, but that's not it either. Mostly, there's a lot of ocean down there and not much land. The last passing of Menalaus was too close, the ocean got too warm for them, the West Sea thermal plant was stirring up the water, the fish they were eating went into a decline, and suddenly sea grendels were very scarce. Might have been worse but old Baron Chalmondsley got interested in them. Now the University's on top of the problem. Hey, Kevin, what did you eat on Mote Prime?"

"Mostly ship stores, and protocarb milk, but the Moties found us a few things. There was an interesting melon. We didn't bring anything back, of course," Renner set his fork down. "Anything. My Lord, we could have covered Lenin's hull with souvenirs. What would you have brought back, Bury?"

I'll put that back in your teeth, Kevin. "I thought of taking Motie Watchmakers. I thought they would make wonderful pets. That was before they destroyed His Majesty's battle cruiser MacArthur. After that I tried to persuade the Admiral to cremate everything."

"My files say you made a fair profit from the superconductors and the filters," Mercer said.

"I would have vaporized them."

Renner asked, "What would you have brought back, Jacob?"

"Information," the astronomer said brusquely. "That, the Admiral didn't prohibit."

Cziller nodded. "Buckman's Protostar. Kevin, did you get anything named after you?"

"Nope."

"What would you have brought back?"

"Artwork. I wanted the Time Machine sculpture long before we knew what those demons were. I wanted a certain painting... the one my Fyunch(click) called the Message Bearer. Another thing we should have noticed. There's a Runner subspecies, and they're still kept around. When the cycles turn and all the Moties' sophisticated communications collapse, there are still the Message Bearers."

"You said information, Dr. Buckman," Mercer said. "I understand the Moties were not permitted to bring any sophisticated record storage devices, but surely you collected your own."

"What I could," Buckman said.

"Of course the Moties themselves are pretty sophisticated record storage devices," Renner said.

"One reason they haven't developed information technology much," Buckman said. "Things fall apart so often."

"More wine, my Lord?" Bury asked, and signaled Hazel to open another bottle.

He could have had fresh fruit shipped up; hut Bury wanted to show off Sinbad's kitchen. Dessert was an array of cakes served with fresh espresso. Bury watched Mercer with satisfaction. A Navy wardroom offered nothing like this. The best accommodations on a Hamilton Lines passenger ship could only rival Sinbad, and the liner made calls on four planets before reaching New Caledonia.

"Of course if this young pup Arnoff has his way, it'll be called Arnoff's Protostar," Buckman said.

Renner laughed. "What? Hey, it was your discovery. I mean, Jock might argue they ought to call it Jock's Protostar, but as far as humans go-"

Mercer said, "Excuse me? I've studied the Mote expedition records, but I must have missed that one."

"Not surprising," Renner said. "Look, from Mote system you get a good look deep into the Coal Sack. While the rest of us were dealing with the sudden fact of an intelligent species older than we are, Dr. Buckman found a curdling in the Coal Sack. He was able to show that it's a protostar. It's a thickening of the interstellar gas that's about to collapse under its own weight. A new sun."

"Jacob, what is this?" Bury asked.

"Oh, this young idiot believes I got it all wrong, that the protostar will ignite any day now."

"But surely you would have known," Bury protested. "You had MacArthur's instruments for observation."

"Some of the data were lost when we abandoned ship," Buckman reminded him.

"Only they weren't."

One of the reasons Bury liked Buckman was that their interests were so different. He was a man Bury couldn't use. Bury could relax when Buckman was around.

In fact, Bury was paying more attention to Mercer. But he noticed how Renner's hands suddenly gripped the table's edge. Renner said, "What?"

"Some of the observation files were beamed to Lenin," Buckman said. "There were Watchmakers all through MacArthur then, and the information came all in one dump. About a year ago they were doing upgrades on Lenin and the files turned up." Buckman shrugged. "Nothing I thought was new, but this fellow Arnoff thinks he's got enough for a new theory."

Renner said gently, "Jacob, wouldn't you like to live to see it become a star?"

Buckman shifted uncomfortably. "Well, I'd look foolish, but it's impossible anyway. Sometimes it seems unfair. My Fyunch(click) believed that the fusion burn will begin within the next thousand years. I've reviewed my observations repeatedly since, and I think he's right. I came that close."

"A Mediator. Your Fyunch(click) wasn't really an astronomer. Male, wasn't it? A male would be too young to have had practice at anything."

"Mediators learn to think like their targets. My Mediator was an astronomer, Kevin, at least by the time we separated."

"Uh-huh. Does the Navy know about this Arnoff's theories?" Renner asked.

"I suppose someone in the Bureau of Research watches astrophysics file updates," Buckman said. "Why the Navy?"

"Gerbil shit! Doctor, you have got to learn to look outside your specialty!"

"Kevin?" Bury demanded.

"If the protostar ignites, we get new Alderson paths," Renner said.

"It won't happen," Buckman protested.

"A moment," Mercer said quietly. "Sir Kevin, could you explain?"

"I may have to lecture."

"Please do so."

"Okay. Ships travel along Alderson tramlines. Tramlines form between stars, along lines of equipotential flux. I won't explain that, you got it in high school, but it means they don't form between all pairs of stars. Not all the tramlines are useful, because if the flux densities aren't high enough, they won't carry anything big enough to have a drive aboard.

"The Mote sits out there with the Coal Sack on one side and the big red supergiant Murcheson's Eye on the other. The Eye is big and bright. So bright that the only useful tramline from the Mote is not only to the Eye, it terminates inside the supergiant. Tough on Moties trying to use that tramline. The blockade is there to make it even tougher.

"When Buckman's Protostar ignites, it'll create new tramlines."

"To where? Who would I ask?"

"Damned if I know," Rennet said. "Dr. Buckman, maybe. It depends on the energy levels after ignition."

"But the Moties could escape." Bury had his diagnostic sleeve on. It showed him staying remarkably calm, considering. As if he had always known, always known they would get out.

"Yeah," Renner said.

Mercer caught Hazel's eye. "Another of that excellent brandy, please. Thank you, Bury. There's no better at the Palace. Now. Sir Kevin, let me get this straight. For a quarter of a century the Empire has spent billions of crowns to maintain a blockade to contain the Moties, as an alternative to sending in a battle fleet to exterminate them. Now you say that if Dr. Buckman's theory is incorrect, that blockade will be ineffective. Suddenly. Is that a fair statement?"

"As I always feared," Bury said. Rennet was nodding, teeth bared.

"Nonsense," Buckman insisted. "That star won't collapse in our lifetimes, I don't care how good your doctors are!"

"I find that comforting," Mercer said. "You will understand that as the new Governor General of the Trans-Coal Sack Sector, I will automatically become chairman of the commission that sets policy regarding the Moties? I'd thought the Motie policy fixed and settled. The political questions regarding New Scotland and New Ireland are more than enough to renew my ulcers." He sipped at the huge snifter Hazel had brought him.

"Jacob." Bury sounded very old. "You once had a different notion about the protostar."

"Oh, I don't think so."

"It was long ago, and memories are fallible," Bury said. His hand strayed to the input ball of his chair, and his fingers played complex chords with the buttons. The inboard wall of the lounge became translucent.

Two images formed. Bury and Buckman, both twenty-five years younger, dressed in shipboard clothing fashionable that long ago.

"Buckman, you really must eat," Bury's image said. "Nabil! Sandwiches."

"The Navy people only let me use the telescopes at their convenience," the younger Buckman said. "Computers, too."

"Are either available now?"

"No. Of course you're right. Thank you. Only-Bury, it's so damned important."

"Of course it is. Tell me about it."

"Bury, do I know astrophysics?" Buckman's image didn't wait for a reply. "Not even Horvath thinks he knows more. But the Moties-Bury, they've got a lot of new theories. Some new math to go with it. The Eye. We've been studying the Eye since Jasper Murcheson's time. We've always known it would explode one day. The Moties know when!"

Bury's image looked apprehensive. "Not soon, I trust?"

"They say AD. 2,774,020 on April twenty-seventh."

"Doctor-"

"Oh, they're trying to be funny, but darnit, Bury, they're a lot closer than we were, and they can prove that! Then there's the protostar."

Bury's image raised an eyebrow.

"There's a protostar out there," Buckman said. "Forming out in the Coal Sack. I can prove it. It's about ready to collapse."

The younger Bury smiled politely. "I know you a little, Jacob. What do you mean by now? Will you have time to eat?"

"Well, what I meant was sometime in the next half a million years. But the Moties have been watching it a long time. My- student-how do you say it?"

"Fyunch(click)," Bury's younger image said. (Eyes flicked toward the living Bury. Could a human being have made that sound?)

"Yeah. He says it'll take a thousand years, plus or minus forty."

A younger Nabil came on-screen with sandwiches and an old-fashioned thermos.

Bury touched his controls and the wall faded out. "You see, Jacob? You were led to your theory. Left alone, what might you have thought?"

Buckman frowned. "Not the Moties. Their math."

"Observation reports, too," Renner said. "Theirs."

"Well, yes... yes, of course. But Kevin, you're..."

"What?"

"You're suggesting my Fyunch(click) lied to me."

"It never would have crossed my mind," Bury said gently, "that my Fyunch(click) would not lie to me. Kevin's played jokes on him, of course. Lady Blaine's certainly lied to her. It's on record."

"Yes." Buckman was not happy. "Then Arnoff's right."

"Jacob? Come with me aboard Sinbad to Murcheson's Eye. You can get new data. If you can't destroy this Arnoff's reconstruction, you can refine it, improve it, until half of civilization thinks it's yours."

"I'll come," Buckman said quickly.

"This dithering is a bad habit, Jacob," Renner said.

"I'm getting tired of reviewing old data anyway."

"When does Arnoff say is the earliest this-event-could happen?" Mercer asked.

"Last month," Buckman said.

Mercer looked puzzled. "Then it could already have happened and we would not know. I think you said your protostar was light-years from any observer?"

"Oh," Cziller said. "No, my Lord. It has been known since CoDominium times that Alderson tramlines form as nearly instantaneously as anything can be in this universe."

"There's a propagation speed," Buckman said. "We just don't know what it is. No way to measure it." The astrophysicist looked thoughtful. "All the really interesting events happen in the last dozen years."

"Now. They could be happening now," Renner said. "You know what this means? It may be important to have a ship from the Crazy Eddie Squadron pop into the Mote system long enough to get data on the protostar."

"Allah be merciful," Bury said. He straightened visibly. "Well, my Lord, I promised you an entertaining dinner."

"You've kept that promise," Mercer said. "Now may I offer you more? I have long intended to go to New Caledonia. I would be more than pleased to have you as a guest for the journey."

"That's generous," Mercer said. "I'd like to accept."

"But you do not?" Bury asked.

Mercer sighed. "Excellency, I'm a politician. Successful, I think, but still a politician. I don't know how it happened, but you have made a very powerful enemy."

"Captain Blaine," Renner said.

"Earl Blaine. Precisely. I need not tell anyone in this room just how powerful the Blaine family is. As the first members of the Imperial Commission, they set the policies on our relations with the Moties. The old Marquis has a standing invitation at the Palace. Frankly, I can't afford to have their opposition."

"No argument there," Cziller said.

Mercer shrugged. "Excellency, I can see great benefits to having your friendship, and a comfortable and expeditious journey is probably the least of them, but what can I do?"

"Let me get something straight," Cziller said. "His Excellency's-uh, strong distrust-of Moties is well known. My last assignment was in BuPolDoc-excuse me, the Navy's Bureau of Policy and Doctrines-and Bury, you had half a dozen expensive Imperial Autonetics PR types trying to convince everyone in the Navy."

"I suppose I became something of a joke," Bury said.

"Not that, Excellency. Hardly that. But maybe we stopped giving your holos quite as high a priority when they mentioned Moties. Kevin, I never knew you considered Moties a threat. Your video report sure doesn't come across that way."

Renner nodded. "I had a wonderful time on the Mote expedition, and I guess that's what showed. That report was for the media. I didn't make it for the Navy. For that matter, I have to calm Bury down sometimes.

"Even so, at Maxroy's Purchase I was the one who ran around shrieking, ‘The Moties are coming!' I'm not blind. A couple of points, okay? I love Mediators. Especially my own Fyunch(click), and I suppose that's just my natural narcissism. We all felt that way. Every so often I have to remind myself that everyone who thinks he likes Moties actually likes Motie Mediators. They're the ones who do all the talking. But the Masters make all the decisions, and they only talk to and through Mediators. Clear?"

"A point worth noting," Czifler said. "My Lord, did you know that the Blaine children had Motie nannies when they were growing up? It wasn't generally publicized."

Renner said, "Yeah. Second. I like Bury. Tastes differ, but I like Horace Bury just fine. You didn't know that, did you, Bury?"

Bury felt his cheeks warming. "You've never said that."

"Yeah. But he's dangerous. Check his record. The Moties are likewise dangerous, and I don't mean Mediators now, I mean a dozen species that think like robber barons and build like idealized engineers and carry a ton of stuff on their shoulders and do their farming with an inborn green thumb and fight like God knows what. We've never seen Warriors fight, but if they're as good at war as Engineers are at tinkering, yuk."

"One must not forget their sexual cycle," Bury said.

"Yeah. If they don't get pregnant, they die horribly. Population problem, or what?"

Cziller waved that away. "We don't need that lecture. Everybody knows it. We know how they solve it, too. Wars. It's why we had to lock them up in the first place. Damn! I suppose it is... scary, to think of Mediators lecturing at Blaine Institute and raising little Blaines. There was a Master, too, but I hear he died early."

"The Blaine children. We met young Glenda Ruth. She was grateful for a present I provided."

Cziller looked thoughtful. "My Lord, you said you could see advantages to His Excellency's friendship."

"Well-"

Pardon me, my Lord. I wasn't arguing. I can see advantages, too." Cziller looked grim. "Look, I'm as loyal as anybody, but I'm not blind. The Empire just isn't as efficient as it was thirty years ago. When the Moties were first discovered, Merrill was Viceroy out there behind the Coal Sack. Old Navy man. He had a battle fleet together before Sparta even knew there was a problem. You couldn't do that now, my Lord."

"No, Admiral, I probably couldn't," Mercer said.

"You can't even get Sparta to react that fast," Cziller said. "It's like we've got fat in the arteries. My Lord, if the Moties really are dangerous, and that damn star really is about to let them out, you're going to need all the clout you can get. Blaine and Bury together wouldn't be too much."

Mercer nodded. "I can't argue, but I can't think what to do, either. I don't know why the Earl so thoroughly disapproves of Trader Bury."

"I do," Cziller said. "Damn all, I promised Jennifer I wouldn't get into this. Excellency, would you ask your computer to help me place a call? Blaine Manor."

"You can get through?" Renner asked.

"Once. I can't abuse the privilege or they'll change the codes on me." He turned to Bury. "Excellency, I think it's about time you and Rod Blaine had a talk about New Chicago."

Ice ran up Bury's spine, and he saw his indicators jump.

6 The Seeds of Treason

Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man.

Mark Twain

The informal luncheon room of the Drakenberg Club was paneled in walnut, then decorated with a theme Renner didn't recognize: pictures of men in strange uniforms, carrying odd implements that included oversize gloves for one hand, and a small white ball.

The club steward ushered him to a table. Glenda Ruth Blaine was already there. The steward bowed formally. "My Lady, your guest."

"Thank you, William," she said. "William, this is my brother's godfather, Sir Kevin Renner."

"Ah. Pleased to meet you, Sir Kevin. Shall I send the waiter, my Lady?"

"Please." Glenda Ruth waited until the steward was gone, then flashed a hefty grin. "Made his day, we did. William does love rubbing elbows with the aristocracy."

Kevin Renner sat. He couldn't help thinking what a remarkably pretty girl Glenda Ruth was. Not beautiful in the fashion-magazine sense, something else, something about her infectious smile. Of course she was only seventeen standard years old, but she seemed older. Influence of the Moties? Her mother hadn't been a lot older, no more than twenty-five, when she'd gone to the Mote world. Renner tried to remember what Sally Fowler had been like.

He indicated the half dozen forks at his place. "Bit fancy for lunch?"

Glenda Ruth winked at him. "Stuffy place, but it was the only one I could think of where you can't possibly grab the check."

"Is that important?"

Her smiled faded slightly. "It might be. Daddy doesn't want us accepting favors from Horace Bury. We're guessing you have an expense account."

"I do, but this isn't business. Or is it?"

She shrugged. "It might be. I took Admiral Cziller's call. After he talked to Daddy. I called him back."

"Yeah, I suppose you would know him."

"You could say that." She chuckled. "I called him Uncle Bruno until I was ten- Here's the waiter. Champagne cocktail for me. Kevin?"

"Bit early for drinking. Coffee, please."

"Yes, sir."

Glenda Ruth was grinning at him again. "You don't need to be so adult."

"Eh?"

"They know how old I am. My champagne cocktail won't have alcohol in it. Of course some kids just slip in vodka from a flask."

"Will you?"

"I don't even own a flask."

"Motie influence?"

"No, none of them ever mentioned it."

Hmm? But she didn't drink. But- "Yeah. They wouldn't see the point. They eat, drink, breathe industrial poison. If you aren't tough enough, you die. Why go looking for more?"

She nodded. "That sounds right."

Kevin looked around the room. Typical aristocratic luncheon place. Expensive women and very busy men. He didn't really notice them. He looked away from the table so he wouldn't look as if he were staring at the girl he was with, and the truth was that he very much wanted to stare at her. She was far and away the most attractive woman in the room. Probably the most expensive, too, Kevin thought. Her clothes were simple enough, a dark wool afternoon dress that fit perfectly, emphasizing her femininity without being overtly sexy. The skirt was just knee length, slightly conservative by current fashions, but that tended to emphasize the calves and ankles. Her jewelry was simple, but included a matched pair of earrings of Xanadu firestones worth enough to buy a house on Renner's home planet.

"Quite a long way from Maxroy's Purchase," Renner said.

"Or from New Caledonia."

"True. How long were you there?"

"I barely remember it," Glenda Ruth said. "Dad thought Kevin Christian and I ought to grow up on Sparta instead of in the provinces." She shrugged. "I suppose he was right, but-I worry about the Moties, now that Mother and Dad aren't on the Commission."

"They're not on the Commission, but they still have plenty of influence," Renner said. "As Bury and I found out."

"Yeah. Sorry about that."

"So. What did you want to see me about?" Renner asked.

"Crazy Eddie."

"Uh?"

"You said back at the Institute that we don't understand Crazy Eddie. He's supposed to fail?"

"Yes, I guess I said that."

"I've only known three Moties," she said. "I think I understand Crazy Eddie, but I'm not sure. You knew a lot of Moties-"

"Not for long. Not very well."

"Well enough to understand Crazy Eddie."

"Not understand, exactly."

"You know what I mean. There were a dozen stories about Crazy Eddie. Most were recorded, and I have them. There was the story they told you, for instance." She took out her pocket computer and scribbled on it for a moment. An image rose out of the tablecloth.

Rennet had taken this sequence straight from MacArthur's records as beamed to Lenin. A twisted shape in brown-and-white fur, a Motie Mediator, was speaking. "Renner, I must tell you of a creature of legend.

"We will call him Crazy Eddie, if you like. He is a... he is like me, sometimes, and he is a Brown, an idiot savant tinker, sometimes. Always he does the wrong things for excellent reasons. He does the same things over and over, and they always bring disaster, and he never learns."

The image jumped a bit. Renner had edited this for Summer Vacation. "When a city has grown so overlarge that it is an immediate danger of collapse... when food and clean water flow into the city at a rate just sufficient to feed every mouth, and every hand must work constantly to keep it that way... when all transportation is involved in moving vital supplies, and none is left over to move people out of the city should the need arise... then it is that Crazy Eddie leads the movers of garbage out on strike for better working conditions."

Glenda Ruth turned it off. Rennet said, "I remember. My introduction to Crazy Eddie. Once we knew what to ask for, we got more. Jock Sinclair's Motie spoke of melting down your supply of screws to make a screwdriver. Father Hardy's Mediator talked about a religion that preached abstention from sex. We didn't know how bizarre that was, for Moties."

"Yes, but you know, we never did learn much more about it," Glenda Ruth said. "So why did you say that Crazy Eddie is supposed to fail? Don't the Moties admire Crazy Eddie? Jock certainly does."

"You'd know more than me. But yes, I think they all admire anyone mad enough to think all problems have solutions. Which doesn't mean that they expect the universe to cooperate."

"No, of course not. But I still wonder,"

"The Cycles," Renner said. "It's all they have for history. Crazy Eddie thinks he can change all that. End the Cycles. Of course they admire him. They also know he's crazy, and it won't happen."

"But maybe we have the solution now. The parasite."

"Yeah, I've wondered about that," Renner said. The waiter brought coffee, and a tall champagne glass with something sparkling and pink for Glenda Ruth. Kevin ordered absently, his mind far from food.

"You knew two Mediators," Rennet said. "Of course you didn't get to know Ivan."

"No. He was more aloof. Masters are."

"And the Mediators speak for them," Renner said. "That's more obvious on the Mote than it would have been to you. But it's something you don't dare forget. Take your parasite. Jock can't make any deal that's binding on Masters back on the Mote."

"Yes-"

"There's also the question of how your parasite would get to the Mote. I doubt the Navy will let any ships go there."

"I talked to Uncle Bruno this morning," Glenda Ruth said.

"Eh?"

"The protostar. When it ignites, the Moties will come out. We have to do something before that happens. I'm sure Admiral Cziller is talking to all his classmates right now."

"Will something happen soon?"

"Of course not. Sparta isn't like that. It will have to be discussed in the Navy, then at the Palace, then the politicians will get in the act."

"Fortunately it may not collapse soon. Or does Jock know something?"

She shook her head. "He doesn't know, and he wouldn't have known. Ivan may have known things we weren't supposed to find out, but Jock and Charlie never did. And Ivan was no astronomer. He wouldn't be. Keepers aren't usually curious." The waiter brought lunch. Glenda Ruth talked all during lunch, drawing Renner out, until he realized he had told her nearly everything he'd ever thought about the Mote.

She's a damned good listener. Cares what you say. Of course she would-it's hard to tell what's an act and what isn't. Maybe none of it is.

She waited until dessert before she said, "Bruno said he wished he could go with you. To the Mote."

"We're not going to the Mote. Just to the Crazy Eddie Squadron-maybe not there, if your father doesn't lift his veto. You know he's blocking the trip. Can you talk to him?"

"I can talk. It won't help. They don't much listen to me. But I'll try-if I get Daddy to say yes, can I go with you?"

Rennet managed to set the coffee cup down without spilling any.

Glenda Ruth looked defiantly at her mother. "Aaall right. You won't let Kevin and Horace Bury go. Fine, I won't go with them. I'll go with Freddy."

"Freddy!"

"Certainly. He has a ship."

"Pretty good one, too," Rod Blaine said. Sally's look silenced him before he could say anything else.

"You are not going halfway across the galaxy with that-"

Glenda Ruth cocked her head. "Freddy? You can hardly complain about his social standing. His family is as prominent as ours. About as rich, too. We went out beyond the moon for a week during Spring vacation. You didn't search wildly for an appropriate insult then."

"Did-" Sally caught herself. "It's a bit different, being in a small ship for months."

"If it's my reputation that worries you, we can take a chaperone. Or one of my friends from the Institute. Jennifer. And her mother."

"That's absurd. Jennifer can't afford that."

"I can, Mother. I'll be eighteen in two weeks, and I'll have my own money. Uncle Ben left me quite a lot, you know."

Rod and Sally exchanged looks.

"What does Freddy's father have to say about this?" Sally demanded.

"For that matter, have you asked Freddy?" Rod asked. "I know you haven't asked Bury."

"She doesn't think she has to ask anyone," Sally said.

Glenda Ruth laughed. "Freddy will be glad to take me anywhere, and you know it. And his father doesn't care what he does, if he won't join the Navy."

"Which he won't," Rod said.

"Because he knows he wouldn't be any good at it," Glenda Ruth said.

Sally shook her head. "I don't see what you see in Freddy Townsend-"

"You wouldn't, Mother. He's not a hero like you. Or Daddy. But I like him. He's funny. And Jock likes him."

"You must like him a lot if you're willing to be cooped up in that yacht of his for several months," Rod said. "And I don't think you would for a trip to Saint Ekaterina. Widget-"

"Please don't call me that."

"Sorry, Princess.

"Go ahead and wriggle, my Lord, but you'll have to think of me as an adult soon or sooner. Two weeks to practice, My Lord Blaine."

Blaine recovered fast, but for an instant he'd been jolted. Then, "Glenda Ruth, I know why Bury wants to go to New Caledonia. He wants to inspect the Blockade Fleet. But why you? Freddy's ship can't go to the blockade point! It's inside a star, and last time I looked there wasn't any Langston Field on that yacht."

"I want to see my brother. I don't have to visit the Blockade Fleet for that. He gets to New Cal twice a year

Sally snorted. "Brother. What you want to do is go to the Mote."

"Chris would, too," Rod said. "But neither of you is going to do it."

"She's persuasive," Sally said. "And so is Chris. Together-"

"Separately or together our children aren't going to talk the Navy into that," Rod said. "Prin-Glenda Ruth, this is silly. You're upsetting your mother. You are not going to New Caledonia."

"I am, yes. I don't want to start a big fight, but really, how can you stop me? In two weeks I'll have my own money." She grinned. "Of course I could marry Freddy."

Sally looked horrified, then laughed. "Serve you right if you did."

"Anyway, I don't have to."

"You've already been accepted at the University," Sally said.

"Yes, and I'll go, but not just now." Glenda Ruth shrugged. "Lots kids take a wanderjahre before starting college. Why not me?"

"All right. Let's be serious," Rod said. "Why?"

Glenda Ruth said, "I'm worried about the Moties."

"Why should you be worried about the Moties?" Sally asked.

"Politics. Growing up in this house, I've seen a lot of politics go past my nose. When the Parliament starts debating the cost of the Blockade Fleet, anything can happen. Anything! Suppose they think it costs too much? They aren't going to just pull the fleet back to New Cal. You know they won't. They'll-" She caught herself.

"They'll what?" Sally asked.

Her voice was no more than a whisper. "They'll send for Kutuzov."

Sally frowned and looked to Rod.

He shrugged. "The Admiral retired long ago. He's pretty old as Bury, I guess. Last I heard he was still active in Saint ma politics, but he doesn't come here."

"He's organized Mankind First," Glenda Ruth said

Rod frowned. "I hadn't heard he was behind that group. How sure is this?"

"Freddy told me, but I had a chance to back it up. Sir Radford Bowles spoke for Mankind First at a University of Sparta symposium. Freddy took me. I got in an argument with him at the tea afterward. I watched him. He's picked up some of Admiral Kutuzov's mannerisms."

Rod shook his head, smiling. "I tore the first Motie probe apart so the Humanity League wanted my hide. Now this Mankind First outfit wants to use Blaine Institute research to wipe out the Moties! I can't win."

"It's not you who can't win," Glenda Ruth said. "It's the Moties who'll lose. And there's no reason."

"There aren't any Moties," Rod said.

"Dad-"

"Not the way you say it. There are plenty of Moties, all right. A planet full of them. More in their Trojan Point clusters and the moons of the gas giant. But there's no single Motie civilization, Glenda Ruth. Never was, never will be. Every Master is independent."

"I know that."

"Sometimes I wonder if you do."

"Dad, I know more about Moties than you do! I've read everything, including your debriefings, and I grew up with Moties."

"Yes. You had the Motie Mediators as friends and companions. Sometimes I wonder if that was such a good idea," Rod said. "Your mother didn't like it much."

"I went along," Sally said. "Glenda Ruth, you think you know as much about Moties as we do. Maybe you're right. Maybe you aren't, though. You've only known three of them. Only two at all well. And you want to gamble with the lives of the whole human race-"

"Oh, Mother, stop that. How am I gambling with anything? I can't even get to Mote Prime. Dad knows that."

Rod nodded. "Pretty hard to do. The Blockade Fleet's there as much to keep the Imperial Traders out as to keep the Moties in. You sure won't get to the Mote in Freddy Townsend's yacht."

"Then I can go to New Caledonia?"

"I thought you weren't leaving us any choice."

"Dad, Mom, I'd rather have your blessing."

Rod Blaine asked, "Why?"

"If all else failed, I could come running to you for help. Something could go wrong. I'm not crazy enough to think it couldn't."

"Rod-Rod, is that ship safe?" Sally asked.

Glenda Ruth grinned.

The limousine landed on the roof of the Blaine Institute. Three security guards politely helped Bury into his travel chair and escorted him to the elevators. There was no receptionist. As Bury entered the elevator, a guard took out badges and handed them to him and Renner.

So. Formally correct. Bury wished that Admiral Cziller had come to the meeting. Cziller understood. Bury wasn't sure why, but it was clear. And both Blaine and Renner respected him.

The elevator door opened. Two more uniformed guards ushered them down the hall to the Blaine office suite. There was no one else in the corridor

The guards opened the doors without knocking.

Both Blaines were present. Bury felt relief. This is an impossible task, but it would be doubly so without her. Whatever I can say to him she can veto. Only Allah can persuade those who will not listen, and He doesn't do that.

Lady Blaine was pouring coffee. She had not spoken to Bury or Renner, and there was no shaking of hands.

The Blaines wore kimono-like garments in strong contrast to the formal tunics Bury and Renner were wearing. Bury had seen clothing similar to those kimonos in the streets of Sparta, and even in restaurants. They were acceptable for receiving guests, but they were neither friendly nor formal.

Bury had never seen Roderick Blaine in short sleeves, Smooth, hairless scar tissue ran from the knuckles up his left arm into the sleeve; and when Bury understood why, he knew he had lost.

He accepted coffee. It was excellent... it was Jamaica Blue Mountain. Bury held the cup before his face for an extra moment, to gather himself. "Very good. Sumatra, perhaps, mixed with local black?"

The Blue Mountain's entire coffee crop had been reserved for Sparta, the Palace and the nobles, for half a thousand years. Bury recognized it-but he wasn't supposed to.

The Earl said, "Kevin, I take it you're with him."

Rennet nodded. "Yes, Captain. I came with him. I want to see the blockade fleet in action. I want to know if they're ready for something totally off the wall. Captain, we did some talking last night, and things came out. Have you spent any amount of time talking to Jacob Buckman, the astronomer?"

"No, of course not. Who would?"

"I would," Bury murmured.

"Forgive me, your Excellency."

Renner laughed. "Two green monkeys. What kind of company could either of them find aboard a working battleship?"

Bury glared. Renner continued, "None of us knew why Bury was aboard. I suppose Jack Cargill did, but all you said to us was that His Excellency was a guest, and he was not to leave the ship. I never quite knew-"

Blaine said, "All right. Did Buckman say anything worthy of note?"

"We thought so," Renner said. "Some old data on Buckman's Protostar surfaced from Lenin. Do you remember the curdle in the Coal Sack, twenty light-years in and a light-year across?"

Sally Blaine looked puzzled. Lord Blaine nodded without enthusiasm.

Get to the point, Bury wanted to shout, but he sat tight-lipped. He had agreed to let Renner begin the conversation.

"It's a protostar, an unborn star," Renner said. "Buckman's Motie said it'd ignite around a thousand years from now. Buckman confirmed that. Now there's a young guy who thinks he can prove that it'll happen much sooner, and he's using observations from MacArthur."

"So? It'll still be Buckman's Protostar."

"It'll be a T Tauri star, Captain. Very bright. The second question is when. The gripping hand is, is the blockade fleet ready to deal with several new Jump points?"

Blaine's lips moved silently. New Jump points- "God's teeth."

The coffee trembled in Sally Blaine's hand. "Kevin Christian-"

"Yeah," Blaine said. "All right, I owe Cziller an apology. How valid is this?"

Bury said, "My Lord, it was a very late night. I summoned up this Arnoff's work and went over it with Jacob at my shoulder. He pointed out equations and compared them to his own. I understood nothing, but I know this. They use the same observational data, but Jacob used additional data, older data, which he took from Motie astronomers."

"That could have been faked." Blaine sat at his desk. "Which would mean they were ready for us from the first moments they saw us. They saw how the protostar could be used. Before we did."

"They knew about the Alderson Drive," Renner said. "They call it the Crazy Eddie Drive. It makes ships vanish. But they already knew how to build it, and they won't have forgotten."

"Cycles," Sally Blaine said. "They play on them. Use them. We can ask Jock-"

"We will," Blaine said. "But we know what answer we'll get. Buckman was given doctored data."

Bury shrugged. "Moties lie to their Fyunch(click)s. Who should know that better than we?"

Sally nodded grimly. "They don't like it-" and she saw Bury's flicker of a smile

Rod Blaine finished his coffee before he spoke again. "All right, Kevin. You've made your point. A good one. The government has to do something about this. I'll call the Palace as soon as we're done here. That still doesn't tell me why you. Why Bury. Why Sinbad."

"A piece at a time," Renner said. "Okay? First, you have to send Buckman. We need new observations, and someone to interpret them."

No interruption came. He said, "Second, New Cal system has to be ready. However the Moties get out-and this includes anything they might try, Captain, protostar or no protostar-they'll have to come through New Caledonia. That's where the crucial Jump point leads, as far as I can tell from a first cut.

"We met Mercer, the new Governor General. Had him aboard Sinbad last night. He's a politico, Captain. Sharp, but still a politico. Not a Navy man. He's got the sense to listen, but you still have to talk slow and repeat yourself and use simple words. He has to have things explained to him."

"So?"

"We'd have time to work on him if he rides with us to New Cal. Once we get there, there's a certain large-mouthed reporter named Mei-Ling Trujillo who's doing her best to cut the funding for the Crazy Eddie Fleet. The noise she's stirred up, Cunningham already wants to send her to the Fleet. She's got the clout, she might find something she likes, and at least it would shut her up for a while.

"Fourth, there's Bury. If you haven't seen the record, I can tell you. He's been one hell of an effective agent for the Empire. More than me. Now one of your best agents sees a threat to the Empire and wants to investigate. So do I."

"I see." Blaine looked at Bury. His expression was anything but friendly. "It seems we made a good decision about you, all those years ago."

"As it happens, my Lord."

"I still don't trust you

"Do you trust me, Captain?" Renner demanded.

"Eh?"

"And while we're on the subject, trust who to do what?"

"Sure I trust you," Blaine said. "You think the whole Spartan nobility is working for you. Okay, I don't mind being supervised. Maybe it makes the Empire stronger. But-Excellency, I'm not sure you want the Empire stronger."

Bury said, "If twenty-eight years of service-" and ran out of words. If twenty-eight years of holding back the darkness wasn't sufficient, then... there was nothing to be said.

"You see?" Blaine was trying to be reasonable. "We don't have to send Buckman, Kevin, in case you've arranged things so he'll only go with Bury."

"No, Captain, it's just that way. He's-"

"We can send Arnoff. Or a host of others. Kevin, I have good reason not to trust Bury, and damned little reason why I should."

Rennet's voice rose. "Captain, for twenty-eight damn years we've been out working for the Empire-"

"Kevin, you can't possibly convince me you haven't enjoyed it," Sally said.

"Well, all right, so I did." Rennet sipped his coffee. "Captain, let's talk about your arm for a minute.

Blaine took a count of three. Then, "Why in blazes would you want to talk about my arm?"

"Well, you're wearing short sleeves, for one thing. And I now recall that when you came back aboard MacArthur at New Chicago, you were wearing a big padded cast. How'd you get those scars? Did it have anything to do with the revolt?"

Blaine said, "Why don't you stick to the subject, Renner?"

Bury was wishing the same thing with all his heart. It was hopeless. Bury hadn't tried to shut Renner up in a very long time.

Renner said, "Nobody wears short sleeves to meet someone he doesn't like. I think your scars may have something to do with your attitude here. Was it a burn-through? You don't get those anymore."

"Yeah. New Chicago. The Langston Field took a torpedo, got a hot spot, burned right through the hull. The flame fused my arm to the sleeve of my pressure suit."

"And now they're plating all the Navy ships with Motie superconductor."

"Ye-ess. You understand, it doesn't mean we don't get killed anymore. We don't get hurt. Burn-through in the Langston Field, the whole hull warms up. Till it gets too hot. Then it isn't a superconductor anymore, and everyone fries."

"And the sleeves?"

The Earl was rubbing the bridge of his nose. It hid his expression, a bit. "I... suppose I was being belligerent. I wasn't going to mention it myself, but I was damned if I'd let His Excellency forget. Petty of me. Kevin, I wouldn't let an old grudge get in the way of Imperial goals. I thought you knew. Bury was a prisoner on MacArthur. He was suspected of instigating the New Chicago revolt."

"And you were in one of the prison camps," Renner said to Sally Blaine.

"And a friend came with me, and she never went home," she said. Her eyes narrowed. "And he's guilty as hell. He pushed a whole world into revolt just to bloat his already bloated fortune!"

"Um," said Renner, "no."

"We had the proof," the Earl said. "We showed it to him. We used it to make him work for us- What?"

Lady Blaine had put her hand on her husband's scarred wrist. She said, "Kevin. What do you mean, no?"

"I've known him more than twenty-five years. Bury breaks rules for enough money, but there wasn't enough money. There couldn't have been. New Chicago isn't rich. Never was, was it?"

"Well, it was once... come to think of it-"

"Captain, we've stopped revolts. You know what causes revolts? Bury knows. Crop failure! It's an old tradition: when the crops fail, the people depose the king. Trust me, if New Chicago was ready for a revolt, then it probably wasn't worth robbing, not to the likes of Horace Bury."

Blaine said, "All right, Bury. Why? We never asked."

"I wouldn't have answered. Why should I testify against myself?"

Blaine shrugged.

"You will listen?" Bury demanded.

Blaine looked at him quickly. "Yes, Excellency."

Bury spared a glance for his diagnostics. He'd set them high; he didn't want to be too calm. Nothing had triggered. Good.

"Thirty-five years, my Lord. You would have been twelve when I entered New Chicago politics. Of course I was not acting for myself."

"For whom, then?" Sally demanded.

"For Levant, my Lady. And all the other Arabs that Levant represents."

"You were ALO?" Blaine asked.

"My Lord, I was the Deputy Chairman of the Arabic Liberation Organization."

"I see," Blaine said carefully.

"So my life was forfeit in any event," Bury said. "If you had found out." He shrugged. "ALO membership was covered under the amnesty, in case you're wondering."

"I'm sure," Blaine said. "But what in the devil was the ALO doing on New Chicago? It wasn't an Arab planet."

"No," Bury said. "But it had once been a source of ships. I take it you know little of New Chicago's history."

"Almost none," Blaine admitted. "I was only there to fight, and Lady Blaine has painful memories."

Bury nodded. "So, let me tell you a tale, my Lord. New Chicago was settled late, well after the formation of the First Empire. It was far away beyond the Coal Sack, an insignificant world, settled by North American transportees but administratively part of the Russian sphere of influence. That is significant because the Russians favored a planned economy and what they planned for New Chicago was that it would be a source of ships for the future expansion of the Empire."

"Figures," Renner said. "Edge of the frontier."

"What's your point?" Sally Blaine demanded

"A source of ships," Bury continued carefully. "The people of the First Empire were largely transportees. Not trained astronauts. Spacesuit and habitat technology had not moved as fast as spacecraft technology using Alderson Drive and Langston Field. Metals on New Chicago are easily available. Foundries could be built. The settlers had decent gravity and reasonably Earthlike conditions. The regions of exposed ores are east of the good farming land, and there's a dependable east wind to carry away the industrial stenches. My Lord, nobody knows more than I do about New Chicago."

"Local asteroid belts."

"Yes, exactly. Spacesuits and habitats were improved. The sons of transportees were trained as astronauts. Of course the next generations began mining their own local asteroid belts. New Chicago had built their foundries and shipyards and taught their people the skills, but meanwhile all the settled solar Systems were building their spacecraft in the asteroids. New Chicago was geared for a boom that would never come.

"Then the First Empire came apart. New Chicago did very well out of the Secession Wars."

"Oh," Lord Blaine said.

"Do you see it? New Chicago's boom period came during the first crisis. That was when my grandfather made his first contact with the place. He was one of the founders of the ALO."

"I still don't get it," Sally said. "What did the ALO want from New Chicago?"

"Ships."

"Why?"

"Everyone needs ships. Certainly Levant and the other Arab worlds did. Then, later, when the Second Empire was proclaimed, there was another reason. New Chicago was new to the Empire. Here was a source of ships that were never in any Imperial registry."

Lord Blaine looked puzzled

"Untraceable?" Sally asked.

Bury nodded. "An Outie world geared to make spacecraft, desperate for customers."

Sally looked up at the ceiling. "Fyunch(click)."

"Ready"

"In what class was Levant admitted to the Empire?"

"First. Full self-governing, with interstellar capability."

"With New Chicago ships?" Blaine asked.

Bury shrugged. "Any planet when the life support fails."

"But that was long before the revolt," Blaine said.

"Certainly, my Lord. That was in my father's time. Now think back thirty-five years. Today you see the Empire as successful. I invite you to see it as we did then."

"Which was how?" Rod Blaine said. He saw that Sally was nodding to herself.

Lady Sally was trained in anthropology. Can that be useful? "My Lord. Your Second Empire was only beginning. It had proclaimed itself Christian, and if you do not recall the history of the Crusades, I assure you that we Arabs remember! You had already incorporated Dyan into the Empire, and promoted Jews to high positions in your military and navy. Why in the Name of Allah the Merciful should any of us have trusted you?"

"Calm down," Renner said.

Bury glanced at the glowing graphs. "I'm fine. So, my Lord, at last you know. Yes, I helped instigate the New Chicago revolt and to you it must have been from the blackest of motives. That would have been an Outie world, with an economy based on building spacecraft and a thirst for customers. Unregistered ships, in case Levant should need them. In case the negotiations with the Empire failed, or in case the Empire collapsed under its own vaulting ambitions. Empire of Man, indeed! We might well have been forced once again to proclaim jihad with no armies and no navies and nothing but the courage of our young men for weapons."

"And now?" Blaine asked

Bury shrugged. "The Empire has been successful. You do not like us. Socially we are second class, but legally we have the rights you promised. Our planets are self-governing, under people of our own religion. The threat is now from the Mote, not from Sparta. There is no more need for the Arab Liberation Organization, and for the past dozen years I have presided over its liquidation."

"You're the Chairman, Horace?" Renner demanded.

"Not in name."

"Sure. You're not the formal president of the Imperial Traders Association, either. Holy catfish."

"Kevin, we presided over the liquidation of Nassari's group. He would not give up his ambition. I caused-"

"You made me dig up data on him and turn him in to the Imperials. Sure. You couldn't hardly tell them, ‘Nassari isn't taking my orders anymore,' now could you?"

"I did what I had to do, Kevin." Bury turned to Blaine. "You see? We had a way to get unknown spacecraft for ourselves. New Chicago no longer has a place for such schemes, but another world might, or an asteroid belt, or an Oort cloud near an old supernova. If men want spacecraft, or if Moties want spacecraft of human manufacture, then-then you must have Horace Bury, the spy."

Into an uncomfortable silence Earl Blaine asked, "Your Excellency, just what are your plans, specifically?"

"Plans or ambitions?" Bury demanded. "I don't know enough to have specific plans. But already I have found out more about the Motie threat than Mercer knew. Or you, my Lord. I have abilities, I have money, and among Allah and my doctors and this chair I have energy. I propose to employ them all in the Imperial service."

And he waited.

"I'll withdraw my objections," Blaine said, ignoring a small sound of protest from Lady Blaine. "That's all I'll do, but I expect it will get you to the blockade fleet. God knows what you expect to accomplish there. Don't waste any more time than you have to."

"Thank you, my Lord," Bury said.

Sally waited for the door to close. Then she demanded, "Why?"

"You heard it all."

"But Rod, what's changed? The revolt on New Chicago, the bloodbath, the prison camps, he caused it all! He raped a world and he killed Dorothy!"

"I might have done the same in the service of the Empire. I might have been in Lenin's crew when Kutuzov burned Istvan down to bedrock. Bury's not just an opportunistic bandit anymore. He was defending his homeland."

"Levant."

"Mmm? But it's his world. The key is loyalty. He was an enemy; now he's an ally. He's protecting the Empire to protect Levant. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. He sees the Empire as friends, the only hope against the Moties."

"He could be turned again."

"Hah! Yes. We set Renner to watch him, and Renner's been doing that for a quarter century. Maybe there's something that could turn Bury's loyalty. But not at the blockade. He won't accomplish anything there, barring a pep talk and some politics, but he won't do any damage. The blockade stands between Levant and the Moties."

"If Bury could see Moties as we do... Rod? How do you see Moties?"

Rod didn't answer

"They destroyed your ship, and you'll never forget. I think you loved MacArthur more than you have ever loved me. But we've found the solution!"

"Have we? It works on Mediators. We don't know about Masters. We don't know if Masters would accept it even if it does work. They'd call it a Crazy Eddie answer."

"It will. It has to."

"Sally, we depended on the blockade. A few years from now we might not have a blockade... or a hundred years, maybe, or one. And you know how long it will take Sparta to decide to do something. Renner and Bury-"

She nodded slowly. "Action, not talk." She looked at the ceiling. "Fyunch(click)."

"Ready"

"General instructions, all department heads. List essential equipment and personnel for transfer of the Institute to New Caledonia."

"Acknowledged."