Read Online The Gripping Hand by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle - Free Book Online Page B

it.
     
     

    There was a chuckle from the end of the table. "If you have a transmitter that can send a message from here, I will buy it from you no matter what it costs."
     
     

    "One hundred thousand crowns," Renner said.
     
     

    "I appreciate humor, but perhaps we are short of time. Have you anything serious to say before we fill you with Serconal?"
     
     

    "You've been busting your asses to keep me alive. You had to find a decent snow ghost, herd him north into the forest, wait till he killed something, drug him, hover over the trees on a helicopter to shake the snow down to cover him up . . . Twenty or thirty men, a dozen snow buggies, and a helicopter. Indeed, I'm honored."
     
     

    "What do you think you've found, Mr. Renner?"
     
     

    "Better you should ask, 'What does Horace Bury think we've found?' Me, I thought it was more piracy. Then again, you go to too much trouble; it can't be cost-effective. Religious motives. I'm feeling a little light-headed."
     
     

    "I expect you are. Mister Scott . . ."
     
     

    Darwin Scott took a bottle of scotch from Renner's pack and set it on the table with a glass. "They tell me this stuff helps."
     
     

    Renner poured a hefty shot and drank half of it. "Thanks. Coffee does it even better. What do I call you?"
     
     

    "Ah—Mister Elder will do."
     
     

    Renner tried to grin. "Like I said, religious motives. You understand I thought this out last night after I realized the ghost was drugged. I still don't understand all that. You'd have done better just to leave things alone. Bury never cared about your opal meerschaum, and nobody's actually robbing anyone."
     
     

    Mister Elder's shadow shifted restlessly. "It's a problem. Many of my people do not feel they earn credit in Heaven by doing nothing. You still have not said what you suspect."
     
     

    "I think you've got a periodic Jump point to New Utah."
     
     

    The men looked at each other.
     
     

    "There's an old description of New Utah system. A good yellow star, and a neutron star companion in an eccentric orbit. New Utah must have had billions of years to build up an oxygen atmosphere after the supernova. The neutron star hasn't been a pulsar for at least that long."
     
     

    Renner's head felt clearer. Coffee would have been better, but the drink had helped . . . and he'd had time to think last night. He said, "For most of a twenty-one-year cycle, the neutron star is way out beyond the comets. Quiet. Dark. When it dips close to the major sun, solar wind and meteors rain down through that godawful gravity field. It flares. The Jump points depend on electromagnetic output. You get a Jump point link that lasts maybe two years. That's when you import opal meerschaum, among other—"
     
     

    "Enough. It bothers me to be so transparent, Renner, but this is a very old secret. The soil isn't right on New Utah. The True Church would die without periodic fertilizer shipments."
     
     

    Renner nodded. "But the gripping hand is Bury. He thinks you're dealing with Moties. If he goes on thinking that . . . Bury's crazy. He'll drop an asteroid on you and explain to the Navy later."
     
     

    "An asteroid!"
     
     

    "Yeah, he thinks that way. Maybe he'll decide that takes too long and just use a fusion bomb. Whatever he does, it'll be drastic. Then he could clean up New Utah without interference, without the Navy ever knowing."
     
     

    "He has abducted Captain Fox," Elder said.
     
     

    "If Fox knows where I am, Bury will know."
     
     

    "He does not. But—"
     
     

    "But he does know where your Jump ships hang out," Renner said. "You've got a problem. Maybe I can help."
     
     

    "How?"
     
     

    Renner looked pointedly around the room. "As you said, it's an old secret. I'm surprised you kept it this long."
     
     

    "There have been few with Horace Bury's resources seeking it."
     
     

    "Resources, brains, and paranoia," Renner said. "I guarantee you he won't believe anything you can tell