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

little," Darwin Scott said. He shrugged massive shoulders. "Snow ghost hunting's a chancy thing. Get a good one and you make money, but you don't always."
     
     

    "Then what?"
     
     

    "Then you wait for somebody to stake you," Ajax Boynton said. "You looking to invest some money?"
     
     

    Renner looked thoughtful. "Truth is, I'd like to own a snow ghost fur and I'd like to shoot it myself. What would it cost me?"
     
     

    "Five thousand buys a quarter share," Boynton said. "Ten thousand buys forty percent."
     
     

    "Why—"
     
     

    "With ten thousand worth of gear we have a better chance of getting a ghost."
     
     

    "Oh. Plausible."
     
     

    "Still interested?"
     
     

    "Sure, if I get to come along."
     
     

    Boynton looked annoyed. "Hunting ghosts isn't dude work. We lose people."
     
     

    "You keep saying that. With IR gear, and—"
     
     

    "And sonar, and the best damn acoustic gear we can come up with," James Scott said. "And we lose people, because it's a long way north. The aurora mucks up electronics. And—"
     
     

    "And ghosts move fast," his brother said. "They dig in near tree roots, where you can't get a good sonar map. They stay down in the snow so the IR doesn't spot them. And they can swim under snow faster than you can walk. Forget it, Mister."
     
     

    "Let's see, now. I back you for ten thousand worth of gear, which I leave behind when the ship lifts. A good ghost fur costs . . . what? Straight from you, no retailer."
     
     

    Darwin Scott said, "I'd get around twenty thousand."
     
     

    Renner's sources were accurate. "So call it another twenty thousand when I get back, and call that incentive to bring the greenhorn back alive. Total, thirty thousand." They were trying to maintain poker faces, but he surely had their interest. "Just that, and you keep your sixty percent, but I expect you to indulge yet another whim."
     
     

    Three men sighed. Renner said, "See, I can't think of any reason not to hunt snow ghosts where I might stumble across some opal meerschaum, too."
     
     

    Three men were hiding smiles. Ajax Boynton said, "Me neither. If you've got a place in mind, I'll tell you if there are snow ghosts there."
     
     

    "Let's find a map."
     
     
4: Snow Ghost
Have you not seen how your Lord lengthens out the shadow? He could have kept it motionless if he liked. Yet We make the sun its pilot to show the way.

     

    —al-Qur'an

     

     
     
     

    Is this wise?" Bury sipped at coffee and examined the map projected on the wall. "It will certainly not be comfortable."
     
     

    Renner shrugged. "I like comfort. But hey, if I can get a snow ghost fur, it'll sure keep me warm enough."
     
     

    "So will synthetics, and they are much cheaper. Why the area between the glaciers?"
     
     

    "Oh, Hell, Bury. How do you know Reuben Fox is hiding something but he isn't stealing and can't be bribed? Brains and instinct and technique. It took me all afternoon. We talked. The Scott brothers switched from orange juice to tea . . . the Maguey Worm has a magic coffeepot variation. Gilbey makes a liter of tea and then lets the caffeine filter out through the wall. Takes five minutes."
     
     

    "More Motie influence."
     
     

    "Right off of your ships, Horace! Anyway. I pointed at various parts of the map, all of it in the region where the northern lights play, but that's fairly large. Snow ghosts? Yes. No. Maybe. They'd never live here, they've been hunted out there, my brother got one here a year ago."
     
     

    "I wish you had a fast-forward switch, Kevin."
     
     

    "By and by, Boynton said he'd heard opal meerschaum came from under the Hand Glacier. The Scott brothers said it didn't, it had been searched by an uncle or something, and besides, the place had been hunted out of snow ghosts twenty years ago. So I went on pointing, and every place I pointed, the Scott brothers thought I might find a snow ghost there."
     
     

    "Ah."
     
     

    "There's something in the Hand. The