The sole currently existing Alderson Point leads to the photosphere of the supergiant red star Murcheson's Eye, which made the blockade much more practical.Īrmed with this alarming knowledge and carrying influential passengers, Renner and Bury depart aboard Bury's ship Sinbad for New Caledonia, the closest human system to the Mote. The newborn star will create one or more new Alderson Points for interstellar travel, giving the Moties at least one more exit from their system. Bury and Renner inadvertently discover, much to their horror, that the estimate was deliberately falsified: the object is due to collapse and ignite much sooner.

The Moties had studied it extensively and told the MacArthur expedition that it would ignite in about 1,000 years. In Mote, it is mentioned that a protostar is forming in the Coalsack Nebula. Renner and Bury travel to Sparta, the Imperial capital planet, to obtain permission to inspect the blockade. Driven by nightmares and a deep-seated fear for humanity's safety, Bury must confirm that the Empire is safe from the Moties. While the source of the phrase turns out to be innocuous enough - the governor picked up the expression as a crewman on INSS MacArthur on the expedition to Mote Prime - the memories dredged up are too much for Bury. While investigating suspicious economic activity on the planet Maxroy's Purchase, Renner and Bury encounter wide idiomatic usage of the phrase '.on the gripping hand'. They spend the next twenty-five years preventing rebellions against the Empire so that the Imperial Navy can concentrate on blockading the Moties in their star system. At the end of The Mote in God's Eye, Renner and Bury are secretly enlisted into Imperial Naval Intelligence.

The Gripping Hand by Larry Niven