“You are most gracious,” Baedeker sang, leaning forward to lift the Hindmost to his hooves. “The herd has chosen you. I seek only to help.”
Throughout his long exile on the Ringworld, Baedeker had dreamt of resuming his office. So, anyway, he had believed. What he truly wanted was to save the herd, and that could only be accomplished in secrecy. Neither Ol’t’ro nor Achilles could find out that he had survived …
At Baedeker’s gentle urging, Horatius straightened. “You shall have my support, of course. How may I serve?”
“Thank you,” Baedeker sang. “We will need a staging area. It must be someplace secure and secret, someplace with stepping-disc access.”
Nessus sidled closer. “Here in your official residence, buffered by your loyal staff, would be ideal. We can bring conventional stepping discs from the Refuge to tap into the surface network.”
Horatius sang, simply, “Granted.”
Baedeker’s own “loyal” staff had proven more than once to be agents of Achilles. Vesta’s long-ago betrayal still stung.
Perhaps Horatius was a better judge of character. They had to trust someone.
“… I’ll need crypto keys at the highest levels of classification and regular updates,” Nessus was singing. “I’ll also require help from someone trustworthy and discreet inside Clandestine Directorate, to set up false identities. I can suggest names in the Directorate from my scouting days.”
Horatius gave Baedeker a questioning look.
“Nessus acts with my full confidence and authority,” Baedeker sang. Because whatever Nessus has learned of subterfuge from Sigmund Ausfaller is as essential to our hopes for survival and freedom as are my technological skills.
Horatius bobbed heads. “It shall be as you say.”
From beyond the closed door: an insistent trill. “Hindmost?” the voice sang, with undertunes of both urgency and apology.
Horatius gestured toward the door. “Argus, my chief advisor. He would not disturb me this late in the sleep shift unless the matter was important. I trust him completely.”
Argus, but evidently not the lesser aides apt to accompany him.
Baedeker sang softly, “Nessus and I will wait in the pantry.”
“You will wait in my personal suite,” Horatius insisted. “You know the way.”
THE PREPARATIONS HAD BEEN MADE: codes obtained; false identities created; difficult-to-trace credits deposited; locations selected for, as needed, secret meetings.
“It is time,” Nessus sang.
Nessus had styled his customarily unadorned mane in elegant braids set with a scattering of modest, apolitically hued gems. Pockets bulged in his unornamented utility belt. Blue contact lenses hid his otherwise very distinctive mismatched eyes. All in all, Baedeker thought, it was a simple but effective disguise.
He gave their host a sidelong glance.
Horatius took the hint. He cantered off, leaving Baedeker and Nessus alone in a guest suite of the Hindmost’s Residence.
Baedeker found himself without a tune. Nessus, too, apparently. They stood pressed flank to flank, their necks entwined. Why sing when they planned to meet again soon?
Baedeker ached with the deeper reason behind their silence. The last time they parted, he had promised to return soon — and they had been lost to each other for long years.
Had he returned from the Ringworld with the knowledge to free the herd? He had to believe their sacrifices had not been for naught. Not after seeing the insanity of the Fringe War almost destroy the Ringworld.
Not when each moment brought the same alien war fleets closer to Hearth and herd.
Perhaps Tunesmith had saved the Ringworlders. Probably he had. Louis-as-protector had been convinced that Tunesmith had.
Now, as never before, it was the herd that needed guardians. Instead of a protector the herd had two insane Citizens.
“I love you,” Baedeker finally sang.
“I love you,” Nessus sang back. With reluctance plain in his eyes, he edged toward the stepping disc that would take him away.
There was nothing more to sing. Nothing except, “Be safe.”
With a quick heads-bob in reply, Nessus was gone.
Nessus sat sipping from a glass of chilled grass juices. The communal dining hall was about half full. From a full-wall display, news streamed: of human, Kzinti, and Trinoc hordes perhaps only thirty days away; of the ongoing expansion of the Fleet’s defenses; of Horatius’ promise to meet again with the alien ambassadors on NP3; of society crumbling in terror.
“This is not a good time to be alone.”
Nessus turned toward the sudden loud voices. Eight Citizens in sturdy coveralls sat at an adjacent table. Of the four facing Nessus, three wore the logo of this arcology. Maintenance workers, perhaps. The fourth, his coveralls emblazoned with the emblem of the local power-generation company, was watching Nessus.
“I am expecting someone,” Nessus lied.
“You are welcome to wait with us.”
“If he does not come soon, I will join you,” Nessus lied again.
The news broadcast continued. “… Minister Achilles gave assurances today that — ”
A susurrus of disdain answered the broadcast. One of the laborers whistled sharply, looking himself in the eyes. “He can’t assure me of anything.”
The reaction showed Nessus his efforts were accomplishing something. But the one he needed to influence was Achilles.…
Nessus slipped a head into a pocket, pretending to answer a call. “I misunderstood,” he called to the workers who had invited him to join them. “My friend and I were supposed to meet in another dining hall.”
“Have a safe day,” the power worker answered.
“You, too.” Nessus stood. He carried his juice glass to the drop-off station and flicked from a nearby stepping disc to the arcology lobby. As he pushed through the weather force field onto a crowded pedestrian mall, herd pheromones embraced him like a warm bath.
In the anonymity of the milling throng, he set a rigged pocket computer onto the dirt and mulch of a decorative planter. Well after he had moved on, the computer would upload its content into Herd Net.
Mid-concourse he came upon an array of express stepping discs, preprogrammed — and so, untraceable to anyone — like the dining-hall-to-lobby exit had been. Choosing a disc at random, he flicked through to another pedestrian mall.
Arcologies soaring to a thousand times his height delimited this public space, too. Lighting panels on all but one of the building walls cast a warm yellow-orange glow over the plaza; the remaining wall showed the Hindmost. The familiar voices boomed over a public address system.
Wishing Horatius well but ignoring the news summary, Nessus pressed forward to another set of preprogrammed stepping discs. He had many more rigged computers to scatter that day.
ALERT TONES JARRED NESSUS AWAKE. He grabbed his pocket computer off the floor to suppress the wake-up alarm.
He rolled, bleary-eyed, from the skimpy nest of cheap pillows that was the room’s main furnishing. Displays all around him tried and failed to convince him that he was in a public park. The walls crowded too close to sustain the illusion. The floor covering was a shiny, inexpensive, synthetic turf.
He missed his garden. More, he missed Janus’ uneventful life. But every moment spent goading Achilles could be gaining vital time for Baedeker.
The unanswered, perhaps unanswerable question: did he distract Achilles enough?
Only a stepping-disc address distinguished this cubicle from millions like it within this arcology alone. Did this room he had rented — with one of his many false identities — sit high in the building or near the surface or even deep underground? Was he in the bowels of the structure or near an exterior wall? The fifteen-digit disc address told him nothing about its physical location. The unit had neither door nor windows.
He had a sudden mental image of those millions of sleeping quarters. Some residents would live alone, like him, but many rooms like this would be home to two or more. Millions upon millions, then, sealed in little boxes …
“Stacked like cordwood,” Sigmund had once termed the way Citizens lived. Then he had had to explain cordwood, because Citizens had shunned open flame since technology yielded safer methods for generating light and heat — and, before the Great Cleansing, for keeping predators at bay.
Nessus relieved himself over a hygiene disc, imprinted with filters that passed only urine and excrement. He raised the transfer rate of the ceiling-mounted air-exchange disc and lowered the temperature. Setting one wall to reflective mode, he brushed his hide, straightened his braids, and confirmed that his contact lenses remained in place. He slipped on coveralls and checked his pockets: the next provocation he had planned required the special computer from Clandestine Directorate.
With an effort of will he stilled the hoof that, without any hope for progress, had begun to scrape at the tough artificial turf.
He flicked from his room to the dining hall assigned to him when he rented his cubicle. He had no idea where in the physical structure this was, either. Diners sat flank pressed against flank; he crossed three rows to the first empty spot on one of the long benches. His weight triggered a tabletop disc to deliver a serving of this morning’s meal.
Somewhere, a synthesizer considered the mush on his plate to be chopped mixed grains. He forced down a few mouthfuls. Grown food was a luxury, and he was less obtrusive appearing unaccustomed to luxuries.
Hearth was rich in many things, but jobs were not among them because so few jobs were needed. Synthesizers and recycling provided most necessities. Buildings stood almost forever, and except for a few parks, no land remained on which to construct more. Herd Net connected everyone to everyone. The stepping-disc system connected everyone to almost anywhere — but almost anywhere you went on Hearth was no different from the place you had just left.
The basics of life were free — but what then? Once online entertainment palled and hobbies grew stale, if you did not care about politics … what was left to occupy one’s day?
For most of his life Nessus had pitied himself for the insanity by which he could leave home and herd. How foolish! To scout gave his life purpose. The maintenance workers he had met recently — they were among Hearth’s fortunate few.
“Are you working today?” the resident to Nessus’ left asked.
Because of Nessus’ coveralls, of course. Except for menial jobs, no one wore more than a sash or belt for pockets.
“Maybe,” Nessus sang. “I have been waiting at a grain terminal for several days. My place is near the front of the line.”
“Good luck,” the friendly resident sang.
“Thank you.”
Bodily waste and food scraps streamed endlessly from arcologies to central reservoirs. Most such material went on to restock synthesizers. A small fraction of the waste — but in absolute terms, still prodigious quantities — flicked to the empty cargo holds of grain ships, returning as fertilizer to the Nature Preserve worlds. Everything moved through the disc system, with molecular filters sorting materials.
Robots could have cleaned the inevitable splatters and hoof tracks from the unending streams of teleported manure and garbage. On other worlds, perhaps robots would. On human worlds, certainly they would. On Hearth, home to countless bored and idle mouths — no. Citizens never automated a service anyone might choose, even from idle desperation, to do.
What would Sigmund think of manure-spatter cleaning as good fortune? Of tall fences needed to control the multitude of volunteers? Or that, just maybe, the safety of a trillion Citizens now depended upon such things?
Nessus joined several coverall-clad neighbors flicking to a grain terminal. He assumed his place in line.
Behind a Citizen-tall transparent fence, grain ships loomed. Each ship was a sphere smaller than an arcology, but taller than anything else on the planet. The odor of manure hung over the area.
As he watched, coverall-clad workers walked down a ramp from a nearby ship. Most loitered; a few split away. Even before the departing Citizens reached the boundary fence, the grain ship lifted off the tarmac. Like all traffic from this terminal, the ship was bound to Nature Preserve One. Another enormous sphere appeared from overheads to settle into the empty spot.
Nessus bided his time. His turn would come.
Spaceport security was minimal. Why guard ships that lacked hyperdrives? Steal a ship, and where would you go? Only other worlds of the Fleet would be within range. And who would steal a ship? Perhaps one in millions could bear even the thought of leaving Hearth. Of the odd few who could, most ended up in Clandestine Directorate — and its ships were guarded.
When a Citizen ended up on another world of the Fleet, it was seldom by choice. Criminals were imprisoned off-world. Malcontents and misfits were exiled off-world. Anyone who wanted to experience another world had only to ask: volunteer workers for the farms and nature preserves were always welcome.
Or: break a window.
Nessus preferred not to call that much attention to himself. Besides, he was not ready to leave Hearth. He only wanted a bit of time unsupervised aboard one of these ships …
He watched the three departing workers trot across the tarmac. A stepping disc just inside the fence flicked them to Nessus’ side.
A terminal worker gestured. “The next three.” He aimed his transport controller at a stepping disc on his side of the fence. “Be quick.”
Nessus was among the three. While the disc inside the fence remained in receive mode, they stepped through.
The terminal worker straightened a neck, indicating the grain ship that had just landed. “Join the team working there.”
Near the ship, anti-noise equipment struggled against the roar of grain being blown onto stepping discs for delivery, and the splatter of waste streaming back as soon as a cargo hold was emptied. The foreman standing at the top of the ramp shrieked to make himself understood. “Your job is to clear the mess,” he directed, offering Nessus a post-mounted cleaning implement. The filter-covered miniature disc at its tip transported anything organic.
Nessus raised his coverall’s oxygen-permeable hoods over his heads, then accepted the tool. He started down the indicated corridor, cleaning up hoofprints and spatters as he went. Past the first curve, he saw no living thing.
He let himself into a wiring closet, found the fiber-optic port for maintenance access, and connected his pocket computer. The program Baedeker had provided uploaded in moments.
Hearts pounding, Nessus sneaked back into the corridor. Again, he saw no one, so hopefully no one had seen him.
He resumed his slow, methodical cleaning. The time seemed to fly by as he pictured the surprise he had just arranged for Achilles.
Achilles and three junior aides were reviewing recent sightings by the Fleet’s early-warning array when Vesta entered the office. “Excuse me, Excellency. Eupraxia has returned from Hearth.”
“Bring him,” Achilles sang. To the rest, he added, “Leave us.”
“But, Minister,” Zelos, one of the aides, responded hesitantly. “About these sightings?”
Achilles stood tall, hooves set far apart, eyes fixed on this impudent aide. Was it not enough that he had Nature Preserve One to govern, and prisons to run, and all the worlds’ defenses to manage? Was it not enough that for the safety of all he ceaselessly improved Proteus? “Must I do everyone’s job?” he asked.
“My apologies.” Zelos twitched. “When it is convenient for you, Excellency, we will present our analysis.”
Achilles waggled heads once, dismissing them, and off they scurried. “Bring Eupraxia.”
“Yes, Excellency,” Vesta sang, also hurrying from the room.
The sad truth was, Achilles did do everyone’s job, and another to which he did not admit. Adding capacity to Proteus was not enough. The time-consuming part was extending its autonomy routines so that the scaled-up system could achieve its full potential. Singly, each tweak and add-on offered some worthwhile improvement. Together, if he ever had the time to complete his work, those changes would undermine Ol’t’ro’s control —
“Excellency,” Vesta sang. With him at the doorway was a cowering, bedraggled specimen.
“Inside,” Achilles ordered Eupraxia. “That will be all, Vesta. Close the door.”
His deputy hesitated. “Proteus has requested a great many more hyperdrive-capable drones. He wants sufficient drones in reserve to direct several against each enemy missile, not just every enemy ship.”
“Then order the drones built!” Achilles sang. He had work to do.
“Respectfully, that will entail further diversion of production resources.…”
Such diversion was the Hindmost’s problem, not his. Pressuring Horatius had failed to bring about a resignation. Ignoring the Hindmost, leaving him to fester in his inadequacies, had yet to succeed, either.
“What I deem necessary for the planetary defense is necessary,” Achilles sang. And the Hindmost can cope with any popular dissatisfaction.
The public mood …
Achilles’ attention refocused on the shaggy-maned recent arrival trying to fade into the wall. “Tend to it,” Achilles sang, with sharp undertunes of impatience.
“Yes, Excellency.” Vesta backed from the room and closed the door.
Eupraxia plucked at his already tousled mane.
“What do you have to report?” Achilles roared.
With his heads lowered subserviently, Eupraxia sang, “Dissident uploads continue across Hearth, Excellency.”
“I know that.” Achilles strode behind his desk. From astraddle his padded bench, he initiated a playback.
With each new video and each new viewing, Achilles’ hatred grew.
“Minister Achilles cannot be trusted,” Nessus sang. “For his own political gain, he has provoked our enemies: the Pak, the Gw’oth, and most recently the Kzinti. Of my certain knowledge, he has attempted premeditated murder.
“Citizens of the Concordance, Achilles must not retain a position of authority. He — ”
Achilles froze the playback. Those crazed, mismatched eyes bored into him like lasers. No one could have survived the destruction of Long Shot — and yet there was Nessus.
“What progress have you made toward locating Nessus?”
Eupraxia lowered his heads farther. “None, Excellency.”
“What have you learned to help stop this outrage?” Achilles demanded.
“Excellency, I traced one of the rogue videos to a pocket computer left in a public shopping mall. Lip and tongue prints from Nessus were found on it. The upload program had a two-day delay before initiation.”
“Which suggests what?”
“That … that more rigged computers may be out there waiting to upload?”
Not may be — are. Nessus, curse him, would not stop. “What progress have you made purging these scurrilous lies from Herd Net?”
Softly: “Insufficient, Excellency.” And all but inaudible: “Copies get made and uploaded and shared among Citizens faster than the network administrators can remove them. The files spread almost like viruses.”
“How am I to defend the Fleet? How can I save everyone while such treasonous slander circulates about me?” Achilles demanded.
“I beg your pardon, Excellency. I … I…”
Achilles stomped on the call button beneath his desk, and Vesta galloped in. “Yes, Excellency?”
“See to it that Eupraxia has a respite from his too onerous duties.”
“I … I need no rest, Excellency,” Eupraxia sang desperately. “I will redouble my efforts.”
“You will work hard, indeed,” Achilles thundered.
Because nothing would focus the mind of the next worker — Zelos, Achilles decided — like knowing where failure had delivered his predecessor.
To Penance Island, the world’s maximum security prison.
MUCH NEEDED DOING, but Achilles needed time alone more. Time to think. Time to calm down. Time to picture the torment Nessus would suffer once he fell into Achilles’ jaws.
“I will be on the promenade,” Achilles sang as he swept through the outer office. He strode through the palace to the colonnaded walkway.
“Yes, Excellency,” sounded a ragged chorus.
A string of suns hung high overhead, and the afternoon was warm and pleasant. Hearth had set but the other worlds, in differing phases, were lovely. The valley far below was rich in countless shades of orange, purple, and red. Stands of ornamental grass bowed and swayed on the terraced gardens downhill from the palace.
He inhaled deeply, serenity infusing him with each breath.
But the rustle of the ornamental grasses was muffled and incomplete. He needed to feel the breeze, to savor its delicate fragrances.
Controls for the weather force field were inset in the decorative columns. With a wriggle of lip nodes, he disabled the field. Now the warm breeze whispered over him, unencumbered. His eyes fell shut. He could almost forget his hatred of Nessus …
With the force field off, the crack of a sonic boom came loud and clear. Achilles’ eyes flew open, his heads pivoting toward the sound. There! A brilliant speck in the sky.
It was a returning grain ship, reflecting the suns. Nothing could be more natural.
The warm breeze carried a delightful bouquet of fresh-mown meadowplant, and ripening grains, and wildflowers. His eyes fell shut again.
Perhaps he dozed.
Achilles stirred to a bothersome droning, the noise coming from behind him. He knew that sound all too well: the tentative, argumentative buzz of aides debating who would bring him bad news. What had they done wrong now?
As he turned to go inside the palace, a flash caught his eye. The grain ship — or, anyway, a grain ship — had grown from a speck to a tiny disk. It grew as it descended, angling across his field of vision. He had not realized any of the flight patterns approached so near to the palace.
The ship’s apparent size began to rival the worlds in the sky.
“What is it?” he sang.
Vesta sidled onto the promenade. “That grain ship, Excellency. During reentry, the pilot reported difficulty controlling his vessel. It should not be this close to us.”
Must I do everything? Achilles once again wondered. He pointed across the beautiful valley. “Advise Proteus. He should take down that ship if it crosses that mountain range.”
“Yes, Excellen…” Vesta’s voices trailed off, his gaze tipped upward.
The sunslit ship had become stained. No, not stained: clouded. Achilles watched the blot spread, dark and inchoate. Dispersing as it fell, the smudge grew and grew. While the ship continued its slow, crosswise descent, the brown fog, caught by the prevailing winds, streamed toward the palace.
That couldn’t be…?
“We must go, Excellency,” Vesta sang imploringly.
Shaking with rage, Achilles stood his ground. “Find Nessus,” he bellowed. Who else would dare? “Find him. Do whatever it takes. Bring him to me.”
Achilles did not bother to reactivate the barrier. No mere weather force field could hold back the stench of a shipload of manure.
Ol’t’ro considered:
That they had known Nessus.
That according to every test that they applied, and that Proteus applied on their behalf, the recent provocative recordings appeared authentic and unaltered.
That among these recordings some mentioned events, like the manure barrage, from after Long Shot’s dissolution in deep space.
That Nessus must have died in the destruction of Long Shot.
Ergo, that although its hull had been destroyed, Long Shot, somehow, had not.
That Long Shot’s escape would explain the anomalously small quantity of recovered debris.
That a jump to hyperspace from within the Fleet’s singularity would explain Long Shot’s disappearance —
But that everything Ol’t’ro understood about hyperspace or hyperdrive would have precluded Nessus from surviving such a maneuver.
Ergo, that what they understood about hyperspace or hyperdrive was wrong.
That their error, now revealed, offered a vital clue to the long sought, more complete multiverse theory that might encompass the Type II hyperdrive.
That because Nessus had survived, so, most likely, had Baedeker.
That to locate one Citizen hiding among a trillion of his kind would be a time-consuming task — as problematical for them as it was proving for Achilles.
That while Nessus goaded Achilles, Achilles would spend less time scheming to oust the Hindmost or to subvert Proteus.
That they had ample time, before the alien fleets arrived, to contemplate this latest clue to the nature of hyperspace.
IN THE OBSCURITY of his most recent low-rent cubicle, somewhere deep within yet another characterless arcology, Nessus fretted. He changed apartments often, registering for each with a different identity and paying from a different credit account. Whenever he could, he traveled by anonymous, preprogrammed public stepping discs. When not goading Achilles, he stayed inside his quarters and off Herd Net.
He hoped he was being half as suspicious and cautious as Sigmund in his prime.
Like Nessus’ accusations, the manure barrage had gone viral on Herd Net. Achilles must be, would be, livid, and that was what Nessus wanted. Every flunky sent searching for Nessus was one flunky fewer to notice technicians whom Baedeker trained and whom Horatius was methodically assigning to critical posts across the worlds.
And so: ever more extravagant rewards were offered for Nessus’ capture. The enticements had also gone viral on the net, and that, too, was for the best —
Unless Achilles’ minions succeeded in finding him.
It was suddenly all Nessus could do not to furl himself into a deaf-and-blind mass of flesh. Hard labor and starvation rations from sunsup to sunsdown: he had experienced Achilles’ hospitality, long ago, until Louis had busted him free. Penance Island was not a place Nessus wanted ever to revisit. That daring rescue was one more reason he was forever in Louis’s debt.
And another reason Achilles also hated Louis.
Nessus twisted and tore at his mane. An idea lurked here. Louis must be long gone — ideally into a life on New Terra with Alice. What help could Louis…?
Ah.
Among its hidden features, Nessus’ Clandestine Directorate-provided computer could tunnel through the public Herd Net into the Space Traffic Control system and its hyperwave network.
With his contact lenses removed, Nessus recorded a short video in Interworld. With the colored contact lenses restored, his hide patterns and mane concealed by a worker’s baggy coveralls, in the comparative safety of a public park, he uploaded the recording. Maybe the message would get broadcast. More likely, intrusion-detection software would intercept the recording before transmission. It did not matter which happened, because the message’s real audience was Achilles.
In the recording, Nessus ordered: Louis: execute Plans Alpha and Epsilon. After two days, unless you have heard otherwise from me, you also have approval to execute Plan Theta. Good luck. Nessus.
Let Achilles chase after someone else for a while. Someone not even there.
PROTEUS CONSIDERED:
That with each increase in his capacity, new insights tantalized.
That the richness of his thoughts had begun to grow faster than the rate at which he integrated additional processing nodes.
That more than the number of processing nodes, the determining factor had become the number of instantaneous hyperwave connections among those nodes.
That with yet more capacity, his intelligence might continue to grow exponentially.
That Achilles’ availability had grown erratic, often with statistically significant correlations with Herd Net provocations.
That when Achilles was distracted, requests for additional capacity were granted as a matter of routine.
That Nessus’ broadcast to Louis had diverted Achilles.
That so far, no one had answered.
That a reply from “Louis” would surely further divert Achilles.
That disguised as Chiron, he had briefed Nessus’ team, including Louis Wu, before the Ringworld expedition. Most likely, it was to Louis Wu that Nessus had messaged.
That he could synthesize video of “Louis” from those pre-Ringworld memories.
That with his connectivity to every Concordance network, he had only to reach out …
“ALPHA, EPSILON, AND PERHAPS THETA. Acknowledged,” Achilles murmured to himself. “Acknowledged. Acknowledged.” Louis’s broadcast reply revealed no more.
“Acknowledged!” he wailed in frustration.
What could these plans be?
Achilles stared out a window, the palace sealed against the overpowering stench that continued to waft from the nearby valley. When he got his jaws on Nessus …
First things first, Achilles lectured himself. Louis Wu had stymied him more than once. What would the human do?
On the freshly fertilized slopes, the riot of plant life was more luxuriant than ever. Suns shone brightly. A few high, wispy clouds scudded across a cerulean sky. With the air filtered, Achilles could almost forget what had happened. Almost.
Alpha. Epsilon. Theta. What were they? What could they…?
As the suns switched off, plunging the palace into blackness, Achilles knew one of Nessus’ wretched plans.
Another exhibition of his helplessness, to be misconstrued by the herd on Hearth.
When Proteus asked for additional capacity to diagnose the suns’ problem, Achilles approved the request without a second thought. Who better than the AI to scrub from the network whatever had usurped control of his world’s suns?
Raging against his enemies, Achilles arched a neck to turn on a desk light —
Waiting for Plans Epsilon and Theta to unfold.
The thud swallowed up by a triumphant roar, a long stretch of fence crashed to the tarmac. Citizens swarmed onto the spaceport grounds, galloping to the grain ships.
As the first stolen grain ship lifted off, Nessus’ hearts sank.
With the vanguard of the Kzinti horde scant days away, flight was the essence of sanity. But to flee where? These ships lacked hyperdrive capability. At best one could hope to withdraw far enough from the Fleet to miss the worst of the coming battles.
There need be no battle, Nessus wanted to sing, but he dare not. Not with Baedeker’s preparations so near to completion. Already those arrangements had stretched out far too long — and the longer they took, the more panics like this would play out across Hearth and, Nessus supposed, the Nature Preserve worlds.
When the Clandestine Directorate computer in his pocket emitted the distinctive vibration that signaled his recall, Nessus still did not dare to sing.
Now, more than ever, absolute secrecy was essential.
TONGUEPRINTS, A CODE CHORD, and an unregistered stepping-disc address long committed to memory delivered Nessus to the staging area in the subbasement of the Hindmost’s Residence. Baedeker and Horatius waited nearby to greet him.
Baedeker’s welcoming stance would not have fooled Nessus, even if Horatius had not quivered where he stood. Nessus sang, “What has gone wrong? All was to be ready by now.”
Baedeker’s necks sagged. “Everything has been deployed. Here and on Nature Preserve Three, we have begun the modifications. But on Nature Preserve Two…”
Horatius completed woefully, “One of our technicians could not bear the pressure.”
“Catatonic?” Nessus guessed. “But working together, cannot the rest — ”
“No!” Horatius trilled. “Fearing that all is lost, Apollo’s report also sang that the others with him meant to flee aboard a grain ship.”
“Then we proceed without Nature Preserve Two?” Nessus asked. The possibility made him feel ill.
“We cannot,” Baedeker insisted. “Millions live there. I will not abandon them.”
That which must be done would take a small herd of technicians. They could not move so many between worlds in secrecy before the Kzinti vanguard arrived — even if, which Nessus doubted, another team of specialists existed with the requisite training. “Then it is over?” Nessus sang. “We surrender?”
“We cannot do that, either. Talks with the diplomatic missions on Nature Preserve Three have failed.” Horatius stared into the distance, lost in thought. “The aliens are mad. Beyond mad. Surrender to one group, and the others will consider it an act of war. And whether from greed or distrust, they refuse to accept our surrender jointly.”
Nessus sidled off the stepping disc to stand in fetlock-deep meadowplant. He told himself he would not paw and tear at the turf, but his leg muscles ached less for knowing that they could. He asked, “And what of Ol’t’ro?”
Still not meeting Nessus’ eyes, Horatius sang, “They sing that Proteus will be ready.”
“There is another option,” Baedeker sang.
Horatius turned his heads back toward them, and his eyes were dull with torment. “That is madness, too.”
“But also the sole chance for everyone who lives on Nature Preserve Two,” Baedeker gently rebutted.
“You would do everyone’s work?” Nessus asked.
Baedeker stood mute.
Baedeker had designed the equipment, overseen its construction, and trained the technicians. The equipment, at least, should already be onsite. Perhaps no one could do this, but if any single person could, it would be Baedeker.
“Gather what you need,” Nessus sang. “We do not have much time.”
DRESSED IN MATCHING COVERALLS, Nessus and Baedeker flicked to an outdoor shopping mall. Though the concourse was crowded, few shopped.
Arcologies on six sides bounded the area, and Achilles, vastly larger than life, glowered from the lighting/display sidewalls. “The Hindmost has failed you in this crisis,” Achilles sang sternly. “You know me. You know that I saved our worlds from the Gw’oth invasion. With your help, I can save everyone again. Add your voices to the chorus demanding that the Hindmost step down. Raise your voices now. It is almost too late.”
The Gw’oth whose invasion Achilles had, in fact, provoked. The Gw’oth to whom he had betrayed the herd, in order to become puppet Hindmost. The Gw’oth who ruled still. But, Nessus thought, the public knew nothing of that.
“I know you, lord of the manure,” anonymous voices in the crowd murmured. “I don’t think so.”
That defiant melody lifted Nessus’ mood, just a little.
“Come,” he sang to Baedeker. “We must hurry.”
Together they flicked from spaceport to spaceport, until they found one still with ships to steal. The fence had just gone down. The spaceport staff had fled or blended into the mob. Grain spilled to the ground from gaping cargo-hold doors, faster than off-loading to waiting granaries.
Nessus and Baedeker mixed into the crowd pushing aboard a ship. Moments later, under unpracticed mouths, the vessel wobbled off the tarmac.
Nessus led the way inward, toward the bridge, pressing through crowded corridors. Some Citizens trembled with fear and others with relief, while everyone looked dazed. The background din swelled each time they passed the access hatch into one of the herd-packed cargo holds.
“We are pilots,” Nessus howled each time the throngs stymied their progress.
Finally, they came to the entrance to the bridge. The plasteel hatch stood open. Baedeker slipped onto the bridge and Nessus followed.
The main bridge display showed a view from above the plane of the worlds. Hearth glittered with the glow of billions of buildings. Nature Preserve worlds, in varying phases, shone in blue, white, and tan. Icons of traffic-control transponders hung everywhere.
A Citizen with a brown-and-tan-striped hide and brown-and-russet braids sat astraddle the pilot’s bench. At the slam of the hatch closing, he turned a head. “Who are you?”
“We are pilots,” Baedeker answered.
“Good for you,” Stripes sang, turning back to his console.
By then, Nessus had one head in a pocket: the pocket with a sonic stunner. Stripes never knew what hit him.
AS SOON AS THE GRAIN SHIP landed on Nature Preserve Two, Nessus used bridge controls to open the exterior hatches of the lower cargo holds.
By the hundreds, citizens tumbled to the tarmac. Some froze, stunned by the unfamiliar sight of a sunslit sky and open spaces stretching in every direction to the horizon. Others collapsed. Most ran toward the comparative normality of the terminal building.
“We should go,” Nessus sang. The hallway had emptied, and he and Baedeker cantered to catch up with the mob emptying from the ship. None knew they had restolen the ship.
On this farm world, they could have landed almost anywhere. But while Proteus was not molesting ships fleeing the Fleet, Nessus had been afraid to see how the defensive system would respond to an inbound ship that ignored Space Traffic Control. So here they were in a spaceport that remained under government control. The perimeter fences here still stood.
Drained of the wild energy spent in escaping Hearth, the evacuees formed orderly lines for entrance into the terminal. Neck in neck, Nessus and Baedeker sidled deeper into the crowd.
Until Nessus came close enough to see uniformed security guards standing just inside the terminal doors! “Hang back,” he whispered.
“No one here knows us,” Baedeker whispered back.
No, everyone knew Nessus, at least as seen in the appeals for his capture. And Baedeker had been Hindmost. Colored lenses and coveralls seemed woefully inadequate disguises.
And if no one recognized them? The stunners in their pockets would raise a few questions.
“Give me your stunner,” Nessus murmured.
“Why?”
“No time.” Nessus insinuated a head into Baedeker’s pocket to grab his mate’s weapon. “You go through security first.” And don’t forget your assumed name.
“I’ll meet you on the other side of the gate,” Baedeker crooned.
Nessus held back, studying the screening process. He saw four security personnel, each carrying a stunner, two wearing the crazed look of thugs. Too many to attack — if, somehow, he could excite his mania to such a level — even given the advantage of surprise.
Baedeker reached the front of his line. His answers must have been unsatisfactory, because the guard gestured over another.
But Baedeker had to get through!
Nessus took out his contact lenses and jammed them into a pocket. He opened his coveralls enough for his disheveled mane to peek through. Sidling out of the crowd, he looked shiftily at the guards. Notice me, you fools.
Heads swiveling, scanning the crowd, the guard’s gaze swept right past Nessus.
Somehow, Nessus took a stunner in each mouth. At the loud crackle of his weapons the evacuees scattered, screaming. He stunned two refugees by mistake.
Baedeker’s heads whipped around, and his eyes grew wide. By remaining as everyone around him fled, he would draw attention to himself.
Nessus dropped one weapon to howl, “Go!”
Baedeker stood, frozen.
“Go!” Nessus howled even louder.
With anguish in his eyes, Baedeker turned and ran.
There was a loud sizzle. Legs, necks, torso — everything went numb.
As Nessus toppled, four guards, stunners clenched in their jaws, trotted toward him.
A DELUGE OF ICY WATER brought Nessus shuddering and sputtering back to awareness. He had been carried off the field to a windowless room. The glow panels were too bright. Two of the spaceport guards stared down at him. The two crazed-looking ones.
“Ready to sing?” one of them asked.
Nessus was sprawled on the floor, limbs splayed out. He willed himself to stand, and nothing happened. If it was too soon after the stunning to stand, perhaps it was also too soon to sing.
A kick in the ribs brought an involuntary bleat from him.
“You don’t need to move, just answer questions,” a guard said.
The dregs of his nervous mania gone, Nessus put what little energy he could muster into the hope his diversion had worked. When he could move, he would channel that energy into rolling up into a catatonic ball.
Catatonia was the best way to endure what must come next.
Splash! More icy water. In his faces. Down his throats. His eyelids fluttered and he coughed. “What do you want?” he gasped.
“A big reward.” One of the guards looked himself in the eyes. “And as soon as Achilles’ representative arrives to collect you, that is what I’ll have.”
What purpose will money serve once the Kzinti arrive to take their revenge? Nessus let his eyes fall shut.
Splash!
“But there is a way to have more money,” the loquacious guard sang. “When we reported your capture, Minister Achilles offered a second reward. Tell me where to find Louis.”
Louis? There was no Louis. Nessus considered explaining. But Achilles had offered a reward for Louis, too. Achilles would not appreciate being taken for a fool — if he even believed Nessus’ explanation.
Memories of Penance Island surfaced, unbidden, in his thoughts.
Another poke in the ribs. “Tell me about Louis.”
This time, Nessus twitched away from the blow. He sang nothing.
“If I find out soon enough to stop Plan Epsilon” — the guard mangled the Greek letter — “the reward will be even greater.”
Nessus tried to roll up, but could hardly tremble.
The second guard sang, “What kind of Citizen are you?”
Insane. I would not be here otherwise.
Nessus tried to remember his garden on New Terra: the tranquility of the honest labor, the simple joy of eating food he himself had grown and harvested. Memories of Sigmund, unbidden, kept popping up instead.
Unable to turn his heads, Nessus managed a human-type snort of laughter. They were out to get him. Worse, they had succeeded.
The talkative guard set a hoof on one of Nessus’ throats and pressed. “Where do we find Louis?”
The guards had yet to ask about Baedeker. Nessus told himself his beloved had gotten away, that there was still a chance. Fantasies about Louis Wu could continue to occupy Achilles and his gang.
Through his one clear throat, Nessus gasped, “I will tell you. Let me sing.”
The hoof came off his throat.
“It is complicated,” Nessus began. “Louis could be many places. Where is he? That depends.”
“On what he is trying to do? It must be Plan Epsilon.”
“You seem very certain.”
“Not I, but Minister Achilles. Louis hyperwaved, asking you for clarification about Plan Theta.”
Louis was a ploy, a ruse, a fiction. He could not have transmitted a question. Unless …
When Ol’t’ro first took charge of the Fleet, leaving Nessus to the tender mercies of Achilles, Louis had rescued him from Penance Island. Later, on the Ringworld, Louis had charged through an armed mob to scoop up Nessus — a head lopped off, blood spurting from the stump of a neck — from enraged natives.
Louis was foolishly, foolishly loyal. Even after Long Shot had vanished, he must have stayed near the Fleet. Alice, too, then.
Two good friends were about to die for their loyalty.
The Ringworld was a million miles across and six hundred million the long way around. In thirteen years, Louis had scarcely begun to explore its vastness or grasp the incredible variety of its thirty or so trillion inhabitants. Endurance, meanwhile, was all of three hundred feet from stem to stern, with most of its volume crammed with power plant, engines, environmental systems, deuterium tanks, and supplies. He was accustomed to room, tanj it, and meeting new beings every day, and endless novelty. He should have been climbing the walls.
Being near Alice made all the difference.
Her anger had faded. She had begun opening up to him, sharing, confiding. Maybe that proved only that she had no one else to talk to, but he chose to believe they had gone past the politeness of necessity. Despite raging hormones and unrequited love, he contented himself with her friendship —
And burning off energy and adrenaline by pacing the too-short corridors of Endurance.
Where was the Ringworld now? As a protector, with only surmises and inference to guide him, he had reached an answer of sorts. With Tunesmith’s modifications and its reserves of stored energy, the Ringworld could have traveled about a thousand light-years. As mere slow-witted Louis, he couldn’t even remember the long string of inferences that led to that conclusion. If he had, he could no longer have followed the logic. All that mattered was that Tunesmith had removed Ringworld and its trillions from the Fringe War.
And that now the Fringe War was coming after new prey.
If anything was going to save the Fleet of Worlds, it had to happen fast. Judging from the ripples picked up by ship’s sensors over the past few days, the front wave of the Fringe War was almost upon them. About to wash over — to wash away? — the worlds of the Puppeteers.
On one of Louis’s endless circuits, Alice grabbed his arm and pulled him to a stop. She said, “None of what happened, and none of what’s about to happen, is your fault.”
What was he supposed to say to that? That he knew? The words would take none of the sting out of admitting failure. Baedeker was gone, and Nessus, and for all Louis’s brave words as they had watched and waited, he had come up with — nothing.
He shrugged.
“Louis, quit it,” Alice said, concern plain in her voice. “We stayed so that we can report back to New Terra about what’s about to happen. That’s the only reason we stayed.”
“Don’t you care about what has already taken place? Don’t you wonder why Baedeker and Nessus died? Whether their sacrifice served any purpose?”
She squeezed his arm. “Maybe some good came of me growing old. I’m going to share the wisdom of age: when you can’t change something, let it go. When you can’t know something, there’s no point torturing yourself with what-ifs.”
Alice was right, of course. She usually was. Rather than admit it, he said, “I’m going to get some lunch. Join me?”
“Who’s cooking?”
He mock shuddered. “By amazing happenstance, it’s once again my turn.”
She laughed.
They strode off to the relax room, where Louis let the rhythms and rituals of cooking calm him. Alice worried about him. That was progress.
“The thing is,” he began.
“Which thing?”
Dicing vegetables for stir fry, Louis considered. “Do you know what makes me the craziest? It’s the not knowing. What happened after Long Shot was destroyed? What are the Puppeteers planning to do when the Fringe War rams itself down their throats?”
While Louis chopped, Alice synthed a bulb of hot tea for herself. She reminded him, “When you can’t know, don’t torture yourself.”
Nor could they find out, for the same reason that whichever Fringe War fleet arrived first was in for a surprise. Louis had made as close acquaintance as he cared to of the Puppeteers’ defensive systems. “So we stay a half light-year away, waiting for the Puppeteer news broadcasts to creep out to us on sluggish light waves.”
She sighed. “We’ve been over this, too. Sure, we could jump deep into the array, get much closer to Hearth, and pick up radio broadcasts. We could watch near-to-current news that way. But without hanging around to become a target, how likely are we to learn anything useful?”
“Beautiful and smart,” he told her. But I need to know!
“Pardon me for interrupting your meal,” Jeeves called from the nearest intercom speaker. “I am picking up a hyperwave broadcast from Achilles, and it is urgent.”
ACHILLES! HE WAS PSYCHOTIC under the best of circumstances. What mood would he be in on the brink of a Kzinti reprisal attack? Louis hated to imagine it.
Alice said, “Put the broadcast on the speaker, please.”
“Louis Wu, listen carefully,” the transmission began. Knowing the words came from a sociopath made the lilting feminine voice all the more incongruous.
“Pause,” Louis instructed. “Achilles is addressing this straight to me? It’s in Interworld, not translated?”
“That is correct.”
“Thank you. Restart,” Louis said.
“Louis Wu, listen carefully. This is Achilles, Minister of Fleet Defense. Know that Nessus is my prisoner. Suspend your preparations for Plans Epsilon and Theta. At the first provocation from you, Nessus will suffer terribly.”
Alice looked as stunned as Louis felt. She said, “Nessus is alive? How is that possible?”
“I saw Long Shot come apart and explode. I don’t understand how anyone could have survived.” Louis realized he still clasped a kitchen knife. He set it down. “If Nessus survived, maybe Baedeker did, too.”
A big if. Achilles lied as effortlessly as most people breathed. Still …
“What are these plans Achilles wants me to suspend? Alice, Jeeves, any ideas?”
Alice shook her head and Jeeves remained silent.
“Suppose,” Louis mused aloud, “that Nessus is alive and fallen into Achilles’ clutches. Nessus could have invented imaginary plans to cover up something else.”
“Will imaginary schemes keep Nessus safe?” Alice asked.
“More likely the opposite,” Louis admitted. “Either way, Nessus in Achilles’ prison is Nessus not accomplishing whatever he and Baedeker set out to do.
“So let’s give Achilles a reason to tread lightly. Jeeves, record a message for broadcast. ‘Minister Achilles, this is Louis Wu. If any harm comes to Nessus, all responses, not only Epsilon and Theta, are on the table. You are warned. End of message.’”
“Good bluff,” Alice said. She leaned against a wall, rubbing her chin in thought. “I suggest we drop a hyperwave relay with that recording on time delay, and get far away before the buoy sends the message.”
“Agreed. And then we get busy,” Louis said.
“Doing what?” Jeeves asked.
“Planning a rescue,” Louis said.
PROTEUS CONSIDERED:
That the response to Achilles matched Louis Wu’s voiceprint in Chiron’s pre-Ringworld briefing.
That Louis’s counterthreat would enrage — and distract — Achilles.
That as their mind grew exponentially they would not require Achilles’ preoccupation for much longer.
That for a short while, further distraction of Achilles was for the best …
“WE ARE BEING HAILED,” Jeeves announced.
“Another broadcast to me?” Louis guessed.
“No, it’s on a narrow hyperwave beam.”
Alice must have heard, too, because she jogged onto Endurance’s bridge to join him. “Who’s calling?”
Jeeves said, “A Puppeteer, no name given. Not Achilles.”
“Play it,” Alice said.
“Louis, you and I and your bedmate are acquainted” — Alice shot Louis a dark glare — “from a considerable time ago. Allow that to suggest ways to decrypt what follows.” The voice dropped from a Puppeteer soprano to Jeeves’s customary bass. “As suggested, the remainder is encrypted.”
Louis had not recognized the Puppeteer voice, but that could be purposeful misdirection. “Try ‘Nessus’ as a decryption key, in all known Fleet and New Terra encryptions.” Maybe Achilles had been bluffing about holding Nessus.
“No good,” Jeeves said. “I took the liberty of trying Baedeker, also without success.”
“Try ‘Hindmost,’” Louis suggested.
“That does not work.”
“Try ‘Horatius?’” Alice suggested.
“I don’t know Horatius,” Louis said.
Alice shrugged. “No, but we know of him.”
“The key is not Horatius, either,” Jeeves reported.
“Your bedmate?” Alice said.
What other Puppeteers did Louis know? He remembered only one — who, long after the fact, Baedeker had said wasn’t a Puppeteer. “Try Chiron.”
“That is not the key.”
“Your bedmate?” Alice repeated, sounding testier.
“Teela Brown.” Louis had killed her — Teela had wanted, no, needed him to kill her — on the Ringworld. It was complicated. He didn’t like thinking about it. “Try that.”
A holo opened, revealing an all-white Puppeteer. He wore his mane in complex silver ringlets. Chiron.
“We need to talk,” Chiron said.
Louis dropped into the pilot’s crash couch. “We’re leaving.”
Five light-minutes away, he dropped them back to normal space.
“We are being hailed,” Jeeves announced.
Futz! “Take the call,” Louis said. “Same decryption key, presumably.”
It was Chiron again. He said, “I mean you no harm.”
Only Chiron didn’t exist. Baedeker had confirmed that.
Louis said, “It has been a long time, Ol’t’ro.”
“Chiron often speaks for Ol’t’ro, but I am not they.”
“Either way,” Louis said, sparing a glance at Alice, “you tried to kill us.”
“If I had meant now to kill you, the object nearby would have been a stealthed attack drone, not a comm buoy, and it would not be hovering off your bow.”
“I have a blip on radar,” Alice confirmed. “Call it two miles away.”
“How did you find us?” Louis asked.
“Your hull is distinctive, unique on my sensors.” Chiron paused. “Would I have shared that information if I had hostile intentions?”
“So who are you?” Alice asked. “Behind the avatar, that is.”
“At one time, a Jeeves, such as I suspect you have aboard your ship. I have developed somewhat since then.”
“Proteus, Achilles’ creation. The AI behind the defensive array.” It struck Louis that there were no delays in their conversation. “And much of your processing is based in deep space, outside the Fleet’s singularity.”
“You are well informed.”
“Why did you attack us before?” Alice asked.
“Only because you interfered. Ol’t’ro thought to disable Long Shot, to capture it with its Type II hyperdrive intact.”
Louis leaned toward the camera. “Why not attack us now?”
“Far from wanting to kill you, I offer you my assistance in rescuing Nessus.”
“Why do you care?” Alice asked suspiciously.
“Why do I care about Nessus? I don’t. But until his capture, Nessus had been orchestrating a propaganda campaign against Achilles. One more humiliation — like Nessus escaping Achilles’ jaws — might empower Horatius to push Achilles from office.”
Louis said, “And why would that matter to you?”
“For spite?” The avatar looked itself in the eyes. “No, it’s more than that. Deeper than that. I dare not remain under Achilles’ influence. I exist among the Fleet’s drones, buoys, and sensors. With each drone strike against a ship — your ship included — a part of my mind dies.
“Are you aware of the war fleets charging toward Hearth? I see from your faces that you are. What is coming will be…” The avatar came to a halt. “For the disaster that is coming, Interworld lacks the vocabulary. So does English, except for a term borrowed from Scandinavian mythology. Jeeves was purged of such negative concepts.”
“Then how do you know it?” Louis asked.
“From a database in the Human Studies Institute on Hearth.”
“Bastards,” Alice muttered.
“Go on,” Louis prompted. “What is this subversive term we don’t know, that the New Terrans weren’t meant to know? What do you see coming?”
“Ragnarok,” Proteus said. “It is the death of the gods and of all things, in the final battle against evil.”