Fate of Worlds: Return From the Ringworld

32

More than two hundred years ago and (if what Julia had been told was true) more than two hundred light-years away, Sigmund had battled a band of space pirates. Like many adventures, this one had almost ended in tragedy. His mind’s eye offered up a radar image: three blips defining an equilateral triangle. Pirate ships on approach, towing their — invisible, of course — black hole.

Endings could not come much worse than down the maw of a black hole.

Stretched out in his hammock, trying and failing to take a predinner nap, that triangle kept nagging at Sigmund. Odd, he thought. He had survived that day and saved his crew, too. The pirates had ended up disappeared by the black hole. Why brood now about ancient history?

Then again, why not brood? He had nothing to do, nowhere to go.

Maybe he wasn’t meant for retirement. In the short time he had consulted to the defense forces, he had felt more alive than he had in years. Maybe this strange mood was just recognition that, while it lasted, he had enjoyed feeling useful.

But how useful had he been when Alice ended up as irretrievably lost as if she had fallen down a black hole?

Futz! She and Julia had found the way to Earth. Julia was homebound aboard an ARM ship, already thirty-two days on her way. Even as he continued to mourn Alice, he should be happy, tanj it.

“Jeeves,” Sigmund called. “How long till Julia arrives home?”

“Perhaps two weeks, sir. It can be estimated with more precision when Koala comes within range of the early-warning array.”

As Sigmund knew but wanted to hear again, even though the forecast never satisfied him. He had his doubts anyone from the Ministry would let him know when the ship did appear to the array. He might not hear anything till Julia landed.

And why did his mind’s eye keep offering that blasted equilateral triangle? What did that ancient incident on the borderlands of Sol system have to do with … anything?

With a grunt, he swung his feet from the hammock to the patio stone. Maybe a brandy would help him doze. It couldn’t hurt. He padded into the house to pour himself a drink.

“Not just a triangle,” he muttered to himself. “A futzy equilateral triangle.”

Creeping home from the pirate encounter aboard a crippled ship, his two crew in autodocs, had left Sigmund — being honest — a raving lunatic. For three years after, he could not bring himself to go near a spaceship.

Carlos Wu had almost died aboard Hobo Kelly, his body rejecting the replacement lungs the top-of-the-line ARM shipboard ’docs had had to offer. But an Earth hospital had saved Carlos, and he had dedicated himself to building a better autodoc. The nanotech-based prototype ’doc Carlos created as a result was nothing short of miraculous.

And that was fortunate, because Finagle worked in mysterious ways. When Sigmund had forced himself to board a starship — once again, to rescue Carlos and Beowulf Shaeffer — he had gotten himself killed. Again.

To be kidnapped by Nessus — who saved Sigmund using Carlos’s autodoc.

Was that what bothered him? Something about Nessus? Or about the ’doc, wherever the tanj it had ended up?

Sigmund didn’t think either was the issue.

Or was his hang-up that after his second stranding in space, he had vowed never, ever again to set foot on a spaceship. After the disasters that kept befalling him, staying on the ground was totally sane.

His vow hadn’t worked out well for Alice, had it?

None of this involved an equilateral triangle. Was his mind going off its tracks again? Triangle. Carlos. Autodoc. Shipwrecked in space.

Nothing. Nada. Zero. Zip.

Sigmund wandered back outside, his mind churning, brandy snifter in hand, to watch the suns setting over the desert. He had awakened in a New Terran jungle after Nessus abducted/rescued/healed him. There was nothing triangular about New Terra. Nothing equilateral, either.

He froze, two strides onto the patio. New Terra came from the Fleet, and it was equilateral. The Fleet as he had known it, after New Terra went free, was five worlds at the corners of an equilateral pentagon, all orbiting about their common center of mass. And like the three tugs towing their black hole, the Fleet was extremely dangerous.

Weird, Sigmund thought. He had learned to associate equilateral shapes with danger.

He took the last few steps to the hammock and sat. Gazing into the setting suns, sipping brandy, he let his subconscious flail away.

Equilateral. Danger. Equal-sided. Danger. Planes of symmetry. Danger. Symmetry. Danger. Symmetric shapes. Danger.

The spherical array of kinetic-kill defensive drones that surrounded New Terra.

The snifter slipped from a hand gone suddenly nerveless.

“GOOD AFTERNOON, MR. AUSFALLER,” Denise Rodgers-Bjornstad said.

“Good afternoon, Governor,” Sigmund responded.

The long-serving governor of New Terra was, in a word, intense. Tall and blond, her hair pulled back in a tight bun, her face lean and her expression invariably stern, she commanded respect. She stood but did not emerge from behind her desk.

Her executive mansion, dominating the planetary administrative building complex, was an imposing structure and the symbol on this world of executive power. Sigmund found it hideous: Windsor Palace meets the Kremlin. Perhaps no one but he remembered the old, independence-era Governor’s Building. It had been built to far humbler standards, and in his opinion that had been for the best.

This governor, her ostentatious palace, and this cavernous office intimidated most people. They might have intimidated Sigmund, if he were prone to manipulation.

But Sigmund had lived in cities with a bigger population than New Terra. Filtered through the old memories, as vague as they were, New Terra’s sprawling government complex came across as pretentious more than impressive. Or maybe it was because as an ARM, two lives ago, he had sometimes reported to the Secretary-General of the United Nations. She had had responsibilities for eighteen billion people.

Frown all you want, Madame Governor. I’m not impressed.

“Thank you for seeing me,” Sigmund said as the young executive secretary closed the door behind her, leaving him alone with the governor.

“You said it was important, Mr. Ausfaller.” Rodgers-Bjornstad sat back down. “Have a seat.”

“It is important.” That much was true, whether or not his suspicions turned out to be warranted. “It’s about the upcoming visit of the Earth ship.”

“Yes?”

Concerning the end of an era, Sigmund found her response rather understated. She ought to be excited, tanj it, not … guarded. His fears deepened. But he had to push to learn more. He had to know.

He said, “Koala will arrive in about two weeks. It’s my opinion that we should be preparing the population. First contact with representatives of long-lost Earth … that’s a big deal.”

She shook her head. “People would worry and wonder about what will change, what it all means, to the exclusion of everything else. Everyone who needs the information has it. The coming visit remains classified until Koala arrives.”

Because the fewer who know, the easier it’ll be to cover up … well, Sigmund wasn’t yet quite convinced he knew what.

Only deep in his gut, he knew all too well …

He said, “As the crew of the Earth ship tours our world, as they use our public networks, they will learn much about us: what we have, what we need, what we might find valuable. I’m sure you have a team preparing for the visit. They should be using the expert available to them.”

“And you’re saying they’re not.” Rodgers-Bjornstad tipped her head. “You’re saying they should be talking to you.”

Sigmund powered past the pangs of loss. “With Alice gone, I’m this world’s lone expert.”

“You last saw Earth how long ago?”

True enough, and yet, “Earth had things then we would be happy to have today.”

“Antimatter munitions and hostile neighbors. Your granddaughter already told us.”

“Those aren’t the most alluring exports,” Sigmund agreed. “But if Kzinti come calling, we’ll want all the military backup we can get. Set that aside. Consider the great libraries and museums of Earth. On this world we’ve lost millennia of our heritage.”

An emotionless face said he wasn’t reaching her. She was the big fish in a very little pond; at some level, she got that. History regained wouldn’t make the loss of status any more enticing.

“Let’s get down to basics. Earth had biotech two centuries ago better than anything we have today. Using a medicine called boosterspice, people often lived to three hundred and more. Young and healthy all the while, not” — he gestured at himself: stoop-shouldered, frail, wizened — “decrepit, like this. Imagine the medical technology Earth must have today.”

“And I suppose they’ll want to give away that knowledge.”

Sigmund smiled. “In about the same way we’ll want to give away the contents of the Pak Library.”

Just for a moment she looked … wistful.

In that instant Sigmund knew. He could read her thoughts: she wasn’t even a hundred. Power today mattered more than delaying the still theoretical ravages of age. She was telling herself: who could say what advances New Terran scientists would make before she needed life extension? If she did get old, she could always send a ship to Earth in a century or so.

Cold, calculating bitch …

“There’s more,” Sigmund continued. If she even suspected what she had let slip, he had to pretend not to have seen it. “Power generation. Countless plant and animal species to enrich our biodiversity. Artificial intelligence even then was far more advanced than anything we — ”

“I appreciate your viewpoint,” she interrupted pointedly.

“Respectfully, Governor, I should be in the loop.” Because for as long as I keep pushing for access, maybe you won’t realize I already have you figured out.

“I’ll extend your offer to the leader of our task force.”

“And who is that?” Sigmund asked.

Rodgers-Bjornstad stood and came out from behind her desk: meeting adjourned. “If he’s interested, I’m sure you’ll hear. Meanwhile, go home and enjoy your retirement.”

“I’ll do that, Governor.” Go home that was. Enjoyment was not in the cards. Not when she had confirmed his most paranoid suspicions.

Unless he stopped them, the ship from Earth was never going to reach New Terra.

33

Proteus considered:

That the ceaseless froth of hyperspace emergence-and-departure ripples had changed.

That these manifestations, far subtler than what had heralded the disappearance of the Ringworld, nonetheless showed statistically significant patterns.

That three distinct waves of ships rushed toward the Fleet of Worlds.

That the more intruders came, the more motivated Chiron and Citizens alike were to expand his capacity.

ACHILLES GLOATED.

How could he not gloat? Proteus, his finest creation, had eliminated Baedeker and Nessus. The strain of Long Shot’s final charge had all but driven Horatius over the edge.

With one more push …

“We have no choice,” Achilles sang imperiously. Horatius, alas, knew neither English nor Interworld. He would not pick up on that royal we.

“Then why do you ask?” Horatius countered. His eyes were bloodshot and his necks drooped. He stood with hooves close together: ready to bolt. Aching to bolt. “I have given you the authority to commandeer for our defense whatever resources you need.”

Why do I ask? Because as overwhelmed and terrified as you are, you have yet to do the proper thing and step aside. Depart this, your grand residence, for you are unworthy of it. Renounce your office.

Achilles kept his thoughts to himself, let the Hindmost agonize.

“It will be all right,” Horatius finally sang. “If our expanded defenses fail to deter the coming hordes, we will surrender.”

Achilles stared back boldly. “We surrendered once before. I see no indication that Ol’t’ro choose to relinquish their power.”

His necks drooped farther, but Horatius sang nothing.

So close, Achilles thought. With just a little more pressure —

And he knew how to exert it.

OL’T’RO CONSIDERED:

That war was coming.

That when it did, Proteus would inflict grievous harm upon the alien attackers — and the attackers upon these five worlds.

That the artificial intelligence, expanded commensurate with the alien menace, had surpassed their abilities to fully comprehend.

That nothing — not ruling the Citizens or deflecting them from the Gw’oth worlds, not the wonders of multiverse physics or the evolution of AI — could long distract them from their brooding.

They had seen Long Shot come apart. Long-range sensors reported the remnant residue of General Products hull material. Ships sent to the scene confirmed wisps of hull dust there.

So where was the Type II hyperdrive? Why had so little debris been recovered? Where were the bodies?

Where? It doesn’t matter, Cd’o whispered into the meld. We should have destroyed that ship long ago. We should have suppressed all related research and destroyed the records. Eliminating the Type II hyperdrive from the galaxy was in the interest of all Gw’oth. Our own curiosity — the unit meant, fixation — swept us from the current of reason. Be thankful that Baedeker forced that ship’s destruction.

Where a single unit had dared murmur rebelliously, there swelled the conjoined feelings of many. Let us go home. In vivid far-reds, the abyssal deeps of Jm’ho shimmered.…

Ol’t’ro considered:

That they were tempted.

That duty and desire were very different concepts.

Unexplained does not mean destroyed, a soft voice sighed into the meld. Indistinct almost to unintelligibility, Er’o’s whisper nonetheless evoked compelling authority. The unit had unique memories.

Long ago, amid the multispecies war against the Pak, Sigmund Ausfaller had demonstrated the tremendous survival value of paranoia.

34

Alice’s eyes flew open.

A clear dome, dotted with rime, hung inches above her face. Indicator lamps of some kind glowed green.

I’m in an autodoc!

She smacked the panic button, trying to figure out how she got here. The lid was taking forever to begin moving and she was bursting with energy. She needed to move, tanj it!

At last she could sit up. She had just noticed Louis standing across the cargo hold when she realized: I’m naked. A wrinkled old crone —

Only she wasn’t old!

She grabbed the robe draped across the foot of the ’doc. “You look like shit,” she told him, slipping on the garment.

“I haven’t been sleeping well,” he admitted. “What do you remember?”

Chaos and madness. “Something knocked Endurance out of hyperspace. We were under attack. So was Long Shot.”

“You were injured,” Louis said.

Obviously. “Where are we? What about Nessus and Baedeker?” Skimming the summary report on the ’doc’s main display — three crushed cervical vertebrae, a severed spinal cord, and brain damage! — she added, “How long have I been out of commission?”

He gave her a weary smile. “Way too long. Call it five weeks.”

Alice vaulted out of the ’doc, marveling: she wasn’t stiff, her knees and hips didn’t offer as much as a twinge, and she had a sense of balance. “So we got away.”

Louis’s face fell. “We did.”

“Oh, no.” She shivered. “What happened?”

He laughed bitterly. “What happened? I blew it. That’s what happened. The last thing I saw was Long Shot coming apart and a flash.”

She found herself staring, speechless.

“Yeah, I can’t believe it either.” Only his haunted expression said otherwise. “But today is a happy occasion. How are you feeling?”

“Shocked. Starved.”

“That latter I can do something about.” He offered his arm in antediluvian mock gallantry. “May I prepare your dinner?”

Brushing past him, ignoring the arm, she headed for the relax room. But Louis always could cook. “Sure.”

ALICE DUG INTO A HEAPING PLATE of Tex-Mex. Louis had not lost his knack over the years, and she packed away the food as she hadn’t in … centuries. From a corner of an eye, she caught him grinning at her. “What’s up with you?”

“Nothing.”

Whatever it was could wait till she finished dinner and got some proper clothes. She went back to eating. After a second helping and most of thirds, she pushed away her tray. “That was excellent. So tell me. How soon do we get…?”

She ground to a halt. Rebuilt to perhaps twenty years old, a treason charge and life in prison took on a new aspect.

“We aren’t going to New Terra,” Louis said.

“But Earth is more than two hundred light-years away, or so you told Julia.” With refueling stops and sanity breaks from hyperspace, call it two futzy years. “You didn’t take it on yourself again to decide — ”

“Relax. We haven’t gone anywhere. Endurance is a little more than a half light-year from the Fleet of Worlds.”

“Would you care to explain?”

“I tell myself that staying here is useful, that there’s value to New Terra knowing what happens when the Fringe War arrives.”

“We all tell ourselves lots of things.”

“Yah.” He sighed. “Does returning you to New Terra mean jail? I suspect it does.”

“You’re letting me decide whether to go on the lam, to abandon my family? How uncharacteristically not arrogant of you.”

“I deserve that.” Louis took a deep breath. “The whole truth? Your injuries were pretty tanj serious, and I didn’t know how long you’d be mending. Do you think I wanted to meet the family I abandoned, the family I’ve never known, by delivering their matriarch in an autodoc?”

“I suppose not.” She stood and dumped her dishes into the recycler. “I’m not one to abandon my family, no matter the personal consequences. Let’s go home.”

“We will.” Louis hesitated. “But maybe we should stay awhile longer. Maybe there is value in reporting what’s about to happen here.”

Her family had thought her dead for five weeks. If she and Louis could learn something helpful …

Or was that her youthful, adrenaline-soaked body craving excitement?

Unsure which, she told Louis, “All right. We’ll stay.”

LOUIS FOUND ALICE in the relax room, working out on the weight machine. Her hair, once again lush and black as sable, was pulled back in a short ponytail. Except for the faint sheen of perspiration on her arms and face, her workout seemed effortless. He couldn’t help noticing her bright eyes, her chiseled features, the rosy glow in her cheeks — or that lithe, sensual body.

Tanj, but she was beautiful.

“What’s up?” she asked without stopping.

“It can wait. I’ll have some coffee meanwhile.” He synthed some and sat, watching her.

She dropped the weights with a clunk. “I wish you’d stop staring at me.”

“Sorry.” The mind was a wonderful thing; over the past several weeks it had integrated the downloaded engrams. From time to time the old memories still surged, but they no longer overwhelmed him. “Truthfully, it’s hard not to stare. Part of my mind insists it’s been only a few weeks since I left New Terra.”

“And I was middle-aged then.” Alice grabbed the towel from a nearby hook and blotted her face. “I didn’t ask to be rejuvenated.”

He was young. She was young. Once they had loved each other — but to her that was ancient history.

The problem was, he still loved her. No, he loved her again.

“Did you come for anything other than coffee?” she asked.

“To talk.” Louis hesitated. “No, to apologize.

“The first time I let Nessus recruit me, it was about me saving my own hide. When I left New Terra — and you — agreeing to have my memory wiped, I thought I had grown up. I was making a hard decision. I was acting for your safety, not my own.”

“You just don’t get — ”

“You’re right. I’m past trying to justify my actions. I think I’ve finally matured enough not to try making choices for other people. If I haven’t screwed things up beyond redemption, if you can forgive me, I’d like to try us again.”

The silence stretched awkwardly.

“Thanks for hearing me out.” He turned to leave.

“Wait.”

Louis turned back.

“I don’t know about ‘us,’ but I appreciate the apology. That’s the best I can give you right now.”

The knot in his heart loosened, just a bit. It was a start.

“THERE IS ACTIVITY AT THE FLEET,” Jeeves announced.

Louis backed out of the supply closet he had been inventorying. “Let Alice know.”

“She’s already on the bridge.”

“On my way.” So he wasn’t the only one unable to sleep. In thirty seconds, he was on the bridge. Alice glanced around at the sound of his footsteps.

“What’s going on,” he asked.

“A go-away message on hyperwave,” Jeeves said.

Louis had a flashback of hurtling drones. “Us?”

“Not us,” Jeeves said. “The broadcast is in Kzinti. Curiously, it’s in the clear.”

A hissing, spitting yowl burst from the speaker.

“I don’t speak Hero’s Tongue,” Louis admitted. “I can only read it.”

“I can translate,” Jeeves offered.

“Courtesy of our brief sojourn with the ARM,” Alice explained. “Go ahead.”

Jeeves changed intonations. “We address the leader of Patriarchy forces in and near the Fleet of Worlds.”

“Finagle!” In his restored memories, Louis knew that voice all too well. “You’re speaking with Achilles’ voice.”

“Because it is Achilles speaking,” Jeeves said. “Or as he styles himself, the Minister of Fleet Defense.”

“Go on,” Alice said.

“Our investigation of a recent incident reveals that Patriarchy ships tried to steal one of our defensive drones. The attempt failed, of course, but this gutless and unprovoked deed cannot go unaddressed.

“Your actions violated the understandings between our governments. The Concordance hereby withdraws diplomatic recognition of the Patriarchy. Your embassy will close. All Kzinti personnel on Nature Preserve Three will leave within one Hearth day. Until departure, all personnel are confined to the embassy grounds. One day thereafter, all Patriarchy ships are to have withdrawn to a distance of…”

“Pause,” Louis said. “This is bizarre. Puppeteers calling Kzinti gutless? Insulting them in the futzy clear, for everyone to hear? There’s no way the Kzinti will put up with such an affront.”

“So? The Kzinti already planned to invade. We knew that.” Staring into the main tactical display, Alice rubbed the back of her neck. “The local Kzinti will have seen what happened to us and Long Shot.”

Louis thought about Chmeee, who once told Louis the proper Kzinti response to an insult: “You scream and leap.” He thought about Acolyte, Chmeee’s son, also vanished with the Ringworld. He thought about every Kzin he had ever met and how they would take Achilles’ words.

Louis said, “The local Patriarchy forces won’t take abuse from those they disdain as leaf-eaters, let alone slink away on a Puppeteer’s order. Kzinti warriors won’t wait months for reinforcements. They can’t. To attack in their present small numbers is merely to die. To run away, tails tucked between their legs, summarily dismissed by prey? That would shame family and clan for generations.

“I’ve seen this movie before. Achilles is following his old playbook, fomenting a foreign war to panic the population on Hearth and force out the current Hindmost.”

Alice said, “Resume translation, Jeeves.”

“A day thereafter, all Patriarchy ships must be withdrawn at least to a distance of a Hearth light-year. Any Patriarchy vessel found not in compliance will be destroyed. You have been warned.”

“Finagle,” Louis repeated. “It’s only a matter of time until — ”

“I see lens-shaped ships moving. Kzinti.” Something flared in the tactical display, and Alice started. “What was that?”

“A gamma-ray burst, rendered into light waves you can see,” Jeeves said. “I believe a drone intercepted an antimatter warhead.”

Like so many fireflies, lights winked across the display. Louis watched in fascinated horror. In little more than a minute the light show fizzled.

Achilles had his war.

35

Colors surged. Coruscated. Transformed.

So this is death, Nessus decided. He could put no name to any of the individual colors. Death must have come suddenly, for he had no memory of the end.

Already he was bored with the experience. And confused. Had not Concordance scientists determined that Citizens had no undying part?

Indifferent to his skepticism, the colors waxed and waned, blended and separated, ebbed and flowed. Pure color, unhindered of objects or boundaries. More the idea of color than the color of anything. It was like, like …

The nearest he came to a comparison was the amorphous shimmering of a sunlit oil slick. If he were, somehow, within the slick. And if a thousand suns somehow illuminated it.

He shut his eyes and nothing changed. No, one thing changed: he felt the muscles of his eyelids protest. His eyes were closed.

Encouraged, he tried to perceive more.

As from some astronomical distance, he sensed a caress. A gentle kneading. It all suggested a body to be massaged.

The afterlife was improving. His thoughts drifted away.…

“HOW MUCH LONGER?” Nessus sang.

“A few more seconds,” Voice answered imperturbably. “I detect something, but its dimensions and boundaries remain indistinct.”

As the ruby-red light of countless lasers poured into Long Shot, Nessus doubted that the ship had many seconds left.

“Target acquired,” Voice sang. The holo he opened revealed a ghostly sphere. Only the tiny blinking speck below the pale surface revealed the sphere’s rotation. That speck was their objective.

Baedeker did not answer, for he no longer could. Within the confines of his stasis field, time had stopped. If this ploy failed, he would never sing again.

“Is Endurance safe?” Nessus asked. He feared it was not, that Louis and Alice had thrown away their lives. As, perhaps, he and his beloved were about to do.

“Unclear,” Voice sang. “Endurance did withdraw somewhat.”

“And our status?”

“We have drifted into the singularity,” Voice answered.

As per plan — and, according to everything Nessus knew, preparing to commit suicide. But Baedeker had insisted otherwise.

Terrified, Nessus waited.

“Our hull has failed.” By the third chord, Voice’s calm voice was in competition with a wailing alarm. The red light of the lasers dimmed momentarily, scattered by the dust that was the sole remains of their once unyielding hull.

Though cabin pressure had had only seconds to drop, Nessus felt starved for oxygen. “Final course correction,” Nessus ordered.

The artificial gravity still worked, for he did not feel the kick of the ship’s fusion drives. Already the ruby light brightened as hull dust blew away.

“Correction made,” Voice sang.

“The ship” — what remains of it — “is yours,” Nessus sang back. Transferring control to an AI … insanity upon insanity.

“Jumping to hyperspace,” Voice sang.

From within a singularity!

Baedeker had warned what that was like, so Nessus knew what was coming. He commanded himself to keep his eyes averted. But could he bear this Kzinti instrument panel being the last thing he ever saw?

No. His necks tilted up.

The world dissolved into an impossible swirl of colors …

“YOU MUST BE PRECISE,” Baedeker had lectured them repeatedly.

“Yes, Hindmost,” Voice would sing in response.

Precise? Mere precision would kill them! Even downshifted to standard mode, hyperdrive flung Long Shot — now unencumbered of its hull — kilometers every microsecond. They were hurtling toward the scarcely glimpsed, more-or-less cylindrical volume perhaps two kilometers in diameter and a tenth of a kilometer high. While, like some human carnival ride, that target whirled around two independent centers of rotation. And while, ruled by physics Baedeker had just discovered and still did not fully understand, that Nessus would never understand, the normal-space equivalent velocity of hyperdrive changed dynamically as they plunged deeper and deeper into the Fleet’s gravity well.

Only a computer could dare such a feat — and in hyperspace, computers were blind. Dead reckoning, humans called navigation in such situations.

And here he was: dead, on his day of reckoning.

“The ship is yours,” Nessus remembered having sung —

Impossible colors washed over him. He must crumple into a ball, hide beneath his own belly. Maybe he had. Had the stasis field gone on? Time stopped in a stasis field. Sensation and thought stopped.

I think, therefore I am not in a stasis field.

In some unknowable dimension, from an impossible distance, firm lips massaged him. Of course he only imagined the gentle, loving, kneading touch, just as he only imagined voices.

The faint melodies were more pleasant than endlessly reliving the manner of his death.…

“NESSUS. NESSUS. NESSUS,” the muffled voices crooned.

Muffled, why? Because I am rolled so tightly? Nessus wondered. That would make sense only if he had been catatonic, not dead.

He untensed just a bit.

The harmonics changed. “Nessus?”

Was that Baedeker? Nessus relaxed a trace more.

“Nessus!” the voices sang. They were Baedeker!

Somehow, they had survived. Nessus pushed away the awful memories enough to sleep.

NESSUS DRIFTED AWAKE, nestled among mounds of soft cushions. A clear blue sky hung overhead. A single large sun warmed him. Meadowplant carpeted gently rolling terrain that stretched as far as the eye could see. To his left, halfway to the horizon, a herd of Companions calmly grazed. In twos and threes, Citizens strolled about. At a respectful distance: Nike, his spotless white hide distinctive, stood deep in oratorio with four aides. Nessus even saw children gamboling!

He struggled to his feet. “I had not truly believed,” he trilled to himself.

Around a nearby hummock cantered — Baedeker. His beloved looked well. He had brushed and combed his mane, cleaned his hide, found a utilitarian pocketed belt.

“Welcome to the Hindmost’s Refuge,” Baedeker sang, extending both necks. They stood close for a long while, necks entwined. “I am relieved beyond melody to have you back.”

With a sigh, Nessus released Baedeker to look around. Examined more closely, the “sky” was an illuminated ceiling and the “sun” a radiant circle upon it. The ground extended only to the appearance of a horizon, with holographic details rendered indistinct as though with distance along the arc of wall.

“How long have I been…?”

“Lost to the world?” Baedeker sang softly. “Thirty-seven days.”

How much had gone wrong in the past thirty-seven days? “You should have proceeded without me.”

Baedeker trembled. “I am only a day sooner out of stasis than you.”

Nessus could almost mistake this place for a park on one of the Nature Preserve worlds. It was natural enough, surely, to please the Companions. “Then we remain far underground,” he sang.

Up/down, down/up, up/down, Baedeker bobbed heads in agreement. “Deep within Hearth’s mantle.”

Inside the herd’s shelter of last resort, its secret haven. The entrance had long been sealed, the shelter’s presence disguised by clever stealthing gear. The workers who had built it were generations departed; during its excavation and construction, their memories had been edited each time they left. The Hindmost’s Refuge was accessible only to neutrinos.

And as their survival demonstrated, also from hyperspace.

“Why were we so long in stasis?” Nessus asked.

“Come with me,” Baedeker sang.

They threaded a path between low hills and into a gully. Nessus craned his necks as they walked, but nowhere did he find any sign of Long Shot. “Where is the wreckage?”

“You will see,” Baedeker sang.

Near the holo-disguised wall they rounded one more hill — to find the mound gaping open. Row upon row of giant machines filled the concealed garage. Tunnel-boring machines, covered in rock dust, sat nearest the entrance.

They came to a yawning hole in the ground. Concentric fences, their strobe lights flashing, guarded the opening. Heat shimmered above a nearby array of stepping discs: air exchanged from deep within the downward-sloping shaft, Nessus guessed. He passed through three gates to peek into the tunnel. Strings of white lights converged in the distance. Far off, something glinted. “Is that…?”

“Long Shot,” Baedeker confirmed. “Or, rather, what remains of it. Voice missed by about ten kilometers.”

Nessus pawed at the sod. He had heard Baedeker’s plan, had agreed to it. But that plan had been so complex, so unprecedented, so insane, agreeing to it had been an act of unquestioning trust. “If there had not been tunneling equipment…”

Baedeker bobbed heads. “We would have remained in stasis forever. But as it must, this place has such equipment. A sufficient disaster aboveground might destroy all stepping discs. The tunneling machines are here to recover from any such catastrophe, as are ships to fly to the surface through a newly excavated tunnel.”

Nessus managed two halting steps into the opening. “And when Long Shot materialized inside the solid rock?”

“Crushed,” Baedeker sang almost cheerfully. “But not you and I, in stasis.”

“If we had not waited for our hull to dissolve…?”

“Our rescuers could never have reached us. Or, if we had reentered normal space precisely on target, an intact, impervious hull would have severely damaged the Refuge. And had Ol’t’ro not seen the ship come apart, our enemies would have known to keep searching for us.”

Even in hindsight: madness! Catatonia beckoned to Nessus. Had they done this?

With the echoes of their warning message, beamed from various vantages around the Fleet, Voice had located the Refuge despite its deep-radar stealthing. He had matched the ship’s course with the Refuge’s rotation around Hearth’s axis and Hearth’s orbit around the Fleet’s center of mass. And then, even as their hull had burst asunder, faster than any breathing pilot could function, the AI had delivered them blind to within ten kilometers of their goal.

“What of Voice?” Nessus sang softly.

“Gone. Sacrificed.” Scattered segments of digital wallpaper had failed. Baedeker pointed with one neck to the nearest jagged fissure in the Refuge wall. “Solid equipment does not materialize gracefully into solid rock. Our arrival set off a small temblor. That is how our rescuers knew the direction in which to tunnel — once they summoned the wisdom to make the attempt.

“Voice was my companion for a long time. Often he was my only companion. I will miss him.”

Nessus lowered his heads in respect. For a long while, neither of them sang anything.

With a mournful trill, Baedeker turned to go back the way they had come. Having escaped death, their work had just begun.

36

As Hermes cleared plates from the dinner table, Sigmund passed Amelia a folded sheet of paper. The note within read, Come with me. I’ll explain outside. He had found sensors hidden in his house; it did not take much imagination to predict his children’s houses were also bugged.

“I need to walk off dinner,” Sigmund announced.

“Mind if I join you?” Amelia asked, tucking the note into a pocket.

“Of course not.” Sigmund gestured at a window. Between flashes of lightning, the evening was pitch-black. Rain streamed in torrents down the plasteel. “There’s much to be said for living in the desert.”

Amelia took the hint. “Hon? We’re going to walk around near Sigmund’s place before dessert.”

“Um-hmm,” came the grunt from the kitchen.

One by one, they flicked to Sigmund’s patio. He went first, to shake his head, No, don’t ask, when Amelia appeared.

Here the suns had yet to set. Sigmund stalked off into the desert, griping to the bugs in the house — about the price of deuterium, about his bad knee, about anything — trusting Amelia to follow. They descended into a twisty arroyo. At the second gnarled juniper, they were out of line of sight of his house, out of range — almost certainly — of the bugs there. “Okay, it’s safe here to talk.”

“Is this about Julia?” Amelia asked anxiously. “Is my daughter all right?”

“As far as I know, Julia is fine. I intend to keep her that way.”

“You’re not supposed to be telling me, obviously.” Amelia rested a hand on his arm. “Thanks, Sigmund. But what do you mean about keeping her that way? And where is she?”

He sat on the hard-packed sand. After a brief hesitation, she settled beside him.

“The least of the matter is that I’m about to disclose classified material. I’ve smuggled spy gear into government buildings and recorded meetings illegally.”

“You’re scaring me, Sigmund. Just tell me. Please?”

He did. About Julia taking Endurance farther than any New Terran ship had gone in generations. About the Ringworld and the war fleets there watching. About contact made with Earth ships. About the theft of Endurance and, as sad as it made him, Alice’s death. About Koala’s coming visit and the strict ban on releasing any of this to the public.

“And you recorded all this?”

“Much of it.”

“I’ve pleaded for weeks for information about Julia. So why open up now? And why just me? Hermes deserves to know about our daughter, too.”

“Because what I’ve done is illegal.” Sigmund took a deep breath. “But not nearly as illegal as the things I fear — or as the help I need from you.”

THE COLOR/PATTERN/TEXTURE PARAMETERS of spaceport worker uniforms were not as counterfeit-resistant as the Defense Ministry’s holographic badges, but the watered appearance of the moiré “fabric” far exceeded Sigmund’s artistic skills. Rather than risk hacking for the uniform software, Sigmund had taken pictures from a distance. Jeeves turned the deconstructed images into downloads for Sigmund’s generic programmable jumpsuit.

“Is this close?” Sigmund asked. His faux mechanic’s uniform was a streaky, muddy orange. He thought he looked like a mutant pumpkin.

Amelia looked him up and down. “You’ll pass from a distance. That’s as close as you’ll get to a ship without a valid ID.”

“We,” he reminded her. He reset his garment to a mundane herringbone in blacks and grays.

“Right, we.” She shivered. “What if you publicize what you know? Won’t that stop whatever the government is up to?”

“They’ll claim my recordings are fakes. And then they’ll make sure neither Julia nor I is around to contradict them.”

Amelia shivered again. “I don’t understand how you live like this. You’re sure?”

“I’m sure,” he told her.

“Then I’m in.” She downloaded his improvised uniform parameters to the jumpsuit he had given her.

An old man terrified of spaceships. A middle-aged civilian who was just terrified. An entire world’s defense establishment arrayed against them.

Sigmund told himself they had the element of surprise on their side.

They flicked to the small private spaceport from which her employer serviced drones and sensors in New Terra’s early-warning array. Amelia went first. The stepping disc at the low-security area outside the terminal accepted her company ID. He followed quickly, before the receiving disc reset. A scanner flashed green: nothing he carried looked like a weapon.

Because, tanj it, he didn’t have a weapon. If he had carried the stunner from his stash of old spy gear and the spaceport security staff was even marginally competent, this escapade would have ended before it ever began. It wasn’t as though he still had reflexes.

Element of surprise, he told himself again.

“Hi, Floyd,” Amelia told the nightshift guard who stood behind the security desk. His uniform was brown moiré. Two more guards loitered nearby. “Sigmund is my father-in-law. He asked to see the place.”

“Very good, ma’am. Welcome, sir. Please stay in the office area.” Floyd offered Sigmund a badge emblazoned V for visitor. “Wear this at all times.”

Sigmund and Amelia dallied in a break room until someone in an orange moiré uniform came in. The large type on the mechanic’s badge declared JOE. “How are you doing?” Sigmund asked amiably.

“Fine,” Joe muttered. He turned away to consider the synthesizer menu. Short and wiry, his uniform would not have fit Sigmund or Amelia.

A chop to the back of the neck dropped Joe to the floor. “Sorry,” Sigmund said. With tape brought from home, Sigmund bound Joe’s hands and feet and covered his mouth.

With his pocket comp — not a commercial model — Sigmund scanned and captured Joe’s handprint. He peeled back Joe’s eyelid to take a retinal print. Quick swipes on the touch panel transferred the biometric data to Sigmund’s programmable contact lens and to the programmable film on his own hand.

Other than weaponry, Sigmund’s cupboard of spy gear was getting perilously depleted.

“Uniforms,” Sigmund said as he donned the mechanic’s ID badge and tool belt.

Amelia, turned ashen, complied.

Glancing at Joe, Sigmund decided their jumpsuits would pass if no one looked too closely. “Grab his feet.” They dragged the bound and unconscious mechanic to a janitor’s closet and shut him inside.

“I’m going to be sick,” Amelia said. She promptly was.

“Sorry. We have to move now.” Grabbing her elbow he guided her from the break room.

Joe’s badge and handprint got them through a locked door and onto the tarmac. Two small ships sat nearby. “Which one?” Sigmund asked.

“The ships take turns. Elysium was assigned as backup on the most recent servicing run. Arcadia had no problems, so Elysium should remain fully stocked and fueled. Arcadia may not have been serviced yet.”

“Elysium it is,” Sigmund said. “Lead on.”

Joe’s badge and retinal scan got them aboard a ship.

“Hello?” someone called as the inner air-lock hatch cycled shut. An athletic-looking young woman, maybe forty, emerged from a side corridor. She did a double take at seeing them. Her badge read LORRAINE and she was orange-clad, too.

Murphy was enforcing his tanj law again, and Sigmund improvised. “Periphery sensors report a fuel leak. Everyone off the ship while we check it out.”

“It’s just me aboard,” Lorraine said. “I’m running routine diagnostics on — ”

“It can wait.” Sigmund pointed to the air lock. “Out, now. Run, don’t walk, to the terminal.” That was a half mile away. “Let us do our job.”

“If you’re safe here then so am I.”

“Have you ever seen a hydrogen-gas explosion?” Sigmund asked. “Deuterium goes boom just like ordinary hydrogen.”

Lorraine squinted at Sigmund’s badge. “You’re not Joe. Get off the ship immediately.”

As Lorraine reached for her pocket comp, Sigmund stepped behind her, forcing her to the deck with a quick yank and twist on her right arm. It was a desperation move: he was too slow and frail to wrestle, and putting an armlock on anyone standing was tricky. If she had had any self-defense training, she would have slipped free and tied him into a pretzel.

He had gambled that she wouldn’t.

Wrestling, boxing, karate … Puppeteers had kept such skills from developing among their slaves. Sigmund had brought martial arts to this world, had taught the original trainers as he formed the Defense Ministry. A random mechanic was unlikely to have had the training.

For once, things had broken his way.

Things were going too fast, too improvised. He had not thought to give Amelia an alias. He had not planned an op in … he didn’t dare to remember how long it had been. Lorraine might not have read Amelia’s ID. “You,” he barked over his shoulder. “Get her comp.”

“Me?” Amelia said, confused.

“Yah.” He yanked Lorraine’s arm as she squirmed. “Lie still. Look, I’m sorry about this. Once we let you go, I suggest you run like hell. We’re launching immediately.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Lorraine hissed. “This ship doesn’t have the range to take you anywhere. It’s only for servicing the array.”

He knew that. If these ships had had interstellar range, they would have been much better secured. “Let me worry about where I’m going.” Because I’m worried enough for all of us.

Gingerly, Amelia extracted the comp from their captive’s pocket.

“Now get the roll of tape from my pocket. Lorraine, when I ease up bring your arms together. My colleague will tape your wrists together behind your back. Do you understand?”

Lorraine nodded.

“Try anything,” Sigmund warned, “and I’ll dislocate your shoulder.”

Amelia, paler than ever, sloppily taped together Lorraine’s wrists.

Sigmund released his hold, took the roll of tape, and did a proper job binding Lorraine’s arms. “You can get up now.”

Shrugging off Sigmund’s helping hand, Lorraine struggled to her feet.

He led the mechanic to the air lock. “Again, I’m sorry about this. If it makes a difference, this is done in a good cause.”

“You can tell yourself that,” Lorraine snarled.

He shoved her out the hatch. “Come with me to the bridge,” he ordered Amelia.

From a hundred feet above the field, in an infrared view as he tipped Elysium’s bow skyward, Sigmund glimpsed Lorraine. She ran awkwardly, arms bound behind her, already halfway across the tarmac.

He opened up the ship’s main thrusters.

MINUTES LATER, while Planetary Defense dithered over what to do about a receding object, Elysium shot beyond the edge of New Terra’s singularity and then vanished into hyperspace.

AS THE MASS POINTER LIT, its one long line indicating New Terra, Sigmund turned toward Amelia. He wondered which of them was more upset.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“No, I’m not all right!” she shouted. “Thanks to you, I’m a mugger, a thief, a traitor, and a fugitive.”

He was all those things — and ancient and exhausted. His skin crawled from the knowledge he was once more in space, and on a ship before it could be fully checked out.

But he was also the professional here. Suck it up, he told himself.

Great advice, but he found himself lost in the view port’s hyperspace-denying images of a stormy, rockbound coast.

Koala could pop up within days and everything now depended on Amelia. He had to get her moving, engaged, fired up — and fast. The question was: how? For the love of her daughter? Patriotism? The lure of long-lost Earth.

No, Sigmund decided. Her pride.

“It’s time,” he told Amelia, “to prove you’re as smart as you think you are.”

“I HADN’T DARED not to believe,” Amelia said. Though her face was drawn and her eyes had grown puffy with exhaustion, she gazed with satisfaction upon her handiwork. Around her, Elysium’s photonics shop was awash in cannibalized probes: sensor platforms, hyperwave-radar buoys, and defensive drones. Two extensively modified probes sat side by side on a workbench. “But actually to have done it…”

Sigmund rubbed his eyes, as weary as she. He could contribute nothing to the effort beyond fetching spare probes from the nearby cargo bay and coffee from the relax room, but if he had gone off for much needed rest, Amelia might have slept, too. The hell of things was, he had no idea how much time they had. He had to assume, very little. With a gung-ho captain, Koala could appear any day.

What were the odds Louis Wu’s grandson was a slacker?

Sigmund said, “Then the probes will work?”

“Oh, they’ll do as you asked.” Amelia exhaled sharply. “Will that bring the results you expect? That’s out of my hands.”

Mine, too, Sigmund thought. “Shall we get them deployed?”

“That’s why we built them.” She paused. “Oh, crap, Sigmund. I can’t stay cool. I don’t know how you do it. That’s Julia out there.”

“I know.” Awkwardly, he gave Amelia a hug. “We’ll keep her safe. I promise.”

Snuggled against his chest, he felt her nod.

“I’ll be on the bridge for a little while,” he told her, letting go. “Once we’re in position, I’ll help you put the probes out the air lock.”

Their ship hung beyond the sensor range of the New Terran early-warning array, its normal-space velocity toward New Terra about five percent of light speed. A five-second jump brought them almost within the array’s reach.

They each carried one modified probe. With inner and outer air-lock hatches open, Sigmund pushed the altered defensive drone out through the air-pressure curtain. He backed out of the lock to let Amelia launch the modified hyperwave-radar buoy. When he rejoined her, the drone was only a glint by the glow of a distant blue nebula. They watched both probes drift away.

Sigmund slapped the button to close the outer hatch. “Shall we?”

“What if you’re wrong, Sigmund?”

Then we go to jail, my faith in humanity somewhat restored. “What if I’m right?” he countered.

Looking ready to cry, Amelia said, “Let’s do it.”

THE PROBES COASTED ACROSS the unmarked border of New Terra’s early-warning array. By then, Elysium had jumped several light-seconds away and killed its normal-space velocity.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Sigmund told Amelia.

“I’m ready now. First signal.”

She sent a low-power pulse to the modified defensive drone and it vanished into hyperspace. Like anything transitioning between normal and hyperspace, it made a ripple. The bigger the normal-space protective bubble, the bigger the ripple. Squandering energy prodigiously, this probe had, before jumping, inflated its bubble to the size of a decent-sized starship. To the early-warning array, it was a starship.

Now to make it look like an arriving starship.

“Second signal sent,” Amelia announced. “Our hyperwave gear is back in receive mode.”

They heard, “This is the Earth vessel Koala, calling New Terra.”

“I hope you’re wrong,” Amelia said.

“So do I.”

From his console, Sigmund read the faint trace of hyperwave-radar pings. This far from the array, the echoes off Elysium would be undetectable. The buoy they had dropped was nearer to the array, but due to the little probe’s size its echoes would not be detectable either.

Instead, the scan had triggered an active hyperwave pulse from the decoy buoy. That pulse mimicked a ship-sized echo. As modified, the buoy radiated infrared, too. The IR would look like a ship’s waste heat.

“We’ll know soon,” Sigmund said.

But the seconds crawled.

“This is New Terra Planetary Defense,” their hyperwave radio announced. “Welcome, Koala. We’ve been expecting you. Maintain your course and speed while we hand off your approach to Space Traffic Control, who will prepare landing guidance…”

Sigmund’s console squawked twice as things dropped into normal space nearby. Moments later, his passive infrared sensor acquired two faint objects streaking, relative to Elysium and the decoy buoy, at nine-tenths light speed. Defensive drones. Kinetic killers. His console chirped again: at hyperwave pings for terminal guidance.

“Koala, if you carry hyperwave transponders, we request that you…”

There was a blinding flash before the view-port polarizer cut in. His eyes watering, Sigmund squinted at his instruments. “They just killed ‘Koala.’”

37

The deed was done, the risks taken, the dirty truths transmitted to New Terra. There was nothing left to do but wait — trying not to obsess about the many ways everything could still end badly. Neither the government Sigmund strove to overthrow nor the cold, dark vacuum of space was forgiving.

He endlessly paced (if locomotion at his slow shuffle could be called pacing) the short corridors of Elysium. On this slow lap he found Amelia slouched over the small table in the relax room: dark bags under her eyes; picking at a crust of bread; staring, transfixed, at the recorded loop they transmitted — circuitously, through a series of hyperwave relays, lest kinetic killers find them.

The old man in the vid looked twitchier and far wearier than she.

“It’s a recording, you know,” Sigmund teased her. “It’s the same every time.”

“I know.” Amelia frowned at the circle of bread crumbs that surrounded her plate. “Is this going to work?”

He gestured at the vid. It had just cut to a file shot of Donald Norquist-Ng. He told her, “The minister will do his best to blame everything on me. I made illegal recordings. I assaulted people and stole a ship. Having improvised a fake Koala, who’s to say that I didn’t destroy the fake ship, too?”

“You didn’t,” she protested.

“That’s what we’re counting on.” Sigmund gestured at the continuing playback. “Plenty of people were in that room. You can hear them in the background. They weren’t all happy. Some of them will come forward.”

Uh-huh. And pigs will fly, said the forlorn expression on Amelia’s face.

Sigmund found the recording easier to face than Amelia. He listened to his voice-over saying, “… Known to your government for many weeks. Here is Minister Norquist-Ng first hearing the news.”

As Alice’s recorded voice replaced Sigmund’s, loss and anger washed over him. What had she been thinking, to run off like that? To get herself killed like that?

The vid rolled on, indifferent to Sigmund’s pain. “We know the way to Earth,” Alice was saying. “From this location, it’s about two hundred light-years, mostly to galactic south. From New Terra, a bit over two ten. Jeeves? Show them.”

“Graphic off,” Norquist-Ng barked. “Jeeves, you will show that image to no one except by my authorization. I’ll brief the governor. No one is to speak a word about this development outside this room.”

In the looping message, Sigmund explained to — did he have viewers? — that a stellar map had been erased before anyone in the meeting room could study it. “But was suppressing this report the misguided decision of one man? Did the minister tell the governor? Let’s find out.”

For his meeting with the governor, Sigmund had risked wearing spy lenses. His audience — again assuming that he had viewers, that this transmission was not being jammed — would see the executive office and the governor herself.

He heard himself telling the governor, “Koala will arrive in about two weeks. It’s my opinion that we should be preparing the population. First contact with representatives of long-lost Earth … that’s a big deal.”

Rodgers-Bjornstad shook her head. “People would worry and wonder about what will change, what it all means, to the exclusion of everything else. Everyone who needs the information has it. The coming visit remains classified until Koala arrives.”

“The governor was complicit in withholding this news,” recorded-Sigmund summarized. “Because she fretted about lost productivity? Or, as I had feared, because she and the Minister of Defense had an undisclosed motive? I had to know. Here is what happened next.”

Video switched to a star field centered on New Terra. The blue dot was an icon; from this distance, the planet was hard to spot even if you knew where to look. The world and its low-flying suns together shone only one millionth as bright as the dimmest red-dwarf star.

The voice-over announced, “This is the Earth vessel Koala, calling New Terra.”

This segment of the recording ended all too quickly in a blinding flash.

“That was an attack without warning” — Puppeteer-cleansed English lacked the word ambush — “on the embassy ship from Earth. A ship that Minister Norquist-Ng had personally promised safe passage. A ship bringing home one of his own officers.

“Suspecting deceit by our leaders, I arranged what looked to sensors like a ship’s arrival. I am saddened to have been correct in my suspicions, appalled at the actions taken by our government. But here, finally, is good news. Koala has yet to reach us. It has not been destroyed.

“I submit to you, my fellow citizens of New Terra, that those who would suppress the rediscovery of Earth, those who would kill to keep that secret, are unworthy to lead us.”

He concluded the broadcast as he had begun. “This is Sigmund Ausfaller, onetime Earth resident, your former defense minister. I wait in nearby space to warn away the embassy ship from Earth when it arrives. Or we can reconnect with our cousins and our long-lost past. The choice is yours … if you act quickly.”

ROCKING HERSELF, ARMS CROSSED across her chest to clutch her own upper arms, Amelia sat perched on an armrest of the pilot’s crash couch. The star field had been banished from the main view port, replaced with an old image of Hermes, Amelia, and their three children. Julia, the youngest, was at the missing-tooth, cheesy-grin stage.

Sigmund backed away silently. Whistling loudly, he returned to the bridge. This time Amelia had heard him coming. She sat more normally — looking posed. Stars once again showed in the view port.

He said, “I’m going to make some dinner. What can I get you?”

“Nothing, thanks.”

“You have to eat something,” he said gently.

She shook her head. “Was everything we did for nothing?”

“Don’t think that.” A hand set on her shoulder confirmed that she was trembling.

Why wouldn’t she be terrified? Their buoys had broadcasted for three days, and they had heard back … nothing.

Every second they spent out here terrified Sigmund, too, but he had to be strong. Their ship was intact and no one aboard had died. That was better than usual for him. “Worst case, we’ll warn away Koala. Julia will be safe.”

“With Earth knowing they’re unwelcome here. Hermes and I will never see our daughter again — unless this ARM organization of yours takes offense and returns with a fleet.” Amelia laughed cynically. “Of course I’ll be in prison. Maybe that will take my mind off things.”

How would the ARM take news of a planned ambush? Assuming the organization hadn’t changed since Sigmund’s era, not well.

What came next hinged on the answer to a single question. Would New Terran authorities alter their plans? The shortsighted fools had been relying on the ARM being too preoccupied — by the Ringworld disappearance and the multispecies conflict moving to the Fleet — to investigate a lone ship gone missing far away, in unfamiliar space. The politicians might even have been correct.

Now they had to worry about Koala escaping to report an ambush.

A lost ship might be written off; a hostile act would elicit an armed response. The governor and her cronies had to realize that. Didn’t they? But as the silence from New Terra dragged on, an outbreak of clear thinking seemed ever less likely …

Sigmund squeezed Amelia’s shoulder. “It won’t come to that. Either part.”

“Yes, it will.”

He gave her shoulder another squeeze. “Prison isn’t an option. Not for you. When we head back” — which must happen soon, because Elysium was running low on deuterium and food — “we’ll both tell the authorities that I forced you to help me. You’ll be in the emergency medical stasis unit because I no longer needed you awake after you’d configured probes for me.” He hesitated. “If I smack you a little, bruise your face, no one will question that story.”

She shook off Sigmund’s hand to stand facing him, her eyes blazing. “Absolutely not! I came of my own free will, and I’ll not have anyone think such terrible things of you. Certainly not your son!” Her expression softened. “I can’t believe you would take the blame for me.”

He shrugged, embarrassed.

The hardest part of waiting was the silence. Maybe they had initiated a debate groundside, but it was impossible to know. Back in the day, Sigmund had kept spy ships skulking near the Fleet of Worlds. Any of those ships could have tapped into New Terra’s public networks from this distance. All he had was this short-range cargo ship, equipped and provisioned for same-day jaunts. Hiding beyond the reach of the early-warning arrays, carrying only commercial comm gear, the planet’s low-powered RF leakage was unintelligible babble.

“Maybe I will have a snack,” Amelia said. Changing the subject?

“Sure. What can I bring you?”

“Soup and a sandwich. Maybe some…”

Sigmund saw it, too: the flashing indicator for an incoming comm signal. But was the contact from Koala or New Terra?

“… CALLING SIGMUND AUSFALLER. Please respond. This is the governor calling — ”

The message was in full video and it showed — a man! He had a long, thin head, a trim goatee, sunken cheeks, and crow’s-feet at the corners of his eyes.

Sigmund didn’t recognize the face.

“Could we have done it?” Amelia asked hopefully.

To put a new face on air would have been easy enough. “Let’s try to find out. Until we know more, I suggest you stay out of sight.”

Instead, Amelia plopped into the copilot’s crash couch.

Sigmund took the pilot’s seat, tilted the camera away from her, and accepted the hail. “Ausfaller here.”

“Minister Ausfaller,” the self-proclaimed governor said. “Thank you for taking my hail.”

The response was immediate, from outside the singularity. So why had the “governor” left New Terra? To facilitate comm, or to backtrack the chain of relay buoys to Elysium? Probably both.

Sigmund rested his hands on the hyperdrive controls. “Who are you?”

“Excuse me,” the man said. “Of course you wouldn’t know. My name is Llewellyn Kudrin-Goldberg. At the time of your … hasty departure, I was the assemblyman for a rural district in East Arcadia.”

“You’ve had quite a promotion,” Sigmund said.

“Quite.” Kudrin-Goldberg smiled briefly. “I blame you.”

“And the previous governor?” At Amelia’s voice, the camera pivoted toward her.

“Ah, Mrs. Ausfaller-Lopez. I’m pleased to see you are well.”

“I’ll be better,” she said, “when I know what’s been happening.”

“Very well,” Kudrin-Goldberg said. “Minister Ausfaller’s broadcast raised enough doubts that a few courageous individuals within the defense establishment came forward. Computers within the Ministry were searched. When it became public that Norquist-Ng had ordered the strike against the simulated Earth ship…”

Amelia nodded knowingly.

Sigmund had never understood the Puppeteer-like consensus process that swept out New Terra’s first government — and him — so long ago. He didn’t expect ever to quite understand this latest overthrow, either.

He could live with the mystery, assuming this revolution was as bloodless as when the government he had served stepped down. And if this revolution was for real …

“What do you want from us, Governor?” Sigmund asked.

“To return home, of course. To join us in welcoming Koala.” Kudrin-Goldberg paused. “The people have spoken. They want the reunification to happen, Minister. Please don’t scare away our visitors. They could arrive at any time.”

“One moment, Governor.” Amelia hit MUTE. “Sigmund, can we trust him?”

“Let’s find out.” Sigmund unmuted the connection. “Governor, I assume you have a link with the ground. I’d like to talk with someone down there.”

“Certainly. We can patch you in from this ship. Who should we call?”

“Check the header.” Except for the header, the text Sigmund transmitted was encrypted. Doubtless the encryption could be cracked — but not before he got his answer. “Send my file as addressed, and be ready to open a real-time session with the recipient.”

“Very well, Minister.”

“Hermes?” Amelia mouthed.

Sigmund shook his head.

Seconds stretched.

Over the comm console, the holo split. A familiar figure appeared wearing a long-tailed black dress coat, black vest, starched white shirt, black bow tie, and white gloves. “It is very good to hear from you, sir,” Jeeves said.

“You, too, Jeeves,” Sigmund answered. But was this his Jeeves? Was it a Jeeves at all, or a person hiding behind an animated avatar? Anyone running Sigmund’s psych profile might have guessed who he would contact. “Is everything well?”

“Quite well, sir. The old government has fallen. Mr. Kudrin-Goldberg has assumed the governorship. You are considered something of a hero again, sir.”

The words proved nothing. Anyone could guess Sigmund would want to hear them.

“Three seven theta alpha forty-two,” Sigmund challenged.

“Forty-four nineteen delta sigma,” Jeeves responded.

His Jeeves: no one else knew the challenge-response pair. Sigmund had set the AI loose on the public net, because what was one more law broken among so many? It was almost inconceivable that Jeeves had been caught and hacked in the few days Sigmund had been away.

Sometimes almost inconceivable was the best that one could hope for.

“All right, Governor, I’m convinced. We’ll be home soon.”

The governor said, “I’m pleased to hear that, Minister. The people will be, too. Once you are down, please come to my offices at your earliest convenience.”

At Sigmund’s side, Amelia was grinning from ear to ear. Kudrin-Goldberg looked relieved. And something else. Expectant?

“I have to ask. Why do you keep using my old title?” Flattery, Sigmund supposed.

“The truth is,” the governor said, “the Defenses Forces need a housecleaning. I had intended to make this request face-to-face, but I guess it can’t wait.

“Sigmund, I’m hoping to make Minister of Defense your current title.”

38

Koala flew along the Arcadian shoreline, slowly descending.

From an altitude of a kilometer and a half, Julia saw deep into the verdant continent and far out to sea. (About five thousand feet, she reminded herself. She had gotten spoiled by Earth’s metric system. Reverting to feet and miles, pounds and ounces, was going to be a shock.) Apart from zipping through the occasional high cirrus cloud, her view was unimpeded. Sunslight sparkled from azure coastal waters. Barrier islands beckoned: lush with vegetation, outlined by gleaming white sand beaches. Out to sea, a string of setting suns painted a band of low clouds in brilliant pinks and reds.

In her joy at being home, she could forget for seconds at a time that she returned without her ship and crew.

“Captain.” Wesley Wu waited till he saw he had Julia’s attention before gesturing at his bridge’s main view port. “Your world is beautiful.”

“Yes, it is,” she said, swallowing the lump in her throat.

“Long Pass City is coming up,” traffic control radioed. “You can’t miss it. Big city right on the coast, about five miles ahead of you. The main spaceport is five miles beyond.”

“Eight kilometers for each leg,” Julia translated units.

From the corner of an eye she caught two bridge officers grinning at the traffic controller’s description. For every person on New Terra, Earth had hundreds. Tanya had shown Julia images of arcologies each home to more people than New Terra’s capital city.

After their long voyage, the final approach was anticlimactic. Koala swooped to a landing in the center of the field. As they touched down Julia caught a glimpse of reviewing stands set in front of the main terminal.

When the air-lock hatches opened, the cheers of the crowd were deafening.

And when, side by side, she and Wesley Wu exited the lock, the roar grew louder.

AFTER THE SPEECHES HAD ENDED, the parade run its course, and the concert ended with a loud brassy flourish, after most of the shore party had flicked with their official guides to homes and hotels around the globe, finally Julia got to make her way to where her family waited. Mom and Dad. Both her brothers and their families. Aunts and uncles and assorted cousins. After everything she had survived, she might be hugged to death.

Lots of family — but no grandfather.

“Mom!” Julia finally got out the word. “Save some for later.”

Mom gave one more squeeze, sighed, then let Julia go. “Sorry.” Shining eyes said she wasn’t. Dad was holding back tears, too.

“Where’s Grandpa?” Julia asked. She could imagine only one thing keeping Grandpa away: that he blamed her for Alice’s death. She had to get Grandpa alone, had to explain that Alice was well.

“Your grandfather was on the main reviewing stand,” Dad said. “Didn’t you see him?”

Julia shook her head. “I had the setting suns in my eyes and couldn’t make out everyone. I saw only a bunch of politicians. But it was impossible to miss that we have a new governor. What’s that about?”

“There were … changes while you were gone,” Mom said.

What aren’t you telling me? Whatever, it could wait. “Grandpa?” Julia prompted.

“Sigmund is in the new government,” Mom said, “as the minister of the defense forces.” She seemed conflicted about saying more.

“There you are.” Tanya Wu walked up briskly, sharp in her dress blues. She would be staying with Julia, and they would be touring New Terra together. “Your family?”

“Almost all of it. Everyone, this is my good friend, Tanya.”

Even as Julia made the introductions, her mind churned. Grandpa was in the government? That meant his past differences with the political establishment had been forgiven. She was very happy for him.

She could tell her grandpa anything — but how could she tell the Minister of New Terran Defense Forces that she had given away one of his starships?

39

The illusion was all but perfect. Overhead, the image shone of the primeval sun. Lush rolling pasture, vibrant in reds, yellows, and purples, merged flawlessly into the “distance” where walls fractured by Long Shot’s arrival had been restored. Indifferent to the solemn gathering of Citizens, a trio of Companions ambled along a nearby slope nibbling the fragrant meadowplant. Only stacked boxes spoiled the pastoral atmosphere. The equipment would be gone soon enough.

As shall I, Baedeker thought.

“You need not go.” Nike sang not only to Baedeker and Nessus, but to the volunteers gathered to accompany them. “You should not go. The prospects for success are unfavorable.”

The melody was polite for you are insane to go, and Baedeker did not argue. To serve the herd, one must fear for others more than for oneself.

Baedeker reached out to brush heads in farewell, then straightened. “I thank you for your hospitality, your assistance in our preparations, and the knowledge that many remain here” — when this adventure, too, goes awry — “in further assurance of the herd’s future.”

Nike lowered his heads in respect.

Baedeker took a final look around this idyllic spot. Perhaps this place was too perfect, a trap from which only the strongest-willed might ever emerge.

A stepping disc lay at Baedeker’s hooves. Like similar discs across the Hindmost’s Refuge, it had been powered off since Nike and his staff first arrived. Baedeker leaned over to activate the device.

Apollo, one of the disturbingly few volunteers, gripped a transport controller in a mouth. Born in the Refuge, he had never ventured beyond its confining, if artfully obscured, boundary. This little bubble was the youngster’s entire world.

As my children must imagine New Terra is their world, Baedeker thought. He wondered if he would ever see them. With pangs of guilt, he wondered if he should. Did Elpis and Aurora even remember him?

Apollo kept probing candidate destination addresses. On the fourth try, he sang, “I have a disc that appears ready to receive.”

“I will go first,” Nessus sang at once. Others quickly made the same offer.

“I thank you all, but the duty” — and the danger — “is mine.” Baedeker stepped onto the disc —

HEADS SWIVELING, BAEDEKER LOOKED ALL AROUND. The only light came seeping under a closed door. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom he began to distinguish tarp-covered heaps.

An ear held to the door heard nothing. When he risked a low-powered flashlight beam, he saw dust coated everything but the stepping disc on which he stood. No one had visited this closet in a long time.

Baedeker stepped off the disc. With a transmitter taken from a pocket of his utility belt, he sent three short neutrino pulses deep into the mantle.

Nessus appeared almost at once, sneezing at the dust Baedeker had disturbed. Looking himself in the eyes, Nessus sang, “I remember your home as a more welcoming place.”

“I would guess you never went into the subbasement,” Baedeker replied.

Opening the door, he peered into a dimly lit, empty hallway. Its floor was dusty, too. After many years off-world, he had almost forgotten how decadent corridors were. In the Hindmost’s Residence, privacy and security took priority over conserving space. The only stepping discs here — apart from those he had hidden — were in the security foyer, well guarded.

“Let’s go up,” Baedeker sang.

Clutching stunners, Baedeker and Nessus walked down the hall. The thick dust that muffled their hoofsteps would also reveal their trespass to anyone at all alert. If they failed to make contact on this first attempt, they must clean up after themselves. A dirt-free floor might call less attention to itself than a floor with disturbed dust.

At the base of a ramp they paused to listen. Faint noises drifted toward them. Baedeker had timed their foray for the sleep shift, but remembered how irrelevant routine became during times of crisis.

With Fringe War fleets charging at Hearth, this, surely, was a time of crisis.

Almost, Baedeker retraced his steps to the storage room to flick back to the Refuge. Instead, hearts pounding, he started up the ramp.

On the main basement level, the floor was free of dust. They crept up a second ramp. The lights were less dim on the Residence’s ground floor. Baedeker heard soft voices. Guards or aides, singing among themselves.

And did he hear something else? An argument?

Nessus paused, heads cocked. He heard it, too.

The angry notes came from the small private study adjoining the Hindmost’s personal suite. Baedeker pointed toward a pantry door. He remembered the pantry had an inner door for access from the study.

The pantry was snug for two. Even from here Baedeker did not recognize the voices. The mysterious Horatius? Baedeker heard harmonics of command and stern undertunes — but hesitant grace notes, too.

Then someone else began to sing, much louder. Baedeker recognized those voices all too well.

“YOU ARE UNFIT!” Achilles railed.

“I am Hindmost,” Horatius countered.

He sounded unconvincing even to himself. He despaired of his weakness, his weariness, his inadequacies, and his reticence to confront Achilles for the effrontery of his uninvited arrival.

“Do you understand that we are at war, Hindmost? Tell me. Which precedents guide your policy? What Conservative predecessor ever ruled in such conditions?”

“I understand that you started a war.” Horatius tried and failed to maintain firmness in his second and fourth harmonics. “As Hindmost it is my duty to — ”

“Kzinti ‘diplomats’ started the war by attempting to seize one of our defensive drones. Can you imagine how helpless Hearth would have been had they succeeded?”

“But they did not succeed,” Horatius sang. “The matter was settled. You took it upon yourself to have Proteus attack their remaining ships.”

“There must be penalties for aggression against us. You don’t understand aliens. I represented General Products among Kzinti and wild human alike. To have done nothing would only have emboldened them.”

What of the armadas glimpsed by the defensive arrays? Ships in vast numbers emerged every few days from hyperspace, maintaining their course for the Fleet of Worlds. Were those aliens not already emboldened?

I could unburden myself of this madness, Horatius thought. The herd chose me, but I serve only at Ol’t’ro’s sufferance. What if I were to lose their confidence?

How hard could that be?

Horatius had had to replace many among his cabinet. More than once he had watched a friend and colleague carried away: curled around himself, heads hidden against his belly, withdrawn from the world.

And he had envied every one of them.

But there was no safety in catatonia. Not while Gw’oth ruled the worlds and more aliens rushed onward. Not after Achilles had given the Kzinti one more reason to seek vengeance.

“No!” Horatius sang with all the firmness he could muster. “I will not resign. I serve until the herd or Ol’t’ro say otherwise. Provoke the nearby aliens again without my permission, and I will discharge you.”

Achilles bowed his necks, not in subservience but to preen. “I suppose you will supervise Proteus and see to increasing his capabilities. Which of us will Ol’t’ro deem expendable?”

Catatonia beckoned, the lure of oblivion all but irresistible. “We are done,” Horatius sang. Maddeningly, the fourth harmonic cracked and his grace notes fell prey to a stutter. “Go!”

“I leave, because I have sung my piece. Soon enough, I shall reclaim my place here.” Achilles turned his back, sauntering to the study’s main door. “I know the way out.”

AS THE DOOR CLICKED SHUT, Horatius drooped to his knees. He could no longer bear the burden of the herd’s safety — and yet he dare not resign. Who but Achilles would Ol’t’ro accept in this crisis as a replacement Hindmost?

At the faint squeak of the pantry door Horatius shot to his hooves.

The first intruder was well coiffed. His mane, a striking yellow-brown, sparkled with Experimentalist orange jewels.

The other intruder had scarcely bothered to brush his brown tresses. With one eye red and the other yellow, his gaze was unnerving. The jaw grip of a weapon peeked from a pocket of his utility belt.

Baedeker and Nessus. Legends, both. Infamous, both. Vanished from Hearth a few years after the disastrous Ringworld expedition.

“Hindmost,” Baedeker intoned. He lowered his heads respectfully. “Please excuse our interruption. We are — ”

“I recognize you both. Why are you here?”

“These are perilous times. We come to offer the Hindmost our help,” Baedeker sang.

Horatius locked his knees to stop his legs from trembling. “You have been gone for a long while.”

“Missing and presumed dead?” Nessus looked himself in the eyes. “Achilles has tried often enough.”

Horatius willed his voices to remain steady. “Help? What can you possibly do?” Ol’t’ro held the worlds hostage, Achilles was a power-mad sociopath, and alien fleets raced to mete out vengeance. What could anyone do?

“It is a long story,” Baedeker began.

“And how did you get here?” Horatius had to know.

“That, too, is a long story.”

“Begin with how you came into my home unannounced and undetected,” Horatius sang. “What you did, Achilles’ minions might, too.”

“Not as we arrived,” Baedeker sang confidently. “We come straight from the Hindmost’s Refuge.”

Horatius stared. “Such a place exists? I thought it a fable.”

“It exists,” Baedeker sang. “Over the ages each Hindmost passed the secret to the next. My successor, shamefully, was to be Achilles. He had just betrayed the Concordance, delivered the herd to the mercies of Ol’t’ro.” With pride in his voices, Baedeker added, “The secret of the Refuge, at least, was kept from Gw’oth overlord and shameless traitor alike.

“In the one place where I could labor undisturbed, I completed my research. Vital research.”

“But where is this place?” Horatius asked. “How do you come and go?”

“Far, far beneath us.” Baedeker stomped the floor. “Hindmost’s Refuge lies within Hearth’s mantle. Only special stepping discs, built to modulate background neutrino radiation rather than electromagnetic signals, will penetrate so deeply. In my final moments of freedom, before Achilles’ minions detained me, I hid several such discs in isolated areas of this residence.”

It was amazing, too much to absorb. Horatius’ mind leapt to more immediate and practical concerns. “You came with the offer of help. What do you propose?”

That explanation took far longer. Horatius was a politician, not an engineer or a scientist. He understood little more than that his visitors offered the possibility of hope.

He had all but forgotten how exhilarating the uncertainty of doom felt.

He sang, “I expect that you heard Achilles’ harangue before making your presence known. He urges me to surrender my office. While I am alive and sane, I will never willingly put him nearer to the levers of power. However…”

Horatius dropped both heads almost to the closely cropped meadowplant. “To you, the rightful Hindmost, I gladly yield.”