“Not long after your ancestors left, we met the Kzinti.” Sigmund shivered. “Starfaring carnivores and imperialists.” (Jeeves volunteered a definition for imperialism. It would have been quaint had it not been so naïve.) “Think eight-hundred-pound, intelligent tigers.”
Sabrina scratched her chin. “Tigers?”
“Jeeves,” Sigmund said. “Do you have tigers in your database?”
“I do, Sigmund.” A holo tiger materialized over the table, poised to pounce, its eyes glinting and fangs bared.
“Shit!” Sabrina jerked back in her chair, shivering. “I’ve never seen a big predator before.”
“Point made, Jeeves.” The image vanished. “Sabrina, the one thing Kzinti want more than additional worlds and new slaves is . . . prey.”
And they eat their prey, Sabrina.
“I see.” Sabrina swallowed. “War isn’t so obsolete in the galaxy.”
“If one of your ships should lead Kzinti back here, you’ll see that very quickly. Though it would serve the Puppeteers right.”
Sabrina sighed, and then squared her shoulders. “So scouting is out. Sigmund, tell me what we can do.”
Nessus didn’t know. Sabrina didn’t know. Why the tanj did everyone think he would? Well, he didn’t know.
An icy resolve settled over Sigmund. He was good—very good—at one thing, and that Nessus had not touched.
“What we can do,” Sigmund said, “is establish an intelligence service.”
65
“Puppeteers,” Sigmund said, “can certainly pick worlds. I’ll give them that.”
“Citizens,” Penelope corrected from across the dinner table. The pink of her dress brought out the rosy glow in her cheeks.
“Puppeteer.”
“Citizen.” Penelope raised a finger delicately—hold on for a minute—while she took a sip from her mug. Irish coffee was another of his innovations. “Unless Puppeteer actually means something.”
Perhaps it was time to introduce something else. “Wait here.” He dashed off, returning from the bedroom wearing a sock over each hand. He’d drawn an eye and a mouth on each.
“What are these?” she asked.
“Puppets.” He sat on the floor behind the sofa, hunched so that only the top of his head peeked over the top. He raised his sock-covered forearms over the sofa back. In a falsetto he said, “I’m Nessus, and I’m afraid of my shadow.”
Laughing, Penelope came closer and tousled his hair. “Now you can be Nessus.”
“Hold that thought,” he said. He’d also retrieved a favored old rag doll from her collection, and tied long pieces of string around its wrists. He dangled the figure over the sofa back, by strings clasped in hands still dressed in sock puppets. Humming, he marched the floppy doll from one end of the sofa to the other.
Penelope wasn’t laughing anymore. And that tune. What was he humming?
“Funeral March of a Marionette,” by Gounod.
Reality crashed in. New Terra did not have dresses. Penelope’s unisex outfits remained the pale gray he had come to learn meant: not committed, not unwilling, but currently not looking. The pink he had pictured would have been quite provocative.
With a groan, Sigmund opened his eyes to a lonely ship’s cabin. “Sleep field off,” he called, and the collapsing field gently lowered him to the deck. He washed and dressed, wondering if Penelope would ever be more than a friend.
He found Eric in Explorer’s relax room, attacking a moo shu burrito. Judging from his expression, Mex-Man cuisine, another of Sigmund’s innovations, was an acquired taste. Sigmund just wished the young man would stop imitating him.
“Morning, Eric.”
“Hello, Sigmund.” Eric raised his plate. “Excellent.”
“How long until dropout?” This mission was almost surely futile, which only made knowledge of the ravenous nothing outside the hull that much worse. Still, New Terra’s pathetic navy, of which Explorer was the first armed to Sigmund’s specifications, had to be tested. New Terra’s databases had specs for comm lasers, so Explorer now carried five of them. At close range, they would serve as weapons. No fusion drives, of course. The only hope of a fusion drive anytime soon was to salvage and reverse-engineer technology from the old ramscoop.
Looking stoic, Eric swallowed the last bit of his breakfast. “Anytime. I’ve been waiting for you.”
Sigmund filled a bulb with coffee, and they headed for the bridge. The mass pointer showed only a few short lines. They were remote from anyplace. “Eric, do the honors.”
Stars filled the screen, and the gnawing fear in Sigmund’s mind receded. A little. “Passive scan, please.”
“Nothing,” Eric said. “Radar now?”
“In a moment.” Sigmund sipped his coffee, waiting for a cosmic shoe to drop. When none did, they emitted a ping. Radar found nothing nearby. “All right, deploy the targets.”
Their purpose was a semirealistic test of the new targeting systems, although Kirsten, who had done the programming, thought it unnecessary. She had lost the virtual coin toss—guessing evens or odds on a random number—and stayed on New Terra with little Diego and Jaime.
Eric commanded an air lock open. Escaping air tugged the drones, modified buoys, out of the ship. “Thrusters on minimum. I’ll get them dispersed.”
On the radar scope, the blips that represented the drones slowly pulled away. Sigmund armed the weapons console. “That’s far enough. Drone one, evasive maneuvers.”
In the radar display, all the blips continued their stately, and very linear, retreat.
“Tanj,” Eric said affectedly. “Defective. Try another?” Sigmund nodded.
Eric leaned closer to his console. “Drone two, evasive maneuvers.”
Nothing. “Too bad Kirsten didn’t program the drones,” Sigmund said.
As drone after drone proved unresponsive, Eric reverted to English expletives. They seemed more satisfying. “Maybe it’s no accident they’re like that. Could someone have intentionally introduced a malfunction?”
“Sabotage. That’s the word you want.” Spy School 101, Sigmund thought. “True, someone could have tampered with the drones. I don’t think that’s how they’d do it.
“Any saboteur presumably knows the purpose of the drones. They would be better served to subvert the evasive-maneuver code, make it less random. The fire controls would be less rigorously tested than we think, and we might get overconfident.”
“I have so much to learn.” Eric hung his head, embarrassed. “I’ll work at it. I promise.”
That reaction made Sigmund feel worse than the bug in the drone software. “Just bring them back aboard. Kirsten can figure out what went wrong.”
STARS AGAIN FILLED the main screen. This time, one shone visibly brighter. “Passive scan, Eric.”
Eric studied his instruments. “Not a thing. Radar?”
“All right,” Sigmund said. “Find us an ice ball.”
They were far outside the star’s singularity. A ping went out. They waited. And waited. Sigmund’s skin crawled, although in a different way than in hyperspace. There’s no danger here, he told himself. Nessus and his friends had explored the system ahead, before independence. It was unoccupied and inhospitable. And while he had no idea where Kzinti were likely to be found, the Puppeteers did. They had set this course for the Fleet. New Terra was simply a little way out in front, along the same path.
And, by the same token, it was highly unlikely they could encounter an Outsider ship here.
They got a radar return well over an hour later. In the main scope, it looked like just another ice ball. “All yours, Eric. Take us closer.”
Eric dropped into a crash couch and took the thruster controls. They crept closer, until Sigmund called, “That’s close enough.” Sigmund took the other couch and rearmed the new weapons console. He centered his crosshairs on the image. “Three . . . two . . . one . . . fire.”
A geyser of steam erupted from the target, glowing luridly with scattered la
ser light. He released the trigger. “You take a try.” They took turns, with the three bow lasers and, turning, the two stern lasers, targeting smaller and smaller chunks. “Your wife does excellent work.”
They chased down and destroyed a few more Oort Cloud objects. Eric’s eyes glowed. “We can do this, Sigmund. You’re going to save us.”
It’s easy to blast ice. A Kzinti warship on evasive maneuvers, shooting back . . .
Sigmund kept his thoughts to himself.
REDEMPTION
Earth date: 2659
67
“I admit I foresaw no options for your people, Governor,” Nessus said.
“Believe me, we’ve been looking. We do appreciate having the chance to look.” Sabrina Gomez-Vanderhoff, in whose modest office they met, seemed not to have slept for a week. She gestured at a colleague just joining them. “Nessus, do you know Aaron Tremonti-Lewis? I asked him to join us. He is our Minister for Public Safety.”
Lewis sat on the edge of a small sofa. “Public Safety deals in putting out fires, cleaning up after storms, and handling parties gotten a bit rowdy—not handling the enmity of your people. The Concordance could squash us like a bug. How can we plan for that?”
Don’t overdo it, Sigmund thought. He watched from a darkened room adjoining the governor’s office. Lest Nessus have bug detectors, the surveillance was very low-tech: a one-way mirror built into a decoration newly hung on Sabrina’s office wall. Amplifiers in earplugs boosted the scarcely audible sounds from next door.
Nessus sat astraddle a proper Citizen couch. Such furniture would have been standard in the governor’s office before New Terra got its freedom. The couch restored to its place symbolized bigger changes soon to be undone. “I had expected to see Sigmund Ausfaller, and possibly some of my former scouts.”
“Pfft,” Sabrina said. Sigmund couldn’t parse that, but it sounded dismissive. “Nessus, I know you meant well, but Sigmund is mentally ill. Deranged. He worries constantly about these Kzinti beings finding us. If they find us, they find the Fleet, too, I keep telling—”
A timid knock interrupted Sabrina’s outburst. “Come in,” Sabrina said impatiently.
The door opened. A junior aide rolled in a cart piled with snacks and beverages. “Apologies, ma’am.” She backed out quickly.
Aaron wandered over to the cart. “Coffee, tea, and an assortment of juices. No beer.”
Don’t overdo it, Sigmund thought again. Cue Sabrina.
Sabrina came out from behind her desk and poured herself a cup of tea. “There’s carrot juice, Nessus. If I recall correctly, that’s your drink.”
Nessus dismounted the Y-shaped couch and filled a glass. “Then Sigmund will not be joining us. I had hoped he might be the saving of you.”
“He’s a nutcase,” Aaron said.
“Enough, Aaron.” Sabrina sighed. “Nessus, we asked you here for guidance. We few cannot resist the might of the Fleet. It saddens me, but New Terra must enter a new relationship with Hearth. Once the Outsiders’ deadline makes the Concordance act, it will be too late.”
Sigmund heard without listening. Get on with it.
Another knock at Sabrina’s door: the same junior aide. “My apologies. I’ll get the mess out of here.” Cringing under Sabrina’s stare, he gathered empty and partially filled glasses.
A moment later, there was a knock at Sigmund’s door. The aide came in, no longer cowering. “This is it, Sigmund. Nessus’ glass.”
“Good work,” Sigmund said. They stepped to a lab. Eric and Kirsten were waiting for him, with a bunch of technicians most of whom Sigmund had yet to meet.
He could scarcely bear to breathe as a tech lifted Nessus’ lip-and tongueprints from the glass. Sigmund had given Eric the idea—it wasn’t a big leap from fake fingerprints—but making it happen required skills Sigmund lacked.
The tech walked around a larger-than-life holo of the lifted prints, peering this way and that. “Looks complete, ” the tech said. “You’ll have your copies in five minutes.”
Kirsten smiled, showing more confidence than Sigmund felt. Maybe she was faking it, too. She said, “That’s good enough for me. Let’s do it.”
They stepped back to Sigmund’s stakeout. In Sabrina’s office, depressing talk of surrender continued. Nessus straddled his couch, facing Sabrina’s desk.
Sigmund pushed against the back of the mirrored ornament. It swung out silently on well-oiled hinges.
Nessus crumpled from a stunner blast, never knowing what hit him.
“I’M IN,” KIRSTEN said. “The right-side tongueprint worked.”
Text scrolled in a holo above Nessus’ pocket computer. Sigmund could not read a thing, but Kirsten could. Everyone in Nessus’ ill-fated Colonist scout program read the Concordance script. Teaching them to read had been easier for Nessus than translating everything a scout might need.
“How long will Nessus be out?” Aaron asked nervously.
Sigmund had been asked that repeatedly since proposing this plan. The answer remained the same: best guess, based on comparative body weights of humans and Puppeteers, a few minutes. “We’re going as fast as we can.”
“Searching . . . searching . . . searching,” Kirsten muttered. (She had access only to basic operations reachable through the touch screen. Pocket comps did not have full keypads, and no human’s voice would ever be confused with a Puppeteer’s. Apparently they had three pairs of vocal cords per throat.) She frowned. “No navigational data on the comp. That would have been too easy.”
“He’s twitching in his sleep,” an aide called from the next room.
Tanj! The effects were wearing off fast. Sigmund was loath to risk a second zap. “Kirsten, look for—”
“I know. The way aboard Aegis. I’ve got stepping-disc addresses and security codes.” Kirsten tapped the touch screen of Nessus’ comp, now pointed at her own. “Transferred. And we’re logged out.”
An aide dashed off with the comp, to restore it to Nessus’ pocket before he woke.
Kirsten transferred a copy of the data from her comp to Sigmund’s. “We’re set.”
Seconds later, he and Kirsten were aboard Nessus’ ship. With luck, the stolen tongueprint would also give Kirsten access to the bridge navigational computer.
HANDS JOSTLED NESSUS. Who? Why?
His eyes flew open. He found himself slumped half-off a couch in the governor’s office; Sabrina was shaking him. His legs and necks tingled. “What happened?” he asked.
“I don’t know. You just passed out,” she said. “Aaron went to find a Citizen autodoc. We put them in storage.” She looked embarrassed by the admission. “Should we contact someone on Elysium?”
Nessus struggled into an upright position. “No need. I feel better.” For all Nessus knew, the Concordance had spies among the refugees and émigrés on Elysium. He would have. Achilles would have thought of it, too.
“We still have a Citizen synthesizer handy. Perhaps you would like to order something for yourself. Food or a tonic?” Sabrina hovered over him.
Something nagged at Nessus. What had he just been thinking? Achilles would have spies. . . .
What about Sigmund?
Nessus stiffened. Sigmund unaccounted for. Nessus had gotten no answer, he now realized, to where his former scouts were. Sabrina acting nervous.
What if Sigmund was up to something?
How? What? Why? Had he broken Sigmund while erasing memories of Earth, or was Sigmund . . . ?
What would Sigmund do?
Nessus’ mind just did not work this way—that was why he had brought Sigmund to this world.
His right front hoof tore at Sabrina’s carpet. He must run. Now.
“On second thought, I don’t feel well.” Nessus got off his couch, staggering for effect. He remembered seeing a stepping disc in the vestibule outside her office. She followed him from her office, looking ever more anxious. “I will contact you soon about resuming.”
With those words, he stepped back to the s
afety of Aegis.
KIRSTEN HUMMED AS she worked, holo text flashing past, while Sigmund monitored the security system. The bridge’s security cameras showed empty corridors and rooms.
“That’s interesting,” Kirsten muttered. Indecipherable text kept flashing.
“What?” he asked. “Nav data?”
She shook her head. “No, where we are. Nessus put Aegis underwater.”
“Then we won’t go out the air lock. . . .” Something moved on one of the monitors. “Finagle! Nessus just flicked into the relax room!” A moment later, Sigmund’s comp buzzed, with a too-late warning from Sabrina.
Kirsten’s hands still flew over the keypad. “Do I keep looking for Earth?”
Sigmund fingered the stunner in his pocket. Nessus at the least suspected. Stunning him again, aboard his own ship, would surely remove all doubt.
Nessus was not an ally, exactly, but neither was he an enemy. As a source of insight into Concordance thinking, the Puppeteer was irreplaceable. ARM scuttlebutt, supposedly informed by past Kzinti experiments, was that coercing a Puppeteer triggered a conditioned suicide reflex.
How about, Sigmund, that Nessus did not leave you on the floor to bleed to death? How’s that for a reason not to threaten him?
Sigmund said, “Do we have a way off Aegis besides the stepping disc in the relax room?”
“There are probably other discs; I pulled several addresses off Nessus’ comp. Check the cargo holds. Explorer had stepping discs in its holds, for loading.”
He panned several cameras. “Here, too.”
She grimaced. “I’m not finding anything about Earth or Sol system.”
“Widen your search,” he said. He watched Nessus looking for something on the relax room’s shelves. A weapon? “Very quickly.”
Kirsten’s holo flashed even faster, the effect almost stroboscopic.
“How long do you need to cover your tracks?” No one had ever hunted on New Terra, so the meta phor got Sigmund another blank look. “How long to purge the audit trail and log out?”
“A minute or so.”