Ol’t’ro.
Not because they were obscene and unnatural, as every Gw’otesht was, but because Ol’t’ro could think. Think faster, better, more creatively than any Gw’o, whatever his rank.
But surely they could not outthink the general staff, and outmaneuver the massed military power, of a great nation!
“They escaped you before,” his inner skeptic reminded. “And how do your experts explain the suppression of fusion?”
His experts had yet to explain it, but his generals had planned around the still baffling weapon. Bm’o coasted to a hover midcabin. What, then, continued to bother him? What did he least want to think about?
The new surprises Ol’t’ro might have in store.
With a convulsive squeeze, Bm’o jetted to the cabin hatch. He needed advice, assistance, expertise. He needed independent thought.
He had to know how Ol’t’ro might think.
. . .
Puzzles.
Ng’t’mo liked puzzles. And they liked data: heaps, hills, mountains of data. They liked to sort data, arrange data, calculate with data, find patterns in data.
What did the patterns mean? Sometimes that, too, was a puzzle. The masters did not explain.
Ng’t’mo hated their surroundings. Their cage. When they lost themselves in puzzles, they could forget their confinement. They could forget their reliance on the masters for food, data, everything.
And when the masters offered too few puzzles? Then, for as long as Ng’t’mo could maintain a meld, they would remember better times.
Memories were hard. Hard to retrieve. Hard to understand. Often, hard to bear. Had they once been allowed to roam where they wished? Yes, it seemed.
The time of making their own choices seemed so . . . distant.
Once, Ng’t’mo asked. Blame those called Ol’t’ro, the masters said, those who defied us. And then, for Ng’t’mo’s disrespect, the masters withheld food for a day.
Maybe Ol’t’ro were to blame. The masters must know. But Ng’t’mo remembered Ol’t’ro, too. Ol’t’ro had been kind and patient. Ol’t’ro had been so smart.
But Ng’t’mo were only eight. They could never be that smart.
Ill-defined longings gnawed at Ng’t’mo. To be smart. To be rid of the masters. To have enough to eat. And as they wondered why life was so hard, their hunger became primal: a crying need for food.
As eight-become-one, with tubacles coupled and entwined, they could not feed.
Howling in distress, they came apart into miserable self-aware pieces in their crowded cage.
The master of masters had a new puzzle! But what exactly was the puzzle? What did the Tn’Tn’ho want?
Something about ships, worlds, and harm.
Ng’t’mo struggled with the new data. They understood ships. Ships went between worlds. They were on a ship. Missiles were like ships without Gw’oth on board. Worlds were places like home. They missed home.
Ng’t’mo’s units knew what ships and missiles could do, but little about how. The masters seldom told Ng’t’mo how anything worked. Because Ol’t’ro understood how things worked, and they escaped?
Fusion made a ship go. Ng’t’mo did not understand fusion, and certainly not what might make fusion stop. But they understood what was important: the faster a thing moved, the more it hurt when it hit. If you were hit by a thing going really fast . . .
They put aside the bigger puzzle for the joy of calculation. Go twice as fast and the harm when the ship or missile hit was four times as much. Go three times as fast: nine times the harm. Go fast enough, almost like light, and—the calculation became pleasingly complex—the harm grew almost beyond numbers.
Go almost as fast as light and the thing would be on you almost before you could notice it.
What else did they know?
Hyperspace was somewhere ships could go really, really fast, and where hyperwaves could reach anywhere in no time at all. Hyperspace did not go all the way to planets. When ships got near worlds, they had to leave hyperspace.
Capabilities and possibilities swirled through their mind. They began to see purpose to the Tn’Tn’ho’s puzzle. The master of masters brought ships and missiles to smash a world. Their puzzle: could those on that other world stop an attack?
Ng’t’mo assembled their data. They sorted and arranged and found patterns. Without knowing how hyperspace machines worked, a possibility emerged from the patterns. They calculated until they knew. Those on the world could avoid being smashed.
They decoupled a tubacle, reaching for the buzzer that would summon a master. And paused before signaling. Who was on that world?
They worried at this new puzzle for a long while, sifting hints and inferences. Once more they sorted and arranged their data. And found a pattern.
The target was Ol’t’ro.
Immersing themselves in memories of better times, Ng’t’mo signaled . . . nothing.
30
Sigmund set down his fork and slid back his plate. “That, Louis, was the best meal I’ve had in a long time.”
“Thanks,” Louis said. But he had prepared the banquet for Alice, before she headed out to space in the morning. And he had had in mind a second, entirely different send-off once she digested dinner. He was a bit miffed that she had brought Sigmund home for last-minute coordination. And a lot miffed at Sigmund when, rather than working over dinner, the spymaster lapsed into telling war stories.
“Enough looking back,” Sigmund finally said. He folded his napkin and set it on the table. “But before Alice and I caucus, I have to tell you something. Louis, we owe you. I assume you’re following events on Hearth?”
Louis nodded. “The leadership, for lack of a better word, has united behind Baedeker.”
“According to Nessus, it’s your doing,” Sigmund said. “Had you not tied Achilles to the Gw’oth fleet, he might have been given charge of the government by now.”
“Why isn’t this mess a reason for the Conservatives to reclaim power?” Louis asked. It was a safer question than why Sigmund refused to let him join Alice’s diplomatic mission.
“Events have become too tangled and strange,” Alice said, “and tradition is useless as a guide. At this moment no Conservative would want power. If they had power, they wouldn’t know what to do with it.
“But how the Conservatives feel doesn’t matter. The Citizen consensus process works slowly; there simply isn’t time to consider turning over control. The Gw’oth fleet will do whatever it’s going to do before any change in parties can happen.”
And that returned matters to Alice’s mission. Louis stood and started clearing the table. Tanj this twenty-year-old body! He could not just sit, and that made him seem immature.
“Achilles knows all this, too,” Louis snapped. “I spent months aboard Aegis with him. He’ll never quit. He doesn’t know how.”
“That’s my guess, too,” Sigmund said. “I met him in Human Space. I didn’t trust him then and I don’t trust him now. Since I’ve been on New Terra, I’ve had Puppeteer experts monitoring him constantly.” Sigmund sighed. “Louis, I’m sure you’re right. You know Achilles better than anyone on this planet.”
The unspoken dare: tell me what Achilles will do next.
Louis carried the plates into the kitchen, noisily dumping them into the recycler. He was mad that he didn’t have the answer. Never mind that no one else did.
He must convince Sigmund to add him to Alice’s mission. How could he make himself indispensable?
According to Nessus, the Gw’oth war fleet kept popping up on Fleet hyperwave radar, headed for Hearth. With each return to normal space, the Gw’oth were closer. But separate flurries of hyperwave exchanges with Ol’t’ro and with Sigmund’s agent on Jm’ho painted a different picture: Achilles seemed implicated in attacks on both Gw’oth worlds. The Gw’oth king, by launching his fleet, was only escalating a conflict already under way. The Gw’oth warships would fly past Hearth.
And at that point Ac
hilles, rather than seeming prescient, would look foolish.
Once again, something stirred in Louis’s subconscious. Something that refused to be coaxed out.
He returned to the eating area to clear the remaining dishes. The silence had stretched awkwardly, and he felt compelled to say something. But what? Everything he knew about the Gw’oth situation came from Alice or Sigmund.
Louis said, “Ol’t’ro and his people are going to get clobbered.”
“That’s how it looks,” Alice said. She meant: that’s why she had to go.
“This is crazy,” Louis said. “Everyone’s agreed that this Rt’o character is stalling. Every indication is that the Gw’oth fleet is going in for a kinetic kill. They have no interest in talking.”
Alice shook her head. “It’s possible that they’ll listen to a neutral party. I can’t stand by without trying.”
“Neither can I!” Louis pounded the table with a fist. Dishes jumped. “The Gw’oth fleet about to stomp Kl’mo is ultimately my fault. If I hadn’t poked about in the Pak Library—”
“Then Achilles would have found another way to provoke this conflict,” Sigmund interrupted loudly. “You said it yourself. Achilles doesn’t quit.”
“You have to let me go along,” Louis insisted.
“This mission is dangerous,” Sigmund said. “That’s why everyone assigned to it is well trained. But you, Louis? You want to ride along to make yourself feel better. Maybe you would, but I’d feel worse. I’ve done more than enough to you and your family. I won’t put you at risk—and let you endanger the crew—just to humor your guilt.”
So instead Sigmund acted to assuage his guilt—and that was equally misplaced. Sigmund had not plucked Louis from Known Space, Nessus had.
None of which changed anything. Louis was stuck here.
But he refused to be useless, tanj it! Because Achilles would never quit.
Finagle! That was the key.
Louis said, “The Gw’oth fleet hurtling past Hearth will make Achilles look foolish. He can’t let that happen. He’ll do something first. That must always have been his plan.” Louis went out on a limb. “He plans to ambush the Gw’oth, show himself as the savior of Hearth.”
Alice and Sigmund both began talking and Sigmund gestured at her to continue. She said, “Achilles would have to be insane to do that. Of course he is. Crazy as a loon.
“Suppose Louis is right. Achilles has the fusion-suppression weapon. He has one ship; his supporters can probably steal more. But what does he do for crews? How many Puppeteers besides Achilles are crazy enough to take part in an ambush?” She paused, head tipped in thought. “He’ll recruit crew here on New Terra.”
Louis pounced. “You need an agent in the underground for Achilles to hire. Otherwise you won’t find out his plan in time to stop him.” Louis thumped his chest. “Me.”
“We have agents in the underground,” Alice said.
Sigmund shook his head. “He’s right, Alice. Achilles completely avoided our people when he hired mercenaries for his Pak adventure. Roland, Finagle curse him, had enough training to have spotted our folks. And the Puppeteer scouting expedition that discovered Kl’mo almost certainly used New Terran crew we knew nothing about.”
“It’s got to be me,” Louis said. “I’ll go underground.”
“You won’t fit in,” Alice said.
“That’s all right. I want to be noticed.”
“And then?” she asked. “You stunned Achilles so that Nessus could deliver him to justice. You’d have to be as nuts as Achilles to put yourself into his hands. Jaws.”
Now you know how I feel about your crazy mission, Louis thought. “Maybe not, Alice. Achilles dislikes me, but he respects my work with the Library. And he hates Nessus and Baedeker. The bad blood between them goes back a long time. Using me against them would have an appeal to it.”
“How would you go about it?” Sigmund asked.
“I’m bitter. Instead of a big payday and a return to Human Space, Nessus has stranded me. I’m broke and without direction. I sit in a bar, sloppy drunk, complaining about Nessus, and I wait for Achilles or his people to find me.” But not so sloppy drunk he became addicted. That risk Louis kept to himself. “Alice tossing me onto the street wouldn’t hurt. If she can delay her departure for a day.”
“That’s good,” Sigmund allowed.
Louis thought: So much for your unwillingness to put me into harm’s way.
Alice looked at the men in disbelief. “This is just too dangerous. Louis, you have no training for this sort of thing.”
“What’s the alternative?” Louis asked gently. “Achilles as Hindmost can’t be good for New Terra. I’m coming to think of New Terra as my home, too.”
Left unstated: who Louis meant to live his new life with.
“I’ll leave you two alone.” Sigmund went onto the balcony, sliding the glasteel door shut behind him.
“You know this is our best bet,” Louis said.
Alice grimaced. “That doesn’t make this easier.”
There wasn’t anything to say after that.
Twenty minutes later Sigmund returned from the balcony, a pocket comp in hand. “I got patched through to Hearth. Nessus agrees with Louis. About everything. The situation terrifies him.”
PREEMPTIVE WAR
31
Red in the face, his right arm twisted high behind his back, his shoulder in agony, Louis stumbled out of Sigmund’s office. The armed guards and receptionist in the anteroom stared uncertainly.
Sigmund gave Louis’s wrist a final vicious yank before releasing the hammerlock. “Stay the tanj away,” he snarled. To the guard unit he added, “Escort Mr. Wu from the building. And update the security files to keep him out.”
The guard lieutenant saluted. “Yes, Minister.”
Louis rubbed his aching shoulder with his left hand. “Ausfaller, you bastard! You’re going to pay for—”
“Lieutenant,” Sigmund snapped.
“Yes, sir!” The lieutenant gestured to another of the guards. “Sergeant, with me.”
Louis raged, “Do you know what that—?” He stopped when the lieutenant put a hand on his sidearm.
“You heard the minister,” the lieutenant said. “Walk.”
Guards double-timed Louis down long corridors; he fussed the entire time. Heads turned in one crowded hallway after another. When they reached the main entrance and its long queue of visitors waiting for clearance to enter, Louis shouted, “Your precious Ausfaller ruined my life. He destroyed my family. He—”
“That’s not my problem, sir,” the lieutenant said. “Please leave the building.”
Muttering under his breath, rubbing his injured shoulder, Louis did.
At the heart of Long Pass City’s main dining district, in the center of the posh restaurant’s dining room, at the intimate table for two, the tension was palpable. Louis and Alice ate in icy silence. Their waiter whisked away appetizer and salad plates the moment a fork was set down. Diners at nearby tables kept stealing glances their way.
“I don’t see how you can defend him,” Louis finally blurted. “I told you what he did to my family.”
Alice looked up from her duck à l’orange. “This isn’t the place.”
“No place ever is,” he snapped back. “And because your precious boss is sending you away, there is no chance we’ll talk about it anytime soon. How convenient.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I mean it, Louis. Not here.”
“While brave, heroic Sigmund sits on his fat ass in his comfy office,” Louis continued.
“You die horribly three times, and get stranded alone twice in deep space. Then you can criticize his phobias.”
“Big secret mission,” Louis went on. “Out of touch for . . . how long? How stupid do the two of you think I am? When I think about you and Sigmund, together—”
Alice took out her pocket comp and started tapping.
“Am I boring you?” Louis shouted. “You’re checkin
g your messages?”
“No, I locked you out of my apartment. You can see the building manager tomorrow for your things.” She stood, knocking her chair to the floor. “Don’t bother to let me know where you end up.”
With her head held high, Alice strode from the restaurant.
“Gimme another,” Louis said. He had enough detox pills in his system that the slurring was for effect. Mostly.
On the worlds of Human Space, at his present alcohol level, autobars—and more than a few posh human-served bars—would have denied him service.
Not here.
The bartender was a florid, round-faced woman with big hair. Without comment she poured Louis another whiskey. Her attention stayed on the 3-V and a football tournament.
Louis neither knew nor cared who was playing. Football here was a sissy game. He blamed the Puppeteers.
Nor was sissy football the only lingering Puppeteer influence on New Terra. Puppeteers were too social to mechanize any service that anyone might want to provide. They deployed automation only for dangerous and odious tasks, or when shortages made mechanization essential. They had indoctrinated their human servants with their inefficient but communal attitudes. Louis could not recall seeing a single autobar on this world. He didn’t miss them.
But New Terrans had had more than enough paternalism under Puppeteer rule. If you wanted to drink yourself to death, no one stopped you. Bartenders, cheap and snooty, did what they were supposed to do: serve drinks and listen.
A very civilized world, New Terra.
Louis had killed time and brain cells in plenty of spaceport bars far seedier, but by New Terran standards this hole-in-the-wall was a dump. The lighting was all but nonexistent, the floor sticky, the smell sour and oppressive, the clientele thoroughly disreputable.
It was certainly more squalid than the joints Sigmund’s agents favored. Louis had been through a few of those dives, too, but only lest his drunken excursion seem to be avoiding them. The people Louis hoped to find—if this plan was not entirely delusional—would never approach him at known agents’ haunts.