Fate of Worlds

  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 shimm
ered 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 uni
form 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.”