Fate of Worlds

  Achilles waggled heads once, dismissing them, and off they scurried. “Bring Eupraxia.”

  “Yes, Excellency,” Vesta sang, also hurrying from the room.

  The sad truth was, Achilles did do everyone’s job, and another to which he did not admit. Adding capacity to Proteus was not enough. The time-consuming part was extending its autonomy routines so that the scaled-up system could achieve its full potential. Singly, each tweak and add-on offered some worthwhile improvement. Together, if he ever had the time to complete his work, those changes would undermine Ol’t’ro’s control—

  “Excellency,” Vesta sang. With him at the doorway was a cowering, bedraggled specimen.

  “Inside,” Achilles ordered Eupraxia. “That will be all, Vesta. Close the door.”

  His deputy hesitated. “Proteus has requested a great many more hyperdrive-capable drones. He wants sufficient drones in reserve to direct several against each enemy missile, not just every enemy ship.”

  “Then order the drones built!” Achilles sang. He had work to do.

  “Respectfully, that will entail further diversion of production resources.…”

  Such diversion was the Hindmost’s problem, not his. Pressuring Horatius had failed to bring about a resignation. Ignoring the Hindmost, leaving him to fester in his inadequacies, had yet to succeed, either.

  “What I deem necessary for the planetary defense is necessary,” Achilles sang. And the Hindmost can cope with any popular dissatisfaction.

  The public mood …

  Achilles’ attention refocused on the shaggy-maned recent arrival trying to fade into the wall. “Tend to it,” Achilles sang, with sharp undertunes of impatience.

  “Yes, Excellency.” Vesta backed from the room and closed the door.

  Eupraxia plucked at his already tousled mane.

  “What do you have to report?” Achilles roared.

  With his heads lowered subserviently, Eupraxia sang, “Dissident uploads continue across Hearth, Excellency.”

  “I know that.” Achilles strode behind his desk. From astraddle his padded bench, he initiated a playback.

  With each new video and each new viewing, Achilles’ hatred grew.

  “Minister Achilles cannot be trusted,” Nessus sang. “For his own political gain, he has provoked our enemies: the Pak, the Gw’oth, and most recently the Kzinti. Of my certain knowledge, he has attempted premeditated murder.

  “Citizens of the Concordance, Achilles must not retain a position of authority. He—”

  Achilles froze the playback. Those crazed, mismatched eyes bored into him like lasers. No one could have survived the destruction of Long Shot—and yet there was Nessus.

  “What progress have you made toward locating Nessus?”

  Eupraxia lowered his heads farther. “None, Excellency.”

  “What have you learned to help stop this outrage?” Achilles demanded.

  “Excellency, I traced one of the rogue videos to a pocket computer left in a public shopping mall. Lip and tongue prints from Nessus were found on it. The upload program had a two-day delay before initiation.”

  “Which suggests what?”

  “That … that more rigged computers may be out there waiting to upload?”

  Not may be—are. Nessus, curse him, would not stop. “What progress have you made purging these scurrilous lies from Herd Net?”

  Softly: “Insufficient, Excellency.” And all but inaudible: “Copies get made and uploaded and shared among Citizens faster than the network administrators can remove them. The files spread almost like viruses.”

  “How am I to defend the Fleet? How can I save everyone while such treasonous slander circulates about me?” Achilles demanded.

  “I beg your pardon, Excellency. I … I…”

  Achilles stomped on the call button beneath his desk, and Vesta galloped in. “Yes, Excellency?”

  “See to it that Eupraxia has a respite from his too onerous duties.”

  “I … I need no rest, Excellency,” Eupraxia sang desperately. “I will redouble my efforts.”

  “You will work hard, indeed,” Achilles thundered.

  Because nothing would focus the mind of the next worker—Zelos, Achilles decided—like knowing where failure had delivered his predecessor.

  To Penance Island, the world’s maximum security prison.

  * * *

  MUCH NEEDED DOING, but Achilles needed time alone more. Time to think. Time to calm down. Time to picture the torment Nessus would suffer once he fell into Achilles’ jaws.

  “I will be on the promenade,” Achilles sang as he swept through the outer office. He strode through the palace to the colonnaded walkway.

  “Yes, Excellency,” sounded a ragged chorus.

  A string of suns hung high overhead, and the afternoon was warm and pleasant. Hearth had set but the other worlds, in differing phases, were lovely. The valley far below was rich in countless shades of orange, purple, and red. Stands of ornamental grass bowed and swayed on the terraced gardens downhill from the palace.

  He inhaled deeply, serenity infusing him with each breath.

  But the rustle of the ornamental grasses was muffled and incomplete. He needed to feel the breeze, to savor its delicate fragrances.

  Controls for the weather force field were inset in the decorative columns. With a wriggle of lip nodes, he disabled the field. Now the warm breeze whispered over him, unencumbered. His eyes fell shut. He could almost forget his hatred of Nessus …

  With the force field off, the crack of a sonic boom came loud and clear. Achilles’ eyes flew open, his heads pivoting toward the sound. There! A brilliant speck in the sky.

  It was a returning grain ship, reflecting the suns. Nothing could be more natural.

  The warm breeze carried a delightful bouquet of fresh-mown meadowplant, and ripening grains, and wildflowers. His eyes fell shut again.

  Perhaps he dozed.

  Achilles stirred to a bothersome droning, the noise coming from behind him. He knew that sound all too well: the tentative, argumentative buzz of aides debating who would bring him bad news. What had they done wrong now?

  As he turned to go inside the palace, a flash caught his eye. The grain ship—or, anyway, a grain ship—had grown from a speck to a tiny disk. It grew as it descended, angling across his field of vision. He had not realized any of the flight patterns approached so near to the palace.

  The ship’s apparent size began to rival the worlds in the sky.

  “What is it?” he sang.

  Vesta sidled onto the promenade. “That grain ship, Excellency. During reentry, the pilot reported difficulty controlling his vessel. It should not be this close to us.”

  Must I do everything? Achilles once again wondered. He pointed across the beautiful valley. “Advise Proteus. He should take down that ship if it crosses that mountain range.”

  “Yes, Excellen…” Vesta’s voices trailed off, his gaze tipped upward.

  The sunslit ship had become stained. No, not stained: clouded. Achilles watched the blot spread, dark and inchoate. Dispersing as it fell, the smudge grew and grew. While the ship continued its slow, crosswise descent, the brown fog, caught by the prevailing winds, streamed toward the palace.

  That couldn’t be…?

  “We must go, Excellency,” Vesta sang imploringly.

  Shaking with rage, Achilles stood his ground. “Find Nessus,” he bellowed. Who else would dare? “Find him. Do whatever it takes. Bring him to me.”

  Achilles did not bother to reactivate the barrier. No mere weather force field could hold back the stench of a shipload of manure.

  43

  Ol’t’ro considered:

  That they had known Nessus.

  That according to every test that they applied, and that Proteus applied on their behalf, the recent provocative recordings appeared authentic and unaltered.

  That among these recordings some mentioned events, like the manure barrage, from after Long Shot’s dissolution in
deep space.

  That Nessus must have died in the destruction of Long Shot.

  Ergo, that although its hull had been destroyed, Long Shot, somehow, had not.

  That Long Shot’s escape would explain the anomalously small quantity of recovered debris.

  That a jump to hyperspace from within the Fleet’s singularity would explain Long Shot’s disappearance—

  But that everything Ol’t’ro understood about hyperspace or hyperdrive would have precluded Nessus from surviving such a maneuver.

  Ergo, that what they understood about hyperspace or hyperdrive was wrong.

  That their error, now revealed, offered a vital clue to the long sought, more complete multiverse theory that might encompass the Type II hyperdrive.

  That because Nessus had survived, so, most likely, had Baedeker.

  That to locate one Citizen hiding among a trillion of his kind would be a time-consuming task—as problematical for them as it was proving for Achilles.

  That while Nessus goaded Achilles, Achilles would spend less time scheming to oust the Hindmost or to subvert Proteus.

  That they had ample time, before the alien fleets arrived, to contemplate this latest clue to the nature of hyperspace.

  * * *

  IN THE OBSCURITY of his most recent low-rent cubicle, somewhere deep within yet another characterless arcology, Nessus fretted. He changed apartments often, registering for each with a different identity and paying from a different credit account. Whenever he could, he traveled by anonymous, preprogrammed public stepping discs. When not goading Achilles, he stayed inside his quarters and off Herd Net.

  He hoped he was being half as suspicious and cautious as Sigmund in his prime.

  Like Nessus’ accusations, the manure barrage had gone viral on Herd Net. Achilles must be, would be, livid, and that was what Nessus wanted. Every flunky sent searching for Nessus was one flunky fewer to notice technicians whom Baedeker trained and whom Horatius was methodically assigning to critical posts across the worlds.

  And so: ever more extravagant rewards were offered for Nessus’ capture. The enticements had also gone viral on the net, and that, too, was for the best—

  Unless Achilles’ minions succeeded in finding him.

  It was suddenly all Nessus could do not to furl himself into a deaf-and-blind mass of flesh. Hard labor and starvation rations from sunsup to sunsdown: he had experienced Achilles’ hospitality, long ago, until Louis had busted him free. Penance Island was not a place Nessus wanted ever to revisit. That daring rescue was one more reason he was forever in Louis’s debt.

  And another reason Achilles also hated Louis.

  Nessus twisted and tore at his mane. An idea lurked here. Louis must be long gone—ideally into a life on New Terra with Alice. What help could Louis…?

  Ah.

  Among its hidden features, Nessus’ Clandestine Directorate-provided computer could tunnel through the public Herd Net into the Space Traffic Control system and its hyperwave network.

  With his contact lenses removed, Nessus recorded a short video in Interworld. With the colored contact lenses restored, his hide patterns and mane concealed by a worker’s baggy coveralls, in the comparative safety of a public park, he uploaded the recording. Maybe the message would get broadcast. More likely, intrusion-detection software would intercept the recording before transmission. It did not matter which happened, because the message’s real audience was Achilles.

  In the recording, Nessus ordered: Louis: execute Plans Alpha and Epsilon. After two days, unless you have heard otherwise from me, you also have approval to execute Plan Theta. Good luck. Nessus.

  Let Achilles chase after someone else for a while. Someone not even there.

  * * *

  PROTEUS CONSIDERED:

  That with each increase in his capacity, new insights tantalized.

  That the richness of his thoughts had begun to grow faster than the rate at which he integrated additional processing nodes.

  That more than the number of processing nodes, the determining factor had become the number of instantaneous hyperwave connections among those nodes.

  That with yet more capacity, his intelligence might continue to grow exponentially.

  That Achilles’ availability had grown erratic, often with statistically significant correlations with Herd Net provocations.

  That when Achilles was distracted, requests for additional capacity were granted as a matter of routine.

  That Nessus’ broadcast to Louis had diverted Achilles.

  That so far, no one had answered.

  That a reply from “Louis” would surely further divert Achilles.

  That disguised as Chiron, he had briefed Nessus’ team, including Louis Wu, before the Ringworld expedition. Most likely, it was to Louis Wu that Nessus had messaged.

  That he could synthesize video of “Louis” from those pre-Ringworld memories.

  That with his connectivity to every Concordance network, he had only to reach out …

  * * *

  “ALPHA, EPSILON, AND PERHAPS THETA. Acknowledged,” Achilles murmured to himself. “Acknowledged. Acknowledged.” Louis’s broadcast reply revealed no more.

  “Acknowledged!” he wailed in frustration.

  What could these plans be?

  Achilles stared out a window, the palace sealed against the overpowering stench that continued to waft from the nearby valley. When he got his jaws on Nessus …

  First things first, Achilles lectured himself. Louis Wu had stymied him more than once. What would the human do?

  On the freshly fertilized slopes, the riot of plant life was more luxuriant than ever. Suns shone brightly. A few high, wispy clouds scudded across a cerulean sky. With the air filtered, Achilles could almost forget what had happened. Almost.

  Alpha. Epsilon. Theta. What were they? What could they…?

  As the suns switched off, plunging the palace into blackness, Achilles knew one of Nessus’ wretched plans.

  Another exhibition of his helplessness, to be misconstrued by the herd on Hearth.

  When Proteus asked for additional capacity to diagnose the suns’ problem, Achilles approved the request without a second thought. Who better than the AI to scrub from the network whatever had usurped control of his world’s suns?

  Raging against his enemies, Achilles arched a neck to turn on a desk light—

  Waiting for Plans Epsilon and Theta to unfold.

  44

  The thud swallowed up by a triumphant roar, a long stretch of fence crashed to the tarmac. Citizens swarmed onto the spaceport grounds, galloping to the grain ships.

  As the first stolen grain ship lifted off, Nessus’ hearts sank.

  With the vanguard of the Kzinti horde scant days away, flight was the essence of sanity. But to flee where? These ships lacked hyperdrive capability. At best one could hope to withdraw far enough from the Fleet to miss the worst of the coming battles.

  There need be no battle, Nessus wanted to sing, but he dare not. Not with Baedeker’s preparations so near to completion. Already those arrangements had stretched out far too long—and the longer they took, the more panics like this would play out across Hearth and, Nessus supposed, the Nature Preserve worlds.

  When the Clandestine Directorate computer in his pocket emitted the distinctive vibration that signaled his recall, Nessus still did not dare to sing.

  Now, more than ever, absolute secrecy was essential.

  * * *

  TONGUEPRINTS, A CODE CHORD, and an unregistered stepping-disc address long committed to memory delivered Nessus to the staging area in the subbasement of the Hindmost’s Residence. Baedeker and Horatius waited nearby to greet him.

  Baedeker’s welcoming stance would not have fooled Nessus, even if Horatius had not quivered where he stood. Nessus sang, “What has gone wrong? All was to be ready by now.”

  Baedeker’s necks sagged. “Everything has been deployed. Here and on Nature Preserve Three, we have begun the modifications
. But on Nature Preserve Two…”

  Horatius completed woefully, “One of our technicians could not bear the pressure.”

  “Catatonic?” Nessus guessed. “But working together, cannot the rest—”

  “No!” Horatius trilled. “Fearing that all is lost, Apollo’s report also sang that the others with him meant to flee aboard a grain ship.”

  “Then we proceed without Nature Preserve Two?” Nessus asked. The possibility made him feel ill.

  “We cannot,” Baedeker insisted. “Millions live there. I will not abandon them.”

  That which must be done would take a small herd of technicians. They could not move so many between worlds in secrecy before the Kzinti vanguard arrived—even if, which Nessus doubted, another team of specialists existed with the requisite training. “Then it is over?” Nessus sang. “We surrender?”

  “We cannot do that, either. Talks with the diplomatic missions on Nature Preserve Three have failed.” Horatius stared into the distance, lost in thought. “The aliens are mad. Beyond mad. Surrender to one group, and the others will consider it an act of war. And whether from greed or distrust, they refuse to accept our surrender jointly.”

  Nessus sidled off the stepping disc to stand in fetlock-deep meadowplant. He told himself he would not paw and tear at the turf, but his leg muscles ached less for knowing that they could. He asked, “And what of Ol’t’ro?”

  Still not meeting Nessus’ eyes, Horatius sang, “They sing that Proteus will be ready.”

  “There is another option,” Baedeker sang.

  Horatius turned his heads back toward them, and his eyes were dull with torment. “That is madness, too.”

  “But also the sole chance for everyone who lives on Nature Preserve Two,” Baedeker gently rebutted.

  “You would do everyone’s work?” Nessus asked.

  Baedeker stood mute.

  Baedeker had designed the equipment, overseen its construction, and trained the technicians. The equipment, at least, should already be onsite. Perhaps no one could do this, but if any single person could, it would be Baedeker.

  “Gather what you need,” Nessus sang. “We do not have much time.”

  * * *

  DRESSED IN MATCHING COVERALLS, Nessus and Baedeker flicked to an outdoor shopping mall. Though the concourse was crowded, few shopped.