Arcologies on six sides bounded the area, and Achilles, vastly larger than life, glowered from the lighting/display sidewalls. “The Hindmost has failed you in this crisis,” Achilles sang sternly. “You know me. You know that I saved our worlds from the Gw’oth invasion. With your help, I can save everyone again. Add your voices to the chorus demanding that the Hindmost step down. Raise your voices now. It is almost too late.”
The Gw’oth whose invasion Achilles had, in fact, provoked. The Gw’oth to whom he had betrayed the herd, in order to become puppet Hindmost. The Gw’oth who ruled still. But, Nessus thought, the public knew nothing of that.
“I know you, lord of the manure,” anonymous voices in the crowd murmured. “I don’t think so.”
That defiant melody lifted Nessus’ mood, just a little.
“Come,” he sang to Baedeker. “We must hurry.”
Together they flicked from spaceport to spaceport, until they found one still with ships to steal. The fence had just gone down. The spaceport staff had fled or blended into the mob. Grain spilled to the ground from gaping cargo-hold doors, faster than off-loading to waiting granaries.
Nessus and Baedeker mixed into the crowd pushing aboard a ship. Moments later, under unpracticed mouths, the vessel wobbled off the tarmac.
Nessus led the way inward, toward the bridge, pressing through crowded corridors. Some Citizens trembled with fear and others with relief, while everyone looked dazed. The background din swelled each time they passed the access hatch into one of the herd-packed cargo holds.
“We are pilots,” Nessus howled each time the throngs stymied their progress.
Finally, they came to the entrance to the bridge. The plasteel hatch stood open. Baedeker slipped onto the bridge and Nessus followed.
The main bridge display showed a view from above the plane of the worlds. Hearth glittered with the glow of billions of buildings. Nature Preserve worlds, in varying phases, shone in blue, white, and tan. Icons of traffic-control transponders hung everywhere.
A Citizen with a brown-and-tan-striped hide and brown-and-russet braids sat astraddle the pilot’s bench. At the slam of the hatch closing, he turned a head. “Who are you?”
“We are pilots,” Baedeker answered.
“Good for you,” Stripes sang, turning back to his console.
By then, Nessus had one head in a pocket: the pocket with a sonic stunner. Stripes never knew what hit him.
* * *
AS SOON AS THE GRAIN SHIP landed on Nature Preserve Two, Nessus used bridge controls to open the exterior hatches of the lower cargo holds.
By the hundreds, citizens tumbled to the tarmac. Some froze, stunned by the unfamiliar sight of a sunslit sky and open spaces stretching in every direction to the horizon. Others collapsed. Most ran toward the comparative normality of the terminal building.
“We should go,” Nessus sang. The hallway had emptied, and he and Baedeker cantered to catch up with the mob emptying from the ship. None knew they had restolen the ship.
On this farm world, they could have landed almost anywhere. But while Proteus was not molesting ships fleeing the Fleet, Nessus had been afraid to see how the defensive system would respond to an inbound ship that ignored Space Traffic Control. So here they were in a spaceport that remained under government control. The perimeter fences here still stood.
Drained of the wild energy spent in escaping Hearth, the evacuees formed orderly lines for entrance into the terminal. Neck in neck, Nessus and Baedeker sidled deeper into the crowd.
Until Nessus came close enough to see uniformed security guards standing just inside the terminal doors! “Hang back,” he whispered.
“No one here knows us,” Baedeker whispered back.
No, everyone knew Nessus, at least as seen in the appeals for his capture. And Baedeker had been Hindmost. Colored lenses and coveralls seemed woefully inadequate disguises.
And if no one recognized them? The stunners in their pockets would raise a few questions.
“Give me your stunner,” Nessus murmured.
“Why?”
“No time.” Nessus insinuated a head into Baedeker’s pocket to grab his mate’s weapon. “You go through security first.” And don’t forget your assumed name.
“I’ll meet you on the other side of the gate,” Baedeker crooned.
Nessus held back, studying the screening process. He saw four security personnel, each carrying a stunner, two wearing the crazed look of thugs. Too many to attack—if, somehow, he could excite his mania to such a level—even given the advantage of surprise.
Baedeker reached the front of his line. His answers must have been unsatisfactory, because the guard gestured over another.
But Baedeker had to get through!
Nessus took out his contact lenses and jammed them into a pocket. He opened his coveralls enough for his disheveled mane to peek through. Sidling out of the crowd, he looked shiftily at the guards. Notice me, you fools.
Heads swiveling, scanning the crowd, the guard’s gaze swept right past Nessus.
Somehow, Nessus took a stunner in each mouth. At the loud crackle of his weapons the evacuees scattered, screaming. He stunned two refugees by mistake.
Baedeker’s heads whipped around, and his eyes grew wide. By remaining as everyone around him fled, he would draw attention to himself.
Nessus dropped one weapon to howl, “Go!”
Baedeker stood, frozen.
“Go!” Nessus howled even louder.
With anguish in his eyes, Baedeker turned and ran.
There was a loud sizzle. Legs, necks, torso—everything went numb.
As Nessus toppled, four guards, stunners clenched in their jaws, trotted toward him.
* * *
A DELUGE OF ICY WATER brought Nessus shuddering and sputtering back to awareness. He had been carried off the field to a windowless room. The glow panels were too bright. Two of the spaceport guards stared down at him. The two crazed-looking ones.
“Ready to sing?” one of them asked.
Nessus was sprawled on the floor, limbs splayed out. He willed himself to stand, and nothing happened. If it was too soon after the stunning to stand, perhaps it was also too soon to sing.
A kick in the ribs brought an involuntary bleat from him.
“You don’t need to move, just answer questions,” a guard said.
The dregs of his nervous mania gone, Nessus put what little energy he could muster into the hope his diversion had worked. When he could move, he would channel that energy into rolling up into a catatonic ball.
Catatonia was the best way to endure what must come next.
Splash! More icy water. In his faces. Down his throats. His eyelids fluttered and he coughed. “What do you want?” he gasped.
“A big reward.” One of the guards looked himself in the eyes. “And as soon as Achilles’ representative arrives to collect you, that is what I’ll have.”
What purpose will money serve once the Kzinti arrive to take their revenge? Nessus let his eyes fall shut.
Splash!
“But there is a way to have more money,” the loquacious guard sang. “When we reported your capture, Minister Achilles offered a second reward. Tell me where to find Louis.”
Louis? There was no Louis. Nessus considered explaining. But Achilles had offered a reward for Louis, too. Achilles would not appreciate being taken for a fool—if he even believed Nessus’ explanation.
Memories of Penance Island surfaced, unbidden, in his thoughts.
Another poke in the ribs. “Tell me about Louis.”
This time, Nessus twitched away from the blow. He sang nothing.
“If I find out soon enough to stop Plan Epsilon”—the guard mangled the Greek letter—“the reward will be even greater.”
Nessus tried to roll up, but could hardly tremble.
The second guard sang, “What kind of Citizen are you?”
Insane. I would not be here otherwise.
Nessus tried to
remember his garden on New Terra: the tranquility of the honest labor, the simple joy of eating food he himself had grown and harvested. Memories of Sigmund, unbidden, kept popping up instead.
Unable to turn his heads, Nessus managed a human-type snort of laughter. They were out to get him. Worse, they had succeeded.
The talkative guard set a hoof on one of Nessus’ throats and pressed. “Where do we find Louis?”
The guards had yet to ask about Baedeker. Nessus told himself his beloved had gotten away, that there was still a chance. Fantasies about Louis Wu could continue to occupy Achilles and his gang.
Through his one clear throat, Nessus gasped, “I will tell you. Let me sing.”
The hoof came off his throat.
“It is complicated,” Nessus began. “Louis could be many places. Where is he? That depends.”
“On what he is trying to do? It must be Plan Epsilon.”
“You seem very certain.”
“Not I, but Minister Achilles. Louis hyperwaved, asking you for clarification about Plan Theta.”
Louis was a ploy, a ruse, a fiction. He could not have transmitted a question. Unless …
When Ol’t’ro first took charge of the Fleet, leaving Nessus to the tender mercies of Achilles, Louis had rescued him from Penance Island. Later, on the Ringworld, Louis had charged through an armed mob to scoop up Nessus—a head lopped off, blood spurting from the stump of a neck—from enraged natives.
Louis was foolishly, foolishly loyal. Even after Long Shot had vanished, he must have stayed near the Fleet. Alice, too, then.
Two good friends were about to die for their loyalty.
45
The Ringworld was a million miles across and six hundred million the long way around. In thirteen years, Louis had scarcely begun to explore its vastness or grasp the incredible variety of its thirty or so trillion inhabitants. Endurance, meanwhile, was all of three hundred feet from stem to stern, with most of its volume crammed with power plant, engines, environmental systems, deuterium tanks, and supplies. He was accustomed to room, tanj it, and meeting new beings every day, and endless novelty. He should have been climbing the walls.
Being near Alice made all the difference.
Her anger had faded. She had begun opening up to him, sharing, confiding. Maybe that proved only that she had no one else to talk to, but he chose to believe they had gone past the politeness of necessity. Despite raging hormones and unrequited love, he contented himself with her friendship—
And burning off energy and adrenaline by pacing the too-short corridors of Endurance.
Where was the Ringworld now? As a protector, with only surmises and inference to guide him, he had reached an answer of sorts. With Tunesmith’s modifications and its reserves of stored energy, the Ringworld could have traveled about a thousand light-years. As mere slow-witted Louis, he couldn’t even remember the long string of inferences that led to that conclusion. If he had, he could no longer have followed the logic. All that mattered was that Tunesmith had removed Ringworld and its trillions from the Fringe War.
And that now the Fringe War was coming after new prey.
If anything was going to save the Fleet of Worlds, it had to happen fast. Judging from the ripples picked up by ship’s sensors over the past few days, the front wave of the Fringe War was almost upon them. About to wash over—to wash away?—the worlds of the Puppeteers.
On one of Louis’s endless circuits, Alice grabbed his arm and pulled him to a stop. She said, “None of what happened, and none of what’s about to happen, is your fault.”
What was he supposed to say to that? That he knew? The words would take none of the sting out of admitting failure. Baedeker was gone, and Nessus, and for all Louis’s brave words as they had watched and waited, he had come up with—nothing.
He shrugged.
“Louis, quit it,” Alice said, concern plain in her voice. “We stayed so that we can report back to New Terra about what’s about to happen. That’s the only reason we stayed.”
“Don’t you care about what has already taken place? Don’t you wonder why Baedeker and Nessus died? Whether their sacrifice served any purpose?”
She squeezed his arm. “Maybe some good came of me growing old. I’m going to share the wisdom of age: when you can’t change something, let it go. When you can’t know something, there’s no point torturing yourself with what-ifs.”
Alice was right, of course. She usually was. Rather than admit it, he said, “I’m going to get some lunch. Join me?”
“Who’s cooking?”
He mock shuddered. “By amazing happenstance, it’s once again my turn.”
She laughed.
They strode off to the relax room, where Louis let the rhythms and rituals of cooking calm him. Alice worried about him. That was progress.
“The thing is,” he began.
“Which thing?”
Dicing vegetables for stir fry, Louis considered. “Do you know what makes me the craziest? It’s the not knowing. What happened after Long Shot was destroyed? What are the Puppeteers planning to do when the Fringe War rams itself down their throats?”
While Louis chopped, Alice synthed a bulb of hot tea for herself. She reminded him, “When you can’t know, don’t torture yourself.”
Nor could they find out, for the same reason that whichever Fringe War fleet arrived first was in for a surprise. Louis had made as close acquaintance as he cared to of the Puppeteers’ defensive systems. “So we stay a half light-year away, waiting for the Puppeteer news broadcasts to creep out to us on sluggish light waves.”
She sighed. “We’ve been over this, too. Sure, we could jump deep into the array, get much closer to Hearth, and pick up radio broadcasts. We could watch near-to-current news that way. But without hanging around to become a target, how likely are we to learn anything useful?”
“Beautiful and smart,” he told her. But I need to know!
“Pardon me for interrupting your meal,” Jeeves called from the nearest intercom speaker. “I am picking up a hyperwave broadcast from Achilles, and it is urgent.”
* * *
ACHILLES! HE WAS PSYCHOTIC under the best of circumstances. What mood would he be in on the brink of a Kzinti reprisal attack? Louis hated to imagine it.
Alice said, “Put the broadcast on the speaker, please.”
“Louis Wu, listen carefully,” the transmission began. Knowing the words came from a sociopath made the lilting feminine voice all the more incongruous.
“Pause,” Louis instructed. “Achilles is addressing this straight to me? It’s in Interworld, not translated?”
“That is correct.”
“Thank you. Restart,” Louis said.
“Louis Wu, listen carefully. This is Achilles, Minister of Fleet Defense. Know that Nessus is my prisoner. Suspend your preparations for Plans Epsilon and Theta. At the first provocation from you, Nessus will suffer terribly.”
Alice looked as stunned as Louis felt. She said, “Nessus is alive? How is that possible?”
“I saw Long Shot come apart and explode. I don’t understand how anyone could have survived.” Louis realized he still clasped a kitchen knife. He set it down. “If Nessus survived, maybe Baedeker did, too.”
A big if. Achilles lied as effortlessly as most people breathed. Still …
“What are these plans Achilles wants me to suspend? Alice, Jeeves, any ideas?”
Alice shook her head and Jeeves remained silent.
“Suppose,” Louis mused aloud, “that Nessus is alive and fallen into Achilles’ clutches. Nessus could have invented imaginary plans to cover up something else.”
“Will imaginary schemes keep Nessus safe?” Alice asked.
“More likely the opposite,” Louis admitted. “Either way, Nessus in Achilles’ prison is Nessus not accomplishing whatever he and Baedeker set out to do.
“So let’s give Achilles a reason to tread lightly. Jeeves, record a message for broadcast. ‘Minister Achilles, this i
s Louis Wu. If any harm comes to Nessus, all responses, not only Epsilon and Theta, are on the table. You are warned. End of message.’”
“Good bluff,” Alice said. She leaned against a wall, rubbing her chin in thought. “I suggest we drop a hyperwave relay with that recording on time delay, and get far away before the buoy sends the message.”
“Agreed. And then we get busy,” Louis said.
“Doing what?” Jeeves asked.
“Planning a rescue,” Louis said.
* * *
PROTEUS CONSIDERED:
That the response to Achilles matched Louis Wu’s voiceprint in Chiron’s pre-Ringworld briefing.
That Louis’s counterthreat would enrage—and distract—Achilles.
That as their mind grew exponentially they would not require Achilles’ preoccupation for much longer.
That for a short while, further distraction of Achilles was for the best …
* * *
“WE ARE BEING HAILED,” Jeeves announced.
“Another broadcast to me?” Louis guessed.
“No, it’s on a narrow hyperwave beam.”
Alice must have heard, too, because she jogged onto Endurance’s bridge to join him. “Who’s calling?”
Jeeves said, “A Puppeteer, no name given. Not Achilles.”
“Play it,” Alice said.
“Louis, you and I and your bedmate are acquainted”—Alice shot Louis a dark glare—“from a considerable time ago. Allow that to suggest ways to decrypt what follows.” The voice dropped from a Puppeteer soprano to Jeeves’s customary bass. “As suggested, the remainder is encrypted.”
Louis had not recognized the Puppeteer voice, but that could be purposeful misdirection. “Try ‘Nessus’ as a decryption key, in all known Fleet and New Terra encryptions.” Maybe Achilles had been bluffing about holding Nessus.
“No good,” Jeeves said. “I took the liberty of trying Baedeker, also without success.”
“Try ‘Hindmost,’” Louis suggested.
“That does not work.”
“Try ‘Horatius?’” Alice suggested.
“I don’t know Horatius,” Louis said.