Betrayer of Worlds (28 page)

Rank after rank of coordinating hyperwave buoys flew in tandem with the Fleet of Worlds, to provide early warning of any visitors. Someone must be giving Achilles real-time access to the Fleet’s hyperwave radar system. Louis wished he could report back to Sigmund and Nessus, to name that discovery and others, and just for the contact.

Achilles’ spy network continued to function flawlessly. Louis, so far, was pretty much useless as a spy.

“Final target still maneuvering.” Louis turned his head to report, sneaking a look at another arc of bridge instruments. In a tactical display, a line of dots pointing more-or-less at the Fleet showed consecutive detections of the Gw’oth armada. Gw’oth needed sanity breaks from hyperspace, too.

Finally, Rogers tagged the last target.

Hecate rotated the drones, hiding their neutrino emissions from
Remembrance
’s sensors. The targets disappeared from Louis’s console.

“Let’s do it again,” Enzio said. “The Gw’oth aren’t very far away.”

.   .   .

Louis cornered Enzio in a relax room. “How are these drills useful?” Louis demanded. “We’re practicing against drones, most maneuvering randomly. The Citizens remotely piloting the rest have no combat experience. Nothing is shooting back at us.
We’ll
be going up against twenty or so Gw’oth warships. You
do
know laser light goes right through a GP hull?”

Enzio grinned. “Because the Gw’oth won’t be maneuvering or shooting back.”

So the mercenaries had been promised, and they took the matter on faith. Louis took it as an indicator of Pak fusion-suppression technology to be deployed against the Gw’oth. Achilles had yet to mention fusion suppression, so Louis did not bring it up with Enzio.

Even with fusion suppression, Louis did not get how this operation was supposed to work. He dredged up a line from his brief military training on Wunderland. “The first casualty in any conflict is the battle plan.”

“What do you propose? A different kind of drill? New drones?”

“No,” Louis said. “Let’s you and I have a chat with Achilles.”

“He won’t answer questions,” Enzio said. “I’ve tried.”

“Trust me,” Louis said.

We’ll all be killed
got any Puppeteer’s attention. Enzio and Louis were passed quickly up a chain of flunkies to Clotho to Achilles.

Puppeteers worked themselves into a manic frenzy when they had somehow to be brave. Aboard
Aegis,
Louis had seen mania in Nessus and Achilles both. They developed crazy glints in their eyes. Their speech got loud. They twitched with nervous energy.

When Achilles, wild-eyed, invited Louis and Enzio into his spacious quarters, he quivered with repressed energy. Combat must loom. Achilles said, “I thank you for your concerns, but they are misplaced.”

“Then explain,” Louis answered bluntly.

Achilles looked himself in the eyes. “Why not? Louis, you helped make it possible.”

Enzio glanced at Louis with new respect, while Louis kept his face passive.

“We see the enemy coming,” Achilles said. “From their routine appearances on hyperwave radar, we know they will emerge near here soon.”

Enzio frowned. “Gw’oth are supposed to be smart. Why would they act so predictably?”

Because they
weren’t
predictable, as Louis knew from his lurking on the bridge. Despite an overall pattern, the gap between consecutive emergence points varied by up to a light-year—and hence, three days. Nor was the armada’s course exactly a straight line. The only absolute consistencies were in normal-space velocity, the number of ships, and that the vessels maintained formation. The better to defend each other against surprise attacks, Louis deduced.

Achilles wriggled a neck dismissively. “They will be sufficiently close. When they emerge near here, we will disable them. I will tell you how.

“With your assistance, Louis, I have discovered the technology to suppress nuclear reactions. Within the projected field, neither fission nor fusion can occur. When we immerse the Gw’oth ships in the field, their reactors will stop. The fleet will be adrift in normal space.”

“Where we can pick them off,” Enzio said. “My apologies, Excellency, for doubting.”

The boast seemed impossible, but Achilles trembled with manic confidence. Louis knew he was overlooking something. But what? “We could be a light-year away when the Gw’oth emerge. They could be back in hyperspace before we arrive.”

“Louis, you think in terms of the design you saw in the Pak Library. To project their dampening field, the Pak used a radio signal. Naturally you assume I do the same.”

Skimming the Library, the text mostly untranslated, the math far beyond him, Louis had scarcely recognized the
subject
nuclear-reaction dampening. To suppose he had any idea how to project a dampening field? Achilles gave Louis far too much credit.

While
he
had underestimated Achilles. With fresh dread gnawing at his gut, Louis suspected everyone had.

“But Pak do not have hyperwave technology,” Achilles sneered. “Hyperwaves interact with normal matter, else we could not build hyperwave radios. In a like manner, a properly modulated hyperwave signal of sufficient power can dampen nuclear reactions.”

And the hyperwave beam would reach the Gw’oth fleet instantaneously. “Hyperwave buoys to keep beaming the field continuously,” Louis guessed, “while
Remembrance
jumps back to hyperspace to get within laser range.”

“Exactly right,” Achilles said. He seemed oddly . . . pleased.

“
That’s
why this ship has been saturating a small volume with hyperwave
buoys.” Small by hyperdrive standards. A sphere more than a light-year across.

Achilles’ heads bobbled, up/down, down/up, up/down. “Very perceptive, Louis. You do not disappoint. The fusion suppression field requires transmission at very short wavelengths, and at those wavelengths interstellar dust and gas scatter the signal. The range is limited. That is why we distribute so many buoys.”

It hit Louis: I’m an audience. A surrogate for Nessus. Achilles wants me to understand. He wants to gloat.

“Are you satisfied now?” Enzio asked pointedly.

With sick fascination, Louis had to know everything. “The field has to be turned off before
Remembrance
arrives, or our reactors will go offline, too.”

Achilles bobbed heads again in enthusiastic agreement. “We will be finished long before they can get their reactors back online. There have been tests.”

The attack on Jm’ho, Louis realized. That suppressor had been used deep inside a gravity well. That projector must have used radio waves, like the Pak version. Other than from Sigmund, Louis had no way to know about that, and he kept his knowledge to himself. “I see that you’ve thought of everything.”

The worst part was, Louis feared that was true.

Singly and in small herds, an unending stream of Citizens sought Baedeker’s ear. Party officials, agency administrators, scientists, celebrities, academicians, counselors, legislators, hindmosts of industry . . .

He listened and assessed, delegated or decided or deferred, all the while indifferent to the issues brought before him. All the while morbidly aware
why
so many so urgently wanted his attention: to be, should the Gw’oth emerge on the Fleet’s doorstep, among the chosen few invited to the fabled Hindmost’s Refuge.

Millions had fled aboard grain ships to the Nature Preserves and New Terra. Perhaps thousands had abandoned the Fleet altogether on stolen ships. Who could know precisely who had run when billions hid at home, in their own bellies, paralyzed with fear? Other billions thronged great pedestrian plazas around the globe, whether demanding preemptive surrender to the Gw’oth or agitating for Achilles to take charge and do—something. With workers everywhere abandoning their posts to spend what might be their last days with loved ones, every estimate was suspect.

One number was no estimate.
He
gambled with the lives of all trillion Citizens.

A senior aide appeared to announce another appointment. “Reschedule,” Baedeker said, not caring who this supplicant was. “I am stepping to the residence, Minerva. Arrange for Nike to join me when he can.”

Minerva lowered his heads. “Yes, Hindmost.”

The Hindmost’s personal residence was carved deep into the seaward slope of a coastal mountain. From the long and narrow terrazzo patio, behind a shoulder-high stone balustrade, Baedeker peered downhill to the seething ocean. Nature Preserve One, in full phase, hung just above the horizon. Its reflection, shattered into countless pieces, glistened on the trembling waters.

Shattered or whole? Which was Hearth’s future?

Voices mingled in the vestibule. A moment later, Minerva trotted out. “Hindmost, Nike has come, as you requested.”

“Thank you,” Baedeker answered. “Have him join me.”

Nike cantered through the grand salon, through the weatherproof force field, onto the patio. Despite the crisis, he was immaculately coiffed. “Hindmost. How may I serve?”

Baedeker brushed heads with Nike, waiving formality. “Inform me. First, what of the Gw’oth ships?”

“The same pattern,” Nike sang. “Nearer at each emergence from hyperspace. Ausfaller’s agent on Jm’ho is still told the ships will pass us, maintaining at least a light-year’s distance.”

“What of”—Baedeker’s voices choked—“our deterrent?”

“On its way, Baedeker. The Gw’oth have been made aware.”

If the deterrent did not deter, if a war fleet came too near to Hearth, he would surrender. Any Hindmost would. The herd
must
survive.

The Pak only trusted in the complete destruction of their enemies. The Gw’oth might follow that policy, too. Baedeker asked, “And our defensive status locally?”

“Automated planetary defenses are fully supplied and ready. We were able to deploy only two armed ships with crew. The New Terrans refuse to provide ships or crews.”

Why
would
the humans take sides? Baedeker wondered. “What do your analysts deduce of the Gw’oth’s intentions?”

“They believe the normal-space velocity of the Gw’oth ships is significant. At their current course and speed, the worlds
least
threatened are the worlds of the Fleet. If the aliens mean us harm, it will not come on kinetic-kill weapons.”

“And
do
they mean us harm?” Baedeker’s tune was rhetorical and Nike did not answer. “On to our other crisis. What of Achilles?”

“Of Achilles,” Nike fluted, “we know nothing. If Ausfaller is correct, and I believe he is, Achilles lurks nearby to intervene—somehow—at the last moment. Hyperwave radar cannot distinguish his ship from the vessels that have abandoned Hearth and await events.”

“And Ausfaller’s new spy, this Louis Wu?”

“Vanished.” Nike pawed the patio tiles nervously. “Ausfaller fears the worst.”

Sigmund always feared the worst. But for his propensity to act, Sigmund
would have made an excellent Citizen. For a long while Baedeker stared at the crashing surf and the shimmering sea. Achilles, too, would act. When he did, would he make matters better or worse?

Nike broke the silence. “The time for planning has passed. Perhaps I can serve best on a ship defending Hearth.”

“You serve best assisting me,” Baedeker sang. “If the worst should happen and the Gw’oth come our way, you will step with me into the Refuge.”

“Six Citizens perished today, trampled at two separate rallies protesting inaction against the so-called Gw’oth menace. Advocates for the . . .”

Nessus froze the broadcast, relayed by hyperwave. The news continued to stream to archive, if he could ever bear to watch. Each time
Aegis
returned to normal space, he told himself the news was less important than that there
was
news. While broadcasting continued, it meant the Gw’oth had not devastated Hearth.

And that at the end of this long voyage, he did not have to perform his impossible duty. Could he really launch kinetic-kill weapons at Jm’ho and its nearby colonies? Could he commit genocide to avenge what the Gw’oth must have seen as necessary self-defense in the faces of Achilles’ ceaseless threats?

Citizen and human speech could not express his frustrations. The Kzinti, though, knew how to rage and curse. After spitting and hissing for a while in Hero’s Tongue, Nessus felt marginally better.

Perhaps Sigmund was correct and the Tn’ho forces meant to zoom past the Fleet. Perhaps Louis would somehow stop Achilles from striking at the armada and drawing their wrath upon Hearth.

And if, miraculously, all that came to pass? Then
another
world of Gw’oth would die horribly for Achilles’ insane ambitions.

Someday, Nessus promised himself, Achilles would pay for his crimes.

It was going to be a massacre.

Louis sat at his combat station, doggedly working through yet another battle drill. Thirty-two drones this iteration, whittled down to four. In his furtive glances at the tactical display, the connect-the-dots course had the Gw’oth only two hops away from their likely closest approach to Hearth. From the ambush.