Juggler of Worlds (32 page)

A few of the floating devices were disguised copseyes. Sigmund wondered how many of the audience suspected.

Max Addeo had queued up for the lobby bar. A statuesque woman in a shimmering green gown, her skin aglitter in silver dye and gold jewelry, clung to his arm.

“Max,” Sigmund called. No response. “Max!”

Addeo turned. Only the brief narrowing of his eyes revealed his surprise. “Sigmund. How good to see you. Allow me to introduce—”

“Hello, Cassie,” Sigmund interrupted. Only close friends called her that; her given name was Felicia. Max wouldn’t miss the significance that
he
knew it. Let Max start worrying what else unexpected Sigmund might have learned. “I need to borrow Max for a little while.”

“Stay in line, Cass, and get us some wine,” Max said smoothly. “I’ll find you in a bit. Come, Sigmund.” Max plowed through the crowd, with
Sigmund following. Reaching a quiet corner, Addeo whirled. “What the futz do you think you’re doing?”

Sigmund took the comp from his pocket. “Protocol gamma.” A translucent privacy screen wrapped around them.

“If something has come up, Sigmund, why not just a call to go back to the office?”

“Max, you won’t want any record of this conversation.”

“Is that a threat? You need to adjust your meds.” Addeo began brushing past Sigmund. “I have a play to—”

Sigmund shoved Addeo back into the corner. “Max, just listen. You’re going to deliver a message for me. To Nessus.”

“Nessus?” Addeo’s eyes darted about, seeking an escape. “How could I possibly do that?”

“Look familiar?” Sigmund offered a slip of paper. It held only a row of digits. “It’s an anonymous account at the Bank of Ceres, Antigua branch.” Addeo had the sense to keep quiet. “It’s received some impressive deposits, very indirectly, from General Products funds. Payoffs, I should say. I’m guessing you can bypass the middlemen and contact Nessus directly.”

“And if not?”

“You
don’t
want to disappoint me, Max.” Sigmund shook his head. “Really, you do not.” A wavering chime sounded, the privacy-shield-scrambled notice that the overture was about to start. “Well?”

Addeo wilted. “For sake of argument, what’s the message you want delivered?”

“To start, a picture.” Sigmund took a holographic print from his pocket. The format was archaic, by intent, the better to obscure any unintended details. In the main, it was truthful.

In other ways, there was less there than met the eye.

Five like-sized spheres floated above the print, corners of a pentagon. Five planets! Four were blue and white, Earth-like—except for their necklaces of tiny suns. The fifth world glowed on its own, its continents afire amid midnight-black oceans. No one in Sigmund’s team had any idea why the one was so different.

Sigmund broke the silence. “We lost a ship and a lot of good people to get this.”

“What
is
it?” Addeo asked in wonder.

“The worlds of the Puppeteers, Max.” Sigmund let that sink in. “They’ve reached a speed just below three percent light speed. At their current acceleration, that’s consistent with eight years from a standing start. After news
came of the galactic core explosion, they said they were leaving. It seems that they truly are. Of course we imagined a fleet of
ships.”

“Where are they headed?” Addeo asked. His voice shook in awe at whole worlds in flight.

“Take it.” Sigmund held out the holo print until Addeo accepted. Northward, of course. “You don’t need that information, and the Puppeteers already know.”

“And you having this image demonstrates that the ARM knows.” Addeo took a deep breath. “What does Puppeteers leaving have to do with me?”

“General Products paid you a lot, Max. It’s not just you, either. They’ve spent lots of money since they disappeared. Some went to people more unsavory, even, than you.

“Puppeteers are cowards, Max. Everyone knows that. They’ve stayed hidden for as long as anyone in Known Space has known about them.

“Then we all learned about the core. Suddenly, the Puppeteers had to leave their hiding place. Coming out meant someone might find them, when being found is the last thing they can abide. The situation makes them
very
determined to distract us.”

“I still don’t see—”

“Then shut up and listen,” Sigmund growled. “Your days of giving orders are over.

“GP money is behind the Fertility Law unrest. How many people died in the riots? GP money was behind the piracy two years ago. Eight innocent crews killed. All to throw us off their scent.”

And when I picked up their trail anyway, everyone aboard
Hobo Kelly
died.

Sigmund flicked the print still in Addeo’s hand. “Here’s the deal, Max.
You
are my best bet of getting a message to the Puppeteers. You give Nessus the picture. You prove to him we know about this … fleet of worlds. You tell him the ARM believes they’re truly leaving Known Space. We’ll allow them to retreat in peace—if they leave
us
in peace.”

He gave Addeo one last piece of paper. It named more than a dozen banks around Sol system. This sheet bore no account numbers; Sigmund’s purpose wasn’t to give Max access to new wealth. “Here’s where GP hid its money, the fortune whose only imaginable use is interference on the worlds they’re leaving behind. So I have another job for you: convince Nessus he must release these accounts to the UN. General Products can consider it a small reparation for the damage it’s caused.”

GP had other laundered funds, stashed in banks Sigmund hadn’t listed. If the Puppeteers didn’t know he knew, he might be able to detect any future meddling.

“You have ambitious plans for me, Sigmund.” Max’s cheek suddenly had a tic, but he held his voice steady. “Why would I do any of this, even presuming I could contact Nessus? Because you fancy you know something about a numbered account in a bank haven?”

Sigmund sneered. “Since no one admits to owning that money, I’ll see that it gets transferred into the ARM survivor’s fund.” Most of Sigmund’s wealth had already gone in trust, anonymously, for the benefit of Ian Girard. Sigmund felt no better for the gesture.

“But to answer your question, Max, there is a very good reason why you’ll obey. It’s quite simple, really. Unless the Puppeteers do as I ask, I’ll blame you.” He stared until the traitor looked away. “If that happens, you have my solemn word.

“I will hunt you down and kill you.”

SIGMUND WALKED OUT of the theater, utterly drained. Scattered notes from the overture followed him down Broadway.

He went into a deli, took a stool at the counter, and got a beer. His meal, a gyro platter, eventually arrived. It grew cold, untouched, his attention elsewhere.

Max had no choice but to contact Nessus—and then, his corruption revealed, to run like a cockroach when the lights came on. After Nessus reported home, the Puppeteers had no good options, either. They would know the ARM had found them. They would know the ARM knew all about their cynically lethal interventions.

Puppeteers could move worlds! They could destroy indestructible ships. Yet that power could not
guarantee
their safety. Their only hope to depart unscathed was to leave Earth alone.

And then Andrea’s sacrifice would have served a purpose.

Feather had moved on. Andrea was gone. Even the Puppeteers, for so long the focus of Sigmund’s existence, must soon disappear completely.

Sigmund went back into the night, wondering if Jinxian intrigues still mattered enough to him to get him out of bed in the morning.

“You don’t handle success well, Sigmund.” Calista Melenkamp smiled, to show her words weren’t critical. “You might at least
try
to look happy.”

The Secretary-General invited few enough guests to her mountain retreat. Intellectually, Sigmund appreciated the honor. He just didn’t give a damn. Depressed as he was, he knew better than to say so. “Quite the view you have here.”

Aside, that was, from the laser-cannon batteries that protected her aerie. They looked horribly out of place.

“I’m glad something pleases you.” Melenkamp perched on the stacked-stone fence that rimmed the slate patio on three sides. Even her casual jumpsuit was in her signature turquoise. She turned her head to admire the view from the summit of Mount Pisgah.

The national forest was at its autumnal peak, a fiery sea of red, yellow, and orange sweeping to the horizon. The ruins of Biltmore castle peeked through the trees in the distance.

She said, “Our people can never know what you’ve accomplished. We always knew Puppeteers had capabilities beyond our own, but their cowardice made it acceptable. We didn’t suspect even a fraction of their power, nor that their fear could mask such hostility.”

Pisgah: at almost two thousand meters, among the highest elevations in the Appalachians. A different Pisgah was the biblical mount from which Moses glimpsed the Promised Land. He died without entering it. Alone, Sigmund recalled.

Sigmund had been offered iced tea. Condensation ran down the glass and tickled his hand. The tea had been prepared southern-style, cloyingly sweet. “And now they’re leaving us alone.”

“Thanks to you,” she said.

Had the Puppeteers not killed Andrea, Sigmund could almost have missed them. He did miss the focus they once gave his life. They had been
gone for a year now. He was almost ready to consider using transfer booths again. Real soon now.

Neither Jinxians nor Kzinti had made trouble in years. Ander’s subtle interference had tied preparations for Pelton’s expedition—the one topic Sigmund still dare not discuss with Melenkamp—into knots.

“Sigmund?” she said.

“It’s magnificent.” He pointed at the eagle gliding majestically over the treetops, and wondered if it felt alone.

Melenkamp sighed. At his obstinacy? She said, “It’s good to feel safe for once.”

Safe? Sigmund managed not to stare. That things
seemed
secure only meant Earth’s enemies had succeeded in hiding their latest evil plans….

TENSION CLAMPED Baedeker’s throats too tightly to speak, almost too tightly to breathe. He circled his office, shaking with rage. The too-familiar hologram above his desk mocked him.

He finally composed himself enough to make a call to Achilles. “I’ve discovered something of critical importance. Can you come?”

Achilles stepped through almost immediately. He chirped with bitter undertones at the hologram. “I hate the humans. If only we dared …” He brushed heads with Baedeker in belated greeting. “My apologies. I know you share my beliefs.”

“Be comfortable.” Baedeker motioned at the guest hassock before lowering himself, his leg muscles trembling, onto his own padded bench. “Tell me what you see.”

Achilles studied the holo, the surely all-too-familiar digitized version of Ausfaller’s physical print. Five worlds floating in the void against an obsidian backdrop: a small part of the Cone Nebula. A few stars penetrated the cloud of interstellar dust. “The Fleet, of course.”

“Authentic?”

“Absolutely. Those are our worlds,” Achilles fluted impatiently. “Why am I here?”

“Bear with me, please,” Baedeker answered. “Of what else regarding this image are you certain?”

“That the original used an alien format, its manufacture distinctly wild human. That the image looks to galactic south. That the image was captured without our knowledge, by a probe we never detected.”

Baedeker leaned forward. “And if the latter two certainties are mistaken?”

“Then we have been duped.” Achilles froze in thought. “And the humans’ ability to endanger us has been greatly overstated.”

WITH VESTA AS ESCORT, the route to the Hindmost’s private office bypassed enclosed-and-lethal security booths. Achilles, Baedeker, and Vesta still crossed three stepping-disc vestibules, two lined with armed guards, before reaching their destination.

Achilles stepped through last, into an area more like an indoor park than a workplace. His apartment would have fit inside it ten times over. The one thing he missed since Vesta had accomplished his recall was
room
. There had been breathing room to spare on a ship of his own.
Baedeker
looked surprisingly unimpressed by the vast, natural setting—until Achilles remembered where the engineer had been banished.