Juggler of Worlds (33 page)

“Greetings,” Nike warbled. The undertones waiving formality were for Baedeker’s benefit. For the rest, all Clandestine Directorate veterans, informality in private was a given. “Make yourselves comfortable.”

Achilles prodded Baedeker.

“If I may, Hindmost.” Baedeker set his pocket computer on the nearest padded work surface. He pawed nervously at the meadowplant carpet, ill at ease despite Nike’s melody of welcome. “Computer, display file ‘Latest ARM Surveillance.’”

The familiar still hologram appeared: five worlds caught against a black background. “It’s a fake,” Baedeker blurted.

“How can that be?” Nike asked. “And if so, why is that only now being discovered?”

Baedeker flinched at the harsh harmonics. “It is an authentic image of the Fleet. That is what makes the forgery so insidious.”

Achilles said, “Nike, the tampering involves the
background
. That subtle change misguided our interpretation.”

“Go on,” Nike fluted.

“We know the humans found us. One thing only makes this image shocking: that it was taken well after we destroyed their scout ship.” Achilles set his hooves far apart, in a no-thought-of-flight stance of utter confidence. “We believe the scout broadcast this picture. The alterations make the image
seem
more recent.”

Nike untangled the scarlet and purple tendrils of two adjacent shrubs as he considered. “Misdirecting us into thinking the ARM can observe us undetected.”

Vesta cleared his throats. “Exactly, Nike.”

“Vesta,” Nike said, “I accepted your experts’ opinion before about the timing of the image. What has changed?”

Vesta froze. Expecting to replace Baedeker on Nature Preserve 1 for his failure?

“It’s a complex problem,” Achilles interjected. “The stars in the background are all familiar, blue-shifted by the camera’s motion toward them. That let us derive the ship’s velocity. The suns orbiting the Nature Preserve worlds are blue-shifted further, by the Fleet’s motion toward the ARM ship. Since the Fleet has been steadily accelerating, its velocity when the image was taken demonstrates when that image was taken.”

“What has changed?” Nike repeated, adding grace notes of growing impatience.

Achilles prompted, “Baedeker?”

“I began to think the calculated timing was very coincidental,” Baedeker said. “Too coincidental. From my hyperspace detector array, we know precisely when the ARM ship appeared near the Fleet—viewed from galactic south. We also know when the ARM ship was destroyed. Between, there was only a brief interval during which its crew could have taken any detailed, high-resolution images. Call that Time Zero.

“The suns that orbit the farm worlds mimic Hearth days, because our flora evolved for that. We have no cause to remember that the rotations of the Fleet’s worlds differ. The worlds roughly align only about every thirty-three days.” Baedeker let them consider his tunes before extending a neck at the hologram. “This image, with
very
high probability, matches the image at Time Zero, with clouds conveniently obscuring regions that would not have been visible then.”

Citizen clocks continued to define a day by Hearth’s rotation; their calendar still used its eons-ago planetary revolution as a year. Both were mere convention, on a sunless world long gone from its primordial orbit. Who but far-ranging scouts—and Baedeker, to give well-deserved credit—considered such things?

Vesta sidled forward. “Nessus received the image only seventy-one Hearth days after we destroyed the ARM ship, so you can see how implausibly coincidental that matchup is.”

“The differing length of days,” Nike mused. “How extraordinary.” He spaced his heads far apart, the better to examine the image. “This view is from galactic north, since we see the Cone Nebula as background, but I understand the synchronization principle is the same.”

A different apparent vantage point to imply a different sighting. Adjusting the original image, from red-shifted by the Fleet’s velocity away from
the ARM ship, to blue-shifted consistent with capture by a sensor in the Fleet’s path. Shifting the spectra of the few visible stars, to impute a velocity to an imaginary ship.

“If we could only be
sure
,” Nike said. “Undetected ARM ships, especially ahead of the Fleet, are unacceptable. If we could only be certain the image was a fake.”

The boundaries of cloud seen from great distances were indistinct, and some areas were prone to persistent cloud cover. Statistical analyses of the apparent cloud cover were rather subtle for a politician. As Achilles and Baedeker murmured to each other, trying to frame a succinct argument, Vesta again cleared his throats.

Vesta had many virtues. Technical insight was not among them. Achilles wondered what his acolyte thought to contribute.

“I think,” Vesta said, “we’ve made convincing ourselves more difficult than we need to.”

NESSUS WORKED AT a drink bulb, too preoccupied to notice what he was swallowing. He replayed Vesta’s message three times, its implications ever darker.

That Ausfaller had tricked Nessus again was the least of them.

The possibility of undetectable ships dropping undetectable objects into the Fleet’s path had enforced a tacit truce with Earth. The Fleet had reached three percent light speed. Even a small mass impacting at that speed would be a fearsome thing. And who was to say the ARM, if provoked, would limit itself to a small mass?

At least that might be how Ausfaller saw it.

Aegis
hung deep in the Oort Cloud, stealthed, scanning from a safe and hopefully invisible distance broadcasts from across Sol system. Or was
Aegis’
invisibility as illusory as the hologram a terrified Max Addeo had provided?

The bulb went dry. Nessus finally noticed he’d been drinking plain water. He circled the relax room to the synthesizer, this time selecting warm carrot juice.

Ships appearing undetected in the Fleet’s path would be perilous. Then there was the matter of what ARM ships might discover, a provocation far beyond anything
his
meddling had so far created.

How would Ausfaller react if he learned what lay ahead of the Fleet? Nessus quivered at the thought. With his unencumbered head, he plucked deep inside his mane.

Had Achilles, in his limited time in Human Space, ever seen a house of cards? Nessus guessed not, although peace among worlds had become as wobbly as that. One world safeguarded by the intimations of antimatter it must control—a defense Baedeker had cast into doubt. Another world deemed untouchable by reason of its undetectable ships—a digital sleight of mouth Baedeker had now also discredited. Between, the anxious worlds of the Fleet.

And now, the house of cards had flown apart.

Much cautious planning must take place before any action could be initiated against either world. For that long, at least, peace would remain.

Sixty-two days after the destruction of the ARM ship, the largest volcano on Nature Preserve 3 had erupted. Had Mount Granthor not stained the skies with smoke and ash, Ausfaller’s deception might still be raising doubts on Hearth. Still be protecting Earth.

Sometimes luck just ran out.

Nessus sipped his carrot juice pensively, wondering if Ausfaller’s talents could somehow be used to save that
other
world.

The head of Special Investigations could go anywhere he chose. If people wondered why Sigmund chose to spend so much of his time visiting ARM squad rooms, they didn’t ask. The truth was pathetic. He was substituting secondhand camaraderie for lost love. Someday, he’d get past it.

Sigmund told himself there was more to his roaming than that. For one, shifting around helped to obscure his surveillance of Beowulf Shaeffer. Bey hadn’t worked a day on Earth, at least not legally, in three years. Tax records would have shown it. What the Puppeteers had paid Bey to explore the core (the last money he had gotten from General Products, Sigmund was almost certain) was long gone. Carlos was wealthy enough, but there were no signs he had transferred anything to Shaeffer, and Sigmund couldn’t imagine Bey accepting money from that source. If Bey couldn’t father his own children, he would tanj well support them.

Nor was the happy family surviving on Sharrol Janss’s money. Sharrol had never had much money or been paid much, and she’d stopped working when Louis was born.

That left Gregory Pelton. What, Sigmund wondered, was Bey doing to get money from that source?

“YOU’LL FIND THIS INTERESTING,” Medusa said.

Sigmund lifted his head from his arms, folded on a mildly scuzzy table. He was in an ARM off-duty lounge. They all looked alike; it took a few seconds to remember he was in London. By body time, it was after midnight. “What’s that?”

Serpents slithered. “I intercepted a call to Mary Ortega’s pocket comp from Sharrol Janss.”

Across the room two off-shift ARMs sat, their feet up on the battered coffee table, arguing about rugby. They must have come in while Sigmund dozed. It took him a moment to remember Ortega was Sharrol and Bey’s babysitter. There had to be more to Medusa’s news than a mother checking on her kids. “Continue.”

“The packet headers show the call originated in Prosperine.”

Sigmund sat up. Prosperine, Australia, was the nearest community, a town only if one was feeling generous, to Carlos Wu’s home in the Great Barrier Reef. A fiber-optic cable into town was the logical way for Carlos to get comm service. Not even Carlos could swing a radio antenna sticking up from the reef. “Is Mom having a little action on the side with Carlos?”

Medusa’s smile bared fangs. “If so, it’s most interesting. A wrong-number ping on Stepdad’s comp puts him there, too.”

Whatever they were plotting, Sigmund wanted to stop speaking in circumlocutions. He could order the off-duty pair away, or commandeer an office, or go elsewhere, or—

“Protocol gamma,” Sigmund ordered. The privacy screen surrounded him.

The underwater dwelling teemed with microbugs, relayed by Feather’s comm link. Sigmund could not remember the last time he’d peeked in, only why he had stopped: He trusted Carlos.

Be honest with yourself
. He had stopped lest he see Feather and Carlos together.

“Medusa, give me your latest visual,” Sigmund said.

Four
bodies moved in the hologram. They wriggled and writhed in an evidently room-sized sleeper field, amid a floating profusion of discarded garments. Everyone was dyed, and mercifully he couldn’t see faces, but the beanpole with a Belter-style crest was surely Shaeffer.

And that energetic, lithe figure …

Feather rolled over and stared straight at a sensor. Sigmund told himself it had to be coincidence. “Kill video playback.” His voice shook. “Medusa, when were Shaeffer and Wu last together?”

Medusa said, “That we know, not since Carlos was released from the hospital with new lungs in ’fifty-two.”

Two years. Sigmund had to know if anything other than an orgy had brought them together. Why
now?

What Sigmund’s imagination painted onto the audio playback was, if anything, more painful than watching. He heard moans, sharp cries, urgent directions, inarticulate sighs, and then—

Silence.

“At that point, I lost signal,” Medusa said. “Standard ARM jamming.”

Discretion at last, Sigmund thought. “Keep monitoring for as long as Bey and Sharrol are there.”

FEATHER CALLED MIDMORNING. “Sigmund, I have a major case of cabin fever. How about I flick over to New York? Carlos is tucked in for the night.”

It was a bit after one in the morning for her and Carlos, and the reports Sigmund was writing could wait. “Will Carlos stay put if he wakes up and you’re gone?”

“He takes direction well, Sigmund.”

He’d seen ample proof of that a few days earlier. Sigmund spoke as calmly as he could. “Sure. We’ll go out for a drink.”

As things turned out, they had several. They barhopped through the East Village, with a lunch thrown in. Asked about food, she said, “Anything but fish. I am
so
sick of seeing fish.” They got Italian.

At the fourth bar, she leaned over and gave Sigmund a hard kiss. “Finagle, this feels good,” she said. “There’s not a lot to
do
at Carlos’s place.”

You found a way to entertain yourself. Sigmund kept that comment to himself. “It’s good seeing you. Maybe it’s time to rotate assignments. Now that Carlos is accustomed to protection, chances are he’ll accept someone else.”

“Hold that thought.” Feather jumped out of her chair onto the karaoke stage. She jived and sang for a while with an Elvis hologram, her voice flat, and then rejoined Sigmund. “That was fun. A new assignment? Maybe, Sigmund. I don’t know.”

His thoughts churned. Did he want them to get back together? Just
want her away from Carlos—and now also Shaeffer? As long as Feather wanted children, Sigmund didn’t see how she could be happy for long with anyone.

“Maybe,” she said abruptly. “Carlos and I have gotten past purely professional. I need time away to know how I feel.” She touched Sigmund’s arm. “Can I get away for a while without giving up my current assignment? Can you arrange that?”