Juggler of Worlds (44 page)

Diego MacMillan unfroze. “There our nightmare became far worse.
Long Pass
carried more than ten thousand passengers, mostly frozen embryos. Our masters say their Concordance took pity, that they could not let so many perish. A few Citizens admit—but only to us, the few forever trapped onboard—that they intend to turn our helpless passengers into a slave race. I believe they’re at least being honest.” Tears glimmered in his eyes. “Two of those little ones are Jaime’s and mine.

“The Citizens removed our onboard hibernation tanks to the world they call Nature Preserve Three. They lied to those they awakened about a derelict found adrift. Even so, most people had their doubts. When Citizens encouraged them to start their planned colony, the women resisted immediate implantation with embryos.

“Long Pass
also carried embryos of mammals, cows and sheep and such, we meant to introduce on New Terra. Of course we had artificial placentas for those animal embryos. The Citizens were determined to have their colony. They experimented with implanting human embryos into artificial animal placentas. They ‘refused to accept our voluntary extinction.’”

Sigmund shuddered. Every worry or doubt he had ever had about Puppeteers … this was worse. This was an abomination.

“There were spontaneous abortions, horrific birth defects, and developmental problems.” Remembered tragedies brought Diego to an eye-blinking halt. “To our masters, those were ‘experiments.’ To us … each was someone’s child. Several women agreed to be surrogate mothers to stop the ‘experiments.’”

Diego got himself back under control. “And the men still aboard this ship? We counsel our masters how to structure a human society. We try through our advice to alleviate a bit of the suffering. We’re trying to reduce forced pregnancies, especially by brain wiping. All the men insist that the mother’s active role in child rearing is critical. Two centuries of gender equality is a small sacrifice to save women’s minds.”

“Two centuries?” Sigmund echoed.
“Long Pass
must have left Earth in the late twenty-second century. This travesty has gone on for more than four hundred years.”

“Five hundred by our reckoning.” Eric shook his head. “That’s in Hearth years, of course. We don’t even know how long an Earth year is.”

Then the bigger implication left Sigmund speechless.
Long Pass
was captured long before Puppeteers first appeared in Human Space. No wonder the aliens were quick to understand humans: They had had decades of practice. Puppeteers indeed….

The recording had not stopped. “We do what else we can. Sometimes that’s in the vocabulary and concepts we try to retain in the sanitized English taught to the children. Sometimes it’s undoing the effects of Citizen mistakes.” Diego smiled, almost despite himself. “Citizens are hardly beyond error. They wear no clothing, so they considered Colonist clothing a waste of resources. They learned quickly enough that nudity does not go with their disapproval of birth control
and
their hopes of controlling the bloodlines.”

The smile faded. “I fear they suspect our indirect interference. We’ve been told of a new colony, this one on NP Four, started with only children under Citizens’ supervision.

“All that remains for me is hope for the children. If you viewing this recording are like me, are human, know this: You descend from an accomplished people. We settled our whole solar system. We planted colonies,
peacefully
, on the worlds of other suns.” Diego swallowed hard. “I wish I could give you the way home. Earth is a beautiful world.

“And if you viewing this recording are Citizens, I wish you go straight to hell.”

SIGMUND STARED at the ceiling, afloat in a sleeper field, with no hope of sleeping anytime soon. The dim glow of a lighting panel was his only company, his three guides having left him.

There was much yet to learn of the dark and twisted history of the New Terrans. Sigmund and his new friends had talked and talked—until he found himself slumped on the floor of Sven’s office. Exhaustion or hunger? Flat-phobic overload or post-’doc rebound? Any or more likely all of them; it hardly mattered.

They ate. Sven brought Sigmund home, clucking sympathetically. He shooed the others away, and established Sigmund in his guest room. That helped, but short of drugs, Sigmund could not imagine sleeping.

He wrestled with the day’s revelations like a terrier worrying at a rat. Millions enslaved for centuries. Heroes recovering their suppressed past against all odds. A trillion Puppeteers held at bay by the threat of fusion fire from a hovering ramscoop. Nessus, his bane for so many years, an advocate for New Terra.

Deep into the night, as he at last faded into restless oblivion, Sigmund’s final thought concerned Nessus:
his
nemesis and yet the ally of the New Terrans.

Why had Nessus abducted Sigmund and brought him here?

The Hindmost’s retreat hugged a verdant coastal mountainside, the setting spectacular and extravagantly private. Behind a weatherproof force field, the veranda afforded a breathtakingly panoramic view of rocky strand and crashing surf. The mansion itself was luxuriously spacious, impeccably decorated, and sumptuously furnished. I will have one built to rival it, Achilles decided, once …

First things first. It was too soon to be designing his official residence.

He and Vesta shared the veranda with a floating holographic Outsider ship. “It keeps me focused on the true problem,” Nike had volunteered, before stepping to his broadcast studio.

Nike stepped back immediately after his speech, and Vesta was quick to update him. Instant-reaction focus groups had responded favorably. Semantic analyses suggested the media trending to the Experimentalist point of view. Real-time scene analyses, sampling public-safety cameras across Hearth, showed crowds ever more orange in their adornment. Counterrallies of the Conservatives had been poorly attended. Surely the Experimentalists’ support was reaching the tipping point.

To all of which Nike said, “A mandate is not a policy.”

Vesta took the words as a rebuke. He pawed the floor, the marble tile ringing softly under his dainty hoof. “Of course, Nike. Understood. We still need to placate the Outsiders. Since it is impossible to prove NP Four remains under our control, we’ll end up paying to transfer control of the drive. That will take serious money. Human or Kzinti money,” he added unhappily.

“I need new choices, not complaints,” Nike chided. “We have a year, and are fortunate the Outsiders allowed us that. Then what?”

Vesta lowered his heads submissively.

While poor Vesta struggled to explain himself, Achilles wondered: With whose currency did Vesta expect to make payment? As the herd galloped
away, of course the Outsiders lost interest in Concordance money.
Whose
currency hardly mattered; the amount was the problem. The price of the planet-moving drive was enormous.

Achilles prided himself on his realism. The Concordance could not afford to pay. The troublesome refugees on their ill-gotten world could not even comprehend the size of the payment—not that anyone proposed to involve them. That left somehow reclaiming Nature Preserve 4 for the Fleet—whether anyone on NP4 wanted back in or not.

Or, to be complete, obliterating NP4 would also remove the Outsiders’ grounds for complaint. Destroying it
safely
was the challenge. True, the Concordance need no longer fear antimatter. The ex-Colonists still had General Products ships of their own. They had their ancestors’ ramscoop. Even the rubble of a successfully shattered NP4, strewn in the path of the Fleet, would be fearfully dangerous. Only utter desperation could justify that course of action—

And besides, I can hardly rule NP4 if I allow it to be destroyed.

A soft vibrato sounded from a pocket of his sash: success chimes from Pan, the senior acolyte tasked to retrieve Baedeker. “Nike, Vesta, I’ve arranged for an outside expert to join us.”

Baedeker entered a moment later, walking stiffly, indifferent to the grandeur around him. Four of the Hindmost’s personal guards escorted him.

“Our reclusive master engineer returns,” Nike warbled. His undertones hinted at surprise and disapproval. Dropping off the net was legal, certainly, but it was unusual. Unavailability for the summons of the Hindmost … that was, if
still
not illegal, unprecedented.

“Indeed.” Achilles saw no reason to mention Vesta’s abuse of his position to have Baedeker tracked through the stepping-disc system, nor the guards sent to intimidate the engineer. “You asked for new options. We all remember the wild humans catching sight of the Fleet. With Baedeker’s insight, we remotely deactivated the hull of their ship. The Outsider grievance is the world that ranges freely ahead of us. Let us fix the problem as directly.

“I challenge Baedeker to duplicate his past triumph by remotely disabling its planetary drive.”

TO CAST A WORLD adrift!

Baedeker’s blood ran cold, and yet an insistent voice in the back of his hump wondered: Can it be done? The planetary drives were perhaps the
most closely guarded resources in the Concordance. To have access to them, to study them, perhaps to discover how they worked …

No! His instinctive revulsion had been correct. “You would leave New Terra floating in the void to placate the Outsiders?”

Achilles’ heads swiveled; he stared himself in the eyes for a mockingly long time before commenting, “So you don’t think you can do it.”

“That’s not the point,” Baedeker trilled, using a minor chord to emphasize his dismay. He had been a slave on NP1. That changed a person. Nessus’ three “scouts”—Baedeker had issues with
them
. But to sacrifice an entire world for wanting its freedom?

Anyway, where was Nessus? The ex-Colonists needed their advocate more than ever. “Nessus understands the New Terrans better than most. Perhaps he can offer a suggestion.”

Nike whistled dismissively “He also is slow to respond to a summons.”

Baedeker flinched. “This action would endanger millions.”

“Excellent,” Vesta fluted. “You imply it can be done. Once we render these ingrates helpless, they will beg to rejoin us. We will dictate the terms.” He glanced meaningfully at Achilles, for what reason Baedeker had no idea.

Were they not listening, or was their desperation so great? Baedeker said, “This is evil. I will not take part.”

Across the gallery, trays of cracked nuts and freshly chopped grasses were arrayed on a low table, in front of an assortment of juices in crystalline decanters. Achilles strolled to the refreshments and poured a beverage. “It is impossible to pay the Outsiders. It is unacceptable to live with armed New Terrans in our midst, even if they would agree to rejoin the Fleet. And yet we must do
something
, lest the wrath of the Outsiders fall upon the herd.”

Achilles paused for a leisurely sip, his conscience untroubled. “Let us be reasonable, Baedeker.
You
would do evil to leave us without options. Without another alternative, Clandestine Directorate will instead, when the moment is right, disable the drive by more direct means: a surprise bombardment from space.” He took another long drink. “The physicist in me wonders what will happen then.”

The Hindmost stepped forward. “This is promising, Achilles. If their world can be set adrift in space, the New Terrans’ few ships become lifeboats, too precious to squander on revenge attacks.”

Mysterious technology. Unknown energies, sufficient to move a world, unleashed in an instant.
Anything
could happen. And who could say that the effects might not reach even to the Fleet?

That plan was evil
and
reckless. Unhappily, Baedeker said, “Give me access to one of our planetary drives. I will see what I can learn.”

IN THE PRIVACY of Vesta’s Clandestine Directorate office, Achilles raised a goblet. “To progress.”

“To progress,” Vesta agreed. “The question remains: Will Baedeker succeed?”

Achilles drained his glass and sprawled across a pile of cushions. Alone, there was no need to pretend he took direction from his earnest disciple. “Baedeker will succeed. With his misplaced concern for New Terra to motivate him, I am more certain of that than ever.”

So certain, in fact, that Achilles decided the time
had
arrived to design the official residence of his future domain on Nature Preserve 4.