Juggler of Worlds (51 page)

As for the suddenly hull-less ships in orbit, air pressure had burst every interior partition. Clouds of debris surrounded the wrecks. Every loose or ruptured part had gotten a little push from air escaping as the hulls came apart.

The rebels’ fleet destroyed in a moment. The Fleet once more safe. A world—his world—left with no option but to submit.

Basking in Olympian invincibility, Achilles broadcast the Concordance’s ultimatum to the planet beneath his hooves.

Among the legacies purged from New Terran culture was poker. Digging deeper, Sigmund found that the New Terrans had
no
games of chance. Mentions of “bluffing” and “shell game” had gotten him only blank stares.

With luck, the concepts were as foreign to Puppeteers.

Even as a chemical payload billowed into a smoke screen over Arcadia’s main spaceport, his handpicked crew assembled, flicking across the world unseen.

SECRETS FASCINATED SIGMUND—and to uncover secrets, one studied how others hid theirs.

He knew of no better example than the years-long clandestine development of the atomic bomb. With only his (hacked-at) memory as a resource, he had merely the broad outlines to guide him: a secret so closely held that scientists and technicians never learned what Project Y was until
they were escorted to their new jobs, in a place where no one would think to look, amid desolation where nobody lived.

Centuries and light-years distant, in the midst of the First Atomic War, that had meant deep in New Mexico’s mountains. A whole town built in the wilderness, too remote to approach without raising suspicions, its very existence denied. The babies born there during the war shared a post-office box in another city as their official place of birth.

His
Los Alamos was a system of caverns, in the side of a cliff, in the vast sunken basin at the desert tip of Elysium, in a desolation shunned by Citizen tourists and émigrés alike. After the unavoidable first visit by aircraft, everyone and everything came by stepping disc—
if
they knew how.

Like transfer booths, stepping discs could absorb only so much kinetic energy. Discs handled more energy, but still not enough for transoceanic jumps. Without orbiting relays, Colonists were kept on Arcadia, where they could not surprise or discomfit Puppeteer tourists.

But relays at sea worked just as well, and “oceanographic research” was a credible cover story. The oceans of New Terra remained preserves of Hearthian sea life. The ships now deployed were ostensibly to investigate whether plankton, krill, and other earthly biota from
Long Pass’s
cargo could be introduced, as part of a longer-term plan to add still-frozen fish eggs.

The public disc network had no record of shipboard relays or the end-point discs on Elysium. The very few Arcadian discs that knew those secret addresses were tuned to different frequencies than the public network, hidden inside secured buildings, and responded only to classified access codes.

MAKING BABIES TAKES TIME. Sigmund never expected the registration of births to become an issue. Today’s events proved him correct.

Half a world apart from the sneak attack, Sigmund watched with pride as his crew flicked from cavern to starship. The ship glittered before him, its plasteel hull hopefully immune from whatever attacked GP hulls, its mirror coating proof for at least a few seconds against lasers. Every part—plasteel panels, thrusters and hyperdrive shunt scavenged and disassembled from a grounded decoy at the main spaceport, control consoles, life support—had come through the secret disc system. Everything was assembled in haste, by teams working around the clock. Just days earlier, the ship had passed a pressure test: two atmospheres of pressure within, simulating
one atmosphere with vacuum outside. Supplies were still coming when the Puppeteers struck.

His communicator crackled. He recognized Eric’s voice. “We’re ready, Sigmund.”

“Be right there.” Sigmund looked once more about the cavern, then signaled to the ground crew to remove the giant camouflage tarps that hid the cautiously enlarged opening. He took two paces to the nearest stepping disc, flicked aboard, and strode to the bridge.

Eric and Kirsten looked at him expectantly. Sigmund nodded. “Let’s do this.”

With the eerie silence of thrusters, the great ship floated from the cavern floor and drifted sideways into the mountainous basin. It hovered there for a moment, as Sigmund waited to be struck down.

Nothing happened. Maybe the Puppeteers
didn’t
know about shell games. “Engage,” Sigmund said.

The New Terra starship
Why Not
leapt skyward at maximum thrust. In minutes, it had left the planet’s singularity and vanished into hyperspace.

Achilles had an epiphany: He had confused reigning with governing.

Reigning was pomp and privilege. Governing was annoying detail. Once he had imposed order on the ground, he would import administrators. Vesta cared about such trivia—let him handle it. Let him handle
her
.

In the bridge display where Achilles had so recently enjoyed the destruction of
Long Pass
, a woman earnestly and endlessly prattled. “I have a team of my best people working on it,” she said. Sabrina Gomez-Vanderhoff exuded an obsequious sincerity. Doubtless, she thought to make a spot for herself in his court.

As though he would forget who had led these rabble during their independence.

Let her imagine whatever she wished about her future. For now, he needed on-the-ground cooperation. If only he could keep her on-topic. “All that will wait,” Achilles snapped. It made his brain ache that all her minutiae
would
come back. “Focus on the matter in our jaws.” On surrender, quickly accepted, but never quite implemented. “What of the planetary drive?”

“I apologize, Achilles. A moment.” She leaned out of the field of her camera for a whispered consultation. “I have dispatched technical personnel I consider extremely trustworthy. They will assume responsibility from the custodial staff. There is a problem first.”

There always was. “I do
not
like problems,” Achilles shouted.

She averted her eyes submissively. At least she remembered how to behave around Citizens. In more conversational tones, he prompted, “What is the problem?”

“Securing the drive. The staff at the drive facility refuses to relinquish it. We know they have stunners, stolen from an office of Public Safety. We will remove those who resist, but it may take time. The drive is on Atlantis, beyond stepping-disc range, so it will take a while to get sufficient loyal staff to Atlantis by boat.”

Of
course
the drive facility was off Arcadia. No sane Citizen would have permitted even tame humans free rein on the same continent as a planetary drive. Only now even the pretense of docility was gone. Now, suddenly, onetime caution had become a problem.

Below the view of his camera, Achilles pawed at the deck in frustration. All human spaceships were destroyed. Victory was in his jaws. That insubordinate humans might damage the drive
now
was intolerable. “Proceed with caution,” he said. “But once that is done, I expect action.”

Her head bowed. “The question is …”

“Is
what?”

Her shoulders slumped and her voice fell. “The question is, What then? What do we do
with
the controls? Match course and speed with the Fleet? Slow down, or stop, and let the Fleet catch up with us?”

Comm delay made every exchange that much worse.
Remembrance
remained stealthed, because (as Baedeker was so quick to remind Achilles) ground-based lasers were a threat if humans spotted the ship. Lest
Remembrance
be revealed, transmissions went through a relay of stealthed radio buoys. What an annoyance a split second could be.

“This would be much easier in person,” the woman said. “Is that possible?”

Was it? On the ground, stealthiness was no defense. Lasers would
really
be a threat. Concussion from a big-enough explosion against the hull could mash him, even while the hull remained intact. So: no landing for now.
Remembrance
could hover just close enough for this woman and perhaps a few of her staff to step aboard. That seemed possible—

Until he remembered Sigmund Ausfaller hiding a bomb
inside
a GP hull
to coerce Beowulf Shaffer. So many years ago, the ploy had amused Achilles, then regional president for General Products on We Made It.

Would he gamble with his life that another human would not conceive the same trick?

No. Baedeker must first assemble isolation booths of hull material, and equip them with sensors, before anyone from New Terra could come aboard. “Soon, Sabrina. I am making arrangements.”

Ausfaller! The man plagued him even in death.

THE UNIVERSE HAD GONE INSANE.

Nessus listened to Nike’s message, over and over. Each time, he hoped to glean some positive element. Each time he failed. His own frantic communications hyperwaved to Sabrina went unanswered.

New Terra had been attacked, its paltry few ships destroyed. Achilles poised to take over—or to destroy New Terra’s planetary drive if thwarted.

It was madness. Nessus tore at his mane, waiting now for Omar to respond.

And then a reply from Omar finally did arrive….

Sigmund gone to meet with the Outsiders.
They
knew where Earth was. The repercussions were beyond imagining. But Sigmund did not know
exactly
where the Outsiders were. It would take Sigmund time to find them.

The starseed-lure network gave Nessus a fairly precise location.
He
might still reach the Outsiders first.

He
had
to.

Nessus sent a belated reply to Nike—another lie, another deception, to fester between them—and then
Aegis
dropped into hyperspace. He must get to the Outsiders first.

The universe had gone insane.

WHY NOT
dropped from hyperspace, to find … absolutely nothing.

Sigmund studied the bridge sensor displays, smiling with a serene confidence he did not feel. Eric and Kirsten stood by expectantly, both looking like they hadn’t slept in a week. Crew across the ship waited to hear good news over the intercom. It was all they had to do, beyond waiting to repair whatever next failed on this jury-rigged hulk. They were here to support Sigmund. Endangered, because of him.

If only he and Kirsten had gotten back aboard
Aegis
. They never got
the chance. Nessus changed access codes, whether from suspicion or routine. A second mysterious fainting spell was not credible. Then even the option of more direct action was lost, as Concordance business reclaimed Nessus’ attention. The Puppeteer left, and Earth’s location remained lost.

But we have the Outsider coordinates. Make it work.

“All right.” Sigmund rubbed his hands briskly. “Spotting Outsiders on passive sensors was too much to expect. Kirsten found out where they
were
, not where they are. Eric, a radar ping.”

“Aye-aye, Captain,” Eric said. “Now we sit and wait.”

Sigmund shook his head. “Now we use the telescope, and look around the nearest suns for starseeds. Find a starseed and the odds are good the Outsider ship is following. Just don’t ask me why.”

“Look near?” Kirsten said. “That’s rather vague. And it’s not like I understand what we’re looking for.”

Sigmund had Bey’s description, but none of his eloquence, to go by. “Usually it’s only a node maybe a mile or two across. Could be taken for a boulder, a little asteroid. We’d never see it. But sometimes … well, most of that ball is a gossamer-thin, silvery sail, tightly rolled. Unfurled, it’s thousands of miles across. When it catches the sunlight…”

A lump caught in Sigmund’s throat. He had been a bastard to Shaeffer. Maybe, just maybe, the man was having a decent life now, beyond Sigmund’s reach. He hoped so.

“Got it,” Kirsten said. “Look for light glints that don’t behave like planets.”

Hours later, neither radar nor random peering had found a thing. Sigmund asked a question whose answer he dreaded. “Kirsten, did you recover a date for Nessus’ visit to the Outsiders?”