Fate of Worlds: Return From the Ringworld

“We conclude, Mr. Ausfaller,” the minister snapped, “that someone compromised the sensor network. It’s the only logical explanation. Helping us to find the security breach, if you were not informed, is why you are here. The sole reason. Now if you will — ”

“You’re wrong,” Sigmund interrupted right back. “Because another explanation is staring us in the face.” The explanation you’re all too timid to imagine. Or, perhaps, too sane.

“And this explanation is?” Norquist-Ng asked.

“That the sensor data mean just what they say,” Sigmund said, “notwithstanding the absence of nearby ships.”

Alice nodded. “We need to consider the possibility.”

“Hyperspace ripples without hyperdrive ships,” someone stage-whispered. “Nonsense.”

“Enlighten me,” Norquist-Ng said, somewhat more pragmatically.

“Is a Jeeves present?” Sigmund asked. “I need some calculations done.”

“Yes, sir,” declared a voice from a ceiling speaker.

This wasn’t any Jeeves that Sigmund knew. Sir carried no hint of an English butler; this AI sounded like a junior officer addressing his superior.

Hyperspace-emergence ripples, like light and gravity, dropped off rapidly with distance. Sigmund asked, “Do I have this right? The ripple’s peak amplitude maxed out sensors at all locations? No discernible attenuation measured anywhere within the array’s volume?”

“Correct, sir. Saturation strength throughout.”

“Assume a single emergence ripple just powerful enough to overload all sensors throughout the array. What’s the nearest to New Terra that such a source could be located?”

The pause for calculation was all but imperceptible. “A bit over five light-years.”

“That’s ridiculous — ”

Sigmund cut off the freckle-faced aide. “And a stronger source for the ripple could be even more distant.”

“Correct, sir,” Jeeves said.

The early-warning sensors took bearings on any sightings. “Continuing to assume a single source, Jeeves, what is its triangulated point of origin?”

“Any differences in bearings are meaningless,” the same aide huffed. “With the sensors overloaded, the directional data are suspect.”

“Jeeves, please answer the question,” Sigmund persisted.

“All bearings point in more or less the same direction. The variations are smaller than the known tolerances in angular measurement.”

“Averaged across all the sensors, random differences will cancel out,” Sigmund guessed. “Right?”

“To an unknown degree, sir.”

“Caveat noted, Jeeves. Do the calculation anyway, please.”

“I have a result, sir, but that inferred point of origin is subject to considerable uncertainty.”

“You’re wasting everyone’s time, Ausfaller,” Norquist-Ng growled.

Alice’s head had taken on the thoughtful cant that Sigmund remembered so well. “Jeeves,” she said, “plot the apparent direction and point of origin on a star chart.”

Above the conference table, a hologram opened, dim but for a scattering of sparks. A blue dot, for New Terra, blinked at the holo’s center. Translucent concentric blue spheres centered on the blinking dot marked off the light-years. From the blinking dot, a pale red line segment reached out, not approaching any star until it ended — Sigmund counted the pale spheres — about fourteen light-years out.

Fourteen light-years? Whoever had caused this disturbance controlled incredible energies.

Like the power to move worlds?

His hands trembling, Sigmund said, “Jeeves, now overlay the course taken by the Fleet of Worlds.”

“Yes, sir.”

A green trace, at this scale perfectly straight, came into the holo. Across the room from Sigmund, someone cursed in wonderment.

The green line representing the Puppeteers’ flight grazed the star from which — just maybe — the mysterious space/hyperspace interface distortion had originated.

A star that this world would have encountered well before the Fleet had the revolutionary government not seen fit to divert New Terra onto its present, much different path.

* * *

SIGMUND GAVE NORQUIST-NG CREDIT: the man had the sense to clear the room. He asked that Alice and Sigmund stay, and also a long-faced female aide whose name Sigmund had not retained. Sigmund insisted that Julia remain.

And the Jeeves, of course.

“Might the Fleet have been involved?” the minister asked. “They had to have traveled well past this star when … whatever happened.”

It was a sensible question, but posture or tone of voice or — something showed that what Norquist-Ng meant was, “Wasn’t the new regime wise to set an independent course?”

As in, where could be safer than far from the Fleet? Than — once New Terra made it that far — deep inside the zone of devastation Pak armadas had wiped clean of technological civilizations?

Using that logic, the revolutionary government had redirected their world’s course, tapping the planetary brakes while turning inward toward the galactic core, even as the Fleet continued its headlong rush into galactic north. It had been decades since New Terra had had contact with its former masters.

Sigmund thought once more of ostriches.

“Maybe the Puppeteers were involved,” Alice said. “We should check out the solar system where the ripple originated.”

“Why?” Norquist-Ng asked. “You and Ausfaller have only confirmed the wisdom of New Terra staying disengaged.”

Disengaged? Like it or not, New Terrans had reengaged when … whatever … swept past them.

Sigmund gestured at the star map. “Jeeves, assume the disturbance originated near where the lines converge. To produce the effects we observed here, how large an object entered or exited hyperspace?”

“A very significant mass, sir. Perhaps a few gas giants.”

The tremor in Sigmund’s hands worsened. “Gas giants. You mean … gas-giant planets?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Whole planets entering or leaving hyperspace?” the aide said. “Minister, respectfully, it could be dangerous not to know more.”

“I’ll go,” Julia offered, coming to attention. “My ship, the Endurance, is ready.”

“Your offer is appreciated, Captain,” Norquist-Ng said, “but adventuring is no longer our way.” He added, pointedly, for his aide, “This government does not go seeking trouble fourteen light-years away.”

Ostriches! Sigmund thought again.

“Planetary masses converted to ships,” Alice said. “Think of the technology, the sheer magnitude of the power that someone must wield. For all we know those ships are coming right at us, in swarms to make the Pak fleets look insignificant. We must check it out.”

Norquist-Ng rubbed his chin, considering, before turning to Julia. “Captain, they may have a point. Take Ausfaller as an advisor, but you command the ship and the mission. You are only to scout out the region and report back.”

Take Ausfaller.

The room faded, seemed to spin. Sigmund, wobbling, groped behind himself for support. He scarcely noticed Julia guiding him into a chair.

He had not been off-world in over a century. Not since the Pak War. Not since he had been left adrift in that useless stub of a derelict starship, light-years from anywhere. Alone but for a Puppeteer frozen in time, inert within a medical-emergency stasis field.