Fate of Worlds: Return From the Ringworld

Make them doubt themselves. Hint at the privileges they might lose.

And then ease up, just a bit. Offer a reason for hope. Keep them dependent. Make them grateful. Replace the social contract with personal bonds.

Repeat as needed.

“You did well to bring these concerns to my attention,” Achilles sang soothingly. “Might some additional workers alleviate the difficulties?”

Up/down, down/up, up/down: Eunomia’s heads bobbed agreement. “Yes, Excellency.” He would depart with his job, and his perks, and something, at least, to show for his trouble. “Yes, additional workers would be most helpful.”

Very well, Achilles thought. Beyond sheltering Hearth’s ancient biomes and growing luxury foods, Nature Preserve One served as a dumping ground for the herd’s antisocial. A few “rehabilitees” transferred from one of the reeducation camps would secure Eunomia’s gratitude. Hearth’s trillion residents would always have misfits, outcasts, and loners to take their place.

(As I was once banished to this world. That Ol’t’ro had assigned him to rule this world gnawed at Achilles, no matter how useful he found the captive workforce. The reminder was not subtle.)

“Thank you, Excellency,” Eunomia burbled in relief, rising to leave. “I will not disappoint you.”

Achilles rose from his bench and came around the table. Now he extended a neck. As they brushed heads, he felt Eunomia trembling in relief.

Eunomia all but crept from the audience chamber, heads lowered in subservience and respect.

Across the years, and careers, and even worlds, Achilles had conditioned many to follow him. It had worked again today. It worked almost without fail, especially with the impressionable young.

Angry at himself even as he did it, Achilles tugged free one braid of the edifice that was his mane coiffure. Almost without fail, because there had once been a failure. A disaster. A prospect turned acolyte turned traitor. The nemesis who time and again had defied and stymied Achilles’ grand plans.

Curse that Nessus. And curse his paramour …

Earth Date: 2828

“You cannot mean it!” Achilles sang.

“Yes, I can,” Chiron responded, voices ringing with the firm harmonics of command. He might never master every nuance of Citizen psychology, but he had become proficient in the subtleties of their speech and body language. The comm delay between Hearth and Nature Preserve Five seemed to underscore his imperturbability.

“You are in the Fleet because I brought you here.” Achilles kept his voices level, desperate not to let his fear show.

“I am here because neither you nor your predecessor had any choice.” Chiron paused. “As you have none now.”

Because the price of disobedience is the shattering of the worlds.

“I have served you well,” Achilles sang.

“As shall the former Hindmost when he reassumes the office.”

Every guard on Penance Island was loyal. For a moment Achilles considered sending the order for his rival to have an unfortunate accident. But only for a moment. No matter their loyalty, Achilles could not be certain his minions had the mental — call it strength — to kill. “So be it. I will declare him rehabilitated.”

“Yes, you will. Then you will resign your office and endorse him.”

The chords slipped out. “But why?”

Once more: delay, and imperturbability, and the firm harmonics of command. “That I must ever seek out and deflect your egregious deceits grows wearisome.”

“You trust him more?”

“I trust no Citizen.” Pause. “After being so long off Hearth and out of power, he will need time before he can hatch new mischief.”

“Who better than I to make sure he does not?” Achilles sang. Without retaining some role in the government, he might end up filling the vacancy soon to open on Penance Island.

The longest pause yet. As the silence dragged on, Achilles worried that he had dared too much. His necks ached to tug at his mane. His legs trembled with the urge to flee. But shorn of power, nowhere within the Fleet would be safe.…

“You shall go to Nature Preserve One,” Chiron declared — and then he looked himself in the eyes. “To govern there. As such, you shall remain among the Hindmost’s ministers.”

“It shall be as you say, Chiron.” Until I find a way to undo this travesty.

Earth Date: 2893

Achilles shook off the gloom that had taken him. Steadfast of eye and firm of step, he exited the audience chamber. The entourage formed about him and they returned across the residence. Leaving his guard detail standing at their posts, he reentered his private chambers.

Though he had yet to regain his full power, his enemies had lost theirs. After the disaster that was the Ringworld expedition, the populace had risen — in the polite, orderly, and slow-motion process of a consensualization — to reject the Experimentalist Party altogether.

And after, he had taken consolation in watching Horatius, the latest interloper, chief of the Conservative Party, discover Ol’t’ro ruling from behind the Hindmost.

13

Go back?

Louis dared not shift his eyes from the mass pointer, not while Long Shot hurtled through hyperspace at almost a light-year every minute. He imagined Hindmost looking crazed. “I thought you wanted to get away, to go to Home.”

“The matter is complicated, Louis.”

“Just relax. We’ll be there in a few hours.”

“With such a fast ship, what matters a bit of delay? Take us back.”

Inside the clear dome of the mass pointer, blue lines groped hungrily at Louis. Each line represented the gravitational influence of a nearby star. Should Long Shot come too close to any of them, then … well, he did not know. Everything he had been taught about hyperdrive said that using hyperdrive to escape through the Ringworld should have been disastrous — and yet here they were. As a protector, he had understood. As plain old Louis? He hadn’t a clue why the stunt had not killed them.

He tweaked the controls and almost immediately nudged them back to veer around an onrushing star. He adjusted course yet again to thread the needle between another sun and a yellow-and-orange binary lurking just beyond.

“Louis?”

“At least give me a reason.”

“Something I noticed just as we left. Or, rather, something that registered, that made me realize what I had been seeing for hours.” The sound came of hoof scraping at the deck. “You would think me ridiculous. Allow me to observe a while longer and then I will explain.”

By what logic would a Puppeteer ask to return to a war zone? “Is Home not safe?”

“Please, Louis. Turn the ship around.” More scraping. “Regardless, know that you misunderstood me. By ‘home,’ I meant Hearth, the main world of the Fleet of Worlds.”

That explained the normal-space velocity Long Shot had accumulated. Louis said, “And after you check out … whatever you think you saw, would you then expect to go to Hearth?”

“No. Yes. In time.” The voice grew muffled, as though spoken by a head plunged deep into a Puppeteer mane. “I would like to know more before returning to Hearth. I have been away for a long time.”

Skirting the maw of a red giant sun, Louis considered. He had been gone for a long