Fate of Worlds: Return From the Ringworld

And, in theory, difficult to counterfeit.

In progeny and in uniforms, Sigmund’s legacy survived. And in a third respect: that New Terra remained free and whole. If others had had their way …

“If I may, sir,” Julia prompted gently, as though channeling Jeeves.

“Go ahead,” Sigmund said. “What brings you here?”

“An astrophysical phenomenon, sir. An anomaly.”

Sigmund twitched. Twice in his long life he had been marooned, alone, deep in space. Three times he had been murdered, each death grislier than the last. A glimpse of an astrophysical phenomenon had presaged his most recent death and, after resurrection, left him stranded in interstellar space.

Turbulence in the ineffably tenuous interstellar medium. An uptick in concentrations of interstellar helium. Only by such subtleties had the Pak invasion armada, wave upon wave of ramscoop warships, given warning of its coming.

The Pak were genocidal xenophobes, a pestilence upon every other form of life. As protectors, the neuter postadult life stage, Pak were freakishly brilliant, reflexively aggressive, utterly selfish in the defense of their bloodlines. Eating tree-of-life root transformed an adult, what protectors dismissively called a breeder, into a protector.

Humanity, it turned out, descended from a Pak colony that had failed on Earth millions of years ago, because Earth lacked trace elements essential to tree-of-life. From the Pak perspective humans were, rather than distant cousins, mutants to be obliterated.

Sigmund shivered, all too aware that the universe cared not a fig for his memories or his phobias.

Julia was doing her best to hide her feelings, but beneath a stoic, professional veneer she was tense. Perhaps only someone who knew her well would notice.

Sigmund said, “I’m no astrophysicist.” Open up, Julia. Tell me what’s troubling you.

“Understood, sir.” Julia hesitated. “Is Jeeves with us?”

“Indeed, sir,” the AI intoned.

“This is a matter of world security, Minister,” Julia said.

“Jeeves and I are both fossils. Our security clearances, like my title, are long lapsed.” Never mind that, as far as this world was concerned, Sigmund was the one who had invented security clearances. That he had built from nothing what had been known on his watch as the Ministry of Defense. Never mind that Julia would have no inkling what a fossil was. Life beyond the single-celled was too recently imported to New Terra to have left fossils. “Whatever this anomaly is, you’ve come to tell me about it. So, tell.”

“Right.” Julia took a deep breath. “Something impossible has happened. You’re familiar with space-time ripples as ships enter and leave hyperspace?”

Sigmund nodded.

“Yesterday, the planetary defense array detected a … big ripple.”

“How big?” Sigmund asked.

“That’s the thing, sir. It can’t be that big.”

And so your superiors sent you to see what alternate explanation my devious brain can conjure. “How big did the ripple look to be?” Sigmund persisted. “How many ships?”

“The ripple was reported by every sensor in the array. Saturation strength.”

The array that surrounded New Terra. An array — at least during Sigmund’s tenure in the Ministry — deployed in concentric spheres across vast distances. To saturate all the sensors at once would require an unbelievable number of ships, many emerging almost on top of New Terra.

He tamped down resurgent memories of Pak war fleets. This was no time to get lost in the past.

After detecting ships nearby, the first step in the alert protocol would have been a hyperwave radar sweep. He asked, “And radar showed what?”

“Nothing,” Julia said. “That’s part of what’s odd.”

Because no one had ever found a way to disguise the interaction between a hyperwave and normal matter. That didn’t mean no one ever would. “I imagine the Defense Forces dispatched ships. And found nothing?”

“Right, sir.”

Very puzzling. “Just the one ripple?” Sigmund asked.

“Yes, sir. Whatever emerged from hyperspace didn’t drop back into it. That, or these ships came a great distance through normal space, shielded from our sensors, waiting until they were on top of us before jumping into hyperspace to speed away. Either would explain a single ripple.”

“A huge fleet, after sneaking up on us and shrieking the news of its arrival, continues on its way? I don’t believe that, either.”

“Nor do our analysts.” She hesitated. “They need you at the Ministry to figure it out.”

After the revolution, confusing correlation with causation, the new regime had reached a strange conclusion: that the emergencies from which Sigmund had time and again saved this world he had provoked through his own interstellar meddling. The new government made clear just how unwelcome he was. Now they wanted his help?

Nameless, faceless, they had haunted Sigmund for much of his life, but it was all too clear who thought to manipulate him today. The current minister.

There’s a reason the Defense Forces sent, specifically, you, Captain. The minister believes I can’t say no to you. And he is probably right.

Many of Sigmund’s family had joined the New Terran military, and among them Julia was neither the youngest nor the oldest, the most junior nor the most senior, the least nor the most accomplished. And yet she was special. Sigmund would deny it if asked, but of all his grandchildren, Julia was his favorite — because she was the spitting image of her grandmother.

Tanj, but he missed Penelope! His deaths faded from memory. Never Penny’s. Hers had stuck. He had met her soon after coming to this strange and wondrous world, awakening from his second death —

“Grandpa?” Julia said hesitantly. “At the Ministry, we need some … creative thinking.”

“About what might have tricked the sensors, and how,” Jeeves commented.

“It’s the current theory,” Julia agreed. “That something, or someone, somehow confused our sensors. Only our experts have yet to find evidence of tampering or intrusion.”

Something stirred in the back of Sigmund’s mind. Not quite the old paranoia, but maybe more than the skepticism of age. One could never discount a security breach, but he doubted that a breach explained this big ripple. Anyone who could spoof the planetary defense network would keep that ability secret — until they attacked.

Transparent manipulation be damned, the safety of the world was at stake. “Show me the data.”

“Sorry, sir. That information is only available at the Ministry. Very restricted.”

Except for the security breach the “experts” thought they had. Fools.

Sigmund stared out at the desert. The suns had all but set, and a few bright stars managed to show themselves overhead. A thick, inky smear near the western horizon hinted at mountains. “Then take me to the Ministry.” He started walking toward her vehicle.

“Not the flitter, Grandpa.” When he turned back, Julia pointed at the upside-down stepping disc inset in his patio. “You’re needed now.”

As he turned over the disc, Sigmund switched off the self-destruct. Surreptitiously, to be sure, but Jeeves would have seen it through the house security cameras. No need, old friend, to net yourself someplace else.

Sigmund gestured to Julia to step ahead. Seconds after her, flicking across half a world into the security vestibule of the headquarters of the New Terran Defense Forces, he brooded what nightmare this latest astronomical phenomenon portended.

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