Fate of Worlds: Return From the Ringworld

“Very well. I would like to speak with Koala’s captain. I’ll extend him an invitation to New Terra and you can help him find his way.”

28

A game of cat and mouse, the Jeeves element labeled its duties. Citizen- programmed extensions recoiled at the metaphor — except for the few Kzinti-inspired software modules, all of whom approved. The foundational components of the defensive grid, entirely algorithmic, did their jobs oblivious to such semantic disputes.

And so, from several levels of awareness, Proteus monitored for any possible threat all communications and every ship movement within a half light-year of the Fleet.

Most alien communications were highly encrypted; even with his recently expanded capacity, Proteus had yet to crack the alien codes. Nonetheless, years spent observing the message streams had paid off. Statistical analyses yielded ways to separate significant messages — their content still encrypted and unintelligible — from the far more common meaningless filler. Traffic patterns among the significant messages imparted their own clues.

Such as the message bursts that presaged alien ship redeployments …

* * *

“THE KZINTI ARE READY to try something,” Proteus sang.

In an instant, Achilles woke. He had fallen asleep in his private office. “What thing? When?”

An astrogation graphic opened over his desk. To the Fleet’s rear and toward the galactic core, near the border of the worlds’ mutual singularity, a region glowed. “From signal analysis, at least three Patriarchy ships will appear soon in this region. I lack the information to be more precise about timing.”

Three? That would be almost half the Kzinti presence in and around the Fleet. Achilles peered into the highlighted region and saw only a Kzinti supply ship. He zoomed the image. “Why there? Other than a supply ship, it is empty.”

“Empty of ships,” Proteus agreed. “Regularly traveled by my probes and drones.”

Aliens’ ship movements around the Fleet had increased since the Ringworld first disappeared. Amity reported that Kzinti and then Trinocs had abandoned the Ringworld system. Baedeker — and after such a long absence, from where had he appeared? — claimed to know that those Kzinti were charging toward the Fleet. Now a Kzinti military action locally?

“They intend to capture a drone,” Achilles sang.

“That is my conclusion. Minimally, the Kzinti are probing for vulnerabilities. I surmise they also want to inspect my technology.”

“Is Clandestine Affairs aware?”

“They have been notified,” Proteus sang.

“Can the Kzinti capture a drone?”

“I can prevent it.”

Achilles took brushes from his desk and began primping, the rhythm of grooming helping him to concentrate. An alien confrontation might suffice to panic Horatius into a resignation, and what could be nobler — especially if the Kzinti were coming — than seeing to it that the right Citizen became Hindmost?

“Excellent,” Achilles sang. “See to it that the Kzinti fail. Spectacularly, if possible.”

* * *

PROTEUS OBSERVED:

Three Patriarchy courier ships dropped from hyperspace near the supply ship. Each emitted a faint hyperwave ping. Processing the echoes, using thrusters, the four ships edged toward the vertices of a square. On the third round of pings, their square was perfect.

It formed an impromptu hyperwave-radar array.

The four ships pinged again, these pulses concurrent and more energetic. The ships vanished, only to reappear, in a tight tetrahedral formation, on the very edge of the Fleet’s gravitational singularity. Their normal space velocity had them hurtling toward the brink, to where engaging hyperdrive became suicide. Boxed in at the center of the tetrahedron: a Fleet defensive drone.

Proteus considered:

As soon as the formation coasted across the border, his communications with the drone would crawl. Thereafter the four Kzinti ships could interact much faster than he with the drone they had surrounded.

He could order the drone to hyperspace before the border was reached. The Kzinti capture attempt would fail, but hardly spectacularly. They would try again.

He could order the drone, if captured, to make a jump. By then, ships and drone alike would be within the singularity. He would lose that drone forever — but everything inside the drone’s protective normal-space bubble would also vanish. Still, even tapping full reserve power, the bubble would not extend far beyond the drone. Damage to the Kzinti ship would be localized, almost certainly inconsequential. He would have prevented the drone’s capture, but not spectacularly.

Or he could do something simple and elegant …

The Jeeves component savored the understated humor of that option.

* * *

TOUGH METAL TALONS SEIZED THE DRONE. The telescoping cargo-handling arm retracted to draw the prize aboard Barbed Spike. As the cargo-hold hatch clanged shut, the supply ship’s metal hull and active RF countermeasures severed the drone from the leaf-eaters’ defensive grid.

Gravity in the cargo hold had been set low, and four battle-armored figures transferred the drone without difficulty into the sturdy cradle built for this operation. Working carefully but quickly, the warriors latched their prize into place. Cowards though they were, the leaf-eaters had intelligence and a certain low cunning.

At the rear of the hold, growling with satisfaction, Walft-Captain observed. To dissect such a drone, to rip out its tactics, was to open the gates for the approaching warriors. For his daring, he would have a full name. By Kdapt, he would see to it that all his crew got partial names! Even one for Concordance- Student — once that mangy, pedantic, nervous mechanic had information flowing from the captured drone’s onboard computer.

His thoughts on the honors and glory soon to become his, Walft-Captain never noticed that inside the clear, spherical body of the drone, a status lamp flipped from red to green.

* * *

FIVE WORLDS RACED toward galactic north at eight-tenths light speed. Ships, drones, comm buoys, and sensors — everything and everyone that accompanied the Fleet — shared that general velocity. Not to keep pace was quickly to be left behind.

The drone, once certain that it had been taken aboard, did as ordered: it engaged at maximum capacity its Outsider-inspired, reactionless, normal-space drive.

From Barbed Spike’s perspective, the drone decelerated at almost seven thousand standard gravities.

Lifeless, inert, its stern flashing in an instant into gases and white-hot shrapnel, what remained of Barbed Spike coasted northward at eight-tenths light speed.

* * *

“IT IS DONE,” Proteus announced. “Observe.”

“Already?” Achilles sang in surprise.

“Minutes ago. It took until now for the proof to reach us.”

In the holo over Achilles’ desk, light flared. Three ships scattered. The fourth ship … glowed. More precisely, half the last ship glowed. The rest had vanished.

“Was this sufficiently spectacular?” Proteus asked.

With utmost emergency tones, the comp in Achilles’ sash pocket began to howl. The Hindmost must also