Fate of Worlds: Return From the Ringworld

the deck. “Louis, your father created the autodoc; it is rightfully yours. Before Nessus and I leave, we will transfer the device to your ship.”

Before our quixotic efforts inevitably fail, Louis read between the lines.

“And if negotiations fail?” Louis asked. “If the Kzinti come. If the ARM wants its revenge?”

“There are other approaches,” Nessus said. “They are … complicated.”

Louis caught Alice’s eye. “Suppose we bring the ’doc home? What would that do toward making amends for you with New Terran authorities?”

His words garnered a quick smile. It was the mention of home, he hoped, not the offer of the ’doc.

That’s progress on one front, Louis thought. “Baedeker, let’s go jettison the lifeboat. I’ll dock Endurance where the lifeboat is stowed.”

“That isn’t necessary,” Baedeker said. “We can teleport the autodoc to your ship.”

“And we will,” Alice said. “That’s not the point.”

“The point,” Louis continued, “is that we will see this through with you. Endurance is our ride home afterward.”

30

“And we’re here,” Nessus sang. He dropped Long Shot from hyperspace. With a deft touch, he fired the fusion thrusters just enough to produce a slow drift toward their destination.

“Home,” Baedeker sighed. He stood in the bridge’s hatchway, gazing at five clustered specks centered in the main view port. A light-hour distant, the Fleet of Worlds was visible using only modest magnification. “It is beautiful.”

He had believed himself trapped forever on the Ringworld. To see Hearth again was … melody failed him.

Nessus reached out, twining a neck with one of Baedeker’s. “I feel the same.”

Baedeker was still savoring the moment when the hyperwave set chirped.

“We are being hailed,” Voice sang.

“Trade places,” Baedeker said as the comm console buzzed again. He angled the camera so that it only saw him. “Voice, do not speak on this bridge but open the link. Translate for Louis and Alice,” who waited aboard Endurance.

“This is Space Traffic Control,” businesslike voices sang.

“This is Concordance vessel Homebound,” Baedeker sang back. The ship’s real identity was only suitable for discussion with Ol’t’ro. After some back-and-forth with Minerva, they had found a plausible-sounding ship’s name not in current use.

“I do not have any Homebound in my active database, and you don’t seem to have a transponder.”

“This is an old ship,” Baedeker sang. And Kzinti had removed the Concordance STC transponder. “It does not surprise me that we are no longer in your database.”

New voices came: oddly familiar, stronger and firmer than the traffic controller who had greeted Long Shot’s emergence. “This is Hearth Planetary Defense. Homebound, or whoever you are, keep your distance until we have arranged an inspection.”

“Understood,” Baedeker sang. Long Shot had a good match to the Fleet’s velocity; their slow inward drift should not seem threatening. “First, however, I have pressing business to discuss with” — he almost slipped up and asked for Ol’t’ro — “the Minister of Science.”

“I will inquire whether Minister Chiron is available.”

“Thank you,” Baedeker sang.

His instruments revealed a seething froth of activity: ships entering and leaving hyperspace; hyperwave chatter; STC transponder beeps; hyperwave-radar pings. The levels far exceeded anything that he could remember. Had activities in and among the alien diplomatic missions offset grain-ship traffic lost when New Terra broke off relations?

To his left, an auxiliary display flashed. Alice here. Most hyperspace-related turbulence is apt to be from defensive drones. Ol’t’ro protected his colony world this way, back in the Gw’oth War.

Baedeker saw it, too: tiny spacecraft in concentric spheres centered on the Fleet. His display flickered hypnotically as probes left and returned in a frenzy of hyperspace micro-jumps. Many of the tiny craft carried high normal-space velocities relative to the Fleet, with varying inclinations to the Fleet’s direction of travel. Other probes held station. Some probes jumped around the Fleet; others darted through the singularity in normal space. As he watched, a stationary probe zipped off and another braked to a halt in the first one’s vacated position.

Kinetic ship killers, ready to pounce …

He struggled to take in even a small fraction of it. No Citizen mind could manage it. Merely by observing, he would have guessed that an AI controlled it.

“Homebound,” familiar voices called, “this is Chiron. With whom am I singing?”

The rightful Hindmost, Baedeker thought, but that was not a refrain suitable for open broadcast. “An old acquaintance coming home,” he sang. “I request a secure channel.”

“I know your voices,” Chiron sang. “Your ship, too. Its emergence ripple is distinctive. Do you have Concordance encryption software?”

“Yes.” Baedeker offered the same vague hints about planetary-drive research as he had given Minerva, now more than thirty light-years distant. “The project name can be our key.”

Secure link. Full video, Voice wrote.

An image opened, showing a spotlessly white, finely coiffed Citizen. “It has been a long time, Baedeker.”

“It has.” Trapped on the Ringworld, Baedeker had rehearsed this moment over and over. The details changed — he had had to guess what technology he might find to offer — but always he had been confident, had sung firmly. Why was he tuneless now?

Because this exchange mattered. This time he did not get to sing both sides of the confrontation.

“It has,” Baedeker repeated, louder this time. “I was on a quest. It took longer than I had expected.”

“And did you find the Holy Grail?”

Baedeker did not catch the reference, but the gist was clear enough. “Not what I first expected, but yes.” He paused. “I found something I think you will find interesting.”

“I find many things interesting.”

From the corridor, where Nessus waited: a delicate trill of encouragement. Baedeker took hearts from the tune. “This is interesting enough to be worth worlds.”

* * *

A WORKING THEORY OF HYPERSPACE.

Ol’t’ro considered:

That they had sought, and failed, for more than four lifetimes to formulate such a theory.

That the hyperspace emergence pattern from Baedeker’s ship showed it had a Type II hyperdrive. Almost certainly, it was the long-absent Long Shot.

That Long Shot was last seen near the now-vanished Ringworld.

That the Ringworld escaping to hyperspace defied everything they understood about hyperdrive: the artifact should have been too massive, its own singularity.

That someone knew more about hyperdrive technology than they did.

That Long Shot was last seen under Kzinti control.

That Baedeker unaided could never have seized a ship from Kzinti. Who had helped?

That Citizens were consummate bluffers. Baedeker might have nothing to trade but Long