Fate of Worlds: Return From the Ringworld

Shot, the ship that had for so long taunted them.

As they pondered, Long Shot flashed through hyperspace. From its original point of emergence, near the brink of the Fleet’s singularity, the ship traveled in seconds to the far reaches of Proteus’ defensive array. Waiting only until hyperwave radar tagged it there, Long Shot jumped back to where it had first appeared.

The ship vanished again, to emerge scant light-seconds from where it had started — having traveled at standard hyperdrive speed. It jumped a third time, now at Type II speed, and a fourth, once more at standard.

In all the years Ol’t’ro had studied Long Shot, it had never had a Type I mode.

“Do I have your attention?” Baedeker asked.

“Perhaps,” they had Chiron sing back.

Within the meld, a cacophony had erupted. We did not come here for our amusement. Projecting together, a cabal of rebellious units evoked poignant memories of the abyssal depths of Jm’ho; Ol’t’ro could almost taste the salt and hydrogen sulfide tangs of ocean trenches. If we leave the Fleet, we cease to protect Jm’ho, and Kl’mo, and the worlds settled thereafter.

No! another faction rebutted. Technology is how we can best protect our worlds.

Then a third: Let the Kzinti control here.

And again the first submeld: Suppose that comes to pass. Who then will restrain the Kzinti?

While yet others demanded: What here is certain? Only a new toy for you. That a physics theory will benefit our people is pure speculation.

Amid the mind storm, Ol’t’ro had a crisis of doubt. Truthfully, they had not seized control of the Fleet for their own intellectual stimulation. But after such long sacrifice, were they not entitled to reward themselves?

Suppose we agree upon a trade. How can we leave the Fleet? an ancient engram challenged. The moment we relinquish the planetary drive, we become vulnerable. Er’o, that ethereal, long-departed thought pattern seemed to be. In any event, one who remembered Sigmund Ausfaller and his manner of thinking.

Citizens keep their promises, another argued. Who? This time Ol’t’ro did not even have a guess. The echo of a remnant of a long-gone unit came too faintly to identify.

“Most do,” Ol’t’ro qualified.

Every day we are farther from the homes we once acted to protect, added Cd’o. Has not our reason for coming here, for ruling the Fleet of Worlds, lost all relevance?

“Enough!” Ol’t’ro roared, shocking the inner voices into submission. “We are one!”

But at the same time, they were sixteen, and many, many more. The clamor erupted anew.

Perhaps there was a reason no Gw’otesht had ever stayed together for this long.…

Baedeker was back. “I am confident that you recognized an improvement to our ship,” the Citizen sang. “I offer everything I have learned about hyperdrive and Long Shot itself. In exchange you are to release the Fleet of Worlds unharmed and leave forever. Are we agreed?”

Ol’t’ro considered:

That answers to puzzles so long unsolved would be welcome indeed.

That to lay down the burden of a trillion Citizens would be bliss.

That they would find unbearable never to know what Baedeker had learned.

That should Baedeker return to Hearth with the knowledge that he claimed, the Gw’oth worlds they had sacrificed lifetimes to protect would always be within the reach of the Concordance.

That Achilles could be trusted — never to honor a bargain he could manage to break, nor to cease lusting for power.

That their takeover of the Fleet had become necessary when the Concordance would not, or could not, control Achilles.

That though Achilles deserved death five-squared times over, and they could command it, his death would assure nothing. Where one Achilles had arisen, so might others.

“We decline your offer,” they had Chiron sing to Baedeker. “We make you a counterproposal you would be foolish to refuse.”

31

“Drones are swarming,” Baedeker sang.

As Nessus had expected. Nothing in his life had ever gone as smoothly as a quick negotiated settlement. “We must change places again.”

Because I can read the controls. Reclaiming his spot in the tiny bridge, Nessus checked the displays. After several back-and-forth hyperspace maneuvers, Long Shot was within two light-minutes of Hearth, just outside the singularity.

“Surrender your ship or you will be destroyed,” Chiron sang.

His hearts pounding, Nessus whistled disdainfully at the hologram. “No. You want to take this ship intact.”

“Before you make any hasty decisions, I have a small demonstration for you. I assume you are monitoring the swarm, that you have a full-spectrum sensor suite active.”

Nessus bobbed heads.

“Then right about … now.”

Flare shields engaged almost before Nessus realized something had happened.

“Finagle! What was that?” Louis radioed.

Blinking away tears, Nessus scrolled through the sensor logs. The blinding flash was the least of what had happened. Two drones had collided just in front of Long Shot, at a combined closing rate very close to light speed! Most of the energy from the impact had gone into a gamma-ray burst — to which, fortunately, the ship’s General Products-built hull was opaque.

Long Shot was vastly larger than the sacrificial drones — a target Chiron could not miss. No matter its General Products hull, a blow like what Nessus had just witnessed would shatter everything inside.

“Have I gotten your attention?” Chiron asked.

Instead of hugging himself to his own belly, Nessus summoned the strength to sing, “An idle threat. Strike us and you forfeit the improved hyperdrive and everything we have learned.”

“Nessus?” Louis demanded by radio. “What in Finagle’s name just happened?”

Nessus’ console flared again. From a dozen directions, laser beams lit Long Shot’s hull. He jumped the ship to hyperspace. “What’s happening, Louis? We are at war.”

“What can I do?” Louis asked.

“We,” Alice corrected.

“Leave us, and live well. In a moment, when we return to normal space, I’ll open the hatch.”

“No way will I, we, abandon — ”

“You cannot help us this time, Louis,” Baedeker shouted from the corridor. “Do as Nessus and I ask.”

Nessus began the countdown. “Dropping out in three … two … one…”

“All right,” Louis said.

“Now,” Nessus said. Normal space returned. “Hatch opening.”

Ruby-red light suffused the ship, brighter and brighter as more lasers locked on. But the drones emitting the laser beams were too distant — so far — to do harm, the light too diffuse even to activate flare shields. What was