Fate of Worlds: Return From the Ringworld

“NESSUS. NESSUS. NESSUS,” the muffled voices crooned.

Muffled, why? Because I am rolled so tightly? Nessus wondered. That would make sense only if he had been catatonic, not dead.

He untensed just a bit.

The harmonics changed. “Nessus?”

Was that Baedeker? Nessus relaxed a trace more.

“Nessus!” the voices sang. They were Baedeker!

Somehow, they had survived. Nessus pushed away the awful memories enough to sleep.

* * *

NESSUS DRIFTED AWAKE, nestled among mounds of soft cushions. A clear blue sky hung overhead. A single large sun warmed him. Meadowplant carpeted gently rolling terrain that stretched as far as the eye could see. To his left, halfway to the horizon, a herd of Companions calmly grazed. In twos and threes, Citizens strolled about. At a respectful distance: Nike, his spotless white hide distinctive, stood deep in oratorio with four aides. Nessus even saw children gamboling!

He struggled to his feet. “I had not truly believed,” he trilled to himself.

Around a nearby hummock cantered — Baedeker. His beloved looked well. He had brushed and combed his mane, cleaned his hide, found a utilitarian pocketed belt.

“Welcome to the Hindmost’s Refuge,” Baedeker sang, extending both necks. They stood close for a long while, necks entwined. “I am relieved beyond melody to have you back.”

With a sigh, Nessus released Baedeker to look around. Examined more closely, the “sky” was an illuminated ceiling and the “sun” a radiant circle upon it. The ground extended only to the appearance of a horizon, with holographic details rendered indistinct as though with distance along the arc of wall.

“How long have I been…?”

“Lost to the world?” Baedeker sang softly. “Thirty-seven days.”

How much had gone wrong in the past thirty-seven days? “You should have proceeded without me.”

Baedeker trembled. “I am only a day sooner out of stasis than you.”

Nessus could almost mistake this place for a park on one of the Nature Preserve worlds. It was natural enough, surely, to please the Companions. “Then we remain far underground,” he sang.

Up/down, down/up, up/down, Baedeker bobbed heads in agreement. “Deep within Hearth’s mantle.”

Inside the herd’s shelter of last resort, its secret haven. The entrance had long been sealed, the shelter’s presence disguised by clever stealthing gear. The workers who had built it were generations departed; during its excavation and construction, their memories had been edited each time they left. The Hindmost’s Refuge was accessible only to neutrinos.

And as their survival demonstrated, also from hyperspace.

“Why were we so long in stasis?” Nessus asked.

“Come with me,” Baedeker sang.

They threaded a path between low hills and into a gully. Nessus craned his necks as they walked, but nowhere did he find any sign of Long Shot. “Where is the wreckage?”

“You will see,” Baedeker sang.

Near the holo-disguised wall they rounded one more hill — to find the mound gaping open. Row upon row of giant machines filled the concealed garage. Tunnel-boring machines, covered in rock dust, sat nearest the entrance.

They came to a yawning hole in the ground. Concentric fences, their strobe lights flashing, guarded the opening. Heat shimmered above a nearby array of stepping discs: air exchanged from deep within the downward- sloping shaft, Nessus guessed. He passed through three gates to peek into the tunnel. Strings of white lights converged in the distance. Far off, something glinted. “Is that…?”

“Long Shot,” Baedeker confirmed. “Or, rather, what remains of it. Voice missed by about ten kilometers.”

Nessus pawed at the sod. He had heard Baedeker’s plan, had agreed to it. But that plan had been so complex, so unprecedented, so insane, agreeing to it had been an act of unquestioning trust. “If there had not been tunneling equipment…”

Baedeker bobbed heads. “We would have remained in stasis forever. But as it must, this place has such equipment. A sufficient disaster aboveground might destroy all stepping discs. The tunneling machines are here to recover from any such catastrophe, as are ships to fly to the surface through a newly excavated tunnel.”

Nessus managed two halting steps into the opening. “And when Long Shot materialized inside the solid rock?”

“Crushed,” Baedeker sang almost cheerfully. “But not you and I, in stasis.”

“If we had not waited for our hull to dissolve…?”

“Our rescuers could never have reached us. Or, if we had reentered normal space precisely on target, an intact, impervious hull would have severely damaged the Refuge. And had Ol’t’ro not seen the ship come apart, our enemies would have known to keep searching for us.”

Even in hindsight: madness! Catatonia beckoned to Nessus. Had they done this?

With the echoes of their warning message, beamed from various vantages around the Fleet, Voice had located the Refuge despite its deep-radar stealthing. He had matched the ship’s course with the Refuge’s rotation around Hearth’s axis and Hearth’s orbit around the Fleet’s center of mass. And then, even as their hull had burst asunder, faster than any breathing pilot could function, the AI had delivered them blind to within ten kilometers of their goal.

“What of Voice?” Nessus sang softly.

“Gone. Sacrificed.” Scattered segments of digital wallpaper had failed. Baedeker pointed with one neck to the nearest jagged fissure in the Refuge wall. “Solid equipment does not materialize gracefully into solid rock. Our arrival set off a small temblor. That is how our rescuers knew the direction in which to tunnel — once they summoned the wisdom to make the attempt.

“Voice was my companion for a long time. Often he was my only companion. I will miss him.”

Nessus lowered his heads in respect. For a long while, neither of them sang anything.

With a mournful trill, Baedeker turned to go back the way they had come. Having escaped death, their work had just begun.

36

As Hermes cleared plates from the dinner table, Sigmund passed Amelia a folded sheet of paper. The note within read, Come with me. I’ll explain outside. He had found sensors hidden in his house; it did not take much imagination to predict his children’s houses were also bugged.

“I need to walk off dinner,” Sigmund announced.

“Mind if I join you?” Amelia asked, tucking the note into a pocket.

“Of course not.” Sigmund gestured at a window. Between flashes of lightning, the evening was pitch-black. Rain streamed in torrents down the plasteel. “There’s much to be said for living in the desert.”

Amelia took the hint. “Hon? We’re going to walk around near Sigmund’s place before dessert.”

“Um-hmm,” came the grunt from the kitchen.

One by one, they flicked to Sigmund’s patio. He went first, to shake his head, No, don’t ask, when Amelia appeared.

Here the suns had yet to set. Sigmund stalked off into the desert, griping to the bugs in the house — about the price of deuterium, about his bad knee, about anything — trusting Amelia to follow. They descended into a twisty arroyo. At the second gnarled juniper, they were out of line of sight of his house, out of range — almost certainly — of the bugs there. “Okay, it’s safe here to talk.”

“Is this about Julia?” Amelia asked anxiously. “Is my daughter all right?”

“As far as I know, Julia is fine. I intend to keep her that way.”