Fate of Worlds: Return From the Ringworld

cargo-hold doors, faster than off-loading to waiting granaries.

Nessus and Baedeker mixed into the crowd pushing aboard a ship. Moments later, under unpracticed mouths, the vessel wobbled off the tarmac.

Nessus led the way inward, toward the bridge, pressing through crowded corridors. Some Citizens trembled with fear and others with relief, while everyone looked dazed. The background din swelled each time they passed the access hatch into one of the herd-packed cargo holds.

“We are pilots,” Nessus howled each time the throngs stymied their progress.

Finally, they came to the entrance to the bridge. The plasteel hatch stood open. Baedeker slipped onto the bridge and Nessus followed.

The main bridge display showed a view from above the plane of the worlds. Hearth glittered with the glow of billions of buildings. Nature Preserve worlds, in varying phases, shone in blue, white, and tan. Icons of traffic-control transponders hung everywhere.

A Citizen with a brown-and-tan-striped hide and brown-and-russet braids sat astraddle the pilot’s bench. At the slam of the hatch closing, he turned a head. “Who are you?”

“We are pilots,” Baedeker answered.

“Good for you,” Stripes sang, turning back to his console.

By then, Nessus had one head in a pocket: the pocket with a sonic stunner. Stripes never knew what hit him.

* * *

AS SOON AS THE GRAIN SHIP landed on Nature Preserve Two, Nessus used bridge controls to open the exterior hatches of the lower cargo holds.

By the hundreds, citizens tumbled to the tarmac. Some froze, stunned by the unfamiliar sight of a sunslit sky and open spaces stretching in every direction to the horizon. Others collapsed. Most ran toward the comparative normality of the terminal building.

“We should go,” Nessus sang. The hallway had emptied, and he and Baedeker cantered to catch up with the mob emptying from the ship. None knew they had restolen the ship.

On this farm world, they could have landed almost anywhere. But while Proteus was not molesting ships fleeing the Fleet, Nessus had been afraid to see how the defensive system would respond to an inbound ship that ignored Space Traffic Control. So here they were in a spaceport that remained under government control. The perimeter fences here still stood.

Drained of the wild energy spent in escaping Hearth, the evacuees formed orderly lines for entrance into the terminal. Neck in neck, Nessus and Baedeker sidled deeper into the crowd.

Until Nessus came close enough to see uniformed security guards standing just inside the terminal doors! “Hang back,” he whispered.

“No one here knows us,” Baedeker whispered back.

No, everyone knew Nessus, at least as seen in the appeals for his capture. And Baedeker had been Hindmost. Colored lenses and coveralls seemed woefully inadequate disguises.

And if no one recognized them? The stunners in their pockets would raise a few questions.

“Give me your stunner,” Nessus murmured.

“Why?”

“No time.” Nessus insinuated a head into Baedeker’s pocket to grab his mate’s weapon. “You go through security first.” And don’t forget your assumed name.

“I’ll meet you on the other side of the gate,” Baedeker crooned.

Nessus held back, studying the screening process. He saw four security personnel, each carrying a stunner, two wearing the crazed look of thugs. Too many to attack — if, somehow, he could excite his mania to such a level — even given the advantage of surprise.

Baedeker reached the front of his line. His answers must have been unsatisfactory, because the guard gestured over another.

But Baedeker had to get through!

Nessus took out his contact lenses and jammed them into a pocket. He opened his coveralls enough for his disheveled mane to peek through. Sidling out of the crowd, he looked shiftily at the guards. Notice me, you fools.

Heads swiveling, scanning the crowd, the guard’s gaze swept right past Nessus.

Somehow, Nessus took a stunner in each mouth. At the loud crackle of his weapons the evacuees scattered, screaming. He stunned two refugees by mistake.

Baedeker’s heads whipped around, and his eyes grew wide. By remaining as everyone around him fled, he would draw attention to himself.

Nessus dropped one weapon to howl, “Go!”

Baedeker stood, frozen.

“Go!” Nessus howled even louder.

With anguish in his eyes, Baedeker turned and ran.

There was a loud sizzle. Legs, necks, torso — everything went numb.

As Nessus toppled, four guards, stunners clenched in their jaws, trotted toward him.

* * *

A DELUGE OF ICY WATER brought Nessus shuddering and sputtering back to awareness. He had been carried off the field to a windowless room. The glow panels were too bright. Two of the spaceport guards stared down at him. The two crazed-looking ones.

“Ready to sing?” one of them asked.

Nessus was sprawled on the floor, limbs splayed out. He willed himself to stand, and nothing happened. If it was too soon after the stunning to stand, perhaps it was also too soon to sing.

A kick in the ribs brought an involuntary bleat from him.

“You don’t need to move, just answer questions,” a guard said.

The dregs of his nervous mania gone, Nessus put what little energy he could muster into the hope his diversion had worked. When he could move, he would channel that energy into rolling up into a catatonic ball.

Catatonia was the best way to endure what must come next.

Splash! More icy water. In his faces. Down his throats. His eyelids fluttered and he coughed. “What do you want?” he gasped.

“A big reward.” One of the guards looked himself in the eyes. “And as soon as Achilles’ representative arrives to collect you, that is what I’ll have.”

What purpose will money serve once the Kzinti arrive to take their revenge? Nessus let his eyes fall shut.

Splash!

“But there is a way to have more money,” the loquacious guard sang. “When we reported your capture, Minister Achilles offered a second reward. Tell me where to find Louis.”

Louis? There was no Louis. Nessus considered explaining. But Achilles had offered a reward for Louis, too. Achilles would not appreciate being taken for a fool — if he even believed Nessus’ explanation.

Memories of Penance Island surfaced, unbidden, in his thoughts.

Another poke in the ribs. “Tell me about Louis.”

This time, Nessus twitched away from the blow. He sang nothing.

“If I find out soon enough to stop Plan Epsilon” — the guard mangled the Greek letter — “the reward will be even greater.”

Nessus tried to roll up, but could hardly tremble.

The second guard sang, “What kind of Citizen are you?”

Insane. I would not be here otherwise.

Nessus tried to remember his garden on New Terra: the tranquility of the honest labor, the simple joy of eating food he himself had grown and harvested. Memories of Sigmund, unbidden, kept popping up instead.

Unable to turn his heads, Nessus managed a human-type snort of laughter. They were out to get him. Worse, they had succeeded.

The talkative guard set a hoof on one of Nessus’ throats and pressed. “Where do we find Louis?”