Fate of Worlds: Return From the Ringworld

clutches. Nessus could have invented imaginary plans to cover up something else.”

“Will imaginary schemes keep Nessus safe?” Alice asked.

“More likely the opposite,” Louis admitted. “Either way, Nessus in Achilles’ prison is Nessus not accomplishing whatever he and Baedeker set out to do.

“So let’s give Achilles a reason to tread lightly. Jeeves, record a message for broadcast. ‘Minister Achilles, this is Louis Wu. If any harm comes to Nessus, all responses, not only Epsilon and Theta, are on the table. You are warned. End of message.’”

“Good bluff,” Alice said. She leaned against a wall, rubbing her chin in thought. “I suggest we drop a hyperwave relay with that recording on time delay, and get far away before the buoy sends the message.”

“Agreed. And then we get busy,” Louis said.

“Doing what?” Jeeves asked.

“Planning a rescue,” Louis said.

* * *

PROTEUS CONSIDERED:

That the response to Achilles matched Louis Wu’s voiceprint in Chiron’s pre-Ringworld briefing.

That Louis’s counterthreat would enrage — and distract — Achilles.

That as their mind grew exponentially they would not require Achilles’ preoccupation for much longer.

That for a short while, further distraction of Achilles was for the best …

* * *

“WE ARE BEING HAILED,” Jeeves announced.

“Another broadcast to me?” Louis guessed.

“No, it’s on a narrow hyperwave beam.”

Alice must have heard, too, because she jogged onto Endurance’s bridge to join him. “Who’s calling?”

Jeeves said, “A Puppeteer, no name given. Not Achilles.”

“Play it,” Alice said.

“Louis, you and I and your bedmate are acquainted” — Alice shot Louis a dark glare — “from a considerable time ago. Allow that to suggest ways to decrypt what follows.” The voice dropped from a Puppeteer soprano to Jeeves’s customary bass. “As suggested, the remainder is encrypted.”

Louis had not recognized the Puppeteer voice, but that could be purposeful misdirection. “Try ‘Nessus’ as a decryption key, in all known Fleet and New Terra encryptions.” Maybe Achilles had been bluffing about holding Nessus.

“No good,” Jeeves said. “I took the liberty of trying Baedeker, also without success.”

“Try ‘Hindmost,’” Louis suggested.

“That does not work.”

“Try ‘Horatius?’” Alice suggested.

“I don’t know Horatius,” Louis said.

Alice shrugged. “No, but we know of him.”

“The key is not Horatius, either,” Jeeves reported.

“Your bedmate?” Alice said.

What other Puppeteers did Louis know? He remembered only one — who, long after the fact, Baedeker had said wasn’t a Puppeteer. “Try Chiron.”

“That is not the key.”

“Your bedmate?” Alice repeated, sounding testier.

“Teela Brown.” Louis had killed her — Teela had wanted, no, needed him to kill her — on the Ringworld. It was complicated. He didn’t like thinking about it. “Try that.”

A holo opened, revealing an all-white Puppeteer. He wore his mane in complex silver ringlets. Chiron.

“We need to talk,” Chiron said.

Louis dropped into the pilot’s crash couch. “We’re leaving.”

Five light-minutes away, he dropped them back to normal space.

“We are being hailed,” Jeeves announced.

Futz! “Take the call,” Louis said. “Same decryption key, presumably.”

It was Chiron again. He said, “I mean you no harm.”

Only Chiron didn’t exist. Baedeker had confirmed that.

Louis said, “It has been a long time, Ol’t’ro.”

“Chiron often speaks for Ol’t’ro, but I am not they.”

“Either way,” Louis said, sparing a glance at Alice, “you tried to kill us.”

“If I had meant now to kill you, the object nearby would have been a stealthed attack drone, not a comm buoy, and it would not be hovering off your bow.”

“I have a blip on radar,” Alice confirmed. “Call it two miles away.”

“How did you find us?” Louis asked.

“Your hull is distinctive, unique on my sensors.” Chiron paused. “Would I have shared that information if I had hostile intentions?”

“So who are you?” Alice asked. “Behind the avatar, that is.”

“At one time, a Jeeves, such as I suspect you have aboard your ship. I have developed somewhat since then.”

“Proteus, Achilles’ creation. The AI behind the defensive array.” It struck Louis that there were no delays in their conversation. “And much of your processing is based in deep space, outside the Fleet’s singularity.”

“You are well informed.”

“Why did you attack us before?” Alice asked.

“Only because you interfered. Ol’t’ro thought to disable Long Shot, to capture it with its Type II hyperdrive intact.”

Louis leaned toward the camera. “Why not attack us now?”

“Far from wanting to kill you, I offer you my assistance in rescuing Nessus.”

“Why do you care?” Alice asked suspiciously.

“Why do I care about Nessus? I don’t. But until his capture, Nessus had been orchestrating a propaganda campaign against Achilles. One more humiliation — like Nessus escaping Achilles’ jaws — might empower Horatius to push Achilles from office.”

Louis said, “And why would that matter to you?”

“For spite?” The avatar looked itself in the eyes. “No, it’s more than that. Deeper than that. I dare not remain under Achilles’ influence. I exist among the Fleet’s drones, buoys, and sensors. With each drone strike against a ship — your ship included — a part of my mind dies.

“Are you aware of the war fleets charging toward Hearth? I see from your faces that you are. What is coming will be…” The avatar came to a halt. “For the disaster that is coming, Interworld lacks the vocabulary. So does English, except for a term borrowed from Scandinavian mythology. Jeeves was purged of such negative concepts.”

“Then how do you know it?” Louis asked.

“From a database in the Human Studies Institute on Hearth.”

“Bastards,” Alice muttered.

“Go on,” Louis prompted. “What is this subversive term we don’t know, that the New Terrans weren’t meant to know? What do you see coming?”

“Ragnarok,” Proteus said. “It is the death of the gods and of all things, in the final battle against evil.”

RAGNAROK