Fate of Worlds: Return From the Ringworld

himself hoarse.

* * *

AT THE LAST MOMENT, Proteus had chosen to defend them, at least in part. Horatius wondered why the change of hearts.

If those antimatter munitions had reached the surface …

But they hadn’t. Directing a stern chord at himself, Horatius got himself under control. The herd depended on him.

Untold amounts of antimatter and an equal quantity of matter had transformed to energy, into gamma rays, just beyond Hearth’s atmosphere. Just beyond — and by that margin, dire catastrophe had become mere misfortune. The atmosphere blocked gamma rays.

But he dare not delay any longer. With his aides milling about, watching anxiously, Horatius reached for his computer to order —

The message-waiting indicator flashed. Only Baedeker had the priority codes to override his privacy settings.

“Leave me,” Horatius ordered.

At last he had the room to himself, and he opened Baedeker’s message. I am in place, but installation was improperly done. I will need the full scheduled time to make repairs.

Meaning not before all the alien fleets were upon them. Dare he wait that long?

* * *

LOUIS TOOK BACK the conn from Jeeves to drop the ship from hyperspace. He had to know what was happening, had to see whether any hope remained of saving Nessus.

And so — as Jeeves mapped the full spectrum of mayhem into the pitifully narrow band of wavelengths the human eye could see, and slowed the tactical display to a rate mere human minds could grasp — Louis and Alice witnessed madness above Hearth: the battle of the General Products factory.

At significant fractions of light speed, dueling ships and robotic craft alike raced across the few million miles of the Fleet’s singularity, jumped to hyperspace, then reappeared nearby to recontest the same territory. There were only four ships — Kzinti had already blasted the skies clear of grain ships — but many, many probes.

Louis lost count of the explosions. Probes of the Fleet destroyed. Kzinti missiles destroyed. One by one, in the most stupendous blasts of all, three attacking ships transformed into fireballs of pure energy.

The last of the Patriarchy ships managed to fire off all its antimatter munitions before getting hit. Drilling a fiery hole through Hearth’s perpetually dark skies, it held together long enough to plow halfway across a continent before exploding.

In the ship’s trail, one by one, arcologies collapsed.

Stepping discs, Louis told himself. Arcology residents could evacuate in an instant. If anything was instinctive to Puppeteers, it was running from danger. They would be all right.

Unless the warning came too late. Or the disc system overloaded from billions trying to escape the same small swath of territory at the same time. Or already catatonic with fear, they never got the warning. Or the warning they did get pushed them over the abyss into catatonia. Or, or, or. Imagining the many ways an evacuation could go awry, Louis was glad he didn’t have a closer view.

Alice had turned ashen. In a small voice she asked, “Why did Proteus change his mind?”

Had Proteus? Louis doubted it. “I suspect those Kzinti made the mistake of attacking something that Proteus cared about.”

Why was the General Products factory important to Proteus? For the life of him, Louis could not guess.

47

“All they accomplished was making the rubble bounce,” Louis said despairingly.

That and kill untold numbers of Puppeteers, Alice thought, sharing his anguish. She got out of her seat to stand behind him, her hands on his shoulders, kneading. On the relax-room table their dinners were untouched. “I know,” she said.

One day after the Kzinti raid, a Trinoc smart-munitions bombardment had erupted from hyperspace. It was deja vu: same surprise attack, same indifference to surrender offers, same hail of destruction on any facility possessed of even the slightest defensive potential.

While Proteus pulled back and watched. Whether by luck or strategy, the Trinocs had not targeted the main GP orbital factory.

Louis reached up to squeeze Alice’s hand. “Elements of the ARM will be along soon enough. They’ll no more accept a Kzinti takeover of the Fleet than the Trinocs will.”

“We can’t stop any of them,” she said. “After living on New Terra, part of me can’t help thinking that the Puppeteers had their comeuppance coming. But not this. Not innocents slaughtered from the skies.”

“You didn’t see the Fringe War. The Ringworld, for all its immensity, was fragile. And each group was so determined that no one else could control it, could plumb its secrets, that three militaries were on the verge of destroying it.”

And the Fleet of Worlds had no Tunesmith to whisk it away.

“Less hopelessness, more action,” Louis decided. He squeezed her hand once more, then stood. “Jeeves, get me Proteus.”

“Yes, Louis.”

A moment later, in another voice, the nearby intercom speaker announced, “I am here, Louis. What can I do for you?”

“Tell me how I can rescue Nessus.”

“That will be difficult,” Proteus said.

“I want solutions, not problems,” Louis said.

“Let me be more precise,” Proteus said. “I no longer have a confirmed location for Nessus. We must hope that his transfer to NP1 was completed successfully.”

“Hope Nessus has fallen into Achilles’ clutches?” Alice said. “Finagle, why?”

“Because not even a General Products hull offers a defense against antimatter,” Proteus said. “If Nessus did not reach NP1 safely, then either the Kzinti destroyed his ship in transit, or he was still waiting at that grain terminal and spaceport when a Kzinti antimatter warhead flattened everything for two miles in every direction.”

* * *

THE FINAL ELEMENTS FELL INTO PLACE. The final mathematical cross-checks confirmed everything. The final equations were so simple. So elegant. So … ineffably beautiful.

Completing the analysis had been exhausting.

“Eat. Rest. Then we will consider the implications,” Ol’t’ro told their units.

In a flutter of thoughts, a flurry of memories, as the engrams of the departed ebbed once more into obscurity, the meld dissolved. The overmind faded and —

Once more, she was Cd’o.

What had happened? What had been decided? The specifics, as after many melds, eluded her. Something about hyperdrive and planetary drives somehow tapping the same energy sources, only it was deeper than that. And something else?

A meld mate had already opened the hatch. She jetted from the melding chamber, desperate for the food and camaraderie of the Commons. And more food. And then, sleep. Only as she swam, flashing colorful greetings to everyone she met, she doubted that sleep would come.

Another meld mate swam up close beside her. “That was confusing,” Vs’o said. Outside the meld, he was a