The summons to rule must come soon.
Until then, Achilles had an accession ceremony to plan.
27
Louis had never skimmed the surface of a neutron star, like his stepfather. He had not, like Sigmund, turned whole worlds into shrapnel to defeat the Pak fleets. How many had?
But Louis had pillaged a Pak warship, stalked a Pak fleet, and burgled the Pak Library. He had come to see himself as quite the adventurer. The shoot-down of Clementine, a disastrous involvement with the Wunderland underground, and painkiller addiction belonging to some remote past seemed like mishaps that had befallen another person. Well, so they had: Nathan Graynor.
But the adventuring phase of Louis’s life had ended as abruptly as it had begun. Sigmund and Alice, for quite different reasons, and “for your own good,” did not want amateurs involved in spying or defense. Nessus remained ensnared in affairs on Hearth.
Louis, it turned out, had one marketable skill: master chef. No matter that he could not find Earth, Home, Wunderland, or Fafnir. He remembered and could reproduce their cuisines.
His future on New Terra looked secure—and mundane.
Reinventing recipes involved a lot of waiting for things to rise, melt, thicken, brown, bake, or cool. He read, listened to music, filled a notepad with sketches and began a new one. He spent way too much time in front of New Terra’s equivalent to 3-V. And like most of New Terra’s population, he found himself riveted.
Many New Terrans had grown up under Concordance rule, and they monitored the Citizen broadcasts relayed by hyperwave buoys. For more than a century Concordance politics had been a spectator sport. Only now the New Terrans watched with the guilty fascination of gawkers at a traffic accident.
While New Terra—scrupulously neutral—observed, affairs between Puppeteers and Gw’oth seemed headed for disaster. And under the strain, Baedeker’s government was coming unglued. Louis had no opinion about Baedeker, but he did know Achilles.
All Puppeteers who left Hearth were insane; Louis understood that. He had known Nessus at his most manic and depressed into catatonia. Achilles was more than insane. Worse than insane. Achilles was a sociopath. That Achilles might become Hindmost was monstrous.
Meanwhile Louis, retired adventurer, watched 3-V and puttered in Alice’s kitchen.
When Sigmund called Louis to ask if he might come to the Ministry of Defense, Louis leapt at the chance.
Uniformed guards escorted Louis from the Ministry Building’s foyer. More guards waited outside Sigmund’s office. One opened the door to let Louis in.
He found Sigmund and Alice inside. Alice smiled unconvincingly.
The office was much as Louis remembered it, only the atmosphere had changed. There had been tension on Louis’s prior visit, but that was personal. The aura today was foreboding.
“Thank you for coming, Louis,” Sigmund said. “Something to drink?”
“Sure.” Louis synthed a cup of coffee for himself and sat. “What’s going on?”
Sigmund said, “We’ve told you that New Terra trades with the Gw’oth. No one mentioned that we have a source aboard every ship.”
“The spymaster has spies. I’m shocked, Sigmund.” Louis sipped coffee, waiting. The synthesizer needed adjustment.
Alice leaned forward. “A freighter reached Jm’ho recently, and the captain reported back to us by hyperwave.”
“And?”
“And,” Sigmund said, “an interesting event happened on Jm’ho just before the Gw’oth launched their fleet. It’s probably what provoked the military response. I’m hoping you’ll see something everyone here has missed.”
“An interesting event.” That was awfully vague, Louis thought. Was this another of Sigmund’s tests? “You’re not volunteering much, but I’ll hazard a guess. Ol’t’ro struck back. A retaliatory bioattack, maybe?”
Sigmund shook his head. “Not a bioattack. But Ol’t’ro? If only because I’m stymied, I could easily see their involvement.”
“Just tell me, tanj it!” Louis said.
Alice looked at Sigmund, who nodded. She said, “We’ve never encountered anything like it. For half a day, someone or something suppressed fusion reactions in power plants across Jm’ho. I spent my morning discussing this with physicists. They insist it’s impossible.”
“So your captain has it wrong.” Louis laughed cynically. “Or complain to Nessus when you next see him. He brought you the wrong Wu.”
Sigmund said, “You’ve heard what our scientists say. In similar circumstances Carlos once told me, ‘Reality trumps theory every time.’ ”
“I’m no scientist, Sigmund. Why did you ask me here?”
“Honest answer? Desperation. If fusion-suppression technology exists, it would make a fearsome weapon. A weapon against which New Terra would have no defense. So if there is anything you might know, any rumor you might have heard in Known Space, any offhand remark from Nessus, anything in the Gw’oth files you saw on Aegis, anything at all . . . we need to hear it.”
“Nessus volunteers information about as freely as you, Sigmund. Sorry.” Louis gripped the arms of his chair, ready to stand. Ready to slink home, to putter uselessly in the kitchen.
And then it hit him: the possible source Sigmund had not mentioned. The Pak. The attack on Jm’ho, whatever attacks Jm’ho’s fleet now undertook, everything was Louis’s fault. If only he had not started decoding the Library. . . .
Louis shuddered.
“What is it?” Alice asked anxiously.
“In the Pak Library, a file dealing with fission. I saw something about dampening fields. It meant nothing to me.”
“And,” Sigmund prompted.
“And,” Louis said, “Achilles was with me in the lab at the time. I’m guessing the article meant a lot more to him.”
28
Beneath Hearth’s largest ocean, below its stony crust, deep within its mantle, an artificial cavern hid.
Secrecy and the remote location had once sufficed to maintain the cavern’s concealment. No longer. The more technology enabled the finding of hidden places, the more countermeasures had been deployed. Now sophisticated shielding subtly deflected any probes, whether by electromagnetic waves or neutrino beams.
Communications between the cavern and the rest of the universe relied upon neutrino micro-bursts, routed through a buried array of communication relays that ringed the planet. Only radio signals of extremely long wavelength could penetrate to the cavern’s depth, and the large antennae needed to send or receive those wavelengths would have hinted unacceptably at the cavern’s existence.
The tunnel that had originally given access to the cavern was long vanished, obliterated by the mantle’s relentless heat and pressure. Stepping discs provided the only ways in or out, but not just any stepping discs. The addressing scheme was nonstandard; the discs’ addresses were closely held secrets; the inter-disc transmissions were securely encrypted. And while radio waves interconnected the stepping-disc system on Hearth’s surface, the cavern’s discs responded only to modulated neutrino beams.
Those who had built and first configured the underground facility were long dead. Those few entrusted to maintain the equipment did so without ever knowing where they had been sent—and knowing that their memories would be edited upon the completion of their tasks.
Around the cavern the pressure and heat turned rock into oozing, viscous goo. Except for the pressure, lead and tin would melt at these depths. Yet inside the hidden cavern, life flourished. If one did not peer too closely at the digitally simulated distance, much of the cavern could be mistaken for meadow and woodland.
The little bubble of life, as artificial as the ecology aboard any spaceship, demanded power. Lots and lots of power. Power-gulping force fields to withstand the incredible pressure. Enormous thermal pumps to keep the heat at bay. More power to preserve the privacy shields and run a vast computer complex. Communications gear, teleportation equipment, autodocs, stasis-field generators, synthesizers, and
more: they all took power. To provide that power, the cavern stored enough deuterium—for compactness, compressed and chilled to a solid—to fuel its fusion reactors for thousands of Hearth years.
Unseen, unsuspected, secure against almost unimaginable disaster, the facility waited.
The Hindmost’s Refuge.
Savoring the fragrance of luxuriant pastureland, Baedeker gazed across gently rolling hills. The “sky” shone the cerulean blue of a bygone era; the brilliant orange circle overhead mimicked the sun that had once warmed Hearth. To his left, a shallow creek gurgled. Aside from a stepping disc inset in the meadowplant, the only visible artifact was the synthesizer installed atop a nearby hummock.
The idyllic surroundings were less for Baedeker than for the Companion herd whose tunes of fellowship, mindless and content, wafted from some unseen distance. Companions fared poorly in more realistic conditions. In the event of catastrophe, Companions would become Brides to preserve the race.
Baedeker planted his hooves far apart, unready to run, projecting the confidence he did not feel. Others would join him momentarily. Together they must stop the coming catastrophe.
And if he failed? Who was to say the fusion-suppression field could not penetrate to this depth? Then even the Refuge would be lost.
Motion from the corner of his eye: Nike, his spotless white hide unmistakable, his mane impeccably coiffed, cantered off the stepping disc. Then Demeter appeared, he of the darkly brindled coat. Finally, Chronos, patriarch of the Experimentalists, so ancient that no medical treatment could keep him limber.
No one else would be coming. The living who had ever been Hindmost composed a most exclusive herd. The four brushed heads in greeting.
“I have not visited the Refuge in a long time.” Demeter stared frankly at Baedeker. “Do you think to play on my empathy?”
“I choose this place for secrecy, not empathy,” Baedeker sang back. “Other than yourselves, I no longer know who to trust. Achilles has confederates throughout the government.”
“Achilles has supporters,” Chronos chided.
We all have supporters, Baedeker thought. Unless we four agree to influence our supporters—to pool our strengths, to unite against madness—the government will fall. To be followed by the disaster that is Achilles.
“I sang with care,” Baedeker answered. Grace notes of impatience, unintended, modulated the purposeful motif of friendship. “My concern is not about politics, but rather treachery.”
Nike sidled forward. “Clandestine Directorate internal surveillance had to fail for Achilles to escape. Only the system did not fail; it was bypassed. Achilles had help.” And sadly, “Help from among my own staff.”
Baedeker harmonized, “Yet other ‘supporters’ find ways to distribute Achilles’ treacherous messages. And a Ministry of Science research vessel ignores the general recall sent after Achilles’ disappearance.”
“Are we Conservatives, then,” Demeter intoned, “to obsess about minutiae? Should we not care more about the Gw’oth fleet that rushes at us, as Achilles predicted?”
“Safety before all,” Chronos chanted pointedly.
“What if,” Baedeker asked cautiously, “Achilles brings the Gw’oth?”
Chronos sang in disbelief. “Do you have any proof?”
“Less than proof, but more than suspicion,” Nike sang. “The human Nessus recruited—”
“Nessus!” Chronos fluted with disdain. “I cannot speak to unsubstantiated accusations about Achilles, but I know Nessus has exercised a great deal too much . . . initiative in his time.”
But never the initiative to try to murder another Citizen! Baedeker kept the anger inside, certain that melody would be twisted into a motive for Nessus to lie about Achilles.
“You know only that, Chronos?” Demeter looked himself in the eyes. “I know a bit more.”
Meaning Nessus’ relationship with Baedeker, and a dalliance with Nike before that.
Nike sang, “Louis Wu was raised by Beowulf Shaeffer, who Achilles twice recruited. Beowulf Shaeffer, who discovered the chain reaction at the galactic core.”
“An honorable pedigree,” Demeter conceded.
Nike went on. “Nessus, Achilles, and Louis together recovered a large part of the Pak Library. One file—”
“The assertion,” Chronos sang, “was that Achilles somehow leads the Gw’oth.”
“Not leads them,” Baedeker corrected. “Brings them. Provokes them. We all know Achilles. He has always aspired to power. Perhaps his warnings are so prescient because he created the crisis.
“You all also know Sigmund Ausfaller, another result of Nessus showing initiative.” Sigmund, without whose paranoid brilliance the Pak would have destroyed New Terra and Hearth—and Jm’ho, too. Only Sigmund had also tangled with Achilles. And with Nike, at the time Hindmost. The galaxy had become far too complex. “Clandestine Directorate trades information with Ausfaller. He reports that—”
This time Demeter interrupted. “Not subtle, Baedeker, mentioning Ausfaller to remind us of the Pak War and your own contributions.”
Baedeker raised his voices, loud undertunes demanding respect for his office. “Ausfaller reports that the Gw’oth fleet set out after an attack on their home world. For a time, fusion reactors around Jm’ho . . . stopped. And that is the technology Louis Wu—and Achilles—encountered in the Pak Library.”
Chronos’ necks wriggled sinuously, in unapologetic surprise. “And you surmise Achilles used Pak technology to incite the Gw’oth? That he expected, amid crisis, we would install him as head of the Party?”
Were you not about to? Baedeker thought contemptuously.
“We believe so,” Nike chanted.
“I would like a moment,” Demeter crooned soothingly. He gestured to Chronos. At the slow hobble that was all that Chronos could manage, they walked behind the nearest hill.
The rolling hills were as artificial as everything within the cavern. A chain of knolls disguised tunneling equipment, because a sufficient disaster might destroy all stepping discs on Hearth’s surface. The largest mounds held small ships with which to escape through any newly drilled passageway.
For the first time, Baedeker wondered if even this refuge could offer safety.
A considerable while later, the two returned. Demeter sang, “Perhaps it is not too late to resolve matters with the Gw’oth. Baedeker, we will support this government if efforts are made to negotiate. General Products has a representative on Jm’ho, surely.”
“The representative who failed to report why the Gw’oth launched their fleet?” Nike fixed Demeter with a frank, two-headed stare. “Another ‘supporter’ of Achilles. We are forced to rely on Sigmund’s agent on Jm’ho.”
Shaken, Demeter repeated, “We will support this government.”
29
Valiant was the grandest vessel in Tn’ho’s navy, and the ship’s council chamber was the largest room aboard. That made the never-ending strategy sessions only badly overcrowded, even with most captains participating by radio from their own ships.
At the journey’s outset, Bm’o had presided daily. He had had to respond quickly to Ol’t’ro’s provocation, and that meant planning and adapting as they flew. Much had happened quickly—because it had to.
Engineering teams enhanced the ships’ electromagnetic shielding to better deflect the spray of oncoming interstellar muck. Protected by the improved shielding, the ships had accelerated to half light speed before entering hyperspace. All the while crews built fuel cells, deploying them in every unused nook of shipboard space.
Most of his fleet would reenter normal space on a course that grazed the rebels’ solar system. They would launch missiles immediately. The ships’ prodigious momentum would carry them to safety if—against all odds—the rebels somehow hit relativistic targets with their fusion suppressor. The fuel cells would maintain shields until their reactors could be restarted.
Most of his fleet. His lead ships would exit hyperspace aimed directl
y at the rebel world. Suppress their reactors—if Ol’t’ro should be so foolish—and the ships became deadlier projectiles than the missiles they carried. A single missile or ship strike would utterly destroy the rebels.
Ol’t’ro could surrender. Or die. After a few days aboard the overcrowded warship, Bm’o scarcely cared which.
But the trip was long, made longer by the period of prolonged acceleration before entering hyperspace, and the information with which to make plans never changed. Still the generals planned.
Now Bm’o favored his cabin. He went to the council chamber only sporadically, entrusting the fine-tuning of the plan to his generals. They were only keeping their minds busy.
“Peasants are busy,” Rt’o liked to remind him. “The ruler thinks.”
Neither were rulers to be lonely, and yet he missed his counselor.
In the privacy of his cabin, Bm’o permitted a blue-green flush of emotion to wash over him. Even had Rt’o been fit enough for the rigors of shipboard life, who else might govern for so long in his place? Who else did he trust?
They consulted, of course, but Jm’ho was deep inside a singularity where hyperwave could not reach. The radio relay added delay. Their exchange of messages was a poor excuse for conversation.
Still, with a new challenge emerging at home, Bm’o felt fortunate that wily Rt’o served as his regent. The captain of a New Terran trading vessel denouncing the General Products representative? Claiming to speak for the Concordance? More likely, New Terra was in league with Ol’t’ro and hoped to dissuade any reprisal on the rebels.
The overlapping crises only made Bm’o desire Rt’ o’s counsel that much more.
Bm’o jetted about his cabin. Idleness required no special skill, and brooding was no substitute for thought. Thinking was hard. “What would you advise?” he asked the empty cabin. “What remains to be thought about?” And he answered himself as Rt’o might have answered him. “What do you least wish to think about?”