Now four trainees buzzed around him, discussing uncertainties. Higher up the sandy slope, others milled about, confused by the delay.
“Leave us,” Achilles thundered at Nessus. “I have no patience for your juvenile failure of imagination.” Achilles had to deal with the swelling murmurs all around. In his mind, he was already the Hindmost of a seabed arcology. There must be respect for his authority.
Nessus had introduced doubt. Like a pebble rolling downhill, the disturbance grew. Unable to still the cacophony, Achilles ordered the cadets back to their dormitory.
Soon after, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reorganized the scout academy. And so he was first sent to Kzin.
A COMMUNICATOR TRILLED discreetly from a pocket of Achilles’ decorative sash. “Achilles,” he answered softly.
“You are summoned to the Hindmost’s suite,” a resonant contralto said. “We have established hyperwave communications with Nessus. The conference begins momentarily.”
Dismounting from his padded bench, Achilles pivoted heads and looked himself briefly in the eyes. Some disciples remained true.
It warmed Achilles’ hearts that loyal, pliant Vesta now headed Clandestine Directorate.
40
Ian Girard hunched over his little-kid table, lips pursed in concentration. He labored away on his electronic tablet with a stylus gripped in his chubby fist.
Sigmund sat beside Andrea on the sofa in her LA apartment. She was dye free, scrubbed clean for space. (Until last night, he’d had no idea she was blond.) Guilt didn’t remove so easily; it was plain on her face as she watched her son sketch. Amid that guilt of abandonment bubbled hints of excitement. This would be her first long-range mission.
Sigmund stood for a better perspective on Ian’s art. He saw two sort-of stick figures, their arms and legs emerging directly from enormous heads, separated by a triangle of similar height. “Who are they, champ?” Sigmund asked.
Ian glanced up. “Mommy and you.”
Andrea chortled at his double take. “Just because you’re here, Sigmund.”
Not because he had spent the night, or any childish expectations thereof. “Who’s who, Ian?” he asked.
Ian pointed. “This is you in black, silly. Mommy wears colors.”
Andrea laughed again, eyes twinkling. “It’s a beautiful picture, Sweetie. Sigmund just isn’t used to your style.”
Sigmund wondered what he’d gotten himself into. He’d happily return; he felt warm and uncharacteristically relaxed here. Andrea’s intentions were the mystery. For all he knew, last night was only about preflight jitters. “Is this a house?” he asked the boy.
“No way!” Ian scribbled vigorously beneath the triangle. Flames? “It’s a spaceship. Like Mommy is going on.”
Hobo Kelly would launch on thrusters, of course. It also had a fusion drive, which doubled as a weapon, but launching from Earth on fusion drive would send a pilot straight to the organ banks—assuming he was caught.
Andrea’s headshake, peripherally glimpsed, closed Sigmund’s mouth. No three-year-old needed to hear that. “Great spaceship,” Sigmund said.
“Good save,” she mouthed.
What a simple joy it must be to raise a child. Andrea experienced paranoia only through chemicals; she’d had no trouble getting a birthright. Even though he knew only a short-term marriage contract had been involved, Sigmund thought the departed father was a fool.
A few hours around Ian, and Bey raising Carlos’s children suddenly made sense. Maybe Feather’s obsessions did, too. And maybe also Feather’s anger at Sigmund.
Now Sigmund felt guilty. Guiltier? That Andrea might diagnose his uncertainty made him guiltier still.
Andrea waved at the bulging backpack by the door. “Sweetie, your aunt Tina will be here in a minute for you. Save your great picture and put away your tablet.” When he only scribbled that much more furiously, she added, “Seriously, Ian. Finish up.”
“Stay home, Mommy,” Ian said. He circled the triangle/rocket with the stylus, and dragged the symbol over the black stick figure. “Sigmund, you go.”
Sigmund froze. His heart pounded. He had begged his parents to stay, and he’d been ten at the time.
“Ian, Mommy has to go now.” Andrea brushed past Sigmund, pressed the save button on the tablet, and picked up the little device. “Sigmund would come if he could.”
But he couldn’t! Childhood nightmares mingled in his mind’s eye with autodoc alarms glowing red, Carlos dying inside. Sigmund shook, and thought he might puke. Could he ever leave Earth again? If so, it wouldn’t be on Hobo Kelly.
“You’ll have fun with Aunt Tina.” Andrea used a this-time-I-really-mean-it tone, and Ian scooted.
Sigmund held it together until Andrea’s sister and Ian departed.
“I’m looking forward to this,” Andrea said. “I know why you won’t, but there’s plenty of room aboard if you decide to join us.”
Us: an ARM naval crew and marines. They’d probably find nothing, “north” being rather vague as a clue. They could almost surely outrun and outgun anything hostile they encountered.
None of which halted Sigmund’s trembling. “I don’t think so.”
They went to the building’s roof. He unlocked his rental air car for the short jump to Mojave Spaceport. “Any last-minute questions?”
“Only one. Will we celebrate my triumphant return just as enthusiastically?” He must have looked surprised, because she patted his arm. “I do plan to return, you know.”
“That’s an order,” he said. “And the answer to your question is yes.”
HOBO KELLY ROSE noiselessly, swung slowly to orient itself into the spaceport traffic pattern, and accelerated. In a moment, it was invisible to the naked eye.
Sigmund peered into the cloudless desert sky for minutes after the ship disappeared. “Godspeed,” he whispered. Then he set out for the commercial terminal, for the short, suborbital flight back to New York, there to practice the skill he was worst at.
Waiting.
41
Baedeker struggled to grasp how his life had so suddenly changed. A sumptuous private cabin had replaced the communal hardship of the Rehabilitation Corps. He once more enjoyed a proper grooming and a professionally styled mane. He was in space, again.
One change eclipsed all others. He was suddenly, if tentatively, in the confidence of the Hindmost himself, observing great affairs of state.
Observing, but not participating. The Hindmost had directed Baedeker to monitor in secrecy from his cabin. He stood and watched—and wondered why.
The Hindmost seemed to think nothing of the casual informality with which the two scouts addressed him, simply, as Nike. It was well known that scouts were insane; surely, this proved it.
And one of those scouts, the one participating by hyperwave radio, had ruined Baedeker’s life: Nessus.
The Deputy Minister, Vesta, kept the social niceties short. “Nessus, you requested an urgent, real-time consultation.”
Nessus bobbed heads. “The problem is urgent. My most highly placed agent has informed me of an ARM exploratory vessel traveling in your direction.”
“Then you have failed,” Achilles said. The bass harmonics oozed disdain.
“It wasn’t my neutronium traps that drew ARM attention,” Nessus snapped back.
“At least I tried. How much accumulated General Products wealth have you squandered failing to distract the ARM?” Achilles rebutted.
As the scouts quarreled, Baedeker struggled to understand why he was here. Through his family, he had sent word from exile to onetime colleagues at General Products: “It doesn’t take antimatter.” Everything after that happened with amazing speed.
“We need recommendations, not argument,” Vesta interjected finally.
Baedeker had never considered himself socially skilled. Banishment and near isolation on Nature Preserve 1 changed that. There, often with only memories for companionship, he had endlessly revisited past conversations. His newfoun
d ear for nuance sensed ulterior motives and strained relations. Why did Vesta act so deferentially toward Achilles?
“Here’s a recommendation,” Achilles said. “Destroy Earth. That will distract the humans. If we had begun accelerating a stealthed ship when Ausfaller first began snooping—”
“You’re insane,” Nessus screamed. “It would be genocide, and it would solve nothing. Suppose the ARM ship locates us. If harm comes to Earth, or even to every human world, that ship alone can likewise shatter Hearth.”
Achilles shouted back, “They won’t, not if we make it seem Kzinti are behind the attack.”
“Meaning double the genocide.” Nessus trembled in rage.
“What is your alternative?” Vesta challenged.
“Lead them astray.” Nessus’ necks trembled, as he fought not to pluck his mane. “We know approximately where the ARM ship will emerge from hyperspace. Have our ships waiting. When the humans emerge, subtly lure them in a safe direction.”
“There’s no harm in trying,” Vesta commented.
“No!” Achilles stretched to his full height. “If they’re not misled, they can hyperwave back what they see.”
“They might anyway,” Nessus retorted.
Baedeker pawed at the deck in confusion. The tension between the scouts was palpable. Did the fates of worlds turn on their past hatreds? And why did Vesta seem to defer to Achilles, his subordinate?
The Hindmost watched in silence. “Do you have an alternative?” he messaged Baedeker privately.
With that challenge, the pieces fell into place. Baedeker messaged back, “I do. May I join the conference, Hindmost?”
The Hindmost fluted for attention. With a quick wriggle of lip nodes, he expanded the holo conference. “I’ve asked a technical consultant to participate. Baedeker?”
Nessus twitched. In that reaction, Baedeker read the scruffy scout’s thoughts. I gave him that name. Does he use it now to mock me? Let him wonder. Baedeker said, “We destroy the human ship, not their world.”
“Surely ARMs explore with an indestructible General Products hull.” Nessus looked himself in the eyes. “Or have you finally found antimatter?”
“I have finally learned that our hulls can be destroyed without antimatter.” Baedeker straightened, hoping to project more confidence than he felt. “Nessus, your alien scouts learned too much about how we build the hulls.” Because you told them. “But let us learn from that fiasco.
“Recall that the hull is a single supermolecule, the normal interatomic bonds reinforced with energy from an embedded power plant. Shut down the power plant and simple air pressure will blow apart the hull.”
“I thought the power plant was sealed,” Achilles said.
Baedeker bobbed heads. “True, the embedded power plant has no external controls. But since the hulls are transparent, laser signaling can turn them off.”
Vesta whistled with confusion. “Surely not. Why embed an off command?”
“Humans are very good with math and computers.” Nessus seemed to be thinking aloud. With a shiver, he returned his attention to the conference. “There is no off switch, but there are embedded processors. Optical computers, embedded in transparent hull material. That’s it, Nike. Obviously they found a way to optically hack into the controls and shut them down.”
Hack? Baedeker guessed that was a wild-human word. Its meaning was clear. “Obviously?”
The Hindmost trumpeted for attention. “Let us return to the current danger. Baedeker, advise us how best to proceed.”
42
“Do you see anything interesting?” Sigmund asked.
Carlos glanced up from the mission highlights Sigmund had brought him here to discuss. “Other than that all the astronomical data has been scrubbed? That, by the way, doesn’t surprise me. I was surprised, after walking from a public transfer booth a quarter kilometer away, to encounter a private transfer booth in your foyer.”
“Mine is out of order.” The ability of Cerberus to tamper with the teleportation system being an undisclosed feature, in a manner of speaking Sigmund had answered truthfully. Any public-booth destination must be safer than his personal booth.
Their attempts at small talk had been painful. Sigmund didn’t want to hear any anecdote that involved Feather. Carlos, in his usual way, wouldn’t say much about his R & D on an advanced autodoc. The approach involved nanotech, Sigmund inferred. Direct questions got him only an enigmatic smile. “I’m making progress,” was all that Carlos was prepared to share.
“About that data scrubbing,” Sigmund began.
Carlos shrugged it off. “Classified. I get that. You’d be surprised, however, to know just how high my security clearance is.”
You wouldn’t be here, Sigmund thought, if I didn’t know that.
Carlos rubbed his hands briskly. “All right then. Let’s dig in. Are the beacons directional, distant, or both?”
“Mildly directional,” Sigmund answered. “Semi-spherical emissions.” The mysterious beacons broadcast only to the galactic north of their positions. They were distant, well beyond the ill-defined region considered Human Space. He wasn’t about to give clues, however vague, to the location of Hobo Kelly. “Why did you ask?”
“It had to be at least one. Otherwise, someone would have discovered them long ago.”
Sigmund stood and stared at his living-room window. He did it only from habit, the view having been set opaque for privacy.
Hobo Kelly had been prowling farther and farther to galactic north. Andrea’s orders were to remain far from stars, using only passive sensors, the better to observe undetected—and the better to escape on short notice into hyperspace.
No solar system they had surveyed revealed any signs of technology in action. No radio leakage. No obvious atmospheric pollution. No artificial energy sources. As they hid from nothing at all, it had begun to seem to Sigmund that he had his explorers behaving more like Puppeteers than like Puppeteer seekers.
Until Andrea hyperwaved back about the array of beacons.
Sigmund turned abruptly. “You’re right,” he said to Carlos. “I can hardly have the benefit of your insight without sharing information.”
“Thank you.” Carlos smiled, as if to ask: Was that so hard? “So there’s an ARM ship out exploring. It’s in virgin territory—no evidence of intelligence. Suddenly, it gets to a place humming with hyperwave signals. All messages are unintelligible and of the same short length. What else?”
Sigmund considered. “A few occasional hyperdrive traces, ripples of ships entering and leaving hyperspace. Those could be from anywhere, of course.”
“Hyperwave navigational beacons?” Carlos mused. “I mean the signals, not the drive ripples.”
“You mean like global positioning satellites.” Sigmund had used Global Positioning System locators in Alaska. Much of the state remained empty and wild.
“Loosely speaking. With GPS, you calculate your position from the slight differences in arrival time between signals from different orbiting clocks. Hyperwave radio is instantaneous; you hear all transmitters at once. You have to calculate your position from your bearings to a number of transmitters.”
“Beacons. That’s what the crew decided.”
“No signs of settled worlds, but hyperwave signals.” Carlos closed his eyes and leaned his head onto the back of the sofa. He was quiet for a long time.
Something grated on Sigmund’s nerves. It might have been Carlos’s tuneless humming, but Sigmund didn’t think so. “Talk to me. What’s on your mind?”
Carlos opened his eyes and leaned forward. “Why not just use stars for beacons?”
“You tell me.”
“I can’t.” Carlos resumed his tuneless humming. “Advanced tech in an apparently unoccupied region. And the signals are directional, so that we don’t normally receive them.”
“Border markers?” Sigmund asked. Maybe Hobo Kelly had finally found its way to Puppeteer space.
“Possibly.”
“But you don’t think so,” Sigmund prompted.
“I don’t know.” More humming. “Sigmund, don’t you ever deal with easy problems?”
Under other circumstances, knowing about Carlos and Feather, Sigmund might have found some obscure satisfaction in baffling the certified genius. But an ARM military crew and Andrea were in harm’s way. This was the wrong time to stump Carlos.
“An alarm, perhaps,” Carlos finally said. “When someone crosses your border, you want to know about it.”
“Our ship has every type of sensor imaginable. There’s been no contact, Carlos. No radio, laser, maser—nothing on any wavelength. No neutrino pulses. Nothing.”
“Not nothing,” Carlos rebutted. “Your ship has sensed hyperwaves.”
An unpleasant truth hung just beyond Sigmund’s grasp. “Where are you going with this?”
“Radar,” Carlos said in wonder. “It could be hyperwave futzy radar.”
“There’s no such thing.” But if there were, it would locate things instantaneously, wouldn’t it? “Is there?”
“There could be.” An eerie assurance settled over Carlos. “Well, not radar exactly. Hyperwave pulses travel instantaneously, as do their echoes. You can’t calculate a distance from the round-trip delay time. But if you were to take bearings on a bunch of echoes . . . and if the receivers compared notes instantaneously . . .”
Then you have hyperspace radar.
Those hyperdrive ripples! Those were the tracks of vessels stalking Hobo Kelly, chasing after it as it hyperspace-hopped around! “Medusa,” Sigmund shouted. “Send the recall code immediately.”
But immediately could not negate the light-speed crawl out to Southworth Station. It would be hours before the recall got to Hobo Kelly.
He could only hope it wasn’t already too late.
ANDREA GIRARD PEERED from the relayed message streaming from Southworth Station, oblivious to the cheering in the ARM war room.
Relief washed over Sigmund. It wasn’t too late.
“We got the recall notice. Sigmund, this ship has a Generals Products hull. We know all about the blackhole trick now. And there aren’t any neutron stars around. If we find one, we’ll stay far away. So I ask you: What can anyone possibly do to us?”