“I’ll arrange for its storage,” Eric said. “You and Sven should move along.”
Sigmund stared at the disc. He couldn’t remember when he had last used a transfer booth. And yet—if Eric spoke the truth—that caution hadn’t kept him from the mouths of the Puppeteers.
Sigmund flicked into a dimly lit space. It was an ordinary warehouse . . . almost. The under-eave windows were oddly shaped. In shadowy corners, unfamiliar mechanisms droned with an unpleasant pitch. The colors—everything—seemed subtly wrong. He scarcely noticed Omar take hold of his elbow and guide him off the stepping disc. The floor felt strangely warm and resilient. Moments later, Sven flicked through.
A wall-mounted mirror showed Sigmund looking even younger than he felt. He could pass for twenty! Nanotech, Carlos had said. That meant Carlos’s autodoc could have repaired Sigmund down to the cellular level, could have undone a lifetime’s transcription errors in every strand of DNA. His sudden rejuvenation was a miracle Sigmund was too numb to take in.
In a fog, Sigmund put on a jumpsuit and boots like those worn by his escorts. The material felt eerily slick. Somehow, pinching the fabric, he set off a kaleidoscope of colors. Dynamically programmable nanocloth! Sven did something to configure the garment to a sedate and static pattern.
A bowl of fruit, mundane as could be, sat on an oval table. Sigmund extracted a random piece from the middle of the heap. It was, unambiguously, a green apple. Suddenly he was ravenous. He devoured the apple and two bananas, then chugged a tall glass of water. He wiped his mouth on the back of a hand. “That, at least, was normal. So what now?”
“Now we give you a tour.” Omar discarded the core of the pear he had been eating. “Before you’ll accept anything else, we have to convince you New Terra is a human world.”
WITH OMAR IN the fore, Sigmund flicked—
To a bustling town square, where men and women scurried about dressed in every color of the rainbow. Earth bowed to no world in its palette of clothing and skin dyes, but these buildings! Their colors clashed horribly, and the shapes and textures troubled the mind. Sigmund tore away his gaze, and followed Omar to another stepping disc—
To a park, where strolling families enjoyed the suns. (No! I can’t think about that.) He focused on the people. Men and women alike wore much more jewelry than flatlanders. Adults with children wore the most. And so many children. . . . Sigmund stepped after Sven this time—
To a farm, where workers piloted floating conveyances across a sea of corn that stretched as far as the eye could see. Where were the birds? Sigmund wondered, as Sven led the way—
To a schoolyard, where boys and girls ran around the playground, shrieking in glee. But that playground equipment! Everything was low and soft and rounded, the Puppeteer influence undeniable. Before Sigmund could comment, Omar stepped ahead—
To a shopping district ringed with storefronts, people (and a few Puppeteers) streaming in and out of the shops, and flicking in and out of sight from an array of stepping discs.
Sigmund surely saw thousands, more likely tens of thousands, of people, across many locations. Some places it was midday and the sky was rife with suns; other places were experiencing dawn or the approach of dusk. Sigmund had no idea where on this world he was, or how much time had passed since his revival.
Flick. On to yet someplace else. Another park, Sigmund guessed, as his eyes adjusted to the sudden dark. A brilliant object shone overhead, streaking across the sky.
“An orbital station?” Sigmund surmised.
“An orbiting ancient ramscoop.” Mixed notes of pride and anger rang in Sven’s voice. “It’s where our story begins—and how we obtained our freedom.”
“Of course we also have more modern starships,” Omar added.
These strangers controlled starships! Then he could go back to Earth! Andrea and Hobo Kelly had searched toward . . .
Toward what?
It was so simple, so on the tip of Sigmund’s tongue. The harder he tried to articulate it, the faster the answer skittered away. It was as though—
“Nessus erased my memories!” Unfamiliar stars sparkled overhead, mocking Sigmund. He smacked a fist into his other hand. “I can’t find Earth.”
Omar flinched. “Then we have all lost newly reawakened hopes.”
SIGMUND’S GUIDES (OR captors?) stepped him to yet one more bustling public square. Here it was midday, and three strings of suns shone overhead. Passersby went about their business, ignoring Sigmund and his guides.
Whistling tunelessly, Sven shuffled up the broad front steps into a sprawling low-rise building. He led the way down a long corridor to a large office suite, where a discreet sign announced: New Terra Archives. Office of the Archivist. Inside, Sven was greeted warmly, and even deferentially.
It finally occurred to Sigmund to wonder who, other than minions of Nessus, his escorts were.
“This way,” Sven said. He palmed an ID pad at the end of a hallway, and a door fell open. He retreated behind a cluttered desk heaped with untidy stacks of printout. Odd images, low-quality holos and oil paintings and framed handicrafts Sigmund could not characterize, hung on the walls. Old artifacts lay jumbled on shelves. “Make yourselves comfortable.”
Sigmund took a chair. “Are you the archivist for this world?”
“Indeed.” Sven picked up a watering can and tended to a sickly potted plant sitting on the windowsill, not meeting Sigmund’s eyes. “You can imagine how eager I am to talk with you.”
The shy deference was too surreal. Everything was. “Tanj it, I want answers! Why was I kidnapped? When will Nessus explain himself?” Sigmund turned to glower at Omar and Eric. “How are you all involved with Nessus? Are you also in the government?”
Eric canted his head. “Tanj? Kidnapped? I’m not following. Sigmund, I’d like to reactivate the translator. Whatever you speak isn’t English, exactly.”
But kidnapped was English. The Lindbergh baby had been kidnapped long before Spanglish or Inter-world. “What happened here? Your version of English has been purged.”
“Our language?” Eric said. His eyes blazed. “Our language? That’s the least of our losses.” He turned to Sven. “Show him.”
THE MAN IN the vid was dark: eyes, hair, and complexion. He was of indeterminate age, his face creased with worry lines. The tartan jumpsuit he wore only emphasized a pudgy body build. His expression was worldly wise and weary, and yet it somehow gave a hint of humor.
He spoke. “I am the navigator of starship Long Pass. I have a story to tell.
“My name is Diego MacMillan.
“I speak human to human, ancestor to descendant. Despite everything that has gone wrong, I retain hope humans will find this message. I had to hide the key in plain sight, trusting my ability to make the clues meaningful only to humans.
“And yet . . .”—Diego scowled—“I cannot depend on that. If our descendants are viewing this, I know how you must yearn for the location of your home, the planet Earth. To leave you that information would risk revealing it to the Citizens and leading these murderers to Earth itself. That I will not do.”
“How?” Sigmund interrupted. He was an ARM, tanj it, and this was a crime against Earth. A crime against humanity.
Sven tapped a control pad and the holo froze. “It’s a long and twisty tale, but a few years ago we recovered that recording. It had been hidden, disguised and encrypted, in the bridge computer of the old ramscoop. Long Pass.”
“We?” Sigmund prompted.
Sven nodded. “Omar, Eric, and Eric’s spouse, Kirsten. They weren’t yet mated. And, in a small way, myself.”
“And it was all in plain sight, orbiting this world,” Sigmund said skeptically.
“We’re not such fools,” Omar snapped. “We were raised to believe Citizens had salvaged embryo banks and a few damaged computers from a derelict long adrift in the void. Our mere existence was a testament to their patience, skill, and generosity of spirit.”
“Only the ship had been
seized. It was almost intact, hidden inside a General Products Number Four hull.” Eric bared his teeth. “Until I busted it apart.”
Sigmund twitched. “You destroyed a General Products hull?”
“We’re getting ahead of ourselves,” Sven interrupted. “Hear what happened after they reached the Fleet of Worlds.” He jumped the recording ahead.
Diego MacMillan unfroze. “There our nightmare became far worse. Long Pass carried more than ten thousand passengers, mostly frozen embryos. Our masters say their Concordance took pity, that they could not let so many perish. A few Citizens admit—but only to us, the few forever trapped onboard—that they intend to turn our helpless passengers into a slave race. I believe they’re at least being honest.” Tears glimmered in his eyes. “Two of those little ones are Jaime’s and mine.
“The Citizens removed our onboard hibernation tanks to the world they call Nature Preserve Three. They lied to those they awakened about a derelict found adrift. Even so, most people had their doubts. When Citizens encouraged them to start their planned colony, the women resisted immediate implantation with embryos.
“Long Pass also carried embryos of mammals, cows and sheep and such, we meant to introduce on New Terra. Of course we had artificial placentas for those animal embryos. The Citizens were determined to have their colony. They experimented with implanting human embryos into artificial animal placentas. They ‘refused to accept our voluntary extinction.’ ”
Sigmund shuddered. Every worry or doubt he had ever had about Puppeteers . . . this was worse. This was an abomination.
“There were spontaneous abortions, horrific birth defects, and developmental problems.” Remembered tragedies brought Diego to an eye-blinking halt. “To our masters, those were ‘experiments.’ To us . . . each was someone’s child. Several women agreed to be surrogate mothers to stop the ‘experiments.’ ”
Diego got himself back under control. “And the men still aboard this ship? We counsel our masters how to structure a human society. We try through our advice to alleviate a bit of the suffering. We’re trying to reduce forced pregnancies, especially by brain wiping. All the men insist that the mother’s active role in child rearing is critical. Two centuries of gender equality is a small sacrifice to save women’s minds.”
“Two centuries?” Sigmund echoed. “Long Pass must have left Earth in the late twenty-second century. This travesty has gone on for more than four hundred years.”
“Five hundred by our reckoning.” Eric shook his head. “That’s in Hearth years, of course. We don’t even know how long an Earth year is.”
Then the bigger implication left Sigmund speechless. Long Pass was captured long before Puppeteers first appeared in Human Space. No wonder the aliens were quick to understand humans: They had had decades of practice. Puppeteers indeed. . . .
The recording had not stopped. “We do what else we can. Sometimes that’s in the vocabulary and concepts we try to retain in the sanitized English taught to the children. Sometimes it’s undoing the effects of Citizen mistakes.” Diego smiled, almost despite himself. “Citizens are hardly beyond error. They wear no clothing, so they considered Colonist clothing a waste of resources. They learned quickly enough that nudity does not go with their disapproval of birth control and their hopes of controlling the bloodlines.”
The smile faded. “I fear they suspect our indirect interference. We’ve been told of a new colony, this one on NP Four, started with only children under Citizens’ supervision.
“All that remains for me is hope for the children. If you viewing this recording are like me, are human, know this: You descend from an accomplished people. We settled our whole solar system. We planted colonies, peacefully, on the worlds of other suns.” Diego swallowed hard. “I wish I could give you the way home. Earth is a beautiful world.
“And if you viewing this recording are Citizens, I wish you go straight to hell.”
SIGMUND STARED AT the ceiling, afloat in a sleeper field, with no hope of sleeping anytime soon. The dim glow of a lighting panel was his only company, his three guides having left him.
There was much yet to learn of the dark and twisted history of the New Terrans. Sigmund and his new friends had talked and talked—until he found himself slumped on the floor of Sven’s office. Exhaustion or hunger? Flat-phobic overload or post-’doc rebound? Any or more likely all of them; it hardly mattered.
They ate. Sven brought Sigmund home, clucking sympathetically. He shooed the others away, and established Sigmund in his guest room. That helped, but short of drugs, Sigmund could not imagine sleeping.
He wrestled with the day’s revelations like a terrier worrying at a rat. Millions enslaved for centuries. Heroes recovering their suppressed past against all odds. A trillion Puppeteers held at bay by the threat of fusion fire from a hovering ramscoop. Nessus, his bane for so many years, an advocate for New Terra.
Deep into the night, as he at last faded into restless oblivion, Sigmund’s final thought concerned Nessus: his nemesis and yet the ally of the New Terrans.
Why had Nessus abducted Sigmund and brought him here?
60
The Hindmost’s retreat hugged a verdant coastal mountainside, the setting spectacular and extravagantly private. Behind a weatherproof force field, the veranda afforded a breathtakingly panoramic view of rocky strand and crashing surf. The mansion itself was luxuriously spacious, impeccably decorated, and sumptuously furnished. I will have one built to rival it, Achilles decided, once . . .
First things first. It was too soon to be designing his official residence.
He and Vesta shared the veranda with a floating holo-graphic Outsider ship. “It keeps me focused on the true problem,” Nike had volunteered, before stepping to his broadcast studio.
Nike stepped back immediately after his speech, and Vesta was quick to update him. Instant-reaction focus groups had responded favorably. Semantic analyses suggested the media trending to the Experimentalist point of view. Real-time scene analyses, sampling public-safety cameras across Hearth, showed crowds ever more orange in their adornment. Counterrallies of the Conservatives had been poorly attended. Surely the Experimentalists’ support was reaching the tipping point.
To all of which Nike said, “A mandate is not a policy.”
Vesta took the words as a rebuke. He pawed the floor, the marble tile ringing softly under his dainty hoof. “Of course, Nike. Understood. We still need to placate the Outsiders. Since it is impossible to prove NP Four remains under our control, we’ll end up paying to transfer control of the drive. That will take serious money. Human or Kzinti money,” he added unhappily.
“I need new choices, not complaints,” Nike chided. “We have a year, and are fortunate the Outsiders allowed us that. Then what?”
Vesta lowered his heads submissively.
While poor Vesta struggled to explain himself, Achilles wondered: With whose currency did Vesta expect to make payment? As the herd galloped away, of course the Outsiders lost interest in Concordance money. Whose currency hardly mattered; the amount was the problem. The price of the planet-moving drive was enormous.
Achilles prided himself on his realism. The Concordance could not afford to pay. The troublesome refugees on their ill-gotten world could not even comprehend the size of the payment—not that anyone proposed to involve them. That left somehow reclaiming Nature Preserve 4 for the Fleet—whether anyone on NP4 wanted back in or not.
Or, to be complete, obliterating NP4 would also remove the Outsiders’ grounds for complaint. Destroying it safely was the challenge. True, the Concordance need no longer fear antimatter. The ex-Colonists still had General Products ships of their own. They had their ancestors’ ramscoop. Even the rubble of a successfully shattered NP4, strewn in the path of the Fleet, would be fearfully dangerous. Only utter desperation could justify that course of action—
And besides, I can hardly rule NP4 if I allow it to be destroyed.
A soft vibrato sounded from a pocket of his s
ash: success chimes from Pan, the senior acolyte tasked to retrieve Baedeker. “Nike, Vesta, I’ve arranged for an outside expert to join us.”
Baedeker entered a moment later, walking stiffly, indifferent to the grandeur around him. Four of the Hind-most’s personal guards escorted him.
“Our reclusive master engineer returns,” Nike warbled. His undertunes hinted at surprise and disapproval. Dropping off the net was legal, certainly, but it was unusual. Unavailability for the summons of the Hind-most . . . that was, if still not illegal, unpre ce dented.
“Indeed.” Achilles saw no reason to mention Vesta’s abuse of his position to have Baedeker tracked through the stepping-disc system, nor the guards sent to intimidate the engineer. “You asked for new options. We all remember the wild humans catching sight of the Fleet. With Baedeker’s insight, we remotely deactivated the hull of their ship. The Outsider grievance is the world that ranges freely ahead of us. Let us fix the problem as directly.
“I challenge Baedeker to duplicate his past triumph by remotely disabling its planetary drive.”
TO CAST A world adrift!
Baedeker’s blood ran cold, and yet an insistent voice in the back of his hump wondered: Can it be done? The planetary drives were perhaps the most closely guarded resources in the Concordance. To have access to them, to study them, perhaps to discover how they worked . . .
No! His instinctive revulsion had been correct. “You would leave New Terra floating in the void to placate the Outsiders?”
Achilles’ heads swiveled; he stared himself in the eyes for a mockingly long time before commenting, “So you don’t think you can do it.”
“That’s not the point,” Baedeker trilled, using a minor chord to emphasize his dismay. He had been a slave on NP1. That changed a person. Nessus’ three “scouts”—Baedeker had issues with them. But to sacrifice an entire world for wanting its freedom?
Anyway, where was Nessus? The ex-Colonists needed their advocate more than ever. “Nessus understands the New Terrans better than most. Perhaps he can offer a suggestion.”