Larry Niven, Edward M. Lerner
Fate of Worlds: Return From the Ringworld
To big ideas. And to those who dare to dream them.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Sigmund Ausfaller: retired Defense Minister; New Terra resident; Earth expatriate.
Julia Byerley-Mancini: Captain in the New Terran Defense Forces; commander of starship Endurance; leader, expedition to “The Anomaly”; granddaughter of Sigmund Ausfaller.
Alice Jordan: member, expedition to “The Anomaly”; New Terra resident; Sol system expatriate.
Donald Norquist-Ng: Minister, New Terran Defense Forces.
Denise Rodgers-Bjornstad: Governor (planetary executive), New Terra.
Louis Wu: Earthborn adventurer; member of both Ringworld expeditions; newly escaped from the Ringworld.
Tanya Wu: Earthborn junior naval officer aboard ARM vessel Koala.
Wesley Wu: Earthborn naval officer commanding Koala, deployed to the Artifact Monitoring Mission.
(FLEET OF WORLDS [NATURE PRESERVE FIVE] RESIDENTS UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED)
Cd’o: A Gw’o unit from the Ol’t’ro ensemble mind; born on the colony world of Kl’mo.
Er’o: Memory remnant within Ol’t’ro of a long-dead Gw’o unit; veteran of the Pak War.
Ol’t’ro: the Gw’oth ensemble mind (a Gw’otesht-16) who secretly rules the Fleet of Worlds; also see artificial intelligence Proteus and Citizen/Puppeteer Chiron.
Tf’o: the Gw’o leader in the joint Gw’oth/Citizen expedition lurking around the Ringworld.
Hawking: AI managing tactical operations of Earth’s Task Force Delta within the Artifact Monitoring Mission.
Jeeves: Any of the many AIs descended from the shipboard intelligence of the ramscoop Long Pass (from whose embryo banks New Terra was populated).
Proteus: AI that manages the Hearth/Fleet of Worlds defensive grid; controlled by Ol’t’ro. As a minor function, it also animates the “Citizen” known as Chiron.
Voice: AI long in exile with Hindmost on the Ringworld.
(HEARTH RESIDENTS UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED)
Achilles:planetary hindmost[*] of Nature Preserve One; member of Experimentalist Party; former Hindmost[*]; former Minister of Science; former physicist.
Baedeker:former Hindmost[*]; former Minister of Science; former engineer; member of Experimentalist Party; in off-world exile.
Chiron:longtime Minister of Science and planetary hindmost[*] of Nature Preserve Five; secretly a network persona animated by Proteus; Ol’t’ro’s stealthy presence within the Citizen government.
Hindmost:deposed Hindmost[*]; member of Experimentalist Party; hindmost[*] of the second Ringworld expedition; newly escaped from the Ringworld.
Horatius:Hindmost[*] — as a pawn of Ol’t’ro — since soon after the first Ringworld expedition; head of the Conservative Party.
Minerva: Citizen head in the joint Gw’oth/Citizen expedition lurking around the Ringworld. A deputy director of Clandestine Directorate.
Nessus:onetime senior agent/scout of Clandestine Directorate; hindmost[*] of the first Ringworld expedition; in exile on New Terra.
Nike: former head of Clandestine Directorate; former Hindmost; Experimentalist.
Vesta: longtime deputy to Achilles; Experimentalist.
KEY DATES
2645
Puppeteers and their worlds flee the galactic-core explosion
2650–51
Human slaves rebel; New Terra (was Nature Preserve Four) goes free
2659
Puppeteer effort to reclaim New Terra fails
2675
The Pak War
2780–81
The Gw’oth War
2783
Isolationist New Terran regime veers away from the Fleet of Worlds
2850–52
Ringworld discovered; first expedition to the Ringworld
2878–93
Second expedition to the Ringworld; explorers all stranded
?–2893
War among many spacefaring species for control of the Ringworld
(Dates follow Earth’s calendar and reflect Earth’s frame of reference. During much of this era, New Terra and the Fleet of Worlds traveled fast enough relative to Earth to experience significant relativistic time dilation.)
PRELUDE
A beautiful world, alone, serene, races through the interstellar void. Warmed by necklaces of artificial suns orbiting from pole to pole, the world’s climate is everywhere and always temperate. Beneath the many suns, oceans sparkle and cloud tops gleam. Bountiful fields and lush forests span continents. Here and there cities stand, proud and prosperous.
The human inhabitants call this paradise New Terra. Only in story do they remember the days when their home was known merely as Nature Preserve Four. When their home was but one farm world among many in the Fleet of Worlds. When alien masters ruled their lives. “Citizens,” the aliens called themselves and, moreover, “saviors.”
But young and old on New Terra know the hard-won truth: that their former masters had attacked their ancestors’ ramscoop, not chanced upon a derelict starship. That from the wrecked ship’s embryo banks the aliens had bred a race of slaves.
Independence had not come easily, but now New Terra sets its own course through space.
And what of Old Terra? Earth? No one here could say where the ancestral world may lie.
Not only artificial suns accompany New Terra on its seemingly endless trek through the darkness. Myriads of tiny spacecraft, sprinkled across many light-days, hold formation with the world. The early-warning array endlessly scans in all directions, endlessly probing with every known method of long-range sensing.
In the planetary defense center, staffed round the clock, people try to imagine against what, besides boredom, they stand guard. New Terra is light-years from the nearest star. Aboard their Fleet of Worlds, the ruthlessly cowardly Citizens — increasingly, and aptly, come to be known to all here as Puppeteers — have receded beyond the reach of every instrument except powerful optical telescopes.
Suddenly every element in the planetary early-warning array clamors in unison. Every watch stander in the planetary defense center jolts to full alertness to stare at their consoles.
To gape at the impossible.
RIPPLE
1
“There is an intruder, sir,” Jeeves announced, breaking the silence.
*