“You’re wasting everyone’s time, Ausfaller,” Norquist-Ng growled.
Alice’s head had taken on the thoughtful cant that Sigmund remembered so well. “Jeeves,” she said, “plot the apparent direction and point of origin on a star chart.”
Above the conference table, a hologram opened, dim but for a scattering of sparks. A blue dot, for New Terra, blinked at the holo’s center. Translucent concentric blue spheres centered on the blinking dot marked off the light-years. From the blinking dot, a pale red line segment reached out, not approaching any star until it ended — Sigmund counted the pale spheres — about fourteen light-years out.
Fourteen light-years? Whoever had caused this disturbance controlled incredible energies.
Like the power to move worlds?
His hands trembling, Sigmund said, “Jeeves, now overlay the course taken by the Fleet of Worlds.”
“Yes, sir.”
A green trace, at this scale perfectly straight, came into the holo. Across the room from Sigmund, someone cursed in wonderment.
The green line representing the Puppeteers’ flight grazed the star from which — just maybe — the mysterious space/hyperspace interface distortion had originated.
A star that this world would have encountered well before the Fleet had the revolutionary government not seen fit to divert New Terra onto its present, much different path.
SIGMUND GAVE NORQUIST-NG CREDIT: the man had the sense to clear the room. He asked that Alice and Sigmund stay, and also a long-faced female aide whose name Sigmund had not retained. Sigmund insisted that Julia remain.
And the Jeeves, of course.
“Might the Fleet have been involved?” the minister asked. “They had to have traveled well past this star when … whatever happened.”
It was a sensible question, but posture or tone of voice or — something showed that what Norquist-Ng meant was, “Wasn’t the new regime wise to set an independent course?”
As in, where could be safer than far from the Fleet? Than — once New Terra made it that far — deep inside the zone of devastation Pak armadas had wiped clean of technological civilizations?
Using that logic, the revolutionary government had redirected their world’s course, tapping the planetary brakes while turning inward toward the galactic core, even as the Fleet continued its headlong rush into galactic north. It had been decades since New Terra had had contact with its former masters.
Sigmund thought once more of ostriches.
“Maybe the Puppeteers were involved,” Alice said. “We should check out the solar system where the ripple originated.”
“Why?” Norquist-Ng asked. “You and Ausfaller have only confirmed the wisdom of New Terra staying disengaged.”
Disengaged? Like it or not, New Terrans had reengaged when … whatever … swept past them.
Sigmund gestured at the star map. “Jeeves, assume the disturbance originated near where the lines converge. To produce the effects we observed here, how large an object entered or exited hyperspace?”
“A very significant mass, sir. Perhaps a few gas giants.”
The tremor in Sigmund’s hands worsened. “Gas giants. You mean … gas-giant planets?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Whole planets entering or leaving hyperspace?” the aide said. “Minister, respectfully, it could be dangerous not to know more.”
“I’ll go,” Julia offered, coming to attention. “My ship, the Endurance, is ready.”
“Your offer is appreciated, Captain,” Norquist-Ng said, “but adventuring is no longer our way.” He added, pointedly, for his aide, “This government does not go seeking trouble fourteen light-years away.”
Ostriches! Sigmund thought again.
“Planetary masses converted to ships,” Alice said. “Think of the technology, the sheer magnitude of the power that someone must wield. For all we know those ships are coming right at us, in swarms to make the Pak fleets look insignificant. We must check it out.”
Norquist-Ng rubbed his chin, considering, before turning to Julia. “Captain, they may have a point. Take Ausfaller as an advisor, but you command the ship and the mission. You are only to scout out the region and report back.”
Take Ausfaller.
The room faded, seemed to spin. Sigmund, wobbling, groped behind himself for support. He scarcely noticed Julia guiding him into a chair.
He had not been off-world in over a century. Not since the Pak War. Not since he had been left adrift in that useless stub of a derelict starship, light-years from anywhere. Alone but for a Puppeteer frozen in time, inert within a medical-emergency stasis field.
And where was Baedeker now? Long gone … Sigmund did not know where.
“Grandpa?” a voice called from an impossible distance.
Sigmund trembled. Fourteen light-years? It would mean forty-two days’ travel each way. Forty-two days of the less-than-nothingness of hyperspace gibbering worse than madness into his mind …
“Behold the famed destroyer of worlds,” the aide scoffed.
With a convulsive shudder, Sigmund forced himself back to the present. He couldn’t care less what politicians thought of him. But Julia’s worry? Alice’s disdain? Those cut him to the quick.
“I’ll accompany the captain,” Alice said.
If any two people on New Terra should have been friends, they were he and Alice. He was from Earth and she from the Belt, separately exiled among strangers. Neither had arrived under their own power, or by their own choice. Neither knew their way home.
Until they had lived on this world so long that this was home.
For a long time, they were friends. Not counting Penelope, Alice had been his best friend —
And when he hadn’t been paying attention, he and Alice had become relics together. Despite years spent frozen in stasis. Despite time dilation from New Terra’s sometimes relativistic velocity. She was biologically about 225 in Earth years, ancient on a world yet to invent boosterspice. She looked ancient.
Whereas he, after making the same allowances, had passed 350. By rights, he should have been long dead. Probably Alice still wished him dead.
But physically, Sigmund was younger, “only” more-or-less two hundred. The prototype autodoc that had twice, all but magically, restored him to life had both times also rejuvenated him to about twenty.
He should go with Julia to check out this latest threat. In another life, he had been an intelligence agent — an ARM — a high-ranking operative in the United Nations’ unassumingly named Amalgamated Regional Militia. He had put together what passed for a military to protect this world.
What made him feel so old? The weight of experience? Or the scorn of the one person still living who had once truly understood him?
“Ms. Jordan,” Norquist-Ng said respectfully, “it is a commendable offer, but you are in no condition for such a trip. You must realize that.”
“But I am going. I was a police detective, back in the day, back in the Belt. On this world, for a long time, I was deputy defense minister. We both know” — said staring at Sigmund — “someone with off-world experience must go.”
Tanj stubborn pride! Few Belters ever went prospecting solo, with only a spacesuit and a singleship to protect them — but loner self-sufficiency had deep roots in their mythos, their schooling, maybe their genes. No matter what was at stake, you questioned that belief at your peril. To presume to make life-or-death decisions for a Belter? That was the ultimate affront.