“To fallen friends,” Sigmund offered when, circling the table, the honor of the toast once more reached him.
That got a subdued reaction. Every officer and crewman aboard had had friends in the lost ARM fleet. Glasses clinked in remembrance.
People on Earth, on all the human-settled worlds, were in for a shock when Koala reached home. An entire ARM fleet, destroyed with all hands. And a Patriarchy fleet. And a Trinoc fleet, although Sigmund had only secondhand information about that bunch. They sounded like bad news, and he intended to study up on them during the long trip.
Wesley Wu said, “One way or another, our return will mark the end of an era.”
“Within the ARM most of all,” Wu’s executive officer said. “And I’m willing to bet it will change the whole dynamic between the ARM and the civilian leadership.”
“Then there’s the power balance among human worlds,” another officer mused. Sigmund hadn’t caught that man’s name, either. “The Ringworld expeditionary force was a United Nations initiative. Most colony worlds refused to take part.”
“And between humans and the other spacefaring species,” Tanya Wu added.
Where would the ripples end? Sigmund had reshaped the New Terran government. Might not a chastened Earth citizenry be open to improvements? Temptation beckoned.…
But only for a moment. New Terra was his home and his family’s. He would represent that home, and nothing more, and be happy for it.
“Now that you’ve settled in, Sigmund, are you and your staff comfortable?” Wesley Wu asked, changing the subject.
Comfortable with the less than nothingness lurking outside the curve of the hull? Comfortable in the knowledge that the savviest scientists on Earth and New Terra understood even less about hyperspace and hyperdrive than they had imagined? “Quite comfortable,” Sigmund said. Call this lie his first act of diplomacy. “But it has been a long day.”
“That it has.” Captain Wu stood. “If I might offer one final, happier toast?”
Everyone stood.
Wesley Wu toasted, “To the reunion between our two worlds.”
A TOUCH UNSTEADY ON HIS FEET, Sigmund made his way through crowded corridors back to his cabin. As claustrophobic as it felt, somewhere aboard Koala two officers must be sharing another room no larger than this so that he could have private quarters. It could be worse.
Anyway, he had other issues on his mind.
The wine had only deepened Sigmund’s suspicions. He took out his computer. “Protocol gamma. Jeeves?”
“I am here, sir.”
As much of him, anyway, as the portable unit could store. Sigmund was not about to interface his AIde to Koala’s much larger Hawking fragment.
“You monitored my pre-takeoff conversation with Louis?”
“I did.”
“And what did you make of it?”
“I do not believe Louis is purposefully holding back anything.”
Sigmund didn’t either. And yet there was something else. He was sure of it. A nuance Louis had misconstrued. A piece of the puzzle neither of them had recognized as missing. Something to scratch his maddening mental itch. “And you’ve examined the data from Endurance.”
“Indeed, sir.”
“Five worlds … gone.”
“Indeed, sir,” Jeeves repeated.
Sigmund closed his eyes. Maybe the wine, or his subconscious, or the ancient thought patterns of his ARM days would figure out whatever was bothering him.
Five worlds … gone.
Before that, Nessus had — somehow — survived the dissolution of Long Shot. Baedeker hadn’t … as far as Louis knew.
Suppose Baedeker somehow did make it to the ground. Because maybe Baedeker didn’t want his survival to be known. Because … because …
Five worlds gone and Sigmund had nothing. Maybe Baedeker’s number was up, and that’s all there was to it.
Only the Baedeker Sigmund knew, the Baedeker who had developed the planet-buster version of the Outsider planetary drives, was a proper cowardly Puppeteer. He would not charge into danger without a plan. Baedeker was smart. Brilliant, tanj it.
Sigmund had yet to unpack. He took the mini-synthesizer from his luggage and prepared a nightcap. What had Wesley’s last toast been before the group dispersed? Something apt. “To the reunion between our two worlds.”
“Indeed, sir,” Jeeves said.
Sigmund sighed. As an ARM, many years ago, two lives ago, what he wouldn’t have given to have the Puppeteers vanish. Now that the Puppeteers had vanished, it made him sad.
“Only that’s sentimental revisionist crap,” he scolded himself.
“Pardon, sir?”
“When I was an ARM, the Puppeteers disappeared from Known Space. Bey Shaeffer had just discovered the galactic-core explosion, and set the Puppeteers to running. Not knowing where they’d gone drove me crazy.”
“Indeed, sir.”
That time the answering noise made Sigmund smile. But something had just flashed through his mind …
He almost had …
No. It was gone.
“Okay, Jeeves, let’s try something else.” Because running mental laps around the same enigmatic circle was pointless. “So the planetary drives go bang and the Fleet of Worlds goes to pieces. Did Endurance capture the matter-dispersal pattern?”
“Not in any useful way. The ship had lost or had damage to too many external sensors.”
Of course. “How about the gravimetric disturbances?”
“Sorry, sir. Quantitatively, that data is also all but useless.”
“Tanj it, what do we know? Five drives blow up and we have … what? Long-range visual images? Some static? Or had Endurance lost its RF sensors, too?”
“Pardon me, sir. That’s two.”
“Two what?” Sigmund asked. “RF sensors on Endurance that still worked?”
“Two planetary-drive explosions. That’s how many space-time distortions struck Endurance.”
Sigmund froze. “Two drives exploded. Not five.”
“Yes, sir.”
“But any one planetary drive destabilizing would set off any other nearby. That’s the threat Ol’t’ro held over the Puppeteers all these years. That’s what Louis says sent Baedeker to the Ringworld in the first place, hunting for new technology.”
“That is my understanding, sir.”
“Two,” Sigmund muttered. Something was wrong here. “Five worlds are gone. You can see the debris, right?”
“Because of sensor failures — ”
“You can’t confirm that. Right.”
Sigmund located his drink bulb and concentrated on emptying it. His skepticism refused to be distracted, dissuaded, or drowned.
Something overlooked. Something misconstrued. What?
Something Baedeker had had to do in secrecy? Something Baedeker had learned about on the Ringworld?
Or, perhaps, learned immediately after …
At the back of Sigmund’s brain, that maddening suspicious itch disappeared.
He synthed another libation. He stood, raised his drink bulb, and silently toasted to Baedeker —
And to the three Puppeteer worlds Baedeker had whisked far, far away.
REPRISE
53
After nodding off twice at his desk, Baedeker let an aide convince him to get some proper rest. The work would be there when he returned.