Juggler of Worlds (37 page)

Ausfaller! The man plagued them even in death.

Achilles watched the recording from Earth, unable
not
to paw at the meadowplant carpet in Nike’s office. In the holo, Nessus wore his mane pulled back into a few uneven braids. The token effort made him look, if such a thing was possible, more disheveled than usual.

The message ended. Nike settled astraddle one of the thickly planted hummocks that served in this office as benches. His mane glittered with sequins and orange gems. He asked, “Your impressions?”

He’s asking me, Achilles decided. Vesta and Nike had viewed the recording before summoning him, but that wasn’t the main reason.
He
had spent years immersed in the information cacophony of human worlds.
He
knew most of the principals—if not personally, like Beowulf Shaeffer, then by direct observation and extensive study of their profiles. Ander Smittarasheed was the only player new to him.
He
was the indispensable expert as long as Nessus remained in Human Space.

What did he think? That awareness at this moment of mane coiffure, like the hoof with a mind of its own, was a defense mechanism. A distraction from an intractable problem they could neither hide from nor flee. Achilles struggled to arrange the salient points from Nessus’ report. “Ausfaller’s murder gives credibility to his event-of-my-death message.” That had always been the fear, or Ausfaller would long ago have been eliminated by hired criminal elements.

Ausfaller had assumed, brilliant paranoid that he was, that he could trust no one. His suspicions about Gregory Pelton—among other people—had been delivered to many officials besides Sangeeta Kudrin. There was no way to contain it.

Achilles continued. “The bigger complication is
who
killed Ausfaller. Before joining Ausfaller for the trip to Fafnir, Smittarasheed worked on Jinx for Gregory Pelton, in the facility planning a return expedition to the antimatter system.”

Vesta stared into the distance. After a long silence, he said, “It’s rather unfortunate the Fafnir police killed their suspect.”

“But not surprising,” Achilles said, “not after he shot at police trying to capture him.”

Maybe Kzinti police coming at him had rattled Ander. Achilles shivered—it would have terrified
him
. Who in their right mind attacked a squad of armed Kzinti? “Ander Smittarasheed had an illegal weapon, and he was covered in Ausfaller’s blood.”

“I wish we knew more,” Vesta said.

“The authorities on Fafnir aren’t releasing details,” Achilles reminded them. To be fair, neither Vesta nor Nike had ever visited Human Space. How could they understand wild humans and their ways? “The police clearly believe Smittarasheed had an accomplice. They don’t want that person to know what they’ve learned.” And the maid who heard the shots, found the body, and ran screaming from the room had disappeared into Witness Protection. Whatever that was.

“Forget Ausfaller,” Nike warbled abruptly. “The issue is the antimatter solar system. We let ourselves be comforted that only two humans knew its location. And now …”

Now Shaeffer has disappeared, and Pelton has taken asylum on Jinx to avoid questions.

Achilles thought, inanely, of dominoes falling. The metaphor had meaning only to him—but it fit circumstances exactly.

Ausfaller locates the Fleet of Worlds. He demonstrates knowledge of past Citizen meddling on Earth. Smittarasheed kills Ausfaller. Conveniently, Smitterasheed is then killed. Their deaths, in separate ways, implicate Pelton. Pelton flees, removing all doubts. The Secretary-General authorizes the ARM to locate and secure the antimatter system.

Which domino would fall next?

Vesta murmured softly, “We must find the antimatter first, whatever it takes.”

“Whatever it takes,” Nike agreed.

IT WAS DELEGATED to Achilles to prepare the first draft of an order directing Nessus to Jinx.

Achilles began several times, his mind wandering. Maybe fear had been burnt out of him by the news of the core explosion, and the long isolation until his recall. Maybe he had come to embrace his own bravado about being vulnerable only when he presented his heel.

Or maybe, with Ausfaller gone, Achilles could no longer
truly
see Earth as a credible threat.

A very real opportunity kept chasing theoretical dangers from Achilles’ thoughts. While Nike worried about the peril behind the Fleet, no action would be taken to reclaim the lost world. Its status was, the Hindmost decreed, “a deferrable crisis.”

Let Nike stay distracted! Achilles would use that time, exploit that preoccupation.

His destiny, Achilles now realized, did not lie on the ocean floor. Seabed arcologies were too grand a concept for lesser minds.

But none could deny that the world once called Nature Preserve 4 had been governed too laxly. When the time came for its reintegration into the Concordance, the need for strict control would be obvious. Who better, on that glorious day, to become that world’s Hindmost than he who had masterminded its recovery?

And who better to keep far away than the one who had betrayed my previous plans?

Achilles returned to the task of drafting orders, now with a clear purpose. He detailed all the ways Nessus might observe, infiltrate, or influence Pelton’s organization, specifics neither Vesta nor Nike could know to question.

The longer Nessus stayed on Jinx, the better.

NESSUS STARED AT the orders from Hearth. Ausfaller had never managed to acquire Pelton’s secret. Realistically, how would he?

Stars glittered through the bridge view port. Nessus tried to enjoy them while he could as he readied
Aegis
for flight, and tried to ignore the mass pointer. Soon enough he would look at nothing else.

Only three words in his instructions truly made sense:
at all costs
. Nessus decided
they
were his orders. The bulk of the message was only copious impractical advice. Such minutiae, despite Nike’s electronic signature, could only have come from Achilles.

A bowl of stale synthed grains sat on the adjacent bench. Nessus grabbed mouthfuls as he worked, begrudging the time for a meal. He would travel to Jinx as directed.

However …

Explorer
had been bugged and fitted by Baedeker with a remotely controlled bomb.
Hobo Kelly
had been destroyed remotely. Nessus dare not imagine
Aegis
free of undisclosed modifications. He would presume
everything he said, heard, and did aboard would be transmitted back to Hearth.

So he would go to Jinx—first. From there his actions must go unseen, lest anyone or anything interrupt his mission, including ARM ships that were surely out hunting.

Find the antimatter system, at all costs. That was his duty. That was what Nike intended him to do. That was what he
would
do. Gregory Pelton had learned of the antimatter system from the Outsiders.

He
must go to the same source.

“Look at that,” Anne-Marie Papandreou said. She had said it at their first glimpse, when
Court Jester
dropped from hyperspace, and three times since. The closer they approached, the more wonderment sounded in her voice.

Nessus could only agree.

Light-years from anything, the Outsider ship/city hung before them. An artificial sun marked one end of a pole, a drive capsule the opposite end. Between, countless ribbons swept and curled and interlaced in a pattern too elaborate for Nessus to grasp.

More intimidating was the ship’s behavior. It had dropped from nine-tenths light speed to zero relative within seconds of
Court Jester’s
appearance—somehow without any apparent release of energy.

Related technology moved the Fleet of Worlds. How those drives worked, from where the drives tapped energy, and where they released it upon braking remained Outsider trade secrets.

The Citizen community had once believed in technology independence. That faith evaporated quickly when a swelling sun threatened to exterminate all life on Hearth. In all the ages since, there had been no experiments on what they had bought from the Outsiders. The planetary drives controlled far too much energy to tamper with.

“Four kilometers.” Anne-Marie looked up from her bridge console. “The pole is four klicks long. Amazing.”

Jason Papandreou merely grinned at her obvious delight. Technically he was a flatlander, but he had traveled far more than most of his breed. Jason had certainly been around more than his wife, on whom he doted. It wasn’t all commercial travel, either: He was a veteran of the last Man-Kzin
War. That, and the assurances of Nessus’ minions on Jinx that the Papandreous often ferried nonhuman passengers, made Nessus comfortable on their ship.

Well,
comfortable
overstated things a bit.

A light began flashing on Jason’s console. “Incoming message from the Outsiders. Nessus?”

“On speaker, please,” Nessus said.

“Welcome to Ship Fourteen.” The Interworld words were crisp and without accent. “We ask that your ship remain ten kilometers away from us. Please wait for your escorts.”

“Acknowledged.” Jason turned to Nessus. “You’re sure you don’t want company?”

Nessus began pulling on his space suit. The task gave his mouths something to do besides pluck uselessly at his mane, and an excuse not to answer. His business with the Outsiders was not meant for human ears.

After a while, Jason shrugged. He had grown accustomed to such nonanswers. “Fine, then. Anne and I will stay aboard. Radio if you need anything.”

Nessus sealed his space suit. A tongue flick activated his radio. “Testing, one, two, three.” At Jason’s nod, Nessus strode to the air lock with more confidence than he felt.

THREE OUTSIDERS FLOATED beyond the airlock.

They were creatures of superfluid helium, adapted to the vacuum and utter cold far from any star. Nothing that had ever lived on Hearth served to describe them. In earthly terms, they resembled black cat-o’-nine-tails with grossly engorged handles. Brains and sense organs hid somewhere within the handles. The whips were clusters of motile roots.

All three Outsiders wore metallic exoskeletons. Two offered Nessus a tentacle to grasp, and then he understood their garments. Had they been unprotected, the body heat radiating from his suit would boil them; the tug of his inertial mass might well rip them apart.

In other tentacles, they held gas pistols. They jetted the short distance to Ship Fourteen, the pace agonizingly slow.

Nessus studied the ship rather than dwell on the conversation to come. He had little curiosity; that was a human trait. The universe offered perils enough without looking for more.

Details emerged as they approached. The ribbons were enormous, intertwined ramps, kilometers long and several meters wide. Outsiders
beyond number lined the ramps, branched tails in shadow, handles in the faint artificial sunlight, thermoelectrically charging their systems. Many trailed roots in bowls. Nessus guessed at nutrients dissolved in liquid helium.

That’s why the Outsiders don’t use hyperdrive! Outsiders had invented hyperdrive, they sold it, but (to the best knowledge of other species) they never used it. Now Nessus saw why. Light became—what, exactly, Nessus could not say, but you couldn’t
see
anything in hyperspace—something quite different there. In hyperspace, Outsiders could not bask in artificial sunlight. Perhaps they’d starve.