Juggler of Worlds

by Larry Niven

  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.

  52

  “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 air lock.

  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.

  His boots touched down, finally, on one of the tangled ribbons. Nessus’ escorts moved toward a nearby door, employing a sinuous, many-limbed perambulation for which he had no name. The artificial gravity seemed inadequate to hold him down. He activated boot electromagnets before he dared to follow.

  “Please go inside,” Nessus heard on his helmet radio. Nothing suggested which alien had spoken. Perhaps none of them had. He closed the door. Lights came on and air rushed into the room. The transparent dome in one corner was the cubicle’s only feature. Within the dome an Outsider waited, sheltered, Nessus inferred, from light, heat, and pressure.

  “Undress and be comfortable,” Nessus heard. The communication was acoustic, not by radio. “This climate is suitable for your kind.”

  The chords were as unaccented as the previous Inter-world words had been. Outsiders lived in vacuum, so they obviously communicated without sound. Nessus glanced about, looking for a hidden speaker, radio antenna, or infrared sensor—and stopped himself. How they spoke hardly mattered.

  “Going silent,” Nessus transmitted back to Jason and Anne-Marie. He tongue-flicked his radio to off. This conversation was not for their ears.

  To the Outsider, Nessus sang, “Thank you, but to remain suited is more convenient. Changing is time-consuming.” And he would lose the option to flee this room—assuming its door would open for him—unless he remained in his space suit. “I am called Nessus. I am here for the Concordance.” Not officially, he continued in his thoughts. “What shall I call you?”

  A long pause suggested puzzlement at the question. “Fourteen will do.” More silence. “We encounter few Citizens or humans in this region. We were surprised to receive your hail. Did you have difficulty finding us?”

  “Yes,” Nessus lied.

  A thousand generations of observation had revealed little about the Outsiders. That ignorance was not all the aliens’ doing. They ranged freely where Citizens, even insane scouts, feared to follow. One of the very few certainties was that Outsider ships followed starseeds—for reasons yet unknown—on their epic migrations.

  That Citizen scientists could summon starseeds was a secret of the highest magnitude. Enough starseeds had been observed for long enough to make a correlation: They set sail for dying stars. That was probably how the Outsiders had first come upon Giver of Life, not long (in solar terms) before its imminent senescence became evident to Concordance specialists.

  Astronomers eventually isolated the spectra and intensities to which starseeds responded. Physicists learned to induce transient instabilities in stars to produce such emissions. Engineers created a compact device—the starseed lure—to project the destabilizing force beam. Now starseed lures stealthily orbited many stars, remotely controlled by hyperwaves, to keep a few Outsider ships always within reach lest a planetary drive need maintenance.

  Humans might call it insurance.
<
br />   “Yes,” Nessus repeated. “It took a while to find you, Fourteen.”

  “Very well,” Fourteen said. “Your hail indicated the intent to purchase information. What information do you seek?”

  Nessus took a deep, calming breath. “Visitors, or rather, customers, asked you once for the location of the ‘most unusual planet’ in Known Space. That was an antimatter planet. I would also like to see it.”

  The Outsider considered. “It seems a rather hazardous destination for one of your kind.”

  “From afar.” The grace notes of ironic understatement weren’t totally necessary; Nessus wondered if they would translate. “I came to purchase the location and trajectory.”

  “You already know much about the matter. Why not ask those earlier visitors?”

  What would Ausfaller have done? Nessus asked himself that more and more. Offered some disinformation or half-truth, surely. Having come on a human ship, he could hardly claim total separation from Human Space. “Beowulf Shaeffer and Gregory Pelton prefer to keep it their secret.”

  “We charged them a significant sum. Perhaps they are entitled to having the secret kept.”

  Perhaps? “Unless you promised exclusivity, why not also sell me the data?

  “I, however, wish to purchase exclusivity henceforth: of the system’s location and even its existence.” What else could he ask to safeguard the Fleet? “Also, as part of my purchase, I will require that you not provide anyone with transportation to that system.”

  The translator fell silent, but under the clear dome roots squirmed. Did his interlocutor consult with unseen colleagues? Writhe in anger? Convulse in amusement? “We accept your point. Our price, inclusive of such exclusivity, is five million Earth stars.”

  Only the tough material of his space suit stopped Nessus from burrowing his heads deep into his mane. Five million stars was a significant sum, but once it would have been doable. That was before. Before General Products abandoned its export business. Before a fortune in penalties and termination fees for broken contracts on so many worlds. Before funding Julian Forward’s supremely expensive experiments. Before endless bribes and extortions and the purchase of behind-the-scenes influence. Before seizure of most of what little remained, when Ausfaller discovered the meddling. Before an enormous warranty payout to Gregory Pelton for the destruction of his GP hull. . . .

  Which is why I must pay. We must find the antimatter.

  The price would not change. Outsiders did not bargain or negotiate. Five million stars would empty General Products’ accounts on We Made It, Down, and Plateau.

  But Nike’s orders had been explicit: At all costs. “I accept.”

  The actual transaction—exchanging a string of digits in the form of bank credits for a few navigational parameters—was eerily anticlimactic. Then Nessus truly saw what he had bought.

  The “most unusual planet” had barely grazed Known Space, receding at nearly light speed. Inaccessible normal-space velocity; the ultimate in hazardous material; and now a vast, ever-growing distance: No wonder Pelton had yet to undertake a return mission. The United Nations, should they locate this system, would have similar difficulties. And having bought exclusivity to the data, Nessus knew, he had made such a discovery much harder.

  It had been a fortune well spent. Nessus returned his comp to a space-suit pocket, sealed the flap securely, and turned to leave.

  “As it happens,” Fourteen said, “we have other merchandise you might find of value.”

  Nessus turned back. His comp was almost emptied of credits, and his psyche of energy. Aching for the comparative familiarity of Court Jester, he managed to ask, “What sort of information do you offer?”

  Fourteen’s roots wriggled; a shiny artifact appeared inside the dome.

  The object’s purpose was not obvious. Nessus sidled closer, but no details emerged. He saw only a shiny cylinder with a handle, entirely reflective.

  Entirely reflective? Nessus had never heard of a stasis field following such a complex surface, but he was obviously looking at a stasis field. That often meant a weapons cache. “Fourteen, where did you get this?”

  “We found it considerably closer to the galactic core.”

  Considerably closer was admirably imprecise. Unless the item had been awaiting sale for longer than Nessus had been a scout, it had been retrieved in or near Known Space. Starseed lures had kept this ship in the interstellar neighborhood for that long.

  The one thing scarier than the unknowable contents of an ancient cache was the possibility of another species acquiring it. Trembling, Nessus asked, “How much?”

  “Fourteen million stars.”

  Fourteen million stars for Ship Fourteen . . . it hinted at whimsy Nessus had never expected of an Outsider. Moments ago, spending five million had almost paralyzed him with doubt. None of which mattered. “I don’t have that much money on call.”

  “That is understandable,” Fourteen said. “We will accept your word of honor as a Citizen.”

  Fourteen million stars! To settle that debt would erase what little remained of General Products’ wealth on Earth—and yet what choice did he have? He had come to keep antimatter from the hands of the ARM; whatever secret lurked within the stasis field might be as dangerous.

  If he did not buy it, to whom might it be offered next? Kzinti?

  Delivering the artifact to Hearth meant first bringing it aboard Court Jester. To his surprise, Nessus realized that that didn’t bother him. He had trusted Jason and Anne-Marie to bring him here and get him back to Jinx. He would trust them with this unique cargo.

  His voices wavering, Nessus said, “You have my word of honor.”

  The mirror-bright artifact materialized outside the dome, a neck’s length from Nessus. It was too big for his pockets; he tied it securely to his suit. Once more, he turned to leave.

  “One more thing,” Fourteen said. “Since you are here representing the Concordance.” He/she/it climbed from the repose it had maintained throughout the negotiations. Changing posture required flexing the handle end—the torso—as well as a scurry of tendrils. “We have noticed something most interesting.

  “We understand why your worlds are in flight. At some point, we will follow. But the danger is millennia away, hardly an emergency.” Fourteen paused. “We expect past agreements to be honored.”

  “Certainly,” Nessus said. Was this something casual or very, very serious? So little was known about the Outsiders. The meaning of their body language, assuming they had body language, was not part of that knowledge. The new stance might signify anything, or nothing.

  “The planetary drives were sold only to the Concordance. For acquiring farm worlds. For moving Hearth and its colonies from its sun.” Swirling tendrils might convey agitation. “Not to be made available to other races.” Pause. “That long-ago arrangement was exclusive.”

  And extraordinarily expensive. Installments would continue to be paid long after Nessus was dead and forgotten. “I do not understand.”

  Tendrils waved. A hologram appeared of the Fleet—comprised of six worlds. The Fleet as it had been until a few years ago. In an elaborate dance, one world emerged and pulled ahead, while the others lagged and re-formed into a pentagon.

  Nessus pawed the hard deck, for a shuddering moment unable to stop himself. Proximity did more than keep Outsider ships close for support. Proximity meant Outsider ships at all times had a good view of the Concordance worlds.

  An opportunity the Outsiders had obviously grasped.

  “Scouts,” Nessus managed to say. “As we flee the galaxy, that world, Nature Preserve Four, will encounter any dangers first. They will warn the rest of us.”

  “So we speculated initially. Their communications, however, are puzzling. The language clearly isn’t Citizen. It sounds almost like Interworld.” When Nessus failed to respond, Fourteen added, “If the Concordance transferred the planetary drive, dishonoring its pledge of exclusivity, the consequences will be dire.”

&n
bsp; “Nothing of your systems has been transferred. Nature Preserve Four is in custody of our representatives,” Nessus stammered, his tune marred by trembling. What was the meaning of dire to beings so powerful? “Too few of us are able to explore.”

  “Of that, we require convincing.” Fourteen waggled tendrils once more. Air whooshed, this time into unseen reservoirs. The door opened. “Bring proof.”

  53

  Nessus crept from the air lock, barely able to move. He scarcely remembered being towed to Court Jester by two Outsiders.

  Jason stared at the object strapped to Nessus’ chest. “Finagle. Is that a stasis box?”

  “Yes,” Nessus answered dully. He was at—past—the limits of his endurance. The mania that had sustained him seemed less than a distant memory. “It must be stowed.”

  Anne-Marie noticed his fumbling with the straps. “Let me,” she offered. She opened the fasteners, and then blinked at the artifact’s surprising weight.

  Jason relieved her of the cylinder. He turned it over and over, studying it from every angle. “I’ll put it in the forward locker. Anne, help Nessus out of his suit.”

  Nessus thought nothing of giving such a treasure to Jason. To open a stasis box required a special apparatus private ships would never carry. He hardly thought at all. As from a great distance, Nessus bent and twisted and writhed free of his space suit. Fear and overload had nearly paralyzed him; it took both humans to extract him.

  “Back to Jinx,” Nessus called over his shoulder, wobbling to his cabin.

  The hatch slammed shut, vibrating from the sharp blow of his hind hoof. The lock engaged with a satisfying click. Nessus dove to the deck, rolled himself tight, and sought, for a little while, to forget.

  EAT. EXCRETE. DENY.

  Bodily functions occasionally dragged Nessus from catatonia, and the dirty plates stacked near his personal synthesizer represented a calendar of a sort. By that crude standard days had passed, but he would not guess how many.

  A loud, echoing scream yanked him into the present. It was the amplified ululation of a human female, shrill and panicked. Nessus threw the hatch open and raced to the bridge.