Destroyer of Worlds

by Larry Niven

  Even the genocidal weapon of last resort, a kinetic planet-buster, offered no hope. The Pak had spread themselves across a widely distributed fleet—while planet-bound New Terrans and Puppeteers alike were sitting ducks. (Alice had been to Earth and seen ducks. She got the metaphor but froze mid-nod when Sabrina looked puzzled.)

  The longer the meeting went on, the more Baedeker plucked at his mane. Reluctantly, as all eyes turned toward him, Baedeker spoke. “So our survival depends on better planetary drives.” A hint of rising inflection made the words a question, a plea for the burden of worlds to be lifted from his shoulders.

  “It seems so,” Nessus said, and yet he looked to Sigmund rather than Baedeker.

  “Tell us about your progress,” Sigmund said.

  From a head plunged deep into his mane, Baedeker answered, “The prototypes continue to demonstrate instability problems.”

  Sabrina cleared her throat. “Please explain.”

  Baedeker did, with specifics that made Sigmund’s head hurt. From their months spent together, Sigmund had a pretty good idea that the torrent of words masked a lack of progress.

  Or maybe cop training was what led him to that conclusion, because Alice got there, too. “How soon, exactly, does instability set in?”

  “Up to sixteen on the last trial, before we had to shut it down.”

  “Sixteen what?” Alice persisted, a bit impatiently, and Sabrina shot Alice a sharp glance. New Terrans had centuries of indoctrination deferring to their former masters.

  “Your aide, indeed, Sigmund.” Nessus briefly looked himself in the eyes. “I see your influence. Alice, I am afraid the answer is sixteen nanoseconds.”

  “Can anyone else make a drive work—at all?” With a jerk, Baedeker removed the head from his mane. He straightened both necks to stare boldly, one person at a time, at everyone in the room. “I thought not.”

  “Perhaps,” Sigmund began. He had to laugh at Nessus’ two-headed double take. “No, not I. Shipmates on Don Quixote.”

  “Eric? Surely a talented engineer, but—”

  Baedeker cut off Nessus. “Shipmates, plural. He means the Gw’oth, Nessus. It is unacceptable to expose them to this level of advanced physics.”

  The Puppeteers burst into full-throated cacophony, music and crashing metal and tortured animals combined. An argument, the details of which Sigmund hoped Jeeves could translate, while doubting the hidden recorder would capture it. Puppeteers built impressive jammers.

  “You will stop,” Sabrina said softly. Those were her first words for some time, and the Puppeteers twitched and fell silent. “And speak English.” She turned to Sigmund. “Please continue.”

  Sigmund took a deep breath. Imminent existential danger trumped long-term risks every time. “Our Gw’oth friends are why we’re here. Their superior astronomy first noticed the enemy. They helped us capture Thssthfok.” While Baedeker cowered in his cabin. “Their quick thinking saved us more than once. We need their talents.”

  Nessus swiveled one head toward Baedeker. “Sigmund makes a good argument.”

  Baedeker spewed a short arpeggio, stopped, and began again. “Yes, it sounds reasonable, but at least these particular Gw’oth, this group mind, learns astonishingly fast.”

  “Isn’t quickness just what we need?” Nessus asked.

  “Enough!” Sabrina pushed back her chair and stood. “Baedeker, forty-two humans are assisting your project. Neither you nor they have given me any reason to expect success. I’ll make it simple. Accept the Gw’oth scientists on the project, or I order my team home.”

  There was a second, brief eruption of noise, from which Baedeker was the first to subside. Nessus said, “Understood, Sabrina. On behalf of the Hindmost, I accept your terms.”

  HOME.

  Sigmund sat in his favorite chair, little Athena on his knee—only she wasn’t so little. She must have shot up another two inches. She squirmed, and he knew suddenly that she had outgrown the bedtime story he was reading. He tousled her hair. “You can read this yourself, can’t you?”

  “Yes, Daddy. But it’s all right.” She smiled up at him shyly: You mean well.

  Hermes sat nearby, acting busy with a pocket comp as he guarded his baby sister. That I’m-the-man-of-the-house protectiveness touched Sigmund—and it wounded him even more deeply than the boy’s aloofness.

  I’m gone so much that I’m losing them, Sigmund thought. It hurt. He handed Athena his comp. “Why don’t you read to me?”

  Penny was in the kitchen, speaking in clipped, urgent tones. She wasn’t standoffish—only rarely available. The spreading dead zone off Arcadia’s western coast had decimated the kelp farms. Huge masses of Hearthian sea life had died, and the stench from the ocean had become unbearable. Penny was on the emergency task force, up to her neck in evacuation planning.

  “What’s this word, Daddy?”

  He looked where she pointed. “Neighbor,” he said. “The gee-aitch is silent.”

  All for want of a moon. “Give New Terra its own moon and it regains some tides.”

  Athena stopped, midsentence. “What, Daddy?”

  “Nothing, sweetie. Something a friend once said to me.” Back when Baedeker naïvely thought he could build a planetary drive and deliver a moon. Now the stakes were higher.

  Two screens before the story ended, Sigmund’s comp rang with the subtle, minor-key trill of a priority call. He kissed the top of Athena’s head. “I have to take this. Hop off.”

  She slid from Sigmund’s lap and he went into his den and shut the door. With the bedtime story closed, the OSA icon blinked on the display.

  Kirsten was tonight’s duty officer at the Office of Strategic Analyses. Most nights nothing happened, but someone had to cover just in case. She had volunteered, wanting some quality time alone with Brennan’s singleship. The protector’s modifications continued to baffle her.

  Sigmund took her call. “What’s up?”

  “Nessus just filed a flight plan, Sigmund. He wants to take off immediately.”

  Finagle. “There are things he and I still need to discuss. He’s been avoiding me.”

  Kirsten grinned. “There’s an air-traffic delay, as it happens.”

  “Good job.” He thought fast. “I need ten minutes to wrap up something. Let Nessus know I’m coming.”

  “Will do. Anything else?”

  “That’s it, Kirsten. Thanks.”

  He hung up and opened the den door. “All right, sweetie. Let’s finish this story.”

  SIGMUND HALF EXPECTED NESSUS would not allow him aboard Aegis, but the Puppeteer sent a stepping-disc address. It delivered Sigmund into an isolation booth. Of course.

  “It’s good of you to wait for me,” Sigmund began.

  A hoof scraped at the deck. “To take off without the cooperation of traffic control would be dangerous.”

  “After we talk, I think I can get you authorized for departure.” Nessus looked himself in the eyes. “I am much relieved.”

  “Maybe together, the Gw’oth and Baedeker can make new planetary drives work.” Only everything Twenty-three had said made success seem vanishingly unlikely. “We can’t afford to bet on it.”

  “And our choices are?”

  We need more help, tanj it! If only Alice could point them toward Earth. The best psychologists on New Terra had had even less success with her than they had with Sigmund. Alice had no interstellar-navigational memories to recover. “Bring me to Earth, Nessus.”

  “There is no point. The Pak have destroyed it.”

  Aid for the survivors would be a purpose, wouldn’t it? “Then there is no harm in bringing me.”

  Nessus backed up a step. “It would be a long voyage to no purpose, and I am needed on Hearth.”

  “We both know you’re lying.” Sigmund’s hands yearned to become fists, and no good could come of that—helpless as he was in this cell. He jammed his hands into his pockets.

  “If Earth remained as you remember it, I still could not bring y
ou. Concordance policy would forbid it.”

  Did Concordance policy allow kidnapping Earth citizens and erasing their memories, or am I the exception? “Nessus, you trust”—for some insane reason—“my ability to solve your problems. It can’t be so hard for you to believe that other humans also have useful skills. Permit me some help, some other experts. For both our worlds’ sake.” Memories of the innocent little girl sitting on his lap only a few minutes earlier broke his heart.

  “More ARMs?” Nessus plucked at his mane. “Had you not been near death that day, I would never have dared to approach you.”

  “Not ARMs. More . . . specialized talent. While in Human Space, I know you hired humans.” Often criminals. “Do it again, Nessus.” Don’t bet worlds on me!

  “Tempting, but unacceptable. Why would mercenaries fight Pak when they could raid Hearth instead?”

  “More specialized still,” Sigmund said. “We need truly creative people. Unique people. Baedeker needs all the physics talent he can get. Will you recruit experts from Human Space?”

  “You have people in mind. Who?”

  “Beowulf Shaeffer and Carlos Wu.” One an adventurer with an uncanny knack for survival, the other a certified genius.

  Nessus twitched. He clearly remembered both men, too. (Sigmund wondered if the Puppeteer had ever heard the term loose cannon.) A head dipped lower and lower, finally dipping into a pocket of his sash. The visible head said, “No—”

  And Sigmund found himself in a public square half a continent away.

  54

  “Three . . . two. . . one. . . now.” Minerva scarcely paused. “Experiment complete.”

  “How long?” Baedeker asked.

  Minerva, Baedeker’s research assistant, craned a neck over his console. “One point oh four two three seconds.”

  Across Haven’s bridge, two human technicians cheered at finally breaking the one-second barrier. Baedeker scarcely spared them a disapproving glance. The Fleet would not escape the Pak in one-second spurts.

  One of the Gw’oth sidled closer. Beneath the exoskeleton, its motors humming, and beneath the transparent pressure suit, peeked a name written in chromatophoric cells: Er’o. “We do make progress, Baedeker.”

  Baedeker straightened a bit of mane braid. He tired of hints about Er’ o’s contributions. Or about their contributions, since Baedeker never knew when a Gw’o merely disclosed an insight of the group mind. Maybe if he had been aboard Don Quixote, and had had the same opportunity to closely observe the Outsider ship operating its drive . . .

  Baedeker tamped down his annoyance. For the sake of the Concordance, he needed help. Anyone’s help. He bobbed heads, conceding Er’ o’s point.

  Er’o needed no more encouragement. “Perhaps an extended experiment would give us more insight into the instability.”

  Minerva bleated disapproval. “We extend the experiments as quickly as we learn.”

  Er’o double-tapped the deck with a tubacle, the mannerism Baedeker had come to interpret as impatience. “We terminate the drive experiments prematurely. We could learn more.”

  That was insanity, and Baedeker yearned to flee. He settled for pawing the deck. “It does not disturb you that space-time contorts around the drive?”

  “We are trying to warp space-time.” Of necessity, everyone aboard communicated in English, but Er’o overlaid his with Citizen harmonics, rich with undertunes of smug superiority. “Without inducing a slope, we obtain no motion.”

  “A slope.” Baedeker spread his hooves, made himself unready to run, striving to exhibit as much confidence. “I wish we were producing a clean slope. Look at the data. As the drive loses stability, the ‘slope’ begins to fluctuate chaotically, even over quantum distances.” Even chaos somehow failed to describe the rippling, writhing, bumpy space-time contour that reinvented itself by the femtosecond. “We stop because we must.”

  “Fluctuations superimposed on an emergent slope,” Er’o insisted. “We see hints that the fluctuations are about to peak. There are patterns upon patterns of flux, and Kl’o expects we may soon observe interference patterns and thus cancellation.”

  “If we keep observing,” one of the humans in the background muttered unnecessarily.

  In theory, Baedeker was hindmost here. In practice, most of the team was New Terran. Even the Gw’oth present at the insistence of New Terra outnumbered the few Citizens. Baedeker had to keep their support. He had to show Nessus more progress.

  And he had to do it, somehow, without getting anyone killed.

  “How long would you run the experiment?” Baedeker asked.

  “Until the drive stabilizes or self-destructs,” Er’o said.

  On trembling legs Baedeker began a slow ambit of the bridge, studying instruments and computer displays. Crew scurried out of his way. He scrutinized the details of the hyperwave-buoy placement. He confirmed the ship’s position at twenty million miles from the icy rock now home to the latest prototype drive. He examined the final visualization—necessarily grossly oversimplified—of space-time flux at the instant safeguards had terminated the most recent trial. He surveyed Haven’s own diagnostic panel and assured himself that every sensor, every triplicated system, every failover mechanism exhibited unimpaired capacity.

  Er’ o’s proposed experiment could be done.

  Baedeker completed his circuit, stopping near Er’o. “And would you agree to Haven jumping to hyperspace if the chaotic effects reach within ten million miles?”

  Tap-tap. “Agreed,” Er’o said.

  Remotely deactivating the safety protocols on the prototype drive took only five minutes. Baedeker needed another five minutes, ostensibly spent reexamining sensor calibrations, to bring himself to give the order. All around, the humans whispered. “Start the countdown,” he finally ordered.

  Sixty-five seconds later, with half its bridge alarms screaming, Haven flicked into hyperspace. From a safer distance, Baedeker watched tier after tier of buoys drop from comm.

  Nothing remained of the planetoid but a cloud of gas and dust, erupting at near light speed.

  The disaster wasn’t total. The drive had achieved thrust in the desired direction, although that nudge was nothing compared to the shattering effects—in every direction—of the explosion.

  And Er’o, uncharacteristically, had no unsolicited advice to offer.

  THE WORKSHOPS ABOARD Haven hummed with activity. Someone was always refining circuitry for the next prototype drive or configuring additional sensors for the next test. Every new circuit and sensor required still more custom equipment for predeployment checkout. Custom items might be fabricated in one shipboard facility, tested in a second, integrated with other parts in a third, deployed in yet a fourth. Human, Citizen, and Gw’o alike: It made no difference. Anyone might be handling unfamiliar gear at any time, anywhere in the ship.

  Hence few noticed, and no one gave a second thought to, the Gw’oth installing sensors about Haven.

  Sigmund would have noticed, Ol’t’ro suspected, but Sigmund was not here. The paranoid human was far away, across a hyperwave link, reviewing project status. Neither Sigmund nor Baedeker knew the Gw’otesht could listen in.

  “A second or two,” Sigmund repeated. “And still only scale models. No one is going anywhere with drives like that.”

  “No one,” Baedeker agreed. “If we can maintain this rate of progress, though, then maybe. In time.”

  “You don’t sound optimistic,” Sigmund said.

  The technical challenges were familiar. The grudging credit for Gw’oth contributions was not new. Taking in everything, Ol’t’ro attended more to nuance and tones of voice than to content. Baedeker had something on his mind.

  Baedeker finally came out with it. “Sigmund, I assume Thssthfok can never be set free.”

  “He’s seen too much of our technology. And he’s so tanj smart, I’m afraid to think how much more he’s deduced.” Sigmund paused. “I don’t feel good about it. Possibly, if the Pak veer, after th
ey have passed us by. But realistically, no.”

  “Then you’ll understand my concern,” Baedeker said. “Ol’t’ro cannot go home, either.”

  “It’s not the same,” Sigmund snapped. “The Gw’oth are our friends. Our allies. You wouldn’t have made half the progress you have without them.”

  “How does that make them less dangerous?”

  As Ol’t’ro had feared, their contributions—essential for everyone’s safety—were being turned against them. They listened dispiritedly as Baedeker and Sigmund debated, neither convincing the other.

  Sigmund finally said, “I have other sources of information aboard Haven. If anything unfortunate happens to the Gw’oth, anything, the New Terrans come home. That’s a promise, Baedeker.”

  “All right,” Baedeker said.

  Into Baedeker’s grudging tone, Ol’t’ro read a mind still plotting.

  “YOU DO WELL,” Nessus said. His ship, Aegis, had emerged hours earlier from hyperspace on yet another unannounced inspection of Baedeker’s project. The two of them had withdrawn to Baedeker’s cabin.

  Another interruption was the last thing Baedeker needed, but the unexpected praise tempered his irritation. That, and practicality. The real last thing he needed was the loss of Concordance support. Nessus’ backing mattered. “Thank you,” Baedeker said.

  Being hindmost had advantages. So did control of a large ship. Baedeker’s cabin had lush meadowplant carpet, with room to wander when he chose to be alone and for large gatherings at other times, and a pantry filled with real grasses and grains. It also had an extensively programmed synthesizer, from which Nessus obtained a bulb of warm carrot juice.

  “Net thrust and improved stability,” Nessus began. “Truly, you have done well since my last visit. And yet . . .”

  Baedeker bobbed heads. “And yet we have very far to go.”

  “What are your plans?”

  “To better integrate efforts here and on NP5,” Baedeker said. “Too many observations of the NP5 drive made no sense. Having operated our own drives”—however briefly—“I am beginning to understand what the sealed Outsider controls must do. It no longer seems impossible to run their drives a bit harder.”