Larry Niven - Fate of Worlds - Return From the Ringworld

(Alice had recognized the map of Earth! She had tried to cover her slip, not said what caught her eye, but he knew. He had long suspected she was from outside. But wherever Alice was from, however she had come to be on New Terra — Sigmund, too, kept secrets — if she could have guided a ship back to Earth, it would have happened by now.)

“Could Endurance be spotted?” someone on New Terra asked.

“We’re stealthed, but that goes only so far,” Julia said. “We can’t avoid giving off heat, so infrared sensors might see us. Our power plant sprays neutrinos. And ships detecting this broadcast might be trying to track us down.”

“Let’s review calibrations on your passive sensors,” someone said, missing or ignoring Julia’s hint.

“Another jump,” Nessus announced, his heads shaking. Julia or Alice would have to take his place soon.

“Be right back,” Alice told the camera.

They emerged from hyperspace three seconds — and a light-hour — from their last position in normal space. As Nessus considered his next step, he half listened to the resumed consultation. People safe in their meeting room, light-years away, continued their endless questions. Were there snowballs nearby from which Endurance could replenish its deuterium tanks? How long would it take to refuel? Did they plan to deploy additional probes for monitoring? Were …

Through it all, Sigmund kept trying to bring the discussion back to the nearby fleets, and how Endurance might identify an ARM ship to contact. Norquist-Ng kept calling anything beyond lurking “premature” and any attempt at outreach “too risky.”

“Preparing to jump,” Nessus interrupted.

So much danger. So much tension. Nessus tuned out the endless meeting. He tried to concentrate only on the choreography by which to keep Endurance one step ahead of any ship that might come after them.

But old, dread memories of the Ringworld would no longer be denied.…

The Hindmost’s council chamber: a place Nessus had never expected to see. Now he was in it, the center of attention. By his own doing. At his own insistence.

Madness took many forms.

Every time he had left Hearth and herd, he had had to work himself into a manic state. But to come in a frenzy to the inner sanctum of the Concordance?

Focus! Nessus ordered himself. Taking a deep breath, he examined the council room. Sparely furnished and devoid of ornamentation. Locked doors and no stepping discs. Well lit, the entire ceiling a glow panel. Intimate, the benches close together, the Hindmost and his ministers seated haunch by haunch. And Nessus’ true audience: a hologram — and whoever was behind it.

If observation and deduction had not led Nessus astray. A long chain of inference, from very few facts, led to his conclusion as to who must hide behind Chiron. Not even his beloved would comment upon Nessus’ speculations.

But it was too late to have doubts. Hormones surged anew, warmed his blood, stoked the flames of his transient manic euphoria.

“We shall come to order,” the Hindmost sang in a loud, clear voice. “The hindmost of our Ringworld expedition has demanded an audience.”

“I bring good news,” Nessus began. “On Earth I recruited two humans and a Kzin for investigation of the Ringworld.” He began extolling his crew’s qualifications.

“You bring them here and this is good news?” Achilles interrupted. “You have revealed the Fleet!”

“It was necessary, as I shall explain.” Nessus dipped his heads briefly in feigned regret. “Recall my assignment. I need qualified crew to explore far beyond the edge of what they consider Known Space. Before their perilous explorations can even begin, they must entrust their lives to an experimental spacecraft. Further, the Type II hyperdrive so fills Long Shot that there is scarcely room for the pilot. The rest must agree to go into stasis, trusting that they will be released.”

“All this was clear before you set out,” Achilles sang. “You made no mention then of revealing the Fleet.”

If he could, Achilles would seize control of the Ringworld mission. He would undo everything Nessus strove to accomplish.

Nessus dare not allow that to happen.

Scouts, so very rare among the herd, had to be insanely brave. Achilles was also insanely brave — he had been a scout, too, early in his career — and obsessively ambitious, and a sociopath. To further his ambitions, he had once tried to kill Nessus. To further his ambitions, he had provoked Pak and Gw’oth alike — and somehow won.

For a time.

To become Hindmost again, Achilles would do — anything.

Nessus chose his next chords with care. “I could not know in advance what payment our explorers would demand.”

“You could have offered something else to — ”

“Let him report,” Chiron sang.

At the rebuke, Achilles twitched and fell silent.

“As partial payment,” Nessus sang, “they demanded Long Shot itself.”

Two ministers warbled in surprise; others glanced sidelong at Chiron. Most, the Hindmost among them, seemed determined not to react. Chiron’s research program had been ruinously expensive.

“Why Long Shot ?” Chiron asked.

Because I offered it. “Because,” Nessus sang, “their people lack the technology to move their worlds. The new hyperdrive, if their species can reproduce it, could someday be of great utility in fleeing the core explosion.” And of greater utility, much sooner, confirming the incredible discoveries my crew will bring to their homes.

Achilles straightened on his bench. “A very great prize, yet you deem Long Shot a partial payment. And you have ignored my question about exposing the Fleet. You could have arranged to meet anywhere to transfer from Long Shot to the exploration ship. You chose here. ”

They had penetrated to the hearts of the matter. Nessus sang, “The reason is simple. As part of their price, the crew asked the location of the Citizen home world.”

In truth, one had made such a demand. Never suspecting that Nessus — after long protecting the Fleet’s secret location — had planned from the start to reveal the way to Hearth.

“This is madness,” Achilles sang with stern undertunes, cutting through the sudden cacophony of dismay. “We must dispose of these recruits.”

The Hindmost stared at Nessus. “You had no alternatives?”

“I did not.” Through the lie, somehow, Nessus kept his harmonies firm and steady. At a higher level, he sang the truth. What he did was for the good of the herd.

Unless he had gone as psychotic as Achilles.

The Hindmost, after a long silence, sadly sang, “We can erase these memories. After the mission. There is precedent.”

“Memory edits would violate the agreements I made,” Nessus sang back. He spread his hooves, un ready to flee, pretending to a confidence he lacked. “I will not travel to the Ringworld without the council’s assurances that they will honor my promises. And my crew refuses to go without me.”

Several among the council blinked at this boldness.

“We must explore this amazing artifact,” Chiron insisted. “Imagine what we can learn.”

Nessus managed not to stare. Scouting, he understood: sacrificing a very few to the perils of exploration to uncover unsuspected dangers waiting to pounce on the entire herd. But exploring to satisfy curiosity? Did no one here see that the intelligence behind “Chiron’s” hologram could not be a Citizen?

Or did they choose not to see?

The Hindmost seemed more saddened than surprised at Chiron’s melody. “It shall be as you suggest,” he sang at last.