Larry Niven - Fate of Worlds - Return From the Ringworld

Again he would demur — a proper, fearful Citizen — loath to extend any AI, especially an armed one. Rich with trills and undertunes and grace notes, the melody he would offer ran softly in his mind’s ear. To further develop Proteus risked evoking a runaway intelligence cascade, creating a super-sapience, inducing a singularity event …

Ol’t’ro was expert at coercing acquiescence, but how does one coerce creativity? They would want Achilles’ hearts and mind committed, without reservation or distraction, to the task of enhancing Proteus. And when they realized that …

To depose Horatius and restore me will be a small price.

Ol’t’ro were beyond genius and could modify Proteus themselves. But they wouldn’t: the task was too mundane to hold their interest. They would rather obsess on the enduring mystery of the Type II hyperdrive. They would rather keep working on a gravity-pulse projector to precipitate ships from hyperspace — and to find a way, if they ever had such a projector — to peer into hyperspace to aim it. Ol’t’ro had an unending set of ambitious projects, and the entire Ministry of Science to do their bidding.

And within that Ministry, every scientist and engineer would be terrified to touch the internals of an AI.

Rather than set aside their toys, Ol’t’ro would want Achilles to upgrade Proteus. A commitment to replace Horatius should be no obstacle.

Success was not in question. Achilles had had programming extensions in mind for years, waiting for the opportunity to have access. Not from curiosity, for that was a foolish human trait. Not from the panicked reactivity that motivated most Citizen invention. From preparedness. He who would lead from behind must prepare to lead from behind.

“Do you have further questions, or are we finished?” Proteus asked.

We have only begun, Achilles thought. But he sang, simply, “Finished.”

Louis roamed the narrow, serpentine corridors of Long Shot looking for distraction because Hindmost refused to be rushed. Louis looked for weapons, too, not that, if it came to combat, one ship could prevail against whole fleets. Long Shot ’s advantage was its speed.

“Hindmost’s Voice,” Louis called. “Review your orders.”

“If any ship emerges from hyperspace nearer to us than a light-hour, initiate an immediate ten-light-day maneuver outward from the star through hyperspace. Repeat as needed until I detect no ship within a light-hour.”

“Very good.” Louis turned another corner, plunging deeper into the ship. Kzinti had held this ship for … he did not know how long. If only for a day, there would be some weapons aboard. Tunesmith would have added weapons, too.

Louis doubted he would recognize a protector’s weapon design.

He squirmed through a narrow passageway into yet another equipment room. Except for some stepping discs and float plates Tunesmith must have stowed in the corner, photonics racks filled the space. To judge from the power converters and backup fuel cells, whatever this gear did drew a lot of power. Fat fiber-optic bundles ran between racks and out the hatch into the passageway he had just left. The ship was filled with rooms like this.

Much of it decoy equipment, he had come to realize. His first time aboard, long ago, not even the maze of access tunnels had existed. Louis imagined ARM engineers, and after them Kzinti, ferreting out sham apparatuses one laboriously traced photonic circuit at a time.

As mired in molasses as his thoughts seemed, a few insights remained from his brief time as a protector. Never the reasoning, but sometimes the conclusions.

He found an intercom control. “Hindmost?” No answer. “Hindmost!”

“What?” the answer finally came.

“The lifeboat Tunesmith had in his workspace. The lifeboat we stowed aboard this ship just before leaving the Ringworld. It was on Long Shot in the first place, wasn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

What did he mean? Tanj this dim-witted breeder brain!

Something glimpsed on the Ringworld, Louis thought. Something seen in the war room Tunesmith had improvised within the Ringworld Meteor Defense Room.

Or was it something not seen? Louis remembered the war-room display tagging a few ships with an icon to denote an indestructible General Products hull. This ship. Three ships that hung far back, remote from the Fringe War action. They, like Long Shot, had number four hulls. Puppeteer craft, he had thought then. Had he seen any smaller ships in a GP hull?

Louis said, “The lifeboat is built in a General Products #2 hull. The simplest explanation for such a lifeboat is that it was aboard the whole time.”

“Tunesmith may have captured it,” Hindmost said.

“While the Fringe War raged, while warships blasted holes in the Ringworld with antimatter, Tunesmith was clearing space aboard Long Shot to accommodate a ship a hundred meters long. I don’t think so.”

“Perhaps Patriarchy engineers installed the lifeboat.”

“ Long Shot is all but defenseless. If Kzinti had had the option, instead of a lifeboat we’d have found a hangar jammed with fighter ships or something just as lethal.”

“Very well, Louis,” Hindmost said. “You have me. A lifeboat was always aboard. When Nessus sought you out for the Ringworld expedition. Even when Beowulf Shaeffer took this ship to see the galactic core.

“The Type II drive was new and experimental. Suppose it had stopped working far from Hearth, far from Known Space, beyond hope of rescue by conventional hyperdrive, beyond hope of the Outsiders rendering assistance. Then directions would have been hyperwaved to the pilot how he might release the lifeboat and perhaps, over a very long time, hope to return home.”

That answer Louis believed. “Thank you for not taking the lifeboat and abandoning me.”

“I brought you to the Ringworld against your will. If I can, I will take you safely away. Certainly I owe you that.

“If I have satisfied your curiosity for a while, may I hope you will permit me to continue my observations?”

STARING OUT THE MAIN BRIDGE view port at the stars, Hindmost let his mind wander. Invisible to the naked eye but (courtesy of Voice) prominent in an augmented-reality view was the endless swirl and shift of the ships of the Fringe War.

There was another dance to be seen, if he was not more devoid than usual of reason. At least he thought he saw a dance. Whenever Louis, still bursting with energy from the autodoc, ranging all about the ship, managed to leave him in peace.

From time to time Hindmost drank from a bulb of water. About the time it registered that the bulb seemed bottomless, he realized it must have been replaced. By Louis, on any of his several returns to the bridge.

Hindmost activated the intercom. “Thank you, Louis.”

“For what?”

“Indulging me. I am ready when you are.”

Louis soon appeared in the hatchway to the bridge. “What, exactly, do you see out there?”

As much as see, I hear. I feel. But perhaps it is only wishful thinking. “We will do a test, and then I will explain.”

Louis shrugged.

“Voice, run a correlation.” Hindmost sang out the cadence he had found — or imagined — in the display. “Across the Fringe War, how many ships leap about following that cadence?”

“Hold on,” Louis said. “How can it answer that?” Pause. “Hindmost’s Voice, can you tell ships apart?”

“To an extent,” Voice said. “The shadow-square sensors often catch the silhouettes of ships. By triangulation, I can determine distance, from which I calculate sizes. And I can distinguish hull compositions.”