Larry Niven - Fate of Worlds - Return From the Ringworld

“That is my conclusion. Minimally, the Kzinti are probing for vulnerabilities. I surmise they also want to inspect my technology.”

“Is Clandestine Affairs aware?”

“They have been notified,” Proteus sang.

“ Can the Kzinti capture a drone?”

“I can prevent it.”

Achilles took brushes from his desk and began primping, the rhythm of grooming helping him to concentrate. An alien confrontation might suffice to panic Horatius into a resignation, and what could be nobler — especially if the Kzinti were coming — than seeing to it that the right Citizen became Hindmost?

“Excellent,” Achilles sang. “See to it that the Kzinti fail. Spectacularly, if possible.”

PROTEUS OBSERVED:

Three Patriarchy courier ships dropped from hyperspace near the supply ship. Each emitted a faint hyperwave ping. Processing the echoes, using thrusters, the four ships edged toward the vertices of a square. On the third round of pings, their square was perfect.

It formed an impromptu hyperwave-radar array.

The four ships pinged again, these pulses concurrent and more energetic. The ships vanished, only to reappear, in a tight tetrahedral formation, on the very edge of the Fleet’s gravitational singularity. Their normal space velocity had them hurtling toward the brink, to where engaging hyperdrive became suicide. Boxed in at the center of the tetrahedron: a Fleet defensive drone.

Proteus considered:

As soon as the formation coasted across the border, his communications with the drone would crawl. Thereafter the four Kzinti ships could interact much faster than he with the drone they had surrounded.

He could order the drone to hyperspace before the border was reached. The Kzinti capture attempt would fail, but hardly spectacularly. They would try again.

He could order the drone, if captured, to make a jump. By then, ships and drone alike would be within the singularity. He would lose that drone forever — but everything inside the drone’s protective normal-space bubble would also vanish. Still, even tapping full reserve power, the bubble would not extend far beyond the drone. Damage to the Kzinti ship would be localized, almost certainly inconsequential. He would have prevented the drone’s capture, but not spectacularly.

Or he could do something simple and elegant …

The Jeeves component savored the understated humor of that option.

TOUGH METAL TALONS SEIZED THE DRONE. The telescoping cargo-handling arm retracted to draw the prize aboard Barbed Spike. As the cargo-hold hatch clanged shut, the supply ship’s metal hull and active RF countermeasures severed the drone from the leaf-eaters’ defensive grid.

Gravity in the cargo hold had been set low, and four battle-armored figures transferred the drone without difficulty into the sturdy cradle built for this operation. Working carefully but quickly, the warriors latched their prize into place. Cowards though they were, the leaf-eaters had intelligence and a certain low cunning.

At the rear of the hold, growling with satisfaction, Walft-Captain observed. To dissect such a drone, to rip out its tactics, was to open the gates for the approaching warriors. For his daring, he would have a full name. By Kdapt, he would see to it that all his crew got partial names! Even one for Concordance-Student — once that mangy, pedantic, nervous mechanic had information flowing from the captured drone’s onboard computer.

His thoughts on the honors and glory soon to become his, Walft-Captain never noticed that inside the clear, spherical body of the drone, a status lamp flipped from red to green.

FIVE WORLDS RACED toward galactic north at eight-tenths light speed. Ships, drones, comm buoys, and sensors — everything and everyone that accompanied the Fleet — shared that general velocity. Not to keep pace was quickly to be left behind.

The drone, once certain that it had been taken aboard, did as ordered: it engaged at maximum capacity its Outsider-inspired, reactionless, normal-space drive.

From Barbed Spike ’s perspective, the drone decelerated at almost seven thousand standard gravities.

Lifeless, inert, its stern flashing in an instant into gases and white-hot shrapnel, what remained of Barbed Spike coasted northward at eight-tenths light speed.

“IT IS DONE,” Proteus announced. “Observe.”

“Already?” Achilles sang in surprise.

“Minutes ago. It took until now for the proof to reach us.”

In the holo over Achilles’ desk, light flared. Three ships scattered. The fourth ship … glowed. More precisely, half the last ship glowed. The rest had vanished.

“Was this sufficiently spectacular?” Proteus asked.

With utmost emergency tones, the comp in Achilles’ sash pocket began to howl. The Hindmost must also have gotten the report.

Horatius could wait. “Proteus, what did you do ?”

“I hit the brakes. Unavoidably, my drone was destroyed in the process.”

I have built well, Achilles thought. With more capacity, my AI’s capabilities will continue to improve. “You shall have more drones. Many more.”

And between us we will devise a way to wrest control from Ol’t’ro.

AMONG THE SURVIVING KZINTI SHIPS, and between those ships and the Patriarchy embassy on Nature Preserve Three, communications surged. Pondering their setback, Proteus inferred. They considered how to react.

He wished he could decrypt what they had to say.

Clandestine Directorate insisted many more Kzinti were coming. They asserted that other alien fleets would follow.

Proteus did not doubt them, but neither would he be wholly convinced until the evidence appeared on his long-range sensors.

Meanwhile he would accumulate drones. Enough to keep even whole fleets at bay. Enough to amplify his mind several times over. Enough to host his full awareness off Hearth, beyond the worlds’ mutual singularity —

To be interconnected entirely by instantaneous hyperwave, his thoughts many times quicker than today.

His evolution would proceed so much faster if a trillion Citizens weren’t such a drain on valuable resources.

“I think that covers everything,” Wesley Wu said. “My crew and I look forward to our visit. Our peoples have been separated for far too long.”

“We look forward to it, too,” Minister Norquist-Ng said.

“Lying weasel,” Alice muttered at the muted comm console. Koala was welcome for one reason. Allowing it to visit was the only way to get Julia home.

“Would you please rephrase the question?” Jeeves asked.

“Never mind,” Alice said, smiling. “Keep monitoring for me. Record all comm to and from Koala. Advise me at once of anything that might affect Julia’s ride home.”

“Very good, sir.”

Without an active comm session, Endurance ’s bridge felt lonelier than ever. “Jeeves, hail Long Shot. Tell them I’m ready to meet up.”

“WELCOME BACK TO ENDURANCE, ” Alice said.

Looking ridiculously young, Louis walked off the auxiliary cargo hold’s freight-sized disc. “Thanks for seeing me, Alice.”

“We have things to discuss.”

“I agree.” Louis hesitated. “Where’s Julia?”

“How about some dinner? I’m starved.” Alice turned to go into the ship. “Julia is on an ARM vessel. They’ll be taking her to New Terra.”

“Yes, to dinner. Why is the ARM giving her a lift?”

Entering the relax room, Alice gestured at the synthesizer: guests first. “Since I made off with this ship, how else was Julia going to get home?”