Larry Niven: Fate of Worlds: Return From the Ringworld

He should go with Julia to check out this latest threat. In another life, he had been an intelligence agent — an ARM — a high-ranking operative in the United Nations’ unassumingly named Amalgamated Regional Militia. He had put together what passed for a military to protect this world.

What made him feel so old? The weight of experience? Or the scorn of the one person still living who had once truly understood him?

“Ms. Jordan,” Norquist-Ng said respectfully, “it is a commendable offer, but you are in no condition for such a trip. You must realize that.”

“But I am going. I was a police detective, back in the day, back in the Belt. On this world, for a long time, I was deputy defense minister. We both know” — said staring at Sigmund — “ someone with off-world experience must go.”

Tanj stubborn pride! Few Belters ever went prospecting solo, with only a spacesuit and a singleship to protect them — but loner self-sufficiency had deep roots in their mythos, their schooling, maybe their genes. No matter what was at stake, you questioned that belief at your peril. To presume to make life-or-death decisions for a Belter? That was the ultimate affront.

Once, long ago, Sigmund had presumed. In the same desperate circumstances, he would do it again. Better a live ex-friend than a dead friend.

And however scornfully Alice looked at him, he still meant to help keep her alive.

Merely the thought of setting foot onto a spaceship had Sigmund trembling. “Alice,” he said weakly, “I’m just not able. I’m sorry, but it’ll have to be you. But maybe not alone.”

“Is there another ‘friend’ you’d send?” she mocked.

Not exactly. Friends didn’t reprogram friends, even in a good cause. Friends didn’t keep dark secrets from — or kidnap — one another. Nonetheless, a champion of New Terra.

Sigmund nodded. “I won’t say who, Alice. But if I can convince him to join the expedition, you would be fortunate to have him along.”

Weeding, pruning, breaking apart clumps of dirt, Janus worked his way through the garden. Sweat trickled down his flanks and matted his mane. Mud spattered his legs and clung to his hooves.

The redmelons were coming along acceptably, but other melon varieties struggled. Tall stands of ornamental grasses, oddly scented, in shades of amber (a touch too orange) and violet (too pale), bowed in the warm breeze. But the fruit trees showed promise. Winged borers evidently agreed, for the red-and-purple insectivore hedge that bounded the garden was a frenzy of lunging, snapping tendrils.

Once this world had been a granary of the Fleet of Worlds. Most of the farmland here, even long after independence, had grown crops for export to Hearth. No more. Now terrestrial crops prospered, for with the severing of ties with the Concordance had come many changes. Most overt: the reprogramming of the suns. Hearthian flora had yet to adapt to cycles altered to mimic the length of Earth’s day and year.

What Janus truly craved was the terrestrial vegetable that he never dared to plant. Someone might remember a Puppeteer with a fondness for carrot juice. He had departed Hearth long ago, but among those in authority was one with long memories. One who nursed grudges.

Even on this world, Achilles might have spies.

Janus had come late to gardening. His mate had loved to garden; to work in the soil was a way, however imperfect, to commune. And gardening had been something of their lost parent to share with the children.

Absent parent, Janus chided himself. He would not, must not, think of his mate as lost, as departed.

No matter that since their parting, the “children” had grown to adulthood. Aurora had even mated. Elpis, the younger of the two, had no memory at all of Hearth, the world of his birth, the home world of his kind, the jewel of the Fleet.

And in all that time, never had as much as a grace note of rumor about Baedeker, much less any news, found its way to Janus.

Beyond the hungry hedge, in a pasture of freshly mown meadowplant, children gamboled and frolicked, bleated and sang. This is a good life, Janus thought. The humans treat us kindly, better than we deserve.

A sudden squealing erupted from among the young, and an outpouring of melodies from the adults who supervised the children’s play. Janus set down his trowel, then craned a neck, the better to listen. He was too distant to make out all the chords, and the breeze carried off most of the upper harmonics, but the little he could hear tantalized him. Surprise, certainly. Reassurances for the little ones. Reassurances for one another.

He was quite close enough to see the youngest children scattering from … a human.

Round-faced, gray-haired, thick through the middle, his garment set all to black, the newcomer stopped by a cluster of the child-tending adults. Perhaps the man spoke to them, because one indicated the garden with a briefly straightened neck. With a murmur of thanks, the man began shuffling toward Janus.

Sigmund Ausfaller?

The man looked terrible. Decrepit, to be sure; sadly, that was to be expected. Troubled. Shaken. But the eyes, dark and brooding, burned as intensely as ever.

Janus had not seen Sigmund for … since soon after taking asylum on this world. No, he should be precise: since Sigmund had smuggled him and the children onto this world. The New Terran government did not know and would never have approved. For Sigmund to reappear …

Janus yearned to gallop away like the children. He ached to collapse onto the ground and hide from the world, his heads tucked between his front legs, tightly rolled into a bundle of self. Whatever events brought Sigmund here … whatever had shaken Sigmund … it would be bad.

Sigmund edged through a gap in the hedge, flinching from the tendrils lashing out to taste his face, hands, and garment. “Janus?”

“So some call me,” he said. The name he used in the village, no human could sing.

“Two-faced god. Two-headed Puppeteer. Fair enough.” Sigmund chuckled. “And, among his attributes, also god of beginnings, endings, and time.”

Sigmund’s reappearance foretold an ending of Janus’ idylls. And a beginning, too. But the beginning of what?

His heads swiveling, Janus briefly looked himself in the eyes. Sigmund would grasp the ironic laughter. “Apart from you, Sigmund, who on this world knows such things?”

“There is that.”

Silence stretched awkwardly. With a mind of its own, his left forehoof began tearing at the dirt. “What brings you, Sigmund?”

“To chat with Janus? Merely a social call. But if I were to speak with — ”

“A name none mention in this place.” The hoof dug more frantically. A head darted deep into his mane, tongue and lip nodes tugging and twisting at a stray lock of hair.

Sigmund took a computer from his pocket. “There is something I would show that one. Something that a former scout for the Fleet would find interesting.”

Janus willed the wayward hoof to rest — one runs fastest on obedient limbs. He released his mane, so that both heads could see. Alas, he understood too well Sigmund’s concept of interesting. The more circumspectly Sigmund broached a topic, the direr circumstances must be. Beyond the ability of the fleetest to escape. Beyond, sometimes, the ability of Fleets …

“Something interesting,” Janus echoed. “What manner of thing?”

“Call it an anomaly. A ripple in the continuum, such as ships make when entering or leaving hyperspace. Except…”

“Except that no mere ship would explain your unheralded visit.”

“A ripple from far away. A vessel departs New Terra soon to investigate.” Sigmund opened his comp. “Let me show you.”