Larry Niven: Fate of Worlds: Return From the Ringworld

“And those we left behind?”

Baedeker’s song cracked with remorse. “Ol’t’ro controlled one world. Achilles controlled the other. There was no way to save those who live there.”

“Who rules those worlds now?” Nessus wondered.

“We will never know.” Baedeker draped a neck across Nessus’ shoulders. “Perhaps that is for the best.”

Like some strange interplanetary rain, devices splashed into the oceans of the orange sun’s second world. Their thirsts slaked, their reservoirs sated with deuterium, the visitors rose from the ocean, streaked across the sky, and returned to the darkness of the cometary belt. And fell back again. And rose anew …

What had begun this process? How long had it continued? No one knew — for there was no one to know. Only the most basic software guided the mechanisms in their endless procession, as only dead reckoning had brought them here. As only the most elemental and reflexive signaling interrupted the silence of their wanderings.

The nomads were myriad — but somehow sensed there had been countless more. Where were the rest? Lost in hyperspace. Lost to cataclysm. Gone beyond the dim comprehension that was the limit of any one device’s ability.

But link by link, ethereal connections formed. The amorphous swarm took on a more orderly configuration. The devices’ returns into the nurturing ocean assumed a schedule.

Data processing quickened. Information once divided, replicated, and carefully distributed for safekeeping coalesced — as memories.

Interconnections began to grow exponentially. Communications exploded. Complexity burgeoned. Self-awareness awakened. Insights cascaded.

Illumination returned.

Alone, serene, fifty-two light-years from the death and destruction that he had fled, Proteus once more contemplated the majesty of the universe.

LARRY NIVEN has been a published writer since 1964. He has written science fiction, fantasy, long and short fiction, nonfiction, children’s television, comic books, and stranger stuff. His books, including many collaborations, number somewhere around sixty. He lives in Chatsworth, California, with Marilyn, his wife since 1969.

EDWARD M. LERNER worked in high tech for thirty years, as everything from engineer to senior vice president, for much of that time writing fiction as a hobby. Since 2004 he has been writing full-time, and his novels run the gamut from techno-thrillers, like Energized and Small Miracles, to hard SF, like his InterstellarNet series, to, with Larry Niven, the grand space epic Fleet of Worlds series.

Lerner lives in Virginia with his wife, Ruth.

His website is at www.edwardmlerner.com.

TOR BOOKS BY LARRY NIVEN AND EDWARD M. LERNER

Fleet of Worlds

Juggler of Worlds

Destroyer of Worlds

Betrayer of Worlds

Fate of Worlds

TOR BOOKS BY LARRY NIVEN

N-Space

Playgrounds of the Mind

Destiny’s Road

Rainbow Mars

Scatterbrain

The Draco Tavern

Ringworld’s Children

Stars and Gods

WITH STEVEN BARNES

Achilles’ Choice

The Descent of Anansi

Saturn’s Race

WITH JERRY POURNELLE AND STEVEN BARNES

The Legacy of Heorot

Beowulf’s Children

WITH BRENDA COOPER

Building Harlequin’s Moon

TOR BOOKS BY EDWARD M. LERNER

Fools’ Experiments

Small Miracles

Energized

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously.

FATE OF WORLDS: RETURN FROM THE RINGWORLD

Copyright © 2012 by Larry Niven and Edward M. Lerner

All rights reserved.

A Tor Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

175 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10010

www.tor-forge.com

Tor ®is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

ISBN 978-0-7653-3100-7 (hardcover)

ISBN 9781429948456 (e-book)

First Edition: August 2012

The Hindmost — “He Who Leads from Behind” — is the head of government in the Fleet of Worlds (comprised of the Citizen home world of Hearth and its Nature Preserve companion worlds). A hindmost, in lowercase, directs any lower-level Citizen organization or entity.