Destroyer of Worlds

DESTROYER OF WORLDS

 

 

 

 

TOR BOOKS BY LARRY NIVEN
AND EDWARD M. LERNER

 

Fleet of Worlds
Juggler of Worlds
Destroyer 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

 

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

Larry Niven
AND
Edward M. Lerner

A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK
New York

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.

 

DESTROYER OF WORLDS

 

Copyright © 2009 by Larry Niven and Edward M. Lerner

 

All rights reserved.

 

Map by Jon Lansberg

 

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.

 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

 

Niven, Larry.

   Destroyer of worlds / Larry Niven and Edward M. Lerner.—1st ed.

       p. cm.

   “A Tom Doherty Associates book.”

   ISBN 978-0-7653-2205-0

   I. Lerner, Edward M. II. Title.

PS3564.I9D45 2009

813'.54—dc22

2009031593

 

First Edition: November 2009

 

Printed in the United States of America

 

0   9   8   7   6   5   4   3   2   1

For Werner Heisenberg—maybe

 

 

Map

Dramatis Personae

PROLOGUE

IMPENDING DOOM

THSSTHFOK

THE LAST STRAW

THE LAST HOPE

EYEWITNESS TO HISTORY

DESTROYER OF WORLDS

ENDGAME

EPILOGUE

 

 

 

 

 

HUMANS
(
*
)

 

Sigmund Ausfaller

Defense Minister of New Terra (and head of the undisclosed intelligence
service); Earth native

Sabrina Gomez-Vanderhoff

Planetary governor of New Terra

Eric Huang-Mbeke

Hero of New Terra's independence movement; engineer

Alice Jordan

Sol system refugee

Penelope Mitchell-Draskovics

New Terran government biologist

Kirsten Quinn-Kovacs

Hero of New Terra's independence movement; math whiz; pilot and
navigator of
Don Quixote

Omar Tanaka-Singh

Hero of New Terra's independence movement

 

(
*
) New Terra native and resident, unless otherwise noted.

 

CITIZENS / PUPPETEERS

 

Baedeker

Engineer; disgraced former employee of General Products Corporation;
self-exiled to New Terra

Minerva

Baedeker's research assistant

Nessus

Concordance scout

Nike

Hindmost of the Concordance and chief of Experimentalist political party

Vesta

Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs; chief of Clandestine Directorate

 

PAK

 

Thssthfok

Climatologist turned refugee turned castaway

Phssthpok

Instigator of the Librarians' War; pilot of the rescue ship sent to find the Lost
Colony

 

GW'OTH

 

Ol't'ro

A 16-plex group mind (i.e., a Gw'otesht-16 ensemble)

Er'o

Physicist and explorer; lead mind within Ol't'ro

 

Intelligence was overrated.

Not unimportant, merely not the
everything
that many made intelligence out to be. Intelligence leapt instantly, inexorably, from the merest observation to subtle implication to profound deduction to utter certainty. Intelligence laid bare the threats, vulnerabilities, and opportunities that lurked everywhere. Intelligence understood that other minds all around raced to similar conclusions—

And that countless rivals would take immediate action thereon.

To become a protector, awakening into intelligence, was to lose all innocence, and with it the ability ever to let down one's guard.

But here, now, so
very
far from home, things were different.

Thssthfok stood alone atop a glacial vastness, clad only in a thin vest, worn for its pockets rather than for warmth. His hard, leathery skin was proof against the cold, at least for short periods. A portable shelter stood a few steps away, his shuttlecraft not much more distant.

The air was clean and crisp and bland in his nostrils. The oceans of this pristine world teemed with life, mostly single-celled, but the land remained barren. There were no native predators to fear here. As for protectors, the most formidable of predators, within a day-tenth's travel, there was only himself.

The children and breeders Thssthfok lived to protect were all on Pakhome, incommunicably distant. Their safety had been entrusted to kin and further guaranteed, to the extent that was possible, with hostages, promised rewards, and dire threats. Without such measures, Thssthfok could never have come. That would have been unfortunate, for if this mission succeeded,
all
in clan Rilchuk might enjoy the greatest possible protection—

Release from the endless wars of Pakhome.

The only sound, but for the wind, was the whir of powerful electric
motors laboring to extract deep core samples. Locked into the glacier was a story eons in the making, written in layers of ice, traces of ash, and microscopic bubbles of trapped gases.

Thssthfok was here to read it.

The concentrations of trapped gases would speak of the evolving climate. The traces of ash would reveal the frequency of volcanic eruptions. Occasional dustings of rare metals like iridium would disclose the impacts of large meteors. Patterns in the thickness of layers would speak to fluctuations in ocean volume and worldwide ice cover. That information, and the detailed observations of newly emplaced satellites, and the measured orbital parameters of this world . . . together they would reveal much about the long-term suitability of this place.

For this world offered far more temperate climes. Suitably prepared, much of the land here might be as pleasant as the great savannahs on which the Pak had evolved—
if
present conditions persisted. Planetary engineering took time and great resources. To relocate the entire clan—hundreds of protectors and many thousand children and breeders—would be a massive undertaking. Thssthfok had crossed a hundred light-years to answer a single question: How variable was the climate here?

He needed core samples, drilling as far back in time as he could get. A climate forecast rooted only in today's data was no more than a guess, and no basis for casting the fate of everything he held dear. The ice would yield its secrets, but the ice refused to be rushed. . . .

And so, remote from danger, removed from any clues to the circumstances of his breeders, Thssthfok was safe. Safe—unlike almost anywhere, anytime, on Pakhome—to disregard the outside world. Safe to ignore past and future. Safe to immerse himself, unprotectorlike, in an unending present. Safe to return to an age before thought.

Safe to dream of his time as a breeder . . .

 

THSSTHFOK REMEMBERED
.

He remembered hunting and mating and fighting and exploring, always with zest. He remembered being curious about everything and understanding almost nothing. He remembered his pride in the ability to fashion a pitiful few tools: sharpened sticks, chipped-stone implements, straps cut from cured animal hide. He remembered staring, awestruck, into campfires. He remembered conversing with family—if the concepts
expressible in a few hundred grunts and gestures could be called conversation.

The world then was ever new and exciting and usually inexplicable. Sometimes, when people died, a reason was obvious: torn by wild beasts, or fallen from a great height, or impaled on a spear. But many deaths came without warning or reason, with only the onset of bad scents to explain.

For scent was everything: how one found or avoided one's enemies; how one bonded with one's family; how one was drawn to mates and knew one's own children.

He remembered the rich, warm scent of family. Every person had a unique smell, and yet the subtleties of that aroma declared one's lineage for generations. He was not called Thssthfok then. There
were
no names, for names were not necessary. To smell relationships sufficed.

Scent was everything, and death was everywhere, and life—

Life was intense.

Lightning and starlight, seasons and tides, the ways of beasts and the wants of the mysterious beings occasionally glimpsed at a distance (and even less often, intervening) . . . all were unfathomable and wondrous.

For all their poignancy and grip, those memories were indistinct. A breeder merely dipped a toe into the great sea of sapience.

And then, one day, as happened to all breeders who reached a suitable age, he smelled . . .

Heaven.

Heaven was another vague concept for breeders. As they threw rocks and spears, so, obviously, far mightier beings hurled the lightning. Who but gods could carry sun and moon across the sky? Who but gods could arrange the stars and command the phases of the moon? Perhaps, as many thought, the gods descended from heaven and took mortal form to visit their people. It would explain the mysterious strangers and their magic implements. And since heaven was surely a better place, it would explain why the mysterious strangers came so seldom.