Destroyer of Worlds (30 page)

And knowledge is power.

Before Sigmund's birth, an Outsider ship sold hyperdrive technology to
a human colony. That sale saved humanity from certain defeat at the talons of the Kzinti. Who was to say another Outsider sale wouldn't tip the balance the other way, or empower other aliens to threaten Earth?

And so Sigmund had, in his time as an ARM, worried about the Outsiders. That they disclosed little about themselves only deepened the mystery—and Sigmund's fears. Throughout that era of his life, he had never encountered anyone admitting to have learned much by studying an Outsider ship.

But no previous observer had been a Gw'o scientist radio-linked with his Gw'otesht. Sigmund would not miss this opportunity—nor would he leave an armored Gw'o unsupervised on
Don Quixote
.

“And
we
might learn something, accompanying you,” Eric said.

“True,” Sigmund said, to show he had heard the comment. With a final bit of contortion, he got his second arm into the pressure suit. “Let's stick with the plan I outlined.” He put on his helmet by way of declaring the matter closed. He opened a link to the Gw'oth shared channel. “Er'o, you should be seeing the Outsider ship now.”

“Affirmative, Sigmund.”

Minutes later, pressure suit sealed and safety-checked, Sigmund was cycling through the air lock to await his escorts.

 

ER'O SCUTTLED
about his tiny observatory, tubacles groping systematically among the optical-telescope display, neutrino sensors, and readouts of antennae spanning the electromagnetic spectrum.

Sigmund had ruled out all active sensors except the occasional, very low power lidar pulses necessary anyway to maintain separation between ships. “What we can see is free,” he had lectured. “Any data we take, even by a radar scan, carries a price. Maybe we can't afford it. The Outsiders are very private.”

Not that Er'o
could
release a radar pulse. His readouts were slaved to the bridge, where Kirsten held control. Maybe Sigmund's explanation to him was really a reminder to her.

Subtle, that Sigmund.

In the habitat, meanwhile, Ol't'ro monitored additional instruments. All were undisclosed. Sensors fabricated to investigate hyperspace phenomena might also reveal something useful about other technologies—for like the
Outsiders, humans protected their secrets. The undisclosed sensors were passive, in another application of the principle that “what can be seen—and goes unmentioned—is free.”

Sigmund's voice sounded over the Gw'oth public channel. “Er'o, you should be seeing the Outsider ship now.”

“Affirmative, Sigmund.” Er'o had an image to study, but only through Kirsten's intervention. The Outsider ship was moving at almost light speed. Tracking and blue-shift correction took computer correction, and computing was another of those technologies the humans declined to share.

Starlight flickered
through
the Outsider ship. Was it transparent? Not solid? Er'o exchanged inconclusive speculations with Ol't'ro.

“I'm in the air lock,” Sigmund called.

“They're almost here,” Kirsten answered.

In the blink of an eye, they
were
here. Stationary in space, beside
Don Quixote
. Instantaneous deceleration! And yet the Outsiders and their ship were not squashed flat. Shedding all that the kinetic energy did not reduce the ship to a glowing cloud of plasma. And none of
Don Quixote
's instruments showed where that energy had gone.

But Ol't'ro's instruments did. . ..

 

THSSTHFOK LAY ON THE BARE FLOOR
of his cell, his eyes closed, one ear pressed against the pinhole he had made in the deck. He listened carefully.

Sigmund was about to leave the ship. The others would be in known locations.

Thssthfok remembered every glimpse he had had of the ship, every extrapolation of layout he had made from what he had seen. He reviewed every likely route from the relax room to the bridge. He estimated the speed with which humans, spread about the ship, might intercept him.

The conversation below concluded. Footsteps receded, the heavy clomps of Sigmund heading for an air lock, the softer treads those of Eric and Omar going to their assigned posts.

Working by touch and with extreme care, Thssthfok opened the structural modulator handle he hid beneath his body. The handle was slightly rough, pitted in spots by stomach acid, but those imperfections helped him orient himself. Flipping a few tiny switches put the device into its temporary softening mode. He reassembled the handle.

Thssthfok began to exercise, his fist wrapped around the modulator.
Sit-ups. One-handed pushups. Laps around the cell. Pull-ups from the recessed handholds any spaceship must have for microgravity conditions. He sang as he exercised, recalling melodies of long-lost Rilchuk. Sometimes he sang proper lyrics. As often he made up nonsense sounds, pops and clicks and sibilant hisses that fit the tune.

From time to time a face appeared in the hatch window. Eventually Eric tired of watching Thssthfok or of checking on motion sensors.

As Thssthfok exercised, he rehearsed the route he would take.

He might never have a better opportunity to seize this ship.

 

Ship Twenty-three, except for the fierce spark of its artificial sun, manifested as an absence: a vaguely oblong expanse suddenly removed from the starry backdrop.

The Outsiders had mentioned a six-mile separation. Assuming that distance, the object now blocking Sigmund's view of the stars was about three miles in length. As his eyes adjusted to the open air lock's dim red glow, shimmers appeared within the darkness. He raised the magnification of his visor, and kept raising it, until details began to appear.

The Outsider vessel was an artificial star at one end and a sealed module, presumably its propulsion device, at the other, linked by an enormous metal spar. In the middle, along the spar, a forest of ribbons swooped and swirled, entangled and entwined. Any pattern to the ribbons was too alien for Sigmund to fathom.

Two figures emerged from the darkness, jetting with gas pistols toward
Don Quixote
. They reminded Sigmund, more than anything else, of giant cat-o'-nine tails. They wore protective suits, but that gear was nothing like Sigmund's. Their equipment shielded not against the vacuum and utter cold—for they lived here in the depths of interstellar space, creatures of superfluid helium—but from Sigmund himself. They had come to tow him back to their ship. Unprotected, the bit of heat seeping from Sigmund's suit would bring them to a boil. Absent the rigidity of their exoskeletons, the inertia of Sigmund's massive body would tear them apart.

“Come with us,” one radioed. Each Outsider extended an armored, insulated root bundle toward Sigmund.

Sigmund offered his hands. “I'm leaving now,” he radioed to his crew. Wish me luck.

He had visited an Outsider ship once before, crossing the final miles in just this manner. That experience should have eased his fears, but as his
escorts towed him into the darkness, his heart pounded. How could logic matter? He was afloat in interstellar space, with his life in the “hands” of the feeblest of creatures.

And yet, terror did not overcome him.

Most Earth natives had at least a touch of flatland phobia: the instinctive recognition of home—and the reflexive dread of anyplace else. Anything odd could trigger the phobia: alien skies, wrong gravity, unfamiliar scents. Sigmund had suffered his share of attacks. He could tell with the first sniff that a planet wasn't Earth. He knew from the first glance when a pattern of stars was wrong. And he never knew how he knew.

Perhaps to bear the full brunt of flatland phobia, you had to remember what you missed, and Nessus had erased the definition of
home
from Sigmund's mind.

With a shiver, Sigmund firmly fixed his gaze on the Outsider vessel. Home was no longer Earth. Home was New Terra—to hell with its extra suns and lack of a moon and the mélange of alien smells! The lives of millions, unknowing, might hinge on him vanquishing his fears. Better to concentrate on the meeting to come. . ..

Ship Twenty-three grew and grew until it ceased to seem a ship. Now it was a great metropolis, toward which he fell in slow motion. The city spread across the sky, and the swirls of ribbon grew crisply distinct. Short lines on the ribbons became blobs became individual Outsiders.

Propelled by gentle puffs of gas, Sigmund and his escorts sank deep into the tangle of the ribbons. Each strip was several yards wide, and most were lined with Outsiders. The handles basked in the artificial sunlight; the tails disappeared into shadows cast by other ribbons. Living thermocouples, recharging.

Sigmund and his guides landed, finally, on a stretch of unoccupied ribbon. Any gravity was too weak for Sigmund to feel. He engaged magnets and his boots clanked to the surface.

One of his escorts raised a root bundle to indicate a low metal structure. “Your meeting will be inside.”

Wall panels glowed, warm and bright, as Sigmund entered. Air gushed in when he closed the hatch. His sensors declared this a shirtsleeves environment—the Outsiders knew their customers—and he removed his helmet. The room was unfurnished except for a clear dome. An Outsider reclined on the floor beyond the dome.

The surroundings were just as Sigmund remembered from his previous
encounter. Call it a standard meeting room. This visit, on his way inside, he had sufficiently studied the enclosure to answer a question that had nagged at him. The outer dimensions of the enclosure did not encompass the apparent space beyond the dome. The other party in the discussion was a projection of some sort.

“You are Sigmund Ausfaller?” The voice came from unseen speakers.

“Yes,” Sigmund answered.

“Our colleague, Ship Fourteen, advises that you are a shrewd bargainer.”

A compliment, coming from the preeminent traders in the known galaxy. Also an unsubtle reminder. By remaining deep in interstellar space, Outsider ships avoided gravitational singularities. Outsider vessels across Known Space and beyond could, and obviously did, maintain real-time communications by hyperwave radio.

During Sigmund's previous negotiations, the Outsider inside the dome had offered the ship's number when asked for a name. He (?) had commented on providing a breathable atmosphere for his guests. Sigmund's current host had not mentioned it.

So: Sigmund, too, was expected to know what had been discussed previously. “Thank you, Twenty-three. Shall we begin?”

 

THE OUTSIDERS WERE SCRUPULOUSLY HONEST
. They honored every bargain. They paid promptly and in full. Every technology they sold worked dependably. On the occasions when they withheld the science underlying their designs (as they had with hyperspace technologies and planetary drives), they were up-front about that.

And when the value of information could not be ascertained in advance, the Outsiders could be trusted to pay fairly after disclosure. Sigmund's news was like that.

The fair value was zero.

Other Outsider ships had
already
spotted the threat onrushing from the galactic core. Identifying the attackers as Pak, humanity's cousins, might be news. It wasn't the sort of news to predispose anyone favorably toward Sigmund's kind.

Sigmund had crossed the light-years with one hope: That his news would buy help. Not direct military assistance, for the Outsider vessels were cities, not warships. Not aid in finding Earth. The Outsiders would surely
honor their agreement with the Concordance never to disclose to any New Terrans the location of Known Space, nor to give any Known Space race even a clue to the existence of the New Terrans.

But new technology could make all the difference—
if
Sigmund had had a means to pay. He hadn't. He said, hoping his desperation did not show, “Twenty-three, it's in your own interest to help. These fleets are attacking every advanced civilization they pass. Your ships will be no different.”

“But they
are
different.” Twenty-three wriggled his root bundles a bit as he spoke. “Our ships are very mobile.”

And indeed, the few Outsider ships known to New Terra could easily evade the Pak. Ship Twenty-three could resume near light speed as quickly as it had shed that velocity. If it detected a weapon coming its way, it needed only an instant to stop. A Pak kinetic-kill weapon, captive to its deadly inertia, would whiz past harmlessly. The Outsiders were safe.

But tanj it! For planet dwellers, the Outsider ship drive offered the
perfect
solution to the Pak threat.

The scenario was crystal clear in Sigmund's mind. Add an Outsider normal-space drive to a standard, hyperdrive-equipped starship. Then by the numbers: One, jump to near light speed. Two, use hyperspace to cross the light-years to the Pak fleets. Three, return to normal space with all that near light velocity. Four, using the Outsider drive, make any necessary course corrections in an instant. Five, unleash myriads of unstoppable kinetic weapons. With the ship moving so fast, throwing rocks would suffice.

His ship would be back in hyperspace, racing away, before the Pak ramscoops saw what was coming at them. Repeat as needed.

And then it struck Sigmund:
Whatever
he might have had to offer in trade, this negotiation had been doomed from the outset. The Outsiders would never sell the secret of the reactionless drives that moved their ships. Those ships would be almost as defenseless against Sigmund's tactics as the Pak.

Which left what? Maybe he could further Baedeker's work. “Can you help us improve the performance of our planetary drive? Show us how to run drives in tandem? Then we, too, could be more mobile.”

More squirming of roots. “Our regrets, Sigmund. We cannot comment.”

Sigmund felt a headache coming on. He rubbed his temples. “Why not, Twenty-three?”