Juggler of Worlds
Authors: Larry Niven and Edward M. Lerner
AND EDWARD M. LERNER
Fleet of Worlds
Juggler 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
Larry Niven
AND
Edward M. Lerner
TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES, LLC
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.
JUGGLER OF WORLDS
Copyright © 2008 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
Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Niven, Larry.
Juggler of worlds / Larry Niven and Edward M. Lerner.—1st ed.
p. cm.
“A Tom Doherty Associates book.”
ISBN-13: 978-0-7653-1826-8
ISBN-10: 0-7653-1826-1
1. Government investigators—Fiction. 2. Conspiracy—Fiction. I. Lerner,
Edward M. II. Title.
PS3564.I9J84 2008
813’.54—dc22
2008022041
First Edition: September 2008
Printed in the United States of America
0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To the readers who work on a book long after it’s closed,
and really get their money’s worth: Thanks for the help
.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
| KNOWN-SPACE HUMANS * | ROLE |
| Max Addeo | Amalgamated Regional Militia (ARM) exec, later high-ranking United Nations (UN) official |
| Sigmund Ausfaller | ARM agent |
| Fiona (“Feather”) Filip | ARM agent |
| Julian Forward | Physicist (native of Jinx, in the Sirius system) |
| Andrea Girard | ARM agent |
| Dianna Guthrie Sharrol Janss | Girlfriend of Gregory Pelton |
| Sharrol Janss | Wife (at separate times) to Beowulf Shaeffer and Carlos Wu |
| Sangeeta Kudrin | High-ranking UN official |
| Calista Melenkamp | Secretary- General of the UN |
| Anne-Marie Papandreou | Crew of Court Jester; wife of Jason Papandreou (native of Wunderland, in the Alpha Centauri system) |
| Jason Papandreou | Owner-pilot of Court Jester (a ship chartered by Nessus) |
| Gregory Pelton Beowulf Shaeffer | Wealthy industrialist |
| Beowulf Shaeffer | Starship pilot and xenophile (native of We Made It, in the Procyon system) |
| Ander Smittarasheed | Freelance writer; sometimes agent of Sigmund Ausfaller |
| Carlos Wu | Physicist and all-around genius |
| OTHER HUMANS | ROLE |
| Sabrina Gomez-Vanderhoff | Governor of Nature Preserve 4 (NP4)/ New Terra |
| Sven Hebert-Draskovics | NP4 archivist * |
| Eric Huang-Mbeke | Member of NP4’s independence movement; engineer |
| Penelope Mitchell-Draskovics | Sven’s cousin; government agronomist |
| Kirsten Quinn-Kovacs | Member of NP4’s independence movement; navigator and a math whiz |
| Omar Tanaka-Singh | Member of NP4’s independence movement |
| KZINTI * | Chuft-Captain |
| Chuft-Captain | Commanding officer of the spy ship Traitor’s Claw;has earned a partial name |
| Maintainer-of-Equipment | Renegade citizen of the colony world Spearpoint |
| Slaverstudent | Crewman on Traitor’s Claw |
| Telepath | Crewman on Traitor’s Claw |
| PUPPETEERS Achilles | ROLE |
| Achilles | Concordance scout (first known to Ausfaller asAdonis) |
| Baedeker | Engineer at General Products Corporation |
| Nessus | Concordance scout |
| Nike | Leader of “Permanent Emergency” faction of the Experimentalist party / later, Hindmost |
| Vesta | Nike’s aide |
*
Earth resident, unless otherwise noted.
*
Unless otherwise noted, a low-status individual yet to earn a name
.
Sigmund Ausfaller woke up shivering, prone on a cold floor. His head pounded. Tape bound his wrists and ankles to plasteel chains.
He had always known it would end horribly. Only the when, where, how, why, and by whom of it all had eluded him.
That fog was beginning to lift.
How had he gotten here, wherever
here
was? As though from a great distance, Sigmund watched himself quest for recent memories. Why was it such a struggle?
He remembered the pedestrian concourse of an open-air mall, shoppers streaming. They wore every color of the rainbow, clothing and hair and skin, in every conceivable combination and pattern. Overhead, fluffy clouds scudded across a clear blue sky. The sun was warm on his face. Work, for once, had been laid aside. He’d been content.
Happiness is the sworn enemy of vigilance. How could he have been so careless?
Sigmund forced open his eyes. He was in a nearly featureless room. Its walls, floor, and ceiling were resilient plastic. Light came from one wall. I could be anywhere, Sigmund thought—and then two details grabbed his attention.
The room wasn’t quite a box. The glowing wall had a bit of a curve to it.