25

Beneath a frost-speckled coffin lid, afire with nervous energy, Louis opened his eyes. He had the briefest sensation of déjà vu—had he not just awakened in an autodoc?—before the memory storm struck.

Parents and sister, long forgotten. Nessus. Desperate times, derelict ships, and daring rescues. Raiding the Pak evacuation fleet to steal the Library. Starfaring starfish waging civil war. Lunatic Puppeteers, led by a sociopath, wielding planet-busters. A lost colony world, unsuspected, home to millions of humans. Adventure and amnesia, each in its turn eagerly embraced. A willowy, strong-featured woman—

Alice! In his memories, she was younger, raven-haired, brown eyes warm and inviting. And she was pregnant!

He slapped the panic button. Too slowly, the lid began to retract. The familiar clutter of Long Shot appeared.

“Good. You have returned to us,” he heard Hindmost say.

With old/new memories bursting like thunderclaps, Louis retrieved a name: Baedeker. The receding dome finally let Louis sit up. He found Baedeker and Nessus observing him, Nessus sidling out the doorway. To make room for Louis? Or preparing to flee from him?

Louis said, “I knew you both long before Ringworld.”

“True,” Baedeker said. With a straightened neck, he offered Louis a clean jumpsuit.

Leaning to take the garment, Louis almost tumbled from the ’doc. Without order or logic, memories kept crashing over him. He steadied himself against the side of the intensive care cavity.

“You are disoriented,” Nessus said. “I feared this might happen.”

Like drinking from a fire hose, the images overwhelmed Louis:

—A woman’s face, contorted in a death rictus, glimpsed through a blood-splattered visor.

—A stupendous fjord, the tide surging in, and Alice standing nearby. He had just met her.

—Hyperwave consultations with the starfish. Gw’oth! That’s what they called themselves.

—Painkillers, addiction, and withdrawal.

—Making love to Alice.

—Broken ribs and men with funny asymmetric beards and—

“Louis!” Nessus shouted. “Listen to me. The ’doc restored many engrams. You’re reliving most of a year all at once.”

Louis shook his head, desperate to clear his mind. “I experienced these things in a particular order, tanj it. Why is everything so chaotic?”

“It’s been a long time,” Hindmost—no, Baedeker—said. “Since those recordings, countless experiences have imprinted themselves as new and altered neural pathways.”

But Louis scarcely heard the explanation, still drowning in the past:

—Cooking breakfast for Alice, who could hardly synth her own toast.

—Barhopping his way through spaceport dives.

—Playing secret agent and double-crossing Achilles.

—Tiny suns like strings of pearls.

—Getting thrown out of a big, ugly government building by New Terran soldiers.

“It’s as though I have two minds,” Louis struggled to get out. “It’s like being in two places at once. You’re suggesting the old engrams don’t fit where they’re supposed to. Too much in my head has changed for the old … for the old recordings to reintegrate as they should.”

“I believe that to be the case,” Baedeker said. “Of course except for Carlos Wu and perhaps Tunesmith, no one ever understood the full capabilities of this autodoc.”

“Carlos. My father.”

“Yes,” Nessus said. “This amazing autodoc is your legacy.”

As from a whirlpool, Louis struggled out of the ’doc. Clumsily, he slipped into the jumpsuit. “I need to talk with Alice.”

“Endurance and Long Shot have gone their separate ways,” Nessus said. “Beyond ‘not now,’ Alice and Julia have had nothing to say to our hails.”

“Alice will speak with me,” Louis said, “once she knows that I remember.”

“Perhaps,” Nessus said.

It hit Louis: he was starving. “I’m still disoriented. Would one of you mind bringing me something to eat?”

“Of course not.” Nessus backed farther into the corridor. “Or stand between us. We will guide you to the synthesizer.”

As they walked, old memories kept erupting. Twice Louis stumbled against a wall; once he fell across Nessus’ broad back. He only avoided a tumble by grabbing hold of the mane.

With a shrill, atonal wheeze, Nessus stopped. He stood, legs braced far apart, while Louis regained his balance.

“Hindmost’s Voice,” Louis called out. “Keep hailing Endurance. Tell Alice, ‘Louis remembers now.’”

“I will let you know when they answer.”

“Thank you, Voice,” Baedeker said.

Maybe Louis had become smarter over the years. Maybe he only saw connections now because of the odd juxtapositions of random memories.

He had been naïve.

“Chiron,” Louis began cautiously.

Nessus swiveled one head to look backward. “What about Chiron?”

“He briefed the team for the Ringworld expedition.” Everything suddenly seemed so clear to Louis. “Chiron didn’t appear as a holo out of fear, because we were aliens.”

“No,” Baedeker agreed from behind Louis.

Approaching the tiny rec room Nessus pressed against the wall so Louis could squeeze past. “Chiron came as a holo to hide that he wasn’t a Puppeteer.” His thoughts churning, selecting dishes at random, Louis piled a tray with synthed food. “Puppeteers no longer rule in the Fleet.”

“Sadly so,” Baedeker said.

Still more memories spewed forth: tiny spaceships, water-filled. Not-quite-starfish. Feeling slow and dim-witted in the presence of a truly superior mind.

Ol’t’ro!

Louis said, “Nessus, you hired me to stop Achilles from manipulating the Gw’oth situation. I failed.”

“No one could have succeeded,” Nessus said.

In Louis’s mind the Gw’oth War had just concluded. He had just rescued Nessus from Achilles and prison. Baedeker had just refused to come with them. Just as—in Louis’s mind—the Ringworld and its thirty trillion inhabitants had disappeared only days earlier.

Louis said, “So, the Gw’oth rule Fleet.”

“Yes, to Ol’t’ro,” Baedeker said. “Achilles schemes anew to reclaim the semblance of power as the puppet Hindmost. You must now see, Louis, why I so desperately sought technology from the Ringworld. To free Hearth.”

Desperate enough to abduct not merely Louis, but also Chmeee. A Puppeteer kidnapping a Kzin! Even now, such an action was difficult to fathom. Louis turned to face his friends. “Did you find what you needed?”

“Maybe.” Baedeker waved a neck sinuously, the mannerism somehow inclusive. “Nessus and I must soon find out.”

Louis shook his head. “We will find out.”

*   *   *

ALICE FINALLY MADE CONTACT. “You think you know me now?”

“I know I do,” Louis said. Her face seemed to cycle between the angry old woman who had slugged him and the dark-haired beauty—even more spirited—who his aching heart insisted he had just left. Could he have forgotten those eyes? Truly? That seemed impossible. “I’m glad that I remember.”

She managed a smile. “It was good while it lasted.”

It was, indeed. “Achilles would have done anything to hurt me. I was a target on New Terra. By staying, I’d have made you a target.”

“So Sigmund explained at the time. Why was I the only one without a vote?”

Apart from being light-years away, on New Terra’s business? Aside from being in and out of medical stasis so that you wouldn’t give birth to our son aboard ship? “It doesn’t matter, Alice. I’m back. I’m here. I remember. I love you as I did the day I left.”

“The day you ran away.”

That hurt. “I’d like to pick things up—”

“Pick up again?” She laughed uproariously. “It’s been more than a century. I’m a crone. You’re a kid.”

“I’m almost as old as you,” Louis retorted.

She just stared at him.

“I’m sorry I hurt you,” he finally said.

“At least you learned something.” She severed the link.