32

More than two hundred years ago and (if what Julia had been told was true) more than two hundred light-years away, Sigmund had battled a band of space pirates. Like many adventures, this one had almost ended in tragedy. His mind’s eye offered up a radar image: three blips defining an equilateral triangle. Pirate ships on approach, towing their—invisible, of course—black hole.

Endings could not come much worse than down the maw of a black hole.

Stretched out in his hammock, trying and failing to take a predinner nap, that triangle kept nagging at Sigmund. Odd, he thought. He had survived that day and saved his crew, too. The pirates had ended up disappeared by the black hole. Why brood now about ancient history?

Then again, why not brood? He had nothing to do, nowhere to go.

Maybe he wasn’t meant for retirement. In the short time he had consulted to the defense forces, he had felt more alive than he had in years. Maybe this strange mood was just recognition that, while it lasted, he had enjoyed feeling useful.

But how useful had he been when Alice ended up as irretrievably lost as if she had fallen down a black hole?

Futz! She and Julia had found the way to Earth. Julia was homebound aboard an ARM ship, already thirty-two days on her way. Even as he continued to mourn Alice, he should be happy, tanj it.

“Jeeves,” Sigmund called. “How long till Julia arrives home?”

“Perhaps two weeks, sir. It can be estimated with more precision when Koala comes within range of the early-warning array.”

As Sigmund knew but wanted to hear again, even though the forecast never satisfied him. He had his doubts anyone from the Ministry would let him know when the ship did appear to the array. He might not hear anything till Julia landed.

And why did his mind’s eye keep offering that blasted equilateral triangle? What did that ancient incident on the borderlands of Sol system have to do with … anything?

With a grunt, he swung his feet from the hammock to the patio stone. Maybe a brandy would help him doze. It couldn’t hurt. He padded into the house to pour himself a drink.

“Not just a triangle,” he muttered to himself. “A futzy equilateral triangle.”

Creeping home from the pirate encounter aboard a crippled ship, his two crew in autodocs, had left Sigmund—being honest—a raving lunatic. For three years after, he could not bring himself to go near a spaceship.

Carlos Wu had almost died aboard Hobo Kelly, his body rejecting the replacement lungs the top-of-the-line ARM shipboard ’docs had had to offer. But an Earth hospital had saved Carlos, and he had dedicated himself to building a better autodoc. The nanotech-based prototype ’doc Carlos created as a result was nothing short of miraculous.

And that was fortunate, because Finagle worked in mysterious ways. When Sigmund had forced himself to board a starship—once again, to rescue Carlos and Beowulf Shaeffer—he had gotten himself killed. Again.

To be kidnapped by Nessus—who saved Sigmund using Carlos’s autodoc.

Was that what bothered him? Something about Nessus? Or about the ’doc, wherever the tanj it had ended up?

Sigmund didn’t think either was the issue.

Or was his hang-up that after his second stranding in space, he had vowed never, ever again to set foot on a spaceship. After the disasters that kept befalling him, staying on the ground was totally sane.

His vow hadn’t worked out well for Alice, had it?

None of this involved an equilateral triangle. Was his mind going off its tracks again? Triangle. Carlos. Autodoc. Shipwrecked in space.

Nothing. Nada. Zero. Zip.

Sigmund wandered back outside, his mind churning, brandy snifter in hand, to watch the suns setting over the desert. He had awakened in a New Terran jungle after Nessus abducted/rescued/healed him. There was nothing triangular about New Terra. Nothing equilateral, either.

He froze, two strides onto the patio. New Terra came from the Fleet, and it was equilateral. The Fleet as he had known it, after New Terra went free, was five worlds at the corners of an equilateral pentagon, all orbiting about their common center of mass. And like the three tugs towing their black hole, the Fleet was extremely dangerous.

Weird, Sigmund thought. He had learned to associate equilateral shapes with danger.

He took the last few steps to the hammock and sat. Gazing into the setting suns, sipping brandy, he let his subconscious flail away.

Equilateral. Danger. Equal-sided. Danger. Planes of symmetry. Danger. Symmetry. Danger. Symmetric shapes. Danger.

The spherical array of kinetic-kill defensive drones that surrounded New Terra.

The snifter slipped from a hand gone suddenly nerveless.

*   *   *

“GOOD AFTERNOON, MR. AUSFALLER,” Denise Rodgers-Bjornstad said.

“Good afternoon, Governor,” Sigmund responded.

The long-serving governor of New Terra was, in a word, intense. Tall and blond, her hair pulled back in a tight bun, her face lean and her expression invariably stern, she commanded respect. She stood but did not emerge from behind her desk.

Her executive mansion, dominating the planetary administrative building complex, was an imposing structure and the symbol on this world of executive power. Sigmund found it hideous: Windsor Palace meets the Kremlin. Perhaps no one but he remembered the old, independence-era Governor’s Building. It had been built to far humbler standards, and in his opinion that had been for the best.

This governor, her ostentatious palace, and this cavernous office intimidated most people. They might have intimidated Sigmund, if he were prone to manipulation.

But Sigmund had lived in cities with a bigger population than New Terra. Filtered through the old memories, as vague as they were, New Terra’s sprawling government complex came across as pretentious more than impressive. Or maybe it was because as an ARM, two lives ago, he had sometimes reported to the Secretary-General of the United Nations. She had had responsibilities for eighteen billion people.

Frown all you want, Madame Governor. I’m not impressed.

“Thank you for seeing me,” Sigmund said as the young executive secretary closed the door behind her, leaving him alone with the governor.

“You said it was important, Mr. Ausfaller.” Rodgers-Bjornstad sat back down. “Have a seat.”

“It is important.” That much was true, whether or not his suspicions turned out to be warranted. “It’s about the upcoming visit of the Earth ship.”

“Yes?”

Concerning the end of an era, Sigmund found her response rather understated. She ought to be excited, tanj it, not … guarded. His fears deepened. But he had to push to learn more. He had to know.

He said, “Koala will arrive in about two weeks. It’s my opinion that we should be preparing the population. First contact with representatives of long-lost Earth … that’s a big deal.”

She shook her head. “People would worry and wonder about what will change, what it all means, to the exclusion of everything else. Everyone who needs the information has it. The coming visit remains classified until Koala arrives.”

Because the fewer who know, the easier it’ll be to cover up … well, Sigmund wasn’t yet quite convinced he knew what.

Only deep in his gut, he knew all too well …

He said, “As the crew of the Earth ship tours our world, as they use our public networks, they will learn much about us: what we have, what we need, what we might find valuable. I’m sure you have a team preparing for the visit. They should be using the expert available to them.”

“And you’re saying they’re not.” Rodgers-Bjornstad tipped her head. “You’re saying they should be talking to you.”

Sigmund powered past the pangs of loss. “With Alice gone, I’m this world’s lone expert.”

“You last saw Earth how long ago?”

True enough, and yet, “Earth had things then we would be happy to have today.”

“Antimatter munitions and hostile neighbors. Your granddaughter already told us.”

“Those aren’t the most alluring exports,” Sigmund agreed. “But if Kzinti come calling, we’ll want all the military backup we can get. Set that aside. Consider the great libraries and museums of Earth. On this world we’ve lost millennia of our heritage.”

An emotionless face said he wasn’t reaching her. She was the big fish in a very little pond; at some level, she got that. History regained wouldn’t make the loss of status any more enticing.

“Let’s get down to basics. Earth had biotech two centuries ago better than anything we have today. Using a medicine called boosterspice, people often lived to three hundred and more. Young and healthy all the while, not”—he gestured at himself: stoop-shouldered, frail, wizened—“decrepit, like this. Imagine the medical technology Earth must have today.”

“And I suppose they’ll want to give away that knowledge.”

Sigmund smiled. “In about the same way we’ll want to give away the contents of the Pak Library.”

Just for a moment she looked … wistful.

In that instant Sigmund knew. He could read her thoughts: she wasn’t even a hundred. Power today mattered more than delaying the still theoretical ravages of age. She was telling herself: who could say what advances New Terran scientists would make before she needed life extension? If she did get old, she could always send a ship to Earth in a century or so.

Cold, calculating bitch …

“There’s more,” Sigmund continued. If she even suspected what she had let slip, he had to pretend not to have seen it. “Power generation. Countless plant and animal species to enrich our biodiversity. Artificial intelligence even then was far more advanced than anything we—”

“I appreciate your viewpoint,” she interrupted pointedly.

“Respectfully, Governor, I should be in the loop.” Because for as long as I keep pushing for access, maybe you won’t realize I already have you figured out.

“I’ll extend your offer to the leader of our task force.”

“And who is that?” Sigmund asked.

Rodgers-Bjornstad stood and came out from behind her desk: meeting adjourned. “If he’s interested, I’m sure you’ll hear. Meanwhile, go home and enjoy your retirement.”

“I’ll do that, Governor.” Go home that was. Enjoyment was not in the cards. Not when she had confirmed his most paranoid suspicions.

Unless he stopped them, the ship from Earth was never going to reach New Terra.