37

The deed was done, the risks taken, the dirty truths transmitted to New Terra. There was nothing left to do but wait—trying not to obsess about the many ways everything could still end badly. Neither the government Sigmund strove to overthrow nor the cold, dark vacuum of space was forgiving.

He endlessly paced (if locomotion at his slow shuffle could be called pacing) the short corridors of Elysium. On this slow lap he found Amelia slouched over the small table in the relax room: dark bags under her eyes; picking at a crust of bread; staring, transfixed, at the recorded loop they transmitted—circuitously, through a series of hyperwave relays, lest kinetic killers find them.

The old man in the vid looked twitchier and far wearier than she.

“It’s a recording, you know,” Sigmund teased her. “It’s the same every time.”

“I know.” Amelia frowned at the circle of bread crumbs that surrounded her plate. “Is this going to work?”

He gestured at the vid. It had just cut to a file shot of Donald Norquist-Ng. He told her, “The minister will do his best to blame everything on me. I made illegal recordings. I assaulted people and stole a ship. Having improvised a fake Koala, who’s to say that I didn’t destroy the fake ship, too?”

“You didn’t,” she protested.

“That’s what we’re counting on.” Sigmund gestured at the continuing playback. “Plenty of people were in that room. You can hear them in the background. They weren’t all happy. Some of them will come forward.”

Uh-huh. And pigs will fly, said the forlorn expression on Amelia’s face.

Sigmund found the recording easier to face than Amelia. He listened to his voice-over saying, “… Known to your government for many weeks. Here is Minister Norquist-Ng first hearing the news.”

As Alice’s recorded voice replaced Sigmund’s, loss and anger washed over him. What had she been thinking, to run off like that? To get herself killed like that?

The vid rolled on, indifferent to Sigmund’s pain. “We know the way to Earth,” Alice was saying. “From this location, it’s about two hundred light-years, mostly to galactic south. From New Terra, a bit over two ten. Jeeves? Show them.”

“Graphic off,” Norquist-Ng barked. “Jeeves, you will show that image to no one except by my authorization. I’ll brief the governor. No one is to speak a word about this development outside this room.”

In the looping message, Sigmund explained to—did he have viewers?—that a stellar map had been erased before anyone in the meeting room could study it. “But was suppressing this report the misguided decision of one man? Did the minister tell the governor? Let’s find out.”

For his meeting with the governor, Sigmund had risked wearing spy lenses. His audience—again assuming that he had viewers, that this transmission was not being jammed—would see the executive office and the governor herself.

He heard himself telling the governor, “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.”

Rodgers-Bjornstad 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.”

“The governor was complicit in withholding this news,” recorded-Sigmund summarized. “Because she fretted about lost productivity? Or, as I had feared, because she and the Minister of Defense had an undisclosed motive? I had to know. Here is what happened next.”

Video switched to a star field centered on New Terra. The blue dot was an icon; from this distance, the planet was hard to spot even if you knew where to look. The world and its low-flying suns together shone only one millionth as bright as the dimmest red-dwarf star.

The voice-over announced, “This is the Earth vessel Koala, calling New Terra.”

This segment of the recording ended all too quickly in a blinding flash.

“That was an attack without warning”—Puppeteer-cleansed English lacked the word ambush—“on the embassy ship from Earth. A ship that Minister Norquist-Ng had personally promised safe passage. A ship bringing home one of his own officers.

“Suspecting deceit by our leaders, I arranged what looked to sensors like a ship’s arrival. I am saddened to have been correct in my suspicions, appalled at the actions taken by our government. But here, finally, is good news. Koala has yet to reach us. It has not been destroyed.

“I submit to you, my fellow citizens of New Terra, that those who would suppress the rediscovery of Earth, those who would kill to keep that secret, are unworthy to lead us.”

He concluded the broadcast as he had begun. “This is Sigmund Ausfaller, onetime Earth resident, your former defense minister. I wait in nearby space to warn away the embassy ship from Earth when it arrives. Or we can reconnect with our cousins and our long-lost past. The choice is yours … if you act quickly.”

*   *   *

ROCKING HERSELF, ARMS CROSSED across her chest to clutch her own upper arms, Amelia sat perched on an armrest of the pilot’s crash couch. The star field had been banished from the main view port, replaced with an old image of Hermes, Amelia, and their three children. Julia, the youngest, was at the missing-tooth, cheesy-grin stage.

Sigmund backed away silently. Whistling loudly, he returned to the bridge. This time Amelia had heard him coming. She sat more normally—looking posed. Stars once again showed in the view port.

He said, “I’m going to make some dinner. What can I get you?”

“Nothing, thanks.”

“You have to eat something,” he said gently.

She shook her head. “Was everything we did for nothing?”

“Don’t think that.” A hand set on her shoulder confirmed that she was trembling.

Why wouldn’t she be terrified? Their buoys had broadcasted for three days, and they had heard back … nothing.

Every second they spent out here terrified Sigmund, too, but he had to be strong. Their ship was intact and no one aboard had died. That was better than usual for him. “Worst case, we’ll warn away Koala. Julia will be safe.”

“With Earth knowing they’re unwelcome here. Hermes and I will never see our daughter again—unless this ARM organization of yours takes offense and returns with a fleet.” Amelia laughed cynically. “Of course I’ll be in prison. Maybe that will take my mind off things.”

How would the ARM take news of a planned ambush? Assuming the organization hadn’t changed since Sigmund’s era, not well.

What came next hinged on the answer to a single question. Would New Terran authorities alter their plans? The shortsighted fools had been relying on the ARM being too preoccupied—by the Ringworld disappearance and the multispecies conflict moving to the Fleet—to investigate a lone ship gone missing far away, in unfamiliar space. The politicians might even have been correct.

Now they had to worry about Koala escaping to report an ambush.

A lost ship might be written off; a hostile act would elicit an armed response. The governor and her cronies had to realize that. Didn’t they? But as the silence from New Terra dragged on, an outbreak of clear thinking seemed ever less likely …

Sigmund squeezed Amelia’s shoulder. “It won’t come to that. Either part.”

“Yes, it will.”

He gave her shoulder another squeeze. “Prison isn’t an option. Not for you. When we head back”—which must happen soon, because Elysium was running low on deuterium and food—“we’ll both tell the authorities that I forced you to help me. You’ll be in the emergency medical stasis unit because I no longer needed you awake after you’d configured probes for me.” He hesitated. “If I smack you a little, bruise your face, no one will question that story.”

She shook off Sigmund’s hand to stand facing him, her eyes blazing. “Absolutely not! I came of my own free will, and I’ll not have anyone think such terrible things of you. Certainly not your son!” Her expression softened. “I can’t believe you would take the blame for me.”

He shrugged, embarrassed.

The hardest part of waiting was the silence. Maybe they had initiated a debate groundside, but it was impossible to know. Back in the day, Sigmund had kept spy ships skulking near the Fleet of Worlds. Any of those ships could have tapped into New Terra’s public networks from this distance. All he had was this short-range cargo ship, equipped and provisioned for same-day jaunts. Hiding beyond the reach of the early-warning arrays, carrying only commercial comm gear, the planet’s low-powered RF leakage was unintelligible babble.

“Maybe I will have a snack,” Amelia said. Changing the subject?

“Sure. What can I bring you?”

“Soup and a sandwich. Maybe some…”

Sigmund saw it, too: the flashing indicator for an incoming comm signal. But was the contact from Koala or New Terra?

*   *   *

“… CALLING SIGMUND AUSFALLER. Please respond. This is the governor calling—”

The message was in full video and it showed—a man! He had a long, thin head, a trim goatee, sunken cheeks, and crow’s-feet at the corners of his eyes.

Sigmund didn’t recognize the face.

“Could we have done it?” Amelia asked hopefully.

To put a new face on air would have been easy enough. “Let’s try to find out. Until we know more, I suggest you stay out of sight.”

Instead, Amelia plopped into the copilot’s crash couch.

Sigmund took the pilot’s seat, tilted the camera away from her, and accepted the hail. “Ausfaller here.”

“Minister Ausfaller,” the self-proclaimed governor said. “Thank you for taking my hail.”

The response was immediate, from outside the singularity. So why had the “governor” left New Terra? To facilitate comm, or to backtrack the chain of relay buoys to Elysium? Probably both.

Sigmund rested his hands on the hyperdrive controls. “Who are you?”

“Excuse me,” the man said. “Of course you wouldn’t know. My name is Llewellyn Kudrin-Goldberg. At the time of your … hasty departure, I was the assemblyman for a rural district in East Arcadia.”

“You’ve had quite a promotion,” Sigmund said.

“Quite.” Kudrin-Goldberg smiled briefly. “I blame you.”

“And the previous governor?” At Amelia’s voice, the camera pivoted toward her.

“Ah, Mrs. Ausfaller-Lopez. I’m pleased to see you are well.”

“I’ll be better,” she said, “when I know what’s been happening.”

“Very well,” Kudrin-Goldberg said. “Minister Ausfaller’s broadcast raised enough doubts that a few courageous individuals within the defense establishment came forward. Computers within the Ministry were searched. When it became public that Norquist-Ng had ordered the strike against the simulated Earth ship…”

Amelia nodded knowingly.

Sigmund had never understood the Puppeteer-like consensus process that swept out New Terra’s first government—and him—so long ago. He didn’t expect ever to quite understand this latest overthrow, either.

He could live with the mystery, assuming this revolution was as bloodless as when the government he had served stepped down. And if this revolution was for real …

“What do you want from us, Governor?” Sigmund asked.

“To return home, of course. To join us in welcoming Koala.” Kudrin-Goldberg paused. “The people have spoken. They want the reunification to happen, Minister. Please don’t scare away our visitors. They could arrive at any time.”

“One moment, Governor.” Amelia hit MUTE. “Sigmund, can we trust him?”

“Let’s find out.” Sigmund unmuted the connection. “Governor, I assume you have a link with the ground. I’d like to talk with someone down there.”

“Certainly. We can patch you in from this ship. Who should we call?”

“Check the header.” Except for the header, the text Sigmund transmitted was encrypted. Doubtless the encryption could be cracked—but not before he got his answer. “Send my file as addressed, and be ready to open a real-time session with the recipient.”

“Very well, Minister.”

“Hermes?” Amelia mouthed.

Sigmund shook his head.

Seconds stretched.

Over the comm console, the holo split. A familiar figure appeared wearing a long-tailed black dress coat, black vest, starched white shirt, black bow tie, and white gloves. “It is very good to hear from you, sir,” Jeeves said.

“You, too, Jeeves,” Sigmund answered. But was this his Jeeves? Was it a Jeeves at all, or a person hiding behind an animated avatar? Anyone running Sigmund’s psych profile might have guessed who he would contact. “Is everything well?”

“Quite well, sir. The old government has fallen. Mr. Kudrin-Goldberg has assumed the governorship. You are considered something of a hero again, sir.”

The words proved nothing. Anyone could guess Sigmund would want to hear them.

“Three seven theta alpha forty-two,” Sigmund challenged.

“Forty-four nineteen delta sigma,” Jeeves responded.

His Jeeves: no one else knew the challenge-response pair. Sigmund had set the AI loose on the public net, because what was one more law broken among so many? It was almost inconceivable that Jeeves had been caught and hacked in the few days Sigmund had been away.

Sometimes almost inconceivable was the best that one could hope for.

“All right, Governor, I’m convinced. We’ll be home soon.”

The governor said, “I’m pleased to hear that, Minister. The people will be, too. Once you are down, please come to my offices at your earliest convenience.”

At Sigmund’s side, Amelia was grinning from ear to ear. Kudrin-Goldberg looked relieved. And something else. Expectant?

“I have to ask. Why do you keep using my old title?” Flattery, Sigmund supposed.

“The truth is,” the governor said, “the Defenses Forces need a housecleaning. I had intended to make this request face-to-face, but I guess it can’t wait.

“Sigmund, I’m hoping to make Minister of Defense your current title.”