Juggler of Worlds Read online

  “I’m pleased to meet you, Senior Inspector,” Sigmund said. He had far more confidence in Scotland Yard than a museum cop.

  “We’ve been busy, as you might imagine, Agent Ausfaller.” Cecil prattled on about alarms, sensors, and cameras. He expended altogether too many words before concluding, “So you see, the security system gives us nothing to go on.”

  Bergen shook his head. “I disagree, Cecil. We’ll learn something useful from how the criminals defeated the security system.”

  “You suspect an inside job?” Sigmund asked.

  Bergen raised an eyebrow. “Of course. One can’t just disable these things from the outside. This is a very secure facility.”

  “Bypassed sensors account for the thieves going unseen.” Sigmund glanced at the empty walls. Only yesterday, the most famous marble sculptures of the ancient world had been displayed here. Just how many tonnes did they weigh? “So the thieves toted everything out past the night guards?”

  “Well, no,” Cecil admitted. “We see no evidence of tampering with the street surveillance cameras. And even if they, too, were circumvented, we had one bit of good luck. The skies over London were clear last night. We have continuous satellite imagery of the area.”

  Sigmund felt vaguely disappointed. This was going to be trivial, not a diversion, after all. “Then you have video of the vehicles that carried away the marbles.”

  “Actually, no,” Cecil said.

  That left but one way out of the building. Sigmund said, “Then the marbles were removed by transfer booth, direct from the museum to somewhere you couldn’t surveil. Where did the thieves teleport?”

  Bergen steepled his fingers. “That’s exactly the question. There seem to be no transfer records. Interesting, eh?”

  Cerberus! It took all Sigmund’s willpower not to shout the word. The disappointment he’d been feeling vanished, along with the final shreds of doubt as to who was behind the Cerberus extortions. Sigmund knew exactly who had orchestrated the theft of the Elgin Marbles.

  Who but the mythology-obsessed Puppeteers would steal the sculpted frieze that once graced the Parthenon?

  29

  Danger lurked in simple blue lines.

  From heads held far apart Nessus stared into the mass pointer, the transparent sphere that was the heart of Aegis’ navigational console. Blue lines radiated from the center of the orb, one line for each detectable gravitational singularity. The longer the line segment, the closer and larger—the more perilous—the mass.

  Gravitational maws: He felt their hunger.

  One line segment, still short, pointed straight at him. When it split into six closely spaced lines, he would be almost home.

  In theory, he need check the mass pointer only once or twice every shift. Theory offered little comfort. He had lost too many friends to hyperspace. Had they trusted too much to theory?

  With good reason, no sane Citizen would travel by hyperdrive.

  Closer to Earth, Nessus had dropped Aegis back to normal space a few times to rest. Sleep came grudgingly, but never rest. Too many perils tormented him.

  His urgent recall implied much but explained little. The scout ship Explorer was missing, Clandestine Directorate had reported, with all heads unaccounted for. The correct term in this context was all hands. His chosen scouts—three more friends, though aliens—where? Lost in a singularity, perhaps, or taken prisoner by an unknown power. In a hostile universe, so much could go wrong.

  Had he been aboard Explorer, would his superior caution have saved them?

  But numbers far larger than the three lost crew weighed on his conscience. For what gain had he meddled? Possibly none. His thoughts churned endlessly in a rebellious jumble. His limbs trembled from the strain of catatonia too long denied.

  NESSUS FINALLY BOWED to reality, dropping for a time from hyperspace. He staggered past his cabin with its mound of sleep cushions to the packed cargo hold. The last things he saw, before fatigue overcame him, were the stacked crates he was bringing to Hearth. The sight cast a ray of hope into his troubled thoughts.

  After Nike received this gift, surely he would be the next to mention Brides.

  HOMEWARD AEGIS FLEW—

  Deeper into the galactic north where Ausfaller now cast his uncanny attention. Through his minions, Nessus had learned that much about the ARM’s progress.

  Nessus pawed the deck, agitated by all that remained hidden. As fear directed a Citizen’s actions, so curiosity drove humans. Someone with more arrogance than understanding of humans had drawn the gaze of the Concordance’s most implacable adversary. Nike would not identify the scout responsible, but Nessus had his suspicions.

  Provoking Ausfaller by accident sounded like something Achilles would do.

  At some point Nessus made his way to the ship’s relax room. He ordered another serving of whatever he had last synthed. What to eat, at least, was a decision he could simplify. The first bites made his mouths water, and he ate voraciously. Not until the plate was empty did he look up. He had no idea what he’d just consumed.

  Ausfaller’s shadow haunted Nessus. The ARM must be stopped. But how? Ausfaller’s own superiors couldn’t dissuade him. The riots that troubled Nessus’ conscience hadn’t deflected him. Achilles’ trap had only drawn him.

  Nessus filled several drinking bulbs with water, to carry back to the bridge. The dispenser’s shiny front panel reflected a bedraggled, wild-eyed creature. It defied belief that so disreputable a character must carry such responsibility on his shoulders.

  Even Nessus’ most senior sources in the United Nations feared the ARM.

  “You want me to spy on Ausfaller?” Sangeeta Kudrin had blurted. She had been sealed at the time within an impregnable bubble, intercepted between two primitive transfer booths, entirely at Nessus’ mercy—but it was Ausfaller who terrified her. “The man is a raving paranoid. Maybe you don’t understand what that means. It means he suspects everyone.”

  Max Addeo had tried once to explain. Nessus thought, I should have worked harder then to comprehend. Only when Kudrin panicked had Nessus truly grasped Ausfaller’s evil genius. She’d said, “I’m guessing that you chose your victims, at least some of them, by clever data mining. I don’t see how else you could have found me. My . . . creative use of UN funds.”

  Ausfaller had constructed a persona in the personnel files, she had explained, someone with a suspect-looking past, just to entrap anyone trying to coerce ARMs. Unwittingly, Nessus had sent Ausfaller a Cerberus envelope! And Ausfaller had deduced it was Puppeteer meddling. . . .

  Nessus blinked, his eyes dry from staring. The mass pointer was a psionic device; it required a conscious mind in the loop. He sensed the approaching singularity. That was normal. But to sense its hunger? He knew that was madness.

  It was no less insane to feel Ausfaller’s eyes. The ARM was too perceptive to ignore, too dedicated to be corrupted, and too persistent to deflect.

  Ausfaller’s strength was also his greatest weakness. The paranoia that led to such profound insight evoked, in turn, distaste and distrust among his own kind. Thus weakness became, in turn, strength: Any harm done to Ausfaller, or even an unsuccessful attempt, would only raise the paranoid’s credibility.

  And then there were Addeo’s warnings about “event-of-my-death” messages.

  I’m obsessed with Ausfaller, Nessus realized. In his hearts, alongside the fear and admiration, Nessus acknowledged pangs of empathy. We are both misfits, striving mightily to protect the societies that disdain us.

  Nessus’ necks ached. He told himself he felt only the strain of physical exhaustion. That was a half-truth, at best. Every instinct demanded he look over his shoulder for his pursuer.

  And yet, amid all the self-recrimination, salvation beckoned. Yes, Sigmund Ausfaller remained on the hunt. And yes, Nessus himself had been ordered away from Sol system—

  But he was not without his own cunning. An arrogant overconfidence in Concordance science had put all Citizens at risk of di
scovery. And so, before leaving Sol system, Nessus had enlisted a human ally as complex as Ausfaller and as scientifically gifted as Achilles.

  The safety of the Concordance was now in his hands.

  BESIEGED

  Earth date: 2651

  30

  It took the Secretary-General months to discreetly divert the funds for a long-range exploratory mission. It took Sigmund more months to covertly acquire Hobo Kelly.

  Much can happen in a year.

  Ander didn’t notice, or paid no heed to, Sigmund’s introspection. “Trust me, the normal-world women tourists are eager.” It had become Ander’s favored theme. “The natives scare the hell out of them. By comparison, I and certainly you, my friend, are of unthreatening bulk.”

  “Piloting” a starship, it turned out, required surprisingly few skills. The autopilot could be relied on to get you in and out of a solar system. Between solar systems, the mass pointer made navigation entirely straightforward: You merely kept your ship pointed toward the line that pointed at you. There were too few stars nearby to permit any confusion.

  Not in Known Space, anyway. Perhaps the galactic core had enough stars to confuse things.

  Dark thoughts about Beowulf Shaeffer, below the radar for over a year, had one advantage. They distracted Sigmund from Ander’s prattling. Sigmund didn’t care to discuss why Feather moving out was the best thing that had ever happened to him. Not with anyone. Certainly not with Ander.

  “. . . And that’s how, last trip, I ended up with twins from We Made It,” Ander continued.

  Fortunately, with just the two of them to cover three shifts, they didn’t overlap often. When they did, Sigmund tried not talking.

  Ander didn’t seem to mind. Or to notice. “Yes, Sigmund, it’s my mission to show you the better, by which I mean baser, fleshpots of Sirius Mater.” Ander cackled. “My mission and your pleasure.”

  It grew harder and harder to remember why he’d brought Ander along on this shakedown cruise when he wanted to take Ander by the throat and shake him. It didn’t help Sigmund’s spirits to know that nothingness lurked outside the hull. He reminded himself often that Ander was good at what he did. Ander was just lousy company.

  Finally, their ship reached the outskirts of Sirius system. It was a relief on many levels, not least for the prospect of company other than Ander’s, to drop out of hyperspace.

  The coded hyperwave message beamed from James P. Baen Station quickly dispelled Sigmund’s relief.

  SIGMUND REMEMBERED SIRIUS Mater from ten years earlier. It was as dreary as he remembered it. By Earth standards, Jinx’s largest city scarcely qualified as a village. Its buildings, like its inhabitants, were short and squat, and for the same reason: the intolerable gravity.

  The major hotels offered gravity-controlled comfort—and tourists. Ander was not amused when Sigmund ordered him immediately to West End, decidedly short of off-world visitors, to attempt once more to infiltrate Pelton’s project. Tough. The alert from the ARM station chief here had changed everything.

  Carlos Wu was on Jinx.

  Passport records said this was Wu’s first trip off Earth in ten years. Eight ships lost in the vicinity of Sol system in the last ten months and now Carlos decides to travel? He’d taken the last passenger ship out before the final cruise line suspended operations in and out of Sol system.

  And Carlos had chosen Jinx, of all places. . . .

  For anyone other than Ander, the main tourist attraction in Sirius Mater was the museum portion of the Institute of Knowledge. It could only be experienced at Jinx-standard gravity. Sigmund rented a floating travel couch from the one-gee lobby of his hotel, and let it carry him the short distance to the institute. It was time to happen to meet Carlos.

  Sigmund wandered through the museum until he came upon the physicist in the art wing. “Small galaxy,” Sigmund said.

  Carlos was also in a travel chair. Glancing over his shoulder, he did a double take. “Agent Ausfaller. A small galaxy indeed.”

  They were in a gallery of Jinxian nudes. Sigmund gestured at the nearest one. “Rubenesque suddenly seems like another word for ‘petite’. And there’s no cause for formality. We’re a long way from Earth.”

  “Sigmund, then.” Carlos stroked his chin. “Yes, these are big people. They have to be, of course.”

  “So what brings you here, Carlos?” Sigmund said. “To Jinx, I mean.”

  Carlos kept his eyes on the holos. “Personal reasons.”

  “Been here long?”

  “Long enough.” Carlos shrugged. At least he tried to shrug. The casual gesture morphed into a shudder. “I’m more of a flatlander than I realized. I miss home.”

  “And with the quarantine, you can’t get home.” Sigmund edged his travel chair closer to a portrait. “I heard you got married. Do I get to meet your wife?”

  “We recently divorced. That’s kind of why I wanted to get away.” Awkward pause. “What brings you to Jinx, Sigmund?”

  “Business,” Sigmund said. “I can’t say much about it.”

  That was the truth. Ships near Sol system disappearing without a trace. No wreckage. No distress calls. The ARM’s working assumption was pirates.

  His Puppeteer hunt was delayed until ship disappearances closer to home could be resolved.

  He had expected to be quite bored by the time Hobo Kelly completed its final outfitting. An open question in the piracy theory was whether ships were targeted or taken at random. Accomplices employed in shipyards could hide transmitters during a routine overhaul. Hidden beacons might explain why more ships had disappeared outbound from Sol than inbound. Or, the number of disappearances being small, the difference could be meaningless.

  Hobo Kelly needed a major refit for its new mission, and Jinx had some of the best shipyards in Human Space. Claiming that a refit in Sol system was too risky gave Sigmund an excuse to take out his ship. He had his reasons. He wanted Ander back on Jinx, despite the quarantine. Hobo Kelly needed a shakedown cruise. Sigmund wanted to practice his newly learned piloting skills.

  “I can’t really talk about it,” Sigmund repeated. They’d been floating down the hall. They reached the last of the muscle-bound nudes. “Have you seen the landscape gallery, Carlos?”

  “Not yet.” Carlos floated under an arch into a new room. He stopped to admire a holo of crescent Primary hanging over East End. “I thought I was on the last ship from Sol system,” Carlos commented suddenly. “How’d you get here?”

  “Some government ships are still flying. In fact, I’m headed back to Earth in a few days.” Sigmund had a flash of inspiration. He didn’t want to leave Carlos here, unsupervised. “If you wish, you can come back with me.”

  Carlos looked surprised. “Is it safe?”

  “I wouldn’t go myself, otherwise.” Don’t push, Sigmund told himself. “Where are you staying? I’ll get in touch when my business is done. You can give me your decision then. I’m at the Sirius Mater Hilton, by the way.”

  “I’m at the Jinx Towers.” Carlos took a deep breath. “I would like to get home. I’ll think about it.”

  “Sounds good. Or give me a call sooner when your schedule permits, and we’ll have a drink.” Sigmund leaned forward in his travel chair and extended his hand. “It’s good to see a familiar face.”

  “Same here, Sigmund. I may take you up on the drink.” They shook hands.

  If Carlos noticed the pinprick when Sigmund planted a microbug, he gave no sign.

  CARLOS RETURNED TO the institute the next two days. Two hours into the first day, with little to hear but occasional footsteps, presumably those of Jinxian museum-goers, Sigmund delegated listening to Medusa. He split his time between the shipyard and his suite at the Hilton. At least in his room Sigmund could pretend to be on Earth.

  He was having lunch in his room, surfing Jinxian 3-V, when, with a chime, Medusa appeared. “Here’s a surprise,” she said. “Do you recognize the second voice?”

  It was familiar, but Sigmund couldn
’t quite place it. “Who is Carlos talking to?”

  All the snakes stopped coiling to stare at Sigmund. “Beowulf Shaeffer.”

  If only he could have placed a video bug! Alas, Carlos probably took out a new floater each day from his hotel lobby; surely he changed his clothes. A bug planted on Carlos had to be subcutaneous, which limited it to audio.

  “Here’s the interesting part,” Medusa continued. “They know each other really well.”

  Sigmund shivered. He had a bad feeling about this. “How well?”

  “Carlos fathered the children the Fertility Board denied Beowulf.”

  THE CAMELOT WAS a sprawling, vaguely Escher-like jumble of boxes, and a landmark in downtown Sirius Mater. The hotel maintained one-gee gravity throughout, not only in its guest rooms. That made the Camelot’s bar the most popular watering hole among off-worlders.

  Sigmund claimed a booth. Carlos was meeting him here for a drink, and to talk about the trip to Earth. And although Carlos didn’t know Sigmund already knew, they would be talking about another passenger. Carlos had offered Bey a ride.

  The two men walked into the bar together, Shaeffer towering over Wu. Sigmund stood. “Beowulf Shaeffer! How good to see you again! I believe it has been eight years or thereabouts. How have you been?”

  “I lived,” Shaeffer snapped.

  Carlos rubbed his hands together briskly. “Sigmund! Why did you bomb Bey’s ship?”

  Sigmund blinked in feigned surprise. “Did he tell you it was his ship? It wasn’t. He was thinking of stealing it. I reasoned that he would not steal a ship with a hidden time bomb aboard.”

  “But how did you come into it?” Carlos slid into the booth beside him. “You’re not police. You’re in the Extremely Foreign Relations Bureau.”

  It’s called Alien Affairs, Sigmund thought. And I don’t need to be told where I work. Worked. Special Investigations wasn’t officially part of Alien Affairs.