Betrayer of Worlds Read online

  “Lousy bastard,” Louis said to no one in particular.

  No one commented.

  He caught the bartender’s eye. “Buy you a drink?”

  “Sure.” She got herself a beer and then fulfilled her part of the transaction: “Who’s a bastard?”

  Louis clinked glasses with her. “How much time have you got?”

  She laughed. “Call it one bastard to the glass.”

  He made a show of eyeballing the credit balance on his comp. “Then I’m on a two-bastard budget tonight. Sigmund Ausfaller screwed my family and ruined my life. And Nessus the Puppeteer—excuse me, Citizen—stranded me in this galactic backwater. Pardon my English.”

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  From the corner of an eye Louis sensed interest around a nearby table. Because he had finally found the right bar? Or because he had insulted the men’s precious icon, Sigmund Ausfaller? Growing up on Home, Louis had learned some martial arts—a body of human knowledge the Puppeteers had successfully eradicated here during their rule—but four to one remained tough odds. Even before the lumps and bruises he had collected brawling in other saloons.

  “My name is Louis Wu,” he said. “Like Ausfaller, Nessus brought me to this world. I had a job to do, after which Nessus was supposed to take me home with a big reward for my efforts.”

  “And?” the bartender asked.

  “He stranded me on New Terra. Like that bastard Ausfaller, I’ve been stripped of the memories I’d need to get home. As for pay—never mind that Nessus almost got me killed a few times—here’s what I got: Nessus looking himself in the eyes. I take it that’s a good laugh. When I complained, Nessus said to take it up with General Products.”

  The bartender finished her beer. When he nodded, she refilled her glass. And another few credits vanished from the pitiful cash balance showing on Louis’s comp.

  Not that he would run out. Secret codes replenished the visible balance whenever he needed it. A sly fellow, that Sigmund. Clandestine funding was the least of the tricks in the ordinary-seeming comp he had given Louis.

  “That’s tough,” she offered.

  “Someday I’ll get even with that two-headed freak. With both those bastards.” Louis stopped as four burly men in greasy coveralls came up to him. “Something I can do for you gentlemen?”

  “Yeah,” one said. “Take it outside. Minister Ausfaller saved this world more than once.”

  Louis turned back toward the bar, only to be grabbed by the collar and dragged off his stool. He was shoved, none too gently, into the trash cans in the alley behind the saloon. Seconds later, this being an absurdly civil world, his pocket comp sailed out the door after him.

  Louis staggered to his feet, brushed off the worst of the garbage, picked the comp off the pavement, and started for the next watering hole.

  In the sanctity of his newly expanded cabin suite, in the relative safety of a random spot in deep space, Achilles waited. He needed New Terran mercenaries for his assault on the Gw’oth. Roland Allen-Cartwright and his crew, having so carelessly gotten themselves killed, were once again making his life difficult. Death discouraged recruiting.

  Enzio Walker-Wong peered out of the holo display. Achilles’ new mercenary chief had a thin face, a broad nose, and blond hair so wispy and pale he seemed to lack eyebrows. “I’m up to six,” he concluded his report.

  Six. Achilles had asked for a combat crew of ten. But with the Gw’oth fleet already on its way, the clock was running. He would destroy the Gw’oth navy with guile and Pak technology, not by force of numbers. Six would suffice to staff the weapons consoles. “Six will have to do. Your fee, of course, will be reduced accordingly.”

  “Here’s something you might find interesting,” Enzio said. Changing the subject? “There is a self-proclaimed Earthman down here drinking himself to death.”

  Not Ausfaller, obviously. “Louis Wu?”

  Enzio looked surprised. “You know him?”

  Know Nessus’ lackey? Sadly so. But Wu was not without his skills. Without Wu, Achilles would not have gotten his glimpse of the Pak Library. That almost made up for the human stunning him at Nessus’ order.

  Smart. Adaptable. Able to follow orders. Maybe . . .

  “We were shipmates,” Achilles said. “Why is Louis drinking so heavily?”

  Enzio laughed. “You name it. His woman threw him out. He’s broke and stranded far from home. He’s ticked off at Ausfaller and Nessus.”

  So Nessus had abandoned his underling. “Why Ausfaller?”

  “Things Ausfaller supposedly did to Wu’s family. Persecuted them. Chased them from Earth. Wu is drunk and raving half the time, so the details aren’t exactly clear.”

  Wu’s spat with Ausfaller and ignominious departure from the Ministry of Defense was the talk of New Terra. Achilles had had reports about the commotion from several sources and thought nothing of it. As a raving paranoid ARM, Ausfaller had doubtless ruined more than his share of lives.

  “Who is Beowulf Shaeffer, anyway?” Enzio went on.

  That wasn’t a name Achilles expected to hear. “Why do you ask?”

  “I gather Shaeffer is Wu’s stepfather,” Enzio said. “But neutron stars and black holes? Wu isn’t making much sense. A lot of it has to be the liquor talking.”

  Beowulf Shaeffer was savvy, a survivor. So Louis had been raised by Shaeffer. It made sense, suddenly, that Nessus had recruited Wu. And it made using Wu against Nessus and Baedeker irresistibly appealing.

  “Bring Wu along,” Achilles said.

  “He’s a drunk, useless. I don’t want him on my crew.”

  “That wasn’t a suggestion,” Achilles said. “Do it.”

  . . .

  Louis’s head pounded. His stomach lurched. His mouth tasted like a rat had curled up inside and died.

  Detox pills evidently had their limits.

  Eyes closed, arms folded on a saloon table, he laid his head down. How long had he been on this wild goose chase? And when he ran out of bars at which to make a fool of himself, then what?

  Closing his eyes made his head spin. Forcing his eyes open gave Louis a sideways view of a stranger walking toward him.

  “Mind if I join you?” asked the man. He was ghostly pale. “Wu, right?”

  Blinking, Louis sat up. “Who are you?”

  “Just a friend.” The man pulled out a chair and sat. “Or, rather, a friend of a friend.”

  Louis gestured to his empty glass. “Friends desert you.”

  The man smiled. He had a gap between his top incisors. “Let’s start over. You’re not the only one with a gripe about Nessus.”

  “I want my back pay, not sympathy.”

  “Back pay, I can’t give you. But a new paying job? That’s something I can handle. I have a ship, and I’m hiring crew.”

  “Do you know what everyone in this dump has in common? Look around. We’re failures, even the ship captains. So tell me. At what are you a failure? Contract scouting? Prospecting? Trade with the Gw’oth? Smuggling?”

  The friend of a friend persisted. “Just so you know, my boss hates Nessus with a passion.”

  Louis frowned in concentration. “Your boss. Anyone I know?”

  “He said you were shipmates.”

  Achilles! Now not to act too eager.

  Louis said, “Oh, him. Tell him to give me a call.” Not least of all because Sigmund’s tech wizards were tracing calls to Louis’s comp.

  The man stood. “Will do. I’m Enzio, by the way. Let me buy you another drink.”

  “I can’t say no to that.” Louis laughed. “Obviously.”

  Enzio returned with two glasses and handed one to Louis. “To working together.”

  “Could happen,” Louis admitted before swigging his whiskey.

  . . .

  Louis woke, his head pounding worse than ever. He was afloat between sleeper plates. As his eyes adjusted to the dimness, he noticed walls with handholds. Ventilation fans whirred and a background hum droned.r />
  This was a ship. He’d been drugged.

  Best guess, Enzio had carried Louis from the bar. No one would have questioned, “My friend had one too many.” And once on the street, via the nearest stepping disc, to a spaceport.

  At great insult to his liver, he had found Achilles! Now to find out what the sociopath was up to. . . .

  Groaning, Louis reached out of the sleeper field and slapped the touchpoint. The collapsing field set him gently onto the lower plate. No lump in his hip pocket pressed into his butt. His comp was gone, and with it the hidden software by which to reach Sigmund in secrecy.

  Did Sigmund have any idea where Louis was?

  32

  On the cabin’s fold-down desk Louis found detox pills, pain pills, and an insulated drink bulb of hot coffee (but nothing that had been in his pockets). A fresh jumpsuit hung in the tiny closet. The hatch was unlocked. The room even had a sonic shower. Compared to how he had boarded Aegis, this was a walk in the park.

  But going aboard Aegis only his own sorry ass had been at risk. Now he meddled in the fates of worlds.

  Detoxed, showered, and in clean clothes, feeling almost human again, Louis ventured from his cabin. The bridge seemed the most likely place to find answers.

  The ship was built in a General Products #2 hull and mostly configured like Aegis. He sniffed the air: no trace of Puppeteer pheromones. A New Terran vessel, then. The bridge would be at the bow, not amidships as in Aegis. He went forward.

  Enzio, seated at the pilot’s console, glanced up at the sound of footsteps. “Good, you’re awake.”

  Louis took the empty copilot’s seat. The mass pointer was active, and it showed no significant objects nearby. “This is where you explain. But please talk softly.”

  “Achilles said to bring you. I did.”

  “Keep going.”

  “It was time to leave, Achilles wanted you, and you were in no shape to discuss career options.”

  “I suppose not,” Louis said. “Achilles wanted me?”

  “He needs a crew. You must have impressed him.”

  Louis nodded. He impressed me back. “Yah. You probably wonder why.”

  Enzio chuckled. “You’re taking things surprisingly well.”

  “Uh-huh. I’m older than I look. Old enough to know that screaming won’t make you turn around the ship, will it? I’ll save my complaints for Achilles. So when can I see him?”

  Enzio gestured vaguely at his console. “A few hours till we rendezvous.”

  Another ship then. The grain ship in which Achilles had escaped from Hearth? “And then?”

  “Then it’s between you and Achilles.”

  Before they docked, Louis had met all the mercenaries. Counting Enzio and himself, five men and two women. Two disgraced former police, four career criminals, and Louis.

  Just then, if Louis had had to come up with a label for himself, it would have been dilettante. Spy was merely another failed occupation for his résumé. Yes, he had been right about Achilles gathering mercenaries. So what? Beyond whatever his disappearance might reveal, Louis had communicated nothing to Sigmund.

  Most of the crew could fly the ship—by then Louis knew the vessel was called Addison—but only Enzio considered himself a pilot. Louis returned to the bridge to offer his services as copilot.

  “Sorry,” Enzio said. “Another of Achilles’ orders. You don’t get access codes.”

  Too bad. It had occurred to Louis that simply activating hyperdrive as they docked might stop whatever Achilles had in mind. Not easily: Louis would have to position the ship near something vital. Even at maximum power, the normal-space bubble that tiny Addison could project would barely impinge on a grain ship. Not cleanly: there would be casualties if he carved a chunk out of the hull. But Achilles’ minions were, at a minimum, abetting a fugitive would-be murderer and war instigator.

  The stratagem must have occurred to Achilles, too.

  Maura somebody was in the copilot’s seat. She was ex-police. Unlike the drunks with whom Louis had been tussling, she probably had had martial-arts training. Sigmund had trained the trainers who had trained most first responders. She was built like a wall and could probably beat Louis to a pulp.

  He decided not to try for the controls.

  Enzio and Maura let Louis observe from the bridge doorway. When they dropped from hyperspace, to his surprise the radar ping located two ships. From the blip sizes, both had #4 hulls.

  “Calling Remembrance,” Maura called. She had a booming, slightly nasal voice. “Remembrance, come in. This is Addison.”

  “Remembrance,” answered an unfamiliar voice in English. A Puppeteer, because no real-world woman ever sounded that sexy. Not even Alice—

  Louis tamped thoughts of Alice way down. He had to stay focused.

  After an exchange of authentication codes, the Puppeteer continued. “We have opened a cargo-bay hatch. Proceed to docking.”

  Fly into a hatch? Not an easy bit of piloting. “I’ve done that before,” Louis said casually.

  Enzio ignored him.

  “Achilles escaped Hearth on one ship. What’s the other for?” Louis asked.

  “Supplies,” Maura said. “Now be quiet.”

  Two GP #4s? What the tanj did Achilles have in mind?

  With a deft touch Enzio rotated Addison bow-out from the larger ship, backed through the yawning hatch using only his attitude thrusters, and set his ship onto a cradle in the otherwise empty hold. With a thump something clamped onto Addison’s hull.

  Addison brought more than mercenaries, Louis guessed. Achilles had just acquired a lifeboat.

  Achilles chose the empty cargo hold he had come to consider his audience chamber to interview Louis Wu. At the appointed time, he heard a soft, respectful trilling. Achilles recognized Clotho’s voices. “You may enter,” Achilles sang.

  Clotho entered first. “Excellency,” he intoned, heads held low respectfully. Louis came next, looking all around, followed by two Citizen crew.

  “Leave us,” Achilles sang. Clotho and the crew withdrew, closing the door behind them.

  Louis stood tall with hands clasped behind his back. “Did you bring me here to kill me?”

  “If I did not trust you, Louis, would we meet alone?”

  Louis shrugged. “My escorts likely remain just outside the door. Holding stunners, I think. You wouldn’t risk potentially lethal weapons near you. It’s easy enough to toss a stunned person out an air lock.”

  Achilles looked himself in the eyes. “You have learned to understand us, I see.”

  “So will you have me killed? You will not have forgotten that I stunned you.”

  Achilles sat astraddle a comfortably padded bench. He stretched a neck briefly to point at a human-style chair. “Sit. No, I have not forgotten. But Nessus was your hindmost, and you followed his orders.”

  “Nessus.” Louis spat on the floor. “That’s what I think of Nessus. If he had any honor, I would be home by now, a rich man.”

  “Without memories of your adventure,” Achilles reminded.

  “Without nightmares. You can’t imagine how often I dream of that Pak ship filled with corpses.”

  “Let me share something with you. I have come to learn Beowulf Shaeffer is your . . . I believe the term is stepfather. I knew Beowulf. I respected him a great deal. When I worked in Human Space for General Products, I hired him twice. And I paid him in full both times.”

  “Keep talking,” Louis said.

  “Nessus treated you badly. He poisons the mind of the Hindmost, thus serving the Concordance badly. And so it falls to me to end the threat of the Gw’oth.” And to take command of Hearth, and destroy my enemies, as my reward.

  “I have watched you work, Louis, and come to respect your talents. Join me. Be an asset to our cause and teach Nessus the lesson he deserves.”

  “Two ships against a Gw’oth war fleet? I didn’t think Citizens went in for suicide missions.”

  Achilles was unaccustomed to being ques
tioned. He reminded himself he valued the human’s independent mind. “We have weaponry the Gw’oth cannot even suspect.”

  “Pak technology.” Louis narrowed his eyes in thought. “And when we’re done, Achilles? Will you honor Nessus’ bargain?”

  “When we succeed everything changes, for the herd cherishes those who can keep them safe. Baedeker will be gone and I will be Hindmost. The reward of the Hindmost will vastly overshadow whatever paltry reward Nessus might have provided.” Or fail me, and you will go out the air lock.

  “And I’ve watched you at work,” Louis said. “You do not take no for an answer. So tell me where I start.”

  Louis’s first assignment was entirely mundane. What Maura had called a supply ship turned out to be a Ministry of Science research vessel. The New Terrans got to off-load most of its supplies to Remembrance.

  Sigmund knew from Nessus that a Concordance research ship had gone missing.

  No one volunteered what the other vessel would do after the cargo transfer. Skulk around Hearth, coordinating with Achilles’ loyalists, Louis supposed.

  The two big ships flew in tandem, a few kilometers apart. The New Terrans shuttled between cargo holds by stepping disc. Louis asked for his pocket comp back to use as a stepping-disc controller. Enzio declined but found Louis a spare computer.

  For the largest items they used floaters to shift cargo onto freight-sized discs. With hold gravity turned down the crates were light, but they still had inertia and, all too often, awkward sizes and shapes. It was hard, mindless work, and it left Louis fretting about how to reestablish contact with Sigmund.

  Packaged emergency rations. Vats of biomass for synthesizers. Synthesizers. Stepping discs. Space probes, basketball-sized, built inside General Products #1 hulls. Puppeteer autodocs and pressure suits. Portable power sources. Lab instruments. Cable reels. Equipment consoles. Spare parts for shipboard systems. Raw materials for machine shops.

  Three of the New Terrans could read Puppeteer labels, which was fortunate because Louis could not. They had to know what was what to appropriately deliver the goods to holds and storerooms, labs and workshops, closets and pantries throughout Remembrance.