Juggler of Worlds

by Larry Niven

  Nessus cantered to the temporarily activated stepping disc. He had been to the ministry before; he understood the routine. He stepped after the one he recognized as an aide of Nike’s. They made their way through the buzzing office complex that was Clandestine Directorate. Personal ornamentation here was mostly Experimentalist orange. Conservatives ruled, but they lacked the flexibility of thought even to imagine leaving Hearth.

  The taciturn aide led Nessus to the entrance of Nike’s spacious office. Holo artwork filled the room, and lush meadowplant carpeted the floor. Nike emerged from behind his work surface, his mane breathtakingly coiffed. A string of orange garnets glittered amid his braids. “Please come in,” Nike said.

  Nessus quivered with nervous energy. The latching of the door behind him by the departing aide scarcely registered. The manic state never lasted long; he must make his proposal quickly. Now. “I have an answer!” he blurted.

  “How I envy you. What was the question?”

  Nike looked relieved! Had he feared Nessus would raise more personal matters? Later, Nessus thought, I must examine that impression. Larger issues now required his attention.

  Nessus shifted his weight between front feet. “An answer for the problem with the wild humans. I can save them. That is, I know how to preoccupy them.”

  “Can you keep the ARM from finding us?” Doubt was plain in Nike’s eyes. In flight, the Concordance was more vulnerable than ever. Of all species, the wild humans must not find them.

  “Yes, yes!” Nessus bobbed his heads in vigorous alternation. He must be compelling. No matter that the chaos he proposed to unleash weighed on his conscience. Failure would bring far more dire consequences. A stealthed General Products hull, accelerated to a high speed, smashing undetected into a populated world. . . .

  Shivering, Nessus returned to his proposal. A simple analogy would make things clear. “I was at Harem House and—”

  Nike flinched. Choosing of a Bride was obviously not in his mind.

  Nessus dare not stop. Later he would collapse into a blind lump of embarrassment. For now, the words tumbled out, unstoppable. “The point, Nike, is those on Earth also control their numbers. Unlike us, the humans have chemical means of contraception. Their use is mandatory. Would-be parents require government permission to forego their annual booster doses. Those who have children without permission are executed, and their offspring sterilized.”

  His left foreleg, with a mind of its own, dug into the meadowplant. “They’re not like us, Nike. Earth remains a wilderness, home to a scant few billions. Our arcologies rival in number of residents the largest cities on Earth.” Because humans need room. They swarm the nearby solar systems. Nessus kept those thoughts to himself. They did not advance his argument. “They reconcile themselves to a repressive government because to them Earth already seems too crowded. That is why discrediting Earth’s Fertility Board is the key.”

  “You propose a scandal to divert the hunt for the Concordance.” Nike’s necks wobbled skeptically.

  Nessus fixed Nike with a two-headed stare, astonished by his own boldness. He must demonstrate his absolute conviction. “Imagine if it were suspected Citizens were secretly buying Brides and the right to reproduce. How would our kind react?” To Nike’s expression of horror Nessus added, simply, “Exactly.”

  Nike brought his heads together in thought, doubtless imagining the strife such rumors would cause even among the communal and sociable Citizens. “Is it doable?”

  “I believe so, given access to sufficient resources,” Nessus answered. “I envision our agents bribing some members of the Fertility Board, and compromising others by creating bank accounts in their names. The economies of the human worlds have yet to recover from the shock of General Products’ disappearance. The more wealth people have lost, the quicker they will be to suspect conspiracy. Many will believe the rich are buying birthrights. A bit of innuendo here, some surreptitious funding to political opportunists there . . .”

  Nessus found himself lapsing into Interworld for words otherwise absent from his vocabulary. It was unavoidable. For too long he had had none but humans for company.

  He could maintain this frenetic audacity for only so long. He must convince Nike soon, before he lapsed into the depressed catatonia that was sure to follow.

  Nike seemed not to have noticed his flagging concentration. “The retained earnings from the General Products Corporation are adequate to the task?”

  “If the approach is valid, money will not be the limiting factor.” Nessus could not help tugging at a braid. He knew he was on the edge of collapse.

  Nike stood in silence for a long time. Finally, he said, “I am very encouraged, but of course a great deal of detail must remain to be determined. I would like you to make this your top priority. Please get back to me soon with an update.”

  As Nessus shambled to the closed office door, Nike whistled softly: Stay a moment. He came right up to Nessus, and leaned forward to intimately stroke Nessus’ scruffy mane. Too bad his approach seemed stiff and calculated. “Come back soon. I am depending on you.”

  MEETINGS WERE HELD. Plans evolved. Resources were allocated. Contingencies were categorized and analyzed, and mitigations identified.

  Nessus’ experimental scouting program, almost as an afterthought, was declared a success. His trainees, unsupervised, must explore the way ahead for the herd. They could hardly be assigned the mission he proposed.

  Nessus was not surprised, but was a bit saddened, to get Nike’s go-ahead for a return to Sol system in an impersonal recorded message.

  25

  Crash. Tinkle. Crash. Crash. Clink.

  Glass shards flew everywhere. Now the steady rain was mostly bottles, the windows of the nearby buildings having long since been shattered.

  Squadrons of copseyes floated overhead, playing hide-and-seek with the hooligans who burst out of the crowd or darted from places of concealment to lob their primitive missiles. The grapefruit-sized bots only carried stunners, but at least two stunned rioters had fallen from windowless offices to their deaths.

  One more inarticulate roar burst from the thousands who filled the square. The cheering drowned out the haranguing from across the plaza.

  Sigmund swung his plasteel shield to deflect yet another bottle. He’d done a lot of that; his shield arm was getting very tired. “Futz,” he announced. The helmet mike in his riot-control gear was set to a private channel. “Has everyone gone insane?”

  A thin line of ARMs in assault armor surrounded the demonstrators, awaiting orders. Sigmund couldn’t imagine any orders that could make sense. “Futz,” he repeated.

  Crash. Crash. Tinkle. Crash.

  “You don’t need to be here,” Feather snapped. She meant: He wasn’t supposed to be there. ARM offices worldwide had emptied to help contain the global eruption of violence, but as a unit head he was considered too senior to endanger himself.

  Tough. He went where his team went. That had meant three different cities so far today. He thought this was Chicago. “And miss all this?” His eyes maintained their steady sweep.

  “But I’m glad you are,” Feather added under her breath.

  A few more bottles deflected. Men and women shaking their fists. Bobbing placards demanded reproductive justice and the right to bear children. Tanj it, Sigmund thought, the world is already too crowded. This chaos was unacceptable. And yet—

  Feather seemed to read his mind. “Of course this is wrong.” She meant the riots. “But is their cause so wrong?”

  Would it really be so wrong if he and Feather had a child?

  Not waiting for, or maybe not expecting, a response, she kicked a mound of the refuse from the looted offices and condos. She stomped a torn painting and snapped its gilded frame. “Parasitic bastards. Holo art is too good for them. And now they’re buying babies, too.”

  “. . . Ready,” Sigmund’s earphones announced as another yell burst from the crowd. The latest rabble-rouser, standing on a cargo floater
, had just shouted out something about lotteries. A new cheer broke out: “Justice, justice, justice, justice. . . .”

  Sigmund barely made out over the chanting, “Clear the square.” The line straightened. He locked shields with Feather to one side and Andrea Girard on the other. The second rank raised their shields above their heads. It felt vaguely medieval, or maybe more ancient.

  Crash. Crash. Crash.

  Something tickled his thoughts. An old memory? Whatever it was had to wait. Distraction now would get him killed.

  One after another, copseyes thudded onto the plaza, vivid yellow amid the detritus. Sigmund counted five. One or two copseyes might be brought down by beer bottles and dumb luck. This many down, this close together, meant a sniper with a serious weapon, most likely a hunting rifle. They had to act, and decisively, before those guns were turned against people. “Oxygen on,” came the radioed order. “Sleep gas in ten seconds.”

  They didn’t get even that long. Two ARM squad carriers soared over a building that abutted the square, flashers pulsing, spewing thick clouds of gas. Sigmund winced. Two floaters couldn’t begin to take down a crowd this large. It was worse than doing nothing.

  Protestors stampeded, shrieking.

  Sigmund’s earpiece reawakened. “On my mark, advance.”

  Advance? A human sea washed over the police phalanx. Everywhere, people fell: gassed, stunned by copseyes or ARMs, struck from above by the hail of bottles, or trampled. The thin line burst, the mob scattering the vastly outnumbered ARMs. Coughing rioters fought the ARMs—and then one another—for oxygen masks.

  A wild-eyed lunatic rushed at Feather’s back. Naught remained of his placard but the sturdy scrap of lumber he now swung like a mace. Sigmund braced his shield, his stunner lost in the melee. As he charged, motion from above caught his eye. He had a brief impression of a chair hurtling down at him—

  And then nothing.

  SIGMUND JERKED BACK to awareness, unable to see. Someone twisted his helmet. His head and neck throbbed. He flailed, screaming. A boot connected, and someone screamed back.

  “Sigmund! It’s me!” Feather shouted. “Let me get your helmet off.”

  He clamped his jaw against the pain and tried to lie still. The helmet turned, and he could see again. Feather, still in full riot-control armor, knelt at his side. She removed his helmet and held it where he could get a good look. One side was crushed. He remembered that chair, flung from who knew how many stories up. The blow that smashed his helmet must have spun it around until the visor was over his right ear.

  The few civilians nearby were all on the ground in unnatural poses, apparently entangled in force fields. Mostly they lay very still. It was a good decision, because the restraints got tighter the more you struggled. He almost felt bad about the protestor he’d just kicked.

  Feather looked intact. “What’s happened?” he croaked. “Where is everyone?”

  “The cavalry happened.” Feather gestured at the police floater circling the area. “The driver saw you go down and buzzed the crowd. He’s been running interference since. Ambulances are on the way. The riots moved uptown, and our guys followed. They’re okay.”

  Sirens wailed from every direction. “Feather, help me up.”

  “No way. Wait for the ambulance.” She patted his hand.

  His pocket chimed. He vaguely recollected it had been going on for a while. “Accept the call,” he said. Medusa wouldn’t forward anything unless it was urgent.

  A dim green glow seeped out from under his armored vest. The body armor muffled Medusa’s voice so that Sigmund had to strain to hear. “I couldn’t trace the delivery,” Medusa said. “Whatever that means, it’s important.”

  ARTIFICIAL HERD PHEROMONES, pungent and thick, filled the relax room of Aegis. The scent did nothing to help Nessus relax. He was light-years from another of his kind, light-seconds from any ship or settlement. To unwind seemed impossible.

  A human broadcast droned in the background, forwarded to his ship by a chain of stealthed relay buoys hidden deep in Sol system. Mostly he monitored Belter stations, since Earth’s media appeared to be under heavy United Nations censorship. Belters didn’t exactly revel in Earth’s misfortune; they didn’t sugarcoat it, either.

  He had hundreds of deaths on his conscience.

  “I brought it on myself,” Nessus told himself. “Better this than”—he couldn’t help but look at the larger-than-life image of Nike with whom he shared the cabin. He had several. He’d taken this picture at an Experimentalist party rally, soon after Nike first caught his eye. Before he had volunteered for the scouting program in the hope, someday, of catching Nike’s eye.

  In more innocent times.

  Not even Nike’s image could soothe Nessus. His mood was too guilty. Better than what? he wondered again.

  “What would you have done to keep us safe?” he asked Nike’s image. What manner of genocide? On Earth and how many other human worlds?

  Perhaps he wasn’t being fair. Nike had, after all, endorsed this more subtle action.

  A bowl of mixed grasses sat before Nessus, untouched. He had no appetite. The longer he was away, the harder it was to believe Nike ever had sincere feelings for him. The ballet, the party, their time together . . . it was all cajolery to maneuver him into returning to Sol system. At such great distances, all alone, orders meant nothing. Scouts had to be inspired, lest they exercise too much initiative.

  Strangely, Achilles had taken offense at Nessus’ return. No matter that Achilles never wanted responsibility for Sol system; he took it as an affront that someone else now had it.

  And still Nike looked at him. “Just you wait,” Nessus told the hologram. “Soon enough I’ll have proof that the ARM has been thoroughly diverted. Then you’ll see the surprise I have planned for you.”

  SIGMUND WOBBLED DOWN a long corridor at UN Headquarters. Only painkillers and a megadose of stims kept him moving. Feather walked beside him, muttering disapproval, catching him whenever he stumbled.

  They still wore riot gear. Trailing anxious bureaucrats and sleep-gas fumes, they came finally to an office suite at the end of the hallway. The plaque next to the glass double doors read: Deputy Undersecretary for Administrative Affairs. Sigmund lurched past protesting aides and factotums in the reception area, into an inner office. Feather slammed the door behind them.

  Sangeeta Kudrin shot from her chair. “What happened? No, never mind that. Let’s get you into an autodoc.”

  Sigmund plopped onto her sofa. He would rather talk to the Secretary-General herself, but Melenkamp was off-world. For cover he routed most progress reports through Sangeeta, anyway. “After I bring you up to date.”

  “Agent Filip, can’t you give me the report?” Sangeeta asked.

  “You would think.” Feather settled next to Sigmund on the couch. “Except he won’t tell me what’s on his mind, either.”

  “Whenever you’re ready,” he said impatiently.

  “Sorry,” Sangeeta said. “What’s this about?”

  “The riots.” His side was killing him. A broken rib, he guessed. Somebody got in a good kick under the edge of the vest before his rescue. His med kit still had painkillers, but any more would render him incoherent. “Puppeteers are behind them.”

  Sangeeta’s current dye job involved stylized lightning bolts on her cheeks and dramatically arched faux eyebrows. She somehow managed to look more surprised. “Surely not.”

  In his mind’s ear, the shattering of glass rolled on and on. Far away he’d met a Puppeteer whose name sounded like a window breaking in slow motion, and dubbed him Adonis. Broken Glass’s name of convenience was something else, of course. Nessus had admitted as much without sharing a pronounceable pseudonym.

  Sigmund would offer good odds that the GP exec he’d met on We Made It went by the name Achilles.

  Sangeeta stared. She’d been twitchy since his return to headquarters, obviously trying to hide something from him. She needn’t have bothered. Her affair with Calist
a Melenkamp was the worst-kept secret at headquarters. The Secretary-General’s husband might be the only one not in the know; Sigmund doubted even that. It wasn’t like Sigmund cared, or, given his own relationship with Feather, could even criticize.

  True, Sangeeta had done well in her career since Sigmund met her back in ’45, when they had neighboring offices. Jealous co-workers did whisper about her “connections.” He and Sangeeta had been friends of a sort; he chose to believe his respect still mattered to her.

  Futz! Why dwell now on this trivia? He’d clearly overachieved on the meds.

  He shifted positions again, welcoming the head-clearing stab of pain from abused ribs. “Bear with me. Look at the progression, in the space of a few months. I trace laundered General Products funds to Max Addeo. The S-G lets Max discover that my new Special Investigations Unit is, in fact, the Puppeteer task force reborn. Protests break out against the Fertility Board, by far the worst in centuries. The riots are meant as a distraction.” To distract me.

  “Oh, come on,” Feather said. He hadn’t shared this epiphany even with her. “The disturbances are about corruption. The Fertility Board took bribes for licenses. It’s that simple.”

  Feather wanted to believe the worst about the board. If she couldn’t have a child, at least she could feel the victim. But opportunities for corruption had always been there. Why would they be worse now?

  He said, “Spreading rumors is easy. There have always been whispers. We’re in this mess because people—surprising people, powerful people—make it possible. They don’t condone the violence, but they ‘express their sympathy.’ They ‘welcome the public’s input’ on the matter. They legitimize the dissent and hopes of change. Tell me this, Sangeeta: Why are so many senators, ministers, and media stars suddenly sympathetic?”

  Sangeeta broke eye contact. “Anyone with an ounce of decency has to feel some compassion.”

  Beside him, Feather tensed. Evidently more than one secret had been poorly kept. “I’m referring to actions, not feelings. More opinion leaders are speaking out about Fertility Board policy, and about revising that policy, than have for centuries. I ask you again, why.”