Betrayer of Worlds by Larry Niven, Edward M. Lerner Read Free Book Online Page A

designs. The designs, without explanation, were expensive enough.
    Only it was no longer every known race. The Gw’oth had evidently invented hyperspace technology independently, from observations taken in flight. Surreptitious observations, apparently. Nessus was less than forthcoming about why Gw’oth had been aboard a Puppeteer ship.
    So much for a break from study and worry.
    “Voice,” Louis said, “resume instruction.” A holo popped open, text and images scrolling past at a quick-skimming rate. From time to time Louis would insert a hand into the holo, speeding or slowing the scroll rate with a gesture. A virtual tap-tap would open auxiliary displays with related information.
    More often, the same tap-tap would lead to an apology from Voice. “I am not authorized to provide further information.” Nessus, who perhaps could, was not responding.
    From time to time Louis spared a glance at the pilot’s console, into the clear sphere from whose center radiated short lines. Only in details did the Puppeteer implementation differ from the instruments with which he was familiar. Perhaps the mass pointer’s purpose was too straightforward to permit more than one fundamental design.
    Each line in the sphere pointed toward a nearby star. The longer the line,the stronger the gravitational influence, proportional to mass over distance squared. What passed for piloting in hyperspace was keeping the desired line pointed at you.
    A trained dog could do the job, except that the mass pointer only responded to a sapient mind. AIs could not operate a mass pointer, either. The Outsiders priced explanations for that, too, above what anyone would pay.
    When a line approached the surface of the sphere, you changed course or returned to Einstein space. The mathematics of hyperdrive, to the degree anyone understood it, had issues with gravitational singularities. Wait too long and—
    Well, what would happen was one of those topics about which the “experts” perpetually disagreed. Except this: you would never be seen again.
    Just as Louis might never see home again?
    He glanced yet again at the mass pointer. Logically, a peek every day or two more than sufficed. Stars were days apart even at hyperdrive speed. Only logic could not dispel the gnawing doubt that a real universe, a place of heat and light and matter, still existed. Logic had no answer for the need to reactivate a view port, despite the less-than-nothing that would stare back at you. And so, logic be damned, for their own sanity pilots dropped out of hyperspace every few days just to see the stars.
    When had
he
last seen a star?
    He pressed the intercom button. “I’m going to take us back to normal space for a while.” He gave Nessus a chance to disagree. A
short
chance. “In five. Four. Three. Two. One. Now.” Louis flicked on the view port. Amid infinite blackness, stars blazed, diamond bright. To starboard, a nebula glimmered.
    The universe still existed. A bit of the tension he had not admitted to having drained from his body.
    Which of these stars were in Known Space? Not knowing made his skin crawl. (“You’d like to think it’s that, and not the pills you still crave.”)
    The ’doc had ejected Louis’s wrist implant—lest its built-in comp hint at the way home? Not knowing how long he had been in the ’doc, he could not even venture a guess how far they might have come since Wunderland.
    Maybe
none
of these stars warmed any world known to humans. Before retreating to his cabin, Nessus had told Louis which star to steer by. After that way station, there would be another, and another, and another.
    The longer Louis traveled, the more unlikely a return to home seemed.
    Whatever
home
meant. He did not lack candidates.
    First there was home, the world on which Nathan had grown up. And from which he had fled as soon as he could.
    Next came Fafnir, from which the Graynors had emigrated. Fafnir, unlike Home, permitted group marriages. Nathan had traveled