Destroyer of Worlds by Larry Niven Read Free Book Online Page B

behind curtains, or powered down—and their crews, all the while, brooded on the oblivion that lurked just outside the hull. They dropped back to normal space, more and more frequently as a trip continued, just to know that something besides the ship still existed. And they found themselves, again and again, unable to stay away, on the bridge staring obsessively at the mass pointer. For whatever hyperspace was, or wasn’t, the hyperdrive did something strange if it came too nearto a large mass. Approach a star or a planet too closely while in hyperspace and—
    Well, Sigmund didn’t know what. No one did. Perhaps the ship ceased to exist. Perhaps it was hurled into another dimension, or a deeper level of hyperspace, or far across the universe. The math was ambiguous.
    What Sigmund
did
know was that he feared hyperspace and that he wasn’t alone. Nor was an aversion to hyperspace merely a human frailty. Before New Terra, Sigmund had known many spacefaring species. He remembered every one, just not how to find them. They all recoiled, in one manner or another, from hyperspace. Puppeteers exhibited one of the most extreme reactions. Most—Baedeker was among the exceptions—would not, under any circumstances, travel by hyperdrive.
    The Fleet of Worlds would be a long time in its flight.
    With a shudder, Sigmund pulled himself together. He pressed his cabin’s intercom button. “Everyone, join me in the relax room. It’s time for a mission briefing.”
    Â 
    A VID PLAYED above the relax-room table. Sigmund’s crew watched the holo. Sigmund watched them.
    Kirsten stared, her eyes shining, her fingers drumming absentmindedly on the tabletop, at the final, frozen scene of the vid. She was trim and athletic, fair-skinned with delicate features and high cheekbones. Her auburn hair was cropped short.
    Eric and Kirsten—husband and wife, reunited—sat together on a long side of the table. Baedeker occupied the parallel side, closest to the hatch the better to flee.
    (Or perhaps Baedeker merely maximized his distance from the pointy corners. Puppeteer design shunned edges and corners. To Sigmund their furniture looked half melted, like the Y-shaped overstuffed seat on which Baedeker sat astraddle. The chair was a small part of the mission supplies that had been teleported aboard.)
    Sigmund had taken the chair at the head of the table, the better to preside—and to separate Baedeker and Eric. The table end opposite Sigmund was flush with the bulkhead. When not in use, the table folded up against the wall.
    â€œThe Gw’oth,” Kirsten said in wonder. “They mastered interplanetary travel.”
    Baedeker stared, too, but in horror. Like Kirsten, he was seeing this recording for the first time. “Another spacefaring race?” he said. “And you know of them? Explain.”
    Kirsten couldn’t take her eyes off the image. “It was our first mission away from the Fleet. Eric and I, and Omar, and Nessus.”
    Baedeker bleated something two-throated and discordant. He didn’t translate and he didn’t need to. No love was lost between him and Nessus.
    Kirsten frowned at the noise, then continued. “Unexpected radio broadcasts had just reached the Fleet. We backtracked, found these guys, tapped their communications. We learned a lot about them, without—at Nessus’ insistence—ever making contact. They call themselves the Gw’oth. Individually, a Gw’o. They’re from the ocean beneath the crust of an ice moon. We’re heading to their solar system.”
    Baedeker pawed nervously at the deck. “And you left these Gw’oth a hyperwave radio beacon? Why?”
    Eric and Kirsten exchanged unhappy looks. “It’s complicated,” Kirsten finally offered.
    In other words, they didn’t want to tell Baedeker. Tanj it, Sigmund thought, I need to build some trust among my crew. Distrusting Puppeteers