Larry Niven - Fate of Worlds: Return From the Ringworld

Sigmund Ausfaller: retired Defense Minister; New Terra resident; Earth expatriate.

Julia Byerley-Mancini: Captain in the New Terran Defense Forces; commander of starship Endurance; leader, expedition to The Anomaly; granddaughter of Sigmund Ausfaller.

Alice Jordan: member, expedition to The Anomaly; New Terra resident; Sol system expatriate.

Donald Norquist-Ng: Minister, New Terran Defense Forces.

Denise Rodgers-Bjornstad: Governor (planetary executive), New Terra.

Louis Wu: Earthborn adventurer; member of both Ringworld expeditions; newly escaped from the Ringworld.

Tanya Wu: Earthborn junior naval officer aboard ARM vessel Koala.

Wesley Wu: Earthborn naval officer commanding Koala, deployed to the Artifact Monitoring Mission.

(FLEET OF WORLDS [NATURE PRESERVE FIVE] RESIDENTS UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED)

Cdo: A Gwo unit from the Oltro ensemble mind; born on the colony world of Klmo.

Ero: Memory remnant within Oltro of a long-dead Gwo unit; veteran of the Pak War.

Oltro: the Gwoth ensemble mind (a Gwotesht-16) who secretly rules the Fleet of Worlds; also see artificial intelligence Proteus and Citizen/Puppeteer Chiron.

Tfo: the Gwo leader in the joint Gwoth/Citizen expedition lurking around the Ringworld.

Hawking: AI managing tactical operations of Earths Task Force Delta within the Artifact Monitoring Mission.

Jeeves: Any of the many AIs descended from the shipboard intelligence of the ramscoop Long Pass (from whose embryo banks New Terra was populated).

Proteus: AI that manages the Hearth/Fleet of Worlds defensive grid; controlled by Oltro. As a minor function, it also animates the Citizen known as Chiron.

Voice: AI long in exile with Hindmost on the Ringworld.

(HEARTH RESIDENTS UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED)

Achilles:planetary hindmost; former Minister of Science; former physicist.

Baedeker:former Hindmost; former Minister of Science; former engineer; member of Experimentalist Party; in off-world exile.

Chiron:longtime Minister of Science and planetary hindmost of Nature Preserve Five; secretly a network persona animated by Proteus; Oltros stealthy presence within the Citizen government.

Hindmost:deposed Hindmost of the second Ringworld expedition; newly escaped from the Ringworld.

Horatius:Hindmost as a pawn of Oltro since soon after the first Ringworld expedition; head of the Conservative Party.

Minerva: Citizen head in the joint Gwoth/Citizen expedition lurking around the Ringworld. A deputy director of Clandestine Directorate.

Nessus:onetime senior agent/scout of Clandestine Directorate; hindmost of the first Ringworld expedition; in exile on New Terra.

Nike: former head of Clandestine Directorate; former Hindmost; Experimentalist.

Vesta: longtime deputy to Achilles; Experimentalist.

2645

Puppeteers and their worlds flee the galactic-core explosion

265051

Human slaves rebel; New Terra (was Nature Preserve Four) goes free

2659

Puppeteer effort to reclaim New Terra fails

2675

The Pak War

278081

The Gwoth War

2783

Isolationist New Terran regime veers away from the Fleet of Worlds

285052

Ringworld discovered; first expedition to the Ringworld

287893

Second expedition to the Ringworld; explorers all stranded

?2893

War among many spacefaring species for control of the Ringworld

(Dates follow Earths calendar and reflect Earths frame of reference. During much of this era, New Terra and the Fleet of Worlds traveled fast enough relative to Earth to experience significant relativistic time dilation.)

A beautiful world, alone, serene, races through the interstellar void. Warmed by necklaces of artificial suns orbiting from pole to pole, the worlds climate is everywhere and always temperate. Beneath the many suns, oceans sparkle and cloud tops gleam. Bountiful fields and lush forests span continents. Here and there cities stand, proud and prosperous.

The human inhabitants call this paradise New Terra. Only in story do they remember the days when their home was known merely as Nature Preserve Four. When their home was but one farm world among many in the Fleet of Worlds. When alien masters ruled their lives. Citizens, the aliens called themselves and, moreover, saviors.

But young and old on New Terra know the hard-won truth: that their former masters had attacked their ancestors ramscoop, not chanced upon a derelict starship. That from the wrecked ships embryo banks the aliens had bred a race of slaves.

Independence had not come easily, but now New Terra sets its own course through space.

And what of Old Terra? Earth? No one here could say where the ancestral world may lie.

Not only artificial suns accompany New Terra on its seemingly endless trek through the darkness. Myriads of tiny spacecraft, sprinkled across many light-days, hold formation with the world. The early-warning array endlessly scans in all directions, endlessly probing with every known method of long-range sensing.

In the planetary defense center, staffed round the clock, people try to imagine against what, besides boredom, they stand guard. New Terra is light-years from the nearest star. Aboard their Fleet of Worlds, the ruthlessly cowardly Citizens increasingly, and aptly, come to be known to all here as Puppeteers have receded beyond the reach of every instrument except powerful optical telescopes.

Suddenly every element in the planetary early-warning array clamors in unison. Every watch stander in the planetary defense center jolts to full alertness to stare at their consoles.

To gape at the impossible.

There is an intruder, sir, Jeeves announced, breaking the silence.

Sigmund Ausfaller sighed. Age had not so much mellowed as exhausted him. The universe was out to get him, and so what? It had been years? since he had mustered the energy to care. Maybe it had been years since he had cared that he no longer cared.

Sir?

Shading his eyes with an upraised hand, Sigmund peered across the desert. The days final string of suns was low to the horizon. Here and there, scattered across barren landscape, cacti cast long shadows. A lone bird glided overhead. Beyond the limits of his stone patio, civilization had left no visible mark.

A cluster of cacti reminded him of other columns. Long ago. Far away. Columns of a world-shattering machine. And they had shattered a world, although by the time it had happened he had been dead. That happened to him far too often. The getting dead part. Peril to entire worlds, too, but

You should withdraw to safety, sir, Jeeves prompted.

Sigmund sighed again, this time at himself. Age made ones mind wander. So did living by oneself. Not that, with Jeeves around, he was truly alone. To be old and alone