Destroyer of Worlds by Larry Niven

implications hardly disproved the possibility. “Jeeves, do you have a full set of records from the
Explorer
mission?”
    â€œI do, Sigmund.”
    â€œWe’re done viewing Gw’oth ensembles. Give us a map of cities versus data archives.”
    A black sphere popped up, with red filaments randomly zigzagging across its surface. Here and there, along the winding red threads, green dots shone. Jeeves said, “Red denotes population centers. Those stood out in
Explorer
’s deep-radar scans. Green dots are archive locations, not to scale so you can see them. Steady dots are confirmed archives, the ones Kirsten hacked into. Blinking dots are archives inferred from address directories.”
    Gw’oth cities hugged the ocean-floor hydrothermal vents and ringed the occasional volcano. Sunlight played little role in the ecology here; chemosynthesis around the vents drove the food chain. Tidal flexing bythe gas giant kept the ice moon seismically active and its vents pumping out energy-rich nutrients. To the Gw’oth, the vast expanses of ocean between vents must be like deserts.
    But the few-and-scattered archives? That Sigmund could not explain. As the holo globe turned, the distribution of archives appeared less and less even. “Why don’t more cities have archives?” he wondered.
    â€œUnknown,” Jeeves said.
    Kirsten raised an eyebrow. “Sigmund, you’re imagining a puzzle where none exists. With worldwide comm, they can access data centers from anywhere. Not every city needs its own.”
    They must. They could. Kirsten was guessing.
    Hacking remotely into Gw’oth data centers and netcams had been brilliant. Likewise, deducing that the Gw’oth assembled into living computers. But Kirsten’s genius was technological. Divining intent, sniffing out deceit, recognizing threats . . . those tasks required different skills.
    â€œJeeves,” Sigmund said. “Does prevalence of archives in a city correlate with anything?” That was too broad, so he clarified. “Population density, maybe. Local language. Ocean depth. Characteristics of the hydrothermal vent.”
    Pause. Then, “None of those, Sigmund.”
    Kirsten synthed a bulb of coffee for herself. “Where are you going with this, Sigmund?”
    â€œI don’t know.” Sigmund trusted his intuition. A hidden truth was trying to warn him. He was sure of it.
    â€œThere
is
a correlation,” Jeeves finally decided. “It’s between archive sites and seismic damage.”
    Kirsten grinned. “Mystery solved, Sigmund. Data centers are valuable, so the Gw’oth don’t put them in areas prone to quakes.”
    â€œThat’s not the case,” Jeeves said imperturbably. “The correlation is to seismic damage, not seismic activity. There’s less damage near archives because those cities use more metal construction. Differences in seismic activity aren’t statistically significant.”
    â€œSimilar fractions of stone buildings fallen, Jeeves?” Sigmund guessed.
    â€œCorrect, Sigmund.”
    Kirsten said, “Richer cities use more metal construction. Richer cities have archives. I just don’t see what’s bothering you, Sigmund.”
    â€œMaybe nothing.” And maybe biological computers, like the digitalarchives the ensembles filled with data, were a recent mutation or innovation. If the latter, the Gw’oth were a bigger potential threat than Baedeker already feared.
    If so—and if the call for help the Gw’oth continued to transmit wasn’t bait for a trap—how scary was whatever had
them
frightened?
    Â 
    REAL-TIME DATA STREAMED into the main archive of Lm’Ba: highresolution observations from a fivefold of orbiting telescopes. Faint electromagnetic waves from sources across the sky. Counts of neutrinos and cosmic rays from instruments deployed worldwide.
    Ol’t’ro sucked in all the data.