Juggler of Worlds by Larry Niven and Edward M. Lerner Page B

experimental vessel, so the new drive was assembled in Human Space, counting on getting a human test pilot. Bey assumes GP approached him because he happened to be there and was in corporate files from the BVS-1 incident.”
    “Purely hearsay and speculation.”
    “For sure,” Ander said cheerfully. “You know, all this talking makes a man hungry. I’m told the crème brûlée here is excellent.”
    Churning mind. Roiling stomach. “Not for me, but go ahead.” Sigmund waited for the waiter to take and return with Ander’s order. “So perhaps the choice of Jinx has meaning. How can we know?”
    Ander tore into his dessert, leaving Sigmund alone again with his thoughts. Truthfully, he saw no reason for Puppeteers to conspire with Jinxians. Or Beowulf to conspire with either.
    Shaeffer fit in—somehow. Of that, Sigmund was certain. But
he
had picked Shaeffer back on We Made It. What was he missing now? “Might the mission to the core have flown from Jinx simply because that’s where Shaeffer happened to be?”
    “Maybe. A ship that can go to the core goes across Known Space in no time flat.” Ander blotted his lips with his napkin. “With absolutely no data to back me up, I bet you’re right. I know about Beowulf’s blackmail scam because you told me, but there’s no hint he ever told anyone. He certainly said nothing to me when I ghostwrote the BVS-1 saga. Since Puppeteers consider blackmail a normal business practice, GP probably considers him reliable.”
    They finally left the café, Ander a noticeably wealthier man than when he entered. Sigmund walked Ander to a transfer booth, then settled onto one of the benches at the end of an old wooden dock.
    He stared out to sea. The waves shattered the moon’s reflection into a million pieces. An enormous jigsaw puzzle, it taunted him.
    Like Puppeteers, Jinxians, and Beowulf Shaeffer.…



A sharp tap-tap made Sigmund look up. Andrea Girard, grinning, stood just outside his office.
    He wondered why she was so pleased with herself. “Come in. What have you got?”
    “Surprise!” Andrea said. She shut the door behind herself and sat. “Beowulf Shaeffer is here on Earth.”
    Sigmund felt gut-punched. “How? When?”
    Andrea, oblivious, cracked her knuckles. “He arrived on a commercial liner from Jinx a week ago last Thursday. The passenger manifest listed Shaffner, comma, B. Wolf. The name-correlation software at Customs didn’t recognize that as a person of interest. My AIde just flagged it.”
    She held up her pocket comp, projecting a surveillance shot. A shock of snow-white hair leapt from the image, on a head that jutted high above the crowd. Red eyes glared from a tanned face. “Outback Spaceport. Feature matching says that’s your buddy, at better than ninety-nine percent confidence. He’s apparently using tannin pills, not necessarily as a disguise. He would need those just to go outside.”
    That was Shaeffer, all right. “Barely enough of a name change not to trigger our entry protocols,” Sigmund said. Also, plausibly deniable as an honest mistake. It sounded too subtle for Shaeffer. “Jinxian connivance?”
    Andrea shook her head. “What do Jinxians know of Old English epic poems? My grandma always says, ‘Never attribute to malice what can be as easily attributed to stupidity.’”
    Sigmund guessed her grandma wasn’t an ARM. He got up from his chair, planting both hands flat on his desk, in what Feather called his let-me-explain-this-to-you-in-words-of-one-syllable-or-less stance. “Andrea, think about it. This task force worries about Puppeteers. Where they went. What it means. We don’t know many things for sure.
    “One is that the Puppeteer disappearing act
hurt Earth
. Another is that Beowulf Shaeffer is a serial accomplice of Puppeteers. He’s possibly thecause of their flight from Known Space. Third, there’s but one Puppeteer known to be left on Earth. Nessus claims to know me from the General Products building on We Made