Juggler of Worlds by Larry Niven and Edward M. Lerner

answered, and fear blossomed on his captive’s face.
    Someone might deserve to die, but it wasn’t this pawn. Someone far above Ernest in the Jinxian Syndicate had given this messenger a beacon.
    So much for the supposed emergency that had detained Achilles’ customary visitor. She, clearly, had been wise enough not to take the risk.
    How much, Achilles wondered, would the government have paid for the location of the last Puppeteer on Jinx?
    “It would not have worked anyway,” Achilles continued. “Active shielding cancels any unauthorized transmissions from this place.”
    Ernest’s face was pale blue—of hypoxia, not fashion. His eyes darted about desperately. He said nothing, whether recognizing the futility or conserving what little oxygen remained.
    Achilles flipped the useless bug into the air and caught it. Tossed and caught. Tossed and caught. “Perhaps your masters thought to trace the path by which visitors arrive.” Toss and catch. “My precautionary measures of course extend to that route. Had they sensed any signal beyond their abilities to block, you would not have survived even this long.”
    Were those precautions sure to forestall the smuggling of beacons—or weapons? Certainty was impossible to prove. Somehow, Achilles managed not to pluck at his mane.
His
doubts must remain secret.
    Dead or alive, returning Ernest made a point. Achilles tongued a control console, exchanging the stale air above Ernest’s sweat-sodden head with fresh. Inside the tiny cell, a hidden fan whirred to life. The humangulped in air. “Take a message back to your superiors,” Achilles said. “They have forfeited any payment from me for a year. Any future dealings will be accomplished solely by vid.
    “Tell them.” A wriggle of lip nodes sent the mobster on his way. To the solitude of his surroundings, Achilles added a raucous chord of evil music: an old curse.
    ACHILLES TRIED to keep busy. On good days, he lost himself in research. Once, he’d considered himself a physicist.
    He’d been posted to Kzin itself, gleaning subtle wisdom from experiments Kzinti scientists were rash enough to perform. Some days, he even found an eerie fascination in Kzinti daring.
    And then the BVS-1 expedition had come.
    He’d been promoted to We Made It expressly to oversee the neutron-star mission, but there was never time to plumb its findings. Another promotion, from We Made It to the larger General Products office on Jinx, only delayed his research.
    Now he had all the time he could ever want to study the BVS-1 data. Every day, he found it harder and harder to care.
    Each morning, utterly alone, he hoped his reward—in fame and privileges—would match his sacrifice. Then he would picture the other sacrificial few who had remained behind, one to a solar system. At some time or another, he’d met most of them. They were all misfits—especially that social climber Nessus.
    In his hearts Achilles knew: That was how everyone on Hearth would see
him
. And it could only get worse.
    Those willing to leave home, the scouts, had always been suspect. Then came the calamitous news, the shock that had plunged almost everyone into despair. He’d been one of the few on Jinx to remain functioning. How they’d struggled to move the catatonic, belly-hugging hundreds to the embarkation points! How he ached, imagining their unceremonious off-loading from the evacuation ship. The herd would now disdain scouts more than ever.
    Somehow, the howling wind sounded lonely. Now that he’d begun to crave even human contact, he did not dare to meet with them.
    ACHILLES SYNTHED some grasses-and-grain mush. He chewed mechanically, wondering: Is it too early today to resume the dance?
    Is it too soon to propose to those who lead from behind that he could safely return home?
    An alert chord, strident and vibrato, chased away his introspection. Who could possibly be using this comm ID? He answered, cautiously, “Eight eight three two six seven seven