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

oh.”
    “My General Products hull has failed,” said a human stranger.
    Achilles had responded voice only; not so his callers. The man who spoke was unimposing by Jinxian standards but bulky by the norms of every other human world. He looked like a bull next to his spindly companion. Beowulf Shaeffer!
    But a hull failure? That was impossible. The coincidence of Shaeffer’s presence faded to insignificance. “I beg your pardon?” Achilles said.
    “My name is Gregory Pelton. Twelve years ago I bought a number-two hull from General Products. A month and a half ago it failed. We’ve spent the intervening time limping home. May I speak to a Puppeteer?”
    Achilles turned on his camera, wondering if Shaeffer would recognize him. What was it about Shaeffer and unsuspected vulnerabilities in GP hulls?
    Achilles tried to ignore the lethally dense atmosphere outside, and the stampede of doubts whether
Remembrance
would protect him. “This is quite serious. Naturally we will pay the indemnity in full. Would you mind detailing the circumstances?”
    Pelton didn’t mind at all. He was vehement. He went on at length about the exotic properties of the nascent solar system they’d just explored.
    “I see,” Achilles said. He did: The two were fools. “Our apologies are insufficient, of course, but you will understand that it was a natural mistake. We did not think that antimatter was available anywhere in the galaxy, especially in such quantity.”
    The humans twitched. Pelton’s voice became curiously soft. “Antimatter?”
    “Of course. We have no excuse, of course, but you should have realized it at once. Interstellar gas of normal matter had polished the planet’s surface with minuscule explosions, had raised the temperature of the protosun beyond any rational estimate, and was causing a truly incredible radiation hazard. Did you not even wonder about these things? You knew that the system was from beyond the galaxy. Humans are supposed to be highly curious, are they not?”
    “The hull,” Pelton said. His stunned expression appended a question mark.
    “A General Products hull is an artificially generated molecule with interatomic bonds artificially strengthened by a small power plant.” Achilleswas deep into the explanation before he realized what valuable information he was imparting. How starved he was for companionship! Too late now to stop. “The strengthened molecular bonds are proof against any kind of impact and heat into the hundreds of thousands of degrees. But when enough of the atoms had been obliterated by antimatter explosions, the molecule naturally fell apart.”
    Pelton nodded, apparently struck speechless.
    Achilles said, “When may we expect you to collect your indemnity? I gather no human was killed; this is fortunate, since our funds are low.”
    Rather than answer, Pelton broke the connection. Achilles assumed Pelton would call back. Until then, it was unclear whether he or the humans were more appalled.

Klaxons screamed.
    From the holo that suddenly hovered over Sigmund’s desk, a grim-faced man spoke rapidly. The name tag on his uniform said: Rickman. “Attention, ARM. Repeat. Attention, ARM. Jinx is under attack.”
    The vanished Puppeteers demanded all Sigmund’s time. He had had to trust others to keep watch on Jinx. Only
very
high-priority matters now made it past his message filter. Rickman’s message was coded COSMIC; priorities didn’t come any higher.
    All the colony worlds were prickly about their independence, Jinx more than most. They would call for ARM help only under the direst of circumstances.
    Sigmund killed the audible alarm. Blinking icons in a corner of the holo indicated double encryption, in ARM and Jinx Defense Force standards. He squinted at routing codes beneath the icons. The recording had passed through Southworth Station, the hyperwave relay out past Pluto, and James P. Baen Station, in a similar orbit just outside Sirius A’s singularity.
    It looked