Two hundred years before the discovery of Ringworld…

For too long, the Puppeteers have controlled the fate of worlds. Now Sigmund is pulling the strings.

Covert agent Sigmund Ausfaller is definitely Earth’s top secret weapon, humanity’s best defense against all conspiracies, both actual and imaginary, and everything foes, both human and alien. Who better than an excellent paranoid to expose the devious plots of others?

But Sigmund may finally have met his match in Nessus, representative of the secretive Puppeteers, the elder race who wield vastly first-class technologies. Even after the Puppeteers abruptly vanish from Known Space, Nessus strategies in the shadows with Earth’s traitors and adversaries.

Like a paranoid, Sigmund has generally known issues would end horribly for him; only the when, where, how, why, and by whom of it all eluded him. But actually Sigmund never thought that his destiny would be entwined with the fates of worlds.