Across Realtime

EIGHT

Wil didn't make it to the party at North Shore.

At first, the Raines thing had him wound up, and then-well, someone had killed Marta. Most likely that someone wanted the settlement to fail. And he was no nearer cracking the case today than a week ago. Parties would have to wait.

He meshed his data set with the house archives. He could have used the house displays direct, but he felt more at ease with his portable.... Besides, it was one of the few things that had come with him through time. Its memory was an attic filled with a thousand private souvenirs; the date it displayed, 16 February 2100, was when he would be if his old life had continued.

Wil heated his lunch pack and munched absentmindedly at hot vegetables as he scanned his progress. He was behind in his reading; just another good reason to stay home this afternoon. People outside police work didn't realize how much of criminal investigation involved drawing conclusions from databases-usually public databases, at that. Wil's "reading" was the most likely source of real evidence. There was no shortage of things to look at. His house archive was far bigger than any other low-tech's. In addition to the 2201 edition of GreenInc, he had copies of parts of Korolev's and Lu's personal databases.

Wil had insisted on having his own copies. He didn't want networked stuff. He didn't want it changing mysteriously depending on the whim of the original owners. The price of such independence was a certain incoherence. His own processors had to accommodate idiosyncrasies in the structure of the imported data. With Yel‚n's databases, it wasn't too bad. They were designed both for headband use and for old-fashioned query languages. Her engineering jargon was sometimes incomprehensible, but he could get by.

Della's db's were a different story. Her copy of GreenInc was a year more recent than Yel‚n's, but a note announced that the later parts had been severely damaged during her travels. That was an understatement. Whole sections from the late twenty-second were jumbled or just plain missing. Her personal database appeared to be intact, but it used a customized headband design. His processors found it almost impossible to talk to the retrieval programs. Usually the output seemed to be allegorical hallucinations; occasionally he was blocked by the fragments of a personality simulator. Not for the first time in his life, Wil wished he could use interface headbands. They had existed in his time. If you had great native intelligence and a certain turn of imagination, they made computers a direct extension of your mind; otherwise, the bands were little more than electronic drug-tripping. Wil sighed. Yel‚n said the headbands from her era were easier to use; if only she had given him the time to learn how.

Della had nine thousand years of exploration packed away in her database. He'd had tantalizing glimpses-a world where plants floated in the sky, pictures of stars crowding close about something dark and visibly moving, a low-orbit shot of a planet green and cratered. On one planet, bathed in the glow of a giant red sun, he saw something that looked like ruins. Nowhere else had he seen any sign of intelligence. Was it so rare that all Della ever saw were ruins or fossils of ruins-of civilizations lasting a few millennia, and missed by millions of years? He hadn't yet asked her about what she'd seen. The murder was their immediate business, and until recently she'd been difficult to talk to. But now that he thought about it, she was awfully closemouthed about her travels.

His other researches were going better. He'd studied most of the high-techs. None of them-except Yel‚n and Marta had any special relationship back in civilization. The conclusion couldn't be absolute, of course. The biography companies only had so many spies. If someone was hiding something, and was also out of the public eye, then that something could stay Bidden.

Philippe Genet was one of the least documented. Wil couldn't find any reference to him before 2160, when he began advertising his services as a construction contractor. At that time, he was at least forty years old. You'd have to live like a hermit or have lots of money to go forty years and not get on a junk-mail list or have a published credit rating. There was another possibility: Perhaps Genet had been in stasis before

160. Wil had not pursued that very far; it would open a whole new tree of investigation. Between 2160 and when Genet left civilization in 2201, the trail was sparse but visible. He had not been convicted of any crimes that involved public punishment. He hadn't been seen at public events, or written anything for public scrutiny. From his advertising-and the advertising that was focused back on him-it was clear that his construction business was successful, but not so successful as to attract the attention of the trade journals. Consumer ratings of his work were solid but not spectacular; he came out low in "customer relations." In the 2190s, he followed the herd and began specializing in space construction. Nowhere could Wil find anything that might be a motive. However, with his construction background, Genet was probably one of the best armed of the travelers.

Genet's conservative, quiet background hardly seemed to fit jumping into the future. He was a must for an early interview; at the least, it would be nice to meet a high-tech who was not a crazy.

In terms of documentation, Della Lu was at the other extreme. Brierson should have recognized her name the first time he heard it, even attached to its present owner. That name was important in the history books of Wil's childhood. If not for her, the 2048 revolt against the Peace Authority would have been a catastrophic failure. Della had been a double agent.

Wil had just reread the history of that war. To the Peacers, Lu was a secret-police cop who had infiltrated the rebels. In fact, it was the other way around: During the rebel assault on Livermore, Della Lu was stationed at the heart of the Peacer command. Right under her bosses' noses, she bobbled the Peace's command center and herself. End of battle; end of Peace Authority. The rest of their forces surrendered, or bobbled themselves. The Peacers now living on North Shore had been a secret Asian garrison designed to take the war into the future; unfortunately for them, they took it a little too far into the future.

What Della did took guts. She had been surrounded by the people she betrayed; when the bobble burst she could expect little better than a quick death.

All that had happened in 2048, two years before Wil was born. He could remember, as a kid, reading the histories and hoping that some way would be found to save the brave Della Lu when the Livermore bobble finally burst. Brierson hadn't lived to see that rescue. He was shanghaied in 2100, just before Della came out of stasis. His entire life in civilization had passed in what was no time at all to Della Lu.

Now he could view the rescue, and follow Lu through the twenty-second century. From the beginning, she was a celebrity. The biographers paid their paparazzi, and no part of her life was free of scrutiny. How much she had changed. Oh, the face was the same, and the twenty-second-century Della Lu often wore her hair short. But there was a precision and a force to her movements then. She reminded Wil of a cop, even a soldier. There were also humor and happiness in the recordings, things the present Lu seemed to be relearning. She'd married a Tinker, Miguel Rosas-and here Wil recognized the model for the personality simulator he'd found in Della's database. In the 2150s, they'd been famous all over again, this time for exploring the outer Solar System. Rosas died ors their expedition to the Dark Companion. Della had left civilization for Gatewood's Star in 2202.

Wil finished lunch, letting the display roll through the bio summaries he'd constructed so far. It was an ironic thing, impossible before the invention of the bobble: Della Lu was an historical figure in his past, yet he was an historical figure in hers. Shed mentioned reading of him after her rescue, admiring someone who had "single-handedly stopped the New Mexican incursion." Brierson smiled sourly. He'd just been at the right place at the right time. If he hadn't been there, the invasion would have ended a little later, a little more bloodily-, it was people like Kiki van Steen and Armadillo Schwartz who really stopped the invasion of Kansas. All through his police career, his company had hyped Wil. It was good for business, and usually bad for Wil. The customers seemed to expect miracles when W. W. Brierson was assigned to their case. His reputation almost got him killed during the Kansas thing. Hell. Fifty million years later, that propaganda is still haunting me. he'd been just another policeman, Yel‚n Korolev might never have thought to give him this case. What she needed was -i real investigator, not an enforcement type who had been promoted beyond all competence.

So what if he "knew" people? It scarcely seemed to help here. He had plenty of suspects, plenty of motives, and no hard facts. GreenInc was big and detailed; there were hundreds of possibilities he should look into. But what would get him closer to finding Marta's killer?

Wil put his head in his hands. Virginia had always said it was healthy for a person to wallow in self-pity every once in a while.

"You have a call from Yel‚n Korolev."

"Ugh." He sat back. "Okay, house. Put her on."

The conference holo showed Yel‚n sitting in her library. She looked tired, but then she always looked tired these days. Wil restrained the impulse to brush at his hair; no doubt he looked equally dragged out.

"Hello, Brierson. I just talked to Della about Monica Raines You've eliminated her as a suspect."

"Uh, yes. But did Della tell you that Raines might be-" "Yeah, the biowar thing. That's... good thinking. You know, I told Raines I'd kill her if she tried to bobble out of this era. Now I wonder. If she's not a suspect in the murder and vet is a threat to the settlement, perhaps I should `persuade' her to take a jump-at least a megayear. What do you think?"

"Hmm. I'd wait till we've studied her personal database. Lu says she can protect us against biological attack. In any case, I don't think Raines would try something unless mankind looks like a successful rerun. It's even possible she'd be more of a threat to humanity a million years from now."

"Yeah. I can't be absolutely sure of our own dispersion in time. I hope we're successfully rooted here, but-" She nodded abruptly. "Okay. That scheme is on hold. How's the investigation going otherwise?"

Brierson suggested Lu survey the weapon systems of the advanced travelers, and then outlined his own efforts with GreenInc. Korolev listened quietly. Gone was the blazing anger of their original confrontation. In its place was a kind of dogged determination.

When he finished, she didn't look pleased, but her words were mild. "You've spent a lot of time searching the civilized eras for clues. That's okay; after all, we come from there. But you should realize that the advanced travelers-excepting Jason Mudge-have lived most of their lives since the Singularity.

"At one time or another, there were about fifty of us. Physically we were independent, living at our own rates. But there was communication; there were meetings. Once it became clear that the rest of humanity was gone, all of us had our plans. Marta said it was a loose society, maybe a society of ghosts. And it got smaller and smaller. The high-techs you see now are the hard cases, Inspector. The overt criminals, the graverobbers, were killed thirty million years ago. The easygoing travelers, like Bil Sanch‚z, dropped off early. People would stop for a few hundred years, and try to start a family or a town; you could have a whole world for the stopping. Most we never saw again, but then sometimes a group-or parts of it-would appear megayears down time. Our lives are threaded loosely around one another. You should be studying my personal databases about that, Brierson."

"Hmm. These early settlements-they all failed. Was there evidence of sabotage?" If Marta's murder was part of a pattern...

"That's what I want you to look for, Inspector." A little of the old scorn appeared. "Till now I never thought so. From the standpoint of the dropouts, they weren't all failures. Several couples simply wanted to live their lives stopped in one era. Modern health care can keep the body alive a very long time; we discovered other limits. Time passes, personalities change. Very few of us have lived more than a thousand years. Neither our minds nor our machines last forever. To reestablish civilization, you need the interactions of many people, you need a good-sized gene pool and stability over several generations of population growth. That's almost impossible with small groups -especially when everyone has bobblers and every quarrel has the potential for breaking up the settlement."

Yel‚n leaned forward abruptly. "Brierson, even if Marta's murder is not part of a conspiracy against the settlement even then, I-I'm not sure if I can hold things together."

Yel‚n really had changed. He had never expected her to come crying on his shoulder. "The low-techs won't stay in this era.

She shook her head. "They have no choice. You're familiar with the Wachendon suppressor field?"

"Sure. No new bobbles can be generated in a suppressor field." The invention had cost as many lives as it had saved, since the field made it impossible to escape the weapons that burn and maim.

Yel‚n nodded. "That's close enough. I've got most of Australasia under a Wachendon field. The New Mexicans and the Peacers and the rest of the low-techs are stuck in this era until they discover how to counter the field. That should take at least ten years. We hoped they'd put down roots and be willing to stay by then." Yel‚n stared at the pink marble of her library table. "And the plan would work, Inspector," she said softly, taking her turn at self-pity. "Marta's plan would work if it weren't for those goddamned statist bastards."

"Steve Fraley?"

"Not just him. The top Peacers-Kim Tioulang and his gang-are as bad. They just won't cooperate with me. There are one hundred and one NMs and one hundred and fifteen Peacers. That's better than two-thirds of the settlement. Fraley and Tioulang think they own their groups. The hell of it is, the rank and file seem to agree! It's twentieth-century insanity, but it makes them powerful beyond all reason. They both want to run the whole show. Have you noticed their recruiting? They want the rest of the low-techs to become their `citizens.' They won't be satisfied till one is supreme. They may reinvent high-tech just for the privilege of breaking up the settlement."

"Have you talked about this with the other high-techs?"

She rubbed nervously at her chin. If only Marta were here; the words all but spoke themselves. "A little, but most of 'em are more confused than I. Della was some help; she actually was a statist once. But she's hard to talk to. Have you noticed?

She shifts personalities like clothes, as though she's trying to find something that fits.

"Inspector, you don't go back quite as far as Della, but there were still governments in your time. Hell, you caused the collapse of one of them. How can this sort of primitivism be successful now?"

Brierson winced. So now he had caused the disgovernance of New Mexico, had he? Wil sat back and-just like in the old days-tried to come up with something that would satisfy the inflated expectations of his customer. "Yel‚n, I agree that governments are a form of deception-though not necessarily for the rulers, who usually benefit from them. Most of the citizens, most of the time, must be convinced that the national interest is more important than their own. To you this must seem like an incredible piece of mass hypnotism, backed up by the public disciplining of dissenters."

Yel‚n nodded. "And the `mass hypnotism' is the important thing. Any time they want, the NM rank and file could just give Fraley the finger and walk away; he couldn't kill 'em all. Instead they stay, his tools."

"Yes, but in a way this gives them power, too. If they walk, where's to go? There are no other groups. There is no ungoverned society like in my time."

"Sure there is. The Earth is empty, and almost a third of the low-techs are ungovs. There's nothing to keep people front settling down to their own interests."

Wil shook his head, surprised at his own insight, surprised at his voicing it to Yel‚n. Before, he wouldn't have thought to argue with her. But she seemed sincerely interested in his opinion. "Don't you see, Yel‚n? There are no ungoverned now. There are the Peacers, the NMs-but over all the low-techs there is the government of Yel‚n Korolev."

"What? I am not a government!" Red rose in her face. "1 don't tax. I don't conscript. I only want to do what's right for people." Even if she was changed, at that moment Wil was glad for Lu's auton hovering above his house.

Wil chose his next words carefully. "That's all true. But you have two of the three essential attributes of government: First, the low-techs believe-correctly, I think-that you have the power of life and death over them. Second, you use that belief -however gently-to make them put your goals ahead of theirs."

It was pop social science from Wil's era, but it seemed to have a real effect on Korolev. She rubbed her chin. "So you figure that, at least subconsciously, the low-techs feel they have to choose sides?"

"Yes. And as the most powerful governing force, you could easily come out the most distrusted."

"What is your advice, then?"

"I, uh..." Wil had painted himself into a corner. Yes. Suppose I'm right. What then? The little settlement at fifty megayears was totally different from the society of Wil's time. It was entirely possible that without Korolev force, the handful of seeds collected here would be blown away on the winds of time. And separately, those seeds would never bloom.

Back in civilization, `Vii had never thought much on "great

Issues." Even in school, he hadn't liked nitpicking arguments about religion or natural rights. The world made sense and seemed to respond appropriately to his actions. Since he had lost Virginia, everything was so terribly on its head. Could there really be a situation so weird that he would advocate government? He felt like a Victorian pushing sodomy.

Yel‚n gave him a lopsided grin. "You know, Marta said some of the same things. You don't have her training, but you seem to have her sense. My gentle Machiavelli didn't shrink from the consequences, though. I've got to be popular, yet I've still got to have my way...."

She looked at him, seemed to reach a decision. "Look, Inspector, I want you to mix more. Both the NMs and the Peacers have regular recruiting parties. Go to the next Peacer one. Listen to what they're saying. Maybe you can explain them to me. And maybe you can explain me to them. You were a popular person in your time. Tell people what you think even what you don't like about me. If they have to choose sides, I think I'm their best bet."

Wil nodded. First the Dasguptas and now Korolev: Was there a conspiracy to get W. W. Brierson back in circulation? "What about the investigation?"

Yel‚n was silent for a moment. "I need you for both, Brierson. I mourned Marta for a hundred years. I traced her around the Inland Sea a meter at a time. I've got records or bobble samples of everything she did and everything she wrote. 1-1 think I'm over the rage. The most important thing in my life now is to see that Marta didn't die in vain. I will do anything to make the settlement succeed. That means finding the killer, but it also means selling my case to the low-techs."