Marooned in Realtime

TWENTY-TWO

Yelén was back late that evening. "Kim Tioulang is dead."

Wil's head snapped up. Is this how it begins? "When? How?"

"Less than ten minutes ago. Three bullets in the head.... I'm sending you the details."

"Any evidence who —"

She grimaced, but by now she accepted that what she sent was not immediately part of his memory. "Nothing definite. My security at North Shore has been thin since we switched things around this afternoon. He sneaked out of the Peacer base; not even his own people noticed. It looks like he was trying to board a trans-sea shuttle." The only place that would take him was Town Korolev. "There are no witnesses. In fact, I suspect that no one was on the ground where he was shot. The slugs were dumb exploders, New Mexico five-millimeters." Normally those were pistol-fired, with a max accurate range of thirty meters; who did the killer think he was fooling? "The coincidence is too much to ignore, Brierson. You're right; the enemy must have bugs in my system."

"Yeah." For a second he wasn't listening. He was remembering the North Shore picnic, the withered man that had been Kim Tioulang. He was as tough as anyone Wil had ever met, but his wistfulness about the future had seemed real. The most ancient man in the world... and now he was dead. Why? What had he been trying to tell them? He looked up at Yelén "Since this afternoon, have you noticed anything special with the Peacers? Any evidence of high-tech interference?"

"No. As I said, I can't watch as closely as before. I talked to Phil Genet about it. He hasn't noticed anything with the Peacers, but he says NM radio traffic has changed during the last few hours. I'm looking into that." She paused. For the first time, he saw fear in her face. "These next few hours we could lose it all, Wil. Everything Marta ever hoped for."

"Yes. Or we could nail the enemy cold, and save her plan.... How are things set for tomorrow?"

His question brought back the normal Yelén. "This delay cost us the advantage of surprise, but it also means we're better prepared. Della has an incredible amount of equipment. I knew her expedition to the Dark Companion made money, but I never imagined she could afford all this. Almost all of it will be in position by tomorrow. She'll land by your place at sunup. It's all your show then.

"You're not coming?"

"No. In fact, I'm out of your inner-security zone. My equipment will handle peripheral issues, but... Della and I talked it over. If I-my system-is deeply perverted, the enemy could turn it on you."

"Hmm." He'd been counting on the dual protection; if he'd guessed wrong about one of them, the other would still be there. But if Yelén herself thought she might lose control.. . "Okay. Della seemed in pretty good form this afternoon."

"Yes. I have a theory that under stress the appropriate personality comes to the surface. She's driftiest after she's been by herself for a while. I'm talking to her right now, and she seems okay. With any luck, she'll still be wearing her cop personality tomorrow."

After Yelén signed off, Wil looked at the stuff she was sending over. It grew much faster than he could read it, and there were new developments all the time. Genet vas right about the NMs. They were using a new encryption scheme, one that Yelén couldn't break. That in itself was more of an anachronism than polka-dot paint or antigrav volleyballs. Under other circumstances, she would have raided them for it, and diplomacy be damned.... Now she was stretched so thin that all she could do was watch.

Tioulang's murder. The high-tech manipulation of Fraley. There was some fundamental aspect of the killer's motivation that Wil didn't understand. If he wanted to destroy the colony, he could have done that long ago. So Wil had concluded that the enemy wanted to rule. Now he wondered. Was the low-techs' survival simply a bargaining chip to the killer?

It was a long night.

Brierson was standing by his window when Della's flier came down. It was still twilight at ground level, but he could see sunlight on the treetops. He grabbed his data set and walked out of the house. His step was brisk, adrenaline-fueled.

"Wait, Will" The Dasguptas were on their front porch. He stopped, and they ran down the street toward him. He hoped his guardians weren't trigger-happy.

"Did you know?" Rohan began, and his brother continued. ''The Peacer boss was murdered last night. It looks like the N Ms did it."

"Where did you hear?" He couldn't imagine Yelén spreading the news.

"The Peacer news service. Is it true, Wil?"

Brierson nodded. "We don't know who did it, though."

"Damn!" Dilip was as upset as Wil had ever seen him. "After all the talk about peaceful competition, I thought the NMs and Peacers had changed their ways. If they start shooting, the rest of us are... Look, Wil, back in civilization this couldn't happen. They'd have every police service in Asia down on them. Can-can we count on Yelén to keep these guys out of our way?"

Wil knew that Yelén would die before she'd let the NMs and Peacers fight. But today, dying might not be enough. The Dasguptas saw the tip of a game that extended beyond their knowing-and Wil's. He looked at the brothers, saw unmet i red trust in their faces. What could he do?... Maybe the truth would help. "We think this is tied up with Marta's murder, Dilip." He jerked a thumb at Della's flier. "That',., what I'm checking out now. If there's shooting, I'll bet you see more than low-techs involved. Look. I'll get Yelén to lower he r suppressor field; you could bobble up for the next couple of days."

"Our equipment, too."

"Right. In any case, get people spread out and under cover. There was nothing more he could say, and the brothers seemed to know it.

"Okay, Wil," Rohan said quietly. "Luck to us all."

Della's flier was bigger than usual, and there were five poor, strapped around its midsection.

But the crew area didn't have the feel of a combat vehicle It wasn't the lack of control and display panels. When Wil left civilization, those were vanishing items. Even the older mode had provided command helmets that allowed the pilot to see the outside world in terms of what was important to the mission. The newer ones didn't need the helmets; the windows themselves were holo panels on artificial reality. But there were no command helmets in Della's flier, and the windows shower! the same version of reality that clear glass would. The floor way carpeted. Unwindowed sections of the wall were decorated with Della's strange watercolors.

As he climbed aboard, Wil gestured at the strap-on pod,; "Extra guns?"

"No. Those are defensive. There's a tonne of matter/antimatter in each one."

"Ugh." He sat down and strapped in. Defensive-like a flak: jacket made of plastique?

Lu pulled more than two g's getting them off the street; no simple elevator rides today. Half a minute passed, and she cut the drive. Up and up and up they fell, Wil's stomach protesting the way. They topped out around ten thousand meters, where she resumed one g.

It was a beautiful day. The low sun angle put the forested highlands into jagged relief. He couldn't see much of Town Korolev, but Yelén's castle was a shadowed pattern of gold and green. Northwards, clouds hid the lowlands and the sea. To the south, the mountains rose gray above the timberline to snow-topped peaks. The Indonesian Alps were the Rockies writ large.

Lu's eyes were open but unfocused. "Just want to have some maneuvering room." Then she looked at Wil and smiled. "Where to, boss?"

"Della, did you hear what I told the Dasguptas? Yelén should turn off her suppressors. Maybe a few low-techs will bobble out of this era, but she can't just leave everyone exposed."

"Wil, haven't you been reading your mail?"

"Unh, most of it." All night long it had been coming in, faster than he could keep up. He'd read all the red-tag stuff, until falling asleep an hour before dawn.

"We don't know the reason, but it's clear now the enemy may try to kill lots of low-techs. For the last sixty minutes, Yelén's been trying to remove bobble suppression from Australasia. She can't do it."

"Why not? It's her own equipment!" Wil felt stupid the moment he spoke.

"Yes. You could scarcely ask for better proof that her system is perverted, could you?" Her smile widened.

"If she can't turn them off, can you just blow them up?"

"We may decide to try that. But we don't know exactly how her defenses might respond. Besides, the enemy may have his own suppressor system ready to come on the moment Yelén's drops out."

"So no one can bobble up."

"It's a large-volume, low-intensity field, good enough to suppress any low-tech generators. But my bobblers can still self-enclose; my best still have some range."

For a moment, the purpose of this trip was forgotten. There must be some way to protect low-techs. Evacuate them from the suppression zone? That maneuver might put them in even more danger. Fly in high-power bobblers? He abruptly realize( that the high-techs must be giving much deeper thought that he could to the problem. The problem he had precipitated Face it. The only way he could contribute now was by succeed ing with his mission: to identify the killer. Della's original question was the one he should be answering. Where to? "Are: we certified free of eavesdroppers?" Lu nodded. "Okay. We start from Peacer Lake."

The flier boosted across the Inland Sea. But Della was no satisfied with the directions. "You don't know the cairn's coordinates?"

"I know what I'm looking for. We'll follow a search pattern."

"But searches could be done faster from orbit."

"Surely there are some sensors that need low, slow platforms?"

"Yes, but "

"And surely we'd want to be with such sensors to pick up the find immediately?"

"Ah!" She was smiling again, and did not ask him to point out the equipment he referred to.

They flew in silence for several minutes. Wil tried to see evidence of their escort. There was a flier ahead of them. To the right and left of their path, he saw two more. There was an occasional glint from beyond these, as from objects flying distant formation. It wasn't very impressive-until he wondered how far the formation extended.

"Really, Wil. No one else can listen; I'm not even recording. You can 'fess up."

Brierson looked at her questioningly, and Della continued "It's obvious you saw something in the diary that — for all OUR deep analysis, and all Yelén's years with Marta-we did not She was trying to tell us that the murderer was stalking her, and that the Korolev system had been deeply penetrated.... But this story about a fifth cairn" — she raised an eyebrow, her expression mischievous — "is ridiculous."

Wil pretended great interest in the ground. "NA Why 'ridiculous'?"

"In the first place, it's unlikely the killer lived every second of those forty years in realtime. But if he was so interested that Marta felt his presence, and felt the need to write with hidden meanings — then I think it's reasonable he had sensors watching all the time. How could Marta sneak away from her camp, build another cairn, and get back — all without tipping him off?

"In the second place, even if she succeeded in fooling the killer, we're still talking about something that happened fifty thousand years ago. Do you have any conception how long that is? All recorded history wasn't much over six thousand years. And most of that's been lost. Only an' incredible accident could preserve a written record across such a span."

"Yes, Yelén raised the same objection. But —"

"Right. You told her Marta had taken all that into account. I'll give you this, Wil. When you feel like it, you're one of the most convincing people I've ever seen — and I've seen some experts.... By the way, I backed you on this. I think Yelén is convinced; she believes Marta was all but superhuman, anyway. I wouldn't be surprised if the killer does, too.

"My point is, I'm on to you," Lu continued. Wil put on an expression of polite surprise. "You saw something in the diary that we didn't. But you don't know much more than what you've said — and you have no clues. Hence this wild-goose chase." She waved at the lands beyond the flier. "You hope you've convinced the killer that you will soon know his identity. You've posted us as targets, to flush him out." It was a prospect she appeared to enjoy.

And her theory was uncomfortably close to the truth. He had tried to create a situation where the enemy would be forced to attack him. What he couldn't understand was the activity around the low-techs. How could hurting them hide the killer?

Wil shrugged; he hoped, that none of this turmoil showed on his face.

Della watched him for a second, her head cocked to one side. "No response? So I'm still on the suspect list. If you die and I survive, then the others will be on to me-and together, they outgun me. You're trickier than I thought; maybe gutsier, too."

The morning passed, slow and tense. Della paid no attention to the view. She was rational enough-and perhaps even brighter than usual. But there was a cockiness in her manner, as if she held reality at a distance, thought it all an immensely interesting game. She was full of theories. It was no surprise that her number one suspect was Juan Chanson. "I know he fired on me. Juan is playing the role of racial protector. He reminds me of the centaur. I think our killer must be like that centaur, Wil. The creature was so trapped by his notion of racial duty that he killed the last survivors. We're seeing the same thing here: murders and preparations for more murders.''

Wil's "search pattern" took them slowly outwards from Peacer Lake. Fifty thousand years before, this had been vitrified wasteland. The jacaranda forests had won it back thousands of years since. Though this forest had not existed in Marta's time, it was much like the ones she had traveled. Wil was seeing the heaven side of the world Marta had described. To the northeast, a grayish band stretched along the border of the forest domain. That must be the kudzu web, killing the jungle and preventing invasion. On the jac side, there were occasional silver splotches, web attacks on non-jacs that had sprouted beyond the barrier. The jacarandas themselves were an endless green sea, tinged with a bluish foam of flowers. He knew there were vast webs there, too, but they were below the leaf canopy, where the spiders' domesticated caterpillars could take advantage of the leaves without shading them out.

Here and there bright puffs of cloud floated above it all, trailing shadow.

Marta had walked many kilometers before finding a display

web. From this altitude, they could see several at once. None was less than thirty meters across. They shimmered in the treetop breezes, their colors shifting between red and electric blue. Somewhere down there was a fossil streambed, the remains of a small river Marta had followed on one of her last expeditions out of Peacer Lake. He remembered what the land looked like then: kilometers of grayness, the water and wind still working to break through the glassy surface. She would have carried whatever food she needed.

Ahead, the forest was splattered with random patches of kudzu. Display webs were scattered everywhere. There was more blue and red and silver than green.

Della supplied an explanation. "Marta's plantings spread outward from her signal line. This is where the new forest meets the old; sort of a jac civil war."

Wil smiled at the metaphor. Apparently the two forests and their spiders were different enough to excite the kudzu reflex. He wondered if the display webs were like animal displays at territory boundaries. The colorful jumble passed slowly below, and they were over normal jacs again.

"We're way beyond Marta's furthest trip in this direction, Wil. You really think anyone's going to believe we're doing a serious search here?"

He pretended to ignore the question. "Follow this line another hundred kilometers, then break and head toward the lake where she got the fishers."

Thirty minutes later they were floating above a patch of brownish green water, more a swamp than a lake. The jacs grew right to the edge; it looked like the kudzu web stretched into the water. Fifty thousand years ago there had been ordinary woodland here.

"What's our defense situation, Della?"

"Cool, cool. Except for the suppressor thing, no enemy action. The NMs and Peacers have buttoned up, but they've stopped shouting accusations. We've discussed the threat with all the high-techs. They've agreed to keep out of the air for the time being, and to isolate their forces. If anyone strikes, we'll know his identity. The bottom line, Wil: I don't think the enemy has been bluffed."

There was no help for it, then. "Exactly which way is north, Della?" Damn this flier: no command helmet, no holos. He felt like the inmate of a rubber room.

Suddenly a red arrow labeled NORTH hovered over the forest. It looked solid, kilometers long; so the windows were holo displays after all. "Okay. Back off eastwards from lake.

Come down to a thousand meters." They slid sideways, near in free fall. Most of the lake was still visible. "Give me a gin around the original lake site. Mark it off in degrees." He studied the lake and the blue circle that now surrounded it. "I war to get into the forest about ten klicks from the lake on a bearing

of thirty degrees from north." They were close enough to the forest canopy that he could see leaves and flowers rushing by The cover looked deep and dense. "Are you going to have an problem finding a place to get through?"

"No problem at all." Their forward motion ceased. The were just above the treetops. Abruptly, the flier smashed straight down. For an instant, negative g's hung Wil on h harness. Sounds of destruction were sharp around them.

And then they were through. The spaces beneath were 1. by the sunlight that followed them through the hole they ha punched in the canopy. Beyond that light, all was dark an greenish. Junk was drifting down all around them. Most of was insubstantial. The underweb carried centuries of twigs an insect remains, flotsam that had not yet percolated to the surface. It was coming down all at once now, swinging back an. forth through the light. Some debris-branches, clusters c flowers-was still in the air, supported by fragments of the web More than anything else, Wil felt as if they had sudden? plunged into deep water. The flier drifted out of the light. H eyes slowly adapted to the dimness.

"We're there, Wil. Now what?"

"How well can the others monitor us down here?"

"It's complicated. Depends on what we do."

"Okay. I think the cairn is southwest of us, near the bearing we took from the lake. After all this time, there won't be au. surface evidence, but I'm hoping you can detect the rocks

"And if f you can't, I'll have to think o f something else."

"That should be easy." The flier glided around a tree. The were less than a meter up, moving at barely more than

walking pace. They drifted back and forth across the bearing the sunlight from the entrance hole was lost behind then Della's flier was five meters tall, and nearly that wide, yet the had no trouble negotiating the search path. He looked out the windows in wonder. Much of the ground was absolutely smooth, a gray-green down. That was the top of fifty thousand years' accumulation of spider dung, of leaf and chitin fragments. The abyssal ooze of the Jac forest.

The forest floor was as Marta described, but much gloomier. He wondered if she had really thought it beautiful, or said so to disguise a melancholy like he felt here.

"I-I've got something, Will" There was real surprise on Della's face. "Strong echoes, about thirty meters ahead." As she spoke, the flier sprinted forward, dodging intermediate trees. "Most of the rocks are scattered, but there is a central cluster. It-it could really be a cairn. My Lord, Wil, how could you know?"

Their flier settled on the forest floor, next to the secret that had waited fifty thousand years for them.