Marooned in Realtime

TWENTY-SIX

It was snowing. From over the hill came shouts, occasional laughter. They were having a snowball fight.

W. W. Brierson crunched down the hillside to the edge of the pines. Strange that with the world so empty he would still want to be alone. Maybe not so strange. Their dormitory was a crowded place. No doubt there were others who'd left the snowballers, who walked beneath the pines and pretended this was a different time.

He found a big rock, clambered up, and dusted off a place: to sit. From here he could see alpine glaciers disappearing into the clouds. Wil tapped at his data set and thought. The human race had another chance. Dilip and a lot of other people really seemed to think he was responsible. Well, he'd solved the case. Without a doubt it was the biggest of his career. Even Billy Brierson had not imagined such a great adventure for his father. And the chief bad guy had been punished. Very definitely, Juan had been punished....

Yelén had honored Marta's notions about mercy; she had made that mercy the punishment itself. Juan was executed by a surfeit of life. He was marooned in realtime, without shelter or tools or friends. Yet his was a different torture than Marta's — and perhaps the more terrible. Juan was left with a medical auton. He was free to live as long as he wished.

Juan outlived three autons. He lasted ten thousand years. He kept his purpose for nearly two thousand. Wil shook his head as he surveyed the report. If anyone had known that Chanson was into Penetration and Perversion, he would have been an instant suspect — on grounds of personality alone. Wil had known only one such specialist, his company's resident spook. The man was inhumanly patient and devious, but frightened at the same time. He spent so much time in deep connect, the paranoid necessities of defense systems leaked into his perception of the everyday world. Wil could only imagine the madhouse Penetration and Perversion had become by the late twenty-second. Juan made seven attempts to pervert the auton. One involved twelve hundred years of careful observation, timing the failure of various subsystems, maneuvering the auton into a position where he might take control and get transportation to resources in near space.

Yet Chanson never really had a prayer of success. Yelén had hardwired changes to the auton. Juan had none of the software he had stolen from USAF, Inc, and he was without processor support. His glib tongue and two thousand years of effort were not enough to set him free.

As the centuries passed and he had no luck with the auton, Juan spent more and more time trying to talk to Yelén and the other high-techs who occasionally looked into realtime. He kept a journal many times longer than Marta's; he painted endless prose across the rocklands north of his home territory. None of it looked as interesting as Marta's diary. All Juan could talk of was his great message, the threat he saw in the stars. He went on spouting evidence — though after the first centuries it lost all connection with reality.

After five hundred years, his journal became at first irregular, then a decadely summary, then a dead letter. For three thousand years Juan lived without apparent goal, moving from cave to cave. He wore no clothes, he did no work. The auton protected him from local predators. When he did not hunt or farm, the auton brought him food. If the climate of the Eastern Straits had been less mild he would certainly have died. Yet to Wil it was still a miracle the man survived. Through all that time he had enough determination to keep on living. Della had been right. W. W. Brierson would not have lasted a tenth as long; a few centuries and he would have drifted into suicidal funk.

Juan drifted for three thousand years... and then his immortal paranoid soul found a new cause. It wasn't clear exactly what it was. He kept no journal; his conversations with the auton were limited to simple commands and incoherent mumbling. Yelén thought that Juan saw himself as somehow the creator of reality. He moved to the seashore. He built heavy baskets and used them to drag millions of loads of soil inland. The dredged shoreland became a maze of channels. He piled the dirt on a rectangular mound that rose steadily through the centuries. That mound reminded Wil of the earthen pyramids the American Indians had left in Illinois. It had taken hundreds of people working over decades to build those. Juan's was the work of one man over millennia. If the climate had not been exceptionally dry and mild in his era, he could not have kept ahead of simple erosion.

Juan's new vision went beyond monuments. Apparently he thought to create an intelligent race. He persuaded the auton to extend its food gathering, to beach schools of fish in the maze he constructed on the shore. Soon there were thousands of fishermonkeys living beneath his temple/pyramid. Through a perversion of its protection programs, he used the auton as an instrument of force; The best fish went to the monkeys who performed properly. The effect was small, but over centuries the fishers at the East End had a different look. The majority were like the "W. W. Brierson" that had helped Marta. They carried rocks to the base of the pyramid. They sat for hours staring up at it.

The four-thousand-year effort was not enough to bring intelligence to the fishers. Yelén's report showed some tool use. Towards the end, they built a stone skirt around the lower part of the pyramid. But they were never the race of hod[?] carriers that Chanson probably intended. It was Juan who continued to drag endless loads of dirt up to his temple, repairing erosion damage, adding ever-higher towers to the topmost platform. At its greatest, the temple covered a rectangle two hundred meters by one hundred, and the top platform was thirty meters above the plain. Its spires crowded tall and spindly all about, more like termite towers or coral than human architecture. Through those last four thousand years, Juan's daily pattern was unchanged. He worked on his new race. He hauled dirt. Each evening, he walked round and round the intricate stairs of the pyramid, till finally he stood at the top, surveying the temple slaves who gathered on the plain before him.

Wil paged through Yelén's report. She had pictures of Juan during those last centuries. His face was blank of all expression, except at day's end — when he always laughed, three times. His every motion was a patterned thing, a reflex. Juan had become an insect, one whose hive spread through time instead of space.

Juan had found peace. He might have lasted forever if only the world had had the same stability. But the climate of the Eastern Straits entered a period of wet and storminess. The auton was programmed to provide minimum protection. In earlier millennia that would have been enough. But now Juan was inflexible. He would not retreat to the highland caves; he would not even come down from the temple during storms. He forbade the auton to approach it during his nightly services.

Of course, Yelén had pictures of Juan's end. The auton was four klicks from the temple; Juan had long since destroyed all bugs. The wind-driven rain blurred and twisted the auton's view. This was just the latest of a series of storms that were tearing down the pyramid faster than Juan could maintain it. His towers and walls were like a child's sand castle melting in an ocean tide. Juan did not notice. He stood on the slumped platform of his temple and looked out upon the storm. Wil watched the wavery image raise its arms-just as Juan always did at day's end, just before he gave his strange laugh. Lightning struck all around, turning the storm darkness to actinic blue, showing Juan's slaves huddled by the thousands below him. The bolts marched across the fallen temple, striking what was left of the spires... striking Juan as he stood, arms still upraised to direct the show.

There was little more to Yelén's report. The fishermonkeys had been given a strong push toward intelligence. It was not enough. Biological evolution has no special tendency toward sapience; it heads blindly for local optima. In the case of the fishers, that was their dominance of the shallow waters. For a few hundred years, the race he'd bred still lived at the Eastern Straits, still brought rocks to line the stub of his pyramid, still watched through the evenings. But that was instinct without reward. In the end, they were as Juan had found them.

Wil cleared the display. He shivered-and not just from the cold. He would never forget Juan's crimes; he would never forget his long dying.

The snow had stopped. There was no more shouting from over the hill. Wil looked in surprise at the sunlight slanting through the trees behind him. He'd spent more than an hour looking at Yelén's report. Only now did he notice the cramps in his legs and the cold seeping up from the rock.

Wil tucked the data set under his arm and slipped off the rock. He still had time to enjoy the snow, the pines. It brought echoes of a winter just ten weeks old in his memory, the last days in Michigan before he'd flown to the coast on the Lindemann case. Only these snowfields were almost at the equator, and this world was in the middle of an ice age.

The tropics had cooled. The jacaranda forests had shifted downslope, to the edge of the Inland Sea. But none of the continental ice sheets had reached further south than latitude forty-five. The snow around the site of Town Korolev was due to the altitude. Yelén figured the glaciers coming off the Indonesian Alps wouldn't get below the four-thousand-meter level. She claimed that, as ice ages go, this one was average.

Wil walked a kilometer through the pines. A week before-as his body counted time-this had been the glazed crater of Town Korolev. So much destruction, and not a sign of it now. He climbed a ridgeline and watched the sunset gleaming red and gold across the white. Something hooted faint against the breeze. Far to the north he could see where the jac forests hugged the sea. It was beautiful, but there were good reasons to leave this era. Some of the best ore fields were under ice now. Why cripple the new civilization when it was weakest?... And there was Della. She had lots of valuable equipment. They would give her at least a hundred thousand years to return.

Suddenly Wil felt very bleak. Hell. I would give her a thousand times a hundred thousand. But what good would it do? After that night with the dogthings, Wil hoped she had found herself. Without her, he could never have set up the double play against Chanson and Gerrault. A crooked smile came across his face. She had fooled both the killers into defeat. The plan was to force Gerrault to run, to chase him long enough to trick Juan. And it had worked! She had played the old, crazy Della so well. Too well. She had never returned. No one knew for sure what had happened; it was even conceivable she had died fighting Gerrault. More likely, some battle reflex had taken over. Even if the mood passed, she might pursue the other for unknown millennia. And if the mood didn't pass...

Wil remembered the scarcely human thing she had been when he first saw her. Even with her computer-supported memories and all the other enhancements, that Della seemed very much like what Juan Chanson had become towards the end of his punishment. For all her talk of being tough, Della had nothing on Juan when it came to single-mindedness. How much of her life would she spend on this chase? He was terribly afraid she had volunteered for the same fate that had been forced on Juan.

Wil decided he didn't like the cold at all. He glanced at his data set. It showed the date as 17 March 2100; he still had not reset it. Somewhere in its memory were notes about the stuff Virginia wanted him to bring back from the Coast. How much can happen in ten weeks; one must be flexible in these modern times. He turned away from the sunset and the silence, and headed back for the dormitory. He should be satisfied with this happy ending. The next few years would be tough, but he knew they could make it. Yelén had been friendly towards almost everyone the last few days. In the weeks before, she would never have thought of stopping in the middle of this glacial era just to give them a chance to look around.

The tropical twilight snapped down hard, faded quickly into night. When Wil came over the hill above the dorm, its lighted windows were like something out of a Michigan Christmas.

Sometime early tomorrow morning, when they were snug in their beds, Santa Claus Yelén would bobble them up once more. Her sleigh had certainly had a bumpy landing, popping in and out of realtime over the last sixty thousand years. Wil smiled at the crazy image.

Maybe this time they could stop for keeps.

That night was the last time Wil ever had the dream in blue. In most ways it was like the ones before. He was lying down, all breath exhausted from his lungs. Goodbye, goodbye. He cried and cried, but no sounds came. She sat beside him, holding his hand. Her face was Virginia's, and also Marta's. She smiled sadly, a smile that could not deny the truth they both knew.... Goodbye, goodbye. And then the pattern changed. She leaned toward him, snuggled her face against his cheek, just as Virginia used to do. She never spoke, and he couldn't tell if the thought was only his, or somehow comfort from her. Someone still lives who has not said goodbye, someone who might like you very much.

Dearest Wil, goodbye.

Brierson woke with a start, gasping for breath. He swung his feet out of bed and sat for a moment. His tiny room was bright with day, but he couldn't see outside; the window was completely fogged over. It was very quiet; normally he could hear plenty of activity through the plastic walls. He got up and stepped out into the hall; not a soul in sight. There was noise from downstairs, though. That's right: There was a big meeting scheduled first thing this morning. The fact that Yelén was willing to meet the low-techs at the dorm was more evidence that she had changed; she had not even demanded his presence. His sleeping late was a half-conscious test of his freedom. For a while he wanted to be a bystander. Managing the last meeting had been a bit... traumatic.

Wil padded down the hallway to the second-floor washroom. For once, he had the place all to himself.

What a weird dream. Wil looked at his image in the washstand mirror. There was wetness around his eyes, but he was smiling. The dream in blue had always been a choking burden, something he must forcibly ignore. But this time it reassured him, even made him happy. He hummed as he washed up, his mind playing with the dream. Virginia had seemed so real. He could still feel her touch on his cheek. He knew now how much hidden anger he had felt at Virginia; he knew, because suddenly the anger was gone. It had cut deep that Virginia had not come after him. He'd told himself that she always intended to, that she was still gathering her resources when the Singularity overtook her. He hadn't believed the excuse; he'd seen what could happen to a personality over a century. But now-for no reason but a dream-he felt differently. Well, what if Della's explanation of the Singularity was correct? What if technology had transcended the intelligible? What if minds had found immortality by growing forever past the human horizon? Why, then, something that had been Virginia might still exist, might want to comfort him.

Wil suddenly realized he was washing his face for the second time. For a moment, he and his mirror image grinned sheepishly at each other, conspirators realizing the insanity of their scheme. If he wasn't careful, he'd be another Jason Mudge, complete with guardian angels and voices from beyond the grave. Still, Della said there was something like religion hiding at the end of her materialism.

A few minutes later he was walking down the side stairs, past the cafeteria. The voices from within were loud but didn't sound angry. He hesitated, then turned away from the door. I t might be fantasy, but he wanted to keep the mood of that dream as long as possible. It had been a long time since he'd started the day feeling so good. For the moment he really believed there was "someone who still lives, who might like you very much."

He walked out of the dorm, into daylight.

The building was surrounded by a perfect disk of white the snow that had been brought through time with their bobble. The sunburned at the snowdrifts, raising a sublimation fog all around him. Wil walked across the slush, through the brilliant mist. He stopped at the edge of the snow and started at the almost-jacarandas and less identifiable trees that grew all around. It was already a warm day. He stepped back a pace and enjoyed the cool coming off the snow. Except for the shape of some of the hills, the world was the same as before the battle. The glaciers were tamed again, lurked near faraway peaks. Across a ravine and a few hundred meters up a hillside, there was a separate plume of sublimation fog; the golden towers of Castle Korolev gleamed faint within it.

A shadow passed over him. "Wil!" He looked up as Tammy Robinson dropped out of the sky. She brought her platform to a low hover, just as she had when she came to invite the soot pushers to her father's party. She was even dressed in the same perfect white. She stood there a moment, looking down. "I wanted to see you again... before I go." She brought the platform all the way to earth, just beyond his toes. Now she was oolong[?] up at him. "Thank you, Wil. Gerrault and Chanson would've got us all if it hadn't been for you. Now I think we can all win." Her smile broadened. "Yelén has given me enough equipment to leave this era."

She was almost too perfect to look at. "You've given up on recruiting?"

"Nope. Yelén says I can come back in a hundred years, and any time after. With Gerrault's equipment and the zygotes, you can really succeed. Another century or two, and there'll be more people here than I could ever imagine. They won't feel beaten[?] the way they do now, and a good many will be bored with civilization. There will be dozens, maybe hundreds, who'll.. come with me. And they'll be people we won't have to support. That's more than Daddy ever hoped for." She paused a second and then said quietly, "I hope you'll come with me, Wil."

"S-some of us have to stay in realtime, or there'll be no civilization for you to raid, Tammy." He tried to smile.

"I know, I know. But a hundred years from now, when I come back... what about then?"

What about then? The Robinsons thought all mysteries could be known to those who watched long enough, waited long enough. But a flatworm could watch forever and still not understand the opera. Aloud: "Who knows how I'll feel in a hundred years, Tammy?" He stopped and just stared at her for a second. "But if I don't come with you... and if you make it to the end of time... I hope you'll remember me to the Creator."

Tammy flinched, then realized he wasn't mocking her "Okay. If you stay behind, I will." She put her hands on his shoulders and stood on tiptoe to kiss his lips. "See you later, Wil Brierson."

A few seconds later, Tammy was disappearing over the trees.

The one who still lives, the one who has not said goodbye? He thought not, but he had a hundred years to decide for sure.

Wil walked along the perimeter of the mist, intrigued by the way heat and cool battled at the edge of the snow. He circled the dorm and found himself staring at the entrance. They were still at it in there. He grinned to himself and started back. What the hell.

He was only partway to the entrance when the doors opened. Only one person stepped out. It was Yelén. She surveyed him without surprise. "Hah. I wondered how long you'd stay out here." As she came toward him, he looked for signs of anger in her pale Slavic face. She caught his eye and smiled lopsidedly. "Don't worry. They didn't kick me out. And I'm not leaving in a huff. It's just that all the dickering is a little dull; they've practically got a commodity exchange going in there, splitting up all the stuff that survived our fighting.... Do you have a minute, Wil?"

He nodded and followed her out of the chill, back the way he had come. "Have you thought: No matter how well things go, we'll still need police services? People really respect you. That's ninety percent of what made companies like Michigan State Police and Al's Protection Rackets successful."

Brierson shook his head. "It sounds like the game we were playing before. A lot of the ungovs might want to hire me, but without threats from you, I can't imagine the governments tolerating the competition."

"Hey, I'm not looking for a cat's-paw. The fact is, Fraley and Dasgupta are in there right now, colluding on a common offer for your services."

Wil felt his jaw sag. Fraley? After all the years of hatred... "Steve would rather die than disgovern."

"A lot of his people did die," she said quietly. "A lot of the rest aren't taking orders anymore. Even Fraley has changed a little. Maybe it's fear, maybe it's guilt. It really shook him to see how easily one high-tech swindled him and perverted the Republic — even worse, to learn that Chanson did it just to have a thirty-second diversion available when he grabbed for our systems."

Yelén laughed. "My advice is to take the job while they still think it's tough. After a couple of years, there'll be competition; I bet you won't be able to make a living off your fees."

"Hmm. You think things are going to be that tame?"

"I really do, Wil. The high-tech monsters are dead. The governments may linger on, but in name only. We lost a lot in the war — parts of our technology may fall to a nineteenth-century level — but with Gerrault's zygotes and med equipment, we're better off than before. The problem with the women has disappeared. They can have the kids they want, but they won't have to be nonstop baby factories. You should have seen the meeting. There are lots of serious couples now. Gail and Dilip asked me to marry them! 'For old times' sake.' They said I had been like the captain of a ship to them. What crazy, crazy people." She shook her head, but her smile was very proud. These might be the first low-techs to show gratitude for what she and Marta had done. "I'll tell you how confident I am: I'm not forcing anyone to stay in this era. If they have a bobbler, they can take off. I don't think anyone will. It's a bit too obvious that if we can't make it now, we never will."

"Monica might."

"That's different. But don't be too sure even with her; she's been lying to herself for a long time. I'm going to ask her to stay." Yelén's smile was gentle; two weeks ago she would have been scornful. With Gerrault and Chanson gone, a great weight had been lifted from her soul, and Wil could see what — beyond competence and loyalty — Marta had loved in her.

Yelén looked at her feet. "There's another reason I ducked , out of the meeting early. I wanted to apologize. After I read[?] Marta's diary, I felt like killing you. But I knew I needed you — Marta didn't have to tell me that. And the more I depended on you, the more you saw things I had not... the more I hated you.

"Now I know the truth. I'm ashamed. After working with you, I should have seen through Marta's trick myself." Abruptly she stuck out her hand. Brierson grasped it, and they shook. "Thanks, Wil."

The one who still lives, the one who has not said goodbye? No. But a friend for the years to come.

Behind her, a flier descended. "Time for me to get back to the house." She jerked a thumb at Castle Korolev.

"One last thing," she said. "If things are as slow as I think, you might want to diversify .... Give Della a hand."

"Della's back? H-how long? I mean —"

"She's been in solar space about a thousand years; we were waiting to find the best time to stop. The chase took one hundred thousand years. I don't know how much lifetime she spent." She didn't seem much concerned about the last issue. "You want to talk to her? I think you could do each other good."

"Where —"

"She was with me, at the meeting. But you don't have to go inside. You've been set up, Wil. Each of us — Tammy, me, Della — wanted to talk to you alone. Say the word, and she'll be out here."

"Okay. Yes!"

Yelén laughed. He was scarcely aware of her walking to the flier. He started back to the dorm. Della had made it. However many years she had lived in the dark, she had not died there. And even if she was the creature from before, even if she was like Juan Chanson at his ending, Wil could still try to help. He couldn't take his eyes off the doorway.

The doors opened. She was wearing a jumpsuit, midnight black, the same color as her short-cut hair. Her face was expressionless as she came down the steps and walked toward him. Then she smiled. "Hi, Wil. I'm back... to stay."

The one who still lives, the one who has not said goodbye.