Marooned In Realtime Part 4

Korolev had delivered Marta's diary soon after the colony returned to realtime. Wil's demand for it was one thing that could still bring a flare of anger to her face. In fact, Wil didn't really want to see the thing. But getting a copy, and getting Della to verify that it was undoctored, was essential. Until then, Yelen was logically the best suspect on his list. Now that he had the diary, it was easier to accept his intuition that Yelen was innocent. He set out to read Yelen's summaries and Della's cross-checking. If nothing showed up there, the diary would be a low-priority item.

Yelen had sent down an enormous amount of material. It included high-resolution holos of all Marta's writing. Yelen supplied a powerful overdoc; Wil could sort the pages by pH if he wanted. A note in the overdoc said the originals were in stasis, available at five days' notice.

The originals. Wil hadn't thought about it: How could you make a diary without even a data pad? Brief messages could be carved on the side of a tree or chiseled in rock, but for a diary you'd need something like paper and pen. Marta had been marooned for forty years, plenty of time to experiment. Her earliest writing was berry-juice ink on the soft insides of tree bark. She left the heavy pages in a rock cairn sealed with mud.

When they were recovered fifty years later, the bark had rotted and the juice stains were invisible. Yelen and her autons had studied the fragile remains. Microa.n.a.lysis showed where the berry stains had been; the first chapters were not lost. Apparently Marta had recognized the danger: the "paper" in the later cairns was made from reed strips. The dark green ink was scarcely faded.

The first entries were mainly narrative. At the other end of the diary, after she had been decades alone, the pages were filled with drawings, essays, and poems. Forty years is a long time if you have to live it alone, second by second. Not counting recopied material, Marta wrote more than two million words before she died. (Yelen had supplied him with a commercial database, GreenInc. Wil looked at some of the items in it; the diary was as long as twenty noninteractive novels.) Her medium was far bulkier than old-time paper, and she traveled thousands of kilometers in her time. Whenever she moved, she built a new cairn for her writing. The first few pages in each repeated especially important things-directions to the previous cairns, for instance. Later, Yelen found every one. Nothing had been lost, though one cairn had been flooded. Even there, the reconstructions were nearly complete.

Wil spent an afternoon going through Yelen's synopsis and Della's corresponding a.n.a.lysis. There were no surprises.

Afterwards, Wil couldn't resist looking for references to himself. There were four cl.u.s.ters, the most recent listed first. Wil punched it up: Year 38.137 Cairn #4 Lat 14.36N Long 1.01E [K-meridian]

-ask for heuristic cross-reference- was the header Yelen's overdoc printed across the top of the display. Below it was cursive green lettering. A blinking red :arrow marked the reference: *... and if I don't make it, dearest Lelya, please don't spend your time trying to solve this mystery. Live for both of us live for the project. If you insist do anything with it, delegate the responsibility. There was that policeman. A low-tech. I can't remember his name. (Oh, the millionth time I pray for in interface band, or even a data set!) Give him the job, and then concentrate on what is important...

Wil sat back and wished the context searcher weren't so d.a.m.ned smart. She didn't even remember his name! He tried to tell himself that she had lived almost forty years beyond their acquaintance when she wrote these words. Would he remember her name forty years from now? (Yes!) To think of all his soul-searching, to think how close they seemed that last night, and how n.o.ble he had been to back off-when all the time he vas just another low-tech to her.

With a quick sweep of his hand, Wil cleared the other references from the display. Let it lie, Wil. Let it lie. Let it lie, Wil. Let it lie. He stood up, walked to the window of his study. He had important work to do. There was the interview with Monica Raines, and then with Juan Chanson. He should be researching for those. He stood up, walked to the window of his study. He had important work to do. There was the interview with Monica Raines, and then with Juan Chanson. He should be researching for those.

So after a moment he returned to his desk... and jumped he display to the first entry in Marta's diary: * The Journal of Marta Qih-hui Qen Korolev ! Dearest Lelya, it began. Every entry was addressed to Lelya."

"GreenInc. Question," said Wil. "What is 'Lelya'?" He pointed to the word in the diary. A side display filled with the three most likely possibilities. The first was: "Diminutive of the name Yelena." Wil nodded to himself; that had been his guess. He continued reading from the central display.

* Dearest Lelya, * It's now 181 days since everyone left-and that's the only thing I'm sure of.

* Starting this journal is something of an admission of defeat. Till now, I had kept careful track of time, and that seemed all that was necessary; you remember we had planned a flicker cycle of ninety days. Yesterday the second flicker should have happened-yet I saw nothing.

* So I guess I have to take the longer view. (What a mild way to say it. Yesterday, all I could do was cry.) I've got to have someone to "talk" to.

* And I've got a lot to say, Lelya. You know how I like to talk. The hardest thing is the act of writing. I don't know how civilization got started, if literacy involved the effort I've had to make. This bark is easy to find, but I'm afraid it won't age well. Have to think about that. The "ink" is easy, too. But the reed pen I've made leaks and blobs. And if I say something wrong, I can only paint out the errors. (I understand why calligraphy was such a high art.) It takes a long time to write even the simplest things. But I have an advantage now: I have lots and lots of time. All the time in the world.

The reconstruction of the original showed awkward block letters and numerous scratch-outs. Wil wondered how many years it had been before she developed the cursive style he'd seen at the end of her diary.

* By the time you read this, you'll probably have all the explanations (hopefully from me direct!), but I want to tell you what I remember.

* There was the party at the Robinsons. I left early, so mad at Don that I could spit. They've really done us dirt, you know that? Anyway, it was past the Witching Hour and I was walking the forest path to the house. Fred was about five meters up, in front of me; I remember the moonlight glinting off his hull.

Fred? The diary's overdoc said that was the auton with Marta that night. Wil hadn't realized they were personalized. You never heard them addressed by name. Come to think of it, that wasn't surprising; the high-techs generally talked to their mechanicals via headband.

* From Fred I had a good view over three octaves. There was no one close by. There were no autons shadowing me. It's about an hour's walk up to the house. I had taken longer. I wanted to be cool when I talked to you about Don's little game. I was almost to the great steps when it happened. Fred had no hint. There was a cinnamon burst of static and then he crashed to the ground. It's the most startled I've ever been, Lelya. Our whole lives we've had autons giving us extra eyes. This is the first time I can remember not having any any warning of a problem. warning of a problem.

* Ahead of me, the great steps were gone. There was my reflection staring back. Fred was lying at the edge of the bobble. He'd been cut in half by the stasis field.

* We've had some rough times, Lelya, like when we fought the graverobbers. They were so strong, I thought the battle might carry us past fifty megayears and ruin everything.

You remember how I was after that. Well, this was worse. I think I went a little crazy. I kept telling myself it was all a dream. (Even now, six months later, that sometimes seems the best explanation.) I ran along the bobble's edge. Things were as peaceful and silent as before, but now the ground was treacherous beneath my feet and branches clawed at me. I didn't have Fred to be my high eyes. The bobble was hundreds of meters across. It met the ground just beyond the great steps. It didn't cut through any large trees. It was obviously the bobblement we'd planned for the property.

* Well, if you're reading this, you already know the rest.

The Robinsons' place was bobbled. Genet's was bobbled. It took me three days to hike across all of Korolev Town: everything was bobbled. It looked exactly like the jump we'd programmed except for two things: (1) (obviously) poor little Marta had been left outside, and (2) all automatic equipment was in in stasis. stasis.

Those first weeks, I could still hope that every ninety clays the stasis would flicker off while the autons checked the Peacer bobble. I couldn't imagine how all this had happened (I still can't), yet it might turn out to be one of those stupid mistakes one can laugh about afterwards. All I had to do was stay alive for ninety days.

* There's d.a.m.n little outside stasis, Lelya. There was no question of salvaging Fred. Looking at that compact pile of junk, I was surprised how little I could do with it-even if his power supply had been on my side of the bobble. Monica Raines is right about one thing: Without autons, we might as well be savages. They are our hands. And that's not the most horrible part: Without processor and db support, I'm a cripple, my mind stuck in mola.s.ses. When a question occurs to me, the only data is what's wedged in my own gray matter. The only eyes I see from are my own, fixed in s.p.a.ce and time, seeing only a narrow band of the spectrum. To imagine that before our time people lived their whole lives in this lobotomized state! Maybe it helped that they didn't know anything better.

* But Monica is wrong about something else: I didn't just sit down and starve. All my time in survival sports paid off. The Robinsons had left a pile of trash just on our side of the property line. (That figures.) At a glance you might not think there was much worthwhile: a hundred kilos of botched gold fittings, an organic sludge pond that made me want to puke, and-get this-a dozen cutter blades. So what if they've lost their micrometer edge? They're still sharp enough to cut a hair lengthwise. They're about half a kilo each, single diamond crystals. I lashed them onto wood hafts. I also found some shovels on a pile of rock ash in town.

* I remembered the large carnivores we spotted coming in. If they're still around, they're lying low. After a couple of weeks, I was beginning to feel safe. My traps worked, though not as well as on a sport trip; the wildlife hasn't recovered from the Peacer rescue. Just as we'd planned, the south gallery of the house was left out of stasis. (Remember how you thought it hadn't aged enough?) It's all naked stone, stairs and towers and halls, but it makes good shelter-and parts are easy to barricade.

* I didn't remember how long the lookabout would last, so I decided to hit you over the head with my message. I lashed a frame between the trees at the bottom of the great stairs. I spread bark across the framework and used wet ash to spell HELP in letters three meters high. There's no way it could be missed by the monitor on top of the library. I had the sign done a good week ahead of time.

* Day ninety was worse than waiting for the judge's call in arbitration. No day ever seemed so long. I sat right by my sign and watched my reflection in the bobble. Lelya, nothing happened. nothing happened. You aren't on a three-month flicker, or the monitor isn't watching. I never hated my own face as much as I did that day, watching it in the side of the bobble. You aren't on a three-month flicker, or the monitor isn't watching. I never hated my own face as much as I did that day, watching it in the side of the bobble.

Of course, Marta had not given up. The next pages described how she had built similar signs near the bobbles of all the advanced travelers.

* Day 180 just pa.s.sed, and the bobbles still sit. I cried a lot. I miss you so. Survival games were fun, but not forever.

* I've got to settle down for the long haul. I'm going to make those billboards st.u.r.dier. I want them to last at least a hundred years. How long can I last? Without health care, people used to live about a century. I've kept my bio-age at twenty-five years, so I should have seventy-five left. Without the databases I can't be sure, but I bet seventy-five is a lower bound. There should be some residual effect from my last medical treatment, and I'm full of panphages. On the other land, old people were fragile, weren't they? If I have to protect myself and get my own food, that could be a factor.

* Okay. Let's be pessimistic. Say I can only last seventy-five years. What's my best chance for getting rescued?

* You can bet I've thought about that a lot, Lelya. So much depends on what caused this catastrophe-and all the clues are on your side of the bobble. I've got ideas, but without the databases I can't tell what's plausible. She went on to list the string of unrelated errors that would be necessary to leave her her outside and all the autons inside, and to change the flicker period. Sabotage was the only possible explanation; she knew that someone had tried to kill her. outside and all the autons inside, and to change the flicker period. Sabotage was the only possible explanation; she knew that someone had tried to kill her.

* I'm not lying down to die. I can't think technical anymore, but I'll bet you still have a fairly short flicker period. Besides, we have gear lots of other places: at the Lagrange zones, the West End mines, the Peacer bobble. With luck, there will be lookabouts in the next seventy-five years. And didn't we leave autonomous devices in realtime in Canada? I think there's a land bridge to America in this era. If I can get there, maybe I could make my own rescue.

* So most of the time, I'm optimistic.

* But suppose I don't make it? Then I'm the murder victim, and some kind of witness, too. Even though you'll never get Fred's record of the Robinsons' recruiting party, you'll hear about it elsewhere. That's the only clue I have.

* Don't let them break up our settlement, Lelya.

SEVEN.

The morning of the Monica Raines interview did not begin well. Wil was still asleep when the house announced that Della Lu was waiting outside.

Wil groaned, slowly rising from the unpleasant dreams that haunted his mornings. Then he realized the time, and the day. "Sorry, sorry. I'll be right down." He rolled out of bed and staggered into the bathroom. Who had decided on this early start, anyway? Then he remembered it had been himself; something about time zones.

Even downstairs, he was still a bit foggy. He grabbed a box lunch from the kitchen. The bright colors on the package were advertising fifty million years old. When Korolev said she was providing twenty-first-century support, she meant it. The autofactories were running off the same programs as the original manufacturers. The effect was more weird than homey. He tucked the lunch into his shoulder bag along with his data set. Something in the back of his mind was saying he should take more; after all, he was going a third of the way around the world today. He shook his head. Sure, and he'd probably be back in five hours. Even the lunch was unnecessary. Wil gave final instructions to the house and stepped into the morning coolness.

It was the sort of morning that should change the ways of light owls. Green loomed high around the house, the trees listening damply in the sun. Everything felt clean and bright, just created. Except for the birds, it was quiet. He walked across the mossy street toward Lu's enclosed flier. Two protection devices-one from Yelen and one from Della-left their posts above his house and drifted along with him.

"Hey, Wil! Wait a minute." Dilip Dasgupta waved from his house, fifty meters down the road. "Where are you going?"

"Calafia," Brierson called back.

"Wow." Rohan and Dilip were both up and dressed. They jogged down the road to him.

"This part of the murder investigation?" said Dilip.

"You look awful, Wil," said Rohan.

Brierson ignored Rohan. "Yeah. We're flying out to see Monica Raines."

"Ah! A suspect."

"No. We're still fact-finding, Dilip. I want to talk to all the high-techs."

"Oh." He sounded like a football fan disappointed by his team's hard luck. A few days earlier, the disappointment would have been tinged with fear. Everyone had been edgy then, guessing that Marta's murder might be the prelude to a ma.s.sive a.s.sault on the settlement.

"Wil, I mean it." Rohan was not to be sidetracked. "You really looked dragged out. And it's not just this morning, so early and all. Don't let this case shut you off from your friends. You gotta mingle, Wil... Like, this morning we're going on a fis.h.i.+ng expedition off North Sh.o.r.e. It's something the Peacers organized. That Genet fellow is coming along in case we run into anything too big to handle. You know, I don't see why governments got such a bad name. Both the Peacers and the New Mexicans aren't much different from social clubs or college fraternities. They've been real nice to everybody."

"Yes, and face it, Wil, we're starting new lives here. Most of the human race is tied up in those two groups now. There are lots of women there, lots of people you'd like to know."

Brierson grinned, embarra.s.sed and a bit touched. "You're right. I should keep up with things."

Rohan reached up to slap him on the shoulder. "Hey, if you get back in the afternoon, you might have the Lu person drop you off at North Sh.o.r.e. I bet there'll still be something going."

"Okay!" Wil turned and walked toward Lu's aircraft. The Dasguptas were right about some things. How wrong they were about others: A smile came back to his lips as he imagined Steve Fraley's reaction to hearing the Republic of New Mexico likened to a social club.

"Good morning, Wil." Lu's face was impa.s.sive. She seemed not at all impatient at the delay. "Is 1.5 g's okay?"

"Sure, sure." Brierson settled into a chair, not quite sure what she was talking about. At least he didn't have to worry about her her questioning his mood. Short of laughter or smiles or tears, she still seemed incapable of reading facial expressions. questioning his mood. Short of laughter or smiles or tears, she still seemed incapable of reading facial expressions.

He sank slowly into the seat cus.h.i.+ons as the flier's acceleration added a physical la.s.situde to his mental one. He'd been using the GreenInc database for more than the investigation of Marta's murder. Last night he'd tracked his family to the end of the twenty-second century. He was proud of what his children had become: Anne the astronaut, Billy the cop and later the story-maker. As far as he could tell, Virginia had never remarried. The three of them had disappeared into the twenty-third century, along with his parents, his sister, and all the rest of humanity.

In 2140 and 2180 they had bobbled gifts to accompany him. GreenInc said it was the best survival equipment their money could buy. It had all been lost to the graverobbers, the scavenging travelers that existed in the first megayears after Man. Perhaps that was just as well. There would have been family video in those care packages. That would have been very hard to view.

... But all along he'd had the secret dream that Virginia might come after him herself, at least when the kids had their own families. It was strange: He would have pleaded with her not to come, yet now he felt... betrayed.

The faint whistling from beyond the windows had long faded, but the gut-tugging acceleration continued. Wil's attention returned to the flier. He looked straight out. Cloud-speckled ocean stood like a blue wall beside them. He looked up through the transparent dome-and saw the curve of the Earth, pale blue meeting the black of s.p.a.ce. They were hundreds of klicks up, driving forward at a steady acceleration that was nothing like the ballistic trajectories he was used to.

"How long?" he managed to say.

"It is slow, isn't it?" Della said. "Now that the settlement is founded, Yelen doesn't want us to use nukes in near s.p.a.ce. At this acceleration, it'll be another half hour to North America."

An island chain trundled rapidly across his field of view. Much nearer, he saw the autons that protected him at home; the two flew formation with Della's craft.

"I still don't understand why you want to go out of your way to interview Ms. Raines. How is she special?"

Wil shrugged. "I like to do the reluctant ones first. She's not interested in coming back in person, and I want these interviews to be face to face."

Della said, "That's wise. Most of us could do almost anything on a holo channel... But she's one of the least powerful of the high-techs. I can't imagine her as the killer."

A few minutes later, Della turned the flier over. It was a skew turn that for a moment had them accelerating straight down into the Pacific. Wil was glad there had not been time for breakfast. When they entered the atmosphere off the west coast of Calafia, they were moving barely fast enough to put a glow in the flier's hull.

Calafia. It was one of the Korolevs' more appropriate namings. In Wil's time, one of the cliches of regional insult was the prediction that California would one day fall into the sea. It never happened. Instead, California had put to sea, sliding along the San Andreas Fault, earthquake by earthquake, millennium after millennium-till the southwest coast of North America became a fifteen-hundred-kilometer island. It was indeed Calafia, the vast, narrow island that Spanish mariners had (prematurely) identified fifty million years earlier.

Della covered the last few hundred kilometers in a low approach. The beach pa.s.sed quickly beneath. North and south, for as far as he could see, breakers marched on perfect sand. Nowhere was there town or road. The world was in an interglacial period now, much as in the Age of Man. That coastline really did look like California's. It didn't raise the same nostalgia as Michigan might, but he felt his throat tighten nevertheless. He and Virginia had often visited southern California in the 2090s, after the disgovernance of Aztlan.

They scudded over hills mantled with evergreens. Afternoon sunlight cast everything in jagged relief. Beyond the hills, the vegetation was sere and grayish green. Beyond that was prairie and the Calafia straits.

"Okay. So what dumb questions do you want to ask?" Monica Raines did not look back as she led them down to her-blind, she called it. Wil and Della hurried after her. He was not put off by the artist's brusqueness. In the past, she'd made no secret of her dislike for the Korolevs and their plans.

The wood stairs descended through tree-shrouded dimness. The smell of mesquite hung in the air. At the bottom, invisible among vines and branches, was a small cabin. Its floor was deeply carpeted, with pillows scattered about. One side of the room had no wall, but overlooked the beginning of the plainsland. A battery of equipment-optics?-was mounted at the edge of this open side.

"I'd appreciate it if you'd keep your voices down," said Monica. "We're less than one hundred meters from the starter nest." She fiddled with the equipment; she was not wearing a headband. A display flat lit with the picture of two... vultures? They strutted around a small pile of stones and brush. The picture was wavery with heat s.h.i.+mmers. Wil sighted over the optics: Sure enough, he could just make out two birds in the valley below the blind.

"Why use a telescope?" Lu asked softly. "With tracer cameras, you could-"

"Yeah, I use them, too. Gimme remotes," she said to the thin air. Several other displays came to life. The pictures were dim even in the darkened room. "I don't like to scatter tracers all around; they mess up the environment. Besides, I don't have any good ones left." She jerked a thumb at the main display. "If you're lucky, these dragon birds are gonna give you a real show."

Dragon birds? Wil looked again at the misshapen bodies, the featherless heads and necks. They still looked like vultures to him. The dun-colored creatures strutted round and round the pile, occasionally puffing out their chests. Off to one side, he saw a smaller one, sitting and watching. The strangest thing about them was the bladelike ridge that ran across the top of their beaks.

Monica sat cross-legged on the floor. Wil sat down more awkwardly and punched up some notes on his data set. Della Lu remained standing, drifting around the room, looking at the pictures on the wall. They were famous pictures: Death on a Bicycle, Death Visits the Amus.e.m.e.nt Park... Death on a Bicycle, Death Visits the Amus.e.m.e.nt Park... They'd They'd been a fad in the 2050s, at the time of the longevity breakthrough, when people realized that but for accidents or violence, they could live forever. Death was suddenly a pleasant old man, freed from his longtime burden. He rolled awkwardly along on his first bicycle ride, his scythe sticking up like a flag. Children ran beside him, smiling and laughing. Wil remembered the pictures well; he'd been a kid himself then. But here, fifty million years after the extinction of the human race, they seemed more macabre than cute. been a fad in the 2050s, at the time of the longevity breakthrough, when people realized that but for accidents or violence, they could live forever. Death was suddenly a pleasant old man, freed from his longtime burden. He rolled awkwardly along on his first bicycle ride, his scythe sticking up like a flag. Children ran beside him, smiling and laughing. Wil remembered the pictures well; he'd been a kid himself then. But here, fifty million years after the extinction of the human race, they seemed more macabre than cute.

Wil pulled his attention back to Monica Raines. "You know that Yelen Korolev has commissioned Ms. Lu and me to investigate the murder. Basically, I'm to provide the old-fas.h.i.+oned nosing around-like in the detective stories-and Della Lu is doing the high-tech a.n.a.lysis. It may seem frivolous, but this is the way I've always operated: I want to talk to you face to face, get your thoughts about the crime." And try to find out what you had to do with it And try to find out what you had to do with it, he didn't say; Wil's approach was as nonthreatening and casual as possible. "This is all voluntary. We aren't claiming any contractual authority."

The corner of Raines' mouth turned down. "My 'thoughts about the crime,' Mr. Brierson, are that I had nothing to do with it. To put it in your detective jargon: I have no motive, as I have no interest in the Korolevs' pitiful attempt to resurrect mankind. I had no opportunity, as my protection equipment is much more limited than theirs."

"You are a high-tech, though."

"Only by the era of my origin. When I left civilization, I took the bare necessities for survival. I didn't bring software to build autofactories. I have air/s.p.a.ce capability and some explosives, but they're the minimum needed to exit stasis safely." She gestured at Lu. "Your high-tech partner can verify all this."

Della dropped bonelessly to a cross-legged position and propped her chin on her hands. For an instant she looked like a young girl. "You'll give me access to your databases?"

"Yes."

The s.p.a.cer nodded, and then her attention drifted away again. She was watching the picture off the telescope. The dragon birds had stopped their strutting. Now they were taking turns throwing throwing small rocks into the nestlike structure between them. Wil had never seen anything like it. The birds would hunt about at the edge of the pile of stones and brush. They seemed very selective. What they grasped in their beaks glittered. Then, with a quick flip of the head, the pebble was cast into the pile. At the same time, the thrower flapped briefly into the air. small rocks into the nestlike structure between them. Wil had never seen anything like it. The birds would hunt about at the edge of the pile of stones and brush. They seemed very selective. What they grasped in their beaks glittered. Then, with a quick flip of the head, the pebble was cast into the pile. At the same time, the thrower flapped briefly into the air.

Raines followed Della's glance. The artist's face split with a smile less cynical than usual. "Notice how they face downwind when they do that."

"They're fire makers?" asked Lu.

Raines' head snapped up. "You're the s.p.a.cer. You've seen things like this before?"

"Once. In the LMC. But they weren't... birds, exactly."

Raines was silent for a moment. Curiosity and wonder seemed to battle against her natural desire to remain one up on her visitors. The latter won, but she sounded friendlier as she continued. "Things have to be just right before they'll try. It's been a dry summer, and they've built their starter-pyre at the edge of an area that hasn't burned in decades. Notice that there's a good breeze blowing along the hillsides."

Lu was smiling now, too. "Yes. So that flapping reflex when they throw-that's to give the sparks a little help?"