Across Realtime

by Vernor Vinge

  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."

  NINE

  That night he took another look at Marta's diary. It was a very low-priority item now, but he couldn't concentrate on anything more technical. Yel‚n had read the diary several times. In their literal-minded way, her autons had gone over the text in even more detail, and Lu's had cross-checked the analysis. Marta knew she had been murdered, but said again and again that she had no clues beyond her description of the evening of the party. According to the overdoc, she rarely repeated the details in later years, and when she did it was clear that her earlier memories were the more precise.

  Now Will browsed the earliest sections. Marta had stayed near Town Korolev for more than a year. Though she said otherwise, it was clear she hoped for rescue in some small multiple of ninety days. Even if that rescue didn't come, she had lots of preparing to do: She planned to walk to Canada, halfway around the world.

  ,.. but klick for klick it barely qualifies as an intermediate survival course, ¯ she wrote. It will take years, and I may miss a lookabout back here at Town Korolev, but that's okay. Along the way, I'll put billboards at the West End mines and the Peacer bobble. Once I get your attention, gig c rile a sign, Lelya: Nuke the sky for a week of nights. I'll find open ground, and wait for the autons. ¯

  Marta knew the territory near Korolev. Her shelter in the realtime wing of the castle was secure, close to water and adequate hunting. It was a good place to collect her energy for the trek ahead. She experimented with the weapons and tools she'd known from survival sport. In the end she settled on a diamond-bladed pike and knife and a short bow. She kept the other diamond blades in reserve; she wasn't going to waste them on arrowheads. She built a travois from a section of Fred's hull. It was enough to do some testing. She made several cautious trips covering a few kilometers.

  Dearest Lelya- If I am ever to leave, I suppose it should be now. The plan is still to sail to our mines at West End and then head north to the Peacer bobble, and Canada far beyond that. Tomorrow I depart for the coast; tonight I finish packing. Would you believe, I have made so much equipment, I actually have lists; the age of data processing has arrived!r />
  Hope I see you before I write more. -Love, Marta. ¯

  That was the last of the bark tablets she left at the castle. Two hundred kilometers along the southern coast of the sea, Yel‚n found the second of Marta's cairns, a three-meter-high pile of rock at the edge of the jacaranda forests. This was one of the best preserved of Marta's sites. She'd built a cabin there; it was still standing when Yel‚n studied it a century later.

  Six months had passed since Marta left the castle in the mountains. She was still optimistic, though she had hoped to reach the mines before stopping. There had been problems, one of them painful and deadly. During her time at the cabin, Marta described her adventures since leaving the castle.

  I followed our monorail to the coast. You know I said it was a waste to build that thing when we were going to leave it behind anyway. Well, now I'm glad you listened to Genet and not me. That right-of-way cuts straight through the forest. 1 avoided some tricky rock climbing just by sliding the travois along the rail's underframe. It was like a practice hike-which I needed more than I realized.

  I've forgotten a lot, Lelya. I have just one poor brainful of memories now. If I'd known I was to be marooned, I would have loaded quite a different set. (But if I'd foreseen that, I probably could have avoided the whole adventure! Sigh. I should be glad I never offloaded our survival courses.) Anyway, my mind is full of our plans for the settlement, the stuff I was thinking about the night of the party. I have only a casual recollection of maps. I know we did lots of wildlife studies, and were hooked into Monica's work, too. But that's all gone. Where the plants are like the ones back in civilization, I recognize them.