Marooned in Realtime

by Vernor Vinge

  Tioulang studied one of the aerial photos. “It probably came in from the north, maybe even overflew Livermore.” He gave a wan smile. “History repeats. Remember that Air Force orbiter we bobbled? If they had reported what we were up to right at that critical moment…what a different world it would be today.”

  Days later Avery would wonder why Tioulang’s comment didn’t make him guess the truth. Perhaps it was Gerrault’s interruption; the younger man was not interested in reminiscence. “This then explains why our communication satellites have failed!”

  “We think so. We’re trying to bring up the old radar watch we maintained through the twenties. It would help if both of you would do this, too.

  “However you cut it, it seems we have our first effective opposition in nearly thirty years. Personally, I think they have been with us a long, long time. We’ve always ignored these ‘Tinkers,’ assuming that without big energy sources their technology could be no threat to us. ‘Cottage industry,’ we called it. When I showed you how far their electronics was ahead of ours, you seemed to think they were at most a threat to my West Coast holdings.

  “Now it’s clear that they have a worldwide operation in some ways equal to our own. I know there are Tinkers in Europe and China. They exist most places where there was a big electronics industry before the War. You should regard them as much a threat as I do mine.”

  “Yes, and we must flush out the important ones and…” Gerrault was in his element now. Visions of torture danced in his eyes.

  “And,” said Tioulang, “at the same time convince the rest of the world that the Tinkers are a direct threat to their safety. Remember that we all need goodwill. I have direct military control over most of China, but I could never keep India, Indonesia, and Japan in line if the people at the bottom didn’t trust me more than their governments. There are more than twenty million people in those holdings.”

  “Ah, that is your problem. You are like the grasshopper, lounging in the summer of public approval. I am the industrious ant”—Gerrault looked down at his enormous torso and chuckled at the metaphor—“who has diligently worked to maintain garrisons from Oslo to Capetown. If this is ‘winter’ coming, I’ll need no public approval.” His eyes narrowed. “But I do need to know more about this new enemy of ours.”

  He glanced at Avery. “And I think Avery has cleverly provided us with a lever against them. I wondered why you supported their silly chess tournament in Aztlán, why you used your aircraft to transport their teams from all over the continent. Now I know: When you raided that tournament, you arrested some of the best Tinkers in the world. Oh, no doubt, just a few of them have knowledge of the conspiracy against us, but at the same time they must have many loved ones—and some of those will know more. If, one at a time, we try the prisoners for treason against Peace…why, I think we’ll find someone who is willing to talk.”

  Avery nodded. He would get none of the pleasure out of the operation that Christian might. He would do only what was necessary to preserve the Peace. “And don’t worry, K.T., we can do it without antagonizing the rest of our people.

  “You see, the Tinkers use a lot of x- and gamma-ray lithography; they need it for microcircuit fabrication. Now, my public affairs people have put together a story that we’ve discovered the Tinkers are secretly upgrading these etching lasers for use as weapons lasers like the governments had before the War.”

  Tioulang smiled. “Ah. That’s the sort of direct threat that should get us a lot of support. It’s almost as effective as claiming they’re involved in bioscience research.”

  “There.” Gerrault raised his hands beneficently to his fellow directors. “We are all happy then. Your people are pacified, and we can go after the enemy with all vigor. You were right to call us, Avery; this is a matter that deserves our immediate and personal attention.”

  Avery felt grim pleasure in replying, “There is another matter, Christian, at least as important. Paul Hoehler is alive.”

  “The old-time mathematician you have such a fixation on? Yes, I know. You reported that in hushed and terrified tones several weeks ago.”

  “One of my best agents has infiltrated the Middle California Tinkers. She reports that Hoehler has succeeded—or is near to succeeding—in building a bobble generator.”

  It was the second bombshell he had laid on them, and in a way the greater. Spaceflight was one thing; several ordinary governments had had it before the War. But the bobble: For an enemy to have that was as unwelcome and incredible as hell opening a chapel. Gerrault was emphatic: “Absurd. How could one old man fall on a secret we have kept so carefully all these years?”

  “You forget, Christian, that one old man invented the bobble in the first place! For ten years after the War, he moved from laboratory to laboratory always just ahead of us, always working on ways to bring us down. Then he disappeared so thoroughly that only I of all the originals believed he was out there somewhere plotting against us. And I was right; he has an incredible ability to survive.”

  “I’m sorry, Hamilton, but I have trouble believing, too. There is no hard evidence here, apparently just the word of a woman. I think you always have been overly distressed by Hoehler. He may have had some of the original ideas, but it was the rest of your father’s team that really made the invention possible. Besides, it takes a fusion plant and some huge capacitors to power a generator. The Tinkers could never…” Tioulang’s voice trailed off as he realized that if you could hide space-launch facilities, you could certainly do the same for a fusion reactor.

  “You see?” said Avery. Tioulang hadn’t been in Father’s research group, couldn’t realize Hoehler’s polymath talent. There had been others in the project, but it had been Hoehler on all the really theoretical fronts. Of course, history was not written that way. But stark after all the years, Avery remembered the rage on Hoehler’s face when he realized that in addition to inventing “the monster” (as he called it), the development could never have been kept secret if he had not done the work of a lab full of specialists. It had been obvious the fellow was going to report them to LEL, and Father had trusted only Hamilton Avery to silence the mathematician. Avery had not succeeded in that assignment. It had been his first—and last—failure of resolve in all these years, but it was a failure that refused to be buried.

  “He’s out there, K.T., he really is. And my agent is Della Lu, who did the job in Mongolia that none of your people could. What she says you can believe…Don’t you see where we are if we fail to act? If they have spaceflight and the bobble, too, then they are our superiors. They can sweep us aside as easily as we did the old-time governments.”

  24

  The sabios of the Ndelante Ali claimed the One True God knows all and sees all.

  Those powers seemed Wili’s, now that he had learned to use the scalp connect. He blushed to think of all the months he had dismissed symbiotic programs as crutches for weak minds. If only Jeremy—who had finally convinced him to try—could be here to see. If only Roberto Jonque Richardson were here to be crushed.

  Jeremy had thought it would take months to learn. But for Wili, it was like suddenly remembering a skill he’d always had. Even Paul was surprised. It had taken a couple of days to calibrate the connector. At first, the sensations coming over the line had been subtle things, unrelated to their real significance. The mapping problem—the relating of sensation to meaning—was what took most people months. Jill had been a big help with that. Wili could talk to her at the same time he experimented with the signal parameters, telling her what he was seeing. Jill would then alter the output to match what Wili most expected. In a week he could communicate through the interface without opening his mouth or touching the keyboard. Another couple of days and he was transferring visual information over the channel.

  The feeling of power was born. It was like being able to add extra rooms to his imagination. When a line of reasoning became too complex, he could simply expand into the machine’s space. The low point of
every day was when he had to disconnect. He was so stupid then. Typing and vocal communication with Jill made him feel like a deaf-mute spelling out letters.

  And every day he learned more tricks. Most he discovered himself, though some things—like concentration enhancement and Jill-programming—Paul showed him. Jill could proceed with projects during the time when Wili was disconnected and store results in a form that read like personal memories when Wili was able to reconnect. Using the interface that way was almost as good as being connected all the time. At least, once he reconnected, it seemed he’d been “awake” all the time.

  Paul had already asked Jill to monitor the spy cameras that laced the hills around the mansion. When Wili was connected, he could watch them all himself. One hundred extra eyes.

  And Wili/Jill monitored local Tinker transmissions and the Authority’s recon satellites the same way. That was where the feeling of omniscience came strongest.

  Both Tinkers and Peacers were waiting—and preparing in their own ways—for the secret of generating bobbles that Paul had promised. From Julian in the South to Seattle in the North and Norcross in the East, the Tinkers were withdrawing from view, trying to get their gear undercover and ready for whatever construction Paul might tell them was necessary. In the high tech areas of Europe and China, something similar was going on—though the Peace cops were so thick in Europe it was difficult to get away with anything there. Four of that continent’s self-producing design machines had already been captured or destroyed.

  It was harder to tell what was happening in the world’s great outback. There were few Tinkers there—in all Australia, for instance, there were less than ten thousand humans—but the Authority was spread correspondingly thin. The people in those regions had radios and knew of the world situation, knew that with enough trouble elsewhere they might overthrow the local garrisons.

  Except for Europe, the Authority was taking little direct action. They seemed to realize their enemy was too numerous to root out with a frontal assault. Instead the Peacers were engaged in an all-out search to find one Paul Naismith before Paul Naismith could make good on his promises to the rest of the world.

  Jill?

  Yes, Wili? Nothing was spoken aloud and no keys were tapped. Input/output was like imagination itself. And when Jill responded, he had a fleeting impression of the face and the smile that he would have seen in the holo if he’d been talking to her the old way. Wili could have bypassed Jill; most symbiotic programs didn’t have an intermediate surrogate. But Jill was a friend. And though she occupied lots of program space, she reduced the confusion Wili still felt in dealing with the flood of input. So Wili frequently had Jill work in parallel with him, and called her when he wanted updates on the processes she supervised.

  Show me the status of the search for Paul.

  Wili’s viewpoint was suddenly suspended over California. Silvery traces marked the flight paths of hundreds of aircraft. He sensed the altitude and speed of every craft. The picture was a summary of all Jill had learned monitoring the Authority’s recon satellites and Tinker reports over the last twenty-four hours. The rectangular crisscross pattern was still centered over Northern California, though it was more diffuse and indecisive than on earlier days.

  Wili smiled. Sending Della Lu’s bug north had worked better than he’d hoped. The Peacers had been chasing their tails up there for more than a week. The satellites weren’t doing them any good. One of the first fruits of Wili’s new power was discovering how to disable the comm and recon satellites. At least, they appeared disabled to the Authority. Actually, the recon satellites were still broadcasting but according to an encryption scheme that must seem pure noise to the enemy. It had seemed an easy trick to Wili; once he conceived the possibility, he and Jill had implemented it in less than a day. But looking back—after having disconnected—Wili realized that it was deeper and trickier than his original method of tapping the satellites. What had taken him a winter of mind-busting effort was an afternoon’s triviality now.

  Of course, none of these tricks would have helped if Paul had not been very cautious all these years; he and Bill Morales had traveled great distances to shop at towns farther up the coast. Many Tinkers thought his hideout was in Northern California or even Oregon. As long as the Peacers didn’t pick up any of the few people who had actually visited here—say at the NCC meeting—they might be safe.

  Wili frowned. There was still the greatest threat. Miguel Rosas probably did not know the location, though he must suspect it was in Middle California. But Wili was sure Colonel Kaladze knew. It could only be a matter of time before Mike and the Lu woman ferreted out the secret. If subtlety were unsuccessful, then Lu would no doubt call in the Peace goons and try to beat it out of him. Are they still on the farm?

  Yes. And there have been no outgoing calls from them. However, the Colonel’s ten-day promise lapses tomorrow. Then Kaladze would no doubt let Lu call her “family” in San Francisco. But if she hadn’t called in the Army already, she must not have anything critical to report to her bosses.

  Wili had not told Paul what he knew of Mike and Lu. Perhaps he should. But after trying to tell Kaladze…Instead he’d been trying to identify Della Lu with independent evidence. More than ten percent of Jill’s time was spent in the effort. So far she had nothing definite. The story about relatives in the Bay Area appeared to be true. If he had some way of tapping Peacer communication or records, things would be different. He saw now he should have disabled their recon satellites alone. If their comsats were usable, it would give them some advantage—but perhaps he could eventually break into their high crypto channels. As it was, he knew very little about what went on inside the Authority.

  …and sometimes, he really wondered if Colonel Kaladze might be right. Wili had been half-delirious that morning on the boat; Mike and Della had been several meters away. Was it possible he’d misinterpreted what he heard? Was it possible they were innocent after all? No! By the One True God, he had heard what he had heard. Kaladze hadn’t been there.

  25

  Sunlight still lay on the hills, but the lowlands and Lake Lompoc were shrouded in blue shadows. Paul sat on his veranda and listened to the news that Wili’s electronic spies brought in from all over the world.

  There was a small cough and Naismith looked up. For an instant he thought it was Allison standing there. Then he noticed how carefully she stood between him and the holo surface built into the wall. If he moved more than a few centimeters, parts of the image would be cut off. This was only Jill.

  “Hi.” He motioned for her to come and sit. She stepped forward, careful to generate those little moving sounds that made her projection seem more real, and sat in the image of a chair. Paul watched her face as she approached. There really were differences, he realized. Allison was very pretty, but he had made Jill’s face beautiful. And of course the personalities were subtly different, too. It could not have been otherwise considering that he had done his design from memories forty-five years stale (or embellished), and considering that the design had grown by itself in response to his reactions. The real Allison was more outgoing, more impatient. And Allison’s mere presence seemed to be changing Jill. The interface program had been much quieter these last days.

  He smiled at her. “You’ve got the new bobble theory all worked out?”

  She grinned back and was more like Allison than ever. “Your theory. I do nothing but crunch away—”

  “I set up the theory. It would take a hundred lifetimes for me to do the symbolic math and see the theory’s significance.” It was a game they—he—had played many times before. The back-and-forth had always made Jill seem so real. “What have you got?”

  “Everything seems consistent. There are a lot of things that were barred under your old theory, that are still impossible: It’s still impossible to burst a bobble before its time. It’s impossible to generate a bobble around an existing one. On the other hand—in theory at least—it should be possible to balk an e
nemy bobbler.”

  “Hmm…” Simply carrying a small bobble was a kind of defense against bobble attack—a very risky defense, once noticed: It would force the attacker to project smaller bobbles, or off-center ones, trying to find a volume that wasn’t “banned.” A device that could prevent bobbles from being formed nearby would be a tremendous improvement, and Naismith had guessed the new theory might allow such, but…

  “Betcha that last will be an engineering impossibility for a long time. We should concentrate on making a low-power bobbler. That looks hard enough.”

  “Yes. Wili’s right on schedule with that.”

  Jill’s image suddenly froze, then flicked out of existence. Naismith heard the veranda door slide open. “Hi, Paul,” came Allison’s voice. She walked up the steps. “You out here by yourself?”

  “…Yes. Just thinking.”

  She walked to the edge of the veranda and looked westward. These last weeks, every day had brought more change in Paul’s life and in the world beyond the mountains than a normal year. Yet for Allison, it was different. Her world had turned inside out in the space of an hour. He knew the present rate of change was agonizingly slow for her. She paced the stone flags, stopping occasionally to glare off into the sunset at the Vandenberg Bobble.

  Allison. Allison. Few old men had dreams come quite so stunningly true. She was so young; her energy seemed to flash about her in every stride, in every quick movement of her arms. In some ways the memories of Allison lost were less hurtful than the present reality. Still, he was glad he had not succeeded in disguising what became of Paul Hoehler.

  Allison suddenly looked back at him, and smiled. “Sorry about the pacing.”

  “No problem. I…”

  She waved toward the west. The air was so clear that—except for the lake and the coastline reflected in its base—the Dome was almost invisible. “When will it burst, Paul? There were three thousand of us there the day I left. They had guns, aircraft. When will they come out?”