Marooned in Realtime

by Vernor Vinge

  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. She’d 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. If he’d been just another policeman, Yelén Korolev might never have thought to give him this case. What she needed was a 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 Yelén Korolev.”

  “Ugh.” He sat back. “Okay, house. Put her on.”

  The conference holo showed Yelén 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 yet 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 Sánchez, 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.”

  Yelén 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.”

  Yelén 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 Wáchendon 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.

  Yelén nodded. “That’s close enough. I’ve got most of Australasia under a Wáchendon 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.” Yelén 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. “Yelén, 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.”

  Yelén 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 from settling down to their own interests.”

  Wil shook his head, surprised at his own insight, surprised at his voicing it to Yelén. Before, he wouldn’t have thought to argue with her. But she seemed sincerely interested in his opinion. “Don’t you see, Yelén? There are no ungoverned now. There are the Peacers, the NMs—but over all the low-techs there is the government of Yelén Korolev.”

  “What? I am not a government!” Red rose in her face. “I 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, Wil 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.

  Yelén 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?”

  Yelén 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. I—I 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.”

  9

  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. Yelén 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 Wil 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, give me 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!

  << 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, Yelén 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 Yelén 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. I 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.

  << For the rest, I have fragments of memory that are sometimes worse than useless: take the spiders and their jacaranda forests. These are nothing like the scattered trees and isolated webs up at Town Korolev. Here the trees are huge, and the forests go on forever. That much was obvious from the ground, walking along the monorail. We had slashed through that forest, but it towered on either side. The brush that had grown along the path was already covered by matted spider w
ebbing. Ah, if I had remembered then what I’ve learned since, I’d probably be at the mines by now!

  << Instead, I wandered along beneath the rail (where for some reason the webs didn’t come) and admired the gray silk that spread down from the jacarandas. I didn’t dare cut through the webs to look into the forest; at that time, I was still scared of the spiders. They’re little things, like the ones in the mountains, but if you look close you can see thousands of them moving in the webs. I was afraid they might be like army ants, ready to swarm down on whoever jiggled their silk. Eventually, I found a break in the shroud where I could step through without touching the threads…Lelya, it’s a different world in there, quieter and more peaceful than the deepest redwood grove. Dim green light is everywhere—the really thick webs are at the fringes of the forests. (And of course I didn’t find the explanation for that till later.) There’s no underbrush, no animals—only a musty smell and a greenish haze in the air. (I’ll bet you’re laughing at me now, because you already know what made that smell.) Anyway, I was impressed. It’s like a cathedral…or a tomb.

  << I only spent an hour in there the first time; I was still nervous about the spiders. Besides, the point of this trip was to reach the sea. I still planned to make a raft and sail direct to the West End. Failing that, short hops along the coast ought to bring me to the mines faster than any overland walk. So I thought.

  << It was storming the day I came in sight of the shore. I knew we had wrecked the coast with our tsunami, but I wasn’t prepared for what I saw. The jungle was blasted flat for kilometers back from the sea. The tree trunks were piled three and four deep, all pointing away from the water. I remember thinking that at least I would have plenty of lumber for my raft.