by Vernor Vinge
As he climbed aboard, Wil gestured at the strap-on pods. “Extra guns?”
“No. Those are defensive. There’s a tonne of matter/antimatter in each one.”
“Ugh.” He sat down and strapped in. Defensive—like a flak jacket made of plastique?
Lu pulled more than two g’s getting them off the street; no simple elevator rides today. Half a minute passed, and she cut the drive. Up and up and up they fell, Wil’s stomach protesting all the way. They topped out around ten thousand meters, where she resumed one g.
It was a beautiful day. The low sun angle put the forested highlands into jagged relief. He couldn’t see much of Town Korolev, but Yelén’s castle was a shadowed pattern of gold and green. Northwards, clouds hid the lowlands and the sea. To the south, the mountains rose gray above the timberline to snow-topped peaks. The Indonesian Alps were the Rockies writ large.
Lu’s eyes were open but unfocused. “Just want to have some maneuvering room.” Then she looked at Wil and smiled. “Where to, boss?”
“Della, did you hear what I told the Dasguptas? Yelén should turn off her suppressors. Maybe a few low-techs will bobble out of this era, but she can’t just leave everyone exposed.”
“Wil, haven’t you been reading your mail?”
“Unh, most of it.” All night long it had been coming in, faster than he could keep up. He’d read all the red-tag stuff, until falling asleep an hour before dawn.
“We don’t know the reason, but it’s clear now the enemy may try to kill lots of low-techs. For the last sixty minutes, Yelén’s been trying to remove bobble suppression from Australasia. She can’t do it.”
“Why not? It’s her own equipment!” Wil felt stupid the moment he spoke.
“Yes. You could scarcely ask for better proof that her system is perverted, could you?” Her smile widened.
“If she can’t turn them off, can you just blow them up?”
“We may decide to try that. But we don’t know exactly how her defenses might respond. Besides, the enemy may have his own suppressor system ready to come on the moment Yelén’s drops out.”
“So no one can bobble up.”
“It’s a large-volume, low-intensity field, good enough to suppress any low-tech generators. But my bobblers can still self-enclose; my best still have some range.”
For a moment, the purpose of this trip was forgotten. There must be some way to protect low-techs. Evacuate them from the suppression zone? That maneuver might put them in even more danger. Fly in high-power bobblers? He abruptly realized that the high-techs must be giving much deeper thought than he could to the problem. The problem he had precipitated. Face it. The only way he could contribute now was by succeeding with his mission: to identify the killer. Della’s original question was the one he should be answering. Where to? “Are we certified free of eavesdroppers?” Lu nodded. “Okay. We start from Peacer Lake.”
The flier boosted across the Inland Sea. But Della was not satisfied with the directions. “You don’t know the cairn’s coordinates?”
“I know what I’m looking for. We’ll follow a search pattern.”
“But searches could be done faster from orbit.”
“Surely there are some sensors that need low, slow platforms?”
“Yes, but—”
“And surely we’d want to be with such sensors to pick up the find immediately?”
“Ah!” She was smiling again, and did not ask him to point out the equipment he referred to.
They flew in silence for several minutes. Wil tried to see evidence of their escort. There was a flier ahead of them. To the right and left of their path, he saw two more. There was an occasional glint from beyond these, as from objects flying distant formation. It wasn’t very impressive—until he wondered how far the formation extended.
“Really, Wil. No one else can listen; I’m not even recording. You can ’fess up.”
Brierson looked at her questioningly, and Della continued. “It’s obvious you saw something in the diary that—for all our deep analysis, and all Yelén’s years with Marta—we did not. She was trying to tell us that the murderer was stalking her, and that the Korolev system had been deeply penetrated…But this story about a fifth cairn”—she raised an eyebrow, her expression mischievous—“is ridiculous.”
Wil pretended great interest in the ground. “Why ‘ridiculous’?”
“In the first place, it’s unlikely the killer lived every second of those forty years in realtime. But if he was so interested that Marta felt his presence, and felt the need to write with hidden meanings—then I think it’s reasonable he had sensors watching all the time. How could Marta sneak away from her camp, build another cairn, and get back—all without tipping him off?
“In the second place, even if she succeeded in fooling the killer, we’re still talking about something that happened fifty thousand years ago. Do you have any conception how long that is? All recorded history wasn’t much over six thousand years. And most of that’s been lost. Only an incredible accident could preserve a written record across such a span.”
“Yes, Yelén raised the same objection. But—”
“Right. You told her Marta had taken all that into account. I’ll give you this, Wil. When you feel like it, you’re one of the most convincing people I’ve ever seen—and I’ve seen some experts…By the way, I backed you on this. I think Yelén is convinced; she believes Marta was all but superhuman, anyway. I wouldn’t be surprised if the killer does, too.
“My point is, I’m on to you,” Lu continued. Wil put on an expression of polite surprise. “You saw something in the diary that we didn’t. But you don’t know much more than what you’ve said—and you have no clues. Hence this wild-goose chase.” She waved at the lands beyond the flier. “You hope you’ve convinced the killer that you will soon know his identity. You’ve posted us as targets, to flush him out.” It was a prospect she appeared to enjoy.
And her theory was uncomfortably close to the truth. He had tried to create a situation where the enemy would be forced to attack him. What he couldn’t understand was the activity around the low-techs. How could hurting them hide the killer?
Wil shrugged; he hoped that none of this turmoil showed on his face.
Della watched him for a second, her head cocked to one side. “No response? So I’m still on the suspect list. If you die and I survive, then the others will be on to me—and together, they outgun me. You’re trickier than I thought; maybe gutsier, too.”
The morning passed, slow and tense. Della paid no attention to the view. She was rational enough—and perhaps even brighter than usual. But there was a cockiness in her manner, as if she held reality at a distance, thought it all an immensely interesting game. She was full of theories. It was no surprise that her number one suspect was Juan Chanson. “I know he fired on me. Juan is playing the role of racial protector. He reminds me of the centaur. I think our killer must be like that centaur, Wil. The creature was so trapped by his notion of racial duty that he killed the last survivors. We’re seeing the same thing here: murders and preparations for more murders.”
Wil’s “search pattern” took them slowly outwards from Peacer Lake. Fifty thousand years before, this had been vitrified wasteland. The jacaranda forests had won it back thousands of years since. Though this forest had not existed in Marta’s time, it was much like the ones she had traveled. Wil was seeing the heaven side of the world Marta had described. To the northeast, a grayish band stretched along the border of the forest domain. That must be the kudzu web, killing the jungle and preventing invasion. On the jac side, there were occasional silver splotches, web attacks on non-jacs that had sprouted beyond the barrier. The jacarandas themselves were an endless green sea, tinged with a bluish foam of flowers. He knew there were vast webs there, too, but they were below the leaf canopy, where the spiders’ domesticated caterpillars could take advantage of the leaves without shading them out.
Here and there bright puffs of cloud floated
above it all, trailing shadow.
Marta had walked many kilometers before finding a display web. From this altitude, they could see several at once. None was less than thirty meters across. They shimmered in the treetop breezes, their colors shifting between red and electric blue. Somewhere down there was a fossil streambed, the remains of a small river Marta had followed on one of her last expeditions out of Peacer Lake. He remembered what the land looked like then: kilometers of grayness, the water and wind still working to break through the glassy surface. She would have carried whatever food she needed.
Ahead, the forest was splattered with random patches of kudzu. Display webs were scattered everywhere. There was more blue and red and silver than green.
Della supplied an explanation. “Marta’s plantings spread outward from her signal line. This is where the new forest meets the old; sort of a jac civil war.”
Wil smiled at the metaphor. Apparently the two forests and their spiders were different enough to excite the kudzu reflex. He wondered if the display webs were like animal displays at territory boundaries. The colorful jumble passed slowly below, and they were over normal jacs again.
“We’re way beyond Marta’s furthest trip in this direction, Wil. You really think anyone’s going to believe we’re doing a serious search here?”
He pretended to ignore the question. “Follow this line another hundred kilometers, then break and head toward the lake where she got the fishers.”
Thirty minutes later they were floating above a patch of brownish green water, more a swamp than a lake. The jacs grew right to the edge; it looked like the kudzu web stretched into the water. Fifty thousand years ago there had been ordinary woodland here.
“What’s our defense situation, Della?”
“Cool, cool. Except for the suppressor thing, no enemy action. The NMs and Peacers have buttoned up, but they’ve stopped shouting accusations. We’ve discussed the threat with all the high-techs. They’ve agreed to keep out of the air for the time being, and to isolate their forces. If anyone strikes, we’ll know his identity. The bottom line, Wil: I don’t think the enemy has been bluffed.”
There was no help for it, then. “Exactly which way is north, Della?” Damn this flier: no command helmet, no bolos. He felt like the inmate of a rubber room.
Suddenly a red arrow labeled NORTH hovered over the forest. It looked solid, kilometers long; so the windows were bolo displays after all. “Okay. Back off eastwards from lake. Come down to a thousand meters.” They slid sideways, nearly in free fall. Most of the lake was still visible. “Give me a ring around the original lake site. Mark it off in degrees.” He studied the lake and the blue circle that now surrounded it. “I want to get into the forest about ten klicks from the lake on a bearing of thirty degrees from north.” They were close enough to the forest canopy that he could see leaves and flowers rushing by. The cover looked deep and dense. “Are you going to have any problem finding a place to get through?”
“No problem at all.” Their forward motion ceased. They were just above the treetops. Abruptly, the flier smashed straight down. For an instant, negative g’s hung Wil on his harness. Sounds of destruction were sharp around them.
And then they were through. The spaces beneath were lit by the sunlight that followed them through the hole they had punched in the canopy. Beyond that light, all was dark and greenish. Junk was drifting down all around them. Most of it was insubstantial. The underweb carried centuries of twigs and insect remains, flotsam that had not yet percolated to the surface. It was coming down all at once now, swinging back and forth through the light. Some debris—branches, clusters of flowers—was still in the air, supported by fragments of the web. More than anything else, Wil felt as if they had suddenly plunged into deep water. The flier drifted out of the light. His eyes slowly adapted to the dimness.
“We’re there, Wil. Now what?”
“How well can the others monitor us down here?”
“It’s complicated. Depends on what we do.”
“Okay. I think the cairn is southwest of us, near the bearing we took from the lake. After all this time, there won’t be any surface evidence, but I’m hoping you can detect the rocks.” And if you can’t, I’ll have to think of something else.
“That should be easy.” The flier glided around a tree. They were less than a meter up, moving at barely more than a walking pace. They drifted back and forth across the bearing; the sunlight from the entrance hole was lost behind them. Della’s flier was five meters tall, and nearly that wide, yet they had no trouble negotiating the search path. He looked out the windows in wonder. Much of the ground was absolutely smooth, a gray-green down. That was the top of fifty thousand years’ accumulation of spider dung, of leaf and chitin fragments. The abyssal ooze of the jac forest.
The forest floor was as Marta described, but much gloomier. He wondered if she had really thought it beautiful, or said so to disguise a melancholy like he felt here.
“I—I’ve got something, Wil!” There was real surprise on Della’s face. “Strong echoes, about thirty meters ahead.” As she spoke, the flier sprinted forward, dodging intermediate trees. “Most of the rocks are scattered, but there is a central cluster. It—it could really be a cairn. My Lord, Wil, how could you know?”
Their flier settled on the forest floor, next to the secret that had waited fifty thousand years for them.
23
The door slid back. Wil stuck his head into the forest air. And jerked it back even more quickly. Phew: take mildew and add a flavoring of shit. He took another breath and tried not to gag. Perhaps it was the abrupt transition that made it seem so awful; the flier’s air was full of alpine morning.
They stepped onto the forest floor. Gray-green humus lapped around their ankles. He was careful not to kick it up. There was enough junk in the air already.
Della walked a large circle tangent to their landing point. “I’ve mapped all the rocks. They’re not as big as Marta generally used, and not as well shaped. But backtracking their trajectories…” She was quiet for second. “…I see they were piled in a pyramid at one time. The core is intact, and I think there’s something—not rocks or forest dirt—inside. What do you want to do?”
“How long would a careful dig take—say as good as a twenty-first-century archeologist could do?”
“Two or three hours.”
Now that they really had something, they had to protect it—and get themselves off ground zero at the same time. “We could bobble the whole thing,” he said.
“That would be awkward to haul around if shooting starts. Look, Marta never left anything of importance outside the core. That’s less than a meter across in this case. We could bobble that and be out of here in just a few minutes.”
Wil nodded agreement, and Della continued with scarcely a pause. “Okay, it’s done. Now stand back a couple of meters.”
Dozens of reflections of Wil and Della suddenly looked up from the forest floor; the ground between them was covered by close-packed bobbles.
She walked back, around the field of mirrors. “Bobbles are hard to miss against the neutrino sky; if the enemy has decent equipment, he noticed this.” Sonic booms came from beyond the treetops. “Don’t worry. That’s friendly.”
The new arrivals slipped through the hole Della had made in the canopy. They consisted of one auton and a cloud of robots. The robots settled on the bobbles, rooting and pushing. The top layer came off easily, revealing more bobbles beneath. These were pushed aside to get at still deeper layers. On a small scale, Lu was using the standard open-pit mining technique. In minutes, they were looking into a dark, slumping hole. The bobbles were scattered on all sides, glowing copies of the forest canopy above.
One by one, the robots picked them up and flew away.
“Which one is…?”
“You can’t tell, can you? I hope the enemy is similarly mystified. We’ve supplied him with seventy red herrings.” He noticed that not all the bobbles were flown direct
ly out. One had been transferred to the auton, and one to Della’s flier.
Della climbed aboard the flier, Wil close behind. “If our friend doesn’t start shooting in the next few minutes, he never will. I’m taking all the bobbles to my home. That’s a million kilometers out now. From there we can see in all directions, shoot in all directions; no one can get us there.” She smashed straight through the forest’s roof, kept rising at multiple g’s.
Wil sank deep into the acceleration couch. All he could see was sky. He squinted at the sunlight and gasped, “He may not attack at all. He may still think we’re bluffing.”
She chuckled. “Don’t you wish.” The sky tilted, and he saw green horizon. “Twenty thousand meters. I’m going to nuke out.”
Free fall. The sky was black, except at the blue horizon. They were at least one hundred kilometers up. It was like a video cut: One instant they had been at aircraft altitudes, the next they were in space. Something bright and sunlike glowed beneath them—the detonation that had boosted them out of the atmosphere. He wondered fleetingly why she hadn’t nuked out from ground level. A technical reason? Or sentiment?
The sky jerked again, the horizon acquiring a distinct curve.
“Hm. I have a low-tech on the net, Wil. She wants to talk to you.”
Who? “Hold off on the next nuke. Let me talk to her.”
Part of one window went flat. He was looking at someone wearing NM fatigues and a display helmet. The space around the figure was crammed with twenty-first-century communications gear.
“Wil!” The speaker cleared the face panel on her helmet. It was Gail Parker. “Thank God! I’ve been trying to break out for almost an hour. Look. Fraley has gone nuts. We’re going to attack the Peacers. He says they’ll wipe us if we don’t. He says there’s no way the high-techs can prevent it. Is that true? What’s going on?”
