Part 6 (1/2)

”Inspector, you don't go back quite as far as Della, but there were still governments in your time. h.e.l.l, 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. ”Yelen, 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 ma.s.s hypnotism, backed up by the public disciplining of dissenters.”

Yelen nodded. ”And the 'ma.s.s 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 them power, too. If they walk, where's to go? There are no other groups. There is no ungoverned society like in my time.” 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 Yelen. Before, he wouldn't have thought to argue with her. But she seemed sincerely interested in his opinion. ”Don't you see, Yelen? There are no ungoverned now. There are the Peacers, the NMs-but over all the low-techs there is the government of Yelen Korolev.”

”What? I am not 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. 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 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 pus.h.i.+ng sodomy.

Yelen 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. 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.” 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?”

Yelen 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 anything to make the settlement succeed. That means finding the killer, but it also means selling my case to the low-techs.” 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. Yelen 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 a.n.a.lysis. 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, 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 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, Yelen 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 Yelen studied it a century later.

Six months had pa.s.sed 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 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 webbing. Ah, if I had remembered then what I've learned since, I'd probably be at the mines by now! 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 webbing. 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 you already know what made that smell,) Anyway, I was impressed. It's like a cathedral... or a tomb, 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 sh.o.r.e. 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.

* I sheltered the travois and went a ways onto the coastal plain. The going was treacherous. Rotted vines swathed the trunks. Tree bark sloughed away under my weight. The topmost trunks were relatively clear, but slime slick. I crawled/walked from trunk to trunk. All the while, the storm was getting worse. The last time I'd been to the beach was to round up Wil Brierson...

A reader smiled. She did remember my name! She did remember my name! Somewhere Somewhere in in the adventures of her next forty years she forgot, but for a while she had remembered. the adventures of her next forty years she forgot, but for a while she had remembered.

*... just before we raised the Peacers. It had been a warm, misty place. Today was different: lightning, thunder, wind driven rain. No way was I going to get to water's edge this afternoon. I crawled along a tree trunk to its uptorn fan of roots, and peeked over. Fantasyland. There were three waterspouts out there. They slid back and forth, the further ones pale and translucent. The third had drifted inland, though it was still a couple of klicks away. Dirt and timber splashed up from its tip. I crawled out of the wind and listened to the roar. As long as it didn't get louder, I should be safe from heaven's dirty finger.

* All this raised serious questions about my plan to take a shortcut across the sea. No doubt this was an exceptional storm, but what about ordinary squalls? How common were they? The Inland Sea is a lot like the old Mediterranean. I thought of a guy named Odysseus who spent half his life being blown from one side of that pond to the other. I wished we had taken maritime sports more seriously. Sailing to Catalina barely qualified us as novices; we didn't even make our own boat. The notion of hugging the coast didn't look good either. I remembered the pictures: our tsunami had smashed the whole southern coast. There were no beaches or harbors left on this side of the sea, just millions of tonnes of broken wood and mud. I would have to carry all my food even if I stayed close to the sh.o.r.e.

* So there I was, kind of discouraged and awfully wet. My schedule was in shambles. And that was a laugh. I have all the time in the world; that's the problem.

* There was a super-close lightning bolt. From the corner of my eye I saw something something rus.h.i.+ng me. As I turned, it dropped on my shoulder, grabbing for my neck. An instant later something else landed on my middle, and on my leg. I bet I screamed as loud as ever in my life; it was lost in the thunder. rus.h.i.+ng me. As I turned, it dropped on my shoulder, grabbing for my neck. An instant later something else landed on my middle, and on my leg. I bet I screamed as loud as ever in my life; it was lost in the thunder.

*... They were fishermonkeys, fishermonkeys, Lelya. Three of them. They clung tight as leeches; one had its face buried in my middle. But they weren't biting. I sat rigid for a moment, ready to start smas.h.i.+ng in all directions. The one on my leg had its eyes screwed shut. All three were s.h.i.+vering, and holding me so tight it hurt. I gradually relaxed, and set my hand on the fellow who had grabbed my middle. Through the seal-like fur, I could feel its s.h.i.+vering ease a little. Lelya. Three of them. They clung tight as leeches; one had its face buried in my middle. But they weren't biting. I sat rigid for a moment, ready to start smas.h.i.+ng in all directions. The one on my leg had its eyes screwed shut. All three were s.h.i.+vering, and holding me so tight it hurt. I gradually relaxed, and set my hand on the fellow who had grabbed my middle. Through the seal-like fur, I could feel its s.h.i.+vering ease a little.

* They were like little children, running to Momma when the lightning got too bad. We sat in the lee of that root fan through the worst of the storm. They scarcely moved the whole time, their warm bodies stuck to my leg, belly, and shoulder.

* The storm gentled to an even rain, and the temperature climbed back into the thirties. The three didn't rush off. They sat, looking at me solemnly. Now, even I don't believe that nature is full of cuddly creatures just waiting to love a human. I began to have some unhappy suspicions. I got up, climbed over the side of the trunk. The three followed, then ran a little way to one side, stopped, and chittered at me. I walked to them, and they ran off again, and stopped again. Already I was thinking of them as Hewey , Dewey and Lewey, (How did Disney spell those names?) Of course, fishermonkeys look nothing like ducks, either real or caricatured. But there was a cooperative madness about them that made the names inescapable.

* Our lurching game of tag went on for fifty meters. Then we came to a pile that had recently slipped: I could see where the trunks had turned, exposing unweathered wood. The three didn't try to climb these. They led me around them... to where a larger monkey was pinned between two trunks. It wasn't hard to guess what had happened. A good-sized stream flowed beneath the pile. Probably the four had been fis.h.i.+ng there. When the storm came up, they hid in the wooden cave formed by the tree trunks. No doubt the wind and the added water in the stream had upset the woodpile.

* The three patted and pulled at their friend, but halfheartedly; the body wasn't warm. I could see that its chest was crushed. Perhaps this had been their mother. Or maybe it was the dominant male-Unca Donald even.

* It made me sadder than it should, Lelya. I knew our rescuing the Peacers was going to blow a hole in the ecosystem; I'd already done my rationalizing, cried my tears. But... I wondered how many fishermonkeys were left on the south sh.o.r.e. I bet they were scattered in small groups all through the dead jungle. And now this. The four of us sat for a time, consoling each other, I hope.

* If sea travel was out, my options were a bit constrained. The jungle parallels the coast and extends inland to the two-thousand-meter level. It would take me a hundred years to get around the sea by hacking my way through that, with every stream at right angles to my line of travel. That left the jacaranda forests-back up where the air is cool, and the spiders spin their webs.

* Oh. I took the fishermonkeys with me. In fact, they refused to be left behind. I was now mother, or dominant male, or whatever. These three had all the mobility of penguins. During the days, they spent most of the time on the travois. When I stopped to rest, they'd be off-racing each other around, trying to tease me into the chase. Then Dewey would come to sit by me. He was the odd man out. Literally. Hewey was a girl and Lewey the other male. (It took a while to figure this out. The fishers' s.e.xual equipment is better hidden than in the monkeys of our time.) It was all very platonic, but sometimes Dewey needed another friend.

* I can just see you, Lelya, shaking your head and muttering about sentimental weakness. But remember what I've said so many times: If we can survive and still be sentimental, life is a lot more fun. Besides, there were coldly calculated reasons for lugging my little friends back to the Jac forest. The fishers are not entirely sea creatures. The fact that they can fish from streams shows that. These three ate berries and roots. Plants haven't changed as much as animals over these fifty megayears, but some of the changes can be inconvenient. For instance, Dewey et al. et al. wouldn't touch the water I got from a traveler's palm; on the way down, that stuff had made me sick. wouldn't touch the water I got from a traveler's palm; on the way down, that stuff had made me sick.

Here the diary had many pages of drawings, enhanced by Yelen's autons to show the dyes' original colors. These were not as skillfully drawn as those Wil had seen later in the diary when Marta had had years of practice-but they were better than anything he could do. She had brief notes by each picture: * Dewey wouldn't touch this when green, otherwise okay... or * Looks like trillium; raises blisters like poison ivy.