'Hmph. She has thousands of years to be alone before the Peacers come out. You should at least do an autopsy and record the physical evidence.'
'Very well. Ms. Korolev is a suspect, then?'
Wil spread his hands. 'At this stage, she and the Robinsons have to be at the top of our list. Once we start poking around, it may be easy to scratch her. Just now it would be totally unprofessional to have
'Is Ms. Korolev friendly towards you?'
'Huh? Not especially. What does that have to do with the investigation?'
'Nothing. I'm trying to find a...'-she seemed to search for the word —'a role model for talking to you.'
Wil smiled faintly, thinking back to Yelen's hostility. 'I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't model on her.'
'Okay.' Unsmiling.
If Lu were as smart with gadgets as she was dumb with people, they would make the best detective team in history. 'There is something else, something very important, that I need. Yelen has promised me physical protection and access to leer databases. I'd like to have your protection, too-at least till we can clear her.'
'Certainly. If you wish, I'll manage your jump forward, too.'
'And I'd like access to your databases.' Cross-checking Korolev couldn't hurt.
The spacer hesitated. 'Okay. But some of the information isn't very accessible.'
Wil looked around Della's cabin-command bridge? It was even smaller than Tammy's quarters, and almost as stark. A small cluster of roses grew from Della's desk; their scent filled the air. A watercolor landscape hung on the wall facing the spacer. The life tones and shadows were subtly wrong, as if the artist were clumsy... or the scene not of this Earth.
And Brierson was putting his life in this person's hands. In this universe of strangers, he must trust some more than others, but... 'How old are you, Della?'
'I've lived nine thousand years, Mr. Brierson. I have been away... a long time. I have seen much.' Her dark eyes took on that cold, far look he remembered from their first encounters. For a moment, she looked past him, perhaps at the watercolor, perhaps beyond. Then the expressionless gaze returned to his face. '1 think it's time I rejoined the human race.'
FIVE
Some fifty thousand years later, all that was left of the only world empire in history, the Peace Authority, returned to normal time. They were welcomed by Korolev autons, and discouraged from interfering with the bobbles on the south side of the Inland Sea. They had three months to consider their new circumstances before those bobbles burst.
What Marta and Yelen had worked so long for was ready to begin.
Thousands of tonnes of equipment were given to the low-techs, along with farms, factories, mines. The gifts were to individuals, supposedly based on their expertise back in civilization. The Dasgupta brothers received two vanloads of communication equipment. To Wil's amazement, they immediately traded the gear to an NM signal officer-for a thousand-hectare farm. And Korolev didn't object. She did point out which equipment was likely to fail first, and provide databases to those who wanted to plan for the future.
Many of the ungoverned low-techs loved it: survival with profit. Within weeks they had a thousand schemes for combining high-tech equipment with primitive production lines. Both would coexist for decades, with the failing high-tech restricted to a smaller and smaller role. In the end there would be a viable infrastructure.
The governments were not so pleased. Both Peacers and NMs were heavily armed, but as long as Korolev stood guard over the Inland Sea, all that twenty-first-century might was about as persuasive as the brass cannon on a courthouse lawn. Both had had time to understand the situation. They watched each other carefully, and united in their complaints against Korolev and the other high-techs. Their propaganda noted how carefully the high-techs coordinated the giveaway, how restricted it really was: no weapons were given, no bobbler technology, no aircraft, no autons, no medical equipment. 'Korolev gives the illusion of freedom, not the reality.'
The excitement of the founding came muted to Wil. He went to some of the parties. Sometimes he watched the Peacer or NM news. But he had little time to participate. He had a job, in some ways like his of long ago; he had a murderer to catch. Unless something seemed connected with that goal, it drifted by him, irrelevant.
Marta's murder was a major piece of news. Even with a civilization to build, people still found time to talk about it. Now that she was gone, everyone remembered her friendliness. Every unpopular Korolev policy was greeted with a sigh of 'If only Marta were alive, this would be different.' At first, Wil was at the center of the parties. But he had little to say. Besides, he was in a unique-and uncomfortable-position: Wil was a low-tech, but with the perks of a high. He could fly anywhere he wanted; the other low-techs were confined to Korolev-supplied 'public' transportation. He had his own protection autons, supplied by Delia and Yelen; other low-techs watched with ill-concealed nervousness when those floated into view. These advantages were nontransferable, and it wasn't long before Wil was more shunned than sought.
One of the Korolevs' fundamental principles had already been violated: the settlement was physically scattered now. The Peacers had refused to move across the Inland Sea to
