Yelen Korolev knew where to get one hundred more. She was determined to rescue them.
Steven Fraley, President of the Republic of New Mexico, was determined that those hundred remain unrescued. He was still arguing the case when Brierson arrived. '... and you don't appreciate the history of our era, madam. The Peacers came near to exterminating the human race. Sure, saving this group will get you a few more warm bodies, but you risk the survival of our whole colony, of the entire human race, in doing so.'
Yelen Korolev looked calm, but Wil knew her well enough to recognize the signs of an impending explosion: there were rosy patches on her cheeks, yet her features were otherwise even paler than usual. She ran a hand through her blond hair. 'Mr. Fraley, I really do know the history of your era. Remember that almost all of us-no matter what our present age and experience-have our childhoods within a couple hundred years of one another. The Peace Authority'-her lips twitched in a quick smile at the name —'may have started the general war of 1997. They may even be responsible for the terrible plagues of the early twenty-first century. But as governments go, they were relatively benign. This group in Kampuchea' -she waved toward the north —'went into stasis in 2048, when the Peacers were overthrown. That was before decent health care was available. It's entirely possible that none of the original criminals are present.'
Fraley opened and closed his mouth, but no words came. Finally: 'Haven't you heard of their 'Renaissance' scheme? In '48 they were ready to kill by the millions again. Those guys under Kampuchea probably got more hell-bombs than a dog has fleas. That base was their secret ace in the hole. If they hadn't screwed up their stasis, they'd've come out in 2100 and blown us away. And you probably wouldn't even have been born —'
Yelen cut into the torrent. 'Hell-bombs? Popguns. Even you know that. Mr. Fraley, getting another hundred people into our colony will make our settlement just big enough to survive. Marta and I haven't spent our lives setting this up just to see it die like the undermanned attempts of the past. The only reason we postponed the founding of Korolev till megayear fifty was so we could rescue those Peacers when their bobble bursts.'
She turned to her partner. 'Is everybody accounted for?' Marta Korolev had sat through the argument in silence, her dark features relaxed, her eyes closed. Her headband put her in communication with the estate's autonomous devices. No doubt she had managed a half dozen fliers during the last half hour, scouring the countryside for any truant colonists the Korolev satellites had spotted. Now she opened her eyes. 'Everybody's accounted for and safe. In fact' — she caught sight of Wil standing at the back of the amphitheater and grinned — 'almost everyone is here on the castle grounds. I think we can provide you people with quite a show this afternoon.' She either hadn't followed or — more likely — had chosen to ignore the dispute between Yelen and Fraley.
'Okay, let's get started.' A rustle of anticipation passed through the audience. Many were from the twenty-first century, like Wil. But they'd seen enough of the advanced travelers to know that such a statement was more than enough signal for spectacular events to happen.
From his place at the top of the amphitheater, Wil had a good view to the north. The forests of the higher elevations fell away to a gray-green blur that was the equatorial jungle. Beyond that, haze obscured even the existence of the Inland Sea. Even on the rare, clear day when the sea mists lifted, the Kampuchean Alps were hidden beyond the horizon. Nevertheless, the rescue should be visible; he was a bit surprised that the bluish white of the northern horizon was undisturbed. 'Things will get more exciting, I promise.' Yelen's voice brought his eyes back to the stage. Two large displays floated behind her. They made an incongruous contrast with the moss and gold-encrusted temple that covered the land beyond the stage. Castle Korolev was typical of the flamboyance of the advanced residences. The underlying stonework and statuary modeled vaguely on Angkor Wat-had been built half a thousand years earlier, then left for mountain rains to wear at, for moss to cover, for trees to penetrate. Afterwards, construction robots hid all the subtle machinery of late twenty-second-century technology within the 'ruins.' Will respected that technology. Here was a place where no sparrow could fall unremarked. The owners were as safe from a quiet knife in the back as from a ballistic missile attack.
'As Mr. Fraley says, the Peacer bobble was supposed to be a secret. It was originally underground. It is much further underground now-somebody blundered. What was to be a fifty-year jump became something... longer. As near as we can figure, their bobble should burst sometime in the next few thousand years; they've been in stasis fifty million years. During that time, continents drifted and new rifts formed. Parts of Kampuchea slid deep beneath new mountains.' The display behind her lit with a multicolored transect of the Kampuchean Alps. The surface crust appeared as blue, shading into yellow and orange at the greater depths. Right at the margin of orange and magma red was a tiny black disk-the Peacer bobble, afloat against the ceiling of hell.
Inside the bobble, time was stopped. Those within were as they'd been at that instant of a near-forgotten war when the losers decided to escape to the future. No force could affect a bobble's contents; no force could affect its duration - not the heart of a star, not the heart of a lover.
But when the bobble burst, when the stasis ended... The Peacers were about forty kilometers down. There would be a moment of noise and heat and pain as the magma swallowed them. One hundred men and women would die, and a certain endangered species would move one more step toward final extinction.
The Korolevs proposed to raise the bobble to the surface, where it would be safe for the few remaining millennia of its duration. Yelen waved at the display. 'This was taken just before we started the operation. Here's the ongoing view.'
The picture flickered. The red magma boundary had risen thousands of meters above the bobble. Pinheads of white light flashed in the orange and yellow that represented the solid crust. In the place of each of those lights, red blossomed and spread, almost-Wil winced at the thought-like blood from a stab wound. 'Each of those sparkles is a hundred-megaton bomb. In the last few seconds, we've released more energy than all mankind's wars put together.'
The red spread as the wounds coalesced into a vast hemorrhage in the bosom of Kampuchea. The magma was still twenty kilometers below ground level. The bombs were timed so there was a constant sparkling just above the highest level of red, bringing
