Marooned in Realtime

wrong? Our investments seem safe; after a century or two, they should make us very rich. And if they don't, well, the standard of living will be so high, even being poor we'll live better than the rich do now.'' Rohan sighed. 'We bet on the progress you speak of. We didn't count on coming back to jungles and ruins and a world without people.' They walked several paces in silence. Finally Rohan's curiosity got the better of him. 'You were shanghaied, then. like Wil?'

'I... don't think so; since no one lived after me, it's impossible to know for sure. I was in heavy construction, and accidents happen.... How's the legs, Wil Brierson?'

'What?' The sudden change of topic took Wil by surprise 'Fine now.' There were still pins and needles, but he had no trouble with coordination.

'Then let's start back, okay?'

They walked away from the cliffs, past the sweet blossoms The campfires were invisible behind several ridgelines; they had come almost a thousand meters. They walked most of the way back with scarcely a word. Even Rohan was silent.

Wil's rage had cooled, leaving only ashes, sadness. He wondered what would happen the next time he saw Derek Lindemann. He remembered the abject terror on Lindemann's face. The disguise had been a good one. If Phil Genet hadn't pointed Wil right at the Kid, it might have been weeks before he nailed him. Lindemann had been seventeen, a gawky Anglo-, now he looked fifty, a somewhat pudgy Asian. Clearly there had been cosmetic surgery. As for his age.. , well, when Yelen and Marta decided to do something, they could be brutally direct. Somewhere in the millions of years that Wil and the others spent bobbled, Derek Lindemann had lived thirty years of realtime without medical support. Perhaps the Korolevs had been out of stasis then, perhaps not; the autons that attended their bobble farm on the Canadian Shield would have been competent to provide for him. Thirty years the Kid lived essentially alone. Thirty years inward turning. The Lindemann that Wil knew had been a wimp. No doubt his embezzling was petty revenge against his relatives in the company. No doubt he bobbled Brierson out of naive panic. And for thirty years the Kid had lived with the fear that one day W. W. Brierson would recognize him.

'Thanks for... talking to me. I-I'm not usually like this.' That was true, and perhaps the most unnerving part of the whole day. In thirty years of police work, he'd never blown up. Perhaps that wasn't surprising; knocking customers around was a quick way to get fired. But in Wil's case, being cool had come easy. He was truly the low-pressure type he seemed. How often he had been the calm one who talked others down from the high ledges of panic and rage. He'd never been the kind who went from anger to anger. In the last weeks, all that had changed, yet... 'You've both lost as much as I, haven't you?' He thought back to all the people he had talked to this afternoon, and shame replaced his embarrassment. Maybe of W. W. Brierson had always been unflappable because he never had any real problems. When the crunch came, he was the weakest of all.

'It's okay,' Blumenthal said. 'There have been fights before. Some people are hurting more than others. And for each of us, some days are worse than others.'

'Besides, you're special, Wil,' said Rohan.

'Hub?'

'The rest of us have our hands full rebuilding civilization. Korolev is giving us enormous amounts of equipment. It needs lots of supervision; there's not enough automatic stuff to go around. We're working as hard as anyone in the twentieth century. I think most of the high-techs are, too. I know Tunc is.'

'But you, Wil, what is your job? You work just as hard as any of us-but doing what? Trying to figure out who killed Marta. I'll bet that's fun. You have to spend all your time, off by yourself, thinking about things that have been lost. Even the laziest low-tech isn't in that bind. If someone wanted to drive you crazy, they couldn't have invented a better job for you.'

Wil found himself smiling. He remembered the times Rohan had tried to get him to these picnics. 'Your prescrip- tion?' he asked lightly.

'Well...' Rohan was suddenly diffident. 'You could get off the case. But I hope you won't. We all want to know what happened to Marta. I liked her the most of all the high-techs..end her murder might be part of something that could kill the rest of us.... I think the important thing is that you realize what the problem is. You're not falling apart. You're just under more pressure than most of us.

'Also, there's no point in working on it all the time, is there? I'll bet you spend hours staring into blind alleys. Spend more time with the rest of humanity. Ha! You might even find some clues here!'

Wil thought back over the last two hours. On Rohan's last point there was no possible disagreement.

FOURTEEN

From North Shore to Town Korolev was about a thousand kilometers, most of it over the Inland Sea. Yelen didn't stint with the shuttle service between the two points. The two halves of the settlement were physically separate, but she was determined to make them close in every other way. When Wil left the picnic, there were three fliers waiting for southbound passengers. He ended up in one that was empty except for the Dasgupta brothers.

The agrav rose with the familiar silent acceleration that never became intense-and never ceased. The trip would take about fifteen minutes. Below them, the picnic fires dwindled, seemed to tilt sideways. The loudest sound was a distant scream of wind. It grew, then dwindled to nothing. The interior lighting turned the night beyond the windows into undetailed darkness. Except for the constant acceleration, they might have been sitting in an ordinary office waiting room.