Marooned in Realtime

The spacer sat back, crossed his arms. 'That's what they all ask.... Ah, Wil Brierson, if I only knew! I tell them I don't know. And they go away, seeing each his own theory reflected in my story.' He seemed to realize the answer was not going to satisfy. 'Very well, my theories. Theory Alpha: Possible it is that mankind was exterminated. What Bil found in the Charon catacombs is hard to explain any other way. But it can't be like Juan Chanson says. Bil had it better: Anything that could bump off the intellect nets in Earth/Luna would needs be superhuman. If it's still around, no brave talk will save us. That's why Bil Sanchez and his little colony dropped out. Poor man, he was frightened of what might happen to anything bigger.

'And Theory Beta: This is what Yelen believes, and probably Della too-though she is still so shy, I can't tell for sure. Humankind and its machines became something better, something... unknowable. And I saw things that fit with that, too.

'Ever since the Peace War there have been more or less autonomous devices. For centuries, folks had been saying that machines as smart as people were just around the corner. Most didn't realize how unimportant such a thing would be. What was needed was greater than human intelligence. Between our processors and ourselves, my era was achieving that.

'My own company was small; there were only eight of us. We were backward, rural; the rest of humanity was hundreds of light-seconds away. The larger spacing firms were better off. Their computers were correspondingly bigger, and they had thousands of people linked. I had friends at Charon Corp and Stellation Inc. They thought we were crazy to stay so isolated. And when we visited their habitats, when the comm lag got to less than a second, I could see what they meant. There was power and knowledge and joy in those companies.... And they could plan circles around us. Our only advantage was mobility.

'Yet even these corporations were fragments, a few thousand people here and there. By the beginning of the twenty-third, there were three billion people in the Earth/Luna volume. Three billion people and corresponding processing power — all less than three light-seconds apart.

'I... it was strange, talking to them. We attended a marketing conference at Luna in 2209. Even linked, we never did understand what was going on.' He was quiet for a long moment. 'So you see, either theory fits.'

Wil was not going to let him off that easily. 'But your project-you say it would have meant faster-tban-light travel. Is there any evidence what became of that?'

Tunc nodded. 'Bil Sanchez visited the Dark Companion a couple times. It's the same dead thing it always was. There's no sign it was ever modified. I think that scared him even more than what he found at Charon. I know it scares me. I doubt my accident was enough to scuttle the plan: our project would have given humanity a gate to the entire Galaxy... but it was also mankind's first piece of cosmic engineering. If it worked, we wanted to do the same to a number of stars. In the end, we might have built a small Arp object in this arm of the Galaxy. Bil thought we'd been 'uppity cockroaches'-and the real owners finally stepped on us....

'But don't you be buying Theory Alpha just yet. I said the

Singularity was a mirrored thing. Theory Beta explains it just as well. In 2207, we were the hottest project at Stellation Inc.

They put everything they had into renting those easements around the sun. But after 2209, the edge was gone from their excitement. At the marketing conference at Luna, it almost seemed Stellation's backers were trying to sell our project as a frivolity.'

Tunc stopped, smiled. 'So you have my thumbnail sketch of Great Events. You can get it all, clearer said with more detail, from Yelen's databases.' He cocked his head to one side. 'Do you like listening to others so much, Wil Brierson, that you visit me first?'

Wil grinned back. 'I wanted to hear you firsthand.' And I still don't understand you. 'I'm one of the earlier low-techs, Tunc. I've never experienced direct connect-much less the mind links you talk about. But I know how much it hurts a high-tech to go without a headband.' All through Marta's diary, that loss was a source of pain. 'If I understand what you say about your time, you've lost much more. How can you be so cool?'

The faintest shadow crossed Tunc's face. 'It's not a mystery, really. I was nineteen when I left civilization. I've lived fifty years since. I don't remember much of the time right after my rescue. Yelen says I was in a coma for months. They couldn't find anything wrong with my body; just no one was home.

'I told you my little company was backward, rural. That's only by comparison with our betters. There were eight of us, four women, four men. Maybe I should call it a group marriage, because it was that, too. But it was more. We spent every spare gAu on our processor system and the interfaces. When we were linked up, we were something... wonderful. But now all that's memories of memories-no more meaningful to me than to you.' His voice was soft. 'You know, we had a mascot: a poor, sweet girl, close to anencephalic. Even with prosthesis she was scarcely brighter than you or I. Most of the time she was happy.' The expression on his face was wistful, puzzled 'And most of the time, I am happy, too.'

NINETEEN

Then there was Marta's diary. He had started reading it as a casual cross-check on Yelen and Della. It had become a dark addiction, the place he spent the hours after his late-night arguments with Yelen, the hours after returning from his field trips.

What might have happened if Wil had been less a gentleman the night of the Robinson party? Marta was dead before he really knew her; but she looked a little like Virginia... and talked like her... and laughed like her. The diary was the only place where he could ever know her now. And so every night ended with new gloom, matched only by the dreams of morning.