Marooned in Realtime

Yelen stepped over a fallen timber and bent to look at him. Behind her, Wil saw two large fliers. At least six autons hung in the air above the women. 'That's what we would like to know, Inspector. Were you attacked? Our guards heard screaming and the sounds of a fight.'

... and every so often he gave a great screeching display, rushing about and slapping his sides. Marta had named her fishers well. Wil looked at his bloody hands. The tranq Yelen had used on him was fast-acting stuff. He could think and remember, but emotions were distant, muted things. 'I, I was reading the end of Marta's diary. Got carried away.'

'Oh.' Korolev's pale lips tightened. How could she be so cool? Surely she had gone through this, too. Then Wil remembered the century Yelen had spent alone with the diary and the cairns. Her harshness would be easier to understand in the future.

Della walked closer, her boots crunching on broken glass. Lu's outfit was dead black, like something from a twentieth-century police state. Her arms were folded across her chest. Her dark eyes were calm and distant. No doubt her current personality matched her clothes. 'Yes. The diary. It's a depressing document. Perhaps you should choose other leisure-time reading.'

The remark should have done something to his blood pressure, but Wil felt nothing.

Yelen was more explicit. 'I don't know why you insist on mucking around in Marta's personal life, Brierson. She said everything she knew about the case right at the beginning. The rest is none of your damned business.' She glanced at his hands, and a small robot swooped down. Wil felt something cold and soft work between his fingers. Yelen sighed. 'Okay. I guess I understand; we are that much alike. And I still need you .... Take a couple of days off. Get yourself together.' She started back to her flier.

'Uh, Yelen,' said Della. 'Are we going to leave him here alone?'

'Of course not. I'm wasting three extra autons on him.'

'I mean, when the GriefStop wears off, Brierson may be very distressed.' Something flickered in her eyes. She looked momentarily puzzled, searching through nine thousand years of memories-perhaps more important, nine thousand years of viewpoints. 'When a person is like that, don't they need someone to help them... someone to, uh, hug them?'

'Hey, don't look at me!'

'Right.' Her eyes were calm again. 'It was just a thought.' The two departed.

Wil watched their fliers disappear over the trees. Around him, broken glass was being vacuumed up, the torn walls removed. Already his hands felt warm and comfortable. He sat in the roadway, at peace. Eventually he would get hungry and go inside.

TWENTY

After supper, Wil sat for a long time in the ruins of his living room. He was directly responsible for very little of the destruction: He had punched bloody holes in one wall and demolished a mirror. The guard autons had let that go on for perhaps fifteen seconds before deciding it was a threat to his safety. Then they bobbled him: The walls near the mirror were cut by a clean, curving line. A smooth depression dipped thirty centimeters below the floor, into the foundation. Even the bobbling had not caused the worst damage. That happened when Yelen and Della cut the bobble out of the house. Apparently they wanted their equipment to have a direct view when it burst. He looked at the wall clock. It was the same day as before; they'd kept him on ice just long enough to get him out ref the house.

If Wil's sense of humor had been enabled, he might have smiled. All this supported Yelen's claim that the house was not infested by her equipment. The best the protection autons could do was bobble everything and call for help.

Things were different now. From where he sat, Wil saw several robots foaming a temporary wall. Beside his chair sat a medical auton, about as animated as a garbage can. Somewhere it had hands; they'd been a big help with supper.

He watched the reconstruction with interest, even turned on the room lights when night came. This GriefStop was great stuff. Simple drives like hunger weren't affected. He felt as alert and coordinated as usual. He was simply beyond the reach of emotion; yet, strangely, it was easy to imagine how things would affect him without the drug. And that knowledge did make for some weak motivation. For instance, he hoped the Dasguptas would not stop by on their way home. He guessed that explanations would be difficult.

Wil stood and walked to his reading table. The auton glided silently after him. Something smaller floated up from the mantel. He sat down, suddenly guessing that GriefStop had never been a hit on the recreational drug market. There were side effects: Everything moved a little bit slow. Sounds came low-pitched, drawn out. It wasn't enough to panic him (he doubted if anything could do that just now), but reality had a faint edge of waking nightmare. His silent visitors intensified the feeling,... Ah well, paranoia was the name of the game.

He turned on his desk lamp, cut the room lights. Somehow the destruction had spared the desk and reading display. The last page of Marta's diary floated in the circle of light. He guessed that rereading that page would be very upsetting to his normal self-so he didn't look at it. Della was right. There ought to be better leisure-time activities. This day would hang his normal self low for a long time to come. He hoped that he wouldn't come back to the diary, to tear at the wounds he'd opened today. Perhaps he should erase it; the inconvenience of coercing another copy from Yelen might be enough to save his normal self.

Wil spoke into the darkness. 'House. Delete Marta's diary.' The display showed his command and the ideation net associated with 'Marta's diary.'

'The whole thing?' the house asked.