Marooned in Realtime

'Jesus Christ, Brierson! I need you, but there are limits.' She looked at him. 'Okay. It'll be a couple of hours. She's beyond Luna, closing down some of my operations.' Yelen's holo flicked off.

It was a long two hours. This meeting was supposed to be a surprise. He wouldn't have forced things if he'd known Lu was not immediately available. Wil watched the clock; now he was stuck.

Just short of 150 minutes later, Yelen was back. 'Okay, Brierson, how may we humor you?'

A second holo came to life, showing Della Lu. 'Are you back at Town Korolev, Delta?' Wil asked.

There was no time lag to her reply. 'No. I'm at my home, about two hundred klicks above you. Do you really want me on the ground?'

'Uh, no.' You may be in the best possible position. 'Okay, Della, Yelen. I have a quick question. If the answer is no, then f hope you will quickly make it yes.... Are you both still providing me with heavy security?'

'Sure.' 'Yes.'

That would have to be good enough. He leaned forward and spoke slowly. 'There are some things you should know. Most important: Marta knew who murdered her.'

Silence. Yelen's impatience was blown away; she simply stared. But when she spoke, her voice was flat, enraged. 'You stupid jerk. If she knew, why didn't she tell us? She had forty years to tell us.' On the other holo, Della appeared to be swapped out. Has she already imagined the consequences?

'Because, Yelen, all through those forty years she was being watched by the murderer, or his autons. And she knew that, too.'

Again, silence. This time it was Della who spoke. 'How do you know this, Wil?' The distant look was gone. She was intent, neither accepting nor rejecting his assertions. He wondered if this were her original peace-cop personality looking out at him.

. 'I don't think Marta herself guessed the truth during the first ten years. When she did, she spent the rest of her life playing a double game with the diary-leaving clues that would not alert the murderer, yet which could be understood later.'

Yelen bent forward, her hands clenched. 'What clues?'

'I don't want to say just yet.'

'Brierson, I lived with that diary for a hundred years. For a hundred years I read it, analyzed it with programs you can't even imagine. And I lived with Marta for almost two hundred years before that. I knew every secret, every thought.' Her voice was shaking; he hadn't seen such lethal fury in her since right after the murder. 'You opportunistic slime. You say she left thoughts you could follow and I could not!'

'Yelen!' Della's interruption froze Korolev in midrage. For a moment, both women were silent, staring.

Yelen's hands went limp; she seemed to shrink in on herself. 'Of course. I wasn't thinking.'

Della nodded, and glanced at Wil. 'Perhaps we should spell this out for you.' She smiled. 'Though I suspect you're way ahead of us. If the murderer had access to realtime while Marta was marooned, then there are consequences, some so radical that they caused us to dismiss the possibility.'

'The killer did more than meddle with the length of the group jump; he did not even participate in it. That means the sabotage was not a shallow manipulation of the Korolev system; the killer must have deep penetration of the system.'

Wil nodded. And who could have deeper penetration than the owner of the system?

'And if that is true, then everything that goes through Yelen's db's — including this conversation — may be known to the enemy. It's conceivable that her own weapons might be turned against us.... In your place, I'd be a bit edgy, Wil.'

'Even granting Brierson's claims, the rest doesn't necessarily follow. The killer could have left an unlisted auton in realtime. That could be what Marta noticed.' But the fire was gone from Yelen's voice. She didn't look up from the pinkish marble of her desk.

Wil said softly, 'You don't really believe that, do you?'

'... No. In forty years, Marta could have outsmarted one of those, could have left clues that even I would recognize.' She looked up at him. 'Come on, Inspector. Get it over with. 'If the murderer could get into realtime, then why did she let Marta survive there?' That's the next rhetorical question, isn't it? And the obvious answer — 'It's just the sort of irrational thing a jealous lover might do.' So. I admit to being a jealous type. And I surely loved Marta. But no matter what either of you believes, I did not maroon her.'

She was on the far side of anger. It was not quite the reaction Wil had expected. It really affected Yelen that her two closest colleagues —'friends' was still too strong a word-might think she had killed Marta. Given her general insensitivity to the perceptions of others, he doubted her performance was an act. Finally he said, 'I'm not accusing you, Yelen.... You're capable of violence, but you have honor. I trust you.' That last was a necessary exaggeration. 'I would like some trust in return. Believe me when I say that Marta knew, that she left clues that you would not notice. Hell, she probably did it to protect you. The moment you got suspicious, the murderer would also be alerted. Instead, Marta tried to talk to me. I'm totally disconnected from your system, an inconsequential low-tech. I've had a week to think on the problem, to figure how to get this news to you with minimum risk of an ambush.'