Marooned in Realtime

the others-can tell you what it was like. They were not completely cut out of their systems; they had just lost control. In any battle, a lot of information is flowing between nodes. In this one, things were especially chaotic. In places, data security failed; irrelevant information leaked across. Part of what passed through Juan's node was the specs on Gerrault's med system. Juan saw what Gerrault had, where it was, and the exact lookabout timings of the bobbles that protected Gerrault's zygotes and inner defenses.'

He paused. 'This meeting was a setup. I — I'm sorry about keeping you all in the dark. There were only certain times when an attack could succeed — and then only if Gerrault had moved most of his defenses away from the trailing Lagrange.'

'Yes,' said Juan, his excitement reduced to manageable proportions, 'this meeting was necessary, but it was the riskiest part of the whole affair. If we trumped him while he was still here, Gerrault might have done something foolish, deadly. Somehow we had to trick him into running without shooting at us first. So Wil told the story you heard, and we played our two greatest enemies against each other.' He looked up at Brierson. 'Thanks for trusting me, my boy. We'll never know exactly what drove the Lu creature. Maybe she really was human; maybe all her years alone just turned her mind into something alien. But I knew she couldn't resist if you told her the right lies about the zygote bank; she'll chase Gerrault to the end of space-time to destroy it.'

Now there really was cheering. Some of the cheerers were a bit exhausted, perhaps: their future had been bounced around like a volleyball these last few minutes. But now: 'Now we can make it!' Yelen shouted. Peacers, Ungovs, NMs were embracing. Dilip and a crowd of low-techs came down to the podium to shake Wil's hand. Even the high-tech reserve was broken. Juan and Tung were in the middle of the crowd. Tammy and Yelen stood less than a meter apart, grinning at each other Only Monica Raines had not left her seat; as usual, her smile was turned down at one corner. But Wil thought it was not so much disappointment at their salvation as envy that everyone else could be so happy.

Wil suddenly realized that he could leave it at this. Perhaps the settlement was saved. Certainly, if he went ahead with the rest of his plan, the danger to himself could be greater than everything up to now.

It was a thought, never a real choice. He owed some people too much to back down now.

Wil broke from the crowd and returned to the podium. He turned up the amplification 'Yelen. Everybody.' The laughter and shouting diminished. Gail Parker jumped on a bench and cried, 'Yay, Wili! Speech! Speech! Wili for President!' This provoked even more laughter; Gail always did have a sharp sense of the ridiculous. Wil raised his hands, and the uproar subsided again. 'There are still some things we must settle.'

Yelen looked at him, her face relaxed yet puzzled. 'Sure, Wil. I think we can put a lot of things right, now. But —'

'That's not what I mean, Yelen. I still haven't done what you hired me for.... I still haven't produced Marta's murderer.'

The talk and laughter guttered to a stop. The loudest sounds were the birds stealing from the spiders beyond the amphitheater Where the faces didn't show blank surprise, Wil could see the fear returning. 'But, Wil,' Juan said finally, 'we got Gerrault....

'Yes. We got him. There's no fakery in that, nor in the equipment we rescued. But Christian Gerrault did not kill Marta, and he didn't take over the high-tech computer systems. Did you notice that he never admitted to either? He was as much a victim of the takeover as any. Finding the systems saboteur was one of the 'loose ends' he intended to clear up.'

Juan waved his hands, his speech coming faster than ever. 'Semantics. He explicitly admitted to taking over the low-techs' military systems.'

Wil shook his head. 'No, Juan. Only the Peacers'. All the time we thought one high-tech was stirring up both sides, when actually Gerrault was behind the Peace and you were manipulating the NMs.'

The words were spoken and Wil still lived.

The little man swallowed. 'Please, my boy, after everything I've done to help, how can you say this?... I know! You think only a systems penetrator could know about Gerrault's med equipment.' He looked imploringly at Yelen and Tammy. 'Tell him. Things like that happen in battle, especially when penetration —'

'Sure,' Yelen said. 'It may seem a farfetched explanation to someone from your era, Wil, but leak-across can really happen.' Tunc and Tammy were nodding agreement.

'It doesn't matter.' There was no doubt in Wil's face or voice. 'I knew that Juan was Marta's killer before he ever came to me about Gerrault.' But can I convince the rest of you?

Chanson's hands balled into fists. He backed into a bench and sat down abruptly. 'Do I have to take this?' he cried to Yelen.

Korolev set her hand on his shoulder. 'Let the Inspector have his say.' When she looked at Wil, her face had the angry ambivalence he knew so well. Together, Wil and Juan had just saved the colony. But she had known Chanson through decades of their lives; Wil was the low-tech that her Marta had damned and praised. There was no telling how long her patience would last.

Brierson stepped around the podium. 'At first, it seemed that almost any high-tech could have marooned Marta: There were bugs in the Korolev system that made it easy to sabotage a single bobbling sequence. With those bugs repaired, Yelen and the others thought their systems were secure. Our war showed how terribly wrong they were. For twelve hours, the enemy had complete control of all the systems — except Della's....

'This told me several things. In my time, it was no trivial thing to grab an entire system. Unless the system were perverted to begin with, it took expert, tedious effort to insert all the traps that would make a grab possible. Whoever did this needed years of