Marooned in Realtime

by Vernor Vinge

  Naismith rolled to his knees and pulled at her hand. She had no choice now. They stood and walked quickly back the way he had come. The sound of the jets was a continuous rumble; they could have shouted and still not been heard. They had perhaps fifteen minutes to move as fast as they were able.

  Greenish twilight had fallen on the forest floor. In his mottled brown dress, Naismith would be hard to spot, but the girl’s flight fatigues made her a perfect target. He held her hand, urging her to paths he thought safe. He glanced at his wrist again and again, trying to see where the invaders were posted. The girl was busy looking in all directions and didn’t notice his display.

  The sounds fell behind them. The jets were still loud, but the soldiers’ voices were fading in the distance. A dove lilted nearby.

  They were trotting now, where the undergrowth thinned. Naismith’s lungs burned and a steady pain pushed in his chest. The woman had a limp, but her breath came effortlessly. No doubt she was slowing her pace to his.

  Finally he was forced to a stumbling walk. She put her arm around his shoulder to keep him steady. Naismith grimaced but did not complain. He should be grateful that he could even walk, he supposed. But somehow it seemed a great injustice that a short run could be nearly fatal to someone who still felt young inside. He croaked directions, telling the girl where the horse and cart were hidden.

  Ten minutes more, and he heard a faint nickering. There was no sign of an ambush. From here, he knew dozens of trails into the mountains, trails that guerrillas of bygone years had worked hard to conceal. With even a small amount of further luck, they could escape. Paul sagged against the side of the cart. The forest rippled and darkened before him. Not now, Lord, not now!

  His vision cleared, but he didn’t have the strength to hoist himself onto the cart. The young woman’s arm slipped to his waist, while her other went under his legs. Paul was a little taller than she, but he didn’t weigh much anymore, and she was strong. She lifted him easily into the back, then almost dropped him in surprise. “You’re not a—”

  Naismith gave her a weak grin. “A woman? You’re right. In fact, there’s scarcely a thing you’ve seen today that is what it seems.” Her eyes widened even further.

  Paul was almost beyond speech now. He pointed her at one of the hidden paths. It should get them safely away, if she could follow it.

  And then the world darkened and fell away from him.

  19

  The ocean was placid today, but the fishing boat was small. Della Lu stood at the railing and looked down into the sun-sparkled water with a sick fascination. In all the Peace, she had as much counter-subversive experience as anyone. In a sense her experience had begun as soon as she was old enough to understand her parents’ true job. And as an adult, she had planned and participated in airborne assaults, had directed the embobbling of three Mongolian strongholds, had been as tough as her vision of the Peace demanded…but until now she had never been in a watercraft bigger than a canoe.

  Was it possible she could be seasick? Every three seconds, the swell rose to within a couple meters of her face, then sank back to reveal scum-covered timbers below the waterline. It had been vaguely pleasant at first, but one thing she’d learned during the last thirty-six hours was that it never ended. She had no doubt she would feel fine just knowing the motion could be stopped at her whim. But short of calling off this charade, there was no way to get away from it.

  Della ordered her guts to sleep and her nose to ignore the stench of sardines. She looked up from the waterline to the horizon. She really had a lot to be proud of. In North America—and in Middle California, especially—the Authority’s espionage service was an abomination. There had been no threats from this region in many, many years. The Peace kept most of the continent in a state of anarchy. Satellite reconnaissance could spot the smallest agglomeration of power there. Only in the nation states, like Aztlán and New Mexico, did the Directors see any need for spies. Things were very different in the great land-ocean that was Central Asia.

  But Della was managing. In a matter of days, she had improvised from her Asian experience to come up with something that might work against the threat Avery saw here. She had not simply copied her Mongolian procedures. In North America, the subversives had penetrated—at least in an electronic sense—some of the Authority secrets. Communications, for instance: Della’s eyes caught on the Authority freighter near the horizon. She could not report directly from her little fishing boat without risking her cover. So she had a laser installed near the waterline, and with it talked to the freighter—which surcrypted the messages and sent them through normal Authority channels to Hamilton Avery and the operations Della was directing for him.

  Laughter. One of the fisherman said something in Spanish, something about “persons much inclined to sleep.” Miguel Rosas had climbed out of the boat’s tiny cabin. He smiled wanly at their jokes as he picked his way past the nets. (Those fishermen were a weak point in her cover. They were real, hired for the job. Given time, they would likely figure out whom they were working for. The Authority should have a whole cadre of professionals for jobs like this. Hell, that had been the original purpose in planting her grandparents in San Francisco: The Authority had been worried about the large port so close to the most important enclave. They reasoned that ’furbishers would be the most likely to notice any buildup of military materiel. If only they had chosen to plant them among Tinkers instead. As it was, the years passed and no threat developed, and the Authority never expanded their counter-underground.)

  Della smiled at him, but didn’t speak till the Californian was standing beside her. “How is the boy?”

  Rosas frowned. “Still sleeping. I hope he’s okay. He’s not in good health, you know.”

  Della was not worried. She had doctored the black kid’s bread, what the fishermen fed him last night. It wouldn’t do the boy any harm, but he should sleep for several more hours. It was important that she and Rosas have a private conversation, and this might be the last natural opportunity for it.

  She looked up at him, keeping her expression innocent and friendly. He doesn’t look weak. He doesn’t look like a man who would betray his people…And yet he had. So his motives were very important if they were to manipulate him further. Finally she said, “We want to thank you for uncovering the lab in La Jolla.”

  The undersheriff’s face became rigid, and he straightened.

  Lu cocked her head quizzically. “You mean you didn’t guess who I am?”

  Rosas slumped back against the railing, looked dully over the side. “I suspected. It was all too pat: our escape, these fellows picking us up. I didn’t think you’d be a woman, though. That’s so old-fashioned.” His dark hands clenched the wood till the knuckles shone pale. “Damn it, lady, you and your men killed Jere—killed one of the two I was here to protect. And then you grabbed all those innocent people at the tournament. Why? Have you gone crazy?”

  The man hadn’t guessed that the tournament raid was the heart of Avery’s operation: the biolab had been secondary, important mainly because it had brought Miguel Rosas to them. They needed hostages, information.

  “I’m sorry our attack on the lab killed one of your people, Mr. Rosas. That wasn’t our intent.” This was true, though it might give her a welcome leverage of guilt. “You could have simply told us its location, not insisted on a ‘Judas kiss’ identification. You must realize, we couldn’t take any chance that what was in the lab might get out…”

  Rosas was nodding, almost to himself. That must be it, Lu thought. The man had a pathological hatred of bioscience, far beyond the average person’s simple fear. That was what had driven him to betrayal. “As for the raid on the tournament, we had very good reasons for that, reasons which you will someday understand and support. For now you must trust us, just as the whole world has trusted us these last fifty years, and follow our direction.”

  “Direction? The hell you say. I did what I had to do, but that’s the end to my cooperat
ion. You can lock me up like the rest.”

  “I think not. Your safe return to Middle California is a high priority with us. You and I and Wili will put ashore at Santa Barbara. From there we should be able to get to Red Arrow Farm. We’ll be heroes, the only survivors of the infamous La Jolla raid.” She saw the defiance on his face. “You really have no choice, Miguel Rosas. You have betrayed your friends, your employers, and all the people we arrested at the tournament. If you don’t go along, we will let it be known you were behind the raids, that you have been our agent for years.”

  “That’s a damn lie!” His outburst was clipped short as he realized its irrelevance.

  “On the other hand, if you do help us…well, then you will be serving a great good”—Rosas did not sneer, but clearly he did not believe it either—“and when all this is over you will be very rich, if necessary protected by the Peace for the rest of your life.” It was a strategy that had worked on many, and not just during the history of the Peace: Take a weak person, encourage him to betrayal (for whatever reason), and then use the stick of exposure and the carrot of wealth to force him to do far more than he’d ever have had the courage or motive for in the beginning. Hamilton Avery was confident it would work here and had refused her the time for anything more subtle. Miguel Rosas might get them a line on the Hoehler fellow.

  Della watched him carefully, trying to pierce his tense expression and see whether he was strong enough to sacrifice himself.

  The undersheriff stared at the gulls that circled the boat and called raucously to their brethren as the first catch was drawn aboard. For a moment he seemed lost in the swirl of wings, and his jaw muscles slowly relaxed.

  Finally he looked back at her. “You must be very good at chess. I can’t believe the Authority has chess programs that could play the way you did Wili.”

  Della almost laughed at the irrelevance of the statement, but she answered honestly. “You’re right; they don’t. But I scarcely know the moves. What you all thought was my computer was actually a phone link to Livermore. We had our hottest players up there going over my game, figuring out the best moves and then sending them down to me.”

  Now Rosas did laugh. His hand came down on her shoulder. She almost struck before she realized this was a pat and not a blow. “I had wondered. I had really wondered.

  “Lady, I hate your guts, and after today I hate everything you stand for. But you have my soul now.” The laughter was gone from his voice. “What are you going to make me do?”

  No, Miguel, I don’t have your soul, and I see that I never will. Della was suddenly afraid—for no reason that could ever convince Hamilton Avery—that Miguel Rosas was not their tool. Certainly, he was naive; outside the Aztlán and New Mexico, most North Americans were. But whatever weakness caused him to betray the Scripps lab ended there. And somehow she knew that whatever decision he had just made could not be changed by gradually forcing him to more and more treacherous acts. There was something very strong in Rosas. Even after his act of betrayal, those who counted him friend might still be lucky to know him.

  “To do? Not a great deal. Sometime tonight we reach Santa Barbara. I want you to take me along when we put ashore. When we reach Middle California, you’ll back up my story. I want to see the Tinkers firsthand.” She paused. “There is one thing. Of all the subversives, there is one most dangerous to world peace. A man named Paul Hoehler.” Rosas did not react. “We’ve seen him at Red Arrow Farm. We want to know what he’s doing. We want to know where he is.”

  That had become the whole point of the operation for Hamilton Avery. The Director had an abiding paranoia about Hoehler. He was convinced that the bursting bobbles were not a natural phenomenon, that someone in Middle California was responsible. Up till yesterday, she had considered it all dangerous fantasy, distorting their strategy, obscuring the long-term threat of Tinker science. Now she was not so sure. Last night, Avery called to tell her about the spacecraft the Peace had discovered in the hills east of Vandenberg. The crash was only hours old and reports were still fragmentary, but it was clear that the enemy had a manned space operation. If they could do that in secret, then almost anything was possible. This was a time for greater ruthlessness than ever she had needed in Mongolia.

  Above and around, the gulls swooped through the chill blue glare, circling closer and closer as the fish piled up at the rear of the boat. Rosas’ gaze was lost among the scavengers. Della, for all her skill, could not tell whether she had a forced ally or a double traitor. For both their sakes she hoped he was the former.

  20

  Parties and fairs were common among the West Coast Tinkers. Sometimes it was difficult to tell one from the other, so large were the parties and so informal the fairs. When he was a child, the high points of Rosas’ existence had been such events: tables laden with food, kids and oldsters come from kilometers around to enjoy each other’s company in the bright outdoors of sunny days or crowded into warm and happy dining rooms while rain swept by outside.

  The La Jolla crackdown had changed much of that. Rosas strained to appear attentive as he listened to a Kaladze niece marvel at their escape and long trek back to Middle California. His mind roamed grim and nervous across the scene of their welcome-home party. Only Kaladze’s family attended. There was no one from other farms or from Santa Ynez; even Seymour Wentz had not come. The Peacers were not to suspect that anything special was happening at Red Arrow Farm.

  But Sy was not totally missing. He and some of the neighbors had shown up on line of sight from their homes inland. Sometime this evening they would have a council of war.

  I wonder if I can face Sy and not give away what really happened in La Jolla?

  Wilma Wentz—Kaladze’s niece and Sy’s sister-in-law, a woman in her late forties—was struggling to be heard over music that came from a speaker hidden in a nearby tree. “But I still don’t understand how you managed once you reached Santa Barbara. You and a black boy and an Asian woman traveling together. We know the Authority had asked Aztlán to stop you. How did you get past the border?”

  Rosas wished his face were in shadows, not lit by the pale glow-bulbs that were strung between the trees. Wilma was only a woman, but she was clever and more than once had caught him out when he was a child. He must be as careful with her as anyone. He laughed. “It was simple, Wilma—once Della suggested it: We stuck our heads right back into the lion’s mouth. We found a Peacer fuel station and climbed into the undercarriage of one of the tankers. No Aztlán cop stops one of those. We had a nonstop ride from there to the station south of Santa Ynez.” Even so, it had not been fun. There had been kilometer after kilometer of noise and diesel fumes. More than once during the two-hour trip they had nearly fainted, fallen past the spinning axles onto the concrete of Old 101. But Lu had been adamant: Their return must be realistically difficult. No one, including Wili, must suspect.

  Wilma’s eyes grew slightly round. “Oh, that Della Lu. She is so wonderful. Don’t you think?”

  Rosas looked over Wilma’s head to where Della was making herself popular with the womenfolk. “Yes, she is wonderful.” She had them all agog with her tales of life in San Francisco. No matter how much (and how suicidally) he might wish it, she never slipped up. She was a supernaturally good liar. How he hated that small Asian face, those clean good looks. He had never known anyone—man, woman or animal—who was so attractive and yet so evil. He forced his eyes away from her, trying to forget the slim shoulders, the ready smile, the power to destroy him and all the good he had ever done…

  “It’s marvelous to have you back, Mikey.” Wilma’s voice was suddenly very soft. “But I’m sorry for those poor people down at La Jolla and in that secret lab.”

  And Jeremy. Jeremy who was left behind forever. She was too kind to say it, too kind to remind him that he had not brought back one of those he had been hired to protect. The kindness rubbed unknowingly on deeper guilt. Rosas could not conceal the harshness in his voice. “Don’t you worry about the bio
sci people, Wilma. They were an evil we had to use to cure Wili. As for the others—I promise you we’ll get them back.” He reached out to squeeze her hand. All but Jeremy.

  “Da,” said a voice behind him. “We will get all the rest back indeed.” It was Nikolai Kaladze, who had snuck up on them with his usual lack of warning. “But now that is what we are ready to discuss, Wilma, my dear.”

  “Oh.” She accepted the implied dismissal, a thoroughly modern woman. She turned to gather up the women and younger men, to leave the important matters to the seniors.

  Della looked momentarily surprised at this turn of events. She smiled and waved to Mike just as she left. He would like to think he’d seen anger in her face, but she was too good an actress for that. He could only imagine her rage at being kicked out of the meeting. He hoped she’d been counting on attending it.

  In minutes, the party was over, the women and children gone. The music from the trees softened, and insect sounds grew louder. Seymour Wentz’s holo remained. His image could almost be mistaken for that of someone sitting at the far end of the picnic table. Thirty seconds passed, and several more electronic visitors appeared. One was on a flat, black-and-white display—someone from very far indeed. Rosas wondered how well his transmission was shielded. Then he recognized the sender, one of the Greens from Norcross. With them, it was probably safe.

  Wili drifted in, nodded silently to Mike. The boy had been very quiet since that night in La Jolla.

  “All present?” Colonel Kaladze sat down at the head of the table. Images far outnumbered the flesh-and-blood now. Only Mike, Wili, and Kaladze and his sons were truly here. The rest were images in holo tanks. The still night air, the pale glow of bulbs, the aged faces, and Wili—dark, small, yet somehow powerful. The scene struck Rosas like something out of a fantasy: a dark elfin prince, holding his council of war at midnight in faerie-lit forest.