by Vernor Vinge
On the ground, the dogthings rousted themselves. By twos and threes they walked onto the plain, smelling morning but not able to see it. The sighted ones ran out ahead, then circled back, trying to get the others to hustle. From a safe distance, and in daylight, Wil had to admit they were graceful—even amusing—creatures: Slender and flexible, they could run or belly crawl with equal ease. Their long snouts and narrow eyes gave them a perpetually crafty look. One of the sighted ones glanced up at Wil, gave an unconvincing growl. More than anything, they reminded him of the frustrated coyote that had chased a roadrunner bird through two centuries of comic animation.
In the western sky, something glittered, metal in sunlight. Dogthings forgotten, Wil stared up. Nothing but blue now. Fifteen seconds passed. Three black specks hung where he’d seen the light. They didn’t move across the sky, but slowly grew. A ripple of sonic booms came across the plain.
The fliers decelerated to a smooth stop a couple of meters above the grass. All three were unmarked, unmanned. Wil considered scrambling to the rear of the cave—but he didn’t move. If they looked, they would find. Loser or winner, he was damned if he’d cower.
The three hung for a moment in silent conference. Then the nearest slid, silent and implacable, up the air towards Wil.
25
For whatever it might be worth, Wil’s side was the winner. He was released by the medics in less than an hour. His body was whole, but stiff and aching; the medical autons didn’t waste their time on finishing touches. There were really serious casualties, and only a part of the medical establishment had survived the fight. The worst cases were simply popped into stasis. Della disappeared into her system, with the autons’ assurance that she would be substantially well in forty hours.
Wil tried not to think about the disaster that spread all around them, tried not to think that it was his fault. He had thought the search for the cairn would provoke an attack—but on himself and Della, not on all humanity.
That attack had killed almost half the human race. Wil couldn’t bring himself to ask Yelén directly, but he knew anyway: Marta’s plan was dead. He had failed in the only way that mattered. And yet he still had a job. He still had a murderer to catch. It was something to work on, a barricade against grief.
Although the price was higher than he had ever wished to pay, the battle had given him the sort of clues he’d hoped. Della’s system had retrieved the cairn bobble; its contents would be available in twenty-four hours. And there were other things to look at. It was clear now that the enemy’s only power had lain in his perversion of others’ systems. But, at every step, they had underestimated that power. After Marta’s murder, they thought it was a shallow penetration, the perversion of a bug in the Korolev system. After Wil found the clue in the diary, they thought the enemy had deeper penetration, but still of Korolev’s system alone; they guessed the killer might be able to usurp parts of Yelén’s forces. And then came the war between the low-techs. It had been a diversion, covering the enemy’s final, most massive assault. That assault had been not on Korolev’s system alone, but on Genet’s and Chanson’s and Blumenthal’s and Raines’. Every system except Lu’s had been taken over, turned to the business of killing Wil and Della.
But Della Lu was very hard to kill. She had fought the other systems to a standstill, then beaten them down. In the chaos of defeat, the original owners climbed out of system-metaphorical bunkers and reclaimed what was left of their property.
Everyone agreed it couldn’t happen again. They might even be right. What remained of their computing systems was pitifully simple, not deep enough or connected enough for games of subtle perversion. Everyone agreed on something else: The enemy’s skill with systems had been the equal of the best and biggest police services from the high-techs’ era.
So. It was a big clue, though small compared to the price of the learning. Related, and at least as significant: Della Lu had been immune to the takeover. Wil put the two together and reached some obvious conclusions. He worked straight through the next twenty-four hours, studying Della’s copy of GreenInc—especially the garbled coverage of the late twenty-second. It was tedious work. At one time, the document had been seriously damaged; the reconstruction could never be complete. Facts and dates were jumbled. Whole sections were missing. He could understand why Della didn’t use the later coverage. Wil kept at it. He knew what to look for…and in the end he found it.
A half-trashed db would not convince a court, but Wil was satisfied: He knew who killed Marta Korolev. He spent an empty, hate-full afternoon trying to figure how to destroy the murderer. What did it matter now? Now that the human race was dead.
That night, Juan Chanson dropped by Wil’s new quarters. The man was subdued; he spoke scarcely faster than a normal person. “I’ve checked for bugs, my boy, but I want to keep this short.” Chanson looked nervously around the tiny room that was Wil’s share of the refugee dorm. “I noticed something during the battle. I think it can save us all.” They talked for more than an hour. And when Chanson left, it was with the promise they would talk again in the morning.
Wil sat thinking for a long time after the other left. My God, if what Juan says is true…Juan’s story made sense; it tied up all the loose ends. He noticed he was shivering: not just his hands, his whole body. It was a combination of joy and fear.
He had to talk to Della about this. It would take planning, deception, and good luck, but if they played their cards exactly right, the settlement still had a chance!
On the third day, the survivors gathered at Castle Korolev, in the stone amphitheater. It was mostly empty now. The aborted war between New Mexico and the Peace had killed more than one hundred low-techs. Wil looked across the theater. How different this was from the last meeting here. Now the low-techs crowded together, leaving long sweeps of bench completely empty. There were few uniforms, and the insignia had been ripped from most of those. Ungovs, NMs, Peacers sat mixed together, hard to tell apart; they all looked beaten. No one sat on the top benches—where you could look down through the castle’s jacarandas at the swath of burn and glaze that had been Town Korolev.
Brierson had seen the list of dead. Still, his eyes searched across the crowd, as if he might somehow see the friends—and the enemy—he had lost. Derek Lindemann was gone. Wil was genuinely sorry about that—not so much for the man, but for losing the chance to prove he could face him without rage. Rohan was dead. Cheerful, decent Rohan. The brothers had taken Wil’s warning and hidden beneath their farm. Hours passed. The autons left. Rohan went outside to bring down the last of their equipment. When the bombs fell, he was caught in the open.
Dilip had come to the meeting alone. Now he sat with Gail Parker, talking softly.
“I suppose we can begin.” Yelén’s voice cut across the murmur of the crowd. Only the amplification gave her voice force; her tone was listless. The burden she had carried since Marta died had finally slipped, and crushed her. “For the low-techs, some explanations. You fought a war three days ago. By now, you know you were maneuvered into fighting. It was a cover for someone to grab our high-tech systems and start the larger fight you’ve seen in near space…Your war killed or maimed half the human race. Our war destroyed about ninety percent of our equipment.” She leaned against the podium, her head down. “It’s the end of our plan; we have neither the genetic resources nor the equipment to reestablish civilization.
“I don’t know about the other high-techs, but I’m not going to bobble out. I have enough resources to support you all for a few years. If I spread it around, what’s left of my medical resources should be enough to provide a twentieth-century level of care for many decades. After that…well, our life in the wilderness will be better than Marta’s, I guess. If we’re lucky, we may last a century; Sánchez did, and he had fewer people.”
She paused, and seemed to swallow something painful. “And you have another option. I—I’ve cut the suppressor field. You are all free to bobble out of this era.” Her gaze mov
ed reluctantly across the audience, to where Tammy Robinson sat. She sat alone, her face somber. Yelén had released her from stasis at the first opportunity after the battle. So far, Tammy had done nothing to take advantage of the debacle; her sympathy seemed genuine. On the other hand, she had nothing to lose by magnanimity. The wreckage of the Korolev plan was now hers for the taking.
Yelén continued. “I suppose that we really didn’t need a meeting for me to say this. But even though what Marta and I hoped for is dead, I still have one goal before we all fade into the wilderness.” She straightened, and the old fire came back to her voice. “I want to get the creature that killed Marta and wrecked the settlement! Except for some wounded low-techs, everyone is here this afternoon…Odds are the killer is, too. W. W. Brierson claims he knows who the killer is…and can prove it.” She looked up at him, her smile a bitter mocking. “What would you do, ladies and gentlemen, confronted by the most famous cop in all civilization—telling you he had suddenly solved the case you had spent a hundred years thinking on? What would you do if that cop refused to reveal the secret except to a meeting of all concerned?…I laughed in his face. But then I thought, what more is there to lose? This is W. W. Brierson; in the novels, he solves all his cases with a flashy denouement.” She bowed in his direction. “Your last case, Inspector. I wish you luck.” She walked from the stage.
Wil was already on his feet, walking slowly down the curve of the amphitheater. Someday he would have to read Billy’s novels. Had the boy really ended each by a confrontation with a roomful of suspects? In his real life, this was only the third time he had ever seen such a thing. Normally, you identified the criminal, then arrested him. A denouement with a roomful—in this case, an auditoriumful—of suspects meant that you lacked either the knowledge or the power to accomplish an arrest. Any competent criminal realized this, too; the situation was failure in the making.
And sometimes it was the best you could do. Wil was aware of the crowd’s absolute silence, of their eyes following him down the steps. Even the high-techs might be given pause by his reputation. For once, he was going to use the hype for all it was worth.
He stepped onto the stage and put his data set on the podium. He was the only person who could see the two clocks on the display. At this instant they read 00:11:32 and 00:24:52; the seconds ticked implacably downwards. He had about five minutes to set things up, else he would have to string the affair along for another twenty. Best to try for the first deadline—even that would require some stalling.
He looked across his audience, caught Juan’s eye. None of this would have been possible without him. “For the moment, forget the disaster this has come to. What do we have? Several isolated murders, the manipulation of the governments, and finally the takeover of the high-techs’ control systems. The murder of Marta Korolev and the system takeover are totally beyond the abilities of us low-techs. On the other hand, we know the enemy is not supernaturally powerful: He blew years of careful penetration in order to grab the systems. For all the damage he did, he wasn’t able to maintain control—and now his perversions have been recognized and repaired.” We hope.
“So. The enemy is one of the high-techs. One of these seven people.” With a sweep of his hand he pointed at the seven. They were all in the first few rows, but with the exception of Blumenthal—who sat at the edge of the low-techs—they were spread out, each an isolated human being.
Della Lu was dressed in something gray and shapeless. Her head injuries had been repaired, but the temporary substitute for her implants was a bulky interface band. She was into her weirdness act. Her eyes roamed randomly around the theater. Her expression flickered through various emotions, none having reasonable connection with the scene around her. Yet without her firepower, Wil knew, Philippe Genet and Monica Raines could not have been persuaded to attend.
Genet sat three rows in front of Della. For all that his attendance was coerced, he seemed to be enjoying himself. He leaned against the edge of the bench behind him, his hands resting across his middle. The smile on his face held the same amused arrogance Wil had seen at the North Shore picnic.
There was no pleasure in Monica Raines’ narrow face. She sat with hands tightly clasped, her mouth turned down at one side. Before the meeting, she’d made it clear that things had merely turned out as she had predicted. The human race had zapped itself once again; she had no interest in attending the wake.
Yelén had retreated to the far end of the front bench, as far from the rest of humanity as one could sit. Her face was pale, the previous emotion gone. She watched him intently. For all her mocking, she believed him…and revenge was all she had left now.
Wil let the silence stretch through two beats. “For various reasons, several of these seven might want to destroy the settlement. Tunç Blumenthal and Della Lu may not even be human—Juan has warned us often enough about the exterminators. Monica Raines has made no secret of her hostility towards the human race. Tammy Robinson’s family has the announced goal of breaking up the colony.”
“Wil!” Tammy was on her feet, her eyes wide. “We would never kill to—” She was interrupted by Della Lu’s quiet laughter. She looked over her shoulder and saw the wild look on Lu’s face. She looked back at Wil, her lips trembling. “Wil, believe me.”
Brierson waited for her to sit before he continued; the counts on his display flat were 00:10:11 and 00:23:31. “Evidently, a good motive is of no use in identifying the enemy. So let’s look at the enemy’s actions. Both the Peacer and NM governments were infiltrated. Can they tell us anything about who we’re up against?” Wil looked across the low-techs, Peacers and NMs together. He recognized top staff people from both sides. Several shook their heads. Someone shouted, “Fraley must have known!”
The last President of the Republic sat alone. His uniform still bore insignia, but he was slouched forward, his elbows on his knees and his hands propping up his chin. “Mr. President?” Wil said softly.
Fraley looked up without raising his head. Even his hatred for Wil seemed burnt out. “I just don’t know, Brierson. All our talks were over the comm. He used a synthetic voice and never sent video. He was with us almost from the beginning. Back then, he said he wanted to protect us from Korolev, said we were the only hope for stability. We got inside data, a few medical goodies. We didn’t even see the machines that made the deliveries. Later on, he showed me that someone else was backing the Peacers…From there, he owned our souls. If the Peace had high-tech backing, we’d be dead without our own. More and more, I was just his mouthpiece. In the end, he was all through our system.” Now Fraley raised his head. There were dark rings around his eyes. When he spoke again, there was a strange intensity in his voice; if his old enemy could forgive him, perhaps he could himself. “I had no choice, Brierson. I thought if I didn’t play ball, whoever was behind the Peace would kill us all.”
A woman—Gail Parker—shouted, “So you had no choice, and the rest of us followed orders. And—and like good little troopers, we all cut our own throats!”
Wil raised his hand. “It doesn’t matter, Gail. By that time, the enemy had complete control of your system. If you hadn’t pushed the buttons, they would have been pushed for you.” The short count on his display read 00:08:52. A map of the land around Castle Korolev suddenly flashed on the display, together with the words: “WIL: HE IS ARMED. GUNS AS ON MAP. I STILL SAY TO GO FOR IT. I’M READY ON THE MARK…00:08:51.”
Wil cleared the screen with a casual motion and continued talking. “It’s too much to expect that the enemy would have given away his name…Yet I’m sure Kim Tioulang had figured it out. There was some particular person he was trying to avoid when he talked to me at the North Shore picnic; he was trying to get to Town Korolev when he was murdered.
“And that raises an interesting question. Steve Fraley is a smart guy. What would Kim see that Steve would not? Kim went back a long way. He was one of the three planetary Directors of the Peace Authority. He was privy to every secret of that
government…” Wil looked at Yelén. “We’ve concentrated so much on superscientific plots and villains, we’ve forgotten the Machiavellis who came before us.”
“There’s no way our enemy could be a low-tech.” Yelén’s words were an objection, but there was sudden enthusiasm in her eyes.
Wil leaned across the podium. “Perhaps not now…but originally?” He pointed at Lu. “Consider Della. She grew up in the early twenty-first, was a top Peace cop. She also lived through most of the twenty-second. And now she’s probably the most powerful high-tech of all.”
Della had been mumbling to herself. Now her dark eyes came alive. She laughed, as if he had made a joke. “So true. I was born when people still died of old age. Kim and I fought for the last empire. And we fought dirty. Someone like me would be a tough enemy for the likes of you.”
“If it’s Della, we’re dead,” said Yelén. And revenge is impossible.
Wil nodded. The count stood at 00:07:43. “Who else fills the requirements? Someone high in the Peacer command structure. Of course, GreenInc shows that none of you high-techs have such a past. So this hypothetical other must have eluded capture during the fall of the Peace, covered his tracks, and lived a new life through the twenty-second. It must have been a disappointing situation for him: the Peace forces straggling back into realtime to be mopped up piecemeal, hope for a new Peace dying.”
00:07:10. He wasn’t speaking hypothetically anymore. “In the end, our enemy saw there was only one chance for the resurrection of his empire: the Peacer fort that was bobbled in Kampuchea. That was the Authority’s best-equipped redoubt. Like the others, it was designed to come back to realtime in about fifty years. But by some grotesque accident, its bobbler had generated an enormously longer stasis. All through the twenty-second it lay a few hundred meters below ground, an unremarkable battle relic. But our enemy had plans for it. Fifty million years: surely no other humans would exist in such a remote era. Here was a golden opportunity to start the Peace over, and with an empty world. So our Peacer accumulated equipment, medical supplies, a zygote bank, and left the civilization he hated.”