Across Realtime

FOUR

Tammy Robinson was a very frightened young woman; Wil didn't need police experience to see that. She paced back and forth across the room, hysteria sparking from the high edge in her voice. "How can you keep me in this cell? It's a dungeon!"

The walls were unadorned, off-white. But Wil could see doors opening onto a bedroom, a kitchen. There were stairs, perhaps to a study. Her quarters covered about 150 square meters - a little cramped by Wil's standards, but scarcely a punishing confinement. He stepped away from Della Lu and put his hand on Tammy's shoulder. "These are ship's quarters, Tam. Della Lu never expected to have passengers." That was only a guess, but it felt right. Lu's holdings were compact, built both vertically and horizontally. All the advanced travelers could take their households into space-but Lu's was designed to stay there, to be a home even in solar systems without planets. "You are in custody, but once we get to Town Korolev, you'll get better housing."

Della Lu tilted her head to one side. "Yes. Yel‚n Korolev is going to take care of you then. She has much better-"

"No!" It was almost a scream. Tammy's eyes showed white all around the irises. "I surrendered to you, Della Lu. And in good faith. I won't tell you anything if you... Korolev will-" She put her hand over her mouth and collapsed on a nearby sofa.

Wil sat down beside her as Della Lu pulled up a chair to sit facing them. Lu's black pants and high-collared jacket looked military, but she sat on the edge of her chair and watched Tammy's consternation with childlike curiosity. Wil cast a meaningful look in her direction (as if that would do any good) before continuing. "Tammy, there's no way we'll let Yel‚n get at you."

Tammy was upset, but no fool. She looked past Wil at the spacer. "Is that a promise, Della Lu?"

Lu gave an odd chuckle, but this time she didn't blow it "Yes. And it's a promise I can keep."

They stared at each other a silent moment. Then the girl shuddered, her whole body relaxing. "Okay. I'll talk. Of course I'll talk. That's the whole reason I stayed behind: to clear in\, family's name."

"You know what's happened to Marta?"

"I've heard Yel‚n's accusations. When we came out of that strange, overlong bobblement, she was all over the comm links. She said poor Marta got marooned in the present... that she died there." Frank horror showed on Tammy's face.

"That's right. Someone sabotaged the Korolev jump program. It lasted a century instead of three months, and left Marta outside of stasis."

"And my dad's the chief suspect?" Incredulously.

Wil nodded. "I saw your father arguing with Marta, Tam. And later she told me how your family wants the people of Town Korolev to join you.... Your plans would benefit if the settlement failed."

"Sure. But we're not some gang of twentieth-century thugs. Wil. We know we have something more attractive than the Korolev's' rehash of civilization. It'll take the average person a while to see this, but given a fair chance they'll come with us. Instead, Yel‚n's forced us to run for our lives."

"You don't think Marta's been killed?" said Lu.

Tammy shrugged. "No. That would be hard to fake, especially if you"-she was looking at Della-"insist on studying the remains. I think Marta was murdered-and I think Yel‚n is the murderer. All the talk about outside sabotage is just short of ridiculous."

This was certainly Wil's biggest worry. In his time, domestic violence was a leading cause of death. Yel‚n seemed the most powerful of the high-techs. If she were the villain, life might be short for successful investigators. But aloud: "She's truly broken up over losing Marta. If she's faking, she's very good at it."

Tammy's response was quick. "I don't think she's faking it. I think she killed Marta for some crazy personal reason, and terribly regrets the necessity. But now that it's done, she's going to use it to destroy all opposition to the great Korolev plan."

"Um." He, W. W. Brierson, might be the cause of Marta's death. Suppose Yel‚n conceived that she was losing her love to another. For some disturbed souls, such a loss was logically equivalent to the death of the beloved. They could murder and then honestly blame the loss on others.... Wil remembered the irrational hatred in Yel‚n's eyes when he walked into leer library.

He looked at Tammy with new respect. She'd never seemed this bright before. In fact... he felt just a little bit manipulated. For all her terror, the girl was a very cool character. "Tammy," he said quietly, "just how old are you, really?"

"I-'The tear-streaked adolescent face froze for a second. Then: "I've lived ninety years, Wil."

Forty years longer than I. Some daughter figure.

"B-but that's not a secret." New tears filled her eyes. "I'd've told anyone who asked. A-and I'm not faking my personality. I try to keep a fresh, open mind. We're going to live a long time, and Daddy says it helps if we grow up slowly, if we don't freeze into adult mind-sets like they did in the old days."

The Lu creature gave one of her strange little laughs. "That depends on how long you plan to live," she said to no one in particular.

Brierson suddenly realized that it was wishful thinking to regard himself an expert on human nature. Once he had been: now that expertise might be as obsolete as the rest of his knowledge. When he left civilization, life-prolonging medicine had been just a few decades old. At that time, Tammy's deception would have been almost impossible. Yel‚n Korolev had had about two hundred years to teach herself to lie. Della Lu was so disconnected from humanity, it was hard to make sense of her at all. How could he judge what such people said?

Might as well continue the sympathetic role. He patted Tammy's hand. "Okay, Tam. I'm glad you told us."

She smiled halfheartedly. "Don't you see, Wil? My dad's a suspect because we disagreed with Marta. We left to protect the family; my staying behind shows we're not running from an investigation.... But Yel‚n is. On the way down, Della Lu told me how Yel‚n wants you back in stasis right away. She'll be left all alone at the scene of the crime. By the time you two come out, the evidence will be tens of thousands years stale-heck, what evidence there is will've been manufactured by her.

"Now, I brought the family records for the weeks before our party. You and Della Lu should study them. They may be dull, but at least they're the truth."

Wil nodded. It was obvious the Robinsons had their story together. He let the interview go on another fifteen minutes, until Tammy seemed calm and almost relaxed. Lu spoke occasionally, her interjections sometimes perceptive, more often obscure. It was evident that-in itself-clearing the family l name me was of little importance to the Robinsons. When they were headed, present opinion would be less than dust. But the family still wanted recruits. Tammy's parents were convinced that the people of Town Korolev would eventually realize that settling in the present was a dead end, and that time itself was 11 the proper place for humanity. It might take a few decades, but ;f Tammy could survive the murder investigation, she would be f re e to wait and persuade. And eventually she would catch up With her family. Her parents had set a number of rendezvous in the megayears to come. Their exact locations were something she refused to reveal.

"You want to pace your lives, and live as long as the universe?" asked Lu.

"At least."

The spacer giggled. "And what will you do at the end?"

"That depends on how it ends." Tammy's eyes lit. "Daddy thinks that all the mysteries people have ever wondered on-even the Extinction-may be revealed there. It's the ultimate rendezvous for all thinking beings. If time is cyclic, we'll bobble through to the beginning and Man will be universal."

"And if the universe is open and dies forever?"

"Then perhaps we and the others can change that." Tammy shrugged. "But if we can't-well, we'll still be there. We will have seen it all. Daddy says we'll raise a glass and toast the memory of all of you that went before." She was still smiling.

And Brierson wondered if this might be the craziest of all his new acquaintances.

Afterwards, Wil tried to plan out the investigation with Della Lu. It was not easy.

"Was Ms. Robinson distressed at the beginning of the interview?" asked Lu.

Wil rolled his eyes heavenward. "Yes, I believe she was."

"Ah. I thought so, too."

"Look, uh, Della. What Tammy says about Yel‚n makes sense. It's absurd for the cops-us-to leave the murder scene like this. Back in Michigan, we would have dropped any customer who demanded such a thing. Now, Yel‚n is right that ink, hanging around to investigate the physical evidence would be amateurish. But your equipment is as good as hers-"

"Better."

"-and she should be willing to let you postpone bobbling long enough to gather evidence."

Lu was silent for a moment-talking through her headband' "1-Is. Korolev wants to be alone for emotional reasons."

"Hmph. She has thousands of years to be alone before the Peacers come out. You should at least do an autopsy and record the physical evidence."

"Very well. Ms. Korolev is a suspect, then?"

Wil spread his hands. "At this stage, she and the Robinsons have to be at the top of our list. Once we start poking around, it may be easy to scratch her. Just now it would be totally unprofessional to have her do the field investigation."

"Is Ms. Korolev friendly towards you?"

"Huh? Not especially. What does that have to do with the investigation?"

"Nothing. I'm trying to find a..."-she seemed to search for the word-"a role model for talking to you."

Wil smiled faintly, thinking back to Yel‚n's hostility. "I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't model on her."

"Okay." Unsmiling.

If Lu were as smart with gadgets as she was dumb with people, they would make the best detective team in history. "There is something else, something very important, that I need. Yel‚n has promised me physical protection and access to leer databases. I'd like to have your protection, too-at least till we can clear her."

"Certainly. If you wish, I'll manage your jump forward, too."

"And I'd like access to your databases." Cross-checking Korolev couldn't hurt.

The spacer hesitated. "Okay. But some of the information isn't very accessible."

Wil looked around Della's cabin-command bridge? It was even smaller than Tammy's quarters, and almost as stark. A small cluster of roses grew from Della's desk; their scent filled the air. A watercolor landscape hung on the wall facing the spacer. The life tones and shadows were subtly wrong, as if the artist were clumsy... or the scene not of this Earth.

And Brierson was putting his life in this person's hands. In this universe of strangers, he must trust some more than others, but... "How old are you, Della?"

"I've lived nine thousand years, Mr. Brierson. I have been away... a long time. I have seen much." Her dark eyes took on that cold, far look he remembered from their first encounters. For a moment, she looked past him, perhaps at the watercolor, perhaps beyond. Then the expressionless gaze returned to his face. "1 think it's time I rejoined the human race."