Across Realtime

SEVENTEEN

The next few days fell into a pattern, mostly a pleasant one: The afternoons he spent with one or another group of low-techs.

He saw several mines. They were still heavily automated. Many were open-pit affairs; fifty million years had created whole new ore beds. (The only richer pickings were in the asteroid belt, and one of Yel‚n's retrenchments was to give up most space activities.) The settlement's factories were like nothing that had existed in history, a weird combination of high-tech custom construction and the primitive production lines which would eventually dominate. Thanks to Gail Parker he even saw an NM tractor factory; he was surprised by a generally friendly reception.

In some ways the North Shore picnic had been misleading. Wil discovered that, although most people agreed with Tioulang's complaints against Korolev, few ungovs seriously considered giving their sovereignty to either the Peace or New Mexico. In fact, there had already been some quiet defections from the statist camps.

People were as busy as Rohan claimed. Ten-, twelve-hour days were the rule. And much of the remaining time was filled with scheming to maximize long-term gain. Most of the high tech giveaways had already been traded several times. When lie visited the Dasguptas' farm he saw they were also making farm machinery. He told them about the NM factory. Rohan just smiled innocently. Dilip leaned back against one of his home-brew tractors and crossed his arms. "Yes, I've talked to Gail about that. Fraley wants to buy us out. If the price is right, maybe we'll let him. Heh, heh. Both NMs and Peacers are heavy in tool production. I can see what's going on in their tiny brains. Ten years down the road, they figure on a classic peasant/factory confrontation-with them on top. Poor Fraley; sometimes I feel sorry for him. Even if the NMs and the Peace merged, they still wouldn't have all the factories, or even half the mines. Yel‚n says her databases and planning software will be available for centuries. There are ungov technical types better than anyone Fraley has. Rohan and I know commodity trading. Hell, a lot of us do, and market planning, too." He smirked happily. "In the end, he'll lose his shirt."

Wil grinned back. Dilip Dasgupta had never lacked for self-confidence. In this case he might be right... as long as the NMs and the Peace couldn't use force.

Wil's evening debriefings with Yel‚n were not quite so much fun, though they were more congenial than the one after the North Shore picnic. Her auton followed him everywhere, so she usually heard and saw everything he did. Sometimes it seemed that she wanted to rehash every detail; finding Marta's murderer was a goal never far from her mind, especially now that it seemed part of a general sabotage scheme. But just as often she wanted his estimate of the low-techs' attitudes and intentions. Their conversations were a weird mix of social science, paranoia, and murder investigation.

Tammy had been bobbled within hours of the picnic. Since then, there had been no signs of high-tech interference. Either she was responsible for it (and had been terribly clumsy), or the glowball and paint were part of something still inscrutable.

Apparently the low-techs were oblivious to this latest twist. Over the last few weeks they had seen and used an enormous amount of equipment; most had no way of knowing the source or "sanctity" of what was provided. And Yel‚n had erased the polka-dot graffiti from Wil's gate. On the other hand, it was certain that some NMs knew of the bootlegging, enough that Tioulang's spies had gotten the news. Knowing the NM organization, Wil couldn't imagine any conspiracy independent of Steve Fraley.

Yel‚n dithered with the notion of seizing Fraley and his staff for interrogation, in the end decided against it. There was the same problem as with grabbing Tioulang. Besides, Marta's plan seemed to be working. The first phases-the giveaway, the establishment of agreements among the low-techs-were delicate steps that depended on everyone's confidence and goodwill. Even in the best of circumstances-and the last few days did seem about as good as things could get-the low-techs had all sorts of reasons for disliking the queen on the mountain.

And that was one of Korolev's main interests in pumping Brierson. She took every complaint that appeared on the recordings and asked for Wil's analysis. More, she wanted to know the problems he sensed but that went unsaid. It was one of the happier parts of Wil's new job, one he suspected that most of the low-techs understood, too.... Would his reception at the NM tractor plant have been quite so cordial otherwise?

Yel‚n was amused by Dilip Dasgupta's dealings with New Mexico: "Good for him; no one should be taking any crap from those atavists.

"You know what Tioulang and Fraley did when I started Mama's giveaway?" she continued. "They told me how they had their disagreements, but that the future of the race was of supreme importance; their experts had gotten together, come up with a `Unity Plan.' It specified production goals, resource allocation, just what every damn person was going to do for the next ten years. They expected me to jam this piece of wisdom down everyone's throat.... Idiots. I have software that's spent decades crunching on these problems, and 1 can't plan at the level of detail these jerks pretend to. Marta would be proud of me, though; I didn't laugh out loud. I just smiled sweetly and said anyone who wanted to follow their plan was certainly welcome to, but that I couldn't dream of enforcing it. They were insulted even so; I guess they thought I was being sarcastic. It was after that that Tioulang started peddling his line about majority rule and unity against the queen on the mountain."

Other items were more serious, and did not amuse her at all. There were 140 low-tech females. Since the founding of the settlement, her medical service had diagnosed only four pregnancies. "Two of the women requested abortions! I will not do abortions, Brierson! And I want every woman off contraceptive status."

They had talked around this problem before; Wil didn't know quite what to say. "This could just drive them into the arms of the NMs and Peacers." Come to think of it, this was one issue where Korolev and the governments probably saw eye to eye. Fraley and Tioulang might make a show of supporting reproductive freedom, but he couldn't imagine it as more than a short-term ploy.

The anger left Yel‚n's voice. She was almost pleading. "Don't they see, Wil? There have been settlements before. Most were just a family or two, but some-like Sanch‚z's were around half our size. They all failed. I think ours may be big enough. Just barely. If the women can average ten children each over the next thirty years, and if their daughters can perform similarly, then we'll have enough people to fill the gaps left as automation fails. But if they can't, then the technology will fail, and we'll actually lose population. All my simulations show that what's left won't be a viable species. In the end, there'll be a few high-techs living a few more subjective centuries with what's left of their equipment."

Marta's vision of a flamed-out ramjet diving Earthwards passed through Wil's mind. "I think the low-tech women want humanity back as much as you, Yel‚n. But it takes a while to get hardened to this situation. Things were so different back in civilization. A man or a woman could decide where and when and whether-"

"Inspector, don't you think that I know that? I lived forte years in civilization, and I know that what we have here stinks.... But it's all we've got."

There was a moment's awkward silence, then: "One thing I don't understand, Yel‚n. Of all the travelers, you and Marta had the best intuition about the future. Why didn't..." The words slipped out before he could stop them; he really wasn't trying to provoke a fight. "Why didn't you think to bring along automatic wombs and a zygote bank?"

Korolev's face reddened, but she didn't blow up. After a second she said, "We did. As usual, it was Marta's idea. I made the purchase. But... I screwed up." She looked away from Brierson. It was the first time he'd seen shame in her manner. "I, I didn't test the shipment enough. The company was rated AAAA; it should have been safe as houses. And we were so busy those last few weeks... but I should have been more careful." She shook her head. "We had plenty of time later, on the future side of the Singularity. The equipment was junk, Brierson. The wombs and postnatal automation were shells, with just enough processing power to fake the diagnostics."

"And the zygotes?"

Yel‚n gave a bitter laugh. "Yes. With bobbles it should be impossible to mess that up, right? Wrong. The zygotes were malformed, the sort of nonviable stuff even Christians won't touch.

"I've studied that company through GreenInc; there's nothing that could have tipped us off. But after their last rating, the owners must have gutted their company. The behavior was criminal; when they were caught, it would take them decades to make reparations. Or maybe we were a one-shot fraud; maybe they knew I was making a long jump." She paused. The zip returned to her voice. "I wish they were here now. I wouldn't have to sue them; I'd just drop 'em into the sun.

"Sometimes innocent people have to pay for the mistakes of others, Inspector. That's how it is here. These women must start producing. Now."

Wil spread his hands. "Give them, give us some time."

"It may be hard for you to believe, but time is something we don't have a whole lot of. We waited fifty million years to get everyone together. But once this exercise is begun, there are certain deadlines. You've noticed that I haven't given away any medical equipment."

Wil nodded. Peacer and NM propaganda noticed it loudly. Everyone was welcome to use the high-techs' medical services, but, like their bobblers and fighting gear, their medical equipment had not been part of the giveaway.

"We have almost three hundred people here now. The high-end medical equipment is delicate stuff. It consumes irreplaceable materials; it wears out. This is already happening, Brierson, faster than a linear scale-up would predict. The synthesizers must constantly recalibrate to handle each individual."

There was a tightness in Wil's throat. He wondered if this was how a twentieth-century type might feel on being told of inoperable cancer. "How long do we have?"

She shrugged. "If we gave full support, and if the population did not increase, maybe fifty years. But the population must increase, or we won't be able to maintain the rest of our technology. The children will need plenty of health care.... Now, I don't know how long it will be before the new civilization can make its own medical equipment. It could take anywhere from fifty to two hundred years, depending on whether we have to mark time waiting for a really large population or can get exponential tech growth with only a few thousand people.

"No one need die of old age; I'm willing to bobble the deathbed cases. But there will be old age. I'm not supplying age maintenance-and, with certain exceptions, I will not for at least a quarter century."

Wil was a biological twenty. Once, he'd let it slide to thirty -and discovered that he was not a type that aged gracefully. He remembered the flab, the belly that swelled over his pants.

Yel‚n smiled at him coldly. "Aren't you going to ask me about the exceptions?"

Damn you, thought Wil.

When he didn't reply, she continued. "The trivial exception: those so foolish or unfortunate as to be over bio-forty right now. I'll set their clocks back once.

"The important exception: any woman, for as long as she stays pregnant." Yel‚n sat back, a look of grim satisfaction on her face. "That should supply any backbone that is missing."

Wil stared at her wonderingly. Just a few minutes before, Yel‚n had been acting as a civilized person might, all amused by the Peacer/NM plans for central control. Now she was talking about running the low-techs' personal lives.

There was a long silence. Yel‚n understood the point. He could tell by the way she tried to stare him down. Finally her gaze broke. "Damn it, Brierson, it has to be done. And it's moral, too. We high-techs each own our medical equipment. We've agreed on this action. Just how we invest our charity is surely our business."

They had argued the theory before. Yel‚n's logic was a thin thing, going a bit beyond what shipwreck law Wil knew. After all, the advanced travelers had brought the low-techs here, and would not allow them to bobble out of the era. More clearly than ever, he understood Yel‚n's reaction to Tammy. It would take so little to destroy the settlement. And over the next few years, disaffection was bound to grow.

Like it or not, Wil was working for a government. Sieg Heil.