Marooned in Realtime

TWENTY

After supper, Wil sat for a long time in the ruins of his living room. He was directly responsible for very little of the destruction: He had punched bloody holes in one wall and demolished a mirror. The guard autons had let that go on for perhaps fifteen seconds before deciding it was a threat to his safety. Then they bobbled him: The walls near the mirror were cut by a clean, curving line. A smooth depression dipped thirty centimeters below the floor, into the foundation. Even the bobbling had not caused the worst damage. That happened when Yelén and Della cut the bobble out of the house. Apparently they wanted their equipment to have a direct view when it burst. He looked at the wall clock. It was the same day as before; they'd kept him on ice just long enough to get him out ref the house.

If Wil's sense of humor had been enabled, he might have smiled. All this supported Yelén's claim that the house was not infested by her equipment. The best the protection autons could do was bobble everything and call for help.

Things were different now. From where he sat, Wil saw several robots foaming a temporary wall. Beside his chair sat a medical auton, about as animated as a garbage can. Somewhere it had hands; they'd been a big help with supper.

He watched the reconstruction with interest, even turned on the room lights when night came. This GriefStop was great stuff. Simple drives like hunger weren't affected. He felt as alert and coordinated as usual. He was simply beyond the reach of emotion; yet, strangely, it was easy to imagine how things would affect him without the drug. And that knowledge did make for some weak motivation. For instance, he hoped the Dasguptas would not stop by on their way home. He guessed that explanations would be difficult.

Wil stood and walked to his reading table. The auton glided silently after him. Something smaller floated up from the mantel. He sat down, suddenly guessing that GriefStop had never been a hit on the recreational drug market. There were side effects: Everything moved a little bit slow. Sounds came low-pitched, drawn out. It wasn't enough to panic him (he doubted if anything could do that just now), but reality had a faint edge of waking nightmare. His silent visitors intensified the feeling,... Ah well, paranoia was the name of the game.

He turned on his desk lamp, cut the room lights. Somehow the destruction had spared the desk and reading display. The last page of Marta's diary floated in the circle of light. He guessed that rereading that page would be very upsetting to his normal self-so he didn't look at it. Della was right. There ought to be better leisure-time activities. This day would hang his normal self low for a long time to come. He hoped that he wouldn't come back to the diary, to tear at the wounds he'd opened today. Perhaps he should erase it; the inconvenience of coercing another copy from Yelén might be enough to save his normal self.

Wil spoke into the darkness. "House. Delete Marta's diary." The display showed his command and the ideation net associated with "Marta's diary."

"The whole thing?" the house asked.

Wil's hand hovered over the commit. "Unh, no. Wait." Curiosity was a powerful thing with Brierson. He'd just remembered something that could force his normal self to go against all common sense and retrieve another copy. Better check it out now, then zap the diary.

When he first received the diary, he'd asked for all references to himself. There had been four. He had seen three; She'd mentioned calling him back from the beach the day of the Peacer rescue. There'd been the fisher she'd named after him. Then, around year thirty-eight, she'd recommended Yelén use his services-even though she'd forgotten his name lay then. That was the reference which hurt so much the first time he looked at the document. Wil guessed he could forgive that now; those years would have destroyed the soul of a lesser person, not simply blurred a few memories.

But what was the fourth reference? Wil repeated the context search. Ah. No wonder he had missed it. It appeared about year thirteen, tucked away in one of her essays on the plan. In this one, she wrote on each of the low-techs she remembered, citing strengths and weaknesses, trying to guess how they would react to the plan. In a sense it was a foolish exercise-Marta granted that much more elaborate analysis existed on the Korolev db's — but she hoped her "time of solitude" had given her new insights. Besides (unsaid), she needed to be doing something useful in the years that stretched before her.

Ť Wil Brierson. An important one. I never believed the commercial mythology, much less the novels his son wrote. Yet.. , since we've known him in person, I've concluded he may be almost as sharp as they make him out to be. At least in some ways. If you and I can't figure out who did this to me, he might still be able to.

Ť Brierson has a lot of respect among the low-techs. That and his general competence would be a real help against Steve Fraley and whoever will run the Peacer show. But what if he opposes our plan? That may seem ridiculous; he was born in a civilized era. Yet I'm not sure of the man. One thing about civilization, it allows the most extreme types to find a niche where they can live to their own and others' benefit. Here, we are temporarily beyond civilization; people we could abide before might now be dangerous. Wil is still disoriented; maybe that accounts for his behavior. But he may have a mean, irrational streak under his friendly exterior. I only have one piece of evidence, something I've been a little ashamed to tell you about:

Ť You know I was attracted to the guy. Well, he followed me when I stormed out of Don Robinson's show. Now, I wasn't trying to flirt; I was just so mad at Don's sneakiness, I had, to open up to someone — and you were in deep connect. We' talked for several minutes before I realized that the pats on my shoulder, the hand at my waist, were not brotherly comfort. It was my fault for letting it get that far, but he wouldn't take no for an answer. The guy is big; he actually started knocking me around. If the rest of the evening hadn't begun my great "adventure," the bruises he left on my chest would have had medical attention. You see, Lelya? Mean to beat me when I refused him. Irrational for doing it with Fred just five meters away. I had to suppress the auton's reflexes, or Brierson would have been stunned for a week. Finally, I slapped his face as hard as I could, and threatened him with Fred. He backed off then, and seemed genuinely embarrassed. ť

Wil read the paragraph again and again. It hung in the circle of light from his desk lamp... and not one letter changed. He wondered how his normal self would react to Marta's words. Would he be enraged? Or simply crushed that she could say such a lie?

He thought for a long time, vaguely aware of the nightmare edge of the darkness around him. Finally he knew. The reaction would not be rage, would not be hurt. When he could feel again, there would be triumph: The case had cracked. For the first time, he knew he would get Marta's murderer.