Still under acceleration, the shuttle did a slow turn, the only evidence being a faint queasiness in the passengers' guts. Now they were flying tailfirst into the darkness. They were halfway home.
Wil settled back in his seat, let his mind wander back over the day. Detective work had been easier in civilization. There, most things were what they seemed. You had your employers, their clients, collateral services. In most cases, these were people you had worked with for years; you knew who you could trust. Here, it was paranoid heaven. Except for Lindemann, he knew no one from before. Virtually all the high-techs were twisted creatures. Chanson, Korolev, Raines, Lu-they had all lived longer than he, some for thousands of years. They were all screwier than the types he was used to dealing with. And Genet. Genet was not so strange; Wil had known a few like him. There were lots of mysteries about Genet's life in civilization, but one thing was clear as crystal after tonight: Phil Genet was a people-owner, barely under control. Whether or not he had killed anyone, murder was in his moral range.
On the other hand, Blumenthal seemed to be a genuinely nice guy. He was an involuntary traveler like Wil, but without the Lindemann burden.
Brierson suppressed a smile. In the standard mystery plot, such all-around niceness would be a sure sign of guilt. In the real world, things rarely worked that way.... Damn. In this real world, almost anything could be true. Okay, what grounds could there be for suspecting Blumenthal? Motive? Certainly none was visible. In fact, very little was known about Blumenthal. The 2201 GreenInc listed him as ten years old, a child employee in a family-owned mining company. There was scarcely more information about the company. It was small, operating mainly in the comet cloud. Wil had less hard information on Blumenthal than on any other high-tech, Genet excepted. As the last human to leave civilization, there had been no one to write Tun‡'s biography. It was only Tun‡'s word that he'd been bobbled in 2210. It could have been later, perhaps from the heart of the Singularity. He claimed an industrial accident had blown him into the sun. Come to think of it, what corroboration could there be for that either? And if it wasn't an accident, then most likely he was the loser in a battle of nukes and bobbles, where the victors wanted the vanquished permanently dead.
Wil suddenly wondered where Tun‡ stood on Chanson's list of potential aliens.
Scattered streetlamps shone friendly through the trees, and then the flier was on the ground. Wil and the Dasguptas piled out, feeling light-headed in the sudden return to one gravity.
They had landed on the street that ran past their homes. Wil said good night to Rohan and Dilip and walked slowly up the street toward his place. He couldn't remember when so many things, both physical and mental, had been jammed into one afternoon. The residual effects of the stun added overwhelming fatigue to it all. He glanced upwards but saw only leaves, backlit by a streetlamp. No doubt the autons were still up there, hidden behind the trees.
Such an innocuous thing, the glowball. And the explanation might be innocuous, too: Maybe Yel‚n had simply given it to the NMs, or maybe they'd swiped it themselves. Surely it was a trivial item in a high-tech's inventory. The fact that she hadn't demanded a late-night session was a good sign. After he dot a good sleep, he might be able to laugh at Genet.
Wil walked along the edge of his lot. He reached the gate.. and stopped cold. Crude letters were spraygunned across the gate and surrounding wall. They spelled the words LO TECH DONT MEAN NO TECH. The message had scarcely registered on his mind when white light drenched the scene. Yel‚n's auton had dropped to man-height beside Wil. Its spotlight fanned across the gateway.
Brierson stepped close to the wall. The paint was still wet. I t glittered in the light. He stared numbly at the lettering.
Polka-dot paint, green on purple. The bright green disks were perfectly formed, even where the paint had dribbled ;downwards. It was the sort of thing you see often enough on data sets-and never in the real world.
Yel‚n's voice came from the auton. "Take a good look. Brierson. Then come inside; we've got to talk."
FIFTEEN
The lights came on even before he reached the house. Wil walked into the living room and collapsed in his favorite chair. Two conference bolos were lit: Yel‚n was on one, Della the other. Neither looked happy. Korolev spoke first. "I want Tammy Robinson out of our time, Inspector."
Wil started to shrug, Why ask me? He glanced at Della Lu, remembered that he was damn close to being arbiter in this dispute. "Why?"
"It should be obvious now. The deal was that we would let her stay in realtime as long as she didn't interfere. Well, it's sure as hell clear someone is backing the NMs-and she's the best suspect."
"But suspect only," said Lu. The spacer's face and costume were a strange contrast. She wore frilly pants and halter, the sort of outfit Wil would have expected at the picnic. Yet he hadn't seen her there. Had she simply peeped, too shy or aloof to show up? Whatever personality matched the outfit, it scarcely fit her expression now. It was cold, determined. "I gave her my word that "
Yel‚n slapped the table in front of her. "Promises be damned! The survival of the settlement comes first, Lu. YOU of all people should know that. If you won't hobble Robinson, then stand aside and let--"
Della smiled, and suddenly she seemed a lot deadlier, a lot more determined than Korolev-with all her temper-ever had. "I will not stand aside, Yel‚n."
"Um." Yel‚n sat back, perhaps remembering that Della was one of the most heavily armed of the travelers, perhaps thinking of the centuries of combat experience Lu had had with hey weapons. She glanced at Brierson. "Will you talk some sense to her? We've got a life-and-death situation here."
"Maybe. But Tammy is only one suspect-and the one who is most carefully watched. If she was up to something, surely you'd have direct evidence?"
"Not necessarily. I figure I'll need a medium recon capability for at least another century of realtime. I can't afford a `no-sparrow-shall-fall' network; I'd run out of consumables in a few months. I have kept a close watch on Robinson, but if her family stashed autons before they left, it wouldn't take much for her to communicate with them. All she has to do is give away some trinkets, make these low-techs a bit more dissatisfied. I'll bet she has high-performance bobblers hidden near the Inland Sea. If she can lead her little friends there, we'll be looking at a lot of long-term bobbles-and an end to the plan."
If the Robinsons had prepared their departure that carefully. they were probably responsible for Marta's murder, too. "Hog 'bout a compromise? Take her out of circulation for a few months."
"I promised her, Wil."
"I know. But this would be voluntary. Explain the situation to her. If she's innocent, she'll be as upset by all this as we are A three-month absence won't hurt her announced goals, and will very likely prove her innocent. If it does, then she could have a lot more freedom afterwards."
"What if she doesn't agree?"
"I really think she will, Della." If not, then we'll see if f my integrity can stand up to Yel‚n as well as yours does.
Yel‚n said, "I would buy a three-month bobbling-though we may go through this same argument again at the end of it."
"Okay. I'll talk to Tammy." Della looked down at her frilly outfit, and a strange expression crossed her face. Embarrassment? "I'll get back to you." Her image vanished.
Wil looked at the remaining bolo. Yel‚n was in her library. Sunlight streamed through its fake windows. Night and day must have little meaning to Yel‚n; that made Wil feel even more tired.