"No. As I said, I can't watch as closely as before. I talked to Phil Genet about it. He hasn't noticed anything with the Peacers, but he says NM radio traffic has changed during the last few hours. I'm looking into that." She paused. For the first time, he saw fear in her face. "These next few hours we could lose it all, Wil. Everything Marta ever hoped for."
"Yes. Or we could nail the enemy cold, and save her plan.... How are things set for tomorrow?"
His question brought back the normal Yel‚n. "This delay cost us the advantage of surprise, but it also means we're better prepared. Della has an incredible amount of equipment. I knew her expedition to the Dark Companion made money, but I never imagined she could afford all this. Almost all of it will be in position by tomorrow. She'll land by your place at sunup. It's all your show then.
"You're not coming?"
"No. In fact, I'm out of your inner-security zone. My equipment will handle peripheral issues, but... Della and I talked it over. If I-my system-is deeply perverted, the enemy could turn it on you."
"Hmm." He'd been counting on the dual protection; if he'd guessed wrong about one of them, the other would still be there. But if Yel‚n herself thought she might lose control... "Okay. Della seemed in pretty good form this afternoon."
"Yes. I have a theory that under stress the appropriate personality comes to the surface. She's driftiest after she's been by herself for a while. I'm talking to her right now, and she seems okay. With any luck, she'll still be wearing her cop personality tomorrow."
After Yel‚n signed off, Wil looked at the stuff she was sending over. It grew much faster than he could read it, and there were new developments all the time. Genet vas right about the NMs. They were using a new encryption scheme, one that Yel‚n couldn't break. That in itself was more of an anachronism than polka-dot paint or antigrav volleyballs. Under other circumstances, she would have raided them for it, and diplomacy be damned.... Now she was stretched so thin that all she could do was watch.
Tioulang's murder. The high-tech manipulation of Fraley. There was some fundamental aspect of the killer's motivation that Wil didn't understand. If he wanted to destroy the colony, he could have done that long ago. So Wil had concluded that the enemy wanted to rule. Now he wondered. Was the low-techs' survival simply a bargaining chip to the killer?
It was a long night.
Brierson was standing by his window when Della's flier came down. It was still twilight at ground level, but he could see sunlight on the treetops. He grabbed his data set and walked out of the house. His step was brisk, adrenaline-fueled.
"Wait, Will" The Dasguptas were on their front porch. He stopped, and they ran down the street toward him. He hoped his guardians weren't trigger-happy.
"Did you know?" Rohan began, and his brother continued. `'The Peacer boss was murdered last night. It looks like the N Ms did it."
"Where did you hear?" He couldn't imagine Yel‚n spreading the news.
"The Peacer news service. Is it true, Wil?"
Brierson nodded. "We don't know who did it, though."
"Damn!" Dilip was as upset as Wil had ever seen him. "After all the talk about peaceful competition, I thought the NMs and Peacers had changed their ways. If they start shooting, the rest of us are... Look, Wil, back in civilization this couldn't happen. They'd have every police service in Asia down on them. Can-can we count on Yel‚n to keep these guys out of our way?"
Wil knew that Yel‚n would die before she'd let the NMs and Peacers fight. But today, dying might not be enough. The Dasguptas saw the tip of a game that extended beyond their knowing-and Wil's. He looked at the brothers, saw unmet i red trust in their faces. What could he do?... Maybe the truth would help. "We think this is tied up with Marta's murder, Dilip." He jerked a thumb at Della's flier. "That',., what I'm checking out now. If there's shooting, I'll bet you see more than low-techs involved. Look. I'll get Yel‚n to lower he r suppressor field; you could bobble up for the next couple of days."
"Our equipment, too."
"Right. In any case, get people spread out and under cover. There was nothing more he could say, and the brothers seemed to know it.
"Okay, Wil," Rohan said quietly. "Luck to us all."
Della's flier was bigger than usual, and there were five poor, strapped around its midsection.
But the crew area didn't have the feel of a combat vehicle It wasn't the lack of control and display panels. When Wil left civilization, those were vanishing items. Even the older mode had provided command helmets that allowed the pilot to see the outside world in terms of what was important to the mission. The newer ones didn't need the helmets; the windows themselves were holo panels on artificial reality. But there were no command helmets in Della's flier, and the windows shower! the same version of reality that clear glass would. The floor way carpeted. Unwindowed sections of the wall were decorated with Della's strange watercolors.
As he climbed aboard, Wil gestured at the strap-on pod,; "Extra guns?"
"No. Those are defensive. There's a tonne of matter/antimatter in each one."
"Ugh." He sat down and strapped in. Defensive-like a flak: jacket made of plastique?
Lu pulled more than two g's getting them off the street; no simple elevator rides today. Half a minute passed, and she cut the drive. Up and up and up they fell, Wil's stomach protesting the way. They topped out around ten thousand meter', where she resumed one g.
It was a beautiful day. The low sun angle put the forested highlands into jagged relief. He couldn't see much of Town Korolev, but Yel‚n's castle was a shadowed pattern of gold and green. Northwards, clouds hid the lowlands and the sea. To the south, the mountains rose gray above the timberline to snow-topped peaks. The Indonesian Alps were the Rockies writ large.
Lu's eyes were open but unfocused. "Just want to have some maneuvering room." Then she looked at Wil and smiled. "Where to, boss?"
"Della, did you hear what I told the Dasguptas? Yel‚n should turn off her suppressors. Maybe a few low-techs will bobble out of this era, but she can't just leave everyone exposed."
:'Wil, haven't you been reading your mail?"
"Unh, most of it." All night long it had been coming in, faster than he could keep up. He'd read all the red-tag stuff, until falling asleep an hour before dawn.
"We don't know the reason, but it's clear now the enemy may try to kill lots of low-techs. For the last sixty minutes, Yel‚n's been trying to remove bobble suppression from Australasia. She can't do it."
"Why not? It's her own equipment!" Wil felt stupid the moment he spoke.
"Yes. You could scarcely ask for better proof that her system is perverted, could you?" Her smile widened.
"If she can't turn them off, can you just blow them up?"
"We may decide to try that. But we don't know exactly how her defenses might respond. Besides, the enemy may have his own suppressor system ready to come on the moment Yel‚n's drops out."
"So no one can bobble up."
"It's a large-volume, low-intensity field, good enough to suppress any low-tech generators. But my bobblers can still self-enclose; my best still have some range."
For a moment, the purpose of this trip was forgotten. There must be some way to protect low-techs. Evacuate them from the suppression zone? That maneuver might put them in even more danger. Fly in high-power bobblers? He abruptly realize( that the high-techs must be giving much deeper thought that he could to the problem. The problem he had precipitated Face it. The only way he could contribute now was by succeed ing with his mission: to identify the killer. Della's original question was the one he should be answering. Where to? "Are: we certified free of eavesdroppers?" Lu nodded. "Okay. We start from Peacer Lake."