Lots o f people. Like more than a single family. Brierson glimpsed the abyss that separated them.
"1 think you'll like having other people around, Tammy."
She smiled and squeezed his arm. "Daddy always says that. Now I'm beginning to understand."
"Just think. Before you're a hundred, Korolev Town will be almost like a city. There could be a couple of thousand people for you to know, people more interesting and worthwhile than criminals."
"Ugh. We're not going to stay for that. I want to be with lots of people-hundreds at least. But how could you stand to be locked in one little corner of time?" She looked at him, seemed suddenly to realize that Brierson's whole life had been stuck in a single century. "Gee. How can I explain it? Look- where you come from, there was air and space travel, right?" Brierson nodded. "You could go anywhere you wanted. Now, suppose instead you had to spend your life in a house in a deep valley. Sometimes you hear stories about other places, but you can never climb out of the valley. Wouldn't that drive you crazy?
"That's how I'd feel about making a permanent stop at Korolev. We've been stopped for six weeks now. That's not long compared to some of our stops, but it's long enough for me to get the feeling: The animals aren't changing. I look out and the mountains just sit there." She made a little sound of frustration. "Oh, I can't explain it. But you'll see some of what I mean tonight. Daddy's going to show the video we made. It's beautiful!"
Wil smiled. Bobbles didn't change the fact that time was a one-way trip.
She saw the denial in his eyes. "You must feel like I do. Just a little? I mean, why did you go into stasis in the first place?" He shook his head. "Tammy, there are lots of people here who never asked to be bobbled.... I was shanghaied." A crummy embezzlement case it had been. When he thought back, it was so fresh in his mind, in many ways more real than the world of the last few weeks. The assignment had seemed as safe as houses. The need for an armed investigator had been a formality, required by his company's archaic regs: the amount stolen was just over the ten thousand gAu. But someone had been desperate or careless... or just plain vicious. Most jurisdictions of Wil's era counted offensive bobbling of more than a century as manslaughter: Wil's stasis had lasted one thousand centuries. Of course, Wil did not consider the crime to be the murder of one W. W. Brierson. The crime was much more terrible than that. The crime was the destruction of the world he had known, the family he loved.
Tammy's eyes grew wide as he told his story. She tried to understand, but Wil thought there was more wonder than sympathy in her look. He stopped short, embarrassed.
He was trying to think of a suitable change of subject when he noticed the pale figure on the far side of the dance floor. It was the person he'd seen at the beach. "Tammy, who's that?" He nodded in the direction of the stranger.
Tammy pulled her gaze away from his face and looked across the room. "Oh! She's weird, isn't she? She's a spacer. Can you imagine? In fifty million years, she could travel all over the Galaxy. We think she's more than nine thousand years old..And all that time alone." Tammy shivered.
Nine thousand years. That would make her the oldest human Wil had ever seen. She certainly looked more human tonight than on the beach. For one thing, she wore more clothes: a blouse and skirt that were definitely feminine. Now her skull was covered with short black stubble. Her face was smooth and pale. Wil guessed that when her hair grew out, she might look like a normal young woman-Chinese, probably.
A half-meter of emptiness surrounded the spacer; elsewhere the crowd was packed close. Many clapped and sang; there was scarcely a person who could resist tapping a foot or nodding in time to the music. But the spacer stood quietly, almost motionless, her dark eyes staring impassively into the dancers. Occasionally her arm or leg would twitch, as if in some broken resonance with the tunes.
She seemed to sense Wil's gaze. She looked back at him, her eyes expressionless, analytical. This woman had seen more than the Robinsons, the Korolevs - more than all the high-techs put together. Was it his imagination that he suddenly felt like a bug on a slide? The woman's lips moved, the twitching motion lie remembered from the beach. Then it had seemed a coldly alien, almost insectile gesture. Now Wil had a flash of insight: after nine thousand years alone, nine thousand years on God knows how many worlds, would a person still remember the simple things-like how to smile?
"C'mon, Mr. Brierson, let's dance." Tammy Robinson's hand was insistent on his elbow.
Wil danced more that night than since he'd been dating Virginia. The Robinson kid just wouldn't quit. She didn't really lave more stamina than Brierson. He kept in condition and kept his bio-age around twenty; with his large frame and tendency to overweight he couldn't afford to be fashionably middle-aged. But Tammy had the enthusiasm of a seventeen-year-old. Paint her a different color and she reminded him of his daughter Anne: cuddly, bright, and just a bit predatory when it came to the males she wanted.
The music swept them round and round, taking Marta Korolev in and out of his view. Marta danced only a few times with any one partner and spent considerable time off the floor, talking. This evening would leave the Korolev reputation substantially mellowed. Later, when he saw her depart for the theater, he suppressed a sigh of relief. It had been a depressing little game, watching her and watching her, and all the time pretending not to.
The lights brightened and the music faded. "It's about an hour to midnight, folks," came Don Robinson's voice. "You're welcome to dance till the Witching Hour, but I've got some pictures and ideas I'd like to share with you. If you're interested, please step down the hall."
"That's the video I was telling you about. You've got to he what Daddy has to say." Tammy led him off the floor, eve though another song was starting. The music had lost some its vibrancy. Amy and Alice Robinson had left the bandstand The rest of the evening would be uninterpreted recordings
Behind them, the crowd around the dance floor was breaking up. There had been hints through the evening that this la entertainment would be the most spectacular. Almost everyone would be in the Robinsons' theater.
As they walked down the hall, the lights above them were dim. The theater itself was awash with blue light. A four-met: globe of Earth hung above the seats. It was an effect Wil had seen before, though never on this scale. Given several satellite t views it was possible to construct a holo of the entire planet and hang its blue-green perfection before the viewer. From the entrance to the theater, the world was in quarter phase, more ing just touching the Himalayas. Moonlight glinted faintly o the Indian Ocean. The continental outlines were the family ones from the Age of Man.
Yet there was something strange about the image. It too Wil a second to realize just what: There were no clouds.
He was about to walk around the globe to the seating when lie noticed two shadows beyond the dark side. It looked like Don Robinson and Marta Korolev. Wil paused, resisting Tammy's urging that they hurry to get the best seats. The roof was rapidly filling with partygoers, but Wil guessed he was the only one who had noticed Robinson and Korolev. There w, something strange here: Korolev's bearing was tense. Every few seconds she chopped at the air between them. The shadow that was Don Robinson stood motionless, even as Korolev became more excited. Wil had the impression of short, unsatisfactory replies being given to impassioned demands. Wil couldn't he the words; either they were behind a sound screen, or they weren't talking out loud. Finally Robinson turned and walks out of sight behind the globe. Marta followed, still gesturing
Even Tammy hadn't noticed. She led Brierson to the edge of the audience area and they sat. A minute passed. Wil saw Marta emerge from beyond the sunlit hemisphere and v , behind the audience to sit near the door.