Now that he'd caught up with her, he didn't know quite what to say. "What's the matter, Marta? I mean, is anything wrong?"
:fit first, he thought she would not answer. She stood with balled fists. The moonlight showed tear streaks on her face. She slumped and brought her hands up to her temples. "That b-bastard Robinson. That slimy bastard!" The words were choked.
Wil stepped closer. The protection device moved forward, keeping him in clear view. "What happened?"
"You want to know? I'll tell you... but let's sit down. I-I don't think I can stand much longer. I'm s-so mad. " She walked to a nearby bench and sat. Wil lowered his bulk beside her, then started. To the hand, the bench felt like stone, but it yielded to main body weight like a cushion.
Marta put a hand on his arm, and for an instant he thought she might touch her head to his shoulder. The world was a very empty place now, and Marta reminded him so much of things lost.... But coming between the Korolevs was probably the single most boorish, the single most dangerous, thing he could do. Wil said abruptly, "This may not be the best place to talk." He waved at the fountain and the carefully tended trees. "I'll bet the Robinsons monitor the whole estate."
"Hah! We're screened." Marta moved her hand from his arm. "Besides, Don knows what I think of him.
"All these years, they've pretended to support our plan. We helped them, gave them factory designs that didn't exist when they left civilization. All the time, they were just waiting-taking their pretty pictures-while we did all the work, bringing what was left of the human race to one place and time
"And now that we have everyone together, now that we need everyone's cooperation, now they start sweet-talking people away from us. Well, I'll tell you, Wil. Our settlement is humankind's last chance. I'll do anything, anything, to protect it." Marta had always seemed so cheerful, optimistic. That made her fury even more striking. But the one did not make hypocrisy of the other. Marta was like a mother cat, suddenly ferocious and deadly in protecting her kittens.
"So the Robinsons want to break up the town? Do they want their own colony?"
Marta nodded. "But not like you think. Those lunatics want to continue down time, sightseeing their way into eternity. Robinson figures if he can persuade most of us to come along, he'll have a stable system. He calls it a `timelike urbanization.' For the next few billion years, his colony would spend about a month per megayear outside of stasis. As the sun goes old main sequence, they'll move into space and bobble through longer and longer jumps. He literally wants to follow the evolution of the whole goddamned universe!"
Brierson remembered Tammy Robinson's impatience with living at the same rate as the universe. She'd been campaigning for the scheme her father must now be selling to the audience back in the theater.
Wil shook his head and chuckled. "Sorry. I'm not laughing at you, Marta. It's just that compared to the things you should be worrying about, this is ludicrous.
"Look. Most of the low-techs are like me. It's been only weeks of objective time since I left civilization. Even the New Mexicans spent only a few years in realtime before you rescued them. We haven't lived centuries `on the road' like you advanced types. We're still hurting. More than anything, w c want to stop and rebuild."
"But Robinson is so slick."
"He's so slick you can scrape the grease off. You've been away from that kind for a long, long time. Back in civilization, we were exposed to sales pressure almost every day.... There's only one lever he has, and that's something you should be worrying about in any case."
Marta smiled wanly. "Yel‚n and I worry about so many things, Wil. You have something new for us?"
"Maybe." Wil was silent for a moment. The fountain across from their bench burbled loud. There were soft hooting sounds in trees. He hadn't expected this opportunity. Until now the Korolevs had been approachable enough, but they didn't seem to listen. "We're all grateful to you and Yel‚n. You saved u from death-or at least from life alone in an empty world. We have a chance to start the human race again.... But at the same time, a lot of low-techs resent you advanced travelers in your castles above town. They resent the fact that you make all the decisions, that you decide what you will share and what we will work at."
"I know. We haven't explained things very well. We seem omnipotent. But don't you see, Wil? We high-techs are a few people from around 2200 who brought our era's version of good-quality camping and survival gear. Sure, we can make most any consumer product of your time. But we can't reproduce the most advanced of our own devices. When those finally break, we'll be as helpless as you."
"I thought your autons were good for hundreds of years."
"Sure, if we use them for ourselves alone. Supporting an army of low-techs cuts us down to less than a century. We need each other, Wil. Apart, both groups face dead ends. Together, we have a chance. We can supply you with databases, equipment, and a good approximation to a twenty-first-century standard of living-for a few decades. As our support decays, you provide the human hands and minds and ingenuity to fill the gaps. If we can get a high birth rate, and build a twenty-first-century infrastructure, we may pull this out."
"Willing hands? Like the ash shoveling we've had to do?" He didn't mean the question to sound nasty, but it came out that way.
She touched his arm again. "No, Wil. That was dumb of us. Arrogant." She paused, her eyes searching his.
"Have you ever been ramjetting, Wil?"
"Huh? Uh, no." In general, Wil didn't go looking for trouble.
"But it was a big sport in your time, wasn't it? Sort of like hang gliding, but a lot more exciting-especially for the purists who didn't carry bobblers. Our situation reminds me of a typical ramjet catastrophe: You're twenty thousand meters up, ramming along. All of a sudden your jet flames out. It's au interesting problem. Those little rigs didn't mass more than a few hundred kilos; they didn't carry turbines. So all you can do is dive hell down. If you can get your airspeed above Mach one, you can usually relight the ram; if not, you make a nice crater.
"Well, we're sitting pretty right now. But the underlying civilization has flamed out. We have a long way to fall. Counting the Peacers, there will be almost three hundred low-techs. With your help we ought to be able to relight at some decent level of technology-say twentieth or twenty-first century. If we can, we'll quickly climb back. If we can't, if we fall to a pre-machine age when our autons fail... we'll be just too primitive and too few to survive. So. The ash shoveling was unnecessary. But I can't disguise the fact that there will be hard times, terribly hard work."
She looked down. "I know you've heard most of this before, Wil. It's a hard package to sell, isn't it? But I thought I would have more time. I thought I could convince most of you of our goodwill.... I never counted on Don Robinson and his slick promises and good-fellowship."
Marta looked so forlorn. He reached out to pat her shoulder. \o doubt Robinson had plans similar to the Korolevs', plans that would remain secret until the low-techs were safely suckered into his family's journey. "I think that most of us low-techs will see through Robinson. If you make it clear where his promises must be lies. If you can come down from the castle. Concentrate on Fraley; if Robinson convinces him, you might lose the New Mexicans. Fraley isn't dumb, but he is rigid and he lets his anger run away with him. He really does hate the Peacers." Almost as much as he hates me.