Wil formatted the autopsy report in Michigan State Police style. He scanned the lab results; the familiar forms brought back memories, strangely pleasant for all that they involved the uglier side of his job. Jason Mudge had been as drunk as Yel‚n said. There was no trace of any other drug. She had not been exaggerating about his fall, either. The little guy had struck the rocks headfirst. Wil ran some simulations: A headfirst landing was consistent with the cliff's height and Mudge's stature assuming he tripped and fell with no effort at recovery. Every lesion, every trauma on poor Mudge's body was accounted for; even the scratches on his arms were matched to microgram specks of flesh left on bushes that grew close to the path.
It was all very reasonable: The man had been seen drinking, had been seen leaving the picnic in a drunken state. From his desperate eagerness of the afternoon, Wil could imagine his state of mind by evening. He had wandered down the path, self-pity and booze exaggerating every movement.... If it had been anyone else, he might have been stopped. But to approach Jason Mudge was to risk sermons unending.
And so he was dead, like any number of drug-related semisuicides Wil had seen. Still, it was interesting that the actual cause of death was so perfectly, instantly fatal. Even if Yel‚n's autons had discovered Mudge immediately after his fall, they could not have saved him. Except for multiple gunshot wounds and explosions, Wil had never seen such thorough destruction of a brain.
It might be worth going over the fellow's past once more, in particular Wil's last conversation with Mudge. He remembered now. There had been some strange comment about Juan Chanson. Wil replayed the video from Yel‚n's auton. Yes, he implied Juan had once been a chiliast, too.
Now, that was easy to check. Brierson asked Yel‚n's GreenInc about the archeologist.... Chanson was well covered, despite his obscure specialty. As a kid, he had been involved with religion; both his parents had been Faithful of the Ndelante Ali. But by the time he reached college, whatever belief remained was mild and ecumenical. He was awarded a doctorate in Mayan archeology from the Universidad Politecnica de Ceres. Wil smiled to himself. In his time, Port Ceres had been a mining camp-to think that a few decades later it could support a university granting degrees like Chanson's!
Nowhere was there evidence of religious fanaticism or of any connection with Jason Mudge. In fact, there was no hint of his later preoccupation with alien invasions. Chanson bobbled out in 2200, and his motive was no nuttier than most: He thought a century or two of progress might give him the tools for a definitive study of the Mayan culture.
... Instead he wound up with the greatest archeological mystery o f all time.
Wil sighed. So in addition to the late Mr. Mudge's other flaws, he had been spreading lies about his rivals.
SEVENTEEN
The next few days fell into a pattern, mostly a pleasant one: The afternoons he spent with one or another group of low-techs.
He saw several mines. They were still heavily automated. Many were open-pit affairs; fifty million years had created whole new ore beds. (The only richer pickings were in the asteroid belt, and one of Yel‚n's retrenchments was to give up most space activities.) The settlement's factories were like nothing that had existed in history, a weird combination of high-tech custom construction and the primitive production lines which would eventually dominate. Thanks to Gail Parker he even saw an NM tractor factory; he was surprised by a generally friendly reception.
In some ways the North Shore picnic had been misleading. Wil discovered that, although most people agreed with Tioulang's complaints against Korolev, few ungovs seriously considered giving their sovereignty to either the Peace or New Mexico. In fact, there had already been some quiet defections from the statist camps.
People were as busy as Rohan claimed. Ten-, twelve-hour days were the rule. And much of the remaining time was filled with scheming to maximize long-term gain. Most of the high tech giveaways had already been traded several times. When lie visited the Dasguptas' farm he saw they were also making farm machinery. He told them about the NM factory. Rohan just smiled innocently. Dilip leaned back against one of his home-brew tractors and crossed his arms. "Yes, I've talked to Gail about that. Fraley wants to buy us out. If the price is right, maybe we'll let him. Heh, heh. Both NMs and Peacers are heavy in tool production. I can see what's going on in their tiny brains. Ten years down the road, they figure on a classic peasant/factory confrontation-with them on top. Poor Fraley; sometimes I feel sorry for him. Even if the NMs and the Peace merged, they still wouldn't have all the factories, or even half the mines. Yel‚n says her databases and planning software will be available for centuries. There are ungov technical types better than anyone Fraley has. Rohan and I know commodity trading. Hell, a lot of us do, and market planning, too." He smirked happily. "In the end, he'll lose his shirt."
Wil grinned back. Dilip Dasgupta had never lacked for self-confidence. In this case he might be right... as long as the NMs and the Peace couldn't use force.
Wil's evening debriefings with Yel‚n were not quite so much fun, though they were more congenial than the one after the North Shore picnic. Her auton followed him everywhere, so she usually heard and saw everything he did. Sometimes it seemed that she wanted to rehash every detail; finding Marta's murderer was a goal never far from her mind, especially now that it seemed part of a general sabotage scheme. But just as often she wanted his estimate of the low-techs' attitudes and intentions. Their conversations were a weird mix of social science, paranoia, and murder investigation.
Tammy had been bobbled within hours of the picnic. Since then, there had been no signs of high-tech interference. Either she was responsible for it (and had been terribly clumsy), or the glowball and paint were part of something still inscrutable.
Apparently the low-techs were oblivious to this latest twist. Over the last few weeks they had seen and used an enormous amount of equipment; most had no way of knowing the source or "sanctity" of what was provided. And Yel‚n had erased the polka-dot graffiti from Wil's gate. On the other hand, it was certain that some NMs knew of the bootlegging, enough that Tioulang's spies had gotten the news. Knowing the NM organization, Wil couldn't imagine any conspiracy independent of Steve Fraley.
Yel‚n dithered with the notion of seizing Fraley and his staff for interrogation, in the end decided against it. There was the same problem as with grabbing Tioulang. Besides, Marta's plan seemed to be working. The first phases-the giveaway, the establishment of agreements among the low-techs-were delicate steps that depended on everyone's confidence and goodwill. Even in the best of circumstances-and the last few days did seem about as good as things could get-the low-techs had all sorts of reasons for disliking the queen on the mountain.
And that was one of Korolev's main interests in pumping Brierson. She took every complaint that appeared on the recordings and asked for Wil's analysis. More, she wanted to know the problems he sensed but that went unsaid. It was one of the happier parts of Wil's new job, one he suspected that most of the low-techs understood, too.... Would his reception at the NM tractor plant have been quite so cordial otherwise?
Yel‚n was amused by Dilip Dasgupta's dealings with New Mexico: "Good for him; no one should be taking any crap from those atavists.
"You know what Tioulang and Fraley did when I started Mama's giveaway?" she continued. "They told me how they had their disagreements, but that the future of the race was of supreme importance; their experts had gotten together, come up with a `Unity Plan.' It specified production goals, resource allocation, just what every damn person was going to do for the next ten years. They expected me to jam this piece of wisdom down everyone's throat.... Idiots. I have software that's spent decades crunching on these problems, and 1 can't plan at the level of detail these jerks pretend to. Marta would be proud of me, though; I didn't laugh out loud. I just smiled sweetly and said anyone who wanted to follow their plan was certainly welcome to, but that I couldn't dream of enforcing it. They were insulted even so; I guess they thought I was being sarcastic. It was after that that Tioulang started peddling his line about majority rule and unity against the queen on the mountain."