Tammy Robinson leaned from her seat to whisper, "This is where it really gets good, Mr. Brierson!"
Wil turned back to the display, but his attention was split between the view and the mystery of Marta's anger.
Five million years every minute. Glacier and desert and forest and jungle blended. One color or another might fleetingly dominate the pastel haze, but the overall impression was stable and soothing. Only now... only now the continents themselves were moving! A murmur passed around the room as the audience realized what they were seeing. Australia had moved north, sliding into the eastern islands of the Indonesian archipelago. Mountains puckered along the collision. This part of the world was near the sunrise line. Low sunlight cast the new mountains in relief.
There was sound, too. From the surface of the globe, Wil heard something that reminded him of wood surfaces squeaking wetly across each other. A sound like crumpling paper accompanied the birth of the Indonesian Alps. "Those noises are real, friends," said Don Robinson. "We kept a system of seismophones on the surface. What you're hearing are long-term averages of seismic action. It took thousands of major earthquakes to make every second of those sounds."
As he spoke, Australia and Indonesia merged, the combination continuing its slide northwards, turning slightly as it came. Already the form of the Inland Sea could be discerned. "No one predicted what happened next," continued Robinson's travelogue. "There! Notice the rift spreading through Kampuchea, breaking the Asian plate." A string of narrow lakes appeared across Southeast Asia. "In a moment, we'll see the new platelet reverse direction and ram back into China-to build the Kampuchean Alps."
From the corner of his eye, Brierson saw Marta heading for the door. What is going on here? He started to get up, found that Tammy's arm was still around his.
"Wait. Why are you going, Mr. Brierson?" she whispered, starting to get up.
"I've got to check on something, Tammy."
"But-" She seemed to realize that extended discussion would detract from her father's show. She sat down, looking puzzled and a little hurt.
"Sorry, Tam," Wil whispered. He headed for the door Behind him, continents crashed.
The Witching Hour. The time between midnight and the start of the next day. It was more like seventy-five minutes than an hour. Since the Age of Man, the Earth's rotation had slowed. Now, at fifty megayears, the day was a little over twenty-five hours long. Rather than change the definition of
-he second or the hour, the Korolevs had decreed (just another of their decrees) that the standard day should consist of twenty-four hours plus whatever time it took to complete one rotation. Yel‚n called the extra time the Fudge Factor. Everyone else ailed it the Witching Hour.
Wil walked through the Witching Hour, looking for some sign of Marta Korolev. He was still on the Robinson estate, that.vas obvious: as advanced travelers, the Robinsons had plenty of robots. Rescue-day ash had been meticulously cleaned from he stone seats, the fountains, the trees, even the ground. The.cent of almost-jacarandas floated in the cool night breeze.
Even without the tiny lights that floated along the paths, Wil could have found his way without difficulty. For the first time since the blow-off, the night was clear-well, not really clear, but he could see the moon. Its wan light was only faintly reddened by stratospheric ash. The old girl looked pretty much is she had in Wil's time, though the stains of industrial pollution were gone. Rohan Dasgupta claimed the moon was a little farther out now, that there would never again be a total eclipse of the sun. The difference was not enough for Wil to see.
The reddish silver light fell bright across the Robinsons' gardens, but Marta was nowhere in sight. Wil stopped, let his breath out, and listened. There were footsteps. He jogged in their direction and caught up with Korolev still inside the estate.
"Mama, wait." She had already stopped and turned to face film. Something dark and massive floated a few meters above her. Wil glanced at it and slowed to a walk. These autonomous devices still made him uneasy. They hadn't existed in his time. and no matter how often he was told they were safe, it was still unnerving to think of the firepower they controlled-independent of the direct commands of their masters. With her protector floating nearby, Marta was almost as safe as back in Castle Korolev.
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?"