"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.
Half a minute passed. Marta gave a short, bitter laugh. "So many enemies. The Korolevs hate the Robinsons, the NMs hate the Peacers, almost everybody hates the Korolevs."
"And Monica Raines hates all mankind."
This time her laugh was lighter. "Yes. Poor Monica." Mama leaned toward him and this time really did rest her head against leis shoulder. Wil's arm slipped automatically across her back. She sighed. "We're two hundred people, just about all that's left. And I swear we have more jealousy and scheming than twentieth-century Asia."
They sat in silence, her head against him, his hand resting lightly against her back. He felt the tension slowly leave her body. For Wil it was different. Oh, Virginia, what to do? Marta felt so good. It would be so easy to caress that back, to slide his hand down to her waist. Most likely there'd be a moment of embarrassed backing away. But if she responded... If she responded, they'd be adding one more set of jealousies to the brew.
So Wil's hand did not move. In later times, he often wondered if things might have gone differently had he not chosen the path of sanity and caution.
He thought wildly for a moment, finally discovered a topic that was sure to break the mood. "You know I'm one of the shanghaied ones, Manta."
"Mm-hmm."
"The crime is a strange one, bobbling someone into the far future. It may be murder, but the court can't know for sure. In my time, most jurisdictions had a special punishment for it."
Silence.
"They'd bobble survival equipment and the trial record next to the victim. Then they'd take the bastard who created the problem and bobble him too-so he'd come out of stasis just after the victim...."
The spell was broken. Manta pulled slowly back. She could tell what was coming. "Sometimes the courts couldn't know the duration."
Wil nodded. "In my case, I'll bet the duration was known. And I'll bet even more that there was a conviction. There were only three suspects; I was closing in on that damn embezzler. That's why he panicked."
He paused. "Did you rescue him, Manta? Did you rescue the... person... who did this to me?"
She shook her head. Her openness deserted her when she had to lie.
"You've got to tell me, Manta. I don't need revenge"- perhaps a small lie there-"but I do need to know."
She shook her head again but this time replied. "We can't, Wil. We need everyone. Can't you see that all such crimes arc meaningless now?"
"For my own protection-"
She got up, and after a second Wil did, too.
"No. We've given him a new face and a new name. He has no motive for harming you now, and we've warned him what we'll do if he tries."
Brierson shrugged.
"Hey, Wil, have I made myself another enemy?"
"N-no. I could never be your enemy. And I want the settlement to succeed as much as you and Yel‚n."
"I know." She raised her hand in a half-wave. "G'night. Wil."
"Good night."
She walked into the darkness, her robot protector floating close above her shoulder.
THREE
Things had changed by "next" morning. At first, the changes were what Brierson had expected.
Gone was the drear ash and dirty sky. Dawn splashed sunlight across his bed; he could see a wedge of blue between green-leafed trees. Wil came slowly awake, something deep inside saying it was all a dream. He closed his eyes, opened them again, and stared into the brightness.
They did it. "By God, they really did it." He rolled out of bed and pulled on some clothes. He shouldn't really be surprised. The Korolevs had announced their plan. Sometime in the morning hours, after the Robinson party was over and when their surveillance showed everyone safe at home, they had bobbled every building in the settlement. Through unknown centuries they bobbled forward, coming out of stasis for a few seconds every year, just long enough to check if the Peacer bobble had burst.
Wil rushed down the stairs, past the kitchen. Breakfast mould be skipped. Just to see the green and the blue and the clean sunlight made him feel like a kid at Christmas. Then he was outside, standing in the sunlight. The street was nearly gone. Almost-jacarandas had sprouted through its surface Their lowest flowers floated a meter above his head. Spider families scampered through the leaves. The huge pile of ash that he and the Dasguptas and the others had pushed into the middle of the street was gone, washed away by a hundred- a thousand?-rainy seasons. The only sign of that long-ago pollution was around Wil's house. A circular arc marked where the stasis field had intersected the ground. Outside was green and growing; inside was covered with gray ash, the trees and plants dying.