"Notice that when the drive bobble bursts, they immediately generate a smaller one just inside their defensive frame. A battle would have taken several thousand years of outside time to resolve."
Objects in stasis had absolute protection against the outside world. But bobbles eventually burst: if the duration was short, your enemy would still be waiting, ready to shoot; if the duration was long, your enemy might drop your bobble into the sun -and absolute protection would end in absolute catastrophe. Apparently the advanced travelers used a hierarchy of autonomous fighters, flickering in and out of realtime. While in realtime, their processors decided on the duration of the next embobblement. The shortest-period devices stayed in sync with longer-period ones, relaying conclusions up a chain of command. At the top, the travelers' command bobble might have a relatively long period.
"So they got away?" Hidden by time and interstellar depths.
Pause, pause, pause, pause. "Not entirely. They claimed innocence, and left a spokesman to demonstrate their good faith." One of the windows brightened into a picture of Tammy Robinson. She looked even paler than usual. Wil felt a flash of anger at Don Robinson. Clever it might be, but what sort of person leaves his teenage kid to face a murder investigation? Lu continued. "I have her with me. We should be landing in sixty minutes."
"Good. Ms. Lu, I would like you and Brierson to interview her then." Beyond the windows, forests replaced the black and bright of space. "I want you to get her story before you and Brierson leave for the restart of Town Korolev."
Wil glanced at the spacer. She was strange, but apparently capable. And she was as powerful a witness as he could get. He ignored Yelén's auton and tried to put the proper note of peremptory confidence in his voice when he said, "One other thing, Yelén."
"Well?"
"We need a complete copy of the diary."
"How — What diary!"
"The one Marta kept all the years she was marooned."
Yelén's mouth clamped shut as she realized he must be bluffing-and that she had already lost the game. Wil kept his eyes on Yelén, but he noticed the auton rise: there was more than one bluff to play here.
"It's none of your business, Brierson. I've read it: Marta had no idea who marooned her."
"I want it, Yelén."
"Well, you can just stick it!" She half-rose from her seat, then sat. "You're the last person I want pawing through Marta's private —" She turned to Lu. "Maybe I could show parts of it to you."
Wil didn't let the spacer reply. "No. Where I come from, concealment of evidence was usually a crime, Yelén. That's meaningless here, but if you don't give me the diary-all of it, and everything associated with it — I'll drop the case, and I'll ask Lu to drop the case."
Yelén's fists were clenched. She started to speak, stopped. A faint tremor shook her face. Finally: "Okay. You'll have it. Now get out of my sight,"
FOUR
Tammy Robinson was a very frightened young woman; Wil didn't need police experience to see that. She paced back and forth across the room, hysteria sparking from the high edge in her voice. "How can you keep me in this cell? It's a dungeon!"
The walls were unadorned, off-white. But Wil could see doors opening onto a bedroom, a kitchen. There were stairs, perhaps to a study. Her quarters covered about 150 square meters — a little cramped by Wil's standards, but scarcely a punishing confinement. He stepped away from Della Lu and put his hand on Tammy's shoulder. "These are ship's quarters, Tam. Della Lu never expected to have passengers." That was only a guess, but it felt right. Lu's holdings were compact, built both vertically and horizontally. All the advanced travelers could take their households into space-but Lu's was designed to stay there, to be a home even in solar systems without planets. "You are in custody, but once we get to Town Korolev, you'll get better housing."
Della Lu tilted her head to one side. "Yes. Yelén Korolev is going to take care of you then. She has much better —"
"No!" It was almost a scream. Tammy's eyes showed white all around the irises. "I surrendered to you, Della Lu. And in good faith. I won't tell you anything if you... Korolev will —" She put her hand over her mouth and collapsed on a nearby sofa.
Wil sat down beside her as Della Lu pulled up a chair to sit facing them. Lu's black pants and high-collared jacket looked military, but she sat on the edge of her chair and watched Tammy's consternation with childlike curiosity. Wil cast a meaningful look in her direction (as if that would do any good) before continuing. "Tammy, there's no way we'll let Yelén get at you."
Tammy was upset, but no fool. She looked past Wil at the spacer. "Is that a promise, Della Lu?"
Lu gave an odd chuckle, but this time she didn't blow it "Yes. And it's a promise I can keep."
They stared at each other a silent moment. Then the girl shuddered, her whole body relaxing. "Okay. I'll talk. Of course I'll talk. That's the whole reason I stayed behind: to clear in\, family's name."
"You know what's happened to Marta?"
"I've heard Yelén's accusations. When we came out of that strange, overlong bobblement, she was all over the comm links. She said poor Marta got marooned in the present... that she died there." Frank horror showed on Tammy's face.
"That's right. Someone sabotaged the Korolev jump program. It lasted a century instead of three months, and left Marta outside of stasis."
"And my dad's the chief suspect?" Incredulously.
Wil nodded. "I saw your father arguing with Marta, Tam. And later she told me how your family wants the people of Town Korolev to join you.... Your plans would benefit if the settlement failed."
"Sure. But we're not some gang of twentieth-century thugs. Wil. We know we have something more attractive than the Korolev's' rehash of civilization. It'll take the average person a while to see this, but given a fair chance they'll come with us. Instead, Yelén's forced us to run for our lives."
"You don't think Marta's been killed?" said Lu.
Tammy shrugged. "No. That would be hard to fake, especially if you"- she was looking at Della —"insist on studying the remains. I think Marta was murdered — and I think Yelén is the murderer. All the talk about outside sabotage is just short of ridiculous."
This was certainly Wil's biggest worry. In his time, domestic violence was a leading cause of death. Yelén seemed the most powerful of the high-techs. If she were the villain, life might be short for successful investigators. But aloud: "She's truly broken up over losing Marta. If she's faking, she's very good at it."
Tammy's response was quick. "I don't think she's faking it. I think she killed Marta for some crazy personal reason, and terribly regrets the necessity. But now that it's done, she's going to use it to destroy all opposition to the great Korolev plan."
"Um." He, W. W. Brierson, might be the cause of Marta's death. Suppose Yelén conceived that she was losing her love to another. For some disturbed souls, such a loss was logically equivalent to the death of the beloved. They could murder and then honestly blame the loss on others.... Wil remembered the irrational hatred in Yelén's eyes when he walked into her library.
He looked at Tammy with new respect. She'd never seemed this bright before. In fact... he felt just a little bit manipulated. For all her terror, the girl was a very cool character. "Tammy," he said quietly, "just how old are you, really?"
"I-'The tear-streaked adolescent face froze for a second. Then: "I've lived ninety years, Wil."
Forty years longer than I. Some daughter figure.