Yel‚n nodded. "And the `mass hypnotism' is the important thing. Any time they want, the NM rank and file could just give Fraley the finger and walk away; he couldn't kill 'em all. Instead they stay, his tools."

"Yes, but in a way this gives them power, too. If they walk, where's to go? There are no other groups. There is no ungoverned society like in my time."

"Sure there is. The Earth is empty, and almost a third of the low-techs are ungovs. There's nothing to keep people front settling down to their own interests."

Wil shook his head, surprised at his own insight, surprised at his voicing it to Yel‚n. Before, he wouldn't have thought to argue with her. But she seemed sincerely interested in his opinion. "Don't you see, Yel‚n? There are no ungoverned now. There are the Peacers, the NMs-but over all the low-techs there is the government of Yel‚n Korolev."

"What? I am not a government!" Red rose in her face. "1 don't tax. I don't conscript. I only want to do what's right for people." Even if she was changed, at that moment Wil was glad for Lu's auton hovering above his house.

Wil chose his next words carefully. "That's all true. But you have two of the three essential attributes of government: First, the low-techs believe-correctly, I think-that you have the power of life and death over them. Second, you use that belief -however gently-to make them put your goals ahead of theirs."

It was pop social science from Wil's era, but it seemed to have a real effect on Korolev. She rubbed her chin. "So you figure that, at least subconsciously, the low-techs feel they have to choose sides?"

"Yes. And as the most powerful governing force, you could easily come out the most distrusted."

"What is your advice, then?"

"I, uh..." Wil had painted himself into a corner. Yes. Suppose I'm right. What then? The little settlement at fifty megayears was totally different from the society of Wil's time. It was entirely possible that without Korolev force, the handful of seeds collected here would be blown away on the winds of time. And separately, those seeds would never bloom.

Back in civilization, `Vii had never thought much on "great

Issues." Even in school, he hadn't liked nitpicking arguments about religion or natural rights. The world made sense and seemed to respond appropriately to his actions. Since he had lost Virginia, everything was so terribly on its head. Could there really be a situation so weird that he would advocate government? He felt like a Victorian pushing sodomy.

Yel‚n gave him a lopsided grin. "You know, Marta said some of the same things. You don't have her training, but you seem to have her sense. My gentle Machiavelli didn't shrink from the consequences, though. I've got to be popular, yet I've still got to have my way...."

She looked at him, seemed to reach a decision. "Look, Inspector, I want you to mix more. Both the NMs and the Peacers have regular recruiting parties. Go to the next Peacer one. Listen to what they're saying. Maybe you can explain them to me. And maybe you can explain me to them. You were a popular person in your time. Tell people what you think even what you don't like about me. If they have to choose sides, I think I'm their best bet."

Wil nodded. First the Dasguptas and now Korolev: Was there a conspiracy to get W. W. Brierson back in circulation? "What about the investigation?"

Yel‚n was silent for a moment. "I need you for both, Brierson. I mourned Marta for a hundred years. I traced her around the Inland Sea a meter at a time. I've got records or bobble samples of everything she did and everything she wrote. 1-1 think I'm over the rage. The most important thing in my life now is to see that Marta didn't die in vain. I will do anything to make the settlement succeed. That means finding the killer, but it also means selling my case to the low-techs."

That night he took another look at Marta's diary. It was a very low-priority item now, but he couldn't concentrate on anything more technical. Yel‚n had read the diary several times. In their literal-minded way, her autons had gone over the text in even more detail, and Lu's had cross-checked the analysis. Marta knew she had been murdered, but said again and again that she had no clues beyond her description of the evening of the party. According to the overdoc, she rarely repeated the details in later years, and when she did it was clear that her earlier memories were the more precise.

Now Will browsed the earliest sections. Marta had stayed near Town Korolev for more than a year. Though she said otherwise, it was clear she hoped for rescue in some small multiple of ninety days. Even if that rescue didn't come, she had lots of preparing to do: She planned to walk to Canada, halfway around the world.

,.. but klick for klick it barely qualifies as an intermediate survival course, ¯ she wrote. It will take years, and I may miss a lookabout back here at Town Korolev, but that's okay. Along the way, I'll put billboards at the West End mines and the Peacer bobble. Once I get your attention, gig c rile a sign, Lelya: Nuke the sky for a week of nights. I'll find open ground, and wait for the autons. ¯

Marta knew the territory near Korolev. Her shelter in the realtime wing of the castle was secure, close to water and adequate hunting. It was a good place to collect her energy for the trek ahead. She experimented with the weapons and tools she'd known from survival sport. In the end she settled on a diamond-bladed pike and knife and a short bow. She kept the other diamond blades in reserve; she wasn't going to waste them on arrowheads. She built a travois from a section of Fred's hull. It was enough to do some testing. She made several cautious trips covering a few kilometers.

Dearest Lelya- If I am ever to leave, I suppose it should be now. The plan is still to sail to our mines at West End and then head north to the Peacer bobble, and Canada far beyond that. Tomorrow I depart for the coast; tonight I finish packing. Would you believe, I have made so much equipment, I actually have lists; the age of data processing has arrived!

Hope I see you before I write more. -Love, Marta. ¯

That was the last of the bark tablets she left at the castle. Two hundred kilometers along the southern coast of the sea, Yel‚n found the second of Marta's cairns, a three-meter-high pile of rock at the edge of the jacaranda forests. This was one of the best preserved of Marta's sites. She'd built a cabin there; it was still standing when Yel‚n studied it a century later.

Six months had passed since Marta left the castle in the mountains. She was still optimistic, though she had hoped to reach the mines before stopping. There had been problems, one of them painful and deadly. During her time at the cabin, Marta described her adventures since leaving the castle.

I followed our monorail to the coast. You know I said it was a waste to build that thing when we were going to leave it behind anyway. Well, now I'm glad you listened to Genet and not me. That right-of-way cuts straight through the forest. 1 avoided some tricky rock climbing just by sliding the travois along the rail's underframe. It was like a practice hike-which I needed more than I realized.

I've forgotten a lot, Lelya. I have just one poor brainful of memories now. If I'd known I was to be marooned, I would have loaded quite a different set. (But if I'd foreseen that, I probably could have avoided the whole adventure! Sigh. I should be glad I never offloaded our survival courses.) Anyway, my mind is full of our plans for the settlement, the stuff I was thinking about the night of the party. I have only a casual recollection of maps. I know we did lots of wildlife studies, and were hooked into Monica's work, too. But that's all gone. Where the plants are like the ones back in civilization, I recognize them.