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Due to circumstances beyond your control, you are master of your fate and captain of your soul.

This discussion of _The Weltall File_ is longer than my previous post on
_The Janus File_ because that had fewer crimes occurring �on stage�.

This is the 4th book of a time travel series and the 2nd of a subseries,
set in the later part of the 30th century. In the previous book, _The
Janus File_, Sys-Gov and Admin (two time traveling civilizations in
separate time-lines), started an officer exchange program (from Admin�s
DTI to Sys-Gov federal police, Sys-Pol) as part as a policy of detente.
This book has another initiative of that policy. A joint game
competition, using a new Sys-Gov game, Weltall, has produced 6
contestants for the finals (3 from each civilization). Weltall is a 4X
game (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate) that doesn�t have FTL
(the game clock runs about 24 days per real time second, though, IMHO,
some of the tech is several orders of magnitude too effective) that is a
distant descendant of Masters of Orion. The finals will be held on
Sys-Gov�s version of the Moon, which had been terraformed and whose
rotation time had been sped up to 24 hours (for those wondering what
that would do to tides on the Moon, the hydrosphere ratio is not high
and the bodies of water are not large).

The book starts with a prologue where Elly Sako (one of the Admin
contestants for the Weltall finals) is having a �discussion� with Grafon
Lacan, another Admin contestant (they had been lovers, she had dropped
him for Wong Fei, one of the Sys-Gov contestants, Grafton wasn�t taking
it well). After Grafton had been escorted away by Admin DTI agents (the
�discussion� was somewhat noisy), she orders a meal from the suite�s
food printer and checks the news. The printer, having finished the print
job, opens up and offers a tray, not with the food she had requested,
but with a replica of her head with the message �Leave or Die�.

Ten days earlier, Issac Cho of Sys-Pol�s Themis division and Susan
Cantrell of Admin�s DTI (the exchange officer) were dealing with the
bane of all police work: the final reports of their recent cases.
Issac�s boss came by to tell them that Jonas Shigeki (the Admin DTI
Director of Foreign Affairs, i.e., the liaison with Sys-Pol) had invited
them to the Weltall finals; he also provided transportation and hotel
tickets. Issac�s sister, Nina (who is a forensics specialist for
Sys-Pol), wanted to join the party and persuades Susan to send a request
to Jonas, who approves it.

Meanwhile, back on the Moon, the Admin DTI agents are preventing the
local Lunar police from investigating the threat in the prologue (they
believe that Admin has jurisdiction). Lieutenant Lotz sends a request
for help to his wife (who happens to be a Sys-Pol dispatcher). She
violates operating procedures and sends the request to the very top,
Vesna Tryel, Commissioner of the Themis division of Sys-Pol. Tryel
looked at it, briefly debated on whether to commend the dispatcher for
her initiative, discipline her for violating procedures, or a little of
both; but put that thought aside and called Jonas Shigeki.

He was in a meeting (the top staffs of both DTI and Gordian Division of
Sys-Pol are discussing a proposal for a joint research lab in the
�space� between the universes - I think this lab will be the focus of a
future novel in this series), but arranged a break to discuss the matter
with Tryel. He had a solution, since Issac Cho and Susan Cantrell were
about to land on the Moon, he suggested arranging for Issac to be given
temporary Admin DTI investigator privileges and he (and Susan) handle
the investigation of the threat.

Isaac, Susan, and Nina leave the spaceship all dressed up to hit the
beach (swimsuits, and flip-flops) when the message from Commissioner
Tyrel arrives. Nina agrees that her vacation had just been canceled and
leaves to arrange for a uniform and equipment, while Cephalie (Isaac�s
integrated companion, an AI) transfers to the local police station to
arrange for Isaac�s and Susan�s uniforms and equipment. Isaac and Susan
depart for the hotel. They avoid a demonstration at the hotel protesting
the presence of Admin citizens (DTI especially). Because they were
dressed for the beach, Lieutenant Lotz initially didn�t take them
seriously, but he followed them and watched them plow through the DTI
agents without pause.

After changing to their proper uniforms, Isaac, Susan, and Nina start
working on the case. One of the demonstrators is murdered*, but Isaac
lets Lieutenant Lotz handle it. Sako�s food printer had been infected
with some prankware and after a search discovered that Lacan�s wearable
contained remnants of a deleted copy, Lacan is arrested and jailed (and
misses the tournament).

Shingo Masada (the third Admin contestant) had decided to try an
aggressive opening if another player�s star was close enough. He saw his
target, set up for the attack (speed of light strictures applied), and
fired his interstellar mass driver. Several minutes later, he discovered
that the other player�s star system had moved on him and his attack had
missed. I actually wondered if the other player (Wong Fei) had
discovered a cheat code (which shouldn�t be in a released version), but
he could have calculated how much time setting up that attack would take
and started moving his star just in case. Wong Fei's overwhelming
counter-attack was about to hit when Singo�s system froze up and
delivered the message �Leave or Die� (BTW he was in an isolation pod and
he had to use the emergency manual release to open it up). Isaac has the
tournament suspended (and started to wonder if Lacan had been framed).

An analysis of the Weltall software revealed that Masuda's copy had an
extra bit that targeted him. However, Isaac and Susan couldn�t find any
way that it could be inserted (they checked everybody associated with
the creation and installation of the tournament software and hardware).
Because of this, Isaac had to allow the tournament to be resumed. In the
second session, two Sys-Gov contestants (not Wong Fei) were wiped out by
Elly Sako�s gambit (she had unleashed the All-Predator, militarized Von
Neumann self-replicating machines, i.e., Berserkers, onto the playing
field). The audience was wondering why she was hiding in deep space.

After this session ended, the hotel was stormed by the anti-Admin
demonstrators, who blew through hotel security and locked doors at will
(someone provided them with the access codes that the hotel had provided
to the Admin guests).

Isaac decides that two conspirators (one from Admin and one from
Sys-Gov) was necessary for what has happened. Cephalie suggests that the
tournament on Admin�s Luna was where all the possible suspects first
met; Susan points out that there are 2 Admin chronoports available at
the Moon and suggests that Isaac requisition one to check this out.

Isaac gets permission to use a chronoport and he, Susan, Nina and
Cephalie (who had to be installed in a synthoid) transfers to Admin�s
Luna to continue the investigation. There, their search of all
surveillance records finds an anomaly (somebody was in 2 places at
once). They check this out (one place was completely normal; the other
was not). They use the chronoport to go back in time to snatch a copy of
that other person (DTI does this all the time; it was why it called the
Department of Temporal Investigation; BTW, the theory of time that this
series uses has the timeline reseting with the targeted individual still
in the timeline unaware that a copy exists). Susan was prepared for the
worst and it almost happened (this is the scene on the cover). The
interrogation of the rather badly damaged synthoid she captured was cut
short by a suicide switch which slagged the memory. However, she heard
enough to realize Who, Isaac realized Where (they already knew What),
and they both realized that When was imminent. Back at the Weltall
tournament, Sako decided that All-Predator (though billions and billions
strong) might not be sufficient to drag down Wong Fei's position, so she
attacked directly (admittedly with relatively meager forces, but she
knew where). She almost made it, but Wong Fei won. About when the trophy
would be presented, Susan crashes into the arena, smothers the threat,
and Isaac and DTI agents arrest the conspirators.

The next day, Isaac, Susan, and Nina finally hit the beach.

Isaac and Susan return in _The Dyson File_, to be published by Baen in
November 2023 (this one is by Jacob Holo only). Several previous books
in this series had mentioned the Dyson Realization Project which was
intended to convert Mercury into an energy collecting megastructure and
which was opposed with great determination by the Mercury Historical
Preservation Society. This project appears to be the focus of the that
book.

*Only murder in the book and it is basically unrelated to the case at
hand.

--
"We have advanced to new and surprising levels of bafflement."
Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan describes progress in _Komarr_.
�-----------------------------------------------------
Robert Woodward robertaw@drizzle.com

Subject	Author
_The Weltall File_ by David Weber and Jacob Holo (BJWR)	Robert Woodward
Re: _The Weltall File_ by David Weber and Jacob Holo (BJWR)	James Nicoll
Re: _The Weltall File_ by David Weber and Jacob Holo (BJWR)	Robert Woodward

Due to circumstances beyond your control, you are master of your fate and captain of your soul.

arts / rec.arts.sf.written / _The Weltall File_ by David Weber and Jacob Holo (BJWR)