The Peace War

THIRTY-TWO

Allison had been in the new world more than ten weeks.

Sometimes it was the small things that were the hardest to get used to. You could forget for hours at a time that nearly everyone you ever knew was dead, and that those deaths had been mostly murder. But when night came, and indoors became nearly as dark as outside — that was strangeness she could not ignore. Paul had plenty of electronic equipment, most of it more sophisticated than anything in the twentieth century, yet his power supply was measured in watts, not kilowatts. So they sat in darkness illuminated by the flatscreen displays and tiny holos that were their eyes on the outer world. Here they were, conspirators plotting the overthrow of a world dictatorship — a dictatorship which possessed missiles and nukes — and they sat timidly in the dark.

Their quixotic conspiracy wasn't winning, but, by God, the enemy knew it was in a fight. Take the TV: The first couple of weeks it seemed that there were hardly any stations, and those were mostly run by families. The Moraleses spent most of their viewing time with old recordings. Then, after the L.A. rescue, the Authority had begun around-the-clock saturation broadcasting similar to twentieth century Soviet feeds, and as little watched: It was all news, all stories about the heinous Tinkers and the courageous measures being taken by "your Peace Authority" to make the world safe from the Tinker threat.

Paul called those "measures" the Silvery Pogrom. Every day there were more pictures of convicted Tinkers and fellow-travelers disappearing into the bobble farm the Authority had established at Chico. Ten years, the announcers said; and those bobbles would burst and the felons would have their cases reviewed. Meantime, their property would also be held in stasis. Never in history, the audience was assured, had criminals and monsters been treated with more firmness or more fairness. Allison knew bullshit when she heard it; if she hadn't been bobbled herself, she would have assumed that it was a cover for extermination.

It was a strange feeling to have been present at the founding of the present order, and to be alive now, fifty years later. This great Authority, ruling the entire world — except now Europe and Africa — had grown from nothing more than that third-rate company Paul worked for in Livermore. What would have happened if she and Angus and Fred had made their flight a couple of days earlier, in time to return safely with the evidence?

Allison looked out the mansion's wide windows, into the twilight. Tears didn't come to her eyes anymore when she thought about it, but the pain was still there. If they had gotten back in time, her CO might have listened to Hoehler. They just might have been able to raid the Livermore labs before the brazen takeover that was called the "War" nowadays. And apparently the "War" had been just the beginning of decades of war and plague, now blamed on the losers. Just a couple of days' difference, and the world would not be a near-lifeless tomb, the United States a fading memory. To think that some lousy contractors could have brought down the greatest nation in history!

She turned back into the room, trying to see the three other conspirators in the dimness. An old man, a skinny kid, and Miguel Rosas. This was the heart of the conspiracy? Tonight, at least, Rosas sounded as pessimistic as she felt.

"Sure, Paul, your invention will bring them down eventually, but I'm telling you the Tinkers are all going to be dead or bobbled before that happens. The Peacers are moving fast."

The old man shrugged. "Mike, I think you just need something to panic over. A few weeks back it was the Peacers' recon operation. Wili fixed that — more than fixed it — so now you have to worry about something else." Allison agreed with Mike, but there was truth in Paul's complaint. Mike seemed both haunted and trapped: haunted by what he had done in the past, trapped by his inability to do something to make up for that past. "The Tinkers have simply got to hide out long enough to make more bobblers and improve on 'em. Then we can fight back." Paul voice was almost petulant, as though he thought that he had done all the hard work and now the Tinkers were incompetent to carry through with what remained. Sometimes Paul seemed exactly as she remembered him. But other times — like tonight he just seemed old, and faintly befuddled.

"I'm sorry, Paul, but I think that Mike he is right." The black kid spoke up, his Spanish accent incongruous yet pleasant. The boy had a sharp tongue and a temper to go with it, but when he spoke to Paul-even in contradiction he sounded respectful and diffident. "The Authority will not give us the time to succeed. They have bobbled the Alcalde del Norte himself. Red Arrow Farm is gone; if Colonel Kaladze was hiding there, then he is gone, too." On a clear day, dozens of tiny bobbles could be seen about the skirts of the Vandenberg Dome.

"But our control of Peacer recon. We should be able to protect large numbers of-" he noticed Wili shaking his head. "What? You don't have the processing power? I thought you —"

"That's not the big problem, Paul. Jill and I have tried to cover for many of the Tinkers that survived the first bobblings. But see: The first time the Peacers fall on to one of these groups, they will have a contradiction. They will see the satellites telling them something different than what is on the ground. Then our trick is worthless. Already we must remove protection from a couple of the groups we agreed on — they were going to be captured very soon no matter what, Paul," he spoke the last words quickly as he saw the old man straighten in his chair.

Allison put in, "I agree with Wili. We three may be able to hold out forever, but the Tinkers in California will be all gone in another couple of weeks. Controlling the enemy's comm and recon is an enormous advantage, but it's something they will learn about sooner or later. It's worthless except for short-term goals."

Paul was silent for along moment. When he spoke again, it sounded like the Paul she had known so long ago, the fellow who never let a problem defeat him. "Okay. Then victory must be our short-term goal... We'll attack Livermore, and bobble their generator."

"Paul, you can do that? You can cast a bobble hundreds of kilometers away, just like the Peacers?" From the corner of her eye, Allison saw Wili shake his head.

"No, but I can do better than in L.A. If we could get Wili and enough equipment to within four thousand meters of the target, he could bobble it."

"Four thousand meters?" Rosas walked to the open windows. He looked out over the forest, seeming to enjoy the cool air that was beginning to sweep into the room. "Paul, Paul. I know you specialize in the impossible, but... In Los Angeles we needed a gang of porters just to carry the storage cells. A few weeks ago you wouldn't hear of taking a wagon off into the eastern wilderness. Now you want to haul a wagonful of equipment through some of the most open and well-populated country on Earth.

"And then, if you do get there, all you have to do is get those several tons of equipment within four thousand meters of the Peacer generator. Paul, I've been up to the Livermore Enclave. Three years ago. It was police service liaison with the Peacers. They've got enough firepower there to defeat an old-time army, enough aircraft that they don't need satellite pickups. You couldn't get within forty kilometers without an engraved invitation. Four thousand meters range is probably right inside their central compound."

"There is another problem, Paul," Wili spoke shyly. "I had thought about their generator, too. Someday, I know we must destroy it — and the one in Beijing. But Paul, I can't find it. I mean, the Authority publicity, it gives nice pictures of the generator building at Livermore, but they are fake. I know. Since I took over their communication system, I know everything they say to each other over the satellites. The generator in Beijing is very close to its official place, but the Livermore one is hidden. They never say its place, even in the most secret transmissions."

Paul slumped in his chair, defeat very obvious. "You're right, of course. The bastards built it in secret. They certainly kept the location secret while the governments were still powerful."

Allison stared from one to the other and felt crazy laughter creeping up her throat. They really didn't know. After all these years they didn't know. And just minutes before, she had been hurting herself with might-have-beens. The laughter burbled out, and she didn't try to stop it. The others looked at her with growing surprise. Her last mission, perhaps the last recon sortie the USAF ever flew, might yet serve its purpose.

Finally, she choked down the laughter and told them the cause for joy. "...so if you have a reader, I think we can find it."

There followed frantic calls for Irma, then even more frantic searches through attic storage for the old disk reader. An hour later, the reader sat on the living room table. It was bulky, gray, the Motorola insignia almost scratched away. Irma plugged it in and coaxed it to life. "It worked fine years ago. We used it to copy all our old disks onto solid storage. It uses a lot of power though; that's one reason we gave it up."

The reader's screen came to life, a brilliant glow that lit the whole room. This was the honest light Allison remembered. She had brought her disk pack down, and undone the combination lock. The disk was milspec, but it was commercial format; it should run on the Motorola. She slipped it into the reader. Her fingers danced across the keyboard, customizing off routines on the disk. Everything was so familiar; it was like suddenly being transported back to the before.

The screen turned white. Three mottled gray disks sat near the middle of the field. She pressed a key and the picture was overlaid with grids and legends.

Allison looked at the picture and almost started laughing again. She was about to reveal what was probably the most highly classified surveillance technique in the American arsenal. Twelve weeks "before," such an act would have been unthinkable. Now, it was a wonderful opportunity, an opportunity for the murdered past to win some small revenge. "Doesn't look like much, does it?" she said into the silence. "We're looking down at — I should say 'through' — Livermore." The date on the legend was 01JUL97.

She looked at Paul. "This is what you asked me to look for, Paul. Remember? I don't think you ever guessed just how good our gear really was."

"You mean, those gray things are old Avery's test projections?"

She nodded. "Of course, I didn't know what to make of them at the time. They're about five hundred meters down. Your employers were very cautious."

Wili looked from Allison to Paul and back, bewilderment growing. "But what is it that we are seeing?"

"We are seeing straight through the Earth. There's a type of light that shines from some parts of the sky. It can pass through almost anything."

"Like x-rays?" Mike said doubtfully.

"Something like x-rays." There was no point in talking about massy neutrinos and sticky detectors. They were just words to her, anyway. She could use the gear, and she understood the front-end engineering, but that was all. "The white background is a 'bright' region of the sky — seen straight through the Earth. Those three gray things are the silhouettes of bobbles far underground."

"So they're the only things that are opaque to this magic light," Mike said. "It looks like a good bobble hunter, Allison, but what good was it for anything else?" If you could see through literally everything, then you could see nothing.

"Oh, there is a very small amount of attenuation. This picture is from a single `exposure,' without any preprocessing. I was astounded to see anything on it. Normally, we'd take a continuous stream of exposures, through varying chords of the Earth's crust, then compute a picture of the target area. The math is pretty much like medical tomography." She keyed another command string. "Here's a sixty meter map I built from all our observations."

Now the display showed intricate detail: A pink surface map of 1997 Livermore lay over the green, blue, and red representation of subsurface densities. Tunnels and other underground installations were obvious lines and rectangles in the picture.

Wili made an involuntary aping sound.

"So if we can figure out which of those things is the secret generator... " said Mike.

"I think I can narrow it down quite a bit." Paul stared intently at the display, already trying to identify function in the shapes.

"No need," said Allison. "We did a lot of analysis right on the sortie craft. I've got a database on the disk; I can subtract out everything the Air Force knew about." She typed the commands.

And now the moment we've all been waiting for." There was an edge of triumph in the flippancy. The rectangles dimmed all but one on the southwest side of the Livermore Valley.

"You did it, Allison!" Paul stood back from the display and grabbed her hands. For an instant she thought he would dance her around the room. But after an awkward moment, he just squeezed her hands.

As he turned back to the display, she asked, "But can we be sure it's still there? If the Peacers know about this scanning technique-"

"They don't. I'm sure of it," said Wili.

Paul laughed. "We can do it, Mike! We can do it. Lord, I'm glad you all had the sense to push. I'd have sat here and let the whole thing die."

Suddenly the other three were all talking at once.

"Look. I see answers to your objections, and I have a feeling that once we start to take it seriously we can find even better answers. First off, it's not impossible to get ourselves and some equipment up there. One horse-drawn wagon is probably enough. Using back roads, and our `invisibility,' we should be able to get at least to Fremont."

"And then?" said Allison.

"There are surviving Tinkers in the Bay Area. We all attack, throw in everything we have. If we do it right, they won't guess we control their comm and recon until we have our bobbler right on top of them."

Mike was grinning now, talking across the conversation at Wili. Allison raised her voice over the others'. "Paul, this has more holes than-"

"Sure, sure. But it's a start." The old man waved his hand airily, as if only trivial details remained. It was a typical Paulish gesture, something she remembered from the first day she met him. The "details" were usually nontrivial, but it was surprising how often his harebrained schemes worked anyway.

THIRTY-THREE

"Eat Vandenberg Bananas. They Can't Be Beat." The banner was painted in yellow on a purple background. The letters were shaped as though built out of little bananas. Allison said it was the most asinine thing she had ever seen. Below the slogan, smaller letters spelled, "Andrews Farms, Santa Maria."

The signs were draped along the sides of their wagons. A light plastic shell was mounted above the green cargo. At every stop Allison and Paul carefully refilled the evap coolers that hung between the shell and the bananas. The two banana wagons were among the largest horse-drawn vehicles on the highway.

Mike and the Santa Maria Tinkers had rigged a hidden chamber in the middle of each wagon. The front wagon carried the bobbler and the storage cells; the other contained Wili, Mike, and most of the electronics.

Wili sat at the front of the cramped chamber and tried to see through the gap in the false cargo. No air was ducted from the coolers while they were stopped. Without it, the heat of the ripening bananas and the summer days could be a killer. Behind him, he felt Mike stir restlessly. They both spent the hottest part of the afternoons trying to nap. They weren't very successful; it was just too hot. Wili suspected they must stink so bad by now that the Peacers would smell them inside.

Paul's stooped figure passed through Wili's narrow field of view. His disguise was pretty good; he didn't look anything like the blurred pictures the Peacers were circulating. A second later he saw Allison — in farmer's-daughter costume — walk by. There was a slight shifting of the load and the monotonous clopclopclop of the team resumed. They pulled out of the rest stop, past a weigh station moldering toward total ruin.

Wili pressed his face against the opening, both for the air and the view. They were hundreds of kilometers from Los Angeles; he had expected something more exciting. After all, the area around Vandenberg was almost a jungle. But no. Except for a misty stretch just after Salinas, everything stayed dry and hot. Through the hole in the bananas, he could see the ground rising gently ahead of them, sometimes golden grass, sometimes covered with chaparral. It looked just like the Basin, except that the ruins were sparse and only occasional. Mike said there were other differences, but he had a better eye for plants.

Just then a Peace Authority freighter zipped by in the fast lane. Its roar was surmounted by an arrogant horn blast. The banana wagon rocked in the wash and Wili got a faceful of dust. He sighed and lay back. Five days they had been on the road now. The worst of it was that, inside the wagon, he was out of touch; they couldn't disguise the antennas well enough to permit a link to the satellite net. And they didn't have enough to power for Jill to run all the time. The only processors he could use were very primitive.

Every afternoon was like this: hotter and hotter till they couldn't even pretend to sleep, till they started grumping at each other. He almost wished they would have some problems.

This afternoon he might get that almost-wish. This afternoon they would reach Mission Pass and Livermore Valley.

The nights were very different. At twilight Paul and Allison would turn the wagons off Old 101 and drive the tired teams at least five kilometers into the hills. Wili and Mike came out of their hole, and Wili established communication with the satellite net. It was like suddenly coming awake to be back in connection with Jill and the net. They never had trouble finding the local Tinkers' cache. There were always food and fodder and freshly charged storage cells hidden near a spring or well. He and Paul used those power cells to survey the world through satellite eyes, to coordinate with the Tinkers in the Bay Area and China. They must all be ready at the same time.

The previous night the four of them had held their last council of war.

Some things that Allison and Mike had worried about turned out to be no problems at all. For instance, the Peacers could have set checkpoints hundreds of kilometers out along all highways leading to Livermore. They hadn't done so. The Authority obviously suspected an attack on their main base, but they were concentrating their firepower closer in. And their reserve force was chasing Wili's phantoms in the Great Valley. Now that the Authority had wiped away all public Tinkering, there was nothing obvious for them to look for. They couldn't harass every produce wagon or labor convoy on the coast.

But there were other problems that wouldn't go away. The previous night had been their last chance to look at those from a distance. "Anything after tonight, we're going to have to play by ear," Mike had said, stretching luxuriously in the open freedom of the evening.

Paul grunted at this. The old man sat facing them, his back to the valley. His wide farmer hat drooped down at the sides. "Easy for you to say, Mike. You're an action type. I've never been able to ad lib. I get everything worked out in advance. If something really unexpected happens I'm just no good at real-time flexibility." It made Wili sad to hear him say this. Paul was becoming indecisive again. Every night, he seemed a little more tired.

Allison Parker returned from settling the horses and sat down at the fourth corner of their little circle. She took off her bonnet. Her pale hair glinted in the light of their tiny camp fire. "Well then, what are the problems we have to solve? You have the Bay Area Tinkers, what's left of them, all prepared to stage a diversion. You know exactly where the Peacer bobble generator is hidden. You have control of the enemy's communication and intelligence net — that alone is a greater advantage than most generals ever have."

Her voice was firm, matter-of-fact. It gave support by making concrete points rather than comforting noises, Wili thought.

There was a long silence. A few meters away they could hear the horses munching. Something fluttered through the darkness over their heads. Finally Allison continued, "Or is there doubt that you do control their communications? Do they really trust their satellite system?"

"Oh, they do. The Authority is spread very thin. About the only innovative thing they've ever done was to reestablish the old Chinese launch site at Shuangcheng. They have close and far reconnaissance from their satellites, as well as communications — both voice and computer." Wili nodded in agreement. He followed the discussion with only a fraction of his mind. The rest was off managing and updating the hundreds of ruses that must fit together to maintain their great deception. In particular, the faked Tinker movements in the Great Valley had to be wound down, but carefully so that the enemy would not realize they had put thousands of men there for no reason.

"And Wili says they don't seem to trust anything that comes over ground links," Paul continued. "Somehow they have the idea that if a machine is thousands of kilometers off in space, then it should be immune to meddling." He laughed shortly. "In their own way, those old bastards are as inflexible as I. Oh, they'll follow the ring in their nose, until the contradictions get too thick. By then we must have won.

"...But there are so many, many things we have to get straight before that can happen." The sound of helplessness was back in his voice.

Mike sat up. "Okay. Let's take the hardest: how to get from their front door to the bobble generator."

"Front door? Oh, you mean the garrison on Mission Pass. Yes, that's the hardest question. They've strengthened that garrison enormously during the last week."

"Ha. If they're like most organizations, that'll just make them more confused — at least for a while. Look, Paul. By the time we arrive there, the Bay Area Tinkers should be attacking. You told me that some of them have maneuvered north and east of Livermore. They have bobble generators. In that sort of confusion there ought to be lots of ways to get our heavy-duty bobbler in close."

Wili smiled in the dark. just a few days ago, it had been Rosas who'd been down on the plan. Now that they were close, though...

"Then name a few."

"Hell, we could go in just like we are-as banana vendors. We know they import the things."

Paul snorted. "Not in the middle of a war."

"Maybe. But we can control the moment the real fighting begins. Going in as we are would be along shot, I admit, but if you don't want to improvise completely, you should be thinking about various ways things could happen. For instance, we might bobble the Pass and have our people grab the armor that's left and come down into the Livermore Valley on it with Wili covering for us. I know you've thought about that — all day I have to sit on those adapter cables you brought.

"Paul," he continued more quietly, "you've been the inspiration of several thousand people these last two weeks. These guys have their necks stuck way out. We're all willing to risk everything. But we need you more than ever now."

"Or put less diplomatically — I got us all into this pickle, so I can't give up on it now."

"Something like that."

"...Okay." Paul was silent for a moment. "Maybe we could arrange it so that..." He was quiet again and Wili realized that the old Paul had reasserted himself-was trying to, anyway. "Mike, do you have any idea where this Lu person is now?"

"No." The undersheriff's voice was suddenly tight. "But she's important to them, Paul. I know that much. I wouldn't be surprised if she were at Livermore."

"Maybe you could talk to her. You know, pretend you're interested in betraying the Tinker forces we've lined up here."

"No! What I did had nothing to do with hurting..." His voice scaled down, and he continued more calmly. "I mean, I don't see what good it would do. She's too smart to believe anything like that."

Wili looked up through the branches of the dry oak that spread over their campsite. The stars should have been beautiful through those branches. Somehow they were more like tiny gleams in a dark-socketed skull. Even if he were never denounced, could poor Mike ever silence his internal inquisitor?

"Still, as you said about the other, it's something to think about." Paul shook his head sharply and rubbed his temples. "I am so tired. Look. I've got to talk to Jill about this. I'll think things out. I promise. But let's continue in the morning. Okay?"

Allison reached across as though to touch his shoulder, but Paul was already coming to his feet. He walked slowly away from the campfire. Allison started to get up, then sat down and looked at the other two. "There's something wrong... There's something so wrong about Paul making a person out of a thing," she said softly. Wili didn't know what to say, and after a moment the three of them spread out their sleeping bags and crawled in.

Wili's lay between the cache of storage cells and the wagon with the processors. There should be enough juice for several hours' operation. He adjusted the scalp connect and wriggled into a comfortable position. He stared up at the half-sinister arches of the oaks and let his mind mesh with the system. He was going into deep connect now, something he avoided when he was with the others. It made his physical self dopey and uncoordinated.

Wili sensed Paul talking to Jill but did not try to participate.

His attention drifted to the tiny cameras they had scattered beyond the edges of the camp, then snapped onto a highresolution picture from above. From there, their oaks were just one of many tiny clumps of darkness on a rolling map of paler grassland. The only light for kilometers around came from the embers that still glowed at the center of their camp. Wili smiled in his mind; that was the true view. The tiny light flicked out, and he looked down on the scene that was being reported to the Peace Authority. Nobody here but us coyotes.

This was the easiest part of the "high watch." He did it only for amusement; it was the sort of thing Jill and the satellite processors could manage without his conscious attention.

Wili drifted out from the individual viewpoints, his attention expanding to the whole West Coast and beyond, to the Tinkers near Beijing. There was much to do; a good deal more than Mike or Allison — or even Paul — might suspect. He talked to dozens of conspirators. These men had come to expect Paul's voice coming off Peacer satellites in the middle of the West Coast night. Wili must protect them as he did the banana wagons. They were a weak link. If any of them were captured, or turned traitor, the enemy would immediately know of Wili's electronic fraud. From them, "Paul's" instructions and recommendations were spread to hundreds.

In this state, Wili found it hard to imagine failure. All the details were there before him. As long as he was on hand to watch and supervise, there was nothing that could take him by surprise. It was a false optimism perhaps. He knew that Paul didn't feel it when he was linked up and helping. But Wili had gradually realized that Paul used the system without becoming part of it. To Paul it was like another programming tool, not like a part of his own mind. It was sad that someone so smart should miss this.

This real dream of power continued for several hours. As the cells slowly drained, operations were necessarily curtailed. The slow retreat from omniscience matched his own increasing drowsiness. Last thing before losing consciousness and power, he ferreted through Peacer archives and discovered the secret of Della Lu's family. Now that their cover was blown, they had moved to the Livermore Enclave, but Wili found two other spy families among the 'furbishers and warned the conspirators to avoid them.

Heat, sweat, dust on his face. Something was clanking and screaming in the distance. Wili lurched out of his daydreaming recollection of the previous evening. Beside him Rosas leaned close to the peephole. A splotch of light danced across his face as he tried to follow what was outside in spite of the swaying progress of the banana wagon.

"God. Look at all those Peacers," he said quietly. "We must be right at the Pass, Wili."

"Lemme see," the boy said groggily. Wili suppressed his own surprised exclamation. The wagons were still ascending the same gentle grade they'd been on for the last hour. Ahead he could see the wagon that contained Jill. What was new was the cause of all the clanking. Peacer armor. The vehicles were still on the horizon, coming off an interchange ahead. They were turning north toward the garrison at Mission Pass. "Must be the reinforcements from Medford." Wili had never seen so many vehicles with his own eyes. The line stretched from the interchange for as far as they could see. They were painted in dark green colors — quite an uncamouflage in this landscape. Many of them looked like tanks he had seen in old movies. Others were more like bricks on treads.

As they approached the interchange the clanking got louder and combined with the overtones of turbines. Soon the banana wagons caught up with the military. Civilian traffic was forced over to the rightmost lane. Powered freighters and horsedrawn wagons alike were slowed to the same crawl.

It was late afternoon. There was something big and loud behind them that cast a long shadow forward across the two banana wagons, and brought a small amount of coolness. But the tanks to the right raised a dust storm that more than made up for the lowered temperatures.

They drove like this for more than an hour. Where were the checkpoints? The road ahead still rose. They passed dozens of parked tanks, their crews working at mysterious tasks. Someone was fueling up. The smell of fuel came into the cramped hole along with the dust and the noise.

All was in shadow now. But finally Wili thought he could see part of the garrison. At least there was a building on the crest they were approaching. He remembered what things looked like from above. Most of the garrison's buildings were on the far side of the crest. Only a few positions — for observation and direct fire-were on this side.

Wili wondered what sort of armor they had back there now, considering what he was seeing on this side.

Wili and Mike traded time at the peephole as the spot on the horizon grew larger. The outpost sat like a huge boulder mostly submerged in the earth. There were slots cut in the armor, and he could see guns or lasers within. Wili was reminded of some of the twentieth-century fantasies Bill Morales liked to watch. These last few days — and hopefully the next few as well were like Lucas' Lord of the Rings. Mike had even called Mission Pass the "front door" last night. Beyond these mountains (actually low hills) lay the "Great Enemy's" ultimate redoubt. The mountains hid enemy underlings that watched for the hobbits or elves (or Tinkers) who must sneak through to the plains beyond, who must go right into the heart of evil and perform some simple act that would bring victory.

The similarity went further. This enemy had a supreme weapon (the big bobbler hidden in the Valley), but instead depended on earthly servants (the tanks and the troops) to do the dirty work. The Peacers hadn't bobbled anything for the last three days. That was a mystery, though Wili and Paul suspected the Authority was building up energy reserves for the battle they saw coming.

Ahead of them, civilian traffic stopped at a checkpoint. Wili couldn't see exactly what was happening, but one by one some slowly, some quickly — the wagons and freighters passed through. Finally their turn came. He heard Paul climb down from the driver's seat. A couple of Peacers approached. Both were armed, but they didn't seem especially tense. Twilight was deep now, and he could barely make out the color in their uniforms. The sky came down to the near horizon that was the crest of the Pass. The Earth's shadow, projected into the sky, made a dark wall beyond them. One soldier carried a long metal pole. Some kind of weapon?

Paul hurried up from the back wagon. For a moment all three stood in Wili's field of view. The troopers glanced at Paul and then up at where Allison was sitting. They obviously realized the two wagons were together. "Watcha got here, uncle?" asked the older of them.

"Bananas," Naismith replied unnecessarily. "You want some? My granddaughter and I've got to get them to Livermore before they spoil."

"I have bad news for you, then. Nothing's getting through here for a while." The three walked out of sight, back along the wagon.

"What?" Paul's voice rose, cracked. He was a better actor than Wili would have guessed. "B-but what's going on here? I'll lose business."

The younger soldier sounded sincerely apologetic. "We can't help it, sir. If you had followed the news, you'd know the enemies of Peace are on the move again. We're expecting an attack almost any time. Those damn Tinkers are going to bring back the bad old days."

"Oh no!" The anguish in the old man's voice seemed a compound of his personal problems and this new forecast of doom.

There was the sound of side curtains being dragged off the wagon. "Hey, Sarge, these things aren't even ripe."

"That's right," said Naismith. "I have to time things so when I arrive they'll be just ready to sell... Here. Take a couple, officer."

"Um, thanks." Wili could imagine the Peacer holding a clump of bananas, trying to figure what to do with them. "Okay, Hanson, do your stuff." There was a rasping and a probing. So that's what the metal pole was. Both Wili and Miguel Rosas held their breath. Their hiding space was small, and it was covered with webbed padding. It could probably deceive a sonic probe. What about this more primitive search?

"It's clean."

"Okay. Let's look at your other wagon."

They walked to the forward wagon, the one that contained the bobbler and most of the storage cells. Their conversation faded into the general din of the checkpoint. Allison climbed down from her driver's seat and stood where Wili could see her.

Minutes passed. The band of shadow across the eastern sky climbed, became diffuse. Twilight moved toward night.

Electric lamps flashed on. Wili gasped. He had seen miraculous electronics these last months, but the sudden sheer power of those floodlights was as impressive as any of it. Every second they must eat as much electricity as Naismith's house did in a week.

Then he heard Paul's voice again. The old man had taken on a whining tone, and the trooper was a bit more curt than before. "Look, mister, l didn't decide to bring war here. You should count yourself lucky that you have any sort of protection from these monsters. Maybe things will blow over in time for you to save the load. For now, you're stuck. There's a parking area up ahead, near the crest. We have some latrines fixed there. You and your granddaughter can stay overnight, then decide if you want to stick it out or turn back... Maybe you could sell part of the load in Fremont."

Paul sounded defeated, almost dazed. "Yes, sir. Thanks for your help. Do as he says, Allison dear."

The wagons creaked forward, blue-white light splashing all around them like magic rain. From across the tiny hiding place, Wili heard the whisper of chuckle.

"Paul is really good. Now I wonder if all his whining last night was some sort of reverse whammy to get our spirits up."

Horse-drawn wagons and Authority freighters alike had parked in the big lot near the crest of the Pass. There were some electric lamps, but compared to the checkpoint it was almost dark. A good many people were stuck here overnight. Most of them milled around by cooking fires at the middle of the lot. The far end was dominated by the squat dome they had seen from far down the highway. Several armored vehicles were parked in front of it; they faced into the civilians.

The armored traffic on the highway had virtually ceased. For the first time in hours there was an absence of clank and turbines.

Paul came back around the side of the wagon. He and Allison adjusted the side curtains. Paul complained loudly to Allison about the disaster that had befallen them, and she was dutifully quiet. A trio of freighter drivers walked by. As they passed out of earshot, Naismith said quietly. "Wili, we're going to have to risk a hookup. I've connected you with the gear in the front wagon. Allison has pulled the narrow-beam antenna out of the bananas. I want contact with our... friends. We're going to need help to get any closer."

Wili grinned in the dark. It was a risk-but one he'd been aching to take. Sitting in this hole without processors was like being deaf, dumb, and blind. He attached the scalp connector and powered up.

There was a moment of disorientation as Jill and he meshed with the satellite net. Then he was looking out a dozen new eyes, listening on hundreds of Peacer comm channels. It would take him a little longer to contact the Tinkers. After all, they were humans.

A bit of his awareness still hung in their dark hiding place. With his true ears, Wili heard a car roar off the highway and park at the Peacer dome. The armor at the far end of the lot came to life. Something important was happening right here. Wili found a camera aboard the armor that could transmit to the satellite net. He looked out: The car's driver had jumped out and come to attention. Far across the lot, he could see civilians — somewhere among them Paul and Allison — turn to watch. He felt Mike crawl across him to look out the peephole. Wili juggled the viewpoints, at the same time continuing his efforts to reach the Tinkers, at the same time searching Authority RAM for the cause of the current commotion.

A door opened at the base of the Peacer station. White light spread from it across the asphalt. A Peacer was outlined in the doorway. A second followed him. And between them... a child? Someone small and slender, anyway. The figure stepped out of the larger shadows and looked across the parking lot. Light glinted off the black helmet of short cut hair. He heard Mike suck in a breath.

It was Della Lu.

THIRTY-FOUR

Staff seemed satisfied with the preparations; even Avery accepted the plans.

Della Lu was not so happy. She looked speculatively at the stars on the shoulder of the perimeter commander. The officer looked back with barely concealed truculence. He thought he was tough. He thought she was more nonprofessional interference.

But she knew he was soft. All these troops were. They hadn't ever been in a real fight.

Lu considered the map he had displayed for her. As she, through Avery, had required, the armored units were being dispersed into the hills. Except for a few necessary and transient concentrations, the Tinkers would have to take them out a vehicle at a time. And satellite intelligence assured them that the enemy attack was many hours away, that the infiltrators weren't anywhere near the net of armor.

She pointed to the Mission Pass command post. "I see you stopped all incoming traffic. Why have them park so close to your command point here? A few of those people must be Tinker agents."

The general shrugged. "We inspected the vehicles four thousand meters down the road. That's beyond the range the intelligence people give for the enemy's homemade bobbler. Where we have them now, we can keep them under close watch and interrogate them more conveniently."

Della didn't like it. If even a single generator slipped through, this command post would be lost. Still, with the main attack at least twenty-four hours away, it might be safe to sit here a bit longer. There was time perhaps to go Tinker hunting in that parking area. Anybody they caught would probably be important to the enemy cause. She stepped back from the map display. "Very well, General, let's take a look at these civilians. Get your intelligence teams together. It's going to be a long night for them.

"In the meantime, I want you to move your command and control elements over the ridgeline. When things start happening, they'll be much safer in mobiles."

The officer looked at her for a moment, probably wondering just who she was sleeping with to give such orders. Finally he turned and spoke to a subordinate.

He glanced back at Della. "You want to be present at the interrogations?"

She nodded. "The first few, anyway. I'll pick them for you."

The parking-lot detention area was several hundred meters on a side. It looked almost like a fairground. Diesel freighters loomed over small horse-drawn carts and wagons. The truckers had already started fires. Some of their voices were almost cheerful. The delay by itself didn't worry them; their businesses were internal to the Authority and they stood to be reimbursed.

Lu walked past the staff car the general had ordered for them. The officer and his aides tagged along, uncertain what she would do next. She wasn't sure yet either, but once she got the feel of the crowd...

If she were Miguel Rosas, she'd figure out some way to hijack one of the Peace Authority freighters. There was enough volume in a freighter to hide almost anything the Tinkers might make. Hmm. But the drivers generally knew each other and could probably recognize each other's rigs. The Tinkers would have to park their freighter away from the others, and avoid socializing. She and her entourage drifted through the shadows beyond the fires.

The freighters were clumped together; none was parked apart. That left the non-Peacer civilians. She turned away from the freighters and walked down a row of wagons. The people were ordinary enough: more than half in their fifties and sixties, the rest young apprentices. They did look uneasy — they stood to lose a lot of money if they had to stay here long-but there was little fear. They still believed the Authority's propaganda. And most of them were food shippers. None of their own people had been bobbled in the purges she had supervised the last few weeks. From somewhere over the hill she heard choppers. The intelligence crews would be here shortly.

Then she saw the banana wagons. They could only be from the Vandenberg area. No matter what intelligence was saying nowadays, she still thought Middle California was the center of the infestation. An old man and a woman about Lu's own age stood near the wagons. She felt tiny alarm bells going off.

Behind Della, the helicopters were landing. Dust blew cool and glowing around her. The choppers' lights cast her group's shadow toward the pair by the banana wagons. The old man raised his hand to shade his eyes; the woman just looked at them. There was something strange about her, a straightness in her posture, almost a soldier's bearing. For all that the other was tall and Caucasian, Della felt she was seeing someone very like herself.

Della clapped the general's arm, and when he turned to her she shouted over the sounds of blades and turbines, "I have some prime suspects-"

"The bitch! Is she some kind of mind reader?" Mike watched Lu's progress across the wide field. She still wasn't coming directly toward them, but edged slowly closer, like some cautious huntress. Mike cursed quietly. They seemed doomed at every step to face her and be bested by her.

The field grew bright; shadows shifted and lengthened. Choppers. Three of them. Each craft carried twin lamps hung below the cockpit. Lu's wolves, eyes glowing, settled down behind their mistress.

"Mike. Listen." Wili's voice was tense, but the words were slurred, the cadence irregular. He must be in deep connect. He sounded like one talking from a dream. "I'm running at full power; we'll be out of power in seconds — but that is all we have."

Mike looked out at the helicopters; Wili was right about that. "But what can we do?" he said.

"Our friends... going to distract her... no time to explain everything. Just do what I say."

Mike stared into the darkness. He could imagine the dazed look in Wili's eyes, the slack features. He had seen it often enough the last few evenings. The boy was managing their own problems and coordinating the rest of the revolution, all at the same time. Rosas had played symbiotic games, but this was beyond his imagination. There was only one thing he could say. "Sure."

"You're going to take those two armored equipment carriers at... far side of the field. Do you see them?"

Mike had, earlier. They were two hundred meters off. There were guards posted next to them.

"When?"

"A minute. Kick loose the side of the wagon... now. When I say go... you jump, grab Allison, and run for them. Ignore everything else you see and hear. Everything."

Mike hesitated. He could guess what Wili intended, but"Move. Move. Move!" Wili's voice was abruptly urgent, angry — the dreamer frustrated. It was as unnerving as a scream. Mike turned and crashed his heels into the specially weakened wall. It had been intended as an emergency escape route. As the tacked nails gave way, Mike reflected that this was certainly an emergency-but they would be getting out in full view of Peacer guns.

Lu's general heard her order and turned to shout to his men. He was below his usual element here, directing operations firsthand. Della had to remind him, "Don't point. Have your people pick up others at the same time. We don't want to spook those two."

He nodded.

The rotors were winding down. Something like quiet should return to the field now, she thought...

...and was wrong. "Sir!" It was a soldier in the field car. "We're losing armor to enemy action."

Lu whipped around the brass before they could do more than swear. She hopped into the car and looked at the display that glowed in front of the soldier. Her fingers danced over the command board as she brought up views and interpretation. The man stared at her for a horrified instant, then realized that she must be somebody very special.

Satellite photos showed eight silvery balls embedded in the hills north of them, eight silvery balls gleaming in starlight. Now there were nine. Patrols in the hills reported the same thing. One transmission ended in midsentence. Ten bobbles. The infiltration was twenty-four hours ahead of the schedule Avery's precious satellites and intelligence computers had predicted. The Tinkers must have dozens of manpack generators out there. If they were like the one Wili Wachendon had carried, they were very short range. The enemy must be sneaking right up on their targets.

Della looked across the detention area at the banana wagons. Remarkably timed, this attack.

She slipped out of the car and walked back to the general and his staff. Cool. Cool. They may hold off as long as me don't move on the wagons.

:Looks bad, General. They're way ahead of our estimates. Some of them are already operating north of us." That much was true.

"My God. I've got to get back to command, lady. These interrogations will have to wait."

Lu smiled crookedly. The other still didn't get the point. "You do that. Might as well leave these people alone anyway." But the other was already walking away from her. He waved acknowledgment and got into the field car.

To the north she heard tac air, scrambled up from the Livermore Valley. Something flashed white, and far hills stood in momentary silhouette. That was one bobbler that wouldn't get them this night.

Della looked over the civilian encampment as though pondering what to do next. She was careful to give no special attention to the banana wagons. Apparently, they thought their diversion successful — at least she remained unbobbled.

She walked back to her personal chopper, which had come in with the interrogation teams. Lu's aircraft was smaller, only big enough for pilot, commander, and gunner. It bristled with sensor equipment and rocket pods. The tail boom might be painted with L.A. paisley, but these were her own people on this machine, veterans of the Mongolian campaign. She pulled herself onto the command seat and gave the pilot an emphatic up-and-away sign. They were off the ground immediately.

Della ignored this efficiency; she was already trying to get her priority call through to Avery. The little monochrome display in front of her pulsed red as her call stayed in the queue. She could imagine the madhouse Livermore Central had become the last few minutes. But, damn you, Avery, this is not the time to forget I come first!

Red. Red. Red. The call pattern disappeared, and the display was filled with a pale blob that might have been someone's face. "Make it quick." It was Hamilton Avery's voice. Other voices, some almost shouting, came from behind him.

She was ready. "No proof, but I know they've infiltrated right up to the Mission Pass Gate. I want you to lay a thousand meter bobble just south of the CP-"

"No! We're still charging. If we start using it now, there won't be juice for rapid fire when we really need it, when they get over the ridgeline."

"Don't you see? The rest is diversion. Whatever I've found here must be important."

But the link was broken; the screen glowed a faint, uniform red. Damn Avery and his caution! He was so afraid of Paul Hoehler, so certain the other would figure out a way to get into Livermore Valley, that he was actually making it possible for the enemy to do so.

She looked past the instrument displays. They were about four hundred meters up. Splashes of blue white light from the pole lamps lit the detention area; the camp looked like some perfect model. There was little apparent motion, though the pilot's thermal scanner showed that some of the armor was alive, awaiting orders. The civilian camp was still and bluish white, little tents sitting by scarcely larger wagons. The darker clumps around the fires were crowds of people.

Della swallowed. If Avery wouldn't bobble the camp...

She knew, without looking, what her ship carried. She had stun bombs, but if those wagons were what she thought, they would be shielded. She touched her throat mike and spoke to her gunner. "Fire mission. Rockets on the civilian wagons. No napalm." The people around the campfires would survive. Most of them.

The gunner's "Roger" sounded in her ear. The air around the chopper glowed as if a small sun had suddenly risen behind them, and a roar blotted out the rotor thumping. Looking almost into the exhaust of the rocket stream dimmed all other lights to nothing.

Or almost nothing. For an instant, she glimpsed rockets coming up from below...

Then their barrage exploded. In the air. Not halfway to the target. The fireballs seemed to splash across some unseen surface. The chopper staggered as shrapnel ripped through it. Someone screamed.

The aircraft tipped into an increasing bank that would soon turn them upside down. Della didn't think, didn't really notice the pilot slumped against his controls. She grabbed her copy of the stick, pulled, and jabbed at the throttle. Ahead she saw another copter, on a collision path with theirs. Then the pilot fell back, the stick came free, and her aircraft shot upward, escaping both ground and the mysterious other.

The gunner crawled up between them and looked at the pilot. "He's dead, ma'am."

Della listened, and also listened to the rotors. There was something ragged in their rhythm. She had heard worse. "Okay. Tie him down." Then she ignored them and flew the helicopter slowly around what had been the Mission Pass Gate.

The phantom missiles from below, the, mysterious helicopter — all were explained now. Near the instant her gunner fired his rockets, someone had bobbled the Pass. She circled that great dark sphere, a perfect reflection of her lights following her. The bobble was a thousand meters across. But this hadn't been Avery relenting: Along with the civilian and freighter encampment, the bobble also contained the Gate's command post. Far below, Authority armor moved around the base, like ants suddenly cut off from the nest.

So. Perfect timing, once again. They had known she was going to attack, and known precisely when. Tinker communication and intelligence must be the equal of the Peace's. And whoever was down there had been important. The generator they carried must have been one of the most powerful the Tinkers had. When they had seen the alternative was death, they had opted out of the whole war.

She looked across at her chopper's reflection, seemingly a hundred meters off. The fact that they had bobbled themselves instead of her aircraft was evidence that the Hoehler technique — at least with small power sources — was not very good for moving targets. Something to remember.

At least now, instead of a hundred new deaths on her soul, the enemy had burdened her with just one, her pilot. And when this bobble burst-the minimum ten years from now or fifty — the war would be history. A flick of the eye to them, and there would be no more killing. She suddenly envied these losers very much.

She banked away and headed for Livermore Central.

THIRTY-FIVE

"Now!" Wili's command came abruptly, just seconds after, Rosas had loosened the false wall. Mike crashed his heels one last time into the wood. It gave way, bananas and timber falling with it.

And suddenly there was light all around them. Not the blue-point lights the Authority had strung around the campground, but an all-enveloping white glare, brighter than any of the electrics. '

"Run now. Run!" Wili's voice was faint from within the compartment. The undersheriff grabbed Allison and urged her across the field. Paul started to follow them, then turned back at Wili's call.

An Authority tank swiveled on its treads, its turret turning even faster. Behind him an unfamiliar voice shouted for him to stop. Mike and Allison only ran faster. And the tank disappeared in a ten-meter-wide silver sphere.

They ran past civilians cowering in the nebulous glare, past troopers and Authority equipment that one after another were bobbled before they could come into action.

Two hundred meters is along way to sprint. It is more than long enough to think, and understand.

The glare all around them was only bright by comparison with night. This was simply morning light, masked and diffused by fog. Wili had bobbled the campground through to the next morning, or the morning after that — to some later time when the mass of the Authority's forces would have moved away from the Gate they now thought blocked. Now he was mopping up the Peacers that had been in the bobble. If they moved fast, they could be gone before the Peace discovered what had happened.

When Mike and Allison reached the armored carriers, they were unguarded — except for a pair of three-meter bobbles that gleamed on either side of them. Wili must have chosen these just because their crews were standing outside. Mike clambered up over the treads and paused, panting. He turned and pulled Allison onto the vehicle. "Wili wants us to drive these to the wagons." He threw the open hatch and shrugged helplessly. "Can you do it?"

"Sure." She caught the edge of the hatch and swung down into the darkness. "C'mon."

Mike followed awkwardly, feeling a little stupid at his question. Allison was from the age of such machines, when everyone knew how to drive.

The smell of lubricants and diesel oil was faint perfume in the air. There was seating for three. Allison was already in the forward position, her hands moving tentatively over the controls. There were no windows and no displays — unless the pale-painted walls were screens. Wait. The third crew position faced to the rear, into formidable racks of electronic equipment. There were displays there.

"See here," said Allison. He turned and looked over her shoulder. She turned a handle, firing up the crawler's turbine. The whine ascended the scale, till Mike felt it through the metal walls and floor as much as through his ears.

Allison pointed. There was a display system on the panel in front of her. The letters and digits were bar-formed, but legible. "That's fuel. It's not full. Should be able to go at least fifty kilometers, though. These others, engine temperature, engine speed — as long as you have autodriver set you'd best ignore them.

Hold tight." She grabbed the driving sticks and demonstrated how to control the tracks. The vehicle slewed back and forth and around.

"How can you see out?"

Allison laughed. "A nineteenth-century solution. Bend down a little further." She tapped the hull above her head. Now he saw the shallow depression that ringed the driver's head, just above the level of her temples. "Three hundred and sixty degrees of periscopes. The position can be adjusted to suit." She demonstrated.

"Okay. You say Wili wants both the crawlers over to the banana wagons? I'll bring the other one." She slipped out of the driver's seat and disappeared through the hatch.

Mike stared at the controls. She had not turned off the engine. All he had to do was sit down and drive. He slid into the seat and stuck his head through the ring of periscope viewers. It was almost as if he had stood up through the hatch; he really could see all around.

Straight ahead, Naismith stood by the wagons. The old man was tearing at the side panels, sending his "precious bananas" cascading across the ground. To the left a puff of vapor came from the other armored carrier, and Mike heard Allison start its engine.

He looked past the lower edge of the periscope ring at the drive sticks. He touched the left tread control, and the carrier jerked incrementally till it was lined up on the wagons. Then he pressed both sticks, and he was moving forward! . Mike accelerated to what must have been six or seven meters per second, as fast as a man could run. It was just like in the games. The trip was over in seconds. He cautiously slowed the carrier to a crawl the last few meters, and turned in the direction Paul motioned. Then he was stopped. The turbine's keening went on.

Allison had already opened the rear of the other vehicle and was sliding the bulky electronics gear out onto the dirt. Mike wondered at the mass of equipment the Peacers seemed to need in these vehicles. All of Sy Wentz's police electronics would fit in one of the carriers with room to spare. "Leave the comm and sense equipment aboard, Allison. Wili may be able to interface it." While Allison concentrated on the equipment she knew, Mike and Paul worked to move Wili's processor and the Tinker communications gear out of the banana wagons.

The boy came out of the gutted wagon. He was off the system now, but still seemed dazed, his efforts to help ineffectual. "I have used almost all, Paul. I can't even talk to the net anymore. If we can't use the generators on the these," he waved at the carriers, "we are dead."

That was the big question. Without foreplanning there wasn't a chance, but Paul had brought power interfaces and connector cables. They were based on Allison's specs. If, as with many things, the Peacers had not changed the old standards, then they had a chance.

They could almost fool themselves that the morning was quiet and still. Even the insects were silent. The air around them got steadily brighter, yet the morning fog was still so thick that the sun's disk was not visible. Far away, much farther than the ridgeline, they heard aircraft. Once or twice a minute there was a muffled explosion. Wili had started the Tinker forces on their invasion of the Livermore Valley, but from the north edge, where he had told them to mass through the night. Hopefully the diversion would be some help.

From the corner of his eyes, Mike had the constant impression of motion half-seen, of figures all across the campground working at projects similar to their own. He glanced across the field and saw the reason for the illusion: Wili had cast dozens of bobbles of varying sizes, all in a few seconds' time after the big, overnight bobble had burst. Some must hold just one or two men. Others, like the ones he had put around the main civilian campsite and the Peacer outpost, were more than fifty meters across. And in every one of them he could see the reflections of the four of them, working frantically to finish the transfer before the Peacers down in the Valley realized that the one big bobble had already burst.

It seemed longer, but the work took only minutes. Leaving most of the power cells behind, they didn't have more than fifty kilos of hardware. The processor and the larger bobble generator went into one carrier, while their own satellite comm equipment and a smaller bobbler went into the other. It was an incongruous sight, the Tinker gear sitting small and innocent in the green-painted equipment racks. Allison stood up in the now-spacious carrier and looked at Paul. "Are you satisfied?"

He nodded.

"Then it's smoke-test time." There was no humor in her voice. She turned a switch. Nothing smoked; displays flickered to life. Wili gave a whoop. The rest of the interfacing was software. It would take unaided programmers weeks. Hopefully, Paul and Wili could do it while they were on the move.

Allison, Paul and Wili took one carrier. Mike — under protest — took the other. There was plenty of room for everyone and all the equipment in just one of the vehicles. "They expect to see rovers in pairs, Mike. I know it."

"Yes," said Allison. 'Just follow my lead, Mike; I won't do anything fancy"

The two vehicles moved slowly out of the parking area, cautiously negotiating the field of mirrored tombstones. The whine of their engines drowned the sound of aircraft and occasional explosions that came from far beyond the ridgeline. As they neared the crest, the fog thinned and morning blue was visible. They were far enough from the parking area that — even without their electronics working — they might be mistaken for Peacers.

Then they were starting downward, past the last of the outer defenses. Soon they would know about the inner ones, and know if Allison's news, now fifty years old, was still the key to the destruction of the Peace.

THIRTY-SIX

Della Lu caught up on the situation reports as she ate breakfast. She wore a fresh jumpsuit, and her straight hair gleamed clean and black in the bright fluorescent lights of the command center. One might think she had just returned from a two-week vacation — not from a night spent running all over the hills, trying to pin down guerrilla positions.

The effect was calculated. The morning watch had just come on. They were for the most part rested, and had none of the harried impatience of the team that had been down here all night If she were going to exercise command — or even influence — upon them, she must appear cool, analytical. And inside, Della almost was. She had taken time to clean up, time even for a short nap. Physically, things had been much worse in Mongolia. Mentally? Mentally, she was beginning, for the first time in her life, to feel outclassed.

Della looked across the ranked consoles. This was the heart of the Livermore command, which itself was the heart of operations worldwide. Before this morning she had never been in this room. In fact, she and most of the occupants didn't know quite where it was. One thing was sure: It was far underground, proof against nukes and gas and such oldfashioned things. Almost equally sure: It was within a few dozen meters of the Livermore bobble generator and its fusion power source. On some of the displays she could see command language for directing and triggering that generator. There was no point in having such control any more or less secure than the generator itself. They would both be in the deepest, most secret hole available.

A situation board covered most of the front wall. Right now it showed a composite interpretation of the land around Livermore, based on satellite reconnaissance. Apparently, the driving programs were not designed for other inputs. Reports from the men on the ground were entered on the display by computer clerks working at terminals connected to the command database. So far this morning, the board did not show any conflicts between the two sources of information. Enemy contact had been about zip for the last hour.

The situation was different elsewhere in the world: There had been no Authority presence in Europe or Africa for days. In Asia, events much like those in North America had taken place. Old Kim Tioulang was as clever as Hamilton Avery, but he had some of the same blind spots. His bobble generator was just north of Beijing. The smaller displays showed the status of the conflict around it. The Chinese Tinkers hadn't built as many bobblers as their American cousins, and they hadn't penetrated as close to the heart of the Beijing complex. But it was late night there, and an attack was under way. The enemy had surprised K.T. just as it had the Livermore forces. The two bobble generators that were the backbone of Peacer power were both under attack, a simultaneous attack that seemed purposefully coordinated. The Tinkers had communications at least as good as the Authority's. At least.

According to the main display, sunrise was due in fifteen minutes, and a heavy fog covered most of the Valley. There were several possible enemy locations, but for now the Peace was holding off. The Tinker bobblers were extremely effective at close range; during the night, the Authority had lost more than twenty percent of its tank force. Better to wait till they had more information on the enemy. Better to wait till Avery let them use the big bobbler. Then they could take them on by the dozens, and at any range.

Lu finished breakfast, sat sipping coffee. Her eyes wandered about the room, half-consciously memorizing faces, displays, exits. The people in this brightly lit, quiet, air-conditioned bunker were living in a fantasy world. And none of them knew it. This was the end receptacle for megabytes of intelligence streaming in to the Peace from all over the world. Before that data arrived, it was already interpreted and winnowed by remote processors. Here it was finally integrated and put on the displays for the highest commanders to pass upon. These people thought their cute displays gave them some ultimate grip on reality. Lu knew that had never been true — and after last night she was sure the system was riddled with lies.

A door hissed open, and Hamilton Avery entered the command bunker. Behind him came Peace General Bertram Maitland, the chief military seat-warmer in the American Directorate. A typical button-pusher. Somehow she had to get past him and convince Avery to junk remote sensing and fight this one with people.

Maitland and Avery strode to an upper rank of terminals. Avery glanced down at Lu and motioned her to join them.

When she arrived, the general was already busy at a terminal, a large-screen model in a flashy red cabinet. He didn't look up. "Intelligence predicts they'll resume the attack shortly after sunrise. You can see indications of thermal activity on the situation board already. It's barely detectable, since they don't have powered vehicles. This time, though, we'll be ready for them." He punched a final command into the terminal, and a faint buzzing penetrated the walls of the bunker. Maitland gestured to the situation board. "There. We just put every one of the suspected enemy concentrations into stasis."

Avery smiled his controlled smile. Every day he seemed a little paler, a little more drawn. He dressed as nattily as always and spoke as coolly as always, but she could see that he was coming near the end of his strength. "That's good. Excellent. I knew if we waited for a full charge we could make up our losses. How many can we do?"

General Maitland considered. "It depends on the size you want. But we can make several thousand at least, with generation rates as high as one per second. I have it under program control now: Satellite recon and even our field commanders can report an enemy location and automatically get an embobblement." The almost subsonic buzz punctuated his words.

No!' The two old men looked up at her, more surprised than angry. "No." Delia repeated more quietly. "It's bad enough to trust these remote sensors for information. If they actually control our bobbling we could very well use all our reserves and get nothing." Or worse, bobble our own people.

Maitland's expression clouded. His antagonist was young, female, and had been promoted with unseemly speed past his favorites. If it weren't for Hamilton Avery, she would be out there on some battalion staff — and that only as reward for her apparent success in Asia. Lu turned her attention to Avery. "Please, Director. I know it's fantastic to suspect enemy interference in our satellite communications. But you yourself have said that nothing is beyond this Hoehler, and that whatever is the most fantastic is what he is most likely to do."

She had pushed the right button. Avery flinched, and his eyes turned to the situation board. Apparently the enemy attack predicted by Maitland had begun. Tiny red dots representing Tinker guerillas were moving into the Valley. Already the Authority bobbler had acted several more times under automatic control. And what if this is fraudulent, or even partly so? There might be Tinkers in the Valley, moving through the deep ravines that netted the landscape, moving closer and closer. Now that the possibility was tied to Paul Hoehler, she could see that it had become almost a certainty in his mind.

"And you were the person who predicted he would attack us here," Avery said almost to himself and then turned to the officer. "General Maitland, abort the programmed response. I want a team of your people monitoring our ground forces — no satellite relays. They will determine when and what to embobble."

Maitland slapped the table. "Sir! That will slow response time to the point where some of them may get onto the inner grounds."

For an instant, Avery's face went slack, as if the conflicting threats had finally driven him over the edge. But when he responded, his voice was even, determined. "So? They still have no idea where our generator is. And we have enough conventional force to destroy such infiltrators ten times over. My order stands."

The officer glared at him for a moment. But Maitland had always been a person who followed orders. Avery would have replaced him decades before if that were not the case. He turned back to the terminal, canceled the program, and then talked through it to his analysts at the front of the room, relaying Avery's directive. The intermittent buzzing from beyond the walls ceased.

The Director motioned Lu to follow him. "Anything else?" he asked quietly, when they were out of Maitland's earshot.

Della didn't hesitate. "Yes. Ignore all automated remote intelligence. In the Livermore area, use line-of-sight communications — no relays. We have plenty of people on the ground, and plenty of aircraft. We'll lose some equipment doing it, but we can set up a physical reconnaissance that will catch almost anyone moving around out there. For places further away, Asia especially, we're stuck with the satellites, but at least we should use them for voice and video communication only-no processed data." She barely stopped for breath.

"Okay, I'll do as you recommend. I want you to stay up here, but don't give orders to Maitland."

It took nearly twenty minutes, but in the end Maitland and his analysts had a jury-rigged system of aircraft sweeps that produced something like complete coverage of the Valley every thirty minutes. Unfortunately, most of the aircraft were not equipped with sophisticated sensors. In some cases, the reports were off eyeballs only. Without infrared and side-looking radar, almost anything could remain hidden in the deeper ravines. It made Maitland and his people very unhappy. During the Twenties, they had let the old groundbased system slide into oblivion. Instead, enormous resources had been put into the satellite system, one they thought gave them even finer protection, and worldwide. Now that system was being ignored; they might as well be refighting World War II.

Maitland pointed to the status board, which his men were painfully updating with the field reports that were coming in. "See? The people on the ground have missed almost all the concentrations we identified from orbit. The enemy is

226

well camouflaged. Without good sensors, we're just not going to see him."

"They have spotted several small teams, though."

Maitland shrugged. "Yes, sir. I take it we have permission to bobble them?"

There was a glint in Avery's eyes as he responded to the question. However Lu's theories turned out, Maitland's days with this job were numbered. "Immediately"

A small voice sounded from the general's terminal. "Sir, I'm-having some trouble with the update of the Mission Pass area. Uh, two A51 is have overflown the Pass... They both say the bobble there is gone."

Their eyes snapped up to the situation board. The map was constructed with photographic precision. The Mission Pass bobble, the Tinker bobble that had nearly killed her the night before, glinted silver and serene on that board. The satellite system still saw it-or reported seeing it.

Gone. Avery went even paler. Maitland sucked his breath back between his teeth. Here was direct, incontrovertible evidence. They had been taken, fooled. And now they had only the vaguest idea where the enemy might really be and what he might do. "My God. She was right! She was right all along."

Della was not listening. There was no triumph in her. She had been fooled, too. She had believed the techs' smug assurance that ten years was the theoretical minimum for the duration of a bobble. How could she have missed this? Last night I had them, I'll bet. l had Hoehler and Wili and Mike and everyone who counts ... And I let them escape through time to today. Her mind racing frantically through the implications. If twenty-four-hour bobbles could be cast, then what about sixty-second bobbles — or one-second ones? What advantage could the other side gain from such? Why, they could-

"Ma'am?" Someone touched her elbow. Her attention returned to the brightly lit command room. It was Maitland's aide. The general had spoken to her. Della's eyes focused on the two old men.

"I'm sorry. What did you say?"

The general's voice was flat but not hostile. Even surprise was leached from him now. Everything he depended on had failed him. "We just got a call on the satellite network. Max priority and max encryption." That could only be a Director — and the only other surviving director was K.T. in China. "Caller demands to talk to you. Says his name is Miguel Rosas."

THIRTY-SEVEN

Mike drove. Fifty meters ahead, almost swallowed up in the fog, he could see the other crawler. Inside it were Paul and Wili and Allison, with Allison driving. It was easy to keep up until Allison trucked off the broad roadway into the hills. He came down a hillside a little fast, and nearly lost control.

"You okay?" Paul's voice sounded anxiously in his ear. He'd established the laser link just seconds before.

Mike twitched the controls tentatively. "Yeah. But why come straight down that hill?"

"Sorry, Mike." It was Jill — no, Allison. "Sideways would have been worse; might have slipped treads."

Then they were moving through open country. The ring of periscopes was not as good as a wraparound holo, but it did give the sensation that his head was in the open. The keening of the engine covered any natural morning sounds. Except for their crawlers, and a crow flickering past in the mist, nothing moved. The grass was sere and golden, the dirt beneath white and gravelly. An occasional dwarf oak loomed out of the fog and forced Allison and then Mike to detour. He should be able to smell morning dew on the grass, but the only smells were of diesel fuel and paint.

And now the morning fog began to part. Blue filtered through from above. Then the blue became sky. Mike felt like a swimmer come to the surface of a misty sea, looking across the waters at far hills.

There was the war, and it was more fantastic than any oldtime movie:

Silver balls floated by the dozens through the sky. Far away, Peacer jets were dark bugs trailing grimy vapor. They swooped and climbed. Their dives ended in flares of color as they strafed Tinker infiltrators on the far side of the valley. Bombs and napalm burned orange and black through the sea of fog. He saw one diving aircraft replaced by a silvery sphere — which continued the plane's trajectory into the earth. The pilot might wake decades from now — as Allison Parker had done — and wonder what had become of his world. That was a lucky shot. Mike knew the Tinker bobblers were small, not even as powerful as the one Wili brought to L.A.. Their range with accuracy was only a hundred meters, and the largest bobble they could cast was five or ten meters across. On the other hand, they could be used defensively. The last Mike had heard, the Bay Area Tinkers had got the minimum duration down to fifteen seconds; just a little better and "flicker" tactics would be possible.

Here and there, peeping out of the mist, were bobbles set in the ground: Peacer armor bobbled during the night fighting or Tinkers caught by the monster in the valley. The only difference was size.

The nose of the crawler dipped steeply, and Mike grunted in surprise, his attention back on his driving. He took the little valley much more slowly than the last one. The forward crawler was almost up the other side when he reached the bottom. His carrier moved quickly through a small stream, and then he was almost laid on his back as it climbed the far side. He pushed the throttle far forward. Power screamed through the treads. The crawler came over the lip of the embankment fast, nose high and fell with a crash.

"The trees ahead. We'll stop there for a couple of minutes." It was Wili's voice. Mike followed the other crawler into an open stand of twisted oaks. Far across the Livermore Valley, two dark gnats peeled off from the general swarm that hovered above the Tinker insurgents and flew toward them. That must be the reason Wili wanted to get under cover. Mike looked up through the scrawny branches and wondered what sort of protection the trees really gave. Even the most primitive thermal sensor should be able to see them sitting here with hot engines.

The jets roared by a couple thousand meters to the west. Their thunder dwindled to nothing. Mike looked again across Livermore Valley.

Where the fighting was heaviest, new bobbles shone almost once a second. With the engines idling, Mike thought he could hear the thunder and thump of more conventional weapons. Two jets dived upon a hidden target and the mists were crisscrossed with their laser fire. The target tried something new: A haze of bobbles — too small to distinguish at this distance — appeared between aircraft and ground. There was a flash of sudden red stars within that haze as the energy beams reflected again and again from the multiple mirrors. It was hard to tell if it made an effective shield. Then he noticed the jets staggering out of their dive. One exploded. The other trailed smoke and flame in a long arc toward the ground. Mike suddenly wondered what would happen to a jet engine if it sucked in a dozen two-centimeter bobbles.

Wili's voice came again, "Mike. The Peacers are going to discover that we have been faking their satellite reception."

"When?" asked Wili.

"Any second. They are changing to aircraft reconnaissance."

Mike looked around him, wishing suddenly that he were on foot. It would be so much easier to hide a human-sized target than a crawler. "So we can't depend on being `invisible' anymore."

"No. We can. I am also speaking with Peacer control on the direct line-of-sight." These last words were spoken by a deep, male voice. Mike started, then realized he was not talking directly to Wili. The fake had a perfect Oregon accent, though the syntax was still Wili's; hopefully that would go unnoticed in the rush of battle. He tried to imagine the manifold images Wili must be projecting to allies and enemies. "They think we're Peacer recon. They have fourteen other crawlers moving around their inner area. As long as we follow their directions, we won't be attacked... And they want us to move closer in."

Closer in. If Wili could get just another five thousand meters closer, he could bobble the Peacer generator.

"Okay. Just tell us which way to go."

"I will, Mike. But there's something else I want you to do first."

"Sure."

"I'm going to give you a satellite connection to Authority High Command. Call them. Insist to speak with Della Lu. Tell her everything you know about our tricks —"

Mike's hands tightened on the drive sticks. "No!"

" — except that we control these two crawlers."

"But why?"

"Do it, Mike. If you call now, you'll be able to give away our satellite trick before they have proof. Maybe they will think you're still loyal. It will distract them, anyway. Give away anything you want. I'll listen, too. I'll learn more what's passing at their center. Please, Mike."

Mike gritted his teeth. "Okay, Wili. Put 'em on."

Allison Parker grinned savagely to herself. She hadn't driven a crawler in almost three years — fifty-three if you counted years like the rest of the universe. At the time, she'd thought it a silly waste of taxpayer's money to have recon specialists take a tour with a base security outfit. The idea had been that anyone who collected intelligence should be familiar with the groundside problems of security and deception. Becoming a tank driver had been fun, but she never expected to see the inside of one of these things again.

Yet here she was. Allison gunned the engines, and the little armored carrier almost flew out of the thicket of scrub oak where they'd been hiding. She recognized these hills, even with the hovering spheres and napalm bursting in the distance. Time didn't change some things. Their path ran parallel to a series of cairn-like concrete structures, the ruins of the power lines that had stretched across the Valley. Why, she and... Paul... had hiked along precisely this way... so long ago.

She tried to shake free of the painful double images. The sun was fast burning off the morning fog. Soon the concealment the Tinkers were using to such advantage would be gone. If they couldn't win by then, they never would.

In her earphone, she heard a strange voice reporting their position to the Peacer command center. It was eerie: She knew the message came ultimately from Wili. But he was sitting right behind her and had not spoken a word. The last time she looked, he seemed asleep.

The deception was working. They were doing what Peacer control said, but they were also coming closer and closer to the edge of the inner security area.

"Paul. What I saw from orbit is only about six thousand meters north of here. We'll be closest in another couple of minutes. Is that close enough?"

Paul touched his scalp connector, seemed to think. "No. We'd have to be motionless for almost an hour to bobble from that range. The best trade-off is still four thousand meters. I — Wili — has a spot in mind; he and Jill are doing prelim computations on the assumption we can reach it. Even so, he'll need about thirty seconds once we get there."

After a moment Paul added, "In a couple minutes, we'll break our cover. Wili will stop transmitting and you'll drive like hell straight for their bobbler."

Allison looked through the periscoped hull. The crawler was so close to the security perimeter, the towers and domes of the Enclave blocked her view to the north. The Enclave was a city, and their final dash would take them well inside its boundaries. "We'll be sitting ducks." Her sentence was punctuated by the swelling roar of a stub-winged jet that swept almost directly over them. She hadn't seen or heard it till that instant. But the aircraft wasn't strafing. It was loafing along at less than one hundred meters per second, a lowlevel recon.

"We have a good chance," Wili's voice came suddenly in her earphone. "We won't make our run until the patrol planes are in good position. We should be in their blind spot for almost five minutes."

"And they'll have other things to worry about," said Paul. "I've been talking to the Tinkers coming in on foot. They all know the site of the Peacer generator now. Some of them have gotten pretty close, closer than we. They don't have our equipment — but the Authority can't know that for sure. When Wili gives the signal, they'll come out of hiding and make their own dash inwards."

The war went far beyond their crawlers, beyond even the Livermore Valley. Paul said a similar battle was being played out in China.

Even so, victory or defeat seemed to depend on what happened to this one crawler in the next few minutes.

THIRTY-EIGHT

Della slipped on the earpiece and adjusted the microphone to her throat. She had the undivided attention of Avery, Maitland, and everyone else in earshot. None of them except Hamilton Avery had heard of one Miguel Rosas, but they all knew he had no business on a maximum security channel. "Mike?"

A familiar voice came from the earpiece and the speaker on the terminal. "Hello, Della. I've got some news for you."

"Just calling on this line is news enough. So your people have cracked our comm and recon system."

"Right the first time."

"Where are you calling from?"

"The ridgeline southwest of you. I don't want to say more — I still don't trust your friends... It's just that I trust mine even less." This last was spoken low, almost muttered. "Look. There are other things you don't know. The Tinkers know exactly where your bobbler is hidden."

"What?" Avery turned abruptly to the situation board and motioned for Maitland to check it out.

"How can they know? You have spies? Carry-in bugs?"

Mike's forced chuckle echoed from the speaker. "It's a long story, Della. You would be amused. The old US Air Force had it spotted — just too late to save the world from you. The Tinkers stumbled on the secret only a few weeks ago."

Della glanced questioningly at the Director, but Avery was looking over Maitland's shoulder, at the terminal. The general's people were frantically typing queries, posting results. The general looked up at the Director. "It's possible, sir. Most of the infiltrators are north and west of the Enclave. But the ones closest to the inner zone boundary are also the closest to the generator; they seem to have a preference for that sector."

"It could be an artifact of our increased surveillance in that area."

"Yes, sir." But now Maitland did not sound complacent. Avery nodded to himself. He hadn't believed his own explanation. "Very well. Concentrate tactical air there. I see you have two armored vehicles already tracking along the boundary. Keep them there. Bring in more. I want what infantry we have moved there, too."

"Right. Once we locate them, they're no threat. We have all the firepower."

Della spoke again to Mike. "Where is Paul Hoehler — the man you call Naismith?" Avery stiffened at the question, and his attention returned to her, an almost physical force.

"Look, I really don't know. They have me working a pointer relay; some of our people don't have their own satellite receivers."

Della cut the connection and said to Avery, "I think he's lying, Director. Our only lever on Mike Rosas is his hatred for certain Tinker potentials, in particular bioscience. He'll resist hurting his personal friends."

"He knows Hoehler?" Avery seemed astounded to find someone so close to the ultimate antagonist. "If he knows where Hoehler is..." The Director's eyes unfocused. "You've got to squeeze that out of him, Della. Take this conversation off the speaker and talk to him. Promise him anything, tell him anything, but find Hoehler." With a visible effort he turned back to Maitland. "Get me Tioulang in Beijing. I know, I know. Nothing is secure." He smiled, an almost skeletal grimace. "But I don't care if they know what I tell him."

Della resumed the link with Mike. Now that the speaker was off, his voice would sound in her ear only. And with the throat mike, her side of the conversation would be inaudible to those around her. "This is just you and me now, Mike. The brass thinks they got everything they can out of you."

"Oh yeah? And what do you think?"

"I think some large but unknown percentage of what you are telling me is bullshit."

"I guessed that. But you're still talking."

"I think we're both betting we can learn more than the other from talking. Besides — " Her eyes fixed on the Renaissance trigger box sitting on the table before Hamilton Avery. With a small part of her attention she followed what Avery was saying to his counterpart in Beijing. "Besides, I don't think you know what you're up against."

"Enlighten me."

"The Tinker goal is to bobble the Livermore generator.

Similarly for the attack on Beijing. You don't realize that if we consider the Peace truly endangered, we will embobble ourselves, and continue the struggle decades in the future."

"Hmm. Like the trick we played on you at Mission Pass."

"But on a much larger scale."

"Well, it won't help you. Some of us will wait — and we'll know where to wait. Besides, the Authority's power isn't just in Livermore and Beijing. You need your heavy industry,

too."

Bella smiled to herself. Mike's phrasing was tacit admission he was still a Tinker. There were deceptions here deceptions she could penetrate given a little time — but neither of them was pretending loyalties they did not have. Time to give away a little information, information that would do them no good now: "There are a few things you don't know. The Peace has more than two bobble generators."

There was a moment of silence in her ear. "I don't believe you — How many?"

Della laughed quietly. Maitland glanced up at her, then turned back to his terminal. "That is a secret. We've been working on them ever since we suspected Tinker infiltration — spies, we thought. Only a few people know, and we never spoke of it on our comm net. More important than the num-ber is the location; you won't know about them till they come out at you."

There was a longer silence. She had made a point.

"And what other things make 'Peace' unbeatable?" There was sarcasm and something else in his words. In the middle of the sentence, his voice seem to catch — as if he had just lifted something. As was usual with a high-crypto channel, there were no background sounds. But the data massaging left enough in the voice to recognize tones and sublinguistical things like this sudden exhalation. The sound, almost a grunt, had not been repeated. If she could just get him to talk a little more.

There was a secret that might do it. Renaissance. Besides, it was something she owed him, perhaps owed all the enemy. "You should know that if you force this on us, we'll not let you grow strong during our absence. The Authority" — for once calling it `the Peace' stuck in her throat-" has planted nukes in the Valley. And we also have such bombs on rockets. If we bobble up... if we bobble up, your pretty Tinker culture gets bombed back to the Stone Age, and we'll build anew when we come out."

Still a longer silence. Is he talking to someone else? Has he broken the connection? "Mike?"

"Della, why are you on their side?"

He'd asked her that once before. She bit her lip. "I-I didn't dream up Renaissance, Mike. I think we can win without it. The world has had decades now more peaceful than any in human history. When we took over, the race was at the edge of the precipice. You know that. The nation states were bad enough; they would have destroyed civilization if left to themselves. But even worse, their weapons had become so cheap that small groups — some reasonable, some monstrous-would have had them. If the world could barely tolerate a dozen killer nations, how could it survive thousands of psychotics with rad bombs and warplagues?

"I know you understand what I'm saying. You felt that way about bioscience. There are other things as bad, Mike." She stopped abruptly, wondering who was manipulating whom. And suddenly she realized that Mike, the enemy, was one of the few people she could ever talk to, one of the few people who could understand the... things... she had done. And perhaps he was the only person — outside of herself whose disapproval could move her.

"I understand," came Mike's voice. "Maybe history will say the Authority gave the human race time to save itself, to come up with new institutions. You've had fifty years; it hasn't been all bad... But no matter what either of us wants, it's ending now. And this 'Renaissance' will destroy whatever good you've done." His voice caught again.

"Don't worry. We'll win fair and square and there'll be no Renaissance." She was watching the main display. One of the crawlers had turned almost directly inward, toward the heart of the Enclave. Della cut audio and got the attention of Maitland's aide. She nodded questioningly at the crawler symbol on the display.

The colonel leaned across from his chair and said quietly, "They saw Tinkers within the perimeter. They're chasing."

The symbol moved in little jerks, updated by the nearly manual control they had been reduced to. Suddenly the crawler symbol disappeared from the board. Avery sucked in his breath. An analyst looked at his displays and said almost immediately, "We lost laser comm. They may have been bobbled... or may be out of sight."

Possible. The ground was rough, even inside the Enclave boundary Riding a crawler over that would be an exciting thing... And then Della understood the mystery in Mike's speech. "Mr. Director." Her shout cut across all other voices. "That crawler isn't looking for the enemy. It is the enemy!"

THIRTY-NINE

While they drove parallel to the perimeter fence, the ground was not too rough. When they turned inward, it would be a different story. There was a system of ditches running along the fence.

Beyond that was the interior of the Enclave. Allison risked a glance every now and then. It was like the future she had always imagined: spires, tall buildings, wide swaths of green. Paul said Authority ground troops were moving into the area, but right now all was peaceful, abandoned.

Wait. Three men came running out of the ditches. They paused at the fence and then were somehow through. Two of them carried heavy backpacks. So these were their Tinker allies. One waved to their crawler and then they disappeared among the buildings.

"Turn here. Follow them inward," said Paul. "Wili's told the Peacer command we're in hot pursuit."

Allison pushed/pulled on the control sticks. The armored vehicle spun on its treads, one reversed, the other still pulling forward. Through the side periscope she saw Mike's crawler, moving off to the north. No doubt Wili had told him not to turn.

They shot forward at top speed, the engines an eerie screaming all around them. Beside Allison, Paul was gasping. Thirty kph across open terrain was rough as any air maneuver. Then they were falling, and the view ahead was filled with concrete. They flew over the edge of the ditch and crashed downward onto the floor. The restraint webbing couldn't entirely absorb the shock. For a moment Allison was in a daze, her hands freezing the controls into fast forward. The crawler ran up the steep far wall and teetered there an instant, as if unsure whether to proceed upward or fall on its back.

Then they slammed down on the other side, collapsing the fence. Whatever automatic defenses lived here must be temporarily disabled.

She ground clear of the concrete-and-steel rubble, then risked a glance at Paul. "Oh, my God." He was slumped forward, a wash of red spread down his face. Red was smeared on the wall in front of him. Somehow he had not tied down properly.

Allison slowed the crawler. She twisted in her seat, saw that the boy remained comatose. "Wili! Paul's hurt!"

A woman's voice shrieked in her ear, "You stupid bitch!"

Will twisted, his face agonized, like someone trying to waken from a dream.

But if he woke, if his dream died, then all their dreams would die. "Drive, Allison. Please drive," Wili's synthetic voice came cool from her earpiece. "Paul... Paul wants this more than anything." Behind her, the boy's real voice was softly moaning. And Paul moved not at all.

Allison closed out everything but her job: They were on a surfaced street. She rammed the throttle forward, took the crawler up to seventy kph. She had only vague impressions of the buildings on either side of them. It looked like residential housing, though more opulent than in her time. All was deserted. Coming up on a T-intersection. Over the roofs of the multistory residences, the towers at the center of the Enclave seemed no nearer.

Wili's voice continued, "Right at the intersection. Then left and left. Foot soldiers are coming from east. So far they think we're one of them, but I'm breaking laser contact... now," Allison whipped into the turn, "and they should guess what we are very soon."

They continued so for several minutes. It was like dealing with an ordinary voice program: Turn right. Turn left. Slow down. Keep to the edge of the street.

"Five hundred meters. Take the service alley here. They're onto us. Gunships coming. They can't locate us precisely enough to bobble. Whoever sees us is to shoot." He was silent again as Allison negotiated the alley. Still no sign of life from Paul.

"He still lives, Allison. I can still... hear... him a little."

Through the front periscope she had a glimpse of something dark and fast cross the narrow band of sky between the houses.

"Pull under that overhang. Stop. Throttle up to charge the cells. Thirty seconds for local conditions and I'll be ready to fire."

The moment they were stopped, Allison was out of her harness and bending over Paul. "Now leave me. I need to think. Take Paul. Save Paul."

She looked at the boy He still hadn't opened his eyes. He was further off than she had ever seen him.

"But Wili —"

His body twitched, and the synthetic voice was suddenly angry in her ear. "I need time to think, and I don't have it. Their planes are on the way. Get out. Get out!"

Allison unbuckled Paul and removed the scalp connector. He was breathing, but his face remained slack. She cranked at the rear doors, praying that nothing had been warped by their fall into the ditch. The doors popped open and cool morning air drifted in, along with the keening of the engines.

She ripped off her headset and struggled to get the old man's body over her shoulder. As she staggered past Wili, she noticed his lips were moving. She bent down awkwardly to listen. The boy was mumbling, "Run, run, run, run..."

Allison did her best.

FORTY

No one understood the conflict as Wili did. Even when he was linked with Jill, Paul had only a secondhand view. And after Paul, there was no one who saw more than fragments of the picture. It was Wili who ran the Tinker side of the show — and to some extent the Peacer side, too. Without his directions in Paul's voice, the thousands of separate operations going on all over the Earth would be so scattered in time and effect that the Authority would have little trouble keeping its own control system going.

But Wili knew his time would end very, very soon.

From the crawler's recon camera, he watched Paul and Allison moving away, into the managerial residences. Their footsteps came fainter in his exterior microphones. Would he ever know if Paul survived?

Through the narrow gap between the sides of the alley a Peacer satellite floated beyond the blue sky. One reason he had chosen this parking spot was to have that line of sight. In ninety seconds, the radio star would slide behind carven wooden eaves. He would lose it, and thus its relay to synchronous altitude, and thus his control of things worldwide. He would be deaf, dumb, and blind. But ninety seconds from now, it wouldn't matter; he and all the other Tinkers would win or lose in sixty.

The whole system had spasmed when Paul was knocked out. Jill had stopped responding. For several minutes, Wili had struggled with all the high-level computations. Now Jill was coming back on line; she was almost finished with the local state computations. The capacitors would be fully charged seconds after that. Wili surveyed the world one last time:

From orbit he saw golden morning spread across Northern California. Livermore Valley sparkled with a false dew that was really dozens — hundreds — of bobbles. Unaided humans would need many versions of this picture to understand what Wili saw at once.

There were ground troops a couple of thousand meters east of him. They had fanned out, obviously didn't know where he was. The tricky course he had given Allison would keep him safe from them for at least five minutes.

Jets had been diverted from the north side of the Valley. He watched them crawl across the landscape at nearly four hundred meters per second. They were the real threat. They could see him before the capacitors were charged. There was no way to divert them or to trick them. The pilots had been instructed to use their own eyes, to find the crawler, and to destroy it. Even if they failed in the last, they would report an accurate position — and the Livermore bobbler would get him.

240

He burst-transmitted a last message to the Tinker teams in the Valley: Paul's voice announced the imminent bobbling and assigned new missions. Because of Wili's deceptions, their casualties had been light; that might change now. He told them what he had learned about Renaissance and redirected them against the missile sites he had detected. He wondered fleetingly how many would feel betrayed to learn of Renaissance, would wish that he — Paul — would stop the assault. But if Paul were really here, if Paul could think as fast as Wili, he'd've done the same.

He must end the Peace so quickly that Renaissance died, too.

Wili passed from one satellite to another, till he was looking down on Beijing at midnight. Without Wili's close supervision, the fighting had been bloodier: There were bobbles scattered through the ruins of the old city, but there were bodies, too, bodies that would not live again. The Chinese Tinkers had to get in very close; they did not have a powerful bobbler or the Wili/Jill processor. Even so, they might win. Wili had guided three teams to less than one thousand meters of the Beijing bobbler. He sent his last advice, showing them a transient gap in the defense.

Messages sent or automatically sending. Now there was only his own mission. The mission all else depended on.

From high above, Wili saw an aircraft sweep south over the alley. (Its boom crashed around the carrier, but Wili's own senses were locked out and he barely felt it.) The pilot must have seen him. How long till the follow-up bomb run?

The Authority's great bobbler was four thousand meters north of him. He and Jill had made a deadly minimax decision in deciding on that range. He "looked at" the capacitors. They were still ten seconds from the overcharge he needed. Ten seconds? The charge rate was declining as charge approached the necessary level. Their haywired interface to the crawler's electrical generator was failing. Extrapolation along the failure curve: thirty seconds to charge.

The other aircraft had been alerted. Wili saw courses change. More extrapolation: It would be very, very close. He could save himself by self-bobbling, the simplest of all generations. He could save himself and lose the war.

Wili watched in an omniscient daze, watched from above as death crept down on the tiny crawler.

Something itched. Something demanded attention. He relaxed his hold, let resources be diverted... and fill's image floated up.

Wili! Go! You can still go! Jill flooded him with a last burst of data, showing that all processes would proceed automatically to completion. Then she cut him off.

And Wili was alone in the crawler. He looked around, vision blurred, suddenly aware of sweat and diesel fuel and turbine noise. He groped for his harness release, then rolled off onto the floor. He barely felt the scalp connector tear free. He came to his feet and blundered out the rear doors into the sunlight.

He didn't hear the jets' approach.

Paul moaned. Allison couldn't tell if he was trying to say something or was simply responding to the rough handling. She got under his weight and stagger-ran across the alley toward a stone-walled patio. The gate was open; there was no lock. Allison kicked aside a child's tricycle and laid Paul down behind the waist-high wall. Should be safe from shrapnel here, except-she glanced over her shoulder at the glass wall that stretched across the interior side of the patio. Beyond was carpeting, elegant furniture. That glass could come showering down if the building got hit. She started to pull Paul behind the marble table that dominated the patio.

"No! Wili. Did he make it?" He struggled weakly against her hands.

The sky to the north showed patches of smoke, smudged exhaust trails, a vagrant floating bobble where someone had missed a target-but that was all. Wili had not acted; the crawler sat motionless, its engines screaming. Somewhere else she heard treads.

The boom was like a wall of sound smashing over them. Windows on both sides of the street flew inward. Allison had a flickering impression of the aircraft as it swept over the street. Her attention jerked back to the sky, scanned. A dark gnat hung there, surrounded by the dirty aureole of its exhaust. There was no sound from this follow-up craft; it was coming straight in. The length of the street — and the crawler — would be visible to it. She watched it a moment, then dived to the tiled patio deck next to Paul.

Scarcely time to swear, and the ground smashed up into them.

Allison didn't lose consciousness, but for a long moment she didn't really know where she was. A girl in a gingham dress leaned over an old man, seeing red spread across a beautiful tile floor.

A million garbage cans dropped and rattled around her.

Allison touched her face, felt dust and untorn skin. The blood wasn't hers.

How bad was he hurt?

The old man looked up at her. He brushed her hands away with some last manic strength. "Allison. Did we win... please? After all these years, to get that bastard Avery." His speech slurred into mumbling.

Allison came to her knees and looked over the wall. The street was in ruins, riddled with flying debris. The crawler had been hit, its front end destroyed. Fire spread crackling from what was left of its fuel. Under the treads something else burned green and violent. And the sky to the north...

...was as empty as before. No bobble stood where she knew the Peace generator was hidden. The battle might yet go on for hours, but Allison knew that they had lost. She looked down at the old man and tried to smile. "It's there, Paul. You won."

FORTY-ONE

"We got one of them, sir. Ground troops have brought in three survivors. They're-"

"From the nearer one? Where is that second crawler?" Hamilton Avery leaned over the console, his hands pale against the base of the keyboard.

"We don't know, sir. We have three thousand men on foot in that area. We'll have it in a matter of minutes, even if tac air doesn't get it first. About the three we picked

Avery angrily cut the connection. He sat down abruptly, chewed at his lip. "He's getting closer, I know it. Everything we do seems a victory, but is really a defeat." He clenched his fists, and Della could imagine him screaming to himself What can we do? She had seen administrators go over the edge in Mongolia, frozen into inaction or suicidal overreaction. The difference was that she had been the boss in Mongolia. Here...

Avery opened his fists with visible effort. "Very well. What is the status of Beijing? Is the enemy any closer than before?"

General Maitland spoke to his terminal. He looked at the response in silence. Then, "Director, we have lost comm with them. The recon birds show the Beijing generator has been bobbled..." He paused as though waiting for some explosion from his boss. But Avery was composed again. Only the faint glassiness of his stare admitted his terror.

" — and of course that could be faked, too," Avery said quietly. "Try for direct radio confirmation... from someone known to us." Maitland nodded, started to turn away. "And, General. Begin the computations to bobble us up." He absentedly caressed the Renaissance trigger that sat on the table before him. "I can tell you the coordinates."

Maitland relayed the order to try for shortwave communication with Beijing. But he personally entered the coordinates as Avery spoke them. As Maitland set up the rest of the program, Della eased into a chair behind the Director. "Sir, there is no need for this."

Hamilton Avery smiled his old, genteel smile, but he wasn't listening to her. "Perhaps not, my dear. That is why we are checking for confirmation from Beijing." He flipped open the Renaissance box, revealing a key pad. A red light began blinking on the top. Avery fiddled with a second cover, which protected some kind of button. "Strange. When I was a child, people talked about 'pushing the button' as though there was a magic red button that could bring nuclear war. I doubt if ever power was just so concentrated... But here I have almost exactly that, Della. One big red button. We've worked hard these last few months to make it effective. You know, we really didn't have that many nukes before. We never saw how they might be necessary to preserve the Peace. But if Beijing is really gone, this will be the only way"

He looked into Della's eyes. "It won't be so bad, my dear. We've been very selective. We know the areas where our enemy is concentrated; making them uninhabitable won't have any lasting effect on the race."

To her left, Maitland had completed his preparations. The display showed the standard menu she had seen in his earlier operations. Even by Authority standards, it looked old-fashioned. Quite likely the control software was unchanged from the first years of the Authority.

Maitland had overridden all the fail-safes. At the bottom of-the display, outsized capitals blinked:

WARNING!

THE ABOVE TARGETS ARE FRIENDLY

CONTINUE?

A simple "yes" would bobble the industrial core of the Authority into the next century.

"We have shortwave communication with Peace forces at Beijing, Director," the voice came unseen, but it was recognizably Maitland's chief aide. "These are troops originally from the Vancouver franchise. Several of them are known to people here. At least we can verify these are really our men."

"And?" Avery asked quietly.

"The center of the Beijing Enclave is bobbled, sir. They can see it from where their positions. The fighting has pretty much ended. Apparently the enemy is lying low, waiting for our reaction. Your instructions are requested."

"In a minute," Avery smiled. "General, you may proceed as planned." That minute would be more than fifty years in the future.

"yes," the general typed. The familiar buzzing hum sounded irregularly, and one after another the locations on the list were marked as bobbled: Los Angeles Enclave, Brasilia Enclave, Redoubt 001... It was quickly done, what no enemy could ever do. All other activity in the room ceased; they all knew. The Authority was now committed. In fact, most of the Authority was gone from the world by that act. All that remained was this one generator, this one command center — and the hundreds of nuclear bombs that Avery's little red button would rain upon the Earth.

Maitland set up the last target, and the console showed:

FINAL WARNING! PROJECTION WILL SELF-ENCLOSE. CONTINUE?

Now Hamilton Avery was punching an elaborate passcode into his red trigger box. In seconds, he would issue the command that would poison sections of continents. Then

Maitland could bobble them into a future made safe for the "Peace."

The shock in Delia's face must finally have registered on him. "I am not a monster, Miss Lu. I have never used more than the absolute minimum force necessary to preserve the Peace. After I launch Renaissance, we will bobble up, and then we will be in a future where the Peace can be reestablished. And though it will be an instant to us, I assure you I will always feel the guilt for the price that had to paid." He gestured at his trigger box. "It is a responsibility I take solely upon myself."

That's damned magnanimous of you. She wondered fleetingly if hard-boiled types like Della Lu and Hamilton Avery always ended up like this — rationalizing the destruction of all they claimed to protect.

Maybe not. Her decision had been building for weeks, ever since she had learned of Renaissance. It had dominated everything after her talk with Mike. Della glanced around the room, wished she had her side-arm: She would need it during the next few minutes. She touched her throat and said clearly, "See you later, Mike."

There was quick understanding on Avery's face, but he didn't have a chance. With her right hand she flicked the red box down the table, out of Avery's reach. Almost simultaneously, she smashed Maitland's throat with the edge of her left. Turning, she leaned over the general's collapsing form-and typed:

"yes"

FORTY-TWO

Wili moped across the lawn, his hands stuck deep in his pockets, his face turned downward. He kicked up little puffs of dust where the grass was brownest. The new tenants were lazy about watering, or else maybe the irrigation pipes were busted.

This part of Livermore had been untouched by the fighting; the losers had departed peaceably enough, once they saw bobbles sprout over their most important resources. Except for the dying grass, it was beautiful here, the buildings as luxurious as Wili could imagine. When they turned on full electric power, it made the Jonque palaces in L.A. look like hovels. And most anything here — the aircraft, the automobiles, the mansions-could be his.

Just my luck. I get everything I ever wanted, and then I lose the people that are more important. Paul had decided to drop out. It made sense and Wili was not angry about it, but it hurt anyway. Wili thought back to their meeting, just half an hour before. He had guessed the moment he'd seen Paul's face. Wili had tried to ignore it, had rushed into the subject he'd thought they were to talk about: "I just talked to those doctors we flew in from France, Paul. They say my insides are as normal as anything. They measured me every way" — he had undergone dozens of painful tests, massive indignities compared to what had been done to him at Scripps, and yet much less powerful. The French doctors were not bioscientists, but simply the best medical staff the European director would tolerate — "and they say I'm using my food, that I'm growing fast." He grinned. "Bet I will be more than one meter seventy."

Paul leaned back in his chair and returned the smile. The old man was looking good himself. He'd had a bad concussion during the battle, and for while the doctors weren't sure he would survive. "I'll bet too. It's exactly what I'd been hoping. You're going to be around for a long time, and the world's going to be a better place for it. And..." His voice trailed off, and he didn't meet the boy's look. Wili held his breath, praying Dio his guess wouldn't be correct. They sat in silence for an awkward moment. Wili looked around, trying to pretend that nothing of import was to be said. Naismith had appropriated the office of some Peacer bigwig. It had a beautiful view of the hills to the south, yet it was plainer than most, almost as if it had been designed for the old man all along. The walls were unadorned, though there was darker rectangle of paint on the wall facing Paul's desk. A picture had hung there once. Wili wondered about that.

Finally Naismith spoke. "Strange. I think I've done penance for blindly giving them the bobble in the first place. I have accomplished everything I dreamed of all these years since the Authority destroyed the world... And yet - Wili, I'm going to drop out, fifty years at least."

"Paul! Why?" It was said now, and Wili couldn't keep the pain from his voice.

"Many reasons. Many good reasons." Naismith leaned forward intently. "I'm very old, Wili. I think you'll see many from my generation go. We know the bioscience people in stasis at Scripps have ways of helping us."

"But there are others. They can't be the only ones with the secret."

"Maybe. The bioscience types are surfacing very slowly. They can't be sure if humanity will accept them, even though the plagues are decades passed."

"Well, stay. Wait and see." Wili cast wildly about, came up with a reason that might be strong enough. "Paul, if you go, you may never see Allison again. I thought-"

"You thought I loved Allison, that I hated the Authority on her account as much as any." His voice went low. "You are light, Wili, and don't you ever tell her that! The fact that she lives, that she is just as I always remembered her, is a miracle that goes beyond all my dreams. But she is another reason I must leave, and soon. It hurts every day to see her; she likes me, but almost as a stranger. The man she knew has died, and I see pity in her more than anything else. I must escape from that."

He stopped. "There's something else too. Wili, I wonder about Jill. Did I lose the only one I ever really had? I have the craziest dreams from when I was knocked out. She was trying like hell to bring me back. She seemed as real as anyone... and more caring. But there's no way that program could have been sentient; we're nowhere near systems that powerful. No person sacrificed her life for us." The look in his eyes made the sentence a question.

It was a question that had hovered in Wili's mind ever since Jill had driven him out of the crawler. He thought back. He had known Jill... used the Jill program... for almost nine months. Her projection had been there when he was sick; she had helped him learn symbiotic programming. Something inside him had always thought her one of his best friends. He tried not to guess how much stronger Paul's feelings must be. Wili remembered Jill's hysterical reaction when Paul had been hurt; she had disappeared from the net for minutes, only coming back at the last second to try to save Wili. And Jill was complex, complex enough that any attempt at duplication would fail; part of her "identity" came from the exact pattern of processor interconnection that had developed during her first years with Paul.

Yet Wili had been inside the program; he had seen the limitations, the inflexibilities. He shook his head, "Yes, Paul. The Jill program was not a person. Maybe someday we'll have systems big enough, but... Jill was j just a s-simulation." And Wili believed what he was saying. So why were they sitting here with tears on their eyes?

The silence stretched into a minute as two people remembered a love and a sacrifice that couldn't really exist. Finally, Wili forced the weirdness away and looked at the old man. If Paul had been alone before, what now?

"I could go with you, Paul," and Wili didn't know if he was begging or offering.

Naismith shook himself and seemed to come back to the present. "I can't stop you, but I hope you don't." He smiled. "Don't worry about me. I didn't last this long by being a sentimental fool all the time.

"Your time is now, Wili. There is a lot for you to do."

"Yes. I guess. There's still Mike. He needs..." Wili stopped, seeing the look on Paul's face. "No! Not Mike too?"

"Yes. But not for several months. Mike is not very popular just now. Oh, he came through in the end; I don't think we'd've won without him. But the Tinkers know what he did in La Jolla. And he knows; he's having trouble living with it."

"So he's going to run away." Too.

"No. At least that's not the whole story. Mike has some things to do. The first is Jeremy. From the logs here at Livermore I can figure to within a few days when the boy will come out of stasis. It's about fifty years from now. Mike is going to come out a year or so before that. Remember, Jeremy is standing near the sea entrance. He could very likely be killed by falling rock when the bobble finally burst. Mike is going to make sure that doesn't happen.

"A couple years after that, the bobble around the Peacer generator here in Livermore will burst. Mike will be here for that. Among other things, he's going to try to save Della Lu. You know, we would have lost without her. The Peacers had won, yet they were going ahead with that crazy world-wrecker scheme. Both Mike and I agree she must have bobbled their projector. Things are going to be mighty dangerous for her the first few minutes after they come out of stasis."

Wili nodded without looking up. He still didn't understand Della Lu. She was tougher and meaner, in some ways, than anyone he had known in L.A.. But in others — well, he knew why Mike cared for her, even after everything she had done. He hoped Mike could save her.

"And that's about the time I'm coming back, Wili. A lot of people don't realize it, but the war isn't over. The enemy has lost a major battle, but has escaped forward through time. We've identified most of their bobbled refuges, but Mike thinks there are some secret ones underground. Maybe they'll come out the same time as the Livermore generator, maybe a lot later. This is a danger that goes into the foreseeable future. Someone has to be around to fight those battles, just in case the locals don't believe in the threat."

"And that will be you?"

"I'll be there. At least through Round Two."

So that was that. Paul was right, Wili knew. But it still fell like the losses of the past: Uncle Sly, the trek to La Jolla without Paul. "Will, you can do it. You don't need me. When I am forgotten, you will still be remembered — for what you will do as much as for what you already did." Naismith looked intently at the boy.

Wili forced a smile and stood. "You will be proud to hear of me when you return." He turned. He must leave with those words.

Paul stopped him, smiled. "It's not just yet, Wili. I'll be here for another two or three weeks, at least."

And Wili turned again, ran around the desk, and hugger Paul Naismith as hard as he dared.

Screeching tires and, "Hey! You wanna get killed?"

Wili looked up in startled shock as the half-tonne truck swerved around him and accelerated down the street. It wasn't the first time in the last ten days he'd nearly daydreamed himself into a collision. These automobiles were so fast, they were on top of you before you knew it. Wili trotted back to the curb and looked around. He had wandered a thousand meters from Paul's office. He recognized the area. This part of the Enclave contained the Authority's archives and automatic logging devices. The Tinkers were taking the place apart. Somehow, it had been missed in the last frantic bobbling, and Allison was determined to learn every Peacer secret that existed outside of stasis. Wili sheepishly realized where his feet had been leading him: to visit all his friends, to find out if anyone thought the present was worth staying in.

"Are you okay, Mr. Wachendon?'' Two workers came running up, attracted by the sounds of near calamity. Wili had gotten over being recognized everywhere (after all, he did have an unusual appearance for hereabouts), but the obvious respect he received was harder to accept. "Damn Peacer drivers," one of them said. "I wonder if some of 'em don't know they lost the war."

"Sí. Fine," answered Wili, wishing he hadn't made such a fool of himself. "Is Allison Parker here?"

They led him into a nearby building. The air-conditioning was running full blast. It was downright chilly by Wili's standards. But Allison was there, dressed in vaguely military-looking shirt and pants, directing some sort of packing operation. Her men were filling large cartons with plastic disks — old-world memory devices, Wili suspected. Allison was concentrating on the job, smiling and intent. For an instant Wili had that old double vision, was seeing his other friend with this body... the one who never really existed. The mortal had outlived the ghost.

Then the worker beside him said diffidently, "Captain Parker?" and the spell was broken.

Allison looked up and grinned broadly. "Hey, Wili!" She walked over and draped an arm across his shoulders. "I've been so busy this last week, I haven't seen any of my old friends. What's happening?" She led him toward an interior doorway, paused there and said over her shoulder, "Finish Series E. I'll be back in a few minutes." Wili smiled to himself. From the day of victory, Allison had made it clear she wouldn't tolerate second-class citizenship. Considering the fact that she was their only expert on twentieth century military intelligence, the Tinkers had little choice but to accept her attitude.

As they walked down a narrow hall, neither spoke. Allison's office was a bit warmer than the outer room, and free of fan noises. Her desk was covered with printouts. A Peacer display device sat at its center. She waved him to a seat and patted the display. "I know, everything they have here is childish by Tinker standards. But it works and at least I understand it."

"Allison, a-are you going to drop out, too?" Wili blurted out.

The question brought her up short. "Drop out? You mean bobble up? Not on your life, kiddo. I just came back, remember? I have a lot to do." Then she saw how seriously he meant the question. "Oh, Wili. I'm sorry. You know about Mike and Paul, don't you?" She stopped, frowned at some sadness of her own. "I think it makes sense for them to go, Wili. Really.

"But not for me." The enthusiasm was back in her voice. "Paul talks about this battle being just Round One of some `war through time.' Well, he's wrong about one thing. The first round was fifty years ago. I don't know if those Peacer bastards are responsible for the plagues, but I do know they destroyed the world we had. They did destroy the United States of America." Her lips settled into a thin line.

"I'm going back over their records. I'm going to identify every single bobble they cast during the takeover. I'll bet there are more than a hundred thousand of my people out there in stasis. They're all coming back into normal time during the next few years. Paul has a program that uses the Peacer logs to compute exactly when. Apparently, all the projections were for fifty/sixty years, with the smallest bursting first. There's still Vandenberg and Langley and dozens more. That's a pitiful fraction of the millions we once were, but I'm going to be there and I'm going to save all I can."

"Save?"

She shrugged. "The environment around the bobbles can be dangerous the first few seconds. I was nearly killed coming out. They'll be disoriented as hell. They have nukes in there; I don't want those fired off in a panic. And I don't know if your plagues are really dead. Was I just lucky? I'm going to have to dig up some bioscience people."

"Yes," said Wili, and told her about the wreckage Jeremy had shown him back on the Kaladze farm. Somewhere, high in the air within the Vandenberg stasis, was part of a jet aircraft. The pilot might still be alive, but how could he survive the first instants of normal time?

Allison nodded as he spoke, and made some notes. "Yes. That's the sort of thing I mean. We'll have a hard time saving that fellow, but we'll try."

She leaned back in her chair. "That's only half of what I must do. Wili, the Tinkers are so bright in many ways, but in others... well, `naive' is the only word that springs to mind. It's not their fault, I know. For generations they've had no say in what happens outside their own villages. The Authority didn't tolerate governments-at least as they were known in the twentieth century. A few places were permitted small republics; most were lucky to get feudalism, like in Aztlán.

"With the Authority gone, most of America — outside of the Southwest — has no government at all. It's fallen back into anarchy. Power is in the hands of private police forces like Mike worked for. It's peaceful just now, because the people in these protection rackets don't realize the vacuum the Authority's departure has created. But when they do, there'll be bloody chaos."

She smiled. "I see I'm not getting through. I can't blame you; you don't have anything to refer to. The Tinker society has been a very peaceful one. But that's the problem. They're like sheep — and they're going to get massacred if they don't change. Just look at what's happened here:

"For a few weeks we had something like an army. But now the sheep have broken down into their little interest groups, their families, their businesses. They've divided up the territory, and God help me if some of them aren't selling it, selling the weapons, selling the vehicles — and to whoever has the gold! It's suicide!"

And Wili saw that she might be right. Earlier that week he had run into Roberto Richardson, the Jonque bastard who'd beaten him at La Jolla. Richardson had been one of the hostages, but he had escaped before the L.A. rescue. The fat slob was the type who could always land on his feet, and running. He was up here at Livermore, dripping gAu. And he was buying everything that moved: autos, tanks, crawlers, aircraft.

The man was a strange one. He'd made a big show of being friendly, and Wili was cool enough now to take advantage. Wili asked the Jonque what he was going to do with his loot Richardson had been vague, but said he wasn't returning to Aztlán. "I like the freedom here, Wachendon. No rules. Think I may move north. It could be very profitable." And he'd had some advice for Wili, advice that just now seemed without ulterior motive: "Don't go back to L.A., Wachendon. The Alcalde loves you — at least for the moment. But the Ndelante has figured out who you are, and old Ebenezer doesn't care how big a hero you are up here at Livermore."

Wili looked back at Allison. "What can you do to stop it?"

"The things I've already said for a start. A hundred thousand new people, most with my attitudes, should help the education process. And when the dust has settled, I'm hoping we'll have something like a decent government. It won't be in Aztlán Those guys are straight out of the sixteenth century; wouldn't be surprised if they're the biggest of the new land grabbers. And it won't be the ungoverned land. that most of the US has become. In all of North America, there seems to only one representative democracy left — the Republic of New Mexico. It's pretty pitiful geographically, doesn't control much more than old New Mexico. But they seem to have the ideals we need. I think a lot of my old friends will think the same.

"And that's just the beginning, Wili. That's just housekeeping. The last fifty years have been a dark age it some ways. But technology has progressed. Your electronics is as far advanced as I imagined it would be.

"Wili, the human race was on the edge of something great. Given another few years, we would have colonized the inner solar system. That dream is still close to people's consciousness — I've seen how popular Celest is. We can have that dream for real now, and easier than we twentieth-century types could have done it. I'll bet that hiding away in the theory of bobbles, there are ideas that will make it trivial."

They talked for a long while, probably longer than the busy Allison had imagined they would. When he left, Wili was as much in a daze as when he arrived — only now his mind was in the clouds. He was going to learn some physics. Math was the heart of everything, but you had to have something to apply it to. With his own mind and the tools he had learned to use, he would make those things Allison dreamed of. And if Allison's fears about the next few years turned out to be true, he would be around to help out on that, too.

END BOOK I