ACROSS REALTIMEACROSS REALTIME
Copyright © 1991 by Vernor Vinge


    To my parents,
    Clarence L. Vinge and Ada Grace Vinge,
    with Love.


Table of Content 
  Flashback
  Chapter 1
  Chapter 2
  Chapter 3
  Flashforward
  Chapter 4
  Chapter 5
  Chapter 6
  Chapter 7
  Chapter 8
  Flashforward
  Chapter 9
  Chapter 10
  Chapter 11
  Chapter 12
  Chapter 13
  Flashforward
  Chapter 14
  Chapter 15
  Chapter 16
  Chapter 17
  Chapter 18
  Chapter 19
  Chapter 20
  Chapter 21
  Chapter 22
  Chapter 23
  Chapter 24
  Chapter 25
  Chapter 26
  Chapter 27
  Chapter 28
  Chapter 29
  Chapter 30
  Chapter 31
  Chapter 32
  Chapter 33
  Chapter 34
  Chapter 35
  Chapter 36
  Chapter 37
  Chapter 38
  Chapter 39
  Chapter 40
  Chapter 41
  Chapter 42

- Flashback -
One hundred kilometers below and nearly two hundred away, the shore of the 
Beaufort Sea didn't look much like the common image of the arctic: Summer was 
far advanced in the Northern Hemisphere, and a pale green spread across the 
land, shading here and there to the darker tones of grass. Life had a tenacious 
hold, leaving only an occasional peninsula or mountain range gray and bone.
Captain Allison Parker, USAF, shifted as far as the restraint harness would 
permit, trying to get the best view she could over the pilot's shoulder. During 
the greater part of a mission, she had a much better view than any of the 
"truck-drivers," but she never tired of looking out, and when the view was the 
hardest to obtain, it became the most desirable. Angus Quiller, the pilot, 
leaned forward, all his attention on the retrofire readout. Angus was a nice 
guy, but he didn't waste time looking out. Like many pilots ÷ and some mission 
specialists ÷ he had accepted his environment without much continuing wonder.
But Allison had always been the type to look out windows. When she was very 
young, her father had taken her flying. She could never decide what would be the 
most fun: to look out the windows at the ground-or to learn to fly. Until she 
was old enough to get her own license she had settled for looking at the ground. 
Later she discovered that without combat aircraft experience she would never 
pilot the machines that went as high as she wanted to go. So again she had 
settled for a job that would let her look out the windows. Sometimes she thought 
the electronics, the geography, the espionage angles of her job were all 
unimportant compared to the pleasure that came from simply looking down at the 
world as it really is.
"My compliments to your autopilot, Fred. That burn puts us right down the slot." 
Angus never gave Fred Torres, the command pilot, any credit. It was always the 
autopilot or ground control that was responsible for anything good that happened 
when Fred was in charge. Torres grunted something similarly insulting, then said 
to Allison, "Hope you're enjoying this. It's not often we fly this thing around 
the block just for a pretty girl."
Allison grinned but didn't reply. What Fred said was true. Ordinarily a mission 
was planned several weeks in advance and carried multiple tasks that kept it up 
for three or four days. But this one had dragged the two-man crew off a weekend 
leave and stuck them on the end of a flight that was an unscheduled quick look, 
just fifteen orbits and back to Vandenberg. This was clearly a deep range, 
global reconnaissance ÷ though Fred and Angus probably knew little more. Except 
that the newspapers had been pretty grim the last few weeks.
The Beaufort Sea slid out of sight to the north. The sortie craft was in an 
inverted, nose-down attitude that gave some specialists a sick stomach but that 
just made Allison feel she was looking at the world pass by overhead. She hoped 
that when the Air Force got its permanent recon platform, she would be stationed 
there.
Fred Tomes ÷ or his autopilot, depending on your point of view ÷ slowly pitched 
the orbiter through 180 degrees to bring it into entry attitude. For an instant 
the craft was pointing straight down. Glacial scouring could never be an 
abstraction to someone who had looked down from this height: the land was 
clearly scraped and grooved like ground before a dozer blade. Tiny puddles had 
been left behind: hundreds of Canadian lakes, so many that Allison could follow 
the sun in secular glints that shifted from one to another.
They pitched still further. The southern horizon, blue and misty, fell into and 
then out of view. The ground wouldn't be visible again until they were much 
lower, at altitudes some normal aircraft could attain. Allison sat back and 
pulled the restraint more tightly over her shoulders. She patted the optical 
disk pack tied down beside her. It contained her reason for being here. There 
were going to be a lot of relieved generals-and some even more relieved 
politicians-when she got back. The "detonations" the Livermore crew had detected 
must have been glitches. The Soviets were as innocent as those bastards ever 
were. She had scanned them with all her "normal" equipment, as well as with deep 
penetration gear known only to certain military intelligence agencies, and had 
detected no new offensive preparations. Only...
...Only the deep probes she had made on her own over Livermore were unsettling. 
She had been looking forward to her date with Paul Hoehler, if only to enjoy the 
expression on his face when she told him that the results of her test were 
secret. He had been so sure his bosses were up to something sinister at 
Livermore. She now saw that Paul might be right; there was something going on at 
Livermore. It might have gone undetected without her deep-probe equipment; there 
had been an obvious effort at concealment. But one thing Allison Parker knew was 
her high-intensity reactor profiles, and there was a new one down there that 
didn't show up on the AFIA listings. And she had detected other things ÷ 
probe-opaque spheres below ground in the vicinity of the reactor.
That was also as Paul Hoehler had predicted.
NMV specialists like Allison Parker had a lot of freedom to make ad lib 
additions to their snoop schedules; that had saved more than one mission. She 
would be in no trouble for the unscheduled probe of a US lab, as long as a 
thorough report was made. But if Paul was right, then this would cause a major 
scandal. And if Paul was wrong, then he would be in major trouble, perhaps on 
the road to jail.
Allison felt her body settle gently into the acceleration couch as creaking 
sounds came through the orbiter's frame. Beyond the forward ports, the black of 
space was beginning to flicker in pale shades of orange and red. The colors grew 
stronger and the sensation of weight increased. She knew it was still less than 
half a gee, though after a day in orbit it felt like more. Quiller said 
something about transferring to laser comm. Allison tried to imagine the land 
eighty kilometers below, Taiga forest giving way to farm land and then the 
Canadian Rockies ÷ but it was not as much fun as actually being able to see it.
Still about four hundred seconds till final pitch-over. Her mind drifted idly, 
wondering what ultimately would happen between Paul and herself. She had gone 
out with better-looking men, but no one smarter. In fact, that was probably part 
of the problem. Hoehler was clearly in love with her, but she wasn't allowed to 
talk technical with him, and what nonclassified work he did made no sense to 
her. Furthermore, he was obviously something of a troublemaker on the job ÷ a 
paradox considering his almost clumsy diffidence. A physical attraction can only 
last for a limited time, and Allison wondered how long it would take him to tire 
of her ÷ or vice versa. This latest thing about Livermore wasn't going to help.
The fire colors faded from the sky, which now had a faint tinge of blue in it. 
Fred ÷ who claimed he intended to retire to the airlines ÷ spoke up, "Welcome, 
lady and gentleman, to the beautiful skies of California... or maybe it's still 
Oregon."
The nose pitched down from reentry attitude. The view was much like that from a 
commercial flyer, if you could ignore the slight curvature of the horizon and 
the darkness of the sky. California's Great Valley was a green corridor across 
their path. To the right, faded in the haze, was San Francisco Bay. They would 
pass about ninety kilometers east of Livermore. The place seemed to be the 
center of everything on this flight: It had been incorrect reports from their 
detector array which convinced the military and the politicians that Sov 
treachery was in the offing. And that detector was part of the same project 
Hoehler was so suspicious of ÷ for reasons he would not fully reveal.
Allison Parker's world ended with that thought.
ONE
The Old California Shopping Center was the Santa Ynez Police Company's biggest 
account ÷ and one of Miguel Rosas' most enjoyable beats. On this beautiful 
Sunday afternoon, the Center had hundreds of customers, people who had traveled 
many kilometers along Old 101 to be here. This Sunday was especially busy: All 
during the week, produce and quality reports had shown that the stores would 
have best buys. And it wouldn't rain till late. Mike wandered up and down the 
malls, stopping every now and then to talk or go into a shop and have a closer 
look at the merchandise. Most people knew how effective the shoplift-detection 
gear was, and so far he hadn't had any business whatsoever.
Which was okay with Mike. Rosas had been officially employed by the Santa Ynez 
Police Company for three years. And before that, all the way back to when he and 
his sisters had arrived in California, he had been associated with the company. 
Sheriff Wentz had more or less adopted him, and so he had grown up with police 
work, and was doing the job of a paid undersheriff by the time he was thirteen. 
Wentz had encouraged him to look at technical jobs, but somehow police work was 
always the most attractive. The SYP Company was a popular outfit that did 
business with most of the families around Vandenberg. The pay was good, the area 
was peaceful, and Mike had the feeling that he was really doing something to 
help people.
Mike left the shopping area and climbed the grassy hill that management kept 
nicely shorn and cleaned. From the top he could look across the Center to see 
all the shops and the brilliantly dyed fabrics that shaded the arcades.
He tweaked up his caller in case they wanted him to come down for some traffic 
control. Horses and wagons were not permitted beyond the outer parking area. 
Normally this was a convenience, but there were so many customers this afternoon 
that the owners might want to relax the rules.
Near the top of the hill, basking in the double sunlight, Paul Naismith sat in 
front of his chessboard. Every few months, Paul came down to the coast, 
sometimes to Santa Ynez, sometimes to towns further north. Naismith and Bill 
Morales would come in early enough to get a good parking spot, Paul would set up 
his chessboard, and Bill would go off to shop for him. Come evening, the Tinkers 
would trot out their specialties and he might do some trading. For now the old 
man slouched behind his chessboard and munched his lunch.
Mike approached the other diffidently. Naismith was not personally forbidding. 
He was easy to talk to, in fact. But Mike knew him better than most ÷ and knew 
the old man's cordiality was a mask for things as strange and deep as his public 
reputation implied.
"Game, Mike?" Naismith asked.
"Sorry, Mr. Naismith, I'm on duty. "Besides, I know you never lose except on 
purpose.
The older man waved impatiently. He glanced over Mike's shoulder at something 
among the shops, then lurched to his feet. "Ah. I'm not going to snare anyone 
this afternoon. Might as well go down and window shop."
Mike recognized the idiom, though there were no "windows" in the shopping 
center, unless you counted the glass covers on the jewelry and electronics 
displays. Naismith's generation was still a majority, so even the most archaic 
slang remained in use. Mike picked up some litter but couldn't find the 
miscreants responsible. He stowed the trash and caught up with Naismith on the 
way down to the shops.
The food vendors were doing well, as predicted. Their tables were overflowing 
with bananas and cacao and other local produce, as well as things from farther 
away, such as apples. On the right, the game area was still the province of the 
kids. That would change when evening came. The curtains and canopies were bright 
and billowing in the light breeze, but it wasn't till dark that the internal 
illumination of the displays would glow and dance their magic. For now, all was 
muted, many of the games powered down. Even chess and the other symbiotic games 
were doing a slow business. It was almost a matter of custom to wait till the 
evening for the buying and selling of such frivolous equipment.
The only crowd, five or six youngsters, stood around Gerry Tellman's Celest 
game. What was going on here? A little black kid was playing ÷ had been playing 
for fifteen minutes, Mike realized. Tellman had Celest running at a high level 
of realism, and he was not a generous man. Hmmm.
Ahead of him, Naismith creaked toward the game. Apparently his curiosity was 
pricked, too.
Inside the shop it was shady and cool. Tellman perched on a scuffed wood table 
and glared at his small customer. The boy looked to be ten or eleven and was 
clearly an outlander: His hair was bushy, his clothes filthy. His arms were so 
thin that he must be a victim of disease or poor diet. He was chewing on 
something that Mike suspected was tobacco ÷ definitely not the sort of behavior 
you'd see in a local boy.
The kid clutched a wad of Bank of Santa Ynez gAu notes. From the look on 
Tellman's face, Rosas could guess where they came from.
"Otra vez," the boy said, returning Tellman's glare. The proprietor hesitated, 
looked around the circle of faces and noticed the adults.
"Aw right," agreed Tellman, "but this'll have to be the last time... ŔEsta es el 
final, entiende?" he repeated in pidgin Spanish. "I, uh, I gotta go to lunch." 
This remark was probably for the benefit of Naismith and Rosas.
The kid shrugged. "Okay."
Tellman initialized the Celest board to level nine, Rosas noticed. The kid 
studied the setup with a calculating look. Tellman's display was a flat, showing 
a hypothetical solar system as seen from above the plane of rotation. The three 
planets were small disks of light moving around the primary. Their size gave a 
clue to mass, but the precise values appeared near the bottom of the display. 
Departure and arrival planets moved in visibly eccentric orbits, the departure 
planet at one rev every five seconds ÷ fast enough so precession was clearly 
occurring. Between it and the destination planet moved a third world, also in an 
eccentric orbit. Rosas grimaced. No doubt the only reason Tellman left the 
problem coplanar was that he didn't have a holo display for his Celest. Mike had 
never seen anyone without a symbiotic processor play the departure/destination 
version of Celest at level nine. The timer on the display showed that the player 
÷ the kid ÷ had ten seconds to launch his rocket and try to make it to the 
destination. From the fuel display, Rosas was certain that there was not enough 
energy available to make the flight in a direct orbit. A cushion shot on top of 
everything else!
The kid laid all his bank notes on the table and squinted at the screen. Six 
seconds left. He grasped the control handles and twitched them. The tiny golden 
spark that represented his spacecraft fell away from the green disk of the 
departure world, inward toward the yellow sun about which all revolved. He had 
used more than nine-tenths of his fuel and had boosted in the wrong direction. 
The children around him murmured their displeasure, and a smirk came over 
Tellman's face. The smirk froze:
As the spacecraft came near the sun, the kid gave the controls another twitch, a 
boost which ÷ together with the gravity of the primary-sent the glowing dot far 
out into the mock solar system. It edged across the two-meter screen, slowing at 
the greater remove, heading not for the destination planet but for the 
intermediary. Rosas gave an low, involuntary whistle. He had played Celest, both 
alone and with a processor. The game was nearly a century old and almost as 
popular as chess; it made you remember what the human race had almost attained. 
Yet he had never seen such a two-cushion shot by an unaided player.
Tellman's smile remained but his face was turning a bit gray. The vehicle drew 
close to the middle planet, catching up to it as it swung slowly about the 
primary. The kid made barely perceptible adjustments in the trajectory during 
the closing period. Fuel status on the display showed 0.001 full. The 
representation of the planet and the spacecraft merged for an instant, but did 
not record as a collision, for the tiny dot moved quickly away, going for the 
far reaches of the screen.
Around them, the other children jostled and hooted. They smelled a winner, and 
old Tellman was going to lose a little of the money he had been winning off them 
earlier in the day. Rosas and Naismith and Tellman just watched and held their 
breaths. With virtually no fuel left, it would be a matter of luck whether 
contact finally occurred.
The reddish disk of the destination planet swam placidly along while the mock 
spacecraft arced higher and higher, slower and slower, their paths becoming 
almost tangent. The craft was accelerating now, falling into the gravity well of 
the destination, giving the tantalizing impression of success that always comes 
with a close shot. Closer and closer. And the two lights became one on the 
board.
"Intercept," the display announced, and the stats streamed across the lower part 
of the screen. Rosas and Naismith looked at each other. The kid had done it.
Tellman was very pale now. He looked at the bills the boy had wagered. "Sorry, 
kid, but I don't have that much here right now." He started to repeat the excuse 
in Spanish, but the kid erupted with an unintelligible flood of spa–olnegro 
abuse. Rosas looked meaningfully at Tellman. He was hired to protect customers 
as well as proprietors. If Tellman didn't pay off, he could kiss his lease 
good-bye. The Shopping Center already got enough flak from parents whose 
children had lost money here. And if the kid were clever enough to press 
charges...
The proprietor finally spoke over youthful screaming. "Okay, so I'll pay. Pago, 
pago... you little son of a bitch." He pulled a handful of gAu notes out of his 
cash box and shoved them at the boy. "Now get out."
The black kid was out the door before anyone else. Rosas eyed his departure 
thoughtfully. Tellman went on, plaintively, talking as much to himself as anyone 
else. "I don't know. I just don't know. The little bastard has been in here all 
morning. I swear he had never seen a game board before. But he watched and 
watched. Diego Martinez had to explain it to him. He started playing. Had barely 
enough money. And he just got better and better. I never seen anything like 
it... In fact" ÷ he brightened and looked at Mike ÷ "in fact, I think I been set 
up. I betcha the kid is carrying a processor and just pretending to be young and 
dumb. Hey, Rosas, how about that? I should be protected. There's some sorta con 
here, especially on that last game. He ÷ 
" ÷ really did have a snowball's chance, eh, Telly?" Rosas finished where the 
proprietor had broken off. "Yeah, I know. You had a sure win. The odds should 
have been a thousand to one-not the even money you gave him. But I know 
symbiotic processing, and there's no way he could do it without some really 
expensive equipment." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Naismith nod 
agreement. "Still" ÷ he rubbed his jaw and looked out into the brightness beyond 
the entrance ÷ "I'd like to know more about him."
Naismith followed him out of the tent, while behind them Tellman sputtered. Most 
of the children were still visible, standing in clumps along the Tinkers' mall.
The mysterious winner was nowhere to be seen. And yet he should have been. The 
game area opened onto the central lawn which gave a clear view down all the 
malls. Mike spun around a couple times, puzzled. Naismith caught up with him. "I 
think the boy has been about two jumps ahead of us since we started watching 
him, Mike. Notice how he didn't argue when Tellman gave him the boot. Your 
uniform must have spooked him."
"Yeah. Bet he ran like hell the second he got outside."
"I don't know. I think he's more subtle than that." Naismith put a finger to his 
lips and motioned Rosas to follow him around the banners that lined the side of 
the game shop.
There was not much need for stealth. The shoppers were noisy, and the loading of 
furniture onto several carts behind the refurbishers' pavilion was accompanied 
by shouting and laughter.
The early afternoon breeze off Vandenberg set the colored fabric billowing. 
Double sunlight left nothing to shadow. Still, they almost tripped over the boy 
curled up under the edge of a tarp. The boy exploded like a bent spring, 
directly into Mike's arms: If Rosas had been of the older generation, there 
would have been no contest: Ingrained respect for children and an unwillingness 
to damage them would have let the kid slip from his grasp. But the undersheriff 
was willing to play fairly rough, and for a moment there was a wild mass of 
swinging arms and legs. Mike saw something gleam in the boy's hand, and then 
pain ripped through his arm.
Rosas fell to his knees as the boy, still clutching the knife, pulled loose and 
sprinted away. He was vaguely conscious of red spreading through the tan fabric 
of his left sleeve. He narrowed his eyes against the pain and drew his service 
stunner.
"No!" Naismith's shout was a reflex born of having grown up with slug guns and 
later having lived through the first era in history when life was truly sacred.
The kid went down and lay twitching in the grass. Mike holstered his pistol and 
struggled to his feet, his right hand clutching at the wound. It looked 
superficial, but it hurt like hell. "Gall Seymour," Mike grated at the old man. 
"We're going to have to carry that little bastard to the station."
TWO
The Santa Ynez Police Company was the largest protection service south of San 
Jose. After all, Santa Ynez was the first town north of Santa Barbara and the 
Aztl‡n border. Sheriff Seymour Wentz had three full-time deputies and contracts 
with eighty percent of the locals. That amounted to almost four thousand 
customers.
Wentz's office was perched on a good-sized hill overlooking Old 101. From it one 
could follow the movements of Peace Authority freighters for several kilometers 
north and south. Right now, no one but Paul Naismith was admiring the view. 
Miguel Rosas watched gloomily as Seymour spent half an hour on the phone to 
Santa Barbara, and then even managed to patch through to the ghetto in Pasadena. 
As Mike expected, no one south of the border could help. The rulers of Aztl‡n 
spent their gold trying to prevent "illegal labor emigration" from Los Angeles 
but never wasted time tracking the people who made it. The sabio in Pasadena 
seemed initially excited by the description, then froze up and denied any 
interest in the boy. The only other lead was with a contract labor gang that had 
passed though Santa Ynez earlier in the week, heading for the cacao farms near 
Santa Maria. Sy had some success with that. One Larry Faulk, labor contract 
agent, was persuaded to talk to them. The nattily dressed agent was not happy to 
see them:
"Certainly, Sheriff, I recognize the runt. Name is Wili Wachendon." He spelled 
it out. The W's sounded like a hybrid of zu with v and b. Such was the evolution 
of Spanolnegro. "He missed my crew's departure yesterday, and I can't say that I 
or anyone else up here is sorry."
"Look, Mr. Faulk. This child has clearly been mistreated by your people." He 
waved over his shoulder at where the kid ÷ Wili ÷ lay in his cell. Unconscious, 
he looked even more starved and pathetic than he had in motion.
"Ha!" came Faulk's reply over the fiber. "I notice you have the punk locked up; 
and I also see your deputy has his arm bandaged." He pointed at Rosas, who 
stared back almost sullenly. "I'll bet little Wili has been practicing his 
people-carving hobby. Sheriff, Wili Wachendon may have had a hard time 
someplace; I think he's on the run from the Ndelante Ali. But I never roughed 
him up. You know how labor contractors work. Maybe it was different in the good 
old days, but now we are agents, we get ten percent, and our crews can dump on 
us any time they please. At the wages they get, they're always shifting around, 
bidding for new contracts, squeezing for money. I have to be damn popular and 
effective or they would get someone else.
"This kid has been worthless from the beginning. He's always looked 
half-starved; I think he's a sicker. How he got from L.A. to the border is... " 
His next words were drowned out by a freighter whizzing along the highway 
beneath the station. Mike glanced out the window at the behemoth diesel as it 
moved off southward carrying liquefied natural gas to the Peace Authority 
Enclave in Los Angeles. "... took him because he claimed he could run my books. 
Now, the little bas ÷ the kid may know something about accounting. But he's a 
lazy thief, too. And I can prove it. If your company hassles me about this when 
I come back through Santa Ynez, I'll sue you into oblivion."
There were a couple more verbal go-arounds, and then Sheriff Wentz rang off. He 
turned in his chair. "You know, Mike, I think he's telling the truth. We don't 
see it so much in the new generation, but children like your Sally and Arta-* "
Mike nodded glumly and hoped Sy wouldn't pursue it. His Sally and Arta, his 
little sisters. Dead years ago. They had been twins, five years younger than he, 
born when his parents had lived in Phoenix. They had made it to California with 
him, but they had always been sick. They both died before they were twenty and 
never looked to be older than ten. Mike knew who had caused that bit of hell. It 
was something he never spoke of.
"The generation before that had it worse. But back then it was just another sort 
of plague and people didn't notice especially." The diseases, the sterility, had 
brought a kind of world never dreamed of by the bomb makers of the previous 
century. "If this Wili is like your sisters, I'd estimate he's about fifteen. No 
wonder he's brighter than he looks."
"It's more than that, Boss. The kid is really smart. You should have seen what 
he did to Tellman's Celest."
Wentz shrugged. "Whatever. Now we've got to decide what to do with him. I wonder 
whether Fred Bartlett would take him in." This was gentle racism; the Bartletts 
were black.
"Boss, he'd eat 'em alive," Rosas patted his bandaged arm.
"Well, hell, you think of something better, Mike. We've got four thousand 
customers. There must be someone who can help... A lost child with no one to 
take care of him ÷ it's unheard of!"
Some child! But Mike couldn't forget Sally and Arta. "Yeah."
Through this conversation, Naismith had been silent, almost ignoring the two 
peace officers. He seemed more interested in the view of Old 101 than what they 
were talking about. Now he twisted in the wooden chair to face the sheriff and 
his deputy. "I'll take the kid on, Sy."
Rosas and Wentz looked at him in stupefied silence. Paul Naismith was considered 
old in a land where two thirds of the population was past fifty. Wentz licked 
his lips, apparently unsure how to refuse him. "See here, Paul, you heard what 
Mike said. The kid practically killed him this afternoon. I know how people 
your, uh, age feel about children, but-"
The old man shook his head, caught Mike with a quick glance that was neither 
abstracted nor feeble. "You know they've been after me to take on an apprentice 
for years, Sy. Well, I've decided. Besides trying to kill Mike, he played Celest 
like a master. The gravity-well maneuver is one I've never seen discovered 
unaided."
"Mike told me. It's slick, but I see a lot of players do it. We almost all use 
it. Is it really that clever?"
"Depending on your background, it's more than clever. Isaac Newton didn't do a 
lot more when he deduced elliptical orbits from the inverse square law."
"Look, Paul... I'm truly sorry, but even with Bill and Irma, it's just too 
dangerous."
Mike thought about the pain in his arm. And then about the twin sisters he had 
once had. "Uh, Boss, could you and I have a little talk?"
Wentz raised an eyebrow. "So...? Okay. 'Scuse us a minute, Paul."
There was a moment of embarrassed silence as the two left the room. Naismith 
rubbed his cheek with a faintly palsied hand and gazed across Highway 101 at the 
pale lights just coming on in the Shopping Center. So very much had changed and 
all the years in between were blurred now. Shopping Center? All of Santa Ynez 
would have been lost in the crowd at a good high-school basketball game in the 
1990s. These days a county with seven thousand people was considered a thriving 
concern.
It was just past sunset now, and the office was growing steadily darker. The 
room's displays were vaguely glowing ghosts hovering in the near distance. 
Cameras from down in the shopping areas drove most of those displays. Paul could 
see that business was picking up there. The Tinkers and mechanics and 
'furbishers had trotted out their wares, and crowds were hanging about the 
aerial displays. Across the room, other screens showed pale red and green, 
relaying infrared images from cameras purchased by Wentz's clients.
In the next room the two officers' talk was a faint murmur. Naismith leaned back 
and pushed up his hearing aid. For a moment the sound of his lung and heart 
action was overpoweringly loud in his ears. Then the filters recognized the 
periodic noises and they were diminished, and he could hear Wentz and Rosas more 
clearly than any unaided human. Not many people could boast such equipment, but 
Naismith demanded high pay and Tinkers from Norcross to Beijing were more than 
happy to supply him with better than average prosthetics.
Rosas' voice came clearly: "... think Paul Naismith can take care of himself, 
Boss. He's lived in the mountains for years. And the Moraleses are tough and not 
more than fifty-five. In the old days there were some nasty bandits and 
ex-military up there
"Still are," Wentz put in.
"Nothing like when there were still a lot of weapons floating around. Naismith 
was old even when they were going strong, and he survived. I've heard about his 
place. He has gadgets we won't see for years. He isn't called the Tinker wizard 
for nothing. I
The rest was blotted out by a loud creaking that rose to near painful intensity 
in Naismith's ear, then faded as the filters damped out the amplification. 
Naismith looked wildly around, then sheepishly realized it was a microquake. 
They happened all the time this near Vandenberg. Most were barely noticeable ÷ 
unless one used special amplification, as Paul was now. The roar had been a 
slight creaking of wall timbers. It passed... and he could hear the two peace 
officers once more.
"... at he said about needing an apprentice is true, Boss. It hasn't been just 
us in Middle California who've been after him. I know people in Medford and 
Norcross who are scared witless he'll die without leaving a successor. He's 
hands down the best algorithms man in North America ÷ I'd say in the world 
except I want to be conservative. You know that comm gear you have back in the 
control room? I know it's close to your heart, your precious toy and mine. Well, 
the bandwidth compression that makes possible all those nice color pictures 
coming over the fiber and the microwave would be plain impossible without the 
tricks he's sold the Tinkers. And that's not all ÷"
"All right!" Wentz laughed. "I can tell you took it serious when I told you to 
specialize on our high tech clients. I know Middle California would be a 
backwater without him, but-"
"And it will be again, once he's gone, unless he can find an apprentice. They've 
been trying for years to get him to take on some students or even to teach 
classes like before the Crash, but he's refused. And I think he's right. Unless 
you are terribly creative to begin with, there's no way you can make new 
algorithms. I think he's been waiting ÷ not taking anyone on ÷ and watching. I 
think today he found his apprentice. The kid's mean... he'd kill. And I don't 
know what he really wants besides money. But he has one thing that all the good 
intentions and motivation in world can't get us, and that's brains. You should 
have seen him on the Celest, Boss..."
The argument ÷ or lecture ÷ went on for several more minutes, but the outcome 
was predictable. The wizard of the Tinkers had at long last got himself an 
apprentice.
THREE
Night and triple moonlight. Wili lay in the back of the buckboard, heavily 
bundled in blankets. The soft springs absorbed most of the bumps and lurches as 
the wagon passed over the tilting, broken concrete. The only sounds Wili heard 
were the cool wind through the trees, the steady clapclapclap of the horse's 
rubberized shoes, its occasional snort in the darkness. They had not yet reached 
the great black forest that stretched north to south; it seemed like all Middle 
California was spread out around him. The sea fog which so often made the nights 
here dark was absent, and the moonlight gave the air an almost luminous blue 
tone. Directly west- the direction Wili faced ÷ Santa Ynez lay frozen in the 
still light. Few lights were visible, but the pattern of the greets was clear, 
and there was of a hint of orange and violet from the open square of the bazaar.
Wili wriggled deeper in the blankets, the tingling paralysis in his limbs mostly 
gone now; the warmth in his arms and legs, the cold air on his face, and the 
vision spread below him was as good as any drug high he'd ever stolen in 
Pasadena. The land was beautiful, but it had not turned out to be the easy 
pickings he had hoped for when he had defected from the Ndelante and headed 
north. There were unpeopled ruins, that was true: He could see what must have 
been the pre-Crash location of Santa Ynez, rectangular tracings all overgrown 
and no lights at all.
The ruins were bigger than the modern version of the town, but nothing like the 
promise of the L.A. Basin, where kilometer after kilometer of ruins ÷ much of it 
unlooted -stretched as far as a man could walk in a week. And if one wanted some 
more exciting, more profitable way of getting rich, there were the Jonque 
mansions in the hills above the Basin. From those high vantage points, Los 
Angeles had its own fairyland aspect: Horizon to horizon had sparkled with 
little fires that marked towns in the ruins. Here and there glowed the 
incandescent lights of Jonque outposts. And at the center, a luminous, crystal 
growth, stood the towers of the Peace Authority Enclave. Wili sighed. That had 
all been before his world in the Ndelante Ali had fallen apart, before he 
discovered Old Ebenezer's con... If ever he returned, it would be a contest 
between the Ndelante and the Jonques over who'd skin him first.
Wili couldn't go back.
But he had seen one thing on this journey north that made it worth being chased 
here. That one thing made this landscape forever more spectacular than LAs. He 
looked over Santa Ynez at the object of his wonder:
The silver dome rose out of the sea, into the moonlight. Even at this remove and 
altitude, it still seemed to tower. People called it many things, and even in 
Pasadena he had heard of it, though he'd never believed the stories. Larry Faulk 
called it Mount Vandenberg. The old man Naismith ÷ the one who even now was 
whistling aimlessly as his servant drove their wagon into the hills ÷ he had 
called it the Vandenberg Bobble. But whatever they called it, it transcended the 
name.
In its size and perfection it seemed to transcend nature itself. From Santa 
Barbara he had seen it. It was a hemisphere at least twenty kilometers across. 
Where it fell into the Pacific, Wili could see multiple lines of moonlit surf 
breaking soundlessly against its curving arc. On its inland side, the lake they 
called Lompoc was still and dark.
Perfect, perfect. The shape was an abstraction beyond reality. Its 
mirror-perfect surface caught the moon and held it in a second image, just as 
clear as the first. And so the night had two moons, one very high in the sky, 
the other shining from the dome. Out in the sea, the more normal reflection was 
a faint silver bar lying straight to the ocean's horizon. Three moon's worth of 
light in all! During the day, the vast mirror captured the sun in a similar way. 
Larry Faulk claimed the farmers planted their lands to take advantage of the 
double sunlight.
Who had made Vandenberg Dome? The One True God? Some Jonque or Anglo god? And if 
made by man, how? What could be inside? Wili dozed, imagining the burglary of 
all burglaries ÷ to get inside and steal what treasures would be hidden by a 
treasure so great as that Dome...
When he woke, they were in the forest, rolling upward still, the trees deep and 
dark around them. The taller pines moved and spoke unsettlingly in the wind. 
This was more of a forest than he had ever seen. The real moon was low now; an 
occasional splash of silver shouldered past the branches and lay upon further 
trees, glistening on their needles. Over his head, a band of night, brighter 
than the trees, was visible. The stars were there.
The Anglo's servant had slowed the horse. The ancient concrete road was gone; 
the path was scarcely wide enough for the cart. Wili tried to face forward, but 
the blankets and remaining effects of the cop's stunner prevented this. Now the 
old man spoke quietly into the darkness. Password! Wili doubled forward to see 
if the cops had discovered his other knife. No. It was still there, strapped to 
the inside of his calf. Old men running labor camps were something he knew a lot 
about from L.A. He was one slave this old man was not going to own.
After a moment, a woman's voice came back, cheerfully telling them to come 
ahead. The horse took up its former pace. Wili saw no sign of the speaker.
The cart turned through the next switchback, its tires nearly soundless in the 
carpet of pine needles that layered the road. Another hundred meters, another 
turn, and ÷
It was a palace! Trees and vines closed in on all sides of the structure, but it 
was clearly a palace, though more open than the fortresses of the Jonque jefes 
in Los Angeles. Those lords usually rebuilt pre-Crash mansions, installed 
electrified fences and machine gun nests for security. This place was old, too, 
but in other ways strange. There was no outward sign of defenses ÷ which could 
only mean that the owner must control the land for kilometers all around. But 
Wili had seen no guardian forts on their trip up here. These northerners could 
not be as stupid and defenseless as they seemed.
The cart drove the length of the mansion. The trail broadened into a clearing 
before the entrance, and Wili had the best view yet. It was smaller than the 
palaces of L.A. If the inner court was a reasonable size, then it couldn't house 
all the servants and family of a great jefe. But the building was massive, the 
wood and stone expertly joined. What moonlight was left glinted off metal 
tracery and shone streaming images of the moon's face in the polish of the wood. 
The roof was darker, barely reflecting. There were gables and a strange turret: 
dark spheres, in diameters varying from five centimeters to almost two meters, 
impaled on a glinting needle.
"Wake up. We are here." Hands undid the blankets, and the old man gently shook 
his shoulder. It took an effort to keep from lashing out. He grunted faintly, 
pretended he was slowly waking. "Estamos llegado, chico," the servant, Morales, 
said. Wili let himself be helped from the cart. In truth he was still a little 
unsteady on his feet, but the less they knew of his capabilities the better. Let 
them think he was weak, and ignorant of English.
A servant came running out of the main entrance (or could the servants' entrance 
be so grand?). No one else appeared, but Wili resolved to be docile until he 
knew more. The woman-like Morales, middle-aged-greeted the two men warmly, then 
guided Wili across the stone flagging to the entrance. The boy kept his eyes 
down, pretending to be dopey. Out of the corner of this eye, though, he saw 
something more ÷ a silver net like some giant spider web stretched between a 
tree and the side of the mansion.
Past the huge careen doors, a light glowed dimly, and Wili saw that the place 
was the equal of anything in Pasadena, though there were no obvious art 
treasures or golden statuary lying about. They led him up (not down! What sort 
of jefe put his lowest servants on an upper floor?) a wide staircase, and into
a room under the eaves. The only light was the moon's, coming through a window 
more than large enough to escape by.
"Tienes hambre?" the woman asked him.
Wili shook his head dumbly, surprised at himself. He really wasn't hungry; it 
must be some residual effect of the stunner. She showed him a toilet in an 
adjoining room and told him to get some sleep.
And then he was left alone!
Wili lay on the bed and looked out over the forest. He thought he could see a 
glint from the Vandenberg Dome. His luck was almost past marveling at. He 
thanked the One God he had not bolted at the entrance to the mansion. Whoever 
was the master here knew nothing of security and employed fools. A week here and 
he would know every small thing worth stealing. In a week he would be gone with 
enough treasure to live for a long, long time!
- Flashforward -
Captain Allison Parker's new world began with the sound of tearing metal.
For several seconds she just perceived and reacted, not trying to explain 
anything to herself. The hull was breached. Quiller was trying to crawl back 
toward her. There was blood on his face. Through rents in the hull she could see 
trees and pale sky. Trees?
Her mind locked out the wonder, and she struggled from her harness. She snapped 
the disk pack to her side and pulled down the light helmet with its ten-minute 
air supply. Without thinking, she was following the hull-breach procedures that 
had been drilled into all of them so many times. If she had thought about it she 
might have left off the helmet ÷ there were sounds of birds and wind-rustled 
trees ÷ and she would have died.
Allison pulled Quiller away from the panel and saw why the harness had not 
protected him: The front of the shuttle was caved in toward the pilot. Another 
few centimeters and he would have been crushed. A harsh, crackling sound came 
clearly through the thin shell of her helmet. She slipped Quiller's in place and 
turned on the oxygen feed. She recognized the smell that still hung in her 
helmet: The tracer stench that tagged their landing fuel.
Angus Quiller straightened out of her grasp. He looked around dazedly. "Fred?" 
he shouted.
Outside, the improbable trees were beginning to flare. God only knew how long 
the forward hull would keep the fire in the nose tanks from breaking into the 
crew area.
Allison and Quiller pulled themselves forward... and saw what had happened to 
Fred Torres. The terrible sound that had begun this nightmare had been the left 
front of the vehicle coming down into the flight deck. The back of Fred's 
acceleration couch was intact, but Allison could see that the man was beyond 
help. Quiller had been very lucky.
They looked through the rent that was almost directly over their heads. It was 
ragged and long, perhaps wide enough to escape through. Allison glanced across 
the cabin at the main hatch. It was subtly bowed in; they would never get out 
that way. Even through their pressure suits, they could now feel the heat. The 
sky beyond the rent was no longer blue. They were looking up a flue of smoke and 
flame that climbed the nearby pines.
Quiller made a stirrup with his hands and boosted the NMV specialist though the 
ragged tear in the hull. Allison's head popped through. Under anything less than 
these circumstances she would have screamed at what she saw sitting in the 
flames: an immense dark octopus shape, its limbs afire, cracked and swaying. 
Allison wriggled her shoulders free of the hole and pulled herself up. Then she 
reached down for the pilot. At the same time, some part of her mind realized 
that what she had seen was not an octopus but the mass of roots of a rather 
large tree which somehow had fallen downward on the nose of the sortie craft. 
This was what had killed Fred Torres.
Quiller leaped up to grab her hand. For a moment his broader form stuck in the 
opening, but after a single coordinated push and tug he came through ÷ leaving 
part of his equipment harness on the jagged metal of the broken hull.
They were at the bottom of a long crater, now filled with heat and reddish 
smoke. Without their oxygen, they would have had no chance. Even so, the fire 
was intense. The forward area was well involved, sending rivulets of fire toward 
the rear, where most of the landing fuel was tanked. She looked wildly around, 
absorbing what she saw without further surprise, simply trying to find a way 
out.
Quiller pointed at the right wing section. If they could run along it, a short 
jump would take them to the cascade of brush and small trees that had fallen 
into the crater. It wasn't till much later that she wondered how all that brush 
had come to lie above the orbiter when it crashed.
Seconds later they were climbing hand-over-hand up the wall of brush and vines. 
The fire edged steadily through the soggy mass below them and sent flaming 
streamers ahead along the pine needles imbedded in the vines. At the top they 
turned for a moment and looked down. As they watched, the cargo bay broke in 
half and the sortie craft slumped into the strange emptiness below it. Thus died 
all Allison's millions of dollars of optical and deep-probe equipment. Her hand 
tightened on the disk pack that still hung by her side.
The main tank blew, and simultaneously Allison's right leg buckled beneath her. 
She dropped to the ground, Quiller a second behind her. "Damn stupidity," she 
heard him say as debris showered down on them, "us standing here gawking at a 
bomb. Let's move out."
Allison tried to stand, saw the red oozing from the side of her leg. The pilot 
stooped and carried her through the damp brush, twenty or thirty meters upwind 
from the crater. He set her down and bent to look at the wound. He pulled a 
knife from his crash kit and sawed the tough suit fabric from around her wound.
"You're lucky. Whatever it was passed right through the side of your leg. I'd 
call this a nick, except it goes so deep." He sprayed the area with first-aid 
glue, and the pain subsided to a throbbing pressure that kept time with her 
pulse.
The heavy red smoke was drifting steadily away from them. The orbiter itself was 
hidden by the crater's edge. The explosions were continuing irregularly but 
without great force. They should be safe here. He helped her out of her pressure 
suit, then struggled out of his own.
Quiller walked several paces back toward the wreck. He bent and picked up a 
strange, careen shape. "Looks like it got thrown here by the blast." It was a 
Christian cross, its base still covered with dirt.
"We crashed in a damn cemetery," Allison tried to laugh, but it made her dizzy. 
Quiller didn't reply. He studied the cross for some seconds. Finally he set it 
down and came back to look at Allison's leg. "That stopped the bleeding. I don't 
see any other punctures. How do you feel?"
Allison glanced down at the red on her gray flight fatigues. Pretty colors, 
except when it's your own red. "Give me some time to sit here. I bet I'll be 
able to walk to the rescue choppers when they come."
"Hmm. Okay, I'm going to take a look around... There may be a road nearby." He 
unclipped the crash kit and set it beside her. "Be back in fifteen minutes."
FOUR
They started on Wili the next morning. It was the woman, Irma, who brought him 
down, fed him breakfast in the tiny alcove off the main dining room. She was a 
pleasant woman, but young enough to be strong and she spoke very good Spanish. 
Wili did not trust her. But no one threatened him, and the food seemed endless; 
he ate so much that his eternal gnawing hunger was almost satisfied. All this 
time Irma talked ÷ but without saying a great deal, as though she knew he was 
concentrating on his enormous breakfast. No other servants were visible. In 
fact, Wili was beginning to think the mansion was untenanted, that these three 
must be housekeeping staff holding the mansion for their absent lord. That jefe 
was very powerful or very stupid, because even in the light of day, Wili could 
see no evidence of defenses. If he could be gone before the jefe returned...
"÷ and do you know why you are here, Wili?" Irma said as she collected the 
plates from the mosaicked surface of the breakfast table.
Wili nodded, pretending shyness. Sure he knew. Everyone needed workers, and the 
old and middle-aged often needed whole gangs to keep them living in style. But 
he said, "To help you?"
"Not me, Wili. Paul. You will be his apprentice. He has looked a long time, and 
he has chosen you."
That figured. The old gardener ÷ or whatever he was ÷ looked to be eighty if he 
was a day. Right now Wili was being treated royally. But he suspected that was 
simply because the old man and his two flunkies were making illegitimate use of 
their master's house. No doubt there would be hell to pay when the jefe 
returned. "And, and what am I to do for My Lady?" Wili spoke with his best 
diffidence.
"Whatever Paul asks."
She led him around to the back of the mansion where a large pool, almost a lake, 
spread away under the pines. The water looked clear, though here and there 
floated small clots of pine needles. Toward the center, out from under the 
trees, it reflected the brilliant blue of the sky. Downslope, through an opening 
in the trees, Wili could see thunderheads gathering about Vandenberg.
"Now off with your clothes and we'll see about giving you a bath." She moved to 
undo the buttons on his shirt, an adult helping a child.
Wili recoiled. "No!" To be naked here with the woman!
Irma laughed and pinned his arm, continued to unbutton the shirt. For an 
instant, Wili forgot his pose ÷ that he was a child, and an obedient one. Of 
course this treatment would be unthinkable within the Ndelante. And even in 
Jonque territory, the body was respected. No woman forced baths and nakedness on 
males.
But Irma was strong. As she pulled the shirt over his head, he lunged for the 
knife strapped to his leg, and brought it up toward her face. Irma screamed. 
Even as she did, Wili was cursing himself.
"No, no! I am going to tell Paul." She backed away, her hands held between them, 
as if to protect herself. Wili knew he could run away now (and he couldn't 
imagine these three catching him) ÷ or he could do what was necessary to stay. 
For now he wanted to stay.
He dropped the knife and groveled. "Please, Lady, I acted without thought." 
Which was true. "Please forgive me. I will do anything to make it up." Even, 
even...
The woman stopped, came back, and picked up the knife. She obviously had no 
experience as a foreman, to trust anything he said. The whole situation was 
alien and unpredictable. Wili would almost have preferred the lash, the 
predictability. Irma shook her head, and when she spoke there was still a little 
fear in her voice. Wili was sure she now knew that he was a good deal older than 
he looked; she made no move to touch him. "Very well. This is between us, Wili. 
I will not tell Paul." She smiled, and Wili had the feeling there was something 
she was not telling him. She reached her arm out full length and handed him the 
brush and soap. Wili stripped, waded into the chill water, and scrubbed.
"Dress in these," she said after he was out and had dried himself. The new 
clothes were soft and clean, a minor piece of loot all by themselves. Irma was 
almost her old self as they walked back to the mansion, and Wili felt safe in 
asking the question that had been on his mind all that morning: "My Lady, I 
notice we are all alone here, the four of us ÷ or at least so it appears. When 
will the protection of the manor lord be returned to us?"
Irma stopped and after a second, laughed. "What manor lord? Your Spanish is so 
strange. You seem to think this is a castle that should have serfs and troops 
all round." She continued, almost to herself, "Though perhaps that is your 
reality. I have never lived in the South.
"You have already met the lord of the manor, Wili." She saw his uncomprehending 
stare. "It's Paul Naismith, the man who brought you here from Santa Ynez."
"And... " Wili could scarcely trust himself to ask the question,"... you all, 
the three of you, are alone here?"
"certainly. But don't worry. You are much safer here than you ever were in the 
South, I am sure."
I am sure, too, My Lady. Safe as a coyote among chickens. If ever he'd made a 
right decision, it had been his escape to Middle California. To think that Paul 
Naismith and the others had the manor to themselves ÷ it was a wonder the 
Jonques had not overrun this land long ago. The thought almost kindled his 
suspicions. But then the prospect of what he could do here overwhelmed all. 
There was no reason he should have to leave with his loot. Wili Wachendon, weak 
as he was, could probably be ruler here ÷ if he was clever enough during the 
next few weeks. At the very least he would be rich forever. If Naismith were the 
jefe, and if Wili were to be his apprentice, then in essence he was being 
adopted by the manor lord. That happened occasionally in Los Angeles. Even the 
richest families were cursed with sterility. Such families often sought an 
appropriate heir. The adopted one was usually high-born, an orphan of another 
family, perhaps the survivor of a vendetta. But there were not many children to 
go around, especially in the old days. Wili knew of at least one case where the 
oldsters adopted from the Basin ÷ not a black child, of course, but still a boy 
from a peasant family. Such was the stuff of dreams; Wili could scarcely believe 
that it was being offered to him. If he played his cards right, he would 
eventually own all of this-and without having to steal a single thing, or risk 
torture and execution! It was... unnatural. But if these people were crazy, he 
would certainly do what he could to profit by it.
Wili hurried after Irma as she returned to the house.
A week passed, then two. Naismith was nowhere to be seen, and Bill and Irma 
Morales would only say that he was traveling on "business." Wili began to wonder 
if "apprenticeship" really meant what he had thought. He was treated well, but 
not with the fawning courtesy that should be shown the heir-apparent of a manor. 
Perhaps he was on some sort of probation: Irma woke him at dawn, and after 
breakfast he spent most of the day ÷ assuming it wasn't raining ÷ in the manor's 
small fields, weeding, planting, hoeing. It wasn't hard work ÷ in fact, it 
reminded him of what Larry Faulk's labor company did ÷ but it was deadly boring.
On rainy days, when the weather around Vandenberg blew inland, he stayed indoors 
and helped Irma with cleaning. He had scarcely more enthusiasm for this, but it 
did give him a chance to snoop: The mansion had no interior court, but in some 
ways it was more elaborate than he had first imagined. He and Irma cleaned some 
large rooms hidden below ground level. Irma would say nothing about them, though 
they appeared to be for meetings or banquets. The building's floor space, if not 
the available food supply, implied a large household. Perhaps that was how these 
innocents protected themselves: They simply hid until their enemies got tired of 
searching for them. But it didn't really make sense. If he were a bandit, he'd 
burn the place down or else occupy it He wouldn't simply go away because he 
could find no one to kill. And yet there was no evidence of past violence in the 
polished hardwood walls or the deep, soft carpeting.
In the evenings, the two treated him more as they should the adopted son of a 
lord. He was allowed to sit in the main living room and play Celest or chess. 
The Celest was every bit as fascinating as the one in Santa Ynez. But he never 
could attain quite the accuracy he'd had that first time. He began to suspect 
that part of his win had been luck. It was the precision of his eye and hand 
that betrayed him, not his physical intuition. Delays of a thousandth of a 
second in a cushion shot could cause a miss at the destination. Bill said there 
were mechanical aids to overcome this difficulty, but Wili had little trust for 
such. He spent many hours hunched before the glowing volume of the Celest, while 
on the other side of the room Bill and Irma watched the holo. (After the first 
couple of days, the shows seemed uniformly dull ÷ either local gossip, or flat 
television game shows from the last century.)
Playing chess with Bill was almost as boring as the holo. After a few games, he 
could easily beat the caretaker. The programmed version was much more fun than 
playing Bill.
As the days passed, and Naismith did not return, Wili's boredom intensified. He 
reconsidered his options. After all this time, no one had offered him the 
master's rooms, no one had shown him the appropriate deference. (And no tobacco 
was available, though that by itself was something he could live with.) Perhaps 
it was all some benign labor contract operation, like Larry Faulk's. If this 
were the Anglo idea of adoption, he wanted none of it, and his situation became 
simply a grand opportunity for burglary.
Wili began with small things: jeweled ashtrays from the subterranean rooms, a 
pocket Celest he found in an empty bedroom. He picked a tree out of sight behind 
the pond and hid his loot in a waterproof bag there. The burglaries, small as 
they were, gave him a sense of worth and made life a lot less boring. Even the 
pain in his gut lessened and the food seemed to taste better.
Wili might have been content to balance indefinitely between the prospect of 
inheriting the estate and stealing it, but for one thing: The mansion was 
haunted. It was not the air of mystery or the hidden rooms. There was something 
alive in the house. Sometimes he heard a woman's voice ÷ not Irma's, but the one 
he had heard talk to Naismith on the trail. Wili saw the creature once. It was 
well past midnight. He was sneaking back to the mansion after stashing his 
latest acquisitions. Wili oozed along the edge of the veranda, moving silently 
from shadow to shadow. And suddenly there was someone behind him, standing full 
in the moonlight. It was a woman, tall and Anglo. Her hair, silver in the light, 
was cut in an alien style. The clothes were like something out of the Moraleses 
old-time television. She turned to look straight at him. There was a faint smile 
on her face. He bolted ÷ and the creature twisted, vanished.
Wili was a fast shadow through the veranda doors, up the stairs, and into his 
room. He jammed a chair under the doorknob and lay for many minutes, heart 
pounding. What had he seen? How he would like to believe it was a trick of the 
moonlight: The creature had vanished as if by the flick of a mirror, and large 
parts of the walls surrounding the veranda were of slick black glass. But tricks 
of the eye do not have such detail, do not smile faint smiles. What then? 
Television? Wili had seen plenty of flat video, and since coming to Middle 
California had used holo tanks. Tonight went beyond all that. Besides, the 
vision had turned to look right at him.
So that left... a haunting. It made sense. No one ÷ certainly no woman ÷ had 
dressed like that since before the plagues. Old Naismith would have been young 
then. Could this be the ghost of a dead love? Such tales were common in the 
ruins of L.A., but until now Wili had been skeptical.
Any thought of inheriting the estate was gone. The question was, could he get 
out of this alive? ÷ and with how much loot? Wili watched the doorknob with 
horrified fascination. If he lived through this night, then it was probably safe 
to stay a few more days. The vision might be just the warning of a jealous 
spirit. Such a ghost would not begrudge him a few more trinkets, as long as he 
departed when Naismith returned.
Wili got very little sleep that night.
FIVE
The horsemen ÷ four of them, with a row of five pack mules ÷ arrived the 
afternoon of a slow, rainy day. It had been thundering and windy earlier, but 
now the rains off Vandenberg came down in a steady drizzle from a sky so 
overcast that it already seemed evening.
When Wili saw the four, and saw that none of them was Naismith, he faded around 
the mansion, toward the pond and his cache. Then he stopped for a foolish 
moment, wondering if he should run back and warn Irma and Bill.
But the two stupid caretakers were already running down the front steps to greet 
the intruders: an enormous fat fellow and three rifle-carrying men-at-arms. As 
he skulked in the bushes, Bill turned and seemed to look directly at his hiding 
place. "Wili, come help our guests."
Mustering what dignity he could, the boy emerged and walked toward the group. 
The old, fat one dismounted. He looked like a Jonque, but his English was 
strangely accented. "Ah, so this is his apprentice, hein? I have wondered if the 
master would ever find a successor and what sort of person he might be." He 
patted the bristling Wili on the head, making the usual error about the boy's 
age.
The gesture was patronizing, but Wili thought there was a hint of respect, 
almost awe, in his voice. Perhaps this slob was not a Jonque and had never seen 
a black before. The fellow stared silently at Wili for a moment and then seemed 
to notice the rain. He gave an exaggerated shiver and most of the group moved up 
the steps. Bill and Wili were left to take the animals around to the 
outbuilding.
Four guests. That was not the end. By twos and threes and fours, all through the 
afternoon and evening, others drifted in. The horses and mules quickly 
overflowed the small outbuilding, and Bill showed Wili hidden stables. There 
were no servants. The guests themselves, or at least the more junior of them, 
carried the baggage indoors and helped with the animals. Much of the luggage was 
not taken to their rooms, but disappeared into the halls below ground. The rest 
turned out to be food and drink ÷ which made sense, since the manor produced 
only enough to feed three or four people.
Night and, more rain. The last of the visitors arrived ÷ and one of these was 
Naismith. The old man took his apprentice aside. "Ah, Wili, you have remained." 
His Spanish was as stilted as ever, and he paused frequently as if waiting for 
some unseen speaker to supply him with a missing word. "After the meetings, when 
our guests have gone, you and I must talk on your course of study. You are too 
old to delay. For now, though, help Irma and Bill and do not... bother... our 
guests." He looked at Wili as though suspecting the boy might do what Wili had 
indeed been considering. There was many a fat purse to be seen among these naive 
travelers.
"A new apprentice has nothing to tell his elders, and there is little he can 
learn from them in this short time." With that the old man departed for the 
halls beneath his small castle, and Wili was left to work with Irma and two of 
the visitors in the dimly lit kitchen.
Their mysterious guests stayed all that night and through the next day. Most 
kept to their rooms and the meeting halls. Several helped Bill with repairs on 
the outbuilding. Even here they behaved strangely: For instance, the roof of the 
stable badly needed work. But when the sun came out, the men wouldn't touch it. 
They seemed only willing to work on things where there was shade. And they never 
worked outside in groups of more than two or three. Bill claimed this was all 
Naismith's wish.
The next evening, there was a banquet in one of the halls. Wili, Bill, and Irma 
brought the food in, but that was all they got to see. The heavy doors were 
locked and the three of them went back up to the living room. After the 
Moraleses had settled down with the holo, Wili drifted away as if to go to his 
room.
He cut through the kitchen to the side stairs. The thick carpet made speedy, 
soundless progress possible, and a moment later he was peeking round at the 
entrance to the meeting hall. There were no guards, but the oak doors remained 
closed. A wood tripod carried a sign of gold on black. Wili silently crossed the 
hall and touched the sign. The velvet was deep but the gold was just painted on. 
It was cracked here and there and seemed very old. The letters said:
NCC
and below this, hand-lettered on vellum, was:
2047
Wili stepped back, more puzzled than ever. Why? Who was there to read the sign, 
when the doors were shut and locked? Did these people believe in spirit spells? 
Wili crept to the door and set his ear against the dark wood. He heard...
Nothing. Nothing but the rush of blood in his ear. These doors were thick, but 
he should at least hear the murmur of voices. He could hear the sound of a 
century-old game show from all the way up in the living room, but the other side 
of this door might as well be the inside of a mountain.
Wili fled upstairs, and was a model of propriety until their guests departed the 
next day.
There was no single leave-taking; they left as they had come. Strange customs 
indeed, the Anglos had.
But one thing was as in the South. They left gifts. And the gifts were 
conveniently piled on the wide table in the mansion's entrance way. Wili tried 
to pretend disinterest, but he felt his eyes must be visibly bugging out of his 
head whenever he walked by. Till now he had not seen much that was like the 
portable wealth of Los Angeles, but here were rubies, emeralds, diamonds, gold. 
There were gadgets, too, in artfully carved boxes of wood and silver. He 
couldn't tell if they were games or holos or what. There was so much here that a 
fortune could be taken and not be missed.
The last were gone by midnight. Wili crouched at the window of his attic room 
and watched them depart. They quickly disappeared down the trail, and the beat 
of hooves ceased soon after that. Wili suspected that, like the others, these 
three had left the main trail and were departing along some special path of 
their own.
Wili did not go back to his bed. The moon's waning crescent slowly rose and the 
hours passed. Wili tried to see familiar spots along the coast, but the fog had 
rolled in, and only the Vandenberg Dome rose into sight. He waited till just 
before morning twilight. There were no sounds from below. Even the horses were 
quiet. Only the faint buzzing of insects edged the silence. If he was going to 
have part of that treasure, he would have to act now, moonlight or not.
Wili slipped down the stairs, his hand lightly touching the haft of his knife. 
(It was not the same one he had flashed at Irma. That he had made a great show 
of giving up. This was a short carving knife from the kitchen set.) There had 
been no more ghostly apparitions since that night on the veranda. Wili had 
almost convinced himself that it had been an illusion, or some holographic scare 
show. Nevertheless, he had no desire to stay.
There, glinting in the moonlight, was his treasure. It looked even more 
beautiful than by lamplight. Far away, he heard Bill turn over, begin to snore. 
Wili silently filled his sack with the smallest, most clearly valuable items on 
the table. It was hard not to be greedy, but he stopped when the bag was only 
half full. Five kilos would have to do! More wealth than Old Ebenezer passed to 
the lower Ndelante in a year! And now out the back, around the pond, and to his 
cache.
Wili crept out onto the veranda, his heart suddenly pounding. This would be the 
spirit's last chance to get him. iDio! There was someone out there. Wili stood 
absolutely still, not breathing. It was Naismith. The old man sat on a lounge 
chair, his body bundled against the chill. He seemed to be gazing into the 
sky-but not at the moon, since he was in the shadows. Naismith was looking away 
from Wili; this could not be an ambush. Nevertheless, the boy's hand tightened 
on his knife. After a moment, he moved again, away from the old man and toward 
the pond.
"Come here to sit," said Naismith, without turning his head. Wili almost bolted, 
then realized that if the old man could be out here stargazing, there was no 
reason why the excuse should not also serve him. He set his sack of treasure 
down in the shadows and moved closer to Naismith.
"That's close enough. Sit. Why are you here so late, young one?"
"The same as you, I think, My Lord... To view the sky." What else could the old 
man be out here for?
"That's a good reason." The tone was neutral, and Wili could not tell if there 
was a smile or a scowl on his face; he could barely make out the other's 
profile. Wili's hand tightened nervously on the haft of his knife. He had never 
actually killed anyone before, but he knew the penalties for burglary.
"But I don't admire the sky as a whole," Naismith continued, "though it is 
beautiful. I like the morning and the late evening especially, because then it 
is possible to see the ÷" there was one of his characteristic pauses as he 
seemed to listen for the right word " satellites. See? There are two visible 
right now." He pointed first near the zenith and then waved at something close 
to the horizon. Wili followed his first gesture, and saw a tiny point of light 
moving slowly, effortlessly across the sky. Too slow to be an aircraft, much too 
slow to be a meteor: It was a moving star, of course. For a moment, he had 
thought the old man was going to show him something really magical. Wili 
shrugged and somehow Naismith seemed to catch the gesture.
"Not impressed, eh? There were men there once, Wili. But no more."
It was hard for Wili to conceal his scorn. How could that be? With aircraft you 
could see the vehicle. These little lights were like the stars and as 
meaningless. But he said nothing and a long silence overcame them. "You don't 
believe me, do you, Wili? But it is true. There were men and women there, so 
high up you can't see the form of their craft."
Wili relaxed, squatted before the other's chair. He tried to sound humble, "But 
then, Lord, what keeps them up? Even aircraft must come down for fuel."
Naismith chuckled. "That from the expert Celest player! Think, Wili. The 
universe is a great game of Celest. Those moving lights are swinging about the 
Earth, just like planets on a game display.
Del Nico Dio! Wili sat on the flags with an audible thump. A wave of dizziness 
passed over him. The sky would never be the same. Wili's cosmology had-until 
that moment-been an unexamined flatland image. Now, suddenly, he found the 
interior cosmos of Celest surrounding him forever and ever, with no up or down, 
but only the vast central force field that was the Earth, with the moon and all 
those moving stars circling about. And he couldn't disguise from himself the 
distances involved; he was far too familiar with Celest to do that. He felt like 
an infinitesimal shrinking toward some unknowable zero.
His mind tumbled over and over in the dark, caught between the relationships 
flashing through his mind and the night sky that swung overhead. So all those 
objects had their own gravity, and all moved-at least in some small way-at the 
behest of all the others. An image of the solar system not too different from 
the reality slowly formed in his mind. When at last he spoke, his voice was very 
small, and his humility was not pretended, "But then the game, it represents 
trips that men have actually made? To the moon, to the stars that move? You... 
we... can do that?"
"We could do that, Wili. We could do that and more. But no longer."
"But why not?" It was as though the universe had suddenly been taken back from 
his grasp. His voice was almost a wail.
"In the beginning, it was the War. Fifty years ago there were men alive up 
there. They starved or they came back to Earth. After the War there were the 
plagues. Now... now we could do it again. It would be different from before, but 
we could do it... if it weren't for the Peace Authority." The last two words 
were in English. He paused and then said, "Mundopaz."
Wili looked into the sky. The Peace Authority. They had always seemed a part of 
the universe as far away and indifferent as the stars themselves. He saw their 
jets and occasionally their helicopters. The major highways passed two or three 
of their freighters every hour. They had their enclave in Los Angeles. The 
Ndelante Ali had never considered hitting it; better to burgle the feudal manors 
of Aztl‡n. And Wili remembered that even the lords of Aztl‡n, for all their 
arrogance, never spoke of the Peace Authority except in neutral tones. It was 
fitting in a way that something so nearly supernatural should have stolen the 
stars from mankind. Fitting, yet now he knew, intolerable.
"They brought us peace, Wili, but the price was very high." A meteor flashed 
across the sky, and Wili wondered if that had been a piece of man's work, too. 
Naismith's voice suddenly became businesslike, "I said we must talk, and this is 
the perfect time for it. I want you for my apprentice. But this is no good 
unless you want it also. Somehow, I don't think our goals are the same. I think 
you want wealth: I know what's in the bag yonder. I know what's in the tree 
behind the pond."
Naismith's voice was dry, cool. Wili's eyes hung on the point where the meteor 
had swept to nothingness. This was like a dream. In Los Angeles, he would be on 
his way to the headsman now, an adopted son caught in treachery. "But what will 
wealth get you, Wili? Minimal security, until someone takes it from you. Even if 
you could rule here, you would still be nothing more than a petty lord, 
insecure.
"Beyond wealth, Wili, there is power, and I think you have seen enough so that 
you can appreciate it, even if you never thought to have any"
Power. Yes. To control others the way he had been controlled. To make others 
fear as he had feared. Now he saw the power in Naismith. What else could really 
explain this man's castle? And Wili had thought the spirit a jealous lover. Hah! 
Spirit or projection, it was this man's servant. An hour ago, this insight alone 
would have made him stay and return all he had stolen. Somehow, he still 
couldn't take his eyes off the sky.
"And beyond power, Wili, there is knowledge ÷ which some say is power." He had 
slipped into his native English, and Wili didn't bother to pretend ignorance. 
"Whether it is power or not depends on the will and the wisdom of its user. As 
my apprentice, Wili, I can offer you knowledge, for a surety; power, perhaps; 
wealth, only what you have already seen."
The crescent moon had cleared the pines now. It was one more thing that would 
never be the same for Wili.
Naismith looked at the boy and held out his hand. Wili offered his knife hilt 
first. The other accepted it with no show of surprise. They stood and walked 
back to the house.
SIX
Many things were the same after that night. They were the outward things: Wili 
worked in the gardens almost as much as before. Even with the gifts of food the 
visitors had brought, they still needed to work to feed themselves. (Wili's 
appetite was greater than the others'. It didn't seem to help; he remained as 
undernourished and stunted as ever.) But in the afternoons and evenings he 
worked with Naismith's machines.
It turned out the ghost was one of those machines. Jill, the old man called her, 
was actually an interface program run on a special processor system. She was 
good, almost like a person. With the projection equipment Naismith had built 
into the walls of the veranda, she could even appear in open space. Jill was the 
perfect tutor, infinitely patient but with enough "humanity" to make Wili want 
to please her. Hour after hour, she flashed language questions at him. It was 
like some verbal Celest. In a matter of weeks, Wili progressed from being barely 
literate to having a fair command of technical written English.
At the same time, Naismith began teaching him math. At first Wili was 
contemptuous of these problems. He could do arithmetic as fast as Naismith. But 
he discovered that there was more to math than the four basic arithmetic 
operations. There were roots and transcendental functions; there were the 
relationships that drove both Celest and the planets.
Naismith's machines showed him functions as graphs and related function 
operations to those pictures. As the days passed, the functions became very 
specialized and interesting. One night, Naismith sat at the controls and caused 
a string of rectangles of varying width to appear on the screen. They looked 
like irregular crenellations on some battlement. Below the first plot, the old 
man produced a second and then a third, each somewhat like the first but with 
more and narrower rectangles. The heights bounced back and forth between 1 and 
-1.
"Well," he said, turning from the display, "what is the pattern? Can you show me 
the next three plots in this series?" It was a game they had been playing for 
several days now. Of course, it was all a matter of opinion what really 
constituted a pattern, and sometimes there was more than one answer that would 
satisfy a person's taste, but it was amazing how often Wili felt a certain 
rightness in some answers and an unaesthetic blankness in others. He looked at 
the screen for several seconds. This was harder than Celest, where he merely 
cranked on deterministic relationships. Hmmm. The squares got smaller, the 
heights stayed the same, the minimum rectangle width decreased by a factor of 
two on every new line. He reached out and slid his finger across the screen, 
sketching the three graphs of his answer.
"Good," said Naismith. "And I think you see how you could make more plots, until 
the rectangles became so narrow that you couldn't finger-sketch or even display 
them properly.
"Now look at this." He drew another row of crenellations, one clearly not in the 
sequence: The heights were not restricted to 1 and -1 . "Write me that as the 
sum and differences of the functions we've already plotted. Decompose it into 
the other functions." Wili scowled at the display; worse than "guess the 
pattern," this was. Then he saw it: three of the first graph minus four copies 
of the third graph plus...
His answer was right, but Wili's pride was short-lived, since the old man 
followed this problem with similar decomposition questions that took Wili many 
minutes to solve... until Naismith showed him a little trick ÷ something called 
orthogonal decomposition ÷ that used a peculiar and wonderful property of these 
graphs, these "walsh waves" he called them. The insight brought a feeling of awe 
just a little like learning about the moving stars, to know that hidden away in 
the patterns were realities that might take him days to discover by himself.
Wili spent a week dreaming up other orthogonal families and was disappointed to 
discover that most of them were already famous ÷ haar waves, trig waves ÷ and 
that others were special cases of general families known for more than two 
hundred years. He was ready for Naismith's books now. He dived into them, rushed 
past the preliminary chapters, pushed himself toward the frontier where any new 
insights would be beyond the farthest reach of previous explorers.
In the outside world, in the fields and the forest that now were such a small 
part of his consciousness, summer moved into fall. They worked longer hours, to 
get what crops remained into storage before the frosts. Even Naismith did his 
best to help, though the others tried to prevent this. The old man was not weak, 
but there was an air of physical fragility about him.
From the high end of the bean patch, Wili could see over the pines. The leafy 
forests had changed color and were a band of orange-red beyond the evergreen. 
The land along the coast was clouded over, but Wili suspected that the jungle 
there was still wet and green. Vandenberg Dome seemed to hang in the clouds, as 
awesome as ever. Wili knew more about it now, and someday he would discover all 
its secrets. It was simply a matter of asking the right questions ÷ of himself 
and of Paul Naismith.
Indoors, in his greater universe, Wili had completed his first pass through 
functional analysis and now undertook a three-pronged expedition that Naismith 
had set for him: into finite galois theory, stochastics, and electromagnetics. 
There was a goal in sight, though (Wili was pleased to see) there was no 
ultimate end to what could be learned. Naismith had a project, and it would be 
Wili's if he was clever enough.
Wili saw why Naismith was valued and saw the peculiar service he provided to 
people all over the continent. Naismith solved problems. Almost every day the 
old man was on the phone, sometimes talking to people locally ÷ like Miguel 
Rosas down in Santa Ynez ÷ but just as often to people in Fremont, or in places 
so far away that it was night on the screen while still day here in Middle 
California. He talked to people in English and in Spanish, and in languages that 
Wili had never heard. He talked to people who were neither Jonques nor Anglos 
nor blacks.
Wili had learned enough now to see that these were not nearly as simple as 
making local calls. Communication between towns along the coast was trivial over 
the fiber, where almost any bandwidth could be accommodated. For longer 
distances, such as from Naismith's palace to the coast, it was still relatively 
easy to have video communication: The coherent radiators on the roof could put 
out microwave and infrared beams in any direction. On a clear day, when the IR 
radiator could be used, it was almost as good as a fiber (even with all the 
tricks Naismith used to disguise their location). But for talking around the 
curve of the Earth, across forests and rivers where no fiber had been strung and 
no line of sight existed, it was a different story: Naismith used what he called 
"short-waves" (which were really in the one to ten meter range). These were 
quite unsuitable for high-fidelity communication. To transmit video-even the 
wavery black-and-white flat pictures Naismith used in his transcontinental calls 
÷ took incredibly clever coding schemes and some realtime adaptation to changing 
conditions in the upper atmosphere.
The people at the other end brought Naismith problems, and he came back with 
answers. Not immediately, of course; it often took him weeks, but he eventually 
thought of something. At least the people at the other end seemed happy. Though 
it was still unclear to Wili how gratitude on the other side of the continent 
could help Naismith, he was beginning to understand what had paid for the palace 
and how Naismith could afford full-scale holo projectors. It was one of these 
problems that Naismith turned over to his apprentice. If he succeeded, they 
might actually be able to steal pictures off the Authority's snooper satellites.
It wasn't only people that appeared on the screens.
One evening shortly after the first snowfall of the season, Wili came in from 
the stable to find Naismith watching what appeared to be an empty patch of 
snow-covered ground. The picture jerked every few seconds, as if the camera were 
held by a drunkard. Wili sat down beside the old man. His stomach was more upset 
than usual and the swinging of the picture did nothing to help the situation ÷ 
but his curiosity gave him no rest. The camera suddenly swung up to eye level 
and looked through the pine trees at a house, barely visible in the evening 
gloom. Wili gasped ÷ it was the building they were sitting in.
Naismith turned from the screen and smiled. "It's a deer, I think. South of the 
house. I've been following her for the last couple of nights." It took Wili a 
second to realize he was referring to what was holding the camera. Wili tried to 
imagine how anyone could catch a deer and strap a camera on it. Naismith must 
have noticed his puzzlement. "Just a second." He rummaged through a nearby 
drawer and handed Wili a tiny brown ball. "That's a camera like the one on the 
critter. It's wide enough so I have resolution about as good as the human eye. 
And I can shift the decoding parameters so it will 'look' in different 
directions without the deer's having to move.
`Jill, move the look axis, will you?"
"Right, Paul." The view slid upward till they were looking into overhanging 
branches and then down the other side. Wili and Naismith saw a scrawny back and 
part of a furry ear.
Wili looked at the object Paul had placed in his hand. The "camera" was only 
three or four millimeters across. It felt warm and almost sticky in Wili's hand. 
It was a far cry from the lensed contraptions he had seen in Jonque villas. So 
you just stick them to the fur, true?" said Wili.
Naismith shook his head. "Even easier than that. I can get these in hundred lots 
from the Greens in Norcross. I scatter them through the forest, on branches and 
such. All sorts of animals pick them up. It provides just a little extra 
security. The hills are safer than they were years ago, but there are still a 
few bandits."
"Um." If Naismith had weapons to match his senses, the manor was better 
protected than any castle in Los Angeles. "This would be greater protection if 
you could have people watching all the views all the time."
Naismith smiled, and Wili thought of Jill. He knew enough now to see that the 
program could be made to do just that.
Wili watched for more than an hour as Naismith showed him scenes from a number 
of cameras, including one from a bird. That gave the same sweeping view he 
imagined could be seen from Peace Authority aircraft.
When at last he went to his room, Wili sat for a long while looking out the 
garret window at the snow-covered trees, looking at what he had just seen with 
godlike clarity from dozens of other eyes. Finally he stood up, trying to ignore 
the cramp in his gut that had become so persistent these last few weeks. He 
removed his clothes from the closet and lay them on the bed, then inspected 
every square centimeter with his eyes and fingers. His favorite jacket and his 
usual work pant both had tiny brown balls stuck to cuffs or seams. Wili removed 
them; they looked so innocuous in the room's pale lamplight.
He put them in a dresser drawer and returned his clothes to the closet.
He lay awake for many minutes, thinking about a place and time he had resolved 
never to dwell on again. What could a hovel in Glendora have in common with a 
palace in the mountains? Nothing. Everything. There had been safety there. There 
had been Uncle Sylvester. He had learned there, too ÷ arithmetic and a little 
reading. Before the Jonques, before the Ndelante ÷ it had been a child's 
paradise, a time lost forever.
Wili quietly got up and slipped the cameras back into his clothing. Maybe not 
lost forever.
SEVEN
January passed, an almost uninterrupted snowstorm. The winds coming off 
Vandenberg brought ever-higher drifts that eventually reached the mansion's 
second story and would have totally blocked the entrances if not for the heroic 
efforts of Bill and Irma. The pain in Wili's middle became constant, intense. 
Winters had always been bad for him, but this one was worse than ever before, 
and the others eventually became aware of it. He could not suppress the 
occasional grimace, the faint groan. He was always hungry, always eating-and yet 
losing weight.
But there was great good, too. He was beyond the frontiers of Naismith's books! 
Paul claimed that no previous human had insight on the coding problem that he 
had attacked! Wili didn't need Naismith's machines now; the images in his mind 
were so much more complete. He sat in the living room for hours-through most of 
his waking time ÷ almost unaware of the outside world, almost unaware of his 
pain, dreaming of the problem and his schemes for its defeat. All existence was 
groups and graphs and endless combinatorical refinements on the decryption 
scheme he hoped would break the problem.
But when he ate and even when he slept, the pain levered itself back into his 
soul.
It was Irma, not Wili, who noticed that the paler skin on his palms had a yellow 
cast beneath the brown. She sat beside him at the dining table, holding his 
small hands in her large, calloused ones. Wili bristled at her touch. He was 
here to eat, not to be inspected. But Paul stood behind her.
"And the nails look discolored, too." She reached across to one of Wili's 
yellowed fingernails and gave it a gentle tug. Without sound or pain, the nail 
came away at its root. Wili stared stupidly for a second, then jerked his hand 
back with a shriek. Pain was one thing; this was the nightmare of a body slowly 
dismembering itself. For an instant terror blotted out his gutpain the way 
mathematics had done before.
They moved him to a basement room, where he could be warm all the time. Wili 
found himself in bed most of each day. His only view of the outside, of the 
cloudswept purity of Vandenberg, was via the holo. The mountain snows were too 
deep to pass travelers; there would be no doctors. But Naismith moved cameras 
and high-bandwidth equipment into the room, and once when Wili was not lost in 
dreaming, he saw that someone from far away was looking on, was being 
interrogated by Naismith. The old man seemed very angry.
Wili reached out to touch his sleeve. "It will be all right, Uncle Syl ÷ Paul. 
This problem I have always had and worst in the winters. I will be okay in the 
spring."
Naismith smiled and nodded, then turned away.
But Wili was not delirious in any normal sense. During the long hours an average 
patient would have lain staring at the ceiling or watching the holo and trying 
to ignore his pain, Wili dreamed on and on about the communications problem that 
had resisted his manifold efforts all these weeks. When the others were absent, 
there was still Jill, taking notes, ready to call for help; she was more real 
than any of them. It was hard to imagine that her voice and pretty face had ever 
seemed threatening.
In a sense, he had already solved the problem, but his scheme was too slow; he 
needed n*log(n) time for this application. He was far beyond the tools provided 
by his brief, intense education. Something new, something clever was needed, and 
by the One True God he would find it!
And when the solution did come it was like a sun rising on a clear morning, 
which was appropriate since this was the first clear day in almost a month. Bill 
brought him up to ground level to sit in the sunlight before the newly cleared 
windows. The sky was not just clear, but an intense blue. The snow was piled 
deep, a blinding white. Icicles grew down from every edge and corner, dripping 
tiny diamonds in the warm light.
Wili had been dictating to Jill for nearly an hour when the old man came down 
for breakfast. He took one look over Wili's shoulder and then grabbed his 
reader, saying not a word to Wili or anyone else. Naismith paused many times, 
his eyes half closed in concentration. He was about a third of the way through 
when Wili finished. He looked up when Wili stopped talking, "You got it?"
Wili nodded, grinning. "Sure, and in n*log(n) time, too." He glanced at 
Naismith's reader. "You're still looking at the filter setting up. The real 
trick isn't for a hundred more lines." He scanned forward. Naismith looked at it 
for a long time, finally nodded. "I, I think I see. I'll have to study it, but I 
think... My little Ramanujan. How do you feel?"
"Great," filled with elation, "but tired. The pain has been less these last 
days, I think. Who is Ramanujan?"
"Twentieth-century mathematician. An Indian. There are a lot of similarities: 
You both started out without much formal education. You are both very, very 
good."
Wili smiled, the warmth of the sun barely matching what he felt. These were the 
first words of real praise he had heard from Naismith. He resolved to look up 
everything on file about this Ramanujan... His mind drifted, freed from the 
fixation of the last weeks. Through the pines, he could see the sun on 
Vandenberg. There were so many mysteries left to master...
EIGHT
Naismith made some phone calls the next day. The first was to Miguel Rosas at 
the SYP Company. Rosas was undersheriff to Sy Wentz, but the Tinkers around 
Vandenberg hired him for almost all their police operations.
The cop's dark face seemed a touch pale after he watched Naismith's video 
replay. "Okay," he finally said, "who was Ramanujan?"
Naismith felt the tears coming back to his eyes. "That was a bad slip; now the 
boy is sure to look him up. Ramanujan was everything I told Wili: a really 
brilliant fellow, without much college education." This wouldn't impress Mike, 
Naismith knew. There were no colleges now, just apprenticeships. "He was invited 
to England to work with some of the best number theorists of the time. He got 
TB, died young."
...Oh. I get the connection, Paul. But I hope you don't think that bringing Wili 
into the mountains did anything to hurt him."
"His problem is worse during winters, and our winters are fierce compared to 
L.A.'s. This has pushed him over the edge."
"Bull! It may have aggravated his problem, but he got better food here and more 
of it. Face it, Paul. This sort of wasting just gets worse and worse. You've 
seen it before."
"More than you!" That and the more acute diseases of the plague years had come 
close to destroying mankind. Then Naismith brought himself up short, remembering 
Miguel's two little sisters. Three orphans from Arizona they had been, but only 
one survived. Every winter, the girls had sickened again. When they died, their 
bodies were near-skeletons. The young cop had seen more of it than most in his 
generation.
"Listen, Mike, we've got to do something. Two or three years is the most he has. 
But hell, even before the War a good pharmaceutical lab could have cured this 
sort of thing. We were on the verge of cracking DNA coding and ÷
"Even then, Paul? Where do you think the plagues came from? That's not just 
Peace Authority jive. We know the Peace is almost as scared of bioresearch as 
they are that someone might find the secret of their bobbles. They bobbled 
Yakima a few years ago just because one of the their agents found a 
recombination analyzer in the city hospital. That's ten thousand people 
asphyxiated because of a silly antique. Face it: The bastards who started the 
plagues are forty years dead-and good riddance."
Naismith sighed. His conscience was going to hurt him on this ÷ a little matter 
of protecting your customers. "You're wrong, Mike. I have business with lots of 
people. I have a good idea what most of them do."
Rosas' head snapped up. "Bioscience labs, even in our time?"
"Yes. At least three, perhaps ten. I can't be sure, since of course they don't 
admit to it. And there's only one whose location is certain."
'Jesus, Paul, how can you deal with such vermin?"
Naismith shrugged. "The Peace Authority is the real enemy. In spite of what you 
say, it's only their word that the bioscience people caused the plagues, trying 
to win back for their governments what all the armies could not. I know the 
Peace," he stopped for a moment, remembering treachery that had been a personal, 
secret thing for fifty years.
"I've tried to convince you tech people: The Authority can't tolerate you. You 
follow their laws: You don't make high-density power sources, don't make 
vehicles or experiment with nucleonics or biology. But if the Authority knew 
what was going on within the rules... You must have heard about the NCC: I 
showed conclusively that the Peace is beginning to catch on to us. They are 
beginning to understand how far we have gone without big power sources and 
universities and old-style capital industry. They are beginning to realize how 
far our electronics is ahead of their best. When they see us clearly, they'll 
step on us the way they have on all opposition, and we're going to have to 
fight."
"You've been saying that for as long as I can remember, Paul, but-"
"But secretly you Tinkers aren't that unhappy with the status quo. You've read 
about the wars before the War, and you're afraid of what could happen if 
suddenly the Authority lost power. Even though you deceive the Peace, you're 
secretly glad they're there. Well, let me tell you something, Mike." The words 
came in an uncontrollable rush. "I knew the mob you call the Peace Authority 
when they were just a bunch of R and D administrators and petty crooks. They 
were at the right place and the right time to pull the biggest con and rip-off 
of all history. They have zero interest in humanity or progress. That's the 
reason they've never invented anything of their own."
He stopped, shocked by his outburst. But he saw from Rosas' face that his 
revelation had not been understood. The old man sat back, tried to relax. 
"Sorry, I wandered off. What's important right now is this: A lot of people ÷ 
from Beijing to Norcross ÷ owe me. If we had a patent system and royalties it 
would be a lot more gAu than has ever trickled in. I want to call those IOUs 
due. I want my friends to get Wili to the bioscience underground.
"And if the past isn't enough, think about this: I'm seventy-eight. If it's not 
Wili, it's no one. I've never been modest: I know I'm the best mathman the 
Tinkers have. Wili's not merely a replacement for me. He is actually better, or 
will be with a few years' experience. You know the problem he just cracked? It's 
the thing the Middle California Tinkers have been bugging me about for three 
years: eavesdropping on the Authority's recon satellites."
Rosas' eyes widened slightly.
"Yes. That problem. You know what's involved. Wili's come up with a scheme I 
think will satisfy your friends, one that runs a very small chance of detection. 
Wili did it in six weeks, with just the technical background he picked up from 
me last fall. His technique is radical, and I think it will provide leverage on 
several other problems. You're going to need someone like him over the next ten 
years."
"Um." Rosas fiddled with his gold and blue sheriff's brassard. "Where is this 
lab?"
`Just north of San Diego."
"That close? Wow." He looked away. "So the problem is getting him down there. 
The Aztl‡n nobility is damned unpleasant about blacks coming in from the north, 
at least under normal circumstances."
" `Normal circumstances'?"
"Yes. The North American Chess Federation championships are in La Jolla this 
April. That means that some of the best high tech people around are going to be 
down there legitimately. The Authority has even offered transportation to 
entrants from the East Coast, and they hardly ever sully their aircraft with us 
ordinary humans. If I were as paranoid as you, I would be suspicious. But the 
Peace seems to be playing it just for the propaganda value. Chess is even more 
popular in Europe than here; I think the Authority is building up to sponsorship 
of the world championships in Berne next year.
"In any case, it provides a cover and perfect protection from the Aztl‡n black 
or Anglo, they've never touched anyone under Peace Authority protection."
Naismith found himself grinning. Some good luck after all the bad. There were 
tears in his eyes once more, but now for a different reason. "Thanks, Mike. I 
needed this more than anything I've ever asked for."
Rosas smiled briefly in return.
- Flashforward -
Allison didn't know much about plant identification (from less than one hundred 
kilometers anyway), but there was something very odd about this forest. In 
places it was overgrown right down to the ground; in other places, it was nearly 
clear. Everywhere a dense canopy of leaves and vines prevented anything more 
than fragmented views of the sky. It reminded her of the scraggly second growth 
forests of Northern California, except there was such a jumble of types: 
conifers, eucalyptus, even something that looked like sickly manzanita. The air 
was very warm, and muggy. She rolled back the sleeves of her flight fatigues.
The fire was barely audible now. This forest was so wet that it could not 
spread. Except for the pain in her leg, Allison could almost believe she were in 
a park on some picnic. In fact, they might be rescued by real picnickers before 
the Air Force arrived.
She heard Quiller's progress back toward her long before she could see him. When 
he finally came into view, the pilot's expression was glum. He asked again about 
her injury.
"I ÷ I think I'm fine. I pinched it shut and resprayed." She paused and returned 
his somber look. "Only..."
"Only what?"
"Only... to be honest, Angus, the crash did something to my memory. I don't 
remember a thing from right after entry till we were on the ground. What went 
wrong anyway? Where did we end up?"
Angus Quiller's face seemed frozen. Finally he said, "Allison, I think your 
memory is fine ÷ as good as mine, anyway. You see, I don't have any memory from 
someplace over Northern California till the hull started busting up on the 
ground. In fact, I don't think there was anything to remember."
"What?"
"I think we were something like forty klicks up and then we were down on a 
planetary surface ÷ just like that." He snapped his fingers. "I think we've 
fallen into some damn fantasy." Allison just stared at him, realizing that he 
was probably the more distressed of the two of them. Quiller must have 
interpreted the look correctly. "Really, Allison, unless you believe that we 
could have exactly the same amount of amnesia, then the only explanation is... I 
mean one minute we're on a perfectly ordinary reconnaissance operation, and the 
next we're... we're here, just like in a lot of movies I saw when I was a kid."
"Parallel amnesia is still more believable than that, Angus." If only I could 
figure out where we are.
The pilot nodded. "Yes, but you didn't climb a tree and take a look around, 
Allison. Plant life aside, this area looks vaguely like the California coast. 
We're boxed in by hills, but in one direction I could see that the forests go 
down almost to the sea. And..."
"And?"
"There's something out there on the coast, Allison. It's a mountain, a silver 
mountain sticking kilometers into the sky. There's never been anything on Earth 
like that."
Now Allison began to feel the bedrock fear that was gnawing at Angus Quiller. 
For many people, the completely inexplicable is worse than death. Allison was 
such a person. The crash ÷ even Fred's death ÷ she could cope with. The amnesia 
explanation had been so convenient. But now, almost half an hour had passed. 
There was no sign of aircraft, much less of rescue. Allison found herself 
whispering, reciting all the crazy alternatives, "You think we're in some kind 
of parallel world, or on the planet of another star-or in the future?" A future 
where alien invaders set their silvery castle-mountains down on the California 
shore?
Quiller shrugged, started to speak, seemed to think better of it ÷ then finally 
burst out with, "Allison, you know that... cross near the edge of the crater?"
She nodded.
"It was old, the stuff carved on it was badly weathered, but I could see... It 
had your name on it and... and today's date."
Just the one cross, and just the one name. For a long while they were both 
silent.
NINE
It was April. The three travelers moved through the forest under a clear, clean 
sky. The wind made the eucs and vines sway above them, sending down misty sprays 
of water. But at the level of the mud road, the air was warm and still.
Wili slogged along, reveling in the strength he felt returning to his limbs. He 
been fine these last few weeks. In the past, he always felt good for a couple 
months after being really sick, but this last winter had been so bad he'd 
wondered if he would get better. They had left Santa Ynez three hours earlier, 
right after the morning rain stopped. Yet he was barely tired and cheerfully 
refused the others' suggestions that he get back into the cart.
Every so often the road climbed above the surrounding trees and they could see a 
ways. There was still snow in the mountains to the east. In the west there was 
no snow, only the rolling rain forests, Lake Lompoc spread sky-blue at the base 
of the Dome ÷ and the whole landscape appearing again in that vast, towering 
mirror.
It was strange to leave the home in the mountains. If Paul were not with them, 
it would have been more unpleasant than Wili could admit.
Wili had known for a week that Naismith intended to take him to the coast, and 
then travel south to La Jolla ÷ and a possible cure. It was knowledge that made 
him more anxious than ever to get back in shape. But it wasn't until Jeremy 
Kaladze met them at Santa Ynez that Wili realized how unusual this first part of 
the journey might be. Wili eyed the other boy surreptitiously. As usual, Jeremy 
was talking about everything in sight, now running ahead of them to point out a 
peculiar rockfall or side path, now falling behind Naismith's cart to study 
something he had almost missed. After nearly a day's acquaintance, Wili still 
couldn't decide how old the boy was. Only very small children in the Ndelante 
Ali displayed his brand of open enthusiasm. On the other hand, Jeremy was nearly 
two meters tall and played a good game of chess.
"Yes, sir, Dr. Naismith," said Jeremy ÷ he was the only person Wili had ever 
heard call Paul a doctor ÷ "Colonel Kaladze came down along this road. It was a 
night drop, and they lost a third of the Red Arrow Battalion, but I guess the 
Russian government thought it must be important. If we went a kilometer down 
those ravines, we'd see the biggest pile of armored vehicles you can imagine. 
Their parachutes didn't open right." Wili looked in the direction indicated, saw 
nothing but green undergrowth and the suggestion of a trail. In L.A. the 
oldsters were always talking about the glorious past, but somehow it was strange 
that in the middle of this utter peace a war was buried, and that this boy 
talked about ancient history as if it were a living yesterday. His grandfather, 
Lt. Col. Nikolai Sergeivich Kaladze, had commanded one of the Russian air drops, 
made before it became clear that the Peace Authority (then a nameless 
organization of bureaucrats and scientists) had made warfare obsolete.
Red Arrow's mission was to discover the secret of the mysterious force-field 
weapon the Americans had apparently invented. Of course, they discovered the 
Americans were just as mystified as everyone else by the strange silvery 
bubbles, baubles ÷ bobbles? ÷ that were springing up so mysteriously, sometimes 
preventing bombs from exploding, more often removing critical installations.
In that chaos, when everyone was losing a war that no one had started, the 
Russian airborne forces and what was left of the American army fought their own 
war with weapon systems that now had no depot maintenance. The conflict 
continued for several months, declining in violence until both sides were 
slugging it out with small arms. Then the Authority had miraculously appeared, 
announcing itself as the guardian of peace and the maker of the bobbles. The 
remnant of the Russian forces retreated into the mountains, hiding as the nation 
they invaded began to recover. Then the war viruses came, released (the Peace 
Authority claimed) by the Americans in a last attempt to retain national 
autonomy. The Russian guerrillas sat on the fringes of the world and watched for 
some chance to move. None came. Billions died and fertility dropped to near zero 
in the years following the War. The species called Homo sapiens came very close 
to extinction. The Russians in the hills became old men, leading ragged tribes.
But Colonel Kaladze had been captured early (through no fault of his own), 
before the viruses, when the hospitals still functioned. There had been a nurse, 
and eventually a marriage. Fifty years later, the Kaladze farm covered hundreds 
of hectares along the south edge of the Vandenberg Dome. That land was one of 
the few places north of Central America where bananas and cacao could be farmed. 
Like so much of what had happened to Colonel Kaladze in the last half century, 
it would have been impossible without the bobbles, in particular the Vandenberg 
one: The doubled sunlight was as intense as could be found at any latitude, and 
the high obstacle the Dome created in the atmosphere caused more than 250 
centimeters of rain a year in a land that was otherwise quite dry. Nikolai 
Sergeivich Kaladze had ended up a regular Kentucky colonel ÷ even if he was 
originally from Georgia.
Most of this Wili learned in the first ninety minutes of Jeremy's unceasing 
chatter.
In late afternoon they stopped to eat. Belying his gentle exterior, Jeremy was a 
hunting enthusiast, though apparently not a very expert one. The boy needed 
several shots to bring down just one bird. Wili would have preferred the food 
they had brought along, but it seemed only polite to try what Jeremy shot. Six 
months before, politeness would have been the last consideration to enter his 
mind.
They trudged on, no longer quite so enthusiastic. This was the shortest route to 
Red Arrow Farm but it was still a solid ten-hour hike from Santa Ynez. Given 
their late start, they would probably have to spend the night on this side of 
the Lompoc ferry crossing. Jeremy's chatter slowed as the sun slanted toward the 
Pacific and spread double shadows behind them. In the middle of a long 
discussion (monologue) about his various girlfriends, Jeremy turned to look up 
at Naismith. Speaking very quietly, he said, "You know, sir, I think we are 
being followed."
The old man seemed to be half-dozing in his seat, letting Berta, his horse, pull 
him along without guidance. "I know," he said. "Almost two kilometers back. If I 
had more gear, I could know precisely, but it looks like five to ten men on 
foot, moving a little faster than we are. They'll catch up by nightfall."
Wili felt a chill that was not in the afternoon air. Jeremy's stories of Russian 
bandits were a bit pale compared to what he had seen with the Ndelante Ali, but 
they were bad enough. "Can you call ahead, Paul?"
Naismith shrugged. "I don't want to broadcast; they might jump on us 
immediately. Jeremy's people are the nearest folks who could help, and even on a 
fast horse that's a couple hours. We're going to have to handle most of this 
ourselves."
Wili glared at Jeremy, whose distant relatives ÷ the ones he had been bragging 
about all day ÷ were apparently out to ambush them. The boy's wide face was 
pale. "But I was mostly farking you. No one has actually seen one of the outlaw 
bands down this far in... well, in ages."
"I know," Naismith muttered agreement. "Still, it's a fact we're being crowded 
from behind." He looked at Berta, as if wondering if there was any way the three 
of them might outrun ten men on foot. "How good is that cannon you carry, 
Jeremy?"
The boy raised his weapon. Except for its elaborate telescopic sight and chopped 
barrel, it looked pretty ordinary to Wili: a typical New Mexico autorifle, heavy 
and simple. The clip probably carried ten 8-mm rounds. With the barrel cut down, 
it wouldn't be much more accurate than a pistol. Wili had successfully dodged 
such fire from a distance of one hundred meters. Jeremy patted the rifle, 
apparently ignorant of all this, "Really hot stuff, sir. It's smart."
"And the ammunition?"
"That too. One clip anyway"
Naismith smiled a jagged smile. "'Kolya really coddles you youngsters-but I'm 
glad of it. Okay," he seemed to reach a decision, "it's going to depend on you, 
Jeremy. I didn't bring 
anything that heavy... An hour walk from here is a trail that goes south. We 
should be able to reach it by twilight. A half hour along that path is a bobble. 
I know there's a clear line of sight from there to your farm. And the bobble 
should confuse our `friends,' assuming they aren't familiar with the land this 
close to the coast.
New surprise showed on Jeremy's face. "Sure. We know about that bobble, but how 
did you? It's real small."
"Never you mind. I go for hikes, too. Let's just hope they let us get there."
They proceeded down the road, even Jeremy's tongue momentarily stilled. The sun 
was straight ahead. It would set behind Vandenberg. Its reflection in the Dome 
edged higher and higher, as if to touch the true sun at the moment of sunset. 
The air was warmer and the green of the trees more intense than in any normal 
sunset. Wili could hear no evidence of the men his friends said were pursuing.
Finally the two suns kissed. The true disk slipped behind the Dome into eclipse. 
For several minutes, Wili thought he saw a ghostly light hanging over the Dome 
above the point of the sun's setting.
"I've noticed that, too," Naismith replied to Wili's unspoken question. "I think 
it's the corona, the glow around the sun that's ordinarily invisible. That's the 
only explanation I can think of, anyway."
The pale light slowly disappeared, leaving a sky that went from orange to green 
to deepest blue. Naismith urged Berta to a slightly faster walk and the two boys 
swung onto the back of the cart. Jeremy slipped a new clip into his rifle and 
settled down to cover the road.
Finally they reached the cutoff. The path was as small as any Jeremy had pointed 
to during the day, too narrow for the cart. Naismith carefully climbed down and 
unhitched Berta, then distributed various pieces of equipment to the boys.
"Come on. I've left enough on the cart to satisfy them... I hope." They set off 
southward with Berta. The trail narrowed till Wili wondered if Paul was lost. 
Far behind them, he heard an occasional branch snap, and now even the sound of 
voices. He and Jeremy looked at each other. "They're loud enough," the boy 
muttered. Naismith didn't say anything, just switched Berta to move a bit 
faster. If the bandits weren't satisfied with the wagon, the three of them would 
have to make a stand, and evidently he wanted that to be further on.
The sounds of their pursuers were louder now, surely past the wagon. Paul guided 
Berta to the side. For a moment the horse looked back at them stupidly. Then 
Naismith seemed to say something in its ear and the animal moved off quickly 
into the shadows. It was still not really dark. Wili thought he could see green 
in the treetops, and the sky held only a few bright stars.
They headed into a deep and narrow ravine, an apparent cul-de-sac. Wili looked 
ahead and saw ÷ three figures coming toward them out of a brightly lit tunnel! 
He bolted up the side of the ravine, but Jeremy grabbed his jacket and pointed 
silently toward the strange figures: Now one of them was holding another and 
pointing. Reflections. That's what he was seeing. Down there at the back of the 
ravine, a giant curved mirror showed Jeremy and Naismith and himself silhouetted 
against the evening sky.
Very quietly, they slid down through the underbrush to the base of the mirror, 
then began climbing around its sides. Wili couldn't resist: Here at last was a 
bobble. It was much smaller than Vandenberg, but a bobble nevertheless. He 
paused and reached out to touch the silvery surface ÷ then snatched his hand 
back in shock. Even in the cool evening air, the mirror was warm as blood. He 
peered closer, saw the dark image of his head swell before him. There was not a 
nick, not a scratch in that surface. Up close, it was as perfect as Vandenberg 
appeared from a distance, as transcendentally perfect as mathematics itself. 
Then Jeremy's hand closed again on his jacket and he was dragged upward around 
the sphere.
The forest floor was level with the top. A large tree grew at the edge of the 
soil, its roots almost like tentacles around the top of the sphere. Wili 
hunkered down between the roots and looked back along the ravine. Naismith 
watched a dim display while Jeremy slid forward and panned the approaches 
through his rifle sight. From their vantage Wili could see that the ravine was 
an elongated crater, with the bobble ÷ which was about thirty meters across ÷ 
forming the south end. The history seemed obvious: Somehow, this bobble had 
fallen out of the sky, carving a groove in the hills before finally coming to 
rest. The trees above it had grown in the decades since the War. Given another 
century, the sphere might be completely buried.
For a moment they sat breathless. A cicada started buzzing, the noise so loud he 
wondered if they would even hear their pursuers. "They may not fall for this," 
Naismith spoke almost to himself. 'Jeremy, I want you to scatter these around 
behind us as far as you can in five minutes." He handed the boy something, 
probably tiny cameras like those around the manor. Jeremy hesitated, and 
Naismith said, "Don't worry, we won't be needing your rifle for at least that 
long. If they try to come up behind us, I want to know about it."
The vague shadow that was Jeremy Kaladze nodded and crawled off into the 
darkness. Naismith turned to Wili and pressed a coherent transmitter into his 
hands. "Try to get this as far up as you can." He gestured at the conifer among 
whose roots they crouched.
Wili moved out more quietly than the other boy. This had been Wili's specialty, 
though in the Los Angeles Basin there were more ruins than forests. The muck of 
the forest floor quickly soaked his legs and sleeves, but he kept close to the 
ground. As he oozed up to the base of the tree, he struck his knee against 
something hard and artificial. He stopped and felt out the obstacle: an ancient 
stone cross, a Christian cemetery cross really. Something limp and fragrant lay 
in the needle mulch beside it-flowers?
Then he was climbing swiftly up the tree. The branches were so regularly spaced 
they might as well have been stair steps. He was soon out of breath. He was just 
out of condition; at least he hoped that was the explanation.
The tree trunk narrowed and began to sway in response to his movement. He was 
above the nearby trees, pointed, dark forms all around him. He was really not 
very high up; almost all the trees in the rain forest were young.
Jupiter and Venus blazed like lanterns, and the stars were out. Only a faint 
yellow glow showed over Vandenberg and the western horizon. He could see all the 
way to the base of the Dome; this was high enough. Wili fastened the emitter so 
it would have a clear line of sight to the west. Then he paused a moment, 
letting the evening breeze turn his pants and sleeves cold on his skin. There 
were no lights anywhere. Help was very far away.
They would have to depend on Naismith's gadgets and Jeremy's inexperienced 
trigger finger.
He almost slid down the tree and was back at Naismith's side soon after that. 
The old man scarcely seemed to notice his arrival, so intent was he on the 
little display. "Jeremy?" Wili whispered.
"He's okay. Still laying out the cameras." Paul was looking through first one 
and then another of the little devices. The pictures were terribly faint, but 
recognizable. Wili wondered 'how long the batteries would last. "Fact is, our 
friends are coming in along the path we left for them." In the display, 
evidently from some camera Paul had dropped along the way, Wili could see an 
occasional booted foot.
"How long?"
"Five or ten minutes. Jeremy'll be back in plenty of time." Naismith took 
something out of his pack ÷ the master for the transmitter Wili had set in the 
tree. He fiddled with the phase aimer and spoke softly, trying to raise the 
Strela farm. After long seconds, an insect-like voice answered from the device, 
and the old man was explaining their situation.
"Got to sign off: Low on juice," he finished. Behind them, Jeremy slid into 
place and unlimbered his rifle. "Your grandpa's people are coming, Jeremy, but 
it'll be hours. Everyone's at the house."
They waited. Jeremy looked over Naismith's shoulder for a moment. Finally he 
said. "Are they sons of the originals? They don't walk like old men."
"I know," said Naismith.
Jeremy crawled to the edge of the crater. He settled into a prone position and 
rested his rifle on a large root. He scanned back and forth through the sight.
The minutes passed, and Wili's curiosity slowly increased. What was the old man 
planning? What was there about this bobble that could be a threat to anyone? Not 
that he wasn't impressed. If they lived through to morning, he would see it by 
daylight and that would be one of the first joys of survival. There was 
something almost alive about the warmth he had felt in its surface, though now 
he realized it was probably just the reflected heat of his own body. He 
remembered what Naismith once had told him. Bobbles reflected everything; 
nothing could pass through, in either direction. What was within might as well 
be in a separate, tiny universe. Somewhere beneath their feet lay the wreckage 
of an aircraft or missile, embobbled by the Peace Authority when they put down 
the national armies of the world. Even if the crew of that aircraft could have 
survived the crash, they would have suffocated in short order. There were worse 
ways to die: Wili had always sought the ultimate hiding place, the ultimate 
safety. To his inner heart, the bobbles seemed to be such.
Voices. They were not loud, but there was no attempt at secrecy. There were 
footsteps, the sounds of branches snapping. In Naismith's fast-dimming display, 
Wili could see at least five pairs of feet. They walked past a bent and twisted 
tree he remembered just two hundred meters back. Wili strained his ears to make 
sense of their words, but it was neither English nor Spanish. Jeremy muttered, 
"Russian, after all!"
Finally, the enemy came over the ridge that marked the far end of the ravine. 
Unsurprisingly, they were not in a single file now. Wili counted ten figures 
strung out against the starry sky. Almost as a man, the group froze, then dove 
for cover with their guns firing full automatic. The three on the bobble hugged 
the dirt as rounds whizzed by, thunking into the trees. Ricochets off the bobble 
sounded like heavy hail on a roof. Wili kept his face stuck firmly in the moist 
bed of forest needles and wondered how long the three of them could last.
TEN
"Gentlemen of the Peace Authority, Greater Tucson has been destroyed." The New 
Mexico Air Force general slapped his riding crop against the topographical map 
by way of emphasis. A neat red disk had been laid over the downtown district, 
and paler pink showed the fallout footprint. It all looked very precise, though 
Hamilton Avery. suspected it was more show than fact. The government in 
Albuquerque had communication equipment nearly on a par with the Peace, but it 
would take aircraft or satellite recon to get a detailed report on one of their 
western cities this quickly: The detonation had happened less than ten hours 
earlier.
The general ÷ Avery couldn't see his name tag, and it probably didn't matter 
anyway ÷ continued, "That's three thousand men, women, and children immediately 
dead, and God knows how many hundreds to die of radiation poisoning in the 
months to come." He glared across the conference table at Avery and the 
assistants he'd brought to give his delegation the properly important image.
For a moment it seemed as though the officer had finished speaking, but in fact 
he was just catching his breath. Hamilton Avery settled back and let the blast 
roll over him. "You of the Peace Authority deny us aircraft, tanks. You have 
weakened what is left of the nation that spawned you until we must use force 
simply to protect our borders from states that were once friendly. But what have 
you given us in return?" The man's face was getting red. The implication had 
been there, but the fool insisted on spelling it out: If the Peace Authority 
couldn't protect the Republic from nuclear weapons, then it could scarcely be 
the organization it advertised itself to be. And the general claimed the Tucson 
blast was incontrovertible proof that some nation possessed nukes and was using 
them, despite the Authority and all its satellites and aircraft and bobble 
generators.
On the Republic's side of the table, a few heads nodded agreement, but those 
individuals were far too cautious to say aloud what their scapegoat was shouting 
to the four walls. Hamilton pretended to listen; best to let this fellow hang 
himself. Avery's subordinates followed his lead, though for some it was an 
effort. After three generations of undisputed rule, many Authority people took 
their power to be Godgiven. Hamilton knew better.
He studied those seated around the general. Several were Army generals, one just 
back from the Colorado. The others were civilians. Hamilton knew this group. In 
the early years, he had thought the Republic of New Mexico was the greatest 
threat to the Peace in North America, and he had watched them accordingly. This 
was the Strategic Studies Committee. It ranked higher in the New Mexico 
government than the Group of Forty or the National Security Council ÷ and of 
course, higher than the cabinet. Every generation, governments seemed to breed a 
new inner circle out of the older, which was then used as a sop to satisfy 
larger numbers of less influential people. These men, together with the 
President, were the real power in the Republic. Their "strategic studies" 
extended from the Colorado to the Mississippi. New Mexico was a powerful nation. 
They could invent the bobble and nuclear weapons all over again if they were 
allowed.
They were easy to frighten nonetheless. This Air Force general couldn't be a 
full-fledged member of the group. The NMAF manned a few hot-air balloons and 
dreamed of the good old days. The closest they ever got to modern aircraft was a 
courtesy flight on an Authority plane. He was here to say things their 
government wanted said but did not have the courage to spit out directly.
The old officer finally ran down, and sat down. Hamilton gathered his papers and 
moved to the podium. He looked mildly across at the New Mexico officials and let 
the silence lengthen to significance.
It was probably a mistake to come here in person. Talking to national 
governments was normally done by officers two levels below him in the Peace 
Authority. Appearing in person could easily give these people an idea of the 
true importance of the incident. Nevertheless, he had wanted to see these men 
close up. There was an outside chance they were involved in the menace to the 
Peace he had discovered the last few months.
Finally he began. "Thank you, General, uh, Halberstamm. We understand your 
anxiety, but wish to emphasize the Peace Authority's long-standing promise. No 
nuclear weapon has exploded in nearly fifty years and none exploded yesterday in 
Greater Tucson."
The general spluttered. "Sir! The radiation! The blast! How can you say-"
Avery raised his hand and smiled for silence. There was a sense of noblesse 
oblige and faint menace in the action. "In a moment, General. Bear with me. It 
is true: There was an explosion and some radiation. But I assure you no one 
besides the Authority has nuclear weapons. If there were, we would deal with 
them by methods you all know.
"In fact, if you consult your records, you will find that the center of the 
blast area coincides with the site of a ten-meter confinement sphere generated ÷ 
" he pretended to consult his notes" ÷ 5 July 1997."
He saw various degrees of shock, but no questions broke the silence. He wondered 
how surprised they really were. From the beginning, he'd known there was no 
point in trying to cover up the source of the blast. Old Alex Schelling, the 
President's science adviser, would have put two and two together correctly.
I know that several of you have studied the open literature on confinement," and 
you, Schelling, have spent a good many thousand cautious man-hours out in the 
Sandia ruins, trying to duplicate the effect, "but a review is in order.
"Confinement spheres-bobbles are not so much force fields as they are 
partitions, separating the in and outside of their surfaces into distinct 
universes. Gravity alone can penetrate. The Tucson bobble was originally 
generated around an ICBM over the arctic. It fell to earth near its target, the 
missile fields at Tucson. The hell bomb inside exploded harmlessly, in the 
universe on the far side of the bobble's surface.
"As you know, it takes the enormous energy output of the Authority's generator 
in Livermore to create even the smallest confinement sphere. In fact, that is 
why the Peace Authority has banned all energy-intensive usages, to safeguard 
this secret of keeping the Peace. But once established, you know that a bobble 
is stable and requires no further inputs to maintain itself."
"Lasting forever," put in old Schelling. It was not quite a question.
"That's what we all thought, sir. But nothing lasts forever. Even black holes 
undergo quantum decay. Even normal matter must eventually do so, though on a 
time-scale beyond imagination. A decay analysis has not been done for 
confinement spheres until quite recently." He nodded to an assistant who passed 
three heavy manuscripts across the table to the NM officials. Schelling scarcely 
concealed his eagerness as he flipped past the Peace Authority Secret seal ÷ the 
highest classification a government official ever saw-and began reading.
"So, gentlemen, it appears that ÷ like all things-bobbles do decay. The time 
constant depends on the sphere's radius and the mass enclosed. The Tucson blast 
was a tragic, fluke accident."
"And you're telling us that every time one of the damn things goes, it's going 
to make a bang as bad as the bombs you're supposed to be protecting us from?"
Avery permitted himself to glare at the general. "No, I am not. I thought my 
description of the Tucson incident was clear: There was an exploded nuclear 
weapon inside that confinement."
"Fifty years ago, Mr. Avery, fifty years ago."
Hamilton stepped back from the podium. "Mr. Halberstamm, can you imagine what 
it's like inside a ten-meter bobble? Nothing comes in or goes out. If you 
explode a nuke in such a place, there is nowhere to cool off. In a matter of 
milliseconds, thermodynamic equilibrium is reached, but at a temperature of 
several million degrees. The innocent seeming bobble, buried in Tucson all these 
decades, contained the heart of a fireball. When the bobble decayed, the 
explosion was finally released."
There was an uneasy stirring among the Strategic Studies Committee as those 
worthies considered the thousands of bobbles that littered North America. 
Geraldo Alvarez, a presidential confidant of such power that he had no formal 
position whatsoever, raised his hand and asked diffidently, "How frequently does 
the Authority expect this to happen?"
"Dr. Schelling can describe the statistics in detail, but in principle the decay 
is exactly like that of other quantum processes: We can only speak of what will 
happen to large numbers of objects. We could go for a century or two and not 
have a single incident. On the other hand, it is conceivable that three or four 
might decay in a single year. But even for the smallest bobbles, we estimate a 
time constant of decay greater than ten million years."
"So they go off like atoms with a given half-life, rather than chicken eggs 
hatching all at once?"
"Exactly, sir. A good analogy. And in one regard, I can be more specific and 
encouraging: Most bobbles do not contain nuclear explosions. And large 
bobbles-even if they contain 'fossil' explosions ÷ will be harmless. For 
instance, we estimate the equilibrium temperature produced by a nuke inside the 
Vandenberg or Langley bobbles to be less than one hundred degrees. There would 
be some property damage around the perimeter, but nothing like in Tucson.
"And now, gentlemen, I'm going to give our side of the meeting over to Liaison 
Officers Rankin and Nakamura." He nodded at his third-level people. "In 
particular, you must decide with them how much public attention to give this 
incident. "And it better not be much.' "I must fly to Los Angeles. Aztl‡n 
detected the explosion, and they deserve an explanation, too."
He gestured his top Albuquerque man, the usual Peace rep to the highest levels 
of the Republic, to leave with him. They walked out, ignoring the tightened lips 
and red faces across the table. It was necessary to keep these people in their 
place, and one of the best ways of doing that was to emphasize that New Mexico 
was just one fish among many.
Minutes later they were out of the nondescript building and on the street. 
Fortunately, there were no reporters. The NM press was under fair control; 
besides, the existence of the Strategic Studies Committee was itself a secret.
He and Brent, the chief liaison officer here, climbed into the limo, and the 
horses pulled them into the afternoon traffic. Since Avery's visit was 
unofficial, he used local vehicles, and there was no escort; he had an excellent 
view. The layout was similar to that of the capitol of the old United States, if 
you could ignore the bare mountains that jaggedly edged the sky. He could see at 
least a dozen other vehicles on the wide boulevard. Albuquerque was almost as 
busy and cosmopolitan as an Authority enclave. But that made sense: The Republic 
of New Mexico was one of the most powerful and populous nations on Earth.
He glanced at Brent. "Are we clean?"
The younger man looked briefly puzzled, then said, "Yessir. We went over the 
limo with those new procedures."
"Okay. I want to take the detail reports with me, but summarize. Are Schelling 
and Alvarez and company as innocently surprised as they claim?"
"I'd stake the Peace on it, sir." From the look on Brent's face, the fellow 
understood that was exactly what he was doing. "They don't have anything like 
the equipment you warned us of. You've always supported a strong counter-intel 
department here. We haven't let you down; we'd know if they were anywhere near 
being a threat."
"Hmm." The assessment agreed with Avery's every intuition. The Republic 
government would do whatever they could get away with. But that was why he'd 
kept watch on them all these years: He knew they didn't have the tech power to 
be behind what he was seeing.
He sat back in the padded leather seat. So Schelling was "innocent." Well then, 
would he buy the story Avery was peddling? Was it really a story at all? Every 
word Hamilton spoke in that meeting was the absolute truth, reviewed and 
rereviewed by the science teams at Livermore... But the whole truth it was not. 
The NM officials did not know about the ten-meter bobble burst in Central Asia. 
The theory could explain that incident, too, but who could believe that two 
decays would happen within a year after fifty years of stability?
Like chicken eggs hatching all at once. That was the image Alvarez had used. The 
science team was certain it was simple, half-life decay, but they hadn't seen 
the big picture, the evidence that had been trickling in for better than a year. 
Like eggs hatching ... When it comes to survival, the rules of evidence become 
an art, and Avery felt with dread certainty that someone, somewhere, had figured 
how to cancel bobbles.
ELEVEN
The bandits' rifle fire lit the trees. There came another volley and another. 
Wili heard Jeremy move, as if getting ready to jump up and return fire. He 
realized the Russians must be shooting at themselves. The reflection that had 
fooled him had taken them in, too. What would happen when they realized it was 
only a bobble that faced them? A bobble and one rifle in the hands of an 
incompetent marksman?
The gunfire came to a ragged stop. "Now, Jeremy!" Naismith said. The larger boy 
jumped into the open and swung his weapon wildly across the ravine. He fired the 
whole clip. The rifle stuttered in an irregular way, as though on the verge of 
jamming. Its muzzle flash lit the ravine. The enemy was invisible, except for 
one fellow vaguely seen against the light-colored rock at the side of the cleft. 
That one had bad luck: He was almost lifted off his feet by the impact of bullet 
on chest, and slammed back against the rock.
Cries of pain rose from all along the ravine. How had Jeremy done it? Even one 
hit was fantastic luck. And Jeremy Kaladze was the fellow who in daylight could 
miss the broad side of a barn.
Jeremy slammed down beside him. "Did I g-get them all?" There was an edge of 
horror in his voice. But he slipped another clip into his sawed-off weapon.
There was no return fire. But wait. The bandit lying by the outcrop ÷ he was up 
and running! The hit should have left him dead or crawling. Through the bushes 
below, he could hear the others picking themselves up and running for the far 
end of the ravine. One by one, they appeared in silhouette, still running.
Jeremy rose to his knees, but Naismith pulled him down.
"You're right, son. There's something strange with them. Let's not press our 
luck."
They lay for a long time in the ringing silence, till at last the animal sounds 
resumed and the starlight seemed bright. There was no sign of humans inside of 
five hundred meters.
Projections? Jeremy wondered aloud. Zombies? Wili thought silently to himself. 
But they could be neither. They had been hit; they had gone down. Then they had 
gotten up and run in a panic ÷ and that was unlike the zombies of Ndelante 
legend. Naismith had no speculations he was willing to share.
It was raining again by the time their rescuers arrived.
Only 9 o'clock on an April morning and already the air was a hot, humid 30 
degrees. Thunderheads hung high on the arch of the Dome. It would rain in the 
afternoon. Wili Wachendon and Jeremy Sergeivich Kaladze walked down the wide, 
graveled road that led from the main farmhouse toward outbuildings by the Dome. 
They made a strange sight: One boy near two meters tall, white and lanky; the 
other short, thin, and black, apparently subadolescent. But Wili was beginning 
to realize that there were similarities, too. It turned out they were the same 
age ÷ fifteen. And the other boy was sharp, though not in the same class as 
Wili. He had never tried to intimidate with his size. If anything, he seemed 
slightly in awe of Wili (if that were possible in one as rambunctious and 
outspoken as Jeremy Sergeivich).
"The Colonel says," Jeremy and the others never called Old Kaladze 
"grandfather," though there seemed to be no fear in their attitude, and a lot of 
affection, "the Colonel says the farm is being watched, has been since the three 
of us got here."
"Oh? The bandits?"
"Don't know. We can't afford the equipment Dr. Naismith can buy ÷ those 
micro-cameras and such. But we have a telescope and twenty-four-hour camera on 
top of the barn. The processor attached to it detected several flashes from the 
trees," he swept his hand toward the ridgeline where the rain forest came down 
almost to the farm's banana plants, "that are probably reflections from 
old-style optics."
Wili shivered in the warm sunlight. There were lots of people here compared to 
Naismith's mansion in the wilderness, but it was not a properly fortified site: 
There were no walls, watchtowers, observation balloons. There were many very 
young children, and most of the adults were over fifty. That was a typical age 
distribution, but one unsuitable for defense. Wili wondered what secret 
resources the Kaladzes might have.
So what are you going to do?"
"Nothing much. There can't be too many of 'em; they're awful shy. We'd go out 
after them if we had more people. As it is, we've got four smart rifles and men 
who can use them. And Sheriff Wentz knows about the situation... Union, don't 
worry." He didn't notice Wili bristle. The smaller boy hid it well. He was 
beginning to realize that there was scarcely a mean bone in Jeremy's body. "I 
want to show you the stuff we have here."
He turned off the gravel road and walked toward a large, one-storey building. It 
could scarcely be a barn; the entire roof was covered with solar batteries. "If 
it weren't for the Vandenberg Bobble, I think Middle California would be most 
famous for Red Arrow Products ÷ that's our trade name. We're not as 
sophisticated as the Greens in Norcross, or as big as the Qens in Beijing, but 
the things we do are the best."
Wili pretended indifference. "This place is just a big farm, it looks like to 
me."
"Sure, and Dr. Naismith is just a hermit. It is big and it's terrific farmland. 
But where do you think my family got the money to buy it? We've been real lucky: 
Grandmother and the Colonel had four children after the War, and each of them 
had at least two. We're practically a clan, and we've adopted other folk, people 
who can figure out things we can't. The Colonel believes in diversification; 
between the farm and our software, we're unsinkable."
Jeremy pounded on the heavy white door. There was no answer, but it swung slowly 
inward and the boys entered. Down each side of the long building, windows let in 
morning light and enough breeze to make it relatively comfortable. He had an 
impression of elegant chaos. Ornamental plants surrounded scattered desks. There 
was more than one aquarium. Most of the desks were unoccupied: Some sort of 
conference was going on at the far end of the room. The men waved to Jeremy but 
continued with what sounded perilously close to being an argument.
"Lots more people here than usual. Most guys like to work from home. Look." He 
pointed to one of the few seated workers. The man seemed unaware of them. In the 
holo above his desk floated colored shapes, shapes that shifted and turned. The 
man watched intently. He nodded to himself, and suddenly the pattern was tripled 
and sheared. Somehow he was in control of the display. Wili recognized the 
composition of linear and nonlinear transformations: Inside his head, Wili had 
played with those through most of the winter.
"What's he doing?"
Jeremy's normal loudness was muted. "Who do you think implements those 
algorithms you and Dr. Naismith invent?" He swept his hand across the room. 
"We've done some of the most complicated implementations in the world."
Wili just stared at him. "Look, Wili. I know you have all sorts of wonderful 
machines up in the mountains. Where do you think they come from?"
Wili pondered. He had never really thought about it! His education had moved 
very fast along the paths Naismith laid out. One price for this progress was 
that in most respects Wili's opinions about what made things work were a 
combination of mathematical abstraction and Ndelante myth. "I guess I thought 
Paul made most of them."
"Dr. Naismith is an amazing man, but it takes hundreds of people all over the 
world to make all the things he needs. Mike Rosas says it's like a pyramid: At 
the top there are just a few men ÷ say Naismith in algorithms or Masaryk in 
surface physics ÷ guys who can invent really new things. With the Peace 
Authority Bans on big organizations, these people got to work alone, and there 
probably aren't more than five or ten of them in the whole world. Next down in 
the pyramid are software houses like ours. We take algorithms and implement them 
so that machines can run them.
Wili watched the programmatic phantoms shift and turn above the desk. Those 
shapes were at once familiar and alien. It was as if his own ideas had been 
transformed into some strange form of Celest. "But these people don't make 
anything. Where do the machines come from?"
"You're right; without hardware to run our programs, we're just daydreamers. 
That's the next level of the pyramid. Standard processors are cheap. Before the 
plagues, several families from Sunnyvale settled in Santa Maria. They brought a 
truckload of gamma-ray etching gear. It's been improved a lot since. We import 
purified base materials from Oregon. And special-purpose stuff comes from even 
further: For instance, the Greens make the best synthetic optics."
Jeremy started for the door. "I'd show you more here except they seem awfully 
busy today. That's probably your fault. The Colonel seems real excited about 
whatever you and Dr. Naismith invented this winter." He stopped and looked at 
Wili, as though hoping for some inside information. And Wili wondered to 
himself, How can I explain? He could hardly describe the algorithm in a few 
words. It was a delicate matter of coding schemes, of packing and unpacking 
certain objects very cleverly and very quickly. Then he realized that the other 
was interested in its effects, in the ability it could give the Tinkers to 
listen to the Authority satellites.
His uncertainty was misinterpreted, for the taller boy laughed. "Never mind, I 
won't push you. Fact is, I probably shouldn't know. C'mon, there's one thing 
more I want to show you ÷ though maybe it should be a secret, too. The Colonel 
thinks the Peace Authority might issue a Ban if they knew about it."
They continued down the farm's main road, which ran directly into the side of 
the Vandenberg Dome some thousand meters further on. It made Wili dizzy just to 
look in that direction. This close, there was no feeling of the overall shape of 
the Dome. In a sense, it was invisible, a vast vertical mirror. In it he saw the 
rolling hills of the farm, the landscape that spread away behind them: There 
were a couple of small sailboats making for the north shore of Lake Lompoc, and 
he could see the ferry docked on the near side of the Salsipuedes fiord.
As they walked closer to the bobble, he saw that the ground right at the edge 
was torn, twisted. Rain off the Dome had gouged a deep river around the base, 
runoff to Lake Lompoc. The ground shook faintly but constantly with tiny 
earthquakes. Wili tried to imagine the other half of the bobble, extending 
kilometers into the earth. No wonder the world trembled around this obstruction. 
He looked up and swayed.
"Gets you, doesn't it?" Jeremy grabbed his arm and steadied him. "I grew up 
close to it, and I still fall flat on my behind when I stand here and imagine 
trying to climb the thing." They scrambled up the embanked mud and looked down 
at the river. Even though it hadn't rained for hours, the waters moved fast and 
muddy, gouging at the land. Across the river, a phantom Jeremy and Wili stared 
back. "It's dangerous to get much closer. The water channel extends a ways 
underground. We've had some pretty big landslides.
"That's not why I brought you here, anyway." He led Wili down the embankment 
toward a small building. "There's another level in Mike's pyramid: the folks who 
make things like carts and houses and plows. The refurbishers still do a lot of 
that, but they're running out of ruins, at least around here. The new stuff is 
made just like it was hundreds of years ago. It's expensive and takes a lot of 
work-the type of thing the Republic of New Mexico or Aztl‡n is good at. Well, we 
can program processors to control moving-parts machines. I don't see why we 
can't make a moving-parts machine to make all those other things. That's my own 
special project."
"Yes, but that's Banned. Are you telling me ÷ '
"Moving-parts machines aren't Banned. Not directly. It's high-energy, high-speed 
stuff the Authority is death on. They don't want anyone making bombs or bobbles 
and starting another War." The building looked like the one they had left up the 
road, but with fewer windows.
An ancient metal pylon stuck out of the ground near the entrance. Wili looked at 
it curiously, and Jeremy said, "It doesn't have anything to do with my project. 
When I was little, you could still see numbers painted on it. It's off the wing 
of a pre-Authority airplane. The Colonel thinks it must have been taking off 
from Vandenberg Air Force Base at the instant they were bobbled: Half of it fell 
out here, and the rest crashed inside the Dome."
He followed Jeremy into the building. It was much dimmer than inside the 
software house. Something moved; something made high-pitched humming noises. It 
took Wili a second to realize that he and Jeremy were the only living things 
present. Jeremy led him down an aisle toward the sounds. A small conveyer belt 
stretched into the darkness. Five tiny arms that ended in mechanical hands were 
making a... what? It was barely two meters long and one high. It had wheels, 
though smaller than those on a cart. There was no room for passengers or cargo. 
Beyond this machine aborning, Wili saw at least four completed copies.
"This is my fabricator." Jeremy touched one of the mechanical arms. The machine 
immediately stopped its precise movements, as though in respect to a master. "It 
can't do the whole job, only the motor windings and the wiring. But I'm going to 
improve it."
Wili was more interested in what was being fabricated. "What... are they?" He 
pointed to the vehicles.
"Farm tractors, of course! They're not big. They can't carry passengers; you 
have to walk behind them. But they can draw a plow, and do planting. They can be 
charged off the roof batteries. It's a dangerous first project, I know. But I 
wanted to make something nice. The tractors aren't really vehicles; I don't 
think the Authority will even notice. If they do, we'll just make something 
else. My fabricators are flexible."
They'll Ban your fabricators, too. Not surprisingly, Wili had absorbed Paul's 
opinion of the Peace Authority. They had Banned the research that could cure his 
own problems. They were like all the other tyrannies, only more powerful.
But Wili said none of this aloud. He walked to the nearest completed "tractor" 
and put his hand on the motor shell, half expecting to feel some electric power. 
This was, after all, a machine that could move under its own power. How many 
times he had dreamed of driving an automobile. He knew it was the fondest wish 
of some minor Jonque aristocrats that one of their sons might be accepted as an 
Authority truck driver.
"You know, Jeremy, this thing can carry a passenger. I bet I could sit here on 
its back and still reach the controls."
A grin slowly spread across Jeremy's face. "By golly, I see what you mean. If 
only I weren't so big, I could, too. Why, you could be an automobilist! C'mon, 
let's move this one outside. There's smooth ground behind the building where we 
can ÷
A faint beep came from the phone at Jeremy's waist. He frowned and raised the 
device to his ear. "Okay. Sorry."
"Wili, the Colonel and Dr. Naismith want to see us ÷ and they mean right now. I 
guess we were expected to hang around the main house and wait on their 
pleasure." It was closest Wili ever heard Jeremy come to disrespect for his 
elders. They started toward the door. "We'll come back before the afternoon rain 
and try to ride."
But there was sadness in his voice, and Wili looked back into the shadowed room. 
Somehow he doubted he would return any time soon.
TWELVE
It might have been a council of war. Colonel Kaladze certainly looked the part. 
In some ways Kaladze reminded Wili of the bosses in the Ndelante Ali: He was 
almost eighty, yet ramrod straight. His hair was cut as theirs, about five 
millimeters long everywhere, even on the face. The silvery stubble was stark 
against his tan. His gray-green work clothes were unremarkable except for their 
starched and shiny neatness. His blue eyes were capable of great good humor ÷ 
Wili remembered from the welcoming dinner but this morning they were set and 
hard. Next to him Miguel Rosas ÷ even armed and wearing his sheriff's brassard 
looked like a loose civilian.
Paul looked the same as always, but he avoided Wili's eyes. And that was the 
most ominous sign of all.
"Be seated, gentlemen," the old Russian spoke to the boys. All his sons ÷ except 
Jeremy's father, who was on a sales expedition to Corvallis ÷ were present. 
"Wili, Jeremy, you'll be leaving for San Diego earlier than we had planned. The 
Authority desires to sponsor the North American Chess Tourney, much as they've 
sponsored the Olympics these last few years: they are providing special 
transportation, and have moved up the semifinals correspondingly."
This was like a burglar who finds his victim passing out engraved invitations, 
thought Wili.
Even Jeremy seemed a little worried by it: "What will this do to Wili's plan to, 
uh, get some help down there? Can he do this right under their noses?"
"I think so. Mike thinks so." He glanced at Miguel Rosas, who gave a brief nod. 
"At worst, the Authority is suspicious of us Tinkers as a group. They don't have 
any special reason to be watching Wili. In any case, if we are to participate, 
our group must be ready for their truck convoy. It will pass the farm in less 
than fifteen hours."
Truck convoy. The boys stared at each other. For an instant, any danger seemed 
small. The Authority was going to let them ride like kings down the coast of 
California all the way to La Jolla! "All who go must leave the farm in two or 
three hours to reach Highway 101 before the convoy passes through." He grinned 
at Ivan, his eldest son. "Even if the Authority is watching, even if Wili didn't 
need help, Kaladzes would still be going. You boys can't fool me. I know you've 
been looking forward to this for a long time. I know all the time you've wasted 
on programs you think are unbeatable."
Ivan Nikolayevich seemed startled, then smiled back. "Besides, there are people 
there we've known for years and never met in person. It would be even more 
suspicious if we pulled out now."
Wili looked across the table at Naismith. "Is it okay, Paul?"
Suddenly Naismith seemed much older even than the Colonel. He lowered his head 
and spoke softly. "Yes, Wili. It's our best chance to get you some help... But 
we've hired Mike to go instead of me. I can't come along. You see ÷"
Paul's voice continued, but Wili heard no more. Paul will not come. This one 
chance to find a cure and Paul will not cone. For a moment that lasted long 
inside his head, the room whirled down to a tiny point and was replaced by 
Wili's earliest memories:
Claremont Street, seen through an unglazed window, seen from a small bed. The 
first five years of his life, he had spent most of every day in that bed, 
staring out into the empty street. Even in that he had been lucky. At that time 
Glendora had been an outland, beyond the reach of the Jonque lords and the 
milder tyranny of the Ndelante Ali. Wili, those first few years, was so weak he 
could scarcely eat even when food was right at hand. Survival had depended on 
his Uncle Sly. If he still lived, Sylvester would be older than Naismith 
himself. When Wili's parents wanted to give their sickly newborn to the coyotes 
and the hawks, it had been Uncle Sly who argued and pleaded and finally 
persuaded them to abandon Wili's worthless body to him instead. Wili would never 
forget the old man's face ÷ so black and gnarled, fringed with silver hair. 
Outside he was so different from Naismith, inside so like him.
For Sylvester Washington (he insisted on the Anglo pronunciation of his last 
name) had been over thirty when the War came. He had been a schoolteacher, and 
he would not give up his last child easily. He made a bed for Wili, and made 
sure it faced on to the street so that the invalid boy could see and hear as 
much as possible. Sylvester Washington talked to him hours every day. Where 
similar children wasted and starved, Wili slowly grew. His earliest memories, 
after the view of Claremont Street through the window hole, were of Uncle Sly 
playing number games with him, forcing him to work with his mind when he could 
do nothing with his body.
Later the old man helped the boy exercise his body, too. But that was after 
dark, in the dusty yard behind the ruin he called their "ranch house." Night 
after night, Wili crawled across the warm earth, till finally his legs were 
strong enough to stand on. Sly would not let him stop till he could walk.
But he never took him out during the day, saying that it was too dangerous. The 
boy didn't see why. The street beyond his window was always quiet and empty.
Wili was almost six years old when he found the answer to that mystery, and his 
world ended: Sylvester had already left for work at the secret pond his friends 
had built above the Ndelante irrigation project. He had promised to come home 
early with something special, a reward for all the walking.
Wili was tired of the terrible daytime heat within the hovel. He peered through 
the crooked doorway and then walked slowly out onto the street, reveling in his 
freedom. He walked down the empty street and suddenly realized that a few more 
steps would take him to the intersection of Claremont and Catalina ÷ and beyond 
the furthest reach of his previous explorations. He wandered down Catalina for 
fifteen or twenty minutes. What a wonderland: vacant ruins dessicating in the 
sun. They were of all sizes, and of subtly different colors depending on the 
original paint. Rusted metal hulks sat like giant insects along one side of the 
street.
More than one house in twenty was occupied. The area had been looted and 
relooted. But-as Wili learned in later adventures ÷ parts of the Basin were 
still untouched. Even fifty years after the War there were treasure hoards in 
the farthest suburbs. Aztl‡n did not claim a recovery tax for nothing.
Wili was not yet six, but he did not lose his way; he avoided houses that might 
be occupied and kept to the shadows. After a time he tired and started back. He 
stopped now and then to watch some lizard scurry from one hole to another. 
Gaining confidence, he cut across a grocery store parking lot, walked under a 
sign proclaiming bargains fifty years dead, and turned back onto Claremont. Then 
everything seemed to happen at once.
There was Uncle Sly, home early from the pond, struggling to carry a bag slung 
over his back. He saw Wili and his jaw fell. He dropped the bag and started 
running toward the boy. At the same time the sound of hooves came from a side 
alley. Five young Jonques burst into the sunlight ÷ labor raiders. One swept the 
boy up while the rest held off old Sly with their whips. Lying on his belly 
across the saddle, Wili twisted about and got one last look. There was Sylvester 
Washington, already far down the street. He was wringing his hands, making no 
sound, making no effort to save him from the strange men who were taking Wili 
away.
Wili survived. Five years later he was sold to the Ndelante Ali. Two more years 
and he had some reputation for his burgling. Eventually, Wili returned to that 
intersection on Claremont Street. The house was still there; things don't change 
suddenly in the Basin. But the house was empty. Uncle Sly was gone.
And now he would lose Paul Naismith, too.
The boy's walleyed stare must have been taken for attentiveness. Naismith was 
talking, still not looking directly at Wili. "You are really to be thanked for 
the discovery, Wili. What we've seen is... well, it's strange and wonderful and 
maybe ominous. I have to stay. Do you understand?"
Wili didn't really mean the words, but they came anyway. "I understand you won't 
come along. I understand some silly piece of math is more important."
Worse, the words didn't anger Paul. His head bowed slightly, "Yes. There are 
some things more important to me than any person. Let me tell you what we saw ÷"
"Paul, if Mike and Jeremy and Wili are to be in the mouth of the lion, there is 
no sense in their knowing more right now."
"As you say, 'Kolya." Naismith rose and walked slowly to the door. "Please 
excuse me."
There was a short silence, broken by the Colonel. "We'll have to work fast to 
get you three on the way in time. Ivan, show me just what your chess fans want 
to send with Jeremy. If the Authority is providing transport, maybe Mike and the 
boys can take a more elaborate processor." He departed with his sons and Jeremy.
That left Wili and Mike. The boy stood and turned to the door.
'Just a minute, you." Mike's voice had the hard edge Wili remembered from their 
first encounter months before. The undersheriff came around the table and pushed 
Wili back into his chair. "You think Paul has deserted you. Maybe he has. But 
from what I can tell, they've discovered something more important than the lot 
of us. I don't know exactly what it is, or I couldn't go with you and Jeremy 
either. Get it? We can't afford to let Naismith fall into Authority hands.
"Consider yourself damn lucky we're going through with Paul's harebrained scheme 
to get you cured. He's the only man on Earth who could've convinced Kaladze to 
deal even indirectly with the bioscience swine." He glared down at Wili, as if 
expecting some counterattack. The boy was silent and avoided his eyes.
"Okay. I'll be waiting for you in the dining house." Rosas stalked out of the 
room.
Wili was motionless for a long time. There were no tears; there had been none 
since that afternoon very long ago on Claremont Street. He didn't blame 
Sylvester Washington and he didn't blame Paul Naismith. They had done as much as 
one man can do for another. But ultimately there is only one person who can't 
run away from your problems.
THIRTEEN
Still five meters up, the twin rotor chopper sent a shower of grit across the 
Tradetower helipad. From her place in the main cabin, Delia Lu watched the 
bystanders grab their hats and squint into the wash. Old Hamilton Avery was the 
only fellow who kept his aplomb.
As the chopper touched down, one of her crew slid open the front hatch and waved 
at the standing VIPs. Through her silvered window, she saw Director Avery nod 
and turn to shake hands with Smythe, the L.A. franchise owner. Then Avery walked 
alone toward the crewman, who had not stepped down from the doorway.
Smythe was probably the most powerful Peacer in Southern California. She 
wondered what he thought when his boss submitted to such a cavalier pickup. She 
smiled lopsidedly. Hell, she was in charge of the operation, and she didn't know 
what was coming off either.
The rotors spun up even has she heard the hatch slam. Her crew had their orders: 
The helipad dropped away as the chopper rose like some magic elevator from the 
top of the Tradetower. They slid out from the roof and she looked down eighty 
storeys at the street.
As the helicopter turned toward LAX and Santa Monica, Delia came to her feet. An 
instant later Avery entered her cabin. He looked completely relaxed yet 
completely formal, his dress both casual and expensive. In theory, the Board of 
Directors of the Peace Authority was a committee of equals. In fact, Hamilton 
Avery had been the driving force behind it for as long as Della Lu had been 
following inner politics. Though not a famous man, he was the most powerful one 
in the world.
"My dear! So good to see you." Avery walked quickly to her, shook her hand as if 
she were an equal and not an officer three levels below him. She let the 
silver-haired Director take her elbow and lead her to a seat. One might think 
she was his guest.
They sat down, and the Director looked quickly about the cabin. It was a solid, 
mobile command room. There was no bar, no carpets. With her priority; she could 
have had such, but Della had not gotten to her present job by sucking up to her 
bosses.
The aircraft hummed steadily westward, the chop of the blades muted by the 
office's heavy insulation. Below, Della could see Peace Authority housing. The 
Enclave was really a corridor that extended from Santa Monica and LAX on the 
coast, inland to what had once been the center of Los Angeles. It was the 
largest Enclave in the world. More than fifty thousand people lived down there, 
mostly near the News Service studios. And they lived well. She saw swimming 
pools and tennis courts on the three-acre suburban lots that passed below.
In the north glowered the castles and fortified roads of the Aztl‡n aristocrats. 
They had governmental responsibility for the region, but without Banned 
technology their "palaces" were medieval dumps. Like the Republic of New Mexico, 
Aztl‡n watched the Authority with impotent jealousy and dreamed of the good old 
days.
Avery looked up from the view. "I noticed you had the Beijing insignia painted 
over."
"Yes, sir. It was clear from your message that you didn't want people to guess 
you were using people from off North America." That was one of the few things 
that was crystal clear. Three days before she had been at the Beijing Enclave, 
just returned from her final survey of the Central Asian situation. Then a 
megabyte of instructions and background came over the satellite from Livermore ÷ 
and not to the Beijing franchise owner, but to one Della Lu, third-level 
counter-guerrilla cop and general hatchetman. She was assigned a cargo jet ÷ its 
freight being this chopper ÷ and told to fly across the Pacific to LAX. No one 
was to emerge at any intermediate stop. At LAX, the freighter crew was to 
disgorge the chopper with her people, and return immediately.
Avery nodded approvingly. "Good. I need someone who doesn't need everything 
spelled out. Have you had a chance to read the New Mexico report?"
"Yes, sir." She had spent the flight studying the report and boning up on North 
American politics. She had been gone three years; there'd have been a lot of 
catching up to do even without the Tucson crisis.
"Do you think the Republic bought our story?"
She thought back on the meeting tape and the dossiers. "Yes. Ironically, the 
most suspicious of them were also the most ignorant. Schelling bought it hook, 
line, and sinker. He knows enough theory to see that it's reasonable."
Avery nodded.
"But they'll continue to believe only if no more bobbles burst. And I understand 
it's happened at least twice more during the last few weeks. I don't believe the 
quantum decay explanation. The old USA missile fields are littered with 
thousands of bobbles. If decays continue to happen, they won't be missed."
Avery nodded again, didn't seem especially upset by her analysis.
The chopper did a gentle bank over Santa Monica, giving her a close-up view of 
the largest mansions in the Enclave. She had a glimpse of the Authority beach 
and the ruined Aztl‡n shoreline further south, and then they were over the 
ocean. They flew south several kilometers before turning inland. They would fly 
in vast circles until the meeting was over. Even the Tucson event could not 
explain this mission. Della almost frowned.
Avery raised a well-manicured hand. "What you say is correct, but may be 
irrelevant. It depends on what the true explanation turns out to be. Have you 
considered the possibility that someone has discovered how to destroy bobbles, 
that we are seeing their experiments?"
"The choice of `experiment sites' is very strange, sir: the Ross Iceshelf, 
Tucson, Ulan Ude. And I don't see how such an organization could escape direct 
detection."
Fifty-five years ago, before the War, what had become the Peace Authority had 
been a contract laboratory, a corporation run under federal grants to do certain 
esoteric ÷ and militarily productive ÷ research. That research had produced the 
bobbles, force fields whose generation took a minimum of thirty minutes of power 
from the largest nuclear plant in the lab. The old US government had not been 
told of the discovery; Avery's father had seen to that. Instead, the lab 
directors played their own version of geopolitics. Even at the rarefied 
bureaucratic heights Della inhabited, there was no solid evidence that the Avery 
lab had started the War, but she had her suspicions.
In the years following the great collapse, the Authority had stripped the rest 
of the world of high energy technology. The most dangerous governments ÷ such as 
that of the United States ÷ were destroyed, and their territories left in a 
state that ranged from the village anarchy of Middle California, to the 
medievalism of Aztl‡n, to the fascism of New Mexico. Where governments did 
exist, they were just strong enough to collect the Authority Impost. These 
little countries were in some ways sovereign. They even fought their little 
wars-but without the capital industry and high energy weapons that made war a 
threat to the race.
Della doubted that, outside the Enclaves, there existed the technical expertise 
to reproduce the old inventions, much less improve on them. And if someone did 
discover the secret of the bobble, Authority satellites would detect the 
construction of the power plants and factories needed to implement the 
invention.
"I know, I may sound paranoid. But one thing you youngsters don't understand is 
how technologically stultified the Authority is." He glanced at her, as though 
expecting debate. "We have all the universities and all the big labs. We control 
most degreed persons on Earth. Nevertheless, we do very little research. I 
should know, since I can remember my father's lab right before the War ÷ and 
even more, because I've made sure no really imaginative projects got funded 
since.
"Our factories can produce most any product that existed before the War," he 
slapped his hand against the bulkhead. "This is a good, reliable craft, probably 
built in the last five years. But the design is almost sixty years old."
He paused and his tone became less casual. "During the last six months, I've 
concluded we've made a serious mistake in this. There are people operating under 
our very noses who have technology substantially in advance of pre-War levels."
"I hope you're not thinking of the Mongolian nationalists, sir. I tried to make 
it clear in my reports that their nuclear weapons were from old Soviet 
stockpiles. Most weren't usable. And without those bombs they were just pony 
sol-
"No, my dear Della, that's not what I am thinking of." He slid a plastic box 
across the table. "Look inside."
Five small objects sat in the velvet lining. Lu held one in the sunlight. "A 
bullet?" It looked like an 8-mm. She couldn't tell if it had been fired; there 
was some damage, but no rifling marks. Something dark and glossy stained the 
nose.
"That's right. But a bullet with a brain. Let me tell you how we came across 
that little gem.
"Since I became suspicious of these backyard scientists, these Tinkers, I've 
been trying to infiltrate. It hasn't been easy. In most of North America, we 
have tolerated no governments. Even though it's cost us on the impost, the risk 
of nationalism seemed too high. Now I see that was a mistake. Somehow they've 
gone further than any of the governed areas ÷ and we have no easy way to watch 
them, except from orbit.
"Anyway, I sent teams into the ungoverned lands, using whatever cover was 
appropriate. In Middle California, for instance, it was easiest to pretend they 
were descendents of the old Soviet invasion force. Their instructions were to 
hang around in the mountains and ambush likely-looking travelers. I figured we 
would gradually accumulate information without any official raids. Last week, 
one crew ambushed three locals in the forests east of Vandenberg. The quarry had 
only one gun, a New Mexico 8-mm. It was nearly dark, but from a distance of 
forty meters the enemy hit every one of the ten-man crew ÷ with one burst from 
the 8-mm.
"The New Mexico 8-mm only has a ten-round clip. That's ÷ "
"A perfect target score, my dear. And my men swear the weapon was fired on full 
automatic. If they hadn't been wearing body armor, or if the rounds had had 
normal velocity, not one of them would have lived to tell the story. 'Ten armed 
men killed by one man and a handmade gun. Magic. And you're holding a piece of 
that magic. Others have been through every test and dissection the Livermore 
labs could come up with. You've heard of smart bombs? Sure, your air units in 
Mongolia used them. Well, Miss Lu, these are smart bullets.
"The round has a video eye up front, connected to a processor as powerful as 
anything we can pack in a suitcase ÷ and our suitcase version would cost a 
hundred thousand monets. Evidently the gun barrel isn't rifled; the round can 
change attitude in flight to close with its target."
Della rolled the metal marble in her palm. "So it's under the control of the 
gunman?"
"Only indirectly, and only at `launch' time. There must be a processor on the 
gun that queues the targets, and chooses the firing instant. The processor on 
the bullet is more than powerful enough to latch the assigned target. Rather 
interesting, eh?"
Della nodded. She remembered how delicate the attack gear on the A51 1's had 
been ÷ and how expensive. They'd needed a steady supply of replacement boards 
from Beijing. If these things could be made cheaply enough to throw away...?
Hamilton Avery gave a small smile, apparently satisfied with her reaction. 
"That's not all. Take a look at the other things in the box."
Della dropped the bullet onto the velvet padding and picked up a brownish ball. 
It was slightly sticky on her fingers. There were no markings, no variations in 
its surface. She raised her eyebrows.
"That is a bug, Della. Not one of your ordinary, audio bugs, but full video ÷ we 
expect in all directions, at that. Something to do with Fourier optics, my 
experts tell me. It can record, or transmit a very short distance. We've guessed 
all this from x-ray micrographs of the interior. We don't even have equipment 
that can interface with it!"
"You're sure it's not recording right now?"
"Oh yes. They fried its guts before I took it. The microscopists claim there's 
not a working junction in there.
"Now I think you see the reason for all the precautions."
Della nodded slowly. The bobble bursts were not the reason; he expected their 
true enemies already knew all about those. Yes, Avery was being clever ÷ and he 
was as frightened as his cool personality would ever allow.
They sat silently for about thirty seconds. The chopper made another turn, and 
the sunlight swept across Della's face. They were flying east over Long Beach 
toward Anaheim ÷ those were the names in the history books anyway. The street 
pattern stretched off into gray-orange haze. It gave a false sense of order. The 
reality was kilometer on kilometer of abandoned, burned-out wilderness. It was 
hard to believe that this threat could grow in North America. But, after the 
fact, it made sense. If you deny big industry and big research to people, they 
will look for other ways of getting what they need .
...And if they could make these things, maybe they were clever enough to go 
beyond all the beautiful quantum-mechanical theories and figure a way to burst 
bobbles.
"You think they've infiltrated the Authority?"
"I'm sure of it. We swept our labs and conference rooms. We found seventeen bugs 
on the West Coast, two in China, and a few more in Europe. There were no 
repeaters near the overseas finds, so we think they were unintentional exports. 
The plague appears to spread from California."
"So they know we're on to them."
"Yes, but little more. They've made some big mistakes and we've had a bit of 
good luck: We have an informer in the California group. He came to us less than 
two weeks ago, out of the blue. I think he's legitimate. What he's told us 
matches our discoveries but goes a good deal further. We're going to run these 
people to ground. And do it officially. We haven't made an example of anyone in 
a long time, not since the Yakima incident.
"Your role in this will be crucial, Della. You are a woman, and outside the 
Authority the frailer sex is disregarded nowadays."
Not only outside the Authority, thought Della.
"You'll be invisible to the enemy, until it's too late."
"You mean a field job?"
"Why, yes, my dear. You've certainly had rougher assignments."
"Yes, but-" but I was a field director in Mongolia.
Avery put his hand on Della's. "This is no demotion. You'll be responsible only 
to me. As communications permit, you'll control the California operation. But we 
need our very best out there on the ground, someone who knows the land and can 
be given a credible cover." Della had been born and raised in San Francisco. For 
three generations, her family had been 'furbishers ÷ and Authority plants.
"And there is a very special thing I want done. This may be more important than 
all the rest of the operation." Avery laid a color picture on the table. The 
photo was grainy, blown up to near the resolution limit. She saw a group of men 
standing in front of a barn: northern farmers ÷ except for the black child 
talking to a tall boy who carried an NM 8-mm. She could guess who these were.
"See the guy in the middle ÷ by the one with the soldier frizz."
His face was scarcely more than a blotch, but he looked perfectly ordinary, 
seventy or eighty years old. Della could walk through a crowd in any North 
American enclave and see a dozen such.
"We think that's Paul Hoehler." He glanced at his agent. "The name doesn't mean 
anything to you, does it? Well, you won't find it in the history books, but I 
remember him. Back in Livermore, right before the War. I was just a kid. He was 
in my father's lab and... he's the man who invented the bobble."
Delta's attention snapped back to the photo. She knew she had just been let in 
on one of those secrets which was kept from everyone, which would otherwise die 
with the last of the old Directors. She tried to see something remarkable in the 
fuzzy features.
"Oh, Schmidt, Kashihara, Bhadra, they got the thing into projectable form. But 
it was one of Hoehler's bright ideas. The hell of it is, the man wasn't ÷ isn't- 
even a physicist.
'Anyway, he disappeared right after the War started. Very clever. He didn't wait 
to do any moral posturing, to give us a chance to put him away. Next to 
eliminating the national armies, catching him was one of our highest priorities. 
We never got him. After ten or fifteen years, when we had control of all the 
remaining labs and reactors, the search for Dr. Hoehler died. But now, after all 
these years, when we see bobbles being burst, we have rediscovered him... You 
can see why I'm convinced the 'bobble decay' is not natural."
Avery tapped the picture. "This is the man, Della. In the next weeks, we'll take 
Peace action against hundreds of people. But it will all be for nothing if you 
can't nail this one man."
- Flashforward -
Allison's wound showed no sign of reopening, and she didn't think there was much 
internal bleeding. It hurt, but she could walk. She and Quiller set up camp ÷ 
more a hiding place than a camp, really ÷ about twenty minutes from the crash 
site.
The fire had put a long plume of reddish smoke into the sky. If there was a sane 
explanation for all this, that plume would attract Air Force rescue. And if it 
attracted unfriendlies first, then they were far enough away from the crash to 
escape. She hoped.
The day passed, warm and beautiful ÷ and untouched by any sign of other human 
life. Allison found herself impatient and talkative. She had theories: A cabin 
leak on their last revolution could almost explain things. Hypoxia can sneak up 
on you before you know it ÷ hadn't something like that killed three Sov pilots 
in the early days of space? Hell, it could probably account for all sorts of 
jumbled memories. Somehow their reentry sequence had been delayed. They'd ended 
up in the Australian jungles... No that wasn't right, not if the problem had 
really happened on the last rev. Perhaps Madagascar was a possibility. That 
People's Republic would not exactly welcome them. They would have to stay 
undercover till Air Force tracking and reconnaissance spotted the crash site... 
A strike-rescue could come any time now, say with the Air Force covering a VTOL 
Marine landing.
Angus didn't buy it. "There's the Dome, Allison. No country on Earth could build 
something like that without us knowing about it. I swear it's kilometers high." 
He waved at the second sun that stood in the west. The two suns were difficult 
to see through the forest cover. But during their hike from the crash site 
they'd had better views. When Allison looked directly at the false sun with 
narrowed eyes, she could see that the disk was a distorted oval ÷ clearly a 
reflection off some vast curved surface. "I know it's huge, Angus. But it 
doesn't have to be a physical structure. Maybe it's some sort of inversion layer 
effect."
"You're only seeing the part that's way off the ground, where there's nothing to 
reflect except sky. If you climb one of the taller trees, you'd see the 
coastline reflected in the Dome's base."
"Hmm." She didn't have to climb any trees to believe him. What she couldn't 
believe was his explanation.
"Face it, Allison. We're nowhere in the world we knew. Yet the tombstone shows 
we're still on Earth."
The tombstone. So much smaller than the Dome, yet so much harder to explain. 
"You still think it's the future?"
Angus nodded. "Nothing else fits. I don't know how fast something like stone 
carving wears: I suppose we can't be more than a thousand years ahead." He 
grinned. "An ordinary Buck Rogers-like interval."
She smiled back. "Better Buck Rogers than The Last Remake of Planet of the 
Apes."
"Yeah. I never like it where they kill off all the `extra' timetravelers."
Allison gazed through the forest canopy at the second sun. There had to be some 
other explanation.
They argued it back and forth for hours, in the end agreeing to give the 
"rescued from Madagascar" theory twenty-four hours to show success. After that 
they would hike down to the coast, and then along it till they found some form 
of humanity
It was late afternoon when they heard it: a whistling scream that grew abruptly 
to a roar.
"Aircraft!" Allison struggled to her feet.
Angus shook himself, and looked into the sky. Then he was standing too, all but 
dancing from one foot to the other.
Something dark and arrow-shaped swept over them. "An A511, by God," exulted 
Angus. "Somehow you were right, Allison!" He hugged her.
There were at least three jets. The air was filled with their sound. And it was 
a joint operation. They glimpsed the third coming to a hover just three hundred 
meters away. It was one of the new Sikorsky troop carriers. Only the Marines 
flew those.
They started down the narrow path toward the nearest of the ships, Allison's 
gait a limping jog. Suddenly Angus' hand closed on her arm. She spun around, off 
balance. The pilot was pointing through a large gap in the branches, at the 
hovering Sikorsky. "Paisley?" was all he said.
"What?" Then she saw it. The outer third of the wings were covered with an 
extravagant paisley pattern. In the middle was set a green phi or theta symbol. 
It was utterly unlike any military insignia she had ever seen.
FOURTEEN
The atmosphere of an open chess tournament hasn't changed much in the last 
hundred years. A visitor from 1948 might wonder at the plush, handmade clothing 
and the strange haircuts. But the important things-the informality mixed with 
intense concentration, the wide range of ages, the silence on the floor, the 
long tables and the rows of players-all would have been instantly recognizable.
Only one important thing had changed, and that might take the hypothetical 
time-traveler a while to notice: The contestants did not play alone. Teams were 
not allowed, but virtually all serious players had assistance, usually in the 
form of a gray box sitting by the board or on the floor near their feet. The 
more conservative players used small keyboards to communicate with their 
programs. Others seemed unconnected to any aid but every so often would look off 
into the distance, lost in concentration. A few of these were players in the old 
sense, disdaining all programmatic magic. Wili was the most successful of these 
atavists. His eyes flickered down the row of boards, trying to decide who were 
the truly human players and who were the fakes. Beyond the end of the table, the 
Pacific Ocean was a blue band shining through the open windows of the pavilion.
Wili pulled his attention back to his own game, trying to ignore the crowd of 
spectators and trying even less successfully to ignore his opponent. Though 
barely out of a Ruy Lopez opening ÷ that's what Jeremy had called it the other 
night, anyway ÷ Wili had a good feeling about the game. A strong kingside attack 
should now be possible, unless his opponent had a complete surprise up her 
sleeve. This would be his fifth straight win. That accounted for the crowd. He 
was the only purely human player still undefeated. Wili smiled to himself. This 
was a totally unexpected by-product of the expedition, but a very pleasant one. 
He had never been admired for anything (unless his reputation within the 
Ndelante counted as admirable). It would be a pleasure to show these people how 
useless their machines really were. For the moment he forgot that every added 
attention would make it harder for him to fade away when the time came.
Wili considered the board a second longer, then pushed his bishop pawn, starting 
a sequence of events that ought to be unstoppable. He punched his clock, and 
finally raised his eyes to look at his opponent:
Dark brown eyes looked back at him. The girl ÷ woman; she must be in her 
twenties ÷ smiled at Wili as she acknowledged his move. She leaned forward, and 
raised an input/output band to her temple. Soft black hair spilled across that 
hand.
Almost ten minutes passed. Some of the spectators began drifting off. Wili just 
sat and tried to pretend he was not looking at the girl. She was just over one 
meter fifty, scarcely taller than he. And she was the most beautiful creature he 
had ever seen. He could sit this close to her and not have to say anything, not 
have to make conversation... Wili rather wished the game might last forever.
When she finally moved, it was another pawn push. Very strange, very risky. She 
was definitely a soft player: In the last three days, Wili had played more chess 
than in the last three months. Almost all of it had been against assisted 
players. Some were mere servants to their machines. You could trust them never 
to make a simple mistake, and to take advantage of any you made. Playing them 
was like fighting a bull, impossible if you attack head on, easy once you 
identify the weak points. Other players, like Jeremy, were soft, more fallible, 
but full of intricate surprises. Jeremy said his program interacted with his own 
creativity. He claimed it made him better than either machine or human alone. 
Wili would only agree that it was better than being the slave of a processor.
This Della Lu, her play was as soft as her skin. Her last move was full of risk 
and ÷ he saw now ÷ full of potential. A machine alone could never have proposed 
it.
Rosas and Jeremy drifted into view behind her. Rosas was not entered in the 
tournament. Jeremy and his Red Arrow special were doing well, but he had a bye 
on this round. Jeremy caught his eye; they wanted him outside. Wili felt a flash 
of irritation.
Finally he decided on the best attack. His knight came out from the third rank, 
brazen ahead of the pawns. He pushed the clock; several minutes passed. The girl 
reached for her king... and turned it over! She stood, extended her hand across 
the table to Wili. "A nice game. Thank you very much." She spoke in English, 
with a faint Bay Area twang.
Wili tried to cover his surprise. She had lost, he was sure of that. But for her 
to see it this early... She must be almost as clever as he. Wili held her cool 
hand a moment, then remembered to shake it. He stood and gargled something 
unintelligible, but it was too late. The spectators closed in with their 
congratulations. Wili found himself shaking hands all around, and some of those 
hands were jeweled, belonged to Jonque aristocrats. This was, he was told, the 
first time in five years an unaided player had made it to the final rounds. Some 
thought he had a chance of winning it all, and how long had it been since a 
plain human had been North American champion?
By the time he was out of his circle of admirers, Della Lu had retired in 
graceful defeat. Anyway, Miguel Rosas and Jeremy Sergeivich were waiting to grab 
him. "A good win," Mike said, setting his arm across the boy's shoulder. "I'll 
bet you'd like to get some fresh air after all that concentration."
Wili agreed ungraciously and allowed himself to be guided out. At least they 
managed to avoid the two Peace reporters who were covering the event.
The Fonda la Jolla pavilions were built over one of the most beautiful beaches 
in Aztl‡n. Across the bay, two thousand meters away, gray-green vineyards topped 
the tan-and-orange cliffs. Wili could follow those cliffs and the surf north and 
north till they vanished in the haze somewhere near Los Angeles.
They started up the lawn toward the resort's restaurant. Beyond it were the 
ruins of old La Jolla: There was more stonework than in Pasadena. It was dry and 
pale, without the hidden life of the Basin. No wonder the Jonque lords had 
chosen La Jolla for their resort. The place was far from both slums and estates. 
The lords could meet here in truce, their rivalries ignored. Wili wondered what 
the Authority had done to persuade them to allow the tournament here, though it 
was possible that the popularity of the game alone explained it.
"I found Paul's friends, Wili," said Rosas.
"Huh?" He came back to their real problems with an unpleasant lurch. "When do we 
go?"
"This evening. After your next game. You've got to lose it."
"What? Why?"
"Look," Mike spoke intensely, "we're risking a lot for you. Give us an excuse to 
drop this project and we will."
Wili bit his lip. Jeremy followed in silence, and Wili realized that Rosas was 
right for once. Both of them had put their freedom, maybe even their lives, on 
the line for him ÷ or was it really for Paul? No matter. Next to bobble 
research, bioscience was the blackest crime in the Authority's book. And they 
were mixing in it to get him cured.
Rosas took Wili's silence for the acquiescence it was. "Okay. I said you'll have 
to lose the next one. Make a big scene about it, something that will give us the 
excuse to get you outside and away from everyone else." He gave the boy a 
sidelong chance. "You won't find it too hard to do that, will you?"
"Where is... it... anyway?" asked Jeremy.
But Rosas just shook his head, and once inside the restaurant there was no 
chance for further conversation.
Roberto Richardson, the tournament roster said. That was his next opponent, the 
one he must lose to. This is going to be even harder than I thought. Wili 
watched his fat opponent walk across the pavilion toward the game table. 
Richardson was the most obnoxious of Jonque types, the Anglo. And worse, the 
pattern of his jacket showed he was from the estates above Pasadena. There were 
very few Anglos in the nobility of Aztl‡n. Richardson was as pale as Jeremy 
Sergeivich, and Wili shuddered to think of the compensating nastiness the man 
must contain. He probably had the worst-treated labor gangs in Pasadena. His 
type always took it out on the serfs, trying to convince his peers that he was 
just as much a lord as they.
Most Jonques kept only a single bodyguard in the pavilion. Richardson was 
surrounded by four.
The big man smiled down at Wili as he put his equipment on the table and 
attached a scalp connector. He extended a fat white hand, and Wili shook it. "I 
am told you are a former countryman of mine, from Pasadena, no less." He used 
the formal "you."
Wili nodded. There was nothing but good fellowship on the other's face, as 
though their social differences were some historical oddity. "But now I live in 
Middle California."
"Ah, yes. Well, you could scarcely have developed your talents in Los Angeles, 
could you, son?" He sat down, and the clock was started. Appropriately, 
Richardson had white.
The game went fast at first, but Wili felt badgered by the other's chatter. The 
Jonque was all quite friendly, asking him if he liked Middle California, saying 
how nice it must be to get away from his "disadvantaged condition" in the Basin. 
Under other circumstances, Wili would have told the Jonque off ÷ there was 
probably no danger doing so in the truce area. But Rosas had told him to let the 
game go at least an hour before making an argument.
It was ten moves into the game before Wili realized how far astray his anger was 
taking him. He looked at Richardson's queen-side opening and saw that the 
advantage of position was firmly in his fat opponent's hands. The conversation 
had not distracted Richardson in the least.
Wili looked over his opponent's shoulder at the pale ocean. On the horizon, 
undisturbed and far away, an Authority tanker moved slowly north. Nearer, two 
Aztl‡n sail freighters headed the other way. He concentrated on their silent, 
peaceful motion till Richardson's comments were reduced to unintelligible 
mumbling. Then he looked down at the board and put all his concentration into 
recovery.
Richardson's talk continued for several moments, then faded away completely. The 
pale aristocrat eyed Wili with a faintly nonplussed expression but did not 
become angry. Wili did not notice. For him, the only evidence of his opponent 
was in the moves of the game. Even when Mike and Jeremy came in, even when his 
previous opponent, Delia Lu, stopped by the table, Wili did not notice.
For Wili was in trouble. This was his weakest opening of the tournament, and ÷ 
psychological warfare aside ÷ this was his strongest opponent. Richardson's play 
was both hard and soft: He didn't make mistakes and there was imagination in 
everything he did. Jeremy had said something about Richardson's being a strong 
opponent, one who had a fast machine, superb interactive programs, and the 
intelligence to use them. That had been several days ago, and Wili had 
forgotten. He was finding out first-hand now.
The attack matured over the next five moves, a tightening noose about Wili's 
playing space. The enemy ÷ Wili no longer thought of him by name, or even as a 
person ÷ could see many moves into the future, could pursue broad strategy even 
beyond that. Wili had almost met his match.
Each move took longer and longer as the players lapsed into catatonic evaluation 
of their fate. Finally, with the endgame in sight, Wili pulled the sharpest 
finesse of his short career. His enemy was left with two rooks ÷ against Wili's 
knight, bishop, and three well-placed pawns. To win he needed some combinatoric 
jewel, something as clever as his invention of the previous winter. Only now he 
had twenty minutes, not twenty weeks.
With every move, the pressure in his head increased. He felt like a runner 
racing an automobile, or like the John Henry of Naismith's story disks. His 
naked intelligence was fighting an artificial monster, a machine that analyzed a 
million combinations in the time he could look at one.
The pain shifted from his temples to his nose and eyes. It was a stinging 
sensation that brought him out of the depths, into the real world.
Smoke! Richardson had lit an enormous cigar. The tarry smoke drifted across the 
table into Wili's face.
"Put that out." Wili's voice was flat, the rage barely controlled.
Richardson's eyes widened in innocent surprise. He stubbed out his expensive 
light. "I'm sorry. I knew Northerners might not be comfortable with this, but 
you blacks get enough smoke in your eyes." He smiled. Wili half rose, his hands 
making fists. Someone pushed him back into his chair. Richardson eyed him with 
tolerant contempt, as if to say "race will out."
Wili tried to ignore the look and the crowd around the table. He had to win now!
He stared and stared at the board. Done right, he was sure those pawns could 
march through the enemy's fire. But his time was running out and he couldn't 
recapture his previous mental state.
His enemy was making no mistakes; his play was as infernally deep as ever.
Three more moves. Wili's pawns were going to die. All of them. The spectators 
might not see it yet, but Wili did, and so did Richardson.
Wili swallowed, fighting nausea. He reached for his king, to turn it on its side 
and so resign. Unwillingly, his eyes slid across the board and met Richardson's. 
"You played a good game, son. The best I've ever seen from an unaided player."
There was no overt mockery in the other's voice, but by now Wili knew better. He 
lunged across the table, grabbing for Richardson's throat. The guards were fast. 
Wili found himself suspended above the table, held by a half-dozen 
not-too-gentle hands. He screamed at Richardson, the Spa–olnegro curses expert 
and obscene.
The Jonque stepped back from the table and motioned his guards to lower Wili to 
the floor. He caught Rosas' eye and said mildly, "Why don't you take your little 
Alekhine outside to cool off?"
Rosas nodded. He and Jeremy frog-marched the still struggling loser toward the 
door. Behind them, Wili heard Richardson trying to convince the tournament 
directors with all apparent sincerity ÷ to let Wili continue in the tournament.
FIFTEEN
Moments later, they were outside and shed of gawkers. Wili's feet settled back 
on the turf and he walked more or less willingly between Rosas and Jeremy.
For the first time in years, for the first time since he lost Uncle Sly, Wili 
found himself crying. He covered his face with his hands, trying to separate 
himself from the outside world. There could be no keener humiliation than this.
"Let's take him down past the buses, Jeremy. A little walk will do him good."
"It really was a good game, Wili," said Jeremy. "I told you Richardson's rated 
Expert. You came close to beating him."
Wili barely heard. "I had that Jonque bastard. I had him! When he lit that 
cigar, I lost all my concentration. I tell you, if he did not cheat, I would 
have killed him."
They walked thirty meters, and Wili gradually quieted. Then he realized there 
had been no encouraging reply. He dropped his hands and glared at Jeremy. "Well, 
don't you think so?"
Jeremy was stricken, honesty fighting with friendship. "Richardson is a Mouth, 
you're right. He goes after everyone like that; he seems to think it's part of 
the game. You notice how it hardly affected his concentration? He just 
checkpoints his program when he gets talking, so he can dump back into his 
original mental set any time. He never loses a beat."
"And so I should have won." Wili was not going let the other wriggle out of the 
question.
"Well, uh, Wili, look. You're the best unaided player I've ever seen. You lasted 
more rounds than any other purely human. But be honest: Didn't you feel 
something different when you played him? I mean apart from his lip? Wasn't he a 
little more tricky than the earlier players... a little more deadly?"
Wili thought back to the image of John Henry and the steam drill. And he 
suddenly remembered that Expert was the low end of champion class. He began to 
see Jeremy's point. "So you really think the machines and the scalp connects 
make a difference?"
Jeremy nodded. It was no more than bookkeeping and memory enhancement, but if it 
could turn Roberto Richardson into a genius, what would it do for... ? Wili 
remembered Paul's faint smile at Wili's disdain of mechanical aids. He 
remembered the hours Paul himself spent in processor connect. "Can you show me 
how to use such things, Jeremy? Not just for chess?"
"Sure. It will take a while. We have to tailor the program to the user, and it 
takes time to learn to interpret a scalp connect. But come next year, you'll 
beat anything ÷ animal, vegetable, or mineral." He laughed.
"Okay," Rosas said suddenly. "We can talk now."
Wili looked up. They had walked far past the parking lots. They were moving down 
a dusty road that went north around the bay, to the vineyards. The hotel was 
lost to sight. It was like waking from a dream suddenly to realize that the game 
and argument were mere camouflage.
"You did a real good job, Wili. That was exactly the incident we needed, and it 
happened at just the right time." The sun was about twenty minutes above the 
horizon, its light already misted. Orange twilight was growing. A puffy fog 
gathered along the beach like some silent army, preparing for its assault 
inland.
Wili wiped his face with the back of his arm. "No act."
"Nevertheless, it couldn't have worked out better. I don't think anybody will be 
surprised if you don't show till morning."
"Great."
The road descended. The only vegetation was aromatic brush bearing tiny purple 
flowers; it grew, scraggly, around the foundations and the ruined walls.
The fog moved over the coast, scruffy clots of haze, quite different from an 
inland fog; these were more like real clouds brought close to earth. The sun 
shone through the mists. The cliffsides were still visible, turning steadily 
more gold ÷ a dry color that contrasted with the damp of the air.
As they reached beach level, the sun went behind the dense cloud deck at the 
horizon and spread into an orange band. The colors faded and the fog became more 
substantial. Only a single star, almost overhead, could penetrate the murk.
The road narrowed. The ocean side was lined with eucalyptus, their branches 
rattling in the breeze. They passed a large sign that proclaimed that the 
State's Highway ÷ this dirt road ÷ was now passing through Vinas Scripps. Beyond 
the trees, Wili could see regular rows of vertical stakes. The vines were dim 
gargoyles on the stakes. They walked steadily higher, but the invading fog kept 
pace, became even thicker. The surf was loud, even sixty meters above the beach.
"I think we're all alone up here," Jeremy said in a low voice.
"Of course, without this fog, we'd be clear as Vandenberg to anyone at the 
hotel."
"That's one reason for doing it tonight."
They passed an occasional wagon, no doubt used to carry grapes up the grade to 
the winery. The way widened to the left and split into a separate road. They 
followed the turnoff and saw an orange glow floating in the darkness. It was an 
oil lamp hung at the entrance to a wide adobe building. A sign ÷ probably grand 
and colorful in the day ÷ announced in Spanish and English that this was the 
central winery of Virus Scripps and that tours for gentlemen and their ladies 
could be scheduled for the daylight hours. Only empty winery carts were parked 
in the lot fronting the building.
The three walked almost shyly to the entrance. Rosas tapped on the door. It was 
opened by a thirty-ish Anglo woman. They stepped inside, but she said 
immediately, "Tours during daylight hours only, gentlemen." The last word had a 
downward inflection; it was clear they were not even minor aristocrats. Wili 
wondered that she opened the door at all.
Mike replied that they had left the tournament at Fonda la Jolla while it was 
still day and hadn't realized the walk was so long. "We've come all the way from 
Santa Ynez, in part to see your famous winery and its equipment..."
"From Santa Ynez," the woman repeated and appeared to commiserate. She seemed 
younger in the light, but not nearly as pretty as Della Lu. Wili's attention 
wandered to the posters that covered the foyer walls. They illustrated the 
various stages of the grape-growing and wine-making processes. "Let me check 
with my supervisor. He may still be up; in which case, perhaps." She shrugged.
She left them alone. Rosas nodded to Jeremy and Wili. So this was the secret 
laboratory Paul had discovered. Wili had suspected from the moment the buses 
pulled into La Jolla. This part of the country was so empty that there hadn't 
been many possibilities.
Finally a man (the supervisor?) appeared at the door. "Mr. Rosas?" he said in 
English. "Please come this way." Jeremy and Wili looked at each other. Mr. 
Rosas. Apparently they had passed inspection.
Beyond the door was a wide stairway. By the light of their guide's electric 
flash, Wili saw that the walls were of natural rock. This was the cave system 
the winery signs boasted of. They reached the floor and walked across a room 
filled with enormous wooden casks. An overpowering but not unpleasant yeasty 
smell filled the cavern. Three young workers nodded to them but did not speak. 
The supervisor walked behind one of the casks. The back of the wooden cylinder 
came silently open, revealing a spiral stair. There was barely enough room on it 
for Jeremy to stand sideways.
"Sorry about the tight fit," the supervisor said. "We can actually pull the 
stairs downward, out of the cask, so even a thorough search won't find the 
entrance." He pushed a button on the wall, and a green glow spread down the 
shaft. Jeremy gave a start of surprise. "Tailored biolight," the man explained. 
"The stuff uses the carbon dioxide we exhale. Can you imagine what it would do 
to indoor lighting if we were allowed to market it?" He continued in this vein 
as they descended, talking about the harmless bioscience inventions that could 
make so much difference to today's world if only they weren't Banned.
At the bottom, there was another cavern. This one's ceiling was covered with 
glowing green. It was bright enough to read by, at least where it clumped up 
over tables and instrument boards. Everyone looked five weeks dead in the fungal 
glow. It was very quiet; not even surfsound penetrated the rock. There was no 
one else in the room.
He led them to a table covered with worn linen sheeting. He patted the table and 
glanced at Wili. "You're the fellow we've been, uh, hired to help?"
"That's right," said Rosas when Wili gave only a shrug.
"Well, sit up here and I'll take a look at you."
Wili did so, cautiously. There was no antiseptic smell, no needles. He expected 
the man to tell him to strip, but no such command was given. The supervisor had 
neither the arrogant indifference of a slave gang vet, nor the solicitous manner 
of the doctor Paul had called during the winter.
"First off, I want to know if there are any structural problems... Let me see, 
I've got my scope around here somewhere." He rummaged in an ancient metal 
cabinet.
Rosas scowled. "You don't have any assistants?"
"Oh, dear me, no." The other did not look up from his search. "There are only 
five of us here at a time. Before the War, there were dozens of bioscientists in 
La Jolla. But when we went underground, things changed. For a while, we planned 
to start a pharmaceutical house as a cover. The Authority hasn't Banned those, 
you know. But it was just too risky. They would naturally suspect anyone in the 
drug business.
"So we set up Scripps Vineyards. It's nearly ideal. We can openly ship and 
receive biologically active materials. And some of our development activities 
can take place right in our own fields. The location is good, too. We're only 
five kilometers from Old Five. The beach caves were used for smuggling even 
before the War, even before the United States... Aha, here it is." He pulled a 
plastic cylinder into the light. He walked to another cabinet and returned with 
a metal hoop nearly 150 centimeters across. There was a click as he slid it into 
the base of the cylinder. It looked a little foolish, like a butterfly hoop 
without a net.
"Anyway," he continued as he approached Wili, "the disadvantage is that we can 
only support a very few `vineyard technicians' at a time. It's a shame. There's 
so much to learn. There's so much good we could do for the world." He passed the 
loop around the table and Wili's body. At the same time he watched the display 
at the foot of the table.
Rosas said, "I'm sure. Just like the good you did with the plag ÷ " He broke of 
as the screen came to life. The colors were vivid, glowing with their own light. 
They seemed more alive than anything else in the green-tinted lab. For a moment 
it looked like the sort of abstract design that's so easy to generate. Then Wili 
noticed movement and asymmetries. As the supervisor slid the hoop back over 
Wili's chest, the elliptical shape shrank dramatically, then grew again as the 
hoop moved by his head. Wili rose to his elbows in surprise, and the image 
broadened.
"Lie back down. You don't have to be motionless, but let me choose the view 
angle."
Wili lay back and felt almost violated. They were seeing a cross section of his 
own guts, taken in the plane of the hoop! The supervisor brought it back to 
Wili's chest. They watched his heart squeezing, thuddub thuddub. The 
bioscientist made an adjustment, and the view swelled until the heart filled the 
display. They could see the blood surge in and out of each chamber. A second 
display blinked on beside the first, this new one filled with numbers of unknown 
meaning.
The supervisor continued for ten or fifteen minutes, examining all of Wili's 
torso. Finally, he removed the hoop and studied the summary data on the 
displays. "So much for the floor show.
"I won't even have to do a genopsy on you, my boy. It's clear that your problem 
is one we've cured before." He looked at Rosas, finally responding to the 
other's hostility. "You object to our price, Mr. Rosas?"
The undersheriff started to answer, but the supervisor waved him quiet. "The 
price is high. We always need the latest electronic equipment. During the last 
fifty years, the Authority has allowed you Tinkers to flourish. I daresay, 
you're far ahead of the Authority's own technology. On the other hand, we few 
poor people in bioresearch have lived in fear, have had to hide in caves to 
continue our work. And since the Authority has convinced you that we're 
monsters, most of you won't even sell to us.
"Nevertheless, we've worked miracles these fifty years, Mr. Rosas. If we'd had 
your freedom, we'd have worked more than miracles. Earth would be Eden now."
"Or a charnel house," Rosas muttered.
The supervisor nodded, seemed only slightly angered. "You say that even when you 
need us. The plagues warped both you and the Authority. If it hadn't been for 
those strange accidents, how different things would be. In fact, given a free 
hand, we could have saved people like this boy from ever having been diseased."
"How?" asked Wili.
"Why, with another plague," the other replied lightly, reminding Wili of the 
"mad scientists" in the old TV shows Irma and Bill watched. To suggest a plague 
after all the plagues had done. "Yes, another. You see, your problem was caused 
by genetic damage to your parents. The most elegant countermeasure would be to 
tailor a virus that moves through the population, correcting just those 
genotypes that cause the problem."
Fascination with experiment was clear in his voice. Wili didn't know what to 
think of his savior, this man of goodwill who might be more dangerous than the 
Peace Authority and all the Jonque aristocrats put together.
The supervisor sighed and turned off the display. "And yes, I suppose we are 
crazier than before, maybe even less responsible. After all, we've pinned our 
whole lives on our beliefs, while the rest of you could drift in the open light 
without fearing the Authority...
"In any case, there are other ways of curing your disease, and we've known them 
for decades." He glanced at Rosas. "Safer ways." He walked part way down the 
corridor to a locker and glanced at a display by the door. "Looks like we have 
enough on hand." He filled an ordinary looking glass bottle from the locker and 
returned. "Don't worry, no plague stuff. This is simply a parasite ÷ I should 
say a symbiont." He laughed shortly. "In fact, it's a type of yeast. If you take 
five tablets every day till the bottle's empty, you'll establish a stable 
culture in your gut. You should notice some improvement within ten days."
He put the jar in Wili's hand. The boy stared. "Just here, take this and all 
your problems will be gone by morning-" Or in ten days, or whatever. Where was 
the sacrifice, the pain? Salvation came this fast in dreams alone.
Rosas did not seem impressed. "Very well. Red Arrow and the others will pay as 
promised: programs and hardware to your specifications for three years." The 
words were spoken with some effort, and Wili realized just how reluctant a guide 
Miguel Rosas had been ÷ and how important Paul Naismith's wishes were to the 
Tinkers.
The supervisor nodded, for the first time cowed by Rosas' hostility, for the 
first time realizing that the trade would produce no general gratitude or 
friendship.
Wili jumped down from the table and they started back to the stairs. They had 
not gone ten steps when Jeremy said, "Sir, you said Eden?" His voice sounded 
difdent, almost frightened. But still curious. After all, Jeremy was the one who 
dared the Authority with his self-powered vehicles. Jeremy was the one who 
always talked of science remaking the world. "You said Eden. What could you do 
besides cure a few diseases?"
The supervisor seemed to realize there was no mockery in the question. He 
stopped under a bright patch of ceiling and gestured Jeremy Sergeivich closer. 
"There are many things, son. But here is one... How old do you think I am? How 
old do you think the others at the winery are?"
Discounting the greenish light that made everyone look dead, Wili tried to 
guess. The skin was smooth and firm, with just a hint of wrinkles around the 
eyes. The hair looked natural and full. He had thought forty before. Now he 
would say even younger.
And the others they had seen? About the same. Yet in any normal group of adults, 
more than half were past fifty. And then Wili remembered that when the 
supervisor spoke of the War, he talked like an oldster, of time in personal 
memory. "We" decided this, and "we" did that.
He had been adult at the time of the War. He was as old as Naismith or Kaladze.
Jeremy's jaw sagged, and after a moment he nodded shyly. His question had been 
answered. The supervisor smiled at the boy. "So you see, Mr. Rosas talks of 
risks ÷ and they may be as great as he claims. But what's to gain is very great, 
too." He turned and walked the short distance to the stair door
÷ which opened in his face. It was one of the workers from the cask room. 
'Juan," the man began talking fast, "the place is being deep-probed. There are 
helicopters circling the fields. Lights everywhere."
SIXTEEN
The supervisor stepped back, and the man came off the spiral stair.
"What! Why didn't you call down? Never mind, I know. Have you powered down all 
Banned equipment?" The man nodded. "Where is the boss?"
"She's sticking at the front desk. So are the others. She's going to try to 
brazen it out."
"Hmm. " The supervisor hesitated only a second. "It's really the only thing to 
do. Our shielding should hold up. They can inspect the cask room all they want." 
He looked at the three Northerners. "We two are going up and say hello to the 
forces of worldwide law and order. If they ask, we'll tell them you've already 
departed along the beach route."
Wili's cure might still be safe.
The supervisor made some quick adjustment at a wall panel. The fungus gradually 
dimmed, leaving a single streak that wobbled off into the dark. "Follow the glow 
and you'll eventually reach the beach. Mr. Rosas, I hope you understand the risk 
we take in letting you go. If we survive, I expect you to make good on our 
bargain."
Rosas nodded, then awkwardly accepted the other's flashlight. He turned and 
hustled Jeremy and Wili off into the dark. Behind them, Wili heard the two 
bioscientists climbing the stairs to their own fate.
The dim band turned twice, and the corridor became barely shoulder wide. The 
stone was moist and irregular under Wili's hand. The tunnel went downhill now 
and was deathly dark. Mike flicked on his light and urged them to a near run. 
"Do you know what the Authority would do to a lab?"
Jeremy was hot on Wili's heels, occasionally bumping into the smaller boy, 
though never quite hard enough to make them lose their balance. What would the 
Authority do? Wili's answer was half a pant. "Bobble it?"
Of course. Why risk a conventional raid? If they even had strong suspicions, the 
safest action would be to embobble the whole place, killing the scientists and 
isolating whatever death seed might be stored here. Even without the Authority's 
reputation of harsh punishment for Banned research, it made complete sense. Any 
second now, they might find themselves inside a vast silver sphere. Inside.
Dio, perhaps it had happened already. Wili half stumbled at the thought, nearly 
losing his grip on the glass jar that was the reason for the whole adventure. 
They would not know till they ran headlong into the wall. They would live for 
hours, maybe days, but when the air gave out they would die as all the thousands 
before them must have died, at Vandenberg and Point Loma and Huachuca and...
The ceiling came lower, till it was barely centimeters above Wili's head. Jeremy 
and Mike pounded clumsily along, bent over yet trying to run at full speed. 
Light and shadow danced jaggedly about them.
Wili watched ahead for three figures running toward them: The first sign of 
embobblement would be their own reflections ahead of them. And there was 
something moving up there. Close.
"Wait! Wait!" he screamed. The three came to an untidy stop before ÷ a door, an 
almost ordinary door. Its surface was metallic, and that accounted for the 
reflection. He pushed the opener. The door swung outward, and they could hear 
the surf. Mike doused the light.
They started down a stairway, but too fast. Wili heard someone trip and an 
instant later he was hit from behind. The three tumbled down the steps. Stone 
bit savagely into his arms and back. Wili's fingers spasmed open and the jar 
flew into space, its landing marked by the sound of breaking glass.
Life's blood spattering down unseen steps.
He felt Jeremy scramble past him. "Your flashlight, Mike, quick."
After a second, light filled the stairs. If any Peace cops were on the beach 
looking inland...
It was a risk they took for him.
Wili and Jeremy scrabbled back and forth across the stairs, unmindful of the 
glass shards. In seconds they had recovered the tablets ÷ along with 
considerable dirt and glass. They dumped it in Jeremy's waterproof hiking bag. 
The boy dropped a piece of paper into the bag. "Directions, I bet." He zipped it 
shut and handed it to Wili.
Rosas kept the light on a second longer, and the three memorized the path they 
must follow. The steps were scarcely more than water-worn corrugations. The cave 
was free of any other human touch.
Darkness again, and the three started carefully downward, still moving faster 
than was really comfortable. If only they had a night scope. Such equipment 
wasn't Banned, but the Tinkers didn't flaunt it. The only high tech equipment 
they'd brought to La Jolla was the Red Arrow chess processor.
Wili thought he saw light ahead. Over the surf drone he heard a thupthupthup 
that grew first louder and then faded. A helicopter.
They made a final turn and saw the outside world through the, vertical crack 
that was the entrance to the cave. The evening mist curled in, not as thick as 
earlier. A horizontal band of pale gray hung at eye level. After a moment, he 
realized the glow was thirty or forty meters away ÷ the surf line. Every few 
seconds, something bright reflected off the surf and waters beyond.
Behind him Rosas whispered, "Light splash from their search beams on top of the 
bluff. We may be in luck." He pushed past Jeremy and led them to the opening. 
They hid there a few seconds and looked as far as they could up and down the 
beach. No one was visible, though there were a number of aircraft circling the 
area. Below the entrance spread a rubble of large boulders, big enough to hide 
their progress.
It happened just as they stepped away from the entrance: A deep, bell-like tone 
was followed by the cracking and crashing of rock now free of its parent strata. 
The avalanche proceeded all around them, thousands of tons of rock adding itself 
to the natural debris of the coastline. They cowered beneath the noise, waiting 
to be crushed.
But nothing fell close by, and when Wili finally looked up, he saw why. 
Silhouetted against the mist and occasional stars was the perfect curve of a 
sphere. The bobble must be two or three hundred meters across, extending from 
the lowest of the winery's caves to well over the top of the bluff and from the 
inland vineyards to just beyond the edge of the cliffs.
"They did it. They really did it," Rosas muttered to himself:
Wili almost shouted with relief. A few centimeters the other way and they would 
have been entombed.
Jeremy!
Wili ran to the edge of the sphere. The other boy had been standing right behind 
them, surely close enough to be safe. Then where was he? Wili beat his fists 
against the blood warm surface. Rosas' hand closed over his mouth and he felt 
himself lifted off the ground. Wili struggled for a moment in enforced silence, 
then went limp. Rosas set him down.
"I know," Mike's voice was a strangled whisper. "He must be on the other side. 
But let's make sure." He flicked on his light-almost as brightly as he had 
risked in the cave-and they walked several meters back and forth along the line 
where the bobble passed into the rocks. They did not find Jeremy, but
Rosas'flash stopped for a moment, freezing one tiny patch of ground in its 
light. Then the light winked out, but not before Wili saw two tiny spots of red, 
two... fingertips... lying in the dirt.
Just centimeters away, Jeremy must lie writhing in pain, staring into the 
darkness, feeling the blood on his hands. The wound could not be fatal. Instead, 
the boy would have hours still to die. Perhaps he would return to the labs, and 
sit with the others-waiting for the air to run out. The ultimate 
excommunication.
"You have the bag?" Rosas' voice quavered.
The question caught Wili as he was reaching for the mangled fingers. He stopped, 
straightened. "Yes."
"Well then, let's go." The words were curt. The tone was clamped-down hysteria.
The undersheriff grabbed Wili's shoulder and urged him down the jumble of 
half-seen rocks. The air was filled with dust and the cold moistness of the fog. 
The fresh broken rock was already wet and slippery. They clung close to the 
largest boulders, fearing both landslides and detection from the air. The bobble 
and bluffs cut a black edge into the hazy aura of the lights that swept the 
ground above. They could hear both trucks and aircraft up there.
But no one was down on the beach. As they crawled and climbed across the rocks, 
Wili wondered at this. Could it be the Authority did not know about the caves?
They didn't speak for a long time. Rosas was leading them slowly back toward the 
hotel. It might work. They could finish the tournament, get on the buses, and 
return to Middle California as though nothing had happened. As though Jeremy had 
never existed.
It took nearly two hours to reach the beach below the hotel. The fog was much 
thinner now. The tide had advanced; phosphorescent surf pounded close by, 
surging tendrils of foam to near their feet.
The hotel was brightly lit, more than he remembered on previous evenings. There 
were lots of lights in the parking areas, too. They hunkered down between two 
large rocks and inspected the scene. There were far too many lights. The parking 
lots were swarming with vehicles and men in Peacer green. To one side stood a 
ragged formation of civilians prisoners? They stood in the glare of the trucks' 
lights, with their hands clasped on top of their heads. A steady procession of 
soldiers brought boxes and displays ÷ the chess-assist equipment ÷ from the 
hotel. It was much too far away to see faces, but Wili thought he recognized 
Roberto Richardson's fat form and flashy jacket there among the prisoners. He 
felt a quick thrill to see the Jonque standing like some recaptured slave.
"They raided everybody... Just like Paul said, they finally decided to clean us 
all out." Anger was back in Mike's voice.
Where was the girl, Della Lu? He looked back and forth over the forlorn group of 
prisoners. She was so short. Either she was standing in back, or she was not 
there. Some of the buses were leaving. Maybe she had already been taken.
They had had amazing luck avoiding the bobble, avoiding detection, and avoiding 
the hotel raid. That luck must end now: They had lost Jeremy. They had lost the 
equipment at the hotel. Aztl‡n territory extended northward three hundred 
kilometers. They would have to walk more than a hundred klicks through 
wilderness just to reach the Basin. Even if the Authority was not looking for 
them, they could not avoid the Jonque barons, who would take Wili for a runaway 
slave ÷ and Rosas for a peasant till they heard him talk, and then for a spy.
And if by some miracle they could reach Middle California, what then? This last 
was the most depressing thought of all. Paul Naismith had often talked of what 
would happen when the Authority finally saw the Tinkers as enemies. Apparently 
that time had come. All across the continent (all across the world? Wili 
remembered that some of the best chip engraving was done in France and China) 
the Authority would be cracking down. The Kaladze farm might even now be a 
smoking ruin, its people lined up with hands on heads, waiting to be shipped off 
to oblivion. And Paul would be one of them ÷ if he wasn't already dead.
They sat in the cleft of the boulders for a long time, moving only to stay ahead 
of the tide. The sounds of soldiers and vehicles diminished. One by one the 
searchlights went out. One by one the buses rolled away ÷ what had seemed 
marvelous carriages of speed and comfort just a few days before, now cattle 
cars.
If the idiots didn't search the beach, he and Rosas might have to walk north 
after all.
It must have been about three in the morning. The surf was just past its highest 
advance. There were still troopers on the hill near the hotel, but they didn't 
seem especially vigilant. Rosas was beginning to talk about starting north while 
it was still dark.
They heard a regular, scritching sound on the rocks just a few meters away. The 
two fugitives peeked out of their hiding place. Someone was pushing a small boat 
into the water, trying to get it past the surf.
"I think that girl could use some help," Mike remarked.
Wili looked closer. It was a girl, wet and bedraggled, but familiar: Della Lu 
had not been captured after all!
SEVENTEEN
Paul Naismith was grateful that even in these normally placid times there were 
still a few paranoids around ÷ in addition to himself, that is. In some ways, 
'Kolya Kaladze was an even worse case than he. The old Russian had devoted a 
significant fraction of his "farm's" budget to constructing a marvelous system 
of secret passages, hidden paths, small arms caches, and redoubts. Naismith had 
been able to travel more than ten kilometers from the farm, all the way around 
the Salsipuedes, without ever being exposed to the sky ÷ or to the unwelcome 
visitors that lurked about the farm.
Now well into the hills, he felt relatively safe. There was little doubt the 
Authority had observed the same event he had. Sooner or later they would divert 
resources from their various emergencies and come to investigate the peculiar 
red smoke plume. Paul hoped to be long gone before that happened. In the 
meantime, he would take advantage of this incredible good luck. Revenge had 
waited, impotent, these fifty years, but its time might now come.
Naismith geed the horse. The cart and horse were not what he had come to the 
farm with. 'Kolya had supplied everything ÷ including a silly, old-lady disguise 
which he suspected was more embarrassing than effective.
Nikolai had not stinted, but neither had he been happy about the departure. 
Naismith slouched back on the padded seat and thought ruefully of that last 
argument. They had been sitting on the porch of the main house. The blinds were 
drawn, and a tiny singing vibration in the air told Naimsith that the window 
panes were incapable of responding to a laser-driven audio probe. The Peace 
Authority "bandits" what an appropriate cover ÷ had made no move. Except for 
what was coming over the radio, and what Paul had seen, there was no sign that 
the world was turning upside down.
Kaladze understood the situation ÷ or thought he did and wanted no part of 
Naismith's project. "I tell you honestly, Paul, I do not understand you. We are 
relatively safe here. No matter what the Peacers say, they can't act against us 
all at once; that's why they grabbed our friends at the tournament. For 
hostages." He paused, probably thinking of a certain three of those hostages. 
Just now, they had no way of knowing if Jeremy and Wili and Mike were dead or 
alive, captive or free. Taking hostages might turn out to be an effective 
strategy indeed. "If we keep our heads down, there's no special reason to 
believe they'll invade Red Arrow Farm. You'll be as safe here as anywhere. But," 
Nikolai rushed on as if to forestall an immediate response, "if you leave now, 
you'll be alone and in the open. You want to head for one of the few spots in 
North America where the Peacers are guaranteed to swarm. For which risk, you get 
nothing."
"You are three times wrong, old friend," Paul answered quietly, barely able to 
suppress his frantic impatience to be gone. He ticked off the points. "To your 
second claim: If I leave right now, I can probably get there before the 
Authority. They have much else to worry about. Since we got Wili's invention 
working, I and my programs have spent every second monitoring the Peacer recon 
satellites for evidence of bobble decay. I'll bet the Authority itself doesn't 
have the monitor capability I do. It's possible they don't yet realize that a 
bobble burst up there in the hills this morning.
"As to your third claim: The risk is worth the candle. I stand to win the 
greatest prize of all, the means to destroy the Authority. Something or someone 
is causing bobbles to burst. So there is some defense against the bobbles. If I 
can discover that secret-"
Kaladze shrugged. "So? You'd still need a nuclear power generator to do anything 
with the knowledge."
"Maybe... Finally, my response to your first claim: You ÷ we ÷ are not at all 
safe lying low on the farm. For years, I tried to convince you the Authority is 
deadly once it sees you as a danger. You're right, they can't attack everywhere 
at once. But they'll use the La Jolla hostages to identify you, and to draw you 
out. Even if they don't have Mike and the boys, Red Arrow Farm will be high on 
their hit-list. And if they suspect I'm here, they'll raid you just as soon as 
they have enough force in the area. They have some reason to fear me."
"They want you?" Kaladze's jaw sagged. "Then why haven't they simply bobbled 
us?"
Paul grinned. "Most likely, their `bandit' reconnaissance didn't recognize me ÷ 
or maybe they want to be sure I'm inside their cage when they lock it." Avery 
missed me once before. He can't stand uncertainty.
"Bottom line, 'Kolya: The Peace Authority is out to get us. We must give them 
the best fight we can. Finding out what's bursting the bobbles might give us the 
whole game." No need to tell 'Kolya that he would be doing it even if the 
Peacers hadn't raided the tournament. Like most Tinkers, Nikolai Kaladze had 
never been in direct conflict with the Authority. Though he was as old as 
Naismith, he had not seen firsthand the betrayal that had brought the Authority 
to power. Even the denial of bioproducts to children like Wili was not seen by 
today's people as real tyranny. But now at last there was the technical and ÷ if 
the Authority was foolish enough to keep up its pressure on the likes of 
Kaladze-the political opportunity to overturn the Peacers.
The argument continued for thirty minutes, with Naismith slowly prevailing. The 
real problem in getting 'Kolya's help was to convince him that Paul had a chance 
of discovering anything from a simple inspection of this latest bobble burst. In 
the end, Naismith was successful, though he had to reveal a few secrets out of 
his past that might later cause him considerable trouble.
The path Naismith followed leveled briefly as it passed over a ridgeline. If it 
weren't for the forest, he could see the crater from here. He had to stop 
daydreaming and decide just how to make his approach. There was still no sign of 
Peacers, but if he were picked up near the site, the old-lady disguise would be 
no protection.
He guided his horse off the path some thousand meters inland of the crater. 
Fifty meters into the brush, he got down from the cart. Under ordinary 
circumstances there was more than enough cover to hide horse and vehicle. Today, 
and here, he couldn't be so confident.
It was a chance he must take. For fifty years, bobbles and the one up ahead, in 
particular ÷ had haunted him. For fifty years he had tried to convince himself 
that all this was not his fault. For fifty years he had hoped for some way to 
undo what his old bosses had made of his invention.
He took his pack off the cart and awkwardly slipped it on. The rest of the way 
would be on foot. Naismith trudged grimly back up the forested hillside, 
wondering how long it would be before the pack harness began to cut, wondering 
if he would run out of breath first. What was a casual walk for a sixty-year-old 
might be life-threatening for someone his age. He tried to ignore the creaking 
of his trick knee and the rasping of his breath.
Aircraft. The sound passed over but did not fade into the distance. Another and 
another. Damn it.
Naismith took out some gear and began monitoring the remotes that Jeremy had 
scattered the night of the ambush. He was still three thousand meters from the 
crater, but some of the pellets might be in enough sun to be charged up and 
transmitting.
He searched methodically through the entire packet space his probes could 
transmit on. The ones nearest the crater were gone or so deeply embedded in the 
forest floor that all he could see was the sky above them. There had been a 
fire, maybe even a small explosion, when this bobble burst. But no ordinary fire 
could have burned within the bobble for fifty years. If a nuclear explosion had 
been trapped inside, there would have been something much more spectacular than 
a fire when it burst. (And Naismith knew this one: There had been no nuke in 
it.) That was the unique thing about this bobble burst; it might explain the 
whole mystery.
He had fragmentary views of uniforms. Peacer troops. They had left their 
aircraft and were spreading around the crater. Naismith piped the audio to his 
hearing aid. He was so close. But it would be crazy to go any nearer now. Maybe 
if they didn't leave too many troops, he could sneak in tomorrow morning. He had 
arrived too late to scoop them and too early to avoid them. Naismith swore 
softly to himself and unwrapped the lightweight camping bag Kaladze had given 
him. All the time he watched the tiny screen he had propped against a nearby 
tree trunk. The controlling program shifted the scene between the five best 
views he had discovered in his initial survey. It would also alert him if anyone 
started moving in his direction.
Naismith settled back and tried to relax. He could hear lots of activity, but it 
must be right down in the crater, since he could see none of it.
The sun slowly drifted west. Another time, Naismith would have admired the 
beautiful day: temperatures in the high twenties, birds singing. The strange 
forests around Vandenberg might be unique: Dry climate vegetation suddenly 
plunged into something resembling the rainy tropics. God only knew what the 
climax forms would be like.
Today, all he could think of was getting at that crater just a few thousand 
meters to the north.
Even so, he was almost dozing when a distant rifle shot brought him to full 
alertness. He diddled the display a moment and had some good luck: He saw a man 
in gray and silver, running almost directly away from the camera. Naismith 
strained close to the screen, his jaw sagging. More shots. He zoomed on the 
figure. Gray and silver. He hadn't seen an outfit like that since before the 
War. For a moment his mind offered no interpretation, just cranked on as a 
stunned observer. Three troopers rushed past the camera. They must have been 
shooting over the fellow's head, but he wasn't stopping and now the trio fired 
again. The man in gray spun and dropped. For a moment, the three soldiers seemed 
as stricken as their target. Then they ran forward, shouting recriminations at 
each other.
The screen was alive with uniforms. There was a sudden silence at the arrival of 
a tweedy civilian. The man in charge. From his high-pitched expostulations, 
Naismith guessed he was unhappy with events. A stretcher was brought up and the 
still form was carted off. Naismith changed the phase of his camera and followed 
the victim down the path that led northward from the crater.
Minutes later the shriek of turbines splashed off the hills, and a needle-nosed 
form rose into the sky north of Naismith. The craft vectored into horizontal 
flight and sprinted southward, passing low over Naismith's hiding place.
The birds and insects were deathly silent the next several minutes, almost as 
silent and awestruck as Paul's own imagination. He knew now. The bursting 
bobbles were not caused by quantum decay. The bursting bobbles were not the work 
of some anti-Peacer underground. He fought down hysterical laughter. He had 
invented the damn things, provided his bosses with fifty years of empire, but he 
and they had never realized that ÷ though his invention worked superbly ÷ his 
theory was a crock of sewage from beginning to end.
He knew that now. The Peacers would know it in a matter of hours, if they had 
not already guessed. They would fly in a whole division with their science 
teams. He would likely die with his secret if he didn't slip out now and head 
eastward for his mountain home.
..But when Naismith finally moved, it was not back to his horse. He went north. 
Carefully, quietly, he moved toward the crater: For there was a corollary to his 
discovery, and it was more important than his life, perhaps even more important 
than his hatred of the Peace Authority.
EIGHTEEN
Naismith stopped often, both to rest and to consult the screen that he had 
strapped to his forearm. The scattered cameras showed fewer than thirty 
troopers. If he had guessed their locations correctly, he might be able to crawl 
in quite close. He made a two-hundred-meter detour just to avoid one of them; 
the fellow was well concealed and was quietly listening and watching. Naismith 
suffered the rocks and brambles with equal silence. He carefully inspected the 
ground just ahead of him for branches and other noisemakers. Every move must be 
a considered one. This was something he had very little practice at, but he had 
to do it right the first time.
He was very close to his goal now: Naismith looked up from the display and 
peered into a small ravine. This was the place! Her suddenly still form was 
huddled deep within the brush. If he hadn't known from the scanners exactly 
where to look, he would not have noticed the flecks of silver beyond the leaves 
and branches. During the last half hour he had watched her move slowly south, 
trying to edge away from the troopers at the crater rim. Another fifteen 
minutes, and she would blunder into the soldier Naismith had noticed.
He slid down the cleft, through clouds of midges that swirled in the musty 
dampness. He was sure she could see him now. But he was obviously no soldier, 
and he was crawling along just as cautiously as she. Paul lost sight of her the 
last three or four meters of his approach. He didn't look for her, instead eased 
into the depths of shadow that drowned her hiding place.
Suddenly a hand slammed over his mouth and he found himself spun onto his back 
and forced to the ground. He looked up into a pair of startlingly blue eyes.
The young woman waited to see if Naismith would struggle, then released his 
shoulder and placed her finger to her lips. Naismith nodded, and after a second 
she removed her hand from his mouth. She lowered her head to his ear and 
whispered, "Who are you? Do you know how to get away from them?"
Naismith realized with wry bleakness that she had not seen through his disguise: 
She thought she'd landed some dazed crone. Perhaps that was best. He had no idea 
what she imagined was going on, but it could hardly be any approximation to 
reality. There was no truthful answer she would understand, much less believe. 
Naismith licked his lips in apparent nervousness and whispered back, "They're 
after. me, too. If they catch us they'll kill us, just like your friend." Oops. 
"We've got to turn from the way you're going. I saw one of 'em hiding just 
ahead."
The young woman frowned, her suspicion clear. Naismith's omniscience was 
showing. "So you know a way out?"
He nodded. "My horse and wagon are southeast of all this ruckus. I know ways we 
can sneak past these folks. I have a little farm up in ÷"
His words were lost in a steadily increasing roar that passed almost overhead. 
They looked up and had a quick impression of something large and winged, fire 
glowing from ports at wings and tail. Another troop carrier. He could hear 
others following. This was the beginning of the real invasion. The only place 
they could land would be on the main road north of the crater. But given another 
half hour, there would be wall-to-wall troopers here and not even a mouse could 
escape.
Naismith rolled to his knees and pulled at her hand. She had no choice now. They 
stood and walked quickly back the way he had come. The sound of the jets was a 
continuous rumble; they could have shouted and still not been heard. They had 
perhaps fifteen minutes to move as fast as they were able.
Greenish twilight had fallen on the forest floor. In his mottled brown dress, 
Naismith would be hard to spot, but the girl's flight fatigues made her a 
perfect target. He held her hand, urging her to paths he thought safe. He 
glanced at his wrist again and again, trying to see where the invaders were 
posted. The girl was busy looking in all directions and didn't notice his 
display.
The sounds fell behind them. The jets were still loud, but the soldiers' voices 
were fading in the distance. A dove lilted nearby.
They were trotting now, where the undergrowth thinned. Naismith's lungs burned 
and a steady pain pushed in his chest. The woman had a limp, but her breath came 
effortlessly. No doubt she was slowing her pace to his.
Finally he was forced to a stumbling walk. She put her arm around his shoulder 
to keep him steady. Naismith grimaced but did not complain. He should be 
grateful that he could even walk, he supposed. But somehow it seemed a great 
injustice that a short run could be nearly fatal to someone who still felt young 
inside. He croaked directions, telling the girl where the horse and cart were 
hidden.
Ten minutes more, and he heard a faint nickering. There was no sign of an 
ambush. From here, he knew dozens of trails into the mountains, trails that 
guerrillas of bygone years had worked hard to conceal. With even a small amount 
of further luck, they could escape. Paul sagged against the side of the cart. 
The forest rippled and darkened before him. Not now, Lord, not now!
His vision cleared, but he didn't have the strength to hoist himself onto the 
cart. The young woman's arm slipped to his waist, while her other went under his 
legs. Paul was a little taller than she, but he didn't weigh much anymore, and 
she was strong. She lifted him easily into the back, then almost dropped him in 
surprise. "You're not a
Naismith gave her a weak grin. "A woman? You're right. In fact, there's scarcely 
a thing you've seen today that is what it seems." Her eyes widened even further.
Paul was almost beyond speech now. He pointed her at one of the hidden paths. It 
should get them safely away, if she could follow it.
And then the world darkened and fell away from him.
NINETEEN
The ocean was placid today, but the fishing boat was small.
Della Lu stood at the railing and looked down into the sunsparkled water with a 
sick fascination. In all the Peace, she had as much counter-subversive 
experience as anyone. In a sense her experience had begun as soon as she was old 
enough to understand her parents' true job. And as an adult, she had planned and 
participated in airborne assaults, had directed the embobbling of three 
Mongolian strongholds, had been as tough as her vision of the Peace demanded... 
but until now she had never been in a watercraft bigger than a canoe.
Was it possible she could be seasick? Every three seconds, the swell rose to 
within a couple meters of her face, then sank back to reveal scum-covered 
timbers below the waterline. It had been vaguely pleasant at first, but one 
thing she'd learned during the last thirty-six hours was that it never ended. 
She had no doubt she would feel fine just knowing the motion could be stopped at 
her whim. But short of calling off this charade, there was no way to get away 
from it.
Della ordered her guts to sleep and her nose to ignore the stench of sardines. 
She looked up from the waterline to the horizon. She really had a lot to be 
proud of. In North America ÷ and in Middle California, especially ÷ the 
Authority's espionage service was an abomination. There had been no threats from 
this region in many, many years. The Peace kept most of the continent in a state 
of anarchy. Satellite reconnaissance could spot the smallest agglomeration of 
power there. Only in the nation states, like Aztl‡n and New Mexico, did the 
Directors see any need for spies. Things were very different in the great land 
ocean that was Central Asia.
But Della was managing. In a matter of days, she had improvised from her Asian 
experience to come up with something that might work against the threat Avery 
saw here. She had not simply copied her Mongolian procedures. In North America, 
the subversives had penetrated ÷ at least in an electronic sense ÷ some of the 
Authority secrets. Communications for instance: Della's eyes caught on the 
Authority freighter near the horizon. She could not report directly from her 
little fishing boat without risking her cover. So she had a laser installed near 
the waterline, and with it talked to the freighter-which surcrypted the messages 
and sent them through normal Authority channels to Hamilton Avery and the 
operations Della was directing for him.
Laughter. One of the fisherman said something in Spanish, something about 
"persons much inclined to sleep." Miguel Rosas had climbed out of the boat's 
tiny cabin. He smiled wanly at their jokes as he picked his way past the nets. 
(Those fishermen were a weak point in her cover. They were real, hired for the 
job. Given time, they would likely figure out whom they were working for. The 
Authority should have a whole cadre of professionals for jobs like this. Hell, 
that had been the original purpose in planting her grandparents in San 
Francisco: The Authority had been worried about the large port so close to the 
most important enclave. They reasoned that 'furbishers would be the most likely 
to notice any buildup of military material. If only they had chosen to plant 
them among Tinkers instead. As it was, the years passed and no threat developed, 
and the Authority never expanded their counter-underground.)
Della smiled at him, but didn't speak till the Californian was standing beside 
her. "How is the boy?"
Rosas frowned. "Still sleeping. I hope he's okay. He's not in good health, you 
know."
Della was not worried. She had doctored the black kid's bread, what the 
fishermen fed him last night. It wouldn't do the boy any harm, but he should 
sleep for several more hours. It was important that she and Rosas have a private 
conversation, and this might be the last natural opportunity for it.
She looked up at him, keeping her expression innocent and friendly. He doesn't 
look weak. He doesn't look like a man mho would betray his people ... And yet he 
had. So his motives were very important if they were to manipulate him further. 
Finally she said, "We want to thank you for uncovering the lab in La Jolla."
The undersheriff's face became rigid, and he straightened.
Lu cocked her head quizzically. "You mean you didn't guess who I am?"
Rosas slumped back against the railing, looked dully over the side. "I 
suspected. It was all too pat: our escape, these fellows picking us up. I didn't 
think you'd be a woman, though.
That's so old-fashioned." His dark hands clenched the wood till the knuckles 
shone pale. "Damn it, lady, you and your men killed Jere ÷ killed one of the two 
I was here to protect. And then you grabbed all those innocent people at the 
tournament. Why? Have you gone crazy?"
The man hadn't guessed that the tournament raid was the heart of Avery's 
operation; the biolab had been secondary, important mainly because it had 
brought Miguel Rosas to them. They needed hostages, information.
"I'm sorry our attack on the lab killed one of your people, Mr. Rosas. That 
wasn't our intent." This was true, though it might give her a welcome leverage 
of guilt. "You could have simply told us its location, not insisted on a Judas 
kiss' identification. You must realize, we couldn't take any chance that what 
was in the lab might get out... "
Rosas was nodding, almost to himself. That must be it, Lu thought. The man had a 
pathological hatred of bioscience, far beyond the average person's simple fear. 
That was what had driven him to betrayal. "As for the raid on the tournament, we 
had very good reasons for that, reasons which you will someday understand and 
support. For now you must trust us, just as the whole world has trusted us these 
last fifty years, and follow our direction."
"Direction? The hell you say. I did what I had to do, but that's the end to my 
cooperation. You can lock me up like the rest."
"I think not. Your safe return to Middle California is a high priority with us. 
You and I and Wili will put ashore at Santa Barbara. From there we should be 
able to get to Red Arrow Farm. We'll be heroes, the only survivors of the 
infamous La Jolla raid." She saw the defiance on his face. "You really have no 
choice, Miguel Rosas. You have betrayed your friends, your employers, and all 
the people we arrested at the tournament. If you don't go along, we will let it 
be known you were behind the raids, that you have been our agent for years."
"That's a damn lie!" His outburst was clipped short as he realized its 
irrelevance.
"On the other hand, if you do help us... well, then you will be serving a great 
good ÷ " Rosas did not sneer, but clearly he did not believe it either, "÷ and 
when all this is over you will be very rich, if necessary protected by the Peace 
for the rest of your life." It was a strategy that had worked on many, and not 
just during the history of the Peace: Take a weak person, encourage him to 
betrayal (for whatever reason), and then use the stick of exposure and the 
carrot of wealth to force him to do far more than he'd ever have had the courage 
or motive for in the beginning. Hamilton Avery was confident it would work here 
and had refused her the time for anything more subtle. Miguel Rosas might get 
them a line on the Hoehler fellow.
Della watched him carefully, trying to pierce his tense expression and see 
whether he was strong enough to sacrifice himself.
The undersheriff stared at the gulls that circled the boat and called raucously 
to their brethren as the first catch was drawn aboard. For a moment he seemed 
lost in the swirl of wings, and his jaw muscles slowly relaxed.
Finally he looked back at her. "You must be very good at chess. I can't believe 
the Authority has chess programs that could play the way you did against Wili."
Della almost laughed at the irrelevance of the statement, but she answered 
honestly. "You're right; they don't. But I scarcely know the moves. What you all 
thought was my computer was actually a phone link to Livermore. We had our 
hottest players up there going over my game, figuring out the best moves and 
then sending them down to me."
Now Rosas did laugh. His hand came down on her shoulder. She almost struck back 
before she realized this was a pat and not a blow. "I had wondered. I had really 
wondered.
"Lady, I hate your guts, and after today I hate everything you stand for. But 
you have my soul now." The laughter was gone from his voice. "What are you going 
to make me do?"
No, Miguel, I don't have your soul, and I see that I never will. Della was 
suddenly afraid ÷ for no reason that could ever convince Hamilton Avery ÷ that 
Miguel Rosas was not their tool. Certainly, he was naive; outside of Aztl‡n and 
New Mexico, most North Americans were. But whatever weakness caused him to 
betray the Scripps lab ended there. And somehow she knew that whatever decision 
he had just made could not be changed by gradually forcing him to more and more 
treacherous acts. There was something very strong in Rosas. Even after his act 
of betrayal, those who counted him friend might still be lucky to know him.
"To do? Not a great deal. Sometime tonight we reach Santa Barbara. I want you to 
take me along when we put ashore. When we reach Middle California, you'll back 
up my story. I want to see the Tinkers firsthand." She paused. "There is one 
thing. Of all the subversives, there is one most dangerous to world peace. A man 
name Paul Hoehler." Rosas did not react. "We've seen him at Red Arrow Farm. We 
want to know what he's doing. We want to know where he is."
That had become the whole point of the operation for Hamilton Avery. The 
Director had an abiding paranoia about Hoehler. He was convinced that the 
bursting bobbles were not a natural phenomenon, that someone in Middle 
California was responsible. Up till yesterday, she had considered it all 
dangerous fantasy, distorting their strategy, obscuring the long-term threat of 
Tinker science. Now she was not so sure. Last night, Avery called to tell her 
about the spacecraft the Peace had discovered in the hills east of Vandenberg. 
The crash was only hours old and reports were still fragmentary, but it was 
clear that the enemy had a manned space operation. If they could do that in 
secret, then almost anything was possible. This was a time for greater 
ruthlessness than ever she had needed in Mongolia.
Above and around, the gulls swooped through the chill blue glare, circling 
closer and closer as the fish piled up at the rear of the boat. Rosas' gaze was 
lost among the scavengers. Della, for all her skill, could not tell whether she 
had a forced ally or a double traitor. For both their sakes she hoped he was the 
former.
TWENTY
Parties and fairs were common among the West Coast Tinkers. Sometimes it was 
difficult to tell one from the other, so large were the parties and so informal 
the fairs. As a child, the high points of Rosas' existence had been such events: 
tables laden with food, kids and oldsters come from kilometers around to enjoy 
each other's company in the bright outdoors of sunny days or crowded into warm 
and happy dining rooms while rain swept by outside.
The La Jolla crackdown had changed much of that. Rosas strained to appear 
attentive as he listened to a Kaladze niece marvel at their escape and long trek 
back to Middle California. His mind roamed grim and nervous across the scene of 
their welcome-home party. Only Kaladze's family attended. There was no one from 
other farms or from Santa Ynez; even Seymour Wentz had not come. The Peacers 
were not to suspect that anything special was happening at Red Arrow Farm.
But Sy was not totally missing. He and some of the neighbors had shown up on 
line of sight from their homes inland. Sometime this evening they would have a 
council of war.
I wonder if I can face Sy and not give away what really happened in La Jolla?
Wilma Wentz ÷ Kaladze's niece and Sy's sister-in-law, a woman in her late 
forties ÷ was struggling to be heard over music that came from a speaker in a 
nearby tree. "But I still don't understand how you managed once you reached 
Santa Barbara. You and a black boy and an Asian woman traveling together. We 
know the Authority had asked Aztl‡n to stop you. How did you get past the 
border?"
Rosas wished his face were in shadows, not lit by the pale glow bulbs that were 
strung between the trees. Wilma was only a woman, but she was clever and more 
than once had caught him out when he was a child. He must be as careful with her 
as anyone. He laughed. "It was simple, Wilma ÷ once Della suggested it: We stuck 
our heads right back into the lion's mouth. We found a Peacer fuel station and 
climbed into the undercarriage of one of the tankers. No Aztl‡n cop stops one of 
those. We had a nonstop ride from there to the station south of Santa Ynez." 
Even so, it had not been fun. There had been kilometer after kilometer of noise 
and diesel fumes. More than once during the two-hour trip they had nearly 
fainted, fallen past the spinning axles onto the concrete of Old 101. But Lu had 
been adamant: Their return must be realistically difficult. No one, including 
Wili, must suspect.
Wilma's eyes grew slightly round. "Oh, that Della Lu. She is so wonderful. Don't 
you think?"
Rosas looked over Wilma's head to where Della was making herself popular with 
the womenfolk. "Yes, she is wonderful." She had them all agog with her tales of 
life in San Francisco. No matter how much (and how suicidally) he might wish it, 
she never slipped up. She was a supernaturally good liar. How he hated that 
small Asian face, those clean good looks. He had never known anyone ÷ man, woman 
or animal ÷ who was so attractive and yet so evil. He forced his eyes away from 
her, trying to forget the slim shoulders, the ready smile, the power to destroy 
him and all the good he had ever done...
"It's marvelous to have you back, Mikey," Wilma's voice was suddenly very soft. 
"but I'm so sorry for those poor people down at La Jolla and in that secret 
lab."
And Jeremy. Jeremy who was left behind forever. She was too kind to say it, too 
kind to remind him that he had not brought back one of those he had been hired 
to protect. The kindness rubbed unknowingly on deeper guilt. Rosas could not 
conceal the harshness in his voice. "Don't you worry about the biosci people, 
Wilma. They were an evil we had to use to cure Wili. As for the others ÷ I 
promise you we'll get them back." He reached out to squeeze her hand. All but 
Jeremy.
"Da," said a voice behind him. "We will get all the rest back indeed." It was 
Nikolai Kaladze, who had snuck up on them with his usual lack of warning. "But 
now that is what we are ready to discuss, Wilma, my dear."
"Oh." She accepted the implied dismissal, a thoroughly modern woman. She turned 
to gather up the women and younger men, to leave the important matters to the 
seniors.
Della looked momentarily surprised at this turn of events. She smiled and waved 
to Mike just as she left. He would like to think he'd seen anger in her face, 
but she was too good an actress for that. He could only imagine her rage at 
being kicked out of the meeting. He hoped she'd been counting on attending it.
In minutes, the party was over, the women and children gone. The music from the 
trees softened, and insect sounds grew louder. Seymour Wentz's holo remained. 
His image could almost be mistaken for that of someone sitting at the far end of 
the picnic table. Thirty seconds passed, and several more electronic visitors 
appeared. One was on a flat, black-and-white display ÷ someone from very far 
indeed. Rosas wondered how well his transmission was shielded. Then he 
recognized the sender, one of the Greens from Norcross. With them, it was 
probably safe.
Wili drifted in, nodded silently to Mike. The boy had been very quiet since that 
night in La Jolla.
"All present?" Colonel Kaladze sat down at the head of the table. Images far 
outnumbered the flesh-and-blood now. Only Mike, Wili, and Kaladze and his sons 
were truly here. The rest were images in holo tanks. The still night air, the 
pale glow of bulbs, the aged faces, and Wili ÷ dark, small, yet somehow 
powerful. The scene struck Rosas like something out of a fantasy: a dark elfin 
prince, holding his council of war at midnight in faerie-lit forest.
The participants looked at each other for a moment, perhaps feeling the 
strangeness themselves. Finally, Ivan Nikolayevich said to his father, "Colonel, 
with all due respect, is it proper that someone so young and unknown as Mr. 
Wachendon should sit at this meeting?"
Before the eldest could speak, Rosas interrupted, a further breach of decorum. 
"I asked that he stay. He shared our trip south and he knows more about some of 
the technical problems we face than any of us." Mike nodded apologetically to 
Kaladze.
Sy Wentz grinned crookedly at him. "As long as we're ignoring all the rules of 
propriety, I want to ask about our communications security."
Kaladze sounded only faintly irritated by the usurpations. "Rest assured, 
Sheriff. This part of the woods is in a little valley, blocked from the inland. 
And I think we have more confusion gear in these trees than there are leaves." 
He glanced at a display. "No leaks from this end. If you line-of-sighters take 
even minimum precautions, we're safe." He glanced at the man from Norcross.
"Don't worry about me. I'm using knife-edges, convergent corridors ÷ all sorts 
of good stuff. The Peacers could monitor forever and not even realize they were 
hearing a transmission. Gentlemen, you may not realize how primitive the enemy 
is. Since the La Jolla kidnappings, we've planted some of our bugs in their 
labs. The great Peace Authority's electronic expertise is fifty years obsolete. 
We found researchers ecstatic at achieving component densities of ten million 
per square millimeter." There were surprised chuckles from around the table. The 
Green smiled, baring bad teeth. "In field operations, they are much worse."
"So all they have are the bombs, the jets, the tanks, the armies, and the 
bobbles."
"Correct. We are very much like Stone Age hunters fighting a mammoth: We have 
the numbers and the brains, and the other side has the physical power. I predict 
our fate will 'be similar to the hunters'. We'll suffer casualties, but the 
enemy will eventually be defeated."
"What an encouraging point of view," Sy put in dryly:
"One thing I would like to know," said a hardware man from San Luis Obispo. "Who 
put this bee in their drawers? The last ten years we've been careful not to 
flaunt our best products; we agreed not to bug the Peacers. That's history now, 
but I get the feeling that somebody deliberately scared them. The bugs we've 
just planted report they were all upset about high tech stuff they found in 
their labs earlier this year... Anybody want to fess up?"
He looked around the table; no one replied. But Mike felt a sudden certainty. 
There was at least one man who might wish to rub the Authority's nose in the 
Tinkers' superiority, one man who had always wanted a scrap. Two weeks ago, he 
would have felt betrayed by the action. Mike smiled sadly to himself; he was not 
the only person who could risk his friends' lives for a Cause.
The Green shrugged. "If that's all there were to it, they'd do something more 
subtle than take hostages. The Peacers think we've discovered something that's 
an immediate threat. Their internal communications are full of demands that 
someone named Paul Hoehler be found. They think he's in Middle California. 
That's why there are so many Peacer units in your area, 'Kolya."
"Yes, you're quite right," said Kaladze. "In fact that's the real reason I asked 
for this meeting. Paul wanted it. Paul Hoehler, Paul Naismith ÷ whatever we call 
him ÷ has been the center of their fears for a long time. Only now, he may be as 
deadly as they believe. He may have something that can kill the 'mammoth' you 
speak of, Zeke. You see, Paul thinks he can generate bobbles without a nuclear 
power plant. He wants us to prepare-
Wili's voice broke through the ripple of consternation that spread around the 
table. "No! Don't say more. You mean Paul will not be here tonight, even as a 
picture?" He sounded panicked.
Kaladze's eyebrows rose. "No. He intends to stay thoroughly... submerged... 
until he can broadcast his technique. You're the only person he-"
Wili was on his feet now, almost shaking. "But he has to see. He has to listen. 
He is maybe the only one who will believe me!"
The old soldier sat back. "Believe you about what?"
Rosas felt a chill crawl up his back. Wili was glaring down the table at him.
"Believe me when I tell you that Miguel Rosas is a traitor!" He looked from one 
visitor to the next but found no response. "It's true, I tell you. He knew about 
La Jolla from the beginning. He told the Peacers about the lab. He got J- J- 
Jeremy killed in that hole in the cliffs! And now he sits here while you say 
everything, while you tell him Paul's plan."
Wili's voice rose steadily to become childish and hysterical. Ivan and Sergei, 
big men in their late forties, started toward him. The Colonel motioned them 
back, and when Wili had finished, he responded mildly, "What's your evidence, 
son?"
"On the boat. You know, the `lucky rescue' Mike is so happy to tell you of?" 
Wili spat. "Some rescue. It was a Peacer fake."
"Your proof, young man!" It was Sy Wentz, sticking up for his undersheriff of 
ten years.
"They thought they had me drugged, dead asleep. But I was some awake. I crawled 
up the cabin stairs. I saw him talking to that puts de la Paz, that monster Lu. 
She thanked him for betraying us! They know about Paul; you are right. And these 
two are up here sniffing around for him. They killed Jeremy. They-"
Wili stopped short, seemed to realize that the rush of words was carrying his 
cause backward.
Kaladze asked, "Could you really hear all they were saying?"
"N-no. There was the wind, and I was very dizzy. But-"
"That's enough, boy." Sy Wentz's voice boomed across the clearing. "We've known 
Mike since he was younger than you. Me and the Kaladzes shared his upbringing. 
He grew up here-" not in some Basin ghetto"-and we know where his loyalties are. 
He's risked his life more than once for customers. Hell, he even saved Paul's 
neck a couple of years ago."
"I'm sorry, Wili," Kaladze's voice was mild, quite unlike Sy's. "We do know 
Mike. And after this morning, I'm sure Miss Lu is what she appears. I called 
some friends in San Francisco: Her folks have been heavy-wagon 'furbishers for 
years up there. They recognized her picture. She and her brother went to La 
Jolla, just as she says."
Has she no limits? thought Rosas.
"Caray, I knew you'd not believe. If Paul was here The boy glared at Kaladze's 
sons. "Don't worry. I'll remain a gentleman." He turned and walked stiffly out 
of the clearing.
Rosas struggled to keep his expression one of simple surprise. If the boy had 
been a bit cooler, or Delia a bit less superhuman, it would have been the end of 
Miguel Rosas. At that moment, he came terribly close to confessing what all the 
boy's accusations could not prove. But he said nothing. Mike wanted his revenge 
to precede his own destruction.
TWENTY-ONE
Nikolai Sergeivich and Sergei Nikolayevich were pale mauve sitting on the 
driver's bench ahead of Wili. The late night rain was a steady hushing all 
around them. For the last four kilometers, the old Russian's "secret tunnel" had 
been aboveground: When the cart got too near the walls, Wili could feel wet 
leaves and coarse netting brush against him. Through his night glasses, the wood 
glowed faintly warmer than the leaves or the netting, which must be some sort of 
camouflage. The walls were thickly woven, probably looked like heavy forest from 
the outside. Now that the roof of the passage was soaked, a retarded drizzle 
fell upon the four of them. Wili shifted his slicker against the trickle that 
was most persistent.
Without the night glasses the world was absolutely black. But his other senses 
had things to tell him about this camouflaged path that was taking them inland, 
past the watchers the Authority had strung around the farm. His nose told him 
they were far beyond the groves of banana trees that marked the eastern edge of 
the farm. On top of the smell of wet wood and roping, he thought he smelled 
lilacs, and that meant they must be about halfway to Highway 101. He wondered if 
Kaladze intended to accompany him that far.
Over the creaking of the cart's wheels, he could hear Miguel Rosas up ahead, 
leading the horses.
Wili's lips twisted, a voiceless snarl. No one had believed him. Here he was, a 
virtual prisoner of the people who should be his allies, and the whole lot of 
them were being led through the dark by the Jonque traitor! Wili slipped the 
heavy glasses back on and glared at the mauve blob that was the back of Rosas' 
head. Funny how Jonque skin was the same color as his own in the never-never 
world of the night glasses.
Where would their little trip end? He knew that Kaladze and son thought they 
were simply going to the end of the tunnel, to let Wili return to Naismith in 
the mountains. And the fools thought that Rosas would let them get away with it. 
For twenty minutes he had been almost twitchy, expecting a flash of real light 
ahead of them, sharp commands backed up by men in Authority green with rifles 
and stunners, the La Jolla betrayal all over again. But the minutes stretched on 
and on with nothing but the rain and the creaking of the cart's high wheels. The 
tunnel bent around the hills, occasionally descending underground, occasionally 
passing across timbers built over washouts. Considering how much it rained 
around Vandenberg, it must have taken a tremendous effort to keep this pathway 
functioning yet concealed. Too bad the old man was throwing it all away, thought 
Wili.
"Looks like we're near the end, sir." Rosas' whisper came back softly ÷ 
ominously? ÷ over the quiet drone of the rain. Wili rose to his knees to look 
over the Kaladzes' shoulders: The Jonque was pushing against a door, a door of 
webbed branches and leaves which nevertheless swung smoothly and silently. 
Brilliant light glowed through the opening. Wili almost bolted off the cart 
before his glasses adjusted and he realized that they were still undiscovered.
Wili slipped his glasses off for a second and saw that the night was still as 
dark as the back of his hand. He almost smiled; to the glasses, there were 
shades of absolute black. In the tunnel, the glasses had only their body heat to 
see by. Outside, even under a thick cloud deck, even in the middle of a rainy 
night, there must be enough ordinary light for them. This gear was far better 
than the night scope on Jeremy's rifle.
Rosas led the extra horse into the light. "Come ahead." Sergei Nikolayevich 
slapped the reins, and the cart squeezed slowly through the opening.
Rosas stood in a strange, shadowless landscape, but now the colors in his 
slicker and face didn't glow, and Wili could see, his features clearly. The 
bulky glasses made his face unreadable. Wili shinnied down and walked to the 
center of the open space. All around them the trees hung close. Clouds glowed 
through occasional openings in the branches. Beyond Rosas, he could see an 
ordinary-looking path. He turned and looked at the doorway. Living shrubs grew 
from the cover.
The cart pulled forward until the elder Kaladze was even with the boy. Rosas 
came back to help the old man down, but the Russian shook his head. "We'll only 
be here a few minutes," he whispered.
His son looked up from some instrument in his lap. "We're the only man-sized 
animals nearby, Colonel."
"Good. Nevertheless, we still have much to do tonight back at home." For a 
moment, he sounded tired. "Wili, do you know why we three came the way out here 
with you?"
"No, sir." The "sir" came naturally when he talked to the Colonel. Next to 
Naismith himself, Wili had found more to respect in this man than anyone else. 
Jonque leaders ÷ and the bosses of the Ndelante Ali ÷ all demanded a respectful 
manner from their stooges, but old Kaladze actually gave his people something in 
return.
"Well, son, I wanted to convince you that you are important, and that what you 
must do is even more important. We didn't mean insult at the meeting last night; 
we just know that you are wrong about Mike." He lifted his hand a couple of 
centimeters, and Wili stifled the fresh pleading that rose to his lips. "I'm not 
going to try to convince you that you're wrong. I know you believe all you say. 
But even with such disagreement, we still need you desperately. You know that 
Paul Naismith is the key to all of this. He may be able to crack the secret of 
the bobbles. He may be able to get us out from under the Authority."
Wili nodded.
"Paul has told us that he needs you, that without your help his success will be 
delayed. They're looking for him, Wili. If they get him before he can help us ÷ 
well, I don't think we'll have a chance. They'll treat us all like the Tinkers 
in La Jolla. So. We brought Elmir with us." He gestured at the mare Rosas had 
been leading. "Mike says you learned how to ride in L.A."
Wili nodded again. That was an exaggeration; he knew how not to fall off. With 
the Ndelante Ali, getaways had occasionally been on horseback.
"We want you to return to Paul. We think you can make it from here. The path 
ahead crosses under Old 101. You shouldn't see anyone else unless you stray too 
far south. There's a trucker camp down that way."
For the first time Rosas spoke. "He must really need your help, Wili. The only 
thing that protects him is his hiding place. If you were captured and forced to 
talk ÷"
"I wont talk," Wili said and tried not to think of things he had seen happen to 
uncooperative prisoners in Pasadena.
"With the Authority there would be no choice."
"So? Is that what happened to you, Jonque se–or? Somehow, I don't think you 
planned from the beginning to betray us. What was it? I know you have fallen for 
the Chinese bitch. Is that what it was?" Wili heard his voice steadily rising. 
"Your price is so low?"
"Enough!" Kaladze's voice was not loud but its sharpness cut Wili short. The 
Colonel struggled off the driving bench to the ground, then bent till his face ÷ 
eyes still obscured by the night glasses ÷ was even with Wili's. Somehow, Wili 
could feel those eyes glaring through the dark plastic lenses.
"If anyone is to be bitter, it should be Sergei Nikolayevich and I, should it 
not? It is I, not you, who lost a grandson to the Authority bobble. If anyone is 
to be suspicious it should be I, not you. Mike Rosas saved your life. And I 
don't mean simply that he got you back here alive. He got you in and out of 
those secret labs; seconds either way and it would be all of you left trapped 
inside. And what you got in there was life itself. I saw you when you left for 
La Jolla: if you were so sick now, you would be too weak to afford the luxury of 
this anger."
That stopped Wili. Kaladze was right, though not about Rosas' innocence. These 
last eight days had been so busy, so full of fury and frustration, that he 
hadn't fully noticed: In previous summers his condition had always improved. But 
since he started eating that stuff, the pain had begun leaching away ÷ faster 
than ever before. Since getting back to the farm, he had been eating with more 
pleasure than he had at any time in the last five years.
"Okay. I will help. On a condition."
Nikolai Sergeivich straightened but said nothing. Wili continued, "The game is 
lost if the Authority finds Naismith. Mike Rosas and the Lu woman maybe know 
where he is. If you promise ÷ on your honor ÷ to keep them for ten days away 
from all outside communication, then it will be worth it to me to do as you 
say."
Kaladze didn't answer immediately. It would be such an easy promise to give, to 
humor him in his "fantasies," but Wili knew that if the Russian agreed to this, 
it would be a promise kept. Finally, "What you ask is very difficult, very 
inconvenient. It would almost mean locking them up. He glanced at Rosas.
"Sure. I'm willing." The traitor spoke quickly, almost eagerly, and Wili 
wondered what angle he was missing.
"Very well, sir, you have my word." Kaladze extended a thin, strong hand to 
shake Wili's. 
"Now let us be gone, before twilight herself joins our cozy discussions."
Sergei and Rosas turned the horse and cart around and carefully erased the marks 
of their presence. The traitor avoided Wili's look even as he swung the 
camouflaged door shut.
And Wili was alone with one small mare in darkest night. All around him the rain 
splattered just audibly. Despite the slicker, a small ribbon of wet was starting 
down his back.
Wili hadn't realized how difficult it was to lead a horse in such absolute dark; 
Rosas had made it look easy. Of course, Rosas didn't have to contend with odd 
branches which ÷ if not bent carefully out of the way ÷ would swipe the animal 
across the face. He almost lost control of poor Elmir the first time that 
happened. The path wound around the hills, disappeared entirely at places where 
the constant rains had enlarged last season's gullies. Only his visualization of 
Kaladze's maps saved him then.
It was at least fifteen kilometers to Old 101, a long, wet walk. Still, he was 
not really tired, and the pain in his muscles was the healthy feeling of 
exercise. Even at his best, he had never felt quite so bouncy. He patted the 
thin satchel nestled against his skin and said a short prayer to the One True 
God for continued good fortune.
There was plenty of time to think. Again and again, Wili came back to Rosas' 
apparent eagerness to accept house arrest for himself and the Lu woman. They 
must have something planned. Lu was so clever... so beautiful. He didn't know 
what had turned Rosas rotten, but he could almost believe that he did it simply 
for her. Were all chicas chinas like her? He had never seen a lady, black, 
Anglo, or Jonque, like Della Lu. Wili's mind wandered, imagining several final, 
victorious confrontations, until ÷ night glasses and all ÷ he almost walked over 
the edge of a washout half-full of racing water. It took him and Elmir fifteen 
minutes to get down and back up the mud-slicked sides of the gully, and he 
almost lost the glasses in the process.
It brought him back to reality. Lu was beautiful like oleander ÷ or better ÷ 
like a Glendora cat. She and Rosas had thought of something, and if he could not 
guess what it was, it could kill him.
Hours later he still hadn't figured it out. Twilight couldn't be far off now, 
and the rain had ceased. Wili stopped where a break in the forest gave him a 
view eastward. Parts of the sky were clear. They burned with tiny spots of 
flame. The trees cast multiple shadows, each a slightly different color. A long 
section of 101 was visible between the shoulders of the hills. There was no 
traffic, though to the south he saw shifting swaths of light that must be 
Authority road freighters. There was also a steady glow that might be the 
truckers' camp Kaladze had mentioned.
Directly below his viewpoint, a forested marsh extended right up to Old 101. The 
highway had been washed out and rebuilt many times, till it was little more than 
a timber bridge over the marshlands. He would have his choice of any of a 
hundred places to cross under.
It was farther away than it looked. By the time they were halfway there, the 
eastern sky was brightly lit, and Elmir seemed to have more faith in what he was 
doing.
He chose a lightly traveled path through the wet and started under the highway. 
Still he wondered what Lu and Rosas had planned. If they couldn't get a message 
out, then who could? Who knew where to look for Naismith and was also outside of 
Red Arrow Farm? Sudden understanding froze him in his tracks; Elmir's soft nose 
knocked him to his knees, but he scarcely noticed. Of course! Poor stupid little 
Wili, always ready to give his enemies a helping hand.
Wili got to his feet and walked back along Elmir, looking carefully for unwanted 
baggage. He ran his hand along the underside of her belly, and on the cinch 
found what he was looking for: The transmitter was large, almost two centimeters 
across. No doubt it had some sort of timer so it hadn't begun radiating back 
where the Kaladzes would have been sure to notice. He weighed the device with 
his hand. It was awfully big, probably an Authority bug. But Rosas could have 
supplied something more subtle. He went back to the horse and inspected her and 
her gear again, much more carefully. Then he took off his own clothes and did 
the same for them. The early morning air was chill, and muck oozed up between 
his toes. It felt great.
He looked very carefully, but found nothing more, which left him with nagging 
doubts. If it had just been Lu, he could understand...
And there was still the question of what to do with the bug he had found. He got 
dressed and started to lead Elmir out from under the roadway. In the distance a 
rumbling grew louder and louder. The timbers began shaking, showering them with 
little globs of mud. Finally the land freighter passed directly overhead, and 
Wili wondered how the wooden trestle structure could take it.
It gave him an idea, though. There was that truckers' camp to the south, maybe 
just a couple of kilometers away. If he tied Elmir up here, he could probably 
make it in less than an hour. Not just Authority freighters used the stop. 
Ordinary truckers, with their big wagons and horse teams, would be there, too. 
It should be easy to sneak up early in the twilight and give one of those wagons 
a fifty gram hitchhiker.
Wili chuckled out loud. So much for Missy Lu and Rosas. With a little luck, he'd 
have the Authority thinking Naismith was hiding in Seattle!
TWENTY-TWO
She was trapped in some sort of gothic novel. And that was the least of her 
problems.
Allison Parker sat on an outcropping and looked off to the north. This far from 
the Dome the weather was as before, with maybe a bit more rain. If she looked 
neither right nor left, she could imagine that she was simply on a camping trip, 
taking her ease in the late morning coolness. Here she could imagine that Angus 
Quiller and Fred Torres were still alive, and that when she got back to 
Vandenberg, Paul Hoehler might be down from Livermore for a date.
But a glance to the left and she would see her rescuer's mansion, buried dark 
and deep in the trees. Even by day, there seemed something gloomy and alien 
about the building. Perhaps it was the owner. The old man, Naismith, seemed so 
furtive, so apparently gentle, yet still hiding some terrible secret or desire. 
And as in any gothic, his servants ÷ themselves in their fifties ÷ were equally 
furtive and closemouthed.
Of course, a lot of mysteries had been solved these last days, the greatest the 
first night. When she had brought the old man in, the servants had been very 
surprised. All they would say was that the "master will explain all that needs 
explaining." "The master" was nearly unconscious at the time, so that was little 
help. Otherwise they had treated her well, feeding her and giving her clean, 
though ill-fitting clothes. Her bedroom was almost a dormer, its windows half in 
and half out of the roof. The furniture was simple but elegant; the oiled burl 
dresser alone would have been worth thousands back... where she came from. She 
had sat on the bright patchwork quilt and thought darkly that there better be 
some explanations coming in the morning, or she was going to leg it back to the 
coast, unfriendly armies or no.
The huge house had been still and dead as the twilight deepened. Faint but clear 
against the silence, Allison could hear the sounds of applause and an audience 
laughing. It took her a second to realize that someone had turned on a 
television ÷ though she hadn't seen a set during the day. Ha! Fifteen minutes of 
programming would probably tell her as much about this new universe as a month 
of talking to "Bill" and "Irma." She slid open her bedroom door and listened to 
the tiny, bright sounds:
The program was weirdly familiar, conjuring up memories of a time when she was 
barely tall enough to reach the "on" switch of her mother's TV "Saturday Night?" 
It was either that or something very similar. She listened a few moments more, 
heard references to actors, politicians who had died before she ever entered 
college. She walked down the stairs, and sat with the Moraleses through an 
evening of old TV shows.
They hadn't objected, and as the days passed they'd opened up about some things. 
This was the future, about a half-century forward of her present. They told her 
of the war and the plagues that ended her world, and the force fields, the 
"bobbles," that birthed the new one.
But while some things were explained, others became mysteries in themselves. The 
old man didn't socialize, though the Moraleses said that he was recovered. The 
house was big and there were many rooms whose doors stayed closed. He ÷ and 
whoever else was in the house besides the servants ÷ was avoiding her. Eerie. 
She wasn't welcome here. The Moraleses were not unfriendly and had let her take 
a good share of the chores, but behind them she sensed the old man wishing she 
would go away. At the same time, they couldn't afford to have her go. They 
feared the occupying armies, the "Peace Authority," as much as she did; if she 
were captured, their hiding place would be found. So they continued to be her 
uneasy hosts.
She had seen the old man scarcely a handful of times since the first afternoon, 
and never to talk to. He was in the mansion though. She heard his voice behind 
closed doors, sometimes talking with a woman ÷ not Irma Morales. That female 
voice was strangely familiar.
God, what I wouldn't give for a friendly face right now. Someone to talk to. 
Angus, Fred, Paul Hoehler
Allison slid down from her rocky vantage point and paced angrily into the 
sunlight. On the coast, morning clouds still hung over the lowlands. The silver 
arch of the force field that enclosed Vandenberg and Lompoc seemed to float 
halfway up the sky. No structure could possibly be so big. Even mountains had 
the decency to introduce themselves with foothills and highlands. The Vandenberg 
Bobble simply rose, sheer and insubstantial as a dream. So that glistening 
hemisphere contained much of her old world, her old friends. They were trapped 
in timelessness in there, just as she and Angus and Fred had been trapped in the 
bobble around the sortie craft. And one day the Vandenberg bobble would burst...
Somewhere in the trees beyond her vision there was a cawing; a crow ascended 
above the pines, circled down at another point. Over the whine of insects, 
Allison heard padded clopping. A horse was coming up the narrow trail that went 
past her rock pile. Allison moved back into the shadows and watched.
Three minutes passed and a lone horseman came into view: It was a black male, so 
spindly it was hard to guess his age, except to say that he was young. He was 
dressed in dark greens, almost a camouflage outfit and his hair was short and 
unbraided. He looked tired, but his eyes swept attentively back and forth across 
the trail ahead of him. The brown eyes flickered across her.
"Jill! How did you get so far from the veranda?" The words were spoken with a 
heavy Spanish accent; at this point it was an incongruity beneath Allison's 
notice. A broad grin split the boy's face as he slid off the horse and scrambled 
across the rocks toward her. "Naismith says that-" the words came to an abrupt 
halt along with the boy himself. He stood an arm's-length away, his jaw sagging 
in disbelief. `Jill? Is that really you?" He swung his hand in a flat arc toward 
Allison's midsection. The gesture was too slow to be a blow, but she wasn't 
taking any chances. She grabbed his wrist.
The boy actually squeaked ÷ but with surprise, not pain. It was as if he could 
not believe she had actually touched him.
She marched him back to the trail, and they started toward the house. She had 
his arm behind his back now. The boy did not struggle, though he didn't seem 
intimidated either. There was more shock and surprise in his eyes than fear.
Now that it was the other guy who was at a disadvantage, maybe she could get 
some answers. "'you, Naismith, none of you have ever seen me before, yet you all 
seem to know me. I want to know why." She bent his arm a bit more, though not 
enough to hurt. The violence was in her voice.
"But, but I have seen you." He paused an instant, then rushed on. "In pictures, 
I mean."
It might not be the whole truth, but... Perhaps it was like those fantasies 
Angus used to read. Perhaps she was somehow important, and the world had been 
waiting for them to come out of stasis. In that case their pictures might be 
widely distributed.
They walked a dozen steps along the soft, needle-covered path. No, there was 
something more. These people acted as if they had known her as a person. Was 
that possible? Not for the boy, but Bill and Irma and certainly Naismith were 
old enough that she might have known them ...before. She tried to imagine those 
faces fifty years younger. The servants couldn't have been more than children. 
The old man, he would have been around her own age.
She let the boy lead the way. She was more holding his hand than twisting his 
arm now; her mind was far away, thinking of the single tombstone with her name, 
thinking how much someone must have cared. They walked past the front of the 
house, descended the grade that led to a belowground-level entrance. The door 
there was open, perhaps to let in the cool smells of morning. Naismith sat with 
his back to them, his attention all focused on the equipment he was playing 
with. Still holding his horse's reins, the boy leaned past the doorway and said, 
"Paul?"
Allison looked past the old man's shoulder at the screen he was watching: a 
horse and a boy and a woman stood looking through a doorway at an old man 
watching a screen that... Allison echoed the boy, but in a tone softer, sadder, 
more questioning. "Paul?"
The old man, who just last month had been young, turned at last to meet her.
TWENTY-THREE
There were few places on Earth that were busier or more populous than they had 
been before the War. Livermore was such a place. At its pre-War zenith, there 
had been the city and the clusters of commercial and federal labs scattered 
through the rolling hills. Those had been boom times, with the old Livermore 
Energy Laboratories managing dozens of major enterprises and a dozen-dozen 
contract operations from their square-mile reservation just outside of town. And 
one of those operations, unknown to the rest, had been the key to the future. 
Its manager, Hamilton Avery's father, had been clever enough to see what could 
be done with a certain staff scientist's invention, and had changed the course 
of history.
And so when the old world had disappeared behind silver bobbles, and burned 
beneath nuclear fireballs, and later withered in the war plagues ÷ Livermore had 
grown. First from all over the continent and then from all over the planet, the 
new rulers had brought their best and brightest here. Except for a brief lapse 
during the worst of the plague years, that growth had been near-exponential. And 
Peace had ruled the new world.
The heart of Authority power covered a thousand square kilometers, along a band 
that stretched westward toward the tiny bay towns of Berkeley and Oakland. Even 
the Beijing and the Paris Enclaves had nothing to compare with Livermore. 
Hamilton Avery had wanted an Eden here. He had had forty years and the wealth 
and genius of the planet to make one.
But still at the heart of the heart there was the Square Mile, the original 
federal labs, their century-old University of California architecture preserved 
amidst the sweep of one-thousand meter bobbles, obsidian towers, and forested 
parks.
If the three of us are to meet, thought Avery, what more appropriate place than 
here? He had left his usual retinue on the greensward which edged the Square 
Mile. He and a single aide walked down the aged concrete sidewalk toward the 
gray building with the high narrow windows that had once held central offices.
Away from the carefully irrigated lawns and ornamental forests, the air was hot, 
more like the natural summer weather of the Livermore Valley. Already Avery's 
plain white shirt was sticking to his back.
Inside, the air-conditioning was loud and old-fashioned, but effective enough. 
He walked down ancient linoleum flooring his footsteps echoing in the past. His 
aide opened the conference room's doors before him and Hamilton Avery stepped 
forward to meet-or confront-his peers.
"Gentlemen." He reached across the conference table to shake first Kim 
Tioulang's hand, then Christian Gerrault's. The two were not happy; Avery had 
kept them waiting. And the hell of it is, I didn't mean to. Crisis had piled on 
top of crisis these last few hours, to the point that even a lifetime of 
political and diplomatic savvy was doing him no good.
Christian Gerrault, on the other hand, never had had much time for diplomacy. 
His piggish eyes were even more recessed in his fat face than they seemed on the 
video. Or perhaps it was simply that he was angry: "You have a very great deal 
of explaining to do, monsieur. We are not your servants, to be summoned from 
halfway around the world."
Then why are you here, you fat fool? But out loud he said, "Christian ÷ Monsieur 
le Directeur ÷ it is precisely because we are the men who count that we must 
meet here today."
Gerrault threw up a meaty arm. "Pah! The television was always good enough 
before."
"The `television,' monsieur, no longer works." The Central African looked 
disbelieving, but Avery knew Gerrault's people in Paris were clever enough to 
verify that the Atlantic comsat had been out of action for more than twenty-four 
hours. It had not been a gradual or partial failure, but an abrupt, total 
cessation of relayed communication.
But Gerrault simply shrugged, and his three bodyguards moved uneasily behind 
him. Avery shifted his gaze to Tioulang. The elderly Cambodian, Director for 
Asia, was not nearly so upset. K.T was one of the originals: He had been a 
graduate student at Livermore before the War. He and Hamilton and some hundred 
others picked by Avery's father had been the founders of the new world. There 
were very few of them left now. Every year they must select a few more 
successors. Gerrault was the first director from outside the original group. Is 
this the future? He saw the same question in Tioulang's eyes. Christian was much 
more capable than he acted, but every year his jewels, his harems, his... 
excesses, became harder to ignore. After the old ones were gone, would he 
proclaim himself an emperor ÷ or simply a god?
"K.T, Christian, you've been getting my reports. You know we have what amounts 
to an insurrection here. Even so, I haven't told you everything. Things have 
happened that you simply won't believe."
"That is entirely possible," said Gerrault.
Avery ignored the interruption. "Gentlemen, our enemy has spaceflight."
For a long moment there was only the sighing of the airconditioning. Gerrault's 
sarcasm had evaporated, and it was Tioulang who raised protest. "But Hamilton, 
the industrial base that requires! The Peace itself has only a small, unmanned 
program. We saw to it that all the big launch complexes were lost during the 
War." He realized he was rattling on with the obvious and waited for Avery to 
continue.
Avery motioned his aide to lay the pictures on the table. "I know, K.T. This 
should be impossible. But look: A fully functional sortie craft ÷ the type the 
old USAF was flying just before the War ÷ has crashed near the California-Aztl‡n 
border. This isn't a model or a mockup. It was totally destroyed in a fire 
subsequent to its landing, but my people assure me that it had just returned 
from orbit."
The two directors leaned forward to look at the holos. Tioulang said, "I take 
your word for this, Hamilton, but it could still be a hoax. I thought all those 
vehicles were accounted for, but perhaps there has been one in storage all these 
years. Granted, it is intimidating even as a hoax, but..."
"As you say. But there is no evidence of the vehicle's being dragged into the 
area ÷ and that's heavy forest around the crash site. We are bringing as much of 
the wreck as we can back here for a close look. We should be able to discover if 
it was made since the War or if it is a refurbished model from before. We are 
also putting pressure on Albuquerque to search the old archives for evidence of 
a secret US launch site."
Gerrault tipped his massive form back to look at his bodyguards. Avery could 
imagine his suspicion. Finally the African seemed to reach a decision. He leaned 
forward and said quietly, "Survivors. Did you find anyone to question?"
Avery shook his head. "There were at least two aboard. One was killed on impact. 
The other was killed by... one of our investigating teams. An accident." The 
other's face twisted, and Avery imagined the slow death Christian would have 
given those responsible for any such accident. Avery had dealt quickly and 
harshly with the incompetents involved, but he had gotten no pleasure from it. 
"There was no identification on the crewman, beyond an embroidered name tag. His 
flightsuit was old US Air Force issue."
Tioulang steepled his fingers. "Granting the impossible, what were they up to?"
"It looks like a reconnaissance mission. We've brought the wreck back to the 
labs, but there is still equipment we can't identify."
Tioulang studied one of the aerial photos. "It probably came in from the north, 
maybe even overflew Livermore.
He gave a wan smile. "History repeats. Remember that Air Force orbiter we 
bobbled? If they had reported what we were up to right at that critical 
moment... what a different world it would be today."
Days later Avery would wonder why Tioulang's comment didn't make him guess the 
truth. Perhaps it was Gerrault's interruption; the younger man was not 
interested in reminiscence. "This then explains why our communication satellites 
have failed!"
"We think so. We're trying to bring up the old radar watch we maintained through 
the twenties. It would help if both of you would do this, too.
"However you cut it, it seems we have our first effective opposition in nearly 
thirty years. Personally, I think they have been with us a long, long time. 
We've always ignored these 'Tinkers,' assuming that without big energy sources 
their technology could be no threat to us. `Cottage industry' we called it. When 
I showed you how far their electronics was ahead of ours, you seemed to think 
they were at most a threat to my West Coast holdings.
"Now it's clear that they have a worldwide operation in some ways equal to our 
own. I know there are Tinkers in Europe and China. They exist most places where 
there was a big electronics industry before the War. You should regard them as 
much a threat as I do mine."
"Yes, and we must flush out the important ones and... " Gerrault was in his 
element now. Visions of torture danced in his eyes.
"And," said Tioulang, "at the same time convince the rest of the world that the 
Tinkers are a direct threat to their safety. Remember that we all need goodwill. 
I have direct military control over most of China, but I could never keep India, 
Indonesia, and Japan in line if the people at the bottom didn't trust me more 
than their governments. There are more than twenty million people in those 
holdings."
"Ali, that is your problem. You are like the grasshopper, lounging in the summer 
of public approval. I am the industrious ant," Gerrault looked down at his 
enormous torso and chuckled at the metaphor, "who has diligently worked to 
maintain garrisons from Oslo to Capetown. If this is `winter' coming, I'll need 
no public approval." His eyes narrowed. "But I do need to know more about this 
new enemy of ours."
He glanced at Avery. "And I think Avery has cleverly provided us with a lever 
against them. I wondered why you supported their silly chess tournament in 
Aztl‡n why you used your aircraft to transport their teams from all over the 
continent. Now I know: When you raided that tournament, you arrested some of the 
best Tinkers in the world. Oh, no doubt, just a few of them have knowledge of 
the conspiracy against us, but at the same time they must have many loved ones ÷ 
and some of those will know more. If, one at a time, we try the prisoners for 
treason against Peace... why, I think we'll find someone who is willing to 
talk."
Avery nodded. He would get none of the pleasure out of the operation that 
Christian might. He would do only what was necessary to preserve the Peace. "And 
don't worry, K.T, we can do it without antagonizing the rest of our people.
"You see, the Tinkers use a lot of x- and gamma-ray lithography; they need it 
for microcircuit fabrication. Now, my public affairs people have put together a 
story that we've discovered the Tinkers are secretly upgrading these etching 
lasers for use as weapons lasers like the governments had before the War."
Tioulang smiled. "Ah. That's the sort of direct threat that should get us a lot 
of support. It's almost as effective as claiming they're involved in bioscience 
research. "
"There." Gerrault raised his hands beneficently to his fellow directors. "We are 
all happy then. Your people are pacified, and we can go after the enemy with all 
vigor. You were right to call us, Avery; this is a matter that deserves our 
immediate and personal attention."
Avery felt grim pleasure in replying, "There is another matter, Christian, at 
least as important. Paul Hoehler is alive."
"The old-time mathematician you have such a fixation on? Yes, I know. You 
reported that in hushed and terrified tones several weeks ago."
"One of my best agents has infiltrated the Middle California Tinkers. She 
reports that Hoehler has succeeded ÷ or is near to succeeding ÷ in building a 
bobble generator."
It was the second bombshell he had laid on them, and in a way the greater. 
Spaceflight was one thing; several ordinary governments had had it before the 
War. But the bobble: For an enemy to have that was as unwelcome and incredible 
as hell opening a chapel. Gerrault was emphatic: "Absurd. How could one old man 
fall on a secret we have kept so carefully all these years?"
"You forget, Christian, that one old man invented bobbles in the first place! 
For ten years after the War, he moved from laboratory to laboratory, always just 
ahead of us, always working on ways to bring us down. Then he disappeared so 
thoroughly that only I of all the originals believed he was out there somewhere 
plotting against us. And I was right; he has an incredible ability to survive."
"I'm sorry, Hamilton, but I have trouble believing, too. There is no hard 
evidence here, apparently just the word of a woman. I think you always have been 
overly distressed by Hoehler. He may have had some of the original ideas, but it 
was the rest of your father's team that really made the invention possible. 
Besides, it takes a fusion plant and some huge capacitors to power a generator. 
The Tinkers could never..." Tioulang's voice trailed off as he realized that if 
you could hide space-launch facilities, you could certainly do the same for a 
fusion reactor.
"You see?" said Avery. Tioulang hadn't been in Father's research group, couldn't 
realize Hoehler's polymath talent. There had been others in the project, but it 
had been Hoehler on all the really theoretical fronts. Of course, history was 
not written that way. But stark after all the years, Avery remembered the rage 
on Hoehler's face when he realized that in addition to inventing "the monster" 
(as he called it), that the development could never have been kept secret if he 
had not done the work of a lab full of specialists. It had been obvious the 
fellow was going to report them to LEL, and Father had trusted only Hamilton 
Avery to silence the mathematician. Avery had not succeeded in that assignment. 
It had been his first ÷ and last ÷ failure of resolve in all these years, but it 
was a failure that refused to be buried.
"He's out there, K.T, he really is. And my agent is Della Lu, who did the job in 
Mongolia that none of your people could. What she says you can believe... Don't 
you see where we are if we fail to act? If they have spaceflight and the bobble, 
too, then they are our superiors. They can sweep us aside as easily as we did 
the old-time governments."
TWENTY-FOUR
The sabios of the Ndelante Ali claimed the One True God knows all and sees all.
Those powers seemed Wili's, now that he had learned to use the scalp connect. He 
blushed to think of all the months he had dismissed symbiotic programs as 
crutches for weak minds. If only Jeremy ÷ who had finally convinced him to try ÷ 
could be here to see. If only Roberto Jonque Richardson were here to be crushed.
Jeremy had thought it would take months to learn. But for Wili, it was like 
suddenly remembering a skill he'd always had. Even Paul was surprised. It had 
taken a couple of days to calibrate the connector. At first, the sensations 
coming over the line had been subtle things, unrelated to their real 
significance. The mapping problem ÷ the relating of sensation to meaning ÷ was 
what took most people months. Jill had been a big help with that. Wili could 
talk to her at the same time he experimented with the signal parameters, telling 
her what he was seeing. Jill would then alter the output to match what Wili most 
expected. In a week he could communicate through the interface without opening 
his mouth or touching the keyboard. Another couple of days and he was 
transferring visual information over the channel.
The feeling of power was born. It was like being able to add extra rooms to his 
imagination. When a line of reasoning became too complex, he could simply expand 
into the machine's space. The low point of every day was when he had to 
disconnect. He was so stupid then. Typing and vocal communication with Jill made 
him feel like a deaf-mute spelling out letters.
And every day he learned more tricks. Most he discovered himself, though some 
things ÷ like concentration enhancement and Jill-programming ÷ Paul showed him. 
Jill could proceed with projects during the time when Wili was disconnected and 
store results in a form that read like personal memories when Wili was able to 
reconnect. Using the interface that way was almost as good as being connected 
all the time. At least, once he reconnected, it seemed he'd been "awake" all the 
time.
Paul had already asked Jill to monitor the spy cameras that laced the hills 
around the mansion. When Wili was connected, he could watch them all himself. 
One hundred extra eyes.
And Wili/Jill monitored local Tinker transmissions and the Authority's recon 
satellites the same way. That was where the feeling of omniscience came 
strongest.
Both Tinkers and Peacers were waiting ÷ and preparing in their own ways ÷ for 
the secret of generating bobbles that Paul had promised. From Julian in the 
South to Seattle in the North and Norcross in the East, the Tinkers were 
withdrawing from view, trying to get their gear undercover and ready for 
whatever construction Paul might tell them was necessary. In the high tech areas 
of Europe and China, something similar was going on ÷ though the Peace cops were 
so thick in Europe it was difficult to get away with anything there. Four of 
that continent's self-producing design machines had already been captured or 
destroyed.
It was harder to tell what was happening in the world's great outback. There 
were few Tinkers there ÷ in all Australia, for instance, there were less than 
ten thousand humans ÷ but the Authority was spread correspondingly thin. The 
people in those regions had radios and knew of the world situation, knew that 
with enough trouble elsewhere they might overthrow the local garrisons.
Except for Europe, the Authority was taking little direct action. They seemed to 
realize their enemy was too numerous to root out with a frontal assault. Instead 
the Peacers were engaged in an all-out search to find one Paul Naismith before 
Paul Naismith could make good on his promises to the rest of the world.
Yes, Wili? Nothing was spoken aloud and no keys were tapped. Input/output was 
like imagination itself. And when Jill responded, he had a fleeting impression 
of the face and the smile that he would have seen in the holo if he'd been 
talking to her the old way. Wili could have bypassed Jill; most symbiotic 
programs didn't have an intermediate surrogate. But Jill was a friend. And 
though she occupied lots of program space, she reduced the confusion Wili still 
felt in dealing with the flood of input. So Wili frequently had Jill work in 
parallel with him, and called her when he wanted updates on the processes she 
supervised.
Show me the status of the search for Paul.
Wili's viewpoint was suddenly suspended over California. Silvery traces marked 
the flight paths of hundreds of aircraft. He sensed the altitude and speed of 
every craft. The picture was a summary of all Jill had learned monitoring the 
Authority's recon satellites and Tinker reports over the last twenty-four hours. 
The rectangular crisscross pattern was still centered over Northern California, 
though it was more diffuse and indecisive than on earlier days.
Wili smiled. Sending Della Lu's bug north had worked better than he'd hoped. The 
Peacers had been chasing their tails up there for more than a week. The 
satellites weren't doing them any good. One of the first fruits of Wili's new 
power was discovering how to disable the comm and recon satellites. At least, 
they appeared disabled to the Authority. Actually, the recon satellites were 
still broadcasting but according to an encryption scheme that must seem pure 
noise to the enemy. It had seemed an easy trick to Wili; once he conceived the 
possibility, he and Jill had implemented it in less than a day. But looking back 
÷ after having disconnected ÷ Wili realized that it was deeper and trickier than 
his original method of tapping the satellites. What had taken him a winter of 
mind-busting effort was an afternoon's triviality now.
Of course, none of these tricks would have helped if Paul had not been very 
cautious all these years; he and Bill Morales had traveled great distances to 
shop at towns farther up the coast. Many Tinkers thought his hideout was in 
Northern California or even Oregon. As long as the Peacers didn't pick up any of 
the few people who had actually visited here-say at the NCC meeting-they might 
be safe.
Wili frowned. There was still the greatest threat. Miguel Rosas probably did not 
know the location, though he must suspect it was in Middle California. But Wili 
was sure Colonel Kaladze knew. It could only be a matter of time before Mike and 
the Lu woman ferreted out the secret. If subtlety were unsuccessful, then Lu 
would no doubt call in the Peace goons and try to beat it out of him. Are they 
still on the farm?
Yes. And there have been no outgoing calls from them. However, the Colonel's 
ten-day promise lapses tomorrow. Then Kaladze would no doubt let Lu call her 
"family" in San Francisco. But if she hadn't called in the army already, she 
must not have anything critical to report to her bosses.
Wili had not told Paul what he knew of Mike and Lu. Perhaps he should. But after 
trying to tell Kaladze... Instead he'd been trying to identify Della Lu with 
independent evidence. More than ten percent of Jill's time was spent in the 
effort. So far she had nothing definite. The story about relatives in the Bay 
Area appeared to be true. If he had some way of tapping Peacer communication or 
records, things would be different. He saw now he should have disabled their 
recon satellites alone. If their comsats were usable, it would give them some 
advantage ÷ but perhaps he could eventually break into their high crypto 
channels. As it was, he knew very little about what went on inside the Authority 
.
...and sometimes, he really wondered if Colonel Kaladze might be right. Wili had 
been half-delirious that morning on the boat; Mike and Della had been several 
meters away. Was it possible he'd misinterpreted what he heard? Was it possible 
they were innocent after all? No! By the One True God, he had heard what he had 
heard. Kaladze hadn't been there.
TWENTY FIVE
Sunlight still lay on the hills, but the lowlands and Lake Lompoc were shrouded 
in blue shadows. Paul sat on his veranda and listened to the news that Wili's 
electronic spies brought in from all over the world.
There was a small cough and Naismith looked up. For an instant he thought it was 
Allison standing there. Then he noticed how carefully she stood between him and 
the holo surface built into the wall. If he moved more than a few centimeters, 
parts of the image would be cut off: This was only Jill.
"Hi." He motioned for her to come and sit. She stepped forward, careful to 
generate those little moving sounds that made her projection seem more real, and 
sat in the image of a chair. Paul watched her face as she approached. There 
really were differences, he realized. Allison was very pretty, but he had made 
Jill's face beautiful. And of course the personalities were subtly different, 
too. It could not have been otherwise considering that he had done his design 
from memories forty-five years stale (or embellished), and considering that the 
design had grown by itself in response to his reactions. The real Allison was 
more outgoing, more impatient. And Allison's mere presence seemed to be changing 
Jill. The interface program had been much quieter these last days.
He smiled at her, "You've got the new bobble theory all worked out?"
She grinned back and was more like Allison than ever. "Your theory. I do nothing 
but crunch away-"
"I set up the theory. It would take a hundred lifetimes for me to do the 
symbolic math and see the theory's significance." It was a game they ÷ he ÷ had 
played many times before. The back and forth had always made Jill seem so real. 
"What have you got?"
"Everything seems consistent. There are a lot of things that were barred under 
your old theory, that are still impossible: It's still impossible to burst a 
bobble before its time. It's impossible to generate a bobble around an existing 
one. On the other hand ÷ in theory at least ÷ it should be possible to balk an 
enemy bobbler."
"Hmm... " Simply carrying a small bobble was a kind of defense against bobble 
attack ÷ a very risky defense, once noticed: It would force the attacker to 
project smaller bobbles, or off-center ones, trying to find a volume that wasn't 
'banned.' A device that could prevent bobbles from being formed nearby would be 
a tremendous improvement, and Naismith had guessed the new theory might allow 
such, but...
"Betcha that last will be an engineering impossibility for a long time. We 
should concentrate on making a low-power bobbler. That looks hard enough."
"Yes. Wili's right on schedule with that."
Jill's image suddenly froze, then flicked out of existence. Naismith heard the 
veranda door slide open. "Hi, Paul," came Allison's voice. She walked up the 
steps. "You out here by yourself?"
"...Yes. Just thinking."
She walked to the edge of the veranda and looked westward. These last weeks, 
every day had brought more change in Paul's life and in the world beyond the 
mountains than a normal year. Yet for Allison, it was different. Her world had 
turned inside out in the space of an hour. He knew the present rate of change 
was agonizingly slow for her. She paced the stone flags, stopping occasionally 
to glare off into the sunset at the Vandenberg Bobble.
Allison. Allison. Few old men had dreams come quite so stunningly true. She was 
so young; her energy seemed to flash about her in every stride, in every quick 
movement of her arms. In some ways the memories of Allison lost were less 
hurtful than the present reality. Still, he was glad he had not succeeded in 
disguising what became of Paul Hoehler.
Allison suddenly looked back at him, and smiled. "Sorry about the pacing."
"No problem. I..."
She waved toward the west. The air was so clear that-except for the lake and the 
coastline reflected in its base ÷ the Dome was almost invisible. "When will it 
burst, Paul? There were three thousand of us there the day I left. They had 
guns, aircraft. When will they come out?"
A month ago he would not have thought of the question. Two weeks ago he couldn't 
have answered. In those weeks a theory had been trashed and his new theory born. 
It was totally untested, but soon, soon that would change. "Uh. My answer's 
still guessing Allison: The Authority technique, the only way I could think of 
then, is a brute force method. With it, the lifetime is about fifty years. So 
now I can represent radius or mass as a perturbation series about a fifty-year 
decay time. The smallest bobbles the Authority made were about ten meters 
across. They burst first. Your sortie craft was trapped in a thirty-meter 
bobble; it decayed a little later." Paul realized he was wandering and tried to 
force his answer into the mold she must want. He thought a moment. "Vandenberg 
ought to last fifty-five years."
"Five more years. Damn it." She walked back across the veranda. "I guess you'll 
have to win without them. I was wondering why you hadn't told your friends about 
me you haven't even told them that time stops inside the bobbles. I thought 
maybe you expected to surprise the Peacers with their long-dead victims suddenly 
alive."
"You're close. You, me, Wili, and the Moraleses are the only ones who know. The 
Authority hasn't guessed ÷ Wili says they've carted your orbiter up to Livermore 
as if it were full of clues. No doubt the fools think they've stumbled on some 
new conspiracy... But then, I guess it's not so stupid. I'll bet you didn't have 
any paper records aboard the orbiter."
"Right. Even our notepads were display flats. We could trash everything in 
seconds if we fell among unfriendlies. The fire would leave them with nothing 
but slagged optical memory. And if they don't have the old fingerprint archives, 
they're not going to identify Fred or Angus."
"Anyway, I've told the Tinkers to be ready, that I'm going to tell them how to 
make bobble generators. Even then, I may not say anything about the stasis 
effect. That's something that could give us a real edge, but only if we use the 
knowledge at the right time. I don't want some leak to blow it...
Allison turned as if to pace back to the edge of the veranda, then noticed the 
display that Paul had been studying. Her hand rested lightly on his shoulder as 
she leaned over to look at the displays. "Looks like a recon pattern," she said.
"Yes. Wili and Jill synthesized it from the satellites we're tapping. This shows 
where Authority aircraft have been searching."
"For you."
"Probably" He touched the keyboard at the margin of the flat, and the last few 
days' activity were displayed.
"Those bums." There was no lightness in her voice. "They destroyed our country 
and then stole our own procedures. Those search patterns look SOP 1997 for 
medium level air recon. I bet your damn Peacers never had an original thought in 
their lives... Hmm. Run that by again." She knelt to look closely at the daily 
summaries. "I think today's sorties were the last for that area, Paul. Don't be 
surprised if they move the search several hundred klicks in the next day or 
two." In some ways, Allison's knowledge was fifty years dead and useless ÷ in 
other ways, it could be just what they needed.
Paul gave a silent prayer of thanks to Hamilton Avery for having kept the heat 
on all these years, for having forced Paul Hoehler to disguise his identity and 
his location through decades when there would have otherwise been no reason to. 
"If they shift further north, fine. If they come all the way south. Hmm. We're 
well hidden, but we wouldn't last more than a couple days under that sort of 
scrutiny. Then... " He drew a finger across his throat and made a croaking 
noise.
"No way you could put this show on the road, huh?"
"Eventually we could. Have to start planning for it. I have an enclosed wagon. 
It may be big enough for the essential equipment. But right now, Allison... 
Look, we don't yet have anything but a lot of theories. I'm translating the 
physics into problems Wili can handle. With Jill, he's putting them into 
software as fast as he can."
"He seems to spend his time daydreaming, Paul."
Naismith shook his head. "Wili's the best." The boy had picked up symbiotic 
programming faster than Paul had ever seen, faster than he'd thought possible. 
The technique improved almost any programmer, but in Wili's case, it had turned 
a first-rank genius into something Naismith could no longer completely 
understand. Even when he was linked with Wili and Jill, the details of their 
algorithms were beyond him. It was curious, because off the symbiosis Wili was 
not that much brighter than the old man. Paul wondered if he could have been 
that good, too, if he had started young. "I think we're nearly there, Allison. 
Based on what we understand now, it ought to be possible to make bobbles with 
virtually no energy input. The actual hardware should be something Jill can 
prototype here."
Allison didn't come off her knees. Her face was just centimeters from his. "That 
Jill program is something. Just the motion holo for the face would have swamped 
our best array processors... But why make it look like me, Paul? After all those 
years, did I really mean so much?"
Naismith tried to think of something flippant and diversionary, but no words 
came. She looked at him a second longer, and he wondered if she could see the 
young man trapped within.
"Oh, Paul." Then her arms were around him, her cheek next to his.
She held him as one would hold something very fragile, very old.
Two days later, Wili was ready.
They waited till after dark to make the test. In spite of Paul's claims, Wili 
wasn't sure how big the bobble would be, and even if it did not turn out to be a 
monster, its mirrorlike surface would be visible for hundreds of kilometers to 
anyone looking in the right direction in the daytime.
The three of them walked to the pond north of the house. Wili carried the bulky 
transmitter for his symb link. Near the pond's edge he set his equipment down 
and slipped on the scalp connector. Then he lit a candle and placed it on a 
large tree stump. It was a tiny spot of yellow, bright only because all else was 
so dark. A gray thread of smoke rose from the glow.
"We think the bobble, it will be small, but we don't want to take chances. Jill 
is going to make its lower edge to snip the top of this candle. Then if we're 
wrong, and it is huge ÷"
"Then as the night cools, the bobble will rise and be just another floater. By 
morning it could be many kilometers from here." Paul nodded. "Clever..."
He and Allison backed further away, Wili following. From thirty meters, the 
candle was a flickering yellow star on the stump. Wili motioned them to sit; 
even if the bobble was super-large, its lower surface would still clear them.
"You don't need any power source at all?" said Allison. "The Peace Authority 
uses fusion generators and you can do it for free?"
"In principle, it isn't difficult-once you have the right insight, once you know 
what really goes on inside the bobbles. And the new process is not quite free. 
We're using about a thousand joules here ÷ compared to the gigajoules of the 
Authority generators. The trade-off is in complexity. If you have a fusion 
generator backing you up, you can bobble practically anything you can locate. 
But if you're like us, with solar cells and small capacitors, then you must 
finesse it.
"The projection needs to be supervised, and it's no ordinary process control 
problem. This test is about the easiest case: The target is motionless, close 
by, and we only want a one-meter field. Even so, it will involve ÷ how much 
crunching do we need, Wili?"
"She needs thirty seconds initial at about ten billion flops, and then maybe one 
microsecond for 'assembly' ÷ at something like a trillion."
Paul whistled. A trillion floating-point operations per second! Wili had said he 
could implement the discovery, but Paul hadn't realized just how expensive it 
might be. The gear would not be very portable. And long distance or very large 
bobbles might not be feasible.
Wili seemed to sense his disappointment. "We think we can do it with a slower 
processor. It maybe takes many minutes for the setup, but you could still bobble 
things that don't move or are real close."
"Yeah, we'll optimize later. Let's make a bobble, Wili."
The boy nodded.
Seconds passed. Something ÷ an owl ÷ thuttered over the clearing, and the candle 
went out. Nuts. He had hoped it would stay lit. It would have been a nice 
demonstration of the stasis effect to have the candle still burning later on 
when the bobble burst.
"Well?" Wili said. "What do you think?"
"You did it!" said Paul. The words were somewhere between a question and an 
exclamation.
Jill did, anyway. I better grab it before it floats away."
Wili slipped off the scalp connector and sprinted across the clearing. He was 
already coming back before Naismith had walked halfway to the tree stump. The 
boy was holding something in front of him, something light on top and dark 
underneath. Paul and Allison moved close. It was about the size of a large beach 
ball, and in its upper hemisphere he could see reflected stars, even the Milky 
Way, all the way down to the dark of the tree line surrounding the pond. Three 
silhouettes marked the reflections of their own heads. Naismith extended his 
hand, felt it slide silkily off the bobble, felt the characteristic blood-warm 
heat ÷ the reflection of his hand's thermal radiation.
Wili had his arms extended around its girth and his chin pushed down on the top. 
He looked like a comedian doing a mock weight lift. "It feels like it will shoot 
from my hands if I don't hold it every way."
"Probably could. There's no friction."
Allison slipped her hand across the surface. "So that's a bobble. Will this one 
last fifty years, like the one... Angus and I were in?"
Paul shook his head. "No. That's for big ones done the old way. Eventually, I 
expect to have very flexible control, with duration only loosely related to 
size. How long does Jill estimate this one will last, Wili?"
Before the boy could reply, Jill's voice interrupted from the interface box. 
"There's a PANS bulletin coming over the high-speed channels. It puffs out to a 
thirty-minute program. I'm summarizing:
"Big story about threat to the Peace. Biggest since Huachuca plaguetime. Says 
the Tinkers are the villains. Their leaders were captured in La Jolla raids last 
month... The broadcast has video of Tinker `weapons labs,' pictures of 
sinister-looking prisoners...
"Prisoners to be tried for Treason against the Peace, starting immediately, in 
Los Angeles.
"... all government and corporate stations must rebroadcast this at normal speed 
every six hours for the next two days."
There was a long silence after she finished. Wili held up the bobble. "They 
picked the wrong time to put the squeeze on us!"
Naismith shook his head. "It's the worst possible time for us. We're being 
forced to use this," he patted the bobble, "when we've barely got a proof of 
principle. It puts us right where that punk Avery wants us."
TWENTY-SIX
The rain was heavy and very, very warm. High in the clouds, lightning chased 
itself around and around the Vandenberg Dome, never coming to Earth. Thunder 
followed the arching, cloud-smeared glows.
Della Lu had seen more rain the last two weeks than would fall in a normal year 
in Beijing. It was a fitting backdrop for the dull routine of life here. If 
Avery hadn't finally gone for the spy trials, she would be seriously planning to 
escape Red Arrow hospitality ÷ blown cover or not.
Hey, you tired already? Or just daydreaming?" Mike had stopped and was looking 
back at her. He stood, arms akimbo, apparently disgusted. The transparent rain 
jacket made his tan shirt and pants glint metallic even in the gray light.
Della walked a little faster to catch up. They continued in silence for a 
hundred meters. No doubt they made an amusing pair: Two figures shrouded in rain 
gear, one tall, one so short. Since Wili's ten-day "probation period" had 
lapsed, the two of them had taken a walk every day. It was something she had 
insisted on, and ÷ for a change ÷ Rosas hadn't resisted. So far she had snooped 
as far north as Lake Lompoc and east to the ferry crossing.
Without Mike, her walks would've had to be with the womenfolk. That would have 
been tricky. The women were protected, and had little freedom or responsibility. 
She spent most of every day with them, doing the light manual labor that was 
considered appropriate to her sex. She had been careful to be popular, and she 
had learned a lot, but all local intelligence. Just as with families in San 
Francisco, the women were not privy to what went on in the wider world. They 
were valued, but second-class, citizens. Even so, they were clever; it would 
have been difficult to look in the places that really interested her without 
raising their suspicions.
Today was her longest walk, up to the highlands that overlooked Red Arrow's tiny 
sea landing. Despite Mike's passive deceptions, she had put together a pretty 
good picture of Old Kaladze's escape system. At least she knew its magnitude and 
technique. It was a small payoff for the boredom and the feeling that she was 
being held offstage from events she should be directing.
All that could change with the spy trials. If she could just light a fire under 
the right people...
The timbered path went back and forth across the hill they climbed. There were 
many repairs, and several looked quite recent, yet there were also washouts. It 
was like most things among the Tinkers. Their electronic gadgets were 
superlative (though it was dear now that the surveillance devices Avery had 
discovered were rare and expensive items amongst the Tinkers; they didn't 
normally spy on each other). But they were labor poor, and without power 
equipment, things like road maintenance and laundry were distinctly nineteenth 
century. And Della had the calluses to prove it.
Finally they reached the overlook. A steady breeze swept across the hill, 
blowing the rain into their faces. There was only one tree at the top, though it 
was a fine, large conifer growing from the highest point. There was some kind of 
platform about halfway up.
Rosas put his arm across her shoulder, urging her toward the tree. "They had a 
tree house up here when I was a kid. There ought to be a good view."
Wood steps were built into the tree trunk. She noticed a heavy metallic cable 
that followed the steps upward. Electronics even here? Then she realized that it 
was a lightning guide. The Tinkers were very careful with their children.
Seconds later they were on the platform. The cabin was clean and dry with soft 
padding on the floor. There was a view south and west, somehow contrived to keep 
out the wind and rain. They shrugged out of their rain jackets and sat for a 
moment, enjoying the sound of wet that surrounded this pocket of dry comfort. 
Mike crawled to the south facing window. "A lot of good it will do you, but 
there it is."
The forested hills dropped away from the overlook. The coast was about four 
kilometers away, but the rain was so heavy that she had only a vague impression 
of sand dunes and marching surf. It looked like there was a small breakwater, 
but no boats at anchor. The landing was not actually on Red Arrow property, but 
they used it more than anyone else. Mike claimed that more people came to the 
farm from the ocean than overland. Della doubted that. It sounded like another 
little deception.
The undersheriff backed away from the opening and leaned against the wall beside 
her. "Has it really been worth it, Della?" There was a faint edge in his voice. 
It was clear by now that he had no intention of denouncing her ÷ and implicating 
himself at the same time. But he was not hers. She had dealt with traitors 
before, men whose self-interest made them simple, reliable tools. Rosas was not 
such. He was waiting for the moment when the damage he could do her would be 
greatest. Till then he played the role of reluctant ally.
Indeed, had it been worth the trouble? He smiled, almost triumphantly. "You've 
been stuck here for more than two weeks. You've learned a little bit about one 
small corner of the ungoverned lands, and one group of Tinkers. I think you're 
more important to the Peacers than that. You're like a high-value piece 
voluntarily taken out of the game."
Della smiled back. He was saying aloud her own angry thoughts. The only thing 
that had kept her going was the thought that just a little more snooping might 
ferret out the location of Paul Hoehler/Naismith. It had seemed such an easy 
thing. But she gradually realized that Mike ÷ and almost everyone else ÷ didn't 
know where the old man lived. Maybe Kaladze did, but she'd need an interrogation 
lab to pry it out of him. Her only progress along that line had been right at 
the beginning, when she tagged the black boy's horse with a tracer.
Hallelujah, all that had changed. There was a chance now that she was in the 
best of strategic positions.
Mike's eyes narrowed, and Della realized he sensed some of her triumph. Damn. 
They had spent too much time together, had too many conversations that were not 
superficial. His hand closed on her upper arm and she was pulled close to his 
face. "Okay. What is it? What are you going to spring on us?" Her arm suddenly 
felt as though trapped in a vice.
Della suppressed reflexes that would have left him gargling on a crushed 
windpipe. Best that he think he had the age-old macho edge. She pretended 
shocked speechlessness. How much to say? When they were alone, Mike often spoke 
of her real purpose at Red Arrow. She knew he wasn't trying to compromise her to 
hidden listeners ÷ he could do that directly whenever he chose. And he knew Red 
Arrow so well, it was unlikely they would be bugged without his knowledge. So 
the only danger was in telling him too much, in giving him the motive to blow 
the whole game. But maybe she should tell him a little; if it all came as a 
surprise, he might be harder to control. She tried to shrug. "I've got a couple 
maybes going for me. Your friend Hoehler ÷ Naismith ÷ says he has a prototype 
bobble generator. Maybe he does. In any case, it will be a while before the rest 
of you can build such. In the meantime, if the Peace can throw you off balance, 
can get you and Naismith to overextend yourselves..."
"The trials."
"Right." She wondered what Mike's reaction would be if he knew that she had 
recommended immediate treason trials for the La Jolla hostages. He'd made sure 
there were Kaladzes in earshot when she was allowed to call her family in San 
Francisco. She had sounded completely innocent, just telling her parents that 
she was safe among the Middle California Tinkers, though she mustn't say just 
where. No doubt Rosas guessed that some sort of prearranged signal scheme was 
being used, but he could never have known how elaborate it was. Tone codes were 
something that went right by native speakers of English. "The trials. If they 
could be used to panic Kaladze and his friends, we might get a look at 
Naismith's best stuff before it can do the Peace any real harm."
Mike laughed, his grip relaxing slightly. "Panic Nikolai Sergeivich? You might 
as well think to panic a charging bear."
Della did not fully plan what she did next, and that was very unusual for her. 
Her free hand move up behind his neck, caressing the short cut hair. She raised 
herself to kiss him. Rosas jerked back for an instant, then responded. After a 
moment, she felt his weight on her and they slid to the soft padding that 
covered the floor of the tree house. Her arms roamed across his neck and wide 
shoulders and the kiss continued.
She had never before used her body to ensure loyalty. It had never been 
necessary. It certainly had never before been an attractive prospect. And it was 
doubtful it could do any good here. Mike had fallen to them out of honor; he 
could not rationalize the deaths he had caused. In his way, he was as 
unchangeable as she.
One of his arms wrapped around her back while his free hand pulled at her 
blouse. His hand slid under the fabric, across her smooth skin, to her breasts. 
The caresses were eager, rough. There was rage... and something else. Della 
stretched out against him, forcing one of her legs between his. For a long while 
the world went away and they let their passion speak for them .
...Lightning played its ring dance along the Dome that towered so high above 
them. When the thunder paused in its following march, they could hear the shish 
of warm rain continue all around.
Rosas held her gently now, his fingers slowly tracing the curve of her hip and 
waist. "What do you get out of being a Peace cop, Della? If you were one of the 
button-pushers, sitting safe and cozy up in Livermore, I could understand. But 
you've risked your life stooging for a tyranny, and turning me into something I 
never thought I'd be. Why?"
Della watched the lightning glow in the rain. She sighed. "Mike, I am for the 
Peace. Wait. I don't mean that as rote Authority mumbo jumbo. We do have 
something like peace all over the world now. The price is a tyranny, though 
milder than any in history. The price is twentieth-century types like me, who 
would sell their own grandmothers for an ideal. Last century produced nukes and 
bobbles and warplagues. You have been brushed by the plagues ÷ that alone is 
what turned you into something you never thought you'd be.' But the others are 
just as bad. By the end of the century, those weapons were becoming cheaper and 
cheaper. Small nations were getting them. If the War hadn't come, I'll bet 
subnational groups and criminals would have had them. The human race could not 
survive mass-death technology so widely spread. The Peace has meant the end of 
sovereign nations and their control of technologies that could kill us all. Our 
only mistake was in not going far enough. We didn't regulate high tech 
electronics ÷ and we're paying for that now."
The other was silent, but the anger was gone from his face. Della came to her 
knees and look around. She almost laughed. It looked as if a small bomb had gone 
off in the tree house; their clothes were thrown all across the floor pads. She 
began dressing. After a moment, so did Mike. He didn't speak until they had on 
their rain slickers and had raised the trapdoor.
He grinned lopsidedly and stuck his hand out to Della. "Enemies?" he said.
"For sure." She grinned back, and they shook on it.
And even as they climbed out of the tree, she was wondering what it would take 
to move old Kaladze. Not panic; Mike was right about that. What about shame? Or 
anger?
Della's chance came the next day. The Kaladze clan had gathered for lunch, the 
big meal of the day. As was expected of a woman, Lu had helped with the cooking 
and laying out of the dinnerware, and the serving of the meal. Even after she 
was seated at the long, heavily laden table, there were constant interruptions 
to go out and get more food or replace this or that item.
The Authority channels were full of the "Treason against Peace" trials that 
Avery was staging in L.A. Already there had been some death sentences. She knew 
Tinkers all across the continent were in frantic communication, and there was an 
increasing sense of dread. Even the women felt it. Naismith had announced his 
prototype bobble generator. A design had also been transmitted. Unfortunately, 
the only working model depended on processor networks and programs that would 
take the rest of the world weeks to grow. And even then, there were problems 
with the design that would cost still more time to overcome.
The menfolk took these two pieces of news and turned lunch into a debate. It was 
the first time she had seen them talk policy at a meal; it showed how critical 
the situation was. In principle the Tinkers now had the same ultimate weapon as 
the Authority. But the weapon was no good to them yet. In fact, if the Authority 
learned about it before the Tinkers had generators in production, it might 
precipitate the military attack they all feared. So what should be done about 
the prisoners in Los Angeles?
Lu sat quietly through fifteen minutes of this, until it be came clear that 
caution was winning and the Kaladzes were going to keep a low profile until they 
could safely take advantage of Naismith/Hoehler's invention. Then she stood up 
with a shrill, inarticulate shout. The dining hall was instantly silent. The 
Kaladzes looked at her with shocked surprise. The woman sitting next to her made 
fluttering motions for her to sit down. Instead, Della shouted down the long 
table, "You cowardly fools! You would sit here and dither while they execute our 
people one by one in Los Angeles. You have a weapon now, this bobble generator. 
And even if you are not willing to risk your own necks, there are plenty of 
noble houses in Aztl‡n that are; at least a dozen of their senior sons were 
taken in La Jolla."
At the far end of the table, Nikolai Sergeivich came slowly to his feet. Even at 
that distance, he seemed to tower over her diminutive 155 centimeters. "Miss Lu. 
It is not we who have the bobble generator, but Paul Naismith. You know that he 
has only one, and that it is not completely practical. He won't give us-"
Della slammed the flat of her hand on the table, the pistolshot noise cutting 
the other off and dragging everyone's attention back to her. "Then make him! He 
can't exist without you. He must be made to understand that our own flesh and 
blood are at stake here ÷ " She stepped back from the table and looked them all 
up and down, then put surprise and scorn on her face. "But that's not true of 
you, is it? My own brother is one of the hostages. But to you, they are merely 
fellow Tinkers."
157
Under his stubbly beard, Kaladze's face became very pale. Della was taking a 
chance. Publicly disrespectful women were rare here, and when they surfaced ÷ 
even as guests ÷ they could expect immediate expulsion. But Della had gone a 
calculated distance beyond disrespect. She had attacked their courage, their 
manhood. She had spoken aloud of the guilt which ÷ she hoped ÷ was lying just 
below their caution.
Kaladze found his voice and said, "You are wrong, madam. They are not merely 
fellow Tinkers, but our brothers, too." And Della knew she had won. The 
Authority would get a crack at that bobble generator while it was still easy 
pickings.
She sat meekly down, her eyes cast shyly at the table. Two large tears started 
down her cheeks. But she said nothing more. Inside, a Cheshire cat smile spread 
from ear to ear: for the victory, and for the chance to get back at them for all 
the days of dumb servility. From the corner of her eye, she saw the stricken 
look on Mike's face. She had guessed right there, too. He would say nothing. He 
knew she lied, but those lies were a valid appeal to honor. He was caught, even 
knowing, in the trap with the others.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Aztl‡n encompassed most of what had been Southern and Baja California. It also 
claimed much of Arizona, though this was sharply disputed by the Republic of New 
Mexico. In fact, Aztl‡n was a loose confederation of local rulers, each with an 
immense estate.
Perhaps it was the challenge of the Authority Enclave in old Downtown, but 
nowhere in Aztl‡n were the castles grander than in North Los Angeles. And of 
those castles, that of the Alcalde del Norte was a giant among giants.
The carriage and its honor guard moved quickly up the well-maintained old-world 
road that led to El Norte's main entrance. In the darkened interior, a single 
passenger-one Wili Wachendon ÷ sat on velvet cushions and listened to the 
clopclop of the carriage team and outriders. He was being treated like a lord. 
Well, not quite. He couldn't get over the look of stunned surprise on the faces 
of the Aztl‡n troops when they saw the travel-grimed black kid they were to 
escort from Ojai to L.A. He looked through tinted bulletproof glass at things he 
had never expected to see ÷ not by daylight anyway. On the right, the hill rose 
sheer, pocked every fifty meters by machine-gun nests; on the left, he saw a 
pike fence half-hidden in the palms. He remember such pikes, and what happened 
to unlucky burglars.
Beyond the palms, Wili could see much of the Basin. It was as big as some 
countries, and ÷ not even counting the Authority personnel in the Enclave ÷ 
there were more than eighty thousand people out there, making it one of the 
largest cities on Earth. By now, midafternoon, the wood and petroleum cooking 
stoves of that population had raised a pall of darkish smoke that hung just 
under the temperature inversion and made it impossible to see the far hills.
They reached the southern ramparts and crossed the flagstone perimeter that 
surrounded the Alcalde's mansion. They rolled by a long building fronted with 
incredible sweeps of perfectly matched plate glass. There was not a bullet hole 
or shatter star to be seen. No enemy had reached this level in many years. The 
Alcalde had firm control of the land for kilometers on every side.
The carriage turned inward, and retainers rushed to slide open the glass walls. 
Wagon, horses, and guard continued inward, past more solid walls; this meeting 
would take place beyond sight of spying eyes. Wili gathered his equipment. He 
slipped on the scalp connector, but it was scant comfort. His processor was 
programmed for one task, and the interface gave him none of the omniscience he 
felt when working with Jill.
Wili felt like a chicken at a coyote convention. But there was a difference, he 
kept telling himself. He smiled at the collected coyotes and set his dusty gear 
on the glistening floor: This chicken laid bobbles.
He stood in the middle of the Alcalde's hall of audience, alone there except for 
the two stewards who had brought him the last hundred meters from the carriage. 
Four Jonques sat on a dais five meters away. They were not the most titled 
nobles in Aztl‡n ÷ though one of them was the Alcalde ÷ but he recognized the 
embroidery on their jackets. These were men the Ndelante Ali had never dared to 
burgle.
To the side, subordinate but not cringing, stood three very old blacks. Wili 
recognized Ebenezer, Pasadena Sabio of the Ndelante, a man so old and set in his 
ways that he had never even learned Spanish. He needed interpreters to convey 
his wishes to his own people. Of course, this increased his appearance of 
wisdom. As near as could be over such a large area, these seven men ruled the 
Basin and the lands to the east ÷ ruled all but the Downtown and the Authority 
Enclave.
Wili's impudence was not lost on the coyotes. The youngest of the Jonque lords 
leaned forward to look down upon him. "This is Naismith's emissary? With this we 
are to bobble the Downtown, and rescue our brothers? It's a joke."
The youngest of the blacks ÷ a man in his seventies whispered in Ebenezer's ear, 
probably translating the Jonque's comments into English. The Old One's glance 
was cold and penetrating, and Wili wondered if Ebenezer remembered all the 
trouble a certain scrawny burglar had caused the Ndelante.
Wili bowed low to the seated noblemen. When he spoke it was in standard Spanish 
with what he hoped was a Middle California accent. It would be best to convince 
these people that he was not a native of Aztl‡n. "My Lords and Wise Ones, it is 
true that I am a mere messenger, a mere technician. But I have Naismith's 
invention here with me, I know how to operate it, and I know how it can be used 
to free the Authority's prisoners."
The Alcalde, a pleasant-looking man in his fifties, raised an eyebrow and said 
mildly, "You mean your companions are carrying it-disassembled perhaps?"
Companions? Wili reached down and opened his pack. "No, My Lord," he said, 
withdrawing the generator and processor. "This is the bobbler. Given the plans 
that Paul Naismith has broadcast, the Tinkers should be able to make these by 
the hundreds within six weeks. For now this is the only working model." He 
showed the ordinary-looking processor box around. Few things could look less 
like a weapon, and Wili could see the disbelief growing on their faces. A 
demonstration was in order. He concentrated briefly to let the interface know 
the parameters.
Five seconds passed and a perfect silver sphere just... appeared in the air 
before Wili's face. The bobble wasn't more than ten centimeters across, but it 
might have been ten kilometers for the reaction of his audience. He gave it the 
lightest of pushes, and the sphere ÷ weighing exactly as much as an equivalent 
volume of air-drifted across the hall toward the nobles. Before it had traveled 
a meter, air currents had deflected it. The youngest of the Jonques, the 
loudmouthed one, shed his dignity and jumped off the dais to grab at the bobble.
"By God, it's real!" he said as he felt its surface.
Wili just smiled and imaged another command sequence. A second and a third 
sphere floated across the room. For bobbles this size, where the target was 
close by and homogeneous, the computations were so simple he could generate an 
almost continuous stream. For a few moments his audience lost some of its 
dignity.
Finally old Ebenezer raised a hand and said to Wili in English, "So, boy, you 
have all the Authority has. You can bobble all Downtown, and we go in and pick 
up the pieces. All their armies won't stand up to this."
Jonque heads jerked around, and Wili knew they understood the question. Most of 
them understood English and Spa–olnegro through they often pretended otherwise. 
He could see the processors humming away in their scheming minds: With this 
weapon, they -could do a good deal more than rescue the hostages and boot the 
Authority out of Aztl‡n If the Peacers were to be replaced, why shouldn't it be 
by them? And ÷ as Wili had admitted ÷ they had a six weeks' head start on the 
rest of the world.
Wili shook his head. "No, Wise One. You'd need more power though still nothing 
like the fusion power the Authority uses. But even more important, this little 
generator isn't fast enough. The biggest it can make is about four hundred 
meters across, and to do that takes special conditions and several minutes setup 
time."
"Bah. So it's a toy. You could decapitate a few Authority troopers with it 
maybe, but when they bring out their machine guns and their aircraft you are 
dead." Se–or Loudmouth was back in form. He reminded Wili of Roberto Richardson. 
Too bad this was going to help the likes of them.
"It's no toy, My Lord. If you follow the plan Paul Naismith has devised, it can 
rescue all the hostages." Actually it was a plan that Wili had thought of after 
the first test, when he had felt Jill's test bobble sliding around in his arms. 
But it would not do to say the scheme came from anyone less than Paul. "There 
are things about bobbles that you don't know yet, that no one, not even the 
Authority, knows yet."
"And what are those things, sir?" There was courtesy without sarcasm in the 
Alcalde's voice.
Across the hall, a couple entered the room. For an instant all Wili could see 
was their silhouettes against the piped sky light. But that was enough. "You 
two!" Mike looked almost as shocked as Wili felt, but Lu just smiled.
"Kaladze's representatives," the Alcalde supplied.
"By the One God, no! These are the Authority's representatives!"
"See here," it was Loudmouth, "these two have been vouched for by Kaladze, and 
he's the fellow who got all this organized."
"I'm not saying anything with them around."
Dead silence greeted this refusal, and Wili felt sudden, physical fear. The 
Jonque lords had very interesting rooms beneath their castles, places with... 
effective... equipment for persuading people to talk. This was going to be like 
the confrontation with the Kaladzes, only bloodier.
The Alcalde said, "I don't believe you. We've checked the Kaladzes carefully. 
We've even dismissed our own court so that this meeting would involve just those 
with the need to know. But" ÷ he sighed, and Wili saw that in some ways he was 
more flexible (or less trusting, anyway) than Nikolai Sergeivich ÷ "perhaps it 
would be safer if you only spoke of what must be done, rather than the secrets 
behind it all. Then we will judge the risks, and decide if we must have more 
information just now."
Wili looked at Rosas and Lu. Was it possible to do this without giving away the 
secret ÷ at least until it was too late for the Authority to counter it? 
Perhaps. "Are the hostages still being held on the top floor of the Tradetower?"
"The top two floors. Even with aircraft, an assault would be suicide."
"Yes, My Lord. But there is another way. I will need forty Julian-33 storage 
cells" ÷ other brands would do, but he was sure the Aztl‡n make was available ÷ 
"and access to your weather service. Here is what you have to do..." It wasn't 
until several hours later that Wili looked back and realized that the cripple 
from Glendora had been giving orders to the rulers of Aztl‡n and the wisemen of 
the Ndelante Ali. If only Uncle Sly could have seen it.
Early afternoon the next day:
Wili crouched in the tenement ruins just east of the Downtown and studied the 
display. It was driven by a telescope the Ndelante had planted on the roof. The 
day was so clear that the view might have been that of a hawk hovering on the 
outskirts of the Enclave. Looking into the canyons between those buildings, Wili 
could see dozens of automobiles whisking Authority employees through the 
streets. Hundreds of bicycles ÷ property of lower-ranking people ÷ moved more 
slowly along the margins of the streets. And the pedestrians: There were 
actually crushes of people on the sidewalks by the larger buildings. An 
occasional helicopter buzzed through the spaces above. It was like some vision 
off an old video disk, but this was real and happening right now, one of the few 
places on Earth where the bustling past still lived.
Wili shut down the display and looked up at the faces both Jonque and black ÷ 
that surrounded him. "That's not too much help for this job. Winning is going to 
depend on how good your spies are."
"They're good enough." It was Ebenezer's sour-faced aide. The Ndelante Ali was a 
big organization, but Wili had a dark suspicion that the fellow recognized him 
from before. Getting home to Paul would depend on keeping his "friends" here 
intimidated by Naismith's reputation and gadgets. "The Peacers like to be served 
by people as well as machines. The Faithful have been in the Tradetower as late 
as this morning. The hostages are all on the top two floors. The next two floors 
are empty and alarm-ridden, and below that is at least one floor full of Peace 
Troopers. The utility core is also occupied, and you notice there is a 
helicopter and fixed-wing patrol. You'd almost think they're expecting a 
twentieth century armored assault, and not..."
And not one scrawny teenager and his miniature bobble blower, Wili silently 
completed the other's dour implication. He glanced at his hands: skinny maybe, 
but if he kept gaining weight as he had been these last weeks, he would soon be 
far from scrawny. And he felt like he could take on the Authority and the 
Jonques and the Ndelante Ali all at once. Wili grinned at the sabio. "What I've 
got is more effective than tanks and bombs. If you're sure exactly where they 
are, I'll have them out by nightfall." He turned to the Alcalde's man, a 
mild-looking old fellow who rarely spoke but got unnervingly crisp obedience 
from his men. "Were you able to get my equipment upstairs?"
"Yes, sir," Sir!
"Let's go, then." They walked back into the main part of the ruin, carefully 
staying in the shadows and out of sight of the aircraft that droned overhead. 
The tenement had once been thirty meters high, with row on row of external 
balconies looking west. Most of the facing had long ago collapsed, and the 
stairwells were exposed to the sky. The Alcalde's man was devious, though. Two 
of the younger Jonques had climbed an interior elevator shaft and rigged a sling 
to hoist the gear and their elders to the fourth-storey vantage point that Wili 
required.
One by one, Ndelante and Jonques ascended. Wili knew such cooperation between 
the blood enemies would have been a total shock to most of the Faithful. These 
groups fought and killed under other circumstances-and used each other to 
justify all sorts of sacrifices from their own peoples. Those struggles were 
real and deadly, but the secret cooperation was real, too. Two years earlier, 
Wili had chanced on that secret; it was what finally turned him against the 
Ndelante.
The fourth-floor hallway creaked ominously under their feet. Outside it had been 
hot; in here it was like a dark oven. Through holes in the ancient linoleum, 
Wili could see into the wrecks of rooms and hallways below. Similar holes in the 
ceiling provided the hallway's only light. One of the Jonques opened a side door 
and stood carefully apart as Wili and the Ndelante people entered.
More than a half-tonne of Julian-33 storage cells were racked against an 
interior wall. The balcony side of the room sagged precariously. Wili unpacked 
the processor and the bobble generator and set about connecting them to the 
Julians. The others squatted by the wall or in the hallway beyond. Rosas and Lu 
were here; Kaladze's representatives could not be denied, though Wili had 
managed to persuade the Alcalde's man to keep them ÷ especially Della ÷ away 
from the equipment, and away from the window.
Della looked up at him and smiled a strange, friendly smile; strange because no 
one else was looking to be taken in by the lie. When will she make her move? 
Would she try to signal to her bosses, or somehow steal the equipment herself? 
Last night, Wili had thought long and hard about how to defeat her. He had the 
self-bobbling parameters all ready. Bobbling himself and the equipment would be 
a last resort, since the current model didn't have much flexibility ÷ he would 
be taken out of the game for about a year. More likely, one of them was going to 
end up very dead this day, and no wistful smile could change that.
He dragged the generator and its power cables and camouflage bag close to the 
ragged edge of the balcony. Under him the decaying concrete swayed like a tiny 
boat. It felt as if there was only a single support spar left. Great. He 
centered his equipment over the imagined spar and calibrated the mass- and 
ranging-sensors. The next minutes would be critical. In order that the 
computation be feasibly simple, the generator had to be clear of obstacles. But 
this made their operation relatively exposed. If the Authority had had anything 
like Paul's surveillance equipment, the plan would not have stood a chance.
Wili wet his finger and held it into the air. Even here, almost out of doors, 
the day was stifling. The westerly breeze barely cooled his finger. "How hot is 
it?" he asked unnecessarily; it was obviously hot .. enough
"Outside air temperature is almost thirty-seven. That's about as hot as it ever 
gets in L.A., and it's the high for today."
Wili nodded. Perfect. He rechecked the center and radius coordinates, started 
the generator's processor, and then crawled back to the others by the inner 
wall. "It takes about five minutes. Generating a large bobble from two thousand 
meters is almost too much for this processor."
"So," Ebenezer's man gave him a sour smile, "you are
going to bobble something. Are you ready to share the secret
of just what? Or are we simply to watch and learn?"
On the far side of the room, the Alcalde's man was silent, but Wili sensed his 
attention. Neither they nor their bosses could imagine the bobble's being used 
as anything but an offensive weapon. They were lacking one critical fact, a fact 
that would become known to all ÷ including the Authority ÷ very soon.
Wili glanced at his watch: two minutes to go. There was no way he could imagine 
Della preventing the rescue now. And he had some quick explaining to do, or else 
÷ when his allies saw what he had done ÷ he might have deadly problems. "Okay," 
he said finally. "In ninety seconds, my gadget is going to throw a bobble around 
the top floors of the Tradetower."
"What?" The question came from four mouths, in two languages. The Alcalde's man, 
so mild and respectful, was suddenly at his throat. He held up his hand briefly 
as his men started toward the equipment on the balcony. His other hand pressed 
against Wili's windpipe, just short of pain, and Wili realized that he had 
seconds to convince him not to topple the generator into the street. "The bobble 
will... pop... later... Time... stops inside," choked Wili. The pressure on his 
throat eased; the goons edged back from the balcony. Wili saw Jonque and sabio 
trade glances. There would have to be a lot more explanations later, but for now 
they would cooperate.
A sudden, loud click marked the discharge of the Julians. All eyes looked 
westward through the opening that once held a sliding glass door. Faint "ah"s 
escaped from several pairs of lips.
The top of the Tradetower was in shadow, surmounted and dwarfed by a 
four-hundred-meter sphere.
"The building, it must collapse," someone said. But it didn't. The bobble was 
only as massive as what it enclosed, and that was mostly empty air. There was a 
long moment of complete silence, broken only by the far, tiny wailing of sirens. 
Wili had known what to expect, but even so it took an effort to tear his 
attention from the sky and surreptitiously survey the others.
Lu was staring wide-eyed as any; even her schemes were momentarily submerged. 
But Rosas: The undersheriff looked back into Wili's gaze, a different kind of 
wonder on his face, the wonder of a man who suddenly discovers that some of his 
guilt is just a bad dream. Wili nodded faintly at him. Yes, Jeremy is still 
alive, or at least will someday live again. You did not murder him, Mike.
In the sky around the Tradetower, the helicopters swept in close to the silver 
curve of the bobble. From further up they could hear the whine of the fixed-wing 
patrol spreading in greater and greater circles around the Enclave. They had 
stepped on a hornets' nest and now those hornets were doing their best to decide 
what had happened and to deal with the enemy. Finally, the Jonque chief turned 
to the Ndelante sabio. "Can your people get us out from under all this?"
The black cocked his head, listening to his earphone, then replied, "Not till 
dark. We've got a tunnel head about two hundred meters from here, but the way 
they're patrolling, we probably couldn't make it. Right after sunset, before 
things cool off enough for their heat eyes to work good, that'll be the best 
time to sneak back. Till then we should stay away from windows and keep quiet. 
The last few months they've improved. Their snooper gear is almost as good as 
ours now."
The lot of them ÷ blacks, Jonques, and Lu ÷ moved carefully back into the 
hallway. Wili left his equipment sitting near the edge of the balcony; it was 
too risky to retrieve it just now. Fortunately, its camouflage bag resembled the 
nondescript rubble that surrounded it.
Wili sat with his back against the door. No one was going to get to the 
generator without his knowing it.
From in here, the sounds of the Enclave were fainter, but soon he heard 
something ominous and new: the rattle and growl of tracked vehicles.
After they were settled and lookouts were posted at the nearest peepholes, the 
sabio sat beside Wili and smiled. "And now, young friend, we have hours to sit, 
time for you to tell us just what you meant when you said that the bobble will 
burst, and that time stops inside." He spoke quietly, and considering the 
present situation ÷ it was a reasonable question. But Wili recognized the tone. 
On the other side of the hallway, the Alcalde's man leaned forward to listen. 
There was just enough light in the musty hallway for Wili to see the faint smile 
on Lu's face.
He must mix truth and lies just right. It would be along afternoon.
TWENTY-EIGHT
The hallway was brighter now. As the sun set, its light came nearly horizontally 
through the rips near the ceiling and splashed bloody light down upon them. The 
air patrols had spread over a vast area, and the nearest tanks were several 
thousand meters away; Ebenezer's man had coordinated a series of clever decoy 
operations ÷ the sort of thing Wili had seen done several times against the 
Jonques.
"iDel Nico Dio!" It was almost a shriek. The lookout at the end of the hall 
jumped down from his perch. "It's happening. Just as he said. It's flying!"
Ebenezer's sabio made angry shushing motions, but the group moved quickly to the 
opening, the sabio and chief Jonque forcing their way to the front. Wili crawled 
between them and looked through one of the smaller chinks in the plaster and 
concrete: The evening haze was red. The sun sat half-dissolved in the deeper red 
beyond the Enclave towers.
And hanging just above the skyline was a vast new moon, a dark sphere edged by a 
crescent of red: The bobble had risen off the top of the Tradetower and was 
slowly drifting with the evening breeze toward the west.
"Mother of God," the Alcalde's man whispered to himself. Even with 
understanding, this was hard to grasp. The bobble, with its cargo of afternoon 
air, was lighter than the evening air around it, was the largest hot air balloon 
in history. And sailing into the sunset with it went the Tinker hostages. The 
noise of aircraft came louder, as the hornets returned to their nest and buzzed 
around this latest development. One of the insects strayed too close to the vast 
smooth arc. Its rotor shattered; the helicopter fell away, turning and turning.
The sabio glanced down at Wili. "You're sure it will come inland?"
"Yes. Uh, Naismith studied the wind patterns very carefully. It's just a matter 
of time ÷ weeks at most ÷ before it grounds in the mountains. The Authority will 
know soon enough ÷ along with the rest of the world ÷ the secret of the bobbles, 
but they won't know just when this one will burst. If the bobble ends up far 
enough away, the other problems we are going to cause them will be so big they 
won't post a permanent force around it. Then, when it finally bursts..."
"I know, I know. When it finally bursts we're there to rescue them. But ten 
years is long to sleep."
It would actually be one year. That had been one of Wili's little lies. If Lu 
and the Peacers didn't know the potential for short-lived bobbles, then It 
suddenly occurred to him that Della Lu was no longer in his sight. He turned 
quickly from the wall and looked down the hallway. But she and Rosas were still 
there, sitting next to a couple of Jonque goons who had not joined the crush at 
the peephole. "Look, I think we should try to make it back to the tunnel now. 
The Peacers have plenty of new problems, and it's pretty dark down in the 
street."
Ebenezer's man smiled. "Now, what would you know about evading armed men in the 
Basin?" More than ever Wili was sure the sabio recognized him, but for now the 
other was not going to make anything of it. He turned to the Jonque chief. "The 
boy's probably right."
Wili retrieved the generator, and one by one they descended via the rope sling 
to the ruined garages below the apartment house. The last man slipped the rope 
from its mooring. The blacks spent several minutes removing all ground-level 
signs of their presence. The Ndelante were careful and skilled. There were ways 
of covering tracks in the ruins, even of restoring the patina of dust in ancient 
rooms. For forty years the depths of the L.A. Basin had been the ultimate 
fortress of the Ndelante; they knew their own turf.
Outside, the evening cool had begun. Two of the sabio's men moved out ahead, and 
another two or three brought up the rear. Several carried night scopes. It was 
still light enough to read by; the sky above the street was soft red with 
occasional patches of pastel blue. But it was darkening quickly, and the others 
were barely more than shadows. Wili could sense the Jonques' uneasiness. Being 
caught at nightfall deep in the ruins would normally be the death of them. The 
high-level conniving between the Ndelante and the bosses of Aztl‡n did not 
ordinarily extend down to these streets.
Their point men led them through piles of fallen concrete; they never actually 
stepped out into the open street. Wili hitched up his pack and fell back 
slightly, keeping Rosas and Lu ahead of him. Behind him, he could hear the 
Jonque chief and ÷ much quieter ÷ Ebenezer's sabio.
Out of the buzzing of aircraft, the sound of a single helicopter came louder and 
louder. Wili and the others froze, then crouched down in silence. The craft was 
closer, closer. The thwup-thwup-thwup of its rotors was loud enough so that they 
could almost feel the overpressures. It was going to pass directly over them. 
This sort of thing had happened every twenty minutes or so during the afternoon, 
and should be nothing to worry about. Wili doubted if even observers on the 
rooftops could have spotted them here below. But this time:
As the copter passed over the roofline a flash of brilliant white appeared ahead 
of Wili. Lu! He had been worried she was smuggling some sophisticated homer, and 
here she was betraying them with a simple handflash!
The helicopter passed quickly across the street. But even before its rotor tones 
changed and it began to circle back, Wili and most of the Ndelante were already 
heading for deeper hidey-holes. Seconds later, when the aircraft passed back 
over the street, it really was empty. Wili couldn't see any of the others, but 
it sounded as if the Jonques were still rushing madly about, trying to find some 
way out of the jagged concrete jungle. A monstrously bright light swept back and 
forth along the street, throwing everything into stark blacks and whites.
As Wili had hoped, the searchlight was followed seconds later by rocket fire. 
The ground rose and fell under him. Faint behind the explosions, Wili could hear 
shards of metal and stone snicking back and forth between concrete piles. There 
were screams.
Heavy dust rose from the ruins. This was his best chance: Wili scuttled back a 
nearby alley, ignoring the haze and the falling rocks. Another half minute and 
the enemy would be able to see clearly again, but by then Wili (and probably the 
rest of the Ndelante) would be a hundred meters away, and moving under much 
greater cover than he had right here.
An observer might think he ran in mindless panic, but in fact Wili was very 
careful, was watching for any sign of an Ndelante trail. For more than forty 
years the Ndelante had been the de facto rulers of these ruins. They used little 
of it for living space, but they mined most of the vast Basin, and everywhere 
they went they left subtle improvements ÷ escape hatches, tunnels, food caches ÷ 
that weren't apparent unless one knew their marking codes. After less than 
twenty meters, Wili had found a marked path, and now ran at top speed through 
terrain that would have seemed impassable to anyone standing more than a few 
meters away. Some of the others were escaping along the same path: Wili could 
hear at least two pairs of feet some distance behind him, one heavy Jonque feet, 
the others barely audible. He did not slow down; better that they catch up.
The chopper pilot had lifted out of the space between the buildings and fired no 
more. No doubt the initial attack had not been to kill, but to jar his prey into 
the open. It was a decent strategy against any but the Ndelante.
The pilot flew back and forth now, lobbing stun bombs. They were so far away 
that Wili could barely feel them. In the distance, he heard the approach of more 
aircraft. Some of them sounded big. Troop Garners. Wili kept running. Till the 
enemy actually landed, it was better to run than to search for a good hiding 
place. He might even be able to get out of the drop area.
Five minutes later, Wili was nearly a kilometer away. He moved through a 
burned-out retail area, from cellar to cellar, each connected to the next by 
subtle breaks in the walls. His equipment pack had come loose and the whole 
thing banged painfully against him when he tried to move really fast. He stopped 
briefly to tighten the harness, but that only made the straps cut into his 
shoulders.
In one sense he was lost: He had no idea where he was, or how to get to the 
pickup point the Ndelante and the Jonques had established. On the other hand, he 
knew which direction he should run from, and ÷ if he saw them ÷ he could 
recognize the clues that would lead to some really safe hole that the Ndelante 
would look into after all the fuss died down.
Two kilometers run. Wili stopped to adjust the straps again. Maybe he should 
wait for the others to catch up. If there was a safety hole around here, they 
might know where it was. And then he noticed it, almost in front of him: an 
innocent pattern of scratches and breaks in the cornerstone of a bank building. 
Somewhere in the basement of that bankin the old vault no doubt-were provisions 
and water and probably a hand comm. No wonder the Ndelante behind him had stayed 
so close to his trail. Wili left the dark of the alley and moved across the 
street in a broken run, flitting from one hiding place to the next. It was just 
like the old days ÷ after Uncle Sly but before Paul and math and Jeremy except 
that in those old days, he had more often than not been carried by his fellow 
burglars, since he was too weak for sustained running. Now he was as tough as 
any.
He started down the darkened stairs, his hands fishing outward in almost ritual 
motions to disarm the boobytraps the Ndelante were fond of leaving. Outside 
sounds came very faint down here, but he thought he heard the others, the 
surviving Jonque and however many Ndelante were with him. Just a few more steps 
and he would be in the-"
After so much dark, the light from behind him was blinding. For an instant, Wili 
stared stupidly at his own shadow. Then he dropped and whirled, but there was no 
place to go, and the handflash followed him easily. He stared into the darkness 
around the point of light. He did not have to guess who was holding it.
"Keep your hands in view, Wili," her voice was soft and reasonable. "I really do 
have a gun."
"You're doing your own dirty work now?"
"I figured if I called in the helicopters before catching up, you might bobble 
yourself." The direction of her voice changed. "Go outside and signal the 
choppers down."
"Okay." Rosas' voice had just the mixture of resentment and cowardice that Wili 
remembered from the fishing boat. His footsteps retreated up the stairs.
"Now take off the pack ÷ slowly ÷ and set it on the stairs."
Wili slipped off the straps and advanced up the stairs a pace or two. He stopped 
when she made a warning sound and set the generator down amidst fallen plaster 
and rat droppings. Then Wili sat, pretending to take the weight off his legs. If 
she were just a couple of meters closer..." How could you follow me? No Jonque 
ever could; they don't know the signs." His curiosity was only half pretense. If 
he hadn't been so scared and angry, he would have been humiliated: It had taken 
him years to learn the Ndelante signs, and here a woman ÷ not even an Ndelante ÷ 
had come for the first time into the Basin, and equaled him.
Lu advanced, waving him back from the stairs. She set her flash on the steps and 
began to undo the ties on his pack with her right hand. She did have a gun, an 
Hacha 15-mm, probably taken off one of the Jonques. The muzzle never wavered.
"Signs?" There was honest puzzlement in her voice. "No, Wili, I simply have 
excellent hearing and good legs. It was too dark for serious tracking." She 
glanced into the pack, then slipped the straps over one shoulder, retrieved her 
handflash, and stood up. She had everything now. Through me, she even has Paul, 
he suddenly realized. Wili thought of the holes the Hachca could make, and he 
knew what he must do.
Rosas came back down. "I swung my flash all around, but there's so much light 
and noise over there already, I don't think anyone noticed."
Lu made an irritated noise. "Those featherbrains. What they know about 
surveillance could be-"
And several things happened at once: Wili rushed her. Her light swerved and 
shadows leaped like monsters. There was a ripping, cracking sound. An instant 
later, Lu crashed into the wall and slid down the steps. Rosas stood over her 
crumpled form, a metal bar clutched in his hand. Something glistened dark and 
wet along the side of that bar. Wili took one hesitant step up the stairs, then 
another. Lu lay facedown. She was so small, scarcely taller than he. And so 
still now.
"Did... did you kill her?" He was vaguely surprised at the note of horror, 
almost accusation, in his voice.
Rosas' eyes were wide, staring. "I don't know; I t-tried to. S-sooner or later I 
had to do this. I'm not a traitor, Wili. But at Scripps ÷ " He stopped, seemed 
to realize that this was not the time for long confessions. "Hell, let's get 
this thing off her." He picked up the gun that lay just beyond Lu's now limp 
hand. That action probably saved them.
As he rolled her on her side, Lu exploded, her legs striking at Rosas' 
midsection, knocking him backward onto Wili. The larger man was almost dead 
weight on the boy. By the time Wili pushed him aside, Della Lu was racing up the 
stairs. She ran with a slight stagger, and one arm hung at an awkward angle. She 
still had her handflash. "The gun, Mike, quick!"
But Rosas was doubled in a paroxysm of pain and near paralysis, making faint 
"unh, unh" sounds. Wili snatched the metal bar, and flew up the steps, diving 
low and to one side as he came onto the street.
The precaution was unnecessary: She had not waited in ambush. Amidst the wailing 
of far away sirens, Wili could hear her departing footsteps. Wili looking vainly 
down the street in the direction of the sounds. She was out of sight, but he 
could track her down; this was country he knew.
There was a scrabbling noise from the entrance to the bank. "Wait." It was 
Rosas, half bent over, clutching his middle. "She won, Wili. She won." The words 
were choked, almost voiceless.
The interruption was enough to make Wili pause and realize that Lu had indeed 
won. She was hurt and unarmed, that was true. And with any luck, he could track 
her down in minutes. But by then she would have signaled gun and troop copters; 
they were much nearer than Mike had claimed.
She had won the Authority their own portable bobble generator.
And if Wili couldn't get far away in the next few minutes, the Authority would 
win much more. For a long second, he stared at the Jonque. The undersheriff was 
standing a bit straighter now, breathing at last, in great tormented gasps. He 
really should leave Rosas here. It would divert the troopers for valuable 
minutes, might even insure Wili's escape.
Mike looked back and seemed to realize what was going on his head. Finally Wili 
stepped toward him. "C'mon. We'll get away from them yet."
In ten seconds the street was as empty as it had been all the years before.
TWENTY-NINE
The Jonque nobles believed him when Wili vouched for Mike. That was the second 
big risk he took to get them home. The first had been in evading the Ndelante 
Ali; they had walked out of the Basin on their own, had contacted the Alcalde's 
men directly. Not many Jonques had made it out of the operation, and their 
reports were confused. But the rescue was obviously a great success, so it 
wasn't hard to convince them that there had been no betrayal. Such explanations 
might not have washed with the Ndelante; they already distrusted Wili. And it 
was likely there were black survivors who had seen what really happened.
In any case, Naismith wanted Wili back immediately, and the Jonques knew where 
their hopes for continued survival lay. The two were on their way northward in a 
matter of hours. It was not nearly so luxurious a trip as coming down. They 
traveled back roads in camouflaged wagons, and balanced speed with caution. The 
Aztl‡n convoy knew it was prey to a vigilant enemy.
It was night when they were deposited on a barely marked trail north of Ojai. 
Wili listened to the sounds of the wagon and outriders fade into the lesser 
noises of the night. They stood unspeaking for a minute after, the same silence 
that had been between them through most of the last hours. Finally Wili shrugged 
and started up the dusty trail. It would get them to the cabin of a Tinker 
sympathizer on the other side of the border. At least one horse should be ready 
for them there.
He heard Mike close behind, but there was no talk. This was the first time they 
had really been alone since the walk out of the Basin ÷ and then it had been 
necessary to keep very quiet. Yet even now, Rosas had nothing to say. "I'm not 
angry anymore, Mike." Wili spoke in Spanish; he wanted to say exactly what he 
meant. "You didn't kill Jeremy; I don't think you ever meant to hurt him. And 
you saved my life and probably Paul's when you jumped Lu."
The other made a noncommittal grunt. Otherwise there was just the sound of his 
steps in the dirt and the keening of insects in the dry underbrush. They went on 
another ten meters before Wili abruptly stopped and turned on the other. 
"Damnation! Why won't you talk? There is no one to hear but the hills and me. 
You have all the time in the world."
"Okay, Wili, I'll talk." There was little expression in the voice, and Mike's 
face was scarcely more than a shadow against the sky. "I don't know that it 
matters, but I'll talk." They continued the winding path upward. "I did 
everything you thought, though it wasn't for the Peacers and it wasn't for Della 
Lu... Have you heard of the Huachuca plaguetime, Wili?"
He didn't wait for an answer but rambled on with a loose mixture of history ÷ 
his own and the world's. The Huachuca had been the last of the warplagues. It 
hadn't killed that many in absolute numbers, perhaps a hundred million 
worldwide. But in 2015, that had been one human being in five. "I was born at 
Fort Huachuca, Wili. I don't remember it. We left when I was little. But before 
he died, my father told me a lot. He knew who caused the plagues, and that's why 
he left." The Rosas family had not left Huachuca because of the plague that bore 
its name. Death lapped all around the town, but that and the earlier plagues 
seemed scarcely to affect it.
Mike's sisters were born after they left; they had sickened and slowly died. The 
family had moved slowly north and west, from one dying town to the next. As in 
all the plagues, there was great material wealth for the survivors ÷ but in the 
desert, when a town died, so did services that made further life possible. "My 
father left because he discovered the secret of Huachuca, Wili. They were like 
the La Jolla group, only more arrogant. Father was an orderly in their research 
hospital. He didn't have real technical training. Hell, he was just a kid when 
the War and the early plagues hit." By that time, government warfare ÷ and the 
governments themselves ÷ were nearly dead. The old military machinery was too 
expensive to maintain. Any further state assaults on the Peace must be with 
cheaper technologies. This was the story the Peacer histories told, but Mike's 
father had seen its truth. He had seen shipments going to the places that were 
first to report the plague, shipments that were postdated and later listed as 
medical supplies for the victims.
He even overheard a conversation, orders explicitly given. It was then he 
decided to leave. "He was a good man, Wili, but maybe a coward, too. He should 
have tried to expose the operation. He should have tried to convince the Peacers 
to kill those monsters. And they were monsters, Wili. By the teens, everyone 
knew the governments were finished. What Huachuca did was pure vengeance... I 
remember when the Authority finally figured out where that plague came from. 
Father was still alive then, very sick though. I was only six, but he had told 
me the story over and over. I couldn't understand why he cried when I told him 
Huachuca had been bobbled; then I saw he was laughing, too. People really do cry 
for joy, Wili. They really do."
To their left, the ground fell almost vertically. Wili could not see if the drop 
was two meters or fifty. The Jonques had given him a night scope, but they'd 
told him its batteries would run down in less than an hour. He was saving it for 
later. In any case, the path was wide enough so that there was no real danger of 
falling. It followed the side of the hills, winding back and forth, reaching 
higher and higher. From his memory of the maps, he guessed they should soon 
reach the crest. Soon after that, they would be able to see the cabin.
Mike was silent for along time, and Wili did not immediately reply. Six years 
old. Wili remembered when he was six. If coincidence and foolhardy determination 
had not thrust him into the truth, he would have gone through life convinced 
that Jonques had kidnapped him from Uncle Sly, and that ÷ with Sly gone ÷ the 
Ndelante were his only friends and defenders. Two years ago, he had learned 
better. The raid ÷ yes, it had been Jonque ÷ but done at the secret request of 
the Ndelante. Ebenezer had been angered by the unFaithful like Uncle Sly who 
used the water upstream from the Ndelante reservoir. Besides, the Faithful were 
ready to move into Glendora, and they needed an outside enemy to make their 
takeover easier. It worked the other way, too: Jonque commoners without lords 
protector lived in constant fear of Ndelante raids.
Wili shrugged. It was not something he would say to Mike. Huachuca was probably 
everything he thought. Still, Wili had infinite cynicism when it came to the 
alleged motives of organizations.
Wili had seen treacheries big and small, organizational and personal. He knew 
Mike believed all he said, that he'd done in La Jolla what he thought right, 
that he'd done it and still tried to do the job of protecting Wili and Jeremy 
that he had been hired for.
The trail dipped, moved steadily downward. They were past the crest. Several 
hundred meters further on, the scrub forest opened up a little, and they could 
look into small valley. Wili motioned Mike down. He pulled the Jonque night 
scope from his pack and looked across the valley. It was heavier than the 
glasses Red Arrow had loaned him, but it had a magnifier, and it was easy to 
pick out the house and the trails that led in and out of the valley.
There were no lights in the farmhouse. It might have been abandoned except that 
he could see two horses m the corral. "These people aren't Tinkers, but they are 
friends, Mike. I think it's safe. With those horses, we can get back to Paul in 
just a few days."
"What do you mean `we,' Wili? Haven't you been listening? I did betray you. I'm 
the last person you should trust to know where Paul is."
"I listened. I know what you did, and why. That's more than I know about most 
people. And there's nothing there about betraying Paul or the Tinkers. True?"
"Yes. The Peacers aren't the monsters the plaguemakers were, but they are an 
enemy. I'll do most anything to stop them... only, I guess I couldn't kill 
Della. I almost came apart when I thought she was dead back in the ruins; I 
couldn't try again."
Wili was silent a moment. "Okay. Maybe I couldn't either."
"It's still a crazy risk for you to take. I should be going to Santa Ynez."
"They'll likely know about you, Mike. We got out of L.A. just ahead of the news 
that you ran with Delia. Your sheriff might still accept you, but none of the 
others, I'll bet. Paul though, he needs another pair of strong hands; he may 
have to move fast. Bringing you in is safer than calling the Tinkers and telling 
them where to send help."
More silence. Wili raised the scope and took one more look up and down the 
valley. He felt Mike's hand on his shoulder. "Okay. But we tell Paul straight 
out about me, so he can decide what to do with me."
The boy nodded. "And, Wili... thanks."
They stood and started into the valley. Wili suddenly found himself grinning. He 
felt so proud. Not smug, just proud. For the first time in his life, he had been 
the strong shoulder for someone else.
THIRTY
What Wili had missed most, even more than Paul and the Moraleses, was the 
processor hookup. Now that he was back, he spent several hours every day in deep 
connect. Most of the rest of the time he wore the connector. In discussions with 
Paul and Allison, it was comforting to have those extra resources available, to 
feel the background programs proceeding.
Even more, it brought him a feeling of safety.
And safety was something that had drained away, day by day. Six months ago, he 
had thought the mansion perfectly hidden, so far away in the mountains, so 
artfully concealed in the trees. That was before the Peacers started looking for 
them, and before Allison Parker talked to him about aerial reconnaissance. For 
precious weeks the search had centered in Northern California and Oregon, but 
now it had been expanded and spread both south and east. Before, the only 
aircraft they ever saw was the L.A./Livermore shuttle ÷ and that was so far to 
the east, you had to know exactly where and when to look to see a faint glint of 
silver.
Now they saw aircraft several times a week. The patterns sketched across the sky 
formed a vast net ÷ and they were the fish.
"All the camouflage in the world won't help, if they decide you're hiding in 
Middle California," Mike's voice was tight with urgency. He walked across the 
veranda and tugged at the green-and-brown shroud he and Bill Morales had hung 
over all the exposed stonework and hard corners of the mansion. Gone were the 
days when they could sit out by the pond and admire the far view.
Paul protested, "It's no ordinary camouflage, it-"
"I know it was a lot of work. You've told me Allison and the Moraleses spent two 
weeks putting it together. I know she and Wili added a few electronic twists 
that make it even better than it looks. But, Paul" ÷ he sat down and glared at 
Paul, as if to persuade by the force of his own conviction "they have other 
ways. They can interrogate del Norte ÷ or at least his subordinates. That will 
get them to Ojai. They've raided Red Arrow and Santa Ynez and the market towns 
further north. Apparently the few people ÷ like Kaladze who really know your 
location have escaped. But no matter how many red herrings you've dropped over 
the years, they're eventually going to narrow things down to this part of the 
country."
"And there's Della Lu," said Allison.
Mike's eyes widened, and Wili could see that the comment had almost unhorsed 
him. Then he seemed to realize that it was not a jibe. "Yes, there's Lu. I've 
always thought this place must be closer to Santa Ynez than the other trading 
towns: I laid my share of red herrings on Della. But she's very clever. She may 
figure it out. The point is this: In the near future, they'll put the whole hunt 
on this part of California. It won't be just a plane every other day. If they 
can spare the people, they might actually do ground sweeps."
"What are you suggesting, Mike?" Allison again.
"That we move. Take the big wagon, stuff it with all the equipment we need, and 
move. If we study the search patterns and time it right, I think we could get 
out of Middle California, maybe to some place in Nevada. We have to pick a place 
we can reach without running into people on the way, and it has to be some ways 
from here; once they find the mansion, they'll try to trace us... I know, it'll 
be risky, but it's our only chance if we want to last more than another month."
Now it was Paul's turn to be upset. "Damn it, we can't move. Not now. Even if we 
could bring all the important equipment which we can't ÷ it would still be 
impossible. I can't afford the time, Mike. The Tinkers need the improvements I'm 
sending out; they need those bobble generators if they're going to fight back. 
If we take a month's vacation now, the revolution will be lost. We'll be safe in 
some hole in Nevada-safe to watch everything we've worked for go down the 
tubes." He thought a moment and came up with another objection. "Hell, I bet we 
couldn't even keep in touch with the Tinkers afterwards. I've spent years 
putting together untraceable communication links from here. A lot of it depends 
on precise knowledge of local terrain and climate. Our comm would make us 
sitting ducks if we moved."
Throughout the discussion, Wili sat quietly at the edge of the veranda, where 
the sunlight came through the camouflage mesh most strongly. In the back of his 
mind, Jill was providing constant updates on the Authority broadcasts she 
monitored. From the recon satellites, he knew the location of all aircraft 
within a thousand kilometers. They might be captured, but they could never be 
surprised.
This omniscience was little use in the present debate. At one extreme, he "knew" 
millions of little facts that together formed their situation; at the other, he 
knew mathematical theories that governed those facts. In between, in matters of 
judgment, he sensed his incompetence. He looked at Allison. "What do you think? 
Who is right?"
She hesitated just a moment. "It's the reconnaissance angle I really know." It 
was eerie watching Allison. She was Jill granted real-world existence. "If the 
Peacers are competent, then I don't see how Mike could be wrong." She looked at 
Naismith. "Paul, you say the Tinkers' revolt will be completely suppressed if we 
take time out to move. I don't know; that seems a much iffier contention. Of 
course, if you're both right, then we've had the course..." She gazed up at the 
dappled sunlight coming through the green-brown mesh. "You know, Paul, I almost 
wish you and Wili hadn't trashed the Authority's satellite system."
"What?" Wili said abruptly. That sabotage was his big contribution. Besides, he 
hadn't "trashed" the system, only made it inaccessible to the Authority. "They 
would find us long ago with their satellites, if I had not done that."
Allison held up her hand. "I believe it. From what I've seen, they don't have 
the resources or the admin structure for wide air recon. I just meant that given 
time we could have sabotaged their old comm and recon system ÷ in such a way 
that the Peacers would think it was still working." She smiled at the 
astonishment on their faces. "These last weeks, I've been studying what you know 
about their old system. It's really the automated USAF comm and recon scheme. We 
had it fully in place right before... everything blew up. In theory it could 
handle all our command and control functions. All you needed was the satellite 
system, the ground receivers and computers, and maybe a hundred specialists. In 
theory, it meant we didn't need air recon or land lines. In theory. OMBP was 
always twisting our arm to junk our other systems and rely on the automated one 
instead. They could cut our budget in half that way."
She grinned. "Of course we never went along. We needed the other systems. 
Besides, we knew how fragile the automated system was. It was slick, it was 
thorough, but one or two rotten apples on the maintenance staff could pervert 
it, generate false interpretations, fake communications. We demanded the budget 
for the other systems that would keep it honest.
"Now it's obvious that the Peacers just took it over. They either didn't know or 
didn't care about the dangers; in any case, I bet they didn't have the resources 
to run the other systems the Air Force could. If we could have infiltrated a 
couple people into their technical staff, we could be making them see whatever 
we wanted. They'd never find us out here." She shrugged. "But you're right; at 
this point it's just wishful thinking. It might have taken months or years to do 
something like that. You had to get results right away."
"Damn," said Paul. "All those years of clever planning, and I never..."
"Oh, Paul," she said softly. "You are a genius. But you couldn't know everything 
about everything. You couldn't be a one-man revolution."
"Yeah," said Mike. "And he couldn't convince the rest of us that there was 
anything worth revolting against."
Wili just stared, his eyes wide, his jaw slack. It would be harder than anything 
he had done before but, "Maybe you do not need spies, Allison. Maybe we can... 
I've got to think about this. We've still got days. True, Mike?"
"Unless we have real bad luck. With good luck we might have weeks."
"Good. Let me think. I must think..." He stood up and walked slowly indoors. 
Already the veranda, the sunlight, the others were forgotten.
It was not easy. In the months before he learned to use the mind connect, it 
would have been impossible; even a lifetime of effort would not have brought the 
necessary insights. Now creativity was in harness with his processors. He knew 
what he wanted to do. In a matter of hours he could test his ideas, separate 
false starts from true.
The recon problem was the most important-and probably the easiest. Now he didn't 
want to block Peacer reception. He wanted them to receive... lies. A lot of 
preprocessing was done aboard the satellites; just a few bytes altered here and 
there might be enough to create false perceptions on the ground. Somehow he had 
to break into those programs, but not in the heavy-handed way he had before. 
Afterward, the truth would be received by them alone. The enemy would see what 
Paul wanted them to see. Why, they could protect not just themselves, but many 
of the tinkers as well!
Days passed. The answers came miraculously fast, and perilously slow. At the 
edge of his consciousness, Wili knew Paul was helping with the physics, and 
Allison was entering what she knew about the old USAF comm/recon system. It all 
helped, but the hard inner problem ÷ how to subvert a system without seeming to 
and without any physical contact remained his alone.
They finally tested it. Wili took his normal video off a satellite over Middle 
California, analyzed it quickly, and sent back subtle sabotage. On the next 
orbit, he simulated Peacer reception: A small puff of synthetic cloud appeared 
in the picture, just where he had asked. The satellite processors could keep up 
the illusion until they received coded instructions to do otherwise. It was a 
simple change. Once operational, they could make more complicated alterations: 
Certain vehicles might not be reported on the roads, certain houses might become 
invisible.
But the hard part had been done.
"Now all we have to do is let the Peacers know their recon birds are `working' 
again," said Allison when he showed them his tests. She was grinning from ear to 
ear. At first Wili had wondered why she was so committed to the Tinker cause; 
everything she was loyal to had been dead fifty years.
The Tinkers didn't even exist when her orbiter was bobbled. But it hadn't taken 
him long to understand: She was like Paul. She blamed the Peacers for taking 
away the old world. And in her case, that was a world fresh in memory. She might 
not know anything about the Tinkers, but her hate for the Authority was as deep 
as Paul's.
"Yeah," said Paul. "Wili could just return the comm protocols to their original 
state. All of a sudden the Peacers would have a live system again. But even as 
stupid as they are, they'd suspect something. We have to do this so they think 
that somehow they have solved the problem. Hmm. I'll bet Avery still has people 
working on this even now."
"Okay," said Wili. "I fix things so the satellites will not start sending to 
them until they do a complete recompile of their ground programs."
Paul nodded. "That sounds perfect. We might have to wait a few more days, but-"
Allison laughed. " ÷ but I know programmers. They'll be happy to believe their 
latest changes have fixed the problem."
Wili smiled back. He was already imagining how similar things could be done to 
the Peacer communication system.
THIRTY-ONE
War had returned to the planet. Hamilton Avery read the Peace Authority News 
Service article and nodded to himself. The headline and the following story hit 
just the right note: For decades, the world had been at peace, thanks to the 
Authority and the cooperation of peace-loving individuals around the world. But 
now ÷ as in the early days, when the bioscience clique had attempted its 
takeover ÷ the power lust of an evil minority had thrown the lives of humankind 
into jeopardy. One could only pray that the ultimate losses would not be as 
great as those of the War and the plagues.
The news service story didn't say all this explicitly. It was targeted for high 
tech regions in the Americas and China and concentrated on "objective" reporting 
of Tinker atrocities and the evidence that the Tinkers were building energy 
weapons-and bobble generators. The Peace hadn't tried to cover up that last 
development: A four-hundred-meter bobble floating through the skies of L.A. is a 
bit difficult to explain, much less cover up.
Of course, these stories wouldn't convince the Tinkers themselves, but they were 
a minority in the population. The important thing was to keep other citizens ÷ 
and the national militias ÷ from joining the enemy.
The comm chimed softly. "Yes?"
"Sir, Director Gerrault is on the line again. He sounds very... upset."
Avery stifled a smile. The comm was voice-only, but even when alone, Avery tried 
to disguise his true feelings. "Director" Gerrault indeed! There might still be 
a place for that pupal Bonaparte in the organization, but hardly as a Director. 
Best to let him hang a few hours more. "Please report to Monsieur Gerrault ÷ 
again ÷ that the emergency situation here prevents my immediate response. I'll 
get to him as soon as humanly possible."
"Uh, yes, sir... Agent Lu is down here. She also wishes to see you."
"That's different. Send her right up."
Avery leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. Beyond the clear glass 
of the window wall, the lands around Livermore spread away in peace and silence. 
In the near distance ÷ yet a hundred meters beneath his tower ÷ were the 
black-and-ivory buildings of the modern centrum, each one separated from the 
others by green parkland. Farther away, near the horizon, the golden grasses of 
summer were broken here and there by clusters of oaks. It was hard to imagine 
such peace disrupted by the pitiful guerrilla efforts of the world's Tinkers.
Poor Gerrault. Avery remembered his boast of being the industrious ant who built 
armies and secret police while the American and Chinese Directors depended on 
the people's good will and trust. Gerrault had spread garrisons from Oslo to 
Capetown, from Dublin to Szczecin. He had enough troopers to convince the common 
folk that he was just another tyrant. When the Tinkers finally got Paul 
Hoehler's toy working, the people and the governments had not hesitated to throw 
in with them. And then... and then Gerrault had discovered that his garrisons 
were not nearly enough. Most were now overrun, not so much by the enemy's puny 
bobble generators, as by all the ordinary people who no longer believed in the 
Authority. At the same time, the Tinkers had moved against the heart of 
Gerrault's operation in Paris. Where the European Director's headquarters once 
stood, there was now a simple monument: a three-hundred-meter silver sphere. 
Gerrault had gotten out just before the debacle, and was now skulking about in 
the East European deserts, trying to avoid the Teuton militia, trying to arrange 
transportation to California or China. It was a fitting end to his tyranny, but 
it was going to be one hell of a problem retaking Europe after the rest of the 
Tinkers were put down.
There was a muted knock at the door, and Avery pressed "open," then stood with 
studied courtesy as Della Lu stepped into the room. He gestured to a comfortable 
chair near the end of his desk, and they both sat.
Week by week his show of courtesy toward this woman was less an act. He had come 
to realize that there was no one he trusted more than her. She was as competent 
as any man in his top departments, and there was a loyalty about her-not a 
loyalty to Avery personally, he realized, but to the whole concept of the Peace. 
Outside of the old-time Directors, he had never seen this sort of dedication. 
Nowadays, Authority middle-management was cynical, seemed to think that idealism 
was the affliction of fools and low-level flunkies. And if Della Lu was faking 
her dedication, even in that she was a world champion; Avery had forty years of 
demonstrated success in estimating others' characters.
"How is your arm?"
Lu clicked the light plastic cast with a fingernail. "Getting well slowly. But I 
can't complain. It was a compound fracture. I was lucky I didn't bleed to 
death... You wanted my estimate of enemy potential in the Americas?"
Always business. "Yes. What can we expect?"
"I don't know this area the way I did Mongolia, but I've talked with your 
section chiefs and the franchise owners."
Avery grinned to himself. Between staff optimism and franchise-owner gloom she 
thought to find the truth. Clever.
"The Authority has plenty of good will in Old Mexico and Americacentral. Those 
people never had it so good, they don't trust what's left of their governments, 
and they have no large Tinker communities. Chile and Argentina we are probably 
going to lose: They have plenty of people capable of building generators from 
the plans that Hoehler broadcast. Without our satellite net we can't give our 
people down there the comm and recon support they need to win. If the locals 
want to kick us out badly enough, they'll be able ÷"
Avery held up a hand. "Our satellite problems have been
cleared up."
"What? Since when?"
"Three days. I've kept it a secret within our technical branch, until we were 
sure it was not just a temporary fix."
"Hmm. I don't trust machines that choose their own time and place to work."
"Yes. We know now the Tinkers must have infiltrated some of our software 
departments and slipped tailor-made bugs into our controller codes. Over the 
last few weeks, the techs ran a bunch of tests, and they've finally spotted the 
changes. We've also increased physical security in the programming areas; it was 
criminally lax before. I don't think we'll lose satellite communications again."
She nodded. "This should make our counter-work a lot easier. I don't know 
whether it will be enough to prevent the temporary loss of the Far South, but it 
should be a big help in North America."
She leaned forward. "Sir, I have several recommendations about our local 
operations. First, I think we should stop wasting our time hunting for Hoehler. 
If we pick him up along with the other ringleaders, fine. But he's done about 
all the harm he-"
"No!" The word broke sharply from his lips. Avery looked over Lu's head at the 
portrait of Jackson Avery on the wall. The painting had been done from photos, 
several years after his father's death. The man's dress and haircut were archaic 
and severe. The gaze from those eyes was the uncompromising, unforgiving one he 
had seen so many times. Hamilton Avery had forbidden the cult of personality, 
and nowhere else in Livermore were there portraits of leaders. Yet he, a leader, 
was the follower of such a cult. For three decades he had lived beneath that 
picture. And every time he looked at it, he remembered his failure-so many years 
ago. "No," he said again, this time in a softer voice. "Second only to 
protecting Livermore itself, destroying Paul Hoehler must remain: your highest 
priority.
"Don't you see, Miss Lu? People have said before, 'That Paul Hoehler, he has 
caused us a lot of harm, but there is nothing more he can do.' And yet Hoehler 
has always done more harm. He is a genius, Miss Lu, a mad genius who has hated 
us for fifty years. Personally, I think he's always knows: that bobbles don't 
last forever, and that time stops inside. I think he has chosen now to cause the 
Tinker revolt because he knew when the old bobbles would burst. Even if we are 
quick to rebobble the big places like Vandenberg and Langley, there are still 
thousands of smaller installations than will fall back into normal time during 
the next few years. Somehow he intends to use the old armies against us." Avery 
guessed that Lu's blank expression was hiding skepticisrn Like the other 
Directors, she just could not believe in Paul Hoehler. He tried a different 
tack.
"There is objective evidence." He described the orbiter crash that had so 
panicked the Directors ten weeks earlier. After the attack on the L.A. Enclave, 
it was obvious that the orbiter was not from outer space, but from the past. In 
fact, it must have been the Air Force snooper Jackson Avery bobbled in those 
critical hours just before he won the world for Peace. Livermore technical teams 
had been over the wreck again and again, and one thing was certain: There had 
been a third crewman. One had died as the bobble burst, one had been shot by 
incompetent troopers, and one had... disappeared. That missing crewman, suddenly 
waking in an unimagined future, could not have escaped on his own. The Tinkers 
must have known that this bobble was about to burst, must have known what was 
inside it.
Lu was no toady; clearly she was unconvinced. "But what use would they have for 
such a crewman? Anything he could tell them would be fifty years out of date."
What could he say? It all had the stench of Hoehler's work: devious, 
incomprehensible, yet leading inexorably to some terrible conclusion that would 
not be fully recognized until it was too late. But there was no way he could 
convince even Lu. All he could do was give orders. Pray God that was enough. 
Avery sat back and tried to reassume the air of dignity he normally projected. 
"Forgive the lecture, Miss Lu. This is really a policy issue. Suffice it to say 
that Paul Hoehler must remain one of our prime targets. Please continue with 
your recommendations."
"Yes, sir." She was all respect again. "I'm sure you know that the technical 
people have stripped down the Hoehler generator. The projector itself is well 
understood now. At least the scientists have come up with theories that can 
explain what they previously thought impossible." Was there a faintly sarcastic 
edge to that comment? "The part we can't reproduce is the computer support. If 
you want the power supply to be portable, you need very complex, high-speed 
processing to get the bobble on target. It's a trade-off we can't manage.
"But the techs have figured how to calibrate our generators. We can now project 
bobbles lasting anywhere from ten to two hundred years. They see theoretical 
limits on doing much better."
Avery nodded; he had been following those developments closely.
"Sir, this has political significance."
"How so?"
"We can turn what the Tinkers did to us in L.A. around. They bobbled their 
friends off the Tradetower to protect them. They know precisely how long it will 
last, and we don't. It's very clever: we'd look foolish putting a garrison at 
Big Bear to wait for our prisoners to 'return.' But it works the other way: 
Everyone knows now that bobbling is not permanent, is not fatal. This makes it 
the perfect way to take suspected enemies out of circulation. Some high Aztl‡n 
nobles were involved with this rescue. In the past we couldn't afford vengeance 
against such persons. If we went around shooting everyone we suspect of treason, 
we'd end up like the European Directorate. But now...
"I recommend we raid those we suspect of serious Tinkering, stage brief 
'hearings' ÷ don't even call them 'trials' and then embobble everyone who might 
be a threat. Our news service can make this very reasonable and nonthreatening: 
We have already established that the Tinkers are involved-with high-energy 
weapons research, and quite possibly with bioscience. Most people fear the 
second far more than the first, by the way. I infiltrated the Tinkers by taking 
advantage of that fear.
"These facts should be enough to keep the rest of the population from 
questioning the economic impact of taking out the Tinkers. At the same time, 
they will not fear us enough to band together. Even if we occasionally bobble 
popular or powerful persons, the public will know that this is being done 
without harm to the prisoners, and for a limited period of time ÷ which we can 
announce in advance. The idea is that we are handling a temporary emergency with 
humanity, greater humanity than they could expect from mere governments."
Avery nodded, concealing his admiration. After reading of her performance in 
Mongolia, he had half expected Lu to be a female version of Christian Gerrault. 
But her ideas were: sensible, subtle. When necessary she did not shrink from 
force, yet she also realized that the Authority was not all powerful, that a 
balancing act was sometimes necessary to maintain the Peace. There really were 
people in this new generation who could carry on. If only this one were not a 
woman.
"I agree. Miss Lu, I want you to continue to report directly to me. I will 
inform the North American section that you have temporary authority for all 
operations in California and Aztl‡n ÷ if things go well, I will push for more. 
In the meantime, let me know if any of the 'old-hands' are not cooperating with 
you. This is not the time for jealousy"
Avery hesitated, unsure whether to end the meeting, or bring Lu into the 
innermost circle. Finally he keyed a command to his display flat and handed it 
to Lu. Besides himself ÷ and perhaps Tioulang ÷ she was the only person really 
qualified to handle Operation Renaissance. "This is a summary. I'll want you to 
learn the details later; I could use your advice on how to split the operation 
into uncoupled subprojects that we can run at lower classifications."
Lu picked up the flat and saw the Special Material classification glowing at the 
top of the display. Not more than ten people now living had seen Special 
Materials; only top agents knew of the classification ÷ and then only as a 
theoretical possibility. Special Materials were never committed to paper or 
transmitted; communication of such information was by courier with encrypted, 
booby-trapped ROMs that self-destructed after being read.
Lu's eyes flickered down the Renaissance summary. She nodded agreement as she 
read the description of Redoubt 001 and the bobble generator to be installed 
there. She pushed the page key and her eyes suddenly widened; she had reached 
the discussion that gave Renaissance its name. Her face paled as she read the 
page.
She finished and silently handed him the flat. "It's a terrifying possibility, 
is it not, Miss Lu?"
"Yes, sir."
And even more than before, Avery knew he had made the right decision; 
Renaissance was a responsibility that should frighten. "Winning with Renaissance 
would in many ways be as bad as the destruction of the Peace. It is there as the 
ultimate contingency, and by God rue must win without it."
Avery was silent for a moment and then abruptly smiled. "But don't worry; think 
of it as caution to the point of paranoia. If we do a competent job, there's not 
a chance that we'll lose." He stood and came around his desk to show her to the 
door.
Lu stood, but did not move toward the door. Instead, she stepped toward the wide 
glass wall and looked at the golden hills along the horizon.
"Quite a view, isn't it?" Avery said, a bit nonplussed. She had been so 
purposeful, so militarily precise ÷ yet now she tarried over a bit of landscape. 
"I can never decide whether I like it more when the hills are summer gold or 
spring green."
She nodded, but didn't seem to be listening to the chitchat. "There's one other 
thing, sir. One other thing I wanted to bring up. We have the power to crush the 
Tinkers in North America; the situation is not like Europe. But craft has won 
against power before. If I were on the other side..."
"Yes?"
"If I were making their strategy, I would attack Livermore and try to bobble our 
generator."
"Without high-energy sources they can't attack us from a distance."
She shrugged. "That's our scientists' solemn word. And six months ago they would 
have argued volumes that bobbles can't be generated without nuclear power... But 
let's assume that they're right. Even then I would try to come up with some 
attack plan, some way of getting in close enough to bobble the Authority 
generator."
Avery looked out his window, seeing the beautiful land with Lu's vision: as a 
possible battlefield, to be analyzed for fields of fire and interdiction zones. 
At first glance it was impossible to imagine any group getting in undetected, 
but from camping trips long ago he remembered all the ravines out there. Thank 
God the recon satellites were back in operation.
That would protect against only part of the danger. There was still the 
possibility that the enemy might use traitors to smuggle a Tinker bobble 
generator into the area. Avery's attention turned inward, calculating. He smiled 
to himself. Either way it wouldn't do them any good. It was common knowledge 
that one of the Authority's bobble generators was at Livermore (the other being 
at Beijing). And there were thousands of Authority personnel who routinely 
entered the Livermore Enclave. But that was a big area, almost fifty kilometers 
in its longest dimension. Somewhere in there was the generator and its power 
supply, but out of all the millions on Earth, only five knew exactly where that 
generator was housed, and scarcely fifty had access. The bobbler had been built 
under the cover of projects Jackson Avery contracted for the old LEL. Those 
projects had been the usual combination of military and energy research. The LEL 
and the US military had been only too happy to have them proceed in secret and 
had made it possible for the elder Avery to build his gadgets underground and 
well away from his official headquarters. Avery had seen to it that not even the 
military liaison had really known where everything was. After the War, that 
secrecy had been maintained: In the early days, the remnants of the US 
government still had had enough power to destroy the bobbler if they had known 
its location.
And now that secrecy was paying off: The only way Hoehler could accomplish what 
Lu predicted was if he found some way of making Vandenberg-sized bobbles... The 
old fear welled up: That was just the sort of thing the monster was capable of.
He looked at Lu with a feeling that surpassed respect and bordered on awe: She 
was not merely competent ÷ she could actually think like Hoehler. He took her by 
the arm and led her to the door. "You've helped more than you can know, Miss 
Lu."
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."
"S’. 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 
Aztl‡n.
"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 Aztl‡n. 
"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 Aztl‡n 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