The Peace War (24 page)

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."

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.