The Peace War (37 page)

"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!"

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.

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?