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 —
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
