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,
