The Peace War

'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 Aztlan 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 Aztlan 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