The Peace War

Of course, none of these tricks would have helped if Paul had not been very cautious all these years; he and Bill Morales had traveled great distances to shop at towns farther up the coast. Many Tinkers thought his hideout was in Northern California or even Oregon. As long as the Peacers didn't pick up any of the few people who had actually visited here-say at the NCC meeting- they might be safe.

Wili frowned. There was still the greatest threat. Miguel Rosas probably did not know the location, though he must suspect it was in Middle California. But Wili was sure Colonel Kaladze knew. It could only be a matter of time before Mike and the Lu woman ferreted out the secret. If subtlety were unsuccessful, then Lu would no doubt call in the Peace goons and try to beat it out of him. Are they still on the farm?

Yes. And there have been no outgoing calls from them. However, the Colonel's ten-day promise lapses tomorrow. Then Kaladze would no doubt let Lu call her 'family' in San Francisco. But if she hadn't called in the army already, she must not have anything critical to report to her bosses.

Wili had not told Paul what he knew of Mike and Lu. Perhaps he should. But after trying to tell Kaladze... Instead he'd been trying to identify Della Lu with independent evidence. More than ten percent of Jill's time was spent in the effort. So far she had nothing definite. The story about relatives in the Bay Area appeared to be true. If he had some way of tapping Peacer communication or records, things would be different. He saw now he should have disabled their recon satellites alone. If their comsats were usable, it would give them some advantage — but perhaps he could eventually break into their high crypto channels. As it was, he knew very little about what went on inside the Authority .

...and sometimes, he really wondered if Colonel Kaladze might be right. Wili had been half-delirious that morning on the boat; Mike and Della had been several meters away. Was it possible he'd misinterpreted what he heard? Was it possible they were innocent after all? No! By the One True God, he had heard what he had heard. Kaladze hadn't been there.

TWENTY FIVE

Sunlight still lay on the hills, but the lowlands and Lake Lompoc were shrouded in blue shadows. Paul sat on his veranda and listened to the news that Wili's electronic spies brought in from all over the world.

There was a small cough and Naismith looked up. For an instant he thought it was Allison standing there. Then he noticed how carefully she stood between him and the holo surface built into the wall. If he moved more than a few centimeters, parts of the image would be cut off: This was only Jill.

'Hi.' He motioned for her to come and sit. She stepped forward, careful to generate those little moving sounds that made her projection seem more real, and sat in the image of a chair. Paul watched her face as she approached. There really were differences, he realized. Allison was very pretty, but he had made Jill's face beautiful. And of course the personalities were subtly different, too. It could not have been otherwise considering that he had done his design from memories forty-five years stale (or embellished), and considering that the design had grown by itself in response to his reactions. The real Allison was more outgoing, more impatient. And Allison's mere presence seemed to be changing Jill. The interface program had been much quieter these last days.

He smiled at her, 'You've got the new bobble theory all worked out?'

She grinned back and was more like Allison than ever. 'Your theory. I do nothing but crunch away-'

'I set up the theory. It would take a hundred lifetimes for me to do the symbolic math and see the theory's significance.' It was a game they — he — had played many times before. The back and forth had always made Jill seem so real. 'What have you got?'

'Everything seems consistent. There are a lot of things that were barred under your old theory, that are still impossible: It's still impossible to burst a bobble before its time. It's impossible to generate a bobble around an existing one. On the other hand — in theory at least — it should be possible to balk an enemy bobbler.'

'Hmm... ' Simply carrying a small bobble was a kind of defense against bobble attack — a very risky defense, once noticed: It would force the attacker to project smaller bobbles, or off-center ones, trying to find a volume that wasn't 'banned.' A device that could prevent bobbles from being formed nearby would be a tremendous improvement, and Naismith had guessed the new theory might allow such, but...

'Betcha that last will be an engineering impossibility for a long time. We should concentrate on making a low-power bobbler. That looks hard enough.'

'Yes. Wili's right on schedule with that.'

Jill's image suddenly froze, then flicked out of existence. Naismith heard the veranda door slide open. 'Hi, Paul,' came Allison's voice. She walked up the steps. 'You out here by yourself?'

'...Yes. Just thinking.'

She walked to the edge of the veranda and looked westward. These last weeks, every day had brought more change in Paul's life and in the world beyond the mountains than a normal year. Yet for Allison, it was different. Her world had turned inside out in the space of an hour. He knew the present rate of change was agonizingly slow for her. She paced the stone flags, stopping occasionally to glare off into the sunset at the Vandenberg Bobble.

Allison. Allison. Few old men had dreams come quite so stunningly true. She was so young; her energy seemed to flash about her in every stride, in every quick movement of her arms. In some ways the memories of Allison lost were less hurtful than the present reality. Still, he was glad he had not succeeded in disguising what became of Paul