The Peace War

After they were settled and lookouts were posted at the nearest peepholes, the sabio sat beside Wili and smiled. 'And now, young friend, we have hours to sit, time for you to tell us just what you meant when you said that the bobble will burst, and that time stops inside.' He spoke quietly, and considering the present situation — it was a reasonable question. But Wili recognized the tone. On the other side of the hallway, the Alcalde's man leaned forward to listen. There was just enough light in the musty hallway for Wili to see the faint smile on Lu's face.

He must mix truth and lies just right. It would be along afternoon.

TWENTY-EIGHT

The hallway was brighter now. As the sun set, its light came nearly horizontally through the rips near the ceiling and splashed bloody light down upon them. The air patrols had spread over a vast area, and the nearest tanks were several thousand meters away; Ebenezer's man had coordinated a series of clever decoy operations — the sort of thing Wili had seen done several times against the Jonques.

'iDel Nico Dio!' It was almost a shriek. The lookout at the end of the hall jumped down from his perch. 'It's happening. Just as he said. It's flying!'

Ebenezer's sabio made angry shushing motions, but the group moved quickly to the opening, the sabio and chief Jonque forcing their way to the front. Wili crawled between them and looked through one of the smaller chinks in the plaster and concrete: The evening haze was red. The sun sat half-dissolved in the deeper red beyond the Enclave towers.

And hanging just above the skyline was a vast new moon, a dark sphere edged by a crescent of red: The bobble had risen off the top of the Tradetower and was slowly drifting with the evening breeze toward the west.

'Mother of God,' the Alcalde's man whispered to himself. Even with understanding, this was hard to grasp. The bobble, with its cargo of afternoon air, was lighter than the evening air around it, was the largest hot air balloon in history. And sailing into the sunset with it went the Tinker hostages. The noise of aircraft came louder, as the hornets returned to their nest and buzzed around this latest development. One of the insects strayed too close to the vast smooth arc. Its rotor shattered; the helicopter fell away, turning and turning.

The sabio glanced down at Wili. 'You're sure it will come inland?'

'Yes. Uh, Naismith studied the wind patterns very carefully. It's just a matter of time — weeks at most — before it grounds in the mountains. The Authority will know soon enough — along with the rest of the world — the secret of the bobbles, but they won't know just when this one will burst. If the bobble ends up far enough away, the other problems we are going to cause them will be so big they won't post a permanent force around it. Then, when it finally bursts...'

'I know, I know. When it finally bursts we're there to rescue them. But ten years is long to sleep.'

It would actually be one year. That had been one of Wili's little lies. If Lu and the Peacers didn't know the potential for short-lived bobbles, then It suddenly occurred to him that Della Lu was no longer in his sight. He turned quickly from the wall and looked down the hallway. But she and Rosas were still there, sitting next to a couple of Jonque goons who had not joined the crush at the peephole. 'Look, I think we should try to make it back to the tunnel now. The Peacers have plenty of new problems, and it's pretty dark down in the street.'

Ebenezer's man smiled. 'Now, what would you know about evading armed men in the Basin?' More than ever Wili was sure the sabio recognized him, but for now the other was not going to make anything of it. He turned to the Jonque chief. 'The boy's probably right.'

Wili retrieved the generator, and one by one they descended via the rope sling to the ruined garages below the apartment house. The last man slipped the rope from its mooring. The blacks spent several minutes removing all ground-level signs of their presence. The Ndelante were careful and skilled. There were ways of covering tracks in the ruins, even of restoring the patina of dust in ancient rooms. For forty years the depths of the L.A. Basin had been the ultimate fortress of the Ndelante; they knew their own turf.

Outside, the evening cool had begun. Two of the sabio's men moved out ahead, and another two or three brought up the rear. Several carried night scopes. It was still light enough to read by; the sky above the street was soft red with occasional patches of pastel blue. But it was darkening quickly, and the others were barely more than shadows. Wili could sense the Jonques' uneasiness. Being caught at nightfall deep in the ruins would normally be the death of them. The high-level conniving between the Ndelante and the bosses of Aztlan did not ordinarily extend down to these streets.

Their point men led them through piles of fallen concrete; they never actually stepped out into the open street. Wili hitched up his pack and fell back slightly, keeping Rosas and Lu ahead of him. Behind him, he could hear the Jonque chief and — much quieter — Ebenezer's sabio.

Out of the buzzing of aircraft, the sound of a single helicopter came louder and louder. Wili and the others froze, then crouched down in silence. The craft was closer, closer. The thwup-thwup-thwup of its rotors was loud enough so that they could almost feel the overpressures. It was going to pass directly over them. This sort of thing had happened every twenty minutes or so during the afternoon, and should be nothing to worry about. Wili doubted if even observers on the rooftops could have spotted them here below. But this time:

As the copter passed over the roofline a flash of brilliant white appeared ahead of Wili. Lu! He had been worried she was smuggling some sophisticated homer, and here she was betraying them with a simple handflash!

The helicopter passed quickly across the street. But even before its rotor tones changed