And now that secrecy was paying off: The only way Hoehler could accomplish what Lu predicted was if he found some way of making Vandenberg-sized bobbles... The old fear welled up: That was just the sort of thing the monster was capable of.
He looked at Lu with a feeling that surpassed respect and bordered on awe: She was not merely competent — she could actually think like Hoehler. He took her by the arm and led her to the door. 'You've helped more than you can know, Miss Lu.'
THIRTY-TWO
Allison had been in the new world more than ten weeks.
Sometimes it was the small things that were the hardest to get used to. You could forget for hours at a time that nearly everyone you ever knew was dead, and that those deaths had been mostly murder. But when night came, and indoors became nearly as dark as outside — that was strangeness she could not ignore. Paul had plenty of electronic equipment, most of it more sophisticated than anything in the twentieth century, yet his power supply was measured in watts, not kilowatts. So they sat in darkness illuminated by the flatscreen displays and tiny holos that were their eyes on the outer world. Here they were, conspirators plotting the overthrow of a world dictatorship — a dictatorship which possessed missiles and nukes — and they sat timidly in the dark.
Their quixotic conspiracy wasn't winning, but, by God, the enemy knew it was in a fight. Take the TV: The first couple of weeks it seemed that there were hardly any stations, and those were mostly run by families. The Moraleses spent most of their viewing time with old recordings. Then, after the L.A. rescue, the Authority had begun around-the-clock saturation broadcasting similar to twentieth century Soviet feeds, and as little watched: It was all news, all stories about the heinous Tinkers and the courageous measures being taken by 'your Peace Authority' to make the world safe from the Tinker threat.
Paul called those 'measures' the Silvery Pogrom. Every day there were more pictures of convicted Tinkers and fellow-travelers disappearing into the bobble farm the Authority had established at Chico. Ten years, the announcers said; and those bobbles would burst and the felons would have their cases reviewed. Meantime, their property would also be held in stasis. Never in history, the audience was assured, had criminals and monsters been treated with more firmness or more fairness. Allison knew bullshit when she heard it; if she hadn't been bobbled herself, she would have assumed that it was a cover for extermination.
It was a strange feeling to have been present at the founding of the present order, and to be alive now, fifty years later. This great Authority, ruling the entire world — except now Europe and Africa — had grown from nothing more than that third-rate company Paul worked for in Livermore. What would have happened if she and Angus and Fred had made their flight a couple of days earlier, in time to return safely with the evidence?
Allison looked out the mansion's wide windows, into the twilight. Tears didn't come to her eyes anymore when she thought about it, but the pain was still there. If they had gotten back in time, her CO might have listened to Hoehler. They just might have been able to raid the Livermore labs before the brazen takeover that was called the 'War' nowadays. And apparently the 'War' had been just the beginning of decades of war and plague, now blamed on the losers. Just a couple of days' difference, and the world would not be a near-lifeless tomb, the United States a fading memory. To think that some lousy contractors could have brought down the greatest nation in history!
She turned back into the room, trying to see the three other conspirators in the dimness. An old man, a skinny kid, and Miguel Rosas. This was the heart of the conspiracy? Tonight, at least, Rosas sounded as pessimistic as she felt.
'Sure, Paul, your invention will bring them down eventually, but I'm telling you the Tinkers are all going to be dead or bobbled before that happens. The Peacers are moving
The old man shrugged. 'Mike, I think you just need something to panic over. A few weeks back it was the Peacers' recon operation. Wili fixed that — more than fixed it — so now you have to worry about something else.' Allison agreed with Mike, but there was truth in Paul's complaint. Mike seemed both haunted and trapped: haunted by what he had done in the past, trapped by his inability to do something to make up for that past. 'The Tinkers have simply got to hide out long enough to make more bobblers and improve on 'em. Then we can fight back.' Paul voice was almost petulant, as though he thought that he had done all the hard work and now the Tinkers were incompetent to carry through with what remained. Sometimes Paul seemed exactly as she remembered him. But other times — like tonight he just seemed old, and faintly befuddled.
'I'm sorry, Paul, but I think that Mike he is right.' The black kid spoke up, his Spanish accent incongruous yet pleasant. The boy had a sharp tongue and a temper to go with it, but when he spoke to Paul-even in contradiction he sounded respectful and diffident. 'The Authority will not give us the time to succeed. They have bobbled the Alcalde del Norte himself. Red Arrow Farm is gone; if Colonel Kaladze was hiding there, then he is gone, too.' On a clear day, dozens of tiny bobbles could be seen about the skirts of the Vandenberg Dome.
'But our control of Peacer recon. We should be able to protect large numbers of-' he noticed Wili shaking his head. 'What? You don't have the processing power? I thought you —'
'That's not the big problem, Paul. Jill and I have tried to cover for many of the Tinkers that survived the first bobblings. But see: The first time the Peacers fall on to one of these groups, they will have a contradiction. They will see the satellites telling them something different than what is on the ground. Then our trick is worthless. Already we must remove protection from a couple of the groups we agreed on — they were going to be captured very soon no matter what, Paul,' he spoke the last words quickly as he saw the old man straighten in his chair.
