The Peace War (25 page)

She had never before used her body to ensure loyalty. It had never been necessary. It
certainly had never before been an attractive prospect. And it was doubtful it could do
any good here. Mike had fallen to them out of honor; he could not rationalize the deaths
he had caused. In his way, he was as unchangeable as she.

One of his arms wrapped around her back while his free hand pulled at her blouse. His
hand slid under the fabric, across her smooth skin, to her breasts. The caresses were
eager, rough. There was rage... and something else. Della stretched out against him,
forcing one of her legs between his. For a long while the world went away and they let
their passion speak for them .

...Lightning played its ring dance along the Dome that towered so high above them.
When the thunder paused in its following march, they could hear the
shish
of warm rain
continue all around.

Rosas held her gently now, his fingers slowly tracing the curve of her hip and waist.
"What do you get out of being a Peace cop, Della? If you were one of the button-pushers,
sitting safe and cozy up in Livermore, I could understand. But you've risked your life
stooging for a tyranny, and turning me into something I never thought I'd be. Why?"

Della watched the lightning glow in the rain. She sighed. "Mike, I am for the Peace.
Wait. I don't mean that as rote Authority mumbo jumbo. We do have something like
peace all over the world now. The price is a tyranny, though milder than any in history.
The price is twentieth-century types like me, who would sell their own grandmothers for
an ideal. Last century produced nukes and bobbles and warplagues. You have been
brushed by the plagues — that alone is what turned you into something you never thought
you'd be.' But the others are just as bad. By the end of the century, those weapons were
becoming cheaper and cheaper. Small nations were getting them. If the War hadn't come,
I'll bet subnational groups and criminals would have had them. The human race could not
survive mass-death technology so widely spread. The Peace has meant the end of
sovereign nations and their control of technologies that could kill us all. Our only mistake
was in not going far enough. We didn't regulate high tech electronics — and we're paying
for that now."

The other was silent, but the anger was gone from his face. Della came to her knees
and look around. She almost laughed. It looked as if a small bomb had gone off in the
tree house; their clothes were thrown all across the floor pads. She began dressing. After
a moment, so did Mike. He didn't speak until they had on their rain slickers and had
raised the trapdoor.

He grinned lopsidedly and stuck his hand out to Della. "Enemies?" he said.

"For sure." She grinned back, and they shook on it.

And even as they climbed out of the tree, she was wondering what it would take to
move old Kaladze. Not panic; Mike was right about that. What about shame? Or anger?

Della's chance came the next day. The Kaladze clan had gathered for lunch, the big
meal of the day. As was expected of a woman, Lu had helped with the cooking and
laying out of the dinnerware, and the serving of the meal. Even after she was seated at the
long, heavily laden table, there were constant interruptions to go out and get more food or
replace this or that item.

The Authority channels were full of the "Treason against Peace" trials that Avery was
staging in L.A. Already there had been some death sentences. She knew Tinkers all
across the continent were in frantic communication, and there was an increasing sense of
dread. Even the women felt it. Naismith had announced his prototype bobble generator.
A design had also been transmitted. Unfortunately, the only working model depended on
processor networks and programs that would take the rest of the world weeks to grow.
And even then, there were problems with the design that would cost still more time to
overcome.

The menfolk took these two pieces of news and turned lunch into a debate. It was the
first time she had seen them talk policy at a meal; it showed how critical the situation
was. In principle the Tinkers now had the same ultimate weapon as the Authority. But the
weapon was no good to them yet. In fact, if the Authority learned about it before the
Tinkers had generators in production, it might precipitate the military attack they all
feared. So what should be done about the prisoners in Los Angeles?

Lu sat quietly through fifteen minutes of this, until it be came clear that caution was
winning and the Kaladzes were going to keep a low profile until they could safely take
advantage of Naismith/Hoehler's invention. Then she stood up with a shrill, inarticulate
shout. The dining hall was instantly silent. The Kaladzes looked at her with shocked
surprise. The woman sitting next to her made fluttering motions for her to sit down.
Instead, Della shouted down the long table, "You cowardly fools! You would sit here and
dither while they execute our
people
one by one in Los Angeles. You have a weapon
now, this bobble generator. And even if you are not willing to risk your own necks, there
are plenty of noble houses in Aztlán that are; at least a dozen of their senior sons were
taken in La Jolla."

At the far end of the table, Nikolai Sergeivich came slowly to his feet. Even at that
distance, he seemed to tower over her diminutive 155 centimeters. "Miss Lu. It is not we
who have the bobble generator, but Paul Naismith. You know that he has only one, and
that it is not completely practical. He won't give us-"

Della slammed the flat of her hand on the table, the pistolshot noise cutting the other
off and dragging everyone's attention back to her. "Then
make him!
He can't exist
without you. He must be made to understand that our own flesh and blood are at stake
here — " She stepped back from the table and looked them all up and down, then put
surprise and scorn on her face. "But that's not true of you, is it? My own
brother is one of
the hostages.
But to you, they are merely fellow Tinkers."

157

Under his stubbly beard, Kaladze's face became very pale. Della was taking a chance.
Publicly disrespectful women were rare here, and when they surfaced — even as guests —
they could expect immediate expulsion. But Della had gone a calculated distance
beyond
disrespect. She had attacked their courage, their manhood. She had spoken aloud of the
guilt which — she hoped — was lying just below their caution.

Kaladze found his voice and said, "You are wrong, madam. They are not
merely
fellow
Tinkers, but our brothers, too." And Della knew she had won. The Authority would get a
crack at that bobble generator while it was still easy pickings.

She sat meekly down, her eyes cast shyly at the table. Two large tears started down her
cheeks. But she said nothing more. Inside, a Cheshire cat smile spread from ear to ear:
for the victory, and for the chance to get back at them for all the days of dumb servility.
From the corner of her eye, she saw the stricken look on Mike's face. She had guessed
right there, too. He would say nothing. He knew she lied, but those lies
were
a valid
appeal to honor. He was caught, even knowing, in the trap with the others.

Aztlán encompassed most of what had been Southern and Baja California. It also
claimed much of Arizona, though this was sharply disputed by the Republic of New
Mexico. In fact, Aztlán was a loose confederation of local rulers, each with an immense
estate.

Perhaps it was the challenge of the Authority Enclave in old Downtown, but nowhere
in Aztlán were the castles grander than in North Los Angeles. And of those castles, that
of the Alcalde del Norte was a giant among giants.

The carriage and its honor guard moved quickly up the well-maintained old-world road
that led to El Norte's main entrance. In the darkened interior, a single passenger-one Wili
Wachendon — sat on velvet cushions and listened to the clopclop of the carriage team and
outriders. He was being treated like a lord. Well, not quite. He couldn't get over the look
of stunned surprise on the faces of the Aztlán troops when they saw the travel-grimed
black kid they were to escort from Ojai to L.A. He looked through tinted bulletproof
glass at things he had never expected to see — not by daylight anyway. On the right, the
hill rose sheer, pocked every fifty meters by machine-gun nests; on the left, he saw a pike
fence half-hidden in the palms. He remember such pikes, and what happened to unlucky
burglars.

Beyond the palms, Wili could see much of the Basin. It was as big as some countries,
and — not even counting the Authority personnel in the Enclave — there were more than
eighty thousand people out there, making it one of the largest cities on Earth. By now,
midafternoon, the wood and petroleum cooking stoves of that population had raised a pall
of darkish smoke that hung just under the temperature inversion and made it impossible
to see the far hills.

They reached the southern ramparts and crossed the flagstone perimeter that
surrounded the Alcalde's mansion. They rolled by a long building fronted with incredible
sweeps of perfectly matched plate glass. There was not a bullet hole or shatter star to be
seen. No enemy had reached this level in many years. The Alcalde had firm control of the
land for kilometers on every side.

The carriage turned inward, and retainers rushed to slide open the glass walls. Wagon,
horses, and guard continued inward, past more solid walls; this meeting would take place
beyond sight of spying eyes. Wili gathered his equipment. He slipped on the scalp
connector, but it was scant comfort. His processor was programmed for one task, and the
interface gave him none of the omniscience he felt when working with Jill.

Wili felt like a chicken at a coyote convention. But there was a difference, he kept
telling himself. He smiled at the collected coyotes and set his dusty gear on the glistening
floor: This chicken laid bobbles.

He stood in the middle of the Alcalde's hall of audience, alone there except for the two
stewards who had brought him the last hundred meters from the carriage. Four Jonques
sat on a dais five meters away. They were not the most titled nobles in Aztlán — though
one of them was the Alcalde — but he recognized the embroidery on their jackets. These
were men the Ndelante Ali had never dared to burgle.

To the side, subordinate but not cringing, stood three very old blacks. Wili recognized
Ebenezer, Pasadena Sabio of the Ndelante, a man so old and set in his ways that he had
never even learned Spanish. He needed interpreters to convey his wishes to his own
people. Of course, this increased his appearance of wisdom. As near as could be over
such a large area, these seven men ruled the Basin and the lands to the east — ruled all but
the Downtown and the Authority Enclave.

Wili's impudence was not lost on the coyotes. The youngest of the Jonque lords leaned
forward to look down upon him. "This is Naismith's emissary? With this we are to bobble
the Downtown, and rescue our brothers? It's a joke."

The youngest of the blacks — a man in his seventies whispered in Ebenezer's ear,
probably translating the Jonque's comments into English. The Old One's glance was cold
and penetrating, and Wili wondered if Ebenezer remembered all the trouble a certain
scrawny burglar had caused the Ndelante.

Wili bowed low to the seated noblemen. When he spoke it was in standard Spanish
with what he hoped was a Middle California accent. It would be best to convince these
people that he was not a native of Aztlán. "My Lords and Wise Ones, it is true that I am a
mere messenger, a mere technician. But I have Naismith's invention here with me, I
know how to operate it, and I know how it can be used to free the Authority's prisoners."

The Alcalde, a pleasant-looking man in his fifties, raised an eyebrow and said mildly,
"You mean your companions are carrying it-disassembled perhaps?"

Companions? Wili reached down and opened his pack. "No, My Lord," he said,
withdrawing the generator and processor. "This is the bobbler. Given the plans that Paul
Naismith has broadcast, the Tinkers should be able to make these by the hundreds within
six weeks. For now this is the only working model." He showed the ordinary-looking
processor box around. Few things could look less like a weapon, and Wili could see the
disbelief growing on their faces. A demonstration was in order. He concentrated briefly
to let the interface know the parameters.

Five seconds passed and a perfect silver sphere just... appeared in the air before Wili's
face. The bobble wasn't more than ten centimeters across, but it might have been ten
kilometers for the reaction of his audience. He gave it the lightest of pushes, and the
sphere — weighing exactly as much as an equivalent volume of air-drifted across the hall
toward the nobles. Before it had traveled a meter, air currents had deflected it. The
youngest of the Jonques, the loudmouthed one, shed his dignity and jumped off the dais
to grab at the bobble.

"By God, it's real!" he said as he felt its surface.

Wili just smiled and imaged another command sequence. A second and a third sphere
floated across the room. For bobbles this size, where the target was close by and
homogeneous, the computations were so simple he could generate an almost continuous
stream. For a few moments his audience lost some of its dignity.

Finally old Ebenezer raised a hand and said to Wili in English, "So, boy, you have all
the Authority has. You can bobble all Downtown, and we go in and pick up the pieces.
All their armies won't stand up to this."

Jonque heads jerked around, and Wili knew they understood the question. Most of
them understood English and Spañolnegro through they often pretended otherwise. He
could see the processors humming away in their scheming minds: With this weapon, they
-could do a good deal more than rescue the hostages and boot the Authority out of Aztlán
If the Peacers were to be replaced, why shouldn't it be by them? And — as Wili had
admitted — they had a six weeks' head start on the rest of the world.