The Peace War (30 page)

She leaned forward. "Sir, I have several recommendations about our local operations.
First, I think we should stop wasting our time hunting for Hoehler. If we pick him up
along with the other ringleaders, fine. But he's done about all the harm he-"

"No!" The word broke sharply from his lips. Avery looked over Lu's head at the portrait
of Jackson Avery on the wall. The painting had been done from photos, several years
after his father's death. The man's dress and haircut were archaic and severe. The gaze
from those eyes was the uncompromising, unforgiving one he had seen so many times.
Hamilton Avery had forbidden the cult of personality, and nowhere else in Livermore
were there portraits of leaders. Yet he, a leader, was the follower of such a cult. For three
decades he had lived beneath that picture. And every time he looked at it, he remembered
his failure-so many years ago. "No," he said again, this time in a softer voice. "Second
only to protecting Livermore itself, destroying Paul Hoehler must remain: your highest
priority.

"Don't you see, Miss Lu? People have said before, 'That Paul Hoehler, he has caused us
a lot of harm, but there is nothing more he can do.' And yet Hoehler has always done
more harm. He is a genius, Miss Lu, a mad genius who has hated us for fifty years.
Personally, I think he's always knows: that bobbles don't last forever, and that time stops
inside. I think he has chosen now to cause the Tinker revolt because he knew when the
old bobbles would burst. Even if we are quick to rebobble the big places like Vandenberg
and Langley, there are still thousands of smaller installations than will fall back into
normal time during the next few years. Somehow he intends to use the old armies against
us." Avery guessed that Lu's blank expression was hiding skepticisrn Like the other
Directors, she just could not
believe
in Paul Hoehler. He tried a different tack.

"There is objective evidence." He described the orbiter crash that had so panicked the
Directors ten weeks earlier. After the attack on the L.A. Enclave, it was obvious that the
orbiter was not from outer space, but from the past. In fact, it must have been the Air
Force snooper Jackson Avery bobbled in those critical hours just before he won the world
for Peace. Livermore technical teams had been over the wreck again and again, and one
thing was certain: There had been a third crewman. One had died as the bobble burst, one
had been shot by incompetent troopers, and one had... disappeared. That missing
crewman, suddenly waking in an unimagined future, could not have escaped on his own.
The Tinkers must have known that this bobble was about to burst, must have known what
was inside it.

Lu was no toady; clearly she was unconvinced. "But what use would they have for such
a crewman? Anything he could tell them would be fifty years out of date."

What could he say? It all had the stench of Hoehler's work: devious, incomprehensible,
yet leading inexorably to some terrible conclusion that would not be fully recognized
until it was too late. But there was no way he could convince even Lu. All he could do
was give orders. Pray God that was enough. Avery sat back and tried to reassume the air
of dignity he normally projected. "Forgive the lecture, Miss Lu. This is really a policy
issue. Suffice it to say that Paul Hoehler must remain one of our prime targets. Please
continue with your recommendations."

"Yes, sir." She was all respect again. "I'm sure you know that the technical people have
stripped down the Hoehler generator. The projector itself is well understood now. At
least the scientists have come up with theories that can explain what they previously
thought impossible." Was there a faintly sarcastic edge to that comment? "The part we
can't reproduce is the computer support. If you want the power supply to be portable, you
need very complex, high-speed processing to get the bobble on target. It's a trade-off we
can't manage.

"But the techs have figured how to calibrate our generators. We can now project
bobbles lasting anywhere from ten to two hundred years. They see theoretical limits on
doing much better."

Avery nodded; he had been following those developments closely.

"Sir, this has political significance."

"How so?"

"We can turn what the Tinkers did to us in L.A. around. They bobbled their friends off
the Tradetower to protect them. They know precisely how long it will last, and we don't.
It's very clever: we'd look foolish putting a garrison at Big Bear to wait for our prisoners
to 'return.' But it works the other way: Everyone knows now that bobbling is not
permanent, is not fatal. This makes it the perfect way to take suspected enemies out of
circulation. Some high Aztlán nobles were involved with this rescue. In the past we
couldn't afford vengeance against such persons. If we went around shooting everyone we
suspect of treason, we'd end up like the European Directorate. But now...

"I recommend we raid those we suspect of serious Tinkering, stage brief 'hearings' — don't
even call them 'trials' and then embobble everyone who might be a threat. Our news
service can make this very reasonable and nonthreatening: We have already established
that the Tinkers are involved-with high-energy weapons research, and quite possibly with
bioscience. Most people fear the second far more than the first, by the way. I infiltrated
the Tinkers by taking advantage of that fear.

"These facts should be enough to keep the rest of the population from questioning the
economic impact of taking out the Tinkers. At the same time, they will not fear us
enough to band together. Even if we occasionally bobble popular or powerful persons,
the public will know that this is being done without harm to the prisoners, and for a
limited period of time — which we can announce in advance. The idea is that we are
handling a temporary emergency with humanity, greater humanity than they could expect
from mere governments."

Avery nodded, concealing his admiration. After reading of her performance in
Mongolia, he had half expected Lu to be a female version of Christian Gerrault. But her
ideas were: sensible, subtle. When necessary she did not shrink from force, yet she also
realized that the Authority was not all powerful, that a balancing act was sometimes
necessary to maintain the Peace. There really were people in this new generation who
could carry on. If only this one were not a woman.

"I agree. Miss Lu, I want you to continue to report directly to me. I will inform the
North American section that you have temporary authority for all operations in California
and Aztlán — if things go well, I will push for more. In the meantime, let me know if any
of the 'old-hands' are not cooperating with you. This is not the time for jealousy"

Avery hesitated, unsure whether to end the meeting, or bring Lu into the innermost
circle. Finally he keyed a command to his display flat and handed it to Lu. Besides
himself — and perhaps Tioulang — she was the only person really qualified to handle
Operation Renaissance. "This is a summary. I'll want you to learn the details later; I
could use your advice on how to split the operation into uncoupled subprojects that we
can run at lower classifications."

Lu picked up the flat and saw the Special Material classification glowing at the top of the
display. Not more than ten people now living had seen Special Materials; only top agents
knew of the classification — and then only as a theoretical possibility. Special Materials
were never committed to paper or transmitted; communication of such information was
by courier with encrypted, booby-trapped ROMs that self-destructed after being read.

Lu's eyes flickered down the Renaissance summary. She nodded agreement as she read
the description of Redoubt 001 and the bobble generator to be installed there. She pushed
the page key and her eyes suddenly widened; she had reached the discussion that gave
Renaissance its name. Her face paled as she read the page.

She finished and silently handed him the flat. "It's a terrifying possibility, is it not, Miss
Lu?"

"Yes, sir."

And even more than before, Avery knew he had made the right decision; Renaissance
was a responsibility that should frighten. "Winning with Renaissance would in many
ways be as bad as the destruction of the Peace. It is there as the ultimate contingency, and
by God rue must win without it."

Avery was silent for a moment and then abruptly smiled. "But don't worry; think of it
as caution to the point of paranoia. If we do a competent job, there's not a chance that
we'll lose." He stood and came around his desk to show her to the door.

Lu stood, but did not move toward the door. Instead, she stepped toward the wide glass
wall and looked at the golden hills along the horizon.

"Quite a view, isn't it?" Avery said, a bit nonplussed. She had been so purposeful, so
militarily precise — yet now she tarried over a bit of landscape. "I can never decide
whether I like it more when the hills are summer gold or spring green."

She nodded, but didn't seem to be listening to the chitchat. "There's one other thing, sir.
One other thing I wanted to bring up. We have the power to crush the Tinkers in North
America; the situation is not like Europe. But craft has won against power before. If I
were on the other side..."

"Yes?"

"If I were making their strategy, I would attack Livermore and try to bobble our
generator."

"Without high-energy sources they can't attack us from a distance."

She shrugged. "That's our scientists' solemn word. And six months ago they would
have argued volumes that bobbles can't be generated without nuclear power... But let's
assume that they're right. Even then I would try to come up with some attack plan, some
way of getting in close enough to bobble the Authority generator."

Avery looked out his window, seeing the beautiful land with Lu's vision: as a possible
battlefield, to be analyzed for fields of fire and interdiction zones. At first glance it was
impossible to imagine any group getting in undetected, but from camping trips long ago
he remembered all the ravines out there. Thank God the recon satellites were back in
operation.

That would protect against only part of the danger. There was still the possibility that
the enemy might use traitors to smuggle a Tinker bobble generator into the area. Avery's
attention turned inward, calculating. He smiled to himself. Either way it wouldn't do
them any good. It was common knowledge that one of the Authority's bobble generators
was at Livermore (the other being at Beijing). And there were thousands of Authority
personnel who routinely entered the Livermore Enclave. But that was a big area, almost
fifty kilometers in its longest dimension. Somewhere in there was the generator and its
power supply, but out of all the millions on Earth, only five knew exactly where that
generator was housed, and scarcely fifty had access. The bobbler had been built under the
cover of projects Jackson Avery contracted for the old LEL. Those projects had been the
usual combination of military and energy research. The LEL and the US military had
been only too happy to have them proceed in secret and had made it possible for the elder
Avery to build his gadgets underground and well away from his official headquarters.
Avery had seen to it that not even the military liaison had really known where everything
was. After the War, that secrecy had been maintained: In the early days, the remnants of
the US government still had had enough power to destroy the bobbler if they had known
its location.

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."

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.