The Peace War (16 page)

"Nevertheless, we've worked miracles these fifty years, Mr. Rosas. If we'd had your
freedom, we'd have worked more than miracles. Earth would be Eden now."

"Or a charnel house," Rosas muttered.

The supervisor nodded, seemed only slightly angered. "You say that even when you need
us. The plagues warped both you and the Authority. If it hadn't been for those strange
accidents, how different things would be. In fact, given a free hand, we could have saved
people like this boy from ever having been diseased."

"How?" asked Wili.

"Why, with another plague," the other replied lightly, reminding Wili of the "mad
scientists" in the old TV shows Irma and Bill watched. To suggest a plague after all the
plagues had done. "Yes, another. You see, your problem was caused by genetic damage
to your parents. The most elegant countermeasure would be to tailor a virus that moves
through the population, correcting just those genotypes that cause the problem."

Fascination with experiment was clear in his voice. Wili didn't know what to think of
his savior, this man of goodwill who might be more dangerous than the Peace Authority
and all the Jonque aristocrats put together.

The supervisor sighed and turned off the display. "And yes, I suppose we are crazier
than before, maybe even less responsible. After all, we've pinned our whole lives on our
beliefs, while the rest of you could drift in the open light without fearing the Authority...

"In any case, there are other ways of curing your disease, and we've known them for
decades." He glanced at Rosas. "Safer ways." He walked part way down the corridor to a
locker and glanced at a display by the door. "Looks like we have enough on hand." He
filled an ordinary looking glass bottle from the locker and returned. "Don't worry, no
plague stuff. This is simply a parasite — I should say a symbiont." He laughed shortly. "In
fact, it's a type of yeast. If you take five tablets every day till the bottle's empty, you'll
establish a stable culture in your gut. You should notice some improvement within ten
days."

He put the jar in Wili's hand. The boy stared. "Just here, take this and all your
problems will be gone by morning-" Or in ten days, or whatever. Where was the
sacrifice, the pain? Salvation came this fast in dreams alone.

Rosas did not seem impressed. "Very well. Red Arrow and the others will pay as
promised: programs and hardware to your specifications for three years." The words were
spoken with some effort, and Wili realized just how reluctant a guide Miguel Rosas had
been — and how important Paul Naismith's wishes were to the Tinkers.

The supervisor nodded, for the first time cowed by Rosas' hostility, for the first time
realizing that the trade would produce no general gratitude or friendship.

Wili jumped down from the table and they started back to the stairs. They had not gone
ten steps when Jeremy said, "Sir, you said Eden?" His voice sounded difdent, almost
frightened. But still curious. After all, Jeremy was the one who dared the Authority with
his self-powered vehicles. Jeremy was the one who always talked of science remaking
the world. "You said Eden. What could you do besides cure a few diseases?"

The supervisor seemed to realize there was no mockery in the question. He stopped
under a bright patch of ceiling and gestured Jeremy Sergeivich closer. "There are many
things, son. But here is one... How old do you think I am? How old do you think the
others at the winery are?"

Discounting the greenish light that made everyone look dead, Wili tried to guess. The
skin was smooth and firm, with just a hint of wrinkles around the eyes. The hair looked
natural and full. He had thought forty before. Now he would say even younger.

And the others they had seen? About the same. Yet in any normal group of adults,
more than half were past fifty. And then Wili remembered that when the supervisor
spoke of the War, he talked like an oldster, of time in personal memory. "We" decided
this, and "we" did that.

He had been adult at the time of the War.
He was as old
as Naismith or Kaladze.

Jeremy's jaw sagged, and after a moment he nodded shyly. His question had been
answered. The supervisor smiled at the boy. "So you see, Mr. Rosas talks of risks — and
they may be as great as he claims. But what's to gain is very great, too." He turned and
walked the short distance to the stair door

— which opened in his face. It was one of the workers from the cask room. 'Juan," the
man began talking fast, "the place is being deep-probed. There are helicopters circling the
fields. Lights everywhere."

The supervisor stepped back, and the man came off the spiral stair.

"What! Why didn't you call down? Never mind, I know. Have you powered down all
Banned equipment?" The man nodded. "Where is the boss?"

"She's sticking at the front desk. So are the others. She's going to try to brazen it out."

"Hmm. " The supervisor hesitated only a second. "It's really the only thing to do. Our
shielding should hold up. They can inspect the cask room all they want." He looked at the
three Northerners. "We two are going up and say hello to the forces of worldwide law
and order. If they ask, we'll tell them you've already departed along the beach route."

Wili's cure might still be safe.

The supervisor made some quick adjustment at a wall panel. The fungus gradually
dimmed, leaving a single streak that wobbled off into the dark. "Follow the glow and
you'll eventually reach the beach. Mr. Rosas, I hope you understand the risk we take in
letting you go. If we survive, I expect you to make good on our bargain."

Rosas nodded, then awkwardly accepted the other's flashlight. He turned and hustled
Jeremy and Wili off into the dark. Behind them, Wili heard the two bioscientists
climbing the stairs to their own fate.

The dim band turned twice, and the corridor became barely shoulder wide. The stone
was moist and irregular under Wili's hand. The tunnel went downhill now and was
deathly dark. Mike flicked on his light and urged them to a near run. "Do you know what
the Authority would do to a lab?"

Jeremy was hot on Wili's heels, occasionally bumping into the smaller boy, though
never quite hard enough to make them lose their balance. What would the Authority do?
Wili's answer was half a pant. "Bobble it?"

Of course.
Why risk a conventional raid? If they even had strong suspicions, the safest
action would be to embobble the whole place, killing the scientists and isolating
whatever death seed might be stored here. Even without the Authority's reputation of
harsh punishment for Banned research, it made complete sense. Any second now, they
might find themselves inside a vast silver sphere. Inside.

Dio
, perhaps it had happened already. Wili half stumbled at the thought, nearly losing
his grip on the glass jar that was the reason for the whole adventure. They would not
know till
they ran headlong into the wall. They would live for hours, maybe days, but
when the air gave out they would die as all the thousands before them must have died, at
Vandenberg and Point Loma and Huachuca and...

The ceiling came lower, till it was barely centimeters above Wili's head. Jeremy and
Mike pounded clumsily along, bent over yet trying to run at full speed. Light and shadow
danced jaggedly about them.

Wili watched ahead for three figures running toward them: The first sign of
embobblement would be their own reflections ahead of them. And there
was
something
moving up there. Close.

"Wait! Wait!" he screamed. The three came to an untidy stop before — a door, an almost
ordinary door. Its surface was metallic, and that accounted for the reflection. He pushed
the opener. The door swung outward, and they could hear the surf. Mike doused the light.

They started down a stairway, but too fast. Wili heard someone trip and an instant later
he was hit from behind. The three tumbled down the steps. Stone bit savagely into his
arms and back. Wili's fingers spasmed open and the jar flew into space, its landing
marked by the sound of breaking glass.

Life's blood spattering down unseen steps.

He felt Jeremy scramble past him. "Your flashlight, Mike, quick."

After a second, light filled the stairs. If any Peace cops were on the beach looking
inland...

It was a risk they took for him.

Wili and Jeremy scrabbled back and forth across the stairs, unmindful of the glass
shards. In seconds they had recovered the tablets — along with considerable dirt and glass.
They dumped it in Jeremy's waterproof hiking bag. The boy dropped a piece of paper into
the bag. "Directions, I bet." He zipped it shut and handed it to Wili.

Rosas kept the light on a second longer, and the three memorized the path they must
follow. The steps were scarcely more than water-worn corrugations. The cave was free of
any other human touch.

Darkness again, and the three started carefully downward, still moving faster than was
really comfortable. If only they had a night scope. Such equipment wasn't Banned, but
the Tinkers didn't flaunt it. The only high tech equipment they'd brought to La Jolla was
the Red Arrow chess processor.

Wili thought he saw light ahead. Over the surf drone he heard a
thupthupthup
that grew
first louder and then faded. A helicopter.

They made a final turn and saw the outside world through the, vertical crack that was
the entrance to the cave. The evening mist curled in, not as thick as earlier. A horizontal
band of pale gray hung at eye level. After a moment, he realized the glow was thirty or
forty meters away — the surf line. Every few seconds, something bright reflected off the
surf and waters beyond.

Behind him Rosas whispered, "Light splash from their search beams on top of the
bluff. We may be in luck." He pushed past Jeremy and led them to the opening. They hid
there a few seconds and looked as far as they could up and down the beach. No one was
visible, though there were a number of aircraft circling the area. Below the entrance
spread a rubble of large boulders, big enough to hide their progress.

It happened just as they stepped away from the entrance: A deep, bell-like tone was
followed by the cracking and crashing of rock now free of its parent strata. The avalanche
proceeded all around them, thousands of tons of rock adding itself to the natural debris of
the coastline. They cowered beneath the noise, waiting to be crushed.

But nothing fell close by, and when Wili finally looked up, he saw why. Silhouetted
against the mist and occasional stars was the perfect curve of a sphere. The bobble must
be two or three hundred meters across, extending from the lowest of the winery's caves to
well over the top of the bluff and from the inland vineyards to just beyond the edge of the
cliffs.

"They did it. They really did it," Rosas muttered to himself:

Wili almost shouted with relief. A few centimeters the other way and they would have
been entombed.

Jeremy!

Wili ran to the edge of the sphere. The other boy had been standing right behind them,
surely close enough to be safe. Then where was he? Wili beat his fists against the blood
warm surface. Rosas' hand closed over his mouth and he felt himself lifted off the
ground. Wili struggled for a moment in enforced silence, then went limp. Rosas set him
down.

"I know," Mike's voice was a strangled whisper. "He must be on the other side. But
let's make sure." He flicked on his light-almost as brightly as he had risked in the cave-and they walked several meters back and forth along the line where the bobble passed
into the rocks. They did not find Jeremy, but

Rosas'flash stopped for a moment, freezing one tiny patch of ground in its light. Then
the light winked out, but not before Wili saw two tiny spots of red, two... fingertips...
lying in the dirt.

Just centimeters away, Jeremy must lie writhing in pain, staring into the darkness,
feeling the blood on his hands. The wound could not be fatal. Instead, the boy would
have hours still to die. Perhaps he would return to the labs, and sit with the others-waiting
for the air to run out. The ultimate excommunication.

"You have the bag?" Rosas' voice quavered.

The question caught Wili as he was reaching for the mangled fingers. He stopped,
straightened. "Yes."

"Well then, let's go." The words were curt. The tone was clamped-down hysteria.

The undersheriff grabbed Wili's shoulder and urged him down the jumble of half-seen
rocks. The air was filled with dust and the cold moistness of the fog. The fresh broken
rock was already wet and slippery. They clung close to the largest boulders, fearing both
landslides and detection from the air. The bobble and bluffs cut a black edge into the
hazy aura of the lights that swept the ground above. They could hear both trucks and
aircraft up there.

But no one was down on the beach. As they crawled and climbed across the rocks, Wili
wondered at this. Could it be the Authority did not know about the caves?

They didn't speak for a long time. Rosas was leading them slowly back toward the hotel.
It might work. They could finish the tournament, get on the buses, and return to Middle
California as though nothing had happened. As though Jeremy had never existed.

It took nearly two hours to reach the beach below the hotel. The fog was much thinner
now. The tide had advanced; phosphorescent surf pounded close by, surging tendrils of
foam to near their feet.

The hotel was brightly lit, more than he remembered on previous evenings. There were
lots of lights in the parking areas, too. They hunkered down between two large rocks and
inspected the scene. There were far too many lights. The parking lots were swarming
with vehicles and men in Peacer green. To one side stood a ragged formation of civilians
prisoners? They stood in the glare of the trucks' lights, with their hands clasped on top of
their heads. A steady procession of soldiers brought boxes and displays — the chess-assist
equipment — from the hotel. It was much too far away to see faces, but Wili thought he
recognized Roberto Richardson's fat form and flashy jacket there among the prisoners.
He felt a quick thrill to see the Jonque standing like some recaptured slave.