Minutes passed. The band of shadow across the eastern sky climbed, became diffuse. Twilight moved toward night.
Electric lamps flashed on. Wili gasped. He had seen miraculous electronics these last months, but the sudden sheer power of those floodlights was as impressive as any of it. Every second they must eat as much electricity as Naismith's house did in a week.
Then he heard Paul's voice again. The old man had taken on a whining tone, and the trooper was a bit more curt than before. "Look, mister, l didn't decide to bring war here. You should count yourself lucky that you have any sort of protection from these monsters. Maybe things will blow over in time for you to save the load. For now, you're stuck. There's a parking area up ahead, near the crest. We have some latrines fixed there. You and your granddaughter can stay overnight, then decide if you want to stick it out or turn back.... Maybe you could sell part of the load in Fremont."
Paul sounded defeated, almost dazed. "Yes, sir. Thanks for your help. Do as he says, Allison dear."
The wagons creaked forward, blue-white light splashing all around them like magic rain. From across the tiny hiding place, Wili heard the whisper of chuckle.
"Paul is really good. Now I wonder if all his whining last night was some sort of reverse whammy to get our spirits up."
Horse-drawn wagons and Authority freighters alike had parked in the big lot near the crest of the Pass. There were some electric lamps, but compared to the checkpoint it was almost dark. A good many people were stuck here overnight. Most of them milled around by cooking fires at the middle of the lot. The far end was dominated by the squat dome they had seen from far down the highway. Several armored vehicles were parked in front of it; they faced into the civilians.
The armored traffic on the highway had virtually ceased. For the first time in hours there was an absence of clank and turbines.
Paul came back around the side of the wagon. He and Allison adjusted the side curtains. Paul complained loudly to
Allison about the disaster that had befallen them, and she was dutifully quiet. A trio of freighter drivers walked by. As they passed out of earshot, Naismith said quietly. "Wili, we're going to have to risk a hookup. I've connected you with the gear in the front wagon. Allison has pulled the narrow-beam antenna out of the bananas. I want contact with our... friends. We're going to need help to get any closer."
Wili grinned in the dark. It was a risk-but one he'd been aching to take. Sitting in this hole without processors was like being deaf, dumb, and blind. He attached the scalp connec-tor and powered up.
There was a moment of disorientation as Jill and he meshed with the satellite net. Then he was looking out a dozen new eyes, listening on hundreds of Peacer comm channels. It would take him a little longer to contact the Tinkers. After all, they were humans.
A bit of his awareness still hung in their dark hiding place. With his true ears, Wili heard a car roar off the highway and park at the Peacer dome. The armor at the far end of the lot came to life. Something important was happening right here. Wili found a camera aboard the armor that could transmit to the satellite net. He looked out: The car's driver had jumped out and come to attention. Far across the lot, he could see civilians - somewhere among them Paul and Al-lison - turn to watch. He felt Mike crawl across him to look out the peephole. Wili juggled the viewpoints, at the same time continuing his efforts to reach the Tinkers, at the same time searching Authority RAM for the cause of the current commotion.
A door opened at the base of the Peacer station. White light spread from it across the asphalt. A Peacer was outlined in the doorway. A second followed him. And between them... a child? Someone small and slender, anyway. The figure stepped out of the larger shadows and looked across the parking lot. Light glinted off the black helmet of short cut hair. He heard Mike suck in a breath.
It was Della Lu.
THIRTY-FOUR
Staff seemed satisfied with the preparations; even Avery accepted the plans.
Della Lu was not so happy. She looked speculatively at the stars on the shoulder of the perimeter commander. The of-ficer looked back with barely concealed truculence. He thought he was tough. He thought she was more nonprofes-sional interference.
But she knew he was soft. All these troops were. They hadn't ever been in a real fight.
Lu considered the map he had displayed for her. As she, through Avery, had required, the armored units were being dispersed into the hills. Except for a few necessary and tran-sient concentrations, the Tinkers would have to take them out a vehicle at a time. And satellite intelligence assured them that the enemy attack was many hours away, that the infiltrators weren't anywhere near the net of armor.
She pointed to the Mission Pass command post. "I see you stopped all incoming traffic. Why have them park so close to your command point here? A few of those people must be Tinker agents."
The general shrugged. "We inspected the vehicles four thousand meters down the road. That's beyond the range the intelligence people give for the enemy's homemade bobbler. Where we have them now, we can keep them under close watch and interrogate them more conveniently."
Della didn't like it. If even a single generator slipped through, this command post would be lost. Still, with the main attack at least twenty-four hours away, it might be safe to sit here a bit longer. There was time perhaps to go Tinker hunting in that parking area. Anybody they caught would probably be important to the enemy cause. She stepped back from the map display. "Very well, General, let's take a look at these civilians. Get your intelligence teams together. It's going to be a long night for them.
"In the meantime, I want you to move your command and control elements over the ridgeline. When things start hap-pening, they'll be much safer in mobiles."
The officer looked at her for a moment, probably wondering just who she was sleeping with to give such orders. Finally he turned and spoke to a subordinate.
He glanced back at Della. "You want to be present at the interrogations?"
She nodded. "The first few, anyway. I'll pick them for you."
The parking-lot detention area was several hundred meters on a side. It looked almost like a fairground. Diesel freighters loomed over small horse-drawn carts and wagons. The truckers had already started fires. Some of their voices were almost cheerful. The delay by itself didn't worry them; their businesses were internal to the Authority and they stood to be reimbursed.
Lu walked past the staff car the general had ordered for them. The officer and his aides tagged along, uncertain what she would do next. She wasn't sure yet either, but once she got the feel of the crowd....
If she were Miguel Rosas, she'd figure out some way to hijack one of the Peace Authority freighters. There was enough volume in a freighter to hide almost anything the Tinkers might make. Hmm. But the drivers generally knew each other and could probably recognize each other's rigs. The Tinkers would have to park their freighter away from the others, and avoid socializing. She and her entourage drifted through the shadows beyond the fires.
The freighters were clumped together; none was parked apart. That left the non-Peacer civilians. She turned away from the freighters and walked down a row of wagons. The people were ordinary enough: more than half in their fifties and sixties, the rest young apprentices. They did look uneasy - they stood to lose a lot of money if they had to stay here long-but there was little fear. They still believed the Authority's propaganda. And most of them were food shippers. None of their own people had been bobbled in the purges she had supervised the last few weeks. From somewhere over the hill she heard choppers. The intelligence crews would be here shortly.
Then she saw the banana wagons. They could only be from the Vandenberg area. No matter what intelligence was saying nowadays, she still thought Middle California was the center of the infestation. An old man and a woman about Lu's own age stood near the wagons. She felt tiny alarm bells going off.