"I know you understand what I'm saying. You felt that way about bioscience. There are other things as bad, Mike." She stopped abruptly, wondering who was manipulating whom. And suddenly she realized that Mike, the enemy, was one of the few people she could ever talk to, one of the few people who could understand the... things... she had done. And perhaps he was the only person -outside of herself whose disapproval could move her.
"I understand," came Mike's voice. "Maybe history will say the Authority gave the human race time to save itself, to come up with new institutions. You've had fifty years; it hasn't been all bad.... But no matter what either of us wants, it's ending now. And this 'Renaissance' will destroy whatever good you've done." His voice caught again.
"Don't worry. We'll win fair and square and there'll be no Renaissance." She was watching the main display. One of the crawlers had turned almost directly inward, toward the heart of the Enclave. Della cut audio and got the attention of Maitland's aide. She nodded questioningly at the crawler symbol on the display.
The colonel leaned across from his chair and said quietly, "They saw Tinkers within the perimeter. They're chasing."
The symbol moved in little jerks, updated by the nearly manual control they had been reduced to. Suddenly the crawler symbol disappeared from the board. Avery sucked in his breath. An analyst looked at his displays and said almost immediately, "We lost laser comm. They may have been bobbled... or may be out of sight."
Possible. The ground was rough, even inside the Enclave boundary Riding a crawler over that would be an exciting thing.... And then Della understood the mystery in Mike's speech. "Mr. Director." Her shout cut across all other voices. "That crawler isn't looking for the enemy. It is the enemy!"
THIRTY-NINE
While they drove parallel to the perimeter fence, the ground was not too rough. When they turned inward, it would be a different story. There was a system of ditches running along the fence.
Beyond that was the interior of the Enclave. Allison risked a glance every now and then. It was like the future she had always imagined: spires, tall buildings, wide swaths of green. Paul said Authority ground troops were moving into the area, but right now all was peaceful, abandoned.
Wait. Three men came running out of the ditches. They paused at the fence and then were somehow through. Two of them carried heavy backpacks. So these were their Tinker allies. One waved to their crawler and then they disappeared among the buildings.
"Turn here. Follow them inward," said Paul. "Wili's told the Peacer command we're in hot pursuit."
Allison pushed/pulled on the control sticks. The armored vehicle spun on its treads, one reversed, the other still pulling forward. Through the side periscope she saw Mike's crawler, moving off to the north. No doubt Wili had told him not to turn.
They shot forward at top speed, the engines an eerie screaming all around them. Beside Allison, Paul was gasping. Thirty kph across open terrain was rough as any air maneuver. Then they were falling, and the view ahead was filled with concrete. They flew over the edge of the ditch and crashed downward onto the floor. The restraint webbing couldn't entirely absorb the shock. For a moment Allison was in a daze, her hands freez-ing the controls into fast forward. The crawler ran up the steep far wall and teetered there an instant, as if unsure whether to proceed upward or fall on its back.
Then they slammed down on the other side, collapsing the fence. Whatever automatic defenses lived here must be temporarily disabled.
She ground clear of the concrete-and-steel rubble, then risked a glance at Paul. "Oh, my God." He was slumped for-ward, a wash of red spread down his face. Red was smeared on the wall in front of him. Somehow he had not tied down properly.
Allison slowed the crawler. She twisted in her seat, saw that the boy remained comatose. "Wili! Paul's hurt!"
A woman's voice shrieked in her ear, "You stupid bitch!"
Will twisted, his face agonized, like someone trying to waken from a dream.
But if he woke, if his dream died, then all their dreams would die. "Drive, Allison. Please drive," Wili's synthetic voice came cool from her earpiece. "Paul... Paul wants this more than anything." Behind her, the boy's real voice was softly moaning. And Paul moved not at all.
Allison closed out everything but her job: They were on a surfaced street. She rammed the throttle forward, took the crawler up to seventy kph. She had only vague impressions of the buildings on either side ofthem. It looked like residen- tial housing, though more opulent than in her time. All was deserted. Coming up on a T -intersection. Over the roofs of the multistorey residences, the towers at the center of the Enclave seemed no nearer.
Wili's voice continued, "Right at the intersection. Then left and left. Foot soldiers are coming from east. So far they think we're one of them, but I'm breaking laser con-tact... now," Allison whipped into the turn, "and they should guess what we are very soon."
They continued so for several minutes. It was like dealing with an ordinary voice program: Turn right. Turn left. Slow down. Keep to the edge of the street.
"Five hundred meters. Take the service alley here. They're onto us. Gunships coming. They can't locate us precisely enough to bobble. Whoever sees us is to shoot." He was silent again as Allison negotiated the alley. Still no sign of life from Paul.
"He still lives, Allison. I can still... hear... him a little."
Through the front periscope she had a glimpse of some-thing dark and fast cross the narrow band of sky between the houses.
"Pull under that overhang. Stop. Throttle up to charge the cells. Thirty seconds for local conditions and I'll be ready to fire."
The moment they were stopped, Allison was out of her harness and bending over Paul. "Now leave me. I need to think. Take Paul. Save Paul."
She looked at the boy He still hadn't opened his eyes. He was further off than she had ever seen him.
"But Wili -"
His body twitched, and the synthetic voice was suddenly angry in her ear. "I need time to think, and I don't have it. Their planes are on the way. Get out. Get out!"
Allison unbuckled Paul and removed the scalp connector. He was breathing, but his face remained slack. She cranked at the rear doors, praying that nothing had been warped by their fall into the ditch. The doors popped open and cool morning air drifted in, along with the keening of the engines.
She ripped off her headset and struggled to get the old man's body over her shoulder. As she staggered past Wili, she noticed his lips were moving. She bent down awkwardly to listen. The boy was mumbling, "Run, run, run, run...."
Allison did her best.
FORTY
No one understood the conflict as Wili did. Even when he was linked with Jill, Paul had only a secondhand view. And after Paul, there was no one who saw more than fragments of the picture. It was Wili who ran the Tinker side of the show - and to some extent the Peacer side, too. Without his direc-tions in Paul's voice, the thousands of separate operations going on all over the Earth would be so scattered in time and effect that the Authority would have little trouble keeping its own control system going.
But Wili knew his time would end very, very soon.
From the crawler's recon camera, he watched Paul and Al-lison moving away, into the managerial residences. Their footsteps came fainter in his exterior microphones. Would he ever know if Paul survived?
Through the narrow gap between the sides of the alley a Peacer satellite floated beyond the blue sky. One reason he had chosen this parking spot was to have that line of sight. In ninety seconds, the radio star would slide behind carven wooden eaves. He would lose it, and thus its relay to synchronous altitude, and thus his control of things worldwide. He would be deaf, dumb, and blind. But ninety seconds from now, it wouldn't matter; he and all the other Tinkers would win or lose in sixty.