Wili smiled in the dark. just a few days ago, it had been Rosas who'd been down on the plan. Now that they were close, though...
"Then name a few."
"Hell, we could go in just like we are-as banana vendors. We know they import the things."
Paul snorted. "Not in the middle of a war."
"Maybe. But we can control the moment the real fighting begins. Going in as we are would be along shot, I admit, but if you don't want to improvise completely, you should be thinking about various ways things could happen. For instance, we might bobble the Pass and have our people grab the armor that's left and come down into the Livermore Valley on it with Wili covering for us. I know you've thought about that- all day I have to sit on those adapter cables you brought.
"Paul," he continued more quietly, "you've been the in-spiration of several thousand people these last two weeks. These guys have their necks stuck way out. We're all willing to risk everything. But we need you more than ever now."
"Or put less diplomatically - I got us all into this pickle, so I can't give up on it now."
"Something like that."
"...Okay." Paul was silent for a moment. "Maybe we could arrange it so that..." He was quiet again and Wili realized that the old Paul had reasserted himself-was trying to, anyway. "Mike, do you have any idea where this Lu person is now?"
"No." The undersheriff's voice was suddenly tight. "But she's important to them, Paul. I know that much. I wouldn't be surprised if she were at Livermore."
"Maybe you could talk to her. You know, pretend you're interested in betraying the Tinker forces we've lined up here."
"No! What I did had nothing to do with hurting..." His voice scaled down, and he continued more calmly. "I mean, I don't see what good it would do. She's too smart to believe anything like that."
Wili looked up through the branches of the dry oak that spread over their campsite. The stars should have been beautiful through those branches. Somehow they were more like tiny gleams in a dark-socketed skull. Even if he were never denounced, could poor Mike ever silence his internal inquisitor?
"Still, as you said about the other, it's something to think about." Paul shook his head sharply and rubbed his temples. "I am so tired. Look. I've got to talk to Jill about this. I'll think things out. I promise. But let's continue in the morn-ing. Okay?"
Allison reached across as though to touch his shoulder, but Paul was already coming to his feet. He walked slowly away from the campfire. Allison started to get up, then sat down and looked at the other two. "There's something wrong.... There's something so wrong about Paul making a person out of a thing," she said softly. Wili didn't know what to say, and after a moment the three of them spread out their sleeping bags and crawled in.
Wili's lay between the cache of storage cells and the wagon with the processors. There should be enough juice for several hours' operation. He adjusted the scalp connect and wriggled into a comfortable position. He stared up at the half-sinister arches of the oaks and let his mind mesh with the system. He was going into deep connect now, something he avoided when he was with the others. It made his physical self dopey and uncoordinated.
Wili sensed Paul talking to Jill but did not try to participate.
His attention drifted to the tiny cameras they had scattered beyond the edges of the camp, then snapped onto a high-resolution picture from above. From there, their oaks were just one of many tiny clumps of darkness on a rolling map of paler grassland. The only light for kilometers around came from the embers that still glowed at the center of their camp. Wili smiled in his mind; that was the true view. The tiny light flicked out, and he looked down on the scene that was being reported to the Peace Authority. Nobody here but us coyotes.
This was the easiest part of the "high watch." He did it only for amusement; it was the sort of thing Jill and the satel-lite processors could manage without his conscious attention.
Wili drifted out from the individual viewpoints, his atten-tion expanding to the whole West Coast and beyond, to the Tinkers near Beijing. There was much to do; a good deal more than Mike or Allison - or even Paul - might suspect. He talked to dozens of conspirators. These men had come to expect Paul's voice coming off Peacer satellites in the middle of the West Coast night. Wili must protect them as he did the banana wagons. They were a weak link. If any of them were captured, or turned traitor, the enemy would immediately know of Wili's electronic fraud. From them, "Paul's" instruc-tions and recommendations were spread to hundreds.
In this state, Wili found it hard to imagine failure. All the details were there before him. As long as he was on hand to watch and supervise, there was nothing that could take him by surprise. It was a false optimism perhaps. He knew that Paul didn't feel it when he was linked up and helping. But Wili had gradually realized that Paul used the system without becoming part of it. To Paul it was like another programming tool, not like a part of his own mind. It was sad that someone so smart should miss this.
This real dream of power continued for several hours. As the cells slowly drained, operations were necessarily cur- tailed. The slow retreat from omniscience matched his own increasing drowsiness. Last thing before losing consciousness and power, he ferreted through Peacer archives and discovered the secret of Della Lu's family. Now that their cover was blown, they had moved to the Livermore Enclave, but Wili found two other spy families among the 'furbishers and warned the conspirators to avoid them.
Heat, sweat, dust on his face. Something was clanking and screaming in the distance. Wili lurched out of his daydreaming recollection of the previous evening. Beside him Rosas leaned close to the peephole. A splotch of light danced across his face as he tried to follow what was outside in spite of the swaying progress of the banana wagon.
"God. Look at all those Peacers," he said quietly. "We must be right at the Pass, Wili."
"Lemme see," the boy said groggily. Wili suppressed his own surprised exclamation. The wagons were still ascending the same gentle grade they'd been on for the last hour. Ahead he could see the wagon that contained Jill. What was new was the cause of all the clanking. Peacer armor. The vehicles were still on the horizon, coming off an interchange ahead. They were turning north toward the garrison at Mission Pass. "Must be the reinforcements from Medford." Wili had never seen so many vehicles with his own eyes. The line stretched from the interchange for as far as they could see. They were painted in dark green colors - quite an uncamouflage in this landscape. Many of them looked like tanks he had seen in old movies. Others were more like bricks on treads.
As they approached the interchange the clanking got louder and combined with the overtones of turbines. Soon the banana wagons caught up with the military. Civilian traffic was forced over to the rightmost lane. Powered freighters and horsedrawn wagons alike were slowed to the same crawl.
It was late afternoon. There was something big and loud behind them that cast a long shadow forward across the two banana wagons, and brought a small amount of coolness. But the tanks to the right raised a dust storm that more than made up for the lowered temperatures.
They drove like this for more than an hour. Where were the checkpoints? The road ahead still rose. They passed dozens of parked tanks, their crews working at mysterious tasks. Someone was fueling up. The smell of fuel came into the cramped hole along with the dust and the noise.