Wili moped across the lawn, his hands stuck deep in his pockets, his face turned downward. He kicked up little puffs of dust where the grass was brownest. The new tenants were lazy about watering, or else maybe the irrigation pipes were busted.
This part of Livermore had been untouched by the fighting; the losers had departed peaceably enough, once they saw bobbles sprout over their most important resources. Except for the dying grass, it was beautiful here, the buildings as luxurious as Wili could imagine. When they turned on full electric power, it made the Jonque palaces in L.A. look like hovels. And most anything here — the aircraft, the automobiles, the mansions-could be his.
Just my luck. I get everything I ever wanted, and then I lose the people that are more important. Paul had decided to drop out. It made sense and Wili was not angry about it, but it hurt anyway. Wili thought back to their meeting, just half an hour before. He had guessed the moment he'd seen Paul's face. Wili had tried to ignore it, had rushed into the subject he'd thought they were to talk about: "I just talked to those doctors we flew in from France, Paul. They say my insides are as normal as anything. They measured me every way" — he had undergone dozens of painful tests, massive indignities compared to what had been done to him at Scripps, and yet much less powerful. The French doctors were not bioscientists, but simply the best medical staff the European director would tolerate — "and they say I'm using my food, that I'm growing fast." He grinned. "Bet I will be more than one meter seventy."
Paul leaned back in his chair and returned the smile. The old man was looking good himself. He'd had a bad concussion during the battle, and for while the doctors weren't sure he would survive. "I'll bet too. It's exactly what I'd been hoping. You're going to be around for a long time, and the world's going to be a better place for it. And..." His voice trailed off, and he didn't meet the boy's look. Wili held his breath, praying Dio his guess wouldn't be correct. They sat in silence for an awkward moment. Wili looked around, trying to pretend that nothing of import was to be said. Naismith had appropriated the office of some Peacer bigwig. It had a beautiful view of the hills to the south, yet it was plainer than most, almost as if it had been designed for the old man all along. The walls were unadorned, though there was darker rectangle of paint on the wall facing Paul's desk. A picture had hung there once. Wili wondered about that.
Finally Naismith spoke. "Strange. I think I've done penance for blindly giving them the bobble in the first place. I have accomplished everything I dreamed of all these years since the Authority destroyed the world... And yet - Wili, I'm going to drop out, fifty years at least."
"Paul! Why?" It was said now, and Wili couldn't keep the pain from his voice.
"Many reasons. Many good reasons." Naismith leaned forward intently. "I'm very old, Wili. I think you'll see many from my generation go. We know the bioscience people in stasis at Scripps have ways of helping us."
"But there are others. They can't be the only ones with the secret."
"Maybe. The bioscience types are surfacing very slowly. They can't be sure if humanity will accept them, even though the plagues are decades passed."
"Well, stay. Wait and see." Wili cast wildly about, came up with a reason that might be strong enough. "Paul, if you go, you may never see Allison again. I thought-"
"You thought I loved Allison, that I hated the Authority on her account as much as any." His voice went low. "You are light, Wili, and don't you ever tell her that! The fact that she lives, that she is just as I always remembered her, is a miracle that goes beyond all my dreams. But she is another reason I must leave, and soon. It hurts every day to see her; she likes me, but almost as a stranger. The man she knew has died, and I see pity in her more than anything else. I must escape from that."
He stopped. "There's something else too. Wili, I wonder about Jill. Did I lose the only one I ever really had? I have the craziest dreams from when I was knocked out. She was trying like hell to bring me back. She seemed as real as anyone... and more caring. But there's no way that program could have been sentient; we're nowhere near systems that powerful. No person sacrificed her life for us." The look in his eyes made the sentence a question.
It was a question that had hovered in Wili's mind ever since Jill had driven him out of the crawler. He thought back. He had known Jill... used the Jill program... for almost nine months. Her projection had been there when he was sick; she had helped him learn symbiotic programming. Something inside him had always thought her one of his best friends. He tried not to guess how much stronger Paul's feelings must be. Wili remembered Jill's hysterical reaction when Paul had been hurt; she had disappeared from the net for minutes, only coming back at the last second to try to save Wili. And Jill was complex, complex enough that any attempt at duplication would fail; part of her "identity" came from the exact pattern of processor interconnection that had developed during her first years with Paul.
Yet Wili had been inside the program; he had seen the limitations, the inflexibilities. He shook his head, "Yes, Paul. The Jill program was not a person. Maybe someday we'll have systems big enough, but... Jill was j just a s-simulation." And Wili believed what he was saying. So why were they sitting here with tears on their eyes?
The silence stretched into a minute as two people remembered a love and a sacrifice that couldn't really exist. Finally, Wili forced the weirdness away and looked at the old man. If Paul had been alone before, what now?
"I could go with you, Paul," and Wili didn't know if he was begging or offering.
Naismith shook himself and seemed to come back to the present. "I can't stop you, but I hope you don't." He smiled. "Don't worry about me. I didn't last this long by being a sentimental fool all the time.
"Your time is now, Wili. There is a lot for you to do."
"Yes. I guess. There's still Mike. He needs..." Wili stopped, seeing the look on Paul's face. "No! Not Mike too?"
"Yes. But not for several months. Mike is not very popular just now. Oh, he came through in the end; I don't think we'd've won without him. But the Tinkers know what he did in La Jolla. And he knows; he's having trouble living with it."
"So he's going to run away." Too.
"No. At least that's not the whole story. Mike has some things to do. The first is Jeremy. From the logs here at Livermore I can figure to within a few days when the boy will come out of stasis. It's about fifty years from now. Mike is going to come out a year or so before that. Remember, Jeremy is standing near the sea entrance. He could very likely be killed by falling rock when the bobble finally burst. Mike is going to make sure that doesn't happen.
"A couple years after that, the bobble around the Peacer generator here in Livermore will burst. Mike will be here for that. Among other things, he's going to try to save Della Lu. You know, we would have lost without her. The Peacers had won, yet they were going ahead with that crazy world-wrecker scheme. Both Mike and I agree she must have bobbled their projector. Things are going to be mighty dangerous for her the first few minutes after they come out of stasis."
Wili nodded without looking up. He still didn't understand Della Lu. She was tougher and meaner, in some ways, than anyone he had known in L.A.. But in others — well, he knew why Mike cared for her, even after everything she had done. He hoped Mike could save her.
"And that's about the time I'm coming back, Wili. A lot of people don't realize it, but the war isn't over. The enemy has lost a major battle, but has escaped forward through time. We've identified most of their bobbled refuges, but Mike thinks there are some secret ones underground. Maybe they'll come out the same time as the Livermore generator, maybe a lot later. This is a danger that goes into the foreseeable future. Someone has to be around to fight those battles, just in case the locals don't believe in the threat."