"And that will be you?"
"I'll be there. At least through Round Two."
So that was that. Paul was right, Wili knew. But it still fell like the losses of the past: Uncle Sly, the trek to La Jolla without Paul. "Will, you can do it. You don't need me. When I am forgotten, you will still be remembered — for what you will do as much as for what you already did." Naismith looked intently at the boy.
Wili forced a smile and stood. "You will be proud to hear of me when you return." He turned. He must leave with those words.
Paul stopped him, smiled. "It's not just yet, Wili. I'll be here for another two or three weeks, at least."
And Wili turned again, ran around the desk, and hugger Paul Naismith as hard as he dared.
Screeching tires and, "Hey! You wanna get killed?"
Wili looked up in startled shock as the half-tonne truck swerved around him and accelerated down the street. It wasn't the first time in the last ten days he'd nearly daydreamed himself into a collision. These automobiles were so fast, they were on top of you before you knew it. Wili trotted back to the curb and looked around. He had wandered a thousand meters from Paul's office. He recognized the area. This part of the Enclave contained the Authority's archives and automatic logging devices. The Tinkers were taking the place apart. Somehow, it had been missed in the last frantic bobbling, and Allison was determined to learn every Peacer secret that existed outside of stasis. Wili sheepishly realized where his feet had been leading him: to visit all his friends, to find out if anyone thought the present was worth staying in.
"Are you okay, Mr. Wachendon?'' Two workers came running up, attracted by the sounds of near calamity. Wili had gotten over being recognized everywhere (after all, he did have an unusual appearance for hereabouts), but the obvious respect he received was harder to accept. "Damn Peacer drivers," one of them said. "I wonder if some of 'em don't know they lost the war."
"Sí. Fine," answered Wili, wishing he hadn't made such a fool of himself. "Is Allison Parker here?"
They led him into a nearby building. The air-conditioning was running full blast. It was downright chilly by Wili's standards. But Allison was there, dressed in vaguely military-looking shirt and pants, directing some sort of packing operation. Her men were filling large cartons with plastic disks — old-world memory devices, Wili suspected. Allison was concentrating on the job, smiling and intent. For an instant Wili had that old double vision, was seeing his other friend with this body... the one who never really existed. The mortal had outlived the ghost.
Then the worker beside him said diffidently, "Captain Parker?" and the spell was broken.
Allison looked up and grinned broadly. "Hey, Wili!" She walked over and draped an arm across his shoulders. "I've been so busy this last week, I haven't seen any of my old friends. What's happening?" She led him toward an interior doorway, paused there and said over her shoulder, "Finish Series E. I'll be back in a few minutes." Wili smiled to himself. From the day of victory, Allison had made it clear she wouldn't tolerate second-class citizenship. Considering the fact that she was their only expert on twentieth century military intelligence, the Tinkers had little choice but to accept her attitude.
As they walked down a narrow hall, neither spoke. Allison's office was a bit warmer than the outer room, and free of fan noises. Her desk was covered with printouts. A Peacer display device sat at its center. She waved him to a seat and patted the display. "I know, everything they have here is childish by Tinker standards. But it works and at least I understand it."
"Allison, a-are you going to drop out, too?" Wili blurted out.
The question brought her up short. "Drop out? You mean bobble up? Not on your life, kiddo. I just came back, remember? I have a lot to do." Then she saw how seriously he meant the question. "Oh, Wili. I'm sorry. You know about Mike and Paul, don't you?" She stopped, frowned at some sadness of her own. "I think it makes sense for them to go, Wili. Really.
"But not for me." The enthusiasm was back in her voice. "Paul talks about this battle being just Round One of some `war through time.' Well, he's wrong about one thing. The first round was fifty years ago. I don't know if those Peacer bastards are responsible for the plagues, but I do know they destroyed the world we had. They did destroy the United States of America." Her lips settled into a thin line.
"I'm going back over their records. I'm going to identify every single bobble they cast during the takeover. I'll bet there are more than a hundred thousand of my people out there in stasis. They're all coming back into normal time during the next few years. Paul has a program that uses the Peacer logs to compute exactly when. Apparently, all the projections were for fifty/sixty years, with the smallest bursting first. There's still Vandenberg and Langley and dozens more. That's a pitiful fraction of the millions we once were, but I'm going to be there and I'm going to save all I can."
"Save?"
She shrugged. "The environment around the bobbles can be dangerous the first few seconds. I was nearly killed coming out. They'll be disoriented as hell. They have nukes in there; I don't want those fired off in a panic. And I don't know if your plagues are really dead. Was I just lucky? I'm going to have to dig up some bioscience people."
"Yes," said Wili, and told her about the wreckage Jeremy had shown him back on the Kaladze farm. Somewhere, high in the air within the Vandenberg stasis, was part of a jet aircraft. The pilot might still be alive, but how could he survive the first instants of normal time?
Allison nodded as he spoke, and made some notes. "Yes. That's the sort of thing I mean. We'll have a hard time saving that fellow, but we'll try."
She leaned back in her chair. "That's only half of what I must do. Wili, the Tinkers are so bright in many ways, but in others... well, `naive' is the only word that springs to mind. It's not their fault, I know. For generations they've had no say in what happens outside their own villages. The Authority didn't tolerate governments-at least as they were known in the twentieth century. A few places were permitted small republics; most were lucky to get feudalism, like in Aztlán.
"With the Authority gone, most of America — outside of the Southwest — has no government at all. It's fallen back into anarchy. Power is in the hands of private police forces like Mike worked for. It's peaceful just now, because the people in these protection rackets don't realize the vacuum the Authority's departure has created. But when they do, there'll be bloody chaos."
She smiled. "I see I'm not getting through. I can't blame you; you don't have anything to refer to. The Tinker society has been a very peaceful one. But that's the problem. They're like sheep — and they're going to get massacred if they don't change. Just look at what's happened here:
"For a few weeks we had something like an army. But now the sheep have broken down into their little interest groups, their families, their businesses. They've divided up the territory, and God help me if some of them aren't selling it, selling the weapons, selling the vehicles — and to whoever has the gold! It's suicide!"
And Wili saw that she might be right. Earlier that week he had run into Roberto Richardson, the Jonque bastard who'd beaten him at La Jolla. Richardson had been one of the hostages, but he had escaped before the L.A. rescue. The fat slob was the type who could always land on his feet, and running. He was up here at Livermore, dripping gAu. And he was buying everything that moved: autos, tanks, crawlers, aircraft.
The man was a strange one. He'd made a big show of being friendly, and Wili was cool enough now to take advantage. Wili asked the Jonque what he was going to do with his loot Richardson had been vague, but said he wasn't returning to Aztlán. "I like the freedom here, Wachendon. No rules. Think I may move north. It could be very profitable." And he'd had some advice for Wili, advice that just now seemed without ulterior motive: "Don't go back to L.A., Wachendon. The Alcalde loves you — at least for the moment. But the Ndelante has figured out who you are, and old Ebenezer doesn't care how big a hero you are up here at Livermore."