The Peace War (18 page)

..But when Naismith finally moved, it was not back to his horse. He went north.
Carefully, quietly, he moved toward the crater: For there was a corollary to his discovery,
and it was more important than his life, perhaps even more important than his hatred of
the Peace Authority.

Naismith stopped often, both to rest and to consult the screen that he had strapped to
his forearm. The scattered cameras showed fewer than thirty troopers. If he had guessed
their locations correctly, he might be able to crawl in quite close. He made a two-hundred-meter detour just to avoid one of them; the fellow was well concealed and was
quietly listening and watching. Naismith suffered the rocks and brambles with equal
silence. He carefully inspected the ground just ahead of him for branches and other
noisemakers. Every move must be a considered one. This was something he had very
little practice at, but he had to do it right the first time.

He was very close to his goal now: Naismith looked up from the display and peered
into a small ravine. This was the place! Her suddenly still form was huddled deep within
the brush. If he hadn't known from the scanners exactly where to look, he would not have
noticed the flecks of silver beyond the leaves and branches. During the last half hour he
had watched her move slowly south, trying to edge away from the troopers at the crater
rim. Another fifteen minutes, and she would blunder into the soldier Naismith had
noticed.

He slid down the cleft, through clouds of midges that swirled in the musty dampness.
He was sure she could see him now. But he was obviously no soldier, and he was
crawling along just as cautiously as she. Paul lost sight of her the last three or four meters
of his approach. He didn't look for her, instead eased into the depths of shadow that
drowned her hiding place.

Suddenly a hand slammed over his mouth and he found himself spun onto his back and
forced to the ground. He looked up into a pair of startlingly blue eyes.

The young woman waited to see if Naismith would struggle, then released his shoulder
and placed her finger to her lips. Naismith nodded, and after a second she removed her
hand from his mouth. She lowered her head to his ear and whispered, "Who are you? Do
you know how to get away from them?"

Naismith realized with wry bleakness that she had not seen through his disguise: She
thought she'd landed some dazed crone. Perhaps that was best. He had no idea what she
imagined was going on, but it could hardly be any approximation to reality. There was no
truthful answer she would understand, much less believe. Naismith licked his lips in
apparent nervousness and whispered back, "They're after. me, too. If they catch us they'll
kill us, just like your friend."
Oops.
"We've got to turn from the way you're going. I saw
one of 'em hiding just ahead."

The young woman frowned, her suspicion clear. Naismith's omniscience was showing.
"So you know a way out?"

He nodded. "My horse and wagon are southeast of all this ruckus. I know ways we can
sneak past these folks. I have a little farm up in —"

His words were lost in a steadily increasing roar that passed almost overhead. They
looked up and had a quick impression of something large and winged, fire glowing from
ports at wings and tail. Another troop carrier. He could hear others following. This was
the beginning of the real invasion. The only place they could land would be on the main
road north of the crater. But given another half hour, there would be wall-to-wall troopers
here and not even a mouse could escape.

Naismith rolled to his knees and pulled at her hand. She had no choice now. They stood
and walked quickly back the way he had come. The sound of the jets was a continuous
rumble; they could have shouted and still not been heard
.
They had perhaps fifteen
minutes to move as fast as they were able.

Greenish twilight had fallen on the forest floor. In his mottled brown dress, Naismith
would be hard to spot, but the girl's flight fatigues made her a perfect target. He held her
hand, urging her to paths he thought safe. He glanced at his wrist again and again, trying
to see where the invaders were posted. The girl was busy looking in all directions and
didn't notice his display.

The sounds fell behind them. The jets were still loud, but the soldiers' voices were
fading in the distance. A dove lilted nearby.

They were trotting now, where the undergrowth thinned. Naismith's lungs burned and a
steady pain pushed in his chest. The woman had a limp, but her breath came effortlessly.
No doubt she was slowing her pace to his.

Finally he was forced to a stumbling walk. She put her arm around his shoulder to keep
him steady. Naismith grimaced but did not complain. He should be grateful that he could
even walk, he supposed. But somehow it seemed a great injustice that a short run could
be nearly fatal to someone who still felt young inside. He croaked directions, telling the
girl where the horse and cart were hidden.

Ten minutes more, and he heard a faint nickering. There was no sign of an ambush.
From here, he knew dozens of trails into the mountains, trails that guerrillas of bygone
years had worked hard to conceal. With even a small amount of further luck, they could
escape. Paul sagged against the side of the cart. The forest rippled and darkened before
him. Not now, Lord,
not now!

His vision cleared, but he didn't have the strength to hoist himself onto the cart. The
young woman's arm slipped to his waist, while her other went under his legs. Paul was a
little taller than she, but he didn't weigh much anymore, and she was strong. She lifted
him easily into the back, then almost dropped him in surprise. "You're not a

Naismith gave her a weak grin. "A woman? You're right. In fact, there's scarcely a
thing you've seen today that is what it seems." Her eyes widened even further.

Paul was almost beyond speech now. He pointed her at one of the hidden paths. It
should get them safely away, if she could follow it.

And then the world darkened and fell away from him.

The ocean was placid today, but the fishing boat was small.

Della Lu stood at the railing and looked down into the sunsparkled water with a sick
fascination. In all the Peace, she had as much counter-subversive experience as anyone.
In a sense her experience had begun as soon as she was old enough to understand her
parents' true job. And as an adult, she had planned and participated in airborne assaults,
had directed the embobbling of three Mongolian strongholds, had been as tough as her
vision of the Peace demanded... but until now she had never been in a watercraft bigger
than a canoe.

Was it possible she could be seasick? Every three seconds, the swell rose to within a
couple meters of her face, then sank back to reveal scum-covered timbers below the
waterline. It had been vaguely pleasant at first, but one thing she'd learned during the last
thirty-six hours was that it
never ended.
She had no doubt she would feel fine just
knowing the motion could be stopped at her whim. But short of calling off this charade,
there was no way to get away from it.

Della ordered her guts to sleep and her nose to ignore the stench of sardines. She
looked up from the waterline to the horizon. She really had a lot to be proud of. In North
America — and in Middle California, especially — the Authority's espionage service was an
abomination. There had been no threats from this region in many, many years. The Peace
kept most of the continent in a state of anarchy. Satellite reconnaissance could spot the
smallest agglomeration of power there. Only in the nation states, like Aztlán and New
Mexico, did the Directors see any need for spies. Things were very different in the great
land ocean that was Central Asia.

But Della was managing. In a matter of days, she had improvised from her Asian
experience to come up with something that might work against the threat Avery saw
here. She had not simply copied her Mongolian procedures. In North America, the
subversives had penetrated — at least in an electronic sense — some of the Authority secrets.
Communications for instance: Della's eyes caught on the Authority freighter near the
horizon. She could not report directly from her little fishing boat without risking her
cover. So she had a laser installed near the waterline, and with it talked to the freighter-which surcrypted the messages and sent them through normal Authority channels to
Hamilton Avery and the operations Della was directing for him.

Laughter. One of the fisherman said something in Spanish, something about "persons
much inclined to sleep." Miguel Rosas had climbed out of the boat's tiny cabin. He
smiled wanly at their jokes as he picked his way past the nets. (Those fishermen were a
weak point in her cover. They were real, hired for the job. Given time, they would likely
figure out whom they were working for. The Authority should have a whole cadre of
professionals for jobs like this. Hell, that had been the original purpose in planting her
grandparents in San Francisco: The Authority had been worried about the large port so
close to the most important enclave. They reasoned that 'furbishers would be the most
likely to notice any buildup of military material. If only they had chosen to plant them
among Tinkers instead. As it was, the years passed and no threat developed, and the
Authority never expanded their counter-underground.)

Della smiled at him, but didn't speak till the Californian was standing beside her. "How
is the boy?"

Rosas frowned. "Still sleeping. I hope he's okay. He's not in good health, you know."

Della was not worried. She had doctored the black kid's bread, what the fishermen fed
him last night. It wouldn't do the boy any harm, but he should sleep for several more
hours. It was important that she and Rosas have a private conversation, and this might be
the last natural opportunity for it.

She looked up at him, keeping her expression innocent and friendly.
He doesn't look
weak. He doesn't look like a man mho would betray his people
... And yet he had. So his
motives were very important if they were to manipulate him further. Finally she said,
"We want to thank you for uncovering the lab in La Jolla."

The undersheriff's face became rigid, and he straightened.

Lu cocked her head quizzically. "You mean you didn't guess who I am?"

Rosas slumped back against the railing, looked dully over the side. "I suspected. It was
all too pat: our escape, these fellows picking us up. I didn't think you'd be a woman,
though.

That's so old-fashioned." His dark hands clenched the wood till the knuckles shone pale.
"Damn it, lady, you and your men killed Jere — killed one of the two I was here to protect.
And then you grabbed all those innocent people at the tournament.
Why?
Have you gone
crazy?"

The man hadn't guessed that the tournament raid was the heart of Avery's operation; the
biolab had been secondary, important mainly because it had brought Miguel Rosas to
them. They needed hostages, information.

"I'm sorry our attack on the lab killed one of your people, Mr. Rosas. That wasn't our
intent." This was true, though it might give her a welcome leverage of guilt. "You could
have simply told us its location, not insisted on a Judas kiss' identification. You must
realize, we couldn't take any chance that what was in the lab might get out... "

Rosas was nodding, almost to himself.
That must be it,
Lu thought. The man had a
pathological hatred of bioscience, far beyond the average person's simple fear. That was
what had driven him to betrayal. "As for the raid on the tournament, we had very good
reasons for that, reasons which you will someday understand and support. For now you
must trust us, just as the whole world has trusted us these last fifty years, and follow our
direction."

"Direction? The hell you say. I did what I had to do, but that's the end to my
cooperation. You can lock me up like the rest."

"I think not. Your safe return to Middle California is a high priority with us. You and I
and Wili will put ashore at Santa Barbara. From there we should be able to get to Red
Arrow Farm. We'll be heroes, the only survivors of the infamous La Jolla raid." She saw
the defiance on his face. "You really have no choice, Miguel Rosas. You have betrayed
your friends, your employers, and all the people we arrested at the tournament. If you
don't go along, we will let it be known you were behind the raids, that you have been our
agent for years."

"That's a damn lie!" His outburst was clipped short as he realized its irrelevance.

"On the other hand, if you do help us... well, then you will be serving a great good — "
Rosas did not sneer, but clearly he did not believe it either, "— and when all this is over
you will be very rich, if necessary protected by the Peace for the rest of your life." It was
a strategy that had worked on many, and not just during the history of the Peace: Take a
weak person, encourage him to betrayal (for whatever reason), and then use the stick of
exposure and the carrot of wealth to force him to do far more than he'd ever have had the
courage or motive for in the beginning. Hamilton Avery was confident it would work
here and had refused her the time for anything more subtle. Miguel Rosas might get them
a line on the Hoehler fellow.

Della watched him carefully, trying to pierce his tense expression and see whether he
was strong enough to sacrifice himself.

The undersheriff stared at the gulls that circled the boat and called raucously to their
brethren as the first catch was drawn aboard. For a moment he seemed lost in the swirl of
wings, and his jaw muscles slowly relaxed.

Finally he looked back at her. "You must be very good at chess. I can't believe the
Authority has chess programs that could play the way you did against Wili."