The Peace War (40 page)

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."

Wili looked back at Allison. "What can you do to stop it?"

"The things I've already said for a start. A hundred thousand new people, most with my
attitudes, should help the education process. And when the dust has settled, I'm hoping
we'll have something like a decent government. It won't be in Aztlán Those guys are
straight out of the sixteenth century; wouldn't be surprised if they're the biggest of the
new land grabbers. And it won't be the ungoverned land. that most of the US has become.
In all of North America, there seems to only one representative democracy left — the
Republic of New Mexico. It's pretty pitiful geographically, doesn't control much more
than old New Mexico. But they seem to have the ideals we need. I think a lot of my old
friends will think the same.

"And that's just the beginning, Wili. That's just housekeeping. The last fifty years have
been a dark age it some ways. But technology has progressed. Your electronics is as far
advanced as I imagined it would be.

"Wili, the human race was on the edge of something great. Given another few years,
we would have colonized the inner solar system. That dream is still close to people's
consciousness — I've seen how popular Celest is. We can have that dream for real now,
and easier than we twentieth-century types could have done it. I'll bet that hiding away in
the theory of bobbles, there are ideas that will make it trivial."

They talked for a long while, probably longer than the busy Allison had imagined they
would. When he left, Wili was as much in a daze as when he arrived — only now his mind
was in the clouds. He was going to learn some physics. Math was the heart of everything,
but you had to have something to apply it to. With his own mind and the tools he had
learned to use, he would make those things Allison dreamed of. And if Allison's fears
about the next few years turned out to be true, he would be around to help out on that,
too.