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What Wili had missed most, even more than Paul and the Moraleses, was the processor hookup. Now that he was back, he spent several hours every day in deep connect. Most of the rest of the time he wore the connector. In discussions with Paul and Allison, it was comforting to have those extra resources available, to feel the background programs proceeding.

Even more, it brought him a feeling of safety.

And safety was something that had drained away, day by day. Six months ago, he had thought the mansion perfectly hidden, so far away in the mountains, so artfully concealed in the trees. That was before the Peacers started looking for them, and before Allison Parker talked to him about aerial reconnaissance. For precious weeks the search had centered in Northern California and Oregon, but now it had been expanded and spread both south and east. Before, the only aircraft they ever saw was the L.A./Livermore shuttle - and that was so far to the east, you had to know exactly where and when to look to see a faint glint of silver.

Now they saw aircraft several times a week. The patterns sketched across the sky formed a vast net-and they were the fish.

"All the camouflage in the world won't help, if they decide you're hiding in Middle California," Mike's voice was tight with urgency. He walked across the veranda and tugged at the green-and-brown shroud he and Bill Morales had hung over all the exposed stonework and hard corners of the mansion. Gone were the days when they could sit out by the pond and admire the far view.

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Paul protested, "It's no ordinary camouflage, it-"

"I know it was a lot of work. You've told me Allison and the Moraleses spent two weeks putting it together. I know she and Wili added a few electronic twists that make it even better than it looks. But, Paul" - he sat down and glared at Paul, as if to persuade by the force of his own conviction "they have other ways. They can interrogate del Norte - or at least his subordinates. That will get them to Ojai. They've raided Red Arrow and Santa Ynez and the market towns further north. Apparently the few people - like Kaladze who really know your location have escaped. But no matter how many red herrings you've dropped over the years, they're eventually going to narrow things down to this part of the country."

"And there's Della Lu," said Allison.

Mike's eyes widened, and Wili could see that the comment had almost unhorsed him. Then he seemed to realize that it was not a jibe. "Yes, there's Lu. I've always thought this place must be closer to Santa Ynez than the other trading towns: I laid my share of red herrings on Della. But she's very clever. She may figure it out. The point is this: In the near future, they'll put the whole hunt on this part of California. It won't be just a plane every other day. If they can spare the people, they might actually do ground sweeps."

"What are you suggesting, Mike?" Allison again.

"That we move. Take the big wagon, stuff it with all the equipment we need, and move. If we study the search patterns and time it right, I think we could get out of Middle California, maybe to some place in Nevada. We have to pick a place we can reach without running into people on the way, and it has to be some ways from here; once they find the mansion, they'll try to trace us .... I know, it'll be risky, but it's our only chance if we want to last more than another month."

Now it was Paul's turn to be upset. "Damn it, we can't move. Not now. Even if we could bring all the important equipment which we can't - it would still be impossible. I can't afford the time, Mike. The Tinkers need the improvements I'm sending out; they need those bobble generators if they're going to fight back. If we take a month's vacation now, the revolution will be lost. We'll be safe in some hole in Nevada-safe to watch every-

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thing we've worked for go down the tubes." He thought a moment and came up with another objection. "Hell, I bet we couldn't even keep in touch with the Tinkers afterwards. I've spent years putting together untraceable communication links from here. A lot of it depends on precise knowledge of local terrain and climate. Our comm would make us sitting ducks if we moved."

Throughout the discussion, Wili sat quietly at the edge of the veranda, where the sunlight came through the camouflage mesh most strongly. In the back of his mind, Jill was providing constant updates on the Authority broadcasts she monitored. From the recon satellites, he knew the location of all aircraft within a thousand kilometers. They might be captured, but they could never be surprised.

This omniscience was little use in the present debate. At one extreme, he "knew" millions of little facts that together formed their situation; at the other, he knew mathematical theories that governed those facts. In between, in matters of judgment, he sensed his incompetence. He looked at Allison. "What do you think? Who is right?"

She hesitated just a moment. "It's the reconnaissance angle I really know." It was eerie watching Allison. She was Jill granted real-world existence. "If the Peacers are competent, then I don't see how Mike could be wrong." She looked at Naismith. "Paul, you say the Tinkers' revolt will be completely suppressed if we take time out to move. I don't know; that seems a much iffier contention. Of course, if you're both right, then we've had the course...." She gazed up at the dappled sunlight coming through the green-brown mesh. "You know, Paul, I almost wish you and Wili hadn't trashed the Authority's satellite system."

"What?" Wili said abruptly. That sabotage was his big contribution. Besides, he hadn't "trashed" the system, only made it inaccessible to the Authority. "They would find us long ago with their satellites, if I had not done that."

Allison held up her hand. "I believe it. From what I've seen, they don't have the resources or the admin structure for wide air recon. I just meant that given time we could have sabotaged their old comm and recon system - in such a way that the Peacers would think it was still working." She smiled at the astonishment on their faces. "These last weeks, I've

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been studying what you know about their old system. It's really the automated USAF comm and recon scheme. We had it fully in place right before... everything blew up. In theory it could handle all our command and control functions. All you needed was the satellite system, the ground receivers and computers, and maybe a hundred specialists. In theory, it meant we didn't need air recon or land lines. In theory. OMBP was always twisting our arm to junk our other systems and rely on the automated one instead. They could cut our budget in half that way."

She grinned. "Of course we never went along. We needed the other systems. Besides, we knew how fragile the automated system was. It was slick, it was thorough, but one or two rotten apples on the maintenance staff could pervert it, generate false interpretations, fake communications. We demanded the budget for the other systems that would keep it honest.

"Now it's obvious that the Peacers just took it over. They either didn't know or didn't care about the dangers; in any case, I bet they didn't have the resources to run the other systems the Air Force could. If we could have infiltrated a couple people into their technical staff, we could be making them see whatever we wanted. They'd never find us out here." She shrugged. "But you're right; at this point it's just wishful thinking. It might have taken months or years to do something like that. You had to get results right away."

"Damn," said Paul. "All those years of clever planning, and I never..."

"Oh, Paul," she said softly. "You are a genius. But you couldn't know everything about everything. You couldn't be a one-man revolution."

"Yeah," said Mike. "And he couldn't convince the rest of us that there was anything worth revolting against."

Wili just stared, his eyes wide, his jaw slack. It would be harder than anything he had done before but, "Maybe you do not need spies, Allison. Maybe we can.... I've got to think about this. We've still got days. True, Mike?"

"Unless we have real bad luck. With good luck we might have weeks."

"Good. Let me think. I must think.... " He stood up and walked slowly indoors. Already the veranda, the sunlight, the others were forgotten.

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It was not easy. In the months before he learned to use the mind connect, it would have been impossible; even a lifetime of effort would not have brought the necessary insights. Now creativity was in harness with his processors. He knew what he wanted to do. In a matter of hours he could test his ideas, separate false starts from true.

The recon problem was the most important-and probably the easiest. Now he didn't want to block Peacer reception. He wanted them to receive... lies. A lot of preprocessing was done aboard the satellites; just a few bytes altered here and there might be enough to create false perceptions on the ground. Somehow he had to break into those programs, but not in the heavy-handed way he had before. Afterward, the truth would be received by them alone. The enemy would see what Paul wanted them to see. Why, they could protect not just themselves, but many of the tinkers as well!

Days passed. The answers came miraculously fast, and perilously slow. At the edge of his consciousness, Wili knew Paul was helping with the physics, and Allison was entering what she knew about the old USAF comm/recon system. It all helped, but the hard inner problem - how to subvert a system without seeming to and without any physical contact remained his alone.

They finally tested it. Wili took his normal video off a satellite over Middle California, analyzed it quickly, and sent back subtle sabotage. On the next orbit, he simulated Peacer reception: A small puff of synthetic cloud appeared in the picture, just where he had asked. The satellite processors could keep up the illusion until they received coded instructions to do otherwise. It was a simple change. Once operational, they could make more complicated alterations: Certain vehicles might not be reported on the roads, certain houses might become invisible.

But the hard part had been done.

"Now all we have to do is let the Peacers know their recon birds are `working' again," said Allison when he showed them his tests. She was grinning from ear to ear. At first Wili had wondered why she was so committed to the Tinker cause; everything she was loyal to had been dead fifty years.

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The Tinkers didn't even exist when her orbiter was bobbled. But it hadn't taken him long to understand: She was like Paul. She blamed the Peacers for taking away the old world. And in her case, that was a world fresh in memory. She might not know anything about the Tinkers, but her hate for the Authority was as deep as Paul's.

"Yeah," said Paul. "Wili could just return the comm protocols to their original state. All of a sudden the Peacers would have a live system again. But even as stupid as they are, they'd suspect something. We have to do this so they think that somehow they have solved the problem. Hmm. I'll bet Avery still has people working on this even now."

"Okay," said Wili. "I fix things so the satellites will not start sending to them until they do a complete recompile of their ground programs."

Paul nodded. "That sounds perfect. We might have to wait a few more days, but-"

Allison laughed. " - but I know programmers. They'll be happy to believe their latest changes have fixed the problem."

Wili smiled back. He was already imagining how similar things could be done to the Peacer communication system.