The Peace War by Vernor Vinge Page A

four smart rifles and men who can use
them. And Sheriff Wentz knows about the situation... Union, don't worry." He didn't
notice Wili bristle. The smaller boy hid it well. He was beginning to realize that there
was scarcely a mean bone in Jeremy's body. "I want to show you the stuff we have here."
    He turned off the gravel road and walked toward a large, one-storey building. It could
scarcely be a barn; the entire roof was covered with solar batteries. "If it weren't for the
Vandenberg Bobble, I think Middle California would be most famous for Red Arrow
Products — that's our trade name. We're not as sophisticated as the Greens in Norcross, or
as big as the Qens in Beijing, but the things we do are the best."
    Wili pretended indifference. "This place is just a big farm, it looks like to me."
    "Sure, and Dr. Naismith is just a hermit. It is big and it's terrific farmland. But where
do you think my family got the money to buy it? We've been real lucky: Grandmother
and the Colonel had four children after the War, and each of them had at least two. We're
practically a clan, and we've adopted other folk, people who can figure out things we
can't. The Colonel believes in diversification; between the farm and our software, we're
unsinkable."
    Jeremy pounded on the heavy white door. There was no answer, but it swung slowly
inward and the boys entered. Down each side of the long building, windows let in
morning light and enough breeze to make it relatively comfortable. He had an impression
of elegant chaos. Ornamental plants surrounded scattered desks. There was more than
one aquarium. Most of the desks were unoccupied: Some sort of conference was going
on at the far end of the room. The men waved to Jeremy but continued with what
sounded perilously close to being an argument.
    "Lots more people here than usual. Most guys like to work from home. Look." He
pointed to one of the few seated workers. The man seemed unaware of them. In the holo
above his desk floated colored shapes, shapes that shifted and turned. The man watched
intently. He nodded to himself, and suddenly the pattern was tripled and sheared.
Somehow he was in control of the display. Wili recognized the composition of linear and
nonlinear transformations: Inside his head, Wili had played with those through most of
the winter.
    "What's he doing?"
    Jeremy's normal loudness was muted. "Who do you think implements those algorithms
you and Dr. Naismith invent?" He swept his hand across the room. "We've done some of
the most complicated implementations in the world."
    Wili just stared at him. "Look, Wili. I know you have all sorts of wonderful machines
up in the mountains. Where do you think they come from?"
    Wili pondered. He had never really thought about it! His education had moved very fast
along the paths Naismith laid out. One price for this progress was that in most respects
Wili's opinions about what made things work were a combination of mathematical
abstraction and Ndelante myth. "I guess I thought Paul made most of them."
    "Dr. Naismith is an amazing man, but it takes hundreds of people all over the world to
make all the things he needs. Mike Rosas says it's like a pyramid: At the top there are just
a few men — say Naismith in algorithms or Masaryk in surface physics — guys who can
invent really new things. With the Peace Authority Bans on big organizations, these
people got to work alone, and there probably aren't more than five or ten of them in the
whole world. Next down in the pyramid are software houses like ours. We take
algorithms and implement them so that machines can run them.
    Wili watched the programmatic phantoms shift and turn above the desk. Those shapes
were at once familiar and alien. It was as if his own ideas had been transformed into
some strange form of Celest. "But these people don't
make
anything. Where do the
machines come from?"
    "You're right; without hardware to run our programs, we're just daydreamers. That's the
next level of the