The Peace War by Vernor Vinge Page B

pyramid. Standard processors are cheap. Before the plagues, several
families from Sunnyvale settled in Santa Maria. They brought a truckload of gamma-ray
etching gear. It's been improved a lot since. We import purified base materials from
Oregon. And special-purpose stuff comes from even further: For instance, the Greens
make the best synthetic optics."
    Jeremy started for the door. "I'd show you more here except they seem awfully busy
today. That's probably your fault. The Colonel seems real excited about whatever you
and Dr. Naismith invented this winter." He stopped and looked at Wili, as though hoping
for some inside information. And Wili wondered to himself,
How
can I explain?
He
could hardly describethe algorithm in a few words. It was a delicate matter of coding
schemes, of packing and unpacking certain objects very cleverly and very quickly. Then
he realized that the other was interested in its
effects,
in the ability it could give the
Tinkers to listen to the Authority satellites.
    His uncertainty was misinterpreted, for the taller boy laughed. "Never mind, I won't push
you. Fact is, I probably shouldn't know. C'mon, there's one thing more I want to show
you — though maybe it should be a secret, too. The Colonel thinks the Peace Authority
might issue a Ban if they knew about it."
    They continued down the farm's main road, which ran directly into the side of the
Vandenberg Dome some thousand meters further on. It made Wili dizzy just to look in
that direction. This close, there was no feeling of the overall shape of the Dome. In a
sense, it was invisible, a vast vertical mirror. In it he saw the rolling hills of the farm, the
landscape that spread away behind them: There were a couple of small sailboats making
for the north shore of Lake Lompoc, and he could see the ferry docked on the near side of
the Salsipuedes fiord.
    As they walked closer to the bobble, he saw that the ground right at the edge was torn,
twisted. Rain off the Dome had gouged a deep river around the base, runoff to Lake
Lompoc. The ground shook faintly but constantly with tiny earthquakes. Wili tried to
imagine the other half of the bobble, extending kilometers into the earth. No wonder the
world trembled around this obstruction. He looked up and swayed.
    "Gets you, doesn't it?" Jeremy grabbed his arm and steadied him. "I grew up close to it,
and I still fall flat on my behind when I stand here and imagine trying to climb the thing."
They scrambled up the embanked mud and looked down at the river. Even though it
hadn't rained for hours, the waters moved fast and muddy, gouging at the land. Across
the river, a phantom Jeremy and Wili stared back. "It's dangerous to get much closer. The
water channel extends a ways underground. We've had some pretty big landslides.
    "That's not why I brought you here, anyway." He led Wili down the embankment
toward a small building. "There's another level in Mike's pyramid: the folks who make
things like carts and houses and plows. The refurbishers still do a lot of that, but they're
running out of ruins, at least around here. The new stuff is made just like it was hundreds
of years ago. It's expensive and takes a lot of work-the type of thing the Republic of New
Mexico or Aztlán is good at. Well, we can program processors to control moving-parts
machines. I don't see why we can't make a moving-parts machine to
make
all those other
things. That's my own special project."
    "Yes, but that's Banned. Are you telling me — '
    "Moving-parts machines aren't Banned.Not directly. It's high-energy, high-speed stuff
the Authority is death on. They don't want anyone making bombs or bobbles and starting
another War." The building looked like the one they had left up the road, but with fewer
windows.
    An ancient metal pylon stuck out of the ground near the entrance. Wili looked at it
curiously, and Jeremy said, "It doesn't have anything to do with my project. When I was
little, you could still see numbers painted on it. It's