She sat meekly down, her eyes cast shyly at the table. Two large tears started down her cheeks. But she said nothing more. Inside, a Cheshire cat smile spread from ear to ear: for the victory, and for the chance to get back at them for all the days of dumb servility. From the corner of her eye, she saw the stricken look on Mike's face. She had guessed right there, too. He would say nothing. He knew she lied, but those lies were a valid appeal to honor. He was caught, even knowing, in the trap with the others.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Aztlÿn encompassed most of what had been Southern and Baja California. It also claimed much of Arizona, though this was sharply disputed by the Republic of New Mexico. In fact, Aztlÿn was a loose confederation of local rulers, each with an immense estate.

Perhaps it was the challenge of the Authority Enclave in old Downtown, but nowhere in Aztlÿn were the castles grander than in North Los Angeles. And of those castles, that of the Alcalde del Norte was a giant among giants.

The carriage and its honor guard moved quickly up the well-maintained old-world road that led to El Norte's main entrance. In the darkened interior, a single passenger-one Wili Wachendon - sat on velvet cushions and listened to the clopclop of the carriage team and outriders. He was being treated like a lord. Well, not quite. He couldn't get over the look of stunned surprise on the faces of the Aztlÿn troops when they saw the travel-grimed black kid they were to escort from Ojai to L.A. He looked through tinted bulletproof glass at things he had never expected to see - not by daylight anyway. On the right, the hill rose sheer, pocked every fifty meters by machine-gun nests; on the left, he saw a pike fence half-hidden in the palms. He remember such pikes, and what happened to unlucky burglars.

Beyond the palms, Wili could see much of the Basin. It was as big as some countries, and - not even counting the Authority personnel in the Enclave - there were more than eighty thousand people out there, making it one of the largest cities on Earth. By now, midafternoon, the wood and petroleum cooking stoves of that population had raised a pall of darkish smoke that hung just under the temperature inversion and made it impossible to see the far hills.

They reached the southern ramparts and crossed the flagstone perimeter that surrounded the Alcalde's mansion. They rolled by a long building fronted with incredible sweeps of perfectly matched plate glass. There was not a bullet hole or shatter star to be seen. No enemy had reached this level in many years. The Alcalde had firm control of the land for kilometers on every side.

The carriage turned inward, and retainers rushed to slide open the glass walls. Wagon, horses, and guard continued inward, past more solid walls; this meeting would take place beyond sight of spying eyes. Wili gathered his equipment. He slipped on the scalp connector, but it was scant comfort. His processor was programmed for one task, and the interface gave him none of the omniscience he felt when working with Jill.

Wili felt like a chicken at a coyote convention. But there was a difference, he kept telling himself. He smiled at the collected coyotes and set his dusty gear on the glistening floor: This chicken laid bobbles.

He stood in the middle of the Alcalde's hall of audience, alone there except for the two stewards who had brought him the last hundred meters from the carriage. Four Jonques sat on a dais five meters away. They were not the most titled nobles in Aztlÿn - though one of them was the Alcalde - but he recognized the embroidery on their jackets. These were men the Ndelante Ali had never dared to burgle.

To the side, subordinate but not cringing, stood three very old blacks. Wili recognized Ebenezer, Pasadena Sabio of the Ndelante, a man so old and set in his ways that he had never even learned Spanish. He needed interpreters to convey his wishes to his own people. Of course, this increased his appearance of wisdom. As near as could be over such a large area, these seven men ruled the Basin and the lands to the east - ruled all but the Downtown and the Authority Enclave.

Wili's impudence was not lost on the coyotes. The youngest of the Jonque lords leaned forward to look down upon him. "This is Naismith's emissary? With this we are to bobble the Downtown, and rescue our brothers? It's a joke."

The youngest of the blacks - a man in his seventies whispered in Ebenezer's ear, probably translating the Jonque's comments into English. The Old One's glance was cold and penetrating, and Wili wondered if Ebenezer remembered all the trouble a certain scrawny burglar had caused the Ndelante.

Wili bowed low to the seated noblemen. When he spoke it was in standard Spanish with what he hoped was a Middle California accent. It would be best to convince these people that he was not a native of Aztlÿn. "My Lords and Wise Ones, it is true that I am a mere messenger, a mere technician. But I have Naismith's invention here with me, I know how to operate it, and I know how it can be used to free the Authority's prisoners."

The Alcalde, a pleasant-looking man in his fifties, raised an eyebrow and said mildly, "You mean your companions are carrying it-disassembled perhaps?"

Companions? Wili reached down and opened his pack. "No, My Lord," he said, withdrawing the generator and processor. "This is the bobbler. Given the plans that Paul Naismith has broadcast, the Tinkers should be able to make these by the hundreds within six weeks. For now this is the only working model." He showed the ordinary-looking processor box around. Few things could look less like a weapon, and Wili could see the disbelief growing on their faces. A demonstration was in order. He concentrated briefly to let the interface know the parameters.

Five seconds passed and a perfect silver sphere just... appeared in the air before Wili's face. The bobble wasn't more than ten centimeters across, but it might have been ten kilometers for the reaction of his audience. He gave it the lightest of pushes, and the sphere - weighing exactly as much as an equivalent volume of air-drifted across the hall toward the nobles. Before it had traveled a meter, air currents had deflected it. The youngest of the Jonques, the loudmouthed one, shed his dignity and jumped off the dais to grab at the bobble.

"By God, it's real!" he said as he felt its surface.

Wili just smiled and imaged another command sequence. A second and a third sphere floated across the room. For bobbles this size, where the target was close by and homogeneous, the computations were so simple he could generate an almost continuous stream. For a few moments his audience lost some of its dignity.

Finally old Ebenezer raised a hand and said to Wili in English, "So, boy, you have all the Authority has. You can bobble all Downtown, and we go in and pick up the pieces. All their armies won't stand up to this."

Jonque heads jerked around, and Wili knew they understood the question. Most of them understood English and Spanolnegro through they often pretended otherwise. He could see the processors humming away in their scheming minds: With this weapon, they -could do a good deal more than rescue the hostages and boot the Authority out of Aztlÿn If the Peacers were to be replaced, why shouldn't it be by them? And - as Wili had admitted - they had a six weeks' head start on the rest of the world.

Wili shook his head. "No, Wise One. You'd need more power though still nothing like the fusion power the Authority uses. But even more important, this little generator isn't fast enough. The biggest it can make is about four hundred meters across, and to do that takes special conditions and several minutes setup time."

"Bah. So it's a toy. You could decapitate a few Authority troopers with it maybe, but when they bring out their machine guns and their aircraft you are dead." Senor Loud mouth was back in form. He reminded Wili of Roberto Richardson. Too bad this was going to help the likes of them.