"All right!" Wentz laughed. "I can tell you took it serious when I told you to specialize on our high tech clients. I know Middle California would be a backwater without him, but-"
"And it will be again, once he's gone, unless he can find an apprentice. They've been trying for years to get him to take on some students or even to teach classes like before the Crash, but he's refused. And I think he's right. Unless you are terribly creative to begin with, there's no way you can make new algorithms. I think he's been waiting- not taking anyone on - and watching. I think today he found his apprentice. The kid's mean... he'd kill. And I don't know what he really wants besides money. But he has one thing that all the good intentions and motivation in world can't get us, and that's brains. You should have seen him on the Celest, Boss...."
The argument - or lecture - went on for several more minutes, but the outcome was predictable. The wizard of the Tinkers had at long last got himself an apprentice.
THREE
Night and triple moonlight. Wili lay in the back of the buckboard, heavily bundled in blankets. The soft springs absorbed most of the bumps and lurches as the wagon passed over the tilting, broken concrete. The only sounds Wili heard were the cool wind through the trees, the steady clapclapclap of the horse's rubberized shoes, its occasional snort in the darkness. They had not yet reached the great black forest that stretched north to south; it seemed like all Middle California was spread out around him. The sea fog which so often made the nights here dark was absent, and the moonlight gave the air an almost luminous blue tone. Directly west- the direction Wili faced - Santa Ynez lay frozen in the still light. Few lights were visible, but the pat-tern of the greets was clear, and there was of a hint of orange and violet from the open square of the bazaar.
Wili wriggled deeper in the blankets, the tingling paralysis in his limbs mostly gone now; the warmth in his arms and legs, the cold air on his face, and the vision spread below him was as good as any drug high he'd ever stolen in Pasadena.