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the Russian towns Zavitaya, Belogorsk, Svobodnyy, and Shimanovsk lie in a straight line, each within striking distance of the other. Zavitaya contains a missile complex trained on several Chinese population centers. Belogorsk is the site of an extension of the Khabarovsk laboratories, dealing with the problem of lasers. It's the place where the news has been coming from lately-about the possibility of the equivalent of a death-ray. The entire area has become, in the last ten years, a strategic one. If the Chinese can sweep it, they can isolate that arm of the Soviet Union.
        Toward this end, portable nuke facilities have been moved in on the Amur, pointed toward Zavitaya."
        "War," I said. "But we've had it before. And we've been expecting it now for fourteen years or more. Why does this mean I have to brown-nose Morsfagen?"
        "I received an interesting telephone call from a judge who was a friend in law school, back in the age of the dinosaur. He reported that Morsfagen has been asking around about the possibility of impounding you-just like they tried years ago."
        "We already won that case."
        "That was in peacetime. What Morsfagen wants to know is whether the looming war will make a difference."
        "Law is law," I said.
        "But in time of national crisis, it can be suspended.
        And the word that the general got, my friend tells me, is that he can pull it off. It will be nasty, dirty, replete with complications-but possible. He'd much rather work with you the way it now stands. But if you drive him to the wall or anger him more than his limit of tolerance, he might decide that its worth a risk to his career. He might try it."
        I didn't feel well. I wanted to sit down, but that would have been a sign of weakness. I knew Harry was just barely holding up now. There wasn't any use to make it worse for him. "What's your considered opinion?" I asked.
        "The same. Only I think it's more possible for him to succeed than even his own advisors told him."
        I nodded. "We'll play it cool, Harry. We'll play it so cool that there will be icicles hanging from the walls. Let's go."
        He breathed a sigh of relief and followed me out of the empty office, down the hall, through the door, and into the hex-walled room.
        "You're late," Morsfagen said, consulting his watch and scowling at me as he waited for the thrust of my tongue.
        Maybe he had decided one more witty remark on my part would be the weight to push him to action.
        I didn't give him the chance. "Sorry," I said. "I got held up in traffic."
        He looked genuinely perplexed, opened his mouth to say something, closed it, and ground his teeth together. It was almost as if he would have preferred being insulted to being treated civilly.
        I had come to AC only for the money this time, not to demonstrate my super-humanness, my Christlike talents.
        The therapy the mechanical psychiatrist had given me had worked deep and had taken root. But with a few more paychecks in my pocket, Melinda and I could be vagabonds for an eternity, running from the ugliness, the filth, war, and the people who made it. I thought of the future in the context of the two of us, though I could not yet know how she felt, whether her interest in me matched mine in her. But from a life of pessimism, I had suddenly become optimistic, and I refused to consider any but the brightest of possible futures.
        Child was tranced. His mouth sagged slightly, and his twisted teeth could be seen beyond. His hands trembled against the arms of his chair, even though he was asleep.
        They administered the drugs while I watched, then stepped back to allow the freaks to converse in the way only we could understand.
        I parachuted from the room, down into the labyrinth, not trusting to stairs that might have been there yesterday and not today…
        Hooves clacked on rock, the sound