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assignments. People think intelligence and undercover work is glamorous, but it takes a lot of patience.
    Marie had left before I arrived home, as usual, but the table was set, and there was a veal pie in the oven, with a small loaf of bread and some sliced cheese. I fumbled together some lettuce, peppers, and carrots with some oil and vinegar for a salad. The table gleamed, as did the white-enameled windowsills.
    I forced myself to eat slowly and not to wolf down my food. After I washed the dishes and set them in the rack, I walked into the main parlor and glanced at the videolink, then shook my head. None of the three channels available in Vanderbraak Centre offered much. In fact, none of the eight in the capital offered much. I walked on into the study, wondering if I should get to work on the article I had promised the Journal of Columbian Politics on the reality of implementing environmental politics. After the editorial controversies over my recycling article, I was faintly surprised that they wanted another one.
    In the dim light I glanced toward the difference engine. Mine was one of the newest electric-fluidic types, not the mechanical monsters that hadn’t changed that much after Babbage invented them, but one of those based on Bajan designs. I never have had much of a problem with using a New French concept, not so long as the manufacturer was a solid Columbian firm, and Spykstra Information Industries, SII, is about as old-line Columbian as you can get. Of course, Bruce had added more than a few frills, both for the extra fees he got and because we went back to the old days, when he was a techie and I a mere expendable. He was smart and got out early, but for some reason he has a warm spot in his Jewish heart for me.
    SII makes its machines about twice as heavy and twice as tough as they probably need to be, and that means twice as much power, and an equivalent monthly bill from NBEI, not to mention the cost of having the house rewired and breakers installed in place of the old Flemish fuses. I even had a no-flicker screen and a nonimpact printer, again on recommendation from Bruce.
    Under the desk, tucked right into a bracket behind the front leg, was a standard watch truncheon, a lot more effective against intruders, most of the time, than firearms. Also, you don’t have to go through the license business. I still retain some occupational paranoia.
    The whole system sat on a low table beside the antique Kunigser desk my father had obtained from somewhere, but from either the desk or the Babbage engine table I could see out the double eight-pane doors across the veranda and down the lawn to the sculpted hedge maze.
    I still hadn’t quite restored the maze, but another year might see it back close to its original condition. Gardening does help heal the past, I had found, at least sometimes.
    Because I was restless and did not feel like writing, I finally opened one of the double doors and slipped out onto the veranda, so welcomingly cool in the autumn. When I had been with the government, when I had been free from assignment for several weeks, my family had enjoyed taking holidays, infrequent as such occasions had been, not only in the summer, but even in the fall. I had liked winter, but Elspeth had been a southern girl and spent her days before the fire or the big woodstove, while Waltar and I skied on the long grassy slope down toward the river. Hiking back up, to me, had even been pleasurable. Waltar would have been ready to enter college by now.
    For a time I stood and watched the purple twilight drop toward black velvet above the hills across the river, watched the lights of Vanderbraak Centre blink on, some reflecting in a patch of the River Wijk. As the chill built, I realized that I did not stand on the veranda alone, that a white figure stood in the shadows closer to the house.
    Slowly I sat down on the white-painted wrought-iron chair, but the floral patterns felt like they were cutting right through