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of colored brick with their round stained-glass windows; sat in the empty courtyard and ate a satisfying luncheon of fried grits, sausage, and eggs—not forgetting to have food and beer sent out to the van…
    The manager had time on her hands, and was inclined to be maternal. It was not until he had sat and listened politely to her rambling description of a son and daughter who were with the 5th Armored in Tashkent that he suspected that he was procrastinating; his own mother had died only a few years after his birth, and he did not generally tolerate attempts at coddling.
    Not until he found himself seriously considering her offer of an hour upstairs with the pretty but bedraggled serving-wench was he sure of it. He excused himself, looked in the back window of the van, saw that one of the Janissary NCO's had the driver bent over a bench and was preparing to mount. Eric rapped on the glass with impatient disgust, and the soldier released her to scurry, whimpering, back to the driver's seat, zipping her overall with shaking fingers.
    It would be no easier to meet his father again if he delayed arrival until nightfall. Restlessly, he reopened the book; anticipation warred with… yes, fear: he had been afraid at that last interview with his father. Karl von Shrakenberg was not a man to be taken lightly.
    The quiet sobbing of the driver as she wrestled with the wheel cut across his thoughts. Irritated, he found a handkerchief and handed it across to her, then pulled the peaked cap down over his eyes and turned a shoulder as he settled back and pretended to sleep. Useless gesture , he thought with self-contempt. A serf without a protector was a victim, and there were five hundred million more like this one. The system ground on, they were the meat, and the fact that he was tied on top of the machine did not mean he could remake it. And there were worse places than this—much worse: in a mine, or the newly taken Italian territories he had helped to conquer, to the drumroll beat of the Security Directorate's execution squads, liquidation rosters, destructive-labor camps.
    Shut up , he thought. Shut up, wench, I've troubles of my own
    !
    It was still light when they turned in under the tall stone arch of the gates, the six wheels of the Kellerman crunching on the smooth, crushed rock, beneath the sign that read: "Oakenwald Plantation, est. 1788. K. von Shrakenberg, Landholder." But the sun was sinking behind them. Ahead, the jagged crags of the Maluti Mountains were outlined in the Prussian blue of shadow and sandstone gold. This valley was higher than the plateau plains west of the Caledon River; rocky, flat-topped hills reared out of the rolling fields.
    The narrow plantation road was lined with oaks, huge branches meeting twenty meters over their heads; the lower slopes of the hills were planted to the king-trees as well.
    Beyond were the hedged fields, divided by rows of Lombardy poplar: wheat and barley still green with a hint of gold as they began to head out, contour-ploughed cornfields, pastures dotted with white-fleeced sheep, spring lambs, horses, yellow-coated cattle. The fieldworkers were heading in, hoes and tools slanted over their shoulders, mules hanging their heads as they wearily trudged back toward the stables. A few paused to look up in curiosity as the vehicle passed; Eric could hear the low, rhythmic song of a work team as they walked homeward, a sad sweet memory from childhood.
    Despite himself he smiled, glancing about. It had been, by the White Christ and almighty Thor, two years now since his last visit. "You can't go home again," he said softly to himself. "The problem is, you can't ever really leave it, either." Memory turned in on itself, and the past colored the present; he could remember his first pony, and his father's hands lifting him into the saddle, how his fingers smelled of tobacco and leather and strong soap.
    And the first time he had been invited into his father's study to talk with the