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kicked out the Communist regime two generations ago, everybody thought the Totalitarian Era was over!"
    "Oh, yes; the collapse of the old Soviet Union should have permanently discredited coercive utopianism. But its Western followers and apologists—who, like the Bourbons, had learned nothing and forgotten nothing—retained their strongholds in academe and the media. And their opponents, for reasons I have never been able to understand, continued to be morally intimidated by them. So now they have, against all expectation, staged a comeback . . . hastened by their masterstroke of adding anti-Semitism to their repertoire." His blue eyes, usually mild, took on a hard glint, and his faint accent roughened. "The perfect selling point in my country, of course. I fear the Russian peasant is eternal in his follies." He sighed with infinite sadness, and took another sip of Scotch. "We wanted freedom so badly—my grandfather led his tank regiment to the defense of the Parliament building during the coup attempt of 1991, when we thought we had finally won it. And now we're willing to throw it all away the instant someone screams 'Death to the Jews!' "
    "So," DiFalco asked bitterly, "all we're doing out here is pointless? We're readying a new world for mankind just when mankind begins to stampede back into the Dark Ages?"
    "Oh, not altogether pointless, Eric Vincentovich." He smiled gently, and DiFalco snorted; it was a long-accustomed form of needling, and they both followed the well-worn grooves of habit. "Eventually—in generations or centuries—the Gods of the Copybook Headings will come crawling out from under the rubble and try to explain it all again." (Strange, the way Kipling was best remembered in Russia; most people there thought he had been a Russian.) "And if we and our successors are allowed to carry the terraforming process to the point where it becomes irreversible, then a living Mars will be ready when humanity—including recognizable Russians, I like to hope—is ready to come into its inheritance."
    "But how can we? We've had to become self-sufficient in some things out here, but we're still dependent on Earth for a lot of what we need to complete the project. If they really want to do a Proxmire on us, they can."
    "Who knows?" Kurganov shrugged eloquently. "The civilian management council has asked for an emergency meeting with the two of us to decide what our response should be. Of course, they don't know yet that a rather large new factor has just been added to further complicate matters!" He finished his Scotch, set his glass down with a click, and stood up. "Shall we go, Eric? I'm looking forward to meeting your rather surprising extraterrestrial!"
    * * *
    Hand-shaking was not a custom of Varien's people, but he bowed gracefully when Difalco introduced his commander.
    "Welcome aboard my ship, General Sergei."
    "Actually," the Russian smiled, "the conventional usage is 'General Kurganov.' "
    "Yes, of course." Varien shook his head in annoyance, whether at his own forgetfulness or at the peculiarities of Earthly forms of address was unclear. "So, General Kurganov, Colonel Eri . . . DiFalco informs me that you are the senior government official here in this system's asteroid belt."
    "I am," Kurganov explained, "the senior military officer in charge of the Russian-American Mars Project, a joint effort by my government and Colonel DiFalco's to terraform . . . ah, to render habitable our system's fourth planet. Much of the actual work is being carried out by a consortium of private corporations and research institutions, but no civilian governmental structure has ever been set up in the asteroids; Phoenix Prime, our base, is still legally a military installation. So you are correct; I represent the ultimate government authority short of my superiors on our home world—which you must know is the third planet, inasmuch as you know so much else. In particular, you have me at a disadvantage with your