"There, see?" Mirsky grinned. "You are that way." The Russian's eyes suddenly resumed their sharp focus on him. "Why didn't you let the world know about this from the beginning?"

"After you've spent a little more time here, and in the third chamber, ask yourself what you would have done."

It was Mirsky's turn not to react. "There are bitter grievances between our people," he said, dropping the book on the table with a thump. "They will not be easily laid to rest. In the meantime, I do not understand this place. I do not understand our position here, or yours. My ignorance is dangerous, Mr. Lanier, so I will come here, or to the other library, when time permits, and educate myself. And I will learn English using your method, if that is possible. But, to prevent confusion, I do not think all my people will be allowed to come here. Would it not be wise for you to look to similar restrictions?"

Lanier shook his head, wondering if Mirsky even saw his own contradictions. "We're here to break the pattern of the past, not continue it. As far as I'm concerned, it's open to all."

Mirsky stared at him for an uncomfortably long period of time, then stood. "Perhaps," he said. "That is much easier for you to say than for me. My people are not used to being well informed. Some of my officers will find the thought frightening. Some will not believe any of this. . . they will assume it is an American trick. That would be very comforting."

"But you know it isn't."

Mirsky reached out to touch the book. "If a truth is dangerous," he said, "then perhaps it is not true enough."

The strip of parkland in the second chamber where Mirsky's battalion had landed now took the bodies of the dead. A hundred and six American, British and German soldiers had died in the battle and lay in aluminized sacks down a long trench opened by one of the anthropology team's excavators. Three hundred sixty-two Soviets lay in four more trenches. Another ninety-eight Soviets and a dozen Western bloc soldiers were missing and presumed dead, either destroyed in the battle or drifted out of the bore hole to become freeze-dried mummies in orbit around the Stone. A special marker had been set up for the dead of OTV 45 and the crews of the lost heavy-lifters.

Two thousand three hundred people gathered around the trenches. Mirsky and Gerhardt spoke in Russian and English, keeping their words brief and to the point. They were burying more than just their fellows; though there was no marker yet for the dead of Earth, they were burying distant family members, friends; distant cultures, histories, dreams.

They were burying the past, or as much of it as they could part with. The Soviets stood together in ranks. Within the Soviet group, the members of their science team remained isolated, selected out.