No one knew what had happened within the library, although Hoffman had expressed an all-too-plausible theory that made no one happy. Garabedian still mulled the theory over, shifting his eyes between the implacable black wall and the American soldiers.

The Zampolits, Hoffman suggested, had tried to kill General Mirsky. Whether or not they succeeded, the library building had sealed itself off to prevent further violence and perhaps preserve evidence.

All they could do was wait.

It had been a week. During that time, Garabedian and Pletnev had managed to keep the Russian troops from doing anything unwise—factionalizing, spreading agitation or unfounded speculation. Work had proceeded on construction of their quarters in the fourth chamber. A few Russians—fifty-two, at last count—had simply left the camps and vanished into the fourth chamber woods. Five had been found so far, well fed—the woods were full of various edible plants. But three of those five had been fetal-curled and withdrawn in delayed shock.

American psychologists had offered to help; there had been similar cases among the Americans, most notably Joseph Rimskaya, who had been stricken just three days before. He had wandered into the main Russian camp in the fourth chamber, weeping uncontrollably, his clothes and back in shreds from self-flagellation. He had been returned to the Americans. But Garabedian did not think it wise to allow Russian soldiers access to American psychologists.

What he felt, above all, was sadness, a sense of loss which almost overwhelmed his sense of duty. He—like Mirsky and most of the young officers—had been part of the new Russian military experiment, begun to fix the problems highlighted by the manifold failures of the Little Death. They and their colleagues had worked with each other as a team, not as brutal antagonists in a throwback nineteenth-century system. They had achieved great things, increasing efficiency and decreasing alcoholism, desertion, violence and suicide.

They had been the new breed, and their successes had made them cultural heroes. The conquest of the Potato would have brought them untold glory; instead, through some error he could not yet comprehend, they had failed miserably, and their heritage was now ashes.

Garabedian understood all too well the pressures which drove his comrades to swim to the fourth chamber islands and lie down on the forest floor, pulling humus and mold over their soaking fatigues.

The director of the Infinite Hexamon Nexus, Hulane Ram Seija, could trace his ancestry back to the Greater East Asian Geshels who had first returned man to space, thirteen centuries before; yet he looked less human than the Frant. In this, he was typical of many neomorph citizens occupying Central City.