"But the one place we can call home is now in ruins. This is our tragedy—our mutual tragedy. For you, the history of the Death is remote, but for us it is immediate and very real. We still suffer from our memories, our experiences, and we will grieve for years to come, probably for the rest of our lives." What he needed to say came clear to him then, as if he had been thinking about it for days—and perhaps he had, but not consciously.

"Earth is our home—your home, your cradle, as well as my own. It is now a place of death and misery, and it is beyond the power of my friends and colleagues to remedy that. . . .

"But it is not beyond your power. If you would celebrate us, and celebrate our unlikely presence in this chamber, then would it not be appropriate to help us? Earth needs your help desperately. Perhaps we can rewrite history, and correct it.

"Let us go home together," he said, feeling his throat catch.

In the first ring of seats, Olmy listened and nodded only once. Just beyond, in the second ring, Oligand Toller, the President's advocate and representative in this session, locked the fingers of his two hands in his lap, his face impassive.

"Let us go home," Lanier repeated. "Your ancestors need you."

Chapter Fifty-Six

Chapter Fifty-Six

Pletnev blew out his breath and wiped his red face with a scrap of towel, dropping the ax into a tree stump. A few meters away, a stack of notched logs waited assembly into a cabin. Pletnev had also made a trough for mixing mud to daub into the cracks between the logs, and cleared a site in the woods near the beach.

Beside him, Garabedian and Annenkovsky stood with arms crossed, faces intently surveying the ground.

"Are you saying," Pletnev began, after blowing out again, "that he has changed so much we can no longer rely on him?"

"He isn't concentrating on his command," Annenkovsky said. "He holds us back."

"Holds you back from doing what?"

"For one thing," Annenkovsky continued, "he treats Vielgorsky's followers as if they were merely errant children, and not dangerous subversives."

"Well, perhaps that's wise. There are too few of us to purge willy-nilly."

"That is not the only problem," Annenkovksy said. "He frequently leaves the compound, takes the train and a truck to the library, and just sits there, looking confused. We think his brain is addled."

Pletnev looked to Garabedian. "What do you think, Comrade Major?"

"He is not the same man," Garabedian said. "He himself admits it. And he keeps claiming he is dead. Resurrected. It isn't. . . appropriate."

"Is he still General Pavel Mirsky?"

"Why ask that? Ask if he is a good leader," Annenkovsky said. "Any of us could do better."

"He's been negotiating with the Americans. . . has he negotiated badly?" Pletnev asked.

"No," Garabedian said. "Smoothly, if anything."