"Yates will transfer its power to you, and you will learn how to use it during the ceremony," Ry Oyu said. "You will stand by my side."

"Is Korzenowski here—I mean, his fragments?"

"He is within me," Olmy said, pointing to his head.

Patricia looked at Lanier, her expression that of a little girl uncertain whether she was being told wonderful lies, or incredible truths. She shifted her gaze to Olmy. "He's in your implant?"

Olmy nodded. "I carry additional implants in my body, sufficient to contain him."

"Something big is going on in your city, isn't it?" Patricia asked.

"Very big. Your companions back on the Thistledown should know more about it by now."

"That's why the President couldn't stay with us?"

"Yes."

"We have to rest," Lanier interrupted. "We haven't slept or eaten for hours—"

"You're going to push the Axis City into orbit around the Earth? Destroy Thistledown?"

"Not precisely," Ry Oyu said. "But enough for now. Mr. Lanier is right. After you've rested, we'll resume. Talk shop, I believe you call it."

Patricia narrowed her eyes and shook her head slowly. "I don't know what you people would want to talk with me about. I have to be a complete amateur, a primitive, compared with you. . . .”

"If we haven't convinced you of your value, and your influence, then we are not being sufficiently clear," Olmy said. "You are the source of Korzenowski's work on the Way. You laid the theoretical foundations. That is why we believe you can share the Mystery with him. He was your greatest student.

"You were the teacher, Patricia."

Mirsky hunted through the crowd of Russians for Pogodin, Annenkovsky or Garabedian, keeping an eye on the crosses passing overhead. The soldiers that had once been under his command eyed him sullenly, moving out of his path with fated indifference. He lifted up on his toes, trying to scan the sea of heads, and spotted Pletnev's red face and fuzzy short-cut crown of hair. Maneuvering in that direction, he came up behind the former heavy-lifter commander and laid a hand on his shoulder. Pletnev turned quickly and brushed the hand away, then cocked his head to one side on seeing Mirsky.

"Where are the others?" Mirsky asked.

"Who? The other assassins? You left us with a hellish mess, Comrade General." Pletnev's voice was thick, his words mushy, frightened and angry at once.

"Pogodin, Garabedian. Annenkovsky," Mirsky prompted.

"I haven't seen them since this. . . whatever it is," Pletnev said. "Now leave me alone."

"You were with them," Mirsky persisted. "What happened?"

"What do you mean, what happened?"

"To Vielgorsky, and the other political officers."

Pletnev surveyed the sky suspiciously, looking for crosses. "They're dead, Comrade General. I wasn't there, but Garabedian told me. They were shot." He turned away from Mirsky, murmuring, "I hope to God these hounds of heaven don't know."