More crosses flew overhead, causing heads to turn like a sea of wheat in a wind. Mirsky walked away, hands in pockets, bumping shoulders and ploughing his way through the men, face creased in concentration.

This must have been what it was like for the Stoners when the last holdouts were evacuated, Hoffman thought. Shuttle after shuttle of blunt-nosed craft flying back and forth to the bore hole and the huge tuberider Berenson said was waiting there, loading in groups of twenty from each chamber. She was glad Wallace and Polk were in her group; she had grown to rely on them. Ann was not; she was apparently still in the first chamber, or aboard already.

The woman in black, left behind by Santiago, tended her group of four hundred with all the mastery of a shepherd over a flock. Her dogs were the chromium crosses, which gently and insistently brooked no dissent, at least not dissent in terms of wandering away. Hoffman wondered vaguely if mood-altering devices were being used on them; she felt calm, not at all apprehensive, and clearheaded, even rested. Better in fact than she had felt in weeks.

About half in her group were Russians. By a kind of mutual consent, the Russians divided from the Americans, though the craft had brought them in mixed. Mirsky, as far as she saw, was not among them; nor were the officers who had taken command in his place.

Hoffman's time came. The woman asked them to step forward, pointing to each in turn, until twenty had been separated from the larger group. The blunt-arrowhead craft had landed as they were being chosen.

She took a deep breath when her turn came. In a way, this was a relief. All responsibility was gone now. This was a schism with all that had happened before. She found it surprisingly easy to let go.

Sheep-like, she boarded the craft with the others.

Chapter Sixty-One

Chapter Sixty-One

Patricia and Lanier were given their privacy in a small cubicle at the south end of the terminal, to sleep and have time for Patricia to think. A pictor provided some semblance of familiar surroundings, using the same basic decor as Patricia's quarters in the Axis City, but Lanier was scarcely comforted; he was angry and confused.

"You don't have any idea what they're talking about," he told her as they sat on opposite ends of the "couch." "For all we know, they're out to steal your soul. . . . And I don't care what they say, it does sound suspiciously like that, doesn't it?"

Patricia stared steadily at the illusart window opposite, with its view of pine trees and bright blue sky beyond. "I suppose they could do that if they wanted," she said.

"Damned right they could. We don't know anything about them—they've manipulated our view of them ever since we arrived."