Lenore tried, again and again, to point out that engineers were as much responsible for saving the Earth as for destroying it. Without the orbital platforms and the whole paraphernalia of space-based defense, the Earth would have been wiped utterly clean of life; the NATO and Soviet platforms managed to destroy some forty percent of all missiles.

Not enough, not enough. . .

And how many children, how many animals, how many innocent and—

But, Lenore would counter, no one born with a mouth and a need is innocent. . . .

She was often right, of course.

The masters he served now were not perfect, hardly angelic. They were intelligent, powerful, reasonable; their leaders lacked the ignorant erratic blindness of Earth's leaders. But they still differed with each other, sometimes strongly.

So Heineman, with his wife, flew the skies of Earth and charted the damage, and hoped for a day when grasses would grow and flowers bloom, when snows would recede and the air would be clear of radioactivity. He worked hard for that day.

And he was faithful to his new masters, for he was born again in more ways than one. On his first day back on Earth, he had suffered a fatal heart attack.

Larry Heineman was on his second body. Lenore assured him it was better than his first.

He had his doubts, but it certainly felt better.

New Zealand dusk, with another spectacular sunset in the offing. Overhead, the large beacon of the Thistledown rose clear and unobscured, and not far away, the speeding point of the orbiting precincts crossed the sky in the opposite direction.

Garry Lanier emerged from the Talsit tent and saw Karen Lanier speaking with a group of farmers at the camp fence. The farmers had brought their children to the camp two weeks before for Talsit cleansing; they, at least, would not give birth to monsters, or suffer the long-term effects of radiation poisoning. But for the adults, there was still much suspicion and distrust; the early rumors of alien invasions and hordes of sky-traveling devils had seemed peculiarly convincing in the aftermath of the world's end. Karen's obvious pregnancy—six months along—did much to reassure them they were dealing with real human beings.

Lanier still had not told their story to any Earth-bound survivors. Who could absorb such an incredible and complicated tale when one's thoughts were on simple survival and the health of one's children, or sheep, or townspeople?

He stood with his hands in his overalls pockets and watched Karen talking quietly with the shepherds. They had lived and worked together since returning to Earth and had married two years ago. Their life was busy, and they were good for each other, but. . .

He was not yet content, not yet free of the manifold neuroses he had picked up in the past decade. At least he could feel the edges of his mental wounds puckering and healing, scarring up, perhaps even smoothing away.