"It's changing things a lot, I'd say," Hoffman remarked. "If anything, the Stone has made things worse." She held up a memory block marked "Plant Physiology Changes under Plasma Tube Conditions." "You made this copy yourself?" She passed it to Cronberry, then to Hague.

Lanier nodded. "It's in S-code," he said. "It's a summary from the best sources, mostly from the third chamber library. Vasquez should be going into the third chamber in a few days."

"What does it summarize?" Hague asked, hefting it.

"The first two weeks of the war."

Cronberry flinched.

Hoffman took a slate, programmed it for reading S-code, plugged in the block and skimmed over the material. Her face went ashen. "I haven't looked at this before," she said.

"It's mostly historical photographic records made by the armed forces on both sides. Some of the stuff toward the end chronicles the Long Winter."

"So that's not just theory anymore," Hague said.

Lanier shook his head.

"How long was. . . will. . . the winter be?" Cronberry asked, reluctantly accepting the slate from Hoffman.

"One or two years in its major effects."

Hague took the slate from Cronberry. "You guarantee this material is from the third chamber library?"

Lanier swallowed before answering, irritated. "I could hardly have conjured it out of thin air."

"Of course not," Hoffman said. "If the libraries are correct—if our universes coincide in this one way—then we have about sixteen days?"

"One way or another, we'll know by then," Lanier said. "Although the knowledge of the events will almost certainly shape the results. If. If they happen at all."

"We're scheduling a meeting with the Russians tomorrow at noon," Hoffman said. "Strictly informal. They've asked that you be there. Mr. Hague's department has pushed very hard for State Department and DOD approval of the meeting. If those talks succeed, there will be other meetings below the cabinet level. And if we can convince the President before next week, perhaps a summit will be arranged." She blinked slowly in his direction, still focusing somewhere over his shoulder—not quite the thousand-yard stare of a battle-weary veteran, but very nearly.

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

The third chamber city was the next step.

Having made the trip to the first circuit of wells, and having absorbed as much as she could from the books in the Alexandria library selected for her by Lanier, Patricia felt herself numbing nicely to the whole subject. It was a game, an exercise, no more real than the odd mathematical exercises she had made up as a teenager.

She had ridden the trains beneath Thistledown City so many times in the past two weeks, but the third chamber was the most closely guarded of the first five. The trains had never stopped—until now.

Rupert Takahashi escorted her from the subway station to the ground-level walkways.