That, at least, explained the prevalence of Nader's name in the records. Between 2015 and 2100, the followers of the Good Man consolidated their power over two-thirds of the world. The only dogged resistance in those decades was in Asia, where the Greater Asian Cooperative—made up of Japan, China, Southeast Asia (occasionally) and Malaysia—renounced Naderism and returned enthusiastically to scientific research and high technology, including nuclear energy. The first real opposition to the Naderites in the West began in 2100 with the Volks movement in Gross Deutschland—

She switched off the machine and lay back in the chair, rubbing her eyes. The information had come in printed displays, selected visuals and even more selected sounds. Where documentation of the multimedia sort was lacking, print took over, but with subtle and clear vocal accompaniment. Compared to this, simple reading was torture and current video methods as archaic as cave paintings.

If she were so inclined, she could pleasantly spend the rest of her life here, an eternal scholar parasitizing the knowledge of centuries neither she nor her ancestors had lived through.

Considering the alternatives she faced, that prospect was very attractive.

The hour was almost up.

She returned to the system briefly to look up information on the corridor, the exodus of the Stoners and the desertion of the cities. In each instance she was met with a very graphic floating spiked ball signaling no access.

Meeting Takahashi outside, where he was calmly smoking a cigarette—the first she had seen on the Stone—Patricia stretched her arms and neck. "I'm going to have to come back."

"Of course."

"Where to next?"

"A short tour. We can't walk to where we're going in any reasonable time, so we'll use a truck."

The garage for the third chamber trucks was a sheet metal shed nestled incongruously at the base of one of the chamber-spanning arches. A subway entrance opened nearby; the transit lines that had once served Thistledown City were no longer operative, however, and to get from one subway junction to anywhere else in the city, it was necessary to drive trucks along the narrow service roads.

"I can't access anything in the libraries on the exodus," Patricia said as Takahashi inspected a truck. He bent down to peer beneath the chassis, then stood straight and brushed his hands together.

"The archaeology group is working that out now. We should be back in time for their weekly report; that's at eleven hundred hours." He glanced at his watch. "It's oh nine hundred now. Everything seems to be shipshape. Shall we be off?"

He held the driver's door open for her. "Had your truck lessons yet?"

Patricia shook her head.

"It's about time, then, don't you think?"

She shrugged nervously.