“You’re one of the Russians that invaded Thistledown?” Lanier asked. His question, asked of a man so obviously young, was not stupid, though it might have been once. The hiker didn’t appear to be over forty; still, he might have undergone youth therapy on one of the orbiting bodies or in the Hexamon Earth stations.

“Yes.”

“What brings you all the way out here?”

“There’s some work to do, important work. I need your help.”

Lanier held out his hand. “I’m retired.” The stranger helped him to his feet. “Those days were very long ago. What’s your name?”

“I’m disappointed you don’t remember me,” the man said petulantly. “Mirsky. Pavel Mirsky.”

Lanier laughed. “Good try,” he said. “Mirsky’s the other side of heaven by now. He rode the Geshel precincts and the Way sealed up behind him. But I appreciate your joke.”

“No joke, friend.”

Lanier searched the man’s features carefully. By God, he did resemble Mirsky.

“Did Patricia Vasquez ever find her way home?” the man asked.

“Who knows? I’m not in the mood for guessing games. And what the hell do you care?” Lanier surprised himself with his vehemence.

“I would like to find her again.”

“Fat bloody chance.”

“With your help.”

“Your joke is in lousy taste.”

“Garry, it is no joke. I am back.” He stepped closer. The resemblance to Mirsky was uncanny. “I’ve been waiting up here for you to come, someone who recognizes me, and can take me to the right people. You have been important in the Recovery, no?”

“I was,” Lanier said. “You could be his brother.” His exact twin, actually.

“You should take me up to Thistledown. I must speak with Korzenowski and Olmy. They are still alive, are they not?”

Konrad Korzenowski had designed the Way, once attached to the seventh internal chamber of the asteroid starship Thistledown. Thistledown and two sections of the Axis City were still in a ten-thousand-kilometer orbit around the Earth, one polar “cap” removed, exposing the seventh chamber. The Thistledown had been blown from the end of the Way to allow the escape of the Naderite portions of the Axis City, forty years ago. The Way had briefly opened into empty space: it had almost immediately sealed itself, closing its infinity off from this universe forever. Those who had elected to stay within the Way—Pavel Mirsky among them—were more distant than the souls of the dead, if the dead had souls.

Lanier stammered something unintelligible, then coughed at a catch in his throat. His neck hair bristled. “Jesus,” he said into his hand. “What’s going on here?”

“I’ve traveled a good distance in space and time,” the man said. “I have a very strange story to tell.”

“Are you a ghost?” That was an old, useless thing to ask; he did not mean “ghost” in the Hexamon sense. His face flushed.