Half of the Laniers’ house was century-old stone and rough wood, perched on a stone and concrete cellar and foundation dug deep into a tree-shaded hillside. The other half, added forty years before when they had first moved in, was more modern in appearance, white and austere, though well laid out and comfortable, with a new kitchen and accommodations for the equipment he had needed for his work. That equipment still waited against one wall of the study, a small console of communicators and processors that had allowed him to keep track of the state of virtually any spot on Earth; his link with the Terrestrial Hexamon, through Christchurch and the orbiting precincts. He had not entered the study for six months.

Lanier’s neck hair constantly reminded him of his guest’s presence on the road beside him. They climbed the steps up the hill, Lanier’s leg muscles already aching, and stood on the broad covered porch as Lanier opened the unlocked door. He did not know whether Karen had returned home or not; frequently, when busy on her own missions, she stayed overnight or longer in Christchurch or some of the nearby villages. It actually concerned him little that she might have one or more lovers (though he would have resented it if she had taken Fremont into her bed); he had no evidence of such, and besides, Lanier had never been susceptible to that kind of jealousy, sex being among the weaker of his passions.

She was not at home. That relieved him; he didn’t know how he would describe or explain their visitor. Still, surveying the empty house, he felt a brief, sharp stab of grief. They had lost so much in the past few years, almost all that had consoled them over the hard cruel decades of the Recovery.

“Come in, please,” he invited. Across the years, he had adopted Karen’s precise, almost Oxfordian style of English. Mirsky, or whoever this man actually was—Lanier had an explanation nearly as ludicrous as the visitor’s own—, wiped his boots on the porch mat and entered, smiling with pleasure at the house’s antiques.

“A fine home,” he said. “You’ve lived here since…?”

“Between missions, since two-thousand-seven.”

“Alone?”

“My wife and I. We had a daughter. She’s lost. Dead.”

“I have not been in a normal house for…” Mirsky lifted his eyebrows and shook his head. “You can talk to Olmy and Korzenowski from here?”

Lanier half-shrugged, half-nodded. “In my study, at the back of the house.”

Lanier hesitated at the closed study door, glancing back at the man. His theory, which seemed more convincing every minute, was that this fellow did indeed resemble Mirsky, but was not—could not be him. Somebody had created a duplicate of Mirsky, though he could not imagine why. How would he explain to Olmy or Korzenowski—or anybody? They’d simply have to see for themselves.