“Good to see you again, Ser Lanier,” Korzenowski said, shaking his hand. He hardly glanced at Mirsky, treating him less as a guest and more perhaps as an unresolved curiosity. He beckoned them enter and take seats. The free-form white interior of Korzenowski’s quarters was cluttered with white and gray cylinders of all sizes, draped with lumps of what looked like white bread dough. He pulled a few of these aside—as he lifted them, they elongated in his hands, hissing faintly—and ordered the floor to form chairs, which shaped themselves rapidly. The Russian sat and folded his arms, appearing at ease. The trace of apprehension he had exhibited outdoors was gone.

Svard made his farewells, picted something rapidly to the Engineer, and departed. Korzenowski folded his arms decisively, echoing Mirsky’s gesture, and stood before Lanier and the Russian. The Engineer’s expression had become stern, irritated.

“We have a genuine puzzle here, Ser Lanier,” he said, regarding the Russian. “Is this truly Pavel Mirsky, or a clever imitation?” He looked sharply at Lanier. “Do you know?”

“No,” Lanier said.

“What’s your intuition?”

Lanier didn’t answer for a moment, a little startled. “I can’t really say. If I have any intuition, it’s fogged by all the impossibilities.”

“I know for a fact that Pavel Mirsky went down the Way in one half of the Axis City, and that the Way closed up behind him, and all who accompanied him. I know there has been no gate opened to this Earth since. If this is Pavel Mirsky, he’s returned to us by some avenue we can’t begin to guess at.”

The Russian shifted a little in his seat, folded his hands in his lap, and nodded agreement, content to be spoken of as if he were not there.

“He seems self-satisfied,” Korzenowski said, rubbing his chin speculatively. “Cat with a canary feather. I hope he pardons a candid examination. Our instruments tell us that he is solid and human, down to his atomic structure. He is not a ghost in the old or new sense, and he is not a projection of any kind familiar to us.” Korzenowski uttered these observations as if going through a string of obvious truths simply to get them out of the way. “His genetic structure is that of Pavel Mirsky, as recorded in the medical records of the third chamber city. Are you Lieutenant General Pavel Mirsky?”

The Russian glanced between them. “The simplest answer is yes. I think it is close to the truth.”

“Do you come here of your own free will?”

“With the same qualifications, yes.”

“How did you come here?”

“That’s more complicated,” the Russian said.

“Do we have time to listen, Ser Lanier?”

“I do,” Lanier said.

“I would like Ser Olmy to be here,” Mirsky said.