Three blocks of fine-grained koa wood and two carving knives, with a sharpening stone.

The bathroom scale said eight kilograms. I decided to leave it at that and let Elza make up the difference with clothes. That would benefit all three of us. She would never admit it, but she liked dressing up a little and was easier to get along with if she felt she looked attractive. To me, she would look fine in a potato sack.

I sat down at my writing desk, opened the right- hand drawer, and lifted out the 10.5- mm Glock, with all its reassuring and troubling weight. Illegal in New York City despite the state and federal permits clipped to the side of its shoulder holster. It would be a central exhibit in the apartment-museum. “With this weapon, Namir Zahari killed four looters who attacked him in the ruins of Tel Aviv.” And no others, of course. No Others, certainly. It would not be that kind of diplomacy.

I wiped it clean with an oil-impregnated cloth. The breech smelled of cold metal and faraway fire. I’d last used it at a pistol range in New Jersey, first week of January. Elza’d been with me, with her little .32. An annual family custom that would not be welcome on ad Astra.

Putting it away, I had a familiar specific feeling of memento mori. Two of our team in the Gehenna cleanup committed suicide, both with Israeli-issued pistols like this one.

I used to wonder how much horror and sadness I could absorb before that kind of exit seemed attractive, or necessary. I’m fairly sure now it couldn’t happen; I’m not set up that way. I’ll keep plugging along until my luck runs out; my time runs out. Along with eight billion others, perhaps, at the same instant.

Though what does “at the same instant” mean in our situation? Twenty-four years later? Or perhaps the Others have a way around Einsteinian simultaneity.

My phone pinged, and it was Dustin. He was landing at Towers in a few minutes. He’d already talked to Elza, and they’d decided to meet for dinner at the Four Seasons, okay? I said I’d make an early reservation, for seven. An hour away, plenty of time to walk.

The rain was over and not programmed to resume until tomorrow. I put on evening clothes and left the Glock in the drawer. Strapped the little .289 Browning to my right ankle. Called Security and told them the route I’d be walking. There was already someone on duty down the block, they said; the same one who’d followed me back from New Jersey. I walked the stairs to the basement and went out through the service entrance of the apartment building next door. No one in the alley.

It had been years since the tail had caught anyone, but that one time saved my life. I recognized this one, a small black man, as I passed him at the first intersection, but of course we didn’t acknowledge one another.