The first day, Macurdy wondered what night would bring. Berta had said Anna had the hots for him, but he'd brushed it off as petulance. Certainly he'd seen no indication of it, even auric. He was interested despite himself, and that troubled him. In the army he'd had opportunities for sex from Little Rock to England, and had avoided it because he was married. Then there' been Berta, and a great deal of Rillissa, and having sex with them seemed to have weakened his resistance. He vowed not to have sex with Anna.

The railroad car had blackout curtains, of course, and at twilight they were drawn. At nine o'clock the corridor lights were dimmed. The lieutenant appraised Anna. "Fraulein, for security it is necessary that you share a compartment with one of us." He gestured at Kurt Montag. "Which one do you prefer?" He had no doubt, of course. Her companion looked like a peasant, limped, and wore a suit of ill-fitting tweed that looked distinctly British.

She saw through him of course. "I will share this one with Herr Montag," she said. "We are old friends."

The lieutenant locked his jaw without answering, telling himself she was thinner than he liked anyway, and nodding curtly, went to the next compartment.

Anna set the bolt, drew the compartment curtains, and took pajamas and a robe from her bag. Her aura showed only light sexuality: awareness, not desire. In fact, she put on her robe, turned her Lack to him, changed clothes beneath it, removed the robe and went to bed, pulling the cover over her. Physically he felt disappointed; mentally relieved.

"Anna," he said, "I have no robe. But if you would turn your back…"

She did, and he removed his outer garments. Then, after opening the compartment curtain just a bit to let in some of the corridor light, he turned off the night light and went to bed. Anna watched him in the dimness.

"I had wondered if there would be a problem between us," she said. "Thank you for your good behavior."

He focused on her aura. Her sexual energy had increased but was still unfocused. "I have a wife," he answered. "A very good wife, whom I love. I owe her my loyalty."

Her auric response equated to raised eyebrows. "Oh? And what about Berta? She would wait for you very much aroused, and return sated." She paused. "But then, Berta is much sexier than me, much more tempting."

"That wasn't it. I wanted to snoop around the schloss, but I was afraid I'd be caught and perhaps shot. With Berta, I had a good excuse: If we were caught, I could say we were looking for a place to make love. We would have been punished, but hardly executed."

"Ah. And how many nights did it take to complete your snooping?"

"One. But by then she had learned things about me. So when she asked me to be with her again, it seemed best not to offend her."

Anna smiled, not cynically. "And besides, it was such fun, nicht wahr?"

"She was good. I can't deny it."

"And what was it she learned about you that you wanted to safeguard?"

"You already know: that I am not a Schwachsinniger" "All right. And how did you manage to move around in the building without being caught? Even slipping down the corridor to the reading room or dining room would have been dangerous." He said nothing. Undoubtedly she was reading his feelings, analyzing them.

"I must tell you," she said, "that for a time I supposed you were a spy, put here by some office that disapproved of the Bureau. I could see no other explanation for your ability to move around at night."

It seemed to him he could sense her mind perching at the edge of his, watching for a crack, a chink. Still said nothing. "Well, I can understand your silence, and I will let these questions lie for now. You have shown me respect; I will do the same for you. Good night, Kurt Montag, and pleasant dreams."

Saint-Nazaire had been a small city; now it was an expanse of rubble. But the submarine pens-heavily reinforced tunnelsstill operated. The railyard was closed, had been heavily bombed again, and the two psychics rode the 35 miles from Nantes in a command car, over a road heavily and hastily patched.

After leaving their SS lieutenant at the harbormaster's office, they were taken aboard a submarine in midafternoon, and assigned quarters. Though his was in a crowded crew compartment, Macurdy was privileged: He didn't alternate in his narrow fold-down bunk with someone on a different watch, as the seamen did; it was his full-time. Anna was even more privileged: She occupied the tiny cabin normally used by the 1st officer, who would double up with the captain while she was aboard.

The craft stayed in its cavern till after dark; a submarine moving down the channel in daylight was at serious risk. One never knew when American or British planes might visit.

Eventually the vessel began to move, its throbbing diesels pushing it out of the pen, into the estuary. Despite himself, Macurdy sweated a bit, and raised a brief prayer, less to God than to allied destroyers and planes, that he might arrive safely in England. Not that I wish you guys bad luck or anything, he murmured inwardly, but my mother didn't raise me to drown in some Nazi Unterseeboot.

The seamen were calm enough though, and before long he slept, despite the strange sounds and smells.

For the sake of speed and the batteries, the vessel ran on the surface till dawn, then the humming electrics were cut in, and the diesels shut off. Then bells jangled. Without pausing, the submarine tilted downward slightly and submerged.

The rubber boat was low enough that any chop would have soaked and any real seas upended them. But the sea was relatively calm, its low smooth swells the aftereffect of some distant storm, perhaps off the west coast of Jutland. Neither Montag nor Anna spoke, even in a whisper. They'd been warned not to, before they'd climbed out the conning tower.

Now he could see the beach ahead, low and sandy in the starlight, the swooshing of the low surf as regular as a heartbeat. The sub was well out of sight behind them, and Macurdy wondered if crewmen, off in a rubber boat, ever had trouble finding it at night.

Then the surf gripped them, drove the boat onto the beach and left it grounded. Anna's mobility was hampered by the heavy wool, knee-length coat she wore, and hoisting her over a shoulder, Macurdy stepped out, a petty officer leading, hurrying a few paces to avoid the next wave. Once on dry sand, he put her down. They had no baggage, only Anna's purse and Macurdy's wallet, neither with anything incriminating except their skillfully counterfeited papers and English money.

"Everything is all right?" the petty officer asked Anna. He'd been told she was in charge.

"Yes."

"Well then, good luck." The man took time to shake their hands, then with the other seamen, pushed the boat back into the cold surf, and paddled out of sight in the darkness. Mac felt faintly guilty watching them leave, for wishing them a safe arrival, to their ship if not their port. This war, he told himself, needs to be over, and wished he could make it so.

Then the two spies crossed the sand to the thick bank of heath shrubs behind it. Beach contact, they knew, was the most uncertain point in such landings. The beaches were pa trolled, or said to be, and their would-be pickup team might have to lay back, might even have been captured. Another possibility was that the captain had miscalculated, and put them ashore on the wrong beach.

Anna looked at her English watch. "it is about two hours till dawn," she said. "You might as well sleep. I'll stay awake and watch for our contacts. If I get too sleepy, I'll wake you and we will change places."

Macurdy lay down on the sand, protected from the damp chill by the Web of the World, and a heavy sweater with a Scottish label.

He fell asleep almost at once, and in that sleep dreamed: He was aboard the liner Queen Elizabeth, with the men he'd served with at Camp Robinson, at Benning, in the 509th, the 505th. Shuddering, he remembered dreaming this before, and had let it get away. The liner became a landing craft, one of many, but he was the only man on his, as if it were some derelict caught up unintended in the assault. Shells rumbled, warbled, roared. The craft staggered in the surf, then grounded. The ramp dropped, and he rushed off into chest-deep water, waves lifted him, set him down, and he was on the beach, no longer alone, one of thousands that packed the sand.