After a pause Teagarden said, 'That's why it's in cold-pak. I see.'

'And it'll stand up to any test you care to give it.' You, Minister Freneksy, anyone including Don Festenburg who probably figured it out before I did, he realized, but couldn't do anything about it. 'That's what distinguishes this solution; even if you know what's going on you can't stop it.' This rather enlarged the concept of political maneuvering. Was he horrified by this? Or impressed? To be honest, as yet he did not know. It was too novel a solution, this collusion of Gino Molinari with himself, behind the scenes. His tinkering with the colossal entity of rebirth in his own inimitable, faster-than-the-eye way.

'But,' Teagarden protested, 'that leaves another time continuum without a UN Secretary. So what's gained if—'

'The one which Don Festenburg has gone to activate,' Eric said, 'undoubtedly comes from a world in which the Mole was not elected.' In which he went down to political defeat and someone else became UN Secretary. There no doubt were a number of such worlds, considering the closeness of the original vote in this world.

In that other world the absence of the Mole would have no meaning, because he was simply one more defeated political figure, perhaps even in retirement. And – in a position to be thoroughly rested up and fresh. Ready to tackle Minister Freneksy.

'It's admirable,' Eric decided. 'I think, anyhow.' The Mole had known that sooner or later this battered body would die beyond the possibility of reconstruction except by artiforg means. And what good was a political strategist who couldn't look ahead to his own death? Without that he would have been merely another Hitler, who didn't want his country to survive him.

Once more Eric glanced over the document which Molinari had presented them. It indeed was airtight. Legally the next Molinari absolutely had to be activated.

And that one, in turn, would see to it that he provided himself with a replacement. Like any good tag-team of wrestlers it could theoretically go on for ever.

Could it?

All the Molinaris, in all the time-continua, were aging at the same rate. It could only go on for thirty or forty more years. At the most.

But that would carry Terra through and out of the war.

And that was all the Mole cared about.

He was not trying to be immortal, a god. He was simply interested in serving out his term of office. What had happened to Franklin D. Roosevelt in a previous major war was not going to happen to him. Molinari had learned from the mistakes of the past. And he acted accordingly, in typical Piedmontese style. He had found a bizarre and colorfully idiosyncratic solution to his political problem.

This explained why the UN Secretary's uniform and homeopape shown to Eric a year hence by Don Festenburg were counterfeit.

Without this, they might conceivably have been real.

That alone justified what Molinari had done.

An hour later Gino Molinari summoned him to his private office.

Flushed, glowing with good humour, the Mole in a spanking new uniform leaned back in his chair and expansively, at leisure, surveyed Eric. 'So the nurts weren't going to start me up,' he boomed out. Then abruptly he laughed. 'I knew you'd put pressure on them, Sweetscent; I had it all worked out. Nothing by accident. You believe me? Or you think there was a loophole, they might have gotten away with it, especially that Festenburg – he's plenty smart, you know. I admire the hell out of him.' He belched. 'Listen to me. Well, so much for Don.'

'I think they almost got by,' Eric said.

'Yes, they did,' Molinari agreed, somber now. 'It was very close. But everything in politics is close; that's what makes it worth the effort. Who wants a sure thing? Not me. By the way: those video tapes are going on the air as planned; I sent poor Prindle back to the vault or wherever it is he hangs out.' Again Molinari laughed loudly.

'Am I right,' Eric said, 'that in your world — '

'This is my world,' Molinari interrupted; putting his hands behind his head he rocked back and forth, eyeing Eric brightly.

Eric said, 'In the parallel world you came from — '

'Garbage!'

' — you were defeated in your attempt to become UN Secretary; is that right? I'm just curious. I don't intend to discuss it with anyone.'

'If you do,' Molinari said, 'I'll have the Secret Service glunk you and sink you in the Atlantic. Or drop you in deep space.' He was silent a moment. 'I got elected, Sweetscent, but the drats knocked me right out of office in a no-confidence recall thing they cooked up. Having to do with the Pact of Peace. They were right, of course; I shouldn't have gotten involved in it. But who wants to make a deal with four-armed shiny bugs who can't even talk, who have to go around carrying a translation box like an indoor potty?'

'You know now,' Eric said guardedly, 'that you have to. Reach an understanding with the reegs.'

'Sure. But it's easy to see that now.' The Mole's eyes were dark and intense, fighting this out with vast, native intelligence. 'What do you have in mind, doctor? Let's have a look. What did they used to say in the last century? Let's kick it up on the roof and see if it – some damn thing.'

'A contact is ready for you in Tijuana.'

'Hell, I'm not going to Tijuana; that's a dirty town – that's where you go for a broad, age thirteen. Even younger than Mary.'

'You know about Mary, then?' Had she been his mistress in the alternate world?

'He introduced us,' Molinari said blandly. 'My best friend; he fired me up. The one they're burying or whatever it is they're doing with the corpse. It couldn't interest me less, just so they get rid of it. I've already got one, that bullet-riddled one in the casket. Which you saw. One is enough; they make me nervous.'

'What are you going to do with the assassinated one?'

Molinari showed his teeth in a great grin. 'You don't get it, do you? That was the previous one. That came before the one that just died. I'm not the second; I'm the third.' He cupped his ear, then. 'Okay, let's hear what you've got; I'm waiting.'

Eric said, 'Urn, you'll go to TF&D to visit Virgil Ackerman. That won't arouse suspicion. It's my job to get the contact into the factory so he can confer with you. I think I can do it. Unless—'

'Unless Corning, the top 'Star agent in Tijuana, gets to your reeg first. Listen, I give the Secret Service orders to round him up; that'll keep the 'Stars busy for a while, get them off our knabs. We can cite their activity regarding your wife, their getting her addicted; that'll be the covering story. You agree? Yes? No?'

'It'll do.' Once more he felt weary, even more so than before. It was a day, he decided, that would never terminate; the huge former burden had returned to weigh him into submission.

'I don't impress you very much,' Molinari said.

'On the contrary. I'm just exhausted.' And he still had to go back to Tijuana to bring Deg Dal Il into the factory from his room at the Caesar Hotel; it was not over yet.

'Someone else,' Molinari said acutely, 'can pick up your reeg and bring it to TF&D. Give me the location and I'll see that it's done right. You don't have to do any more; go get drunk or find some fresh new girl. Or take some more JJ-180, visit another time period. Anyhow enjoy yourself. How's your addiction coming? Broken it yet, like I told you to?'

'Yes.'

Molinari raised his thick eyebrows. 'I'll be damned. Amazing; I didn't think it could be done. Get it from your reeg contact?'

'No. From the future.'

'How's the war come out? I don't move ahead, like you do; I move sideways only, into the parallel presents.'

'It's going to be tough,' Eric said.

'Occupation?'

'For most of Terra.'

'How about me?'

'Apparently you manage to get away to Wash-35. After holding out long enough for the reegs to come in with strength.'