Liu Han said, “He is dead. He died in Shanghai, fighting the Race. I was not there. But I have heard he died very bravely.”

“Bobby Fiore. My God.” Sam wished his glass weren’t empty. He wanted another slug of scotch, but he didn’t want to go away. “May I introduce my son”-he pointed toward Jonathan, and then waved for him to come over-“to your daughter, who is also the daughter of my old friend?”

“You may.” Liu Han looked in Jonathan’s direction. She must have fixed on his shaved head, for she asked, “Is he one of those who try to act like the Race?”

“He is.” Sam saw no point in beating around the bush or lying. “There are those who go further with it than he does.” That was also true, thank heaven.

“We have young males and young females like that in China, too,” Liu Han said. “I used to hate the very idea. I do not hate it so much now. The Race is here. We have to learn to live with its males and now its females. This is one way to do so.”

“I think you have good sense,” Yeager answered as Jonathan and Liu Mei exchanged polite greetings in the language of the Race. Ain’t that something? he thought. Barbara, could she have seen into his mind, would have disapproved of the grammar. He shrugged and went off to get that fresh drink after all. Ain’t that something? he thought again.

Vyacheslav Molotov examined the report from the Soviet consul in Los Angeles. He shoved the telexed sheet across his desk at Andrei Gromyko. “Have you seen this?” he asked the foreign commissar.

“I have, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich,” Gromyko answered. “Mao shows more imagination than we believed he had.”

“Mao shows himself a nationalist first and a Marxist-Leninist second,” Molotov said. “This is, of course, one of the sins for which he so noisily condemned Stalin.”

“He could afford to be noisy in condemning Stalin,” Gromyko said. “He lives well beyond the frontier.”

Both men warily looked around. Stalin had been dead for most of a decade, but his spirit lingered in the Kremlin. Molotov had to remind himself his predecessor could not harm him. Even after reminding himself, he said, “Living beyond the frontier did not always make a difference, Andrei Andreyevich. Remember what happened to Trotsky.”

“An ice axe in the brain?” Gromyko considered. “I can think of ways I would sooner leave the world, yes.” He glanced at Molotov. “Are you suggesting that Mao should worry about such a thing? If you are, you would do better to whisper it in Lavrenti Pavlovich’s ear than in mine.”

“No.” Not without some regret, Molotov shook his head. “Trotsky was an annoyance, a loose end. Mao leads a formidable force in the fight against the Lizards’ imperialism. I can think of no one else in the Chinese party who could take his place.”

“And we did provoke him, too,” Gromyko said musingly.

“What has that to do with anything?” Molotov asked in genuine curiosity. “He is useful to us, so we have to put up with him for the time being. But we do not want him getting too friendly with the Americans. Having their influence on the Siberian frontier would be even more of a nuisance than having the Lizards there, because the Americans are less likely to keep whatever agreements they make.”

Gromyko paused to light a cigarette: a Russian one, a little tobacco in a tube like a holder. After taking a puff, he said, “If we want to bring Mao back into the fold, we will have to start moving weapons into China again.”

“I think we can do that,” Molotov said. “The fuss the Lizards put up over the attack on the colonization fleet has died down. Whoever did that planned with great wisdom. My only qualm is that I do not care to believe either Himmler or Warren is so wise. But yes, I think we can safely resume shipments.”

“Very well,” Gromyko said. “I think you are right. If we are caught, the usual denials will serve in a case like that.”

Molotov looked at him with something as close to affection as he gave anyone but his wife. If Gromyko’s cynicism did not match his own, it came close. A man without cynicism had no business running a great country, as far as the General Secretary was concerned. That was one reason Earl Warren made him nervous.

Gromyko said, “I have also learned, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich, that there is some derangement in the networks of officials and other criminals who smuggle ginger into the Lizards’ territory. The Germans, the British, and the Americans are all in full cry. I hope their internal struggles do not disrupt the trade.”

“Indeed,” Molotov said indifferently. “I have heard something of this from Beria. He will be watching it, too.”

Gromyko did not flinch, for which Molotov admired him. Molotov had not actually heard anything from the NKVD chief. But keeping his followers eyeing each other was one way to keep them from eyeing the top spot in the hierarchy.

“I hope,” Gromyko said slowly, “that whatever ginger-smuggling channels the NKVD has set up will not be deranged by this fuss among the capitalists. We have made considerable profit from ginger.”

“And what could be more important to good Marxist-Leninists than profit?” Molotov returned. His wintry sense of humor was a good match for Gromyko’s. He went on, “Now that you know the line we are to take in regard to Mao, can I rely on Lavrenti Pavlovich and you to implement it?”

“One never knows how far one may rely on Beria,” Gromyko answered, which Molotov found most unfortunate, but which was also true. “On me, and on the Foreign Commissariat, you may of course rely.”

Beria, had he been there, would have claimed he was loyal and the Foreign Commissariat riddled with spies for the Nazis and the Americans and the Lizards. Beria was loyal to himself and the Soviet Union, in that order. He had been loyal to Stalin, a countryman of his, or as near as made no difference. Molotov eyed Gromyko. Was Gromyko loyal to him in particular? In a struggle against Beria, yes, he judged. Otherwise? Maybe, maybe not. But Gromyko was not the sort to head a coup d’etat. That would do. It would have to do.

“See to it, then,” Molotov said. Gromyko nodded and left. Molotov’s dismissals were brusque, but they weren’t brutal, as Stalin’s had been.

Molotov’s secretary stuck his head into the office. “Comrade General Secretary, your next appointment is here.”

“Send him in, Pyotr Maksimovich,” Molotov said. The secretary bobbed his head in a gesture of respect that went back to the days of the Tsars, then went out and murmured to the man in the waiting room.

The fellow came in a moment later. He was thin and middle-aged, with an intelligent face that clearly showed he was a Jew. He carried a topcoat and a fur hat against the nasty weather outside. Here in the Kremlin, sweat beaded his face. Also going back to the days of the Tsars, and to long before the days of the Tsars, was the Russian habit of heating buildings very warm to fight the winter cold. Molotov waved the man to the chair Gromyko had just vacated.

“Thank you, Comrade General Secretary,” the fellow said. His Polish accent put Molotov in mind of that of the Lizard ambassador’s interpreter.

“You are welcome, David Aronovich,” Molotov replied. “And what is the latest news from Poland?”

“Colonization by the Lizards is proceeding more rapidly than either the Poles or the Jews expected,” David Nussboym answered. “This suits the Jews better than the Poles. The Jews know they could not rule on their own. Many Poles still harbor nationalist fantasies.”

“Polish delusions, for the time being, are the Lizards’ problem and not mine,” Molotov said. “The Lizards are welcome to the Poles, too. If we cannot embroil the Lizards against the Reich, next best is to use them as a buffer against the Nazis and, as you say, as an object for the Poles’ nationalist desires. Russians have filled that role in the past; I am content to leave it to the Race now.”