"You missed the best part of it, Walter. During the first week the Mauritanians shot down half of their own air force. And the Empire lost a whole armored brigade in a swamp because Ja ordered them to march in a straight line all the way to Timbuktu. The holonets had a field day. That's the lilac brown shade there. We've got a Foundation certificate for it."

Perchevski lifted the stamp and examined its reverse. "I already have a copy. I'm just looking."

"Anyway, the Mauritanians have been less klutzy than the Imperials. They're closing in on Dakar."

"What's the Council doing?"

"Laughing a lot. They're going to let him go down. The word's out that other countries shouldn't accept refugees from the Empire. Ja and his gang have done too much damage to Old Earth's image."

"Old Josh? You're kidding. How do you lower something that's already at the bottom?"

"You see anything you want?"

"You, my love."

"Smart ass."

"Wednesday night?"

"What've you got in mind?"

"A cribbage game."

"I'll call you. If it does any good. If you're not off to some weird place with a name like Toilet Bowl."

"Actually, I was thinking about going to the archaeological digs at Ley."

"Funny you should mention them. More coffee?"

"Sure. Why?"

"They broke into a new chamber last month. It was in pretty good shape."

"Is it open?"

"They put a transparent tube in. You can walk through and look, but you can't get close to anything or get in the way."

"Call me, then. If you want to go see."

"Excuse me, Walter." Another customer had come in. "Yes sir? May I help you?"

"How are you in Twenty-first Century France?"

Perchevski lost himself in the bits of paper that told tales of a remote, turbulent era. He finally selected seven pieces for his collection, paid for them from the Walter Clark account.

"Max, thanks for the coffee. And hold that Berlin piece, will you? I'll let you know as soon as I make up my mind. Like maybe Wednesday?"

"All right, Walter. Ill call you tomorrow."

"Leave a message if I'm not there."

"I will."

He clambered aboard a bus and returned the two hundred kilometers to his apartment.

You're a fool, he told himself. To go all that way for an hour of gossip.

But damn, did he feel better.

He had traveled a lot farther in the past. He doubted that Max had a ghost of a notion just what she meant to him. She was one of the few stable realities in his life. She was a landmark by which he guided himself back from the wildernesses of Bureauland.

He mounted his new stamps in his albums using a surgeon's care. He took down a notebook and marked their catalog numbers off his list of wants, noting the date and price he had paid for each. He entered the total in his cumulative ledger, then marked down the fact that two more album pages had been filled.

The detailed record keeping was necessitated by something within him, some compulsion to put down tiny proofs that he was interacting with the universe, if only through the hieroglyphics of numbers. He had other notebooks in which he kept other records. He did a lot of bookkeeping on the events of his life.

None of it ever left his apartment.

He wondered what the Bureau snoops made of the lists and notes. He was sure they checked them whenever he was away.

He finished his record keeping. He looked around the sterile room. It suddenly became very tight, very lonely.

He tried the holo, turning to the Luna Command news channel. He caught it in a low cycle. There was nothing on but an endless parade of public service messages, though once a commentator mentioned rumors of a forthcoming major news event involving Navy. Something big was expected, but its nature could not be determined. Security remained unusually tight.

"Sure," Perchevski growled at the cube. "The Chief of Staff will probably announce this year's winners in the Fleet Backgammon Playoffs."

Luna Command was heart and brain of Confederation. It was headquarters for the Services, which were Confederation's bone and sinew. It was the hub of a human enterprise kept unified only by its military. And the only exciting thing that had happened there in Perchevski's lifetime had been the discovery of the prehistoric alien base on the moon's dark side.

The military did not control Confederation. But the only obstacle to absolute military rule was a gentlemen's agreement among the generals and admirals to accept the forms of democracy. High Command could do anything it damned well pleased, any time it pleased, were it to ignore custom. Out in the remote reaches, far from senatorial eyes, it often did. There were few sanctions the civilian sector could exercise.

Aggravated, Perchevski killed the holocast. He checked the lunar calendar for the best viewing site, recovered his tunic, and hit public transportation again. He took the high-velocity electric train the six hundred kilometers to the tourist observation dome overlooking Tycho.

The crater was not the attraction there. People did not come from Confederation's one hundred thirty-four member planets, and more than a hundred dominions, protectorates, associated states, and outright colonies, to look at a hole in the ground. The allies and tributaries were not interested in a crater either.

Neither was Perchevski.

Tycho observation dome offered a magnificent view of Old Earth. His homeworld. A world he had not visited in eight years.

Tycho, or its sister domes, was as close as most tourists cared to get to their biological roots.

Perchevski lay back in a lounger and half-listened to the canned commentary.

"... where the race of Man began... possibly also the planet of origin of the Sangaree... first successful extraterrestrial landing, July 20, 1969, in the old dating. Neil Armstrong... ascension of World Commonweal following World War III... Fail Point, July, 2194, led to the Collapse. Reinhardt Ships carried Commonweal refugees to interstellar colonies from 2187 through the end of the Luna Wars in 2226. The Treaties of Jerusalem of 2228 led to the chaotic exploration and random settlement we now call First Expansion.

"A profligate expenditure of resources and racial will initiated a reactionary isolationism which spanned the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth centuries. Space travel, even to Luna, was discontinued. Contact with the star worlds did not resume till 2613, when Vice-Admiral Takada Yoshimura brought New Earth's fleet back to Luna. A short time later Yoshimura encountered ships of the Palisarian Directorate.

"The old records in Luna Command revealed the locations of scores of settled worlds. The secondary colonies of the Directorate were under pressure from Toke at the time. The Directorate and New Earth concluded a xenophobic alliance, and began searching for other human allies.

"The concept, if not the fact, of Confederation had been created.

"We have our former enemies, the Toke, to thank for midwifing Confederation through its birth pains. The unrelenting determination of the Star Lords and Caste of Warriors united humanity. The conflict endured sufficiently long for Confederation to become a reality, with its military headquartered here in the tunnels of Luna.

"Confederation and Luna Command have been growing steadily since."

Perchevski stopped listening. He had heard it all before.

He knew he would hear it again. The viewing domes were the Meccas of regular hadjs.

He looked at the Earth and wondered how his parents were doing. He had not heard from either for a long time.

He slept while returning to his apartment. It had been a long day.

Two messages awaited him. The first was from Max. She wanted to see the xenoarchaeological digs Darkside. The other was from his employers. The printout said: SENIOR STAFF PARTY WEDNESDAY 8 PM ATTENDANCE MANDATORY CONTACT 864-6400-312 FOR FURTHER INFO.