"I can't help you," Michelis said.

"You can, and you will, Dr. Michelis. I'm talking from under both my hats now. QBC wants him off the air, and the UN is beginning to smell something which might prove to be much worse than the 1993 Corridor Riots. You sponsored this Snake, and your wife raised him from an egg, or damn near an egg. You know him better than anyone else on Earth. You will have to give us the weapon that we need against him. That's what I came to tell you. Think about it. You are responsible under the naturalization law. It's not often that we have to invoke that clause, but we're invoking it now. You'll have to think fast, because we have to have him closed out before his next broadcast."

"And suppose we have nothing to offer?" Michelis said stonily.

"Then we will probably declare the Snake a minor, and you his guardians," the UN man said. "Which will hardly be a solution from our point of view, but you would probably find it painful — you'd be well advised to come up with something better. I'm sorry to bring such bad news, but the news is bad tonight; that sometimes happens. Good-night, and thank you."

He went out. He did not have to resume any of his three hats; he had never taken any of them off, visible or metaphorical. Michelis and Liu stared at each other, appalled.

"We-we couldn't possibly have him as a ward now," Liu whispered.

"Well," Michelis said harshly, "we were talking about wanting a son — "

"Mike, don't!"

"I'm sorry," he said inadequately. "That officious son of a bitch. He was the man that passed on the application — and now he's throwing it right back in our laps. They must be really desperate. What are we going to do? I haven't an idea in my head."

Liu said, after a moment's hesitation: "Mike — we don't know enough to come up with anything useful in a week. At least I don't, and I don't think you do either. We've got to get through to the Father somehow."

"If we can," Michelis said slowly. "But even so, what good will that do? The UN won't listen to him — they've bypassed him."

"How? What do you mean?"

"They've made a de facto decision in favor of Cleaver," Michelis said. "It won't he announced until after Ramon's church has finished disavowing him, but it's already in effect. I knew about it before he left for Rome , but I didn't have the heart to tell him. Lithia has been closed; the UN is going to use it as a laboratory for the study of fusion power storage — not exactly what Cleaver had in mind originally, but close enough."

Liu was silent for a long time. She arose and went to the window, against which the huge bees were still butting like live battering-rams.

"Does Cleaver know?" she said, her back still turned.

"Oh yes, he knows," Michelis said. "He's in charge. He was scheduled to land back at Xoredeshch Sfath yesterday. I tried to tip Ramon off indirectly as soon as I heard about it — that's why I promoted that collaboration for the J.I.R. — but Ramon just didn't seem to hear any of my hints. And I just couldn't tell him outright that his cause was already lost, before he'd even had a hearing."

"It's ugly," Liu said slowly. "Why won't they announce it until after Ramon is officially excommunicated? Why does that make any difference?"

"Because the decision is tainted, that's all," Michelis said fiercely. "Whether you agree with Ramon's theological arguments or not, to decide for Cleaver is a dirty act — impossible to defend except in terms of raw power. They know that well enough, damn them, and sooner or later they're going to have to let the public see what the arguments were on the other side. When that day comes, they want Ramon's arguments discredited in advance by his own church."

"What precisely is Cleaver doing?"

"I can't say, precisely. But they're building a big Nernst generator plant inland on the south continent, near Glesh-chtehk Sfath, to turn out the power, so that much of his dream is already realized. Later they'll try to trap the power raw, as it comes off, instead of stepping it down and throwing away ninety-five per cent of it as heat. I don't know how Cleaver proposes to do that, but I should guess he'd begin with a modification of the Nernst effect itself — the 'magnetic bottle' dodge. He'd better be damned careful." He paused. "I suppose I'd have told Ramon if he'd asked me. But he didn't, so I didn't say anything. Now I feel like a coward."

Liu turned swiftly at that, and came back to sit on the arm of his chair. "That was right to do, Mike," she said. "It's not cowardice to refuse to rob a man of hope, I think."

"Maybe not," Michelis said, taking her hand gratefully.

"But what it all comes out to is that Ramon can't help us now. Thanks to me, he doesn't even know yet that Cleaver is back on Lithia."

Shortly past dawn, Ruiz-Sanchez walked stiffly into the vast circle of the Piazza San Pietro toward the towering dome of St. Peter's itself. The piazza was swarming with pilgrims even this early, and the dome, more than twice as high as the Statue of Liberty, seemed frowning and ominous in the early light, rising from the forest of pillars like the forehead of God.

He passed under the right arch of the colonnade, past the Swiss Guards in their gorgeous, outré uniforms, and through the bronze door. Here he paused to murmur, with unexpected intensity, the prayers for the Pope's intentions obligatory for this year. The Apostolic Palace soared in front of him; he was astonished that any edifice so crowded with stone could at the same time contrive to be so spacious, but he had no time for further devotions now. Near the first door on the right a man sat at a table. Ruiz-Sanchez told him: "I am commanded to a special audience with the Holy Father."

"God has blessed you. The major-domo's office is on the first floor, to the left. No, one moment — a special audience? May I see your letter, please?"

Ruiz-Sanchez showed it.

"Very good. But you will need to see the major-domo anyhow. The special audiences are in the throne room; he will show you where to go." The throne room! Ruiz-Sanchez was more unsettled than ever. That was where the Holy Father received heads of state, and members of the college of cardinals. Certainly it was no place to receive a heretical Jesuit of very low rank -

"The throne room," the major-domo said. "That's the first room in the reception suite. I trust your business goes well, Father. Pray for me."

Hadrian VIII was a big man, a Norwegian by birth, whose curling beard had been only slightly peppered with gray at his election. It was white now, of course, but otherwise age seemed to have marked him little; indeed, he looked somewhat younger than his photographs and 3-V 'casts suggested, for they had a tendency to accentuate the crags and furrows of his huge, heavy face.

Ruiz-Sanchez found his person so overwhelming that he barely noticed the magnificence of his robes of state. Needless to say, there was nothing in the least Latin in the Holy Father's mien or temperament. In his rise to the gestatorial chair he had made a reputation as a Catholic with an almost Lutheran passion for the grimmer reaches of moral theology; there was something of Kierkegaard in him, and something of the Grand Inquisitor as well. After his election, he had surprised everyone by developing an interest — one might almost call it a businessman's interest — in temporal politics, though the characteristic coldness of Northern theological speculation continued to color everything he said and did. His choice of the name of a Roman emperor was perfectly appropriate, Ruiz-Sanchez realized: here was a face that might well have been stamped on imperial coin, for all the beneficence which tempered its harshness.

The Pope remained standing throughout the interview, staring down at Ruiz-Sanchez with what seemed at first to be nine-tenths frank curiosity.