“And she’d be echoing Conrad Helier every inch of the way—but she’d be wrong. The point is, what do youthink?”

“I think that you and the Mirror Man really do believe that you’re the new gods and I think you’re as jealous as any god of old. You want to plan the future, and you want to make sure that everyone will play his allotted part in the plan—or at least that no one’s in a position to put a spoke in your wheel.”

“I didn’t ask you what you think I believe. I asked you what youthink.”

Damon had known exactly what he was being asked—but he wasn’t sure that he’d made up his mind about that. “I doubt that you’ll ever get everyoneto agree about the objectives of the game,” he ventured. “I think it might be healthier if you didn’t even try. After the last couple of days, though, I think one thing you doneed to get settled is that the game shouldn’t be played with real bullets—even certified-nonlethal ones. There’s a lot to be said for conflict, if it maintains the dynamic tension that generates social change. There’s even something to be said for combat, so long as it isn’t mortal, but the distinction between cuts that heal and cuts that don’t isn’t as easy to make as some people imagine. I don’t approve of Elimination either, but I don’t want a two-tier system. Everybody should get a chance at real life, whether they’re team players or not.”

Damon never found out what Saul’s reply to that would have been, and he wasn’t sorry when the interruption came. He needed time to think about the offer Saul had made him, and he knew that there was vital information that he still didn’t have. When the cabin door opened behind him, he was grateful for the respite.

The newcomer looked very tired—as well he might, given that there had been no sound of rotor blades. He’d come on foot, at least for the last kilometer or so.

Damon figured that Saul would be disappointed not to see Conrad Helier, but on his own account he was profoundly glad that the man standing in the doorway was Silas Arnett, very much alive.

“It’s very good of you to come, Silas,” Saul said with only a hint of mocking irony. “Do join us.”

As Silas came forward Damon jumped to his feet and ran to meet him. It wasn’t a five-star emergency, but it was a five-star opportunity. Silas seemed slightly surprised, but he accepted the hug before wincing under its pressure.

“Mind my stigmata,” he muttered. The wound in his chest was overlaid by his suitskin, but the cloth clung so tightly to the contours of his chest that Damon could see the outlines of the swelling.

“I thought it really might have been the Eliminators who got to you first,” Damon said.

“It really might have been,” Silas agreed sourly. “As it was, they came too close for comfort to being accidentalEliminators. It seems that Karol thought it would be a good idea to declare me dead, just in case I decided to deny that heartfelt confession he put together on my behalf when I returned to public life. As you’ve probably found out, leaving the group means that they’re veryreluctant to trust you in future. Is this the piece of shit who was judge and prosecutor at my trial?”

Damon could feel the tension in Silas’s arms, and he knew that an affirmative answer was likely to call forth an immediate and violent response. He was sorely tempted to say yes, but Saul had softened him up just enough to make him hesitate. “He says not,” he said in the end. “He says we can call him Saul, but he didn’t say whether it’s his first name or his last.”

Silas obviously wasn’t immediately convinced by the first item of information, but he extricated himself from Damon’s embrace and looked hard at the seated man. “Oh shit!” he said eventually. “It really is you, isn’t it?”

“It’s been a long time, Silas,” Saul said evenly, “but everyone remembers the spectacles. You really didn’t know the man who conducted your interrogation, in spite of that teasing coda he tacked onto the broadcast tape. That was just to prepare the way for the VE pak that went astray—the one that falsely implied that the supposedly late Surinder Nahal was your captor.”

“Whereas, in fact,” Damon put in, “Surinder Nahal is presumably heading up PicoCon’s own zombie biotech team, in direct opposition to yours. Who is this guy, Silas?”

“His name really is Saul,” Silas admitted. “Frederick G. Saul was his favored signature way back when—but that was in the days when everybody knew what the G stood for without having it spelled out. I thought he was long dead, but I should have known better.”

“I never pretended to die,” the bespectacled man observed drily. “I just faded out of view. Would you like something to eat, Silas?”

“I’ve eaten,” Silas replied brusquely.

“To drink?”

Silas looked at Damon’s glass. “Just water,” he said. He let Saul go to the bathroom to get it while he studied Damon. Saul didn’t hurry.

“You all right?” Silas said. “I heard they shot you too.”

“Twice,” said Damon. “My own fault—the first time I wouldn’t lie down for the gas and the second time I wouldn’t wait for a polite invitation. I’m fine—and still alive by everyone’s reckoning, including the Eliminators who have me down as an enemy of mankind. What doesthe G stand for?”

“Gantz,” Silas told him, watching the bathroom door at which Saul had not yet reappeared. “He’s Leon Gantz’s grandson, nephew of Paul and Ramon—and his other granddaddy was one of the insiders in the Zimmerman coup. He’s one of the last best products of the Old Reproductive System.”

Damon said nothing while he mulled over the possible significance of this revelation.

“How’s Diana?” Silas asked, groping for a topic of conversation more suited to an emotional reunion between a foster father and his estranged child.

“We split up,” Damon told him. By way of retaliation he asked: “How’s Cathy?”

“She thinks I’m dead. I haven’t decided yet whether to let her in on the secret.”

“But you’re going to keep it from the rest of the world?” Damon asked, with one eye on the third party who had just reemerged from the bathroom.

Silas shrugged as he accepted a tumbler of water from Frederick Gantz Saul’s steady hand; his own was trembling slightly. “Between them, PicoCon and Karol haven’t left me a lot of choice, have they? I’m flattered that Eveline wants me back, but it would have been nice to have a less pressured decision to make.”

“ Isit just Karol and Eveline?” Damon asked. “Or is there someone else jerking theirstrings?”

It seemed that Silas couldn’t quite meet Damon’s eye, so he looked sideways at Saul, as if to say that there were secrets that still needed to be kept.

“He’s been told a thousand times,” Saul said, “but he still won’t believe it. He even tried to imply that it was youhe was rebelling against, because you were the only real father figure he had. You’re the one who owes it to him to explain that flesh and blood do not a father make.”

“Clever bastard, isn’t he?” Silas said to Damon. Then he sighed theatrically. “We lied to you, Damon. We lied to the world. Conrad’s alive. Not on Earth, mind—but he isalive. I didn’t want to lie to you, but by the time I was ready to break ranks I wasn’t sure I could tell you without also telling the world.”

It was no longer a surprise, but it wasa shock of sorts. Damon had to sit down again, and this time he looked into the fire, at the glowing ash flaking from the half-consumed logs.

Silas took the seat next to him: the seat that had been reserved for him all along. “What else do you want to know?” he said quietly. “Saul knows it all by now, I suppose—but he might not have given you a straight account of it. I’m not here to negotiate with him, or to set the seal on any agreements. I’m just here to acknowledge that we’ve taken note of his concerns.”