And the next step was going to be hard--the step which followed the positive identification of Yancy--that is, David Lantano--in one or both of the 1982 documentaries.

The next step, and this fitted the talents of Webster Foote, Limited of London, was to chisel with highly specialized equipment undetected and silently into the incomplete villa of David Lantano while Lantano was at the Agency in New York. And gain at least momentary possession of the time travel instrumentality which Lantano utilized.

It'll be tough, Foote knew. But we have the machines to track it down; it's been our job since 2014. And this time we're not merely doing a job for a client; this is for ourselves.

Because, he realized, our own lives are currently--and involuntarily-- posted as stakes in this; it is, has already proven to be, the ultimate pot for which the players are wagering, striving, lying, faking and haggling.

"A law firm," he said aloud. "Wagering, Striving, Lying, Faking and Haggling. Associates. They can represent us before the Recon Dis-In Council when we sue Brose."

"On what grounds?"

"On the grounds," Foote said quietly, "that the duly elected world leader is the Protector, Talbot Yancy, as every tanker knows; as the Estes Park Government has asserted for fifteen consecutive straight years. And such a man really exists. Hence--_Brose holds no legal power_." Since the legal power, he said to himself, is Q.E.D. all Yancy's and Pac-Peop as well as Wes-Dem has been claiming, chanting, this.

And, I think, Yancy has begun to put forth a request for the validation of that claim, Foote decided. At last.

The little dark-skinned boy said shyly, "My name is Timmy."

Beside him his smaller sister squirmed, smiled, whispered, "I'm Dora."

Nicholas said, "Timmy and Dora." To Mrs. Lantano, who stood off to one side, he said, "You two have nice children." And, seeing David Lantano's wife, he thought of his own, of Rita, still below; the doomed life of the ant tanks. Eternal, evidently; because even the decently inclined individuals who dwelt on the surface, men such as David Lantano and, if what he understood was correct, the conapt construction magnate, Louis Runcible: even these men had no plans, no hopes, nothing to offer the tankers. Except, as in Runcible's case, hygenic, pleasant prisons above ground instead of the darker, more cramped prisons below. And Lantano--

His leadies would have killed me, Nicholas realized. Except for Talbot Yancy's appearance on the scene, and with a usable weapon.

To Lantano he said, "How can they say Yancy is a fraud? Blair said so; all of them said so. You say so."

Enigmatically, Lantano said, "Every leader who has ever ruled--"

"This is different," Nicholas said. "And I think you know it. This isn't a question of the man versus his public image; this is an issue that has never been raised--as far as I know--in history. The possibility that there is no such person at all. And yet I saw him. He saved my life." I came up here, he realized, to learn two things: that Talbot Yancy does not exist, as we always believed, and--that he does; that he is real enough to destroy two feral, professional, veteran leadies who, in the absence of authoritative restraint, would revert, would kill without even serious debate. Kill a man as a perfectly natural act; part of their job. Perhaps even a major part.

"As a component in his makeup," Lantano said, "every world leader has had _some_ fictional aspect. Especially during the last century. And of course in Roman times. What, for instance, was Nero really like? We don't know. _They_ didn't know. And the same is true about Claudius. Was Claudius an idiot or a great, even saintly, man? And the prophets, the religious--"

"You'll never answer," Nicholas said. It was obvious.

Seated on the long wrought black iron and foam-rubber couch with the two children, Isabella Lantano said, "You are right, Mr. St. James; he won't answer. But he knows." Her eyes, powerful and immense, fixed them on her husband. They, she and David Lantano, exchanged glances, meaningful and silent; Nicholas, excluded, got to his feet and wandered about the high, beam-ceiling living room, aimlessly, feeling acutely helpless.

"Have a drink," Lantano said. "Tequila. We brought back a very fine stock from Mexico City/Amecameca." He added, "At that time I was speaking before the Recon Dis-In Council, discovering to my satisfaction just how disinterested they really are."

"What is this council?" Nicholas asked.

"The true high court of this, our only, world."

"What did you try to get from them?" Nicholas asked. "In the way of a ruling?"

After a long interval Lantano said, laconically, "A ruling on a very academic question. The precise legal status of the Protector. Versus the Agency. Versus General Holt and Marshal Harenzany--" He broke off, because one of his household staff of leadies had entered the living room and was approaching him deferentially. "Versus Stanton Brose," he finished. "What is it?" he asked the leady.

"Dominus, there is a Yance-man at the periphery of the guarded area," the leady said respectfully. "With his household retinue, thirty leadies in all; he is extremely agitated and wants to see you socially. With him in addition comes a group of humans referred to as Footemen commandos who protect his person against real or imaginary dangers, according to orders, he declares, from Geneva. He appears quite frightened and he said to tell you that his best friend is dead and 'he is next.' Those were his words as I recorded them, Mr. Lantano. He said, 'Unless Lantano'--he forgot the obligatory polite formality in his agitation. 'Unless Lantano can help me I am next.' Shall we admit him?"

To Nicholas, Lantano said, "That would be a Yance-man from Northern California named Joseph Adams. An admirer of certain aspects of my work." To the leady he said, after reflecting a moment, "Tell him to come in and sit down. But at nine I have a business meeting scheduled." He examined his watch. "It's almost nine now; make sure he understands he can't stay for long." As the leady departed Lantano said to Nicholas, "This one is not entirely without reputability. You may find him interesting; what he does at least produces conflicts within him. But--" Lantano gestured, with finality; for him it had been decided. "He goes along. After and during the doubts. He has them but--he goes along." Lantano's voice sank, and again shockingly, the ancient, wizened visage appeared, even older than before; this was not middle-age: this was the glimpse which Nicholas had witnessed as Lantano stepped into the Cheyenne basement, only now he saw it--briefly---close up. And then it was gone. As if it had been only a play of the fire's light; not a change in the man at all. And yet he knew, understood, that it really was within the man, and, as he glanced around at Lantano's wife and two children, he caught a fleeting impression, based on the three of them; he saw, as if from the corner of his eye, a waning within them, too--except that for the two children it was more a growth, an augmentation into maturity and vigor; they seemed, abruptly, temporarily, older. And then that passed, also.

But he had seen it. Seen the children as--adolescents. And Mrs. Lantano gray and nodding, in the doze of a timeless half-sleep, a hibernation that was a conservation of departing, former powers.

"Here they come," Isabella Lantano said.

Clanking noisily, a group of leadies filed into the living room, came to a halt; from within them, slipping out from behind, stepped four human beings who glanced about in a cautious, professional way. And then, after them, appeared one scared, lone man. Joseph Adams, Nicholas realized; the man vibrated with apprehension, as if gouged from within, already--not merely potentially--a victim of some liquidagile, ubiquitous, death-disturbing force.