His claim stopped the reporters just long enough for his team to get past and scuttle up the steps. Even so, it might have been the wrong thing to say. Behind him, Unnerby could see the reporters clustering together. By tomorrow, his name would be on their list. Ah, for the times when everyone thought that Hill House was just a plush annex to the University. Over the years, that cover had frayed away. The press thought they knew all about Sherkaner now.

Past the armored-glass doors there were no more intruders. Things were suddenly quiet, and it was much too warm for jackets and leggings. As he shed the insulation, he saw Underhill and his guide-bug standing just around the corner, out of the reporters' sight. In the old days, Sherk would have come outside to greet him. Even at the height of his radio fame, it hadn't bothered him to come outside. But nowadays Smith's security had its way.

"So, Sherk. I came."I always come when you call. For decades, every new idea had seemed crazier than the last—and changed the world still again. But things had slowly changed with Sherkaner too. The General had given him the first warning, at Calorica, five years ago. After that, there had been rumors. Sherkaner had drifted away from active research. Apparently his work on antigravity had gone nowhere, and now the Kindred were launching floater satellites, for God's sake!

"Thanks, Hrunk." His smile was quick, nervous. "Junior told me you would be in town and—"

"Little Victory? She's here?"

"Yes! In the building somewhere. You'll be seeing her." Sherk led Hrunkner and his guards down the main hall, talking all the while about Little Victory and the other children, about Jirlib's researches and the youngest ones' basic training. Hrunkner tried to imagine what they looked like. It had been seventeen years since the kidnappings...since he had last seen the cobblies.

It was quite a caravan they made trooping down the hall, the guide-bug leading Sherkaner leading Hrunkner and the latter's security. Underhill's progress was a slow drift to the left, corrected by Mobiy's constant gentle tugging on his tether. Sherk's lateral dysbadisia was not a mental disease; like his tremor, it was a low-level nervous disorder. The luck of the Dark had made him a very late casualty of the Great War. Nowadays he looked and talked like someone a generation older.

Sherkaner stopped by an elevator; Unnerby didn't remember it from his previous visits. "Watch this, Hrunk....Press nine, Mobiy." The bug extended one of its long, furry forelegs. The tip hovered uncertainly for a second, then poked the "9" slot on the elevator door. "They say no bug can be taught numbers. Mobiy and I, we're working on it."

Hrunkner shed his entourage at the elevator. It was just the two of them—and Mobiy—who headed upward. Sherkaner seemed to relax, and his tremor eased. He patted Mobiy's back gently, but no longer held so tight to the tether. "This is just between you and me, Sergeant."

Unnerby sharpened his gaze. "My guards are Deep Secret rated, Sherk. They've seen things that—"

Underhill raised a hand. His eyes gleamed in the ceiling lights. Those eyes seemed full of the old genius. "This is...different. It's something I've wanted you to know for a long time, and now that things are so desperate—"

The elevator slowed to a stop and the doors opened. Sherkaner had taken them all the way to the top of the hill. "I have my office up here now. This used to be Junior's, but now that she's been commissioned, she has graciously willed it to me!" The hall had once been out-of-doors; Hrunkner remembered it as a path overlooking the children's little park. Now it was walled with heavy glass, strong enough to hold pressure even after the atmosphere had snowed out.

There was the sound of electric motors, and doors slid aside. Sherkaner waved his friend into the room beyond. Tall windows looked out on the city. Little Victory had had quite a room. Now it was a Sherkaner jumble. Over in the corner was that rocket bomb/dollhouse, and a sleeping perch for Mobiy. But the room was dominated by processor boxes and superquality displays. The pictures shown were Mountroyal landscapes, the colors wilder than Hrunk had ever seen outside of nature. And yet, the pictures were surreal. There were shaded forest glens, but with plaid undertones. There were grizzards sleeting across an iceberg eruption, all in the colors of lava. It was graphical madness...silly videomancy. Hrunkner stopped, and waved at the colors. "I'm impressed, but it's not very well calibrated, Sherk."

"Oh, it's calibrated, all right—but the inner meaning hasn't been derived." Sherk mounted a console perch, and seemed to be looking at the pictures. "Heh. The colorsare gross; after a while, you stop noticing....Hrunkner, have you ever thought that our current problems are more serious than they should be?"

"How should I know? Everything is new." Unnerby let himself sag. "Yeah, things are on an infernal slide. This Southland mess is every nightmare we imagined. They have nuclear weapons, maybe two hundred, and delivery systems. They've bankrupted themselves trying to keep up with the advanced nations."

"Bankrupted themselves, just to kill the rest of us?"

Thirty-five years ago, Sherk had seen the shape of all this, at least in general outlines. Now he was asking moron questions. "No," said Unnerby, almost lecturing. "At least, that's not how it started out. They tried to create an industrial/agricultural base that could stay active in the Dark. They failed. They've got enough to keep a couple of cities going, a military division or two. Right now Southland is about five years further into the cold than the rest of the world. The dry hurricanes are already building over the south pole." Southland was a marginally livable place at best; at the middle of the Bright Time, there were a few years where farming was possible. But the continent was fabulously rich in minerals. Over the last five generations, the Southlanders had been exploited by northern mining corporations, more avariciously each cycle than the last. But in this generation, there was a sovereign state in the South, one that was very afraid of the North and the coming Dark. "They spent so much trying to make the leap to nuclear-electrics that they don't even have all their deepnesses provisioned."

"And the Kindred are poisoning whatever goodwill there might otherwise be."

"Of course." Pedure was a genius. Assassination, blackmail, clever fearmongering. Whatever was evil, Pedure was very good at. And so now the Southland government figured that it was the Accord that planned to pounce on them in the Dark. "The news networks have it right, Sherk. The Southies might nuke us."

Hrunkner looked beyond Sherkaner's garish displays. From here, he could see Princeton in all directions. Some of the buildings—like Hill House—would be habitable even after the air condensed. They could hold pressure, and had good power connections. Most of the city was just slightly underground. It had taken fifteen years of construction madness to do that for the cities of the Accord, but now an entire civilization could survive, awake, through the Dark. But they were so close to the surface; they would quickly die in any nuclear war. The industries Hrunkner had helped to create had done miracles....So now we're more at risk than ever.More miracles were needed. Hrunkner and millions of others were struggling with those impossible demands. During the last thirty days, Unnerby had averaged only three hours' sleep a day. This detour to chat with Underhill had scuttled one planning meeting and an inspection.Am I here out ofloyalty...or because I hope that Sherk can save us all again?

Underhill steepled his forearms, making a little temple in front of his head. "Have...have you ever thought that maybe something else is responsible for our problems?"