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tones as the phone automatically dialed.
    “Tau Ceti Publications,” the receptionist chirped. The girl sounded very dim and very young.
    “Is Tad Ellis there?”
    “He’s on another line,” the girl said. “May I take a message?”
    ‘This is Linda Parisi—”
    “Oh!” The girl was so startled that the perkiness left her voice. She sounded older, and even intelligent. “I know he wants to talk with you, Mrs. Parisi. Please hold.”
    Mrs. Parisi was treated to Muzak: the Valium String Quartet’s rendition of Evergreen. Then the tenor voice of Tad Ellis came on. “The pogrom’s started,” he said.
    Mrs. Parisi didn’t respond. She sat contemplating the ache in her elbow and pondering the indigestible Kibble that Ellis had just fed her.
    “You there?” Ellis asked at last. “Of course.”
    The IRS? Parisi wondered. The Justice Department? Just who did silly Ellis think was after them this time?
    “Two guys in dark suits came by,” Ellis went on. “They asked about you. They asked about your books.”
    Mrs. Parisi’s eyes fled to the shelves where Meeting the Eridanians, The Eridani Way, and In the Bright Eridanian Light were displayed.
    “It’s started, Linda,” Ellis said in a breathy, conspiracy theory voice. “They asked for your address and phone number. I gave them your old one, but they’re bound to catch up with you sooner or later. They’re very interested in what we know about UFOs. They’ve picked up Gene. They got to Sally.”
    “Well, bless their hearts.”
    “Are you listening to me?”
    “Yes, dear. I am.”
    “Get out of town,” Ellis said in a firm voice and hung up, leaving Mrs. Parisi listening to the hum of the empty line. She put down the receiver and stared at the watching dog.
    “Sillies, Lacy,” she told him with a sigh. “This business is simply packed full of sillies.”

    CENTCOM-EAST, WARSAW, POLAND

    Lt. General Valentin Baranyk looked up from his doodling and caught the eye of the German commander, Kurt Weiderhausen. The German was young, probably no more than forty-five or -six, so there was no way for him to remember the Great Patriotic War. Still, Germans were sensitive about the subject. The smooth-faced German looked uncomfortable, and Baranyk wondered if that was because of the progress of the eastern campaign, or the fact that the American was late, or simply because he found himself at the head of another invasion of Poland, however friendly.
    Andrzej Czajowski, on the other hand, seemed placid.
    The Saceur-East was smiling as he toyed with his coffee cup, smiling as though remembering some childhood song. It was easier, Baranyk knew, to find a pleasant spot in your memories and tuck your mind away there. He himself had made reliving childhood a habit. To keep from remembering Kiev.
    That was where it had all got away from him, everything: his peace of mind, his good name, his army. The battle out of control, the troops spilling through his incapable fingers like water. At night, when Baranyk closed his eyes, he could hear the squeak of the tanks, the thuds of the artillery. And could see, painted on the smoke-dark southern sky, the glow of Kiev in flames.
    Baranyk was startled from his reverie when an aide announced the American. Dourly he watched the German and the Pole look up. They stared at the door as though God and His archangels were about to make an entrance. Stupid, Baranyk thought. No one, not even the Americans, could save them.
    “Gentlemen,” the entering American said with a nod.
    Lauterbach was an intelligent-looking, small, spare man, too small, Baranyk thought, to be a warrior. He fought small and smart, too, like a trapdoor spider, popping out of his hole at the oddest times. The Arabs fretted and pluckedat him without effect, as though he had somehow got into their clothes.
    Before the American even sat down, he began a rapid-fire monologue as though he realized, even better than the men in the room, that time was running