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wrinkled papers by his side
    Clearly the General Secretargr had dismissed him, but Yurii had one more request. "Sir, there is one last thing I would like to investigate in the strategic realm."
    "Yes?"
    "I question this whole cencept of global consequences for a nuclear war. I know that our modellers agree with their modellers: you can set off just so many megatons before the radiation releases and the climate are so massive that they span the planet, no matter where they get set off. But many of those modellers are soft civilians, who want us to avoid nuclear warfare for their own reasons. I can't help wondering if the threshold might be higher than these people think. Simulation is a soft science, as I'm sure you know. Its results should not be left in the hands of biased civilians. If we knew that the threshold were higher, we would have an enormous edge over the Americans; we could continue barraging them with nuclear weapons even after they had ceased fire. Living in their fantasy world of nuclear danger, they would fear killing their own surviyors:
    The General Secretary chuckled. "Control of a nuclear war would belong completely to us then, wouldn't it? Very well." He waved his hand—was it shaking?—toward the door. Yurii felt Sipyagin's weary eyes follow him as be swept through it.
    Yutii breathed deeply. The air in the hall was stale, but he felt refreshed nonetheless. Interviews with the General Secretary always reminded him how wonderful it was to be young and healthy.

May 26
    In the Information Age, the first step to sanity is FILTERING. Filter the information; extract the knowledge.
    —Zetetic Commentaries, Kira Evans

    They held an early ceremony—early enough to discourage people from coming, early enough to complete quickly, early enough to catch the morning dew before it evaporated. Dampness still shimmered on the rocks and markers that dotted the cemetery.
    "I am the resurrection and the life, saieth the Lord; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live . . ."the minister's voice droned on.
    Leslie felt disconnected from the service, as though watching through a telescope the odd behavior of an alien culture. It left him calm—perhaps too calm. He had lost too many people to be overwhelmed by the loss of one more. He would not be overwhelmed this time, though this time he had lost the most wonderful woman he had ever known: his wife, Jan Evans.
    His mind skipped briefly across the toll death had taken around him during the years. Leslie Evans had flown as an Air Force fighter pilot. Even in peacetime, one fourth of all fighter pilots never reached retirement age. How odd for him to be attending Jan's funeral, rather than the other way around. There had certainly been moments during the last agonizing days of her life that he wished he could have reversed their positions, if only to give her a few hours without pain.
    Perhaps the crowning irony was that her impending death had caused her to save his life. He too had been a cigarette smoker, until Jan contracted lung cancer. Jan had used him as her first guinea pig in her efforts to develop better cures for smoking. His fingers twitched at the thought of the cigarettes he had not touched for two years.
    ". . . and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die . . ."
    He could not have thanked her or loved her enough, had she lived a thousand years.
    He heard a sniffle to his right. From the corner of his eye he watched his daughter, Kira, as she stared off to the horizon. Despite her sniffle, she seemed more angry than sad. Leslie knew the focus of her anger. He had watched her carefully during these last few days. Her attitudes reminded him of Jan in her youth. Kira had graduated from Virginia Tech just in time to witness the last throes of Jan's battle; now her graduation ceremony would seem stale and pointless. Leslie reached out and took her hand in his. She did not look at him, but her grip held surprising strength.