"Dad, it's Laniq."
The lips hardly moved, but Tedor heard: "La-niq? Laniq, you've come back."
She knelt by the bed, let her hand rest on her father's feverish brow. "It's all right now, Dad. Everything's going to be all right."
"They destroyed the starship, Laniq. Completely. We—don't have that way out any longer. We've got to beat the monopolist in Russia. It's his last chance." Domique Hadrien spoke without heat, with no emotion at all. The words spilled from his lips one after the other, tonelessly. "We have beaten him all along the line, without even knowing his identity. But he has the best chance in Russia and knows it.
"We approach 1955, the crucial year. I said it was the monopolist's last chance. Well, it is ours as well. If he wins in Russia, if he goes on to unite the whole 20th century world as a Russian slave state, then he's on his way toward ultimate conquest of all time. Think of the power at his disposal: an Army to be drawn from two and a half billion people. We must stop him.
"Who is with you, Laniq?"
"A friend," Laniq assured him. "You can talk."
"I—I know what we have to do. A one-legged man, recuperating, isn't good for much. Someone must go to Russia and—"
"I can go," Tedor said. "I have contacts there. Century Agents."
"I'll go with you," Laniq told him.