Stamping among the books, Anderson thought to himself. Couchant at the frontiers of Overworld and Oz.

  Pity the Unicorn,

  Pity the Hippogriff,

  Souls that were never born

  Out of the land of If!

  Somewhere ahead, Dumont called, “He’s dead!” and suddenly all three of them were running, staggering, stumbling down a dark and narrow corridor, guided by the flame of Dumont’s lighter.

  Anderson heard Julie whisper, “Nick! Oh, God, Nick!” Then she was quiet. The thing on the floor was no white unicorn.

  Dumont rasped, “Hasn’t anybody got a light?”

  “Just matches,” Anderson said. He lit one.

  Ed told them, “I’ve got one,” and from the pocket of his denim shirt produced a little, disposable penlight.

  Julie was bending over the dead man, trying not to step in his blood. There was a great deal of it, and Dumont had stepped in it already, leaving a footprint. Ed played his light upon the dead man’s face—cleanshaven; about sixty, Anderson guessed. He had worn a leather windbreaker. There was a hole in it now, a big hole that welled blood.

  “It’s Bailey,” Julie said. And Dumont, thinking that she spoke to him (as perhaps she did), answered, “Is that his name? Everybody called him Beetle.”

  Bailey had been gored in the middle of his chest, very near the heart, Anderson decided. No doubt he had died instantly, or almost instantly. His face was not peaceful or frightened or anything else; only twisted in the terrible rictus of death. The match burned Anderson’s fingers; he shook it and dropped it.

  “Nick…” Julie whispered. “Nick did this?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Dumont told her.

  She looked around, first at Dumont, then at Anderson. “He’s dangerous… I suppose I always knew it, but I didn’t like to think about it. We’ll have to let the police…”

  Dumont nodded solemnly.

  “Like hell,” Anderson said, and Julie stared at him. “You put him here, in this room”—Anderson glanced at the half-open door—“and went away and left him. Is that right?”

  “Mr. Bailey was with us. He heard us as soon as I brought Nick inside. Nick’s hooves made a lot of noise on the terrazzo floor. We took him to this room, and Mr. Bailey locked it for me.”

  Ed asked, “Hold this, will you, Dr. Dumont?” and handed Dumont the penlight, then took three steps, stooped, and straightened up with a much larger flashlight. After the near darkness, its illumination seemed almost a glare. Dumont let his lighter go out and dropped it into his pocket.

  Ed was grinning weakly. “This must be the old man’s flash,” he said. “I thought I saw something shine over here.”

  “Yes.” Anderson nodded. “He would have had it in his hand. After Julie left he came here to take another look at the unicorn. He opened the door and turned on his flashlight.”

  Julie shivered. “It could have been me.”

  “I doubt it. Even if Nick doesn’t have human or almost human intelligence—and I suspect he does—he would have winded the watchman and known it wasn’t your smell. No matter what kind of brain his creator gave him, his sensory setup must be basically the one that came with his equine DNA. Am I right, Dumont?”

  “Right.” The biologist glanced at his wrist. “I wish we had more information about the time Beetle died.”

  Ed asked, “Can’t you tell from the clotting of the blood?” “Not close enough,” Dumont said. “Maybe a forensic technician could, but that’s not my field. If this were one of those mysteries on TV, we could tell from the time his watch broke. It didn’t, and it’s still running. Anybody want to guess how far that unicorn’s gone since he did this?”

  “I will,” Anderson told him. “Not more than about two hundred and fifty feet.”

  They stared at him.

  “The front doors were locked when we came in—Julie had to open them for us. I’d bet the side door is locked too, and this building has practically no windows.”

  “You mean he’s still in here?”

  “If he’s not, how did he get out?”

  Julie said, “We’d hear him, wouldn’t we? I told you—his hooves made a racket when I let him in.”

  “He heard them too,” Anderson told her. “He wouldn’t have to be a tenth as intelligent as he probably is to keep quiet. Almost any animal will do that by instinct. If it can’t run—or doesn’t think running’s a good idea—it freezes.”

  Ed cleared his throat. “Dr. Anderson, you said he could tell by the smell that Beetle wasn’t Julie. He’ll know we aren’t Julie too.”

  “Conversely, he’ll know that she is. But if we separate to look for him and the wrong party finds him, there could be trouble.”

  Dumont nodded. “What do you think we ought to do?”

  “To start with, give Ed here the keys to your van so he can bring it around front. If we find Nick, we’re going to have to have some way to get him out of town. We’ll leave the front doors open—”

  “And let him get away?”

  “No. But we need unicorn bait, and freedom’s about as good a bait as anybody’s ever found. Nick’s probably hungry by now, and he’s almost certainly thirsty. My mind runs to quotations anyway, so how about:

  One by one in the moonlight there,

  Neighing far off on the haunted air,

  The unicorns come down to the sea.

  Do you know that one?”

  All three looked blank.

  “It’s Conrad Aiken, and of course he never saw a unicorn. But there may be some truth in it—in the feeling of it—just the same. We’ll prop the doors wide. Dumont, you hide in the darkest shadow you can find there; the open doors should let in enough light for you to shoot by, particularly since you’ll be shooting at a white animal. Julie and I will go through the building, turning on lights and looking for Nick. If we find him and he’s docile with her, we can just lead him out and put him in the van. If he runs, you should get him on the way out.”

  Dumont nodded.

  · · · ·

  When the two of them were alone, Julie asked, “That gun of Dr. Dumont’s won’t really hurt Nick, will it?”

  “No more than a shot in the arm would hurt you. Less.” The beam of the dead watchman’s flashlight probed the corridor, seeming to leave a deeper twilight where it had passed. A few moments before, Anderson had talked of turning on more lights, but thus far they had failed to find the switches. He asked Julie if it were always this dim when she came to do research after the library had closed.

  “Bailey used to take care of the lights for me,” she said. “But I don’t know where. I’d begin setting up my things on one of the tables, my notebooks and so forth; and the lights would come on.” Her voice caught on lights.

  She sniffled, and Anderson realized she was crying. He put his arm about her shoulders.

  “Oh, rot! Why is it that one can—can try to do something fine, and have—have it end…”

  He chanted softly:

  “Twist ye, twine ye! Even so,

  Mingled shades of joy and woe,

  Hope and fear, and peace, and strife,

  In the thread of human life.”

  “That’s b-beautiful, but what does it mean? That the good and bad are mixed together so we can’t pull them apart?”

  “And that this isn’t the end. Not for men or women or unicorns. Probably not even for poor old Bailey. Threads are long.”

  She put her arms about his neck and kissed him, and he was so busy pressing those soft, fragrant lips in return that he hardly heard the sudden thunder of the unshod hooves.

  He pushed her away just in time. The spiraled horn raked his belly like a talon; the beast’s shoulder hit him like a football player’s, sending him crashing into a high bookcase. Julie screamed, “No, Nick! Don’t!” and he tried to stand.

  The unicorn was rearing to turn in the narrow aisle, tall as a giant on his hind legs. Anderson clawed at the shelves, bringing down an avalanche of books. He found himself somehow grasping the horn, holding on desperately. A hoof struck his thigh like a hammer and he was careening down some dark passage, half carried, half dragged.

  Abruptly, there was light ahead. He tried to shout for Dumont to shoot; but he had no breath, grasping the horn, grappling the tossing white head like a bulldogger. If the soft pluff of the gun ever came, it was lost in the clattering hoofbeats, in the roar of the blood in his ears. And if it came, the dart surely missed.

  They nearly fell on the steps. Reeling they reached the bottom like kittens tossed from a sack. Anderson managed then to get his right leg under him; and with the unicorn nearly sprawling, he tried to get his left across the broad, white back and found that leg was broken.

  He must have shrieked when the ends of splintered bone grated together, and he must have lost his hold. He lay upon his back, on grass, and heard the gallop of approaching death. Saw death, white as bone.

  Stallions fight, he thought. Fight for mares, kicking and biting. Only men kill other men for a woman.

  He lay without moving, his left leg twisted like a broken doll’s. Stallions don’t kill—not if the other lies down, surrenders.

  The white head was silhouetted against the twinkling constellations now, the colors seemingly reversed as in a negative, the longsword horn both new and ancient to the sky of Earth.

  · · · ·

  Later, when he told Julie and Dumont about it, Dumont said, “So he was only a horse after all. He spared you.”

  “A superhorse. A horse armed, with size, strength, grace, and intelligence all augmented.” They had wanted to carry him somewhere (he doubted if they themselves knew where), but he had stopped them. Now, after Dumont had phoned for an ambulance, they sat beside him on the grass. His leg hurt terribly.

  “Which way did he go? The park again?”

  “No, the lake shore. ‘The unicorns come down to the sea,’ remember? You’ll have to drum up a group and go after him in the morning.”

  Julie said, “I’ll come, and I’m sure Ed will too.”

  Anderson managed to nod. “We’ve got a couple of dozen others. Some here, some in town. Dumont has the phone numbers.”

  She forced a smile. “Andy—can I call you Andy? You like poems. Do you recall this one?

  The lion and the unicorn

  Were fighting for the crown;

  The lion beat the unicorn

  And sent him out of town.

  Some gave them white bread,

  And some gave them brown.

  Some gave them plum-cake,

  And drummed them out of town.

  We’ve just had it come true, all except for that bit about the plum-cake.”

  “And the lion,” Anderson said.

  The Peace Spy

  “Hello, Mr. Percival,” the young woman said, “so nice of you to come.” She shut the door again, and Krasilnikov heard the rattle of a security chain before she opened it wide.

  He stepped inside, and she closed the door behind him, threw the bolt and reattached the chain. “This is my business,” he said. “I’ve gone to see people in places a lot farther from Washington than Alexandria.”

  “Won’t you sit down?” She made a graceful gesture, and Krasilnikov reflected that she had not yet forgotten her manners; she was not yet so Americanized as all that.

  He sat. “I admire your taste, Ms. Aralov.” He smiled as he patted the arm of the stiff, tapestry-covered chair. “This is good antique furniture.”

  She shook her head. “It is Russian. No, it is not Russian, but it is as near to Russian furniture as I could discover here. I wished to say to the Americans, not ‘I am an American,’ but ‘Look, I am a Soviet citizen living with you.’ Surely you have seen such furnishings in other apartments. Would you care for tea?”

  Krasilnikov nodded. “Sure, I’ve seen furniture of the same type, but it wasn’t as nice as this—the red and grey color scheme. Most Russians go for red and black.”

  She smiled again, bitterly this time, before she bent in front of the steaming samovar in the corner. “Red for our country, black for death. We are so dramatic. Only I say red for our country, grey for no peace and no war. I say that because I like red and grey better.” She presented him with a fragrant glass of tea.

  He sipped. “You’ve got to understand, Ms. Aralov, that I don’t do all my business with people like you. A lot of it’s with Americans and American companies. The next biggest is with foreigners who want American citizenship.”

  “But you have handled such cases as mine before?”

  “Sure,” Krasilnikov said. He rattled off names, making some of them up.

  “Ah, I know Lebedev, he was one of the early ones, one of the first of us.”

  “That’s right.”

  “The others, they did not live here, not in Washington? Because I know all those in Washington, I think.”

  Krasilnikov reflected that her knowledge was not as complete as she believed. “No,” he said. “Denikin was in New York, Nina Mikhalevo down in Florida.”

  “And you are not an attorney.” She was looking at his card again, and he traced the raised black letters in his mind as she followed them with her remarkable grey eyes. The card read, C. C. Percival, and on the next line, Expediter, followed by an address and a telephone number. He was proud of that card.

  “No,” he told her. “A lawyer would bring suit in District Court, and the Federal Government would stall it as long as they could. The Government can stall things for a long, long time here, Ms. Aralov.”

  “In my country too. Here, how long?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe five years, if you were lucky and had a good lawyer.”

  “And with you? How long?”

  “Five weeks, if we’re lucky. Five months if we’re not.”

  For the first time, she too sat, perching on the edge of her high-backed divan. “Then with you is better.”

  Krasilnikov smiled. “I like to think so.”

  “And your fees?”

  He knew how much she had in the bank, and he told her. After a moment he added, “That’s the retainer. I keep it all, no matter how fast I get you back to Russia. If things don’t move that fast, then you’ve hired me, at three hundred a week, until the retainer’s used up or I’ve got you home. Of course you realize I won’t be working for you exclusively, only as needed. I have other clients.”

  She nodded slowly. “The retainer. It is so much.”

  He was firm. “Frankly, I’m giving you a break, Ms. Aralov, because I like you and I like what you’ve done. If you were some fat Arab who needed an American passport, it would be a lot more.”

  “I have to live while you work. I will have to buy my ticket.” Indeed. Indeed. “Your father’s the Minister of Marine?” She nodded again. “You would say the Secretary of the Navy here.”

  “I know. Surely you can call on him for help.”

  “Once, yes. Not any more. I—”

  He cut her off. “First the retainer, Ms. Aralov. Then we’ll talk about your father. Maybe I can do something.”

  “I understand.” She stood, smoothing the soft, grey-blue fabric of her skirt. “I must get my checkbook. If you will excuse me.”

  “Sure.”

  He wanted to search for the American listening devices he knew must be there, but he was too well trained for that. He took some papers from the breast pocket of his jacket instead; when she returned, he appeared to be studying them.

  “Here is your retainer,” she said. “It is nearly all I have.”

  He said thank you, crossing his legs, refolding his papers and replacing them before he accepted her check. “Now sit down and tell me about your father, Ms. Aralov.”

  She sat, this time on the footstool. “It was so strange, so terrible…”

  Her eyes had filled with tears, and he felt something he had thought dead since childhood move inside him. He said, “Perhaps it isn’t really as strange as you think, Ms. Aralov. Or as terrible. Start at the beginning.”

  She nodded and blew her nose in one of the tiny handkerchiefs women used here. “It started with that dancer…”

  She was groping for the dancer’s name. He supplied, “The President’s son.”

  “Yes. He went to Moscow on a tourist visa, remember? And he said he would stay there until his father was no longer President, that he would be our security against nuclear attack. It was just after our Party Secretary had said we would never fire the first missile.”

  “And then others came.”

  She nodded, no longer sniffling. “Janet Johnson was one of them. I met her in Moscow. Her father is something in the Cabinet here.”

  He sipped his tea and waited.

  “Then we thought we should do the same thing, and we did.” She threw back her hair, her eyes gleaming, and he thrilled as if to the call of a trumpet. “Oh, they tried to stop us, but they could not send us to the gulag—to the camps. Our fathers were in the Politburo, and we said we would go to the American Embassy. Then they had to let us go, and they did.”

  He said, “But now you want to go back.”

  “Yes, there is the fighting in the east.” She hesitated. “I could do something. With training I might become a nurse. Our grandmothers fought the Germans beside their men. I would even do that.”

  He waited, staring out the window at the bland, blank brick face of the apartment building across the street.

  “And I am so lonely here.”

  Tonelessly he said, “There are other Russians around Washington.”

  “Not enough, and they are going back too, or trying to.” After a moment she added, “I want to see my mother and father, my brother and my sister and my aunt. Can’t you understand?”

  “It seems that your father doesn’t want to see you.”

  “He was so angry! The letters I got from him were terrible! Yet he sent money, so I would not be in need. Then just when I had decided to come back…”

  “The money stopped.”

  “Yes! I wrote to him. I said, ‘I am coming home, Little Father, please forgive me.’ There was nothing.”