Pattern Recognition

It occurs to her then that the meal has been entirely free of toasts, and that she's always heard that a multitude of them are to be expected at a Russian meal. But perhaps, she thinks, this isn't a Russian meal. Perhaps it's a meal in that country without borders that Bigend strives to hail from, a meal in a world where there are no mirrors to find yourself on the other side of, all experience having been reduced, by the spectral hand of marketing, to price-point variations on the same thing. But as she's thinking this, Marchwinska-Wyrwal taps his glass with the edge of a spoon.

"I wish to offer a toast to Miss Pollard's father, the late Wingrove Pollard. It is an easy thing, for those of us who remember how it was, to lapse for a moment into old ways of thought, old rivalries. I did that myself, earlier, and now I must apologize for it. Had there not been men like her father, on the side of democracy and the free market, where would we be today? Not here, certainly. Nor would this establishment serve the purpose it does today, assisting the progress of art while bettering the lives and futures of those less fortunate." He pauses, looking around the table, and Cayce wonders exactly what it is he's doing, and why? Is it a way of covering his ass with Volkov, after having upset her? Can he actually mean this, any of it?

"Men like Wingrove Pollard, my friends, through their long and determined defense of freedom, enabled men like Andrei Volkov to come at last to the fore, in free competition with other free men. Without men like Wingrove Pollard, Andrei Volkov might languish today in some prison of the Soviet state. To Wingrove Pollard."

And they all, including Cayce, repeat these last three words, raise their glasses, and drink, beneath the shadowed ICBMs and Sputniks of the faded mural high above.

AS they're leaving, Parkaboy and Bigend to accompany Cayce to the guest house, originally for visiting academicians, where the three of them are to stay the night, Marchwinska-Wyrwal excuses himself to the others and takes her aside. From somewhere he has produced a large rectangular object, about three inches thick, enclosed in what appears to be a fitted envelope of fine beige wool.

"This is something Andrei Volkov wishes you to have," he says. "It is only a token." He hands it to her. "I apologize again for pressing you, earlier. If we were to know how you obtained the address, we could mend a gap in the security of the Volkovas. We are very concerned now, with Sigil. But Sigil has become essential to the Volkovas' project."

"You suggested my father might still be alive. I don't believe that."

"Neither do I, I'm sorry to say. Our people in New York have studied the matter, very closely, and have been unable to prove his death, but I myself believe that he is gone. Are you certain that you will not help us, in the matter of Sigil?"

"I can't tell you because I don't know. But it wasn't any weakness or betrayal at Sigil. Someone with intelligence connections did me a favor, but I don't know its exact nature. Whatever it was, it took almost no time at all."

His eyes narrow. "Echelon. Of course." Then he smiles. "A friend of your father's. I had guessed as much."

She says nothing.

He reaches into his jacket and extracts a plain white envelope. "This also is for you," he says. "This gift is mine. Traditionalists have their uses. Our people in New York are talented, extremely thorough, and have many options at their disposal." He places the envelope on the rectangular woolen parcel, which she's still holding before her as though it were a tray.

"What is it?"

"All that is known of your father's last morning, after he left his hotel. Good night, Miss Pollard." And he turns away and walks back into the shadows of the oval room, where she sees Sergei has reseated himself at the candlelit table, and has removed his tie, and is lighting a cigarette.

42. HIS MISSINGNISS

- /

Aside from looking as though they all shop at The Gap and nowhere else, the inmates of Volkov's rendering farm don't seem to be required to wear a uniform. Cayce sees several, in the halls, as she's leaving with Bigend and Parkaboy, and several more as they make their way to the guest house.

The fence she'd climbed, Bigend says, has been only recently installed to prevent teenagers from the surrounding countryside from sneaking in to pilfer things.

There are usually sixty people here, he says, fulfilling their debt to Bussian society by rendering, as they have been taught to do, the rough segments of footage that arrive from the Moscow studio. The physical plant, formerly a technical college, is intended to accommodate a hundred and fifty, which accounts, she supposes, for its dozy summer-session atmosphere.

"What sort of crimes did they commit?" she asks, scuffing along in her slippers, Parkaboy carrying Volkov's gift.

"Nothing violent," Bigend says. "That's a requirement. Generally, they simply made a mistake."

"What kind of mistake?"