“Yes, I believe you.  After all that happened, and all that you, and I, and the people you worked with, and the people I worked with, and your government, and mine, have been guilty of, it would be a waste of breath for either of us to try to lie to the other about what happened fifteen years ago.”  He drew slowly on his pipe.  “But who launched it, then?  It had to be launched by somebody.”

“Don’t you think I’ve been tormenting myself with that question for the last fifteen years?” Pitov demanded.  “You know, there were people inside the Soviet Union—­not many, and they kept themselves well hidden—­who were dedicated to the overthrow of the Soviet regime.  They, or some of them, might have thought that the devastation of both our countries, and the obliteration of civilization in the Northern Hemisphere, would be a cheap price to pay for ending the rule of the Communist Party.”

“Could they have built an ICBM with a thermonuclear warhead in secret?” he asked.  “There were also fanatical nationalist groups in Europe, both sides of the Iron Curtain, who might have thought our mutual destruction would be worth the risks involved.”

“There was China, and India.  If your country and mine wiped each other out, they could go back to the old ways and the old traditions.  Or Japan, or the Moslem States.  In the end, they all went down along with us, but what criminal ever expects to fall?”

“We have too many suspects, and the trail’s too cold, Alexis.  That rocket wouldn’t have had to have been launched anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere.  For instance, our friends here in the Argentine have been doing very well by themselves since El Coloso del Norte went down.”

And there were the Australians, picking themselves up bargains in real-estate in the East Indies at gun-point, and there were the Boers, trekking north again, in tanks instead of ox-wagons.  And Brazil, with a not-too-implausible pretender to the Braganza throne, calling itself the Portuguese Empire and looking eastward.  And, to complete the picture, here were Professor Doctor Lee Richardson and Comrade Professor Alexis Petrovitch Pitov, getting ready to test a missile with a matter-annihilation warhead.

No.  This thing just wasn’t a weapon.

A jeep came around the corner, lighting the dark roadway between the bungalows, its radio on and counting down—­Twenty two minutes.  Twenty one fifty nine, fifty eight, fifty seven—­It came to a stop in front of their bungalow, at exactly Minus Two Hours, Twenty One Minutes, Fifty Four Seconds.  The driver called out in Spanish: 

“Doctor Richardson; Doctor Pitov!  Are you ready?”

“Yes, ready.  We’re coming.”

They both got to their feet, Richardson pulling himself up reluctantly.  The older you get, the harder it is to leave a comfortable chair.  He settled himself beside his colleague and former enemy, and the jeep started again, rolling between the buildings of the living-quarters area and out onto the long, straight road across the pampas toward the distant blaze of electric lights.