For a moment he could not feel Julie’s breath on his face. Then she said, “I just told you that to show you that I did think about you, even that long ago.”

“That’s nice,” he said, “but I wish you hadn’t told me. I don’t remember a damn thing about the counting, or whatever, but I remember that winter. I think you could probably have changed the course of world history by taking me home with you. All that dumb misery would have had to go somewhere.”

“Aw,” she said. “Aw, poor topcoat.” She picked up the cat and poured him gently off the bed. “Well, come here right away,” she said. “This is for then. Officially. Old friend. Old something. This is for then.”

In the morning he woke in bed with a suit of armor. Actually it was chain mail, slumped empty next to him like the gleaming husk of some steel spider’s victim; but the great helm that shared his pillow dominated his waking completely. The helm looked like a large black wastebasket with the bottom reinforced by metal struts and with most of one side cut away and covered by a slotted steel plate, riveted in place. Farrell had his arm over it, and his nose pressed into the face plate—it was the cold, rough, painty smell that had awakened him. He blinked at the helm several times, rubbed his nose, then rolled onto one elbow, looking around for Julie.

She was standing in the doorway, dressed and laughing silently, fingers at her lips in one of the few echoes of classical Japanese manners that he had ever noticed in her. “I wanted to see what you’d do,” she gasped. “You were so sweet to it. Were you scared?”

Farrell sat up, feeling grumpy and ill-used. “Should see some of the artifacts I’ve waked up with, the last ten years.” He lifted a fold of the mail shirt, finding it surprisingly fluid for all its weight. “All right, I’ll say it. What the hell is this?”