"Now, Ward, you weren't going to do something to spoil things for them. It's too late to help Thrush, and vengeance is a sour dish for an old mouth."
"Vengeance?" said Baldwin. "Nonsense. Waverly played the game fairly and won – I'm glad to have escaped the – sinking of the Hierarchy with no more damage than a slight tightening of the belt. After all, I still have you – and Robin, and my work."
"And two thousand dollars a month in industrial royalties."
"I'll miss the computer – most of my working data is still on microfilm in the files, but it was convenient to have it available through the terminal. Perhaps we could subscribe to a service locally. Varan Haruchi picked up most of the old hardware. He might be persuaded to trade service for service… I must contact Saul Panzer in New York, and have him find out how Mr. Solo and Mr. Kuryakin are. Perhaps some appropriate observance…
Napoleon shifted uncomfortably in his antique formal attire, and shook his head at Illya. They sat in an ivyed niche at the foot of a wide lawn and a sunlit crowd around white-draped tables. "I must say I never expected my best man to show up in full dress uniform as an Admiral in the -"
"Vice-Admiral, Napoleon. Remember, I was originally detached from Russian Naval. Intelligence, and my commission is still with them. ' Besides," he smiled, "I thought it lent a touch of color to your drab ceremony-in pink and qrey with a little bit of yellow. Now, you should see a village wedding in the Ukraine, with bonfires and dancing and hundreds of guests."
"I'd like to," said Napoleon. "Maybe some time you can show me one."
He paused. "There was something else, wasn't there."
"Yes… I've been called home, along with my promotion. Would you believe I'm the second youngest Vice-Admiral in the Russian Navy?"
Napoleon nodded. "You look very dashing with the sling. How's the shoulder holding?"
"The pins are nearly solid, I'm told. Should be just as good as new in another month or two. I'll be in some instructional position when I go back – I'll send you my address."
"You?" said Napoleon. "At a blackboard?"
Illya sighed. "Probably not for long. I expect to spend the next six months polishing my Manchurian dialect and studying some new techniques. I'll probably be in China next summer. My Moscow address will stay valid, but there may be delays in forwarding."
Joan, in a small cloud of pink, came across the grass towards them from the reception. "Napoleon," she was saying, "I'm so glad your partner could be here."
"Does Mom seem to accept your amnesia story? We've got the best medical evidence money can buy."
"I don't really think so, but she's too nice to say anything. She's just glad you're settling down."
"Behind a desk;" said Napoleon."
"But the big desk," said Illya. "You'll never get fat in that chair."
Napoleon nodded… "I remember the last time I held it. Without Thrush working on me it should be a relative picnic. Did you see the file on that, W by the way? I was code-named 'Waterloo.'
"Mr. Simpson has been running barefoot through the top secret research reports and filing a summary every day on the most interesting ones," Joan said. "You can look at them all when you no back to work – not before. I talked it over with Miss Cramer. Local offices are doing fine at sweeping up and you won't really be needed for another month or so. Mr. Allison has come back to sign a few things. After all, you're still officially on medical leave, and I expect it'll take you at least until Christmas to recover fully."
"Did he ever find anything On the Flin Flon Monster?"
"The what? Oh, yes, in fact he mentioned you'd be interested in that. Very disappointing. It was something that didn't work out – they scrapped it a little later."
Illya stood. "You'd better be getting back to the reception, Napoleon. I have a plane to catch. But first, there's one more wedding present for you. It came to my apartment last week, and I've had the boys in the lab checking it over ever since. It's absolutely nothing more than it appears. Ward and Irene Baldwin sent it."
It was a staghorn and ebony stick, with a one-inch silver band just below the handle. On the front was engraved a tiny U.N.C.L.E. globe; on the back the legend, "W.B. to N.S. 1970."
Napoleon levered himself to his feet, braced with an aluminum crutch, and took the cane in his hand. "It feels comfortable," he said.
"One more thing I think you should know, now that it's all over. Remember 'Little Brother'?"
"I'll never forget him."
"Did you know that of those last two wires, one would have detonated the device?"
"I guessed, when you told me not to touch the other one. Whichever one wasn't cut would set it off."
"Not exactly. I had the mechanism worked out, you see, but I still hadn't figured out the color-coding of the wires. It didn't make sense. If I'd had a piece of paper, or if I'd been able to think more clearly, I might have. But I didn't have the least idea at that point which of those wires would set it off."
"You didn't…" said Joan.
"Then it did matter," said Napoleon. "You said cut either one."
"No," said Illya. "I said, 'Cut one of them.' That was all. I've worked with you for seven highly variable years, all together, and one thing I knew was that you are lucky. I don't understand it, and I knew it didn't work if you worried about it. But if I had chosen one of the wires and told you to cut it, my odds of success would be fifty percent, because I believe in the laws of probability. If you chose the one to cut, without being overwhelmingly aware that you would never know if you made the wrong choice, I guessed you had about a two-thirds chance of choosing correctly under the circumstances. I must say I'm glad you did."
Napoleon sat down again. A taxi honked at the foot of the lawn and Illya looked around. "That's for me," he said. "Sometime again, Napoleon." And he was gone at a trot, his left arm encumbered, officer's cap gripped in his right hand, blond hair catching the breeze.
Napoleon stared after him. "Smart Russian," he said, and stood to wave his free arm as the taxi pulled away. Then he turned to Joan. "Come on," he said. "We should get back to our own reception. Leave the crutch here – I think I'll show off my new cane."
[1] In answer to numerous questions: the rules for Botticelli, also known as Culture, may be found in most large books on games. The cycle of play is simple, as sketchily outlined above: data is gathered through yes/no questions whenever the subject fails to correctly identify a reference, until the assumed identity of the subject is guessed, in the same form. Unlike most Q &A games, both sides must work continually. SuperGhosts is an evolution from the well-known game of Ghosts, and was discovered to me by James Thurber. It is illustrated elsewhere. Admittedly, both play better with more than two. -D.McD.