IT IS NOT FOR nothing that Two-Faced Time derives his two-headed visage from half-remembered Janus - god of doors.  They are symbols - as indeed all the material world is a symbol, a simulation in crude matter of that world higher and closer to the one in which he resides, which is himself.  To step over the threshold of any door is to undergo a transformation, if only in that geometric sense by which we are transported from one chamber to another.  When the next Emperor passes beneath the Arch of Titus at his coronation, he is transformed from a mere prince to the person of the monarch.  When the seeker enters into the cloister of the athenaeum he becomes a novice of the scholiasts - though he may have yet to endure even a single lecture.  So too when the ashes of my father were sealed forever in their vault in our necropolis, he became a part of history, departing the world of active concerns.

All doors symbolize change.

When the doors of the docking umbilical opened onto the Troglita's receiving bay, it was to change me back into something like the man I had been.  The great chamber revealed by those hissing gates was a thing of black metal and polished brass - as were the doors themselves.  The officers in black and silver with their red or white caps, the legionnaires clad in ivory and crimson, even the very air - sterile and odorless - recalled my long centuries of service.  The martial clarion ringing against the ribbed ceiling seemed an echo of that same trumpet I had heard at every parade and every muster since I departed Forum for Thagura aboard the Tamerlane on our first voyage together.

Albé had gone on ahead of me, with Janashia and Browning bracketing him at either side.  The dozen or so men who had waited in the hold of the Ascalon followed close behind - an honor guard of sorts.  I had buttoned my jacket as we waited in the umbilical.  Almost I wished I had my Order of Merit or my Grass Crown to wear, to awe the soldiery and remind these men of HAPSIS who I was and had been.

But the Order of Merit and the Grass Crown had died with Nessus - or had they died with the Tamerlane?  The legionnaires to either side beat their breasts in salute as we passed, approaching half a dozen figures waiting at the end of the receiving hall.  The silver-haired woman with the copper skin and white beret was clearly the captain, and the two officers to her right - both men - were almost certainly her first and second.  At once I thought of Corvo.  Indeed, but for the height this woman might have been cast from the same mold, with her bright hair and burnt complexion.  To her left there stood an aging man who leaned upon the arm of the younger man beside him, and beside them there stood a scholiast robed in green.

When the last of the trumpet's music faded, Albé came to a halt and saluted.  "Lord Director, Captain Clavan: I have brought Lord Marlowe as directed."

The old man - a patrician of so advanced an age that what little hair remained to him was white as snow and circled his crown as clouds might some craggy mountain peak - acknowledged the young man's words with three nodding gestures that shook him all the way to his waist.  "Very good, A2."  Then he turned his attention to me, a tired smile forming beneath his somber eyes.  "Lord Marlowe, it has been... a very long time.  Almost I feared I would die on this ship waiting for you, but you're here now.  Do you remember me?"

I did.  The shadow of the unassuming young logothete I had known on Forum remained in the antique visage, hardly to be seen.

"Sir Friedrich?"  I said, still struggling to see the young minister I had known beneath the slow corrosion of years.

"It is Lord Friedrich now," he said.  "A technicality of my office."  He patted his attendant on the arm, and the young fellow - a slender man with steely gray eyes and the sallow complexion of a life-long sailor - walked the old lord forward a pair of steps.  I advanced, passing Albé and bowed as the old man bent awkwardly himself.  "As you have no doubt guessed, I am Lord Director of Contact Division under the Imperial Office."

"HAPSIS," I said.

"HAPSIS," Oberlin agreed "Indeed you might have had my job.  Did you know?"

I blinked at him.

"There was a time you were slated to replace my predecessor, Lord  Powers."

"Cassian Powers?" I looked to the man's attendant for confirmation.  "Cassian Powers was the Director of HAPSIS?"