"He sweats like anyone else," Vlad said. "I told him about this new fiction writer. Aleksander Kazantsev. He’s a thinker, that boy." Vlad tapped the side of his head meaningfully, then scratched his ribs inside his filthy houserobe and lit a cigarette. I felt like killing him. "Kazantsev says we’re not the first explorers in space. There’ve been others, beings from the void. It’s no surprise. The great space-prophet Tsiolkovsky said there are an infinite number of inhabited worlds. You know how much the Chief Designer admired Tsiolkovsky. And when you look at the evidence—I mean this Tunguska thing—it begins to add up nicely."