The Penultimate Truth

by Philip K. Dick

And there, where the original Kremlin had once stood—before the U.S. Queen Dido self-guiding missile of World War Three had abolished it down to the last particle of old red brick—lay Marshal Harenzany’s villa, the second largest demesne on Earth. Brose’s demesne, in Geneva, of course was by far the larger. Yet still this vast park with its mighty and palacelike, look-on-my-works-ye-mighty-and-despair central buildings was impressive. And Harenzany’s demesne did not have that black, befouled quality of Brose’s, the sense of some evil thing hanging upside down with ragged, aged wings. Like his counterpart in Wes-Dem the marshal was underneath it all a soldier, not a pol-com ex mero motu sybarite. Just the ordinary stag-party extraordinary sybaritic type. A man who liked to live. But also, like General Holt, he remained, despite his nominal control of an army of veteran leadies, under the yoke of Brose.