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looking at that face over thebreakfast table for the rest of your life. The hell with SouthAmerican senoritas.

  Char said earnestly, "I'm not. Confound it, Hank, can't the world getany further than this cowboys and Indians relationship betweennations? Our science and industry has finally developed to the pointwhere the world could be a paradise. We've solved all the problems ofproduction. We've conquered all the major diseases. We have thewonders of eternity before us--and look at us."

  "Tell that to the Russkies and their pals. They're out for the works."

  "Well, haven't we been?"

  "The United States isn't trying to take over the world."

  "No? Possibly not in the old sense of the word, but aren't we tryingdesperately to sponsor our type of government and social systemeverywhere? Frankly, I'm neither pro-West nor pro-Soviet. I thinkthey're both wrong."

  "Fine," Hank said. "What is your answer?"

  She remained silent for a long time. Finally, "I don't claim to havean answer. But the world is changing like crazy. Science, technology,industrial production, education, population all are mushrooming. Forus to claim that sweeping and basic changes aren't taking place in theWestern nations is just nonsense. Our own country's institutionsbarely resemble the ones we had when you and I were children. Andcertainly the Soviet Union has changed and is changing from what itwas thirty or forty years ago."

  "Listen, Char," Hank said in irritation, "you still haven't come upwith any sort of an answer to the cold war."

  "I told you I hadn't any. All I say is that I'm sick of it. I can'tremember so far back that there wasn't a cold war. And the more Iconsider it the sillier it looks. Currently the United States and herallies spend between a third and a half of their gross nationalproduct on the military--ha! the military!--and in fighting the Sovietcomplex in international trade."

  "Well," Hank said, "I'm sick of it, too, and I haven't any answereither, but I'll be darned if I've heard the Russkies propose one. Andjust between you and me, if I had to choose between living Sovietstyle and our style, I'd choose ours any day."

  Char said nothing.

  Hank added flatly, "Who knows, maybe the coming of these GalacticConfederation characters will bring it all to a head."

  She said nothing further and in ten minutes the soft sounds of herbreathing had deepened to the point that Hank Kuran knew she slept. Helay there another half hour in the full knowledge that probably themost desirable woman he'd ever met was sleeping less than three feetaway from him.

  * * * * *

  Leningrad had cushioned the first impression of Moscow for HenryKuran. Although, if anything, living standards and civic beauty wereeven higher here in the capital city of world Communism.

  They pulled into the Leningradsky Station on Komsomolskaya Square inthe early morning to be met by Intourist guides and buses.

  Hank sat next to Char Moore still feeling on the argumentative sideafter their discussion of the night before. He motioned with his headat some excavation work going on next to the station. "There you are.Women doing manual labor."

  Char said, "I'm from the Western states, it doesn't impress me. Haveyou ever seen fruit pickers, potato diggers, or just about any type ofitinerant harvest workers? There is no harder work and women, andchildren for that matter, do half of it at home."

  He looked at the husky, rawboned women laborers working shoulder toshoulder with the men. "I still don't like it."

  Char shrugged. "Who does? The sooner we devise machines to do all thedrudgery the better off the world will be."

  To his surprise, Hank found Moscow one of the most beautiful cities hehad ever observed. Certainly the downtown area in the vicinity of theKremlin compared favorably with any.

  The buses whisked them down through Lermontovskaya Square, down KirovStreet to Novaya and then turned right. The Intourist guide made witha running commentary. There was the famous Bolshoi Theater and thereSverdlova Square, a Soviet cultural center.

  Hank didn't know it then but they were avoiding Red Square. Theycircled it, one block away, and pulled onto Gorky Street and before aVictorian period building.

  "The Grand Hotel," the guide announced, "where you will stay duringyour Moscow visit."

  Half a dozen porters began manhandling their bags from the top of thebus. They were ushered into the lobby and assigned rooms. Russianhotel lobbies were a thing apart. No souvenir stands, no bellhops, nosigns saying _To the Bar_, _To the Barber Shop_ or to anything else. Ahotel was a hotel, period.

  Hank trailed Loo and Paco and three porters to the second floor and tothe room they were assigned in common. Like the Astoria's rooms, inLeningrad, it was king-sized. In fact, it could easily have beendivided into three chambers. There were four full sized beds, six armchairs, two sofas, two vanity tables, a monstrous desk--and one washbowl which gurgled when you ran water.

  Paco, hands on hips, stared around. "A dance hall," he said."Gentlemen, this room hasn't changed since some Grand Duke stayed init before the revolution."

  Loo, who had assumed his usual prone position on one of the beds,said, "From what I've heard about Moscow housing, you could get anaverage family in this amount of space."

  Hank was stuffing clothes into a dresser drawer. "Now who's makingwith anti-Soviet comments?"

  Paco laughed at him. "Have you ever seen some of the housing in theHarlem district in New York? You can rent a bed in a room that haspossibly ten beds, for an eight-hour period. When your eight hours areup you roll out and somebody else rolls in. The beds are kept warm,three shifts every twenty-four hours."

  Hank shook his head and muttered, "They call me Dobbin, I've beenridden so much."

  Paco laughed and rubbed his hands together happily. "It's still early.We have nothing to do until lunch time. I suggest we sally forth andtake a look at Russian womanhood. One never knows."

  Loo said, "As an alternative, I suggest we rest until lunch."

  Paco snorted. "A rightest-Trotskyite wrecker, and an imperialistwar-monger to boot."

  Loo said, dead panned, "Smile when you say that stranger."

  Hank said, "Hey, wait a minute."

  He went down the room to the far window and bug-eyed. One block away,at the end of Gorky Street, was Red Square. St. Basil's Cathedral atthe far end, and unbelievable candy-cane construction of fancifulspirals, and every-colored turrets; the red marble mausoleum, Mecca ofworld Communism, housing the prophet Lenin and his two disciples; thelong drab length of the GUM department store opposite. But it wasn'tthese.

  There on the square, nestled in the corner between St. Basil's andthe mausoleum, squatted what Henry Kuran had never really expected tosee, in spite of his assignment, in spite of news broadcasts, in spiteof everything to the contrary. Boomerang shaped, resting on shortstilts, six of them in all, a baby blue in color--an impossiblybeautiful baby blue.

  The spaceship.

  Paco stood at one shoulder, Loo at the other.

  For once there was no humor in Paco's words. "There it is," he said."Our visitors from the stars."

  "Possibly our teachers from the stars," Hank said huskily.

  "Or our judges." Loo's voice was flat.

  They stood there for another five minutes in silence. Loo saidfinally, "Undoubtedly our Intourist guides will take us nearer, ifthat's allowed, later during our stay. Meanwhile, my friends, I shallrest up for the occasion."

  "Let's take our quick look at the city," Paco said to Hank. "Once theIntourist people take over they'll run our feet off. Frankly, I havelittle interest in where the first shot of the revolution was fired,the latest tractor factory, or where Rasputin got it in the neck.There are more important things."

  "We know," Loo said from the bed. "Women."

  "Right!"

  * * * * *

  Hank was wondering whether or not to leave the room. The _Stilyagi_were to contact him. Where? When? Obviously, he'd need their help. Hehad no idea whatsoever on how to penetrate to the Interplanetaryem
issaries.

  He spoke Russian. Fine. So what? Could he simply march up to thespacecraft and knock on the door? Or would he make himself dangerouslyconspicuous by just getting any closer than he now was to the craft?

  As he stood now, he felt he was comparatively safe. He was sure theRusskies had marked him down as a rather ordinary American. Heavensknows, he'd worked hard enough at the role. A simple, average tourist,a little on the square side, and not even particularly articulate.

  However, he wasn't going to accomplish much by remaining here in thisroom. He doubted that the _Stilyagi_ would get in