countries. It would be too conspicuous if suddenly all western
travelers disappeared."

They were passing over the Potomac, to the right and below them Hank
Kuran could make out the twin Pentagons, symbols of a military that
had at long last by its very efficiency eliminated itself. War had
finally progressed to the point where even a minor nation, such as
Cuba or Portugal, could completely destroy the whole planet.
Eliminated wasn't quite the word. In spite of their sterility, the
military machines still claimed their million masses of men, still
drained a third of the products of the world's industry.

One of the C.I.A. men was saying urgently, "So we're going to send you
in as a tourist. As inconspicuous a tourist as we can make you. For
fifteen years the Russkies have boomed their tourist trade--all for
propaganda, of course. Now they're in no position to turn this tourist
flood off. If the aliens got wind of it, they'd smell a rat."

Hank Kuran brought his attention back to them. "All right. So you get
me to Moscow as a tourist. What do I do then? I keep telling you
jokers that I don't know a thing about espionage. I don't know a
secret code from judo."

"That's one reason the chief picked you. Not only do the Russkies have
nothing on you in their files--neither do our own people. You're safe
from betrayal. There are exactly six people who know your mission and
only one of them is in Moscow."

"Who's he?"

The C.I.A. man shook his head. "You'll never meet him. But he's making
the arrangements for you to contact the underground."

Hank Kuran turned in his seat. "What underground? In Moscow?"

The bright, pink faced C.I.A. man chuckled and began to say something
but the older one cut him off. "Let me, Jimmy." He continued to Hank.
"Actually, we don't know nearly as much as we should about it, but a
Soviet underground is there and getting stronger. You've heard of the
_stilyagi_ and the _metrofanushka_?"

Hank nodded. "Moscow's equivalent to the juvenile delinquents, or the
Teddy Boys, as the British call them."

"Not only in Moscow, they're everywhere in urban Russia. At any rate,
our underground friends operate within the _stilyagi_, the so-called
jet-set, using them as protective coloring."

"This is new to me," Hank said. "And I don't quite get it."

"It's clever enough. Suppose you're out late some night on an
underground job and the police pick you up. They find out you're a
juvenile delinquent, f