ity of one's life to be wasted in such a barren pastime as
five years in solitary confinement.

When he began talking about a comfortable married life in a civilized
community, he noticed Aron growing distraught.

"Why does talk of marriage so disturb you?" he asked.

Aron looked at him with a sneer in his eyes, "You must know, you check
your victims before you begin your Judas acts."

With a rueful grin, the agent replied, "That is one place our agents
can't penetrate, your Personnel Records Office. You, being a hard man to
know, have made very few acquaintances that we could approach to get
your history."

Silence. Then Aron said, "All right, here's a bone I'll toss you. You
may use it, I don't give a damn!

"My wife died five days ago on this planet." He said it with vehemence,
probably imagining by some twist of thought that he was shocking,
hurting the enemy agent, whereas he actually was deliberately shocking
himself. Masochism.

"Your wife?" the agent was amazed. "I didn't know your TA observers took
wives with them."

"I'll bet you didn't know. Though, most of them don't, come to think of
it."

The agent relaxed, lighted a cigarette--an ancient habit that cropped up
in all eras.

"Men can take it," he began quietly. "Women are different. They can take
it if they want to, but it's hard to find the right woman; and even then
she must want to take it by being with the man she loves, or perhaps it
is psychological--martyring themselves to gain a subtle control of that
man, which they all want to do.

"When you get a woman who can't, or doesn't want to take it, she can
pull a beautiful crack-up. Without friends to appreciate her martyrdom,
with a husband who refuses to acknowledge it, she sometimes uses the
supreme martyrdom to gain recognition."

"Instinct tells me to slug you in the teeth," Aron said, "but apathy
forbids me."

"Couldn't it be that you refuse to slug me because you want me to keep
talking? Because you recognize the truth, that your wife committed
suicide because of the loneliness and now your devotion to state has
become meaningless? 'The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away' was the
old maxim, but 'the State only taketh away' is the new."

There was more talk and some drinking, for the agent had conveniently
brought some choice liquor.

The next morning, after they had arisen from where they had fallen
asleep in a stupor, the agent proposed his plan. With the disgust and
despai