these United States with
such simple qualifications as those, them we might as well give the
country over to the Reds or back to the Redskins, since our culture is
irreprievably doomed." And he lowered the phone gently to its cradle.

"There's no such word as 'irreprievably'," Lenny pointed out.

"There is now," said Colonel Spaulding.

* * * * *

Raphael Poe moseyed through the streets of Moscow in an apparently aimless
manner. The expression on his face was that of a reasonably happy moron.

His aimless manner was only apparent. Actually, he was heading toward the
Lenin Soviet People's Higher Research Laboratories. Dr. Sonya Borisovna
Malekrinova would be working late this evening, and he wanted to get as
close as possible in order to pick up as much information as he could.

Rafe had a great deal of admiration for that woman, he admitted to
himself. She was, granted, as plain as an unsalted _matzoh_. No. That was
an understatement. If it were possible to die of the uglies, Sonya
Borisovna would have been dangerously ill.

Her disposition did nothing to alleviate that drawback. She fancied
herself as cold, hard, analytical, and ruthless; actually she was waspish,
arrogant, overbearing, and treacherous. What she considered in herself to
be scientific detachment was really an isolation born of fear and distrust
of the entire human race.

To her, Communism was a religion; "_Das Kapital_" and "_The Communist
Manifesto_" were holy writ enshrining the dogmata of Marxism-Leninism, and
the conflict with the West was a _jehad_, a holy war in which God, in His
manifestation as Dialectic Materialism, would naturally win out in the
end.

All of which goes to show that a scientific bent, in itself, does not
necessarily keep one from being a bigot.

Rafe's admiration for the woman stemmed solely from the fact that, in
spite of all the powerful drawbacks that existed in her mind, she was
still capable of being a brilliant, if somewhat erratic scientist.

There was a more relaxed air in Moscow these days. The per capita
production of the Soviet Union still did not come up to that of the United
States, but the recent advances in technology did allow a feeling of
accomplishment, and the hard drive for superiority was softened a trifle.
It was no longer considered the height of indolence and unpatriotic
time-wasting to sit on a bench and feed pigeons. Nor was food so scarce
and costly that thr