t time, a certain Vladimir Turenski, a shambling not-too-bright deaf
mute, had made his fully documented appearance in Moscow.

* * * * *

Spies, like fairies and other such elusive sprites, traditionally come in
rings. The reason for this circumstructural metaphor is obscure, but it
remains a fact that a single spy, all by himself, is usually of very
little use to anybody. Espionage, on any useful scale, requires
organization.

There is, as there should be, a reason for this. The purpose of espionage
is to gather information--preferably, _useful_ information--against the
wishes of, and in spite of the efforts of, a group--usually referred to
as "the enemy"--which is endeavoring to prevent that information from
getting into other hands than their own. Such activities obviously imply
communication. An espioneur, working for Side A, who finds a bit of
important information about Side B must obviously communicate that bit of
information to Side A or it is of no use whatsoever.

All of these factors pose complex problems.

To begin with, the espioneur must get himself into a position in which he
can get hold of the information he wants. Usually, that means that he must
pass himself off as something he is not, a process which requires time.
Then, when he gets the information he is after, he must get it to his
employers quickly. Information, like fish, becomes useless after a certain
amount of time, and, unlike fish, there is no known way of refrigerating
it to retard spoilage.

It is difficult to transmit information these days. It is actually easier
for the espioneur to transmit it than to get it, generally speaking, but
it is difficult for him to do both jobs at once, so the spy ring's two
major parts consist of the ones who get the information from the enemy and
the ones who transmit it back to their employers.

Without magic, it is difficult for a single spy to be of any benefit. And
"magic," in this case, can be defined as some method by which information
can be either obtained or transmitted without fear of discovery by the
enemy. During World War I, a competent spy equipped with a compact
transistorized short-wave communications system could have had himself a
ball. If the system had included a miniature full-color television camera,
he could have gone hog wild. In those days, such equipment would have been
magic.

All this is not _a propos_ of nothing. Mr. Raphael Poe was, in hi