of the word, but aren't we trying
desperately to sponsor our type of government and social system
everywhere? Frankly, I'm neither pro-West nor pro-Soviet. I think
they're both wrong."

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

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

"Listen, Char," Hank said in irritation, "you still haven't come up
with 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't
remember so far back that there wasn't a cold war. And the more I
consider it the sillier it looks. Currently the United States and her
allies spend between a third and a half of their gross national
product on the military--ha! the military!--and in fighting the Soviet
complex in international trade."

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

Char said nothing.

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

Hank sat next to Char Moore still feeling on the argumentative side
after their discussion of the night before. He motioned with his head
at some excavation work going on n