York? You can rent a bed in a room that has
possibly ten beds, for an eight-hour period. When your eight hours are
up you roll out and somebody else rolls in. The beds are kept warm,
three shifts every twenty-four hours."

Hank shook his head and muttered, "They call me Dobbin, I've been
ridden so much."

Paco laughed and rubbed his hands together happily. "It's still early.
We have nothing to do until lunch time. I suggest we sally forth and
take a look at Russian womanhood. One never knows."

Loo said, "As an alternative, I suggest we rest until lunch."

Paco snorted. "A rightest-Trotskyite wrecker, and an imperialist
war-monger to boot."

Loo said, dead panned, "Smile when you say that stranger."

Hank said, "Hey, wait a minute."

He went down the room to the far window and bug-eyed. One block away,
at the end of Gorky Street, was Red Square. St. Basil's Cathedral at
the far end, and unbelievable candy-cane construction of fanciful
spirals, and every-colored turrets; the red marble mausoleum, Mecca of
world Communism, housing the prophet Lenin and his two disciples; the
long drab length of the GUM department store opposite. But it wasn't
these.

There on the square, nestled in the corner between St. Basil's and
the mausoleum, squatted what Henry Kuran had never really expected to
see, in spite of his assignment, in spite of news broadcasts, in spite
of everything to the contrary. Boomerang shaped, resting on short
stilts, six of them in all, a baby blue in color--an impossibly
beautiful baby blue.

The spaceship.

Paco stood at one shoulder, Loo at the other.

For once there was no humor in Paco's words. "There it is," he said.
"Our visitors from the stars."

"Possibly our teachers from the stars," Hank said huskily.

"Or our judges." Loo's voice was flat.

They stood there for another five minutes in silence. Loo said
finally, "Undoubtedly our Intourist guides will take us nearer, if
that's allowed, later during our stay. Meanwhile, my friends, I shall
rest up for the occasion."

"Let's take our quick look at the city," Paco said to Hank. "Once the
Intourist people take over they'll run our feet off. Frankly, I have
little interest in where the first shot of the revolution was fired,
the latest tractor factory, or where Rasputin got it in the neck.
There are more important things."

"We know," Loo said from the bed. "Women."

"Right!"

* * * * *

Hank was wo