this morning, it actually slipped my mind. Another time, perhaps."

Trask nodded. "I'll try to make arrangements for a later date. Thanks a
lot, Mr. Bending. Good-by."

Bending said good-by and cut the connection.

Samson Bending didn't like being forced to buy from the black market
operators, but there was nothing else to do if one wanted certain pieces
of equipment. During the "Tense War" of the late Sixties, the Federal
and State governments had gone into a state of near-panic. The war that
had begun in the Near East had flashed northwards to ignite the eternal
Powder Keg of Europe. But there were no alliances, no general war; there
were only periodic armed outbreaks, each one in turn threatening to turn
into World War III. Each country found itself agreeing to an armistice
with one country while trying to form an alliance with a second and
defending itself from or attacking a third.

And yet, during it all, no one quite dared to use the Ultimate Weapons.
There was plenty of strafing by fighter planes and sorties by small
bomber squadrons, but there was none of the "massive retaliation" of
World War II. There could be heard the rattle of small-arms fire and the
rumble of tanks and the roar of field cannon, but not once was there the
terrifying, all-enveloping blast of nuclear bombs.

But, at the time, no one knew that it wouldn't happen. The United
States and the Soviet Union hovered on the edges of the war, two colossi
who hesitated to interfere directly for fear they would have to come to
grips with each other.

The situation made the "Brinksmanship" of former Secretary Dulles look
as safe as loafing in an easy-chair.

And the bureaucratic and legislative forces of the United States
Government had reacted in a fairly predictable manner. The "security"
guards around scientific research, which had been gradually diminishing
towards the vanishing point, had suddenly been re-imposed--this time,
even more stringently and rigidly than ever before.

Coupled with this was another force--apparently unrelated--which acted
to tie in with the Federal security regulations. The juvenile delinquent
gangs had begun to realize the value of science. Teen-age hoodlums armed
with homemade pistols were dangerous enough in the Fifties; add aimed
rockets and remote-control bombs to their armories, and you have an
almost uncontrollable situation. Something had to be done, and various
laws controlling the sale of scientific appara