side his head than in a warehouse of
burned Pentagon files.

Temple was also a thermo-nuclear engineer whose wife spied for the
Russians.

* * * * *

He'd found out quite by accident, not meaning to eavesdrop at all.
Returning home early one afternoon because the production engineer
called a halt while further research was done on certain unstable
isotopes, Temple was surprised to find his wife had a gentleman
caller. He heard their voices clearly from where he stood out in the
sun-parlor, and for a ridiculous instant he was torn between slinking
upstairs and ignoring them altogether or barging into the living room
like a high school boy flushed with jealousy. The mature thing to do,
of course, was neither, and Temple was on the point of walking
politely into the living room, saying hello and waiting for an
introduction, when snatches of the conversation stopped him cold.

"Silly Charles! Kit doesn't suspect a thing. I would _know_."

"How can you be sure?"

"Intuition."

"On a framework of intuition you would place the fate of Red Empire?"

"Empire, Charles?" Temple could picture Lucy's raised eyebrow. He
listened now, hardly breathing. For one wild moment he thought he
would retreat upstairs and forget the whole thing. Life would be much
simpler that way. A meaningless surrender to unreality, however, and
it couldn't be done.

"Yes, Empire. Oh, not the land-grabbing, slave-dominating sort of
things the Imperialists used to attempt, but a more subtle and hence
more enduring empire. Let the world call us Liberator, we shall have
Empire."

Lucy laughed, a sound which Temple loved. "You may keep your ideology,
Charles. Play with it, bathe in it, get drunk on it or drown yourself
in it. I want my money."

"You are frank."

Temple could picture Lucy's shrug. "I am a paid, professional spy. By
now you have most of the information you need. I shall have the rest
tonight."

"I'll see you in hell first!" Temple cried in rage, stalking into the
room and almost smiling in spite of the situation when he realized how
melodramatic his words must sound.

"Kit! Kit...." Lucy raised hand to mouth, then backed away flinching
as if she had been struck.

"Yeah, Kit. A political cuckold, or does Charles get other services
from you as well?"

"Kit, you don't...."

The man named Charles motioned for silence. Dapper, clean-cut,
good-looking except for a surly, pouting mouth, he was a hea