"Yes," he answered. "And this year we ought to win, for a change."

"Hah! Wait until you see the special buggy we have put together."

"Not another rocket job?" 328

"You'll see."

While they talked, Kinsman took a pad from his belt. Clumsily,, with his gloved hands, he wrote, "Is your suit bugged?" He held the note up before Leonov's visor.

"I checked this suit personally before putting it on," Leonov answered. "It is perfectly safe."

"We ought to take a look at this crater," Kinsman said, clumping to the rim of a thirty-meter-wide depression. "It's close enough to the racecourse to be marked off, don't you think?"

"That depends on how steep the interior is." Leonov followed him.

They walked slowly down the interior slope, picking their way through rocks and loose rubbie by the lights on their helmets, until they were out of sight of the race committee and the standing crawlers and buggies. Out of sight meant out of radio contact. Now they could talk to each other without being overheard.

"What happened yesterday?" Kinsman asked, lowering his voice unconsciously. "Your message wasn't very clear."

"Too much to do. I couldn't get away. It would not have looked right to drop important business because of the race committee."

Nodding, Kinsman changed the subject. "I got a call from one of our doctors. She wants to transfer a heart patient of yours to our side of the hospital."

"Yes, I know. Baliagorev, the former dancer."

"She says your regulations won't let you send him over to us."

Leonov answered, "Of course. And your regulations do not allow you to take him in without permission from your superiors Earthside."

"Hell, Pete, I'll just do it and get them to okay it after the fact. There's a human life at stake."

"Ah, but your superiors are much easier to handle than mine. Mine would absolutely forbid transferring a Soviet citizen to your side of the hospital. Absolutely."

"Then he's going to die?"

"No, he's on his way to your side of the hospital. I gave the order this morning before I came out here to join you." 329

Kinsman stopped dead on the gravelly slope, sending a few loose pebbles rattling noiselessly down toward the shad- owed bottom of the crater. "You . . . Pete, sometimes you astound me."

"You think it's impossible for a good Communist to be flexible? To fly in the face of authority? You think only you Americans have feelings?"

"Oh hell."

Leonov put a hand on Kinsman's shoulder. "Old friend, I am being relieved of duty. I am being sent back to Mother Russia, to my wife and little ones. We will never see each other again."

"Shipped out? When?"

"In two weeks. Perhaps less. I'm not certain who my replacement will be, but the indications are that he will be a hard-liner. A good Marxist and a good soldier. Not a soft-hearted fellow like me. Not a collaborationist who at- tends capitalist parties and wastes the people's time and money on frivolities."