absence.

"Just as I thought," he told her. "It's a nice, secluded spot where you and I can be all alone for a little while. And I can poke around and see what makes these bombs tick."

"Fine, fine," she purred in his ear. "Let's go."

She thought he was kidding.

It was an hour before dawn on the atoll when he re-materialized the Cadillac, blonde and all, on the coral beach. Only the chauffeur had been left behind.

"What's that sound," she cried a little startled.

"Just the surf."

"Be darned! I don't remember telling Smith to drive us to—oh well, it's quiet, isn't it honey?"

The Sirian sent out a probe and located the tower with the huge nuclear device suspended below it. He was about to close in and focus on the construction and composition when the voice in his ear hissed intimately, "Mike, darling, where are you?"

"Me? Why, I'm right here."

"Hadda feeling you were miles away."

"Not at all. Just about twenty-five yards is all. It's located right over there."

"What's located where?"

"The hydrogen bomb. Just over that first hump. You can see the tower."

"Don't be silly," she said giggling. "It's jet black out there. Real dark, and private, and Smith's gone off somewhere. We're all alone, darling. Just like you wanted."

And now the Sirian, alias Mike Sledge, learned that there were other than visual methods of aesthetic appreciation. Hundred-dollar-a-dram perfume assailed his olfactory tissues from her warm body, turning certain miniscule glands within him into busy chemical factories.

Her finger-tips trailed over his shaved head, and he almost threw out a nerve block before he realized that the sensation was psycho-physical rather than electronic.

"Show me!" she whispered.

"Show you what?"

"How you did it. How you 

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