his loyalty to Terra."

"And what makes you think I will?"

"Our tests are absolute. But if we are wrong it will be unfortunate for only one person. Your wife."

Kendall thought of Clare, trying the while to keep his panic from showing through. Blonde, beautiful Clare—the one person who really made his life worth living. Clare. As he worked at this brutal, tedious defense business, he did not work for the defense of Terra, though that idea and its psychological drive was ever in his conscious mind. He worked to keep Clare safe and now he realized the stark fact; realized it as he cursed the Centaurians and their devilish extrasensory penetration; cursed this masked devil for being right.

Shocked out of wariness, he allowed these thoughts to spill through his conscious mind; then he caught himself and threw up the blank mental wall all defense people were taught to use.

But not until the man chuckled behind his mask and said, "I agree on all counts, but you have to admit that we clocked you perfectly, Mr. Kendall. The risk we took in kidnapping your wife was well worthwhile."

"On the contrary. One life is of little consequence."

"I'm sorry you feel that way," the man said with mocking lightness in his voice. "Let me describe the manner in which your wife will die. First we'll strip her nak—"

"What is it you're after?" Kendall snapped.

The man's chuckle was even more pronounced. "You're right of course in surmising I'm a Centaurian, and you're quite familiar with the way our cold war works—how the balance of power has been maintained these last hundred years."

"The balance is tipped in our favor."

"Of course, but we now intend—through you—to remedy that situation. You people are very ingenious in that you invent a total destruction-type weapon and then turn right around and conceive an absolute defense against it. We do the same, of course, or try to, but we find ourselves at all times slightly behind you. A sad situation for we Centaurians, don't you think, Mr. Kendall?"

"Your chances of ever balancing us are remote."

"Not so. Let me explain. Our great hope lies in obtaining the plans of your latest projectile. I think you call it Willy Seven."

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