"_'Necessary,' the statesmen say. 'Necessary to national safety.' But with the statesmen's words comes the obvious question: Is there still any national safety left for any nation? Does it exist anywhere, to be preserved? Haven't the fleeing nomads asked themselves this question already, turning their frightened eyes to the unprotecting skies?_ "_But the statesman must speak--and he must speak logic, even now when logic has deserted us, and words can no longer save us. Every man--statesman or otherwise--knows that it is no longer a question of whether the bombs will drop--but when they will drop--and who will drop them--we or they?_ "_It is true that no nation has declared war, but terror declares its own war. Can we wait another day to take the initiative? Can they? The undeclared enemy may destroy us tomorrow--or tonight--even within the next few minutes. I may not live to finish this broadcast--and you may not live to hear it...._" * * * * * Suddenly there was a sharp click, and the voice stopped, silenced as effectively as though a wire had been knotted about the speaker's throat. Marc Pillsworth, startled at the sudden silence, snapped forward in his chair and looked up. Julie, the lamp light slanting sharply across her face, glared down at him with tense irritation. She removed her hand significantly from the radio switch. "I'm telling you, Marcus Pillsworth," she said menacingly, "I can't stand any more of it. If you turn on that bloody instrument again--if you so much as twitch your bony finger in its direction--one of us is going to die of unnatural causes, and you may have read that the female is notoriously more long-lived than the male." Marc stared at her incredulously through the chill dimness of the living room. Then he sighed heavily. This also was the nature of human terror: every man was married to a shrew these days. Women simply weren't up to it. But Julie had been better than most--until now. He looked at the tightly drawn lips, the circled eyes and tried to remember his wife's cool blonde beauty as it had been only a month ago. The contrast was disquieting. Well, these were harrowing times for her. But they were just as harrowing for everyone else--for him. She ought to realize that. Suddenly, unaccountably, Marc felt his self-control slipping away from him with all the sleazy inevitability of a pair of silk shorts with rotten elastic. Suddenly the distorted face across the room was not at all the face of his wife, but the face of a vindictive stranger who had invaded his rights and his privacy with definite malice in mind. Reason left him, and, with a black sucking feeling in the pit of his stomach, he felt the last measure of his reserve trickle down the drain. Gripping the arms of his chair, he jutted his face out into the light and deliberately leered.