Each day brought new challenges and decisions, flexible conditions to be considered and compensated for, plans to be hastily revised and battles to be joined. And within minutes the plump, smiling Gamesmaster would enter the command rooms where they worked with a sheet of print-out paper and the latest combat results. The Gamesmaster always smiled, regardless of the outcome of battles, though he showed a proper concern—the Game was his own invention and the program that analyzed it for human minds to comprehend was unique.

Alderson himself was probably unique, combining the knowledge of all aspects of warfare with the programming talents which had made the whole operation feasible. Waverly had made a mental note to contact this young man through private channels later on and inquire as to his interest in applying his abilities to something of more immediate value to U.N.C.L.E. and the rest of the civilized world.

Oddly enough, Waverly thought once, he hardly minded being away from his desk for so long. His mind occasionally wandered back to the priority file, but more with an air of unfulfilled curiosity than of urgent concern. He wasn't quite aware when he stopped thinking of Utopia as a plush-lined open-air prison, but it was easily within the first two weeks. The idea of an enforced vacation still irritated him, but the boredom he had half-feared was easily tolerated with the constant distraction and challenge the Game offered.

Illya was becoming increasingly exhausted. His cover job was designed to keep an average worker fully occupied and free of boredom. And when it had to share his waking hours with surveillance of four planted bugging devices and special personal alertness, it became something of a strain on a worker who was in fact far above average.

Although Illya had little time for social activities and little real interest in making friends among his coworkers, he found Curley Burke, the little mechanic, an easy companion to tolerate. After all, he told himself, in a situation like this any man who made no friends would be regarded with some suspicion. Curley was that rarest and most valuable of friends, a good talker who knows when to stop. He did not care to inquire too closely into Illya's supposed background as Klaus Rademeyer, which Illya minded not at all since his attention was generally occupied with more than keeping his cover straight.

In his few free moments, the Russian agent would wander over to the maintenance desk. Getting his hands dirty was good therapy for frustration and boredom, and Curley always had a stock of the latest rumors. Late one afternoon they knelt beside an engine block and fought with the valves.

"So the secretary tells him he'll have to come back tomorrow, but by this time he's about fed up. Gimme the number three head....Huh! These kids sure don't take very good care of their trucks. Look at them rings. Disgrace. And then the phone rings and it's him, and she's got to dodge around 'cause if Danny figures it out, he's just as like to grab the phone and let him have it. That'll do. Wanna get started pulling the loom?"

Illya rose from the floor and wiped his grease-grimed hands on a filthy rag. "And this runaround means Dan may be on his way out as head of Design? Who's likely to replace him?"

Curley knew everyone in the Park, employees and guests, and had almost as much data on them as the Client Files. Illya had checked, carefully, on Leon Dodgson and found that he was head of some big foundation in the States. Good enough. The opportunity had not yet arisen to check out the two counterfeit gardeners Thrush had sent, but Illya could wait.

"Aw, who'd know? Front Office could pull somebody in from outside. If I was running things, I'd put Howie Montforte in. But I ain't. They'll take somebody like Rahman Sikhiri—that fake. Nearest he ever was to Nepal was Tel-Aviv."

"?"

"He's no more a Hindu artist than I am. Almost everybody's fooled by him. I may not know everything, but I've been enough places to know when somebody's never been there. I'm gonna have to talk to the boys in Security one of these days. See if these ringers belong to them and tell 'em to give the workers here credit for a little more brains. Guy I know in the Greens Department was telling me about a couple eight-balls they got. Come in when the ragweed was so bad. To hear him tell it, they've got all the recommendations in the world and they don't hardly know which end of a shovel to hold. Like the kids on these trucks." He gestured.

Illya's eyebrows hardly stirred. "Two men together? A team?"

"They come on like a team, anyway. Rooming together. A Jap and an Ayrab or something. Wiry cuss—I seen him at the staff pool. All over scars, and a mean look to him. If he was a tree surgeon I don't ever want to go into a forest. You gettin' that loom okay? Pair of dykes over on the bench."

"You haven't gone to Security yet?"

"Naw. If something happens I'll think about it. Feel like a fool if they're plants after all."

Illya grunted acknowledgment and changed the subject. Sometime he might need Curley's help, but better not to stimulate his curiosity unnecessarily.

Every night he monitored his bugs. It went faster as he developed his ear for high-speed chatter. He sat at the desk now for only a little over an hour every evening, light plastic earphones joined beneath his chin by a thin plastic tube, staring blankly into space as the fingers of his left hand rocked lightly back and forth across the motor switches of the little playback unit. Inside his head voices twittered as the tape sped by, then squawled to a stop and reversed. Two second's silence, and then…

A door opened.

"So the cottage is definitely out. Is his office invulnerable?" The voice spoke French; Illya followed it fluently.

"Of course not. He is often alone there with the maps and charts for that strange game they play. There are even potted plants to tend in that room."

"Noon break tomorrow? Our work will be near—we can enter quietly and meet him."

"If he is out?"

"Mmmmmm... Not a bomb... Pressure-sensitive gas capsule under the chair cushion? Symptoms of syncope, only a bit of plastic left? A pity it must be so remote and impersonal, though."

Their voices faded as they passed into the second room, and Illya boosted the gain. Nothing of interest— complaints about the work crew they were with, speculation about one of the messenger girls... His thumb rocked down and the voices rose an octave. A minute later the conversation ended. Illya's index finger pressed its key and the faint background roar of the shower rose to a whistle. Occasionally a word or two would chirp—nothing worth stopping for. A brief string of twitter brought his ring finger down and the tiny hysteresis motors strained their magnetic fields as they reversed. The middle finger descended and voices appeared.

"Set the alarm clock."

"Six fifteen."

"Right."

A pause. The index finger held down for a moment as vague sounds played past, then the thumb. Silence. At last the little finger rocked down and the sound stopped. His eyes focused for the first time as he looked down at the machine to see that it was rewinding properly. His first thought was Well, there goes my lunch.

Waverly and Silverthorne occasionally met for lunch when hostilities were relaxed, and on this day it happened that they did. They were served on the open balcony of the Main Lodge, looking over the grass towards the trees, while the warm Australian summer sun soaked down on them.

"Good day, Dodgson. I trust I find you well."

"Ah, Silverthorne—yes, quite well. Better than your defense around Sector Seven."