At the height of the Cold War, relationships between the Soviet Union and America were tenuous at best.  There was always the threat of a nuclear exchange and defections were a serious matter.  Newgate’s relationship with the Alien Cooperation Enterprise since 1910 had always been good.  One of the things Newgate did besides work on projects for the organization was to contribute men and women to serve ACE.  One of the means of service was to provide recruiters and watchers for the organization. 

Watchers had been used during WW II to keep an eye on people from adjacent dimensions.  After the war, many joined ACE and continued watching.  If they had worked for the OSS which became the CIA and the FBI, they would have been perfect spies.  They could enter most places and never be detected except with very sensitive transdimensional devices. 

One of the watchers in the Soviet Union was observing a research installation in Siberia when he read the mind of one of the scientists.  His name was Yacov Kranski.  He had a brilliant mind that had to be used for ACE because some of the ideas he had were so advanced that if they became projects used by the military, the entire world might be threatened.  He had to be recruited by ACE so that he wouldn’t develop any of them.  If he defected to the United States, that nation would develop the ideas and use them against the Soviets and maybe the Chinese.  Since no one who works for ACE can share what they know with the nation they are a part of, having the man work for ACE would help the world and not just one country become dominant. 

The project that Yacov was involved with was the construction of a small nuclear reactor that was going to be tied into a rocket propulsion system.  His superiors wanted to use conventional reactors because they were used to them and felt they would serve their purposes.  But Yacov had ideas for a reactor that was very close to that of a hyperlight reactor and even had ideas for a repulsion-drive engine that would have given the Soviet Union dominance in space that might never be overcome by any nation.