| Women working as human "computers" for NASA in its early years discover that their boss is actually a tentacled creature who feasts on valid calculations and is repulsed by mathematical errors.
In addition to a few general remarks on the narrator's thoughts about mathematics (such as how she loves math for its own sake although her father, a chemistry professor, sees no value in math unless it is applied), this story also features a lesbian romance, and (as the title implies) some Cold War atmosphere.
This is one of many works of "mathematical horror" in the collection "Arithmophobia" (self-published by editor Robert Lewis). Some of the other works in that collection will have their own entries here, but others are excluded either because they did not qualify as "mathematical fiction" according to the standards of this website. Check out the book if you want to see them all. | 
