This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in
this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or
incidents is purely coincidental.

THE KINSMAN SAGA
Copyright © 1987 by Ben Bova

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or
portions thereof in any form.

First printing: October 1987
A TOR Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.
49 West 24 Street
New York, N.Y. 10010

Cover art by Pat Rawlins

ISBN: 0-312-93026-7

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 87-50484

Printed in the United States of America

0987654321

Author's Foreword:

Reality and Symbols

I HAVE RETURNED to where I started, returned to Chet
Kinsman, to the character who has haunted me since I first
began writing seriously.

If you have read the Tor Books edition of As on a
Darkling Plain, you know the genesis of this book: How I
wrote a very early version of it in 1949-50, a version that
predicted the Space Race of the 1960s, which culminated in
the American landings on the Moon. How Ihe novel was
rejected everywhere, in part because publishers were afraid it
would incur the wrath of anti-Communist witch-hunters such
as Senator Joseph McCarthy. How Arthur C. Clarke encour-
aged me to keep writing, and how eventually I was able to
hand him the first copy of the first edition of Millennium.

When Millennium was originally published, in 1976, the
idea of putting laser-armed satellites in orbit to shoot down
nuclear-armed ballistic missiles was widely regarded as fan-
tasy. Except by a few of us who knew better. Today the
concept is known as the Strategic Defense Initiative, or Star
Wars. Billions of dollars are being spent on it. Passionate
arguments have been waged over it among scientists, politi-
cians, pundits, and even science fiction writers. But in the
early 1970s the only place that such an idea could be explored
seriously in print, outside of classified technical publications,
was in the medium called science fiction.

To the large majority of the public, science fiction is
regarded as a field that deals with the fantastic, as far
removed from reality as fiction can be. In truth, science
fiction examines reality, and explores it in ways that no other
form of literature possibly can. I must admit, though, that I
am speaking now of my kind of science fiction, the kind that I

v

write and the kind that I published when I was an editor.
There are many other types of stories being marketed under
the name of "science fiction." They may deal with unicorns or
video games, barbarian swordsmen or robot killing machines.
It is these types of stories, and the films and TV shows made
from them, that convince most of the public that science
fiction has no connection with reality.

My kind of science fiction examines the future in order to
understand the present. It is social commentary of a new
kind, a variety of literature that has been developed and
sharpened in this century mainly by a handful of writers in the
United States and Europe who are familiar with the physical
sciences, their resultant technologies, and the impact of these
technologies on society. Those of us who practice this art are
agreed that modern technology is the major force of change in
society today—and will continue to be, for the foreseeable
future.

It seems clear that technological developments, from
nuclear bombs to birth control pills, are the driving force in
our civilization. The engines of change begin with the scien-
tists and engineers. Then come the industrialists, churchmen,
politicians, and everybody else. In our fiction we attempt to
examine how science and technology bring change. We do not
try to predict the future so much as to describe possible
futures. We are not prophets warning of doom or describing
Utopias, We are scouts bringing reports of the territory up
ahead, so that the rest of the human race might travel into the
future more safely and happily.

In Millennium, the concept of using lasers mounted
aboard orbiting satellites to protect the nations of Earth from
nuclear missile attack was both a symbol and a realistic
extrapolation of technology. In science fiction, such a scientif-
ic concept can be used both as a symbol and as a part of the
authentic technical background for a story.

I knew in 1965 that a space-based defense against ballistic
missiles was inevitable. I was working then at Avco Everett
Research Laboratory, in Massachusetts, where the first truly
high-power laser was invented. We called it the Gasdynamic
Laser, and the first working model was built and operated
under the supervision of the physicist with whom I shared an
office. In its first ten seconds of operation, that crude labora-
vi

tory "kluge" produced more output power than all the lasers
that had been built everywhere in the world since the first one
had been turned on, five years earlier.

By January of 1966 I was helping to arrange a Top Secret
meeting at the Pentagon to inform the Department of De-
fense that lasers were no longer merely laboratory curiosities.
It was clear, even then, that a device which could produce a
beam of concentrated light of many megawatts power could
be the heart of a defense against the so-called "ultimate
weapon," the hydrogen-bomb-carrying ballistic missile.

The meeting we set up in the Pentagon was snowed out
by one of the worst blizzards ever to hit Washington. If you
ever want to take over the government, wait for a two-foot
snowfall. You can then take ail of Washington with a handful
of troops—if they have skis.

In February 1966 we finally met with the Department of
Defense's top scientists and stunned them with the news of
the Gasdynamic Laser. Seventeen years later an American
President authorized the program that the media snidely calls
Star Wars. I have told the story of the history, and future, of
the Strategic Defense Initiative in a nonfiction book, Star
Peace: Assured Survival, published by Tor Books in 1986.

But long before then, I used the very-real facts about
laser-armed satellites as the background for my novel Millen-
nium.

I had never given up on Chet Kinsman. He was too much
a part of me, too deeply ingrained in my subconscious mind, I
watched my first, unpublished novel become history as the
Soviet Union did indeed put the first satellites and the first
human space travelers into orbit and the United States roused
itself to leapfrog the Russians and place the first men on the
Moon. The way / had written it, that first step on the Moon
was not made by Neil Armstrong; it was made by Chester
Arthur Kinsman.

Kinsman would not let go of my imagination. I found
myself writing short stories about him. He was a dashing
young military astronaut who founded the Zero Gee Club,
the first man to make love in weightlessness. He fought in
orbit and killed a Russian cosmonaut, a shattering experience
that altered his entire life. He got to the Moon, finally, and
rescued a fellow astronaut who had gotten hurt while on an
vil

exploring mission. He battled the bureaucracy of Washing-
ton, as any modern pioneer must, in his efforts to get the
United States to return to the Moon.

While these stories were shaping themselves in my mind,
while I was writing them and seeing them published in science
fiction magazines, the outline of Millennium crystallized and
came to life.

Once Millennium was published, readers reacted power-
fully, especially to the ending. I was encouraged to bring
together the stories dealing with Kinsman's early life, and I
wove them into a second novel, Kinsman, a "prequel" to
Millennium even though it was written several years after-
ward.

In the meantime, of course, the scientists and engineers
were making steady progress in the fields of space technology,
lasers, and computers. So much so that in March 1983
President Reagan announced the start of the Strategic De-
fense Initiative. Once again I watched my fiction start to turn
into history. Nothing in the original Millennium and Kinsman
has been invalidated by the events of the past few years. But
now many of the details that I had to sketch minimally can be
shown in much clearer perspective.

Now, in this single volume, the whole story is played out
from beginning to end. From a brand-new lieutenant on a
joyride in a supersonic Jet fighter plane to a man who literally
carries the weight of two worlds on his shoulders. From a
brash youngster who thinks of sex as nothing more than fun to
a man who cares so much about the woman he loves that he is
afraid of a relationship that will hurt her.

There are many differences between the original pair of
novels and this new retelling of the Kinsman saga. For one
thing, the human, emotional story of Kinsman and the
woman he has loved all his life is told properly for the first
time. Because the two novels were originally written the way
they were, many details—and some larger aspects—of the
story did not blend smoothly, one book to the other. Now
they have been reexamined, rethought, and rewritten. All the
characters and themes now mesh properly, and you can read
the story of Kinsman's life from beginning to end as a single
seamless garment.

The social and political implications of building a defense

vi ii

against nuclear attack, however, remain almost exactly as I
originally wrote them. That is because they have not changed.
The ultimate result of space-based defenses against nuclear
attack will be a unified world government. There is absolutely
no doubt in my mind about that. Who runs that government,
what kind of a government it will be, what role the United
States will play in it and what role other nations will play—all
those questions are unanswered. Their answers will be the
political history of the twenty-first century.

There are many symbols in Kinsman's story. I mention
this mainly because most critics have been blind to them. Or
perhaps they think of symbolism only in its psychological
sense, where rockets are considered phallic and a wheel-
shaped space station is thought to be vaginal. That is not the
sort of symbolism I am speaking of.

Kinsman himself is a symbol. A young American male,
full of the adventure of flying, who brings both love and death
to the pristine realm of outer space. In Millennium, he
becomes a Christ figure, and his closest friend, Frank Colt,
takes on the role of Judas. Colt himself symbolizes the
dilemma of the black man in modern America.

The Christian symbolism is at its plainest in the section of
Kinsman where he rescues the injured astronaut on the
surface of the Moon. In that tale, titled "Fifteen Miles" when
it appeared in a science fiction magazine in its original form,
the surface of the Moon becomes a testing ground, a place of
ordeal and punishment. The central question is redemption:

Can Kinsman save his sou!, or is he damned forever? This
becomes the question for all the rest of his life, and forms his
underlying motivation in Millennium.

The technological gadgets of the story also serve as
symbols. Equating Moonbase's water factory with a human
being's heart and blood is obvious enough. So, perhaps, is the
symbolism of a lance of light that destroys the death machines
of ballistic missiles. But the idea of humankind's reach into
space forcing a change in human attitudes on Earth, which
pervades the story of Kinsman's life, has escaped the atten-
tion of most critics.

There are two aspects to this, in the story. One is the
laser-armed satellites, the Star Wars system, placed in orbit to
defend against nuclear missile attack. The other is weather

ix

control, using technology to tame one of the most fundamen-
tal forces on Earth. Push and pull. Negative and positive. Yin
and yang. The important point is that once the human race
began to extend its ecological niche beyond the limits of
planet Earth, all our old ways of thinking became doomed.
Most people do not realize this yet. Most are oblivious to the
fact that national borders are swiftly losing their meaning in a
world of communications satellites, hydrogen bombs, conti-
nent-spanning missiles, and the expansion of human life into
space.

The facts are there to see, but most people are not
emotionally prepared to deal with them. It is through the
symbolism of fiction that we prepare our minds for these new
concepts. In the truest sense, Chet Kinsman does exist, and
his message of hope and peace and love is the ultimate reality.

—Ben Bova
West Hartford.
March 1987

x

Connecticut

BOOK

KINSMAN

Fear death?—to feel the fog in my throat,

The mist in my face,
When the snows begin, and the blasts denote

I am nearing the place,
The power of the night, the press of the storm,

The post of the foe,
Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible

form.
Yet the strong man must go ...

—Robert Browning

Age 21

To Mark Chartrand, despite his puns

FROM THE REAR SEAT of the TF-15 jet the mountains of Utah
looked like barren wrinkles of grayish brown, an old thread-
bare bedcover that had been tossed carelessly across the floor.

"How do you like it up here?"

Chet Kinsman heard the pilot's voice as a disembodied
crackle in his helmet earphones. The shrill whine of the
turbojet engines, the rush of unbreathably thin air just inches
away on the other side of the transparent canopy, were
nothing more than background music, muted, unimportant.

"Love it!" he answered to the bulbous white helmet in
the seat in front of him.

The cockpit was narrow and cramped. The oxygen he
breathed through the rubbery mask had a cold, metallic tang
to it. Kinsman could barely move in his seat. The pilot had
warned him, "Pull the harness good and snug; you don't want
anything flapping loose if you have to eject." Now the safety
straps cut into his shoulders.

Yet he felt free.

"How high can we go?" he asked into the mike built into
the oxygen mask.

A pause. "Oh, we can leave controlled airspace if we
want to. Better'n fifty thousand feet." The pilot had a trace of
Southern accent. Alabama, maybe, thought Kinsman. Or
Georgia. "Thirty thou's good enough for now, though."

Kinsman grinned to himself. "A lot better than hang
gliding."

"Hey, I like hang gliding," said the pilot.

"But it doesn't compare to this. . . . This is power.''1

"Right enough."

Power. And freedom. Six miles above the tired, wrinkled
old Earth. Six miles away from everything and everybody. It
3

couldn't last long enough to suit him.

Ahead lay San Francisco and his mother's funeral.
Ahead lay death and his father's implacable anger.

Life at the Air Force Academy was rigid, cold. A
first-year cadet was expected to obey everybody's orders, not
make friends. No matter that you're older than the other
first-year men. A rich boy, huh? Spent two years in a fancy
prep school, huh? Well, snap to, mister! Let me see four
chins, moneybags! Four of 'em!

Yet that was better- than going home.

His father had refused to stop off in Colorado when he
had taken his ailing wife from their estate in Pennsylvania to
her sister's home in San Francisco. And Kinsman had delayed
taking leave to visit his mother there. Time enough for that
later, after his father had gone back East to return to running
his banks.

Then, suddenly, unalterably, she was dead. And his
father was still there.

Instead of taking a commercial airliner. Kinsman had
begged a ride with a westward-heading Air Force captain.

If t'were done, he told himself, t'were best done quickly.

Now he was flying. Free and happy.

Suddenly the plane's nose dipped and Kinsman felt his
pressure suit begin to squeeze the air out of him. His arms
became too heavy to lift. His head felt as if it would sink down
inside his rib cage. He could hear the pilot's breath, over the
open mike, rasping in long, regular panting grunts, like a man
doing pushups, and Kinsman realized he was breathing hard
too. They were diving toward the desert, which now looked as
flat and hard and gray as steel. The pressure suit squeezed
harder. Kinsman could not speak.

"Try a low-level run," the pilot gasped, between breaths.
"Get a real . . . feeling of speed."

The helmet on Kinsman's head weighed two million
pounds. He made a grunting noise that was supposed to be a
cool "Okay."

And then they were skimming across the empty desert,
engines howling, rocks and bushes nothing more than a
speeding blur whizzing past. Kinsman took a deep exhilarat-
ing breath. The plane shook and bucked as if eager to return

to the thinner, clearer air where it had been designed to fly.

He thought he saw some buildings in the blur of hills off
to his left, but before he could speak into his radio mike the
pilot blurted;

"Whoops! Highway!"

The control column between Kinsman's knees yanked
back toward his crotch. The plane stood on its tail, afterburn-
ers screaming, and a microsecond's flicker of a huge tractor-
trailer rig zipped past the corner of his eye. The suit squeezed
at his middle again and he felt himself pressing into the
contoured seat with the weight of an anvil on his chest.

They leveled off at last and Kinsman sucked in a great
sighing gulp of oxygen.

"Damned sun glare does that sometimes," the pilot was
saying, sounding half annoyed and half apologetic. "Damned
desert looks clear but there's a truck doodling along the
highway, hidden in the glare."

Kinsman found his voice. "That was a helluva ride."

The pilot chuckled. "I'll bet there's one damned rattled
trucker down there. He's probably on his little ol' CB
reporting a flying saucer attack."

They headed westward again, toward the setting sun.
The pilot let Kinsman take the controls for a while as they
climbed to cross the approaching Sierras. The rugged moun-
tain crests were still capped with snow, bluish and cold. Like
the wall of the Rockies that loomed over the Academy,
Kinsman thought.

"You got a nice steady touch, kid. Make a good pilot."

"Thanks. I used to fly my father's Cessna. Even the
Learjet, once."

"Got your license?"

"Not yet. I'll qualify at the Academy."

The pilot said nothing.

"I'm going in for astronaut training as soon as I gradu-
ate," Kinsman went on.

"Astronaut, huh? Well, I'd rather fly a real airplane.
Damned astronauts are like robots. Everything's done by
remote control for those rocket jocks."

"Not everything," Kinsman protested.

He could sense the pilot shaking his head inside his

helmet. "Hell, I'll bet they even have machines to do their
screwing for them."

It was an old house atop Russian Hill. Victorian clap-
board, unpretentious yet big enough to hold a hockey rink on
its ground floor. The view of the Bay was spectacular. The
people who lived in this part of San Francisco had the quiet
power to see that none of the new office towers and high-rise
hotels obscured their vistas.

Nea! McGrath opened the door for Kinsman. His normal
scowl warmed into a half-bitter smile.

"Hello, Chet."

"Neal. I didn't expect to see you here."

"He needed somebody to take charge of things for him.
This has hit him pretty hard."

McGrath reminded Kinsman of a Varangian Guard: a
tall, broad-shouldered, red-haired Viking who hovered by his
Emperor's side to protect him from assassins. His ice-blue
eyes looked much older than his years. He was barely twenty
months older than Kinsman, but his suspicious scowl and low,
growly voice gave him an air of inner experience, of wariness,
that strangely made people trust and rely on him. Kinsman
had known him since McGrath had been the ten-year-old son
who helped their gardener mow their lawn. Now McGrath
was his father's personal assistant, and was being groomed for
one of the family's seats in the House of Representatives. He
would be a senator one day, they all agreed.

Stepping from the late afternoon sunshine into the
darkened stained-glass foyer of the old Victorian house,
Kinsman asked, "Where is my mother?"

"In there." McGrath gestured toward a set of double
doors that rose to the ceiling.

Kinsman let his single flight bag drop to the marble floor.
"Is my father . . ."

"He's upstairs, taking a nap. The doctor's trying to keep
him as quiet as possible." McGrath bent to pick up Kinsman's
bag. "There's a room for you upstairs. How long will you be
staying?"

"I'll leave right after the funeral, tomorrow."

"A lot of the family is flying in from the East. They'll
expect to see you afterward."

Kinsman shook his head. "I can't stay."

"If it's a matter of fixing things with the Academy I can
call ..."

"No. Please, Neal."

McGrath shrugged and started toward the broad, stern
dark-wood staircase, his footsteps echoing on the cool marble
floor.

Kinsman went to the tall double doors. An ornately
framed mirror hung on the hallway wall just before the doors,
and he saw himself in it. His mother would not have recog-
nized him. The blue uniform made him look slimmer than
ever, and taller, despite the fact that he had never quite
reached the six-foot height he had coveted so desperately as a
teenager. His face was leaner, dark hair cropped closer than it
had ever been before, blue eyes weary from lack of sleep. His
long jaw was stubbly; his mother would have insisted that he
go upstairs and shave.

He slid the doors slightly apart and slipped almost guiltily
into the room. It had been a library at one lime, or a parlor,
the kind of a room where women of an earlier generation had
once served tea to one another. Now it was too dark to see
the walls clearly. The high windows were muffled in dark
draperies. The only light in the large room was a ceiling spot
illuminating the casket. Kinsman's mother lay there embed-
ded in white satin, her eyes closed peacefully, her hands
folded over a plain sky-blue dress.

He did not recognize her at first. The cancer had taken
away so much of her flesh that only a taut covering of skin
stretched across the bony understructure of her face. All the
fullness of her mouth and brow were gone. She was a gaunt
skeleton of the mother he had known.

Her skin looked waxy, unreal. Kinsman stared down at
her for a long time, thinking. She's so tiny. I never realized
she was so tiny.

He knelt at the mahogany prayer rail in front of the
casket but found that he had nothing to say. He felt absolutely
numb inside; no grief, no guilt, nothing. Empty. But in his
mind he heard her voice from earlier years.

Chester, get down from that tree before you hurt yourself!

Yes, Mommy.

You could have a fine career as a concert pianist, Chester,

(/ only you would practice instead of indulging in this ridicu-
lous mania for flying.

Aw, Ma.

/ do wish you would be more respectful of your father,
Chester. He's proud of what he's accomplished and he wants
you to share in it.

I'll try, Mother. But ...

// / give you my consent, Chester, if I let you join the Air
Force, it will break your poor father's heart.

I've got to get away from him, Mother. It's the only way.
I'll put in for astronaut training. I won't kill anybody. It'll all
work out okay, you'll see. You'll be proud of me someday.

"So you finally got here."

Kinsman turned and saw the tall, austere figure of his
father framed in the doorway.

He got up from his knees quickly. "I came as soon as I
could."

"Not soon enough," his father said, sliding the doors
shut behind him.

Kinsman pulled in a deep breath. They had fought many
battles in front of his mother. He had been a fool to hope that
today could be any different,

"It . . . she went so fast," he said.

His father walked slowly toward him, a measured pace,
like a monster in a child's horror tale. "At the end, yes, it was
fast. The doctors said it was the Lord's mercy. But she
suffered for months. You could have eased her pain."

Kinsman realized suddenly that his father was old. And
probably in pain himself. The man's hair was dead white now,
not a trace of its former color. His eyes had lost their fire.

"I talked with her on the phone," he said, knowing it
sounded weak, defensive. "Almost every night . . ."

"You should have been here, where you belong!"

"The Air Force thought differently."

"The Air Force! That conglomeration of feeble-minded
professional killers."

"That's not true and you know it."

"I could have had any one of a dozen United States
Senators bail you out of your precious Academy. But no, you
were too busy to come and ease your mother's last days on
Earth."

8

"None of us knew she was that close to the end."

"She was in pain!" The old man's voice was rising, filling
the nearly empty room with its hard, angry echoes.

"I couldn't come," Kinsman insisted.

"Why not?"

"Because I didn't want to see you!" he blurted.

If it surprised his father, the old man did not show it. He
merely nodded. "You mean you couldn't face me."

"Call it what you want to."

"Sneaking around behind my back. Forcing your sick
mother to consent to your joining the Air Force. The only son
of the most prominent Quaker family in Pennsylvania
—joining the Air Force! Learning how to become a killer!"

"I'm not going to kill anyone," Kinsman answered. "I'm
going in for astronaut duty."

"You'll do what they order you to do. You surrendered
your soul when you put on that uniform. If they order you to
kill, you'll kill. You'll bomb cities and strafe helpless women
and children. You'll drop napalm on babies when they order
you to."

"I'm not going to be involved in anything like that!"

"My only child, a warrior. A killer. No wonder your
mother died. You killed her."

Kinsman could feel waves of fire sweeping through him.
Gritting his teeth against the pain, he said, "That's a rotten
thing to tell me . . ."

"It's true. You killed her. She'd still be alive if it weren't
for you."

The pain flaming through him was too much. Fists
clenched against his sides, Kinsman brushed past his father
and strode out of the room, out of the house, out into the
bright hot sunshine and clear blue sky that he neither felt nor
saw.

By the time he realized the sun had set, he found himself
in Berkeley, walking aimlessly along a wide boulevard, car-
ried along by the flow of students and other pedestrians
streaming past shops and restaurants. Music blared from car
radios passing by. Garish lights flickered from shop-front
windows.

He stepped into a bar. The sign on its window said it was

a coffee shop, but the only coffee they served had Irish
whiskey in it. Kinsman ordered a beer and hunched over the
frosted glass, staring blankly into its foamy head. He heard a
sweet woman's voice singing, looked up into the mirror
behind the bar, and saw a girl sitting on a stool in front of a
microphone, strumming a guitar as she sang.

"Jack of diamonds, queen of spades,
Fingers tremble and the memory fades,
And it's a foolish man who tries to cheat the
dealer ..."

The people sitting around the bar wore shabby denims or
faded khaki fatigues. A couple of suits and casual sports
coats. Kinsman felt out of place in his crisp sky-blue uniform.

As he watched the night deepen over the clapboard
buildings and the lights on the Bay Bridge stretch a twinkling
arch across the water, he realized he had spent most of his life
alone. He had no home. The Academy was cold and friend-
less. There was no place on Earth that he could call his own.
And deep inside he knew that his soul was as austere and rigid
as his father's. I'll look like him one day, Kinsman thought. If
I live long enough.

"You can't win,

And you can't break even,
You can't get out of the game . . .

She has a really sweet voice, he thought. Like a silver
bell. Like water in the desert.

It was a haunting voice. And her face, framed by long
midnight-black hair, had a fine-boned, dark-eyed ascetic look
to it. She perched on a high stool, under a lone spotlight,
bluejeaned legs crossed and guitar resting on one thigh.

He sat at the bar silently urging himself to go over and
introduce himself, offer her a drink, tell her how much he
enjoyed her singing. But as he worked up his nerve a dozen
kids his own age burst into the place. The singer, just finished
her set, smiled and called to them. They clustered around her.

Kinsman turned his attention to his warming beer. By the
time he finished it the students had pushed a few tables
10

together and were noisily ordering everything from Sacred
Cows to Seven-Up. The singer had disappeared. It was full
night outside now.

"You alone?"

He looked up, startled. It was her.

"Uh . . . yeah." Clumsily he pushed the barstoo! back
and got to his feet.

"Why don't you come over and join us?" She gestured
toward the crowd of students.

"Sure. Great. Love to."

She was tall enough to be almost eye level with Kinsman,
and as slim and supple as a young willow. She wore a black
long-sleeved pullover atop her faded denims.

"Hey, everybody, this is . . ." She turned to him with an
expectant little smile. All the others stopped their chatter and
looked up at him.

"Kinsman," he said. "Chet Kinsman."

Two chairs appeared out of the crowd and Kinsman sat
down between the singer and a chubby blonde girl who was
intently, though unsteadily, rolling a joint for herself,

Kinsman felt out of place. They were all staring wordless-
ly at him, except for the rapt blonde. Wrong uniform, he told
himself. He might as well have been wearing a badge that
spelled out NARC.

"My name's Diane," the singer said to him as the bar's
only waitress placed a fresh beer in front of him. "That's
Shirl, John, Carl, Eddie, Dolores . . ." She made a circuit of
the table and Kinsman forgot their names as soon as he heard
them. Except for Diane's.

They were still eyeing him suspiciously.

"You with the National Guard?"

"No," Kinsman said. "Air Force Academy."

"Going to be a fly-boy?"

"Flying pig," mumbled the blonde on his left.

Kinsman looked at her. "I'm going in for astronaut
training."

"An orbiting pig," she muttered.

"That's a stupid thing to say."

"She's wired tight," Diane told him. "We're all a little
pissed off."

"Why?"

11

"The demonstration got called off," said one of the guys.
"The fuckin' mayor reneged on us."

"What demonstration?" Kinsman asked.

"You don't know?" It was an accusation.

"Should I?"

"You mean you really don't know what day tomorrow
is?" asked the bespectacled youth sitting across the table.

"Tomorrow?" Kinsman felt slightly bewildered.

"Kent State."

"It's the anniversary."

"They gunned down a dozen students."

"The National Fuckin' Guard."

"Killed them!"

"But that was years ago," Kinsman said. "In Ohio."

They all glared at him as if they were blaming him for it.

"We're gonna show those friggin' bastards," said an
intense, waspish little guy sitting a few chairs down from
Kinsman. He tried to remember his name. Eddie? The guy
was frail-looking, but his face was set in a smoldering angry
cast, tight-lipped. The big glasses he wore made his eyes look
huge and fierce.

"Right on," said the group's one black member. "They
can't cancel our parade."

"Not after they gave their word it was okay."

"We'll tear the fuckin' campus apart tomorrow!"

"How's that going to help things?" Kinsman heard his
own voice asking.

"How's it gonna helpT'

"I mean," Kinsman went on, wanting to bounce some of
their hostility back at them, "what are you trying to accom-
plish? So you tear up the campus, big deal. What good does
that do—except convince everybody that you're a bunch of
loonies."

"You don't make any sense," Eddie snapped.
"Neither do you."

"But you don't understand," said Diane. "We've got to
do something. We can't just let them withdraw permission to
hold our parade without making some kind of response."

"I'd appeal to the Governor. Or one of my senators. Go
where the clout is."

12

They all laughed at that. All but Eddie, who looked
angrier still.

"You don't understand anything at all about how the
political process works, do you?" Eddie sneered.

Kinsman smiled. Now I've got you! He responded with
deliberate tempo, "Well ... an uncle of mine is a U.S.
Senator. My grandfather was Governor of the Common-
wealth of Pennsylvania. Several other family members are in
public service. I've been involved in political campaigning
since I was old enough to hold a poster."

Silence. As if a leper had entered their midst.

"Jesus Christ," breathed one of the kids at last. "He's
really Establishment."

Diane said, "Your kind of politics doesn't work for us.
The Establishment won't listen to us."

"We've gotta fight for our rights!"

"Demonstrate!"

"Fight fire with fire!"

"Action!"

"Bullshit," Kinsman snapped. "All you're going to do is
give the cops an excuse to bash your heads in—or worse.
Violence is always counterproductive."

The night and the argument wore on. They swore at each
other, drank, smoked, talked, yelled until they started to get
hoarse. Kinsman found himself enjoying it immensely. Diane
had to get up to sing for the customers every hour, and they
would call a truce for the duration of her set. Each time she
finished she came back and sat beside him.

And the battle would resume. The bar finally closed and
Kinsman got up slowly on legs turned to rubber. But he went
along with them down a dark and empty Berkeley street to
someone's one-room pad, up four creaking nights of outdoor
stairs, yammering all the way, arguing against them all, one
against ten. And Diane stayed beside him.

Eventually they started drifting away, leaving the apart-
ment. Kinsman found himself sitting on the bare wooden
floor halfway between the stained kitchen sink and the
new-looking water bed, telling them:

"Look, I don't like it any more than you do. But violence
is their game. You can't win that way. Tear up the whole
13

damned campus and they'll tear down the whole damned city
just to get even with you."

"Yeah," admitted one of the girls. "Look what they did
in Philadelphia. And with a black mayor, too."

"Then what's the answer?" Diane asked.

Kinsman made an elaborate shrug. "Well . . . you could
do what the Quakers do. Shame them. Just go out tomorrow
in a group and stand in the most prominent spot on campus.
All of you ... all the people who were going to march in the
parade. Just stand silently for a few hours."

"That's dumb," Eddie said.

"It's smart,"Kinsman retorted. "Nonviolent. Conscience-
stirring. Like Gandhi. Always attracts the news photogra-
phers. An old Quaker trick."

"I could call the news stations," Diane said, smiling.

A burly-shouldered kid with a big beefy face and tiny
squinting eyes crouched on the floor in front of Kinsman.

"That's a chickenshit thing to do."

"But it works."

"You know your trouble, fly-boy? You're chickenshit."

Kinsman grinned at him and looked around the floor for
the can of beer he had been working on.

"You hear me? You're all talk. But you're scared to fight
for your rights."

Looking up. Kinsman saw that Diane, the blonde smok-
er, and two of the guys were the only ones left in the
apartment. Plus the muscleman confronting him.

"I'll fight for my rights," he said, very carefully because
his tongue was not quite obeying his brain. "And I'll fight for
yours, too. But not in any stupid-ass way,"

"You callin' me stupid?" The guy got to his feet.

A weight lifter. Kinsman guessed. Pumps iron every day
and now he wants to show off his muscles on me.

"I don't know you welt enough to call you anything."

"Well, I'm callin' you a chicken, A gutless motherfuckin'
coward."

Slowly Kinsman got to his feet. It helped to have the wall
to lean against.

"I take that, sir, to be a challenge to my honor," he said,
letting himself sound drunk. It took very little effort,

"Goddam right it's a challenge. You must be some
14

goddam pig—secret police or something."

"That's why I'm wearing this inconspicuous uniform."

"To throw us off guard."

"Don't be an oaf."

"I'm gonna break your head, wise-ass."

Kinsman raised an unsteady finger. "Now hold on. You
challenged me, right? So I get the choice of weapons. That's
the way it works in the good ol' code duello."

"Choice of weapons?" The big guy looked confused.

"You challenged me to a duel, didn't you? You have
impeached my honor. I have the right to choose the weap-
ons."

The guy made a fist the size of a football. "This is all the
weapon I need."

"Ah, but that's not the weapon I choose," Kinsman
countered. "I believe that I shall choose sabers. Won a few
medals back East with my saber fencing. Now where can we
find a pair of sabers at this hour of the morning . . . ?"

The guy grabbed Kinsman's shirt. "I'm gonna knock that
fuckin' grin off your face."

"You probably will. But not before I kick both your
kneecaps off. You'll never see the inside of a gym again,
muscleboy."

"That's enough, both of you," Diane snapped. She
stepped between the two of them. The big guy let go of
Kinsman.

"You'd better get back to your own place. Ray," she
said, her voice flat and hard. "You're not going to break up
my pad and get me thrown out on the street."

Ray pointed a thick, blunt finger at Kinsman. "He's an
agent for the Feds. Or something. Don't trust him."

"Go home. Ray. It's late."

"I'll get you, blue-suit," said Ray. "Fll get you."

Kinsman replied, "When you find the sabers, let me
know."

"Shut up!" Diane hissed at him. But she was grinning.

She half-pushed the lumbering Ray out the door. The
others left right behind him. Suddenly Kinsman was alone in
the shabby little room with Diane.

"I guess I ought to go, too," Kinsman said, his insides
shaking now that the danger had passed. Or was it the
15

thought of going back home?

"Where?" Diane asked.

"Back in the city . . . Russian Hill."

"God, you are Establishment!"

"Born with a silver spoon in my ear. To the manner born.
Rich or poor, it pays to have money. Let 'em eat cake. Or was
it coke?"

"You're very drunk."

"How can you tell?"

"For one thing, your feet are standing still but the rest of
you is swaying like a tree in a typhoon."

"I am drunk with your beauty . . . and a ton and a half
of beer."

Diane laughed. "I can believe the second one."

"The toilet's in there, isn't it?"

"You mean you haven't . . . ?"

Kinsman walked past her, carefully. "Nobody owns
beer, you know. You merely rent it."

It was a narrow cubicle with an old-fashioned tub that
stood on four rusted swans; the toilet was equally ancient. No
roaches in sight. No sink. He bent over the tub and splashed
cold water on his face, then patted it dry with a limp towel
hanging on the back of the door.

He came out and saw Diane still standing in the middle of
the room, eyeing him quizzically.

"How do you get a cab around here?" he asked,

"You don't. Not at this hour. No trains or buses, either."

"I'm stuck here?"

Diane nodded.

"A fate worse than death," he muttered.

The room's furnishings consisted of a bookcase crammed
with sheet music and a few paperbacks, the water bed, a
Formica-topped table with two battered wooden chairs that
did not match, the water bed, a pile of books in the corner by
the windows, a few colorful pillows strewn across the floor
here and there, the water bed, two guitars, a sink and small
stove with some cabinets above them, and the water bed.

"We can share the bed," Diane said.

He felt his face turn red. "Are your intentions honor-
able?"

16

She grinned at him. "The condition you're in, we'll both
be safe enough."

"Don't be so sure."

But he fell asleep as soon as he sank into the soft warmth
of the bed. His last thought was an inward chuckle that he did
not have to spend the night under the same roof as his father.

It was during the misty, dreaming light of earliest dawn
that he half awoke and felt her body cupped against his. Still
half asleep, they moved together, slowly, gently, unhurried in
the pearl-gray fog, touching without the necessity to think,
murmuring without the need for words, caressing, making
love.

Kinsman lay on his back, smiling peacefully at the
cracked ceiling. Diane stroked the flat of his abdomen, saying
drowsily, "Go back to sleep. Get some rest and then we can
do it again."

It was hours later by the time Kinsman had showered in
the cracked tub and climbed back into his wrinkled, sweaty
uniform. He was peering into the still-steamed bathroom
mirror, wondering what to do about his stubbly chin, when
Diane called through the half-open door.

"Tea or coffee?"

"Coffee."

Kinsman came out of the tiny bathroom and saw that
Diane had wrapped herself in a thin bathrobe. She had set up
toast and a jar of Smuckers grape jelly on the table by the
window. The teakettle was on the two-burner stove and a pair
of chipped mugs and a jar of instant coffee stood alongside.

They sat facing each other, washing down the crunchy
toast with the hot, bitter coffee. Diane watched the people
moving along the street below them. Kinsman stared at the
bright clean sky.

"How long can you stay?" she asked.

"I've got a funeral to attend ... in about an hour. Then
I leave tonight."

"Oh."

"Got to report back to the Academy tomorrow morn-
ing."

"You have to?"

17

He nodded.

"But you'll be free this afternoon?"

"After the burial. Yes."

"Come down to the campus with me," Diane said,
brightening. "I'm going to try your idea . . . get them to
stand just like the Quakers. You can help us."

"Me?"

"Sure! It was your idea, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, but . . ."

She reached across the table and took his free hand in
both of hers. "Chet . . . please. Not for me. Do it for
yourself. I don't want to think of you being sent out to Central
America or someplace like that to fight and kill people. Or to
be killed yourself. Don't let them turn you into a killer."

"But I'm going into astronaut training."

"You don't think they'll really give you what you want,
do you? They'll use you where they want you—Lebanon or
Nicaragua or who knows where? They'll put you in a plane
and tell you to bomb some helpless village."

He shook his head. "You don't understand . . ."

"No, you don't understand," she said earnestly. Kins-
man saw the intensity in her eyes, the devotion. Is she really
worried that much about me? he wondered. Does she really
care so much? And then a truly staggering thought hit him.
My father! Is he worried about me? Is he frightened for my
sake?

"Come with us, Chet," Diane was pleading. "Stand with
us against the Power Structure. Just for one hour."

"In my uniform? Your friends would trash me."

"No, they won't. The uniform will be great! It'd make a
terrific impact for somebody in uniform to show up with us!
We've been trying to get some of the Vietnam vets to show
themselves in uniform."

"I can't," Kinsman said. "I've got to go to the funeral,
and then catch a ride back to the Academy."

"That's more important than freedom? More important
than justice?"

He had no answer.

"Chet . . . please. For me. If you don't want to do it for
yourself, or for the people, then do it for me. Please."

He looked away from her and glanced around the
18

shabby, unkempt room. At the stained sink. The faded
wallpaper. The water bed, with its roiled sheet trailing onto
the floor.

He thought of the Academy. The cold gray mountains
and ranks of uniforms marching mechanically across the
frozen parade ground. The starkly functional classrooms, the
remorselessly efficient architecture devoid of all individual
expression.

And he thought of his father: cold, implacable—was it
pride and anger that moved him, or fear?

Then he turned back, looked past the earnest young
woman across the table from him, and saw the sky once again.
A pale ghost of a Moon was grinning lopsidedly at him.

"I can't go with you," he said quietly, finally. "Some-
body's got to make sure that the nation's defended while
you're out there demonstrating for your rights."

For a moment Diane said nothing. Then, "You're trying
to make a joke out of something that's deadly serious."

"I'm being serious," he said. "You'll have plenty of
demonstrators out there. Somebody's got to pay attention to
the business of protecting you while you're exercising your
freedoms."

"It's our own government that we need protection
from!"

"You've got it. You just have to exercise it a little more
carefully. I'd rather be flying. There aren't so many of us up
there."

Diane shook her head. "You're hopeless."

He shrugged.

'T was going to let you stay here ... if you wanted to
quit the Air Force."

"Quit?"

"If you needed a place to hide ... or if you just wanted
to stay here, with me."

He started to answer, but his mouth was suddenly dry.
He swallowed, then in a voice that almost cracked, "Listen,
Diane. I wasn't even a teenager when the first men set foot on
the Moon. That's where I've wanted to be ever since that
moment. There are new worlds to see, and I want to see
them."

"But that's turning your back on this world!"
19

"So what?" He pushed his chair from the table and got to
his feet. 'There's not much in this world worth caring about.
Not for me."

He strode to the door, then turned back toward her. She
was still at the table. "Sorry I disappointed you, Diane. And,
well, thanks ... for everything."

Diane got up, walked swiftly across the tiny room to him,
and kissed Kinsman lightly on the lips.

"It was my pleasure, General."

He laughed. "Hell, I'm not even a lieutenant yet."

"You'll be a general someday."

"I don't think so."

"You could have been a hero today."

"I'm not very heroic."

"Yes, you are." Diane smiled at him. "You just don't
know it yet."

Unshaven, in his wrinkled uniform, Kinsman stood at his
father's side through the funeral, rode silently in the cortege's
limousine to the cemetery, and watched a crowd of strangers
file past the casket, one by one, placing on it single red roses.
His mother had detested red roses all her life.

As they rode back toward Russian Hill in the velvet-
lined, casketlike limousine, Kinsman turned to his darkly
silent father.

"I know I've disappointed you," he said in a low swift
voice, afraid he would be cut off before he could finish, "and I
also realize that you wouldn't be so angry with me if you
didn't love me and weren't worried about me."

His father stared straight ahead, unmoving.

"Well ... I love you, too, Dad."

The old man's eyes blinked. The corners of his mouth
twitched. Without moving a millimeter toward his son, he
whispered, "You are a disgrace. Staying out all night and then
showing up looking like a Bowery derelict. The sooner you
leave the better!"

Kinsman leaned back in the limousine's velvet uphol-
stery. Thanks, Dad, he said to himself. You've always made it
so easy for me.

* * *
20

Neal McGrath drove him down 101, toward the Navy's
Moffet Field, weaving his new Chrysler convertible through
knots of traffic and past hulking, hurtling diesel tractor-
trailers-

"You're sure you can pick up a flight back to Boulder?"
McGrath yelled over the rush of the wind.

"Sure!" Kinsman hollered back. "The guy I rode out
with told me he was going back late this afternoon."

McGrath shook his head as he carefully flicked the turn
signal and pulled around a station wagon filled with kids. The
wind pulled wildly at his long red hair.

"The family's going to be very disappointed that you
didn't stay for dinner."

"Not Dad. He threw me out."

McGrath snorted. "You know he didn't mean that."

"Sure."

"Where the hell were you all night, anyway? You look
like you got rolled in an alley."

"Just about." Kinsman told him about Diane and her
campus activists as the convertible zoomed down the high-
way.

"Sound like a bunch of Communists," McGrath growled.

Kinsman laughed. "We didn't discuss politics in bed."

"What an easy lay. She sure tried to recruit you, all
right."

The Moffet Field turnoffwas approaching. McGrath slid
into the exit lane.

"Neal ... I don't even know her last name!"

"So what?"

"So look her up for me, will you? Maybe the family could
give her a little help . . . with her singing career."

"A Communist?"

"She's not a Communist, for Chrissakes."

"Worse, then. A liberal." But McGrath was grinning.

"See if you can help her."

"I'm a married man, kid," said McGrath.

Kinsman frowned at him. "I'm not asking you to get
involved with her. But she's got a marvelous voice, Neal.
Maybe somebody in the family can get her a break, some
bookings ..."

21

"Going to reform her, eh? Make her rich and turn her
into a capitalist."

"Yeah. Why not?" Kinsman studied McGrath's face. He
was smirking. You just don't understand, Neal.

Later that afternoon, thirty thousand feet above the

Sacramento Valley with the sun at their backs, Kinsman felt

the cares and fears of the Earth below easing out of his tense

body.

"How'd you enjoy Frisco?" the pilot asked.
"I didn't see much of it/' Kinsman said into his radio

microphone.

"Didn't stay very long."

"Neither did you."

The pilot's voice in his earphones broke into a self-
satisfied chuckle. "Long enough, pal. Overnight is plenty long
enough if you know what you're doing."

Kinsman nodded inside his helmet.

They climbed higher. Kinsman watched the westering
sun throw long shadows across the rugged Sierra peaks.

"Sir?" he asked, after a long thoughtful silence. "Do you
honestly think that astronaut training would turn a man into a
robot?"

He could see the featureless white curve of the pilot's
helmet over the back of the seat. There was nothing human
about it.

"Listen, son, all military training is aimed at turning you
into a robot. That's what it's all about. You think a normal
human being would rush toward guys who're shooting at
him?"

"But . . ."

"Just don't let 'em get inside you," the pilot said, his
languid drawl becoming more intense, almost passionate.
"Hold on to yourself. The main thing is to get up here, away
from 'em. Get flying. Up here they cain't really touch you. Up
here you're free."

"They're pretty strict at the Academy," Kinsman said.
"They like things done their own way."

"Tell me about it. I'm a West Point man, myself. But you
can still hold on to your own soul, boy. You have t'do things
22

their way on the outside, but you be your own man inside.
Ain't easy, but it can be done."

Nodding to himself, Kinsman looked up and through the
plane's clear canopy. He caught sight of the Moon, hanging
just above the rugged horizon. It looked bright and close in
the darkening sky.

I can do it, he told himself. I can do it.

Age 25

HE WAS FLYING west again, with the sun at his back. Two years
of "peacekeeping" in the volatile Middle East had gone by.
He had flown a fighter plane without firing a shot, happy that
he was not assigned to the real fighting that flared intermit-
tently in Central America. It had taken almost another two
years before he had finally been assigned to astronaut train-
ing.

Two years of air patrols along the Gulf Coast, searching
for smugglers' planes coming in from Latin America. Two
years of watching the United States' economy slide disastrous-
ly as the price of foreign oil skyrocketed once again. Even
Houston was hit by the new recession; the revitalized OPEC,
backed now by Soviet arms, quickly squeezed all American
companies out of the nationalized oil industries of the Middle
East, Indonesia, and South America.

Diane Lawrence was on her way to stardom. Her haunt-
ing voice, singing of simpler, happier times, brought comfort
to Americans who faced doubtful futures of unemployment
and welfare. Kinsman dated her half a dozen times, flying to
cities where she was appearing. He traveled on commercial
airliners. New government austerity regulations prevented
him from piloting an Air Force plane, except on official duty.
He was shocked at the price of airline tickets; the cost of
23

energy was more than money, it was freedom of movement.

But now Kinsman was relaxed and happy as he held the
controls of the supersonic twin-engine jet. Months of training
in the elaborate mockups of the space shuttle were behind
him. Orientation nights on the "Vomit Comet," the lumber-
ing cargo jet that flew endless parabolic arcs to give the
astronaut-trainees their first taste of weightlessness, had gone
smoothly. Now he was heading for the real thing: spaceflight
duty. The cares and problems of the groundlings' world were
far below him, for the moment.

Kinsman was sitting in the right-hand seat of the jet's
compact cockpit. The plane's ostensible pilot, Major Joseph
Tenny, seemed half asleep in the pilot's seat.

Far below them the empty brown desert of New Mexico
sprawled. They had left NASA's Johnson Space Center,
outside Houston, at sunrise. They would be at Vandenberg
Air Force Base in southern California in time for breakfast.

The plane was as beautiful and responsive as a woman.
More responsive than most, Kinsman thought. The slightest
touch on the crescent-shaped control yoke made the plane
move into a bank or a climb with such grace and smooth
power that it sent a shudder of delight through Kinsman.

"Sweet little thing, ain't she?" Tenny murmured.

Kinsman shot a surprised glance at the Major. He was
not asleep after all. Chunky, short-limbed, barrel-chested,
Tenny looked completely out of place in a zippered flight suit
and a visored gleaming plastic helmet. His dark-eyed swarthy
face peeped out of the helmet like some ape who had gotten
into the outfit by mistake.

But he grasped the controls in his thick-fingered hands
and said, "Here . . . lemme show ya something, kid."

Kinsman reluctantly let go of the controls and watched
Tenny push the yoke sharply forward. The plane's nose
dropped and suddenly Kinsman was staring at the mottled
gray-brown of the desert rushing up toward him.

"Shouldn't we get an okay from ground control before
we . . ."

Tenny shot him a disgusted glance. "By the time those
clowns make up their minds," he growled, breathing hard,
"we could be having Mai Tais in Waikiki."
24

The altimeter needle wound down. The engines' whine
was lost in the shrill of tortured air whistling past their
canopy- The plane dived, screaming. The desert filled Kins-
man's vision.

And then they zoomed upward. The yoke in front of
Kinsman pulled smoothly back as his pressure suit hissed and
clamped a pneumatic hold on his guts and legs to keep the
blood from draining out of his head, to keep him alive and
awake while the plane nosed up smoothly as an arrow,
hurtling almost like a rocket, up, up, straight into the even
emptier blue desert of the sky.

Kinsman wanted to let loose a wild cowboy's yell, but the
weight on his chest made it hard even to breathe. Tenny said
nothing, but the gleam in his devilishly dark eyes told
Kinsman there was more to come. The afterburners were
screeching now as the plane climbed higher, cleaving through
the thinning air.

Kinsman grinned to himself as he realized what Tenny
was going to do. Sure enough, the Major nosed the plane over
again and suddenly Kinsman's arms floated up off his lap. His
stomach seemed to be dropping away. He was falling, falling
—yet strapped into his seat.

Weightlessness. Kinsman gulped once, twice. Despite
everything his inner ear and stomach were telling him, he
knew that he was not falling. He was floating. Free! Like a
bird, like an angel. Free of gravity.

Tenny leveled the plane off and the feeling of normal
weight returned. The Major eyed Kinsman craftily.

"Like the Vomit Comet," Kinsman said, grinning at him.

"You really like zero gee, dontcha?"

"It's great."

Tenny shook his head, a ponderous waddling with the
bulky helmet. "You're the only guy in the whole group who
didn't throw up once. Even Colt tossed his cookies a couple
times. But not you. According to the reports."

"The reports weren't faked," Kinsman said.

Tenny grunted. "1 didn't think so. But I hadda see for
myself."

He gave control of the plane back to Kinsman and they
resumed their flight toward Vandenberg.
25

"Sir?" Kinsman asked. "What's Colonel Murdock like?"

"I never served under him before. Desk jockey, from
what I hear."

"I don't see why they didn't put you in command. You're
due for promotion to lieutenant colonel, aren't you?"

Tenny made a face that might have been either a smile or
a scowl, "Due for promotion and getting promoted are two
different things. Besides, there's two other majors who've
been running programs for two other squads of trainees, same
as me. So we get a light colonel to sit on top of the whole
group. That's the Air Force way: solid brass, all the way up
the shaft."

Kinsman laughed.

But Tenny grew more serious. "There's something else I
wanted to talk to you about. Colt. None of you guys have
gotten close to him ..."

"The black Napoleon? He's not easy to get close to."

"Maybe he needs a friend," said Tenny.

Kinsman thought of Frank Colt, the one night during
training when the black man had joined the other guys in the
squad for a game of pool. The intensity on Colt's face as he
turned a friendly game into a gut-burning competition. How
Colt had probed for the weakness in each of the other men;

how he had finessed, angered, cajoled, or kidded each one of
them into defeat.

"He's a loner," Kinsman said. "He's not looking for a
friend."

"He's a black loner in an otherwise white outfit."

"That's got nothing to do with it."

"The hell it hasn't."

Kinsman started to reply, hesitated. There were a dozen
arguments he could make, three dozen examples he could
show of how Colt had deliberately rebuffed attempts at
camaraderie. But one vision in Kinsman's mind kept his
tongue silent: he recalled the squad's only black officer eating
alone, day after day, night after night. He never tried to join
the others at their tables in the mess hall, and no one ever sat
down at his.

"If he wasn't the top man in the squad," Tenny said,
"he'd have a lot of pals. But he's a better flier than any of you.
He's scored higher in the training tests than any of you.
26

Higher than anybody in the other squads, too."

"And he's hell on wheels," Kinsman countered. "I don't
think he wants any of us for friends."

Tenny scowled deeply. Then he said, "Yeah. maybe so.
But he tossed his cookies. That shows that he's human, at
least."

Kinsman said nothing.

Kinsman almost laughed out loud when he first saw
Colonel Murdock.

Twenty-four astronaut trainees, all first lieutenants,
twenty men, four women, all of them white except one, were
sitting nervously in a bare little briefing room at Vandenberg
Air Force Base. The air-conditioning was not working well
and the room was dank with the smell of anxiety. It was like a
classroom, with faded government-green walls and stained
acoustical tile ceiling. The chairs in which the lieutenants sat
had wooden writing arms on them. There was a podium up
front with a microphone goosenecking up, and scrubbed-
clean chalkboards and a rolled-up projection screen behind it.

"Ten-HUT!"

All two dozen trainees snapped to their feet as Lieuten-
ant Colonel Robert Murdock came into the room, followed
by his three majors.

He looks like Porky Pig, Kinsman said to himself.

Murdock was short, round, balding, with bland pink
features and soft, pudgy little hands. He was actually a shade
taller than Major Tenny, who stood against the chalkboard
behind the Colonel. But where Tenny looked like a compact
football linebacker or maybe even a petty Mafioso, Murdock
reminded Kinsman of an algebra teacher he had suffered
under for a year at William Penn Charter School, back in
Philadelphia.

Colonel Murdock scanned his two dozen charges, trying
to look strong and commanding. But his bald head was
already glistening with nervous perspiration and his voice was
an octave too high to be awe-inspiring as he said, "Be seated,
gentlemen. And ladies."

Kinsman thought back to the algebra teacher. The man
had terrified the entire class for the first few weeks of the
semester, warning them of how tough he was and how
27

difficult it would be for any of them to pass his course. Then
the students discovered that behind the man's threats and
demands there was nothing: he was an empty shell. He could
be maneuvered easily. The real trouble was that if he
discovered he had been maneuvered by a student, he was

merciless.

Kinsman struggled to stay awake during the Colonel's
welcoming speech. All the usual buzzwords. Teamwork,
orientation, challenge, the honor of the Air Force, pride,
duty, the nation's first line of defense . . . they droned sleepi-
ly in his ears.

"Two final points," said Colonel Murdock. The lieuten-
ants stirred in their chairs at the promise of release.

"First—we are operating under severe budgetary and
equipment restrictions. NASA gets plenty of bucks and plenty
of publicity. We get very little. Almost everything we do is
kept secret from the American public, and the Congress is
constantly cutting back on funds for our operations. We are
locked in a deadly battle to prove to Congress, to the people
of this nation, and—yes—even to enemies within the Penta-
gon itself, that the Air Force has a valid and important role to
play in manned space flight.

"It's up to you to prove that manned operations in space
should not be left to the civilians of NASA. When the
Congress one day approves the change of our service's name
from just plain Air Force to Aerospace Force—which it
should be—it's going to be your work and your success that
gets them to do it."

Kinsman suppressed a grin. He's never studied rhetoric,
that's for sure. Or syntax, either.

"Second point," Murdock went on. "Everything you do
from now on will be by the buddy system. You're going to fly
in the shuttle as two-man teams. You're going to train as
two-man teams. You're going to eat, sleep, and think as
two-man teams."

Kinsman shot a glance at Jill Meyers, the only woman in
his eight-person squad. The expression on her snub-nosed
freckled face was marvelous: an Air Force officer's self-
control struggling against a feminist's desire to throw a pie in
the Colonel's face.

". . . and we're going to be ruthless with you," Murdock
28

was saying, "You will be judged as teams, not as individuals.
If a team fu—eh . . . fouls up, then it's out? Period. You'll be
reassigned out of the astronaut corps. Doesn't matter who
fouled up, which individual is to blame. Both members of the
team will be out on their asses. Is that clear?"

A general mumble of understanding rose from two dozen
throats.

"Sir?" Jill Meyers was on her feet. "May I ask a
question?"

"Go right ahead. Lieutenant." Murdock smiled toothily
at her, as if realizing for the first time that there were women
under his command.

"How will these training assignments be made, sir? Will
we have any choice in the matter, or will it all be done by the
Personnel Office?"

Murdock blinked, as if he had never considered the
problem before. "Well ... I don't think . . . that is . . ." He
stopped and pursed his lips for a moment, then turned away
from the podium to confer with the three majors standing
behind him. Instinctively, he held a chubby hand over the
microphone. Jill remained standing, a diminutive little sister
in Air Force blues.

Finally the Colonel returned to the microphone. "I don't
see why you can't express your personal preferences as to
teammates, and then we'll have them checked through Per-
sonnel's computer to make sure the matchups are satisfac-
tory."

"Thank you, sir." Lieutenant Meyers sat down.

'Tn fact," Colonel Murdock went on, "I don't see why
we shouldn't get a preliminary expression of preferences right
now. Each of you, write down the names of three officers
you'd like to team with, in order of your preference."

Tenny and the two other majors looked surprised. The
briefing room suddenly dissolved into a chattering, muttering,
pocket-searching scramble for papers and pens or pencils.

Kinsman took his ballpoint pen from his tunic pocket and
borrowed a sheet of tablet paper from the man sitting next to
him. Then he found himself staring at the blank paper on the
arm of his chair.

Who the hell do I want to team up with?

The magnitude of the decision seemed to hit everyone at
29

once. The room fell deathly quiet.

Kinsman glanced at the tall redhead sitting in the front
row. He hadn't met her yet, but she had damned good legs
and a pleasant smile. But what if she can't hack it in zero
gravity or she's a lousy pilot or something else goes wrong?

Then I'm out in the cold.

Jill Meyers was a smoothly competent pilot, Kinsman
knew from their weeks of training in Texas. But so is Smitty,

and D'Angelo . . . and Colt.

Frank Colt. He was the best man in their eight-officer
squad. If what Tenny had told him was true, he was the best
man of the whole two dozen trainees. The idea of teaming

with the redhead had its charm, but . . .

He gazed across the room to where Frank Colt was
sitting, bolt upright, staring straight ahead as if he were trying
to burn a hole in the chalkboard at the front of the room with

the laserlike intensity of his eyes.

Kinsman looked down at the blank sheet of paper and

wrote three names on it:

Franklin Colt
Franklin Colt
Franklin Colt

That evening Major Tenny threw a party,
He had not actually intended to, but right after dinner at
the mess hall most of his squad members congregated at
Tenny's one-room apartment on the ground level of the new
Bachelor Officers' Quarters. Kinsman had stopped off at the
Officers' Club; he had heard there was a piano there, and it
had been months since he had touched a keyboard. But it had
been surrounded already by a dozen ham-fisted amateurs. So
he trailed along with his fellow squad members to Tenny's
quarters. It was well known that their major was seldom
without a bottle of bourbon close to hand. And his quarters

opened onto the poolside patio.

As the trainees from the other squads saw Tenny's people
spilling out of the glass sliding doors and sitting around the
pool, armed with plastic cups and a suspicious-looking bottle,
they quickly joined the party. Some brought six-packs of beer
from the PX. Others brought soft drinks. The leggy redhead
that Kinsman had spotted that morning showed up in tight
30

jeans and T-shirt, toting a half-gallon of Napa Valley rose
wine.

It was time to make new acquaintances,

By the time the sun had gone down and the few skinny
palm trees ringing the pool were swaying in the night breeze,
the trainees were all comrades in arms.

"So they turn off the damned flight profile computer, tilt
the simulator forty degrees, and tell me I've gotta set it
straight in twenty seconds—or else."

"Yeah? You know what they pulled on me? Total electri-
cal failure. I told 'em they oughtta hang rosary beads on the
dashboard."

"Y'know, these quarters are pretty good. I mean, I been
in motels that're worse."

"This was a motel until a coupla months ago. They went
outta business and the Air Force bought it up cheap."

Kinsman was sitting on the newly planted grass in a pair
of brand-new fatigues. Beside him was the half-gallon of
wine, and on the other side of it was the redhead. She had
pinned her plastic nametag to her T-shirt. It said O'HARA.

"You do have a first name," Kinsman said to her.

"Yes, of course." Her voice was a cool, controlled
contralto.

"I have to guess?"

"It's a game I play. You guess my name and I'll guess
yours."

Why are women all crazy? Kinsman asked himself. Why
can't they just be straightforward and honest?

"Well, let's see, now." He took a sip of wine. "With that
last name and your red hair, I'll bet you get kidded a lot about
Scarlett O'Hara. Is that why you're sensitive about your
name?"

She smiled at him and nodded. It was a good smile that
made her eyes sparkle. "And there was a movie star," she
said, "years ago, named Maureen O'Hara. I get that a lot,
too."

"But your name isn't that, either. It's something more
down to earth."

"Plain as any name can be."

Kinsman laughed. "Well, then, it's either George M.
Cohan or Mary."

31

"It's not George M."
Kinsman sang softly, "But it was Mary, Ma-ary . . ." He

lifted his plastic cup to her. "Pleased to meet you, Mary

O'Hara."

"Pleased to meet you, Chester A. Kinsman."
Now let's see how long it takes you to figure out that I

was named after one of the great political disgraces of the

Grand Old Party.

But an angry voice cut across everyone's conversation.
"I don't give a shit who they team with me! I left my

paper blank."

Frank Colt. Kinsman saw him standing at the pool's

edge, silhouetted against the Moon-bright sky. Like most of
the others, Colt was wearing off-duty fatigues. But on him
they looked like a dress uniform, perfectly fitted, creased to a

knife edge.

All other talk stopped. Colt was glaring at one of the

trainees from another squad, a stranger to Kinsman, a lanky
rawboned kid with light hair, bony face, big fists.

"We already heard about you," the kid was saying in a
flat Midwestern twang. "Top scores in the simulator. Best
record in the group. Think you're pretty hot stuff, dontcha?"

"I do my job, man. I do the best I can. I'm not here to
goof around, like some of you dudes. This isn't a game we're

playing. It's life and death."

"Aw, don't be such a pain in the ass' You just think

you're better'n anybody else."

"Maybe I do. Maybe I am."

Kinsman glanced over at Major Tenny, sitting on a
folding chair a few yards away. Tenny was watching the
argument, like everybody else. He was frowning, but he made

no move to break it up.

"Yeah?" the other lieutenant answered. "Know what I
think? I think they're givin' you all the high scores b'cause
you're black and nobody wants a bunch of civil rights lawyers
comin' down here pissin' and cryin' b'cause we flunked out

our token . , ."

Colt's hand flicked out and grabbed the kid by the jaw,
distorting his face into a ridiculous imitation of a fish: mouth

pried open, eyes popping.

32

"Don't say it, man." Colt's voice was murderously
controlled. "Call me black, call me dumb, call me anything
you want. But if you say 'nigger' to me I'll break your ass."

Tenny was hauling himself out of the chair now. But too
late. Colt released the kid's jaw. The lieutenant took a short
step forward and swung at Colt, who simply ducked under the
wild haymaker and gave a quick push. The lieutenant spun
into the pool with a loud splash.

Kinsman found himself on his feet and heading for Colt.
Everybody else went to the aid of the kid in the pool. Colt
walked away, back toward his quarters. Kinsman followed
him and caught up with him in a few seconds.

"Hey, Frank."

Colt turned his head slightly but he did not slow down.

Kinsman pulled up beside him. "Jeez, what a shithead!
He got what he deserved."

"At least he said what was on his mind," Colt answered.
"Plenty other guys around here feel the same way."

"That's not true."

"No? Suppose I started making time with that redhead
the way you were? How many rednecks would come outta the
woodwork then?"

"I thought you were married."

"I was. Ain't no more."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"No big thing. Lots of chicks in the world. Why tie
yourself down to just one?"

The grapes sound sour, Kinsman thought.

They had reached the doorway into the section of the
BOQ where Colt and Kinsman were quartered. Colt pushed
open the fiberboard door and they started up the steps to the
second floor. As they headed down the corridor toward their
rooms, Kinsman said:

"I hope you're not too tough to live with. I picked you
for my partner this morning."

"You ifto?" Colt stopped dead.

Kinsman studied the black lieutenant's face. It was
almost totally devoid of expression except for the suspicious,
wary eyes. They were probing him, searching for the kicker,
the payoff, the flick of the whip.
33

"This morning," Kinsman said. "Colonel Murdock's
buddy system ... I wrote down your name."

"Why the hell you wanna do that?" Colt started down
the corridor again, not waiting for an answer.

Kinsman kept stride with him. "Because you're the best
pilot in the group and I don't want to be washed out because
my partner fucked up."

"That's it, huh?"

"Yeah."
"Wasn't your good deed for the day? Your contribution

to the Air Force's affirmitive action program?"

Kinsman laughed. "Where I come from, we write checks
for good causes. We don't do anything, especially if it means
coming in contact with lower-income types."

Colt saw no humor. He reached his door, unlocked it,
and swung it open. "I didn't write any names down. I left my

paper blank."

Kinsman leaned against the doorjamb. "We all heard."
"Didn't think anybody'd want to be stuck with me."

"Because you're black."

"Because they're out to get me, man! They want to knock
me off, pin my balls to their totem pole. And if they get me,

they get my buddy, too."

"Nobody's out to get you, Frank. It isn't the Ku Klux

Klan out there."

"Sure. Sure. Just wait. You want to be my buddy, man?
Then they'll be out to get you, too."

"Listen," Kinsman insisted. "They're down on you be-
cause you've been behaving like a paranoid sonofabitch."

Colt smiled coldly. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I ought
to act more humble . . . Yassuh, Massa Kinsman, suh. I's
shore powerful grateful that y'all took notice of a po' li'l ol'
darky lak me."

Grinning, Kinsman said, "Go to hell, Frank."

Immediately Colt replied, "Why this is hell, nor am I out

of it."

With a shake of his head, "All I can say, buddy, is that

you sure know how to break up a party. And T was just
starting to get someplace with Mary O'Hara."

"That's her name, huh?" Colt made an enigmatic little
34

shrug, as if he were carrying on a debate within himself. Then
he said, "Guess I owe you for breaking up the evening. Come
on in, I've got a bottle of tequila in my flight bag."

"Say no more!"

By the time Major Tenny knocked on Colt's door he and
Kinsman were sitting on the floor, passing the half-empty
bottle back and forth with elaborate care. Colt climbed slowly
to his feet and walked uncertainly to the door. The Major's
squat bulk filled the doorway.

"Nice little show you put on down there. The poor
bastard damn near drowned."

"Too bad," said Colt.

Tenny walked in and spotted Kinsman sitting on the
floor, his back against the bunk. "What the hell are you guys
up to?"

Kinsman waved the bottle of tequila at him. "Cultural

relations, boss. We're studying the effect of tequila consump-
tion on the gross national product of Mexico."

"Our good neighbor to the south," Colt added.
"Tequila?" Tenny strode swiftly to Kinsman, bent down,

and yanked the bottle from his hand. He sniffed at it, then

tasted it. "Dammitall, this is tequila!"

"What'd you expect?" Kinsman asked. "Hydrazme?"
Tenny shook his head, a frown on his swarthy features.

"I can't let you men drink a whole bottle of tequila. You'll be

in no shape for duty tomorrow morning."

"I have an idea!" Colt said brightly. "Why'n't you help

us finish it up? Might save our lives."

"And our immortal souls," Kinsman muttered.

"To say nothing of our immoral careers," Colt added.

"That's immortal, not immoral."

"You have your career, I'll have my career."

Tenny scowled at them both. "If you think you can

manage to shut the door, I'll do my best to help you out."
Within moments Tenny was sitting on the bare wooden

floor between the two lieutenants, his back propped against

the bunk.

"Did you know," Kinsman was asking him, "that ol'
Frank and I were born and raised within a few miles of each
other? Right in Philadelphia. Both of us."
35

"Only my neighborhood wasn't as classy as his," Colt
said. "Not as many Quakers where I grew up. Kinsman's a
Quaker, y'know . . ."

"Used to be. When I was a child. Not anymore. Now I'm
an officer and a gentleman. No more Quaker. No more family
ties."

Tenny let them ramble for a while, but he finally said,
"Frank—you're gonna get your ass kicked outta here if you
can't get along with the others."

"If / can't . . ."

"Murdock was puking into a wastebasket when he heard
what happened at the pool tonight. He's got a very weak
stomach and his first instinct was to transfer you to Green-
land. Maybe farther."

"Sonofabitch."

Turning to Kinsman, Major Tenny asked, "You really
want to be his partner?"

Kinsman nodded. Gently. His head was already hurting,

"Okay," said Tenny. "Frank, you've got a buddy. You're
not alone. And you've got me. I think you're the best damned
flier I've ever laid eyes on. Now keep your temper under
control and your mouth zipped and you'll be okay. Got it?"

"Sure," Colt said, suddenly dead sober. "The Jackie
Robinson bit. Anything else you want me to do, boss? Walk
on water? Shine shoes?"

Tenny grabbed him by the shirt. "You stupid bastard!
You wanna be an astronaut or not?"

"I want to."

Then don't fuck yourself over. There's only one man
can ruin things for you and that's you. Learn some self-
control."

Colt said nothing as long as Tenny held his shirt. They
merely glared at each other. But when the Major slowly
released him, Colt said quietly, "I'll try."

"And stop going around with that goddamned chip on
your shoulder."

"I'll try," Colt repeated.

Tenny turned to Kinsman. "And you . . . you help him
all you can. He's too good a man to lose."
* * *
36

"How come you got the window seat?" Colt muttered.

He was lying beside Kinsman in the metal womb of the
space shuttle's mid-deck compartment. Zipped into sky-blue
coveralls, Kinsman lay on his back in the foam-padded
contour seat next to the compartment's side hatch—and its
only window.

"Lucky, I guess," he croaked back to Colt. His voice
nearly cracked. His throat was dry and scratchy, his palms
slippery with nervous perspiration.

Six astronaut-trainees were jammed into the mid-deck
area, waiting in tense silence as the shuttle went through the
final few minutes of countdown. They had no radio earphones
and could hear only muffled, garbled voices from the flight
crew on the deck above them.

Kinsman mentally counted the rungs on the ladder that
disappeared through the open hatch to the flight deck. By the
time I've counted the rungs ten times we'll lift off, he told
himself. He counted slowly.

Up on the flight deck, at the other end of the ladder, the
shuttle's four-man crew was going through the final stages of
the countdown, Kinsman knew. They were watching instru-
ments on their control panel springing into life, listening to
the commands flickering across the electronics communica-
tions net that spread across the entire globe of the Earth.
They could see the automatic sequencer's numbers clicking
down toward zero.

Down in the mid-deck compartment, strapped into their
seats, the trainees could only wait and sweat.

Kinsman gave up counting and turned his head to look
out the small circular window set into the hatch. All he could
see was the steel spiderwork of the launch tower, frightening-
ly close. Could the ship clear those steel beams when it took
off? Kinsman knew that it had, hundreds of times. Yet the
tower still looked close enough to touch.

He focused his vision on the distant shoreline, where the
Pacific curled in to meet the brown California hills. But the
nearness of the launch tower still pressed against his aware-
ness.

Hell of a way to go, he said to himself. Lying on your
back with your legs sticking up in the air like a woman in heat.
37

"Five seconds!" a voice rang out from the flight deck.

The time stretched to infinity. Then, a vibration, a
gushing roar, a banging shock—Christ! Something's gone
wrong! Abruptly the whole world seemed to shake as the roar
of six million naming demons burned into every bone of his
body. Kinsman caught a brief glimpse of the tower sliding
past the corner of his vision, then the brown hills slipped by as
he was pressed down into the seat. The force pushing against
him was not as bad as the g's he had pulled in fighter planes,
but the vibration was worse, an eyeball-rattling shaking that
felt as if all the teeth in his head would be wrenched loose.

With an effort he turned to look at Colt and saw that his
partner's eyes were squeezed shut, his mouth gaping wide.
Kinsman tried to see the other four trainees, but their seats
were in front of his and he could not see their faces.

The pressure got worse and there was a jolt when the two
strap-on solid rockets were jettisoned.

Going through fifty klicks, Kinsman knew. Maximum
pressure ought to be behind us now.

The weight on his chest began to lessen. The bone-
conducted rumble of the engines suddenly disappeared.

And he was falling.

Zero gravity, he told himself. We're in orbit. His arms
had floated loosely off the seat rests. With a blink of his eyes,
Kinsman rearranged his perspective. He was no longer lying
on his back; he was sitting upright. They all were.

His stomach was fluttering. He made himself relax the
tensed muscles. You're floating, he told himself. Just like at
the seashore, when you were a kid. Beyond the breakers.
Floating on the swells.

He turned and grinned at Colt. "How do you like it?"

Colt's answering grin was a bit queasy. "I'll get used to it
in a couple minutes."

Major Pierce came floating down the ladder from the
flight deck. He landed lightly on his booted feet, bobbed up
off the metal deck plates. Back on Earth he had been a
nondescript little man in his forties, patrician high-bridged
nose, darting snake's eyes. Up here he could damned well be
a ballet dancer, Kinsman thought.

"Very well, my little chickadees," the Major said, in a
sneering nasal tenor. "Anybody feel like upchucking?"
38

The four other trainees had to turn in their seats to see
Pierce, who was at the bottom of the ladder. Kinsman stared
at the Major's boots, fascinated to see that they were not
touching the deck.

"Very well," Major Pierce said when no one replied to
his question, "Unstrap and try to stand up. By the numbers.
And move slowly. Be particularly careful of sudden head
movements. That way lies nausea." He pointed at Jill Meyers.
"Meyers, you have the honor of being first."

Jill got up from her seat, her face going from brow-
knitted concentration to wide-eyed surprise as she just kept
rising, completely off her feet, until her mousy-brown hair
bumped gently against the metal overhead. While the others
laughed, Jill thrashed about and found an anchoring point by
grabbing the handle of one of the electronics racks that
covered the forward bulkhead.

"No matter how much training we give you Earthside,
you still don't understand Newton's First Law of Motion,"
Pierce said, in a tone of bored disgust. "A body in motion
tends to remain in motion unless acted upon by an outside
force. In this case," he hiked a thumb upward, "the over-
head."

Nobody laughed.

JilFs partner, the lanky, whipcord-lean Lieutenant
Smith, got up from his seat next. Smitty was tall enough to
raise a long slender arm to the overhead and prevent himself
from soaring off his feet.

"That's cheating, Mr. Smith," said the Major.

"Yessir, But it works."

Kinsman smiled at the Mutt and Jeff look of the Meyers-
Smith team. Jill was the shortest member of the trainee
group; Smitty barely squeezed in under the Air Force's height
limit for pilots.

Mary O'Hara and Art Douglas were next. Then Colt got
cautiously to his feet, and finally Kinsman. It was like
standing in the ocean up to your neck, with the waves trying
to pull you this way and that.

"Well, at least you didn't toss any cookies," Pierce
sniffed as the six trainees bobbed uneasily in their places.

"Very well then," the Major went on. "We're go for a
three-day mission. By the time we touch down at Vandenberg
39

again you will each know every square centimeter of this
orbiter more intimately than your mother's"—he hesitated
and smiled a fraction—"face. And each of you will get the
opportunity to go EVA with Captain Howard, the payload
specialist, and perform an actual mission task. In the mean-
time, stay out of the crew's way and don't get into mischief."

"Sir, will we get a chance to fly the bird?" asked
Douglas. He was a shade smaller than Kinsman, prematurely
balding, moonfaced, but sharp-eyed and very bright: the
group's lawyer.

Pierce closed his eyes momentarily, as if seeking strength
from some inner source. "No, Lieutenant, you will not touch
the controls. You know the mission profile as well as I, or at
least you should. We are not going to risk this very expensive
piece of aerospace hardware on your very first flight into
orbit."

"I know the plan, sir," Douglas replied agreeably, "but I
thought maybe the commander would let us sneak in a little
maneuver, maybe. Strictly within the mission profile."

"Majors Podolski and Jakes are the commander and
pilot, respectively, on this mission. They will handle all the
maneuvering. If you are a good little lieutenant, Mr. Douglas,
perhaps Major Podolski might allow you to come up on the
flight deck and watch him for a few moments."

"Oh, peachy keen!" retorted Lieutenant Douglas.

It was like living in a submarine. Outside, Kinsman
knew, was the limitless expanse of emptiness: planets, moons,
comets, stars, galaxies stretching out through space to infini-
ty. But inside the Air Force shuttle orbiter, serial number
AFASO-002, six young trainees and four middle-aged officers
clambered over one another, stuck elbows in one another's
food trays, and got in one another's way. Kinsman began to
realize that a barrel of monkeys is not much fun for the
monkeys.

"If it weren't for zero gee," Kinsman told Colt, "I'd be
ready to murder somebody."

"I got my own little list," Coit said.

They were in the lower deck, wedged between canisters
of lithium hydroxide and green tanks of oxygen. The metal
bulkhead felt cold to the touch, and Kinsman realized that the
40

vacuum of space was on the other side of the floor plates that
he hovered a few centimeters above.

"Pierce really meant it when he said we were gonna lay
our hands on every stringer and weld in this bucket," Colt
grumbled. He was hovering above Kinsman in the hatch,
head down, his feet floating above the floor of the mid-deck
section.

The rest of the trainees were out in the cargo bay, with
the officers, practicing EVAs in their space suits. Colt and
Kinsman had been assigned to inspecting the air and water
recycling equipment of the life support systems. They had
already inspected the zero-gravity toilet, with its foot re-
straints and seat belt, and the washstand and shower stall.
Now they were tracing the plumbing of the water pipes and
the scrubbers that filtered impurities out of the air they
breathed.

Kinsman consulted the checklist taped to his wrist in the
light of the hand lamp that hung weightlessly by his ear.
"Okay, that's the lithium hydroxide tank and it's all in one
piece."

"Check," said Colt, making a mark on the clipsheet he
carried.

"I still don't get it," Kinsman complained as they
worked. "Why are we getting all the shit jobs? Jill and Smitty
and the others are out there having fun and we're stuck
inspecting the toilet."

He could not see Colt's face from where he was wedged
in, but the expression came through loud and clear. "We're
the special ones, man. You and I got the highest grades, so
they're gonna take us down a peg. Keep our heads from
getting big."

"You think that's it?"

Colt growled, "Sure. My being black's got nothing to do
with it. Neither does your picking me for a partner. Nothing
at all."

"It's good to see you're not being overly sensitive about
it," Kinsman joked, pushing his way back from between the
frigid green tanks.

"Or bitter."

"Well . . . they've got to let us go EVA tomorrow.
There's no way they can keep us from going ouside."
41

For a long moment Colt did not respond. Then he said
simply, "Wanna bet?"

The living quarters in the mid-deck were crowded
enough when all six trainees were lumped together in the
metal shoebox, but when a couple of officers came down from
the flight deck the tensions became almost impossible.

The end of the second day, the trainees were bobbing
around the galley, which looked to Kinsman like a glorified
Coke machine. They were punching buttons, pulling trays of
hot food from the storage racks, gliding weightlessly to find an
unoccupied corner of the cramped compartment in which to
eat their precooked dinners.

Kinsman leaned his back against somebody's sleeping
cocoon, legs dangling in the air, and picked at the food. The
tray was already showing signs of heavy use; it was slightly
bent and it no longer gleamed, new-looking. The food, a
combination of precut bite-sized chunks of imitation protein
and various moldy-looking pastes, was as appetizing as saw-
dust.

Jill Meyers drifted past, empty-handed.

"Finished already?" Kinsman asked her.

"This junk was finished before it started," she said.

"It's chock-full of nutrition."

"So's a cockroach."

Major Jakes slid down the ladder and headed for the
galley. Automatically the lieutenants made room for him. He
had been an overweight, jowly, crew-cut, sullen-looking
graying man when Kinsman had first seen him back at
Vandenberg. His physical looks had changed in zero gravity:

he seemed slimmer, taller, his cheekbones higher. And there
was a happy grin on his face.

Jakes brought his tray to the corner where Kinsman was
sitting, literally, on air. The Major was humming to himself
cheerfully. After setting himself cross-legged beside Kins-
man, anchoring his back against the other end of the nylon
mesh cocoon, Jakes took a couple of bites of food, then
asked, "How's it going, Lieutenant?"

"Okay, sir, I suppose," replied Kinsman. Never com-
plain to officers, he knew from his Academy training. Espe-
cially when they're trying to buddy up to you.
42

"I don't see Colt around."

"Frank?" Kinsman realized that Colt was not in sight.
"Must be in the pissoir."

Jakes made a small clucking sound. "Your redheaded
friend is missing, too."

Kinsman took a sip of lukewarm coffee from the squeeze
bulb on his tray while he thought furiously, "Maybe they're in
the airlock. You go nuts down here trying to find some elbow
room."

Jakes made an agreeable nod. "Yeah, I guess so. Like the
fo'c'sle of an old sailing ship, huh?"

Why me? Kinsman wondered. Why is he buddying up to
me?

"You're from Pennsylvania, aren't you?"

"Yessir. Philadelphia area ..."

"Main Line, I know. My people have relatives down
there. I'm from the North Shore—Boston. You know, the
cradle of liberty."

"Where the Cabots talk only to the Lodges."

"Right." Jakes nibbled at a chunk of thinly disguised
soybean meal. "And neither of 'em talk to my folks. We were
sort of the black sheep of the clan. My old man could build
the yachts for them, all right, but they never let us sail 'em."

"Black sheep," Kinsman muttered. Welcome to the club,
buddy. Try to imagine what a black sheep you become when
you leave a Quaker family to join the Air Force.

"Did you really pick Colt for a partner?"

"Yes," Kinsman said, warily.

"I hear he's a troublemaker."

"He's a damned fine man."

"Maybe. I hear you're just as good a pilot. Colt's got a
reputation, well . . ."

Kinsman could feel his back stiffening. "Sir," he said, "if
I were in a tight situation there's no one I'd rather have beside
me than Frank Colt. Present company included."

Jakes grinned at him. "Snotty little shavetail, eh? Yeah,
that's what I heard. Well, you and Colt are two of a kind, all
right. Full of piss and vinegar. I guess that's good, in a way.
This isn't a game for marshmallows."

They finished their dinners quickly and stowed the dirty
trays in the galley's cleaning unit, which Kinsman knew from
43

his inspection earlier that day was operating properly—after
he had tightened a slightly leaky pipe fitting. Jakes swam back
up to the flight deck, "officer country," and Kinsman was
about to join Jill and Art Douglas in an argument about the
Air Force's medical insurance plan for astronauts.

But Major Pierce and Captain Howard eased down the
ladder and suddenly the mid-deck compartment was tense
again.

"Mission control just sent us a change in schedule,"
Pierce said. "Meyers and Smith, you've got fifteen minutes
before prelaunch inspection of Payload Number Two. Get rid
of those trays and start suiting up for EVA. Captain Howard
will brief you, starting now."

Howard was a dour, shriveled little man. Kinsman had
never seen a crew cut manage to look messy before, but
somehow Howard's did. He was gray-haired, old for a
captain. Hell, he's old for a major or light colonel. Kinsman
thought. But he must know his stuff.

Under Howard's direction, the O'Hara-Douglas team
had operated the manipulator arm that had swung the
mission's first payload—a small, laser-reflecting navigational
satellite—out of the cargo bay and into orbit. And Captain
Howard himself had gone EVA twice in the two days of the
flight, once to check on a defunct observation satellite that
had been orbited years earlier, and once to inspect a newly
orbited Russian satellite.

Now Mutt and Jeff are going to go outside again while
Frank and I sit around twiddling our thumbs, Kinsman
grumbled to himself. They've already been EVA once!

Howard took them up to the flight deck for their briefing,
space suits and all. Pierce followed right behind them.
Suddenly the mid-deck compartment was empty except for
Douglas and Kinsman.

"Where the hell did Colt and Mary get to?" Art asked.

Kinsman peered through the thick glass of the airlock
window but they were not inside.

"Maybe they took a walk outside," he said.

Douglas looked annoyed. "I'll bet that sonofabitch has
her out in the payload bay."

"If he does, about the only thing they can do out there is
hold hands, with gloves on, at that."
44

"Yeah? And what happens when Pierce or Howard look
out and see them out there? Unauthorized EVA? They go
down the tubes, and we go down with them!"

Kinsman looked at the suit rack. Two space suits missing,
all right. He pushed himself over to the airlock hatch.

"What're you doing?" Douglas demanded.

"Maybe they're just outside the airlock, down against the
bulkhead where they can't be seen from the flight deck
windows."

Douglas's round face was wrinkled with angered worry
as Kinsman ducked inside the cold metal womb of the circular
airlock. There was a window to the outside, just above the
heavy hatch that opened onto the vacuum of space.

Kinsman tapped against the metal wall of the airlock with
his Academy ring. Three quick taps, three slower ones, and
then three fast ones again. SOS. He did it twice. No response.
Feeling a little frantic, he went to the other side and tried
again.

A thumping sound. Like a gloved fist knocking against
the outer wall.

Kinsman pushed back into the mid-deck compartment
and swung the inner airlock hatch shut. Douglas glided over
and peered into the window. A pump whined.

"Christ," muttered Douglas, "I hope nobody's watching
the indicators on the controls upstairs."

We'll know soon enough, Kinsman said to himself. After
long minutes of breath-holding suspense, Colt and Mary
O'Hara squeezed through the inner airlock hatch.

"Let's get you out of these suits, pronto," Kinsman
urged.

"What's the rush?" Colt asked.

"Howard's going to be down here in another minute.
Smitty and Jill are going out with him. Schedule change."

Mary was already unzipping her gloves, her face white
with concern.

Colt complained, "Shit! Out there in the payload bay's
the only place you can relax."

"You'll relax all four of us into ground assignments,"
Douglas snapped,

"In South Dakota," added Kinsman. "Come on, Frank.
Move it!"

45

Grousing all the way, Colt allowed Kinsman to help him
wriggle out of the space suit. Out of the corner of his eye
Kinsman saw Douglas helping Mary. Art's getting a lot more
fun out of this than I am, he thought.

They were almost finished when Captain Howard, Major
Pierce, Jill Meyers, and Smitty came gliding down the ladder
from the flight deck.

"Exactly what is going on here?" Pierce demanded, his
voice thin and reedy.

Before Colt or anyone else could reply, Kinsman heard
himself say, "I had to go out into the payload bay for a few
moments, sir. I was getting a touch of claustrophobia in
here."

Pierce glared at him.

"Lieutenant Colt came out with me—in accordance with
the regulations that trainees should not attempt EVA without
backup. Lieutenant O'Hara stationed herself in the airlock in
case we needed further assistance."

Major Pierce looked from Kinsman to Colt to O'Hara
and back to Kinsman. His eyes glittered with malice. "That is
the dumbest story I've ever heard a shavetail try to pull,
Lieutenant!"

"That's the way it happened, sir."

"Claustrophobia?"

"Only a temporary touch of it, sir. We were warned
about it in training, if you recall. Since there's no qualified
medical officer on board—"

"That's enough!" Pierce snapped. He closed his eyes for
a moment. "All right, I'll let it stand. But I'm going to
remember this. Kinsman. I'll be watching you—you and your
claustrophobia. And the rest of you! Nobody budges out of
this compartment without my direct approval. Is that under-
stood?"

"Yessir!" from six relieved throats.

"You all know that you are not—repeat, not—author-
ized for EVA without my okay."

"Unless there's a medical or other type of emergency,"
said Kinsman.

Glaring, Pierce hissed, "I should put the whole squad of
you on report for this,"

No one said a word.

46

Pierce looked hard at Colt, who returned his stare
evenly. Then he glared at O'Hara; she glanced toward
Kinsman.

Shaking his head, the Major muttered, "You're on thin
ice, Kinsman. Very thin ice."

"Yessir," Kinsman replied.

Pierce went back up to the flight deck and the tension
cracked. Howard took Meyers and Smitty to the airlock.
Kinsman puffed out a long, heartfelt breath. He felt as if he
had been hanging by his fingernails from a very high cliff.

"Why'd you do that?" Colt asked him.

"Pure instinct, I guess. I figured you'd catch a lot more
hell from Pierce than I would."

Frowning, Colt said, "What difference does it make?
We're on the same team; he'll kick my ass out the same time
he kicks yours."

Kinsman nodded. "Frank, you've memorized the book
of regulations but you haven't figured out the people yet. He
won't kick us out for something I've done. Not unless it's a lot
more serious than this."

Colt's reply was a derisive snort.

"You could thank him," Mary suggested to Colt. "He
was trying to save both our necks."

"And mine," Douglas chimed in.

"And his own, too," Colt said. "If I go, he goes."

Kinsman laughed. "You're welcome, buddy."

"Think nothing of it," Colt replied.

Kinsman looked at Mary O'Hara. He knew that she
would have been in much more trouble, too, if Pierce thought
she'd gone outside with Colt. But she doesn't say a word
about that part of it. La belle dame sans merci. The beautiful
lady who never says thank you.

It took an hour before Jill and Smitty came back in from
their EVA. Howard, looking smaller and older than ever
before, pointed a dirty-nailed finger at Kinsman.

"You and your buddy better get a good night's sleep.
You're going to have a big day tomorrow."

But, wrapped in his nylon mesh cocoon after lights-out,
floating weightlessly with his arms hanging in front of his eyes,
Kinsman could not sleep. He could feel the warmth from
Colt's body, bulging the sleeping bag a few centimeters above
47

him, and smell the faint trace of perfume that Mary wore, in
the next bunk down. Yet it was not her scent nor Colt's
troubled groaning and tossing that kept Kinsman awake. Not
even the anticipation of going EVA tomorrow, for the first
time.

"To hell with Jakes," he mumbled to himself. "And
Pierce. All of them ... all of them . . ."

He saw in his mind's eye the crystal blue sky of the
eastern Mediterranean as he new his aging F-15 on a "peace-
keeping" mission. When the Soviet Union finally admitted
that its reserves of fossil fuels were no longer sufficient to
meet its needs, and began bidding up the price of Middle
Eastern oil, the political repercussions made the oil shocks of
the Seventies seem trivial.

The Red Army gobbled up Iran in an eleven-day blitz-
krieg while the rest of the world watched, stunned and
vacillating. The Russians took over the Iranian oil fields, or
what was left of them after the fanatical Iranians gave up their
doomed defense and blew up everything they could. The
Arab world split apart, some openly assisting the Iranian
resistance, some trying to make an accommodation with the
victorious Russian Bear. The industrialized world tottered as
oil prices skyrocketed and stayed high.

It took a charismatic leader to bring the Arabs together
again, and he focused his leadership on the obvious goal: the
destruction of Israel. With relish, the Moslem world forgot its
differences and invaded the Jewish homeland for the final
time. No ally came to Israel's aid, not with the Soviets
threatening nuclear war over the hotline to Washington. The
American government, led by a born-again former school-
teacher, warned Israel against using its nuclear weapons
against its invaders. To their credit, the victorious Arabs did
not engage in a bloodbath. Israel simply ceased to exist,
although its inhabitants continued to live in the newly consti-
tuted nation of Palestine. Only the leaders of the Israeli
government and about a third of the Knesset were executed.
In America the government that failed to help its ally won
re-election on the strength of having avoided a nuclear
holocaust.

Rationing and recriminations were the order of the day
in every Western capital. Travel curtailments and restrictions
48

on electricity became commonplace, and were used by gov-
ernments to keep their people under control and make
dissent, if not impossible, then at least more difficult than in
the earlier days of easy travel and free speech.

The Greeks called for the total dissolution of NATO. The
Turks made obvious moves to seize Cyprus. A new series of
convulsions racked Lebanon, with Syrian-backed Shi'ites
slaughtering Christians by the thousands and Syria itself
—long a Soviet client—gaining new power from the Russian
victory in Iran and the destruction of Israel but suffering such
loss of prestige among its fellow Moslems that the assassina-
tion of Syria's president came as no surprise.

Flying out of Cyprus, the handful of Air Force fighter
pianes was a pitifully weak gesture, more of a public relations
ploy than a military move. America was tacitly admitting that
the Soviet conquest of Iran and the end of Israel were fails
accomplis. Flying out of Damascus, a squadron of Soviet
MiG-31's symbolized Russian determination to show Ameri-
ca and the world that the Middle East was their sphere of
influence now, rather than the West's.

In his half-sleep. Kinsman recalled all the feints and
mock-dogfights he had gone through. It would have taken
only the press of a button to destroy one of the Russian
fighters. More than once somebody fired a burst of cannon
fire into the empty air. More than once a missile "happened"
to whoosh out of its underwing rack and trace a smoky arrow
of death that came close to one of those beautiful swept-wing
planes.

Each time Kinsman waxed the tail of a Russian and lined
up the vainly maneuvering MiG in his gunsights he heard his
father's stern voice: "Once you put on their uniform, you will
do as they order you to do. If they say kill, you will kill."

No, Kinsman said to himself. There are limits. I can hold
out against them.

They had not ordered him to kill. The squadron's orders
were to defend themselves if attacked, and even then, only
after receiving a confirming go-ahead order from ground
command. Kinsman had never pressed the firing button on his
controls, no matter how many times he centered a MiG in his
gunsights.

He was overjoyed when his application for astronaut
49

training was finally approved. It was as if he had been holding
his breath for four years.

Even grimy old Philadelphia looked good to him, after
the months in Cyprus. He had dinner with Neal McGrath and
his wife, Mary-Ellen, in an Indian restaurant on Chestnut
Street, within sight of Independence Hall and the cracked old
Liberty Bell. Neal, a Congressman now, informed him that
Diane Lawrence had her first million-selling record to her
credit and was fast becoming one of the nation's favorite
folk-rock singers.

And Kinsman's father—sick, old, his home on the Main
Line turned into a private hospital-cum-office—refused to see
him as long as he wore an Air Force uniform.

When he finally peeled out of the nylon mesh sleeping
bag he felt too keyed up to be tired, despite his wakeful night.
Colt seemed also tensed as a coiled spring as they pulled on
their space suits.

"So the Golddust Twins finally get their chance to go for
a walk around the block," Smitty kidded them as he helped
Kinsman with the zippers and seals of his suit.

"I thought they were gonna keep us after school," Colt
said, "for being naughty yesterday,"

"Pierce'll find a way to take you guys down a notch," Jill
said. "He's got that kind of mind."

"Democracy in action," said Kinsman, "Reduce every-
body to the same low level."

"Hey!" Art Douglas snapped from across the compart-
ment where he was helping Colt into his suit. "Your scores
weren't that much higher than ours, you know."

"Tell you what," Colt said. "A couple of you guys black
your faces and see how you get treated."

They laughed, but there was a nervous undercurrent
to it.

Kinsman raised the helmet over his head and slid it down
into place. "Still fits okay," he said through the open visor.
"Guess my head hasn't swollen too much."

Captain Howard glided down the ladder already suited
up, but with his helmet visor open. The pouches under his
eyes looked darker than usual; his face was a gray prison
pallor. With six trainees aboard, the officers slept in their
50

seats up on the flight deck, a factor that did not increase
officers' love of trainees.

"You both checked out?" Howard asked in a flat,
drained voice.

Mr. Personality, thought Kinsman.

Howard was not satisfied with the trainees' check of their
suits. He went over them himself. Finally, with a sour nod, he
waved Colt to the airlock and went in with him. The lock
cycled.

Kinsman slid his visor down and sealed it, turned to wave
a halfhearted "so long" to the others, then floated to the
airlock and pushed himself through the hatch. The heavy
door swung shut and he could hear, faintly through his helmet
padding, the clatter of the pump sucking the air out of the
phone booth-sized chamber. The red light went on, signaling
vacuum. He opened the outer hatch and stepped out into the
payload bay.

The orbiter was turned away from the Earth, so that all
Kinsman saw as he left the airlock was the endless blackness
of space. He blinked as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, and
saw tiny points of light staring at him: hard, unwinking stars,
not like jewels set in black velvet, as he had expected, not like
anything he had ever seen before in his life.

"Glory to God in the highest . . ." Kinsman heard
himself whisper the words as he rose, work forgotten, drifting
up toward the infinitely beautiful stars.

When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the
moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained . . .

Howard's grip on his shoulder suddenly brought him
back to the here-and-now. The Captain clicked a tether to the
clip on Kinsman's waist, then pointed to his own wrist.
Kinsman looked down at the keyboard on the wrist of his suit
and turned the radio on.

Howard's voice immediately came through his ear-
phones, a much higher fidelity sound quality than Kinsman
had expected:

"We're using channel four for suit-to-suit chatter. Ship's
frequency is three; don't use it unless you have to talk to the
flight deck."

"Yessir," said Kinsman.

"Okay. Let's get to work."
51

Kinsman glanced out at the stars again, then followed
Howard and Colt to the padded mound of insulation covering
the final satellite in the payload bay. It was a large fat drum,
taller than a man and so wide that Kinsman knew he and Colt
could not girdle it with their outstretched arms.

"The checkout panels in the flight deck indicate a
malfunction in the battery that powers the antenna foldout,"
Howard's voice grumbled in his earphones.

Under the Captain's direction they peeled the protective
covering from the satellite. It was an aluminum cylinder with
dead black panels of solar cells circling its middle and four
dish-shaped antennas folded across its top.

"Kinsman, you come up here with me to manually unfold
the antennas," Howard ordered. "Colt, check out the bat-
tery."

Floating up to the top of the satellite with the Captain
beside him, Kinsman asked, "What kind of a satellite is this?
Looks like communications, but it's going into a polar orbit,
isn't it?"

"Seventy-degree inclination," Howard replied curtly.
"You know that as well as I do. Or you should."

Kinsman did know. He also knew that the orbit was
highly elliptical, so that the satellite hung over the Eurasian
land mass for a much longer period of time than it sped past
the other side of the globe.

"Start with that one." Howard pointed a gloved hand
toward the largest antenna, in the center of the drumhead.
"Unlatch the safety retainer first."

Hanging head down over the satellite. Kinsman read the
instruction printed on its surface by the light of his helmet
lamp, then unlatched and unfolded the antenna arm. His
fingers felt clumsy inside the heavy gloves, but the task was
simple enough. He remembered von Clausewitz's dictum
from his Academy classes:

"Everything is very simple in war, but even the simplest
thing is difficult."

That was as good a description of working in zero gravity
as any, Kinsman thought as he slowly, deliberately unfolded
the antenna arm and carefully opened its fragile, parasollike
parabolic dish. No sound, except his own labored breathing
and the faint, high-pitched whir of his suit's tiny air-
52

circulating fan. This is hard work, he realized. They had told
him it would be, back in the classrooms, but he had not truly
believed it until now.

The first man to walk in space, Alexsei Leonov, told his
fellow cosmonauts, "Think ten times before moving a finger,
and twenty times before moving a hand."

We can do better than that. Kinsman told himself. Still,
everything takes longer in zero gee than you'd expect.

"Now the waveguide." Howard's laconic voice startled
Kinsman. He had floated slightly away from the satellite. The
tether clipped to his waist was almost taut.

He returned to his work, voicing his curiosity into his
helmet microphone. "No camera windows or sensor ports on
this bird. At least, none that I can see."

"Keep your mind on your work," Howard said.

"But what's it for?" Kinsman blurted.

With an exasperated sigh that sounded like a windstorm
in Kinsman's earphones, Howard answered, "Space Com-
mand didn't take the time to tell me, kid. So I don't know.
Except that it's Top Secret and none of our damned busi-
ness."

"Ohh ... a ferret."

"What?"

"A ferret," said Kinsman. "We learned about them back
at the Academy. Gathers electronic intelligence from Soviet
satellites. This bird's going into a high-inclination orbit,
right?"

He could sense Howard nodding sourly inside his helmet.

"She'll hang up there over the Soviet Union," Kinsman
went on, "and tune in on a wide band of frequencies that the
Russians use. Maybe some Chinese and European bands,
too. Then when she passes over a command station in the
States they send up the right signal and she spits out every-
thing she's recorded on the previous orbit. All data-
compressed so they can get the whole wad of poop in a couple
of seconds."

"Really." Howard's voice was as flat and as cold as an ice
floe.

"Yessir. The Russians have knocked a few of ours out,
they told us at the Academy. With their ASAT—their
antisatellite weapon."

53

Howard's response was unintelligible.

"Sir?" Kinsman asked.

"I said," the Captain snapped, "that I never went to the
Academy, but I still know what an ASAT is. I came up the
hard way, Kinsman. I'm not one of you bright boys."

Touchy! thought Kinsman.

"Colt, what the hell's the status of the battery?"

"Dead as an Edsel, sir," Colt's voice came through the
earphones. "I just been listening to your conversation."

"All right. Get your backside up here and help unfold
the antennas."

Colt glided up alongside Kinsman and together they
opened up the satellite's antennas. It was like making a
garden of metallic mushrooms bloom. As they worked Kins-
man noticed a growing brightening, a flood of light that
drowned out the feeble pool from his helmet lamp like the
dawning sun overwhelms the stars of night.

He turned, finally, and saw that the payload bay was now
facing the gigantic, overpowering splendor of Earth. Huge
and bright, incredibly rich with vast sweeps of blue oceans
and purest white clouds, the Earth was a spectacle that
deluged the senses with beauty. Dumbfounded, speechless,
Kinsman forgot what he was doing and drifted like a helpless
baby, staring at the world of his birth.

"Fanatic!" Turning his head slightly, reluctantly, Kins-
man saw that Colt was hovering beside him.

"Get your ass back here!" Howard's angry bleat was like
ice picks jabbing at his eardrums. "Both of you!"

Kinsman realized his mouth was hanging open. But he
did not care. Inside the helmet, with its tinted visor, inside the
ultimate privacy of his impervious personal suit, he stared at
the Earth, truly seeing it for the first time. He recognized
Baja California and the brown wrinkled stretch of Mexico
cutting between the blue of the Pacific and the greener blue of
the Gulf.

"Kinsman! Colt!''

"I never realized . . ." he heard Colt's voice whispering,
awed.

"All right. All right." Howard's voice was suddenly
gentler, softer. "Sometimes I forget how it hits you the first
time. You've got five minutes to enjoy the show, then we've
54

got to get back to work or we'll miss the orbit injection time."
And the Captain's space-suited form drifted up alongside
them.

The Earth was huge, filling the sky, spreading as far as
Kinsman could see: serene blue and sparkling white, warm,
alive, glowing, a beckoning, beautiful world, the ancient
mother of humankind. She looked untroubled from this
distance. No divisions marred her face, not the slightest trace
of the frantic works of her children scarred the eternal beauty
of the planet. It took a wrenching effort of will for Kinsman to
turn his face away from her.

"All right," Howard's voice broke through to him.
"Time to get back to work. You'll get plenty chance to see
more, soon enough."

Reluctantly, Kinsman turned away from the glowing
Earth and back to the rigid metal enclosure of the payload
bay. The satellite looked like a toy to him now. But something
had softened Howard. He's Just as wiped out about all this
grandeur as we are, Kinsman realized. Even though he
doesn't want to show it.

They finished checking out the satellite, and Howard led
them back to the airlock hatch. But instead of going back
inside, the Captain had them wait there while Major Jakes
operated the manipulator arm from his control station in the
flight deck. The arm smoothly, silently, picked up the weight-
less satellite, swung it out and away from the shuttle, and then
released it. It hung in empty space.

Howard told them to switch their suit radios to the flight
deck's frequency, and they heard Jakes and Major Podolski's
clipped, professional crosstalk as they maneuvered the orbiter
away from the free-flying satellite. Kinsman saw the orbital
maneuvering jets at the bulging root of the big tail fin flare
once, twice—each puff so brief that it was gone almost before
it registered on his eyes. When he looked for the satellite
again, it was gone from sight.

But Jakes was intoning, ". . , three, two, one, ignition."
And Kinsman saw a tiny star wink out in the darkness: the
thruster that would push the satellite into its predetermined
orbit.

"Ail systems check. Payload trajectory nominal." Jakes's
voice might have been a computer synthesis. But then he
55

added, "Good job, you guys. The antennas are all working
right on the money."

Kinsman expected that now they would finally go back
inside, but Howard indicated he wanted to talk to them on
their suit-to-suit frequency.

"We've got one more chore to do," the Captain said.
"It's a big task, and we saved it for you boys."

Kinsman tried to glance at Colt, but his partner was
slightly behind him and when he turned his head all he saw
was the inside lining of his helmet.

"We haven't detached the booster fuel tank yet," How-
ard explained. "It's still strapped on to the orbiter's belly."

"Can't re-enter with that egg hanging on to us," said
Colt.

"We have no intention to. We're now heading for a
rendezvous point where the last six missions have separated
their booster tanks and left them in orbit. One of these days,
when the Air Force has enough astronauts and enough
money, we're going to convert these empty shells into a
permanent space station."

"I'll be damned." Kinsman grinned to himself.

"Like the station NASA's building," said Colt.

"Nothing so fancy," Howard countered. "Now, then,
your task is to separate the tank from the orbiter manually,
and then take it over to the assembly that's already there and
attach it to the other tanks."

"Simple enough," Colt said. "We practiced that kind of
assembly in the neutral buoyancy tank in Huntsville."

"It sounds easy," Howard said. "But I won't be there to
help you. You're going to be on your own with this one."

"We can handle it," Kinsman said.

Howard said nothing for a long moment. Kinsman
watched him floating before them, his tinted visor looking like
the dead, empty eye of a midget cyclops.

"All right," the Captain said at last. "But listen to me. If
something happens out there, don't panic. Do you hear me?
Don't panic."

"We're not the panicky kind," said Colt.

What's he worried about? Kinsman wondered. But he
pushed the thought aside as Howard helped them to take a
pair of Manned Maneuvering Units out of stowage. The
56

MMUs were one-man jet backs, built like a seat back with
arms that held the controls. No seat, no legs. It strapped to
their backs over their life-support packs.

Colt and Kinsman spent the next half-hour convincing
Howard that they could fly the MMUs. They jetted back and
forth along the emptied payload bay, did pirouettes, new
upside down and sideways, even flew in formation, almost
touching outstretched fingertips.

"There are no umbilicals or tethers," Howard warned.
"You'll be operating independently. On your own. Do you
understand?"

"Sure," said Kinsman. "We practiced with these in the
simulator a hundred times."

"No funny stuff when you're out there. No sightseeing.
You won't have time for stargazing."

"Right," replied Colt.

"Now fill your propellant tanks and oxygen supply."

"Yessir."

Howard busied himself with talking to the flight deck as
Kinsman and Colt jetted themselves to the supply tanks down
by the tail.

"He's pretty edgy," Kinsman said as he took the propel-
lant supply hose and plugged it into the valve on Colt's MMU.

"Just putting us on, man."

"I don't know. He said this is the most difficult task of
the whole mission."

"That's why they saved it for us, huh?"

"Maybe."

He could sense Colt shaking his head, frowning. "Don't
take his bullshit seriously. They had other jobs—like inspect-
ing that Russian satellite. That was a lot tougher than what
we're gonna be doing."

"That was a one-man task," Kinsman said. "He didn't
need a couple of rookies getting in his way. Besides, the
Soviets probably have all sorts of alarm and detection systems
on their birds."

"Yeah, maybe . . ."

"He's a strange little guy."

Colt said, "You'd think he would've made major by
now."

"Or light colonel. He's as old as Murdock."
57

"Yeah, but he's got no wings. Flunked out of flight
training when he was a kid."

"Really?"

"That's what Art told me. Howard's nothing more than a
glorified Tech Specialist. No Academy, no wings. Lucky he
got as far as captain."

"No wonder he looks pissed most of the time."

"Mas; of the time?"

Kinsman said, "I got the feeling he enjoyed watching the
Earth just as much as we did."

"H'mp- Yeah. I forgot about that."

As Kinsman disconnected the hose from Colt's backpack
he glanced out at the Earth again. "I wonder if you ever get
accustomed to that."

"Sure is some sight," Colt agreed.

"Makes me want to just drift out of here and never come
back," murmured Kinsman. "Just go on forever and ever."

"You'll need a damned big air tank."

"Not a bad way to die, if you've got to go. Drifting alone,
silent, going to sleep among the stars . . ."

"That's okay for you, maybe. But I intend to be shot by a
jealous husband when I'm ninety-nine years old," Colt said
firmly. "That's how I wanna go: bareass and humpin'."

"White or black?"

"The husband or the wife? Both of them honkies, man.
Screwin' white folks is the best part of life."

Kinsman could hear Colt's happy chuckling.

"Frank," he asked, "have you ever thought that by the
time you're ninety-nine there might not be any race problems
anymore?"

Colt's laughter deepened. "Sure. Just like we won't have
any wars and all God's chillun got shoes."

"AH right, there it is," Captain Howard told them.
The three space-suited men hovered just above the open
clamshell doors of the payload bay, looking out at what
seemed to Kinsman to be a stack of giant beer bottles. Except
that they're plastic, not glass.

Six empty propeHant tanks, each of them nearly twice the
size of the orbiter itself, were hanging in the emptiness in two
neat rows. From this angle they could not see the connecting
58

rods holding them together.

"You've got three hours," Howard told them. "The
booster tank linkages that hold it to the orbiter are built to
come apart and re-attach to the other tanks . . ."

"We know, we know," Colt said impatiently.

Kinsman was thinking, This shouldn't take more than an
hour. Two at the outside. Why give us three?

"Pardon me," Howard was saying, acid in his voice. "I
should've remembered you guys know everything already."
He grabbed at his tether and started pulling himself back
inside the payload bay. "All right, you're on your own. Just
don't panic if anything goes wrong. Panic kills. Remember
that."

Almost an hour later, as they were attaching the empty
propellant tank to the other six, Colt asked:

"How many times we practice this stunt in training?"

"This particular business?"

"Naw . . . just taking pieces apart and reassembling
them."

Kinsman looked up from the bolt-tightening job he was
doing. Colt was floating some forty meters away, up at the
nose end of the fat propellant tank. He looked tiny next to the
stack of huge eggs, each of them as big as a ten-room house.
Sunlight glinted off them and the Earth slid by below, silent
and serene.

The hardest part of the job was over: maneuvering the
huge mass of the tank to the place where it was to be bolted to
the others. Weightless though it may be, the tank still
possessed mass, and in the frictionless vacuum of space, once
a body starts in motion it keeps on going until something or
somebody acts to stop it. The thrusters on their MMUs were
pitifully inadequate to the task. The tank had its own thrust-
ers installed at its nose and tail especially for this task.

"Well," Kinsman replied to Colt's question, "we did so
much of this monkeywork in Huntsville and Houston that I
thought they were training us to work in a garage."

"Yeah. That's what I was thinking. Then why's Howard
so shaky about us doing this? You having any troubles?"

Kinsman shrugged inside his suit, and the motion made
him drift slightly away from the strut he was working on. He
59

reached out and grabbed it to steady himself.

"I've spun myself around a couple of times/' he admit-
ted. "But the tools work well, once you get used to them."

Colt's answer was a soft grunt.
"The suit heats up," Kinsman went on. "I've had to stop

work and let it cool down a couple of times."

"Try to keep in the shadows," answered Colt. "Stay out

of the direct sun. Makes a big difference."

"Maybe Howard's worried about us being so far from the

orbiter without tethers."

"Maybe." But Colt did not sound convinced.
"How's your end going? I'm almost finished here."
'T got maybe another twenty minutes and I'll be through.

Three hours! This damned job don't take no three . . . Holy

shit!"

Kinsman's whole body jerked at the urgency in Colt's

voice. "What? What is it?"

"Lookit the orbiter!"

Turning so rapidly that he bounced the upper corner of
his MMU against the tank. Kinsman peered out at the ship,
some two hundred meters away from them.

"They've closed the payload bay doors. Why the hell

would they do that?"

Colt jetted down the length of the tank, stopping himself

neatly as an ice skater within arm's reach of Kinsman.
"What on earth are they doing?" Kinsman wondered.
Colt said, "Whatever it is, I don't like it."
Suddenly a puff of white gas jetted from the orbiter's
nose. The spacecraft dipped down and away from them.
Another soundless gasp from the maneuvering thrusters back

near the tail.

"What the fuck are they up to?" Colt shouted.
The orbiter was sliding away from them, scuttling crab-
wise farther and farther from the tank farm where they were

stranded.

"They got trouble! Somethin's gone wrong ..."
Kinsman punched the stud on his wrist for the flight

deck's radio frequency.

"Kinsman to flight deck. What's wrong? Why are you

maneuvering?"

60

No answer. The orbiter was dwindling away from them
rapidly.

"Jesus Christ!" Colt yelled. "They're gonna leave us
here!"

"Captain Howard!" Kinsman said into his helmet mike,
trying to keep the tremble out of his voice. "Major Podolski!
Major Pierce! Anybody! Come in. This is Kinsman. Colt and
I are still EVA! Answer, please!"

Nothing but the crackling hum of the radio's carrier
wave.

"Those sonsofbitches are stranding us!"

Kinsman watched the orbiter getting smaller and smaller.
It seemed to be hurtling madly away from them, although the
rational part of his mind told him that the spacecraft was only
drifting now. It had only fired the vernier thrusters, not the
rocket motors that would move it into an altogether different
orbital plane. But the difference in relative velocities between
the tank farm and the orbiter was enough to make the two fly
apart from each other.

Colt was moving. Kinsman saw that he was lining himself
up for a dash toward the dwindling orbiter. Grabbing Colt's
arm to stop him, Kinsman snapped, "NO!" Then he realized
his suit radio was still on the flight deck frequency. Banging
the stud on his wrist, he said, "Don't panic. Remember?
That's what Howard warned us about."

"We gotta get back to the orbiter! We can't hang here!"

"You'll never reach the orbiter with the MMU," Kins-
man said. "They're separating from us too fast."

"But something's gone wrong . . ."

Kinsman looked out toward the dwindling speck that was
the orbiter. It was hard to see it now, against the glaring white
of the Earth. They were passing over the vast cloud-covered
Antarctica. Shuddering, Kinsman felt the cold seeping into
him.

"Listen to me," he commanded. "Maybe nothing's gone
wrong. Maybe this is their idea of a joke."

"A joke?"

"That's what Howard was trying to teil us." Kinsman
silently added, Maybe.

"That's crazy!"

61

"Is it? They've been sticking it to us all through the
mission, haven't they? Pierce is a snotty bastard; this looks
like something he might cook up. What would he like better
than watching the two of us chasing the damned orbiter until
the fuel in our MMUs gives out and they have to come back
and rescue us?"

"You don't joke around with lives, man!"

"We're safe enough; got four hours worth of oxygen. As
long as we don't panic we'll be okay. That's what Howard was
trying to tell us/' It was beginning to sound convincing, even
to himself.

"But why the hell would they do something like this?"
Colt's voice sounded calmer, as if he were trying to believe
Kinsman.

Your paranoia's deserted you just when you needed it
most. Kinsman thought. He replied, "How many times have
they called us hotshots, the Golddust Twins? We're the two
top men on the list. They just want to rub our noses in the dirt
a little, make us feel foolish . . . just like the upperclassmen
do at the Academy."

"You think so?"

It's either that or we're dead. Kinsman glanced at the
digital watch set into his wrist keyboard. "They allowed us
three hours for our task. They'll be back before that time is
up. Less than two hours."

"And if they're not?"

"Then we can panic."

"Lotta good it'll do then."

"It won't do us much good now, either. We're stranded
here until they come back for us."

"Bastards." Now Colt was convinced.

With a sudden grin, Kinsman said, "Yeah, but maybe we
can turn the tables on them."

"How?"

"Follow me, my man."

Without using his MMU thrusters, Kinsman clambered
up the side of "their" propellant tank and then drifted slowly
into the nest created by the other huge tanks. Like a pair of
skin divers floating in the midst of a pod of whales, Colt and
Kinsman hung in emptiness, surrounded by the enormous,
curving, hollow tanks.

62

"Now when they come back they won't be able to see us
on radar," Kinsman explained. "And the tanks ought to
block our suit-to-suit talk, so they won't hear us, either. We'll
throw a scare into them."

"They'll think we panicked and jetted away."

"Right."

"Maybe that's what they want."

Kinsman laughed. Colt's paranoia had returned. "No,"
he said. "They want to scare us, not kill us. That would take
too much explaining back at Vandenberg. Losing two cadets
would ruin the whole afternoon for Pierce and the rest of
them. Wouldn't look good on their files."

Colt laughed back. "Almost worth dying for."

"We'll let them know we're here," Kinsman said, "after
they've worked up enough of a sweat. I'm not dying for
anyone's joke—not even my own."

They waited while the immense panorama of the Earth
flowed beneath them and the distant stern stars watched
silently. They waited and they talked.

"I thought she split because we were down in Houston
and Huntsville and she couldn't take it," Colt was saying.
"White woman with a black husband—the pressure was on
her a lot more than on me."

"I didn't think Houston was that prejudiced," said
Kinsman. "And Huntsville's pretty cosmopolitan ..."

"Yeah, sure. Try it with my color, man. You stuck
around the base all the time, or you went into town with some
of the other guys. Go try to buy some flesh-colored Band-
Aids, you wanna see how cosmopolitan this country is."

"Guess I really don't know much about it," Kinsman
admitted.

"But now that I think back on it, we were having our
troubles in Ohio, too. I'm not an easy man to live with."

"Who the hell is?"

Colt chuckled. "You are, man. You're supercool. Never
saw anybody so much in charge of himself. Like a bucket of
ice water."

Ice water? Me? "You're mistaking slow reflexes for
self-control."

"Yeah, I bet. Is it true you're a Quaker?"

"Used to be," he answered automatically, trying to shut
63

out the image of his father. "When I was a kid." Change the
subject! "I was when that damned orbiter started moving
away from us. A real Quaker."

With a laugh, Colt asked, "How come you ain't married?
Good-looking, rich . . ."

"Too busy having fun. Flying, training for this . . . I've
got no time for marriage. Besides, I like women too much to
marry one of them."

"You wanna get laid but you don't wanna get screwed."

"Something like that. To quote the Bard, there's lots of

chicks in the world."

"Yeah. Can't concentrate on a career and marriage at the
same time. Leastwise, I can't."

"Not if you want to be really good at either one,"
Kinsman agreed. Oh, we are being so wise. And not looking
at our watches. Cool, man. Supercool. But out beyond the
curving bulk of the looming tanks the sky was empty except
for the solemn stars.

"I don't just wanna be good," Colt was saying. "I got to
be the best. I got to show these honkies that a black man is
better than they are."

"You're not going to win many friends that way,"

"Don't give a shit. I'm gonna be a general someday.
Then we'll see how many friends I got."

Kinsman shook his head, laughing. "A general. Jeez,
you've sure got some long-range plans in your head."

"Damn right! My brother, he's all hot and fired up to be
a revolutionary, Goin' around the world looking for wars to
fight against oppression and injustice. Regular Lone Ranger.
Wanted me to join the underground here in the States and
fight for justice against The Man."

"Underground? In the States?"

"Yeah. FBI damn near grabbed him a year or so back."

"What for?"

"Hit a bank to raise money for the People's Liberation

Army."

"He's one of those?"

"Not anymore. There ain't no PLA anymore. Most of
'em are dead. The rest scattered. I watched my brother
playin' cops and robbers . . . didn't look like much fun to me.
64

So I decided I ain't gonna fight The Man. I'm gonna be The
Man."

"If you can't beat 'em . . ."

"Looks like I'm joinin' 'em, yeah," Colt said, with real
passion in his voice. "But I'm just workin' my way up the
ladder to get to the top. Then I'll start giving the orders. And
there are others like me, too. We're gonna have a black
President one of these days, you know."

"And you'll be his Chief of Staff."

"Could be."

"Where does that leave us . . ."

A small, sharp beeping sound shrilled in Kinsman's
earphones. Emergency signal! Automatically, both he and
Colt switched to the orbiter's flight deck frequency.

"Kinsman! Colt! Can you hear me? This is Major Jakes.
Do you read me?"

The Major's voice sounded distant, distorted by ragged
static, and very concerned.

Kinsman held up a hand to keep Colt silent. They were
receiving the orbiter's signal scattered off the propellant
tanks. No sense allowing Jakes and the others to hear them,
even though their suit radios were not as powerful as the
transmitter in the flight deck.

"Colt! Kinsman! Do you read me? This is Major Jakes!"

Colt leaned forward and touched his visor against Kins-
man's. His muffled voice came through: "Let 'em eat shit for
a coupla minutes, huh?"

Kinsman nodded, then realized that Colt could not see
through the tinted visor. He made a thumbs-up gesture.

The orbiter pulled into view and seemed to hover about a
hundred meters away from the tanks. The flight-deck radio
switch was open, and the two lieutenants heard:

"Pierce, goddammit, if those two kids are lost I'll put you
up for a murder charge."

"You were in on it, too, Harry!"

Howard's rasping voice cut in. "I'm suited up. Going out
the airlock."

"Should we get one of the trainees to help search for
them?" Pierce's reedy nasality.

"You've got two of them missing now," Jakes snarled.
65

"Isn't that enough? How about you getting your ass outside to
help?"

"Me? But I'm . . ."

"That would be a good idea," said a new voice, with such
authority that Kinsman knew it had to be the mission
commander. Major Podolski. Among the three majors he was
the longest in Air Force service, and therefore was as senior

as God.

"Eh, yessir," Pierce answered quickly.

"And you, too, Jakes. You were all in on this, and it
hasn't turned out to be very funny."

Colt and Kinsman, hanging on to one of the struts that
connected the empty tanks, could barely suppress their
laughter as they watched the orbiter's payload bay doors
swing slowly open and three space-suited figures emerge like
reluctant schoolboys from the airlock.

"Maybe we oughtta play dead," Colt said, touching his
helmet against Kinsman's again so that he did not need to use

the radio.

"No. Enough is too much. Let's go out and greet our
rescue party."

They worked their way clear of the tanks and drifted out
into the open.

"There they are!" The voice sounded so jubilant in
Kinsman's earphones that he could not tell who said it.

"Are you all right?"

"Is everything . . ."

"We're fine, sir," Kinsman said calmly. "But we were
beginning to wonder if war had been declared or there was
some other emergency."

Dead silence for several moments.

"Uh, no . . ." said Jakes as he jetted closer to Colt and
Kinsman. "We . . . uh, well, we sort of played a little prank
on you two fellas."

"It's something we always do on first flights," Pierce
added. "Nothing personal."

Sure, Kinsman thought. Nothing personal in getting
bitten by a snake, either.

They were great buddies now as they jetted back to the
orbiter. Kinsman played it straight, keeping himself very
66

formal and correct. Colt fell into line and followed Kinsman's
lead.

If we were a couple of hysterical, jibbering, terrified
tenderfeet they'd be laughing their heads off at us. But now
the shaft has turned.

Once through the airlock and into the mid-deck compart-
ment, the two lieutenants were grabbed by the four other
trainees. Chattering, laughing with a mixture of guilt and
relief, they helped Colt and Kinsman out of their helmets and
suits. Pierce, Jakes, and Howard unsuited without help.

When he was down to his blue coveralls. Kinsman turned
to Major Pierce and said, tightly, "Sir, I must make a report
to the commanding officer."

"Podolski knows all about ..."

Looking Pierce straight in his glittering eyes, Kinsman
said, "I don't mean Major Podolski, sir. I mean Colonel
Murdock. Or, if necessary, the Judge Advocate General."

The blood drained out of Pierce's face. Everything in the
crowded mid-deck compartment stopped. Jill Meyers, who
had wound up with Kinsman's helmet, let it slip from her
hands. It hung in midair as she watched, wide-eyed and
open-mouthed. The only sound in the compartment was the
hum of electrical equipment.

"The . . . Judge Advocate General?" Pierce looked as
white as a bedsheet.

"Yessir. Or I could telephone my uncle, the senior
senator from Pennsylvania, once we return to the base."

Now even the trainees looked scared.

"See here, Kinsman . . ." Jakes started.

Turning to face the Major, close enough to smell the fear
on him, Kinsman said quietly, "This may have seemed like a
joke to you, sir, but it has the look of racial discrimination
about it. And it was a very dangerous stunt. And a waste of
taxpayers' money."

"You can't ..." Pierce somehow lost his voice as Kins-
man turned back toward him. Past the Major's shoulder
Kinsman saw Art Douglas grinning at him.

"The first thing I must do is see Major Podolski,"
Kinsman said firmly. "He's involved in this, too."

With a defeated shrug, Jakes gestured toward the ladder.
67

Kinsman glanced at Colt, and the two of them glided
over to the ladder and swam up to the flight deck, leaving

dead silence behind them.

Major Podolski was a big, florid-faced man with a golden
old-style RAF Fighter Command mustache. His bulk barely
fit into the commander's left-hand seat. He was half turned in
it, one heavy arm draped across the seat's back, as Kinsman

rose through the hatch.

"I've been listening to what you had to say down there,
Lieutenant, and if you think . . ."

Kinsman put a finger to his lips. Podolski frowned.

Sitting lightly on the payload specialist's chair, behind
the commander, Kinsman let himself grin.

"Sir," he said, nearly whispering so that Podolski had to
lean closer to hear him, "I thought one good joke deserved
another. My uncle lost his seat in the Senate years ago."

A struggle of emotions played across Podolski's face.
Finally a curious smile won out. "I get it," he whispered back.
"You want them to stew in their own juices for a few minutes,

eh?"

Glancing at Colt, Kinsman answered, "Not exactly, sir. I

want reparations."

"Repa—what're you talking about. Mister?"
"This is the first time Frank and I have been allowed up

on the flight deck."

"So?"
"So we want to sit up here while you fly her back through

re-entry and landing."

Podolski looked as if he had just swallowed a lemon,
whole. "Oh, you do? And maybe you want to take over the

controls, too?"

Colt bobbed his head vigorously. "Yes, sir\'"

"Don't make me laugh."

"Sir ... I meant it about the Judge Advocate General.
And I have another uncle—"

"Never mind!" Podolski snapped. "You can sit up here
during re-entry and landing. And that's all! You sit and watch
and be quiet and forget this whole stupid incident."

"That's all we want, sir," Kinsman said. He turned
toward Colt, who was beaming.

"You guys'll go far in the Air Force," Podolski grumbled.
68

"A pair of smartasses with the guts of burglars. Just what the
fuck this outfit needs." But there was the trace of a grin
flitting around his mustache.

"Glad you think so, sir," said Kinsman.

"Okay . . . we're due to begin re-entry checkout in two
hours. You guys might as well sit up here through the whole
routine and watch how it's done."

"Thank you, sir."

The Major's expression sobered. "Only . . . who's going
to tell Pierce and Howard that they've got to sit downstairs
with the trainees?"

"Oh, I will," said Colt, with the biggest smile of all. "I'll
be glad to!"

Age 27

IN THE COOL shadows of the Astro Motel's bar, Major Joseph
Tenny did indeed look like a slightly overage linebacker for
the Pittsburgh Steelers. Swarthy, barrel-shaped, his scowling
face clamped on a smoldering cigar, Tenny in his casual
civilian sports shirt and slacks hardly gave the appearance of
that rarest of all birds: a good engineer who is also a good
military officer.

"Afternoon, Major."

Tenny turned on his stool to see old Cy Calder, the dean
of the press service reporters covering Vandenberg and
Edwards Air Force bases, where the fledgling Air Force
astronaut corps trained and worked.

"Hi!" said Tenny. "Whatcha drinking?"

"I am working," Calder answered with dignity. But he
settled his tall, spare frame on the next stool. He reminded
Tenny of the ancient bristlecone pine trees out in the high
desert: so old that nobody knew their true age, gnarled and
weathered, yet still vital and clinging to life.
69

"Double scotch," Tenny called to the bartender. "No
ice. And refill mine."

"An officer and a gentleman," murmured Calder. His
voice was dry and creaking, like an iron gate on rusted hinges,
his face seamed with age.

As the bartender slid the drinks down to them, Tenny
said, "You wanna know who got the assignment."

"I told you I'm working."

Tenny grinned. "Keep your mouth shut till tomorrow?
Murdock's gonna make the official announcement at his
weekly press conference."

"If you can save me the tedium of listening to the chubby
Colonel recite once more how the peace-loving Air Force is
not militarizing space before he gives us the one piece of
information we want to hear, I shall buy the next round, shine
your shoes for a month, and arrange to lose an occasional
poker pot to you."

"The hell you will!"

Calder shrugged. Tenny took a long pull on his beer.

"No leaks ahead of time? Promise?"

Calder sipped at his drink, then said, "On my word as an
ex-officer, former gentleman, and fugitive from Social Secu-
rity."

"Okay. But keep it quiet until Murdock's announce-
ment. It's gonna be Kinsman."

Calder put his glass down on the bar carefully. "Chester
A. Kinsman, the pride of the Air Force? That's hard to
believe."

"Murdock okayed it."

"I know this mission is strictly for publicity," Calder said,
"but Kinsman? In orbit for three days with Celebrity maga-
zine's prettiest female? Does Murdock want publicity or a
paternity suit?"

"Come on, Kinsman's okay."

"Really? From the stories I hear about him, he's cut a
swath right across the Los Angeles basin and has been
working his way up toward the Bay Area."

Tenny countered, "He's young and good-looking. The
girls haven't had many unattached astronauts to play with.
NASA's gang is a bunch of old farts compared to our kids.
And Kinsman's one of the best of them, no fooling."
70

"Wasn't he going around with that folksinger . . . what's
her name? Diane Lawrence, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, while she was out here. But lemme tell you about
what he did over at Edwards. Him and Frank Colt have built
a biplane, an honest-to-god replica of an old Spad fighter.
From the wheels up. He's a solid citizen."

"And I hear he's been playing the Red Baron with it. Is it
true he buzzed Colonel Murdock's helicopter?"

They were cut off by a burst of noise and laughter. Half a
dozen lean. lithe young men in Air Force blues—shining new
captain's double bars on their shoulders—trotted down the
carpeted stairs that led into the bar.

"There they are," said Tenny. "You can ask Kinsman
about it yourself."

Kinsman was grinning happily at the moment as he and
five other astronauts grabbed chairs and circled them around
one little table in the corner, while calling thf ir orders to the
bartender.

Calder took his drink and headed for the table, followed
by Major Tenny.

"Hold it," Frank Colt warned the other astronauts.
"Here comes the media."

"Tight security."

"Why, boys," Calder tried to make his gravelly voice
sound hurt, "don't you trust me?"

Tenny pushed a chair toward the old reporter and took
another one for himself. Turning it backward and straddling
it, so that his chunky arms rested on the chair back, the Major
told his young captains, "It's okay. I spilled it to him."

"How much he pay you, boss?"

"That's between him and me."

As the bartender brought a tray of drinks, Calder said,
"Let the Fourth Estate pay for this round, gentlemen. I want
to pump some information out of you."

"That might take a lot of rounds."

To Kinsman, Calder said, "Congratulations, my boy.
Colonel Murdock must think very highly of you."

They all burst out laughing.

"Murdock?" said Kinsman. "You should've seen his face
when he told me I was it!"

"Looked like he was sucking on lemons."
71

Tenny explained. "The selection for the mission was
made by the personnel computer. Murdock wanted to be
absolutely unprejudiced, so he went strictly by the perfor-
mance ratings in the computer—and out came Kinsman's
name."

"It was a fix," muttered Colt, mainly for effect.

"If Murdock hadn't made so much noise about being so
damned impartial," Tenny went on, "he could've reshuffled
the program and tried again. But 1 was right there when the
personnel officer came in with the name, so he couldn't back
out of it."

"We was robbed," said Smitty.

Calder's ancient, weathered face creased into a grin.
"Well, at least the computer thinks highly of you, Captain
Kinsman, even if Colonel Murdock doesn't. I suppose that's
still some kind of honor."

"More like a privilege. I've been watching that Celebrity
chick through her training. Ripe."

"She'll look even better up in orbit."

"Once she takes off her space suit . . . et cetera."

"Hey, y'know, nobody's ever done it in orbit."

"Yeah . . . weightlessness, zero gravity."

Kinsman looked thoughtful. "Adds a new dimension to
the problem, doesn't it?"

"Three-dimensional." Tenny took the cigar butt from his
mouth and laughed.

Calder rose slowly from his chair and spread his arms to
silence the others. Looking fondly down on Kinsman, he said;

"My boy—more years ago than I care to think about, I
became a charter member of the Mile High Club. It was in
1915, during the height of the Great War, when, at an altitude
of precisely 5,280 feet—as near as my altimeter could tell
me—while circling over St. Paul's Cathedral, I successfully
penetrated an Army nurse. This was in an open cockpit, mind
you. I achieved success despite fogged goggles, cramped
working quarters, and a severe case of windburn."

"Nineteen-fifteen?"

"How the hell old are you, Cy?"

"You sure it wasn't your father you're talking about?"

"Or your grandfather?"

Ignoring them, Calder continued, "Since then, there has
72

been precious little to look forward to. The skin divers
claimed a new frontier, of course, but in fact they were
retrogressing. Any silly-ass dolphin can do it in the water."

He beamed at Kinsman. "But you have something new
going for you: weightlessness. Floating around in zero gravi-
ty, chasing tail in three dimensions. It beggars the imagina-
tion!"

Even Tenny looked impressed.

"Captain Kinsman, I pass the torch to you. To the
founder of the Zero Gee Club!"

As one man, they all rose and silently toasted Kinsman.

Once they sat down again, Tenny burst their balloon.
"You guys don't give Murdock credit for any brains at all.
You don't think he's gonna let Kinsman go up with that broad
ail alone, do you? The Manta isn't as big as a shuttle, but it
still holds three people."

Kinsman's face fell, but the others' lit up.

"It's gonna be a three-man mission!"

"Two men and the blonde."

Tenny warned, "Don't start drooling. Murdock wants a
chaperon, not a gang bang."

It was Kinsman who understood first. Slouching back in
his chair, chin sinking to his chest, he muttered, "Goddam-
mitall, he's sending Jill along."

A collective groan.

"Murdock made up his mind an hour ago," Tenny said.
"He was stuck with you, Chet, so he hit on the chaperon idea.
He's giving you some real chores to do, too. Keep you busy.
Like mating the power pod."

"Jill Meyers," said Art Douglas, with real disappoint-
ment on his face. "At least he could've picked Mary O'Hara.
She's fun."

"Jill's as qualified as you guys are, and she's been taking
this Celebrity gal through her training. I'll bet she knows
more about this mission than any of you guys do."

"She would."

"In fact," Tenny added, with a malicious grin, "she is the
senior captain among you rocket jocks. So show some re-
spect."

Kinsman had only one comment. "Shit."
* * *
73

The key to the Air Force astronaut's role in space was
summed up in two words: quick reaction. The massive space
shuttle that NASA had developed was fine for missions that
could be planned months in advance, but the Air Force
needed a spacecraft that could be sent off on a mission
without such preparation. The smaller, delta-shaped Mania
was the answer. Launched by throwaway solid rocket boost-
ers, carrying no more than three astronauts, the Manta could
put Air Force personnel into orbit within a few hours of the
decision to go.

The bone-rattling roar and vibration of lift-off suddenly
died away. Strapped into the contour seat, scanning the banks
of controls and instruments a few centimeters before his eyes,
Kinsman could feel the pressure and tension slacken to zero.
He was no longer flattened against his seat, but touching it
only lightly, almost floating, restrained only by his safety
harness.

He had stopped counting how many times he had felt
weightlessness after his tenth orbital mission. Yet he still
smiled inside his helmet.

Without thinking about it he touched a control stud in his
seat's armrest. A maneuvering thruster fired briefly and the
ponderous, dazzling bulk of Earth slid into view through the
narrow windshield before him. It curved huge and awesome,
brilliantly blue, streaked with white clouds, beautiful, serene,
shining.

Kinsman could have watched it forever, but he heard the
sounds of motion through his helmet earphones. The two
women were stirring behind him. The Manta's cabin made the
shuttle orbiter seem like a spacious hotel: their three seats
were shoehorned in among racks of instruments and equip-
ment. And they rode into orbit wearing full space suits and
helmets, thanks to some Air Force functionary who wrote the
requirement into the flight regulations.

Jill was officially second pilot and biomedical officer for
this mission. The photographer. Linda Symmes, was simply a
passenger, a public relations project, occupying the third seat,
beside Jill.

Kinsman's earphones crackled with a disembodied link
from Earth. "AF-9, you are confirmed in orbit. Trajectory
nominal. All systems green."

74

"Roger, ground," Kinsman said into his helmet mike.

The voice, already starting to fade, switched to ordinary
conversational speech. "Looks like you're right on the
money, Chet. We'll get the rendezvous parameters and feed
'em to you when you pass over Woomera. Rendezvous is set
for your second orbit."

"Roger, big V. Everything here on the board is in the
green."

"Rog. Vandenberg out." Faintly. "And hey . . . good
luck, Founding Father."

Kinsman grinned at that. He slid his visor up, loosened
his harness, and turned in his seat. "Okay, ladies, we're safely
in orbit."

Jill snapped her visor open.

"Need any help?" Kinsman asked Linda Symmes.

"I'll take care of her," Jill said firmly. "You handle the
controls."

So that's how it's going to be, Kinsman thought.

Jill's face was round and plain and bright as a new penny.
Snub nose sprinkled with freckles, wide mouth, short hair of
undistinguished brown. Kinsman knew that under her pres-
sure suit was a figure that could most charitably be described
as ordinary.

Linda Symmes was another matter entirely. She had
lifted her visor and was staring out at him with wide blue eyes
that combined feminine curiosity with a hint of helplessness.
She was tall, nearly Kinsman's own five-eleven height, with
thick honey-colored hair and a body that he had already
memorized down to the last curve.

In her sweet, high voice she said, "I think I'm going to be
sick."

"Oh, for . . ."

Jill reached into the compartment between their two
seats. "I'll take care of this," she said to Kinsman as she
whipped a white plastic bag open and stuck it over Linda's
face.

Shuddering at the realization of what could happen in
zero gravity. Kinsman turned back to the control panel. He
snapped his visor shut and turned up the air blower in his suit,
trying to cut off the obscene sounds of Linda's wretching.

"For Chrissake," he yelled to Jill, "turn off your mikes,
75

will you! You want me upchucking all over the place too?"

"AF-9, this is Woomera."

Trying to blank his mind to what was going on behind
him. Kinsman thumbed the switch on his communications
panel. "Go ahead, Woomera."

For the next hour Kinsman thanked the gods that he had
plenty of work to do. He matched the orbit of the Manta with
that of the Air Force orbiting station, which had been up for
nearly a year, occupied intermittently by two- or three-
astronaut teams.

Kinsman had thought that the Air Force would make use
of the emptied propellant tanks from shuttle flights that were
left in orbit to be clustered together in the "tank farm" where
he and Colt had been initiated to orbital tomfoolery a couple
of years earlier. But the tanks remained unused, and the Air
Force sent aloft a completely separate little spacecraft that
they were developing into a permanent station in orbit.

It was a fat cylinder, silhouetted against the brilliant
white of the cloud-decked Earth. As he pulled the Manta
close enough for a visual inspection, Kinsman could see the
antennas and airlock and other odd pieces of gear that had
accumulated on the station. Looks more like an orbital junk
heap every trip, he thought. Riding behind it, unconnected in
any way, was the squat cone of the new power pod.

Kinsman circled the unoccupied station once, using
judicious squeezes of the maneuvering thrusters. He touched
a command signal switch and the station's radar beacon came
to life, announced by a blinking green light on his control
panel.

"All systems green," he said to ground control. "Every-
thing looks okay."

"Roger, Niner. You are cleared for docking."

This was more complicated. Be helpful if Jill could read
off...

"Distance, eighty-eight meters," .Till's voice pronounced
clearly in his earphones. "Rate of approach . . ."

Kinsman instinctively turned his head, but the helmet cut
off any possible sight of her. "Hey, how's your patient?"

"Empty. I gave her a sedative. She's out."

"Okay," said Kinsman. "Let's get ourselves docked."

He inched the spacecraft into the docking collar on one
76

end of the station, locked on and saw the panel lights confirm
that the docking was secure.

"Better get Sleeping Beauty zippered up," he told Jill.

Jill said, "I'm supposed to check the hatch."

"Stay put. I'll do it." Kinsman unbuckled and rose
effortlessly out of his seat to bump his helmet lightly against
the overhead hatch.

"You two both sealed tight?"

"Yes."

"Keep an eye on the air gauge." He cracked the hatch
open a scant centimeter.

"Pressure's steady. No red lights."

Nodding, Kinsman pushed the hatch open all the way.
He pulled himself up and through the shoulder-wide hatch.

Light and easy, he reminded himself. No big motions. No
sudden moves.

Sliding through the station hatch he slowly rotated, like
an underwater swimmer doing a lazy rollover, and inspected
every millimeter of the docking collar in the light of his
helmet lamp. Satisfied that it was locked in place, he pushed
himself fully inside the station. Carefully he pressed his
cleated boots into the gridwork flooring and stood upright.
His arms tended to float out, but they bumped the equipment
racks on either side of the narrow central passageway.
Kinsman turned on the station's interior lights, checked the
air supply, pressure and temperature gauges, then shuffled
back to the hatch and pushed himself through again.

He re-entered the Manta upside-down and had to con-
tort himself around the pilot's seat to regain a "normal"
attitude.

"Station's okay," he said at last. "Now how in hell do we
get her through the hatch?"

Jill had already unbuckled the harness over Linda's
shoulders. "You pull, I'll push. She'll bend around the
corners easily enough."

And she did.

The station interior was about the size and shape of a
small transport plane's cabin. On one side nearly its entire
length was taken up by instrument racks, control equipment,
and electronics humming almost inaudibly behind lightweight
plastic panels. Across the narrow separating aisle were the
77

crew stations: control desk, two observation ports, lab
benches. At the far end, behind a discreet curtain, were the
head and the sleeping bags.

Kinsman stood at the control desk, in his blue fatigues
now, his cleated shoes gripping the holes in the gridwork
flooring to keep him from floating off. The desk was almost
shoulder height, a convenient level in zero gee. His space suit
had been stored in the locker beneath the floor panels. He
was running a detailed checkout of the station's life-support
systems: air, water, heat, electrical power. All operating
within permissible limits, although the water supply would
need replenishment at the rate it was being depleted. Recy-
cling was never a hundred percent effective. He stepped
leftward carefully to the communications console; everything
operating normally. The radar screen showed a single large
blip close by: the power pod.

He looked up as Jill came through the curtain from the
bunkroom. She was still in her space suit, with only the
helmet removed.

"How is she?"

Looking tired, Jill answered, "Okay. Still sleeping. I
think she'll be all right when she wakes up,"

"She'd better be. We can't have a wilting flower around
here. I'll abort the mission."

"Give her a chance, Chet. She just lost her cookies when
free-fall hit her. All the training in the world can't prepare
you for those first few minutes."

Kinsman shook his head. But it's fun! he thought. Like
skiing. Or skydiving. Only better.

Jill floated toward him, pushing along the handgrips set
into the equipment racks and desk fronts. Kinsman pulled his
feet free of the restraints and met her halfway.

"Here, let me help you out of that suit,"

"I can do it myself."

"Sure. But it's easier with help."

After several minutes Jill was free of the bulky suit and
standing in front of the miniaturized biomed lab. Ducking
slightly because of the curving overhead, Kinsman glided to
the galley. It was about half as wide as a phone booth, not as
deep nor as tall.

"Coffee, tea, or milk?"

78

Jill grinned at him. "Orange juice."

He reached for a concentrate bag. "You're a tough
woman to satisfy."

"No, I'm not. I'm easy to get along with. Just one of the
guys."

That's a dig, Kinsman recognized. But who's it aimed at?
And why?

For the next couple of hours they checked out the
station's equipment in detail. Kinsman was re-assembling one
of the high-resolution cameras after cleaning it, parts hanging
in midair all around him as he worked intently. Jill was
nursing a straggly-looking philodendron that had been smug-
gled aboard months earlier and was now inching from the
biomed bench toward the ceiling light panels.

"How's the green monster?" Kinsman asked.

"It survived without us," said Jill, "but just barely.
Maybe we could keep the temperature up a little higher in
between missions once we get the power pack operating."

Linda pushed back the curtain from the sleeping area
and stepped uncertainly into the main compartment.

Jill noticed her first. "Hi. How're you feeling?"

Kinsman looked up. She was in tight-fitting coveralls,
coral red. He turned abruptly, scattering camera parts in
every direction.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

Smiling sheepishly, "I think so. I'm kind of embar-
rassed . - ." Her voice was high and soft.

"Oh, that's all right," Kinsman said eagerly. "It happens
to practically everybody. I got sick myself my first time in
orbit."

"That," said Jill, dodging a slowly tumbling lens that had
ricocheted gently off the ceiling, "is a little white lie, meant to
make you feel at ease."

Kinsman forced himself not to frown.

Jill added, "Chet, you'd better pick up those camera
parts before they get so scattered you won't be able to find
them all."

He wanted to snap an answer, thought better of it, and
replied merely, "Right."

As he finished the job on the camera he studied Linda
carefully. The color was back in her face. She seemed steady,
79

clear-eyed, not frightened or upset. Maybe she'll be okay,
after all. Jill made her a cup of tea, which she sucked from the
lid's plastic spout.

Kinsman went to the control desk and punched up the
mission schedule on the computer screen.

"Jill, it's past your bedtime."

"I'm not sleepy," she said.

"Yeah, I know. But you've had a busy day, little girl, and
tomorrow's going to be even busier. Now get your four hours
and then I'll get mine. Got to be fresh for the mating."

"Mating?" Linda asked from the far end of the cabin, a
good five strides from Kinsman. Then she remembered.
"Oh . . . you mean linking the power module to the station."

Suppressing half a dozen possible retorts. Kinsman
spelled out soberly, "Extravehicular activity."

Jill reluctantly drifted toward the bunkroom. "Okay, I'll
sack in. I am tired, I guess, but I never seem to get really
sleepy up here."

Wonder what kind of a briefing Murdock gave her? She's
sure acting like a goddamned chaperon.

Jill glided into the shadows of the sleeping area and
pulled the curtain firmly shut. After a few minutes of silence
Kinsman turned to Linda.

"Alone at last."

She smiled back at him.

"Um . . . you just happen to be standing where I've got
to install this camera." He nudged the assembled hardware so
that it floated gently toward her.

She moved away slowly, carefully, holding the handgrip
on the nearest equipment rack with both hands as if she were
afraid of falling. Kinsman slid to the observation port and
stopped the camera's slow-motion flight with one out-
stretched hand. He started mounting the camera into the
fixture set into the observation port.

"You really feel okay?"

"Yes, honestly."

"Think you'll be up to EVA tomorrow?"

"I hope so," Linda said. "I want to go outside with you."

I'd rather go inside with you, Kinsman said to himself as
he worked.

An hour later they were hovering side by side at the
80

observation port, looking out at the curving bulk of Earth,
the blue and white splendor of the cloud-mottled Pacific.
Kinsman was trying to remember the mission flight plan,
comparing the times when Jill would be sleeping against the
long stretches when the station would be orbiting between
ground stations, with no possibility of interruptions.

"Is that land?" Linda asked, pointing to a thick band of
clouds wrapping the horizon.

Glancing at the computer display of their orbital track,
down by the control desk. Kinsman replied, "The coast of
Chile, South America."

"There's another tracking station down there, isn't
there?"

"NASA station, not part of our network. We only use
Air Force stations."

"Why is that?"

"This is strictly a military operation. We have to be able
to operate entirely separately from the civilian space agency."

"Doesn't that cost more money?"

Kinsman thought of Murdock, and the reason why the
Pentagon had agreed to let Celebrity magazine send a photo-
journalist to the Air Force space station. "Maybe. But it lets
the civilians do their thing without getting involved in military
operations. And vice versa. Like the separation of church and
state."

"So everything you do here," Linda said, "is strictly
military."

He made himself grin at that. "Yep. But it's not very
warlike. We don't have any weapons aboard. We couldn't
hurt a flea."

"I thought you tested giant laser weapons up here. You
know, for the Star Wars program."

"No," he replied, shaking his head. "No death rays. No
killer satellites. We have reflectors mounted outside, to test
laser beams fired at us from the ground. And someday we will
test antimissile lasers and other SDI stuff, I guess. But for
now, all we do is observe the Earth and check out hardware
that's supposed to run in zero gravity. And people," he
added. "We test people up here. Jill's specialty is biomed-
icine. She's studying how well people perform in zero gee."

Linda repeated, "But this station will become a testing
81

center for Star Wars weapons."

"When and if the Pentagon and the Congress can agree
on the matter," Kinsman admitted. "Then we'll get a lot
more secrecy, a lot more of the hup-two-three crap."

She smiled. "You don't like that?"

"There's only one thing the Air Force has done lately
that I'm in complete agreement with."

"What's that?"

"Bringing you up here."

The smile stayed on her face but her eyes moved away
from him. "Now you sound like a guy on the make."

"Not like an officer and a gentleman?"

She looked straight at him again. "Let's change the
subject."

It's already been changed, he thought. We're off the
weapons-in-space kick, and we're going to stay off it. "Sure.
Okay," he said aloud. "You're here to get a story. Murdock
wants as much publicity for us as NASA gets. And the
Pentagon wants to show the world that we're not testing death
rays in orbit. We may be military, but we're nice military."

"And you?" Linda asked, seriously. "What do you
want? How does an Air Force captain get into the space
cadets?"

"By dint of personal valor. I thought it would be
fun—until my first orbital flight. Now it's a way of life."

"Really? You like it that much? Why?"

With an honest grin he answered, "Wait until we go
outside. Then you'll see."

Jill came back into the cabin precisely on schedule, and it
was Kinsman's turn to sleep. He seldom had difficulty sleep-
ing on Earth, never in orbit. But he wondered about Linda's
reaction to going EVA as he zippered himself into his mesh
sleeping bag and adjusted the band across his forehead that
kept his head from bobbing weightlessly under the pressure of
the blood pumping through his carotid arteries.

Worming his arms inside the nylon mesh, snug and
secure, he closed his eyes and sank into sleep. His last
conscious thought was a nagging worry that Linda would be
terrified of EVA.

When he awoke and Linda took her sleep shift, he talked
it over with Jill.

82

"I think she'll be all right. Chet. Don't hold those first
few minutes against her."

"I don't know. There's only two kinds of people up here:

you either love it or you're scared shitless. And you can't fake
it. If she goes ape out there ..."

"She won't," Jill said. "Anyway, you'll be out there to
help her. She won't be going outside until you're finished with
the mating task. She wanted to get pictures of you actually at
work, but I told her she'll have to settle for some posed
shots."

Kinsman nodded. But the worry persisted. I wonder if
Cy Calder's nurse was scared of flying?

He was pulling on his boots, wedging his free foot against
an equipment rack to keep from floating off, when Linda
returned from her sleep.

"Ready for a walk around the block?" he asked her.

She smiled and nodded without the slightest hesitation.
"I'm looking forward to it. Can I get a few shots of you
getting into your suit?"

Maybe she'll be okay, he hoped.

Finally he was sealed into the space suit. Linda and Jill
stood back as Kinsman floated to the EVA airlock hatch. It
was set into the floor, directly beneath the hatch that the
Manta was linked to. Kinsman opened the massive hatch, slid
himself down into the airlock, and closed the hatch securely.
He always felt a little like a blimp in the bulky, pressurized
space suit. The metal airlock chamber was roughly the size of
a coffin; he had to worm his arm up to reach the control
panel. He leaned against the stud and heard the whine and
clatter of the pump sucking the air out of the cramped
chamber.

The red light came on, indicating vacuum. He touched
the stud that opened the outer hatch. It was beneath his feet,
but as it slid open to reveal blackness flecked with stars,
Kinsman's weightless orientation flip-flopped and he suddenly
felt that he was standing on his head.

"Going out now," he said into his helmet mike.

"Roger," Jill's professional voice responded.

Carefully he eased himself through the open hatch,
gripping its rim with one gloved hand as he slid fully outside,
the way a swimmer holds the rail for a moment before kicking
83

free into the deep water. Outside. Swinging his body around
slowly he took in the immense beauty of Earth, overwhelm-
ingly bright even through his tinted visor. Beyond its curving
limb was the darkness of infinity, with the beckoning stars
watching gravely.

Alone now. He worked his way along the handgrips to
where the MMUs were stored and backed himself into the
nearest one, then fastened the harness across his chest. He
pushed away from the station, eyes still on the endless
panorama of Earth. Inside his own tight, self-contained
universe. Independent of everything and everybody. How
easy it would be to jet away from the station and float away by
himself forever. And be dead in six hours. Ay, there's the
rub.

Instead, he used the thrusters to nudge him over to the
power pod. It was riding silently behind the station, a squat
truncated cone, one edge brilliantly lit by the sun, the rest
bathed in the softer light reflected from the dayside of Earth.

Kinsman's job was to inspect the power pod, check the
status of its systems, and then mate it to the electrical system
of the station. It was a nuclear power generator, capable of
providing the electricity to run a multimegawatt laser. Every-
thing necessary for the task of mating it to the station
—checkout instruments, connectors, tools—had been built
into the pod, waiting for an astronaut to use them.

It would have been simple work on Earth. In zero gee it
was complicated. The slightest motion of any part of your
body started you drifting. You had to fight against all the
built-in instincts of a lifetime; had to work hard constantly to
remain in one place. It was easy to become exhausted in zero
gee, especially when your suit began to overheat.

Kinsman accepted all this with hardly a conscious
thought. He worked slowly, methodically, like a sleepwalker,
using as little motion as possible, letting himself drift slightly
until a more-or-less natural motion counteracted and pulled
him back in the opposite direction. Ride the waves, he told
himself, slow and easy. There was rhythm to his work, the
natural dreamlike rhythm of weightlessness.

His earphones were silent. He said nothing. All he heard
was the purring of the suit's air blowers and his own steady
breathing. All he saw was his work.
84

Finally he inserted the last thick power cable to the
receptacle waiting on the sidewall of the station. I pronounce
you station and power source, he said silently. Inspecting the
checkout lights alongside the connectors, he saw that they
were all green. May you produce many kilowatts.

"Okay, it's finished," he announced, pushing slightly
away from the station. "How's Linda doing?"

Jill answered at once, "She's all set."

"Send her out."

She came out of the hatch slowly, uncertainly, wavering
feet sliding out first from the bulbous airlock. It reminded
Kinsman of a film he had seen of a whale giving birth.

"Welcome to the real world," he said once her helmet
cleared the airlock hatch.

She turned to answer him and he heard her gasp and he
knew that now he liked her.

"It's . . . it's . . ."

"Staggering," Kinsman suggested. "And look at you—no
hands!"

She was floating freely, space suit laden with camera
gear, tether flexing easily behind her. Kinsman could not see
her face through the tinted visor, but he could hear the awe in
her voice, even in her breathing.

"I've never seen anything so absolutely overpow-
ering ..."

And then suddenly she was all business, reaching for a
camera, snapping away at the Earth and the station and even
the distant Moon, rapid-fire. She moved too fast and started
to tumble. Kinsman jetted over and steadied her, holding her
by the shoulders.

"Hey, take it easy. They're not going away. You've got
lots of time."

"I want to get some shots of you, and the station. Can
you go over by the power pod and go through some of the
motions of your work on it?"

Kinsman posed for her, answered her questions, rescued
a camera when she fumbled it out of her gloved hands and
missed several grabs at it.

"Judging distances out here is a little wacky," he said as
he handed the camera back to her.

Jill called them twice and ordered them back inside.
85

"Chet, you're already fifteen minutes over the schedule
limit!"

"There's plenty slop in the schedule; we can stay out a
while longer."

"You're going to get her exhausted."
"I really feel fine," Linda said, her voice lyrical.
"How much more film do you have?" Kinsman asked
her.

Without needing to look at the camera she answered,
"Six more shots."

"Okay. We'll come in when the film runs out, Jill."
"You're going to be in darkness in another five minutes."
Turning to Linda, floating upside-down with the cloud-
decked Earth behind her, he said, "Save your film for the
sunset, and then shoot like hell when it comes,"
"The sunset? What'll I focus on?"
"You'll know when it happens. Just watch."
It came fast but she was equal to it. As the station swung
in its orbit toward the Earth's night shadow, the Sun dropped
to the horizon and shot off a spectacular few moments of the
purest reds and oranges and finally a heart-catching blue.
Kinsman watched in silence, hearing Linda's breath going
faster and faster as she worked the camera.

Then they were in darkness. Kinsman flicked on his
helmet lamp, Linda was just hanging there, camera in hand.

"It's . . . impossible to describe." Her voice sounded
empty, drained. "If I hadn't seen it ... if I didn't get it on
film, I don't think I'd be able to convince myself that I wasn't
dreaming."

Jill's voice rasped in his earphones. "Chet, get inside!
This is against every safety reg, keeping her outside in the
dark."

He looked toward the station. Lights were visible from
the ports along its side. Otherwise he could barely make out
its shape, even though it was only a few meters away.

"Okay, okay. Turn on the airlock lights so we can see the
hatch."

Linda was still bubbling about the view outside long after
they had pulled off their space suits and eaten sandwiches and
cookies.

"Have you ever been out there?" she asked Jill.
86

Perched on the biomed lab's desk edge, near the mouse
colony, Jill nodded curtly. "Eight times."

"Isn't it spectacular? I hope the pictures come out; some
of my exposure settings ..."

"They'll be fine," Jill said. "And if they're not we have a
backlog of photos you can use."

"Oh, but they wouldn't have the shots of Chet working
on the power pod."

Jill shrugged. "Aren't you going to take more pictures in
here? If you want to get some photos of real space veterans,
you ought to take the mice here. They've been up here for six
months now, living and raising families. And they don't make
a fuss about it, either."

"Well, some of us do exciting things," Kinsman said
lightly, "and some of us tend mice."

Jill glowered at him.

Glancing at his wristwatch. Kinsman said, "Ladies, it's
my sack time. I've had a very trying day: mechanic, tour
guide, photographer's model. Work, work, work."

He glided past Linda with a smile, kept it for Jill as he
went by her. She was still glaring.

When he woke up again and went back into the main
cabin, Jill was talking pleasantly with Linda as the two of
them hovered over the microscope and a specimen rack at the
biomed lab.

Linda saw him first. "Oh, hi. Jill's been showing me the
spores she's studying. And I photographed the mice. Maybe
they'll go on the cover instead of you."

Kinsman grinned. "She's been poisoning your mind
against me." But to himself he wondered, Just what in hell
has Jill been telling her?

Jill drifted over to the control desk and examined the
mission log on the computer display screen,

"Ground control says the power pod checks out all
okay," she said. "You did a good job."

"Thanks." He hesitated a moment. Then, "Whose turn
in the sack is it?"

"Mine," Jill answered.

"Okay. Anything special?"

"No. Everything's on schedule. Next data transmission
comes up in twelve minutes. Kodiak station,"
87

Kinsman nodded. "Sleep tight."

Once Jill shut the curtain to the bunkroom. Kinsman
went to the control desk and reviewed the mission schedule.
Linda stayed at the biology bench, three gliding paces away.

After a glance across the control board to check all the
systems status indicators, Kinsman turned to Linda.

"Well, now do you know what I meant about this being a
way of life?"

"I think so. It's so different . . ."

"It's the real thing. Complete freedom. Brave new
world. After ten minutes of EVA everything else is just
toothpaste."

"It certainly was exciting."

"More than that. It's living. Being on the ground is a
drag. Even flying a plane is dull now. This is where the fun
is ... this is where you can feel alive. Better than booze.
Better than drugs. It's the highest kick there is, as close to
heaven as anyone can get."

"You're really serious?"

"Damned right I am. I've been thinking of asking
Murdock for a transfer to NASA duty. Air Force missions
don't include the Moon, and I'd like to walk around on the
new world, see the sights."

She smiled at him. "I'm afraid I'm not that enthusiastic.
And besides, not even NASA's been on the Moon for years."

"They will be," he replied. "Sooner or later."

"You really think so?"

"Sure. But what's really important is that up here you're
free, really free. All the laws and rules and prejudices that
they've been dumping on us all our lives—they're all down
there. Up here it's a new start. You can be yourself and do
your own thing, and nobody can tell you differently."

"As long as your air holds out."

"That's the physical end of it, sure. We live in a
microcosm, courtesy of the aerospace industry and the scien-
tists. But there're no strings on us. The brass can't make us
follow their rules. We're writing the rulebooks ourselves. For
the first time since 1776 we're writing new social rules."

Linda looked thoughtful. Kinsman could not tell if she
was genuinely impressed by his line or if she knew what he
was trying to lead up to. He turned back to the control desk
88

and busied himself with the mission flight plan again.

He had carefully considered all the possible opportuni-
ties and narrowed them down to two. Both of them tomor-
row, over the Indian Ocean. Forty-five minutes between
ground stations and Jill asleep both times.

"AF-9, thisisKodiak."

He reached up for the radio switch. "AF-9, Kodiak. Go
ahead."

"We are receiving your automatic data transmission loud
and clear."

"Roger, Kodiak. Everything normal here. Mission pro-
file unchanged."

"Okay, Niner. We have nothing new for you. Oh,
wait . . . Chet, Lew Regneson is here and he says he's put
twenty bucks on your butt to uphold the Air Force's honor.
Keep 'em flying."

Keeping his face as straight as possible, Kinsman an-
swered, "Roger, Kodiak. Mission profile unchanged."

"Good luck!"

Linda's thoughtful expression had deepened. "What was
that all about?"

He looked straight into those cool blue eyes and lied,
"Damned if I know. Regneson's one of the astronaut corps.
Been assigned to Kodiak for the past six weeks. He must be
going ice-happy. Thought it'd be best just to humor him."

"I see." But she looked unconvinced.

"Have you checked any of your pictures through the film
processor yet?"

Shaking her head, Linda replied, "No. I don't want to
risk them on Air Force equipment. I'll process them in New
York when we get back."

"Damned good equipment," Kinsman said, "even if it
was built by the lowest bidder."

"I'm fussy."

He shrugged and let it go. At least the subject of the
conversation had been changed.

"Chet?"

"What?"

"The power pod . . . what's it for? Colonel Murdock got
awfully coy when I asked him."

"It's classified," he said. "I don't know myself."
89

"It's a nuclear reactor, isn't it?"

"A little one."

"Isn't it dangerous?"

He laughed. "You're getting more cosmic rays through
your pretty bod right now than any radiation that might come
from the reactor."

"Cosmic rays?" She looked alarmed.

"Nothing to worry about."

"They're not dangerous?"

"Not as dangerous as living in Manhattan."

Linda spent a moment thinking that over. Then, "The
reactor's going to power Star Wars stuff, isn't it?"

"We call it SDI: Strategic Defense Initiative."

"But that's what it's for, isn't it?"

His shrug would have lifted him off the floor if his cleated
shoes hadn't been wedged into the grillwork. "Could be."

"So your brave new world is involved in war."

"Defensive systems like SDI won't kill anybody," he
said. "Their purpose is to prevent nuclear war from happen-
ing."

"But this is a military station."

"Unarmed. Two things this brave new world doesn't
have yet: death and love."

"People have died in space."

"Never in orbit. Three Russian cosmonauts died during
re-entry. People have been killed in ground or flying acci-
dents. But no one's ever died up here. And no one's made
love, either."

Despite herself, it seemed to Kinsman, she smiled.
"Have there been any chances for it?"

"Not among NASA's astronauts, not in the shuttle. And
the Russians have had a couple of women cosmonauts, but
you know how puritanical they are."

Linda thought it over for a swift moment. "This isn't
exactly the bridal suite at the Waldorf. I've seen better motel
rooms along the Jersey Turnpike."

"Pioneers have to rough it."

"I'm a photographer, Chet, not a pioneer."

Kinsman spread his hands helplessly. "Strike three; I'm
out."

90

"Better luck next time."

"Thanks." He returned his attention to the mission flight
plan. Next time will be in exactly sixteen hours, sweetface.

When Jill came out of the sack it was Linda's turn to
sleep. Kinsman moved to the camera monitor screen, sucking
on a container of lukewarm coffee. They were passing over
Plesetsk, the Soviet military launching center. Clouds cov-
ered the area, so he switched the monitor to display the radar
imagery. A space shuttle sat at one end of the ten-thousand-
foot runway down there. And, as usual, at least six of the
dozens of launch pads had boosters on them.

They launch their antisatellite stuff from there, he
thought. Does one of those boosters have an ASAT on it,
primed to take us out?

No, he told himself. That would mean war. Nuclear war.
The rumors that unmanned reconnaissance satellites had
been destroyed by ASATs were just the usual scuttlebutt that
military people liked to scare each other with.

He pulled his eyes away from the screen and looked at
Jill. She was taking a blood sample from one of the mice.

"How're they doing?"

Without looking up she answered, "Fine. They've
adapted to weightlessness beautifully. Calcium levels have
evened off, muscle tone is good. They're even living longer
than they would on Earth."

"Then there's hope for us two-legged types?"

Jill returned the mouse to the colony entrance and
snapped the plastic lid shut. It scampered to rejoin its clan in
the transparent maze of tunnels-

"I can't see any physical reason why humans couldn't live
in orbit indefinitely," she answered. "It might even be
beneficial."

"You mean we'd live longer?"

Jill nodded. "Maybe. I'd certainly be better off up here.
No allergies."

"That's right," he said. "No pollen or dust."

"I never sneeze up here. I never get headaches." Jill
smiled, a trifle ruefully. "Living up here eliminates a lot of
physical problems."

Kinsman caught a slight but definite stress on the word
91

physical. "You think there might be emotional problems, in
the long run?"

"Chet, I can see emotional problems on a three-day
mission." Jill forced the blood specimen into a stoppered test
tube.

"What do you mean?"

"Come on," she said, her face showing disappointment
and distaste. "It's obvious what you're trying to do. Your
tail's been wagging like a puppy dog whenever she's in sight."

"You haven't been sleeping much, have you?"

"I haven't been eavesdropping, if that's what you mean.
I've simply been watching you watching her. And some of
those messages from groundside ... is the whole Air Force
in on this? How much money's being bet?"

"I'm not involved in any betting. I'm just . . ."

"You're just taking a risk on fouling up this mission and
maybe killing the three of us just to prove that you're Tarzan
and she's Jane."

"Goddammitall, Jill, now you sound like Murdock."

The sour look on her face deepened. "Do I? Okay,
you're a big boy. If you want to play Tarzan while you're on
duty, that's your business. I won't get in your way. I'll take a
sleeping pill and stay in the bunk."

"You will?"

"That's right. You can have your blond Barbie Doll, and
good luck to you. But I'll tell you this . . . she's a phony. I've
talked to her long enough to dig that. You're trying to use her,
but she's trying to use us, too. She was pumping me about the
power pod while you were sleeping. She's here for her own
reasons, Chet, and if she plays along with you it won't be for
the romance and adventure of it all."

My God Almighty, thought Kinsman. Jilt's jealous!

It was tense and quiet when Linda returned from the
bunkroom. The three of them worked separately: Jill fussing
over the algae colony on the shelf above the biomed desk;

Kinsman methodically taking film from the surveillance cam-
eras for return to Earth and reloading them; Linda clicking
away efficiently at both of them.

Ground control called up to ask how things were going.
Both Jill and Linda threw sharp glances at Kinsman.
92

He replied merely, "Following mission profile. All sys-
tems green."

They shared a meal of precooked boneless chicken and
bland vegetables together, still mostly in silence, and then it
was Kinsman's turn in the sack again. But not before he
rechecked the flight plan. Jill goes in next, and we'll have four
hours alone, including a stretch over the Indian Ocean.

He found himself whistling a romantic theme from
Scheherazade as he zippered himself into his sleeping bag.

Once Jill retired, Kinsman immediately called Linda
over to the radar display on the pretext of showing her the
image of a Soviet satellite.

"We're coming close now." They hunched side by side in
front of the orange-glowing radar screen, close enough for
Kinsman to scent her delicate but very feminine perfume.
"Only a couple hundred kilometers away."

"Should we blink our lights at them or something?"

"It's unmanned."

"Oh."

"It is a little like flying in World War I up here," Kinsman
realized, straightening up. "Just being up here is more
important than which nation you're from."

"Do the Russians feel that way, too?"

He nodded. "I think so."

Linda stood in front of him so close that they were almost
touching.

"You know," Kinsman said, "when I first saw you on the
base I thought you were the photographer's model, not the
photographer."

Gliding slightly away from him, she answered, "I started
out as a model . . ." Her voice trailed off.

"Don't stop. What were you going to say?"

Something about her had changed, Kinsman realized.
She was still coolly friendly, but now she was alert, as wary as
a deer in hunting season, and . . . sad?

She sighed. "Modeling is a dead end. I finally figured out
that there's more of a future on the other side of the camera."

"You had too much brains for modeling."

"Don't flatter me."

"Why on Earth should I flatter you?"

"We're not on Earth."

93

"Touche."

She drifted, dreamlike, self-absorbed, toward the galley.
Kinsman followed her.

"How long have you been on the other side of the
camera?" he asked.

Turning back toward him, "I'm supposed to be getting
the story of your life, not vice versa."

"Okay . . . ask me some questions."

"How many people know that you're supposed to lay me
up here?"

Kinsman felt his face make a smile, an automatic delay-
ing tactic. What the hell, he thought. Aloud he replied, tt!
don't know. It started out as a little joke among a few of the
guys . . . apparently the word has spread."

"And how much money do you stand to win or lose?"
She was not smiling.

"Money?" Kinsman was genuinely surprised. "Money
doesn't enter into it."

"Oh, no?"

"No. Not with me."

The tenseness in her body seemed to relax a little. "Then
why ... I mean . . . what's it all about?"

Kinsman ran a hand across his jaw. It felt stubbly. "It's
about making love. That's all. I mean, you're damned pretty,
neither one of us has any strings, nobody's tried it in zero gee
before . . . why the hell not?"

"But why should I?"

"That's the big question. That's what makes an adven-
ture out of it."

She looked at him thoughtfully, leaning her tall frame
against the galley paneling. "An adventure. There's nothing
more to it in your mind than that?"

"Depends," Kinsman answered. "Hard to tell ahead of
time."

"You live in a very simple world, Chet."

"I try to. Don't you?"

She shook her head. "No, my world's very complicated."

"But it includes sex."

Now she smiled, but there was no pleasure in it. "Does
it?"

94

"You mean never?" Kinsman's voice sounded incredu-
lous, even to himself.

She did not answer.

"Never at ail? I can't believe that ..."

"No," she said, nearly whispering. "Not never at all. But
never for . . . for an adventure. For job security, yes. For
getting the good assignments. For teaching me how to use a
camera in the first place. But never for fun ... at least, not
for a long, long time has it been for fun."

Kinsman looked into those cold blue eyes and saw that
they were completely dry and aimed straight back at him. His
insides felt strange. He put out a hand toward her but she did
not move a muscle.

"That's . . . that's a damned lonely way to live,"he said.

"Yes, it is." Her voice was a steel ice pick, without a
trace of self-pity in it.

"But how did it happen? Why . . . ?"

She leaned her head back against the galley paneling, her
eyes looking away, into the past. "I had a baby. He didn't
want it. I had to give her up for adoption—or have it aborted.
The kid should be five years old now. I don't know where she
is." She straightened up, looked back at Kinsman. "But I
learned that sex is for making babies or making careers. Not
for fun."

Kinsman hung there in midair, feeling as if he had just
taken a low blow. The only sound in the cabin was the faint
hum of electrical machinery, the whisper of air fans.

Linda broke into bitter laughter. "I wish you could see
your own face: Tarzan the Ape Man, trying to figure out a
nuclear reactor."

"The only trouble with zero gee," he grumbled, "is that
you can't hang yourself,"

Jill sensed something was wrong, it seemed to Kinsman.
The moment she came out of the bunkroom she started
sniffing around, giving quizzical looks. When Linda retired
for her final rest period before re-entry, Jill asked him:

"How're you two getting along?"

"Okay."

"Really?"

95

"Really. We're going to open a disco in here. Wanna

boogie?"

Her nose wrinkled. "You're hopeless."

For more than an hour they worked at their separate
tasks. Kinsman was concentrating on recalibrating the radar
mapper when Jill handed him a bulb of hot coffee.

He turned toward her. Even floating several inches off
the floor, Jill was shorter than he.

"Thanks."
Her round face was very serious. "Something's bothering

you, Chet. What did she do to you?"

"Nothing."

"Really?"

"For Chrissake, don't start that again' Nothing, absolute-
ly nothing happened. Maybe that's what's bothering me."

Shaking her head, "No, you're worried about something

and it's not yourself."

"Don't be so damned dramatic, Jill."

She put a hand on his shoulder. "Chet ... I know this is
all a game to you, but people can get hurt at this kind of game
and . . . well . . . nothing in life is ever as good as you expect

it will be."

Looking into her intent brown eyes. Kinsman felt his
irritation vanish. "Okay, little sister. Thanks for the philoso-
phy. I'm a big boy, though, and I know what it's all about."

"You just think you know."

Shrugging, "Okay, I think I know. Maybe nothing is as
good as it ought to be, but a man's innocent until proven
guilty, and everything new is as good as gold until you find
some tarnish on it. That's my philosophy."

"All right, slugger." Jill smiled ruefully. "Be the ape
man. Fight it out for yourself. I just don't want to see her hurt

you."

"I won't get hurt."

"You hope. Okay, if there's anything I can do . . ."

"Yeah, there is something."

"What?"
"When you sack in again, make sure Linda sees you take

a sleeping pill, will you?"

Jill's face went expressionless. "Sure," she answered
flatly. "Anything for a fellow officer. And gentleman."
96

She made a great show, several hours later, of taking a
sleeping pill so that she could rest well on her final nap before
re-entry. It seemed to Kinsman that Jill deliberately laid it on
with a trowel.

"Do you always take sleeping pills on the final time
around?" Linda asked Kinsman after Jill had gone into the
bunkroom and yanked the curtain shut.

"Got to be fully rested and alert for the re-entry,"
Kinsman said. "Trickiest part of the mission."

"I see."

"Nothing to worry about, though."

He went to the control desk and busied himself with the
tasks that the mission plan called for. Linda hovered beside
him, within arm's reach. Kinsman chatted briefly with Kodiak
station, on schedule, and made an entry in the log.

Three more ground stations and we're over the Indian
Ocean, with world enough and time.

But he did not look up from the control panel. He tested
each system aboard the station, fingers nicking over the
keyboard pads, eyes focused on the screen readouts that told
him exactly how each system was performing.

"Chet?"

"Yes?" Without looking up.

"Are you sore at me?"

Still not looking at her, "No. Why should I be sore at
you?"

"Welt, maybe not angry, but . . ."

"Feeling put down?"

"Yes. Hurt. Something like that."

He punched in the final commands for the computer,
then turned to face her. "Linda, I haven't had the time to
figure out what I feel. You're a complicated woman, maybe
too complicated for me. Life's got enough twists to it."

Her mouth drooped a little.

"On the other hand," he grinned, "we WASPs ought to
stick together. Not many of us left."

That brought a faint smile. "But I'm not a WASP. My
real name's Szymanski. I changed it when I started model-
ing."

"Another complication."

She was about to reply when the radio speaker crackled,
97

"AF-9, this is Cheyenne. Cheyenne to AF-9."

Kinsman leaned over and thumbed the transmitter
switch. "AF-9 to Cheyenne. You're coming through faint but
clear."

"Roger Nine. We're receiving your telemetry. All sys-
tems look good from here."

"On-board systems check also green/' Kinsman said.
"Mission profile nominal. No excursions. Tasks about ninety-
five percent complete."

"Roger. Vandenberg suggests you begin checking out
your spacecraft on the next orbit. You are scheduled for
re-entry in ten hours."

"Right. Will do."

"Okay, Chet. Everything looks cool from here. Any-
thing else to report, ol' Founding Father?"

"Mind your own business." He snapped the transmitter
off.

Linda was grinning at him.

"What's so funny?"

"You are. You're getting very touchy about this whole
thing."

"I'm going to stay touchy for a long time to come. Those
guys'll hound me about this for years."

"You could always tell lies."

"About you? No, I don't think I could do that. If the girl
were anonymous, that's one thing. But they all know you,
where you work . . ."

"You're a gallant officer. I suppose that kind of story
would get back to New York."

He grimaced. "You'd be on the cover of Penthouse, like
that Miss America was."

She laughed at that. "They'd have a hard time finding
nude pictures of me."

"Careful now." Kinsman put up a warning hand. "Don't
stir up my imagination any more than it already is. It's tough
enough being gallant, under these circumstances."

They remained apart, silent. Kinsman cleated firmly at
the control desk, Linda drifting back toward the galley, nearly
touching the curtain that screened off the sleeping area.

Patrick Air Force Base called in and Kinsman gave a
terse report. When he looked at Linda again she was hovering
98

by the observation window across the aisle from the galley.
Looking back at him, her face was troubled, her eyes—he was
not sure what he saw in her eyes. They looked different: no
longer ice-cool, no longer calculating. They looked aware,
concerned, almost frightened.

Still Kinsman stayed silent. He checked and double-
checked the control board, making absolutely certain that
every valve and transistor aboard the station was functioning
perfectly. He glanced at the digital clock blinking below the
main display screen. Five more minutes before Ascension
calls. He started checking the board again.

Ascension called precisely on schedule. Feeling his in-
nards tightening. Kinsman gave his standard report in a
deliberately calm and detached way. Ascension signed off.

With a last long look at the controls. Kinsman pushed
himself away from the desk and drifted, hands faintly touch-
ing the grips along the aisle, toward Linda.

"You've been awfully quiet," he said, standing next to
her.

"I've been thinking about what you said a while ago."
What was it in her eyes? Anticipation? Fear? "It . . . it is a
damned lonely life, Chet."

He took her arm and gently pulled her toward him. He
kissed her.

"But . . ."

"It's all right," he whispered. "No one will bother us. No
one will know."

She shook her head. "It's not that easy, Chet. It's not
that simple."

"Why not? We're here together . . . what's so compli-
cated?"

"But life is complicated, Chet. And love—there's more
to life than having fun."

"Sure there is. But it's meant to be enjoyed, too. What's
wrong with taking a chance when it comes along? What's so
damned complicated or important? We're above the cares
and worries of the Earth. Maybe it's only for a few more
hours, but it's here and it's now. It's us. Alone. They can't
touch us, they can't force us to do anything or stop us from
doing what we want to. We're on our own. Understand?
Completely on our own."

99

She nodded, her eyes still wide with the look of a
frightened doe. But her hands slid around him and together
they drifted back toward the control desk. Wordlessly, Kins-
man turned off all the lights so that all they saw was the glow
from the control board and the flickering of the computer as it
murmured to itself. They were in their own world now, their
private universe, floating freely and softly in the darkness.
Touching, drifting, caressing, searching the new seas and
continents, they explored their world.

Jill stayed in her bedroll until Linda entered the sleeping
area, quietly, to see if she had awakened yet. Kinsman went
to the control desk feeling, not tired, yet strangely numb.

The rest of the flight was strictly routine. Jill and
Kinsman did their jobs, speaking to each other only when
they had to. Linda took a brief nap, then returned to snap a
few last pictures. Finally they crawled back into the Manta,
disengaged from the station, and started the long curving

flight back to Earth.

Kinsman took a last look at the majestic beauty of the
planet, serene and unique among the stars. Then they felt the
surge of the rocket's retrofire and dipped into the atmo-
sphere. Air heated beyond endurance blazed around them in
a fiery grip as they buffeted through re-entry, their tiny craft a
flaming falling star. Pressed down into his seat, his radio
useless while the incandescent sheath of re-entry gases
swathed them. Kinsman let the automatic controls bring them
through the heat and pummeling turbulence, down to an
altitude where the bat-winged craft smoothed out and began
behaving like an airplane.

He took control and steered the Manta across the Pacific,
checking the computer's programmed flight path against his
actual position. Right on the money. The coast of California
rose to meet him, brown and gray and white where the
beaches met the ceaseless cadence of the surf. Gliding like a
bird now. Kinsman brought the Manta back toward the dry
lake at Edwards Air Force Base, back to the world of men, of
weather, of cities and hierarchies and official regulations. He
did this alone, silently, without the help of Jill or anyone else.
He flew the craft with featherlight touches on the controls,
from inside his buttoned-tight space suit, frowning at the
100

instrument panel displays through his helmet visor. But even
in the heavy gloves, man and machine acted together like a
single creature.

The voices from ground control rasped in his earphones.
He saw the long concrete scar of the all-weather runway laid
across the Mojave's rocky waste. The voices crackled with
information about wind conditions, altitude checks, speed
estimates. He knew, without looking, that a pair of jet
fighters were trailing behind him, armed with cameras in
place of guns. In case I crash, he knew.

They dipped through a thin layer of stratus clouds.
Kinsman's eyes flickered to the radar screen slightly to his
right. The Manta shuddered briefly as he lined it up with the
long gray slash of the runway. He eased back slightly on the
controls, hands and feet and mind working instinctively,
flashed over scrubby brush and bare cracked lake bed, flared
the craft onto the runway. The wheels touched down once,
bounced them up momentarily, then touched again with a
shrill screech. They rolled for almost a mile before stopping.

He leaned back in the seat and let out a deep breath. No
matter how many flights, he still ended oozing sweat after the
landing.

"Nice landing," Jill said.

"Thanks."

He turned off all the spacecraft's systems, hands moving
automatically in response to long training. Then he slid the
visor up, reached overhead, and popped the hatch open.

"End of the line," he said, feeling suddenly exhausted.
"Everybody out."

He clambered up through the hatch, his own weight a
sullen resentment to him, then helped Linda and finally Jill
out of the Mania's cramped cockpit. They hopped down onto
the concrete runway. Two vans, an ambulance, and two fire
trucks were rolling from their standby stations at the end of
the runway, nearly half a mile ahead.

Kinsman watched their blocky dark forms wavering in
the heat haze. He slowly pulled off his helmet as he sat on the
lip of the hatch. A helicopter thundered overhead, cutting
across the clear blue sky, but when Kinsman looked up at it
the glaring desert sunlight annoyed him, made him squint,
started a headache back behind his eyes.
101

Jill began trudging away from the Manta, toward the
approaching trucks. Kinsman clambered down to the con-
crete and walked up to Linda. Her helmet was off, her
sun-drenched hair shaking free. She carried a plastic bag of
film rolls.

"I've been thinking," Kinsman said to her. "That busi-
ness about having a lonely life. . . . You're not the only one.
And it doesn't have to be that way. I can get to the East
Coast, or . . ."

Her eyes widened with surprise. "Hey, who's taking
things seriously now?" She looked calm again, cool, despite
the baking heat.

"But I mean . . ."

"Chet, come on. We had our kicks. Now you can tell
your pals about it and I can tell mine. We'll both get a lot of
mileage out of it, won't we?"

"I never intended to tell anybody ..."

But she was already moving away from him, striding
toward the men who were running up from the vans. One of
them, a civilian, had a camera. He dropped to one knee and
snapped a half-dozen pictures of Linda as she walked toward
him, holding the plastic bag of film up in one hand and smiling
broadly, like a fisherman who had just bagged a big one.

Kinsman stood there with his mouth open-

Jill came back to him. "Well? Did you get what you were
after?"

"No," he said slowly. "I guess I didn't."

She started to put her hand out to him. "We never do, do
we?"

102

Age 30

KINSMAN SNAPPED AWAKE when the phone went off. Before it
could start a second ring he had the receiver off the cradle.

"Captain Kinsman?" The motel's night clerk.

"Yes," he whispered back, squinting at the luminous
digits of his wristwatch. Two twenty-three.

"I'm awfully sorry to disturb you, Captain, but Colonel
Murdock himself called ..."

"How the hell did he know I was here?"

"He doesn't. He said he was phoning all the motels
around the base. I didn't admit that you were here. He said
when he found you he needed you to report to him in person
at once. Those were his words, Captain: in person, at once.
Something about a General Hatch."

Kinsman frowned in the darkness. "Okay. Thanks for
playing dumb."

"Not at all, Captain. Hope it isn't trouble."

"Yeah." Kinsman hung up. For a half-minute he sat on
the edge of the king-size bed. Murdock's making the rounds
of the motels at two in the morning, Hatch is coming to the
base, and the clerk hopes it isn't trouble. Funny.

He stood up, stretched his lanky frame, and glanced at
the blonde wrapped obliviously in the bed's tangled sheets.
With a wistful shake of his head Kinsman padded to the
bathroom.

He shut the door softly and flipped the light switch,
wincing. He turned on the coffee machine that hung on the
wall above the light switch. It's lousy but it's coffee. Almost.
As the machine started gurgling he rummaged in his travel kit
for his electric razor. The face that met him in the mirror was
lean and long-jawed and just the slightest bit bloodshot. He
kept his hair at a length that made Murdock uncomfortable:

103

slightly longer than regulations allowed, not long enough to
call for a reprimand.

Within a few minutes he was shaved, showered, and back
in Air Force uniform. He left a scribbled note on motel
stationery propped against the dresser mirror, took a final
long look at the blonde, wishing he could remember her
name, then went out to his car.

The new fuel regulations had put an end to fast driving.
The synfuels were too expensive to waste, and when you tried
to get some speed out of them they began to eat out the
engine's guts. There were even those who insisted that the
synfuels were specially doctored to tear up an engine's
innards at anything over fifty: Washington's way of enforcing
energy conservation.

His hand-built convertible was ready to burn hydrogen
fuel, if and when the government made the stuff available.
For now, he had to go with a captain's monthly allotment of
synfuel. It was enough to keep him moving—cautiously
—through the predawn darkness.

Some instinct made him turn on the car radio. Diane's
haunting voice filled the starry night:

"... and in her right hand
There's a silver dagger,
That says I can never be your bride."

Kinsman listened in dark solitude as the night wind
whistled past. Diane Lawrence was a major entertainment
star, with scant time for an Air Force captain who spent half
his life in space. How long has it been since I've seen her? he
asked himself. Could it be more than a year?

A limousine and an official Air Force car with a general's
flag fluttering from its antenna zoomed past him, doing at
least eighty, heading for the base. No fuel scarcity for them.
Their engines whined and faded into the distance like wailing
ghosts. There was no other traffic at this hour. Kinsman held
to the legal limit all the way to the base's main gate, but he
could feel the excitement building up inside him.

Half a dozen Air Policemen were manning the gate.
looking brisk and polished, instead of the usual sleepy pair.

"What's the stew. Sergeant?" Kinsman asked as he
104

pulled his car up to the gate.

The guard flashed his hand light on the badge Kinsman
held in his outstretched hand.

"Dunno, sir. We got the word to look sharp."

He flashed the light full in Kinsman's face, checking the
picture on the badge. Painfully sharp. Kinsman groused to
himself.

The guard waved him on.

There was that special crackle in the air as Kinsman
drove to the administration building. The kind that only
comes when a manned launch is imminent. As if in answer to
his unspoken hunch, the floodlights of Complex 204 bloomed
into life, etching the tall silver booster standing there em-
braced by the dark spiderwork of the gantry tower.

People were scurrying in and out of the administration
building. Some were sleepy-eyed and disheveled, but their
feet were doing double time. Colonel Murdock's secretary
was coming down the hallway as Kinsman signed in at the
security desk.

"What's up, Annie?"

"I just got here myself," she said. There were hairclips
still in her sandy-colored curls. "The boss told me to flag you
down the instant you arrived."

Even from completely across the Colonel's spacious
office, Kinsman could see that Murdock was a round little
kettle of nerves. He was standing by the window behind his
desk, watching the activity on Pad 204, clenching and un-
clenching his fists behind his back. His bald head was glisten-
ing  with   perspiration   despite   the   room's   frigid
air-conditioning. Kinsman stopped at the door with the
secretary.

"Colonel?" she said softly.

Murdock whirled around. "Kinsman. So you're here."

"What's going on? I thought the next manned shot
wasn't until ..."

The Colonel waved a pudgy hand. "The next manned
shot is as fast as we can damned well make it." He walked
around the desk and eyed Kinsman. "Christ, you look a
mess."

"It's three in the morning!"

"No excuses. Get over to the medical section for a
105

preflight checkout. They're waiting for you."

"I'd still like to know—"

"Tell them to check your blood for alcohol content,"
Murdock grumbled.

"I've been celebrating my liberation. I'm not supposed to
be on duty, remember? My leave starts at 0900 hours."

"Your leave is canceled. General Hatch just flew in from
Norton and he wants you."

"Hatch?"

"That's right. He wants the most experienced man
available."

"Twenty astronauts on the base and you have to make
me available."

Murdock fumed. "Listen, dammit. This is a military
operation. I may not insist on much discipline from you
glamour boys, but you're still in the Air Force and you will
follow orders. Hatch says he wants the best man we've got.
Personally, I'd rather have Colt, but he's back East attending
a family funeral or something. That means you're it. Like it or
not."

With a grin. Kinsman said, "If you saw what I had to
leave behind me to report for duty here you'd put me up for
the Medal of Honor."

Murdock frowned in exasperation. Anne tried unsuccess-
fully to suppress a smile.

"All right, lover-boy. Get your ass down to the medical
section on the double. Annie, you stick with him and bring
him to the briefing room the instant he's finished. General
Hatch is already there."

Kinsman stood at the doorway, not moving. "Will you
just tell me what this is all about?"

"Ask the General," Murdock growled, walking back
toward his desk. "All I know is that Hatch wants the best man
we have and wants him fast."

"Emergency shots are volunteer missions," Kinsman
pointed out.

"So?"

"I'm on leave. There are eighteen other astronauts here
who—"

"Dammit, Kinsman, if you—" Murdock's face began to
turn red.

106

"Relax, Colonel, relax. I won't let you down. Not when
there's a chance to put a few hundred miles between me and
all the brass on Earth."

Murdock stood there fuming as Kinsman left with Anne.
They paced hurriedly out to his car and sped off to the
medical building.

"You shouldn't bait him like that," Anne said over the
rush of the dark wind. "He feels the pressure a lot more than
you do."

"He's insecure," Kinsman replied, grinning. "There are
only twenty people on base qualified for orbital missions and
he's not one of them."

"And you are."

"Damned right, sugar. It's the only thing in the world
worth doing. You ought to try it."

She put a hand up to her wind-whipped hair. "Me? Fly in
orbit? I don't even like airplanes'"

"It's a clean world up there, Annie. Brand-new every
time. Your life is completely your own. Once you've done it
there's nothing left on Earth except to wait for the next time."

"My God, you sound as if you really mean it."

"I'm serious," he insisted. "Why don't you wangle a ride
on one of the shuttle missions? They usually have room for an
extra person."

"And get locked inside a spacecraft with you?"

Kinsman shrugged. "There are worse things."

"Some other time. Captain. I've heard all about you guys
and your Zero Gee Club. Right now we have to get you
through preflight and then off to see the General."

General Lesmore D. ("Hatchet") Hatch sat in dour
silence in the small briefing room. The oblong conference
table was packed with colonels and a single civilian. They all
look so damned serious, Kinsman thought as he took the only
empty chair, at the foot of the table. The General, naturally,
sat at the head.

"Captain Kinsman." It was a statement of fact.

"Good morning, sir."

Hatch turned to a moonfaced aide. "Borgeson, let's not
waste time."

Kinsman only half-listened to the hurried introductions
107

around the table. He felt uncomfortable already, and it was
only partly due to the stickiness of the crowded little room.
Through the only window he could see the first faint glow of
dawn.

"Now then," Borgeson said, introductions finished.
"Very briefly, your mission will involve orbiting and making
rendezvous with an unidentified satellite."

"Unidentified?"

Borgeson went on: "It was launched from Plesetsk in the
Soviet Union. It's a new type, something we haven't seen
before. We don't know what it contains or what its mission is.
We don't even know if it's manned or not."

"And it is big," Hatch rumbled.

"Intelligence," Colonel Borgeson nodded at the colonel
sitting on Kinsman's left, "had no prior word about the
launch. We must assume that the satellite is potentially hostile
in intent. Colonel McKeever will give you the tracking data."

They went around the table, each colonel adding his bit
of information. Kinsman began to build up the picture in his
mind.

The satellite had been launched nine hours earlier. It was
in a low-altitude, high-inclination orbit that allowed it to
cover every square mile of territory between the Arctic and
Antarctic Circles. Since it had first gone up not a single radio
transmission had been detected going to or from it. And it
was big, twice the size of the Soyuz spacecraft the Soviets
used for their manned flights.

"A satellite of that size," said the colonel from the
Special Weapons Center, "could easily contain a beam
weapon ... the kind of laser or particle beam device that
would be used to knock down missiles or destroy satellites."

"If it does," said Borgeson, "it could threaten every
satellite we have in orbit; even the commsats up at geosyn-
chronous orbit."

"Or it could be the first step in an effective antimissile
defense," the Special Weapons man added. "You know, their
version of Star Wars."

"Or it could be," said General Hatch, "a twenty-
megaton nuclear weapon." His face was etched with deep
lines of worry. Or is it hate? Kinsman asked himself. "A
108

bomb that size, exploded at that altitude, could cause an
electromagnetic pulse that would knock out every computer,
every telephone, every auto ignition, every power station
across the North American continent."

Borgeson nodded. "The chaos factor. It could be the
precursor to a full-scale nuclear attack."

"And in a little more than two hours," Hatch went on,
gloomy as death, "that satellite will be passing over the
Middle West, the heartland of America."

"Why don't we just knock it down, sir?" Kinsman asked.
"We can hit it with an ASAT, can't we?"

"We could try," the General answered. "But suppose
the damned thing just zaps our missile? Then what? Can you
imagine the panic in Washington? It'd make Sputnik look like
a schoolyard scuffle. And suppose it is a nuke. Salvage fusing
could set it off and the whole damned country will be blacked
out. The Russians could even accuse us of starting hostilities
by attacking their goddamned satellite."

Kinsman watched the General shake his head morosely.
He puffed out a deep sigh. "Besides, we have been ordered
by the Chief of Staff himself to inspect the satellite and
determine whether or not its intent is hostile."

"In two hours?" Kinsman blurted.

"Perhaps I can explain," said the civilian. He had been
introduced as a State Department man. Kinsman had already
forgotten his name. He had a soft, sheltered look to him.

"We are officially in a position of cooperation, vis-d-vis
the Soviets, in our outer space programs. Our NASA civilians
and the Soviet civil space program people are working
cooperatively on exploring the Moon and sending probes to
the planet Mars. Officially, we are sharing information on our
strategic defense programs, as called for in SALT III."

The State Department representative seemed unmindful
of the hostility that Kinsman could feel rising from the others
around the table. He went on in his low. Ivy League voice,
"So if we simply try to destroy this new satellite it would
violate our agreements with the Soviet government and set
back our cooperative programs—perhaps ruin them alto-
gether."

"On the other hand," Hatch cut in, his voice like a rusty
109

saw, "if we do nothing, the Russians will know that they can
get away with bending those agreements whenever they feel
like it."

"But.. ."

Hatch silenced the State Department with a baleful
glance. Then he turned back to Kinsman. "This is a test,
Captain. The Russians are testing our ability to react. They
are testing our will to react. We have got to show them that
we can detect, inspect, and verify that satellite's nature and
mission."

"We ought to blow it out of the sky," snapped one of the
colonets.

"And if it's a peaceful research station?" asked the
civilian, with some steel in his voice, "If there are cosmonauts
aboard? What if we kil! Russian nationals?"

"Serve 'em right," somebody muttered.

"And then the Soviets will feel justified in launching a
nuclear attack." The civilian shook his head. "No. I agree
with General Hatch, This is a test of our abilities and our will.
We must prove to the Soviets that we can inspect their
satellites and see for ourselves whether or not they contain
weaponry."

Colonel Borgeson said calmly, "If they've gone to the
trouble of launching this massive vehicle, then military logic
dictates that it's a weapon carrier. There's no point to placing
a dummy in orbit, just to bother us,"

"No matter whether it's a weapon or not, the satellite
could be rigged with booby traps to prevent us from inspect-
ing it."

Thanks a lot, Kinsman said to himself.

Hatch focused his gunmetal eyes on Kinsman. "Captain,
I want to impress one thought on you. The Air Force has been
working for more than ten years to achieve the capability of
placing a military officer in space on an instant's notice,
despite the opposition of NASA and other parts of the
government."

He never so much as flicked a glance in the civilian's
direction as he continued, "This incident proves the absolute
necessity for such a capability. Your flight will be the first
practical demonstration of all that we've battled to achieve
110

over the past decade. You can see, then, the importance of
your mission."

"Yessir."

"This is strictly a volunteer mission. Exactly because it is
so important to the future of the Air Force, I don't want you
to try it unless you are absolutely certain about it."

"I understand, sir. I'm your man."

Hatch's weathered face unfolded into a grim smile. "Well
spoken, Captain. Good luck."

The General rose and everyone scrambled to their feet
and snapped to attention, even the civilian. As the others filed
out of the briefing room, Murdock drew Kinsman aside.

"You had your chance to beg off."

"And the General would've drawn a big red circle
around my name. My days in the Air Force would be
numbered,"

"That's not the way he—"

"Relax, Colonel," Kinsman said. "I wouldn't miss this
for the world. A chance to play cops and robbers in orbit."

"We're not in this for laughs! This is damned important.
If it really is a weapon up there, a nuclear bomb . . ."

"I'll be the first to know, won't I?"

The countdown of the solid rocket booster went smooth-
ly, swiftly, as Kinsman sat alone in the Manta spacecraft
perched atop the rocket's nose. There was always the chance
that a man or machine would fail at a crucial point and turn
the intricate, delicately poised booster into a very large and
powerful bomb.

Kinsman sat tautly in the contoured seat, listening to
them tick off the seconds. He hated countdowns, hated being
helpless, completely dependent on faceless voices that flick-
ered through his earphones, waiting childlike in a mechanical
womb, not truly alive, doubled up and crowded by the
unfeeling impersonal machinery that automatically gave him
warmth and breath and life.

Waiting.

He could feel the tiny vibrations along his spine that told
him the ship was awakening. Green lights blossomed across
the control panel, telling him that everything was functioning
111

and ready. Still the voices droned through his earphones in
carefully measured cadence:

". . . three . . . two . . . one . . ."

And she bellowed to life. Acceleration flattened Kins-
man into the seat. Vibration rattled his eyes in their sockets.
Time became a meaningless roar. The surging, engulfing,
overpowering bellow of the rocket engines made his head ring
even after they had burned out into silence.

Within minutes he was in orbit, the long slender rocket
stages falling away behind, together with all sensation of
weight. Kinsman sat alone in the squat, delta-shaped space-
craft: weightless, free of Earth.

Still he was the helpless unstirring one. Computers sent
guidance corrections from the ground to the Mania's controls.
Tiny vectoring thrusters squirted on and off, microscopic
puffs that maneuvered the craft into the precise orbit needed
for catching the Soviet satellite.

What if she zaps me as I approach her? Kinsman
wondered.

Completely around the world he spun, southward over
the Pacific and then up over the wrinkled cloud-shrouded
mass of Eurasia. They must have picked me up on their
radars, he thought. They must know that I'm chasing their
bird. As he swung across Alaska the voices from the ground
began talking to him again. He answered them as automati-
cally as the machines did, reading numbers off the control
panels, proving to them that he was alive and functioning
properly.

Then Smitty's voice cut in. He was serving as communi-
cator from Vandenberg. "There's been another launch, fif-
teen minutes ago. From the cosmonaut base at Tyuratam.
High-energy boost. Looks like you're going to have com-
pany."

Kinsman acknowledged the information, but still sat
unmoving.

Finally he saw it hurtling toward him. He came to life. To
meet and board the satellite he had to match its orbit and
velocity exactly. He was approaching too fast. Radar and
computer data flashed in amber flickers across the screens on
Kinsman's control panel. His eyes and fingers moved con-
stantly, a well-trained pianist performing a new and tricky
112

sonata. He worked the thruster controls and finally eased his
Manta into a rendezvous orbit a few dozen meters from the
massive Russian satellite.

The big satellite seemed to hang motionless in space just
ahead of him, a huge inert chunk of metal, dazzlingly brilliant
where the sun lit its curving flank, totally invisible where it
was in shadow. It looked ridiculously like a crescent moon
made of flush-welded aluminum. A smaller crescent puzzled
Kinsman until he realized it was a rocket nozzle hanging from
the satellite's tailcan.

"I'm parked off her stern about fifty meters," he re-
ported into his helmet microphone. "She looks like the
complete upper stage of a Proton-class booster. I'm going
outside."

"Better make it fast." Smitty's voice was taut, high-
pitched with nervousness. "That second spacecraft is closing
in fast."

"E.T.A.?"

A pause while voices mumbled in the background. Then,
"About twenty minutes . . . maybe less."

"Great."

"Colonel Murdock says you can abort the mission if you
feel you have to."

Same to you, pal. Aloud, he replied, "I'm going to take a
close look at her. Get inside if I can. Call you back in fifteen
minutes, max."

No response. Kinsman smiled to himself at the realiza-
tion that Colonel Murdock did not see fit to remind him that
the Russian satellite might be booby-trapped. Old Mother
Murdock hardly forgot about such items. He simply had
decided not to make the choice of aborting the mission too
attractive.

Gimmicked or not, the satellite was too near and too
enticing to turn back now. Kinsman quickly checked out his
space suit, pumped the air from his cockpit into the storage
tanks, and then popped the hatch over his head.

Out of the womb and into the world.

He climbed out and teetered on the lip of the hatch,
coiling the umbilical cord attached to his suit. Murdock and
his staff had decided on using an umbilical instead of a bulky
backpack and MMU because he was alone in orbit, without
113

backup, and because they wanted Kinsman to be able to slide
through the hatch of the Soviet satellite and inspect its
interior. They had been confident that Kinsman could bring
the Manta close enough to the Russian craft so that an
umbilical could keep him supplied with air and electrical
power, and provide a safety tether back to his own cockpit.

Kinsman pushed off from the hatch and floated like a
coasting underwater swimmer toward the Russian satellite.
He glanced down at the night side of Earth. City lights
glittered through the clouds; he could make out the shape of
the Great Lakes and a distant glow that had to be the
Boston-to-Washington corridor.

They're right, he realized. A bomb set off here will black
out the whole damned country.

As he approached the satellite the sun rose over the
curve of its hull and nearly blinded him, despite the automatic
darkening of his visor. He kicked downward and ducked
behind the satellite's protective shadow. Still half-blinded by
the glare, he bumped into its massive body and rebounded
gently. With an effort he reached out and grabbed one of the
handgrips studding its surface.

I claim this island for Isabella of Spain. Now where the
hell's the hatch?

It was over on the sunlit side, he found after spending
several precious minutes searching. It was not difficult to
figure out how to open it, even though the instructions were
in Cyrillic letters. Kinsman floated head-down and turned the
locking mechanism. He felt it click.

For an instant he hesitated. It might be booby-trapped,
he heard the Colonel warn.

The hell with it.

Kinsman pulled the hatch open. No explosion, no sound
at all. A dim light came from within the satellite. Carefully he
slid down inside, trailing the umbilical cord. A trio of faint
emergency lights glowed weakly.

"Saving battery power," he muttered to himself.

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dimness.
Then he began to appreciate what he saw. The satellite was
packed with equipment. He could not make out most of it,
but it looked like high-powered scientific gear to him. He
114

opened a few panels and saw capacitor banks, heavy-looking
magnetic field coils, neatly stacked electronic replacement
parts. A particle accelerator device? he wondered. It was not
a laser, of that he was certain.

Up forward was living quarters, room enough for three
cosmonauts, maybe four. Compact cabinets holding cans of
food. Microwave oven. Freezer stocked with more food.
Cameras and recording equipment.

"Very cozy."

He stepped back into the main compartment, where the
enigmatic scientific gear was. Take home some souvenirs, he
thought, opening cabinets, searching. No documents, no
instruction books or paperwork of any kind. He found a small
set of hand wrenches and unfastened them from their fixture.

Glancing at his watch, he saw that he had five or ten
minutes before the estimated arrival of the second Soviet
spacecraft. Holding the wrenches in one hand. Kinsman went
forward again and looked through the living compartment for
some paperwork he could take back to General Hatch and his
intelligence aides. Nothing. A blank computer screen and a
keyboard marked with Cyrillic letters and Arabic numerals.

Made in CCCP. He let the wrenches hang in midair and
reached for the tiny camera in his leg pouch. Snapping away
like a manic vacationer, he took pictures of the entire interior
of the spacecraft.

As he tucked the camera back and reached for the
wrenches once more, something flickered in the corner of his
eye. He turned to the observation port and stared out.
Nothing but stars: beautiful, cold.

Then another flash. This time his eye caught and held the
slim crescent of another spacecraft gliding toward him. Most
of the ship was in deep shadow. He would never have found it
without the telltale burst from its thrusters.

She's damned close!

Kinsman gripped his tiny horde of stolen wrenches and
headed for the hatch. In his haste he got his foot wrapped in
the trailing umbilical cord and nearly went tumbling. He
wasted a few seconds righting himself, then reached the
satellite's hatch and pushed through it.

He saw the approaching Russian spacecraft make its final
115

rendezvous maneuver. A flare of its thrusters and it seemed
to come to a stop alongside the satellite.

Kinsman ducked across the satellite's hull, swinging hand
over hand along the grips until he was crouched in the shadow
of its dark side. Waiting there, trying to figure out what to do
next, he coiled his umbilical so that it would be less obvious to
whoever was inside the new arrival.

The new spacecraft was considerably smaller than the
satellite, built along the lines of Kinsman's own delta-winged
Manta. Abruptly a hatch popped open. A space-suited figure
emerged and hovered dreamlike for a long moment. Kinsman
saw the cosmonaut had no umbilical. Instead, he wore
bulging packs on his back: life support and maneuvering
units.

How many of them are there? he wondered.

A wispy plume of gas jetted from the cosmonaut's
backpack as he sailed purposefully over to the satellite's
hatch.

Unconsciously Kinsman hunched deeper in the shadows
as the Russian approached. Only one of them; no one else
had appeared from the spacecraft. The newcomer reached
the still-open hatch of the satellite. For several moments he
did not move. Kinsman tried every frequency on his suit
radio, to no avail. The Russians used different frequencies;

they could not talk to one another, could not listen in on each
other's chatter.

The cosmonaut edged away from the satellite and,
hovering, turned toward Kinsman's Manta, still hanging a
scant fifty meters away.

Kinsman felt himself start to sweat, even in the cold
darkness. The cosmonaut jetted away from the satellite,
toward the Manta.

Dammitall! Kinsman raged at himself. First rule of
warfare, you stupid ass: keep your line of retreat open!

He pushed off the satellite and started floating back
toward the Manta. It was nightmarish, drifting through space
with agonizing slowness while the cosmonaut sped on ahead.
The cosmonaut spotted Kinsman as he cleared the shadow of
the satellite and emerged into the sunlight.

For a moment they simply stared at each other, separated
116

by some forty meters of nothingness.

"Get away from that spacecraft!" Kinsman shouted,
knowing that their radios were not on the same frequency.

As if to disprove the point, the cosmonaut put a hand on
the lip of the Mania's hatch and peered inside. Kinsman
nailed his arms and legs trying to raise some speed. Still he
moved with hellish slowness. Then he remembered the
wrenches he was carrying.

Almost without thinking he tossed the entire handful of
them at the cosmonaut. The effort swung him wildly off
balance. The Earth slid across his field of vision, then the
stars swam by dizzyingly and the Russian satellite. He caught
a glimpse of the cosmonaut as the wrenches rained around
him. Most of them missed and bounced noiselessly off the
Manta's hull. But one banged into the intruder's helmet hard
enough to jar him, then rebounded crazily out of sight.

Kinsman lost sight of the Manta as he spun around.
Grimly he struggled to straighten himself, using his arms and
legs as counterbalances. Finally the stars stopped whirling.
He turned and faced the Manta again, but it was upside-
down. It did not matter.

The intruder still had one hand on the spacecraft hatch.
His free hand was rubbing the spot where the wrench had hit
his helmet. He looked ludicrously like a little boy rubbing a
bump on his head.

"That means back off, stranger," Kinsman muttered.
"No trespassing. U.S. property. Beware of the eagle. Next
time I'll crack your helmet in half."

The cosmonaut turned slightly and reached for one of the
equipment packs attached to his belt. A weird-looking tool
appeared in his hand. Kinsman drifted helplessly and watched
the cosmonaut take up a section of his umbilical line. Then he
applied the tool to it. Sparks flashed.

Electron torch! He's trying to cut my line! He'll kill me!

Frantically Kinsman began clawing along the long umbil-
ical line hand over hand. All he could see, all he could think
of, was that flashing torch eating into his lifeline.

Desperately he grabbed the line in both hands and
snapped it hard. Again he tumbled wildly, but he saw the
wave created by his snap race down the line. The piece of the
117

cord that the cosmonaut held suddenly bucked out of his
hand. The torch spun away and winked off.

Both of them moved at once.

The cosmonaut jetted away from the Manta, going after
the torch. Kinsman hurled himself directly toward the hatch.
He grasped its rim with both hands, chest heaving, visor
fogging slightly from the heat of his exertion and fear.

Duck inside, slam shut, and get the hell out of here.

But he did not move. Instead he watched the cosmonaut,
a strange, sun-etched figure now, drifting some twenty meters
away, quietly sizing up the situation.

That sonofabitch tried to kill me.

Kinsman coiled catlike on the edge of the hatch and
sprang at his enemy. The cosmonaut reached for the jet
controls at his belt but Kinsman slammed into him and they
both went hurtling through space, tumbling and clawing at
each other. It was an unearthly struggle, human fury in the
infinite calm of star-studded blackness. No sound except your
own harsh breath and the bone-conducted shock of colliding
bodies.

They wheeled out of the spacecraft's shadow and into the
painful glare of the sun. The glorious beauty of Earth spread
out below them. In a cold rage. Kinsman grabbed the airhose
that connected the cosmonaut's oxygen tank with his helmet.
He hesitated a moment and glanced into the bulbous plastic
helmet. All he could see was the back of the cosmonaut's
head, covered with a dark skintight flying hood. With a
vicious yank Kinsman snapped the airhose out of its mount-
ing. A white spray of gas burst from the backpack. The
cosmonaut jerked twice, spasmodically, then went inert.

With a conscious effort Kinsman unclenched his teeth.
His jaw ached. He was trembling and soaked in a cold sweat.

He saw his father's face. They'll make a killer out of you!
The military exists to kill.

He released his death grip on his enemy. The two human
forms drifted slightly apart. The dead cosmonaut turned
gentiy as Kinsman floated alongside. The sun glinted brightly
on the white space suit and shone full into the enemy's
lifeless, terror-stricken face.

Kinsman looked into that face for an eternally long
118

moment and felt the life drain out of him. He dragged himself
back to the Manta, sealed the hatch, and cracked open the air
tanks with automatic, unthinking motions. He flicked on the
radio and ignored the flood of interrogating voices that
streamed up from the ground.

"Bring me in. Program the AGS to bring me in, full
automatic. Just bring me in."

It was six weeks before Kinsman saw Colonel Murdock
again. He sat tensely before the wide mahogany desk while
Murdock beamed at him, almost as brightly as the sunshine
outside the Colonel's office.

"You look thinner in ciwies," the Colonel said.

"I've lost weight."

Murdock made a meaningless gesture. "I'm sorry I
haven't had a chance to see you sooner. What with the
intelligence and State Department people crawling around
here the past few weeks, and all the paperwork on your
citation and your medical disability leave ... I haven't had a
chance to, eh, congratulate you on your mission. It was a fine
piece of work."

Kinsman said nothing.

"General Hatch was very pleased. He recommended you
for the Silver Star himself."

"I know."

"You're a hero. Kinsman." There was wonder in the
Colonel's girlish voice. "A real honest-to-God hero."

Again Kinsman remained silent.

Murdock suppressed a frown. "The Russians won't make
a squawk about it, from what the State Department boys tell
me. They're keeping the whole thing hushed up. We made a
deal with them. We don't complain about them testing a beam
weapon in orbit and they don't complain about losing a
cosmonaut."

"We both lose," Kinsman said.

"But you've proved that the Air Force has an important
mission to perform in space, by God! The only way we could
tell they were cheating on the treaty was to look into their
damned satellite. Bet the Congress will change our name to
the Aerospace Force now!"

119

"I committed a murder."

For a long moment Murdock was silent. He drummed his
fingers on his desktop. "It's one of those things," he said
finally. "It had to be done."

"No, it didn't," Kinsman insisted quietly. "I could have
gone back inside the Manta and de-orbited."

"You killed an enemy soldier. You protected your na-
tion's frontier. Sure, you feel rotten now, but you'll get over
it."

"You didn't see the face I saw inside that helmet."

Murdock shuffled papers on his desk. "Well . . . okay, it
was rough. You're getting a medical furlough out of it when
there's really nothing wrong with you. For Chrissakes, what
more do you want?"

"I don't know. I've got to take some time to think it
over,"

"What?" Murdock stared hard at him. "What are you
talking about?"

"Read the debriefing report," Kinsman said tiredly.

"It ... eh, hasn't come down to my level. Too sensitive.
But 1 don't understand what's got you so spooked. You killed
an enemy soldier. You ought to be proud ..."

"Enemy," Kinsman echoed bleakly. "She couldn't have
been more than twenty years old."

Murdock's face went slack. "She?"

"That's right," said Kinsman. "She. Your honest-to-God
hero murdered a terrified girl. That's something to be proud
of, isn't it?"

120

Age 31

LIEUTENANT COLONEL MARIAN CAMPBELL drummed her fin-
gers lightly on her desktop. The psychological record of
Captain Kinsman lay open before her. Across the desk sat the
Captain himself.

She appraised him with a professional eye. Kinsman was
lean, dark, rather good-looking in a brooding way- His
gray-blue eyes were steady. His hands rested calmly in his lap;

long, slim pianist's fingers. No tics, no twitches. He looked
almost indifferent to his surroundings. Withdrawn, Colonel
Campbell concluded.

"Do you know why you're here?" she asked him.

"I think so," he replied with no hesitation.

Marian leaned back in her chair. She was a big-boned
woman who had to remind herself constantly to keep her
voice down. She had a natural tendency to talk at people in a
parade-ground shout. Not a good attribute for a psychiatrist.

"Tell me," she said, "what you think you're here for."

When she tried to keep her voice soft it came out
gravelly, rough. The voice had the power for an opera stage
or an ancient amphitheater, despite the fact that its owner was
tone-deaf.

Kinsman took a deep breath, like an athlete about to
exert himself to the utmost. Or like a man who is bored.

"I've been under psychiatric observation for five months
now. Suspended from active duty. Your people have been
trying to figure out the effect on me of killing that Russian
girl."

Colonel Campbell nodded. "Go on."

"You're the chief of the psychiatric section. I guess my
case is in your hands for a final decision."

"That's quite true," she said. "It's up to me to decide
121

whether you return to active duty or not."

Kinsman regarded her steadily for a moment, then
shifted his attention to the window. The blinds were half
closed against the burning afternoon sun. For a moment he
seemed like a little boy in a stuffy classroom, yearning for the
bell that would free him to go outside and play.

"Colonel Murdock wants you permanently removed
from duty. He'd like you honorably discharged from the Air
Force, except that it might look bad in Washington."

"I'm not surprised," Kinsman said.

"Why not?"

He made a small motion of his shoulders that might have
been a shrug. "Murdock would be happy to get rid of me. I'm
not his type of marionette." He considered that for a mo-
ment, then added, "That's not paranoia. You can check it out
with any of the other astronauts."

Marian chuckled. "We already have- You're not para-
noid."

"I didn't think so."

"But you do seem to have some problems. I've got to
determine if your problems are too big to allow you to fly
again."

"That's what I thought."

She did not respond and he did not add anything. They
sat looking at each other across the cluttered desk for several
moments. Colonel Campbell's office bore the privilege of her
rank and station. It was just another one of the starkly
functional offices at the Air Force hospital, but a lieutenant
colonel who is chief psychiatrist has more latitude in decorat-
ing her office than most others. The square little room was
festooned with hanging plants. A young rubber tree sprouted
in the corner near the window. Instead of a couch, there was a
long metal stand bearing exotic tropical flowers.

He's outstaring me, thought Marian Campbell.

"Well," she said at last, "how do you feel about all this?
What do you want to do?"

This time his answer was slow in coming. "I don't
honestly know. Sometimes I think I ought to get out of the
Air Force, accept a medical discharge. But that would take
me out of the space program, and that's all I really want."

"To be out of the space program."
122

"No!" he snapped. "To be in it. NASA's sending astro-
nauts to the Moon again. I want to be part of that."

"You want to go to the Moon?"

"Yes."

"To get away from here?"

"As far away as I can," he answered fervently.

She shook her head. "You can't run away from your
problems."

Kinsman gave her a look of pitying superiority. "You've
never been in orbit, have you?"

"No, of course not."

"Then you don't know. That business about not running
away from your problems—it's a slogan. Pure crap. Like
telling poor people that money can't buy happiness. You get
your feet off the ground, get out of this office and up into a
plane where you can be on your own—you'll get away from
your problems easily enough."

"I've done my share of flying," she replied. "But you
have to come down sometime. You have to-return and face
things."

"I suppose so." He looked toward the window and the
hot Texas afternoon on the other side of the blinds. "You
know, I sometimes wonder if some airplane crashes . . .
some of the unexplained ones . . . aren't caused by the pilot's
unconscious desire to get away from his problems for good."

"Suicide?" She suppressed an impulse to make a note in
his file. Do it after he leaves; don't do anything now to break
his train of thought.

"Not suicide exactly. Not the desire to die. But . . . well,
every now and then a really good pilot wracks up his plane for
no apparent reason. Maybe he just didn't want to put his feet
back on the ground."

"How do you think you'd feel if you were allowed to fly
again?"

His grin was immediate. "Terrific!"

"You wouldn't try to ... avoid your problems?"

"No." The grin turned into a knowing smile. "I've got a
better way to get rid of my problems. That's what the Moon is
for."

Colonel Campbell thought. Never-never land.

"That's the one thing I want," Kinsman said. "The one
123

thing I need. To return to active astronaut status. To get in on
the lunar program."

"But that's not an Air Force program," Colonel Camp-
bell said. "The civilians are doing it—NASA and the Rus-
sians, isn't it? It's a cooperative program."

Nodding, he answered, "But they're looking for experi-
enced astronauts. The Air Force is letting some of our people
work for NASA on detached duty. Friends of mine have
already been to the Moon."

He was set up for the tough questions now.

"What do you think your real problem is?" Colonel
Campbell asked, letting her voice grow to its normal powerful
volume.

Kinsman looked startled for a moment. "I killed that
Russian girl . . ." His facial expression went from surprise to
pain.

"She tried to kill you, didn't she?"

"Yes."

"You're a military officer. You were on a military
mission. The satellite you were inspecting might have had
weaponry on it that could have killed millions of people."

"I know that."

"Then why did you become ..." She reached for the
glasses on her desk and perched them on the tip of her nose.
Reading from the file, ". . . despondent, withdrawn, hostile
to your fellow officers." She looked up at him. "It also says
you lost weight and complained of insomnia."

Kinsman hunched forward in his chair, clasped his long-
fingered hands together. Looking up at her, he asked, "Have
you ever killed someone?"

Marian Campbell moved her head the barest centimeter
to indicate no.

"Lots of Air Force officers have," Kinsman said. "But at
remote distances. You press a button and a machine falls out
of the air or a building on the ground explodes. I killed her in
hand-to-hand combat. I saw her face."

"You were doing your duty . . ."

"I could have done my duty without killing her!"

"In hindsight."

He ran a hand through his hair. "You ever hear of
Richard Bong?"

124

"Who?"

"I've had the chance to read up on Air Force history
quite a lot over the past few months," Kinsman said. "Dick
Bong was a fighter pilot in World War Two. In the Pacific.
Our top ace. Shot down forty Japanese planes in the first
couple of years of the war. All in aerial combat, man-to-man
victories, not strafing planes on the ground,"

Colonel Campbell regretted that she had not turned on
the tape recorder in the bottom drawer of her desk. Too late
now, she chided herself.

"His commanding general came over to the island where
he was stationed to pin a medal on him. The Japanese pulled
an air raid on the base in the middle of the ceremonies. Bong
and the general dived into the same slit trench. One of the Jap
planes was hit by antiaircraft fire and started to burn. The
Japanese pilot didn't have a parachute. Or maybe it just
didn't open. Anyway, he jumped out of his burning plane and
fell to the airstrip like a rock. He hit the ground just a few feet
in front of Bong and the general."

"But what does—"

"Bong never shot down another plane for the rest of the
war. He flew combat missions, but he couldn't hit anything
with his guns."

"I see," Colonel Campbell said softly. "I understand."

"It makes a difference," said Kinsman. "It's one thing to
kill by remote control. It's something else when you see who
you've killed, face-to-face."

"And you think that's what's bothering you?"

Kinsman nodded.

"But you can handle it now?" she prompted him.

"As long as I'm not put into combat missions," he
answered.

"And the fact that the person you killed was a woman
has nothing to do with it?"

Kinsman's jaw dropped open and suddenly he was
glaring at her. "How the hell should I know?" he shouted.
"How high is up?"

"I don't know. Captain. You tell me."

He turned angrily away from her. There was perspiration
beading his brow. Colonel Campbell noticed.

"That's enough for today, Captain. You may go."
125

She watched him stand up slowly, looking slightly puz-
zled. He went to the door, hesitated, then opened it and left
the office without looking back.

Colonel Campbell opened the bottom drawer of her desk
and pulled out the book-sized tape recorder. She turned it on
and began speaking into the built-in microphone. After more
than fifteen minutes she concluded:

"He's definitely looking for help. That's good. But we're
nowhere near his problem yet. We've only scratched the
surface. He's built a shell around himself and now not only
can no one break through it to get to him, he can't crack it
himself to get out. It could be something from his childhood;

we'll have to check out the family."

She clicked the recorder's STOP button and turned to look
out the window. The hot Texas sky was turning to molten
copper as the sun went down. A helicopter droned overhead
somewhere, like a lazy summertime dragonfly. The screech-
ing whine of a jet fighter shrilled past.

She turned the tape recorder on again. "One thing is
certain," she said. "Killing the cosmonaut was only the
triggering trauma. There's more, buried underneath. If it's
buried too far down, if we can't get to it quickly, he's finished
as an Air Force officer. And as an astronaut."

The breeze whipping across the flight line did little to
alleviate the heat. It felt like the breath from a hot oven- The
sun beat down like a palpable force, broiling the life juices out
of you.

Marian Campbell walked slowly around the plane,
checking the control surfaces, the propeller, sweating in her
zippered coveralls and waiting for Kinsman to show up. It was
a single-engine plane with broad, stubby wings and a high
bulbous canopy that made it look like a one-eyed insect. It
was painted bright red and yellow except for the engine
cowling, where permanent black streaks of oil stains marred
the decor.

She saw a tall lithe figure approaching through the
shimmering heat haze along the flight line. The sun baked the
concrete ramp so that it felt like standing on a griddle. Come
on, she groused to herself, before I melt into a puddle. Then
126

she grinned sheepishly. It would be a damned big puddle, she
knew.

Kinsman was in civilian clothes, an open-necked short-
sleeved shirt and light blue slacks. He looked wary as he came
up to the plane.

"No need to salute," Marian called to him. "We're off
duty, okay?"

He nodded and put out a hand to touch the plane's wing.
The metal must have been scorchingly hot but Kinsman ran
his fingers along it lightly and almost smiled.

"Piper Cherokee. She's an old bird, but she still looks
good," he said.

"Are you talking about the plane or about me?" Marian
asked.

He looked startled more than amused. "The plane, of
course. Colonel."

"My name's Marian ... as in Robin Hood. And yes, I
know the joke: 'Who's Maid Marian? Everybody!'"

Kinsman still did not smile.

With an inner sigh, Marian asked, "Do I call you Chet,
Chester, or what?"

"Chet."

"Okay, Chet. Let's get upstairs where the air is cooler."

She climbed heavily up onto the wing and squeezed
through the cabin hatch. Kinsman followed her and sat in the
copilot's seat, on the right. He stuck his foot out to keep the
hatch open as Marian gunned the engine to life.

He stayed silent, watching, as she taxied to the very end
of the two-mile-long runway. It had been built to accommo-
date heavy bombers. This puddle-jumper could take off and
land along the runway seven times and still have concrete to
spare ahead of it.

They got the control tower's clearance. Kinsman dogged
the hatch shut, and the little engine buzzed its hardest as they
rolled down the runway and lifted into the air.

Marian banked the plane and made a right turn as
ordered by the tower controller. They headed away from the
Air Force base, across the Texas scrubland.

"Want to see the Alamo?" she asked.

"Sure," said Kinsman.

127

She asked the controllers for a route to San Antonio.

"Whose plane is this?" Kinsman asked as they climbed to
cruising altitude.

"Mine," said Marian.

"Yours? You own it?"

"Sure. You think you jet jocks are the only guys who like
to fly? Why do you think I Joined the Air Force in the first

place?"

He grinned at her. "You like to fly."

"Doesn't everybody?"

She could see him visibly relaxing. They were barely five
thousand feet above the ground but already he felt safe and
insulated from the pressures below.

"Want to take over for a while?" she asked.

"Sure."
She let go of the controls and Kinsman took the wheel in

his hands.

"No aerobatics unless you warn me first," she offered.

"I'm not a stunt flier,"

"It's a good thing you're slim," Marian said. "It's usually
a pretty tight squeeze in here with most men. I take up more
than my fair share of space."

He did not take his eyes off the horizon, but he asked, "Is
this supposed to be some form of therapy? I mean, why'd you

invite me for this?"

"Because I know you like to fly and I thought you could
use some relaxation. We're not just brain-pickers, you know.
We're doctors. We're concerned about your overall health."

Kinsman made a small sound that might have been a
grunt. "One of your doctors liked to talk to me whenever I
tried playing the piano down in the rec hall. Every time I'd sit
down to play he'd pop up and start asking me questions. Then
he said I was hostile and suspicious."

Marian laughed. "That was Jeffers. He's the idiot on my

staff."

They flew for a while and chatted easily enough, but he

never got close to anything about his emotional problems.
Finally Marian had to dredge the subject up to the surface.
"We had to check back into your family history," she

said.

"I know. I got a phone call from a friend."
128

"Senator McGrath?"

"Yes. He wanted to know if it was okay to talk to you. I
told him it was."

"We had a good chat on the telephone."

"What did you find out about me?"

Marian pursed her lips for a moment and considered
what she would do if he suddenly decided to dive the plane
into the ground.

"He told me about your parents. The conflict with your
father. He died while you were stationed in California, didn't
he?"

Kinsman nodded. "While I was in orbit, as a matter of
fact. I had gone to see him while he was in the hospital, like a
dutiful son. He didn't recognize me. Or at least, he didn't
admit to recognizing me."

"That's a pity," Marian said.

Very coolly, Kinsman replied, "We didn't see each other
very clearly when he was alive and well, you know."

He talked easily enough, seemingly holding nothing
back. But it was like a blank wall. All he wanted was to be
reassigned to astronaut duty for the lunar missions. Nothing
else seemed to matter to him. And yet there was something
choking him. Something inside his brain that had put a wall
around him, an invisible barrier that cut him off from any real
human contact.

"I've been waiting for the zinger," he said, after nearly
an hour of talk.

Marian's hands were resting in her lap. "The zinger?
What's that?"

He glanced at her. "Aren't you going to ask me if I'm
impotent? Jeffers and all your other shrinks did."

Is he asking for help? "I've read your file," Marian
answered. "You told them you're not."

"I told them I don't think I am."

"Explain?"

"I've been more or less restricted to quarters for the past
five months. Not much of a chance to find out."

"Goon . . ."

"I can get an erection easily enough," Kinsman went on,
as clinically cool as if he were reading from a textbook. "I've
awoken from my nightmares with a hard-on."
T29

"Nocturnal emissions?" Marian asked.

"Wet dreams? Yeah, a few times."

"Then you're functional."

"The equipment works," he said, still as distant as the
horizon. "What bothers me is I haven't felt much like trying. I
mean, it's been five months and I haven't even felt horny. I
haven't even made a pass at any of the nurses."

We know, Colonel Campbell said to herself.

"You're closer to me right now than any woman's been
since . . . since . . ."

Suddenly his hands were shaking. The plane, built for
amateur pilots, flew onward as steadily as a plow horse.

Marian took over the controls as Kinsman sagged back in
his seat.

"Since when?" she prompted.

"You know."

"Tell me."

"Since I murdered that girl in orbit. Since I killed her. I
ripped the air line out of her helmet and killed her. Deliber-
ately. I could've backed off. I could've gotten back into my
own craft and de-orbited. But I killed her. I murdered her."

"Good," said Marian.

"Good?" He glared at her with pain-filled eyes.

"It's good that you're showing some emotion. You've
kept it frozen beneath the surface for too long. You've been
acting more like a robot than a human being for the past five

months."

Kinsman looked down at his hands. They were still

trembling.

"It's all right, Chet. It's all over and done with. There's
nothing you can do to bring her back. What you have to
decide now is ... where do you want to go from here?"

He pressed his hands palms-down on his thighs. "What
did Richard the Third say? 'Let's to it, pell-mell. If not to
heaven, then hand in hand to hell.'"

Marian gave an unladylike snort. "Neither one," she
said, pointing off to her left. "It's only San Antonio."

The Alamo is the heart of San Antonio, but the four
corners of the city are held by military bases. Colonel
Campbell landed her plane at Kelly Air Force Base and they
130

commandeered a synfueled gray sedan from the motor pool
to go to town.

GENTLEMEN WILL TAKE OFF THEIR HATS, read the sign

above the Alamo's front entrance. Marian saw that most of
the visitors crowding the old shrine this muggy late afternoon
were either Mexicans or Mexican-Americans. The signs on
the displays spoke of the great American triumph that won
Texas its independence. But it was only a temporary triumph,
Marian saw. The erstwhile losers of the Mexican-American
battle were winning the war over the long haul, simply
outbreeding the gringos and reclaiming the territory they had
temporarily lost.

Outside, in the shade cast by the graceful trees beyond
the old mission's battered walls, Kinsman suddenly asked,
"May I take you to dinner?"

Marian felt pleased. "It's been some time since a young
man has invited me to dinner."

He grinned at her. "Maybe you can help me with my
problem."

Her cheeks went hot and she cursed herself for an idiot.
He's joking with you, she told herself sternly. You're old
enough to be his ... well, his big sister, anyway.

"You are qualified for I.F.R., aren't you?" Kinsman
asked, suddenly serious again. "No problem if we stay out
after dark."

Marian nodded. "I'd feel a lot safer, though, if you made
the instrument landing. I don't like landing at night."

"Okay," he said. "So let's find some dinner. My treat."

They found a dinner theater in one of the hotels along
the scenic riverway park. The ballroom floor was covered
with small round tables jammed so close together that chair-
backs touched each other whenever someone wanted to get
up. Marian wrinkled her nose. This was too much like New
York or Chicago. Where was the Old West, where cattle
barons dined in the regal splendor of ornately paneled
restaurants with high ceilings and crystal chandeliers?

The tiny stage set up at one end of the ballroom was for a
revival of a show featuring songs written by a Parisian cafe
entertainer named Jacques Brel. Only two men and two
women, in street clothes. The management did not spend
lavishly on the entertainment, Marian thought. But the
131

singers were excellent and the songs highly charged, emotion-
al, theatrical, pointed.

Marian began watching Kinsman in the darkened ball-
room as the singers hit antiwar themes again and again. He
sat calmly, laughed at the right places, applauded along with
everyone else. Until a song titled "Next."

He sat straighter in his chair as the theme of the song
became clear: a young European soldier being marched along
with his comrades into a mobile army whorehouse, "gift of
the army, free of course." Marian felt her eyes burning
brighter than the stage lights as she watched Kinsman's face
freeze in something very close to horror.

His hand slowly reached out toward her and she grasped
it tightly. He hung on as the lead male sang:

"All the naked and the dead
Should hold each other's hands
As they watch me scream at night
In a dream no one understands."

The song ended and Kinsman released her hand. When
the show finally finished and the ceiling lights came on once
more, he avoided looking directly at Marian. He seemed

embarrassed, more than a little.

They drove back to Kelly through the muggy hot night in
silence. Marian was content to wait until they were airborne
again before trying to open him up. He talked better off the
ground; he seemed more relaxed up there. They checked the
car back into the motor pool and allowed a sleepy-eyed
corporal to drive them in a Jeep to the flight line.

Kinsman hopped up on the Cherokee's wing and pulled
the hatch open, ducked inside, and took the pilot's seat. Then
he helped Marian settle her bulk in the right-hand seat. He
checked the control panel's gauges carefully, got his clearance
from the tower controller, and taxied out to the runway. The
edge lights stretched like glowing pearls, seemingly off to the

horizon.

As he waited for final takeoff clearance he revved the

engine. The whole plane shuddered and strained like an
excited terrier being held in check by a leash. Somehow the
engine roar seemed louder in the darkness to Marian. And
132

then they were racing down the runway and up into the air.
Kinsman handled the plane smoothly, his hands sure and
steady. As they climbed to cruising altitude Marian saw a sky
full of stars above them and the even more numerous lights of
San Antonio below.

"One of the best Mexican restaurants this side of the Rio
Grande is down there," she said, over the drone of the
engine.

"Really?" Kinsman replied.

Marian nodded vigorously. "Too bad we missed it."

"Yeah. The food we had wasn't all that good, was it?"

"But I enjoyed the show."

Kinsman might have nodded in the darkness. She could
not tell.

"How did you like it?" she asked.

"The show?"

"Yes."

Suddenly he started laughing, a soft, happy, satisfied
chuckle.

Puzzled, Marian asked, "What's funny?"

"You are."

'Tm funnyT' She did not know whether to be glad or
angry.

"No, not you yourself," Kinsman corrected. "It's the
situation that's funny. The relationship between us."

He turned to their homeward course, changed the fre-
quency on the radio for the mid-route controller, then turned
in his seat toward her.

"Look," he said, "you know damned well that something
clicked in my head during the show, when I grabbed for your
hand. And I know you know. But you're trying to lead up to
the subject subtly, to see if you can get me to talk about it."

"What clicked?" Marian felt eager, as if she were a
hunter close to her quarry.

"During that song I finally realized what the hell has
been bothering me."

"Yes?"

"They got to me," he said flatly.

Marian felt her eyebrows rise. "They got to you?
Who . . . ?"

Kinsman said, "All these years I've been telling myself
T33

that I'm my own man. I joined the Air Force to get into space,
to get away from all the ugliness of Earth. But I didn't escape
it. I couldn't."

"You brought the ugliness along with you."

"Yeah." He was silent for a long moment. "I murdered
that cosmonaut. Maybe if she had been a man I wouldn't feel
so badly about it. But the thing is—they got to me."

"Who?" Marian demanded.

"The Air Force," he said. "The training. The military
mind-set."

"I don't understand."

Gesturing with one hand in the cramped cabin, Kinsman
said, "Look, when I joined the Air Force it was strictly to be
an astronaut. Sure, they put me through the same training
everybody gets and even made me fly combat in Cyprus. But
I never fired a gun or a missile. Never."

"So?"

"So once I got into the astronaut program I thought I had
it made. I had what I wanted. The Air Force hadn't gotten to
me. Their training hadn't turned me into a military machine. I
was my own man."

Marian began to feel the inner tingle she always got when
a puzzle became clear to her.

"But I was wrong," Kinsman went on. His voice was
serious now, but not somber. Not morose or wooden. "When
I got into a combat situation—hand-to-hand fight, yet—all
that military training took over. I wasn't an astronaut any-
more. I was a fighting machine. A trained killer. A military
automaton. I killed her just the way an infantryman becomes
conditioned to sticking a bayonet into another human being's
belly."

"And you think that's what's been bothering you?"
Marian asked, as softly as she knew how.

"For the past five months I've been trying to figure it out.
How could I have done it? How in the hell could I have
deliberately ripped out a human being's air line? How could I
willingly kill somebody?"

"And now you have the answer."

"Yes." It was an unshakably firm response. "I'm not as
smart as I thought I was. The military training got to me. God
knows, put me in the same situation and I might even do the
134

same thing all over again."

"Chet, listen to me very carefully," Marian said slowly.
"You think you have the answer and you're feeling pretty
good about it ..."

"Damned right!"

"But what you have is only the beginning of the answer.
There's still a lot more, buried down inside you. A lot that
you haven't brought up into the light yet."

He shook his head. "I don't think so."

"Listen to me!" Marian urged. "You've kept a shell
around yourself all your life. Your Quaker upbringing. Your
conflict with your father. Your Air Force duties. The one time
you let go, the one time you let your emotions override your
self-control, you kill a person. A woman. A girl. Now you've
clamped that self-control down again and made your shell
thicker than ever. You've isolated yourself from any real
human contact . . ."

As if none of her words had penetrated his awareness,
Kinsman said, "If you keep me off-duty, under observation,
for much longer, Murdock's going to drum me out. You know
that."

"I can protect you."

"You can't keep me proficient. He can drop me from the
astronaut corps—for good."

"Yes," she admitted. "That's true."

"What I need now is to get back to active duty. But not
with the Air Force. I want to get into NASA's lunar explora-
tion program."

"You want to run off to the Moon?"

"It's not running away. I know better now. I know
myself better."

"Well enough to risk your life, and the lives of others?"

He grinned at her. She could see his teeth in the faint
light from the instrument panel. "You're trusting me with
your life right now, aren't you?"

Almost ruefully she admitted, "I suppose I am."

"JusttellittoMurdock."

The next morning Lieutenant Colonel Marian Campbell
was back in uniform, back in her office, sitting behind her
desk. Colonel Murdock's round, bald face looked distinctly
135

unhappy, even in the small screen of the telephone display.

"Just what are you trying to tell me. Colonel Campbell?"
he asked testily.

She took a deep breath, then replied, "In my opinion,
Colonel, Captain Kinsman is now fit to resume his duties."

"Resume . . . ? But I thought he was psychologically, er,
well . . . unbalanced."

"He was troubled by what happened to him on his last
mission, of course. Anyone would be. But in my opinion, he's
worked through those troubles and he's ready to go back to
active duty."

Murdock's face wrinkled with suspicion. "I don't get it.
For five months you shrinks have been working him over
without a word of progress. Now all of a sudden you say he's
okay?"

Feeling almost as if she should cross her fingers, Marian
Campbell answered, "It happens that way sometimes. He's
gained the insight he needed to understand what happened to
him. He's adjusted to it. He's fit for duty."

"Not under me," Murdock said fervently. "I'm going to
transfer him out of here just as soon as he comes marching
through my door."

"You can't do that!"

Murdock looked startled. Her voice had boomed.

"I mean," Marian said, trying to tone it down, "that I
would recommend he be allowed to continue in the astronaut
program. It's what he's trained for and what he enjoys
doing."

"That doesn't mean—"

She overrode him. "I understand there's a shortage of
trained personnel with his qualifications. It would be against
Air Force policy to waste a man of his training and experience
in a different slot."

"If he's psychologically fit for such duty," Murdock
retorted.

"He is," Marian said.

The Colonel gave her a shrewd stare. It seemed almost
ludicrous, his face was so tiny on the phone screen. But still it
sent a shiver of apprehension along Marian's spine.

"You are guaranteeing that he's mentally sound?" Mur-
dock asked.

136

Marian Campbell stiffened her back. "There are no
guarantees in the medical profession, Colonel. But I will
personally draft the report on Captain Kinsman, recommend-
ing that he be returned to the duties for which he has been
trained."

"That ties my hands if I want to transfer him."

"Unless you transfer him to the NASA program," Mari-
an blurted.

Murdock's face took on a knowing leer. "So that's how
he worked out his emotional problem. Twisted you around his
little finger, didn't he?"

Just to wipe the smirk off his face, Marian made herself
smile and say, "It wasn't his little finger, Colonel."

Murdock's face flamed red. He snapped, "Well, then
write your report and make your recommendation! I'll handle
my own problems my own way." He cut the connection and
the phone screen went blank.

Marian leaned back in her chair. Well, old gal, now
you've got a reputation for screwing around with your pa-
tients. She almost wished it were true.

She hauled the tape recorder out of its drawer and
started to dictate her final report on Kinsman. But in the back
of her mind she was thinking. What else can you do? Keep
him here? That will kill him just as surely as cutting off his
oxygen. You've got to let him go.

Over the faint hum of the air-conditioning she thought
she heard distant piano music. From the recreation hall. A
light, happy piece of Mozart. She listened for several min-
utes. No one interrupted the pianist.

So now he can go to the Moon. Maybe he'll find what he
needs there. But he won't. He's locked up inside himself. If
you let him go, he'll never break free. He'll carry that shell
around him forever. You know that. You know it and you're
letting him go. He's going to kill himself, one way or the
other. Himself, and maybe others besides. And you're letting
him go out and do it because you're too weak to keep him
here and watch him die one day at a time.

She turned on the tape recorder and watched the cassette
slowly turning as she fought back an urge to cry.

137

Age 32

"ANY WORD FROM him yet?"

"Huh? No, nothing."

Kinsman swore to himself as he stood on the open
platform of the little lunar rocket jumper. It was his second
trip to the Moon and it was not going well.

"Say, where are you now?" Bok's voice sounded gritty
with static in Kinsman's helmet earphones.

"Up on the rim. He must've gone inside the damned
crater."

"The rim? How'd you get ..."

"Found a flat spot for the jumper. Don't think I walked
this far, do you? I'm not as nutty as the priest."

"But you're supposed to stay down here on the plain!
The crater's off-limits."

"Tell that to our holy friar. He's the one who marched up
here. I'm just following the seismic rigs he's been planting
every three, four klicks."

He could sense Bok shaking his head. "Kinsman, if there
are twenty officially approved ways to do a job, I swear you'll
pick the twenty-second."

"If the first twenty-one are lousy."

"Mission control is going to be damned upset with you.
You won't get off with just a reprimand this time."

"I suppose mission control would prefer that we just let
the priest stay lost."

"You're not going inside the crater, are you?" Bok's
voice edged up half an octave. "It's too risky."

Kinsman almost laughed. "You think sitting inside that
aluminum casket you're in is safeT'

The earphones went silent. With a sigh. Kinsman wished
for the tenth time that hour that he could scratch his
138

twelve-day-old beard. Get zipped into the suit and the itches
start. He did not need a mirror to know that his face was
haggard, sleepless, his black beard mean-looking.

He stepped down from the jumper—a rocket motor with
a railed platform and some equipment on it, nothing more
—and planted his boots on the solid rock of the ringwall's
crest. With a twist of his shoulders to settle the weight of his
bulky backpack he shambled over to the packet of seismic
instruments and the fluorescent marker that the priest had left
there.

"He came right up to the top and now he's off on the
yellow brick road, playing Moon explorer. Stupid bastard."

Did you really think you'd leave human stupidity behind
you? a voice in his head asked. Or human guilt?

Reluctantly he looked into the crater. The brutally short
horizon cut across the middle of its floor, but the central peak
stuck its worn head up among the solemn stars. Beyond it
there was nothing but dizzying blackness, an abrupt end to
the solid world and the beginning of infinity.

Damn the priest! God's gift to geology. And I've got to
play guardian angel for him.

Kinsman turned back and looked outward from the
crater rim. He could see the lighted radio mast and squat
return rocket, far below on the plain. He even convinced
himself that he saw the mound of rubble marking their buried
base shelter, where Bok lay curled safely in his bunk. The
Russian base was far over the horizon, almost on the other
side of the Mare Nubium. He could talk to the Russians by
bouncing a signal off one of the commsats orbiting the Moon.
But what good would that do? They were much farther away
from the wandering priest than he was.

"Any sign of him?" Bok's voice asked.

"Sure," Kinsman retorted. "He left me a big map with
an X to mark the treasure."

"Don't get sore at me!"

"Why not? You're sitting inside. I've got to find our
fearless geologist."

"Regulations say one man's got to remain in the base at
all times."

But not the same one man, Kinsman replied silently.

"Anyway," Bok went on, "he's still got a few hours'
139

oxygen left. Let him putter around inside the crater for a
while. He'll come back under his own power."

"Not before his air runs out. Besides, he's officially
missing. Missed his last two check-in calls. Houston knows it,
by now. My assignment is to scout his last known position.
Another of those sweet regs."

Silence again. Bok did not like being alone in the Base,
Kinsman knew.

"Why don't you come on back in," the astronomer's
voice said at last, "until he calls in. Then you can go out again
and get him with the jumper. You'll be running out of air
yourself before you can find him in the crater."

"I've got to try."

"You can't make up the rules as you go along. Kinsman!
This isn't the Air Force; you're not a hotshot jet jockey
anymore. NASA has rules, regulations. They'll ground you if
you don't follow their game plan."

"Maybe."

"You don't even like the priest!" Bok was almost shout-
ing now, the fear-induced anger making his voice shrill, ugly.
"You've been tripping all over yourself to stay clear of him
whenever you're both inside the base."

Kinsman felt his jaw clench. So it shows. If you're not
careful you'll tip them both off.

Aloud, he replied, "I'm going to look around. Give me
an hour. Call Houston and give them a complete report; all
they've got so far is a gap in the automatic record where the
priest's last two check-ins ought to be. And stay inside the
shelter until I come back." Or until a relief crew arrives, he

added silently.

"You're wasting your time. And taking unnecessary

risks. They'll ground you for sure."
"Wish me luck," Kinsman said.
A delay. Then, "Luck. I'll sit tight here."
Despite himself, Kinsman grinned. I know damned well

you'll sit tight there. Some survey team. One goes over the

hill and the other stays in his bunk for two weeks straight.
He gazed out at the bleak landscape surrounded by

starry emptiness. Something caught in his memory.

"They can't scare me with their empty spaces," he
140

muttered to himself. There was more to the verse but he
could not recall it.

"Can't scare me," he repeated softly, shuffling to the
inner rim of the crater's ringwall. He walked very deliberate-
ly, like a tired old man, and tried to see from inside his
bulbous helmet exactly where he was placing his feet.

The barren slopes fell away in gently terraced steps until,
many kilometers below, they melted into the cracked and
pockmarked crater floor. Looks easy . . . too easy. Like the
steps to hell. With a shrug that was weighted down by the
lunar suit's backpack. Kinsman started to descend into the
crater.

He picked his way across the gravelly terraces and
crawled feet-first down the breaks between them. The bare
rocks were slippery and sometimes sharp. Kinsman went
slowly, step by careful step, trying to make certain that he did
not tear the metallic fabric of his suit. His world was cut off
now and circled by the dark rocks. Inside the vast crater he
was cut off from the direct radio link with Bok; in the shadow
of these terraced rock walls, he could not even make contact
with the communications satellites orbiting over the Moon's
equator. The only sounds were the creaking of the suit's
joints, the electrical hum of the pump that circulated water
through its inner lining, the faint wheeze of the helmet air
blower. And his own heavy breathing. Alone, all alone. A
solitary microcosm. One living creature in the universe.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces.

Between stars—on stars where no human race is. There
was still more to it: the tag line that he could not remember.

Finally he had to stop. The suit was heating up too much
from his exertion. He took a marker beacon from the
backpack and planted it on the broken ground. The Moon's
gray rocks, churned by eons of infalling micrometeors and
whipped into a frozen froth, had an unfinished look about
them, as if somebody had been blacktopping the place but
stopped before he could apply the final smoothing touches.

From a pouch on his belt Kinsman took a small spool of
wire. Plugging one end into the radio outlet on his helmet, he
held the spool at arm's length and released its catch. He could
not see it in this dim light, but he felt the spool's spring fire the
141

antenna wire high and out into the crater.

"Father Lemoyne," he called as the antenna drifted
slowly in the Moon's gentle gravity. "Father Lemoyne, can
you hear me?"

No answer.

Down another flight. Kinsman told himself.

After two more stops and nearly an hour of sweaty
descent, Kinsman got his answer.

"Here ..." a weak voice responded, "I'm here . . ."

"Where?" Kinsman snapped, every sense alert, all fa-
tigue forgotten. "Do something. Make a light."

". . . can't . . ." The voice faded out.

Kinsman reeled in the antenna and fired it out again.
"Where in hell are you?"

A cough, with pain behind it. "Shouldn't have done it.
Disobeyed. And no water, nothing ..."

Great! Kinsman raged. He's either hysterical or deliri-
ous. Or both.

After firing the spool antenna a third time, Kinsman
flicked on the lamp atop his helmet and looked at the radio
direction-finder dial on his forearm. The priest had his suit
radio open and the carrier beam was coming through even
though he was no longer talking. The gauges alongside the
radio-finder reminded Kinsman that he was about halfway
down on his oxygen. More than an hour had elapsed since he
had last spoken to Bok.

"I'm trying to zero in on you," Kinsman called. "Are
you hurt? Can you—"

"Don't, don't, don't. I disobeyed and now I've got to pay
for it. Don't trap yourself, too . . ." The heavy reproachful
voice lapsed into a mumble that Kinsman could not under-
stand.

Trapped. Kinsman could picture it. The priest was using
a canister suit, a one-man walking cabin, a big, plexidomed,
rigid metal can with flexible arms and legs sticking out of it. A
man could live for days inside it, but it was too clumsy for
climbing. Which is why the crater was off-limits.

He must've fallen and now he's stuck, like a goddamned
turtle on its back.

"The sin of pride," he heard the priest babbling. "God
forgive us our pride. I wanted to find water; the greatest
142

discovery a man can make on the Moon. . . . Pride, nothing
but pride . . ."

Kinsman walked slowly, shifting his eyes from the
direction-finder to the roiled, pockmarked ground underfoot.
He jumped across a two-meter drop between terraces. The
finder's needle snapped to zero.

"Your radio still on?"

"No use ... go back ..."

The needle stayed fixed. Either I broke it or I'm right on
top of him.

He turned a full circle, slowly scanning the rough ground
as far as his light could reach. No sign of the canister.
Kinsman stepped to the terrace edge. Kneeling with deliber-
ate care, so that his backpack would not unbalance him and
send him sprawling down the tumbled rocks, he peered over,

In a zigzag fissure a few meters below him was the priest,
a giant armored insect gleaming white in the glare of the
lamp, feebly waving with one free arm,

"Can you get up?" Kinsman saw that all the weight of the
cumbersome suit was on the pinned arm. Banged up his
backpack, too.

"Trying to find the secrets of God's creation . . .
storming heaven with rockets. . . . We say we're seeking
knowledge but we're really after our own glory ..."

Kinsman frowned. He could not see the older man's face
behind the canister's heavily tinted visor. Just as he could not
see the face of the cosmonaut, years ago.

"I'll have to bring the jumper down here."

The priest rambled on, coughing spasmodically. Kins-
man got to his feet.

"Pride leads to death," he heard in his earphones. "You
know that. Kinsman. It's pride that makes us murderers."

The shock boggled Kinsman's knees. He turned, shak-
ing. "What ... did you say?"

"I know you, Kinsman. Anger and pride. Destroy not
my soul with men of blood . . . whose right hands
are . . . are . . ,"

Kinsman ran. He fought back toward the crater rim,
storming the terraces blindly, scrabbling up the inclines with
four-meter-high jumps. Twice he had to turn up the air
blower in his helmet to clear the sweaty fog from his
143

faceplate. He did not dare to stop. He raced on, breath
racking his lungs, heart pounding until he could hear nothing
else.

Finally he reached the crest. Collapsing on the deck of
the jumper, he forced himself to breathe normally again,
forced himself to sound normal as he called Bok.

The astronomer listened and then said guardedly, "It
sounds like he's dying."

"I think his regenerator's shot. His air must be pretty
foul by now."

"No sense going back for him,"

Kinsman hesitated. "Maybe I can get the jumper close
enough to him." But his mind was screaming at him, The
priest found out about me!

"You'll never get him back here in time," Bok was
saying. "And you're not supposed to take the jumper near the
crater, let alone inside it. It's too risky."

"You want to just let him die?" He's hysterical. If he
babbles about me where Bok can hear it ... Christ, it'll be
piped straight back to Houston, automatically!

"Listen," the astronomer said, his voice rising again.
"You can't leave me stuck here with both of you gone! I know
the regulations, Kinsman. You're not allowed to risk yourself
or the third man in the team in an effort to help a man in
trouble. Those are the rules!"

"I know. I know." You've already killed one human
being. Are you going to let another one die because of it?
Where does it end. Kinsman? Where does it end?

"You don't have enough oxygen in your suit to get down
there and back again," Bok insisted. "I've been calculat-
ing—"

"I can tap the jumper's propellant tank."

"But that's crazy! You'll get yourself stranded!"

"Maybe." If NASA finds out about it they'll bounce me
straight back to the Air Force. Back to Murdock.

"You're going to kill yourself over that priest! And you'll
be killing me, too!"

"He's probably dead by now," Kinsman said, as much to
himself as to Bok. "I'll just place a marker down there so
another crew can get him out when the time comes. I won't be
long."

144

"I'm calling Houston," said the astronomer. "You can't
make a move until mission control okays it."

"By then he'il be dead for sure."

"But the regulations . . ."

"Were written Earthside," Kinsman snapped. "The
brass never planned on anything like this. I've got to go back,
just to make sure."

"Kinsman, if you go . . ."

"I'm gone," he said. Then he turned off his suit radio.

He flew the jumper back down the crater's inner slope,
leaning over the platform railing to see his marker beacons
while listening to their radio peeps. In a few minutes he eased
the spraddle-legged platform down on the last terrace before
the helpless priest, kicking up a small spray of dust with the
rockets.

"Father Lemoyne."

Kinsman stepped off the jumper and made it to the edge
of the fissure in two lunar strides. The white shell was inert,
the lone arm unmoving.

"Father Lemoyne!"

Kinsman held his breath, listening. Nothing . . . wait
. . . the faintest, faintest breathing. More like gasping.
Quick, shallow, desperate.

"You're dead," Kinsman heard himself mutter. "Give it
up. You're finished. Even if I got you out of here you'd be
dead before I could get you back to the base."

The priest's faceplate was opaque to him. He saw only
the reflected spot of his own helmet lamp. But his mind filled
with the shocked face he had seen in that other visor, the
horrified expression when she realized that she was dead.

Kinsman looked away, out at the too-close horizon and
the uncompromising stars beyond. Then he remembered the
rest of it.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars—on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.

Like an automaton he turned back to the jumper. His
mind was a blank now. Without thought, without even
145

feeling, he rigged a line from the jumper's tiny winch to the
metal lugs in the canister suit's chest. Then he took apart the
platform railing and wedged three rejoined sections into the
fissure above the fallen man, to form a hoisting lever arm.
Looping the line over the spindly metal arm, he started the
winch.

He climbed down into the fissure as the winch silently
took up the slack in the line, and set himself as solidly as he
could on the bare, scoured-smooth rock. Grabbing the
priest's armored shoulders, he guided the oversized canister
up from the crevice while the winch strained steadily.

The railing arm gave way when the priest was only
partway up and Kinsman felt the full weight of the monstrous
suit crush down on him. He sank to his knees, gritting his
teeth to keep from crying out.

Then the winch took up the slack. Grunting, fumbling,
pushing, Kinsman scrabbled up the rocky slope with his arms
wrapped halfway around the big canister's middle. He let the
winch drag them both to the jumper's edge, then reached out
and shut off the motor.

With only a hard breath's pause Kinsman snapped down
the suit's supporting legs so the priest could stand upright
even though unconscious. Then he clambered onto the Jump-
er's platform and took the oxygen line from the rocket
tankage. Kneeling at the bulbous suit's shoulders, he plugged
the line into its emergency air tank.

The older man coughed once. That was all.

Kinsman leaned back on his heels. His faceplate was
fogging over again, or was it fatigue blurring his vision? The
regenerator was hopelessly smashed, he saw. The old bird
must've been breathing his own juices. Once the emergency
tank registered full, he disconnected the oxygen line and
plugged it into a special fitting below the regenerator.

"If you're already dead, this is probably going to kill me,
too," Kinsman said. He purged the entire suit, forcing the
contaminated fumes out and replacing them with oxygen that
the jumper's rocket motor needed to get them back to the
base.

He was close enough now to see through the canister's
tinted visor. The priest's face was grizzled, eyes closed. His
146

usual maddening little smile was gone; his mouth hung open
slackly.

Kinsman hauled him up onto the railless platform and
strapped him down to the deck. He saw himself, for an absurd
moment, as Frankenstein's assistant, strapping the giant
monster to the operating table. Then he turned to the control
podium and inched the throttle forward just enough to give
them the barest minimum of lift. Steady, Igor, he said to
himself. We can't use full power now.

The jumper almost made it to the crest before its rocket
motor died and bumped them gently onto one of the terraces.
There was a small emergency tank of oxygen that couid have
carried them a little farther, but Kinsman knew that he and
the priest would need it for breathing.

"Wonder how many Jesuits have been carried home on
their shields?" he asked himself as he unbolted the section of
decking that the priest was lying on. By threading the winch
line through the bolt holes he made an improvised sled, which
he carefully lowered to the ground. Then he took the
emergency oxygen tank and strapped it to the deck section
also.

Kinsman wrapped the line around his fists, put his
shoulder under it, and leaned against the burden. Even in the
Moon's light gravity it was like trying to haul a truck.

"Down to less than one horsepower," he grunted, strain-
ing forward.

For once he was glad that the scoured rocks had been
smoothed by micrometeors. He would climb a few steps,
wedge himself as firmly as he could, then drag the sled to him.
It took a painful half-hour to reach the ringwall crest.

He could see the base again, tiny and remote as a dream.
"All downhill from here," he mumbled.

He thought he heard a groan.

"That's it," he said, pushing the sled over the crest, down
the gentle outward slope. "That's it. Stay with it. Don't you
die on me. Don't you put me through all of this for nothing!"

"Kinsman!" Bok's voice. "Are you all right?"

The sled skidded against a meter-high rock. Scrambling
after it, Kinsman answered, 'T'm bringing him in. Just shut
up and leave us alone. I think he's alive."
147

"Houston says no," Bok answered, his voice strangely
calm. "They've calculated that his air went bad on him. He
can't possibly be alive. You are ordered to leave him and
return to base shelter. Ordered, Kinsman."

"Tell Houston they're wrong. He's still alive. Now stop
wasting my breath."

Pull the sled free. Push it to get it started downhill again.
Strain to hold it back. Don't let it get away from you. Haul it
out of the damned ciaterlets. Watch your step, don't fall.

"Too damned much uphill ... in this downhill."

Once he sprawled flat and knocked his helmet against the
edge of the sled. He must have blacked out for a moment.
Weakly, he dragged himself to the oxygen tank and refilled
his suit's supply. Then he checked the priest's suit and topped
off its tank.

"Can't do that again," he said to the silent priest. "Don't
know if we'll make it. Maybe we can. If neither one of us has
sprung a leak. Maybe ..."

Time slid away from him. The past and future disap-
peared into an endless now, a forever of pain and struggle,
with the heat of his toil welling up to drench him in his suit.

"Why don't you say something?" Kinsman panted at the
priest. "You can't die. Understand me? You can't die! I've got
to explain it to you. I didn't mean to kill her. I didn't even
know she was a girl. You can't tell, can't see a face until
you're too close. She must've been just as scared as I was. She
tried to kill me. How'd I know their cosmonaut was just a
scared kid? When I saw her face it was too late. But I didn't
know. I didn't know . . ."

They reached the foot of the ringwall and Kinsman
dropped to his knees. "Couple more klicks now. Straight-
away. Only a couple more . . . kilometers."

His vision blurred and something in his head was buzzing
angrily. Staggering to his feet, he lifted the line over his
shoulder and slogged ahead. He could just make out the
lighted top of the base's radio mast.

"Leave him, Kinsman!" Bok's voice pleaded from some-
where. "You can't make it unless you leave him!"

"Shut . . . up."

One step after another. Don't think, don't count. Blank
your mind. Be a mindless plow horse. Plod along. One step at
148

a time. Steer for the radio mast. Just a few . . . more . . .
klicks.

"Don't die on me, priest! Don't you . . . die on me!
You're my penance, priest. My ticket back. Don't die on
me . . . don't die ..."

It all went dark. First in spots, then totally. Kinsman
caught a glimpse of the barren landscape tilting weirdly, then
the grave stars slid across his view, then darkness.

"I tried," he heard himself say in a far, far distant voice.
"I tried."

For a moment or two he felt himself falling, dropping
effortlessly into blackness. Then even that sensation died and
he felt nothing at all.

A faint vibration buzzed at him.

The darkness started to shift, turn gray at the edges.
Kinsman opened his eyes and saw the low curved ceiling of
the underground base. The hum was the electrical generator
that lit and warmed and brought good air into their tight little
shelter.

"You okay?" Bok leaned over him. His chubby face was
frowning worriedly.

Kinsman nodded weakly.

"Father Lemoyne's going to pull through," Bok said,
stepping out of the cramped space between the two bunks.
The priest was awake but unmoving, his eyes staring blankly
upward. His canister suit had been removed and one arm was
covered with a plastic cast.

Bok explained, "I've been getting instructions from the
medics in Houston. They contacted the Russians. A paramed-
ic's coming over from their base- Should be here in an hour.
Lemoyne's in shock and his right arm's broken, but otherwise
he seems pretty good. Exhausted, but no permanent dam-
age."

Kinsman pulled himself up to a sitting position on the
bunk and leaned his back against the curving wall. His
helmets and boots were off, but he was still wearing the rest of
his lunar suit.

"You went out and got us," he realized.

Bok nodded. "You were less than a kilometer away. I
could hear you on the radio, babbling away. Then you
149

stopped talking. I had to go out."

"You saved my life."

"And you saved the priest's."

Kinsman stopped for a moment, remembering, "I did a
lot of raving out there, didn't I?"

Bok wormed his shoulders uncomfortably. "Sort of. It's,
uh . , . well, at least the Russians didn't pick up any of it."

"But Houston did."

"It was relayed automatically. Emergency procedure,
You know . . . it's the rules."

That's it, Kinsman said to himself. Now they know.

"They, uh . . ." Bok looked away. "They're sending a
relief crew to fly us back."

"They don't trust me to pilot the return rocket."

"After what you've been through?"

That's the end of it. NASA won't want any neurotic Air
Force killers on their payroll. It would ruin their cooperative
programs with the Russians.

"You haven't heard the best of it, though," Bok said,
eager to change the subject. He went over to the shelf at the
end of the priest's bunk and took a small plastic bottle. "Look
at this."

Kinsman took the stoppered bottle in his hands. Inside it,
a small sliver of ice floated on water.

"It was stuck in the cleats of his boots."

"Father Lemoyne's?"

"Right. It's really water! Tests out okay and I even snuck
a taste of it. It's real water, all right."

"It must have been down in that fissure, after all,"
Kinsman said. "He found it without knowing it. He'll get into
all the history books now." And he'll have to watch his pride
even more.

Bok sat on the shelter's only chair. "Chet . . . about
what you were saying out there . . ."

Kinsman expected tension, but instead he felt only
numb. "I know. They heard it in Houston."

"I'm sure they'll try to keep it quiet."

Kinsman heard himself replying calmly, "They can't
keep the lid on something that big. Somebody will leak it. At
the very least it means I'm finished with NASA."

"We'd all heard rumors about an Air Force astronaut
150

killing a Russian during a military mission. But I never
thought ... I mean . . ."

"The priest figured it out. Or he guessed it."

"It must've been rough on you," Bok said.

Kinsman shrugged. "Not as rough as what happened to
her."

"I'm . . . sorry." Bok's voice trailed off helplessly.

"It doesn't matter."

Surprised, Kinsman realized that he meant it. He sat
upright. "It doesn't matter anymore. They can do whatever
they want to. I can handle it. Even if they ground me and
throw me to the media wolves, I think I can take it. I did it
and it's over with and I can take whatever I have to take."

Father Lemoyne's free arm moved slightly. "It's all
right," he whispered hoarsely. "It's all right."

The priest turned his face toward Kinsman. His gaze
moved from the astronaut's eyes to the plastic bottle in
Kinsman's hands. "It's all right," he repeated, smiling weak-
ly. "It's not hell we're in. It's purgatory. We'll get through,
We'll make it all right."

Then he closed his eyes and relaxed into sleep. But his
smile remained, strangely gentle in that bearded, haggard
face; ready to meet the world or eternity.

Age 33

IT LOOKED LIKE a perfectly reasonable bar to Kinsman. No, he
corrected himself. A perfectly reasonable pub.

The booths along the back wall were empty. A couple of
middle-aged men were conversing quietly as they stood at the
bar itself with pints of light Australian lager in their hands.
The bartender was a beefy, red-faced Aussie. Only the ceiling
of raw rock broke the illusion that they were up on the surface
in an ordinary Australian city.
151

Kinsman ordered a scotch and walked slowly with it to
the last booth, where his back would be to the rock wall and
he could see the entire pub. Tiredly he wondered when the
British Commonwealth was going to discover the joys of ice
cubes. Half a tumbler of good whisky and just two thumbnail-
sized dollops of ice that immediately melted away and left the
scotch lukewarm.

Like the Wicked Witch of the West, he thought. Melting,
melting. Like me.

Kinsman glanced at his wristwatch. The dedication cere-
monies should soon be over. The pub would start to fill up
then. Better finish your drink and find someplace to hide
before they start pouring in here.

He gulped at the whisky, but as he put the glass down on
the bare wood of the booth's table, Fred Durban walked into
the pub. Durban looked damned good for a man pushing
seventy. Tall and spare as one of the old rocket boosters he
had engineered, back in the days when you pressed the firing
button and ducked behind sandbags because you had no idea
of what the rocket might decide to do.

Kinsman felt trapped. He could not get up and leave
because he would have to walk past Durban and the old man
would recognize him. If he stayed, Durban would spot him.
Even in a civilian's slacks and sports jacket. Kinsman could
not hide his identity.

The old man walked slowly toward the bar, looking
almost British in his tweed jacket and the pipe that he almost
always had clamped in his teeth. He looked down the bar,
then toward the booths. His face lit up as he spotted
Kinsman. Briskly he strode to the booth and slid into the
bench on the other side of the narrow table.

"You couldn't take all the speechifying either, eh?"

Wishing he were somewhere else. Kinsman nodded.

"Can't blame you. I've been in this game for a thousand
years now and the only part of it I don't like is when those
stuffed shirts start congratulating themselves over the things
you and I did."

"Uh, sir, I was just leaving . . ."

"Hey, come on! You wouldn't leave me here to drink all
alone, would you?"

Before Kinsman could answer or maneuver himself out
152

of the booth, Durban turned toward the barkeep and called,
"Can I have a mug of lager, please, and another of whatever
my friend here is drinking?"

The bartender nodded. "Ryte awhy, mate."

"Now then, the logistics are taken care of." Durban put
his unlit pipe in the battered ashtray, then fished in his jacket
pockets to produce a pouch of aromatic tobacco, lighter, and
all the surgical instruments that pipe smokers carry.

"I really should be going," Kinsman said, starting to feel
desperate.

"Where to?"

"Well . . ."

"There's nothing going on except that damned dedica-
tion ceremony. Everybody else is there, except for thee and
me. And except the miners." He started reaming out the pipe
and dumping the black soot into the ashtray. The barkeep
brought their drinks and put them down on the table.

"How much?" Durban asked.

"I'll keep a tab runnin'. Got a bloody computer f keep
track of you blokes. Prints up your bill neat an' clean when
you're ready t' go. Even keeps track o' the ice!" He laughed
his way back to the bar.

"I haven't seen much of the mines yet," Kinsman said,
stil! trying to get away.

"Nothing much to see," Durban muttered, putting his
pipe back together. "Take the tour tomorrow morning. Just
some tunnels with automated machinery chipping away at the
rock. The real work's done by a half-dozen engineers in the
control center. Looks Just like mission control at Kennedy or
Vandenberg."

"I haven't even seen the surface. We landed last
night . . ."

"Desert. They won't let you up there by yourself. Fifty
degrees Celsius. That's why the miners live down here."

"I know." The sun will broil you in minutes. And it's
empty up there. Clean and empty. No one to see you. No one
to watch you. They wouldn't find your body for days.

Durban took a long swallow of beer. "Fifty degrees," he
murmured. "Sounds hotter if you say 120 Fahrenheit."

"Like the Moon."

Durban nodded. "That's why we're opening this training
153

center here. People will have to live underground on the
Moon, so we'll train them here at Coober Pedy."

"It was your idea, wasn't it?"

Another nod. "Not mine exclusively. Several other peo-
ple thought of it, too. Years ago. But when you live long
enough to be an old fart like me in this game, they give you
credit for enormous wisdom," He laughed and reached for his
beer again.

Kinsman sat quietly, wondering how he could break
away, while Durban alternately sipped his beer and packed
his pipe. The old man still had a tinge of red in his silvery hair.
His face was thin, with a light, almost delicate bone structure
showing through skin like ancient parchment. But the cobalt-
blue eyes were alive, alert, inquisitive, framed by bushy
reddish brows. Durban had seen it all, from the struggling
beginnings of rocketry when people scoffed at the idea of
exploring space to the multinational industry that was now on
the verge of colonizing the Moon.

"You look damned uncomfortable, son. What's wrong?"

Kinsman felt himself wince. "Nothing," he lied.

Those bushy eyebrows went up. "Am I bothering you?
Did I say something I shouldn't? Am I keeping you from a
date or something?"

"Nosir. None of the above. I'm just . . . well, I guess I
feel out of place here."

Durban studied him. "You were on the plane with me,
the L.A. to Sydney flight last night, weren't you?"

"Yessir."

"I thought I recognized you. Saw your picture in the
papers or something a few years back. But you were in
uniform then."

He can't know, Kinsman told himself. There's no way he
could possibly know.

"I'm still in the Air Force," he said to Durban. "I'm
on ... inactive duty."

"Astronaut?"

"I was."

Durban said, "Do I have to buy you another drink to get
you to tell me your name?"

"Kinsman," he blurted. "Chet Kinsman." He grabbed
the whisky in front of him and took a long pull from it.
154

"Chester A. Kinsman," Durban murmured. "Now
where did I ... of, of course!" He grinned broadly. "The
Zero Gee Club! Now I remember. Old Cy Calder told me
about you."

Kinsman put his drink down with a trembling hand. "The
Zero Gee Club. I had forgotten about that."

"Forgotten about it?" Durban looked impressed. "You
mean you've gone on to even greater things?"

"No." Kinsman shook his head. "Different. But not
greater."

"Calder died a couple of years ago," Durban said.
"Ninety-three."

"I didn't know."

His voice lower, "Just about all my old friends are dead.
That's the curse of a long life. You get to feel that you're the
last of the Mohicans."

"You think dying young is better?"

Instead of answering, Durban picked up his lighter and
started puffing his pipe to life. Clouds of bluish smoke rose
slowly, swirled around his head, then were pulled ceilingward
toward the vents in the solid rock.

"You said," he asked between puffs, "you're on ...
inactive duty. . . . What brought that about?"

"Accident," Kinsman said automatically, feeling his in-
sides congealing.

"Where? In orbit?"

"Yes."

"You got hurt? Funny, I didn't hear anything—"

"It happened a long time ago," Kinsman said, seeing the
face of the cosmonaut screaming as she died. "It's just . . .
one thing led to another. You know how it is."

Durban blew out another cloud of smoke. "Still, I've got
a pretty good network of spies in all parts of this business.
Odd I never heard about it."

Stop pumping me, Kinsman snarled silently. "Maybe it
wasn't important enough to make the scuttlebutt rounds," he
lied. "Except to me."

Durban looked skeptical. "An able-bodied astronaut
sitting on his backside? For how long now?"

"Awhile."

"H'm. And what are you doing here?"
155

Kinsman shrugged. "Looking for a job, I guess."

"A job?"

"I can get an honorable discharge from the Air Force. I
thought I might get a civilian job."

Durban's bushy brows knit together. "The Air Force is
willing to let an experienced astronaut go? Who's your boss
out there at Vandenberg?"

"Colonel Murdock."

"Bob Murdock?" Durban broke into a grin. "I've known
Bobby since we used to fill out requisition forms over his
forged signature. Don't tell me he's still a light colonel!"

"No, he's got his eagles."

"And he's willing to let you quit the Air Force? Why?"

Kinsman shook his head. Because I make him uncom-
fortable. Because I don't follow the rules. Because I'm a
nervous wreck and a murderer. Or is it the other way around?

"Personal, eh?"

"Very."

"I can introduce you to some NASA people who . , ."

"I've done a tour of duty with NASA. They shipped me
back to the Air Force. The big aerospace corporations are
where the jobs are now. Or so they tell me."

"And that's why you're here. To talk to the corporation
people. Any luck?"

"All negative. They won't touch me without seeing my
Air Force record, and my record shows a big blank space
where it counts most."

Durban stared at him. "What the hell happened?"

Kinsman did not reply.

"Okay, okay . . . it's very personal. I'm just plain curi-
ous, though. Not much happens in this game without me
hearing about it, you know."

Kinsman picked up his drink again, thinking, You've
heard about this one. You've heard the rumors. You just
haven't connected me with the story. He drained the thick-
walled glass and put it back on the table again.

"I hope you won't go probing into this, Mr. Durban. It's
very sensitive ... to me personally, as well as to the Air
Force."

"I can see that," Durban said.

"I wouldn't have mentioned anything at all about it,"
156

Kinsman went on, "except that you . . . weli, you seem like
someone I can trust."

"But only so far."

"Believe me, I've told you more than anyone else. But
please don't push it any father ... I mean, farther."

"All right."

"I'd like your word on that."

The eyebrows shot up again. "My word? You mean
there's a gentleman left in this world who'll take a man's word
and a handshake on something bigger than a five-dollar bet?"

Smiling despite himself, Kinsman answered, "I don't
even need the handshake. Your word is good enough for me."

"Well, I'll be . . ." Durban turned slightly on the bench
and looked toward the front of the pub. "Looks like a couple
more fugitives from the ceremonies just slinked in."

Kinsman glanced toward the pub's front entrance and
saw Frank Colt, in his sharply creased Air Force blues,
looking slightly uncomfortable next to a lanky, sandy-haired
Russian in the tan and red uniform of the Soviet Cosmonaut
Corps.

Durban stuck his head out from the booth and called,
"Piotr . . . over here."

"Ahah! An underground meeting," the Russian boomed
out in a voice three times his size.

The two men came over and slid into the booth: the
Russian next to Durban and Colt beside Kinsman.

Durban said, "Chet, may I introduce Major Piotr Leo-
nov, Cosmonaut First Class. And a fine basso, if you ever
want to get up an operatic quartet."

"We have already met," the Russian said, taking Kins-
man's extended hand in a friendly but not overly strong grip.

"We have?"

"At your base near Aristarchus. I piloted the craft that
brought medical aid for your renegade Jesuit."

Comprehension began to light in Kinsman's mind.

"You were quite asleep at the time," Leonov went on, in
English that had a slight British accent. "Apparently, you had
gone through a strenuous time, rescuing the priest."

Kinsman nodded. "Well, it's good to meet you when my
eyes are open."

Leonov laughed.

157

"This is Captain Frank Colt," Kinsman said to Durban.
"Top flier in the Vandenberg crew. I don't know how well he
sings but he's a damned good man to work with in orbit."

"I've got a natural sense of rhythm," Colt said, straight-
faced, testing Durban.

"I've heard about you," Durban said. "Aren't you the
one who saved that cee-cubed satellite when its final stage
misfired and it looked like the whole damned thing was going
to splash in the Pacific?"

With a nod, "I got a replacement thruster mated to the
bird, yeah."

"And damned near fried his ass off," Kinsman added.

"You should have asked us for assistance," Leonov said,
grinning. "We would have been happy to help you save your
command-and-control satellite."

"You sure would," Colt snapped. "You'd tote it back to
Moscow with you."

Leonov shrugged elaborately, "Wouldn't you, with one
of ours?"

A waitress appeared at their table: very young, miniskirt
showing smooth strong thighs, low-cut blouse showing plenty
of bosom, long blond hair, and a pretty face with placid cow
eyes.

"Service is improving," said Durban.

"The ceremonies are breaking up," Colt told him. "This
place'll be jammed in a few minutes."

The waitress took their order and flounced off to the bar.

"Nothing like that in Cosmograd, eh, Piotr?" Durban
nudged the Russian.

"My dear Frederick," Leonov countered, an enigmatic
smile on his bony face, "just because you did not see any of
the beautiful women of our city does not mean that they do
not exist. Being good Soviet women, naturally they hid
themselves from the prying eyes of capitalist spies."

"Hid themselves? Or were hidden by others?"

Leonov shrugged. "What difference? The important fact
is that I know where they are and you do not."

As the girl came back with their drinks, Colt asked
Kinsman quietly, "How's it going?"

Kinsman jabbed his thumb toward the floor. "Lousy."
158

"I still wish you'd let me help. We can go over Murdock's
head. The other astronauts will—"

"You don't want to get involved in this, Frank. It won't
do you any good."

Colt made a disgusted face.

"A toast!" Leonov called, raising his glass. It looked like
a tumbler of water. Kinsman guessed that it was at least four
ounces of straight vodka. "To international cooperation in
space. An end to all military secrets. Peace and total disarma-
ment. Brotherhood throughout the cosmos. Friendship
among all . . ."

"Is this a toast or a speech?" Colt grumbled.

"Nazdrovia!" Leonov snapped back and tossed down
half his drink in one gulp.

"I've got a toast," Durban said. "May the work that is
done here, underground, result in the four of us meeting
underground again ... on the Moon."

They drank again. And again. The waitress brought fresh
drinks. Through it all Kinsman kept wishing he could get
away, escape. The whisky was not making him drunk. It
couldn't. He would not let it.

"Frank, my friend," Leonov said over their glasses,
"why are you scowling? It is no crime to be drinking with a
Russian."

Colt hunched his shoulders and leaned forward over the
table. "Pete, I'm just drunk enough to tell you to go to hell.
You know I don't believe a word of this peace and friendship
bullshit."

"And I am drunk enough to know capitalist brainwash-
ing when I hear it."

"Come on now," Durban said, relighting his pipe for the
nth time. "Let's not get into a political squabble."

"Easy enough for you," Colt growled. "Mr. Internation-
al Astronautical Federation. You can go around the world
being friendly and setting up programs where we gotta
cooperate with the Reds. But we"—Colt's gesture included
Kinsman—"we gotta figure out how to cooperate with 'em
without letting 'em steal the whole fucking store! We gotta
defend the nation against 'em and cooperate with 'em at the
same time. How d'you do that?"
159

"By giving up all weapons in space," Leonov answered.
"Put an end to this Star Wars program of yours and dismantle
your antisatellite weapons and we will do the same."

"Uh-huh. And you'll let me come over and inspect your
boosters and satellites to make sure you're not cheating?"

"Allow you to spy on our space bases? Never!"

Kinsman leaned back in the booth, utterly sober, staring
at his emptied glass and wishing he could disappear from the
face of the Earth. Colt's superpatriotism always surprised and
embarrassed him. Childhood prejudice, he knew. Blacks
were anti-Establishment when you were a kid and you
expected them all to be anti-Establishment forever.

But America was truly multiracial now. There were
black generals, Hispanic bank presidents, Oriental board
chairmen. The talk was that there would be a black President
before much longer.

What will they call the White House then? Kinsman
wondered. Will they repaint it? More likely they'll repaint the
new President.

Leonov was chuckling. "Frank, my hotheaded friend, I
refuse to get angry with you. We are both alike! You want to
fly in space; so do I. Your government has ordered you to be
an intelligence-gatherer for the duration of this international
conference and ferret out as many of our secrets as you can.
My government has ordered me to be an intelligence officer
for the duration of this meeting and ferret out as many of your
secrets as I can. How do you think I can roam around this
underground rabbits' nest without a KGB 'guide' at my
elbow?"

Intelligence officer? Kinsman snapped his attention to
Leonov's eyes. The Russian met his gaze, smiling pleasantly,
a bit drunkenly. There was no hatred there, not even suspi-
cion. He doesn't know about me. Still, Kinsman's knees felt
suddenly weak.

"You already know all our goddamned secrets," Colt
groused.

"Just as you know ours," countered Leonov.

"Then let's get off the subject," Durban suggested, his
voice a bit edgy, "and talk about something more congenial."

"Such as what?"

Durban sucked on his pipe for a moment. It was out
160

again. He took it from his mouth and jabbed the stem in
Kinsman's direction.

"Chet here is looking for a job. What can we do for
him?"

Jesus Christ, he's going to spill it all over the place!
Kinsman heard himself stammering, "No, really . . . there's
no need ... I'd rather ..."

"Defect!" Leonov suggested jovially. "We will treat you
handsomely in the Soviet Union."

Colt glowered. "Yeah. In the basement of some psychiat-
ric prison."

The Russian pretended not to hear.

"I'm serious," Durban insisted. "There are too few
experienced astronauts—and cosmonauts—to let one walk
away from the game."

For God's sake leave me alone! Kinsman screamed
silently. But he could say nothing to them. He was frozen
there, pinned into the booth. Trapped.

"They don't want experience anymore," Colt said.
"They want youth. Murdock's even got me slated to train the
little bastards instead of doing the flying myself."

"The private corporations ..." Durban began.

"Are all talk and not much else," Colt said. "Chet and I
are executive timber, as far as they're concerned. But they're
not hiring fliers. They'd rather let Uncle Sam take the risks
while they sit back and wait till everything's set up for them at
the taxpayers' expense. Then they'll move in and make their
profits."

"In all honesty," Durban said, "the military space pro-
gram has gotten so big that it's swamping the civilian pro-
gram. The corporations can make assured profits working for
the Air Force. That makes it damned hard for them to justify
the risks of private operations in orbit."

Suddenly serious, Leonov said, "I know how you must
feel. If I thought that I would have to spend the rest of my life
at a desk, or training others to do what I most want for
myself, I would go mad."

"We need a new program," Durban said. "A priority
program that's got to get going now, before they have time to
train the next generation of kids."

"Such as what?" Colt asked.
161

"Not a military program," Leonov said. "Both our
nations are putting enough military hardware into space. Too
much."

"I agree," said Durban. "It ought to be an international
program . . . something we can all participate in."

"Something that needs a corps of experienced astro-
nauts," Kinsman heard himself chime in. "Something that
will get us out there to stay. Away from here permanently."

"I've been mulling over an idea for a while now,"
Durban said. "Maybe the time is ripe for it."

"What is it?"

"A hospital."

"Huh?"

"On the Moon. A lunar hospital, for old gaffers like me,
with bad hearts. For people with muscular diseases who are
cripples here in this one-gravity field but could lead normal
lives again on the Moon, in one-sixth gee."

Leonov smiled approvingly.

"Nobody's gonna put up the funding for an old soldiers'
home on the Moon," Colt said.

"Want to bet?" Kinsman was suddenly surging with
hope. "What's the average age of the U.S. Senate? Or the
Presidium of the USSR?"

"My father . . ." Leonov realized. "He is confined to
bed because of his heart's weakness. But in zero gravity, or
even on the Moon ..."

"And Jill Meyers," Kinsman added, "with all those
damned allergies of hers." I can stay in the Air Force! If they
go into a medical base on the Moon I can stay and work on
that. I can stay on the Moon, away from it all!

They drank and made plans. Kinsman's head started to
spin. The pub filled up with dignitaries from the conference
that had officially inaugurated the underground training facili-
ty. The four men stayed in their booth, drinking and talking,
ignoring everyone else. The international businessmen and
government officials drifted away after a while and the pub
began to fill up with its regular customers—the hard-drinking,
hard-handed miners who dug for opal and copper, who lived
underground to escape the searing heat of the desert above,
the miners who were being crowded out of half their living
area to make room for the space training facility.
162

The noise level went up in quantum leaps. Laughing,
rowdy men. Blaring music from the stereo. Higher-pitched
laughter from the extra barmaids and waitresses who came on
duty when the regulars came off shift.

Durban was yelling over the noise of the crowd, "Why
don't we adjourn to my room? It's quieter there and I've got a
couple of bottles of liquor in my luggage."

"Gotta make a pit stop first," Colt said, nodding toward
the door marked GENTS near their booth.

"Me too," said Kinsman.

Inside the washroom the noise level was much lower.
Coit and Kinsman stood side by side at the only two urinals.

"Y'know, I think the old guy's really got a workable
idea," Colt said happily. "We can lay this hospital project on
top of everything else that the Air Force is doing . . . and
with Durban pushing it, with his connections . . ."

"I still won't get off the ground," Kinsman suddenly
realized.

"Huh? Sure you will. Murdock can't . . ."

Kinsman shook his head. "It doesn't matter, Frank. My
psychological profile will shoot me down. They won't let me
back into space again."

Zipping up and heading for the only sink, Colt said,
"You can't let it beat you, man. You can't let it take the life
outta you."

Wonderful play on words.

Gesturing Kinsman to the sink ahead of himself, Colt
said, "What happened is over and done with. You gotta stop
acting . . . well, you know."

Kinsman looked into the mirror above the sink, into the
haunted eyes that always stared back at him. "I act sick?
Mentally unwell? Disturbed?"

"You act like a goddamned dope," Colt grumbled.

Wiping his hands on the cloth toweling that hung from a
wall-mounted fixture. Kinsman said, "Frank, for a minute
back there I got excited. I thought maybe Durban was right
and this hospital project would make enough new slots for
astronauts that I'd get another chance. But we both know
better. They won't let me fly again. You, sure. But not me.
I'm grounded."

Colt went to the sink as a couple of miners banged
163

through the door and headed for the urinals. A gust of noise
and raucous laughter bounced off the tile walls as the door

swung shut.

"Listen, man, one thing I've learned about the Air
Force—and everything else," Colt said over the splashing
water of the sink. "If you take just what they want to give
you, you'll get shit every time. You gotta fight for what you

want."

Kinsman shook his head. "My family were Quakers,

remember?"

Colt was moving to the towel machine when one of the

miners jostled him.

"D'ya mind, mate?"
Wordlessly Colt stepped away from him, turned, and

started wiping his hands on the toweling.

"Bloody foreigners all over th' plyce, ain't they?" said

the miner's companion.

Kinsman looked at them for the first time. They were no
taller than he or Colt, but they were heavy-boned, big-
knuckled, and half drunk.

Colt was wiping his hands very deliberately now, looking

at Kinsman with his back to the two miners.

"Bad enough they're tykin' up half th' bloody pits to put
their bloody spyce cadets in," said the one at the sink, "but
now they're goin' f stink up th' bloody pub."

"An' myke goo-goo eyes at th' girls."

"We oughtta bring in a few bloody chimpanzees t' serve

'em their drinks."

"Foreigners," said the second miner, loudly, even
though the washroom was small enough to hear a whisper.
"You remember what we did t' those Eye-Tyes back in

Melbourne, Bert?"

"They weren't Eye-Tyes; they were bloody Hungarians."

"Wops, Hunkies, whatever. Treated 'em ryte, din't we?"

"Gave 'em what they deserved."

Kinsman was between Colt and the door. He wanted to
tell his friend to leave, to ignore the drunken Aussies and

walk out. But he couldn't.

Colt was slowly, methodically, wiping his black hands on
the white toweling. The first miner stepped from the sink to
stand a few inches away from him.
164

"Least we never had t' deal with bloody Fiji Islanders
before."

Colt said nothing. He surrendered the towel. The miner
grinned at him with crooked teeth.

"Or Yank niggers," he added.

Colt grinned back. His right fist traveled six inches and
buried itself in the man's solar plexus. The miner gave a silent
gasp and collapsed, legs folding as he sank to the tiled floor.
The other miner stared but said nothing.

Kinsman opened the door and Colt followed him out into
the noisy, crowded pub. They saw Durban and Leonov
already standing at the end of the bar, near the door that led
to the corridor.

"See what I mean?" Colt said as they elbowed their way
through the press of bodies. "Gotta fight for respect, every
inch of the way."

Out in the corridor Leonov said, "I was about to call
your embassy to send a searching party for you."

"We got into a small discussion with a couple of the
friendly natives," Colt replied.

"Say, if you youngsters will slow down a little," Durban
pleaded, "I'll show you where my room is."

"And the liquor!" Leonov beamed, immediately slowing
his pace to walk beside the elderly Durban.

They labored up the rising slope of the corridor. It had
originally been a tunnel hewn out of solid rock. Only the floor
had been smoothed and covered with spongy plastic tiles. The
walls and ceiling were still bare grayish-brown unfinished
rock. Fluorescent lights hung every ten meters, connected by
drooping wires.

The others were busily chatting among themselves about
the new hospital project. Kinsman stayed silent, thinking,
Could I talk Murdock into it? Would they let me fly again? I'd
have to work it out so that I was assigned to the hospital
project permanently. They'd never let me get away with that.
They could reassign me whenever . . .

"HEY, YOU THERE! THE YANKS!"

Turning, Kinsman saw a dozen or so miners advancing up
the tunnel corridor toward them. In the lead were the two
from the washroom. They all looked drunk. And violently
angry.

165

"That's the black barstard that beat me up!" the miner
yelled. "Him an' his friend there."

Colt moved to stand beside Kinsman. And suddenly
Leonov was on his other side.

The miners halted a few feet in front of them. They
wanted to fight. They were spoiling for blood. Kinsman stood
rooted there, his mind blazing with the memory of the
moment when he had felt bloodlust. He was sweating again,
panting with exertion, reaching for the cosmonaut's fragile
airhose . . .

Not again, he told himself, trying to control his trembling
so that the others could not see it. Not again!

"What is this?" Leonov demanded. "Why are we ac-
costed by a mob?"

"Back off, Russkie," said one of the miners. "This is
none of your fight."

"These are my friends," Leonov said. "What concerns
them concerns me."

"He beat me up," said the miner Colt had hit.

"An' him." His companion pointed at Kinsman. "He
helped th' black bugger."

"Beat you up?" Leonov asked mildly. "Where are your
scars? Where is the blood? I see no bruises. Are you certain
you did not merely faint?"

The miner turned red as the men around him grinned.

"I was there with 'im," the other miner said. "They
jumped Bert and pummeled 'im till he dropped. In the
midsection."

"While you watched?" Leonov asked.

"We ain't tykin' that from no foreigners'"

The mob surged forward.

"Now that's enough!"

Frederick Durban stepped between Kinsman and
Leonov to face the angry miners. "We are the guests of the
Australian government," he said firmly, "and if any harm
comes to us you'll all go to jail."

"What about 'im?" one of the miners yelled. "They can't
go beatin' up our blokes and get awhy with it!"

"Nobody beat anybody up," Colt shouted back. "The
guy called me a nigger and I punched him in the gut. He
folded like a pretzel. One punch."
166

"That's a bloody lie! The other one held me and the
black barstard kicked me, too!"

Very calmly, Durban took the pipe from his mouth and
said, "All right, let's settle this here and now. But not with a
riot."

"How then?"

"There's an old custom where I come from . . . mining
country, back in Colorado." He turned slightly back toward
Kinsman and winked. "When two men have a difference of
opinion, they settle it fairly between themselves. Do you two
want to fight it out right here . . . Marquess of Queensberry
rules?"

Colt shrugged, then nodded.

"Oh, no, you don't!" screeched the miner. "He's a
bloody tryned killer. A soldier. Probably a karate expert . . .
chops bricks with 'is bare hands an' all that."

Durban scowled from under his shaggy brows. "Very
well then. Suppose / represent the American side of this
argument. Would you be afraid to fight me?"

"You? You're an old man!"

"I may be almost seventy," Durban said, stuffing his pipe
into a jacket pocket, "but I can still take on the likes of you."

The miner looked bewildered. "I ... you can't . . ."

"Come on," Durban said, very seriously. He raised his
fragile-looking fists.

One of the other miners put a hand on the first one's
shoulder. "Forget it, Bert. He's crazy."

Bert wavered, uncertain. Durban was ramrod straight,
looking like a slim rod of knobby bamboo next to a snorting
red-eyed bull. Kinsman watched, unable to move. That guy'll
kill Durban with one punch. Then what can we do? What can
I do?

The miner finally stepped back, muttering and shaking
his head. They all turned and began walking slowly back
down the tunnel corridor, toward the pub.

Durban let his hands drop to his sides.

Colt puffed out a breath of relief. "Thanks, man."

"Very courageous of you," Leonov said thoughtfully.

But Kinsman said nothing. What would I have done if it
had come to a brawl? What would I have done?

The four men walked slowly back to Durban's room, two
167

levels up closer to the surface.

'The whisky's in the brown carryall," Durban said as
they entered the windowless room. "Help yourselves." He
went straight to the bed and stretched out on it.

Colt and Leonov went to the whisky. Kinsman took a
close look at the old man. His face was ashen, his thin chest
heaving.

"Are you all right?"

"I've got some pills here ..." He fished in his jacket
pocket. The pipe fell out and dropped to the floor, spilling
black ashes across the cheap carpeting.

"I'll get you a glass of water."

Kinsman went to the sink across from the bed and took a
plastic cup from the dispenser on the wall above it. Durban
propped himself on one elbow to drink down the pill, then
dropped back onto the mattress and stared at the ceiling.

Leonov had taken the small room's only chair. Colt was
sitting on the dresser top next to the open whisky bottle. They
both had plastic cups in their hands.

"Hey, you need a doctor?" Colt asked.

"No . . ." Durban closed his eyes and took a deep
breath. "Just a little too much excitement for my heart. That,
and the climb upstairs."

Leonov said, "We have a cardiac specialist with the
Soviet delegation."

Pushing himself up to a sitting position, Durban waved a
hand at the Russian. "No, it's all right. I'll be okay in a
minute."

Kinsman sat on the edge of the bed and helped the old
man out of his jacket, then pulled off his shoes.

"You see." Durban said, sinking back against the pil-
lows, "I really do need a low-gravity home. Damned heart's
not fit to live on Earth anymore. It wants to be on the Moon."

"We'll get you there," Colt said.

"Yes," Leonov agreed, raising his cup to the proposition.

Kinsman shook his head. "If that miner had punched
you, it probably would have killed you. You were taking your
life in your hands."

Durban smiled at him. "Oh, I knew he wouldn't hit me.
He couldn't,"

"He came damned close."
168

"Not a bit of it. I'm obviously a frail old man. It would
ruin his self-image if he hit me. He knew that I'd go down
with one punch. I could see it in his eyes. Where's the
machismo in beating up an old man?"

'Then why ..."

"I got in front of you fellows so that he would be forced
to hit me before anybody else started fighting. That was the
best way to prevent a fight from starting."

"You still could've gotten hurt. Killed."

Durban's shaggy eyebrows rose a bit. "Well, sometimes
you have to put yourself on the line. You guys know that,
you've all done it yourselves, one time or another."

"More than once," Leonov murmured.

"We could've taken on the bunch of them," Colt said.
"They were brawlers, not trained fighters."

Leonov took a swallow of whisky and said, "I, for one,
am glad that the fight did not come about. My training is not
in hand-to-hand combat."

You have to put yourself on the line, Kinsman was
repeating to himself.

"Maybe you could have taken them all single-handedly,
Frank," Durban said. "But I doubt it. Besides, there are
better ways of winning what you want than punching people.
Much better ways."

"The tongue is mightier than the fist?" Colt jabbed.

"The brain is mightier than the biceps," Durban replied.

Kinsman got to his feet. "I've got to phone Colonel
Murdock."

"Bobby? Why?"

"To tell him that I'm not quitting the Air Force. I'm not
going to take an honorable discharge or any kind of dis-
charge. I'm not quitting."

Colt broke into a wide grin. "Great! And tell him for me
what I think of being assigned to training."

Leonov said, "You realize, of course, that if you start a
high-priority program to build a hospital complex on the
Moon, my superiors will become very suspicious of you."

"That's fine, Piotr," Durban said. "I'll put the idea
before the International Astronautical Federation and get
them to make this an international cooperative project. Then
you can come in on it, too."

169

"We shall all meet on the Moon," said Leonov.
"The sooner the better," Durban agreed.
"To the Moon." Colt raised his cup.
"I'll be there," said Kinsman.

Age 35

As SOON AS he stepped through the acoustical screen inside
the house's front doorway the noise hit Kinsman like a
physical blow. He stood there a moment and watched the
tribal rites of a Washington cocktail party.

My battlefield, he thought.

The room was jammed with guests and they all seemed to
be talking at once. It was an old Georgetown parlor, big, with
a high ceiling that sagged slightly and showed one hairline
crack along its length. The streets outside had been quiet and
deserted except for the police monitors in their armored suits
standing at each intersection. They looked like a bitter parody
of astronauts in space suits.

But here there was life, chatter, laughter. The people
who made Washington go, the people who ran the nation,
were here drinking and talking and ignoring the enforced
peace of the streets outside. America was on a wartime
footing, almost. The oil shock of ten years ago had inexorably
pushed the United States toward military measures. The Star
Wars strategic defense satellites that could protect the nation
against Soviet missiles were being deployed in orbit, despite
treaties, despite opposition at home, despite—or because
of—the Soviet deployment of a nearly identical system.
Unemployment at home was countered by a new public-
service draft that placed millions of eighteen-year-olds in
police forces, hospitals, public works projects, and the armed
services. Dissidence was smothered by fear: fear of dangers
real and imagined, fear of government retaliation, fear of
T70

ruinous unemployment and economic collapse, and the ulti-
mate fear of the nuclear war that hovered remorselessly on
the horizon waiting for the moment of Armageddon.

In the midst of these tightening tensions Kinsman was
devoting every ounce of his energies to creating a permanent
medical facility on the Moon.

As he stood at the doorway looking over the crowd, he
recognized fewer than one in ten of the partygoers. Then he
saw his host, Neal McGrath, now the junior Senator from
Pennsylvania. Neal was standing over at the far end of the
room by the empty fireplace, tall drink in hand, head bent
slightly to catch what some wrinkled matron was saying to
him. The target for tonight. McGrath was the swing vote on
the Senate's Appropriations Committee.

"Chet, you did come after all!"

He turned to see Mary-Ellen McGrath approaching him,
hands outstretched in greeting.

"I hardly recognized you without your uniform," she
said.

He smiled back at her. "I thought Aerospace Force blues
might be a little conspicuous around here."

"Nonsense. And I wanted to see your new oak leaves. A
major now."

Promoted for accepting hazardous duty: lobbying on
Capitol Hill.

"Come on, Chet. I'll show you where the bar is." She
took his arm and led him through the jabbering crowd.
Mary-Ellen was small, slender, almost frail-looking. But she
had the strength of a tigress and the open, honest face of a
woman who could stand beside her husband in the face of
anything from Washington cocktail parties to the tight infight-
ing of rural Pennsylvania politics.

The bar dispenser hummed impersonally to itself as it
produced a heavy scotch and water. Kinsman took a stinging
sip of it.

"I was worried you wouldn't come," Mary-Ellen said
over the noise of the crowd. "You've been a hermit ever since
you arrived in Washington."

"Pentagon keeps me pretty busy."

"And no date? No woman on your arm? That isn't the
Chet Kinsman I used to know back when."
171

"I'm preparing for the priesthood."
"I'd almost believe it," she said, straight-faced. 'There's
something different about you since the old days. You're

quieter . . . more subdued."

I've been grounded. Aloud, he said, "Creeping maturity.

I'm a late achiever."

But she was serious, and as stubborn as her husband.
"Don't try to kid around it. You've changed. You're not
playing the dashing young astronaut anymore."

"Who the hell is?"

A burly, balding man jarred into Kinsman from behind,
sloshing half the drink out of his glass.

"Whoops, didn't get it on ya, did ... oh, hi, Mrs.
McGrath. Looks like I'm waterin' your rug."

"That won't hurt it," Mary-Ellen said. "Do you two
know each other? Tug Wynne . . ."

"I've seen the Major on the Hill."

Kinsman said, "You're with Satellite News, aren't you?"

Nodding, Wynne replied, "Surprised to see you here,
Major, after this morning's committee session."

Kinsman forced a grin. "I'm an old family friend. I've
known the Senator since we were kids."

"You think he's gonna vote against the Moonbase pro-
gram?"

"I hope not," Kinsman said.

Mary-Ellen kept silent.

"He sure gave your Colonel Murdock a going-over this
morning." Wynne chuckled wheezily. "Mrs. McGrath, you
shoulda seen your husband in action."

Kinsman changed the subject. "Say, did you know old
Cy Calder? Used to work for Allied News Syndicate out on

the West Coast."

"Only by legend," Wynne answered. "He died four, five

years ago, I heard."

"Yes, I know."

"Musta been past eighty. Friend of yours?"

"Sort of. And he was past ninety."

"Ninety!"

"I knew him . . . lord, it was almost ten years ago. Back
when we were just starting the first Air Force manned space

missions. Helluva guy."

172

Mary-Ellen said, "I'd better pay some attention to the
other guests. There are several old friends of yours here
tonight, Chet. Mix around, you'll find them."

With another rasping chuckle, Wynne said, "Guess we
could give somebody else a chance to get to the bar."

Kinsman started to drift away but Wynne followed
behind him.

"Murdock send you over here to soften up McGrath?"

Pushing past a pair of arguing, arm-waving cigar smok-
ers, Kinsman frowned. "I was invited to this party weeks ago.
I told you, the Senator and I are old friends."

"And how friendly are you with Mrs. McGrath?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Wynne let his teeth show, "Handsome astronaut, good-
looking wife, busy Senator . . ."

"That's pretty foul-minded, even for a newsman."

"Just doin' my job," Wynne said, stilt smiling. "Nothing
personal. Besides, you got nothing to complain about, as far
as news people are concerned. The rumor is that you're the
astronaut who killed that Russian cosmonaut several years
ago."

It was the hundredth time since Kinsman had arrived in
Washington that a reporter had faced him with the accusa-
tion. The Aerospace Force public relations people had
worked assiduously to keep the story "unofficial," citing the
slender thread of cooperation that still remained between the
Soviet and American civilian space programs. The media had
backed off, spurred more than a little by the government's
tough new regulations on licenses for broadcasting stations
and mail permits for newspapers and magazines. But individ-
ual newsmen still braced Kinsman with the story, trying to get
an admission from him.

Freezing his emotions within himself. Kinsman answered
merely, "I've heard that rumor myself."

"You deny that it's true?"

"I'm not a public relations officer. I don't go around
denying rumors. Or confirming them."

"Look," Wynne insisted, "the Air Force can't cover up
this story forever."

"Aerospace Force," Kinsman said. "The name's been
changed to Aerospace Force."
173

Wynne shrugged and raised his glass in a mock salute. "I

stand corrected, Major."

Kinsman turned and started working his way toward the
other end of the room. A grandfather clock chimed in a
corner, barely audible over the human noises and clacking of
ice in glassware. Eighteen hundred. Royce and Smitty ought
to be halfway to Copernicus by now.

And then he heard her. He did not have to see her, he
knew it was Diane. The same pure, haunting soprano; a voice
straight out of a fairy tale:

"Once I had a sweetheart, and now I have none.
Once I had a sweetheart, and now I have none.
He's gone and leave me, he's gone and leave me,
He's gone and leave me to sorrow and mourn."

Her voice stroked his memory and he felt all the old joy,
all the old pain, as he pushed his way through the crowd.

Finally he saw her, sitting cross-legged on a sofa, guitar
propped on one knee. The same ancient guitar; no amplifiers,
no boosters. Her hair was still straight and long and black as
space. Her eyes were even darker and deeper. The people
were ringed around her, standing, sitting on the floor. They
gave her the entire sofa to herself, an altar that only she could
use. They watched her and listened, entranced by her voice.
But she was somewhere else, living the song, seeing what it
told of, until she strummed the final chord.

Then she looked up and looked straight at Kinsman. Not
surprised. Not even smiling. Just a look that linked them as if
all the years since their brief time together had dissolved into
a single yesterday. Before either of them could say or do
anything the others broke into applause. Diane smiled and
mouthed, "Thank you."

"More, more!"

"Come on, another one."

"'Greensleeves.'"

Diane put the guitar down carefully beside her, uncoiled
her slim legs, and stood up. "Later, okay?"

Kinsman grinned to himself. He knew it would be later
or nothing.

The crowd muttered reluctant acquiescence and broke
174

the circle around her. Kinsman stepped the final few paces
and stood before Diane.

"Good to see you again." He felt suddenly awkward, not
knowing what to do. He held his drink with both hands.

"Hello, Chet." She was not quite smiling.

"I'm surprised you remember. It's been so long ..."

Now she did smile. "How could I ever forget you? And
I've seen your name in the news every once in a while."

"I've listened to your records everywhere I've gone," he
said.

"Even on the Moon?" Her look was almost shy, almost
mocking.

"Sure," he lied. "Even on the Moon."

"Here, Diane, I brought you some punch." Kinsman
turned to see a fleshy-faced young man with a droopy
mustache and tousled brown hair, carrying two plastic cups of
punch. He wore a sharply tailored white suit with a vest and a
wide floral scarf.

"Thank you, Larry. This is Chet Kinsman. Chet, meet
Larry Davis."

"Kinsman?"

Diane explained, "I met Chet in San Francisco a thou-
sand years ago, when I was just getting started. Chefs an
astronaut."

"Oh, really?"

Somehow the man antagonized Kinsman. "Affirmative,"
he snapped in his best military manner.

"He's been on the Moon," Diane went on.

"That's where I heard the name," Davis said. "You're
one of those Air Force people who want to build a permanent
base up there. Weren't you involved in some sort of rescue a
couple of years back? One of your people got stranded or
something . . ."

"Yes," Kinsman cut him short. "It was all blown up out
of proportion by the news media."

They stood there for a moment, none of them able to
think of a thing to say, as the party pulsated around them.

Finally Diane said, "Mary-Ellen told me you might be
here tonight. You and Neal are both working on something
about the space program?"

"Something like that," Kinsman said. "Organized any
175

more protest demonstrations?"

She forced a laugh. "There's nothing left to protest
about. Everything's so well organized in the Land of the Free
that nobody can raise a crowd anymore. Public safety laws
and all that."

"It does seem quieter. Nobody's complaining.'''

"They can't," Diane said. "You ought to see what we
have to go through before every concert. They want to check
the lyrics of every song I do. Even the encores. Nothing's
allowed to be spontaneous."

"You manage to get in some damned tough lyrics,"
Kinsman said. "I've listened to you."

"The censors aren't always very bright."

"Or incorruptible," Davis added, smirking.

"So everybody's happy," Kinsman said. "You get to sing
your songs about freedom and love. The crowd gets its little
thrill of excitement. And the government people get paid off.
Everybody gets what they want."

Diane looked at him quizzically. "Do you have what you
want, Chet?"

"Me?" Surprised. "Hell no."

"Then not everybody's satisfied."

"Are you?"

"Hell no," she mimicked.

"But everything looks so rosy," Davis said, with acid in
his voice. "The government keeps telling us that unemploy-
ment is down and the stock market is up. And our President
promises he won't send troops into Brazil. Not until after the
elections, I bet."

Diane nodded. Then, brightening, "Larry, did I ever tell
you about the time we tried to get Chet to come out and join
one of our demonstrations? In uniform?"

"I'm agog."

She turned to Kinsman. "Do you remember what you
told me, Chet?"

"No . . ." It was a perfect day for flying, for getting away
from funerals and families and all the ties of Earth. Flying so
high above the clouds that even the rugged Sierras looked like
nothing more than wrinkles. Then out over the desert at
Mach 2, the only sounds in your earphones from your own
breathing and the faint distant crackle of earthbound men
176

giving orders to other earthbound men.

"You told me"—Diane was laughing with the memory of
it—"that you'd rather be flying and defending us so that
nobody bombed us while we were demonstrating for peace!"

It was funny now; it had not been then.

"Yeah, that sounds like something I might have said."

"How amusing," Davis smirked. "And what are you
protecting us from now? The Brazilians? Or the Martians?"

You overstuffed fruit, you wouldn't even fit into a
cockpit. But Kinsman replied merely, "From the politicians.
My job is Congressional liaison."

"Twisting Senators' arms is what he means," came Neal
McGrath's husky voice from behind him.

Kinsman turned.

"Hello, Chet, Diane . . . em, Larry Davis, isn't it?"

"You have a good memory for names!"

"Goes with the job."

Kinsman studied McGrath. It was the first time they had
been physically close in many years. Near's hair was still
reddish; the rugged outdoors look had not been completely
erased from his features. He looked like a down-home
farmer; Kinsman knew he had been a Rhodes scholar.
McGrath's voice was even softer, throatier than it had been
years ago. The natural expression of his face, in repose, was
still an introspective scowl. But he was smiling now.

His cocktail party smile, thought Kinsman. Then he
realized, NeaPs starting to get gray. Like me.

"Tug Wynne tells me I was pretty rough on your boss this
morning, Chet." The smile on McGrath's face turned just a
shade self-satisfied,

"Colonel Murdock lost a few pounds, and it wasn't all
from the TV lights," Kinsman replied.

"I was only trying to get him to give me a good reason for
funneling money into a permanent lunar base."

Kinsman said, "The House Appropriations Committee
approved the funding. They're satisfied with the reasons we
gave them."

"Not good enough," McGrath said firmly. "Not when
we've got to find money to reclaim every major city in the
nation, plus new energy exploration, and crime control,
and—"

177

"And holding down the Pentagon before they go jump-
ing into Brazil," Diane added.

"Thanks, pal," Kinsman said to her. Turning back to
McGrath, "Look, Neal, I'm not going to argue with you. The
facts are damned clear. There's energy in space, lots of it.
And raw materials. To utilize them we need a permanent base
on the Moon."

"Then let the corporations build it. They're the ones who
want to put up solar power satellites. They want to mine the
Moon. Why should the taxpayers foot the bill for a big,
expensive base on the Moon?"

"Because the heart of that base will be a low-gravity
hospital that will—"

"Come on, Chet! You know it'll be easier and cheaper to
build your hospital in orbit. Why go all the way to the Moon
when you can build it a hundred miles overhead? And why
should the Air Force do it? It's NASA's job."

Kinsman could see that McGrath looked faintly amused.
He enjoys arguing. He's not fighting for his life.

Glancing at Diane, then back at McGrath, Kinsman
answered, "NASA's fully committed to building the space
stations and helping the corporations to start industrial opera-
tions in orbit. Besides, we've got an Air Force team of trained
astronauts with practically nothing to do."

"So build your hospital in orbit. Or cooperate with
NASA, for a change, and put your hospital into one of their
space stations."

"And running the hospital will cost twenty times more
than a lunar base will," Kinsman said. "Every time you want
a Band-Aid you'll have to boost it up from Earth. That takes
energy, Neal. And money. A permanent base on the Moon
can be entirely self-sufficient."

"In a hundred years," McGrath said.

"Ten. Maybe five."

"Come on, Chet. You guys are already spending billions
on the strategic defense system. You can't have the Moon,
too. Let it go and stop pushing this pipe dream of Fred
Durban's."

"A lunar base makes sense, dammitall, on a straight
cost-effectiveness basis. You've seen the numbers, Neal. The
base will pay for itself in ten years. It'll save the taxpayers
178

billions of dollars in the long run."

A crowd was gathering around them. McGrath automati-
cally raised his voice a notch. "That's Just like Mary-Ellen
saves me money at department store sales. I can't afford to
save that kind of money. Not this year. Or next. The capital
outlay is too high. To say nothing of the overruns."

"Now wait . . ."

"There's never been a military program that's lived
within its budget. No, Chet. Moonbase is going to have to
wait."

"We've already waited twenty years."

The rest of the party had stopped. Everyone was watch-
ing the debate.

"Our first priority," McGrath said, more to the crowd
than to Kinsman, "has got to be for the cities. They've
become jungles, unfit for human life. We've got to reclaim
them and save the people who're trapped in them before they
all turn into savages."

"But what about energy?" Kinsman demanded. "What
about jobs? What about natural resources? You can't save the
cities without them, and space operations can give us all those
things."

"Let the corporations develop those programs. Let them
take the risks and make the profits. We're putting enough
money into space and too much into the Pentagon—including
plans for a manned antisatellite spaceplane that your brass
won't even tell us lowly Senators about."

The spaceplane, Kinsman realized. Neal's pissed because
nobody's briefed him on the new spaceplane interceptor
concept.

Aloud he was still arguing, "The corporations aren't
going to develop anything, Neal, unless the government backs
them. You know how they work: let Uncle Sam take the risks
and when it's safe they'll come in and take the profits."

McGrath nodded. "Sure. Fine. But NASA's the agency
that's running with that particular ball. The Aerospace Force
has no business extending its gold-plated tentacles all the way
to the Moon."

It's like he's running for re-election. Kinsman said to
himself. Then he realized. Of course he is! They always are.

"Sure, Neal, play kick the Pentagon," he said. "That's an
179

awfully convenient excuse for ducking the issue."

With the confident grin of a hunter who had finally
cornered his quarry, McGrath asked, "So you want to build a
permanent base on the Moon, despite the fact that we've
signed treaties with the Russians to keep the Moon
demilitarized ..."

"This base isn't going to be a fortress, for god's sake. You
know that. It's a hospital. We're just using military astronauts
to get the job done because we have a trained corps of people
who aren't being utilized. The Russians want to work with us
on this."

"AH right, all right." McGrath waved his hand, still
grinning. "Even so. You put up this hospital of Durban's, this
super geriatrics ward on the Moon, at a cost of billions. How's
that going to help the welfare class in the cities? How's that
going to rebuild New York or Detroit?"

"Or Washington," someone murmured.

Kinsman said, "It will create jobs . . ."

"For white engineers who live in the suburbs."

"It will save lives, for Chrissake!"

"For rich people who can afford to go to the Moon to
live."

"It'll give people hope for the future."

"Ghetto people? Don't be silly."

"Neai," Kinsman said, exasperation in his voice, "maybe
space operations won't solve any of those problems. But
neither will anything else you do. Without a strong space
effort you won't have the energy, the raw materials, the new
wealth you need to rebuild the cities. Space gives us a chance,
a hope—space factories and space power satellites will create
new jobs here on Earth, increase the Gross National Product,
bring new wealth into the economy. Nothing that you're
promising to do can accomplish that, and nothing short of
that can solve the problems you're so damned worked up
about."

His smile a bit tighter, McGrath said, "Perhaps so. But
your Moonbase won't do that. Industrial operations in orbit
might do it. The corporations could do it, if they wanted to
take the risks."

"But the corporations aren't moving fast enough.
They're waiting for us to pave the way for them."
180

"That's why NASA's building the space stations," Mc-
Grath said. "To encourage the corporations to push harder on
industrial operations in orbit."

"But that's not enough! The most economical way to
supply those space stations and orbital factories is with raw
materials from the Moon."

Diane touched his arm, a curious gleam in her dark eyes.
"Chet, why do you want a Moonbase so much?"

"Why? Because ... I was just telling you ..."

She shook her head. "No, I don't mean the official
reasons. Why do you dig the idea? Why does it turn you on?"

"We need it. The whole human race needs it."

"No," she repeated patiently. "You. Why are you for it?
What's in it for you?"

"What do you mean?"

"What makes you tick, man? What turns you on? Is it a
Moonbase? Power? Glory? What moves you, Chet?"

They were all watching him, the whole crowd, their faces
eager or smirking or inquisitive. Kinsman looked past them,
through them, remembering. Floating weightless, standing on
nothing, alone, free, away from them all. Staring back at the
overwhelming beauty of Earth, rich, brilliant, full and shining
against the black emptiness. Knowing that people down there
are killing themselves, killing each other, killing their world
and teaching their children how to kill. Knowing that you are
part of it, too. Your eyes filling with tears at the beauty and
the horror. To get away from it, far away, where they can't
reach you, where you can start over. fresh, clean, new. How
could they see it? How could any of them understand?

"What moves you, Chet?" Diane asked again.

He made himself grin. "Well, for one thing, since they
started using synthetic coffee in the Pentagon ..."

A few people laughed, a nervous titter. But Diane would
not let him off the hook. "Get serious, Chet. This is impor-
tant. What turns you on?"

They don't really want to know, he told himself. They
would never understand. How could they?

"You mean, aside from the obvious things, like women?"

Diane nodded gravely.

"I never really thought about it. Hard to say. Flying, I
guess. Getting out on your own responsibility, away from all
181

the committees and chains of command."

"There's got to be more to it than that," Diane insisted.

"Well . . . have you ever been out on the desert, at an
Israeli outpost, dancing all night by firelight because you
know that at dawn there's going to be an attack and you don't
want to waste a minute of living?"

There was a heartbeat's span of dead silence. Then one
of the women asked in a near-whisper, "When were
you ...?"

Kinsman said, "Oh, I've never been there. But isn't it a
romantic picture?"

They all broke into laughter. That burst the bubble,
Kinsman knew. The crowd began to dissolve, fragmenting
into smaller groups. Dozens of conversations began to fill the
silence that had briefly held them.

"You cheated," Diane said, frowning.

"Maybe I did."

"Don't you have anything but ice water in your veins?"

He shrugged. "If you prick us, do we not bleed?"

"Don't talk dirty."

He took her by the arm and headed for the big glass
doors at the far end of the room, "Come on, we've got a lot of
catching up to do."

He pushed the door open and they stepped out onto the
balcony. Shatterproof plastic enclosed it and shielded them
from the humid, hazy Washington evening—and from the
occasional sniper who might be on the roofs across the street.

"Being a senator hath its privileges," Kinsman said. "My
apartment over in Alexandria is about the size of this balcony.
And no air-conditioning allowed."

Diane was not listening. She stretched catlike and
pressed against the plastic shielding. To Kinsman she looked
like a sleek black leopard: supple, fascinating, dangerous.

"Sunset," she said, looking toward the slice of red sky
visible down the street. "Loveliest time of the day."

"Loneliest time, too,"

She turned to him, her eyes showing genuine surprise.
"Lonely? You? I never thought of you as being lonely. I
always pictured you surrounded by friends."

"Or enemies," Kinsman heard himself say.

"You never did marry, did you?"
182

"You did."

"That was a long time ago. It's even been over for a long
time."

"I orbited right over your wedding," he said. "I waved,
but you didn't wave back."

Her eyebrows went up. "You walked out on me, remem-
ber? More than once. It wasn't my idea for you to go. You
chose a goddamned airplane over me."

"I was young and foolish."

"You'd still make the same choice today, and we both
know it. Only now you want to go to the Moon."

Kinsman looked into her deep, dark eyes. She was not
angry with him. Curious, perhaps. Puzzled. Hurt?

He said, "That doesn't mean I like making the choices
that way, Diane. We all have our problems, you know."

"You? You have problems? Weaknesses?"

"I've got a few, tucked away here and there."

"Why do you hide them?"

"Because nobody else gives a damn about them." Before
Diane could reply, he said, "I sound sorry for myself, don't
I?"

"Well . . -"

"Who's this Larry character?"

"He's a very nice guy," she said firmly. "A good agent
and a good business manager. He doesn't go whizzing off into
the wild blue yonder ... or, space is black, isn't it?"

"As black as the devil's heart," Kinsman answered. "I
don't go whizzing off anymore, either. I've been grounded."

She blinked at him. "Grounded? What does that mean?"

"Clipped my wings," he said. "Deballed me. No longer
qualified for flight duty. No orbital missions. No lunar mis-
sions. They won't even let me fly a plane anymore. Got some
shavetail to jockey me around. I work at a desk."

"But . . . why?"

"It's a long, dirty story. Officially, I'm too valuable to
risk. Some shit like that."

"Chet, I'm so sorry. Flying means so much to you, I
know." She took a step toward him.

"Let's get out of here, Diane. Let's go someplace safe
and watch the Moon come up and I'll tell you all the legends
about your namesake."

183

He could hear her breath catch. "That's . . . that's some
line."

He wanted to reach out and hold her. Instead he said
lamely, "Yeah, I suppose it is."

She came no closer. "I can't leave the party, Chet.
They're expecting me to sing."

"Screw them."

"All of them?"

"Don't talk dirty."

She laughed, but shook her head. "Really, Chet, I can't
leave."

"Then let me take you home afterward."

"I'm staying here tonight."

There were things he wanted to tell her, but he checked
himself.

"Chet, please . . . it's been a long time."

"Yeah. Hasn't it, though."

The party ended at midnight when the sirens sounded the
curfew warning. Within fifteen minutes Kinsman and every-
one else had left the stately red-brick Georgetown house and
taken taxis or buses or limousines homeward. Precisely at
twelve-thirty electrical power along every street in the Dis-
trict of Columbia was cut off.

Kinsman fumbled his way in darkness up the narrow
stairs to his one-room apartment. It was still unfamiliar
enough for him to bark his shins on the leg of the table
alongside the sofabed. The long, elaborately detailed string of
profanity he muttered started and ended with his own stu-
pidity.

In less than an hour of staring into the darkness he
drifted to sleep. If he had any dreams he did not recall them
the next morning. For which he was grateful.

The Pentagon looked gray and shabby in the rain. It
bulked like an ancient fortress over the greenery of Virginia.
The old parking lots, converted into athletic fields for the
Defense Department personnel, were bare and empty except
for the growing puddles pockmarked by the raindrops. Off in
the mists, like enchanted castles in the clouds, the glass-
walled office buildings of Crystal City lent a touch of contrast
to the brooding old concrete face of the Pentagon.
184

Feeling as cold and gray within himself as the weather
outside, Kinsman watched the Pentagon approach through
the rain-streaked windows of the morning bus. As always, the
bus was jammed with office workers, many of them in
uniform. They were silent, morose, wrapped in their own
private miseries at 7:48 in the morning.

The Pentagon corridors had once been painted in cheer-
ful pastels, but now they were faded and grim. Kinsman
checked into his own bilious green cubbyhole, noted the
single appointment glowing on his desktop computer screen,
and immediately headed for Colonel Murdock's office.

Frank Colt was already there, slouched in a fake leather
chair in the Colonel's outer office. Otherwise the area was
unpopulated. Even the secretaries' desks were empty. Frank
always arrives on the scene ahead of everybody else, creases
sharp and buttons polished, Kinsman thought. Wonder how
he does it?

"Morning," said Colt, barely glancing up at Kinsman.

"I'm glad you didn't say good morning," Kinsman re-
plied.

"Sure as shit ain't that."

Kinsman nodded. "Murdock's not in yet?"

Colt gave him a surly look. "Hey, man, it's only eight
o'clock. He told us to be here at eight sharp, right? That
means he won't waltz in here for another half-hour. You
know that."

The Colonel's got his own car, he doesn't have to hit the
bus on schedule.

"How'd the party go last night?" Colt asked.

"Lousy. Neal's getting more stubborn every year."

"We're gonna hafta lower the boom on him."

"That might not be so easy."

"I know, but what else is there?"

"Maybe if we got somebody to brief him on the space-
plane interceptor . . . he's pissed about not being in on that."

"Murdock don't have the guts to suggest that upstairs."

"I know."

The secretaries began drifting in, chatting over their
plastic cups of synthetic coffee. True luxury now consisted of
obtaining real coffee, smuggled in through the embargo that
extended from Mexico's borders southward.
185

Sniffing at the aroma, Colt said, "How can they make it
smell so good and taste so lousy?"

Kinsman shook his head.

"Damned Commies won't stop at nothing," Colt com-
plained to the world in general. "First they cut off our oil, and
now our coffee."

The Colonel's private secretary, an iron-gray woman
with a hawklike unsmiling face, arrived last—as befitted her
rank.

"Colonel Murdock is upstairs," she informed Kinsman
and Colt. How she knew this was a mystery they did not
question. "He's briefing the General on yesterday's testi-
mony."

Yesterday's fiasco, thought Kinsman.

The two majors sat in front of the chief secretary's desk.
Kinsman felt like a traveling salesman kept waiting before
being allowed to make his pitch to the prospective customer.

"You catch the late news last night?" Colt asked.

Kinsman shook his head.

"Shoulda seen our beloved leader," Colt said solemnly.

The secretary glared at him, but quickly returned her
attention to the morning mail on her desk.

"Murdock was on the news last night?"

"Sure was. Big floppy handkerchief and all."

"Terrific."

"They showed the part where he got mixed up between
miles and kilometers and wound up saying the Moon's
bigger'n the Earth."

They both laughed. The secretary glowered at them.

Colonel Murdock burst into the anteroom, his usual
worried frown etched into near panic, his uniform jacket
unbuttoned, his tie pulled loose.

The secretary rose with a handful of papers.

"Not now!" Murdock's voice was high and shrill.

Christ, Kinsman thought, he's already four o'clock ner-
vous and it isn't even eight-thirty yet!

"Get in here, both of you!" the Colonel snapped as he
opened the door to his private office.

By Pentagon standards, Murdock's room was almost
sumptuous: a real wood desk, several cushioned chairs, even
186

a synthetic leather couch along the far wall, beneath the
National Space Society map of the Moon. The Colonel had a
standard-issue desktop computer, but no less than four televi-
sion sets bunched side by side against the wall opposite the
desk. Most impressive of all, it was an outside office with a
real window that looked out on the gray river and the
fog-shrouded National Airport.

That's the only thing he's really good at, Kinsman said to
himself: feathering his own nest. He doesn't believe in
Moonbase any more than McGrath does, but he'll use it to
worm his way farther up the ladder.

"We've got troubles," the Colonel said. He sat at his
desk hard enough to make his Jowls quiver.

Colt and Kinsman took the chairs closest to the desk.

"What kind of troubles, sir?" Colt always addressed the
Colonel in the formally correct manner. But he always looked
to Kinsman as if he were on the edge of laughing at the man.
Something about Murdock amused Colt; probably the same
flustered incompetence that infuriated Kinsman.

"The General is apeshit over the way the Appropriations
Committee hearings are going. He's getting pressure from the
Deputy Secretary and the Deputy Secretary's getting it from
the Secretary himself. Which means that the White House is
putting on the squeeze. The White House!"

Kinsman smiled inwardly. Newton was right. For every
force there is a reaction. If the Senate weren't putting up
resistance to Moonbase, the White House wouldn't even
know it was in the budget request.

Colt was saying, "Sir, if the White House is interested
why don't they put the squeeze on the Committee directly? If
they leaned on Senator McGrath, for example . . ."

"Can't, can't, can't!" Murdock panted. "McGrath is
aiming at Minority Leader next time around. He'd use the
pressure from the White House to show his people how good
he is—fighting against the Pentagon and even against the
President to save the taxpayers' precious dollars."

"Politics," Colt said, making it sound disgusting.

"We've got to come up with something, and fast"
Murdock said, his pudgy little hands fluttering around the
desktop. "The General wants us to go with him to the Deputy
187

Secretary's office at three this afternoon."

No wonder he's terrified. Kinsman realized. It's guillo-
tine time.

Colt seemed completely unawed. "It seems to me, sir,
that there's only one thing we can do."

Murdock's hands clenched into childlike little fists.
"What? What is it?"

"Well, sir, of course I'm not in on all the details of the
upper echelon's big picture . . ."

He's deliberately drawing it out. Kinsman suppressed a
grin as he watched Murdock's wide-eyed, open-mouthed
anticipation.

". . . but it seems to me, sir, that Senator McGrath
would be much more sympathetic to the entire Aerospace
Force program if he were fully briefed on the spaceplane
interceptor program."

Sonofabitch! Kinsman almost laughed aloud. You stole
that right out of my pocket, Frank.

"No!" Murdock shrieked. "Can't do that! He'd run right
to the media with it! We can't let them know we're designing a
manned interceptor to knock out the Russians' satellites!
McGrath would love to leak that one!"

"But the Senate Appropriations Committee already
knows about the program," Colt said. "Sir."

"Only the chairman," Murdock snapped. "Nobody else
has been briefed. Nobody!"

"But they all know that the program exists," Kinsman
pointed out. "McGrath knows about it, and he's steamed
because he hasn't been formally briefed. He is the ranking
minority member of the committee."

Murdock shook his head. "There's no connection be-
tween our Moonbase program and SDI's interceptor."

"There could be," Colt answered, "There willbe, sooner
or later."

'The Moon is not a militarized area," Kinsman said.

"Then why the fuck are we tryin' to set up a base there?"
Colt's profanity, like his cool, was carefully planned and
judiciously used. Kinsman knew. But Murdock's reaction was
a startled gasp.

"We're military men," Colt went on. "We can talk about
hospitals and peaceful applications of space technology and
188

even cooperate with the Russians here and there, but we're in
this for military reasons. Anything else is just bullshit."

"We are bound by the Space Treaty of 1967," Kinsman
said, keeping his voice low, calm. "Military weaponry cannot
be put on the Moon."

"You think the Soviets won't put weapons there?"

"No, they won't, because we'll be right alongside them
on the Moon. We'll watch each other."

Colt edged forward in his chair. "Listen, man. Both sides
are starting to deploy their Star Wars stuff, right? We're
developing the spaceplane so we can knock out their ABM
satellites as fast as they put 'em in orbit, right? They're gonna
be doing the same to us, you can bet on it. There's gonna be a
war in orbit, man. Maybe it'll be only the machines that get
hurt, but it's gonna be a war, all the same."

"We can't tell people like McGrath that we'll be fighting
in space!" Murdock's voice was quaking. "He'd have it all
over the media in a hot second. We'd go down in flames."

Kinsman glanced at his wristwatch. "Sir . . . I've got to
get over to the Capitol. The committee hearings resume at
ten."

He left the Colonel's office like a suburban businessman
fleeing a downtown pornography shop, hoping that nobody
had seen him there. Once in his own office he squeezed
behind his battered metal desk and punched out a phone
number.

Mary-Ellen's face filled the tiny display screen on his
desk. "Hello, Chet! How are you feeling this morning?"

"Okay, I guess. It was a good party. Aspirin helps."

She smiled ruefully. "I've got to get this place into some
semblance of order for a dinner party tonight."

"Uh, Mary—I've got to bug out of here and get to the
hearings. Is Diane there?"

Her face clouded briefly. "I don't think she's awake yet."

Dammitall! "Look . . . when she gets up, would you ask
her to meet me at the hearings at noon? I've got to talk with
her. It's important."

Mary-Ellen nodded as if she understood. "Certainly,
Chet. I don't know if she'll be free, but I'll tell her."

"Thanks."

The District Metro connected the Pentagon with the
189

Capitol, so Kinsman did not have to go out into the bleak
morning again. The subway train was bleak enough: crowded,
noisy, dirty with graffiti and shreds of refuse. It was hot and
rancid in the jam-packed train. Smells of human sweat, a
hundred different breakfasts, cigarettes, and the special
steamy reek of rain-soaked clothing.

The morning's hearing was given over to an antimilitary
lobby consisting of, it seemed to Kinsman, housewives,
clergymen, and public relations flaks. The old rococo hearing
chamber was buzzing with witnesses and their friends, pho-
tographers, reporters, senators and their scurrying aides. TV
cameras were jammed into one side of the chamber, their
glaring hot lights bathing the long green-topped table where
the committee members sat facing the smaller table for
witnesses.

Who signs the TV stations' energy permits? Kinsman
wondered idly as a middle-aged woman with too much
makeup on her face read from a prepared statement in a
penetrating voice that jangled with New York nasality:

"We are not against the development of useful programs
that will benefit the American taxpayer. We support and
endorse the efforts of American industry to develop Solar
Power Satellites and thereby provide new energy for our
nation. But we cannot support, nor do we endorse, spending
additional billions of tax dollars on military programs in
space. Outer space should be a peaceful domain, not a place
in which to escalate the arms race."

Kinsman slouched on a bench in the rear of the crowded
hearing chamber, watching the TV monitors because they
gave him a better view of the witness. He wished that he did
not agree with her.

The woman looked up from her prepared text and said,
"Let us never forget the words that we left on the Moon,
engraved on the Apollo 11 landing craft: 'We came in peace
for all humankind.'"

The crowd she had brought with her applauded, as did
several of the senators. Kinsman snorted at the misquotation.
Feminist revisionism. He saw that McGrath was smiling at the
woman as she got up from the witness's chair, but not
applauding her.

An aide came to McGrath's side, appearing magically
190

from behind the Senator's high-backed chair and whispering
into McGrath's ear. He looked up, shading his eyes against
the TV lights, and scanned the room. Then he spoke briefly to
the aide, who disappeared as magically as he had arrived.

The next witness was a minister and former Army
chaplain who now headed his own church in Louisiana. As he
was being introduced McGrath's aide suddenly popped up
beside Kinsman.

"Major Kinsman?"

Kinsman jumped as if a cop had suddenly clapped him on
the shoulder.

"Yes," he whispered.

Wordlessly the young man handed him a note which
read: See you in the corridor when the session ends. Diane.

It was neatly typed, even the signature. She must have
phoned Neal's office. Kinsman realized. By the time he
looked up from the yellow paper the aide was gone.

Kinsman sat through two more witnesses, both university
professors. The first one, when he was not toying with his
mustache, was an economist who showed charts which he
claimed proved that private investment in space industries
would help the national economy greatly, but government
investment in space would only increase the inflation rate.
The other, an aging, grossly overweight biophysicist, insisted
that space development of any kind was unsound ecologically.

"It will cost more in energy and environmental degrada-
tion," he intoned in a deep, shaking, doomsday voice, "to
place large numbers of workers into space than those workers
will ever be able to return to the people of this Earth in the
form of energy or usable goods. Space is only good for the
very rich, and it will be the poor peoples of the Earth who will
pay the price for the privileged few."

As soon as Kinsman saw that the committee chairman
was going to gavel the session into adjournment he ducked
out the big gleaming oak double doors and into the quiet,
marble-walled corridor. Diane was walking up the hall toward
him.

"Perfect timing," Kinsman said, taking her by the arm.

Her smile was good to see. "I can't make it a long lunch,
Chet," she warned. "I've got to meet Larry and fly up to New
York for a contract negotiation."
191

"Oh."

"I'll only be gone overnight. I've got a concert up there
Friday night, then the whole weekend's taken up with brief-
ings and medical checkups ..."

"With what?"

The click of their footsteps on the marble floor was lost as
the rest of the crowd poured out of the hearing chamber and

into the corridor.

Raising her voice, Diane said, "I've been invited to fly up
to the opening of Space Station Alpha. Didn't Neal tell you?"

"No, he didn't."

"I thought he had. We're going up on the special VIP
shuttle Monday. Just for the day."

Kinsman felt stunned.

Diane was grinning at him. "I thought it'd be fun to see
what it's like up there. Maybe I'll find out what fascinates you
about it so much."

Nodding absently, he led Diane to the elevators that
went down to the basement cafeteria. "You've been invited to
Alpha," he muttered. "That's more than anybody's done for

me.

Diane said nothing.

An elevator opened and he ushered her into it, then
slapped the DOOR CLOSE button before any of the crowd
coming down the corridor could reach them.

"You'll be tied up all weekend?" Kinsman asked.

"That's what they told me."

"I thought maybe we could get together for dinner or

something."

Diane gave a little shake of her head. "I don't think so,
Chet. I'm sorry."

The elevator door slid open and they were faced with
another crowd, the clerks and secretaries who were lined up
for their cafeteria lunch. Silently, numbly, Kinsman got into
the line behind Diane. They picked up their trays and selected
their food; Diane a fruit salad. Kinsman a bowl of bean soup,
Both passed the steam tables with their pathetic-looking
"specials." Both took iced fruit drinks.

Kinsman led Diane through the crowd to the farthest
corner of the busy, clattering cafeteria and found a table that
was big enough only for the two of them.
192

"It's not the fanciest restaurant in town," he said as they
sat down. "But it's the toughest to bug."

"What did you say?" Diane's eyes went wide.

He gestured at the crowded cafeteria. "Nobody knows
who's going to sit where. And the background noise is high
enough to defeat mikes hidden in the ceiling."

"You're serious?"

Kinsman nodded. "You remember last night, you were
asking me why I want Moonbase so much?"

She nodded.

"It's not just a lunar base, Diane." He hesitated, won-
dering how much he could tell her, how far he could trust her.
"It's a new world. I want to build a new world."

"On the Moon."

'That's the best place for it."

"You are serious, aren't you?"

"I sure as hell am."

She tried to laugh; it came out as an unsure giggle. "But
the Moon . . . it's so desolate, so foresakerr. . ."

"Have you been there?" he countered. "Have you
watched the Earth rise? Or planted footprints where no
human being has ever walked before? Have you been any-
where in your whole life where you really were on your own?
Where you had the time and the room and the peace to
think?"

"That's what you want?"

"Being here is like being in jail. It's a madhouse. I'm
locked into Pentagon level three, ring D, corridor F, room
number—"

"But we're all in that same jail, Chet. One way or
another, we're all locked up in the same madhouse."

"It doesn't have to be that way." He reached out to grasp
her hand. "We can build a new world, a new society, all those
things you sing about in your songs—love, freedom, hope.
We can have them."

"You can have them," Diane said. "What about all the
billions of others who can't get to your new world, no matter
what?"

"We've got to start someplace. And we've got to start
now, right now, before we sink so far back into the mud that
we won't have the energy or the materials or the people to do
193

the job. Civilization's cracking apart, Diane."

"And you want to run away from the catastrophe."

"No! I want to prevent it." Realizing the truth of it as he
spoke the words. Kinsman listened to himself, as surprised as
Diane at his revelation. "We can build a new society on the
Moon. We can set an example. Just the way the new colonies
of America set an example for the old world of Europe. We
can send energy back to the Earth, raw materials—but most
of all, we can send hope."

"That's not your real reason," she said. "Nobody ever
did anything for the sake of philosophy. That's not what's
really driving you."

"It's a part of it. A big part."

Diane studied his face. "But only part. What's the rest of
it, Chet? Why is this so important to you?"

"It's the freedom, Diane. There are no rulebooks up
there. No chains of command. You can work with people on
the basis of their abilities, not their rank or their connections,
It's—it's so completely different that I don't know if I can
describe it to you. There's nothing like it on Earth."

"Freedom," Diane echoed.

"In space. On the Moon. A new society. A new world. A
world that you could be part of, Diane."

She shook her head. "Not me. I can see how important it
is to you, Chet, but it's not for me." Her hand slid away from
his. "If I'm going to help build a new world, it'll be right here
on terra firma. That's where we need it."

He leaned back in his chair. "By singing folk songs."

"They give people hope, too, you know."

Kinsman clenched his empty hand. "You'll never make a
new society on Earth, kid. Too many self-interests. Too much
history to undo. Society's locked in place here. The only way
to unlock it is to build a showplace . . ."

"A Utopia?" She grinned at the thought.

"It won't be Utopia. But it'll be better than anything
here on Earth."

She started to shake her head again, but Kinsman leaned
forward intently. "Listen to me," he said urgently. "Whether
you agree with me or not doesn't matter. But you've got to
tell Neal that the longer he fights against the Moonbase
appropriation the closer he's pushing us into a major confron-
194

tation in space, a full-scale conflict with the Russians that can
only end in nuclear war,"

Diane stared at him. "I should tell Neal . . . why do you
think that I—"

"You've got to!" Kinsman insisted. "I can't talk to him
directly. Not even through Mary-Ellen. They'll know what
I'm doing: the brass, the people who are pushing us toward
war. But you can warn him. He'd listen to you."

Her face was a frantic mixture of fear and disbelief. "But
I won't see him until—"

"See him! Tell him! It's important. Vital."

"But why can't you—"

"He'd want specifics from me that I can't give him. And
any conversations I have with him are probably monitored."

"How did you—"

"You can talk to him," Kinsman went on, ignoring her
objections. "Tell him it's either a peaceful Moonbase or the
spaceplane interceptor. He'll understand."

Kinsman walked Diane to the front entrance of the
Capitol and down the long granite steps that gave the building
its impressive facade. Larry Davis was waiting for her in a real
limousine, long and luxurious, pearl gray, with a liveried
black driver.

"Come on!" he yelled out the car window. "We'll miss
the flight and there's not another one till six!"

Kinsman deliberately held Diane for a moment and
kissed her. She seemed surprised.

"Call me when you get back to town," he said.

"Okay," she answered shakily.

"And talk to Neal."

"Yes . . . yes." She ran down the last few steps and into
the waiting limousine.

The car pulled away with a screech of tires on the wet
paving, a rare sound in conservation-conscious Washington.
Kinsman watched the limousine thread its way through the
sparse traffic. Not a bad way to travel, he mused, for
somebody who sings about the hungry poor.

The weather had cleared enough for Kinsman to take the
bus back to the Pentagon. The sky was still gray as he waited
for the bus in the L-shaped enclosure at the curb, but the rain
had ended. The enclosure was filthy with litter, its plastic
195

walls scribbled with graffiti. It stank of urine. Finally the
steamer came chugging into sight. Just as its doors opened for
Kinsman, another man came running down the sidewalk
hollering for the driver to wait for him.

Kinsman saw that it was Tug Wynne puffing toward the
bus, and silently wished the driver would close the doors and
hurry on. But the sallow-faced Hispanic was in no hurry. He
waited patiently for the burly newsman.

Kinsman took a back seat in the nearly empty bus. Sure
enough, Wynne came over to him.
"Mind if I sit with ya?"

"Not at all," Kinsman lied. "Go right ahead."
Wynne slid into the seat, wedging Kinsman solidly
between the window and his own bulk. From the smell of it,
Wynne's lunch had been mostly bourbon.

"Not much fireworks in this morning's hearings, eh?"
"Not much," Kinsman agreed. The bus lurched around a
corner and headed down Delaware Avenue, chuffing.

"You see the look on the chairman's face when that
perfessor started talkin' about the dangers of beaming micro-
waves through the atmosphere?"

"That's when he closed the session, wasn't it?"
"Sure was. He's not gonna give any eco-nut a chance to
scare people about power satellites. Not with GE back in his
home state!" Wynne chuckled to himself.

"It was time to break for lunch anyway," said Kinsman.
"Yeah. Say, wasn't that Diane Lawrence in the cafeteria

with you?"

"Yes. She was singing at the party last night. Didn't you

hear her?"

Wynne looked impressed. "And now she's breaking
bread with you. Fast work. Or is she an old family friend,

too?"

"I've known Diane for years," Kinsman said, staring out

of the bus window at the passing buildings. This part of
Washington was drab and rundown. Not much money be-
tween the Capitol and the Navy Yard. Just people's homes.
Kids playing on the sidewalks. They'll grow up to stand in

unemployment lines.

Wynne jarred him out of it. "Haven't seen you with any
women since you arrived in Washington."
196

"My private life," Kinsman said, still staring out the
window, "is my private life."

"Sure. I know. And I guess it must make some kinda
mental block . . . killing that girl like that."

Kinsman whirled on him. "Stop fishing, dammit! I've got
nothing to say to you on that subject."

"Sure. I understand. But you know, reporters hear
things . . . rumors float around. Like, I heard you got hurt
pretty bad yourself up there." He waggled a forefinger
skyward.

"Bullshit," Kinsman snapped.

"I know you gotta deny it, and all. But what I heard was
that you got hurt . . . radiation damage, they say. And now
you're impotent. Or sterile."

Thinking of the thousands of nights he had spent alone
since returning from that mission and the agonies of the few
times he had tried to make love to a woman, Kinsman
laughed bitterly.

"That's what they say, do they?" he asked Wynne.

The older man nodded, his expression blank.

"Well, you can tell them for me that they're all crazy."

Wynne nodded gravely. "Glad to hear it. But how come
nobody's ever seen you go out with a woman? In ail the time
since you've been in the District ..."

The sonofabitch thinks I'm gay! "Listen. I am heterosex-
ual and I'm not sterile. I've never been involved in any
accidents in space or anywhere else that would impair my
ability to make a woman pregnant. Is that clear?"

"Major, you have a way of making your points."

"Good." And it's not a lie, either. Not completely. I'm
not impotent—except when I'm with a woman.

The office of the Deputy Secretary made Colonel Mur-
dock's painfully acquired luxuries seem petty and vain. The
office was huge, and in a corner of the Pentagon so that it had
two windows. Rich dark wood paneling covered the walls.
Deep carpeting. Plush chairs. Flags flanking the broad,
polished mahogany desk.

General Sherwood was a picturebook Aerospace Force
officer: handsome chiseled profile, silver-gray hair, the pierc-
ing eyes of an eagle. He sat before the Deputy Secretary's
desk looking perfectly at ease in his blue, beribboned uni-
197

form, yet so alert and intelligent that one got the impression
he could instantly take command of an airplane, a spacecraft,
or an entire war.

He carries those two stars on his shoulders, thought
Kinsman, with plenty of room to add more,

The Deputy Secretary, Ellery Marcot, was a sloppy
civilian. Tall, high-domed, flabby in the middle, and narrow in
the chest, he peered at the world suspiciously through thick
old-fashioned bifocals. His suit was gray, his thinning hair and
mustache grayer, his skin as faded as an old manila file folder.
Kinsman had never seen the man without a cigarette. His
desk was a chaotic sea of papers marked by islands of ashtrays
brimming with cigarette butts,

"Gentlemen," he said after the polite handshakes were
finished and the four uniformed officers seated according to
rank before his desk, "we have reached a critical decision
point."

General Sherwood nodded crisply but said nothing. It
would have been easy to assume that his Academy-perfect
exterior was nothing but an empty shell. His eyes were too
sky-blue, his hair just the right shade of experienced yet virile
silver. But Kinsman knew better. He'll get those other two
stars. And soon.

Marcot blinked myopically at them. "For the past four
years the Aerospace Force has struggled to maintain some
semblance of an effective program for manned spaceflight.
We have had to battle against NASA, the Congress, and the
White House."

"And our own SDI Office," Colt added.

Murdock turned sharply toward Colt. But then he saw
General Sherwood smiling and nodding.

"Yes, the Strategic Defense group," Marcot agreed,
"and their ideas of doing everything with automation."

"But we have made significant progress," the General
said.

"Along the wrong road," Marcot snapped.

"It was the only road available at the time," General
Sherwood replied, his voice just a trifle harder than it had
been a moment earlier. "We had no way of knowing that the
SDI Office would try to outflank us with this manned inter-
ceptor program."

198

Kinsman spoke up. "Sir, if it hadn't been for our
Moonbase program, and the cooperative Soviet program
that's linked to it, the Aerospace Force would have had to
surrender its entire manned spaceflight capability to NASA
several years ago."

"I understand that. Major," said Marcot. "But the
Appropriations Committee is not impressed."

"Their attitude is disastrous," General Sherwood
agreed. "If they have their way, they'll shoot down Moonbase
and the spaceplane. They'll leave us entirely defenseless in
space. What good are the ABM satellites if we can't protect
them against Soviet interceptors?"

Marcot lit another cigarette, then rummaged through his
messy papers. "State Department doesn't agree. Sent a
memo . . . it's here someplace . . ."

"The State Department," Sherwood muttered, real
loathing in his voice.

Colt said, "It's like our military presence in Antarctica.
We've got to show the Soviets that we're able and willing to
defend our interests, wherever they are."

"The Russians are going ahead with their share of the
lunar base," Colonel Murdock said, his voice sounding almost
hopeful.

"All the more reason for us to be up there alongside
them," Sherwood said. "We must not allow them to have the
Moon for themselves."

Feeling like a tightrope walker. Kinsman said, "With all
due respect, sir, the Appropriations Committee won't be
impressed by that argument. Senators like McGrath are
dead-set against anything that looks like the old Space Race
of the Sixties."

Marcot peered at him through a haze of smoke. "Mc-
Grath," he murmured.

"That's why we initiated the hospital program." Kins-
man went on. "The old Air Force pioneered in flight medicine
and it would be in keeping with Aerospace Force traditions
and missions to build a hospital on the Moon. That would give
us a presence on the Moonplus a role that has real meaning."

"And whose idea was it," Marcot asked, "to make the
base a joint Soviet-American project? Durban's, wasn't it?
Him and his internationalist pipe dreams!"
199

'That was done for funding purposes," Kinsman said.
"It was easier to get the program started by showing that the
Russians were going to share its costs."

"Well, the funding is about to run out," Marcot grum-
bled. "Our munificent Congress is backing out of the program
now that the preliminary explorations are finished and it's
time to commit major money for the permanent base."

"And we can't expect the SDI guys to divert funds from
their program," General Sherwood said.

"Maybe we should forget about the Moon and concen-
trate on the antimissile defense. If we can prevent the Soviets
from putting up their own version of Star Wars ..." Marcot
let his voice trail off.

"Leave the Moon to the Russians?" General Sherwood
sounded almost alarmed.

"What good is the Moon?" Marcot asked. "It has no real
military value."

Colt pointed out, "It will when it starts supplying fuels
and expendables like oxygen for the SDI satellites. And for
the factories the corporations claim they want to build."

"That's ten years away," Marcot said. "Twenty."

Kinsman said nothing, but thought to himself. So the
Russians will win control of the Moon after all, in spite of
everything we've done over all these years. He shrugged
inwardly. Maybe they deserve it. Maybe men like Leonov will
do better with it than we would.

"I still don't want Reds on the Moon alone," General
Sherwood said. "Bad enough we have to share it with them.
Ten, twenty, even fifty years from now—if and when the
Moon has any military significance, then we must not allow
the Soviets to have it totally to themselves. Especially by
default!"

Marcot sank back in his chair, cowed temporarily by the
General's fire. "Well, then," he said at last, sucking hard on
his cigarette, "how do we get around this man McGrath
—without compromising the spaceplane program?"

"We could brief him on the interceptor," Kinsman heard
himself saying, "in exchange for a written oath of secrecy. I
think a large part of his resistance to the Moonbase idea is
that he feels out in the cold on the spaceplane."
200

Shaking his head, Marcot replied, "The White House has
forbidden us to tell McGrath anything about it. He's a
rabble-rouser—a secrecy oath won't mean a thing to him."

"I disagree, sir," Kinsman said. "I've known Neal since
we were kids. He has a very strong sense of responsibility. If
he signed a secrecy oath, he would keep his word."

But Marcot's head was still waggling negatively. "And
he's nosing after the Minority Leader's Job. From there he
can aim for the White House. We can't give him anything that
would help him along that route."

"But—"

"No," Marcot went on, tapping the ash from his ciga-
rette, "I don't see any way around it. Either you convince
McGrath that Moonbase is necessary or we have to forget
about the Moon and concentrate all our resources on the
spaceplane and strategic defense."

General Sherwood turned to Kinsman. "It's up to you,
then. Major. Do you think you can handle it?"

"If he can't, sir, no one can," Colt said'before Kinsman
could open his mouth.

Colonel Murdock's expression could have turned sweet
cream into paint remover, but he remained silent.

"The first thing I'll need," Kinsman heard himself say,
"is a seat on that VIP flight Monday to Alpha. McGrath's
going up for the dedication ceremonies. It might be a good
chance to work on him."

"Or flush him out of an airlock," Marcot muttered.

Sherwood gestured to Colonel Murdock. "See to it, will
you?"

"Yessir. But we'll have to bump—"

"Then bump," the General snapped. "Whoever."

Marcot blew a big, relieved cloud of smoke toward the
ceiling. "That's it, then. We push ahead with the interceptor
program and handle the Moonbase problem separately."

"And let McGrath determine whether we build Moon-
base or not," General Sherwood muttered. He was not
pleased.

"He's going to make that determination anyway," Mar-
cot said. "We might as well face up to the obvious."

Kinsman said nothing.

201

Returning to his office, Kinsman slumped behind his
desk and stared at the old photograph of a lunar landscape he
had taped to the wall. The picture showed an astronaut
—himself—kneeling in his lunar suit, working over a
gadgety-looking piece of scientific gear. He had forgotten
what the equipment was, what it was supposed to do. The
photograph was faded, its edges browned and curling.

Getting old, he said to himself. And useless.

Beyond the machine and the man in the picture, the
broad plain of a lunar mare stretched out to the abrupt
horizon, where a rounded worn mountain showed its tired-
looking peak. Above, riding in the black sky, was the
half-sphere of Earth. Years earlier, when the photo had been
new, the Earth had been a brilliant blue and white. Now it
looked faded and gray, along with everything else in the
office.

Suddenly Kinsman got up from his desk and went out
into the corridor, heading for Colonel Murdock's office.

What are you going to tell him? he asked himself.

The answer was a mental shrug. Damned if I know. But
I've got to tell him something.

You can quit, you know. Walk away from it. Murdock
would be happy to see you go.

The voice in his head became sardonic. And do what?
Wait till I'm Durban's age and have them carry me to the
Moon on a stretcher?

There's more to life than getting to the Moon.

He answered immediately, No there's not. Not for me.
That's where I've got to be, away from all this crap.

They're going to bring all this crap with them' You know
that.

He shook his head doggedly. Not if I can help it,

The Colonel's outer office was empty again. Not even the
secretary was there. Kinsman went straight to Murdock's
door and rapped sharply on it.

"What? Who is it?"

Kinsman smiled at the thought of how the Colonel must
have jumped at the unexpected knocking. He tried the door,
but it was locked.

"It's Kinsman," he called. Then, thinking there might be
202

a superior officer locked inside with Murdock, he added,
"Sir."

Footsteps. Muffled voices. Then the door opened. Mur-
dock looked flustered.

"What is it?" the Colonel demanded, holding the door
open just a few centimeters.

Kinsman heard the other door, the one that opened
directly onto the corridor outside, snap shut softly. Whoever
had been in the office with Murdock had left.

"I've got to talk to you," Kinsman said, "about this
McGrath business."

Colonel Murdock was one of the few men Kinsman knew
who could look furious and terrified at the same time. Now he
also looked sheepish, with a little boy's caught-in-the-act
expression on his chubby face.

He yanked the door open all the way. "All right, come
on in."

"If I'm interrupting anything . . ."

Murdock glared at him. "Just a White House liaison
man, a representative from the National Security Agency who
briefs the President every morning. That's all!"

"I spooked him?" Kinsman punned.

Murdock ignored it. He went behind his desk and
plopped into his swivel chair. "Make it fast. Kinsman. I've got
a golf date that I can't afford to miss."

Taking the chair directly in front of the Colonel's desk,
Kinsman realized he did not know quite where to begin.

"I ... it's this McGrath thing," he said. "I've been put
squarely on the spot. If I can't turn Neal around, Moonbase
goes down the tubes."

Murdock nodded. "That's right."

"I don't like it."

"You don't like it? You don't like what?"

"The whole setup," Kinsman said. "Making the whole
Moonbase program hinge on my ability to pressure
McGrath."

"You can apply all the pressure to him that you can lay
your hands on. We'll back you."

With a shake of his head, Kinsman replied, "That's what
I don't like."

203

"So what?" Murdock snapped. "You still have to follow
orders, just like the rest of us."

"But Neal's been a friend of mine since—"

"Which is why you got picked for this job. You ought to
be able to find a few things in his background that could help
to persuade him. Everybody's got bones in their closet."

"Yeah," Kinsman murmured. "Everybody."

"It's either a success with McGrath," the Colonel
pointed out needlessly, "or the whole Moonbase program
goes into mothballs."

"And the Russians get the Moon to themselves."

"And all of us—including you. Kinsman—get trans-
ferred to the Strategic Defense Initiative Office. Since you're
grounded, you won't even get to play with the spaceplane.
You'll sit at a desk here in the Pentagon for the rest of your
life." Murdock smiled slyly.

"It's wrong."

"It's decided. You heard the Deputy Secretary. Your job
is to convince McGrath. Otherwise, forget about Moonbase."

"We shouldn't be throwing the Moon away," Kinsman
insisted.

"Then get McGrath to vote in favor of the base. Get him
to swing the minority vote on the committee. Put Durban to
work on him. Do whatever you like."

"Durban's in the hospital."

Murdock shrugged.

"Dammitall!" Kinsman exploded. "I don't want this! I
don't want any part of it. I want to be flying, not crawling
around these goddamned corridors like some roach!"

"Listen to me, hotshot," Murdock snapped back, his
face reddening. "You're grounded. Understand? You'll never
fly another Air Force plane or spacecraft again. Never! We
should never have let you back on flying duty after you killed
that Russian."

Kinsman could not answer. His voice choked in his
throat.

"You want the Moon so goddamned much," Murdock
was yelling now, "you better get your friend McGrath to vote
the right way! Because the only way you're ever going to get
off the ground, mister, is as a passenger!"

Kinsman's pulse was thundering in his ears the way it had
204

so long ago, when he had let his temper run away and lead
him to murder.

But Murdock was smiling triumphantly at him now. "I
know you. Kinsman. I know what makes you tick. You want
to get to the Moon and leave us all behind you. Fine! I'm all
for it. But you'd better make sure there's a base up there for
you to go to; otherwise, you'll be flying a desk for the rest of
your life."

"McGrath," Kinsman croaked, "will never go for it.
Never."

"I've sweated blood over you," Murdock went on,
ignoring Kinsman's words. "You always thought you were so
goddamned superior. Hotshot flier. You and Colt. a couple of
smartasses. Well, you just goddamned better do the job
you're assigned to do or you'll be shuffling papers at a desk
until you drop dead!"

For a moment Kinsman said nothing. It took every effort
he could muster not to get up from the chair and punch the fat
leering face gloating at him.

Finally he said, "I could resign my commission. I could
quit the Aerospace Force."

"And do what?" Murdock asked smugly. "Get a Job with
NASA? Or one of the aerospace corporations?"

"You don't think I could?"

The Colonel's stubby-fingered hands were rubbing to-
gether as if by their own volition. "I don't know who would
hire a man with a disturbed mental background like yours,
Kinsman, After all, if they ask us for your background, we'd
have to tell them how . . . unbalanced you can be."

Kinsman was on his feet and grabbing the Colonel's
lapels before he realized what he was doing. Murdock was
white-faced, half out of his chair, hanging by Kinsman's fists.

Closing his eyes. Kinsman released the Colonel.

"Okay," he said, forcing his breath back to normal.
"You win. I'll work on McGrath."

Murdock dropped back into his chair. He smoothed his
tunic and looked up at Kinsman furiously. But there was still
fear in his eyes.

"You'd better work on McGrath," the Colonel said, his
voice trembling. "And the next time—"

"No!" Kinsman leveled a pointed finger at him. "The
205

next time you try holding that over my head, the next time
you say anything about it to me or anyone else, there'll be
another murder."

"You . . . you just get to McGrath."

"Sure. I'll get to him." Kinsman headed for the door,
thinking, I'll take him just like Lee took Washington.

He was staring at the ceiling, waiting for the sleep that
was taking longer each night to reach him, when the buzzer
sounded. In the darkness he groped for the switch over his
sofabed. "Yes?"

"Chet, it's me- Diane."

Wordlessly he groped for the button that opened the
lobby door of the apartment building. Only after he let go of
it did he think to ask if she was alone.

He rolled out of the sofabed and turned on the battery-
powered lamp on his end table. The main electrical service
was shut down for the night, of course. Only battery-operated
devices, like the building's security locks, could be used after
twelve-thirty. Kinsman often wondered if his refrigerator was
really insulated well enough to keep everything fresh over-
night. He never kept enough food in it to worry over.

By the time Diane knocked on his thin apartment door
he was wrapped in a shapeless gray robe and had lit a couple
of candles. His wristwatch said 1:23 A.M.

He opened the door. Diane stood there alone, wearing a
light sleeveless blouse and dark form-fitting slacks.

"I thought you were in New York," Kinsman said.

"I took the bus back after dinner," Diane replied,
stepping into the room.

Even in candlelight the apartment looked shabby. The
open sofabed was a tangled mess of sweaty sheets. The desk
was littered with paperwork. The room's only chair looked
stiff and uninviting.

"It's been an exhausting day," Diane said. "Those
bastards in the Public Safety Office damned near canceled
Friday's concert. Said my songs were too inflammatory.
Thank God for Larry."

"Would you like a drink?" Kinsman asked as he locked
the door. "I've got some scotch and there's a bottle of vodka
around here someplace."

206

"Any beer?"

"Might not be very cold."

Diane unslung the heavy leather bag from her shoulder
and let it clunk to the floor. She sat on the edge of the bed,
kicked her boots off, and leaned back tiredly.

"Beer's fine . . . even warm beer."

"Why the hell did you come back tonight? And how'd
you get from the bus terminal this time of night?"

"Phoned for a cab and waited at the terminal until they
scared one up for me."

Kinsman took the four steps to his kitchenette and bent
down to open the refrigerator. The beer bottles seemed fairly
cold to his touch.

"That terminal's not a good place to hang around," he
said, peering into the shadowy shelves above the sink for a
clean glass. "Especially at night."

"There were a couple of cops. I talked with them while I
waited. They recognized me from my videos. They even
encouraged the taxi company to find a cab for me."

Handing her the bottle and a glass, Kinsman said, "It
pays to be beautiful."

"And famous," she added immediately.

"But . . . why?" he asked, sitting on the floor beside the
bed. "What was so important about getting back here?"

She took a swallow of beer from the bottle. "That was a
pretty heavy message you laid on me this afternoon."

"Yeah, I guess it was. Have you had a chance to see
Neal?"

"Not yet."

"When?"

"Tomorrow. I mean, later today—right after his commit-
tee hearings."

"Good."

"But I've got to know something, Chet. That's why I'm
here."

"I can't go into the details, Diane. They're classified. But
it's damned important that Neal realizes what's at stake."

"What the hell is at stake?" she asked.

"I can't tell you all of it . . ."

"Is this room bugged?"

He shook his head in the shadows. "No, I go over the
207

place pretty thoroughly every few days. And I've got a couple
of friends in the Pentagon who keep track of who's listening to
whom. My conversations with Neal are monitored, but I'm
not important enough to have my apartment wired."

He could not see her face too well in the flickering
candlelight, but Diane's voice was high with concern. "Is Neal
always watched? Is his office wired, or . . ."

"His office must be. And his home was during the party.
They spot-check his phones, I'm sure. That's pretty standard
procedure for a senator. He knows about it; they all do. And
they know how to protect themselves from it. But it means
that I can't tell him everything that he needs to know."

"Just what is it he needs to know?"

Instead of answering, Kinsman got up and padded to the
kitchenette for the scotch.

Almost an hour later, after two more beers for Diane
and several long pulls of scotch for himself, he was saying,
". . . and that's the politics of it. I can't tell you what the
other program is all about, but Marcot and the White House
will clobber Neal if they get the chance. Unless, of course, he
goes along with the Moonbase program."

Diane asked, "But what about you, Chet? Where do you
stand in all this?"

"Right in the middle. I want Moonbase because I want to
be there. I want to live on the Moon. I want to set up that new
world I was telling you about."

"But if it's a military base ..."

"Yeah, I know. Even if we start out as a hospital, even if
we work jointly with the Russians, there's always the chance
that the brass will start turning it into a supply center for a real
military effort."

"They could do that?"

"Sure. Mine the lunar ores and build military satellites
out of them, then place them in orbit around the Earth. Just
like the corporations want to build their solar power satel-
lites."

"But the Russians will be there too, won't they?"

Kinsman nodded. "And they'll do the same thing, once
they see us do it."

"And you're caught in the middle of all this."

"Yeah, they've got me surrounded." He leaned his head
208

back against the wall and heard himself go on, "But that
doesn't matter. It's where I've got to be if I'm ever going to
make it back there."

"There?"

"To the Moon."

"It's like an obsession with you," Diane said.

He smiled at her. "Leonardo da Vinci."

"What?"

"He built gliders and tried them out himself. They never
worked too well, but it was enough to make him write, 'Once
you have tasted flight, you will walk the Earth with your eyes
turned skyward. For there you have been, and there you long
to return.'"

Diane smiled at him. "I see . . ."

"Do you?" Kinsman asked. "Do you know what it's like
to have everybody around you call you a nut? You were nice
about it, you called it an obsession. At the Pentagon they calls
us Luniks."

"Us?"

"Yeah, there's a few of us, here and there. A couple in
NASA, too. Guys like me. Guys willing to fight with every-
thing we've got to get the hell off this lousy dungheap and out
into the new world. Hell, I'll bet I could build a mountain just
out of the paperwork in the Pentagon that'd reach the Moon.
We could walk there!"

Diane laughed.

"Murdock and Sherwood and Marcot think we're crazy.
Maybe we are. But they use us. They use us to get what they
want."

"And you?"

"Sure, I'm using them to get what I want, too. But now
the game's getting rough and I don't think we can all stay
happy. The big boys are starting to use their muscle on us,
and we Luniks don't have much muscle to fight back with."

"So what are you going to do now?"

"You know, once I said I'd sell my soul for the chance to
get back to the Moon. Now I might have to make that
choice."

"You need Neal's help, don't you?"

"He's got to vote for the Moonbase program. If he
doesn't there'll be nobody left in space except the warbirds."
209

"Chet ... do they know about us? Can they use our
relationship to hurt Neal? To threaten him?"

Suddenly confused. Kinsman asked, "Us? What relation-
ship?"

"Neal and me . . ."

Kinsman felt as if he were in free-fall, everything drop-
ping away.

Diane pulled herself bolt upright on the bed. "You didn't
know about us?"

"Mary-Ellen," Kinsman heard himself mutter.

"She knows," Diane said. "We've tried to keep it as
quiet as possible, of course. Nobody in Washington would
really care, but they would use it against Neal back in
Pennsylvania. A divorce case and an affair with a pop
singer—they'd crucify him back home."

"You and Neal," Kinsman said, still stunned by it. "And
Mary-Ellen knows."

"We love each other, Chet. Neither of us wanted it to
happen, but it has."

"Then when you stayed at their place after the party . . ,
Jesus Christ, I talked him into going out and finding you, way
back in San Francisco!"

"Yes, that's when I first met him. But it wasn't until the
Presidential campaign, when I was doing benefits for the New
Youth Alliance . . ."

"And Mary-Ellen's just sitting back and letting the two
of you have your fun. Or does she have a lover, too?"

"She's being awfully good about it. Says she doesn't want
to hurt Neal's career. It makes me feel like hell."

But you sleep with him anyway. Kinsman growled silent-
ly. In her home. Aloud, he asked, "Are they going to get a
divorce?"

Diane pushed her hair back away from her face with an
automatic gesture. "I don't know. We'll see what happens
after his re-election campaign next year."

Kinsman pictured Neal campaigning through the state,
the solid family man with his wife and two children by his side
and Diane waiting for him in motel rooms.

"I think I'm pregnant," she said in a small, almost
frightened voice.

"Jesus Christ."

210

"I can't let anyone know it's Neal's baby. He doesn't
know it himself yet."

"What'll you do?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. Have an abortion. I
guess."

"And he invited you up to the space station. It wasn't
just public relations." He put a slight emphasis on the word
public. "It's a chance to be with you."

"Your people in the Pentagon don't know about this, do
they?" Diane asked. "I mean, if they did they could use it to
pressure Neal to vote their way . . ."

He looked up at her. "Diane—I'm one of those Penta-
gon people."

"But you're his friend. You wouldn't . . ."

"I'm Mary-Ellen's friend, too."

"She doesn't want him hurt."

"Yeah."

Diane swung off the bed and sat on her heels beside
Kinsman, on the floor. "Chet . . . you're my friend, too. You
wouldn't hurt the three of us, would you?"

"And what about me? What do I get?"

Diane reached out and put a hand on his shoulder.

He wanted to laugh. "When you came tapping at my
chamber door, I had the crazy notion that you had come all
the way down from New York to see me, to be with me."

"That was part of it," she said.

"I wanted you, Diane. I really did. I needed you."

"I'm here."

He brushed her hand away. "No, Not as a bribe. Not
because Neal's home with his wife and you're lonely. Not to
make me think there's a chance you might leave him for me."

"Chet . . . what can I do? What can I say?"

"Nothing. Not a damned thing."

She got to her feet. "I'd better go, then."

"Where to? There are no taxis this time of the morning.
Bus service won't start again until six. You can't walk the
streets after curfew."

"But there's no room here."

Kinsman stood up beside her. "Stretch out on the bed.
Get some sleep. Just don't take your clothes off."

He padded around to the other side of the bed, blew out
211

the candles and lay down in the darkness. He could feel the
warmth of her body next to his, hear her breathing slowly
relax into sleep.

For a moment he thought of his interrogation by Tug
Wynne. If he could see me now! Kinsman grinned at the irony
of it. Sleeping next to a pregnant woman. He did not have to
reach down to his crotch to know what was happening. I'm
not impotent. Stupid, maybe. But not really impotent.

Several times his eyes closed and he drifted toward sleep.
But each time he saw the cosmonaut drifting in silent space,
her dead arms reaching out toward him.

McGrath took Mary-Ellen and their two children back to
Pennsylvania, where they would stay while he flew to Florida
and the new space shuttle that would take the VIPs to the
dedication ceremonies aboard Space Station Alpha.

Kinsman spent the weekend doing Murdock's work for
the Colonel. He pulled a fistful of Pentagon strings and
became a VIP, much to the disappointment of a one-star
general at Wright-Patterson Aerospace Force Base, who
received a sudden phone call informing him that he had been
bumped from the Alpha dedication junket.

Before flying down to Kennedy Space Center, Kinsman
visited Walter Reed Hospital, where Fred Durban was. The
old man was a permanent invalid now, in the cardiac ward.
Kinsman sat beside his bed, the smell of antiseptics and quiet
death everywhere; the clean, efficient, coldly impersonal feel
of the hospital setting his nerves on edge. Durban's room was
bright with flowers. The window looked out on leafy trees and
a bright lovely blue sky. But the bed next to his held a retired
admiral engulfed by life-support equipment that snaked wires
and tubes into every part of his body. He was more machine
than man.

It did not bother Durban, though. "I know it looks
awful," he said cheerfully, "but that's just what I want them
to do for me when I'm sinking below the red line. None of this
'death with dignity' for me! I intend to fight for every minute I
can get."

He was painfully emaciated. His once-reddish hair was
now nothing more than a wisp of white. His arms were
bone-thin, his skin translucent. He belongs in a china shop,
212

not a hospital, Kinsman thought. But those shaggy eyebrows
were still formidable, and Durban's voice was doggedly
optimistic.

"I'm just trying to hang on long enough so that you
youngsters can build my lunar hospital. Up there I'll be a
whole lot better. I've warned the staff here that they better
keep me alive until they can transfer me to Moonbase."

Kinsman nodded and tried to smile for him. "We're
working on it. Working hard."

"Damned right. Wish they had room to set up a hospital
section aboard the new space station, though. I'd settle for
that, right now."

"I'm going up there tomorrow."

"To Alpha? Good! Tell me about it when you get back."

'Twill."

"But how's our Moonbase program working out?"

Kinsman shrugged. "The usual snags with Congress.
Committees . . . you know."

Durban closed his eyes. "I've spent my entire damned
life arguing with those shortsighted bastards. Anything far-
ther downstream than the next election—forget it, as far as
they're concerned."

"They don't have much foresight, that's true."

Durban lay quiet for a moment. The conversation
stalled. Then he asked, "But the survey work ... the site
selection and the preliminary planning . . . that's all been
done, hasn't it?"

"Yessir. I can bring you the reports, if you like. Once we
get the appropriation for the coming fiscal year we can begin
actual construction."

"Good." Durban smiled. "In a couple of years I'll be on
the Moon, getting my second wind."

Kinsman said nothing.

Still smiling, the old man lifted a frail hand. "I know
what you're thinking. In a couple of years I'll be six feet
under."

"No . . ."

"Don't try to kid me, son. I can read your face like a
blueprint. Von Braun never made it into space at all. Neither
did Clarke or Sagan. At least I've been in orbit."

"We'll get you to the Moon, don't worry."
213

"I don't have a worry in the world. I know they'll never
let me ride the shuttle in the shape I'm in now. If I can build
my strength back up, then fine. If not, I'll die here . . .
probably in this room,"

Kinsman had nothing to say.

Durban went on, "But I'll still be with you on the Moon.
I've left instructions in my will that I want to be buried there.
At Moonbase. And I've got enough money stashed away to
pay for it, too, by damn!"

"You're a stubborn Lunik." Kinsman smiled.

"Damned right, sonny. One thing I learned early in this
game. It takes more than talent, more than brains, more than
connections, even. Takes stubbornness. Look at von Braun.
Not the world's most brilliant engineer, but a hard-driving
man who knew what he wanted and went after it, hell or high
water. By God, World War Two was an opportunity, as far as
he was concerned! The Cold War, the Space Race, he turned
them all to his advantage. Other people sneered at him, called
him a Nazi, an opportunist, an amoral monster. But he never
wavered from his goal. He wanted the Moon and he went out
and got it. We all got it, thanks to him."

Not all of us. Kinsman answered silently.

"You go get Moonbase started," Durban said. "Don't let
them sidetrack you."

"We're trying."

"Going to the new space station, eh? Rubbing shoulders
with the politicians and their sycophants. Good. But don't let
them stop there. Keep driving for the Moon."

"Yessir."

Durban lifted his head slightly from the pillow. "I'll
watch the ceremonies on TV. At least I can turn them off
when they get too boring."

Kinsman laughed. The old man was still as feisty as ever.

"All right, son, you run along now. No fun watching an
old man trying to stay alive." Durban winked at him.
"Besides, I'm due for a bath . . . got a cute young nurse who
thinks I'm too feeble to do her any harm."

Getting up from the bedside chair. Kinsman said, "I'll
come back when I return from the ceremonies."

"Fine. I'll be waiting right here. I'm not going anyplace."

214

Even in the earliest morning the Florida sun was blind-
ingly hot. Merritt Island was flat and scrubby, not at all like
the hilly California coast at Vandenberg.

Kinsman had flown to Patrick Aerospace Force Base the
previous night on a government charter jet filled with Con-
gressional aides and their families. He had slept at the base's
Bachelor Officers' Quarters. Now, just after dawn, he had
driven a motor pool car to the space center to see the place
before the newshounds and tourists cluttered it up.

In the old days of the Apollo moon shots and the original
space shuttle launches, the roads and beaches would be
covered with upward of half a million onlookers, as thick as
ants on sugar. Official guests would have to arise at two in the
morning to get to the VIP viewing stands before the roads
became totally blocked with tourist cars and campers. But
now, with government restrictions on travel and synfuels
astronomically expensive, the roads leading to Kennedy
Space Center were nearly empty. People watched launches on
television, if they watched at all.

Most of the old buildings were still there, including the
mammoth Vehicle Assembly Building, the largest enclosed
structure on Earth, which was still used by the NASA people.
The ancient launch towers, tall stately spiderworks of steel
standing against the brazen sky, were strictly tourist attrac-
tions now. History had been made there, blasting out flames
and mountainous billows of steam as the Saturns and Deltas
and shuttles had launched men and automated probes into
space. Now they stood empty and quiet, gawked at by a
trickle of visitors from all around the world, lectured over by
National Park Service guards surrounded by eager, curious
youngsters and their sweating, sunburned, slightly bored
parents.

The real action now was at the airstrip, where the new
shuttles took off and landed. Unlike the older vehicles that
Kinsman had flown in, the new designs were truly reusable
spacecraft that took off and landed like airplanes.

The shuttle was a double-decker craft, two vehicles one
atop the other, joined together like a pair of technological
Siamese twins. The bottom one was the jet-powered Lifter. It
was all fuel and engines, with a tiny cockpit perched high up
on its massive blunt nose. It flew to the topmost reaches of the
215

atmosphere, more than a hundred thousand feet above the
ground, and then released its piggyback partner. The Orbiter,
smaller of the two mates, carried the passengers and payload
on into space on the thrust of its rocket engines. Both planes
landed at the airstrip, separately, to be reunited for another
flight.

Standing at the airstrip's edge, Kinsman stared at the
ungainly-looking pair, one atop the other. She'll never fly,
Orville. Gimme a good old rocket booster and a lifting body
re-entry vehicle like the Manta, the way God meant men to
go into space. But he knew that this new shuttle was making
space operations practical. Military men could rocket into
orbit atop bellowing boosters, but businessmen and their
cargoes rode the new shuttle and saved money. It was
cheaper, more efficient, and the gee loads on the passengers
were negligible.

Fred Durban could ride into orbit on that bird, Kinsman
knew, if he was healthy enough to get out of bed.

The shuttle would carry fifty passengers on this trip.
NASA was making three flights with the same bird to the
completed space station, all on this one day. The entire world
would watch the station's official dedication ceremonies via
satellite-relayed television.

"Hey, you! What the hell are you . . ."

Kinsman turned to see an Air Policeman yelling at him
from a jeep parked a dozen meters away. The AP was in crisp
uniform, with gleaming helmet and dead-black sidearm buck-
led to his hip. Kinsman was in his summer-weight blues. He
walked slowly toward the jeep.

"Oh, sorry, Major. I couldn't see your rank with your
back turned." The kid sprang out of the jeep and saluted. He
dwarfed Kinsman.

"You expecting trouble, Sergeant?" Kinsman asked,
returning the salute.

"Hard to say, sir. We were told some kook groups might
try to stage an antigovernment demonstration. Or maybe
something more violent by terrorists, like a bomb attempt."

"Well, I'm on your side. I just wanted to see the bird
before everybody else got here."

"Sorry I hollered, sir."

"It's okay. Can you give me a lift back to the administra-
216

tion building parking area?"

"Yessir, sure." He waited for Kinsman to seat himself in
the jeep, then sprinted around and slid under the steering
wheel. As he switched on the nearly silent electric motor, the
big sergeant asked incredulously, "You walked out here from
the admin building, sir?"

Kinsman nodded as the salty breeze blew into his face.
All the way back to the administration building he wondered
at the insanity of anyone who would even think of bombing a
beautiful piece of hardware like this shuttle.

The rest of the morning was a hateful blur to Kinsman.
Now I know what it's like to be invaded and conquered.
Crowds of strangers. Solicitous young Air Police—men and
women—pointing you in the right direction. Smiling unctu-
ous public relations people from NASA and the big corpora-
tions taking you by the elbow and telling you how proud and
happy you should be that you're here to help make this day a
success.

Not one of them knew Kinsman. No one recognized his
name. No one commented on the astronaut's emblem on his
tunic. He was a six-foot chunk of meat to them, a statistic. I
was working in orbit when you were in high school, he fumed
at them silently. But they just smiled and pointed and moved
him along: an anonymous visitor, a VIP, a nonperson,

Kinsman was locked into a group of forty-nine strangers
and walked through all the preflight ceremonies. A brief
physical exam, little more than blood pressure, heartbeat,
and breathing rate. The medic giving the blood-pressure tests
muttered something about everybody being so excited about
flying into orbit that all the pressures were reading high.
Kinsman shook his head. The equipment's miscalibrated, he
thought. I'm not excited enough to raise my blood pressure.

The safety lecture was designed to soothe the nerves of
jittery civilians who had never gone into orbit before. Then
came a five-minute video about how to handle the brief spell
of weightlessness until the shuttle docked with the space
station—mainly how to use the retch bag under zero-gee
conditions. And every minute of the preflight rites took place
under the staring eyes of the news cameras.

Kinsman resented it all: these newcomers, these stran-
gers, these moneygrubbers who had fought against any pro-
217

grams in space until their boards of directors finally became
convinced that there were profits to be made Up There.

His forty-nine "shipmates" included sixteen news report-
ers (eight female), three freelance writers (one a scenarist
from Hollywood), eleven board members of thirteen inter-
locked corporations (none of them less than fifty years old),
nine NASA executives who had never been out of downtown
Washington before, and ten men and women (five each) who
had been chosen by national lottery to represent "average
taxpayers."

They all looked excited and chattered nervously as they
were marched from the briefing room, past a double column
of news cameras, and out into the muggy morning sunlight. A
couple of the business executives seemed to be having some
quaims about the thought of actually taking off in a vehicle
that was built entirely by the lowest bidders, and several of
the NASA desk jockeys looked a bit green. Maybe the
space-sickness video got to them. Kinsman thought.

"I thought there were going to be entertainment stars,"
said one of the women taxpayers.

"They're on the other flight," someone answered.

The PR guide hovering nearest them said, "Two dozen
stars from various fields of entertainment will be aboard the
second night, together with an equal number of senators and
Congresspersons. There will also be religious leaders from all
the major denominations coming up, as well."

Feeling thoroughly out of place and resentful, like an
architect who is forced to serve as a clown. Kinsman climbed
aboard the big glass-topped, air-conditioned bus that would
take them out to the shuttle waiting on the airstrip. He took
the seat that a young PR woman with a frozen smile directed
him to.

"Have a pleasant flight. Colonel," she said.

"Thanks for the promotion," Kinsman replied to her
departing back.

The bus chugged into motion and the speakers set into
each chairback came alive with the news report of the
momentous day:

"And there goes the first busload of visitors to Space
Station Alpha. They're on their way!" gabbled a voice that
had spent most of its life hawking consumer products. "This
218

marks the beginning of a new era in space! Fifty ordinary
people, just like you and me, will be riding to the space
station just as easily and comfortably as we ride the daily bus
to our homes and offices and shopping malls. Ordinary
people, going into orbit, to a great man-made island in the
sky . . ."

Ordinary people, thought Kinsman. Am I ordinary? Is
anybody?

One of the "average taxpayers" was seated beside him,
on the aisle. She stared at him for several minutes as the bus
huffed slowly toward the airstrip and the radio voice prat-
tled on.

"They didn't tell us there'd be any soldiers on this flight,"
she said at last.

Kinsman turned from the window to look at her. A
youngish housewife: softly curled light brown hair, oval face.
Dressed in a brand-new flowered pantsuit.

"I'm not a soldier," he answered, almost in a whisper.
"I'm in the Aerospace Force."

"Well, why are they letting you up? This isn't a military
satellite." She looked almost resentful.

An educated taxpayer. Glancing around and keeping his
voice low, Kinsman replied, "Confidentially, I ... well, I
used to be an astronaut. They're letting me see what this new
stuff is all about. Sort of like a homecoming for me."

Her minifrown softened. "Oh, I get it. Like inviting the
old graduates to the school reunion."

Nodding, "More or less."

"I was wondering why you looked so cool and relaxed.
You've been through all this before."

"Well, not exactly anything like this."

"Gosh . . . I've never met an astronaut before. I'm Jinny
Woods. I'm from New Paltz, New York."

"Chet Kinsman." He shook her hand lightly. "And if
you don't mind, I'd just as soon stay in the background here.
I'm just a guest. You're the stars of today's show."

She wriggled with pleasure at his flattery. "You mean 1
shouldn't tell anybody you're an astronaut?"

"I'd rather you didn't. I don't want a fuss made about it."

"Okay . . . It'll be our secret."

Kinsman smiled at her while his mind recalled a line that
219

a friend of his had once uttered: Hell is, I'm booked into
Grossinger's for a week and every girl's mother in the place
knows I'm an unmarried medical student.

The bus ride was mercifully brief, but Kinsman wound up
being placed beside the same woman inside the shuttle. The
interior of the orbiter was much like the interior of a standard
commercial jet airliner, except that the seats were plusher,
the decor plainer, and there were no windows. Each seatback
had a small TV screen built into it. The seats themselves were
large, roomy, comfortable, and equipped with a double safety
harness that crisscrossed over the shoulders and across the
chest.

Jinny Woods fumbled with her harness until Kinsman
leaned across and helped her with it. She told him about her
two children and her husband back in New Paltz, who was a
salesman. He nodded and admired the way she breathed.

And then they waited.

"What's wrong? Why aren't we moving?" Jinny whis-
pered to Kinsman. She looked as if she were afraid of making
a fuss, yet genuinely frightened at the same time.

"It'll take several minutes," Kinsman answered. In his
mind he pictured what was going on in the cockpit of the
orbiter, and in the massive lifter beneath them.

Range safety?

Clear.

Main engine fuel pressure?

Green.

Life support systems?

All green.

Full internal power.

On.

Shuttle One, you are cleared for taxi.

Roger, Tower. One taxiing.

One-quarter throttle. And steer clear of the bumps on
the ramp. Let's not shake up the passengers.

The muffled whine of the lifter's hydrogen turbine en-
gines vibrated through the cabin's thick acoustical insulation.
Kinsman felt the shuttle surge forward. Sitting in the heavily
padded seat with nothing to look at but the gray curving walls
of the cabin or the dead eye of the TV screen in front of him,
Kinsman imagined himself sitting in the Command Pilot's
220

seat, nudging the throttles forward and handling the controls.
The huge, cumbersome double-plane rolled out along the
approach ramp and swung onto the five-kilometer-long run-
way: a broad black road that reached to the horizon and the
sky beyond.

Shuttle One, hold for final clearance.

One holding.

Range tracking Go.

Range safety Go.

Meteorology Go,

Mission control Go.

All systems green.

Shuttle One, you are cleared for takeoff.

Roger.

Give 'em a nice easy ride, Jeff.

Only way to fly!

Full takeoff flaps. Full throttle.

Rolling.

Kinsman felt the acceleration pressing him back slightly
in his seat. But it was gentle, gentle, nothing like a rocket
boost. Hardly any vibration at ail.

Two hundred.

Rotate.

The nose came up. Kinsman's hands clutched on his lap,
thumb pressing an imaginary controller, and the giant rocket-
plane lifted off the ground.

He turned to the woman beside him. "We're up."

She was staring at the TV screen in front of her, still
looking scared. Kinsman glanced at his own screen. It showed
a view from the camera in the nose of the orbiter as it rode
piggyback on the lifter. He could see the bulbous nose and
cockpit of the lifter below them, and scudding clouds that
they had already climbed past.

"When did they turn the screens on?" he wondered.

"Just as we started down the runway. Didn't you no-
tice?"

"No."

Within fifteen minutes they were high over the Atlantic,
a cloud-flecked sheet of hammered gray metal far below
them.

The intercom speakers hummed to life. "This is Captain
221

Burke speaking. I'm the Command Pilot of your orbiter
aerospace craft. Our big brother down underneath us will be
releasing us in approximately five minutes. They'll fly back to
the Cape while we light our rocket engines and head onward
into orbit and rendezvous with Space Station Alpha. You will
hear some noise and feel a few bumps when we separate.
Don't be alarmed."

The separation, when it came, was barely discernible.
Kinsman felt a slight sinking sensation as the TV screen
showed the lifter swing away and out of sight. Then a dull
throbbing pulsed through the cabin, felt in the bones more
than heard. The cabin vibrated slightly as the orbiter

nosed up.

"Look!" Jinny Woods exclaimed. "I can see the curve of

the Earth!"

I know. I've been there. But Kinsman felt the thrill of it
all over again. Swiftly their weight diminished until they were
in zero gravity, hanging loosely against their restraining

harnesses.

Jinny swallowed hard several times but managed to keep
herself together. Kinsman watched her closely.

"It feels like falling, at first," he said. "But once you get
used to it, it's more like floating. Just don't make any sudden
head motions."

She smiled weakly at him.

He relaxed and luxuriated in the freedom of zero gee.
How many times has it been? Lost count. Someplace back
there I stopped counting. He wondered what would happen if
he unbuckled and got up from his seat and glided freely along
the aisle separating the double rows of seats. Probably the PR
guides would get hysterical. He pictured himself drifting up to
the cockpit, going inside to join the crew and their smoothly
functioning equipment. He laughed to himself at the thought
of commandeering the spacecraft, bypassing the space station
and heading on to the Moon. The first space hijack, he
mused. Oh, for ten toes!

Soon enough the flight ended as the orbiter lined up with
the loading dock at the center of Alpha's set of concentric
rings. This was a piece of piloting that Kinsman had never
done, and he watched the TV screen, fascinated, as the ship
approached the space station like a dart seeking the bull's-
222

eye. Alpha looked like a set of different-sized bicycle wheels
nested within one another. Kinsman knew that the biggest
one, the outermost wheel, was turning at a rate that would
induce a full Earth gravity for the people who lived and
worked inside it. The smaller wheels—most of them still
under construction—had lighter gravity pulls. The loading
dock at the center of the assembly was at zero gee, effectively.

The rendezvous and docking maneuvers were flawless,
and soon Kinsman and the other passengers were shuffling,
stiil weightless, along the narrow ladder that led through the
orbiter's hatch into the station loading bay.

The loading bay was even more tightly organized than
the groundside takeoff had been. There was a NASA or
corporate representative for each of the fifty visitors to
personally guide each of the individual visitors to the stairs
that led "down" to the main living quarters in the outermost
wheel.

Kinsman was relieved to be separated from Jinny Woods,
although his guide—a sparkling bright young industrial
engineer—treated him like a fragile grandfather.

"Just this way, sir. Now you don't actually need the stairs
up here in the low-gravity area, but I'd recommend that you
use them anyway."

"I've been in zero gee before," Kinsman said.

Ignoring him pleasantly, the young man went on, "We'll
be going down—that is, outward toward Level One—where
the gravity is at normal Earth value. Your weight will feel like
it's increasing as we go down the stairs."

He led Kinsman to a circular hatch set into the "floor" of
the loading bay. A metal stairway spiraled down to the other
levels of the station.

"Easy does it now!" he said cheerfully, holding Kinsman
by the elbow as they took the first steps down.

Kinsman wanted to break free of his grip and glide down
the tube until the gravity built up enough for him to walk
normally. Instead, grumbling inwardly, he patiently allowed
the young engineer to guide him along.

"It's easy to get disoriented in low gee," the kid said.

Feeling like an invalid. Kinsman let himself be led down
the stairs. The metal tube they were in was one of the
"spokes" that connected the hub of the station with its
223

various wheel-shaped levels. The tube was softly tit by
patches of fluorescent paints glowing palely along the circular
walls. No power drain, Kinsman realized.

Once safely down to Level One, the fifty first coiners
were organized into a guided tour. Kinsman endured it,
together with the sullen weight of a full Earth gravity that
tugged at him like a prisoner's chains.

The station's first level included some laboratory areas,
individual living compartments that made submarines look
roomy, a galley, and a mess hall. It all looked efficient and
compact, although the decor was depressingly familiar to
anyone who worked in a government office: bare pastel walls
and spongy plastic floor tiles. But the floor curved upward no
matter which direction you looked in, and the occasional
windows showed stars turning over and over in lazy spirals
against the blackness of infinity.

The tour started at one end of the mess hall and finished
at the opposite end, where a bar had been set up. Kinsman
took a plastic cup of punch from the automatic dispenser just
as the second batch of arrivals appeared, exactly at the spot
where his own tour had started.

Looking across the bolted-down tables and swiveling
chairs along the sloping floor, Kinsman spotted Neal
McGrath's tall, dour form among the newcomers. McGrath
stared straight at Kinsman and scowled. Kinsman lifted his
cup to the Senator, wondering. Is that his normal scowl or is
he really sore at me?

Diane was in McGrath's group, surrounded by station
personnel and public relations flaks. They all want to be in
show biz, thought Kinsman. He did not recognize any of the
other personalities.

Gradually the mess hall filled with visitors. Kinsman
chatted quietly with several people and tried to avoid being
pinned down by several others—including Jinny Woods, who
had that "I've got a secret" gleam in her eye whenever she
looked Kinsman's way.

Some of the station people hoisted Diane atop one of the
bigger tables. As she began tuning her guitar the chattering
voices of the crowd diminished into expectant silence.

"I've never been in orbit before," she said. "At least, not
this way." They all laughed. "So I'd like to sing a song that's
224

dedicated to the people who made all this possible, the
farsighted people who pioneered the way here. It's called
The Green Hills of Earth.'"

Kinsman ignored the words of her song and bathed in the
magic of Diane's voice. Everyone was silent, turned toward
her as flowers face the sun, listening and watching her sad,
serious face as she sang.

He felt Neal McGrath's presence beside him. Kinsman
turned slightly and McGrath said in a throaty whisper,
"We've got to talk."

Kinsman nodded.

McGrath put a hand on his shoulder. "Come on."

"Shh. Wait a minute."

"Now!"

A surge of anger welled up in him and Kinsman brushed
McGrath's hand off his shoulder. But then it ebbed away and
he whispered back, "All right . . . where to?"

McGrath led him back through the corridor that ran the
length of Level One, to the area where the living quarters
were. He found an empty cubbyhole, no name on the door,
and gestured Kinsman inside it.

The two of them filled the tiny compartment. There was
nothing much in it: just a bunk built into the curving wall, a
sliver of a desk with a bolted-down swivel chair in front of it,
and some cabinets along the other wall. Kinsman tried the
bunk. It was springy, comfortable, but narrow. He knew that
if he stretched out on it, it would be barely long enough for
him.

"You'd have a hard time sleeping on one of these," he
said to McGrath.

"What's that supposed to mean?" McGrath growled.
Neal had taken the chair. It looked pitifully small for him.
Kinsman thought of an underfed burro bearing an overfed
American tourist.

Shrugging, he replied, "Not a damned thing, Neal,
except that these are pretty damned small bunks."

McGrath's scowl did not ease. "Diane told you about her
and me."

"That's right."

"Who've you told about it?"

"Nobody."

225

"Nobody yet," McGrath said, emphasizing the second

word.

"Yeah," Kinsman agreed. "Nobody yet."

"Mary-Ellen knows all about it."

"So Diane said."

Hunching forward in his chair, spreading his hands in a
gesture that would have indicated helplessness in a smaller
man, McGrath asked, "What are you going to do with the
information, Chet?"

"I don't know."

He could see the pain on McGrath's face. It was not easy
for the man to beg. "Most of the people around me know

about it."

"But your constituents back on the farm don't."

"We ... I was planning to get the divorce after I'm
re-elected."

"After you become the Minority Leader."

McGrath nodded.

"Mary-Ellen's going to help you campaign, and you'll
troop your kids all across the state, and after the voters send
you back to Washington for another six years you'll get your
divorce. Pretty sweet."

"What else can I do?" McGrath asked, real misery in his
voice. "It's not the divorce so much as the timing. Should I
throw away my chance for Minority Leader over a matter of a

few months?"

"Those farmers and coal miners and churchgoers
wouldn't like knowing that you're going around with a singer,
an entertainment star, a left-wing ex-radical from show
business. They'd think you're pretty lousy, cheating on your
wife. Wouldn't they?"

"Yes," he admitted. "They would."

"They'd be right."

McGrath's eyes flashed. "Don't be too righteous about
this, Chet. I never would have met her if it weren't for you."

"I know." Kinsman felt his own temper rising. "And she
never would have gotten her chance for stardom if it weren't
for me. And you wouldn't be in the Senate if it weren't for my
family's money and connections."

McGrath took it like a body blow, the breath gushing out
of him. But he dropped his chin only for a moment before
226

plunging ahead. "I fell in love with her right off the bat, the
first time I laid eyes on her. I just didn't do anything about
it ... until . . ."

"Will Diane marry you after the divorce?"

"I don't know. We've talked about it. The baby compli-
cates things. I want to marry her, but she's not sure."

"She'd make a lousy senator's wife."

Exploding out of the flimsy chair, McGrath raised his
hands wildly. They banged into the compartment's low
plastic-sheeted ceiling. "Christ Almighty! I didn't want any of
this! I didn't go out looking for it. I never intended to break
up my marriage. It wasn't all that good anymore, between
Mary-Ellen and me, but . . . Chet, when I'm with Diane I
feel like a kid again! Just being in the same room with her!
And then when she told me she felt the same way about
me . . ."

Kinsman leaned back on the bunk and watched his old
friend pace the tiny compartment. Middle-age change of life,
he told himself. Neal always was precocious. He found
himself envying the fact that McGrath could let go of himself
so completely.

McGrath stopped in front of Kinsman. Looming over
him he asked, "So what are you going to do about it?"

"I told you, Neal. I haven't decided what to do. Probably
nothing."

"If you're thinking of using this to pressure me on the
Moonbase deal, forget it! I won't knuckle under."

Kinsman looked up at him. Is Neal stubborn enough to
throw his career into the flames?

"The trouble is," Kinsman said evenly, "if I've found out
about it, it's only a matter of time until guys like Marcot and
the rest find out . . ."

"They won't. Congress takes care of its own."

"Neal, some crap artist like Tug Wynne will nudge it out
of somebody sooner or later."

"Wynne's bureau chief is a friend of mine. He'll keep it
quiet or he'll lose a helluva good inside source. More than
one. Other senators will clam up if he breaks silence. And
their aides."

Shaking his head. Kinsman countered, "Look, Neal, I
haven't been around Washington as long as you have, but I
227

know this much: the White House is out to get you. Some-
body in the Administration sees you as a threat. And they've
got their own channels into the media, you know. You're
playing in the big leagues now."

McGrath slowly sank down on the bunk beside Kinsman.

"Do you think for one second," Kinsman went on, "that
Wynne or his bureau chief will sit on your story when it comes
out of the Pentagon? Or the White House? For God's sake,
somebody like Marcot could break it to the fucking National
Enquirer or plant rumors in any of sixty daily columns. They
could give it to the Hollywood gossip-mongers. Diane's a
video personality, you know."

"I know."

"And when the Pentagon does find out about you,"
Kinsman said, "you're going to think I told them."

"What you're saying is that you might as well tell them
yourself and collect the credit for it because they're going to
find out about it sooner or later anyway."

Kinsman snapped, "No, that's not what I'm saying!
Goddammitall, Neal, I'm warning you that you're going to
have to face this pressure one way or the other."

"And if I vote for your Moonbase program the pressure
will be off."

"That's right."

"For the time being. Until they want something else."

"I won't be involved in anything else," Kinsman said.
"All I want is Moonbase."

"A military base on the Moon."

"It's not a military base, Neal. Not in the sense that it has
anything to do with weapons."

For a long moment McGrath said nothing. Then, "This
spaceplane thing . . . it's being built so we can knock out
Soviet satellites, isn't it?"

"I'm not supposed to say anything about that."

"But you don't deny it?"

"No," Kinsman said, "I don't deny it."

"It's not a very well-kept secret. They've already spent
nearly a billion on the design phase."

"So?"

"I'm still against your Moonbase," McGrath said quietly,
but with the implacability of a glacier. "No matter what you
228

say, Chet, they'll turn it into an armed military camp."

"No. They can't."

"Of course they can. They've already escalated the arms
race into orbital space. First the antimissile satellites with
their lasers and particle beam weapons. Now a manned
interceptor to knock out the satellites. Next they'll start the
interceptors shooting at each other. They're going to fight a
war out there, and your Moonbase will become part of it
whether you want it to or not."

Wearily, Kinsman pulled himself up from the bunk.
"Maybe you're right. Maybe."

"But you want to go to the Moon anyway."

Turning back to face him, "I sure as hell do."

"At any cost."

"At almost any cost."

"So what should I do about it?" McGrath muttered,
more to himself than to Kinsman.

"I wish I knew," Kinsman said, feeling trapped and
helpless. "I sure as hell wish I knew."

When they got back to the bar at the galley Diane was
nowhere in sight. McGrath went off to look for her. Kinsman
took another cup of punch. It was weak stuff, but his mouth
felt dry, his soul arid.

People were drifting through the mess hall, drinks in
hand, conversing in small groups. Kinsman wandered over to
one of the hall's small oval windows and stared out at the
slowly revolving stars. Most of the PR flaks had disappeared,
leaving the visitors to themselves for the time being.

"Well, Major, what do you think of it?"

Kinsman turned to see a cheerful-looking man of about
fifty standing before him, two beer bottles clenched in each
hand.

"Very efficient." Kinsman grinned at him.

"Oh, the beer! Beats going back to the bar every five
minutes. But I was referring to the station." He tucked two
bottles under his arm and extended his right hand. "I'm T. D.
Dreyer. My outfit did the main structural work on this flying
doughnut."

"Your outfit?"

"General Technologies, Inc."

"General Tech. You're that Dreyer!"
229

T. D. Dreyer grinned boyishly, happy to be recognized.
He was slightly shorter than Kinsman, barrel-chested and
burly of build. His blue-gray leisure suit had been carefully
tailored to make him look as slim as possible, but his face
betrayed him: a heavyset, happy ex-footballer who constantly
battled overweight. It was a deeply tanned face. He either has
a sunlamp at his desk, Kinsman concluded, or he spends most
of his time in the field.

"And I know who you are," Dreyer said. "You're Major
Chester Arthur Kinsman, former astronaut, now part of the
Aerospace Force's team for Moonbase."

A faint chill of panic raced through Kinsman. "You've
got a good intelligence network."

Dreyer's eyes lit up. "You bumped a Wright-Patterson
general who's been giving one of my divisions a hard time
over a contract we have with him. I was going to try a little
friendly persuasion on him while we were both here and away
from our desks. When I heard my pigeon had been bumped I
made it my business to find out who had bumped him—and at
the last minute, too. That takes some clout."

"Hell, if I had known . . ."

"Naah, don't worry about it. I'll catch up with him next
week." Dreyer moved half a step closer to Kinsman and
lowered his voice slightly. "Frankly, I have a feeling the guy's
scared to fly. I was kinda looking forward to watching him shit
his pants when I dragged him over to the observation
window."

They laughed together.

"You've been up here before," said Kinsman.

"Sure. Big job like this, I come up and look as often as I
can get away from that damned desk in Dallas. Gives my
insurance people fits, but I like it up here. It's a relief to be
away from all those damned numbers crunchers and ribbon
clerks."

"I'll drink to that!" Kinsman lifted his cup.

After a long pull of beer, Dreyer said, "Y'know, the
trouble with being chairman of the board is that you're
supposed to be dignified and conservative. My board mem-
bers don't believe me when I tell 'em we should be pouring
every dollar we can into space operations."

"They think it's too risky?"
230

"It's not that so much as the fact that it's so easy to take
government contracts instead. The profit is low but it's
guaranteed. No risk at all, as long as you do a halfway decent
job."

"What about the talk I hear about private companies
building their own facilities up here? Factories and research
labs and solar power satellites?"

Dreyer made a sour face. "Yeah, maybe. But not any-
body who's got a board of directors to satisfy. Not as long as
there are government contracts to be had."

"Dreyer! I thought that was you." A tall, lithe, hollow-
cheeked man with a small pointed beard joined them. He
seemed to Kinsman to be in his thirties. He wore a white
one-piece jumpsuit. His face was lean and bony, ascetic; his
reddish-brown hair was shaved so close to the scalp that he
almost looked bald. His hands were empty.

"Well," the newcomer asked, gesturing out toward the
view of space, "what do you think of it?"

"Very nice," Dreyer answered. "I think there's a future
in it."

"You're being facetious."

"No, but I'm not being polite. Major Kinsman, allow me
to introduce Professor Howard Alexander of Redlands Uni-
versity. Howard, this is Chet Kinsman."

Alexander's hands stayed at his sides. "I didn't know that
any Air Force people were on the invitations list. You're on
duty with NASA, I take it."

"No," Kinsman said.

"Chefs a former astronaut. Now he's on the Moonbase
team."

" Oh, that.'' The temperature of the conversation
dropped fifty degrees.

Dreyer seemed amused. "Professor Alexander is the
apostle of the True Faith. He wants the military out of space
so he can build colonies and make them into heavenly
paradises."

"And you want to build them and make profit out of
them," Alexander shot back testily.

"Sure, why not?"

"Because space should be free for all humankind, that's
why. Because we shouldn't bring our selfish, petty greeds out
231

into this beautiful new world."

"Right on," said Kinsman.

Alexander turned to him. "Nor should we be trying to
build weapons and fortifications in space. This is a domain for
peaceful existence, not for war."

"I couldn't agree more."

The professor blinked at him.

Kinsman said, "I think it would be wonderful if we could
leave all the greed and anger and suspicion of our fellow men
back on Earth and come out here fresh and clean and
newborn."

"I got news for you, fellas," Dreyer said, with a rueful
grin. "It ain't gonna happen that way."

"I'm afraid not," Kinsman agreed.

Alexander shook his head, as if dismissing such unpleas-
ant thoughts from his mind. "It will happen that way if we
make it happen that way."

"How'm I gonna do that?" Dreyer asked, suddenly very
serious. "You think my board of directors will risk the
company's capital on dreams? They want profits and they
want 'em now."

"They'll get their profits, from the solar power satel-
lites."

"Sure. Twenty years downstream. We could be in receiv-
ership by then. We can't tie up billions of dollars for twenty
years at a time. Nobody can. So where are you going to get
the capital to build those big-assed colonies of yours? Plus the
lunar mining facilities, the processing plants, the facto-
ries ..."

"It would only take five or six billion."

"Per year!"

"Surely the major corporations could invest that much in
their own future," Alexander said. "And in the future of the
human race."

Dreyer shook his head. "Like I said, we're not in the
investment business. We work for profits. This year. Nobody
in his right mind is going to risk the kind of money your space
colonies require."

Alexander countered, "Think of the profits you'll even-
tually make from selling energy back to Earth once you've
built a few solar power satellites."
232

"I know," Dreyer said, gesturing with a beer bottle in his
hand. "But you don't need your supercolossal colonies to
build solar power satellites. All you need is a tough crew of
workmen on the Moon, where the raw materials are, and
another crew in orbit, where the construction will take
place."

"But there's more to it than just building the satellites,"
Alexander insisted. "The space colonies will also be involved
in building more colonies, more self-sufficient islands in
space."

"What for?" Kinsman asked.

"So that more people can leave the Earth and live in
space!" Alexander's exasperated tone reminded Kinsman of a
Sunday school teacher he and Neal had once suffered
through.

But how do we know that God loves us?

Because the Scriptures tell us so!

But how do we know the Scriptures are right?

Because they were inspired by God!

But how do we know they were inspired by God?

Because it says so, right in the Scriptures!

Repressing a grim smile, Kinsman told himself. At least
the Quakers never fell into that dogmatic tailspin. I'll bet
Alexander was schooled by Jesuits.

"And who's gonna pay for these additional colonies?"
Dreyer was asking.

"They'll be paid for out of the profits from the solar
power satellites!" Alexander was getting edgy.

"Let's sit down," Kinsman suggested, pointing to an
empty table. Most of the visitors were still clustered around
the bar.

"Lemme get a refill," said Dreyer, hefting his emptied
beer bottles.

The three of them pushed their way to the bar. Dreyer
got another pair of beers, Kinsman another cup of the weak
punch. Alexander abstained. Then they sat at one of the long
mess tables, Dreyer at its head, Alexander and Kinsman
flanking him on either side.

Kinsman took a sip of the punch. It felt cold and
sticky-sweet.

"Now look," Dreyer said to the professor, "don't get me
233

wrong. I like the colony idea. I've liked it since O'Neill first
proposed it, back in the Seventies. And I agree that solar
power satellites could make a considerable profit—in time. If
the government doesn't nationalize them, once they're built.
But how do you raise the initial capital? You're talking about
a hundred billion bucks or more."

"Over a ten-year period," Alexander said.

Dreyer shrugged. "That's still ten billion a year, mini-
mum. That's a helluva lot of bread. With no payoff until way
downstream, and maybe not even then. Who in hell is going
to buy into this? My board of directors would toss me into the
loony bin if I tried to put that past them."

"If the corporations would all work together and pool
their resources ..."

"They won't. They can't! The antitrust guys would be all
over us in ten minutes."

Kinsman said, "I thought NASA was involved in this."

"Only on the transportation end of it," Dreyer said.
"NASA's not going to build any colonies. Congress won't
appropriate that kind of money."

"Not for solar power satellites?" Kinsman wondered.

Dreyer explained, "See, the power satellites and the
colonies are two different things. The power satellites are
gonna get built, probably by the government, at least the first
one. But nobody's going to put up the money for a colony
that'll house ten thousand university professors in a big
suburbia in the sky."

Alexander frowned.

They talked around and around the subject, Alexander
waxing poetic and pathetic by turns, Dreyer shaking his
bulldog head and insisting on the economic facts of life.
Kinsman looked over his shoulder at the star-filled window
and saw their reflections in the glass: Alexander in profile,
earnest and ascetic as a saint; Dreyer massive and solid as
reality; his own face lean, dark, bored with their arguments
that circled as repetitiously as the stars outside the window.
But there was something nagging at Kinsman's mind, some-
thing that the two of them were overlooking. What?

Finally it hit Kinsman. He broke into their argument.
"How are you going to defend this colony?"

"Huh?"

234

Alexander looked aghast. "Defend it? Against what?
The Martians?"

"Against other Earthlings," said Kinsman. "Maybe the
Soviets won't want a capitalist colony in space. Or terrorists.
Your colony would be wide open to a small nuclear bomb.
Look what they did in Cape Town."

"That's ridiculous," Alexander snapped. "Why would
the Russians attack a space colony? And terrorists could
never get up to a space colony. We wouldn't allow any
weapons aboard it."

"You're not afraid of the Russians?" Dreyer asked.

"No. Why should I be? They're cooperating with us in
our civilian space program, aren't they?"

"And competing with us to put their Star Wars system in
orbit."

Alexander dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand.
"The space colonies will be far beyond the militarists and
their weapons."

"I hope you're right," said Kinsman.

Turning to Dreyer, Alexander asked, "I want to know
how much your corporation is willing to invest in the space
colony project."

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Zero."

The professor's mouth went slack, but only for a mo-
ment. "Nothing at all? Are you serious?"

"Nothing at all," Dreyer said, with a good-natured grin.
"Nothing for the colony. The lunar mining operation . . .
now that's a different story. I think maybe we could go in on
that. But not as part of your colony scheme. Find another
pigeon for your flying Garden of Eden."

"That's extremely shortsighted!"

"Yeah, maybe- But if I was as visionary as you Iwould've
gone bust years ago."

Abruptly Alexander pushed his chair back as far as it
would go on the little track welded to the floor. Standing, he
looked down on Kinsman and Dreyer.

"Someday we will have our space colonies and we will
start a new era for the human race—without soldiers and
without capitalists!"

235

"Good luck," Kinsman said. Dreyer grinned and took a
pull of beer.

Alexander stalked off.

Dreyer watched him. "That's why he isn't afraid of the
Russians. He's a goddamned socialist himself." He shook his
head and laughed bitterly. "When he finds a place that
doesn't have soldiers or capitalists he's going to be in

heaven."

"Guess he'll snub Saint Michael," Kinsman said, "unless
Mike puts away his armor and sword."

"Yeah. And there's a few capitalist saints he won't get
along with, either."

Kinsman chuckled.

"He reminds me," Dreyer went on, "of what a kid in the
office said about the head of the Office of Technology
Assessment: 'He's no prophet; he's a loss.'"

They laughed together and got up and went to the bar for
another drink. As they walked slowly back toward the
window that looked out on the stars, Kinsman said:

"I've been thinking ... let me ask you a hypothetical
question."

"Shoot."

Kinsman put out his free hand and touched the plasti-
glass. It was cold. Space cold. Death cold. He could feel it
drawing the heat out of him, pulling his soul into space.

He yanked his hand away and said to Dreyer, "Suppose
the government was willing to sink a few billion dollars into
building a mining facility on the Moon. Would your board of
directors be interested in putting some of your own money
into the operation?"

"Sure!" Dreyer answered immediately. "If Uncle Sugar
is taking most of the risk, why the hel! not?"

"That's what I thought," Kinsman said.

"You talking about a space colony now or something

else?"

"Not a colony. Just the lunar mining facilities. And
factories, either on the Moon or in orbit."

"To build solar power satellites?"

"No. Something else."

Dreyer said nothing for a long moment. Then, "Just what
do you have in mind?"

236

Kinsman shook his head.

With a knowing grin, Dreyer said, "There used to be talk
about building the Star Wars satellites in space, out of lunar
raw materials."

Kinsman answered, "So I've heard."

Dreyer's grin spread. "We'd be happy to work on that
kind of project. With the government providing the invest-
ment capital and the Aerospace Force behind it, it would be a
project we could depend on. We'd be willing to sink a helluva
lot of our own discretionary funds into it, too."

"Do you think the other industrial contractors would feel
the same way?"

"Why the hell wouldn't they?" Dreyer said. Then he
started laughing again. "I'd like to see the look on Alexan-
der's face when he finds out that his precious idea for building
colonies in space has been bumped by factories for turning
out military hardware!"

Kinsman nodded and tried to smile back at the man, but
he could not.

He sat once again next to Jinny Woods on the shuttle's
return flight to Florida, but Kinsman's mind was a quarter-
million miles away.

"I didn't see you hardly at all," the woman was saying,
"once we got up there. You were always in deep dark
conversations with somebody or other. Who were all those
people anyway? Wasn't one of them Senator McGrath? I saw
him on television, one of those late-night talk shows. He's so
handsome!"

Kinsman made noncommittal noises at her while his
mind raced:

Is this the way history gets made? Somebody wants to
find a retreat, a place to hide, and we get a lunar base out of
it? Somebody wants to make a buck, open a new trade route,
get the tax collectors off his back. That's what makes the
world go 'round?

"... and the way she sang! I'll bet you didn't even hear
her, did you? I looked for you but you weren't anywhere in
sight. You missed the dancers, too. They took us down to the
low-gravity section ..."

I'll have to spring it on Murdock first. No, first I'll tell
237

Frank about it. If there are any flaws in the picture he'll spot
them. Pick out the weak points and fix them. Then Murdock.
Then we'll work up a presentation for General Sherwood.
Probably for Marcot, too. It all ties together so neatly. Why
haven't the others seen it?

"You haven't been listening to a word I've said/' Jinny
Woods complained.

"I'm sorry," Kinsman said. "I was thinking about some
of the problems I've got ahead of me, back at the office."

"You sound just like my husband. I guess I talk too
much. That's what he tells me."

"No . . . it's my fault."

She brushed a curl away from her eyes. "I'm just so
excited by all this! It's all old stuff for you, I know. But
nothing like this has ever happened to me before. It's all so
new ... so thrilling!"

She's kind of pretty, Kinsman noticed. Nice eyes. Happy
as a kid.

"It's exciting for me, too," he told her. "Don't let this
calm exterior fool you. No matter how many times you go
into orbit, it's always a ball."

She seemed pleased. "Really? It's not just me? I guess I
just never learned to control my feelings very well. I get
awfully gushy, don't I? Do you think we'll ever get up there
again?"

Do I think about anything else?

She went on, "They said they're going to bring us to
Washington next week for a press conference. You live in
Washington, don't you? I've never been there before and
Ralph says he can't take any days off to come with me. I'll be
alone in the city,"

"Where will you be staying?"

"Some government hotel, I guess. They haven't told us
where."

Kinsman nodded. "Well, I'll find out and phone you
when you're in town."

"Oh, that'd be wonderful' Do you have a card or
something, so I can call you? That'd be easier . . ."

"I'm afraid I can't give out my phone number," Kinsman
said, taking on a man-of-mystery disguise.

She fell for it. "Really? Why?"
238

He put a finger to his lips. "I'll find out where you're
going to be staying and give you a call when you get into
town. Trust me."

She nodded slowly, her eyes filled with something ap-
proaching awe.

And that was the last time he thought about her.

As soon as he arrived back in his one-room apartment
Kinsman phoned Fred Durban. But the old man had slipped
into a coma and the hospital would allow no visitors except
family.

Then he called Colt and invited himself to Frank's
apartment for a drink.

Colt's pad was lush compared to Kinsman's Spartan little
cell: richly carpeted living room with a balcony that over-
looked Arlington National Cemetery; big bedroom with a
fake zebra hide thrown over the water bed.

Scotch in hand, Kinsman explained his idea to Colt. The
black officer listened silently, stretched out on his synthetic
leather recliner.

". . . and that's it," Kinsman finished. "We mine the
ores on the Moon, process them there, ship them to orbital
factories, where they're manufactured into the antimissile
satellites. Instead of working against the SDI Office, we make
Moonbase a partner of theirs."

For a long moment Colt said nothing. Then, "People
talked about building the satellites in orbit when the SDI idea
was first proposed."

"I know. But we can do it now. All the pieces are in
place—almost."

"You got all the pieces tied together," Colt said. "One
big program that's got something for everybody. Moonbase
becomes an important mining center instead of a geriatrics
hospital. The big corporations get Uncle Sam to finance
factories in orbit for them. And the Star Wars guys get their
ABM satellites deployed for half the cost of building them on
Earth and launching 'em from the ground."

"Not really half the cost," Kinsman said. "It won't be
that cheap, I don't think. They'll want to continue to build the
first-generation satellites on the ground. The space-
manufactured stuff is for the next generation, the satellites
239

that'll be carrying the high-power lasers."

Colt kicked his recliner upright and bounced to his feet.
"Shee-it, man, you've got it made! You've pulled the two
projects together into one big beeyootiful program that makes
sense! Nobody could vote against it! It'd be like spittin' on the
motherlovin' flag!" Colt laughed and stuck his hand out to
Kinsman, palm up. "Man, it's the best piece of strategical
thinking since Moses led the Children of Israel out of Egypt!"

Kinsman slapped at his hand, then grabbed it. "You
really think so?"

"Hell yes! The brass'll love it. And you get your god-
damned Moonbase out of it. Shrewd, man. Shrewd."

A sigh of relief eased out of Kinsman. "Okay, great.
Now the first thing we've got to do is tell Murdock about it."

"First thing tomorrow we'll corner him."

"Could you do me a favor, Frank?" Kinsman asked.
"You tell him. Leave me out of it. As soon as I try to tell him
anything he shuts me off. If I bounce this plan off him he'll
find a million reasons to junk it without bucking it further up
the chain of command. It'll die right there in his office."

Colt eyed his friend. "Yeah, maybe. But you're the guy
who knows all the shit about this. I don't. I couldn't put it
across to Murdock as well as you could."

Glancing at the purpling sky and the dark shadow of the
Pentagon on the horizon. Kinsman said slowly, "Well . . .
we've got all night to rehearse it. Unless you have something
else to do."

Colt frowned. "Lemme make a phone call. This is gonna
break the heart of the best-looking piece of ass the Secretary
of Agriculture ever had working for him."

"Aw, hell, Frank, I didn't want . . ."

With a wink, Colt said, "Forget it, buddy. She'll keep.
And you're right, I do impress Murdock with my keen
military bearing."

Kinsman would have paced his office if it had been big
enough. Instead he sat at his desk, the chair tilted back
against the faded pastel wall, and had nothing to do but think.

You're selling out, you know that. You're giving them
what they want: a military base on the Moon. Neal was right;

vou're spreading the arms race all the way to the Moon.
240

You're willing to start a war up there.

But another part of his mind answered, They're putting
up the ABM satellites anyway. And the manned interceptor
comes next. This way, at least we get a Moonbase out of it. At
least I'll be there, away from all this madness.

And what are you going to do, he asked himself, when
you're on the Moon and they order you into battle? What are
you going to do when they start blowing up the cities of
Earth?

He had no answer for that.

Colt burst into his cubbyhole office, his grin dazzling.
"He bought it! He was on the horn to Sherwood before I even
finished. Man, did he go for it! Whammo!" Colt smacked a
fist into his open palm.

Suddenly Kinsman feit too weak to get to his feet. "And
General Sherwood?"

"He wants to see us this afternoon."

"Us?"

"Yeah. I told him this was all your idea. After he finished
talkin' to Sherwood. You shoulda seen his face! Like he
crapped in his pants!" Colt roared with laughter.

General Sherwood tried to contain his enthusiasm, but as
he sat behind his big, aerodynamically clean desk listening to
Kinsman, he began nodding. At first his head moved only
slightly, unconsciously, as Kinsman unfolded the logic of his
plan. But by the time Kinsman was summing up, the Gener-
al's head was bobbing vigorously and he was smiling broadly.

Colonel Murdock was sitting on the edge of his chair,
alternately watching the General intently and eyeing Kinsman
suspiciously, waiting for a misstep or an outright goof. Soon,
though, his own bald head was going up and down in exact
rhythm with the General's. Colt sat farther from the desk,
back far enough so that Kinsman could not see him.

Standing in front of the General's desk, too wrapped up
in presenting the ideas to feel nervous, Kinsman ignored
Murdock, ignored Colt, ignored the self-doubts that gnawed
at his innards. This is the only way, he kept telling himself.
We'll never get to the Moon any other way. It's this or
nothing.

Finally he finished. Kinsman stood in front of the Gener-
241

al's desk, arms limp at his sides, sweat trickling down his ribs.
My uniform must be soaked, he thought.

General Sherwood stopped nodding, but his smile re-
mained. "Fascinating," he said, in a voice so low that he
might have been talking to himself. "We can bring the
Moonbase program up to full partnership with the Strategic
Defense program, and bring the aerospace industry along
with us."

Colonel Murdock objected slightly, "But the idea of
building the satellites in orbit out of lunar materials—that's
not really new."

"True enough," said the General. "But I think it's an
idea whose time has arrived."

"Oh, well, of course . . ."

Sherwood turned back toward Kinsman. "Good work,
Major. Very good work. Get the presentations staff and the
numbers crunchers into this immediately. I want a detailed
presentation of this plan before the end of the week."

AH his exhaustion blew away. "Yes, sir," Kinsman
responded crisply.

The rest of the week was a madhouse of meetings,
rehearsals, discussions, arguments. Kinsman raced along the
Pentagon corridors from cost-computing analysts to technical
artists drawing the block diagrams, from long scrambled
phone conversations with industrial leaders such as Dreyer to
longer face-to-face meetings with their local marketing repre-
sentatives and engineers. Days, nights blurred together.
Meals were sandwiches gobbled at desks, crumbs spilling
onto printout sheets of numbers, coffee staining artists'
sketches of lunar installations. Sleep was something you
grabbed in snatches, on couches, in a chair: once Kinsman
dozed off in the shower of the officers' gym.

The full-scale presentation took two hours. Deputy Sec-
retary Marcot chain-smoked through it. Kinsman stood at the
head of the darkened conference room, squinting at the
solitary light of the viewgraph projector, half-hypnotized by
the clouds of blue smoke gliding through the light beam as he
explained picture after picture, graph after graph, list after
list. He could not see his audience but he could tell their
interest from the rapt silence and, after the lights went on
242

again, from their eager questions.

"What was the basis for the cost estimates on the lasers?"

"Latest industrial information, sir."

"And the comparison between the costs of lunar raw
materials and raw materials on Earth?"

"The comparison, sir, is between finished products man-
ufactured in space from lunar materials and finished products
manufactured on the ground and boosted into low Earth
orbit. The space-manufactured items average five to eight
times cheaper, including the capital costs of the lunar facil-
ity."

"That's based on what, Major?"

Kinsman grinned. "Mainly, sir, on the fact that the Moon
is an airless body of natural resources that has only one-sixth
the gravitational pull of the Earth. It's twenty times cheaper
to launch a pound of payload from the Moon to low Earth
orbit than it is to boost a pound from the Earth's surface."

Marcot's sarcastic voice offered, "And those figures are
based on Isaac Newton, not some industrial contractor who
wants to buy into the program. You can trust Newton. He's
dead."

Everyone around the table chuckled.

They questioned Kinsman for another hour after the final
slide had been shown and the overhead lights turned on. Colt
fielded some of the questions, as did some of the other men
and women who had worked on the presentation. But Kins-
man remained at the head of the room and took most of the
questions himself.

Finally Marcot got to his feet. Waving his inevitable
cigarette in Kinsman's general direction, he said, "Okay.
Hone it down to half an hour and be prepared to show it to
the Secretary first thing next week."

Back in his own office, Colt grabbed Kinsman by the
shoulders. "We're on our way, man! The Secretary of De-
fense! The big brass boss his own self. Marcot bought it!"

Kinsman was too tired and numb to feel exultant.

"C'mon, I'm gonna buy you a drink."

"I just want some sleep, Frank. Thanks, anyway."

Colt shrugged. "Yeah. We got a weekend's worth of
work figurin' out how to squeeze all this gorgeous stuff down
to half an hour."

243

Kinsman said, "Let me lock up all this gorgeous stuff in
the vault." The pile of viewgraph slides was scattered across
Colt's desk, each stamped along its border in bold red letters:

TOP SECRET.

It took both of them to carry the pile of slides over to
Kinsman's cubbyhole. As he wearily tapped out the combina-
tion on the electronic lock to his file cabinet, Colt beamed
happily at him.

"Man, you were a ball of fire in there. You coulda sold
General Motors stock to the Kremlin. You've really changed,
man. You've really come out of your shell."

Over his shoulder Kinsman said, "I want to go to the
Moon, Frank. Even if I have to bring the whole goddamned
Aerospace Force with me."

Colt grinned. "You figured it out, huh? You wear The
Man's uniform, you gotta do The Man's work. That's the law
of life, my friend. But it's good to see you thinking like an
Aerospace Force officer. Always thought you had a good
head on your shoulders. No more of this peaceful hospital
crap."

Kinsman piled the slides into the file drawer, then shut it
and clicked the lock. He took the card atop the cabinet and
turned it from the white OPEN side to the red LOCKED side.

"Frank," he said, turning back to Colt, "don't get the
wrong idea. The Moon is still legally restricted, as far as
military weaponry goes. The mining operation, okay. What
they do with the ores after they leave the Moon is somebody
else's business. But Moonbase will never be used as a place
for war. Understand that. Never."

Colt's grin faded. "And how are you gonna get the
Russians to go along with that? They're gonna be up there
with you, remember? You start mining operations, they'll
start mining operations."

"We'll work it out some way."

"Without fighting."

"That's right."

"Damn! You're just as dumb as you always were."

Late Monday afternoon Kinsman stood at the head of
the long polished mahogany table in the private conference
room of the Secretary of Defense. No need to turn out the
244

lights here; his slides were presented on a wall-sized rear
projection screen. Kinsman spoke directly to the Secretary
himself, despite the fact that the table was occupied by
Marcot and two Under Secretaries of the Aerospace Force,
four generals, including Sherwood, and a half-dozen civilian
advisers to the Secretary. Colt was in the next room, feeding
the slides into the projector.

Every man at the table watched Kinsman intently. The
same thoughts were going through each of their heads, he
knew: How does this affect my programs, my organization,
my position in the Defense Department?

"To summarize," Kinsman said to the Secretary, "we can
bring down the costs of strategic defense by a factor of five or
more if we build the ABM satellites in orbital facilities, using
raw materials mined from the Moon. The major industrial
contractors are eager to begin space manufacturing opera-
tions, but have hesitated to risk the resources necessary for
the task. This program will, therefore, have significant spinoff
value in the civilian economy. More than significant: the
eventual payoff to the civilian economy could more than pay
for the investment made on this program. Thank you, gentle-
men."

The men around the table stirred, glanced at one anoth-
er, then all settled their gazes on the Secretary. He sat at the
far end of the table, looking relaxed and thoughtful. He was
the tweedy gray university type. An unlit pipe was clamped in
his teeth.

"We are deploying the ABM satellites under any circum-
stances," General Sherwood said, filling the silence. "This
plan allows us to build them more cheaply—and replace them
more easily, in case of attrition."

The Defense Secretary nodded and started lighting his
pipe.

"And by building the satellites in orbit," Kinsman
added, still standing in front of the now-blank screen, "out of
lunar materials, we not only get the SDI network, we get a
powerful industrial capacity in space and a full-scale, perma-
nent base on the Moon."

"A base," General Sherwood pointed out, "that will be
under the administrative control of the Department of De-
fense."

245

The Secretary slowly took the pipe from his mouth. "You
mean you blue-suiters get your Moonbase, eh, Jim?"

General Sherwood broke into a boyish smile. "Yes, sir,
that is exactly what I mean."

Smiling back at him, the Secretary said, "Well, it seems
to me that the important thing here is that America's industri-
al power is brought into space in a meaningful way. The
President will like that. It's about time that industry really
moved into space."

He's buying it! Kinsman's heart leaped. He's bought it!

"I think you're perfectly right about that," said Ellery
Marcot. "Perfectly right."

"What I'd like to know," the Secretary said, with a nod
toward one of his civilians, "is why our hired geniuses and
university consultants never brought the whole ball of wax
together the way the Major has, here."

The aide flushed. "Well, it's one thing to be sitting out in
left field . . ."

"Relax, George," the Secretary said, making a patting
motion with his free hand. "Relax. I was only tweaking you,"

He got up from his leather-backed chair. "A very good
presentation. Major. Good thinking. I'll speak to the Presi-
dent about it at tomorrow morning's briefing."

Kinsman could only say, "Thank you, sir." It was so
weak that he wondered if the Secretary heard him.

Turning to General Sherwood, the Secretary asked,
"Jim, see that my people get copies of those slides and all the
backup material, will you?"

Sherwood rose, beaming. "Certainly, Mr. Secretary. Be
glad to."

They all filed out of the conference room, leaving
Kinsman standing there rooted to the spot. We did it, he told
himself. Then he corrected. No, you did it. Don't blame
anyone else.

He walked slowly out of the conference room. The
others had already started back toward their own offices. All
except Marcot, who was standing by the window talking with
Murdock. The Colonel had been waiting in the anteroom all
through Kinsman's presentation. He must've walked off the
soles of his shoes, pacing up and down, thought Kinsman.
Murdock looked rumpled, exhausted; hands clasped behind
246

his back, the expression on his face halfway between eager
anticipation and utter dread as he talked with Marcot.

Frank Colt jounced into the anteroom, the slim pile of
slides clamped under one arm. He gave Kinsman a big grin
and a thumbs-up sign.

Marcot came up to Kinsman, with Colonel Murdock
trailing behind him. For once there was no cigarette in the
Deputy Secretary's mouth.

"Major, you've done an impressive job. For the first time
since I've been here I feel we have a logical, cost-effective
program that not only meets the nation's defense needs, but
will promote the civilian economy in a major way, as well."

"Thank you, sir."

"You pulled it all together into a coherent whole. That's
exactly what we needed." Marcot jammed both his hands into
his jacket pockets.

Feeling awkward and a bit foolish, Kinsman merely
repeated, "Thank you, sir."

Marcot pulled out a fresh cigarette and lit it. "But we're
not out of the woods yet." He blew a cloud of smoke toward
the ceiling. "Not by a long shot."

"What do you mean?" Colt asked.

"There's still the Congress. They'll have to approve an
even bigger Aerospace Force appropriation than we started
with, to get this larger program going. We'll still have to face
McGrath and his ilk."

It still boils down to that. Kinsman said to himself. He
had almost allowed himself to forget Neal in the past hectic
week.

Murdock patted Kinsman on the shoulder and said,
"We're on top of that situation, aren't you, Chet? You're
getting to McGrath."

"I've been trying . . ."

Colt said, "But with this new program, the way it all fits
together and ties Moonbase into the rest of the Defense
Department's space programs, not even McGrath and the
peaceniks in Congress can vote against it."

"Can't they?" Marcot's long, hound-sad face had years
of bitter experience written across it. "I can just see McGrath
rising on the floor of the Senate and making a very eloquent
speech about the Aerospace Force's paranoid schemes for
247

extending the arms race to the Moon. I can see his cohorts
telling their constituents back home about the hundreds of
billions of dollars the Defense Department wants to throw
away in space instead of spending down here on welfare and
urban renewal."

"Bullcrap!" Colt snorted.

"But it works," Marcot answered. "It gets votes."

"Then we've got to stop McGrath," Colt said. "He's the
leader of this faction. Get him to vote our way. pull his fangs,
do something ..."

Murdock bobbed his head. "It's up to you, Chet. It's
your job."

Kinsman looked at the Colonel. Thanks. Thank you all.
To Marcot he said, "Very well. I'll handle McGrath. But I
want something in return."

Murdock looked shocked. Officers don't make deals;

they carry out orders. But Marcot grinned wolfishly, the way
a politician does when he's trading favors and expects to come
out ahead.

"You want something?" he asked Kinsman.

"Yessir. The original motivation for this program was to
make certain that we go ahead with Moonbase. That base will
need a commanding officer. 1 want to be that man."

"But that'd be a colonel's slot!" Murdock blurted.

"Then I'll need a promotion to light colonel to go with
it," Kinsman answered evenly.

Marcot glanced at Murdock, then said, "First we've got
to get the Congress to approve the funds. Then, when we
know there's going to be a Moonbase, naturally we'll want
someone who's thoroughly familiar with the program and its
implications to command the base."

Colt nodded. Murdock still looked bewildered.

Without a smile, without even daring to admit to himself
that this was happening, that he was forcing it to happen,
Kinsman said, "Thank you. I appreciate it,"

Raising a tobacco-stained finger, Marcot emphasized,
"But first we've got to get the Congress to vote the funds."

"I know," said Kinsman.

"Very well. We understand each other." Marcot glanced
at his wristwatch. "I'm going to be late for a reception.
Japanese embassy. Their military attache has been pumping
248

me about our ABM satellites."

They walked out into the corridor, Marcot headed off
toward his domain; Colonel Murdock, Colt, and Kinsman
took the stairs that led up to their lesser offices.

As they climbed the steps, Colt burst out, "You did it,
man! You finally did it! Terrific!"

"We've all been working on this," Kinsman said.

"Naw, I don't mean that. You stood up to 'em and told
'em what you wanted. Commander of Moonbase. And he
took it! Man, you got the power now."

They reached the landing and pushed through the scuffed
gray metal doors into the corridor as Kinsman said, "I just
want him to know that I want to be on the Moon, not down
here."

"You talked yourself into a damned quick promotion,"
Murdock snapped.

"But, Colonel," Colt said quickly, "don't you see? If
they move Chet up to light colonel they're gonna hafta give
you a general's star."

Murdock blinked and almost smiled. "There's no
guarantee ..."

"You'll still be in command of the overall lunar pro-
gram," Colt argued smoothly. "And the program's going to
be a lot bigger than anybody had thought. You'll be running
the whole operation from Vandenberg while we're up at
Moonbase. They'll have to give you a star.''

Breaking into a contented grin, Murdock said, "You
know, you might be right. It's more responsibility, bigger
budget, bigger staff. They couldn't pass me over again."

The two majors left the smiling Colonel at his office, then
continued down the corridor to their own cubicles. The
hallways were empty; the Pentagon had only a skeleton crew
after 4:30 P.M. Their footsteps clicked against the worn floor
tiles and echoed off the shabby walls.

"You finally came around," Colt said. "I never thought
you'd make it."

"You make it sound like a religious conversion," Kins-
man grumbled.

"Just the opposite, man. Just the opposite. You finally
got it through your skull that if you want something you gotta
give something. You want to be commander of Moonbase,
249

you gotta let them have what they want. No other way."

"We're not going to put weapons on the Moon."

Colt looked at him. "Yeah, I know. But those mines and
ore processors . . . long as we're using them to ship raw
materials to orbital factories so they can build laser satellites,
then they're part of a weapons system."

Kinsman did not break stride, but inside he stiffened.

"You're gonna be commander of a military base, Colonel
Kinsman. Moonbase is gonna be the key to the biggest
military operation the world's ever seen."

And that's the price for my soul, thought Kinsman. He
left Colt and slipped into his own cramped office. The
air-conditioning had been turned off at the official quitting
time for the daytime staff. The paper-strewn cubicle was
already muggy and stuffy.

It may be a military base, Kinsman told himself, and it
may be there to supply raw materials for weapons systems,
but there'll be no fighting on the Moon. Not while I'm there.

Then Marcot's cagey, cynical face appeared in his mind.
"First get the Congress to vote the funds," he heard the
Deputy Secretary saying.

"The Hungarian recipe for an omelet," Kinsman mut-
tered. "First, steal some eggs."

With a sigh he sat at his desk and tapped out Neal
McGrath's phone number. An answering service responded.
Kinsman did not bother to leave his name on the tape. Then,
out of pure routine, he tapped his own message key on the
computer board. The display screen spelled out in green
letters: PLS CALL MS WOODS; 291-7000 EXT 7949.

Kinsman stared at the message for a long moment.
Persistent woman, he thought. As he punched the number
she had left, he grinned at her use of the "Ms." Helps her
forget she's married, I guess.

Jinny's face looked blander, plainer than he remembered
it when she appeared on the tiny display screen.

"Oh . . . Major Kinsman! You got my call. I was in the
shower. They've been touring us all around Washington all
day . . ."

No makeup, he realized. That's what it is.

"You said you'd call me when we got into town," she was
gushing, "but we were out all day and I never trust hotel
250

switchboards to get messages straight and nobody down at the
desk speaks English anyway so I called the Pentagon, I
remembered you said you worked at the Pentagon, and asked
them to look you up. All I remembered was that you were in
the Air Force and you had been an astronaut. I even forgot
your rank, but they found your number for me anyway!"

"I'm glad they did, Jinny," he said. The old oil. You do it
automatically, don't you?

They met at a Japanese restaurant on Connecticut Ave-
nue. Marcot's not the only one who'll nibble on sushi tonight.
They had no trouble getting a tatami room for themselves,
where they took off their shoes and sat on the floor. The
restaurant was nearly empty. Even in the best parts of the city
business disappeared once the sun went down.

"I'm sorry I wasn't able to call you earlier," Kinsman
said as they sipped sake. "It's been a wild week for me."

"Me, too," Jinny said, looking at him over the rim of her
tiny porcelain cup. Her hair was carefully done, her makeup
properly in place. She wore a sleeveless frock with a neckline
low enough to be inviting, yet still within the bounds of
decorum.

Does she or doesn't she? Kinsman asked himself. As if it
matters.

When they left the restaurant Jinny wound her arm
around Kinsman's and said, "I'm so tired . . . they had us on
the go all day long. Do you mind if we just go back to my
hotel room and have a drink there?"

Like the cobra and mongoose. But which is which?
Kinsman wondered.

Her hotel was a cut above standard government issue.
The bed was a double, the furnishings fairly new and in
reasonably good condition. The room was clean without
smelling of disinfectant. Kinsman put money in the automatic
liquor dispenser and bought a scotch for himself and a vodka
tonic for Jinny. He poured the liquor and soda into plastic
glasses, and found that the Styrofoam ice bucket was already
filled with half-melted cubes.

"I've just got to get out of this dress," Jinny said, picking
up her pink travel kit and heading for the bathroom. "I'll only
be a minute."

Kinsman took the room's only chair and shook his head.
251

This game's pretty silly, you know. A voice inside him
answered, Don't be scared; you're doing fine.

On an impulse he went to the phone and, sitting on the
edge of the bed, tapped out the number for Walter Reed
Hospital. The hospital's information display glowed on the
phone screen:

MAY WE HELP YOU?

"Yes," Kinsman said. Speaking as clearly as he could for
the computer, he asked, "The condition of Mr. Frederick
Durban."

SPELLING OF LAST NAME?

"D-u-r-b-a-n. Frederick."

ARE YOU A FAMILY MEMBER?

"His son," he lied.

DURBAN, FREDERICK. DECEASED 1623 HRS TODAY. FUNERAL
ARRANGEMENTS ARE BEING HANDLED BY ...

Kinsman slammed a fist against the phone's OFF button. I
know what the funeral arrangements are, he said to himself.
Looking out the window at the darkening city, he thought,
Four twenty-three this afternoon. Right in the middle of my
goddamned presentation. Right in the fucking middle of it!

"What's the matter, Chet? You look awful!"

He turned to see Jinny standing a step inside the bath-
room door, her hair loose and tumbling to her shoulders, an
iridescent pink nightgown clinging to her.

"A friend of mine . . . died. I just called the hospital and
found out."

She came to him and put both hands on his shoulders.
"I'm so sorry."

"He was an old man. I expected it. But still . . ."

"I know. It's a shock." She sat beside him on the bed and
slipped her arms around his neck and kissed him. He kissed
back and felt her mouth open for him.

She disengaged and reclined languidly on the bed. Pat-
ting the covers, she said, "Come on, lay down beside me."

He remained sitting. "Jinny ... I can't."

She gazed up at him, smiling. "If it's my husband you're
worried about, never mind. We have an understanding about
this kind . . ."

But he shook his head. The picture was forming in his
mind again. He could see her floating helplessly, arms out-
252

stretched, reaching toward him, screaming silently, eyes wide
and blank.

"No," he said, more to himself than to her.

She was staring at him now, looking uncertain, almost
afraid.

"I've got to go." He got to his feet.

Jinny sat up on the bed. "Because of the man who died?"

"Yes."

"He was someone close to you? A relative?"

"You really don't want to know about it," he said, feeling
clammy sweat on his palms. Almost pleadingly, "Please don't
ask me anything more about it."

"Are you ... a spy, or something?"

He focused on her for the first time since shutting off the
phone. She was wide-eyed, lips parted, nipples erect with
excitement.

"I can't tell you anything," he said, trying to make it
tight-lipped. "I've got to go. I'm sorry."

"Will I ever see you again?"

"Maybe. But probably not. Where I'm going . . .
probably not."

He went to the door. She rushed after him and gave him
a final kiss, hard and desperate. He left her there clinging to
the door, playing the role of the abandoned femme fatale.

Kinsman loped past a row of phones in the hotel lobby
and grabbed the last remaining taxi standing at the curb. As it
growled and rattled out into the sparse nighttime traffic he
gave the black driver the McGraths' address in Georgetown.

Mary-Ellen let him into the apartment, a puzzled look on
her face. "Chet, you look as if you're ready to take on the
entire Sioux nation. What's the matter?"

"Where's Neal?"

She led him back to the parlor where the party had been.
No one was there now except the two of them. The big room
was filled with sofas and wingback chairs, the empty fireplace,
mirrors, paintings, lamps, bookcases, end tables, the big
circular Persian etched brass hanging between the French
windows, a hundred pieces of bric-a-brac acquired over the
years of their marriage.

"NeaFs out," Mary-Ellen said. "He won't be back for a
few days."

253

Kinsman looked at her. "The committee hearings are
still running,"

"He hasn't left town," she said, weariness in her voice.
"He's just . . . not here."

"He's with Diane."

She nodded.

"And you're letting him do it?"

"Do you know any way I can stop him from doing it?"

"I'd think it would be pretty easy for you, if you wanted
him to stop."

She dropped into the sofa nearest the dead, dark fire-
place. "Chet, nothing is easy."

"Do you love him?" he asked, sitting down beside her.

"Do I breathe?"

"Hey, I'm the one who's supposed to give flip answers to
hide his feelings."

Mary-Ellen's hands made a helpless flutter. "What do
you expect me to say? Do I love him? What a question! We've
been married nearly sixteen years. We have three children."

"Do you love him?"

"I did. I think maybe I still do ... but it's not so easy to
tell anymore."

"He said you agreed to a divorce after he's re-elected."

"Yes."

"But why?" Kinsman asked. "Why are you letting him
do this to you? Why are you taking it like this?"

"What else can I do? Wreck his career? Would that bring
him back to me? Threaten him? Force him to stay with me?
Do you think 1 want that?"

"What the hell do you want?"

"I don't know!"

"You're lying," Kinsman said. "You're lying to your-
self."

Tears were brimming in her eyes. "Chet, leave me alone.
Just go away and leave me alone. I don't want . . ." She could
not say anything more; she broke down.

Kinsman took her in his arms and held her gently.
"That's better. That's better. I know what it's like to hold it
all inside yourself. It's better to let it come out. Let it all out."

"I can't . . ." Her voice was muffled, but the pain came
through. "I shouldn't be bothering you . . ."
254

"Nonsense. That's what shoulders are for. Hell, we've
known each other a long, long time. It's okay. You can cry on
my shoulder anytime. Maybe if I'd had the sense to cry on
yours when I needed to . . ."

She pulled slightly away, but not so far that he could no
longer hold her.

"We have known each other a long time, haven't we?"

"All the way back to Philadelphia," he said.

"I've known you as long as I've known Neal."

"I was jealous as hell of him," Kinsman remembered.

"He ... he said I'm ... he said that I couldn't give
love. That I'm incapable of it."

Kinsman grimaced. "I haven't been able to give love to
anyone for years."

A new look came into her eyes. "Is that what happened
to you? All those rumors ..."

He pulled her closer and kissed her. Gray-eyed Athena,
goddess of wisdom and of war, I'll take you over treacherous
Aphrodite every time. Their hands moved across each other's
bodies, searching, opening, pulling clothes away.

Still half-dressed, he leaned her back on the couch and
was on top of her, into her, before the picture of the dead
cosmonaut could form in his mind. He heard her gasp and felt
her clutching him, hard, furiously intense, alive, molten,
burning all the old bad images out of his brain. Everything
blurred together. He found himself sitting on the edge of the
couch beside her, staring into those strong, wise gray eyes.
Wordlessly she got to her feet and led him to the bedroom.
She shut the door firmly. In silence they finished stripping and
went to the bed. They made love and dozed, alternately, until
the sun brightened the curtained windows.

"God," she murmured, and he could feel her breath on
his cheek, "you're like a teenager."

"It's been a long time," he said. "I've got a lot of
catching up to do."

He showered alone, and when he came back into the
bedroom to dress she had gone. He found her in the kitchen,
wrapped in a shapeless beige housecoat, munching a piece of
dry toast as she sat at the counter that cut the room in half.
An untouched glass of orange juice stood on the counter
before her.

255

"Hungry?" she asked, wiping toast crumbs from her lips.
"I'll get something from the cafeteria in the Pentagon,"

he said.

"Have some juice, at least." She pushed the glass toward

him.

"Thanks," he said.

"Thank you."

Suddenly they were both embarrassed. Kinsman felt like
a sheepish kid. Mary-Ellen stared down at the toast on her
plate.

He did not know what to say. "I ... uh, guess I'd better
be going now."

"It's awfully early. I don't think the buses are running
this early."

He shrugged. "I'll walk for a while."

"Aren't you tired?"

And they both broke up. Kinsman lifted his head and
roared. Mary-Ellen laughed with him,

"Tired? For God's sake, woman, I'm exhausted!"

"I should hope so," she said. "You had me scared for a

minute, there."

She came around the counter and put an arm around his
waist. He took her by the shoulders and together they walked
through the parlor, toward the house's front door.

"I do thank you, Chet," Mary-Ellen said. "You've
helped me to see myself—everything—in a new light."

"My pleasure."

"Not entirely yours."

"I ... feel kind of funny about it, though,"he admitted.

"Christ, it's almost like incest!"

She smiled at him. "I know."

"It was a one-time thing. I mean, I don't think either one
of us could . . . well, plan something like that."

They were at the door now. Gently she disengaged from
him. "No, it was a surprise. A once-in-a-lifetime, wonderful
surprise. If we tried to repeat it, it wouldn't work."

Nodding, "No, I guess it wouldn't."

"But it was good."

"Damned good. Thanks, Mary-Ellen. You've chased
away a devil that's been haunting me for a long time."
256

"Then I'm glad."
They kissed, swiftly, almost shyly, and he left.

The door burst open as if it had been kicked and Neal
McGrath's bulk filled the doorway.

Kinsman looked up from his apartment's desk. The clock
at his elbow said 10 P.M. He had spent the day in the
Pentagon, ignoring McGrath's committee hearings, working
with the Secretary of Defense's staff on the briefings they
were giving at the White House.

"You sonofabitch!" McGrath growled.

He slammed the door shut and took two strides into the
shabby room. His tall, rangy body seemed to radiate fury.

"You bastard!" McGrath's fists were doubled, white-
knuckled, "You screwed my wife."

"While you were screwing your girlfriend."

McGrath took another step toward him, raising his fists.

Kinsman stopped him with a pointed finger. "Hold on,
Neal, You're bigger, but I've trained harder. All you're going
to do is get yourself hurt."

"I'll kill you, you sonofabitch." But he stopped and let
his hands fall to his sides.

"I don't blame you," Kinsman said softly. "What hap-
pened last night ... it was completely unexpected. Hell,
Neal, I came to your house looking for you. Neither of us
planned it. It just happened. You ought to know about things
like that."

"Don't hand me that!"

"I know, I know," Kinsman said, keeping his voice low.
"Now we're talking about your wife, and that's different.
Okay. But maybe now at least you know a little of what she's
been going through."

McGrath said nothing. He stood in the middle of the
small room panting like a bull in the arena that was confused
by the noise and the light.

"It's not going to happen again," Kinsman added. "We
both agreed on that."

"I thought you were my friend," McGrath said, his voice
cracking with misery.

"Yeah, I thought so, too." Kinsman turned and pulled
257

the chair away from the desk. "Come on, sit down. I'll get
you a beer. We've got a lot to talk about."

Numbly McGrath took the chair. Kinsman went to the
refrigerator and pulled out two cold bottles of Bass ale.
Fumbling in the drawer for a bottle opener, he wondered,
Will the English ever come into the twentieth century and put
screwtops on their beer? He found the opener, pried the tops
off, then walked over and handed one bottle to McGrath.

"Hope you don't want a glass. They're both dirty."

McGrath gave a grunt that was almost a laugh. "What
are we drinking to?" he asked, not looking up at Kinsman.

"To understanding," Kinsman said, stretching out on the
open sofabed.

"Understanding what?"

The real world, man. The real world. "Understanding
why I came over to your house last night, trying to find you.
Understanding what's happening in the Pentagon and the
White House, and what's going to hit the Congress in the next
few days."

McGrath sat up straighter in his chair. "What the hell are
you talking about?"

"I'm not authorized to tell you, Neal, but I'm going to
anyway and if anybody's snooping on this conversation they
can go rush their tapes to whoever they want to."

Inadvertently McGrath's eyes scanned the room, looking
for microphones.

"The Aerospace Force has been working for some time,"
Kinsman said, "on the development of a manned interceptor
spaceplane that will be used to destroy Soviet ABM satel-
lites."

"I know that. Nobody in the Pentagon has seen fit to
brief me about it, but I've got my own sources."

"Okay. You know, then, that this will mean we're going
to actively pursue the objective of preventing the Soviets from
deploying a Star Wars type of defensive shield in orbit."

"Yeah, and they're going to try to stop us from deploying
our own," McGrath said. "That's what I've been fighting
against since I came to the Senate."

"You're shoveling shit against the tide, Neal. It's going to
happen whether either one of us likes it or not."

McGrath muttered something unintelligible.
258

"And we're going to start building our own ABM
satellites," Kinsman went on, "in orbital factories, out of
materials mined from the Moon."

"The hell you are."

"The hell we're not! The whole Department of Defense
is behind this one, Neal. It's not just a little hospital of a
Moonbase anymore. It's not just us Luniks. The entire
military-industrial complex is in the act now. And so is the
White House."

Understanding dawned in McGrath's eyes. "So that's
why Dreyer's people have been huddling with the committee
chairman. And the big aerospace primes are starting to give
cocktail parties . . ."

"They're lining up their votes."

With a stubborn shake of his head McGrath said, "Once
we start mining operations on the Moon the Russians will do
exactly the same thing. Or worse: once they see that you're
using lunar resources to build Star Wars hardware, they'll try
to stop you. World War Three could start on the Moon and
spread to Earth."

"No, it won't, Neal. There won't be any fighting on the
Moon. I promise you that."

"How can you—"

"I'm going to be the commander of Moonbase."

"You want to spend a hundred billion dollars on top of
everything we're already spending and bring the world to the
brink of nuclear war, just so you can play soldier on the
Moon."

"You know me better than that, Neal. We'll keep the
Moon demilitarized. There won't be any armaments on the
Moon. Just the mines. And the hospital." And a graveyard,
he added silently.

McGrath shifted on the chair, making its wooden legs
creak. "I'll do everything I can to stop this nonsense. I'm
dead-set against it."

"The Pentagon will roll over you like a steamdriver,
Neal. This isn't just a minor Aerospace Force program
anymore, the kind you can nibble off the list and then go
home and show the voters how much money you've saved
them. This is the big time. Corporations like General Tech
and the other big aerospace primes are coming in on this. It'll
259

mean employment for those half-empty shops and factories
all across Pennsylvania."

"It will mean inflation . . . and war."

"No, dammitall!" Kinsman raised his voice. "The ABM
satellites will protect us against missile attack. The cheaper
we make them, the easier it becomes to replace damaged or
defective ones, the safer we'll be. Right now, this minute,
somebody in Russia or China or seventeen other nations can
push a button and inside half an hour this whole country will
be just one big mushroom cloud. There's no way to stop a
missile attack! Not until the ABM satellites are deployed."

"We're going to deploy them; you're getting your Star

Wars system."

"Building them from lunar resources will make them
cheaper and easier to deploy. We'll be able to protect more
people, more parts of the world, sooner."

"Unless you provoke the Soviets into a preemptive strike
because they're afraid we'll attack them once we have all our

satellites in place."

"But they'll be putting up their own ABM satellites. You

said so yourself."

"And you're building your goddamned interceptor to
knock them down. What happens when the two of you start
fighting in orbit? You could start a nuclear war here on the

ground."

Kinsman took a swig of aie. "If that's going to happen,
it'll happen whether we have a Moonbase or not. Neither one
of us has any control over that."

"But I'm not going to vote to help you make it easier for
them to start a war," McGrath insisted.

"But war isn't the only possibility, Neal. Look at the
benefits we can get."

"Such as?"

"A solid industrial base in orbit. Shipping lunar ores to
orbital factories can start the ball rolling on the solar power
satellites and all the other peacetime industries in space that
will help people on Earth. Opening the door to all the raw
materials and energy in space. New jobs. New technologies.
New industries. Space is our escape hatch, Neal. If we use it
wisely we can put an end to the causes for wars on Earth. We
260

can get out of this coffin we've built for ourselves down here."

"We've been through all that before. It'll take twenty,
thirty years before space industries even begin to help the
poor and disadvantaged here on Earth."

"Even so," Kinsman said, "what other program do you
have that can help them? Everything else is taking from Peter
to pay Paul. That's what causes wars, Neal: trying to steal a
bigger slice of the pie. All those welfare programs you're
pushing, all they do is prolong the misery. Space operations
can open up new sources of wealth, make the pie bigger."

"For the rich. For the corporations."

"For everybody! If you do it right."

"I don't believe it, Chet. And I can't vote for it. It's
impossible."

"Then you'd better kiss the Minority Leadership good-
bye," Kinsman said. "And maybe your seat in the Senate,
too."

He stared at Kinsman for a long, silent moment. "So it
boils down to that, does it?"

"You knew it would."

"All this high-flown talk about the future and the benefits
to the human race ... it all comes down to the fact that
you're willing to blackmail me just to get your ass up to the
Moon."

"That's right."

"You are a sonofabitch. And a cold-blooded one, at
that."

Kinsman grinned at the angry, smoldering Senator who
had been his friend. "Neal, a fanatic who's willing to sacrifice
his life for his cause is perfectly willing to sacrifice your life for
his cause."

"So you can get to the Moon. You'd wreck my career, my
life, you'd wreck the whole world just to get what you want."

"You'll live through it. And the world has a way of taking
care of itself. Believe me, you'll both be far better off with me
on the Moon. Me. and a few thousand other Luniks."

McGrath drained the last of his ale, then hefted the
empty bottle in his big hand. "I can't vote for it. Even if I
wanted to, I couldn't switch my position on this. My own
party would crucify me."

261

"Yes you can. And I'll bet those big, bad industrialists in
Pennsylvania will even contribute to your re-election cam-
paign if you do."

"No," McGrath said firmly.

"It's suicide to vote against the national defense appro-
priation, Neal."

"I have always voted against wasteful spending."

"But this isn't wasteful! It'll create jobs, for Chrissake.
Look on it as an employment program."

"That will lead us into war."

"That will lead you into the White House someday. Sure,
some of your supporters will get disenchanted and turn
against you—for a while. But you'll gain more supporters
than you lose. You'll end up with a much wider base of
support."

"By going against everything I believe in."

Suddenly exasperated, Kinsman burst out, "What the
hell do you believe in, Neal? Your opinions about space are
stupid! You're just as blindly ignorant about it as my father
was. All those programs you back, for helping the poor and
the needy—they've squandered more goddamned money on
bureaucratic bullshit than anything that's ever gone through
Congress. And they don't work! You've got more unem-
ployed, more welfare cases right now in your own state than
you did when you first came into the Congress. Look it up,
I've checked the numbers."

"That's not the fault of the welfare programs."

"But those programs aren't helping! You want to be
Minority Leader, you've got ambitions to head the party, but
you're turning down an offer that's guaranteed to bring you
more support than you've ever had because of a stubborn
ideological bias that's just plain stupidly wrong. Just what the
hell do you want?"

"I want to be able to live with myself."

"And with who else? Diane? Mary-Ellen? Both of them?
Do you want to be able to live with those unemployed
workers back home? To be an unemployed worker yourself?
Take your pick."

McGrath got to his feet. For a moment Kinsman thought
he was going to throw the empty bottle against the wall. But
262

he let it drop from his fingers. It bounced once on the thin
carpeting and rolled toward the sofabed.

Kinsman stood up, too.

"I've heard enough," McGrath said. "I'm leaving. If I
ever see you near Mary-Ellen again ..."

"You won't," Kinsman said. Then, grinning, he added,
"Of course, one way to make sure of that is to send me a
quarter-million miles away."

McGrath glared at him.

"You can have your Minority Leadership, Neal. All I
want is the Moon."

The committee hearings were scheduled to go on for
another week before the senators voted. Kinsman spent the
time briefing White House staffers and key Congressional
leaders, including Senator McGrath. The State Department
reared its head and mewed about upsetting the delicate
balance of offensive and defensive armaments that had been
negotiated so painstakingly at Geneva over the past decade.
But the Central Intelligence Agency cut State's legs off at the
knees with evidence that the Soviets were developing a
spaceplane that looked so exactly like the USAF interceptor
they suspected the plans had been stolen.

Then came the critical vote on the defense budget by the
Senate Appropriations Committee- The budget included a
small supplemental item for Moonbase: the first year's fund-
ing, "a scant fifty million," as Marcot put it, "the nose of the
camel." Everyone knew, thanks to Kinsman's briefings, that
the full camel would cost twenty billion or more.

The first test came almost unnoticed, except by Kinsman
and the other Luniks: no senator proposed an amendment to
the budget that would eliminate the Moonbase program.

The second test was the roll-call vote of the committee,
Kinsman sat in the rear of the ornate committee chamber,
holding his breath as the roll call went down the long
green-topped table. Only three senators voted nay. Two
abstained. McGrath of Pennsylvania was one of the absten-
tions.

Moonbase passed. Kinsman leaned back in his chair and
let out a year-long sigh.

263

You've got what you wanted, he said to himself. Now all
you have to do is worry about whether it was the right thing to
want.

Immediately he answered himself, No! All you have to
do is to make it the right thing.

"So that's how Neal's going to handle it," Kinsman was
telling Frank Colt that evening as they celebrated at a bar in
Crystal City. "He's not going to vote in favor, but he's not
going to stand in the way."

The bar was jammed. Half the Pentagon seemed to be
there, clamoring for drinks. Music blared from omnispeakers
set into the red plush-covered walls. The lights were glitter-
ing, splashing off the mirrored ceiling. Colt and Kinsman
stood at the bar, wedged in by the frenetic crowd.

Colt hiked his eyebrows. "Politicians! They got more
tricks to 'em than a forty-year-old hooker."

Grabbing his drink from the bar before the guy next to
him elbowed it over. Kinsman shouted over the noise, "Who
cares! We're going to the Moon, buddy!"

The guy next to him gave Kinsman a queer look.

Colt laughed, then turned to look over the crowded,
throbbing room. Kinsman did the same, resting his elbows
against the bar. All the tables were filled, people were milling
around the dance floor, hollering in each other's ears, laugh-
ing, drinking, smoking. There was not a square foot of empty
space.

Looking over the noisy crowd. Kinsman realized that he
would be leaving this kind of scene far behind him. No great
loss, he told himself. No real loss at all.

Then he noticed a stunning Asian woman sitting at one of
the tiny tables with an almost equally good-looking blonde.
The Oriental had the delicate features of a Vietnamese.

Colt spotted them, too. He nudged Kinsman in the ribs.
"Now that looks like a scrutable Oriental."

"They do look lonely," Kinsman said.

Colt nodded. "And hungry. Probably waitin' for a
couple of gentlemen to offer them a square meal."

"Or a crooked one."

They started pushing through the crowd, heading for the
women's table.

264

"Seems to me," Colt yelled at Kinsman over the blaring
music, "it's been a helluva long time since we tried this kinda
maneuver together."

Kinsman nodded. "A helluva long time."

Colt's grin was pure happiness.

Washington lay sweltering in muggy late August heat.
The air was thick and gray. The sun hung overhead like a
sullen bloated enemy, sickly dull orange. Any other city in the
world would be empty and quiet on a Saturday like this,
Kinsman thought. But Washington was filled with tourists.
Despite the heat and soaking humidity they were out in force,
cameras dangling from sweaty necks, short-tempered, wet-
shirted, dragging tired crying children along with them.
Waiting in line to get inside the White House, swarming up
the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, clumping together for
guided tours of the Capitol, the Smithsonian museums, the
Treasury Department's greenback printing plant.

Kinsman waited in the cool quiet of the National Art
Gallery beside the soothing splashing of the fountain just
inside the main entrance. Wing-footed Mercury pranced atop
the fountain. Kinsman laughed at the statue's pose. Looks
like he's giving us the finger.

Diane showed up a few minutes late, looking coolly
beautiful in a flowered skirt and peasant blouse. Kinsman
went to her and they kissed lightly, like old friends, like
siblings.

"How'd you get my phone number?" she asked. "I'm
only in town for a few days ..."

"Neal's office."

"But he's back in Pennsylvania during the recess."

"Yes, but his office is still functioning."

He took her by the arm and began leading her back
toward the museum's main doors.

"Where're we going?" Diane asked.

"I want to take you to dinner. This is my last day here.
I'm moving out to Vandenberg tomorrow."

"I know. Neal told me."

They stepped outside into the glare and soupy heat.
"He's up there in the cool Allegheny breezes mapping out his
campaign for the Minority Leadership, playing family man for
265

Mary-Ellen and the kids and the voters down home."

"He's pretty sore at you." Diane said as they walked
down the steps toward the jitney stop.

"Yeah. I guess he's got a right to be."

"He said he's going to fight against your defense pro-
grams once he's Minority Leader."

Kinsman looked at her. "That's his way of salving his
conscience, Diane. Behind all the rhetoric, he's going to let us
go ahead and do what needs to be done. He's got the White
House on his mind now."

"You took advantage of him. And me."

"That's right. And of Mary-Ellen, and the Aerospace
Force, the Pentagon, the White House—the whole human
race."

She did not answer him.

Their talk through dinner was trivial at first, impersonal,
almost like strangers who had nothing in common. Avoid
arguments during mealtime, Chester, Kinsman could hear his
mother telling him. If you can't say something pleasant, then
say nothing at all.

But finally he had to ask, "How'd the tests come out?"

"The tests?" Diane seemed genuinely puzzled, then she
realized what he meant. With a plaintive little smile she said,
"Oh, I'm pregnant, all right. It's going to be a girl."

"You're going to have it?"

She nodded.

"And Neal?" Kinsman asked.

"I don't know." Diane's smile turned slightly sadder.
"He doesn't know what he wants—now."

It was still hot and bright outside when they left the
restaurant, but the downtown Washington streets were al-
ready emptying. The tourists were hurrying for their air-
conditioned hotels and restaurants, exhausted and sweaty
after a day of tramping around the city. They wanted to cool
off and relax before the electrical power was shut down for
the night.

"Hey, I've got an idea," Kinsman said. "Come on."

He nagged down a dilapidated taxi and helped Diane
into it. She looked puzzled. "Washington Monument," he
told the driver.

The line of tourists that usually circled the monument
266

was gone by the time they arrived there.

"Is it still open?" Diane asked.

"Sure. I've never been up the top. Have you?"

"No."

"Then now's the time!" Kinsman gripped Diane's hand
tightly as he led her up the grassy slope to the immense
obelisk that loomed before them. On either side of the path
the silvery solar panels that provided electricity for the
monument's night lighting looked like miniature fairy-tale
castles, stretching all around the spire. As they approached
the gigantic column, with the sunset sky flaming red and
orange behind it, its marble flanks began to look gray and
dingy.

"The world's biggest phallic symbol," Kinsman said.
"Dedicated to the Father of our Country."

Diane grinned sourly. "You would look at it that way,
wouldn't you?"

There were only half a dozen other people waiting inside,
speaking German and another language that Kinsman could
not identify. They milled around for a few minutes and then
the elevator came down, opened its doors, and discharged
about twenty bedraggled tourists.

As the elevator groaned and creaked its way up to the top
of the monument, Diane whispered, "Is this thing safe?"

Kinsman shrugged. "I'd feel a lot better if it had wings on
it."

Finally the elevator stopped and its doors wheezed open.
They stepped out and went to a tiny barred window. The
entire city lay sprawled below them, smothered in muggy,
smoggy heat. The sun was touching the horizon now, and
lights were beginning to twinkle in the buildings that stretched
as far as the eye could see.

"If I have some good luck," Kinsman said, "this is the
last time I'll see Washington."

Diane asked, "Why did you call me, Chet? What do you
expect from me?"

Surprised, he answered quickly, "Nothing! Not a
damned thing. I just wanted to ... well, sort of apologize.
To you, and to Neal. He won't even talk to me on the phone,
so I sort of figured I'd tell you."

"Apologize?"

267

"For . . . using you both, as you put it. I think it would
have happened anyway, sooner or later. Somebody else
would have twisted Neal's arm the way I did. But I was his
friend and now I've made him into an enemy."

"You certainly have," she said.

"And you?"

She looked out at the city, so far below. "His enemies are
my enemies. Isn't that the way it's supposed to be?"

"So I've heard."

He stood beside her, gazing out at the buildings and the
scurrying buses and cars, all those people down there, all the
cities and nations and people of the entire planet. Suddenly,
finally, the enormity of it hit him. Grasping the iron bars set
into the stone window frame. Kinsman could feel himself
falling, swirling out into emptiness. Good God, he thought.
All those people! I've set myself up against all of them. I've
forced them to do what I want, without a thought for their
side of it. What if I'm wrong? What if it's not the right thing?

Almost wildly he searched for the Moon in the darkening
sky but it was nowhere in sight.

"Neal says you're going to start a war in space," Diane
said, her voice low but knife-edged. "He says your Moonbase
is going to lead to World War Three. You're going to kill us
all."

"No." The word was out of his mouth before he knew he
had spoken it. "Neal and the rest of you, you just don't
understand. The most important thing we'll ever do is to set
up permanent habitats in space. It's time for the human race
to expand its ecological niche, time we stopped restricting
ourselves to just one planet. Our salvation lies out there,
Diane, maybe the only chance for salvation we'll ever have."

She turned to him. "That's just a rationalization and you
know it. You say it's important because it's what you want to
do."

"Maybe. But that doesn't change a thing. Maybe history
is the result of huge massive forces that push people around
like pawns. Maybe it's the result of scared, lone individuals
who're driven to pull the whole goddamned human race along
with them. I don't know and I don't care. I'm going to the
Moon. The rest of you will have to figure things out the best
you can."

268

"And you're leaving all this behind?"

He looked out at the sprawling city. "What's to leave?
This whole planet's turning into an overcrowded slum. If we
do get into World War Three it won't be because of a few
thousand people living in space. It'll be because six or seven
billion people are stuck here on the ground."

"But those people are worth righting for!" Diane said.
"We have to struggle for social Justice and freedom here, on
this world. We can't run away!"

"I'm not running away, Diane. I'm helping you. I'm on
your side, honest I am. I'll be sending you back all the energy
and natural resources you need for your struggle. I'll be
helping those poor people to become rich. And I'll send you
back some new ideas about how to live in freedom, too."

She shook her head. "You're hopeless."

"I know. We both decided that a long time ago."

"You're really going to the Moon. In spite of every-
thing."

"Because of everything. Want to come along?"

"Me?" She looked startled.

"Sure. Why not? You could be the first woman to give
birth on another world."

"No, thanks! I'll stay right here."

"Then we'll never see each other again," Kinsman said.
The sadness of it, the finality of it, left him feeling hollow,
empty-

With a knowing look Diane said, "Oh, you'll be back,
Chet. Don't get dramatic. You won't stay up there forever.
Nobody could. You'll be back."

But his eyes were focused beyond her, on the window at
her back. Through its narrow aperture he could see the full
Moon topping the hazy horizon, smiling crookedly at him.

"Don't bet your life on it," he said.

269

BOOK 2

MILLENNIUM

It is not death that a man should fear,
but he should fear never beginning to
live.

—Marcus Aurelius

To Barbara, with all my love

Wednesday 1 December 1999:

0900 hrs UT

THE DIGITAL CLOCK on Kinsman's desk said nine. Not that the
arbitrary time made any physical difference in the under-
ground community. Up on the surface of the Moon it was
sundown, the beginning of a night that would last three
hundred thirty-six hours. But here, safely underground, a
man-made day was just beginning in the community called
Selene.

As the highest-ranking American on the Moon, Colonel
Kinsman was entitled to a private office. R was small and
functional. There was a desk tucked into one corner, but he
rarely sat at it. He preferred slouching on the plastic foam
couch that was set against one wall. It had been one of the
first products of Selene's recycling facility. The plastic had
originally come from packing crates hauled up from Earth.
The foam was a fire-retardation spray that had outlived its
useful life and had been replaced by a fresh unit. A Belgian
chemist, a visitor to Selene several years earlier, had hit on
the method of converting the foam to a comfortable padding
for furniture.

There was no file cabinet in the office. No paper in sight.
Not only was paper a rare and valuable commodity a quarter-
million miles from the nearest forest, but Kinsman hated
"paper shuffling." He preferred to talk out problems face to
face. A computer terminal sat on his desk, linked to Selene's
mainframe. Its display screen also served as a picture screen
for the telephone. Another phone terminal was at Kinsman's
elbow, on the stand beside the couch. Two slingchairs com-
pleted the office's furnishings. The floor was covered with
hardy, close-cropped grass, more practical than esthetic:

green plants provided vital oxygen in this underground out-
post on an airless world.

273

Three of the office's rock walls were covered with large
display screens. One showed Earth as it appeared from
Selene's main dome, up on the surface. The other two were
blank at the moment.

Kinsman was sprawled on the foam couch, one arm
stretched lazily along its back cushions. He was no longer as
lean as he had been on Earth; his middle was starting to fill
out. His dark hair was touched with gray, and he still wore it
rather longer than Aerospace Force regulations permitted.
There was no insignia of rank on his blue coveralls; it was not
necessary: everyone in the underground community knew
him on sight—even the Russians.

His face was long, slightly horsey, with narrow-set gray-
blue eyes, a nose that he had never liked, and a smile that he
had learned to use many years earlier.

Facing him, sitting on the front four centimeters of a
slingchair, was one of Selene's permanent residents, Ernie
Waterman, a civilian engineer. Tall, angular, gloomy. He
looks like Ichabod Crane, thought Kinsman. He smiled as he
said, "Ernie, I don't like hounding you but Selene can't truly
be self-sufficient until the water factory's brought up to full
capacity."

Waterman's voice was edgy, ready for an argument. "So
it's my fault? If we bring up more equipment from
Earth ..."

"Wish we couid." Kinsman glanced at the blue crescent
glowing on the wall screen behind the engineer. "Dear old
General Murdock and his friends in Washington say no. Too
heavy and too expensive. We're on our own. But there's no
reason why we can't build our own equipment right here in
the shops, is there?"

Waterman gave a guarded smile that was close to being a
grimace. "An optimist, yet. Okay, look, so we've got some
raw materials and some trained people. But where's the six
million other things we need? We don't have tooling. We
don't have supplies. It takes us four times longer to do
anything because we always have to start from scratch. I can't
pick up the phone and order the stainless steel I need. Or the
wiring. Or the copper or tungsten. We've got to make do with
what we can mine out of these rocks."

"I know," said Kinsman.

274

"So it takes time."

"But you've been at it two years now."

Waterman's voice went up a notch. "Now don't start
blaming everything on me! I've only been up here a year and
I've been on this job six months. I'm supposed to be
retired . . ."

"Whoa, whoa, cool down," Kinsman soothed. "I didn't
mean you personally. And you know you were going rock-
happy in retirement, Ernie. You're not a man of leisure."
Make him smile. No fights with the volunteer help.

The engineer's long face unfolded slightly into a small
grin. "Yeah, well maybe it was getting to me. But what
bothered me most was your blue-suit skyboys trying to make
like engineers. Those idiotic solar ovens . . ."

"Okay, okay, you win." Kinsman threw up his hands in
mock surrender. "You're on the right track, I know. I
shouldn't push you. But the water factory's our key to
survival. We need the extra capacity. If there's ever an
accident and we lose what we have now—it's a long haul back
to Earth. A long time to wait for a drink."

"You think I don't know? I'm pushing as hard as I can,
Chet. It sure would be helpful to get more equipment from
Earthside, though."

"That's out."

With an elaborate shrug, Waterman said, "All right, so
we'll keep doing it the hard way." He hesitated, then added,
"But I don't see what the big hassle is all about. The factory's
already turning out more water than we use. You could even
refill that precious swimming pool of yours with fresh water
every month instead of recycling it."

Kinsman put on a grin. 'That pool is Selene's one
luxury. And the factory was deliberately overdesigned to
make sure we could accommodate extra people up here
—such as retired engineers."

"With gimpy legs. Yeah, I know." Waterman fell silent
for a moment. Then, "But do they know Earthside about how
you're expanding the factory?"

A jolt of electricity flashed through Kinsman. Mildly,
though, he replied, "Oh, sure. Of course they know."

"I mean, about your trying to double its capacity?"

Kinsman remained silent for a moment, then answered
275

evenly, "Self-sufficiency has always been our goal, Ernie.
Water is the key to survival. Without water we couldn't even
keep the grass under our feet alive."

"Yeah, but . . ."

"But what?"

Waterman spread his hands. "You've already got a
big-enough capacity to take care of more people than we have
on the American side of Selene. Doubling it means we could
provide water for the Russians, too."

"Is that so terrible?" Kinsman asked.

Waterman said nothing, but his face darkened.

"I didn't design this place," Kinsman said. "Selene got
put together when the Russians were cooperating with us on
the space program. We've got to live with them next door. All
right, so far we've gotten along fine, much better than
Earthside. But if the shoe starts to pinch, don't you think ifd
be better if we have control of enough water to take care of
both sides? Then, if something should happen to their water
supply, they'd have to ask us pretty please, wouldn't they?"

The cloud over the engineer's face vanished. He laughed.
"I get it. Okay, you want double the capacity for the factory,
you'll get double. Only stop breathing down my neck every
day, will ya?"

Relieved, Kinsman said, "How about every other day?"

They laughed together as the engineer leaned on his
canes and pulled himself erect.

Kinsman stood up beside him. "You know, Ernie, when I
found out that you were an engineer and interested in the
water factory, I almost got religion. Waterman: just the omen
we needed for the factory."

"Religion," the engineer said, his voice suddenly low and
serious. "That's what you get when you find you can walk
again, when you can get out of your wheelchair and do
something useful and be a man again." He tapped the metal
braces beneath his trouser legs with a cane.

"Low gravity is one of our greatest assets. A real tourist
attraction," Kinsman said as he slowly ushered Waterman
toward the door.

The engineer waved one of his canes. "It's not just the
gravity. It's the whole attitude around here. The way people
do things here. None of the red tape and horse manure like
276

they have Earthside. No standing in lines or spending your
days filling out forms. People have faith in each other up
here."

And their faith has made them whole, Kinsman quoted
to himself. He answered Waterman, "They're free, Ernie.
We've got enough room up here to be free."

Waterman shrugged again. "Whatever it is, it's like a
miracle."

"You don't miss Earth at all?" Kinsman asked, stopping
at the door.

"The Bronx I should miss? Hell no! My two daughters,
yes. Them I miss. But the rest of it—it's just a crummy slum,
from sea to polluted sea. It's going to hell so fast there's no
way to stop it."

Kinsman thought about his last days on Earth, more than
five years earlier. His sudden yearning to see Diane one last
time. The madhouse battling with the airlines to wrest a seat
on a plane to San Francisco. The shock of seeing a city he had
loved turned into a vast concrete jungle: the once-gleaming
towers rotting with decay, their elevators useless without
electricity; the bridges rusting with neglect; the Bay dotted
with houseboats and black with scum. And Diane never
showed up; her concert had been canceled.

"And what about you?" Waterman was asking. "Do you
miss it? You've been here longer than almost anybody."

Kinsman avoided the question. "I can go back when I
really want to. I'm not physically restricted."

"I thought you had a heart problem. I heard . . ."

Shaking his head, "Don't believe all the rumors you
hear, Ernie. Selene's like any small town: ten parts gossip to
every one part of fact. A little high blood pressure can turn
into open-heart surgery on the rumor mill."

The phone buzzed.

"Duty calls," Kinsman said.

The engineer left the office and closed the door behind
him as Kinsman went back to the couch. Leaning across it he
touched the phone's ON button. One of the wall screens
glowed, but no picture came up on it. Instead, the computer's
honey-warm feminine voice said, "Colonel Kinsman, you
asked to be reminded that the shuttle bringing new arrivals is
scheduled to touch down at oh-nine-thirty hours. Traffic
277

control confirms that the shuttle is on schedule,"

"Right," he said, and punched the phone off.

He left the office and started down the corridor toward
the power ladder. Wonder what Ernie would do if I told him
we'd share our water with the Russians in an emergency?
Would he quit the job? Would he yell back to Washington?

Officially, the American settlement on the Moon was
called Moonbase, The Russians called theirs Lunagrad. Offi-
cially, the two bases were separate and independent of each
other. Military planners in Washington and Moscow scowled
whenever they thought of the brief rash of international amity
that had led to building the two bases side by side.

Technically, Moonbase and Lunagrad were each self-
sufficient, each capable of surviving without help from the
other. Actually, the Americans and Russians who lived with
each other as neighbors all called themselves Luniks and their
community Selene.

Now Kinsman strode through the big cavern that linked
the two halves of Selene. It was a vast underground chamber
with a high chalky white ceiling and rough gray stone walls.
The Russians and Americans had turned it into an open plaza
with green lawns and tree-lined walkways. Tiny shops and
refreshment centers, established by entrepreneurs from sev-
eral Western nations, competed with government-owned ex-
changes that provided a meager flow of personal goods from
Earth. The plaza was always busy with off-duty people: it
reminded Kinsman of a New England village green, re-
strained and quiet in the soft, low-gravity, highly controlled
lunar style.

Kinsman nodded and smiled hello to almost everyone as
he went through the plaza. He knew all the permanent
residents by name—there were only about a thousand of
them.

But as he rode the power ladder up to the main surface
dome his thoughts returned to Waterman. How many of our
people still think as if they're Earthbound? he wondered. By
the time he stepped off the ladder and onto the rock floor of
the big dome he was scowling.

Follow the yellow brick road.

The dome was kept darkened; faintly luminescent arrows
crisscrossed the fused rock floor, pointing the way to various
278

destinations. Kinsman padded along the yellow arrows, head-
ing for the main airlock.

The dome was as large as a modern cathedral, and just as
empty. It was the biggest structure on the Moon's surface, a
symbol of the eternal spirit of brotherhood and cooperation
between the peoples of the United States and the Soviet
Union. That spirit had died a little before the dome was
finished, poisoned in a world choked by too much population
and too few resources.

The sound of Kinsman's slippered feet scuffing along the
fused rock floor was swallowed by the dark, sepulchral dome.
He could feel the cold of the new lunar night seeping up
through the rock, tingling the air. The dome's ceiling was also
made from lunar stone, supported on a geodesic framework
of aluminum scavenged from spent rocket stages. The main
walls of the dome were transparent plastiglass, hauled up
from Earthside kilogram by precious kilogram.

Rows of tractors and crawlers and other heavy equip-
ment were lined up mute and unmoving in their assigned
parking lanes. Facing the main airlock, the right side of the
dome was for American equipment, the left side for Russian.

That's political nicety, Kinsman told himself.

Crossing the dome floor. Kinsman did not merely walk
along, he prowled. His years on the Moon had led him to an
unconscious compromise between his Earth-muscled legs and
the low lunar gravity. The result was a gliding, almost floating
slow-motion stride that resembled nothing so much as the
silent purposeful advance of a stalking cat. In the shadows
thrown by the dim, faraway overhead lights, his bony long-
jawed face and dark-browed scowl added to the impression of
a hunting feline.

He came to the heavy metal structure of the main airlock
and detoured around its once-gleaming walls, to the observa-
tion area. Despite the low lighting, he could see a faint
reflection of himself in the plastiglass wall. You're getting
paunchy, he thought. Too much office work and too little
exercise. The curse of the middle-aged executive. Looking
past his own image, he gazed out at the desolate lunar plain.

The Sea of Clouds.

It was a weary, pockmarked rolling plain of naked rock,
pounded for eons by a constant rain of meteors and more
279

recently scoured—close to the dome—by the landing jets of
spacecraft. It was a frozen sea of stone, bare and utterly
lifeless, with boulders strewn carelessly across it like a half-
finished construction job that the maker had abandoned, left
to brood gray and ghostly in the light of the gleaming crescent
Earth.

If it really were a sea, or even clouds, we wouldn't need
the damned water factory. Kinsman's frown deepened as he
thought of it. He hated to argue with people, despised the
need to prod and pressure them. Maybe we won't need the
extra water. But water is life and I don't want to have to
refuse it to anyone, including the Russians. He glanced at the
beckoning, beautiful blue and white crescent of Earth. Espe-
cially the Russians, he added silently.

Turning slightly, he looked across the silent dome's wide
expanse to the transparent wall on the other side. The tired,
rounded humps of mountains huddled there, guardians of the
lunar ringwall Alphonsus, a crater wide enough to hold any
city on Earth, including its suburbs. The thought of a
teeming, fetid, decaying city here on the Moon disgusted him.

He turned back toward the Sea of Clouds and looked
upward for some glimpse of the arriving shuttle. No flare of
jets. No glint of Earthlight on smooth metal. He saw the
horizon, close enough almost to touch. And beyond it, the
blackness of infinity. No matter how many times he con-
fronted it the sight still moved him. A few bright stars could
be seen through the dome's thick plastic window. The eyes of
God, Kinsman said to himself. Then he added, Superstitious
idiot!

The pressurized tractors of the ground crew were starting
to move out of the big vehicle airlock and arrange themselves
around the landing area. Lights were winking on out there, so
the shuttle must be coming down. Sure enough. Kinsman saw
a puff of bright color, dissipated in an eyeblink. Then
another, and the heavy squat shape of the shuttle took form,
falling like a stone in a nightmare, slowly but inexorably,
falling, falling—another puff of rocket thrust, then still
another . . .

The bare rock of the landing area seethed into a minia-
ture sandstorm where it had looked a moment earlier as if
nothing as Earthlike as dust could exist. The shuttle landed
280

like a fat old lady settling into a favorite chair: slowly,
carefully, and then plop! The landing struts touched the
ground and bowed under the spacecraft's weight. The engines
shut off and the dust storm subsided.

The ground crew's tractors clustered around the still-hot
rocket, faithful mechanical puppies greeting the return of
their master. A flexible access tube snaked out from the
personnel hatch of the airlock toward the main hatch of the
ship.

Kinsman nodded to himself, satisfied with the landing. A
new batch of ninety-dayers, almost all of them on their first
tour of duty on the Moon. They would arrive calling this place
Moonbase, the official designation given by Colonel Kins-
man's superiors on Earth. Just as the new Russians called
their base Lunagrad. But those who stayed on the Moon,
those who made their homes in the underground community
—no matter how reluctantly at first—would come to call this
place Selene. Kinsman had hit upon the name several years
earlier and it had stuck, even among the Russians. The
ninety-dayers who could see the difference between Moon-
base and Selene would return for more tours of lunar duty;

Kinsman would see to that. The others would never come
back; he would see to that, too.

Turning to face the airlock's inner personnel hatch,
Kinsman watched the newcomers step in. They were women,
eight of them, all talking at once. And four silent men. Boys,
really. All but the one in the lead bounced clumsily as they
tried to walk in the low lunar gravity, a sure sign of the
newcomer. The women were wide-eyed, chattering, excited.
Their first time.

Kinsman recognized the kid in the lead. He wore a
captain's bars on his coverall collar. Perry: Christopher S., he
recalled. The youngster spotted Kinsman and nicked a salute.
Kinsman returned the salute lazily as Captain Perry led his file
of newcomers toward the power ladder that went down to
Selene's living and working areas.

The women ignored him, still chattering and ogling the
grave lunar landscape. He was just an anonymous figure in
plain coveralls standing in the shadowy expanse of the dome.
You can hardly blame them. Kinsman said to himself. The
landscape out there is a damned sight more interesting,
281

especially the first time you see it.

The group walked past him and toward the ladder. One
of them caught his eye as they pranced past.

Diane? He almost called out her name. But it couldn't
be. Diane would not be among a group of government
employees assigned to Moonbase for a ninety-day tour of
duty. Couldn't be. But she certainly resembled Diane: tall,
lithe, dark-haired. The distance and the shadowy lighting
prevented a good look at her face. And her hair was shorter
than Diane had always worn hers, barely shoulder length.

Kinsman shook his head. No, it could not be Diane
Lawrence. You're seeing things that aren't there. Diane
wouldn't come to the Moon, no matter how much you'd like
her to.

More than six hours later, at precisely 11 A.M. Eastern
Standard Time, the President walked slowly, almost reluc-
tantly, into the Cabinet Room. The members of the National
Security Committee, already in their places around the pol-
ished oval table, got to their feet.

"Sit ... sit down." The President forced a smile and
fluttered his hands at them. He took his seat at the head of the
table as the others murmured a dozen versions of "good
morning."

The Secretary of Defense was not smiling as he sat down.
"Mr. President, I must bring up a matter that just came to my
attention this morning and therefore is not on the agenda."

The President was black. Not very black. His complexion
and bone structure both showed decided Caucasian influ-
ences, a fact that had cost him votes. His close-cropped hair
was peppered with gray, his body had the slim-yet-soft look of
a man who played tennis for exercise. He had a warm smile
and a gift for making people feel he was on their side. Some
said it was his only gift, but they were usually jailed as
bigots—no matter what their color.

The Secretary of Defense was cold and spare, with a
body as lean as a saber blade. His face was sharp-featured,
with piercing gunmetal eyes. Behind his back he was called
"the Hawk," which referred to his profile as much as his
attitudes. The name secretly pleased him.
282

The President blinked at him. "Not on the agenda? Why
not?"

"This information is barely a half-hour old. There wasn't
time ..."

Looking around the table at the others, the President
tapped the single sheet of paper before him. "A half-hour
ought to be enough time to revise the agenda. After all, that's
what an agenda's for."

Nodding curtly, the Secretary of Defense said, "Yes, I
realize that. But there wasn't time. The Soviets have disabled
three of our ABM satellites today—that's since midnight,
Universal Time, which means seven P.M. last night, Eastern
Stan—"

"Don't get us all confused with time zones." The Presi-
dent raised his rich baritone voice. "What's the score over the
past week?"

"Over the past seven days," the Defense Secretary said,
shuffling through the papers in front of him, "the Reds have
knocked out—yes, here it is ... they've disabled seven of
our ABM satellites and we've hit only four of theirs."

The President shrugged. "That's not so bad. Was any-
body hurt?"

"No, there have been no deaths or injuries since that
captain collided his spacecraft with one of their satellites.
And that was purely accidental, apparently."

A four-star general in Aerospace Force blue nodded.
"We've investigated very thoroughly. There was no possibili-
ty of enemy action in that case. Unless the satellite was
booby-trapped in some new manner."

"I don't want anybody hurt," the President said.

The Defense Secretary frowned. "Mr. President, we are
playing for stakes of the highest sort here. It will be necessary
to take some risks."

"I don't want anybody hurt."

With a glance at the General and the others sitting
around the table, the Defense Secretary said, "We have been
trying to complete deployment of our strategic defense net-
work for the past two years. The Soviets have been incapaci-
tating our satellites to prevent us from finishing the system. If
you'll look at these graphs"—he slid three sheets of paper
283

toward the President—"you will see that they are now
knocking out our satellites almost as fast as we launch them."
"And what about their satellites?" the President asked

without looking at the graphs.

The General answered sternly, "We are restricted in the
number of antisatellite missions we can fly. There are only so
many trained astronauts available, and only a shoestring of
funding to get the job done. Meanwhile, the enemy is
increasing the frequency of his launches, putting up more and
more ABM satellites. And his newest ones are decoyed and
hardened—much tougher to find and eliminate."

The Secretary of State cleared his throat. "You keep
calling them the enemy. We are not at war." He was balding,
wore rimless glasses, spoke with a soft Virginia accent.

"That is not quite true," rasped the heavy-Jawed, hulk-
ing man at the end of the table. His voice was a labored,
tortured whisper; his face a perpetual red angry glare. "With
all due respect, we are at war and have been for the past two
years. Ever since we and the Soviets started launching ABM
satellites, we have been attacking each other. Each side
knows that whoever finishes its ABM network first will have a
decisive advantage: the satellites can destroy the entire strate-
gic striking force of the other side. The nuclear stalemate will

be broken."

He paused for a moment and took a deep, labored

breath. No one spoke. Leaning heavily on his forearms, eyes
blazing with pain or anger or both, he resumed his harsh
whisper. "When one side completes its ABM network it can
dictate terms to the other side with impunity. We dare not
allow the Soviets to finish ahead of us in this race. We dare

not!"

The President fidgeted uncomfortably in his chair and

looked away from the burly, angry-faced speaker.

The Defense Secretary said crisply, "Entirely correct. If
the Soviets complete their ABM network before we do,
they'll be able to knock down our missiles as soon as we
launch them. We will no longer have a nuclear retaliatory

force. We'll be at their mercy."

"It is war," General Hofstader affirmed. "Just because
there's no shooting on the ground and no casualties so far,
don't be fooled into thinking that this is Just a game."
284

"And there will be casualties, sooner or later," said
Defense.

"What? What do you mean?" For the first time the
President looked startled.

"If you will look at the graphs I gave you," Defense said,
with weary patience, "you will see that we can't keep going
the way we have been for very much longer. We need a
minimum of a hundred-fifty satellites in low orbit to cover the
entire world adequately against Soviet and/or Chinese missile
attack."

"The Chinese don't want to attack us," the President
mumbled, his face down as he spread the graphs out side by
side on the table.

"But they could attack the Russians, who might retaliate
blindly at us," came the rasping whisper from the far end of
the table. "They could start the pot boiling, and once it starts,
who knows where it will end?"

Defense resumed, "We need a hundred-fifty satellites in
orbit and functioning. We have been maintaining about eighty
of them. Over the past few weeks the Soviets have been
disabling them as fast as we can launch new ones."

"Why don't we repair the damaged ones?"

"Economics, sir," General Hofstader answered. "It's
cheaper to launch a mass-produced unmanned satellite than
to send a human repair crew to fix one that's damaged."

The President blinked, puzzled. "But I thought that
those lasers were so expensive ..."

The General produced a tight-lipped smile. "Yessir, they
are. But maintaining men in orbit is even more so. It's costly
enough just to keep our manned command-and-control cen-
ters in orbit, and they are housed in the space stations that
were already in orbit when we began this program."

"I see." But the President shook his head as if he did not
really understand or necessarily believe all that he was being
told.

"Meanwhile," Defense went on inexorably, "the rate of
Soviet launches is increasing. That's on the graph you have in
the middle, there. Today they have thirty-nine satellites
functional in orbit. Four weeks ago they had only thirty, even
though we found and destroyed eleven of their satellites over
that time span. Unless we do something about it, the Soviets
285

will complete their network in another year—eighteen
months, at most. And we'll still be far short of having
completed ours."

"They'll have won," said General Hofstader.

"They will be in here dictating terms to you," whispered
the burly man at the end of the table.

The President rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "Well,
what do you recommend?"

Defense nearly smiled. Tensing slightly in his chair,
leaning forward, he ticked off points on his fingers. "First, we
must increase our own satellite launch rate by at least fifty
percent. Doubling the present launch rate would be
preferable.

"Second, we must increase our kill rate of Soviet satel-
lites, otherwise they will pass us in a matter of months.

"Third, we must prepare for the possibility of striking
their orbital command centers. One successful blow at a
command center could incapacitate their entire network for
weeks."

"Right!" snapped the General.

It took a moment for the President to realize what was
being suggested. Then his mouth dropped open in sudden
comprehension. "You mean attack their manned stations?
That . . . that would kill people!"

"It would mean war!" the Secretary of State gasped.

"Not necessarily," Defense countered calmly. "Even if a
few Russian technicians and cosmonauts were killed, they
probably wouldn't go to war over it. Our computer forecasts
show less than a forty-percent chance. Remember, neither
side has publicly admitted that there are military operations
going on in orbit. And they certainly won't attack when we
have more functioning ABM satellites in orbit than they do."

"But that's precisely when they would attack," State
insisted, his normally placid voice going shrill. "They'll attack
when it becomes clear to them that we can complete our
ABM network before they can complete theirs. They'll attack
before we finish it and have them completely outgunned.
That's what we would do. That's what you Pentagon people
call a preemptive strike, isn't it?"

General Hofstader shook his head. The Defense Secre-
tary frowned across the table at State.
286

The President said, "I don't want to run the risk of
starting a nuclear war, and I don't want anyone hurt . , .
unnecessarily."

"Sir, I am not making these recommendations lightly,"
Defense said. "The life of our nation is at stake, and—"

"I understand that," said the President. "But I still don't
want any blood on my hands. You can increase your own
satellite launches and shoot down more of theirs—your first
two recommendations. But no attacks on people!"

"We may be forced to, sooner or later," muttered
Defense.

The General asked, "What do we do when they attack
our manned stations?"

The Secretary of State leaned back in his chair and stared
at the ceiling.

His voice slightly shaky, the President repeated, "No
attacks on people. Not for now, at least."

The Defense Secretary nodded. "Very well, Mr. Presi-
dent. Now, for the first item on the agenda, these food riots in
Detroit and Cleveland ..."

It was late afternoon in Selene. The clock on Kinsman's
desk read 1650.

He had just come back into the office after spending most
of the day prowling around the underground community,
popping in on people as they worked, listening to problems
and gripes before they became major complaints, making
certain that everyone knew there was a direct pipeline to the
commander and no need to go through official channels to get
things done.

His phone was buzzing as he slid the door back and
stepped into the office. Flopping onto the couch, he touched
the ON button. One of the wall screens lit up to show the face
of a young communications technician. One of the new girls.
A cute young blonde.

"We are receiving a top-priority message from Vanden-
berg, sir," she said, impressed with the seriousness of her new
Job. "Captain Maddern thought you would want to see it as
soon as the computer has finished decrypting it."

"Right," said Kinsman. "I'll be right there."

Top-priority messages were always hand-carried, by strict
287

regulation. With the Russians living on the doorstep it was
virtually impossible to prevent interception of radio messages
or taps of phone calls. It took about five minutes for Kinsman
to walk to the communications center. The corridor was
narrow, low-ceilinged, and not very straight, one of the
earliest tunnels to be hewn out of the lunar rock. The rough
walls were sprayed with plastic to make them airtight. Cata-
combs, Kinsman thought. Got to get these walls covered with
something more attractive. The overhead lights were long
tubes of fluorescents, dim in visible output but rich in infrared
for the grass that lined the floor.

The comm center was a beehive of desks and electronics
consoles and display screens that linked Selene with the three
big manned space stations in orbit around the Earth. Through
the space stations the lunar base could communicate with any
place on Earth. The Russians had their own space stations in
orbit, and a completely separate communications system of

their own.

A broad balcony rimmed the busy working "pit" of the
comm center. Kinsman went to the rail and glanced down at
the humming, chattering jumble of people and machines
below. He thought, Dante's Inferno ... or maybe Marco-
ni's.

The balcony was also jammed with desks and busy
people, but not so many as below. Kinsman made his way
around, one hand on the railing, nodding to the regulars
whom he recognized. He reached the thin translucent parti-
tion that separated the cryptographic area from the rest of the
center, opened the flimsy door, and went inside.

It was much quieter inside. There were four big desks
grouped around a stand-alone minicomputer, a four-foot-high
gray metal machine that was reserved entirely for crypto-
graphic tasks. Only two of the desks were occupied. At one of
them sat Diane Lawrence.

She looked up and recognized him just as the shock of
seeing her hit the pit of his stomach.

"It is you!" he blurted.

Diane smiled at him, a smile that mixed sadness and
anger and much, much more. "Yes, Chet, it's me. Sur-
prised?"

He sagged down onto the empty chair at the next desk.
288

"Hell yes! What are you doing here? I never thought . . ."

She was just as lovely as he remembered her from five
years before. Maybe even more beautiful. Her high cheek-
bones and dark eyes had always given her an ascetic, almost
otherworldly appearance. But now there was strength in her
face, an awareness that can only come from experience and
pain. Instead of the black turtlenecks and tight jeans that had
been her trademark since he had first seen her in a Berkeley
coffeehouse twenty years earlier, she wore plain blue
standard-issue coveralls with the insignia of a communications
clerk on the shoulder.

"Your hair," he realized.

Diane shrugged. "It took too much time every day to
keep it that long."

It had cascaded down to her waist, midnight black and
lustrous. Now Diane's hair was barely shoulder-length and
was pulled back off her face.

"I don't understand," Kinsman said. "Why didn't you
tell me you were coming here? What happened?"

Her smile faded. "You need a license to be an entertain-
er, these days. The antisubversion laws, you know."

Kinsman shook his head. "I've been up here for five
years ..."

"Well, anyway, they revoked my license. Because of a
concert I gave in Detroit, where they had the riots."

A thousand questions boiled through Kinsman's mind.

"I had to find something to do." Diane gave a nervous
little laugh. "Would you believe that I was broke? By the time
the IRS finished with me, there wasn't a damned thing left. So
I went out and got a job. When I saw an opening for a tour of
duty on the Moon, I applied for it. Extra pay, you know."

"You should have let me know . . ."

Her eyes shifted slightly away from him. "I didn't know if
you'd want to have me here."

"Not have you . . . ?"

"I was wrong, Chet," Diane said quietly. "About a lot of
things."

"So you came up here."

Brightening slightly, she echoed, "So I came up here. To
see what your brave new world is all about. To see you, I
guess."

289

"And Neal?" Kinsman asked. "He's still in the Senate,
isn't he?"

"Oh, sure. He's back with Mary-Ellen. He and I broke
up pretty soon after you left Washington. He might get
tapped as the party's Vice Presidential candidate next year."

Kinsman muttered, "The sacrificial Iamb."

"It's not good down there, Chet," Diane said, with a
slight shudder. "I don't know what's going to happen to them,
but you were right to get out and get away."

Suddenly he wanted to change the subject, move on to
something more cheerful. Gesturing to the computer key-
board in front of Diane, he said, "They didn't waste any time
putting you to work."

"No, they didn't. Your people are very efficient."

Kinsman mused, "The government revoked your enter-
tainer's license, but here you are in the most sensitive section
of the base."

"The guy in charge here is an old fan of mine."

"Harry Pierce?"

"He just asked me if I could run a mini and I said yes."

He wanted to laugh. "So much for checking the security
records."

Her face grew serious again. "I really wasn't sure you
were still up here, Chet. It's been so long . . ."

"I'm here. And I'm going to stay here."

"That's what you told me the last time we met,"

"You can stay, too, Diane."

Her eyes shifted away again. "I don't know about that,
Chet. It's ... I just arrived, after all. Give me a chance to
catch my breath."

"Okay. Sure." He glanced at the display screen on her
desk. "Is that the message from Vandenberg for the base
commander?"

"Yes. It's classified."

"I know."

"To be hand-carried to the base commander."

"That's me." Kinsman fished in the breast pocket of his
coveralls and pulled out the worn, warped plastic card of his
ID. "My holy picture."

Diane glanced at it. "Holy picture?"

"People look at it and say, 'Jesus Christ, is that you?'"
290

Diane laughed, and Kinsman felt good for a moment.
"Welcome to Selene, Diane," he said.
"Thanks."

"When are you off-duty?"

"This shift ends at six—eighteen hundred hours."
He grinned at her. "You're getting very military."
"I have to be."

He let that pass. "Listen. How'd you like to attend a
surprise birthday party up in the rec dome?"
She did not hesitate. "Sounds wonderful."
"Good. I'll pick you up at twenty hundred. That's . . ."
"Eight o'clock. I know."
"Okay."

"Whose birthday is it?"
"Mine."

"You . . . yours? A surprise birthday party and you
already know about it?"

"I'd be a lousy base commander if I didn't know,
wouldn't I? Are you good at looking surprised?"

"I don't know!" she said, laughing.

"Well, we'll have to try to look surprised. Now, how
about a copy of my message?"

"A paper copy? The first thing Harry told me was that
we're not supposed to make paper copies unless it's specially
authorized. Paper's very scarce up here."

"No kidding? I've planted four trees with my own hands,
you know." Kinsman hesitated a moment, but when Diane
did not reply he said, "There's reusable plastic in the bin next
to the computer."

Diane muttered, "Oh, right," and leaned across her desk
to pull a thin sheet of plastic from the computer tray. Puzzling
momentarily, she flexed it, then slid it into the printer beside
her display screen. Turning to her keyboard she touched a
series of pressure pads, very carefully, one finger at a time.
Her nails were all trimmed short, but not for the guitar
anymore.

"I've got to be careful," she said. "Working the keyboard
is funny in this gravity." She gave Kinsman a sidelong glance.
"And I was never very good at typing anyway."

Abruptly the printer erupted into furious action, buzzing
out line after line across the thin plastic sheet with inhuman
291

speed. Then it stopped dead, Diane pulled the plastic out of
the printer and handed it to Kinsman.

"You've got to sign for it," she said.

Kinsman nodded, scribbled his signature on the display
screen with the electronic stylus she handed him, then got to

his feet.

"Diane . . ." He found himself almost at a loss for

words. "I can't tell you how great it is to have you here."
She said nothing, merely looked up at him with those

dark, deep eyes.

"I'll pick you up at twenty hundred," he said.

"You don't know where my quarters are."

"I'll find you," he said. "You've come a quarter-million

miles, I'll make it across the last few hundred meters."

He felt buoyant as he made his way through the din of the

comm center and out into the shadowy silence of the tomblike

corridor. Then, in the dim light of the overhead fluorescents,

he read his decoded message:

TO: COL. C.A.KINSMAN/CDR, MNBS         I DEC 99
PRIORITY: ONE-ONE-ZERO         REF: RMM 99-2074
SECURITY CLASSIFICATION: TOP SECRET
INCREASED ORBITAL OPERATIONS REQUIRE LOGISTICS
AND MANPOWER SUPPORT FROM MOONBASE. URGENTLY
REQUIRE YOUR LATEST ASSESSMENT ON MOONBASE
CAPABILITY TO IMMEDIATELY SUPPLY LOGISTIC SUPPORT
FOR TEN (10) MANNED ORBITAL SEARCH AND DESTROY
MISSIONS PER DAY, PLUS MANPOWER SUPPORT FOR
MISSIONS AND/OR BACKUP PERSONNEL FOR STATIONS
ALPHA, BETA, GAMMA.

PRIORITY RATING FOR THIS REQUIREMENT IS ONE-ONE-
ZERO. CONSIDER POSSIBILITY OF YELLOW ALERT STATUS
IMMINENT: RED ALERT POSSIBLE. REQUIRE DETAILED
RESPONSE IN TWENTY-FOUR (24) HOURS.

B/G R.M.MURDOCK
COMMANDING OFFICER
USAF LUNAR OPERATIONS

292

Kinsman stood alone in the empty corridor, staring at the
flimsy plastic sheet in his hand. Suddenly he was trembling,
his entire body shaking while in his mind he saw it all again:

the weightless, soundless, slow-motion fight; the cosmonaut's
space-suited figure revolving slowly, slowly against the back-
drop of solemn staring stars; the face inside the helmet frozen
in the sudden terrified realization of death.

They're going to do it, Kinsman's mind screamed at him.
They're going to make me kill again.

Wednesday 1 December 1999:

2120 hrs UT

ALL SPACE OPERATIONS worked by Universal Time. Not only
those in the lunar community, but all space activities in orbit
near the Earth, as well.

Colonel Frank Colt flicked a glance at the fuel gauge
readout on the instrument panel in the cockpit of his small,
sleek, one-man spaceplane.

"Alpha to Mark One," said a voice in his helmet
earphones, gritty with static. "Repeat: We read your fuel
reserves approaching redline."

Colt was strapped into the padded contour seat, sealed
inside his pressurized suit. The spaceplane looked almost like
a fighter aircraft, except that its wings were much too small
and its tail surfaces nearly nonexistent. It was long and
needle-slim, glittering silvery against the blackness of space.

Colt was a lieutenant colonel, the highest-ranking black
man among the Aerospace Force's astronaut corps. He had
spent the past several hours in orbit, chasing down "unidenti-
fied" satellites. Precisely two hundred and ninety-six kilome-
ters to his left stretched the achingly beautiful blue and white
Earth, dazzling clouds lacing the South Atlantic, the coast of
Africa a thin gray haze on the horizon, approaching fast.

But Colt paid no attention to that. Inside his sealed suit
293

he itched and sweated, and after being weightless for more
than an hour his legs were beginning to go to sleep again.

They tingled annoy ingly.

He wiggled his toes furiously, frowning at the radar
display on his instrument panel. His radar had acquired four
"unidentified" satellites so far on this sortie and they had all
turned out to be decoys: nothing but metallized balloons. No
markings, but everyone knew that if they were not made in
the USA they came from Soviet Russia.

"C'mon, Frank, give it up," said the disembodied voice
in his earphones. "You've got to start back now or else the
mission controller will be required to ask Command for a

standby rescue scramble."

"Stuff it," Colt snapped into his helmet mike. "Where
they got decoys they're decoying something. What was the
location of that other blip you had?" His tiny oval radar
screen showed nothing now but random sparkles.

The communicator's voice in his earphones sighed.
"Man, you're more trouble than the rest of this outfit put

together."

"You're pickin' on me 'cause I'm black," Colt said, with

a deliberate hint of Motown in his voice. "Where's that other

blip?"

"It's out of your plane. You can't reach it."

"Gimme the coordinates."

He saw the data transmission light flickering madly on his
computer panel, then the display screen showed a graph and a
string of numbers. Colt tapped on the computer keyboard
with a single gloved finger.

"You can't make that maneuver with the fuel reserve

you've got!" the communicator said.

"Wanna put some money on that?" Colt laughed.

"Watch this."

Colt closed his gloved left hand around the tiny sidestick
controller and worked the thruster button with his thumb.
The spaceplane dipped obediently down toward the Earth,
while a background mutter of voices in his earphones told him
that the communicator and mission controller back at Van-
denberg were arguing over whether they should transmit a
recall order or not. If they did, and Colt failed to heed it,
whatever happened afterward was on Colt's record, not theirs.

The plane's nose was visibly heating, turning a dull red.
294

Colt thought he could hear air whistling past the cockpit, even
through the insulation of his helmet, but he knew that it was
his imagination.

"You are hereby ordered to discontinue your orbital
plane-change maneuver," the controller's voice said, heavily,
officially, "and position your vehicle for re-entry and return
to base."

"Roger," said Colt. "Discontinue and attain re-entry
heading."

But the plane plunged deeper into the atmosphere as
Colt grinned happily to himself. With pressures on the
controller as delicate as a lover's caress, he rolled the
spaceplane and made it turn, feeling the weight of accelera-
tion as the silvery aerospace craft bit into the thin air of the
high atmosphere. He pulled the stick back ever so slightly and
the plane's nose reared upward. Colt felt himself pushed back
into his seat. His eyes flicked across the instrument panel. The
computer screen showed a glowing white dot pulsing along a
gracefully curved line.

"Right on the money," Colt muttered to himself.

The spaceplane was trading kinetic energy for altitude
now. Colt took his hand off the control stick, felt his arms
hang weightlessly.

"That's a helluva re-entry attitude, Colt!" the mission
controller's voice snapped.

"Just savin' fuel, Mary," he replied, almost jovially.

The radar screen showed a fat blip gliding from one edge
toward its center. Colt touched another button and the screen
displayed a telescopic optical view of the satellite, with range
data and a targeting reticle superimposed.

"There she is," Colt said calmly into his microphone,
"Real one this time. Big mother, too."

In his earphones he heard a muffled, grudging, "The
sonofabitch can fly, I'll give him that much."

The satellite was dead black, but studded with glassy
protuberances that made Colt think it might be an x-ray laser.
He glanced down at his data recorder and saw that it was
taping everything his sensors picked up. X-ray lasers were
powered by small nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons in orbit
were illegal, outlawed by the Space Treaty of 1967. The tapes
ought to provide some ammunition for the diplomats wran-
gling in Geneva, Colt thought.
295

His fuel was too low for him to try an actual rendezvous
with the Soviet satellite. He would have a chance for one shot
at it, and that would be all.

Is there a nuke on board, and is it salvage-fused? Colt
thought briefly about whether it would be better to be blown
away by a nuclear fireball or fried by a blast of x-rays. He
smiled grimly and toggled the ARMED switch of his missile
control panel. Its tiny light glowed a baleful red.

As the course of his spaceplane carried it through the
plane of the Soviet satellite's orbit, Colt touched the AUTOFIRE
stud on the missile control panel. He felt a quiver shake the
cockpit as the missile launched itself. On the display screen he
saw a tiny flash on the side of the satellite. No explosion. No
x-rays.

He blew out a breath that he had not realized he had
been holding in. Punching an extreme closeup of the satellite
he saw that several of the lenses were shattered and there was
a ragged hole where the missile's solid head had hit it.

"Scratch one," he sang out.

"We copy satellite interception," said the communica-
tor's voice, flat and professional.

"Okay," Colt said, "re-aligning attitude for re-entry.
Please update navigational program."

The controller's voice responded, "Set channel frequen-
cy to 0415 for computer update on optimum transfer trajec-
tory."

Colt tapped out the numbers on the keys to his right.
"Freak 0415, check . , . Hey, what's today's score?"

"You got the only one so far—"

He grunted.

"—and they got three of ours."

Selene's recreation dome was much smaller than the
main dome, where the shuttles landed. It was set on slightly
higher ground, so that someone standing at the edge of the
swimming pool could see the main dome, the undulating plain
of the Sea of Clouds, and the slumped shoulders of the
ringwall mountains of Alphonsus. The main viewing attrac-
tion, of course, was Earth, hanging blue and white and
gleaming against the dead-black sky. The planet was a fat
crescent, almost half full, its light strong enough to bathe the
296

lunar night with far greater brightness than the full Moon
lavished on Earth.

Kinsman and Diane stepped off the moving power ladder
together. She was wearing red slacks and a gray sweater that
clung to her. She carried a tiny plastic bag.

"Nobody told me you could swim up here," she was
saying. "I had to borrow a suit from one of the women. I hope
it's not too small for me."

Kinsman put on a leer. "There's no such thing as a
too-small swimsuit."

She made a sour face at him. "Don't tell me you've
reverted to male chauvinism out here on the frontier."

"Yeah, I guess maybe we have." On impulse, he reached
for her hand. "Christ, I'm glad you came up here! It's the
happiest surprise I've ever had."

Diane squeezed his hand. "I'm glad you're still here,
Chet."

They stood grinning at each other for a foolish, happy
moment. Then Kinsman said, "Now remember to look
surprised."

"Okay, boss." They walked from the ladder through the
humid, warm atmosphere toward the row of lockers that lined
one side of the dome. The lockers had started service as
temporary life-support modules when the first manned out-
posts were being set up on the Moon. Kinsman and the other
lunar explorers had fondly referred to them as "telephone
booths" when they had to live in them for two weeks at a
time.

"Funny—I don't smell chlorine," Diane said.

"We don't use it," explained Kinsman. "There's plenty
of oxygen available from the rocks, and plenty of solar
energy, so we make ozone and keep the pool clean with that.
Breaks down into oxygen. No more stinging eyes."

He led her to the lockers and helped her step up into one,
then entered the one next to hers. Kinsman simply unzipped
his coveralls. He was already wearing his trunks. He had not
bothered to bring a towel. With electric heat lamps plentiful
in Selene, he had almost gotten out of the habit of toweling
himself.

Stepping out of the locker he scanned the pool area. A
crowd was already there, filling the dome with noisy echoing
297

laughter and splashing. A few families had their children with
them. A teenage boy and girl executed simultaneous dives off
the thirty-meter platform, pinwheeling slowly in exact syn-
chronization. Impossible on Earth, but only marvelously
difficult in one-sixth gravity.

The rec dome complex represented several years' worth
of cajoling and arguing with General Murdock, who had
stubbornly refused to see the need for such luxury at Moon-
base. It was only after Kinsman had procured a year's supply
of scotch for the base's three psychiatrists, and they began
sending out reports on the vital need for recreational facilities
at this distant outpost of human habitation, that the dome got
built. Officially, Murdock still did not know that the Luniks
had built a pool for themselves.

Pat Kelly spotted Kinsman and padded up from poolside
toward him, trying desperately to look nonchalant.

"Uh, hi, Chet. About that order that came through this
afternoon . . ." Kelly was a little guy, wiry, with a pleasant,
open face marred by an oversized set of teeth and undersized
squinting eyes which made him look something like a rabbit.
His quick, nervous way of talking and moving added to the
impression. Sandy hair, darting pale blue eyes. He was very
bright, young, and coming on strong. He had already put in
two tours of duty on the Moon and was now on his third. He
had just made major, and Kinsman had picked him as his
second-in-command.

"The order from Murdock?" Kinsman felt his insides go
cold. "Any problems?"

"No, no. Just wondering what it's all about. Why do we
have to get up a detailed report on our manpower and
logistics by twelve hundred tomorrow?"

"Murdock wants to know how much help we can give the
manned stations," Kinsman answered evenly.

"Yeah, that's obvious. But why? What's going on? What
about this yellow alert?"

Shrugging. "Don't know, Pat. But you know Murdock.
He's always been a wet-pantser."

Kelly still looked bothered. "Listen, Chet, is there really
gonna be trouble? I've got a wife and kids down there. If
there's gonna be real trouble. I want to be with them."

"I told you a long time ago to bring them up here. Even if
298

the shit hits the fan Earthside, we can ride it out up here."

"With half the place owned by the Russkies?" Pat's eyes
widened in disbelief.

"If we have to fight here, at least it'll be with handguns,
not nuclear missiles."

"You get just as dead."

Kinsman clutched the younger man's shoulder. "Pat, if I
could order you to bring your family here, I'd do it."

"You feel that strong about it?"

"They'd be much better off."

His face seemed to twitch, rabbitlike. "They're not in
such bad shape, you know. Good government housing. Got
two whole rooms for themselves, off the base. Pretty good
location—no break-ins, not even any electricity rationing,
except in the summer."

"Bring them here," Kinsman repeated.

"You think I should?"

"I'll get the travel authorizations processed. Do it tomor-
row."

Kelly still looked undecided. "Maybe you're right ..."

Great way to start a party, Kinsman thought. Trying to
decide if your wife and kids are going to get blown up this
month or next.

Diane came up beside him. "The view here is incredi-
ble!"

Eyeing her green and yellow bikini. Kinsman agreed, "It
certainly is."

She grinned at him. "I knew you'd say that!"

"You gave me the straight line."

"Just testing," she said airily. "Like Pavlov and his
dogs."

Kinsman nodded once. "You have rung my chimes and I
am salivating."

"Hopeless case of chauvinism," Diane murmured.

Kinsman was about to reply when Kelly cocked his head
in the direction of the fadderway entrance. "Here comes Dr.
Faraffa."

"Now you'll see what real male chauvinism is like,"
Kinsman whispered to Diane.

Dr. Faraffa was only slightly older than Kelly. He had a
broad, bald, brown-skinned face with none of the acquiline
299

features so often associated with Arabs. He walked directly to
Kinsman, nodding briefly to Kelly and ignoring Diane alto-
gether. He wore a rumpled tan pair of slacks and a light
shirtjacket, the only person in the dome not in a swimsuit.

"Colonel Kinsman," he said in a voice as mellow and
golden as Turkish tobacco, "I have been informed by my
colleagues at Alpha that there is some talk of a new crisis."

The word spreads fast. Kinsman thought. "I believe that
any rumors to that effect," he replied carefully, "are highly
exaggerated."

Faraffa stepped close enough for Kinsman to feel his
breath on his face. It carried an odor of something sweet,
almost cloying.

"Highly exaggerated? Perhaps. Such as the occupation of
the oil sheikhdoms by your Marines? That was once a highly
exaggerated rumor."

Kinsman shrugged. "I'm not a diplomat. The Marines
and the occupation are real. A new crisis is not."

"Not yet."

"Not yet," Kinsman repeated.

"If such a crisis does occur, I expect that all foreign
nationals here on the Moon will be returned to their homes,"
Faraffa said stiffly.

Only if they're fools, Kinsman replied silently. He said
aloud, "We always make every effort to accommodate our
foreign visitors."

"Of course."

"Within reason," Kinsman added.

Faraffa's eyebrows arched upward. Then, with a slight
smile, he added, "I understand that this gathering tonight is
to celebrate your birthday. My felicitations, sir."

"Thank you." Kinsman could see from the expression on
Diane's face what she thought of the Egyptian's attempt to
spoil the surprise of the party.

"It is very interesting," Faraffa went on. "You are the
most visible man here in Selene. Everyone knows you and
admires you. Even the Russians."

With a small bow of acknowledgment. Kinsman said,
"My life is an open book."

"Not quite." Faraffa's voice became almost a whisper,
300

but harder, sharper, a thin little dagger of sound. "I have
attempted to learn more of your life. I am very interested in
you, Colonel Kinsman. Yet, while the computer records are
completely open, they extend back only a few years. Before
that, your personnel file is a blank. A total blank. You are a
man without a past. Colonel Kinsman."

Very evenly Kinsman replied, "The personnel records go
back to the point where I first assumed command of Moon-
base."

"But no further."

"No further."

"Why is that? All the other files extend back to the
person's education, at least."

Keeping his voice low and steady, choosing his words
very carefully, Kinsman said, "I received my degree from the
Air Force Academy."

"Indeed."

"There's no need for more detail."

"A man without a past," Faraffa repeated. "It makes one
wonder what you are hiding from us."

"Modesty," Kinsman said, making himself smile. "I have
a highly developed sense of modesty."

"Or secrecy?"

"Call it privacy. If you really need to know something,
ask me."

"No," Faraffa said. "I shall ask my government. Perhaps
they can learn more than I can."

"Why all this interest in my early life?" Kinsman asked,
trying to make it sound light.

Faraffa shrugged elaborately. "Ahh . . . call it curiosity,
Colonel. I am a scientist, after all. Scientists are intensely
curious. Especially when they find a mystery."

"There's no mystery," Kinsman lied, guessing at what
was driving the Egyptian. "Ask me what you want to know
and I'll tell you. Including the months I flew patrol out of
Cyprus."

Faraffa's head rocked back. "So you were part of the
so-called peacekeeping force."
"Yes, I was."

"I thought as much." The Egyptian nodded and smiled,
301

more to himself than to those around him.

"All you had to do was ask/' Kinsman said, feeling a
trickle of sweat down his ribs.

"Yes, of course." Faraffa made a stiff little bow, more
with his head than his torso, and walked away without a
further word.

Diane watched him go, then turned to Kinsman. "Do
you have many foreign visitors here?"

"About forty or so—mostly Western Europeans and
Japanese. A few Third Worlders. And Faraffa."

"No Israeli refugees?"

"Six. But they're here permanently, with their families."

More than fifty people were already by the pool, in
swimsuits, with more pouring into the dome every minute.
The prevailing skin tone was white, with a few browns and
only two blacks. Several people were swimming, and the
usual handful of muscular exhibitionists had pushed the
teenagers off the high platform to make spectacular—if
poorly coordinated—low-gravity dives. They sliced down-
ward in dreamlike slow motion. The water splashed around
them with equal languor. Most of the people around the pool
ignored them, busy talking with drinks in their hands.

There were only a few Russians in the crowd. Kinsman
noted. Leonov's not here. What orders did he get today?

"Ah, there you are!"

Kinsman turned to see Hugh Harriman knifing through
the crowd, drinks in both hands, bearing down on him like a
heat-seeking missile. Harriman was short, round, bald,
bearded, popeyed, loud-mouthed, irreverent, dirty-minded, a
self-professed coward, and probably the brightest human
being within roughly 384,405 kilometers.

"Our esteemed leader!" Harriman bellowed. "Have a
drink!"

Kinsman took the proffered plastic cup as people in the
crowd turned to watch, and handed it to Diane.

"Oh, shit!" Harriman snapped. "Might've known you'd
have a gorgeous woman with you. Should've brought an extra
drink. I'd give you this one except I've already pissed in it."

"That doesn't matter." Kinsman took the cup from him.
"The alcohol purifies everything."

"You sonofabitch!" Harriman yelped.
302

"Diane," said Kinsman, "this is Hugh Harriman. He's
half Irish, half Jewish, half Spanish ..."

"Portuguese, dammit! Watch your mouth, Kinsman."

"This is Diane Lawrence," Kinsman finished.

Harriman's bellicose expression suddenly melted into
baby-blue innocence, all rolling eyes and a cupid's-bow smile.
"Charmed, I'm sure." He reached for Diane's free hand and
kissed it.

"I'm pleased to meet you," Diane responded.

A thoughtful expression crossed Harriman's face. "But
aren't you the famous folksinger?"

"The ex-famous folksinger," Diane said sadly. "The
government got tired of hearing me."

Everything went absolutely still. No one said a word or
made a murmur. No one knew what should be said.

"Diane's starting a new life here on the Moon," Kinsman
said firmly. Turning to face her, he added, "And I guarantee
you that nobody here will get tired of hearing you."

A mutter of agreement went through the crowd. But it
was only a mutter. Most of the people there intended to
return to the States to spend the remainder of their lives.

"Tell me," Diane said to Harriman, "what do you do
here at Moonbase?"

"Selene, my dear," he replied. "Selene. That's the name
we have given to this haven of refuge." Harriman paused for
a breath, glared for an instant at Kinsman as he sipped his
drink, then smiled back at Diane. "I am a political exile, my
dear. An unfortunate victim of diabolical forces. Would you
care to hear the story of my life?"

"He's a secret agent," Kinsman said, "but we haven't
been able to figure out which side he's working for—or
against."

"Doesn't matter," Harriman said.

Kinsman asked, "Who set up the bar? What's going on
around here tonight?"

Harriman went back to glaring. "Fuck off, Kinsman! You
know damned well this is a surprise party for you. But you
don't know what the real surprise is."

Kinsman was about to answer when a clamor erupted
from the general direction of the laddenvay, and a deep voice
proclaimed: "Greetings and felicities from the peace-loving
303

peoples of the Soviet Union of Socialist Republics to the
money-grubbing imperialist lackeys of Wall Street!"

Suddenly Kinsman felt better. "Leonov." He grabbed
Diane by the wrist and towed her through the crowd toward
the ladderway, "It's Piotr Leonov, the commander of the
Russian half of Selene."

Leonov was flanked by two smiling Russian women in
zipsuits. Damned good figures, Kinsman noted automatically.
The Russian was in full uniform, with colonel's insignia on his
shoulders. He was slightly shorter than Kinsman, a bit
heavier. His face was dominated by brilliant ice-blue eyes,
very expressive, and a full-lipped mouth. His hair was already
iron-gray, but it flopped boyishly over his forehead; he was
constantly brushing it back with his hand.

"Chet! Bloated reactionary plutocrat! Happy birthday!"

He grabbed Kinsman around the ribs and lifted him off
the ground.

"Hey, Pete, whoa!" Kinsman laughed.

With his bare feet on the grass again, Kinsman said, "I
was afraid you wouldn't be coming."

"What? Miss the birthday celebration of my fellow
Lunik? My friend?"

Nodding toward the two women, Kinsman said, "You
seem to have a few friends of your own."

"Hah! Secret police. They have come to spy on you and
keep an eye on me."

The women smiled and tried not to look uncomfortable.

I wonder how much truth there is to what Pete's saying?
Kinsman asked himself. Is he trying to warn me about
something?

Time was almost meaningless in Antarctica. It was
daylight. It had been so since September and would continue
to be so until March.

The coldest air on Earth settles atop the mile-high
plateau that rims the South Pole. Dense, frigid, this high-
pressure air spills down the plateau walls like an invisible
waterfall. Invisible, but palpable, audible. It howls across the
glaciers and snowfields with gale force, driving blizzards
whenever there is moisture aloft.

This day the sky was clear, the air utterly dry. Still
304

Lieutenant Commander Richards shivered inside his electri-
cally heated parka. The wind cut through the hooded suit with
remorseless indifference.

Richards stood outside the big crawler, mentally count-
ing the days until he would be relieved of duty and on his way
back to civilization. Like most of the men who served under
him—scientists and Navy alike—he had grown a shaggy
beard during his months in Antarctica. Now it was flecked
with ice, condensed and frozen from the moisture of his own
labored breath.

One of the enlisted men slowly approached him, so
heavily muffled in his parka and hood that Richards could not
identify him until he was only a few paces away. Even then his
goggles hid most of his face.

"Sir, the scientists say we're right on top of a big deposit.
Scintillation signals are very strong and getting stronger as we
head northwest."

Richards nodded. "Very good. Can we track the signals
from the crawler, or do we have to stay on foot?"

"Looks like they wanna stay on foot, sir. They're picking
up rocks and jabbering among themselves."

Inside his hood Richards scowled. "Damnation. I'm
going inside to make a radio check."

Richards watched the sailor trudge back to the group of
geologists clustered around a big rock outcrop, bending or
kneeling like fur-wrapped pilgrims who had finally arrived at
their shrine.

The valley was dead dry, one of those strange Antarctic
deserts. No snow, no vegetation of any kind, not even soil.
Nothing but rocks and gravel and more rocks. Some scientists
had said the area was like the planet Mars, and suggested that
astronauts bound for that distant planet could do their
training here. White-topped mountains glistened all around
them in the howling wind, poking their sparkling peaks into
the painfully bright sky. But here in this bone-bare valley
there was no water, not even frozen. No life of any kind.
Except the duty-driven Americans, searching for coal depos-
its to feed the voracious cities back home.

Slowly, stiff with cold, Richards walked back to the
crawler. His boots crunched on pebbles. The metal rung of
the ladder felt burning cold even through his heavy gloves.
305

He clambered up and pushed through the hatch, into the rear
compartment of the mammoth vehicle.

Warmth. Glorious soaking thawing warmth. He pulled
off the gloves and pushed down his hood and reveled in its
glow. It took half an hour and several cups of coffee before
Richards began to feel human again. He sat alone in the
driver's cab, parka off, boots planted directly in front of the
heater outlet. He finished his radio check with McMurdo and
settled back in the big padded driver's seat. He could watch
the geologists from here.

Suddenly they all gathered together in a tight knot.
Richards sat up straight and watched through the bulging
bug-eyed windshield of the crawler. They were pointing at
something and talking animatedly about it- Heatedly. Arms
waving and gesticulating. One of them pointed to the crawler
and then off to the sawtoothed horizon. He detached himself
and sprinted for the crawler.

Puzzled, Richards pulled himself out of the seat and
ducked through the hatch into the rear compartment, where
the bunks and galley and worktables were. The outside hatch
opened, letting in a slug of frigid air. The man was the same
sailor who had spoken to Richards before. Pushing his goggles
up to reveal bloodshot wide eyes, he said excitedly, "Sir,
they've found a marker out there! Made of metal. Russian
writing on it."

"Russian?"

"Yessir. Dr. Carlati says it looks like the Russians have
been here already and staked a claim to this valley."

Richards frowned. "Stop talking like a Western movie,
Bates. This is international territory. Nobody's allowed to
claim any damned thing."

The sailor shrugged. Richards reached for his parka and
hauled it on. Zippering it up he muttered, "Come on, let's see
this. Do any of the scientists read Russian?"

"Dr. Carlati does, sir."

As he climbed down from the hatch and set foot on the
rocky ground again, Richards heard the sailor call out from
above him, "Hey, look there, sir! Another crawler coming up
the valley."

Richards saw it. A dark speck edging along the gray
306

rocks. He looked up the ladder at the sailor, who was still
standing at the hatch. "Get one of the carbines and load it.
Bring it with you."

"Should I radio McMurdo, sir?"

Caught for a moment between two priorities, Richards
shook his head. "No. Get the carbine. We'll fill in McMurdo
after we've talked to the Reds."

By the time Richards and the sailor got to the group of
scientists the Soviet crawler was close enough to make out its
red star insignia.

"The richest deposit of coal I've ever seen," one of the
geologists was saying. "This must be what the Montana beds
were like before the Sixties."

"Yes," said another parka-muffled man. "But apparently
they were here first."

"There's plenty here for everybody."

Naive fool, Richards thought.

The Soviet crawler was advancing on them, looming
bigger and more menacing with every clank of its treads.
Richards stood watching it, no longer aware of the cold or the
wind. The scientists seemed tense, too.

One of them said, "Do you think Podgorny might be
with them?"

"Is he here this year?"

"That's what I heard."

*T haven't seen him since the Vienna conference."

Richards broke into their conversation. "I think you
civilians had better get back to the crawler. Ensign Jefferson,
go get two more carbines."

Jefferson raced for the American vehicle, while Bates
hefted his carbine and stepped closer to the Lieutenant
Commander. The scientists fidgeted irresolutely.

Dr. Carlati said, "Richards, aren't you being melodra-
matic? What could cause trouble that would call for fire-
arms?"

"I really think you should all get back to the crawler,"
Richards replied. "Since I'm responsible for your safety, I'm
going to have to insist."

"But this is nonsense!"

"Please . . ."

307

Ensign Jefferson reappeared at the crawler hatch, two
carbines in his arms, and started down the ladder. His foot
slipped and one of the guns dropped from his grasp. It hit the
stony ground and went off with a single sharp bang.

Immediately an answering crack-crack-crack came from
the Soviet crawler. Chips of stone sprang up around the
Americans. Richards saw a man sitting atop the Soviet
vehicle, aiming an automatic rifle at them.

"Get down!" he screamed at the scientists. Pulling the
carbine from the stunned Bates, still standing next to him,
Richards turned to face the advancing crawler. It loomed
huge and gray now, like an army tank. Richards cocked the
carbine, hearing one more crack as he did so.

An incredible force slammed into his chest, knocking
him over. He never felt hitting the ground, but suddenly he
was staring at the sky. Hooded faces slid into his view. They
were blurry. The pain! His body was in flames.

"My god, they shot him!" It was a distant voice, fading,
fading.

"I think he's dead."

Kinsman had drifted away from the crowd around the
pool. Nursing his third drink (Or is it my fourth?) he stood
apart from the clustering crowd of partygoers, near the base
of the transparent dome. He turned to look out at Alphon-
sus's weary ringwall, billion-year-old guardian of nothing-
ness.

In the midst of the crowd Diane was singing:

"Oh, do you remember sweet Betsy from Pike,
Who crossed the wide prairie with her lover

Ike . . ."

She had been singing for nearly an hour. Inevitably,
somebody had produced a guitar and asked her to perform.
She was swept away from Kinsman by the crowd, as much a
prisoner of her marvelous voice as he was of his haunting
memories. Now, as he gazed out at the bleak beauty of the
Sea of Clouds, her singing ended and Kinsman could hear
snatches of whispered conversation among the partygoers:

"... Takamara says there hasn't been a dolphin in the
308

North Pacific all year. They've gone the way of the whales,
looks like."

". . . get back in time to do some Christmas shopping.
The kids will be so excited ..."

"... just rounded up the whole department and
marched them off to an internment camp. Claimed they were
deliberately holding back on developing the new pacification
gas."

'The whole damned department?"

"Eighteen men and women. Took their families, too.
They're all in Nebraska someplace, working in an Army base.
The ones who refused to go are getting re-educated with
electroshock therapy and mindbenders."

"Without a trial? Or due process?"

"Hah!"

"They can't do that! It's against the Constitution!"

"Sure it is. But don't say it too loudly. You could get a
paid vacation to Nebraska, too, you know."

Hugh Harriman came up beside Kinsman. But now the
little round man was quiet and serious. With a lift of his
eyebrows, Harriman asked, "What's this I hear about a
yellow alert?"

"Christ," Kinsman muttered. "Aren't there any secrets
in this town?"

"I know we civilians aren't supposed to know," Harri-
man said, "but how serious is it? Are you and Leonov going
to arm-wrestle, or is this the real thing?"

"I wish I knew."

Harriman gulped at his drink. "That bad?"

"It won't be arm-wrestling."

"Damned fools."

A thought struck Kinsman, and he almost smiled. "Hey,
if we're ordered to seal our half of the base from all foreign
nationals, what the hell are we going to do with you? Brazil
still hasn't come through with your papers, have they?"

"Of course not, the bastards. It's been almost two years
now. I'm officially a stateless person. Another few months
and I won't be able to stand up straight on Earth. They've got
me by the balls—invite me up here with their sociology team
and then revoke my citizenship."

"Cheer up. Socrates got hemlock."
309

"It's a rough world for us philosophers," Harriman said
with a sigh.

"You mean gadflies."

"Whatever. You know who they put in my chair at Sao
Paulo? A dimwitted colonel. A colonel in the fucking army is
the chairman of the philosophy department in the largest
university in Brazil! A colonel!"

"Something to look forward to when I retire."

"You should live so long."

"That's not funny, Hugh. Not tonight."

Harriman stared at him for an instant, mouth open and
ready for his next reply. But when he realized what Kinsman
meant he said, "Yeah. They're closing down all the schools.
Luxuries, you know."

He walked away. Kinsman turned and looked outward
again, feeling the numbing cold of infinity seeping into him
despite the heated curtainwall, watching the tantalizing beau-
ty of Earth hanging there, out of his reach. Seven billion
people getting ready to destroy themselves.

A hand on his shoulder. Diane.

"You're supposed to be having fun, whether you like it or
not."

"Oh, yes. I forgot."

"I think there's some kind of grand unveiling coming
up." She gestured back toward the pool.

Kinsman saw a huge package at poolside, covered by a
blue plastic tarpaulin. It had an odd shape. Kinsman could
not make it out.

"They sent me here to bring you back," Diane said.

She had changed back into her slacks and sweater.
Kinsman noticed her absently rubbing the fingertips of her
left hand and realized that it had been a long time since she
had played a guitar.

"I can think of better places for us to go," Kinsman said.

Diane smiled but said nothing. They walked together
through the crowd that was clustering around the mysterious
package. It was almost as tall as a man and much wider than
his arms could stretch. The crowd's chatter and murmurs
faded to an expectant hush as Kinsman and Diane ap-
proached.

310

Piotr Leonov was standing beside the veiled shape,
grinning broadly. Everyone was silent now.

"Ah,"said Leonov, "the guest of honor approaches. The
magic hour has arrived."

Kinsman tried to look relaxed but he was really burning
to know what was beneath the wrap.

"Before I unveil your birthday present," Leonov said, "I
have a speech to give . . ."

Everyone groaned.

"Wait, wait!" Leonov held up a calming hand. "It is not a
political speech. It is short. Only two sentences."

"We're counting!" came a voice from the crowd.

"Very well. One: We did a great deal of research into
your background to select this present, Chet."

The face of the dead cosmonaut drifting helplessly.
Kinsman drove the picture from his mind.

"And two: Every permanent resident of Selene gave up
two months' worth of personal freight allowance to get
this—thing—up here. Dr. Nakamura lent his personal assist-
ance and used family connections to acquire the—ah
—object. And the dedicated workers of Lunagrad provided
the necessary technical assistance to make the thing work
correctly."

"That's four sentences, Leonov!"

The Russian shrugged. "I am within a factor of two of my
original estimate. That's quite good, compared to what some
of you scientists have been doing."

Everyone laughed.

Turning back to Kinsman, Leonov went on, "Very well,
then! From all of us Luniks, Chet—Lunagrad, Moonbase,
Selene—happy birthday!"

He tugged at the plastic tarpaulin and nothing happened.
Everyone roared. Suddenly red-faced, Leonov pulled again,
harder, and it slipped to the floor. Revealing a gleaming
ebony baby grand piano.

Kinsman felt his jaw drop. "Holy God in heaven."

For a long moment he simply stood there, too dumb-
founded to do anything but gape. Then everyone was clap-
ping hands. Somebody started singing "Happy Birthday."
Diane stepped up to him, threw her arms around his neck,
311

and kissed him soundly- More applause.

"You do know how to play it, I trust?" Leonov inquired.

Keeping one steadying arm around Diane's waist, Kins-
man said, "Haven't touched a key in years. I used to be fairly
good."

Pat Kelly came up beside them. "We found out you were
a child prodigy."

"Bullshit," Kinsman snapped. "I had a recital when I
was fifteen or so—my parents pushed me into it." And I
always preferred flying planes to practicing piano.

"Play!" Leonov insisted. "I had to keep this thing in
hiding in Lunagrad for weeks. I had to find someone to tune
it, since there is no such talent in your den of capitalist
Babbitts. Now, play something—Tchaikovsky, at least."

Shaking his head. Kinsman said, "You'll be lucky if I can
remember 'Chopsticks.'"

He sat at the bench and stared at the keys. Black and
white. Like morality. His hands were shaking. Why? Scared
or excited or both?

He touched the keys, plucked a few experimental notes,
ran through a few scales. The hands remember. Then he
knew what the first piano music played on the Moon should
be.

He actually closed his eyes. Involuntarily. He was sur-
prised when he realized he had done it, and snapped them
open again. By then his hands were well into the opening bars
of the "Moonlight Sonata."

The crowd was absolutely silent. The soft, measured
notes floated through the dome, nearly three hundred years
and almost half a million kilometers from their place of birth.

Kinsman got about halfway through the first movement
and then flubbed. He tapped out a few notes from a childhood
exercise and then stood up. Everyone applauded.

Leonov came up to him. "Congratulations! But you must
move the instrument from this dome. Too humid. It will never
stay in tune here."

Kelly said. "We can put it in your quarters, Chef. We
checked. There's enough room."

"No," Kinsman said. "Everybody ought to be able to use
it. Put it in the assembly hall downstairs."

"They'll ruin it in a month. And the kids . . ."
312

"No, they won't. And we'll borrow Pete's tuner when we
need him."

"Agreed," said Leonov. "On two conditions."

Kinsman cocked a brow at him.

"First, that you allow my frustrated musicians to use the
instrument now and then."

"Of course."

"And second," Leonov raised two fingers, "that you
keep it here on your side of Selene so that I don't have to
listen to them!"

"Sure," Kinsman said. "And your secret police can plant
their bugs in it, too."

"Wonderful. That will make them very happy."

Harriman was standing beside Diane. "Regular Renais-
sance man, aren't you. Kinsman? Musician, soldier, astro-
naut ..."

"I used to be a swordsman, too. On the Academy's saber
team."

"Humph. Goddamned Cyrano de Bergerac in our
midst!"

"My nose isn't that bad," Kinsman said.

"I like your nose," said Diane.

Harriman tried to make his round face frown, and almost
succeeded. "I'm consumed with jealousy," he groused. "You
get to do everything. Kinsman. I can't piay a note. I can't
even get my stereo to work right."

With a laugh. Kinsman answered, "Playing a piano is like
politics, Hugh. The secret is not letting your left hand know
what your right hand is doing."

Several other people tried their hand at the piano. The
dome rang with concussion rock, Chopin, soul, Strauss. One
of the new ninety-day youngsters ran through some of the
neo-Oriental style that was getting popular back in the States.

"Bah! Peasants and degenerates," Leonov grumbled at
last, and plopped himself down on the piano bench. He
pounded out some heavy-handed Mussorgsky, then broke
into melancholy Russian folk tunes.

"Hey, I know that one," Diane said. She sat down beside
Leonov and sang in Russian.

"What do the words mean?" she asked when they
finished.

313

Leonov smiled at her. "What difference, beautiful one?
Just to hear such a voice makes the words pale into insignifi-
cance."

With a reluctant sigh, Leonov hauled himself up from the
piano and began saying goodbye to everyone. "I must return
to the workers' paradise," he told Kinsman.

"Thanks for the surprise, Pete. Feel free to come over
and use it anytime. It belongs to all the people of Selene:

Moonbase and Lunagrad alike."

Leonov closed his eyes briefly. It was a gesture he used in
place of a nod. "I understand." He hesitated and carefully
refrained from glancing over his shoulder. Lowering his
voice, he said, "My friend, we must get together for an
inspection tour of the route for the buggy race. Just the two of
us. Do you agree?"

"Away from the lip-readers?" Kinsman smiled grimly.

"Exactly."

"All right. Tomorrow?"

Leonov blinked slowly again. "I will call you."

"Good."

"Happy birthday, comrade. May you have many more of
them."

"May we all."

"Indeed."

The party was breaking up. Leonov and his two female
companions left, followed by a trail of admiring glances.

"They are intelligence agents," Harriman assured a
young blonde with whom he was sharing a joint.

Finally Kinsman found himself walking slowly down a
smooth-finished corridor with Diane, his arm around her slim
waist, her head leaning sleepily on his shoulder.

"It was a great party," she said softly. "Nice of you to
arrange for my first day."

He laughed. He had enough alcohol in him to feel
relaxed, not enough to be uninhibited.

"They're a great bunch of people," Kinsman said. "Salt
of the Earth."

"You mean the Moon."

"Right. They're good people. This is really just a small
town, you know. A frontier town. Everybody knows every-
314

body else. We all help each other. Got to. It's too damned
dangerous up here otherwise."

"I never saw anybody look so surprised," Diane said, her
voice light with laughter.

"They really got me with that piano," Kinsman admit-
ted. "I never expected that."

They stopped in front of the door to her quarters. He
pulled her to him and kissed her. Her breath caught and she
clung to him for a moment. But then she pushed away
slightly.

"Chet ... I ..." Diane's eyes were filled with a fear he
did not understand. "Let's take it slow, okay?"

"Sure," he said, releasing her.

"It's a lot to adjust to," she said. "I'm a long way from
home."

"AndNeal."

"That's all over," she said quickly. "It's been over for a
long time."

"Okay. I'll see you tomorrow, I guess. Good night."

"Good night, Chet. And thanks."

He shrugged and made a crooked grin. But as he walked
away down the corridor his mind filled with the old pictures of
the dead cosmonaut, and the new memory of General
Murdock's memo.

Kinsman strode past his own quarters, prowling the
corridors, sleepless, angry with himself and not knowing why.
Without conscious direction, he wound up back at the rec
dome. It was empty now. The litter of the party cluttered the
floor. The overhead lights were off, but the pool lights
glimmered softly. Earth hung bright and motionless over-
head.

Kinsman sat down at the piano and tinkered with it. He
got all the way through the first two movements of the
"Moonlight Sonata," decided against risking the third and
botching it. He tried some Bach. It was miserable and so
was he.

Then he felt her hand on his shoulder. He knew it was
Diane without looking up. She sat on the bench beside him.

"I don't want to be alone," she said.

It was like the first time he had flown in orbit. The
315

breathtaking freedom of weightlessness. Free-fall. All the
bounds of Earth slipped away. Nothing else in the universe
except himself and this lovely warm woman. Kinsman even
forgot the crowded, beckoning, troubled Earth and the
star-eyes of God that watched him.

Thursday 2 December 1999:

1550 hrs UT

SPACE STATION ALPHA WAS a set of concentric rings connected
by spokelike tunnels. At the central hub spacecraft docked.
From a distance it looked rather like a set of bicycle wheels of
different sizes nested within one another. Closer up, you
could see that things were nowhere near that neat: antennas
and equipment pods and odd-shaped structures poked out
from the wheels every few meters. Like all human cities,
Alpha was suffering from urban sprawl.

When it was first built. Alpha was intended to be a center
for commercial industry, even tourism. But as the United
States began developing its strategic defense satellites, armed
with lasers capable of destroying ballistic missiles over ranges
of several thousand kilometers, the military took over more
and more of Alpha's facilities, and those of the other two
major space stations, Beta and Gamma. Now Alpha was
almost entirely manned by Aerospace Force personnel, a
center for manufacturing the strategic defense satellites out of
lunar raw materials, for deploying them in orbit around the
Earth, and for command and control of the globe-spanning
defensive network of laser-armed satellites.

Alpha had also become a base for the manned intercep-
tor sorties against Soviet strategic defense satellites.

Frank Colt was supervising the overhaul of his space-
plane. The sleek one-man interceptor rested inside a tubular
metal hangar, pressurized to normal Earth atmosphere so
316

that technicians could work without cumbersome space suits
hampering them. Men, women, and equipment drifted easily
in the nearly zero gravity, hovering around the stubby-winged
spaceplane. Only a few weeks ago it had been gleaming,
polished silver. Now it looked used, the metal finish pitted
and dulled by hours of solar particle bombardment and fiery
dives into the atmosphere, where the air turned incandescent
from the shock of its hypersonic maneuvering.

Like the technicians, Colt was in stained, well-worn
coveralls. He was hovering above the stump of the rocket-
plane's tail, where the main rocket nozzles poked their black
snouts out from their streamlined fairings. Pointing with an
outstretched accusing finger to one of the smaller maneuver-
ing thrusters set into the fairing, Colt muttered, "That's the
one." He looked up at the technicians hanging upside-down
above him and yelled over the clamor of the machinery that
echoed through the hangar, "That's the mother that froze up
on me."

The tech was white, young, with red hair and freckles.
New to Alpha. He steadied himself by planting one hand on
the spaceplane's skin and peered at the tiny jet nozzle.
"Looks okay to me," he said, then added, "sir."

Colt pushed his face to within a centimeter of the tech's.
"Listen, Sergeant, I don't give a shit how it looks to you. It
froze on me. Get it out of there and find out what's wrong
with it."

"Take out the whole thruster assembly?"

"Perform a hysterectomy if you got to. Find out what's
wrong with it and fix it."

"But my shift is over in ten—"

"Sergeant, your shift is over when I'm satisfied that this
thruster works right. Understand that? And the way I'm
gonna find out is to bring you with me on a test flight. Now,
you can either bust your ass in here or get fried out there.
Take your pick."

The kid's face turned as red as his hair. But before he
could say anything, the loudspeaker blared, "Colonel Colt,
top-priority communication from Earthside. Acknowledge
immediately."

Colt glared over his shoulder at the loudspeaker, set into
317

the nearby bulkhead. Then he turned back to the technician.
"I'll be right back, Sergeant. Neither one of us sleeps until
that thruster works as designed."

After Colt pushed away and went gliding toward the
nearest hatch the technician muttered, "Black sonofabitch."
But he began the laborious task of removing the thruster
assembly.

Officers' quarters aboard Alpha were styled after the
compartments of submarines. Compact. Functional. Barked
shins and numbed elbows until you learned how to live
gracefully inside a furnished telephone booth.

Colt plopped down on his bunk, automatically ducking to
avoid the cabinets set above it. He touched the ON stud of the
intercom panel on the bulkhead next to his pillow. The
display screen glowed to life.

The screen showed one of the communications techs, a
cute young blonde that Colt had occasionally dated when they
had both been stationed at Vandenberg. It frosted enough
people that Colt made a point of dating her. Now she
maintained a conspicuous formality as she said, "We have a
message for you, sir, from General Murdock. Personal and
scrambled."

Colt scratched at his chin. "Okay, pipe it through. . . .
And you can at least smile for me, sugar."

She smiled.

"That's better."

The screen went into a crazy nutter of colors as Colt
leaned across the arm's-Iength span of his compartment and
took his hand-sized decrypting computer from the writing
desk. "Goddamn crap," he muttered as he plugged the unit
into the intercom receptacle.

The picture stayed scrambled, but he heard a man's voice
say, "Please identify yourself for voiceprint verification."

Scrambled Earthside, too? Colt was impressed. Even for
Murdock this was elaborate. "Franklin D. R. Colt, 051779,
Lieutenant Colonel, USAF."

There was the slightest instant's delay, then: "Thank
you. Colonel Colt- Go ahead, please."

The picture cleared up and showed General Murdock
sitting at his desk.

"There you are," the General said.
318

"Yessir."

Murdock was round, bald, and nervous. Colt had never
seen the man look happy or pleased. The General had a new
little gray mustache, still tentative, hyperthyroid eyes, and an
apparently endless supply of the jitters. His hands were never
still. "I'm having you reassigned to Moonbase, Colt, The
paperwork is already on its way to Alpha. I want you to leave
on the next available shuttle."

Colt immediately thought of the technician he had left
working on the spaceplane's thruster. "May I ask why, sir?"

"It's . . ." Murdock seemed to glance around furtively,
even though he was alone in his very secure office. "It's part
of a new buildup we're putting into effect, to protect our
network and prevent the Soviets from completing theirs."

"Then why'm I being sent to Moonbase? I oughtta be out
flying double shifts, knocking off as many of their satellites as
I can. You'll need every qualified astronaut to—"

"We've got a batch of replacements coming up. Leaves
are being canceled, new people sent up ahead of schedule.
There'll be plenty of manpower for the orbital missions."

With a shake of his head, Colt objected, "But, look, sir,
it sounds blowhard to say it, but, hell, I've got the highest
score of any of the rocket jocks here. If you want—"

"I don't want any arguments, dammit!" The General's
normal tenor voice rose higher, and his face started to show
splotches of purple. "You fly-boys turn every order into a
debate. I want you on Moonbase."

"But I don't understand why, sir."

"You know why. I don't have to draw you any maps."

Colt rolled his eyes heavenward. "Sir, this may surprise
you, but I can't read your mind."

"Dammit, Colt'" Murdock actually drummed his chubby
fists on the desk, like a little boy having a tantrum. "Do I have
to spell it out? You know Kinsman's commanding Moonbase.
He refused rotation last year, claiming medical reasons, and
those fools on staff let him get away with it."

Now it was becoming clear. Colt almost smiled. "You
want me up there to look over Chet's shoulder during the
buildup."

"That's right."

"Because you don't trust him."
319

Murdock glared. "I've had to deal with Kinsman for
more than fifteen years. He's too emotional. Too unreliable."

It was unkind to tease the Genera!, but Colt could not
resist. "Then why don't you relieve him? Rotate him out of
Moonbase. Nobody's supposed to serve on the Moon for
more'n a year, anyway. How long's he been there now
—three, four years?"

"More like five," Murdock answered, his bald head
glistening with sweat. "But it's not that simple. Everybody up
there's fanatically loyal to him. And it would be hard to find a
qualified man of high-enough rank who'd be willing to stay on
that rockpile for a year straight. Would you take the job?
Willingly?"

"Hell no!"

"You see? And besides, Kinsman's got some medical
problem in his record—a heart flutter or something like that.
Probably faked, but if he's relieved of duty he could stay on
the Moon as a medical case. Who'd want to take over as
commander with him standing over his shoulder?"

Colt wanted to laugh, but instead he probed deeper.
"Yeah, but Chet gets the job done, doesn't he? Moonbase is
coming along fine, from what I hear: everything on schedule

or ahead."

Murdock did not take the bait. Instead, he leaned
forward confidentially and lowered his voice. "Listen, Frank,
I know Kinsman. And I know a good deal more about him
than you do. Things nobody else knows. I don't want him up
there with a totally free hand if a crisis comes up. He's gotten
very friendly with the Russians up there. He's just too soft all
around. I want you up there so that you can take command, if
and when the crunch comes."

Colt heard himself say, "Chet and I were buddies. We've
been through a lot together."

"I know that. But he stepped right over you to grab the
Moonbase assignment for himself. And a full colonel's ea-
gles," Murdock said. "But I know that when the chips are
down, you'll react like an American and an officer—not like a
weak-kneed neurotic."

Neurotic? The word made Colt's stomach tighten.

"In an emergency situation," Murdock continued, grim-
320

faced, perspiring, "I know that you'll put your orders and the
nation's well-being above your personal feelings."

Colt's eyes widened as he realized what Murdock was
saying. "You mean you think Chet would commit treasonT'

"I'm not accusing anyone of anything," Murdock said,
obviously doing just the opposite. "I'm just being careful."

As he packed his spartan travel kit Colt began to
understand what Murdock was doing. The sonofabitch is
using me! Because I'm a friend of Chefs and he trusts me.
Gonna look great. Like Brutus sticking in his blade. He
zipped the bag viciously and hefted it in one hand. And
Murdock knows I'll do it, too. I've come too far and fought
too many of those lily-white bastards to back down now.
Never duck a tough job. Never turn down a chance for a
promotion. Don't give 'em a chance to pass you over. And if I
have to step across Chefs body to get the next step up—shit,
if I don't do it somebody else will.

As he reached for the door of his compartment Colt
remembered the technician working on his spaceplane. Fuck
him. Let him work his white ass off. And he stepped into the
corridor and strode off toward the Moonbound shuttle.

"When you said we were going for a walk I didn't realize
you meant up here," Diane said.

She and Kinsman were in lunar suits, walking slowly and
carefully across the inlet of the Mare Nubium that covered
Selene and lapped up to the base of Alphonsus's ringwall.

Kinsman loathed the pressure suits. It was like being
inside someone else's skin. Sluggish, difficult to move even in
the gentle lunar gravity. They always smelled of plastic and
machine oil and somebody else's sweat. He was annoyed with
himself for not having the guts to order a special suit
custom-made for him. The commander's entitled to it, espe-
cially if you're going to spend the rest of your life up here. But
you're afraid of looking less than egalitarian. Kinsman the
nice guy, that's the image you want them to have of you.

"Everybody ought to see the surface," he said to Diane.
"Too many ninety-dayers come here and stay down below all
through their tour. Might as well be in the Pentagon or the
New York subway."

321

"What's that?" Diane pointed toward a rounded plastic
dome, more than a kilometer away. He could not see her face
behind the helmet's glare-proof visor. Her voice was an
electronic approximation in his earphones.

"That's the original Lunagrad dome," Kinsman ex-
plained. "Leonov's people still land their shuttles over
there." And why did Pete beg off meeting me today? What's
going on with him?

Diane stepped closer to him, waddling ponderously.
"How come the two bases were built right next to each
other?"

"That was back when the watchword was cooperation.
We were going to share most of the facilities: electric power,
water factory, the farms . . . cheaper for both sides."

"It didn't last long, did it?"

"Earthside politics," Kinsman said. "The food short-
ages, the energy crunch—we started getting orders to make
Moonbase self-sufficient. Not to depend on the Russians for
anything. They got the same orders. But we'd already been
living together for several years. It's hard to distrust people
when you live with them."

Diane said nothing.

Spreading his arms, Kinsman turned slowly and asked,
"Well . . . what do you think of the place?"

She may have tried to shrug inside the suit, it was
impossible to tell. "It looks so barren . . . desolate. And it's
so empty."

"We've got lots of space," Kinsman agreed. "And
energy—free, almost, from the sun. What we don't have is
water. Have to process it out of the rocks. Funny: energy's
cheap here and water's expensive. On Earth it's just the other
way around."

"Water isn't cheap on Earth anymore," Diane said. "Not
drinkable water."

Kinsman shook his head even though Diane could not
see the gesture. "You'd think that would be the last thing
they'd mess up on a planet brimful of the stuff."

He took her gloved hand and guided her up the gentle
slope of a small crater rim. The ground was pockmarked with
crateriets a few centimeters across. The blower in Kinsman's
322

suit hissed at high speed; still he felt hot inside it.
"The horizon's so close," Diane said.

"The edge of the world. Makes you half think you could
fall off."

"I thought we'd be able to see the stars better."

"Your visor's pretty heavily filtered."

"It's just so dreary\ I've never seen such desolation."

What did you expect? he said to himself. Aloud, he
asked, "Diane, what made you come up here?"

She turned ponderously to face him. "I toid you. It was a
good job opportunity. Extra pay."

"And that's all?"

She hesitated. "I found out that you were right, Chet. All
along, you were right and I was wrong. I tried it NeaPs way, I
tried working for the poor and the oppressed. All that
happened was that they got poorer and the government got
more oppressive. It took a lot of years, but I finally figured
out that you were right. We need a frontier—even if it's a
desolate emptiness way off in space someplace."

But there was something in her voice that hinted at
deeper reasons, hidden motivations.

"Is it that bad, Earthside?" he asked.

"Yes," Diane said fervently. "The government doesn't
release unemployment statistics anymore, that's how hard
things are. And the super-morality fanatics make it even
harder when you've got a fatherless child to support."

"You have a baby."

"She's almost five years old."

"Neai's baby."

"I decided against an abortion." For a long moment she
was silent, then, "I guess I thought it would make him leave
Mary-EHen and marry me." She laughed bitterly.

"Where is the child?" Kinsman asked.

"With an aunt of mine, for the time being. In Arizona."

"While you're up here in the land of opportunity."
"Learning a new profession in a new world. For ninety
days."

"You could stay longer. I could extend your tour."
"I've got a daughter to take care of."
Kinsman mused. "We could get her up here, too."
323

"You could do that?"

With a shrug he replied, "Rank hath its privileges."
They stood silently next to each other in the lonely
vacuum of the roiled bare lunar plain for several long
moments. In his earphones Kinsman could hear Diane's
breathing.

"You'd let me stay permanently?"
"If you want to."
"With my daughter?"

Neat's daughter, he thought. "Yes, sure. Why not?"
"I . . ." Diane's voice almost broke. "Chet, that's really
... I can't ... I just don't know what to say."
"You don't have to say anything."
"But it's such a commitment. I don't know if—"
He cut in, "There's no strings, Diane. I can extend your
tour indefinitely. You can have your daughter sent up. She'll
be a helluva lot safer here than in Arizona, with all those
airbases and hydroelectric dams. But nobody's going to force
you to stay in Selene. If things don't work out the way you
want, you can always go back Earthside." If there's an Earth
to return to, he added silently.

"No strings," she repeated. Her voice sounded doubtful,

wary.

"Come on, we ought to get back," he told her. To

himself he said, No strings. No commitments. Not on either
one of us. Not now. Maybe someday, but not now.

She paced alongside him as they headed across the
uneven ground. After several minutes' silence, Diane said,
"You're held in very high esteem around here, you know."

"Am I?"

"From what I hear, you're a very dashing and romantic

figure."

"Sure I am."

"You are," Diane insisted. "Women talk. You can have
your pick of the women here, and you often do."

"Well . . ."

"But no lasting relationships. Nothing permanent. Noth-
ing even long-term."

"Dammitall, Diane. this is getting ridiculous."

"Is it?" Her voice sounded very serious. "I think it's
important. I'm trying to understand you, Chet. And myself. I
324

never could figure you out, not from the first time we met,

back in Berkeley."

He forced a laugh. "And I sure as hell have never been

able to figure you out." Then he said very seriously, "But I've

never been able to get you out of my mind, either. Not since

that first time in Berkeley."

They walked in silence for a few more moments.
"So how about dinner tonight?" Kinsman asked.
She hesitated long enough to let him know that she

considered it very carefully. "I'm afraid I've already made a

date with Harry Pierce. He asked me this morning."

"Your section supervisor? You're going to have dinner

with your boss?"

"Does that shock you?" she teased.

"Remember, kid, Selene is a very small town."

"Oh, but going to dinner with the base commander is a

different thing, is it?"

Kinsman pulled himself to his full height, unnoticeable
inside the bulky suit. "The base commander," he replied, "is
a very dashing and romantic figure—so I'm told."

They laughed and clumped back to the main dome, hand
in gloved hand.

"Chet," Diane said, "I don't want to make any commit-
ments, either. I can't. Not yet."

"Sure," he said. "I understand. I shouldn't be dawdling
over romantic dinners, anyway. I've got plenty of work to
do." And I've got to find out why Leonov backed down.

Jill Meyers was just finishing her rounds in Selene's
hospital. Like most of the underground community, the
hospital was built in two interconnecting sections, one Ameri-
can and one Russian. Nearly all the facilities were duplicated.

Jill looked almost as youthful as when she had been an
astronaut trainee, fifteen years earlier- Her bright-eyed,
round, snub-nosed face, framed by short-clipped straight
brown hair, would look young well into her golden years. But
within her tiny frame was strength and skill and a quality that
was rare in a physician: empathy.

The hospital was large and staffed out of all proportion to
Selene's total size. It had been the original justification for a
permanent lunar base. and now most of the permanent lunar
325

residents—Russian and American—were on the Moon for
medical reasons: bad hearts, bad lungs, muscular diseases. Jill
herself had developed an intolerable set of allergies that had
incapacitated her Earthside. Here in the controlled environ-
ment of the lunar community she was virtually perfect.

Jill looked tired now as she left the last of her patients
and headed for the hospital's core of administrative offices
and monitoring stations. She got as far as the first station, a
horseshoe-shaped set of desks covered with display screens
that monitored the sensors watching over a dozen patients'
heart rates, respirations, alpha rhythms, and other parame-
ters. The nurse sitting inside the horseshoe called to her, "Dr.
Meyers, phone for you."

Jill stopped and accepted the handset from the young
woman. Leaning wearily against the desk she watched the
phone's picture screen crackle with momentary interference;

then it cleared to show a bearded, dark-eyed man whom Jill
immediately recognized as one of the Russian doctors. He
looked very grave.

"Alexsei, what's wrong?" Jill blurted as her free hand
unconsciously went up to smooth her brown hair.

"We have a difficult situation on our hands," he said, in
smooth American English. "Cardiac infarction. Our emer-
gency equipment is not available at the moment; one of the
carts is in use and the other broke down yesterday. If you
can't loan us an aortic pump system I'll have to decide who to
help and who to let die. It's not a decision I want to make."

"Of course. Can you move the patient here?"

"Not without a pump in him."

"I'll be there in ten minutes," Jill said. "No, five."

"Good."

Turning to the monitoring nurse she said, "Put me
through to the base commander, and while I'm talking to him
get the emergency team across to Dr. Landau with a heart
pump cart."

Pat Kelly's face showed up on the picture screen. "Kins-
man's off someplace. Not to be disturbed except for cata-
clysms." He grinned toothily to show what he thought of the
commander's absence.

Jill outlined the problem in two sentences. Then, "I'm
taking an emergency unit to the Lunagrad section."
326

Kelly hiked his eyebrows. "Regs don't permit that, you
know."

"Then either find Chet in the next three minutes or send
an armed guard down here to stop me! There's a life at
stake."

"Not one of ours."

"Oh, you're not a member of the human race? I'll
remember that the next time you come in here. What you do
with your regulations is your problem, but I can make a
medical suggestion ..."

"Okay, okay!" Kelly threw his hands up. "I'll write out
the order and ask Chet to sign it when he gets back to his
office."

"All right," Jill said. "Thanks."

"Don't thank me. I'm just doing what Kinsman would do
if he was here. If it was up to me . . ."

But Jill had already dropped the handset and was racing
down the corridor toward the Russian half of the hospital-
Four hours later she was slouched on a softly padded
sofa, sipping a glass of scalding tea. Alexsei Landau sat next
to her. He was tall, with broad shoulders and the strong, sure
hands of a surgeon. Behind his beard he was smiling.

"There is an old Russian proverb that I just made up: If
you have five cardiac emergency units available, you will get
six cardiac emergencies."

Jill smiled back at him. "At least we got him in time."

"H'mm, yes. But he's going to need support for many
days. Weeks, more likely."

"We can bring him back to our side. There's plenty of
room."

Landau shook his head. "The rules forbid us to send our
patients to your side of the hospital."

"Rules!" Jill snapped. "If we played by their rules your
patient would be dead now."

The Russian nodded gravely.

"I'll have Kinsman talk to Leonov, They'll work it out."

"I doubt it. Leonov is due to leave shortly anyway. We
don't know who will be taking his place."

"Chet Kinsman will figure out a way to do it," Jill said
firmly, dismissing the problem. "Who is the patient? He
looked vaguely familiar to me."
327

"He should. He is Nicholai Baliagorev."

"The ballet master?"

"Yes."

"I didn't know he was here!"

"He just arrived. They sent him here to rest his heart,
but the rocket flight was almost too much for him."

"Oh, Alex, we've got to save him! We can't let a man like
that die because of red tape."

Landau shook his head wearily. "Red tape has killed
more people than bullets, dear girl. Far more."

Friday 3 December 1999:

1120hrsUT

Ir WAS STILL NIGHT on the Sea of Clouds, a night that would
continue for another week. But the waxing crescent of the
Earth, nearly half full now, cast a soft light on the lunar
landscape.

Kinsman stood on a slight rise that overlooked the broad
undulating plain, listening to the sound of his own breathing
and the suit's airblower. A pair of dune buggies were inching
their way across the plain, off in the distance. Not far from
where Kinsman stood, a group of lunar-suited Americans and
Russians were deep in earnest conversation.

Next to him stood Colonel Leonov, in a bright red
pressure suit almost identical to Kinsman's own, except for
slight differences in the helmet and backpack.

"It should be a good race," Leonov said. Kinsman heard
the radio voice in his helmet earphones.

"Yes," he answered. "And this year we ought to win, for
a change."

"Hah! Wait until you see the special buggy we have put
together."

"Not another rocket job?"
328

"You'll see."

While they talked, Kinsman took a pad from his belt.
Clumsily,, with his gloved hands, he wrote, "Is your suit
bugged?" He held the note up before Leonov's visor.

"I checked this suit personally before putting it on,"
Leonov answered. "It is perfectly safe."

"We ought to take a look at this crater," Kinsman said,
clumping to the rim of a thirty-meter-wide depression. "It's
close enough to the racecourse to be marked off, don't you
think?"

"That depends on how steep the interior is." Leonov
followed him.

They walked slowly down the interior slope, picking their
way through rocks and loose rubbie by the lights on their
helmets, until they were out of sight of the race committee
and the standing crawlers and buggies. Out of sight meant out
of radio contact. Now they could talk to each other without
being overheard.

"What happened yesterday?" Kinsman asked, lowering
his voice unconsciously. "Your message wasn't very clear."

"Too much to do. I couldn't get away. It would not have
looked right to drop important business because of the race
committee."

Nodding, Kinsman changed the subject. "I got a call
from one of our doctors. She wants to transfer a heart patient
of yours to our side of the hospital."

"Yes, I know. Baliagorev, the former dancer."

"She says your regulations won't let you send him over to
us."

Leonov answered, "Of course. And your regulations do
not allow you to take him in without permission from your
superiors Earthside."

"Hell, Pete, I'll just do it and get them to okay it after the
fact. There's a human life at stake."

"Ah, but your superiors are much easier to handle than
mine. Mine would absolutely forbid transferring a Soviet
citizen to your side of the hospital. Absolutely."

"Then he's going to die?"

"No, he's on his way to your side of the hospital. I gave
the order this morning before I came out here to join you."
329

Kinsman stopped dead on the gravelly slope, sending a
few loose pebbles rattling noiselessly down toward the shad-
owed bottom of the crater. "You . . . Pete, sometimes you
astound me."

"You think it's impossible for a good Communist to be
flexible? To fly in the face of authority? You think only you
Americans have feelings?"

"Oh hell."

Leonov put a hand on Kinsman's shoulder. "Old friend,
I am being relieved of duty. I am being sent back to Mother
Russia, to my wife and little ones. We will never see each
other again."

"Shipped out? When?"

"In two weeks. Perhaps less. I'm not certain who my
replacement will be, but the indications are that he will be a
hard-liner. A good Marxist and a good soldier. Not a
soft-hearted fellow like me. Not a collaborationist who at-
tends capitalist parties and wastes the people's time and
money on frivolities."

"You're in trouble?"

"I am always in trouble," Leonov said, trying to make it
sound jovial. "That's why I was given the Lunagrad post in
the first place. This is even better than Siberia—a banishment
that appears to be a promotion. Most of the people in
Lunagrad are exiles."

"If they're anything like the people in our half of
Selene," Kinsman said, "they wouldn't want to go back to
Earth. It's too crowded down there, Pete. Like rats, that's the
way they're living."

"I know. But our superiors don't realize that. They are
still living in the past. They still think of Lunagrad as a sort of
exile for troublesome officers."

"They're calling you back, though."

"Yes. The game is becoming serious. They have finally
realized that we supply most of the oxygen and foodstuffs and
fuels for the space stations. Lunagrad—forgive me, Selene
—is a vital logistics center for the orbiting platforms. And the
men in those stations are in charge of the antimissile satellites.
So we here on the Moon hold the key to all the military
operations going on in orbit around the Earth. That is why I
330

am being replaced. They want a reliable soldier up here."

Kinsman turned his head inside the helmet of his pres-
sure suit. His nose wrinkled at the smell of sealant grease and
fear. The rim of the crater blocked everything from view with
a continuous wall of solid rock. He and Leonov could not see
the other men and women, the crawlers and buggies, the
lunar plain, or even the ever-watchful Earth. Nothing could
be seen except the rock-strewn crater slope, the solemn
unblinking stars directly overhead, and this other human
being standing before him. Kinsman's eyes saw only the
outside of a bulky, impersonal lunar suit; even the visor was a
mirrored blank. But he could sense the man inside, the soul
that animated the plastic and metal.

"Pete, I'm not supposed to tell you this," Kinsman said,
"but something big is brewing. I don't mean just tinkering
with the ABM satellites. That's been going on for a long time.
I think they're getting ready to take the next step."

He could sense Leonov nodding slowly. "Yes. That is
why they want to remove an unreliable officer from command
of Lunagrad."

"They're sending up a 'good soldier' to be my second-in-
command, too," Kinsman said. "Pat Kelly's being rotated
back Earthside and Frank Colt's coming up to keep an eye on
me."

"Colt? The black one. Yes ... I remember him."

"Dammitall!" Kinsman balled his fists. "They're going to
have their war. They're going to start killing people in orbit
and they'll end up destroying everything."

"History is inexorable."

"Stop talking like a goddamned robot!" Kinsman
snapped. "This isn't abstract. It's you and me, Pete! They're
going to try to make us kill each other. Those shitheads won't
be satisfied with tearing the Earth apart; they're going to send
us orders to go to war up here."

"I won't be here," Leonov said quietly. "I'll be home in
Kiev with my wife and children, waiting for your missiles to
fall on us."

"And you're just going to let them do it to you? You're
not going to try to do anything about it?"

"What can we do?" Leonov's voice deepened to a growl.
331

"We have talked about this many times, Chet. But what good
is talk? When the actual moment comes—what can I do?
What can you do?"

"I can refuse to fight," Kinsman heard himself say. "And
so can you, for as long as you're in command up here. We can
stop them from making war here on the Moon."

"Bravo. And what about the seven billions of human
beings back on Earth?"

Kinsman stared at his friend. He had no answer.

It was almost fully dark in Washington. Streetlights and
store windows were lit because the damage and danger of
darkened streets was far worse, experience had proved, than
the drain of energy from keeping the lights on. Commuters
were scurrying for the police-protected buses that would
speed them to the relative safety of their suburban enclaves,
leaving the city to the poor, the black, the angry.

The President stood at his office window, staring across
Lafayette Park to the National Christmas Tree. It soared
nearly forty feet high, a triumph of plastic technology and
chemical fluorescence. A Marine honor guard paced around it
with bayoneted automatic rifles.

"Nobody comes to see the tree anymore," the President
murmured. "When I was a kid we used to watch the tree
being lit up on television every year. The first time I came to
Washington we saw the Christmas tree. Now nobody comes at
all. Nobody pays any attention to it . . ."

The Secretary of Defense coughed politely. "The orders
for the contingency plan, sir—they require your signature."

Reluctantly, almost petulantly, the President turned
away from the window. "We ought to do something. There
must be millions of kids who'd like to see the tree."

"They do see it, on television," said the Defense Secre-
tary. "It's difficult for them to get to the city." He was
standing in front of the President's broad desk of genuine
cherrywood, unconsciously tapping a thick sheaf of papers
resting on the desktop.

"Um, well, I suppose they do." The President shook his
head and then lowered his chunky body into the high-backed
plush swivel chair behind the desk. He looked too small for
the chair, for the broad desk itself.
332

"Now what am I supposed to be signing here?"

"These are the orders for the contingency plans, part of
our follow-up on the ABM satellite problem."

"Oh." The President reached for his gold pen, then
looked up at the Defense Secretary again. "And what's
different about these that they need my signature?"

Defense's narrow, sharp-featured face clouded momen-
tarily. "The contingency plans cover the possibility of a Soviet
attack on our manned space stations. They provide for
manpower and logistics backup to prevent such an attack
from succeeding."

"Beefing up the stations' defenses?"

"Exactly."

"What's this going to cost? Are you sure we need it?"

"Sir, it's obvious the Russians are up to something big.
The shooting incident in Antarctica—one of our naval offi-
cers was killed, you know."

"What?"

Defense raised a calming hand. "We've only gotten
scrambled reports out of McMurdo Station. They're investi-
gating the incident. Our monitors have also intercepted
similar reports from the Russian base at Mirnyy. All we know
for certain is that a team of Russians and a team of Americans
fired on each other. One American officer is dead."

The President's hands were trembling. "They killed one
of our men?"

"Apparently. We'll know more shortly."

"I want a full report as soon as the information becomes
available."

"Of course."

"No matter what hour of the day or night. Do you hear
me? A full report."

"Yes, sir. Certainly."

His voice still hollow with shock, the President went on,
"Now, what's this got to do with the space stations?"

Defense said, "It's all part of a pattern. They're getting
tough in Antarctica. They're building up their troop concen-
trations in Syria. Intelligence reports show that they intend to
replace their present commander at Lunagrad, a coexistence
type, with a hard-line full general straight out of the Kremlin.
They're up to something big."
333

Wordlessly the President scribbled his signature on the
top page of the sheaf of papers.

"Thank you, Mr. President." Defense snatched the sheaf
of papers from his desk and strode quickly out of the office.

In the anteroom outside, the burly angry-faced man
paced across the plush carpeting. He walked with a slight
limp, as if his feet were not meant to be in the shoes he was
forced to wear.

He glared up at the Defense Secretary. "He signed?"

The harsh tortured whisper made Defense want to
shudder. "Yes," he replied. "Of course."

"He realizes that the plan includes preparations for an
attack on the Soviet space stations?"

Defense shook his head. "That did not come up in our
conversation."

The angry one almost smiled. "So be it. We can explain
the value of a preemptive strike to him later. Gradually. If
time permits."

The meeting of the State Security Committee had been
long and bitter and sometimes loud. The Kremlin had often
rung with the shouts of angry men, and many times such
rancor had led to violence.

General Secretary Bereznik was determined to restore
harmony.

"Comrades!" he called sharply, slapping a heavy palm
on the table before him. They all jerked their attention to
him, dropping their hot arguments for the moment.

"Comrades, we should be directing our energies to the
solution of this problem. Wrangling will produce no positive
results."

"Firing on our scientific expedition is an inexcusable
provocation!" Marshal Prokoff shouted.

"But we killed one of their men," said the Foreign
Minister, his puffy face florid with passion. "There was
shooting on both sides."

"They are increasing their orbital missions," repeated
the Intelligence Minister. "More satellites and more attacks
on our satellites."

The General Secretary glared in helpless frustration.
334

Sometimes he wished he had Khrushchev's boldness: it was
canny old Nikita who had often carried a pistol to these
meetings.

"My father gave his life for the Soviet Union at Stalin-
grad," Prokoff was saying heatedly, "and I will not allow any
foreign transgressor to destroy what he fought to preserve."

"But what of the Chinese?" someone asked, his voice
quavering from the general din around the table- "What are
they going to do?"

At the far end of the table the Nameless One got to his
feet. All the arguing stopped dead. He was not truly name-
less, of course, but he insisted on using his unpronounceable
Tadzhik tribal name, so the Russians jokingly called him the
Nameless One. What he thought of the joke, no one knew; he
neither smiled nor complained.

Ah, thought the General Secretary, now a little clear
thinking will enter the discussion. I was wondering how long
he would remain silent. But he suppressed a shudder as he
nodded acknowledgment at the Nameless One. The man was
uncanny, frightening in the way that a snake frightens:

inspiring a terror that goes far deeper than rational under-
standing. None of the men around the table was a stranger to
force or violence. But for an Asian to reach the inner counsels
of Mother Russia took a special sort of cold, ruthless ambi-
tion.

"It is clear," he said in his icy, quiet, slightly sibilant
tone, "that we face a crisis of will." The Nameless One was
neither tall nor imposing from the standpoint of physical size.
His face was thin, with a slightly Oriental cast to the glitter-
ing, hypnotic eyes. His ears were slightly pointed, his hands
long and thin and graceful.

"The peoples of the Soviet Union urgently need the coal
that our scientists have discovered in Antarctica—especially
if we are to continue selling natural gas to the West in return
for hard currency. The Americans desire that coal, also, for
their own needs and markets. Our strategic deterrent force is
matched by their missiles. Our antimissile network of satel-
lites is incomplete, and so is theirs. We are in a stalemate,
unless . . ."

He let the word hang while the ministers and military
335

officers leaned forward on their chairs.

"Unless," he went on, "we are prepared to steel our-
selves for the next step."

Marshal Prokoff nodded firmly. "Put the bombs in
orbit."

"Exactly," agreed the Nameless One.

"But that would be a violation of a treaty that we
solemnly ..."

The General Secretary rapped his knuckles on the table-
top. "That treaty was signed more than three decades ago.
The world is very different today."

"Yes, but—"

"We have no choice," said the Nameless One, with
infinite calm. "If we are not prepared to keep the Americans
from attacking us, we will lose everything. The orbiting
bombs will be a threat that the Americans—and the Chinese,
as well—cannot ignore."

The discussion went on well into the night. But at least,
the General Secretary thought gratefully, it is a discussion
and not a brawl.

The Nameless One did most of the talking.

It was nearly midnight in Selene before Kinsman got to
the hospital. He looked in on Baliagorev in the intensive-care
unit. Jill Meyers was there and they wound up having coffee
together in the hospital's tiny automated cafeteria.

The place was deserted. They took their steaming mugs
from the dispenser and sat at the nearest table- It wobbled on
uncertain legs.

"Damned place always smells of antiseptics," Kinsman
grumbled. "And the light panels are too bright—glaring."

Jill laughed tiredly. "Yeah, boss, how about that? I'd
look a lot better in candlelight."

"You look fine, kid. Tired but happy." It was true. There
were dark fatigue circles under her eyes, but Jill was smiling.

She slumped back in her plastic chair. "It's been a long
day, but a good one. I think Baliagorev will make it."

"And you've got Landau orbiting around you."

"Alex? Oh, he's an old friend. We met years ago . . ."

Sipping gingerly at the searing coffee, Kinsman said, "I
was watching you two back at the ICU. Do you realize that
336

you actually fluttered your eyelashes at him?"

Jill's face went deep red. "That's not true!"

"Oh no? He's asked to stay here overnight."

"He wants to be with his patient."

"And pigs have wings. He wants to be with you, kid."

She grinned, but her hands seemed to go out of control.
They fidgeted around the coffee cup and then up to her face.
"You're joking. You really think so?"

"Looks pretty obvious to me. I wouldn't be surprised if
he ran the old man halfway around the Ocean of Storms just
to get him to keel over."

"You're terrible!"

Kinsman smiled back at her. "Yeah, I guess I am. But
I'm not the only one who's noticed the way you two have been
looking at each other. Half the hospital staff is sighing with
romantic rapture about you. The female half."

Jill tried to frown but her pixie face was not made for it.
"What about you and this new girl in the comm section?"

Kinsman scratched at his stubbly chin. "Diane? I've
known her for years. She was a pretty well known singer a few
years back. Diane Lawrence."

"That's Diane Lawrence?" Jill seemed impressed.

Nodding, Kinsman said, "She ran into trouble with the
government and that ended her singing career."

"But the First Amendment ..."

"Is in trouble," Kinsman said. "Just like the rest of the
country."

Jill rested her chin on a tiny fist. "She was good. I used to
buy her tapes."

Brightening, Kinsman said, "There's no reason why she
can't sing here. We could use a little entertainment around
the old joint."

"That's right."

"She'd still have to work her regular shift, at least for the
time being. But we could get her to moonlight after
shift . . ."

"That's a terrible pun!"

Surprised, he asked, "What is?"

"Moonlighting."

"Oh—on the Moon. I see." Kinsman grinned. "It wasn't
intentional."

337

"And there's nothing serious between you two?"

"Not really."

"You look awfully happy, all of a sudden."

He shrugged.

"It's about time you got serious about somebody, don't
you think?" Jill asked, running a finger around the rim of her
coffee cup. "You're getting a little elderly for the playboy
lifestyle."

"Yeah. Maybe you're right. I'm too young to be a roue."

With a knowing smile Jill asked, "So what are you going
to do about it?"

What can I do? he wanted to shout. Instead he merely
muttered, "This is a lousy time to get my personal life
tangled."

"Why?" Jill asked. "What's so bad about this particular
time?"

He hesitated. "Things . . . are brewing. Trouble's com-
ing. Big trouble." He reached across the table and grabbed
Jill's wrist. "Listen, kid. You and your Russian friend better
grab whatever fun you can get, and grab it quick. Because in
the next week or two the lid could blow off. All hell's going to
break loose. And soon." Then he heard himself add, "Unless
we can stop it."

Saturday 4 December 1999:

1830 hrs UT

KINSMAN STOOD AT the airlock hatch in the main dome,
waiting for it to open. Outside, the shuttle rocket sat squat
and ungainly, connected to the hatch by an airtight access
tube.

The hatch popped ajar with a sigh, then swung smoothly
back. Kinsman felt a slight stir of air as the pressure in the
dome equilibrated.

Frank Colt stepped through the hatch and into the dome.
338

He carried a single small travel kit and wore a regulation
Aerospace Force blue uniform the way officers did Earthside,
with a chestful of decorations, instead of the casual lunar
coveralls.

Kinsman was always surprised at Colt's lack of physical
size. The black astronaut had a giant's strong personality but
physically he was slight. A black Alexander Hamilton, Kins-
man thought. Tough, waspish. Then he remembered that
Hamilton had been killed in a duel by a man later called a
traitor to the United States.

At the sight of Kinsman, Colt snapped to bayonet-stiff
attention and saluted crisply. Suppressing a grin. Kinsman
returned a lazy salute, then reached for Colt's hand. "Frank,
you old ass-kicker—good to see you! Welcome aboard."

Colt grinned widely. "How're you, pal? Letting your hair
grow, huh?"

With a glance at Colt's close-cropped fuzz, Kinsman
countered, "Jealous?"

"Shit, man, if I let mine go natural I'd never get a helmet
over it."

Laughing, they made their way to the power ladder.

"You can drop your bag off at your quarters and have
dinner with us," Kinsman said as they stepped aboard the
moving rungs.

"Sure, sure. But shouldn't I be presenting my orders and
officially checking in?"

"We can do that tomorrow. You must be hungry. And
the food at Alpha hasn't improved any, I'll bet."

Colt laughed as he clung to the handgrip in front of him.
"Hell, no."

They rode down four levels as the ladder's distant electric
motor whined faintly. As they stepped off the ladder Colt
said, "Maybe I can wait a couple more days and officially take
my new post on Pearl Harbor Day. That'd have a nice
historical touch to it."

"Pearl what?" Kinsman asked.

"Pearl Harbor. December seventh. World War Two. It
was in all the papers."

Kinsman led him down the corridor. "You've got an odd
sense of humor, Frank."

"History, man. History. It's my big subject."
339

Half an hour later they were in the cafeteria. It was a
small place, with only a couple dozen tables. Most of them
were filled, but the acoustical insulation kept the background
noise down to a muted murmur.

Colt's face was grim as they sat down. "Aren't those
Russians over there?" He cocked his head in the direction of
the table where Jill Meyers was sitting with Landau and a pair
of Russian medi-techs.

Kinsman nodded. "We've got one of their people in our
intensive-care unit. Heart condition."

"Chet, this is supposed to be a military installation. It's
bad enough to be sitting right next door to the enemy ..."

"Hey, relax," Kinsman said. "These people aren't ene-
mies of ours."

Colt shook his head warily.

Kinsman went on, "There's not enough military activity
here to make it worth worrying over. You know that, Frank."

"Suppose you stopped supplying food and oxygen to the
space stations. Then what?"

"Come on."

"No, I'm serious, man." Colt jabbed a fork into his pork
cutlet, the first real meat he'd had in months. "Suppose they
knocked out Moonbase or took it over. How'd our guys in the
space stations get supplied?"

"From Earthside, of course."

"Yeah? You know how long it'd take to set that up? And
what it'd cost? If they knock off Moonbase, they cripple our
space stations and the whole system of ABM satellites. They
win the battle, man. They own everything from a hundred
klicks off the Earth's surface. Which means they own the
Earth."

"It won't happen, Frank."

"It could." Colt attacked the cutlet with vigor. "That's
why I've been assigned here. Murdock's worried about just
that."

Kinsman suddenly was no longer hungry. "I guess I
should've taken a look at your orders after all."

"Wouldn't do you any good. Ain't spelled out in black
and white. But Murdock gave me a personal call, scrambled
at both ends. He thinks you're a mushmelon and he wants me
340

to make sure this place doesn't get bagged. That's why I'm
here."

"Terrific," Kinsman said. He pushed his tray away from
him. "And the next step will be to get prepared for taking
over Lunagrad."

"Could be."

"That's stupid," Kinsman snapped.

"Is it?"

Hold it, Kinsman told himself. Don't let them start a
fight between the two of us! With an effort he forced his
temper down.

"Frank, do you remember Cy Calder?"

"Who?"

"Old Cy Calder. Way back in the early days, when we
were training. Cy was a newsman ..."

Recognition dawned on Colt's face- "Oh, yeah, the old
dude. He was quite a guy."

"He told me a story once," Kinsman said, "about when
he flew a bomber in World War One."

"Yeah, and the Mile High Club."

"No, this was a different story. He used to fly bombing
runs in the early months of the war. Open cockpit, scarf-in-
the-wind kind of stuff."

"No shit."

Kinsman grinned at the memory of Calder's story. "He
flew a two-man bomber. Cranked her up to maximum altitude
over the trenches—about five thousand feet. All the soldiers
in the trenches shot at any airplane. Didn't matter whose
plane it was. They all hated the fliers."

Colt laughed.

"Cy flew mostly night missions. Never saw another plane
in the sky. Then one night, as they were coming back from a
bombing raid on some farmhouse, they passed a big German
Gotha bomber coming back from a raid on the Allied side of
the lines."

"Yeah?"

"Cy waved at the German pilot and the guy waved back.
They were both excited just to see somebody else up there."

"Those were the days," Colt muttered.

"Well, a couple of minutes after they passed each other,
341

Cy's gunner turned around to him and started yelling, so he
could be heard over the engines, That was a German! What
the hell were we waving at him for? Turn around, let's shoot
the bastard down!'"

Colt nodded.

"Cy pushed the gunner back away from him and told
him, 'You silly sonofabitch, it's dangerous enough up here
without shooting at people!'"

Colt started to laugh, but it never became more than a
half-hearted chuckle, "Okay, I dig it. It's dangerous enough
up here on the Moon without shooting at people. But I've got
my orders, Chet. And maybe the Russians never heard your
story."

Kinsman replied slowly, "Anyone who's spent any time
on the Moon knows that story. They've saved our guys a
thousand times and we've saved theirs. Most of their people
speak English and a lot of ours know Russian. We live
together, Frank. In peace."

"Shee-it," Colt deliberately exaggerated the accent,
"next thing you know you're gonna start singing gospel songs.
You live in peace, huh? For how long, pal? How long? What
happens when they get orders from Earthside to do it . . ."
Colt slowly squeezed his thumb down on the tabletop as if he
were squashing a bug. Or pressing a FIRE button.

Kinsman said nothing. Colt went on, "It's getting down
to the big crunch, man. All this messing around with the
satellites. And some Navy dude got himself shot down near
the South Pole ..."

"What?" Kinsman felt a lightning flash of startled fear in
his guts.

Colt nodded. "Yeah. Couple days ago. Things are warm-
ing up."

"In Antarctica? They're shooting at each other in an
international zone?"

"Why not? World's biggest coal beds down there.
They're gonna fight over it—or something else. Maybe the
Middle East again; there's still a lot of oil left there. It's
coming, man. Lotta hungry people and not enough resources
to keep 'em all going. They're gonna fight over it, sooner or
later. Nothing we can do to stop it. We gotta be prepared to
win it."

342

Kinsman started to reply, but there was nothing he could
say. He sat there, defeated. Then he saw Pat Kelly coming up,
holding a dinner tray.

"Mind if I join you?" Kelly asked. He did not wait for an
answer, but put his tray down next to Colt's and pulled out the
chair.

"Frank, you know Pat, don't you?" Kinsman asked.

Colt nodded as Kelly sat down. "Just made major, didn't
you?"

"Yep," Kelly answered. "Pretty soon I'll outrank you,
Flash." His usual rabbit's face looked different: tense, almost
angry, flushed with expectation.

Colt flicked him a lazy glance. "I'm not planning on
retiring that soon. And what's this 'Rash' crap?"

With a shrug, Kelly said, "You're the hotshot rocket
jock, everybody knows that."

"I don't know," Colt said. "Tell me about it."

Kinsman sat there and watched it happen. He felt
helpless and fascinated at the same time. Kelly was a good
man, bright and dedicated. Frank Colt was just as bright,
maybe more so. And whatever was burning inside Colt was
far hotter than Kelly's flame, Kinsman knew from long
experience. Yet there was something about Colt that called
lightning down from the sky. Men either loved him like a
brother or hated him. There was no neutral ground.

Kelly was tight-lipped. "Look at you, wearing that
uniform like you're at an Academy parade. You know
damned well we don't do that up here. But you've got to be
the superhero. All-time champion hotshot."

"And you keep your uniform stowed in a closet so
everybody'll think you're Mr. Nice Guy, huh? Ever been shot
at?"

"That's got nothing to do with—"

"Hell it don't! Know why you're here, Mr. Nice Guy?
D'you know why you can dance around on the Moon and
collect rocks and advance in rank every three years?"

"Now, wait . . ."

Colt silenced him with a long forefinger jabbed toward
his face. "You're here on the Moon, Major Kelly, because it's
cheaper to supply our space stations and orbital factories from
lunar resources than from Earth. That's it. I don't give a shit
343

how many scientists you got up here or how many cripples
you've saved. The only reason the taxpayers of the United
States support this fairy palace is because it's cheaper than
boosting supplies and raw materials into orbit from the Earth.
Got that?"

Kelly was white-faced now. "That's about what I'd
expect from you. Did you bring any bombs with you?"

Colt leaned back in his chair and laughed. "Shit, baby,
you know nuclear weapons are outlawed in space. We signed
a treaty with the Russians thirty years ago. No weapons of
mass dee-struction. I bet if you swung a search-and-destroy
patrol through Lunagrad right now you wouldn't find more'n
three or four nukes."

Kinsman butted in. "Both you guys are supposed to be
officers and gentlemen. How about acting that way? You're
giving everybody a helluva floor show."

Kelly glanced over his shoulder. The people at most of
the other tables were staring at them. Including the Russians.
Colt just sat back and toyed with his fork.

Very quietly, Kelly said to Kinsman, "Chet, you had me
just about convinced to bring my family up here. But 1 can see
that it's useless. It only takes a few Neanderthals to ruin
everything, whether it's Earthside or on the Moon."

He got to his feet and walked stiffly out of the cafeteria,
leaving his untouched tray at the table.

Colt pursed his lips and looked at Kinsman. "He's too
soft to be an officer."

"He's a good man, Frank."

"Yeah, but nice guys finish last. And in a two-man race,
only the winner survives."

They finished their meal in silence with Kelly's food
getting cold beside them, a mute reminder of their differ-
ences.

Kinsman took Colt back to his own quarters after dinner.
"I've got a bottle of homebrew," he said as Colt plopped on
the living-room couch. "See what you think of it."

Kinsman slid back the partition to the kitchenette and
reached into a closet built in above the microwave cooker. He
pulled out a bottle of colorless liquid. "It's sort of a cross
between vodka and tequila. The guys in the chem lab made
it."

344

Colt was relaxed happily on the couch. "Y'know," he
said as he accepted a plastic cup from Kinsman, "I had
forgotten what luxury you cats live in. A living room, a
bedroom, a kitchen, all the electric power you want, all sorts
of display screens and gadgets—fantastic!"

Kinsman pulled up one of the webbed chairs that had
been scavenged from a wrecked dune buggy. 'T guess it is
pretty soft compared to the orbital stations."

"Compared to Earthside, man!" Colt said fervently.
"Compared to Washington or Vandenberg or anyplace else.
You'd have to be damned well off to have quarters this nice."

"Well," Kinsman filled Colt's cup and his own, "wel-
come to Selene, Frank."

He hoisted his cup and Colt returned the salute. Kinsman
sipped at his drink, carefully letting the burning liquid slide
over his tongue. Colt gulped.

"Aargghhh!" Colt squeezed his eyes shut and shook his
head viciously. "Wow! That's some chem lab you got, man!"

"They do good work," Kinsman admitted, grinning.

"On their own time, of course. No taxpayers' money
wasted on frivolities."

"On their own time," Kinsman said. "And under careful
supervision from the management. I won't let any bootleg-
ging operations get started around here."

Colt took another swallow. He held the cup up and
admired it. "Real rocket fuel, all right." He downed the rest
of it.

Kinsman put his cup down on the phone terminal next to
the couch. Colt did the same.

"Frank, you really shouldn't clobber kids like Kelly the
way you did."

"Hey, he jumped me!"

"I know. He's scared. He's got a wife and kids sitting
next to a SAC base."

"So whattaya want me to do, turn the other cheek?"

Grinning, "That'll be the day."

Colt spread his hands. "Look, Chet, I'll try to go easy on
these peaceniks you got up here. But I've got a job to do and
I'm gonna get it done. If it takes splitting heads or bruising
delicate egos, I can't help it. This base has gotta be prepared
against an attack."

345

"I know," Kinsman admitted. "But just don't go out of
your way to batter people. Most of them aren't in your
league. It's unfair to sock 'em so hard."

"Yassuh," Colt joked. Or maybe it was only half joking.
He got up from the couch and started shuffling, stooped over,
toward the door. "Us colored folks know our place, massah.
Don't want to make no trouble, no how."

"Go to hell," Kinsman said, laughing.

"See ya," Colt said at the door.

"Can you find your way back to your quarters okay?"

"Blindfolded."

"Good night, Frank."

As soon as Colt shut the door behind him, Kinsman
leaned over and touched the ON button of the phone terminal.
The screen lit up but showed no picture.

"Pat Ketly, please."

For a moment the phone hummed to itself, then the
computer's synthesized voice said, "Not in quarters."

"Find him."

It took several minutes before Kelly's face appeared on
the screen. He still looked tight-lipped, tense. Behind him,
Kinsman saw a stenciled sign on the wall identifying his
location as corridor C, area twenty.

"Taking a walk?" Kinsman asked.

Kelly replied, "I was trying to cool off and do some
thinking."

"Listen to me. Pat. I want you to get something through
your skull. Colt's going to be deputy commander of Moon-
base. There's nothing I can do about that. But I can create a
slot for an aide to the commander. I want you to take the job.
You won't have to go Earthside. You can bring your family
here."

Kelly's voice was dead flat. "Not while he's here. What's
the use?"

"We can make it work out okay," Kinsman insisted.
"I've known Frank since we were in astronaut training. There
isn't a helluva lot we agree on, but we're friends. Brothers,
almost. He saved my life once. I've helped him through some
rough times-"

Kelly said nothing.

"But as close as we are," Kinsman went on, "I'll never
346

know what it's like to be black. And neither will you. He's
fought goddamned hard to get where he is now. He's had to
jump over hurdles that we can't even imagine."

"Come on now, Chet," Kelly said. "That poor little
underprivileged kid from the ghetto—I've been hearing that
routine all my life. It's phony as hell."

"People still burn synagogues, Pat. And they still kick
niggers. It's getting worse, not better. Frank's got the scars to
prove it."

"And I'm supposed to—"

"You're supposed to act like an adult," Kinsman snapped.
"You do the job that needs to be done and you bring your
family up here where they'll be safe."

"Even with him around?"

"Even with him around," Kinsman said.

Kelly looked doubtful. But some of the anger had left his
face.

"Start the paperwork tomorrow first thing," Kinsman
said. "That's an order. You are now my aide. And your family
comes up on the next available shuttle space."

"Well . . ."

"And while we're at it, dig into the personnel files and
find out how many of the permanent residents here have
immediate family Earthside."

"My God, are you going to start a rescue service?"

"Call it an immigration service," Kinsman replied. He
snapped off the phone and Kelly's face faded from the screen.

Then he touched another button and turned to the big
wall screen across from his chair. It showed the Earth.

"You know damned well you can't take them all," he
whispered to himself. "I can't save them all. God, there's
seven billion of them!"

Kinsman could not sleep that night. He got into his bed
and turned off all the lights and display screens and stayed
wide awake.

Seven billion of them.

And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars . . . For
nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against king-
dom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and
earthquakes . . . And woe unto them that are with child, and
to them that give suck in those days!
347

But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on
the sabbath day:

For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since
the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor shall ever be.

"Apocalypse," he whispered to himself.

Sitting up in the sweaty, wrinkled bed he fumbled with
the keyboard on the nightstand and then stared at the display
screen image of Earth floating in the darkness of his room.

". . . famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes . . .
nation shall rise against nation ..."

He squeezed his eyes shut and saw the dead cosmonaut
again. Hanging in space. Oxygen lines ripped out.

"By my hand."

Kinsman held his hands out before him in the shadows of
the darkened room. So you're going to survive while every-
body else dies. You're guiltier than they are. You've killed.
You didn't push any buttons; you did it the old-fashioned
way. With your own hands.

"And if thy right hand offends thee, cut it off." The
sound of his own voice in the darkness startled him. He knew
it was not the correct quotation, but it fit. It fit.

Sunday meetings. The Sunday they found that a squirrel
had gotten into the Meeting House and chewed up half the
leather upholstery on the benches.

"Serves us right," his father had said. "Upholstered
benches are an affectation."

This from the richest Quaker in Pennsylvania. A strange
collection of contrasts he was. Wish I had known him better.

The school kids teasing him because he was a Quaker.
Calling him William Penn. The tough ones, the big ones,
ganging around him. "Let's see you quake, Quaker." How to
get your nose broken. How to learn to talk your way out of a
fight.

But there's no way to talk yourself out of this one.

Never to fly a plane again! If they wipe themselves out
there will be no airplanes. No airfields.

"Who're you trying to kid?" he asked himself. "You
couldn't handle one now. Not after years of living in low gee.
You're soft as a sponge. Reflexes gone. Pushing forty."

Why do they have to have their war? In a half century of
348

Cold War, haven't they learned anything? Why must they
blow up everything?

He knew why. For the same reason he had killed the
cosmonaut. Exactly the same reason. It was not necessary. It
wasn't. But you get the fury into you and you can't stop. Not
until it's too late.

The alarm buzzer sounded. The bedroom lights slowly
turned on to half-intensity. Time to get up.

To hell with everything and everybody, he told himself.
This is the way it is and this is the way I've got to play it.

Things always look different in the light of day, he
mused, even when the light is artificial. Not easier. Not
better. But more rational. You can deal with things logically
in day's light. In the dark, fearful shapes haunt the shadows.

Kinsman put in a phone call for Leonov, then dry-
showered and dressed while he waited. Finally the phone
buzzed and the computer told him that the Russian com-
mander was on the line.

The screen went gray, but no picture took form. Leo-
nov's voice came through strong and clear. "I didn't realize
that capitalists got up so early in the morning."

Kinsman shot back, "That's how we stay ahead of you
centralized bureaucrats."

"Hah! A slanderous provocation."

Getting serious. Kinsman asked, "You've heard about
this Antarctica thing?"

"Yes."

He waited for Leonov to say something more. When
nothing came, he asked, "Any further word on your replace-
ment?"

"No, not yet."

Leonov's voice sounded strained. They're bugging his
line, Kinsman realized. And probably mine, too.

"We've got to get together, Pete, and discuss things. The
buggy race and all ..."

"I can't," Leonov immediately replied. "Not today. Too
many other problems to attend to. Possibly in a day or two."

Nodding to himself, Kinsman said, "Yeah. Okay. Call
me."

He shut off the phone and stood there naked for a few
349

uncertain moments, then punched the keyboard once again.

"Get me a flitter," he said to the flickering gray screen.
"Long-range flight. I'll fill out the flight plan in the operations
office. Be there in half an hour."

Sunday 5 December 1999:

0945 hrs UT

KINSMAN RODE ALONE across the ghostly landscape. The flitter
boosted into a high arc, gliding silently through the long lunar
night. The ground below him was softly lit by Earthlight, a
jumbled panorama of gray rocks and craters.

He was strapped into the pilot's seat of the tiny rocket-
driven craft, coasting over the highlands east of Aristarchus.
The Sea of Tranquility was a dark smear on the horizon ahead
of him.

He flew alone. The craft was pressurized, so he could
keep his visor up. The pressure suit was bulky and uncomfort-
able, but he willingly kept it on. If anything happened to the
flitter, the suit could save his life. It had happened before.

The highlands slid by, far below, peeked and roiled
mountains sandblasted and worn smooth by eons of meteoric
infall. The only sounds inside the flitter's cockpit were the
faint hum of the electrical power system and the even fainter
hiss of the air circulators.

This is silly, Kinsman second-guessed himself. A damned
stupid waste of time. But the craft was locked onto its course
by the unyielding laws of ballistics. The pilgrimage, once
begun, had to be carried through to its destination.

By twisting around in the pilot's seat and leaning as far
forward as the harness would allow, he could see Earth
beckoning. He leaned back again and checked the instru-
ments on the panel before him. But this occupied only a
fraction of his attention. He kept seeing Jill's face, and
Diane's and Kelly's and Leonov's and those of the people he
350

knew in Washington, California, back home in Pennsylvania.
Worst of all he kept seeing children: playing, running, in
school, at sleep, all burned away in the searing glare of a
fireball.

Keep thinking with your tear glands, he raged at himself.
That's a terrific way to solve a problem!

His helmet earphones buzzed. Flicking a switch on the
control panel he said crisply, "Kinsman here."

"Comm center, sir. We're picking up a news broadcast
from Earthside. Officer of the Day thought you would want to
hear it."

"Okay, pipe it through."

There was a barely discernible click and a momentary
hum. Then: ". . . of Lieutenant Commander Ernest Rich-
ards. White House spokesmen have emphasized that the
shooting took place in international territory, although last
year the Soviet Union and several Latin American and Asian
nations served notice that they intended to exploit the mineral
resources of Antarctica."

The smoothly professional broadcasters voice contin-
ued, "The United Nations has debated the issue of exploita-
tion since its opening session this fall, with the United States
taking a sharply different position from that of the Soviet
Union.

"Senator Russel Montguard of North Carolina has called
the shooting of Navy officer Richards, quote, 'An act of
international murder; yes, an act of war.' Unquote. Other
reactions from around the world include . . ."

Kinsman snapped the radio off. Now it's an international
incident. An act of war. Just the excuse they've been looking
for.

The control panel's lights and instruments winked at him,
amber. The computer display screen flashed numbers and a
view of his landing site. The radar altimeter's digital readout
began spiraling downward.

The rocket engine fired without Kinsman's aid, pro-
grammed by the computer. He felt inordinately heavy for a
few moments. Then the thrust shut off and almost simultane-
ously he felt the springy thump of the craft's landing struts
touching down on the Sea of Tranquility.

The guidance system checked the local landmarks and
351

peered at the arrangement of stars overhead through the
flitter's stereo telescope. Then it proclaimed, with a loud beep
and a bright green circle drawn on the computer display
screen, that they had indeed touched down at precisely the
destination point programmed. All the lights on the control
panel burned a steady green.

"Proud of yourself, aren't you?" Kinsman asked the
humming machinery.

He slid his helmet visor shut and sealed it, then un-
strapped from the seat while the pumps sucked the air out of
the cockpit with a diminuendo clatter and stored it in the
tanks built into the craft below the cockpit. Kinsman opened
the canopy hatch and clambered down the ladder to the sandy
lunar soil. He started across the uneven ground, leaving
footprints that would last for eons.

He topped a small rise and there it was: the seismome-
ters, the laser reflector, the stiffly proud flag, the gold-
wrapped lower half of the landing module. Just as they had
left it thirty years ago. The only change was the clear plastic
cover that had been lovingly sprayed over the ground to
protect the original footprints of Armstrong and Aldrin.

"Tranquility Base," Kinsman murmured.

Picking his way through the assorted hardware left by the
astronauts, Kinsman walked around the landing module until
he found the plaque. The stainless steel was still polished and
gleaming, even in the faint light from Earth:

HERE MEN FROM THE PLANET EARTH
FIRST SET FOOT UPON THE MOON
JULY 1969, A.D.
WE CAME IN PEACE FOR ALL MANKIND

Kinsman stared at it for a long time, especially the last
line. Then he lifted his eyes toward the beautiful Earth and
muttered, "'Nation shall not lift up sword against nation;

neither shall they make war any more.' ... At least, not
here;'

A flicker of movement caught his eye. Stepping away
from the Apollo module he looked upward as far as his
helmet would aliow his vision to rise. A flash of light—rocket
352

thrusters. The tiny gleam of another lunar flier solidified into
a full-sized craft, engines flaring silently, landing struts poking
rigidly outward. A Russian flitter.

It touched down close enough for Kinsman to watch its
noiseless landing. The bubble canopy opened and a red-suited
figure rose out of the cockpit and climbed slowly down the
ladder.

Kinsman walked toward the newcomer. "Pete?" he
called into his helmet microphone.

"Yes," Leonov's deep voice answered.

Kinsman's spirits soared. "How the hell did you know I'd
be here?"

Leonov trudged over to him and laid a heavily gloved
hand on Kinsman's shoulder. "My spies watch you very
closely," he said flatly. "And so does my radar. It was rather
simple to fix your trajectory and puzzle out your destination.
No?"

"And you came out after me."

"Officially, I am discussing the need for tighter security
with our radio astronomers at the Farside Station. As far as
my intelligence officers back at Lunagrad are concerned, I
have made this stop to see what you are up to."

"I'm making a pilgrimage in the desert," Kinsman said.
"When I saw your ship I was hoping you were doing the
same."

"To a shrine dedicated to American success? Hardly."

"There are medals for Gagarin and Komarov in there."
Kinsman hiked a thumb in the direction of the lunar module.

"Yes, I know." Leonov hesitated a moment, then,
"What really brings you out here?"

Kinsman said, "I couldn't sleep."

"Neither could I."

"What are we going to do about it?"

"Chet, my comrade, let's not begin to torture ourselves
again."

"There must be something we can do!"

"Hah! I'm going to be replaced in ten days and you have
your black superpatriot snarling at your heels."

"So whatever we do, it's got to be done in the next ten
days."

353

Leonov said nothing. Kinsman could sense his disap-
proval.

"Come on, Pete'" he snapped.
"Do you have a plan of action?" the Russian asked

softly.

"I wish I did." Kinsman stamped his booted foot, stirring
up a cloud of dust. His legs felt itchy and it was impossible to
scratch them inside the cumbersome suit.

"So," said Leonov. "You talk and worry and stay awake
nights—but you have no idea of what can be done."

"Do you?"

Leonov raised both hands above his heimet. "Spare me
this endless self-flagellation!"

"Now, don't get excited," said Kinsman. "Before we can
lay any plans we've got to agree on how far we're willing to

go."

"In what direction?"

"Well ..." Kinsman suddenly realized that he had
known the first step all along. "To begin with, suppose you
refused to return Earthside. Suppose you requested that you
remain in Lunagrad. What then?"

The shoulders of Leonov's red suit moved vaguely, as if
he were shrugging inside it. "I have several weeks' leave due
to me. I could ask to spend it in Lunagrad rather than at
home. But it would be a very suspicious move."

"Suppose you refused to relinquish command of Luna-
grad?"

"Mmm . . ." The Russian's voice grew somber. "That
would be a direct disobedience of orders. Treason against the
state. Very serious."

"What about your wife and children?"

"I doubt that the security police would bother them.
Nothing like that has been done in twenty years, despite the
horror stories concocted by your Western press. But, frankly,
I would worry about the children."

"And your wife?"

He almost laughed. "My darling wife would be quite
happy to see me shot. It would free her completely."

"Oh, I didn't know . . ."

"It is not something one boasts about."

An embarrassed silence settled over them. Finally Leo-
354

nov asked, "Well, you obviously have something in mind.
What is it?"

Without letting himself stop to think. Kinsman an-
swered, "Declare independence."

Leonov said nothing.

"Make Selene a nation, declare our independence from
both the United States and the Soviet Union and apply for
membership in the United Nations."

It took a long time for Leonov to reply. "I thought so. I
was afraid that would be your brilliant idea."

"Look at it point by point," Kinsman urged, starting to
feel some enthusiasm. "First, we won't have to fight here on
the Moon. If we unite, we won't fight. The only way we can
unite is for both of us to stop taking orders from Earthside.
The only way we can stop taking orders is to declare ourselves
independent ..."

"We would starve to death in a matter of weeks."

"Not so!" Kinsman snapped. "Moonbase's water capaci-
ty can more than take care of all our needs. If we combine it
with yours we can irrigate more farmlands and grow enough
crops and livestock to be completely self-sufficient."

"If we have enough water."

"We will. We'll have enough in a few months for
everything we want to do, plus an emergency backup, as
well."

Before Leonov could say more. Kinsman went on, "The
only way to make our independence stick is to have the UN
recognize us. I think there are enough unaligned nations in
the General Assembly that are fed up with both the West and
the East to vote us in."

"That debating society!" Leonov stamped a few paces
away from Kinsman. "Chet, my lunar brother, I expected
better of you. This idea of independence is nonsense, idiocy.
It cannot work. I myself have thought about it a thousand
times. But it cannot succeed!"

"But if the UN would recognize an independent
Selene ..."

"Hah! So what? What good would it do? Long before the
question of our glorious independence is even placed on the
debating society's agenda, both Moonbase and Lunagrad
would be buried alive under troops from Earthside. Our
355

court-martials would be finished and our bodies fertilizing the
pig farms before the UN bureaucrats could lift a finger."

"But—"

"Admit it!" Leonov nearly shouted. "We have no mili-
tary strength. You could not even be sure that enough of your
own Moonbase people would go along with your insane idea.
All you would do would be to foment civil war inside your
own community."

Kinsman shook his head. "No. That much I'm certain of.
You forget, I've been selecting the permanent residents of
Moonbase for the past five years. I know who they are and
what they'll do. The ninety-dayers—yes, we'd have trouble
with some of them. But nothing we couldn't handle."

Leonov snorted. "Well, I know what would happen in
Lunagrad. Half the populace would shoot the other half, and
I have no idea who would be left alive when the smoke
cleared. Possibly no one."

Despite himself. Kinsman grinned. "I thought you said
Lunagrad was filled with exiles."

"Yes—but they are Soviet exiles. Not citizens of some
new nation called Selene."

"And they're not sufficiently intelligent to see that a free
Selene is to the advantage of everyone, including Mother

Russia?"

Leonov's voice went from scornful to curious. "What do

you mean?"

"If we declared our independence it would startle both
America and Russia. If we stopped supplying oxygen and
water and supplies to the space stations, it would upset their
orbital operations quite a bit . . ."

"For a month or two, possibly. No longer."

"All right." Kinsman glanced at the ungainly Apollo
lander squatting nearby. He could not see the plaque from
where he was standing. "But we'd cause enough of a fuss,
enough of an upset to their plans, that they'd be forced to
delay this war buildup. This Antarctica incident would be
pushed from their minds. By turning their attention to us we
could stop them from going to war against each other."

Leonov sighed heavily. "I wish it were that simple, my
friend. But it is not. Nothing will stop them from fighting their
356

war. They will bow only to superior force, and there is no
force superior anywhere on Earth or the Moon. History is
inexorable, just as Marx said."

"No, it doesn't have to . . ."

"Chet, you are being naive! Assume the best possible
results. Assume that your most optimistic hopes come true:

We become independent and the UN recognizes us. Your
nation and mine do not interfere, and we are allowed to
remain independent. Their war is averted. For how long? Six
months? A year? Have we provided more food for anyone on
Earth? More energy? Sooner or later we will be exactly where
we are now: standing here helplessly and watching them build
up for war. There is no way to avoid it! The Earth is too
crowded, resources too scarce. Why do you think they are
shooting at each other in Antarctica? Both of them need that
coal!"

Kinsman agreed reluctantly. "With the oil running out,
there's not enough for everybody."

"Even with the success of the fusion experiments,"
Leonov said, "they won't be able to produce enough energy
to make any difference for another ten or twenty years."

"If we could hold off the war for that long . . ."

"We could not hold it off for ten months," Leonov said.

"You're right," Kinsman admitted.

"So, my idealistic friend, declaring independence for
Selene will achieve nothing. It will change nothing."

Kinsman said, "It will guarantee that more than a
thousand human beings will survive the war, without being
killed off later by disease or starvation."

Leonov went silent. He turned and paced toward the
landing module, then stopped as the American flag came into
view from behind its spidery body.

"Do you seriously believe," he asked slowly, without
turning back to face Kinsman, "that any of us could watch our
homelands being destroyed without going mad? Do you
honestly believe that their war will not destroy us, too?"

Forcing his voice to stay calm as he walked to stand
beside his friend. Kinsman answered, "We could get through
it without fighting. If we tried."

The Russian's voice was infinitely sad. "No, old friend. I
357

might trust you and you might trust me, but to expect a
thousand Russians and Americans to trust each other while
they watch their families being killed—never,"

Kinsman wanted to scream. Instead he heard himself
whisper, "But Pete, what can we do?"

"Nothing. The world will end. The millennium is rushing
upon us. A thousand years ago most Christians believed that
the world would end at the millennium. They were off by a
factor of a thousand years. It will end now. And there is
nothing we can do."

The flight back to Selene seemed longer and lonelier than
the flight to Tranquility Base. Kinsman tried to blank every-
thing out of his mind, think of nothing whatever. Impossible.

The world will end. There is nothing we can do.

Wrong! It had to be wrong. There must be something
that can be done. Something!

As he gazed at the richly blue Earth hanging above the
horizon the enormity of it struck him. He was ready to rebel
against the United States of America, against the mightiest
nation the world had ever known, against the three hundred
million people he had sworn to defend and protect. Leonov's
right, he thought. It's madness.

Kinsman's mind flooded with memories: Thanksgiving
dinners, sitting in school watching filmstrips about the Decla-
ration of Independence, the maddening bus ride each morn-
ing from Crystal City to the dingy old Pentagon, the first time
he had ever seen the Grand Canyon, pledging allegiance to
the flag as a solemn little kid and then the special flip of
saluting the same flag at retreat that first day he wore his
shining new gold lieutenant's bars, snap-rolling an F-16 under
the Golden Gate Bridge, "Don't Give Up the Ship," "Send
Us More Japs," "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death,"
"Government of the People, by the People ..."

We're the people' he told himself. They've got no right to
make us fight their goddamned war.

All that history, all that training, three hundred million
programmed people . . . How could Selene hold out against
it? Each man, woman, and child in Moonbase trained and
indoctrinated since birth, "My Country, Tis of Thee . . ."
358

And then he remembered a line from a physics class, a
chalk-dusty little man of a teacher with a pinched face and the
same gray suit every day of the semester saying, "Give me a
lever long enough and a place to stand and I can move the
Earth."

Is a quarter-million miles long enough? Kinsman won-
dered.

To anyone who took notice of such things, Jill Meyers
and Alexsei Landau made an incongruous couple: the tall,
grave, bearded Russian and the tiny, perky, moonfaced
American woman.

At the moment no one was noticing. Jill and Landau
stood in the midst of a knot of people watching a TV newscast
from Earth. They were in Selene's central plaza, the wide
high-domed arcade that had started as a natural cavern, been
converted into a quartermaster's depot, and grown into a
multitiered complex of privately owned shops that seemed to
grow organically around the government-issue outlets.

There was little buying and selling right now. The crowd
stood in tense silence in the middle of the arcade, watching
the big TV screen set up in the archway at the far end. An
Earthside newscaster was grimly narrating the day's events
while the screen showed videotapes of the American base at
McMurdo Sound, where Lieutenant Commander Richards's
flag-draped coffin was being loaded aboard a jet transport
plane.

The scene switched to Washington, the old Pentagon,
gray and forbidding.

"While no word has yet been received from the White
House," the newscaster was intoning, "informed Pentagon
officials have hinted that American military units around the
world have been alerted for possible action. Satellite moni-
tors have identified a Russian task force steaming at top speed
for Antarctica from Vladivostok, and East European troop
maneuvers continue in Poland and Czechoslovakia, under the
guise of winter exercises . . ."

Jill turned to Landau. She had to crane her neck to talk
to him, but the inconvenience never entered her mind. "Alex,
do you think they're going to do it this time?"
359

He shook his head. "Madmen, all of them. Insanity. It
comes from heavy metal pollutants in the air—they cause
brain damage."

"Be serious," Jill insisted. The people around them
began to glare and shush them.

Landau took her by the arm and started pushing through
the crowd. "I am being serious. It begins to look as if the end
of the world is really at hand."

Jill felt a shudder go through her. She let Landau lead
her out of the crowd, then toward the power ladder that went
down to the living quarters. He slid his arms around her and
pulled her close.

"If we have only a few days, little one, let us use them
wisely."

By the time he got back to his office Kinsman realized
that he could not face the evening alone. He called Diane and
asked her to dinner.

In the phone's small picture screen, she seemed genuine-
ly happy to hear from him. "Dinner will be fine. Why don't
you come over to my place?"

He hesitated. "You're probably busy enough . . ."

With a smile, she said, "Don't be silly. I like to cook."

And she cooked quite well, Kinsman decided. Lunar
food consisted almost entirely of home-grown vegetables, a
precious smattering of chicken, pork, and rabbit, and an
occasional luxury item such as fish or spices from Earth.
Diane's dinner consisted almost entirely of soybeans in vari-
ous disguises, plus a dessert of barbaric splendor: cherries
jubilee.

Kinsman had brought one of his rare bottles of Burgun-
dy, and they were savoring the last of it when Diane told him
her news.

"Harry Pierce is going back home on the shuttle next
week."

Kinsman felt his eyebrows rise. "He told you that?"

She nodded.

"He hasn't sent through a request yet."

"He will. He wants to get back to his family. All this talk
of emergencies and war has him scared."

"He'd be smarter to bring his family up here."
360

"That's not the way he sees it," Diane said. "He wants to
go home. And he's going to recommend me to take his
place."

Kinsman felt shock. "You?"

"Me."

"But you've just come up here . . ."

She looked at him steadily. "He's going to recommend
me. But the recommendation needs the base commander's
approval. Will you turn it down?"

Trying to suppress a frown. Kinsman heard his own voice
say, "Is that why you invited me over here? To cement the
deal?"

Instead of getting angry, Diane broke into a grin.
"You're still the total chauvinist, aren't you? You think I got
Pierce's recommendation in bed."

"Did you?"

"That's none of your damned business," Diane replied,
still looking smug. "But Harry was a fan of mine, you know,
back Earthside. He collected my records."

"A patron of the arts."

"And it might further interest you to know," Diane
continued haughtily, "that my aptitude scores and work
records rate me higher than anyone else in the comm section
—anyone who's staying here, that is," she finished more
soberly.

He nodded. "A lot of them are going to want to go back
home. Damned fools."

"You can't blame them, Chet."

"They'd be a lot safer here," he said.

Diane shook her head. "That's just logic. You're dealing
with emotions."

"Panic."

"Very close to it," she agreed.

"What about you?" he asked. "What about your daugh-
ter?"

"I don't know what to do," Diane said. "Could I get a
few days off to return to Arizona and bring my daughter
here?"

"You could ask the base commander for an emergency
leave," Kinsman said. Before she could speak he added, "But
you won't get it. You're going to stay here, Diane. Have your
361

daughter sent here; I'll okay that."

"But she's too young to travel by herself."
"1 can get an Aerospace Force officer to bring her up

here. But you're not going back Earthside," Kinsman said.

"It's too dangerous. The balloon could go up any minute.

You're staying here."

"Whether I want to or not?" Her eyes locked on his.
He nodded. 'That's right. Whether you want to or not.

Now that you're here I'm not going to let you go."

Monday 6 December 1999:

0345 hrs UT

KINSMAN PULLED HIMSELF up to a sitting position on the bed.
He stared into the darkness of Diane's bedroom, running his
tongue across his lower teeth. They felt gritty.

She turned beside him. "You're not sleeping?"

"No."

"What's the matter?" Her voice sounded hollow, as if
she were stifling a yawn.

"Can't sleep," he said simply.

She sat up beside him. He could smell the musky odor
from their lovemaking. "You're really worried about this war
emergency?"

"Shouldn't I be?"

"They've had these crises before. It'll blow away."

"Not this time."

She put her hand on his back. "You don't think they're
really crazy enough to start throwing nuclear bombs around,
do you?"

"This time it's for real." He turned toward her, and
could barely make out her face in the shadows. The only light
in the room came from the digital clock built into the wall
alongside the bed. "I'm going to try to talk Pierce out of
362

leaving. I'll tell him to bring his family up here, instead."

"You really think it's that serious?"

"We're going to declare our independence from Earth.
Leonov and I. I want as much of everybody's family as
possible to be here when the shit hits the fan. Is there
somebody back Earthside who can take your daughter to
Cape Canaveral?"

"I don't know." Diane's voice was a frightened whisper.

"I'm hoping that our declaration of independence—and
cutting off the supplies to the space stations—will throw a
monkey wrench into their war preparations."

"Will the Russians go along . . . ?"

"Pete's saying no, but he means yes. We'll work it out."

"And if you don't?"

He shrugged. "At least we'll have brought as many
families up here as we can. We'll survive here."

"Is that why you never went back to Earth once you got
here? You've been worrying about this moment?"

Kinsman looked off into the darkness. "I never thought
of it. Not consciously, anyway. Maybe you're right. Maybe I
have been getting myself ready for this."

"Then your medical record is faked?"

He turned back toward her. "How do you know about
my medical record?"

Her voice sounded faintly amused. "I have access to the
personnel computer."

"H'mm."

"There's nothing secret about your file, is there?"

"No ..." But he felt all the old fears welling up inside
him.

"The file does go blank, just as Dr. Faraffa said. It makes
you very mysterious."

He did not reply.

"And there's a medical notation about a heart condi-
tion."

"Officially," Kinsman explained slowly, "I'm supposed
to have a heart condition that makes a full Earth gravity
dangerous for me. It's only a little hypertension, but Jill
Meyers wrote it into my file so that I can stay here in Selene
indefinitely."

363

"Officially," Diane murmured.

"Unofficially," he went on, "it's because I don't want to
give Murdock or any of the Earthside brass a chance to call
me back and keep me down there. I decided a long time ago
that this is where I want to be. This is my home."

He could sense Diane shaking her head. "So those are
the official and unofficial reasons. Now what are the real
reasons?"

The fear was still inside him, but it felt strangely muted,
distant, fading.

"Chet," Diane said, tracing a finger along the length of
his thigh, "you haven't told me anything you wouldn't tell Pat
Kelly or one of your other buddies. We've known each other
a long time. I don't care about your politics or your Air Force
brass. I want to know what's going on inside your head."

"Why?"

"I've never been able to figure you out," she admitted.
"And now I want to. I've got to. I need to know everything
about you. Everything."

A picture of Samson and Delilah flashed through his
mind. "You want to know why I haven't gone back Earthside
for five years."

Her answer was so immediate it startled him. "I want to
know what you're afraid of."

"It's too beautiful," he said. "And too ugly. It's too big
and exciting, and too small and crowded. It's . . ."

"It's home," she said for him.

He nodded. "Right. Everybody up here knows that. All
the permanent Luniks. We feel like exiles, no matter how
much we tell each other that Selene is better than New York
or Moscow or London or Tokyo. It is better up here! That's
the hell of it. We have more freedom, more food and energy,
even more living space per capita than most Earth cities. A
better, more intelligent society ..."

"But Earth is home."

"The elephants' graveyard," Kinsman said. "If 1 spent a
few days on Earth—especially if I got out into whatever's left
of the countryside, saw a blue sky with clouds, or a hill
covered with grass, trees . . ."

"They're mostly covered with housing developments."
364

"No they're not. Not by a long shot. I can see them from
here, through the 'scopes. Montana, the Canadian Rockies,
the Mongolian grasslands—there are still herds of horses
running wild out there! And the oceans! If I stood on a beach
and watched the breakers coming in . . ."

He stopped. His voice had risen. He was losing control.

Calmer, he said, "You don't have to worry about Pierce
staying. I know him. He'll take the shuttle and go back to his
family, no matter what I tell him. He'll head for the ele-
phants' graveyard to die, all right."

"And we'll stay here."

"Right."

"We'll survive."

"Yes."

Diane sighed. "We're the strong ones, aren't we?"

"I wish I knew," he said.

"Are we going to have a life together, Chet?"

He looked away from her and mumbled again, "I wish I
knew."

"What's the secret, Chet?"

Don't act surprised; you knew she was going to dig that
deep, he told himself. For a long moment he was silent, trying
to identify the feelings swirling inside him: anger? fear? pain?

"Whatever it is," Diane said softly, "it won't hurt half so
much after you've shared it."

How do you know you can trust her? he asked himself.
You've known her almost all your life and yet you hardly
know her at all.

But he heard himself saying, "It was on an orbital
mission, years ago. Before we started cooperating with the
Russians, before we came back to the Moon. I was inspecting
one of their satellites ..."

His mind detached from his body. He watched himself
numbly reciting the ancient story, sitting there in bed beside
this beautiful woman and opening himself to her as he had
never opened himself to anyone in his life.

"It was a big mother, just launched. Our intelligence
people were afraid it might be an orbital bomb. The cosmo-
naut came up in a separate capsule while I was in the midst of
examining their satellite. We fought—like a couple of sea
365

elephants barging into each other. We didn't have any real
weapons. We just pawed at each other."

He was floating again. Weightless.

"I could have backed off and gotten back to my own
spacecraft, but I stayed and fought. Very patriotic. Very full
of righteous wrath. I fought, I wanted to fight. I pulled out her
airhose. I killed her."

"Her?"

Nodding, seeing her face in the bulbous helmet behind
the heavily tinted visor, screaming silently, going rigid.

"I didn't know it was girl." His voice was as dead as she
was. "Not until I had already ripped out her air line. That's
when I got close enough to see into her helmet."

He stopped.

"And you've been carrying around this load of guilt
about it ever since." Diane took one of his hands in both of
hers.

"I swore to myself that I'd never kill anyone again ... I
wouldn't let them make me kill anyone . . ."

"Chet, it wasn't your fault."

"Of course it was. / fought the cosmonaut. I wanted to
kill! I wanted to rip the sonofabitch's airhose out of his
helmet. I didn't have to. But I wanted to."

"And you didn't know it was a woman."

"No. How could I?"

Diane started to say something, but he went on, "Now
I've got to convince Leonov that he can trust us, can trust me.
With this thing sticking in my guts. And he probably knows
about it; they have intelligence files on it. How can he trust
me? How can he trust any one of us?"

"But you trust him, don't you?"

"He never killed any of us."

Diane asked, "Had you killed other people, before,
when you were flying combat missions in fighter planes?"

"Never. I never even touched the firing button."

"And if it had been a male cosmonaut," she went on,
"would you feel so guilty about it?"

He stared at her. "No, I guess not."

"Why not?"

"I don't know," he said vaguely. "Men expect to fight, I
guess. Ifs different . . ."

366

"You've let this thing hang around your neck for how
long now?"

He shrugged. "Ten years, just about."

"That's long enough," Diane said firmly. "It's over. It's
done with. You can't bring her back. And it wasn't your fault,
to begin wi—"

"I've had all the psychology lectures," he snapped. "It
was my fault. Nobody else's."

"So you've got a built-in excuse for keeping a wall around
yourself and not taking any chances on getting hurt again."

"Me get hurt?"

"Yes, you! You're not worried about some Russian
woman you never knew. You're worried about Chester
Arthur Kinsman, worried that people won't like you if they
knew you killed somebody. Worried that Leonov won't be
your buddy anymore. That's what's eating at you. Not her.
She's been dead for ten years."

"Don't tell me what's churning my guts!"

"Chet," Diane said more softly, leaning her head against
his bare chest, "you lost control, didn't you? For the first time
in your life you let your emotions take over."

"And committed murder."

"So ever since then you've kept yourself all bottled up,
kept your emotions under lock and key."

He nodded silently. Diane was right, he knew.

"That's why you're so afraid to let your emotions loose
again, isn't it?"

Kinsman felt tears in his eyes. "I can't, Diane. Even
when I try, even in bed—I can't let myself go."

"You're a very good lover," she said.

"I'm good at the mechanics, maybe, but the emotion
isn't there," he whispered, admitting it to himself more than
to her. "I'm just going through the motions, conscious of
every move I make."

"You could have fooled me." Diane giggled.

He smiled in the darkness. "Yeah, but I can't fool me."

Diane reached up and kissed him lightly on the lips, "My
poor Chet. Even when I first met you, you were the most
self-contained guy I had ever seen. All these years I couldn't
figure you out."

"So now you know."

367

"I'm beginning to understand you." Diane sounded
pleased. "I'm beginning to think maybe I can get through the
wall you've built around yourself. If you let me."

"And what happens then?" he heard himself ask.

"Maybe I can help you to be happy, Chet. Maybe you
can help me to be, too."

"That would be good," he said. Then he realized, "Oh
Christ!"

"What?" Diane sounded startled. "What is it?"

"Pete. I'll have to admit the whole thing to him, too."

"Pete?"

"Leonov."

"Leonov." Diane's voice went low and calm and mea-
sured, "Yes, you've got to tell Leonov about it."

He felt hollow inside. No longer angry. Not even fearful.
Empty. Nothing was there but a dull, distant ache.

"I don't know if I can," he said.

"You can."

"It's not that easy. Admitting it to you—even admitting
it to Pete—won't exorcise the demon."

Diane put her hand on his cheek. It felt cool and soft to
him. "It will always be with you, Chet," she said. "You'll
never get rid of it completely. But you can't let it stand in your
way. You have important things to do, and you can't let this
keep you from doing them."

He knew she was right. Still, it scared him,

Pierce's request for a transfer was on Kinsman's desk
when he got to his office that morning. He called the
communications chief and tried briefly, perfunctorily, to
argue him out of it. Pierce was politely adamant. And he
recommended Diane Lawrence to take over his position.

Tight-lipped, Kinsman agreed. Pierce smiled and
thanked him.

Leaning back in his desk chair. Kinsman punched a
button on his desktop keyboard and an Earthside newscast
filled the main wall screen. The view was of the speaker's
podium in the General Assembly chamber of the UN building
in New York. The Soviet delegate was fulminating, glaring at
the Americans sitting in the front row, his brows knit angrily,
arms gesticulating. The interpretation was being spoken in a
368

young woman's British voice as calm and flatly unemotional
as Selene's computer:

"... the capitalist imperialists were obviously guilty of
invading territory that was clearly marked by representatives
of the USSR, thereby deliberately provoking the incident.
This aggression was rightfully repelled, as American aggres-
sion has been repelled by freedom-loving peoples all over the
globe."

There was a commotion and the TV camera swung to the
American desk, where the chief delegate was on his feet
bellowing, "Mr. Chairman, how long must we listen to this
pack of lies and distortions? There can be no meaningful
resolution . . ."

The Russian speaker pounded the podium with his fists
and shouted something unintelligible. The entire American
delegation came to its feet, yelling.

Kinsman watched, stunned, while the cameras panned
across the huge chamber. It looked as if a riot was about to
break out. Shouting, screaming, arm-waving. The only per-
son who remained in his seat was the Chairman, up at his desk
above the podium. A slim, dark Latin American with big sad
eyes, he merely sat there shaking his head.

The last, best hope of mankind, Kinsman thought. He
snapped off the newscast and sat staring at the blank screen
for a moment. Then he got up from his desk.

Better make the rounds, he told himself. He decided to
start with the water factory.

He spent half the morning there, listening to Ernie
Waterman complaining about how difficult everything was,
over the noise of the construction crews. Yet they were
making considerable progress, Kinsman saw. The dour-faced
engineer was cautious to the point of being morose, but
Kinsman knew that Selene would have plenty of water for all
its needs, even if those needs suddenly doubled.

The water factory was actually half an ore-processing
plant and half a water-purification facility. The rock crushers
dwarfed human scale, taking in fresh loads of ore from the
mining crawlers that came from as far north as the Straight
Wall and as far south as Fra Mauro. Kinsman clambered over
the big crushers, feeling the rumble of their heavy machinery
in his bones. This was the most expensive equipment in
369

Selene, hauled up from Earthside over a three-year period.
Selene's technicians could maintain and repair them but it
would be years before they could even attempt to build such
machines on their own.

Following the clattering conveyor belts that carried the
pulverized rock, Kinsman came to the electric arcs humming
steadily inside their stainless steel jackets. From here onward
the factory was a maze of plumbing: pipes overhead, under-
foot, lining kilometers of tunnels, sweating beads of precious
ice-cold water no matter how much insulation the engineers
put on them. Kinsman stepped over, ducked under, squeezed
between the pipelines that carried Selene's lifeblood.

Waterman dogged behind him, leaning on his canes,
unhappily cataloging his real and projected problems all the
way through the factory. Finally, as they walked through the
relatively quiet corridors of the factory's office and control
area, Waterman said:

"I still don't see what all the rush is about. I wish you'd
let me ease off; some of these guys have been working double
shifts. They're getting tired enough to start causing acci-
dents."

Kinsman stopped in front of the window that looked in
on the computer control section. Watching the nearly unat-
tended machine's lights nickering in some internally meaning-
ful pattern, he answered, "Ernie, we've got a yellow alert
slapped on us. We've got to be prepared for a real emergency.
Earthside might suddenly need double, triple the rocket fuels
we send them now."

"Then we ought to be beefing up the electrolysis facility,
not the water production."

"First things first," Kinsman said. "Hydrogen and oxy-
gen propellants come from water. If they want more rocket
propellants we have to increase the basic water supply."

"Yeah, eventually, but in an emergency . . ."

"First things first," Kinsman repeated. The tautologist's
handbook, he thought. When in doubt, fall back on slogans.

"But what about the interconnects with Lunagrad?"
Waterman asked. "Why in hell do we have a full crew
working to connect them with our increased supply lines when
we're just going to have to cut them off when the fighting
starts?"

370

"There isn't going to be any fighting," Kinsman said.
"Not here."

Waterman's mouth hung open for a moment. Then he
asked, "Whaddaya mean?"

"Just what I said, Ernie."

"I don't get it."

"You will," Kinsman said. "You will."

And he left Waterman standing in the corridor, scratch-
ing his head unhappily.

Kinsman worked his way through the underground
farms, the workshops and laboratories, the central computer
section, the communications center. He did this almost every
day, but in no set pattern. Say hello, look for problems, listen
to gripes or suggestions. Maintain a high profile, good visibili-
ty. Everyone knew him. More important, he got to know
everyone in Moonbase, even the ninety-dayers.

The hospital section was always the quietest, most re-
laxed, and sanest part of his rounds. As soon as he stepped
through the big double doors of the hospital lobby area
Kinsman could feel himself calm down. Soft pastel walls, soft
voices—even the intercoms and P.A. speakers were muted.
Pleasant place to be, he thought, as long as you don't let them
get their hands on you.

But today was different.

Two nurses scurried past him, pushing small wheeled
consoles. They looked worried, and they went by so fast that
Kinsman did not notice just what kind of equipment they
were rolling. They disappeared down a corridor that led off
from the lobby. A harried-looking young doctor hustled after
them.

The P.A. system came to life. A man's voice, sharp and
unusually loud, called urgently, "Dr. Meyers. Dr. Meyers. To
the ICU immediately!"

The intensive care unit, thought Kinsman. My God,
Baliagorev! He sprinted down the same corridor that the
nurses and doctor had taken. That's all we need, for him to
conk out on us. Talk about international incidents.

He flashed past the ICU monitoring station, where a
male nurse spun around from his bank of display screens and
yelled, "Hey, you can't . . ." Then, recognizing Kinsman, he
said weakly, "Sir?"

371

Kinsman saw a huddle of white uniforms ahead of him.
He skidded to a stop, then shouldered past the outermost ring
of nurses.

"I will not talk to any of you enema-wielding vampires! I
want Dr. Meyers!"

It was Bahagorev. A wisp of a man, feather-frail. But his
voice was like iron. He was pale, face seamed with age. A
dozen tubes and wires connected to various parts of his body.
Someone had cranked his floater bed up to a sitting position,

One of the consoles that the nurses had wheeled in was a
videocassette recorder, Kinsman saw. The Russian reached
toward it.

"Don't! You'll pull your IV loose!"

"Then take it away!" Baliagorev roared. "When I want
to be entertained by brainless videotapes, I will tell you.
Where is Dr. Meyers? Where is she?"

Pushing his way through the remaining knot of nurses
and the young doctor, Kinsman said, "She'll be here shortly,
sir. I'm Chet Kinsman, the commander here. I'm glad to see
that you're feeling so strong."

"Bah! I feel miserable," Baliagorev snapped, in impecca-
ble English. "How would you feel, wired up like a mario-
nette?"

"Well, I ..."

The Russian shook his head. "I am a simple man. I can
accept the fact that my countrymen regard me as a revisionist
fool. I can accept the fact that my own heart has turned traitor
on me. I can even accept the fact that I am surrounded by
Yankees who have all the cultural sensitivities of a Latvian
smuggler. All I want is to see Dr. Meyers. Why can't this one
simple request ..."

"Here I am, Maestro."

Kinsman turned and saw the others clear a path for Jill.
Behind her strode the Russian doctor, Landau. Both of them
had funny expressions on their faces: happy, but
—embarrassed?

"Ahhh, Jilyushka, my ministering angel. Where have
you been?" Baliagorev's tone changed completely. He went
from truculence to grandfatherly sweetness in an eyeblink.

Jill grinned at him. "You know, Maestro, there are other
patients in this hospital, and—"
372

"Nonsense! You were off in some corner kissing this
bearded oaf."

Landau's face went beet-red. Jill giggled. Kinsman
turned to the other nurses and said quietly, "I think the
emergency is over."

They started filing out of the room, whispering among
themselves.

"Don't you go," Baliagorev called to Kinsman. "I have a
request to make of you."

Kinsman stopped at the open door and looked back at
the Russian.

"I should like to stay here in the American sector, rather
than return to Lunagrad. At least for a while."

Kinsman did not know whether to laugh or frown. "I
thought we Yankees had the cultural sensitivities of Latvian
smugglers."

Completely unflustered, Baliagorev answered, "When
you have spent as much time as I have in the tyrannical grips
of hospital orderiies and nurses, you learn that there is really
only one way to treat them—with contempt. However," his
tone softened, "I sincerely wish to remain here,"

"Well . . ."There's something crafty about this old man,
Kinsman realized. "May I ask why?"

Baliagorev shifted his gaze to Landau momentarily, then
looked back at Kinsman. His eyes were ice-blue. "Put it down
as the whim of an old man. The women here are much
prettier. The nurses at Lunagrad are awful—huge beasts,
ungainly, hopeless."

"That's not true," Landau murmured.

"Bah! Why should I hide it? I want political asylum. I
was seeking asylum in France when my countrymen arrested
me and carted me to a hospital in Siberia. A psychiatric
hospital! That is where my heart broke."

Kee-rist! Just what we need. Kinsman kept his eyes off
Landau as he replied, "This is a very touchy time to ask for
political asylum, you know."

Baliagorev pursed his thin, bluish lips.

Jill cut in, "There will be no discussions of politics of any
sort as long as my patient is in intensive care." Turning sternly
to Baliagorev, she shook a stubby finger at him. "We haven't
brought you back from clinical death just so you can kill
373

yourself with excitement over politics!"

Landau broke into a laugh. "She's right, Nicholai Ivano-
vich. This is no time to discuss politics."

The old man raised his wispy eyebrows. "Very well. You
have performed your miracle, and you don't want your
Lazarus to suffer a relapse, eh? But will you be discussing
politics with our countrymen, Alexsei Alexandrovich?"

The Russian doctor shook his head gravely. "No. I
promise you."

"You can trust Alexsei," Jill said.

"I'm sure you can trust him," Baliagorev muttered.
Then, with a crooked grin that threatened to turn into a leer,
"Admit it, Jilyushka, you were necking with this bearded
rascal, eh?"

"As a matter of fact, yes, I was,"Jill admitted cheerfully.
"And if you don't stop teasing, I'll put nothing but male
nurses in here with you."

The Russian hesitated only for a moment, "H'mm ... if
they are young and tender ..."

"You're impossible!"

Kinsman managed to say, "All right. Listen, Jill, Alex-
sei: your patient will have to stay here several more days,
won't he?"

"At least a week," Landau answered.

"I could arrange to have a relapse," Baliagorev said.

Kinsman raised a hand. "Let's allow things to work
themselves out for a week." Before they could argue or
object, he ducked back out through the doorway and headed
down the corridor.

But he heard the ballet master's voice saying gently,
"Now then, Jilyushka, there is no reason why you could not
become a first-rate dancer here on the Moon. With this low
gravity, and me to teach you, we could work miracles."

Kinsman shook his head and wished that he felt good
enough to smile,

The corridor lights had just turned down to their evening
level as Kinsman padded from his office toward his quarters.
Got to talk to Leonov again, he was telling himself. Maybe he
can get his kids to visit him here before—

"Chet! Chet, wait up, will you?" It was Jill Meyers
374

scampering after him. She had a child's wide grin on her face.

He smiled back at her as she ran up and said breathlessly,
"He's proposed to me!"

"That dirty old man?"

"No, not Baliagorev," Jill replied, beaming. "Alexsei!
We're going to get married!"

Something inside Kinsman went cold.

"You're invited to the party," Jill was saying. "It's
already started, over at my quarters."

"Married," he repeated.

"Yes! 'Here Comes the Bride' and all that stuff! Isn't it
wild?"

"Why?"

Her grin froze. "Why what?"

"Why does he want to marry you?"

She planted her hands on her hips. "I presume it's
because he can't live without me, and wants to spend the rest
of his life with me. A lifetime commitment—but you wouldn't
understand that, would you?" Her eyes were snapping at him.

"Dammitall, Jill, you know what I mean. You two can
live together without having a legal contract drawn up. Why
talk about marriage? What's behind it?"

"Argh! Chet Kinsman, you stupid, insensitive . . ."

He reached out and put two fingertips over her mouth.
"Jill, you and I have known each other too long to pull
punches. He loves you, okay. I can believe that. You love
him. Fine. But where does marriage come into it? Does he
plan to try to become an American citizen?"

Jill pushed away his hand, but her tone was quieter, less
angry. "I ... we haven't even discussed it, I thought I'd
move into Lunagrad with him."

"Uh-huh, And suppose he figures out that he wants
asylum, like Baliagorev ... or that he's scared the Russian
security people will nail him for the old man's defection?"

"Chet, that's a shitty thing to say!"

"I know. I'm a bastard. But I'd rather see me hurt your
feelings than have him break you in half—him, or anybody
else."

'T love him, Chet. I want to be with him wherever he
goes."

A lifetime commitment, even if their lives only last
375

another week, Kinsman thought. "Jill, you can be with him.
Hell, you've been living together for the past few days,
haven't you?"

"Few days?" she echoed, wide-eyed. "We're talking
about a pair of lifetimes."

"You two can live together for as long as you want to,"
Kinsman said. "But when he brings up the idea of marriage,
that gets into legal and political problems."

"Chet, you're talking like a big brother. I'm old enough
to take my own risks."

He shook his head. "Don't rush things, Jill. There could
be—"

"You can't stop us," she snapped.

"Yes, I can. Or Leonov could. You know that."

Clenching her tiny fists, Jill said in a barely controlled
whisper, "Chet, just because you can't work out your own
head well enough to make a lasting commitment to anything
or anybody doesn't mean that I'm as scared and screwed-up
as you are. I love Alexsei and I'm going to marry him."

"On the strength of a few days' living with him."

"We've known each other for three years, off and on.
Why do you think he came up to Lunagrad?"

Kinsman actually took a step backward at this news. Jill
came after him, a furious little sparrow pursuing a confused
cat. "You must think I'm some brainless child that you've got
to protect and watch out for. Well, if either one of us needs a
keeper, Colonel Kinsman, it's you! You haven't got the brains
to realize when somebody loves you. But I do! And I'm going
to enjoy his love as fully as I can. Understand that, big
brother!"

Suddenly Kinsman found himself laughing. "Okay,
okay," he said, putting up his hands as if to fend her off. "So
I'm a suspicious bastard."

"You're an idiot."

"That too."

"And, and . . ."

"I'm trying to protect you." he offered.

"I'll protect myself, thank you. And if what you think is
true, I'd rather face it than spend one minute less with Alexsei
than I need to."

376

"Okay," Kinsman said. "Message received and under-
stood."

"All right."

"Uh ... am I still invited to the party?"

"You'll behave yourself?" She was starting to grin again.

"I'll be the model of decorum."

"No politics?"

"I'll just sit in a corner and won't even open my
mouth—except to sip a little medicinal brandy."

"Then you can come."

"Thank you, ma'am." He bowed. "I'll just run to my
quarters and change into my best coveralls."

She sniffed at him, then suddenly threw her arms around
his neck and squeezed mightily. She had to stand on tiptoe to
manage it.

"Oh, Chet, I'm so damned happy! Don't spoil it for me."

"I won't," he said. But he was already wondering. Will
Pete Leonov be at the party?

He was not. A few Russian medics were there, crammed
in among the crowd that bulged Jill's two-room quarters. But
Leonov and all the other Soviet military and administrative
personnel were conspicuously absent.

The place was impossibly jammed. The party was al-
ready overflowing out into the corridor by the time Kinsman
got there. He had brought a bottle of Earthside scotch with
him. Everyone brought their own bottles to these parties.
When Kinsman had taken the scotch from his kitchenette
cabinet he saw that it was the last one and he told himself,
Got to get the guys to bring me reinforcements on the next
grocery run. Then he realized that there might not be another
replenishment mission; the shuttle flights from Earth might
stop at any moment. No, he told himself, trying to calm the
fear burning inside him. They'll take a few weeks to bring
things to a boil. Ten days, at least.

Kinsman wormed his way through the crowd, holding his
bottle over his head. He realized he could never spot tiny Jill
in this mob, so he looked for Landau. He found him in the
bedroom, standing to one side of a slightly smaller knot of
people who were standing, sitting on the bed, slouching
377

on other pieces of furniture, squatting cross-legged on the
floor.

Jill was beside Landau, Kinsman saw as he made his way
through the noisy conversations and laughter. Her back was
to the doorway, so she could not see him approaching. He
wrapped his free arm around her, pulled her to him, and
kissed her mightily,

"Congratulations," he said at last. "I didn't get to say
that before." Releasing her, he put his hand out to Landau.
"And congratulations to you. You're getting the best girl
there is."

"I know," the Russian said seriously. "Thank you."

Within minutes Kinsman was sitting on the floor, a
plastic cup full of scotch in one hand, his back propped
against somebody's knees, listening to a discussion that was
getting steadily drunker and less coherent. Diane was no-
where in sight. He wondered if she had been invited to the
party. Maybe she's on duty at the comm center?

Then Frank Colt pushed his way into the bedroom. For a
moment he stood in the doorway, looking uncertain. At least
he's wearing fatigues. Kinsman thought. Landau started to
extend his hand. Jill reached up and put a hand on Colt's
shoulder.

"Kiss me, I'm the bride-to-be."

Coit pecked at her, then shook hands with Landau.
Before he could sit down, though, a swarthy lean-faced man
sitting on the other side of the bed said loudly, "Here comes
supermouth."

Kinsman started to say something, but Colt got there
first. "Hey, it's a party—save the brain-damage stuff for
later."

The guy was potted. Kinsman knew him slightly, a
civilian engineer, one of Ernie Waterman's people. His name
was . . . Kinsman searched his memory, then it clicked; Jerry
Perotti.

"You been pretty mouthy all day long, Colt," Perotti
said. "Why get shy with us here? Give us all the benefit of
your keen military mouth."

"Stuff it," Colt snapped.

Everyone else in the room went silent. Kinsman's brain
seemed to be working in slow motion. He panned across the
378

room, looking at the faces of the people: surprised, amused,
upset. Perotti looked sore. God knows what Frank did to him
today. Colt himself looked tense but fully in control, almost
smiling. The fastest gun in the West, facing yet another
foolhardy challenger. I ought to stop this right here and
now . . .

"No, I won't stuff it," Perotti was saying. "You and your
goddamned gold braid. Who the hell do you think you are?"

Colt abruptly turned and took three strides into the
bathroom. Before anyone had a chance to say or do anything
he came out again and tossed a precious roil of toilet paper at
Perotti, who automatically snatched it, one-handed, against
his chest.

"Here, that's what assholes need," Colt said.

There was a split-second of shocked silence, then every-
one broke up. They roared. Everyone but Perotti. He pushed
himself to his feet in the midst of the laughing people, face
darkening. He slammed the toilet-paper roll down on the bed
and stomped out of the room. Colt stood back from the
doorway and let him lurch past.

"Another notch on the oF six-gun," Kinsman mumbled,
suddenly realizing that the combination of lack of sleep,
tension, and scotch had made him drunk already.

Colt spotted him and came over to squat on the floor
beside him.

"What is there about you that makes people instantly
want to give you a hard time?" Kinsman wondered aloud.

"Skin, man," said Colt.

"Oh, hell, Frank. There are dozens of blacks in Selene.
We had a whole delegation from Chad last year. Nobody
threw knives at them,"

"Yassuh, but they's nice folks," Colt said in his Dixie
yokel accent. "Me, I'm a sonofabitch. If you're white and a
sonofabitch, nobody hardly notices. But if you're black, it all
hangs out."

The party glided on. Kinsman drank slowly, steadily,
maintaining a soft glow that blurred the edges of reality just
enough to make everything pleasant.

In the apartment's main room the drifting currents of
humanity had washed Pat Kelly and Ernie Waterman into the
same corner. They made an incongruous pair: the tall,
379

hound-sad engineer and the stubby, rabbit-faced major.

"Just how serious is this yellow alert?" Waterman was
asking.

Kelly rubbed at his nose with a hand chilled from holding
an iced drink. "About as serious as they come. I've been
working all day on the logistics programming."

"I mean, shouldn't we be pretty damned careful about
these Russians? They're right in our laps, for Chrissakes."

"I know," Kelly said. "I warned Chet about it. And now
he's got 'em in our hospital and marrying into our people."

Waterman shook his head dismally. "You know what he
said to me? He said we're not going to fight up here. Like he
was guaranteeing it."

"Yeah? That's what he told you?"

"That's exactly what he said. Now, how can he keep from
fighting here? If the orders come through he has to obey
them, don't he?"

"He sure does," Kelly said, "or somebody else will.
That's why they brought Colt up here. It'd only take a
one-line message to relieve Chet of command and put Colt
in."

"That might not be such a bad thing," Waterman mused.
"I like Chet, but ..."

"I wouldn't worry about it," said Kelly, looking worried.
"Chefs an easygoing guy, great to work for, likes to have
everything friendly and relaxed. But when the orders come,
he'll follow them. Don't you think otherwise. When we get
right down to the nut, Americans will act like Americans and
Russians will act like Russians. Friendships end once the
missiles are launched."

"You think so?"

"You don't?"

Waterman shrugged. "He seems so damned determined
to get the water factory's output up to the point where the
Russians can use it. You think maybe he's planning to let
them walk in here and take over?"

"What?" Kelly looked startled.

"Well, he says there won't be any fighting up here. The
only way he can guarantee that is to let the Reds take over
without firing a shot. Right?"

380

"That's crazy!"

"Maybe so, but do you see him making any plans to take
over Lunagrad?"

"We've got contingency plans . . ."

"When's the last time he took a look at 'em?" Waterman
asked.

Kelly hesitated, then, "No! Chet wouldn't do that. He's
easygoing, but he's not a traitor."

"Maybe he don't see it as treason." The engineer waved
a hand at the chattering crowd all around them. "Maybe he
thinks that any kind of fighting up here would kill everybody,
so he won't fight, no matter what."

"Like the peaceniks back home, before they were all
rounded up?"

"Uh-huh."

"Jesus Christ," Kelly muttered. "I sure as hell hope
that's not what's on his mind."

Waterman looked as if he were about to cry. "It could
be. He could be ready to sell us all down the river, just to
avoid fighting."

"Hell! You know what that means, don't you?" Kelly
looked genuinely distressed now.

"What?"

"I'm gonna have to go to Frank Colt and get him to
review all our emergency contingency plans—behind Chefs
back."

"If that's what's gotta be done ..."

Kelly grimaced. "I hate to go around Chet. He's a nice
guy and all that." His frown deepened. "And I hate like hell
having to work with Colt."

"If you've got to, you've got to," Waterman said.

Kelly nodded unhappily. "I've got to."

More people jammed into the party. Others left. For a
long time Kinsman could see neither Jill nor Landau in the
roaring, jammed, body-heated apartment. He spotted Kelly
and Waterman talking solemnly together off in a corner,
looking grimmer with each word. Then Jill and the Russian
appeared. The apartment started to get a little less crowded,
People were drifting homeward.

Kinsman threaded his way carefully through the living
381

room and back into the bedroom, marveling at how well and
steadily he could walk. Colt lay sprawled on the bed now with
a bosomy redhead alongside him, propped on a pair of
pillows. She was wearing a wine-red party dress, low in front
and slit-skirted. One of the newcomers, Kinsman realized,

Jill and Landau came into the bedroom, the Russian
standing protectively beside her.

Colt gave them a long look. "Ain't gonna be easy for you
two, y'know," he said. His drink was perched precariously on
his stomach, his hands were clasped behind his head. Only
someone who knew him as well as Kinsman did would realize
how drunk he was.

"I was married once to a girl who looked kinda light. She
wasn't white, but try telling that to some drunk Florida
rednecks." Colt's voice was absolutely flat, no emotion
detectable. Like a pathologist reciting the details of an
autopsy.

"We are intelligent people here," Landau said. "Jill and
I can live in Lunagrad without difficulties."

"You mean your security people will let her in? Without
worrying that she might be a spy? I just don't believe it."

Jill said, "We can live here."

"Then / have to try to find out if he's spying on us," Colt
shot back.

"Come on, Frank," Kinsman said, knowing that his
speech was slightly slurred. "Don't piss on the wedding
cake."

Colt looked over at Kinsman. "Hey, man, you still up
and around?"

"Well, it is a lot easier if I hold on to a wall or
something."

Landau said, "Wait, this is serious. Suppose my govern-
ment makes it impossible for Jill to live at Lunagrad? Could I
take up residence here in Moonbase?"

"'S'okay with me," Kinsman said, "but I don't think
your own people would let you do it. Leonov had to break six
hundred rules to let Baliagorev come over to have his
goddamned life saved."

"But—"

"No buts," Colt said. "This is very serious. You guys
382

might have gotten along as friends up here so far, but things
are changing very fast."

"Frank, old buddy," Kinsman said, holding himself as
stiffly erect as he could manage, "I don't pull rank often, but I
don't want this stupid crap to go any further." He turned to
Landau, "Alex, husband-to-be of the woman who is virtually
a sister to me, if you want to live here, you are welcome to. I
am not going to permit this chickenshit from Earth to make a
mess of things here. No way. Not now. Not ever. Not as long
as I'm in command here."

Colt chuckled lazily. "That's a great way to make me
commander of Moonbase, pal."

Kinsman found himself tottering down the corridor to-
ward his own quarters with no idea of what time it was or how
the well-built redhead got attached to his arm.

By concentrating so hard that it made his head hurt, he
could remember the conversation with Colt and Jill and
Landau. The tense silence that ended it. Going back to the
bar in the living room and finding that all the scotch was gone.
The girl popping up beside him . . .

With an effort, he focused his bleary eyes on her. Even in
the unflattering overhead fluorescents of the chilly corridor
she looked good. Young, soft, large of eye and full of lip. Big
boobs. Her dress had slipped off one shoulder and her hair
was disarrayed. She smelled of lost and forbidden memories;

flower gardens and soft summer evenings.

She smiled up at him. "You got awfully quiet."

"I am old enough to be your father," he said, feeling
stupid, "Just about."

"Oh, don't be silly," she said. "You're cute."

Cute? Holy shit. Cute! He scowled at her, but she only
smiled all the more. Diane doesn't show up at the party and
I'm dragging teenagers home with me.

"Cute," he muttered at her.

He knew why. He did not like it, but he knew. Don't
ever put yourself into a spot where your survival depends on
one individual. Don't let yourself become so vulnerable to
Diane or anyone else. Armor plate. Surround yourself with it.
Otherwise it's too fucking easy to get shot down.
383

"Cute," he grumbled at her again.
She laughed and slid her arm around his waist and
snuggled closer as they walked.

What the hell, he thought. Maybe she's a good lay.

Tuesday 7 December 1999:

1025 hrsUT

"GOOD MORNING, CHEERFUL campers! And how's our peerless
leader today?"

Through the haze of a throbbing headache Kinsman
squinted up at Hugh Harriman. The little round man was
smiling broadly and clasping something behind his back.

"Go away," Kinsman muttered.

"Now, now, don't be testy," Harriman was standing in
the doorway of Kinsman's office. He walked all the way in and
leaned over the couch slightly to peer into Kinsman's eyes.

"Nicely bloodshot," he pronounced. "Must have been a

good party."

Kinsman leaned back on the couch and rested his aching
skull against the cool stone wall. "It was quite a party, I'll
grant you that." Then, remembering, "Why weren't you
there? Where the hell were you last night?"

"I thought you'd never ask." Harriman plopped himself
down on the couch beside Kinsman and revealed what he was
holding; a thermos bottle. "But first," he said, unscrewing the
cap, "try some of Old Doc Harriman's surefire hangover
cure. Never fails."

Kinsman watched warily as Harriman poured a reddish
liquid into the cup that had been the top of the thermos. He
took the cup, but asked, "Aren't you having any?"

Harriman's eyes went round with innocence. "Suspicious
this morning, aren't you? Well, if you insist." He hoisted the
thermos in salute and put it to his lips.

Kinsman sipped from the cup. It had been a Bloody
384

Mary originally, that much he was sure of. But Harriman had
added things to it. It tasted almost sweet, very smooth, very
soothing.

"Not . . ."—his voice was a choked whisper—"not
bad."

"Good! A little LSD never hurt anyone." Harriman
seemed genuinely pleased. Wiping a bit of red foam from his
mustache with the back of his hand, he went on, "Now, to
answer your original question . . ."

"My question?"

"You are accelerating slowly this morning! You asked
why I wasn't at the party last night."

"Oh, yeah." Kinsman could feel his whole nervous
system vibrating like the strings of a harp that had been
wedged into a supersonic wind tunnel.

"I was doing a bit of homework yesterday, and I got so
engrossed in it that I stayed up all night. Haven't been to
sleep yet."

Impressed, Kinsman said, "You look damned chipper for
a guy who hasn't slept at all."

"That's because I've been stimulating my brain with
creative thought, not soaking it in alcohol."

"Touche."

"Ah! A linguist. I had no idea. Well . . ." Harriman's
face suddenly went completely serious. The smile vanished,
the eyes became intense. "You realize, of course, that every-
body in Selene knows you've been muttering about refusing
to follow orders and declaring us independent of Earthside
control."

"There are no secrets here," Kinsman admitted.

"Not the way you handle them! At any rate, I've been
spending the past few days casually talking things over with
lots of people—Americans, Russians, foreign visitors, perma-
nent Luniks, ninety-dayers. I've also gone over the personnel
records of most of the people here, their psychological
profiles mainly . . ."

"How the hell did you get access . . . ?"

Harriman held up a pudgy hand. "You think you're the
only one around here who has a way with women? After all,
I'm considered a dashing and romantic figure by some of the
weaker-minded broads. Besides, I told the kids in charge of
385

the computer files that I wanted to search for people who
might be interested in starting a university here. They fell for
it."

Kinsman said only, "H'mm."

"It's your own fault, Chet. You run a very lax operation
here. No wonder they sent Colt to tighten security."

"Don't tell me my troubles."

"All right. Near as I can compute it, about eighty percent
of the permanent Luniks would support a move for indepen-
dence. And the surprising thing is that the ninety-dayers are
split about fifty-fifty. You can carry it off, friend, if you want

to."

Kinsman shook his head, and immediately regretted it.
The throbbing grew worse. "I've thought it over, Hugh.
Declaring independence won't change things Earthside.
They'll still start their war; all we'll be able to do is delay
them."

Harriman blinked at him owlishiy. "You mean you
haven't figured it out? You're kidding! A brilliant military
mind like yours? Not even Leonov has seen it?"

"Seen what?"

"How to make Selene independent and stop the friggin'
war before it starts'"

Kinsman forgot his headache. He straightened up in the
couch. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Harriman laughed. "My God! Are philosophers really
the only people who can think?"

"Hugh . . ."

Running a hand over his bald pate, Harriman said, "I
thought you had already worked it out for yourself."

"Worked what out?"

"Taking over the satellites."

"What?"

With a heavenward roll of his eyes, Harriman explained,
"Look, neither the United States nor the Soviets has enough
ABM satellites in orbit to provide a fully effective shield
against the other side's missile attack. Right?"

"Not yet."

"How many satellites have to be on station for an orbital
ABM network to be considered workable?"

"That's classified information, Hugh."
386

"So's my hairy ass! Anybody with a pencil and paper can
figure it out, for Chrissakes! You want to be sure you've got
several satellites over every possible launching area
—including all the oceans—every minute of the day. If the
satellites are in low orbit, which they are, to save on laser
power, then you need between a hundred and a hundred-fifty
to do the job. Right?"

With a grin. Kinsman said, "You're making the numbers,
not me."

"All right, how many working satellites does the U.S.
have in orbit right now?"
"Classified."

Harriman glared at him. "How many do the Russians
have up?"

"Ask Leonov."

"How many are there between the two?"

Kinsman started to answer, then it struck him.

"Ah-hah!" Harriman crowed. "Dawn is breaking inside
that murky skull. There are already more than a hundred
satellites in orbit and in perfect working condition. Right?
And if you and Leonov can grab all of them, Selene would
have an ABM network that could prevent anybody from
launching anything. Right?"

Kinsman heard himself say, "Including troop shuttles to
take Selene away from us."

"Exactly!" Harriman said. "You get an A. Go to the
head of the class."

Suddenly Kinsman was out of breath, winded as if he had
sprinted through an obstacle course. He could feel his heart
thumping inside his ribs. "Hugh, if we could do that . . ."

"It would guarantee Selene's independence, our freedom
from attack, and it would prevent them from starting their
war—at least, they wouldn't be able to launch missiles at each
other."

"But ..." Kinsman was still trying to catch his breath.
"But to seize control of the ABM networks we'd have to take
over the manned space stations."

"Right. Which is probably why you didn't think of the
idea yourself."

"Why?"

"Simple psychology, friend," Harriman said. "Despite
387

your lofty military rank, you're not a violent man. You don't
want to hurt anybody. You could see your way to declaring
Selene independent because you don't think there'd be any
fighting involved. But taking the space stations is another
matter. Those guys in the station aren't Luniks. They'll fight

you."

Kinsman nodded.

"It'll take bloodshed," Harriman said, very gravely.
"There hasn't been a political movement in all of history that
hasn't spilled blood. Dammit."

Pat Kelly had spent much of the morning searching for
Frank Colt. After a fruitless couple of hours trying to get the
computerized phone system to track him down or page him,
Kelly finally left his cubbyhole office and the work he was
supposed to be doing and set out himself to look for the black

Lieutenant Colonel.

It was nearly noon when he found him, out at the
catapult launching facility, at the extreme end of the longest
tunnel in Selene. The facility was mainly underground, al-
though the ten-kilometer-long catapult itself was up on the
surface, its angled aluminum framework looking frail and
spidery compared to the heavy construction of Earthside
structures. Yet it still seemed strikingly bold and gleaming
new against the tired ancient hills and worn pockmarked plain

of the Sea of Clouds.

The control center was in a small surface dome. It looked

rather like the control tower of a minor airport Earthside,
mainly because it served much the same function. Instead of
guiding aircraft into and out of an airport, however, this
control center handled outgoing traffic only: the drone supply
packages that were launched to the manned space stations in

orbit near the Earth.

As Kelly stepped off the power ladder and onto the
plastic-tiled floor of the dome, he saw Colt standing in the
middle of the clustered desks and electronics consoles that
lined the long curving windows across the way. The dome was
dimly lit. In the shadows a dozen men and women were sitting
tensed over their desktop control panels, watching the flicker-
ing computer readouts, listening to the commands and data
updates through the pin-sized earphones they all wore.
388

Through the window Kelly could see a bulky wingless
cylinder squatting at one end of the long catapult track. Colt
stood at the opposite side of the dome, silent and umnoving,
as the launch crew carried out the final stage of their
operation in the cool, clipped tones of their profession.

"T minus thirty seconds and counting."

"Beta Station acknowledges."

"Sled power on."

"All track relays green."

"Fifteen seconds . . ."

Across the sweep of the control panels tiny lights were
changing from amber to green, like a Christmas display. At
the extreme right end of the curving row of consoles the ARM
and FIRE lights of the launch controller still glared red. The
controller herself sat with her back to Kelly, her eyes riveted
to the panel lights.

"Internal power on."

"Terminal guidance and control green."

"Thrusters green."

"Ten seconds ..."

The launch controller manually lifted the two switch
covers with her right hand, and the two red lights went amber.

"Automatic sequencer on."

"Energize full track,"

"Beta acknowledges time and recovery angle."

"All systems green."

"Three . . . two . . . one . . . launch!"

The squat cylinder became a blur and disappeared in less
than an eyeblink. The entire crew glanced up at the now-
empty track.

"Radar?" the launch controller asked, cool and profes-
sional.

From across the row of consoles came another woman's
voice, "Through the keyhole."

The launch controller yanked the earpin out and stood
up. "Okay, well done. But nobody moves until Beta Station
picks her up and acknowledges the trajectory."

They leaned back in their chairs. A few pulled out
cigarettes and lit up.

The spell broken, Kelly walked grimly toward Colt.
"Frank, can I talk to . . ."

389

Colt spun around at the sound of his name. He looked
surprised, then puzzled, then surprised again as Kelly came
close enough to be recognized in the dim lighting. "Pat?
What're you doing up here?"

"Looking for you."

"Yeah?" Colt's eyes narrowed with suspicion. "What

for?"

Kelly felt the glacial chill of Colt's distrust. He wanted to
turn and run, but knew that he could not. "I've got to talk to
you. Someplace where it's quiet."

Colt gave him a long look. "I'm here checking on the
defensibility of the launch center. Be easy for the Reds to
knock this place off—all they'd need's a couple bazookas."

Kelly fought down a surge of anger. The black man was
right, he knew that. "But they'd have to trek over the surface
to get here," he pointed out. "The tunnel can be defended
pretty easily."

"Hey man," Colt grinned, "you're making noises like a

soldier!"

"And anybody moving on the surface is damned vulnera-
ble," Kelly finished, ignoring the thrust.

"They're vulnerable if you know they're coming and you
realize their intentions," Colt said.

"We could set up perimeter alarms—lasers, low-power
ultraviolet, so they wouldn't be seen."

Colt raised his eyebrows. "Yeah, that'd work, wouldn't

it?"

Damned right it would work, superhero, Kelly said to
himself. Aloud, he repeated, "I've got to talk to you.
Privately."

With a glance around at the chatting, relaxing launch
crew, Colt said, "Okay, let's go back down the tunnel. I want
to check on how secure the heat and power lines are,

anyway."

As they stepped onto the power ladder they heard one of
the launch crew sing out, "Beta's acquired our bird on their
radar—on trajectory, time and angle on the double-oh."

Down in the long chilly tunnel, in the glare of the
overhead fluorescents, Colt's skin looked bluish. Otherworld-
ly. "Okay, what's this all about?" he asked Kelly again.

Pat suddenly wished he were somewhere else. Change
390

the subject. Forget the whole thing. But he heard himself
saying, "It's Chet. He's been making some damned broad
hints about refusing to fight, if and when the time comes."

Colt's expression turned sour. "Yeah, yeah. So what else
is new?"

"Frank, I think he means it. He really will refuse to obey
orders—maybe he'll turn us over to the Russians!"

Colt raised his hands as if to grab Kelly's coverall front.
"Listen," he snapped. "Chet may be a do-gooder and an
easygoing fool, but he's not a traitor. Understand that? He
won't sell us out. He might need a little push when the time
comes. That's why I'm here."

They walked for several moments in silence, listening to
their shoes clicking against the rough stone flooring of the
tunnel.

Finally Kelly said, "You and Kinsman have been friends
for a long time. But I've been looking over his shoulder for
the past couple of months. I know what he's been saying and
what he's thinking. He's ready to do anything rather than
fight. He's been palling around with Leonov and letting
Russian nationals into our side of the hospital. He's closer to
them than he is to our own people Earthside."

Colt said nothing.

"If he ... fails to obey orders," Kelly went on, "he
won't think of it as treason. He'll think he's doing the right
thing. But he'll be crippling America's chances of winning the
war."

"You're bringing your wife and kids up here, aren't
you?" Colt asked suddenly.

Kelly stopped walking. "What's that got to do with it?"

Shrugging, Colt replied, "I'd think that you'd be on
Chefs side of this. You anxious to have a shooting war up
here, with your family on the way?"

"They'll be safer here than Earthside," Kelly said. "But
I'd rather have them in the middle of a battle here than hand
them over to the Soviets. We're Americans. We're ready to
fight for freedom if we have to."

"Ready to die for it?"

Kelly nodded.

Colt laughed. "Ready to fight and die. , . . Ready to
fight and die."

391

"What's funny?" Kelly could feel his face going red.
"My brother, man. You sound just like my brother."
Colt's laughter echoed weirdly in the tunnel, ringing off the
metal heat pipes and electrical power lines, bouncing off the

cold stone that surrounded them.

"He beat the shit outta me when I joined the Air Force,"

Colt said. "Told me I was a traitor to my people. I told him I
didn't want to die for my people, I just wanted to live good.
Told him it was time we got enough of our own people into
the chain of command to make it our Army and our Navy and

our Air Force."

"I don't see . . ."
"Back then the fighting was going on inside the States.

The black man didn't give a shit about the Communist
menace. We didn't know the goddamned Russians were just
sittin' back and waitin' for us to do their work for them, tear
down the U.S. of A. from the inside. My brother tried. He
worked hard at it. He fought for what he believed in: black
power. Wound up in a shittin' hut in Dahomey, in Africa,
hidin' out from the FBI and CIA and Lord knows who else.
Know how he died? Some motherfuckin' Communist guerril-
las sprayed the crappy little airport down there with machine
guns and grenades. He happened to be there, waitin' for a

plane. They killed him."

Kelly felt confused. Colt was not making sense.

"Listen," the black man said. "One thing I learned early
and learned good. Don't fight city hall. Get inside city hall
and take it over—but do it slow and easy, without any fuss.
Too many guys call themselves revolutionaries, all they want
is some quick publicity and easy pussy. The real revolutionar-
ies carefully protect the system—'cause they want it for

themselves."

"You're not . . ."
Colt grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him,

schoolyard rough. "Listen, Irish Catholic God-fearing Ameri-
can. Black power don't mean shit if there's no America left, if
it all goes up in a mushroom cloud. So I've gotta protect
America, you dig? And at the same time, I wouldn't at all
mind becoming commander of Moonbase. So give Chet
enough rope to hang himself. Give him plenty of rope."
392

"You sonofabitch," Kelly said in a shocked whisper.
"You say you're his friend ..."

"I am his friend! But if he turns traitor then he's not my
friend or anybody else's. And you're tellin' me he's gonna
turn traitor,"

Kelly fell silent.

"Well?" Colt demanded, his voice booming. "Ain't that
what you're saying?"

It was hard to make his voice work. "Ye . . . yes," Kelly
managed. "I guess that's what I'm saying."

"Yeah. You guess. And you're willing to have your wife
and children in the middle of a shoot-out, to protect and
defend America. Goddamned noble of you, whitey. God-
damned noble."

"Now listen, Colt . . ."

"I had a wife and family. I saw them die. Wonder how
you'd feel."

Kelly wanted to run, to get as far away from this man as
he could. Anywhere . . .

But Colt still held his shoulder with a grip of fury.
"Listen to me, Kelly. I want to know everything Chefs doing,
everything he's thinking, even what he dreams about at night.
I want to know what he's going to do before he knows it
himself. Because, if you're right, then I'm going to have to kill
him."

"Kill!"

"That's right, baby. Kill. Chet might look easygoing, but
underneath he's as stubborn as a Christian martyr. And
damned popular around here. He's turned Moonbase into a
freakhouse for all the eggheads who think they can live with
the Russians. When the button gets pushed, Chet's going to
be very hard to stop. Very hard. Talking won't do it."

"But . . . killing him . . ." Kelly was suddenly afraid.

"I know. It sucks. So's everything else. Maybe we can
get away without it coming to that. But we gotta be ready to
face it."

Kelly pushed at his thinning hair. "I don't know . . ."

"But I do. That's the difference between us, baby. And
one other thing," Colt said, iron-hard. "Everything I've told
you is based on the assumption that you're right, and Chet's
393

going to hand this base over to the Russians. If I find out
you're wrong, this whole planet won't be big enough to hide
you. I will personally take you apart, little friend. Count on
it."

Academician V. I. Mogilev was livid with rage. He flailed
his arms angrily in the tight confines of the space station's
compartment as he bellowed into the face of the station's
commander.

"But this is insanity! It's preposterous! Bureaucratic
interference with scientific research that has won the highest
approval from the Supreme Soviet ..."

The station commander listened with Oriental patience.
The son of an Uzbek herdsman does not rise to the rank of
captain in the Soviet Strategic Rocket Corps without learning
patience. He had been screamed at by true experts; this little
professor was a rank amateur.

After some time the academician wound down. "You can
understand what idiocy this is, can't you?" His voice was
almost pleading now. "We are in the middle of such delicate
studies. All the instruments are at last aligned and working
well. The quasar's peak of radiation intensity will be reached
in another fourteen hours, if Chalinik's calculations are
correct, and . . . and . . ."

"My dear professor," the Captain said as politely as he
could, but still coldly enough to leave no doubt as to who was
in command, "I appreciate the extreme importance of your
work. But you must realize that orders from the Kremlin
leave no room for argument. I cannot refuse to obey my
orders. Do you want to have me shot?"

"No, no, of course not." There seemed to be some little
doubt in the academician's tone, despite his words.

The Captain shrugged elaborately. "Then what can I do?
I have my orders. You and your assistants must be prepared
to  leave within  another . . ."—he glanced  at his
wristwatch—". . . another three hours."

"But our work . . . the instruments ..."

"We will take care of the instruments," the Captain said.
"No one will disturb them, I assure you."

The astrophysicist continued muttering as the Captain
rose and squeezed out from behind his little desk and
394

escorted the older man to the airtight hatch that opened onto
the space station's main corridor.

"You will allow the instruments to keep recording the
quasar's activities?"

"Of course. Certainly."

The scientist went slowly down the corridor, shaking his
head and mumbling to himself. No sooner had the Captain
seated himself at his desk again than a younger officer stepped
through the open hatchway. He was stocky and blond, a true
Russian.

He'll advance faster than I will, thought the Captain as
he glowered at the younger man.

"Sir," the young officer said.

"Sit down. Lieutenant. Your craft is ready to take the
scientists home?"

"Yessir, although they seem quite unhappy about it."

The Captain allowed a small smile to creep across his
face. "They are civilians. You can't expect them to under-
stand military matters."

The Lieutenant nodded.

"Of course, you understand such matters, don't you?"
The Captain turned in his chair and reached for the small
thermos resting on the shelf behind his desk.

"I believe I understand military matters, yes," the Lieu-
tenant said to his back, then added, "sir."

"H'mm . . ." Taking two glasses from a desk drawer, the
Captain asked, "Drink?"

"No, thank you, sir. I will be piloting the shuttle rocket."

"So? Tea upsets you?"

"Oh!" The Lieutenant was taken aback, a sight that
pleased the Captain. "Well, yes, in that case. Thank you."

As he poured the steaming brew the Captain asked, "So
you understand military matters, eh?"

"I think so. Sir."

'Then tell me"—he slammed the thermos on the desk
hard enough to make the tea jump out of both glasses—"how
do those Earthbound desk pilots expect me to defend a Soviet
military installation that is defenseless? Heh?"

"I     sir

"Look at this place!" The Captain waved a hand. "It's
made of straw. One of the Americans' laser beams could slice
395

us apart like goat's cheese. How are we to defend ourselves
against attack?"

"I didn't realize that an attack was imminent," the
Lieutenant answered, keeping his hands carefully in his lap
and not reaching for the tea.

"A commander must always assume that an attack is
imminent! Learn that! Get it into your skull and into your
blood! Never relax your guard!"

"Yessir."

The Captain glared at him for a moment, then pushed
one of the glasses toward him. The Lieutenant quickly
snatched at it.

"Why do you think they've ordered all the civilians off
our little island in the sky? Heh? We are on alert status. At
any moment the word may come that war has broken out. Do
you have a family? Wife? Children?"

The Lieutenant blinked once. "My mother ... in Mos-
cow."

"Mmm. My children will be safe enough from the
bombs," the Captain said. "But the fallout ... the fallout,
that's what will kill them. A lingering death."

"It may not happen," the Lieutenant said, very quietly.

The Captain eyed him. "Do you know what your cargo
was? What you brought up here for me to sit with, in place of
the scientists?"

"No sir. It was sealed, and my orders did not specify the
container's contents."

"But something that big must have aroused your curiosi-
ty, hen? A single package, sealed and guarded. Heh?"

"Well . . ." The Lieutenant smiled, almost. "There were
rumors at Tyuratam ..."

"Rumors? Such as?"

"Well, that the package was part of a new weapon, a
system that will defend the space station against American
attack."

"Hah! 1 wish it were."

"Then it's not?"

"No, Lieutenant, it is not. It's a weapon, true enough.
But it won't help to defend us. If anything it will make us an
even more important target to the Americans."

"What is it, then?"

396

The Captain gave his best inscrutable smile. "Come now,
Lieutenant. You must realize that I cannot tell you. The
information is highly classified."

The Lieutenant drank his tea in stony silence and de-
parted. Some time later the Captain got up from his desk and
strode the length of his tiny station to the loading dock. He
watched the shuttle, filled with the complaining scientists
now, as its rockets puffed briefly and it arced away to be
quickly lost against the glare of the looming Earth.

Then another spark caught his eye. The package that the
shuttle had left hanging in orbit a few hundred meters from
the station's main airlock.

The bomb. Tomorrow the shuttle would be back with
another one. And the day after that, still another.

I must check with Lunagrad to be certain that they are
giving the highest priority to sending us more lunar soil, the
Captain told himself. Maybe we can get enough to protect the
bombs, as well as the station.

Then he got an inspiration. Turning from the tiny port-
hole where he had been standing he told the nearest techni-
cian, "Dismantle all that scientific junk and plant it on the
outside skin of the station. It might help to deflect laser beams
if we're attacked."

Without a word of argument, the technician moved to
obey.

Friday 10 December 1999:

1250hrsUT

IT WAS A glum meeting.

The Farside Astronomical Observatory had briefly been
a thriving center of exciting exploration. The vast array of
steerable twenty-meter radio dish antennas seemed to fill the
Sea of Moscow—at least, all that was visible from Farside's
main dome. Up on the ringwall crest stood the spidery
397

framework of the thousand-centimeter optical telescope and
its clusters of electronic amplifiers and satellite telescopes.
The UV and infrared, the x-ray and gamma ray detectors.
The constant shuttle of eager young men and women, bal-
anced by the older, more patient, but no less eager permanent
staff. The computer links. The thrill of searching the universe
for knowledge, for life, for intelligence.

Now Farside was like a ghost town.

Kinsman slouched back in a webchair, letting his mind
drift from the droning voices of the men and women around
the table. He stared through the conference room's window at
the gleaming telescope framework outside. The largest opti-
cal telescope ever built, sitting in the airless open of the lunar
plain, unattended and useless.

The sky out there looked dark and empty without the
Earth to brighten it. The astronomers loved that; it made
Farside a perfect site for their research. But it made Kinsman
uneasy, frightened at the deepest level of his being. Earth was
never in the sky, here on the far side of the Moon. What if it
was gone when he returned to the near side?

"The only remaining item to be discussed," Dr. Mishima
was saying, his soft voice slow and measured, trying hard not
to reveal the bitterness he felt, "is the protective dome for the
thousand-centimeter."

"I have examined the cost figures," said one of the
Russian administrators. "The dome is too expensive for our
current budget allocation."

Dr. Mishima drew in his breath. "If the observatory is to
be shut down the equipment must either be transported to
Selene or protected from meteoric erosion, so that it can be
used again—when the times are more favorable and the gods
of the budgets are more kindly disposed toward astronomy."

What the hell's the matter with Diane? Kinsman asked
himself, staring out at the empty sky. Five days now and she
hasn't answered my calls. Since she got Pierce's job. Is that all
she wanted from me?

One of the Americans was saying, "It's not that we want
to abandon Farside. They just haven't given us the money to
keep it open."

"I understand that you regret this unfortunate turn of
events more than words can express," Dr. Mishima said with
398

elaborate politeness. "Still, it is imperative to think of the
future. I cannot believe that astronomical research will cease
entirely and forever ..."

"Keep it open," Kinsman heard himself say.

They all jerked with surprise and turned toward him:

Mishima, up at the head of the table, the Americans and
Russians (sitting on opposite sides, Kinsman noted wryly),
the three men and four women representing the other nations
that had staff or equipment investments in Farside, and Piotr
Leonov.

It was Leonov, sitting directly across the table from
Kinsman, who asked, "What did you say?" The expression on
his face was hard to read: almost a smile, eyes curious, as if he
agreed with Kinsman but was not certain he had heard him
correctly.

"I said we should keep Farside open. It would be a
tragedy to close this place down."

"I agree," said Leonov. "But the funds have been cut
off. It's the only thing our two governments have been able to
agree on, all year."

Fuck them both, Kinsman said to himself. Aloud, "Dr.
Mishima, just how much do you need to keep going here?
You've got the big equipment and the computers and life-
support and housekeeping stuff. What else do you need?"

The Japanese astronomer seemed stunned. "Er . . . our
major costs over the past two years have been maintenance,
housekeeping, basic supplies, things of that nature. And, of
course, the largest cost has been that of bringing up tempo-
rary people from Earth and transporting them back home
again."

"Pete, why can't we keep Farside going? We don't need
Earthside replacements every ninety days. There's enough of
a staff among the permanent Luniks to keep the research
going here."

Leonov finally did smile. Sadly. "I have orders to close
the center."

"If your orders read like mine," Kinsman countered,
"they merely inform you that no further Earthside funds will
be allotted for Farside, and that you're to take the necessary
actions. We still have our own resources."

Half the people around the table started talking at once,
399

and the silent ones either grinned hugely or glowered at
Kinsman. The grinners were astronomers. The glowerers
were administrators from Selene, mostly ninety-dayers.

Leonov got to his feet and called for silence. "Wait!
Wait. This is something that Colonel Kinsman and I must
discuss in private before we go any further."

"Right," agreed Kinsman. He got up and started around
the table. "Why don't we break for lunch? Colonel Leonov
and I can talk right here and see if we can come up with a

meeting of the minds."

The others—some puzzled, some upset—left the room
in a buzzing, chattering group. When the door clicked shut
behind them Leonov turned to Kinsman and smiled sardoni-
cally.

"Very well. You've been trying to get me alone for the

past three days. What is it?"

Kinsman walked toward the window. "I wondered why
you didn't return my calls."

"I am being carefully watched. So are you."

Nodding, "Think this room's bugged?"

"1 doubt it." Leonov came to the window and glanced
out at the idle telescope. "Even if it is," he said, pulling a tiny
flat dead-black plastic square from his pocket, "this will keep
the bugs from biting us."

Kinsman felt his eyebrows go up a notch. "Scrambler?"

"No, a new type of transmitter that broadcasts at the
frequencies of most listening devices. I have programmed it
with decadent American hot-rock music; my security people
will think you are carrying a jammer."

Kinsman laughed. "Wonder what my security people will

think?"

"That is your problem, old friend."

Lowering his voice. Kinsman said, "I think I've got a
solution to our other problem."

"Not your independence idea again!"

"Yes, but . . ."

Leonov closed his eyes. "I have received my orders. I will
not be sent home, after all. I will be stationed at the Tyuratam
launch complex for the duration of the emergency. All
space-qualified officers have been placed on maximum alert

basis. No leaves."

400

"Red alert?"

Leonov nodded. "Only for space-qualified personnel.
All other military units are on standby alert."

"When do you leave?"

"My replacement arrives in five days."

"God damn!"

Leonov turned and stared out the window. "Well, my
idealistic comrade, what do you do about that?"

"That's not the question," Kinsman said. "The real
question is, what are you prepared to do, Pete?"

He turned back and gazed at Kinsman, his face somber,
his eyes grave and weary. "Anything," he said in a near-whis-
per. "Anything that will save my children from being killed."

"They're really going to do it? Launch the missiles?"

"Of course they are!" the Russian exploded. "They can't
come this close without pushing the final button. Oh, they will
talk and argue and threaten each other for a few days
more—a week or even two, perhaps. They will stretch
everyone's nerves to the breaking point before they convince
themselves that they must attack. But they'll do it, and when
they do, it will seem almost like a relief. One of them will
press the button—for the glory of the Motherland, or to save
the world for democracy. Then the rest happens automati-
cally."

"It's up to us to stop them."

Leonov laughed bitterly. "How? By declaring indepen-
dence? By waving a piece of paper at them? I said I would do
anything, but it must be something that will work\ I will not sit
up here safely and watch my nation . . . my people . , . my
children ..."

"Okay, okay." Kinsman put both hands on his shoul-
ders. "Take it easy. Cool down."

"No, I will not cool down!" Leonov shouted. "I am not
an automaton. I am not a creature of ice water, as you are. I
have blood in my veins! Russian blood! The world is about to
explode and you expect me to stand here calmly and discuss
politics with you. How can you . . ."

"Stop it!" Kinsman snapped. "They won't need bugs to
hear us."

Leonov's face was glistening with sweat. His chest
heaved.

401

"I just want to know one thing," Kinsman said. "Are you
willing to disobey orders and stay here?"

"Stay at Lunagrad instead of . . ." Leonov's voice trailed
off for a moment. Then, clenching his fists with the effort of
decision, "Yes. I will be doing the children no good by
pushing buttons at Tyuratam."

"Al! right." Kinsman licked his lips. They tasted salty.
Maybe I'm not ice water after all. "This is what we need to
do: The ABM satellite networks are both unfinished, but
together they can effectively cover the whole Earth and shoot
down any missiles launched by either side. Or anybody else,
for that matter."

"Together?" Leonov echoed.

"Right. We take over the space stations at the same time
we declare Selene independent. If we can grab the command
and control centers for the satellites, we can stop the war
before it starts. And enforce our own independence."

"But they'll send troops."

Kinsman could feel the sweat trickling down his ribs.
"They can try. But they'll have to send them in shuttle
rockets. If the satellites can shoot down ballistic missiles they
can shoot down troop-carriers, as well."

"You . . . could do that?"

'T'd warn them first. But they probably wouldn't listen."

"Your people would shoot down Americans?"

"We'd have to. Wouldn't want your people to do that; it
might cause bad feelings among us."

Leonov seemed to sag against the window.

"It's the only way," Kinsman urged. "Neither side can
stop a war, not the way they've been going. One of them
would have to back down and neither of them is going to do
that. Only an outside force can stop them. We've got to be
that outside force."

"A handful of people . . . How many are we? A thou-
sand?"

"But we're in a special position. We can pull their fangs.
We can stop them from fighting."

"They'll call us traitors. They will kill us."

Kinsman nodded. "They'll try. Your government will
probably take your kids."

"Yes."

402

"We could hold some of the officers from your space
stations as counter-hostages."

"That might work." Leonov seemed dazed; his face was
blank, his voice distant and toneless.

"Would they . . . kill the children?"

With a slow shake of his head, Leonov replied, "No. I
doubt it. What good would that do them?"

"They'd be dead anyway, if the war . . ."

There were tears in the Russian's eyes. "So my choice is
to have them bombed by the Americans or shot by the
security police?"

ItT       '»

"No, no, it won't work. It could never work. It is
madness even to think about it." Leonov paced away from
the window.

Kinsman stood there and said nothing. He watched the
Russian's back, the tension in the corded muscles of his neck.
"It could work, Peter," he said. "We could make it work."

Leonov wheeled around to face him. "What would you
have me do? Betray Russian and take away her only defense
against American attack? Leave my homeland, my children,
my whole life, to remain an exile forever here on this rock?
Put my trust in a handful of strangers? Lunatics? Americans?
How do I know I can trust your people? How do I know I can
trust you7"

"You're afraid—"

"Of course I'm afraid!"

Kinsman felt the cold of that empty sky seeping into his
guts. ". . . because I killed one of your cosmonauts,"

Leonov rocked backward half a step. "Then it's true."
His voice was hollow.

"It's true."

"I didn't believe the intelligence reports. Sometimes they
contain exaggerations—outright lies, propaganda."

"I killed her," Kinsman said.

The Russian stepped close to Kinsman. Tears still glis-
tened in his eyes. "I never meant to force you to confess to
me."

Kinsman felt lightheaded, almost giddy. It was like
coming out of anesthesia. "It was something I had to tell you;

it had to be removed from between us."
403

Leonov closed his eyes.

"I can't kill anyone again," Kinsman said. "Not even if
it's only by sitting back and letting others push the buttons. I
have to try to stop them. Have to, Peter."

"And you cannot do it without Lunagrad's help."

"Without your help."

"Forgive me, old friend. I could never have trusted you if
you had not told me. It's ridiculous, but I could not have
trusted you."

They stood side by side, looking out the window at the
bleak landscape and empty sky.

"Too many of us have died," Kinsman told him. "It's
time to stop the killing."

Staring at the barren rocks, the ancient weary moun-
tains, the stark framework of human artifacts, Leonov asked
quietly, "Do you think there are enough people like us in
Selene to carry it off? Can we make a success of it, or will we
merely start the war here on the Moon? I have no desire for a
glorious failure. Only the victors write the history books."

"Dammitall, Pete, if we don't try there won't be any
history books."

"The world's savior," Leonov said. There was no sar-
casm in it- He gestured toward the window and the unused
telescope. "You want to make the blind see. You've already
brought a dead man back to life. And now you want to save
the world from hellfire." He sighed deeply. "They will crucify
us, you know."

Kinsman shrugged.

Then, with a smile that was more sadness than anything
else, Leonov slowly raised his hand and extended it toward
Kinsman. Taking it in his, Kinsman gripped the Russian's
hand firmly.

"Wasn't it one of your revolutionaries who said, 'We
must all hang together, or we will surely all hang
separately?'"

Kinsman laughed. "Franklin."

"We must act swiftly," Leonov said. "And we must start
now."

Now, Kinsman repeated to himself as he sank into the
foam couch of the ballistic rocket. Takeoff from Farside was
404

felt rather than heard. A pressure squeezing you into your
couch. A distant rumbling that was more a vibration in your
bones than an audible sound.

The engine thrust cut off and Kinsman felt the pressure
ease to zero. Free-fall. Floating. His hands drifted off the
couch's armrests. He still leaned back in the couch, unable to
see the dozen other passengers cocooned in their own
couches, their own thoughts.

Swinging the couch up to its sitting position. Kinsman
touched the communications keys on the right armrest. The
screen on the seatback in front of him flickered to life and
within a few moments he was looking at Pat Kelly's worried,
lip-nibbling face.

"What do you hear from your wife and family, Pat?"
Kinsman asked.

Kelly looked puzzled that the boss would call from the
Farside ferry rocket with a personal question. "They were at
Kennedy yesterday. I haven't checked with Alpha yet, but
they ought to be transshipping to the lunar shuttle this
afternoon. That's the schedule."

"Good. Listen, Pat. Get Alpha on the horn and find out
exactly when that shuttle took off and who's on it. I want the
crew and passenger list on my desk when I land back at
Selene."

"Okay. Sir."

"There's more," Kinsman said. He pulled the pin mike
from the armrest and lowered his voice as he spoke into it. "I
want you to set up a red-alert condition ..."

Kelly's mouth dropped open.

"No, it's not really a red alert. But I want you to get the
whole base buttoned up as if it were. The best people we have
at all the critical centers: communications, power, water
factory, launch center. Only permanent Luniks, no ninety-
dayers. The program's all set up in the command computer,
all you have to do is run off the orders."

Kelly scratched at his thinning hair. "Well, are we on red
alert or aren't we? What do I tell—"

"Just do what I told you and do it now! I want the base
buttoned up tight before midnight."

With a perplexed shrug, Kelly said, "People are going to
ask a lot of questions."

405

"Keep it as quiet as you can. No fuss, no alarms ringing
in the corridors. Don't scare the civilians. Just get the right
people to the right places. Now!"

Kelly looked distinctly unhappy when Kinsman breezed
into his office, more than an hour later.

"What's the word?" Kinsman asked, going straight to his
desk.

Kelly had a thick sheaf of plastic reports in his hand.
"We're scrambling hell out of everybody's work shifts, but
the base is getting buttoned up. Lots of questions being
asked, lots of grumbling."

Sitting in the desk chair, Kinsman said, "I told you to do
things quietly."

"You can't shove half the population of the base around
quietly!" Kelly complained.

Kinsman looked up at him. "Okay, Pat. Okay, Sit
down." He pointed to the couch. "Give me a rundown."

By the time Kelly was finished, Kinsman was satisfied
that everything was going as smoothly as could be expected.

"What about the shuttle?" he asked.

"Left Alpha on schedule."

"The passenger list?"

"In the computer."

Leaning back in his chair, "Okay, good. Put in a call to
the shuttle. Tell them to increase boost and get here on a
maximum-energy trajectory. Clear the launch center for
them. Talk to your wife while you've got the channel open."

Kelly shook his head as if to clear it. "Maximum-energy
trajectory? Chet, what the hell are you doing?"

Kinsman grinned at him. "Your wife and kids are
aboard. Aren't you anxious to see them?"

"Yeah, but . . ."

"How many kids do you have?"

"Uh . . . six."

"You don't sound too sure."

It was Kelly's turn to grin. "Well, I haven't seen her for a
couple months. She might know something I don't."

"Goddamned sex maniac."

"Me?"

"Get moving. I want to know exactly when that shuttle
406

can touch down. And I'll be inspecting the base at midnight.
God help all of you if I'm not satisfied with the security
status."

Mumbling incoherently, Kelly got up and left.

Kinsman immediately turned to the computer display
screen and started going through the files of all the military
personnel in Moonbase, especially the ninety-dayers. He
knew most of them, had selected them from previous tours of
duty. Wonder how many I've rejected over the years? The
unthinking martinets. The clumsy ones who would kill them-
selves up here. The stupid ones who'd kill others with their
mistakes. The idiots who can't live in close contact with
people of other races, other nationalities. The soft ones
who'd never have the guts to ... to ...

"To commit treason," he said aloud. "Face it. Treason.
Like Washington and Jefferson. Like Benedict Arnold. It
depends on who wins; that's the difference between treason
and patriotism."

Out of the one hundred twenty-two military personnel
among the ninety-dayers Kinsman identified forty whom he
knew would be reliable. Forty men and women who would be
willing to follow him, who would see a free Selene not as a
threat to America but as the only way out of a deadly
negative-sum game.

The highest-ranking officer on the list, next to Pat Kelly,
was a captain. "Christopher Perry," Kinsman muttered,
looking over the Captain's personnel file. The picture in it
showed a clear-eyed, square-faced blond youth. Pleasant
expression; almost innocent. Kinsman remembered a long
conversation with him during his previous tour of lunar duty;

how he was fed up with flying helicopters on riot control over
Washington. "Yeah. He's one of us."

The door buzzer sounded. Looking up from the display
screen, Kinsman called, "Come in."

The door slid back and Frank Colt stepped into the
office.

"I was just thinking about you, Frank."

The black man kept his face expressionless. "What's
going on around here?"

"Sit down, buddy. Relax."

Colt ignored the couch and pulled a chair from the wall.
407

"Kelly says you've got a mock alert going. You suddenly
getting security conscious?"

"Yep. That's what it is. I'm security conscious."

Colt did not look convinced at all. "Why you keeping the
ninety-dayers out of it?"

"Because Murdock wants us to have enough people
available to help out with the manned stations," Kinsman
answered smoothly. "Can't send the permanent Luniks, can
I?"

"You could in a pinch. Only one section of the stations
are at Earth gee."

"Yeah, but the ninety-dayers would be better for orbital
duty. Not us soft, decrepit medical cases."

Colt frowned.

"What's wrong, Frank? I thought you'd be delighted that
I'm taking Murdock's hysterics so seriously."

"How come I wasn't notified? I'm the deputy command-
er and I—"

"The emergency procedures program hasn't been up-
dated since you arrived, I guess. You found out anyway,
didn't you?"

"Because I bumped into Pat Kelly in the fuckin' corridor
and he looked scared as shit!"

"So you didn't find out through official channels," Kins-
man said. "But you did get the word."

"What are you pulling, Chet?"

"When I pull something," Kinsman responded, "you'll
be the first to know. I'll even go through regular channels."

Colt jumped to his feet. Still unaccustomed to lunar
gravity, he knocked the chair over backward. "Goddammit,
Chet, you're gonna get your ass killed! I know you're up to
something crazy, and I know it's not Murdock's orders. Now
take some advice from a friend, man, and—"

"Frank!" Kinsman cut in. "I don't want advice. 1 know
what I have to do."

"Don't do it, Chet! I'm asking you. Don't do it, whatever
crazy scheme you're cookin'. You're gonna force me to kill
you."

"There won't be any killing, Frank."

"I don't know what the hell's going through your head,"
Colt's voice was trembling, almost breaking, "but don't put
408

me on the spot. I don't want to have to choose between your
life and mine."

"You won't have to choose," Kinsman said, trying to
keep his voice calm despite the tightness gripping his chest.

"If you try to hand this base over to the Russians ..."

"Don't be silly!"

"Or do anything against the United States . . . Chet, I'll
have to stop you. I'll have to!"

"You'll have to try, I guess. If and when the time
comes."

"Chet! Dammit!"

Rising slowly from his chair, Kinsman said, "Frank, if
and when the time comes, we'll all have to do what we think is
best. If you've got to kill me ... Well, everybody dies sooner
or later."

"Jesus H. Christ on the motherfuckin' cross!" Colt threw
his hands up and stamped out of the office.

Kinsman stood there for a long time, leaning on the desk,
waiting for the tension to ease away from his chest.

Saturday 11 December 1999:

0112hrsUT

IT WAS EVENING in Washington, dark and raining.

General Murdock shivered as he humped his overweight
body against the limousine's jumpseat. It was not the rain or
the cold that sent the shudders down his spine, although God
knew the rotten weather made the bedraggled tinsel and
gaudy decorations of the downtown stores look even cheaper
and drearier than usual. No one—absolutely no one—was
walking on the streets. A mud-brown Army combat patrol car
stood at every street intersection, glistening in the wan
streetlights and steady downpour of rain, turrets buttoned up
and guns aimed along the sidewalks.

Even General Hofstader looked gloomy. His uniform
409

was crisp, his ribbons shone in the darkness of the limousine.
But his face was gray, creased, shrinking into premature old
age from the tensions that he was forced to endure.

It was the other man's voice that made Murdock shiver.
That harsh, labored whisper, like a demon clawing its way up
from hell.

"Enemies within as well as without," he rasped, pointing
a heavy hand toward the empty streets. "With the Soviets
about to attack us, every fool pacifist and Communist sympa-
thizer in the land is preparing to stab us in the back."

"I didn't realize . . ." Murdock began, then immediately
wished he had not. General Hofstader froze him with a glare.

"Didn't realize," the other man said, his rage-filled face
twisting even more. "How many Americans do realize the
seriousness of this crisis. Few. Very few. Precious few."

He lapsed into silence for a moment. Neither general
dared to speak. The limousine sped through the rain, its
turbine whining shrilly. There was no traffic to hinder them.
The only other sound was the thwack, thwack of the wind-
shield wiper on the back window. The front of the limo was
acoustically sealed off from the rear.

"We precious few." The man wheezed. It was as close as
he ever came to laughter. "We will live through the holocaust
and then begin a new world—begin afresh, the right way, the
way that made this nation great."

General Hofstader cleared his throat. "I should be at
Cheyenne Mountain if an attack is imminent . . ."

"It is important to have the Joint Chiefs together for this
meeting. In person. Top security." He turned his burning eyes
on Murdock. "And you. I want to hear the latest intelligence
from your mavericks on the Moon."

Murdock swallowed hard. "They seem to be taking the
crisis much more seriously now. Apparently they've gone into
a maximum-security status . . ."

"'Apparently'?"

"From . . . from ... the latest report. This afternoon."

"And the Soviets?"

"1 don't know." Murdock felt helpless. "I don't have
access to that information."

"I suppose you also do not know that the Soviets are
deploying nuclear weapons in orbit."
410

"Ohmygod."

"Indeed. Now, tell me, what is your personal assessment
of the commander of Moonbase?"

Murdock blurted, "Kinsman?"

"That is his name, isn't it? I understand he is a dubious
factor."

"Well, he's . . ."

"Yes?"

His eyes were boring into Murdock. Hofstader was
staring at him, too. Miserably, Murdock answered, "He's
been a good administrator but I'm not certain that he's the
best man for the job in an emergency situation."

"Then get rid of him."

Murdock turned to Hofstader.

"Remove him," the Four-Star General said. "Do you
have a reliable second-in-command up there?"

"Oh, yessir. Very reliable!"

"Put him in command. Send whatever-his-name-is back
down here."

"He can't. Medical disability."

The other man leaned forward and put a heavy hand on
Murdock's knee. "Get him out of there. If you have to arrest
him and put him in a life-support capsule for the rest of his
life—get him out of there!"

"Yessir. Right away, sir," Murdock squeaked.

It was close to 0200 hours when Kinsman finished his
inspection rounds of Moonbase.

Everything's buttoned up tight. Shuttle's down and won't
move until I say so. The base is as secure as it can be. Reliable
people on duty. No screams for help from Leonov.

Kinsman was pacing down a corridor in the residential
section of the base. Most of the people were sleeping, as if
this night were the same as any other. He turned at an
intersection and started toward Diane's quarters.

"She can't be working all the time," he muttered to
himself.

He put all doubts behind him as he hurried down the
corridor, passing under the eerie bluish light of one set of
fluorescents into the shadows between lamps and then back
into the light again. It was warm down at this level, but
411

Kinsman still felt a clammy cold sweat that made his coveralls
stick to his chest and arms and back.

He knocked at Diane's door. No answer. He knocked
again, louder, then put his ear to the thin plastic of the door.
A scuffling sound inside. Muttering. The door opened a
crack.

"Oh, hello." Diane's voice was thick, her hair tousled,

eyes puffy.

"Can I come in for a minute?"

She opened the door wide enough for Kinsman to step
through. Diane was wearing an ankle-length shift. It had been
pink once, but had faded considerably. No frills on it. High
Chinese collar.

"Is something wrong?" she muttered. "I was relieved of
duty in the middle of my shift . . ."

He stood on the grass-covered floor and surveyed the
room. The door to the bedroom was closed.

"Something's wrong," he said.

"What?"

"You haven't returned my calls. You've been avoiding
me."

"Not now, Chet. I can't . . ."

"Now," he said. "I've got to know why."

She rubbed at her eyes.

"Why?" Kinsman took her by the wrist. "Why have you
been avoiding me?"

"Because you scare me," Diane said.

"Scare you?"

Her voice shaky, her eyes avoiding his, she said, "I didn't
realize . . . you mean it! You're really going to try it!"

"Of course I am. I told you."

She pulled her hand away from him. "I don't want any
part of it. It's crazy! All you're going to accomplish is getting
yourself killed. You're committing suicide over some woman
who died ten years ago."

"That's ridiculous."

"It is ridiculous. And frightening." Diane backed a step
away from him. "And then you say you're not going to let me
go back to Earth. I don't want to stay here, Chet! I don't want
to be here when they kill you!"
412

"Nobody's going to kill me."

"Yes, they will. You're going to keep pushing at them
until they have no choice but to kill you."

"Everybody dies," he muttered.

Diane pushed a lock of hair back away from her face.
"Sure. Be a hero. Save the world. I can't stop you. I won't
even try. But I've got a daughter to think of, to protect. I
don't want to die and I don't want her to be killed. I don't
want you to die!"

"So what do you want to do?" he asked.

"I want to find someplace safe."

"Where?" He almost laughed. "There aren't any safe
places. There's going to be killing here, Diane. Maybe a lot of
it. Frank Colt won't let me take Moonbase away from
America without a fight. Leonov will have to shoot his way to
independence. Then we'll have to take the space stations
—more killing. It's inescapable. We've got to kill to prevent
killing. It's a cosmic joke."

"There's nothing funny about it."

"I know."

"I can't go with you on this, Chet. You'll have to do it
without me."

"I know." He had known it all along.

Pat Kelly looked scared. There's no other word for it,
Kinsman decided. Pat is scared.

The two officers had spent most of the morning going
over all the contingency plans for repelling attack and keeping
Moonbase secure. He and Kelly had checked, using the
picture phones, every vital area of the base. They had then
called in, one by one, every key person, military and civilian:

the personnel chief, the head of maintenance, the director of
the hospital, the Officer of the Day—every man and woman
in charge of a department or an important group of people or
a vital piece of equipment.

To each of them, Kinsman gave the same speech; "We
are in a maximum-security status. War is imminent. I intend
to declare our independence from Earthside and try to
prevent the war from starting. We will act together with the
people of Lunagrad. Selene will become an independent
413

nation. Both the United States and Soviet Russia will try to
stop us, and there might be bloodshed. We'll try to avoid it,
but we've got to be ready to face that possibility,"

The night fears were gone from his mind, or at least
buried deep enough so that he could ignore them. Kinsman
felt strangely calm, at peace with himself for the first time in a

decade.

The people he spoke to were shocked, surprised. Some
smiled with sudden relief. Some were angry and showed it. Of
those who agreed with his purpose. Kinsman asked only that
they explain the situation to the people under them. To those
who became tight-lipped and clench-fisted, he offered a
shuttle flight back to Earth. And then called in their second-
in-command.

As the long day wore on, the entire absurd idea began to
seem almost natural, inevitable. We're thumbing our noses at
the two most powerful nations in the world. Why? Oh,
because I killed a Russian girl once. And, incidentally, we're
trying to save the world. So what's new with you? Kinsman
began to feel lightheaded.

Diane was the last one to come into his office.

"You know what's going down," Kinsman said to her as
Kelly watched nervously from the couch. "Can we depend on
your cooperation, or should we relieve you of duty at the
comm center?"

Diane smiled, despite herself. "I just got the job; I'd hate
to give it up so soon."

Kinsman felt his hopes soar. "Then you'll work with us?"

"I guess I'll have to."

"I thought you didn't want any part of this," Kinsman
said, remembering their conversation earlier that morning.

Without an instant's hesitation Diane replied, "I don't.
At least, I didn't. I was scared. Middle-of-the-night scared.
But it's daytime now. You're going ahead with it, even though
it's crazy."

Kinsman nodded.

"Okay," Diane went on. "If you're going to do it, then
I've got to go along with you."

"Even though ..."

"Even though it scares hell out of me, yes," Diane said.
"I can't sit on the sidelines. I've got to be a part of this,
414

whether I like it or not. I've been trying to warn people about
this government for a long time, you know. Some of us saw
where they were leading us way back when. Some of us saw
this war coming years ago. Why do you think they stopped
me from singing? Why do you think they exiled me up
here?"

"You're on our side, then."

"What you're doing is right, Chet," she said. "I don't
think it's going to work. I think we're all going to get
ourselves killed. But you're right; we've got to try."

"We'll make it work," he said grimly. "We'll make it
work."

"You'll want the comm center shut up tight." Diane
seemed to draw herself up to her full height. Her decision
made, she became businesslike, professional. "All Earthside
messages routed straight to you?"

"Right. And no traffic beamed Earthside without my
specific okay."

"No traffic at all?" Diane asked. "Won't that make them
suspicious?"

He shrugged. "Can't take the chance on somebody
sneaking a message out."

"I can monitor the outgoing messages for you."

He stared hard at her. "Do you want to?"

"Yes."

"You'll accept that responsibility? I didn't think you
wanted to be involved . . ."

"We can keep the routine messages flowing," Diane said,
ignoring his question. "And the computer data exchanges, of
course. I can monitor all the personal messages and make
certain they don't contain anything damaging. I could even
run them through the cryptographic computer, just to be
certain no one's sending coded messages."

For a moment Kinsman wondered if he could truly trust
her. But he said, "Okay. Good. And thanks."

Diane left the office. Kinsman turned to the worried
Kelly. "Who's left?"

"That's everybody." Kelly's voice was shaky.

"What about Ernie Waterman?"

Kelly flinched as if slapped. "Ernie's not a department
head."

415

"I know. But he's a key man. I want his reaction. Didn't I
ask you to call him earlier?"

Kelly started to shake his head.
"And Frank Colt. Where's he? Get somebody to track

him down."

"Okay."

Kinsman watched Kelly working with the phone. The
guy's scared half to death!

"Pat."

Kelly jerked away from the phone keyboard. "Yeah?

What?"

"Calm down," Kinsman said softly. "It's going to be all
right. Everything's going better than I had hoped it would.
There's not going to be any shooting."

Biting his lip, "Yeah. Maybe."

"I'm going to try to get Leonov on the phone. Meantime,
you call Chris Perry in here."

"Perry? What for?"

Kinsman was already punching Leonov's number on his
desktop phone. "Chris is going to lead one of our missions to
the space stations. His group will take Beta. I'm going to
Alpha. And we've got to find a reliable guy to . . ."

Kelly's face looked stricken. He went white, his mouth
hung open, his hands froze on the phone.

"Pat! You okay?"

With an effort Kelly croaked out, "I didn't know you
were going to attack the stations. You never told me . . ."

"We're not going to attack them. We're going to take
them over. Quick and neat and with no fuss. And Leonov's
going to do the same on his side."

"You're going to leave the United States defenseless."

"No," Kinsman answered. "We're going to take over all
the defenses ourselves. Then we'll make sure that nobody can
attack anybody else."

Kelly got up slowly from the couch. He was visibly
trembling. "Chet, I ... You've got to let me out of this. I
never thought . . ."

"Hold on. Pat. Nobody's going to get hurt if we can help
it."

"You can't . . ." Kelly's eyes were darting, looking for a
416

way out. "You never told me you were going to take over the
ABM network, I'm not ... I can't . . ."

Kinsman stared at him. "Okay, Pat," he said at last. "I
don't want you to do anything you don't want to do." But in
his mind, Kinsman was startled. Pat's not on our side! I was so
certain of him. But he can't make the crossover. How many
others am I wrong about?

Kelly hurried out of the office. Kinsman watched the
door slide shut behind him. For long moments he did nothing.

Finally he returned his attention to the phone and tapped
out Leonov's number. The screen stayed blank and a man's
voice said, "Sir, all communications with Lunagrad are
down."

"The lines are cut?"

"Nosir. No physical damage. They've just closed down
their comm center. No traffic in or out. Our monitors show no
Earthside traffic, either."

They're fighting, Kinsman realized. It must be a real civil
war over there. And there's not a damned thing we can do to
help Pete. That's all he'd need—a bunch of armed Americans
marching into Lunagrad.

But he could not stay in his office any longer. Kinsman
punched out the number for the comm center and told the
answering technician, "Page Captain Perry and have him
meet me at the access hatch to the main Lunagrad tunnel."

There were a dozen points where Lunagrad and Moon-
base touched each other: the main plaza, the hospital, the
recreation dome. The main tunnel was the oldest and most
strategic point of contact. It was here that the two separate
bases had originally been united. And in a show of everlasting
trust and friendship, much of the life support plumbing and
electrical power cabling had been routed through this tunnel.

Kinsman never got there.

As he hurried down the corridor that led to the main
tunnel the P.A. loudspeakers set into the rough stone ceiling
suddenly blared;

"KINSMAN . . . CHET KINSMAN!"

He skidded to a stop under one of the speakers. As he
stared at it, set overhead between the fluorescents and some
piping, he recognized Frank Colt's voice.
417

"Chet, listen to me. We've taken the water factory. Ernie
Waterman's here, and so is Pat Kelly and a lot of other loyal
officers. We're going to shut down the water supply for
Moonbase in exactly one hour unless you surrender yourself
to us. If you try to take us here we'll blow the whole fucking
water factory sky-high."

Saturday 11 December 1999:

1520hrsUT

THE HOUR WAS nearly over.

Kinsman stood at the railing of the balcony that rimmed
the communications center. Everything looks so damned

normal, he thought.

Down below, on the main floor of the center, the
technicians were bending over the consoles and display
screens. All of Moonbase seemed serene and secure. All
except the water factory. And there had been no contact with
Lunagrad for more than six hours.

Chris Perry came up beside Kinsman. He was taller and
broader in the shoulders than Kinsman, with a wide-boned,
open Norseman's face: eyes the color of a summer sky.
"We've triple-checked every person in the base," he said, in a
youthful tenor voice. "Only thirty-two people are missing,
mostly Aerospace Force ninety-dayers. They must be the ones
at the water factory."

"Thirty-two? Kinsman echoed. "So the hard-core dissi-
dents are that few." But more than enough to stop us.

Diane was sitting at a desk not far from where he stood.
She, too, had been working steadily. But now she got up and
walked slowly to Kinsman, a plastic message sheet in her

hand.

"Priority message from General Murdock," she said,
looking straight into his eyes. "We just finished decoding it.
418

You've been relieved of command. Frank Colt is the new
commander of Moonbase. You're ordered to report to Wash-
ington immediately."

Kinsman reached out and took the plastic sheet from her
fingers. It had been used so many times that the electrostati-
cally formed letters looked blurred and smudged. Or is my
eyesight going bad on me? The back of Kinsman's neck was
knotted painfully. His chest ached.

"This just came in out of the blue?" he asked Diane.

She nodded. "They don't know that anything unusual's
going on here. Not yet. The change of command has nothing
to do with your revolution."

Turning to Perry, Kinsman said, "The Great White
Father has relieved me of command. What do you think the
Indians will say?"

The young Captain shrugged his husky shoulders.
"We're not taking orders from Washington anymore. We take
our orders from you."

Kinsman stared hard at the blond youth. "You're sure

that you realize what you're saying? You can avoid a lot of

grief. If we fail ..."

"We won't fail," Perry said with a quick smile.
We'd better not! Aloud, Kinsman said, "Okay, Chris
. . . here's what I want you to do . . ."

It was five minutes before Colt's deadline when Kinsman
arrived at the water factory entrance.

As he stepped off the power ladder he saw that the
entrance—an open space that had once been a natural
cave—was now guarded by two unarmed men. Guns were
carefully locked away in Selene. Only a few were available at
any time, and Kinsman had control of most of them.

He recognized one of the men: a middle-aged accountant
who worked in the procurement group. He was an asthmatic,
and this excitement was not helping his heaving chest. The
other was younger, a newcomer, one of the ninety-day
shavetails. Kinsman had seen him before, but could not recall
his name. He wore ordinary gray fatigues without insignia or
color code.

Wordlessly they walked him through the rough-hewn
419

chamber. The overhead fluorescents glowed, the rock walls
felt cold. Forcing himself to smile. Kinsman murmured to
them, "Relax. Nobody's going to get hurt."

They did not answer. At the end of the chamber, the
redhead from -Fill's party was standing tensely in front of the
doors that opened onto the factory's office area. She looked

angry.

"I didn't expect to see you here," Kinsman said.
She was not wearing a party dress now; Just a pair of
green fatigues that marked her as a member of the life-
support group. But they could not conceal the ripeness of her

figure.

"Follow me," she said.

She pushed open the door and led him down the curving
corridor, in silence. Kinsman could not help noticing the way
her butt moved inside the fatigues. They passed the computer
area and he stared hard through the long windows as they
walked by. The computer's lights were flashing away as usual
even though no one was sitting at the desk stations. They
haven't shut anything down, Kinsman realized. Then he

added, Yet.

"I never did get your name straight at the party," he said

to the redhead.

"Doesn't matter."

He pulled alongside her. "Come on now. Politics is one
thing, but you don't have to be inhuman about it."

In coldly clipped tones she said, "What happened at the
party was strictly business."

"Business?" Even as he said it. Kinsman realized, Kee-
rist! Internal Security Agency! No wonder she's sore. She
took all the trouble of going to bed with me and didn't learn a
thing. Probably looks bad on her file.

Soon they were out of the corridor and into the factory
area itself. She led Kinsman through a maze of piping, up
onto catwalks that threaded through the electric arcs and
main pumps. He could feel the machinery throbbing like a
giant mechanical heart, making the metal grillwork of the
catwalk vibrate. Off in the distance the muted thunder of the
rock crushers went on without slack.

Pat Kelly was standing on a platform on the next level
420

above the catwalk. Under the harsh lights, Kinsman could see
that Kelly was fidgeting nervously, his rabbit's face a picture
of anxiety. He wore a gun in a holster buckled to his hip.

The redhead stopped at the base of the ladder that led up
to the platform. "Major Kelly will take over from here," she
said.

"Tell me one thing," said Kinsman.

She looked at him warily.

"Still think I'm cute?"

She flushed angrily and spun away from him so fast that
her shoulder-length hair swung over her face momentarily.
Kinsman watched her stamp back down the catwalk for a few
seconds, admiringly, then reluctantly turned to the ladder and
started climbing.

Kelly was genuinely frightened. He could not look
straight at Kinsman.

"Come on," he said, gesturing down another spidery
catwalk. "We don't have much time."

"I didn't expect you to be with them," Kinsman said,
falling in step beside the younger officer.

"I didn't expect you to be handing Moonbase over to the
Russians," Kelly answered, keeping his eyes straight ahead.
"Or to hand them our defense satellites."

"You're wrong about that, Pat. We're creating a new
nation here."

Kelly shook his head.

"You know, if you blow up the water factory you'll be
killing everyone up here."

"They can send us water from Earthside."

"How soon? Two, three days? A week? A month? And
how much? Enough for a thousand people, every day? Don't
be stupid. Pat. And don't think they'll do anything
—especially if the shooting starts."

Kelly did not reply.

"It's your wife and kids. Pat. You'll be killing them,
too."

"You're the guy who made me bring them here! Was that
your idea, to use them as hostages?"
"I'm trying to save their lives."

For the first time Kelly turned to face Kinsman. "By
421

handing them over to the Russians? So they can shoot them?"
He banged a fist against the catwalk railing, making it
reverberate hollowly. "If we go to war they're as good as dead
anyway. I'm not going to let you help the Russians beat
America."

"Then why don't you help me to prevent the war from
happening?" Kinsman's voice rose enough to echo off the
huge metal machinery below them.

"You can't talk your way out of this," Kelly said, starting
to walk along the catwalk again. "You can't avoid the war by
giving the enemy everything he wants."

"Leonov and his people aren't the enemy."

"They're Russians' That's the enemy! I took an oath to
protect and defend the United States of America!" Kelly
shouted, his voice cracking. "So did you. It might not have
meant anything to you, but it's the most important thing in
my life."

"It won't work. Pat."

"I know what my duty is'"

"And your family?"

"I know what my duty is!" Kelly was nearly screaming.

Very quietly, ignoring the growing sullen pain in his
chest, Kinsman said, "Joseph Goebbels."

Kelly blinked at him. "Who?"

"Goebbels. Propaganda minister for the Nazis, under
Hitler. During the final days of World War Two, when the
Russians were pounding Berlin to rubble, he gave cyanide to
his wife and kids. Six or seven of them, I think. Then he took
some himself."

With a disgusted snort, Kelly sped up his stride along the
catwalk. He was almost running.

"I could never understand how a man could do that,"
Kinsman went on, easily keeping pace with the shorter man.
"Not since I first read about it, in high school. Now I know."

Kelly flushed deep red.

"Hold it right there!" It was Frank Colt's voice, coming
from somewhere below them. Kinsman peered over the
catwalk railing. There he was, down on the floor of the water
factory, three levels below. The black Lieutenant Colonel
was wearing his regulation fatigues, Aerospace Force blue,
422

with his silver oak leaves pinned to the collar and a heavy
automatic pistol strapped around his middle.

"Search him," Colt ordered.

Kinsman took a palm-sized transistor radio from the
chest pocket of his coveralls. "This is all I'm carrying." Plus
the homing beacon inside my left shoe.

Kelly searched him anyway and missed the flea-sized
signaling device as he patted down Kinsman's arms, torso,
and legs. They clambered down the long ladder to Colt.
Kinsman went slowly; he found that he was panting, short-
breathed. Kelly followed him down.

Stepping out onto the stone floor of the factory, Kinsman
said to Colt, "Congratulations, Frank. Murdock's made you
commander of Moonbase."

Colt's eyebrows shot up, "Yeah? Tliat's good. Makes
everything legal and official."

"Except for the fact that Moonbase no longer exists,"
Kinsman said, forcing a grin. "Murdock doesn't know that
yet, but he's always been behind the curve." More seriously,
"This is now the nation of Selene, Frank. Washington's
orders have no authority here anymore. Neither do Mos-
cow's." I hope! he added silently.

Colt glanced at his wristwatch. "In another minute and a
half there won't be any water factory, buddy. Unless you call
this shit off."

"Frank, we've been friends for a long time."

"This isn't friendship anymore, Chet. It's treason."

Looking up at the hulking metal shapes throbbing
around them, Kinsman asked, "Where's Waterman?"

"Busy." Colt gestured vaguely.

"Planting explosives."

"That's right."

"Frank, if you do this you're not only going to kill
everyone in Selene. You'll be killing everyone on Earth,
too."

"Stuff it. Nobody's gonna die if you tell your people to
forget this independence shit. I'll even see to it that the whole
thing's hushed up. Nobody arrested, no hassles. You can go
back Earthside ..."

"And get nuked."

423

Colt's jaw muscles clenched. He looked at his wrist
again. "The explosives are set to go off in less than a minute.
You better make your move."

Despite the roaring in his ears, despite the pain flaring in
his chest, Kinsman forced himself to say calmly, "When your
explosives go off, Frank, you'll be killing the entire human
race."

"You goddamned fool!" Colt's voice was molten steel.
"Leonov's pigeon. They've set you up, man! Can't you see
that? They've set you up! Peace and love and friendship—and
you turn the whole ABM system over to them. Fuck that!"

"You're wrong, Frank. We can trust Leonov. He's one of
us."

Turning to Kelly, Colt snapped, "Gimme that radio he
brought." He took the palm-sized plastic box and thrust it at
Kinsman. "Call it off, Chet. Tell 'em to stop. You got fifteen
seconds to go."

Kinsman stood unmoving, hands by his sides.

"For Christ's sake!" Kelly screamed. "Do it! Don't make
us—"

The lights went off. The rumble of machinery died.
Before anyone could say anything the tiny emergency lamps
came up, scattering pools of grayish light sparsely amid the
dark looming machinery.

Kinsman spoke first. Calmly. Coolly. "Your explosives
are electrically fused?"

"Sonofabitch!" Even in the dim lighting Kinsman could
see Colt's hand nervously rubbing the holster at his hip.

"There'll be troops coming through here soon," Kins-
man told them. "They'll be armed with sniperscopes and gas
grenades. Remember, Frank? The stuff you insisted we stock,
on your last tour here, so we could fight the Russians without
shooting up valuable equipment."

"You haven't won, Chet." Colt yanked the gun from its
holster. "Not yet."

He gestured with the gun, ordering Kinsman and Kelly
along the walkway that led between the big steel domes of
machinery. It was tricky going in the semidarkness, but within
a few minutes they met Ernie Waterman.

"They shut off the rucking power!" Waterman cried.
424

"How the hell am I supposed to . . ." Then he recognized
Kinsman and shut up.

Colt waved the gun. "Jury-rig something. You can use
batteries, can't you?"

"Yeah, yeah. That's what I was on my way for
—batteries."

"Well, get 'em!" Colt's voice was urgent.

Kinsman asked, "Ernie, couid you actually blow this up,
after you worked so hard to build it?"

A dull, muffled boom made the floor shake. "There's
your answer," the engineer replied. "One of the other teams
has found some batteries. It's only machinery. Colonel. It can
be rebuilt. Machines do what they're designed to do. Not like
people. People can turn on you,"

"And people can behave like machines," Kinsman
snapped back, "following programming that's obsolete."

"Patriotism isn't obsolete."

"It is when it leads to the destruction of the nation you're
being loyal to."

"Cut the crap," Colt said, "and go find some goddamned
batteries."

Waterman hurried down the walkway, his canes clicking
on the stone floor. Kinsman wondered, What did they blow?
How much damage did they do? He felt as if his chest were
being rubbed raw, from the inside.

Another explosion. Closer. They all winced. Kelly put
his hands to his ears.

"They're all finding batteries." Colt smiled grimly.

They walked to a row of electric arcs, a line of stainless
steel jackets that looked like cannon shells the size of a man,
standing on heavily insulated supports. Conveyor belts car-
ried pulverized rock slurry into one end of each jacket; a
maze of piping at the base carried away water and minerals.
Standing there neatly in a row the arcs reminded Kinsman of
missiles waiting for the final push of the red button.

The conveyor belts were still now. The arcs silent and
powerless. Somewhere in the darkness Kinsman could hear
the drip, drip of slurry leaking through a seam in the belting.
Like the drip of blood from a wound. Then his eyes caught an
ugly cluster of red packages wedged under one of the arcs:

425

explosives, electrical detonator, coils of wire.

Colt bolstered his gun and leaned against one of the
stainless steel jackets. Kinsman stood before him.

"You're killing everybody here," he said simply.

"No," Colt replied. "You are/'

"And everybody on Earth." Where's Perry and the
cavalry? If they blow the arcs we're finished. We'd never be
able to rebuild them without help from Earthside.

Wearily, Colt said, "Chet, you can afford to be a high
flier. You take your own chances, it's only your own white ass
if you get caught. But what happens to every black man in
uniform if I turn traitor? What'll their lives be worth if
Washington thinks I'm helping you?"

What's he trying to tell me? Kinsman asked slowly,
stalling, "What are their lives worth now, Frank? What
happens to them when the missiles are launched? Most of the
blacks in the States are living in urban areas, aren't they?
Right in the prime targets."

"But you're the one who's gonna let the Russians launch
their missiles!"

"No, Frank."

"Yes! Dammit, man, open your eyes! If you let the
Russians grab the ABM satellites they can nuke the hell out of
America and stop any counterstrike we launch."

"Nobody's going to use those satellites except us,"
Kinsman said, his voice rising. "The people of Selene. And
we'll use them against any and all missiles—Russian or
American. Or Chinese or French or South African!"

"Bullshit!" Colt snapped. "You've been conned, man!
Once the Russians get their hands on our satellites, you know
they ain't gonna cooperate with you. They been sweet-talkin'
you and you fell for it."

"We can trust Leonov."

"Like hell! Can't trust Reds. Not any of 'em."

Kinsman felt as if he'd run a thousand meters—no, a
thousand kilometers. "Frank, you're scared of trusting any-
one. You're scared of taking the risk. And I'm telling you that
unless we trust Leonov and his people, unless we start
trusting one another, the world's going to go up in flames."

Colt stubbornly shook his head.

"You're chicken, Frank. Scared of trying something new.
426

So you fall back on the regulations. When in doubt, follow the
rules. Right?"

"Right!"

"Play it Murdock's way. Obey all orders blindly. Do
what they tell you. Tote dat barge, lift dat bale . . ."

Colt punched him. A short savage right that came from
the hip and clipped Kinsman squarely on the jaw. Kinsman
actually felt himself lifting off his feet, flailing ridiculously in
the low lunar gravity, and collapsing in a heap—ass, spine,
shoulder, head—on the stone floor. His feet were the last to
touch down.

Pat Kelly stared at him, frozen with surprise.

For a moment Kinsman lay there, tasting blood in his
mouth. "That's the way, Frank. Kill and be killed."

A tangled skein of expressions worked across Colt's face.
He said nothing.

"Frank," Kinsman said, still on his back, propping
himself up on one elbow, "the black people of America, of
Africa, of everywhere, are going to die. Before the month is
out. Maybe before another week is out. Is that what you
want?"

"And you're gonna save 'em by turning 'em over to the
Reds?"

"I'm going to save them by making them free."

"Ahhh ..." Colt's face went sour. "You sound like a
fucking dumb revolutionary. I been that route. It sucks."

"Why isn't Ernie back?" Kelly worried out tou-d. He
peered nervously down the dim walkway.

Maybe Perry's men intercepted him, Kinsman hoped.
Another explosion boomed faintly. Far off. Gas grenade?
More likely another chunk of the factory being destroyed.

Kinsman got slowly to his feet. "Frank, Pat—have either
of you thought about what it is that you're defending? The
United States of America. Is it really the nation you want it to
be? Does it work the way you want it to?"

"Don't start that," Kelly muttered.

"Think about it," Kinsman said. "Look at what's hap-
pening down there. Fuel shortages. Food shortages. Riots.
More people in Jail than on the streets. Army patrols in every
city. Curfews. Surveillance. What the hell kind of a nation is
that?"

427

"So you want to let the Russians blow it up?"
"No! I want it changed. But they're not heading toward

change. They're heading toward war."

"The United States will never start a war," Kelly said.
"What difference does it make who starts it?" Kinsman

snapped. "Who's going to prevent it? We're the only ones

who can."

"The United States . . ."

'Tat, stop spouting schoolbook lessons! There are peo-
ple down there who want the war! They think they'll live
through it while the rabble get fried."

"That's Communist propaganda!"

Kinsman shook his head. "The two of you—open your
eyes. That wonderful land of the free and home of the
brave—it's gone." With a chill in his heart. Kinsman realized
it was something he had known for years, but ignored, buried,
hid away from his conscious thoughts. "That beautiful nation
died in 1963, while we were still kids. Maybe someday it'll be
beautiful and free again, but not the way it's going now. Not if

it's subjected to a nuclear attack."

For a long moment the three men stood facing one

another, an unresolved triangle of silence.

Suddenly a rumbling noise startled them. Turning, they
saw Waterman limping along the walkway, painfully towing a
handcart laden with bulky, heavy-looking shapes.
Where is Perry? Kinsman screamed to himself.
"Got batteries, connectors, firing actuators—everything
we need," Waterman said tiredly. "Had to come the long way
around, though. Soldier-boys all over the place, swarming on
the catwalks, everywhere. They're ripping out the explosives

wherever they find them."

It's only a matter of time, Kinsman told himself. Maybe
the factory isn't too badly damaged. Maybe we can still make

it happen.

Wordlessly he watched Waterman and Colt work at fever

pitch to connect the batteries to the explosives. But if they
blow the arcs here, we're finished. Kinsman knew.
"A matter of time," he said aloud.
Waterman glanced up from his work at Kinsman,
"C'mon," Colt urged the engineer. "We gotta get it off
428

before the troops show up." He looked over toward Pat
Kelly. "Go down the walkway there as far as the end of this
row of arcs. Lemme know when they're in sight."

As Kelly started down the dimly lit walkway Kinsman
took two quick steps, brushed past the kneeling Colt, and
grabbed Waterman by the back of his collar. He yanked the
engineer away from the explosives and sent him staggering
backward. Colt sprang to his feet and pulled the pistol from
its holster as Waterman landed on the seat of his pants with a
painful thwack.

For an instant no one moved. Kelly stood a few paces up
the walkway. Waterman sat sprawled on the fioor. Colt
pointed his gun at hip level toward Kinsman.

"You're not going to do it," Kinsman said. "Even if I'm
dead wrong, this is the only chance we have to get out without
a war." He stooped down and grabbed a fistful of wires.

Colt's voice was gunmetal cold. "You're not just gonna
be dead wrong, Chet. You're gonna be dead."

"Goddammit to hell," Waterman moaned. "You bent
my goddamned brace. Hey, leave those wires alone! If you
touch that red one to the battery terminal ..."

Kinsman's fingers tightened around the wires.

"Chet!" Colt raised his gun, arm fully extended. The
muzzle was ten centimeters from Kinsman's face, a yawning
black tunnel to eternity.

"That's the only way you'll stop me, Frank." Kinsman
heard his own voice as if it were coming from a long way off:

strangely flat and calm, as if he were reading lines that had
been rehearsed eons ago.

"Chet, HI kill you!"

"Then do it. If you have your way, everybody's going to
die anyway."

Kelly found his voice. "Shoot him! What are you waiting
for?"

"Chet," Colt said again, "take your hands off the wires
and step away. If you don't, I'll have to shoot."

"No way, Frank."

Colt pulled the gun back slowly, then with his left hand
slid the action back, cocking it with a loud metallic click,
clack.

429

"I mean it, Chet."

"I know. It all boils down to the two of us, doesn't it? It's
you and me, Frank. Life or death."

"If you're wrong," Colt said, his face shining with sweat.
"If you're wrong . . ."

"Leonov is with us. He's doing the same thing in
Lunagrad that we're doing here."

"That's what he wants you to think."

"That's the truth."

"No . . ."

"Yes! The only way to prevent the end of the world is by
trusting him. And if you can't trust him, Frank, then trust me.
This is the only way, Frank. The only way."

The gun wavered just the slightest fraction of a centime-
ter.

"Don't listen to him!" Kelly screamed. "Shoot him!
Shoot!"

Colt let his arm drop. He turned to Kelly. "You shoot
him, hero. You get the job done."

Keily blinked a half-dozen times. "Me?"

"Chickenshit," Colt said. "It's all right for the black boy
to do your dirty work, but you haven't got the guts to do it for
yourself,"

Waterman, still sprawled on the floor, said, "You've
gone crazy. All three of you—you're nuts!"

"Nobody's going to shoot anyone," Kinsman said. He
yanked at the wires and pulled them away from the explo-
sives. Then he stood up as Colt bolstered his gun.

In the distance Kinsman could hear the clatter of men
running. Faint voices. Lights flashing around the silent ma-
chines, casting eerie nickering shadows along their looming
bulk.

Waterman broke into sobs. "You're gonna let them nuke
the United States. You're gonna let them kill my girls, you
stupid sonofabitch."

"No," Kinsman said firmly. "We're going to stop them
from destroying themselves. If there's enough of this factory
left to keep us alive."

"You hope," said Colt.

"It's the only hope we have," Kinsman answered.
430

"You'd better be right," Waterman said, his voice trem-
bling. "You'd just better be right. If they kill my girls, I'll kill
you. I swear it on my wife's grave. With my bare hands I'll kill
you, Kinsman."

Silently Kinsman replied. Get in line, Ernie. There are
plenty of others ahead of you.

His office was jammed with people.

It surprised Kinsman. He was bone-weary, soaked with
fear, sweat, and exhaustion as he trudged the final length of
corridor to his office door. He felt totally alone, wrapped in
apprehension. What's happening at Lunagrad? Why hasn't
Pete called?

Then he slid the office door open and saw more than a
dozen people packed into the small room. All the display
screens were blaring. Diane sat behind his desk, the phone's
handset clamped to one ear and her hand pressed against the
other so she could hear over the noise of the crowd. Nearly
every light on the phone keyboard was lit. Hugh Harriman
was working the other phone, at the couch, yelling and
waving his arms.

Kinsman went straight to the desk. Diane looked up at
him. Simultaneously they asked, "Are you all right? How
bad's the damage to the factory?"

The ghost of a smile flitted across Diane's face. She
brushed a hand across her forehead. "You don't look so
good."

"I could use a drink. What's the word on the damage?
How bad is it? I didn't stay to see it all."

"Hugh's getting reports from the maintenance team."

Chris Perry pushed his way to Kinsman's side. "We've
done it, sir! Everything's secure. The whole base is ours. The
only real resistance was at the water factory, and they're all
rounded up."

"Fine. What about the damage reports?"

People were clustering around Kinsman, grinning,
flushed with victory. But Harriman was still gabbling a steady
stream of rapid-fire talk into the phone at the couch.

Kinsman made his way toward the couch; people cleared
a path for him. "Hugh, how bad is it?"
431

Harriman flailed a pudgy hand at him. "I'm trying to find
out, dammit! Give me a minute or two!"

Perry asked, "Sir, what about the, uh, prisoners from the
water factory?"

"Return them to their quarters. Put an armed guard at
the end of each corridor. Just see that they don't get into any
more mischief." Kinsman's head was buzzing. "Any word
from Leonov?"

Diane answered, "We received a call from Lunagrad
about half an hour ago. Not from Colonel Leonov, but from
one of the scientists. It was a personal call for Dr. Landau."

"Landau? No other communications from them?"

"No."

Puzzled, Kinsman turned toward the desk. On the wall
display screens he could see that the sections of Selene
currently being shown looked quiet and secure, completely
normal, except that the main plaza was crowded with people
in a holiday mood. They were milling about, looking happy,
excited. But then one screen changed to show an area of the
water factory: an explosion had ripped open half a dozen
pipes and precious, sacred water was gushing out, flooding
the area knee-deep as a team of repair technicians sloshed in
it, trying to stem the flow. Kinsman felt as if one of his own
arteries had burst: that was his life's blood being wasted.

He sank into the chair next to the desk and reached for
the phone's extra handset. Diane handed it to him, without
taking the receiver she was using from her ear. Briefly their
eyes met; neither of them smiled.

Kinsman took the handset and punched an open line on
the keyboard. "Lunagrad," he said into the phone. "Colonel
Leonov."

A communications tech's voice answered, "Sorry, sir,
but the links with Lunagrad have been very spotty. We're
getting no response at present."

Jesus Christ, what's going on over there? Kinsman
struggled to keep his voice calm. "Use the laser comm system.
Swing it from the lock on the space station to lock onto one of
Lunagrad's receiving mirrors."

"Sir, I'll need authorization for—"

"This is Kinsman. I'm going to put Captain Perry on the
432

line, and by the time he gets here that laser had better be
pointing at a Lunagrad mirror. I want a link established and I
want it nowV

"Yessir."

Kinsman waved Perry to the desk and explained what he
wanted done. He went back to the couch where Harriman
was still deep in agitated, animated conversation.

What are all these people doing here? he asked himself.
Scanning the crowded room, he saw the chief of the engineer-
ing section, two of the top scientists, a couple of young
Aerospace Force noncoms who normally worked the catapult
facility, several others from various administrative sections,
and a few he could not place. And Diane. She got up from the
desk and came to him.

"How's it going?" she asked.

He shook his head. "Don't know yet. The water factory's
damaged. And there's been no word from Leonov."

"Are you all right?"

"Yeah. Fine. How about you?"

"I want to help. What can I do?"

Shrugging, "Sit and sweat it out with the rest of us." And
then he understood why the others were here. Why the
people were gathering in the main plaza. Waiting. Waiting to
see if it was going to work. Waiting to learn if they would live
or die. On my responsibility, Kinsman thought.

Harriman snorted and slapped his free hand on his thigh.
"All right, all right'" he yelled into the phone. "Keep feeding
all the details into the computer so we can update the
assessment."

Kinsman was standing in front of him as he slammed the
receiver down on its cradle.

"Well?" Kinsman demanded.

Harriman rolled his eyes and made a fluttering motion
with one hand. "Not too good, not too bad. I got all the
damage-control teams to put their preliminary assessments
into the computer and then let the stupid machine mull it over
for a few minutes."

"And?"

"Preliminary analysis: water production down roughly
forty percent. Minerals and ores down a little less, maybe
433

twenty-five, thirty percent. They blew a lot of plumbing, but
the big hardware—the rock crushers—they just didn't have
enough explosives to really damage those monsters."

"Forty percent," Kinsman muttered. "For how long?"

Harriman said, "Two weeks. But that's too damned
preliminary to count. Say a month, at least."

Kinsman did a quick mental calculation. "We can live
with that. Water'11 be scarce for a month or so, but we can do
it."

Harriman lurched to his feet. "So we'll drink our booze
straight, eh?"

And suddenly they were all laughing, almost cheering,
with relief. Perry's strong tenor voice cut through the noise.
"I've got Lunagrad! They're bringing Leonov to the phone!"

The office went absolutely silent. It all hangs on Pete,
Kinsman knew.

He went to the desk. Perry got up from the chair and
handed the receiver to Kinsman. He felt suddenly weak and
dwarfed beside the younger man. Sitting, he glanced at
Diane, who swiveled the phone screen around for him to
see it.

The screen was a blur of rainbow static. Then it abruptly
cleared and Piotr Leonov's face took form. He looked
serious, his iron-gray hair disheveled.

"My apologies, old friend," Leonov said. His voice
sounded slightly hoarse.

Kinsman's heart seemed to stop beating.

"I should have thought of the laser link earlier," the
Russian went on. "The hard-liners tried to seize the main
communications and power centers."

"Tried to?"

"Yes. There was some shooting, I'm afraid we had to kill
a few of them. But it's over now. We are in firm control."

A collective gasp of relief from everyone in the office.

"Fine, Pete, fine," Kinsman said soberly. "We've got this
end of Selene under control, too."

For the first time Leonov smiled. "Congratulations, then.
We must toast the birth of Selene, the newest nation of
humankind!"

"Not yet," Kinsman said. "Not until we take command
434

of the space stations. Without them, what we've done so far is
meaningless."

Leonov shook his head slowly. "That cannot be done
overnight, you understand. But I am already picking reliable
men for the task. And the stations themselves are manned by
a great variety of peoples—Ukrainians. Uzbeks, even a few
Poles and Czechs."

"Really?" Kinsman could feel the tension among the
people around him fading. "How did that happen?"

His smile returning, Leonov answered, "A few years ago
I served a tour of duty as personnel director for orbital
operations. I managed to place emphasis on training, educa-
tion, and technical skill, rather than Party affiliation and
nationality. Enthusiasm and Leninist ideals—although basi-
cally correct, you understand!—are no substitute for techni-
cal capabilities when you are in a space station."

"Agreed." Kinsman felt himself relaxing a little, too.

"One unhappy thing." Leonov's face grew somber again,
"Those two girls I brought to your birthday party. They were
security agents! One of them shot me."

"Holy hell. Where? Is it serious?"

The Russian scowled. "In the back . . . lower back. I
think she was trying to humiliate me. At any rate, the doctors
tell me I will live and enjoy life—but I won't be sitting
comfortably for a few days."

They all roared. But even while Kinsman was laughing
his mind was warning him. The space stations. We've got to
take them quickly. Or fail.

435

Tuesday 14 December 1999:

1200 hrs UT

LIEUTENANT COLONEL STAHL STOOD before the main screens of
Space Station Alpha's cramped communications center.
"Holiday traffic's starting to build up, I see."

Major Cahill smiled weakly at his boss's joke.

The comm center was a shoebox of metal and plastic with
six monitor desks nested so tightly that if one of the techni-
cians tried to stretch an arm it would knock the headset off
the person next to her. When they spoke to the spacecraft that
were approaching or leaving the station, it was in the low,
whispering, economical Jargon of flight controllers every-
where.

Major Cahill sat at a cramped desk of his own, built into
the metal bulkhead off to one side of the compartment. The
entire forward bulkhead was a checkerboard of radar and
video display screens, a kaleidoscope that showed all the
traffic around Station Alpha.

Stahl always felt claustrophobic in here. His armpits went
ciammy. The room was too small, too densely packed with
humming electrical gear and muttering human beings. It
always smelled sweaty, tense. He pointed to one of the
screens that showed a nearly empty field of view. Only one
speck was discernible against the background of stars.

"Is that the shuttle from Moonbase?" Cahill nodded and
touched a stud on his desktop. Alphanumerical symbols
sprouted on the screen alongside the lunar shuttle, telling its
position, estimated time of arrival, cargo, and crew.

Major Cahili was lanky and lantern-jawed. During his
tour of duty aboard Alpha he had allowed a sandy mustache
to grow; it was now thick enough to curl at the ends. He
intended to shave it off before returning home for the
holidays. If the world lasted that long. Cahill's job included
436

keeping track of both the American and Russian unmanned
ABM satellites. He knew that the lasers aboard those satel-
lites could slice Alpha into very small pieces. And there was
nothing he or anyone else could do about it, except threaten
to treat the Soviet space stations to the same kind of surgery.

Lieutenant Colonel Stahl—chunky, solid, squared-off
face seamed by age and weather, nose bent from a fracture
incurred at a long-forgotten Academy football game—was
commander of the station. If he worried about their vulnera-
bility, he gave no sign of it.

"We have another bird approaching," Cahill told his
commander. "The emergency troopship coming up from
Vandenberg, to beef up our crew. Its ETA is going to conflict
with the lunar shuttle."

"The troopship has priority," Stahl said crisply.

Cahill agreed with a nod, but said, "You know, boss, we
haven't had a supply shipment from Moonbase for two days.
Their catapult's on the fritz."

"Yes, I know."

"Right. Well, if you take a look at the cargo the shuttle's
carrying ..."

Stahl leaned forward slightly and squinted at the symbols
on the screen showing the lunar shuttle.

"The LXY FDSTF means 'luxury foodstuffs/ Harry. Chick-
en, fresh vegetables, maybe even some fruit. It might be a
good idea to get them packed away safely before those green
troopers come stomping aboard."

Stahl pursed his lips. "H'mm. Green troopers, you say."

"None of 'em been on orbital duty before. There's going
to be a lot of upchucking, a lot of wasted food. And if they see
the good stuff being offloaded, we won't be able to keep it just
for us senior types. Their officers will want their fair share."

"Who's in command of the detachment?"

"Some major straight from Murdock's staff. He'll have a
pipeline right back to the General."

Stahl tugged at an earlobe, then grinned. "All right.
Vector the troopship into a parking orbit while we offload the
goodies and stash them safely away. Then we can let Mur-
dock's snoops come on board."

Cahill grinned broadly. "Right you are, boss."
* * *
437

Strapped into the contour seat, Kinsman felt the slight
bump when the shuttle hard-docked with Alpha's landing
collar. He forced himself to stay relaxed, remain in the seat,
as tinier bumps and vibrations told him that the station
crewmen were attaching the access tunnel to the shuttle's
main hatch.

Kinsman was in the front seat of the shuttle's passenger
compartment. The spacecraft carried no cargo, despite the
information radioed ahead to Alpha. There were twenty-six
men aboard, the maximum the shuttle could carry. The cargo
hold was empty. The men were armed.

It had been a long thirty-six hours in free-fall, between
Selene and Station Alpha. Kinsman had always loved the
feeling of weightlessness, the sense of freedom that it
brought. But this time he felt confined, pinned down,
trapped. He kept in constant contact with Selene by tight-
beam laser link, impossible for the space stations or Earthside
to intercept. Everything was under control. Apparently.
Earthside suspected nothing. Apparently.

You could be stepping into the midst of a nasty reception
committee, he told himself. They might have seen through
your story about the catapult being inoperative. Even if they
haven't, you've only got twenty-six men to seize control of
Alpha. Kinsman knew there were several hundred people
aboard the space station. But most of them were technicians,
scientists, civilians working for the Aerospace Force. Only
about forty of them were real troops capable of organized
resistance. No more than forty. If we can surprise them, move
fast enough . . .

And is everything really under control at Selene? Kins-
man wondered about his decision to trust Frank Colt, And
Diane.

It had happened on Sunday, after a night of cautious
celebration during which the Americans and Russians had
mingled freely—all except the dead and the prisoners. That
morning, as Kinsman went over the list of available personnel
and tried to puzzle out in his mind how many men he would
need to seize all three space stations and maintain a strong
hand in Selene, he realized that there were not enough people
438

to go around. He called Colt and Diane and Hugh Harriman
to his office.

Harriman looked tired but happy. He had spent the
hours of drinking and quiet celebration the previous night
telling everyone that at last he could become the citizen of a
nation once more and stop being a stateless person.

Diane was calm and cool. Too cool. Kinsman thought.
As if she had to maintain a certain distance away from him.
Projection, Kinsman told himself. You're blaming her for
feeling about you the way you feel about her. But you can't
get too close to her, he knew. Not yet. Not now.

Colt looked wary and . . . something else. Kinsman
could not put his finger on it. Uncertain. Undecided.

They sat. Colt on a slingchair, looking as relaxed as a
mountain lion surrounded by hunters. Harriman slumped on
the couch, muttering about homebrew vodka and pain thresh-
olds. Diane sat beside him, quietly, her eyes searching
Kinsman's.

Kinsman stayed behind his desk. El Presidente, he said
to himself. The successful revolutionary who now has to
worry about counter-revolutions.

"How's everything in the comm center?" he asked
Diane.

"Fine," she replied. "No hint of suspicion from Earth-
side. All traffic perfectly normal."

Kinsman licked his lips. "Good. Now, the next step is to
take the space stations. If Diane's right they don't have an
inkling of what happened here yesterday."

"Yet," Colt murmured.

"And they won't," Kinsman countered, "as long as
we've got a loyal crew at the comm center." He looked at
Diane as he said it. She gazed back at him. "With the
exception of keeping the comm center and the launch facilities
guarded," he went on, "I don't see any reason why every-
thing can't go on normally here at Selene."

"The barriers between Moonbase and Lunagrad are
down," Harriman agreed.

"They were only paper barriers. We're all part of the
same nation, the same people. We have been, for years.
There aren't any walls between us."
439

Colt made a grunting sound that might have been a
half-stifled derisive laugh.

"I'm going to need every military man available to take
the space stations, plus a few to keep the comm center and
launch facility secure. The catapult is shut down."

"And the Russians?" asked Colt.

"Leonov is going through the same exercise. He's al-
ready got his shuttles heading for their stations. No other
flights in or out of Lunagrad."

Harriman said, "It's one of those lovely ironies that the
Yanks and the Rooskies don't trust each other, so they don't
tell each other what's happening at their bases. But it's only a
matter of time before they figure out that nothing's leaving
either Moonbase or Lunagrad. They'll get suspicious then."

That's why we've got to move fast." Kinsman got up
and stepped around the desk. "Hugh, I was thinking of asking
you to act as chief honcho around here while I'm gone."

"Lord no!"

Kinsman raised a hand to calm him. "I know, I know.
You're not the right man for the job. Philosophers aren't
leaders of men."

"Shit! You've got a nice way of deballing people."

Turning to Colt, "But military officers are, by training
and attitude, leaders of men."

The black man looked startled. "What're you saying?"

"I'm asking, Frank. Asking if I can trust you to run our
half of Selene until I get back from the space stations."

Colt laughed bitterly. "You're crazy, man."

"I need you, Frank. I need the job done, and done well.
You can do it."

"I'm not on your side! Haven't you caught up with that
fact yet?"

Kinsman leaned back on the edge of the desk. "Frank,
you could have stopped me there at the water factory. But I
asked you to trust me and you did. I think you can see that
Leonov's keeping his word ..."

"They can still pull the rug out from under you anytime,
buddy. Anytime at all."

"Maybe. Maybe Leonov's bluffing, although I don't
think he'd get himself shot in the ass just to . . ."

"Shot where?"

440

Harriman bubbled, "You should've seen him last night!
Had his goddamned ass in a sling! For real!"

Colt shook his head, bewildered.

"Frank." Kinsman was serious. "I'm asking you if you
will run Selene for a few days—our half of it, at least. Get the
repairs started on the water factory. Make sure everything
runs smoothly. What you'll be doing will have nothing to do
with which side you're on. You'll be taking care of several
hundred men, women, and children, making sure that this
place runs smoothly. Whether I win or lose is something else
entirely."

Colt started shaking his head.

"All I ask is that you promise not to try to contact the
space stations or Earthside. Just take care of the job that
needs doing here. Can I trust you?"

"Let Pat Kelly do it," Colt said.

Kinsman could feel his jaw muscles clench. "I can't trust
Pat. Besides, he's in no emotional condition to do anything. If
we get through this alive and the war is stopped, we'll ship
him and his family home."

Colt repeated, "I'm not on your side."

"I don't care which side you're on," Kinsman said. "Can
you run our half of Selene for a few days—as a temporary
neutral?"

"That'd be helping you, man!"

"I'll do it," Diane said.

Kinsman blinked at her. Harriman mumbled something
undecipherable.

Diane smiled at them. "Don't look so shocked. I can be a
leader of men, as you so neatly put it, Chet."

Harriman's brows rose and he shot Kinsman a quizzical
glance.

"Don't think that running road tours all those years
didn't take leadership skills," Diane said. "I've dealt with
drugged-out musicians and union bosses looking for payoffs.
The people you have here are all pussycats, by comparison. I
can manage the base for a few days."

It took several seconds for Kinsman to say, "You'd want
to ... to take that responsibility?"

With a nod, Diane answered, "Somebody's got to. And I
really am on your side, you know. I can run the base."
441

Kinsman admitted, "I never thought of you as base
commander."

But Diane had already turned toward Colt. "I'd expect
you not to make any trouble while Chefs back is turned."

Kinsman returned his attention to the black Major.
"How about it, Frank? A temporary truce. Will you promise
not to try to grab the comm center or the launchpad?"

Colt frowned and blinked and struggled visibly with
himself. Finally, "Aw, shit. Okay. 1 won't make any waves.
But I want to be on the first damned shuttle that goes
Earthside! I want no part of your crazy revolution."

Harriman looked dubious, but for once he kept his
silence. Kinsman felt uneasy and must have looked it.

"What's the matter, Chet?" Diane asked, with a know-
ing little smile. "Afraid to let a woman run the show? Even
for a few days?"

He shrugged and grinned and surrendered gracefully.
After all, he told himself, what choice do I have?

A green light was flashing, breaking Kinsman's troubled
reverie.

"Okay for egress," the shuttle pilot's voice came over the

intercom.

Kinsman unstrapped his safety harness and got out of the
seat—floated up, weightless. It had seemed a long thirty-six-
hour journey to Alpha. Now it was too short, too soon
finished. They had gone over their "battle plan" fifty times.
Now he wished for fifty more.

"All right, men." Boys. "Just follow the assignments
we've mapped out and they'll never know what hit them.
Move fast. Don't shoot unless you have to. Good luck."

Their young, serious, scared faces looked back at him. A
few nodded. A couple of others checked their weapons. They
all carried pistols, nothing bigger, Dartguns, designed to stop
a man with a combination of impact shock and sedative. Not
strong enough to puncture the thin metal skin of a spacecraft
or space station. Or to knock down a charging opponent.

Kinsman floated past them ail to the airlock hatch. He
felt and heard the thumps of the station crewmen on the other
side, undogging the hatch. Hefting his pistol in his hand,
Kinsman pressed the button on the bulkhead alongside the
442

hatch that unlocked it from the ship's interior.

The hatch swung open, revealing a hefty tech sergeant
and two airmen in work fatigues. "What . . . ? We were
expectin' . . ." Then the Sergeant saw Kinsman's gun.

"Just stand back and don't give us any trouble," Kins-
man said.

"What the hell is this?"

They backed the three men out of the cramped metal
chamber of the airlock, into the larger area of the unloading
bay. From this zero-gravity hub of the many-wheeled station
the lunar troops fanned out along three main tubes, the
"spokes" that led from the hub through each wheel and out to
the farthermost ring. Their objectives were the communica-
tions center, the electrical power station, and the officers'
quarters. Five men were left in charge of the loading bay.
Three teams of seven men each rushed to take their three
objectives.

Kinsman remembered the first time he had come to
Alpha, the day of its official dedication. Diane had sung for
the assembled VIPs. Neal McGrath had been among them,
not yet an enemy. The station was going to be a center for
private industry, for scientific research and exploration of the
heavens. How quickly it had become a purely military base, a
control center for the network of antimissile satellites and
their powerful laser weapons.

Still, most of the men and women aboard Alpha were
civilian employees. Ignore them, Kinsman knew. Take the
high ground and the rest comes free. Control their electrical
power and you control the station. Cut off their communica-
tion with Earthside. Round up the officers before they can
organize an effective defense.

Kinsman led the group heading for officer country. They
clambered down the long, nearly endless spiral ladder that
wound around the tube's inner wall, dropping in free-fall at
first, then grabbing at the ladder's handrail and half walking,
half leaping as the first gentle pull of gravity returned.
Officers' quarters are at Level Four, which spins at a lunar
grav, Kinsman knew, thankful that he would not have to face
a full Earth gravity—not yet, at least.

They pushed past two startled civilians who were making
their way up the tube. Neither of them said a word as the
443

armed men hustled past them. Let 'cm go. By the time they
figure out what we're up to we'll be in command of the
station. They clattered on, footsteps echoing metallically now
through the narrow, dimly lit tube.

At last they burst out on Level Four and rushed down the
central corridor toward the officers' area. His heart pounding
against his ribs, Kinsman searched the nameplates on the
doors they passed. There he is! L/C H. J. STAHL. He pushed the
door open. Empty. Bed, desk, photos of wife and children,
tape cassettes, but the man himself was not there.

Two other station officers were being pulled out of their
compartments by Kinsman's grim-faced aides. One of them
was Art Douglas; they had gone through astronaut training
together. He was as bald and round-faced as Kinsman re-
membered him from the last time they had met, but he had
added a "station tour" mustache to his upper lip. "Chet!
What're you doing here? What the hell's going on?" Flanked
by the armed youngsters, Douglas and his buddy both looked
surprised and more than a little annoyed.

"We're taking over the station, Art. Where's Harry
Stahl?"

"Taking over? What do you mean?"

"Just what I said," Kinsman answered, walking down the
corridor toward them. "Where's Stahl? This is no time for
playing games."

Douglas was looking angry now. His buddy was staring
at the guns that the young officers were holding. "This may
come as a surprise to you, Chet, but the Colonel doesn't
always take me into his confidence about every move he
makes. Maybe he's in the head. How the hell should I know?"

Kinsman grimaced. "All right. Move—down into the
mess hall." To his half-dozen men he said, "Clean out every
compartment along the corridor. Herd them all down to the
mess hall."

Douglas and the other officer walked ahead of Kinsman.
They did not raise their hands over their heads, and Kinsman
tucked his pistol into its holster. But they all knew what was
happening.

"This is crazy, Chet. You can't get away with it."

"Just keep walking, Art."

The corridor sloped upward in both directions; it looked
444

as if you were always walking uphill, although it felt perfectly
flat and there was no sensation of climbing at all.

The mess hall was nothing more than a widened section
of the corridor with bulging blisters on both sides to make
alcoves where people could sit and look outside. It had
enough tables to accommodate fifty people at a time. Both
ends of the mess hall were open to the corridor, which ran
through Level Four like the inner tube of an old-fashioned
bicycle tire. At the far end of the mess hall the corridor passed
through the galley and a series of storage bays. Kinsman
seated the two officers at one of the tables, then walked to the
galley and waved a wide-eyed cook and his helpers to seats
near Douglas and his smoldering friend.

The Earth slid past the window beside their table as the
young lunar troops began bringing other station officers and
men and women into the mess hall. They looked shocked,
angry, bewildered. A few of them had obviously been awak-
ened from sleep. Although a number of the enlisted person-
nel were women, only three of the officers were female; the
highest-ranking was a captain. Lieutenant Colonel Stahl was
not among the prisoners.

"Colonel Kinsman," the overhead speaker blared. A
young man's voice. "Colonel Kinsman, please call the comm
center."

Kinsman went to the wall phone in the galley, keeping his
eye on the rapidly filling tables. Men and women were coming
from both sides now, urged by gun-wielding youngsters.

"Kinsman here," he said into the phone. "Put me
through to the comm center."

The station's computer buzzed briefly, then a young
man's voice said, "Communications."

"This is Kinsman."

"Yessir. Lieutenant Reilly here, sir. We have Colonel
Stahl. He was in the comm center when we got here."

Involuntarily Kinsman let out a sigh of relief. "Very
good. Bring him up to the officers' mess. You've secured the
center?"

"Oh, yessir. No trouble at all."

"Good. Call me when the power station team calls in."

"Will do."

The mess hall was filling with grumbling, frightened-
445

looking men and women when Lieutenant Colonel Stahl was
led in by one of Kinsman's youngsters.

"Kinsman! Just what the hell do you think you're doing
here?"

"Declaring independence."

"What?" Stahl stood defiantly in the center of the mess
hall, legs slightly spread, fists clenched. He looked as if he
wanted to spring at Kinsman.

"We're taking over all three of your stations," Kinsman
said slowly, walking up to within two feet of him, "as part of
creating the independent nation of Selene. It's a funny name,
I guess, but the best one we've got. The Russians are doing
the same with their space stations,"

Stahl's face went white. "You . . . you and the ... the
Russians?" He seemed dazed.

"Moonbase and Lunagrad together, that's right."

"You can't—"

"We have."

The two men stood facing each other, neither one
moving, neither one speaking. The loudspeaker broke their
stalemate: "Colonel Kinsman, please call the power station."

The kids at the power station were jubilant. No casualties
on either side, everything under control. Kinsman congratu-
lated them and told them to stand by for further orders,

He scanned his own men, then nodded to the oldest-
looking one. "You men escort these officers back to their
quarters, then seal the emergency hatches on both ends of
officers' country and station a guard at each end." That'll
keep them in their own cabins, where they can't make waves,
Kinsman thought. "I'm going down to the comm center."

The communications center was down in the next wheel,
Level Three, spinning fast enough to produce nearly half an
Earth gee. For the first time in nearly five years Kinsman felt
a pull stronger than the Moon's gentle gravity. It was like
wading through hip-deep surf.

He sank gratefully into the chair Major Cahill had
recently occupied and looked over the display screens that
were now showing mostly the various interior sections of the
big space station. His chest felt heavy; he was puffing like an
overweight jogger.

The mop-up operations took several hours. There were
446

almost a hundred civilians aboard the station, almost all of
them in the outermost wheel. Level One, at a full Earth
gravity. Kinsman left them alone for the time being. He
concentrated his meager forces on the military areas, hoping
he had enough men to do the job. And it began to look as if
his gamble had worked. There were only a few other officers
who were not in their quarters or at the comm center, loading
dock, or power station. There were many more noncoms and
technicians spread around the station, but Kinsman's gun-
brandishing Luniks rounded them up quickly and efficiently.

Kinsman watched it all from the communications center,
slumped heavily in his seat, perspiring with the effort of lifting
his chest to breathe. Reports came in from Stations Beta and
Gamma; all secure. Those stations were much smaller, with
only a squad or two in each. Some of the crewmen on Gamma
had recovered from their initial surprise and tried to rush the
Luniks with their bare hands. They were all gunned down
after a brief scuffle.

"I can't believe it's going so well," said one of the young
officers after Captain Perry reported success at Beta.
"Weren't these stations on yellow alert, same as Moonbase?"

Kinsman nodded. Even that was an effort. Slowly he
said, "Yes, but yellow alert here means stand by to shoot
down unfriendly boosters—not repel boarders. Good old
S.O.P. Screws you every time."

The kid laughed.

Civilians were starting to phone the comm center, aware
that something strange was happening elsewhere on the
station. Some of them tried to climb up from their wheel to
the inner levels, but they were turned back by Kinsman's
guards, stationed at the connecting tubes.

"They're getting kind of panicky," said one of the men at
a communications console. "They don't know what's happen-
ing, and it's getting to them."

Kinsman said, "Pipe me through the P.A. system."

The kid studied the rows of buttons on the console before
him, puckered his face into a frown, then carefully touched
two of them in sequence. Turning back to Kinsman, he said,
"You're on, sir—1 think."

Watching the display screens that showed the central
corridor of Level One, Kinsman said calmly, "Attention,
447

please. May I have your attention, please."

In the display screens he saw conversations stop, people
walking down the corridor come to an abrupt halt, heads
turning up toward the overhead loudspeakers-

"My name is Chester Kinsman." Suddenly he did not
know what to say, "Umm . . , today, a group of us from
Selene—Moonbase, as you call it—have taken over com-
mand of this space station, as well as Stations Beta and
Gamma. Our Russian neighbors from Lunagrad have taken
similar actions with their space stations. We have formed a
new nation, which we call Selene, independent of the United
States and Soviet Russia. Independent of all the nations of

Earth."

He watched their faces. Shock, incredulity, apathy,

anger.

"We've taken the space stations as a matter of self-
protection. We intend to transport anyone who wishes to
return Earthside, just as soon as possible. In the meantime,
please carry on your work as usual. Nobody's going to hurt
you or bother you. But for the time being we'll have to ask
you to remain in your own sector of the station. Please stay on
Levels One and Two, and don't try to get any higher than that
until we announce that it's all right. And, oh, yes—there will
be no communications Earthside for a while, so don't try to
get any messages through the comm center. Thank you."

He studied their faces in the display screens. They looked
stunned, for the most part. Most of them looked frightened
and angry. A few looked surprised, but not particularly
uptight. Europeans, Kinsman surmised. Or Americans who
can see past the ends of their noses. One or two faces even
smiled. But only one or two. Within half a minute there were
knots of babbling, arm-waving conversations filling each
display screen.

Kinsman set up temporary headquarters in the rec area,
up in Level Six, where the effective gravity was even less than
lunar. The walls, floor, and ceiling of the big gymnasium were
all padded. Appropriate, he thought. Amidst the rowing
machines, oversized barbells, and a magnetic pool table,
Kinsman and a few of his men pushed together some benches
and a Ping-Pong table next to the only wall phone in the area.
448

Men scurried in and out constantly, bringing reports and
problems to Kinsman. The phone buzzed incessantly, papers
piled up on the table. They just grow. Kinsman thought of the
papers, like mushrooms.

The captain of the waiting troopship was told to abort his
docking with the station and retrofire for return Earthside.
He sputtered indignantly about dropsick troops until told that
there were several cases of an unidentified viral infection
aboard the station. Then he blasted away gladly. Kinsman
had the comm center call Earthside with a request for an
immediate medical evacuation mission to take more than a
hundred uninfected people off the station.

That brought up a bee swarm of calls from Earthside,
including one from General Murdock. Kinsman's officers
handled them all from the comm center, sticking to their
story, claiming that they were on skeleton-crew status be-
cause of the infection.

By 1800 hours Kinsman could relax enough to have a
brief dinner brought up from the galley. He was just finishing
a not-quite-thawed piece of soyloaf when the phone on the
wall, just behind his ear, buzzed. "Kinsman here," he said
into the speaker.

"Sir," the voice sounded worried, "one of the civilian
scientists down in Level One is putting up a terrific squawk.
Claims he has a crucial experiment on weather modification
going on and he's got to get to the observatory section by
1900 hours or several years' worth of work will be wasted."

"The observatory's in the zero-gee area, next to the
loading and docking facilities," Kinsman thought aloud.
"What nationality is this man?"

"American, sir. But he claims he's working for the
United Nations—UNESCO, if you can believe it."

"The Weather Watch." Kinsman thought it over for a
swift moment. "Send him up here. I want to talk with him."

"Yessir."

Kinsman finished his small meal, wondering how Leonov
was doing. Too early to expect any word from him. Shouldn't
expect everything to go as smoothly for him as it has for us.

Within a few minutes a Lunik officer and a civilian
entered the recreation area and crossed the padded floor to
Kinsman's makeshift command post. The civilian did not look
449

like a scientist. He was well over six feet tall, with broad
shoulders, an athletic body. He glided smoothly across the
padded floor; low gee did not bother him. His face was hard,
hawk-nosed, set in a looking-for-trouble scowl. The stump of
an unlit cigar was clamped in his teeth. He was completely
bald, except for the thinnest white fuzz across his skull. He
reminded Kinsman more of a Turkish wrestler than anything
else—and an angry one, at that.

Kinsman stood up behind the Ping-Pong table as the trio
of young officers working beside him made room for the
newcomer.

"Ted Marrett," the civilian said, keeping his beefy hands
at his sides. He loomed over them all.

"Chet Kinsman."

"Now listen. I don't have time to be polite or repeat what
I say, so listen good. I've got a rainfall augmentation experi-
ment project going—been working on it for six fuckin' years.
Moving rainfall patterns along the upper Niger valley, trying
to hold back the Sahara from creeping farther southward. If
I'm not directing the catalysis experiment that starts at 1900,
six years' work will fall through, a few million people will
starve, and people down on Earth will know that something
wonky is happening at this space station."

Kinsman let himself sink back onto the bench. "You're
directing the experiment from here?"

"Where the hell else?" Marrett boomed, still standing.
"I can see what's happening from here. Key to the whole
motherin' setup is the wind and current patterns between the
African coast and the Canary Islands. What do you

think . . ."

"Whoa, slow down." Kinsman put his hands up, almost
defensively. Grinning, he asked, "Do you understand what's
happened here today?"

Marrett gave him an even sourer look. "Some of you
Lunatics took over the station. Your glorious leader wants to
proclaim the independence of the Moon. Big shit. I've got
work to do, buddy."

"I see," said Kinsman. He looked into Marrett's steel-
gray eyes. "I'm the glorious leader."

Now it was Marrett's turn to grin. "Should have guessed.
My mouth always has been bigger'n my brains. But, c'mon,
450

time's wasting. I've got to be in touch with my people back on
Earth. It's important."

Kinsman realized it would help to allay any suspicions
Earthside if the experiment went through on schedule. "You
won't mention anything about what we're doing here?"

"Hell, I'm no politician. As long as I can get my work
done."

"I'll let you go ahead and do it," Kinsman said slowly,
thinking it out as he spoke, "but I'm going to ask the
lieutenant here to stay with you and make certain you talk
only about your work."

"Fine by me," Marrett replied easily. "Only, this job
might take ten, twelve hours."

"We'll send a relief if we have to."

Shrugging his big shoulders, Marrett turned to the young
officer. "C'mon, sonny," he said.

It was not until they had left that Kinsman asked himself,
How in hell would any of us know if he's sticking to his work
or sending some sort of nonsense gobbledygook that'll stir up
suspicions Earthside? It's one thing to trust Frank Colt;

Frank's with us whether he realizes it or not. But this Marrett
character is a complete stranger. The one I'm really trusting is
that kid lieutenant, and I can't even recall his name.

The phone buzzed again. From the speaker on the wall a
scared, shaky voice said tinnily, "Sir, several of the station
crew have broken out of confinement down here on Level
Four. They shot two of our men, sir. One of them's dead. The
other—he's hurt bad, sir."

451

Tuesday 14 December 1999:

1810 hours UT

KINSMAN SAGGED BACK on the bench, felt his shoulders slump
against the padded walls of the gym. The young officers
around him froze in their tasks: one was holding a sheaf of
papers; another, sitting across from Kinsman, had been
reaching for the coffee mug; the third simply stood staring at
the phone on the wall, slack-jawed.

Strangely, Kinsman felt no surprise, no shock. You knew
all along that it wouldn't go without fighting. They'd never
give up so easily. There had to be blood.

His voice as bleak as his soul, he said into the phone
grille, "Seal all the hatches leading into Level Four. Nobody

in or out."

"But sir," the kid on the other end of the phone

objected, "a couple of our men are still in there."

"Seal off Level Four," Kinsman repeated, with more
iron in his voice. "Airtight. Get a couple of men EVA at once
and dog down all the outside hatches, too. I don't want a
molecule getting out of that level. Understood?"
The barest of pauses. "Understood, sir."
He punched the phone off. Turning to the officer with the
papers in his hand, "How many men does Stahl have down

there?"

The youngster pawed through the sheets. "Duty roster,

personnel assignments . . . here we are!" He pulled a flimsy
sheet from the stack. "According to this checkoff list there are
thirty-five men down there—no, make it thirty-three. Two

are in sick bay."

"How many of 'em are women?" asked the kid with the

coffee cup.

"Looks like ten."

"They won't fight," the kid said smugly.
452

"The hell they won't!" snapped Kinsman. "Give them
guns and they'll shoot you just as dead as any man." They
fight, Kinsman knew. They die, too.

The officer who was standing seemed to pull himself
together. "The small arms supply is down on Level Four.
They'll have submachine guns."

They were starting to look scared. The seriousness of the
situation was sinking in.

"If Stahl has Level Four, then we're cut off from the
comm center, and ..."

"And they're cut off from us and the loading bay."

Kinsman nodded. "Which means that half our force can't
get through to our escape route back to Selene."

"Jesus!"

Half turning on the bench. Kinsman touched the phone
button. "Comm center," he called.

Swiftly he outlined the situation to the men at the
communications center.

"Yessir, we can see them on the monitor screens here,"
answered the officer in charge. "They've got guns, all right.
And they're starting to break out some of the emergency
pressure suits."

"That's what I thought," Kinsman said. "Turn off their
air."

"Sir?"

"Tell our guys at the power station to pump the air out of
Level Four. In fifteen minutes they'll all be unconscious down
there."

"Not if they're in pressure suits."

Kinsman said, "There's only a handful of suits down
there. Not enough for all thirty-three of them."

"But they've got three of our guys in there, too. One of
them seems to be hurt pretty bad. We've got to try to get him
to sick bay."

Kinsman hesitated. "Put me on the P.A. system for
Level Four only. Patch in their answers to this phone."

"Yessir."

The hatch at the far side of the gym swung open and a
young officer burst through. His coveralls were stained with
sweat as he lurched crazily toward Kinsman, trying to run in
the low gravity. "Sir ... I got up here . . . fast's I could."
453

Kinsman recognized the voice; the fear also showed in
his eyes. "All right, all right. Take it easy. Calm down. Just
what happened on Level Four?"

"I ... Hard to say. Everything happened so fast. We
were standing guard outside the hatch between the mess hall
and officers' country. They just broke through the hatch.
Popped the explosive bolts. Knocked us flat on our asses.
Never had a chance. . . . Shot Polanski while he was lying
there—right through his chest!"

"How'd you get away?"

One of the young officers handed the kid a cup of
steaming coffee. Another was searching through the medical
kit that he had opened on the table.

"The blast from the hatch knocked me behind a table."
He took the cup in both hands; still the coffee sloshed from
his trembling. "They didn't see me the first couple seconds. I
got up and emptied my dartgun at them. Jumbled 'em up
enough. They sort of fell over each other and ducked down. I
ran out of the galley and then went up the ladder to Level
Five. I sealed the hatch behind me."

"Okay, fine. You did the right thing," Kinsman said
soothingly.

The kid gulped at the coffee. "I saw Polanski die. They
just shot him , . . never gave him a chance." His face was
flushed. The officer with the medical kit took out a hypospray
syringe.

"It's all right. Everything's under control," Kinsman
lied. To the officer sitting next to him he ordered, "Find
another phone, fast. Get our men standing by the hatches to
disarm all the explosive bolts."

"Yessir!" The youngster was on his way before Kinsman
had finished speaking.

The kid finished draining the coffee cup as the other
officer pressed the hypospray against his sleeve. "Tranquiliz-
er," he said. "Settle your nerves."

"Shot him," the kid was muttering. "Colonel Stahl
himself. Just pointed the gun at Polanski and shot him while
he was still on the floor."

Warrior of the week, Kinsman fumed silently. Stahl will
get a medal for heroism, shooting kids. Then he thought, And
if we win, Polanski will be our first martyred hero. We'll
454

probably put up a statue to him. Big consolation.

The phone buzzed. "Sir, the air pumps to Level Four also
supply parts of Level Three, including the comm center,
where we are."

Shit! "Better get into pressure suits damned fast," Kins-
man said.

The voice sounded distinctly unhappy. "Yessir."

"And what about that P.A- hookup to Level Four?"

"All set, sir, whenever you want it."

"Are they pumping the air out?"

A brief hubbub of background noise. "Yessir, they've
just started now."

"All right," said Kinsman. "Plug me into the P.A."

"You're on ... now."

Kinsman hesitated a moment. Then, "Stahl, this is
Kinsman. You'd better stop now, before anybody else gets
hurt."

For a moment nothing but a sizzling hum came out of the
phone grille. Then Stahl's voice crackled clearly, "Kinsman,
the game's over! You've got five minutes to give yourself up,
or we'll recapture the station, level by level. I've got the men
and the weapons to do it!"

He sounds happy. Kinsman realized. Elated. The sonofa-
bitch is enjoying this. He's high on it!

"Stahl, listen to me. You can't get out of Level Four. All
the hatches are sealed."

"That's your story."

"We've disarmed the explosive bolts."

"We've got primacord and thermite from the engineering
section. We'll get through the hatches. Come on, Kinsman,
you're beaten. Give up."

It always comes down to this, Kinsman told himself. You
knew it would. There's no such thing as a bloodless coup.
Now you make your choice: let them win or be ready to kill
them. No idle threats. You can't talk your way out of this one.
You've got to be ready to kill them. All of them. That's all
they understand.

"Come on, Kinsman!" Stahl snapped impatiently.
"We've got three of your own men here. One of them's
bleeding to death. You'd better give up quick so we can get
him to sick bay in time to save his life."
455

Rage suddenly boiled past Kinsman's self-control. "You
damned hypocritical bastard. You shot the kid, and now
you're using him as a hostage!"

"Damned right! I only wish it was you—traitor^

And just as suddenly, with that word, Kinsman's rage
turned glacier cold. It was not gone. The fear and anger were
still there, greater than ever. But instead of bubbling hot
within his guts, now they were frozen into an iron-hard
purpose. Beyond all trembling. Beyond all self-doubt. Stahl
was no longer a threat, a man to be feared. He was an
obstacle that had to be hurdled, a barred gate that must be
broken through. Kinsman almost smiled. Idly he glanced at
the faces of the men around him: apprehensive, questioning,
frightened.

I am sitting in a padded room with a gaggle of kids,
rebelling against the United States of America. In the name
of humanity. In the name of peace I am going to kill
thirty-some men and women. For openers. And God only
knows how many more. In the name of peace.

"If this is treason," he said slowly into the phone, "then
make the most of it. We started pumping the air out of your
level ten minutes ago." A lie; it was more like three, four
minutes at the most. "You've got about five minutes before
your men start passing out."

"You're bluffing!"

"So you want to be a hero, Stahl? Fine. You've already
killed one man, and you're letting another bleed to death.
How many pressure suits down there? Twelve? So figure out
who among you is going to live and who's going to die. That's
a perfect task for a hero, Stahl: pick out the people you're
going to murder."

Kinsman punched the phone's off button. Immediately,
he called the comm center again. "What's going on down on
Level Four? How many suits do they have?"

"We're checking the screens, sir. And we're getting into
suits ourselves. It's not easy—takes time."

"What's Stahl doing?" Kinsman demanded, his voice
rising.

"Colonel Stahl is waving his arms and yelling for every-
body to be quiet. They're all shouting, arguing. They've got
456

about ten suits out, but nobody's anywhere near sealed up in
'em."

"All right. Get our men on the other sides of those
hatches leading to Level Four into suits. I'm going to suit up
also and come down there."

"Uh, sir, if we keep the air off long enough it'll kill them,
or cause brain damage. And our own men—"

"Just do what I told you," Kinsman snapped. Then he
added, "There isn't anything else we can do, son. Not a
goddamned thing."

By the time Kinsman had suited up and clumped down to
the hatch that opened onto Level Four, the comm center
reported that most of Stahl's people had collapsed. Only five
had successfully sealed themselves into pressure suits, the
Colonel among them. Kinsman ordered them to stop evacuat-
ing the air from Level Four; bringing the area down to hard
vacuum would accomplish nothing more.

Kinsman had his men pop the hatches all at once, and
they moved into Level Four—ten space-suited men holding
dartguns in their gloved hands. Kinsman clambered down a
ladder that led to the galley hatch. A younger man, unidentifi-
able in his bulky pressure suit, pushed through ahead of him.
No one in sight. The only sounds in Kinsman's ears were his
own breathing and the whisper of his suit's air pump.

Pushing through the galley, into the mess hall, they found
bodies. Sprawled, blue-faced, but still alive. "Get the emer-
gency oxygen masks on these people," Kinsman ordered.

Six bodies. Two women. He clumped past them and into
the corridor that ran through officers' country.

"Got two guys here!" his earphones crackled. "They're
surrendering."

"Two men in pressure suits?" Kinsman asked.

"Yessir. No fight. They gave up."

That left three more. He met two of his own men coming
down the corridor toward him and almost fired at them. But
he quickly recognized that their pressure suits were orange
and red—colors that could be easily spotted on the desolate
lunar surface—rather than the white of the orbital station's

crew.

Together they poked into each compartment along the
457

corridor. Empty. Reports were pouring in over the suit radio.
Men and women found asphyxiated in other parts of Level
Four. Most were still alive. Eight were dead, including the
wounded man from Kinsman's group.

Kinsman pushed open a compartment door and his
nerves flashed red inside him. A space-suited figure sat on the
bunk, a submachine gun in its lap. The dartgun in Kinsman's
hand was cocked and pointed as his brain screamed, Is it a
man or a woman? Is she threatening you?

"Put the gun down on the floor!" Kinsman shouted.

The figure on the bunk took up the gun by its muzzle with
two gloved fingers and laid it gently on the floor.

"Stand up."

"Please don't shoot me." Through his earphones, Kins-
man heard a man's voice, high-pitched, frightened. "I'm just
an adjutant with the Judge Advocate Group. I'm not here to
fight!"

A lawyer. Kinsman almost laughed with relief. A
mother-humping lawyer! How did he get into a suit while
others suffocated?

There was one more suited man to find. And Colonel
Stahl.

Stahl's quarters are down this way, Kinsman told himself
as he and the other two Luniks behind him plodded down the
corridor. Be just like him to start a shoot-out. The thought of
their dartguns against a submachine gun did not please
Kinsman, especially in the narrow confines of the corridor
and the tiny compartments.

Shots! A muffled string of shots coming from up ahead.
Kinsman broke into a galumphing sprint, leaving the other
two pressure-suited youngsters behind him. Sure enough,
there was Stahl's door. Shut. Probably locked. And the
shooting? Kinsman kicked at the door. It swung open. Stahl
was sitting at his tiny desk, his back to Kinsman. He was in his
pressure suit. The submachine gun was on the floor, still
smoking.

With the inevitability of a Greek drama. Kinsman knew
what he would find. He did not even bother to call to the
Colonel. He saw the entire event in his mind's eye: Stahl
sitting there at his desk, defeated. Maybe starting to write a
458

note to his wife or commanding officer. Realizing that he had
lost the station to people he considered traitors. Unable to
write with the suit's clumsy gloves. Knowing that it was just a
matter of time before he would be taken prisoner. Thinking
about all that tradition, centuries of military history piling up
inside his head, all the gallantry and honor and bravery that
had failed.

He believed all that crap. Kinsman thought as he crossed
the three-paces-wide compartment.

Stahl facing defeat, disgraced in his own eyes. Staring
down at the gun. Holding his breath and lifting up the visor
and resting the gun's muzzle against the lip of his neck ring
and setting it on semiautomatic and squeezing . . . His last
thought: Don't lei me die in vain. Remember Space Station
Alpha. Kinsman knew it as if Stahl had implanted the words
telepathically in his brain.

He put his hand on the shoulder of Stahl's space suit and
turned the Colonel toward him. The chair swiveled easily.
There was not a speck of blood anywhere, except inside the
helmet. For the first time in his life Kinsman retched in his
pressure suit.

VAFB/SCM TO SACHQ/SJL

COMMUNICATIONS WITH STATIONS ALPHA, BETA, GAMMA

INOPERATIVE. PLS ADVISE.

SACHQ/SJL TO VAFB/SCM

BACKUP SYSTEM USE AUTHORIZED. EMPLOY LASER LINK

IF NECESSARY.

VAFB/SCM TO SACHQ/SJL

NO RESPONSE ON ANY FREQUENCY, INCLUDING LASER

LINK.

SACHQ/SJL TO VAFB/SCM

HOW LONG HAVE ORBITAL STATIONS BEEN OUT OF

CONTACT?

VAFB/SCM TO SACHQ/SJL
LAST ROUTINE AUTOMATIC CHECK-IN AT 1700 HRS UT.

459

NO RESPONSE TO PERSONAL CALLS, ROUTINE TRAFFIC,
ETC SINCE 1745 HRS UT.

SACHQ/SJL TO VAFB/SCM

HAVE YOU CHECKED SOLAR ACTIVITY? JAMMING? OTHER

POSSI LE INTERFERENCE?

VAFB/SCM TO SACHQ/SJL

FULL TEAMS OF COMM SPECIALISTS CHECKING FOR PAST
THREE HRS. NO INTERFERENCE. THEY ARE JUST NOT
ANSWERING. LAST MESSAGE WAS CALL FOR MEDIVAC.
CLAIMED INFECTION SPREADING THROUGH ALPHA. POS-
SIBLE COMM CENTER PERSONNEL INFECTED AND UN-
ABLE TO PERFORM DUTIES?

SACHQ/SJL TO VAFB/SCM

UNLIKELY TO CAUSE BLACKOUT AT BETA AND GAMMA.

WILL QUERY TOPSIDE. STAND BY FOR POSSIBLE RED

ALERT.

VAFB/SCM TO SACHQ/SJL

WHAT ABOUT MEDIVAC MISSION? IT HAS ALREADY

LIFTED FOR ALPHA.

SACHQ/SJL TO VAFB/SCM

CONTINUE MEDIVAC MISSION. IS COMM LINK WITH THEM

OK?

VAFB/SCM TO SACHQ/SJL

READ THEM LOUD AND CLEAR. WILL CONTINUE MISSION

AND STAND BY FOR RED ALERT.

SACHQ/SJL TO AFHQ/SJL, ADC/SCM
COMMUNICATIONS WITH ORBITAL STATIONS ALPHA,
BETA, GAMMA CUT OFF. HAVE INITIATED STANDBY FOR
RED ALERT. AWAIT FURTHER ORDERS.

JSC/SJL TO ALL COMMANDS

RED ALERT. REPEAT, RED ALERT. ARM ALL MISSILES
PREPARATORY TO STRIKE ORDER. FULL SECURITY ALL
BASES AND SUBMARINES. ALL LEAVES CANCELED. THIS

460

IS NOT A DRILL. REPEAT, THIS IS NOT A DRILL. ACTIVATE
SUBROUTINE 98-00622.

QUERY. QUERY. QUERY. NETWORK REQUIRES AUTHORI-
ZATION FOR ACTIVATION OF SUBROUTINE 98-00622.

AUTHORIZATION SUBCODE JCS/AAA 11813175441514.

AUTHORIZATION SUBCODE ACCEPTED. SUBROUTINE
98-00622 ACTIVATED.

ACK.
SUBROUTINE 98-00622 BEGINS:

CHIEF OF STAFF TO ALL BASE AND FBMS COMMANDERS:

MEN, WE ARE ON THE BRINK OF THE NATION'S SUPREME
TEST. THE WORLD DEPENDS ON US TO FACE DOWN THE
AGGRESSORS WHO THREATEN CIVILIZATION. I KNOW
THAT EACH OF YOU WILL DO HIS DUTY, AND FUTURE
GENERATIONS OF AMERICANS WILL BE PROUD OF YOUR
HEROISM AND DEDICATION. GOOD LUCK. GOD BLESS
AMERICA.

By 2000 hours Alpha was securely in the hands of the
Luniks. All of Stahl's men were back in their quarters, cowed
and disarmed. Several were in sick bay, oxygen masks and IV
tubes feeding into them while medical teams grimly tried to
keep their oxygen-starvation injuries to a minimum. The dead
were being prepared for shipment Earthside.

Kinsman split his tiny command into three groups and set
up a sleeping routine. He put a lieutenant in charge as Officer
of the Day, then made his way down to Level Three and the
comm center. The extra weight there was still painful. He
braced himself in the doorway as he received reports. Extra
men and women were on their way from Selene. The troop-
ship had re-entered Earth's atmosphere and made an emer-
gency landing at Patrick Aerospace Force Base, in Florida.
The medivac mission would rendezvous with the station in
less than an hour.

461

"There's all sorts of queries and messages from Earth-
side," the youngster running the comm center told him.
"Should we continue radio silence?"

Kinsman nodded slowly, and it made his head feel like a
cement mooring block. "Got to. We can't let them know
what's happening until we've got enough of our own people
here to run the whole ABM system."

The young officer shrugged. The heavier-than-lunar
gravity did not bother him in any discernible way.

Kinsman quickly returned to his makeshift headquarters
in the rec area, grateful for the diminishing weight as he made
his way up the metal ladder that wound through the tubular
spoke connecting the station's various levels.

They'll go on red alert, he knew. But then they'll find out
that the Russians are cut off from their stations, too. They'll
wait to puzzle it out. They'll wait. They won't launch the
missiles. Both sides will wait. But the burning in his chest
contradicted the logical certainty his mind was trying to
establish.

Four civilians were waiting to see him, sitting along the
bench at his table as Kinsman padded across the gym floor.
He spent the better part of an hour with them, assuring them
patiently that they could stay at the station or leave for
Earthside as soon as transport could be arranged. One of
them was a wispy little Japanese astronomer, fragile and
aged.

"We are scientists, not politicians," he said in a quiet,
calm voice. "We do not wish to abandon our work here.
Several of us are caught in the midst of experiments or
observations that must not be interrupted. We have no
desire, however, to be caught in a cross fire between armed
troops."

"Nothing could be further from my own desires," Kins-
man answered, unconsciously picking up some of the formal
cadence of the Japanese manner of speech. "I sincerely
believe that you can all be assured that no one will interfere
with your work. It would please me if you would continue
your investigations as if nothing has happened."

"Well, I'm not a scientist," said one of the other men,
hotly. He was younger than the others, built on the chunky
side and starting to flesh out too much. Youthful muscle
462

turning into the premature flab of middle age.

"I'm a civilian contractor from Denver, a U.S. citizen,"
he went on. "Came up here on government contract to work
on the computer system they put in here. Now just what ..."

Kinsman silenced him with a pointed finger. "You'll be
going back home within an hour. Better get your gear
packed."

"What? But I'm not ... you can't . . ."

Kinsman said, 'There's no time for arguing. Get pack-
ing!" He turned to the other three. "That goes for all of you.
Anyone who wishes to return Earthside may do so. The
shuttle will be here in less than an hour."

The contractor lurched to his feet. "You're letting for-
eigners stay, but a taxpaying American has to clear out?"

"The scientists can stay if they want to," Kinsman replied
calmly. "The rest will be better off going home. This station is
no longer American territory. It is now part of the indepen-
dent nation of Selene."

The contractor blinked, uncomprehending. The Japa-
nese astronomer sighed knowingly.

"I don't get it," the contractor said.

"You will, once you're Earthside," Kinsman told him.
"Now, hurry; you don't have much time to spare."

One of the younger scientists claimed Kinsman's atten-
tion. "We're being held incommunicado. Your men won't
allow us to call our colleagues or families at home."

"Only for a short time more."

"And what have you done with Dr. Marrett? He disap-
peared with one of your officers after putting up a row, and he
hasn't been seen since."

"He's in the observation section, carrying out his experi-
ment."

"You mean that he's allowed to have radio contact with
Earth?"

Nodding, Kinsman replied, "Only with his own special
outposts, and only for the experiment he's working on. We
have an officer up there with him to make sure he doesn't . . .
do anything political."

"This is insane," the young scientist argued. His accent
was definitely British. "You're going to have half the troops in
the United States pouring in here as soon as they realize
463

what's happened. We'll all be clay pigeons in a shooting
gallery."

"Maybe," Kinsman said evenly.

"Of more serious consequence," said the Japanese as-
tronomer, "is the possibility that America might unleash its
nuclear missiles, for fear that this situation has been caused by
the Soviet Union."

When they realized what the older man had said, the
others turned toward Kinsman. But he had no answer for
them.

Captain Ryan closed his codebook with an audible snap.
The other officers in the wardroom were staring at him. Not a
smile on the eight of them. The Captain's personal codebook
was used only for the very highest priority messages, the kind
that were marked FOR YOUR EYES ONLY. All lesser priority
messages were decoded by the submarine's computer.

"It's the red balloon, all right," Ryan said. The tension in
their faces actually eased a bit. The known fear was always
easier to face than the unknown. "And a personal message
from the Chief of the Joint Staffs. He expects us all to do our
duty and make our kids proud of us."

Garcia's kids are living in the open housing development
south of San Diego, Captain Ryan knew. They won't be
around ten minutes after the button's pushed. He scanned the
faces of his fellow officers. Same for Mattingly and Rizzo.
Same for my own—and my new grandson!

"Well," he said, leaning his elbows heavily on the green
felt tabletop, "it looks as if the shit has really hit the fan. And
we've got a job to do."

They showed no enthusiasm at all.

"Listen to me," he said evenly. "When those missiles go,
there's gonna be a helluva lot of Americans killed. Our job is
to seek and destroy enemy subs. There are two of 'em in our
area, according to this morning's sweep, and they wouldn't be
patrolling around here if they weren't missile-launching bas-
tards."

They glanced at one another, still showing no sign of fire.
It was the captain's responsibility to instill a high morale
among his crew, especially his officers. The officers must set
464

an example for the men, and the captain must set an example
for his officers.

"Now, one of those subs has at least one missile that's got
San Diego for a target," he went on. That moved them. They
stirred. They sat up straighter.

"We've got to stop that missile from being launched."

"Sir," Garcia said, 'T don't see how we can do that. I
mean, a red alert doesn't mean that war's been declared."

"There won't be a declaration of war, Mike," argued
Mattingly, with his damned nasal Princeton accent. "The
button is pushed and the missiles are launched. No paper-
work. No diplomatic niceties."

"Then how do we stop them from launching it?"

Captain Ryan said, "We go for those subs now. Not after
they've launched their missiles. Not after we get the code-
word from Fleet HQ. NowV

"But—"

"You want to wait until they've blown San Diego off the
map?"

"No, but we can't move without orders."

"A red alert gives the captain of a warship discretion to
act on his own initiative in case of communications failure."

"But we don't have a communications failure," Rizzo
said, his voice a bit hollow.

"We do now," Captain Ryan answered.

No one argued against him.

The rec room looked more like a real command post
now. Men going in and out constantly. Several small tables
and chairs had been moved in. A computer terminal hummed
at one table, a communications console with four small
display screens lapped over the sides of another.

Kinsman was wolfing down a hasty sandwich. It was well
past 2100 hours now. The medivac shuttle had taken most of
the civilians off the station. Word of what had happened was
screaming up the chain of command to Washington.

"Sir, we have Colonel Leonov on screen four," said one
of the technicians, a woman who had volunteered to stay
aboard the station with the Luniks.

Washing down a mouthful of unidentifiable soybean
465

product with a gulp of synthetic coffee, Kinsman made his
way to the comm console.

Leonov looked triumphant on the tiny screen. "All three
of our orbital stations are completely in our hands!" he
reported. "There was amazingly little shooting. Surprise and
a good deal of agreement with our aims carried almost
everyone. I was very eloquent." He arched his brows, daring
Kinsman to dispute him.

"Good work, Peter," was all that Kinsman could think to
say. "We had a few bad moments here, but everything's
under control now. Beta and Gamma are secure, and our
people are checking out the ABM control systems on all three
stations."

"They are bypassing the controls in the Earth-based
stations?"

"Right. I presume your people are doing the same."

"It is already done. Our network of satellites can now be
controlled only from the space stations. The Earthside con-
trol links have been removed from the circuits."

"Good work," said Kinsman.

"You have sent the prisoners back to the States?"
Leonov asked.

"Most of them. There wasn't room in the one medivac
ship for all of them, so we still have a few here. And there are
more coming from Beta and Gamma. We'll hold them here
until they send another ship up from Earthside."

"If I were you. Comrade, I would hold on to the
remaining prisoners. They might be valuable as hostages.
That is what we are doing here."

Kinsman nodded. "You might be right."

"Now then," Leonov broke into a smile, "what about
announcing our actions to the former owners of these space
stations, eh?"

"The evacuees must be yelling their guts out into the
radio aboard the medivac ship right now," Kinsman said.
"Washington should be sorting out the story very shortly."

"Yes, but do you realize they are on full alert down
there? They could send off their missiles before we are ready
to stop them. We must make some sort of announcement
jointly so they won't bombard each other."

"I know, Pete, but I'm afraid if we make the announce-
466

ment before we can really control the ABM satellites, they'll
either shoot at us or send troops up. I'd rather wait until the
reinforcements get here from Selene and we have enough
people to man the ABM control centers properly."

Leonov slowly blinked his eyes. "I understand. But it is
much faster to launch a missile or troopship from Earthside
than to get extra technicians down here from Selene. Even
with our ships accelerating at maximum energy ..."

He stopped. Someone off-screen had caught his atten-
tion. Leonov snapped a few words in Russian, and an excited
voice babbled breathlessly at him. Leonov's face went white.

"Chet, it's too late! One of our ... a Russian submarine
has been torpedoed and sunk off the coast of California. The
war has started!"

Tuesday 14 December 1999:

2148hrsUT

"THEY'VE LAUNCHED THE missiles?" Kinsman's voice was a
shocked, high-pitched little boy's squeal of fear. His guts were
frozen, a block of lunar ice. But his mind was racing.

Got to tell them right away that we've taken over. Got
to! Got to scan the missile farms—Idaho, Montana, Texas,
Siberia, China. Jesus Christ! The oceans. The subs. We'll
need every sensor on every satellite. Got to be in touch with
Perry and the others, make sure we can fire the lasers, get the
radars tracking, all the sensors—get 'em ready to shoot at
anything that moves. Fast!

"No," Leonov was answering. "Nothing has been
launched yet. But the standby orders have gone out. It's only
a matter of hours now. Perhaps minutes."

Can't do it from here. Kinsman realized as he watched
the Russian's dismal face in the tiny display screen. Got to go
down to the comm center.

A clattering noise made him jerk his attention away from
467

the screen. One of the young officers had let a plastic food
tray slip from his hands. He was visibly shaking as he knelt to
pick up the mess. The others were fixed on Kinsman:

standing, sitting—one of them leaning his fists on the comput-
er terminal, his face a tense death mask, white, taut,
unblinking—all of them staring at Kinsman, waiting for him
to act, to tell them what to do.

"Pete, get on all the broadcast frequencies you can
manage and tell your people Earthside what we've done. I'm
going down to our comm center and do the same thing. We
can stop 'em if we yell loud enough." You think! "But we've
got to tell 'em now!"

"Yes, yes, of course. But do you think—"

"Tell 'em we're prepared to shoot down any missile
launched from anywhere on Earth. Make 'em believe it!"

"But can we really do it?"

"You tell me!"

Leonov rubbed a hand over his forehead. "I don't know!
We have teams of technicians working, but how can we be
certain that all those satellites will respond correctly?"

Forcing a grin, Kinsman answered, "The machines don't
care what your politics are, Pete. If the lights come on green,
then everything's working."

"Sheer materialism."

"Yep. And you thought I was a romantic. Get moving.
There's no time to spare,"

"Da . . . Good luck, tovarich."

"Godspeed, friend." Kinsman pushed up from the chair
and started across the padded gym floor for the hatch that led
to the downward-spiraling ladder. "Get the comm center on
the horn," he commanded the youngsters around him. "Make
sure they understand what's happening. Tell them I'm on my
way down there and the techs had better be able to use every
fucking laser on every fucking satellite we've got!"

"Yes, sir\" yelped one of the officers as Kinsman yanked
the hatch open.

Level Three was iike slogging through knee-deep mud.
One-half normal Earth gravity, and Kinsman was quickly out
of breath. By the time the comm center crew made a chair
available for him, his legs ached and his heart was thumping
468

heavily. Even the air felt soupy, humid and thick, hard to
breathe.

The comm center reminded Kinsman of a string sextet
flying through a Mozart allegro: wildly ordered activity,
measured frenetic action. The comm techs were buzzing
commands into their pin mikes; the giant insect-eye of display
screens—bank on bank of them—showed strangely incongru-
ous scenes.

The bright, soul-thrilling beauty of the broad Pacific, a
globe-spanning expanse of blue water decorated with intricate
patterns of dazzling white clouds, swirls of giant storms, files
of cumulus puffs marching dutifully in response to sunlight
and earthspin. How many submarines hidden in that beauty?
How many missiles with hydrogen bombs tucked inside their
nose caps?

The tense, sweat-streaked face of a technician urgently
yammering into the earphone of a comm tech who sat
nodding in front of that particular screen.

Captain Perry, standing in front of the elaborate fire
control panel aboard Space Station Beta, talking to someone
in what seemed to be an easy, professional, competent tone.
Kinsman could not hear what he was saying, of course, unless
the audio from that individual circuit was piped into the
earphones that rested in his lap. The fire control panel's idiot
lights were almost all green, Kinsman saw. The ABM satel-
lites were in operational condition.

Display screens showed lovely rural Earthside scenery,
where ICBM silos dotted the countryside. Half a dozen major
cities. A Russian comm tech frowning as he talked with his
American counterpart. No, Kinsman corrected himself. Not
Russians or Americans anymore. Luniks. Selenites.

Kinsman took all this in with a single glance as he
slumped heavily in the seat near the comm center's hatch.

"Reports look good," said the officer sitting next to him.
"And we've got a dozen or so volunteers from the station's
crew helping us. They decided to stay with us."

Kinsman nodded, and even that was an effort. For the
first time it registered in his mind that three of the six techs
working the consoles were women.

"1 need to be patched in to the top-priority network right
469

away/' he said wearily. "White House, Pentagon, SAC
headquarters, commanders of the Atlantic and Pacific strike
forces—the works."

"The gold-braid circuit. Yessir, can do," the youngster
nodded easily, grinning. He started nicking fingers across the
master keyboard.

He'd make a good piano player. Kinsman realized that
he himself would not be able to play well in this gravity. Or at
all, in a full Earth gee. He pushed everything to the back of
his mind. Closing his eyes, he leaned his head back, annoyed
momentarily that the chair they had given him had no
headrest.

So far no missiles had been launched. So far the reports
from all the space stations and the unmanned ABM satellites
looked good. Now he had to make Washington aware of the
new situation. Convince them that we can and will shoot
down anything they launch.

He rubbed at the back of his neck, corded with tension
and aching sullenly. It's not fair, dammitall! Jefferson had
weeks to write his Declaration. I've only got minutes.

The display screens that filled the main bulkhead of the
center's crowded compartment were beginning to show
Earthside military men. Communications technicians at first,
but quickly each one was supplanted by an officer; colonels
and generals and a pair of admirals scowled or glared or
licked their lips nervously, waiting for the message from
Space Station Alpha. They were not accustomed to waiting.

"What about the White House?" Kinsman asked.

The youngster looked up from his keyboard, one hand on
his earplug. "They're working their way up through a gaggle
of flunkies. They say General Hofstader will speak with you.
Is that okay?"

Kinsman nodded painfully. "He'll do."

"They have to find him and patch him into the circuit. It's
still sleep-time down there."

"Tough. I doubt that any of them are asleep."

The central screen shifted from a female colonel to show
the handsome, silver-maned image of General Hofstader.
The paneling of the office wall behind him looked more like
the Pentagon, to Kinsman, than the White House. A furled
470

flag stood behind him, and he seemed to be glancing at other
people who were in the office, off-camera.

"General . . ."

"What is this. Colonel?" Hofstader's voice was crisp,
deep, the very model of a commander's decisive tone. "Why
have the space stations been off the air and out of contact?
Are you under attack?"

"Nosir. We've taken control of the stations, and the
ABM network."

"'Control'? 'We'? What are you talking about?"

All the faces on the smaller screens around the General
looked alarmed, surprised, concerned, angry. Kinsman al-
most laughed. It was like watching a living Rorschach test.

"The people of the Moon," Kinsman said slowly and
carefully, "have decided to form the independent nation of
Selene. We have taken control of all the space stations, both
American and Russian."

For a moment he thought the words had not gotten
through. They all Just sat there, with no reaction. Then came
the eruption. Fury, shock, rage. They all tried to talk at once.
General Hofstader's eyes went absolutely round, his mouth
fell open, he seemed to slump inside his well-pressed uniform.
For several moments Kinsman let them babble. Finally Hof-
stader broke through the confusion.

"That's impossible," he snapped. "You can't . . ."

"We have. And we intend to enforce an absolute ban on
all rocket launches. Anything, launched by any nation, from
any spot on Earth, will be immediately destroyed."

"This is treason!"

A civilian pushed into view, crowding the General and
forcing him to lean back in his plush leather chair. Kinsman
recognized the hawklike features of the Secretary of Defense.
"Do you realize that the Soviets are counting down for a
full-scale nuclear strike?" he bellowed into the camera. "Are
you insane, man? You're destroying your nation, your home-
land!"

"No missiles have been launched," Kinsman replied
evenly. "And if they are, we'll shoot them down long before
they near their targets."

General Hofstader edged around the Defense Secre-
471

tary's elbow to roar, "I'll give you five minutes to surrender
and turn yourself in! Otherwise you'll see the full striking
power of—"

"Bullshit, General!"

Hofstader sagged. The Defense Secretary grabbed at his
arm, as if to keep him from falling off his chair.

"Now listen, all of you," Kinsman said to the many faces
in the screens. "This is no joke and no idle threat. We will
stop any rocket launching. No matter where in the world it's
launched from. We will not allow the destruction of Ameri-
cans, or Russians, or anyone else. There will be no war. Is
that clear? No war!"

Kinsman could feel his heart banging wildly, making his
ears roar. He took a deep, painful breath and went on,
"There is no way that we can hurt you. Our armaments were
specifically designed to defend against missile launches. The
nation of Selene is no threat to any nation on Earth. But we
will not allow missiles to be launched! And if you try to send
troops to these space stations to take them away from us, we'll
be forced to destroy your troop-carrying rockets. Check with
your technical staffs, gentlemen. We can do it. And we will.
Now, good night. Ifs been a long and difficult day up here."

He turned and nodded once to the officer beside him. All
the display screens went blank.

"Stay in touch with them," he commanded. "Answer
their questions. Tell them that we make only one demand:

that they refrain from launching any rockets. Tell them we'll
shoot anything that moves above the atmosphere."

"Yessir."

Slowly, Kinsman pulled himself to his feet. Like a
ninety-year-old, he thought as he made his way back toward
the rec area, toward the blessed ease of low gravity.

It was well past midnight by the time he got to bed. His
men set him up in the VIP quarters on Level Five. It was
jokingly referred to as the honeymoon suite. The low gravity,
even less than lunar gee, was considered to be better than a
water bed. Kinsman smiled as they showed him the tiny
two-compartment suite. He recalled the old Zero Gee Club
of bygone days, so many years ago that it seemed like another
century. Damned near is another century, he realized as he
472

stretched out gratefully on the bunk. The millennium is
almost here.

He knew he should call Selene. He knew he should check
on Diane and Colt, and talk with Harriman. He knew he
should tell them that he was all right and everything had
worked out better than they had any right to expect. But he
was too tired. Too tired to talk, to think, even to sleep. I'll
never sleep, he told himself, tossing in the bunk. Too keyed
up ...

He awoke with a pang of fear burning in his gut. The
phone was buzzing. The only lights in the compartment were
the yellow 0351 of the digital clock and the pulsing red eye of
the phone. He reached over, instantly wide awake, and
punched the phone on.

"Yeah?"

A woman tech said, "Station Gamma reports a rocket
launch from the Chinese mainland."

He sat up in bed, forgetting his nakedness and the fact
that the room's darkness hid it. "When?"

The woman glanced at something off-camera. "T plus
one hundred fourteen seconds."

"Lemme see."

The phone's tiny display screen flickered, then showed a
telescope view. The brown, cloud-streaked mountain country
of western China. A single luminous thread of a rocket
exhaust.

A male voice came on. "Trajectory extrapolation gives
an impact in the mid-Pacific. Doesn't look heavy enough for
an ICBM. Exhaust profile matches a scientific high-altitude
sounding rocket more than anything else."

"Burn it," Kinsman snapped.

"We're already tracking it and have programmed a kill as
soon as it clears the coastline," the map's voice answered,
almost casually. "Got three different satellites lined up on it.
If the first one misses ..."

"Good work," said Kinsman. Very practical people, the
Chinese. The only ones with sense enough to use a cheap
scientific rocket to see if we mean business.

The rocket was too small to be seen visually, even in the
best telescopic magnification. Instead, the various satellite
sensors were being overlapped to give an optical view of the
473

Earth background and a combined radar-infrared image of
the rocket—which looked on the display screen like a reddish
blob, slightly longer than it was wide. Suddenly it blossomed
into a white glare. Got it! The fireball was much too small for
a nuclear explosion but bright enough to see optically. It
quickly dissipated.

"Well done," Kinsman grunted. "Now let me get some
sleep. Call me only if something critical happens."

The comm tech reappeared on the screen. "Sir," she
asked worriedly, "who's to decide what's critical?"

"The Officer of the Day, honey. He's the man on the
spot."

But Kinsman could not sleep anymore. He tossed in the
bunk for what seemed like a week, got up and padded around
the darkened compartment, bumping into the dresser that
was built into the bulkhead beside the bunk. Finally, when
the glowing digits of the clock said 0700 he put in a call to
Diane. The phone screen stayed blank as Selene's computer
tracked her down. She was not in her quarters or at the
communications center. Finally her face appeared on the
small screen. Kinsman recognized the background instantly;

she was in his own office.

"You're up early," he said.

"You too. Is everything all right?"

"I was going to ask you that."

Completely serious, she said, "Everything's running
smoothly here. No trouble from Colt or any of the other
dissidents."

"Good."

Diane frowned slightly as she said, "We got the word that
everything went well, at first. But then there were reports
about fighting. Nobody seemed to know what was happening
for a while. Finally word came through that you had taken
control of all three stations, and that Leonov had taken the
Russians' stations. There was quite a celebration, the Rus-
sians and us."

"Sorry I missed it."

"When will you be back?"

"I'm hoping I can leave today. Be back, urn, Thursday
sometime. We'll work out an exact ETA later."

"All right."

474

Christ! he thought, we might as well be talking about the
weather! How can she just . . .

"We saw the Chinese rocket intercept," Diane said. "It
happened in the middle of the party. Everybody was in the
main plaza. And when the Orca missiles were fired ..."

"Orca?"

She brushed a strand of dark hair back from her eyes.
Kinsman began to realize that she probably had not slept all
night. "Yes. We watched the whole thing on the big screens in
the plaza. Everybody cheered when they were shot down."

"Yeah, I'll bet," he said weakly.

She peered into the camera. "Are you all right?"

"I Just need a little rest."

"The worst is over now," Diane said. Then she added,
"Isn't it?"

"Yes. The worst is over," he answered, wishing he could
believe it was true.

As soon as Diane signed off Kinsman punched the code
for the comm center and asked for the Officer of the Day.

"Why wasn't I informed about the Orca missiles?" he
demanded.

The youngster wore a lieutenant's bars and a wispy light
brown mustache. "Sir, you gave orders that you were not to
be disturbed unless something critical happened. The subma-
rine launched six missiles in salvo from the mid-Pacific. We
assume it was an American sub, since the projected trajectory
of the missiles was toward targets in Siberia. Our fire control
crew aboard Gamma tracked the missiles while the ABM
system engaged them in automatic mode and shot them all
down within four minutes of launch. No sweat. Sir."

Kinsman sagged back on the bunk and grinned. "I see."

"We have videotapes, sir, if you wish to review the
action." The Lieutenant was very sure of himself, as only a
young officer can be when he has the rules working on his side
and he knows it.

"No. I'll take a look at it later. Any messages from
Washington?"

"Oh, yessir. A whole tankful of them!"

It was two hours later that Kinsman realized he was
hungry. He went down to Level Four. where the mess hall
475

was. He got a tray of hot food from the galley and sat at a long
table that was crowded with young officers and crewmen, and
a few civilians. The more elaborate automated restaurant
down on Level One had been shut down by its departing
crew, so the remaining civilians were forced to eat up in

officers' country.

Most of the civilians seemed relaxed enough, even
friendly. But one pair—Americans, by their clothes and
accent—got up from the table when Kinsman sat down and
moved to a smaller table on the far side of the mess hall. A
few of the Europeans seemed ill at ease, tense. The Orientals

were polite and professionally inscrutable.

Nobody knows where this is going to end, Kinsman
realized, watching them work at their food and their conver-
sations. But they all want to avoid the pariah.

Ted Marrett walked in. Fatigue lines were etched around
his eyes. He moved his big frame stiffly, as if he had been
cramped in one position for much too long. Kinsman followed
the broad-shouldered meteorologist with his eyes as Marrett
punched out two cups of steaming black coffee from the
dispenser in the galley and carried them wearily into the mess
hall- One of the scientists at Kinsman's table, a slim, sharp-
featured Moroccan, called to him. 'Ted, here. Come join

us."

Marrett shuffled over to them and sat next to the

Moroccan, two seats down from Kinsman.

"How did the trial go?"

"Pretty good." Marrett took a huge gulp of scalding
coffee, winced, then took another, "Missed two of the
correlation factors we're looking for, but it looks like all the
major factors checked out. We'll know more in a month, and
still more when the winter season's over."

"If you can stem the encroachment of the Sahara ..."

the Moroccan mused.

Marrett grimaced. "Could do better'n that if we had the
authority to operate in the Mediterranean. That's where the
crux of the motherlovin' problem is. But they won't give us
permission. 'Fraid we'll screw up their humpin' weather."

The Moroccan shrugged. "We mustn't hope for more
than can be accomplished. As I told you earlier, if even a ten

percent increase—"

476

"Ten percent! Hell, we could stop the goddamned Sahara
cold if they'd just let us work things right!" He drained the
plastic cup, slammed it on the table, and grabbed the second
cup. Then he recognized Kinsman. Raising his cup in greet-
ing, Marrett asked, "How's your revolution going?"

Kinsman arched his brows in a "here's hoping" expres-
sion. "So far, so good. Had some trouble last night but
everything seems cool now."

"Yeah, I heard. Got some interesting queries from my
confreres Earthside. Even a few priority calls from Washing-
ton and Paris."

"Paris?"

Marrett reached into his shirt pocket. "Damn! No more
cigars. Yeah. Paris. They were fronting for NATO headquar-
ters in Brussels, I think. And UNESCO's interested in what
you're doing, too."

"H'mm." Kinsman thought a moment. "Leonov and I
ought to make a worldwide broadcast,"

"Might help to settle people's stomachs."

Kinsman nodded abstractedly, then turned his attention
to his cooling breakfast. Marrett kept talking nonstop to the
Moroccan and a couple of younger men who joined them.
Before long. Kinsman realized that they had stopped talking
meteorology and were talking about flying: ultralight planes,
jets, soarplanes, even rocket gliders. Kinsman joined their
conversation by saying, "I never got the chance to try rocket
gliders; they came in after I became a permanent Lunik."

One of the younger men broke into an animated, "Jeez,
there's nothing like them!" Using his hands to illustrate, "You
stovepipe up to fifty thou, straight up, then drop the boosters,
and . . ."

And they were brothers. Fliers, all of them. Without
nationality, or race or any creed except the excitement of
flying.

"You can keep the rocket stuff," Marrett said, with a
wave of a meaty hand. "I'll take soarplanes; that's where the
real fun is. I want to make love to those fat humpy cumuli. I
want to get into those thermals. I want to feel that goddamned
cloud. Feel it."

Kinsman decided he liked the man. Trusted him. On the
strength of his enjoyment of flying? Yes, Kinsman realized.
477

On nothing more than that. It's enough. Reluctantly, though,
he got up and started out of the mess hall. There's more to do
than shoot the shit—dammitall.

As he headed down the corridor for the tube that led up
to his command center, he heard Marrett's voice behind him.

"Got a minute, Colonel?"

He turned. "Better call me Chet. I think my commission
in the Aerospace Force might not be worth much this
morning."

Marrett laughed: a strong, healthy, joyful sound. He was
too big for this narrow corridor; he needed a much wider
setting to accommodate him. "Okay, Chet. Look, I've got a
question. Maybe it's dumb, but I figure there's no such thing
as stupid questions, only stupid answers."

Kinsman grinned back at him. "What's your question?"

"Just what in the seven tiers of heaven are you trying to
accomplish with this revolution of yours?"

"You want the answer in twenty-five words or less?"

"Less."

They stood facing each other, the big meteorologist with
his heavy hands planted on his hips. Kinsman looking up at
him, the rest of the corridor empty and sterile-looking, a row
of plastic doors set into aluminum-framed curtainwalls.

"Well, Dr. Marrett . . ."

"Ted."

"All right, Ted. What we're trying to accomplish is
peace. No war. No missile strikes. No fighting between
Russians and Americans on Earth, at least no nuclear fight-
ing. So there'll be no need to fight on the Moon."

"That's about what I thought." Marrett gestured toward
the tube hatch. "Goin' upstairs?"

"Yes. To Level Three."

"Good. I'm headin' back to the observation bay." He
started walking toward the hatch. Kinsman followed. As they
padded up the metal steps, circling the thin metal wall that
held the cold vacuum of space at bay, Marrett said, "Got
another question for you."

In the dim lighting of the tube Kinsman could not see
Marrett's face too well. But his voice was low, serious, as it
echoed along the metal cylinder.

"What is it?" Kinsman asked.
478

"Your new nation gonna apply for membership in the
UN?"

"I suppose so. Why?"

"Listen. I've been working for the UN for more than ten
years now, watching the best weather-modification work in
the world get pissed down the drain because one nation or
another blocks it."

"You don't look that old."

Marrett cast a baleful eye on him. "How do you think I
got bald? X-ray treatments?"

"Okay," Kinsman said as they continued climbing the
metal steps. "So your work has been stymied by individual
nations."

"And blocs. Western Europe, Pan-Arab—you name it.
They all think of themselves as the one and only outfit on the
planet. Nobody else counts. And UNESCO, the whole
diddling UN, is helpless as long as one nation refuses to go
along with our ideas."

"So?"

Marrett stopped. Two steps above Kinsman, he loomed
in the shadowy lighting like a menace from an old Gothic tale.
"So here you are," he said quietly, rationally, "pulling off
your revolution. You stop the United States and Russia from
using their missiles on each other, but they've still got other
ways to fight. Germ warfare or nerve gas or some old manned
bombers to drop nukes."

"We can stop them," Kinsman said. "And cruise mis-
siles, too, if we have to."

"Can you stop tanks? Artillery? Genetically engineered
disease viruses smuggled into a country in somebody's lug-
gage?"

"No," Kinsman admitted.

"Okay! In the meantime you want to be recognized as an
independent nation—what the hell you gonna call yourself,
anyway?"

"Selene."

"Ugh. Okay, Selene, if that's what you want. You think
the U.S. and Russia are gonna recognize an independent
Selene?"

"Not at first."

"Damned right they won't! And what makes you think
479

any of the other nations are gonna run the risk of alienating
the big boys, just to make you feel good?" Marrett leaned
down over Kinsman and jabbed a forefinger against his chest.
"They won't. Not unless there's something in it for them."

"We can act as an international policeman," Kinsman
said, "as long as we control the ABM satellites."

Before Marrett could reply, he added, "And we can
knock out any orbiting satellites we want to. We could cripple
communications satellites, for example. Military and civilian
communications would be screwed up all around the world.
The economic threat alone—"

"Negative advantages," Marrett snapped.

"Huh?"

"Those are negative advantages. So you prevent a nucle-
ar war and all the fallout and crap. That doesn't put any rice
on the table in Burma. Neither will shooting out commsats."

"I don't follow you." Kinsman got the feeling that
Marrett was being deliberately non sequitur.

With a sigh, Marrett hunkered down and sat on a stair.
His long legs straddled four steps- Kinsman leaned back
against the tube's curving bulkhead. The metal felt chill.

"Look," Marrett said, with great patience. "Suppose you
could go to the smaller nations of the world, especially some
of the Southern Hemisphere nations—although the Europe-
ans would be interested in it, too, come to think of it—well,
anyway, suppose you went to 'em and promised not only a
policeman in orbit, but weather control."

"Weather control^

"Right. Not modification. Control. We can control the
goddamned weather all across this planet. Optimize crop
yields, improve health, make fortunes for resort areas, divert
storms, improve fish populations, maybe even save the dol-
phins before they go the way of the whales—the whole big
ball of wax. But we need two things: these space stations as
bases of operations, and the political muscle to override the
objections of individual nations and the big power blocs."

"They're against weather control?"

Marrett frowned. "It's a long and bloody story. Big-
power politics. Basically, the big nations are against letting
the UN have any real power. The only way weather control
480

can possibly work is on a worldwide basis. You can't slice off a
chunk of the atmosphere and separate it from the rest of the
world. No single nation can achieve weather control all by
itself. And the big powers won't let the UN have a shot at it,
either."

"Orbital police and weather control." Kinsman's mind
was churning.

"It'd give the UN some godawful power," Marrett said.
"If a nation doesn't behave, we'll just turn off their water."

"You could do that?"

"More or less."

"But that would mean a tremendous upheaval in the UN
itself. They're not set up for anything like that. You'd have to
revamp the whole structure."

"Damned right." Marrett was grinning hugely now,

In those gloomy shadows, with the twisting metal steps
snaking off into darkness above and below them, Kinsman
felt suspended between—what? Success and failure? Life and
death? Heaven and hell?

"Are there people in the UN who'd be willing to consider
this?"

"I know one," Marrett said.

"Who?"

"Emanuel De Paolo."

"The Secretary General?"

"The very same."

481

Wednesday 15 December 1999:

1700 hrs UT

IT WAS PRECISELY noon in Washington, although from the
curtained windows of the Oval Office nothing could be seen
but the swirling wind-driven snow of the season's first bliz-
zard.

"Big wet flakes," the President said, idly gazing out the

windows as he leaned back in his desk chair. His eyes were
puffy from lack of sleep, his hair tousled. "The kind that's
heavy to shovel. I remember, back in Roxbury, when I was a

kid, we would . . ."

The Defense Secretary looked pale, drawn. "Mr. Presi-
dent, there's no time for childhood reminiscences."

"Oh, no?" the President asked, his mouth tightening.
"What else can we do? This, eh, colonel—what's his name?"

"Kinsman," General Hofstader spat.

"Yes. Kinsman. He's got us stopped, doesn't he? We
can't lift a missile off the ground. We can't attack, and we
can't be attacked. So there's nothing to do except what we
used to do in blizzards when 1 was a kid: sit back and enjoy

it."

"What makes you certain that we can't be attacked,"

came the burly man's tortured whisper.

The President blinked in puzzlement and the reflex
response of fear. "Why? Do you think . . . ?"

It was eight o'clock in the evening in Moscow, but the

same questions were being asked.

"Are we so certain," the Nameless One was asking in his
stiletto-thin voice, "that this is not a clever American trick?
What guarantee do we have that these lunar rebels will stop

an American attack on us?"

The General Secretary shifted his bulk uneasily in his
482

chair. The long table was almost empty. Only Marshal
Prokoff, the Minister of State Security, and the Nameless One
were present.

"Didn't they shoot down half a dozen American mis-
siles?" the General Secretary demanded.

"What are a half-dozen missiles?" the Nameless One
countered. "A ruse, a decoy, aimed at lulling us into relaxing
our guard. Tomorrow, or next week or next month they could
strike while our defenses are in a state of sleepy lassitude."

"That's right," General Hofstader was saying. "This
could all be a goddamned trick to catch us with our pants
down."

"And keep us from instant readiness to launch a counter-
strike," the Defense Secretary added.

"Or a preemptive strike," Hofstader said.
The burly man whispered harshly. "More than that.
While our attention is focused on the drama in space, we still
face a very real crisis here on Earth. The Antarctic coal fields,
the battles between our fishing fleets last summer ..."

". . . and they sank one of our submarines," Marshal
Prokoff insisted, waggling one stubby finger in the air. "Do

not let this trickery with the satellites blind us to the realities
of Earth!"

Wearily, the General Secretary objected, "But this new
situation has greatly altered the correlation of forces. What
do you recommend as a new course of action? Clearly we
cannot launch a missile strike against the West—for which ill
fortune, I think, we should perhaps be grateful."

"Perhaps," the Nameless One said. Then with a thin
smile he added, "But it will be necessary to send troops to
recapture the orbital stations."

"Can it be done?"

"We will find a way."

"Remember, they have the orbital bombs with them at
the space stations," Marshal Prokoff said. "We cannot allow
them to hold these weapons over our heads."

The General Secretary glared at him. "The bombs that
you insisted we place in orbit."

The Security Minister cleared his throat. "We should
483

arrest the family of Colonel Leonov and anyone else who is

part of this lunar rebellion."

"What good would that do?" the General Secretary

grumbled.

"They might become useful hostages."
"Idiot! Think of the hostages they have at their mercy!"

"Hostages?"

Rapping the table with his knuckles on each word, the
General Secretary counted, "Moscow, Leningrad, Smolensk,
Volgagrad, Kiev ..."

"Then we're agreed," the Defense Secretary said, "that
recapturing the space stations is our first order of business."

"Yes," whispered the burly man.

General Hofstader nodded.

"I'm not so sure," the President said. "How can we get
troops up there if they're going to shoot down all our

rockets?"

"We'll have to work out a plan," said Hofstader.

"There are a lot of things we'll have to work out," the

Defense Secretary agreed.

"Yes," came the angry whisper. "A lot of things."

It was nearing midnight when General Murdock read the
TWX for the last time. He was still in his office, at his desk.
The lights of Vandenberg Aerospace Force Base were still
blacked out; the red alert had not yet been lifted.

His wife had phoned three times, and each time he had
told her he would be home in an hour. He had not mentioned
the TWX to her. He stared at the flimsy sheet of paper.
"Right out in the open," he muttered. "Not even a private
communication. Everybody on the base must know about it.
They knew about it before I did."

He was past crying. He had blubbered for an hour when
the TWX had first arrived. His secretary had tried coffee,
bourbon, womanly comforting that went from a motherly
caress to an offer to bed down for the night. The base
chaplain had come in to talk to him briefly. "It's an
investigation—that's all that a court-martial means. They
can't find you guilty of treason or dereliction of duty."
Shaking, Murdock had ordered him out of his office.
484

A psychologist, a golf-playing friend of the General, had
dropped by long after the dinner hour. "But why do you think
they're going to blame you. Bob? You had nothing to do with
it."

Murdock moaned. "I'm the one they can reach. I'm the
commanding officer of the men who rebelled. It's my respon-
sibility. Haven't you studied military history? Don't you
know what happened to General Short, after Pearl Harbor?
What do you think they're going to do to me?" He had
screamed the last words.

Prayer did not help. Neither did tranquilizers. Murdock
knew what they were going to do to him. Knew it quite
clearly. "You're killing me, Kinsman," he murmured as he sat
at his desk, head in his hands, his uniform dark with sweat
despite the gusting air-conditioning that rimed the papers on
his desk. But not the TWX. It was magnetically pinned to the
deskpad. Nothing could blow it away.

Court-martial. Inquiry. Trial.

Brigadier General Robert G. Murdock rose from his
desk and walked unsteadily to the bathroom off one side of
his handsome office. Idly, he thought how much easier it
would be if he had a gun. But he had not fired one in years
and had never used one in anger.

"I've never tried to hurt anyone," he said to himself. His
voice sounded little short of whining. "Not even Kinsman.
All these years he's laughed at me, made a fool of me. And
now he's killed me."

He turned on the hot-water tap, then reached for the
medicine chest above the sink for a razor blade.

485

Thursday 16 December 1999:

2250 hrs UT

"RETROFIRE IN FIVE minutes. Please prepare for landing."

The pilot's voice coming through the tiny speaker in the
seatback in front of him woke Kinsman. For an instant he did
not know where he was; disoriented, he felt a flash of panic
surge through him. Then everything settled into place: the
lunar shuttle, the young officers around him, the safety
harness crossing his chest and thighs, the windowless metal
tube of the spacecraft's passenger section.

'T must have dozed off," he muttered.

The kid sitting beside him grinned, "About four hours

ago, sir."

Kinsman grunted and rubbed his eyes. It had been a long

flight, a minimum-energy boost, but a busy one. He had spent
more than twenty hours straight in urgent communications
with Selene, the space stations—where he had left Chris
Perry in charge—and with Ted Marrett, going into deeper
and deeper detail on the politics of global weather control.

There had been a flood of messages from Earthside;

urgent, angry, inquisitive, apprehensive. Kinsman had Perry
or Harriman answer most of them. He refused to speak to
anyone lower than the President of the United States or the
General Secretary of the USSR's Communist Party. With an
inward grin, he admitted to himself that such haughtiness
guaranteed he would not have to take any calls. The heads of
state would not speak with him, that would be too big an
admission for them to make. It simply was not done in the
protocol-conscious world of international diplomacy.

He spoke briefly with Diane at Selene, using the compact
display screen before him. All was quiet. Apparently both
sides were still on red alert, but there had been no further
warlike incidents, no further rocket launches, no further
486

threats or blusterings from Washington or Moscow.

They're playing wait-and-see. Kinsman knew. They're
digesting the new situation, running it through their comput-
ers and think tanks, trying to figure out what to do next. The
calm before the storm.

"Retrofire in thirty seconds."

We've got to get Marrett back down to New York,
Kinsman realized. He's got to talk to De Paolo. We're going
to need weather control, even if it's just a threat or a promise,
to give us some leverage on the big powers. Of course, we
could knock out their commsats and other satellites if we had
to. And we've got the Russians' orbital bombs . . .

He shook his head. Dismantle the bombs. Take them
apart so that nobody can use them. We got into this business
to prevent a nuclear war, not to start one

The braking thrusters fired and Kinsman felt a firm but
gentle hand push him down in the foam cushion seat. There
was no noise from the retrorockets, only a faint shudder of
vibration.

Over the intercom, the pilot sang out, "Last stop: the
free and independent nation of Selene. Population, one
thousand and umpty-two. Everybody off the bus!"

Kinsman grinned. Home sweet home. He realized that
he was indeed home. Diane was here, and Harriman and
Frank Colt and all the other people and things that made this
corner of the universe his home.

He had been sitting up at the front end of the passenger
compartment. Most of the other men and women aboard
were between him and the egress hatch, but they stepped
aside wordlessly, automatically opening the aisle for him to go
to the hatch first.

Kinsman looked at them for a moment. They were all
watching him. "What is this, a parade?" he joked. "Go
ahead, go on out. I don't have to be the first in line."

He followed them through the access tube that connected
the shuttle hatch with the airlock of Selene's main dome. It
felt like a long walk. Behind him was the excitement, the
terror, the passion of action: the swift, fearful climax of so
many years of self-doubt, so many weeks of indecision and
mounting tension. Now it was done and men had died
because of it. Because of me. Kinsman knew. But strangely he
487

felt no guilt. Only weariness, and the beginnings of dread.

Kinsman realized that this revolution, if it really was one,
had barely begun. The fighting may be over but the real
struggle had only started. Now we have to make it stick.
Make a nation of little more than a thousand people stay
independent of the seven billions on Earth. We've got a long
lever and a place to stand—but is it enough?

The inner airlock hatch was closed when Kinsman
stepped into the metal chamber. "Something wrong?" he
asked the youngster ahead of him.

The officer shrugged. "Dunno. It was open and people
were going through, then somebody outside yelled 'Stand by,'
and they shut the damned thing in my face."

Before Kinsman could go to the wall phone the hatch
swung open again. The young officer stepped through and
Kinsman followed him out onto the floor of the main dome.

It was thronged with people. Off to his right, a motley
collection of musicians struck up a barely recognizable ver-
sion of "Hail to the Chief," playing a battered slide trom-
bone, a dozen or more recorders and kazoos, a few
homemade instruments, at least one violin, a few drums
made from oil cans, and a dulcimer. Everyone was shouting
and cheering. Kinsman was so surprised he did not have the
strength even to stagger. He stood frozen to the spot. The
trombonist was smiling as he played!

The crowd was still yelling as the band ground to a
ragged stop. The dome reverberated with their cheers. Hugh
Harriman somehow appeared beside Kinsman, pounding him
on the back. Leonov was there, too, grinning and kissing
everyone in sight, man or woman.

"Congratulations, Chet!" Harriman was yelling in his
ear. "We ran an election this afternoon and you lost! You're
the Chief Administrator of this crazy nation."

"And I am Deputy Chief," Leonov beamed. "In charge
of immigration. I get to interview all the girls who want to

come live here."

It was a dizzy, crazy whirl. Diane came out of the crowd
and took Kinsman's arm as the whole population descended
upon him, laughing, cheering, grabbing for his hand, telling
him and each other that they were ready to defend their new
nation and follow his leadership.
488

Kinsman lost all track of time. Diane climbed up on the
fender of a tractor, guitar in hand, tears in her eyes, her voice
nearly choking as she reached the words she had not been
allowed to sing for so many years:

"It's the hammer of justice,
It's the bell of freedom,
It's the song 'bout the love between my brothers

and my sisters,
All over this world."

Food appeared as if by magic, and drink: all sorts of
drink, from precious bottles of champagne to locally distilled
rocket juice that seemed to be still fermenting. After what
seemed like hours of ear-numbing noise and crowds and
music and folk dancing that snaked all across the dome and
down the corridors below ground, a small group of them
ended up in Diane's quarters; Harriman, Leonov, Jill and
Alexsei Landau, Diane herself.

"Immigration?" Kinsman was asking. His head was still
spinning, and there was a tall drink in his hand. Diane was
perched on the arm of the couch beside him.

Leonov nodded vigorously. He had a vodka bottle in one
hand and a tiny shot glass in the other. He was standing, his
boots were planted solidly on the grassy floor, but his body
weaved slowly from side to side, like a fern in a fishtank.
Kinsman could not decide if it was his own eyesight or the
Russian's stabilization system that was going kaput.

Leonov boomed jovially, "Do you realize how many
requests for immigration visas we have received in the past
twenty-four hours? Thousands! From almost every nation in
the world."

"We've already been officially recognized by several
nations," Diane said. "Starting with Sri Lanka."

"And the government of Israel in exile, surprise, sur-
prise," said Harriman, buffing his fingernails against the chest
of his coveralls. "Pm not without influence among certain of
the more civilized people of the Earth, I'll have you know.
Besides," he added, "Selene is the only nation that the Jews
haven't been thrown out of."

"Maybe we could offer them a promised land up here,"
489

Diane said. "They're desert people; the Moon's certainly
bleak enough for them."

"Too much," Kinsman muttered. "It's all too much."

"You're entirely right," Jill Meyers said, fixing Kinsman
with a professional medical gaze. "You look like you've been
through several wringers. I want you in my office at oh-nine-
hundred hours tomorrow morning."

"You mean this morning." Alexsei said softly. "It's
already past three."

"To bed, all of you," Jill commanded. "Can't have our
Chief Administrator collapsing from exhaustion his first day
on the job."

Harriman pursed his lips. "There are several lewd re-
marks I could make, but considering your exalted position,
Mr. Chief Administrator, I will maintain a kindly and courte-
ous silence."

"You're just sucking up for a good political job," Kins-
man said.

"How right you are! How about making me Minister of
Education?"

"No. I want you to be our Foreign Minister."

Harriman was aghast. "Me? A diplomat? One of those
mincing faggots?"

"You'd start a new trend in foreign affairs, Hugh. You've
already influenced one government, by your own admission."

"I won't wear striped pants!"

"Hugh, you don't have to wear any pants at all, if you
don't want to. What I need is—"

"Tomorrow!" Jill said firmly. She got up from her chair
and Alexsei rose with her, towering above her tiny form.
Diane got up, too, and they all drifted toward the door. But
Kinsman lingered as the others left.

Harriman's voice was still echoing down the corridor as
Kinsman said to Diane, "Well, I made it. They didn't kill
me."

"They tried," she said.

He reached out to push the door shut but she did not let
go of it.

"You did a fine job, taking care of everything while I was
gone."

"Thanks."

490

He did not want to make polite conversation. He did not
want to talk about anything, or even to think. Not about
politics or war or death.

"Diane—let's make love."

"Instead of war?" She smiled faintly as she pushed the
door shut.

Kinsman slid his arm around her shoulders as they
headed toward the bedroom.

Jiil Meyers took up the first couple of hours of the new
day, running Kinsman through an extensive physical, clucking
and frowning and shaking her head as the readouts came from
the medical sensors and integrating computer.

"You think this heart murmur of yours is just a dodge to
fool the brass Earthside," she scolded. "Well, take a look at
this EKG." She handed him a ribbon of plastic tape across
her bare little desk.

Kinsman examined the jagged line. "Bad?"

"It's got the shakes. Have you been feeling any chest
pains? Sharp twinges along your left arm or side?"

With the innate distrust of medics that all fliers feel,
Kinsman answered merely, "Some discomfort when I was
down in the high-gee section of the space station, that's ail."

"That's all." She glowered at him, spoke a prescription
for pills into the computer input mike, and then waved him
out of her office cubicle. He got as far as the door, a single
step.

"You're not immortal," Jill said sharply. "We're all
depending on you, Chet. You'll be no good to any of us dead.
Slow down."

"Sure." He made himself grin at her. "The worst is over.
It's all going to be downhill from here on in,"

It was not until he was halfway down the corridor that led
into the water factory that he realized how many different
connotations "downhill" could have-

Ernie Waterman was embarrassed to see him. The
dour-faced engineer actually blushed when Kinsman arrived
at the rock crushers, where an explosion had wrecked two of
the six conveyor belts that carried pulverized rock from the
giant machines to the electric arcs.
49 T

"I ... I figured as long as I'm here . . ." Waterman
stammered over the clamor of technicians yelling to each
other and the spark and hiss of welding lasers. The four
working crushers pounded out a basso accompaniment to the
higher-pitched noises. "Well ... I figured I might as well
help out. It's better than sitting around doing nothing, ain't
it?"

"That's fine, Ernie," said Kinsman over the din of the
construction crew. "I appreciate your help."

"How soon do I have to leave?"

"Leave?"

An air compressor screamed to life and Waterman raised
his shrill voice even louder and leaned on his canes toward
Kinsman's ear. Their hard hats actually clicked. "When are
you going to be shipping me back Earthside?"

"Nobody's going Earthside!" Kinsman yelled back,
"And nothing from Earthside is coming up here—not until
we get some of the politics straightened out. And whether you
leave Selene or not is your decision, Ernie. I can't send you
back to a wheelchair. If you can stomach what we're doing
here—or even better, come over to our way of thinking
—you're welcome to stay as long as you like."

Waterman's mouth moved but Kinsman could not hear
what he said.

"I mean it, Ernie," he shouted. "As long as you don't
work against us you're welcome to live here."

"You'd . . . trust me?"

"Why not? Aren't you an honest man?"

Waterman merely shook his head in wonderment.

Much of the afternoon Kinsman spent going over person-
nel lists and combining the American files with Leonov's. The
two of them worked in the Russian personnel office, alone
except for the Lunagrad computer terminal that sat on a table
in the middle of a large room. The Moonbase computer had
not yet been fully linked with the Russian machine.

Leonov had to translate the Cyrillic symbols. Kinsman
had the American files transferred electronically into the
Russian data bank. He frowned as Pat Kelly's file appeared
on the display screen. Kelly was still confined to quarters,
under a psychiatrist's care. He had requested immediate
492

transfer for himself and his family Earthside.

I failed with him, Kinsman told himself. He worked so
close to me, saw everything I saw, everything I did. And yet
he couldn't make the Jump, couldn't change his thinking
enough to grasp what had to be done. He'd rather see
America destroyed than changed.

When he returned to his own quarters, just before
dinnertime, he found Frank Colt sitting tensely on his living
room couch. Alone.

"I was wondering when you'd show up," Kinsman said as
he slid the front door shut.

"Yeah. I steered away from the partying last night.
Figured you had earned a celebration without me screwing it
up for you."

"I looked for you in the crowd. I wanted to thank you for
staying out of mischief while I was away." Kinsman crossed
the room and sat on the slingchair next to Colt.

'Took some guts for you to trust me," Colt said, eyeing
Kinsman carefully.

"Took some guts for you to accept the responsibility,
feeling the way you do."

Colt broke into a grin. "Listen, buddy. That lady of
yours would've shot me down like a dog in a microsecond if I
had stepped half a millimeter out of line. She's pretty and
sweet—and tough."

Kinsman felt his brows knit slightly. He had never
thought of Diane as being tough, yet the evidence had been
obvious al! along. No one built a successful singing career
without inner strength and a steel-hard determination. And
even after the government slapped her down, she bounced
back and made it to the Moon.

"Do you still feel the same way?" he asked Colt. "That
what we're doing is wrong?"

Colt did not answer right away. But when he did it was
with a silent nod of his head.

"Even though you can see that the Lunagrad people are
with us, and that we're both acting together to save the
United States and Russia?"

Hunching forward in the couch, fists on knees, Colt
answered, "Okay, okay, vou're a bunch of do-gooders and
493

you've got the best interests of mankind at heart. I still can't
buy it. I'm sorry, Chet, that's just the way it is. I want out. I
want to go back Earthside."

"But Frank, can't you see—"

"I can see the whole fucking thing! And I know which
side I'm on. It ain't yours. I'm sorry, man. Maybe I'm wrong
and you're right. But that's where it's at."

Kinsman searched his friend's face. It was a thinly
masked mixture of pain and stubbornness. "There's nothing
we can do?"

"Not a damned thing. Just send me back Earthside as
soon as you can."

"There might be trouble for you down there. They might
not believe that you were against us."

"I'll take my chances."

With a shake of his head. Kinsman said, "Frank, I just
hate like hell—"

"Do it!" Colt snapped. "Stop thinking you can win
everybody over with logic and a sweet smile. I am what I am,
and you can't change that."

"And you won't change it."

For an instant Colt looked as if he would lash out at
Kinsman. But the fire in his eyes dimmed and he answered
only, "That's right. I won't change."

Something from the back of Kinsman's mind surfaced
and he heard himself say, "Okay, Frank. You can be on the
next shuttle to Alpha. I'll set up a special flight to Earthside
from there. There are a few civilian scientists who want to get
back, too. You can go with them."

One of those scientists would be Marrett, Kinsman
knew.

"Fine," said Colt.

Kinsman sat back in his slingchair, thinking. You're using
your oldest friend, letting him be the excuse for getting
Marrett to the UN people.

"Is there anything else, Frank?"

Colt gritted his teeth before answering. "Yeah, one more
thing." He sounded disgusted, ashamed.

"What is it?"

"Murdock . . ."

"Oh, shit. What's old wetpants want now?"
494

Colt's eyes evaded Kinsman's. "Diane asked me to tell
you. She didn't know how to break it. Murdock's dead.
Committed suicide two days ago."

"Suicide?"

"Sliced his wrists."

Murdock? That pudgy little kettledrum of a man? The
guy we used to tease until he'd throw a tantrum? Clowns
don't slice their wrists. It can't be for real!

"But why?" Kinsman asked.

Colt's voice was barely audible. "I guess they were
looking for a scapegoat. They were going to investigate,
court-martial him."

"Oh for God's sake!" The bastards. Kicking the weakest
one. I should have known. I should have known. "Did he
leave a note or anything?"

"A taped message. It was addressed to you. The commu-
nications people just got to it this afternoon—they been
swamped and this had no priority at all."

"Addressed to me?" Kinsman felt his insides going
hollow.

"I burned it," Colt said. "You don't want to hear it."

"What did it say?"

"It was shitty."

"What did it say?"

Colt took a breath. "He said, Thanks for everything,
Kinsman. This is the reward I get for covering up your murder
of that Russian girl. I should have crucified you when I had
the chance,'"

495

Thursday 23 December 1999:

1400 hrs UT

IT WAS 9 A.M. in New York. Ted Marrett paced impatiently
past the floor-to-ceiling windows of the plushly carpeted
office, high in the UN's Secretariat Building. A sleety rain
pelted the windows; across the turgid, oily East River,
Brooklyn and Queens were only a gray smear.

"You're going to wear out your boots," said Beleg
Jamsuren. He was sitting placidly in a leather easy chair, his
round, flat Mongol face a picture of stoic calm. He was a
young man who carried his formidable name easily, as
confidently as if he were an ancient warrior atop a shaggy
Gobi pony wearing padded armor and a steel helmet with a
short bow strung over his shoulder. Instead he was a bright
young scientist, and he wore a plain brown business suit.

"Better than wearing out the seat of my pants," Marrett
growled. He was in denims and a tweed sports jacket, puffing
hard on the stump of a cigar clamped between his teeth.

Jamsuren silently thanked the gods for the ventilation
system that sucked up the fetid cigar smoke. "He said he
would see you shortly after nine."

"That's what it is now." Marrett tapped his wristwatch.
"Shortly after nine. Where is he?"

"He does have a few other responsibilities."

"Nothing as important as this! Holy hell, we've been
trying to see him for four solid days."

"The Secretary General doesn't often make time to see a
couple of lowly UNESCO scientists. His schedule is
arranged . . ."

Marrett wheeled toward the Mongol. "Don't give me
that humble Oriental crap! I know you better. You're just as
worked up about this as I am."

Jamsuren allowed himself a smile. "Perhaps I did use my
496

consanguinity with the Mongolian ambassador to further our
cause."

"Youbetcha."

"But it won't do us any good if you're an incoherent
wreck when ..."

The door opened. Marrett turned, taking the cigar from
his mouth. Jamsuren stood up.

Emanuel De Paolo was a slight, frail-looking man. His
skin was dark, his hair as gray as volcanic ash. His eyes were
utterly black, but alive, youthful and alert in an aging man's
face. His suit was very conservatively cut, with cuffed trousers
and a double-breasted jacket over his soft turtleneck sweater.
But the suit was the blue of the skies over the Andes; the
sweater Incan gold.

"Gentlemen," he said in a soft, almost musical voice.
"Please do not be formal. Sit, sit."

Marrett eased his big frame slowly into the chair that
Jamsuren had been using, without taking his eyes off the
Secretary General. The Mongol scientist wordlessly moved
aside and took another chair. De Paolo relaxed in a webchair
of Scandinavian wood and rope.

"May I please ask you to be brief," the Secretary
General said pleasantly. "There is a meeting of the Security
Council this afternoon to discuss the recent events on the
Moon, and I have several appointments on my calendar
before the session begins."

Marrett glanced at his friend. Jamsuren said, "I am not
sure of how much the Mongolian Ambassador told you, sir."

"Very little," said the Secretary General. "I must con-
fess that he seemed to enjoy making this as mysterious as
possible."

"It's not mysterious," Marrett said, stubbing out his cigar
in the ashtray by his chair. "No more mysterious that the rain
falling out there."

An hour later an aide knocked discreetly on the door of
the room to remind the Secretary General of his ten-fifteen
appointment. De Paolo told him to cancel it. The phone rang
once, and De Paolo spoke harshly into it in Portuguese. They
were not interrupted again, except for when the Secretary
General suggested that they have some lunch brought in.

The Security Council meeting began without him. By
497

mid-afternoon De Paolo was asking, "Can all this really be
done?"

Marrett was chewing the soggy end of his last cigar. It
had gone dead hours earlier. "If you mean technically, the
answer is yes. Sure, it'll be some time before we can tailor-
make local weather on a small scale, but we know enough
right now to ruin a nation's crops anytime we want to. And
we've been able to steer major storm systems for years
—when we're allowed to do it."

"Within limits," Jamsuren added.

The Secretary General had taken off his jacket. He
dabbed at his forehead nervously. "But this is fantastic. Do
you realize what power you are speaking of? Do you have any
conception of what you are offering?"

"It is awesome," Jamsuren agreed quietly.

De Paolo pulled himself out of his chair and walked to
the window. It was no longer raining but the sky was still gray.
"I wish I had not agreed to listen to you," he said, staring out
at the decaying city. "I wish I had never heard this. The
temptation ..."

Marrett tapped his watch. "In exactly five minutes you'll
see some blue sky. The sun will break through."

The Secretary General glanced over his shoulder at the
big man. "You are certain?"

Nodding, Marrett replied, "Just as certain as I am that
the UN—or somebody—has got to grab this power. We can't
keep it a secret much longer. There are plenty of meteorolo-
gists and fluid dynamicists who are aware of the potential.
Once they work up the guts to admit to themselves that the
weather can be controlled all around the world, it'll be the
next big international crisis."

"And this Kinsman," De Paolo asked. "He is an honor-
able man? He can be trusted?"

"I think so. He wants to have his new nation admitted to
the UN, and recognized as an independent country. He offers
a way to enforce world peace."

The Secretary General shook his head. "It's frightening.
Too tempting."

"You mean the potential power?" Jamsuren asked.

"That," the old man answered, "and the responsibility.
We have all wrung our hands about the United Nations'
498

political impotence for years, decades. But this changes
everything. Everything!"

"It's using technological power to attain political
power," said Marrett.

"I am not certain it's the right thing to do. I am not at all
sure that we're ready for this. It's the use of force—a different
kind of force, perhaps—but still . . ."

"Force is the only way to move an object," Marrett said.

"Newtonian physics." replied the Secretary General. He
smiled wanly. "You see? I am not entirely ignorant of
science."

He turned back to the window. A lance of sunlight broke
through the gray clouds. A slice of blue appeared in the sky.
"Your prediction was too conservative," De Paolo said to
Marrett. "Five minutes have not elapsed yet."

Marrett shrugged. "I'm always on the conservative
side."

"Are you?" The Secretary General squared his shoul-
ders, like a man who had finally decided to accept a burden,
no matter how heavy. "Very well. I suppose I must meet with
this Kinsman. Do you think he would be willing to come to
New York?"

The California sunshine was strong and brilliant, coming
out of a sky so blue that it needed occasional puffs of white
cumulus clouds for contrast.

Frank Colt squinted, even behind his polarized glasses.
The glare coming up from the concrete runways and taxi
aprons was powerful. But I can handle it, Colt told himself.
That, and anything else they care to send my way.

The two Air Policemen walking in stride a few paces
behind him were both over six feet tall, with football phy-
siques and big automatic pistols bolstered on their hips. They
followed Colt wherever he went. Technically he was under
house arrest and confined to this desert base until the
masterminds in Washington decided whether he could be
blamed for any responsibility in the lunar rebellion.

Colt grinned sardonically. Not every dude has his own
bodyguards following him around. Status symbol.

Overhead a silvery speck started to materialize into an
executive Jetcopter, and Colt could hear the wush-wush-wush
499

of its huge rotor blades even over the shrill scream of its
turbine engines. Colt and his two guards came to a parade
rest, quite unconsciously, at the edge of the painted yellow
circle marking the helicopter landing area. A service truck
was racing across the concrete off in the distance, coming up
to plug in electricity for the copter's communications, lights,
and air-conditioning.

The jetcopter settled down on the concrete landing apron
in a scream of gale-blown grit and pebbles. As it squatted on
its springy landing gear and the rotors slowed, Colt looked up
and saw that it bore no insignia except for a standard USAF
star and the identification number H003. The "three" in the
number struck Colt at once. Number one's for the President,
and two's for the Vice President, he knew. He was impressed
with the man inside, the man who had come to see him.

The copter's main hatch swung upward and a lieutenant
in spotless uniform stood in the hatchway as metal stairs
trundled out and touched down on the concrete. He looked at
Colt and saluted, sallow-faced, pinch-eyed, but very crisp and
professional in bearing. Colt returned the salute and went up
the stairs and into the helicopter. His two guards remained
outside in the glaring sun. In the week that they had been
escorting Colt everywhere, they had yet to say a word to him.
Get a good tan, fellas, Colt silently wished them.

Inside, the copter was frigid. The Lieutenant was tall
enough to have to duck his head as they stepped through a
smaller hatch set into a gray-painted partition. Colt stepped
into a sort of conference room—a compartment, really;

spacious for a helicopter, perhaps, but crowded already by
the three people seated at its narrow table.

Colt snapped to attention and saluted. The weary-
looking Two-Star General seated across the table flicked a
salute back to him. He was flanked by a puffy-faced colonel
and a civilian, a man in a dark suit who sat hunched over, his
burly shoulders bulging strangely inside the suit jacket, his
face seemingly stamped with the red heat of constant pain.

There was one lightweight plastic chair unoccupied. The
General gestured to it; Colt sat down. The Lieutenant stayed
at the hatchway, behind Colt's back. He had noticed that the
Lieutenant wore an Air Police armband but carried no gun.
Standing behind him, though, it would be possible for him to
500

kill Colt with his hands if he were told to.

"I am Major General Cianelli," said the General. "This
is my aide, Colonel Sullivan."

Colt nodded. But two-star generals don't get chopper
number three, he knew. This bird must belong to the civilian.
He turned expectantly to the red-faced man, who was sitting
on his left.

"My name is not important," he whispered, harsh and
labored.

For a moment there was silence in the compartment.
Colt could hear the distant muffled drone of the service
truck's diesel generator, nothing else.

General Cianelli looked pained. "We are here to review
your case; that is, the statements you made to the investigat-
ing board earlier this week."

"Yessir," Colt said, going into his professional act. "I'd
be happy to clear up any questions you have."

"You said that you led a group of counterinsurgents,"
Colonel Sullivan said, in a surprisingly high tenor voice, "and
attempted to destroy Moonbase's water production facility."

"Yessir. We were only partially successful, though. We
were overwhelmed by sheer numbers before we could do
more than superficial damage."

"Only superficial damage?" came the tortured whisper
from his left.

"I heard, while I was under arrest afterward, that our
action cut down Moonbase's water production by about one
third . . ."

"Ah?"

". . . but the damage could be repaired in a few weeks."

"Without needing any parts or supplies from Earth?"
General Cianelli asked.

"That's right, sir. They have everything they need for the
repairs there at the base."

"A few weeks," Sullivan mused. "That means the rebels
are short on drinking water?"

"Not likely, sir," Colt responded. "The water facility can
produce enough drinking, housekeeping, and irrigation water
for both Moonbase and Lunagrad. They may be short on
rocket propellant, though, since the hydrogen and oxygen are
electrolyzed from the water that the facility produces."
501

General Cianelli frowned. "What sort of a man is this
Colonel Kinsman?"

Careful, man! Colt warned himself. They know all about
both of you. "He was a close friend of mine, sir. I've always
regarded him as well-meaning, very likable, but politically
soft."

They went on for hours. Colt carefully maneuvered
around the fact that he could have shot Kinsman or could
have attempted a counter-coup while the rebels were seizing
the space stations. He gambled that no one else who had
returned from Selene knew exactly what had happened and
what role he had played. Only Pat Kelly might contradict him,
but to do that Kelly would have to put himself on the spot.
Gradually it became clear to Colt that they were no longer
probing his loyalty or questioning his actions during the
rebellion. They were pushing for information about the rebels
themselves, Kinsman especially, and the defenses that the
space stations and the lunar settlement possessed.

"Sir," he asked the General, "am I going to face a
court-martial?"

General Cianelli glanced at the angry-faced civilian.
"That's a matter to be decided . . ."

The burly man silenced him with the slightest movement
of one hand. To Colt he said, 'There will be no need for a
court-martial. Quite the opposite. We are seeking a knowl-
edgeable officer to assume the late General Murdock's com-
mand. A man who knows the space stations well enough to
show us how to recapture them."

Colt closed his eyes momentarily and saw a general's
stars. "Recapture the space stations," he echoed, looking
straight into the civilian's pain-shot eyes, "I can show you
how."

Cianelli looked surprised. Sullivan smiled. But it was the
angry man who answered him. "How? The rebels have
command of all the laser-armed satellites. They will destroy
any rocket boosting up from Earth."

Colt faced him. "You've got to get them to agree to allow
one flight to come up to Alpha. That's all you need: just one
flight."

The man stared at Colt, his face red and scowling.
Neither of the two Aerospace Force officers dared to speak.
502

Finally the burly man said, "Show me."

Colt asked, "Do you have a computer link aboard?"

The civilian looked up at the Lieutenant, still on his feet
behind Colt. "Bring it."

It took some fiddling around with the terminal, a com-
pact desktop unit, before Colt could link it with the files at
Vandenberg. Finally the display screen showed views of
Space Station Alpha, together with the records of the military
crew needed to staff it.

"Even if we assume that Kinsman's put extra people in
Alpha to protect the station," Colt said, "he couldn't have
more than a hundred military men aboard."

"A shuttle carries only fifty passengers, max," General
Cianelli objected.

"That's fifty civilians," Colt shot back. "We could pack
more troops in, especially if you use the cargo space in the
bottom deck."

The General sat up straighter. "We'd have to modify the
shuttle, pipe life-support capability into the cargo deck—but
that can be done."

"Certainly," Colonel Sullivan agreed.

Colt went on to show how the station could be overrun
quickly and efficiently by a hundred well-armed, well-trained
troops.

"They'd have to be well-led, too," Colt added.

"And you will be their leader?" the burly man asked.

"No," said Colt. "Not me. I'm not an infantryman."

Ignoring that, Cianelli asked, "So we recapture Alpha.
What good does that do?"

Smiling to himself, Colt realized that he had them
hooked. "Okay. Watch." He touched the computer keyboard
again. The view showed an animated drawing of Earth with
hundreds of satellites revolving around it. With a touch of his
finger, Colt wiped out all the satellites except the three
American space stations. "Now, look at the area each station
'sees' as it orbits around the Earth."

The display screen showed pale-colored ovals slipping
across the Earth's surface: the area visible from each of the
space stations.

"There are windows," Colt explained, "when Alpha and
only Alpha is available to survey the Vandenberg area. Or
503

Cape Canaveral, for that matter. Once we seize Alpha, we
can launch more troopships during those periods. And we
time the seizure of Alpha so that we can follow it up within a
couple of hours by launches that will take Beta, Gamma, and
the Russian stations, too."

He clicked off the display screen and looked up at their
faces. "If we can move fast enough and we do everything
exactly right, we can take over the whole ABM network—the
Russians' as well as ours."

"We'll have the Reds staring into our gun barrels!"
Sullivan exulted.

"And we can march in on Moonbase anytime we want
to," said Cianelli. "They'll be defenseless. They'll fall like a
ripe plum."

"Lunagrad too," Colt said.

The other man said nothing. They all turned to him. He
breathed a deep, labored exhalation. Then, "Consider your-
self an acting full colonel, Mr. Colt. The General here will
process your orders immediately. You will implement the
plan you have just outlined. If it succeeds you will be raised in
rank to brigadier general."

Cianelli's mouth tightened into a bloodless line. Sulli-
van's eyes were evasive.

Colt said, "One more thing."

The man's angry face seemed to swell and get even
redder.

"I want," said Colt, "to meet the President of the United
States. It's purely a personal thing. I want to meet the top
man, even if it's just for a minute. I want to shake his hand."

The anger subsided, slightly. He almost smiled. "Of
course. That can be arranged."

"When can we strike?" Cianelli asked suddenly. "This
entire strategy depends on the rebels' allowing us to send a
shuttle to Alpha."

The angry man mused, "Intelligence reports that many
nations have forwarded requests for emigration to the lunar
rebels. There have even been some Americans asking for exit
permission."

"Americans?" Sullivan looked shocked.

"We have always had fools and traitors in our midst," the
burly man said. "This will be a good way to get them to
504

identify themselves to us. Then they can be re-educated."

"Christmas Eve," Colt said.

"What?"

"Or Christmas Day. Get Kinsman to accept the first
flight of immigrants to the Moon on Christmas Day."

"Impossible!" Cianelli shook his head. "We can't pick
shock troops and train them for this mission and modify a
shuttle by tomorrow or the next day."

Colt frowned. "Kinsman's a sentimentalist, a romantic.
He would buy the Christmas thing."

"What about New Year's?" Sullivan asked.

The three of them looked at Colt, waiting for his
reaction. "New Year's Eve," he said. "That way they can start
the first day of the new century, the new millennium, aboard
the space station in their new nation."

"Didn't I read somewhere that the new millennium
doesn't really start until the next year—2001? Is that right?"
Sullivan wondered.

"Doesn't matter," Colt countered. "Kinsman will buy
the New Year's Eve bit. And everybody counts the change
from 1999 to 2000 as the millennium. Nobody gives a crap
about the purists." Colt used the slight profanity very deliber-
ately. No one reacted to it at all. You got 'em, baby! he told
himself.

"New Year's Eve it will be, then," said the burly man.

Before the sun set that day Colt's guards disappeared. He
was ushered into plush quarters and a big office where he
found a pair of silver colonel's eagles on his gleaming new
desk, together with the paperwork for the promotion.

"They work fast," he muttered to himself. Fingering the
eagles, "Only two pieces of silver. Judas got thirty."

He looked out the window of his new office, and he could
see the pale outline of the Moon rising over the low hills in the
still-bright sky.

"I ain't gonna hang myself, though." His voice sounded
bitter, even to himself.

505

Saturday 25 December 1999:

1612 hrsUT

"IT'S BEEN A busy day," Kinsman said.

"Haven't they all?" replied Diane.

They were sitting in the living room of his quarters,
watching the start of the buggy race on the big wall screen
across from the sofa.

"I guess they have, at that," Kinsman admitted. He had
not seen Diane since the night of his return from Alpha,
except for brief business talks in his office. He had appointed
her Deputy Director of Personnel for Selene, under a former
Russian psychologist.

Selene's first Christmas of independence had been cele-
brated by a huge dinner in the central plaza, with everyone
bringing their own food plus something extra for the commu-
nal buffet. More than a thousand people sat on the grass and
ate picnic style, celebrating the holiday together regardless of
nationality, religion, or politics. After three hours of feasting,
the buggy race had begun. Kinsman and Leonov officiated at
the countdown, up in the main dome. Then Kinsman had
invited Diane to have a drink with him.

Now they watched the ungainly lunar buggies lumbering
across the uneven ground at speeds of up to thirty kilometers
per hour, heading for the crater Opelt. It would take them
more than a whole day to complete the nine-hundred-
kilometer round trip.

The racing buggies had all started life as standard lunar
surface rovers, but now they were barely recognizable as
such. They all had bubble-shaped canopies up front where the
crew sat: bulging cockpits that looked like insects' eyes and
gave the term "buggy" a double meaning. There the similari-
ties ended and individual inventiveness took over. Some of
the buggies were wheeled, others tracked. One walked stiffly
506

on sharply angled praying mantis legs that ended in spongy-
looking hooves. Several had weird multicolored wings sprout-
ing from them: solar panels designed to intercept different
wavelengths of sunlight and convert them into the electricity
that ran the motors. Some had boxy collections of fuel cells
running their lengths, and one buggy had a steam generator
and a solar mirror atop it just behind the cockpit. Their colors
were all garish, and not for esthetic reasons alone. Each crew
wanted to be easy to spot by searchers if their buggy broke
down on the desolate lunar plain.

Kinsman sat on the sofa with a drink in his hand and
Diane beside him, watching the slow-motion race. The bug-
gies scrabbled toward the nearby horizon, climbing laborious-
ly over the rises in the undulating ground and wallowing in the
shallow spots like turtles seeking the sea. His mind flashed a
memory of roaring balls-out in an F-18 thirty meters above
the Mojave floor, throttle to the firewall, afterburners
screeching, scrub and rocks and sand blurring into one
continuous barely seen swatch of gray-brown as he focused
his eyes on the hills rising in front of him. Then barely a nudge
of the stick and she stood on her tail and hurtled skyward
while the safety suit hissed and squeezed at him and he flipped
her into a tight barrel roll just for the sheer hell of it.

Nevermore. He shook his head.

"Chet?" Diane broke into his reverie.

"Huh? What is it?"

tt! just realized . . . You didn't get me anything for
Christmas, did you?"

He thought swiftly. Should I tell her? Then he heard
himself answering, "Well . . . not really."

"I didn't think to get anything for you," Diane said, her
face quite serious.

"That's okay. What I'm trying to get for you won't be
here for a while, anyway."

Diane sat up straighter. "You're trying to get something
for me?"

"Not something," Kinsman replied. "Someone. Your
daughter."

She gasped with surprise.

"I asked Hugh to see if he could arrange to have her sent
here to you."

507

Diane threw her arms around Kinsman's neck and kissed
him.

He held her tightly and the kiss grew warm with passion.
Then the phone buzzed. They separated slightly as Kinsman
sighed and punched the ON button. Hugh Harriman's face
took form on the display screen. He was wearing his pixie
expression.

"Am I interrupting anything?" he leered.

"Yes. We're planting a mistletoe tree. What do you want,
Hugh?"

"While you two have been playing all day at your
infantile games," Harriman answered, "I have been engaged
in many hours of earnest and fruitful discussion with my
fellow diplomats Earthside."

Kinsman sat up a little straighter. "On Christmas Day?"

"You sound like Bob Cratchit, for God's sake! Yes, on
Christmas Day. It hasn't been easy to put all the pieces
together, since nobody wants to go on the record with this.
They'd rather talk from their homes on the holiday than from
their offices during business hours. All under the table, highly
unofficial and all that."

"For Chrissakes, Hugh, you're sounding more like a
Foggy Bottom bureaucrat every day! What the hell are you
talking about?"

"Well!" Harriman put on his injured look, but let it melt
away immediately. "Okay, here's the story. One: Marrett
called early this morning and told me that you couid expect a
personal invitation from the Secretary General of the United
Nations to address the General Assembly in a special session.
As a private person, mind you, not as a head of state. But he
will invite you officially only if he knows beforehand that
you'll accept. Can't afford to lose face and all that shit."

Kinsman felt his breath coming faster. "When?"

"Before the week is out."

Diane moved closer to Kinsman. "Will the American
government allow someone from Selene to land there?"

"My dear child, what do you think I've been trying to
arrange all day long? Do you think I'd miss the feasting and
the girl-goosing of this festive occasion for sheer lack of team
spirit?"

"Cut the crap, Hugh. What did you accomplish?"
508

"Plenty, if I say so myself." He hesitated only a moment.
"I explained to Marrett that oui position with the Yankee
Federates is rather delicate. He understood and said the UN
had already requested a safe-conduct guarantee for you and
all your party."

"So?"

"So while I was wondering whether I should try to get a
call through to the American State Department—knowing
that nobody who could exert any authority would be available
on Christmas Day—I received a call from an old chum of
yours: Colonel Franklin Delano Roosevelt Colt."

"Full colonel?"

"Seems Frank's landed on his feet, Earthside. He was
wearing a bird colonel's eagles."

"He's at Vandenberg?"

"Right. Apparently they've let him take over your Gen-
eral Murdock's command."

"Sonofabitch!"

"And," Harriman went on, "this request from the UN
for handling a party of visitors from Selene has already
reached his level. Approved by no less than the President of
the United States his own self."

"You mean it's all set?"

Harriman scratched at his goatee. "Not only have they
moved faster than anyone in Washington has since the riots of
ninety-two, but they seem to be going out of their way to be
nice to us."

"What do you mean?"

"They're asking permission to send up a shipment of
people from all over the world who've asked to emigrate from
their native lands to Selene. Leonov's kids might be among
them. I might even be able to get your daughter included,
Diane."

She said nothing, but Kinsman felt her fingers tighten on
his arm.

He leaned back against the sofa's foam padding, wonder-
ing aloud, "I don't get it. Why are they being so accommodat-
ing, all of a sudden?"

"I asked myself the same question," Harriman replied.
"There are several possible answers."

"Such as?"

509

"Well, for one thing, Colt's probably having some influ-
ence. He must be telling them that we really mean the United
States no harm, and that an independent Selene friendly to
the U.S. is better than a Selene that's hostile."

Kinsman nodded.

"Then, too, the think-tank people must have figured out
by now that we could easily become allies of the Soviet
Union, which would be disastrous for the U.S. Another
reason for them to treat us carefully."

"Go on."

Harriman shrugged. "There's also world opinion: the
big, bad U.S. picking on a helpless little new nation. That
doesn't count for much, I think, but it might explain the
request to send up a token bunch of immigrants."

Trojan horse? The thought flicked through Kinsman's
mind. "I want to know exactly who these immigrants are.
Complete data on each of them."

"Right."

"You've had a busy day, Hugh."

Harriman grinned toothily. "Yes, but it's been very
rewarding. I even spoke briefly with the Russian ambassador
to the United Nations. Marrett told me where to find him;

he'd canceled a holiday trip home. It looks as if the Russians
won't be averse to recognizing our independence—as long as
they can inspect the space stations and the ABM satellites and
satisfy themselves that we really are independent."

"Check with Leonov about that. And find out about
whether or not his kids are in that shuttle-load of immi-
grants."

"Right."

"Do you think you really can get my daughter?" Diane
asked.

"I'm going to try. Strike while the iron's hot, and all
that."

"It all sounds terrific, Hugh. Almost too good to be
true."

"Yes, it looks as if they're bending over backwards to be
sweet to us. Maybe it's the Christmas spirit."

"I hope it's something deeper and more permanent,"

"Amen."

"Anything else?" Kinsman asked.
510

"Two things. About the invitation to address the General
Assembly. The hitch is that they want you 'at your earliest
convenience.' But no later than this coming Thursday."

"Thursday?" Diane echoed. "That's so soon!"

"We can't let any dust gather on this," Harriman said,
completely serious. "Things are rolling our way, we've got to
take advantage of this favorable tide before something hap-
pens to change their minds."

"All right," Kinsman said. "Thursday. What was the
other thing?"

"The other? Oh!" Harriman's eyes twinkled. "I spent an
hour's time—my lunch hour, the way I figure it—tracking
down the jackal who calls himself the Maximum Leader of my
native land. Finally got him on the screen."

"To tell him that you're coming Earthside under a UN
safe-conduct?"

"No." Harriman smiled with beatific delight. "I just
wanted to see his pockmarked face once more and watch the
expression on it as I gave him my personal Christmas greet-
ing."

"You called to wish him a Merry Christmas?" Diane
asked.

"Not quite. I told him to go fuck himself."

Sunday 26 December 1999:

1015 hreUT

"THERE is NO way," Jill Meyers said firmly, "that you are
going Earthside, Thursday or any other day. It's medically
out of the question!"

They were in Kinsman's office; Jill, Leonov, Harriman,
Diane, and Kinsman himself.

"Come on, Jill," Kinsman said. "This is no time for
lectures."

She was on her feet, frowning intensely at Kinsman.
511

"Chet, I'm not lecturing. I'm telling you the simple facts. You
can't survive on Earth."

"Just for a couple of days . . ."

"Watch my lips," Jill snapped. Then she said with
deliberate care, hesitating between each word, "You can not
live on Earth."

Diane looked surprised. "Not ever?"

"Maybe with six months of special training and exer-
cise," Jill replied, "but even then his heart . . ."

"Jill, let's not start swallowing our own propaganda,"
Kinsman interrupted. "You know damned well we cooked up
that heart murmur to get around the duty regs about rota-
tion."

Jill stood squarely in front of him, a tiny snub-nosed
Raggedy Ann doll with a will of chrome steel. "Your heart
problem is real," she said slowly, making every word dia-
mond hard. "It was a slight problem five years ago, and with
the proper balance of rest and exercise it could have been
corrected. It can still be corrected, given time. But for the
past five years you have been living in one-sixth the gravity of
Earth. Your heart has become accustomed to doing one-sixth
the work it would face Earthside. The muscle tone, the
workload capacity, is gone. You simply can't survive Earth-
side gravity! You'll kill yourself!"

For a long moment the office was absolutely still. None of
them moved or spoke. Kinsman found himself staring into the
wall screen opposite his couch: Earth was hanging there,
close and lovely, the jewel of the cosmos. Near enough to
reach, in a day or two.

"Jill," he said at last, "I'm not asking you to tell us what
we can't do. You've got to help us to accomplish what needs
to be done. I've got to go Earthside. Do you understand
that?"

Leonov cleared his throat. "Let me go instead. I am in
good physical condition, thanks to Russian pride in manly
strength, as opposed to decadent Western self-indulgence."

"I appreciate the offer, Pete," Kinsman said, adding
silently, and the attempt to make us laugh. "But the simple
fact is that the deal was set up for me. The Americans would
get very twitchy if you showed up in my place. Even the
Russians would start to wonder what's going on."
512

"Does it have to be a personal visit?" Diane asked.
"Can't it be handled by phone? I mean, we could pipe it
through the biggest wall screens and all."

Harriman shook his head. "No, dear lovely lady. The
crux of this whole meeting is the chance for Chet and Marrett
to get face to face with the key national leaders down there. In
private, with no bugs or eavesdroppers. The speech and the
public meetings are nothing more than window dressing. The
important thing, the vital thing, is for Chet and Marrett to
offer the smaller nations their double-barreled deal of ABM
protection and weather control."

"And to subtly threaten the major powers' existing
communications satellites and other space assets," Leonov
added.

"Subtly," Harriman agreed.

"What about your health, Hugh?" Kinsman asked him.
"Will you be able to make the trip?"

Harriman put a fist to his forehead and flexed his biceps.
No motion was discernible inside his coverall sleeve. "I've
been exercising at least six hours every week in the centrifuge
ever since I came here. I always expected to go right back
home again, remember?"

"I've checked his latest physical exams," said Jitl. "He's
in good-enough shape."

"You bet your sweet ass I am!" Harriman concurred.

"All right," Kinsman said. "So it's my frail heart that's
the problem. I'll only be Earthside for a few days . . ."

Jill gave him a tight-lipped scowl. "How did you feel
when you were aboard the space station the week before
last?"

"Huh? Fine! No problems." As long as I stayed in the
low-gee sections, he remembered. But that wasn't my heart. I
just felt tired, heavy, and some trouble breathing . . .

"Your chest didn't fee! heavy?" Jill probed. "You didn't
feel any aches or sharp pains anywhere?"

"Nothing much."

"How much time did you spend on Level One, where
there's full Earth gravity?"

"Urn, well, I didn't get down there at all. But I was on
Level Three a lot—it's about half an Earth gee, a lot more
than we have here."

513

"And how did you feel?"

"Kind of tired—achy. But my heart was okay."

Jill shook her head. "When you got back here your EKG
looked like a Richter point-eight seismograph reading. Do
you have any idea of how much your heart function had
deteriorated from Earth normal? And your entire body's
muscle tone? You wouldn't be able to stand up under normal
Earth gravity for more than a few minutes' You'd—"

"Shut up!" Kinsman snapped.

Jill looked shocked. But she fell silent.

"Now listen to me," he said more softly. "We live in an
age of medical miracles and high technology. There's no
reason why I can't wear a powered suit down there. The
exoskeleton will hold me up and the servomotors will help my
flabby muscles move my arms and legs."

"But your heart—"

"Do something about it! You've got pressure cuffs and
booster pumps and God knows what the hell else. Pump me
full of adrenalin or whatever it takes."

Harriman shook his head furiously. "No drugs, dammit!
We can't have you high or dopey during these meetings, for
Chrissakes."

Already Kinsman was feeling weary. He ran a hand
across his eyes. "Yeah, you're right." Turning back to Jill,
"Okay, you're going to have to prop me up with whatever
mechanical aids you can produce. I guess I'll need a doctor
with me, then."

"But I can't go back," Jill said, almost apologetically.

And that's why you're resisting the idea of me going
back, Kinsman realized. He looked at Jill with new under-
standing, and the residue of angry frustration inside him
melted away. Reaching out to touch her arm, he said, "I
know that, Jill. I don't expect you to . . ." To risk your life,
he thought, the way I'm risking mine. But aloud, he finished,
". . . to go back with me. Nobody expects that of you."

"Alex will go with you," Jill said. "There's no medical
reason for his being confined here."

"But he's driving one of the buggies in the race," said
Kinsman.

"Then call him back."

"But . . ."

514

Leonov raised a solemn hand. "She is right. The race is
not as important as your medical safety."

"It would be good politics to have a Russian in our little
delegation," Harriman pointed out.

"All right," Kinsman said. "Then it'll be Alex, you"
—nodding to Harriman—"and me. A Russian, an Irish-
Brazilian Jew, and an American. We'll outnumber 'em."

Kinsman and Diane walked back toward the living
quarters together, silent as they paced down the long, rough,
curving corridor. It was late afternoon; nearly the whole day
had been spent planning the Earthside trip.

"Would you like to have dinner at my place?" he asked.

She would not look at him. "I don't think so, Chet."

A family walked by them, parents and two children, one
barely big enough to toddle by herself. After they passed,
Kinsman asked, "What's wrong, Diane?"

She stopped and turned toward him. "You know what's
wrong. You're going to keep going at this thing until it kills
you."

"Oh . . ." He hunched his shoulders. "I've got to.
There's no way around it."

"I know," she said. "That's the trouble. I know that what
you're doing is right, and good, and there's no one else in the
human race who can do it."

"I'll be okay."

She shook her head. "They're going to kill you."

"Don't be so melodramatic."

Diane turned and started walking down the grass-floored
corridor again. Kinsman caught up with her and grabbed her
arm. "Diane, listen to me. It's just this trip Earthside. After
that, things will settle down." He grinned weakly. "We'll
bring your daughter up here. We might even be able to lead a
halfway normal life."

She smiled back. "I wish it were true."

"It will be true," he insisted. "When I come back from
this trip Earthside, everything ought to be pretty well set-
tled."

"You don't believe that, Chet, and neither do I."

"It could happen."

"When?"

515

"Once this Earthside business is finished. I'll be back in
time for New Year's Eve, I bet. We'll celebrate the new
century together."

Diane's smile warmed. "The new millennium."

"And I'll make a New Year's resolution," he joked,
"never to leave the Moon again. How's that?"

"It would be wonderful," Diane said. "Especially if you
could keep it."

Frank Colt wore dress blues as he leaned back in the
plush reclining chair of the jetcopter's passenger compart-
ment. The seats were arranged two by two, facing each other.
Sitting beside Colt was a Major, ten years his senior, now
serving as his aide. Facing them was a pair of civilians, one
from the State Department and the other from the Internal
Security Agency.

"We have cleared visas for all of the foreign visitors and
American citizens who want to emigrate to Moonbase," the
State Department man was saying. He was a professional
bureaucrat, businesslike and knowledgeable. "They will
begin arriving in New York on Thursday morning. The lunar
delegation can meet most of them at the reception being given

that evening."

The ISA agent was small, paunchy, balding. He nodded,
poker-faced. "That should allay any suspicions the Luniks
might have. Then we'll stash the foreigners at Kennedy
Spaceport, tell them there are technical difficulties, and keep

them incommunicado."

"While the troops take off in their place and seize the

space station," the Major finished. "All very neat."

"Timing's critical," Colt said, "No room for screw-ups,"
"Everything is worked out to the second," the Major

replied smugly,

"Then work it out to the millisecond," Colt snapped.
"I'm meeting the President tonight, and I want to be able to
assure him that those stations will be in our hands when the
new year begins."

The Major nodded, his lips pressed together and his
cheeks going a blotchy red.

The State Department man traced a well-groomed fin-
516

gernail down the crease of his trousers as far as the knee.
"There is one additional item."

"What is it?" Colt asked.

"Our situation analysts have run this entire plan through
the computer one additional time, to see if there are any
loopholes to be plugged."

"And?"

"And they have come up with an elegant suggestion.
They think that you, Colonel, should be in New York with
this Kinsman character when the troop shuttle takes off."

Colt controlled his surprise with a reflex clamp-down on
his emotions. He kept his voice noncommittal. "Why?"

"If Kinsman has any slight shred of doubt about a Trojan
horse situation, your presence in New York should ease his
fears."

"Or put him on his guard."

"No." The State Department man smiled. "We have
analyzed Kinsman's personality profile quite thoroughly. He
tends to trust people rather easily, especially people he has
known for a time. You were friendly with him for many years.
He undoubtedly still feels deep ties of friendship toward you.
He will see your presence at the UN as a gesture of amity, and
that should put him off his guard quite nicely."

He does trust people too easy, Colt admitted to himself.

The ISA agent smirked. "Beautiful. You two can watch
the takeoff on TV together."

"The final few hours of countdown will be more-or-less
automatic," the Major chipped in. "There's no real need for
you to be physically present at the Kennedy launch center, or
even at Patrick."

Colt said, "I don't like it. I'd rather be where the action
is, at the launch complex."

"But the computers," said the State Department man,
"show that the plan's chances for success increase from
eighty-five percent to ninety-three if you are in New York
with Kinsman."

You want me to kiss him on the cheek, too? Colt fumed
silently. But he hid his anger, hid his fear, and looked into the
three white faces, each in turn.

"Okay," he said at last. "I'll do it."
517

Wednesday 29 December 1999:

0525 hrs UT

KINSMAN SNAPPED awake.

For a moment he could not remember where he was.
Then it came to him. The VIP suite in the low-gravity section
of Space Station Alpha.

He got up slowly. There was a plastic tube in his thigh,
carefully wrapped in protective bandaging. He glanced at the
digital clock set into the bulkhead. In another hour and a half
that tube would be connected to a pacemaker and electric
motor. Inside his leg, the tube wormed through his femoral
artery and up his torso into the aorta, where the plastic
balloon pump rested. It was quiescent now. Once the pace-
maker and power unit were connected the balloon would act
as an auxiliary heart, helping with the blood-pumping work
that his natural heart would be too weak to do on Earth.

Jill had frowned through the entire surgical procedure.
"The pump can't take more than fifty percent of the workload
off your heart," she had said. "You're still going to be in
trouble when you reach Earth."

Kinsman padded into the sanitary stall and dry-bathed,
letting the sonic vibrations cleanse and massage his skin. Silly,
he told himself, knowing that he could have luxuriated in a
water shower. But the habit prevails. And I shouldn't get the
bandage wet, I guess. He did not want to admit that a water
shower would smack too much of a last-chance-of-my-life
ritual.

He shaved carefully, then started to dress. Briefly he
thought of putting in a call to Diane, back in Selene. But he
shook his head against the idea. Better to leave it this way. If I
get back—when I get back—maybe we can start putting our
lives together. But not now.

He pulled on a T-shirt, shorts, and slipper socks. Noth-
518

ing else. The bandage showed beneath the brief shorts and
bulged against the inside of his thigh. It felt like an extra pair
of balls.

Kinsman hesitated at the door to his compartment. He
took a deep, calming breath, then slid the door open and
headed out to meet with Jill and her medical team.

Two hours later he was sitting in a special foam cushion
chair aboard a rocketplane as it bit into Earth's atmosphere.
Kinsman was encased in a mechanical exoskeleton: a frame-
work of metal tubing that ran along his legs, torso, arms, and
neck. The silvery metal tubes were jointed in all the places
where the human body was jointed, although the broad metal
plates running along Kinsman's back could never be as supple
as a human spine. Tiny electrical servomotors moved the suit
in response to Kinsman's own muscular actions.

The rocketplane glided deeper into Earth's atmosphere,
shuddering and groaning as the shock-heated air made its
external skin glowing hot. Kinsman felt the gee forces build-
ing up and decided to begin testing his new skeleton. He
raised his right arm off the seat's armrest. A barely audible
hum of electric motors and the arm lifted smoothly, easily.
Yet when Kinsman tried to flex his fingers, which had no
auxiliary help, it felt as if he were trying to squeeze a
sponge-rubber ball rather than empty air.

The exoskeleton would allow a normal man working in
Earth's gravity to lift half-ton loads with one hand. Kinsman
hoped the suit would allow him to stand and walk properly.
The back of the suit included a rigid framework, much like a
hiker's pack frame, to which would be attached the electrical
power supply for the suit and the heart pump, the pacemaker
controls and motor, and a small green tank containing an
hour's supply of oxygen. Resting on the seat beside Kinsman
was a clip-on oxygen mask. Jill had insisted on its being part
of the equipment he carried.

It was difficult for him to turn his head because the neck
supports of the exoskeleton were quite stiff. So, like a man
with a sore neck, Kinsman carefully edged his whole body
slightly sideways, restrained by the safety harness cutting
across his shoulders and lap.

He looked at Landau and Harriman, sitting in the double
519

seats across from him. They were unfettered except for their
safety belts, and deep in animated conversation. The rest of
the rockctplane was empty except for the flight crew up in the
cockpit and a trio of stewardesses who had all shown profes-
sional nurse's or paramedic's certifications to Jill before she
agreed to let them serve on this brief flight.

Kinsman leaned back in his seat, to the accompaniment
of a miniature chorus of electric hums. He closed his eyes. He
knew perfectly well what was happening in the cockpit
now—or, at least, what used to happen when he flew such
craft, decades ago. Now they were controlled from the
ground; everything was automatic, the airport computer
giving commands to the ship's computer. The flight crew was
there only in case of emergency.

But in his mind he felt the bucking control column in his
hands as the ship buffeted through maximum aerodynamic
drag. He saw the firetrail of re-entry as the ship blazed
through the atmosphere like a falling meteor, torturing the air
around it into incandescence. He remembered one flight he
and Frank Colt had . . .

"Touchdown in three minutes," announced the little
speaker grille. Even the voice sounded mechanical, automat-
ic. No emotion at all.

Despite himself, Kinsman grinned. Only an old fart
reminisces about the good old days.

There were no windows on the rocketplane, but the tiny
display screen set into the chairback in front of him showed a
pilot's-eye view of the craft's approach to JFK Aerospace-
port. Sunlight glittered off steel-gray water, uncountable
structures took form on the screen: rows of houses, factories,
warehouses, parking garages, towers, churches, shopping
malls, bridges, roads, streets—all out in the open, under the
strangely pale and diluted sun.

Peering intently at the little screen, Kinsman still could
not see any people, or even any individual autos on the
streets. Just an occasional gray bus or olive-colored truck that
looked more like an Army vehicle than a civilian. The long
dark corridor of the runway rushed up at them. A jarring
bounce, then another, and then the muffled roar of braking
jets told Kinsman they were down. He smiled to himself. We
could land 'em a lot smoother than that, he thought. The
520

computer doesn't take any pride in its touchdowns.

And then he realized they were on the ground. On
Earth. He did not move until the craft rolled to a stop at the
terminal building. One of the stewardesses helped him undo
the buckles of his safety harness. Then she stood back, an odd
expression on her face, as he tried to stand up.

Must look pretty weird. Kinsman thought as the suit
unfolded itself—unfolded him—and he got to his feet.

Landau moved behind him and started up the heart
pump. Kinsman had expected to feel it throbbing in his chest,
but he felt only a slightly warm sensation that quickly passed.
For several minutes the Russian tinkered with the equipment
on Kinsman's backpack as Harriman watched in moody
silence.

"How does it feel?" he asked at last, his voice deep and
grave and somehow irritating.

"Fine," Kinsman snapped. "Same as it did on Level One
at Alpha when we tested it. I'll challenge you to a basketball
game before we go home."

Harriman snorted, "Bragging already! Come on. If
you're so good, move your ass off this tin can and let the
people admire us."

But there were no people.

At least, no crowds. Kinsman and his two followers
walked from the ship into an access tunnel that led into the
terminal building. A small knot of officials and medical
people were there, including a representative from the Amer-
ican State Department and several UN functionaries. One of
them, Kinsman noted immediately, was a tall, striking
blonde. Swedish, I'll bet.

No news reporters. No television cameras. No curious
onlookers. All the other gates in this wing of the terminal
building had been shut tight. The entire area had been cleared
of people. As far down the corridor as Kinsman could see
there was no one except a row of uniformed security guards
spaced every twenty meters or so, wearing hard hats, with gas
masks on their belts next to their riot guns and grenade
pouches. Even the newsstands and gift shops were closed.

Then the tall, cigar-chewing figure of Ted Marrett pushed
through the little knot of officials. "Welcome to Fun City!" he
boomed, and all the others seemed to pale and melt back.
521

Kinsman extended a metal-braced arm and Marrett
grasped his hand warmly. "I'm here as the unofficial greeter
and personal representative of the Secretary General. We've
got a squad of cars waiting outside to take you to UN
headquarters. The three of you will be guests of the Secretary
General."

But it was not that easy. The officials immediately
formed themselves into a reception line and the three lunar
visitors had to be introduced to each one of them. Kinsman
wondered idly how they had arranged their pecking order,
since they seemed to come from a dozen different nations and
two dozen different types of government agencies, ranging
from the United States' National Institutes of Health to the
Ministry for Development of Natural Resources of Tanzania.
A trio of photographers cruised around at a distance, dis-
creetly snapping away without flashbulbs. Kinsman noticed
tiny apertures in the walls and ceilings where other cameras
might be recording their arrival, as well.

Kinsman shook hands with each of the officials, including
the blonde, who turned out to be from Kansas City, repre-
senting the American Urban Council. A good front for an
intelligence agent, Kinsman guessed. Glancing at her clinging
sweater, he decided she had a good front for anything.

Finally they were ready to head down the corridor
toward the main terminal building. One of the American
medics offered, "We can get a wheelchair for you, Mr.
Kinsman."

"No thanks. I can walk."

Landau came up beside him. 'Tt would be better to
conserve your strength."

"I feel fine."

"You are high on your natural adrenalin at the moment,"
Landau advised. "A wheelchair is advisable."

So they wheeled Kinsman, fuming inwardly, through the
emptied terminal building. Security's tighter than a Mafia
summit conference, Kinsman realized as he saw that the
entire terminal of one of the world's busiest aerospaceports
had been completely shut down. All the ticket counters were
empty. All the TV monitors showing arriving and departing
flights were dark. The fast-food counters and restaurants and
bars were shuttered. Grim-faced, heavily-armed security
522

guards were posted everywhere. The only sign of life outside
of the funeral cortege flowing through the deserted building
was the trio of photographers skipping back and forth with
the agility of Oz's scarecrow, clicking away with their tiny
cameras.

Kinsman and Landau were ushered into a sleek limou-
sine, together with Marrett and the American State Depart-
ment representative: a square-jawed young man with a deep
tan and the kind of wrinkles around his eyes that come from
being outdoors, not behind a desk.

If he isn't ISA I'll eat the upholstery, Kinsman told
himself as he settled into the limousine's back seat. The
braces of the exoskeleton poked into him uncomfortably.
Landau sat beside him while Marrett and the State Depart-
ment man took the jumpseats facing them.

"You okay?" Marrett asked. He had to hunker down on
the jumpseat to keep his bald head from bumping against the
plush-lined roof.

"As well as can be expected," Kinsman replied. He
caught a glimpse of Harriman entering the car ahead of theirs,
with the blonde from Kansas City at his side.

"How's that one-man jail cell feel?" Marrett asked as the
chauffeur started up the car and pulled away from the
terminal building.

"Not all that bad. It's a lot better than trying to get along
without it, I guess."

The State Department man, whose name Kinsman had
not caught, asked, "How does it feel to be back home again?"

Kinsman threw him a sharp look. "My home's almost
half a million kilometers from here."

"Oh. Yes, I see ... I meant . . ."

But Kinsman turned to stare out the window at the acres
of totally empty parking lots surrounding JFK. "They've
really shut down the whole damned airport? For us? What
were you afraid of?"

"Nowadays anything can touch off a riot," answered the
State Department man. "And you're not terribly popular
with the plebeians, you must realize."

"Also," Marrett added quickly, "it's easier to control the
news about you if the government's the only source of info.
Right, Nickerson?"

523

Nickerson seemed to go darker, beneath his tan. "The
news media can be very irresponsible, sensational."

Marrett laughed, a full-throated chuckle that filled the
limousine's plush interior. "Sure. No sense letting them get
sensational about a man who's led a successful revolt against
the government and has come down from the Moon to visit as
a guest of the United Nations."

Nickerson did not smile back. "Mr. Marrett," he said
coldly, "you are an American citizen, even though you seem
more loyal to the UN than to your own nation. I advise you to
be more careful with your statements."

"Stuff it, sonny!" Marrett pulled a fresh cigar from his
shirt pocket. Despite the winter chill outside, the big meteo-
rologist wore only a leather jacket over his shirt and slacks.

Landau raised a protesting hand. "Please. No smoking."

"Huh? Oh." Marrett looked at Kinsman, then slipped
the cigar back into his pocket.

The entire expressway leading into Manhattan was clear
of all other vehicles except for an occasional police cruiser or
Army armored car. Even the overpasses were empty of traffic
and people. As the little parade of limousines and their
escorts neared Manhattan an eerie sensation began crawling
up Kinsman's spine. He had been here before. It all looked
familiar, yet somehow different. Empty. They've pulled all
the people away. No one on the streets, no cars or buses. Yet
there was something more. Something was missing from the
bare canyons of concrete and brick. Defoliated! Kinsman
realized. Not a tree in sight. They've taken down all the trees.
For fuel?

They swung up onto the Queensboro Bridge and Kins-
man saw the skyline of tall gray towers that he remembered,
half lost in a cold brown haze of smog. Uptown of the bridge a
few private cars shared the East River Drive with phalanxes
of steam-powered buses. But downtown of the bridge, where
the drive led to the UN complex of buildings, the roadway
was completely empty except for police and Army vehicles.

The river below looked oily and turgid, flowing sluggish-
ly. And then it hit Kinsman. Water! Miles and miles of water,
waves lapping gently, water that falls from the sky and makes
noisy little streams like that time in Colorado flowing down
524

the mountain slopes to form rivers that sweep out mto the
oceans. Rivers. Lakes. Oceans. A whole planet brimful of
water.

He stared into the gray river. All that water, and look
what they've done to it. Fouled their own nest.

He pulled his eyes away from the filthy river. "I just don't
understand why you felt it necessary to clear out our whole
path," he said.

Nickerson glanced at Marrett, sitting beside him on the
other jumpseat. "Mr. Kinsman," he said, "it may come as a
shock to you, but the majority of the American people regard
you as a traitor. We thought it would be better for your own
safety to provide a maximum of security for you."

"And a minimum of opportunity for me to tell Selene's
story directly to the people."

Nickerson's nostrils flared, but it was the only betrayal of
his feelings. He said evenly, "We do not want to run the risk
of starting a riot and possibly having you or the others of your
party injured or killed."

Marrett looked disgusted but said nothing.

Kinsman turned back to stare at the river. So much
water! For free! This world is so rich—and they've fucked it
up so thoroughly.

As they pulled off the East River Drive and down the
short stretch of rampway that led directly to the UN garage,
suddenly there were people. Thousands of them. Tens of
thousands. Thronging the pedestrian mall and spilling over to
block the bottom of Forty-eighth Street. A cordon of
mounted policemen—They still use horses! Kinsman
marveled—kept the crowd from surging onto the rampway
and blocking the limousines' access to the underground
garage.

Kinsman remembered the UN Plaza as a neatly mani-
cured park, green with trees and flowering shrubs. The
glimpse he got of it as the limousines slowed down showed it
to be bare and treeless. And packed with people who clutched
tiny American flags in their fists and angrily waved placards:

DON'T DEAL WITH TRAITORS!
THE MOON BELONGS TO U.S.

525

BRUTUS, BENEDICT ARNOLD, AND KINSMAN
ANOTHER U.N. SELLOUT OF AMERICA

And others that were worse. Most of them were profes-
sionally printed, and many copies of them had been made
available by somebody. The government? The hand-lettered
ones were obscene.

Through the bulletproof windows of the limousine Kins-
man could hear the seething roar of the crowd, booing and
shouting at them. A woman's high-pitched screech: "Kins-
man, you Quaker bastard, I hope they kill you like a dog!"

Nickerson smiled coldly. "See what I mean?"

"Good job of stage managing," Marrett muttered.

The cars slid past the mouth of Forty-eighth Street and
beneath the overhang of the pedestrian mall, to a wild
cacophony of screams and curses.

With great effort. Kinsman turned around to look out the
rear window. Suddenly the crowd broke through the police
line and surged onto the rampway. More police appeared
almost magically and halfheartedly tried to hold them back
from the entrance to the garage. In the background. Kinsman
could see the mounted cops pulling gas masks over their faces
while others slid gas masks over the muzzles of their horses.

"Stop the car," Kinsman ordered.

His voice was strong enough to penetrate the partition
separating the back of the limousine from the driver's seat.

"Stop it!" he shouted.

The driver lurched to a stop.

"What are you . . ." Nickerson reached for Kinsman's
metal-sheathed arm.

But he had already opened the limousine door and was
climbing out, servomotors whining as he ducked through the
door frame and stood erect.

A riot was beginning up at the entrance to the garage.
The police were shoving at the crowd and the crowd was
pushing back. Police clubs and electric prods were already in
hand. The roar of anger was echoing down the concrete
tunnel.

The air was foul. It stank of smells that Kinsman had
completely forgotten: gasoline and rubber and burning gar-
bage and urine. His eyes burned. But instead of going for his
526

oxygen mask, he trudged up the ramp toward the maddened,
flag-waving, struggling crowd.

Dimly he was aware that Landau was running up behind
him. And Marrett. And Nickerson, who probably had a gun
on him. The ramp's slope was unnoticeabie to them. But to
Kinsman it felt like climbing Annapurna. Step by plodding
step: click, whine, hum, thump; click, whine, hum, thump.
Frankenstein's monster invades Manhattan.

And suddenly the battling and shouting up ahead of him
died away. Not all at once, but within the space of a
half-minute it went from riot to silence, a shock wave passing
through the crowd, numbing it to inertness. One gruff voice
hollered, "Hey, what the hell is that?" Then utter silence
from more than ten thousand people.

Except for the noises of Kinsman's exoskeleton. Slowly,
laboriously, he worked his way up the ramp. Breathing was an
exercise in concentration. His chest felt raw inside, too heavy
to lift.

One of the policemen edged toward him, face shield
down, gas grenade clutched in one hand, bullhorn in the
other.

"The . . . bullhorn," Kinsman puffed. Christ Almighty!
Twenty paces and you're half dead.

The policeman hesitated, then held out the bullhorn.
Kinsman took it, with a click and whir of servos. He put the
bullhorn to his lips.

"I . . ." His voice cracked, his throat burned.

Landau reached out to support him. Marrett and Nicker-
son came up on the other side.

"I am Chet Kinsman," he said, and heard his magnified
voice boom hollowly off the tunnel walls.

The crowd seemed to flow backward a pace or two,
buzzing. Like a rattler trying to make up its mind about
striking. Kinsman thought.

"I'm the man who's being accused of treason." Kinsman
took a deep, rasping breath. "I can only tell you . . . that we
declared independence ... for the Moon ... in the same
spirit that our forefathers . . . declared independence . . .
for the United States."

Can't get air into my lungs!

"The people of Selene . . . would like to live in peace
527

. . . with all humankind. . . . There's no more reason for
you to fear ... an independent Selene . . . than there has
been for England to fear . . . an independent United States."
The crowd was murmuring, wavering. Kinsman let his
arm drop. Someone took the bullhorn from his fingers.
There's more to tell them, he knew. But 1 can't. I can't. Too
bloody tired.

Thursday 30 December 1999:

1332 hrsUT

FLOATING. HE WAS floating in free-fall, connected to reality
only by the lifegiving umbilical snaking back to the space-
craft. Kinsman glorified in the freedom of it. Turning slowly
in space he saluted each of the stars in turn: Rigel, Betel-
geuse, Sirius, Procyon, the Twins, the Crab, the Scorpion
with Antares glowering redly in its middle. Antares, the rival
of Mars. Enemy of Mars. Enemy of war.

And then she drifted into his view. Dead. Arms still
outstretched in terrified supplication, oxygen lines ripped
away by his hands. She was turning slowly, ever so slowly,
showing her back to him at first but slowly, slowly revolving
so that now he could see the bulge of her helmet where the
right earphone was built in and now the hinge of her
dark-tinted visor and the first red initial of CCCP across the
top of her helmet.

No! I want to wake up!

But she drifted closer to him, still turning toward him,
her arms extended now in a cold embrace of death. He
wanted to tear his eyes away, but instead looked deeply into
that visor through the darkness and saw her face.

Diane's face. Dead.

"Noooo!" he screamed.

Kinsman was trying to sit up, eyes wide open, room still
echoing with his nightmare shout. The lights snapped on
528

harshly, painfully. Dr. Landau and two nurses burst into the
room.

He saw that he was lying on a water bed, felt it sloshing
wildly beneath his struggles. A light plastic web harness was
fastened over him, making it impossible for him to get free. In
his ears he heard the peculiar double beat of his natural and
artificial hearts, thumping hard in syncopation.

"Chet, Chet! Don't try to get up!" First time Alex has
ever called me by my first name. Kinsman realized with a
detached part of his mind.

"I'm all right," he said, relaxing, sinking back into the
water bed's warm caress. "Just a dream ... a bad dream."

One of the nurses, a tall leggy African, had a syringe in
her hand. Landau waved her away.

As they unfastened the web harness Kinsman lay back
and let the buoyancy of the water carry him. The room was
big, huge by lunar standards, and plushly furnished. The
ceiling was richly paneled in wood, the floor thickly carpeted;

deep comfortable chairs and couches were scattered in a
smooth luxurious arrangement.

The other nurse touched a button on the wall and the
drapes slid back, letting sunlight filter through the ceiling-high
windows. There was a spacious desk by the windows, with
various electronic gadgetry neatly arranged on its top and a
special contour chair behind it.

For the freak. Kinsman realized as he saw his exoskeleton
stacked beside the chair, like some smothering insect waiting
to envelop him.

Most of the electronics was medical checkout equipment.
Landau used it to test Kinsman's vital systems, shaking his
head and frowning unhappily through the brief procedure. As
the nurses helped Kinsman into his clothes and then into the
braces, he asked the Russian doctor, "Well, Alex, how'm I
doing?"

Landau, sitting on a regular chair next to the desk, bit his
lower lip as he scanned the readout on the desktop display
screen.

"Terribly, if you must know the truth," he answered.
"The heart pump cannot sustain you through any physical
exertion at all."

The black nurse lifted Kinsman's right leg and clamped
529

the foot brace on while the other—she looked Armenian to
Kinsman, maybe Greek—did the same for his left.

"So I won't exert myself," he said lightly. "Who needs
to, with such expert help at hand?" He would have patted
their heads but his arms felt too heavy and he feared he could
not coordinate them properly.

"This is no joking matter," Landau replied grimly.

Kinsman could not even shrug comfortably. "All right,
Alex. So I'll sit still and do nothing more strenuous than
talk."

"Your heart reacts to emotional stress also, you know."

The nurses bent him forward to hook up the back brace.

"Ummph. But, Alex, I feel a helluva lot better now than
I did yesterday. What happened? Did I pass out or what?"

"You collapsed," Landau said. Bitterly, he went on,
"And for a reason that I should have foreseen, but was too
stupid to. The air you were breathing. It was heavily contami-
nated, polluted with carbon monoxide and soot and other
filth. Your lungs were strained, which put an additional
workload on your heart. You were faced with a serious
cardiac insufficiency and you collapsed. The exoskeleton
would not permit you to fall, so you hung inside, quite
unconscious."

"I had a heart attack?"

Landau shook his head. "No, not what a layman would
call a heart attack. Merely an insufficiency of oxygen-carrying
blood getting to your brain."

"Like a blackout in a high-gee maneuver."

Landau frowned in concentration for a moment. "I
suppose so."

"But I feel okay now."

"You have been sedated and resting in the most comfort-
able environment the United Nations could provide. The air
in this room is mixed from bottled gases; you are not
breathing city air at all, not even filtered city air."

Kinsman laughed as the nurses lifted his arms and
clamped the braces on them. "I remember when New Yorkers
used to boast that they didn't trust air they couldn't see."

Landau found it totally unfunny.

With the exoskeleton fully hooked up to him. Kinsman
got to his feet and tried a few experimental steps across the
530

wide carpeted room. Just like the Tin Woodman. Hope
somebody remembered to bring the oilcan.

Landau waved the nurses from the room. Within a few
moments a pair of liveried waiters wheeled in breakfast. And
right behind them came Hugh Harriman.

"Well!" he snapped with mock indignation. "Sleeping
Beauty's finally up and on the job, eh?"

"I think 1 can make it through until naptime," Kinsman
said.

"Good." Harriman waited until the waiters had set up
the breakfast table and taken the food from the hot and cold
sections beneath the white-clothed rolling table. Finally the
table was neatly arranged with a variety of dishes and they left
as silently as they had come.

Harriman pulled up a chair. "Bagels and lox! That's a
really low blow. They've loaded this table with foods we can't
get in Selene."

Kinsman found that his contour chair had a series of
toggle switches set into its right arm. The first one he tried
adjusted the back. The second rolled the chair forward. Like
an airplane's joystick, he thought. He deftly maneuvered the
chair up to the table.

Landau pulled his chair to the table, looked everything
over, and murmured, "Caviar."

"Don't worry," Kinsman said. "We'll be getting this kind
of stuff in trade goods within a few months."

"And what'll we trade them back?" Harriman groused.
"Oxygen?"

Kinsman nodded unconsciously, and the whir of electric
servomotors startled him. "Oxygen's already an important
export item for the factories in near-Earth orbit, Hugh. If
things go our way, those factories will start manufacturing
peacetime goods. They'll need lunar aluminum, silicon, other
raw materials from us. We also have tourist accommodations
and research facilities. We've got lots of things for trade."

"I still think it's damned shitty of them to lay all these
goodies in front of us," Harriman muttered.

Landau reached for the tea. "They are probably trying to
be very polite to us."

"Or the fucking American and Russian security people
are bribing the UN to make us homesick."
531

"All right," Kinsman said. "Let's get down to work.
What did I miss yesterday?"

"Nothing much," Harriman replied. "A bunch of report-
ers and photographers crashed through the police cordon at
the garage, but they were hustled off before we could say
much to them. Then we met a lot of UN staff people in the
afternoon. In the evening they trotted a dozen of the immi-
grants past us. They all wanted to meet you, of course, but
they had to settle for my charming self."

"The people who are coming to live in Selene?" Landau
asked.

Harriman nodded as he munched a mouthful of bagel,
cream cheese. Nova Scotia salmon, and onion. "Uh-hmm."
He swallowed mightily. "Fascinating group of people, all of
them rather stupefied that their governments are allowing
them to leave. They fly out of Kennedy tomorrow; they're on
their way down there now."

"On their way down to where?" Kinsman asked.

"Kennedy Space Center."

"In Florida? Not the JFK Aerospaceport here?"

Harriman blinked. "No, they told me the American
government was taking them to Florida."

"Why wouldn't they take off from here?" Kinsman
wondered.

"Damned if I know. Probably some bureaucratic red
tape somewhere along the line. Anyway, that's not the
important thing. The Secretary General is scheduled to meet
you at ten this morning—less than an hour from now. Are
you up to it?"

Kinsman started to nod, thought better of it. I'm getting
to hate the sound of electric motors, he thought. "I'm fine.
Where will the meeting be?"

"Right here. Mohammed's coming to the mountain."

Kinsman raised his eyebrows. At least I can still do that
for myself.

A few minutes before ten Ted Marrett barged into the
room unannounced, with Beleg Jamsuren trailing behind him.
"Best meteorologist Mongolia's ever produced," he said by
way of introduction.

"For your information," Jamsuren said softly as he shook
532

hands with the seated Kinsman, "Mongolia produces compar-
atively few meteorologies. And actually, my training was in
fluid dynamics."

"Well, the best in Asia," Marrett amended. "You seen
the morning news? Your performance at the garage yesterday
really's getting the big splash."

Without asking he crossed the room in a few long strides
and touched a small inset wall panel. A holographic Chagall
reproduction instantly disappeared from the wall, replaced by
a three-dimensional image of a woman being wheeled
through a hospital corridor. "Goddamned soaps," Marrett
grumbled as he touched the panel again.

Kinsman sat back in his special chair and suddenly saw a
holographic picture of himself striding painfully toward the
crowd at the UN garage. The camera was somewhere in the
crowd, heads and placards constantly getting in the way as his
weird skeletal figure clambered up the garage ramp.

The newscaster's voice-over was saying things about
"unearthly appearance . . . terrific physical strain of ordinary
gravity . . . message of peace and friendship ..."

Good Christ! Kinsman said to himself as he watched. I
actually did raise my hands like an old-time Indian scout.

Marrett abruptly shut off the picture. "The government's
gone apeshit," he said, grinning broadly. "They thought they
had everything all buttoned up and orchestrated. No news-
men at the airport, nobody allowed to get near you guys."

"But there were cameramen in the crowd."

"Sure! Half of 'em were government goons, there to
record the riot."

"There was supposed to be a riot?" Harriman asked.

"It is an old tactic," Landau said. "The government
plants agitators in the crowd; natural leaders seize the oppor-
tunity to vent their passions; the riot begins, the natural
leaders have identified themselves. They can be taken by the
police during the riot or, if that is inconvenient, at least their
pictures are recorded. They can be picked up later."

"And at the same time." Marrett added, "they have
video footage to show the American public that the people
are dead-set against you. It's called 'forming a climate of
opinion.' Happens all the time."

"An old trick," Jamsuren agreed.
533

"Wonder who they learned it from?" Harriman mur-
mured.

The Secretary General arrived precisely at ten. He came
alone, without flunkies or fanfare. He merely knocked on the
door once and opened it. As he entered the room, all five men
present got to their feet. Kinsman ignored the whine of his
servos.

"Please—sit down," said the Secretary General. "I
insist."

As they did so, he added, "And since this is an informal
meeting, please let us dispense with titles. My name is
Emanuel De Paolo. I know your names; Mr. Kinsman, Mr.
Harriman, Dr. Landau. So let us relax and speak freely. I can
assure you that this room has been carefully inspected as
recently as an hour ago to ensure that it is not wired by
anyone."

Kinsman found himself immediately liking this slim,
tan-faced man with the dark sad eyes. De Paolo took a chair
for himself and brought it close to Kinsman's. Marrett pushed
the breakfast table out of the way. The morning sunlight
struggled through the murky haze of the city to make the
room seem warm and bright.

"Now then, Mr. Kinsman," De Paolo said, "you have
shown considerable courage and wit. You are an instant hero
with the American public this morning. How long such
popularity can last is questionable, however. Many Ameri-
cans, perhaps most of them, honestly consider you to be a
traitor."

"I'm sure most Englishmen considered George Washing-
ton a traitor," Kinsman replied.

De Paolo shrugged. "Yes, of course. . . . Eh, you have
come here to seek recognition for your new nation, is that
correct?"

"Yes. We want to create a political environment in which
Selene can be free from the threat of attack by the United
States or the Soviet Union. In return for this, we can offer to
all the nations of the world a safeguard against missile
attack—against nuclear war."

Dr. Paolo pursed his lips. "You offer us much more than
that."

534

Glancing at Marrett, Kinsman said, "You mean the
weather control."

"I mean much more than that. Much, much more."

Kinsman leaned forward in his chair. The seat back
moved with him. "I don't understand."

With a smile that looked more sad than pleased, De
Paolo said, "Let me try to explain." He paused. Then, "What
causes war? You may say, political differences, conflict over
territory, or even, the competition for natural resources.
None of these is completely true. Wars are caused by nations.
National governments decide that they can obtain by force
something that they cannot obtain any other way. Once they
have decided to use force, there is no way to prevent them
from fighting."

"Go on," said Kinsman.

"Our world—this Earth—is faced with a myriad of
staggering problems. War is only one of them. There is vast
hunger, in my native land, in most of the Southern Hemi-
sphere, even in parts of the wealthier nations. There is a
struggle for natural resources. There is overpopulation and
energy shortages, and pollution on a global scale. These are
worldwide problems."

Harriman's face lit up. "Ahhh . . ."

"You begin to understand." De Paolo smiled at him.
"The nations of the world cannot—or will not—solve these
global problems. This is because the most fundamental prob-
lem of all is the problem of nationalism."

His voice was suddenly iron-hard. "Each nations consid-
ers itself sovereign, a law unto itself, with no higher authority
to hinder its actions. All nations, even the youngest of Africa
and Asia, demand complete authority to do as they wish
within their own borders. What they accomplish is stupidity!
Population crises, famines, racial massacres. And eventually,
inevitably—there is war."

"We're a new nation, too," Kinsman said. "And we want
our sovereignty, too."

"Yes, of course. But why have you come here? It is, I
think, because you realize that no nation is completely
sovereign, de facto. There are always restraints on action,
political realities that cannot be ignored, the need to cooper-
ate when you cannot coerce. The irony of it all is that
535

you—living on the Moon!—you realize that you must cooper-
ate with the other nations of Earth if you wish to survive.
Would that the nations of Earth were that clear-sighted!"

Kinsman nodded, and the servomotors' buzz made his
forehead twinge with the beginnings of a headache.

"Your own Alexander Hamilton knew the problem. He
wrote, 'Do not expect nations to take the initiative in develop-
ing restraints upon themselves.' No. The nations of the world
will not solve the problem of nationalism. They cannot," De
Paolo said, very firmly. "For more than two centuries they
have been trying to cure the sickness of nationalism, and
every year it gets worse, more virulent, closer to the point of
lethality."

The old man rose to his feet. "Every year . . ." he
muttered, walking toward the windows. Kinsman felt confu-
sion in his mind. De Paolo looked frail and yet strong; old and
yet vital.

De Paolo turned and faced Kinsman, framed by the
windows. "For twenty-two years I have watched them play
their stupid games. The proud nations! Each so utterly
convinced of its divine right to be as smug and stupid and
brutal as it chooses. For twenty-two years I have watched
people starve, villages bombed, whole nations looted, while
diplomats politely stood here in this very building and made a
mockery of ideas such as law and justice and peace. They are
no better than the barbarian warlords they replaced centuries
ago!"

He was staring beyond Kinsman and the others in the
room, plainly disgusted by what his mind could see. "I know
the games they play. I have given the best years of my
manhood to make the United Nations a force for order and
sanity in a world of madmen. But they refuse order and
sanity. They have turned our political efforts into travesties.
They loudly proclaim the need for international law, but then
they use the power of money and weapons to take what they
want, like the bandits and cowards that they are."

He gazed straight into Kinsman's eyes. "For more than
two decades I have tried to use the UN's nonpolitical arms
—UNESCO, the World Health Organization, the Interna-
tional Food Distribution Committee, yes, and even the Com-
mittee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space—but even there
536

the proud nations have thwarted us. Their refusal to allow
weather modification work is merely the most recent example
of their nonsense."

"So you're proposing ..."

The slim oid man paced stiffly back to his chair. "I am
proposing that we take the skill and courage that we possess
and work toward an effective world government. With the
antimissile satellites that you control we can offer the smaller
nations of the world safety from nuclear holocaust."

"And threaten the larger nations' communications satel-
lites," Harriman blurted. "If they don't play ball with us we
can close down their damned telephone systems! That'll
cripple their economies overnight. To say nothing of shutting
off their television!"

"We're not here to make threats," Kinsman said.

Harriman beetled his brows. "Okay, mon capitaine,
speak softly if you want to. But it won't hurt to let them know
you carry a sizable stick."

"We have a much larger stick," De Paolo said. "Dr.
Marrett's ability to manipulate the weather. With that, we can
maximize food production and avert disastrous storms—and
at the same time threaten any nation on Earth with unaccept-
able calamity if it refuses to cooperate with us."

Marrett nodded grimly.

For a long moment Kinsman did not know what to say.
"That . . . that's quite an undertaking."

"Of course," said De Paolo. "And we cannot hope even
to begin working toward this goal unless you join us. Your
satellites are the key to everything."

"But.. ."

'T know," the old man said. "You fear that I am a
megalomaniac, intent on world domination."

"Well . . ."

"But I am!" He smiled again, and this time the sadness
was lessened. "I want to see a world dominated by law. By
justice. By cooperation among peoples. Not by force and
terror, as it is now."

De Paolo spread his hands expressively. "We know how
to build an effective world government, a government in
which each nation would participate and no nation would be
held as a pawn or a slave. We can substitute the rule of sanity
537

and law for the present rule of power and armaments."

"The nations of the world can't solve the problem of
nationalism," Kinsman mused. "They need an outside

force . . ."

"And together we can be that outside force," De Paolo
answered. "I know that it sounds dangerous. I know how
tempting it would be to strike for a world dictatorship and
force the recalcitrant nations to do as we wish. It would have
been easy for your George Washington to have himself
proclaimed king, also."

"But he didn't."

"And neither will we."

Kinsman closed his eyes. "That's a lot to swallow in one

sitting."

"I understand. But I intend to give you even more to
chew on. This afternoon you are scheduled to address the
General Assembly. However, the American delegation has
requested that your address be put off until Monday—after
the weekend and the holiday."

"I can't!" Kinsman snapped. "I can't stay here that

long."

De Paolo nodded. "Yes, of course. This is a move by the
Americans to prevent you from getting your message across
to the peoples of the world. Unfortunately, the Russians are
in agreement with the Americans on this, and between them
and their blocs in the General Assembly they have enough
votes to force a postponement of our special session. Actual-
ly, most of the delegates are away at home for this week, and
a postponement suits them very agreeably."

"But . . ."

"Fear not," De Paolo said, with an upraised hand. "You
can address the General Assembly next week from the Moon
or one of your satellite stations. Your public address was not
the real reason I wanted you here. There are a few dozen key
people that you must meet, and we will take every advantage
of your time here to bring them to you. They are officials from
many different nation-states. Most of them are from very
small and weak nations, but a few might surprise you."

"If they think you're okay," Marrett broke in, "then
they'll get their governments to go along with us—to revamp
the UN and move toward a real world government."
538

"Wait a minute," said Kinsman. "I'm not sure that /
want to go that far!"

De Paolo smiled, and once again there were generations
of human suffering on his face. "Your discussions with these
men and women will help you to make up your mind, in that
case. Obviously, none of us can move in any direction until
we are all agreed."

"Fair enough," Kinsman said.

De Paolo got to his feet. "I must get back to my other
duties. You may hear thumping along the walls and ceiling
from time to time. Do not be alarmed; it is merely our
security team sniffing for electronic bugs."

He walked to the door, alone. Stopping there, he looked
back at Kinsman. "You believed you were acting to save your
world—your Selene—from being destroyed by decisions
made here on Earth. Then you found that perhaps you could
save the people of Earth from destroying themselves. Now we
offer you something much grander, and much more difficult
to achieve: a chance to rid the Earth of the curse of
nationalism. A chance to move human society to its next
evolutionary phase. A world government is the only chance
we have to avoid global catastrophe."

Through the long day they came, and well into the
evening. One by one, very rarely two together, and only once
did three visit Kinsman at the same time. Diplomats, repre-
sentatives of many nations. Some of them had enough
technical background to converse freely about missile trajec-
tories and the logistics of orbital operations. A few of them
had been on the Moon for brief periods, although Kinsman
remembered only one of them: a striking olive-skinned,
black-haired Italian geologist. She was now part of the
UNESCO team studying global natural resources, and appar-
ently reported directly to the Italian minister of finance.

"A father in high office," she murmured, with the trace
of an accent laid over her British-style English. She smiled as
if she thought her father's position was being aided by her
work, rather than vice versa.

Marrett stayed with Kinsman and Harriman until the last
visitor had departed. He spoke to the visitors of weather
control, of optimizing their climate, of allowing them to plan
539

their harvests years in advance and then see the predictions
come true. Kinsman spoke about international stability,
about peace based on the protection of the orbital ABM
network, about substantial disarmament and the chance for
the smaller nations to depend on world law rather than
spending half their gross national product on armies that
often turned on their own governments and ousted them in
bloody coups.

The visitors to the plush, quiet room with the special air
supply came from Africa, from Asia, from the scattered
islands of the Pacific, from the overpopulated nations of Latin
America. Kinsman was surprised to receive a three-man
delegation from Japan, all smiles and polite bows and sincere
wishes for good fortune, who knew a disturbing amount
about the ABM satellite lasers and were quite familiar with
Marrett's work in weather modification.

Beleg Jamsuren brought his uncle, the Mongol ambassa-
dor to the United Nations. The Italian woman was not the
only European: the Scandinavian nations, Hungary, Czecho-
slovakia, Yugoslavia, Holland, and Denmark all sent repre-
sentatives.

All very unofficial. Completely social. No agreements
were made or even hinted at. No commitments. But they got
the information they had come for and they left with new light
in their eyes.

By 10 P.M. Kinsman was exhausted. He had the back of
his contour chair cranked all the way down as Landau ran
through the medical checks. Marrett and Harriman were
wolfing hot sandwiches and beer.

"That water bed looks awfully good," Kinsman said
tiredly as Landau disconnected the last sensor probe from the
medical computer.

"It should," the Russian said. "Your blood pressure is
very low." The miniaturized analyzer on the desk gave a
gentle ting with its little bell, and automatically displayed its
analysis of Kinsman's blood sample on the computer's screen.

"Ahh-hmm," Landau muttered, studying the readout
graph's snaking lines. "Blood sugar is also low, as I suspected.
You need food and rest."

Kinsman closed his eyes. "I'm too tired to eat. God, we
540

must have told the same story three dozen times."

"Sixteen times," Harriman corrected from the wheeled
dining table. "Another dozen coming tomorrow."

Landau scratched at his beard. "Very well. Let's get you
bedded down, and then we can feed you with the IV."

"No you don't." Kinsman's aversion to having holes
poked through his skin overcame his fatigue. "I'll eat some
real food." He cranked the seat back up and rolled to the
dining table. "If there's anything left after these two chow-
hounds," he added, looking over the nearly empty table.

"Sixteen times," Harriman repeated thoughtfully,
clutching a steak sandwich with both hands. "After listening
to your spiel all day and night I could give your song-and-
dance routine in my sleep."

"I'll do it sixteen thousand times," Kinsman said, "if it'll
do any good."

"It did good," Marrett said firmly. He had a bottle of
beer in one big hand; he disdained a glass. "Every one of the
people who came in here today is connected right back to the
power centers in their governments. No flunkies or dodos in
the bunch of 'em. They might not all have had much rank, but
hell, most big-shot diplomats are nothing but assholes any-
way."

"Hey, watch that!" Harriman snapped, frowning.

Marrett raised his beer bottle in salute. "Present compa-
ny excepted."

Harriman kept his stern visage. "There's a lot of nasty
comments I could make about engineers."

"I'm a meteorologist."

Harriman glanced heavenward. "The Lord has delivered
him unto my hands!"

Landau pulled up a chair and reached for one of the few
remaining sandwiches.

"You think we got our message across to them?" Kins-
man asked Marrett.

"Yep. They knew the story before they came in here. De
Paolo's seen to that. They just had to meet you, size you up,
and play their estimation of you against their estimates of
what they stand to gain or lose by going along with De Paolo's
scheme."

541

Kinsman shook his head once and got a fresh lance of
pain from the servomotors whining just behind his ears. "I
wonder about De Paolo's plan," he said. "He claims that he's
not aiming at a world dictatorship . . ."

"You want to know if you can trust him?" Marrett asked.
"He's honest. He means what he says."

"But what about the people around him?" Kinsman
wondered. "And the people after him?"

Marrett started to shrug, but Harriman said, "What the
hell did you expect, Chet?"

"What do you mean?"

With a shake of his head, Harriman explained, "Don't
you see that De Paolo's plans are the logical extension of your
own? Follows as the night the day. All he's doing is building a
permanent structure where you've been improvising lean-tos
and pup tents. De Paolo sees further than you do, my boy.
What he wants is a solid edifice."

"You mean a jail?"

Harriman made a sour face. "Don't be such a muddle-
brain! The only way you can prevent nuclear war is by
producing a force that's stronger than nations. Selene by itself
can't be that strong. But De Paolo's moving toward a real
world government—with muscle. It's what we need. Hell,
Woodrow Wilson recognized that! But up until now no
international organization has had the muscle to make the
nations toe the line. Well, now we do. Or we will."

"Damned right," Marrett agreed. "We're gonna build a
whole new thing out of all this. A real world government. The
age of nationalism is over, finished. Has been, ever since
Sputnik. We're just trying to build something effective in its
place to hold the world together."

Marrett took a long, thoughtful pull on his beer. Putting
the bottle down, he said, "Listen. A world government isn't
gonna solve all the world's problems overnight. And there's
always the danger of a dictatorship on a global scale. But
compared to what we've got today, a world government looks
damned good to me."

Harriman added, "Chet, it's a question of quid pro quo.
If we want these nations to recognize Selene, if we want to be
admitted to the United Nations, to get the United States and
542

the Soviet Union off our backs, then we've got to play along
with De Paolo. There's no choice. It's a question of political
reality. Help De Paolo get what he wants and he'll help us to
get what we want. Quid pro quo."

"While the whole fucking human race hangs in the
balance," Marrett added.

Kinsman asked, "These people we talked with today
—they're going back to their respective governments?"

"They're on airplanes right now," Marrett said. "De
Paolo will carry the ball from here on. All we need from you
is your agreement to keep up your end of the bargain."

"And that will get us recognized by a large enough bloc
of nations to have us voted into UN membership?"

"If none of the Security Council members vetoes our
application," Harriman said.

"That means Russia and the States."

"Right."

"Why would they be nice to us?" Kinsman asked.

"Because," replied Marrett, "De Paolo's gonna let them
know that weather control's on the way. They can't afford to
be left out in the cold, and storm, and drought, and flood."

Kinsman stared at him. "You can really do that?"

"Sooner or later. A lot sooner than they think." Marrett
let his big fists rest on the heavy white tablecloth. "Been
doing it on a small scale for years. It's been used in war,
mostly to increase rainfall and cause floods. Or wipe out
crops. It's actually easier to do it on a big scale—you've got a
lot more reinforcement factors working for you."

Harriman broke in, "And on the near term, we have the
power to knock off all their commsats and other space assets.
Let's see them try to get groceries from California to Connec-
ticut without telephones or navigation satellites!"

Kinsman felt his face pull into a frown.

"But it's working, Chet!" Harriman insisted. "They
know what they're up against. Why do you think the U.S. and
Russia are trying to be nice to us and letting those immigrants
go—including Leonov's kids and Diane's daughter?"

"Yes, maybe . . ." Kinsman wanted to nod, but instead
found himself blinking, the way Pete did. "But they asked for
a postponement of my speech to the General Assembly."
543

"I am in agreement with them on that point," Landau
said. "You must avoid additional strain and return to Selene
as quickly as possible."

Ignoring him, "But why did they push for a postpone-
ment?" Kinsman repeated.

Marrett shrugged. "Who the hell cares? They're just
giving De Paolo a few more days to line up everybody. Time's
on our side."

"Is it?" Kinsman wondered. "Is it really?"

Friday 31 December 1999:

1700 hrs UT

IN THE PACIFIC and through much of Asia it was already the
New Year. Holiday crowds celebrated in the summertime
streets of Melbourne and Sydney. In Tokyo, where Western-
style observances were frowned upon, the streets were silent. A
waning crescent Moon looked down across China, the vast
Himalayan wastes of high rock and ice, and the steaming
subcontinent of India. If the new millennium was being
celebrated there, it was quietly, in private homes or govern-
ment palaces. Or in shrines.

In Florida it was high noon. Fifty men, women, and
children who had traveled from all over the world to the
Kennedy Space Center were being led away from the sleek
silvery space shuttle that they had expected to board.

They looked tired and more than a little bewildered as
they marched in a ragged line under the high Florida sun,
across the cement shimmering with heat haze, under the
mirrored sunglasses of uniformed guards. They were better
dressed than most refugee groups but they still gave an
impression of bedraggled despair to the technicians and
security guards watching them.

In a dozen different tongues they asked each other,
"Why? What has caused this delay? When will we be allowed
544

to take off for the Moon and our new lives?"

In a Southwestern twang, a crew-cut Army major,
dressed in civilian clothes, told them, "We are experiencing
some technical difficulties with the shuttle that was going to
take you to Space Station Alpha. We'll let you know more as
soon as we have further information."

The refugees were led into very comfortable quarters,
complete with air-conditioning, separate bedrooms, color
television, and an open cafeteria.

"You are the guests of the government of the United
States of America," the Major told them cheerfully.

The one hundred U.S. Army Rangers who were check-
ing their automatic pistols and gas grenades and electric
stunners were housed only half a kilometer away, in a gray
cement building that had no amenities except a Coke machine
that took silver dollars and an immaculate white-tiled latrine.

The Sun raced across the other side of the world and the
line of midnight swept westward, carrying the new year and the
new millennium with it.

In New York City by 5 P.M. it was already dark. A cold
wind had swept the city all day long and now as Kinsman
stood by the high-ceilinged windows of his room in the UN
Secretariat Building he could see a single star hanging high in
the inky sky. Jupiter? Saturn? Or could it be Space Station
Alpha?

"You should sit." Alexsei Landau's heavy voice came to
him from across the room.

Kinsman turned slowly, to a grating symphony of servo
noises. "Alex, I've got to move around. I can't stay in that
damned chair all the time." But it's hard to stand, he
admitted to himself. My back aches, head hurts. I'm falling
apart like a geriatrics case.

"That was the last of the visitors," Harriman said glumly
from the desk.

He's tired, too. Kinsman realized. And feeling the strain
of being cooped up in this room. "Ted," he called, "how
about taking us on a guided tour of the building."

"Huh?" The meteorologist looked startled.

"Absolutely impossible," Landau said. "I forbid it."

"Alex, we're going crazy in here!"
545

Landau shook his head. 'The air out there is full of
viruses and bacteria, dust, dirt, pollutants. No, it's impossi-
ble."

Frowning, Kinsman said, "I'll wear my oxygen mask, for
Chrissakes!"

"And he can stay in the chair," Harriman added.

Marrett agreed. "We can take him down to the basement
level and cross over into the General Assembly chamber. It's
an impressive place. Nobody'11 be there."

Landau scowled but capitulated. "Give me a few minutes
to pack my kit. If anything happens, I must be prepared."

"Great!" Kinsman clapped his hands. Or tried to. The
servos were out of sync just enough to make his palms hit
slightly off-center, producing a dull thump instead of a sharp
smack.

He got into his chair and said, "And while we're thinking
about it, check on our shuttle. Is it still set to take us up at
ten?"

Harriman said, "I called JFK fifteen minutes ago. They'll
be ready for us at ten."

"You'll miss the New Year's Eve celebration," Marrett

said.

"In here? Watching the celebration on TV isn't my idea
of fun, even if it's a three-dimensional screen," Kinsman
replied. "I'd rather be on my way home."

"We'll get to Alpha an hour or so behind the immi-
grants," Harriman said. "There'll be plenty of celebrating."

They made a strange foursome: Marrett leading the way,
tall, an aging athlete's flat-stomached, hard-eyed figure,
chomping on an unlit cigar; Harriman walking alongside
Kinsman's powered chair, pudgy and round, a middle-aged
cherub; Kinsman himself in his otherworldly skeleton of
metal and machinery, his face hidden behind a green oxygen
mask; and Landau, tall and taciturn, a dour bearded figure
pacing solemnly behind the chair waiting for a tragedy.

There had not been a traffic jam in Manhattan for years.
Most of the commuters were carried in and out of the island on
government-operated buses and trains; private autos had dis-
appeared almost entirely. But on this particular evening people
poured into Manhattan. They jammed the buses, choked the
trains. They drove petroleum-extravagant cars. They pedaled
546

bikes and rode in taxis and limousines and horse-drawn cabs.
They clogged the bridges and tunnels where the toll gates had
been left open and the exorbitant fees went uncollected by a
strangely munificent government. They were filling the city,
which was normally empty and quiet after sundown. Times
Square was already packed with people, and for the first time
in a decade the Manhattan traffic computer system broke
down. The wind died away and clouds drifted across the face
of the Moon, It would be cold this night, but few of the New
Year's Eve fun-seekers would notice.

The General Assembly meeting chamber was empty, as
Marrett had predicted. Almost. A little knot of schoolchil-
dren stood clustered by the speaker's rostrum, goggle-eyed at
the splendor of real wood and plush upholstery and paintings
and sculpture commissioned over the years by the United
Nations. The work of the world's best artists decorated the
chamber profusely.

To no avail, thought Kinsman as he sat at the far end of
the chamber, near the last row of visitors' seats. He tasted
oxygen in his mouth, felt the slight chill of the gas and the flat
tang of metal, as he looked out across the splendid and futile
chamber. So much of the world's hope has been brought
here—and laid to rest. Buried under talk. He noticed a
broad, sweeping mural of an underwater scene, very abstract,
but very recognizable. The big fish eat the little fish.

The schoolkids were trudging up the aisle, on their way
out. Their teacher somehow got into a conversation with
Marrett. She was a gray-haired dumpy woman with a bright
smile and expressive hands.

Marrett walked back a few steps and bent over Kinsman.
"Chet, these kids are children of UN employees. Mostly local
people. Parents work as clerks, janitors, and such. Some of
the kids'd like to talk to you."

From inside his oxygen mask Kinsman could not conduct
a conversation. He raised a hand, servos humming, and
pointed skyward.

"Upstairs," Marrett translated. "You'll talk to them up
in your room?"

Kinsman made a circle of thumb and forefinger. At least
I can do that without servos, he told himself.

Landau said. "They can visit only for a few minutes."
547

"Okay," Marrett said. "You take him back up and I'll
keep the kids busy with a quick tour through the weather
center. Be with you in fifteen, twenty minutes. Right?"

Kinsman nodded and Landau agreed.

The new millennium had already come to Moscow,
Tehran, Tel Aviv, Berlin, and Vienna. All the other cities of
Europe were preparing for it. News headlines proclaimed WAR
THREAT EASES in forty different languages. Happy, expectant
crowds streamed through London. In New York the clubs and
restaurants that normally closed at sundown were filling. The
streets were crushed with people. Pickpockets and prostitutes
had more business than they could possibly handle.

In Florida at 5:30 P.M., Eastern Standard Time, the
Rangers began boarding the shuttle. The entire Kennedy
Space Center had been cleared of prying eyes. The news
people were locked in the same plush prison as the refugees.

In Washington, the burly, red-eyed man shifted painfully
in his chair as he watched the troop boarding on closed-circuit

television.

"They take off at six?" he asked for the hundredth time.

"Barring delays," answered an Air Force colonel. "They
should have Alpha secured by shortly after midnight, accord-
ing to the schedule. Kinsman and his group will arrive no
sooner than one A.M."

The man nodded.

"May I ask, sir," the Colonel added, "why we're allow-
ing Kinsman to depart at all? Why not keep him here, under

our thumb?"

"A dead martyr is a worse enemy than a live traitor."
"Oh. I see. Uh, Colonel Colt should be in New York by

now, incidentally."

The man came as close as he could to smiling. "Yes, I

know."

Colt was there when Kinsman returned to his room.
Harriman held the door open as Kinsman wheeled in,
with Landau right behind him. Colt was standing by the
windows, looking out at the night and the unaccustomed
brilliance of the city's lights.

548

As he rolled his chair across the room and yanked off his

oxygen mask, Kinsman said, "Frank! This is a pleasant

surprise. What brings you here? I thought you were at

Vandenberg."

Shrugging, Colt replied, "Couldn't let you get this close

without hopping over to wish you a Happy New Year."
Harriman muttered, "Good old sentimental Frank."
"Yeah," Colt said, glancing at him. "Sentimental. That's

me, all right."

"I'm glad to see you," Kinsman said. "Bird colonel, eh?"
Colt said nothing. Kinsman gestured him to a chair and

wheeled up close to the windows. "Can't see the Moon. Too

overcast."

Landau began to set up his instruments on the desktop.

"I thought you'd be busy with the final countdown at
Kennedy," Kinsman said to Colt.

"It's going along fine. They don't need me breathing
down their necks. If there's any problem they can reach me
here."

Kinsman grinned at him. 'That doesn't sound like the
old perch-on-the-bastard's-ass Frank Colt that I used to know
and love."

Colt turned slightly away from him. "I'm a big-ass bird
colonel now. Got to show some dignity. Besides, Fd rather be
up here with you."

"How come our first shipload of immigrants is being
launched from Florida?" Harriman wanted to know. "Why
not right here, from the commercial port?"

Colt did not answer. He licked the lower edge of his teeth
with his tongue and frowned.

God, he's uptight! Kinsman realized.

"Listen," Colt said at last. "I . . ."

The door buzzer startled all of them. Kinsman turned his
chair around as Harriman bustled to the door and opened it.
Four very solemn-faced youngsters came in, three boys and a
girl. The oldest must have been no more than ten. The girl
and one of the boys were Latin-dark. Puerto Rican, Kinsman
guessed. One of the other boys was black; the fourth a
redheaded, freckled, street-wary Huckleberry Finn.

And their teacher. "Oh, it's so kind of you to let us visit
549

you! I understand how busy you must be." She prattled on as
she urged her youngsters into the room like a hen pushing its
chicks.

The kids were silent, staring, but the teacher never
stopped talking. Kinsman immediately realized that she was
speaking to Harriman only to allay her own nervousness,
using exactly the same tone and expressions that she used on
her classroom kids.

"Oh, and you must be Mr. Kinsman—Chester Arthur
Kinsman. Were you named after President Arthur? And you
live on the Moon! Isn't that interesting, children? Would you
like to live on the Moon someday?"

The girl reached a shy hand out toward Kinsman's
exoskeleton. "Why you wearin' that?"

Kinsman smiled at her. The old lunar charm. "I need it
to help me move around. See?" He raised one arm, and all
four of the children hopped back a step at the sound of the
servomotors. "My muscles are accustomed to the gravity of
the Moon, which is six times less than the gravity here. I'm
too weak to move by myself here. You're a lot stronger than I
am."

That emboldened them. "My dad says you're a traitor.
You're bein' bad to the United States," the black ten-year-old
said.

"I'm sorry he feels that way," Kinsman answered. "The
people on the Moon want to be free. We don't want to hurt
the United States or anyone else. We just want to be free."

"When I grow up," the Puerto Rican boy asked, "can I
go to the Moon?"

"Sure. You can live there, if you want to, or just come up
for a visit."

"Would I have to wear one of those things?" He pointed
at the braces.

"No." Kinsman laughed. "That's only for weak old men
like me. And on the Moon, even I don't need it."

They asked a few more questions and then their teacher
started to shoo them toward the door.

"Can girls go to the Moon, too?" the girl asked.

"Yes, sure."

"Come now, children. Mr. Kinsman is very tired. It's
very difficult for a man from the Moon to stay here on Earth.
550

Smell the air in here? Even the air is different!"

"I don't smell anything."

"That's what I mean!"

By now they were outside in the hall and the door was
swinging shut when one of the kids yelled, "Fuckin' traitor!
We'll get ya!"

"George!" the teacher clucked. "Such language! And
shouting in the hallway!"

Shout it from the rooftops, kid, Kinsman thought. Be a
real patriot.

Harriman kicked the door shut. "George must be run-
ning for mayor."

Landau got up from his chair and went back to the desk.
"I must run a medical check."

"More blood? Hugh. order up some dinner, will you?
Frank, you'll stay and eat with us."

"I oughtta get going," Colt muttered.

"Come on," Kinsman urged. "We'll let you loose early.
We've got to be at JFK for a ten o'clock takeoff. You can
watch the immigrants take off on TV."

Hesitantly, Colt got up and went to the TV controls on
the wall. With equal reluctance, Kinsman turned his chair
toward the syringe-wielding Landau.

All traffic was being routed around Times Square. Police-
men on horseback, in. armored cars, in helicopters, all wore
riot gear: hard helmets, plastic visors, gas masks, the arma-
ment of combat infantrymen. Thousands of people were
pouring into the square and more throngs were congregating
elsewhere in Manhattan. In strategically located armories
around the island the Army assembled companies of men and
armored personnel carriers and balloon-wheeled light tanks.
Washington Square, Columbus Circle, the entire length of the
Amsterdam Avenue Mall—crowds were thickening every-
where. Bottles and butts and pills were passed freely in spite of
the fact that police patrolled the fringes of the throngs and
flitted overhead with glaring searchlights probing down from
their helicopters. But the people were happy, laughing, cele-
brating. Huge TV screens had been set up in the streets to show
the launch from Kennedy Space Center.

Frank Colt puffed nervously on a cigarette as he sat on
the couch and watched the final moment of the countdown.
551

The shuttle sat at the end of the runway bathed in the glare of
a dozen huge spotlights. All the service vehicles had been
cleared away from it. Only a thin wisp of vapor from the
liquid oxygen boil-off indicated that the craft was occupied
and ready for launch.

The TV announcer was gabbling, "In one of the most
generous acts of international goodwill seen in this decade,
the United States is allowing fifty people from foreign nations
to engage in this historic journey to the Moon—despite the
fact that the lunar settlement is still legally American terri-
tory."

Landau frowned as he packed away his medical equip-
ment. Harriman was on the phone, checking again on the
readiness of their own shuttle at JFK.

Kinsman sat tiredly in his special chair. The medical
exams not only depressed him, but made him feel even
weaker than normal. Somewhere far in the back of his mind a
nagging tendril of unease flickered warningly. He turned his
gaze from the TV screen to Colt, taking a hard drag on his
cigarette. Frank never smoked. Kinsman told himself. Can
the pressures of command be so heavy on him that he's
started smoking?

The door buzzer sounded. Dinner arrived.

"Not again!"

General Maksutov listened for a solid four minutes, by
the digital clock on his metal desk, his face growing more
incredulous and grimmer at the same time. Finally he put the
phone down, but not before saying into it, "Yessir. Immedi-
ately!"

"Dimitri," he said to his aide, who was sitting across the
desk holding a glass of champagne in his hand, "that was
Moscow. We must prepare for three manned launches imme-
diately."

Dimitri dropped his champagne glass onto the thick
Oriental carpet.

"Intelligence claims that the Americans are on their way
to recapturing their space stations," the General explained.
"If we don't take our own back from the counterrevolutionar-
ies the Americans will get them. In a matter of hours!"

"But three manned launches? Now?"
552

General Maksutov nodded bitterly. "Rouse the men
—full crews and full backups. I'll call Andrei and give him the
joyful news. The ground crews must be alerted. See to it."

The aide nodded dumbly and pushed himself up from his
chair. Absently, he noticed that the glass had not broken. He
picked it up and placed it on the desk with a slightly shaking
hand.

"Get the infirmary to issue wake-up pills. You'd better
take some yourself."

"Yessir."

"Happy New Year, comrade," the General said bitterly.
"And happy new millennium."

Dimitri shook his head. "This is too much like the old
millennium."

"Yes, isn't it? Except that back in the twentieth century
we didn't have the duty of killing our own countrymen, you
and I."

The launch was shown on the mammoth TV screens set up
in Times Square and other places where the crowds had
gathered. The people watched, a sea of murmuring humanity,
as the final few seconds of countdown licked off and the shuttle
sat bathed in the spotlights against the balmy Florida night,
waiting, waiting . . .

"Three . . . two . . . one . . . Ignition!"

For an instant, nothing happened. Then the shuttle started
to roll down the runway, a thundering roar propelling it faster
and faster as it swept past the camera and hurtled into the dark
sky, furnace-hot blossoms of orange glowing from the engine
nozzles at its tail.

The crowds ooohed.

The shuttle climbed steeply and banked gracefully left-
ward, the glow of its engines reflecting off the low-lying mists
from the nearby sea. The camera followed it until it became a
distant speck indistinguishable from the stars scattered across
the night sky.

And the TV announcer never missed a beat. "The liftoff is
fine, fine . . . she's climbing precisely on course now, carrying
the first load of interplanetary immigrants in the history of the
human race ..."

Dinner had been quiet, tense. Kinsman and the three
other men had eaten quickly, sitting around the portable
553

dining table without much conversation, watching the TV
screen. It alternated between shots of the shuttle countdown
and launch, views of the New Year's Eve crowds in Manhat-
tan, and long dreary segments of "entertainment."

"Well, Frank," Kinsman said as the big wall screen
showed a telescopic view of the shuttle in flight, "you can
relax now. They got the bird off without you."

"Yeah," said Colt.

He's stretched so tight he's going to snap, Kinsman
thought. What on Earth is eating at him? Something was
terribly wrong, Kinsman knew, but his body ached too much
for him to think. I know how Atlas must've felt, holding up

the world.

"Chet," Landau said, "we must prepare for the ride to

the airport. You will have to wear the oxygen mask."
Kinsman wanted to nod but he did not even try.
"De Paolo's got two cars coming for us," said Harriman.

"Plus the escort. No local or federal cops. We sneak out

quietly."

Suddenly Kinsman wheeled his chair to face Colt.
"Frank," he blurted, "come with us!"

"To the airport?"

"No, to Selene! Come on. You know you don't belong
down here anymore. You know what we're trying to do. Join

us!"

Colt pushed his chair away from the white-clothed dining
table. "Me? You're serious? You want me .

"Why not?"

"After what I've done?"

"That's in the past. We're building for the future. You
can help us! You'll be a helluva lot happier in Selene than
putting up with all the chickenshit they throw at you down
here."

Colt lurched to his feet. "You're crazy! I can't—"

"Sure you can," Kinsman urged.

Throwing his napkin down on the table, Colt shouted,
"You damned fool! By the time you get back to the space
station there won't be any Selene!"

"I don't get—" But the tortured look on Colt's face
stopped Kinsman. "What do you mean, Frank?"

"Shit, man! Did you really think they were gonna let you
get away with it? Did you really think that?"
554

Kinsman could feel fire flashing along his nerves-
"Frank, what are you saying?"

Colt's face was a landscape of pain. "Chet, you soft-
headed bastard—that plane's not filled with your goddamned
refugees. It's loaded with a hundred armed troops! In another
two hours we'll have Alpha. In twenty-four hours we'll have
d//the manned space stations, the Russian ones, too. Then we
take Selene."

Kinsman closed his eyes.

"You sonofabitch!" Harriman raged. "That's how you
got those eagles!"

"Yeah." Colt's voice sounded weak, miserable.

Landau muttered one word. "Jill . . ."

Kinsman looked at the three of them. Harriman and
Landau were still sitting at the dinner table, food and wine
unfinished. Colt stood, legs spread slightly, up on the balls of
his feet as if waiting for them to physically attack him.

"Phone," Kinsman said, more to himself than the others.
Wheeling toward the desk, "Phone link . . . JFK's got a link
with Alpha."

Colt shook his head. "They won't put you through. Air
Force took over communications at JFK an hour before I
came up here."

Kinsman slid the chair to a halt at the desk. Turning it
back to face Colt he said, "Then you've got to tell them to
establish contact."

"I've got to?"

"You're the only one who can, Frank."

Colt was wide-eyed now. "You're crazy, man. That's
insane."

The scene on the wall screen showed Times Square and
the still-growing crowd there. Harriman went over to the
controls and turned the volume down.

"Frank," Kinsman said, "you're on our side. You've
always been on our side. You're the only one who hasn't
recognized it."

Walking stiffly, shakily, toward him, Colt answered, "I'm
on my side, Chet. That's the only side there is. Numero uno."

"Bullshit. You can't live with that and we both know it.
So they make you a general. It's still a dying world out there,
Frank. It's dying'. Unless we do something to change it."

"By selling out the United States."
555

"By rising above it!" Kinsman shouted, and his chest
flared with pain.

Colt was standing in front of his chair now, looming over
him. "We know what you and De Paolo are doing—all those
visitors you've had in the past couple days. It won't work,
Chet. They're not gonna let it work."

Kinsman took a long shuddering breath and forced the
pain down. "I don't care about that. I don't care about
anything except Selene's independence. Because without our
independence you'll be part of a nuclear strike that will kill all
the people of the United States. There's no way around it,
Frank. Either we control those satellites or there's going to be
nuclear war. Which do you want?"

"I don't want either, dammit!"

His voice as hard as the braces he wore, Kinsman
snapped, "It's got to be one or the other, Frank. And you
have to decide which. The choice is yours. Choose."

Colt glared at him.

"Choose?"

Colt hesitated a moment, then turned to the desk and
punched savagely at the phone keyboard. "JFK central
switchboard," he said into the speaker grille.

The tiny phone screen glowed pearl gray but no picture
came on. A man's voice said, "JFK Aerospaceport," in a
bored, flat voice.

"This is Colonel Colt. Put me through to Major Stodt, in
communications."

The voice suddenly became more alert. "Sir? Would you
please repeat the order so that our audio verification equip-
ment can check your voiceprint?"

Colt did it, and with a single flicker of the screen a
pinch-faced man with a high domed forehead appeared. His
blue tunic bore the gold oak leaves of an Air Force major.

"Stodt here."

Colt gave Kinsman a sidelong glance. Then, "I want a
tight laser link with Alpha. Full scramble and no tapes. At
once. Pipe it into this phone line."

The Major's narrow face seemed to tighten even more.
"Sir, that is not in our operational plan."

"Did I ask if it was?" Colt snapped. "Do it!"

"But . . . but, sir, there's no way for us to monitor a
laser link unless we have time to—"
556

"Stodt, you've got ten minutes to get that fucking link set
up. In the eleventh minute you can start writing me a report
explaining why an asshole of a communications tech has been
promoted beyond his talents. Now move, Captain. Or do you
want to try for lieutenant?"

The Major visibly trembled. "Right away, sir," he mut-
tered. The screen went blank.

Colt turned back to Kinsman. "I don't know how long
it'll take 'em to catch on to what you're doing and cut the link.
Better talk fast—if you get the chance to talk at all."

The pain was a dull, sullen throb, like a cinder: charred
black on the outside but red and glowering deep within.
Kinsman said merely, "Thanks, Frank."

Colt shook his head but said nothing. He walked back to
the couch near the silent wall screen and plopped down. The
screen was showing the Guy Lombardo simulacrum smiling
and waving its baton in perfect three-four time in front of an
orchestra of robots. Real people were dancing on the floor of
the Starlight Roof.

"We should be leaving for JFK ourselves," Landau said.
Harriman gruffed, "Those bastards won't let us go.
They've got us by the balls here."

"No," Colt said. "I told them that it'd be okay for you to
return to Alpha and then to Selene. We were gonna have
Alpha under our control by the time your shuttle got there.
That was our plan."

Kinsman listened with only half his mind. The rest was
racing through the possibilities. Can't let them dock at Alpha.
But they'll probably try to force a docking. Or maybe they've
got enough pressure suits to jump across and grab the
emergency hatches. God, if there's much fighting up there
they could destroy the whole station. Diane . . .

The phone screen flashed into a sparkle of colors. A
voice—not Major Stodt's—said, "Direct link with Alpha is
coming on, sir."

The screen cleared and a female communications techni-
cian, looking faintly surprised, said, "Go ahead, JFK."

"This is Kinsman," he said, squaring the chair in front of
the phone. "Who's in charge there?"

The girl blinked once. "Mr. Perry."

"Where's Leonov?"

"He returned to Selene yesterday, sir. I can patch you
557

through to him if—"

"No. Get Perry. Immediately."

"Right."

It took a few minutes. The other three men gathered
tensely around Kinsman's chair. Finally Chris Perry's strong,
youthful face appeared on the screen. The typical square-
jawed adventure hero. Kinsman thought. I hope he's up to it.
Perry was smiling broadly, but there were other people and a
general hubbub in the background.

"We thought you'd be on your way here by now," he said
happily. "Had a helluva party at midnight—our time, that is.
But everybody's staying up to welcome the immigrants, and
Diane Lawrence wants—"

"No time!" Kinsman snapped. "The flight from Florida
is filled with soldiers, not immigrants."

"What?"

"It's a trick. A Trojan horse. We're still here at UN
headquarters. That shuttle must not be allowed to dock.
Understand? Under no circumstances."

"Yessir." Perry was completely sober. The laughing and
chattering in the background had turned into absolute silence.

"Establish radio contact with them," Kinsman said.
"Order them to retrofire and return Earthside immediately."

"Right. But what if they don't comply? They could try to
force a docking. If there's any kind of heavy weapon play

here—"

"I know." Kinsman's hands were clenched hard on the
metal braces of his thighs. "That's why it's necessary to get
them to turn around. If they don't comply—" He hesitated,
squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then commanded, "If
they don't comply, use the ABM satellites. Warn them first,
but use the lasers if they won't turn around."

Perry nodded, tight-lipped.

"Don't let them get close enough to the station to
damage it," Kinsman said. "They may be carrying missiles,
and they might try to use them if they can't board you."

'They will," Colt said from behind Kinsman's shoulder.

Perry looked grim. "Yessir. I'd better get on the horn to
them right away."

He turned from the screen momentarily.

"Will he do it?" Landau whispered.

Kinsman turned and looked up at the Russian. The
558

.

I

braces made it a painful operation. "You mean will he kill
Americans? We'll find out pretty damned soon." You started
this as a move to end war, he raged at himself, and it's turning
into a civil war.

"He'd better do it," said Colt.

Perry came back to the screen. "I've got to get down to
the comm center. They've got the shuttle on the standard
frequency, but I can't run all the parts of the show from
here."

"Right. Keep this line open," Kinsman said.

But the screen erupted into flickering colors. The only
sound from the speaker was a scratchy angry hiss.

"They tumbled to it," Colt said. "Cut the link."

Kinsman turned the chair around. "Hugh, find a phone
someplace and tell our shuttle to hold. No telling when we'll
be there—if ever. Then see who you can find in the UN chain
of command . . ."

"Christ! On New Year's Eve?"

"Can't be helped! We've got to get some muscle around
that shuttle. It's our link home, and ..." A sudden surge of
pain made him gasp.

"Chet!"

Landau reached for him. Kinsman pushed the Russian
away. "No ... I'm all right." He tried to catch his breath.
"Hugh, for God's sake—we need De Paolo. Find him. Find
some foreign diplomats. Marrett, news reporters, anybody.
We've got to get the word out about this. Don't . . ." The
pain hit again, searing flame across his ribs and down both
arms. "Don't let them keep this a secret."

Harriman bit his lower lip. But he nodded and rushed
toward the door.

Landau forced Kinsman's chair down to a reclining
position. The ceiling seemed to be spinning. Kinsman heard
the phone making funny noises, then a voice calling tinnily,
"Colonel Colt! Colonel Franklin Colt!"

Landau's face was hovering over him. It was blurred, but
very serious. Intent. So damned somber. Wonder if he's that
way in bed with Jili. He must smile sometime.

"This is Colt."

"One moment. Colonel. Priority call from Washington."

"Great. Just what I need."

By turning his head slightly Kinsman could see the wall
559

screen. The dance floor was jammed with happy people. Old
people, mostly. The scene shifted. Amsterdam Mall was crowd-
ed with dancing people, too. But these were young, black,
Puerto Rican, other Latins. And their dancing was not stately
or measured. Their music was not provided by a painstak-
ingly detailed simulacrum of a long-dead orchestra. Kinsman
could see steel drums and guitars and enough amplifiers to
make him wonder sleepily, Where'd they get the electricity?

He forced himself awake. "Stop sticking needles in me,
goddammitati!"

Landau laid a heavy hand on his shoulder. "Be still.
Quiet."

"Colonel Colt." Kinsman could not see the desk, but the
voice came through the phone speaker clearly. It was an
angry burning whisper.

"Right here." Colt's voice was calm. He's made his
decision, Kinsman knew.

"Congratulations, Colonel. You have earned yourself a
firing squad."

"Guess again, baby. I'm on UN territory and I've asked
for asylum in Selene."

"You are a traitor," the harsh voice whispered. "A
turncoat. Worse even than Kinsman himself. You knew what
we were doing. You helped to plan it for us. And then you
changed sides. There will be no mercy for you, black man. No
place to hide. You are a dead man."

"Everybody dies," Colt said, in his toughest ghetto snarl.
"Including you."

"That is true. But you will die sooner than most. Our
troops will not be thwarted. They will seize Station Alpha or
destroy it."

"Better change their orders. They'll get their asses fried
if they don't turn back."

"They will not turn back. And if your newfound friends
kill American troops, not even the UN building will be safe
for you."

"If I were you," Kinsman heard Colt saying quite
distinctly, "I'd be heading for a bomb shelter instead of
making threatening phone calls." Then he heard the faint
snap of the phone switch.

"Alex," Kinsman said. "Don't put me under. I've got to
stay awake ... got to ..."

560

"Your EKG is frightening," Landau said. "You will stay
down and you will rest."

"He will not," Colt said firmly.

Kinsman fumbled for the controls on the arm of his chair
and swung it around to a point where he could see Colt. Don't
try sitting up, he warned himself. Don't get that brave. The
pain was dulled now, but he knew that was from whatever
Landau had injected into him. The drug had merely turned
the volume down temporarily.

"Keep him awake and alert," Colt said, walking over to
face Landau. "We're gonna need him. He's the one they'll
listen to—the people up there and the people down here. If
he's out of it, they're not gonna listen to you or me."

"There is Harriman," Landau said through barely
opened lips.

"Keep him awake," Colt repeated.

"You'll kill him."

Before Colt could reply, Kinsman said, "Everybody
dies." The two former astronauts grinned at each other.

"Frank," said Kinsman, "see if you can re-establish
contact with Alpha. Perry's no fool. He's probably trying to
make direct contact with this building's microwave receivers
right now."

"Yeah, right." Colt went back to the phone.

Breathing very carefully so that he would not disturb the
beast that was drowsing inside him. Kinsman told Landau,
"Do whatever you have to, Alex, but don't put me under.
Frank's right. I've got to be awake through this. I'm the only
one they'll listen to. Maybe when Hugh comes back . . ." If
he gets back. Kinsman thought. If he had to go outside the
building they might have grabbed him,

"I could try electrical blockage for the pain," Landau
muttered, and went back to his medical equipment.

Colt was grumbling and swearing into the phone. "Don't
any of those fuckers on the switchboard speak English? Holy
shit!"

Kinsman smiled to himself. Frank's made his choice. He
came through.

The wall screen showed a huge clock built into the facade
of one of the Times Square towers. It said 9:48. The crowd
was like a single mass of people now, swaying, chanting,
self-hypnotized.

561

"Yeah . . . whozzat? Perry! This is Colt."

Kinsman swung his head. Too fast. The pain lanced
through him. Christ, I can't even move'

Colt dashed over to him. "Perry's on the horn. No visual,
just voice."

He wheeled Kinsman to the desk.

"Chris, this is Kinsman." Can he hear me? My voice
sounds so damned weak.

"Yessir. We've been trying to reach you."

"What . . . happened?"

"The shuttle refused to turn back. They even fired a
missile at us."

Missile! "Where? How much damage?"

"No damage. We intercepted the missile with a laser
beam and then got the shuttle itself with another laser."

"Got the shuttle?"

A long delay. "Yessir. Radar confirmed the kill. She split
apart. Nothing but debris now. No survivors."

A hundred men. Nothing but debris. In orbit . . .
floating like she did.

"Sir?"

"Yes, I'm here." His voice was weak. A groan.

"There was nothing else we could do. They refused to
back off."

"I understand. You did the right thing. It's my responsi-
bility. I gave the orders."

"Yessir." The phone went dead.

"Now you must sleep," Landau said. "There is no . . ."

But Colt said, "Look at this." He turned up the volume
on the wall TV screen.

A grave, shocked-looking announcer's face filled the big
screen. He was saying, ". . . destroyed by the rebels. The
government has made no announcement of why the troops
were aboard the space shuttle, or of what happened to the
group of international emigres who were scheduled to reach
the space station at about ten P.M. Eastern Time."

The announcer glanced off-camera briefly, then re-
sumed, "I repeat: The White House announced a few minutes
ago that a space shuttle carrying one hundred American
soldiers was destroyed as it approached Space Station Alpha
tonight. All one hundred Americans—plus the shuttle's crew,
who were also Americans—were killed. The shuttle was
562

deliberately destroyed by the rebels who are in temporary
command of the space station. More information will be
released shortly. White House sources say."

The TV screen cut back to the view of the crowd at Times
Square. They were frozen in place, stunned, immobilized.
The big TV screens all around the square had shown the same
announcement. Now one of them—the public educational
channel—began showing an animated simulation of the shut-
tle approaching the space station. It disappeared in a blinding
flash of light.

"They worked that up fast, the bastards," muttered Colt.

"They must have had it ready as part of a contingency
backup plan," Kinsman said, his voice barely a whisper.

The scene changed to a closeup of a TV announcer down
on the street, warmly bundled in an electrically heated suit,
three heavily armed private policemen standing beside him.

"The crowd here at Times Square seems stunned,
shocked, utterly unable to believe this sudden and tragic
news," he said into his lip mike.

From behind him came a surging crowd of shouting
bodies. The camera view cut back to an overhead shot from
atop one of the towers around the square. But the announcer
rattled on;

"The crowd is coming to life. I don't know if you can
make out what they're shouting. It's rather profane, a lot of it,
but the general gist of it is—the lunar dissidents have killed a
hundred Americans. There's anger here, real rage."

Kinsman heard a woman's piercing shriek quite clearly,
"The bastards are in the UN building!"

The announcer was speaking rapidly, as if covering a
sports event. "The crowd's milling around, like a huge
uncertain beast trying to make up its mind about which
direction to go in."

"They'll be here," Kinsman said.

Colt nodded. "They're already starting to push out of the
square. And the cops are letting them go."

The police were doing nothing as the crowd began
streaming out of Times Square. The TV picture changed to
show similar scenes elsewhere in Manhattan.

Kinsman tried to sit up. "Frank, we've got to get to our
shuttle. Now." The pain bloomed inside him. It was like
railroad tracks of red-molten steel clamping down across his
563

chest, his arms, and then everywhere. No! he screamed to
himself. Not now! But he could see nothing. It all went black.
Distantly he heard Landau's shocked voice. "It's too
much . . . too much . . ."

Friday 31 December 1999:

2358 hrs UT

SOMETHING WAS SHAKING him. A loud whining roar rattled
Kinsman's very bones. He could not move. His body felt
glued down.

A voice. Marrett's? Shouting over the engine roar. "I
told him we'd give 'em the goddamnedest drought this
continent's ever seen. And we can do it, too. De Paolo's on
the phone with the President right now."

Kinsman forced his eyes open. It took a massive effort of
will. His head was turned to a small window. It all came
together slowly in his foggy brain. Helicopter. They took us
off the roof in a copter.

"So they tracked me down," Marrett was saying. "Hugh
burst in on the party with a whole squad of UN security
police. Half the people at the party thought it was a drug
bust!"

Kinsman tried to focus on the scene outside. It was still
night. There were city lights sliding past below them. In the
distance was the river, the skyline of Manhattan . . . Oh,
God!

Fire. Flames licking upward, doubly reflected in the river
and the glass wall of the Secretariat Building. They're burning
it. They're burning the UN buildings.

"Fire's getting worse," somebody said.

Marrett's voice answered. "Sure. Goddamn fire trucks
can't get to it because of the mob."

"'What fools these mortals be.'" Harriman's voice,
sounding very tired, very down.

"Hey, it's midnight."

"Terrific."

"Happy fucking New Year."
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The voices buzzed on but Kinsman paid no attention. He
watched the UN buildings being swallowed in names.

The pain came and went and returned again. He could
feel it snaking through his body. Tendrils of hot iron worming
down through his arteries and veins, branching, exploring,
searching. Down through the fine nets of the capillaries the
pain spread. He felt it, he knew it was there, even though his
brain kept insisting that the drugs were keeping the pain
suppressed. Yes, but I can feel it moving through me like a
conquering army, taking possession of the territory it's won.

Harriman's voice came out of total darkness. "It's De
Paolo. They're going to meet tomorrow. The President's
coming up to New York to look at the damage. De Paolo says
to tell Chet that buildings can be rebuilt. And so can
institutions. Stronger than they were before."

But we'll have to be so careful, Kinsman replied silently.
It'll be so easy to turn it into a dictatorship. We've got to
preserve human freedom—it won't work any other way.

They were moving him. He felt himself being lifted,
placed. Carefully. Tenderly. Like a fragile treasure. He
thought, Like a fossil.

Pressure and the muted thunder of rocket engines. The
pain flared everywhere now, waking him.

Frank Colt was sitting beside his litter, brooding. Kins-
man grabbed at his arm.

"There's so much to do, Frank." His voice sounded like

a dying old man's.

"Hey, Chet. Take it easy, man." But Frank's voice

sounded strange, too.

"Got to . . . listen, Frank. We've got to do everything we

can. We've got to keep the doors open for the human race."
"Yeah, sure, baby. Don't get yourself excited."
Others were surrounding him now. Shadows.
"Frank, we can develop the raw materials from the

Moon. And go on to the asteroids. We can develop it ...

there's a whole solar system of natural resources . . . nobody

has to be hungry or poor. We can do it! We can make it all

work out!"

565

"Yeah, okay."

"You understand, Frank? You know what I mean? I can
leave it with you. can't I?"

Colt nodded gently as someone else pulled Kinsman's
hand away.

"I know," Colt said. "Been thinking about it myself. I'll
see that it gets done. Don't worry about it. You just rest
yourself."

"Good," Kinsman said. "Good. You'll know how to get
it done. Mine the Moon. A world of resources. And the
asteroids. Plenty of power . . . everything we need ... for
everybody . . ."

Someone—Landau, he thought—pressed a needle into
his arm.

Floating. He was floating. Voices flickered around him.
They were moving him again, but now it was like floating out
in the sea.

Don't go too far, Chester. There's a tide.

Yes, Momma. There sure as hell is.

"It's all right now, Chet. You're safe. You're back
home."

Diane's voice. Her scent.

He tried to open his eyes. He tried to speak. With all the
power of his being he tried to raise a hand to touch her.

Nothing.

He felt her hair brushing his face. "You're going to be all
right, Chet. You're not going to die. Please. You can't die."

He moistened his lips. He got the feeling that his eyes
were open but he just could not see anything. Maybe a blur, a
faint gray against the enveloping darkness. Cold. Cold and
dark as space itself.

"Chet, it's me, Diane. Please don't die. There's so much
for us to live for. I love you, Chet. I've loved you all my
life . . ."

And I could have loved you. I could have. I could. He
wondered if she could hear him saying it.

But then the gray blur of the gathering darkness took
shape and he saw her waiting for him, floating weightlessly,
her arms outstretched to embrace him at last. Kinsman's final
thought sighed out of him like a breath of relief. The debt is
paid, the only way it could be paid. He joined her, completely
and finally.

566