"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?"