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."
