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.