"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.