"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
