Kelly still looked undecided. "Maybe you're right ..."
Great way to start a party, Kinsman thought. Trying to decide if your wife and kids are going to get blown up this month or next.
Diane came up beside him. "The view here is incredi- ble!"
Eyeing her green and yellow bikini. Kinsman agreed, "It certainly is."
She grinned at him. "I knew you'd say that!"
"You gave me the straight line."
"Just testing," she said airily. "Like Pavlov and his dogs."
Kinsman nodded once. "You have rung my chimes and I am salivating."
"Hopeless case of chauvinism," Diane murmured.
Kinsman was about to reply when Kelly cocked his head in the direction of the fadderway entrance. "Here comes Dr. Faraffa."
"Now you'll see what real male chauvinism is like," Kinsman whispered to Diane.
Dr. Faraffa was only slightly older than Kelly. He had a broad, bald, brown-skinned face with none of the acquiline 299 features so often associated with Arabs. He walked directly to Kinsman, nodding briefly to Kelly and ignoring Diane alto- gether. He wore a rumpled tan pair of slacks and a light shirtjacket, the only person in the dome not in a swimsuit.
"Colonel Kinsman," he said in a voice as mellow and golden as Turkish tobacco, "I have been informed by my colleagues at Alpha that there is some talk of a new crisis."
The word spreads fast. Kinsman thought. "I believe that any rumors to that effect," he replied carefully, "are highly exaggerated."
Faraffa stepped close enough for Kinsman to feel his breath on his face. It carried an odor of something sweet, almost cloying.
"Highly exaggerated? Perhaps. Such as the occupation of the oil sheikhdoms by your Marines? That was once a highly exaggerated rumor."
Kinsman shrugged. "I'm not a diplomat. The Marines and the occupation are real. A new crisis is not."
"Not yet."
"Not yet," Kinsman repeated.
"If such a crisis does occur, I expect that all foreign nationals here on the Moon will be returned to their homes," Faraffa said stiffly.
