Colt laughed. "Ready to fight and die. , . . Ready to fight and die."

"What's funny?" Kelly could feel his face going red. "My brother, man. You sound just like my brother." Colt's laughter echoed weirdly in the tunnel, ringing off the metal heat pipes and electrical power lines, bouncing off the cold stone that surrounded them.

"He beat the shit outta me when I joined the Air Force,"

Colt said. "Told me I was a traitor to my people. I told him I didn't want to die for my people, I just wanted to live good. Told him it was time we got enough of our own people into the chain of command to make it our Army and our Navy and our Air Force."

"I don't see . . ." "Back then the fighting was going on inside the States.

The black man didn't give a shit about the Communist menace. We didn't know the goddamned Russians were just sittin' back and waitin' for us to do their work for them, tear down the U.S. of A. from the inside. My brother tried. He worked hard at it. He fought for what he believed in: black power. Wound up in a shittin' hut in Dahomey, in Africa, hidin' out from the FBI and CIA and Lord knows who else. Know how he died? Some motherfuckin' Communist guerril- las sprayed the crappy little airport down there with machine guns and grenades. He happened to be there, waitin' for a plane. They killed him."

Kelly felt confused. Colt was not making sense.

"Listen," the black man said. "One thing I learned early and learned good. Don't fight city hall. Get inside city hall and take it over—but do it slow and easy, without any fuss. Too many guys call themselves revolutionaries, all they want is some quick publicity and easy pussy. The real revolutionar- ies carefully protect the system—'cause they want it for themselves."

"You're not . . ." Colt grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him, schoolyard rough. "Listen, Irish Catholic God-fearing Ameri- can. Black power don't mean shit if there's no America left, if it all goes up in a mushroom cloud. So I've gotta protect America, you dig? And at the same time, I wouldn't at all mind becoming commander of Moonbase. So give Chet enough rope to hang himself. Give him plenty of rope." 392

"You sonofabitch," Kelly said in a shocked whisper. "You say you're his friend ..."

"I am his friend! But if he turns traitor then he's not my friend or anybody else's. And you're tellin' me he's gonna turn traitor,"

Kelly fell silent.

"Well?" Colt demanded, his voice booming. "Ain't that what you're saying?"

It was hard to make his voice work. "Ye . . . yes," Kelly managed. "I guess that's what I'm saying."

"Yeah. You guess. And you're willing to have your wife and children in the middle of a shoot-out, to protect and defend America. Goddamned noble of you, whitey. God- damned noble."

"Now listen, Colt . . ."

"I had a wife and family. I saw them die. Wonder how you'd feel."

Kelly wanted to run, to get as far away from this man as he could. Anywhere . . .

But Colt still held his shoulder with a grip of fury. "Listen to me, Kelly. I want to know everything Chefs doing, everything he's thinking, even what he dreams about at night. I want to know what he's going to do before he knows it himself. Because, if you're right, then I'm going to have to kill him."

"Kill!"

"That's right, baby. Kill. Chet might look easygoing, but underneath he's as stubborn as a Christian martyr. And damned popular around here. He's turned Moonbase into a freakhouse for all the eggheads who think they can live with the Russians. When the button gets pushed, Chet's going to be very hard to stop. Very hard. Talking won't do it."

"But . . . killing him . . ." Kelly was suddenly afraid.

"I know. It sucks. So's everything else. Maybe we can get away without it coming to that. But we gotta be ready to face it."

Kelly pushed at his thinning hair. "I don't know . . ."

"But I do. That's the difference between us, baby. And one other thing," Colt said, iron-hard. "Everything I've told you is based on the assumption that you're right, and Chet's 393 going to hand this base over to the Russians. If I find out you're wrong, this whole planet won't be big enough to hide you. I will personally take you apart, little friend. Count on it."