As he poured the steaming brew the Captain asked, "So you understand military matters, eh?"

"I think so. Sir."

'Then tell me"—he slammed the thermos on the desk hard enough to make the tea jump out of both glasses—"how do those Earthbound desk pilots expect me to defend a Soviet military installation that is defenseless? Heh?"

"I sir

"Look at this place!" The Captain waved a hand. "It's made of straw. One of the Americans' laser beams could slice 395 us apart like goat's cheese. How are we to defend ourselves against attack?"

"I didn't realize that an attack was imminent," the Lieutenant answered, keeping his hands carefully in his lap and not reaching for the tea.

"A commander must always assume that an attack is imminent! Learn that! Get it into your skull and into your blood! Never relax your guard!"

"Yessir."

The Captain glared at him for a moment, then pushed one of the glasses toward him. The Lieutenant quickly snatched at it.

"Why do you think they've ordered all the civilians off our little island in the sky? Heh? We are on alert status. At any moment the word may come that war has broken out. Do you have a family? Wife? Children?"

The Lieutenant blinked once. "My mother ... in Mos- cow."

"Mmm. My children will be safe enough from the bombs," the Captain said. "But the fallout ... the fallout, that's what will kill them. A lingering death."

"It may not happen," the Lieutenant said, very quietly.

The Captain eyed him. "Do you know what your cargo was? What you brought up here for me to sit with, in place of the scientists?"

"No sir. It was sealed, and my orders did not specify the container's contents."

"But something that big must have aroused your curiosi- ty, hen? A single package, sealed and guarded. Heh?"

"Well . . ." The Lieutenant smiled, almost. "There were rumors at Tyuratam ..."

"Rumors? Such as?"

"Well, that the package was part of a new weapon, a system that will defend the space station against American attack."

"Hah! 1 wish it were."

"Then it's not?"

"No, Lieutenant, it is not. It's a weapon, true enough. But it won't help to defend us. If anything it will make us an even more important target to the Americans."

"What is it, then?"

The Captain gave his best inscrutable smile. "Come now, Lieutenant. You must realize that I cannot tell you. The information is highly classified."

The Lieutenant drank his tea in stony silence and de- parted. Some time later the Captain got up from his desk and strode the length of his tiny station to the loading dock. He watched the shuttle, filled with the complaining scientists now, as its rockets puffed briefly and it arced away to be quickly lost against the glare of the looming Earth.