"Even though ..."

"Even though it scares hell out of me, yes," Diane said. "I can't sit on the sidelines. I've got to be a part of this, 414 whether I like it or not. I've been trying to warn people about this government for a long time, you know. Some of us saw where they were leading us way back when. Some of us saw this war coming years ago. Why do you think they stopped me from singing? Why do you think they exiled me up here?"

"You're on our side, then."

"What you're doing is right, Chet," she said. "I don't think it's going to work. I think we're all going to get ourselves killed. But you're right; we've got to try."

"We'll make it work," he said grimly. "We'll make it work."

"You'll want the comm center shut up tight." Diane seemed to draw herself up to her full height. Her decision made, she became businesslike, professional. "All Earthside messages routed straight to you?"

"Right. And no traffic beamed Earthside without my specific okay."

"No traffic at all?" Diane asked. "Won't that make them suspicious?"

He shrugged. "Can't take the chance on somebody sneaking a message out."

"I can monitor the outgoing messages for you."

He stared hard at her. "Do you want to?"

"Yes."

"You'll accept that responsibility? I didn't think you wanted to be involved . . ."

"We can keep the routine messages flowing," Diane said, ignoring his question. "And the computer data exchanges, of course. I can monitor all the personal messages and make certain they don't contain anything damaging. I could even run them through the cryptographic computer, just to be certain no one's sending coded messages."

For a moment Kinsman wondered if he could truly trust her. But he said, "Okay. Good. And thanks."

Diane left the office. Kinsman turned to the worried Kelly. "Who's left?"

"That's everybody." Kelly's voice was shaky.

"What about Ernie Waterman?"

Kelly flinched as if slapped. "Ernie's not a department head."

"I know. But he's a key man. I want his reaction. Didn't I ask you to call him earlier?"

Kelly started to shake his head. "And Frank Colt. Where's he? Get somebody to track him down."

"Okay."

Kinsman watched Kelly working with the phone. The guy's scared half to death!

"Pat."

Kelly jerked away from the phone keyboard. "Yeah?