Recognition dawned on Colt's face- "Oh, yeah, the old dude. He was quite a guy."
"He told me a story once," Kinsman said, "about when he flew a bomber in World War One."
"Yeah, and the Mile High Club."
"No, this was a different story. He used to fly bombing runs in the early months of the war. Open cockpit, scarf-in- the-wind kind of stuff."
"No shit."
Kinsman grinned at the memory of Calder's story. "He flew a two-man bomber. Cranked her up to maximum altitude over the trenches—about five thousand feet. All the soldiers in the trenches shot at any airplane. Didn't matter whose plane it was. They all hated the fliers."
Colt laughed.
"Cy flew mostly night missions. Never saw another plane in the sky. Then one night, as they were coming back from a bombing raid on some farmhouse, they passed a big German Gotha bomber coming back from a raid on the Allied side of the lines."
"Yeah?"
"Cy waved at the German pilot and the guy waved back. They were both excited just to see somebody else up there."
"Those were the days," Colt muttered.
"Well, a couple of minutes after they passed each other, 341
Cy's gunner turned around to him and started yelling, so he could be heard over the engines, That was a German! What the hell were we waving at him for? Turn around, let's shoot the bastard down!'"
Colt nodded.
"Cy pushed the gunner back away from him and told him, 'You silly sonofabitch, it's dangerous enough up here without shooting at people!'"
Colt started to laugh, but it never became more than a half-hearted chuckle, "Okay, I dig it. It's dangerous enough up here on the Moon without shooting at people. But I've got my orders, Chet. And maybe the Russians never heard your story."
Kinsman replied slowly, "Anyone who's spent any time on the Moon knows that story. They've saved our guys a thousand times and we've saved theirs. Most of their people speak English and a lot of ours know Russian. We live together, Frank. In peace."
"Shee-it," Colt deliberately exaggerated the accent, "next thing you know you're gonna start singing gospel songs. You live in peace, huh? For how long, pal? How long? What happens when they get orders from Earthside to do it . . ." Colt slowly squeezed his thumb down on the tabletop as if he were squashing a bug. Or pressing a FIRE button.
Kinsman said nothing. Colt went on, "It's getting down to the big crunch, man. All this messing around with the satellites. And some Navy dude got himself shot down near the South Pole ..."
"What?" Kinsman felt a lightning flash of startled fear in his guts.
