"Some major straight from Murdock's staff. He'll have a pipeline right back to the General."

Stahl tugged at an earlobe, then grinned. "All right. Vector the troopship into a parking orbit while we offload the goodies and stash them safely away. Then we can let Mur- dock's snoops come on board."

Cahill grinned broadly. "Right you are, boss." * * * 437

Strapped into the contour seat, Kinsman felt the slight bump when the shuttle hard-docked with Alpha's landing collar. He forced himself to stay relaxed, remain in the seat, as tinier bumps and vibrations told him that the station crewmen were attaching the access tunnel to the shuttle's main hatch.

Kinsman was in the front seat of the shuttle's passenger compartment. The spacecraft carried no cargo, despite the information radioed ahead to Alpha. There were twenty-six men aboard, the maximum the shuttle could carry. The cargo hold was empty. The men were armed.

It had been a long thirty-six hours in free-fall, between Selene and Station Alpha. Kinsman had always loved the feeling of weightlessness, the sense of freedom that it brought. But this time he felt confined, pinned down, trapped. He kept in constant contact with Selene by tight- beam laser link, impossible for the space stations or Earthside to intercept. Everything was under control. Apparently. Earthside suspected nothing. Apparently.

You could be stepping into the midst of a nasty reception committee, he told himself. They might have seen through your story about the catapult being inoperative. Even if they haven't, you've only got twenty-six men to seize control of Alpha. Kinsman knew there were several hundred people aboard the space station. But most of them were technicians, scientists, civilians working for the Aerospace Force. Only about forty of them were real troops capable of organized resistance. No more than forty. If we can surprise them, move fast enough . . .

And is everything really under control at Selene? Kins- man wondered about his decision to trust Frank Colt, And Diane.

It had happened on Sunday, after a night of cautious celebration during which the Americans and Russians had mingled freely—all except the dead and the prisoners. That morning, as Kinsman went over the list of available personnel and tried to puzzle out in his mind how many men he would need to seize all three space stations and maintain a strong hand in Selene, he realized that there were not enough people 438 to go around. He called Colt and Diane and Hugh Harriman to his office.

Harriman looked tired but happy. He had spent the hours of drinking and quiet celebration the previous night telling everyone that at last he could become the citizen of a nation once more and stop being a stateless person.

Diane was calm and cool. Too cool. Kinsman thought. As if she had to maintain a certain distance away from him. Projection, Kinsman told himself. You're blaming her for feeling about you the way you feel about her. But you can't get too close to her, he knew. Not yet. Not now.

Colt looked wary and . . . something else. Kinsman could not put his finger on it. Uncertain. Undecided.

They sat. Colt on a slingchair, looking as relaxed as a mountain lion surrounded by hunters. Harriman slumped on the couch, muttering about homebrew vodka and pain thresh- olds. Diane sat beside him, quietly, her eyes searching Kinsman's.

Kinsman stayed behind his desk. El Presidente, he said to himself. The successful revolutionary who now has to worry about counter-revolutions.

"How's everything in the comm center?" he asked Diane.

"Fine," she replied. "No hint of suspicion from Earth- side. All traffic perfectly normal."

Kinsman licked his lips. "Good. Now, the next step is to take the space stations. If Diane's right they don't have an inkling of what happened here yesterday."

"Yet," Colt murmured.

"And they won't," Kinsman countered, "as long as we've got a loyal crew at the comm center." He looked at Diane as he said it. She gazed back at him. "With the exception of keeping the comm center and the launch facilities guarded," he went on, "I don't see any reason why every- thing can't go on normally here at Selene."

"The barriers between Moonbase and Lunagrad are down," Harriman agreed.

"They were only paper barriers. We're all part of the same nation, the same people. We have been, for years. There aren't any walls between us." 439

Colt made a grunting sound that might have been a half-stifled derisive laugh.

"I'm going to need every military man available to take the space stations, plus a few to keep the comm center and launch facility secure. The catapult is shut down."

"And the Russians?" asked Colt.

"Leonov is going through the same exercise. He's al- ready got his shuttles heading for their stations. No other flights in or out of Lunagrad."