"Sure." He made himself grin at her. "The worst is over. It's all going to be downhill from here on in,"

It was not until he was halfway down the corridor that led into the water factory that he realized how many different connotations "downhill" could have-

Ernie Waterman was embarrassed to see him. The dour-faced engineer actually blushed when Kinsman arrived at the rock crushers, where an explosion had wrecked two of the six conveyor belts that carried pulverized rock from the giant machines to the electric arcs. 49 T

"I ... I figured as long as I'm here . . ." Waterman stammered over the clamor of technicians yelling to each other and the spark and hiss of welding lasers. The four working crushers pounded out a basso accompaniment to the higher-pitched noises. "Well ... I figured I might as well help out. It's better than sitting around doing nothing, ain't it?"

"That's fine, Ernie," said Kinsman over the din of the construction crew. "I appreciate your help."

"How soon do I have to leave?"

"Leave?"

An air compressor screamed to life and Waterman raised his shrill voice even louder and leaned on his canes toward Kinsman's ear. Their hard hats actually clicked. "When are you going to be shipping me back Earthside?"

"Nobody's going Earthside!" Kinsman yelled back, "And nothing from Earthside is coming up here—not until we get some of the politics straightened out. And whether you leave Selene or not is your decision, Ernie. I can't send you back to a wheelchair. If you can stomach what we're doing here—or even better, come over to our way of thinking —you're welcome to stay as long as you like."

Waterman's mouth moved but Kinsman could not hear what he said.

"I mean it, Ernie," he shouted. "As long as you don't work against us you're welcome to live here."

"You'd . . . trust me?"

"Why not? Aren't you an honest man?"

Waterman merely shook his head in wonderment.

Much of the afternoon Kinsman spent going over person- nel lists and combining the American files with Leonov's. The two of them worked in the Russian personnel office, alone except for the Lunagrad computer terminal that sat on a table in the middle of a large room. The Moonbase computer had not yet been fully linked with the Russian machine.

Leonov had to translate the Cyrillic symbols. Kinsman had the American files transferred electronically into the Russian data bank. He frowned as Pat Kelly's file appeared on the display screen. Kelly was still confined to quarters, under a psychiatrist's care. He had requested immediate 492 transfer for himself and his family Earthside.

I failed with him, Kinsman told himself. He worked so close to me, saw everything I saw, everything I did. And yet he couldn't make the Jump, couldn't change his thinking enough to grasp what had to be done. He'd rather see America destroyed than changed.

When he returned to his own quarters, just before dinnertime, he found Frank Colt sitting tensely on his living room couch. Alone.

"I was wondering when you'd show up," Kinsman said as he slid the front door shut.

"Yeah. I steered away from the partying last night. Figured you had earned a celebration without me screwing it up for you."

"I looked for you in the crowd. I wanted to thank you for staying out of mischief while I was away." Kinsman crossed the room and sat on the slingchair next to Colt.

'Took some guts for you to trust me," Colt said, eyeing Kinsman carefully.

"Took some guts for you to accept the responsibility, feeling the way you do."

Colt broke into a grin. "Listen, buddy. That lady of yours would've shot me down like a dog in a microsecond if I had stepped half a millimeter out of line. She's pretty and sweet—and tough."

Kinsman felt his brows knit slightly. He had never thought of Diane as being tough, yet the evidence had been obvious al! along. No one built a successful singing career without inner strength and a steel-hard determination. And even after the government slapped her down, she bounced back and made it to the Moon.