Diane looked surprised. "Not ever?"

"Maybe with six months of special training and exer- cise," Jill replied, "but even then his heart . . ."

"Jill, let's not start swallowing our own propaganda," Kinsman interrupted. "You know damned well we cooked up that heart murmur to get around the duty regs about rota- tion."

Jill stood squarely in front of him, a tiny snub-nosed Raggedy Ann doll with a will of chrome steel. "Your heart problem is real," she said slowly, making every word dia- mond hard. "It was a slight problem five years ago, and with the proper balance of rest and exercise it could have been corrected. It can still be corrected, given time. But for the past five years you have been living in one-sixth the gravity of Earth. Your heart has become accustomed to doing one-sixth the work it would face Earthside. The muscle tone, the workload capacity, is gone. You simply can't survive Earth- side gravity! You'll kill yourself!"

For a long moment the office was absolutely still. None of them moved or spoke. Kinsman found himself staring into the wall screen opposite his couch: Earth was hanging there, close and lovely, the jewel of the cosmos. Near enough to reach, in a day or two.

"Jill," he said at last, "I'm not asking you to tell us what we can't do. You've got to help us to accomplish what needs to be done. I've got to go Earthside. Do you understand that?"

Leonov cleared his throat. "Let me go instead. I am in good physical condition, thanks to Russian pride in manly strength, as opposed to decadent Western self-indulgence."

"I appreciate the offer, Pete," Kinsman said, adding silently, and the attempt to make us laugh. "But the simple fact is that the deal was set up for me. The Americans would get very twitchy if you showed up in my place. Even the Russians would start to wonder what's going on." 512

"Does it have to be a personal visit?" Diane asked. "Can't it be handled by phone? I mean, we could pipe it through the biggest wall screens and all."

Harriman shook his head. "No, dear lovely lady. The crux of this whole meeting is the chance for Chet and Marrett to get face to face with the key national leaders down there. In private, with no bugs or eavesdroppers. The speech and the public meetings are nothing more than window dressing. The important thing, the vital thing, is for Chet and Marrett to offer the smaller nations their double-barreled deal of ABM protection and weather control."

"And to subtly threaten the major powers' existing communications satellites and other space assets," Leonov added.

"Subtly," Harriman agreed.

"What about your health, Hugh?" Kinsman asked him. "Will you be able to make the trip?"

Harriman put a fist to his forehead and flexed his biceps. No motion was discernible inside his coverall sleeve. "I've been exercising at least six hours every week in the centrifuge ever since I came here. I always expected to go right back home again, remember?"

"I've checked his latest physical exams," said Jitl. "He's in good-enough shape."

"You bet your sweet ass I am!" Harriman concurred.

"All right," Kinsman said. "So it's my frail heart that's the problem. I'll only be Earthside for a few days . . ."

Jill gave him a tight-lipped scowl. "How did you feel when you were aboard the space station the week before last?"

"Huh? Fine! No problems." As long as I stayed in the low-gee sections, he remembered. But that wasn't my heart. I just felt tired, heavy, and some trouble breathing . . .

"Your chest didn't fee! heavy?" Jill probed. "You didn't feel any aches or sharp pains anywhere?"

"Nothing much."

"How much time did you spend on Level One, where there's full Earth gravity?"

"Urn, well, I didn't get down there at all. But I was on Level Three a lot—it's about half an Earth gee, a lot more than we have here."

"And how did you feel?"

"Kind of tired—achy. But my heart was okay."