"If Kinsman has any slight shred of doubt about a Trojan horse situation, your presence in New York should ease his fears."

"Or put him on his guard."

"No." The State Department man smiled. "We have analyzed Kinsman's personality profile quite thoroughly. He tends to trust people rather easily, especially people he has known for a time. You were friendly with him for many years. He undoubtedly still feels deep ties of friendship toward you. He will see your presence at the UN as a gesture of amity, and that should put him off his guard quite nicely."

He does trust people too easy, Colt admitted to himself.

The ISA agent smirked. "Beautiful. You two can watch the takeoff on TV together."

"The final few hours of countdown will be more-or-less automatic," the Major chipped in. "There's no real need for you to be physically present at the Kennedy launch center, or even at Patrick."

Colt said, "I don't like it. I'd rather be where the action is, at the launch complex."

"But the computers," said the State Department man, "show that the plan's chances for success increase from eighty-five percent to ninety-three if you are in New York with Kinsman."

You want me to kiss him on the cheek, too? Colt fumed silently. But he hid his anger, hid his fear, and looked into the three white faces, each in turn.

"Okay," he said at last. "I'll do it." 517

Wednesday 29 December 1999:

0525 hrs UT

KINSMAN SNAPPED awake.

For a moment he could not remember where he was. Then it came to him. The VIP suite in the low-gravity section of Space Station Alpha.

He got up slowly. There was a plastic tube in his thigh, carefully wrapped in protective bandaging. He glanced at the digital clock set into the bulkhead. In another hour and a half that tube would be connected to a pacemaker and electric motor. Inside his leg, the tube wormed through his femoral artery and up his torso into the aorta, where the plastic balloon pump rested. It was quiescent now. Once the pace- maker and power unit were connected the balloon would act as an auxiliary heart, helping with the blood-pumping work that his natural heart would be too weak to do on Earth.

Jill had frowned through the entire surgical procedure. "The pump can't take more than fifty percent of the workload off your heart," she had said. "You're still going to be in trouble when you reach Earth."

Kinsman padded into the sanitary stall and dry-bathed, letting the sonic vibrations cleanse and massage his skin. Silly, he told himself, knowing that he could have luxuriated in a water shower. But the habit prevails. And I shouldn't get the bandage wet, I guess. He did not want to admit that a water shower would smack too much of a last-chance-of-my-life ritual.

He shaved carefully, then started to dress. Briefly he thought of putting in a call to Diane, back in Selene. But he shook his head against the idea. Better to leave it this way. If I get back—when I get back—maybe we can start putting our lives together. But not now.

He pulled on a T-shirt, shorts, and slipper socks. Noth- 518 ing else. The bandage showed beneath the brief shorts and bulged against the inside of his thigh. It felt like an extra pair of balls.

Kinsman hesitated at the door to his compartment. He took a deep, calming breath, then slid the door open and headed out to meet with Jill and her medical team.

Two hours later he was sitting in a special foam cushion chair aboard a rocketplane as it bit into Earth's atmosphere. Kinsman was encased in a mechanical exoskeleton: a frame- work of metal tubing that ran along his legs, torso, arms, and neck. The silvery metal tubes were jointed in all the places where the human body was jointed, although the broad metal plates running along Kinsman's back could never be as supple as a human spine. Tiny electrical servomotors moved the suit in response to Kinsman's own muscular actions.

The rocketplane glided deeper into Earth's atmosphere, shuddering and groaning as the shock-heated air made its external skin glowing hot. Kinsman felt the gee forces build- ing up and decided to begin testing his new skeleton. He raised his right arm off the seat's armrest. A barely audible hum of electric motors and the arm lifted smoothly, easily. Yet when Kinsman tried to flex his fingers, which had no auxiliary help, it felt as if he were trying to squeeze a sponge-rubber ball rather than empty air.

The exoskeleton would allow a normal man working in Earth's gravity to lift half-ton loads with one hand. Kinsman hoped the suit would allow him to stand and walk properly. The back of the suit included a rigid framework, much like a hiker's pack frame, to which would be attached the electrical power supply for the suit and the heart pump, the pacemaker controls and motor, and a small green tank containing an hour's supply of oxygen. Resting on the seat beside Kinsman was a clip-on oxygen mask. Jill had insisted on its being part of the equipment he carried.

It was difficult for him to turn his head because the neck supports of the exoskeleton were quite stiff. So, like a man with a sore neck, Kinsman carefully edged his whole body slightly sideways, restrained by the safety harness cutting across his shoulders and lap.

He looked at Landau and Harriman, sitting in the double 519 seats across from him. They were unfettered except for their safety belts, and deep in animated conversation. The rest of the rockctplane was empty except for the flight crew up in the cockpit and a trio of stewardesses who had all shown profes- sional nurse's or paramedic's certifications to Jill before she agreed to let them serve on this brief flight.