"Of course I am. I told you."
She pulled her hand away from him. "I don't want any part of it. It's crazy! All you're going to accomplish is getting yourself killed. You're committing suicide over some woman who died ten years ago."
"That's ridiculous."
"It is ridiculous. And frightening." Diane backed a step away from him. "And then you say you're not going to let me go back to Earth. I don't want to stay here, Chet! I don't want to be here when they kill you!" 412
"Nobody's going to kill me."
"Yes, they will. You're going to keep pushing at them until they have no choice but to kill you."
"Everybody dies," he muttered.
Diane pushed a lock of hair back away from her face. "Sure. Be a hero. Save the world. I can't stop you. I won't even try. But I've got a daughter to think of, to protect. I don't want to die and I don't want her to be killed. I don't want you to die!"
"So what do you want to do?" he asked.
"I want to find someplace safe."
"Where?" He almost laughed. "There aren't any safe places. There's going to be killing here, Diane. Maybe a lot of it. Frank Colt won't let me take Moonbase away from America without a fight. Leonov will have to shoot his way to independence. Then we'll have to take the space stations —more killing. It's inescapable. We've got to kill to prevent killing. It's a cosmic joke."
"There's nothing funny about it."
"I know."
"I can't go with you on this, Chet. You'll have to do it without me."
"I know." He had known it all along.
Pat Kelly looked scared. There's no other word for it, Kinsman decided. Pat is scared.
The two officers had spent most of the morning going over all the contingency plans for repelling attack and keeping Moonbase secure. He and Kelly had checked, using the picture phones, every vital area of the base. They had then called in, one by one, every key person, military and civilian: the personnel chief, the head of maintenance, the director of the hospital, the Officer of the Day—every man and woman in charge of a department or an important group of people or a vital piece of equipment.
To each of them, Kinsman gave the same speech; "We are in a maximum-security status. War is imminent. I intend to declare our independence from Earthside and try to prevent the war from starting. We will act together with the people of Lunagrad. Selene will become an independent 413 nation. Both the United States and Soviet Russia will try to stop us, and there might be bloodshed. We'll try to avoid it, but we've got to be ready to face that possibility,"
The night fears were gone from his mind, or at least buried deep enough so that he could ignore them. Kinsman felt strangely calm, at peace with himself for the first time in a decade.
The people he spoke to were shocked, surprised. Some smiled with sudden relief. Some were angry and showed it. Of those who agreed with his purpose. Kinsman asked only that they explain the situation to the people under them. To those who became tight-lipped and clench-fisted, he offered a shuttle flight back to Earth. And then called in their second- in-command.
