As he rolled his chair across the room and yanked off his oxygen mask, Kinsman said, "Frank! This is a pleasant surprise. What brings you here? I thought you were at

Vandenberg."

Shrugging, Colt replied, "Couldn't let you get this close without hopping over to wish you a Happy New Year." Harriman muttered, "Good old sentimental Frank." "Yeah," Colt said, glancing at him. "Sentimental. That's me, all right."

"I'm glad to see you," Kinsman said. "Bird colonel, eh?" Colt said nothing. Kinsman gestured him to a chair and wheeled up close to the windows. "Can't see the Moon. Too overcast."

Landau began to set up his instruments on the desktop.

"I thought you'd be busy with the final countdown at Kennedy," Kinsman said to Colt.

"It's going along fine. They don't need me breathing down their necks. If there's any problem they can reach me here."

Kinsman grinned at him. 'That doesn't sound like the old perch-on-the-bastard's-ass Frank Colt that I used to know and love."

Colt turned slightly away from him. "I'm a big-ass bird colonel now. Got to show some dignity. Besides, Fd rather be up here with you."

"How come our first shipload of immigrants is being launched from Florida?" Harriman wanted to know. "Why not right here, from the commercial port?"

Colt did not answer. He licked the lower edge of his teeth with his tongue and frowned.

God, he's uptight! Kinsman realized.

"Listen," Colt said at last. "I . . ."

The door buzzer startled all of them. Kinsman turned his chair around as Harriman bustled to the door and opened it. Four very solemn-faced youngsters came in, three boys and a girl. The oldest must have been no more than ten. The girl and one of the boys were Latin-dark. Puerto Rican, Kinsman guessed. One of the other boys was black; the fourth a redheaded, freckled, street-wary Huckleberry Finn.

And their teacher. "Oh, it's so kind of you to let us visit 549 you! I understand how busy you must be." She prattled on as she urged her youngsters into the room like a hen pushing its chicks.

The kids were silent, staring, but the teacher never stopped talking. Kinsman immediately realized that she was speaking to Harriman only to allay her own nervousness, using exactly the same tone and expressions that she used on her classroom kids.

"Oh, and you must be Mr. Kinsman—Chester Arthur Kinsman. Were you named after President Arthur? And you live on the Moon! Isn't that interesting, children? Would you like to live on the Moon someday?"

The girl reached a shy hand out toward Kinsman's exoskeleton. "Why you wearin' that?"

Kinsman smiled at her. The old lunar charm. "I need it to help me move around. See?" He raised one arm, and all four of the children hopped back a step at the sound of the servomotors. "My muscles are accustomed to the gravity of the Moon, which is six times less than the gravity here. I'm too weak to move by myself here. You're a lot stronger than I am."

That emboldened them. "My dad says you're a traitor. You're bein' bad to the United States," the black ten-year-old said.

"I'm sorry he feels that way," Kinsman answered. "The people on the Moon want to be free. We don't want to hurt the United States or anyone else. We just want to be free."

"When I grow up," the Puerto Rican boy asked, "can I go to the Moon?"

"Sure. You can live there, if you want to, or just come up for a visit."

"Would I have to wear one of those things?" He pointed at the braces.

"No." Kinsman laughed. "That's only for weak old men like me. And on the Moon, even I don't need it."