"No, to Selene! Come on. You know you don't belong down here anymore. You know what we're trying to do. Join us!"

Colt pushed his chair away from the white-clothed dining table. "Me? You're serious? You want me .

"Why not?"

"After what I've done?"

"That's in the past. We're building for the future. You can help us! You'll be a helluva lot happier in Selene than putting up with all the chickenshit they throw at you down here."

Colt lurched to his feet. "You're crazy! I can't—"

"Sure you can," Kinsman urged.

Throwing his napkin down on the table, Colt shouted, "You damned fool! By the time you get back to the space station there won't be any Selene!"

"I don't get—" But the tortured look on Colt's face stopped Kinsman. "What do you mean, Frank?"

"Shit, man! Did you really think they were gonna let you get away with it? Did you really think that?" 554

Kinsman could feel fire flashing along his nerves- "Frank, what are you saying?"

Colt's face was a landscape of pain. "Chet, you soft- headed bastard—that plane's not filled with your goddamned refugees. It's loaded with a hundred armed troops! In another two hours we'll have Alpha. In twenty-four hours we'll have d//the manned space stations, the Russian ones, too. Then we take Selene."

Kinsman closed his eyes.

"You sonofabitch!" Harriman raged. "That's how you got those eagles!"

"Yeah." Colt's voice sounded weak, miserable.

Landau muttered one word. "Jill . . ."

Kinsman looked at the three of them. Harriman and Landau were still sitting at the dinner table, food and wine unfinished. Colt stood, legs spread slightly, up on the balls of his feet as if waiting for them to physically attack him.

"Phone," Kinsman said, more to himself than the others. Wheeling toward the desk, "Phone link . . . JFK's got a link with Alpha."

Colt shook his head. "They won't put you through. Air Force took over communications at JFK an hour before I came up here."

Kinsman slid the chair to a halt at the desk. Turning it back to face Colt he said, "Then you've got to tell them to establish contact."

"I've got to?"

"You're the only one who can, Frank."

Colt was wide-eyed now. "You're crazy, man. That's insane."

The scene on the wall screen showed Times Square and the still-growing crowd there. Harriman went over to the controls and turned the volume down.

"Frank," Kinsman said, "you're on our side. You've always been on our side. You're the only one who hasn't recognized it."