"Are you all right?"
"Yeah. Fine. How about you?"
"I want to help. What can I do?"
Shrugging, "Sit and sweat it out with the rest of us." And then he understood why the others were here. Why the people were gathering in the main plaza. Waiting. Waiting to see if it was going to work. Waiting to learn if they would live or die. On my responsibility, Kinsman thought.
Harriman snorted and slapped his free hand on his thigh. "All right, all right'" he yelled into the phone. "Keep feeding all the details into the computer so we can update the assessment."
Kinsman was standing in front of him as he slammed the receiver down on its cradle.
"Well?" Kinsman demanded.
Harriman rolled his eyes and made a fluttering motion with one hand. "Not too good, not too bad. I got all the damage-control teams to put their preliminary assessments into the computer and then let the stupid machine mull it over for a few minutes."
"And?"
"Preliminary analysis: water production down roughly forty percent. Minerals and ores down a little less, maybe 433 twenty-five, thirty percent. They blew a lot of plumbing, but the big hardware—the rock crushers—they just didn't have enough explosives to really damage those monsters."
"Forty percent," Kinsman muttered. "For how long?"
Harriman said, "Two weeks. But that's too damned preliminary to count. Say a month, at least."
Kinsman did a quick mental calculation. "We can live with that. Water'11 be scarce for a month or so, but we can do it."
Harriman lurched to his feet. "So we'll drink our booze straight, eh?"
And suddenly they were all laughing, almost cheering, with relief. Perry's strong tenor voice cut through the noise. "I've got Lunagrad! They're bringing Leonov to the phone!"
The office went absolutely silent. It all hangs on Pete, Kinsman knew.
He went to the desk. Perry got up from the chair and handed the receiver to Kinsman. He felt suddenly weak and dwarfed beside the younger man. Sitting, he glanced at Diane, who swiveled the phone screen around for him to see it.
The screen was a blur of rainbow static. Then it abruptly cleared and Piotr Leonov's face took form. He looked serious, his iron-gray hair disheveled.
"My apologies, old friend," Leonov said. His voice sounded slightly hoarse.
Kinsman's heart seemed to stop beating.
