Kinsman swung his head. Too fast. The pain lanced through him. Christ, I can't even move'

Colt dashed over to him. "Perry's on the horn. No visual, just voice."

He wheeled Kinsman to the desk.

"Chris, this is Kinsman." Can he hear me? My voice sounds so damned weak.

"Yessir. We've been trying to reach you."

"What . . . happened?"

"The shuttle refused to turn back. They even fired a missile at us."

Missile! "Where? How much damage?"

"No damage. We intercepted the missile with a laser beam and then got the shuttle itself with another laser."

"Got the shuttle?"

A long delay. "Yessir. Radar confirmed the kill. She split apart. Nothing but debris now. No survivors."

A hundred men. Nothing but debris. In orbit . . . floating like she did.

"Sir?"

"Yes, I'm here." His voice was weak. A groan.

"There was nothing else we could do. They refused to back off."

"I understand. You did the right thing. It's my responsi- bility. I gave the orders."

"Yessir." The phone went dead.

"Now you must sleep," Landau said. "There is no . . ."

But Colt said, "Look at this." He turned up the volume on the wall TV screen.

A grave, shocked-looking announcer's face filled the big screen. He was saying, ". . . destroyed by the rebels. The government has made no announcement of why the troops were aboard the space shuttle, or of what happened to the group of international emigres who were scheduled to reach the space station at about ten P.M. Eastern Time."

The announcer glanced off-camera briefly, then re- sumed, "I repeat: The White House announced a few minutes ago that a space shuttle carrying one hundred American soldiers was destroyed as it approached Space Station Alpha tonight. All one hundred Americans—plus the shuttle's crew, who were also Americans—were killed. The shuttle was 562 deliberately destroyed by the rebels who are in temporary command of the space station. More information will be released shortly. White House sources say."

The TV screen cut back to the view of the crowd at Times Square. They were frozen in place, stunned, immobilized. The big TV screens all around the square had shown the same announcement. Now one of them—the public educational channel—began showing an animated simulation of the shut- tle approaching the space station. It disappeared in a blinding flash of light.

"They worked that up fast, the bastards," muttered Colt.

"They must have had it ready as part of a contingency backup plan," Kinsman said, his voice barely a whisper.

The scene changed to a closeup of a TV announcer down on the street, warmly bundled in an electrically heated suit, three heavily armed private policemen standing beside him.