"Sheer materialism."
"Yep. And you thought I was a romantic. Get moving. There's no time to spare,"
"Da . . . Good luck, tovarich."
"Godspeed, friend." Kinsman pushed up from the chair and started across the padded gym floor for the hatch that led to the downward-spiraling ladder. "Get the comm center on the horn," he commanded the youngsters around him. "Make sure they understand what's happening. Tell them I'm on my way down there and the techs had better be able to use every fucking laser on every fucking satellite we've got!"
"Yes, sir\" yelped one of the officers as Kinsman yanked the hatch open.
Level Three was iike slogging through knee-deep mud. One-half normal Earth gravity, and Kinsman was quickly out of breath. By the time the comm center crew made a chair available for him, his legs ached and his heart was thumping 468 heavily. Even the air felt soupy, humid and thick, hard to breathe.
The comm center reminded Kinsman of a string sextet flying through a Mozart allegro: wildly ordered activity, measured frenetic action. The comm techs were buzzing commands into their pin mikes; the giant insect-eye of display screens—bank on bank of them—showed strangely incongru- ous scenes.
The bright, soul-thrilling beauty of the broad Pacific, a globe-spanning expanse of blue water decorated with intricate patterns of dazzling white clouds, swirls of giant storms, files of cumulus puffs marching dutifully in response to sunlight and earthspin. How many submarines hidden in that beauty? How many missiles with hydrogen bombs tucked inside their nose caps?
The tense, sweat-streaked face of a technician urgently yammering into the earphone of a comm tech who sat nodding in front of that particular screen.
Captain Perry, standing in front of the elaborate fire control panel aboard Space Station Beta, talking to someone in what seemed to be an easy, professional, competent tone. Kinsman could not hear what he was saying, of course, unless the audio from that individual circuit was piped into the earphones that rested in his lap. The fire control panel's idiot lights were almost all green, Kinsman saw. The ABM satel- lites were in operational condition.
Display screens showed lovely rural Earthside scenery, where ICBM silos dotted the countryside. Half a dozen major cities. A Russian comm tech frowning as he talked with his American counterpart. No, Kinsman corrected himself. Not Russians or Americans anymore. Luniks. Selenites.
Kinsman took all this in with a single glance as he slumped heavily in the seat near the comm center's hatch.
"Reports look good," said the officer sitting next to him. "And we've got a dozen or so volunteers from the station's crew helping us. They decided to stay with us."
Kinsman nodded, and even that was an effort. For the first time it registered in his mind that three of the six techs working the consoles were women.
"1 need to be patched in to the top-priority network right 469 away/' he said wearily. "White House, Pentagon, SAC headquarters, commanders of the Atlantic and Pacific strike forces—the works."
"The gold-braid circuit. Yessir, can do," the youngster nodded easily, grinning. He started nicking fingers across the master keyboard.
He'd make a good piano player. Kinsman realized that he himself would not be able to play well in this gravity. Or at all, in a full Earth gee. He pushed everything to the back of his mind. Closing his eyes, he leaned his head back, annoyed momentarily that the chair they had given him had no headrest.
So far no missiles had been launched. So far the reports from all the space stations and the unmanned ABM satellites looked good. Now he had to make Washington aware of the new situation. Convince them that we can and will shoot down anything they launch.
He rubbed at the back of his neck, corded with tension and aching sullenly. It's not fair, dammitall! Jefferson had weeks to write his Declaration. I've only got minutes.
The display screens that filled the main bulkhead of the center's crowded compartment were beginning to show Earthside military men. Communications technicians at first, but quickly each one was supplanted by an officer; colonels and generals and a pair of admirals scowled or glared or licked their lips nervously, waiting for the message from Space Station Alpha. They were not accustomed to waiting.
