She was almost the mercenary's own height, and now that she was almost nose-to-nose with him he saw that her size was probably muscle, not fat.

He put on a smile. "Doug's worried about sabotage," he said. The best lies are always based on the truth, he knew.

"Sabotage? Are you kidding?"

The mercenary shook his head slowly. "No, I'm not kidding, Liebowitz. We're at war, aren't we? Under siege?"

"But who the frick's gonna sabotage anything here? Everybody here's for Moonbase. We're all on Stavenger's side."

"Yeah? Were you at the meeting in The Cave last week?"

"Sure."

"How many people there wanted to go back Earthside right away?"

Liebowitz's expression turned thoughtful. "Well, a few, I guess."

"And they won't be able to go until this war is settled, right?"

"Oh, I dunno. Stavenger talked about arranging an evacuation flight for 'em."

"You seen any evacuation flight arrive? The U.N. wants to keep us bottled up here until we cave in.' 'Yeah, maybe…"

The mercenary was enjoying sparring with her. He began to think it might be fun to share a meal with her, get to know her better. She was white, of course, but maybe…

He pushed those thoughts aside. "Well, don't you think that maybe some disgruntled technician or administrator might figure that a little sabotage here or there will help make us surrender and end the war? Then he can go home."

Liebowitz almost bought it. But after a few moments she said, "Naahhh. I just don't see anybody who's lived here for more'n ten minutes going around sabotaging anything. That could kill somebody, for chrissakes."

"Maybe so," the mercenary said. "But Stavenger's worried about it and he asked me to check out his suit."

She puffed out a breath between her teeth. "Okay. Okay. It sounds wonky to me, but if the boss wants you to check his suit, go right ahead."

She folded her arms across her chest and stood there, solidly planted, not budging. The mercenary went through the motions of checking Doug's hard suit, wishing she would go away, knowing she wouldn't, and telling himself that he'd have to come back when Liebowitz was off duty and some less dedicated technician was on the job.

"When's your shift end?" he asked as he looked over the seal ring on Doug's helmet.

"Same's yours."

"I'm working directly for Stavenger. No shifts; it's twenty-four hours a day for me."

She h'mphed. "Well, I'm on the day shift, as you can see. I finish at four, just like everybody else."

The mercenary returned the helmet to its rack, above the suit. "How about having dinner with me? Seven o'clock, in The Cave?"

She gave him a quizzical look. The mercenary knew exactly what was going through her mind. Would she want to be seen having dinner with a black man?

"Okay," she said guardedly. "Seven o'clock at The Cave."

It took him a couple of heartbeats to realize she had accepted. "See you there," he said, with a genuine smile.