"It's more difficult, but doable. I'd worry about deactivating them, though."

"Two," Doug went on, "what's to stop the gobblers from i destroying our solar farms, the launch pads and their equipment, even the mass driver?"

Anson pursed her lips. Then she grinned. "Yeah, it would be like shooting ourselves in the foot, wouldn't it?"

"Shooting ourselves in the head," Clemens said, with surprising fervor. Doug realized he wanted no part of nanomachines that ate metals.

Turning in his chair to look at Gordette, Doug asked, "Bam, if you were in charge of the Peacekeepers, how would you go about taking Moonbase?"

Gordette shook his head. "I wasn't an officer, just a dogface."

"You're as close to a general as we've got here," Anson said.

"What do you think they're going to do?" Doug repeated.

Slowly, reluctantly, Gordette got to his feet. All eyes focused on him. "Well, to begin with, I agree with Mr Clemens.

They'll start with a bombardment to knock out our electrical power."

"Nuclear warheads?"

"Most likely. But they might use a conventional warhead for our nuclear generator, if they know its location precisely enough."

"They've got the same maps we use," Falcone grumbled.

"Then what?" Doug asked.

"Most likely they'd have already landed troops outside the crater, on the Mare Nubium side. They'll wait for the bombardment, then come over Wodjohowitcz Pass to get into the base."

Doug saw most of the people around the table nodding agreement.

"If our electrical power is out, all they'll have to do is knock on our door. We'll have to surrender to them."

"We have the fuel cells," Anson said.

Gordette shrugged. "How long do they give us? A few days? A few hours? The Peacekeepers will be occupying the crater floor; we'll have no chance to repair the solar farms. We'll be forced to give up."

"A nuclear blast probably'd screw up our radiators, too," I Falcone pointed out. "We'd be boiling in here inside of a few hours."

The meeting became grim, depressed. No one could offer a way to counter the scenario Gordette had drawn.

Then Kadar spoke up. "It may not be necessary for the Peacekeepers to destroy so much of our generating equipment."

"Oh?"

"All they have to do is put some biological agents in the drinking water we bring in from the south polar ice fields."

"Poison us?" Clemens blurted, looking shocked. Almost smiling, Kadar said, "It wouldn't have to be fatal. A virus that causes a disabling disease. An especially nasty variation of influenza, for instance. Or viral pneumonia. Brought in through our drinking water."

"We don't use that much new water," Anson pointed out. "Our recycling's pretty efficient."

"Perhaps so, but over a time scale of months? They could make us all deathly ill."

"Do we have to defend the south pole, too?" Anson wondered aloud.

With a shake of his head, Doug replied, "We just don't have the resources."