That's what I want, Doug said to himself. Short, strong, direct.

He cleared his throat and called to the computer, "Dictation.' Then, after a moment's thought, he said slowly and clearly:

"Moonbase hereby declares its independence from Earth and asks for admission to the United Nations."

He stared at the words for a long moment, then decided they said what he intended to say. Briefly he thought of running them past his mother and Lev Brudnoy, but he shook his head at the idea. They'd want to tinker with the statement, maybe hedge it or decorate it with reasons and arguments. Ear candy. I'm in command, we've all agreed to that and we've all agreed to declaring our independence. This is the message we send to Faure and the rest of Earth.

Doug called up the communications desk at the command center.

"Beam this message to U.N. headquarters in New York," he said, "and spray it to every antenna on Earth. All the commsats, too. Send it by laser to Kiribati and to Masterson Corporation's headquarters in Savannah."

The chief comm tech on duty was a young man that Doug had played against in Moonbase's annual low-gravity Olympic games. He grinned as he scanned Doug's message.

"Right away, boss," he said.

Doug blanked his screen and leaned back in his foam chair. Okay, it's done. Now to see if it has any effect.

TOUCHDOWN MINUS 112 HOURS 17 MINUTES

Although Lunar University had no real campus, its heart was the plushly-equipped studio where teaching was done through electronic links to Earth and virtual reality programs.

Wilhelm Zimmerman liked his creature comforts. He demanded them. He had come to Moonbase because the 'verdammt treaty' had closed his university department in Basel. He had given up cigars and strudel and even beer, but he still managed to overeat, under-exercise, and drive Moonbase's supply and maintenance staffs into frenzies with his demands for couches and padded chairs big enough to take his girth comfortably.

He still dressed in the gray, old-fashioned three-piece suits he had brought to Moonbase with him seven years earlier. He had personally designed a set of nanomachines to keep the suits in perfect repair, renewing fraying cuffs and worn spots—atom by atom. The nanomachines even kept his clothes clean.

Still, as he sat sprawled in his favorite sofa, he looked like a rumpled mess, his jacket unbuttoned and flapping loose, his vest stretched tight across his ample stomach, tie loose from shirt collar, the halo of stringy gray hair surrounding his bald pate as dishevelled as King Lear in the storm scene.

"A direct trajectory here?" he was asking Doug. "It is customary first to go to a space station, yah?"

"I think they might be worried that most of the people in the space stations are on our side," Doug said.