"Yeah, you've made it so easy to be loved and accepted."

"The only thing I've made easy is being black, so you can spot me at a distance."

"What the hell's this black business got to do with it?"

"You see any other black people up here?"

Liebowitz almost laughed at him. "My supervisor's black. There's dozens of Afro-Americans and blacks from other countries here.' She turned in her chair and pointed. "Look. Black people. And Asians. Hell, they even let Italians up here!"

"Very funny."

"The first American astronaut on Mars was black."

"Big deal."

"Stop feeling sorry for yourself."

"Okay. Good advice. I'll do that," he mumbled.

Liebowitz glared at him like a disappointed mother. "You really tried to kill him?"

"I slit his throat. All right? Is that what you wanted to hear? My fuckin' confession?"

He said it loudly enough so that people at the nearest tables turned to stare at him.

"What I want to hear," Liebowitz said, her voice low, "is where you're going from here."

"Straight to hell," Gordette said.

"So you're going to isolate yourself, build a wall and not let anybody near you."

He pointed to the ring of empty tables around them. "You see anybody trying to make friends with me?"

"I am," she said.

He blinked, uncomprehending.

"I'm having lunch with you, aren't I?" Liebowitz said. "Maybe you can tell me the story of your life and make me believe that you're something more than just a hired killer."

Ben Bova arrrrrrrrrrrgggh and no arrivals of lunar cargo carriers. The manufacturing facility had shut down for lack of raw materials. No lunar transfer vehicles needed maintenance or repair; they were all hanging silent and useless in weightless geodesic cocoons that protected them from incoming radiation and the occasional meteoroids that peppered cislunar space. The tourist hotel was still running, but its business had dropped sharply since the war against Moonbase had started.

Jill Meyers gazed sadly through an observation port in the hotel module. She had helped to build Masterson, back in the days when she'd been a government astronaut. She was accustomed to seeing spacesuited figures bustling from module to module, jetting along in solo maneuvering units or riding the bare-bones shuttlecraft called broomsticks. But now the whole region was quiet, empty. This war was costing Masterson Corporation millions of dollars per day, and even though the U.N. promised reparations, Meyers knew that nothing could repay time lost, careers interrupted.

"There you are!"

Jill turned from the circular glassteel observation port to see Edan McGrath standing in the hatch. His sizable bulk almost filled the hatchway, the lighting from the central corridor silhouetting him dramatically.

"You finally got here," Meyers said, taking a step toward him.

"I've been looking all over this tin can for you," he replied gruffly. "Come on, let's eat. I haven't had a bite since breakfast."