Edith knew who Edward R. Murrow was, but she wasn't certain of what the Blitz might be. She didn't fret over it. McGrath wants real-time coverage of the battle! I've got to tell Doug. This could be the biggest publicity break of all for Moonbase, showing the brave unarmed Lunatics desperately trying to hold off an army of U.N. Peacekeepers with their missiles and guns and all. Wow!

"Can you do it?" McGrath asked, almost plaintively.

"Mr McGrath," Edith said, slowly, feeling the strength welling up inside her,'do you realize that if we show the battle in real-time it's going to give Faure and the U.N. a terrible black eye? I mean, they'll look like monsters, attacking these unarmed people."

The three seconds were agony now. At last McGrath nodded grimly. "That's right. I'm fully aware of it. I was wrong to back Faure against Moonbase. It may be too late to save the base, but I want the Global's viewers to see what the little shit is doing to you. I want the world to see it!"

"Okay!" Edith said happily. "You've got it!"

He broke into a fleshy grin when her acceptance reached him. "Can you do it? How much of the battle can you actually show?"

Grinning back at him, Edith replied, "Moonbase has security cameras in every corridor, in every lab and workshop. And outside, too. I can show you the crater floor outside the base and even a view of the Mare Nubium, on the other side of the ringwall mountains. We'll get it all, don't worry."

Three seconds ticked by, then McGrath said, "Great! Do it. Don't worry about expenses."

She signed off, almost delirious with joy. But as she hurried down the corridors to find Doug and tell him that Global News was now on his side, she realized that what she would really be showing the world was how the Peacekeepers marched into Moonbase and either accepted a surrender or blew the place apart.

BASE DIRECTOR'S OFFICE

"Take a look," said Jinny Anson.

She touched the keyboard on her desk and the wallscreen lit up to show a satellite view of the beautiful crater Copernicus.

Doug paid no attention to the crater's symmetry, however. He stared at the array of tractors and other vehicles parked on the plain of Mare Imbrium, just outside Yamagata's base, Nippon One.

"No wonder they're not flying here on Jobbers," Anson muttered. "There aren't enough rockets on the whole Moon to lift that much equipment."

Doug felt almost breathless. "There must be enough transport there for a thousand troops."

Bam Gordette, sitting on the other side of the table that butted Anson's desk, said quietly, "Not that many. More than half those vehicles'll be carrying food, water, air, ammo, missiles—logistics."

Doug sank back in his chair. "How many troops do you estimate, then?"

Gordette waggled a hand. "Three hundred, three-fifty, tops."

"That's enough to do the job," Anson said. To Doug. She pointedly kept from looking at Gordette.