She watched her son's image in the display screen. Once he heard her words he shook his head. "The Peacekeepers are already on their way here, Mom. No one's going to call off the attack. Not now."

Alarm tingled through Joanna like an electric current. "You're certain?"

"In forty-eight hours or less we'll be able to see them coming across Mare Nubium."

Joanna suddenly felt as if someone had ripped out her insides. All these weeks she had known it would come to this, yet she realized now that she had desperately clung to an unconscious hope that it could all be averted.

"You'll have to surrender to them, then," she said dully.

Three seconds passed. Doug replied, "Maybe."

"You can't fight them! You don't have any weapons."

Again the agonizing wait. Doug said, "We don't have any guns, that's true enough. But we're not beaten yet."

"Doug, what are you thinking of? You can't fight an armed battalion of trained Peacekeeper troops! You'll get yourself killed! You'll destroy Moonbase!"

He hadn't waited for her response. He was saying, in a calm, carefully measured tone. "I can't tell you what we're planning, Mom, because even a tight laser link spreads enough for some snooper to eavesdrop. But we're not going to obediently open our hatches and let the Peacekeepers take over Moonbase."

"Doug, they'll kill you!"

He smiled at her words. "If we surrender and have to return Earthside, I'm a dead man anyway."

Joanna started to reply, then realized that her son was right. He had nothing to lose by fighting for Moonbase.

"Naw, I don't mind working the night shift," Killifer was saying. "At least I'll be indoors, under the roof, if it rains."

The security chief looked slightly uneasy. "I don't usually put newcomers inside the house," he said, "but Jonesie's come down with some virus and we need a replacement for him right away."

"It's okay," Killifer repeated, trying hard not to sound eager. I'll take his shift."

"You already did you regular shift; I don't like asking you to double up."

Killifer shrugged as carelessly as he could. "Four to midnight is easy. I wouldn't go to sleep until after midnight, anyway."

The chief swivelled back and forth slowly in his desk chair, making it squeak slightly, eying Killifer as if he weren't certain he was doing the right thing. Killifer sat in front of the little desk, doing his best to appear nonchalant.

Then he got an inspiration. "I get overtime pay for this, don't I?"

The chief visibly relaxed. "Yeah, sure. Time and a half."

Killifer nodded as if the money was his reason for agreeing to the extra shift so readily. "Double shift isn't so bad," he said. "It's only for a few days, right?"

"Yeah," said the chief. "Until Jonesie comes back."

"I'd just be spending my pay in some bar or someplace," Killifer said. "This way I make plastic instead of spending it."