Another screen showed the crowd in The Cave. They seemed calm enough. They're safe, he told himself. Even if Wix's gun fails and the nuke blasts out the solar farms, they'll be unharmed. We'll have to surrender, I guess, but they'll be safe.

Then a new fear assailed him. If they knock out our electrical power we'll only have a few hours' worth of juice from the backup fuel cells. The Peacekeepers must have emergency power generators with them. They've got to! Otherwise everybody here will die in a couple of hours, asphyxiated from lack of air to breathe.

The Peacekeepers won't want to kill us all, he told himself. They'll have emergency power supplies with them. Otherwise this'll be a slaughter.

"Why aren't you in The Cave?" Kris Cardenas asked.

Zimmerman looked up from the scanning probe microscope's image-intensifier screen at his unexpected visitor. Keiji Inoguchi, on the other side of the room at the processor control board, stared at the sandy-haired, trim-figured Cardenas as if she were a video star.

"And why should I be at The Cave? Am I expected at a party?"

"Everyone who's not assigned to a defense task is supposed to go to The Cave."

"Pah!" Zimmerman snapped his fingers.

"Doug Stavenger's orders," Cardenas said.

"So why are you not in The Cave?" Zimmerman demanded.

She grinned as if she enjoyed fencing with him. "I'm on duty at the infirmary. I just ran up here to see how much of a supply of therapeutic nanobugs you had left for us."

"We are still working on them," Zimmerman said.

Turning her cornflower blue eyes to Inoguchi, Cardenas asked, "And you're helping him?"

Inoguchi bowed deeply, then replied, "It is my privilege to assist Professor Zimmerman, yes."

"But you're one of the U.N. inspectors, aren't you?"

"Yes, that is true. But the medical work we are doing here is beyond the scope of politics."

Zimmerman scowled. "He's learning everything he can in preparation for running the nanolab once Yamagata takes over the base."

Inoguchi looked stricken. "I am assisting you for humanitarian reasons!"

"You are spying on me," Zimmerman grumbled.

"Now Willi," Cardenas intervened, "you can't attack Professor Inoguchi like that! It's not polite and it isn't fair."

"Yah. Of course. Only it is true."

"It's not Professor Inoguchi's fault that we're being attacked," Cardenas said. "I think it's very generous of him to assist us."

Inoguchi said, "I am most honored to work with you both."

"And looking forward to running this lab once the Peacekeepers have driven us out," Zimmerman insisted.

Squaring his shoulders visibly, Inoguchi said, "Yes, that is true. What would you expect me to do, go back to Japan and allow someone else to take over this laboratory?"

Cardenas laughed. "He's right, Willi. Why shouldn't he want to run this facility? It's the most advanced in the world."

"In the solar system!" Zimmerman corrected.

To Cardenas, Inoguchi said, "I have offered a position here to Professor Zimmerman. I would be most honored if you, a Nobel Laureate, would remain here to continue your work."