"So what do you recommend, mon colonel?"

The gold-tinted visor of Giap's spacesuit might as well have been a blank piece of modernistic sculpture, Faure thought. He would get no brilliance from this man, no military genius.

Giap said, "I recommend that we cut the electrical lines from their solar cell arrays into the base itself. That will cut off their electrical power and force them to surrender."

"No.' Faure was surprised to hear his own response.

He realized that he had made his decision before he consciously recognized it. Yamagata wants Moonbase intact, so he can take it over and use it for his own purposes. I want Moonbase destroyed, Faure finally understood. Utterly destroyed. Its inhabitants killed. I want it levelled the way the Romans razed Carthage. And then salt strewn across the ruins to assure that nothing will grow there again.

Moonbase has defied me, and for that they must be punished.

Why should I allow Yamagata to have it as a gift? He will continue to use nanotechnology and show all the world that I am merely his puppet. But that is not the case, no, not at all. Georges Henri Faure is no one's puppet! I am secretary-general of the United Nations and Moonbase must bow to my will or be destroyed. And Yamagata must understand that I do not serve him; he serves me.

Giap was asking, "You don't want me to cut off their electrical power?"

"No," Faure repeated, realizing that it was all playing into his hands. Everything was going to be exactly as he wanted it. "Use ths volunteers."

It was all falling perfectly into place, after all, Faure thought. Instead of accepting Moonbsse's surrender I will smite them. The nanotechnology treaty will be enforced; Yamagata will not be allowed to make a mockery of it. Or of me.

"Sir, I want to be certain that I have understood you correctly," Giap said. "Are you ordering me to use the volunteers?"

"Yes, mon colonel, that is an order."

The delay from Giap seemed to take longer than three seconds this time. "They will destroy Moonbase," he said, his voice hushed. "There will be many casualties."

"So be it," Faure replied. Better to destroy Moonbase than to allow Yamagata or anyone else to make a farce of my power, he told himself.

"Their hour's almost up," Anson pointed out.

Doug had been pacing around the control center, getting some circulation back in his legs, working out the stiffness of his back and shoulders.

The center had been in a state of suspended animation since Doug's discussion with Colonel Giap. Is it over? Have we won? Or will there be another attack, something new, something we haven't thought of, something we're not prepared to meet?

Why haven't they tried to cut the lines from the solar farms? Doug asked himself. Is it because they thought their nuke would do that job for them? We're still vulnerable, still hanging by a thread.