Unbidden, a line from a literature class came to him: 'The ides of March are come,' Caesar says to the soothsayer, as he goes into the Senate, deriding the old man's warning. 'Ay, Caesar,' says the soothsayer; 'but not gone.'

We've stopped them, Doug told himself. But for how long?

They were all watching him: Jinny, Falcone, even Gordette, standing alone off by the wall. Every technician and specialist in the control center had his eyes on Doug. I wonder were Edith is? he asked himself. Did she go to our quarters for a nap? Bet not.

Edith was napping, but not in the quarters she shared with Doug.

She had tottered back to the university's studio, dog tired now that the adrenaline of being on the air had drained out of her, but intent on getting a camera and recording the doings in the control center.

She looked in on the editing booth, still hot and sweaty from her hours in it, feeling slightly nettled that she didn't know for certain how many hours she'd spent broadcasting to Global News and, through Global, to the world.

She started for one of the hand-sized cameras resting in its rack, but Zimmerman's big plush couch looked too inviting to resist. Just a few minutes' snooze, she told herself. Stretching out on it, she was asleep within seconds.

"You heard the secretary-general's orders," said the volunteer. 'We will bring you victory."

Giap turned to the leader of the self-styled Sacred Seven, sitting beside him on the tractor's bench.

"Not victory," he snarled. "Annihilation."

The young Japanese must have smiled behind his helmet visor. "As the secretary-general said, so be it."

The colonel had no reply. Yet he was thinking, I could still cut their electrical power lines. How long could they hold out then? A few hours, at most. They would have to surrender to me. That would be better than allowing these insane suicide bombers to kill everyone.

"I suggest," the volunteer said,'that you re-establish negotiations with the Moonbase commander, while your troopers help us to break into the plasma vent tunnels, as per our plan."

Giap noticed a slight but definite stress on the word our.

Precisely one hour after his conversation with the Peacekeeper commander ended, Doug sat at his console again and re-opened the communications link.

"Have you spoken with your superiors, Colonel?" he asked.

"Yes. They are reluctant to admit that we have reached a stalemate here," came the colonel's voice.

Doug wished he could see the man's face. He sensed a tone he hadn't heard in their first discussion.

"What are you trying to say?" he asked.

"I am responsible directly to the secretary-general of the United Nations," Giap said. "My orders come directly from him."

Doug leaned forward anxiously in his chair. "And what are those orders?"

"He expects me to accept your surrender."

Doug heard Anson mutter behind him, "When he can breathe vacuum, that's when we'll surrender."