"Too bad for them. They can't just stop my work like that.' He snapped the fingers of his left hand.

"Everything's ground to a halt. We're at war, you know."

"Pah!"

"Nothing's going out, really. There's a Peacekeeper troopship on its way here."

"What has that got to do with building the Farside observatory?"

Clemens was a practical engineer, and he recognized a stone wall when he saw one. "Well, I've got to turn off here. I'm helping the nanotech crew to shut down the bugs building the Clippership."

"Goodbye, Harry," said Kadar.

"Hope you can get what you want, but I wouldn't count on it."

"Goodbye, Harry."

Another minute's march brought Kadar to the base director's office. He rapped once on the door and opened it.

Jinny Anson was sitting behind the desk, talking on the phone to some woman. She glanced up at Kadar and waved him to a chair in front of her desk. From the expression on her face, Kadar realized that she knew she was in for trouble.

"Where is Stavenger?" Kadar asked as soon as Anson clicked off her phone screen.

"Doug's taking charge of the war. I'm the base director pro-tern.' Before Kadar could draw a breath she added, "And all work outside has been suspended, Zoltan, not just yours."

"I'm not interested in the rest of them. It's my work that is important."

"Sure," Anson said good naturedly. "But we can't hang a surveillance satellite over Farside until this business with the Peacekeepers is cleared up."

"I don't see why. It's an uncrewed satellite. I will take care of all the monitoring myself. I have the programs all in place."

With a patient sigh, Anson explained, "Look, there's a

Moonwar

Clippership full of Peacekeepers on their way here to take over the base. We're going to try to stop them—don't ask me how, that's Doug's problem."

"But what has this to do with my work?" Kadar couldn't help putting a stress on the word my.

"The U.N.'s already taken over the L-l satellite. Maybe they've got Peacekeepers there, maybe not, we don't know."

"But again, what has this-"

"They're watching us, Zoltan. They're watching every move we make. With telescopes and radar and every other kind of sensor they've got."

"So?"

"So what's their reaction gonna be if we launch a rocket? They won't just ignore it. Maybe they've already got high-power lasers at L-l and they'll zap your rocket before they can figure out where it's heading."

"Nonsense! We'll simply tell them what the rocket's mission is."

"And they'll believe you?" Anson's earnest expression eased into a sly smile. "They'll believe a Hungarian?"

Kadar grinned back at her. "That might be a problem," he conceded.

"We don't want to do anything that'll give the UN a reason to start bombarding us. Your rocket stays in the shed until this crisis is over."

"Bombard us? That's idiotic. We're buried deep enough so that even nuclear bombs won't harm us."