Munasinghe would rather not. It looked as if they were going to crash and kill everyone aboard.

Forcing his voice to remain even, he asked, "Are you still receiving transmissions from Moonbase?"

"Yeah," said the copilot. "They say all four of their landing pads are occupied and there's no place for us to put down."

"Is that believable?"

"Sure," the pilot said. "Why the hell not?"

The astronauts were both civilians from the transport line that had provided the Clippership to the U.K. For a fat fee, of course. Munasinghe resented their informality with him. True military personnel would have been preferable. And properly respectful.

"Then how will you land?" Munasinghe asked.

"We're coming down on a trajectory that'll put us on their landing pad number three. At T minus fifteen we'll start scanning the Alphonsus crater floor. If all of their pads really are occupied we'll pick out a smooth area to set down."

"You can do this in fifteen minutes' time?" Munasinghe demanded.

The copilot chuckled. "Don't you fret none. We can do it in fifteen seconds if we have to."

"Fifteen seconds!" Munasinghe's knees went weak at the thought.

The pilot explained, "What he means is, we can hover over the crater floor and pick out our landing site, then jink over to it and sit her down. Nothing to it."

"Piece of cake," said the copilot.

"Ten minutes to rotation," said a synthesized voice from the speaker overhead.

"Enjoy the view while you can," the pilot said to Munasinghe.

"I must get my troops ready," he replied. He thought he heard the astronauts laughing at him as he closed the cockpit hatch behind him.

Edith Elgin felt as if she'd been swallowed by some weird creature made of plastic and metal. The spacesuit helmet smelled kind of like a new car, and she could hear the tiny buzz of air fans from inside the suit, as if there were some gnats droning in there with her.

She had been relieved when Munasinghe's order for everyone to suit up had finally interrupted Killifer's nonstop monologue of hate. With a smirking grin, Killifer had offered to help Edith get into her spacesuit, but she declined as politely as she could manage, unwilling to give the man a chance to play grab-ass with her. Instead, Edith asked two of the women troopers to help her worm into the spacesuit and check out all the seals and connections.

Killifer did not suit up, she saw. He was going to remain aboard the Clippership with the two astronauts in the cockpit.

Looking through the open visor of her helmet, she saw what appeared to be a collection of fat, bulbous snow monsters, all in white, with human faces peeping out at their tops. Funny, she thought: all the times I've been to space stations I've never had to get into a spacesuit. Good thing, too. I must look like a roly-poly eskimo in this outfit.