"At whom?" Doug's mother asked testily.

"Peacekeeper troops," said Doug.

Everyone in the office looked startled at the thought.

"You don't think they'd really go that far, do you?" Anson asked, looking worried for the first time.

Doug picked up his laser pointer and aimed its red spot at one of the icons lining the top of the wall screen on his left. The wall became a schematic display of the Earth-Moon system, with clouds of satellites orbiting the Earth. A dozen navigational satellites clung to low orbits around the Moon, and the big crewed station at the L-l position still showed as a single green dot.

"No traffic," Doug said. "This morning's LTV's stopped at L-l. Nothing at all moving between LEO and here."

"Not yet," muttered Brudnoy.

"They wouldn't invade us," Joanna said firmly. "That little Quebecer hasn't got the guts."

Brudnoy ran a bony finger across his short gray beard. No matter how carefully he trimmed it, the beard somehow looked shaggy all the time.

"That little Quebecer," he reminded his wife, "has fought his way to the top of the United Nations. And now he's gotten the U.N. to declare us in violation of the nanotech treaty."

Joanna frowned impatiently. "We've been violating that treaty since it was written."

"But now your little Quebecer has obtained the authority to send Peacekeeper troops here to enforce the treaty on us," Brudnoy continued.

"You really think it'll come to that?" Anson asked again, edging forward slightly in her chair.

"Sooner or later," Doug said.

"They know we can't stop using nanomachines," Joanna said bitterly. "They know they'll be destroying Moonbase if they prevent us from using them."

"That's what they're going to do, though," said Brudnoy, growing more gloomy with each word.

"Then we'll have to resist them," Doug said.

"Fight the Peacekeepers?" Anson seemed startled at the thought. "But-"

"I didn't say fight," Doug corrected. "I said resist."

"How?"

"I've been studying the legal situation," Doug said. "We could declare our independence."

His mother looked more irked than puzzled. "What good would that do?"

"As an independent nation, we wouldn't sign the nanotech treaty, so it wouldn't apply to us."

Brudnoy raised his brows. "But would the U.N. recognize us as an independent nation? Would they admit us to membership?"

"Faure would never allow it," Joanna said. "The little Quebecer's got the whole U.N. wrapped around his manicured finger."

"How would the corporation react if we declared independence?" Jinny Anson asked.

"Kiribati couldn't do anything about it," said Doug.

Brudnoy sighed painfully. "If they hadn't knuckled under to Faure and signed the treaty-"

"They didn't have much choice, really," said Doug. Looking straight at his mother, he went on, "But what about Masterson? How's your board going to react to our independence?"

"I'll handle the board of directors," Joanna replied flatly.

"And Rashid?"