He wants to get the Peacekeepers to go on back to Earth, Edith realized, before they do any real damage to Moonbase. He's smooth, this Stavenger guy, Edith told herself.

For nearly an hour Stavenger talked with Lieutenant Hansen, soothingly, sanely, trying to move from confrontation to compromise.

Then a new thought struck Edith. If Stavenger's successful, we'll all pack up and go back to Earth. I'll never see the inside of Moonbase! I'll never get to interview any of their people. All I'll have is a story about the Peacekeepers being humiliated, and the suits upstairs might not even want to run it!

The hell with that, she told herself. I've got to get inside the base. I've got to see this Stavenger guy and the other rebels.

But how?

There was only one way that she could think of. Hansen was still talking with Stavenger, the other lieutenant standing glumly by him, the rest of the troopers out on the crater floor, standing, sitting, pacing restlessly.

Slowly, without calling attention to herself, Edith sidled away from the Peacekeeper officers, toward the lip of the open airlock hatch. It was much bigger than anything she had expected to see at Moonbase, big enough to allow two tractors through, side by side.

They wouldn't let me die from their nanobugs, Edith reassured herself. They didn't want any of the troopers to get killed, after all. They'll come and get me. If they don't, I'll just run back out here again.

If I have time, she added.

Okay, Edith asked herself. How big a risk are you willing to take for an exclusive interview with the Moonbase rebels?

She hesitated one moment more. Hansen and Stavenger were still talking: something about Mrs Brudnoy coming back Earthside with the Peacekeepers to negotiate face-to-face with Faure.

Edith took a deep breath of canned air, then started to run as hard as she could in the cumbersome spacesuit across the smooth rock floor of the Moonbase garage. The floor that still teemed with deadly nanobugs.

TOUCHDOWN PLUS 2 HOURS 6 MINUTES

Doug tried to keep the tension out of his voice. It felt weird, trying to negotiate with someone you can't see. Why did the lieutenant decide to stay off to one side of the hatch, where our outside cameras can't pick him up? Is there a reason for that, or is it just a fluke?

His throat was getting dry from so much steady talking. Somebody handed him a tumbler of water and he sipped at it gratefully.

No one had left the control center. They were still gathered around him. Doug could feel the heat of their bodies, the sweat of their anxiety.

On the screens before him Doug saw the empty garage and a good swathe of the floor of the crater, where most of the Peacekeeper troops seemed to be milling about aimlessly. We should count them, he thought as he talked with Hansen, make certain they're all accounted for.