She smiled slightly. "He'll go up in a cloud of purple smoke. But don't worry; even though he's the board chairman now I can keep him in his place."

"Independence," Anson murmured.

Doug said, "We're pretty much self-sufficient, as far as energy and food are concerned."

"How long is "pretty much?"' Joanna asked.

"We can go for months without importing anything from Earth, I betcha," Anson replied.

"Really?" Doug asked.

She shrugged. "Condiments might be a problem. Ketchup, seasonings, salt."

"We can manufacture salt with nanomachines," Doug said. "Ought to be simple enough."

"Where can you get the sodium and chlorine?" Anson retorted. "Not out of the regolith."

Doug smiled a little. "Out of the reprocessors. Recycle the garbage."

Anson made a sour face.

"Could we really get along for months without importing anything from Earth?" Joanna asked.

"Maybe a year," Anson said. "If you don't mind eating your soyburgers without mustard."

Brudnoy flexed his gnarled fingers. "Aren't you glad that I insisted on planting onions and garlic, along with my flowers?"

"Do you have any jalapeno peppers out at the farm?" Anson asked.

Brudnoy shook his head.

"A year," Joanna mused. "This ought to be settled long before that."

"One way or another," said Brudnoy morosely.

"Pharmaceuticals might be a problem," Doug said, turning to the wall screen on his right. With the laser he changed the display from a camera view of the empty rocket launching pads to an inventory of the base's pharmaceutical supplies. "We've been bringing them up on a monthly schedule. Got a…' he studied the display screen briefly, "… three-month supply on hand."

"Maybe we can use nanomachines instead," Joanna suggested. It was an open secret that her youthful appearance was due to nanotherapy that tightened sagging muscles and kept her skin tone smooth.

"I can talk to Cardenas about that," Anson replied.

"And Professor Zimmerman," Doug said.

'You talk to Zimmerman," she snapped. "He always tries to bully me."

Brudnoy volunteered, I'll see Zimmerman."

"You?"

With a guilty smile, the Russian said, "He and I have been working on a little project together: using nanomachines to make beer."

"Lev!" Joanna glared at her husband.

Brudnoy raised a placating hand. "Don't worry. So far, we've accomplished less than nothing. The stuff is so bad not even Zimmerman will drink it."

Doug chuckled at his stepfather's self-deprecating manner. Then he said, "Okay. Our first move is to declare independence and-"

"How can we let anyone on Earth know we're applying for U.N. membership if all the communications links are cut off?" Joanna asked.

"We can talk to Earth," Anson assured her. "Radio, TV, even laser beams if we need 'em. We don't need the commsats; just. squirt our messages straight to the ground antennas."

"The question is," said Brudnoy, "will anyone on Earth respond to us?"

"They will," Doug said. "Once they learn what we're doing. And there's always the news media."

"Ugh!" said Joanna.