For Charlie, a bachelor vice president, almost all meals not taken alone were, to a degree, working meals, or formal engagements. Tonight, for a few hours, he became just one of the crowd. And he understood Morley's comment: only if he still wanted it.

Chandler covered his french fries liberally with catsup, another product Charlie had not seen at Moonbase. Jack finished one of the morsels off with obvious pleasure and looked around the table. "Anybody ever been in a life-and-death situation before?" he asked.

Evelyn nodded. "When I was five, I was pulled out of a burning building."

"You remember it?" asked Chandler.

"Oh, yes. Clear as day. In fact, it's the earliest thing in my life I can remember. It's sort of the day I became conscious."

"Were you scared?"

She smiled. "Yes. But of the firemen rather than the fire. They were big and they wore those odd coats and hats and masks."

"Anybody else?"

Morley said, "I got assaulted and left for dead by a gang once. In New York. They broke me up pretty good. Told me they were going to cut my throat."

"But they didn't?" asked the chaplain.

Morley opened his collar and showed them a scar. "They just didn't do a good job of it."

Charlie was horrified. For all the political rough and tumble, he'd lived a sheltered life. "Why'd they do it?" he asked.

"Who knows? I took the wrong picture, maybe. Or maybe I just got out of my car in the wrong part of town. I can tell you, it was the worst moment of my life."

"Worse than this?" asked Evelyn.

"Oh, yeah. Much worse than this. It was personal. Those kids wanted me dead. That's a terrible feeling, to find out that someone wants to kill you for no very good reason. But the comet. Hell, the comet doesn't give a damn. It doesn't know we're here. It's just a big dumb pile of ice blown out of somewhere." He shrugged. "Yeah, this is a lot easier. There's no hate mixed up in it anywhere."

There was a pause in the conversation, as if a significant moment had arrived. Charlie refilled everyone's glass. The wine poured slowly in the light gravity. "Here's to us," he said. They joined in the toast, and Charlie studied their eyes over the rims.

Jack Chandler offered another: "To both Tomikos," he said. "The woman and the comet. The woman because she gave us a warning, and the comet because it's brought us together tonight."

4.

Micro Flight Deck. 7:33 P.M.

The microbus lifted off for its last scheduled flight precisely on time. Saber watched the moonscape fall away. Bigfoot's voice sounded in her earphones. "Saber, the director wants to talk to Tony."

"Wait one." Tony was on the circuit with the pilot of the SSTO. She got his attention. "Mr. Chandler," she said.

"For me?"

"Put him through," Saber told the microphone.

Tony signed off with the SSTO.

"Stand by," said Bigfoot.

A new voice, precise, measured, weary: "Tony Casaway?"

"This is Casaway."

"Tony, this is Jack Chandler. I wanted to thank you for what you're doing. We're grateful."

"We want to get everybody out, sir."

"Don't we all? But we appreciate it. And I have a request. There's a TV reporter here with us. Keith Morley. You'll be taking him off, too. He'll want you to patch him through to his groundside relay."

"You want me to comply?"

"Yes. Please. Give him what he wants."

"Yes, sir. Will do."

"Good. It's a pleasure to have talked with you, Tony. Good luck."

Saber noticed no one had thanked her.

She looked down at the lunar surface.

"Looks as if we're moving up in the world," said Tony.

"Yeah. Well, you pull the right people out of the fire, it can do wonders for a career."

He looked at her as if she'd gone over a line.

"Hard to believe," she said.

"What's that?"

She pointed down. The entire bulk of the Moon lay between the comet impact site at Mare Muscoviense, in the northern hemisphere of Farside, and Moonbase. "With all that rock shielding it, you'd think Moonbase would be safe."

There were nine people in the passenger cabin, operational types and technicians, the people who maintained the power systems, the commcenter, and life support. And a couple of Bigfoot's technicians. They were the last group the Micro would deliver to the orbiting SSTO. Two more moonbuses would follow, and it would be over.

Except for the Micro's last run.

Saber was charged with monitoring inputs from ship's systems during launch, but she always made time to watch the moonscape. She loved these altitudes and this place, remote and stark, illuminated by the blue-white Earth. A casual visitor, gazing down into the 117-kilometer-wide crater, would not have noticed that women and men had walked there, had built there. For a range of practical reasons, Moonbase was buried. It would have taken a sharp eye from an altitude as close as a thousand meters to observe the antennas and the solar cells and the monorail. She preferred to believe, however, that it was not practicality that concealed Moonbase, but a sense of the fragile beauty of this world and a reluctance to repeat the old errors.

Not that it mattered now. The comet's glow pushed up past the horizon in three directions, signaling the approach of the monster. It was as if a gigantic sun was rising everywhere. The definition of distant peaks and crater walls had been sharpened. Beyond the western ringwall of Alphonsus, the black regolith of Mare Nubium, the Sea of Clouds, curved into the glare.

"Look at this," said Tony, switching on a computer simulation. A dime-sized disk and a tiny crescent, representing Earth and Moon, floated inside a white cone. The comet's tail.

"You'd think we'd be able to see it out here," said Saber. But the sky was black as ever. Only Earth seemed different. She wasn't sure, but it looked dimmer than usual, as if the sunlight were being turned aside.

"They're estimating the length of the tail," said Tony, "at seventy million kilometers. It goes all the way out to the orbit of Mars."

And it's the next thing to a vacuum, she thought.

As the Micro continued to rise into the lunar night, the summer-colored comet rose with them, and its light enfolded the Moon. Saber listened to the passengers react as they watched from their viewports.

She sensed that Tony's adrenalin was pumping constantly now. He actually seemed to be enjoying himself.

"Tony," she said, "do you think we can actually pull this off?"

He gave her a thumbs-up. "Sure," he said. "It'll be close, but we'll do it." He switched the comet display off the main screen. "Chandler says Keith Morley'll be with them. Broadcasting live from the Micro." He laughed. "We're going to be famous, Saber."

"As long as we're not dead."

He caught the tone in her voice. "Hey," he said, "Alisa. We'll be fine." Tony rarely used her given name. Only when he was striving for intimacy. In this case, to allow him to reassure her. "Bigfoot thinks we can do it."

"Bigfoot thinks he's throwing his life away."

Tony's expression darkened. He was usually amiable, but this was serious stuff. "That's not true."

"Of course it's true."

"He agreed to stay. Nobody held a gun to his head."

"Look, Tony. He was responsible for the screwup that put us in this position. What did you expect him to say when you told him you needed a volunteer?"

She knew that hurt him, but it was true. He denied it, of course. "Bigfoot wouldn't stay if he didn't think we could do it." He glared at her. "Goddammit, Saber, don't come if you don't think we can make this work. I can manage alone if I have to."

She looked at him a long time. "Tony, do you know you never asked me whether I wanted to do this?"