"You're better than Chang, Sammi. Even he says so."

"But-"

"Trust me on this one, Samantha. I'm the smartest man in the world, remember? I recognize the

exceptional genius when I see it."

"Well . . . thank you," was all she could say. And though she denied it, she knew what Dykstra meant.

She had always had a good feel for how to solve a problem, for which approaches made sense and which didn't, and hadn't realized until grad school that the level of her talent was virtually unique.There was a buzz at the door. Nachtegall had arrived to take her home. She said good-bye to Dykstra, but she knew she'd had more than just a unique encounter with a legend-she'd found a new friend. And . . . something more. But she couldn't quite put her finger on it. * * *

If the Sunshine Bob had left at the door had suffered from cloudy skies, the girl he flew back to Luna

City was as bright as a crisp, clear, Rocky Mountain afternoon."Oh, Bob! He was everything you said he was, and more. He was so kind, and down to earth, and brilliant! And there I was, talking to the legend, and . . . and . . ."

"Holding your own?"

"Yes! He treated me like an equal. And I think he liked me, apart from my abilities, I think he liked me as a person." Her smile lit the interior of the shuttle, and dispelled the shadows outside."I get the picture," Nachtegall said. Dykstra was something else. Even at his age, he could still charm the young ladies. The lieutenant wished Samantha would gush about him that way.

Later, Nachtegall reported to Moore the bare details of Samantha's visit. The major wasn't interested in hearing more. Then Bob went to Dykstra's to see what the old professor's view was of Sunshine."What a thoroughly delightful woman," Dykstra said. "And what an appropriate nickname.

'Sunshine'-it's obvious how she got it."

"She was thoroughly impressed with you, too, Chris. She gushed all the way back to Luna City, pleased as hell that you treated her like an equal."

"She deserves that kind of respect. She has the gift, or the spark, call it what you will. She's better than

or equal to any of the others Moore has gathered here. But I couldn't convince her to join us yet. I hope

she decides in our favor. She would add a dimension to our work that we haven't even touched yet."

Nachtegall sensed deja vu. Hadn't he heard this sort of bewitched infatuation earlier today? "You feel more than just respect for her intelligence, don't you, Chris?"

"Is it that obvious?"

Nachtegall nodded.

"She reminds me of someone, Bob. Someone who was very special to me. Jennifer didn't look anything

like Samantha, but somehow I think they share the same spirit." Dykstra smiled faintly, wistfully.Jealousy nipped at Nachtegall's heart. "You're not in danger of falling in love with her, are you?""What?" Dykstra laughed. "Are you worried about my heart, lieutenant? Or is it your own that you should be minding?" Dykstra's look went in ten centimeters deep.

"She does have that effect on men, doesn't she?""She's a married woman," Dykstra said."And you're five times her age," Nachtegall said."There's no reason to bring that up."

* * * After the afternoon meeting with Dykstra, Samantha knew she had some serious thinking to do. She was fixing herself a snack when she remembered she hadn't checked her mail yet today. There was a letter from Steve. Eagerly she brought the letter up, redirected the output to the big screen of her TV, and sat down just as the image of her husband formed. "Honey, you look so good," she said out loud. "I wish you were with me." She also noticed that he needed a haircut, and he'd lost weight.

Steve said: "Hello, my darling Sunshine. I'm sorry this is a few days late, but our . . . operations . . . had me tied up pretty thoroughly.

"I miss you, sweetheart. I want to be with you more than anything else in the Universe. Sometimes some of the other guys catch me staring out the port into space, and they say, 'Look, the Moon's come out again,' because they know I'm mooning over you. But I don't care. I love you, Sammi, and I always will.

"You know I can't tell you about what I'm doing, but this military service actually turned out to be kind of interesting. My talents are being well used . . . ." Her eyes were fixed on the screen, just looking at him, drinking him in. The pain of their separation tore at her even as she melted inside while he spoke of the infinitely important mundane, important because it was all about him.

She wanted him back so badly.Damn war, she thought anew." . . . should be back on leave month after next, Sammi. They're giving me a whole week! Oh hon, the things we'll do!""You got that right, lover," Samantha said.

"I have to finish this letter up now. I wish I were there with you, darling. I know you tell me what's up in your letters to me, but I want to know what you're doing every minute, what's making you laugh, if anything is making you cry, what you're worrying about . . . just everything. I want to wrap my arms around you and hold you so tight I can feel your heart beating next to mine, rub my hands up and down your back, and kiss you . . . oh, and kiss you. . . ."

"Me too, hon. Me too," she whispered, tears welling.

"Good-bye, Sunshine. Until next time." And the letter was over.

She had a good cry after that. She replayed the letter five times before going to bed, and for the first time in what seemed ages, her last thoughts before drifting off to sleep had nothing whatsoever to do with Major Moore, and everything to do with Steve.

But that night she had another dream.

It was somewhat of a nightmare, but not the scary kind-more of the "something gone wrong" type. She found herself on the surface of Mars, without a suit, and she was watching her symbionts at work, an easy thing to do since they were the size of bulldozers. But something wasn't right-the symbionts were going down to the river, which itself was the result of a different project, and splitting the water molecules up, and then bringing the oxygen atoms to the desert and making iron oxide. "What are you doing?" she cried. "You're doing everything backwards!" And a bulldozer symbiont came up to her, and somehow it reminded her of the aliens, and it said, "But it's so much easier to do it this way. It's almost as if the iron wants to rust." And the words echoed through the last vestiges of the dream: Wants to rust; wants to rust; wants to rust; iron wants to rust . . .

She awoke with a start. The meaning of the dream flooded into her.

It was Sunday morning. Since her conversation with Dykstra the previous day, she had made up her mind to attend church this morning, something she'd lapsed in since Steve's departure. But she had to sort this out. She went to her workstation and immersed herself in the work of the genano engineer. She looked at the structure of her new symbionts, played with some different assumptions, had the computer test theoretical modifications, and by 1500 hours she had the answer her intuition had told her was there during the dream.

She had a weapon against the aliens-she could make their bones rust.

It wasn't really difficult. A few changes would allow her virus nanotool users and their hosts to live in the aliens themselves. I haven't even agreed to work on the Phinon Project yet, and already I know exactly what I'd be doing, she thought. I'd better make up my mind about what I'm going to tell Moore.

Saying no would be harder now. The temptation to prove herself yet again was overwhelming, particularly now that she knew how to do it.

III.

Rust

Samantha went to work on Monday with a bounce in her step, and wearing her most sunshiny smile. She'd played Steve's letter two more times before retiring last night, and let the thrill of his upcoming leave drive out any fears or concerns about how she was going to answer Major Moore. She would put those concerns on the back burner for a few days and think just about her husband, and about her successes with the Martian atmosphere project.

But while she was taking readings on her cultures, Martha came up and started in on her about her weekend.

"Hi, Martha," Samantha said. "Guess what? I finally got a letter from Steve, and he's going to get leave in a few months!"

"That's wonderful, Sammi," Martha said, but there was no hint in her voice that she wanted to talk about Steve right now. If anything, she seemed nervous about something, tense, as if something was preying on her mind and she didn't quite know how to bring the subject up, yet had to.

"What's the matter, Martha? Something's troubling you."

"Can you tell me what you decided this weekend, Samantha?" Martha got out haltingly. "I mean, did you decide to work for the military?"

"Well, Major Moore introduced me to some people who felt strongly that I should join, but I haven't made up my mind yet. I know the work would be interesting, but I don't know if it would be, uh, right for me to work on it. You know, military projects are always about killing, and I just don't know if I want to be connected with that." Samantha looked Martha over carefully, and knew the older woman had something she wanted to tell her about . . . very badly. "You have some strong feelings on this, don't you?"

"I don't want you to join, Sammi. I don't want to lose you to them, too." She put her arms around Samantha, held her very tightly, was crying. Samantha hadn't had any idea that Martha was carrying around some hidden pain, but she let the woman cry herself out on her shoulder, and helped her to a chair when she was ready to talk again.

"I'm sorry for that, Sammi," she said, dabbing tear streaks from her cheeks with a tissue. "It's just that, my dad was in the Patrol, years ago. I think I told you that. He loved it, he really did. But that was during the Belt War of Independence. I was only ten when he was killed at the battle of Ceres. I was only ten, and I didn't understand, but my mom said he'd died for something important, something he believed in . . . solar unity. I didn't know what that was, and I didn't care. But then two months later they signed the Vesta peace treaty and the Belt got independence anyway.

"He died for nothing, Sammi. Nothing." A whisper.

"I'm so sorry, Martha. I didn't know," Samantha said softly.

"That's not all of it. My daughter joined the Patrol, too, when she was just nineteen. She would have been abut your age now, Sammi. The military killed her, too. She was in one of those police actions you hear about, but never know the details of. She died on Ganymede." Martha was openly sobbing again. "They didn't even have a body to send back to me," she choked out.

Samantha cried, too.

"And you're, you're like her. So bright, so shiny, so sweet. When you first came here it was almost like having my Shelly back. That's why I've practically adopted you." And Samantha remembered what Martha had done: the gift on her birthday; the long talks, like she'd had with no one else except her own mother; the invitation to Christmas dinner so soon after she'd arrived on the Moon. "I don't want you to go and be lost, too."

Samantha made up her mind. "I won't go, Martha. I won't. I'll tell them no. I'll call Major Moore tomorrow and tell him no. I promise."

"Thank you, Sammi. I love you, little girl."

It was another hour before they actually got back to work.

Samantha felt wonderful when she returned home that evening. She felt comfortable with her decision, too, and now that she'd made up her mind, it was like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She was still fascinated with the aliens, of course, and she would have loved to work on understanding the alien biology, but she consoled herself with the knowledge that sooner or later, without the entanglements of the military, she'd get her chance. Eventually the existence of the aliens would be made public, and then she could study them in the comfort of an academic atmosphere.

And in the meantime, there was all of Mars to turn habitable, billions of tons of oxygen to liberate, and she was just the woman to see to it since her symbionts were clearly living up to expectations. She would be so happy to show Steve her work.

Shortly after another dinner in front of the TV, she was watching Steve's letter again when there came a buzz at her door. She left the letter running as she answered it. Outside stood a captain in the Patrol, or at least she thought that's what the insignia meant. She didn't recognize the badge the man wore on his left breast, though; the broken spaceship with black ribbon.

"Yes?"

"Ms. MacTavish?"

"That's right. If you're from Major Moore's office, you can tell him that I'll call him tomorrow, but my

answer is no." She was eager to get the words out, to make her decision real.

"I'm afraid I don't know any Major Moore, Ms. MacTavish." The voice was solemn, and the man looked

uncomfortable. "My name is Captain John Kleck. I'm from the Department of Civilian Relations, spouse division. May I come in?"

"Certainly. I'm sorry for not saying so earlier." Perplexed, she led him into her apartment. He declined

refreshments, but asked her to sit down. Samantha muted the sound from Steve's letter, but left the visual on.

"Ms. MacTavish, I'm afraid that it's my official duty to notify you of some unfortunate news."

Samantha stiffened, felt cold all of a sudden.

"This isn't about Steve, is it?" she asked, but she couldn't keep the fear out of her voice.

"Yes. I'm afraid it is. I'm sorry, Ms. MacTavish. Your husband is dead."

"No," she said, but no sound came out.

"He died in the line of duty, Ms. MacTavish. He served in the finest tradition of the Fleet." The hammer blow had fallen. A million questions flashed through her mind: How? Why? Where? When? Could there be some mistake?

"You killed him," she said. "You military bastards killed him!" she screamed. "You let him die in your stupid, mindless, idiotic farce of a war!"

"Ms. MacTavish, please-"

"Get out! Get out now! Go! Go!" she screamed at the man, and he left as she dropped to the floor, sobbing helplessly. She looked over at the TV screen, saw Steve silently mouthing, " . . . but I want to

know what you're doing every minute, what's making you laugh, if anything is making you cry, what you're worrying about . . ."