You overstuffed fruit, you wouldn't even fit into a cockpit. But Kinsman replied merely, "From the politicians. My job is Congressional liaison."
"Twisting Senators' arms is what he means," came Neal McGrath's husky voice from behind him.
Kinsman turned.
"Hello, Chet, Diane . . . em, Larry Davis, isn't it?"
"You have a good memory for names!"
"Goes with the job."
Kinsman studied McGrath. It was the first time they had been physically close in many years. Near's hair was still reddish; the rugged outdoors look had not been completely erased from his features. He looked like a down-home farmer; Kinsman knew he had been a Rhodes scholar. McGrath's voice was even softer, throatier than it had been years ago. The natural expression of his face, in repose, was still an introspective scowl. But he was smiling now.
His cocktail party smile, thought Kinsman. Then he realized, NeaPs starting to get gray. Like me.
"Tug Wynne tells me I was pretty rough on your boss this morning, Chet." The smile on McGrath's face turned just a shade self-satisfied,
"Colonel Murdock lost a few pounds, and it wasn't all from the TV lights," Kinsman replied.
"I was only trying to get him to give me a good reason for funneling money into a permanent lunar base."
Kinsman said, "The House Appropriations Committee approved the funding. They're satisfied with the reasons we gave them."
"Not good enough," McGrath said firmly. "Not when we've got to find money to reclaim every major city in the nation, plus new energy exploration, and crime control, and—"
"And holding down the Pentagon before they go jump- ing into Brazil," Diane added.
"Thanks, pal," Kinsman said to her. Turning back to McGrath, "Look, Neal, I'm not going to argue with you. The facts are damned clear. There's energy in space, lots of it. And raw materials. To utilize them we need a permanent base on the Moon."
"Then let the corporations build it. They're the ones who want to put up solar power satellites. They want to mine the Moon. Why should the taxpayers foot the bill for a big, expensive base on the Moon?"
"Because the heart of that base will be a low-gravity hospital that will—"
"Come on, Chet! You know it'll be easier and cheaper to build your hospital in orbit. Why go all the way to the Moon when you can build it a hundred miles overhead? And why should the Air Force do it? It's NASA's job."
Kinsman could see that McGrath looked faintly amused. He enjoys arguing. He's not fighting for his life.
Glancing at Diane, then back at McGrath, Kinsman answered, "NASA's fully committed to building the space stations and helping the corporations to start industrial opera- tions in orbit. Besides, we've got an Air Force team of trained astronauts with practically nothing to do."
"So build your hospital in orbit. Or cooperate with NASA, for a change, and put your hospital into one of their space stations."
"And running the hospital will cost twenty times more than a lunar base will," Kinsman said. "Every time you want a Band-Aid you'll have to boost it up from Earth. That takes energy, Neal. And money. A permanent base on the Moon can be entirely self-sufficient."
"In a hundred years," McGrath said.
"Ten. Maybe five."
"Come on, Chet. You guys are already spending billions on the strategic defense system. You can't have the Moon, too. Let it go and stop pushing this pipe dream of Fred Durban's."
