The two majors sat in front of the chief secretary's desk. Kinsman felt like a traveling salesman kept waiting before being allowed to make his pitch to the prospective customer.
"You catch the late news last night?" Colt asked.
Kinsman shook his head.
"Shoulda seen our beloved leader," Colt said solemnly.
The secretary glared at him, but quickly returned her attention to the morning mail on her desk.
"Murdock was on the news last night?"
"Sure was. Big floppy handkerchief and all."
"Terrific."
"They showed the part where he got mixed up between miles and kilometers and wound up saying the Moon's bigger'n the Earth."
They both laughed. The secretary glowered at them.
Colonel Murdock burst into the anteroom, his usual worried frown etched into near panic, his uniform jacket unbuttoned, his tie pulled loose.
The secretary rose with a handful of papers.
"Not now!" Murdock's voice was high and shrill.
Christ, Kinsman thought, he's already four o'clock ner- vous and it isn't even eight-thirty yet!
"Get in here, both of you!" the Colonel snapped as he opened the door to his private office.
By Pentagon standards, Murdock's room was almost sumptuous: a real wood desk, several cushioned chairs, even 186 a synthetic leather couch along the far wall, beneath the National Space Society map of the Moon. The Colonel had a standard-issue desktop computer, but no less than four televi- sion sets bunched side by side against the wall opposite the desk. Most impressive of all, it was an outside office with a real window that looked out on the gray river and the fog-shrouded National Airport.
That's the only thing he's really good at, Kinsman said to himself: feathering his own nest. He doesn't believe in Moonbase any more than McGrath does, but he'll use it to worm his way farther up the ladder.
"We've got troubles," the Colonel said. He sat at his desk hard enough to make his Jowls quiver.
Colt and Kinsman took the chairs closest to the desk.
"What kind of troubles, sir?" Colt always addressed the Colonel in the formally correct manner. But he always looked to Kinsman as if he were on the edge of laughing at the man. Something about Murdock amused Colt; probably the same flustered incompetence that infuriated Kinsman.
"The General is apeshit over the way the Appropriations Committee hearings are going. He's getting pressure from the Deputy Secretary and the Deputy Secretary's getting it from the Secretary himself. Which means that the White House is putting on the squeeze. The White House!"
Kinsman smiled inwardly. Newton was right. For every force there is a reaction. If the Senate weren't putting up resistance to Moonbase, the White House wouldn't even know it was in the budget request.
Colt was saying, "Sir, if the White House is interested why don't they put the squeeze on the Committee directly? If they leaned on Senator McGrath, for example . . ."
"Can't, can't, can't!" Murdock panted. "McGrath is aiming at Minority Leader next time around. He'd use the pressure from the White House to show his people how good he is—fighting against the Pentagon and even against the President to save the taxpayers' precious dollars."
"Politics," Colt said, making it sound disgusting.
