"They give people hope, too, you know."

Kinsman clenched his empty hand. "You'll never make a new society on Earth, kid. Too many self-interests. Too much history to undo. Society's locked in place here. The only way to unlock it is to build a showplace . . ."

"A Utopia?" She grinned at the thought.

"It won't be Utopia. But it'll be better than anything here on Earth."

She started to shake her head again, but Kinsman leaned forward intently. "Listen to me," he said urgently. "Whether you agree with me or not doesn't matter. But you've got to tell Neal that the longer he fights against the Moonbase appropriation the closer he's pushing us into a major confron- 194 tation in space, a full-scale conflict with the Russians that can only end in nuclear war,"

Diane stared at him. "I should tell Neal . . . why do you think that I—"

"You've got to!" Kinsman insisted. "I can't talk to him directly. Not even through Mary-Ellen. They'll know what I'm doing: the brass, the people who are pushing us toward war. But you can warn him. He'd listen to you."

Her face was a frantic mixture of fear and disbelief. "But I won't see him until—"

"See him! Tell him! It's important. Vital."

"But why can't you—"

"He'd want specifics from me that I can't give him. And any conversations I have with him are probably monitored."

"How did you—"

"You can talk to him," Kinsman went on, ignoring her objections. "Tell him it's either a peaceful Moonbase or the spaceplane interceptor. He'll understand."

Kinsman walked Diane to the front entrance of the Capitol and down the long granite steps that gave the building its impressive facade. Larry Davis was waiting for her in a real limousine, long and luxurious, pearl gray, with a liveried black driver.

"Come on!" he yelled out the car window. "We'll miss the flight and there's not another one till six!"

Kinsman deliberately held Diane for a moment and kissed her. She seemed surprised.

"Call me when you get back to town," he said.

"Okay," she answered shakily.

"And talk to Neal."

"Yes . . . yes." She ran down the last few steps and into the waiting limousine.

The car pulled away with a screech of tires on the wet paving, a rare sound in conservation-conscious Washington. Kinsman watched the limousine thread its way through the sparse traffic. Not a bad way to travel, he mused, for somebody who sings about the hungry poor.

The weather had cleared enough for Kinsman to take the bus back to the Pentagon. The sky was still gray as he waited for the bus in the L-shaped enclosure at the curb, but the rain had ended. The enclosure was filthy with litter, its plastic 195 walls scribbled with graffiti. It stank of urine. Finally the steamer came chugging into sight. Just as its doors opened for Kinsman, another man came running down the sidewalk hollering for the driver to wait for him.

Kinsman saw that it was Tug Wynne puffing toward the bus, and silently wished the driver would close the doors and hurry on. But the sallow-faced Hispanic was in no hurry. He waited patiently for the burly newsman.

Kinsman took a back seat in the nearly empty bus. Sure enough, Wynne came over to him. "Mind if I sit with ya?"

"Not at all," Kinsman lied. "Go right ahead." Wynne slid into the seat, wedging Kinsman solidly between the window and his own bulk. From the smell of it, Wynne's lunch had been mostly bourbon.