"Not much fireworks in this morning's hearings, eh?" "Not much," Kinsman agreed. The bus lurched around a corner and headed down Delaware Avenue, chuffing.
"You see the look on the chairman's face when that perfessor started talkin' about the dangers of beaming micro- waves through the atmosphere?"
"That's when he closed the session, wasn't it?" "Sure was. He's not gonna give any eco-nut a chance to scare people about power satellites. Not with GE back in his home state!" Wynne chuckled to himself.
"It was time to break for lunch anyway," said Kinsman. "Yeah. Say, wasn't that Diane Lawrence in the cafeteria with you?"
"Yes. She was singing at the party last night. Didn't you hear her?"
Wynne looked impressed. "And now she's breaking bread with you. Fast work. Or is she an old family friend, too?"
"I've known Diane for years," Kinsman said, staring out of the bus window at the passing buildings. This part of Washington was drab and rundown. Not much money be- tween the Capitol and the Navy Yard. Just people's homes. Kids playing on the sidewalks. They'll grow up to stand in unemployment lines.
Wynne jarred him out of it. "Haven't seen you with any women since you arrived in Washington." 196
"My private life," Kinsman said, still staring out the window, "is my private life."
"Sure. I know. And I guess it must make some kinda mental block . . . killing that girl like that."
Kinsman whirled on him. "Stop fishing, dammit! I've got nothing to say to you on that subject."
"Sure. I understand. But you know, reporters hear things . . . rumors float around. Like, I heard you got hurt pretty bad yourself up there." He waggled a forefinger skyward.
"Bullshit," Kinsman snapped.
"I know you gotta deny it, and all. But what I heard was that you got hurt . . . radiation damage, they say. And now you're impotent. Or sterile."
Thinking of the thousands of nights he had spent alone since returning from that mission and the agonies of the few times he had tried to make love to a woman, Kinsman laughed bitterly.
"That's what they say, do they?" he asked Wynne.
The older man nodded, his expression blank.
"Well, you can tell them for me that they're all crazy."
Wynne nodded gravely. "Glad to hear it. But how come nobody's ever seen you go out with a woman? In ail the time since you've been in the District ..."
The sonofabitch thinks I'm gay! "Listen. I am heterosex- ual and I'm not sterile. I've never been involved in any accidents in space or anywhere else that would impair my ability to make a woman pregnant. Is that clear?"
"Major, you have a way of making your points."
"Good." And it's not a lie, either. Not completely. I'm not impotent—except when I'm with a woman.
The office of the Deputy Secretary made Colonel Mur- dock's painfully acquired luxuries seem petty and vain. The office was huge, and in a corner of the Pentagon so that it had two windows. Rich dark wood paneling covered the walls. Deep carpeting. Plush chairs. Flags flanking the broad, polished mahogany desk.
General Sherwood was a picturebook Aerospace Force officer: handsome chiseled profile, silver-gray hair, the pierc- ing eyes of an eagle. He sat before the Deputy Secretary's desk looking perfectly at ease in his blue, beribboned uni- 197 form, yet so alert and intelligent that one got the impression he could instantly take command of an airplane, a spacecraft, or an entire war.
He carries those two stars on his shoulders, thought Kinsman, with plenty of room to add more,
