The Deputy Secretary, Ellery Marcot, was a sloppy civilian. Tall, high-domed, flabby in the middle, and narrow in the chest, he peered at the world suspiciously through thick old-fashioned bifocals. His suit was gray, his thinning hair and mustache grayer, his skin as faded as an old manila file folder. Kinsman had never seen the man without a cigarette. His desk was a chaotic sea of papers marked by islands of ashtrays brimming with cigarette butts,

"Gentlemen," he said after the polite handshakes were finished and the four uniformed officers seated according to rank before his desk, "we have reached a critical decision point."

General Sherwood nodded crisply but said nothing. It would have been easy to assume that his Academy-perfect exterior was nothing but an empty shell. His eyes were too sky-blue, his hair just the right shade of experienced yet virile silver. But Kinsman knew better. He'll get those other two stars. And soon.

Marcot blinked myopically at them. "For the past four years the Aerospace Force has struggled to maintain some semblance of an effective program for manned spaceflight. We have had to battle against NASA, the Congress, and the White House."

"And our own SDI Office," Colt added.

Murdock turned sharply toward Colt. But then he saw General Sherwood smiling and nodding.

"Yes, the Strategic Defense group," Marcot agreed, "and their ideas of doing everything with automation."

"But we have made significant progress," the General said.

"Along the wrong road," Marcot snapped.

"It was the only road available at the time," General Sherwood replied, his voice just a trifle harder than it had been a moment earlier. "We had no way of knowing that the SDI Office would try to outflank us with this manned inter- ceptor program."

Kinsman spoke up. "Sir, if it hadn't been for our Moonbase program, and the cooperative Soviet program that's linked to it, the Aerospace Force would have had to surrender its entire manned spaceflight capability to NASA several years ago."

"I understand that. Major," said Marcot. "But the Appropriations Committee is not impressed."

"Their attitude is disastrous," General Sherwood agreed. "If they have their way, they'll shoot down Moonbase and the spaceplane. They'll leave us entirely defenseless in space. What good are the ABM satellites if we can't protect them against Soviet interceptors?"

Marcot lit another cigarette, then rummaged through his messy papers. "State Department doesn't agree. Sent a memo . . . it's here someplace . . ."

"The State Department," Sherwood muttered, real loathing in his voice.

Colt said, "It's like our military presence in Antarctica. We've got to show the Soviets that we're able and willing to defend our interests, wherever they are."

"The Russians are going ahead with their share of the lunar base," Colonel Murdock said, his voice sounding almost hopeful.

"All the more reason for us to be up there alongside them," Sherwood said. "We must not allow them to have the Moon for themselves."

Feeling like a tightrope walker. Kinsman said, "With all due respect, sir, the Appropriations Committee won't be impressed by that argument. Senators like McGrath are dead-set against anything that looks like the old Space Race of the Sixties."

Marcot peered at him through a haze of smoke. "Mc- Grath," he murmured.

"That's why we initiated the hospital program." Kins- man went on. "The old Air Force pioneered in flight medicine and it would be in keeping with Aerospace Force traditions and missions to build a hospital on the Moon. That would give us a presence on the Moonplus a role that has real meaning."

"And whose idea was it," Marcot asked, "to make the base a joint Soviet-American project? Durban's, wasn't it? Him and his internationalist pipe dreams!" 199

'That was done for funding purposes," Kinsman said. "It was easier to get the program started by showing that the Russians were going to share its costs."

"Well, the funding is about to run out," Marcot grum- bled. "Our munificent Congress is backing out of the program now that the preliminary explorations are finished and it's time to commit major money for the permanent base."

"And we can't expect the SDI guys to divert funds from their program," General Sherwood said.