"Maybe we should forget about the Moon and concen- trate on the antimissile defense. If we can prevent the Soviets from putting up their own version of Star Wars ..." Marcot let his voice trail off.

"Leave the Moon to the Russians?" General Sherwood sounded almost alarmed.

"What good is the Moon?" Marcot asked. "It has no real military value."

Colt pointed out, "It will when it starts supplying fuels and expendables like oxygen for the SDI satellites. And for the factories the corporations claim they want to build."

"That's ten years away," Marcot said. "Twenty."

Kinsman said nothing, but thought to himself. So the Russians will win control of the Moon after all, in spite of everything we've done over all these years. He shrugged inwardly. Maybe they deserve it. Maybe men like Leonov will do better with it than we would.

"I still don't want Reds on the Moon alone," General Sherwood said. "Bad enough we have to share it with them. Ten, twenty, even fifty years from now—if and when the Moon has any military significance, then we must not allow the Soviets to have it totally to themselves. Especially by default!"

Marcot sank back in his chair, cowed temporarily by the General's fire. "Well, then," he said at last, sucking hard on his cigarette, "how do we get around this man McGrath —without compromising the spaceplane program?"

"We could brief him on the interceptor," Kinsman heard himself saying, "in exchange for a written oath of secrecy. I think a large part of his resistance to the Moonbase idea is that he feels out in the cold on the spaceplane." 200

Shaking his head, Marcot replied, "The White House has forbidden us to tell McGrath anything about it. He's a rabble-rouser—a secrecy oath won't mean a thing to him."

"I disagree, sir," Kinsman said. "I've known Neal since we were kids. He has a very strong sense of responsibility. If he signed a secrecy oath, he would keep his word."

But Marcot's head was still waggling negatively. "And he's nosing after the Minority Leader's Job. From there he can aim for the White House. We can't give him anything that would help him along that route."

"But—"

"No," Marcot went on, tapping the ash from his ciga- rette, "I don't see any way around it. Either you convince McGrath that Moonbase is necessary or we have to forget about the Moon and concentrate all our resources on the spaceplane and strategic defense."

General Sherwood turned to Kinsman. "It's up to you, then. Major. Do you think you can handle it?"

"If he can't, sir, no one can," Colt said'before Kinsman could open his mouth.

Colonel Murdock's expression could have turned sweet cream into paint remover, but he remained silent.

"The first thing I'll need," Kinsman heard himself say, "is a seat on that VIP flight Monday to Alpha. McGrath's going up for the dedication ceremonies. It might be a good chance to work on him."

"Or flush him out of an airlock," Marcot muttered.

Sherwood gestured to Colonel Murdock. "See to it, will you?"

"Yessir. But we'll have to bump—"

"Then bump," the General snapped. "Whoever."

Marcot blew a big, relieved cloud of smoke toward the ceiling. "That's it, then. We push ahead with the interceptor program and handle the Moonbase problem separately."

"And let McGrath determine whether we build Moon- base or not," General Sherwood muttered. He was not pleased.

"He's going to make that determination anyway," Mar- cot said. "We might as well face up to the obvious."