Diane smiled at him. "I see . . ."

"Do you?" Kinsman asked. "Do you know what it's like to have everybody around you call you a nut? You were nice about it, you called it an obsession. At the Pentagon they calls us Luniks."

"Us?"

"Yeah, there's a few of us, here and there. A couple in NASA, too. Guys like me. Guys willing to fight with every- thing we've got to get the hell off this lousy dungheap and out into the new world. Hell, I'll bet I could build a mountain just out of the paperwork in the Pentagon that'd reach the Moon. We could walk there!"

Diane laughed.

"Murdock and Sherwood and Marcot think we're crazy. Maybe we are. But they use us. They use us to get what they want."

"And you?"

"Sure, I'm using them to get what I want, too. But now the game's getting rough and I don't think we can all stay happy. The big boys are starting to use their muscle on us, and we Luniks don't have much muscle to fight back with."

"So what are you going to do now?"

"You know, once I said I'd sell my soul for the chance to get back to the Moon. Now I might have to make that choice."

"You need Neal's help, don't you?"

"He's got to vote for the Moonbase program. If he doesn't there'll be nobody left in space except the warbirds." 209

"Chet ... do they know about us? Can they use our relationship to hurt Neal? To threaten him?"

Suddenly confused. Kinsman asked, "Us? What relation- ship?"

"Neal and me . . ."

Kinsman felt as if he were in free-fall, everything drop- ping away.

Diane pulled herself bolt upright on the bed. "You didn't know about us?"

"Mary-Ellen," Kinsman heard himself mutter.

"She knows," Diane said. "We've tried to keep it as quiet as possible, of course. Nobody in Washington would really care, but they would use it against Neal back in Pennsylvania. A divorce case and an affair with a pop singer—they'd crucify him back home."

"You and Neal," Kinsman said, still stunned by it. "And Mary-Ellen knows."

"We love each other, Chet. Neither of us wanted it to happen, but it has."

"Then when you stayed at their place after the party . . , Jesus Christ, I talked him into going out and finding you, way back in San Francisco!"

"Yes, that's when I first met him. But it wasn't until the Presidential campaign, when I was doing benefits for the New Youth Alliance . . ."

"And Mary-Ellen's just sitting back and letting the two of you have your fun. Or does she have a lover, too?"

"She's being awfully good about it. Says she doesn't want to hurt Neal's career. It makes me feel like hell."