In the midst of these tightening tensions Kinsman was devoting every ounce of his energies to creating a permanent medical facility on the Moon.
As he stood at the doorway looking over the crowd, he recognized fewer than one in ten of the partygoers. Then he saw his host, Neal McGrath, now the junior Senator from Pennsylvania. Neal was standing over at the far end of the room by the empty fireplace, tall drink in hand, head bent slightly to catch what some wrinkled matron was saying to him. The target for tonight. McGrath was the swing vote on the Senate's Appropriations Committee.
"Chet, you did come after all!"
He turned to see Mary-Ellen McGrath approaching him, hands outstretched in greeting.
"I hardly recognized you without your uniform," she said.
He smiled back at her. "I thought Aerospace Force blues might be a little conspicuous around here."
"Nonsense. And I wanted to see your new oak leaves. A major now."
Promoted for accepting hazardous duty: lobbying on Capitol Hill.
"Come on, Chet. I'll show you where the bar is." She took his arm and led him through the jabbering crowd. Mary-Ellen was small, slender, almost frail-looking. But she had the strength of a tigress and the open, honest face of a woman who could stand beside her husband in the face of anything from Washington cocktail parties to the tight infight- ing of rural Pennsylvania politics.
The bar dispenser hummed impersonally to itself as it produced a heavy scotch and water. Kinsman took a stinging sip of it.
"I was worried you wouldn't come," Mary-Ellen said over the noise of the crowd. "You've been a hermit ever since you arrived in Washington."
"Pentagon keeps me pretty busy."
"And no date? No woman on your arm? That isn't the Chet Kinsman I used to know back when." 171
"I'm preparing for the priesthood." "I'd almost believe it," she said, straight-faced. 'There's something different about you since the old days. You're quieter . . . more subdued."
I've been grounded. Aloud, he said, "Creeping maturity.
I'm a late achiever."
But she was serious, and as stubborn as her husband. "Don't try to kid around it. You've changed. You're not playing the dashing young astronaut anymore."
"Who the hell is?"
A burly, balding man jarred into Kinsman from behind, sloshing half the drink out of his glass.
"Whoops, didn't get it on ya, did ... oh, hi, Mrs. McGrath. Looks like I'm waterin' your rug."
