Pushing past a pair of arguing, arm-waving cigar smok- ers, Kinsman frowned. "I was invited to this party weeks ago. I told you, the Senator and I are old friends."
"And how friendly are you with Mrs. McGrath?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Wynne let his teeth show, "Handsome astronaut, good- looking wife, busy Senator . . ."
"That's pretty foul-minded, even for a newsman."
"Just doin' my job," Wynne said, stilt smiling. "Nothing personal. Besides, you got nothing to complain about, as far as news people are concerned. The rumor is that you're the astronaut who killed that Russian cosmonaut several years ago."
It was the hundredth time since Kinsman had arrived in Washington that a reporter had faced him with the accusa- tion. The Aerospace Force public relations people had worked assiduously to keep the story "unofficial," citing the slender thread of cooperation that still remained between the Soviet and American civilian space programs. The media had backed off, spurred more than a little by the government's tough new regulations on licenses for broadcasting stations and mail permits for newspapers and magazines. But individ- ual newsmen still braced Kinsman with the story, trying to get an admission from him.
Freezing his emotions within himself. Kinsman answered merely, "I've heard that rumor myself."
"You deny that it's true?"
"I'm not a public relations officer. I don't go around denying rumors. Or confirming them."
"Look," Wynne insisted, "the Air Force can't cover up this story forever."
"Aerospace Force," Kinsman said. "The name's been changed to Aerospace Force." 173
Wynne shrugged and raised his glass in a mock salute. "I stand corrected, Major."
Kinsman turned and started working his way toward the other end of the room. A grandfather clock chimed in a corner, barely audible over the human noises and clacking of ice in glassware. Eighteen hundred. Royce and Smitty ought to be halfway to Copernicus by now.
And then he heard her. He did not have to see her, he knew it was Diane. The same pure, haunting soprano; a voice straight out of a fairy tale:
"Once I had a sweetheart, and now I have none. Once I had a sweetheart, and now I have none. He's gone and leave me, he's gone and leave me, He's gone and leave me to sorrow and mourn."
Her voice stroked his memory and he felt all the old joy, all the old pain, as he pushed his way through the crowd.
Finally he saw her, sitting cross-legged on a sofa, guitar propped on one knee. The same ancient guitar; no amplifiers, no boosters. Her hair was still straight and long and black as space. Her eyes were even darker and deeper. The people were ringed around her, standing, sitting on the floor. They gave her the entire sofa to herself, an altar that only she could use. They watched her and listened, entranced by her voice. But she was somewhere else, living the song, seeing what it told of, until she strummed the final chord.
Then she looked up and looked straight at Kinsman. Not surprised. Not even smiling. Just a look that linked them as if all the years since their brief time together had dissolved into a single yesterday. Before either of them could say or do anything the others broke into applause. Diane smiled and mouthed, "Thank you."
"More, more!"
