Kinsman said nothing.

Still smiling, the old man lifted a frail hand. "I know what you're thinking. In a couple of years I'll be six feet under."

"No . . ."

"Don't try to kid me, son. I can read your face like a blueprint. Von Braun never made it into space at all. Neither did Clarke or Sagan. At least I've been in orbit."

"We'll get you to the Moon, don't worry." 213

"I don't have a worry in the world. I know they'll never let me ride the shuttle in the shape I'm in now. If I can build my strength back up, then fine. If not, I'll die here . . . probably in this room,"

Kinsman had nothing to say.

Durban went on, "But I'll still be with you on the Moon. I've left instructions in my will that I want to be buried there. At Moonbase. And I've got enough money stashed away to pay for it, too, by damn!"

"You're a stubborn Lunik." Kinsman smiled.

"Damned right, sonny. One thing I learned early in this game. It takes more than talent, more than brains, more than connections, even. Takes stubbornness. Look at von Braun. Not the world's most brilliant engineer, but a hard-driving man who knew what he wanted and went after it, hell or high water. By God, World War Two was an opportunity, as far as he was concerned! The Cold War, the Space Race, he turned them all to his advantage. Other people sneered at him, called him a Nazi, an opportunist, an amoral monster. But he never wavered from his goal. He wanted the Moon and he went out and got it. We all got it, thanks to him."

Not all of us. Kinsman answered silently.

"You go get Moonbase started," Durban said. "Don't let them sidetrack you."

"We're trying."

"Going to the new space station, eh? Rubbing shoulders with the politicians and their sycophants. Good. But don't let them stop there. Keep driving for the Moon."

"Yessir."

Durban lifted his head slightly from the pillow. "I'll watch the ceremonies on TV. At least I can turn them off when they get too boring."

Kinsman laughed. The old man was still as feisty as ever.

"All right, son, you run along now. No fun watching an old man trying to stay alive." Durban winked at him. "Besides, I'm due for a bath . . . got a cute young nurse who thinks I'm too feeble to do her any harm."

Getting up from the bedside chair. Kinsman said, "I'll come back when I return from the ceremonies."

"Fine. I'll be waiting right here. I'm not going anyplace."

Even in the earliest morning the Florida sun was blind- ingly hot. Merritt Island was flat and scrubby, not at all like the hilly California coast at Vandenberg.

Kinsman had flown to Patrick Aerospace Force Base the previous night on a government charter jet filled with Con- gressional aides and their families. He had slept at the base's Bachelor Officers' Quarters. Now, just after dawn, he had driven a motor pool car to the space center to see the place before the newshounds and tourists cluttered it up.

In the old days of the Apollo moon shots and the original space shuttle launches, the roads and beaches would be covered with upward of half a million onlookers, as thick as ants on sugar. Official guests would have to arise at two in the morning to get to the VIP viewing stands before the roads became totally blocked with tourist cars and campers. But now, with government restrictions on travel and synfuels astronomically expensive, the roads leading to Kennedy Space Center were nearly empty. People watched launches on television, if they watched at all.

Most of the old buildings were still there, including the mammoth Vehicle Assembly Building, the largest enclosed structure on Earth, which was still used by the NASA people. The ancient launch towers, tall stately spiderworks of steel standing against the brazen sky, were strictly tourist attrac- tions now. History had been made there, blasting out flames and mountainous billows of steam as the Saturns and Deltas and shuttles had launched men and automated probes into space. Now they stood empty and quiet, gawked at by a trickle of visitors from all around the world, lectured over by National Park Service guards surrounded by eager, curious youngsters and their sweating, sunburned, slightly bored parents.

The real action now was at the airstrip, where the new shuttles took off and landed. Unlike the older vehicles that Kinsman had flown in, the new designs were truly reusable spacecraft that took off and landed like airplanes.