"Will Diane marry you after the divorce?"

"I don't know. We've talked about it. The baby compli- cates things. I want to marry her, but she's not sure."

"She'd make a lousy senator's wife."

Exploding out of the flimsy chair, McGrath raised his hands wildly. They banged into the compartment's low plastic-sheeted ceiling. "Christ Almighty! I didn't want any of this! I didn't go out looking for it. I never intended to break up my marriage. It wasn't all that good anymore, between Mary-Ellen and me, but . . . Chet, when I'm with Diane I feel like a kid again! Just being in the same room with her! And then when she told me she felt the same way about me . . ."

Kinsman leaned back on the bunk and watched his old friend pace the tiny compartment. Middle-age change of life, he told himself. Neal always was precocious. He found himself envying the fact that McGrath could let go of himself so completely.

McGrath stopped in front of Kinsman. Looming over him he asked, "So what are you going to do about it?"

"I told you, Neal. I haven't decided what to do. Probably nothing."

"If you're thinking of using this to pressure me on the Moonbase deal, forget it! I won't knuckle under."

Kinsman looked up at him. Is Neal stubborn enough to throw his career into the flames?

"The trouble is," Kinsman said evenly, "if I've found out about it, it's only a matter of time until guys like Marcot and the rest find out . . ."

"They won't. Congress takes care of its own."

"Neal, some crap artist like Tug Wynne will nudge it out of somebody sooner or later."

"Wynne's bureau chief is a friend of mine. He'll keep it quiet or he'll lose a helluva good inside source. More than one. Other senators will clam up if he breaks silence. And their aides."

Shaking his head. Kinsman countered, "Look, Neal, I haven't been around Washington as long as you have, but I 227 know this much: the White House is out to get you. Some- body in the Administration sees you as a threat. And they've got their own channels into the media, you know. You're playing in the big leagues now."

McGrath slowly sank down on the bunk beside Kinsman.

"Do you think for one second," Kinsman went on, "that Wynne or his bureau chief will sit on your story when it comes out of the Pentagon? Or the White House? For God's sake, somebody like Marcot could break it to the fucking National Enquirer or plant rumors in any of sixty daily columns. They could give it to the Hollywood gossip-mongers. Diane's a video personality, you know."

"I know."

"And when the Pentagon does find out about you," Kinsman said, "you're going to think I told them."

"What you're saying is that you might as well tell them yourself and collect the credit for it because they're going to find out about it sooner or later anyway."

Kinsman snapped, "No, that's not what I'm saying! Goddammitall, Neal, I'm warning you that you're going to have to face this pressure one way or the other."

"And if I vote for your Moonbase program the pressure will be off."

"That's right."

"For the time being. Until they want something else."

"I won't be involved in anything else," Kinsman said. "All I want is Moonbase."

"A military base on the Moon."