"To the Moon."
"It's like an obsession with you," Diane said.
He smiled at her. "Leonardo da Vinci."
"What?"
"He built gliders and tried them out himself. They never worked too well, but it was enough to make him write, 'Once you have tasted flight, you will walk the Earth with your eyes turned skyward. For there you have been, and there you long to return.'"
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 . . ."
