"That is not quite true," rasped the heavy-Jawed, hulk- ing man at the end of the table. His voice was a labored, tortured whisper; his face a perpetual red angry glare. "With all due respect, we are at war and have been for the past two years. Ever since we and the Soviets started launching ABM satellites, we have been attacking each other. Each side knows that whoever finishes its ABM network first will have a decisive advantage: the satellites can destroy the entire strate- gic striking force of the other side. The nuclear stalemate will be broken."

He paused for a moment and took a deep, labored breath. No one spoke. Leaning heavily on his forearms, eyes blazing with pain or anger or both, he resumed his harsh whisper. "When one side completes its ABM network it can dictate terms to the other side with impunity. We dare not allow the Soviets to finish ahead of us in this race. We dare not!"

The President fidgeted uncomfortably in his chair and looked away from the burly, angry-faced speaker.

The Defense Secretary said crisply, "Entirely correct. If the Soviets complete their ABM network before we do, they'll be able to knock down our missiles as soon as we launch them. We will no longer have a nuclear retaliatory force. We'll be at their mercy."

"It is war," General Hofstader affirmed. "Just because there's no shooting on the ground and no casualties so far, don't be fooled into thinking that this is Just a game." 284

"And there will be casualties, sooner or later," said Defense.

"What? What do you mean?" For the first time the President looked startled.

"If you will look at the graphs I gave you," Defense said, with weary patience, "you will see that we can't keep going the way we have been for very much longer. We need a minimum of a hundred-fifty satellites in low orbit to cover the entire world adequately against Soviet and/or Chinese missile attack."

"The Chinese don't want to attack us," the President mumbled, his face down as he spread the graphs out side by side on the table.

"But they could attack the Russians, who might retaliate blindly at us," came the rasping whisper from the far end of the table. "They could start the pot boiling, and once it starts, who knows where it will end?"

Defense resumed, "We need a hundred-fifty satellites in orbit and functioning. We have been maintaining about eighty of them. Over the past few weeks the Soviets have been disabling them as fast as we can launch new ones."

"Why don't we repair the damaged ones?"

"Economics, sir," General Hofstader answered. "It's cheaper to launch a mass-produced unmanned satellite than to send a human repair crew to fix one that's damaged."

The President blinked, puzzled. "But I thought that those lasers were so expensive ..."

The General produced a tight-lipped smile. "Yessir, they are. But maintaining men in orbit is even more so. It's costly enough just to keep our manned command-and-control cen- ters in orbit, and they are housed in the space stations that were already in orbit when we began this program."

"I see." But the President shook his head as if he did not really understand or necessarily believe all that he was being told.

"Meanwhile," Defense went on inexorably, "the rate of Soviet launches is increasing. That's on the graph you have in the middle, there. Today they have thirty-nine satellites functional in orbit. Four weeks ago they had only thirty, even though we found and destroyed eleven of their satellites over that time span. Unless we do something about it, the Soviets 285 will complete their network in another year—eighteen months, at most. And we'll still be far short of having completed ours."

"They'll have won," said General Hofstader.

"They will be in here dictating terms to you," whispered the burly man at the end of the table.

The President rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "Well, what do you recommend?"

Defense nearly smiled. Tensing slightly in his chair, leaning forward, he ticked off points on his fingers. "First, we must increase our own satellite launch rate by at least fifty percent. Doubling the present launch rate would be preferable.

"Second, we must increase our kill rate of Soviet satel- lites, otherwise they will pass us in a matter of months.

"Third, we must prepare for the possibility of striking their orbital command centers. One successful blow at a command center could incapacitate their entire network for weeks."

"Right!" snapped the General.

It took a moment for the President to realize what was being suggested. Then his mouth dropped open in sudden comprehension. "You mean attack their manned stations? That . . . that would kill people!"