Everyone around the table chuckled.
They questioned Kinsman for another hour after the final slide had been shown and the overhead lights turned on. Colt fielded some of the questions, as did some of the other men and women who had worked on the presentation. But Kins- man remained at the head of the room and took most of the questions himself.
Finally Marcot got to his feet. Waving his inevitable cigarette in Kinsman's general direction, he said, "Okay. Hone it down to half an hour and be prepared to show it to the Secretary first thing next week."
Back in his own office, Colt grabbed Kinsman by the shoulders. "We're on our way, man! The Secretary of De- fense! The big brass boss his own self. Marcot bought it!"
Kinsman was too tired and numb to feel exultant.
"C'mon, I'm gonna buy you a drink."
"I just want some sleep, Frank. Thanks, anyway."
Colt shrugged. "Yeah. We got a weekend's worth of work figurin' out how to squeeze all this gorgeous stuff down to half an hour."
Kinsman said, "Let me lock up all this gorgeous stuff in the vault." The pile of viewgraph slides was scattered across Colt's desk, each stamped along its border in bold red letters:
TOP SECRET.
It took both of them to carry the pile of slides over to Kinsman's cubbyhole. As he wearily tapped out the combina- tion on the electronic lock to his file cabinet, Colt beamed happily at him.
"Man, you were a ball of fire in there. You coulda sold General Motors stock to the Kremlin. You've really changed, man. You've really come out of your shell."
Over his shoulder Kinsman said, "I want to go to the Moon, Frank. Even if I have to bring the whole goddamned Aerospace Force with me."
Colt grinned. "You figured it out, huh? You wear The Man's uniform, you gotta do The Man's work. That's the law of life, my friend. But it's good to see you thinking like an Aerospace Force officer. Always thought you had a good head on your shoulders. No more of this peaceful hospital crap."
Kinsman piled the slides into the file drawer, then shut it and clicked the lock. He took the card atop the cabinet and turned it from the white OPEN side to the red LOCKED side.
"Frank," he said, turning back to Colt, "don't get the wrong idea. The Moon is still legally restricted, as far as military weaponry goes. The mining operation, okay. What they do with the ores after they leave the Moon is somebody else's business. But Moonbase will never be used as a place for war. Understand that. Never."
Colt's grin faded. "And how are you gonna get the Russians to go along with that? They're gonna be up there with you, remember? You start mining operations, they'll start mining operations."
"We'll work it out some way."
"Without fighting."
"That's right."
