"Damn! You're just as dumb as you always were."
Late Monday afternoon Kinsman stood at the head of the long polished mahogany table in the private conference room of the Secretary of Defense. No need to turn out the 244 lights here; his slides were presented on a wall-sized rear projection screen. Kinsman spoke directly to the Secretary himself, despite the fact that the table was occupied by Marcot and two Under Secretaries of the Aerospace Force, four generals, including Sherwood, and a half-dozen civilian advisers to the Secretary. Colt was in the next room, feeding the slides into the projector.
Every man at the table watched Kinsman intently. The same thoughts were going through each of their heads, he knew: How does this affect my programs, my organization, my position in the Defense Department?
"To summarize," Kinsman said to the Secretary, "we can bring down the costs of strategic defense by a factor of five or more if we build the ABM satellites in orbital facilities, using raw materials mined from the Moon. The major industrial contractors are eager to begin space manufacturing opera- tions, but have hesitated to risk the resources necessary for the task. This program will, therefore, have significant spinoff value in the civilian economy. More than significant: the eventual payoff to the civilian economy could more than pay for the investment made on this program. Thank you, gentle- men."
The men around the table stirred, glanced at one anoth- er, then all settled their gazes on the Secretary. He sat at the far end of the table, looking relaxed and thoughtful. He was the tweedy gray university type. An unlit pipe was clamped in his teeth.
"We are deploying the ABM satellites under any circum- stances," General Sherwood said, filling the silence. "This plan allows us to build them more cheaply—and replace them more easily, in case of attrition."
The Defense Secretary nodded and started lighting his pipe.
"And by building the satellites in orbit," Kinsman added, still standing in front of the now-blank screen, "out of lunar materials, we not only get the SDI network, we get a powerful industrial capacity in space and a full-scale, perma- nent base on the Moon."
"A base," General Sherwood pointed out, "that will be under the administrative control of the Department of De- fense."
The Secretary slowly took the pipe from his mouth. "You mean you blue-suiters get your Moonbase, eh, Jim?"
General Sherwood broke into a boyish smile. "Yes, sir, that is exactly what I mean."
Smiling back at him, the Secretary said, "Well, it seems to me that the important thing here is that America's industri- al power is brought into space in a meaningful way. The President will like that. It's about time that industry really moved into space."
He's buying it! Kinsman's heart leaped. He's bought it!
"I think you're perfectly right about that," said Ellery Marcot. "Perfectly right."
"What I'd like to know," the Secretary said, with a nod toward one of his civilians, "is why our hired geniuses and university consultants never brought the whole ball of wax together the way the Major has, here."
The aide flushed. "Well, it's one thing to be sitting out in left field . . ."
"Relax, George," the Secretary said, making a patting motion with his free hand. "Relax. I was only tweaking you,"
He got up from his leather-backed chair. "A very good presentation. Major. Good thinking. I'll speak to the Presi- dent about it at tomorrow morning's briefing."
Kinsman could only say, "Thank you, sir." It was so weak that he wondered if the Secretary heard him.
Turning to General Sherwood, the Secretary asked, "Jim, see that my people get copies of those slides and all the backup material, will you?"
