Sherwood rose, beaming. "Certainly, Mr. Secretary. Be glad to."
They all filed out of the conference room, leaving Kinsman standing there rooted to the spot. We did it, he told himself. Then he corrected. No, you did it. Don't blame anyone else.
He walked slowly out of the conference room. The others had already started back toward their own offices. All except Marcot, who was standing by the window talking with Murdock. The Colonel had been waiting in the anteroom all through Kinsman's presentation. He must've walked off the soles of his shoes, pacing up and down, thought Kinsman. Murdock looked rumpled, exhausted; hands clasped behind 246 his back, the expression on his face halfway between eager anticipation and utter dread as he talked with Marcot.
Frank Colt jounced into the anteroom, the slim pile of slides clamped under one arm. He gave Kinsman a big grin and a thumbs-up sign.
Marcot came up to Kinsman, with Colonel Murdock trailing behind him. For once there was no cigarette in the Deputy Secretary's mouth.
"Major, you've done an impressive job. For the first time since I've been here I feel we have a logical, cost-effective program that not only meets the nation's defense needs, but will promote the civilian economy in a major way, as well."
"Thank you, sir."
"You pulled it all together into a coherent whole. That's exactly what we needed." Marcot jammed both his hands into his jacket pockets.
Feeling awkward and a bit foolish, Kinsman merely repeated, "Thank you, sir."
Marcot pulled out a fresh cigarette and lit it. "But we're not out of the woods yet." He blew a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling. "Not by a long shot."
"What do you mean?" Colt asked.
"There's still the Congress. They'll have to approve an even bigger Aerospace Force appropriation than we started with, to get this larger program going. We'll still have to face McGrath and his ilk."
It still boils down to that. Kinsman said to himself. He had almost allowed himself to forget Neal in the past hectic week.
Murdock patted Kinsman on the shoulder and said, "We're on top of that situation, aren't you, Chet? You're getting to McGrath."
"I've been trying . . ."
Colt said, "But with this new program, the way it all fits together and ties Moonbase into the rest of the Defense Department's space programs, not even McGrath and the peaceniks in Congress can vote against it."
"Can't they?" Marcot's long, hound-sad face had years of bitter experience written across it. "I can just see McGrath rising on the floor of the Senate and making a very eloquent speech about the Aerospace Force's paranoid schemes for 247 extending the arms race to the Moon. I can see his cohorts telling their constituents back home about the hundreds of billions of dollars the Defense Department wants to throw away in space instead of spending down here on welfare and urban renewal."
"Bullcrap!" Colt snorted.
"But it works," Marcot answered. "It gets votes."
"Then we've got to stop McGrath," Colt said. "He's the leader of this faction. Get him to vote our way. pull his fangs, do something ..."
