"You won't," Kinsman said. Then, grinning, he added, "Of course, one way to make sure of that is to send me a quarter-million miles away."
McGrath glared at him.
"You can have your Minority Leadership, Neal. All I want is the Moon."
The committee hearings were scheduled to go on for another week before the senators voted. Kinsman spent the time briefing White House staffers and key Congressional leaders, including Senator McGrath. The State Department reared its head and mewed about upsetting the delicate balance of offensive and defensive armaments that had been negotiated so painstakingly at Geneva over the past decade. But the Central Intelligence Agency cut State's legs off at the knees with evidence that the Soviets were developing a spaceplane that looked so exactly like the USAF interceptor they suspected the plans had been stolen.
Then came the critical vote on the defense budget by the Senate Appropriations Committee- The budget included a small supplemental item for Moonbase: the first year's fund- ing, "a scant fifty million," as Marcot put it, "the nose of the camel." Everyone knew, thanks to Kinsman's briefings, that the full camel would cost twenty billion or more.
The first test came almost unnoticed, except by Kinsman and the other Luniks: no senator proposed an amendment to the budget that would eliminate the Moonbase program.
The second test was the roll-call vote of the committee, Kinsman sat in the rear of the ornate committee chamber, holding his breath as the roll call went down the long green-topped table. Only three senators voted nay. Two abstained. McGrath of Pennsylvania was one of the absten- tions.
Moonbase passed. Kinsman leaned back in his chair and let out a year-long sigh.
You've got what you wanted, he said to himself. Now all you have to do is worry about whether it was the right thing to want.
Immediately he answered himself, No! All you have to do is to make it the right thing.
"So that's how Neal's going to handle it," Kinsman was telling Frank Colt that evening as they celebrated at a bar in Crystal City. "He's not going to vote in favor, but he's not going to stand in the way."
The bar was jammed. Half the Pentagon seemed to be there, clamoring for drinks. Music blared from omnispeakers set into the red plush-covered walls. The lights were glitter- ing, splashing off the mirrored ceiling. Colt and Kinsman stood at the bar, wedged in by the frenetic crowd.
Colt hiked his eyebrows. "Politicians! They got more tricks to 'em than a forty-year-old hooker."
Grabbing his drink from the bar before the guy next to him elbowed it over. Kinsman shouted over the noise, "Who cares! We're going to the Moon, buddy!"
The guy next to him gave Kinsman a queer look.
Colt laughed, then turned to look over the crowded, throbbing room. Kinsman did the same, resting his elbows against the bar. All the tables were filled, people were milling around the dance floor, hollering in each other's ears, laugh- ing, drinking, smoking. There was not a square foot of empty space.
Looking over the noisy crowd. Kinsman realized that he would be leaving this kind of scene far behind him. No great loss, he told himself. No real loss at all.
Then he noticed a stunning Asian woman sitting at one of the tiny tables with an almost equally good-looking blonde. The Oriental had the delicate features of a Vietnamese.
Colt spotted them, too. He nudged Kinsman in the ribs. "Now that looks like a scrutable Oriental."
"They do look lonely," Kinsman said.
