"He's a loner," Kinsman said. "He's not looking for a friend."
"He's a black loner in an otherwise white outfit."
"That's got nothing to do with it."
"The hell it hasn't."
Kinsman started to reply, hesitated. There were a dozen arguments he could make, three dozen examples he could show of how Colt had deliberately rebuffed attempts at camaraderie. But one vision in Kinsman's mind kept his tongue silent: he recalled the squad's only black officer eating alone, day after day, night after night. He never tried to join the others at their tables in the mess hall, and no one ever sat down at his.
"If he wasn't the top man in the squad," Tenny said, "he'd have a lot of pals. But he's a better flier than any of you. He's scored higher in the training tests than any of you. 26
Higher than anybody in the other squads, too."
"And he's hell on wheels," Kinsman countered. "I don't think he wants any of us for friends."
Tenny scowled deeply. Then he said, "Yeah. maybe so. But he tossed his cookies. That shows that he's human, at least."
Kinsman said nothing.
Kinsman almost laughed out loud when he first saw Colonel Murdock.
Twenty-four astronaut trainees, all first lieutenants, twenty men, four women, all of them white except one, were sitting nervously in a bare little briefing room at Vandenberg Air Force Base. The air-conditioning was not working well and the room was dank with the smell of anxiety. It was like a classroom, with faded government-green walls and stained acoustical tile ceiling. The chairs in which the lieutenants sat had wooden writing arms on them. There was a podium up front with a microphone goosenecking up, and scrubbed- clean chalkboards and a rolled-up projection screen behind it.
"Ten-HUT!"
All two dozen trainees snapped to their feet as Lieuten- ant Colonel Robert Murdock came into the room, followed by his three majors.
He looks like Porky Pig, Kinsman said to himself.
Murdock was short, round, balding, with bland pink features and soft, pudgy little hands. He was actually a shade taller than Major Tenny, who stood against the chalkboard behind the Colonel. But where Tenny looked like a compact football linebacker or maybe even a petty Mafioso, Murdock reminded Kinsman of an algebra teacher he had suffered under for a year at William Penn Charter School, back in Philadelphia.
Colonel Murdock scanned his two dozen charges, trying to look strong and commanding. But his bald head was already glistening with nervous perspiration and his voice was an octave too high to be awe-inspiring as he said, "Be seated, gentlemen. And ladies."
Kinsman thought back to the algebra teacher. The man had terrified the entire class for the first few weeks of the semester, warning them of how tough he was and how 27 difficult it would be for any of them to pass his course. Then the students discovered that behind the man's threats and demands there was nothing: he was an empty shell. He could be maneuvered easily. The real trouble was that if he discovered he had been maneuvered by a student, he was merciless.
Kinsman struggled to stay awake during the Colonel's welcoming speech. All the usual buzzwords. Teamwork, orientation, challenge, the honor of the Air Force, pride, duty, the nation's first line of defense . . . they droned sleepi- ly in his ears.
"Two final points," said Colonel Murdock. The lieuten- ants stirred in their chairs at the promise of release.
