They were cut off by a burst of noise and laughter. Half a dozen lean. lithe young men in Air Force blues—shining new captain's double bars on their shoulders—trotted down the carpeted stairs that led into the bar.

"There they are," said Tenny. "You can ask Kinsman about it yourself."

Kinsman was grinning happily at the moment as he and five other astronauts grabbed chairs and circled them around one little table in the corner, while calling thf ir orders to the bartender.

Calder took his drink and headed for the table, followed by Major Tenny.

"Hold it," Frank Colt warned the other astronauts. "Here comes the media."

"Tight security."

"Why, boys," Calder tried to make his gravelly voice sound hurt, "don't you trust me?"

Tenny pushed a chair toward the old reporter and took another one for himself. Turning it backward and straddling it, so that his chunky arms rested on the chair back, the Major told his young captains, "It's okay. I spilled it to him."

"How much he pay you, boss?"

"That's between him and me."

As the bartender brought a tray of drinks, Calder said, "Let the Fourth Estate pay for this round, gentlemen. I want to pump some information out of you."

"That might take a lot of rounds."

To Kinsman, Calder said, "Congratulations, my boy. Colonel Murdock must think very highly of you."

They all burst out laughing.

"Murdock?" said Kinsman. "You should've seen his face when he told me I was it!"

"Looked like he was sucking on lemons." 71

Tenny explained. "The selection for the mission was made by the personnel computer. Murdock wanted to be absolutely unprejudiced, so he went strictly by the perfor- mance ratings in the computer—and out came Kinsman's name."

"It was a fix," muttered Colt, mainly for effect.

"If Murdock hadn't made so much noise about being so damned impartial," Tenny went on, "he could've reshuffled the program and tried again. But 1 was right there when the personnel officer came in with the name, so he couldn't back out of it."

"We was robbed," said Smitty.

Calder's ancient, weathered face creased into a grin. "Well, at least the computer thinks highly of you, Captain Kinsman, even if Colonel Murdock doesn't. I suppose that's still some kind of honor."

"More like a privilege. I've been watching that Celebrity chick through her training. Ripe."

"She'll look even better up in orbit."

"Once she takes off her space suit . . . et cetera."

"Hey, y'know, nobody's ever done it in orbit."