"Astronaut, huh? Well, I'd rather fly a real airplane. Damned astronauts are like robots. Everything's done by remote control for those rocket jocks."
"Not everything," Kinsman protested.
He could sense the pilot shaking his head inside his helmet. "Hell, I'll bet they even have machines to do their screwing for them."
It was an old house atop Russian Hill. Victorian clap- board, unpretentious yet big enough to hold a hockey rink on its ground floor. The view of the Bay was spectacular. The people who lived in this part of San Francisco had the quiet power to see that none of the new office towers and high-rise hotels obscured their vistas.
Nea! McGrath opened the door for Kinsman. His normal scowl warmed into a half-bitter smile.
"Hello, Chet."
"Neal. I didn't expect to see you here."
"He needed somebody to take charge of things for him. This has hit him pretty hard."
McGrath reminded Kinsman of a Varangian Guard: a tall, broad-shouldered, red-haired Viking who hovered by his Emperor's side to protect him from assassins. His ice-blue eyes looked much older than his years. He was barely twenty months older than Kinsman, but his suspicious scowl and low, growly voice gave him an air of inner experience, of wariness, that strangely made people trust and rely on him. Kinsman had known him since McGrath had been the ten-year-old son who helped their gardener mow their lawn. Now McGrath was his father's personal assistant, and was being groomed for one of the family's seats in the House of Representatives. He would be a senator one day, they all agreed.
Stepping from the late afternoon sunshine into the darkened stained-glass foyer of the old Victorian house, Kinsman asked, "Where is my mother?"
"In there." McGrath gestured toward a set of double doors that rose to the ceiling.
Kinsman let his single flight bag drop to the marble floor. "Is my father . . ."
"He's upstairs, taking a nap. The doctor's trying to keep him as quiet as possible." McGrath bent to pick up Kinsman's bag. "There's a room for you upstairs. How long will you be staying?"
"I'll leave right after the funeral, tomorrow."
"A lot of the family is flying in from the East. They'll expect to see you afterward."
Kinsman shook his head. "I can't stay."
"If it's a matter of fixing things with the Academy I can call ..."
"No. Please, Neal."
McGrath shrugged and started toward the broad, stern dark-wood staircase, his footsteps echoing on the cool marble floor.
Kinsman went to the tall double doors. An ornately framed mirror hung on the hallway wall just before the doors, and he saw himself in it. His mother would not have recog- nized him. The blue uniform made him look slimmer than ever, and taller, despite the fact that he had never quite reached the six-foot height he had coveted so desperately as a teenager. His face was leaner, dark hair cropped closer than it had ever been before, blue eyes weary from lack of sleep. His long jaw was stubbly; his mother would have insisted that he go upstairs and shave.
