Kinsman heard himself replying calmly, "They can't keep the lid on something that big. Somebody will leak it. At the very least it means I'm finished with NASA."

"We'd all heard rumors about an Air Force astronaut 150 killing a Russian during a military mission. But I never thought ... I mean . . ."

"The priest figured it out. Or he guessed it."

"It must've been rough on you," Bok said.

Kinsman shrugged. "Not as rough as what happened to her."

"I'm . . . sorry." Bok's voice trailed off helplessly.

"It doesn't matter."

Surprised, Kinsman realized that he meant it. He sat upright. "It doesn't matter anymore. They can do whatever they want to. I can handle it. Even if they ground me and throw me to the media wolves, I think I can take it. I did it and it's over with and I can take whatever I have to take."

Father Lemoyne's free arm moved slightly. "It's all right," he whispered hoarsely. "It's all right."

The priest turned his face toward Kinsman. His gaze moved from the astronaut's eyes to the plastic bottle in Kinsman's hands. "It's all right," he repeated, smiling weak- ly. "It's not hell we're in. It's purgatory. We'll get through, We'll make it all right."

Then he closed his eyes and relaxed into sleep. But his smile remained, strangely gentle in that bearded, haggard face; ready to meet the world or eternity.

Age 33

IT LOOKED LIKE a perfectly reasonable bar to Kinsman. No, he corrected himself. A perfectly reasonable pub.

The booths along the back wall were empty. A couple of middle-aged men were conversing quietly as they stood at the bar itself with pints of light Australian lager in their hands. The bartender was a beefy, red-faced Aussie. Only the ceiling of raw rock broke the illusion that they were up on the surface in an ordinary Australian city. 151

Kinsman ordered a scotch and walked slowly with it to the last booth, where his back would be to the rock wall and he could see the entire pub. Tiredly he wondered when the British Commonwealth was going to discover the joys of ice cubes. Half a tumbler of good whisky and just two thumbnail- sized dollops of ice that immediately melted away and left the scotch lukewarm.

Like the Wicked Witch of the West, he thought. Melting, melting. Like me.

Kinsman glanced at his wristwatch. The dedication cere- monies should soon be over. The pub would start to fill up then. Better finish your drink and find someplace to hide before they start pouring in here.

He gulped at the whisky, but as he put the glass down on the bare wood of the booth's table, Fred Durban walked into the pub. Durban looked damned good for a man pushing seventy. Tall and spare as one of the old rocket boosters he had engineered, back in the days when you pressed the firing button and ducked behind sandbags because you had no idea of what the rocket might decide to do.

Kinsman felt trapped. He could not get up and leave because he would have to walk past Durban and the old man would recognize him. If he stayed, Durban would spot him. Even in a civilian's slacks and sports jacket. Kinsman could not hide his identity.

The old man walked slowly toward the bar, looking almost British in his tweed jacket and the pipe that he almost always had clamped in his teeth. He looked down the bar, then toward the booths. His face lit up as he spotted Kinsman. Briskly he strode to the booth and slid into the bench on the other side of the narrow table.

"You couldn't take all the speechifying either, eh?"

Wishing he were somewhere else. Kinsman nodded.

"Can't blame you. I've been in this game for a thousand years now and the only part of it I don't like is when those stuffed shirts start congratulating themselves over the things you and I did."

"Uh, sir, I was just leaving . . ."

"Hey, come on! You wouldn't leave me here to drink all alone, would you?"