“Colonel Murdock lost a few pounds, and it wasn’t all from the TV lights,” Kinsman said.
“I was only trying to get him to give me a good reason for funneling money into a permanent Moonbase.”
Kinsman answered, “He gave you about fifty reasons, Neal.”
“None that hold up,” McGrath said. “Not when we’ve got to find money to reclaim every major city in this country, plus fighting these damned interminable wars.”
“And to check the population growth,” Diane added.
Here we go again. Shrugging. Kinsman said, “Look, Neal, I’m not going to argue with you. We’ve been making one-shot missions to the Moon off and on for fifty years now. There’s enough there to warrant a permanent base.”
McGrath made a sour face. “A big, expensive base on the Moon.”
“Makes sense,” Kinsman slid in. “It makes sense on a straight cost-effectiveness basis. You’ve seen the numbers. Moonbase will save you billions of dollars in the long run.”
“That’s just like Mary-Ellen saves me money at department store sales. I can’t afford to save that money. Not this year. The capital outlay is too high. To say nothing of the overruns.”
“Now wait—”
“Come on, Chet. There’s never been a big program that’s lived within its budget. No . . . Moonbase is going to have to wait, I’m afraid.”
“We’ve already waited fifty years.”
A crowd was gathering around them now, and McGrath automatically raised his voice a notch. “Our first priority has got to be for the cities. They’ve become jungles, unfit for sane human life. We’ve got to reclaim them, and save the people who’re trapped in them before they all turn into savages.”
Damn, he’s got a thick hide. “Okay, but it doesn’t have to be either/or. We can do both.”
“Not while the war’s on.”
Hold your temper; don’t fire at the flag. “The war’s an awfully convenient excuse for postponing commitments. We’ve been in hot and cold wars since before you and I were born.”
With the confident grin of a hunter who had cornered his quarry, McGrath asked, “Are you suggesting that we pull our troops out of South America? Or do you want to let our cities collapse completely?”
Do you still beat your wife? “All I’m suggesting,” Kinsman said with, deliberate calm, “is that we shouldn’t postpone building Moonbase any longer. We’ve got the technology—we know how to do it. It’s either build a permanent base on the Moon, or stop the lunar exploration program altogether. If we fail to build Moonbase, your budget-cutting friends will throttle down the whole manned space program to zero within a few years.”
Still smiling, McGrath said, “I’ve heard all that from your Colonel Murdock.”
There was a curious look in Diane’s dark eyes.
“Chet. Why do you want to have a Moonbase built?”
“Why? Because . . . I was just telling you—”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t mean the official reasons, I mean why do you dig the idea?”
“We need it. The space program needs it.”
“No,” she said patiently. “You. Why are you for it? What’s in it for you?”
“What do you mean?” Kinsman asked.
“What makes you tick, man? What turns you on? Is it a Moonbase? What moves you, Chet?”
They were all watching him, the whole crowd, their faces blank or smirking or inquisitive. Floating weightless, standing on nothing and looking at the overpowering beauty of Earth—rich, brilliant, full, shining against the black emptiness. Knowing that people down there are killing each other, teaching their children to kill, your eyes filling with tears at the beauty and sadness of it. How could they see it? How could they understand?
“What moves you, Chet?” Diane asked again.
He made himself grin. “Well, for one thing, the Pentagon cafeteria coffee.”
Everybody laughed. But she wouldn’t let him off the hook.
“No—get serious. This is important. What turns you on?”
Wouldn’t understand anyway. “You mean aside from the obvious things, like sex?”
She nodded gravely.
“Hmmm. I don’t know. It’s kind of hard to answer. Flying, I guess. Getting out on your own responsibility, away from committees and chains of command.”
“There’s got to be more to it than that,” Diane insisted.
“Well . . . have you ever been out on the desert at an Israeli outpost, dancing all night by firelight because at dawn there’s going to be an attack and you don’t want to waste a minute of life?”
There was a heartbeat’s span of silence. Then one of the women asked in a near-whisper, “When . . . were you . . . ?”
Kinsman said, “Oh, I’ve never been there. But isn’t it a romantic picture?”
They all broke into laughter. That burst the bubble. The crowd began to dissolve, breaking up into smaller groups, dozens of private conversations filling the silence that had briefly held them.
