“Yes, you did.”
He shrugged. “Well, if we establish a permanent settlement, I guess we’ll have to work out some sort of social structure.”
“Would you take the responsibility for setting up that social structure?” Diane asked. “Would you shoulder the job of making certain that all the nonsense of Earth is left behind? Would you do the job right?”
For a moment, Kinsman didn’t know what to answer. Then he said, “I would try.”
“You’d take that responsibility?” Diane asked again.
Nodding. “Damned right.”
Mary-Ellen looked totally unconvinced. “But who would be willing to live on the Moon? Who would want to?”
“I would,” Diane said.
They all turned to look at her. Mary-Ellen shocked, McGrath curious.
“Would you?” Kinsman asked. “Really?”
Very seriously, she replied, “If you’re going to build a new world, how could I stay away?”
Kinsman felt himself relax for the first time all evening. “Well, I’ll be damned! You can see it!” He started to laugh.
“What’s funny?” McGrath asked.
“I’ve won a convert, Neal. If Diane can see what it’s all about, then we’ve got it made. The idea of a Moonbase, of a permanent settlement on the Moon—if it gets across to Diane, then the kids will see it, too.”
“There are no kids in Congress.”
Kinsman shrugged. “That’s okay. Congress’ll come around sooner or later. Maybe not this year, maybe not until after Murdock retires. But we’ll get it. There’s going to be a permanent settlement on the Moon. In time for me to get there.”
“Chet,” Diane said, “it won’t be fun. It’s going to be a lot of work.”
“I know. But it’ll be worth the work.”
They sat there, eye to eye, grinning at each other.
McGrath slouched back in the sofa. “I guess I’m simply too old to appreciate all this. I don’t see how—”
“Neal,” Kinsman said, “someday the history books will devote a chapter to the creation of man’s first extraterrestrial society. Your name will be in there as one of the men who opposed it—or one of the leaders who helped create it. Which do you want to be put down beside your name?”
“You’re a cunning bastard,” McGrath mumbled.
“And don’t you forget it.” Kinsman stood up, stretched, then reached a hand out for Diane. “Come on, lunik, let’s take a walk. There’s a full Moon out tonight. In a couple years I’ll show you what a full Earth looks like.”
CRISIS OF THE MONTH
“Crisis of the Month” began with my wife’s griping about the hysterical manner in which the news media report on the day’s events. Veteran newscaster Linda Ellerbee calls the technique “anxiety news.” Back in journalism school (so long ago that spelling was considered important) I was taught that “good news is no news.” Today’s media takes this advice to extremes: no matter what the story, there is a down side to it that can be emphasized.
So when my darling and very perceptive wife complained about the utterly negative way in which the media presented the day’s news I quipped, “I can see the day when science finally finds out how to make people immortal. The media will do stories about the sad plight of the funeral directors.”
My wife recognizes an idea when she hears one, even if I don’t. She immediately suggested, “Why don’t you write a story about that?”
Thus the origin of “Crisis of the Month.”
While I crumpled the paper note that someone had slipped into my jacket pocket, Jack Armstrong drummed his fingers on the immaculately gleaming expanse of the pseudomahogany conference table.
“Well,” he said testily, “ladies and gentlemen, don’t one of you have a possibility? An inkling? An idea?”
No one spoke. I left the wadded note in my pocket and placed both my hands conspicuously on the table top.
Armstrong drummed away in abysmal silence. I guess once he had actually looked like The All-American Boy. Now, many facelifts and body remodelings later, he looked more like a moderately well-preserved manikin.
“Nothing at all, gentleman and ladies?” He always made certain to give each sex the first position fifty percent of the time. Affirmative action was a way of life with our Boss.
“Very well then. We will Delphi the problem.”
