Senator Buford nodded and muttered, mostly to himself, “I finally got a NASA scientist who tells me the truth.”

“Sir, I want you to realize the whole truth about what I’ve been telling you—”

But Buford wasn’t listening. “Senator Petty will be our major obstacle. Scrawny little Yankee—thinks he’s God’s chosen apostle to watch out over the federal budget. He’ll give us trouble.”

The name of Senator Petty was known to make scientists weep. NASA administrators raced to the bathroom at the sound of it.

Buford waggled a lean, liver-spotted hand in Don’s general direction. “But don’t you worry none ‘bout Petty. Ah’ll take care o’ him! You just concentrate on gettin’ NASA to bring me a detailed program for that space station—with th’ medical center in it.”

“And the advanced shuttle,” Don added, in a near whisper.

“Yen, of course. The advanced shuttle, too. Cain’t ride up there to your geriatrics ward in th’ sky on a broomstick, now can I?”

“The twins were twelve years old today.”

Don looked up from the report he was writing. It had been nearly midnight by the time he’d gotten home, and now it was well past one.

“I forgot all about their birthday,” he confessed.

Judy was standing in the doorway of his study, wrapped in a fuzzy pink housecoat. There were lines in her face that Don hadn’t noticed before. Her voice was sharper than he’d remembered.

“They could both be in jail for all you think about them!” she snapped. “Or me, for that matter.”

“Look, honey, I’ve got responsibilities. . .”

“Sure! The big-shot executive. All day long he’s running NASA and all night long he’s out at parties.”

“Meetings,” Don said defensively. “It’s tough to deal with congressmen and senators in their offices—”

“Meetings with disco bands and champagne and lots of half-naked secretaries prancing around!”

“Judy, for God’s sake, I’m juggling a million and one details! The space station, the flyback shuttle booster, and now Senator Buford’s in the hospital. . .”

“I hope he drops dead and Petty cuts your balls off!” Judy looked shocked that the words could have come from her mouth. She turned and fled from the room.

Don gave out a long, agonized sigh and leaned back in his desk chair. For a moment he wanted to toss the report he was writing into the wastebasket and go up to bed with his wife.

But he knew he had to face Senator Petty the next morning, and he had to be armed for the encounter. He went back to his writing.

“I think you’re pulling the biggest boondoggle this nation’s ever seen since the Apollo project,” said Senator Petty, smiling.

Don was sitting tensely in a big leather chair in front of the Senator’s massive oak desk. On Don’s left, in an equally sumptuous chair, sat Reed McCormack, NASA’s chief administrator, the space agency’s boss and a childhood chum of the President.

McCormack looked like a studious, middle-aged banker who kept in trim playing tennis and sailing racing yachts. Which was almost entirely true. He was not studious. He had learned early in life that you can usually buy expertise—for a song. His special talent was making people trust him.

Senator Petty didn’t trust anyone.

From the neck up the Senator looked like a movie idol: brilliant white straight teeth (capped); tanned, taut handsome face (lifted, twice); thick, curly, reddish-brown hair (implanted and dyed). Below the neck, however, his body betrayed him. Despite excruciating hours of jogging and handball, his stomach bulged and his chest was sunken.

“A boondoggle?” McCormack asked easily. “Your colleagues in the Senate don’t seem to think so.”

Petty’s smile turned acid. “Funny thing about my fellow senators. The older they are, the more money they want to appropriate for your gold-plated space station. Why do you think that is?”

“Age brings wisdom,” said McCormack.

“Does it?” Petty turned his mud-brown eyes on Don. “Or is it that you keep telling them they can live forever, once they’re up in your orbital old-age home?”

“I’ve never said that,” Don snapped. His nerves were frayed, he realized, as much by Senator Buford’s hospitalization as by Judy’s growing unhappiness.

“Oh, you’ve been very careful about what you’ve said, and to whom, and with what qualifications,” Petty replied. “But they all get the same impression: Live in space and you live forever. NASA can give you immortality—if you vote the funds for it.”

“That is not our policy,” McCormack said firmly.

“The hell it isn’t,” Petty snapped. “But old Bufe’s terminal, they tell me. You won’t have him to steer your outrageous funding requests through the Senate. You’ll have to deal with me.”

Don knew it was true, and saw the future slipping away from his grasp.

“That’s why we’re here,” McCormack said. “To deal.”

Petty nodded curtly.

“If you try to halt construction of the space station, your colleagues will outvote you overwhelmingly,” said McCormack.

“Same thing applies to the new shuttle,” Don added.

Petty leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. “I know that. But I can slow you down. OMB isn’t very happy with your cost overruns, you know. And I can always start an investigation into this so-called science of life extension. I can pick a panel of experts that will blow your immortality story out of the water.”

For the first time, McCormack looked uneasy.

“There’s no immortality ‘story,’ ” Don said testily. “We’ve simply reported the conclusions of various studies and experiments. We’ve been absolutely truthful.”

“And you’ve allowed the senators to believe that if they life in orbit they can all become Methuselahs.” Petty laughed. “Well, a couple of biologists from Harvard and Berkeley can shoot you down inside a week—with the proper press coverage. And I can see to it that they get the coverage.”

Don gripped the arms of his chair and tried to hold onto his temper. “Senator Buford is dying and you’re already trying to tear down everything he worked to achieve.”

Petty grinned mischievously. “You bet I am.”

“What do you want from us?” McCormack asked.

The Senator’s grin faded slowly.

“I said we’re here to deal with you,” McCormack added, speaking softly. “The President is very anxious to keep this program going. Its effect on the national economy has been very beneficial, you realize.”

“So you say.”