As Joe spoke his eyes took on the look of a messiah. Then the vision faded and he glanced at his watch. "We'd better hurry along before the Secret Service wonders why we're lagging. Anyway, that's the gist of it. I'll try to answer your questions while you play"

The President stared at him in awe. "Jesus," he groaned. "I don't think I can absorb all this."

"My apologies for throwing so much at you in so short a time," said Joe swiftly. "But it was necessary."

"Where exactly on the moon is this Jersey Colony?"

"After studying the photographs from the Lunar Orbiter probes and Apollo missions, we detected a geyser of vapor issuing from a volcanic region in the southern hemisphere of the moon's far side. Closer examination showed it to be a large cavern, perfect shelter for locating the initial installation."

"You said ten men are up there?"

"Yes."

"What about rotation, replacements?"

"No rotation."

"God, that means the original crew who assembled the lunar transport have been in space six years."

"That's true," acknowledged Joe. "One died and seven were added as the base was expanded to support more life."

"What about their families?"

"All bachelors. All knew and accepted the hardship and risk."

"You say I'm only the second President to learn of the project?"

"That's correct."

"Not allowing the nation's Chief Executive to share in the project is an insult to the office."

Joe's dark blue eyes deepened even more. He stared at the President with stern malice. "Presidents are political animals. Votes become more precious than treasure. Nixon might have used the Jersey Colony as a smokescreen to bail himself out of Watergate. Same with Carter and the Iranian hostage fiasco. Reagan to enhance his image while lording it over the Russians. What's even more deplorable is the thought of what Congress would do with the project, the partisan politics that would come into play as debate raged to no good purpose over whether the money would be better spent on defense or feeding the poor. I love my country, Mr. President, and consider myself a better patriot than most, but I no longer have any faith in the government."

"You took the people's tax dollars."

"Which will be repaid with interest from scientific benefits. But do not forget, private individuals and their corporations contributed half the money, and, I might add, without any thought of profit or personal gain. Defense and space contractors cannot make that claim."

The President did not argue. He quietly set his ball on a tee and socked the ball toward the eighteenth green.

"If you distrust Presidents so much," he said bitterly, "why did you drop out of the heavens to tell me all this?"

"We may have a problem." Joe slipped a photograph from the back of the folder and held it up. "Through our connections I've obtained a picture taken from an Air Force stealth aircraft making surveillance flights over Cuba."