“Ruptured ear drums. A few burns.” Priest looked uncomfortable. “Natalie, what do you want me to tell you? The NRDS was born in a different age. You have to see things through the eyes of the times.”

“Oh, sure.” A different age. But we’re still using this hideous place now. And Mike works here, for God’s sake. She shivered, as if she could feel old Cold-War radioactive particles sleeting through her flesh.

She looked around. “How do they do their containment? When the test rockets fire. All that radioactive hydrogen, pluming into the air—”

Ben said, “What containment?”

They all piled into Ben’s Corvette and roared off down the interstate toward Vegas, where they were going to spend the night and Sunday. Petey quickly drifted off to sleep, his head lolling against the seat cushion.

Ben turned on his radio. A news program was broadcasting; York, sitting up in front with Ben, listened desultorily to dreary statistics from Vietnam.

Outside, light leaked from the sky, and hard starlight poked through the desert blue.

Ben leaned forward and turned up the volume. “Hey, Mike, listen to this. It’s Agnew.”

“…the three options identified by our Space Task Group represent a balanced program… a wide range of manned flights, unmanned planetary expeditions, and applications satellites — serving people on Earth and increasing international cooperation in space…”

Wernher von Braun’s cultured voice came on, testifying to the Senate. “I say let’s do it quickly and establish a foothold on a new planet while we still have one left to take off from…”

“So they’re still talking about going to Mars,” York said.

“Sure they are,” Ben said. “Agnew’s three options are all about going to Mars; the only difference between them is, the more you spend per year, the faster you get there. Although—”

“What?”

“Although he did put in a fourth option, where we give up manned spaceflight altogether.” Priest stared at the road ahead. “We’re just going to have to see, I guess.”

“Agnew is an asshole,” York said mildly.

“Maybe, but he’s an asshole who likes spaceships and astronauts,” Mike said, leaning forward from the back. “And that makes him my kind of asshole.”

“Going to Mars is a beautiful idea,” York said. “But it’s science fiction. Isn’t it?”

Mike squeezed her shoulder. “You’ve seen the XE-Prime. We can build this bird. All we need is the money.”

“How much money?”

“It’s not outrageous,” Ben said. “Probably not as much as Apollo, in real terms. The whole program is going to be modular. A few basic components, used in different combinations for different missions. You’d have a Space Shuttle to get to orbit cheaply, a nuclear rocket for long-haul missions to the Moon and beyond, and cans — space station modules — you could assemble in different configurations. You’d put together your Mars ships using space station cans as habitation modules, and nuclear boosters—”