“Don’t decry yourself. Down here, that broadcast was like a catharsis. I think it helped a lot of people, in NASA and beyond, come to terms with what happened. And you’ve done a good job with the post-accident review.” He sighed. “Look, Joe, I need you because we’re in a damned hole. I still don’t know which way Reagan is going to swing. But I know the accident looks bad, very bad, up on the Hill. I think it’s highly likely we won’t be allowed to proceed with the nuclear rocket program. And the MEM isn’t even a bucket of bolts yet; it was months behind schedule even before this mess… What I need is someone impatient, tough, charismatic — you, Joe — to get hold of the program and pull the damned thing out of Marshall, and the contractors, and all the rest, and make it happen.”

Muldoon looked across the cemetery. “Let me get something clear,” he said quietly. “If I take this job, I won’t be able to remain on the active roster.”

Michaels took a breath. “No. There’s no way you could maintain both schedules.”

“So if I take this job, to get your ass out of a sling, I pass up on my chance of going to Mars.”

“I’m not going to pretend that’s not true, Joe. But if you don’t take the job, I think the chances are nobody will be going to Mars, not in my lifetime or yours.”

Muldoon’s mouth worked. “It’s one hell of a price you’re asking me to pay.”

“I know it.”

“And it’s not exactly orderly, Fred,” Muldoon said. “How are all those engineers and managers and space cadets going to feel when you put a dumb jock like me at the top of the structure chart?”

Michaels smiled. “Well, back in the Apollo days managers used to bounce around the organigram without paying too much attention to that kind of thing. Maybe we need that spirit back again. I don’t think you ought to worry about the color of the carpet on the floor, Joe. And if anyone does start bothering you about ranks and status — well, you just come to me.”

“Hell, no,” Muldoon said. “If any paper-pusher with his thumbs up his ass tries to fuck me over—”

“Does that mean you’re taking the job?”

“It means I’ll think about it. You’re a bastard, Michaels.”

They began to walk toward their waiting cars.

Tuesday, February 3, 1981

OZERO TENGIZ, KAZAKHSTAN

The wind across the steppe pierced the layers of York’s pressure suit. She tried walking around, to keep warm. But the Soviet-design suit, wired for internal strength, resisted her motion, and she soon felt herself tiring; and the “appendix,” the bunched-up opening at the front of the suit, irritated her chest.