She drove out to the Singing Wheel. The parking lot was packed with Corvettes, and inside she found Phil Stone, Ted Curval, and a few of their ex-military cronies, already working methodically through pitchers of Bud. Stone pulled up a stool for York beside him and gave her a dew-coated glass of beer.

“Congratulations,” he said warmly. “So you’re finally making it into space. America’s first spacewoman. Here’s to yah, Natalie. Come on, fellas—” He led a couple of toasts, in cold beer, which she endured. “So,” he said. “How are you feeling?”

“Mixed,” she said bluntly. “I’m flying, at last—”

“Hey, you done well. What is it, three years since you joined the Agency? Hell, we have guys who’ve waited three, four times as long as that to get a seat. I’m looking forward to working with you on the D mission. I mean that, Natalie.”

“Yeah.” She tried to smile.

Stone was watching her carefully. “Yeah, but—” he prompted.

“But, Phil, what I’m really thinking is that you’re the asshole who’s going to Mars, and I’m not.”

He laughed, mildly, and took another pull of his beer. “Come on, Natalie. Nobody knows who’s going to Mars. Not at this stage. If the preliminary flights don’t work out, maybe nobody will be going.”

“Give me a break. You heard what Muldoon said. ‘The normal rotation system.’ ”

The “rotation system” dated back to the earliest Mercury days, and it had been applied all the way through Apollo. Crews were assigned to missions in a leapfrog fashion. The rule was “back one, skip two, fly one,” and then start over. Thus, Phil Stone and the other members of his crew were backups for the D mission, York’s space soak flight. If the rotation worked out, they would skip two missions — the E missions — and fly the next, the F mission.

Which just happened to be the full Mars landing attempt.

Stone spread his hands on the table. “Rotation’s not a bad system, Natalie. At least it’s orderly. I mean, Muldoon has a pig of a job. Everyone wants to be on every crew—”

“Oh, bullshit, Phil. The rotation stuff isn’t a goddamn machine. It’s not hard to work it so you get the crew patterns you want.”

“Look, Natalie, anything but a rotation system is an insult to the astronauts and destructive to morale. That’s what I think, and I reckon it’s what old Joe thinks, too. Every crew should be able to fly every flight. It’s like handling a squadron of fighter pilots. You’ve got a mission to do and so many flights to fly and so many pilots to fly them…”

“But this isn’t a goddamn fighter squadron. We ought to be handpicking crews for the needs of the mission.”

“And you think you should be handpicked for the F mission?”