In Michaels’s humble opinion, the current NASA Administrator, Thomas O. Paine, was an idiot: a naive dreamer who was pumping Agnew full of grandiose visions, without a thought about how acceptable they would be to the decision makers inside the White House. Paine was a real contrast to his predecessor, Jim Webb, whom Michaels had greatly admired. Webb was a real political operator — he had known where the bodies were buried, up on the Hill — and he had actively avoided long-term planning. NASA was bad at it anyhow — long-range plans always got bogged down in infighting between the centers — and Webb believed that long-term plans were just hostages to fortune, a distraction for budget authorizers and NASA managers.

Paine couldn’t seem to see that the real problem lay in holding NASA together in the tough times to come, not starting up new programs.

It just wasn’t the way Michaels would run things.

Agronski said, “Fred, forget your huge space stations, your fifty men on the Moon in 1980. The President wants what he’s calling, in private, a ‘Kennedy option.’ ” He tapped the document again. “In this statement he was going to pick out one element from the task group’s report, the Space Shuttle, on which to focus. But what if he were to choose something else — a more visible, major goal — to achieve as quickly and as cheaply as possible?”

Muldoon was staring at Agronski, evidently baffled.

But Michaels understood. He’s speaking obliquely. In code. He has to. But Kennedy is evidently making his point. Nixon wants to save money. But he doesn’t want to be the President who killed the space program, not with Kennedy bleating in the background.

“You’re thinking about Mars,” he said to Agronski. “After all that bullshit about the Manhattan Project and Earth Day, you’re here to talk about going to Mars. Aren’t you?”

Muldoon looked startled.

“What does Paine say about this?”

Agronski looked at him carefully. “Let’s think about Dr. Paine later,” he said.

I knew it. They’re forcing Paine out. He’d heard the rumors from within the White House. Not only was Paine not cooperating, he was being seen as undermining the President. We need a new Administrator who will work with us and not against us, and will reflect credit on the President, not embarrass him… Paine was a dead duck. And now — from the way Agronski was studying him — Michaels understood that he, Fred Michaels, was being offered the chance to succeed, in preference to George Low, Jim Fletcher.

Mars, and the post of Administrator, all in one day. Games within games. But I’ll have to give Agronski something to take home with him, the bones of a cheap Mars option. And there is sure as hell going to be a price to pay, and I need to find out what it is.