Agronski said smugly, “Well. Of course I’m aware that there’s a lot of opposition to further Moon flights, even within NASA. The whole system’s too complex. ‘One of these days Apollo will kill somebody, if it hasn’t already killed Lovell and his crew’ — that’s what is being said, isn’t it? I imagine a curtailment wouldn’t be impossibly difficult to sell, even within NASA, now that the first landings have been achieved. And—”

Muldoon kicked back his chair and stood up. “So we’re cutting the Moon flights,” he said. He was tall, intimidating, his disgust majestic. “Just when we’ve gotten there. Jesus Christ, Fred. The later flights would have been the crown of the program. J-class missions, with advanced LMs, three-day stays on the surface, long-duration backpacks that would extend each moonwalk to up to seven hours, and electric cars. We’d have gone to sites of terrific wonder, and beauty, and scientific interest. We’ve even got a tentative plan to go to the far side of the Moon.”

Michaels stared at Muldoon. He prided himself on being a great off-the-ballot politician, but he found words deserting him, at that moment of all moments.

“I know, Joe. I know.”

Michaels could imagine the attacks he’d suffer from the scientists. It was even possible he wouldn’t be able to sell a deal like this to Paine, and to others in the Agency, such as George Mueller, the great space station proponent. And, looking farther ahead, he supposed there was a danger that a Mars program would keep NASA a single-issue Agency, everything subordinated to one goal, just as in the days of Apollo.

He tried to focus on Muldoon, to handle the situation in front of him.

“It may not be a case of canceling the flights, Joe. Maybe we could stretch out the schedule. Defer some of the flights until later—”

Muldoon faced Michaels; the knotty muscles bunched around his shoulders, under his shirt. “Don’t do this, Fred. Don’t kill the missions.”

From the corner of his eye Michaels could see Agronski’s face, his revulsion at that outburst of monomania.

He knows he’s won. He knows I’m going to have to do more than just defer; that I’m going to agree to make these sacrifices, to sell them within the Agency, then manage them through as Administrator, in order to give us all a future. And there is more pain, much more, to come.

Michaels felt as if all of history, past and present, were flowing through him, in this room, just now; and that whatever he decided might shape the destiny of worlds.

Sunday, June 21, 1970

HAMPTON, VIRGINIA

When Jim Dana passed Richmond he turned the Corvette off Route 1 and onto the narrower State Highway 60, heading southeast. The towns were fewer, and smaller. And, at last, after Williamsburg, there seemed to be nothing but forests and marshland, and the occasional farmhouse.