«Yeah…»
He started to feel better, especially with Judy cuddling next to him, until almost the very end of the eleven o’clock news. Then they showed a film clip of him staring earnestly into the camera—I thought I was looking at the host, Don thought—and explaining how people who live in orbit will live forever.
Don saw his whole career passing in front of his eyes.
He made sure to get to his office bright and early the next morning, taking a bus that arrived on Independence Avenue before the morning traffic buildup. Don was at his desk, jacket neatly hung behind the door and shirt sleeves rolled up, going over the cost figures for yet another study of possible future options for the Office of Space Transportation Systems, when his phone buzzed.
«Uncle Sam wants you,» rasped Jack Hardesty’s voice in the phone receiver.
He saw the show! was Don’s first panicked thought.
«You there, Mr. Personality?» Hardesty demanded.
«Yeah, Jack, I’m here.»
«Meet me in Kluge’s office in five minutes.» The phone clicked dead.
Don broke into a sweat.
Otto von Kluge was as American as the Brooklyn Bridge, but many and various were the jokes around NASA Headquarters about his name, his heritage and his abilities. He was an indifferent engineer, a terrible public speaker, and a barely adequate administrator. But he was one of the few people in the office who had a knack for handling other people—from engineers to congressmen, from White House Whiz Kids to crusty old accountants from the Office of Budget and Management.
Despite the low setting of the building’s air-conditioning, von Kluge wore his suit jacket and even a little bow tie under his ample chin. Don always thought of him as a smiling, pudgy used-car salesman. But once in a great while he came across as a smiling, pudgy Junker land baron.
Hardesty—bone-thin, lantern-jawed, permanently harried—was already perched on the front half-inch of a chair at one side of von Kluge’s broad desk, puffing intensely on a cigaret. Don entered the carpeted office hesitantly, feeling a little like the prisoner on his way to the guillotine.
Von Kluge grinned at him and waved a hand in the general direction of the only other available chair.
«Come on in, Don. Sit down. Relax.»
Just like the dentist says, Don thought.
«The TV station is sending me a tape of your show,» von Kluge said, with no further preliminaries.
«Oh,» Don said, feeling his guts sink. «That.»
Laughing, von Kluge said, «Sounds to me like you’re bucking for a job in the PR department.»
«Uh, no, I’m not… I mean…»
«Sounds to me»—Hardesty ground his cigaret butt into von Kluge’s immaculate stainless steel ashtray—«like you’re bucking for a job selling brushes door-to-door!»
«Now don’t get your blood pressure up, Jack,» von Kluge said easily. «Most of the crimes of this world come out of overreacting to an innocent little mistake.»
An overwhelming sense of gratitude flooded through Don. «I really didn’t mean to do it,» he said. «It’s just—»
«I know, I know. Your first time on television. The thrill of show business. The excitement. Takes your breath away, doesn’t it?»
Don nodded. Hardesty glowered at him.
«Let’s just see the tapes and find out what you really said,» von Kluge went on. «I’ll bet you don’t remember yourself, do you, Don?»
«No…»
Shrugging, von Kluge said, «It’s probably no big deal. We’ll just play it cool until it all blows over.»
His office door opened slightly and Ms. Tucker, a black secretary of such sweetness and lithe form that she could make bigots vote pro-bussing, said softly:
«Phone for you, Dr. von Kluge.»
«I can’t be disturbed now, Alma.»
«It’s Senator Buford,» she said, in an awed whisper.
Von Kluge’s eyes widened. «Excuse me,» he said to Don and Hardesty as he picked up the phone.
He smiled broadly and said, «Senator Buford, sir! Good morning! How are you—»
And that was all he said for the next twenty-two minutes. Von Kluge nodded, grunted, closed his eyes, gazed at the ceiling, stared at Don. As he listened.
Finally he put the phone down, slowly, wearily, like a very tired man at last letting go of an enormous weight. His ear was red.
Looking sadly at Don, von Kluge said, «Well, son, the Senator wants you to appear at his Appropriations Committee hearing. Tomorrow morning.»
Don had expected the hearing chamber to be packed with newsmen, cameras, lights, crowds, people grabbing at him for interviews or comments.
Instead, the ornate old chamber was practically empty, except for the few senators who had shown up for their committee’s session and their unctuous aides. Even the senators themselves seemed bored and fidgety as a series of experts from various parts of NASA and the Office of Management and Budget gave conflicting testimony on how much money should be appropriated for the space program.
But flinty old Senator Buford, the committee’s chairman, sat unflinchingly through it all. His crafty gray eyes drilled holes through every witness; even when he said nothing, he made the witnesses squirm in their seats.
Don was the last scheduled witness before the lunch break, and he kept hoping that they would run out of time before they called on him. Hardesty and von Kluge had drilled him all night in every aspect of the space agency’s programs and budget requests. Don’s head hadn’t felt so burstingly full of facts since his senior year in college, when he had crammed for three days to get past a Shakespeare final exam.
By the time Don sat himself cautiously in the witness chair, only four senators were left at the long baize-covered table facing him. It was a few minutes past noon, but Senator Buford showed no inclination to recess the hearing.
«Mistah Arnold,» Buford drawled, «have you prepared a statement for this committee?»
«Yes, sir, I have.» Don leaned forward to speak into the microphone on the table before him, even though there was no need to amplify his voice in the nearly-empty, quiet room.
«In view of the hour»—Buford turned hour into a two-syllable word—«we will dispense with your reading your statement and have it inserted into th’ record as ’tis. With youh permission, of course.»
Don felt sweat beading on his forehead and upper lip. «Certainly, sir.» His statement was merely the regular public relations pamphlet the agency put out, extolling its current operations and promising wonders for the future.
Senator Buford smiled coldly. Don thought of a rattlesnake coiled to strike.
«Now what’s this I heah,» the Senator said, «’bout livin’ in space prolongin’ youh life?»
Don coughed. «Well, sir, if you’re referring to… ah, to the remarks I made on television…»
«I am, sun.»
«Yes, well, you see… I had to oversimplify some very complex matters, because… you realize… the TV audience isn’t prepared… I mean, there aren’t very many scientists watching daytime television talk shows…»
Buford’s eyes bored into Don. «Ah’m not a scientist either, Mr. Arnold. I’m jest a simple ol’ country lawyer tryin’ to understand what in the world you’re talkin’ about.»
And in a flash of revelation, Don saw that Senator Buford was well into his seventies. His skin was creased and dry and dead-gray. The little hair left on his head was wispy and white. Liver spots covered his frail, trembling hands. Only his eyes and his voice had any spark or strength to them.
A phrase from the old Army Air Corps song of Don’s childhood skipped through his memory: We live in fame or go down inflames.