all we can. We've tossed the ball."

She took the drink and set it untasted on the arm of the sofa. "That's not it, Frank. You know the message from our tourist in Tuva?"

"That note that put the seal of approval on your project? You wrote that yourself, didn't you? The railhead, the spaceship—they all exist only under that golden hair of yours, right?"

Frances stared at me as though she expected me to whip out an Army .45 and cover her with it. "Frank! How do you know?"

"Until I met you, Frances, I thought dreams of space were male dreams. Then I found a girl who'd become an engineer, who'd then given up engineering to go into intelligence work. Curious. Then the business of the secret message from the USSR: instead of turning it over to the Air Force for immediate evaluation, you chose to elaborate on it by means of a technical study, and even got your boss to push through a priority call for me. Curiouser yet."

"If you found out, they can," she said dully.

"I had the advantage of being in love with you, Frances. I've watched you closely, very closely. We'll have a few weeks or months before they discover that you phonied information to goad our men into space. We've got time enough for a honeymoon, Frances."

The phone rang. Damn Alexander Graham Bell! I thought. I picked the monster up and barked hello. It was the Secretary of Commerce. I introduced myself. He deigned to relay his message through me. "Please inform Dr. von Munger that her department has been transferred to the Department of Air Force at White Sands, New Mexico," the Secretary said. "She and you are to report there immediately."

I thanked the man nicely and hung up. Frances was standing now. "We're going to White Sands," I told her. "We're going to help see that the man in the moon is American."

Frances took the drink out of my hand and set it on the bookcase to free my arms for holding her. "Maybe, Frank," she said, "the first man on Mars will be Huguenard. I'll be proud to assist you in that project." 

 Prev. P 11/11