“You’re right, Joe; there’s no doubt in my mind — and there won’t be in the minds of public, Congress, and White House — that we’re culpable. And now we have to put our house in order, and be seen to be doing it.

“All right, gentlemen. Your recommendations as to what we do next?”

Seger was the first to speak. “The main recommendation is not to panic here, Fred. I hear what you say; this accident we’ve suffered is unacceptable. There’s no doubt about that. But the problems are straightforward and limited in scope. We have to get S-NB flying again, as soon as possible, with men aboard, and push on for Mars. We can’t lose our nerve. That’s the message you have to take back to the Hill, Fred.”

More bland generalities, Michaels thought, delivered in Seger’s weird, intense, gung-ho style.

“Hans?”

Udet sighed. “Bert is right. We must repair our NERVA program and move on. We have no other option, if we are to reach Mars. It is as simple, and as dramatic, as that.”

“Well, hell, I disagree,” Muldoon said harshly. “With both of you. I think that if they let us keep on flying at all after this fuck-up, we’re going to have to do a sweeping review of the whole system, spacecraft, booster stages, management procedures. Everything.”

“And if you do that,” Seger said hotly, “you risk throwing away everything. You’ll come out of that process with an immature system, overdesigned and carrying too many changes, which will hit us with a host of problems we’ve not even thought of yet.” He turned his glassy stare on Michaels again. “Look, Fred, this is a lousy business, and I wish it hadn’t happened, and I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to come to terms with this: what I did wrong, what I could have done differently to avoid this, and all the rest of it. And I’ll do all in my power to avert such an accident in future. But at the end of the day, we’re flying experimental craft here. Pilots die flying experimental craft; they always have. You lose crew. And that’s a truth we’ve got to learn to live with.”

Michaels grunted. The trouble is, I don’t think we’re going to be allowed to live with it.

When Udet, Seger, and Muldoon had gone, he stood by his window for a long time.

He couldn’t imagine that the manned program would be shut down altogether. That would have such a devastating impact on the American aerospace industry that it was surely politically unthinkable.

But it seemed highly likely to him, almost certain in fact, that the NERVA was going to be grounded.

And without NERVA, how the hell were they going to get to Mars, in the eighties or any other decade? Were they going to be reduced to pottering around in low Earth orbit?

…Maybe he had more immediate problems.

Seger had sounded like he was fraying at the edges. That disturbed Michaels. Both houses of Congress were going to convene their own hearings on the accident, just as soon as the Presidential Commission reported. Michaels had already had a few clues as to the tone of those hearings; they would be intent on charging NASA’s engineers — meaning Seger, primarily — with criminal negligence.

But Michaels had heard, from Tim Josephson and others, that Seger was working a sixteen-hour day, sleeping for three or four hours, and spending his spare time on his knees in some church. It was as if Seger was using physical exhaustion, and an immersion in his religion, like a drug. But even that wasn’t always enough, and — so Michaels had heard — Seger was using Seconals and scotches to knock himself out.

Michaels was worried that Seger might be under too much stress to testify. And besides, if Seger started to come out with his line about limited damage and everything’s under control, they’d all sound like such complacent bastards that the congressmen would cut out their livers.

He poured himself a drink. Hell. Were we, after all, going too far, too fast?

He couldn’t get the glassy, feverish look in Bert Seger’s eyes out of his mind.

He knew he had a decision to make.

The day after the meeting in Washington, Fred Michaels called up Seger in Houston.

He leaned on Seger to take some leave.

Seger was reluctant; he felt fit and energetic, and he was getting on top of the issues coming out of the accident.

They finished the call without resolving the issue.

Later that day, Tim Josephson, who’d been working out of Houston since the disaster, went to see Seger in his office.

“Look, Bert, we want you to take an extended leave.”

“But I’ve discussed this with Fred.”

“So have I. And I’ve already drafted an announcement, to go out tomorrow.”

Seger was furious. “In that case, you can announce my resignation instead.”

Josephson met his stare, steadily, analytical. “Bert, you’re overstressed. You’re not thinking straight.”

“Oh, is that so? How the hell do you know that? What are you, a doctor that you can diagnose me?” He stared into Josephson’s thin, intelligent face. “What’s going on here, Tim? Overstressed, what the hell is that? I think you’re acting on rumors, and half-truths, and things you don’t understand.”

“Really?” Josephson asked drily.

“Really. Listen, me and my guys down here are doing fine. We’re working through the issues with the guys in Huntsville. With the grace of God, we’re going to get through this. In spite of whatever you’re hearing, I’m not going into shock.”

“It’s not like that, Bert. Nobody wants—”

“Listen, Tim. If you want to fix up some kind of psychiatric hearing, then you do it; I’ll abide by the decision of any competent psychiatrist. If he thinks I need R R, then I’ll discuss it with you. But I’m not having you, or Fred Michaels, or any other amateur, diagnosing my psyche. Now, you got that?”

Josephson seemed to think it over. Then he nodded, his face expressionless, and left the office.

Seger got on with his work; he hoped he’d heard the end of that.

But a little later Josephson called back and said that he’d arranged a hearing with two psychiatrists in the Houston Medical Center for that very evening.

Seger spent three hours with the psychiatrists, talking things over. They fed back their conclusions to him quickly.

He was obviously under a strain, they said, but he didn’t have a psychosis. There was no danger that Seger was going to fall apart under further pressure.

Seger went back to his office, elated. He called Tim Josephson and told him he should cancel his press release. Then he got to his knees, in his darkened office, and prayed his thanks.

He felt like laughing; if he was truthful, he felt as if he had fooled the psychiatrists.

The next day Fred Michaels phoned. Michaels began to describe a new job to him, a more senior position in the Office of Manned Spaceflight.

“You’ve spent long enough at the detail level, Bert, and you’ve done a damned fine job. But now we’re going to need help steering NASA through the next few years, which will be as hard as any we’ve faced before. I want you to move up to the policy level. I want you to get to know the Cabinet people; I can arrange the introductions for you. It’s a job on the mountaintop, Bert.”

Yeah. The mountaintop, in Washington.

Seger hesitated. “You’re making it sound good, Fred.” But I know what this is all about. “Fred, I’ll say what I believe, one more time: whether you push me out of your way or not, it’s going to be a mistake to go back into our systems now and make sweeping changes. We have to make fixes, obviously, but they should be straightforward and limited; if we go beyond that, we risk coming out with a less mature system, with new problems hiding from us…”

“Look, Seger, I’m tired of hearing that. I can’t agree with you. I just don’t see it that way, and I don’t think that’s the prevailing view inside NASA. And I know for sure that’s not how they see it up on the Hill.”