The presidential party returned just in time for the luncheon. Jerry was assigned a table in back, where he sat with several visiting NASA managers, people from Huntsville and Houston. Jerry had met them all before, but in some cases he needed a furtive glance at their badges to recall names. One of them, Grant Tyler, an astrophysicist, immediately brought up Myshko and Walker. “Hard to believe anybody could have taken any of that seriously,” he said, apparently unaware that it was precisely how Jerry had been portrayed in the media. Or maybe he was just enjoying himself.

The president was seated at a rectangular table with a lectern at its center. It was set on a platform in the front of the room. Mary and three other NASA executives were with him. They seemed to be having a good time, trading stories and laughing at one another’s jokes. It was one of Cunningham’s considerable political strengths: He knew how to put people at ease.

Eve Harrigan, an engineer at Houston, sympathized with Jerry’s situation. “It was strange, though,” she told Grant. “I can understand why people might think something was going on.”

Grant got the message and changed the subject.

The menu choice was between catfish and New York strip. Jerry went with the catfish, accompanied by mashed potatoes and a swirl of vegetables that he couldn’t identify. The conversation at Jerry’s table wandered onto the subject that currently occupied everyone’s attention: the future of NASA in an era of tight funding. The reality, of course, was that NASA had been put on hold during the Vietnam War, and had never really gotten off the dime afterward. Presidents came and went, promising great things, a new state-of-the-art vehicle, a return to the Moon, a Mars mission, a rendezvous with an asteroid. All the stuff they’d been doing on The High Country.

The catfish was good.

The waiters followed up with strawberry shortcake and vanilla ice cream. Jerry and his companions were still indulging themselves when Mary stood, went to the microphone, and adjusted it. She introduced herself, led a round of applause for the president, and welcomed the assorted guests. “Mr. President,” she said, “we know you’ve always been intrigued by spaceflight. And I have no doubt you’re going to help us move forward with plans to send a manned mission to Pluto.”

She’d intended it to be funny, but a hush fell over the room, and she realized immediately the remark hadn’t gone well, wouldn’t be interpreted as she’d intended, but would instead sound like a criticism of the administration. But it was too late, and she did the only thing she could, turning it into an oops moment. “I have a talent for blowing my lines,” she said, with a tight smile. That, at least, brought some laughs.

Cunningham waved to her. It was okay. She waved back, finished the introduction, and turned the microphone over to him. He thanked her and looked out at the audience. “If we could manage a voyage to Pluto,” he said, “I can think of a few people in Washington who’d enjoy making a reservation on it for me.”

That got more laughs. Everyone knew he was talking about the Speaker of the House. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he continued, “I’m delighted to be here today. And I know that you’re concerned about the future of the Agency, from which we expected so much and which we’ve supported so little. I can’t help thinking that we might have made it to Pluto had we diverted even a reasonable fraction of the money we’ve wasted over the past half century and given it to you folks.”

That brought a standing ovation.

“That’s not to say that NASA hasn’t accomplished an enormous amount. We’ve been to the Moon, we’ve sent robot vehicles throughout the solar system, we’ve put telescopes in orbit that have allowed us to look back almost to the beginning of time. That’s not bad.”

That produced another round of applause. But it had become more tentative.

Cunningham nodded. “I understand,” he said. “It’s not enough, is it? When we started recruiting our first astronauts, back in the late fifties, we were only talking about one thing: Putting humans in space. On the Moon. That was all we cared about.” He stopped. Exhaled. “I suspect everyone here has seen the Stanley Kubrick movie 2001. For anyone who hasn’t, it’s about a ship headed for Jupiter. If you read the book, you discover they were actually going to Saturn. This was a film made in the sixties. At the time, the notion of manned missions out beyond Mars didn’t seem all that far-fetched. We were going to do it all by the beginning of the twenty-first century. But for a variety of reasons, we discovered we couldn’t manage it. None of that can be laid at your door. Nevertheless, here we are. Stuck on the ground eighteen years after Arthur Clarke’s astronauts headed for the outer solar system.”

The president looked up toward the ceiling. Behind Jerry, ice cubes rattled. Somewhere, a chair moved. They were the only sounds in the building. “I wish I could tell you that’s all going to change. But, unfortunately, the country remains in a financial hole. You know it, and I know it. But I can promise you this: Despite what you’re hearing on the Internet, despite what the media are saying, we are not going to shut this agency down. It’s not going to happen. NASA is not going away. You can carve that in concrete.”

The applause was louder this time.

“And I’ll tell you something else: It’s possible that the world, several thousand years from now, will have forgotten a lot of our history. It may no longer remember there were two world wars during the last century. It may not recall the nuclear standoff during the Cold War years. But I can tell you one thing: As long as men and women live, they’ll remember that we once walked on the Moon. And they’ll never forget who did it.”

That took off the roof.

Jerry watched the reporters crowd into the theater at the Visitors’ Center and couldn’t help feeling a brief twinge of jealousy. He couldn’t have drawn enough people to fill the front row.

Mary suggested he stay away since his presence alone might be enough to elicit questions. He let her see he was annoyed, but he said nothing and went up to his office to watch on C-Span. Four other cable networks also provided coverage.

Most of the questions centered on continuing problems in the Middle East, on the growing Franklin Movement, “a penny saved,” which was demanding that many of the social programs the president favored be closed down. Did he see any hope of healing the left-right split in the country? What had happened to the promise that NASA would be lifting solar-power collectors into space? How did he feel about Bryson Evers’s comment that the biggest problem the world had was the one no politician would talk about—the enormous growth of world population?

“Well,” said Cunningham, “we’re talking about it, aren’t we?”

The question had been raised by NBC’s Quil Everett. “Do you agree that it’s a problem for us, Mr. President? And if so, what are we going to do about it?”

It had been described as the new third rail. Cunningham hesitated. Everyone knew it was true. But a substantial part of the electorate still believed there was a moral obligation to have big families. And, historically, there was no give on the issue. Furthermore, next year was an election year.

“Yes,” said Cunningham. “Of course it’s true. There’s not enough food. Not enough fresh water. Countries are going to war over natural resources. And that’s only the beginning.”

He didn’t explain what the administration planned to do, other than continue to look into the problem. It wasn’t exactly a call to action, but his admission alone, Jerry knew, would grab all the headlines tomorrow.

The Myshko and Walker missions never came up. Jerry wasn’t sure whether he was relieved or disappointed. He switched over to CNN and MSNBC to watch the comments by the assorted policy experts. Only one, Stu Krider, mentioned the earlier flights. “Yesterday’s news, I guess,” Krider said. He was the only commentator Jerry knew of who had treated the story as anything other than something to generate laughs.