At first glance the Johnson Space Center looked rather like a university campus. Modernistic glass-walled buildings and green lawns, a relaxed atmosphere, young men and women strolling from one building to another or driving their cars along the wide tree-lined streets. At the main entrance, though, there rested a mammoth Saturn V rocket, a relic of the old Apollo era, lying on its side like a beached whale. And behind the tall towers of glass and steel were smaller windowless buildings that hummed with electrical power and the throbbing of pumps and motors.

In one of those windowless buildings the "shadow" mission control center was located. It was slightly after eight P.M. on a quiet, warm Texas evening when the inquiry came from Kaliningrad.

Here too, the top decision makers had left for the day and scattered to their suburban homes. The desks and consoles were thinly staffed by only a handful of men and women, most of them young and new to their responsibilities.

The man in charge, a middle-aged systems analyst, was munching on a bag of cheese-flavored tortilla chips when his "red" phone buzzed. With a mixture of pique and puzzlement clouding his fleshy face, he picked up the phone.

It was pure chance that the American controller in Kaliningrad was someone he knew personally. They had gone through several semesters together at CalTech.

"Josie, how are ya?" he said to the tense face that appeared on his display screen. "Those Russkies treating you okay?"

Almost a heartbeat’s delay, as the electronic signal bounced off a communications satellite, before her answer came to him.

"Sam, we’ve got a problem here."

He lurched forward in his chair. "Whatsamatter?"

"Dr. Li has okayed an extension of the rover excursion without checking with mission control first."

"Jesus Christ!" He placed a chubby hand over his heaving chest. "I thought there was real trouble. Don’t scare me like that, Jo!"

"This is trouble — it’s a violation of the command decision-tree protocol."

"Aw, crap. If the goddam rover broke down or somebody got stranded out there, that’s trouble. This is just paperwork."

She would not be put off. "You’ve got to get Maxwell and Goldschmitt on the phone. They’ve got to know about this right away."

"The hell they do."

"The hell they don’t! Either you call them or I’m calling their Russian counterparts here in Kaliningrad."

Glancing at the clock displays on the far wall, "Christ, it’s four in the morning over there."

"This is important, Roscoe."

"Don’t call me Roscoe!"

"Call Maxwell and Goldschmitt. Do it now, before they get too far."

"They’re probably having their dinners."

"Which would you prefer: interrupting their dinners or having them find out tomorrow that two of our ground team are off on an unauthorized toot because you didn’t inform them in time to stop them?"

WASHINGTON: It was no coincidence that Alberto Brumado was attending the formal dinner where the Vice-President was the guest of honor. Brumado knew that this woman was in an excellent position to become the next president of the United States, and her views could very well determine when — or even if — the second expedition to Mars would be launched… Brumado had met her many times before, and although they had drastically different opinions about the importance of space exploration they had become friendly in the polite, grudging way that political opponents often find necessary. Washington’s social circle, after all, was too small to fight battles at cocktail parties and dinners. Better to smile and agree to disagree — in social settings.

So Brumado had no intention whatever of even mentioning Mars to the Vice-President. This was a social evening, a time to be charming and witty and build the amity that might smooth personal differences in the daylight hours of political business.

The Vice-President’s after-dinner speech was a clear signal that she was seeking her party’s nomination. She spoke of America’s greatness, of the growth of the nation’s economy, of how her efforts as leader of the urban revitalization task force were changing the face of cities from coast to coast.

"And the key to all this," she told her audience of dinner-jacketed men and gowned, bejeweled women,

"the key is synergy, the way we have brought together people from many different walks of life and gotten them to work together, to add their energies to each other until the totality of their achievement is far greater than the mere sum of their individual efforts. Synergy works! And this administration intends to use synergy to solve the problems that still plague us…"

Brumado listened carefully as he sat at one of the five dozen round dinner tables with nine strangers. She speaks about the economic contribution of high technology, she even mentions the success of orbital manufacturing, but she does not mention Mars or space science at all. Yet when the explorers return from Mars, he knew, she will be there to greet them in full view of the world’s media.

It was a surprise to him, then, when one of the Vice-President’s aides appeared at his side and bent over to whisper, "The Vice-President would like to speak with you privately after her speech is finished. Would you follow me, please?"

Brumado folded his napkin neatly and placed it beside his half-empty coffee cup. Excusing himself in an inaudible whisper to the nine others at the table, he got up and tiptoed swiftly past the other tables in the darkened hotel dining room, following the dark-suited aide out into the kitchen.

Power is visible in small ways, Brumado understood. The kitchen staff usually would be busy cleaning up the six hundred sets of dinner dishes, clashing silverware and clattering pots while the speaker on the other side of the swinging doors tried to talk over their clamor. For the Vice-President, though, they sat and waited until her speech was finished. Brumado smiled at them as they whispered among themselves and glanced at their wristwatches. Overtime pay. Does it compensate them enough for spending an extra hour away from home?

At last the Vice-President finished and her audience applauded thunderously. Just enough time for the media crews to get tape on the eleven o’clock news.

She swept through the swinging doors, Secret Service guards in front and in back of her, so commanding a presence that the tired, bored kitchen help rose to their feet automatically.

Yet she was tiny, not much over five feet tall, a petite woman who worked hard to avoid gaining weight. Even so she dominated any room she entered. Her face glowed with energy, her eyes so deeply blue they seemed almost violet; their twin laser-beam glances could peel the hide off a rhinoceros. Her hair was a light ashy blonde, a shade that hid gray well, rich and thick yet cropped short enough to tell any woman who looked at her that she had no time for frivolities such as curlers and sets.

"There you are," she said as she spied Brumado standing in front of the long counter piled high with dirty dishes.

He fell in beside her as they paced toward the back of the kitchen and the doors that opened onto the loading docks and delivery access road.

"Right in the middle of my dinner," the Vice-President said, waving a flimsy sheet of paper, "this came in from Houston."

Brumado took the sheet from her without breaking stride and scanned it swiftly.

Looking back at the Vice-President he said, "Dr. Li apparently has no qualms about extending the rover excursion…"

"It’s that damned Indian!" The Vice-President stopped at the doors and her whole entourage, Brumado included, stopped with her. Except for three of the Secret Service agents, who slipped through like wraiths to check the area outside.

"You mean Dr. Waterman."