The debate stopped as he entered. His mother, head tilted back in defiance, burned holes through Logan's skull with her eyes. Logan, hunched forward, directed a surly gaze into the nearest convenient corner, impatient fingers drumming the tabletop.

"Hi, Junior," Logan said, pushing a chair out with his foot and gesturing. "Pull up a seat and have a drink. Your mama and I have been kicking the "Project" around. She's been doing the kicking. You might notice that we ain't in perfect agreement."

"The horse's ass has the wrong priorities," his mother snapped. "I'm trying to reason with him, but he's not susceptible to it." She smiled tightly.

Marcee Davies was a small, thin woman who carried herself erectly and projected a presence much larger than her physical size. Hard brown eyes dominated a face framed by short, wavy black hair patched with gray, and her speech -- although clipped -- was rhythmical and commanding. A withering gaze, combined with perfect stage presence, had helped establish her reputation both as a trial lawyer and congresswoman.

Logan had not searched hard for a running mate. Both her renown and their long-standing friendship had made Marcee a natural choice. That she was black, female, and from New York provided the final, politically clinching argument. That her son was an established, well-respected journalist was a bonus.

Logan snorted. "The hell with you, Marcee. The country has been misguided for decades, and when we try to give it a new direction you want to pull back." He poured a shot of Scotch into his and John's glasses, a dollop into Marcee's. "There's nothing wrong with freedom, justice, equality and those motherhood things -- we have to have 'em, nobody says we don't -- but they ain't goals.

Logan sipped thoughtfully. "They're maintenance. Static. We need a dynamic; a direction. Without that, what do we do? Sit around on our arses marveling at how free and equal we are? No, by God, we've got to evolve. We need dreams."

Marcee listened, face masked. "Logan, I can't believe you meant what you said about equality." She turned to John. "I have to support him publicly -- he is my boss -- but it's hard. We have so much further to go in human development; we common people don't want pie in the sky, we want decent wages and education, we want fair treatment by the government and a modicum of respect. We're tired of fat cats getting all the breaks -- we'd like some ourselves. And now this fool wants to spend enormous sums on Mars and nothing for the poor."

She turned back to Logan. "Styles, you're playing with the same old toys. You just want to trade bigger and better wars for bigger and better rockets. Rockets! -- they're a recipe for disaster. Hell," she grunted, "we're on the brink of world-wide starvation. Why do you think there's so much violence when people can't even eat. Yeah, we need projects, but we need 'em down here on Earth to improve our agriculture and stop the population growth."

She taunted. "Forget the Universe, Logan, how about a 'Down Payment on the Earth'? If we don't take care of things down here, we'll have wars again -- wars of desperation."

Logan sat quietly. She goaded him defiantly. "You want to get people's attention?"

She persisted. "You want people's attention?"

He turned a fish eye to her, and she speared the point home:

"Huh! Starvation gets people's attention!"

John spent the next few minutes mediating between his mother and Logan, pondering the consequences of either of them suffering a stroke. Logan's face was ashen, and the veins stood out in his mother's neck.

"I get it from right AND left," Logan growled to John. "The military wants to skin me alive. They're pissed about the Academy speech, and when I fired that sonofabitch Gunderson --"

"He was out of line," agreed John. "The Armed Forces Chief of Staff has no business playing politics."

"-- I thought there'd be a mutiny; thought they were going to revolt." Logan laughed. "What a revolting situation. The military and the New Conservatives don't like this civilian space stuff. They see 'Down Payment' as a threat."

Logan turned to Marcee with conciliation on his face. "We have to get this country out of a military way of thinking."

"You're preaching to the choir," she responded.

"Problem is, you can't turn it off overnight. There's this enormous industrial capacity geared to weaponry. They call it 'Aerospace'," he remarked sarcastically. "If we turned that off, the economy would implode. We need to --"

"Give me credit for a little sense," Marcee interjected. "I understand that you can't turn things off overnight. My point is, you have to start developing the right climate. It's an educational problem. You've got to get people away from thinking confrontationally, and --"

"No, it's NOT an educational problem, Marcee," Logan interrupted. "It's a motivational one. No logic in it. You can't educate people's aggressions away -- you can only redirect them. You give people too much credit for being rational. They're not. They're moved by their guts and emotions, not their minds. Kennedy knew that. He saw that people can be motivated by heroic projects, and he gave the country something to pour its dreams into."

"Yeah, they poured their dreams right down the sewer. We know what happened to Apollo don't we." With symbolic drama, she poured a cup of coffee from a pot long cold.

"I never get the last word with her," Logan said ruefully to John. "She's the only one."

"I never have either," John smiled.

"I need your help, Marcee. I need you to help me sway Congress. Bully them, blackmail 'em if we have to. We've had to cobble everything together with executive orders and Presidential proclamations so far, but we'll be in trouble real quick if 'Down Payment' is seriously challenged. We need more heavy hitters on our side."

"Well, there are some big ones that came over," John remarked. "The Speaker of the House for instance. Stansfield did a complete one-eighty."

Logan chuckled. "That greedy bastard smells big bucks in his nest -- that's where he's coming from. He's like a weathercock in a storm of money. Still," Logan added, "he swings weight. I owe him. And I owe you too, Marcee, I know that. But I need you to come through for me one more time."

"Damn right you owe me," she stormed. "You barely won the nomination, not to mention the election, and it was only because I swung enough votes to put you over the top. If you don't watch your ass I may go over to the other side next year and we'll put the country back on track. Or maybe I'll run myself."

Marcee's eyes were hard; light glinted from them like stars reflected in brown obsidian. "That isn't an idle threat. I'll support you as long as you support me, but you haven't given as much as you've taken, Logan. There are IOUs out and I'm calling them in soon. You might barely squeak through the next election if I'm with you. I can guarantee you'll lose if I jump ship."

"Humph."

"You're trying to stuff your personal concept of technological nirvana down our throats, and nobody buys it, not the liberals OR the conservatives. Support for the space program may be broad as the ocean, Logan, as you're fond of saying, but it's thin as a dime. Threaten people's lunch tickets and you'll see pretty soon how much they like 'Down Payment'."

"It ain't that bad. You're painting a negative picture."

"Not bad? Somebody already tried to chop your head off. Anyhow, Logan -- damn!"

Marcee sighed heavily and rolled her gaze toward the ceiling. "Sure, I'll help. For the time being. I'll even make it look like I want to. But I'm sorry to say," she grimaced, "that I think your program is going to fly like a lead balloon."

She grinned sardonically. "And speaking of flying, are you really going to go through with that idiotic space trip?"

Logan smiled graciously. "Bless you, lovey, I have to. Be cutting my own throat if I backed out. I start lessons on how to be an Astronaut next month. You'll be holding the fort, you know. It's you and Stansfield if anything happens to me."

The bottle had been long empty when Marcee's old-fashioned grandfather clock in the hallway chimed midnight. John made apologies and rose to leave.

"Tell my keepers in the living room I'll be along shortly," Logan called after him.

Logan and Marcee sat warily for long moments, not quite facing each other.

"Marcee," he rumbled in a soft voice, "we're a damn fine coalition, you know -- the southern redneck and the northern nigger."

She smiled crookedly.

"That's right, whitey bastard."

"Marcee?"

"Unh huh."

He reached across and placed his hand on hers. Softly, with gentle mocking: "Marcee, you know I love you don't you?"

"Yassuh, boss."

He jerked his hand away, then put it back.

"Well I do, and if it weren't for this goddamn fishbowl we live in I'd hop in the sack with you in a second."

"Would, huh?"

They gazed silently at each other.

"If only."

"Yeah."