Chronospace Read Free

other federal offices surrounding the Mall, but at least it didn’t have the paranoid Post-Apocalypse-style of government buildings erected during the late sixties and early seventies, when government architects were obviously planning for civil insurrections by excluding ground-floor windows and limiting the number of entry doors. Digging into his coat pocket, Murphy pulled out his laminated I.D. badge and flashed it at the security guard behind the front desk, then sprinted for the nearest elevator just as its doors were beginning to close. He glanced at his watch; just a minute past eight. No time to visit his office; he reached past the other passengers to stab the button for the eighth floor.
    The elevator opened onto a long corridor decorated with paintings of Saturn V rockets and Apollo astronauts being suited up. Murphy tugged off his coat as he strode down the hall, carefully noting the coded signs on each door he passed. In the seven years he had worked at NASA, he had been to this floor only a few times; this was the senior administrative level, and you didn’t come up here unless you had a good reason.
    The boardroom was located at the end of the corridor, only a few doors down from the Chief Administrator’s office. The door was half-open; he could hear voices inside. Murphy hesitated for a moment, then took a deep breath and pushed open the door.
    Three men were seated at the far end of the long oak table that took up most of the room; one chair had been left vacant between them. Their conversation came to a stop as Murphy walked in; everyone looked up at him, and for an instant he felt a rush of panic.
    “Dr. Murphy, welcome. Please come in.” Roger Ordmann, the Associate Administrator of the Office of Space Science, pushed back his chair and stood up. “You’re running a little late. I hope you didn’t have any trouble getting here today.”
    “My apologies. There was a . . .” No point in telling them about his decision to take the Metro. “Just a problem with traffic. Sorry if I kept you waiting.”
    “Not at all.” Ordmann gestured to the vacant chair as he sat down again. “The Beltway can be brutal this time of day. At any rate. . . well, I believe you already know everyone here.”
    Indeed he did. Harry Cummisky, Space Science’s Chief of Staff, was the man who had hired Murphy seven years ago. Although only a few years older than Murphy himself, he was the person to whom Murphy directly reported. Harry gave him a nod which was cordial yet nonetheless cool. If it weren’t for Murphy, after all, he wouldn’t be here today.
    Next to him was Kent Morris, the Deputy Associate Administrator of NASA’s Public Affairs Office. Murphy knew Morris less well; they had met only three weeks ago, during NASA’s annual Christmas party. Morris seemed affable enough then, but there was a certain edge to him that Murphy instinctively disliked. As it turned out, his feelings were correct; Morris had just transferred over to NASA from the Pentagon, where the PAO was more inclined to scrutinize civilian employees for possible security breaches. It had been a little less than a week after the Christmas party when Morris had blown the whistle on Murphy.
    As for Roger Ordmann . . . although Murphy had only met him once or twice before, he knew him all too well, if only by reputation. The former vice president of a major NASA contractor, Ordmann had been recruited to the agency by the Chief Administrator after Dan Goldin himself had come aboard during the Bush administration. Ordmann was a company man; he followed Goldin’s visionary lead without having much of a vision of his own, beyond making sure that Space Science continued to be sufficiently funded through the next fiscal year. Courtly, urbane, and soft-spoken, he could nonetheless be unmerciful whenit came to dismissing any personnel in the Washington office who roused his ire.
    “Yes, sir. I know everyone.” Murphy draped his coat over the