Loevy's eyes flickered in a tired smile. "So you remember me," he said.
"I never forget a face." The Colonel stared at him with a stony expression for a moment. "White Sands, April of 1993—two and a half years ago, almost. Just after the third ship blew up. Name is—umm—Loevy—"
Loevy nodded. "That's right."
The Colonel's eyes hardened. "You were with a crowd that was trying to talk the government into junking the Rocket projects—right?"
"That's right. We predicted the impending crash even then—"
"Hogwash," said the Colonel. "A lot of statistical blather."
"Unfortunately, statistics is a scientific technique, and our predictions were not blather. We predicted the crash almost to the day. We said the 30th of July, 1995. We had no way of predicting the Iranian oil decision, which happened last April. That precipitated the crisis by a month, so it came on the first of July instead of the thirtieth. But socio-mathematics were far beyond the blather stage then. We hope we can still salvage something from the country now."
The old soldier blinked at him. "What do you want, Loevy?"
"I've come to ask you to surrender the Ship and march your men out of here."
Colonel Gorham snorted. "My orders were to guard and protect this rocket, down to the last man if necessary. On the sixth of July, a week after the crash, I had orders direct from the President to hold this Ship at any cost. He warned me then that there'd be mobs, maybe even an attempt to storm the enclosure." He scowled angrily. "They'll never get this ship as long as I'm alive."