Jeffrey stopped to catch his breath. How many of his letters had passed over that mountainous series of steps? How many, like those to Congress, to the Pentagon and to the President, had been crumpled, torn, tossed into waste baskets?
It didn't matter. He was doing now what he should have done a month ago—appearing in person with his proof.
He lumbered up the stone steps. His watery eyes widened at the bright murals in the vast foyer—murals of stars and planets, of rockets and spacemen, all centered about a gigantic and symbolic pair of human hands reaching upward.
Jeffrey squinted down the white, clean, cool halls.
So this was where spacemen of today lived, studied, worked, experimented. How different from that battered quonset hut in the hot, wind-burnt New Mexican desert.
"May I help you, sir?"
The voice snapped him back to reality.
He turned and saw a young man seated at a desk a short distance away. The man was sleepy-eyed, with black, close-cropped hair and ears that were too big. On the desk was a placard that said: Officer of The Day: Lieutenant Andrews.
The lieutenant drummed his fingers on the desk. "Speak up, old timer. What is it? If you want information on today's flight, just help yourself to these folders."
"No, no." Jeffrey walked up to the desk, brushed away the folders. "I—I want to see someone in authority. There's something I have to tell them."