"Tomer can be contacted. He can set off the signal for the world to see. In the meantime we will be working to make the next flight a complete one. It won't take long. Tomer will manage."
"But Ackerson said the crater was red!"
"I know. And I'm wasting time talking with you. I should be looking at those movies he took."
Wade didn't watch the Secretary leave. He picked up the bottle and glass and went to the window.
Down on the ramp the P.A. began to crackle. Ackerson was beginning his speech.
Wade took out the letter that Ackerson had sent to him. He took out a match and touched the flame to it. It was better that way. He was finished with Ackerson. He had a job to do now, one that would consume him. He had to get the Starfrost II underway. He had to get there to get Tomer.
Suddenly he understood. There were all kinds of heroes. Men like Ackerson were driven by the lure of fame and money. Tomer became one because the job had to be done and there was no one else to do it. Lowe was one, in a way, fighting for peace against a world that was always in unrest. In a way Wade himself might fall in one category. The thought made him smile.
The Secretary was right, of course. The public would crucify them if they knew Tomer had been in the supposedly unmanned test rocket fired at the Moon with no way home.
Wade lifted his drink high in the air as Ackerson's deep voice carried into the room from the ramp below. "To a hero," he said. "A lonely hero." Wade's eyes were on the sky when he said it, on a spot where the Moon would be some hours later.