CHAPTER 6AFTER THE MEDAL-AWARDING ceremony, the Navy men emerged to find darkness had fallen. As Hansen and the admiral waited for the commander to bring up the station wagon, Hansen, from long habit, checked the skies. Between a rift in the clouds he could see the stars, and he could feel their remoteness in the voids of space. The cold stars and the priesthood, the colored senator had said.
Sensing his junior officer’s unease, Primrose said, “Captain, I know you’re a man who looks at facts, but these are hard to look at. It helps if you practice what the literary boys call a willing suspension of disbelief.”
“I’m learning that tactic, Admiral, but one fact I can’t accept, no matter how hard I try, is that Senator Dubois will be the last manchild on the merry-go-round.”
“Don’t ever,” t
