Power Surge

by Ben Bova

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  Table of Contents

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

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  To the ravishing Rashida and to Neville Williams,

  both of whom light up the world—in different ways

  Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.

  AMBROSE BIERCE

  The Devil’s Dictionary

  It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.

  RONALD REAGAN

  Senator Tomlinson’s Office

  The room smelled new. Jacob Ross hesitated at the door to the senator’s inner office and looked around at the light walnut paneling, the wall-to-wall carpeting, the pearl gray drapes on the long windows. Not standard government issue, he realized. The senator had spent his own money on his office’s décor.

  Why not? Jake thought. He’s got plenty to spend.

  Outside the private office, the senator’s suite was almost empty; hardly anyone had shown up yet. And Jake was almost an hour late for this meeting. Washington was blanketed with three inches of snow from the first storm of the new year. In his home state of Montana, nobody would even notice a paltry three inches, but here in DC the city was practically paralyzed. It had taken Jake more than an hour to drive from his newfound apartment to the Hart Senate Office Building, crawling through skidding, slow-moving traffic and stalled cars. He had narrowly missed being sideswiped by a city bus.

  “You made it, Jake!” called the senator, from behind his impressive wide desk. “We were beginning to worry about you.”

  Another man was sitting in one of the bottle green leather chairs in front of the desk. Jake stepped across the office and took the empty chair. He saw a gleaming new nameplate on the desk: SEN. B. FRANKLIN TOMLINSON, in gold letters, no less.

  Tomlinson glowed with the kind of youthful vigor that comes with family money. In his shirtsleeves and fire-engine red suspenders, he was smiling handsomely.

  “Jake, I want you to meet my chief of staff, Kevin O’Donnell. Kevin, this is Dr. Jacob Ross, my science advisor.”

  Jake was one of the few people that Tomlinson had brought to Washington with him from Montana. Most of the office staff were local talent, knowledgeable Beltway insiders who had stayed home because of the snow.

  The senator’s chief of staff was thin, edgy-looking. Suspicious dark eyes peering out of a pinched face. His light brown hair was thinning badly, and he had it combed in an obvious flop-over that accentuated his incipient baldness more than hid it.

  O’Donnell put out his hand. “Hello, Dr. Ross,” he said, in a reedy, sharp voice.

  “Jake,” said Jake as he took the proffered hand. O’Donnell’s grip was surprisingly strong.

  Beaming and relaxed, Senator Tomlinson leaned back in his swivel chair and said, “Jake is putting together the energy plan I told you about, Kevin.”

  O’Donnell muttered, “Energy plan.”

  “I’ve gotten onto the energy committee,” Tomlinson said, “and I want to make an impression.”

  Smiling knowingly, O’Donnell warned, “New senators usually keep pretty quiet until they learn the procedures, make a few friends, get accustomed to the Senate.”

  Brushing that aside with a wave of his hand, Tomlinson repeated, “I want to make an impression. I got elected to help make new energy technology boost my state’s economy. I don’t want to waste any time.”

  The staff chief’s smile turned wary. “You want to make a name for yourself.”

  “Damned right.”

  “That could be dangerous, Senator. You don’t want to be too pushy right off the bat. You don’t want to get known as a glory hog.”

  “Me?” Tomlinson looked surprised, almost hurt.

  O’Donnell fell silent, but the expression on his face was cautious, guarded.

  Jake took up the slack. “Energy is a key issue, Mr. O’Donnell.”

  “Kevin.”

  “Okay, Kevin. Energy is important to everything we do. It affects our economy, our balance of payments overseas, it impacts the global climate—”

  “Hold it right there,” O’Donnell said, raising a hand in a stop signal. “You’re one of these guys who thinks he’s going to change the world, make everything better. Well, it just doesn’t work that way.”

  “But it should,” Jake snapped.

  Turning back to the senator again, O’Donnell explained, “A brand-new senator can’t go barging into this town trying to change everything. It’s political suicide.”

  “We’re not trying to change everything,” Jake countered. “We just want to put the nation’s energy policy on a solid, sustainable, comprehensive basis.”

  “Why do we need a comprehensive energy plan? We don’t have an energy crisis anymore. We’re doing pretty well these days.”

  Softly, Tomlinson asked, “For how long, Kevin? How long will it be before we fall into another disaster?”

  Shaking his head, O’Donnell said, “Look, Senator, I can understand that you want to push the energy issue for your constituents back home. What’s your new technology called? MHD, isn’t it?”

  “Magnetohydrodynamic power generation,” Jake said, feeling some resentment at the chief of staff’s obtuseness. “MHD power generators can burn the coal we can’t use now because of its high sulfur content, without polluting the atmosphere.”

  “Fine.”

  “And MHD generators are more than twice as efficient as today’s power generators. We can lower people’s electricity bills.”

  “That’s wonderful,” said O’Donnell, without a trace of enthusiasm. “Stick to that and you might be able to get it through.”

  Senator Tomlinson shook his head. “No, Kevin. I’m not going to allow myself to appear as a man who’s only pushing for some pork-barrel legislation for his home state. I want to push for a comprehensive energy plan that can make the United States the world’s leader in energy production and in new energy technology, as well.”

  Frowning, O’Donnell asked, “That’s what you want?”

  “That’s what I want,” Tomlinson replied.

  With a reluctant sigh, the staff chief said, “Okay, you’re the boss. But take it slow. And don’t go making any public pronouncements until you’ve talked to me about it. I’m here to protect you, you know.”

  Tomlinson broke into a bright, easy smile. “Fine. No problem. Jake, you coordinate everything you do with Kevin.”

  “Okay,” said Jake, warily.

  “Okay,” said Kevin O’Donnell, equally unenthusiastic.

  They chatted on for more than half an hour. Then, when Jake left the senator’s office and headed for his own, his cell phone buzzed.

  Pulling it out of his pocket, he saw that the caller was from
back home in Montana. But he didn’t recognize the name.

  “Dr. Ross?” a woman’s strained voice asked.

  “Yes,” said Jake.

  “This is Amanda Yañez, at Mercy Hospital. Dr. Leverett Caldwell has been admitted here, with a cerebral ischemia.”

  “A what?”

  “A stroke. We found your name—”

  “A stroke? How bad is it?”

  A hesitation. Then, “He probably won’t last the night.”

  Unitarian Universalist Congregational Church

  Jake flew back to Helena for the funeral. The service was quiet, subdued. Sitting in the front pew, it was hard for Jake to count the actual number of mourners, but he knew it couldn’t be more than forty.

  A lousy forty people, he said to himself as the minister stumbled through a thoroughly lackluster service.

  “Leverett Caldwell was a pillar of his community,” the minister intoned, “a man dedicated to education and science. As director of the Van Allen Museum of Science’s planetarium for many years…”

  It’s the Bart J. Bok Planetarium, Jake grumbled inwardly. And he was director for thirty-eight goddamn years.

  Caldwell’s death was a shock to Jake. Lev wasn’t even seventy, he knew. But when his wife died, Lev just seemed to shrivel up and fade away.

  Jake shook his head. Leverett Caldwell had been more than a mentor to him; he’d been almost like a father. If it weren’t for Lev I’d still be back in the old neighborhood, a nobody going no place. Instead, I’ve moved all the way to Washington, DC, the science advisor to Senator B. Franklin Tomlinson.

  And when Lev got sick, when he needed me, I was in Washington instead of here at home where I might have helped him. I should have come to him, I should have been with him. But by the time I got here it was too late. I should have done better for Lev.

  “Let us pray,” said the minister.

  Jake bowed his head to mutter supplications to a god he didn’t believe existed. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Alexander Tomlinson, the newly elected senator’s father, sitting rigid and stern a few places along the pew. His son had stayed in Washington. Caldwell meant nothing to Franklin, but his father had known Lev and had helped him get the planetarium job, thirty-eight years earlier.

  Thirty-eight years, Jake mused. How many people had come to the planetarium over those years to watch Lev unfold the universe before their eyes?

  The planetarium held 422 seats, Jake knew. As a youngster he had counted them many times while waiting for Lev’s lecture to begin. Four hundred and twenty-two times twelve shows a week for thirty-eight years. He did the math in his head. That’s more than ten million people! Ten million people took in Lev’s lectures. And not even fifty of them showed up for his funeral.

  The service droned to an end at last. One by one the people in the church filed by the casket to pay their last respects. Lev lay there, so tiny and frail, in his usual light gray suit and jaunty little bow tie. But the undertakers had erased the quizzical little smile that had always lit his face.

  So long, Lev, Jake said silently as he looked down at the body. Thanks for everything. I’m sorry I didn’t do better by you. He felt tears welling and turned away.

  * * *

  Outside, it was a chilly winter afternoon. Mounds of snow were heaped along the curbside. Buttoning his overcoat, Jake stood at the top of the church steps as the handful of mourners filed out.

  “Jacob Ross.”

  No mistaking that imperious voice. Jake turned and saw Alexander Tomlinson advancing toward him: tall and slim, his short-cropped hair iron gray, his black suit impeccably tailored. No topcoat; the old man would not admit that something as commonplace as the weather could bother him. Even at eighty-some years, Tomlinson radiated vigor and purposefulness.

  “I won’t be able to go to the cemetery,” Tomlinson said brusquely. “But I want to extend my sympathy to you. I know you and Lev were close.”

  Jake accepted the old man’s extended hand. Close doesn’t even begin to tell it, he thought. But he said nothing, merely nodded.

  “I presume you’ll be heading back to DC?” It sounded more like a command than a guess.

  “Yessir,” Jake said. “Tomorrow morning.”

  It was Tomlinson’s turn to nod. “I’ll be flying out there tomorrow myself. You’ll be at the wedding, of course.”

  “Of course,” said Jake.

  “Good. See you then.”

  With that, Alexander Tomlinson turned and started down the stone steps, heading for his waiting black BMW sedan and its black-liveried chauffeur.

  Jake watched him duck into the car. The old man’s flying to Washington in his private jet, he knew. Wouldn’t cost him a nickel to take me with him. But the thought never occurred to him. I’m one of the hired help, far as he’s concerned. He doesn’t invite the hired help to fly in his plane.

  With a sigh that was almost a snort, Jake squared his shoulders and started down the steps. Toward the cemetery. And then, tomorrow, back to Washington, DC.

  Jacob Ross

  He was born during the coldest winter on record, to a workingman’s family in a run-down neighborhood of narrow streets and row houses. Lack of sunshine and fresh fruits and vegetables led to rickets when he was an infant, which he overcame, thanks to the free clinic and a daily regimen of vitamins and all the fresh fruits and vegetables his mother could stuff into him. Young Jake enjoyed the fruit, especially peaches and the occasional watermelon. He learned to tolerate the vegetables, all except broccoli.

  In school the bullies picked on him, on suspicion of his being a Jew, if for no other reason. Jake tried to explain that he was of Italian descent, his family name was originally Rossetti. Made no difference, the bullies kept beating him up—until Jake learned that by doing homework for a few of them, he could earn their protection from the others.

  He grew into a reasonably healthy young man, a shade under six feet tall, with dark hair and a wary, solemn face. He was wiry and fairly strong, thanks to regular exercise. The neighborhood Boys and Girls Club was his refuge and his joy, where he learned to shoot pool and play a passable game of basketball without being hassled by the neighborhood wiseguys.

  He was eleven when, as part of a mandatory class trip, he went to the Bok Planetarium for the first time. When they turned on the stars across the domed ceiling, Jake got turned on, too. He got hooked on astronomy. Leverett Caldwell took young Jacob Ross under his wing and encouraged the preteen’s budding intellect. Thanks to Lev, Jake eventually became an assistant professor of astronomy at the state university.

  Jake married his high school sweetheart, but when she was killed in an automobile accident it nearly destroyed him.

  It was Caldwell who prodded Jake out of his mourning funk and talked him into volunteering for B. Franklin Tomlinson’s campaign for the US Senate. As Tomlinson’s science advisor, Jake helped the handsome, wealthy scion of the powerful Tomlinson family win the election.

  So Jake moved to Washington with B. Franklin Tomlinson and his entourage. Which included Amy Wexler, an aide to young Tomlinson. Amy and Jake had conducted an on-again, off-again affair through the months of the political campaign.

  Then Amy told Jake she was going to marry Tomlinson. Jake had merely been a means to that end.

  Jake had enjoyed the means. Amy had brought him back to life after the shock of his wife’s sudden death.

  But he had not anticipated the end. And now he was to attend the wedding in Washington of his boss, the newly elected Senator Tomlinson, and his former bed partner, Amy Wexler.

  Washington, DC

  The bride wore white. The entire cathedral seemed to vibrate to the deep tones of the pipe organ as Amy started down the aisle in her long-skirted gown, radiant and beaming, her bright eyes sparkling. Jake kept his expression as blank as he could, fighting down the urge to scowl at her. You didn’t love her any more than she loved you, he insisted to himself. She was using you, yeah, but you were using her, too.

>   Still, he seethed inwardly.

  Amy looked slim and energetic, her honey-blond hair touching her bare shoulders. That gown must have cost a fortune, Jake thought. What the hell, Tomlinson can afford it. He can afford anything he wants.

  Up at the altar, Senator B. Franklin Tomlinson looked resplendent in morning coat and striped trousers, flanked by three similarly clad family friends, his patented dazzling smile aimed at his approaching bride. Tomlinson was not quite as tall as his father, but like the old man he was trim and lean as a saber blade. A brand-new senator, he was determined to make a mark for himself. He was already thinking about the White House, Jake knew.

  The cathedral was jammed with people. Friends of the Tomlinson family, relatives, hangers-on and photographers, plenty of photographers. Flashbulbs popped like an artillery barrage as Amy proceeded to the altar.

  The music ended and Amy and Tomlinson knelt at the altar for the beginning of the wedding mass. Jake let his attention drift to the architecture of the sumptuous cathedral. He’d never seen so many different shades of marble: green, pink, red as dark as blood. Pillars, altar rail, vaulted ceiling, huge frescoes of saints and martyrs. The crucifix above the altar was almost two stories tall. Impressive, he thought. The main altar glittered with gold and silver; so did the smaller altars tucked into the apses that lined both sides of the huge church.

  He listened to the matrimonial mass with only half an ear, but a line that the bishop spoke to the kneeling couple caught his attention. Something about “only love can make marriage endurable.”

  Love. Big word, Jake thought. Does Amy really love him? She said she does. She told me while we were in bed together. True love, for sure.

  * * *

  The reception was held in the ballroom of the old Hilton Hotel, just a few hundred close friends and political associates. Jake decided to take a glass of champagne, wish the newlyweds a lifetime of happiness, and then get back to his desk in the Hart Senate Office Building. He had plenty of work to do.