Powersat (The Grand Tour)

by Bova, Ben

  “Send a set of cars to the ferry dock,” he said to O’Connell, “and have the drivers guide the arriving guests down to the secondary road. Let ’em in through the back gate.”

  O’Connell said worriedly, “That way they’ll be driving right past the launchpad.”

  “That’s okay. Fine, in fact. Give ’em something to gawk at before they park at the control center. The TV crews’ll love it.”

  “I don’t know if I have enough people to do it.”

  Dan sighed. The ultimate bureaucratic ploy: I need more people. “Call in as many people as you need. Holiday pay scale. Call in the state police, for double-damn’s sake.”

  “Okay, boss,” O’Connell said, brightening. “I’ll get right on it.”

  Just outside the wire fence that marked the perimeter of the Astro facility, Rick Chatham was giving instructions to his volunteers. Most of them carried placards professionally printed in red, white, and blue:

  STOP THE POWERSAT

  DON’T MICROWAVE THE WORLD

  SPACE IS FOR SCIENCE, NOT PROFIT

  “When the TV trucks come down this road,” he said, pointing with an outstretched arm, “we’ve got to swarm around them, wave our placards in front of their drivers so they have to slow down and stop.”

  “We can lay down on the road,” a balding, overweight man in khaki shorts called out. “Then they’ll have to stop.”

  “If that’s what it takes, that’s what we’ll have to do,” Chatham agreed. “Make them stop and turn their cameras on us.”

  “Make the world see what’s going on here!”

  “That’s right,” said Chatham. “We’re going to make the world realize that what these industrialists are trying to do is evil. They’re stealing energy from the sun and beaming intense microwaves down to the ground. They’re threatening to upset the balance of nature and destroy our environment.”

  “We’ve got to stop them!” a woman cried out earnestly.

  “Remember, we’re on state-owned land here,” Chatham said as loudly as he could. “We have a perfect right to be here, and if they try to force us out they’re breaking the law, not us.”

  On the other side of the gate a quartet of uniformed security officers stood by uneasily. They wore no guns, but each of them carried a fully charged cattle prod strapped to his hip. A fifth officer, wearing a sergeant’s stripes on her sleeves, stood scowling at the group of volunteers gathered in the road.

  Once Chatham finished his little oration she called out to him. “Sir? May I speak to you for a moment?”

  Chatham ambled over toward her, leaned one arm on the wire mesh of the gate.

  “You’ve got a legal right to demonstrate,” the sergeant said, “on that side of the gate.”

  “I know that,” said Chatham. “That’s the law.”

  “Right. But if your people try to cross over the property line once we’ve opened this gate, that’s trespassing, and we are under orders to deal with trespassers.”

  Chatham smiled lazily at her. “All five of you? How could you stop us? I’ve got more than a hundred people here.”

  “A detachment of state police will be arriving on the first ferry, sir,” said the sergeant. “And if you put one toe on this side of the gate I’ll make it my personal business to split your skull open.”

  She smiled sweetly at him.

  Asim al-Bashir drove his rented Mercedes off the ferry and past the line of cars that seemed to be waiting at the edge of the parking lot. Behind him a long black limo with a State of Texas emblem jounced across the ferry’s ramp and onto dry land, followed by a heavy TV van bristling with antennas. Al-Bashir saw one of the waiting autos cut in front of the limo. He watched in his rearview mirror as a young man got out of the car and started talking with the chauffeur. The TV van stopped behind the limo. Cars waiting behind the van bleated their horns angrily.

  Wondering what that was all about, al-Bashir leaned on the gas pedal and sped down the main road toward the Astro facility. The limo, he noticed, turned off on the side road, led by the unmarked automobile, and the TV van followed it.

  As he neared the Astro complex al-Bashir saw that a crowd of people was blocking the road. He slowed down and saw that most of them were carrying colorful placards. Demonstrators, he realized. Ecology fanatics trying to block the gate.

  Al-Bashir knew how to deal with demonstrators. He slowed the Mercedes to ten miles per hour and kept boring straight ahead. They waved their placards in front of his windshield and yelled at him; he couldn’t hear their shouted curses through the car’s luxurious insulation. Smiling tightly, he edged the car through the angry crowd. The Astro guards had opened the gate and he inched through. None of the demonstrators tried to get through the gate, and a women in a sergeant’s uniform threw him a salute as he accelerated past her.

  Al-Bashir laughed to himself as headed for Hangar A. What if we turned the powersat beam onto this spot? he thought idly. What if we cooked those demonstrators where they stood? How poetic! What a sensation that would cause!

  But he commanded himself to be serious. You have more important victims to deal with than a ragtag band of dogooders, he said silently. And besides, you don’t want to hurt Dan Randolph. He is the real enemy. The devil incarnate. He must die, and his satellite with him, if we are to win. But not until we strike. Randolph has to be alive to be the focus of the people’s wrath after their president is killed.

  Then he thought of April. You don’t want to hurt her, either, he reminded himself. By this time tomorrow, she’ll be flying to Marseille with you. She’ll actually be safer with me than here, when the mobs start to tear this place down to the ground.

  NEAR-EARTH ORBIT

  Williamson’s stomach still churned queasily and his head felt as if it were stuffed with snot-soaked tissues. He tried to keep perfectly still, strapped into the couch of the Soyuz spacecraft. Like three corpses wedged into a metal. bucket, he thought. The Russian said it would seem bigger once we got to zero gravity, but it still feels like a bloody coffin in here.

  “You okay?” Nikolayev asked.

  Before Williamson could think of a reply, Bouchachi groaned, “I believe I’m going to die.”

  Nikolayev laughed. “No, you won’t die. You might want to, right now, but in few hours you’ll feel better. By time we make rendezvous you’ll be okay to get up and move around.”

  Williamson realized he was hearing them through the headphones in his sealed helmet. The Russian had turned on the intercom system.

  “Everything is fine,” Nikolayev assured them, pointing with a gloved hand to the curves on the display screen before them. “We are on track for rendezvous with transfer ship. In two hours, eighteen minutes we go to transfer ship waiting for us, then we ride out to powersat. Then I sit and wait for you while you go outside and fix satellite.”

  No, Williamson countered silently. Once we reach the powersat I kill you, you stupid Russian bastard. If he hadn’t felt so sick, Williamson would have smiled.

  We should have hired a band,” Dan said to April as they stood at the base of the airstrip’s control tower, watching Scanwell’s private jet making its final approach. Wind’s picking up, he noted, watching the distant trees tossing. We’re going to have to turn on the powersat in the middle of a rainstorm.

  April squinted up at the darkening clouds piling up in the sky and said nothing. Dan wondered if she were nervous, worried, or just tired. Probably all three, he decided. Al-Bashir stood at her other side, chatting quietly with the representative that NASA had sent for the occasion.

  “A brass band would’ve been a nice touch,” Dan said to no one in particular. He was talking to cover his own nervousness, and he knew it. “We could’ve had them play ‘Hail to the Chief’ when Scanwell gets out of his plane.”

  April said softly, “He isn’t president yet.”

  Forcing a grin, Dan replied, “Well, he’s still governor of Texas. We could’ve played ‘The Eyes of Texas Are Upon You’ or someth
ing like that.”

  That brought a smile to her lips. Dan felt better for it.

  Eight TV trucks were lined up in the parking area, their cameras tracking Scanwell’s approaching jet. Dan turned the other way and saw the booster standing on the launchpad, with the spaceplane sitting atop it. Ready to go, he thought. Just like a Minuteman. I only hope we don’t need it.

  The business jet touched down with a screech of tires and rolled to the apron where Dan and the others were waiting. News reporters surged toward the plane. Dan congratulated himself that none of the TV vans had been accosted by the eco-nut demonstrators; his little detour had worked.

  The plane’s hatch swung open and Morgan Scanwell appeared at the top of the stairs, tall and rangy, smiling confidently, waving to the crowd—which was mostly news media people. Vicki Lee was among them, Dan saw, representing Aviation Week. He wondered if she planned to stay overnight and, if she did, what he would do about it.

  Jane followed Scanwell down the plane’s stairs, looking splendid in a soft green-skirted suit. Regal, Dan thought. That’s the word for her. She should be running for president, he told himself. She’d be much better at it than he would.

  Nacho Chavez looked decidedly unhappy, Eamons thought. Not angry, not frightened, just plain unhappy, miserable, like a little boy who got caught doing something naughty.

  The regional director, on the other hand, looked outright furious. She sat behind her desk like an enraged gnome, anger radiating from her frowning, hard-eyed face.

  A helluva way to spend a Sunday morning, Eamons had to admit

  “You implanted a tracking beacon on her body?” the director growled.

  “I did it,” Eamons said. “Agent Chavez didn’t know about it until after it was done.”

  “You did the procedure yourself?”

  “No, Ma’am. I requisitioned the electronic device from logistics and got a local surgeon to do the implantation last night. It’s really a simple procedure.”

  “And you expect this office to pay for it?”

  Chavez shifted in his chair and said, “For what it’s worth, I agree with Kelly’s initiative.”

  “Initiative? Is that what we’re calling this?”

  Hunching his heavy shoulders, Chavez pointed out, “The woman voluntarily accepted the implantation.”

  “It’s the only way to keep track of her,” Eamons said with some urgency. “The suspect wants to take her out of the country and we need to keep track of her. For her own safety.”

  “Out of the country? You mean they’re going to Mexico?”

  Eamons shook her head and answered in a lowered voice, “No, Ma’am. France.”

  “France!” the director exploded. “They’re going to France?”

  “Marseille, apparently. They’re leaving tonight, according to my information.”

  “On a private plane,” Chavez chimed in.

  “We don’t have jurisdiction!” the director yelled. “What in the hell was going through your brain when you dreamed up all this bullshit?”

  Eamons stiffened. “Ma’am, we have reason to believe that this man al-Bashir was involved in the sabotage of the Astro Corporation spacecraft and the murders of three Astro employees.”

  “And now he’s going to Marseille,” Chavez added.

  “And you’ll have this woman going with him. A civilian!” The director glared at them both. “For Christ’s sake, you could both be accused of promoting prostitution, you know that? If you don’t get her killed first.”

  Chavez’s face reddened.

  “And you still don’t have any real evidence about this so-called suspect of yours, do you?”

  “He’s our man,” Eamons replied stubbornly. “I’m sure of it.”

  The director snorted disdainfully. “Marseille,” she growled.

  “I could phone her and tell her to cancel the trip,” Eamons said.

  “We’ll have to get the satellite spooks to track her,” the director grumbled.

  Eamons sat up straighter. “Nacho and I could fly to Marseille,” she suggested.

  “Like hell you will,” the director said. “You’ve spent enough of my budget as it is.”

  “Why is he going to Marseille?” Chavez wondered aloud.

  The director glared at him for a moment, then said quietly, “Latest poop from Washington, the spooks have found some unusual electronic activity just outside Marseille. It was in Friday’s summary from Homeland Defense.”

  “Electronic activity?”

  “They don’t know what it is. They’re trying to home in on it, but it’s intermittent, comes and goes.”

  Eamons said slowly, “Dan Randolph believed that his spaceplane crashed because somebody sent spurious electronic commands to it.”

  With a disgusted sigh, the director said, “I’ll have to kick this upstairs to Washington.”

  As they left the director’s office, Chavez whispered to Eamons, “Are you sure you want to let this woman fly out to Marseille with al-Bashir?”

  “She wants to do it,” Eamons said.

  “You could be putting her neck in a noose.”

  “That’s why I had her implanted with the tracker.”

  “Big help that’s going to be.”

  MATAGORDA ISLAND, TEXAS

  Despite the frigid gusts blasting from the air-conditioning shafts that ran along the ceiling, the control center felt hot and stuffy to Dan, with all the VIPs and news people squeezed inside its cinderblock walls. He stood by the closed double doors, pressed next to April, cold sweat trickling down his ribs.

  Scanwell was standing on Dan’s other side, his eyes sweeping the quietly intense room. Jane was beside the governor; aside from a completely impersonal handshake and greeting, she had said nothing to Dan.

  Lynn Van Buren was on her feet in the midst of the consoles, headset clamped over her short brown hair. The technicians were bent over their keyboards, their backs to the spectators. The big wall screen displayed an animated drawing of the Earth, with Astro headquarters and the receiving station at White Sands identified in big white block letters, and a square representing the power satellite high above. A dotted red line flickered from Matagorda to the satellite.

  “Can we get a picture of the satellite out there in space?” Scanwell asked, leaning slightly toward Dan.

  Shaking his head, Dan replied, “We don’t have cameras up there. It’s an extra expense we don’t need.”

  “But what about NASA, or the Air Force?”

  Dan grimaced. “We’re not a government operation, so they’ve steered clear of us. Maybe the news services will turn one of their satellites around for a picture, but their birds are all focused on the ground. We couldn’t even get imagery from them when our first spaceplane crashed.”

  Scanwell shook his head. “Seems to me there ought to be some video coverage of your satellite.”

  Pointing to the news people, Dan said, “Tell them.” Silently, he added, Maybe once you’re in the White House you can change things that much.

  In addition to her normal headset, Van Buren had the tiny microphone of a portable amplifier clipped to her blouse, just beneath her inevitable necklace of pearls. She reached for the power pack tucked in the waistband of her skirt and turned it on. A blood-curdling howl of electronic feedback shrieked through the control center.

  “Sorry about that,” Van Buren apologized, fiddling with the power pack. “Can everybody hear me?”

  A ragged chorus of assent rippled through the crowd. Some of the onlookers raised their hands like schoolchildren.

  “Okay. Fine,” said Van Buren. Pointing to the big clock on the wall, she told them, “We’re in the final countdown now. In two minutes the satellite will start beaming power to the rectenna farm … I mean, the receiving antennas, out at White Sands.”

  It was like New Year’s Eve, Dan thought. Every eye turned to the big clock and its steadily clicking second hand. Van Buren turned off the amplifier. Dan knew she was going through the f
inal checkout with the technicians: solar cells, inverters, magnetrons, output antenna, receiving antennas.

  People started counting the seconds aloud, “Thirty … twenty-nine …”

  Unbidden, the old joke about the world’s first totally automated airliner came to Dan’s mind: The plane’s computerized pilot speaks to the passengers through its voice synthesizer circuitry and assures them that the flight would be under perfect control at all times. The automated little speech concludes, “Nothing can go wrong … go wrong … go wrong …”

  “Fifteen … fourteen … thirteen …”

  My whole life’s tied up in this, Dan told himself. If it doesn’t work I’m finished, down in flames.

  “Eight … seven …”

  He leaned forward slightly to look past Scanwell at Jane. Her eyes were on the clock, too. And her hands were clenched into tight little fists. This means a lot to her, too, Dan realized. But is it because of me or Scanwell?

  “Transmitting power!” Van Buren called out.

  The animation on the wall screen showed a solid green line running from the satellite to the rectennas at White Sands. Somebody gave a cowboy whoop. Others cheered. April jumped up and down and threw her arms around Dan’s neck. Shocked, he wrapped his arms around her waist.

  “Ten gigawatts on the line!” Van Buren shouted. “All systems up and running!”

  Even the technicians joined the celebration, whipping off their headsets and grabbing each other in bear hugs. Dan disentangled himself from April, who looked suddenly embarrassed.

  “We did it, kid!” he shouted at her over the blare of the crowd’s cheering. “We did it!”

  Scanwell grabbed him by the shoulder and stuck out a big hand. Dan shook it while two dozen cameras flashed away. Then Jane shook his hand too, smiling her politician’s smile while her eyes focused on April.

  Every reporter in the room started shouting questions at Dan and Scanwell. Out of the corner of his eye Dan saw that the wall screen now displayed a graph of the power being received by the rectennas. The curve climbed steeply to ten gigawatts and stayed there.