by Ben Bova
But as soon as Lovett left the office the senator said to Jake, “I’m not going to appease them or anyone else.”
Jake tried to soothe the senator. “Appease isn’t the right word.”
“Then what is?”
Thinking of his times in bed with Connie, Jake replied, “Seduction.”
* * *
As he drove home that evening, Jake debated telling Tami about Tomlinson contacting his cousin. He had told his wife about his affair with Connie, and Tami had taken the news with good grace. But now, with the tensions straining their marriage, he wondered how Tami would feel about Connie’s reappearance on the scene. He wondered how he felt about it.
He got home before Tami, but as soon as she stepped through the front door Jake pecked her on the lips, then said, “Frank’s calling his cousin, Connie, to help him with this NEA mess.”
“Connie?” Tami asked, her brows knitting slightly. “She’s back in town?”
“No, she’s still home in California.” Then he added, “So far.”
Tami let her tote bag slip off her shoulder and thump onto the table by the front entrance. With a smile to show she wasn’t accusing, she asked, “Is Frank pimping for you now?”
Jake felt his cheeks burn. “Tami!”
She patted his cheek. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair. It was supposed to be funny.”
As they went to the kitchen and the wine closet by the fridge, Jake explained the problem with the NEA.
Tami nodded. “I’ve been fielding requests for interviews with Frank all day long. Cecilia’s blog has gone viral.”
“We’re trying to set up a sort of peace conference with NEA’s top people.”
“Good idea. Like Obama and Putin, back then.”
“We’ll try to do better than that!” Jake said fervently as he reached for a wine bottle.
Damage Control
Jake spent most of the next morning trying to reach William Farthington, NASA’s chief administrator. All he got for his efforts was a succession of aides and assistants who assured him that Farthington would return his call as soon as he possibly could.
While stewing in anticipation, Jake called Isaiah Knowles, at the Space Futures Foundation.
“You free for lunch?” he asked the former astronaut.
Knowles’s usual truculent expression morphed into a guarded smile. “Running out of friends?”
Jake smiled ruefully. “Just about. This NEA thing has me running around in circles.”
With a single curt nod, Knowles said, “I figured. Okay, how about Ebbitt’s Grill, ’round one o’clock?”
“I’ll see you there.”
Shortly before noon, Senator Tomlinson’s executive assistant called Jake. “Can you drop in to the office for a few minutes, Dr. Ross?”
“Sure,” Jake answered, thinking, When the senator rubs his magic lamp, the genie appears. Every time.
Senator Tomlinson was in his shirtsleeves, leaning back in his desk chair. The video screen that dominated one wall of his office showed Connie Zeeman, looking as fresh and energetic as Jake remembered her.
“Hi, Jake!” she called as soon as he came within range of the desk phone’s camera.
“Hello, Connie,” he said as he sat in one of the bottle-green leather chairs in front of the desk.
She looked just the way Jake remembered her: bright, sparkling eyes, sensuous full lips, sandy hair cropped short, like an athlete’s, V-necked sweater showing an enticing bit of cleavage.
Senator Tomlinson seemed at ease as he said, “So we’re trying to do some damage control. Can you get me an appointment to meet with the NEA’s top man?”
“Top woman,” Connie corrected.
“Whoever. I’ve got to patch up this unfortunate misunderstanding—”
Connie’s cheerful expression hardened. “It’s not a misunderstanding, Frank. You said the schools aren’t doing their job.”
“Well, they’re not.”
“Dora Engels doesn’t see that as a misunderstanding. It’s a slap in the face, as far as she’s concerned.”
“You’ve spoken to her about this?”
“She’s spoken to me,” said Connie. “She’s pissed as hell.”
“Great,” Tomlinson moaned.
Jake said, “We’d like to set up a meeting with her, sort of a peace conference.”
“Lots of luck.”
“No, this is serious,” Tomlinson said. “We need to smooth this over. And quickly.”
“Dora won’t have a one-on-one with you, I’m pretty certain,” Connie said.
“How about a conference involving the head of NASA and a few astronauts?” Jake suggested. “Plus Frank, of course.”
“And the purpose of this conference would be?”
“To see how NASA and the space community can help teachers to get their pupils interested in the STEM subjects.”
Connie shook her head negatively. “That’s like the old Young Astronauts program. It didn’t work then and it won’t work now.”
“Why not?”
“Because most teachers won’t participate. How’re they going to squeeze in time for special sessions on space travel when their school hours are already crammed full?”
“That’s what the conference would be about,” Tomlinson said. “Finding the answer to that problem.”
Connie’s expression turned thoughtful. “In other words, you want a conference that’s aimed at helping teachers.”
“And their pupils,” Jake added.
“Maybe that could work.”
“I’m not going to go in sackcloth and ashes,” Tomlinson warned. “I don’t want this to look like I’m begging them for forgiveness.”
Her normal grin returning, Connie said, “But that’s what you’ll be doing, isn’t it?”
“No,” Jake snapped. “We’re trying to help the teachers to get their pupils interested in the STEM subjects by using space as an incentive.”
“Sure you are.”
Tomlinson said, “The main thing is to get the NEA to support me, not work against me.”
“As I said before, fellas, lots of luck.”
* * *
The Old Ebbitt Grill was crowded, as usual, but Jake immediately spotted Isaiah Knowles sitting in a booth next to the window looking out onto the street. He brushed past the harried maître d’ and slid into the booth across the table from the former astronaut.
“Hi, Ike, how are you?”
Knowles’s dark-skinned face broke into a guarded smile. “I’m keepin’ my head above water. How about you?”
Ruefully, Jake answered, “Trying to keep from drowning.”
“This NEA thing?”
“Yeah.”
A rail-thin waiter took their drink orders—ginger beer for Knowles, club soda for Jake—then quickly disappeared into the throng crowding the bar.
“Two big-time boozers we are,” Knowles said.
“Yeah.”
“So what’re you doing to smooth the NEA’s feathers?”
“Trying to arrange a conference with their top people,” Jake replied. “We want to convince them that they can use the kids’ interest in space to get them to study the STEM subjects.”
Knowles shook his head. “But the teachers don’t know the STEM subjects, most of ’em. And they don’t want to take the time to learn them. I know! We tried to convince them when I was in the agency. Hit a stone wall.”
The waiter reappeared with their drinks. “You ready to order lunch?” he asked as he put the glasses on the table.
Both Knowles and Jake ordered hamburgers: medium rare for Jake, medium well for Knowles. The waiter scratched on his order pad and disappeared again.
Hunching over the table slightly, Jake said, “Look, Ike, this meeting doesn’t have to accomplish anything except getting the NEA on Frank’s side. We can’t afford to have them working against us.”
“Guess not.”
“I’m trying to get Farthington to come along with us.�
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“Bloviating Billy? Yeah. He could talk ’em deaf, dumb, and blind.”
Jake grinned. Then he said, “Hey, maybe we can get some people from the private space firms: you know, like Harry Quinton and maybe Nick Piazza.”
“Good idea,” said Knowles. “Let the kids see real billionaires.”
“And a few astronauts.”
Knowles’s brows rose a few millimeters. “Lots of retired astronauts out there. You could maybe put together a regular corps of ’em.”
“That’s an idea.”
“I’m one of ’em.”
“I know.”
“I’ve done more space missions than any of ’em, did you know that?”
“Really?”
“And I’m good-looking. And black. I think I ought to head up your astronaut corps.”
“Would you?”
With the brightest smile Jake had ever seen on his usually dour face, Knowles said, “Why not? You don’t need to bother Farthington. There’s enough retired astronauts to do the job.”
“But we can’t just ignore NASA. The agency’s got to be a part of this.”
Knowles acknowledged, “Yeah, I suppose so.”
“This could be terrific,” Jake enthused. “Real astronauts visiting the schools, talking to the kids.”
Knowles raised a cautionary finger. “If the NEA goes for it.”
Nodding vigorously, Jake responded, “Oh, they’ll go for it. How could they refuse?”
“You’d be surprised,” said Isaiah Knowles.
Halloween
“Trick or treat?” Jake muttered tiredly to Kevin O’Donnell, who had tapped just once on his office door and then stepped in.
“What tricks do you know?” O’Donnell said as he closed the door behind him.
“I don’t know any tricks.”
O’Donnell smiled crookedly. “Then you don’t get any treats.”
Jake studied O’Donnell’s face as the staff chief sat down in front of his desk. Kevin smiled rarely.
It was past six p.m. Most of the senator’s staff people had left the office long ago. Jake had spent most of his day trying to put together a team of former astronauts to form a coherent group that was willing to speak to schoolchildren and use the kids’ natural interest in space to encourage them to study the STEM subjects. Farthington had promised to bring NASA into the program, but so far the agency had offered no help to back up that promise. Harry Quinton had quickly agreed to help as much as he could; Nicholas Piazza seemed eager to face schoolchildren.
“I’ve got an eight-year-old grandson who tears my head off every time I see him,” Piazza said. In Jake’s phone screen, the man looked actually pleased.
“Eight years old?” Jake asked.
“Going on a hundred and two,” Piazza said, laughing. “The kid’s a real terror.”
Tomlinson was slipping in the national polls, although he seemed to be holding his own in Iowa and even New Hampshire. But for how long? Jake constantly asked himself. We’ve been working so hard on assuaging the NEA that the senator’s space plan has hardly been mentioned in the news media for the past several weeks.
Looking across the desk at O’Donnell’s nearly smirking face, Jake said, “I’ve been working since seven thirty this morning on this damned NEA problem, Kevin. I’m in no mood for kids’ games.”
O’Donnell cocked his head slightly to one side, as if to determine the truth of Jake’s statement. Then his smile went from teasing to pleased.
“Got the NEA’s acceptance of our request for a meeting. Thought you’d want to know.”
Jake felt his eyes widen. “They’ll meet with us?”
“Yep. Dora Engels herself, and five key members of her inner circle. They just e-mailed a formal acceptance, with a hard copy heading our way through snail mail.”
“Great!” Jake enthused. “That’s just great!”
“They want to keep the meeting small, quiet. The senator, Farthington, a couple of ex-astronauts.”
“Ike Knowles,” said Jake.
Nodding, O’Donnell went on, “They’re happy about Harold Quinton. NEA people don’t get to see billionaires face-to-face very often.”
“Guess not.”
Then O’Donnell added, “And you.”
“Me?”
“You’re the head man on the space plan, aren’t you?”
“Yeah.” Jake’s voice trembled slightly with excitement.
“You’re going.”
“When? Where?”
“Next Monday morning, at their headquarters on Sixteenth Street.”
“After Halloween,” Jake said, immediately feeling stupid about it.
“That’s right. No tricks and no treats.”
Jake thought, I don’t care if there’s no treats. I just hope they don’t pull any tricks.
As he got up from the chair, O’Donnell said, “By the way, Derek Vermeer phoned the senator, said he’s very pleased that we’re including a Mars training facility in the plans for the Moon base.”
“That means the Mars lobby’s swung around to our side!”
“No,” O’Donnell corrected. “But it means they won’t actively oppose your space plan. Frank’s very pleased.”
Nodding, Jake said, “So am I.”
* * *
As soon as O’Donnell left, Jake phoned Farthington’s office at NASA headquarters and once again got an assistant. He left a message, then tried Isaiah Knowles’s cell phone. A message machine.
Feeling frustrated, Jake left for home.
The lobby of the condo building was aglow with plastic jack-o’-lanterns and various witches, black cats, and assorted hobgoblins. As he rode the elevator to his unit, Jake felt almost sorrowful that no children were allowed to go door-to-door begging for candy. Against the condo association’s rules. Not that there were so many kids living in the building, he reminded himself. He didn’t really know his neighbors well, but he hardly ever saw any children in the elevators.
Tami wasn’t home yet. Jake knew she was working just as hard as he was, trying to keep the NEA flap from becoming a media sensation. Senator Moonbeam versus the National Education Association. That’d be a great way to destroy Frank’s campaign.
Jake poured himself a glass of wine, turned on CNN, and settled himself on the sofa to wait for Tami. It’s her turn to cook, he remembered. We’ll go out to Mamie’s. She’ll be tired after putting in another long day.
The big news story on both CNN and Fox News was the funeral arrangements being made for Vladimir Putin. The Russians were going all-out, turning their president’s death into an international showcase. Heads of state from all over the world had been invited to Moscow. The president of the United States had already agreed to attend. Her last chance at being in the international spotlight, Jake thought.
The front door opened and Tami came in, looking bone weary. Jake jumped up from the sofa and reached for her as she let her tote bag slump from her shoulder to the table by the door.
“Dinner at Mamie’s,” he announced, after pecking her on the lips.
She smiled tiredly. “No, let’s eat here. I don’t feel up to going out.”
“But—”
“The fridge is full of leftovers. I’ll heat up something.”
“You sure?”
“Sure.” Tami headed for the bathroom.
“Got some good news,” Jake said. “We’re set for a meeting with Engels and her people next Monday.”
Tami brightened a bit. Then she said, “I heard something today.”
“More good news?”
She shook her head. “Herbert Manstein has quit Rockledge Industries.”
“Quit? Where’s he going?”
“He’s joined Senator Sebastian’s campaign staff.”
Suddenly Jake felt just as weary as Tami.
Dora Engels
She was actually good-looking, Jake realized. Much better looking in person than the photos on the NEA’s website. Dora Engels stood about
five six, Jake judged, on the slim side, with shoulder-length chestnut-brown hair and penetrating dark brown eyes that looked like they could nail a student to his chair. Strong cheekbones and a firm chin that could be stubborn.
But she smiled graciously as she welcomed Senator Tomlinson, William Farthington, Isaiah Knowles, and Jake to the conference room next to her office. It was on the small side, windowless, paneled in light wood, with chairs along the two side walls and a table that could accommodate twelve.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she said to the senator as she shook his hand.
Turning his smile to full wattage, Tomlinson replied, “The pleasure is all mine.”
Jake had ridden to the NEA headquarters with the senator in a chauffeured black sedan. Farthington and Knowles had been waiting for them in the lobby.
“Quinton hasn’t shown up yet?” Jake had asked.
As if in answer, Jake’s smartphone had buzzed.
Harold Quinton looked annoyed, harried, in the phone’s minuscule screen. “Just touched down at Reagan,” he said. “We ran into some weather over Kansas.”
Jake got a mental picture of a tornado blowing Quinton’s plane all the way to Oz.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, yeah. But I’m going to be late for your meeting.”
“That’s all right.”
“I hate being late. Bought the fastest executive jet on the market and I’m still late.”
“I’ll make your apologies.”
And that’s what Jake did as Dora Engels gestured to the empty chairs along the conference table.
Her brows knitting ever so slightly, she asked, “Will Mr. Quinton be attending our meeting?”
“He’ll be here shortly,” Jake said as he sat down near the foot of the table. “He flew in from California, had some rough weather on the way.”
“I see,” said Engels. “Well, shall we start without him?”
“By all means,” Senator Tomlinson said. He was sitting at Engels’s right.
After introductions up and down the table, Engels said, “We’re here today to clear up this unfortunate misunderstanding that Senator Tomlinson caused recently.”
His face going serious, Tomlinson said, “I’m very sorry if my words hurt anyone’s feelings. I was trying to point out a problem that needs to be addressed.”
