The Big Lifters

by Dean Ing

  “Fellowship with the Great Satan? Reconsider,” said Winthorp. “Kroner’s The Far Treasure combines visions of great wealth with space exploration. It seems likely to win several awards this year. If Americans ever do make use of raw materials from the moon and asteroids, Great Satan’s future is assured. This,” he said slowly for emphasis, “is taken as plain fact by most economists. Hal Kroner’s messages are entertaining, inspiring - and very, very dangerous.”

  Nurbashi nodded once. “His intent clearly favors the Great Satan,” he admitted.

  Winthorp permitted himself a faint smile. “Condemned by his works,” he said with a lecturer’s smugness. “Only Allah knows what evil the man may do next.”

  “Perhaps create the sort of costume epic of which you are so fond,” Nurbashi said without thinking. It was one thing to drop hints that Winthorp held no secrets from the mullah. It was quite another to dangle a detail of it before him. If Sultana had become a whore-goddess to her only son in such widescreen trash, then let him ogle her cinema sisters all he liked.

  From what Nurbashi could learn, the man had no other sexual activities.

  “The wise master does not abuse his servant,” Winthorp said, too quietly.

  “I meant no abuse,” Nurbashi lied, “merely to share an irony. But surely a man as learned as yourself could provide more names for Farda research. The farmer should know each stone in his field, whether or not he removes it.”

  Winthorp began to angle across spring grass toward Grayson’s School of Business and Economics, making Nurbashi follow. He had met two of Nurbashi’s crazies before - both dead now, with their victims. Each rated an “A” for zeal and a “C minus” for caution. The longer Nurbashi’s people had to study a prospective victim, the greater the risk of exposure. Farda's favorite trick was to set a human bomb on collision course with the target. This sort of holy war was hell to defend against, and took relatively little research when Allah’s warrior sought to pick the locks of Heaven with a detonator.

  “Let me give you an example,” Winthorp said, “not a second name. Americans owe much of their remaining strength to the efficient movement of people and materials. I have been studying two men, not the richest but among the most crucial, in this commerce. Last week I might have been tempted to name one. He is an American patriot, or thinks he is; he is pro-space; and he is a persuasive leader of interstate highway truckers, which is to say that he keeps the blood pumping in Great Satan’s veins.”

  Nurbashi’s eyes gleamed. “His name?”

  “Allow me to tell you his effect. The blood pumps through old and failing arteries today, and this man is determined to cure the problem with more patches. Let him proceed! Satan may bleed to death in time. ”

  “It would have done no harm to begin surveillance,” Nurbashi replied. “My martyrs must remain active.”

  Another peek at the wristwatch, this time openly. “I am a scholar, and useful to you only if I am cautious. Leave me my caution, I beg you. Shall I call the same number to reach you again?”

  Nurbashi made a negative gesture; recited a telephone number with a Michigan area code; watched as Win thorp punched it into his pocket memocomp. They avoided formal leave-taking, Winthorp pacing quickly on small burnished shoes toward his office. Nurbashi remembered to walk more casually to the bicycle, and pedaled toward the Metrorail. One thing about the damned Americans, the mullah reflected: They were already profiting from British experience with expensive fuel. The Metrorail was not blazingly fast, but a cyclist could park his bike free in a special railcar and remove it fifteen minutes later at a stop twenty miles away. Great Satan had learned from the British that it made excellent economic sense. Nurbashi hated that.

  Winthorp, taking a shortcut, paused as a local freight rig whirred toward a campus loading dock, towing a wide trailer. Unlike older rigs, the huge so-called kings of the road, this one could not move at highway speeds and would never tow a load farther than the nearest rail terminal. Its engine was small and quiet, geared down for twenty-ton loads in urban traffic. Laser-etched into its aluminum bumper was the bold legend: PEEL TRANSIT ASSOCIATES, HAYWARD.

  Balked by a Peel truck! Winthorp smiled again at this irony and hurried around the rig. He had refused to name one man because, it now seemed certain, Joseph Alton Weatherby was part of America’s problem. Probably the driver of that campus rig contributed to Joey Weatherby’s National Transport Coalition, which suited Winthorp fine. But that same driver was operating a prime mover assembled in the Hayward factory of Peel Transit Associates.

  Winthorp puffed up the stairs. He would assign his graduate student case studies of cargo vehicle factories which were wholly owned by one person, and which were surging into newly efficient cargo methods. Winthorp knew one of those cases would include Peel’s little high tech empire in Hayward, California. Recently, the Wall Street Journal had connected Peel with magnetic levitation trains running hundreds of miles an hour! Oh, yes, Peei loomed as a potential danger . . .

  Winthorp might never utter Joey Weatherby’s name to the mullah. But given much more success in lifting America’s billion-ton cargoes with high technology, one name of “necessity” would almost certainly be John Wesley Peel.

  THREE

  His best people agreed behind his back, with affection: No charm school could ever knock the rough edges off Wes Peel. Heavy equipment contractor at twenty-five, developer of better equipment in his forties: Wes drew top honors from the school of hard knocks. Perhaps that is why he valued good educations in the people he gathered at his sprawling Hayward factory.

  This morning Wes was dressed for comfort and for action, the wide shoulders straining at a short-sleeved shirt with open collar, beltless slacks snugged against a flat belly. He wore glove-soft loafers without socks, because Wes Peel did not have to give a damn what he wore.

  When he called someone on the carpet, it was Wes who wore it out. He was wearing it out now, with pauses to recheck the sheaf of papers in his hand, searchlighting the offender with intense blue eyes now and then, an old scar slanting white across a tanned forehead. If you had a silent video of those pauses, you could guess that Wes had watched a few hardshell preachers in his time. But his pauses were rarely silent.

  Wes dropped the papers on his desk as though they had suddenly burst into flame. Tall and erect despite an old hip injury, he gnawed his mustache and passed a hand through cotton-blonde hair. “Got-damnit, Tom, you guys are short-hauling me to the poorhouse!” His steady gaze challenged the shorter man to deny it.

  Tom Schultheis, Ph.D. Caltech ’87, felt sweat forming under his neatly trimmed, sun-bronzed hair. If it became a trickle down to his tie in this air-conditioned sanctum, Wes might start to wonder why. “Wes, I run the design shop; ask Dave Kaplan about those test expenses. But before you do, ask yourself how many ways a maglev’s canard wing can fail.” Wes still had the teeth and the cheek creases for a killer smile. “Hell, that’s what you phuds are for.” The smile burst, then faded with the memory of those big dollar signs. “You plating those canards with gold?”

  “Welded titanium, and you’re lucky we only had to use up one set.”

  Wes swept the papers into his hands again. Those big callused hands could drive an earth mover, or assemble an intricate model with the same ease. Visualizing the hardware as he scanned the list, Wes found another item and stabbed at it. “You had to destroy three cryogenic tanks, too?”

  “They’re all different,” Schultheis said, using his handkerchief to polish his glasses, holding the linen square for another purpose. This was the second time in five minutes that Wes had noticed something he wasn’t supposed to find, and now the back of the smaller man’s collar was damp. “We either test everything, or risk a malf at high speed,” he said, knowing Wes’s dread of high-speed malfunctions.

  Wes saw the gleam of perspiration. It’s Kaplan I should bitch at, or myself, he thought. Tom’s between a rock and a hard place but he won’t try to hide behind his best friend.r />
  “Aw, shoot. Wipe your face, Tom. If I’m determined to shock the industry, guess I’m due for some shocks of my own. Maybe I’m lucky we lost the big contract.”

  Tom Schultheis mopped at his forehead and managed a smile. “Pity you didn’t feel that way the day we lost it,” he said.

  “Took me a while to see that less can be more,” Wes replied. Like Budd and Boeing, Wes had fought for the main contract: the magnetic levitation passenger train. And like them, he had lost to the LockLever-Santa Fe group. The others had probably fought less to get the contract for that single track maintenance vehicle. The risk was high, the profit small, and it seemed less romantic than a six-car passenger train. But Wes knew the thing could become a hovering test bed: the prototype for much faster maglevs. He fought harder for that contract, and won. The cryogenic tanks, and the high performance they implied, were still secret. The longer everyone else thought maglevs were unstable above three hundred miles an hour, the longer PTA could extend its lead in the technology.

  Wes took a final glance at the folder of papers, turning to the last page. “Sorry I jumped your case, Tom. Some bunch called Exotic Salvage in San Leandro is buying up what’s left of our test hardware for about one-thousandth the cost.” Wes conjured images of wrinkled titanium and ruptured boron filament, treasures sacrificed on the altar of safety, and shook his head. “What do you suppose they do with the stuff?”

  A pause; a swallow. “Compact the metal and send it back to wherever,” Tom replied vaguely, adding, “and we get safe hardware for man-rated systems.”

  You’re playing my song back to me, and you damn’ well know it, thought Wes. “I’ll spring that this afternoon when we interview that pilot, what’shisname?”

  “Glenn Rogan. Spring what?”

  “This month alone, I’ve dumped three hundred thou into tests to make sure the guy gets safe rides. So be it, ” he finished.

  The design chief nodded, feeling the release of tension between his own shoulders. Those titanium wings, filament-wrapped tanks, and God knew how many smaller items, would be safely written off. Which was very different from their being destroyed. To abandon this dangerous topic, Schultheis said, “When do we tell Rogan about the maglev? He thinks we want him only for the Delta One program.”

  A wink, and the killer smile, “We let him figure it out,” Wes replied. “Shouldn’t take him long.” Wes, who had met professional speed freaks while competing in off-road racing, knew the breed. First you hired the pilot and his silence. A test pilot already on the payroll would rather see his bonus shrink than watch another pilot walk in to test new company systems. “We can’t give him the maglev details yet, but a few hints are in order, and tell Kaplan I said so. Has it occurred to you that this pilot may not be excited over Delta One? You say yourself, she won’t do two hundred miles an hour.”

  “No dirigible has ever done one hundred. You bet he’ll be excited,” Schultheis insisted. “Big lifters are his business. Rogan’s ready to leave Cyclone Crane, but you could lose him to one of the outfits developing new space shuttles. Or you could hint that-Peel Transit is leaning in that direction.”

  “Lie to him, you mean?”

  Tom tried his most charming shrug-and-grin. “Not exactly. I mean, one of these days you’ll get into orbital cargo.” “Lord Jesus, but you’re a pain,” Wes burst out, slapping his desk with a pistol’s report. “No, I got-damn’ well never will, how many times must I tell you? The got-damn’ Orient Express spaceplane might get its got-damn’ cargoes down to two hundred bucks a pound one day, or it might not.” “There are cheaper ways,” Tom began, then realized there was no point in talking to a self-made magnate who could talk louder.

  “So you’ve told me, Dave Kaplan too, and someday you’ll realize I’ve got all the challenge I need moving cargo right here on God’s sweet earth, or sell your souls to Boeing or Rockwell!” Wes closed his eyes, grimaced, then shook his head. More gently, but firmly, “Don’t start with me, Tom. I created PTA, and Peel Leasing, and Transit Brokerage, so the American public won’t have to dodge fifty-ton loads on its own highways forever.”

  Hand up in mock surrender, Tom nodded. Laconic, “I’ve seen your motto.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “In your game room.” Visitors to Wes’s showcase home near Hayward could not fail to see the framed needlepoint sampler, six feet wide, that hung on one wall near the pool table. The legend read:

  WHEN YOU SHARE THE TRAIL WITH AN ELEPHANT,

  AND ANYBODY STUMBLES, ...

  YOU LOSE!

  Wes blinked, wondering if Schultheis knew that his own sister had made that sampler, years before. Alma Schultheis had spent some good nights at Wes’s place, before their alliance lost its intensity. Was Tom cramming a message in between the lines? Unlikely. Tom was only acknowledging an agenda known to top Peel employees - the private lifelong goal of John Wesley Peel: to sweep away the big rigs that had once been a mixed blessing on American highways. .

  And had killed the three people Wes loved most. “It’s a creed, Tom. It’s what I do. Let space freaks do the other stuff. ’ ’ Wes waved a hand in friendly dismissal. “Hey, try and collar Dave before one-thirty. If he’s late as usual, it might look like we’re a haphazard outfit to your man Rogan.”

  His hand on the door’s push plate, Schultheis stopped as if stung by Wes’s final phrase. Then he nodded and walked out.

  FOUR

  Tom Schultheis, compulsively neat, swept crumbs onto his lunch tray and waited for his companion to finish a sliver of cheesecake. As usual, they were arguing. Had Wes Peel been the kind of man to bug the tree-shaded tables outside the Peel Transit cafeteria, he would have shaken with rage to hear them.

  One old foreman at Peel Transit had dubbed them “Mutt and Jeff’ because Schultheis was a foot shorter than Peel’s superb stress analyst, David Kaplan, Ph.D. Stanford ’85. Kaplan owned one tie nobody had ever seen and curls of his black hair hid the back of the open collar of his dress shirt. Schultheis, though younger than Kaplan, boasted a few months of seniority with Wes and seldom found it necessary to argue with anyone but Kaplan. That was because he seldom found anyone else with Kaplan’s chaotic kind of brilliance. But Dave Kaplan’s virtues did not include careful scheduling of everyday details.

  Squinting against the pavement reflection as they strode to the executive building, Tom craned his neck to stare at his companion. “You had two weeks to look over Rogan’s application, Dave. Now you’ve got to face Wes with a recommendation. If you know a better test pilot, trot him out.” “How the hell was I to know you were bringing this guy in without telling him about Highjump?” David held the usual resonant boom of his voice in check. “My God, you’re supposed to be the cautious one!”

  “Right; and I know Rogan. You know what he reads besides Louis L’Amour? Biographies of other test pilots. Nowadays, there’s no Air Force hotshot sitting on the fence like Yeager, taking the tough ones on Air Force pay. Rogan’s salary demands would set your hair on end if he knew why we really want him, and Wes would want to know where the extra hazard was.”

  David’s laugh was a release of frustration. “You think Rogan’s going to strap into that thing before he knows? I can’t believe I’m hearing this, Tom.”

  Schultheis glanced up again in irritation. “We’ll let him in on Highjump a little at a time. Once he knows, we can offer him the rides for a reasonable bonus. Glenn Rogan’s hobby is base jumping, man - he’s a risk junkie. Wait and see; you won’t be able to keep him out of Highjump with armed guards. ’ ’ David sighed; pointed to the manila folder in the shorter man’shand. “If I ever saw a resume with ‘hell-raiser’ stenciled all over it, it’s Glenn Rogan’s. He doesn’t seem like your sort.”

  “He’s not. He’s just good at his work.”

  “How can you be so cocksure he’ll want anything to do with Highjump? If you’ve guessed wrong and he takes it to Wes, you and I both will be drawing unemployment. Or breaking rocks in a state quarry
.”

  “That’s our part of the risk. Think of Rogan’s risk - and then tell me who else but a hell-raiser would ride Highjump! When I was with Cyclone, Rogan never made the same mistake once. I’ve known the guy since ’eighty-eight. He’s still parachuting from suspension bridges for the sheer hell of it, repacking his own chutes. He’s alive because he’s careful. That says a lot.”

  Kaplan paused with his hand on the entrance push plate and grinned. “Methodical twerp; you probably had him in mind from the first. Now we’re getting down to it! Old friend of the family?”

  “Not hardly,” Schultheis grunted, using one of the many southern schoolboy phrases that had dismayed his parents back in Tullahoma, Tennessee. They passed into the cool shadowed corridor which the staff called mahogany row, then waited as Wes Peel’s reception office door slid aside. Kaplan beamed at the woman who sat between two computer terminals. “Are we expected, Vangie?”

  He was only half joking. Evangeline Broussard, Wes’s executive assistant, never knew when Wes might slip out his private back entrance without warning her. Once a week she was forced to smooth the ruffled feathers of some bird with an appointment, because Wes had ducked out. Vangie’s stock excuse, delivered with languid Creole grace, was “I’m afraid Mr. Peel did not expect you, suh.” With this admission, Vangie hinted that she might have been at fault; and very few men could fan a rage toward Evangeline Broussard.

  Vangie was a creature of contrasts: a face almost plain, with lips too full for perfection and brows too lush for fashion; but some Caddo Indian ancestor had given her perfect skin the color of apricot flesh and her lustrous dark hair, pulled away from her face and tied with a small bow, hung to her waist. Vangie hated her full name and wore severe tweeds to work. A pencil usually peeked from above her right ear, but most men forgot her executive trappings the moment they saw her walk across a room. Vangie’s calves were very long, as anyone could see, but rumor had it that her legs were her worst feature. That rumor might persist until the day she bared her calves, for Vangie always wore trousers and elegant heels.