“But…” Segurola started to protest before he was interrupted.
“Stand up, son, and let me shake your hand. Here’s the good news. You’re going to be an astronaut!” He grabbed Segurola’s hand and pumped it wildly, thrusting the file folder he was carrying into the pilot’s left hand. “Take at look at those orders. You’re supposed to report to Houston no later than the end of the week. That is, if you want to. You’re not military. Hell, you’re not even an American citizen. So I guess you can turn them down if you want to.”
“An astronaut? You mean go into space? How can that be? I’ve never even applied. I mean, my God, I’ve always wanted to but I never bothered because I didn’t think there was a point!” Segurola’s voice rose nearly an octave in pitch as the full force of this unbelievable stroke of good fortune hit him. “Colonel Simpson, what the hell’s going on?”
Simpson had opened the top drawer of a file cabinet behind desk and produced a fifth of Cutty Sark scotch and two drinking glasses. “I keep this around for special occasions, Pancho, and I this certainly qualifies. Can I pour you one?”
“I’m not flying today?”
“Hell, no, are you kidding? You don’t fly chase planes anymore. You’re an astronaut, man!” He poured a double shot into the glass, handed it to the pilot, and sat on the edge of desk. “Have you heard about the Titicaca Effect?”
“Sure, it’s all anyone in Bolivia ever talks about anymore. My brother is working on the control center construction site on the island, and I have a cousin who has just been hired to work in the offices of La Comisión Boliviana del Espacio - the Bolivian Space Commission - in La Paz.”
“Well, you’re going to be a part of the first manned launch from the Titicaca spaceport,” Simpson said. “Evidently, the president of Bolivia…what’s his name?”
“President Maldonado,” Segurola answered.
“Yeah, Maldonado. Anyway, apparently he initiated a search for a native Bolivian who could be qualified for space travel quickly because he wants the first launch to include one. They found some commercial pilots, of course, but when the search turned up someone who already worked for NASA, you were a shoo-in. Especially since NASA has a contract to supervise the first few launches until they can get a Bolivian unit up to speed.” He grinned. “Of course, you can decline the offer.”
“I don’t think so,” Segurola laughed as he looked through the orders the colonel had given him. “Tell them I said yes. I’ll be in Houston by tomorrow afternoon.”
“Tell them yourself,” Simpson replied. He picked up the phone and started dialing a number he had hastily scribbled on a yellow legal pad. “They gave me a number for you to call.” He listened until the phone started ringing, then handed the receiver to Segurola.
The pilot waited until a female voice at the other end answered and said simply, “Control.”
“This is Francisco Segurola at NASA in California,” he said. “I was told to call this number?”
“Certainly, Mr. Segurola. We were expecting your call. Please hold and I’ll connect you.” There was click and then background music as the call was being transferred.
“Any idea who I’m talking to?” he asked the colonel.
“Nope. They just gave me the number, they didn’t tell me anything else. That’s a Washington, D.C. area code, though.”
The music stopped and the pilot-turned-astronaut could hear the slight background hiss he normally associated with calls to home. This was obviously a call outside the United States. Another female voice answered, this time one with a Spanish Accent. “Mr. Segurola, please hold.” Less than two seconds later, a deep male voice came on the line.
“Pancho, is that you?” Segurola didn’t recognize the voice.
“Um, yes, this is Pancho Segurola. Who am I talking to?”
“Alberto Maldonado,” the voice answered.
Segurola sat in stunned silence for what seemed like an eternity. Like nearly all Bolivians, he had mentally elevated his country’s charismatic President to an almost mythic place in his imagination. He was so flustered that he could think of nothing to say except, “Mr. President.”
“Pancho, I wanted you to know how important this is to your country, and to thank you personally for agreeing to become Bolivia’s first astronaut. The first launch from Espaciopuerto De La Titicaca will be an historic occasion, and you will be a symbol of great national pride as Bolivia enters the space age.”
Recovering his composure, Segurola said, “How could I refuse, Mr. President? I’ve wanted to go into space since I was little boy. I just never thought I would. Do you know what part I will play in the crew makeup? What will I be expected to do?”
“You will be expected to command.”
Again, Segurola struggled to retain his composure. He felt like yelling with joy and dancing around the room. Instead, he cleared his throat and said, “”I’m sorry, Mr. President. I must have misunderstood you. Could you repeat that?
“You will be the mission commander, Pancho. There will be three Americans and a Russian on the mission with you, and you will be in charge.”
“That’s what I thought you said, Mr. President. I just couldn’t believe I heard it right. Are you sure I’m qualified?”
“No, I’m not at all sure you’re qualified, but you will be on the launch date. Of that, I have no doubt. I’ve reviewed your file, Pancho. You’re brilliant, you’re dedicated to your career as a pilot, and everyone who knows you assures us that you have the leadership qualities and flight skills necessary to do the job. You come highly recommended. Believe me when I tell you that just being a Bolivian was not enough to assure your selection. The mission needs a Bolivian, but it’s even more important for the mission to succeed. I’m convinced you’re the right man for the job.”
“I won’t let you down, Mr. President. I promise.”
“I know that, Pancho. Are prepared to be a national hero?”
“I’m not sure about that, Mr. President,” Segurola answered, smiling. “I suppose I could handle it if I had to.”
The president chuckled. “Just promise me you won’t run for President until I’m out of office.”
“You have a deal, Mr. President.”
“Thank you, Pancho. Now I have to attend to other matters, and I expect you have to pack. If you need anything at all, you can reach me personally at this number. Whatever you need to make this work, you’ll have. As soon as you finish your training and come home, I’d like you to come to the palace so I can meet you personally.”
“It would be an honor, Mr. President. Thank you.” The president said goodbye and Segurola handed the phone back to the colonel.
“Maldonado?” Simpson asked. “I’m impressed!”
“I’m blown away! Colonel, I’m going into space! And the president said I’m going to be the mission commander.”
“That’s great, Pancho,” Simpson said. “And the best part is, you’re not going to spend years training and getting ready. If what they say on the news is true, the first launch can’t be more than a couple of months away.”
“Colonel, it’s been a pleasure working for you. I mean it. I’ve enjoyed every minute of this assignment, but I guess I’d better get going. I have to pack my gear and get to Houston. Any chance I can get a ride into L.A.?”
Simpson laughed. “L.A., my ass! You’re not going to Houston on a civilian airliner. Being the C.O. of this unit gives me some yank with the brass. I have an Air Force jet on its way here to pick you up.”
“Thank you, sir. I really appreciate it.” For the first time since they had met, Segurola stood at attention, then snapped a salute to the colonel.
Simpson returned the salute, then shook Segurola’s hand again. “You’d better get going, son.”
Francisco Segurola, newly-minted chief astronaut for the Bolivian Space Commission, nodded, turned and strode purposefully through the office door and into his future.
Chapter 18: The Auction
Freema
n stood looking out the window of the office on the 22nd floor of the Freemarkets Tower in downtown Pittsburgh. Nearly six weeks had passed since the test module had gone into space, and preparations for the first manned launch were coming together nicely. That event would be followed quickly by the first commercial launches, so it was time to auction off the launch windows, which was why he was in Pittsburgh.
The view was nice. From his high vantage point he could see PNC Park on the Allegheny river where the Pittsburgh Pirates play baseball, and there was a game in progress. It was a beautiful, clear day and he was quite sure that if he had some binoculars, he could pick faces out of the crowd.
Still, it just didn’t look right. He had grown accustomed to seeing the spectacular view from his new apartment balcony in downtown La Paz, with snow-capped Illimani, the Andean peak that towered over everything in the city, dominating the skyline. In the evening, especially, the sun often bathed the mountain in a constantly-shifting array of colors, made more vibrant by the altitude. Sometimes he could swear the mountain looked like it was carved out of solid gold. He missed being there, and that surprised him.
He also missed Alicia. He had wanted her to make this trip with him because he was meeting Janey in Miami and taking her back to Bolivia with him. He thought that if the two of them hit it off it might take some of the pressure of dealing with a ten-year-old girl off him, but it just hadn’t worked out. Alicia had her hands full with the constant stream of foreign nationals and dignitaries who were coming to Bolivia to work on – or try to cut some kind of deal regarding – the spaceport at Lake Titicaca. She had gone from being a language teacher to the manager of an entire department that dealt with the myriad problems that always seemed to arise out of the difficulty people have communicating with each other. As a result, she had developed close friendships with major players at most of the foreign embassies in La Paz. She thought nothing of it, of course. Alicia’s lack of pretension was one of her most endearing qualities.
Freeman was anticipating Janey’s visit with a mixture of happiness and dread. He loved his daughter and wanted to see her, but a three-week visit had real potential to turn out wrong – especially since he knew he’d be incredibly busy leading up to first manned launch. Actually, he was surprised that Janey’s mother had even agreed to let her stay that long. He hated to think it, but he really wished he wasn’t even in the states, so his daughter’s visit would happen some other time.
On the other hand, he thought. It’s nice to be able to breathe again. He sometimes wondered if he was ever going to become completely acclimated to living life above 12,000 feet.
His reverie was interrupted by Bill Henson, the senior Freemarkets executive who was personally overseeing the auction for launch dates at Titicaca. Freemarkets, Inc. had pioneered the idea of using auctions to connect buyers with sellers using interactive technologies. They leveled the playing field by bringing remote bidders together without the need for travel. Most of the company’s work involved driving prices down, rather than up, in what is known as a reverse auction. The “events,” as Freemarkets preferred to call them, usually involved a single buyer and multiple sellers. The idea was to use successive bids to force the sellers into a price competition. It worked. In the first three years of operations, Freemarkets could document savings in excess of $5 billion for its clients.
Usually, the firm declined to work more traditional auctions in which the idea was to drive prices up, but this client was special. No auction in history had ever received as much media coverage, and the marketing possibilities linked to this event would benefit the firm enormously. It was, by any measure, a plum assignment.
Freeman had selected Freemarkets to handle the auction because the company already had expertise in dealing internationally, and because they had the infrastructure and technologies in place to assure security. Given the political implications of the auction, it had to be conducted flawlessly.
The auction would be conducted from the Freemarkets headquarters in a special control room configured for such events. The layout was similar to the NASA control center in Houston, and a little like a United Nations translation center. Across the front of the room was a bank of flat-panel plasma computer monitors which would display the bidding activity taking place all over the globe. Each bidder was assigned to one of the dozens of Freemarkets event representatives, fluent in the bidder’s native language as well as English, who sat at control stations facing the bank of screens. The multi-lingual event reps would stay in constant communication with their assigned bidders during the event, guiding them through the process and making sure there were no technical issues getting in the way of placing a bid.
The event was driven by highly sophisticated technologies that used Internet tunneling to maintain security, backed up by redundant servers and an uninterruptible power supply that was capable of powering all of downtown Pittsburgh. It was far and away the most robust facility of its kind, in terms of both technologies and people, anywhere on the planet.
“Mr. Freeman?” Henson said. “We’re about ready. Want to look over the arrangements?”
“Sure.”
The two men started down the hall toward the control room, where the auction would begin in less than a half-hour. Already, most of the participating countries were online, double-checking their connection and talking to the Freemarkets event representative advising them on procedure.
“How many participants do we have now?” Freeman asked.
“The total is 41 as of about ten minutes ago. We just had a surprise entry.”
“Really? Who?”
“Cuba.”
“You’re not serious! Somebody’s playing a joke on you.”
“I’m serious. Cuba’s in the bidding. I took the call myself.”
“Are you sure it was from someone who had the authority speak for Castro?”
“Pretty sure. The call was from his brother, Raul.”
“God Almighty! The U.S. is going to go crazy about this! Where do suppose they got the kind of money this is going to take? The Russians sure wouldn’t give it to them, they’ve got money problems of their own.”
“Well,” Henson responded, “I have a theory about that. Want to hear it?”
“Absolutely!”
They had reached the hallway outside the control room. The door into the room itself was guarded by two armed security personnel, uncharacteristic for Freemarkets, but then this was an uncharacteristic event. Large windows into the room gave Freeman a clear view of the entire layout. It was a very busy place, with technicians scurrying from console to console, double-checking with the reps to make sure everything was working. Evidently, one of the consoles had some kind of malfunction, because there were two technicians on the floor beside it, poking around on the wiring that connected it to the network. In the back of the control center there was a single TV camera, which was sending a video feed of the event to CNN. The network had taken Maldonado up on the invitation to broadcast the bidding, but Freemarkets had insisted for security reasons that the network journalists broadcasting the event be off-site.
Henson motioned for Freeman to take one of the two high stools that had been set up to give them a good vantage point to watch as the auction proceeded, and then took the chair next to him.
“Our Canadian office fielded several calls in the last couple of weeks from Lawrence Gastings. Ever hear of him?”
“The chairman of Astonia Holdings in Canada? Sure. He’s one of the top twenty wealthiest people in the world.”
“That’s him. Anyway, it seems Mr. Gastings has always harbored a secret desire to go into space. He wanted to know if a private citizen could bid. We told him that our contract with Bolivia specifically stated that only duly constituted governments were eligible to participate. He was pretty upset.”
“What does that have to do with Cuba?”
“I’m getting to that. After we turned him down, we heard from his attorneys. Several times. They threatened t
o sue, they threatened to ask for a restraining order to delay the auction, they even gave us a rather thinly-veiled threat that Gastings might attempt to buy us and shut us down if we didn’t use our influence with you to get you to allow him to bid.”
“What did you tell them?”
“We told them we had an iron-clad contract, and there was nothing we could do. I was the last person to talk to Gastings, and I told him that if he really wanted to go into space that bad, he could buy his own country and bid. It was a joke, of course, but that may have given him an idea. I’d bet anything that he’s financing Cuba’s bid. Gastings is used to getting what he wants, he has money and power, and he knows how to use them. Cuba needs money, and Castro would love to get a launch spot just so he could watch Washington squirm.”
Henson’s cell phone rang and he popped it out of the belt clip he wore.
The Titicaca Effect Page 19