Trojan Orbit

by Mack Reynolds

  “The Lagrange Five Project.”

  “The Lagrange Five Project! Good heavens, man, what’s wrong with the Lagrange Five Project? That’s like saying you’re having second thoughts about mom and apple pie.”

  The other shifted his slight frame in his chair. “That’s one of the things that’s so upsetting. It’s untouchable.”

  Paul Corcoran could visualize votes shedding away like dandruff. “Now look here, Roy, we can’t go prying into the Lagrange Five Project.”

  “Why not, Paul?” his aide said, his voice very level.

  “Now don’t get your dander up. You know damn well why not. Why, I’d wager that half the people in this country own at least one share of Lagrange Five Corporation stock.”

  “You see, that’s what I mean. You don’t know. You’re just guessing. We haven’t the vaguest idea of the exact amount the American people have invested in LFC stock. And what’s more, no government in the developed or developing nations does either. Only the Soviet complex knows how much money its citizens have invested in Doctor Ryan’s dream—because their investment is zero.”

  “Well, you know that’s perfectly explainable. LFC is incorporated in the International Zone of Tangier. If they’d incorporated anywhere else, then that nation would have had access to their records and they would have been subject to national laws. Some such laws can really be a burden for a corporation. Look at what might have happened had they incorporated here, with our anti-trust laws. They’re a monopoly—except for the Soviet complex space program, of course. For all practical purposes, there are no corporation laws in Tangier, no banking laws, and practically no taxes. It was an ideal place for such an ultra-multinational corporation to base itself.”

  Roy Thomas nodded ironically. “Ideal for them. But it means that nobody can take a close squint at their data-bank contents. Paul, do you realize that the Lagrange Five Corporation has probably become the largest Cosmocorps in the world? It’s probably now bigger than General Motors or AT&T. I say probably because actually we don’t know. Nobody really knows just how much they’ve sold of those par one-hundred-dollar shares of theirs, Tangier laws—or lack of them—being what they are. But they’ve peddled them in at least fifty nations. It’s been the softest sell—the easiest sell—of all time. Everybody wants to be in on the space dream. Even kids save their allowance until they have a hundred bucks to put into a share. Even the really poor, those on Negative Income Tax, somehow manage to scrape together enough to buy at least one share. How much have you put into it, Chief?”

  Paul Corcoran said grudgingly, “Thirty thousand. And I suspect Molly has invested too. She has her own money. How many shares do you have, Roy?”

  “None.”

  The president looked at him impatiently. “See here, Roy. Just what do you have in mind?”

  The top aide said, “I was against taking this out of the hands of NASA and letting the Lagrange Five Corporation take over in the first place. We had a head start on the Russians in space, once we’d made the moon landings, and especially once the shuttles were operative. We could have handled the financing through such elements as the Space Transportation System, going it alone. Now we have precious little concrete knowledge of what’s going on at all.”

  “That decision was made before my administration. But it was in the cards. The Reunited Nations practically demanded that all nations be allowed to participate. The roots of it were in the European Space Agency. Twelve nations, especially the Germans, pooled together and developed the ESA Spacelab our shuttle put into orbit. They built the labs, we built the shuttles. In doing it that way they gave up an autonomous space program. So now they wanted all the way in. What could we do? We’re the head of the West. World opinion was for it going private, in the free enterprise tradition. Practically every world figure in government, business, science, spoke up for it. Some of the biggest names living became charter members of the LFC.”

  Thomas’s face was askew. He said, “We must have turned over what amounted to billions in NASA hardware to it.”

  “And a very popular move it was, both nationally and internationally. Our party continues to profit by the good will obtained. Frankly, I don’t understand what you’re beefing about, Roy.”

  His assistant responded to that. “Take just one item. Back in the early days of the space program, when we were building the Enterprise, the first space shuttle, the big contractors included McDonnell-Douglas, Grumman, Chrysler, Rocketdyne, and North American Rockwell. Rocketdyne finally wound up with the contract to make the engines and North American Rockwell the main contract to make the shuttle. One by one they’ve been squeezed out of the picture by the Lagrange Five Corporation and johnny-come-lately contractors have taken over. Who in the hell is the Western Spacecraft outfit, for instance? Newcomers. Their contracts with LFC mount into the billions every year. And there are equivalent companies in England, Germany, France, and Italy. Who controls them is largely a mystery, so far as I can find out.”

  Roy Thomas had touched a sore spot there, as he had known he would. Paul Corcoran got excellent support from the American aerospace industries. The President thought about it. He had his lower lip in his teeth in a pouting expression that should have looked infantile, but was one of his trademarks so far as his Tri-Di audience and the political cartoonists were concerned. They loved it.

  He said finally, “What did you have in mind, Roy? You haven’t failed me yet, but this sounds pretty far out. You’re butting heads with the most popular movement the world has seen since Christianity came along.”

  “Islam would be a better example,” his aide said cynically. “LFC has taken the world like Grant took Richmond. What I want is for you to give me your go-ahead. I want some of my boys to start digging into this from every angle.”

  “Now, look here…”

  “Oh, in a clandestine way, of course. Very undercover. And I want to send a man up to Island One.”

  “Why?”

  “Just to see what he can find. All the information we get about what goes on up there comes from the Lagrange Five Corporation’s PR men. Flacks. Either that, or from highly screened VIPs who go up, get the red carpet treatment, and come back even more enthusiastic than when they left. I find, by the way, that most of these VIPs are heavy stockholders in the corporation.”

  “Whom did you plan on sending?”

  “I had in mind a competent investigator from the IABI. I thought I’d talk it over with John Wilson and let him decide.”

  The president nodded to that. “The Inter-American Bureau of Investigation would probably be best. But how would you get him in without spilling the frijoles? They’ll smell a rat, leak the fact that the United States of the Americas is prying into LFC, and the fat would be in the fire.”

  Roy Thomas winced inwardly at all the metaphors, but said, “That’s why I picked an IABI man rather than some other investigator. He can go up on the excuse of trying to find some fugitive from justice who is possibly hiding in the confusion of the construction of Island One.”

  “I suppose that makes sense.”

  “I have your go-ahead to take it up with Wilson?”

  Paul Corcoran hated this, but he got out grudgingly, “I suppose so. But take this easy, Roy. If you don’t find whatever it is you’re looking for and the word gets out that this administration is monkeying with the Lagrange Five Project, we wouldn’t get any votes in my own home town.” He thought about it glumly. “Hell, I wouldn’t get any votes in my own family.”

  * * * *

  John Edward Wilson, director for decades of the Inter-American Bureau of Investigation, didn’t like it. For that matter, he didn’t like the man seated across from him in his office, and knew that the feeling was reciprocated. However, both of them were untouchables. Roy Thomas had made himself indispensable to the workings of the American government some fifteen years previous, and could no more have been replaced than John Wilson himself, though for different reasons.

  Ba
ck before the FBI, the CIA, and the Secret Service had been amalgamated, John Wilson had begun his grand strategy. Today, in the data banks of the IABI were secret dossiers on every American politician of any standing whatsoever. They were thorough, even more thorough than they need be. And everyone in government knew that they were at the director’s fingertips. In a matter of an hour or two he could have blackened the name of any person in politics to the point of ruining his career. For there was no man in politics without skeletons in his closet. One does not get ahead in that game without making compromises or soiling his hands. Even Roosevelt was nominated for the first time by Huey Long, dictator of Louisiana. The Keyy-Nash machine of Chicago, the Frank Hague machine of New Jersey, the Pendergast machine of Kansas, the Curry machine of Massachusetts, all backed FDR. What had he conceded to them in return? No, there was not a politician in the land without his fear of John Edward Wilson.

  Save one. If he could be called a politician. He had never been elected to any office.

  And that one was now seated across from him. In all the years of Roy Thomas’s power behind the throne of the presidents of America, John Wilson had been unable to dig up a usable scandal that he might have dangled over Thomas’s head. The man was uncanny. He must have led the life of an egghead saint. He had never been arrested for so much as a traffic violation. He had married early, a childhood sweetheart, and there was no evidence that he had ever so much as pinched another woman’s ass. And she was as clean as he. Patricia Thomas’s dossier was as empty as that of her husband, and they had no children. The president’s ultimate aide received a comparatively modest salary and lived modestly on it. With all his opportunities, there was no record of his ever accepting even the mildest kickback. And all presents sent to him, even on Christmas, save those from his family, were promptly returned, no matter what their nature.

  No. Roy Thomas was clean, and John Wilson hated the fact.

  The short, tubby man who wielded so much police power was now in his mid-sixties. In his youth he had probably been thought of as baby-faced. Now porcine would be more accurate. And his character came through in it. His eyes were small and invariably suspicious. Knowing himself, he could only believe that all men were similar. His few friends he had gathered close around him in the upper reaches of the Bureau. They all had fabulously paying jobs, they stuck together no matter what the emergency, and they were all as queer as chicken-shit, including Wilson himself.

  Now he said, “I’ll be damned if I get this, Roy. What in the hell does the Chief want me to send a man to Lagrange Five for?”

  Roy Thomas said easily, “He seems to have sort of a bee in his bonnet. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of his chum-pals in the aerospace industry have put up a beef about losing so many of their formerly lucrative contracts. Western Spacecraft, unknown a decade ago, seems to be getting most of the gravy.”

  “That’s probably it, all right,” Wilson growled. “The Chief never would have been elected if it hadn’t been for some of the fancy campaign contributions the aerospace corporations kicked in. You’d be surprised, some of the information I have on those deals.”

  “No, I wouldn’t,” Roy murmured.

  “It’s not the easiest thing to get a man into Island One,” Wilson said. “Their security is really tight. The KGB tried to infiltrate one of their operatives last month. L5 Security nabbed him before he was halfway between the low-orbit space station and Lagrange Five.”

  Thomas accepted that and nodded. “That’s one of the reasons I suggested we use your bureau, John, rather than some other possible investigator. Your man will have cover. He can pretend to be looking for a fugitive from justice. You’ll be able to figure out the details.”

  “Oh, it was your idea, eh?” the IABI director said nastily. “I’m paid to have ideas,” the other told him evenly.

  “God knows, the Chief doesn’t have many of his own.”

  Roy Thomas raised his eyebrows. It wasn’t acceptable that even John Edward Wilson say things like that about the nation’s leader. Especially if it was true.

  “All right, damn it,” Wilson muttered, giving in. “What does my agent do once he gets there?”

  “He plays it by ear. He gets whatever inside information he can about the LFC and its workings. He looks for hanky-panky. I’ll go into it further with him.”

  John Wilson began to reach for the switch on one of his interoffice communications screens. He said, “I’ll call in Steve and we’ll figure out who to send.”

  “No,” the presidential aide said quickly. Then, “Who’s Steve?”

  “Steve Handley. He’s one of my top assistants. A very dear chap. He’s got our best operatives at his fingertips. He’ll know who’d be best to send.”

  “No,” Thomas told him definitely. “See here, John, the president wants this to be held down to the smallest number possible. No one at all, save himself, myself, you, and the man you select to go. You, personally, will handle the details of his going. I’ll personally talk to the man and explain his mission to him.”

  The IABI head didn’t like it, but he shrugged. He flicked on one of his desk screens and said into it, “Is Peter Kapitz available for an assignment?” Then, “Very well, give me his address, please.” Wilson made a note on a pad with his desk stylo. He said into the screen, “Very well, tell him to go home and wait to be contacted there.”

  He turned back to Roy Thomas, after tearing the note from the pad. He handed it over, saying, “Here’s Peter Kapitz’s address. I assume that you’d rather talk to him away from headquarters here.”

  “Yes. It’s best that no one see us together. Who is Peter Kapitz?”

  The IABI head said, “I’m not acquainted with many of the field men. I obviously work on a different level. But I know of Kapitz. He’s been used on various foreign assignments. So far as I know, he’s a good man on extraordinary matters.”

  Roy Thomas took the piece of paper, looked at it briefly, tore it up and threw it into the other’s disposal chute. “Wizard,” he said, coming to his feet. He hesitated a moment before saying, “Please remember, Wilson, discuss this with absolutely no one. If there’s a leak, you’re the only one—you or this Kapitz fellow—who could have made it. Needless to say, if this got to the media, that the LFC was being checked up on, there’d be hell to pay.”

  Wilson glowered at him, his pudgy face looking like that of a bulldog. He said, “Listen, Thomas, are you sure this all comes from Paul Corcoran? I get the feeling that stirring finger of yours is in the batter.”

  Roy Thomas looked at the other scornfully and motioned with his head at one of the other’s TV phone screens. “Give Paul a ring.”

  He turned and left, neither of them bothering to say goodbye.

  When he was gone, John Edward Wilson opened a desk drawer and brought forth a special model transceiver. He set it before him and dialed.

  The screen didn’t light up, but he said into it, “Get me AL Moore in Island One, Lagrange Five. Scrambled and completely muffled.”

  * * * *

  Peter Kapitz scowled and said, “What the devil is there to be investigated about the Lagrange Five Project? Hell, I’ve got twenty shares of their stock. By the time I retire, I figure I’ll be getting more dividends from it than my pension will amount to.”

  Roy Thomas said acidly, “I doubt if there’s a multinational corporation in the world that couldn’t stand investigating.”

  “The Lagrange Five Corporation isn’t in the world. It’s up in space and it’s the dream.”

  The president’s one-man brain-trust nodded to that and said reasonably, “And nobody wants to kill the dream. However, one way not to kill it is to make double-sure it’s a dream, not a nightmare. Possibly as many as a billion people would be affected if the L5 Project bombed out. It’s not just the banks, the pension funds, the trust funds, the mutuals, that are going into the Lagrange Five Corporation. It’s the candy money of kids being put into school-sponsored savings accounts; it’s the
life savings of middle-aged people looking forward to retirement; it’s…hell, you know what it is. One item I ran into was about a lottery in Argentina. People so poor that they go to bed hungry almost every night, scraped up a few pesos to buy a ticket. If they hit, the payoff is a thousand shares of LFC. Nine-tenths of the population of the Argentine would give their right arms for that amount of dream stock.”

  Peter Kapitz said, an edge in his voice, “And why not? Suppose back about 1870 some corporation came along that had a monopoly on the exploitation of the American West. Can you imagine what it would have meant to have gotten onto the ground floor of that? What would the shares have been worth even ten years later, not to speak of twenty? Not to speak of what they would have been worth by the turn of the century. Anybody who had invested as little as a thousand dollars in a monopoly like that would have been a millionaire by the year 1900.”

  Roy Thomas cocked his gaunt head to one side and said, “That’s a good example, perhaps. Look back and you’ll find that millions of people did invest in the conquest of the West. Hundreds of thousands even took to their covered wagons or flatboats and trekked out to the promised land. But by the year 1900 the wealth of the West—and that of the East as well—was largely in the possession of a handful of what we call robber barons.”

  In his younger days, Roy Thomas had been a great fan of the suspense stories of several decades before. It came to him that the man in whose living room he was seated had little resemblance to Philip Marlow, Travis McGee, or Archie Goodwin, and certainly none to Mike Hammer. He was a very average-looking type. Indeed, dull. He was the sort of fellow you were introduced to three or four times before you finally remembered his name. He didn’t look as though he had ever heard of the word karate, seen a gun, been in a fight since grammar school. When it came to girls, he was the type who got the dregs. He was possibly the most colorless thirty-year-old Roy had ever met. For a brief moment, he wondered if John Wilson had foisted this nonentity off on him in pure spite.