Trojan Orbit

by Mack Reynolds

  —Wendell Berry, poet, novelist.

  *

  The next meeting of Roy Thomas with President Paul Corcoran was a near duplicate of his last, even to the timing. He sat for only a few minutes in the outer office of Gertrude Steiner.

  She had told him, her stiff mouth registering disapproval, “The President is with Admiral Stocker and General Feldmeyer. When they have gone it will be time for his half hour of meditation.”

  “Wizard,” he said, taking a chair.

  She looked at him in exasperation. “You are the only man in Washington who dares intrude on his meditation.”

  “Possibly that’s because I’m the only one who knows what he meditates about,” he told her, his smile on a bias.

  “Mr. Thomas!”

  “Just call me Roy,” he said. He looked down at his pants leg and detected an ash burn there. The suit must be older than he thought. He hadn’t smoked for years, under doctor’s orders. He’d have to tell Patricia to remind him to buy another outfit or two, the first time he had an opportunity. Now that he thought of it, he seemed to be somewhat out of style. Not that he gave a damn for the vagaries of fashion.

  There was a slight hum from one of the secretary’s desk gadgets. She sighed, flicked a switch, and said, “Mr. President, Mr. Thomas is here.” And a moment later, “Yes, I told him, but evidently he thinks the matter quite important.”

  She looked up at the President’s right-hand man and said, “He says to come in, Mr. Thomas.”

  But Roy Thomas was already on his way.

  He took the same chair he had occupied on his last visit and directed his eyes at the Chief Executive of the United States. Handsomest man to occupy the White House since Kennedy, he decided, all over again, and the most vapid since Harding.

  Paul Corcoran, his voice brisk, said, “Roy, I’ve been having second thoughts about you prying into the L5 Project. You’re playing with dynamite. Besides, the latest reports are that Doctor Ryan and his people are on the verge of breakthroughs that will wind up all the last bugs within a period of months.”

  “Prepare to have third thoughts, Paul,” his top aide said grimly. “As to those reports, they remind me of the ones that used to come from Viet Nam. You know, they could see the light burning at the end of the tunnel. The war was always going to be over, victoriously, in about six months.”

  The President viewed him with less than enthusiasm. “You mean you’ve actually hit upon something?”

  “Ummm,” the other told him. “Actually, a fluke. Based on a report from Peter Kapitz. He’s the agent John Wilson assigned to me.”

  Paul Corcoran took his lower lip in his teeth and pouted. “I can’t believe it. In fact, I’m not sure that I want to believe it. Anything said by this administration against the L5 Project would have unforeseeable reverberations.”

  “Ummm,” his brains behind the throne repeated. Roy Thomas sighed and said, “Paul, when I was a young fellow I spent several years as a newspaper man. One of the things it taught me was to have my ears go up every time I ran into the term non-profit organization. Whenever I came upon one, it became a challenge to find out just who was profiting. And someone invariably was.”

  The President said testily, “Roy, what in the name of Goshen has this got to do with the Lagrange Five Corporation? It makes no pretense of being a non-profit organization. As soon as the SPSs begin microwaving energy to Earth, it will start paying dividends.”

  “If it ever starts beaming energy,” his top aide told him, the gaunt face registering skepticism. “But I wasn’t talking about the LFC. I had in mind New Kingston University.”

  Paul Corcoran’s face didn’t have to go far to go blank. Now it made the transition.

  Roy Thomas said, “The post-industrial world is now with us, in the advanced countries, Paul. In the early days of the industrial revolution, the labor of blue-collar workers was the basis of society. Almost everybody was a blue-collar worker or a farmer. Two hundred years later, they were in a minority; the majority of useful workers were white collar. They processed the products of the blue-collar workers and the farmers; they performed services ranging from distribution to teaching, to government, to medicine, to entertainment, and so on. But now we’ve gone a step farther. The important thing, above all, in modern society is knowledge and, ah, thinking. And our universities and colleges have come into their own. Supposedly, they’re non-profit. But have you ever considered the funds that pass through, say, an Ivy League university? Big government grants, foundation grants, big donations from publicity-seeking multimillionaires who can usually write them off on their taxes. Then there are the research projects for multinational and other corporations. Oh, never fear, fantastic sums pass through a modern university.”

  “I suppose you’re getting to something,” the other said impatiently.

  “Yes. A well-organized criminal element with sizable funds on hand could do well dominating one of our larger universities, such as New Kingston. Bootlegging, prostitution, labor unions, even gambling were profitable fields of yesteryear, but almost meaningless today. Today, power and wealth pass through the universities and their think tanks.”

  “Come, come, Roy, out with it. What’s roaching you?”

  His aide began laying it on the line. “Peter Kapitz mentioned that he had spotted a Syndicate member, Natale Lucchese, now going under the name Nat Luke and working as a Security officer in Island One. Somewhat surprised, Kapitz checked up on the man and found that he had a degree in the humanities from New Kingston.”

  “Syndicate?” the President said, scowling. “You mean the old Mafia, or Cosa Nostra, or whatever they called it? Don’t be silly, Roy, they haven’t existed for decades. Next you’ll be mentioning Robin Hood and his merry men.”

  “That was my first reaction,” the other said grimly. “But it didn’t check out that way. You might almost say that they went underground. They had plenty of money and plenty of brains, or, if they didn’t, they could hire them. They must have seen the handwriting on the wall. Even organized crime, of the old school, was no longer proving profitable. They had to get into more legitimate efforts and, above all, they had to change their image. The old picture of a Sicilian with a tommy gun under his arm had to go.” His chuckle was as thin as his face. “To be replaced by, of all things, a college professor, complete with gray beard and the black robes of learning.”

  “Oh, now really, Roy. This time you’ve truly gone too far out. How in the world…”

  The scrawny, ill-dressed little man shook his head. “I checked it, Paul. It wouldn’t be as difficult as all that. New Kingston was chartered back in the 18th century and was originally meant as a school for Protestant ministers. It failed to flourish as did Princeton, Yale, and Harvard. In fact, it has been on the verge of folding on various occasions during the past couple of centuries. However, somehow it managed to keep its head above water. For some reason, early in the game, probably as far back as such Mafia prominents as Lucky Luciano, the crime families chose the small but dignified and honored college to send their children to. They made less of a ripple than they might have in the Ivy League institutions. New Kingston was quiet. When they decided to take over, I don’t know. But it might have been as far back as half a century ago. Given their resources, it wouldn’t have been difficult to infiltrate their alumni into the trustees of the corporation and into the academic senate.”

  Corcoran was scowling in disgust. “Confound it, Roy. This is becoming sillier by the minute. Charles Cyprus is a personal friend of mine. As president of New Kingston, he gave me every support during the campaign.”

  Roy nodded. “I know. A very distinguished gentleman. Government grants, since your administration has taken over, must be gratifying to him.”

  “Now, see here. Even from you, Roy…”

  Roy Thomas ignored him. “His father had the family name changed from Ciprio, which I understand is well known in the vicinity of Palermo even to this day. At any rate, to get to the
point, my checking this out is thus far incomplete. I have been working with only three of my most trusted aides. However, I suspect that every official of importance in New Kingston, including the chairman of the Esopus Institute, a think tank on the level of the Hudson and Brookings, belongs to one of the old families. I mean all of them! The administrators of departments, the deans, the board of trustees, the vice president of academic affairs. His name was originally Biamco, by the way.”

  The President was flabbergasted, but he managed to get out, “What are you leading up to, Roy? Suppose that you’re right. How does it involve us? As you pointed out, these people are now legitimate. Generations have passed since the days of Al Capone. I should think that their becoming valued members of society would be considered most praiseworthy. The university is a noted one and high in the ranks of our institutions of higher learning.”

  His top aide was shaking his head cynically, his smile inverted.

  Paul Corcoran snapped, “Confound it, New Kingston is only a school, not a sink of perversion and criminal activity! It’s a non-profit…”

  “Yes, but the Lagrange Five Corporation isn’t.”

  His superior gaped at him.

  Roy Thomas said, “And several of the university’s academicians sit on its board.”

  “Are you suggesting…”

  “Doctor Solomon Ryan was only three years of age when his father legally changed the names of all family members. Salvatore Tramunti hence became Solomon Ryan.” The President’s assistant twisted his mouth wryly. “And eventually the Father of the Lagrange Five Project.”

  The country’s chief executive slumped back in his chair. “You can prove this?” His voice was hoarse.

  “Of course.”

  “But…but why, Roy? I…I’m confused. I…”

  “Mr. President, the Lagrange Five Corporation has at its disposal the spending of tens of billions of dollars, francs, marks, pounds, yen. An increasingly small fraction of this goes to such established corporations as, say, Rockwell International, Johns-Manville, McDonnell Douglas, Grumman, Chrysler, and Rocketdyne in America; or, say, Dornier, VFW-Fokker, and MBB in Germany, or equivalent corporations in France, Italy, and Great Britain. It’s what originally sparked my suspicion. Who’s ever heard of the overnight aerospace corporations getting the cream of the big contracts emanating from LFC?”

  The President was indignant. “Why haven’t our established corporations put up a howl?”

  “For the same reason you dragged your feet about this investigation of mine. What did you say? Speaking up against anything the LFC does is like speaking up against mother and apple pan dowdy.”

  The President became decisive, as though rising to the occasion. He flicked on a desk screen and snapped, “Miss Steiner! Sell my shares in LFC!”

  Roy Thomas could hear the faint gasp come over the inter-office communicator.

  He said quickly, “Cancel that, Paul. It’ll bring things to an immediate head, if it got out that you’re dumping your LFC stock.”

  Paul Corcoran glared at him. “Nobody would know except Gertrude.”

  “Balls.”

  The chief executive was indignant. “I trust Gertrude implicitly. She has been my secretary since I was a State Senator.”

  “Ummm,” Roy told him. “But before the hour is out, she sells her LFC shares and before the day is out, so does your wife, Molly. And tomorrow, Gertrude’s secretary sells hers, and so, probably, does every member of your staff. Followed, the day after, by every member of your cabinet, and their aides.”

  Paul Corcoran blinked, pouted, then said, “Maybe you’re right.”

  The other said nothing.

  The President flicked the desk screen back on. “Cancel that last order, Gertrude. I was jesting.” He banged the communicator off.

  He turned back to his top advisor and took a deep breath and a new tack. “Roy, I just can’t believe that Professor Ryan is a charlatan. I’ve met him half a dozen times. Why, he’s been to dinner twice, right here in the White House. He’s absolutely charmed Molly. How could a scientist of his eminence be connected with criminal elements?”

  Roy Thomas shook his head. “I’ve never met the man, but I was as unbelieving as you are. I had Lenny Robinson check him out thoroughly. All the evidence is that he’s authentic as far as being a top physicist is concerned. He’s twice been nominated for the Nobel, though he didn’t make it. What we’ve got to realize is this: being born into the Syndicate families doesn’t mean that one is stupid. Undoubtedly there are family members who are, but they couldn’t be the ones pushed into prominence in New Kingston University. Their best brains would be promoted. And it’s a fallacy, anyway, to think that criminal minds are necessarily second-rate. Among other things, it’s according to how you define criminal. An adventurer such as Napoleon can loot half of Europe on his behalf and that of his second-rate family, and he comes down to us as a military genius and outstanding statesman. In our own field, there are uncountable politicians who came to power by fraudulent means and then milked contemporary society but who are now ennobled in history books. I won’t even bother to mention the founders of most of the great American fortunes. When a man steals millions, or even billions, he is not a criminal; he’s a great financier, a great industrialist, an honored entrepreneur.”

  “You sound like a goddamned commie.”

  “Ummm. But the fact still remains that some decades ago, the Mafia took over New Kingston, and when one of their boys, Sol Ryan, came up with the L5 Project idea, they took it to their bosoms. They pulled all strings available, and by this time there must have been quite a few available to them, launched the Lagrange Five Corporation, and are now fucking the world flat. It’s the biggest rip-off of all time. Three-quarters of the human race have been put on the sucker list.”

  “But Roy,” Corcoran wailed. “How could so many be diddled? It’s unbelievable!”

  His aide shook his head and rubbed his right fist over his stomach, as though soothing an ulcer. “Evidently not. It isn’t the first time human beings have been suckered into some ridiculous enthusiasm, though admittedly never on such a scale. Possibly, communications didn’t allow anything of this magnitude before. But look at the Crusades, which went on for centuries. They even had a Children’s Crusade.

  “Or take war. Who can explain the enthusiasm in both the North and South for the Civil War, in which both sides were bled white? Take the First World War. There was no excuse for getting in, but there was scarcely a vote against it, either in Europe, on both sides, or in America. We went in supposedly to make the world safe for democracy and, when we’d won, there was less democracy than before it began. So it would seem it is with the L5 Project. People are thinking with their hearts, not their heads. They want space colonization to work, and simply won’t hear anything said against it.”

  “But, Holy Goshen, Roy, this is the first time I’ve ever heard anything against it. It doesn’t make sense for it to go on this long without somebody taking a closer look. Every government on Earth is backing either the West’s L5 Project or the Soviet Complex’s space platforms and asteroid belt project.”

  His aide leaned back in his chair, recrossed his thin legs, and nodded acceptance. He said ironically, “I suspect that one reason governments support it is that it keeps the minds of the people off their real troubles. Dissent has fallen off drastically. Almost everybody thinks that the space colonization project will solve all the burgeoning economic and political problems that confront us. All radical and even liberal movements have fallen off drastically. Socialists, syndicalists, libertarians, neo-anarchists, Euro-communists, all have seen their followers drop away wholesale. Every entrenched government in the West gives the L5 Project at least lip service. It’s an updated version of giving the people bread and circuses. In this version, the circus is so big they can afford most of the bread.”

  Paul Corcoran didn’t seem to know what his advisor was talking about. He said impatiently, “Roy, what
do you have in mind now? This is catastrophe! Frankly, my mind’s spinning. Why, this administration has thrown everything into the proposition that all our energy problems would be solved by microwaving solar power down from space. Which in turn would eliminate most pollution problems, especially when heavy industry was moved out there. And the space colonies, when they began to build islands Three, Four, and Five, would absorb the world’s excess population.”

  “Wizard,” the other told him. “That’s the story everybody swallowed. But from Kapitz’s preliminary report, the whole project is fucked up. The reports their publicity people are sending back here to Earth are completely exaggerated. They’re spending money like madmen and not getting results.”

  “Well…confound it, Roy. What do you recommend we do?”

  “Go into higher gear in this investigation. So far, I’ve just scratched the surface. Among other things that Kapitz has dug up is the fact that the Arab Union is subsidizing the L5 Project to the tune of five billion a year. Why, for Christ’s sake? And what does the Syndicate have in mind eventually? They must know that sooner or later the whole mess will collapse. Then where will they be with half the human race out for their blood?”

  The President’s classical face registered determination. “As always, I have complete faith in you, Roy. Behind you one hundred percent. Just tell me your plans and I’ll implement them.”

  The other twisted his thin face. “I don’t have any. We can’t just drop the axe on them at this stage. God only knows what would happen.”

  His superior ogled him in dismay. “You mean that you don’t know what to do?”

  Roy Thomas made an impatient negative gesture. “Not at this stage. Right now, I’m busy accumulating ulcers. We need more information. I suggest that we have John Wilson put a hundred or so of his absolutely best and most dependable men onto digging further into the Syndicate’s relationship with the Lagrange Five Corporation. I suspect that they are alone in this. That they are the LFC, period. But we’re not sure. Also, I assume that Wilson has some IABI men permanently assigned to the International Zone of Tangier. Ever since it was reconstituted, it’s been the world center for espionage and counterespionage, on both a political and corporate level. He must have a few moles there. Let them go to work investigating the L5 Corporation. Hell, if he’s as efficient as his department’s publicity people claim, he should have a mole or two in some upper bracket position in LFC. And if he has anybody bought in the Arab Union, perhaps he can ferret out what in the hell the Arabs are doing helping finance the L5 Project.”