The Petrovski Effect: A Tess Novel

by Randy Moffat

  Their intent had been to catch the committee unprepared and in that at least they succeeded. It had never occurred to its members that agents subordinate to their oversight would venture to develop a strategic plan without them. It was especially disconcerting when they were all so busily going in different directions themselves.

  Most of them gaped openly at the paper in their paws. A handful looked thoughtful while a few more started to work their complexions through the color spectrum, turning red or purple depending on the amount of melanin in their hides to begin with. As they became more and more impassioned blood ran up to their heads or down to their genitals. Dyer gave them no time or opportunity to interrupt knowing full well the firestorm he was pumping the bellows of words under. He barely got all his points out though and then the flames burst out like a four alarm fire of words, fueled with the same joyous abandon of a motley crowd standing on a hot day in August in the Forum Romanum in ancient Rome—all elbows, tongues, and volume.

  Distilled, they demanded to know what made Dyer think the committee wanted Dyer’s opinion, they required him to explain why he would come up with such an insane, un-American plan, and they demanded to know why he thought they would want any part of giving up an idea that had been paid for by American dollars, blood, sweat, and tears only to thrown away to some new organization without so much as a by your leave. Bear felt certain that they mere moments from the invoking the image of marines mounting the flag on mount Sirabachi during the battle for Iwo Jima. Bear could almost see their deep steaming pile of jingoistic platitudes building up. As the noise rose Dyer kept his cool, sat back and answered all questions and demands respectfully and often, since they were repeated in many forms by various politicos in different ways. It served a purpose. A few rational thoughts penetrated the flurry of demands and imprecation, but by and large it went along in a bizarre mummers dance as Dyer had predicted. In fact, it was the Alabama man, the one who poked his head out the zipper below the buckle on the bible belt and finally articulated the general opposition by casting out the opinion that the committee was in no way bound by any plan made by the upstart Admiral, that the Admiral should keep his ideas to himself, that the MacMoran drive belonged to the people of the United States embodied by himself on behalf of the people . . . oh yes, and the other members of the committee as well. He did not actually say that menials like the Admiral should keep hare-brained ideas like setting up extraterritorial space agencies to himself, but he came within a hair’s breadth. Then he called on the chairman for immediate adjournment of ‘this ad hoc meeting and its shockingly short-notice assembly of a quorum—leaving off that it had a plethora of short sight too.

  There was a general uproar that contained under-tonal sounds of approval when the whacky Senator called for the adjournment and Bear sensed the tide had turned against them in the course of events—precisely as Dyer had predicted.

  “Dear me, oh dear me.” Murmured Bear and firmly laying his hand on Dyer’s forearm signaling his readiness to take over as they had practiced and he stood on his feet. “Mr. Chairman! Mr. Chairman!” Bear shouted to make his words heard because he saw the bored chair dangerously lifting his gavel in relief to end what must for him simply be one more pointless meeting that ended in obscurity and unfinished business. Luckily, Bear was rather good at shouting when he set his mind to it and he had the advantage of facing the man’s ears.

  The chairman paused, peering at Bear nearsightedly, trying to remember who he was.

  “Uh . . .” He said indecisively in the monetary lull created by Bear’s shouts.

  “MacMoran, sir. Mr. MacMoran—the head of the Q-Kink team.”

  “Oh yes! The chair said, his white head still largely empty of comprehension Bear thought, but the proximity between his name and the item under discussion appeared to hold him a moment as a kind of curious coincidence. “I’d like to call on you, Mr. MacMoran, but I have a motion to adjourn from the floor.” There was a mummer of approval and subtle foot movements, gathering up briefcases and gazing vacantly at cell phones, that spoke clearly that the general body of the committee’s stomachs had taken over from their brains and announced that lunch hour was at hand so that they were sharp set to get over to the capitol cafeteria and a big bowl of navy bean soup.

  “I know you do, Mr. Chairman.” Bear raised his voice to just under the volume of a parade ground divisional Sergeant Major to ensure he focused them just a little longer. “I will only be a moment, but I have something vital to tell the gentlemen here before they leave that cannot be left until later. So if I might have three minutes only Mr. Chairman I will happily step down.”

  The gavel was getting heavy and the Chairman looked at it longingly, visibly wanting to bang its black walnut beauty down on its sound block, but some edge in Bear’s voice held him. He paused in much the same way as the inhabitants of Leningrad must have held themselves in motionless in September of 1941 at the first rumble of German artillery in the distance.

  “Very well then, Mr. MacMoran . . . Three minutes only please!”

  “Thank you, sir.” Bear smiled at him insincerely and then grinned at the whole committee with feeling, knowing that what he had to say might remain at three minutes, but its ripples would last a lot longer. He did not waste time. “Gentlemen, you need to implement the admirable plan put forward by Admiral Dyer for creation of a new extraterritorial agency and you need to do it before you leave this room today.”

  A full silence settled, they were certainly not used to being told baldly what to do, and the titillating shock value of being ordered about by unknown insect-like employee persons held them a nonce. The nonce was just enough.

  “There is of course a clear and compelling reason why you must implement the Admiral’s plans immediately . . .” He paused for effect listening for crickets in the silence. “The reason is because if you don’t—within 24 hours—the complete plans for and theoretical documentation behind the MacMoran drive will be published on the internet to the entire planet. I know this because I have already taken steps to make it happen and unless I prevent it the MacMoran drive will not only not remain an American secret, it will instead be given gratis into the hands of the Chinese, the Russians, the Iranians . . . hell even Mississippi will be able to build a MacMoran drive.” He saw each man wince as he punched an emotional button of another global competitor and their faces flashed from the settling calm of potentially full bellies back to livid anger in a moment.

  Frenzied mobs during the French revolution were picnics to the resulting pandemonium. The cool headed leadership of the nation, envy of the electorate, seemed determined to out shout each other. Too late, the chairman discovered that the gavel only worked for adjournment to chow and did nothing to silence a riot.

  Every now and then there was a question that accidentally penetrated the white noise of discussions around the room and during those questions Bear responded by continuously building up a solid picture of how the process of dropping the plans for the drive into the world net were quite irreversible by anyone as they had a virtual and hardware component that could not be stopped by them even if Bear died in the next ten seconds. They also got the message that no one could stop it but Bear. It was blackmail of the baldest kind and the group of gangsters that ran the room spotted a kindred product almost instantly. Pleadings to patriotism, appeals to conscience, and threats of death bounced off him in a sequence as predictable as the speed of sound propagating through air. Over time even the meanest understanding in the room grasped the central notion that Bear had presented them with two choices. One was to give the damn dangerous thing to every gibbering lunatic on earth, or to retain it in the hands of the as-yet fictitious newly created agency which, while not a direct tool of the United States, would at least keep in the hands of small group of people who would have an agenda only of space exploration and was not directly antithetical to the interests, or indeed the very notion of t
he United States.

  It was all smoke and mirrors of course. The whole time the Bear was dancing in the center ring, Dyer was out on the floor and working the back rows of the circus stands. He was whispering to the small groups of men in the room who actually influenced opinion and massaging them into a full understanding of the benefits of this plan using the legendary and time honored techniques ranging from simple side bar forms of lesser blackmail around various buried bodies, back scratching exchanges of support on other programs, promises of prominence in a public relations coups, and even the rare appeal to higher nature once or twice. He failed a half dozen times, but succeeded twice as often so that after three weary hours there was a noticeable lessening in the decibel level and a slight but growing inclination to support the outcast now Bear.

  In the end those Dyer talked to, some of whom talked to others, who talked to others, and really quite suddenly, in one of those curiosities of crowds where you have the roar of the sea suddenly give way to pastoral quiet, Bear found himself standing all alone in front of a group of men and women who gazed at him like sated scientists peering at an amoeba under the laboratory microscope.

  He smiled and rubbed his hands together lightly.

  “So is it to be a new agency with you full support then?”

  There was a growl of discontent from the hold outs, but Robert’s Rules of Order kicked in and a motion supporting the new agency was put forward by a man behind whom, to no one’s surprise stood Admiral Dyer. A second to the motion came from the man on his right and through the inexorable process of the atomic decay of tempers and the distant sounds of gastric desire the committee agreed to lobby for and help create a new agency that would receive 55 million dollars in initial funding as long as other nations on the planet backed it with matching dollars. Then and there Bear decided to ask for cash.

  It was in this way that the deal was brokered.

  Within an hour the President was informed of the new agency and the news arrived just before Bear and the Admiral who themselves had carefully timed the presentation to the oversight committee so that it would end in time to get them to the White House just a few minutes before a previously scheduled televised press conference where he planned to make an announcement that the United States had done the ground work on researching the first workable space drive in history and had just sent a team to Mars. The President vented his spleen on Bear and Dyer in the oval office when they showed up, but his hands were tied since the conference was linked to mealtime news casts and all the networks were waiting. If he hesitated, someone on the oversight committee was certain to upstage him. He gritted his political teeth and added comments with a pen to his speech to the effect that the US found the responsibility of their momentous discovery too much for any one nation and was entrusting the backing for the technology to a new agency and urged all the nations of the world to support the plan, his plan, financially and with personnel. He was an old politician. He knew a Coup d’état when he saw one. Like an old politician, he rolled with the punch though back stage he didn’t have to sound like it.

  Instead he sounded thoroughly pissed off at having the thing stolen from under him just seconds before walking out to the podium; it was the President who asked the obvious question.

  “What the hell is this damned agency supposed to be called?” He snapped.

  Bear happened to be standing there when he asked it and Dyer looked suitably blank. Pretty soon all eyes swiveled to look at Bear since he was clearly the other bastard who wanted it.

  Strangely, Bear had not thought of it before and found himself almost consumed with stage fright for a moment, a curious sensation for a man who had just hoodwinked a world. He fought it down, playing with his chin thoughtfully.

  ‘Terran Exploratory Space Service.” He stated firmly pulling if from deep in his rectum. “TESS for short.”

  “TESS?” The President exploded. “Sounds like some girly name. Wasn’t that the name of Truman’s wife or something? Crap , son . . . let me . . .”

  They never did catch what he wanted . . . his aide leant in and whispered urgently in his ear. He glanced at his watch, started, glanced in a mirror, smoothed a stray lock and strode out to the press room stage smiling. The name TESS took because there was no time to change it and no way to reach the compromise that democracy demanded around an alternative name.

  Dyer nudged Bear and they walked out to stand on the podium beside the President uninvited—Mafia enforcers there to make sure the mark followed the script.

  Five minutes later after trading jokes and quips with the press the President of the United States had put on his friendly and brave face and emphasized that American ingenuity had produced another miracle for humanity and showed the flight to Mars footage conducted by an American team in the name of liberty, freedom and go-get-um inventiveness. Later, almost every news service chose to freeze the frame that showed Bear’s face in silhouette against the Martian globe and the shot swept the world in seconds. Naturally, reporters shouted the roof off and asked technical questions with that picture in the background and the face in silhouette ended up being the face dragged up in front of the cameras, answering questions in vague and encouraging ways so that the President’s nearly fathomless ignorance of the subject would not be proven. Bear’s name was known instantly to around a billion people and a second billion in about an hour’s time along with the blazing headline “Man Reaches Mars!”

  The President, his arm carefully around Bear’s shoulders was damned if he would lose any chance at a positive headline or getting his fizz in camera. Now that the ball was rolling he grabbed the mike back and announced the creation of the new Terran Exploratory Space Service, smugly pointing out that once again, America led the way in peaceful intent and invited all the world to join them in this awesome venture as long as they believed, like America, in liberty, freedom, liberty, and still more liberty . . . and brought their checkbook with them.

  He then made the mistake of gesturing at a reporter who was hopping up and down in the shouting herd of other reporters—“Who is in the new organization exactly? What is its makeup?” asked the man with a pad held cupped in one and pencil poised above it like an eager phallus.

  The President hesitated, suddenly realizing it was not a subject that had been discussed and he had no answer. He dipped deep into the politician’s bag of tricks, pulled out an old standby, and winged a platitude.

  “We will, of course, seek the finest people in America and indeed the world who are available to fill the roles in TESS . . . especially those who believe, as we do, in liberty, freedom, and have the necessary pioneer spirit.”

  Dyer appeared at his side and cleared his throat.

  The President glanced at him askance; the look something between hatred at being torn from the teat of the microphone to a look of relief similar to a security guard’s face after a night of sheer boredom is interrupted by all the vault alarms thirty seconds after his relief shows up and signs the log book to take over the watch.

  “Admiral Dyer of the Navy can fill you in with more details.” The President finished with just a hint of reluctance mingled with his haste. His haste played into Dyer’s hands.

  “Thank you Mr. President . . .” and the President narrowly missed being shoved off the platform as Dyer turned with military precision—out beamed the public face of Dyer . . . the huge white smile so much a contrast with the dark moon of his face.

  “Actually TESS will initially be composed of the members of the team that invented the drive. In fact, Mr. MacMoran here had been appointed the new head of TESS and holds the rank of full Admiral in its structure. His seconds in command are Rear Admiral Wong and Rear Admiral O’Hara formerly of the United States Navy and the government service of the United States. There are a number of other members many of whom are former US Military and civilian personnel but are now seconded to TESS as an ind
ependent organization by the United States of America. Those personnel who were US citizens are now technically dual citizenry, holding their former passports but are also members of the Extraterritorial Organization called TESS. Upon ratification by the nations of the world by funding TESS members will be beholding to no nation, but will instead be allowed to move freely through them all . . .”

  Bear was proud of himself. When Dyer announced he was now an admiral his face had wanted to open his eyes really wide in astonishment and allow his jaw to relax somewhere near his navel, but Bear reduced it manfully to a series of convulsive blinks instead. He swallowed some coughed grunts of laughter and astonishment at the stream of impromptu bull effluvia pouring from Dyer’s mouth with the consistency of a banana smoothie and instead of snorting like a winded horse he stood stock still and took it in the gut. To do it though he had to bite hard on the inside of his cheek. Certainly whooping in laughter at Dyer’s display seemed inappropriate, but a momentary flicker of pain that the inside of his cheek cost him would not make good television so he thought about the Buddha instead—seeking inner peace, if no enlightenment.

  All in all, the effect was to make him look modest, overwhelmed by the honor of it all and bashful in a manly way. Several news analysts commented on it later. It must have been a good look for him since two days later he got three proposals of marriage in the mail.

  Eventually the reporters, receiving a signal at the subliminal level of all bottom feeders when bread was scattered on the water, demanded that the new head of TESS be dragged up on stage and become the dancing Bear. Bear had to force himself to speak into the microphones rather than bite them, but he answered several questions about the future of TESS that he improvised as classily as he could, taking the themes put forward by Dyer and elaborating on the spot until he had woven a cloth of words that lacked the beauty of the Bayeux tapestry, but as a new weaver at this level he was rather proud of it. The question that came last was the one that would come back to haunt him most.