Power Failure

by Ben Bova

  Unexpectedly, he bought out a fledgling private space company, renamed it Astra Corporation, and won NASA’s contract for ferrying people and cargo to the aging International Space Station and back.

  Piazza had the kind of face that would look youthful when he was eighty: bright, inquisitive pale blue eyes, strong cheekbones, snubby little nose. His hair was light, windblown, his skin a deep tan.

  The younger man beside him was obviously a Native American: short, thickset, coppery complexion and midnight-dark hair tied into a queue that fell halfway down his back.

  While Piazza was wearing a handsomely patterned shirt, sharply creased light gray slacks and expensive-looking tooled black boots, the youngster was in a plain blue denim shirt that hung to his hips and faded scruffy jeans.

  “Good to meet you,” Piazza said, with his toothy smile. Turning to the lad beside him, he introduced, “This is Billy Trueblood, my number one man and best friend.”

  Trueblood nodded and smiled shyly.

  Jake thought, The Lone Ranger and Tonto?

  Once they had seated themselves around the table, Jake asked Piazza, “How did you get interested in space?”

  Piazza’s face reddened slightly. “Watching people like Colonel Knowles, here, flying off to the space station. I wanted to be like you, sir.”

  Knowles grinned at him. “Did you ever try to get into NASA’s program?”

  Piazza shook his head. “Too tall.”

  Nobody seemed to know what to say. Then Quinton broke the silence. “You can have a free ride on one of my birds, Nick. We’ll custom-tailor a space suit for you.”

  “Hey, I’ve got my own company, you know.”

  “So?”

  His head sinking slightly, Piazza admitted, “My board of directors doesn’t want me risking my butt.”

  Trueblood watched the exchange in silence, his head swiveling back and forth between the two men.

  Grinning, Quinton proposed, “So we’ll sneak you onto a Space Tours flight!”

  “Tempting. But suppose it blows up?”

  “Then I’ll be rid of a competitor,” Quinton said, grinning.

  “We’re not competitors, Harry, you know that. You handle the tourist trade. I’m under contract to NASA.”

  Jake saw his opening. “Would either one of you be interested in going to the Moon?”

  “Who wouldn’t be?” Piazza immediately answered.

  Quinton asked, “How much would it cost us?”

  “Nothing,” said Jake.

  “Nothing?”

  “Nothing,” Jake repeated.

  Quinton gave Jake a hard stare. “I met a pitchman on a street corner once. I must have been about twelve, thirteen years old. By the time he was finished with me, I was cleaned out and all I had to show for it was a lousy ballpoint pen that didn’t work.”

  Knowles put a hand on Quinton’s shoulder. “Let Jake explain what he means. I think you’ll find it interesting.”

  Before Jake could begin, Lucita came in with big bowls of guacamole, salsa, and blue corn chips.

  “How do you want your steaks?” she asked.

  Piazza, Trueblood, and Knowles asked for rare, Jake for medium rare, Quinton—

  “I know,” Lucita said, throwing a mock frown at Quinton. “Burned black.”

  “Right,” said Quinton. “I want to make sure it’s dead.”

  Lucita left the table muttering to herself in Spanish.

  “So tell me, Jake, how are we going to get back to the Moon?” Quinton asked as he dug into the guacamole.

  “And why?” Piazza added.

  “To start using the Moon as a resource center, so we can build space power systems and make profits from it.” Before anyone could reply, Jake went on, “And other things, as well. A new space station, where industrial labs can start developing zero-gravity manufacturing techniques—”

  “Biochemical research, too?” Piazza asked. “Zero-gee might be very advantageous for biochemistry work.”

  Jake nodded. “If you want to go down that road.”

  “And it won’t cost us anything?” Quinton looked and sounded suspicious. “The government’s going to pay for all this?”

  “Yes to the first question, no to the second.”

  “Ah-hah!”

  Jake told them about Karamondis’s scheme of long-term, low-interest loans backed by the government.

  “So if it all flops, Uncle Sam gives us our money back?” Piazza asked.

  “Too good to be true,” said Quinton.

  Lucita arrived with a huge platter of steaks, salads, and thick slabs of bread. The men stopped talking only long enough to attack the meat with forks and what to Jake looked like Bowie knives. To his delight, Jake found he could cut his steak with his fork, it was so tender.

  Within seconds, though, they were deep in conversation again, probing every detail of Jake’s plan.

  “Let me throw something into the pot,” Knowles said, stabbing at his salad. “NASA’s developed a neat heavy-lift booster.”

  “The Space Launch System, SLS,” said Piazza. “Built to launch the Orion spacecraft.”

  “It’s built by the Marshall Space Flight Center, in Alabama,” Quinton said, “but there’s talk of ULA getting the contract for building follow-on versions.”

  Piazza explained for Jake’s benefit, “United Launch Alliance is a partnership of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, two of the biggest aerospace outfits in the world. They have the inside track on heavy boosters.”

  Quinton clasped his hands together. “NASA and the big boys,” he growled.

  “It’s supposed to be the primary booster for the manned Mars mission, isn’t it?” Jake asked.

  “Problem is,” Knowles went on, “Congress hasn’t authorized any manned missions to Mars.”

  “All dressed up and nowhere to go,” Piazza muttered.

  “Damned politicians,” Quinton growled.

  Jake understood where Knowles was heading. “A private company might buy an SLS booster. More than one.”

  “Might,” Knowles agreed.

  “I bet we could land a Phase One base on the Moon with a single SLS launch,” Jake said.

  Knowles nodded, but warned, “NASA would want to run the mission. You provide the payload and they launch the bird from Kennedy.”

  “How many do they have?” Quinton asked.

  “ULA could build as many as you need,” said Knowles.

  “If NASA lets them.”

  Jake waggled a finger in the air. “No. If Congress tells NASA that’s what it must do.”

  Quinton huffed. Then, “That’ll be the day.”

  “Yes,” said Jake. “That will be the day.”

  Lady Cecilia

  “More business gets done at parties like this than on Capitol Hill,” Jake said as he unconsciously tugged at the collar of his tuxedo.

  “Don’t be nervous,” Tami said. “You’ll do fine.”

  The two of them were standing at the doorway to the party room of Cecilia Goodlette’s house, in a posh neighborhood of elegant homes, not far from the Capitol itself. The spacious room was already jammed with men in tuxedos and women in colorful gowns and glittering jewelry.

  Tami’s dress was pink and white, like springtime, its skirt an inch or so below her knees. Jake thought she was by far the loveliest woman in the place.

  “There’s Frank,” Jake said, consciously preventing himself from pointing. Senator Tomlinson was deep in conversation with Senator Bradley Sebastian, chairman of the Senate’s subcommittee on space, science, and competitiveness.

  The two men looked enough alike to be cousins: Tomlinson tall, athletically slim, handsome, elegant in his tailor-fitted tux; Sebastian showed what Tomlinson might look like in ten years, still tall, still somewhat elegant, but heavier, grayer, bowed with years and responsibilities. And they were very different in background, outlook, and attitude. Tomlinson was from Montana, youthful, wealthy, progressive. Sebastian was from Florida, middle-aged, born to h
ardscrabble poverty, a neoconservative.

  “They seem to be friendly,” Jake said. “Maybe I shouldn’t butt in.”

  Tami shook her head the barest centimeter. “It’s your program they’re talking about, I bet. Let’s walk past and smile hello and see what happens.”

  At that moment a miniskirted waitress came out of the crowd bearing a tray of champagne flutes. Tami took one, handed it to Jake, then took another for herself.

  “Now we’re armed and ready,” she said.

  “You may be ready,” said Jake. “I always feel out of place at—”

  “There you are!” came the high-pitched voice of Cecilia Goodlette. “I thought you were going to snub me.”

  Jake forced a smile. “We wouldn’t miss your party, Cecilia. You know that. I just had some work to finish up before we could come over.”

  Tami leaned closer to Lady Cecilia and confided, “The truth is, it takes him forever to get the cuff links and shirt studs in right.”

  Cecilia cackled happily. “Like my second husband. If he had to dress himself he’d never have gotten to his own funeral.”

  Tami laughed. Jake grinned weakly.

  Cecilia Goodlette actually was a Lady, thanks to her titled British third husband. She had gone through four husbands altogether, divorcing two and burying two. And growing wealthier each time.

  She was a short, thickset woman with a figure like a sewer pipe, an unfortunately froglike face with thick lips and a dark pageboy wig. She was wearing a stylish aqua-blue pantsuit, though, and enough jewelry to ransom a maharaja.

  Cecilia was an important person in Washington’s social whirl, the author of Power Talk, a blog unknown beyond the Beltway but followed assiduously by the movers and shakers—real and pretended—on the inside.

  “And how are you, Jake,” she asked, all a-smile, “now that you’ve got your shirt studs in?”

  Jake smiled patiently. “I’m fine, Cecilia, thanks. You look very glamorous tonight.”

  “Flatterer.” She turned to Tami. “I think you’re civilizing him, my dear. When Jake first got to town I thought he was a mute!”

  Jake fidgeted inwardly while Lady Cecilia prattled on, mostly to Tami. Then Cecilia abruptly excused herself to greet a newly arrived guest, an imposingly tall brown-skinned man luxuriantly bearded, wearing a knee-length golden-tan jacket and a white turban.

  “Mr. Ambassador!” Cecilia fairly shrieked, loud enough for most of the people in the room to turn and look her way.

  Tami clutched Jake’s arm. “Now’s our chance to get to work,” she said.

  Arm in arm, Jake led Tami across the crowded room to where Tomlinson and Sebastian were still standing, locked in earnest conversation.

  Tomlinson saw them approaching and flashed his incandescent smile. “Here’s Jake now, and his lovely wife.”

  Senator Sebastian made a fatherly smile as Tomlinson introduced Tami to him.

  Then, “Jake here is working on a plan to revitalize our space program.”

  Putting on a mock frown, Sebastian said, “That’s my turf, son.”

  “Yessir,” said Jake. “I’d like to present the plan to you, as soon as it’s in presentable shape.”

  “Fine. Fine.” Turning back to Tomlinson, Senator Sebastian said, “The voters aren’t interested in space, Frank. Astronauts aren’t heroes anymore, they’re just working stiffs doing strange stuff that hasn’t any relationship to what the voters are really interested in.”

  Before Jake could contradict the senator, Tomlinson said, “But space always ranks pretty high in opinion polls.”

  Sebastian said, “Oh, nobody’s really against space. But the average voter doesn’t think it’s as important as crime in the streets or the unemployment rate.”

  “Space can create new jobs,” Jake blurted, “whole new industries.”

  “I don’t see that,” Sebastian said, shaking his head. “I know there are some nutcases out there who want to go to Mars.” Chuckling, he added, “If they can ever raise the money. Certainly the United States government isn’t going to finance them.”

  Smiling back at the senator, Tomlinson said, “Our plan isn’t about Mars. It’s about developing new industries in orbit, and on the Moon.”

  Sebastian’s expression went from amusement to disbelief. “Industries on the Moon? What are you going to build there, blue cheese factories?”

  Jake started, “We can develop—”

  Tomlinson stopped him with an upraised hand. “You’ll be the first to see the plan—once it’s ready. You’ll see that it makes a lot of financial sense. Especially for the state of Florida.”

  Sebastian laughed tolerantly. “Well, that’s something, at least.”

  The Chairs

  Jake gripped the steering wheel of his convertible with white-knuckled fury.

  “Sebastian’s so stupid he probably can’t find his way to the men’s room without a seeing-eye dog.”

  Sitting beside him as they weaved through the crowded city streets, Tami asked, “Don’t you think you should slow down a bit?”

  Jake shot a sidelong glance at her. “Yeah, I guess so.” And he eased up on the accelerator.

  “This is all new to Senator Sebastian,” Tami said. “It’ll take him a little while to see the importance of it.”

  Jake swung around a city bus as he growled, “He’s a flabby-brained idiot. Chairman of the space subcommittee. It’s assholes like him who’ve let the space program wither on the vine.”

  “He got interested when Frank pointed out that the plan could be good for his state of Florida.”

  “It’s not a pork barrel project!” Jake snapped.

  “I know that,” said Tami. “But you’ve got to get people’s interest; that’s the way to get their support.”

  Jake sighed as he slowed to a stop for a traffic light. “I’ll never make a politician,” he said, shaking his head. “I’d rather knock heads together!”

  * * *

  The next morning Jake found it hard to concentrate on the reports he was sifting through on the background of the United Launch Alliance. Boeing and Lockheed were working under contract to NASA to build and launch a variety of rocket boosters. Nick Piazza’s Astra Corporation had taken a slice of the business of launching cargo and personnel to the International Space Station, but ULA apparently had a hammerlock on NASA’s heavy-lift launchers.

  Should I try to approach NASA directly to discuss using ULA for our heavy-lift missions? Jake asked himself. Or would it be better to go through the congressional committees first, sound them out?

  That would inevitably mean dealing with Senator Sebastian, Jake knew.

  His phone rang. Grateful for the interruption, Jake saw that it was Tomlinson’s latest executive assistant, a middle-aged woman with mousy brown hair and a downturned mouth. Jake wondered what had happened to Francine.

  “Dr. Ross,” she said, in a flat Midwestern twang, “the senator would like to see you at three this afternoon in his office.”

  Jake nodded. “Three o’clock.”

  Promptly at three Jake approached the senator’s executive assistant. She looked up from her desk, then tapped at her phone console.

  “Senator, Dr. Ross is here.”

  “Send him right in.”

  To Jake’s surprise, no one else was in the office, not even Kevin O’Donnell. The senator was in his shirtsleeves, as usual, but his hands were empty and his customary bright smile was nowhere in sight.

  “What’s up, Frank?” Jake asked as he took a chair in front of Tomlinson’s desk.

  “Sebastian.”

  “Oh?”

  “He’s heard that I’m planning to run for the party’s nomination and he doesn’t like it one bit.”

  “Oh.”

  “He thinks I’m too young, too inexperienced—”

  “He wants the nomination for himself,” Jake said.

  “You’re damned right he does. Last night he gave me the business about serving your time, paying you
r dues, coming up through the chairs.”

  “He doesn’t want you jumping in ahead of him.”

  Tomlinson nodded wearily. “He told me in no uncertain terms that it’s his turn to lead the party. He wants to be president and he doesn’t want any interference from a neophyte.”

  “He called you a neophyte?”

  “Not in so many words, but his meaning was clear.”

  “What does Lovett think about this?”

  Looking even more uncomfortable, Tomlinson said, “I want your opinion, Jake. You’re not a politician. I can trust you.”

  Flattered, Jake said, “I’ll tell you what I think, Frank.”

  “And what is that?”

  “I think Sebastian is a fathead. I don’t think the presidency ought to be a reward for time served. It should go to the person best qualified for the job. That’s what the campaign is all about: to show the voters who you are and where you stand and let them decide.”

  “Pretty idealistic.”

  “The people haven’t done such a bad job, over the years.”

  A faint smirk crawled across Tomlinson’s face. “The people have elected some dodos, Jake. Harding. Buchanan. Not to mention the current resident of the White House.”

  “They also elected Lincoln, a couple of Roosevelts, Reagan—not to mention Washington and Jefferson.”

  Tomlinson’s smirk evolved into a tentative smile.

  “Look, Frank,” Jake said. “You can’t let Sebastian buffalo you. You can’t fold up your hopes at the first sign of resistance.”

  “But maybe he’s right. Maybe I should wait.”

  “For how long? Four years? You’ll be facing an incumbent president then. Eight years? Who knows what the landscape will look like by then?”

  “I’ll be pushing sixty by then,” Tomlinson mused.

  “If you’re elected, in eight years we’ll have an operating base on the Moon and we’ll be building solar power satellites in orbit. They’ll name the lunar base after you.”