Powersat

Matagora Island, Texas

Never let a woman leave a toothbrush in your bathroom, Dan reminded himself as he leaned over the gunwale of the ferry and breathed in the fresh salt-tanged air. It’s like allowing the Marines to establish a beachhead on your territory.

The sun was going down as the last ferry of the day chugged across the bay toward Matagorda Island. Dan had spent the previous night and all this Saturday with Vicki Lee, who had come to do an in-depth interview with him, because of the successful flight test of the spaceplane. “In depth,” Dan muttered to himself, with a grin. Vicki was fun to be with and energetic in bed. But when she suggested she stay overnight at Dan’s apartment instead of returning to the hotel suite she’d rented in Lamar, every alarm bell in Dan’s nervous system started clanging.

So he drove her all the way back to Lamar in his newly retopped Jaguar. The hotel there wasn’t all that much better than the Astro Motel on the island, but Dan was glad she had decided to stay in Lamar. They spent the night together and most of the warm, humid Saturday languidly poking around the town’s meager shops. They had an early dinner in her room-in bed, actually—and then Dan had kissed Vicki good-bye and headed home. Hope I didn’t screw up the interview, he said to himself as he watched the sun sink into the scrub pines of the island. Aviation Week is the most important source in the industry. Well, he thought, remembering Vicki’s passionate panting, at least I screwed the interviewer pretty well.

The hangar was dark and empty by the time he pulled into his parking slot. His apartment was clean and shipshape. Tomasina took advantage of my absence, Dan thought. God, she even stocked the fridge he saw as he took out a cold can of ginger beer. As he sat at his desk and booted up the computer he debated adding a slug of brandy to the spicy, fizzing soda. What do the Aussies call that? The answer came to him as his screen lit up: brandy and dry.

But as soon as he saw the list of messages waiting for him he forgot about a drink. Jane Thornton’s name was third on the list. He called up her message before any of the others.

She was at the ranch in Oklahoma, from the looks of it: relaxed denim shirt, reddish-brown hair pinned up off her neck.

“Dan, I need to talk to you in private. I’ll be flying down from the ranch tomorrow, leaving here at seven. Could you have your airstrip ready for me to land there, please? Don’t call back unless there’s some problem with that. Otherwise, I’ll see you when I land at your complex.”

That was all. About as warm as a form letter from an insurance company, Dan thought. But so what? Jane’s coming here, on a Sunday. Tomorrow!

He jumped to his feet and headed for the tiny bathroom. I’d better take a good long shower, Dan told himself.

Feeling like a teenager waiting for his date to appear, Dan paced along the base of the Astro airstrip’s pocket-sized control tower as he watched Jane’s single-engine plane turn into its final approach, sunlight glinting off its canopy. The guys in the tower had told him the plane was a turboprop TBM 700: fast, pressurized for high-altitude flight, yet with a landing speed low enough to slip into small landing fields.

Engine yowling, the low-winged plane touched down gently on the concrete strip and then taxied slowly to a stop by the tower. Dan fidgeted impatiently, waiting for the hatch to open and Jane to appear. Don’t be stupid, he warned himself. She’s here on business, nothing else. It’s over between us, as far as she’s concerned.

But when Jane ducked through the hatch and stepped onto the plane’s wing he forgot all that. She was wearing a flowered Western shirt and snug-fitting jeans. Dan raced over to help her down to the concrete apron.

“Hi! Good to see you.”

Jane smiled at him. “You can let go of me now, Dan.”

“Oh. Yeah.” He took his hands from her waist.

The pilot squeezed through the hatch and dropped lightly to the ground. Dan tossed him a set of car keys, then pointed to the company van parked by the control tower next to his own Jag.

“There’s a motel about three miles down the road,” Dan told the pilot, pointing. “They’re expecting you. Whatever you want is on the house.”

The pilot thanked him and, after getting a nod from Jane, went to the van. Dan escorted Jane to his Jaguar and drove her, with the car’s newly installed top down, to Hangar A.

“I’ve never been here before,” she said, over the rush of the wind.

“I know.”

“It looks very quiet.”

“Sunday. Day of rest for most of the company.”

“I see.”

Glancing at her as they neared the hangar, Dan said, “You ought to come for a launch. Plenty of activity then.”

“That’s what I want to talk to you about,” Jane said, looking very serious.

Dan led her into the cool shadows of the empty hangar and up the stairs to his office.

“No one’s here?” Jane asked as they went along the catwalk to his office.

“Not a soul.” Niles Muhamed was in Hangar B, Dan knew, getting his team ready to pick up the 02 plane when it arrived on the freighter at Galveston. But from inside his office, the complex looked almost totally deserted.

“Just you and me, Jane, practically alone on a tropical island.”

She took the chair in front of his desk. “Semitropical, at best,” she said.

Dan perched on the edge of the desk in front of her. “That’s what I need, a geography lesson.”

“Dan, be serious. Please.”

He didn’t feel serious. He felt like pulling her up from the chair and waltzing across the office with her in his arms. But he said, “Okay. What do you want to talk about?”

“There’s a rumor floating around Washington that you believe your first spaceplane was sabotaged.”

So that’s it, Dan thought. Strictly business.

“I’m positive it was,” he said. “My chief engineer was murdered a few days afterward, and they made it look like an accident.”

“What proof do you have?”

“None. Not a damned thing. But one of the reasons I flew the backup bird was to prove that there’s nothing wrong with the spaceplane’s design. She flies fine when nobody messes with her.”

“That’s pretty thin ice, Dan.”

“I know. Nobody believes me. I can’t even get the double-damned FBI to take it seriously.”

“I see,” Jane said. Then she fell silent.

Dan waited a few moments, wondering what to do next. At last he asked, “Is that all you came down here to talk about?”

“No. Not really.”

“What else?”

“You.”

“Me?”

“And Morgan.”

“Him again,” Dan grumbled.

“Dan, he’s the only man in America who can make this country energy independent.”

“And rain makes applesauce.”

“It’s true!”

Trying to keep his feelings under control, Dan said, “Jane, Scanwell may be the only candidate who wants to make America energy independent, but—”

“He needs your help.”

“I am helping him! I’d appreciate a little help coming my way, too.”

“We’re working on that. I’ve introduced the bill in the Senate to help raise financing for you.”

“Jane, I’m tightrope-walking on a shoelace here.”

Despite herself, she giggled. “You always did have a way with words, Dan.”

And he grinned back at her. “One of my many talents:”

More seriously, Jane said, “This test flight of yours has created a lot of enemies. NASA thinks—”

“I know. They think I’m a loose cannon.”

“Worse, Dan. They think you’re a threat to their program.”

“That’s fine by me.”

“But they’ll oppose you every inch of the way.”

“So what? I don’t need their help.”

“You don’t understand,” she said. “Government regulatory agencies like the FAA are going to need expert advice about your plans to fly your spaceplane again. Who do you think they’ll turn to?”

Dan knew the answer.

“And when you approach private investors for funding, who will they ask for an opinion?”

“The double-damned space agency,” he growled.

“Exactly.”

“Well I don’t have to worry about any of that if I let Tricontinental buy into my company. Or Yamagata.”

“We can’t have that!” she said sharply.

“‘We’? You mean Scanwell.”

“Yes. Morgan can’t point to you as part of his energy-independence program if you’re owned by a multinational oil company or a Japanese corporation.”

“Scanwell won’t be able to point to me at all if I don’t get some funding damned soon. I’ll be underwater.”

“We’re trying, Dan. But you’ve got to cooperate.”

“I am cooperating! I’m pushing as hard as I can to get the powersat up and running.”

“But you can’t thumb your nose at the FAA the way you just did. You can’t turn NASA into an enemy.”

“Double-damn it to hell and back!” Dan exploded. “That test flight generated more publicity for the idea of energy independence than anything Scanwell’s done! Hell and damnation, I’m even getting nibbles of interest from potential investors, thanks to that flight.”

“It’s not the kind of publicity we need,” Jane said. “It makes you look like a hero, I know, but it’s creating more enemies than friends for you.”

“You mean it’s stealing the spotlight from Scanwell.”

“No, that’s not what I mean.”

“He’s making speeches and I’m doing something. Maybe I ought to run for president!”

Looking up to the ceiling as if seeking divine assistance, Jane said, “Dan you simply don’t understand the way politics works. You have to make friends, not enemies.”

“I’m not a politician, Jane. I’m just a businessman trying to keep my company from going under.”

“You can be a great help to Morgan if you’ll just—”

“I don’t want to help Scanwell or anybody else!” he snapped. “All I want is to get that powersat operating.”

“And the future of the country?”

“The country’s future’ll be a lot brighter once we have a power satellite showing that we can bring in gobs of energy from space.”

“Dan, if you’d only work with Morgan instead of running off on your own tangent.”

“What good would that do me?” he asked.

Her head sank and for a moment Dan thought she was crying. But then she looked up at him again, dry-eyed. “We could get him elected president, Dan. He’s a great man. He could be a great president.”

Anger flared deep inside him, but Dan fought to keep it under control. “Look, I like Morgan Scanwell. I really do. He might make a pretty decent president if he can get himself elected. But that’s his problem, not mine. I’ve got problems of my own, plenty of them.”

“I know that, Dan, but can’t you see that—”

“Jane, can’t you see that you’re the only person in the world I care about?”

Her breath caught in her throat, then she shook her head slowly. “For what it’s worth, Dan, I feel the same way about you.”

He felt as if he’d been dropped out of an airplane.

“I wish I didn’t,” Jane went on, softly, almost as if talking to herself. “You’re nothing but trouble for me. But I’ve never stopped loving you. Even when I was furious with you, I knew I loved you.”

“I love you too, Jane,” he heard himself say, his voice hollow with wonder.

She rose to her feet, facing him eye to eye. “What are we going to do about it?”

Dan wrapped her in his arms and kissed her. She melted into him and it was as if all the years, the separation, the arguments, had disappeared. After a long, long breathless time he slipped his arm around her waist and guided her toward the office door.

He saw the questioning look in her eyes. With a lame grin, he said, “Would you believe that my apartment is just down the catwalk?”

She smiled back at him, her head nestled on his shoulder. “Yes. Knowing you, I’d believe it.”

Dan felt very grateful for Tomasina.

They made love languidly, as if they’d never been apart, as if there was nowhere else on Earth that they had to be, no one else that concerned them. But at last, as late afternoon sunlight lanced through the apartment’s window, Jane sat up in bed.

“I’m afraid I’ll have to get back,” she said.

“No,” Dan whispered. “Stay with me.”

“I wish I could, Dan.”

He nodded reluctantly, knowing the moment was gone. “Okay. I’ll phone the motel and tell them to start your pilot back to the airport.”

She gave him an impish look. “Not yet.”

“No?”

“Do you still like long showers?”

He took his hand away from the telephone and got to his feet. “I’ll turn on the water,” he said, padding toward the tiny bathroom. The shower’s barely big enough for one, Dan thought. This is going to be fun.

And it was. Slippery naked bodies slathered with soap suds. Dan banged his elbows on the tiled shower walls more than once, cracked his knee hard enough to make him yowl with pain, but it didn’t matter, nothing mattered except that Jane was with him and they were together and none of the rest of the world mattered at all.

Until the water at last began to run cold.

“It’s just a small hot-water tank,” Dan apologized.

“It’s time to go,” Jane said, stepping out of the shower stall, reaching for a towel.

Dan patted her dry as slowly as he could, but at last she went back to the bedroom and began picking up the clothes they had strewn across the floor.

Once he was dressed Dan phoned the motel and told Jane’s pilot they would meet him at the airstrip in half an hour.

As they walked out into the humid warmth of the late afternoon, Dan asked, “What happens now, Jane?”

With a moment’s hesitation she said, “I’ve got to get back to Washington and you’ve got to make your power satellite work.”

“And Scanwell?”

As if she hadn’t heard him, Jane said, “I’ll get to the head of the FAA for you. I don’t think I can get NASA on your side, but I can at least keep them from publicly criticizing you.”

“And Scanwell?” he repeated.

She opened the passenger-side door of the Jaguar and got into the car. Dan walked around to the driver’s side without taking his eyes off her.

Once he had started the engine, Jane said, “If you don’t go off thumbing your nose at the FAA again, you can be a great help in getting Morgan elected.”

“That’s not what I mean and you know it,” he said.

She did not reply. Dan put the Jag in gear, backed out of the parking slot, headed toward the airstrip.

“Jane, how involved with Scanwell are you? I mean, if we’re going to—”

“I’m married to him,” she said, looking straight ahead. “He’s my husband.”

Dan felt as if a ton of ice water had just been poured over him. “Married?” he heard himself yelp.

“Almost two years now,” she said, her voice so flat and even that he knew she was struggling inside herself. “He’s so straight-laced… well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“Son of a motherless bitch,” Dan muttered fervently.

“We’ve kept it a secret. Not even our closest aides know. Half my power base in Washington would disappear if they thought of me as Morgan Scanwell’s wife.”

Dan kept his eyes on the road, his grip tight on the steering wheel.

“You left me, Dan. You went off to Japan.”

“I came back.”

“But not to me. You came back and started this company of yours. You were more interested in outer space than in me.”

“I thought you were more interested in being a senator than in me.”

She turned toward him at last. “We’re a couple of prime fools, aren’t we?”

“I guess we are.” He thought a moment. “Do you love him? I mean, you must have, to marry him. But now… ?”

“I thought I loved him. I thought the world of him. I still do. He’s a great man, Dan. A wonderful man in so many ways. He—”

“Uh, you don’t have to tell me how wonderful he is,” Dan grumbled. “The question is, where do we stand, you and me, right here and now?”

For the first time since he had first met her, so many years ago, Jane looked uncertain, distraught, close to tears.

“I don’t know, Dan. I can’t divorce him, not while he’s campaigning for the White House.”

“And if he wins, you’ll be his First Lady. Christ.” Dan felt like driving off the road, crashing through the thicket of scrub along the shoulder and plunging into the turbid water of the bay that lay beyond.

“Give me time, Dan,” she pleaded. “Let me try to work this out. It isn’t easy.”

“You’re telling me?”

Jane shook her head. “I wish I didn’t love you.”

“Don’t say that.”

“I don’t mean it. Not that way.”

He turned down the little side road, saw the control tower’s glass bubble glinting in the setting sun.

“What are we going to do?” Dan asked. “What in the seven circles of hell are we going to do?”

“I don’t know, Dan. Not yet. I have to think it out, sort it out in my head.”

Anger simmered inside Dan as he skidded the convertible to a stop in a cloud of dust and crunching pebbles.

Jane put a hand on his arm. “Whatever happens, Dan, I love you. Remember that.”

“But you’re going back to him.”

“I’m going to my work in Washington. Morgan’s in Austin, when he’s not off campaigning.”

“You’ll be with him.”

“I’ll have to be.”

“And us?”

“Just don’t do anything crazy, Dan. Get your satellite working, but don’t antagonize the FAA or anyone else. And don’t sell out to Tricontinental or Yamagata.”

“Yeah. Right.” He wanted to lean his head on the steering wheel. Or maybe blow his brains out.