Free Powersat (The Grand Tour) by Ben Bova Page B

satellite is vital. More important now than ever.”
    “With this terrorist attack, and more to come, you think playing in outer space is important?”
    “It’s not playing! Jane, if we can get electrical power from space, we can thumb our noses at the Arabs and their oil.”
    She stared at him as if she couldn’t believe what he was saying. “Dan, that will take years! If ever. We have to fight the terrorists now.”
    “As long as we’re dependent on oil from the Middle East they’ll have us by the short hairs.”
    “And you think going into space is going to help us?”
    “Yes! Generate power from space—”
    “In a hundred years, maybe.”
    “Ten! Five, maybe, if we push it.”
    “Ten years,” Jane said. “My god, Dan, ten years is as good as a century in politics.”
    “If we don’t start now, we’ll never have it!”
    “The costs,” Jane muttered. “Everything NASA does costs so much.”
    “It can be done cheaper.”
    “It will still costs billions, won’t it?”
    Feeling exasperated, trying not to lose his temper, Dan replied, “Give me ten percent of what the oil industry spends on digging dry holes each year, and I’ll put up a full-scale powersat.”
    “It can’t be done,” she said, shaking her head.
    “It can’t be done unless somebody goes out and does it!”
    “And that’s what you want to do? With everything else that’s happening, you want to go play in outer space.”
    He bit back the reply he wanted to make. Instead, he said simply, “I’m going back to Japan. I’ve got to.”
    “For how long?”
    “A year, maybe a little less.”
    “A year.”
    He clutched her by her bare shoulders. “Jane, come with me. Forget this political crap. Come with me and help build the future!”
    Even in the darkened room he could see her eyes blaze. But only for a moment; then she softened. She put her head back on his shoulder, murmuring, “I wish I could, Dan. I really wish I could.”
    “But you won’t.”
    “I can’t.”
    “Will you marry me?”
    “With you in Japan or up in a spaceship someplace?”
    He smiled. Sadly. “It’s only a few hundred miles up, Yamagata’s demo satellite.”
    “My place is in Washington, Dan.”
    “But what about us? You love me, don’t you?”
    Dan could feel his heart thumping beneath his ribs. For many beats Jane was silent At last she said, “We’ll talk about that when you come back from Japan.”
    The room fell silent except for the continuing wailing of sirens.

AUSTIN, TEXAS
    D an was on his cell phone with his corporate counsel as the limousine inched past the state capitol in the crowded rush-hour streets. The six flags of Texas hung limply on their poles in the soggy August heat. Len Kinsky, his public relations director, sat beside him in the air-conditioned limo, trying to look as if he weren’t listening.
    “The liability suits are coming in,” the lawyer was saying, his voice like the whine of an annoying mosquito. “It’s going to add up to billions, Dan.”
    “But nobody got hurt,” Dan said, feeling exasperation rising in him as he always did when talking to lawyers. “The wreckage hit one shed, from what I’ve been told. Otherwise it all fell on open land.”
    “Owners are still suing,” the lawyer replied. “Property damage, emotional pain and suffering. One woman’s claiming you caused her to miscarry.”
    “Double-damn it to hell and back,” Dan groused.
    “Insurance won’t cover, either,” the lawyer went on. “The carrier’s canceled all your policies.”
    Dan leaned back against the limo’s plush seat and tried to control his temper. He remembered Mark Twain’s advice: When angry, count to four. When very angry, swear.
    Instead, he said into the phone, “We don’t settle with anybody. Understand? Not a cent. Not until we find out what caused the accident.”
    “Dan, it’s Astro’s responsibility no matter what the cause of the accident was.”
    Dan almost said, Not if the spaceplane was