Powersat

Matagorda Island, Texas

Even this early in the morning the thunderheads were piling up over the Gulf, Dan saw. A stiff wind was blowing in from the water as he stood at the edge of the launch platform, Lynn Van Buren beside him, and craned his neck up at the rocket booster standing sixteen stories high, wrapped inside the heavy steel lattice of the service gantry tower.

“The latest weather forecast ain’t good, chief,” Van Buren said, raising her voice over the gusting wind. “They’ll probably be posting a hurricane watch by ten A.M.”

“Then what?” Dan snapped. “An earthquake?”

“We can’t take a chance on having the booster ride out a hurricane in the open,” Van Buren said.

Dan knew she was right. Don’t mess with Mother Nature, he told himself. Some mother. Why can’t she wait until after we get the bird off?

“Niles has his people tying down the spaceplane in Hangar B,” Van Buren said.

Dan chuckled, despite everything. Niles Muhamed isn’t going to let anybody put “his” spaceplane in jeopardy. He pictured Niles standing at the door to Hangar B and forcing the hurricane to keep away, like old King Canute trying to stop the tide from coming in.

“She could ride out a storm,” Dan shouted over the rising wind. “She’s clamped down good and the gantry’s holding her. We calculated a booster could stand up to winds of a hundred and fifty miles an hour, didn’t we?”

“And what if the calculations were too optimistic?” Van Buren yelled back. “What if we get a hundred-and-sixty-mile-an-hour storm? Or a hundred-and-eighty?”

Dan frowned at her. He dearly wanted to avoid the cost of taking the booster down, towing it back, and setting it up again after the storm.

“And there’s the rain, too,” Van Buren went on, relentlessly. “Pounding rain for god knows how many hours. She oughtta be inside shelter, safe and dry.”

Dan nodded reluctantly, his eyes on the line of trees that marked the edge of the state park. They were tossing fitfully now against the gray clouds scudding across the sky. Soon their leaves will be blowing off, then whole branches. Lots of debris is going to be flying around, he thought.

“Okay,” he said grudgingly. “Take her down.”

He turned and clambered down the launch platform’s steel steps, then walked swiftly to his waiting Jaguar. It took less than five minutes to drive to Hangar A, but Dan thought the sky darkened noticeably in that short time. Once he parked in his slot he pulled up the top on the convertible and locked it down tight. The car had never leaked before, but it had never gone through a hurricane, either.

The sound of the wind was an eerie wail inside the hangar. Now we’ll see if these buildings really will stand up to hurricane winds, Dan thought as he hustled up the stairs to his office. We’re high enough above sea level so we don’t have to worry about storm surges. Then he thought, Unless we get a tidal wave. That would be the finishing touch.

April was at her desk, looking worried. Her computer screen showed an animated weather map. Dan saw the big swirling cyclonic clouds of Hurricane Fernando out in the Gulf moving remorselessly toward the Texas coast.

“Heading our way, huh?” he asked, half-sitting on the corner of her desk.

“Straight toward us,” April replied, her voice a little quavery.

“You’d better get out of here while the ferry’s still running.”

“I’ve still got to get this order for liquid hydrogen processed.”

“It can wait.”

With the hydrogen facility destroyed by the explosion, Dan had to purchase liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen for the spaceplane from a commercial supplier. He had asked April to handle the task, bypassing his purchasing department because he didn’t know whom he could trust within his own company.

April said, “I can stay—”

“No. We won’t get much work done today. The launch is scrubbed and the crew’s going to tow the bird back into its hangar. Get on home, kid.”

“What about the others?”

“Get on the P.A. and tell ’em that everybody except the launch crew can go home for the day. If the ferry stops they can stay at the motel, on the company.”

The motel was the island’s official storm refuge. It was stocked with emergency food and water and had its own auxiliary power generator for electricity.

As April patched her desk phone into the public address system Dan went into his office. Too nervous to sit at his desk, he stood by the window and watched the booster being lowered to its side by the gantry crane.

Feeling helpless, restless, and more than a little scared, Dan paced his office for a few minutes, then headed back out.

April stopped him. “Call for you from Venezuela,” she said. “Señor Hernandez.”

“He’s got a great sense of timing,” Dan grumbled, turning back to his office. Over his shoulder he said, “I told you to go home, April. Git!”

Sliding into his desk chair, Dan tapped the phone’s ON key. Rafael Hernandez’s handsome face filled his display screen.

“Señor Hernandez,” Dan said, putting on an amiable smile. “Good morning.”

Hernandez smiled back. “Buenas dias, Mr. Randolph. How are you this lovely day?”

Dan couldn’t see much past Hernandez’s head and shoulders. He appeared to be in an office of some kind.

“It may be a fine day in Caracas,” he said. “We have a hurricane bearing down on us.”

“Indeed?”

“Indeed.”

Totally unperturbed by Dan’s troubles, Hernandez said calmly, “I have called to inform you that all the necessary arrangements have been made. You may send your technicians to Caracas as soon as you wish. I will see that they meet the airport’s director of flight operations and anyone else they will need to interact with.”

Dan broke into a genuine smile. “That’s very good news, Señor Hernandez.”

“I am pleased also, Mr. Randolph.”

That means he checked his bank account in Washington and found the money I deposited there, Dan knew.

Aloud, he said, “Please, call me Dan. We’re going to be partners, after all.”

Hernandez dipped his chin in acknowledgment. “And you must call me Rafael.”

They chatted for a few minutes more, then Hernandez pleaded the press of other business and cut the connection. A gust of wind rattled the steel wall of Dan’s office. He looked out the window and saw that it was almost as dark as night. No rain, though. Not yet.

Maybe I should get over to the motel, he said to himself. Then he answered himself: No. I’ll ride it out here. If these hangars don’t hold up to the storm then I might as well be drowned along with everything else.