Powersat

Taos, New Mexico

Dan sat across the aisle from Joe Tenny, his chief engineer, while Gerry Adair flew the aging twin-jet Cessna Citation to New Mexico and Hannah Aarons’s funeral. Tenny busied himself with his laptop computer, content to let his boss work out his feelings in silence.

At last Dan asked, “Who’s watching the store?”

“Lynn Van Buren,” said Joe. “She’ll keep everything under control until we get back.”

“She was a friend of Hannah’s, too, wasn’t she?”

“Hell, Dan, ninety-nine and a half percent of the staff was a friend of Hannah’s. We can’t have ’em all trooping out to New Mexico for the funeral.”

The chief legal counsel of NASA had regretfully turned down Dan’s request to have Hannah Aarons honored with other fallen astronauts. “She wasn’t a NASA employee,” he explained reluctantly. In the telephone screen Dan could see the pained expression on the man’s face and decided not to press the issue. Aarons’s alma mater, the Naval Academy, suggested she could be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. But her family wanted her with them, so Dan flew to Hannah’s hometown of Taos, above Santa Fe, for her funeral.

The ceremony was brief and dignified. The Aarons’s rabbi spoke of Hannah’s unquenchable spirit. A high school choir sang the sailor’s hymn, “Eternal Father, Strong to Save,” adding the verse written for fliers:

Standing in the crisp morning breeze beneath a warming Sun, Dan noticed that Hannah would be buried not far from the grave of Kit Carson. Not bad, kid, he said to her silently. You’ll be with another frontier scout. Good company.

The sky was bright and clear. The sunshine felt good, comforting, on his shoulders. Dan thought of all the energy that the Sun beamed out continually for billions of years. If we could convert even a tenth of 1 percent of that sunlight into electricity, the world would never have a power shortage. Ever. And we could turn off all the fossil-fuel and nuclear power plants on Earth.

Adair spoke haltingly of his admiration for Hannah and promised he would finish the work that she had started. Then it was Dan’s turn to say a few words, and he wondered if he could do it without breaking up. He walked up to the grave, murmured his regrets and condolences to Hannah’s husband, her ten-year-old daughter, and her wheelchair-bound mother. Crumpling the speech his public relations man had written for him, Dan said simply:

“Home is the sailor, home from the sea. And the hunter, home from the hill.”

He couldn’t say more. Not without bawling like a baby.

When it was all finished and Hannah lay beneath the freshly turned earth, Dan, Tenny, and Adair started toward the cemetery’s gate, following the Aarons family. A cluster of news reporters and camera crews were hovering outside the cemetery like a humming swarm of bees. Only a few close friends and coworkers and Hannah’s immediate family had been allowed past the steady-eyed Native American men who guarded the cemetery gates with loaded shotguns.

Dan knew he would have to face the reporters. There was no way around it.

“You want me to run interference for you?” Tenny asked gruffly as they trudged toward the iron gates.

Dan almost grinned. Tenny was built like a football guard, not all that big but just as burly. Dan pictured the engineer knocking down reporters like a bowling ball going through tenpins.

“No,” he answered, looking at the little crowd waiting on the other side of the gates. “Time for me to try to put some positive spin on this.”

Tenny grunted. “Lotsa luck.”

As soon as the guards swung the gates open the reporters swarmed around him. Dan knew what their questions would be, they were always the same after an accident:

Do you know what caused the crash?

Does this mean your project is finished?

What are you going to do next?

He spread his arms to quiet them, then said in his clearest, most authoritative voice, “We have the best investigators in the world working to determine what went wrong with the spaceplane. At this point in time, all I can tell you is that there might have been a fault in the control system.”

“Will Astro Corporation be able to continue the solar power satellite project?”

“We intend to.”

“But our information is that you’re broke.”

“Not quite.” Dan gave them a rueful grin. “In fact, we’ve already had an offer of funding to carry us through the next couple of years.”

“An offer of funding? From who?”

“I’m not at liberty to say,” Dan replied, silently asking Sai Yamagata to forgive him.

The questions went on, many of them repetitious. Dan thought of himself as a swimmer in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by sharks who were circling, circling, smelling his blood in the water.

At last Tenny broke in. “Hey, we’ve got a plane to catch, boss.”

Dan nodded vigorously. “That’s right. Sorry, people. If you need anything more you can call my office at Matagorda.”

The reporters grudgingly backed away while Dan, with Tenny and Adair at his side, half-sprinted to the rental car they had picked up at the Taos airport.

When they arrived at the airport, though, Dan was surprised to see another reporter waiting for him on the concrete apron where their plane was parked.

“I’m Vicki Lee,” she said, sticking out her hand before Dan could say a word. “Global Video News.”

She was almost Dan’s height, with a generous figure that edged close to being plump. What do the Jews call it? he asked himself. Zaftig. Not quite voluptuous, but good-looking enough to be a news anchor some day, Dan thought. If she skinnies down a little. Not as young as she dresses, though, he told himself as he took in her snug jeans and loose-fitting pullover sweater. Heart-shaped face that dimpled nicely when she smiled. Chestnut hair cut short and spiky; eyes the color of sweet sherry wine.

“How’d you get out here before us?” Dan asked as he took her extended hand. Her grip was firm. She’s been practicing, he decided.

Vicki Lee smiled brightly. “I ducked out of the crowd at the cemetery early. Their questions and your answers were pretty predictable, actually.”

“Uh-huh,” said Dan. He saw Adair and Tenny clamber up the ladder and disappear inside the Cessna.

“I figured I could get better information out of you by myself, without the rest of those twinkies and bozos pushing at you.”

Despite himself, Dan grinned. “Okay, here I am. You’ve got about ten minutes, max.”

Her eyes flashed, but she quickly reached into her handbag and pulled out a miniaturized video camera. Dan unconsciously squared his shoulders and tugged at his jacket to make certain it didn’t gap. I must look pretty ragged, he thought, but what the hell—I’ve just come back from a good friend’s funeral.

“Mr. Randolph,” Vicki began, looking at him through the camera’s eyepiece, “is there any truth to the rumor that you and Hannah Aarons were having an affair?”

Dan felt as if she’d hit him in the gut with a monkey wrench. “What is this, a tabloid smear job?”

She put the camera down. “Actually, I’m on the utterly boring financial news desk.”

“Then what the hell are you trying to do?”

Perfectly calm, she replied, “I’m trying to get a story, Mr. Randolph. My boss thinks Astro’s about to collapse. But I’ve heard that you and your test pilot were sleeping together.”

“Well you’ve heard dead wrong,” he snapped angrily. “Hannah was a married woman with a ten-year-old daughter, for double-damn sake. She and her husband had a fine marriage and she didn’t sleep with me or anybody else except her husband.”

“Really?”

“Really. And what kind of an idiot do you think I am, sleeping with an employee?”

She shrugged. “But the rumor is out there, Mr. Randolph. Maybe you should allow me to put it to rest.”

He shook his head. “I’m not going to dignify a piece of crap like that. No comment at all.”

Her expression turned impish. “Not even to deny it?”

Dan stared at her. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

“Righteous indignation always tickles me.”

“Son of a bitch,” Randolph muttered.

“You may have noticed,” Vicki said, “that I turned off the camera several moments ago.”

“So?”

“So I’m not here to smear you or Mrs. Aarons or anyone else. I’m merely trying to get a story.”

He planted his fists on his hips and told himself to calm down. Play her right or she’ll do a hatchet job on you.

Adair stuck his head out of the Citation’s cockpit window “Should I start crankin’ her up?” he called.

Dan gestured for him to wait without taking his eyes off Vicki Lee. “What kind of a story are you looking for?” he asked her.

She didn’t hesitate an eyeblink. “One that can get me off the damned financial desk. I’d really love to work for Aviation Week.”

“That’s setting your sights pretty high.”

“Why not? I’m worth it.”

“Really?”

“Really and truly, Mr. Randolph.”

Jabbing a thumb toward the plane, Dan said, “Okay. You want to fly back to Matagorda with us? We can talk without interruption for a couple of hours.”

She broke into a wide smile. “My bags are in the car. I’ve got to drop it off at the rental office.”

Dan started walking beside her toward the burgundy Corolla. “I’ll get somebody to drop off the car for you.”

“Can you?”

“Sure. No problem. Always happy to cooperate with the news media.” He laughed, wondering how cooperative she would be with him.