Powersat

Matagora Island, Texas

Despite the frigid gusts blasting from the air-conditioning shafts that ran along the ceiling, the control center felt hot and stuffy to Dan, with all the VIPs and news people squeezed inside its cinderblock walls. He stood by the closed double doors, pressed next to April, cold sweat trickling down his ribs.

Scanwell was standing on Dan’s other side, his eyes sweeping the quietly intense room. Jane was beside the governor; aside from a completely impersonal handshake and greeting, she had said nothing to Dan.

Lynn Van Buren was on her feet in the midst of the consoles, headset clamped over her short brown hair. The technicians were bent over their keyboards, their backs to the spectators. The big wall screen displayed an animated drawing of the Earth, with Astro headquarters and the receiving station at White Sands identified in big white block letters, and a square representing the power satellite high above. A dotted red line flickered from Matagorda to the satellite.

“Can we get a picture of the satellite out there in space?” Scanwell asked, leaning slightly toward Dan.

Shaking his head, Dan replied, “We don’t have cameras up there. It’s an extra expense we don’t need.”

“But what about NASA, or the Air Force?”

Dan grimaced. “We’re not a government operation, so they’ve steered clear of us. Maybe the news services will turn one of their satellites around for a picture, but their birds are all focused on the ground. We couldn’t even get imagery from them when our first spaceplane crashed.”

Scanwell shook his head. “Seems to me there ought to be some video coverage of your satellite.”

Pointing to the news people, Dan said, “Tell them.” Silently, he added, Maybe once you’re in the White House you can change things that much.

In addition to her normal headset, Van Buren had the tiny microphone of a portable amplifier clipped to her blouse, just beneath her inevitable necklace of pearls. She reached for the power pack tucked in the waistband of her skirt and turned it on. A blood-curdling howl of electronic feedback shrieked through the control center.

“Sorry about that,” Van Buren apologized, fiddling with the power pack. “Can everybody hear me?”

A ragged chorus of assent rippled through the crowd. Some of the onlookers raised their hands like schoolchildren.

“Okay. Fine,” said Van Buren. Pointing to the big clock on the wall, she told them, “We’re in the final countdown now. In two minutes the satellite will start beaming power to the rectenna farm… I mean, the receiving antennas, out at White Sands.”

It was like New Year’s Eve, Dan thought. Every eye turned to the big clock and its steadily clicking second hand. Van Buren turned off the amplifier. Dan knew she was going through the final checkout with the technicians: solar cells, inverters, magnetrons, output antenna, receiving antennas.

People started counting the seconds aloud, “Thirty… twenty-nine…”

Unbidden, the old joke about the world’s first totally automated airliner came to Dan’s mind: The plane’s computerized pilot speaks to the passengers through its voice synthesizer circuitry and assures them that the flight would be under perfect control at all times. The automated little speech concludes, “Nothing can go wrong… go wrong… go wrong…”

“Fifteen… fourteen… thirteen…”

My whole life’s tied up in this, Dan told himself. If it doesn’t work I’m finished, down in flames.

“Eight… seven…”

He leaned forward slightly to look past Scanwell at Jane. Her eyes were on the clock, too. And her hands were clenched into tight little fists. This means a lot to her, too, Dan realized. But is it because of me or Scanwell?

“Transmitting power!” Van Buren called out.

The animation on the wall screen showed a solid green line running from the satellite to the rectennas at White Sands. Somebody gave a cowboy whoop. Others cheered. April jumped up and down and threw her arms around Dan’s neck. Shocked, he wrapped his arms around her waist.

“Ten gigawatts on the line!” Van Buren shouted. “All systems up and running!”

Even the technicians joined the celebration, whipping off their headsets and grabbing each other in bear hugs. Dan disentangled himself from April, who looked suddenly embarrassed.

“We did it, kid!” he shouted at her over the blare of the crowd’s cheering. “We did it!”

Scanwell grabbed him by the shoulder and stuck out a big hand. Dan shook it while two dozen cameras flashed away. Then Jane shook his hand too, smiling her politician’s smile while her eyes focused on April.

Every reporter in the room started shouting questions at Dan and Scanwell. Out of the corner of his eye Dan saw that the wall screen now displayed a graph of the power being received by the rectennas. The curve climbed steeply to ten gigawatts and stayed there.

Grinning, Dan thought that he could start making some money now by selling that power to the Western electric utilities. California won’t have any blackouts this summer, he told himself happily.