Regan's Planet

THREE

In Houston, there was wailing and weeping. In Boston there was gnashing of teeth. In San Francisco, rending of hair. Chicago, New York, New Orleans mourned after their particular fashions.

In the stinking slums of America’s decaying cities, news of Regan’s wild idea was received with incredulity and discussed with passion. Crouching over dinners of roasted rat, alley-dwellers of Manhattan or the Loop or downtown Los Angeles shook their heads and muttered, “He’s crazy! You can’t build a whole goddam planet!”

In Moscow, the Presidium met to discuss the news. High officials pondered it in Peking. There was consternation in Brasilia and dismay in Lagos. Stocks dipped sharply on the Johannesburg exchange, but rose in New York. The Wall Street Journal hesitantly commended Claude Regan’s boldness and vision, but at the same time warned that his grandiose plan could not be financed at the expense of the long-suffering taxpayer. “We hope,” the Journal commented, “that there will be no need to resort to government aid. Let the new space satellite gleam in the heavens as a shining example of the free-enterprise system at its most vigorous!”

Claude Regan read the world-wide comments with keen interest. Only one dismayed him for a moment: the leader in London’s Daily Mail, which said, “Claude Regan, America’s daring young man on the financial trapeze, is about to take a bold leap into outer space. We hope for the young man’s sake that he remembers how thin the air is up there. A failure in this gigantic enterprise could very well be the final step in the dismantling of the United States as a world power.”

That was all very true, Regan knew. For an uncomfortable instant he saw through the veil of time, and a history book of the future lay open before him-a book written in Swahili, or perhaps Mandarin, but perfectly understandable.

The downfall of the American capitalist economy, the passage read, may be directly linked with the rise of an impetuous financier named Claude Regan, who in the closing years of the twentieth century involved his already weary nation in a foolhardy project which ultimately…

The mood passed. Regan regained his buoyancy and drive. Let history pronounce its verdict as it wished! Better to be remembered for a big mistake, he thought, than not to be remembered at all.

Washington, D.C., August 18. By special fax wire. The 1992 Columbian Exposition will take place aboard a space satellite. Claude Regan, Chairman of the exposition’s Executive Committee, made the news public today, one week after he assumed direction of the Fair.

‘We had several cities under consideration,“ Factor Regan declared. The 35-year-old Regan, who is also chief executive officer of Global Factors, Inc., listed San Francisco, Houston, and New Orleans as among the finalists. ”After due consideration, however,“ Factor Regan said, ”the members of the committee regretfully rejected all applications in favor of staging the exposition in space.“

The plan calls for the erection of a World’s Fair satellite in a fixed orbit over the United States at a height of 50,000 miles. The satellite will have 500 acres of exposition space, making it ten times the size of the largest space station currently in orbit. The construction costs, Factor Regan estimates, will be “several billion dollars.” This figure, he stressed, does not include the cost of the space liners that will be built to transport Fair-goers from Earth to the satellite.

Construction is due to begin next month. The exposition itself is scheduled to open on October 12, 1992, the 500th anniversary of the discovery of the New World.

President Hammond said diffidently, “But is it going to work out, Claude?”

‘Of course it will,“

‘But the fare you’ll have to charge to get people up to your satellite-“

‘A round trip will be fifty dollars,“ Regan said. ”Don’t you think people will pay fifty bucks for a trip to a space satellite?“

‘The fare’ to Moon Base is ten thousand,“ the President objected. ”How can you charge only fifty for-“

‘We’ll run the transport at a loss,“ Regan replied. ”The idea is to get people to the Fair, isn’t it?“

Regan extricated himself from the conversation and broke the contact. There was work to do, no time to spend reviewing the ifs and buts of the problem. He had to let the construction contracts for the satellite.

It would be built by private industry. The United States’ government had phased itself out of the space business in 1975, under the administration of President Delafleld and his American Conservative Party. Delafleld had been swept into office in ‘72, on a platform of getting the government back to its tidy old pre-1933 size, eliminating the national debt, repealing the income-tax amendment, and so forth.

The Boom of 1973 had been a direct result of Delafleld’s program. The Dow-Jones Industrials had gone over 2,000 for the first time, and prosperity was rife in the land-rife enough to allow Delafield to go through with his project of turning the activities of the government over to private enterprise. By 1975, he had succeeded, well enough to touch off the Panic of ‘76, with its awkward stock market crash a month before Election Day.

Delafield had carried only Mississippi and Alabama in ‘76. The rest of the country went for the new National Liberal party, and the American Conservatives had been out of power ever since. Space, though, still remained in private hands. The readjustments of the late ’70’s, concentrating economic power in the dozen big factoring concerns, had culminated in an uneasy status quo which nobody in either party wanted to disturb.

The biggest space company happened to be a Global Factors subsidiary. The second biggest was Aero do Brasil, a giant Latin American combine only ten years old. Regan had many reasons for not wanting to give the contract to his own firm, beginning with the obvious one of fearing charges of favoritism. A sounder reason was the fear that any company who took the contract on would ultimately complete it at a loss. Pioneers in this sort of thing always got hurt. Who knew how much it would cost to build a five-hundred acre exposition satellite? Far better to stick the competition with the job than to hurt his own firm’s finances and reap bad publicity in the bargain.

It didn’t make sense to give the contract to one of the other American factoring firms, of course. But if he called in the Brazilians, it might inspire Brazil to contribute in cash to the Fair, by way of a returned compliment. And the Fair needed cash.

The Fair needed cash in the worst way!

Regan detached a member of his Global Factors staff, an angular, gaunt young man named Lyle Henderson who was an expert on handling newly emerged nations, and sent him off to Brasilia to plant the seeds.

‘Remember, there’s a quid pro quo,“ Regan pointed out. ”We’d like them to build the satellite for us-but we wouldn’t mind a contribution to our general expense fund.“

‘That’s bribery, isn’t it?“ Henderson asked.

‘You might call it that,“ admitted Regan casually. ”If you had to call it anything.“

While waiting for Henderson’s return from Brazil, Regan opened the regular competitive-bidding channels for the job. Not all the aerospace companies cared to bid. Some were shrewd enough to realize they were likely to lose their shirts on the project; others simply did not care to undertake the necessary expansion of plant for a one-shot enterprise. There were five bids from American corporations, ranging from a low of three billion dollars to a high of nineteen billion.

The high bid had come from Global Factors’ own aerospace company. Regan had taken care that his own firm would not be likely to get the job.

Henderson came back three days later, and went straight to Regan’s Washington office.

‘They’re interested,“ Henderson said.

‘At what price?“

‘They think they can do it for about four and a half billion, Factor Regan. Say, a billion as a binder and construction money, the rest in six-month installments as they go along. They’ll undertake to pay a billion-dollar penalty if they aren’t ready on time.“

‘Can they do it in sixteen months?“

‘I think they can,“ Henderson said. ”I talked with Moeller himself-right at the top. He’s very excited about it. He thinks it’ll be a big boost for Brazil’s space prestige.“

Regan nodded. “So it will.”

Henderson looked a little troubled. “Chief-”

‘Mmm?“

‘I thought the idea of this Fair was to boost American prestige.“

‘It is.“

‘So why are we letting the Brazilians build our satellite for us?“

Regan smiled. “Because they’re going to lose two billion bucks building it, which will knock a giant hole in their space program, prestige or no prestige. Also because I’m interested in establishing friendly relations with Aero do Brasil as a matter of our own company policy. Also because I’d rather give the job to them than to any of our own domestic competitors, and for policy reasons I can’t give the job to us. Okay?”

‘Yes, sir.“

‘You think I’m a conniving Machiavellian scoundrel, don’t you, Lyle?“

‘Sir, I-“

‘It’s all right, Lyle. Sometimes I think so too.“

There was a troublesome aspect, though, to giving Aero do Brasil the construction contract. Regan needed money to get the Fair moving, and he expected to get some of that money from the Congress of the United States. But Congress was as penny-wise as ever. If he first announced the letting of the contract to Brazil, and then went before Congress to seek a grant, someone was bound to point out that Federal aid to the Fair was essentially a direct grant to subsidize the Brazilian aerospace industry. And that would make no sense to Congress. Why subsidize your most powerful competitor?

Regan had to get the money from Congress first, let the contract afterward. But Congress could deliberate for weeks or even months over the appropriation. And Regan didn’t have weeks or months to waste. Days and hours were vital now.

The House Appropriations Committee convened to listen to Regan on a blisteringly hot day near the end of August It was an election year; Congress was in a hurry to go home. But Regan needed the appropriation first.

The chairman of the committee was Representative Lancaster of Alabama, gray of eye and long in the tooth. He had been in the House for forty years, and liked to maunder on about the old days when he and Jack Kennedy were Congressmen together. Kennedy had moved on, to the Senate and then to the White House, but Lancaster was still there, grimly guarding the nation’s pursestrings.

‘Mr. Regan,“ he began testily-pointedly overlooking the recent fashion of styling a Factor by his title-”Mr. Regan, how much would you say this World’s Fair is going to cost the people of the United States?“

‘The overall cost of the Fair will be on the order of fifty billion dollars,“ Regan said. ”A great deal of this expense will be borne by the participating nations, of course, and those corporations that wish to exhibit. But there will have to be an initial appropriation from the Federal Government, to get the ball rolling.“

‘Exactly, Mr. Regan. Now, how much are you asking for?“

‘President Hammond has requested four billion dollars,“ Regan said.

Several committee members exchanged glances. Two of them laughed. Chairman Lancaster opined that the Fair was basically a frivolity, and that four billion dollars was a lot of money to spend on a frivolity. Regan launched into a discussion of the prestige value of the exposition. Representative Hawes of Texas politely expressed his doubts. Representative Slabaugh of Mississippi called the committee’s attention to the fact that the national debt stood just shy of a trillion dollars, and would the money not be better employed in reduction of the debt? Representative Morton of Alaska, a stern antitrust man who had led the losing fight against repeal of the Clayton and Sherman Acts in ‘74, asked a few discerning questions about the role Global Factors, Inc. would play in the construction and operation of the World’s Fair.

The session was a grueling one, but Regan was accustomed to pressure. He parried the low blows, deflected the true ones, riposted where he could, and returned to his office confident that Congress would cooperate.

A day later came a call from Dick Fry, President Hammond’s Congressional liaison man. Fry had just had a long talk with Chairman Lancaster and a few selected members of the Appropriations Committee.

‘They’ll give you a billion,“ Fry said. ”No more.“

‘That’s not enough! We requested four billion.“

‘I’m sorry, Factor. A billion’s the best that could be managed. Maybe the Senate will tack on another few hundred million. They’re not in a spending mood. They just want to get home to their constituents.“

‘Is there any hope of a further appropriation next session?“ Regan asked.

‘We’ll be in there pushing, Factor.“

Congress votes a billion for fair, the newsfax headlines declared the next day. Regan was disappointed, but not discouraged. A billion was a billion. It was a beginning.

The President duly signed the authorization, and a Treasury check for a billion platinum-backed dollars was formally turned over to Regan on the White House lawn, in a much-televised ceremony that the relay satellites bounced all over the globe. A day later, Congress adjourned. One day after that, Regan boarded a jet for Brazil.

A beaming President Magelhao greeted him amid the stark, sunbaked extremity of Brasilia. Novaes of Aero do Brasil was on hand, too, for the formal signing of the contract for the building of the World’s Fair Space Satellite.

‘I’m sure this will serve as another powerful bond of hemispheric solidarity,“ Regan declared resonantly in Portuguese acquired hypnotherapeutically the night before. ”After all, the landfall of Columbus is an event concerning not merely the United States of North America, but the entire Western Hemisphere. We are happy to have your great nation join our effort.“

The happiness was not so universal in the north. Almost without exception, the conservative press denounced the contract as a monstrous blunder. Support a competitor? Give jobs to Brazilians instead of to Americans? Let the world think that Brazil could build a better space satellite than the United States, for the United States’ own Fair? Regan must be insane, some editorialists concluded, while others, noting that Regan’s company had recently made a loan to the People’s Republic of China, commented that the man was quite clearly a crypto-Communist.

Regan weathered the storm. It was all over, in. a few days. With Congress not in session, there could be no investigation. Since terms of the contract were not made public, the other bidders could not claim that they had been jobbed. The fact that Regan had obviously bent over backward to avoid giving the contract to Global Factors was considered a point in his favor.

Aero do Brasil wasted no time-not with a non-completion penalty staring them in the face. Rockets came off the shelf, plans were drawn. Much of the construction work had to be subcontracted back to the United States, which mollified public opinion there to some extent. Late in September, Claude Regan was back in Brazil, this time out at the Matto Grosso launching site, to watch the official start of construction work.

Three gleaming Amazon rockets stood on the launching pad, each carrying a titanium girder. The satellite would have to be constructed in space, of course; no booster yet devised-could lift a satellite with a surface area of five hundred acres, and no booster of such capabilities was likely to be devised, since the recoil would be enormous. Girder by girder, the exposition satellite would be rocketed up piecemeal, and woven together by workmen with shoulder-harness rockets. Without gravity to hamper them, they could put the satellite together five or ten times as fast as a similar job could be done on Earth.

Or so Regan and Aero do Brasil hoped.

He had a few misgivings just now. They had used, as their master plan, a blowup of a blueprint some Global Factors engineers had worked out for a hundred-acre space resort. Since there was no time to start drafting from scratch, they had merely multiplied the specs by five. But it wasn’t always that simple to do things, Regan knew. He could only keep his fingers crossed.

By his sides, flanking him, stood Novaes and Moeller, respectively Chairman and President of Aero do Brasil. They were look-alikes-two plump, short, cheerful-looking men of about fifty, with glossy dark hair, olive skins, and irrepressibly bubbly personalities. Moeller waved a pudgy hand, an engineer closed a contact with an almost negligent flick of a finger, and one of the three rockets on the launching pads soared skyward. It had all happened quickly enough; the Aero do Brasil people had long ago outgrown the fingernail-biting stage of rocket launching, and failure was the startling exception now, not the rule.

Novaes began to sing, in a cracked, off-key basso. Regan’s newly acquired Portuguese was not up to the task of translating, but the song sounded jovially bawdy to him. Moeller clapped Regan on the back and boomed, “We are launched, Senhor Factor! We are begun!”

Someone handed Regan a glass. Brazilian champagne, sweet to the point of sickliness. The Brazilians had not yet developed a taste for brut. Eyes were on him. Regan quaffed the champagne as though it were ambrosia. His glass was immediately refilled. A second rocket zoomed from the pad. Novaes started to sing what was apparently a Portuguese translation of Wagner. Regan, fearful of that next refill, took his time over the second glass.

He looked upward, into the painfully bright blue tropical sky. The third rocket curved beyond the horizon. Soon, he thought, a metal moon would be taking shape up there-the largest artificial satellite ever built.

He could remember-it was one of his earliest memories-. staring up at the moon as it gleamed like a battered silver coin in the heavens.

‘I want it,“ he had said, and his father had laughed indulgently. ”I want it! I want it!“

‘Maybe you’ll have it when you grow up,“ his father had told him.

That had been in 1959, when he was four. Man was just learning to launch his first feeble satellites. Thirty-one years had passed, and Regan still didn’t own the Moon. It was beyond his grasp forever, mandated as a United Nations Trust Territory under international control. He had been there, twice, as he had been once to Mars, and that set him apart from most people. But he could not own the Moon.

Well, now he was building his own. It was Claude Regan’s way of doing things. “I want it!” he had shrieked at the Moon, and, failing in that ambition, he was building a moon of his own, Claude Regan’s moon, to gleam on through the centuries after he was gone.