Tank Farm Dynamo

5

For all of our Spartan lifestyle, there are a few places the crew had tried to make “posh.” One is the main lounge. Another is the “Captain’s Cabin.” My digs were given that name when the Foundation first had the idea of setting up a tourist hotel. They figured making a big deal out of dinner in my quarters would give a visit more of the flavor of a Caribbean cruise.

The aluminum walls had been anodized different pastel shades. The gold carpet had been woven from converted tank insulator material. And in wall niches there stood a dozen vacuum-spun aluminum-wire sculptures created by Dave Crisuellini, our smelter chief and resident artist.

The Captain’s Table was made of oak, brought up at six hundred dollars a pound for one purpose only, to look impressive.

Henry Woke sat to my right as the volunteer stewards served us from steaming casserole dishes. Next to Woke sat Susan Sorbanes. Across from them were Emily Testa, nervously fingering her fork as her eyes darted about the room, and Ishido. Colonel Bahnz sat across from me.

Woke looked considerably less green around the gills. His eyes widened at the soufflé a waiter laid in front of him. “I’m impressed! I’d heard that a hundredth of a gee is enough to enable the inner ear to come to equilibrium, but I hadn’t believed. Now, to be able to eat from plates! With forks!” He spoke around a hot mouthful. “This is delicious! What is it?”

“Well, most of our food is prepared from termite flour and caked algae…”

Woke paused chewing. Susan and Ishido shared a look and a smile.

“…however,” I went on, “recently we have begun raising our own wheat, and chickens for eggs.”

Woke looked uncomfortable for another moment, then apparently decided to accept the ambiguity. “Ingenious,” he said, and resumed eating.

“We have a number of ingenious people here,” Susan said. “Many of our crew served aboard the Space Stations, and came here when NASA went through cutbacks and furloughed them.

“Others were hired by the Foundation because of their varied talents. Emily here,” she said, smiling at young Testa, “is a fine example of the sort of colonist we’re looking for.”

Emily blushed and looked down at her plate. She was very tired after the last few hours, as we had furiously experimented with the Farm’s power system.

Colonel Bahnz squeezed an aluminum-foil beer bottle, his second. “You’re right about one thing, Dr. Sorbanes,” the DOD man said. “The U.S. government has subsidized this venture in many hidden ways. Most of your personnel got their training at taxpayer expense.”

“Have we ever failed in our gratitude, Colonel?” Susan spoke with pure sincerity. And to Ishido and I, the answer was obviously no. We tank farmers think of ourselves as custodians of a trust.

But Bahnz clearly disagreed. “Do you call it gratitude, using lawyers’ tricks to put restrictions on your country’s use of valuable resources when she needs them most?”

“We believe,” Susan said, “that need will be greatest in the future. And we plan to be here, with the key to a treasure chest, when the time comes.”

“Dreams of glory.” Bahnz sneered. “I know all about them. Tell me about lunar mines and space colonies and other fairy tales, Dr. Sorbanes. And I’ll tell you about Low Earth Orbit, now filled with garbage and bombs and little cameras from half a hundred bickering, hungry little nuclear powers, all blaming each other for a world economy in a thirty-year skid!

“Have you any idea what would happen if even one of these arrogant little ‘spacefaring nations’ decided to ignite a small enhanced radiation device in that cloud of communications satellites overhead? You know as well as I how dependent we are on orbital datalinks. And you know the only way to defend those links is to put our satellites inside big Faraday cages.”

Bahnz struck the nearby aluminum wall. “This is what your country needs, Dr. Sorbanes. This tank and others like it! And the propellants for upper-stage launches. And we need this station, for the momentum transfer you now almost give away to anyone who wants it!”

Susan was gearing up for a major rebuttal. I hurried to interrupt. “People, please! Let’s try to relax, if only for a little while. Colonel Bahnz, you seem to like Slingshot. That’s your third helping.”

Bahnz had plucked another bottle from a passing steward. “Why not?” He shrugged. “It costs a hundred bucks a pint on Earth. It’s damn fine beer.”

“Dr. Ishido is our brewmaster.”

Bahnz lifted the bottle and bowed his head in silent tribute to Don. An aficionado of beer need say no more; Ishido nodded at the colonel’s compliment.

“Director Rutter,” Bahnz said as he turned to me, “Dr. Woke and I will be leaving within two hours. I have held Pacifica to please you, but our business here is done. If you have anything more to say, you can speak through your Foundation’s Washington office.”

Bahnz was obviously the type that got straight to the point, especially when he had had a bit to drink. He showed no trace of that irreverent streak I had known in the officers and officials of the early nineties. Those fellows had been almost like co-conspirators, helping nurture the Farm along in a time of tight budgets and dubious senators.

“Two hours, Colonel? Yes. That should be enough time. Just remind Pacifica’s crew to check their inertial tracking units before drop-off. There may be a few acceleration anomalies.”

Bahnz snorted. “So? You plan to fire up your famous aluminum engines to impress us? Big deal. Go ahead and use up your reserve water, Rutter. You’ve got enough oxidizer to run them for maybe two months; then you’ll start flinging mass away to keep orbit.”

Ishido started to rise. At a sharp look from me he subsided.

“Why, Colonel,” I said smoothly. “You sound down-right happy over our predicament.”

The crewcut officer slapped the oak table. “Damned straight! Let’s lay it out, Rutter. I think you’re a bunch of unpatriotic dreamers who’d do anything rather than serve your country. July’s court judgment was the last straw.

“We’re going to live up to the contract, all right. You’ll get your tanks, and enough water to keep from making martyrs of you. But you’ll start spending more mass to stay in orbit than you take in. You profits will disappear. Then see how fast your investors force you out as director!

“Pretty soon, Rutter, you’ll be buying Slingshot at a hundred clams a pint!” Bahnz emptied the squeeze bottle with a flourish.

I shrugged and turned back to my meal. The second worst thing you could do to a man like Bahnz was to ignore him. I intended to do the very worst thing within an hour and a half.