Power Surge Read online

  The civil war in Venezuela was threatening to spill into Colombia and Brazil, health care costs had hit an all-time high with no sign of coming down, Russia’s struggle with Chechnya was triggering terrorism around half the world, and Pakistan had just suffered another military coup. I’d go gray under those burdens, too, Jake told himself.

  With Amy and Connie whispering to each other like schoolgirls, Jake found it hard to keep from frowning. But as the president passed by him, he made a smile that he hoped didn’t look too forced. The president’s smile seemed genuine enough, he thought. Her husband was actually grinning slyly, as though he were in on some private joke.

  Most of the guests clustered around the president, of course. Jake followed Tomlinson toward Senator Santino, the two women on their arms. Santino was a lifelong bachelor, although there were rumors that he was hardly celibate.

  “Ahh, Senator Tomlinson,” Santino said, looking up into the younger man’s face. “And Dr. Ross. So good to see you again.”

  Tomlinson introduced his wife and his cousin; Santino introduced the two men standing with him:

  “This is Hugo Nuñez, director of the Office of Coal Utilization—”

  Brogan’s boss, Jake realized. Nuñez was an amiable-looking Hispanic man, round-faced and round-bellied, his skin the color of tobacco leaf, with a neatly trimmed dark mustache.

  “—and this is Francis X. O’Brien,” Santino went on, “chairman of the National Association of Electric Utilities.”

  Jake suddenly remembered where he’d seen O’Brien before. The man had come out to see their MHD generator more than a year ago. He was a tiny man, lean and narrow-jawed, with a hooked nose and a toothy smile. A rat’s face, Jake thought. His hair was so luxuriantly dark and perfectly coiffed that Jake thought it had to be a toupee. It didn’t match the wrinkled, faded pallor of his face or his cold hard eyes.

  “Good to see you again,” Tomlinson said to O’Brien.

  O’Brien nodded briefly. Jake remembered that despite his avowed interest in MHD, the NAEU had consistently delayed the decision to build a demonstration MHD power plant.

  Nuñez smiled toothily at Jake. “I understand that you’ve had some contact with my people, Dr. Ross.”

  Suddenly fearful that Nuñez knew of Jake’s liaisons with Brogan, Jake stammered, “A little … part of the … uh, the comprehensive energy program we’re trying to work out.”

  “Very commendable,” said Santino, in a flatly dismissive tone.

  Tomlinson turned on his megawatt smile. “I hope I can make a real contribution to the energy committee, Senator Santino.”

  “Mario,” said the senator. “My friends call me Mario.”

  “Mario,” Tomlinson echoed. “And my friends call me Frank.”

  Nuñez said, “Looks like we’re going to have a hot summer.”

  “That’s what the weather forecasters are saying,” Tomlinson agreed.

  “Weather forecasters,” O’Brien scoffed in his nasal, reedy voice. “Might as well use a crystal ball.”

  Santino agreed with a nod. “The news media will start their global warming propaganda again.”

  Jake bit back the reply he wanted to make. He remembered Brogan’s advice, No shop talk.

  Just then, the doors to the State Dining Room opened and a butler announced in a deep voice that penetrated the cocktail chatter: “Dinner is served.”

  * * *

  It was well past midnight when Tomlinson’s limousine pulled up to the front entrance of the Jefferson Hotel.

  “My stop,” said Connie.

  “Good night, kiddo,” Tomlinson said.

  “It was a fun evening, wasn’t it?” Amy said. “It’s not every night you get to gossip about the president’s looks.”

  The chauffeur opened the door and, on an impulse, Jake ducked past Connie and stepped out onto the driveway before her. He reached back into the limo and offered her his hand.

  “Why, thank you, Jake,” she said as she stepped out. Standing beside him and smoothing her gown, she added, “I think I owe you a drink for being so gallant.”

  Happily surprised, Jake said, “That’d be great.”

  Tomlinson stuck his head partway out the open door and asked, “You’ll be able to get home okay, Jake?”

  Jake nodded. “I’ll get a taxicab.”

  He stood there with Connie beside him while the limousine drove off. The rain had stopped, but the streets were still glistening wet.

  As they went into the hotel’s lobby, Jake wondered aloud, “I hope the bar’s still open.”

  With a warm smile, Connie said, “Oh, let’s not go to the bar. I’ve had enough of crowds. Let’s go right up to my suite. We can raid the minibar and have a good time, just the two of us.”

  Jake couldn’t think of a single objection to that idea.

  As they headed for the elevators, Connie whispered, “This bra is killing me.”

  Jake was happy to help her out of it.

  Hart Senate Office Building

  The next morning Jake was late getting to work. His evening with Connie had been joyously strenuous. She was uninhibited, and Jake was eager. They finally fell asleep as the first hint of dawn began to gray the sky.

  He felt tired but cheerful as he slid into his desk chair to confront his morning’s work. Activating his desktop computer, he saw he was scheduled to have another meeting with a deputy director of NASA at eleven. Plenty of time for that, he thought.

  His phone buzzed. With a touch of his keyboard, Jake put Tomlinson’s grinning face on his screen.

  “Got a couple of minutes, Jake?”

  “You have but to rub the lamp, O master.”

  Tomlinson’s grin morphed into a wry, almost puzzled expression. “I take it that means yes?”

  “I’m on my way,” Jake said.

  The senator was leaning back comfortably in his high-backed desk chair, in his shirtsleeves, hands clasped behind his head.

  “Have a good time last night?” His grin had returned; it was almost a leer.

  Trying to keep a straight face as he took one of the cushioned chairs in front of the desk, Jake responded merely, “Yep.”

  “Connie’s quite a girl, isn’t she?”

  “Yep.”

  “You know, back when we were both kids—teens, really—we were sort of kissing cousins. More than that, actually.”

  Slightly shocked, Jake could only reply, “Really?”

  “I thought you two would get along well,” Tomlinson went on. “You really need a social life, Jake.”

  That’s none of your damned business, Jake said to himself. But he heard himself ask, “How long will she be in town?”

  “Until the weekend. Then she flies home to California.”

  I’ve got three days, Jake thought. Better phone her as soon as I get back to the office.

  * * *

  The NASA deputy director was a former astronaut who seemed deeply troubled, almost desperate. But Jake found it hard to concentrate on the man’s tale of woe: Connie had agreed to have dinner with him.

  “… and the entire future of human space flight is in jeopardy,” the ex-astronaut was saying.

  His name was Isaiah Knowles. He was an African American man with cocoa-colored skin and a tight, almost pugnacious face. Smallish, he had flown half a dozen missions to the International Space Station and had helped to construct the Big Eye telescope in orbit.

  Trying to focus on his visitor’s problem, Jake said, “But aren’t private companies flying people to the International Space Station?”

  “Yes,” admitted Knowles, “but that’s just a bus line that goes into orbit and back again. What about the Moon? What about Mars?”

  “What about them?”

  “We should be exploring them! We should be building bases on the Moon, have a permanent presence there. That’s what the Chinese are doing. We shouldn’t let them have the Moon to themselves. And we should be exploring Mars, reaching out to the Asteroid Belt.”
<
br />   “That’d be awfully expensive, wouldn’t it?”

  “Bullshit!” Knowles burst out. “We spend more on pizza than we do on space!”

  Jake blinked at his intensity.

  Visibly struggling to gather himself, Knowles leaned toward Jake’s desk and said in a calmer tone, “Look, NASA gets less than one percent of the total federal budget. And look at what we’ve gotten back for that investment! Whole new industries are opening up in orbit. D’you realize that the cordless power tool industry began back in the Apollo days when NASA realized they couldn’t run an extension cord from Cape Canaveral to Tranquility Base?”

  Jake started to laugh, but Knowles plowed ahead without even taking a breath. “All the medical monitoring systems they use in hospitals are based on equipment originally developed to keep astronauts alive in space. I mean, space technology has pumped trillions of dollars into the US economy. Trillions!”

  Jake stared at the man, thinking, He’s like a religious zealot. Like John the Baptist: make straight the path of the Lord.

  Quite gently, Jake asked, “What kind of payoffs might we get from building bases on the Moon?”

  “Knowledge, man,” Knowles answered without hesitation. “New knowledge always pays off in the long run.”

  With a sigh, Jake explained, “Congress doesn’t look at the long run, I’m afraid. They want results that can help them win reelection.”

  Knowles glared at him for a moment, but Jake could see there were wheels turning behind his belligerent expression.

  “Something practical?” Jake prompted.

  His features softening, Knowles said, “Lookit, you’re interested in energy problems, aren’t you?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Ever hear of space solar power systems? Satellites that convert sunlight into electricity and beam the energy to Earth? Gigawatts, twenty-four hours a day, every day of the year. Clean, no pollution. And cheap, once they start running.”

  “But expensive to build,” said Jake.

  Waggling a hand, Knowles said, “No more expensive that a new nuclear plant.”

  “Nobody’s building new nuclear plants.”

  “Yeah, but if we could get the raw materials from the Moon instead of lifting them up from Earth’s surface, we could build solar power satellites twenty times cheaper.”

  “Twenty times?”

  “The Moon’s gravity is only one-sixth of Earth’s. The Moon is airless, we could launch payloads back toward Earth’s orbit with an electric catapult. Way cheaper than boosting ’em up from Earth with rockets.”

  Jake had familiarized himself with the concept of space solar power as part of his overall energy program but had cut the idea out of his plan because of its cost.

  “You could supply the raw materials from the Moon?” he asked.

  “Once we build bases there.”

  “I see.”

  “And we could build telescopes on the Moon that’d be much better than Big Eye. The astronomers would go crazy for that. And maybe even retirement habitats for people who’re too old and frail to live in Earth’s gravity!”

  Jake put up both hands in surrender. “Okay. Okay. Could you put a plan together that puts the space solar power concept in perspective? With cost estimates—and cost benefit estimates, too.”

  “How soon do you want it?”

  “As soon as you can produce it.”

  Knowles shot to his feet. “I’ve got all the components. Putting them all together shouldn’t take more’n a week or so.”

  Jake stood up and put out his hand across the desk. “Good. Keep me informed of your progress, would you?”

  “Damned right I will,” said Knowles, grasping Jake’s proffered hand firmly. “And thanks!”

  “I’m not making any promises,” Jake warned.

  “I know, I know.” Knowles smiled brightly as he headed for the door. Once there, he turned and added, “And lunar bases would be great for training for a Mars mission.”

  Jake smiled politely and waved good-bye. Sitting in his desk chair again, he thought, He can have Mars. I’m having dinner tonight with Connie.

  Wilmer Nevins

  Connie went back to California, and the days in Washington lengthened and grew hotter, muggier. Jake called her a few times; when she returned his calls she was polite but hardly passionate. She doesn’t miss me, he realized. She’s busy with other guys. I was just a one-night stand, as far as she’s concerned. Well, a three-night stand.

  Jake sat disconsolately at his desk, frowning at his computer screen, trying to concentrate on his job. He was working on the part of the energy plan that dealt with solar power and was highly dissatisfied with what he saw. Statistics, academic studies, graphs, lists, numbers.

  It wasn’t alive: nothing but cold facts, arguments and counterarguments.

  Solar energy will be the salvation of human civilization, claimed the solar enthusiasts. No, said the coal and oil people: solar energy is for tree huggers and idealists; it will never replace conventional power systems.

  Every day the sun pours a thousand times more energy onto the Earth than the entire human race uses in a hundred years. But the sun is unreliable; it doesn’t shine when it’s cloudy or at night.

  The cost of solar panels is getting cheaper every year. The panels are only a part of the cost of solar energy.

  Jake pulled up a photograph of a solar array in New Mexico that generated a megawatt of electrical power cleanly, silently—as long as the sun was shining. Works fine, he thought. But looking at the long rows of black panels, angled to catch the sunlight, he realized that it did take up a lot of acreage. They’d need to cover square miles of territory with solar panels to generate as much electricity as an average coal-fired power plant.

  So what? he argued with himself. There’s plenty of empty scrubland and desert out there. The Southwest could power the whole continental United States with solar electricity.

  Yeah, and we’d need to build new transmission lines to carry the electricity across the country.

  He shook his head, pushed his chair back from the desk, and got to his feet. His coffee mug was empty. Time for a refill.

  He got as far as his door before realizing, No, it’s time to get out of the office and go see a real, actual solar setup.

  * * *

  A quick Google scan gave Jake the name and phone number of a solar energy firm headquartered in Washington, DC. According to its Web page, Solar Solutions designed and installed solar energy systems for everything from factories to suburban shopping malls to private homes.

  He called the number listed and asked for their company’s CEO.

  “Mr. Nevins?” answered a woman’s soft, almost purring voice. “He’s not in at the moment. He’s on-site at an installation job.”

  Jake got the address of the site, in neighboring Alexandria, and decided to drive out there and see for himself a solar installation being built.

  It turned out to be a private home, a gracious old Dutch Colonial with a hipped roof and dormers. Half a dozen men and women, mostly in jeans and T-shirts, were on the front lawn, sweating in the late-morning heat as they unwrapped packages of flat black solar panels. A trio of other men were up on the roof, putting together what looked to Jake like oversized picture frames, their nail guns’ banging resounding through the quiet residential neighborhood.

  Walking across the grass, Jake asked the nearest worker, “Mr. Nevins?”

  He flicked a glance at Jake, then turned and yelled up to the roof, “Yo, Wilmer! Guy wants to see you?”

  A chunky gray-haired man looked up, a power drill in one hand. “I’ll be down in a minute,” he hollered back.

  Jake felt a little conspicuous in his sports jacket and light slacks. It was a muggy morning, getting hot despite the gray clouds covering the sky. The installation crew went back to work, ignoring him.

  It took more than a minute, but eventually the man came scampering down the ladder and across the lawn to where Jake
stood waiting. And perspiring.

  He stuck out a meaty hand. “I’m Wilmer Nevins.”

  Nevins was about Jake’s height, much beefier, wearing worn, stained gray shorts with a short-sleeved shirt hanging over them. His smile seemed warm and genuine.

  “Jake Ross. I’m with Senator Tomlinson’s office.”

  Nevins showed not a flicker of recognition, but his smile faded a little.

  “I’m putting together a comprehensive energy plan—”

  The smile disappeared altogether. “No thanks. Don’t want any.”

  Surprised and puzzled, Jake asked, “Don’t want any what?”

  His brow furrowing slightly, Nevins said, “Don’t want anything to do with the government.”

  “But solar’s an important part of the energy picture.”

  “And you’re from the government and you’re here to help me. I know. I’ve been there. No thanks. Just leave us alone.”

  “But—”

  Nevins looked at his wristwatch—a Rolex, Jake noticed—then turned to his crew. “Lunch break! One hour.”

  The young men and women glanced at each other. “It’s only eleven-thirty, Wil,” one of them said.

  “So lunch break comes early today. Be back on the job at twelve-thirty.”

  Then he grabbed Jake’s arm and led him to the hybrid Toyota van parked at the curb. “Get in,” he said. “You’ve got one hour to talk to me.”

  He drove to a nearby delicatessen, and once they got seated in a booth, Nevins did most of the talking. Over corned beef sandwiches and cream sodas he explained that he’d spent a good part of his life building solar lighting systems for poor villagers in Africa and southeast Asia.

  “First time those people ever had electric lights,” he said. His expression darkening, he added, “Government power lines went right past some of those villages, but their governments weren’t interested in helping villagers. The government’s power systems are for the city folks.”

  “But that’s not—”

  Nevins silenced Jake with an upraised hand.