Analog SFF, June 2011 Read online

  This building projected a confidence and a presence, embodiment of a bygone era, of an American century. Not so the many modern glass-and-steel skyscrapers: Their drab and boxy exteriors served only as metaphors for the hollowed-out American economy.

  Police had cleared the street and sidewalk in front of the Chicago Board of Trade Building and were keeping scores of picketing protesters behind sawhorse barricades. American grain for Americans many placards read. Stop burning food another popular sign demanded.

  Inwardly, he smiled.

  As the limo pulled up to the curb, eight serious men and women in somber garb marched from the main entrance. Yakov waited for the driver to open his door.

  “Welcome, Yakov Nikolayevich!” one of his greeters declared, a hand outstretched. “You honor us by your visit.”

  “Hello, Roland,” Yakov acknowledged. Roland Johnston was chief executive officer of the CBOT. Yakov would deal with no one lesser.

  “I trust your flight was satisfactory?”

  “Very comfortable. Thank you.” Washington, to which Yakov was posted as Deputy Trade Representative, was only a short hop away. Shorter, in fact, than he would have wished. He so seldom found the opportunity to fly his Learjet. “My assistant, Irina Ivanovna Chesnokova.”

  “Ms. Chesnokova.” Roland introduced his aides and hangers-on, and then, with a quick gesture toward the protest, suggested proceeding inside. “I apologize for the ruckus.”

  “Democracy,” Yakov said. They could decide whether he intended sympathetic understanding or ironic dismissal. “Very good. I would like to see the trading floor.” The pits of the original trading floor, alas, had been filled with concrete, the new area turned into mundane offices. A travesty, Yakov thought. “And the electronic trading facilities, of course.”

  “Naturally,” an aide agreed. The corner of a folded datasheet peeked from a pocket of her jacket.

  The Americans would give him the grand tour, fawn over his every word, then wine and dine him. When he completed his business, their limo would whisk him back to the airport. And between?

  Between—to the certain dismay of the demonstrators outside, and countless others of similar opinion—his hosts would do everything in their power to expedite his purchase of corn and wheat. Two million metric tons of each, with intimations of yet larger purchases to follow.

  They would bow and scrape and cut corners on his behalf, because he did not need their help. He could, he would suggest obliquely, shift much of his purchasing to the Canadians and Australians. His minions could quietly accumulate much of his stated need in smaller lots, through Internet trading and via pliant third parties, before anyone would see the pattern.

  Only he wouldn't. Visibility, not secrecy, suited his purpose. That so rarely happened.

  Ethanol substituted for gasoline. Higher grain prices made ethanol more expensive and less competitive. The mere specter of higher grain prices would spook oil markets around the globe. Whatever few extra dollars he might spend on grain—which, with great magnanimity, Russia would distribute to her friends in the Third World—would be more than repaid in higher energy prices.

  Roland Johnston was by then extolling the virtues of some recent upgrade to his organization's electronic-trading mechanism.

  Yakov just nodded. If anything important came up, Irinushka could summarize later for him. She had already asked several probing questions about the measures taken to assure the integrity of data in their computer systems.

  The men among Johnston's staff crowded around her, drawn to her classical beauty, vying to impress. Some must suppose she frowned in concentration at their wit or wisdom, or struggled with English jargon, for their speech had gotten louder and slower. And she, never giving any sign, would despise them for their vanity and condescension.

  She had been born deaf. She had neither heard nor spoken until she was five, after receiving the cochlear implants masked by her long, flowing, red hair. When too many people spoke at once, or in chaotic environments like the trading floor, the din sometimes confused the implants’ noise filters and speech-discrimination circuits.

  Despite everything, she understood more than the fawning, self-important young men could imagine.

  “Are you seeing what you wanted?” Johnston asked.

  Yakov nodded. “This is a very worthwhile visit.”

  How strange it was to accomplish grand strategy by means as prosaic as buying corn. Because deputy trade representative was only his cover for his true position: a senior agent of the Federal Security Service.

  Russia's interests often required methods more subtle—or far more dramatic.

  * * * *

  Saturday, May 13

  “What do you think, Professor?” Eric the bartender asked.

  Patrick looked away from the 3-V in the corner. “I think the Yankees will win in a blowout.”

  Eric laughed. “That's a given. No, I wondered if you were ready for another.”

  It was Patrick's turn to laugh. “No, that's a given.”

  “I like the way you think, Professor. Be right back.”

  Three people sat along the bar and a few couples at scattered tables: Saturday night in Outer Nowhere. No families with children, thankfully. He still found families hard to take.

  Eric reappeared with a fresh, foaming pint. “Your beer, Professor.”

  “Thanks.” Taking a long slow sip, Patrick returned his attention to the ballgame.

  He took no offense at Professor. Eric called anyone from NRAO that. In the winter, when this ski-resort bar would be hopping, Eric's patrons were “Sport.” Except any ski bunnies who Eric was hitting on. Them he promoted to “Sportette.”

  Snowshoe was far enough from Green Bank to keep Patrick's coworkers to a minimum. Alas, because the resorts offered most of the area's finer dining, that minimum was not zero. As, captured in the behind-the-bar mirror, the approaching man and woman reminded him.

  “Hi, Patrick,” a familiar voice called cheerily.

  Swiveling on his stool, Patrick thought Valerie Clayburn and her NASA friend made a cute couple. Both wore casual slacks and knit shirts: dressed up for her and down for him. “Hi, Valerie.”

  “Marcus Judson. Patrick Burkhalter.” To Patrick, Valerie added, “You remember Marcus visiting us for a staff lunch?”

  The name? That, Patrick had forgotten. But Marcus himself, after the reception she had arranged for him? No way. The wonder was that Marcus had gotten past it. Hopefully he had seen through to the good person underneath. Though maybe he just had eyes in his head.

  Too much information. “Of course. Hello,” Patrick said.

  “Pleased to meet you. You're the guy who put Valerie onto Phoebe bots, right?”

  Patrick shrugged. “You make it sound like I encouraged her.”

  Eric sauntered over, a napkin over his arm. “What can I get you, Professors?”

  “Two glasses of the house Merlot, Eric,” Marcus answered.

  “You've been promoted to a regular,” Patrick said. And quickly: Valerie's ambush had been only four weeks ago. “Feel honored.”

  “Patrick is an astronomer too,” Valerie said.

  “Astrophysicist,” Patrick corrected.

  Marcus rubbed his chin, brow furrowed. “There's a difference?”

  “A big one.” Valerie grinned. “Say I'm on a plane. If I feel sociable, I'm an astronomer. Everyone loves astronomy. When I want to read in peace, I'm an astrophysicist.

  “Marcus, I'll get us a table. Patrick, will you join us for dinner?”

  Which part of astrophysicist was unclear? “I don't plan to stay late tonight,” Patrick lied.

  Besides, Valerie did not need a chaperone. Patrick wondered if Judson would become a regular with her too. Everyone would know when Judson stopped getting a room in the Res Hall for his weekend visits. Green Bank was a small town, and the observatory staff was even tinier.

  “If you change your mind,” Valerie persisted, then strode off for the dining room. />
  Eric ambled back, setting down two wineglasses. “I started you a tab, Professor.”

  “Thanks.” Judson picked up the glasses, took a step away from the bar, and stopped. “Tough break,” he said softly.

  The Tigers had just left two men stranded on base. “Jankowski is on fire this season,” Patrick said. “ERA of what, around two-nine?”

  “That's not what I meant.”

  “Aren't you on a date?” Patrick asked. He turned, pointedly, back to the Yankees/Tigers game.

  If there was one thing Patrick could not abide, it was sympathy.

  * * * *

  Valerie slid back her plate, pleasantly full. “That was excellent.”

  “That was a salad,” Marcus said, as though disagreeing. He had had a sirloin with a loaded baked potato, and all that remained on his plate was a sprig of parsley. Maybe only half a sprig. “How about some dessert?”

  He ate like a force of nature, but if she skipped dessert so would he. “I'd split one.” One bite was splitting.

  “What do you recommend?”

  “Pretty much any of the desserts.” As in: you pick. Because you studied the dessert choices before you ever looked at entrées. And because you're going to be eating most of it.

  Why was dating so complicated?

  “How about the death-by-chocolate cake, then. With a scoop of ice cream?”

  “That sounds good.” And maybe two bites.

  “So, about Patrick.”

  She had wondered when Patrick would come up. “He's a planetary astronomer. I think you two would get along. He's not always so . . .”

  “Cranky? Surly? Belligerent?”

  “I was going to say gruff.” The waitress came by to clear the dinner plates and took their dessert order. Valerie figured she could change topics. Patrick was so . . . sad. “Simon came home from school today with the funniest story.”

  “Hold that thought. I have a question about him. Patrick, I mean. What was with the disclaimer when I mentioned Phoebe bots?”

  “Honestly? I don't know. It's odd. He used to rent bots quite often. But it's true that he didn't encourage me to try bots myself.”

  The waitress returned with their coffees, their dessert, and two forks. Marcus moved the plate into the center of the table. “What does he do at Green Bank?”

  “Mostly maintenance, and some training of visiting astronomers. With authorization you can schedule observations over the Internet, but we don't give out those codes to anyone till they've trained onsite.” Three bites, she decided, taking a fork. “Do you know his history?”

  “Yeah.” Marcus's eyes widened with his first bite of cake. “Not the kind of incident I would forget. Ex-JPL. Broke basic ops protocol, and in the process lost a deep-space probe.”

  “I think that's oversimplified.” She fidgeted with her napkin, searching for the right words. Patrick had confided in her, just a little, once when she had really needed the distraction. “Suppose he had gone through channels, that he had submitted a proposed maneuver. Suppose that while he waited for a review committee to approve, the spacecraft got whacked by an oncoming rock.” The inward-streaking pebble that, Patrick had said, could not be found in what remained of the final telemetry after his hasty upload. “Would that be better?”

  “No one second-guesses waiting for channels.” Marcus, wearing a sudden sour expression, set down his fork. “And when something was everyone's responsibility, that makes it no one's fault. Okay, I might have acted too. More carefully, I would like to think. And without wiping the comm buffer afterward to try to cover my tracks.”

  “He's my friend, Marcus.” And loss of Patrick's family, career, and the respect of his peers was too steep a penalty.

  Patrick had been in her office the day two marines in full dress blues showed up. As Patrick had been there for her for long days after. Merely, quietly, there, not driven off, as were so many, by the embarrassment of not knowing what to say.

  A good man hid beneath all that rancor. She felt Patrick's pain.

  And in a rush, her own. She still missed Keith terribly. She wished her son could have known his father, taken away when Simon was just learning, stumblingly, to walk. But in an instant, a roadside bomb in Afghanistan had changed . . . everything.

  What was she doing on a date?

  Keith would want her to get on with her life, but she felt miserable. She tried to keep the turmoil off her face and knew she had failed.

  “Sorry,” Marcus said, looking confused at her mood swing. “Are you all right?”

  “Just . . . distracted.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No,” she insisted.

  Marcus took the hint. “So Patrick doesn't observe anymore?”

  She wrung her napkin some more. “Not officially.” Because Patrick's proposals for time on the scopes seldom got approved. “But training involves targets, and he picks the aim points. His students end up tracking lots of objects in the outer asteroid belt.”

  “Outer belt,” Marcus repeated. “Meaning?”

  “Beyond the ice line. Distant enough from the Sun that ice doesn't melt or sublimate.”

  “Listening for the beacon of the Verne probe, you mean. After, what, eight years?”

  “Nine,” she corrected. How absurd were the odds Patrick would ever hear it? Space was big. And who knew if the lost spacecraft even still functioned? “I know. It's sad.”

  “Poor guy.”

  The waitress topped off their coffees. Valerie wrapped her hands around her cup to warm them. Not that the room was cold.

  “I think I should be getting you home,” Marcus said. “You look . . . tired.”

  She opened her mouth, but an explanation refused to come. Dragging out the evening would not be fair to him. “You're right,” she managed at last. “Sorry.”

  The drive home to Green Bank continued in awkward silence. She broke it by babbling about how in 1960 Green Bank hosted one of the first academically respectable SETI meetings. SETI was one of Patrick's avowed passions, and she launched into describing the transmitter module—never installed, of course—that he had designed and built in his spare time for the big dish. He often puttered after hours in the electronics shop.

  Only no one she knew believed Patrick gave a flying fig about SETI, or that he had spent months getting ready to send a reply to some hypothetical aliens. What everyone understood—and no one would ever raise with Patrick—was the thing for which he did prepare: the day he detected the Verne probe's beacon. Each year, as that hope seemed more forlorn, he spent less time tinkering with the idle transmitter.

  Her voice trailed off. She and Marcus completed the drive in uncomfortable silence.

  They finally turned into her driveway. Light flickered in the windows, Brianna watching 3-V. Then a little figure bounded past the living-room window: Simon, wide awake. Valerie fancied she heard little-boy engine noises. The dashboard clock, as she sneaked a peek, read 8:46. She was pathetic.

  “I'm sorry,” she told Marcus, yet again, as he walked her to her door. “I'm not fit company tonight. May I call you in the morning? Maybe we can go for brunch.”

  “Sure. I can stay till noon or so. Big meeting Monday to prepare for.”

  He didn't offer details and she didn't ask. The powersat, quite accidentally, had brought them together. It would not keep them together. It was, like Keith, a subject they did not discuss.

  The two unmentioned elephants in the room.

  On the porch, Marcus gave her a perfunctory kiss goodnight. “Will you be okay?”

  “Sure.” She forced a smile. Someday.

  * * * *

  Thursday, May 18

  Slicing the tops off whitecaps, a sleek, thirty-foot hovercraft raced along the Santa Barbara Channel. In the distance, rugged and pristine, stood one of the islands of Channel Islands National Park. Santa Cruz Island, if Dillon correctly remembered the map. The sky was almost painfully bright. Sun sparkled off the waves.


  “Southern California hardly counts as the tropics,” Kayla Jorgenson shouted over the roar of the engine. Her tan Dockers, starched blue blouse, and L. L. Bean windbreaker might as well have been a business suit. She had pulled her hair back into a short ponytail. Only white knuckles as she clenched the handrail betrayed nerves. “This time of the year surface-water temperature only approaches sixty degrees, so the test bed won't reach the output levels the system would achieve near the equator. We still get a temperature differential, with respect to the bottom of the intake pipe, better than twenty degrees. The results we're measuring match our simulations quite well. That said, to unambiguously prove the technology, we would like to deploy a full-scale demo system somewhere warmer.”

  If we get the money, she managed to convey without uttering the words.

  Dillon tugged his cap lower. Despite Ray-Bans and the cap's long visor, he squinted against the glare. He was a captive audience on the small boat, and Kayla was not one to waste face time. He remembered his first impression of her: focused.

  They could have choppered to the demo site a lot faster, but after crisscrossing the country, flying from one cash-hungry start-up to the next, Dillon had opted for sunshine and sea breezes. His face turned toward the afternoon sun, closing his eyes, he thought tanned thoughts.

  He was exhausted. Already that week he had toured a lithium-ion automotive battery plant in Saginaw, a superconducting-cable company outside Chicago, a scale-model geothermal power plant in Nevada, and, only the day before, a Silicon Valley semiconductor design shop with some ideas for improving solar cells. The score so far for the week: dud, promising, dud, and scary. Cortez Photovoltaic used chemical dopants and industrial processes that made him nervous as hell. An anonymous tip to the EPA should slow that bunch for a while.

  “Besides the convenient location,” Kayla kept going, inexorably, “reusing the drilling rig really slashed our upfront costs. All we had to do was lower pipe, something any oil platform is already configured to do. If we extend this concept to . . .”

  When Dillon next opened his eyes, the platform, which had been only a dot on the horizon, had swelled into a massive, looming construction.