Act of God (4 page)

"I tried to get into flight school in the service," he told her. "They found something wrong with my inner ear that only shows under very low pressure. They have medication for it now, though." For the first time, she heard him laugh genuinely and ungrudgingly.

They started at one end of the museum and began working their way toward the other. The displays began with the earliest and crudest aerodynamic devices such as boomerangs. There was even a platter-shaped flying toy which a label identified as a "frisbee." There were spaceships and satellites at the other end.

From a balcony overlooking the main foyer, they rested. Busloads of school-children and tour groups were constantly arriving and leaving. A camera-draped pack of Japanese tourists was snapping pictures of everything, "Seeing this," Laine said, "it's hard to believe that your space program is in trouble." She thought for a moment. "I suppose I should say 'our' space program now, since I intend to live here and work in it if I can."

"Our space program is like our military establishment or our highways," Sam told her. "We're proud of it, but we don't like paying for it. The payoff from space exploration seems too remote and rarified for most Americans."

She studied an ethereal, pedal-powered aircraft hanging nearby. "But, there have been a great many advances in other fields because of the space competition: miniaturization, medical technology, a great many others. Every schoolchild learns that in my homeland."

"Maybe. But NASA suffers from bad PR." Sam said.

"What is that?"

"Public relations. There are agencies that do nothing but sell an image to people. I guess NASA never hired one. They've done a lousy job of selling themselves to the public. Besides, there isn't just one space program, there are a lot of them. I don't know much about NASA, but I've worked with others, and they're all about the same. The people working on manned expeditions worry if it looks like the unmanned probe crowds are getting too big a slice of the budget. The military starts interfering if they think the purely scientific programs are getting too much attention. Hell, for all I know, the infra-red astronomers are fighting tooth and nail with the ultraviolets for funding. In good times, when there's lots of money floating around for everyone, they're all one big family devoted to the betterment of mankind. Now, times are rough, the economy's down, and they have to fight for every dime."

"I suppose it's the same where I come from," she said. "But they never explain or ask our opinion."

"They never ask for mine either," Sam said. "I give it to them anyway. Maybe that's why I'm on UFO investigations."

Once again, Laine had the impression that he had gone off on some tangent of his own. It occurred to her that the man was not quite sane. Oddly, that made him a little more human and likeable. She was so tired of interchangeable government automatons.

"What an amazing place," Laine said as they emerged. "Boomerangs to moon rockets. That's a very large cultural jump." The streetlights were beginning to come on around the mall. "We must have lost track of time. I had no idea it was so late."

"Are you hungry?" Sam asked. "I'm starved."

She was ravenous and told him so. "Would you like to have dinner in Chinatown? It's only a few blocks from here."

"Chinatown? That sounds exotic. Yes, I would be delighted, if it doesn't interfere with your personal plans for the evening. I was resigned to eating alone at the hotel restaurant."

She got her first taste of Washington rush-hour traffic on the way to Chinatown. It took nearly half an hour to cover less than two miles. Unlike Sam, Laine did not fret over the delay. She was enthralled by the cosmopolitan quality of Washington life which was apparent even on the sidewalks. Blocks of slum housing stood cheek-by-jowl with rows of brightly-lit shops displaying expensive wares. Here, away from the tourists, the street life took on a kaleidoscopic quality that reminded her of some of the very strange films she had seen while she was in Italy. Young black men balanced huge, blaring radios on their shoulders. Teenagers strolled about in makeup and hairstyles from other planets. Dark arcades were momentarily lit by lurid flashes from the screens of video games. She pointed at a group of shaven-headed youths in orange robes and tennis shoes who stood on a street corner shaking tambourines and chanting and holding bowls out to passing pedestrians. "Who are those?"

"Hare Krishnas," Sam said. "Actually, they call themselves the Krishna Consciousness Movement or something like that. It's an American version of some Hindu sect. It was very popular for a few years. You don't see so much of them any more. If you think this place is weird, wait till you see California. It'll send you right into culture shock. Someone once said that America has a continental tilt and everything that's loose rolls down into Southern California."

Laine laughed. "Actually, I find this all terribly exciting and fascinating. So much color and variety! You have no idea how dull things are in the Soviet Union and the satellite states."

"Oh yes I have," Sam said, changing gears, "I've been there."

Chinatown turned out to be a small area of nondescript, rather dilapidated buildings. Laine was a little disappointed. She had expected buildings with pagoda facades and strange neon lighting and tong gangsters lurking in the alleyways.

"It's not like the San Francisco Chinatown," Sam said, as if in answer to her thought, "but there are some pretty good restaurants here if you know where to find them." He pulled into a customer's reserved parking space next to a restaurant whose exterior was nothing but a shabby storefront. Across the plate glass window was lettered, with incongruous grandiloquence,
Pearl of the Orient
. Inside, it was no more distinguished, but was scrupulously clean. All the other customers appeared to be Chinese, which Laine took as a good sign. As before, Sam chose a table in the rear, near the kitchen, and sat with his back against the window-less wall. A puffy-cheeked Chinese doll of a waitress brought them menus, but a middle-aged man came from the kitchen and spoke to her briefly in rapid Cantonese and she went to wait on another table.

"It's been a while, Sam," the man said with a smile that exposed several gold teeth.

"I've been out of town." He turned to Laine. "Would Tsin-Tao beer suit you to start with?" She nodded affirmatively. "Would you like for me to order? I know the menu pretty well here." Again she nodded. He turned to the Chinese man. "We'll start with the shark's fin soup and barbecued ribs, then the Peking duck and the Moses pork—"

"That's moshi pork," said the Chinese.

"You mean it's not kosher?" Sam said in mock-horror.

The man looked at Laine, deadpan. "Clowns they got working for the government these days. No wonder the country's in the shape it's in." He took their order back to the kitchen.

"Is he a friend of yours?" Laine asked.

"He's somebody I helped out in a jam once. His name's Sammy Quo. A few years back he was having some tong trouble. I happened by when a couple of thugs were roughing him up and straightened things out. Since it wasn't official business, I didn't report it to anybody. That meant a lot to Sammy. Probably half the people working here are relatives of his who're here without proper immigration papers."

"Tongs?" Laine said. "Are they still active? I thought they were something from old films."

"Very active," Sam said. "They were pretty quiet from the twenties through the fifties. It was the big upsurge in the drug trade and illegal immigration in the sixties that revived them."

Their beer arrived and the Chinese doll poured it into tall glasses. Laine lifted hers in a silent toast and took a cautious sip. Surprisingly, it tasted much like the beer she was used to. She remarked on the fact.

"I'm not surprised," Sam said. "It was the Germans who started brewing in China before the First World War. They probably still make it the same way."

"You have a remarkably broad range of information," Laine said.

"You mean for a CIA thug?"

Laine flushed. "I meant no such thing!" She was embarrassed. He was right. She had not expected a government gunman to be so many-faceted. She wondered whether the KGB had such unusual men.

"Sure you did. That's ok, it comes with the job. Actually, I came by that last piece of information from my grandfather. He was with the Marines in Shanghai in the twenties. He was a mine of information about China in those days." Their dinner arrived and the quality of the food proved to be even better than Sam had hinted. The Peking duck, in particular, was roasted exquisitely crisp. They made small talk while eating, and Sam in his unobtrusive way managed to get a little background information from Laine without being obvious.

He learned that she had befriended a visiting American astronomer for a year or so while she had held a research appointment at the Sternberg Astronomical Institute in Moscow. She had learned from him much of her American English. She displayed that rare ability to talk about her work without cluttering her speech with incomprehensible jargon. It was some time since Sam had found such a charming dinner companion. She had a wry sense of humor that came across despite her slight linguistic handicap.

Throughout the meal and the drive back to Laine's hotel, both were aware of a tension between them, a tension resulting from a mutual withdrawal from a mutual attraction. Sam rejected the temptation to involvement for professional reasons, Laine because she still did not trust her feelings She wondered whether he would make a more determined advance. Experience told her that he would, but he didn't.

"Good night, Laine. I'll be by to pick you up at about nine in the morning." They parted with a mutual sense of disappointment.

CHAPTER FOUR

WASHINGTON, D.C. AND SUBURBS

The following morning, Sam got up just before the alarm rang at six. He turned on his radio for the early news broadcast as he forced himself through an intensive set of calisthenics of his own design. He was still far from his peak condition, and he promised himself that, as soon as his schedule straightened out, he would resume his judo workouts. For years, karate had been the glamour art, largely because of media exposure and Bruce Lee movies, but he still preferred judo. Dripping with sweat, he switched the radio off and went into the shower.

At 8:15 Sam phoned a number at Langley CIA headquarters. The phone was answered on the first ring. "Novak."

"Hello, Slats. Sam Taggart here."

"Hey, old buddy! What's new?" Novak's Alabama drawl sounded even more exaggerated than usual.

"Slats, I want you to do me a favor," Sam said, without preamble.

"What kind of favor?" Novak asked with sudden suspicion.

"I want a two-hour executive summary on Project Peter the Great."

"Where the hell did you come across that code-name? You aren't supposed to be at this end of Company business." Novak's lazy drawl had disappeared.

"Never mind how. I'll be by with my partner at ten."

"You think I got nothing better to do than devote two hours of my busy day to you? Or even five minutes? Now that I think of it, last time I saw you, you were walking away with my girl."

"If I was walking away with her, she wasn't yours." Sam sighed. It was time for the ritual. "All right, I'll tell you why you owe me a favor: Istanbul, a dead female agent, your worthless ass on the line and—"

"Okay, okay," Novak said, hastily, "not on the telephone. I capitulate. I'll see you and your partner at ten."

Sam hung up. He and Novak had been partners on a number of occasions, years ago. Novak had owed Sam his life on more than one occasion. The time in Istanbul had not been one of them. Instead, it had been a tragi-comic affair that might have made them both laughingstocks if they hadn't covered up the evidence and beat a hasty retreat. Now that it looked as though they were safe from ever being connected with the incident, they sometimes reminisced about it over a few beers. Slats now held a desk job at CIA headquarters in Northern Virginia. He still liked to be reminded that he had been a cowboy once, too. His current specialty happened to be the analysis of Soviet potentials in space.

When Sam arrived at the Hotel Wildner he found Laine already waiting in the lobby, looking stunningly beautiful with her long, blonde hair draped over her black overcoat.

"Where are we going today?" she asked as she climbed into the car.

"CIA headquarters."

"You're joking." She studied him. "You're not joking. Am I going to be interrogated again?"

"No. This time, we'll do the interrogating. That restricted badge they gave you will get you inside as long as you're with me. Consider yourself my partner for the duration."

Laine settled back in the seat. His partner. Did that make her a spook, a cowboy or a grunt?

Novak looked up as they entered his sparsely furnished office. His glance shot from Sam to Laine. His inspection of Laine was brief but thorough. "Haven't changed much, have you, Sam?" Laine was not quite sure how to take that.

"Not much," Sam said, "but the Company has."

Slats got down to business. "You asked for a two-hour summary of Project Peter the Great. It's the code name for the Soviet grand plan to explore, exploit and colonize the solar system. They plan to make much if not all of the real estate in the solar system Soviet fief. As Mother Russia expanded explosively under the leadership of Peter the Great, so shall she now expand into space, under less charismatic but more orthodox collective leadership."

Sam seated Laine in one of the chairs and parked himself on Novak's desk, shoving a pile of papers aside for the purpose. "Desk work hasn't blunted your taste for rhetoric, Slats."

Novak grinned. "Believe me, if it was just you, I'd be brief. But, how often do I get a chance to play to such an attractive audience?" He smiled toward Laine. She returned the smile nervously. "Very ill-bred of you to neglect introductions, Sam." Sum started to rectify his error, but Novak breezed light on. "I'm honored to make your acquaintance, Dr. Tammsalu. I hope you're enjoying your introduction to the U.S. Is your room at the Wildner satisfactory? Wouldn't you rather have a less scruffy escort?"

"I am, it is and I think I'm in good hands," Laine answered.

"Don't count on that last part," Novak advised her.

"I'll make you pay for this, Slats," Sam said, studying the nails of one hand.

"Back to business," Novak said. He leaned back in his swivel chair, lacing his fingers behind his head and causing his paunch to protrude somewhat. "You've got two hours of my exceptionally valuable time to receive an education on Soviet plans for space for the next fifteen or so years. Listen attentively and don't interrupt except with questions of the greatest pertinence." Sam gazed at the ceiling in disgust but Novak went on obliviously. "The initial phase involves permanent space stations, which are very much in evidence these days, and high-power solar satellites. The second stage involves lunar stations; we know they're at it in earnest. The forthcoming phase is expected to be manned deep space probes, manned missions to Mars, Martian bases, exploration of asteroids, even," he paused dramatically for effect, "terra-forming of Venus."

"Fly that last one past me again," Sam said.

"Settle down. You'll get your chance for questions." Novak launched into his briefing. Apparently, it was one he was accustomed to giving for VIPs needing some background in Soviet developments in space. It seemed the Soviets had been investing a great proportion of their resources in Project Peter the Great. When a compromise accord had finally been reached in the East-West armament race, much of their ex-military industrial capacity was converted to the space program rather than toward production of more and better consumer goods. Much of this was in the name of efficiency, because of the common aspects of modern military technology and one space program. Instead of better ICBMs, they could develop better space trucks. Consumers could wait, as always. Patience was one of the Russian virtues.

More importantly, the Soviets saw little chance of winning the contest against the capitalist nations commercially or politically. In fact, they had been losing ground steadily for a number of years. They could from time to time establish some puppet government in some poverty-stricken part of the world, but keeping it within the Soviet sphere afterward was difficult and expensive. War, of course, was out of the question. It had been Russian military policy since Czarist days never to commit the nation to military solutions without at least a two-to-one superiority in armament. So far from achieving any such superiority over the West, their efforts to maintain mere parity had bled the economy white.

As soon as the armaments accord had been reached, the new program, long on the back burner, had been put into effect: If the East were to be victorious over the West, it would be through a vigorous exploration of space and utilization of its unlimited resources. Best of all, immense prestige would accrue to the Soviet Union and nobody could accuse them of military expansionism. The timing was perfect. The West seemed to be losing interest in the challenge of the space age. Political and industrial leaders advocated squandering the limited terrestrial resources for essentially nonproductive purposes. Those advocating the cause of the high frontier were ridiculed as space cadets.

CIA information on Project Peter the Great was not as complete as they would like, nor was it as up-to-date as Novak would have preferred. However, one of the programs that the Soviets were working on most feverishly was the development of an ion-drive engine for constant-acceleration flight in deep space. CIA information on it was fragmentary, but apparently the Soviets were on the verge of some breakthrough.

"Is this true?" Laine asked, interrupting for the first time. "An ion-drive engine?"

Novak cocked an eyebrow at her, savoring his little triumph. "Surprised we know about the project? It's supposed to be top secret, you know."

"Of course, I was not told of the project," Laine went on, unperturbed. "My work was in astronomy, not spacecraft engineering. But a constant-boost engine would open up all sorts of possibilities in space. Imagine! I had thought that it would be at least several decades before that sort of thing would become practical engineering." She was working hard at not being enthusiastic. She didn't want to appear to be rooting for the wrong side.

Sam was intrigued by this sudden interest. "Why is this constant-boost engine such a cause for rejoicing?" he asked her.

"Well, the conventional engine is used primarily for injecting a payload into a free-flying orbit. No acceleration occurs after the injection except for minor adjustments in the orbit. Using these engines, it takes months or years to get to another planet. The rocket achieves its maximum velocity, then it shuts off and coasts the rest of the way. It's just a big skyrocket, enormously complicated, but no different in principle from the kind used for fireworks: just a big tube filled with explosive which is allowed to burn at a controlled rate. But, with a constant one-G boost engine, with a mid-course turnaround for deceleration, you can reach Mars within a week." She saw his slightly perplexed expression and added: "One-G stands for one Earth gravity, of course. It's the acceleration you experience downward at the Earth's crust due to its gravitational field. What it means in practical terms is that, with one-G constant acceleration, the entire solar system becomes as accessible as the coastlines of the world were to navigation in the Nineteenth Century."

It was a difficult proposition to swallow all at once. "If that's true, why aren't we going all-out for this ion-drive engine, too?"

"I can only make guesses," she told him. "For one thing, the ion drive is only one type of engine that is capable of constant boost, at least theoretically. There are other possibilities. Also, any form of constant boost engine has been considered by most space engineers to be merely a theoretical possibility, a dream for a future generation." She turned to Novak. "At least, so I thought until now. Besides, there are a number of practical problems to be solved, the primary one being the fuel or energy source and reaction mass." She waved her slender hands about in the immemorial gesture of the specialist searching for words comprehensible to the layman. "There are other problems, especially muzzle velocity."

Sam held out a hand in a silencing gesture. "Hold it. Muzzle velocity? Jesus, I thought only bullets had that. We'll talk about fuel and muzzle velocity later. I want to hear the rest of Slats' spiel. After all, we don't want to waste what he keeps reminding us is his valuable time."

"Hell," Novak admitted. "I sit around on my rapidly-broadening butt all day with nobody to talk to. You know how much prestige this office has these days? Remember that Air Force guy we used to know? The one they put on UFO investigations?"

"Tell me about it," Sam said, wearily.

"Same thing here. If it's not orbital, if it's not military, they just aren't interested. You just watch, Sam. The bastards are going to steal a march on us, just like they did in the fifties, only this time it'll be a lot worse. And they're making no big secret of their overall plan, just certain crucial aspects."

"Before we get into the doomsaying," Sam said drily, "just how close are they to perfecting this constant-boost ion drive?"

"I wish we knew. What we do know is that they're devoting resources to the search comparable to their efforts to develop the A-bomb and the ICBM."

"Meaning that their security is probably comparably tight," Sam observed. "Anything else you can tell us about Peter the Great?"

Novak wrapped up his overview, noting that basic scientific research was an integral part of the project. He briefly described the nature of that research and added, "The head of the scientific program is Miss Tammsalu's former boss, Pyotr Tarkovsky, and the gamma-ray observatory had a high priority on his program. But from what your partner here has been telling us lately, it may not be a very live part of the program now."

"You've seen the transcripts of Laine's debriefings," Sam said. "What do you make of this business with Nekrasov?"

Novak leaned forward and rested on his elbows. "I'll confess it's the strangest thing I ever heard. I'd be willing to bet that what Nekrasov knows about the space sciences could be engraved on the head of a pin in letters a foot high. And as for the comet linkup," he shrugged helplessly, "I just can't feature the son of a bitch being interested at all. If ever there was a pure science project, it's that one. No military or intelligence potential at all. Sorry."

"Look into it," Sam said. "I know you don't take your instructions from my boss, but I think we're all missing something important here. See what your computers can turn up. Anything on the project or on Tarkovsky in particular. It could be something Nekrasov picked up on that nobody else noticed, some paper he published or presented years ago. Whatever else Nekrasov is, he's not dumb."

"You don't mind handing out hard ones, do you, Sam? Do you have any idea how much wordage a major scientist like Tarkovsky publishes in his professional lifetime? Not to mention that most of it's incomprehensible to anybody but his colleagues and a lot of it's under secret label to boot."

Sam patted him on the shoulder. "I trust you, Slats. I know you can do it. Besides, it's got to be simple or Nekrasov wouldn't have seen the implications."

"Get out of here," Novak said, wearily. "Dr. Tammsalu, I'm most pleased to have made your acquaintance. Come back some time without him. I'll be working on it."

On their way back to the District, a late-model Lincoln pulled up next to them at a stoplight. The driver stuck his head out the window and shouted, "Wanna trade cars?"

"No, thanks," Sam said. The light changed and the cars went their separate ways.