one of those slots, with Vernon there to assist. Unofficially some of us in NASO
want somebody knowledgeable to get the real story on this Zambendorf stunt . . .
and maybe even blow the whole thing out of the water if the opportunity presents
itself. It’s gone too far, Gerry. We’ve got better things to do. If we don’t put
a stop to this nonsense now, the next thing will be astrologers being hired to
fix launch dates.”
Massey returned a puzzled frown from across the room, where he was sitting
sprawled untidily across a couch with one foot propped on a piece of a partly
dismantled trick-cabinet that he had been meaning to move for weeks. “You have
to do something,” he agreed. “But what I don’t understand is why it’s happening
at all. What on earth possessed NASO to go along with this Zambendorf thing in
the first place?”
Conlon sighed and threw up his hands. “That was how it came down the line to me
. . there’s been a lot of high-level politics between GSEC and NASO that I’m not
in on. Anyhow, most of the funding’s coming from GSEC. Defense takes first place
for government money; social experiments on Mars don’t even get on the list.
With lawyers and accountants taking over the government, we’ve had to depend
more on the private sector to keep a planetary program going at all. Naturally,
that gives outfits like GSEC a say in the planning and policymaking.”
“Maybe the best thing would be for you to opt out,” Vernon Price said from an
elaborately ornamented stool, his back to the church organ that Massey had
picked up in a yard-sale six years previously while driving through Mississippi.
He was in his late twenties, lithe, with dark, wavy hair and alert, bright brown
eyes. “I mean, if the mission’s being turned into a circus, the wisest thing
might be to keep PEP out of it.”
Conlon shook his head. “I hear what you’re saying, Vemon, but we can’t do that.
The scientific opportunities are too valuable to miss. And besides that, the
mission will involve the first operational use of the Orion, which we have to
retain our interest in for the sake of planetary projects now on the drawing
boards. If we dropped out, it would leave the Pentagon as the only government
department with an interest in further development of the Orion. We can’t afford
to let that happen.”
The European-American scientific base near the Martian equator at Meridiani
Sinus had begun as a purely American attempt to rival the Soviet plan for
establishing a permanently manned facility at Solis Lacus. However, the U.S.
program had bogged down over problems with the development of the inertial
fusion drive considered essential to supporting human life reliably over
interplanetary distances. A crash program conducted cooperatively with the
European NATO nations and Japan had eventually provided a prototype system that
did work, and Meridian! Sinus had followed as a joint U.S.-European venture two
years behind both the original American schedule and the Soviets; shortly
afterward, the space agencies on both sides of the Atlantic were merged to form
NASO. Intensified work from then on had made up for some of the lost time and
produced a series of test designs for thermonuclear-propelled space-vehicles,
culminating in the Orion—the first vessel built specifically for carrying heavy
payloads and large numbers of passengers between planets. Completed in orbit in
2019, the Orion had been shuttling back and forth on trials between Earth and
Moon for over half a year, six months to a year ahead of a similar project which
the Japanese were pursuing independently. The Soviets, who were concentrating on
large platforms in Earth orbit, had nothing to compare with either of the large
interplanetary ships, so at least the U.S. had some compensation for the
embarrassment incurred by its earlier fiasco.
Massey turned his head to look across at Whittaker, tall and tanned, with dark,
crinkly hair just beginning to show gray at the temples, who was sitting in the
armchair opposite Conlon. With the comfortable income that he commanded
independent of his position at Global Communications Networking, he seemed to