He had promised Governor Traynor to make the U.S.S. Texas a spectacular symbol of a proud, progressive state. He broke that promise with another, one to President Wynn, to bait the Russians into sinking the Texas. The promises were irreconcilable.
But now the San Diego Outrage, as his headline writers called it, changed everything. American public opinion would now tilt against any dealing with Russia, reprieve the Texas to lead the Texas Millenary Celebrations, and save Forte from welshing on either of his promises. Anti-Russian feeling was at high pitch in the Statehouse, he knew, and it would spread like poison throughout America. By midweek, the President would cancel the fleet visits altogether, tear up the Washington Protocols draft, and thus buy time for the nation to put its defenses in order. With the Texas legislature still in secret session, he couldn’t predict the exact sequence of events, but he was so confident of the final result that, when he slept that second night in July, for the first time in months he was not afflicted with nightmares.
The next morning, refreshed and filled with unaccustomed vigor, and the Texas on the back burner, he was ready to give full attention to urgent matters that had been piling up since that White House conference the last week of December.
His administrative assistant had thoughtfully arranged the problem files in his in-box in the order of priority, the toughest on top. When he saw the first, he almost wished himself back in SD-1 grappling with the problems of the Texas.
The folder was labeled “Stenco.”
Stenco was the acronym for Satellite Technology and Extraterrestrial Nucleonics Company. Around the shop it was referred to as “Stinko,” and there was no denying that it gave off a disagreeable odor.
Sunshine Industries had acquired Stenco when space technology had been full of promise and atomic fuels were the propellant of choice for maneuvering large structures in space during the building of agricolonies, powersats, and free-fall factories. But all such projects withered quickly in the shadow of the East-West armed-satellite confrontation in outer space. Stenco, always a bridesmaid, never a bride, stayed alive on hope and the expectation of lender banks that Gwillam Forte, with his riches, would eventually bail it out.
Forte had no such intention. He had never taken day-to-day charge of its activities or research-its projects were much too recondite for him to understand- and in the end, it was wise that he hadn’t. For its company officers had begun to share his disenchantment despite-or perhaps because of-having acquired a majority interest in the company through the purchase of stock Forte was only too glad to sell. He had quietly reduced his holdings to their present level of 16 percent, sufficient to exercise control over the faltering company, but not enough to give him a bath if it went under.
When it went under. Persistent reports claimed the president of Stenco was, with the active collaboration of certain other officers, looting what cash remained in the till. Investigators from the Bureau of Internal Revenue, the state’s Attorney’s Office, and the Securities and Exchange Commission were sniffing around, holding perfumed handkerchiefs to their noses. It was only a matter of time until the chief thief grabbed his satchel and ran. Gwillam Forte could easily have replaced him. But executives who could turn Stenco around also knew that whoever occupied the executive hot seat when the sheriff came calling would spend a long time repenting it behind big doors that cast narrow shadows. A real hoodoo, Stenco.
It was after some minutes of idly shuffling through Stenco papers, his mind mostly elsewhere, that Gwillam Forte became aware that a voice at his elbow had been making sounds for what now seemed quite some time.
“Yes, Miss Barker?”
“It’s a Mr. Opal, sir.”
Gwillam Forte eyed his secretary’s legs. They were long, slender, shapely, and, despite all their antiseptic excellences, extremely sexy. They must have won her the job; it couldn’t have been her syntax.
“What’s a Mr. Opal?” he asked.
Her jaw fell just enough to reveal a row of perfect teeth. He thought back. It may have been the teeth. And those lovely lips, which always seemed swollen with sleep.
“The man in my office,” she stammered. “Izard T. Opal.”
“Ah-that explains it. Push tun in, preferably with a long stick.”
She walked out, her hips swaying like ripe grain at harvest time. It could, Forte decided, have only been the hips. The reflection was brief, for this pleasant train of thought was abruptly derailed by the appearance of Dr. Izard T. Opal. A week’s absence had not squared his rounded shoulders, or corrected his insolent stare, or straightened the vulpine curve of his lips. He was every bit as disagreeable to the eye as he had been the last time Forte saw him.
Forte rose and extended his hand with a smile. After all, the man was his guest. Perhaps he had come to make amends for his none-too-subtle blackmail a few days earlier.
“An unexpected pleasure, Dr. Opal,” he said, batting exactly .500 in the truth department.
“Hi there, Will,” Opal replied, causing the corners of Forte’s smile to wilt.
Opal sat down without invitation, pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, and lit one. Gwillam Forte was a nonsmoker, and his antipathy was complete when Opal blew a plume of smoke in his direction. Forte decided that the man had come to put the bite on him again: his manner was that of a pimp making the rounds to collect the day’s take.
“Care for coffee, Dr. Opal-or perhaps you’d prefer a drink?” He waved his hand at the rows of bottles and crystal behind sliding glass doors at the far end of the room.
Opal shook his head.
“I’m here on business.”
“Business? I thought we concluded our business last week.”
“That was last week’s business. I’m here on this week’s business.”
“I see.”
Opal examined the end of his cigarette. It seemed to annoy him.
“I guess you, with your scientists in white coats and big underground laboratories, think nobody else can do research-one of the little people like me, for instance.”
Forte felt his choler rising. Those who identified themselves with the great faceless masses-the stock-in-trade of politicians and other charlatans-never failed to enrage him.
“What research have you been doing?” Forte enquired softly.
Opal puffed his cigarette and looked at Forte with a self-satisfied smirk.
“I knew you had something up your sleeve when you-” He tensed suddenly and looked about the room. Then he relaxed and with studied casualness took another drag on the cigarette. “. . . when you and I had that discussion.”
“Personally, I’d put hot water pretty far down on the list of mortal sins,” Forte observed.
“The government doesn’t,” Opal snapped.
“So you’ve reported the incident, after all?”
“Not yet.”
“Why not?”
“You see, a few days ago I rented a helicopter and fitted it out with high-resolution infrared sensors. Then
I coupled it to the helicopter’s own inertial navigation system. I taped the output of both devices over a thirty-square-kilometer search area around SD-1. I then ran the tapes through the NRC computer and had a printout superimposed on a map of the channel area. What do you think I found?”
“That a straight beats three-of-a-kind?” On the knee-hole speed key he tapped out a message to his security staff to have two men standing by outside his office. . He didn’t have to specify that they be tough, mean, and efficient: they all were.
“I found,” Opal said, “that the thermal energy radiated by the heat sinks you have registered with the NRC for recirculation of nuclear reactor water in your test units was close to zero. On the other hand, that emanating from the Texas basin damn near busted the readout.”
“So? You knew that when you came calling on us at SD-1 last week.”
“Yes, but I hadn’t checked the currents in the channel then. I did yesterday. For all practical purposes, the channel is filled with dead water. And that changes the whole picture.”
“I don’t see how.”
“Come on, Will.” Opal chuckled. “Of course you do. I had naturally assumed that the reactor heat had been carried far out into the channel by currents. But if the currents don’t exist, then the only explanation for temperature transfer of that magnitude is by radiation, not convection. Heat radiation through water is a much slower process than convection. That means that the diversion of hot water has been going on-not days or weeks, as you had led me to believe-but months.”
“Pretty shrewd, Doctor.”
“Just wait. . . . Early this morning I took a stroll along the channel bank. I talked with some of the old-timers there, asked about their catches lately. Surprising thing, they told me-ever since January, fishing has improved considerably in waters around the Texas basin. They couldn’t account for it. But I could: the heated waters, particularly during winter and spring, had caused a proliferation of macroscopic fauna and flora on which fish live. I rented a boat and spent two hours trolling along the channel. Didn’t catch a thing, except three little ones down near the Texas. Get the picture, Will?”