Powersat (The Grand Tour) by Ben Bova Page A

dinner jacket and black tie immediately opened the door and ushered them into the suite. It was richly carpeted,
furnished in big plush pieces and polished oak. The drapes were drawn over windows that spanned two walls of the sitting room.
    Scanwell was sitting back on the long sofa, his jacket off, his tie loosened, and a cut crystal tumbler of bourbon in his hand.
    “Hello, Governor,” Dan said. “It’s good of you to give us some of your time.”
    “Come on in,” Scanwell called to Dan and Kinsky. Gesturing to the bar, “Have a drink.” The governor perched his booted feet on the coffee table.
    Jane was nowhere in sight. Two more aides were standing by the bar, the man wearing slacks and a light brown sports jacket, the woman in a tailored pantsuit. Obviously neither one of them had been at the dinner downstairs. Then Dan noticed the butt of a pistol inside the guy’s jacket. Bodyguards.
    Dan reached for the San Pellegrino water from the row of bottles lined up atop the bar.
    “There’s beer in the fridge if you prefer,” the male aide said. “Lone Star longnecks.”
    Dan made a smile and poured the water. “Thanks anyway,” he said, thinking that he’d better stay sober through this meeting.
    “I think y’all can wait outside in the hall,” Scanwell said to his aide and the bodyguards. “I’ll yell if I need anything.”
    As they were leaving Jane came in from the bedroom, smoothing her hair. Dan’s breath caught in his throat. She smiled uncertainly at him, then went to the sofa and sat beside Scanwell.
    “C’mon over,” Scanwell said, waving to Dan. “Make yourself comfortable.”
    Dan took the upholstered chair on the opposite side of the glass coffee table. Kinsky sat off to one side.
    Scanwell gave Dan a friendly grin. “What I’d like to know,” he said, “is how you talked my parks department into letting you lease part of a state park and turn it into your rocket base:” Dan realized that the governor’s voice was slightly hoarse. Too much talking over the noise of the crowd, he thought.
    Grinning back at the governor, Dan replied, “They needed
the cash. Budget deficits and all that. But it still wasn’t easy. I had to sweet-talk sixteen different staffs of bureaucrats to let me use the old Wynne ranch property.”
    Scanwell shook his head. “I caught a lot of flak over that when I ran for reelection.”
    “But Calhoun County voted for you very solidly,” Dan countered. “They appreciate the new jobs.”
    “How many engineers do you have down there?”
    “It’s not just the engineers. It’s the people who run the new ferry. And the motel. And the truck drivers and road crews and building trades people. They all vote, and they all like the paychecks they’re getting.”
    “But how did you ever get it past my environmental protection people?”
    Dan’s smile widened. “Governor, NASA’s big Kennedy Space Center sits right alongside the Cape Canaveral National Wildlife Reserve. Launching rockets doesn’t bother the pelicans.”
    Scanwell cocked his head slightly to one side. “Well maybe so. Still, you must be a very convincing guy … .”
    “Dan can be extremely convincing,” Jane said without a smile, “when he wants to be.”
    “Jane’s been telling me about your project,” Scanwell said.
    “I’ll be frank with you, Governor,” Dan said. “My company’s in deep financial trouble.”
    Scanwell nodded sympathetically. “So I hear.”
    “But if I can make it work,” Dan went on, “if I can start to deliver electrical power from the satellite, it will change the energy picture for America. For the whole world.”
    “That’s a big if, though, isn’t it?”
    “Not as far as the technology is concerned. We know how to make the satellite work. It’s the economics that’s a bitch.”
    Scanwell laughed. “Isn’t it always?”
    Jane said, “Energy independence could be a major part of Morgan’s campaign.”
    Morgan, Dan thought. She calls him by his