Twenty more completed solar-power smallsats sat in storage at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena. Scheduling their launch aboard one of the shuttle flights had always been problematic, as was using a Delta Clipper or even one of the Pegasus rockets.
Sandia’s prototype railgun on Oscura Peak seemed a viable alternative for launching smallsats, but the rails needed to be extended so the satellite could reach a proper orbit. Unlike delicate space probes or megachannel communications satellites, the smallsats were simple energy collectors with microwave transmitters. They could withstand the huge acceleration of an electromagneti catapult. Perhaps the railgun people would be interested in teaming up for a test case, once they upgraded their equipment; but that might take years.
He finally drifted off to sleep without coming up with any new ideas.
Spencer woke up refreshed, though a bit stiff. Unfolding the road map of California, he saw that it wouldn’t take him much out of his way to cut through Death Valley National Monument—a place he had always wanted to see. He would never make the trip otherwise, and he’d always resent never taking the time if he skipped it now. “What the heck,” he said, “I’m doing the rest of this road trip on impulse.”
He made a quick call to Rita Fellenstein to inform her he was going to be a little later than he thought; she knew better than to bring up any business and just left him alone.
The previous night had been chilly, and the white Mazda chugged and grunted as he tried to start it. When the engine finally caught, Spencer sniffed a sulfurous odor, muttered to himself about the “Bakersfield stench,” then drove off.
He wound past grassy hummocks studded with an arsenal of oil pumps toiling away. The road plunged through Kern Canyon, sheer cliffs covered with wildflowers rising on either side. The river boiling with spring thaw and the rugged rocks made for spectacular scenery, but horrific driving conditions. Other trucks and cars took the curves wide, usually not bothering to check if someone might be in the oncoming lane. He hugged the cliff wall as he drove, sitting bolt upright.
Despite the challenging road, Spencer found his thoughts returning to his high school days when a girl named Sandy—an odd name, considering that her hair was coal black—had taken the bright nerdy kid under her wing as a social welfare project.
Sandy was the older sister of one of Spencer’s equally nerdy buddies. She talked Spencer into trading his black-rimmed glasses for hard contact lenses. She convinced him to go to a hair stylist to get his hair cut, rather than having his mother do it. She ruthlessly went through his closet like a guard weeding out prisoners; she paid no attention to his protests as she tossed out threadbare plaid shirts he had worn since junior high, corduroy pants that rode too high above his ankles, shirts with pen-stained pockets—and then she took him shopping.
Spencer rapidly developed a crush on Sandy, but she had no romantic interest in her “project”; she just wanted to see if she could turn an ugly duckling into a swan. He was content to wait, knowing that someday that special girl would come into his life. Newly charged with self-confidence, he entered college as a different person. From that point on, he had Sandy to thank for his success in life as much as his mentor Dr. Seth Mansfield. Now if he could just find the girl with the sunburned nose….
After about an hour of mountain driving Spencer approached a gas station with a house trailer behind it. A sign at the side of the road announced “Dick Morgret’s LAST CHANCE Gas Station.” He glanced at his fuel gauge, surprised to see he had only about a quarter of a tank left. He had filled up in Bakersfield the night before, and he had been traveling only a few hours. “Stupid rental car!” he muttered. Or had someone siphoned his tank?
He decelerated swiftly and pulled into the station’s gravel drive. A breeze kicked up dust, obscuring a Marlboro sign rocking back and forth on metal feet. The place looked abandoned, but as soon as Spencer stopped the car, the plywood door of the house trailer creaked open, and an old man in coveralls clomped down the metal steps. The man—Morgret himself?—raised a hand in greeting, then picked up a bucket and squeegee next to the cigarette sign.
Spencer glanced at the pumps, saw no Self-Serve sign, and waited for the old man to come over. He popped the gas tank.
“Morning,” Morgret said. “Fill her up? Or are you just one of those piss-heads wanting directions?”
Spencer couldn’t stop himself from laughing. “No, give me all the gas you can fit in the tank.”
Morgret grinned again, exposing brown teeth. “For that, you get your windshield washed. You’re going to have plenty of bugs splattered across it once you get down to the desert. It’s butterfly season, and the air is full of them.”
Morgret yanked the hose from the pump and slid the metal nozzle into Spencer’s gas tank. His weathered face puckered up at the rotten smell. “What you got in there, son?”
Spencer shrugged, distracted by the surrounding mountains and the isolation. “It’s a rental car.” Horses ambled across a scrubby clearing in the distance, and he wondered if it was a wild herd. He hadn’t had a chance to look at the scenery without risking driving off a cliff. “Is this really the last gas station before you get out of the mountains?”
Morgret chuckled. “Nah, there’s another one twenty miles down the road, before you hit Highway 395. The sign makes for good business, though.”
“I bet.”
Morgret left the pump while he grabbed the dripping squeegee and slathered the windshield. “Nobody reads close enough. Sign says Dick Morgret’s Last Chance. This station is my last chance—I got nothing but this house trailer, squatter’s rights on this land, and a pretty damn shaky line of credit with the oil company. If this place goes belly up, I might as well do the same.” He finished the windshield, then went back to squirt a few more cents into the tank to round out the dollar. “Twenty one bucks.”
As Spencer paid him, Morgret said, “You get that car checked, you hear? Don’t like that funny smell. Something’s wrong with your catalytic converter, I bet.”
Spencer nodded. “I’ll report it when I turn in the car.”
As he drove off, Spencer saw the old man sniff the nozzle on his pump, then shuffle back toward his house trailer.
Only a few hours later, Spencer stared at the gas gauge in disbelief, then managed to wrestle the dying Mazda Protege off the road to the gravelly shoulder. For the last ten miles the rental car sounded like it was gargling gasoline. He wondered if it had a slow leak in the gas tank.
Feeling as desolate as the landscape around him, Spencer opened the car door and stepped out onto the road, shading his eyes against the afternoon sun.
It was the worst place in the world for a car to break down.
He had driven out of the Sierra Nevadas into the expanse of the Mojave Desert, past forests of gnarly Joshua trees. Some of the towns on his map were no more than rusty signs, boarded-up houses, and abandoned motels.
The car expired as he reached the intersection of Highway 136, coming from the Lone Pine Indian Reservation. The two roads met at a stop sign, but Spencer could not imagine two vehicles being on the road at the same time. He was totally alone.
He stood beside the open car door and peered into the distance. Nothing. The surrounding stillness swallowed all other background noise. He saw the volcanic Inyo Mountains in front of him, swirls of caustic white powder whipped up like dust devils from breezes over the dry lake bed to his left. He saw no blade of grass, no living thing other than a few mesquite bushes and cactus.