She’d folded her hands in front of her. “Let’s put it this way: what’s your budget? Forty, fifty billion a year?” She scrutinized his reaction. “Sixty? Whatever it is, it just became surplus, thanks to our Martian gift. And NASA, if you don’t mind my rubbing it in.”
She let the news sink in. “Which would be very bad for you, if you were the kind of man who places self-interest above the country’s. Fortunately, you’re not that kind of man. But you’re also intelligent enough to know what will happen with that money if you simply hand it back to Congress; intelligent enough to know you’d be handing to people who do place their own interests above the country’s.
“I’ve got a suggestion on what to do with that money, however. A suggestion which I think you’ll find very interesting.”
“Oh?” Larry put on his most severe face, and tried to forget the bald fact Jennifer had just laid before him. Her suggestion was obvious, and he had to disabuse her of yet another fantasy before it went too far. “You’re forgetting something, Jennifer. It’s not my money. The only power I have with it is what the United States government has given me. Which is probably not as much as you believe. I sure as hell can’t just donate it to other agencies, however worthy they may be. Sorry, the answer is no.”
Jennifer didn’t flinch at the curt answer, however. “No to what? Hear me out, Larry. You don’t have the power to carry out our scheme, but you do have the ear of someone who does. Not that I’ve ever met President Freyman, but from what I’ve heard she’s a very intelligent person who happens to have the remarkable trait of actually caring about the country. If anyone can organize the kind of conspiracy at the level we need, it’s her.”
All the arguments that were assembling in Larry’s mind, and all the convictions he would bring to them, evaporated in that moment. “Conspiracy?”
“To illegally divert funds to space.” She raised a finger. “I don’t mean just to NASA. They’ve been so bureaucratized over the years that even with sufficient funding they probably couldn’t do what needs to be done. Besides, how would they explain where they suddenly got the money for things like a lunar colony?
“But an international effort won’t have that problem, especially if we launder most of the money through ‘private’ investors and other fronts. Governments will be involved too, of course. Japan, Russia, China and the Commonwealth all have active programs which would accomplish a great deal if they could be induced to cooperate; an influx of tens of billions of dollars should be sufficient inducement for most if not all of them. Which means that for the first time in history, space will truly be a human endeavor, not just another expression of nationalism.
“It wouldn’t take much to get started,” Jennifer pressed on before Larry could say anything—not that he could imagine what to say. “A mere 10 percent skimmed off in places where it wouldn’t arouse suspicion, would give us the ground-based facilities we’d need in a couple of years. Then when these new programs get ‘promising’ you pour it on. Finally, when the time is right, you whip out your cold fusion solutions to the country’s energy problems—which you’ve also secretly been working on. The department won’t have much life after that, but what difference will it make? We’ll have a real space station by then, with the facilities needed for staging manned missions anywhere in the Solar System. With the leftover funds we’ll build that lunar colony, which in turn will become the starting place for other things, like asteroid mining.
“At the same time we’ll be developing the technologies that space needs. Complete recycling. Improved in situ manufacturing. Sophisticated robotics. Things that will improve life down here also but are absolute necessities for making space pay off.”
Larry was listening in an astonishment he hadn’t known in... in all the years since Jennifer had walked out of his life. “You really expect to do all this with department money with nobody ever finding out?” he said when she’d finished. “You must be out of your mind, Jennifer. Do you have any idea what it would take?—Even Freyman couldn’t pull it off.” He shook his head.
Jennifer sighed as though she’d known that would be his response. “I’m not under the illusion it’ll be easy. But what choice do we have? Like I said, even you know in your heart of hearts that humanity either goes into space big time or dies on the vine. I don’t know whatever made you think differently; fear I suppose, or maybe you just got caught up the intellectual fashions of the times. Whatever it was, it’s time to get back to your roots.”
Larry had been ready to castigate her as the most foolish person he’d ever known; a child who would never grow up and face reality. He’d been ready to stand and deliver his judgment, then walk out on her without even glancing back (taking the globe with him, of course). But her words touched him somewhere, a place where he hadn’t been in many years. Touched and confused him only further. All he could do was sit and look at her in silence.
“You know what I’m talking about,” she said. “You’ve spent half your life persuading the country that we had to put space aside, but the Larry Kraus I fell in love with felt very differently. Or maybe you don’t remember. That first time we made love?”
He flushed at the reminder of what they’d once been, but found the memory quickly. That night they’d gone camping on Palomar with friends. At Jennifer’s prodding they’d snuck off after dinner to see the great Hale telescope—a two-hour hike along unlit roads that vanished into blackness once twilight ran out, which it did shortly after they’d started back. It quickly became clear that they’d no chance of finding their way back to camp until morning. And that without a source of warmth they were going to be extremely uncomfortable; a mile above sea level, even nights in southern California in August could be quite cold. But fortunately, Jennifer knew how to build a fire and corral its heat with a shelter of rocks and sticks and conifer needles.
He’d never before, or since, seen so many stars in the night sky. A sky so ablaze that it was impossible to identify individual ones, or make out the constellations. The stars were so numerous and bright they seemed to contribute their own warmth to the tiny, Earth-bound womb and its pale womb beneath them. For the first time in his life, Larry felt the presence of something so much greater than himself that he could do nothing but lie there and acknowledge it. And yes, hunger for it…
“So, you do remember.” There was a seductive pleasure in Jennifer’s face. “I’ve never forgotten the look on your face at seeing all those stars; not to mention the passion they brought out in you later. It was why I fell in love with you that night. I saw how, inside, you felt the same way I did. I thought we were going to go to those stars together. I still thought that, even after you turned against space. Even after I… we stopped seeing each other.
“Part of me still holds on to the dream I first had there, however. Silly, I know; we won’t be going to the stars. But we can still be part of the dream.”
Larry had been motionless while she spoke. Now that she was done the only thing he could think to say was, “We?”
“Yes, you too. Why not? You were studying to become an engineer. How would you like to find yourself designing space stations and lunar colonies? You used to find the idea compelling enough.”
Larry found those memories too. “That was a long time ago. Things have changed…” But now they’ve changed again. You’ve been given the chance you thought you’d never have. He took the globe in his hands and held it up. He felt it staring back at him, like a great eye, challenging him. Like the stars on Palomar, so many years—nights—ago.