Sam’s War
by Ben Bova
Illustration by George Krauter
I know it is incredible to believe that Sam Gunn, of all people, saved civilization-as-we-know-it. But the chauvinistic little Gringo did. Although he never got the credit for it.
Yet he was lucky, at that. After all, I was supposed to murder him.
Not that I am a professional assassin, you understand. The daughter of el Presidente is no common thug. I followed a higher calling: national honor, patriotism, love of my people and my father. Especially, love of my father.
Ecuador was, and still is, a democracy. My beloved father was, but sadly is no longer, its presidente. Above all else, you must realize that Ecuador was, and always had been, among the poorest nations of the Earth.
Ah, but we owned something of inestimable value. Or at least, we owned a part of it. Or at the very least, we claimed ownership of a part of it.
The equator. It runs across our noble country. Our nation’s very name is equatorial. An imaginary line, you say. Not entirely imaginary. For above the equator, some thirty-five thousand kilometers above it, lies the only region of space where satellites may be placed in stationary orbits. The space people call it the geostationary orbit, or GEO.
A satellite in GEO rotates around the Earth in precisely the same twenty-three hours, fifty-six minutes and few odd seconds that the Earth itself takes to turn one revolution. Thus a satellite in GEO will appear to hover over one spot above the equator. Communications satellites are placed in GEO so that antennas on the ground can lock onto them easily. They do not wander around the sky, as satellites at lower or higher altitudes do.
It was my father’s genius to understand the value of the equator. It was also his sad destiny to have Sam Gunn as his nemesis.
“The Gringos and the Europeans get rich with their satellites,” father told the other eleven delegations at the meeting.
“And the Japanese, too,” said the representative from Zaire.
“Exactly so.”
As host to this meeting of the Twelve Equatorial Nations, my father stood at the head of the long polished conference table and gave the opening speech. He was a majestic figure in the captain-general’s uniform of sky blue that he had chosen to wear. With the lifts in his gleaming boots he looked almost tall. The uniform tunic’s shoulders were broad and sturdy, the medals gleaming on its breast looked impressive even though they were decorations he had awarded himself. He had long been darkening his hair, but now it was thinning noticeably. He had brought in specialists from North America, from Europe and even China; there was nothing they could recommend except an operation to replace his disappearing hair. My father was brave in many ways, but the thought of personal pain made him hesitate.
So he stood before the other delegates with a receding hairline. I thought his high forehead made him look more handsome, more intellectual. Yet he longed for the full leonine mane of his younger days.
My father had spent the better part of two years working, pleading, cajoling to bring these twelve together. They had come reluctantly, grudgingly, I thought. But they had come. There was much to gain if we could capture the geostationary orbit for ourselves.
I served my father as his personal secretary, so I sat against the wall to one side of his imposing figure, together with the other secretaries and aides and bodyguards. The delegates were of all hues and sizes: the massive Ugandan so dark his skin seemed almost to shine; the Brazilian dapper and dainty in his white silk suit; the silver-haired representative from Kiribati dressed in the colorful robes of his Pacific atolls. One could say that these twelve truly represented the entire human race in all its variety, except for the fact that they were all male. I was the only woman present. Not even one of the other aides was a woman.
Although Ecuador was a poor nation, my father had spared no expense for this conference. The table was sumptuously set with decanters of wine and stronger spirits, trays of Caspian caviar and Argentine beef. The people may be poor, my father often said, but the presidente must rise above their shortcomings. After all, what are taxes for? The miserable revolutionaries in the mountains vowed to put an end to my father’s displays of wealth, and the sour-faced journalists in the cities coined slogans against him, but the people accepted their presidente as they always have accepted the forces of nature over which they have no control.
My father thundered on, his powerful voice making the wines vibrate in their crystal decanters. “The corporations of the northern hemisphere use our territory and give us nothing for it. Imperialism! That’s what it is, nothing but naked imperialism!”
The representatives applauded his words. They were stirred, I could see. They all agreed with my father, each and every one of them. The rich and powerful corporations had taken something that we wanted for ourselves.
But the Indonesian, slim and dark, with the big soulful eyes of a frightened child, waited until the applause ended and then asked softly, “But what can we do about it? We have tried appeals to the United Nations and they have done nothing for us.”
“We have a legal right to the equatorial orbit,” insisted the Kenyan, preaching to the choir. “Our territorial rights are being violated.”
The Brazilian shook his head. “Territorial rights end at the edge of the atmosphere.” The Brazilians had their own space operations running, although they claimed they were not making any profits from it. Rumor had it that key members of their government were siphoning the money into their own pockets.
“They most certainly do not!” my father snapped. “Territorial rights extend to infinity.”
Two-thirds of the men around the table were lawyers and they immediately fell to arguing. I knew the legal situation as well as any of them. Historically, a nation’s territorial rights extended from its boundaries out to infinity. But such legal rights became a shambles once satellites began orbiting the Earth.
The Russians started it all back in 1957 with their original Sputnik, which sailed over virtually every nation on Earth without obtaining prior permission from any of them. No one could shoot down that first satellite, so it established the de facto precedent. But now things were different; anti-satellite weapons existed. True, the big nations refused to sell them to their smaller neighbors. But such weapons were built by corporations, and there were ways to get what one wanted from the corporations—for money.
My father’s strong voice cut through the babble of argument. “To hell with the legalities!”
That stunned them all into silence.
“When a nation’s vital interests are being usurped by foreigners, when a nation’s legal rights are being trampled under the heels of imperialists, when a nation’s wealth is being stolen from its people and their chosen leaders—then that nation must fight back with any and every means at its disposal.”
The Indonesian paled. “You are speaking of war.”
“Exactly so!”
“War?” echoed the Ugandan, dropping the finger sandwich he had been nibbling.
“We have no other course,” my father insisted.
“But… war?” squeaked the slim and timid representative from the Maldives. “Against the United States? Europe? Japan?”
My father smiled grimly. “No. Not against any nation. We must make war against the corporations that are operating in space.”
The Brazilian ran a fingertip across his pencil-thin moustache. “It should be possible to destroy a few satellites with ASATs.” He was showing that he knew not only the political and military situation, but the technical jargon, as well.