Power Play (39 page)
They were all staring at him: Tomlinson, Amy, Rogers, Tim Younger, and Glynis. I can’t go to Washington, Jake told himself. I can’t just pull up stakes at the university and trot off to Washington. He’ll be in the Senate for six years, at least.
“What do you say, Jake?” Tomlinson asked, almost gently.
“I … this is kind of a surprise,” Jake temporized. “I’ll have to think about it.”
Tomlinson gave him a dazzling smile. “You think about it, then.” Turning to Amy, he went on, “And you find him an apartment in D.C.”
* * *
Jake nodded numbly and slipped out of the broom closet as quickly as he could, his mind spinning. The party was ebbing, people were drifting toward the doors. A dance combo was still playing soft music, but the oompah band was packing up its brass instruments.
Tomlinson’s father stalked by, looking nettled. “Have you seen my son?” he demanded of Jake. Without waiting for a reply he stamped past, muttering, “CBS News wants to interview him and he goes into hiding on me.”
Jake held back an impulse to laugh. It’s all so funny, he thought. Tomlinson’s going to be our new senator. He’s going to marry Amy and get out from under his father’s thumb. Glynis is all wrapped up with Tim. And Tomlinson wants me to go to Washington with him.
I can’t go to Washington, he repeated to himself. I can’t. I don’t know anybody there. I’ve never been out of this state in my life; all my friends are here.
All what friends? Jake asked himself. Bob Rogers? Tim? Glynis?
“Jake.”
It was Dr. Cardwell’s soft voice. Jake turned and saw his mentor smiling gently at him.
“Hello, Lev.”
“Quite an evening, isn’t it?” said Cardwell.
“Yeah.”
“You did a fine job, Jake. I’m proud of you.”
Ordinarily that would have made Jake’s day. Instead, he heard himself say, “He wants me to work on his staff. In Washington.”
Cardwell beamed. “That’s wonderful! You’ll be science advisor to a United States senator. Wonderful!”
“I can’t go to Washington.”
“Why not?”
“I’ve got my job at the university.…”
Cardwell waved a hand in the air. “Oh, the university will give you a leave of absence. It’ll be quite a feather in their caps to have a member of the faculty on the staff of the state’s new senator.”
“I don’t know anybody in Washington.”
“So you’ll make new friends. You won’t be lonely for long.”
Jake looked down at the older man’s owlish face. I’m lonely here, he realized.
Cardwell gripped Jake’s elbow and led him toward the row of French doors at the far side of the auditorium.
“Where’s Mrs. Cee?” Jake asked as he reluctantly allowed Cardwell to steer him.
“Oh, Alice is chatting with some old friends. She won’t miss us for a few minutes.”
Before Jake could ask where they were going, Cardwell opened one of the glass doors. They stepped out onto the balcony, into the dark November night. It was cloudy and a chill breeze was blowing. Jake turned up his jacket collar.
“God must hate astronomers,” Jake complained, leaning on the balcony’s rail as he looked up at the sky. “All these cloudy nights.”
Cardwell chuckled softly. “That’s why astronomers have to move off the ground and get into orbit.”
“I guess,” Jake conceded.
“You could help to make that happen. In Washington.”
“You think I should go, Lev?”
Cardwell seemed totally unaffected by the cold. He stood beside Jake at the balcony’s rail, wearing nothing more than his usual gray suit and bow tie.
“I think you have to go, Jake,” Cardwell said softly. “I think it will be good for you and good for Senator Tomlinson.”
“Maybe.”
“Pushing for MHD won’t be easy,” Cardwell added. “It’s not a sure thing. The energy lobby has a lot of inertia built into it.”
“Yeah.”
“And there are all the other science issues: global warming, stem cell research, health … you’ll have your hands full.”
Nodding, Jake said, “You know, Tomlinson could be a real force in Washington. We need a senator who works for scientific progress.”
“And the senator needs a science advisor who’ll help him get things accomplished.”
Suddenly Jake blurted, “I guess I don’t have anything to keep me here. Not really. It’s not like I’m Mr. Popularity or anything.”
“You can work with your grad students on the Mars probe,” Cardwell suggested. “What with e-mail and all, you don’t have to be on campus to work with them. You don’t have to be in the same state.”
“It’s not that easy, Lev.”
“I know. I understand. But you can do it, Jake. I know you can.”
Jake said nothing. His mind was churning, whirling. He got a mental image of a clothes dryer, with all the ideas and possibilities of the future tumbling over each other, spinning, stirring.
Cardwell pointed out toward the horizon. “Look!”
The clouds had parted and Jake saw a single ruddy point of light hanging in the night sky, a steady glowing light staring at him.
“Mars,” he breathed.
Cardwell said softly, “Tomlinson could be in the Senate for a long time, Jake. Long enough to get human explorers to Mars. If he has the right science advice.”
Jake grinned down at his mentor. “MHD’s not enough for you, huh?”
“MHD is merely the beginning, my boy,” said Cardwell. “Merely the beginning.”
TOR BOOKS BY BEN BOVA
Able One
The Aftermath
As on a Darkling Plain
The Astral Mirror
Battle Station
The Best of the Nebulas
(editor)
Challenges
Colony
Cyberbooks
Escape Plus
The Green Trap
Gremlins Go Home
(with Gordon R. Dickson)
Jupiter
The Kinsman Saga
Leviathans of Jupiter
Mars Life
Mercury
The Multiple Man
Orion
Orion Among the Stars
Orion and the Conqueror
Orion in the Dying Time
Out of Sun
Peacekeepers
Power Play
Powersat
The Precipice
Privateers
Prometheans
The Rock Rats
Saturn
The Silent War
Star Peace: Assured Survival
The Starcrossed
Tale of the Grand Tour
Test of Fire
Titan
To Fear the Light
(with A. J. Austin)
To Save the Sun
(with A. J. Austin)
The Trikon Deception
(with Bill Pogue)
Triumph
Vengeance of Orion
Venus
Voyagers
Voyagers II: The Alien Within
Voyagers III: Star Brothers
The Return: Book IV of Voyagers
The Winds of Altair
About the Author
Ben Bova is a six-time winner of the Hugo Award, a former editor of
Analog
, former editorial director of
Omni
, and a past president of both the National Space Society and the Science Fiction Writers of America. Bova is the author of more than a hundred works of science fact and fiction. He lives in Florida.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
POWER PLAY
Copyright © 2011 by Ben Bova
All rights reserved.
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
Tor
®
is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bova, Ben, 1932–
Power play / Ben Bova. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
e-ISBN 9781429924184
1. Scientists—Fiction. 2. Energy development—Fiction. 3. Political fiction. I. Title.
PS3552.O84P58 2012
813'.54—dc23
2011024949
First Edition: January 2012