Spin (26 page)

The psychological tangent wasn’t hard to understand. Neither was the violence. Lots of people harbor grievances, but only those who have lost faith in the future are likely to show up at work with an automatic rifle and a hit list. The Hypotheticals, whether they meant to or not, had incubated exactly that kind of terminal despair. The suicidally disgruntled were legion, and their enemies included any and all Americans, Brits, Canadians, Danes, et cetera; or, conversely, all Moslems, dark-skinned people, non-English-speakers, immigrants; all Catholics, fundamentalists, atheists; all liberals, all conservatives… For such people the consummate act of moral clarity was a lynching or a suicide bombing,
a fatwa
or a pogrom. And they were ascendant now, rising like dark stars over a terminal landscape.

We lived in dangerous times. Mrs. Tuckman knew that, and all the Xanax in the world wasn’t going to convince her otherwise.

During lunch I secured a table at the back of the staff cafeteria, where I nursed a coffee, watched rain fall on the parking lot, and perused the magazine Molly had given me.

If there were a science of Spinology
, the lead article began,
Jason Lawton would be its Newton, its Einstein, its Stephen Hawking
.

Which was what E.D. had always encouraged the press to say and what Jase had always dreaded hearing.

From radiological surveys to permeability studies, from hard-core science to philosophical debate, there is hardly an area of Spin study his ideas haven’t touched and transformed. His published papers are numerous and oft-cited. His attendance turns sleepy academic conferences into instant media events. And as acting director of the Perihelion Foundation he has powerfully influenced American and global aerospace policy in the Spin era.

But amidst the real accomplishments
—
and occasional hype
—
surrounding Jason Lawton, it’s easy to forget that Perihelion was founded by his father, Edward Dean (E. D.) Lawton, who still holds a preeminent place on the steering committee and in the presidential cabinet. And the public image of the son, some would argue, is also the creation of the more mysterious, equally influential, and far less public elder Lawton
.

The article went on to detail E.D.‘s early career: the massive success of aerostat telecommunications in the aftermath of the Spin, his virtual adoption by three successive presidential administrations, the creation of the Perihelion Foundation.

Originally conceived as a think tank and industry lobby, Perihelion was eventually reinvented as an agency of the federal government, designing Spin-related space missions and coordinating the work of dozens of universities, research institutions, and NASA centers. In effect, the decline of “the old NASA” was Perihelion’s rise. A decade ago the relationship was formalized and a subtly reorganized Perihelion was officially annexed to NASA as an advisory body. In reality, insiders say, it was NASA that was annexed to Perihelion. And while young prodigy Jason Lawton was charming the press, his father continued to pull the strings.

The article went on to question E.D.‘s long relationship with the Garland administration and hinted at a potential scandal: certain instrument packages had been manufactured for several million dollars apiece by a small Pasadena firm run by one of E.D.’s old cronies, even though Ball Aerospace had tendered a lower-cost proposal.

We were living through an election campaign in which both major parties had spun off radical factions. Garland, a Reform Republican of whom the magazine notoriously disapproved, had already served two terms, and Preston Lomax, Clayton’s V.P. and anointed successor, was running ahead of his opponent in recent polls. The “scandal” really wasn’t one. Ball’s proposal had been lower but the package they designed was less effective; the Pasadena engineers had crammed more instrumentation into an equivalent payload weight.

I said as much to Molly over dinner at Champs, a mile down the road from Perihelion. There was nothing really new about the article. The insinuations were more political than substantial.

“Does it matter,” Molly asked, “if they’re right or wrong? The important thing is how they’re playing us. Suddenly it’s okay for a major media outlet to take shots at Perihelion.”

Elsewhere in the issue an editorial had described the Mars project as “the single most expensive boondoggle in history, costly in human lives as well as cash, a monument to the human ability to squeeze profit from a global catastrophe.” The author was a speechwriter for the Christian Conservative Party. “The CCP owns this rag, Moll. Everybody knows that.”

“They want to shut us down.”

“They won’t shut us down. Even if Lomax loses the election. Even if they scale us back to surveillance missions, we’re the only eye on the Spin the nation has.”

“Which doesn’t mean we won’t all be fired and replaced.”

“It’s not that bad.”

She looked unconvinced.

Molly was the nurse/receptionist I had inherited from Dr. Koenig when I first came to Perihelion. For most of five years she had been a polite, professional, and efficient piece of office furniture. We had exchanged little more than customary pleasantries, by which I had come to know that she was single, three years younger than I was, and living in a walk-up apartment away from the ocean. She had never seemed especially talkative and I had assumed she preferred it that way.

Then, less than a month ago, Molly had turned to me as she collected her purse for a Thursday-night drive home and asked me if I’d like to join her for dinner. Why? “Because I got tired of waiting for you to ask. So? Yes? No?”

Yes.

Molly turned out to be smart, sly, cynical, and better company than I had expected. We’d been sharing meals at Champs for three weeks now. We liked the menu (unpretentious) and the atmosphere (collegial). I often thought Molly looked her best in that vinyl booth at Champs, gracing it with her presence, lending it a certain dignity. Her blond hair was long and, tonight, limp in the massive humidity. The green in her eyes was a deliberate effect, colored contacts, but it looked good on her.

“Did you read the sidebar?” she asked.

“Glanced at it.” The magazine’s sidebar profile of Jason had contrasted his career success with a private life either impenetrably hidden or nonexistent.
Acquaintances say his home is as sparsely furnished as his romantic life. There has never been a rumor of a fiance, girlfriend, or spouse of either gender. One comes away with an impression of a man not merely married to his ideas but almost pathologically devoted to them. And in many ways Jason Lawton, like Perihelion itself, remains under the stifling influence of his father. For all his accomplishments, he has yet to emerge himself as his own man.

“At least that part sounds right,” Molly said.

“Does it? Jason can be a little self-centered, but—”

“He comes through reception like I don’t exist. I mean, that’s trivial, but it’s not exactly
warm
. How’s his treatment going?”

“I’m not treating him for anything, Moll.” Molly had seen Jason’s charts, but I hadn’t made any entries about his AMS. “He comes in to talk.”

“Uh-huh. And sometimes when he comes in to talk he’s practically limping. No, you don’t have to tell me about it. But I’m not blind. For your information. Anyway, he’s in Washington now, right?”

More often than he was in Florida. “Lot of talking going on. People are positioning themselves for the post-election.”

“So something’s in the works.”

“Something’s always in the works.”

“I mean about Perihelion. The support staff gets clues. For instance, you want to know what’s weird? We just acquired another hundred acres of property west of the fence. I heard this from Tim Chesley, the transcriptionist in human resources. Supposedly, we’ve got surveyors coming in next week.”

“For what?”

“Nobody knows. Maybe we’re expanding. Or maybe they’re turning us into a mall.”

It was the first I’d heard of it.

“You’re out of the loop,” Molly said, smiling. “You need contacts. Like me.”

After dinner we adjourned to Molly’s apartment, where I spent the night.

I won’t describe here the gestures, looks, and touches by which we negotiated our intimacy. Not because I’m prudish but because I seem to have lost the memory. Lost it to time, lost it to the reconstruction. And yes, I register the irony in that. I can quote the magazine article we discussed and I can tell you what she had for dinner at Champs… but all that’s left of our lovemaking is a faded mental snapshot: a dimly lit room, a damp breeze turning spindles of cloth in an open window, her green eyes close to mine.

Within a month Jase was back at Perihelion, stalking the hallways as if he had been infused with some strange new energy.

He brought with him an army of security personnel, black-clad and of uncertain origin but believed to represent the Department of the Treasury. These were followed in turn by small battalions of contractors and surveyors who cluttered the hallways and refused to speak to resident staff. Molly kept me posted on rumors: the compound was going to be leveled; the compound was going to be expanded; we would all be fired; we would all get raises. In short, something was afoot.

For most of a week I heard nothing from Jason himself. Then, a slow Thursday afternoon, he paged me in my office and asked me to come up to the second floor: “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

Before I reached the now heavily guarded stairwell I had picked up an escort of armed guards with all-pass badges who conducted me to an upstairs conference room. Not just a casual hello, obviously. This was deep Perihelion business, to which I should not have been privy. Once again, apparently, Jason had decided to share secrets. Never an unmixed blessing. I took a deep breath and pushed through the door.

The room contained a mahogany table, a half dozen plush chairs, and two men in addition to myself.

One of the men was Jason.

The second man could have been mistaken for a child. A horribly burned child in desperate need of a skin graft: that was my first impression. This individual, roughly five feet tall, stood in a corner of the room. He wore blue jeans and a plain white cotton T-shirt. His shoulders were broad, his eyes were wide and bloodshot, and his arms seemed a trifle too long for his abbreviated torso.

But what was most striking about him was his skin. His skin was glossless, ash black, and completely hairless. It wasn’t wrinkled in the conventional sense—it wasn’t
loose
, like a bloodhound’s skin—but it was deeply textured, furrowed, like the rind of a cantaloupe.

The small man walked toward me and put out his hand. A small wrinkled hand at the end of a long wrinkled arm. I took it, hesitantly. Mummy fingers, I thought. But fleshy, plump, like the leaves of a desert plant, like grabbing a handful of aloe vera and feeling it grab back. The creature grinned.

“This is Wun,” Jason said.

“One
what
?”

Wun laughed. His teeth were large, blunt, and immaculate. “I never tire of that splendid joke!”

His full name was Wun Ngo Wen, and he was from Mars.

The man from Mars.

It was a misleading description. Martians have a long literary history, from Wells to Heinlein. But in reality, of course, Mars was a dead planet. Until we fixed it. Until we birthed our own Martians.

And here, apparently, was a living specimen, 99.9 percent human if slightly oddly designed. A Martian
person
, descended through millennia of Spin-hinged time from the colonists we had dispatched only two years ago. He spoke punctilious English. His accent sounded half Oxford, half New Delhi. He paced the room. He took a bottle of spring water from the table, unscrewed the cap, and drank deeply. He wiped his mouth with his forearm. Small droplets beaded on his corrugated flesh.

I sat down and tried not to stare while Jase explained.

Here’s what he said, a little simplified and fleshed out with details I learned later.

The Martian had left his planet shortly before the Spin membrane was imposed upon it.

Wun Ngo Wen was a historian and a linguist, relatively young by Martian standards—fifty-five terrestrial years— and physically fit. He was a scholar by trade, currently between assignments, donating labor to agricultural cooperatives, and he had just spent a Sparkmonth on the delta of the Kirioloj River, in what we called the Argyre Basin and Martians called the Baryal Plain
(Epu Baryal)
when his summons to duty came.

Like thousands of other men and women of his age and class, Wun had submitted his credentials to the committees who were designing and coordinating a proposed journey to Earth, without any real expectation that he would be selected. He was, in fact, relatively timid by nature and had never ventured far beyond his own prefecture, except for scholarly journeys and family reunions. He was deeply dismayed when his name was called, and if he had not recently entered his Fourth Age he might have refused the request. Surely someone else would be better suited to the task? But no, apparently not; his talents and life history were uniquely suited to the work, the authorities insisted; so he settled his affairs (such as they were) and boarded a train to the launch complex at Basalt Dry (on our maps, Tharsis), where he was trained to represent the Five Republics on a diplomatic mission to Earth.

Martian technology had only recently embraced the notion of manned space travel. In the past it had seemed to the governing councils a profoundly unwise adventure, liable to attract the attention of the Hypotheticals, wasteful of resources, requiring acts of large-scale manufacturing that would dump unbudgeted volatiles into a meticulously managed and highly vulnerable biosphere. The Martians were conservators by nature, hoarders by instinct. Their small-scale and biological technologies were ancient and sophisticated, but their industrial base was shallow and had already been strained by the unmanned exploration of the planet’s tiny, useless moons.