“My God, Dan… I wish it wasn’t like this.”
“But it is.”
She leaned her head on his shoulder and he slipped his arms around her waist. Dan’s mind was racing, trying to find a way, thinking of what would happen if…
He lifted her chin and looked into her misty green eyes. “I love you, Jane. I always will.”
“And I love you, Dan.”
She kissed him lightly on the lips. He let his arms slide away from their embrace. They stood face to face, almost touching, silent and miserable.
“Well,” he said, “good luck. After you get elected, invite me to the White House.”
“The Lincoln Bedroom,” she said, trying to smile.
Dan realized there were no more words in him. He walked past her to the plane that was waiting for him. It was the most difficult thing he had ever done.
Matagora Island, Texas
Several weeks later, Dan sat alone at his desk in the evening shadows and watched Morgan Scanwell make his acceptance speech at the convention.
“…and more than mere energy independence, the United States will become the supplier of energy to the world, energy to raise the living standards of the poor: clean, renewable energy to build new industries, new cities…”
His phone called out, “Mr. Yamagata on line one, boss.”
Dan frowned at the synthesized voice’s interruption, but he realized that it must be lunchtime in Tokyo. Despite himself, he grinned at the thought of Saito delaying a meal just to talk to him. So he muted the TV and shrank the scene from the convention to a small box at the bottom corner of the screen.
Saito Yamagata’s round face beamed a big smile at him. “Congratulations, Daniel, my friend. You have a president that will be very helpful to you.”
“He’s not elected yet,” Dan said.
“He will be. My experts assure me that Scanwell will beat the incumbent by a comfortable margin.”
“Let’s hope so.”
“We should discuss a strategic partnership between my corporation and yours,” Yamagata said.
Dan felt his brows hike. “Scanwell’s preaching energy independence, Sai. He wants us to stand by ourselves.”
Yamagata’s smile didn’t falter one millimeter. “What he says now to get elected and what he finds as realities once he’s in the White House are two very different things.”
“Meaning?”
“The Japanese ambassador and his technical aides are already discussing cooperation between Japan and the United States in building power satellites. Surely the global energy market is big enough for us both.”
Dan nodded, thinking, Sai’s no fool. “I get it,” he said to Yamagata. “If Scanwell partners the U.S. with Japan it’ll cut the legs out from under OPEC and the guys who fund terrorists.”
Yamagata made a polite shrug. “It might help Scanwell to overcome the pressures from Garrison and the oil industry, as well.”
“You know that double-damned Garrison cut off Tricontinental’s loans to me as soon as we got the powersat working again.”
“I’m not surprised. Garrison has no interest in helping any form of energy that competes with oil.”
“Maybe.”
“Don’t you worry about him, Daniel. I predict a very bright future for us.”
“Us?”
“Astro and Yamagata. An alliance beneficial to both corporations and to both nations.”
Dan saw in the corner of the screen that Scanwell had finished his acceptance speech. Jane came up beside him and he put an arm around her. Husband and wife.
That’s it, he thought. The whole world knows about them now. It’s over. You’ll never have her. You had your chance and you threw it away. Beau Geste, that’s who the hell I am. A double-damned idiot.
Yamagata was saying, “You’re going to become a very wealthy man, Daniel. An extremely wealthy man.”
“Yeah,” said Dan sourly. “I guess so.”
And he thought about Hannah, Joe Tenny, Pete Larsen, April. Is it worth the cost? Nearly a thousand killed by the terrorists. Is anything worth all those lives?
His eyes strayed from the images on the screen to the models on his desk: the powersat and the spaceplane. We’re going to change the world, Dan told himself. We’ve paid the price, and now we’re going to start bringing the world energy from space.
I’ll get filthy rich, just like Garrison. And Jane’s going to be president of the United States one day. Big fucking deal.
He said good-bye to the still-smiling Yamagata and shut down his screen. Sliding out from behind his heavy dark desk, Dan went out to the catwalk, still half-expecting to see April as he passed her desk. He climbed the metal stairs and stepped out onto the hangar’s roof. The sun had set more than an hour ago, but the sky was still aflame with deep reds and violets. A fresh breeze was blowing in from the gulf, carrying the rich scent of pines and the salty tang of the sea.
Turning toward the southwestern horizon, Dan saw a single bright star gleaming against the growing darkness. The power satellite. The future. With a sardonic smile twisting his lips he stared at it and promised himself he’d build a whole constellation of them.
He heard Yamagata’s voice in his head: You’re going to become a very wealthy man, Daniel. An extremely wealthy man.
Maybe so, he thought. But the real job is to make the world wealthier. That’s what’s important.
His bitterness ebbed a little. Not a bad goal for a man to have, he told himself. Saving the world.