Sam said tightly, “We have always plowed our profits back into the company, to assure our growth. This year the profits have been big enough to allow a dividend. But we are still plowing some of the profits back into growth.”
Gene got red in the face, but he found the strength to ask, “Back into the growth of VCI’s existing projects, or, uh, some other program?”
Sam shot a glance along the head table toward Bonnie Jo. Then he grinned at Gene. “You can sit down, Gene. This is gonna take some time, I can see that.”
Bonnie Jo said, “Sam wants to put our profits—your profits—into building an orbital tourist hotel.”
“A honeymoon hotel,” Sam corrected.
A few chuckles arose from the stockholders.
“And we don’t have to build it,” Sam added. “We can lease space aboard Alpha from Rockledge International.”
“Didn’t you try that once before, when Global Technology first built Space Station Alpha?” asked another stockholder, a woman I did not recognize.
“And it didn’t work out?” asked another.
“You went broke on that deal, didn’t you?” still another asked. I realized that Bonnie Jo had recruited her troops carefully.
“Yeah, yeah,” Sam answered impatiently. “That was years ago. Rockledge has taken over Alpha now and they’re looking for customers to lease space.”
“Under what terms?” Bonnie Jo asked.
“It’s a bargain,” said Sam enthusiastically. “A steal!”
I looked at Spence, sitting between Sam and Bonnie Jo. His face was a mask, his usual smile gone, his features frozen as if he wished to betray not even the slightest sign of emotion or partisan bias.
Gene Redding rose to his feet once again. I could see that his hands were trembling, he was so nervous.
“I…” he cleared his throat, “I want to make a, uh, a motion.”
Spence said grimly, “Go ahead.”
“I move … that the board of directors …” he seemed to be reciting a memorized speech, “refuse to allocate, uh, any monies … for any programs … not directly associated with VCI’s existing lines of business.” Gene said the last words in a rush, then immediately sat down.
“Second!” cried Bonnie Jo.
Spence stared at the back wall of the meeting room as he said automatically, “Movement made and seconded. Discussion?”
I had expected Sam to jump up on the table and do a war dance. Or at least to rant and scream and argue until we all dropped from exhaustion. Instead, he glanced at his wristwatch and said:
“Let’s postpone the discussion for a bit. There’s a speech coming up at the UN that we should all take a look at.”
Spence agreed to Sam’s suggestion so quickly that I knew the two of them had talked it over beforehand. Bonnie Jo looked surprised, nettled, but her father laid a hand on her arm and she refrained from objecting.
The UN speech was by my father, of course, although no one in the room knew that I was the daughter of Ecuador’s presidente. I felt a surge of pride when his handsome face appeared on the giant TV screens. If only his new hair had matched his face better! He wore a civilian’s business suit of dark blue, with the red sash of his office slanting across his chest. He looked bigger than normal, his chest broader and deeper. I realized he must have been wearing a bulletproof vest. Was he worried that the rebels would try to assassinate him? Or merely wary of New York?
My father’s speech was marvelous, although I had to listen to the English translation instead of hearing his dramatic, flowery Spanish. Still, it was dramatic enough. My father explained the legal origins of our claim to the equatorial orbit, the injustice of the rich corporations who refused to share their wealth with the orbit’s rightful owners, and the complicity of the United Nations for allowing this terrible situation to persist.
I sat in my hard little folding chair and basked in the glow of my father’s unassailable logic and undeterrable drive.
“Is there no one to help us?” he asked rhetorically, raising his hands in supplication. “Cannot all the apparatus of international law come to the aid of the Twelve nations who have seen their territory invaded and usurped? Will no one support the Declaration of Quito?”
Suddenly his face hardened. His hands balled into fists. “Very well, then! The Twelve Equatorial Nations will defend their sacred territory by themselves, if necessary. I serve notice, on behalf of the Twelve Equatorial Nations, that the equatorial orbit belongs to us, and to no other nation, corporation, or entity. We are preparing to send an international team of astronauts to establish permanent residence in the equatorial orbit. Once there, they will dismantle or otherwise destroy the satellites that the invaders have placed in our territory.”
The audience in the UN chamber gasped. So did we, in the hotel’s meeting room. I felt a thrill of hot blood race through me.
“We will defend our territory against the aggressors who have invaded it,” my father declared. “If this means war, then so be it. To do anything less would be to bow to the forces of imperialism!”
The people around me stared at one another, stunned into silence.
All except Sam, who yelled, “Jesus H. Christ on a motorcycle!”
As the TV picture winked off, one of the stockholders shouted, “What the hell are we going to do about that?”
All sense of order in our meeting room dissolved. Everyone seemed to talk at once. Spence rapped his knuckles on the table but no one paid any attention to him. The argument about Sam’s orbital hotel was forgotten. My father had turned our meeting into chaos.
Until Sam jumped up on the table and waved his arms excitedly. “Shut the hell up and listen to me!” he bellowed.
The room silenced. All eyes turned to the pudgy rust-haired elf standing on the head table.
“We’re gonna get there before they do,” Sam told us. “We’re gonna put a person up there in GEO before they can and we’re gonna claim the orbit for ourselves. They wanna play legal games, .we can play ’em too. Faster and better!”
Spence objected, “Sam, nobody can stay in GEO for long. It’s in the middle of the outer Van Allen belt, for gosh sakes.”
“Pull a couple of OTVs together, fill the extra propellant tanks with water. That’ll provide enough shielding for a week or so.”
“How do you know? We’ve got to do some calculations, check with the experts—”
“No time for that,” Sam snapped. “We’re in a race, a land rush, we gotta go now. Do the calculations afterward. Right now the vital thing is to get somebody parked up there in GEO before those greedy sonsofbitches get there!”
“But who would be nuts enough to—”
“I’ll do it,” Sam said, as if he had made up his mind even before Spence asked the question. “Let’s get busy!”
That broke up our meeting, of course. Spence officially called for an adjournment until a time to be decided. Everyone raced for their cars and drove pell-mell back to the office. Except for Sam and Spence, who jumped into Spence’s convertible Mustang and headed off toward Cape Canaveral.
Despite my feelings of patriotism and love of my father, I felt thrilled. It was tremendously exciting to dash into the mission control center and begin preparations for launching Sam to GEO. Spence went with him as far as Space Station Alpha. Together they hopped up to the station where our OTVs were garaged on the next available Delta Clipper, scarcely thirty-six hours after my father’s speech.
Even Bonnie Jo caught the wave of enthusiasm. She came into the control center as Sam and Spence were preparing the two OTVs for Sam’s mission. It was night; I was running the board, giving Gene a rest after he had put in twelve hours straight. Bonnie Jo slid into the chair beside me and asked me to connect her with Sam up at Alpha.