Energized (11 page)

“Not light. Not as you mean it, anyway. The bots use lidar.”

Like radar, only based on laser beams. “So this is all computer-synth imagery?”

“Uh-huh.” She stood and stretched. “I feel like coffee. How about you?”

“Sure.” He followed her into the kitchen, where a pair of binoculars sat on the counter near the back door. “Wildlife?” he guessed, pointing.

“Stargazing.” She finished putting up the pot of coffee and grabbed the binocs. “Come outside.”

The night was cool and cloudless. After the moon, waxing gibbous as he had remembered, The Space Place, playground of petrocrats, kleptocrats, and the other superrich, was the brightest object in the sky. Only this was a sky unlike any he had seen in a
long
time. Far from big-city lights, the stars blazed. Thousands of them.

“Try these.” She handed him the binoculars—

Through which countless more stars shone. And
there,
aglow in infrared from the residual heat of their last passes through sunlight, tiny shapes: an oval, a rectangle, and, the brightest of the three, a not-quite-round pearl. Phoebe's sunshield and PS-1, seen at a bit of an angle, and The Space Place. Phoebe itself was too dark and cold to spot even with thermal imaging.

Her hand was on his back, turning him. “Now look. No, up a little. A little higher.”

“At what?”

“You'll know it when you're there.”

The Milky Way
looked
like spilt milk—with a scattering of diamond chips.

“Wow,” he said. “Thanks.” He slowly turned, taking in the grandeur of the night sky. He eventually thought to offer Valerie her binocs. To the naked eye the night now seemed blacker than ever. “It's very dark out here.”

“Oh, crap!”

Huh? “What's wrong?”

“You didn't plan to drive back tonight, did you? If you think it's dark here…”

Think how dark it will be in the forest, crossing the mountains, he completed. “Not a problem. I have a room for the night in the observatory residence hall. You don't need to chase me off just yet.”

“That's good.” A sudden, unexpected peck on the cheek suggested she meant it. “And if you'd like, how about you come by in the morning for breakfast?”

Turning, slipping his arms around her waist, Marcus said, “I'd like that a lot.”

 

Monday, May 8

From the secluded anonymity of a black stretch limo, shared only with a longtime assistant, Yakov Nikolayevich Brodsky watched urban streets slip past.

He always enjoyed visiting Chicago. With its extensive expatriate community, he dined well here, on everything from blini to borscht to stroganoff. The finest elaborate banquet cost less than a passable snack in Moscow—

Because few here could have afforded Moscow prices.

And so, in a very different way he relished the signs of America's decline. The weed-choked medians. The empty stores and shuttered factories. The would-be day laborers milling about in a 7-Eleven parking lot. Most of all he enjoyed the waiting lines and per-gallon prices as they passed neighborhood gas stations.

What a difference a decade could make.

The limo sped downtown amid an escort of blue-and-white Chicago police cruisers. Lights flashing, they crossed under the rickety elevated train tracks that demarcated the Loop.

“We're almost there, sir,” the driver announced soon after. “Five minutes.”

A driver! How quaintly decadent. But doubtless the driver with whom he had been provided also spied on him. “Very well.”

Yakov savored, too, Chicago's distinctive architecture. Perhaps his favorite example was the masterpiece that came into view as the motorcade turned onto Jackson Boulevard.

For decades the Chicago Board of Trade Building had towered over everything else in this city. From the speeding car, alas, Yakov could not fully appreciate the edifice's art-deco distinctiveness. He could scarcely even see the three-story statue of Ceres, goddess of agriculture, which crowned the building's peak.

This
building projected a confidence and a presence, embodiment of a bygone era, of an American century. Not so the many modern glass-and-steel skyscrapers: their drab and boxy exteriors served only as metaphors for the hollowed-out American economy.

Police had cleared the street and sidewalk in front of the Chicago Board of Trade Building and were keeping scores of picketing protesters behind sawhorse barricades.
AMERICAN GRAIN FOR AMERICANS
many placards read.
STOP BURNING FOOD
another popular sign demanded.

Inwardly, he smiled.

As the limo pulled up to the curb, eight serious men and women in somber garb strode from the main entrance. Yakov waited for the driver to open his door.

“Welcome, Yakov Nikolayevich!” one of his greeters declared, a hand outstretched. “You honor us by your visit.”

“Hello, Roland,” Yakov acknowledged. Roland Johnston was chief executive officer of the CBOT. Yakov would deal with no one lesser.

“I trust your flight was satisfactory?”

“Very comfortable. Thank you.” Washington, to which Yakov was posted as deputy trade representative, was only a short hop away. Shorter, in fact, than he would have wished. He so seldom found the opportunity to fly his Learjet. “My assistant, Irina Ivanovna Chesnokova.”

“Ms. Chesnokova.” Roland introduced his aides and hangers-on, and then, with a quick gesture toward the protest, suggested proceeding inside. “I apologize for the ruckus.”

“Democracy,” Yakov said. They could decide whether he intended sympathetic understanding or ironic dismissal. “Very good. I would like to see the trading floor.” The pits of the original trading floor, alas, had been filled with concrete, the new area turned into mundane offices. A travesty, Yakov thought. “And the electronic trading facilities, of course.”

“Naturally,” an aide agreed. The corner of a folded datasheet peeked from a pocket of her jacket.

The Americans would give him the grand tour, fawn over his every word, then wine and dine him. When he completed his business, their limo would whisk him back to the airport. And between?

Between—to the certain dismay of the demonstrators outside, and countless others of similar opinion—his hosts would do everything in their power to expedite his purchase of corn and wheat. Two million metric tons of each, with intimations of yet larger purchases to follow.

They would bow and scrape and cut corners on his behalf, because he did not need their help. He could, he would suggest obliquely, shift much of his purchasing to the Canadians and Australians. His minions could quietly accumulate much of his stated need in smaller lots, through Internet trading and via pliant third parties, before anyone would see the pattern.

Only he wouldn't. Visibility, not secrecy, suited his purpose. That so rarely happened.

Ethanol substituted for gasoline. Higher grain prices made ethanol more expensive and less competitive. The mere specter of higher grain prices would spook oil markets around the globe. Whatever few extra dollars he might spend on grain—which, with great magnanimity, Russia would distribute to her friends in the Third World—would be more than repaid in higher energy prices.

Roland Johnston was by then extolling the virtues of some recent upgrade to his organization's electronic trading mechanism.

Yakov just nodded. If anything important came up, Irinushka could summarize later for him. She had already asked several probing questions about the measures taken to assure the integrity of data in their computer systems.

The men among Johnston's staff crowded around her, drawn to her classical beauty, vying to impress. Some must suppose she frowned in concentration at their wit or wisdom, or struggled with English jargon, for their speech had gotten louder and slower. And she, never giving any sign, would despise them for their vanity and condescension.

She had been born deaf. She had neither heard nor spoken until she was five, after receiving the cochlear implants masked by her long, flowing, red hair. When too many people spoke at once, or in chaotic environments like the trading floor, the din sometimes confused the implants' noise filters and speech-discrimination circuits.

Despite everything, she understood more than the fawning, self-important young men could imagine.

“Are you seeing what you wanted?” Johnston asked.

Yakov nodded. “This is a very worthwhile visit.”

How strange it was to accomplish grand strategy by means as prosaic as buying corn. Because deputy trade representative was only his cover for his true position: a senior agent of the Federal Security Service.

Russia's interests often required methods more subtle—or far more dramatic.

 

Saturday, May 13

“What do you think, professor?” Eric the bartender asked.

Patrick looked away from the 3-V in the corner. “I think the Yankees will win in a blowout.”

Eric laughed. “That's a given. No, I wondered if you were ready for another.”

It was Patrick's turn to laugh. “No,
that's
a given.”

“I like the way you think, professor. Be right back.”

Three people sat along the bar and a few couples at scattered tables: Saturday night in Outer Nowhere. No families with children, thankfully. He still found families hard to take.

Eric reappeared with a fresh, foaming pint. “Your beer, professor.”

“Thanks.” Taking a long slow sip, Patrick returned his attention to the ballgame.

He took no offense at
professor
. Eric called anyone from NRAO that. In the winter, when this ski resort bar would be hopping, Eric's patrons were
sport
. Except any ski bunnies who Eric was hitting on. Them, he promoted to
sportette.

Snowshoe was far enough from Green Bank to keep Patrick's coworkers to a minimum. Alas, because the resorts offered most of the area's finer dining, that minimum was not zero. As, captured in the behind-the-bar mirror, the approaching man and woman reminded him.

“Hi, Patrick,” a familiar voice called cheerily.

Swiveling on his stool, Patrick thought Valerie Clayburn and her NASA friend made a cute couple. Both wore casual slacks and knit shirts: dressed up for her and down for him. “Hi, Valerie.”

“Marcus Judson. Patrick Burkhalter.” To Patrick, Valerie added, “You remember Marcus visiting us for a staff lunch?”

The name? That, Patrick had forgotten. But Marcus himself, after the reception she had arranged for him? No way. The wonder was that
Marcus
had gotten past it. Hopefully he had seen through to the good person underneath. Though maybe he just had eyes in his head.

Too much information. “Of course. Hello,” Patrick said.

“Pleased to meet you. You're the guy who put Valerie onto Phoebe bots, right?”

Patrick shrugged. “You make it sound like I encouraged her.”

Eric sauntered over, a napkin over his arm. “What can I get you, professors?”

“Two glasses of the house Merlot, Eric,” Marcus answered.

“You've been promoted to a regular,” Patrick said. And quickly: Valerie's ambush had been only four weeks ago. “Feel honored.”

“Patrick is an astronomer, too,” Valerie said.

“Astrophysicist,” Patrick corrected.

Marcus rubbed his chin, brow furrowed. “There's a difference?”

“A big one.” Valerie grinned. “Say I'm on a plane. If I feel sociable, I'm an astronomer. Everyone loves astronomy. When I want to read in peace, I'm an astrophysicist.

“Marcus, I'll get us a table. Patrick, will you join us for dinner?”

Which part of
astrophysicist
was unclear? “I don't plan to stay late tonight,” Patrick lied.

Besides, Valerie did not need a chaperone. Patrick wondered if Judson would become a regular with her, too. Everyone would know when Judson stopped getting a room in the res hall for his weekend visits. Green Bank was a small town, and the observatory staff was even tinier.

“If you change your mind,” Valerie persisted, then strode off for the dining room.

Eric ambled back, setting down two wineglasses. “I started you a tab, professor.”

“Thanks.” Judson picked up the glasses, took a step away from the bar, and stopped. “Tough break,” he said softly.

The Tigers had just left two men stranded on base. “Jankowski is on fire this season,” Patrick said. “ERA of what, around two-nine?”

“That's not what I meant.”

“Aren't you on a date?” Patrick asked. He turned, pointedly, back to the Yankees-Tigers game.

If there was one thing Patrick could not abide, it was sympathy.

*   *   *

Valerie slid back her plate, pleasantly full. “That was excellent.”

“That was a salad,” Marcus said, as though disagreeing.
He
had had a sirloin with a loaded baked potato, and all that remained on his plate was a sprig of parsley. Maybe only half a sprig. “How about some dessert?”

He ate like a force of nature, but if she skipped dessert so would he. “I'd split one.” One bite was splitting.

“What do you recommend?”

“Pretty much any of the desserts.” As in:
You
pick. Because you studied the dessert choices before you ever looked at entrées. And because you're going to be eating most of it.

Why was dating so complicated?

“How about the death-by-chocolate cake, then. With a scoop of ice cream?”

“That sounds good.” And maybe
two
bites.

“So, about Patrick.”

She had wondered when Patrick would come up. “He's a planetary astronomer. I think you two would get along. He's not always so…”

“Cranky? Surly? Belligerent?”

“I was going to say gruff.” The waitress came by to clear the dinner plates and took their dessert order. Valerie figured she could change topics. Patrick was so … sad. “Simon came home from school today with the funniest story.”