We should fund it, Malik thought. We should back Randolph to the hilt. But we won’t, of course.

“But what’s the fuel for this rocket?” one of the Board members was asking. Patiently, Randolph replied, “The same as the fuel for the fusion powerplants that generate electricity here on the ground: isotopes of hydrogen and helium.”

“Like the helium-three that’s mined on the Moon?”

“Right.” Randolph nodded.

“That is very expensive fuel,” muttered the representative from Greater India.

“Very expensive.”

“A little goes a long way,” Dan said, with a forced smile. The representative from the League of Islam said irritably, “Selene has raised the price of helium-three twice in the past year. Twice! I have no doubt they are preparing to raise it again.”

“We can get the fuel from space itself,” Dan said, raising his voice slightly.

“From space itself?”

“How?”

“The solar wind blows through interplanetary space. It’s the solar wind that deposits helium-three and hydrogen isotopes on the lunar soil.”

“You mean regolith,” pointed out the representative from United Europe.

“Regolith, right,” Randolph admitted.

“How can you get the fuel from the solar wind?”

“The same way a jet airplane gets air for its engines,” Randolph replied. “We’ll scoop it in as we go.”

Malik saw that the Scottish engineer, sitting off to Randolph’s side, squirmed uncomfortably in his chair.

“Scoop it in? Really?”

“Sure,” Randolph answered. “We’ll use an electromagnetic scoop… a big funnelshaped magnetic field. That way we’ll be able to scoop in the fuel we need as we travel.”

“How large a scoop will be necessary?”

Randolph made an exaggerated shrug. “That’s for the tech people to work out. For the first missions to the Belt we’ll carry the fusion fuel in tankage, just like other rockets. But eventually we’ll be able to scoop fuel from the solar wind. That’ll allow us to carry an even bigger payload, per unit of thrust.” Turning slightly in his chair, Randolph asked, “Isn’t that right, Lon?”

Duncan, the engineer, looked dubious, but he knew enough to answer, “Right.” With a glance at his wristwatch, Malik tapped his stylus again on the tabletop and said, “Thank you, Mr. Randolph, for a most interesting presentation.” Randolph fixed his gray eyes on Malik. The Russian went on, “The Hoard will discuss the question and inform you of its decision.”

“Time is of the essence,” Randolph said.

“We understand that,” said Malik. “But we must have a full and thorough discussion of this concept before we can decide whether or not to commit any funding to it.”

Reluctantly, Randolph got to his feet. “I see. Well, thanks for hearing me out. You have a tremendous opportunity here… and a tremendous responsibility.”

“We are well aware of that,” Malik said. “Thank you again.” Randolph nodded and headed out of the conference room, followed by the engineer and the blond Californian.

Malik now had to go through the formality of a discussion with the other Board members, but he already knew what the answer would be. He was framing the Board’s reply to Randolph even while Dan was leaving the conference room:

Dear Mr. Randolph: While your proposal to develop a fusion rocket system appears to be technically feasible, the Global Economic Council cannot devote such a significant portion of its resources to what is essentially a space-born venture. GEC funding is fully committed for the next five years to programs aimed at alleviating the effects of global climate shift and assisting national efforts at rebuilding and resettling displaced population groups.

Dan went by tube train from the GEC Board meeting to the spaceport at old Heathrow. He rode a commercial Clippership to space station Galileo, then hitched a ride on a high-thrust Astro transfer buggy to Selene. He was in the offices that Astro Manufacturing rented in Selene by midnight, Greenwich Mean Time, of the day after the GEC meeting.

Duncan and his electronics engineer had gone back to Glasgow, hoping that the GEC Board would find the money to build at least a prototype spacecraft. Dan thought otherwise. He could see it in Malik’s eyes: the GEC isn’t going to spend diddley-squat on us.

Dan pushed through the empty office suite, ceiling lights flicking on as he entered each area and off as he breezed past, paying scant attention to the unoccupied desks and blank holowindows. He reached the private suite where he bunked down while he was in Selene, peeled off his jacket, tossed his travel bag onto the king-sized bed and stepped into the shower, still dressed in his pullover shirt and micromesh slacks. He kicked off his softboots and banged on the water. It came out at the preset temperature. He popped the plugs out of his nostrils and stripped off the rest of his clothes as the hot, steaming water began to ease the knots of tension in his back and shoulders.

It was an old and very personal indulgence of his: long, hot showers. Back when he’d been a kid working on the early construction projects in orbit and then on the Moon, a hot shower was an incredibly rare luxury. He’d had his nose broken for the second time over the right to a long shower. For years, before Moonbase became the independent nation of Selene, lunar shower stalls were rarer than tenmeter high jumps on Earth. Even when you did find an incredibly luxurious living unit with a real shower, back in those days the water shut of automatically after two minutes, and there was no way to get it to turn back on again until a full hour had elapsed.

Even now, Dan thought as he let the hot water sluice over him, being on Selene’s water board carries more real political clout than being a member of the governing council.

He turned off the water at last and let the built-in jets of hot air dry him. Dan preferred old-fashioned towels, but the air blowers were cheaper. Naked, he crawled into bed and tried to get some sleep. But his mind kept churning with his hopes, his plans, his frustrations.

Yamagata isn’t going to put up any money, he realized. Nobo would have called me by now if he were going to come in with me. He hasn’t called because he’s reluctant to give me the bad news. Malik and the GEC are a lost cause. I shouldn’t even have wasted the time to appear before them, but at least if and when we get this fusion drive going we can say we offered it to the double-damned bureaucrats and they turned us down. So they’ve got no claim on us whatsoever. Astro’s hanging on by the skin of its teeth, one jump ahead of the bankruptcy courts, and I need to raise a couple of billion to make this fusion system work. Humphries is dangling the money at me, but he’ll want a big slice of Astro in return. I need somebody else. Who can I turn to? Who the hell else is there? Selene, he realized. They don’t have the capital, but they’ve got trained people, equipment, resources. If I can talk them into coming in with me… Then it hit him. Bypass Selene’s governing council. Or, at least, end-run them. Douglas Stavenger still outvotes everybody else up here. And Masterson Aerospace is his family’s company. If he’ll go for this, Master-son will get behind it and Selene’s council will fall in step with him.

Doug Stavenger.

He fell asleep thinking about the possibilities. And dreamed of flying past Mars, out to the Asteroid Belt.

“Who’s your boyfriend?” Amanda asked.

She and Pancho were exercising in Selene’s big gymnasium complex, working up a fine sheen of perspiration on the weight machines. Through the long window on one side of the room Pancho could see two men strapped into the centrifuge, both of them grimacing as the big machine’s arms swung round and round, faster and faster. She knew one of the men, a maintenance tech out at the tractor garage, a thoroughly nice guy.