Gridlock and Other Stories Part 3

I was bitten by the writing bug in 1975. Any professional writer will tell you how it happens. You become very critical of the stories you read, no longer deriving the satisfaction from them you once did. Eventually, this dissatisfaction builds to the point where you find yourself throwing a book or magazine across the room while shouting, "Any idiot can write better than this!"

That is what happened to me. I think the story that eventually set me off was the serial in a.n.a.log where a few fanatics in the United States decide to compress the whole of the Earth's atmosphere into big submerged tanks as a weapon against the Russians.

Therefore, having decided that I could do it better, I set off to prove it - which I did some three and a half years later on my twentieth attempt. That story was Duty, Honor, Planet.

I got the basic idea for the story while dangling my feet in the very cold water of Havasu Creek at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. My department at work had arranged a hike to Havasu Falls, even going to the expense of renting a couple of pack horses from the Havasu Indians so that we wouldn't have to carry anything in. (Note for city-bred hikers: Packhorses are both volume and weight limited! Of course, we packed way too much, so most of us had to carry our packs in anyway).

After staggering out of the canyon and returning the 250 miles to Phoenix, I began to compose the story. The prototype for Alicia Delgado was provided by the wife of a coworker, who I followed on the trail for seven miles -- I can still close my eyes and see her rather perky posterior stepping out in front of me! The choice of the Mexicans as the villains was simple. To see why, take the following simple quiz: "Name all of the foreign nations which border Arizona on the south."

In 1978, the moon landings were complete, the Vietnam War was over, and there was a struggle to see where the news media and the country would focus their attention next.

Personally, I was in favor of continuing the emphasis on s.p.a.ce, but the environmentalists were better organized than NASA. (They still are.) In case it is not obvious from the story you just read, I am a strong supporter of the Strategic Defense Initiative. For one thing, it was my idea before it was Ronald Reagan's. I first became aware of the possibilities while working the night s.h.i.+ft at the Pratt and Whitney's Florida Research and Development Center in 1969. All P&W engineers pulled night duty one s.h.i.+ft a week in those days. There was not a lot to do, but if the shop needed engineering support interpreting a drawing, you were available. Considering the cost of even a one-hour delay in the machine shop, the arrangement made a lot of sense economically.

So each night of the week, one-fifth of the junior engineers caught up on their paperwork, held bull sessions in the big empty engineering bays, periodically walked the shop floor to look busy, and read a lot of magazines. One such was the magazine put out by the American Inst.i.tute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (I don't even remember its name now). There was a very short article in one issue ent.i.tled "Zap!" It was a report of the firstaircraft (a small model) having been shot down by a laser.

The possibilities of a beam weapon that could shoot down anything it could see so intrigued me that I immediately fell in love with the idea. Most Americans do not realize that we are vulnerable. Even the Ukrainians can wipe us out if they want to!

Therefore, when I became a writer, it was not surprising that I would eventually get around to writing about a laser battle station in orbit. Duty, Honor, Planet is more than a technological SF story. It is a love story, and hopefully, gives the reader the feel of the real world in its rather tangled political situation. It also, I believe, postulates a completely practical way that a constellation of laser battle stations can be set up.

Having decided to become a writer in 1975, and having collected more than fifty rejection letters, I was thrilled to receive a letter from Ben Bova, the editor of a.n.a.log, stating that he liked my story. He asked me to trim it by 10% and resubmit. In the same letter, he informed me that he was leaving the magazine. After more than three years of sending him short stories, and finally training him to recognize good stuff when he saw it, he would no longer be around to read my deathless prose!

It was with mixed emotions that I sent in the modified story a few weeks later. Ben Bova had left and Stan Schmidt had not yet arrived. Yet, my story was bought anyway - apparently by the magazine's secretary. When talking to would be writers, I always advise them to try to get their stories bought while no one is watching the store.

One of the high points of my writing career came on a Sat.u.r.day in 1978. I received a letter telling me that I had just sold my first piece of fiction and that it was going to be the cover story in the April 1979, issue of a.n.a.log. When I began my quest to become a writer, writing for a.n.a.log was the total extent of my ambitions. I had not only gotten a story published there; I had made the cover the first time out! Is it any wonder thatDuty, Honor, Planet is my favorite short story?

The next year, when I needed a proposal for my second novel with Del Rey Books (my first real novel), I used the world I had created inDuty, Honor, Planet as the backdrop of my new novel,Life Probe . Friedrich Sta.s.sel is the grandfather of Eric Sta.s.sel, the protagonist ofLife Probe . Four years after the story was published, Ronald Reagan initiated the Strategic Defense Initiative with his famous Star Wars speech of March 23, 1983. I doubt he ever read much science fiction and, therefore, it is unlikely that he got the idea from me.

Still, one can never tell about such things, and I would not mind starting the rumor whether it is true or not!

Life Probeis one of the novels currently for sale at Sci Fi - Arizona. If you liked the story, you will probably like the novel.

SCOOP.

For Those Who Think Chern.o.byl and Three Mile Island Were Big Deals, In the Words of the Immortal Al Jolson: "You ain't seen nothin' yet!"

Ever wake up one morning to find you were fat, balding, and forty? That the youthful genius that set out two decades earlier to blaze a trail of glory for himself was gone, and the great accomplishments were mostly undone?

No? Well give yourself time. The moment of truth will come someday. It did for me.

It is not that my life has been a total failure. Far from it. I have any number of professional feathers in my cap. I single-handedly exposed the Carbelli land fraud case ten years ago. I was nominated as one of the ten best reporters in the state. I am a past President of the Downtown Kiwanis Club.

However, those kudos are all minor league. I cannot truthfully say I have ever done anything truly great.

Before muttering a comment about male menopause, consider the following: My ex is a shrew. My alimony payments to her are big enough to break the back of an elephant and habitually two weeks late.

Beth, my girl friend, has started making not so subtle hints about matrimony. The only things I have to show for my twenty years with the paper are a condominium mortgaged to the hilt and a whopping great hole in the lining of my stomach, for which I have been sentenced to a gallon of cow juice daily and never again to allow liquor to pa.s.s my lips.

Is it any wonder that I sometimes have trouble getting up in the morning?

I was sitting at my typewriter, immersed in my troubles, when I was jolted out of my reverie by Stringham, the proofreader's a.s.sistant.

"Hey, Tarkington. The boss wants to see you. Better get in there. He sounds mad."

"He always sounds mad," I snapped, looking up from the pitifully inadequate copy I had been trying to rough out. I was covering Mrs. Roper-Johnson-Smythe's society bash that evening. I was also taking Beth to the Suns game. If I could work out the story in advance, leaving only the names of the distinguished guests to be filled in later, then I would be able to slip out of the party and make the tip-off.

"What does he want with me?"

"Go into the lion's den and find out," Stringham, brayed in that foghorn voice of his.

I pulled myself out of my comfortable chair and shuffled into the great man's office. Isaac Greenwald is a certifiable curmudgeon. Rumor has it that he would run an expose on his own mother if it would fill a dozen empty column-inches. True, he is the best editor I have ever worked for, but it does not make up for the fact that he is an all around pain-in-the-patoot.

"You roared?" I asked as I slumped down into the purple on mauve chair he keeps in his office.

"You're late," he growled. "I asked to see you over a minute ago."

"Had to stop in the john," I lied.

"Do it on your own time. We pay you to be a reporter, not a coffee purifier."

"Right."

"I've got an a.s.signment for you, Tarkington."His calling me by my last name was his way of signaling that he was p.i.s.sed about something. I could not think of anything I had goofed up lately, so I decided that someone else had torqued him off and I was merely the hapless recipient of his wrath. It was just the kind of aggravation that my stomach and I could do without.

"I've already got an a.s.signment," I said. "I'm covering the Roper-Johnson-Smythe bash tonight.

Big society event. Everyone will be there. Can't miss it."

"We'll send Lawrence. I've got something bigger for you to handle."

I groaned. Jill Lawrence was our spinsterish cooking editor and better able to handle the society page gossip than I was any day. However, she did not have tickets to the Suns game and I did. That made me the more logical candidate. Oh well, maybe I could rush this other job through and still make the game.

"Okay," I said. "I'm all ears."

"Never mind your physical deformities. Let's discuss your a.s.signment."

"Shoot."

"I'm sending you down to the Marana power plant. Something fishy is going on down there. I want you to find out what it is."

"Like what?"

"If I knew that, I wouldn't be sending you."

"The subject came up at the Governor's news conference this morning. James over at Channel 3 asked him how long Marana would be down for repairs."

"Didn't know it was."

"Yeah, they fell out of the power grid nearly forty hours ago. They put out a press release blaming unscheduled maintenance problems. It was in the back of yesterday's edition. Don't you read your own paper?"

"Just the sports section and the funnies," I replied.

"I almost believe you. Now stop interrupting and listen. James asked the Guv whether he had a comment about Marana. The Guv replied that he was sure Arizona Consolidated Power was doing the best they could and that the plant would be back in operation presently."

I whistled. Our Governor was the biggest publicity hound in the whole Continental United States.

He and ACP had had a couple of battles royal. For him to pa.s.s up a chance to attack the hated utility was completely out of character.

"Suspicious," I agreed, "but it still isn't an indication that something is wrong at the power plant.

Maybe ACP has come across with a donation to the Guv's reelection campaign."

"Oh yeah? I called Melrose over at the State Power Commission. His secretary was a bit slow m.u.f.fling her telephone. I heard him tell her that he was not in. Now you know how much Jake Melrose owes this paper from the last election. Why the brush-off?"

"Okay, maybe ... just maybe ... you've got a point.""The clincher: I tried to hire a plane to fly over the plant for a look. Nothing doing. The airs.p.a.ce around the plant is restricted for fifty miles in every direction. Air Force claims they are running an exercise on the Gila Bend gunnery range and need the extra airs.p.a.ce to guide jets in and out."

"So what do you want me to do?"

"Get in your car and get down there. I want a story and I want it in time for the afternoon edition."

My stomach picked that instant to give out with one of its warning twinges. "Deadlines are going to be the death of me, boss," I said, tasting the bitter flavor of bile.

"This one certainly will if you don't make it," he growled. "Take a photographer along. Have him get some nice fisheye shots of the plant and the surrounding hills. You know the kind of artsy-fartsy things the publisher likes."

"Right. I'll take Watabe. He's good at that sort of thing."

"Watabe is covering a fire south of the river bed."

"Siles?"

"Two weeks vacation."

"Okay, she's a pain in the b.u.t.t, but I'll take Gloria Price."

"Off covering a convention at the Coliseum."

"Who's that leave?"

"Roger Witby."

I groaned. First, I would probably have to break a date with Beth -- not to mention missing the big game -- and now I was being saddled with Roger Witby. "Haven't you got anyone experienced available?"

"Witby's experienced," Greenwald said. "He's worked here nearly two years now."

"Part time. Your enthusiasm for him wouldn't have anything to do with his being the publisher's nephew, would it?"

Greenwald's craggy face split in that satanic grin of his. "Could be, Tark. Besides, he is a hard worker. Take him along. He'll be out of school in a couple of weeks and you'll have the whole summer to rest up in."

"You're the boss."

I got out of Greenwald's office as quickly as I could. One thing I have learned working for him, don't stick around longer than necessary or else you will find yourself handed some other dirty job. I wolfed down a couple of antacid pills at my desk and called Beth at the bank. She wasn't exactly heartbroken about the possibility of missing the game.

I grumbled about Witby all the way down to the garage. He is a nice enough kid, but he is not a newsman. His eye for detail is lousy and he is const.i.tutionally unsuited for working to a deadline. In a business where getting there thirty seconds late can mean the difference between Page One news and the cla.s.sified section, he lacks the drive to be a first rate newsman. Not that he lacks drive. It just is notchanneled in the right direction. He only works for the paper part time during the school year to make extra money for college. In the summer, he goes off to New Mexico to work for some laboratory full time. His field is engineering, but he took an elective course in photography once. Therefore, his uncle, our dear publisher, sees to it that we hire him every year.

Roger met me in the bas.e.m.e.nt just as I was packing my notebook computer into the trunk of my car next to my digital still camera. He sauntered up with fifty pounds of old-style camera equipment strung over both skinny shoulders - our publisher still believes in the sanct.i.ty of film. A lopsided smile split his pimply face.

"Hi, Mr. Tarkington," he said. "I see we are working together again."

"Fine, Kid. Dump your stuff in the back seat and let's get moving. I want to get down to Marana and back by full dark. I've got tickets to the game tonight."

"Yes sir.

I hated to be brusque with the Kid, but I had learned my lesson. He is the type that is as friendly as a month old puppy. Encourage him just a little and he would talk your head off. As it was, we were headed south on I-10 before I said two words to him. We'd come ten miles. That was the longest I had ever heard him quiet.

"You ever seen the Marana Power Plant, Kid?"

He shook his head.

"You'll find it interesting," I said. "Has a big golf ball two hundred feet in diameter sticking up out of it. They call it a containment thingamajig."

"Oh no, Mr. Tarkington."

"What?"

"A containment vessel is used in a fission plant. You know, like the old Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station west of town."

"Yeah, so?"

"A power plant like Marana has a fusion sphere where they smash the hydrogen nuclei together to release the energy of fusion. That is what the big white concrete ball is. A fusion sphere, not a containment vessel."

"What's the difference?"

"Well, the old fission plants could generate a lot of internal radioactivity. In case of an accident, some of that radiation might have been released to the environment. To prevent that from happening, they sealed the reactors inside a concrete and steel bottle -- the containment vessel. A fusion plant, on the other hand, generates virtually zero radioactivity -- except for the induced radiation in the structure from constant bombardment by neutrons, of course."

"Of course."

"But fusion plants need a spherical structure to focus the pressor field onto the reaction chamber where the fusion takes place. Without it you would never be able to build up sufficient pressure and heatto initiate the fusion reaction."

I thought about what the Kid had said. I had not understood a word.

"I didn't understand a word," I said aloud.

"About what?"