Act of God by John Maddox Roberts, Eric Kotani Read Free Book Online

motorcycle. "Just made it," he said when he returned. "D.C. cops are fierce about parking tickets. They can't do anything about all the cars with diplomatic plates, so they take it out on the rest of the citizens. Come on, let's go in."
    The interior was immense. Apparently, the Americans were as fond of the grandiose as the Russians. The scale was so numbing that she had no idea of the true size of the place until she looked upward to see the aircraft dangling from the ceiling on cables. "Is that really a full-sized airplane?" she asked, pointing at a twin-engine craft overhead. She could see that it was an old design, but it had marvelously graceful lines.
    "It's a Douglas DC-3," Sam said. He stood looking up with hands on hips, smiling broadly. "Military designation C-47. It was the workhorse cargo plane of World War Two. Most beautiful plane ever built. You might call it the '56 Chevrolet of airplanes. Used to see 'em flying a lot when I was a kid. We lived near an airport. I wanted to be a pilot more than anything."
    So hatchetmen had childhoods, too. "Why didn't you? Become a pilot, I mean?"
    "I tried to get into flight school in the service," he told her. "They found something wrong with my inner ear that only shows under very low pressure. They have medication for it now, though." For the first time, she heard him laugh genuinely and ungrudgingly.
    They started at one end of the museum and began working their way toward the other. The displays began with the earliest and crudest aerodynamic devices such as boomerangs. There was even a platter-shaped flying toy which a label identified as a "frisbee." There were spaceships and satellites at the other end.
    From a balcony overlooking the main foyer, they rested. Busloads of school-children and tour groups were constantly arriving and leaving. A camera-draped pack of Japanese tourists was snapping pictures of everything, "Seeing this," Laine said, "it's hard to believe that your space program is in trouble." She thought for a moment. "I suppose I should say 'our' space program now, since I intend to live here and work in it if I can."
    "Our space program is like our military establishment or our highways," Sam told her. "We're proud of it, but we don't like paying for it. The payoff from space exploration seems too remote and rarified for most Americans."
    She studied an ethereal, pedal-powered aircraft hanging nearby. "But, there have been a great many advances in other fields because of the space competition: miniaturization, medical technology, a great many others. Every schoolchild learns that in my homeland."
    "Maybe. But NASA suffers from bad PR." Sam said.
    "What is that?"
    "Public relations. There are agencies that do nothing but sell an image to people. I guess NASA never hired one. They've done a lousy job of selling themselves to the public. Besides, there isn't just one space program, there are a lot of them. I don't know much about NASA, but I've worked with others, and they're all about the same. The people working on manned expeditions worry if it looks like the unmanned probe crowds are getting too big a slice of the budget. The military starts interfering if they think the purely scientific programs are getting too much attention. Hell, for all I know, the infra-red astronomers are fighting tooth and nail with the ultraviolets for funding. In good times, when there's lots of money floating around for everyone, they're all one big family devoted to the betterment of mankind. Now, times are rough, the economy's down, and they have to fight for every dime."
    "I suppose it's the same where I come from," she said. "But they never explain or ask our opinion."
    "They never ask for mine either," Sam said. "I give it to them anyway. Maybe that's why I'm on UFO investigations."
    Once again, Laine had the impression that he had gone off on some tangent of his own. It occurred to her that the man was not quite sane. Oddly, that made him a little more human and