STRATODYNE CORPORATION, INC.ALTERNATIVE TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMSNO TRESPASSING!
"They don't encourage much walk-in trade, do they?" I stared at the peeling sign on the rust-stained gate. The cyclone fencing could have been torn apart with a buttonhook. A formidable padlock connected the two ends of a chain that could have been cut in half with a pair of scissors.
Ann reached over to the steering wheel to honk the horn.
"Not much need for security out here," she said. "But they try."
A faded guardhouse stood beyond the gate. A bent old black man in a grey uniform stepped out, unlocked the gate, and stepped over to my side of the Chrysler.
"We called," Ann said. "This is Mr. Ammo."
The old man nodded. "That's right. That's right." He walked back to the gate to open it all the way.
"Sort of lonely out here, isn't it?" I said.
The old man pointed at his guard shack. "That thing's full of a mess of books. Time to read's what I got. I'm seein' the world." He waved us through as if in a dream. "Seein' the world."
The path to the factory was unpaved. We kicked up enough dirt to signal our movement for miles. We wouldn't have to worry about that, though. Clouds darkened the sky overhead. The streets in Claremont a few miles back had been slick from morning rain.
A drop of water spattered against the windshield like an angry bug. A few more droplets descended from the sky to hit the car or make little dust explosions on the road. A starling hopped out of our way, cursing the twin intrusions of car and rain.
We drove into a narrow canyon that widened around a bend, revealing the vast StratoDyne manufacturing empire. A decaying assembly building covered an acre or so of real estate. Another acre of unpaved parking lot abutted its south side. A sloping concrete wall about a mile away separated the building from a circular concrete launching pad.
One lone thirty-year-old Buick, wearing more rust than paint, snuggled up close to the building. A crow cawed wearily, circling about the facility dodging raindrops. It landed on the roof of the building to seek sanctuary under a girder.
I drove down an incline toward the Buick. The rain had already begun to drag the road dust down the shoulders in little rivulets.
I parked in front of the other car. After a quick sprint, we reached a door marked General Office, standing halfway open. A fluorescent lamp flickered inside. The rain fell around the building like a collapsing world.
Ann pulled the door shut. Her khaki jumpsuit looked like a leopard's spotted hide. The brass buttons and buckles that served as functional accents glinted in the unsteady pulsations of the indoor light.
The office was empty. The intermittent buzz of the lamp could not compete with the sound of the rain outside.
I looked around. Vacant chairs faced naked typewriters. Paper trays squatted on desks like starving animals, waiting to be filled. The wall clock was an hour and a half slow. Someone had once tossed sharpened pencils at a poster of a NASA space shuttle, where they still remained stuck. The words Good Riddance had been scrawled across the poster. I wondered whether they referred to the abortive NASA fiasco or whether a disgruntled employee had fired a parting shot. I suppose it didn't matter in either case.
Somewhere amidst the noise of the downpour, the sound of a radio faintly drifted into the room. It played a forgotten tune by an obscure rock band.
I glanced at Ann.
She shrugged. "Follow the music?"
I nodded.
The wet bottoms of my gum-soled shoes made annoying squeaking sounds against the cement floor. Ann's boot-heels clicked in pleasant contrast. Neither of us could have sneaked up on anyone.
I felt like an explorer in a haunted tomb.
I preceded Blondie through the rear door of the office. It led directly to the main assembly room. Almost an acre of open space spread before us under a vaulted roof. It would have made an impressive indoor tennis court, though I'd seen larger ones.
Partitions hung here and there, obstructing our forward view. Looking up at the ceiling was the only way to see the entire span of the place. We weaved past several of the barriers. Then we saw it.
It lay there on its landing gear-white and gleaming and smooth and graceful. Like a giant dove, its wings were swept back in anticipation of flight. The cockpit stood twenty feet above us-a multifaceted gem inlaid against sleek pearl.
"It's beautiful," Ann whispered.
A deep voice behind us said, "It's a piece of junk."
We turned to see a tall man in a pair of greasy red coveralls. He was young, with the usual vague tan that typified nearly everyone from L.A. He sat next to the radio, legs outstretched, leaning against a pile of titanium struts. His fingers were interlaced behind his head.
"Junk?" My shoes squeaked with my turn.
He stood. "Old man Geislinger had a good idea, building low-cost space shuttles. Only problem was, NASA didn't want anyone competing with their overpriced jalopies."
I put a foot up on a crate. "They didn't like that, I suppose."
"No, sir! The Federal Trade Commission nearly drove the old man to ruin. The only money he made was in the countereconomy. When he finally ad astraed, the company went up for grabs, and George Turner tried greenmailing a leveraged buyout to drive the stock price up."
"Doesn't seem to have worked," said Ann, surveying the remains of the factory.
"No, ma'am. George was never much of a businessman. The greenmail blew up in his face. The management revolted and unfurled their golden parachutes. He wound up stuck with a gutted company and no one to run it. Then the Hudson Phoenix shot the cost of spaceflight through the floor."
He stood to stretch, sticking his hand out to me. "The name's Canfield. I piloted some of the old man's shuttles until Georgie boy took over and I got put back in electronics."
He gave me a firm, friendly grip and an open, unpretentious smile. His prematurely grey hair was short and neat.
I introduced Ann and myself, then asked, "Can you fly this thing?"
He gazed up at the shuttle. "If I were suicidal. The old man had us building good, solid spacecraft. None of that multiple redundancy crap you find on most ships. He built them cheap and sturdy, and they worked just fine. Then Turner comes in and decides to comply with FTC regulations. It was downhill after that."
I didn't want to hear the entire history of StratoDyne. "What would it take to get you to fly this thing?"
"Modifications."
"Such as?" Ann asked.
He eyed her up and down, then let his gaze drift to the spacecraft. "I call her Starfinder. I like that better than S-D/X-93A." He stepped over to pat the underside of the hulk. "Yeah, a lot of mod-"
One of the glossy black tiles fell to the floor.
He picked the piece up. "George thought it would be wiser to copy the NASA way of doing things. Junked the old man's spray-on ablation that worked so well. I'd want to go back to that."
"Fine," I said. "How much will it all cost?"
"I'll do most of the electrical work myself, if you're really serious about this. The rest will probably run about a million or so. That's in Panpacific dollars, mind you." He tossed the tile into an oil drum filled with trash. "Where'll you be sending her?"
"To crash the gates of heaven and kill God."
He laughed, then said in a wistful tone, "I'd pay that price to get into space again."
I frowned. Was I getting another kook in on this? "We'll be taking her up to synchronous orbit. A satellite repair flight."
Canfield rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. "Lot of junk up there. Which one do you plan to retrieve?"
I smiled. "I don't plan to retrieve anything. It'll be an in-orbit modification, which we'll discuss nearer our launch date." I took a moment to eyeball the shuttle again. "I'm putting you in charge of hiring the right people as of now."
"Okay. Everyone's files are still in the office. I'll call the good ones back." He jerked a thumb toward Starfinder. "Her lifting tanks are still in Guatemala. Turner refused to bribe the local bureaucrats after the last flight. Other than that, we'll probably need a lead time of five month-"
"Can't," I said. "Five weeks max. We launch on New Year's Eve."
He gulped audibly. "Okay. Umm… five weeks." He withdrew a small, bent notebook and a pen from his flight suit. "December thirty-one, nineteen ninety-nine. Hour to be determined." He looked up from the notepad. "Say-you're not involved with those ads I've been hearing on the radio, are you?"
"Open conspiracy," Ann muttered, looking away.
"Something about God dying on January first?"
I kept my mouth shut.
"Are they serious about killing God?" he asked.
"Were you?" I said.
We left him staring at us, his face a puzzled field of thought.