“WHAT IS THAT?” asked Allyson, standing behind McDarvid’s shoulder.
“What?”
“That cover. It looks like a satellite with an X through it.”
“Good. That’s what it’s supposed to look like.” McDarvid could tell she was frowning, perhaps because she had breezed through three years of calculus and two years of physics, plus biology, physiology, and everything else required for medical school. All McDarvid had managed had been Amherst’s distributional requirements—two semesters of astronomy and two semesters of college calculus—and flight school, courtesy of the U.S. Navy.
“How much are you stretching things this time? What does a satellite have to do with environmental regulations?”
McDarvid turned. Usually regulatory work bored the hell out of his wife, the good Dr. Newsome. “A whole lot, in this case. It’s all about power. Real power, not the political kind. Satellites need power, and half of their power systems are comprised of batteries.”
“Jack, they use solar cells to get power.”
“And where do they store that power? For when they’re in the earth’s shadow? Or for other uses.”
“Other uses?”
“Burst communications and SDI,” mumbled McDarvid.
“The space lasers … oh.”
“Right. Lasers work on bursts of power.”
“Now you’ve sold out to the weapons lobby?”
McDarvid flushed. “Do you know how many lives the weather satellites have saved? Or why transatlantic telephone calls no longer cost ten bucks a minute?”
“What do satellites have to do with your work?” Allyson’s voice remained calm, nearly clinical.
“The metals involved. Most commercial satellites use nickel-cadmium rechargeable batteries. Chrome and beryllium are also used in key fabricated elements. This metals initiative by OSHA and DEP would close down most U.S. battery facilities and shift most beryllium fabrication offshore. Chrome’s bad enough already, since you can only get it from the Russians or about three places in Africa, one of which is South Africa.”
“What about the health side?”
McDarvid shrugged. “That’s the strange thing. They want to set the level at a half microgram per cubic meter or a half part per million.”
“Oh…”
“Yeah. It doesn’t make sense. The current cadmium standard is around twenty micrograms. That’s roughly the same as—”
“Jack, I was using micrograms before you—”
“Sorry. I sometimes forget. I have to explain to so many people.”
“That’s all right.” Her long strong fingers squeezed his shoulder.
He just wanted to lean back and enjoy the sensation.
“If it’s not the defense contractors, who’s the client?” she asked after a moment, her fingers leaving his shoulders.
He could tell she was losing interest. “No one you’ve probably ever heard of. A French outfit called JAFFE.”
“JAFFE? The big pharmaceutical and chemicals firm?”
“You’ve heard of them?”
“Be careful, Jack.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just be careful. They’re the biggest in the world, or close to it. They didn’t like some research one of my professors at Harvard published. So they made his research life cease to exist for a decade.” She half turned from him and looked into the darkness outside the study windows. “At least they hired you.”
McDarvid bit his tongue. Allyson had said what she was going to say. He reached down and turned off the desk light, then stepped up behind her, letting his arms go around her waist, letting his head rest beside hers.
They stood in the dimness for a long time.