Tour 01 - Powersat by Ben Bova

Author:Ben Bova [Bova, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2006-10-31T00:00:00+00:00

Claude Passeau was in the office that Dan had loaned him, in the engineering building that flanked Hangar A.

Dan popped his head past the office’s open doorway and asked cheerily, “Want to go to lunch?”

Passeau was busily tapping at his computer keyboard. Without looking up from the screen, he said, “It’s not quite eleven A.M.”

“I know,” Dan said, stepping fully into the tidy little office.

Dan had given the FAA administrator a corner office with two windows, and Passeau kept it as neat as if it were his permanent residence. The other FAA and NTSB people got claustrophobic cubicles with shoulder-high partitions and barely enough room for a desk and a wastebasket.

Sitting in the hard plastic chair in front of Passeau’s desk, Dan said, “I thought I’d tootle over to Lamar for some local frog’s legs.”

Passeau looked up from the keyboard. “Frog’s legs? Really?”

“The size of drumsticks,” said Dan.

Passeau stifled a laugh when they walked out onto the parking lot and he saw the rusted, dented old Chevrolet twodoor hatchback sitting in Dan’s space.

“It belongs to the guy who’s fixing my ragtop,” Dan explained crossly. “The only loaner he had, he claimed.”

Passeau shook his head. “How the mighty have fallen.”

Dan shrugged apologetically. “Needs a muffler, too.”

As Dan drove the rattling, growling Chevy to the ferry, he said to Passeau, “You know, Claude, you look kind of peaky.”

“Peaky?”

“Tired. Overworked. What with the hurricane and all, you must be pretty stressed out.”

“Are you saying that this would be a good time for me to take a vacation?”

Driving up the bumpy ramp onto the ferry, Dan said, “I think so. The Riviera’s very nice at this time of year.”

Passeau smiled knowingly. “Dan, my friend, don’t you think it would be just a little conspicuous for an underpaid and overworked government official to take a vacation on the Riviera?”

“Maybe,” Dan conceded.

Passeau said nothing as the ferry chugged to life and pushed away from the pier. Dan felt the waves of the bay surging beneath them. Passeau seemed unfazed by the chop.

“Actually,” Passeau said mildly, “I believe it’s time for me to return to my office in New Orleans. This investigation can be finished up from there.”

“No vacation?” Dan asked.

“Not at this time,” Passeau replied smoothly. “Perhaps later, after my final report is finished.”

“I see.”

“If you’re still in business by then.”

Dan glowered at him.

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