The Best of Bova: Volume 1 by Ben Bova

Author:Ben Bova [Bova, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781476781211
Amazon: 1476781214
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2016-02-02T05:00:00+00:00

PRIORITIES

After spending nearly a dozen years trying to convince skeptical government and business bureaucrats that funding research is necessary, valuable and esthetically pleasing, this little story just bubbled up to the surface and practically wrote itself—during a particularly nasty budgetary cutback, of course.

* * *

Dr. Ira Lefko sat rigidly nervous on the edge of the plastic-cushioned chair. He was a slight man, thin, bald, almost timid-looking. Even his voice was gentle and reedy, like the fine, thin tone of an English horn.

And just as the English horn is a sadly misnamed woodwind, Dr. Ira Lefko was actually neither timid nor particularly gentle. At this precise moment he was close to mayhem.

“Ten years of work,” he was saying, with a barely controlled tremor in his voice. “You’re going to wipe out ten years of work with a shake of your head.”

The man shaking his head was sitting behind the metal desk that Lefko sat in front of. His name was Harrison Bower. His title and name were prominently displayed on a handsome plate atop the desk. Harrison Bower kept a very neat desktop. All the papers were primly stacked and the in and out baskets were empty.

“Can’t be helped,” said Harrison Bower, with a tight smile that was supposed to be sympathetic and understanding. “Everyone’s got to tighten the belt. Reordering priorities, you know. There are many research programs going by the boards. New times, new problems, new priorities. You’re not the only one to be affected.”

With his somber face and dark suit Bower looked like a funeral director—which he was. In the vast apparatus of Government, his job was to bury research projects that had run out of money. It was just about the only thing on Earth that made him smile.

The third man in the poorly ventilated little Washington office was Major Robert Shawn, from the Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories. In uniform, Major Shawn looked an awful lot like Hollywood’s idea of a jet pilot. In the casual slacks and sportcoat he was wearing now, he somehow gave the vague impression of being an engineer, or perhaps even a far-eyed scientist.

He was something of all three.

Dr. Lefko was getting red in the face. “But you can’t cancel the program now! We’ve tentatively identified six stars within twenty parsecs of us that have . . .”

“Yes. I know, it’s all in the reports,” Bower interrupted, “and you’ve told me about it several times this afternoon. It’s interesting, but it’s hardly practical, now is it?”

“Practical? Finding evidence of high technology on other planets, not practical?”

Bower raised his eyes toward the cracked ceiling, as if in supplication to the Chief Bureaucrat. “Really, Dr. Lefko. I’ve admitted that it’s interesting. But it’s not within our restructured priority rating. You’re not going to help ease pollution or solve population problems, now are you?”

Lefko’s only answer was a half-strangled growl.

Bower turned to Major Shawn. “Really, Major, I would have thought that you could make Dr. Lefko understand the realities of the funding situation.”

Shaking his head, the major answered, “I agree with Dr.

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