Chapter 15
Question
Straining to see through the smeared windshield of his rental Mazda, Spencer Lockwood followed the signs to Visitor Parking in front of the Sandia Lab administration building. He grabbed his briefcase and ran into the lobby. He was a half an hour late, which meant his tour of somebody’s lab was going to be cut short. He hoped it didn’t tick off one of the colleagues who might support his smallsat project.
He signed in at the visitor’s desk while the receptionist paged Moira Tibbett, his Sandia contact. Tibbett, a deputy leader of one of Sandia’s energy programs, had agreed to give Spencer the standard tour. She had faxed him a preliminary agenda—but he had lost it on his cluttered desk at White Sands.
Sipping bitter coffee from a Styrofoam cup in the reception area, Spencer fidgeted. He glanced at the colorful technical brochures on display, all of which described how Sandia would solve the nation’s energy problems for the next century.
Not a good sign, he thought, since he was an outsider with a competing concept. Sitting down, he flipped through his viewgraphs again, balancing them on his knees. He wondered if he should take the clip-on necktie out of his briefcase and wear it. This may be laid-back California, but Sandia had a reputation for being more formal than the other national labs.
When Moira Tibbett came through the gate, Spencer stood to shake her hand. “Sorry about being late. The traffic …”
Tibbett was tall and straight-backed, dressed in an uncomfortable-looking plaid suit. “Don’t worry about it. We know all about traffic out here.” She led him to the chain-link gate and handed the uniformed guard the pink copy from an escort request form. “We appreciate you coming up to have a look, Dr. Lockwood. Are you familiar with our energy programs?”
“A little.” Spencer already felt his muscles tense. He’d come here to promote his own program, maybe scare up some support. Sandia’s “exchange of ideas” sounded like a one-way filter.
O O O
That afternoon, discouraged to the point of surrender, Spencer entered the Sandia auditorium, trying to haul his spirits up by his bootstraps. He had put on his tie after all.
In tour after tour, researchers had soapboxed about their projects, strongly implying that everyone else was wasting the taxpayers’ time and money. Busy enough battling their coworkers, they had no room to endorse some outsider’s solar-power program. Maybe this whole trip wasn’t such a good idea.
The auditorium was already half filled. The room had three hundred seats, each covered with deep blue cushioning. Moira Tibbett stood tall and severe at a podium at the center of the wooden stage. The sounds of gathering people made a white-noise murmur. Spencer made a mental note to project his voice, even though these people didn’t seem to be in a listening mood.
Below, waiting for his cue, Spencer shook hands with some of the scientists, muttering appropriate words about how he had enjoyed touring their laboratories; in response, they expressed eagerness to hear his talk. Sincerity seemed as scarce as extra funding, though. He found it difficult to keep up the act.
Tibbett tapped the microphone to quiet the crowd. Showtime! Spencer thought. He reconsidered his viewgraphs, trying to pick a better slant for his talk. Nothing felt right.
“The Director’s Colloquium Series is pleased to present Dr. Spencer Lockwood.” Tibbett pulled a few index cards out of the pocket of her plaid suit and glanced at her notes. “Dr. Lockwood is a Caltech ‘hat trick,’ having received his bachelors, masters, and doctorate in physics there—very unusual for Caltech. He worked under Dr. Seth Mansfield in particle physics, helping to lay the foundation for Mansfield’s Nobel Prize.”
Spencer smiled tightly at the scattered applause. He always downplayed his contribution; he had been only an assistant, a second author on three of Mansfield’s papers.
“… his power-beaming experiment, for which he won last year’s E. O. Lawrence Award. Dr. Lockwood has expanded his initial microwave work to incorporate dozens of small solar-power satellites, recently completing a series of groundbreaking tests on which he’ll now report. Dr. Lockwood?”
Spencer looked out over the crowd. Placing the first viewgraph on the projector, he picked up the laser pointer and prepared for the worst. He could handle it. He had faced skeptical audiences before.
He felt like a shipwreck survivor being circled by sharks.
O O O
Forty minutes later, the coldly polite comments kept coming. Spencer’s last viewgraph, a bulleted list of CONCLUSIONS, shone on the screen, but no one looked at it. His colleagues asked questions phrased as springboards for discussions of their own projects, rather than reflecting any interest in Spencer’s work.
“—much less efficient than geothermal—”
“—what about impact ionization effects, which are of course not present in fusion-power concepts?”
Spencer answered each comment as precisely as he could; in the back of his mind he thought of Galileo defending his findings to the Inquisition. Out of the audience’s view, he gripped the podium, digging his fingernails into the fake wood. He found himself repeatedly sipping his glass of water, knowing it was a nervous gesture but unable to stop. The water tasted bitter.
“—isn’t it true that artificial ethanol is easier to access?”
“—now that the inherently safe TRIGA nuclear plant is cheaper to make—”
The rebellious “young hotshot” part of Spencer was amused at their behavior—how different from the popular stereotype of cool, logical eggheads. He had heard it said that scientists were the only army in the world that killed their own wounded.
Finally, he had enough of the bullshit. Spencer snapped off the viewgraph projector and gathered his transparencies. “Thank you for your time,” he said. Numbskulls, he wanted to add, but gave them a tight smile instead.
As a wave of hypocritical applause rippled through the auditorium, Spencer tried to let the tension wash off of him. These people were not looking for results, or even alternative answers. Each person was responsible for a different solution to the same energy crisis, and each person wanted to validate only one individual area of research. If Lance Nedermyer enjoyed this political game back in Washington, he could have it.
Moira Tibbett led him out the side door of the auditorium. “Dr. Lockwood, I must apologize.” Her eyes downcast, she looked beaten. “Everyone views this as a zero-sum game. There’s only a fixed amount of money to go around, and if anything new gets funded, something has to die. It’s not that they disagree with you on a scientific level—”
“I understand.” Spencer forced a smile to soften his abrupt reply. He unclipped his guest badge and handed it to her. “If you’ll escort me back to the gate, I can find my rental car.”
“Of course,” she said, taking the lead with brisk steps. “I can recommend some local restaurants, if you’d like.”
“That won’t be necessary,” he said. Though his return flight did not leave until noon the next day, Spencer had no intention of staying a minute longer.
***