Read Analog SFF, June 2011 for Free Online

afternoon's interagency coordination session. I'll mail the minutes from the last session."
    When the administrator of NASA called, you went. Still . . . “Isn't that task force all career civil servants?"
    Which Marcus was not. He was a SETA contractor: systems engineering and technical assistance. Fortunate SETA contractors got involved in everything their government counterparts did. Unfortunate SETA contractors took meeting minutes and fetched coffee. Lucky or not, they spent most of every workday stymied and snubbed by the contractors from the big aerospace corporations who did most of the actual R&D.
    If you had to have a supervisor, Ellen was as good as they came. Kendricks Aerospace, prime contractor for the demonstration powersat, balanced the scales. Most Kendricks engineers on the project detested Marcus. Not personally, or even professionally—they would have hated anyone looking over their shoulders. Asking questions. Making suggestions. Auditing their work. Highlighting risks. He got the disdain they would not dare exhibit toward Ellen.
    When had he last been able to do , not merely review?
    "Trust me,” Ellen said. “You won't be the first support contractor to sit in."
    "What's my goal?"
    "Answer questions and take notes. Beyond information exchange, these meetings don't have specific goals.” She paused. “If anyone tries to pin you down to something uncomfortable, you can plead lack of authority."
    Because he had no authority. God, he loathed meetings.
    They exited the service area into a carpeted corridor. A wall sign pointed the way to the main lobby. They continued walking. “Okay,” Marcus said, “where is this meeting?"
    "DOE in Germantown. Nancy Ramirez's office."
    Reflexively, Marcus began guesstimating the miles added to today's commute. He must have winced.
    "I'd reimburse you for the gas if I could,” Ellen said.
    But more than that, she had the look that said I wish there were something I could do for you. At least she had stopped asking if he “wanted to talk about it.” Because he really, really did not.
    As for NASA reimbursing him for the gas, he understood: Her hands were tied. Space Systems Science, Marcus's direct employer, had bid for the SETA contract at Goddard Space Flight Center without reimbursement for local travel. Shifting local travel costs onto the staff kept the hourly rates a few cents lower. It hadn't much mattered, when Marcus took this job. He had lived only a couple of miles from GSFC then. He told himself he might not have a job if SSS had pursued the work less aggressively.
    He told himself lots of things. Other things he just refused to think about.
    "But maybe,” Ellen added hopefully, “your car charged up during the meeting."
    "I wouldn't complain.” Even at the hotel's exorbitant parking-plus hourly rates.
    But in the two hours he had spent at the town meeting, his car would not have taken much of a charge. The Jincheng was overdue for a battery-pack replacement—which would run him about half of what a new car would cost. New car or new battery? He would put off buying either for as long as he could, rather than support the lithium cartel. Bolivia and Chile, curse them, controlled half the world's lithium supply. Every lithium-ion battery bought anywhere propped up prices for the cartel.
    Supporting the Russian oil cartel this morning felt just as crappy.
    In the hotel garage, the eight panelists fanned out toward their various vehicles. Coming straight from home, only three had managed to carpool. “Have a good meeting,” Marcus said as he and Ellen paused by his car.
    "You too,” she said. “And don't do anything I wouldn't."
    "You should have thought of that earlier."
    Smiling, she kept walking.
    Marcus's car had accepted scarcely a tenth of a recharge, about what he expected. The car would switch to its little gas engine well before he reached his meeting.
    "Destination: Department of Energy, Germantown complex,” he announced, backing out of