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out across the Nevada desert; at ground level it resembles a Hollywood studio. The Cantor Satori skunkworks is already a hive of activity, with media trucks representing the world over, those just arrived being directed to the endmost hangar. A well-organized and well-executed attention-grabbing event.
    The star attraction sits in hangar three. The Pegasus space plane. The size of a small airliner, exceptionally sleek in its lines and with far more form than the function requires, it is a childhood fantasy designed to mesmerize a world into forgetting, just for a moment, all its troubles.
    The Pegasus sits atop a rocket sled, itself atop a raised linear trackway; five kilometers of superconducting magnetic rail disappearing into the distance. With the tracks energized the sled floats on invisible frictionless couplings.
    High above, gantries afford the media the best seats in the house as engineers and technicians hasten about their duties on the hangar floor below. All is beamed across the Earth ready for the main event—a spectacular test of the linear accelerator.
    Already used to launch materials to the orbital construction site of the Afrika, the linear accelerator is old news. The media need something to fill the gap while everyone waits, so it’s the familiar stock footage of the of the giant ‘sling shot’ in action—stubby cargo craft being slung into space, arriving at the orbital construction site of the skeletal Afrika and being unloaded by robots; simple minded, first-generation machine-based intelligences, unkindly dubbed ‘Embies.’
    Not a human being in sight, but before the Afrika is ready it will need human engineers to complete it, the limits of the Embies’ abilities having being reached. The Pegasus is how they will get there and after them, the crew.
    A means to transit engineers and crew could have been far more mundane—and considerably cheaper. But Robert knew he had to sell the endeavor to a skeptical world somehow and although Congress had balked at the cost, it was still a drop in the ocean compared to what they would end up spending. Senator Blake was having none of it—and why should he? None but a few knew of the real reasons why and he was not one of them.
    So Robert had set about making the Pegasus a thing of wonder, that an unsuspecting world could be misdirected by sleight of hand into believing it was all worth it. But you can only go so far with toy models and picture books.
    While most of the Pegasus interior has yet to be fitted out, the flight deck is largely complete. An orange-suited, white-helmeted figure occupies the pilot seat with Sharanjit Toor leaning over him, double checking his flight harness; Robert seems oblivious to her presence, silently gazing out at the track heading away from the Pegasus .
    “You don’t have to do this,” she says.
    “Yeah, I do. Have a little faith, Shaz.”
    Robert’s detached demeanor arrests Toor. She shoots a worried glance at a grim-faced Landelle standing at the cabin door.
    * * *
    Far away in Washington, Justice Garr is one of millions around the globe watching the event as it is broadcast live. A reporter gushes superlatives as scene after scene is presented of the Cantor Satori skunkworks, the gathered media, the engineers and technicians—and of course, the Pegasus , now seen up close for the very first time. An engineering marvel.
    “Looks like Robert Cantor is back to his old self, folks,” the reporter concludes.
    Despite Garr’s desire to keep Robert out of the public eye, and her initial instinct to tear a strip off of him for doing just the opposite, she had to concede the effectiveness of the game play.
    “Your move, Senator.”

SHOW TIME
    Toor and Landelle leave the Pegasus , with technicians sealing the hatch from the outside. The access gantry retracts and the space plane is moved forward along the track, exiting its hangar for the first time. It glides to a silent stop some one hundred meters down the track, a