"I really think I should talk to the president," John Monura said to the senator.
Roger Haldings leaned back in his chair and regarded his negotiator with apparent dissatisfaction. The chair creaked under the big man's weight.
"John," the senator said, "it hardly seems that important."
"The president thinks so," John said. "The Mars Initiative is right up there with the national economy, in terms of importance."
"Just 'cause you hear it in a speech, don't mean nothing." The senator from Tennessee regarded his fingernails. "The vice president sets up the task force, and that task force has hired negotiators, and you, John, are chief negotiator, although you're starting to carp so much I wonder whose side you're on. The president doesn't really care."
John looked warily at the senator. Threats slipped edgewise into a conversation usually meant the most trouble. The senator had made allusion to his one-quarter Japanese blood as being somehow suspect before.
"Roger," John said, "I'm trying to do my job. On the one hand, it's a reasonable job--I just have to negotiate for financial support from the Japanese, since Congress won't allocate enough money to fund the Mars Initiative one hundred percent."
"Right," Haldings said, sounding bored.
"But I face a huge stumbling block. I have no real bargaining power."
"Come off it, John," the senator said, irritation in his voice. "The Japanese want to get into the Mars project. We know that. You've got all the bargaining chips you need--American know-how and American experience in space."
"The Japanese want to get into a Mars project. It doesn't have to be ours."
"Who else is there?" Senator Haldings said. He ticked off the fingers of his hand. "The European community has already decided to wait on any Mars work for at least a decade, and the Russian program is still a shambles, and China has no interest in anything but its satellite program. That's from your briefing, Monura. There's no one else offering."
"You left out one."
"Nah. That's all the serious competition, and they're out."
"There's Qatar."
The senator laughed. The chair creaked as he pushed back from the desk. "Forget about them, Monura. Sure, they've been rushing around buying equipment and hiring technicians for their new space center. But it still doesn't amount to beans."
"You don't understand, Senator. The reason Qatar is attractive to Sato's team is what they offer."
"Sure, money. They've got it, Japan's got it. If they ever did get together, they'd have a pile to play with, all right. But we have both the money and the know-how. You can't beat that combination, Monura."
"I'm not talking about just money. It's the commitment that makes the difference. It's something I can't offer the Japanese, because you won't let me!"
Haldings' eyes narrowed. "What are you saying, John?"
"Listen. When I go to Sato, all I can offer is the promise of certain things--technical and materials support, organization, and infrastructure. Those are pretty strong offerings.
"But when Sato's team goes to ad-Dawhah, they go talk to Dr. Ahmad bin Jabir, and what does Jabir offer Sato? He offers a brand new facility constructed in Musay'id that isn't left over from a moon program and isn't left over from a shuttle program and isn't left over from boondoggle military programs, but is constructed with only one purpose in mind: reaching Mars. Every single person in the Musay'id facility is new. The training of every single one of them is oriented around one thing: trying to get to Mars. And those folk are tops in their fields, because the government in ad-Dawhah can afford to hire whomever they want, especially when they hold out the carrot of being on Mars in twenty years!
"But that's only the little part of what Qatar's offering Japan. Jabir's made clear that Qatar is offering a twenty year commitment to the project. Twenty years. No change in the funding. A constant funding level of almost a billion riyals per year."
"They need a lot more than that," the senator said quietly.
"They do, and they know it. That's why they're negotiating with the Japanese. A Japanese-Qatar partnership would be able to do it, in spades."
"I don't see the importance of this, John," Haldings said. "Really, I don't."
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