Chapter 9

Autumn 1993

My words to the Wall Street Journal set off a new firestorm in the coal fields. Calling it a buggywhip industry may not have been the most carefully worded comment. We wound up with picket lines outside the Navajo reservation. We had to arrest several picketers who just drove into the res and tried to block access to the Burnside North, and hence the NavEl, site.

I was on the Sunday morning news programs almost every week. There was no other spokes-Indian for fusion power. Physicists around the world were in high demand as panelists for the talking heads. They didn’t seem to be able to reproduce the fusion bottle, exactly. They didn’t seem to be able to get the right additives to the lithium crystals that they produced, and, of course, we never revealed the source of OUR crystals. One enterprising reporter from the Casper Morning Star found ‘an informed source’ who told them that we produced lithium crystals at our McKesson sites. Marylou would neither confirm nor deny, etc. etc.

And they managed to get some photos of our offices and the first kiln at McKesson South. Jed Somerville managed to get them shoo’d off the Big Wind Reservation. The Washington Post managed to get the head of the Albert Einstein Physics Research Department from Princeton to say that “Our theoretical research has shown no promising developments in the area of fusion reactions. Not with lithium crystals or any other area of research.”

I appeared on Face the Nation with the good professor one Sunday, via a hookup over the new-fangled internet. I agreed with the Albert Einstein Physics Department. There was no theoretical research paper that had been published anywhere showing any progress toward fusion power. He looked smug for about twenty seconds. The moderator asked me if Navajo Electric was producing electricity using fusion power.

I said, “The Hoover Dam is capable of producing about four billion kilowatt-hours of electricity each year. We are now producing at a rate of three-quarters of a billion kilowatt-hours from our first reactor. And we plan on upping it to its full output rate of one billion by the end of the year. Our second reactor will be online by the end of the year, producing at the same rate.”

“You mean, you’ll be producing half the output of the Hoover Dam facility eventually?” she (the moderator) said.

“Oh, no. I’m so sorry I misspoke. That’s only for the first two reactors. We plan on building six. So, our eventual output will be about one and a half times the output of the Hoover Dam. Once our pilot plant is operational, we’ll build others, elsewhere.”

“But,” interrupted the Professor from Princeton, “you just said you agreed that there were no physicists anywhere who could produce fusion power.”

“Correct, Professor. You can’t theoretically do it. And your applied physicists can’t do it. But we HAVE done it.”

“Then it can’t be done,” he interrupted again.

“Would you like to see a recorded copy of the sun we have captured in our first reactor? It’s not a secret that we’ve done it. The secret is HOW we’ve done it.”

The director cut to the TV picture of our NavEl #1 reactor, merrily sitting there, blindingly bright.

“Impossible,” he sputtered. “If that’s real, we ... the physicists of the world ... demand to know the process you used to create it.”

I watched on my kilobyte chip powered computer monitor, running on the kilobyte powered baby internet, as the Face the Nation’s moderator’s head swiveled back and forth between me and the Professor from Princeton.

“You demand?” I laughed out loud. “Okay, you demand. Fine. Demand is denied.”

“We have to leave it there,” said the moderator. “After this commercial break, we’ll have the Chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors joining us to discuss the state of the economy. Are we headed for a recession?”

We were ready for the phone calls this time. We were not prepared to take a call from the White House.

“Miss White Owl?” It was Bill Clinton’s distinctive voice.

“Mr. President, not that I doubt it’s you. But do you mind if we call you back at the White House? Just to make sure it’s really the President. There are a lot of people who can sound like you.”

He laughed. I made the call, and asked for the President. It really was him.

“Miss White Owl, I just saw your appearance on Face the Nation. Pretty impressive, I must say. The way you manhandled that Professor from The Albert Einstein Physics Department at Princeton.”

“Woman-handled, if I may correct you.” I was still a smart alec, and I didn’t want the President of the United States to get any ideas that he was somehow superior to me.

He laughed again. “Yes. Woman-handled. I’ll have to tell Hillary about that one ... In any case, would you be willing to come to Washington to meet me and some others about your new development?”

“I would be glad to come. There have to be some conditions.”

“Conditions?”

“I need to have your personal assurance that I will be allowed to leave. To return to the Navajo reservations. No arrests, no detainment, no secret inquisitions.”

“Good heavens!” he said. “What would give you the idea that we would do such a thing?”

“Why would anybody think that the U.S. Government would want to get their hands on a secret that will change the way energy is produced world-wide? Do I think they would do anything to get it?”

“We have no plans to do anything like that,” he said.

“I note that you did NOT agree that I will be allowed to leave. Only that you have no current plans.”

There was a fairly long silence. “You have my personal guarantee that you’ll be allowed to leave. Is that good enough.”

“That’s fine. We Navajo have a long experience with the U.S. Government’s promises. But that was then, and this is now.” I chuckled into the phone. “You politicians have such a hard time with ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ type questions.”

“Will Wednesday morning be all right for our meeting?”

“Let’s make it 1000 hours, Washington time.” And we terminated our call.

I looked at Linc. “What do you think?”

“I think he’ll make a try at keeping you in Washington. There will be a long meeting, and when you try to leave, he’ll try to keep you. This is too valuable for him not to try,” said my Marine security advisor.

“It’s too important for me to meet with him and his top people. I have to go,” I said.

“Okay. We’ll set up something.”

“I’ll meet with them one-on-one. Or I should say: one on my side. The four of you outside the White House. You, David, Rock, and Bear.”

“Are you sure? I mean, they’ll have guns, and lots of big strong agents.”

“Yes. I’m sure I can handle them. What I’ll need is getting back to the res, once we’re out of the immediate area.”

He gave me a look. “One of these days, Obi Wan. One of these days.”

...

I pulled Linc aside. We went to my meditation room, and the family knew better than to interrupt.

“Linc, I’ve had a vision.”

“The most dangerous four words I can imagine. More dangerous than ‘We have to talk.’” he laughed. “What’s up, Ms Whirlwind.”

“Let’s see if you can laugh when you hear it,” I said, getting serious. “There is an invasion coming. There are some 2,000 invaders who are coming to NavEl and/or Burnside North. And there are about 1,000 coming to McKesson. The 2,000 coming here will be mercenaries and the 1,000 at McKesson are probably coal miners or local toughs. The invasion will be next spring.”