Charon's Landing Read Online Free

spouting off statistics about the damage that oil exploration would do to the wilderness. Posters, T-shirts, and talk show guests materialized out of thin air. The arctic fox and the polar bear became immediate media sensations; hours of programming chronicling their plight choked the airwaves. Thundering herds of caribou raced across television screens night after night while serious-voiced commentators described how they would be nearly extinct within eighteen months of the first oil rig start-up. People were outraged, and dozens of environmental groups burgeoned after the President’s announcement.
    Boycotts of the oil companies that had been granted drilling licenses erupted across the nation. The hardest hit, Petromax, started legal proceedings against several groups, including Greenpeace, for organizing the protests. Greenpeace welcomed the media attention a pending trial would generate. They wanted to send their ship, the
Rainbow Warrior III
, into Prince William Sound as an act of defiance, but she was stationed in the South Pacific to protest the latest round of French nuclear tests.
    What had started as a chance to finally cure many of America’s problems turned into a pitched battle that was dividing the nation as nothing had since Vietnam. Like so many hard decisions, everyone saw the Energy Direction Policy as a good idea, but no one wanted to pay the price for its success.
    The President and Secretary of Energy Van Buren had weathered the storm together, both shouldering even more criticism as now, almost a year later, men and equipment poured into the wildlife refuge to begin spudding, the start-up procedure for drilling. People seemed to forget about the benefits of the President’s moratorium on oil imports. All that mattered was the protection of the Arctic tundra and its inhabitants, even if that meant another generation of smog and acid rain and greenhouse gasses.
    “I’m not even going to ask if we’ve done the right thing,” the President remarked tiredly, for he’d covered the issue a million times before. “I know I’m right. We need to wean ourselves from oil. Period. At our present rate of consumption, the planet will run out by the middle of this century anyway, so why not be prepared for it? Europe and Japan will be screaming for our clean technology, and we’ll hold all the cards. Doesn’t anyone see that this is for the best?”
    Connie Van Buren had heard all of these arguments before and said nothing. Though not well known to the general population, the Department of Energy was a favorite lobbying spot for the Seven Sisters and all the other oil concerns. She had come under even more pressure than the President. But with a forbearance found only in women, she had taken the criticism and complaints in stride, while keeping an open ear for the President to vent his frustration.
    “The long-term benefits of what I’ve proposed far outweigh the destruction of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, and hell, it isn’t a foregone conclusion that the animals there will be wiped out like the doomsayers predict.”
    That last statement felt sour to the President’s ears even as he spoke it. The flora and fauna of Alaska’s north coast were found nowhere else on earth and were so delicate that even the most minor damage was virtually permanent. Arctic moss required a minimum of a hundred years to recover from the passage of even a light vehicle. Once the rigs and pipelines and all the other support structures were built, the land would never come back.
    “But, Christ,” the President continued, his voice thundering, “it’s a small price.”
    Connie threw up her hands in mock defense. “Remember, I’m on your side.”
    “I’m sorry.” He smiled ruefully. “It’s just the pressure. How in the hell do you handle it?”
    Connie laughed. “I just remind everyone that America’s nuclear arsenal falls under the Energy Department’s jurisdiction. I tell them that I control over twenty