"So? That should help us, right? More people have a reason to get into space, and-" Anne shook her head, and A.J. felt his face flush with embarrassment as he saw Hank's almost pitying look. "You're such a genius with your stuff that I keep forgetting that you're also as clueless as a kid sometimes. No, it hurts us. Because all the countries involved are now going to be usingall of their available launch capacity to start building their own ships so they can hopefully find something-like another Bemmius base-that they can claim for their own use under the Buckley Addendum. So…" Now he got it, and A.J. cursed aloud. "Son of a bitch. So thereis no 'available' launch capacity for us to use! That means that we'll be competing directly with the government for its own launch capacity. They'll sell it to us, probably, for 'humanitarian' reasons-translated: they won't let us starve to death, probably-but they'll make it so expensive that we'll eventually have to give up and come home." "Bingo." He slammed his fist on the table. "Dammit, they can't do that! We fuckinggave them Mars! They wouldn't even havefound that stuff without me! If Ares hadn't shown them up early on, they wouldn't even be landing there now!" Hank shrugged. "Fair doesn't mean much in politics. We aren't getting anywhere with that line of thought. We need a solution."

"Sure, I'll just cover myself with Faerie Dust, think a few Good Thoughts, andfly my ass back to Mars!" A.J. knew he shouldn't be directing his anger at either Hank or Anne, but he ached all over and this new turn of events was… well, just too much. He'd spent most of the last month working like a demon at Dust-Storm, only to be pulled out by an emergency call from Hank, leading to him spending almost everything he had to save Ares from a bunch of idiots… And now another bunch of idiots was threatening the whole project.