Operator B

“Yes, that’s the cover story we planted years ago.”

“I learn something new every day.” He stole a glance at her; she looked puny in the flight suit, preposterously young. “Now tell me something else. How’s a twenty-year-old manage to make full colonel?”

“Very funny, General. I’m twenty-nine, not that it’s any of your business. I’m just an admin officer.”

Wentz couldn’t help the chuckle. “Right, just an admin officer…with instant access to a black test site and a security clearance higher than the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.”

The elevator doors hissed open, leading them out into a white, antiseptic corridor. “Ready to find out why you’re taking the mission?” Ashton asked. She stopped next to a pair of white doors which read DRESSING UNITS - MALE - FEMALE.

“I’m not taking the mission,” Wentz assured her. “But I sure as shit want to find out what it is.”

“Then get into your fatigues and I’ll show you.” Ashton paused. “Oh, I almost forgot.”

“What’s that?” Wentz asked.

“Welcome to Area S-4, sir.”

—

CHAPTER 7

Dressed in white fatigues, Wentz and Ashton stood in an empty darkened warehouse hundreds of feet long.

“Area S-4, huh?” Wentz commented. “What’s it stand for.”

“Just a designation. It’s actually a federal land grid. And there’s no tagline for this facility—no Groom, no Dreamland, no Skunkworks. ”

Wentz looked down at his attire, frowning. “Well, so far I’m impressed, but I’m not exactly digging the white fatigues. Makes me feel like a house painter. And what are we just standing around for?”

“We’re waiting for someone…”

Hard footsteps clapped in the distance, growing closer. Who’s this dweeb? Wentz wondered. He looks like Wally Cleaver.

A young collegiate-looking officer eventually appeared, wearing an Air Force Class-A uniform and major’s blossoms. No name plate.

“Great,” Wentz said. “Another Tekna/Byman Op. Let me guess—Major Jones, right?”

The two men shook hands. “Jones is as good a name as any, General Wentz,” the Major replied. “I’m honored to meet you, and I welcome you to Area S-4. If you’ll follow me please, sir.”

They began to cross the empty warehouse, their footsteps all clattering. But as Wentz squinted, he noted that the underground warehouse wasn’t as empty as he’d thought. Along the far walls, hidden in shadow, stood armed black-garbed sentries every ten feet. Moments later, then, he noticed machine-gun emplacements built into the walls high above them. The barely visible gun barrels followed them as they proceeded.

That’s some Welcome Wagon, Wentz thought. “Area S-4. And all this time I thought 51 in Tonopah was the blackest test site in the world.”

“There’s one blacker, General, and you’re in it,” Major “Jones” said. “I take it you’ve spent a lot of time at Area 51?”

“I practically lived there off and on for ten years. That damn sand-pit cost me my marriage.”

Jones glanced to Ashton, then nodded.

“General, you’re familiar with the cult UFO hype surrounding Area 51?” Ashton asked him.

Wentz smiled, bemused. “Sure. I read about it every time I’m in line at the grocery store. Dead alien bodies on ice. Crashed spaceships in secret hangars. The local residents have some sort of a club out there; they think the 0315 Black Goose flights are UFOs that we’ve captured.”

“But what is your conclusion, General?” Jones queried.

What else could Wentz do but frown? “I’ve walked every square foot of every warehouse, hangar, and building at Area 51, and I’ve never seen any spaceships or dead aliens. Now would you please cut the jive and—”

Jones stopped, handing Wentz a metal clipboard. “I’m sure you’re more than familiar with the National Classified Secrets Act, sir.”

“The Federal Secrecy Oath is like death and taxes.” Wentz didn’t need to read it; he just signed it and passed it back to Jones. “I’ll bet I’ve signed more of these than you’ve signed credit card receipts.”

They walked a ways further, then came to a halt before a huge steel bulkhead painted white. Blue letters read:

DEADLY FORCE PERIMETER

UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL

WILL BE KILLED

That’s putting it bluntly, Wentz thought.

Jones and Ashton exchanged odd glances, like an inside joke.

Wentz shot them both a hard look. “Wait a minute. Just wait. You’re not gonna tell me that you’ve got dead aliens in there.”

“No, General,” Jones said.

He inserted a tubular key into a small plate. The immense steel door began to rise almost soundlessly.

Ashton tapped Wentz on the shoulder.

“We keep the dead aliens in Ohio, sir,” she said.

««—»»

Back in Maryland, General Gerald Cawthorne Rainier, as he was known to, strummed his fingers on the desk blotter. He chain-smoked, knowing it would kill him someday, and he often hoped that day might come sooner than later.

Often, he felt he deserved it.

The smoke swirled before the desk lamp, the only illumination in the office. Rainier preferred the dark. It seemed vastly easier—and much more appropriate—to sit in the dark when he contorted and manipulated the lives of good men.

He stared down at the open folder, stared down at the personnel photo of Jack Wentz. Then he closed it and stared at the heading:

OPERATOR “B”

He pushed it aside as the gauzy air swirled before the lamp. How many dead faces did he see in the smoke, how many ruined souls?

He forced himself not to consider the questions—he was good at that. His fingers continued to strum.

Next he placed a single sheet of thin tractor-fed paper on the desk blotter.

READ AND DESTROY

TOP SECRET

(SI/HS) BYMAN/BYMAN/FARGO

AF-MILNET CIPHER:

PAGE ONE OF ONE PAGE

CRYPTMAIL CODE 49867-99-00

-25 JULY 1999 -0713 HRS

FROM: NSA/DIRECTOR OF ENCRYPTED OPERATIONS, FT. MEADE, MARYLAND

DE: LEVEL THIRTEEN, AREA S-4, TECHNICAL TESTING FACILITY, STAPLES, NEVADA

DE: NASA, ANALYSIS BRANCH, GREENBELT, MARYLAND

TO: IGA (INTER-AGENCY GROUP ACTIVITY) THE PENTAGON

SPECULATION AND ASSESSMENT: (CODENAME) QSR4

ELINT CONTROL BRANCH, CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE, LANGLEY, VIRGINIA.

PLEASE ADVISE.

END AF-MILNET CIPHER

READ AND DESTROY

General Rainier leaned back in his chair and dropped the sheet into the automatic paper-pulverizer. The machine grated for a split second, then fell silent.

Rainier lit another cigarette, watched the smoke unfurl before the light like so many homeless spirits.

One day, he knew, his own face would be floating in the smoke.

««—»»

As the heavy bulkhead door rose, so did a line of light across Wentz’s face. When the door had lifted completely, a loud CLACK! was heard as steel pins locked it open.

No, he thought, peering ahead. No. No. No. No. No.

He was staring at what was clearly an air vehicle of some kind, but one with no configuration he could imagine as being capable of flight.

It was crescent-shaped, not circular or disk-like. Wentz imagined a giant heel. It was thirty feet long, twenty feet wide. Dull silver, like sandblasted aluminum.

No. No. No…

Armed guards walked a slow post around it, while still more guards looked down from gun emplacements high overhead in scaffolds. Floodlights beamed down, harsh as desert sun.

Wentz felt his astonishment sift away, replaced by something like numb shock. All the blood seemed to have drained from his face.

“No,” he croaked. “No way.”

“You know what this is, don’t you, General Wentz?” Jones asked.

Wentz stood dumb and mute, staring.

“General?”

A team of technicians approached the vehicle, brandishing aerosol paint tanks on their backs. They began to paint the object, tan on the topside, sky-blue on the underside.

“The paint burns off almost immediately,” Ashton remarked, “but it serves as sufficient camouflage during take-offs. The KH and RENSKY satellites can’t see it. Then we wait until after dark to bring her back, with the same auto-landing hardware that was installed in the F-15.”

“What’s it called?” Wentz managed to ask.

“We call it the OEV,” Jones replied.

Then Ashton defined, “Operational Extraterrestrial Vehicle.”

My God, Wentz thought.

Jones went on to explain. “Since 1944, the military has documented over sixty instances of vehicles of extraterrestrial origin crashing within the continental United States. Most of these vehicles were completely destroyed upon impact. Four were recovered reasonably intact but rendered inoperable via crash damage… General Wentz? Are you listening?”

Wentz nodded slowly, his mouth open, his eyes flat.

“One vehicle, however, was recovered completely intact, and that would be the vehicle you’re looking at. It was recovered outside of Edgewood, Maryland, in 1989. It is our estimation that the OEV didn’t crash but instead landed near the U.S. Army’s Edgewood Arsenal. The vehicle’s two occupants then disembarked upon what we believe was a field survey of several weapons depots on the Edgewood installation, whereupon they were shot and killed by post sentries. In other words, General, the OEV is—”

“Undamaged,” Wentz dully replied. “Still flies.”

“That’s correct, sir. It is fully operational as we speak… General? Are you listening?”

Wentz mutely nodded again. He could not divert his stare.

“Give him a break,” Ashton said to Jones. “It takes time.”

Jones seemed exasperated. “I know this is difficult, General, I know this comes as the biggest shock of your life. But you must listen carefully. Will Farrington was the OEV’s primary operator.”

“Will Farrington is dead,” Wentz guttered.

“Yes, sir. And that means that you are now the vehicle’s primary operator—”

Snap out of it! Wentz shouted at himself. Jesus Christ, this is serious. You’re looking at a fucking UFO! Snap out of it! He broke from his paralyzed stance and quickly approached one of the guards.

“You,” he ordered.

The guard snapped to attention. “Yes, sir! Good afternoon, sir!”

“Fuck that good afternoon shit. Slap me in the face. Hard.”

The black-suited guard blinked. “Sir, I can’t strike an—”

“Do it!”

The guard lowered his M-17 4.4mm ACR rifle and—

CRACK!

—slapped Wentz across the face so hard he saw stars. “As you were,” he bumbled, shaking off the rest of his stupor. Wow, that hurt. He blinked out the bright spots, then paced briskly back to Jones and Ashton.

“All right,” he said. “My shit’s square and I’m good to go. Now…show me the inside of this bird.”

««—»»

They’d climbed aboard via a standard Air Force hull ladder. The OEV sported a circular hatch a yard wide, and next Wentz was stepping in, following Ashton down another ladder that clearly was not manufactured by the Air Force—the rungs and siderails of this ladder were thin as wire but supported Wentz’s weight without so much as bowing. Now Wentz stood at the bottom of a yard-wide tube, the same dull silver as the pre-painted hull. An airlock, he guessed. Red instructions had been stenciled:

CAUTION: SET DECOMPRESS

(30-SECONDS EGRESSION TIME)

ACTIVATE DETENT, THEN DEBARK

Wentz stepped through the airlock’s oval manway; Ashton stood waiting for him.

“Sweet Jesus,” Wentz murmured when he glanced forward, starboard and port.

The interior stood stark, smoothly featured. There were no signs of original flight controls in the “cockpit,” though several banks of indicators had been mounted by Air Force technicians, as were two high-tech flight chairs installed over two contoured humps that clearly were the pilot and co-pilot seats of the vehicle’s original operators. Wentz leaned over and peered through two prism-shaped windows beyond which he could see the maintenance scaffolds and the interior hangar. The small windows bore no indication of casements, seams, frames, or sealant—as if they’d somehow been grown into the front of the craft. Aside from the sparse man-made additions, everything inside was the same color as the outside, that dull, lusterless silver.

“I don’t know if I believe this,” Wentz said.

“Once you fly it, you will.”

He examined the aft section. Some supply compartments had been installed, a SNAP-4 nuclear battery and water cell, and an EVA rack, but he didn’t notice anything that might resemble an engine compartment, nor fuel stores.

“What’s the fuel source?” he asked the first logical question.

“Unknown. Our physicists believe it has something to do with gravity amplification synchronized with or against magnetic-pulse waves. We’re confident that the manner in which the vehicle harnesses available energy is unlimited.”

“Endless fuel source…”

“More than likely, yes,” Ashton concurred. She pointed to a cylindrical protrudement on the floor, molded into the coaming. It was no bigger than a Coke can. “We believe that is the gravity amplifier, or what you would think of as an engine. More than likely, other navigational and guidance components exist in the hull. The crew were oxygen/nitrogen breathers just like us. It’s more than likely that the air supply is also unlimited.”

“That’s a lot of ‘more than likely’s,’” Wentz posed. “I don’t want to be the driver at the stick when this thing runs out of gas.”

“I’ve been in it during many of Farrington’s para-orbital flights. So if I’m not worried about it, a big tough senior test like you shouldn’t be either.”

Wentz didn’t exactly appreciate Ashton’s rising snippiness, but he hardly cared.

“Top speed?” he asked.

“Unknown. Within the earth’s atmosphere we estimate a maximum forward velocity of about 50,000 miles per hour.”

“Impossible. The inertia would turn the pilot into ground chuck.”

Ashton’s slippy manner edged back. “General, this vehicle wasn’t built by Boeing or McDonnell-Douglas; it was built by alien engineers. You’re standing right in the middle of the proof. You have to modify your powers of belief. Once you get it in your head that this isn’t a balsa-wood plane with rubber-band propeller, we’ll all be better off.”

“All right, Colonel Smart Ass,” Wentz shot back. “Then you tell me how an aircraft can travel 50,000 knots and not smash the pilot’s brain against the inside of his skull, pop his eyeballs, squirt his spinal fluid out his ears, and blow all of his internal organs out his mouth and his asshole?”

Ashton shrugged as if these considerations meant nothing. “General, we’re obviously dealing with a technological base that’s probably a thousand years ahead of us. It’s only logical that the OEV is fitted with some sort of integrated velotic envelope that counters forward inertia with reverse inertia, precisely in time with acceleration. Who cares how it works? It just does.”

“All right, fine. So how fast is it…out of the atmosphere?

“Again, unknown. All we do know is that the propulsion system is capable of producing velocities that seem to be exponentially faster than—”

“No, no! Don’t even say it!” Wentz nearly yelled.

“—the speed of light. Farrington’s longest range flight was to Alpha Centauri. It took him four days instead of four years.”

Shit, he thought. How could he object?

“Let me put it this way, General. Everything you’ve ever believed before today…is wrong.”

Frustrated, Wentz combed his gaze around the cockpit area. “Where are the controls? Where’s the stick?”

“Keep cranking that rubber band, sir. There’s no stick. This is a para-orbital, hyper-velotic, self-contained intragalactic transport unit. It’s founded on technologies that are virtually unknown to the human race.”

Wentz was getting pissed. “I don’t care if it’s a goddamn Good Humor truck! How do you fly it without controls?”

Ashton’s tone moderated. “The controls are…integrated.”

“Integrated with what?”

“With the operator—the pilot…”

Wentz squinted at her like a caveman glimpsing the ocean for the first time.

Ashton touched the brushed-silver surface of an angled ledge in front of the port-side flight chair.

A seamless panel hummed open.

“What in the holy hell?” Wentz asked.

The opened panel revealed two narrowly outlined indentations. Outlines like two bizarre hands possessing only two fingers and a thumb.

Ashton audibly gulped. “Those are the controls,” she said.

—

CHAPTER 8

“Those things,” Wentz said, “those outlines. They’re handprints, aren’t they?”

They’d left the hangar and now sat in a brightly lit in-briefing room, Jones behind a standard industrial-gray military desk, Wentz and Ashton in opposing armchairs.

“We don’t call them handprints, General,” Major Jones explained. “We call them operator detents.”

Ashton, then: “Synaptic activity in the brain is processed into and out of the detents by way of the median and ulnar nerves in the arms and the collateral nerve branches in the fingers.”

“You’re talking about thought, aren’t you?” Wentz figured. “I put my hands against those handprints, think, and the thing flies?”

Jones nodded yes. “That’s correct, General. It seems that thought conduction on the part of the operator is effectively converted to operational commands which are processed into the vehicle’s guidance system.”

“Fly-by-wire, only the pilot’s nerves are the wires…”

“Precisely,” said Ashton.

“And, hopefully, General, given what you’ve witnessed today, you’ll be canceling your retirement plans.”

Wentz closed his eyes and heard a deafening silence. Behind the lids, he saw an insuperable void, a vastness like looking down from the highest places on the earth. He saw a pilot’s most fantastic dream come true, and then he saw the faces of Joyce and Pete…

“I can’t,” he said. “I promised my wife and kid. I’ve been breaking promises to them for the last ten years, but I can’t break this one.”

A final tempt, a final image to maraud his pilot’s ego: he saw somebody else, some other pilot bestowed with this impossible honor. It’d be some punk, he guessed, probably some boner’d up hot shot Navy kid from Whidbey NSA or Miramar or, worse, a Blue Angel. Am I really gonna step down let some cocky F-18 PUNK fill my shoes?

“Shit! GodDAMN!” Wentz bellowed.

Ashton and Jones just looked at him.

“Ain’t happening,” Wentz said through a painful grimace. Part of him could not conceive of what he was about to say. “I’m not going to fuck my family over again. Tomorrow at noon I retire. Get someone else.”

Jones leaned forward, amazed. “Are you serious?”

“Right now, I’m so pissed off I could kick you in the balls so hard they’d fly out your mouth. Does that sound serious? Do you have any idea how hard this is for me?”

“General, don’t you realize what we’ve got here?” Jones induced. “The OEV isn’t some—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, it’s not some balsa-wood plane with a rubber-band prop. I already got that shtick from her. I know what it is, but I also know I can’t do it.”

Jones’ brow lifted. “I admire your resolve, General, but we still haven’t told you the actual mission.”

Wentz stalled. “I assumed that the mission is, well, to test fly the OEV.”

“Not exactly,” Ashton admitted. “There’s something else you need to know, sir. It’s much more important than you, me, the OEV—it’s more important than anything.”

“That’s why we need you,” Jones added, “and that’s why we need you now.”

A long silence hung over the office. Wentz sat there, waiting.

“Are you gonna tell me or do I have to guess?”

It was the sudden solemness of Jones and Ashton that most bothered Wentz. He didn’t like the feeling at all.

“Follow me please, General.”

Wentz followed Jones out while Ashton paused for the slightest moment then likewise left the in-briefing room.

Wentz didn’t see her pop the tiny pill in her mouth.

««—»»

Jones led them down another antiseptically white corridor lined with white key-padded doors. A maintenance tech at one of the doors began to snap to attention but Jones sluffed, “As you were, as you were, Sergeant.”

The tech was about to paint something on the door, and Wentz couldn’t help but notice. Shiny black letters on the door read: BRIGADIER GENERAL W. FARRINGTON, but then the tech painted over the W. FARRINGTON and raised a stencil that read J. WENTZ.

“You guys are a scream,” Wentz said, chuckling. “But I’m telling you, you can hard-sell me all day long but I’m still retiring tomorrow.”

Ashton and Jones said nothing.

Jones unlocked another door, marked simply CONFERENCE. Inside, Wentz noticed several chart graphs and murals, as if for a presentation. One mural seemed to be an artist’s depiction of some sort of space-flight mission. A bulletin board read:

-QSR4 JOINT JAPAN/RUSSIAN SAMPLE-RETURN MISSION

-SCHEDULE COURSE AND PERIHELIC TRAJECTORY (EST. 62,700,000 MILES).

-PROJECTED COST (US EQ.) $34 BILLION

-PROJECTED TIME EXPENDITURE (IN FLIGHT): 19 MONTHS.

Wentz sat down, ready to listen.

Jones began, “When the so-called Mars Meteor, designate ALH-84001, was found in August, 1996, and…well, you remember the news.”

“Sure,” Wentz recalled. “Fossilized microbacteria, fairly solid proof that there was rudimentary, one-celled life on Mars, something like 3.5 billion years ago.”

“Yes. After which every country in the world with space flight capability began to draw up plans for further investigations of the Martian surface. The ultimate end, of course, is a sample/return mission—quite sophisticated and very expensive, but this would enable a robotic surface device to collect soil samples, which would later be returned to earth by way of a staged orbiter rocket sent afterwards…”

“QSR4 is the codename for one such plan,” Ashton augmented, “and it’s already in service—”

Wentz pinched his chin. “I haven’t heard about any—”

“No, you haven’t, General, and neither has the rest of the world. The Japanese agreed to finance the Russian Space Administration on the mission you see outlined on the mural.”

“Why would the Japanese bankroll the Russians? Our aerospace technology is better than theirs.”

“Not so much as you think,” Jones said, “and, additionally, no other space administration in the world trusts us. They all think we’ve got field operatives planting discreet probe-implants and sensors on all their space hardware.”

Wentz looked duped. “Why would they think that?”

“Well…because it’s true. We’ve been doing it for decades—saves us lots of money. Why send up our own missions when we can tap and analyze their findings?”

“Cloak and Dagger is alive and well,” Wentz supposed. “The United States—the world’s best friend.”

Ashton ignored the sarcasm. “General, a year ago, the joint Japanese/Russian mission was initiated. A collection probe—QSR4—landed in the Tharsus Bulge on Mars and immediately began to relay findings back to earth—”

“And to us,” Wentz finished, “from the taps we secretly planted in their probe.”

“Yes. And what the collector discovered was more than bacterial fiber fossils but…live bacteria.

“You’re not joking, are you?” Wentz asked.

“No, General, we’re not,” Jones said. “The mission’s analysis sensors positively identified the organisms as live. Our own analysis of the data, however, unbeknownst to the Japanese and the Russians, indicates quite a bit more. Our own spectrographic survey of the probe’s findings was processed through CDC and Langley, and the bacteria reveals characteristics consistent with a cytomegalic mutation.”

Wentz frowned. “Do I look like a microbiologist?”

Ashton crossed her legs in the chair. “What he means, sir, is that the CDC analysis of the molecular specs strongly suggests that the Tharsus bacteria is host to a virus more hazardous than anything ever found on earth.”

Wentz stared at them through a dark interlude.

“In about six months,” Jones went on, “the return stage of the QSR4 mission is going to pick up that collector and bring it back to earth.”

“So tell them to scrub the pickup,” Wentz made the most obvious suggestion. “I think if you told them they were bringing a deadly virus back to earth, they wouldn’t have to think long before they aborted the entire mission.”

“We can’t do that, General. That would acknowledge what they’ve suspected all along—that our own agents have been planting tap-sensors in their probes. It would ruin foreign relations.”

Wentz almost laughed. “Well then fuck foreign relations. This is a bit more important, isn’t it?”

“It’s not that simple, sir,” Ashton said.

Wentz considered this. “Fine, then do what you Big Brother guys do best. Destroy the return stage before it gets back—”

“That’s even less serviceable,” Jones countered. “It would be plainly detectable as a hostile attack on the geostatic DPS net. They’d never believe it was an accident, and since the U.S. is the only country in the world with the sufficient anti-satellite technology to pull something like that off—”

“They’d know it was us,” Wentz agreed.

“And considering the upcoming trade agreements pending in Congress,” Ashton reminded, “we’d lose all economic ties with the Japanese forever, and the Russians would more than likely freeze all U.S. investment assets currently in place.”

“So you see our dilemma,” Jones said. “If we sabotage their return mission on its way back, we risk an economic war that could put us in a true depression. And if we tell them of our knowledge of the nature of the bacteria—that we’ve secretly installed the equivalent of analytical eaves-dropping devices on their space missions, then the news will hit every wire service in the world, and we’ll lose every ally we have.”

Wentz couldn’t believe the knit-picking here. “What are you guys? Republicans? You consider positive U.S. foreign relations more important than preventing a potential plague?”

“It wouldn’t be a potential plague, sir,” Ashton explained. “All the spectrographic and chromatographic analysis of the data we intercepted from the QSR4 sample-collector indicates a viral component with exponential contagion attributes. If that return stage succeeds in bringing the Tharsus bacteria back to earth—”

Jones’ voice grated, “Millions, and potentially billions, could die. A virus like that…could wipe out all mammalian life on the planet.”

Wentz shook his head in complete outrage. “So like I just told you. To hell with foreign relations and the economy. This is more important. Tell them. Admit that we’ve been slipping taps on their space-flight missions and tell them to abort the damn return stage.”

“Again,” Jones said, “it’s not quite that simple. Don’t you read the papers?”

“Hell, no,” Wentz said. “They’re all bias. I watch Fox News, that’s it.”

“Well, then, you might be aware that the Russian parliament is squeezing the executive branch to sign a non-aggression pact with Red China.”

“Sure, but it’ll never happen. Putin would never bend to that. He’d disband the entire parliament first. He’d shut down the government.”

“Not if he’s dead,” Ashton said. “And not if his government is replaced.”

Wentz’s eyes narrowed. “I guess you people know something I don’t.”

“Putin’s government is on the verge of collapse,” Jones said. “The opposition parties have been trying to kill him for two years. That last heart attack? It wasn’t natural causes. A radical element of the GRU managed to get some potassium dichlorate in his food. It was a U.S. team of cardiologists from Johns Hopkins that saved his life. The fact of the matter is, Putin won’t last till Christmas; his government will topple.”

Ashton again: “And whatever party takes over will sign the pact with Red China because it’s the easiest way to cut defense funding and pump it into the economy, avoid a revolution. China is still technically our enemy, and if they sign a pact with Russia?”

“Russia becomes a potential enemy again too,” Wentz realized. “And the Cold War starts all over again.”

Jones stood up, aiming a wooden pointer at the mural depicting the QSR4’s return trip to earth. “Exactly, and if Russia and Red China become allies…what do you think they’ll do if they find out that return-stage is bringing back a virus deadlier than anything the planet has ever known?”

Wentz’s eyes widened to the size of slot-machine slugs. “They might not abort the stage. They might let it return and retrieve it.” Wentz’s throat went dry. “They might try to contain the virus.”

“That’s right, General,” Ashton said. “They might try to contain it, and preserve it as a weapon.”

“A weapon we’d have no defense against,” Jones tacked on.

Ashton looked right into Wentz’s eyes. “So, General, we’re asking you to undertake a mission which would circumvent what is potentially the worst catastrophe in human history, an event that could wipe out the human race…”

—

CHAPTER 9

“They’re always best when you catch them yourself,” Pete said, then smacked a claw with the wooden mallet.

“They sure are,” Joyce Wentz agreed. The kitchen swam in spicy aromas of Old Bay and vinegar. A quick glance out the window showed the yard darkening, the sun going down. It was nearing 9 p.m. “And you did a great job cooking them,” she added. “These are the best I’ve had.”

The heap of cooked crabs lay on the newspaper-covered table. They were starting to get cool. Joyce suspected that her son knew full well that she was placating him—anything to avoid the issue. Soon she couldn’t think of anything to say as they sat there in silence plucking tender white crabmeat. The hardest part was simply containing her rage.

The son of a bitch should’ve at least called…

Pete finished his third crab; usually he ate six or eight. Eventually he said, “I guess Dad’s not coming back tonight, huh, Mom?”

“Probably not.”

“But he did say he’s retiring tomorrow, right? He said for us to be there at noon.”

“That, right, that’s what he said.”

“I guess he just had some last-minute things to do at the base, secret papers to sign and all.”

“That’s probably it, Pete,” Joyce said, struggling for all she was worth to hold back the tears of her anger. That son of a bitch! He’s got no right to do this to us!

Pete stood up, his shirt flecked with specks of red spice. He began to transfer the rest of the crabs to a big platter. “I’ll put the rest in the fridge. Dad’ll want some tomorrow after his retirement ceremony.”

More silence then. Joyce tempered herself, picking up the kitchen. She hoisted the black-enameled crab pot to the sink, prepared to clean it.

“I’ll do that, Mom,” Pete said after he put the crabs away. “Dad always says, the guy who messes up the kitchen cleans the kitchen.”

“No, honey, you go ahead. Your shows are coming on. I’ll clean up.”

“Thanks, Mom!” Pete turned to head for the TV room but stopped short. “Oh, and I was thinking. I think when I get out of college, I want to join the Air Force. I want to be a pilot like Dad.”

Pete trotted from the room. Moments later, the TV could be heard.

Joyce Wentz unconsciously squeezed the Brillo pad so hard it cut her skin. Her tears plipped into the sink, all the while she kept thinking That son of a bitch, that goddamn son of a bitch!

««—»»

Back in the main hangar, Wentz, Ashton, and Jones strolled idly around the OEV. Its temporary paint job was done, the maintenance techs gone.

“It’s your duty, General,” Jones said. “There’s no other choice, and there’s no one more qualified.”

Wentz stared at the craft. “Jesus… You want me to fly this thing to friggin’ Mars, and then—”

“And destroy the QSR4 collector,” Ashton explained. “When it stops relaying its navigational signals, the Japanese and the Russians will terminate the return stage. Sixty-five million miles away they can’t possibly suspect sabotage on our part. They’ll deduce that a tectonic fault or crustic surface quake destroyed the collector. They’ll have nothing to bring back and no way to investigate.”

But Wentz only partially understood. “Fly to Mars, blow up a probe. But you know something, folks? I don’t see any Hellfires or Mavericks on this thing…”

“Externally mounted bombs or missiles aren’t possible,” Jones specified. “Even if we could find a way to attach some hard-points to the exterior hull, any ordnance would break apart or even detonate once the OEV accelerated past light speed.”

Wentz hadn’t considered that. “Which means—”

“Which means you’ll have to touch down and debark on foot.”

“The alien air-lock works perfectly, sir,” Ashton assured him. “We’ve even posted directions. You close the bottom port, you hit a press-panel and wait thirty seconds, then open the hatch and climb out.”

Wentz felt a few shimmies in his gut. “You want me to EVA on Mars?”

“Why not?” Jones passed off as if discussing a stroll to the supermarket. “You’ll be wearing NASA’s top-of-the line gear. And you’ll have plenty of time to set the charge before the surface temperature compromises the suit’s life support systems.”

“What’s the temperature?” Wentz dared ask.

“This time of year? About 190 below zero,” Ashton informed him.

Wentz glared at her. “And I thought Syracuse was bad.”

Now the silence in the hangar felt like pressure. Wentz looked dolefully at the strange, heel-shaped vehicle.

“I don’t have to ask any more, do I, General Wentz?” Jones inquired.

“Of course not. A virus that could kill everyone on the planet? What choice do I have?”

“We’re glad you realize the severity of the circumstances.”

“But hear this, major. I pull this job and that’s it. After I come back, I’m out. I retire. Hell, my ex-wife’s given me three breaks—maybe she’ll give me a fourth.”

Ashton leaned against the OEV’s hull, her head bowed down. Jones rubbed his temples as if groping for an excuse not to meet Wentz’s gaze.

“What the fuck is this now?” Wentz asked.

“It’s…far more complicated than that,” Jones made the arcane statement. “You see, sir…”

“What?”

“It’s not as simple as completing the mission and out-processing.”

“Why? You want me for the gig, I said I’d do it.”

“There are…exigencies, sir, and—”

Wentz felt his temper flaring again. “I don’t even know what the fuck that means. Quit babbling and give me the scoop.”

“Once you complete the mission, there’s no returning to civilian life…no returning to your family. The implications toward national security wouldn’t permit that.”

Wentz’s heart-rate doubled at once, and his patience left the hangar. “You little Wally Cleaver-looking motherfucker!” and then Wentz grabbed Jones by his crisp Air Force collar and slammed him against the OEV’s hull. “I had a TS/SI clearance when you were still playing with army men. You’ve got balls implying that I’d ever, EVER, break my secrecy oath, you little piece of—”

“Release the Major!” a voice shouted. In seconds, one of the sentries had rushed forward, and had a service pistol to Wentz’s head. “Release the Major now, sir!”

Wentz did no such thing. He tightened his grip on Jones’ collar, their faces an inch apart. “I’m sick to death of little Tekna/Byman pissants like you shitting on me. You know how many times I’ve been polygraphed and narco-analyzed, you asshole? I’ve never divulged restricted information, to anyone—”

The sentry shouted, “Release the Major right now, or I’ll have to kill you, sir!” The sentry cocked his pistol.

Then, propped up against a UFO with Wentz’s hands around his neck, Jones shouted back the strangest thing. “Stand down!” he yelled at the sentry. “Holster your pistol and return to your post! That’s an order!”

The sentry, flabbergasted, lowered his weapon and backed off.

But Wentz didn’t budge. “You think I’m gonna fly to Mars and then go home and tell my wife about it? What the fuck is wrong with you? No one’s got the right to question my loyalty to my country—”

“No one’s questioning your loyalty or service, sir,” Ashton said. “No one’s implying that you’d breach your secrecy oaths. You’re over-reacting. Let him down.”

Wentz cooled off one degree, and released Jones.

Winded, pink-faced, collar ripped, Jones did a fairly bad job of regaining his composure. “Jesus, General—”

“Then quit fucking with me,” Wentz growled.

Ashton touched Wentz’s arm. “Come with me, sir. For the last block of your briefing.”

««—»»

Another blazing white corridor, then another sterile briefing room. Wentz and Ashton sipped coffee under humming fluorescent light. Whatever this was about, Wentz knew it was serious. Minutes ticked by before Ashton finally broke the silence: “As you’ve probably ascertained, sir, there’s one more catch.”

“I kind of figured.”

“But you do realize the gravity of the situation, don’t you?”

“Yes!” he snapped.

Ashton didn’t react. “Operator compatibility with the OEV’s guidance and navigational systems requires certain…alterations.”

Wentz looked up quizzically over his coffee. “What, system alterations?”

“No, sir. I don’t mean alterations to the vehicle itself. I mean alterations…to the operator.”

Wentz’s thoughts froze. The operator?

“Surgical alterations,” Ashton finished.

Morosely, then, she passed Wentz a glossy 8x10 photograph.

Wentz stopped breathing for a moment.

The photo showed two scarred, deformed human hands. Index and pinkie fingers gone, the web of the thumb gone, the middle and ring fingers widely separated.

Human hands with only three fingers each.

“God in heaven,” Wentz muttered, his eyes pulled open by shock.

“That is a post-op photograph of General Farrington’s hands,” Ashton dryly stated. “It was taken three weeks after the required procedure.”

“This is crazy,” Wentz said just as dryly.

“The operator detents—the handprints—will not function unless the pilot’s hands are an exact, morphological fit.”

Next she showed him another photo: Farrington’s three-fingered hands pressed into the detent outlines in the OEV’s control panel.

“It’s absolutely essential,” Ashton went on. “There’s no other possible way to operate the OEV without first undergoing the procedure. We’ve tried every conceivable alternative. None of them worked.”

“What alternatives?” Wentz mouthed, still looking wide-eyed at the pictures.

“A number of Army and Navy demolition men who’d lost two fingers on each hand in training accidents. Then there was a flight technician from McCord who’d lost two fingers while working on the flap-servos of a C-141. He volunteered to have his good hand altered too but, again, it didn’t work. We’ve even brought down some civilians with tridactylism, a rare genetic defect in which the afflicted are born with only three fingers on each hand. None of it worked.”

Wentz got up, stormed around the room. “I can’t go back to my wife and kid with hands like that!”

“No, General, you can’t. And due to the aggressiveness of the procedure, there’s no way to effect a cosmetic reversal. The surgery requires a complete removal of the index and pinkie fingers along with their adjoining metacarpals, removal of the web of flesh between the index finger and thumb, and a 21-degree widening of the phalange-margin between the middle and ring fingers.”

Wentz’s anger impacting with his incomprehension felt like someone hitting him in the head with a hammer.

“There’s no other way, sir. Without the surgical modifications, the necessary conduction of the pilot’s brain waves cannot be synaptically transferred to the OEV’s systems…”

“Well what about those other guys?” Wentz rebelled. “What happened with them?”

“Absolutely nothing. The palmar alignments weren’t concise enough to achieve a positive connection with the detents.”

I’m not gonna do this, he thought. I’ve got a wife and kid. But then the rest of the consideration took root. If that sample-collector comes back to earth…they’d die, I’d die, maybe everyone would die.

“There is no other recourse, sir,” Ashton said.

“I know.”

“So you’re going to do it, right?”

Wentz nodded. “Yes.”

“Your wife and your son will be personally notified—”

“Some cover story, I suppose. The old empty casket.”

“Yes. They’ll be told that you were killed in a test crash.”

It was only darkness now that filled his mind, and blazing regrets. “Joyce and I are still technically divorced. I need to make sure she gets everything, and all of my SOM pay.”

“JAG will take care of all that, sir.”

Wentz lowered his face into his hands, tears suddenly slipping from his eyes.

“I’ll be back later to show you to your quarters, General,” Ashton said. Then she quietly left the room.

««—»»

The next day, the banquet room of the Thornsen Center stood crowded with Air Force personnel in their Class-A’s, their wives, their children. The base commander and several other generals milled about impatiently. The entire auditorium seemed like a congregation with no purpose. Something stiff and uncomfortable throbbed through the air.

Civilian caterers in white hats traded pinched looks behind tables stacked with refreshments and steam tables.

Above the stage, where the retirement presentation was to be held, hung a long sign which read CONGRATULATIONS, JACK WENTZ!

“This is so fucked up I can’t believe it,” 1st Sergeant Caudill muttered.

“I hear ya, Top,” Sergeant Cole agreed. He glanced at his watch. “He’s more than an hour late for his own retirement. I don’t get it.”

“Neither do I—shit, there’s his wife.” Top, with considerable reluctance, approached Mrs. Joyce Wentz and her son, who seemed to be wending their way toward the exit door.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Mrs. Wentz,” Top offered. “Maybe he got the day wrong or something. I can’t believe he’d miss this.”

“I can. We’re leaving now, Sergeant.”

“Well, wait, ma’am. Maybe he just got tied up, maybe he just—”

“Goodbye, Sergeant.”

Mrs. Wentz turned, holding her son’s hand.

“He’s not coming, is he, Mom?”

“No, Pete. I’m sorry. Let’s go home now.”

Top watched them both leave the auditorium. He glanced at his watch again and grimaced, edging back to where Cole stood.

“All this time I thought he was a great guy,” Top remarked.

“Some great guy. Looks like he dumped his own retirement party and skated on his wife and kid.”

“How do you like that?” Caudill said. “Wentz turned out to be an A-one prick.”

««—»»

“I’m a freak now,” the words grated a day later.

It was Wentz who’d uttered them, propped up in the hospital bed of Area S-4’s medical unit. The surgery had taken almost ten hours, and now he lay in a pain-killer fog.

He held up his two braced and bandaged hands—hands with only three fingers each.

“I’m a monster…”

When the door clicked open and Ashton entered, Wentz quickly slipped his hands beneath the bed sheets.

“There’s nothing to be ashamed about, sir. What you’ve done is heroic.”

Wentz glanced away. “Leave me alone, will you?”

“The healing and recovery process will only take a few weeks. After that a week of physical therapy. Then, when you’re…comfortable with, uh—”

“With my new hands? My ruined, scarred, hideous hands?”

“—you’ll alternately train on the OEV and participate in some EVA simulations, some simple training blocks on field demolitions. etc. Believe it or not, General, the worst part is over.”

Wentz boomed, “Yeah? Tell that to my wife and kid! I’ll never see them again! My wife’ll hate me! My kid’ll grow up thinking I’m a lying piece of garbage who didn’t love him! Now get out!”

Ashton sullenly left the room.

—

CHAPTER 10

For the next month, about the only sound Wentz remained cognizant of was the tick of the clock. Time.

Time was life.

His quarters, his office, every briefing room and every training cove—there was a general issue Air Force clock on the wall, ticking.

The tick of the clock sounded like dripping blood.

Every night when he slept, the commitment he’d made dug his heart out. He knew he was doing the only thing he could do, but there was no solace in that, not at night when he was alone. He dreamed of teaching Pete how to drive the new dirt bike, he dreamed of Pete’s high school graduation, sending him off to the prom, sending him off to college, and all of the other things he, Wentz, would never really see.

He dreamed of making love to Joyce…

All lost, all ashes.

And then he’d waken, in darkness. He’d bring his hands to his clenched face, but the hands only had three fingers on each. And then he’d hear it.

He’d hear the only thing in the world that never changed: the tick of the clock.

tick tick tick

drip drip drip

S-4 had a psychiatrist and occupational therapist. Both Ashton and “Jones” urged him to see them—“to adjust to the necessary period of mental and physical refraction,” Jones had said—but Wentz said “Fuck that shit. I don’t need any damn shrinks. I’m a U.S. Air Force Senior Test, I’m not a nut.”

He knew what he’d done, he knew what level his duty had taken him to (and he knew why). So Wentz did what he always had.

He did his job.

He spent a week on Unisys flight simulators, programmed for the OEV. It was cake. Two more days training with demolition-block material, fuses, detcord, blasting caps and primers. Eight hours a day for a week bobbing in a cylindrical water tank for zero-gravity familiarization, then several sessions in the cargo hold of a C-131 nose-diving from 40,000 feet to 5,000 feet (the latter was fun, the former…not so fun). Another cake-walk was the MMU training. An MMU (for Manned Mobility Unit) was NASA’s latest, state-of-the-art “space suit”—over $10,000,000 per suit.

Wentz dug it.

Days lapsed as they always had in the past, a new joyride, a new thrill. Duty, yes, but the adrenalin always made it better. At forty-five years old, Wentz scored higher on the spirometer, the MMPA, the MMU field test, and the technical diagnostic batteries than most of the country’s active astronauts.

“Looks like you’re ready, General,” one of the training tests told him.

“You think?” Wentz had answered. “It might look like it, but this ain’t a lug-wrench in my pants, son.”

No, even a day after the surgery, Wentz never doubted himself. He was going to this job like he’d done every job in his career.

The best job.

His “shit” was “square.”

And on the day before his first live test flight of the OEV, unfazed by the deformity of his hands, General Jack Wentz looked straight in the mirror with a leveled eye and said: “Hardcore. I’m fuckin’ there.”

Yes, that was how the days went. He was the best pilot in the world, and they were great days.

The only thing that bothered him were the nights. When he’d dream and later wake up to the sound of dripping blood…

««—»»

Wentz sat strapped in to the operator’s seat, a modified job by Hughes Aircraft. He wore a visorless helmet and standard Air Force jumpsuit. Ashton wore the same, sitting beside him.

They felt the modest vibration as the platform elevator lifted them up thirteen nuke-proof levels through this underground complex.

When Ashton glanced at his bare, three-fingered hands, he moved them away.

“Don’t be self-conscious, sir. It could debilitate you, it could degrade your performance.”

“I’m not gonna fuck up your goddamn UFO,” he snapped back. He looked at her with a sly grin. “I’m gonna fly this thing better than Farrington ever dreamed.”

“Fine. Don’t talk about it. Do it.”

Bitch, he thought. I’ll show her ass.

The elevator droned upward, then shuddered to a stop.

“This is a daylight test flight,” she reminded. “This is strictly familiarization. Fly slow, fly stable. This first run is just for you to get the feel of the OEV. If you fly too fast in daylight, you’ll burn the camouflage paint off the hull, then we could be spotted by the KH-12 and Russian surveillance satellites.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I hear ya.”

The elevator had lifted them up into a hangar-shaped structure, covered with sand. Just another dune.

Then the dune began to open.

Wentz glimpsed the beautiful desert beyond. The hangar door held open like a stretched jaw.

“Go for it, General. Place your hands into the detents…and fly.”

Even after all of the simulations, Wentz froze for a moment. All of his instincts were different now—

“Raise the craft and move forward out of the hangar,” Ashton said.

“I know!”

No stick, no throttle.

“Give me a sec,” he said.

“Let your mind do the work, sir. We can go back down if you’re apprehensive, give it another shot tomorrow.”

Bitch, he thought again.

And then he let his mind do the work.

Wentz lightened the pressure of his hands into the detents. He thought.

Immediately a dark garnet-tinged light filled the interior, behind a very low sub-octave thrumming sound. Then the craft raised a foot off the elevator platform and began to move forward out of the hangar.

“Good. You’re doing it.”

“Charlie-Oscar, this is Jonah One,” Ashton transmitted from her CVC mike. “Request permission for take-off.”

“Roger, Jonah One. Permission granted.”

Wentz eased the OEV fully out of the hangar. It’s working, he thought, dumbfounded. I don’t believe it… He moved the entire craft out into the high, sweltering sun. Beyond the OEV’s strange windows, the desert shimmered. Wentz remained in partial stasis as the craft just sat there and hovered.

Behind them, the opening to the phony sand dune drew closed.

Wentz gazed at the desert.

“General, we can sit here all day if you like,” Ashton said. “You’re the boss, you know? But I kind of thought that you might want to do something other than hover.”

“Oh. Yeah,” Wentz replied.

Then the OEV essentially disappeared from its former stance. There was no roar of an engine being throttled to the max. There was no inertia crushing them back into their seats. There was only sky which, within minutes, faded away as Wentz took the OEV out of earth’s proper atmosphere.

Within minutes, they were in space.

Wentz could feel his mind become part of the vehicle, like a jump board, like a guidance microprocessor. The processor was Wentz’s brain, and his brain’s connectivity to the rest of the ship were his hands pressed into the detents.

“Damn it, General!” Ashton snipped.

“What? You told me to get moving, so…I got moving.”

“I expected a little discipline. This is a first test run. It’s a familiarization sortie, for you to get the hang of the OEV’s basis navigational possibilities. I told you not to accelerate too drastically, so not to burn the paint off the hull. You’ve just shot us out of orbit!”

“Hey, paint’s cheap,” Wentz said.

“Maybe, sir, but since you’ve burned it all off in a hyper-velotic cruise, that means we can’t return to the atmosphere until after sundown—six hours. Otherwise the satellites might see us.”

Wentz chuckled. “Six hours? In this rig? I could do sixty before I started to get tired. We’re cruisin’, Colonel. And I’m the driver. So just sit back and enjoy it.”

An endless scape of stars stretched before them.

You gotta be shitting me, Wentz thought, staring outward.

For the last twenty-five years, he was limited to the sky. Now he had the entire universe.

««—»»

In only a week, Wentz learned to operate the OEV to a degree that he thought there was nothing he—or it—could not do. It was all a mind-set, not that different from a high-tech fighter, the only difference being that the detents reduced reaction time to zero. His brain no longer needed to command his hands on the controls.

Instead—now—his brain was plugged into the aircraft.

Not only could Wentz command the OEV with his mind, he could tease it, jink it, execute maneuvers that would not have been possible by stick-control or fly-by-wire. The physical human body was simply not capable…but with Wentz’s mind functioning as an integral component of the OEV’s flight systems—

Wentz couldn’t imagine the full-scale possibilities.

Barrel-rolls in space, true-toe vertical thrusts, FLOTs and FEBAs and flat-spins and “skidder-turns.” Wentz performed aerial moves, within the atmosphere and without, that were unprecedented.

At least by a human.

He wondered how he’d fare compared to the true pilots of this vehicle.

“What were they like?” he asked on his seventh test flight. He was encircling the earth at a 23,000-mile geostatic orbit-track. He wasn’t sure—because the OEV had no true-speed indicators, altimeters, or azimuth gauges—but it seemed that each revolution took but seconds. The harder he thought, the faster he went.

“The native operators?” Ashton asked.

“Yeah. Little green men? Silver skin? Big black almond-shaped eyes?”

“I don’t know,” Ashton confessed, “because I never had a need to. I only know they were air-breathers, bipedal, and warm-blooded. One of the bodies was cryolized, and the other was autopsied, at Wright-Patterson.”

“Why do you think they came to earth?”

“Who knows? A field survey, probably. Probably monitoring our technological progress with regards to weapons of mass destruction. The Edgewood Arsenal? You don’t even want to know what kind of stuff we’ve got stored there.”

“You’re right,” Wentz said. “I don’t want to know.” Wentz took his three-fingered hands out of the detents, leaving his last guidance thoughts in the system: continue following the orbit-line. “How far advanced do you think they are?”

“Probably a thousand years, something like that.”

Christ…

“The seal of the egression hatch is so minute, we couldn’t even get molecular wire to run a patch to the outer-hull,” Ashton remarked. “And even if we could, the hull is impenetrable, no way to mount anything on it.” She pointed to the meager bank of readout gauges and VDU’s above the detent panel. “A brace-frame holds that stuff in place, same for the storage racks and lockers in back.”

“If the hull’s impenetrable…how do we have radio contact with S-4?” Wentz asked.

“Luck. Radio waves pass through without any detectable distortion. It’s just a standard SINGARS radio we’ve got installed… You hungry?”

“Sure.”

Ashton unhooked her safety belt, walking normally to the rear of the craft, in spite of its tremendous speed and gyrations.

When Wentz wasn’t looking, she popped a small pill into her mouth.

Moments later, she returned to her seat, bearing two packs of MRE’s.

“Ah, Meals, Ready to Eat,” Wentz recognized the o.d.-green wrappers. “You got a hot dogs and beans there?”

“Live it up, sir,” she said, and passed him the pack. “And you can have my chocolate disk—”

“The hockey puck?” Wentz exclaimed. “Shit, in the field, guys would sell those things for fifty bucks! You don’t want yours?”

Ashton passed him the green cellophane packet, which read CHOCOLATE, ONE (1) DISK, 104 GRAMS. “I don’t eat chocolate,” Ashton said in a vehicle that was probably surpassing 250,000 miles per hour. “It makes my face break out.”

««—»»

Later test flights would prove equally flawless. Wentz flew to the moon, the Alpha-Centauri double-star system, to Venus.

On the moon, he EVA’d, performing several familiarization sessions in the most technologically advanced “space suit” known to man.

This is a trip, he thought, skipping through dust and an age-old volcanic ejecta in the Aristarchus plains. He picked up an oblong rock close to the shape of a football; he threw it and watched it disappear.

Eat my shorts, Eli Manning, he thought. You ain’t shit.

««—»»

The next day, Wentz was cleared for the mission.

—

CHAPTER 11

“I love you,” Wentz whispered.

“I love you too,” Joyce hotly whispered back.

His hands molded against her soft flesh; her perfect breasts swayed above his face. Her beautiful dark visage lowered, to kiss him, and Wentz was swept away. His life, for the first time, was perfect.

As he penetrated her, moving with her pleasure, he raised his hands to caress her face—

And when she saw them—his hands, his mutilated, three-fingered hands shiny with scar tissue—

She screamed.

She screamed and pulled away, crawling backward. She began to vomit as she fell off the bed. Wentz lurched up, crawling toward her, and at that same moment, the bedroom door clicked open, and Pete peered in.

“Dad, what—”

“Close the door!” Wentz shouted, pointing at his son.

Pete screamed when he glimpsed his father’s hands.

The door slammed shut.

When Wentz looked over the edge of the bed, he saw that his wife had turned into a swollen, vermiculated corpse. Eyes popped and running with fluid. Her skin blue-green. Lumpen bile slipping from her once-pert, now-rotten lips.

“I hate you,” the corpse gargled. “I hate you, and so does your son…”

When Wentz came awake, he was gagging at the remnant dream-stench of death.

Fuck, he thought. This ain’t making it…

The wall clock ticked. Just past 4 a.m.

Four hours, he thought.

He showered, shaved, donned his service whites. He zipped up his leather mitts. When he left his quarters, silence seemed to stalk his footfalls. Level Thirteen was a white labyrinth with no vanishing point. Eventually, he found himself in the OEV vault. The sentries in the shadows didn’t move; Wentz felt alone, which was what he wanted. He paced around the OEV, not looking at it as much as looking at his life. He thought about Joyce, he thought about Pete, he thought about all the things he would miss now, but then remembered there was no alternative. There never had been.

The training blocks and the test blocks all seemed unreal now. They were distant dreams; they were like stories someone had told him. When he tried to see the last six weeks in his mind…it wasn’t him in the operator’s seat of the OEV. It was someone else. A dream man.

But today was no dream. His hands had three fingers each. That was real. And in a few hours he would be using those hands—and the instincts they were connected to—to pilot an extraterrestrial vehicle to Mars.

This was real.

Wentz stared at the OEV. They’d had to repaint it each and every time he’d taken it out. It looked surreal with its desert-sand paint on the top, and the heather-blue on the bottom.

All at once, Wentz couldn’t believe what he was looking at, nor what he was about to do in just a few hours.

He looked at his watch…

Oh, man…

What felt like twenty minutes had stretched to four hours.

It was 0758.

The vault door clanked, then began to rise. Bright white light spilled into the hangar and a figure stood in stark-black silhouette.

Major “Jones” stepped out of the light.

“General, it’s time for you to get to the ready room. Time to suit up.”

Wentz could hear his watch ticking. “Yeah. I guess it is.”

««—»»

A pressure-suit wasn’t necessary; the OEV maintained flawless cabin pressure of 14.7 psi or exactly 100 kilopascals, close to identical to earth conditions at sea level. In the past, Wentz had worn a simple simulator helmet, since Ashton had monitored the SINGARS radio channels.

“I need a CVC helmet,” Wentz informed Jones, “for commo.”

“No, you don’t, sir,” Jones replied.

Another silhouette emerged from the bulkhead light. It was Ashton, dressed in the same flight suit series as Wentz.

“You’re coming?” Wentz asked.

“No offense, sir,” she said. “You may be the best pilot in the world, but considering you’ve got a 65-million-mile trip ahead of you, you might need a communications officer.”

“Cool with me.” Wentz extended his mitted hand toward the OEV. “Hop in.”

Wentz climbed up the trolley ladder. He slapped the exterior press-panel.

The top hatch hissed open.

“Let’s get this spam can rolling,” Wentz said.

««—»»

“Charlie-Oscar, this is Jonah One. Request permission to take off.”

The topside door stood yawning open. Bright sky glared beyond.

“Roger, Jonah One. You are cleared.”

Fuck this fucking around, Wentz thought. Hands to detents, he jerked the OEV from the hangar entrance…and disappeared.

“Time to cook,” he said.

Clouds sailed by, then so did the rest of the atmosphere. Moments later, they were plunged into star-flecked space.

“Is it me, or does this thing fly faster each time we go out?”

“Yes, sir,” Ashton responded, “though we haven’t come up with a technically sound hypothesis as to why.”

“The first time I went up, it seemed to take a lot longer to get out of the atmosphere,” Wentz observed.

“And maybe you weren’t paying attention, but your second trip to the moon took half as long as your first.”

“I can’t figure it. There’s no throttle, no fuel-flow, no type of velocity controls—”

“It’s all in your mind,” Ashton asserted. “That’s our guess, sir. General Farrington experienced the same thing. Each excursion to the Alpha Cent cluster consumed fewer flying hours. Increased confidence of the operator probably has something to do with it, and familiarization, too. The more flight-hours racked up on the OEV, the greater the feel you have with its total function. The more you get to know it, the faster it flies.”

Wentz’s brow furrowed. “It sounds like you’re telling me I’m having a relationship with a space ship.”

“In a sense, sir, you are. When you put your hands into the detents, you become connected to the vehicle, you become part of it. Given the sophistication of technology involved, it’s not inaccurate to say that you’re bonding with some systemological aspect of the craft.”

“Bonding, huh? Guess it’s only a matter of time before I start buying it roses.”

Ashton remained serious. “Think about it, sir. It only makes sense. A guidance and propulsion system that connects to the operator’s thought processes? When you become part of the vehicle, it only stands to reason that the vehicle becomes part of you.”

Wentz didn’t know if he was buying that one, and he preferred not to consider it. The mere fact that he was piloting a craft made by an alien race was hard enough to reckon.

By now, he had learned that a cleanly focused thought was enough to keep the OEV headed on a base trajectory. He needn’t keep his hands in the detents at all times.

Wentz removed his hands from the panel, and reached for his gloves.

“You don’t need to do that, sir,” Ashton said. “Not on my account.”

“Yeah? What about my account?” he sniped back and slipped on his mitts. “You ever think of that?”

“General, if you’re uncomfortable about your hands—”

“Oh, yeah, there’s the right word. Uncomfortable. Try appalled. Try disgusted. I’m a freak, Colonel Ashton.”

“No, you’re not.” Ashton’s voice was cool, stony. “You’re an Air Force restricted test pilot. Your job is to discharge your duty for your country. You knew the score the first time you re-upped. You’ve made sacrifices in the past, and you’ve made a sacrifice now. I’ve made sacrifices too—to be in this position, we all have. So stop whining about your hands.”

Wentz yanked his stare around. “Whining?” He couldn’t believe it. “That’s easy for you to say. You’ve got ten fingers, I’ve only got six!”

“You’re whining, sir—”

“I can see our trip to Mars is starting out great.”

“—and you’re jeopardizing the integrity of the mission.”

“How’s that…toots?”

The same cool voice answered, “By allowing yourself to be inhibited about your hands, you’re potentially tainting your mental state. Your mental state runs the OEV. If you’re inhibited, self-conscious, or depressed, those negative emotions can spill over into the vehicle’s efficiency and function.”

Wentz was about to rail at her…but then he caught himself, thought about what she’d said.

A few moments ticked by.

“And you might want to know, sir,” Ashton topped it off. “General Farrington was disciplined enough to not be self-conscious about his hands.”

Wentz didn’t like that, but he also knew what she was doing. Bitch psychology. She was leveling Farrington’s performance against his.

He unzipped the leather mitts, flung them off. “Who needs gloves anyway?” Then he half-smiled at her. “It’s too bad I can’t give you the finger…”

««—»»

“So what’s your story?” Wentz asked later, when their tempers had cooled. “Got a husband, kids?”

“No, sir.”

“Let me guess. Air Force boyfriend, then, right?”

“No boyfriend,” she replied. “That whole scene…it’s not for me. Not enough time for a relationship and the service. Besides, it’s not my style.”

“Big bad Air Force girl with super-secret clearance—that’s your style?”

“Guess so, sir.”

Wentz didn’t push it. In the window, space streamed by. He realized the impossibility of attaching a true-speed gauge; nevertheless, he was dying to know their approximate velocity. Perhaps telemetry and even the detailed nature of each mission profile regulated when and for how long the OEV would exceed light speed. And perhaps Ashton was correct: maximum performance depended on the psychological attitude of the operator.

“Tell me about Will Farrington,” Wentz requested.

“A great man…and an unhappy one,” she said. “It all seemed to pile up on him one day. All the things serious pilots leave behind. Wife, children, PTA meetings, the white picket fence.”

The words nudged Wentz in the head, like someone palm-heeling him. “So Farrington had a family?”

“Yes, and he didn’t think twice about abandoning them. He knew he had to, in order to become Operator ‘A.’ He deemed it as his duty—just as you have. He did what he had to do because there was no other way. When you consider the utilities of the OEV, its potential for national defense…I’m sure you agree.”

Did he? Wentz still wasn’t certain. “Are you sure it was duty and not just fighter-jock envy? To be honest, I’m still not sure if the reason I took the mission wasn’t more for my own ego. Jealousy. Maybe the real reason I’m sitting here with three-fingers on each hand is because I subconsciously couldn’t stand the thought of someone else filling this seat. Some Tom-Cruise-looking Navy hammerhead. Some hot shot who’s not as good as me.”

“I don’t think that’s the case, sir. And it wasn’t the case with General Farrington. In between test runs, he lived at a compound near Andrews. Heavily guarded, mind you. We knew Farrington was becoming depressed because of his TATs, MMPIs, and his digital polygraphs. He actually tried to escape the compound several times. Eventually, we couldn’t trust him; we had to put cameras in his suite and a HIR direction-finder on his ankle. And you know what? He still escaped.”

Escaped? Wentz wondered. The job must’ve turned him into a prisoner. “Why, though? Why did he escape?”

“To see his daughter. She’d been adopted after his wife killed herself. A TACLET squad caught him and brought him back.”

Yes, Wentz thought. A prisoner. Now I’m the prisoner. Did the same await Wentz once this mission was over? To be locked up in some luxury suite, surrounded by guards, beckoned by suicide?

Wentz didn’t want to think about it. He didn’t want to think about what might happen to his mind five or ten years from now.

“Tell me this, and be honest,” he asked, unable to resist. “Was Farrington… Was he better than me?” Wentz looked at her. “Be honest.”

“That’s really not the point, sir—”

“Tell me!” he barked at her. “That’s an order! Was Farrington a better pilot than me?”

Ashton smirked, sighing. “Yes, sir, in my opinion, he was.”

Well, I asked for it, and I got it. But why should such insecurities arise now? Wentz knew that Farrington was better, better than anyone in the world. “I guess I should stop acting like a kid and just be happy that I’m second best.”

“Be real, sir. You’re the second-best pilot in the world. That’s pretty good.”

Wentz nodded. She’s right. I don’t see any Navy punks from Miramar flying this thing. I see ME.

The OEV cruised on, the strange hum in the cabin somehow comforting. Ashton unstrapped and got out of her seat. “I’ll be right back. I need to check the APU’s and the range-reply readouts.”

Wentz shrugged from the pilot’s seat. “Why? My brain tells the guidance system where we’re going.”

“Not if you day-dream. Not if you happened to be thinking about Miss July when you were adjusting your trim.”

“Aw, Miss July was a dog—”

“Our double-R computer is the only way we can know for sure that we’re on course.”

Ashton stooped to the rear of the craft where brace-frames mounted the only hardware aboard that was manufactured by human beings. Here we go again, Wentz thought. He could see her in the wind-screen’s reflection. She knew they were on the proper trajectory; she didn’t even look at the range-reply coordinates.

Instead, she reached into a pocket, withdrew a pill, and popped it into her mouth. Over the past month, Wentz had seen her do this several times.

She returned to her commo seat. “I apologize, General. It’s clear you weren’t thinking about Miss July. Your mental integrity is straight-on.”

Wentz wondered what he should do, then he just said it. “Look, Colonel, just because I’m a knucklehead plane driver doesn’t mean I’m not observant. What’s with the pills you’ve been popping behind my back?”

Ashton had just strapped back in. Then she looked crestfallen. “Fuck,” she whispered.

“Remember what I told you about profanity? Doesn’t mix right with all your spit and polish. And what are the pills? Don’t tell me Dexatrim ’cos I won’t buy it.”

“Low-dose Duramorph and MS-Contin,” she uttered. “I hate sympathy—I didn’t want to tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

“I’ve got bone cancer. Metastatic and inoperable…”

Wentz glanced at her with a trapped expression. “I— Jesus. I’m sorry…”

“Don’t be. I just said, I hate sympathy, sir.”

Shit, she’s so young… “Right, I gotcha. Damn. And quit with the ‘sir’ and ‘general’ bit, huh? My name’s Jack. You gotta first name besides Colonel?”

“Jill,” she said.

Wentz laughed. “No kidding? I love it! Jack and Jill went up the hill…to fly to fuckin’ Mars!”

Ashton spared a smile herself. “And speaking of Mars, sir—er Jack… There it is.”

Wentz’s eyes glued to the port-side window. The red sphere grew exponentially, from pea-size in space until it took up Wentz’s entire scope of vision.

He pressed his hands back into the detents, then the OEV automatically began to maneuver into a perihelion-descent orbit.

««—»»

Mars was only red in a telescope, due to refractive occulation from the small planet’s diminutive atmosphere and wind systems blowing dust and sublimated vapors of frozen carbon dioxide. This close, the surface of the slightly lopsided planet appeared more like the hue of dull brass. Like streaks of fat through steak, ribbons of more frozen carbon dioxide looked like canals filled with water. Wentz had his hands back in the detents as he cruised the OEV smoothly over peaks, ridges, and crater edges. Wentz rode the planet’s jagged surface like a surfer over waves.

It was a good time.

The OEV’s system responses amazed him. He could do anything. He could alter trim by two degrees or one hundred and eighty just by a thought. He could turn to fly between crater peaks simply by looking out the window. And it happened.

Fuck, he thought. I could’ve ended the Gulf War in one day with this thing.

From the Air Force gear behind them, something began to beep. “Slow to a crawl,” Ashton instructed. “It’s our SHF interception of the QSR4’s gamma beacon. You know what line-of-sight means. Start looking.”

All Wentz saw was the same brass-colored surface. The beeping behind them began to increase.

“Can you imagine if you hadn’t found out about the virus?” he posed.

“Thank God we did.”

“It’s incredible that you could identify it all just through intercepted radio waves.”

“Not really. It’s just digitalized data based on photochemical analysis, spectrography, chromatography.”

Wentz figured he should stick with what he knew: flying. “How long till we find this thing and give it the eighty-six?”

“Right about…” Ashton leaned forward in her seat. “This should be it. We’re sitting right in the middle of the Tharsus grid-plat.”

They both squinted through the prismoid windows.

“There it is!” Ashton exclaimed. “See the treadmarks? Just right of center, one o’clock.”

“Uhhhh…yeah! Got it!”

Wentz slowed the OEV, then hovered. Treadmarks in the Martian dust ended at the QRS4 sample-collector. The mechanical probe was about the size of a golf cart on tractor treads. High-gain antennae spired from its top as a small radio dish spun lazily from the front end.

“What’s the safe-distance for the RDX charge?” Wentz asked. “A hundred feet?”

“A hundred meters. “This is micro-gravity, remember?”

Wentz slowly backed up the OEV while Ashton held a portable rangefinder to her eye, focusing on the probe.

“You’re good,” she said.

Wentz took his hands out of the detents. He paused a moment, gazing out the window onto this otherworldly landscape.

“No time like the present, right?”

“Go for it,” Ashton said.

««—»»

Fifteen minutes later, Wentz hauled himself out of the OEV’s airlock, cumbersome as a tortoise in the bulky white EVA suit. What a rip-off, he thought. I’m the first human being to walk on Mars…and no one will ever know. He skipped forward away from the craft, each step lifting him inches off the surface. In a gravitational field thirty-eight percent less than earth, clouds of dust looked like bizarre smoke trailing behind his footfalls. He bounced more than walked toward the tractored probe.

Once he got there, he almost felt disappointed. The probe didn’t look like much: a reflective box on treads.

“I’m here,” he radioed back to Ashton. “This thing doesn’t look like much of a big deal.”

“It cost the Russians and Japanese the equivalent of a hundred million dollars, and it cost fourteen billion to get it here. They’ve spent an additional twenty billion to retrieve it.”

“Ouch!” Wentz replied. “And now I’m gonna blow it up with a demo charge that probably cost the Army ten bucks. This has to be the most outrageous act of vandalism in the history of humankind.”

“That’s right,” Ashton agreed in his earpiece. “And you’re the perpetrator!”

“Thanks.” Wentz lowered to his knees, fumbling for his carry-satchel. “The ground here is sort of shiny.”

“Frozen noble gasses, sublimated argon, probably some good old-fashioned ice,” Ashton responded through crackles of mild static.

“Ice, huh? Too bad we didn’t bring some Johnny Black and a couple of glasses.”

His heavily gloved hands began to remove his demo gear. First came the cone-shaped, olive-drab bomb itself, the size of a coffee thermos. Stenciled letters read: CHARGE, DEMOLITION, SHAPED (ONE) 2.2 POUNDS, PROPERTY OF U.S. ARMY MUNITIONS COMMAND. Then he removed a short coil of wire connected to a standard Herco-Tube blasting cap, and a small box-shaped timer with a knob. He placed the charge on the probe, connected the proper wires.

“I think we’re ready for the show,” he said.

“Set the timer for thirty minutes, then come back.”

His bulky hand reached for the broad timer knob but stopped just short of touching it. He was looking up toward the nearest ridge.

Something glinted. “Wait a sec, I see something…near the—”

“It’s probably just carbonaceous deposits,” Ashton returned. “Forget about it. Come on back.”

Wentz squinted through the gold-flaked NASA face-shield. “No, no, it’s… I’m gonna check it out.”

“Negative, Jack!” Ashton objected. “It could be a plate crack! It could be an ice shelf! You could fall in!”

“I’ll take my chances.”

Ashton’s voice shrilled through the static. “Jack—damn it! No! You’re violating your orders!”

Fuck orders, Wentz thought.

He bounced away from the probe, moving sluggishly toward the ridge. Once at the edge, he stopped completely, staring down.

“God,” he muttered when he realized what he’d seen glinting between the crags.

It was another OEV.

—

CHAPTER 12

Ashton watched Wentz’s progress through the range-finder. She clenched a moment, grit her teeth, then shuddered as she reached for another time-released Duramorph. Until recently, she’d been able to control the pain fairly well but now it was just getting worse. Though the doctors recommended higher doses, Ashton wouldn’t hear of it. I’m not going to turn myself into a junkie, she vowed to herself.

The drug kicked in, lifting her. By now, Wentz was out of radio range, and by the time she’d composed herself and refocused the range-finder…

“Damn it.”

Wentz had already climbed over the edge of the ridge.

««—»»

Wentz’s mind was strangely blank as he climbed onto the second OEV, opened the top-hatch, and lowered himself into the air-lock. The hatch sealed shut above his head and then the chamber decompressed with a familiar swoosh.

Only when he stepped through the egress was he able to think, Somebody’s got some explaining to do…

He stepped into the cabin, then hit the slidelocks and removed his helmet. The flight seats were empty, but before he could turn around—

“It’s…Wentz, isn’t it? 41st Test Wing out at Andrews?” a voice queried behind him. “I saw you fly the upgraded 16s at the Paris Air Show in 88—damn good flying.”

Stifled, Wentz turned around.

“Welcome to the Tharsus Bulge, Wentz,” the voice continued. “My name is—”

Wentz could only stare. He already knew. “You’re Willard Farrington, U.S. Marine Corp,” he croaked. A pause stretched through the cabin. “Operator ‘A.’”

The man looked haggard in his S-4 white jumpsuit as he lay on a fold-down strap bunk. An unkempt beard, trace specks of hair cropping up around the sides of a bald head. Opened packages of MRE’s lay like litter about the bunk.

“They told me you were dead,” Wentz said flatly. “They told me there was only one of these things.”

“They told you a lot of stuff—most of it was a lie.” Farrington leaned up in the bunk. He seemed exhausted, or in pain. “What do you expect from the military? You know the game. But— congratulations, Wentz. You earned the ultimate prize, fair and square.”

“What do you mean?”

“You truly are the best pilot in the world.”

“No I’m not, sir. You are.”

Farrington chuckled. “The best pilot in the world doesn’t crash his kite, especially when it’s an operational alien spacecraft.”

“You crashed? Here?” Wentz was incredulous.

“I sure as shit did,” Farrington admitted. “Don’t that beat all, with all the nape-of-the-earth training we get? I came in too low over the first rise, smacked my six right into the ridge and belly-landed here. Still got air and climate-control but—” Farrington pointed toward the detent panels. “No power. All prop systems are deadlined.”

He wrecked, Wentz realized. “When?”

Farrington shrugged. “About eight weeks ago. That’s how long I’ve been sitting here.” Another chuckle. “Can you imagine how pissed off Rainier was when he got the news that I trashed his UFO? Fuck. I feel like the biggest asshole in the history of aviation. I make that meat-head who cracked up his B-2 bomber look like Chuck Yeager.”

“You can come back with us,” Wentz blurted at the news. “There’s enough room.”

“You still don’t get it, do you? Let me guess. They probably gave you some line about how they identified the virus from intercepted data transmissions or something.”

“Yeah… We knew but the Russians and the Japanese didn’t because their analysis technology isn’t as good as ours.”

“Um-hmm. Typical military bullshit. The only thing they knew from the jacked data was that there was live bacteria on the ridge. So they sent me up here to get samples. I’m the one who found out it was a virus, and I found out the hard way…”

Farrington pulled up his sleeves: splotches showed on his arms like a glittery, wet rash.

“You’re…infected?” Wentz asked.

“That’s right. And so are you—the second you debarked. Look at your boots.”

Wentz looked down at his EVA boots; they were covered with similar glittery splotches.

“A molecular osmotic is what they call it,” Farrington continued. “It goes through anything, it goes right through your suit on contact by squeezing through the space between the molecules but won’t cause your suit to lose its pressure. It invades living cells and inorganic molecules as well. Hell, it even goes through the hull—”

Then Farrington pointed to the floor, where thin, crisscrossing lines of the wet glitter shined.

Wentz was appalled. “They sent me up here knowing I’d get infected!”

“Yeah. But this stuff could kill everyone on earth. What choice did they have?”

“No, what right did they have to send me to my death?” Wentz shouted.

Farrington frowned. “Put a lid on it, will you? Every time we climb into a cockpit we know we could die. It’s part of the job. Hell, I’d have destroyed the probe myself but the EVA suits only have a hundred and twenty minutes of life-support. By the time their analysis determined that the shit up here was a deadly virus, my EVA gear was out of air. I couldn’t make any more debarkations. I was trapped inside this tin can.”

Wentz struggled to let the information sift in between his outrage.

“The QSR4 collector had to be destroyed. I no longer had the ability to unass this fuckin’ crate and do it myself, so they determined that you were the best bet to get the second OEV up here successfully.”

“Those lying sons of bitches!” Wentz railed.

“Give it a rest, man. We’ve flown in wars, we’ve flown in planes that no one else in world has the rocks to fly. Risk is part of our duty. You knew that the minute you made your first test flight. So quit bellyaching. Quit acting like a little kid and start acting like what you are.”

Wentz scowled. “What’s that? A chump? What else am I but an Air Force sucker?”

“You’re the best in the business,” Farrington said. “You’re the best to ever fly—you’re even better than me.”

Wentz just looked at him. Was there a tear in Farrington’s eye?

“You are Operator ‘A’ now,” Farrington said.

Wentz stood forlorn, eyes in a daze. Eventually the reality cracked him in the face. “How long…have I got?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been here close to two months and I’m fading. Heartbeat’s fucking up, dizzy spells, fever. Give yourself three months max.”

Wentz gulped, nodded.

“Jill’s with you, right?”

“Yeah.”

“She tell you she’s dying?”

“Yeah,” Wentz said.

“She can handle this… But can you?”

“I think so,” Wentz felt strong enough to say.

“Don’t think about your family,” Farrington added. “That just makes it worse. You’ll want to kill yourself, which is what I almost did. Just think of it this way: you did it for them.”

Wentz continued nodding. “Come with us,” he offered. “I’ll go back to my ship, get the second EVA suit, and bring it to you.”

“Naw, I’m a loner, you know? Always have been. I’ve got more specs to pipe back to earth. The apogee’s only optimal seventeen minutes a day. And they pipe back ESPN for me, gives me a chance to catch the ball scores.”

Wentz smiled. “Yankees man?”

“Hell no. Orioles. The only team that matters.”

“Marines, what can I say? They’re all fucked up.”

Farrington laughed. “Hey, and tell Jill I said hi.”

“I will…”

Farrington swung his feet off the bunk, coughed hard, then began to get up—

“Don’t, sir,” Wentz said.

“Fuck it.” Farrington, after considerable effort, stood up straight. “At least you’re not Navy. But I always knew there was some punk out there who was a better pilot than me.”

“Sir, I’m not better than you by any stretch of the imagination.”

Farrington grinned. “Yeah. Maybe you’re right. Guess we’ll never really know, will we?”

“Guess not, sir.”

Farrington saluted; Wentz saluted back. Then Farrington extended his surgically-altered three-fingered right hand. Wentz awkwardly shook it with his own gloved hand.

“It’s been an honor to meet you,” Wentz said.

“Get the hell out of here,” Farrington said. “And blow that piece of shit probe right the fuck up.”

“With pleasure.”

Wentz put his helmet back on, recharged his pressure, then entered the air-lock to exit the craft.

««—»»

He set the pyrotechnic timer—the last thing to do—then trod back to his OEV. He took one long last gaze at the planet’s desolate surface, then turned just in time to see the QRS4 collector explode spectacularly in dead silence. Brass-colored dust erupted, a twisted mushroom cloud in the near-vacuum conditions and, via the explosive’s design, the debris shot upward in a straight plume.

So much for that, Wentz thought.

When the dust cleared, nothing at all remained.

—

CHAPTER 13

The pressure ducts hissed as the air-clock emptied. The interior hatch popped and Wentz stepped out. Ashton leaned sullenly against the commo chair.

“Is he still alive?”

“Yeah. He sends his regards.”

Wentz labored to get out of the EVA gear. He threw it all into the corner.

And looked at Ashton.

“What now?” she asked. “Put me into the air-lock and eject me into space?”

“You should’ve told me.”

“I wanted to once we were underway…but I had orders not to.”

“Yeah, well you still should’ve told me, that’s all.”

“They were afraid you might bolt, abandon the mission and fly back to earth.”

Wentz’s hands clenched into strange fists. He seethed. “I’ve never abandoned a mission in my life, and those sons of bitches know it.”

“They couldn’t take the chance,” Ashton countered. “You know what’s at stake here.”

“Yeah…”

“And what could I do?” Ashton was growing irate. “Christ, I’m dying. I offered to do it. I offered to have the surgery and take the training, but it wouldn’t have worked! It takes a pilot’s mind, Jack. A pilot’s reactions and a pilot’s instincts. I couldn’t have flown this thing in a million years.”

Wentz slumped into the operator’s seat. “I know. I’m just pissed off. I put up with the bullshit for twenty-five years…and now they give me one more mouthful.”

“I’m eating from the same bowl, remember?” Ashton sat disgruntled in her own seat. “We had our jobs to do and we did them. We’re in the military; sometimes we have to sacrifice ourselves. Others have—now it’s our turn. And look at the payoff. Now the virus will never get to earth.”

Wentz errantly stroked his chin. “You’re right, of course. It’s a kick in the ass: women are always right.”

“I won’t disagree with you there.” Ashton rolled up her sleeves. “I guess you’ve noticed—”

Wentz looked over. Shit. The stuff moves fast. The tiniest specks of the virus already could be seen on her arms. Then Wentz checked his own arms and noticed the same. On the OEV’s deck, the faintest glittering traces had formed.

“Farrington said we’ve got three months if we’re lucky,” Wentz recounted.

“That’s probably pretty accurate. The virus has an extended incubation period, which means infectees are contagious for a long time. That’s why it’s particularly dangerous.”

But Wentz wasn’t listening. The remaining realization was fully sinking in. “So we can’t ever go back.”

“No, Jack. Even if they quarantined us, the virus also attacks inorganic material, and it’s osmotic—it goes through anything.”

Wentz stared at the silence in the air as if it were a distant cloud. Everything he’d ever been seemed just as far away.

“The apogee’s on,” Ashton told him. “We’ve got video. Do you want to talk to them?”

Wentz sighed. “Why not?”

Ashton tapped a few keys on an auxiliary panel, flipped down a small liquid-plasma display screen. First there was only white fuzz and static, but then a grainy picture formed: General Rainier’s face.

“Sorry about this, Wentz,” his voice crackled. “But surely you realize—”

“I know,” Wentz confessed.

“Did you destroy the collector probe?”

“Yes sir. It’s space junk now.”

“Good. You’ve made the ultimate sacrifice, Wentz. What you’ve done for your country and for the world is beyond—”

“Save it, General. But do me a favor, will you? I know you have to tell my wife and kid that I died in a test crash. But tell them I loved them, will you?”

“I will, Wentz. Personally.”

Waves of static rose and fell.

“Is there anything else?”

“No, sir. I guess not,” Wentz replied.

On the screen, now, Rainier was saluting. Then the screen fizzed and faded as contact was lost. Ashton turned off the display.

“I don’t know about you but I could use a drink,” Ashton commented.

Wentz scowled at her. “The bars close early up here.”

But then Ashton whipped out a bottle of whiskey. “I smuggled this on in my flight pack. It’s not Johnny Black but—”

Wentz grinned. “It’ll work.” He opened the bottle, took a swig, then passed it back. “So what do we do now? We can’t go back to earth.”

“No, but look what we’ve got. We’ve got rations that will last months,” Ashton reminded, “and a fuel-cell that’ll produce all the water we need. And what else have we got?”

Wentz saw her point. “We’ve got an unlimited air supply and an unlimited fuel supply, not to mention a fully operational extraterrestrial vehicle capable of exceeding the speed of light.”

“Um-hmm.”

Wentz clapped his deformed hands together.

“Looks like we’re going on the road trip of all time,” he said.

“Go for it.”

Wentz could feel the gleam in his eyes. The internal systems powered up when he pressed his hands into the detents. “Ready for take-off, Colonel?”

“Yes, sir.”

The OEV began to hover upward.

“Now let’s see what this alien spam can’ll do…”

The craft rose a few more yards then shot away, heading for the universe.

THE END

—

Edward Lee (seen here with his new electronic cigarette) has had more than 40 books published in the horror and suspense field, including CITY INFERNAL, THE GOLEM, and BLACK TRAIN. His movie, HEADER was released on DVD by Synapse Films, in June, 2009. Recent releases include the stories, “You Are My Everything” and “The Cyesologniac,” the Lovecraftian novella “Trolley No. 1852,” and the hardcore novel HAUNTER OF THE THRESHOLD. Currently, Lee is working on HEADER 3. Lee lives on Florida’s St. Pete Beach. Visit him online at:

http://www.edwardleeonline.com