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.