Operator B

by Edward Lee

  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 hi
s 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 n
udged 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.”