Thomas Hoover: Project Daedalus

Thursday 8:40 A.M.

G-load is now eight point five. Pilot must acknowledge for power-up sequence to continue.

The cockpit computer was speaking in a simulated female voice, Russian with the Moscow accent heard on the evening TV newscast Vremya. The Soviet technicians all called her Petra, after that program's famous co-anchor.

Yuri Andreevich Androv didn't need to be told the force weighing down on him had reached eight and a half times the earth's gravity. The oxygen mask beneath his massive flight helmet was crushed against his nose and the skin seemed to be sliding off his skull, while sweat from his forehead poured into his eyes and his lungs were plastered against his diaphragm.

Auto termination will commence in five seconds unless you acknowledge. Petra paused for a beat, then spoke again: Four seconds to shutdown…

He could sense the blood draining from his cerebral vascular system, his consciousness trying to drift away. He knew that against these forces the human heart could no longer pump enough oxygen to the brain. Already he was seeing the telltale black dots at the edge of his vision.

It's begun, he thought. The "event." Don't, don't let it happen. Make your brain work. Make it.

Three seconds… The liquid crystal video screens inside his flight helmet seemed to be fading from color to black and white, even as his vision closed to a narrow circle. The "tunnel" was shrinking to nothing. The first stage of a G-induced blackout was approximately two and a half seconds away.

You've done this a hundred times before at the Ramenskoye Flight Test Center, he told himself. You're Russia’s best test pilot. Now just do it.

He leaned back in the seat to lower his head another few millimeters, then grasped for the pressure control on his G-suit, the inflatable corset that squeezed critical blood paths. He ignored the pain as its internal pressure surged, gripping his torso and lower legs like a vise and forcing blood upward to counter the accumulation at his feet.

Two seconds…

With his right hand he rotated a black knob on the heavy sidestick grip and turned up the oxygen feed to his mask, an old trick from fighter training school that sometimes postponed the "event" for a few milliseconds.

Most importantly, though, he strained as if constipated in the snow, literally pushing his blood higher-the best maneuver of all. He liked to brag that he had upped his tolerance three G's through years of attempting to crap in his blue cotton undersuit.

It was working. The tunnel had begun to widen out again. He'd gained a brief reprieve.

"Acknowledged." He spoke to Petra, then reached down with his left hand and flicked forward the second blue switch behind the throttle quadrant, initiating the simulated hydrogen feed to the outboard scramjet tridents, portside and starboard. Acceleration was still increasing as the flashing green number on the video screens in front of his eyes scrolled past Mach 4.6, over four and a half times the speed of sound, already faster than any air- breathing vehicle had ever flown.

Only a few seconds more.

He had to stay conscious long enough to push his speed past Mach 4.8, raising the fuel-injector strut temperature of the scramjets to the 3,000-degree-Fahrenheit regime and establishing full ignition. If the scramjets failed to stabilize and initiated auto shutdown, he would flame out-at almost twenty-five hundred miles per hour.

You are now experiencing nine G's, the female voice continued, emotionless as ice. Pilot will confirm vision periphery.

The fucking computer doesn't believe I can still see, he thought.

Most men, of course, would have been functionally blind by then. Prolong the experience of ten G's and you went unconscious: the event.

Confirm, Petra's voice insisted.

"Thirty-eight degrees." He read off the video screens inside his helmet, temporarily quieting the computer. But now he had a demand of his own. "Report scramjet profile."

Inboard tridents at eighty-two percent power. Outboard tridents at sixty-eight percent power, the voice responded.

Get ready, Petra. Spread your legs. I'm coming home.

The velocity scrolling on the right side of his helmet screen was about to pass through the barrier. Strut temperature was stabilizing. With engines in the scramjet mode, the vehicle should be able to push right on out to Mach 25, seventeen thousand miles per hour. From there it was only a short hop to low orbit. If-

Inboard tridents at eighty-eight percent power. The voice came again. LAC compression nominal. The liquid air cycle equipment would be using the cryogenic hydrogen fuel to chill and liquefy the rush of incoming air; oxygen would then be injected into the scramjets at pressures impossible to achieve in conventional engines.

With a sigh he eased back lightly on the throttle grip in his left hand. As he felt the weight on his chest recede, the pressure in his G-suit automatically let up. He smiled to think that a less experienced pilot would now be slumped in his seat, head lolling side to side, eyes wide open and blank, his bloodless brain dreaming of a lunar landscape. He knew; he'd been there often enough himself. In the old days.

System monitors commencing full operation.

Good. From here on, the fuel controls would be handled by the in-flight computer, which would routinely monitor thrust and temperature by sampling every two milliseconds, then adjusting. But that was the machine stuff, the child's play. He'd just done what only a man could do.

Power-up complete for inboard and outboard tridents, portside and starboard, Petra reported finally. Hydrogen feed now in auto maintenance mode.

She'd taken full charge. He was out of the loop.

But I just rode this space bird up your ice-cold peredka, silicon lady.

He felt a burst of exhilaration and gave a long, basso whoop. It was a crow of triumph, a challenge to every male ape in the forest. Yuri Andreevich Androv lived for this, and only felt alive when he'd just pushed his body to the limit. He needed it, lusted for it. It was all he'd ever really cared about.

It was, he knew, his primal need to dominate his world. He knew that, but so what? Other men merely dreamed it, played at it-in games, business, even politics. He did it. And he fully intended to go on doing it.

"Roll down her audio, dammit," he yelled into his helmet mike. "She's driving me crazy."

"She's supposed to," a radio voice sounded back in his ear. "Ramenskoye says all test pilots-you included, my friend-pay more attention to a female voice." A laugh. "Come to matya, darling."

"I'd like to see her and-Nayarevayet!-just once." He smiled in spite of himself as the tunnel widened more and the screens before his eyes began to recolor, pale hues gradually darkening to primary shades. The blood was returning to his brain. Acceleration was stabilizing now, down to 4.7 G's.

"She'd be a cold-hearted piece, Yuri. Guaranteed."

"It's been so long, I probably wouldn't notice." That's what he really needed now-a woman.

"You would, believe me," the radio continued. "By the way, congratulations. Your alpha was right across the oscilloscope, as always. Zero stress response. How do you do it, tovarisch? I think Petra was more worried than you were."

"Shut off the tape, and cut the 'comrade' crap," he barked back. "Sergei, I nearly lost it there at nine point five."

"No indication on the physio monitors." The flight technician sounded unconvinced.

"The hell with the wavy lines. I know what was happening," he snapped again, still wired with tension. "Can we get another fifteen percent tilt out of this damned seat, help lower my head. There're no windows anyway, so who cares where I'm looking?"