Edward Lee - Operator B

“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.