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"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.
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