“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.
“There is no other recourse, sir,” Ashton said.
“I know.”
“So you’re going to do it, right?”
Wentz nodded. “Yes.”
“Your wife and your son will be personally notified—”
“Some cover story, I suppose. The old empty casket.”
“Yes. They’ll be told that you were killed in a test crash.”
It was only darkness now that filled his mind, and blazing regrets. “Joyce and I are still technically divorced. I need to make sure she gets everything, and all of my SOM pay.”
“JAG will take care of all that, sir.”
Wentz lowered his face into his hands, tears suddenly slipping from his eyes.
“I’ll be back later to show you to your quarters, General,” Ashton said. Then she quietly left the room.
««—»»
The next day, the banquet room of the Thornsen Center stood crowded with Air Force personnel in their Class-A’s, their wives, their children. The base commander and several other generals milled about impatiently. The entire auditorium seemed like a congregation with no purpose. Something stiff and uncomfortable throbbed through the air.
Civilian caterers in white hats traded pinched looks behind tables stacked with refreshments and steam tables.
Above the stage, where the retirement presentation was to be held, hung a long sign which read CONGRATULATIONS, JACK WENTZ!
“This is so fucked up I can’t believe it,” 1st Sergeant Caudill muttered.
“I hear ya, Top,” Sergeant Cole agreed. He glanced at his watch. “He’s more than an hour late for his own retirement. I don’t get it.”