Operator B by Edward Lee Page A

Get someone else.”
    Jones leaned forward, amazed. “Are you serious?”
    “Right now, I’m so pissed off I could kick you in the balls so hard they’d fly out your mouth. Does that sound serious? Do you have any idea how hard this is for me?”
    “General, don’t you realize what we’ve got here?” Jones induced. “The OEV isn’t some—”
    “Yeah, yeah, I know, it’s not some balsa-wood plane with a rubber-band prop. I already got that shtick from her. I know what it is, but I also know I can’t do it.”
    Jones’ brow lifted. “I admire your resolve, General, but we still haven’t told you the actual mission.”
    Wentz stalled. “I assumed that the mission is, well, to test fly the OEV.”
    “Not exactly,” Ashton admitted. “There’s something else you need to know, sir. It’s much more important than you, me, the OEV—it’s more important than anything.”
    “That’s why we need you,” Jones added, “and that’s why we need you now.”
    A long silence hung over the office. Wentz sat there, waiting.
    “Are you gonna tell me or do I have to guess?”
    It was the sudden solemness of Jones and Ashton that most bothered Wentz. He didn’t like the feeling at all.
    “Follow me please, General.”
    Wentz followed Jones out while Ashton paused for the slightest moment then likewise left the in-briefing room.
    Wentz didn’t see her pop the tiny pill in her mouth.

    ««—»»

    Jones led them down another antiseptically white corridor lined with white key-padded doors. A maintenance tech at one of the doors began to snap to attention but Jones sluffed, “As you were, as you were, Sergeant.”
    The tech was about to paint something on the door, and Wentz couldn’t help but notice. Shiny black letters on the door read: BRIGADIER GENERAL W. FARRINGTON, but then the tech painted over the W. FARRINGTON and raised a stencil that read J. WENTZ.
    “You guys are a scream,” Wentz said, chuckling. “But I’m telling you, you can hard-sell me all day long but I’m still retiring tomorrow.”
    Ashton and Jones said nothing.
    Jones unlocked another door, marked simply CONFERENCE. Inside, Wentz noticed several chart graphs and murals, as if for a presentation. One mural seemed to be an artist’s depiction of some sort of space-flight mission. A bulletin board read:

    -QSR4 JOINT JAPAN/RUSSIAN SAMPLE-RETURN MISSION
    -SCHEDULE COURSE AND PERIHELIC TRAJECTORY (EST. 62,700,000 MILES).
    -PROJECTED COST (US EQ.) $34 BILLION
    -PROJECTED TIME EXPENDITURE (IN FLIGHT): 19 MONTHS .

    Wentz sat down, ready to listen.
    Jones began, “When the so-called Mars Meteor, designate ALH-84001, was found in August, 1996, and…well, you remember the news.”
    “Sure,” Wentz recalled. “Fossilized microbacteria, fairly solid proof that there was rudimentary, one-celled life on Mars, something like 3.5 billion years ago.”
    “Yes. After which every country in the world with space flight capability began to draw up plans for further investigations of the Martian surface. The ultimate end, of course, is a sample/return mission—quite sophisticated and very expensive, but this would enable a robotic surface device to collect soil samples, which would later be returned to earth by way of a staged orbiter rocket sent afterwards…”
    “QSR4 is the codename for one such plan,” Ashton augmented, “and it’s already in service—”
    Wentz pinched his chin. “I haven’t heard about any—”
    “No, you haven’t, General, and neither has the rest of the world. The Japanese agreed to finance the Russian Space Administration on the mission you see outlined on the mural.”
    “Why would the Japanese bankroll the Russians? Our aerospace technology is better than theirs.”
    “Not so much as you think,” Jones said, “and, additionally, no other space administration in the world trusts us. They all think we’ve got field operatives planting discreet probe-implants and sensors on all their space hardware.”
    Wentz