Project Sail by Anthony DeCosmo Page A

some more enthusiastically than others. Wren expected a donation hat to appear.
    “Can you feel His love? Can you love your fellow man because he, too, is God’s child?”
    The crowd responded with a mix of enthusiastic approval and reluctant acceptance.
    “Then go my brothers and sisters and live in a way that will make God proud, that will bring peace to your heart and prosperity to your soul.”
    The crowd parted, although many loitered to find and thank their preacher: an older black woman with short, straight hair, and twenty extra pounds. She accepted their thanks in hugs and handshakes, but did not accept any money.
    Fisk called up a picture of Ira King on the e-paper.
    Wren glanced over his shoulder, and then back at the preacher, and then at the dossier again.
    “No. Fuck no. No fucking way.”
    As the woman’s flock drifted off, she walked toward the hotel. Fisk intercepted her.
    “Dr. Ira King?”
    A big, genuine smile grew on her face and she replied, “Why yes, are you Reagan Fisk? Are you my new boss?”
    Her voice sounded like grandma enticing the kids in for cookies and Fisk’s head slung in the physical manifestation of an “awe shucks” response.
    She asked, “I have been looking forward to hearing about this assignment, what can you tell me?”
    Before Fisk could respond, Wren answered and his reply had less to do with distance and more to do with aggravation: “It’s going to be one long fucking trip.”

12. Deep Freeze
    Commander Jonathan Hawthorne rode aboard a troop train as it left Camp Conrad and headed north, toward the missiles and explosions.
    This particular train did not ride on rails but was a series of attached compartments rolling on massive tires pulled by a tractor. Hawthorne found it strange that a military transport included big glass windows, but twenty miles out he saw the remains of a real military transport with armored window covers and gun ports at the bottom of a gulley. Obviously using a civilian train was a matter of necessity.
    That necessity involved moving soldiers and materials from Camp Conrad to the front lines in the northern polar region, a sixty-minute trip.
    Like the other passengers, Hawthorne wore hazardous environment gear including an egg-shaped helmet and a bulky suit. A hose from his outfit attached to a tube protruding from the floor so he could breathe oxygen provided by the train instead of depleting his personal supply.
    Hawthorne’s suit was older and while the seals were tight and the helmet barely scratched, the heater made a dreadful humming noise. Still, the heater was as important as the oxygen supply; the surface temperature of Titan averaged minus three hundred degrees Fahrenheit thanks to the anti-greenhouse effect of the hazy upper atmosphere.
    The suit and train ride came courtesy Colonel Curtis, who sat across the aisle. He was young and Hawthorne thought him scatterbrained considering it had taken five minutes for the Colonel to understand that Hawthorne had come to collect Lieutenant Thomas, despite receiving the transfer order days ago.
    Curtis and the three dozen infantry onboard dressed in advanced suits with bulkier helmets equipped with high tech optics, heavy backpacks filled with combat gear, and armor plating.
    Hawthorne spent the first part of the trip looking out his window. The lack of sunlight made it difficult to make out details, but he did see the waste management and power generation buildings at Camp Conrad’s outskirts, followed by a landfill where dump trucks and bulldozers buried humanity’s trash. He half expected to spot seagulls picking at the garbage.
    Eventually, signs of human colonization disappeared replaced by various landscapes including rolling hills, rocky mountains, and then a wide plain seemingly made of black glass.
    Next came Ligeia Mare, a vast methane and ethane lake stretching off as far as he could see. These hydrocarbon sources were the main reason man tolerated this dimly lit and horribly