nondescript acceptance of their presence. Stavers per-

  formed as Rebecca bid; used all his mental strength,

  Stavers and that glowing arbatik stitched to his heart

  and nervous system, and the crew found itself intensely

  occupied with the countdown and other immediate-

  prelaunch details. At virtually any other time the ap-

  pearance of two unknowns in a shuttle manifest would

  have generated more than interest; a direct probing of

  who, what, why, and when would certainly have been

  forthcoming from the ship's commander and its pilot.

  But this wasn't virtually "any other time." The crew

  had been briefed secretly, No more than three people

  in the launch control and flight pattern complex knew

  the launch would actually take place. It bad happened

  before in the space program, even as far back as the

  first Atlas to put a payload into orbit, a tape recorder

  tucked in its innards so that once orbiting the planet it

  382

  DARK MESSIAH 383

  could broadcast that taped message from President

  Dwight Eisenhower. That old Atlas, which few people

  believed capable of doing the job, became a hallmark in

  the advancing space program. Even the range sa-fety

  officer, uninformed of the actual mission, stabbed his

  destruct button when the Atlas veered from its ballistic

  flight path. And stabbed it again and again in futile

  desperation and anger until someone pulled him firm

  but gently from his control panel, stained by blood from

  the torn skin of his hand.

  And Athena was no experimental craft-, but the long-

  term developi-rient of the earlier shuttles. Add to these

  elements the fact that the flight crew was all military,

  that seven other engineers and technicians were in the

  11 passenger manifest," that the ship carried secret equip-

  ment for a secret program, and that the passengers

  were in a pressure compartment within the cargo bay

  itself and never seen directly by the pilots, and there

  wasn't that much out of the ordinaryfor the last-minute

  arrival of two passengers.

  Thev settled into their seats in semi-supine position,

  donne@ their lightweight suits and helmets that would

  be pressured up only in the event of loss of cabin

  pressurization, checked their restraint systems, and,

  like all such moments, waited. At least theV were able

  to listen to the two-way communications between the

  flight crew and launch control, accompanied by satisfy-

  ing bumps, thuds and clangs accompanying the ticking

  off of the countdown items,

  Then Rebecca heard the words for which she'd waited.

  She squeezed Stavers' arin and with her other hand

  tapped her helmet to signify him to pay close attention

  to the voice exchange. "Ah, Athena, we I re in a five-

  minute hold for catcfiup, everything's on the mark, and

  would you take a moment to study your flight plan, ah,

  Seven Six Able? Please check. Readback is not re-

  quired, but we'd like you to veri6, you have that com-

  plete flight plan."

  "Roger that, Flight. Athena confirms Seven Six Able."

  "Very good, Athena. Please run a scan check and

  iindnfe on the flipr'ht comnuters."

  384

  Martin Caidin

  A pause of fifteen seconds, then: "Flight, Athena

  here. Confirm Seven Six Able update primary, backup

  and standby computer and flight logic. We are go for

  Seven Six Able."

  "Thank you, Athena .

  Rebecca lifted her helmet and motioned for Stavers

  to do the same so she could talk directly without using

  their radio intercom systems; the conversation remained

  private to them only. "Seven Six Able is the flight plan

  modified for ascent direct to Gulliver instead of the

  station. We're going straight to the Mars ship. It has all

  but four of the crew aboard. That four includes us and

  two technicians aboard this shuttle. We

  "T minus ten minutes and counting.

  She left her sentence unfinished and immediately

  closed and sealed her helmet. Stavers did the same, so

  that the onboard check systems would indicate full suit

  integrity for them.

  They felt power surging through the ship, pumps

  kicking in and accelerating, the countdown calls pro-

  ceeding like familiar clockwork ticking, the call for on-

  board engine start and vibrations rattled the cavernous

  hold, metal straining and groaning and then the three

  main liquid-propellant engines of Athena lit off and

  rammed them back in their seats, and then they sat,

  the engines screaming as they built up power, and they

  heard the final call that Athena was at one hundred

  three percent power, and the automatic countdown

  computer lit off the solid boosters and this time the

  pressure shoving them down into their seats remained.

  Stavers felt cheated instead of elated. He couldn't see

  a damn thing! They had no windows in the cargo corn-

  partment passenger capsule, and they were just so much

  cargo at this point and nothing more. He felt the ship

  rotating as it began the turn to orbital climb, and the g

  forces built steadily, but he'd lived most of his life.

  under punishing high-g pounding, so that didn't mean

  much to him. They went through maximum aerody-

  namic pressure as he expected; the call to throttle back

  the liquid engines, the bumpy rattling ride through the

  sonic snrend qnf] fbpn nnvj,-r 64oLr - f@ --- 1--A-A

  DARK MESSIAH

  385

  five percent. He felt some discomfort from the knowl-

  edge that they were still tied to those solid boosters

  that in an instant could transform them all into a single

  boiling mass of blazing fire, and a small knot deep

  inside him untied itself as they came to 146 seconds for

  the Mark 11 solids, then a terrific bang went through

  the compartment as the pyrotechnics blew to sever the

  connections with the solids, and the flight crew in la-

  conic terms confirmed solid sep and they continued

  upwards on their own engines.

  They waited for the first power shutdown; it came

  smoothly and they floated upward into their seat re-

  straints. They'd coast just short of orbital insertion for

  eighteen minutes. Keeping suit integrity was called

  for-Stavers hated his "trussed like a gagged pig" status and twisted uncomfortably in the suit-but the time

  passed. He riveted his attention to the radio calls be-

  tween Athena and the ground stations over which they

  passed with speed that made a rifle bullet a bumbling

  slug in comparison. Then the engines powered up again,

  shoved them once more into their seats, and he counted

  down the minutes in his mind, forcing away all other

  thoughts.

  Shutdown.

  Zero gravity.

  Some more waiting as the maneuvering engines fired

  on and off with their dull thuds and bangs, listening to

  the calls between Athena and Gulliver. He felt the

  sudden stop, the impact of airlock clutches catching and

  securing, and that was it.

  "Okay.

  , people, we've got confirmed solid airlock sta-

  tus, Everybody ashore that's going ashore," came the

  easv comments &om the flight deck.

  'fhe movements were like a high-tech tourist trip. No

  one aboard Athena or Gulliver had any idea who the

  two latecomers were. Doug Stavers and Dr, Rebecca

  Weinstein were strangers whose duties had only been

  hinted at in a distant and inconclusive manner. Weinstein

  attended to that problem in short order when they

  floated to the main crew quarters of the Mars vessel.

  "Dr, Rebecca Weinstein," she said of herself. "I'm a

  386

  Martin Caidin

  specialist in environmental systems, trained specifically

  for Martian conditions. My job will be to search for life

  spores and elements of life systems in the underground

  water, frozen, of course, of the planet. This is Dr. Kurt

  Stevens, 11 she gestured to Stavers. "His field is plane-

  tary geology

  ,, and we'll be working together on surface

  explorations and deep sampling programs."

  As ordinary as tap water in a kitchen. There wasn't

  time to do much more than this brief greeting ritual of

  those already aboard Gulliver and the newcomers. Stavers

  spent his time studying the ship and its control systems

  and especially the computers. He bad the shadowy

  feeling he'd need to know them as well as he did the

  controls of a familiar Skua.

  Weinstein spent her time with two other women of

  the crew, who shared her intense interest in onboard

  systems and controls.

  They never understood that they were writing their

  own death sentence.

  Weinstein moved slowly, drifting in zero gravity to

  one of the landing vessels tucked securely within an aft

  cylinder of the Gulliver cluster. She closed the batch to

  guarantee their silence from the crew, She turned slowly

  to face Stavers.

  "You understand the control systems to your satis-

  faction?"

  "Yeah. This whole thing is going to fly on autopiiot

  anyway," he confirmed. "The people al@oard are just

  along for the ride. if something goes wrong we're sup-

  posed to fix it. But the buman crew is superfluous to

  the trip. This might just as well-no, that's wrong. This

  is a fullv automatic flight. The computers do it all."

  "could you run this thing, clumsy and antiquated as

  it is," she pressed, "if the flight crew weren't aboard?"

  "I think I know what you're getting at," he said

  slowly. She was tougher than he had imagined. But she

  was so close to rejoining her people. The massive weight

  of two thousand years crossed his mind and his under-

  standing deepened. He nodded to her. "Yes, I can run

  it. You could Probabiv run it better than me. He]]-

  DARK MESSIAH

  387

  Rebecca, we're not flying. This whole trip is just boost-

  ing from one velocity level to another and the course is

  all computer-run, anyway. 11

  I had to be certain you understood that. Absolutely."

  "I understand. Now get to the -meat of all this."

  "You know what we have to do."

  "I get the picture. All of thern?"

  "All of them. One wild card, one emotional reaction

  at the controls, anything, could destroy everything we've

  done to this moment."

  "You brought the stuff with you?"

  "Yes. Enough to do the job."

  "When and where?"

  "There's a crew briefing starting one hour from now.

  In the flight afterdeck. We have enough time to go

  forward, leave the aerosol on timer, and return here.

  We wear fully pressurized suits the moment we get

  back here. We can hook up to the ship intercom so

  we'll know when it happens. 11

  He felt he was on a dizzying pluDge.

  He also knew there was no other way,

  "Let's go " he told her, and pushed hard to float back

  to the flighi afterdeck.

  It went ridiculously easy. Since they were still in

  Earth parking orbit and Gulliver was on standby status,

  largely powered down, the great ship cluster was moni-

  tored by automatic systems, leaving the crew free to

  attend to their own duties, relax, or start the repetitive

  checking of equipment for the long eight-month flight

  to Mars. But ... not yet, and a better moment wou'16

  not come.

  Thev went together to the flight afterdeek, floatng

  throu@h the passageways, pulling themselves along on

  the cable guides. Twice they encountered other crew

  members, but by unspoken agreement, little was spo-

  ken during such encounters. Because the outbound

  flight was scheduled for eight long months, everyone

  aboard Gulliver intended to squeeze every Dew aspect

  of their lives small bite by bite, so as to lessen the

  feeling of interminable flight aboard a tin-can craft that

  388

  Martin Caidin

  would become balkier and more smelly with every pass-

  ing month.

  In the flight afterdeck, floating above the conference

  table and computer control monitors, alone in the cubi-

  cle, Rebecca Weinstein found just what she wanted. A

  large console against a bulkhead with at least six inches

  of open space behind. She slipped the aerosol container

  she had hidden in her jumpsuit behind the panel, ad-

  justed the timer release, and floated away. Without a

  word they drifted back to the landing vessel where they

  had placed their pressure suits.

  "Suit up now," Stavers ordered her. "If anyone comes

  along we won't be pressurized, and it's a normal equip-

  ment checkout. "

  Forty-five minutes later the ship intercom speakers

  came alive. "All hands, conference in the flight after-

  deck fifteen minutes from now. Punch in from wher-

  ever you are so we can get a count." Stavers tapped a

  crew call button twice, others did the same from through-

  out the ship, and the first officer's voice came on again.

  "All hands accounted for. Thank you, people. See you

  in just fourteen minutes."

  "Pressure up," Stavers instructed. "No radio, and no

  intercom. If we need to talk, press our helmets to-

  gether. The vibration will pass our words through."

  She nodded. There wasn't any need to talk. Weinstein

  checked the intercom speaker. It was accepted practice

  to leave the transmit sets open during any conference,

  so they would know when the meeting started and

  could confirm that everyone else was in that afterdeck.

  She had worked out the rest well before this mo-

  ment. Weinstein had lived for centuries with starsbip

  computer systems against which Gulliver's computers

  were drooling idiots. She had accessed the main com-

  puter line, she opened the connection relay console in

  the passageway by the landing vessels. They waited;

  voices came from the afterdeck and then they heard the

  words they needed to begin the sequences already

  planned.

  She pointed to her suit wrist timer. Stavers nodded,

  The aerosol was opening at that very moment, and a

  DARK MYSSIAH

  389

  thin mixture of etorphin sprayed into the afterdeck.

  With no instructions to go with inhalation of the gas,

  the flight crew simply went mute, remaining where

  they had been the moment the gas reached their brains,

  living but dumb rag dolls weaving for several moments

  in weightlessness as they continued to breathe.

  "Let's go," Stavers said. They floated forward into

  the afterdeck, moving among the crew, releasing velcro

  and other holddown straps and floating the men and

  women by the door to Airlock Two. They closed off the

  afterdeek pressure hatch to the rest of the ship from the

  opposite side of the afterdeck, opened the hatch be-

  tween the afterdeck and the airlock, and then-

  The airlock hatches opened. instantly the air in the

  airlock and the afterdeck exploded outward into vac-

  uum. As their own bodies sprayed boiling blood and

  liquids from the violent decompression, the dead and

  dying men and women were flung by air rushing into

  vacuum away from the ship.

  "Close deck hatch," Stavers instructed. Weinstein

  tapped the buttons and computer panels confirmed the

  proper operation of the hatch. "Okay. The fan systems

  will have carried traces of that gas through the ship.

  Lefs open her up. Everything opens."

  Every hatch and panel leading to vacuum yawned

  wide. Every last trace of air and gases vanished into

  space, Red lights played everywhere on the panel,

  "Close her up," Stavers added. Weinstein worked

  the controls. They heard and felt dull thuds as Gulliver

  resealed itself. Hatch lights glowed green. "Pressure

  up, all air systems full functional," Stavers weDt on,

  Twenty minutes later Gulliver, sealed an(,,' working per-

  fectly, had normal spacecraft atmosphere content and

  pressure.

  Weinstein opened her faceplate. "There's no time to

  lose. The telemetry systems will have reported a mas-

  sive failure aboard this ship, and they'll be sending

  people over to investigate. 11

  "How long before you can fire the, engines?" Stavers

  asked.

  390

  Martin Caidin

  directly behind her. "As soon as we get there. I'd

  already programmed the computers to respond to im-

  mediate countdown. We take our seats, kick in the

 

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