The bright white crest of Venus filled up half of the front view before Argus, as his ship approached it with the Sun at the rear. The planet's thick clouds reflected so much sunlight, that an ordinary man would hardly have seen the stars in the background sky. Stubborn old reflexes forced Argus to squint his eyes at the shining sight.
The tactical display, superimposed on the viewplate, indicated incoming objects. First, a swarm of dust and debris. Second, a cluster of small asteroids. His current orbit intercepted their projected paths at two points.
Argus had two flight trainers who, not unlike the Kansler and Boulder Pi, supervised his training simultaneously. Teacher-pairs was the standard system for any kind of military education in the 22nd century. Its purpose was manifold. Two men could easier impose their orders on one man, as long as they cooperated. And by checking each other, the teachers provided a safeguard against slips in training that could cause costly accidents. This rookie was different from any previous one - and neither teacher was certain which rules applied to this new type of cyborg. Most importantly, the second trainer was also chief designer of the ship that had been specifically built for Argus.
Unlike Boulder Pi, he was a Terran.
"Argus," the first trainer said over the communications link, "our com-link will shut down for three minutes. Tech trouble. You have to solve this situation on your own."
"Roger that," Argus joked. "Read you loud and clear."
"A simple 'Yes' or 'No' is the standard reply in military space-flight," the second trainer corrected him. "Don't waste precious milliseconds. Clear?"
"Yes."
"Com-link shutdown imminent. Good luck, Argus."
And he was alone, seated in the cockpit of a craft he had never before seen, without so much as an instruction manual. He hadn't imagined that space would be so quiet - even more so, because he had no oxygen supply and didn't have to breathe. Cockpit pressure lay at zero, just like the space outside, and could be adjusted upward when necessary.
The orbital display began to light up in red. He had two minutes until the first collision with the swarm of debris - which meant time to think of many solutions. The clusters were barely visible to him as glittering points to the ship's starboard.
The time he spent thinking over his options, with a brain many times faster than one of flesh, would have taken him an hour in his previous existence. Subjectively, he was still amazed that no more than a few seconds passed. It was a great advantage, and his mental confidence was brimming like it hadn't in years. His small ship hurtled onward to its rendezvous with the space debris, at a relative velocity of thirty kilometers per second - the tactical display told him as much. He understood well that a collision would prove fatal, even to his cyborg body.
If he couldn't dodge, perhaps he could shoot?
He touched the control with the label RADIO COM, and found the required frequency. He could now send a shortwave message, from the devices in his "ears" directly to the ship computer. Using speed-talk, he transmitted a question: in a thousandth of a millionth of a second, his cyborg body converted the message into digital shortwave code. His question appeared on the instrument panel.
ARGUS Q: CAN YOU SHOOT AND HIT THE ROCKS AND DUST OF THE INCOMING DEBRIS SWARM?
The reply came in a second, after the ship had calculated it:
NAVBUTLER PROGNOSIS: UNCERTAIN. SHIP'S AUTOMATIC TARGETING SYSTEM LIMITS AT 102 TARGETS/SEC, EACH TARGET MIN.WIDTH 1.5 M, DISTANCE LIMIT 0.1 AU. NAVBUTLER SUGGESTS: REQUEST TARGETING SUPPORT FROM TERRAN FLEET. ACCEPT Y/N?
Naah, Argus, thought, this is no babysitting machine. He sent a "NO" reply, but the ship computer must have gotten worried, for it insisted:
NAVBUTLER STRONGLY RECOMMENDS: TERRAN FLEET SUPPORT.
ARGUS Q: HOW FAST MUST I FLY TO TARGET AND SHOOT PARTS OF INCOMING SWARM, USING ONLY MANUAL CONTROLS?
NAVBUTLER PROGNOSIS: UNCERTAIN. SPECIFY MANUAL CONTROL SETUP.
OPTIONS:
1. HAND-AND-FOOT NAVIGATION
2. EYE-MOVEMENT TRACKING
3. HAND TRIGGER
4. EYELID TRIGGER
WARNING: SWARM IMPACT IN 08 SECONDS
Argus quickly chose 1, 2 and 3. The computer's tactical display lightened up with an impressive array of weapons.
SELECT DEFENSE MEASURES:
0. LASER SIGHT
1. STANDARD LASER (10,000 C)
2. GAMMA LASER (100,000 C)
3. LEYDENFROST SHIELD EMITTER (CANNOT DEFLECT LARGE DEBRIS)
4. MAGNETIC REPULSION FIELD (LIMITED USE)
5. PROTON CANNON
6. ANTIMATTER ION CANNON (DANGER! TARGET MUST BE OUT OF SAFETY RANGE 50,000 KM)
7. INFLATABLE HEAT SHIELD (RECOMM: ATMOSPHERIC RE-ENTRY)
8. ALUMINUM BUBBLE DECOYS (LIMITED SUPPLY)
9. GUIDED MISSILES (LEFT: 2. RECOMM: LARGE TARGETS)
10. ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE (WARNING: MAY DISABLE CRAFT)
11. DEUTERIUM BOMB (LEFT: 0)
12. SELF-DESTRUCT (NOT AUTHORIZED)
"Too many choices," Argus told himself, not hearing his words in the vacuum of the cockpit. "Leydenfrost, sounds tasty... use 3, 4, and 7 on swarm."
The computer accepted his choice without objections. It shook - and a large balloon was instantly blown up from the front end, blocking the viewplate. The display indicated that the two other shielding devices were active, but Argus couldn't see or hear them.
PASSING THROUGH DEBRIS CLOUD...
Argus felt the ship shake and jolt, but it lasted just a few seconds. The shields were automatically deactivated.
DAMAGE REPORT: 00.0001 %
"All right!" he grinned. "Now for the big ones..."
If this was a boxing ring, he thought, what would Ali do? The opponent is big and slow, a mountain trying to ram you. Dance around him, that's easy, then sting him before he understands where you went. But he's got company, maybe a surprise hidden behind those big boulders...
"Okay..." he said to himself. "Better do something, then. If the flight-recorder is still running, I'd like to recite a little poem I just came up with, for this special occasion...
"I may be a freak
On a spaced-out streak
But I'm mean and I'm black
And I'm on the attack
Flying fast and high
If you're quick enough to see, then look at me
How I dance like a butterfly
And sting like a bee."
He grabbed the hand controls of the ship, and put his feet in their control slots. Leaning his head away from the pilot-seat, he unlocked the padded clamps that held it in place. The display warned him: only half a minute to rendezvous, and 40% chance of collision. Suddenly, he put his feet down and ignited the main booster rocket. The entire ship began to vibrate with the released power, as it shot forward with an acceleration of 5 G - five times the gravity of Earth. Argus barely felt the pressure pushing him against the seat.
"Wooo-hoo! If only they had roads in space, so you'd see how fast you're going!"
He killed the main booster, letting the ship fall much faster than before. Using the smaller thrusters, Argus swiftly moved in orbit, pushing sideways until he flew on a course that would result in a close fly-by of the asteroid cluster, with a good one hundred kilometers of space between it and him. He rotated his craft around its axis, until its front weapons pointed straight at the rendezvous point.
The proton cannons and the laser sight came to life. Argus could, in ways he not yet understood, sense how the power of the charged particles accumulated in the accelerator tubes inside the ship's flanks.
Fly-by occurred, briefly and without a sound, in the next second. Argus imagined what tremendous noise the asteroids would have made, if they had fallen through air. A flock of them, looking somewhat like brown potatoes, shot past him - even with his superhuman perception, he almost missed the sight. He spun the ship around again, then set the main rocket to a 15-G boost. The deceleration pushed much harder this time, but well within his personal limits. He wanted to hunt the asteroids down, check them close up, then...
Warning signals blinked on the control display.
EMERGENCY!
REACTOR CORE DESTABILIZED BY G-FORCES
EJECT REACTOR INTO SUN!
TIME TO REACTOR DETONATION: 12 SEC
Very quickly, Argus rotated the ship's rear toward the Sun, got a "CLEAR" signal and pressed the emergency ejection trigger. Jolting the entire ship, the reactor core was shot out in an orbit toward the Sun, using its own thrusters to accelerate. With only the control rockets to drive his ship forward, Argus would have to surrender his pursuit and head for the nearest Fleet station. He called up a three-dimensional map of the Solar System on the display - and another warning appeared.
REACTOR CORE DESTROYED
As he read the message, the crest of Venus started to shine like a second sun - and for a moment he thought it had exploded. The fierce glare receded in a few seconds, and he thought he was safe. The instrument panel went dark. He tried to steer the ship with his hands and feet, but got no response. The ship floated out of control, and began to tumble around its axis.
"What happened?" he asked, baffled by this abrupt turn of events.
The ship stopped tumbling, and the tactical display on the ship's viewplate lit up. In big yellow letters the result was shown:
SIMULATION ENDS...
PILOT STATUS: YOU ARE DEAD (CAUSE: COCKPIT TEMPERATURE ROSE TO 200,000 DEGREES)
ANNIHILATION OF REACTOR CORE CAUSED MASSIVE GAMMA-RADIATION BURST NEAR VENUS
SHIP DESTROYED
ALL SATELLITES AND SPACE STATIONS IN THIS SECTOR
DAMAGED OR DESTROYED
CASUALTIES (ORBITAL SPACE): 200
CASUALTIES (VENUS): 16,000
ENEMY CASUALTIES: UNKNOWN
"What happened...?"
Air hissed back into the cockpit. The hatch opened to his side, and his pilot-seat unlocked. Argus climbed out of the flight-simulator capsule, and stepped down on the floor of the centrifuge chamber. He was still on the Moon. The two flight trainers, still in their spacesuits for some reason, entered the centrifuge through a walkway above him. Through their clear transparent helmets, he saw that they were angry.
"What the hell were you thinking, Colonel? You just killed half the population of Venus!"
"Did we really have to tell you the reactor can't take a deceleration-acceleration of over 20 G? We installed an automatic shutdown mechanism just in case, but you acted so quickly it couldn't react in time!"
To Argus, this felt just like when Gus Thorsen's boxing trainer had scolded him for knocking down and nearly breaking a pugilist robot. He hung his head down, and waited for the Kansler's wrath.
"Hold it," the Kansler's voice sounded over the com-link, and the trainers went quiet. A hologram of the Kansler appeared from a projection-node near where Argus stood. "I think we all learned something from this first simulation. Colonel Clarke showed us that his ship is not adequately reinforced. You must make it even sturdier, so that he can take full advantage of his own physical limits. The reactor must be virtually indestructible."
"But he's too reckless!" the ship's designer protested to the hologram. "What happened to the cool, rational Clarke we heard so many good things about? Now he flies like... like some washout rookie!"
"This is a new situation," the Kansler replied, a little sterner. "We must test the limits of the possible."
"This... is... the limit, Kansler. The antimatter reactor cannot be made more stable," the second trainer said with emphasis.
In Argus's heat-vision, that man's body instantly grew several degrees colder when the Kansler gave his next reply.
"You're fired from this project, Wesselman. Go to your quarters now, and wait for the protocol officer to arrange the discharge. You are to stay in security quarantine until the war is over."
A heavy, lumbering guard-robot appeared in the door to the walkway, and asked the stunned Wesselman to come out of the centrifuge chamber. His colleague followed him out, equally silent. Once the trainers had passed outside hearing range, the Kansler's hologram turned to Argus.
"Such is the power of your personal ship, that it can devastate a small planet. I hope this makes you understand how far we are going, and why we must succeed. Half the Fleet's budget is consumed to produce the antimatter fuel that can only be used in your ship."
"I don't get it," Argus muttered. "I'm flying an antimatter bomb? You're not going to blow up a planet, are you?"
"Certainly not. We cannot afford such destruction anywhere in the Solar System."
"Then why build a ship that is so dangerous?"
"Because there is no other alternative. And no other pilot to entrust it with. Now run the simulation again, until you have tested all possible outcomes. I shall be with you in twelve hours. Good luck. Try every approach, every possible outcome. Follow your instincts."
The hologram disappeared. Argus looked up at the simulator capsule, which hung suspended from the centrifuge ceiling. If it had been real, he would have been a mass murderer. Incredible. It just wasn't possible, that someone could build a device so suicidal...
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