" Try nine seconds," JC. Powell said.

"Nine seconds?"

"Nine seconds on the dot from the moment you went into theta-alpha, " Carmichael said happily. "Even faster than Ken's ever done it, although he doesn't take two hours to get to theta- alpha.

Patrick tried to turn his head, but found it impossible-it wds as if two red-hot hands held his head cemented into place. "How can anyone function with all this pain? I feel like I'm being microwaved, I can't move a muscle."

"All I can say is that Ken James is different. He's also been using the ANTARES system for a long time. Don't focus on the pain, and don't worry about being able to move around. Relax and try to enjoy the ride."

A moment later, Carmichael clicked the intercom back on.

"We've repositioned the simulator at thirty-five thousand feet and five hundred knots. Take the aircraft when you're ready, Colonel."

Patrick concentrated as hard as he could on the image of the instrument panel. He had managed to slide the image of the intercom channel off to the left, but the rest of the panel was blank. Like a television screen with nothing but snow across it.

Okay. Aircraft attitude was important. Maintain control. Keep the airplane flying.

Instantly an oval drew itself on the upper half of the cockpit image. It was sitting horizontal across the windscreen, a deep white line bisecting it, forming a horizon. In the exact center of the oval was a wide T, representing the aircraft.

"Release me," McLanahan said.

The T jumped up and to the right just as Carmichael said, "You're moving."

Patrick concentrated on keeping the T in the center of the oval. Slowly the T moved back in the center.

"Good start at least, now where the hell am I going?"

The oval disappeared, replaced by the image of a long rib- bonlike street on the upper portion of the screen. The street was straight for a distance, but Patrick could see a few gentle twists and turns in the distance. At the bottom of the screen was a tiny picture of a jet fighter plane-it appeared to be resting right on the road.

"Hey, I've got the flight-plan depiction."

"Good," Carmichael said. "That's a major flight image. Fol- low it as long as you can. How's the headache?"

"It went to splitting migraine long ago, Doc, but as long as I keep my mind off the pain it'll be okay."

Keeping the simulator flying upright was more difficult with- out the artificial horizon, but no amount of mental effort would bring it back, so Patrick used the visual cues on the road itself- the recommended altitude was to surface on the road itself, which also represented the proper pitch and bank to follow; as long as he kept the little fighter model on the road he would be following the computer's recommended flight path. The road's curbs rep- resented the allowable lateral flight corridor to follow, and tiny signposts represented planned tum-points and recommended altitude-changeover points.

As long as the "road" was straight and flat, the ride went well. But after a few moments the road began to make small left and, right turns, and the going got much tougher. The tiny fighter icon penetrated through the road several times, porpoising up and down through the recommended altitude block, and Patrick had to apply harder and faster corrections to keep the plane steady.

"Stabilize, Patrick," he heard from JC. Powell.

"I'm trying." The fighter icon slid through the right wall of the road, skidded sideways, then entered an uncontrolled spin.

"Let the computer recover the plane," Powell said. "Don't try to fight it."

114 .

Patrick forced himself to go along. He concentrated on the surface of the computer-generated road without thinking about the aircraft control. Suddenly he knew that ANTARES had placed both mission-adaptive wings in high-lift modes and de- ployed both dorsal and ventral sets of rudders to maximize di- rectional control. The fighter icon dove through the right side of the flight path depiction, but by rapid lift, power and drag changes under precise computerized control, the fighter was soon out of its uncontrolled spin and stabilized in a steep dive. A few moments later the fighter slowly leveled out and returned to its desired flight path once again.

"Good recovery," Carmichael said. "ANTARES will always try to save the air-craft whenever possible, but you still have to tell her where you want to go, even in an uncontrolled situa- tion. "

After a few minutes of straight-and-level flight to get his confidence back, Patrick accomplished a few turns, with bank angles and altitude changes mixed in. "I think I've got the hang of it again," Patrick said.

"Still have those headaches?"

"Now that you mention it, yes, but they seem to become less noticeable when I'm concentrating on something else."

"Good. How about some formation flying? We can put up another fighter and let you fly off his wing for a while.

"No, bring up a hostile."

"Getting cocky now, aren't we, sir?" Powell cut in. "Five minutes ago you couldn't make a ten-degree turn without going out of control. Now you want to do some dogfighting."

"That's what the damned simulators are for, Bring up a high-performance model, too."

"You got it."

There was no change in the simulation after several long mo- ments. He was going to ask if they had put up a hostile when he remembered-none of his fighter's offensive or defensive Sys- tems had been activated- But that realization was enough. Immediately a computer syn thesized voice announced, "Attack radar activated . . . elec- tronic countermeasures activated . . . tail warning systems activated.

And there it was, a laser-projected image of a fighter in the upper right comer of the screen. Patrick immediately corn- manded the simulator's laser-trucking system to lock onto the hostile aircraft, and deactivated the attack-radar as soon as the laser had illuminated the target. But it wasn't fast enough. Flight data on the hostile aircraft showed that it had altered course and was on a head-on intercept course. The hostile had detected Pat- rick's brief radar emission and had turned to start the fight.

As the two aircraft merged into a nose-to-nose flight path, Patrick was suddenly flooded with information. His laser- projection screen was filled with electronic depictions of dozens of options, only a few of which included a full head-on pass.

There were so many options that he lost count. His headache had come back full-force now. Beads of sweat obscured his vi- sion, blood pounded in his ears. He was conscious, his mind still sharp, but the pain, intermingled with hundreds of bits of data predicting the outcome of dozens of maneuvers by both aircraft soon overwhelmed him.

The ANTARES simulator suddenly went inverted and pulled a heart-stopping eight-G descent. The simulator had activated the all-aspect radar as it descended, and Patrick could easily "see" his pursuer descend with him. But that was what AN- TARES had been expecting. The simulator continued its in- verted loop, using its high-lift canards to pull the nose up through the horizon. The throttle went to max afterburner as he went through the vertical-and Patrick had no doubt that he would have been squashed like a grape if he had been in a real jet aircraft.

As the nose dove through the horizon once again he found that the pursuer had become the pursued. Whatever kind of air- craft they had put up against him, it couldn't keep up with AN- TARES. Patrick found himself directly behind his adversary, and ANTARES had already an-ned four laser-guided missiles and was waiting for orders to fire. Patrick issued those orders a split second later. Meanwhile, ANTARES had switched to the internal twenty-millimeter multibarrel cannon and was waiting for orders to fire as the simulator closed in on the hostile, but there was no need to open fire-all laser-guided hypervelocity missiles had hit their target.

"Ground position freeze," Dr. Carmichael ordered. Patrick heard footsteps on the catwalk around the simulator's cockpit as the cockpit indicators and the deluge of information in his head 116 .

abruptly ceased. "Patrick, this is Alan Carmichael. Can you hear me?"

He found himself frozen in his seat, unable to move a muscle and barely able to move his lips . . . "Yes."

"We're going to disconnect ANTARES. Hold on."

Even though the simulator had stopped, the pain inside Pat- rick's head was steadily increasing. He could feel the fighter doing some lazy rolls and spins but didn't have the strength to . sue the orders to maintain straight and level flight.

IS - 1 . . . I'm losing it . . ."

"Let it go, Patrick," Carmichael said. "You're off the sim- ulation. Relax. Don't worry about the controls."

It was like telling a man hanging from a cliff to cut his lifeline.

Slowly, using every last ounce of strength he had, Patrick fought the urge to counteract the spinning aircraft. But the more he let go, the more he was drawn to what was happening. As the air- craft's altitude began to decrease, he received the aircraft alti- tude, "heard" ANTARES' reports on terrain, engine performance, structural loads. The closer the fighter got to earth, the faster the reports came. When the fighter shot through five thousand feet above the ground, ANTARES recommended it take over. Patrick did not respond. At three thousand feet above ground, ANTARES issued the order to eject. Again, Patrick ignored it.

He just sat, transfixed, as he listened to ANTARES' neural 'screams." The computer was literally begging its human oc- cupant to do something, anything, to save it. The more the com- puter blasted McLanahan with pleas to issue an order to recover the aircraft, the more the pain increased and the more Patrick was unable to do anything. Carmichael was reaching to discon- nect the superconducting helmet from Patrick's clavicle rin when the simulator slammed into the ground at nearly two thousand miles per hour.

When the helmet was finally lifted from McLanahan's shoul- ders and Carmichael saw his face, even he was shocked. Mc- Lanahan's face was a mask of pain, as in a man tortured to the very brink of tolerable agony.

"Patrick, snap out of it, it's over!" Carmichael was yelling at him. Technicians had jumped up on the catwalk beside Car- michael, and others were unfastening the shoulder harness and loosening the heavy connectors and relays on the metallic flight suit. Carmichael looped an oxygen mask over Patrick's face.

"It's over. Wake up, dammit."

No response. Technicians were still trying to remove the heavy metallic gloves from Patrick's hands and undo the suit's fasten- ers, so Carmichael bent lower over Patrick and put his ear to his mouth.

"He's stopped breathing, cut the suit off-- An assistant hes- itated, looking first at Patrick, then Carmichael. "I said cut it off. Now." Carmichael put'his face up to Patrick's. "Patrick, wake up, dammit! " He grabbed a pair of steel cutters from one of the technicians as the medical team removed the oxygen mask and inserted a breathing tube down Patrick's throat, then grabbed a wire-laced seam of the suit and made a twelve-inch cut across Patrick's chest with the ultrasonic cutting tool, exposing the thin cotton undergarments soaked with sweat. "Get a heart monitor over here!" He ripped open the underwear to expose Mc- Lanahan's chest. He studied Patrick's face as the airway was opened and the respirator started. The eyes were fluttering and his facial muscles were contorting as if he was locked in some nightmare.

Then JC. Powell stepped up on the catwalk opposite Car- michael. As the electrocardiogram leads were taped to Mc- Lanahan's chest, Powell took Patrick's head in his hands and bent down to his left ear: "Wake up, boss," he said in a firm, quiet voice. "Show's over, Colonel. Wake up."

Carmichael studied the EKG readouts. "No pulse. Straight line. Charge the defibrillator units. Powell, get out of the way. "

ignored him. "Patrick, this is I know you can hear me-"

"He can't hear a damn thing, " Carmichael said. "Now stand clear-"

"He can hear me, he knows what's happening. He can feel everything. He just needs a direction-"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

did not answer. Instead, he placed both of Patrick's hands on his shoulders, moved as close as he could and said, "Patrick, you can hear me. Listen to me. ANTARES isn't in charge now.

You are in control. Wake up.

"He's been unconscious too long, Powell," Carmichael said.

118 .

A medical technician handed him two electrode paddles from the heart defibrillator. "He'll die if we don't revive him."

"And you'll kill him if you shock him with that. " Powell grabbed Patrick by his flight suit and hauled him up as far out of the ejection seat as he could. "Patrick!" he yelled. " Dammit, I said wake up!"

Suddenly McLanahan's eyes popped open. He grabbed 's shoulder in a crushing grip that made Powell wince. He gagged on the resuscitator tube in his throat and pulled it out, his chest heaving. Powell eased him back into his seat.

"Sinus rhythm," one of the paramedics reported. "Blood pressure high but strong. Heart rate, respiration okay."

"Are you'all right?"

"I . . . I think so."

Carmichael started to put the oxygen mask on his face again but Patrick pulled it away, choosing instead to take occasional deep breaths from it.

"It was so weird," McLanahan said, trying hard to control his breathing. He seemed to be reviewing, reliving, the scene in his mind. "I was watching the intercept and the kill like a spec- tator. ANTARES was doing it all. It was like I wasn't there.

But I felt the pain building and building, and ANTARES getting stronger and stronger, along with the pain. But then I couldn't do anything. I knew I still had to fly the aircraft on ground- position freeze but I couldn't give any commands. I felt like . . .

like a million hornets were buzzing all around me.'I knew those hornets carried information, important data I need to know, and I knew something was wrong. But with the pain, I couldn't do a thing . . . Suddenly everything was dark and empty. I didn't have a body, just a brain. I was searching for a way out of a room but didn't know how I was going to make it even if I found an exit. That's when I heard 's voice. The more I heard, the more . . . alive I felt. I followed his voice . . .

I . . ." His voice began to fade, and he appeared to be drifting off to sleep.

"Get him out of here," Carmichael ordered.

He woke up later to find Wendy Tork asleep in a chair beside his bed, a magazine across her lap. "Wendy?"

She came upright. "Patrick? You're awake! How do you feel?"

"Tired. Thirsty. " She poured him a glass of water from a plastic pitcher, then rang for the nurse. "I feel like I've just paddled a kayak across the Pacific. " He found he had the strength to sit up and take the cup in his hands. "What time is it? "

"Nine P."

"I've been asleep for twelve hours?"

"Patrick, it's nine P. on Saturday. You've been asleep for forty-eight hours. "

The water glass began to tremble in his hands, and he quickly set it on the bedside table. "Was I in a coma?"

"No-well, technically, yes," Wendy said, moving close to him and taking his hands in hers. "They called it extreme ex- haustion and depletion. You lost seven pounds while you were in that simulator. You could have hurt yourself even without the strain that . . . that thing put on you. Are you sure you're okay?"

He sat up and took a few sips of water. Nothing was said until he asked, "How long have you been here?"

"I never left. I . . . I wanted to talk some more about the other night. I know how it is for you-"

"Works both ways, kid." He let out a tired sigh and his head dropped back to the pillow. He managed a short laugh. "I think I know why Doctor Jekyll drank his own potions. You want something to be so successful that you'll try anything, even mak- ing yourself into your own guinea pig. I never should have strapped myself into that simulator. I wasn't ready for it."

"It must have been terrible."

"It was . . . different," he said uneasily. "I have to give guys like James and Powell all the credit in the world for flying the real thing, never mind the simulator. It's an awesome contrap- tion if you can keep yourself from going crazy."

"Talk about going crazy," a voice said behind them. They turned to see General Elliott and Hal Briggs enter the hospital room. Hal went over to Patrick and clasped hands with him.

"You had the'whole place going crazy, brother."

McLanahan thought that Elliott looked drawn, tired, as if he hadn't slept in days. His blue blouse was sweat-stained and rum- pled, and he seemed to favor his artificial leg more than usual.

"How do you feel, Patrick?"

"Fine, sir." A damn lie.

120 .

Takin' a nap for a day and a half, you should be fine," Hal put in.

"We can do that SPO conference tomorrow after I get out of here," Patrick said to Elliott.

"I think we've all had enough for the weekend, Colonel,"

Elliott said. "I've scheduled a meeting with the senior project officers and the engineering staff for Monday morning. You're on sick leave until then. Clear?"