Able One

Able One Read Free

Book: Able One Read Free
Author: Ben Bova
Tags: Science-Fiction
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observation window, hot enough to melt the gauges on the back wall.
    Pete Quintana was enveloped in the flames, screaming, gibbering, flailing in agony. Harry tried to reach out to him but his own pain was so intense that he blacked out.
    “Rise and shine, Harry!”
    Hartunian blinked awake. The room was dark, but somebody was flicking a flashlight beam in his eyes.
    Harry was drenched with sweat, gasping for breath.
    “You were yelling in your sleep, pal.” Monk Delany. Harry recognized his voice and dimly made out the outline of his heavy, bearlike body in the darkness of the strange bedroom. Elmendorf Air Force Base, Harry remembered. We’re in Alaska.
    “C’mon, buddy, we’re gonna miss breakfast if you don’t get going.”
    Harry didn’t mind the flashlight glaring in his eyes. It was Monk’s chipper, cheerful tone that irked him. Can’t be more than four o’clock in the friggin’ morning, Harry thought, and Monk’s as jolly as a goddamned Santa Claus.
    “Come on, Harry,” Delany coaxed, flicking the flashlight beam back and forth across Harry’s face again. “Rise and shine.”
    “Go ‘way!”
    Delany laughed. “You gotta get up, Harry. Time’s a-wasting.”
    With a groan, Harry sat up, blinking, rubbing his stubbled jaw. Reluctantly he switched on the bedside lamp.
    “What time is it?”
    “Nearly six.”
    Squinting at the room’s only window, Hartunian said, “Christ, it’s still dark.”
    “Alaska, buddy. We’re not in sunny California anymore.”
    “Tell me about it.”
    Hartunian swung his legs out of the bed and stood up, shivering slightly in his boxers and undershirt. His back ached dully. He was a short, round-shouldered man with baby-fine thin dark hair that flew into disarray at the slightest puff of breeze. His midsection showed a distinct middle-aged bulge. He hadn’t come to Alaska willingly.
    You’re the program engineer now, Harry, Victor Anson had told him. Wherever that plane goes, you go. We need you to make that damned laser work. Harry. Forget the accident. Just make it work. The company’s ass is on the line. We’re all depending on you.
    “Okay,” he said to Delany, “I’m up. Go on down to the restaurant--”
    “Mess hall,” Delany corrected.
    “Whatever. I’ll meet you down there in ten minutes.”
    Delany was several inches taller than Hartunian and outweighed him by more than thirty pounds. His hair was dark and thick, but despite his formidable appearance his normal facial expression was a genial, lopsided smile. He was already dressed in his white coveralls with the Anson Aerospace Corporation logo on its chest and back.
    “You know how to find the mess hall?”
    “I’ll find it,” Harry said, reaching for his bathrobe.
    “Ten minutes.” Delany went to the door. He turned back, though, and advised, “Wear the heavy coat. October out here can be pretty damned chilly.”
    “Where’s your coat?”
    Delany flashed a grin. “I never feel the cold.”
    Blubber, Harry thought sourly.
    It was cold outside, he discovered. Cold and still dark, although the sky was lightening enough in the east to silhouette the rugged snowcapped mountains. Despite his brand-new goose-down-lined parka Harry’s back twinged from the cold. Psychosomatic, the doctors had claimed. Your ribs have healed and there’s nothing wrong with your spine. Still, ever since the accident, Harry’s back ached.
    If I’d stayed in California like a sane man, Harry thought, I could’ve gone to the beach today.
    Yeah, a sardonic voice in his head replied. And you’d have Sylvia and her lawyers pounding on your door, trying to get you to sign the damned divorce papers.
    With a shake of his head, Harry looked around for the mess hall. He’d arrived at Elmendorf Air Force Base the previous afternoon, and most of the buildings in the sprawling facility looked pretty much alike to him. Last night, though, before going to sleep in the room they’d assigned him and Delany to share in the

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