Cyborg 01 - Cyborg

by Martin Caidin

  “Let’s me do everything but see, won’t it?” Steve picked up the model, studied it more closely.

  “No one can replace the eye. Not yet. The Russians are doing amazing things with transplants but even they haven’t gone that far yet. Only God can give you back your sight. My office can provide, however, a certain insight.”

  “Get to it.”

  “There are different ways for an eye to be useful,” Goldman told Steve. “We propose one of these for you.”

  “Mind identifying the ‘we’?”

  “Your government.” Goldman turned to the model of the head. “Here is what we have in mind. Please watch very closely, Colonel Austin.”

  Goldman leaned forward with a small suction disk in his hand. He placed it gently against the lens of the eye in the model head, pressed in, and then twisted the disk to the left. Steve watched intently as the lens turned, and Goldman carefully withdrew a cylindrical tube from the eye. He placed it on the table beneath a huge magnifying glass and bright light, motioning for Steve to come closer to him. Goldman’s fingers worked deftly as he brought a tweezers into view beneath the glass. Two minutes later Steve stared at a tiny, disassembled camera.

  Goldman took the chair across the table. “It takes its pictures with regular or infrared film. It operates up to two-hundredths of a second. Anything over four feet is automatic infinity focusing, and light-sensitive cells handle exposure readings. You’re familiar with Tri-X film? This will operate with twice the speed on the ASA rating. It can handle twenty exposures per microcartridge. It’s not perfect,” Goldman said, the first personal tone in his voice, “but it really is rather effective. It would be easier, of course, to build the entire eye as a camera. But then we couldn’t make the eyeball a permanent installation—or Dr. Killian couldn’t—and the eye would not move in a normal fashion and, except to an expert, be indistinguishable from a normal eye. It could be a dead giveaway.”

  Steve glanced from Goldman to Wells and back to the strange man across the table. “A giveaway to who?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “Who the hell are you, mister?”

  “Somebody doing his job. Like you, Colonel Austin. You’re still on active duty.”

  CHAPTER 14

  She stood on the edge of the board, a superb body, bikini covering a minimum of flesh. She stepped back two paces, went forward and up, came down neatly on the edge of the board and into the air. A perfect swan and her arms came together for her to cut the water like a knife. She went the length of the pool underwater, searching him out at the far end where he was testing scuba gear. They broke the surface together. Kathy tossed her streaming hair away from her face and smiled at him. “Get rid of that junk and I’ll race you to the other side of the pool,” she said.

  He studied her for a moment. Then the interest faded from his expression. “Maybe later,” he told her. “Too busy now.”

  “Even for a short race?” she pressed. “Loser gets a whack on the ass.”

  “I said no,” he told her, more sharply than he intended.

  She stood motionless, beads of water glistening on her skin. Suddenly she shook her head, spun away from him, and swam to the opposite side of the pool, where she took the ladder quickly and left. Silence filled the pool for several moments.

  Fanier took in the scene, then walked to where Steve stood quietly in the water. “Okay for test number three,” Fanier told him. “You ready for four?”

  Steve turned slowly, as if he still held an image of the beautiful girl in his mind. “Yeah,” he said, looking up at the technician, his eyes resting briefly on the plaster cast. “Let’s get with it.” He disappeared beneath the water.

  “Everyone here?”

  Art Fanier nodded to Dr. Killian. “Yes, sir. Mr. Goldman was the last one in. We’re all ready.”

  Killian took the seat next to Rudy Wells. Jean Manners was next to him. The chairs around the oval conference table all faced to the far end of the room where a motion-picture screen waited to come to life.

  “We’ll keep this as tight as we can,” Wells started. “Steve Austin, as you all know, at this time is undergoing performance tests so we can establish the parameters of his physical abilities. Those tests will be finished either late tonight or by noon tomorrow. At this moment, in fact, Steve is in the Sangre de Cristo area. The sand dunes, to be specific, testing his ability to work through that sort of terrain, and especially so under low-oxygen conditions. The terrain elevation there exceeds nine thousand feet, so it constitutes a rather severe test. From what I understand, and this is from a radio report late this afternoon, he has left his competitors far behind.”

  He gestured to an aide and the room lights darkened. “We have edited the film records to bring all of you the highlights of the tests. We’ll start with the short track events.” The projector came on and they saw Steve and several athletes poised at the start of a hundred-yard-dash competition. Wells waited until the men flashed through the race, and there was a stirring in the room as they saw two men beat the man with the powerful bionics limbs. “From these tests we were able to remind Steve that a dash run is determined not only by experience and skill, but also oxygen saturation. In the first runs Steve lost regularly. Two days later—as you will see now—there was no longer any competition. Oxygen control, experience in handling his altered body mass and changing center of gravity . . . all these were now controlled by him.” He paused again as they watched Steve almost launch himself from the starting board and continue pulling away until he hit the tape. “In that last run, Steve broke both the world and the Olympic records.”

  Wells hesitated; the film continued and a chalk board showed the words, “Endurance Runs.” A telephoto lens shot of Steve in the far distance appeared; at the bottom right corner of the film was a timer. They watched Steve running in perfect form, his legs kicking up dust as he ground up distance, getting larger and larger, the foreshortening effect of the camera bringing out every detail. “Notice the timer in the lower right,” Wells told his audience. “Steve has been running for four hours at this point. Four hours,” he repeated, finding it unnecessary to say more as Steve came closer and closer to the camera, finally passing the lens. The camera swung about to follow him and they watched the same nearly flawless grace of movement as Steve moved away from their point of view. “We ended this test, which was more for pacing and endurance than it was for speed, after six hours. As an indication of what he was able to do, for the entire six hours he averaged a mile in five point three minutes for the entire run,” Wells said.

  “He was fully wired, of course?” Goldman asked Wells.

  “We have excellent telemetry. His heartbeat remained steady throughout, and only slightly over normal. If we had not observed the tests personally and had these films for corroboration, we would be hard put to believe the biomedical recordings.”

  For the next hour they studied films that depicted an exhaustive variety of grueling performances. They watched Steve racing with tremendous power and agility through obstacle courses. Approaching high walls he ignored knotted ropes and hurled himself against the wall, his legs pistoning him high enough to reach the top with his hands. “Notice how he favors his bionics arm when brute strength is required,” Wells told the others. “His legs take the initial requirement, he grasps with his left arm, the bionics limb, balances with his right, and then pumps himself over with the bionics arm. It’s really quite something.”

  The scene changed to a large swimming pool. “You’ll notice,” Wells said, “that where the swimming begins without a hard dive, Steve is being beaten, not by much, but still he is being beaten by some excellent swimmers. In the short dash performance he is on their level but no better. Where a dive is involved, well, look for yourself. He is twenty feet along his channel before he hits the water and he already has so much speed . . .” No need to elaborate further. Balanced on the edge of the pool, Steve’s legs shot him forward in a long, flat, hard dive. He hit the wat
er with a hard, flat splash, and disappeared at once behind a churning explosion in the water. “His legs, of course,” Wells said with a smile. “He’s like a propeller. Once he gets going, well, the other men refused to compete any more.”

  The scene shifted to a lake, and they watched an outboard cruiser moving steadily toward the camera. To its right the water foamed steadily. “The boat is coming toward us, as you can see. That churning effect to its side is Steve Austin. He’s wearing webbed fins. With those tireless legs of his, well, again you can see for yourselves.” The boat and Steve rushed toward the camera lens, expanded in a sudden rush of spray, and were gone.

  “There is one more water test, gentlemen. In this scene you will see a closeup of the interior left thigh, just above the knee. Notice how an access panel in the bionics limb comes loose. There, that’s a good closeup, and you can see Steve extracting the oxygen tube.”

  “I didn’t know about this,” Goldman said.

  “One of our surprises,” Dr. Killian answered. “Within the limb we managed to leave room for a curving cylinder. It contains oxygen under very high pressure, and we have worked out the system to either constant flow or demand.”

  Wells glanced at Goldman who was leaning forward, his expression intent, watching Steve uncoil the thin line. He placed the grip between his teeth, closed his mouth firmly, and slipped beneath the water. “Please notice the timer,” Wells said after several seconds had gone by. “We will cut the film here except for several underwater scenes.” They watched Steve swimming leisurely beneath the surface and then the camera cut back to the timer.

  “Twenty-five minutes,” Wells announced. The rest was obvious. A man had just remained underwater, swimming, for nearly a half hour with an oxygen supply contained within his own person. Wells could almost hear the wheels turning inside Goldman’s head.

  The OSO man turned to Killian. “Do you have any other surprises like that one, Doctor?”

  Killian toyed with a pencil. “Several, Mr. Goldman.”

  They waited in semidarkness as the projectionist changed the film. “We have been running a series of tests,” Wells said to pick up the theme, “for resistance to shock loads.” As he spoke the screen came alive and they found themselves looking at a parachute training tower. “We consider this to be one of the more revealing. Notice the figures at the top ramp of the tower. The first man to go off on the cable, which, by the way, simulates the opening shock of a parachute of a man leaving a C-130 transport at a true airspeed of one hundred twenty miles an hour, will be an instructor. We obtained full loads from his drop and chute opening, after which—you can see the first man jumping here—after which,” he went on, “Steve will make the second jump. There was some concern here about the legs being able to take the deceleration.” They watched Steve pause a dozen paces back, then start out at a run for the edge of the platform, where he threw himself outward. His body twisted, then pulled sharply as the static line drew taut. A moment later came the simulated chute opening, and Steve’s body snapped to one side and upward. He slid down the guide cable toward the ground. “The landing impact is the same as that for a parachute,” Wells explained. “Note Steve’s position. He is executing a perfect PLF, or parachute landing fall, as is prescribed.” Steve’s legs were together, his knees barely flexed when he struck the ground. He immediately allowed his body to bend in the direction of his fall, and crumpled perfectly to the ground, springing to his feet a moment later.

  “The next jump speaks for itself,” Wells said. Steve came off the tower again, went through the opening shock, but this time, instead of executing his landing fall, he hit hard on both feet and remained standing. “There was some minor damage,” Wells told the others. “We hadn’t prepared for such severe loads or this sort of activity. I’m pleased to say that several days after these films were taken, Steve repeated these jumps with a forty-pound backpack and still landed on, and remained on, his feet. A meticulous examination of his system indicated no injury or damage.”

  They watched the films of Steve in the huge climatic hangar at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. There Steve was subjected to bitter cold, down to seventy degrees below zero. Outfitted in arctic gear, he plodded for hours in the teeth of howling winds, fierce blizzards, and fought his way over icy hummocks. He was next seen in a tropical setting, the temperature at one hundred and thirty, perspiring profusely, hacking his way through thick jungle vegetation. From here he went on to desert conditions and, once again, endured the severe privations of the climatic extremes.

  “It was important to associate Steve with the surroundings in which he has spent so many years,” Wells explained as they waited for another reel. “You will see him in a Link trainer that simulates instrument flight, that reproduces almost perfectly the conditions of flying without reference to a visual horizon. This calls for excellent coordination, and not the least of his problems are, of course, sustaining depth perception with only one eye. But other men have managed it, including some rather outstanding fighter aces in the Second World War.” The screen flickered and they studied Steve in the trainer, sealed from the outside world, “flying” as if his life depended upon his performance. For a while the coordination was sloppy and even ineffective. But only for a while. Steve’s system and his mind compensated rapidly. “Within forty-five minutes,” said Wells, “he was handling the instrument trainer with virtually his former skill. You will next see a test carried out in an Air Force JC-135, a modified 707 for zero-g training. Steve trained in such an aircraft before his moon flight, as you may know. We were able to achieve nearly sixty seconds of uninterrupted weightlessness for each parabolic arc of the flight path . . .” And there was Steve again, lifting weightlessly through the cabin with attendants watching every move.

  “One would be inclined to believe,” Wells continued, “that Steve was even more at home under weightlessness than he is under normal gravity.”

  “I’d say the same thing for his performance in the water,” observed Oscar Goldman.

  They met later in Killian’s office. Oscar Goldman wasted no time getting into the subject. “I know you have anticipated Austin’s moods. That seems to be the best word for it. But this latest phase,” Goldman shook his head, “amounts to a positive withdrawal. He hardly speaks to anyone or works with them—”

  “That’s not true,” Wells broke in. “He works with anyone necessary to his testing.”

  “Yes, testing,” Goldman agreed, “but there’s no personal relationship. Except, perhaps, with you and Miss Manners. But not with anyone else. What’s causing this? We feel this is absolutely vital, Dr. Wells. If our program is to succeed then we must—”

  “Mr. Goldman,” Killian interrupted, “your program, I must remind you, is secondary to this project. Even you will agree with this? No, please let me finish. I know you have done everything possible not to interfere. I’ve told you before, and I’m pleased to repeat it now, that you have been, well, based on my experience in government, Mr. Goldman, you have been extraordinary in your conduct. But you seem to be pressing more than usual. Why?”

  Goldman nodded slowly. “In my business, Dr. Killian, the weakest point in any link is never the equipment used by a man, but that man himself.”

  Killian studied Goldman carefully. “I gather you have specific plans for Austin?”

  “I would be foolish to lie, wouldn’t I?” Goldman said bluntly. “Of course we do. But those plans, and they are most specific, are worthless without the cooperation, without the desire to work fully with us, of the man. And Steve Austin right now,” he said, “acts like a man who would rather go off in a corner and sulk. Dammit, I hate to say that, but it’s true. What’s gone wrong with him?” He turned to Rudy Wells. “I’ve heard your theories on this, Dr. Wells, and up to a point I agree completely. The matter of fighting his way out of a morass, and then not knowing quite what to do with himself when he wins. But even that doesn’t account for this present . . .”

  Goldman turned t
o Jean Manners. “Next to Dr. Wells, you are closer to him than any other person. Can you help us?”

  “We’ve discussed it, I mean, among ourselves,” she said. “I’ve talked about it with Dr. Wells. I’ve also talked about this with Kathy. That’s Miss Morris.”

  “Yes, I know,” Goldman said. “Please go on.”

  “It’s that he doesn’t feel he’s a complete man. You must know that Steve believes he’s impotent. Kathy is in love with him and he completely ignores her. It’s not the disfigurement, any more. This used to bother him. Now he considers himself as much machine as he does man. That’s all right in a masculine world, when he’s with men, among men, competing or working with them. But when it comes to women . . .” She shook her head.

  Goldman turned to Wells. “Is there a problem in the physical sense?”

  “Absolutely none. And Steve is fond of that girl. Much more than anyone realizes, including himself. He’s afraid of being rejected, Oscar,” Wells said. “He’s so afraid of rejection because of his half-man and half-machine condition that he doesn’t dare expose himself to the possibility of a woman turning away from him. So he has only one person left to fight. Himself.”

  “Are you saying that he pities himself?”

  “In a harsh and rather brutal manner, yes.”

  “Any suggestions?”

  “Yes, get him back into the element he misses most of all. The sky. Get him back into a cockpit. Turn him loose in a jet fighter. Let him—”

  “Isn’t that taking an awful risk?”

  “What do you want, Mr. Goldman? A psychological wreck or a whole man? Steve’s entire life has been flying. He does not believe, at this point, that he will ever fly again, which is to say, be himself. Let him fly again, and he will whip this thing.”