Metafire

"Our recourse is basically drugs. Here are some new badges. They just look like badges. In the airplane to Vandenberg, we'll have somebody that can explain the way you can use the badges to deliver different drugs. Each badge can basically put a dozen people to sleep for a dozen hours. You just have to be able to strike them with the right part of the badge, in the right way. It's the best we could do on a few hours notice. We tested them on dogs."

"Great." Jack was not holding his opinion.

"I wonder what we would do without our bureaucracy?" Jim Edenfield mused.

"Just take the badges. There is virtually no possibility that their function can be detected unless one expects it. The drug will put you to sleep in less than ten seconds. It will also probably cause a brief convulsion." Ferguson gave them their badges. " Just to let you guys know."

He drove them down to the Sante Fe Airport where a jet was waiting. By 7 P.M., California time, they were landing at Vandenberg Air Force Base.

On board Metafire One, George Oliver Davis was making final arrangements to have his capsule moved into the Discovery bay. The Russian capsule was being set in. Two men were in EVA suits helping to manually position the Russian capsule. In order to insure that the Russian capsule would not do anything unexpected, like start up a maneuvering rocket, they ordered the Russians to power down their systems. This left the Russians with only two to three hours of time even in the carefully controlled shade of the Discovery. The person in charge of the Russian capsule was Platon Burak. It had not yet become obvious to the Discovery that these people were Ukrainians, not Russians. Platon's Russian and English were fluent.