It is likely Captain Biff Lee Roy Jethro Gabbs fears contamination with effeminate Stenchie ways as much as he is revolted by the cheese itself, making the torture doubly unbearable.

Wasn't his name McCain before? Or was it changed?

---

"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed,or numbered. I am a free man. My life is my own" Number 6
The Prisoner

It's an entirely different man. Possibly a group II astronaut, but that incident will lower his chances to get in

Downtown Baris Police station. July, 1961

Fox Modem entered the police station and walked into the interrogation room. He looked at the table.



He ate the cheese, for its foul smell could not hurt someone with no sense of smell. He then chugged down the wine and dropped the empty bottle on the ground.

"Ready to go Biff?" he asked.

Biff asked. "How did you do that?"

"Fireworks hit me in the nose once, I have no tastebuds now. Ready to go?"

---

"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed,or numbered. I am a free man. My life is my own" Number 6
The Prisoner

Johnny was busy analysing every millimetre (despite being an adopted Murcan, he refused to use that backwards Imperial syustem withint he confines of his own mind) of his opposite number Syrgy. Wounds indeed, but not from a war Johnny thought. A gulag most likely.

So, the rumours of the idioitic Zenobians imprisoning and surpressing their most brilliant minds was true. how utterly ineffecient of them. The Thanasian science-labour camp system was so much more productive than the Uranium mines.

He looked somewhat uncomfortable too. That miht have something to do with being confronted by his arch-rival, but Johnny was sure there was something else bothering him. A brief and discrete sniff after Syrgy's last comment revealed the distinct smell of nitroglycerin. Fascinating, a weak heart.

Perhaps the stress of us beating him into orbit will kill him Johnny thought, with just a hint of sadness. The contest would not be as fun without a comparable rival.

And such a wince at being refered to as mein herr. Oh, of course, that would be von Braun's old...colleague Herr von Evilstein, being called mein Herr must dredge up bad memories. Johnny resolved to use the expression as much as possible.

"Well mein Herr, I feel I must offer my congratulations to you. You were the first after all to fly a satellite...oh but of course, that was Herr Doktor von Evilstein, by old friend from Peenmunde. How is the good doktor?"

Syrgy looked briefly amused that von Braun was not aware of the doktors fate. Then he realised it was nothing but a ruse, dry humour. This Thansian bastard must have an Anglian friend to teach him such wit thoguht Syrgy.

"He met with some...ah, accident, da? He had to leave the program suddenly."

"That is most unfortunate. His emthods were reckless, even by Zenobian standards, but he did get the milestone I suppose..."

Syrgy barely had a chance to feel both annoyed and smug at the admission before Johnny cut him off again.

"...but then again, you may have got the milestone but we got the better result! Just listen to this true Murcan broadcast, direct from orbit!"

And with that, Johnny pulled out a small radio, and tuend it to the bitchin' rock and roll still being beamed down from the Explorer satelites.

"Now that is the true victory is it not? You can listen to annoying beeping, whilst we can groove and relax to our tunes from space. There are even bands in Murca producing music especially for the "Space Radio." It's nothing like good Thanasian music it it sure beats beeping!"

In a dull corner of his mind, Johnny was wondering what on Earth he was saying. He had planned to have a lengthy chat about shared visions and so forth, but he had been unable to resist the chance for gloating. It would seem he had become more Murcan than he had thought. time for some fence mending.

"Comrade Pavylyvych, I must offer my apologies. It would seem my Thanasian manners have been misdirected by Murcan ways. In all honesty, I must offer my congratulations for putting a man into space. Truly, a remarkable achievement, and one that I hope will be rememebered throughout history, regardless of the politics of the day."

---

You are standing on a 4.5 billion year old complex, self-sustaining organic spacship, which is orbiting a power source a million times larger than your ship. There are 200 billion other power sources, many of them with ships like yours, in your fleet. There are 40 other fleets in the immediate neighbourhood and your entire neighbourhood is moving at two million miles per hour towards an object 150 million light years away. Welcome to life, it's a lot more exciting when you think on larger scales.

Syrgy Pavylyvych privately resolves to orbit a transmitter running L'Internationale, or maybe a nice classical selection, as soon as possible- may those wrecking bastards at the Derevnya Gadyukino Precision Alloy Tubing Plant rot in Hell after the monsters in Lusyubyanka get through with them...

The Zenobian glances over von Braun's shoulder at Comrade Commissar Omeganski, who looks most, most displeased. No doubt thinking- HORRORS! The Murcans know the identity of the Chief Designer!

But there was nothing to be done about that, and there had to be at least a little room, even in the Zenobian Onion, for chivalry between rivals; Omeganski silently signaled to Syrgy, telling him to keep speaking.

Of course the NKVDVDROM men will be listening in in any case, but there's nothing to be done about that, either...

Then Syrgy replies, trying to mind his Thanasian as best he can.

"Thank you, Herr von Braun. I hope, that Comrade Faaabio and Tovarisch McCain... are the first of many." The pauses in his sentences are off, but his grammar is returning to him. Then, in a rare moment of glasnost, he loses a bit of his hard-earned poker face.

"It was all different before the War, before the Bomb, before..." He shrugs a little. "The... playing with the liquid fuel, the dreams of flying to the moon on our own rocketships. But then... the War, the Bomb."

Von Braun sighs a little too; that reminds him of his days working on his own early rockets, under Schühemann und Walther Krautenberger. Before the rise of Shitler, and that embarrassing matter of being made a Whoppin SS officer in charge of slave labor camps. Simpler, more innocent times.

"Ja."

Syrgy chuckles a little. "I remember working on my first rocketplane..."

The Commissar kept is careful eye on the two talking head engineers, grinding his teeth at every precious drop of information that fell into vile Murican hands, why just look at how they had corrupted the Thanasian Von Braun fellow! They could not be allowed to pollute space at all.

With a small cough an NKDVDROM agent handed him a small paper report, regarding one of their more ambitious schemes, deployed sneakily through the main entrance at the same time as the delegation had landed were a dozen of the most attractive Zenobian women in the NKDVDROM, on orders to try and seduce the Murican 'astromen' or whatever it was they were calling them, and then pump them for information.

The Commissar screwed up the report, annoyed by what he had read, it seemed that as of yet not one of them had been successful! What kind of mental fortitude did this Muricans have? Or was it some kinda of MASA loyalty/anti-seduction training?!

"Excusez-moi, monsieur", major de Serious said, rising his fingers in objection to Fox Modem's disgusting and uncultured way of eating, "Pourriez-vous utiliser des couverts, s'il vous plaît?"

Captain Biff Lee Roy Jethro Gabbs whispered to Fox, "Man, I think you better go! I think he's threatening to lock you up unless you leave!"

"Ah! Yes, the rocketplanes. Such wonderful dreams!"

Johnny smiled wistfully as he remembered the many bizarre and wonderful designs he had seen tested at Peenemunde. Such utterly absurd designs, clearly impractical for atmospheric flight.

"Those were indeed better days. The War and the Bomb have succeeded far beyond Closenheimer's dreams. The bomb has crushed so many beautiful ideas. Now everything has to be military, or manly. It's so unnecessarily wasteful. Especially those damn astronauts and their love-affair with industrial lubricant."

Realising the conversation was becoming maudlin, Johnny changed the subject, back to the absurd, but far more interesting matter of rocketplanes.

"You know, I once worked on a project to mount a rocketplane on top of a larger missile, in place of the warhead. We thought we might be able to leave the atmosphere that way, and allow the pilot to come ack in and land safely."

A dark look crossed his face.

"Of course Shitler insisted that we use it to propel fighter-bombers to Murca. Such a fool!"

Syrgy looked briefly concerned. The Thanasians were looking at re-useable spaceplanes during the War? How ineresting. Maybe there is some old experimental data we could use.

"Da, a most interesting concept Herr von Braun. I had heard some rumours about rocket planes and missiles from Peenemunde after the War. We even saw some old designs. Utterly mad!"

"Most assuredly mad. But fun to play with. Then again, we've got some bright aprks in MASA who are speculating wildly that we might do the same."

What Syrgy did not realise was that von Braun was speaking plainly, not understating the truth. A terrible thought ran through Syrgy's fiendish Zenobian brain.

What if the Murcan's have been delayed this long because they are developing mini-shutles? That would make a suborbital Vostok look like a fart in a hurricane. We MUST persue this technology, as fast as we can!

Johnny glanced at his watch suddenly.

"Damn unt blast! You must excuse me Comrade, I am running late for a presentation on the Explorere satellite."

Johnny stuck his hand out, and Syrgy hesitantly shook it.

"A pleasure to meet you Syrgy Pavlyvych. I know we are rivals, and it is strange, but I wish you the best of luck."

"Indeed, the same to you Herr Doktor. Farewell." Syrgy watched von Braun's retreating back, rather unnerved by the well-wishing from his rival. More conerning to him though was the prospect of Murcan spaceplanes!

---

You are standing on a 4.5 billion year old complex, self-sustaining organic spacship, which is orbiting a power source a million times larger than your ship. There are 200 billion other power sources, many of them with ships like yours, in your fleet. There are 40 other fleets in the immediate neighbourhood and your entire neighbourhood is moving at two million miles per hour towards an object 150 million light years away. Welcome to life, it's a lot more exciting when you think on larger scales.

OOC: I'm going to be out of town until probably Wednesday, so my posting will be limited and sporadic at best, most likely.

Fox Modem nods to the police man and grabs a tablecloth and uses it to wipe his mouth. He then looks to the guard to see if this is what he wants.

---

"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed,or numbered. I am a free man. My life is my own" Number 6
The Prisoner

Oh Jeebus yes, yes we are

All right. I'll come up with Plan Pavylyvych Fall 1961 some time tomorrow, should be late afternoon Warsaw time if things proceed roughly according to plan. Make sure you don't forget to hex-edit in any outcome from that suborbital Vostok test you forgot about- I expect much hilarity from the launch no one can remember performing!

While I am eager to get back to rocketry, we still need justification for why Murcans decided to go for spaceplanes, nyet?

Because the Zenobians are doing it! Why else?

Come on, isn't a circular-logic "neither of us can afford not to do this because the other guy is doing it" paradox the perfect Cold War parody?

Hang on. Let me put something together...

Syrgy Pavylyvych strolled back to the hotel, trailed by a shoal of secret police.

In the lobby he was greeted by an unhappy Comrade Commissar Omeganski. "We need to talk."

Syrgy felt the inevitable jump of nervous tension. "Da." Best get it over with, one way or the other.

Omeganski nodded in the direction of the elevator. "After you." The walk up to the hotel room was... unpleasant, though Syrgy was fairly sure the commissar wouldn't shoot him in the middle of a Stenchian hotel right on the spot. Fairly.

"What the hell were you thinking?"

"I was thinking that I had better get a nod from Comrade Vasileyev before I said anything. So I did."

Omeganski's frown tightened. "Explain to me why you thought that conversation was a sane idea."

"The Murcans now know I speak Thanasian- badly. Fat lot of good that does them. They know I know about the collapsed Atlas rocket, which was leaked on their own news programs in any event, da? They know that before the War I worked on rocket-boosted gliders, which nothing ever came of in any event... and now we know that they are working on an experimental spaceplane design, like what we'd heard that the Ratzis' Sänger and General Krautenberger worked on-"

"That was never confirmed."

"Only because the Murcans got their hands on the bastards first, comrade, you know that. I know what some of those drawings for the "antipodal bomber"" were on about. The Thanasians never got past the dream-concept stage, never had the rocketry for it, but with Murcan funding, who knows?"

"So, they are working on a spaceplane design, utilising old Thanasian concepts with the overbloaed waistline of Murican funding? Tell me comrade will this be a boondoggle for them that will help slim thier funds to a more healthy state? Or does it risk leaving our own designs in the dust?"

The Commissar retreived his hip flask to take a large swig of it's highly alcoholic contents.

"I don't need you to remind you of the consiquences should we not return from this confrence without somthing to show for it?"

He paused mulling over the days events in his head.

"We may have a chance to double check your theories on thier project though, I will have to call in a few favours to activate one of our best Murican sleeper agents though, he should already be working at the MASA site, they call him... The Janitor"

"It is... not a boondoggle, not in the sense of being inherently impossible. We've looked at the idea ourselves, to some limited extent. The real challenge would be designing a glider capable of withstanding reentry; if you can do that the rest is easy enough. You might not achieve full reusability in the orbiter, and of course you need a booster rocket which will be expended with each launch, but if you can design the glider you can do the rest.

"That mostly becomes a question of designing the heat shield- it will have to be nonablative, unlike capsule shields. I'd expect to need very high-refractory metal or alloy, very high quality, but the Murcans can do that, eventually. I doubt they'd be able to man-rate and orbit a reusable spaceplane before, oh, 1965? 1966? Thereabouts, if they push.

"But it's definitely a viable option, and is certainly far beyond the hardware we're seriously working on now. The long-term Soyuz design would be competitive in terms of perfomance, but expendable instead of reusable; any really worthwhile spaceplane would be a far more impressive demonstration of aerospace technology than even such an advanced capsule design.

"One thing that worries me about this, Comrade Omeganski, is the military implications. A spaceplane could potentially use atmospheric maneuvers for large changes in orbital inclination, or to extend the range of a suborbital launch to intercontinental distances, as the Thanasians originally planned. There were reasons why the Thanasians called their first design concept die Murkabomber; they wanted one so they could bomb Murca with it. And it would be extremely difficult to engage such a system with any kind of air defenses- the sheer speed of the thing..." Syrgy shakes his head.

"It worries me, comrade."

But they don't know that yet. It seems Johny von Braun was speaking of spaceplane proposals as a curiosity

"Worrying da Comrade, but think of what the Onion could do with those capabilities, clearly we cannot allow a Space-bomber-plane gap, we will draw up our own designs for one of these, and present them as our answer to the foul capitalists own space program!"

They find out we're doing it. Somehow!

I mean, neither of us is really ready to start the research. Budgets are as yet kind of small, and there are a lot of low-hanging firsts to be picked up using relatively low-cost technology. So we have a few years of getting spaceplanes to the concept stage (i.e. not spending any money on them, because one guy with a drawing board doesn't cost megabucks). During which time the Murcans catch wind of our own plans along those lines, and start pouring more funds into their minishuttle, just as we start pouring them into ours.

Make sense?

Huh, yeah. I was under the impression the decisions were to be made at the air show, but that works just fine.

Fox laughed as the French kicked both him and Biff McCain out of the Police headquarters and walked back to the conference.

"See? Now that's how you do it."

---

"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed,or numbered. I am a free man. My life is my own" Number 6
The Prisoner