Chase Me Faster
Catherine Gale and John Steed and Emma Peel
THE AVENGERS
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by Caroline Miniscule
Prelude: Lost Rocket Summer...page 6 II continued: The Bahamas ''I probably shouldn't be telling you all this,'' Dare said, with another drink of beer, ''but the frustrations have been roiling around in me for months. I can see what's going to happen - that's always been my talent, but there's nothing I can do to prevent it. I feel like a Cassandra.'' ''Is that why you've been sent here to the Bahamas? To the American missile tracking station? To get you away from England and the heart of the action?'' Dare nodded. ''I think so. It was couched in very glowing terms, this assignment, but in essence I've been shelved.'' Dan Dare sighed, and his head drooped forlornly. He looked suddenly very young. He was very young - only about 23, Cathy recalled, for he had gone to University at an extremely young age and ripped through it like a dose of salts. She had met him a couple of years ago when he had attended one of her anthrolopoligical lectures at the Institute, wearing glasses and a suit and trying to look very old...And now he looked as if his life were over. ''Now I know how the Mercury 13 felt,'' Dare said wanly. ''The who?'' Back in the summer of 1960,'' Dan explained, ''about fifty women were secretly tested for America's space program. The one called Mercury. Thirteen women passed the tests with flying colors - they scored as well as the men in all the tests - two of them scored better than the men. It was thought that women, with their smaller size, and for various other reasons, would better be able to handle the rigours of the space program as the Americans planned it. And that's true, by the way. But then all of a sudden the rug was pulled out from under them, by politicians, who didn't want to see women in space. The rules were changed so that only jet pilots could be astronauts, and the women were told to go home.'' Cathy nodded slowly. ''I remember reading something about that.'' Dan stared at Cathy with burning eyes. ''I'm sure you can imagine how they must have felt. They passed all the tests, they had earned the right to go into space, but because of reasons beyond their control and beyond their ken, they were sent home like failures. The same thing is going to happen to us. Myself, and the scientists I've been working with. I know it's going to happen. They won't believe me - Dr. Armstrong, his half-brother Paul Beresford, men who have been in the field so much longer than I have and have all the credentials and the prestige - they're going to be crumpled up like yesterday's rubbish and tossed aside, and I know it shall drive them mad.''
 
Dan blinked at her, then suddenly smiled boyishly. ''I'm sorry, Cathy. I have been moaning a bit, haven't I?'' ''You've been moaning but I am entirely sympathetic. The point is, after a certain point you have to stop moaning and start doing something. Face the situation as it is, not as you want it to be. Surely there's some solution to this?'' |
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