Time Bomb And Zahndry Others

by Timothy Zahn

  "Rayburn's still checking out his instruments. So far the altimeter, Collins nav system, and at least one of the vertical gyros seem to be out; the compass and collisionproofing are intact; the autopilot is a big question mark."

  "I met Paul Marinos on the way up here. He said it was Rayburn who came up with that half-assed idea of letting the shuttle fly home alone."

  "That's right," Betsy confirmed. "He's still making noises in that direction, too."

  "Good. Aaron and I thought you'd thought it up, and we were getting a little worried."

  She snorted. "Thanks for your confidence. You staying with Aaron after you deliver the schematics?"

  "Depends on whether they need me or not," he said, pulling the last sheet from the printer slot and flipping the "off" switch. "Talk to you later."

  He got up and left, and as he did so the intercom crackled. "This is Marinos. The shuttle has docked. Textbook smooth, I might add."

  Betsy turned to the intercom grille, feeling a minor bit of the weight lift from her shoulders. "Aaron, you copy that? Prepare for company down there."

  "Got it. Paul, let me know when you're all down, so I can start taking this panel off again."

  "Will do."

  The intercom fell silent, and Betsy leaned back in her seat again. Staring out the window at the blue sky, she tried to organize her thoughts.

  "Captain? Are you all right?"

  She glanced at Whitney, favoring him with a half smile. "I thought I told you we all went informal up here," she chided mildly. "My name's Betsy."

  "Oh... well... you called me 'Mr. Whitney' a while back, so I thought maybe that had changed." He looked a little embarrassed.

  "Force of habit, I guess. Anyone wearing a three-piece suit looks like management to me. And as to your question, yes, I'm fine."

  "You look tired. How long have you been flying?"

  A chuckle made it halfway up her throat. "About twenty-six years, all told. This session, though, less than an hour and a half. I came on duty just before the shuttle crashed."

  "Oh." His tone said he wasn't thoroughly convinced.

  She looked at him again. "Really," she insisted. "What you're calling tiredness is just tension, pure and simple."

  The corner of his mouth quirked. "Okay. I always was a lousy detective." The quirk vanished and he sobered. "What do you think their chances are? Honestly."

  "It all depends on how fast we can get the shuttle secured—or how fast we find out we can't do it."

  Whitney frowned. "I don't follow. Are you talking about the—" he glanced at his watch—"six hours of fuel the shuttle's got left?"

  "Basically—except that it's only about five and a half now; we nudged his thrust up a notch in two of his engines a while ago." She turned to face forward again, lips compressing into a thin line. "We're in a very neat box here, Peter. You know the Skyport clockwise circuit, don't you?"

  "Sure: Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Atlanta, New Orleans, Houston, Dallas, L.A., San Francisco, Denver, Kansas City, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Washington, then back up the pike to Boston." He rattled off the names easily, as someone who'd learned them without deliberate effort. "A twelve-hour run, all told."

  "Right. Now note that once we secure the shuttle, there are exactly two places we can land with it: the Skyport maintenance facilities at Mirage Lake, near L.A., and the Keansburg Extension of New Jersey; and L.A.'s probably a half hour closer. But—" she paused for emphasis—"between here and L.A. there are no Skyport cities. Which means no shuttles. Which means any equipment we want to bring aboard to work with has to come from here. Which means we have to stay here until we're sure we've got everything we're going to need."

  "Wumph." Whitney's breath came out in a rush, and for a moment he was silent. "But couldn't you head toward L.A. right away, circling there until you have the clamp fixed? Oh, never mind; you'll probably need the transit time to work. But wait a second—you could head back east now, toward New Jersey. Any extra stuff you needed could be brought up from Atlanta, or even Washington; you'd pass close enough to both cities on the way."

  She'd had the same brilliant idea nearly twenty minutes ago, and had been just as excited by it as he was. It was a shame to have to pop his bubble. "The fly in that particular soup in John Meredith, the injured shuttle copilot. If we stay here and then manage to get him and the other passengers out within an hour, say, we can get him to a hospital a lot faster than if we had to wait till we reached Atlanta. That time could be life or death for him—and it's the uncertain nature of his injuries, by the way, that gives our box its other walls. Besides," she added grimly, "if we wind up losing the shuttle completely, I'd rather try and find an empty spot in Arizona than in Pennsylvania to drop it into."

  "Damn," he muttered. "You've thought through the whole thing, haven't you?"

  "I hope not," she countered fervently. "Things don't look too good in my analysis. If I haven't missed something we're probably going to lose either an expensive shuttle or at least one irreplaceable life." She snorted. "Damn the FAA, anyway. We've been on their tail for at least two years now to push for a few more wing section-sized runways scattered among the major airports."

  "Yeah, I've always thought it was a bad idea to leave thrust reversers off Skyport engines. The way things are now, you could lift a module off from a ridiculous number of runways that you couldn't put it down on in the first place."

  "It's called economy. No one wants to build extra-big runways until they're sure the Skyports are going to catch on." She shook her head. "Enough self-pity. What's this project you mentioned?"

  "Right. You said earlier that no one knew what sort of landing distance a wing section-shuttle combo would require. Well, I've done some figuring, and if I can use the combined computer facilities of two modules I think I can get you a rough estimate."

  She blinked in surprise. "How?"

  "My work for McDonnell Douglas has been on computer simulations for second-generation Skyport design. Most of it involves adjusting profile, mass, and laminar flow parameters and then testing for lift and drag and so on. I remember the equations I'd need and enough about module and shuttle shapes to get by. And it's not that complicated a program."

  "What about the brakes and drogue chutes?" she asked doubtfully.

  "I can put them in as extra drag effects."

  Betsy frowned, thinking. There was no way the runways at Dallas would be long enough—of that she was certain. But... the figures would be nice to have. "Okay, if we can get two of the other wing sections to agree. You can't use Seven's computer; we'll need to leave it clear for the work down below."

  "That's okay—I can link to the other systems and run everything from here."

  Betsy turned toward the intercom. "Carl? What do you think?"

  "It's worth trying. Two, Three—you've just volunteered your computers to Mr. Whitney's use."

  It took Betsy a few minutes to show Whitney how to set up the two-system link, but once he got started he did seem to know what he was doing. She watched over his shoulder for a minute before returning to her seat. It was indeed a good idea, but she had to wonder why he hadn't simply called back his friend in Houston and had him run the program. With the—undoubtedly—larger machine there and the proper program already in place, they could surely have had the answer faster than Whitney could get it here. It was looking very much like he did indeed want an excuse to stay on the flight deck and observe the proceedings. She grimaced. The report he was presumably going to be making to McDonnell Douglas wasn't likely to be a flattering one.

  She shook her head to clear away the cobwebs. There were plenty of unpleasant thoughts to occupy her; she didn't need to generate any extra ones. And, speaking of unpleasantries... Steeling herself, she pulled her half-headset mike to her lips and switched it on. "Skyport to Shuttle. Status report, please."

  "Oh, there's nothing much new here, Liz—just sitting around watching my copilot dying."

&
nbsp; She'd been unprepared for the sheer virulence of Rayburn's tone, and the words hit her with almost physical force. Unclenching her jaw with a conscious effort, she asked, "Is he getting worse? Dr. Emerson?"

  "He sure as hell isn't getting any better," Rayburn snapped before the doctor could answer.

  Betsy held her ground. "Doctor?" she repeated.

  "It's hard to tell," Dr. Emerson spoke up hesitantly. "He's still unconscious and his breathing is starting to become labored, but his pulse is still good."

  "Well, we should at least have him out from under all that metal soon," Betsy told him. "The ground crew's aboard now, and they'll be bringing a torch aboard to cut the chair free."

  "Yeah, I can see them climbing in down there," Rayburn said. "How do they expect to get up here?"

  "Through your side window; I presume they brought a rope ladder or something with them. You'd better open up and be ready to catch the end when they toss it up."

  "Hell of a lot of good it's going to do," the shuttle pilot growled. "How're they going to get him back out—tie a rope around him and lower him like a sack of grass seed?"

  "If he's not too badly injured, yes," Betsy said, feeling her patience beginning to bend dangerously. "If not, we'll figure out something else. We're going to try and rig up a ski lift track from your window to the Skyport door to get the passengers out; maybe we can bring Meredith out that way on some kind of stretcher."

  "A ski lift track? Oh, for—Liz, that's the dumbest idea I've ever heard. It could take hours to put something like that together!"

  The tension that had been building up again within Betsy suddenly broke free. "You have a better idea, spit it out!" she barked.

  "You've already heard it," he snapped back. "Let me take this damn bird down now, and to hell with ski tracks and nosewheel clamps. All you're doing is wasting time."

  "You really think you can fly a plane with its nose smashed in, do you?" she said acidly. "What're you going to use for altimeter, autopilot, and gyros?"

  "Skill. I've flown planes in worse shape than this one."

  "Maybe. But not with a sprained wrist, and not with a hundred-sixty passengers aboard. And not while under my command."

  "Oh, right, I forgot—Liz Kyser's the big boss here." Rayburn's voice dripped with sarcasm. "Well, let me just remind you, Your Highness, that I don't need your permission to leave your flying kingdom. All it would take is a simple push on the throttle."

  Betsy's anger vanished in a single heartbeat. "Eric, what are you saying?" she asked cautiously.

  "Don't go into your dumb blonde act—you know what I'm talking about. All I have to do is cut power and snap those last two collar supports and you can yell about authority all you want."

  "Yes—and you'll either fall nosedown with the collar still around you or drop it onto someone on the ground." Betsy forced her voice to remain quiet and reasonable. "You can't risk innocent people's lives like that, Eric."

  "Oh, relax—I'm not going to do anything that crazy unless I absolutely have to. I'm just pointing out that you don't have absolute veto power over me. Keep that in mind while you figure out how to get John to a hospital."

  "Don't worry. We want him safe as much as you do." Especially now. "We'll keep you posted." Reaching over, Betsy turned off the mike.

  For a moment she just sat there, her mind spinning like wheels on an icy runway. The flight deck suddenly felt cold, and she noticed with curious detachment that the hands resting on the edge of her control board were trembling slightly. Rayburn's threat, and the implied state of mind accompanying it, had shocked her clear down to the marrow. He'd always been loyal to the crews he flew with—it had been one of the qualities that had first attracted her to him—but this was bordering on monomania. Bleakly, she wondered if the accident had damaged more than Rayburn's wrist.

  There was a footstep beside her. Whitney, looking sandbagged. "Betsy, is he—uh—?" He ran out of words, and just pointed mutely toward her half-headset.

  "You heard, huh?" She felt a flash of embarrassed annoyance that he, an outsider, had listened in on private Skyport trouble.

  Whitney, apparently too shaken to be bothered by his action, nodded. "Is he all right back there? I mean, he sounds... overwrought."

  "He does indeed," she acknowledged grimly. "He's under a lot of pressure—we all are."

  "Yeah, but you're not threatening to do something criminally stupid." He gestured at the intercom. "And why didn't Captain Young at least back you up?"

  "He probably wasn't listening in—the radio doesn't feed directly into the intercom." She took another look at his expression and forced a smile she didn't feel. "Hey, relax. Eric hasn't gone off the deep end; he was just blowing off some steam."

  "Hmm." He seemed unconvinced. "And how about you?"

  The question caught her unprepared, and Betsy could feel the blood coloring her face. "I got a little loud there myself, didn't I?" she admitted. "I guess I'm not used to this kind of protracted crisis. Usual airplane emergencies last only as long as it takes you to find the nearest stretch of flat ground and put down on it."

  "I suppose so. Anything I can do?"

  "Yes—you can haul yourself back to the computer and finish that program."

  Surprisingly, something in her tone seemed to relieve whatever fears he had about her, because the frown lines left his forehead and he even smiled slightly. "Aye, aye, Captain," he said and headed aft again.

  Well, that's him convinced. Now if only she could persuade herself as to Rayburn's self-control. Pushing the half-headset mike away almost savagely, she leaned toward the intercom. "Aaron, Paul—what's holding things up down there?"

  —

  The rolled-up end of thin rope smacked against the top of the window as it came in through the opening. Startled a bit by the sudden noise, Dr. Emerson turned his head—the only part of his body he could conveniently turn in the cramped cockpit—in time to see Captain Rayburn field the rope and begin pulling it in. Tied to the other end, its rungs clanking against the side of the shuttle, was a collapsible ladder, of the sort Emerson made his kids keep under their bunk bed at their Grand Prairie condo. He watched as Rayburn set the outsized hooks over the lower edge of the window and then turned back to his patient with a silent sigh of relief. At least the waiting was over. Now all he had to do was worry that Meredith was healthy enough to satisfy Rayburn—and that, he reflected darkly, was definitely a major worry. Rayburn's last stormy conversation with the Skyport had completely shattered Emerson's comfortable and long-held stereotype of the unflappable airline pilot and had left him with a good deal of concern. Searching the unconscious copilot's half-hidden face, Emerson wondered what it was about this man that had caused Rayburn to react so violently. Was he a good friend? Or was it something more subtle—did he remind Rayburn of a deceased brother, for instance? Emerson didn't know, and so far he hadn't had the nerve to ask.

  "Okay, Doc, here they come." Rayburn, who'd been leaning his head partly out the window, began unsnapping his safety harness. "Let's get out of here and give them room to come in."

  Emerson rose from his crouch, grimacing as his legs registered their complaint. Trying to look all directions at once, he backed carefully out of the tiny space, and made it out the cockpit door without collecting any new bruises. Rayburn was out of his seat already, standing in the spot Emerson had just vacated, shouting instructions toward the window. "Okay—easy—just keep it away from the instruments—okay, I've got it." Two small gas tanks, wrapped together by metal bands and festooned with hoses, appeared in his hands and were immediately tucked under his right arm. The second package was, for Emerson, far more recognizable: the big red cross on the suitcase-sized box was hard to miss. A moment later he had to take a long step toward the shuttle's exit door as Rayburn backed out of the cockpit. "Watch the controls!" he shouted once more as he set down his burden and reached back with a helping hand.

  It took only a few minutes for them to all come aboard. There
were three: two mechanic-types who set to work immediately turning the gas tank apparatus into an acetylene torch; and an older man who caught Emerson's eye through the small crowd and headed back toward the passenger section. Emerson took the cue and followed.

  "I'm Dr. Forrest Campbell," the newcomer introduced himself when the two men reached the pocket of relative quiet at the forward end of the passenger compartment.

  "Larry Emerson. Glad to have you here. You work for the airline?"

  "Temporarily co-opted only—and as the man said, if it weren't for the honor I'd rather walk." He nodded down the rows of ski lift seats. "First things first. Are the passengers in need of anything?"

  "Nothing immediate. There are some bruises and one or two possible sprains. Mostly, everyone's just scared and cold."

  "I can believe that," Campbell agreed, shivering. "I'm told the Skyport's come down to eight thousand feet, but it still feels like winter in here. I hope the next shuttle up thinks to bring some blankets. All right, now let's hear the bad news. How's the copilot?"

  "Not good." Emerson gave all the facts he had on Meredith's condition, plus a few tentative conclusions he hadn't wanted to mention in Rayburn's earshot. "We'll have to wait for a more thorough examination, of course, but I'm pretty sure we're not going to be able to risk lowering him out that window at the end of a rope."

  "Yes... and I doubt that a stretcher would really fit. Well, if we can get him stable enough he can stay here until the shuttle can be landed again."

  "I guess he'll have to." A sharp pop came from the cockpit, and looking past Campbell he saw the room aglow with blue light. "I hope they're not going to fry him just getting him out," he muttered uneasily.

  "They'll have attached a Vahldiek conductor cable between the part of the chair stem they're cutting and the fuselage, to drain off the heat," Campbell assured him. "Let's go back in; this shouldn't take long."

  It didn't. They had barely reentered the exit door area—now noticeably warmer—and opened the big medical kit when the torch's hiss cut off. Rayburn stepped back from the doorway, muttering cautionary instructions as the unconscious copilot, still strapped into his seat, was carried carefully out of the cockpit.