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"Even if it does, we'd need portable oxygen masks for all the passengers," Henson pointed out from
behind her. "They have to be using the shuttle's air masks, and they can't travel with those."
"That's not going to be a problem," Young said. "I've already invoked emergency regulations; we're
bringing her down to fifteen thousand feet."
"Well, there's nothing more I can tell from here." Betsy shook her head. "Someone's going to have to go
down and take a look. Who aboard this bird knows the most about docking bay equipment?"
There was a pause. "I don't know whether I know the most," Greenburg spoke up diffidently at Betsy's
right, "but I've seen the blueprints, and I worked summers as a mechanic's assistant for Boeing when I
was in college."
"Anyone able to top that?" Young asked. "No? All right, Greenburg, get going."
Betsy put her half-headset back on as Greenburg removed his and stood up. "A set of the relevant
blueprints would be helpful," he said, looking back at Lewis.
"I'm having the computer print them," the other told him. "If you want to go down and get the oxygen
gear together, I'll come down and give you a hand."
Greenburg glanced questioningly at Betsy. "Can you do without both of us that long?"
She hesitated, then nodded. "Sure. But make it a fast look-see. You're not going down there to do any
major repair work."
"Right," Greenburg started for the door. "Meet you by the port-aft cargo access hatch, Tom."
Lewis waved an acknowledgment, his eyes on the computer screen, as Greenburg exited. Betsy turned
back to face forward, and as she did so Rayburn's voice crackled in her ear. "Skyport, this is Rayburn.
The doctor says John's alive!"
A small part of the tightness across Betsy's chest seemed to disappear. "Thank God! Is the doctor still
there? I want to speak with him."
"Just a second." There was a moment of silence punctuated by assorted clicks, and then a new voice
came tentatively on the line. "Hello? This is Dr. Emerson."
"Doctor, this is Wing Captain Elizabeth Kyser. What sort of shape is First Officer Meredith in?"
"Not a good one, I'm afraid," Emerson admitted. "He seems to have one or more cracked ribs and
possibly a broken collarbone as well. The way the fuselage has bent inward and pinned him makes it
hard to examine him. I could try pulling him out, but that might exacerbate any internal injuries, or even
drive bits of glass into him from the broken windows. He's unconscious, but his vital signs are stable, at
least for the moment. I'm afraid I can't tell you much more."
"Just knowing he's alive is good news enough," Betsy assured him. She thought for a moment. "What if
we could cut the whole chair loose? Is there enough room behind him to move the chair back and get him
out that way?"
"Uh... I think so, yes. But I don't know what we would do after that. I heard the flight attendant say the
door was jammed."
Betsy frowned. Rayburn hadn't mentioned that to her. "We might be able to force it open anyway and get
it connected to the rest of the Skyport. Are the rest of the passengers all right?"
"A few minor injuries, mostly bruises due to the safety belts. We've been very lucky."
So far. "Yeah. Thank you, Doctor. Please let us know immediately if there's any change."
"Got the prints, Betsy," Lewis called as she turned off the mike. "I'm heading down."
He was gone before she could do more than nod assent, leaving her and Henson alone. For some reason
the empty seats bothered her, and she briefly considered calling in some of Seven's off-duty crewmen.
But as long as they were stuck in this virtual holding pattern, extra help on the flight deck would be pretty
superfluous. Turning back to the instrument panel, she felt a wave of frustration wash over her. So many
unanswered questions, most of them crucial to the safety of one or more groups of people aboard the
Skyport—and she was temporarily at a loss to handle any of them. For the moment there was
nothing she could do but try and line up the problems in some sort of logical order: if A is true then B
must be done, and D cannot precede either B or C. But it was like juggling or playing chess in her head;
there were just too many contingencies that had to be taken into account every step of the way.
Behind her the door opened, and she turned to see two men walk in. One she knew: Paul Marinos,
captain of Wing Section Six. The other, a thirtyish young man in a three-piece suit, she'd never seen
before. But she knew instantly who he was.
"Betsy," Marinos said, "this is Peter Whitney, of McDonnell Douglas."
—
Whitney had been daydreaming in his lounge chair, enjoying the unique Skyport atmosphere, when the
violent bump jerked him back to full alertness. He shot a rapid glance around the room, half expecting to
see the walls caving in around him. But everything looked normal. Up ahead, he could hear muttered
curses from the dining room—prompted, no doubt, by spilled coffee and the like—while
from the lounge itself came a heightened buzz of conversation. Whitney closed his ears to it all as best he
could, straining instead to listen for some clue as to what had happened. An explosive misfire in one of
the engines was his first gut-level guess; but the dull background rumble seemed unchanged. A hydraulic
or fuel line that had broken with that much force might still be leaking audibly; again, he could hear
nothing that sounded like that. Had there been that bogey of the '70s and early '80s, a mid-air collision?
But even small planes these days were supposed to be equipped with the Bendix-Honeywell transponder
system—and how could any pilot fail to see the Skyport in the first place?
The minutes dragged by, and conversational levels gradually returned to normal as the other passengers
apparently decided that nothing serious had happened. Whitney suspected differently, and to him the
loudspeaker's silence was increasingly ominous. Something serious had happened, and the captain was
either afraid to tell the passengers what it was or the crew was just too damn busy fighting the problem to
talk. Neither possibility was a pleasant one.
A flash of royal blue caught the corner of his eye, and he turned to see a chunky man in a Skyport-crew
jumpsuit step from the dining area into the lounge. The flight attendant who'd served Whitney's breakfast
was with him, and Whitney watched curiously as her gaze swept the room. It wasn't until she pointed in
his direction and the two started toward him that it occurred to Whitney that they might be looking for
him. Even then uncertainty kept him in his seat until there was no doubt as to their target, and he had
barely enough time to stand up before they reached him.
"Mr. Whitney?" the jumpsuited man asked. His expression was worried, his tone was politeness
laminated on urgency. The girl looked worried, too.
Whitney nodded, noticing for the first time the gold wings-in-a-circle pins on his chest and
shoulderboards. A wing captain, not just a random crew member. Whitney's first hopeful thought, that
this was somehow related to the tour he'd asked for, vanished like tax money in Washington.
"I'm Captain Paul Marinos," the other introduced himself. "We have a problem, Mr. Whitney, that we
hope you can help us with. Is it true that you work with computer systems for McDonnell Douglas?"
Whitney nodded, feeling strangely tongue-tied, but finally getting his brain into gear. They were almost
certainly not interested in just general computer knowledge; his nodded affirmative needed a qualifier [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]