Perigee (4 page)

Ryan glanced down at the signal light from Marcy and nodded. “Cabin secure. Ready to let them out to play?”

“Sure thing,” Tom said, keeping his hands free. “Your plane, though.”

“First Officer’s plane,” Ryan answered while taking the yoke. A muffled
bang
echoed through the ship as he fired the control jets. Puffs of icy vapor flashed outside as the horizon spun out from beneath them, followed by another
bang
as he finished rolling the craft upside-down. Earth now filled the cabin windows.

He picked up the interphone handset. “Folks, we’ve completed our rollover to give you all a better view. Our final speed is seven thousand miles per hour and we’ll coast up to a maximum altitude of 220 nautical miles. The seatbelt sign is off, so you’re free to unbuckle and float around for the next ten minutes or so,” he announced. “Welcome to space.”

Tom pushed forward against his harness to take in the view. Earth curved away, strikingly lit as they flew away from the setting sun. Impossibly long shadows traced across the ocean two hundred miles below, the spectacle of an airborne sunset made so much greater by their altitude.

…

In the cabin, freshly liberated passengers clambered for room around the overhead windows and chattered excitedly at the view. Wakes from ships far below could be seen in the clear late-afternoon light, overlaid by the contrails of airliners speeding toward Hawaii. Their white vapor trails appeared incandescent in the low sunlight, and stood in sharp contrast against the azure sea below. Some strained for a glimpse of the Earth’s limb, but from their vantage point it was easier to just look straight down—or up, the distinction really didn’t matter.

As they enjoyed the ride, Marcy kept a close watch for any signs of trouble. In particular, no one could reliably predict who might succumb to space sickness.

It was the price for having so much room to float around, having first revealed itself back during the early space program. When the original Mercury and Gemini astronauts had been crammed into capsules not much bigger than an old phone booth, they had adapted quite well to the unfamiliar environment. But the comparatively roomy Apollo capsules and Space Shuttles had introduced a whole new class of inner-ear affliction. It was random, and did not discriminate—the most experienced space travelers could become violently ill while rookies had a fine time in zero-g.

It seemed to strike around the same time on every flight. Soon enough, she spotted one passenger who had started to look green around the gills. “Sir, are you okay?” she asked, while pulling herself along a ceiling handrail. He appeared young and fit enough, yet looked at her with fearful eyes.

“Not sure,” he croaked, and began frantically fumbling for his seat and the airsick bags stuffed into its pocket. But the poor guy was plainly too far gone, so she deftly whipped out a bag from her hip pocket and placed it over his mouth. She firmly held on to his shoulder to keep him from drifting away, not willing to risk the awful mess it would’ve made had he gotten loose.

“Don’t worry, it happens every flight,” she comforted him. “Sometimes it even gets to us.”

He attempted to speak and turned to her with an anxious look, then darted away as he continued retching loudly into the bag.

…

“Clipper 1302 Heavy, Oakland center; cleared to begin re-entry pitchover as filed. Descend and maintain eight-zero-thousand, contact Salt Lake center when radio communications resume.”

Tom gave them a curt reply. “Copy that; we’ll let you know if we get into trouble.” He was continually amused at the attempts to control their re-entry path, as if there might actually be conflicting traffic on the fiery glide down to eighty thousand feet.

He gently rolled the plane back upright, lifting the nose for re-entry just as the first wisps of plasma formed around it. As it began steadily glowing from the heat, they felt a slight buffet as the craft slipped into the upper reaches of the atmosphere. He could feel the gathering air beneath, like settling a canoe onto a rushing stream.

Gravity tugged much harder against them as they fell back into the atmosphere. Not as fast as coming out of orbit, it was still enough to create a tremendous amount of heat which stripped the oxygen atoms flying past. The ionized air prevented any radio traffic, compounding an already tense time. They were under maximum stress, with minimum control ability, and there was no way for anyone to know how they were doing.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain…I trust you all enjoyed our coast over the Pacific. You’ve noticed gravity is pulling you back into your seats, so please try to sit back and enjoy the light show outside during re-entry. We’ll be landing in Denver in about twenty minutes.”

He replaced the intercom and peered outside, trying to pick out details below. As they approached California, Colorado emerged along the horizon. Just beyond were clouds flowing into a deep low-pressure system; a late-fall storm punctuated by columns of towering cumulus. “Looks bumpy down there,” he observed just as the plasma sheath became too bright to see through.

Falling through two hundred thousand feet, they left a glowing trail for miles behind, sparkling against the early evening sky.

4

Denver International Airport

The
Austral Clipper
cast a faint orange glow along the pavement as it turned off the active runway and headed for the Polaris apron. Ramp crews in service trucks and hydraulic lifters carefully pulled up alongside, as close as they dared for now. It would be several minutes before the plane had cooled down enough for anyone to approach safely. Engines howled as it eased into its parking spot, as if protesting being shut down.

The early evening air was laden with the scent of kerosene fuel. Above the parking gate, a clock counted down the remaining seconds until the plane would be safe to touch. A shrill horn sounded as it reached zero, though all the equipment stalking the plane hardly needed any more reason to pounce. Polaris staked its reputation on speed, and as such every second counted. Its fleet of Global Clippers was the pride of the line, indeed its main reason for existence.

People of means with a need to cross the globe quickly were willing to pay a hefty price for the unique travel experience, and the demand was even greater for urgent freight. As ubiquitous as internet commerce had become, it could never replace “just-in-time” equipment. If people or hardware needed to be halfway around the world by the end of the day, Polaris was the only way to get there.

Most of the time-critical freight had been rolled off of
Austral Clipper
long before the passengers could make their way into the terminal. A few stragglers were still searching for valuables that had floated away during their zero-gravity transit across the Pacific. Despite numerous warnings to “please secure all loose items,” someone was always losing a cell phone or piece of jewelry.

Meanwhile, cleaning crews swarmed into the cabin after the other passengers had cleared out, rushing to make it shine like new for the next flight. As they worked, mechanics made their way back and forth between the jetway and cockpit. One harried young technician scrambled out the door and down an outside ladder towards a nearby maintenance shed, searching for a repair manual.

That some paperwork would never go away seemed to be a universal constant, especially in the airline world.

Tom was filling out their maintenance logbook, describing the problem they’d encountered over the Pacific. Joining him in the cockpit, a large bearded man snatched up the repair guide offered by his assistant as he clambered back up the outboard ladder. Taking one quick glance at the manual, he snapped the cover shut with a satisfied look.

“About what I thought,” Walt Donner grumbled. “Cap’n, we can defer those autothrottles. We’ve seen a lot of bad control logic boards. But if that’s it,” he cautioned, “we have to swap out the whole component and test the entire system. Can’t just change a circuit board on these things. Ain’t like tinkering on your home PC or something.”

Behind them, Ryan and Marcy exchanged pleasantries with a few remaining passengers, discreetly blocking any view of the brewing dispute.

Tom wasn’t much of a tinkerer and didn’t appreciate the analogy. He looked Donner over, trying to judge what the man’s angle might be. “I’d rather not go without them,” he replied firmly. “She’s a beast to hand-fly up there. There was
no
fuel margin left. If that storm hadn’t blown through, we’d be sitting in Salt Lake right now.”

Not persuaded, Donner opened the manual again. “You can go without them. Minimum Equipment List says dispatch has to give you another fifteen percent contingency fuel,” he offered.

Gentry bristled at that. He knew exactly what the manuals said—he’d helped write the things during flight tests. “That’s an optimistic number, I assure you,” he shot back with a stern look. “Are you seriously trying to talk me out of reporting a mechanical problem?”

Donner stood silently and shuffled his feet. His scuffed boots left behind an unidentifiable black smudge, picked up from somewhere down on the ramp.

Tom was in no mood for argument. “Here’s the deal, Walt: there’s two hours until our next go and I expect this to be cleared. Or you can tell scheduling to bring us another plane,” he said, signing the logbook and firmly pushing it into the technician’s hands.

Donner suddenly realized he needed to shut up. He made an obvious effort to change his expression, displaying an awkward grin. “No worries, Cap’n. We’ll do whatever we can, all right?” he said, and wormed his way out of the cramped cockpit.

Can’t make any of these candy-assed rocket jocks happy
, he grumbled to himself, snorting as he brushed past the flight attendant toward his patiently waiting assistant. “C’mon boy, we’ve got work to do,” his tone of voice making it clear that was the last thing he wanted.

Marcy pushed a thick wave of black hair back into place after a difficult search for a lost engagement ring. Saying good-bye to the last passenger, she turned to her companion.

“What’s up his butt?” she asked through smiling teeth.

Ryan gave Donner a studious look as he stalked off. “A broomstick. Sideways,” he finally replied.

“Wishful thinking, dear. You’re just projecting,” she teased, turning back to their supply closet.

“Then go find me a broom so I can stop projecting,” he said, snaking back into the cockpit after giving her a light whack on the rear. “See ya, Marcy.”

Startled, she bumped her head on the doorframe and pitched an empty water bottle at his head. “Please fly us again…
not!
”

Ryan ducked the projectile and grabbed the repair log, flipping to the fresh gripe sheet. “Sounds like we’re not going to have those throttles back before the next trip,” he observed.

Tom frowned as he collected his gear and tossed the bottle back at his First Officer. “Wouldn’t count on it, smart guy. I talked them into troubleshooting, but Walt didn’t look to be in much of a hurry. Next leg’s yours, by the way,” he said with a devious smile, signaling that Ryan should consider it the junior man’s burden.

“Thought you’d never ask. What’s Hammond always say...’another opportunity to excel’?” he laughed, reaching behind the seat for his own flight bag.

“Just try and keep the cabin crew from strangling you first,” Tom said with a nod in Marcy’s direction. “I don’t have time to train a new copilot.”

…

Stepping onto an open stairway outside, they found the ramp below frenzied with the evening rush. Both men paused to watch the frantic ballet of “push time” playing out before them.

Fuel trucks, tugs, and loading carts scurried between precisely staggered spaceplanes as fluorescent-jacketed directors gestured with light wands in the gathering dusk, guiding more craft into their gates as Denver’s vast airfield sprawled beyond. Across the expanse of concrete, comparatively mundane Boeing and Airbus models jockeyed for their own positions. Only a few hundred yards distant, it seemed decades away, such was the contrast between old and new competing for room.

A familiar, high-pitched howl caught their attention. Covering their ears, they turned to see another Clipper pull into the adjacent parking spot. An elongated wedge of gleaming metal, its clipped delta wings smoothly blended into either side with two rakish vertical tails above. Each was festooned with the blue and white Polaris logo. Smaller canard wings folded into the nose as it came to a stop. In the distance were the distinctive triangular silhouettes of two more Clippers on final approach, their bellies displaying the faint leftover glow from re-entry.

They caught themselves staring—no one in their line of work really ever grew tired of watching other airplanes.

“My wife used to razz me about that all the time,” Tom said. “Told her the day I quit looking is the day I hang this up and get a real job.”

“Finally gave up on that, then?” Ryan teased as he hopped off the last step. “Not long before you cash in, and you still haven’t figured out what to do when you grow up?”

Tom suddenly appeared detached…preoccupied. “Guess I’d better hurry up then,” he said to himself.