James Follett Sabre

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They're certain he was well over sixty,' said the girl,
punching a key. 'We could up the age.'
'We'll play safe for the time being,' said Curtis sourly.
'Next,' said Christine.
'I'm going to get some coffee,' said Curtis, rising.
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That's him!'
Curtis sat abruptly.
'Definitely him!' said Alec Rose's voice.
'It's him all right,' Honicker added. 'I only saw him briefly
in the summer but we're all agreed.'
'Which one?'
'Number three.'
'Send them a full screen,' Curtis instructed his assistant.
Thank you, Mrs Rose. You should be getting a full screen
picture of him. Look at it carefully, please.'
'We are,' Christine answered. There's no doubt - that's
our Mr Wright.'
Curtis studied the craggy features on his screen and closed
the audio circuit to Triton so that they couldn't hear him.
'Joseph Michael Yavanoski,' said the girl. Her fingers
clattered on her keyboard. There was a pause while the
system sought a routing through to the United States and
accessed the State Department's passport database.
PLEASE WAIT . . . said the echo on Curtis's screen.
And then it appeared: more than the basic passport details
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on Yavanoski - a career profile. The guy was important. A
skim through the first paragraphs was enough for Curtis.
'Jesus Christ,' he muttered. 'If this Yavanoski hasn't got a
motive then no one has.'
'And he's in the country,' the girl reported. 'He arrived
yesterday and hasn't left.' A telephone light flashed. She
answered and listened intently for a moment before thanking
the caller. She held the handset out to Curtis and
reported: 'Jean Pierre Lesseps has been arrested at Waterloo
International. He had half a million dollars on him.'
At that moment Curtis's eye caught a flurry of activity in
the BASOR downstairs. Their big telemetry data screen
didn't show up too well on his monitor but he could see that
it had come to life and the world map was showing a glowing
track. He snatched up a telephone and learned that Len
Allenby's voice had just come through with 'Speedbird
Sierra Bravo Zero Zero Fife Alpha. Good morning, BASOR.
Do you copy?'
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29
Antarctica's King George V Land was edging over the
earth's rim - a glorious string of sparkling white diamonds
shining in the low sun which were gradually hardening to an
iridescent halo.
Len Allenby was too preoccupied to appreciate the breathtaking
spectacle. He hated having to wear a spacesuit, but at
least these new lightweight jobs were fully pressurised and
used ordinary compressed-air life support - none of the long
periods spent purging excess oxygen or nitrogen from the
bloodstream that had been the curse of the older suits. Right
now he had no choice but to wear it because the flight-deck
was fully depressurised; the roof hatch open with Nick
Rowe's EVA safety line disappearing through it. The slack
was hanging in loose coils beside Allenby, twitching like a
snake every now and then as Rowe worked his way down
the side of the hull. The master screen was carrying the
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picture from the TV camera on the co-pilot's helmet. A
smaller screen in front of Allenby showed Morgan in the
BASOR ops room, looking off-camera at the same images.
Rowe was keeping his movements slow and deliberate, not
only because it was the safest way of moving about during
EVA, but to allow for the half-second's delay in communications
should Morgan want the camera to take a close look
at something. Right now, all they were getting was a close
up of the Super Starlight heat shield coating.
Allenby felt that an immense burden had been lifted from
his shoulders now that he had ground communications.
Morgan and his team were analysing the flow of data from
the Sabre's telemetry links and probably had a better idea
than he did of the spaceplane's condition. The exception was
the underside of the left-hand wing around Number Two
engine. No one knew what state that was in, which was why
Nick Rowe's spacewalk was so vital.
The picture bobbed and panned jerkily as Rowe edged
cautiously down the side of the hull. His breaths were sharp
rasps in Allenby's helmet speaker.
'Take it easy, Nick,' Morgan advised calmly. 'There's no
hurry.'
'Tell you what,' Rowe muttered, taking a rest. 'If I had
been told that working for British Airways would mean
having to get out and push, I would never have signed up.'
The operations room laughter was a welcome reaction to
the tension that everyone was experiencing.
The joke was heard by BA's chairman in his London office
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where his PR staff were thrashing out the wording of the
next statement for the clamouring press crews outside. Sir
Andrew Hobson chuckled. Despite his own underdeveloped
sense of humour he was an astute enough manager to know
its value when under stress. He mentally earmarked Nick [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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