Complete Short Fiction, page 33
“Mom,” said Alice to her mother, “if Dad can get that to actually fly, well, he must be the best pilot in the world!”
“Amen,” muttered Betty Lou Muth as the Moosefoot city-limit signs went by them at eighty-miles an hour.
III
The president of the United States faced his day ahead with both annoyance and disquiet. For one thing, it seemed obvious to him, though he readily admitted he was no military expert, that firing a few ballistic missiles from Nicaragua, over Costa Rica, to hit the Gatun locks on the Panama Canal was about as unlikely a way of actually hurting the damn thing as he could imagine. The trouble was that the canal kooks, for whom any threat to their beloved waterway was more to be resisted than a landing of Soviet tank forces at New York’s Battery, had their damnable wind up.
President O’Connell shook his head sourly at the room heavily dotted with uniforms. It seemed especially ominous to him that he had never heard, after two years in office, about the Moosefoot Airbase and his country’s three nuclear aircraft. After all, they were a part of nuclear deterent, for which he was solely responsible. The president felt even more distress over the absence of his majordomo and chief White House aide, “Happy Jack” Hanrahan, the man who had actually run Chicago while Mayor Shamus O’Connell was striding about the South Side, tossing his white mane, wetly kissing tiny black children, and running for president.
Happy Jack was a thin, wizened Irishman with a mind so quick and allencompassing that no computer data bank or newspaper morgue could ever compete with it. Happy Jack’s memory for names, facts, and faces was more extraordinary than any mental freak’s counting a field full of cows in seconds. The president rubbed his hands and frowned. Jack would know about Moosefoot and the nuclear bombers, probably the name of the C in C, how he voted, and who was in the Maine state legislature from Moosefoot Township.
The president steepled his hands, pursed his lips, and lidded his eyes, to imply deep thought. The longer he could stall them, the more chance there was of Jack’s getting back from California and keeping him out of trouble on this.
But General of the Air Force Mike (One-Eye) Zinkowski was not prepared to wait any longer. “Mr. President,” he said in a respectful but firm voice, “the first atomic aircraft is now prepared for engine start-up. Under the Aircraft Atomic Energy Act of 1963, you must issue the order. I now respectfully request such an order.”
The president opened his eyes and cleared his throat. Well, they were pressing him, all right. He peered about the room, knowing that he had to say something incisive. “General, starting the engines does not commit us to take-off, is that correct?”
General Zinkowski set his large jaw in a conciliatory posture and nodded. “Take-off is a second and entirely separate order that is transmitted directly from you to the plane commander.”
The president sighed. “Very well.” He turned slightly to face the TV camera. “Are we hooked into Moosefoot?” he asked his press aide as an aside, and when the man nodded, whispered, “Who’s that general up there?”
“Beardsley,” the aide hissed back.
“General Beardsley,” said the president of the United States loudly, “do you recognize that I am speaking to you as your commander in chief?”
“I do, sir,” came the prompt answer over the protected microwave link. “I await your order, Mr. President.”
“Then, General Beardsley,” said O’Connell, “order the Langley’s commander to start his aircraft’s engines.”
Beardsley looked impassively back out of the TV monitor, then snapped to attention and saluted. “The wing is ready, sir. We will not fail the country, Mr. President. Nor the world of steam!”
“The world of what?” said a startled President O’Connell, but the screen picture had dissolved to shards of blinking, bright lines. The president rubbed his nose slowly and let his eyes drift over the many men sitting at the big conference table, most of them watching him in a kind of attentive mindlessness or else peering blankly at papers that lay in front of them. O’Connell missed Jack more than ever, because now the president’s sensitive political antennae were sending disturbing signals. Either somebody was planning some kind of weird coup or scam, or else the United States Air Force had turned into a kind of gigantic, outpatient mental ward. Or perhaps both. My mother wanted me to be an accountant, thought Shamus O’Connell with a sudden, sweet sadness. I could be mowing a green, suburban lawn somewhere, right now.
Following the full checkoff of the prestart settings and instrument readings, the crew of the Langley silently awaited the criticality order. Muth and Jackson peered at each other in suspended hope, their bodies stiff in their contoured-foam seats.
General Beardsley’s face reappeared on the TV screen and he spoke sternly. “The president has ordered the Langley to go critical and reach idling mode. I order you to start your engines at once, Colonel Muth.”
Bob Muth pushed the radiation alarm button to warn anyone between the shield and the plane of a start-up. “O.K., Harry,” he said quietly on the intercom to Major Fisk. “Go.”
Harry Fisk, the Langley’s chief flight engineer, was now responsible for starting the reactor, then the steam turbines. He unlocked the fuel-rod switches and set the automatic damper-rod servos on withdrawal for normal start. As the rods came out and the multiplication factor approached unity, Fisk intently watched his temperature gauges for the reaction chamber. One of the very many problems with the Langley’s power plant on start was that the reactor needed an immediate flow of water to prevent it from melting through the bottom of the plane and the asphalt runway, as soon as the chain reaction was self-sustaining, but the turbines could not function to pump the water until they had steam. Furthermore, the gigantic steam-to-air condensers that made up much of the Langley’s wing structure needed airflow from the turbofans to condense the exhaust steam so it could be pumped back through the reactor as water. In essence, everything had to happen at once.
Fortunately, the cold condensers had so much metal that they could function for a few moments without any airflow. But the main and condensate pumps had to be bootstrapped from somewhere else, specifically a series of hydrogen peroxide steam generators that fed the pump turbines for the few moments it took to get the main turbines going.
Major Fisk continued to follow, second by second, the conditions in the reactor pressure vessel. They were now well beyond nuclear criticality and the temperatures were rising steeply. At twelve hundred degrees Fahrenheit the pressure began to rise exponentially. Major Fisk pressed the ignition buttons on the peroxide units and muttered a brief prayer.
Immediately the peroxide steam began to blow through the pump turbines and out a number of bypass valves onto the tarmac under the wings and body, so that the entire huge space under the Langley was instantly filled with a dense, white fog.
General Beardsley, watching all this from the shielded operations office high above the field, smiled at his communications officer. “Kind of looks like a Virginian triplex blowing all her steam and drain cocks at once, eh, Captain Frothingham?”
“Wider than a triplex, General,” muttered the officer, staring in wonder at the sight.
The sudden burst of steam brought the pump turbines and their directly connected water pumps rapidly up to speed, and main-line water sluiced through the reactor vessel. This dropped the reaction temperature sharply, but Major Fisk skillfully caught the thermal sag by overriding the damper automatics and suddenly running out the control rods. The hot steam now entered the main fan turbines in abundance, then expanded to the lower pressures in the wing condensers. And this expansion began to turn the ten ponderous turbofans slowly around and drive air back through the wings.
Steam Bird was running.
Betty Lou Muth had managed to reach her brother, Nathaniel Hazelton, through his unlisted Washington number, rousing the sleepy congressman from his bed and the floozy with whom he usually shared it. Betty roared back out of town and skidded to the fence just as the peroxide steam billowed out and underneath the Langley.
“Say a prayer now, Alice,” whispered her mother. “If Dad’s crew messes up the start, they’ll just wheel up another plane.” She watched through the glasses, then let her breath out with a rush as the vast steam cloud suddenly blew backward and the Langley’s mass of spidery undercarriage stood once more whole and visible.
“Well,” said Mrs. Muth in relief, “they got the fans going anyway.” But she knew by a touch of coldness in her heart that there was still one more large hurdle, takeoff.
Colonel Muth felt the Langley, alive for the first time in her existence, vibrate up to idling speed. The ten huge turbofans, five within each massive wing root, spun and drove the airstreams backward. Even at minimum idle, the huge engines developed some fifteen thousand pounds of thrust, and only the automatic chocks sticking up out of the tarmac prevented the Langley from starting to roll.
“General Beardsley,” said Colonel Muth, speaking steadily at the tiny TV screen, “the Langley is prepared for takeoff.”
General Beardsley composed his expression to an iron rigidity and straightened to ramrod posture. He turned again to the communications console directly connected to Washington.
IV
President Shamus O’Connell leaned in the direction of the Air Force contingent and swept out a stubby finger that encompassed them all. “You mean to tell me that we’ve gotten this far and the aircraft has no nuclear weapons aboard?” He said this sternly from a grim countenance, but inside, the president felt suddenly much easier about the whole thing.
The impassive Air Force chief plucked at his large, bulbous nose, then adjusted his black silk eyepatch. “That is correct, sir. You remember back in the early sixties when that commission on nuclear proliferation said there were too many different bomb dumps? Well, we made a study . . . quite a few studies, actually . . . and set a kind of activity-level criterion below which a base wouldn’t store atomic weapons locally. . . .”
“And,” said the president impatiently, “Moosefoot fell below this level?”
“Yessir,” said General Zinkowski curtly. “With only three aircraft, we just couldn’t justify storing any weapons on the site.”
“Well,” said the president, his eyes darting, trying to watch the Air Force contingent all at once, “do you think we should arm the Langley then, General?”
Zinkowski seemed genuinely shocked. “Sir, we’re not claiming they’re sending nukes to Nicaragua, just missile bodies. I’m not sure that would be appropriate. . . .”
“Exactly!” said the president, stabbing at him with a finger. “Then why should we send up the plane at all?”
The general shrugged and blinked his one eye, looking, thought O’Connell suspiciously, like the damnable pirate he probably was. “The Russians don’t actually know the onboard bombs are dummies, sir.” He leaned forward and gestured with a thick, black stogie. “Mr. President, it was you who asked us to come up with what you called an ‘appropriate response’ to the two Russian ships and the missiles.” The general adjusted his craggy features into an appropriate submissive expression and waited.
But President O’Connell’s eyes were narrowing. Without Happy Jack whispering in his ear, he was lousy at spotting their multitudes of gimmicks, tricks, scams, and rip-offs—most especially the military and science gangs, the one simply venal, the other venal and damn smart besides. But now he suddenly seemed to see a glimmer of sense in all this. O.K., so somebody way down at the bottom came up with the Langley thing in good faith, but before the upper brass could squash it and think of something else, it arrived here at the White House.
The president cogitated furiously. Moosefoot AFB had been up there, a nuclear wing, ten or more years, eating up God-knows-how-much treasure just to heat the hangars. Never a mission. Never a purpose. So, how did he really know the base was all that ready, engines running, all that stuff? Was this really a part of his deterrent force? How could he ever know if they never went up? So, he decided, why not? Fly one plane and see how soon it gets into the air, if it ever gets up at all.
The president steepled his hands and tried to read their impassive faces. “General Zinkowski, I think this is an appropriately measured response. I suppose the canal lobby would prefer all three, but I think one aircraft is fine for the moment.”
O’Connell pointed up at the camera. “Connect me with the Langley’s commanding officer,” he said in a strong voice.
“You’re hooked in, sir,” whispered the press aide, shoving into the president’s hand a scrap of paper bearing the words “Colonel Robert Muth.”
The TV screens now showed Bob Muth’s large head and keen eyes to the president and the others while on board the Langley. Colonel Muth now looked back into the face of his commander in chief.
“Colonel Muth,” came the mellow Irish voice, “do you recognize me?”
“I do, Mr. President. I await your orders, sir.” Colonel Muth locked his face into its sternest mold, although under his thighs, out of sight of the camera, he had his fingers crossed on both hands.
“Then, Colonel Muth, I order you to take off at once!”
The onboard TV screens blanked as the Langley instantly went into takeoff mode. “Operations,” said Muth rapidly, “drop the chocks.”
Immediately the hydraulic chocks that had blocked about a third of the Langley’s ninety-six wheels sank into the ground, and the huge airplane began to drift forward.
“Ramp us to full power, Harry,” said Colonel Muth. “Now. Go!”
Major Fisk immediately began control-rod pullout, and the turbine whine became a scream of slowly increasing pitch. The Langley began to lumber ahead, drawing more and more air into her fans as she accelerated. And as more air came through, so Major Fisk was able to condense more steam and thus develop more power.
Takeoff with the Langley raised a number of special problems because of condenser lag during acceleration. Reactor power was actually limited by water flow and thus by condenser operation. Condenser operation, in turn, was governed by reactor power as it drove the fans, accelerated the plane, and brought in more air. The only way the machine could theoretically accelerate was if the condenser was sufficiently overdesigned at lower speeds so as to handle excess water, and it was at this point in the operation of the power plant that theoretical anticipations and practical results had their most important confrontation. For the long-departed design engineers of the Langley had regarded the takeoff problem as the thorniest of all—thorniest, that is, until someone attempted to land a plane that had jumped this first, essential hurdle.
But at about this moment in Washington, Happy Jack Hanrahan, his dark, trim silk suit rumpled by a hard run in from the helicopter on the South Lawn, burst into the president’s conference room and stared at them all. The tiny, wrinkled man walked rapidly around the table and bent over the president, cupping both hands around O’Connell’s large right ear.
“For God’s sake, Shamus,” he said in a harsh whisper. “Stop them! That crazy thing will roll-up and blow up!”
Shamus O’Connell jerked around, staring at his wizened aide. “What the hell is ‘roll-up’, Jack?” he said from behind a hand.
Happy Jack took off his pearl gray homburg and held it between their faces and the others at the big table. “If the airplane crashes, the whole damn reactor, shield, and pipes will tear out and roll along the ground. The shield is so heavy that it can collapse the reactor core in on itself. Jesus, Shamus, it’s possible the thing could become a nuclear bomb with as much as a twenty-kiloton yield! Furthermore, the damn planes have never flown before! Nobody is sure how long a runway they need to take off!” This last seemed to frighten even thin-lipped, deadpan Happy Jack, and he fiercely rubbed one lined cheek, his eyes wide.
President O’Connell stared shocked into his old friend’s dour face. “What if they don’t get off, Jack?”
Hanrahan flipped his hat on the table and twirled his two forefingers around each other, making a smaller and smaller twirl. He suddenly popped his two hands apart, all the fingers flying out in explosive gesture.
A dismayed President O’Connell turned again to the room. “Get me General Beardsley in Moosefoot, at once!” he said in a hoarse voice.
The TV screens flashed up, and they again saw part of Moosefoot Ops room, with General Beardsley’s masklike face staring at them. The president breathed more easily. At least communications seemed to be pretty dependable today. “General,” he said in a level voice, “abort the takeoff. Order the planes towed back into their hangars. I’ve decided on another response to the Nicaraguan missiles.”
General Beardsley snapped to attention, staring straight ahead. “The Langley has begun her takeoff run, Mr. President. At her present speed over the ground it will be considerably safer to let her reach flying speed and take off. Otherwise, there’s a remote possibility of what we call ‘roll-up’. . . .”
President O’Connell’s mouth flew open. “You’ve started the takeoff already?” He peered down at his watch. “What the hell are you doing up there, General!” he snarled.
General Beardsley’s face remained graven rock. “You ordered the Langley to take off, Mr. President.” He paused; then, more stiffly: “I think the taped record will show that. . . .”
President O’Connell finally lost his temper. “Listen, you son of a bitch, I know I ordered the damn thing to take off. Four minutes ago I ordered it to take off! General Beardsley, if I ask the CIA for a report on oil reserves or the State Department for an opinion on West Africa, do you know when I eventually get it?” He shook his fist at the TV screen. “I usually get it when one of my aides reads about the conclusions that have been leaked to the Washington Post or Aviation News six months later! It took four months to hire and clear a swimming instructor to teach my kids two hours a week in the White House pool. I can’t usually get a helicopter on the lawn or a limo at the door in less than forty-five minutes! And now you’re telling me that in Moosefoot, Maine, wherever that is or isn’t, you began a mission ten seconds after I gave the order!?”
