SLINGSHOT, page 34
part #1 of The Starchild Saga Series
“AJ, it’s Margo. We’ve got your position pinpointed. We’re on our way and will reach you within the hour.” There was a pause that seemed to last forever. “Don’t go anywhere!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
BAKER ISLAND—CONTROL CENTER
“M
ayday! Mayday! Boss…we just lost AJ!” Chrietzberg’s words tumbled over each other.
“We got you, Critz. What happened?” Alex answered immediately. “Slow down and tell me what happened.”
“We wuz switching safety lines from the platform to the skyport, and a big gust hit us. AJ didn’t have a chance. I couldn’t hold him. My God, Boss…I couldn’t hold him!”
“We got his beacon. He’s headed for the water southeast of Baker, Critz. Margo’s people are already on their way to get him.”
“No shit! He okay?”
“We don’t know that, but his beacon is strong. We’ll keep you informed.” The wind commenced howling at that point, nearly drowning out the conversation. “We got to get you back to height, and we got to fight a storm down here. Hang tight. We’ll get him.”
The Chinook landed on the apron just outside Baker Compound in eighty-knot gusts. The crew tied it down while the pilot, Chad Mickey, hustled inside. He doffed his ever-present Stetson, using it to brush the rain off his lanky 178-centimeter frame. Even so, his jeans and boots remained soaked.
“What happened up there, Chad?” Alex asked him.
Mickey’s hazel eyes twinkled with excitement. “Don’t know, Sir. When I peeled away, they were doing just fine. Those guys got some balls, I got to tell you.”
“You didn’t do so bad yourself,” Alex told him with a warm smile. “That was some flying.”
“Like rockin’ a baby. But that’s a great bird—steady as an eagle.”
“Hang around for a couple more days,” Alex told him. “We’re going to need your services one more time when the track reaches seventy-two klicks. We’ll need you to carry the double deflector from the barge to the socket. I’ll give you an hour or so notice. Until then, just take it easy.”
“Can I hang here?” the pilot asked.
“Sure. Just stay out of the way.”
“I’ll keep him busy for a while,” Lori said as she swept into the Control Center with Dex in tow. “I’m Lori from the Fox Syndicate. This is my cameraman, Dex Lao. You’re the Chinook pilot, right?” Lori examined Mickey from head to foot, and then stepped toward him with moistened lips.
“I…I’m Chad Mickey, and…I’m…I…I fly that ugly bird.”
“You okay with an on-camera interview, Cowboy?”
“Sure, Ma’am…I mean Miss Lori.”
“I’m Lori, Chad.” She smiled warmly at him, and glanced at Dex, signaling that he commence recording. “Tell me about your bravery out there.”
“Not me, Lori. I just flew the Chinook. Those guys up there, those two Mohawks, they are the heroes. I never saw anything like it.”
Alex watched with amusement as Lori quickly wrapped the big pilot around her little finger. It never failed. This lady used sex as naturally as she breathed, without offending. She could come on to a man and to his date, and they both would love her for it.
Margo approached him from behind and placed her hands on his shoulders. “Stop leering,” she whispered into his ear. She put an arm around his shoulders and walked him toward the holodisplay covering the wall. “She really gets to you, doesn’t she?”
“Me and everyone else,” Alex answered with a grin.
“I thought I was your flame,” Margo said wistfully. “No way I can compete with Lori, though. Hell, she gets to me too!” She laughed lightly and stepped away from Alex’s side. “Looks like we’re all working,” she said with another amused glance toward Lori doing her interview.
The storm was not having much effect on the ascension. The ocean-going tugs at the Eastern and Western Complexes were pushing the apexes outward, but the main action was split between the barges in Meyerton Harbor at Baker and Millersville Harbor at Jarvis, and the Baker Socket. At Jarvis, the action was minimal. The Skycrane had faked the cable bundle down in a way that allowed it to be pulled off the pile and over the large cushioned roller without tangling, and then across the A-frames to the socket. The Skycrane and support people were on standby just in case, but thus far, it had gone like clockwork. The Baker operation was more complicated, because the skytower cable was being fed from a giant reel in one barge across the A-frames, while the suspensor and lift cables were being fed from the open hold of the other barge across the second set of A-frames. They were married at the socket exactly as they were during the original Ascension. Furthermore, to lighten the Chinook’s load while hauling the deflector to the terminus, the first eighteen kilometers of lift cable were replaced by pilot line. Once the deflector was attached to the terminus, they had to pull the lift cable up around the deflector and back down—all eighteen kilometers. They married the two ends of the lift cable at the double deflector. When the skyport reached seventy-two kilometers, the Chinook would carry the double deflector to the socket where the crew would marry it to the skytower.
The rail bootstrapped itself skyward with a deliberate pace, mimicking the original Ascension as the storm finally moved further west and dissipated. As the two downslopes lifted out of the water, exposing for a second time the tensioner attachment points, the ten payout reels once again fed cable in their delicate dance of balance-counter balance, keeping the downslopes and rail perfectly plumb. As the rail rose, the three pairs of tensioners along the horizontal length extended themselves again from the abyssal plain five kilometers below the surface, maintaining the rail’s verticality. A more relaxed general demeanor filtered throughout the 2,500-kilometer leviathan, since the process was now familiar territory. As before, the process was primarily monitored by computer, since reaction time to any unforeseen event was time-critical. By the time Alex would have recognized a problem and taken corrective action, Slingshot would have torn itself apart.
In the Baker Operations Center, Alex kept his finger on the pulse. Every five hundred meters of elevation, he stopped the Ascension for the installation of the rings and their associated tubes and cables. Actually, the computer controller stopped the ascension, but Alex monitored it closely. As with the original Ascension, during the half-hour or so that this operation required at Baker Socket, the ocean-going tugs topped off their fuel, and people throughout the project inspected and reported to Alex. As always, Alex relied on his computers, but depended on his people. When the shit hit the fan, as it had twice already, people solved the problem, not the computers. As a fully integrated person in the complex modern world, Alex completely understood the ubiquitous role computers played in every aspect of life, but he never lost sight of the human element and the importance of each human being in the overall process.
Ascension speed was determined by the rate at which the ribbon could be accelerated and the frequency and duration of the tasks that interrupted the rise. With seventeen daily half-hour holds to install the spacers, the maximum rise rate was nine kilometers a day. The process was inexorable, requiring the full attention of a large number of people twenty-fours a day. Alex and Margo took to spelling each other, and on Jarvis, Cody Haydon joined Klaus to give him some genuine off-time to catch up on his sleep. Since the outward appearance of the operation seemed not to change much, Lori had nothing to report, and so spent a lot of time getting to know Chad better. Alex noticed that whenever he saw Lori and Chad, Noe seemed to be there as well. It conjured distracting images that he thrust aside. Can’t go there…too much going on here!
BAKER ISLAND—UNDERWAY ON SKIMMER THREE
P
earl Wells had been eagerly following the action ever since the explosion at Amelia Earhart Skyport. Virtually every moment she was not in the water or accomplishing some other necessary task, she was glued to her Link. She cheered when they captured that Watson bastard, she cried tears of happiness when the stranded high-iron guys were rescued, and she whooped with unrestrained joy when the Chinook hooked up with Earhart Skyport nine kilometers above Baker. When Dybo fell off the platform beneath Earhart, Pearl was getting Skimmer Three underway even before Margo called her.
“Take at least two guys with you,” Margo said. “And, for heaven’s sake, be careful. It’s nasty out there. I don’t want to mount another search and rescue because you got into a jam.”
“Pu-leeze!” Pearl responded with good humor. “I don’t get into jams. You know that, Girl!”
“Just the same,” Margo said, laughing, “take it easy. AJ’s good for several hours out there—if he’s alive. His comms’re out, so we don’t know. The only thing we have is his beacon. How’s that signal on Skimmer Three?”
“It’s fine, Margo. Now, are you going to let me do my job, or are you going to drive this sucker by remote control?”
“No problem, Pearl…keep me in the loop, okay?”
“Roger that.”
The storm center had passed, and rain pelted down with almost stinging force, driven by winds still gusting to fifty knots. Even though it was well into the morning, the sky remained twilight gray.
On her way to the skimmer, Pearl had grabbed Domingo Solak and Abel Kilker. Just as she was pulling away from the dock, Emmett Bihm leapt across the widening gap.
“Glad you could make it, Bimmy.”
“You the Man, Pearl!” Everybody laughed, and then Bihm said, “This could be tough, so…Pearl, you’re the skipper—you got the boat ops. I got the water ops. Everybody clear on that?”
“Good thing you got here, Bimmy,” Pearl said with mock seriousness, “otherwise I’d have to do both. Don’t know if I cudda handled all that responsibility.” Then she turned her attention to navigating out of the artificial harbor into the turbulent waves beyond the breakwater. The skimmer was pitching and rolling like a cork in a bathtub with a splashing rugrat. There was no way to get up on the cushion. Pearl had to push her way through the waves with brute force. She turned to port as a big wave lifted the bow until the vessel almost stood on its stern, and then pounded back into the water with a force that nearly knocked the air from her lungs. She twisted the helm to starboard to take the next wave at an angle. That worked much better as she rode up the wave face, over the crest, and slid down the backside. The divers whooped and hollered in delight as they grabbed handholds and rode out the water-borne rollercoaster.
“Hey, Critz—it’s Pearl on Skimmer Three. Thought you’d like to know we’re on our way to AJ.”
Chrietzberg responded immediately, obviously having been monitoring the links. “Hey, back. Thanks for calling, Pearl. Keep me in the loop, okay? Keep the Link open, so I can lurk. I’ll stay out of your hair.”
“Sure thing, buddy. We gonna get that boy.” She left the Link open as he asked. “Critz is with us, guys,” she said to the others, pointing to the Link. She was concerned that if they found the worst, the guys should watch their comments. She got thumbs-up from all three, and immediately turned her attention back to the next wave. As she crested the peak, she shouted, “This is a bunch of crap! We gotta get into Baker’s lee, or we’re never gonna make any headway.” She turned starboard as she crossed the crest, and gunned the skimmer sideways down the wave and along the trough. As she picked up the next wave, she turned to port, into the wave, and as soon as it crested, she spun to starboard and gunned the skimmer again, gaining several hundred meters before the next wave picked her up. The waves were refracting around Baker, hitting her from the south, as she ran to the east along their backsides and troughs, being careful not to get caught on Baker’s northwestern reef. A half-hour’s hard work got the skimmer around Baker’s northwest corner and into the lee. The water settled down to a more navigable surface, and Pearl set course for the beacon flashing on her console some thirty kilometers off the southeastern corner of Baker.
“That was some boat driving, Girl,” Bihm told her as things settled down. “You done that once or twice.”
“I guess,” Pearl answered, inwardly pleased that she could show these guys a thing or two about boats. She powered the skimmer up onto the cushion and cranked her up to seventy-five knots. The water was too rough for higher speeds. Hang on, AJ. We’re coming. You be alive, hear? You be alive!
Thirteen minutes later, Pearl throttled back and let Skimmer Three settle into the water. Then she eased forward at a bare five knots. “Get your eyes open, guys. He’s just off the starboard bow, a hundred meters or so.”
“I got him!” Solak shouted, pointing through the window. “Sonofabitch is waving at us!”
“I got him too,” Kilker said, stepping into the stern well, ponytail whipping in the wind.
Pearl brought the skimmer as close as she dared. “Can’t get any closer, guys, without some help in the water.”
“I agree,” Bihm said. “Skimmer’s pitching too much to haul him out. We need someone in the water. That’s you, Abe. You’re the strongest,” he said to Kilker. “Skins, fins, mask and snorkel…and safety harness.”
During the short transit, both divers had donned their skins, so Kilker was in the water almost immediately, trailing a line attached to his harness, and another for Dybo. He wrapped the line under Dybo’s arms leading away from his back, so that Bihm and Solak were able to pull him to the diver platform along the stern. With Dybo facing away from the skimmer and Kilker assisting from the water, Bihm and Solak hoisted him onto the platform, and then up and into the stern well. Kilker hoisted himself aboard without assistance, and they carried a struggling Dybo inside the skimmer.
Dybo reached up and grabbed his helmet, giving it a half-turn to the left. With a soft hiss, the helmet broke its seal, and he removed it. “Goddamn sonofabitch…I made it!” he yelled at the top of his voice. “I’m alive, guys…I made it!”
“Hey AJ, it’s Critz. You made it, you lucky bastard! You made it!”
“You got that right, cousin…you got that fucking right!”
Pearl smiled as two tears trickled down her black cheeks. You the Man, Girl, she whispered quietly to herself, you the Man!
BAKER ISLAND—CONTROL CENTER
D
uring the following nine days, Lori interviewed Dybo twice, once by himself and once with Chrietzberg participating by link. The entire world had followed her tense reports from the scene of the disaster, and the world celebrated the Mohawk hero who fell from the sky and lived to tell the tale. Stories about the Kahnawak Mohawks appeared in holocasts and publications the world over. Special interest groups formed across the Web, propagating the interest in everything Mohawk. Knowing how to say something in the Mohawk language became an instant rage. Kwe (hello), Onhka ni:se (how are you), and O:nen (good bye) replaced local greetings in virtually every country in the civilized world.
While biding his time in the ascending Earhart Skyport, Chrietzberg was besieged with interview requests and received hundreds of marriage proposals from around the world. Dybo fielded so many appearance requests, and ducked so many marriage proposals that he asked Alex for a week off, just to sort things out. He promised, however, to be back before Chrietzberg returned to the surface.
Pearl also found herself at the center of a small media storm. Once the media discovered her role in the rescue, they deluged her with interview requests as well. And that trickled down to the other three who accompanied her.
Alex finally had to issue a general announcement that there would be no more contact with outside media, except through Bruce and Lori, who would handle all requests, and hold the circus at bay while the Slingshot team completed their task of reestablishing the rail and Earhart Skyport.
On the evening of the ninth day, beneath a darkening, nearly cloudless azure dome filled with skreeghing terns, boobies, and lesser frigatebirds, Lori turned to face Dex Lao’s holocams. Behind her, as the entire world watched, Rodney Chrietzberg stepped out of the capsule that had just arrived from Amelia Earhart Skyport, and gave his cousin Ajay Dybo a high-five.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
SEATTLE—DOWNTOWN
N
eil Lansing, a.k.a. Lars Watson, stepped off the SeaTac people-mover at the main terminal and rode the escalator to street level. He wore a suit that really was gray and carried a black briefcase. His dark hair was cut in the current fashion, not too long and not too short, tapered on the sides and back. He sported a dark full beard, neatly trimmed. There was virtually nothing to distinguish him from the dozens of other businessmen arriving in Seattle that morning.
The escalator deposited him on the terminal main floor, where he exited the secure perimeter and looked around expectantly. Near the door, he spotted a twenty-something man holding aloft a sign that read “Lakeview.” That was his man. Watson strode toward him and said, “You have something for me?”
Without a word, the man handed Watson a manila envelope, set his sign in the corner, and left through the sliding door to the street. Watson followed him through the doors and looked for something indicating public transportation to the city. It was obvious and immediate, and five minutes later, Watson relaxed in the back row of a comfortable bus for the half-hour ride into the city. He looked out the window curiously as the bus navigated a complex series of ramps and tunnels that led to the Interstate-5 corridor and onto a dedicated bus lane. The sky was peppered with puffs of white clouds that seemed to be moving toward Mt. Rainier, dominating the eastern horizon. To the west across Puget Sound, storm clouds appeared to be pushing up over the snow-capped Olympic Mountains. A storm was on its way and probably would hit the city by nightfall.
