Chapter 21

The trip back was made in silence for the most part. Finally, just before reaching the factory campus, Lina asked what had happened out there in the desert. Chuck was evasive and she soon became angry. Chuck tried to explain his reasoning, but she wasn’t willing to accept that; the discussion went nowhere at first, and when he shared a few of the details of what had happened, it went downhill.

Chuck parked the Bedstead and waited for Lina to say something. But she walked away, heading for Mel, who’d just walked out of the small break area with his first cup of coffee in hand. She spoke briefly to him, then left the building.

“Mel, what’s going on?” Chuck asked.

“Said she’d explain when she got back. Wants me to help her do something.”

Chuck was curious, but too exhausted to pursue the matter. He poured a cup of coffee for himself, but fell asleep before he could drink it. An hour later, he was awakened by voices. “Mel, can you give me a hand?” Lina was carrying a basket. Mel glanced at it; was that clothing?

“Sure, give me a minute to finish tightening this bolt.” He laid the torque wrench aside and straightened up from where he’d been working on the Bedstead. Spotting Chuck where he’d lifted his head from where it had been resting on his arms, he suggested quietly, “Why don’t you head for the trailer? We’ll talk after you get some rest.”

Chuck nodded, still half asleep, and headed for the door. Behind him, Lina led the way to the lounge. Mel was bursting with questions, Lina not disposed to explain. She set the basket on a table, then began shoving the futon she’d used before into place as Mel brought out the curtains from a cabinet. “I need you to help me rehang the privacy curtains,” Lina said.

Mel could no longer hold his curiosity in check. “You’re moving back here?” Lina nodded, not trusting herself to speak. “Okay, if you want to talk about it, I’m a pretty good listener,” Mel said.

“Not now, Mel. Maybe later.”

Lina was sleeping when Chuck got back to the hangar. He nodded at Mel, then picked up a cup of coffee from the break room. The curtains were back in place and drawn to provide privacy. Chuck noticed, but said nothing. What was there to say?

He took his coffee over to where the Bedstead was parked and began unstrapping the equipment locker he’d loaded the previous evening. Opening it, Chuck took out one of the two rifles and began field-stripping it. Mel watched, trying to avoid the appearance of snooping, but Chuck worked without comment so Mel decided to forego questioning him.

Chuck cleaned the rifle with practiced speed, then reassembled it. He replaced it in the locker and removed the short-handled shovel. He brushed off the blade carefully, then oiled the metal part before replacing it in the wooden brackets. Half an hour later, the locker once again secured behind the locked door, Chuck came back into the hangar bay. “I’m heading out, Mel. I’ll be working on the Twin Otter. You need any help with the King before I take off?”

“No, I’m almost finished. The batteries are charged, everything’s in place and hooked up to the main bus, and the new computers checked out. I’ll finish up what I’m doing on the Bedstead, do a quick checkout, then install fresh batteries in it. I might take it out tonight for a quick test, but if not, it’ll be available for a test run tomorrow night. You’re not interested, Chuck?”

“I don’t think I’ll have time, Mel. I’ll be busy testing the Twin Otter. Will’s got a guy coming in later this week to inspect the modified system, and if he gives us the okay, we’ll paint ‘Experimental’ on it and start flying legally. Mostly we need to put hours on the system and I’ll be doing half the flying. Too bad you don’t have a pilot’s certificate; it’s a fun bird to fly.”

“You sure about this, Chuck?”

“Not my choice, Mel.”

“Okay. I’ve got my hands full here, Chuck; I’ll be running the tests on the King after I get the batteries installed, and more-extensive tests on the Bedstead. That’s quite a bit, but Lina will help. Maybe keeping her busy will help. She’ll also be working with Morty part of the time, helping with a design project. I’m not sure what it is, but they’ve been doing quite a bit of talking. I wasn’t sure you’d heard about it, being busy with your flight training, so I thought I’d mention it.

“Anyway, I’m hoping I can start altitude testing later in the week, either the Bedstead or the King. Funny thing about that; if the computer is just a little off, you start to sideslip and it begins to go where you aren’t pointing it. The instruments might be the problem. I’ll look into it, but if the deck isn’t level within a few degrees the computer can’t control the flight. That might be a bug, the computer thinks the deck is level when it sends commands to the impellers. It’s the old problem, garbage in, garbage out.”

“Yeah, we had that problem early on, that’s why we went with computerized control. The computers fly the craft, the pilot flies the computer. But you still need a pilot when things start to go haywire.”

“Gives a whole new meaning to ‘fly by wire’, doesn’t it?”

“It does. But it’s the same as the new fighter jets, they’re all computer controlled too. From the F-117 on, most fighters are too unstable for a human to fly unaided. It’s all computer control in the new ones.”

Frenchy was not happy. He was discussing the holdup from Los Alamos regarding the mini-reactors.

Mark, Frenchy’s chief legal officer, had been attempting to negotiate with officials from the Los Alamos National Laboratory to acquire the compact fission reactors Morty wanted. “Here’s the thing, Frenchy,” Mark said, “you’ve got two strikes against you. One, you have to certify that the reactors won’t be used in flight. That’s pretty much a requirement, even if it’s not in the law, because Congress won’t allow it. Their constituents remember rockets blowing up and the talk since then is about whether a spacecraft with a reactor on board might blow up on its way to space.”

“We’re not using rockets, Mark! I explained that.”

“It doesn’t matter, Frenchy. It’s too easy to convince people there’s a danger, whether one exists or not. That’s half the problem, the other half is worse.”

“Go on, Mark.”

“You’ve got political opposition, Frenchy. I won’t call them enemies, but it’s close to that and they’re spending big money buying opposition to whatever it is you’re doing. Expect licensing issues, fees, taxes, you name it. You’ve only started to feel the itch! Politicians love money, they’ll do whatever it takes to keep it coming.”