Free Pulp Fiction | The Finger in the Sky Affair by Peter Leslie by Unknown Page A

fault, what would you say—unofficially, of course—would have been the—er—likeliest thing to have happened to it? That could have left it in perfect condition afterwards, that is."
    "Seems obvious to me, old chap. In such a case— if one existed!—one would have to look for a set of conditions causing false readings on the equipment. Something that caused the box to direct the aircraft as though the ground wasn't where it really was...if you get my meaning!"
    "You mean the box could have acted as though the runway was higher or lower than it really is, for example?"
    "I mean," the Director said carefully, "I'd be inclined to look for a situation in which such a thing could happen."
    "And if such a set of conditions existed—which part of the gear would you be inclined to suspect of being affected?"
    "Look—the box divides itself pretty definitely into three separate complexes, doesn't it? The bit getting it in line with the runway to start with...and after that the altitude-and-aspect gear, and finally the wing-tip equipment that controls the roll. Right?"
    "We're with you."
    "Right. Now it would seem unlikely that the first is in any way affected: all three crashes actually occurred on the runway, so the planes must have been accurately lined up, eh?...And again, no eyewitnesses have mentioned anything like a sideslip or a wingtip digging in or anything of that sort. Admittedly the last one did cartwheel—but that was apparently only after the under-carriage had been wrecked on the first impact. So it seems—shall we say?— unlikely that the wingtip gubbins caused the crashes."
    "Which leaves the altitude and glide-angle equipment?"
    "Exactly. You examine all the witnesses' statements. Seventy per cent of 'em say something like 'the plane seemed to fly straight into the ground'. And the survivor of the last one was trying to say something to the nurse in the ambulance. Unfortunately, she didn't speak English—but we gather he was spouting something about height, or too high, or something. All of which seems to me to suggest either wrong altimeter readings or wrong glide angles."
    "Or wrong interpretation by the gear to give the effect of this?"
    The dark man with the moustache shrugged. For the first time, he removed the pipe from his mouth. "You must appreciate my position," he said, jetting a small cloud of smoke into the air. "We make the gear, after all. As there's no evidence of faultiness after the crash, we feel it's not up to us to ferret out reasons why it might have been at fault—though of course we should accept any conclusive evidence found by someone else."
    "I understand," Solo said. "And you can't think of any device—or set of conditions, to use your phrase—under which the part of the gear affecting height readings or glide angle could be momentarily distorted, and yet return to normal afterwards?"
    The Technical Director jammed the pipe back into his mouth. "Oh, have a heart, old chap," he said. "Have a heart."
    Later, Solo and Illya spent some time studying the technical drawings of the Murchison-Spears equipment—with particular emphasis on those parts of it affecting the height of the aircraft and the automatic control of this.
    "I can see the principle," Solo said. "But I'm afraid the detail is a bit too..."
    "No, no, Napoleon," Illya said. "It is relatively simple. Look...after the scanner tube has...Look!...Here...This is where, if it was just giving a reading, the electronic pulse would be turned into a visual indication, on a dial. See?"
    "Ye-e-es. I'm with you so far. Just."
    "Well, since it's not just giving a reading—but causing the plane to react as a pilot would after digesting that reading—the electronic information feeds in...here. In this small memory storage unit."
    "Something like a computer?"
    "On a far less complicated scale, yes...And then these selectors...here...and here...and here...See, the contact is made by this core of toridium. As you know, it's a metal