Free Perigee by Patrick Chiles Page B

very senior captain who was barely tolerant of all the rocket-jockeys that had invaded his airline. “That’s why I’m calling you, slick. We need to get him briefed ASAP.”
    Goody—more surprises , Ryan thought. “I can find him,” he answered helpfully. “He doesn’t live that far away…I’ll drive down there if I have to. Can’t imagine why you guys haven’t located him,” he wondered aloud, and tried to change the subject. “So…struck by lightning, huh?”
    “Twice.”
    “ Twice? ”
    “Did I stutter? Two strikes on approach while they were diverting into Cologne. They never made it to Frankfurt. Just find Gentry.”

15
     
    Austral Clipper
     
    “Heating up out there,” Tom observed as the familiar reddish tint spread across the nose. “Remind the pax for me, will you?”
    “Got it,” Ryan said as he grabbed the intercom phone. “Good evening again folks, this is your first officer. We’ve just passed Mach 5, so you might notice the tips of the wings are starting to glow. That’s okay, but it means your windows are heating up too. Until we get into space, for your own safety please don’t touch them. Believe me, they get hot. Don’t ask how I know,” he ended glibly.
    Chances were very good that no one could reach the windows anyway. They were arranged as parallel rows of portholes, each about the size of a dinner plate and by design almost a full arm’s length from any adjacent seats.
    Two more chimes from Marcy confirmed the passengers remained safely in their seats. “Cabin is set for climb.”
    “O2 inlets closed?”
    “Affirmative. Both sides are buttoned up tight, all access points barber-poled.”
    “Okay then,” Tom said. “Hang on to your butts.” There was an even more dramatic push backwards as he smoothly pulled the control yoke into his lap, setting up a steeper climb angle.
    Austral Clipper’s nose and wings glowed cherry red as it shot out of the atmosphere. Hurtling past two hundred thousand feet, nothing about it resembled an airliner anymore. Aerodynamic controls became useless as the air they needed to bite into was rapidly left behind. From now on, any adjustments would be made using their reaction-control jets.
    Confident they were holding pitch angle, Tom stole a sideways glance from a side window. He found the view to be forever irresistible. They were above Canada now, streaking towards Labrador. Sparsely lit cities receded beneath them as the sky ahead transformed from deep violet to black. Icy Hudson Bay fanned out towards the northern horizon, barely visible in the early gray light as the land fell away.
    Faint wisps of seawater traced along barren shoreline in the rapidly approaching dawn. They would soon be over Greenland, with barely enough time to see its immense icecap painted by the early sunrise. It would pass mostly unobserved beneath them as they raced along the top of their arc over Europe, too early yet to roll over for a look.
    …
     
    Wow. So this is what the astronauts felt like , Wade thought, then realized that he was about to join their ranks. “I must weigh a ton,” he grunted from his perch behind the pilots. The plane vibrated steadily but the ride had become much smoother as they left the surrounding envelope of air. The dark sky ahead was all he could see; they were climbing too steeply for him to make out the horizon but for a fleeting glimpse through the corners of a side window.
    “More like six hundred pounds,” Ryan said. “But it gets your attention.”
    Wade searched the barely-familiar displays on the control panel, looking for their speed and altitude. There it was: 8500 knots and two hundred fifty thousand feet. Holy crap—that’s like Mach 12 , he marveled. “So you guys still use knots and feet?”
    “Not for long. We have to keep ATC happy until we cross the Karman boundary,” Ryan explained, referring to the semi-official threshold of where space began. “Units will switch over once we pass 100