"We'll have to wait for Peter's program to finish," Henson said. "The computer handles that."

"Oh... right." Greenburg hadn't thought of that. "How much longer?"

"It's almost—it's done," Whitney said.

"Where's the problem?" Betsy asked. Even with the turbofan engines droning in his ears Greenburg could hear the twin emotions of anticipation and dread in her voice.

"There doesn't seem to be one."

"That's ridiculous," Greenburg said. "Something made the shuttle crash."

"Well, the program can't find it. Look, it seems to me I felt the Skyport bounce a little just before the crash—"

"Clear air turbulence," Betsy said. "That shouldn't have been a problem; the guidance program is supposed to be able to handle small perturbations like that."

"Let's forget about the 'how' of it for now," a new voice broke in—Carl Young's, Greenburg tentatively identified it through the noise. "The point is that we can start bringing shuttles back up again. Greenburg, is there anything you can suggest we bring up from the ground to secure the shuttle with?"

"Uh... hell, I don't know. Something to use to get the passengers off would certainly be handy. And if this clamp arm won't rotate any further we might need an interfacing of some kind—maybe an extra clamp-and-wrist piece to extend our clamp's rotational range."

"I've already ordered some spare ski lift track from the ground—it should be coming up aboard the first shuttle, along with men to handle it. The clamp-and-wrist section we may be able to remove from one of the other bays; other people will be coming up to try that. What I meant was, can you see anything from there that we didn't already know about?"

"Not really." Greenburg was starting to feel a little foolish as his brave descent into the bay began to look more and more unnecessary. With the guidance system coming up clean, shuttleloads of experts would be here in minutes. So much for the value of impulsive heroics, he thought acridly; but at least it hadn't wasted too much time. He'd always been much better as a team player, anyway. "Hold on tight, Tom; I'm coming up," he called, getting a grip on his safety line.

"Just a second, Aaron," Henson said. "I've got the computer back now. Why don't you stay put while I try the clamp again like you suggested."

"All right. But make it snappy—it's freezing in here."

There was a heavy click, and the clamp arm telescoped smoothly back into itself, rotating to the horizontal as it did so. It paused for a second when fully retracted and then reversed direction, angling toward the landing gear like some rigid metallic snake attacking its prey in slow motion. It stopped, again a meter short, and with a sinking feeling Greenburg saw his mistake. "It's not just the angle the nosewheel's at," he informed the others. "The clamp rotates a little as each segment telescopes out, not all at once at the end of the extension. It's not quitting because it doesn't know how to proceed—it's quitting because it's run out of length."

"That's impossible," Betsy retorted. "I've checked the stats—the arm's got to be long enough to reach."

"Then it's been damaged somehow," Greenburg said irritably. If they had to replace the whole arm, and not just the clamp... He shivered as a newly sharpened sense of the shuttle's vulnerability hit him like a wet rag.

For a moment the drone of the turbofans was all he could hear. Then Carl Young said, "We'll have the ground people check it out when they get here. Greenburg, you might as well come out of there. You'll need to put the access panel back in place temporarily so we can repressurize the deck."

"Understood." Turning back to the curving wall, his hands numb with cold, Greenburg began to climb.

—

"The shuttle will dock in Six in about four minutes," the Skyport captain's voice came over the intercom.

"Okay, Carl," Betsy said. "Six, do you have someone at the bay to meet it?"

"Not yet," was the response. "We wanted to have all the stations up here manned during docking, to watch for any trouble. We could call in somebody off-duty, if you want."

"Don't bother," Paul Marinos said, unbuckling his seat belt and getting to his feet. "I'll go down and meet the shuttle. You won't need me before Tom gets back, will you?" he added looking at Betsy.

She shook her head. "Go ahead. As a matter of fact, you can probably escort Mr. Whitney back down on your way. Mr. Whitney, we very much appreciate your help here this morning."

"Uh, yeah. You're welcome."

Unlocking her chair, Betsy swiveled around. Whitney was hunched forward in his own seat, frowning intently at the computer display screen. "Anything wrong?" she asked, her mouth beginning to feel dry again. That shuttle would be trying to dock in a half-handful of minutes....

Whitney shook his head slowly, his eyes never leaving the screen. "I'm just rechecking the readout, trying to see if there's anything that looks funny but somehow didn't register as a problem." He keyed for the next page; only then did he look up. "If it's not too much trouble, though, I'd really like to stay up here for a while. I can be an extra hand with the computer, and there's another project I want to discuss with you."

"Passengers usually aren't permitted up here at all," Marinos said with a frown.

Whitney shrugged. "On the other hand, I am already here."

"All right," Betsy said, making a quick decision. Even if Whitney's primary motivation was nothing more than simple curiosity, he'd already been a big help to them. It was an inexpensive way to pay back the favor. "But you'll have to stay out from underfoot. For starters—" she pointed at the display—"you'll need to finish that up quickly, because Tom Lewis's on his way up to make some more blueprints."

"Yes, I know. I'll be finished." He turned back to the console. Nodding to her, Marinos left the flight deck.

Swiveling back forward, Betsy squeezed her eyes shut briefly and took a long, deep breath. The tension was beginning to get to her. She could feel her strength of will slowly leaking away; could feel her decision-making center seizing up—and this only some eighty minutes into the crisis.

The strength of her reaction was more than a little disturbing. True, the lives of a hundred-sixty people were hanging precariously in the balance back there... but she'd been holding people's lives in her hands since her first flight for the Navy back in 1980. She'd had her share of crises, too, probably the worst of them being the 747 that had lost power in all four engines halfway from Seattle to Honolulu. She'd had to put the monster into a five-thousand-foot dive to get the balky turbofans restarted—and she hadn't felt anything like the nervousness she was feeling now. Was it just the length of this crisis that was getting to her, the pumping of adrenaline for more than five minutes at a time? If so, she was going to be a wreck by the time this whole thing was resolved. Or—

Or was it the people—be honest, Betsy; the person—involved? Could being forced to deal with Eric Rayburn again really hit her this hard? "Excuse me, Captain; is it all right if I sit here?" She opened her eyes to see Whitney standing beside her, indicating the copilot's seat. Craning her neck, she saw that Lewis had returned and had taken over the computer terminal again. "Yeah, sure," she told Whitney, thankful for the interruption. "Just don't touch anything. Tom, you need any help?"

"No, thanks; just getting the schematics for the clamp arm mechanism, the emergency collar, and whatever I can find on the Skyport door and tunnel." Paper was beginning to come from the printer slot; Lewis glanced at it and then looked at Betsy. "Anything new from the shuttle?"

"Rayburn's still checking out his instruments. So far the altimeter, Collins nav system, and at least one of the vertical gyros seem to be out; the compass and collisionproofing are intact; the autopilot is a big question mark."