After the simulator had come the analysis of the cockpit voice recorder and the computer-realised record of Hollis' last flight. The instability of the aircraft had been progressive, frightening. Just prior to flame-out of both engines and the inability to restart them, the oscillation had been as violent as if they had been flying through a hurricane. The plane had lurched and swayed, dipped and threatened to roll like a ship in great waves. He had known that it would have had to have been that bad for Hollis not to have gotten it under control… which was why he had committed himself to the simulator, prepared himself for the flight, before he had looked at the images of the aircraft on the VDU, behind the superimposed instruments which looked like searching gun sights and the 494 like a fighter plane trying to evade a pursuer.
The voice recording was fragmentary Vance had admitted that in the burned-out fuselage and provided no clues. Hollis, Lowell and Paluzzi didn't know what was happening to them, it was as simple as that. And neither did the flight recorder.
There was nothing to account for what had happened, either the instability or the engine failure… and now he was going to repeat the precise pattern of the flight Hollis and his crew had made and wait until it happened to him, until the 494's twin sister killed him, too.
Because it couldn't be a freak there was no weather, no pilot error, no mechanical, hydraulic, electrical or manual failure to account for what had happened… no system had failed.
It was, he realised, as if that ground-to-air missile was on the Phantom's tail again, over "Nam, and even though the instruments told him it was closing, he couldn't out manoeuvre or outrun it. It would hit his craft and the plane would catch fire… He found himself gripping the control column and hearing Vance ask:
"Pre-flight checks?"
"What?"
"You ready?"
He did not even half-turn to Vance, merely muttered:
"Sure." Then, with a greater emphasis that even to himself sounded like defensive anger, he repeated: "Sure."
The technician had already switched the three INS sets to align and inserted the plane's exact present position. The INS gyros had spun up and he could begin the instrument checks; all their displayed failure flags had retracted. He felt a bead of cold sweat slip down his cheek, over his jaw, into the collar of his denim shirt. He began his scan check at the top right of the overhead display panel, his eyes moving up and down through each piece of equipment, then down across the autopilot and the auto throttle and zigzag across the centre panel; finally, the centre console. Vance he turned now, knowing the man would be absorbed in his own work was making a similar scan check of his instrument panels… fire warning, engine instrument displays, the fuel system, fuel contents, fuel computer, booster pumps.
Somewhere there…? The instruments had shown that all of the systems had been functioning. The engines hadn't relit but there was no reason they shouldn't have.
He knew the passenger less weight of the plane plus the two of them and the fuel, and set the markers on the airspeed indicator for the take-off speeds at VI, V2 and VR. Hollis' engines hadn't failed at take-off… He put the thought aside and stopped himself staring through the glare shield at the vanishing length of runway and the desert. He tuned the VOR. Clamped on his headset, which at once made him aware of how much he was sweating. There was dampness, chill against his ears, then heat. The seat and the rudder pedals had already been adjusted to suit his height and frame.
"Engine start check?" he heard Vance ask.
"Engine start check."
Circuit breakers… INS… oxygen… radios, altimeters… boost pumps… start pressure… start engines… Gant swallowed.
"Let's go," he heard Vance breathe in his ear. The man's hand was heavy on his shoulder, then it was gone again. Its weight had seemed filled with a gambler's desperation.
"Starting number two," he heard Vance announce over the intercom to the ground engineer. The ignition switch was selected to ground start to turn the engine.
Gant heard the ground engineer's voice.
"N-One." The fan was beginning to turn.
"N-Two rotation and engine oil pressure rising," Vance murmured. Then:
Twentytwo per cent."
Gant moved the start lever to idle and started the stopwatch. Twenty seconds to completion of start-up. Fuel was now being pumped into the engine and the igniters were firing.
"Fuel flow normal," Vance called. Gant's instruments confirmed. The exhaust gas temperature began rising steadily. The engine had lit.
"Fifty per cent."
The engine was now self-sustaining and Vance would have released the ignition switch.
"Starting number one…" The process was quicker, it seemed, as if the engine start was being hurried in order that he would be placed in control of the airplane… "Fifty per cent."
He swallowed. His mouth was dry.
"Ground?"
"All cleared away—" There was the slightest hesitation, then: "Good luck, sir."
Gant checked the start levers were at idle, the stabiliser trim, power hydraulics.
Over the VHP, he contacted the huddled buildings and the toylike, glass-topped control tower at the far end of the runway.
"Request taxi."
"Clear to taxi."
Gant released the brakes and moved the thrust levers with his right hand, his left on the control column to steer the 494. There was no more than a momentary sense of the bulk of the airliner being drawn behind the tiny flight deck. He could hear the engine whine as the two huge Pratt & Whitneys spooled up. Vance began reading the take-off checks. Flaps at ten per cent, speed brakes checked, flight controls check, trim set check, annunciator panels check, pressurisation check
… Travelling down the taxiway… threshold."
He turned the airplane like some lumbering marine mammal stranded on a desert beach on to the end of the runway. Then the plane was still, massive. The desert air made the runway melt, re-form, melt again. It was hallucinatory, unnerving.
The mountains seemed starker now, crowding around the dwarfed, distant buildings and the tiny, isolated plane. The sky was almost colourless, utterly cloudless.
"Boost pumps on, fuel system set, hydraulics, brakes… ignition switches to flight start…" In case the engines flamed out on take-off, he could restart them… Hollis hadn't been able to relight the engines… forget that.
"Body gearing switched to off instruments, flaps set, trim set…"
He waited. Behind him, Vance waited on him. He was aware of the man's presence like a weight pressing at his back; felt the man's almost lunatic desperation, the madness of his enraged frustration and his fear.
The voice from the control tower startled him.
'494 cleared for take-off," it repeated.
"Let's go…" he heard Vance mutter, his voice as small as that of someone mumbling prayers.
Gant placed his hand on the throttles, tensing his right foot on the rudder. The 494 began to strain against the brakes. Vance took up his flight engineer's position between and just behind the two pilots' seats in order to monitor power. He was leaning forward, precisely adjusting the engine pressure ratios of each of the thrust levers. Gant had to rely on him to scan the instruments as any co-pilot would have done.
"OK, Alan here we go," he murmured, his throat tight and the sweat in rivulets on either side of his taut neck. He moved the throttle levers to vertical, then forward to just below the required power setting. The centre line of the runway stretched ahead, quivering in the desert heat or his imagination. The grey, dusty runway itself continued to melt, re-form, melt again in the haze.