“There are two pulse-jet engines in the back half of this thick section,” said Neal, “and we’ve run them with JP-4 up to Mach 1. Haven’t been able to push it higher than that; the thing has some kind of governor, and the guys who brought it to us have been arguing about how much to tell us. Maybe it’s more money, but I hear we’ve already paid a fortune for this thing.”
“What’s in the rest of the fat section?” asked Eric.
“Can’t get inside to see. Shows up hollow on X-ray. You can see joints, and two hinges on the underside. It opens up somehow, but we haven’t been able to activate it.”
“It shows up as cantilevered on the drawings.”
“Conjecture. We haven’t proven that yet.”
Eric was looking close at the surface, running a hand over it. “Looks rough, but feels smooth. I don’t see any markings.”
“Carbon composite: nanofibers in a resin we haven’t figured out yet. The Japanese are working on something similar. We haven’t found a single marking. No letters, numbers, just glyphs in the cockpit. A pressure bar opens that. You can see the seam near the nose. No way to see outside; everything is heads up. We at least got the instructions on using that, but it took over a year to train our test pilots to it.”
“Any idea where it comes from?” asked Eric. He touched the place where his hand had rested a while, and it was still warm.
“We’re told Eastern Europe, but nobody knows for sure. The people who brought it out are kept out of sight; I’ve never been allowed to talk to one of them. What are you writing down there?”
Neal had turned to look at Alan, who was writing something down on his clipboard. “Recording topics of conversation, sir. Colonel Davis’ orders.”
Neal scowled. “Thought so. Guess I won’t be volunteering anything, then. Ask me some questions, Doctor Price.”
“What’s the problem?” asked Eric.
“No problem. I’m just here to answer your questions.” Neal’s anger was barely masked. He’d obviously not expected any monitoring of his conversations with the new guy from the pentagon. Something was wrong here, and Eric acted quickly.
“Okay, show me how to get into this thing. I want to see the controls’ setup.”
“Watch your step. The leading edges of the wings are like dull swords,” said Neal. A set of three steps on rollers, wheels blocked, was by one of the half-vee wings of the aircraft. Neal stepped up onto the wing, Eric right behind him, while Alan remained standing on the floor.
A seam was now visible, and three indentations, closely spaced, which Neal pressed with one hand. A section of the fuselage popped out towards them, and Neal pulled it back. Inside were four contour chairs in a black interior. A lit instrument panel was to their left, a tunnel on their right. Neal pointed to it, said, “There’s a second compartment a few feet back, like this one. It takes a crew of eight. This is the flight deck, but we don’t have a clue about what goes on in the other compartment. I personally think it’s related to the fat, apparently empty section we haven’t figured out either. So far, nothing works for us in there. The indicators don’t even light up.”
“This kind of thing keeps coming up because people have brought technology over to us without the necessary documentation. Who the hell has been handling the transfer?”
“Ask Davis,” said Neal in a near whisper. He glanced outside to where Alan was waiting. “Sit here, and I’ll show you the controls we understand so far,” said loudly.
Eric sat down, Neal beside him. Neal took a card out of his pocket, wrote something on it, and said, “Heads up display plugs in here, and seems pretty standard. Nothing-new there. The panel indicators are fuel and power, time of flight, landing gear status, hydraulic integrity.”
He passed the card carefully to Eric, and went on talking. Eric pocketed the card without looking at it.
“These switches were a mystery at first. Five commands in the right sequence activate ten nozzles under the forward edges of the wings. VTO only, and fly-by-wire. Handles beautifully, up to Mach 1, and then it just sits there, with no indication of any problem or command request. Not even a blinking light.”
“How many times has it flown?”
“Four. Last time out a VTO nozzle got plugged and we had to set it down fast, so that’s three tests with some success.”
“I’d call it no success at all, Neal. My briefing said this project has been going on for two years.”
“I know. We’ve been flying blind the whole time, trying to reinvent this thing. We’ve had no supporting information. Guys like you have come here before. They went away, and nothing happened.” As he said this, Neal reached over and tapped the card in Eric’s pocket, raised an eyebrow at him. “I guess they thought we could do it all by ourselves.”
There was a clank behind them. Eric turned; saw Alan peering in at them.
“You finished in here yet?”
“I’ve seen enough here. Now show me where the fat part of the fuselage joins with the rest of this thing.”
They followed Alan down the steps from the wing. A seam was visible just aft of the trailing edge of the wings, and around the bottom half of the fuselage circumference. Each end of the seam ended at what looked like the end of a large cylinder the size of a fist. “Looks like a hinge,” said Eric.
“We think the entire tail section swings up, the engines with it. The rest of the section is empty space. Fuel tanks are where the wings join the fuselage, long, flat things. Small. The range with JP-4 below Mach 1 is only around a thousand miles, but we’re being told the range is beyond measurement, and the speed is something we’ve only been able to imagine. We’re either being lied to, or we just don’t know what we’re doing.”
Frustration was obvious in Neal’s voice. Eric ran his hand over the fuselage again, and said, “You’ve seen the wind tunnel data, and so have I. Pregnant Sparrow is a good name for this thing. Even fly-by-wire it won’t survive Mach 2. I don’t think it’s an airplane at all. I think it’s designed to fly in space.”
Neal grunted. “First thing we thought of. Those engines won’t even get it to a hundred thousand feet.”
“Then it has to have another power source.”
“It doesn’t. We’ve been over every inch of it.
“Not the fat section.” Eric rubbed his hand on the fuselage, paused, and rubbed again.
“I told you, it’s empty. The engines are yoked together, and there’s no other structure between them. We’ve used soft and hard X-rays. There’s nothing there.”
“The surface temperature is different on the two sides of the seam here. It’s hotter aft.”
“You can feel that with your fingertips? I’m impressed. The difference is only a couple of degrees ambient. We’ve measured it. There’s a T max a yard from your hand, and then it falls off. We think it’s residual heat in the engines; this thing flew a couple of weeks ago. The temperature difference was thirty degrees then. It’s some kind of capacitance effect.”
“Maybe, but this section has to be opened up.”
“Tell that to Davis. I’m ready to cut it open if I have to, but the Colonel won’t let us try that until we get the documentation we’ve been promised for over a year. You getting this all down, Sergeant?”
Alan just grinned, and scribbled furiously.
“I’ll tell him what I think,” said Eric.
“That’s what we all try to do, and sometimes he even listens. Are you sticking around, or are you just here to give an opinion?”
“I’ve been assigned here indefinitely, but I live in town.”
“I won’t ask why,” said Neal. “I’ve seen your resume, and I can use you here twenty-four-seven. All they give me are military techs, and I need scientists.”