“Not a word. There’s a reference to a section I think has been left out.”
“Still playing games with us,” said Steward.
“Maybe, but we’re inside, now. Let’s make the best of it.
“I meant you,” said Steward. “You haven’t told us how you figured out how to get into this thing so quick, and we’ve been playing with it for months.”
“Trial and error. I was just throwing switches, and it opened up,” said Eric, and knew they didn’t believe him.
“Right,” said Steward.
Eric felt a coldness creep over him. He took a deep breath, and fixed the man with a baleful stare. “Excuse me?”
“I can help carry some equipment if you like,” said Alan quickly, and stepped in front of Eric.
Steward’s face went ashen. “Uh—sure—I’ll show you where it is.” He turned quickly, and Alan followed him away. The other men seemed oblivious to the tension of the moment. When Eric sat down at the table and began leafing through the manual, they ignored him and talked quietly near Sparrow’s tail section.
A few minutes later, Steward returned with Alan. They brought with them a magnetometer, calorimeter and optical pyrometer. Eric remained confused after another quick pass through the manual, had found nothing that might have triggered his sudden, and now uncomfortable knowledge of how to open up Sparrow’s belly.
Eric did it again, climbing to the cockpit and toggling the switches without a word, then going back to his study of the manual. Steward and the others set up the instruments inside Sparrow and it was Steward who punched the switch there. Eric heard the buzz, some mumbles from the men, but was focused on the operational checklist for sub-sonic flight.
Suddenly, Steward was standing beside him. Eric looked up.
“Nothing,” said Steward. “No magnetic field, and nothing registered on the calorimeter. Optical T went up two degrees on the vanes and fuselage interior, and stayed there.”
Eric blinked. “So put a light rubber band around your notebook and put it inside. From what we saw, the band should stretch, and you can calibrate that. The field inside Sparrow isn’t electromagnetic.”
Steward frowned at him, and went away. Eric went back to his reading, but Steward was back again in a few minutes. “Whatever is there can produce a milli-newton force,” he said.
Something crept into Eric’s mind. “Makes you wonder what it can do if Sparrow is all closed up, and we really turn it on,” he said, and Steward just gave him a dark look.
“I’m sure you’ll figure that out for us, Doctor Price. Do you write the report on our little tests here?”
“You’re a chief scientist here. Think of me as a consultant,” said Eric.
“Okay, I’ll write it, and the rest of us would like to study that manual, if you don’t mind.”
“I’ll get three copies for you,” said Alan, always within listening distance, clipboard poised. “But they’re only for use in this bay, on shift. End of shift, I lock ’em up.”
“So do that, Sergeant. Now. Doctor Price seems to be busy with this copy.”
Alan looked at both of them, then, “I’ll be back in a minute, sir.” And he hurried away.
Enough of this shit. Eric stood up, stepped so close to Steward their noses were nearly touching, and said very softly, “Just what exactly is your fucking problem, mister?”
Steward didn’t flinch this time. “I wouldn’t want to say anything to Davis’ boy, would I? Johnson heads our group for months, and there’s no help or information. Johnson disappears, and now here you are and we suddenly have a manual with stuff missing that seems to be in your head. Tell Davis we’re sick of his stalling and his games. Either give us what we need or send us back to our civilian jobs where we can accomplish something.”
“You’re civilians?” said Eric. “I thought you were all government, or military.”
“Just the techs. The scientists and engineers are all on loan from industry.”
“Where?”
“I can’t tell you that, not for any of us.”
“Then private industry knows about Sparrow?”
“No. I mean, I don’t think so. I didn’t know until I got here. My company is making a lot of money for my services. Why should I tell you what you already know? More games?”
“No games. I didn’t know, and I’m not Davis’ man. I’m here to find out what’s hanging up this project, and Davis is not happy about my being here, if that tells you anything.”
“You CIA?”
“No. Private agency.”
“Yeah, sure.”
Eric smiled. “You wouldn’t expect the truth anyway.”
“I guess not. We’ve had nothing but cover-ups and lies around here. Are we ever going to know what happened to Johnson, or the guy before him?”
“Maybe, but I can’t tell you where he is, or if he’s alive.”
“We were told it was a heart attack. I don’t believe it.”
“Neither do I,” said Eric.
There was a long pause. Steward locked eyes with Eric and stared at him. Suddenly he blinked, let out a sigh. “Okay, suppose I assume you’re actually here to help. What can I do?”
“Your job, as best you can,” said Eric. “I can help with that, too. My scientific credentials are real, but I have no idea what that energy field inside Sparrow is, and throwing those switches in the right sequence today was just blind luck. Whatever information there is about it has been left out of this manual, and I intend to find out why. Have you ever seen or talked to the people who brought Sparrow to us?”
“Saw them once,” said Steward. “They were right here, with Johnson, two dark guys, Slavic accents. Russians, I think.”
“The manual’s in Russian.”
“So you said. I’m wondering if we’re dealing with Russian Mafia.”
“Maybe. Everything’s for sale over there. But if money has been agreed on and paid, I don’t see why material would be left out of the manual.”
“More money,” said Steward.
“I don’t think so. There’s something about Sparrow they don’t want us to know, and I think that energy field we just looked at has something to do with it. I heard Sparrow was supposed to have space flight capability.”
“Me, too. That was the big excitement in the project.”
“Well, what I’ve seen in the manual doesn’t take us over a hundred thousand feet. It’s all conventional JP-4 and boosters. But I found two references to a so-called ‘mixing plenum’ I bet were left in by mistake. I think we looked inside that ‘mixing plenum’ today, and it has something to do with powering this bird above the atmosphere. We need to quantify that energy field and identify it. And I need to get that missing material for the manual. Maybe Sergeant Nutt can help me with that.”
Alan had just entered the bay through the single personnel door, and was hurrying towards them, arms loaded with loose-leaf notebooks. He stacked the books on the table, and turned to Eric.
“Colonel Davis wants to see you right away.”
“You told him what happened today?”
“Yes, sir. He wants to know what you think is missing from the manual. It was supposed to be complete this time.”
“This time?” said Steward, smirking.
Alan ignored him. “He’s waiting for you, sir,” he said to Eric.
“Shouldn’t take long. Maybe while I’m gone you can estimate how much energy was in that field we observed.”
“I can tell you right now it won’t be enough to lift a marble to a hundred thousand feet,” said Steward.
“It’s a starting point. Okay, Alan, lead on.”
Steward mumbled something as they walked away from him, and all Eric heard was the name ‘Davis’.
They went straight to Davis’ office. Alan knocked on the door jamb, and there was a sharp reply from inside, and Alan stepped aside for Eric to enter.