No one spoke. Cyrano lit up a cigar. Piscator stood behind the radar operator and watched the sweeps on the scopes. The radio operator was intent on his dials, running the set through the frequency spectrum. Jill wondered just what he hoped to pick up.
After what seemed an hour but was only fifteen minutes, Szentes called the captain pro tempore. The belly hatch was open, the chopper was wanned up, and take-off would be in one minute.
Szentes sounded strained.
"There's a little problem, Ms. Gulbirra, which is why I called you before take-off. Thorn appeared, and he tried to argue the captain into taking him along. The captain told him to get back to his post."
"Did he do that?"
"Yes, sir. The captain told me to call you to make sure. Mr. Thorn won't have had time to get to the tail section yet, though, sir."
"Very well, Szentes. I'll take care of it."
She switched off, and she swore softly. Here she was, commander for only fifteen minutes, and she was confronted with a disciplinary problem. What had gotten into Thorn?
There was only one thing to do. If she ignored Thorn's behavior, she would lose control of the ship, the respect of the crew.
She phoned the auxiliary control room in the lower tail structure. Salomo Coppename, a Surinamese, the aft second mate, answered.
"Arrest Mr. Thorn. Have him conducted to his cabin by a guard detail, and make sure a guard is posted outside his cabin."
Coppename must have wondered what was going on, but he did not question her.
"And call me as soon as he shows."
"Yes, sir."
A red light on the control panel ceased blinking. The belly hatch had just been closed. The radar had picked up the No. 1 helicopter, heading downward for the top of the tower.
A voice suddenly came over the radio.
"Firebrass here."
"We read you loud and clear," the radio operator said.
"Fine. You're coming in L and C, too. I'm going to land about a hundred meters from the dome. Our radar's working A-OK and so we shouldn't have any problems. I expect that the wall will block off most of the wind when we land.
"Jill? You there?"
"Here, Captain."
"What did you do about Thorn?"
Jill told him, and Firebrass said, "That's what I would've done. I'll ask him why he was so hot to go with us when I get back. If ... if I don't get back, for any reason, you question him. But keep him under guard until this tower business is finished."
Jill ordered Aukuso to tie in the radio with the general address system. There was no reason that everybody should not listen in.
"I'm coming down now. The wind is weaker now. Jill, I..."
Cyrano said, "The belly hatch is opening!".
He pointed at a blinking red light on the panel.
"Mon Dieu!"
He pointed out through the windscreen.
That was not necessary. Everybody in the control room was looking at the fiery ball suddenly born in the dark-grey ness.
Jill moaned.
Aukuso said loudly, "Captain! Come in, Captain!"
There was no answer.
58
The intercom was ringing.
Moving slowly, as if the air was cotton candy, Jill pushed the switch to ON.
Szentes said, "Sir, Thorn just stole the other chopper! But I think I got the son of a bitch! I emptied my pistol at him!"
Cyrano said, "He's on the scope!"
"Szentes, what happened?"
She fought to get out of the thick element in which she was drowning. She had to shed this numbness, to recover quickness of analysis and decision.
"Officer Thorn left the hangar bay as the captain ordered. But he came back as soon as the chopper left, and he had a pistol with him. He made us get into the supply compartment, and he shot off the intercom unit. Then he locked us in. He forgot that arms are stored there, too. Or maybe he thought he'd be gone before we could get out.
"Anyway, we shot off the lock, and we rushed out. By then he was in the chopper and lifting it off the landing platform. I shot at him just as the chopper was going down out of the bay. The others shot, too.
"Sir, what's going on?"
"I'll notify the crew just as soon as I know myself," Jill said.
"Sir?"
"Yes."
"It was a funny thing. Thorn was weeping all the time he forced us into the supply room, even when he said he'd shoot us if we tried to stop him."
"Out," Jill said, and switched the intercom off.
The infrared equipment operator said, ' "The fire's still burning, sir."
The radar operator, pale under his dark pigmentation, said, "That fire is the helicopter, sir. It's on the landing deck of the tower."
She looked into the fog. She could see nothing except the swirling clouds.
"I've got the other chopper.," the radarman said. "It's headed down. Toward the base of the tower."
A moment later, he added, "The chopper is on the surface of the sea."
"Aukuso, call Thorn."
The gluey feeling was receding now. She still felt confused, but now she was becoming capable of finding some order in the chaos.
After a minute, Aukuso said, "He doesn't answer."
According to the radar, the amphibious helicopter was now floating on the sea 30 meters from the tower.
"Keep trying, Aukuso."
Firebrass was probably dead. She was the captain now, her ambition achieved.
"God! I didn't want it this way!"
Dully, she called Coppename and told him to come to the control room to take over the duties of the first mate. Alexandras would.be the aft first officer.
"Cyrano, we'll have to take care of Thorn later. As of now, we have to find out what happened to Firebrass... and the others."
She paused, and said, "We have to land on top of the tower."
"Certainly, why not?" Cyrano said.
He was pale, and his jaw set. But he seemed in perfect control of himself.
The Parseval moved through the clouds, its radar probing ahead and below. There was a powerful updraft around the tower, but it lost its force as soon as the dirigible was over the top.
The belly searchlights lanced downward, sweeping over the dull grey metal of the vast surface. The people in the control room could see the flames, but they could not distinguish the helicopter itself.
Slowly, the airship slid past the fire. Now its propellers were swiveled horizontally to pull the colossus down.
As gently as possible, its pilot brought it down. Under ideal conditions, there would have been no wind at all. However, the thousands of drainage holes along the base of the wall permitted a breeze of 8 km/ph. This, on the Beaufort scale, was a light breeze. Wind felt on the face. Leaves, if present, rustling. An ordinary wind vane moved by the wind.
A layman would consider it negligible. But the great surface of the buoyant ship was easily pushed by this breeze if no propulsive force countered it. It would be taken up hard against a wall unless something were done to stop it.
Unfortunately, there was no mooring mast. Also, the vessel could not be brought into direct contact with the landing field. Unlike the Graf Zeppelin and Hindenburg, the Parseval had no underslung control gondola 'with a wheel on its bottom to keep the lower tail structure from rubbing against the ground when landing. Since the control room of the Parseval was in the nose, the ship could not land without damaging the tail fin. However, there were ropes stored aboard. These had been taken along in case a landing had to be made on a plain alongside The River. They were to be thrown down to the people on the ground, and these, hopefully, would volunteer as a ground crew.