He'd gone on to explain that although static testing had shown they would achieve operating pressure in twenty milliseconds if they were fully primed in advance, that was static testing, not flight testing, and he'd been unable to sleep wondering about the adhesive around the seals.
It was just technical mumbo-jumbo, although maybe he should be checking them, he thought grimly. But he trusted the engineering team. He had to. Besides, the pumps had been developed specially for the massive Energia booster, and they'd functioned flawlessly in routine launchings of those vehicles at the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
Of course, at Baikonur they always were initiated while the Energia was on the launch pad, at full atmospheric pressure. On the Daedalus they'd have to be powered in during flight, at sixty thousand feet and 2,700 miles per hour. But still . . .
The late-night security team had listened sympathetically. They had no objection if Androv wanted to roll a stair-truck under the fuselage of Daedalus /, then climb into the underbay and inspect turbo pumps in the dead of night. Everybody knew he was eccentric. No, make that insane. You'd have to be to want to ride a rocket. They'd just waved him in. After all, the classified avionics in the forward bays were secured.
He smiled grimly to think that he'd been absolutely right. Hangar Control was getting lax about security in these waning days before the big test. It always happened after a few months of mechanics trooping in and out.
That also explained why he now had a full set of magnetic access cards for all the sealed forward bays. Just as he'd figured, the mechanics were now leaving them stuffed in the pockets of the coveralls they kept in their lockers in the changing room.
Time to get started.
There was, naturally, double security, with a massive airlock port opening onto a pressure bay, where three more secure ports sealed the avionics bays themselves. The airlock port was like an airplane door, double reinforced to withstand the near vacuum of space, and in the center was a green metallic slot for a magnetic card.
He began trying cards, slipping them into the slot. The first, the second, the third, the fourth, and then, payoff. The three green diodes above the lock handle flashed.
He quickly shoved down the grip and pushed. The door eased inward, then rotated to the side, opening onto the pressure bay.