"Wouldn't miss it for the world. There's a game going on here, and we have to stay in. Everybody's got a score to settle. We're about to see who settles up first."
"Zero minus eighteen hours." Yuri Andreevich Androv stared at the green screen, its numbers scrolling the computerized countdown. "Eighteen fucking hours."
As he wheeled around, gazing over the beehive of activity in Flight Control, he could already feel the adrenaline beginning to build. Everything depended on him now. The vehicle was as ready as it was going to be: all the wind tunnel tests, all the computer simulations, even the supersonic test flights—everything said go. Daedalus I was going to make history tomorrow morning.
Except, he told himself, it's going to be a very different history from the one everybody expects.
"Major Yuri Andreevich Androv, please report to Hangar Quadrant immediately."
The stridency of the facility's paging system always annoyed him. He glanced at the long line of computer screens one last time, then shrugged and checked his watch. Who wanted him?
Well, a new planeload of Soviet VIPs reportedly had flown in yesterday, though he hadn't seen any of them yet. He figured now that everything looked ready, the nomenklatura were flooding in to bask in triumph. Maybe after a day of vodka drinking and back slapping with the officials in Project Management, they'd sobered up and realized they were expected to file reports. So they were finally getting around to talking to the people who were doing the actual work. They'd summon in a few staffers who had hands-on knowledge of the project and commission a draft report, which they'd then file, unread, under their own names. Typical.
He reached for his leather flight jacket, deciding on a brisk walk to work off the tension. The long corridor leading from the East Quadrant to the Hangar Quadrant took him directly past Checkpoint Central and the entry to West Quadrant, the Soviet sector, which also contained the flight simulator and the main wind tunnel, or Number One, both now quiet.
As he walked, he thought again about the new rumor he'd heard in the commissary at lunch. Gossip kept the Soviet staff going—an instinct from the old days—but this one just might be true. Some lower-level staffers even claimed they'd seen him. The Chief.