"By the way, it's up there," Vance said quietly, shifting his head toward the newly installed video camera positioned just above the entry hatch. Androv glanced up, nodded, and together they turned away from it. Then without further conversation they each ripped off their Velcro-secured insignias—Androv's, the Soviet air force red star bordered in white; Vance's, the double ax—and exchanged them.
"How much time?" Androv whispered.
"Just give me ten minutes." He held up his heavy wrist-watch. Together they checked and synchronized.
"Good luck." Androv nodded and gave another thumbs- up sign, then clasped him in an awkward Russian hug. Vance braced himself for the traditional male kiss, but thankfully it didn't come. "Do svidania, moi droog," he said finally, standing back and saluting. Then he grinned and continued in accented English, "Everything will be A-okay."
Without another word he swung open the hatch, passed through, and stepped into the personnel module.
Vance watched him depart, then turned back to examine the Daedalus cockpit more closely. It was a bona fide marvel.
Screens, banks of screens, all along the wall—almost like a TV station's control room. Everything was there. Looking across, left to right, he saw that the engine readouts were placed on top: white bars showing power level, fan rpm, engine temperatures, core rpm, oil pressure, hydraulics, complete power-plant status. The next row started on the navigation and avionics: the radar altimeter, the airspeed indicator, the attitude-director indicator (AID) for real-time readings of bank and dive angle, the horizontal situation indicator (HSD) for actual heading and actual track, and on and on. All the electronics modules were already operating in standby mode—the slit-scan radar, the scanners, the high-resolution doppler. Other screens showed the view of the hangar as seen by the video cameras on the landing gear, now switched over from their infrared mode to visible light.
The avionics, all digital, were obviously keyed to the
buttons and switches on the sidestick, the throttles, and the two consoles. Those controls, he realized upon closer inspection, could alter their function depending on which display was being addressed, thereby reducing the clutter of separate buttons and toggle switches on the handgrips.
The cockpit was not over-designed the way so many modern ones tended to be: instead it had been entirely rethought. There were probably two hundred separate system readouts and controls, but the pilot's interface was simple and totally integrated. It was beautiful, a work of pure artistry.