Project Cyclops Part 53

"It sounded pretty heroic."

"Well, it was mainly just . . . a challenge." He shrugged, continuing on down the dark trail. "Calling it heroic is maybe a bit much."

"No way." Her voice had a wonderful finality. "I think your attempt to recreate the voyage of Ulysses was a heroic undertaking. Period." She paused. "You know, maybe I

shouldn't tell you this, but you remind me an awful lot of somebody I used to know."

"Who's that?"

"His name doesn't matter, but it was Alan Harris. He was a biochemistry professor. Tall like you, older than me. I guess I made a fool of myself over him, looking back."

Vance didn't know quite what to say. "What happened?"

"What do you think happened? Older guy, smart, lovesick student looking for . . . never mind. When I think about it, I don't know whether to laugh or cry." Then her mood abruptly changed. "Okay, the construction shed is right over there." She was pointing through the dark and the light spatters of rain that had suddenly appeared. Was it beginning to storm again? "It's always locked, but it's got its own separate computer control, so it won't be shut down like everything else. All anybody has to do to get in is just to code in a requisition. That's how we keep inventory."

He led the way, keeping to the shadows. "Well, can you tell it to 'open sesame' and let us in?"

She nodded, then entered a small portico next to the entryway. There, on a terminal, she typed in the code that would disconnect the heavy electronic locks on the shed's door. Moments later he heard a click and watched the green diodes on the locks start to glow. Next it swung open and the fluorescent lights came on to reveal a perfect high-tech fabrication shop, with rows of precision machine tools lined up in neat rows, the floors spotless. Looking around, he wondered what kind of chemicals he could scrounge. There had to be something. . . .

12:10 A.M.

"Everything checks here," Wolf h.e.l.ling said, looking at the wide board of lights in Launch Control. 'The Pakis went up on the elevator and wired in the device. n.o.body here had any inkling what it is." He was speaking on his walkie-talkie to Dore Peretz, who was still operating the Fujitsu out of Command. "I think we're ready."

'Then you d better roll the gantry the h.e.l.l back, away from the vehicle," Peretz' voice barked. "My next item in the countdown is to test the alignment on the Cyclops, make sure the vehicle is receiving power."

"Okay," h.e.l.ling replied. 'The electronics are all in a positive state of mind here, but I guess you can't be too safe. By the way, how's everybody doing there? Having any trouble?"

"Our guests are getting with the program," came the answer. "I've even got an engineer friend here named Georges who's going to be a great help when the time comes. Small att.i.tude problem, but nothing I can't manage."

"Well, keep them all frightened. It's the best way. I'll get started with the rollback. Should only take a few minutes."

"Go for it," Dore Peretz said.

12:15 A.M.

Vance felt the cold steel rails, glistening lightly in the thin moonlight, and wondered how long it would take to set the charge.

He also wondered if his impromptu bomb would work as planned. It should. In the shop Cally had led him directly to a cache of British- made gelignite, left over from the days of excavation. He had shaped a so-called "diamond" charge which, when wrapped around a rail and detonated with a fuse, would produce shock waves that would meet at the center, then be deflected at right angles, shattering the metal. It was a little-known bomber's trick--one he learned from Willem Voorst--that usually produced total deformation and fracture.

He had insisted that she let him handle this one alone, claiming there was no need to endanger two people, and finally she had agreed. Dr.

Calypso Andros: she had already proven she could take control of a situation, like the one up the mountain, and handle it. That cool would come in handy later.

He also liked her New York street smarts. Yet beneath it all, he sensed something was wrong. She mentioned some guy named Alan, then clammed up. Funny. Reminding a woman of some old boyfriend could be a mixed blessing. Sometimes you got to take credit for the other guy's failings. . . .

Well, that cuts both ways. Admit it, he finally lectured himself.

Calypso Andros reminds you of Eva Borodin.

She was the temperamental Slavic beauty who had been the love--on and off--of his life. That was the bottom line. He still wore her wedding ring. He had loved her more than anything, and after she left he had tried everything he could think of to help forget her. None of it had worked. Even now, here, the thought of her kept coming back. . . .

But enough. Concentrate on the job at hand and get going.

Quickly he began securing the soft explosive. Although his instinct still was just to blow the whole gantry and have done with it, he agreed with Cally that that was a no-no. The idea was sabotage, not demolition. The difference might not be all that subtle, but there was a difference.

The gantry, a huge derrick on wheels, was illuminated by intensely focused floodlights from a battery across from the vehicles. The tracks were about sixty meters long, which suggested the distance it had to be away from VX-1 before the vehicle could lift off. So if he could destroy the tracks close enough, the gantry would be stuck in place, making a launch impossible.

The gelignite should do it, he told himself. The charge was going to wrap almost perfectly around the rails. This ought to be a snap. . . .

At that moment, he felt a tremor in the rails and looked up to see the lights on the gantry flicker as its motors revved to life. Then it started rolling; like a monolith, slow and a.s.sured, it began inching away from the vehicle and toward him.

12:18 A.M.

"Okay, it's moving back," h.e.l.ling said. "I guess this thing--"

Suddenly, as abruptly as it had begun, the gantry halted, its steel wheels screeching to a stop along the tracks.

"What happened?" Ramirez's eyes narrowed as he gazed out through the viewing window. A red indicator had come up on the console, flas.h.i.+ng.

The gantry, bathed in floodlights, was just standing there, stubbornly still.

"The control went into a safety mode." The German was staring at the console. "According to the lights here, the track sensors shut it down.

Maybe the rails are obstructed."

12:19 A.M.

Good safety system, Vance thought. He could feel them now, beneath the explosive--electronic sensors on the tracks, a thin line of parallel wires held by insulators, had detected his tampering and halted the gantry.

Wait a minute, he suddenly thought, maybe I don't have to blow the track after all. Why not just short-circuit these wires and let the thing's own safety system shut it down? They may not figure out for hours what the problem is.

With a grin he began going along the track, feeling his way through the dark as he twisted the parallel safety tripwires together every few feet, making certain they shorted.