Icefire by Judith Reeves-Stevens & Garfield Reeves-Stevens

Author:Judith Reeves-Stevens & Garfield Reeves-Stevens [Reeves-Stevens, Judith & Reeves-Stevens, Garfield]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: eBook, Fixed, pBook, Thriller
ISBN: 9780671014025
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 1998-06-30T14:00:00+00:00

Ten

ANG 109TH AIR WING/CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALAND

“Well, that’s certainly the biggest penis I’ve ever seen.”

At the entrance to the hangar, Webber turned to scowl at Cory. The unquestionably phallic silhouette of the Blackbird was behind him, a large sharp nose stretching out from short, set-back wings, each with a suggestively round, oversized engine. “Well, it is,” she said.

“Don’t let Bardeen hear you,” Webber said. “We don’t need any more trouble.”

“Mitchell, I’m wearing a space suit. I have a urine collection receptacle stuck to my crotch with adhesive strips. And I’m being hauled off to the Pentagon against my will. Bardeen’s the least of my troubles.” Cory tried to put her hands on her hips, but it was too difficult a maneuver in the cumbersome orange pressure gear she wore. Just like the suits the shuttle astronauts wore for launches, Captain Rosinski had told her as she had helped Cory into it. Bardeen’s reconnaissance officer had seemed to be about as pleased that Cory was going to fly in the Blackbird as Cory was—not at all.

“I really don’t want to do this,” she said as she surveyed the vaguely menacing aircraft before them. After the Harrier, she knew a little of what she’d likely be experiencing—and because Webber seemed to think a Blackbird was a big deal, it could be an even bigger deal for her.

Webber walked back to her, but stayed in the shadow of the hangar. The New Zealand morning sun was hot and Cory’s orange suit was like a personal sauna. Rosinski had told her that the pressure suit wouldn’t be air-conditioned until Cory was hooked into the Blackbird’s pilot-support system. Apparently, the airfield didn’t have the small air-conditioning suitcases that astronauts carried on their way to their craft because the 109th wasn’t set up to handle the Blackbird. Rosinski had emphasized that she and Webber were lucky a Q-series fuel tanker specially equipped to handle Blackbirds had managed to land in time.

“I told you,” Webber said from the shade, “if you stayed here, Abbott was going to hold you.”

“On what charges?”

“He doesn’t need charges.”

Cory moved into the shade as well. The pressure suit was even more restricting than the multilayered cold-weather gear she had worn in McMurdo. Even to be able to look up and see Webber past the overhang of the white space helmet she wore, she had to bend her head back at an uncomfortable angle. “Have we suddenly become a military dictatorship? Or should I say, have we become more of a military dictatorship?”

“Look at it from his point of view.”

“I just ate.”

“Listen, I’m serious. What happened in Antarctica was at the very least an act of environmental terrorism. There is going to be a criminal investigation of this entire incident, more than one, by every country affected by the wave. And you and I are the only eyewitnesses. You hear what I’m saying?”

Webber’s reasoning had just crossed the line from ludicrously self-deluded to surreal. “Abbott thinks I did it? Oh, my God, is that

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