Godzilla at World's End (12 page)

Michael Sullivan is sweet, though
, she remembered, realizing that the evening had not been
all
bad.
And I like Peter, too, though he is very shy.
Shelly was neutral about Ned Landson - the young oceanographer didn't impress her despite his discoveries.

Ned is too handsome to have much of a brain in his pretty little head
, she concluded.

But despite the benefit of getting to know her passengers, Shelly longed to get up front, on the bridge itself.

Finally, this morning, she got lucky. At their last event - a public relations visit to Savannah - Simon Townsend received a message from his trouble-shooters. They needed the designer's personal help to supervise the construction of the landing tower at one of the airship's next destinations.

Because such lighter-than-air craft had not been in general use for more than fifty years - with the exception of a few advertising blimps featured at athletic events worldwide - even the most modern airports lacked the facilities to handle a massive airship like the
Destiny Explorer
.

A single hundred-foot mooring tower and one or two equally tall elevator towers for passenger access and supply were required to service the INN airship. Not to mention at least twenty skilled ground crewmen to help land and tie down the behemoth.

For that reason, Mycroft E. Endicott had three prefabricated mooring towers and six portable elevator towers designed and constructed. The docking systems could be transported by cargo aircraft or trucks and erected in a suitable landing field in less than three days.

These three mooring systems, and their highly trained construction and ground crews, hop-scotched down the eastern seaboard, erecting the mooring towers at each of the airship's scheduled stops.

Because the
Explorer
was so large, no functioning airport had yet given permission for the airship to dock inside its airspace - that would just be too disruptive to daily activity in a busy airport.

Savannah International was no exception. For the airship's visit to Georgia, the
Explorer
had docked at Hunter Army Airfield near Oglethorpe Mall and Savannah's Memorial Stadium - where a huge rally was held just this morning to welcome and cheer on the voyagers.

But while on the ground in Savannah, Simon Townsend had received word that the crewmen building the mooring tower in Mexico City were experiencing insurmountable technical problems. The problem was deemed so pressing that Mycroft E. Endicott had sent his personal Lear jet to the Hunter airfield to pick up the chief engineer and designer of the
Explorer
and take him ahead to Mexico.

Two hours before, as Shelly Townsend's father waved good-bye to her from the tarmac of Hunter Army Airfield, her heart was racing in anticipation of this moment.

Now, as the airship cruised high above Ossabaw Island, Shelly Townsend held the con. And she loved every minute of it ...

***

"It just shows that a hacker - no matter how good he
thinks
he is - isn't necessarily a computer expert," Leena Sims said cruelly.

Michael Sullivan, from his station on the opposite side of the computer lab, ignored her remark - at least outwardly.

Inwardly, he cringed.
I never presented myself as anything more than a hacker, and I'm certainly not a computer expert.
But his thoughts remained unspoken.

It was better that way, the youth thought. He'd already had one confrontation with Leena. He didn't want another. Michael had decided to steer clear of the hotheaded computer designer.

The trouble came to a head the other night while he and Leena were trying to get the interior floodlights on the airship to work.

Shelly Townsend had asked them to help get the lights integrated with an on-board computer. The computer was designed to operate the complex and sophisticated lighting system. With different settings, the ship could be lighted externally in a variety of colors, or internally with the lights that were installed in the center of the fuselage.

Unfortunately, due to time constraints, only the normal running lights were working. The computer had not yet been hooked up. Shelly thought it might be a good project for him and Leena to tackle.

After hours of work, he and Leena thought they'd finally integrated the system. But when they turned on the exterior lights, only the port-side system was working. The starboard side remained dark. Michael ran a diagnostic test on the computer and announced that there was a faulty connection somewhere in the fuselage of the giant airship.

For the next two hours, Shelly, Leena, Peter, and even Ned climbed up maintenance ladders and crawled into access tunnels and along horizontal struts while the electrician checked the power generator.

They found nothing wrong.

Leena Sims announced that she would repeat the diagnostic test and discovered a critical error Michael had made the first time. The problem wasn't the hard-wiring - it was a software glitch. Everyone was polite about the mistake Michael had made - a mistake that had sent them all on a wild-goose chase.

Everyone, that is, but Leena.

She actually insulted him, in front of everyone. She accused him of being computer illiterate. Michael stood up to her that night, insisting that he was only human, and not a computer genius like her. His words only made her angrier.

To make up for his error, Michael had worked on locating the software glitch for the past two days - stopping only to make the public appearance in Savannah.

He hadn't found it yet.

Then, ten minutes ago, Leena had come into the lab and demanded to know what Michael was doing. When he told her, she exploded. She stormed off to a computer station on the opposite side of the computer lab, her laptop in tow.

Acting busy with the data on his screen, Michael stole a look at her now. She was still downloading information onto her sophisticated laptop.

Then Leena saw him looking at her. Michael thought she actually looked sick. Leena slammed the lid of her portable computer angrily and avoided his stare.

"I'm going back to my room and work this problem out," she announced haughtily. "It is obvious
you
can't."

As she rushed past Michael and opened the door of the lab, the youth was sure that Leena Sims looked pale and sickly ...

***

"Whoa!" Robin Halliday cried as Leena plowed into her in the narrow corridor running through the passenger area of the
Destiny Explorer
. "What's the hurry?" the reporter demanded, stepping backward.

The intense, dark-haired teenager looked up at Robin, her face scrunched up in obvious discomfort.

"Nothing ... just get out of my way!" Leena cried. "I'm going to my room."

Robin stepped aside, and the girl rushed past her. Leena reached her room, fumbled for her key, and ran the card through the slide. When the lock clicked, Leena yanked the door open. She hurried in and slammed the door behind her.

Robin heard the lock click again.

Then the reporter smiled knowingly.
Well, well
, Robin thought with some relish.
The almighty princess of microchips acts like a tough cookie on the outside, but I recognize her problem, because I am very familiar with the symptoms.

At that moment, Robin realized that Leena Sims had the same problem as her former boss, Nick Gordon.

This little genius is afraid of flying!

***

Leena locked the door and had barely reached the bunk when the tremors hit. Her hands shook, her teeth chattered. Panic overwhelmed her, and her heart palpitated until it threatened to stop completely. Leena gasped for breath as she dropped the laptop on the floor next to her bed.

Moaning aloud, Leena clutched the blankets until her knuckles turned white.

Damn!
she screamed at herself.
No matter what I do, I can't crush this fear and forget that I'm in an airship!
It had always been Leena's secret. She'd been afraid of heights since she was little. Lately, that fear had expanded exponentially. Now she could barely contain her fear of being off the ground for an hour at a time.

But she was still determined to try and beat this fear, no matter what it took.

For the first few days aboard the
Destiny Explorer
, Leena had locked herself up in her stateroom. As requested, she got a room in the central section of the passenger area so her cabin had no windows. She had her meals brought to her room instead of taking them in the glass-walled dining room.

She just hid from everyone, waiting for the fear that threatened to consume her to pass. Finally, after the first day or so, she was able to venture out to the computer lab, but not much farther. There were no windows in the corridor to remind her of where she was, but if she accidentally saw out a window, the fear would rise from her belly and threaten to overwhelm her.

When Shelly Townsend asked Leena to help with the lighting computers, Leena almost lost her nerve completely. She was sure that everybody would figure out she was afraid, and then she'd be put off at the next stop.

Fortunately, the work was done in the center of the ship, and there were no windows through which she could see how high the airship was - and how far down was the solid, steady Earth.

Leena Sims was not sure how much longer she could hide her fear of flying from the others, but she was determined to let the charade last as long as possible ...

***

Nick Gordon, on the other hand, felt like a new man.

As far as he was concerned, this assignment had changed his life - and it had hardly begun! That was because he'd learned that he wasn't afraid of flying - he just suffered from airsickness.

The first night aboard the
Explorer
was endless for the INN science reporter. Every shift of the airship, every change in sound and speed, brought with it a fit of nausea. He'd experienced mild nausea in boats and submarines - but getting into an airplane or a helicopter had always been a terrifying experience for Nick.

Usually he threw up until there was nothing left in his stomach - then he threw up some more. That's exactly what happened on the
Explorer
. Finally, Nick relented and went to Dr. Grace, the onboard physician.

The doctor chuckled knowingly as Nick described his symptoms. Suddenly, just as Nick was suggesting that he might need some kind of psychological counseling - speculating that his problem stemmed from some trauma of youth - Dr. Grace pressed a hypodermic gun to the reporter's arm and pulled the trigger.

"Ouch!" Nick cried. "What did you do
that
for?"

The woman smiled at him. "I just administered a large dose of a new type of antiemetic drug."

"Huh?" Nick replied.

"I just treated you for motion sickness," Dr. Grace explained.

"But I'm not suffering from motion sickness," he argued. "I'm suffering from a fear of flying!"

"Any heart palpitations? Difficulty breathing? Sweaty palms?" the doctor demanded in rapid fire. Nick shook his head each time.

The doc shrugged her shoulders. "Then you have motion sickness," she announced. She went to an aluminum cupboard and unlocked it. "I'll give you a patch behind your ear," she informed him. "The patch will let the antiemetics into your system in a controlled dosage. Your 'fear of flying' should pass in a few days."

And so it did
, Nick thought happily. He rose from his computer and stretched his stiff muscles. Then he walked to the window in his stateroom and looked out into the darkening sky and the black ocean below.

I think I'll take a walk on the observation deck
, he decided happily ...

***

"Hand me that wrench, Peter," Ned Landson asked, his dirty hand thrust in front of the youth's nose. Peter Blackwater sighed and lifted the heavy tool from a chest at his feet. He set it in Ned's palm.

"Thanks," Ned mumbled, turning a bolt that anchored the vertical stabilizer to the fuselage of the partially assembled Messerschmitt-XYB.

Though Peter's field of interest was botany and Ned's was oceanography, both young men fell in love with the concept behind this sexy flying machine. Built by the Germans, the XYB combined the vertical takeoff and, landing properties of a Harrier jump jet with the passenger capacity of a helicopter. The result was a small, compact craft that had a wide body and short, stubby wings, and could carry eight people and a pilot.

The XYB's task was to carry passengers from the hangar built into the airship's central hull to the ground below without the airship having to dock. On this trip, the experimental VTOL - vertical takeoff and landing aircraft - was to be used as a glorified elevator.

But the Messerschmitt-XYB had a top speed of 200 miles an hour, and a range of about 200 miles! Unfortunately, the XYB was so horrendously fuel-gobbling that it could be used only in certain conditions, and not for long-distance flying.

In fact, the XYB hadn't been used on this trip; like many other things aboard the
Destiny Explorer
, it was not yet finished. And anyway, the XYB was being saved for the Antarctic, where ground crews and landing towers would not always be available.

"There," Ned announced, sitting up and wiping some grease off his face. "I think the left rear stabilizer has been installed."

Peter Blackwater only partially understood what Ned was doing, but he enjoyed working with the kid from Florida. Ned, on the other hand, was used to working on boat engines and even aircraft - his father's deep-sea salvage facility owned two Bell helicopters. Ned saw the XYB as a chance to mess with new machinery.

Peter saw it as a chance to work near Shelly Townsend. She had joined them the other day as they began work on the XYB. The young Native American was smitten. He had never met anyone like the
Destiny Explorer
's first mate. She was cute and nice and she knew all about science - and she even knew how to fly this massive airship! Shelly was older than Peter, and totally unlike the girls he knew back in his tiny village in Alaska.

Deep in his heart of hearts, Peter knew that his crush on Shelly was pointless and absurd, but for now he was content to be near her whenever he had the chance. In fact, Peter was disappointed that Shelly hadn't shown up at the hangar tonight.