The Big Lifters

by Dean Ing

  “I hope so,” Wes winked back, then unlatched a handset from his belt. The maglev hovered now in its cradle of rails. “Boff, how does the console look in there?”

  Allington’s reply from the maglev chirped in the speaker, “All systems up and green, Wesley. As soon as Rogan turns the helm over to Chris, he can come down here and replace me in this thing. I’m checking the instrument feed circuits; won’t be long.”

  What Allington did not say was this: Part of his checkout, in the minutes prior to boarding by the Santa Fe test engineer, involved remote controls of the maglev. Allington’s slave relays lay hidden behind the maglev console panels, a necessary feature only for Highjump. The remote console, no larger than a keyboard, sat in Delta One’s cabin, for now. When the sleek orange maglev inched forward, then back, the newly attached canard winglets jittering noisily, Wes assumed it was Allington who operated those controls.

  “Tell Rogan not to leave without me,” Wes said jauntily into his handset, smiling, not seeing the sudden concern sweep across Sage’s face. “I’ve never ridden this sucker, and today’s the day.”

  Pat Sage migrated quickly toward his own people and spoke to Santa Fe’s contracts man. At the edge of his vision, while replacing the handset, Wes saw razor-cut gray heads swivel in his direction; heard two murmured responses. Then Sage, a little louder now, “Isn’t there some way? It’s his own skin.” More murmurs. Finally, from Sage, louder still, “I know that, Mr. Burridge, but you can bet your debentures he doesn’t.”

  Stan Burridge, with a sigh that strained his vest, made a command decision, not loud, but one that would carry as far as it needed to. “Then tell him, Patrick. Without waving small print in his face, if possible. But wave it if you have to; we still go by the book.”

  How simple it would be, Wes fumed, if you could just go head-to-head with prime contractors, yell like hell if you had to. But men like Burridge always seemed to have a man like Sage handy, senior enough to know his onions but junior enough to know his place, running interference. Wes was thinking it before Sage returned to his side, and he kept thinking it as they strolled toward Delta One’s moorage pylon.

  He was sorry to run back and forth like a messenger boy, said Pat Sage, but that was better than watching an argument get out of hand. It was very simple, said Sage. The railroads were bound by union contracts like Gulliver by Lilliputians. Santa Fe’s test engineer would sit at that console, and a brake-man would sit at his portal near the rear foil, and only because Glenn Rogan’s papers had been rushed through, Rogan would ride beside the engineer as engineer-trainee. Given advance notice, they could have put through papers making Wes a fireman-trainee. Yes, fireman, Mr. Peel, don’t tell Santy Fee that was idiotic; Santy Fee knew. Of course there wasn’t any firebox in a maglev, and if there ever was any fire, by God, the union would be apoplectic. Even though that same union was still trying to find some way to require firemen on maglevs. Maybe they could install a wood stove next to the helium tanks, said Sage, tongue firmly in cheek.

  And no, they couldn’t bend union rules if they wanted to run a railroad. Mr. Allington’s checking of controls was acceptable, but when the duly appointed engineer and brakeman signed on, even Allington must leave. Nope again, John Wesley Peel couldn’t wander in masquerading as a brakeman-trainee, either. The contract, in case the subcontractor had forgotten - that’s you, Mr. Peel - specifically denied deadheading by unauthorized persons - that’s also you, Mr. Peel - and Stan Burridge Himself would, as always, stand on the perquisites of the prime contractor - that’s us, Mr. Peel. Santy Fee was not Santy Claus.

  Wes, craning his neck to watch Rogan nose the big delta toward her moorage, vented a sigh audible over Delta One’s props. “Sage, off the record, how old are you?”

  Pat Sage, now four hundred yards from executive country, became another man with his grin and his, “None of your damn’ business. Why?”

  “I suspect that however old we get, we never cease to entertain dumb ideas. For example, every now and then I dicker with the notion of going public with a stock issue, get me a board of directors, let ’em turn gray in the front office while I play.” Pause, then a slow headshake. “But I wouldn’t have any more got-damn control than I have this morning, would I?”

  Pat Sage, not quite smiling, looked Wes in the eye. “No more than a toad in a blender. And if you got nasty about it, some number-crunching glorified accountant would push the ‘puree’ button on you.” A companionable silence as they watched Delta One’s modified cargo platform lever downward, with Glenn Rogan standing on it. Then, “Peel? We still off the record?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’m a number-cruncher myself. I’m good at it, but I know my limitations. You don’t; maybe that means you don’t have any. ” Sage stared with envy at Wes’s open shirt, glanced lazily over his shoulder, tugged to loosen his tie. “Whenever a man like you gets to the top, a thousand men like me point him out as a dinosaur from the old days, not real corporate material, out of control, maybe a little crazy.” He ticked off on his fingers: “Hughes, Getty, Onassis, Northrop. I mean,” he laughed, a cackle like Rogan’s, and waved toward Delta One. “Imagine NASA gluing that thing together in less than ten years! Shit, imagine NASA putting up a real fleet of second-generation orbiters, no matter that the Russkies are almost there, while every manager is busy guarding his family jewels from fifty different people. Any top-heavy management outfit has the same problem. But you dinosaurs, you’re top-heavy with teeth: overachievers, risk freaks. So long as a few of you are roaming the corporate jungle pounding new paths, Peel, this country’s got a fighting chance.”

  Wes, always uncomfortable with this kind of praise, turned it aside with, “I just realized what really killed off all the dinosaurs.”

  “I give up.”

  “Top management,” Wes grunted. He met Sage’s grin and handclasp, then glanced toward the distant gray heads. “I should put it more diplomatically, but how would you like a good job?”

  “I’ve got one, so I didn’t hear that. There are'a few of us bean-counters who can watch the track ahead while we watch our backs too. I’m where I ought to be. And so are you.”

  In Sage’s frank gaze, Wes saw a commitment to excellence, even excellence of a sort very different from Sage’s own. I'm glad he turned me down. We need him where he is, Wes thought. Aloud he said, “Well, how about a ride to the test site? Couple of spare seats in Delta One. ’ ’

  “I thought you’d never ask,” Sage replied, letting his eyes rove across the monster with that mixture of fondness and awe which, for Wes, was the only proper flattery.

  Rogan hopped down from the platform, strode to Wes, and waited only long enough to shake Pat Sage’s hand. “Sorry you can’t come along,” he said to them both.

  “What the hell,” Wes grumbled, then essayed a lopsided grin. “How’s it feel to be a trainee?”

  “ ’Bout like you’d expect,” Rogan shrugged, and left them standing there.

  “At least I’ll get the ride I wanted,” Sage chuckled. “You understand, I’m only going because I had to sweet-talk you out of a rage. For the record,” he added, waving toward Burridge Himself.

  “And so you could worm your way into my confidence and find out what I’m planning for next year,” Wes countered.

  “Naturally. My God, Peel, it would make my career if I could tell old Burridge what you’ll be doing in orbital freight ten years from now!”

  Wes frowned his disbelief. “I doubt the hell out of that, ’cause I won’t be doing anything in that field. Ever. Somebody’s putting you on, Sage. Where’d you get such an idea?” Blank look, then a shrug. “Uh - the people you hire, I guess. Their resumes were in your proposal to us: Rogan, Schultheis, Kaplan, that Brit import. I’m sure you play boardroom games like that. You know; take a look at the staff in the wheelhouse, and guess where the boat is headed.” “Um,” was all Wes said as he motioned Patrick Sage onto the cargo platform of Delta One. But he thought about that al
l the way to the test site.

  * * * *

  Jim Christopher waited only until Allington was aboard, then nudged Delta One eastward a thousand feet above the desert, above the two parallel sets of maglev rails. His passengers watched black limousines crawl toward Interstate 15 far below. Patrick Sage had the gift of remembering names on first acquaintance: Tom and Alma Schultheis, Dave Kaplan, Brian Allington, Reese Masefield.

  Allington busied himself at his own console, announcing presently that the maglev was underway. “If I know Rogan, he’ll beat us to Coyote Dry Lake.”

  “If I know a Santa Fe test engineer with forty years of seniority, no he won’t either,” Sage replied with a chuckle, as Alma readied her Nikon and peered at the maglev rails gleaming below. “We’ve set up a dummy load and misaligned a track segment for your maintenance unit to play with before the acceptance runs.”

  “Nobody tells me anything,” Alma sighed, tossing a vexed look at Wes. “What’s going to happen?”

  “Nothing very exciting before lunch,” said Dave Kaplan, “but it’s all vital.”

  “Vital stuff is boring stuff,” she said.

  Reese Masefield, fingering the Hasselblad in his lap, burst out laughing and nodded agreement, earning wry expressions from Wes and Pat Sage.

  Presently the shadow of Delta One ghosted over Coyote Dry Lake ahead of them. Christopher loitered the big craft southward, bringing her about so that his passengers could watch the “vital” stuff. Sure enough, Santa Fe had erected bleachers with a sunshade for its nabobs. Nearby, near the rails, a slender maglev passenger car lay on its side. ‘ ‘One of our old prototype cars,” Sage told Alma Schultheis. “It shouldn’t ever derail that badly, but it’s possible.” Two choppers with network markings identified the scatter of press people already scurrying for high bleacher seats. Soon, the bright orange dart of the maglev slid into view along its right-of-way between towers of the old Los Angeles power line. Wes patched himself into the circuit with Allington, listening to the cross talk with Rogan.

  Santa Fe’s brakeman, with his alignment display, found the misaligned rail segment - to no one’s surprise, nearest the bleachers - and soon the sleek orange maintenance unit squatted on pneumatic rams for the rail adjustment. It was not soon enough for Alma and Masefield, who quickly pronounced it dishwater-dull. No matter that Wes and Sage composed a cheering section; no matter that the maglev’s deployed boom snatched that “derailed” passenger car up and oriented it over the adjacent rails an hour later: It had no pizzazz, said Alma, and the hell with it, added Masefield. They persuaded Jim Christopher to circle the area, locating the hamlet of Manix and, on their westward swing, the Calico Mountains archaeological dig.

  The maintenance unit had towed the old prototype passenger car out of sight to Barstow, and Delta One’s people were casting aspersions on the sandwiches in their box lunches - “I never believed in rubber chickens,” said Kaplan, “ ’til I tasted rubber-chicken salad,” - when Wes noticed Tom Schultheis respond to some silent gesture from the direction of Allington’s console. The others chatted comfortably, a background noise that might mask a quiet conversation. Wes moved his headset an inch and leaned back.

  “Got a drag coefficient for you, Thomas. Not good enough by half, I think. ”

  Tom Schultheis glanced at the console, grimaced, then asked, “On the way out, or coupled with that car?” They spoke so quietly that Wes was certain they did not expect to be overheard.

  “With the car.”

  A long exhalation. “You wouldn’t believe the cruddy drag figures on long trains, Boff. Relax; run the program again on the speed trials when it isn’t towing that brick of Santa Fe’s.” Allington again: “What do you have to see?”

  Thoughtful pause. Then, almost inaudible: “Point-four-three to meet Santa Fe’s velocity on nominal power.”

  “Piece of cake, then. But for your personal target velocity?”

  Wes almost missed it, Tom’s fingers making a three and then a one before Allington sat back, pursing his lips for a silent whistle. “That would be good for a racing car,” Allington observed.

  Tom patted Allington’s shoulder, said, “Not if I designed it,” in a slightly louder voice, then poised motionless.

  Wes could not be sure without looking, and he forced himself to avoid that look; but he felt certain that Tom Schultheis was suddenly aware that he was being overheard. After a slow count of ten, Schultheis moved forward again to his seat.

  It was another twenty seconds before Schultheis announced, “Mr. Sage, according to our data, we ought to challenge your best loco to a race sometime.”

  Pat Sage smiled around a mouthful of sandwich. “Brave talk before the trial,” he murmured.

  “My personal target velocity is over three hundred miles an hour,” Tom said jauntily, and reached for a cookie.

  Wes listened to them banter, and wondered if Tom Schultheis had made his boast to dispose of that phrase. Personal target velocity; why would Boff consider it any more personal for Tom than for me? Far back in his experience lurked a simple drag calculation. Why not just ask Tom? Wes didn’t know why - and then he did. Tom had taken too much time thinking it over before his announcement. Maybe time enough to think it all out, maybe time to rehearse his phrasing. Unless my memory’s slipping, a drag coefficient of point-three-one implies a top speed of more than three hundred. A lot more. And even though the cabin air conditioner was going full tilt, Tom Schultheis was sweating.

  * * * *

  Alma and Reese Masefield claimed seats by open windows when the speed trials began. Delta One wafted her enormous bulk lower, “. . . So you’ll get a better impression of her speed,” Wes explained. He did not add that press photographers in those bleachers would see Delta One in their viewfinders, like it or not. On her first run, the long lance of international orange came flying out from Barstow trailing a faint rooster tail of dust.

  “Now this is more like it,” Alma crowed, her Nikon whirring and clicking. Below, a faint hiss of air signaled the maglev’s distant passage, gliding smoothly across the desert. The sleek craft stopped near the first bend, several miles to the northeast.

  On its return, backing toward Barstow though the vehicle was obviously designed to run nose-first, it seemed to be moving even faster. “Rogan reports two hundred twenty feet per sec,” Allington announced.

  “Can you patch him into the cabin speakers?” asked Wes, then remembered Pat Sage. “Never mind, Boff.” On their scrambled channel, Rogan and Allington might voice concerns best kept from the Santa Fe’s ears. When Alma complained, her brother promised subsequent numbers in miles per hour.

  Tom Schultheis moved, perhaps too casually, to stand at Allington’s shoulder for the succeeding runs. On that next ran, the maglev’s dust trail was now obvious, the hiss of its passage more pronounced, dopplering up and then diminishing through open cabin windows. “A shade over two hundred and fifty,” Tom called forward. “That’s miles an hour, Sis,” he added. “Mr. Sage, you’ve bought yourselves a maintenance unit.” Applause resounded in Delta One’s cabin. Wes called back, “Boff, did you get the drag coefficient?”

  A two-beat silence. Then, “Oh-point-three, give or take,” Tom Schultheis replied. He added quickly, “It won’t look that good when the canards are really working.”

  As they spoke, the maglev reappeared, reversing toward Barstow. Its dust trail was even more pronounced because it battered the desert air harder while moving backward. Boff Allington began to chuckle as he attended to his console and cross talk in his headset. “Santa Fe’s engineer is happy as a clam, Wesley,” he said. “He’s never backed up at two hundred miles an hour.”

  “Well, that’s what we came for,” Pat Sage exclaimed, slapping his knees happily, and turning to Wes. “Can you get me down to my people? Mr. Burridge will want his debriefing. I needn’t tell you how pleased I am.”

  “There’s one more test,” Wes said.

  “But you’ve already passed!”


  Still smiling at Sage, Wes called, “Tom, what’s the record for maglevs?”

  Kaplan, who had seemed lost in thought and his memocomp for most of the day, supplied the answer. “In Alma’s terms, um, about two-eighty-five. That’s where nose buffeting gets pretty savage on all previous maglevs.”

  Wes, still looking toward Sage: “Does your engineer follow his test profiles religiously?”

  “You bet he does,” Sage laughed.

  “Tom Schultheis wrote this profile with my blessing,” said Wes. “Your man will run at the best speed he’s comfortable with.”

  Sage stood, a bit unsteadily, peering far down the rail toward a filament of orange on a sand-colored background. “I know something about that buffeting problem,” he said. “It’s risky as hell, Peel.”

  “That’s what those canards are for,” Tom Schultheis said evenly, leaning on Allington’s seat back.

  “Overachievers and risk freaks, you said,” Wes quoted to the Santa Fe man, and pointed toward the southwest. “Well, here comes the payoff.”

  The orange filament grew. It became a dart, then a lance-head, and this time from their view aloft its dust trail became two small and clearly separate tornadoes, arrow wakes trailing behind. Masefield muttered, “Holy Jesus,” manning his camera as the mighty lancehead flashed below them trailing its twin cyclones. Several tiny figures leaped from the bleachers, perhaps in panic, and the others swiveled abruptly as the maglev passed. Wes heard it, a faintly howling thunder that had been only a hiss before, and called to Allington: ‘ ‘Gimme a number!”

  “She’s still accelerating,” Schultheis called back.

  “Rogan reports they’re heading for the turnaround at Hal-loran Springs,” Allington called. “Arf a mo’, she’s slowing. . . . Rogan reports the engineer is worried about a steady vibration. Rogan thinks it’s just the canards doing their job.” “The speed, dammit, the speed,” Wes demanded, displaying crossed fingers on both hands.