Undercurrents by Robert Buettner Read Free Book Online Page B

“No, really.”
    “Really. Actually, if you did go supersonic, that could be a problem. The fins we’re adding to the suit’s thigh plates will keep you falling headfirst—”
    “Headfirst? Nice touch. Thanks. But no.” Spook jump school had included one sky dive–style belly-flop familiarization jump. “I’ll just belly flop. That’ll slow me down.”
    He paused and stared at me. “—Headfirst. In practical vacuum you can’t stop spinning if you start. If you belly flop, then start to spin, you’d spin flat, like you were an old holodisc on a turntable. When you reached one hundred forty-five rpm, centrifugal force would pancake your brain flat against the top of your skull.”
    “Oh.”
    “That would snap your brain off of your brain stem.”
    I swallowed. “Which would kill me.”
    He shook his head. “Actually, no.”
    “Great news.”
    “You’d already be dead. Increased pressure in your cranial blood vessels would have ruptured them before that.”
    I nodded. “Okay, then. Headfirst.”
    He paused again, hands on hips, and sighed. “Sir, this will go smoother if you just trust us. We’ve thought this through.”
    I nodded. “Sorry. It’s just that I’m the one doing the falling.”
    He grinned at me and pumped his fist. “And what a ride, huh? Air- borne , sir!”
    I sighed. “Yeah. All the way.”
    He wrinkled his forehead. “As I was saying, the problem if you go supersonic in the headfirst attitude is that your head becomes supersonic first. A moment before your torso does.”
    “So?”
    “So the buffeting instability of an object’s transonic passage can cause the object to disarticulate along planes of weakness.”
    I stared at him.
    He said, “Uh, back in the day, experimental aircraft used to break up. After all, we still call it the sound barrier. The human body, even in armor, is weaker than an old jet fuselage.”
    I frowned. “I’d break when I hit the barrier?”
    He nodded. “Ever shoot a chicken into a boulder?”
    No, but it sounded like some of Howard’s twisted minions had.
    He thrust up his index finger. “But we’re attaching speed-sensitive dive brakes to the suit. They’ll slow you automatically. Heck, you won’t exceed six hundred miles per hour. Probably.”
    “Probably?” My voice rose. “ Probably? ”
    He turned his palms up and cocked his head. “Given budget and time, we’d have tested this technique better, Lieutenant. But this case requirement just came up. We needed technology that was already on the shelf, and—”
    I sighed. Everybody who works for Howard sighs a lot. “And cheap?” Spook budgets had been unlimited during the Slug War, when human existence hung in the balance. Mankind had mortgaged its future to build Mousetrap and the cruiser fleet. But now we were still paying off the debt decades later.
    He flicked his eyes down at the deck plates, then looked up. “This concept was developed clear back in the space-capsule days, so the old astronauts could escape from a malfunctioning reaction-propelled spacecraft. After we got C-drive, spacecraft didn’t really need the technology.”
    I raised my eyebrows. “But back in the space-capsule days it did work?”
    “The odds of a successful outcome are five in ten.”
    “This saved five astronauts? I never heard of even one.”
    “Our simulated odds. Nobody’s ever actually done this and lived. General Hibble prefers to say that nobody’s actually done this and died.”
    “Yet.” I stared up at the bay roof plates. I scuffed my boot toe across the deck.
    Then I sighed, unclamped my helmet, and tugged it off. I stripped off the rest of the suit, dropped it to the deck plates, and stood there barefoot in my skivs.
    “I know, sir. I jump out of perfectly good airplanes every week back home, for fun and for jump-pay qualification. Weddle’s a better jumper than I am. But if I were in your boots, sir? Honestly?” He shook his head.
    I sat down at the table and crossed my arms.