Stein nodded. “Neither do I.”
Berry looked around the lounge. “How are these people behaving?”
“Erratic. They make me nervous. Too close.”
Berry watched Terri O’Neil walking awkwardly toward the cockpit again. He wished he could close and lock the damaged door. The flight attendant stood a few feet from the door and stared into the cockpit, her eyes fixed on Sharon Crandall, who didn’t seem aware of the other flight attendant’s presence. Berry glanced back at Stein. “I think, as a precaution, we might want to help these people get downstairs.”
Stein nodded. “Yes. But I’d like to bring my family up.”
Berry turned and faced him. “That’s not possible, Harold. I don’t think it’s really fair.” Berry wished that Stein would just accept things as they were, but he doubted that Stein would.
“Fair? Who the hell cares about fair? That’s my family I’m talking about. Who put you in charge here?”
“Mr. Stein, it’s entirely too risky to bring your family up here.”
“Why?”
“Well… anything could happen. It might start a procession up the stairs. We really can’t have people in the lounge any longer. They may go into the cockpit. Bump against something… they’d be disturbing-”
“I’ll watch my family,” Stein interrupted. His voice was firm. “My wife and two little girls… Debbie and Susan… they wouldn’t be in anyone’s way…” He lowered his head and covered his face with his hands.
Berry waited, then put his hand on Stein’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. But there’s nothing you can do for them now.”
Stein looked up. “Or ever?”
Berry avoided his eyes. “I’m not a doctor. I don’t know anything about this condition.”
“Don’t you?” Stein suddenly took a step down the staircase. “There is something I can do for them now. I can get them away from the others. Away from…” He looked down the spiral stairs. “I don’t want them down there. Can’t you see what’s happening down there? Can’t you? ”
Berry gripped Stein’s arm firmly. He nodded reluctantly. “All right, Harold. All right. After Barbara gets back, we can help these people down into the cabin. Then you can bring your family up. Okay?”
Stein let Berry draw him back up the step. Finally, he nodded. “Okay. I’ll wait.”
Linda Farley called out. “Mr. Berry!”
Berry walked quickly toward the piano where the girl was kneeling beside Stuart and McVary. “What is it?”
“This man opened his eyes.” She pointed to Stuart.
Berry kneeled down and looked into the Captain’s wide, staring eyes. After several seconds, Berry reached out and closed Stuart’s eyelids, then pulled the blanket over the Captain’s face.
“Is he dead?”
Berry looked at the girl. “Yes. He is.”
She nodded. “Is everyone going to die?”
“No.”
“Will my mother die, too?”
“No. She’s going to be all right.”
“Can she come up here like Mr. Stein’s family?”
Berry was fairly certain that Linda Farley’s mother was lying dead in the rubble or had been sucked out of the aircraft. But even if she were alive… Berry’s mind whirled with the possible answers-lies, really-but none of them was even close to being adequate. “No. She can’t come up here.”
“Why not?”
He stood quickly and turned away from the dead pilot. He said to Linda, “Trust me. Okay? Just trust me and do what I say.”
Linda Farley sat back against the leg of the piano and pulled her knees up to her chin. She buried her face in her hands and began to sob. “I want my mother.”
Berry leaned over her and stroked her hair. “Yes, I know. I know.” He straightened up. He was not very good at this. He remembered other occasions of bereavement in his own family. He’d never had the right words, was never able to bring comfort. He turned and walked back toward the cockpit. He took Terri O’Neil firmly by the shoulders and pushed her away from the door.
The glow of his technical triumphs was dying quickly against the cold realities of the personal tragedies around him.
Berry entered the cockpit.
Sharon Crandall was on the interphone. “Hold on, Barbara. John’s back in the cockpit.” She looked up at Berry. “Barbara’s all right. How’s everything back there?”
Berry sat heavily in his seat. “Okay.” He paused. “Not really. The passengers are getting a little… troublesome.” He cleared his throat and said, “The Captain is dead.”
Sharon Crandall closed her eyes and lowered her head. She said softly, “Oh, damn it.” She felt a deep sadness, a sense of loss over Captain Stuart’s death. The signs were becoming ominous again.
“Sharon?”
She looked up. “I’m all right. Here. Barbara wants to talk to you about some wires.”
Berry took the phone. “Barbara? What’s up? Where are you?”
“In the midsection.” Her voice sounded distant, and the whistling of the rushing air and the jet engines was louder. “There’s a bundle of wires hanging down from the ceiling near the bigger hole. Some of the passengers brushed against them and nothing happened. There doesn’t seem to be any electricity in them.”
Berry thought for a moment. Everything in the Straton seemed to be working except the voice radios. Severed cables might account for that. He hoped the wires had nothing to do with the flight controls. “They might be antenna wires.” It was logical that on a supersonic jet, the antennas would be mounted in some low-drag area like the tail. He suspected that the data-link utilized a different signal and a flat-plate antenna, which would be near the noise. That was why the link worked while the radios didn’t.
“Do you want me to try to reconnect them?”
Berry smiled. In a technical age, everyone was a technician. Still, it was a heads-up suggestion and a gutsy one, too. “No. You’d need splicing tools and it would take too long, anyway.” If those wires were involved somehow with the controls, he’d have to go down eventually and try to connect them himself. “They’re not important.” Something else was bothering him, and Barbara Yoshiro was in a position to clear it up. “Listen, Barbara, did you see any signs of the explosion? Anything like burnt seats? Charred metal? You know?”
There was a pause. “No. Not really. No.” There was another silence. “It’s odd. There is absolutely nothing that looks like an explosion-except for the mess and the holes.”
Berry nodded. That had been his impression. If the holes had been in the top and bottom of the fuselage, he would have suspected that they’d passed through a meteor shower. He knew that it was an infinitely rare phenomenon, even at 62,000 feet. Could a meteor travel horizontally? Berry had no idea, although it seemed unlikely. Should he put something out about this on the data-link? Did it matter? “Barbara, how are the passengers?”
“About half of them are still pretty quiet. But some of the others are wandering around now. The turn stirred them up, I think. There’s been some fighting.”
Berry thought that her voice sounded cool and uninvolved, like a good reporter’s. “Watch yourself. Work your way slowly. No abrupt movements.”
“I know.”
“There are people congregating at the bottom of the stairs,” he informed her.
“I can’t see the stairs from here, but I can see part of the crowd on both sides of the forward galley and lavatories.”
“When you get to the interphone in that galley, call me. Or shout to Stein. One of us will help you back up.”
“Okay.”
“Take care of yourself. Here’s Sharon.”
Barbara Yoshiro didn’t feel like talking much longer. As she looked out of the flight-attendant station in the midsection galley, she saw that the passengers were beginning to pay too much attention to her. The station was a cul-de-sac, and her only advantage with these people lay in her mobility.
“Barbara?”
“Yes, I’m coming back now.”
“Is it very bad? Should I come down?” Sharon Crandall asked.
“No.” Yoshiro put a light tone in her voice. “I’ve been a flight attendant long enough to know how to avoid groping hands.” The joke came out badly and she added quickly, “They’re not paying any particular attention to me. See you in a few minutes.” She replaced the interphone and stepped into the aisle. She kept her back against the bulkhead of the lavatory and stared into the cavern that lay between the front of the airliner and herself, then looked back toward the tail.