Hard Line - Pamela Clare Page 0,13
For all she knew, the parts she needed to remove were too high off the ice for her to reach. Or perhaps they were buried in the ice as a result of impact.
While the plane jerked and bobbed through turbulence, she pored over the satellite’s design. The GPS and tracking components were surprisingly similar to the SPT’s GPS. Of course, there was always that chance that the crash had mangled the module, making the parts harder to remove. She could only wait and see.
The pilot’s voice came over the PA system. “We’ll be passing twelve thousand feet in a few minutes. I’m activating the cabin oxygen system.”
A mask dropped out of the overhead compartment just in front of Samantha. She did what flight attendants taught passengers to do, pulling the tubing down, slipping the strap over her head, and positioning the mask over her mouth and nose.
She studied the schematics for a few more minutes, memorizing the internal connections, then slipped them back into her coat pocket.
“So, it’s a piece of cake?” Thor’s words were muffled by his oxygen mask.
“I could do it with my eyes closed.” She looked up to find Thor watching her, and her pulse skipped.
He didn’t look away but seemed to study her, his gaze warm. “What made you want to become an astro… astrophys … astrophysicist. That’s hard to say.”
“How do you say it in Danish?”
“Astrofysiker.”
“I don’t know. That seems harder to me.”
“Danish isn’t easy to pronounce.”
She answered his question. “My mother was a high school science teacher, and my father teaches biology at UC-Berkeley. They bought me a small telescope for my tenth birthday, and I fell in love with the stars.”
She told him how she’d taken that telescope out every night the sky was clear, her father standing beside her as she made observations. “It was all silly stuff—lunar craters that looked like faces or new constellations that I invented. My father was so patient, standing there with me each night, helping me become proficient with the telescope.”
“He must be proud of you.”
She nodded, feeling strangely light-headed, her fingers tingling. She’d never flown in an unpressurized aircraft before and hadn’t known to expect this. If the others could deal with it, so could she. “My brother is a propulsion engineer for NASA. We’re a family of geeks, I guess. How about you? How did you end up in Greenland?”
“I’ve always loved the outdoors. My father was a forester, and I worked for him during the summer when I was a teenager. My mother taught English in the primary school. I went to the gymnasium—that’s our high school—in the math and science line, and then studied mechanical engineering in Copenhagen for two years. I needed to do something more physical, so I left the university and joined the Danish Army.”
She listened, his accent soft and charming, as he told her about his time in the Huntsman Corps, the Danish Army’s special forces unit. But his words seemed to slow down, her thoughts unraveling.
Black spots.
They danced before her eyes.
It was hard to listen, so hard to stay awake.
“Samantha?” Thor’s face swam before hers. He looked angry. “She’s hypoxic.”
He pulled her mask off her head and replaced it with his own, holding it over her nose and mouth, reclining her seatback. “Just breathe, Samantha, deep and even.”
Someone shouted to the pilot that her O2 wasn’t working.
The reply was lost to her as her eyes drifted shut, her mind hovering on the brink of unconsciousness.
“Nej, for helvede.” No, damn it! “She’s losing consciousness.”
Why hadn’t he noticed she was in trouble sooner?
The pilot’s voice came over the PA once more. “I brought six tanks—enough to get us all there and back, plus two spares.”
Jones removed his mask, unbuckled his safety belt. “I’ll go check the tanks.”
He started toward the back of the plane, where the O2 tanks hooked into the system, his steps unsteady thanks to almost nonstop turbulence.
Segal stood, too. “I’ll help.”
Thor focused on Samantha. They needed her mind to be clear when they landed. Without her, this mission would fail.
Seconds ticked by, and still, she didn’t open her eyes.
Was his oxygen also not working?
No, her color was starting to come back now, her breathing steady. Then her eyes fluttered open, confusion on her pretty face.
“What…?”
“You became hypoxic. How do you feel?”
“Headache. A little dizzy.”
He realized he was hovering over her, only inches away from her face—close enough to kiss her. Some part of him liked that idea—the same part of him that had liked it when