143
Steven Brust
Chapter 15
My Own Kind of present
13:07 He ran through the preliminary checklist a second time before he started warming up the shuttle. He thought about running through it a third, but there was an old saying to the effect that you shouldn't start getting paranoid when time was running out. Actually, there wasn't any such saying, but there should be. Wash decided that if he lived through this, he'd have to come up with one. Meanwhile, he started the warmup process, again checking each step carefully. It wasn't like this would be the trickiest flying he'd ever done. Quite. No reason to be nervous. He felt an obscure disappointment when the warmup sequence was completed, because now he had nothing to do except wait until it was time to move. Oh, right: one thing that was always necessary when you were unlucky enough to be going into mortal danger, but lucky enough to have advance warning. He got back from the toilet and sat down again. This pilot's chair was fine, but it didn't feel the same as his. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Now, what? Was he really out of ways to kill time? No, he could look over the plans again, and re-check the route, especially the final approach. He'd only been over it four times so far, and only once crosschecking it with the weather report. He checked the time, and found that it was less than five minutes until launch. His palms were suddenly moist, and his mouth dry. That was all right, though; he'd be fine when it was time to launch.