Ansel Quirke
Ansel Quirke is a markhor and a TransZoo first officer in We Can Fix Pawbert, introduced in the W-Series in the right seat of TransZoo 106 beside Captain Ilva Drossen. He is twenty-nine. He teaches Luther to brief the go-around before anything else, and he dies in his seat when the crew oxygen, filled from a doctored cart on the Vladifrostok apron, delivers almost no oxygen at all. Reacher recovers his body from seat 11A of the ditched aircraft.
Background
Quirke is far enough into a flying career for the work to have become routine and not far enough for it to have worn him. He talks himself through his own actions under his breath, and Drossen has chosen to leave the habit alone. The first thing his instructor ever told him was to brief the go-around first, since every approach can be abandoned right up until the wheels are on, and he has made that rule the whole of the job. He has a mother and a brother.
Series History
W-Series
In "Souls on Board" he asks Luther what the agency's simulator package has him do and whether it covers landings, gets sent off the flight deck to eat so the captain can free up the right seat, and then spends most of the flight teaching the wolf what the fixed-base box never bothered with: the fuel prediction, the crossfeed, where the second radio lives, and the go-around, briefed first because the landing is optional. When the aft cargo smoke warning fires he asks for the confirmation, works the checklist, discharges both bottles and brings up the diversion numbers, and seven minutes on he is the first to smell what is coming through the ducts and the one who says both bottles are spent. Masks on, he begins to slur within ninety seconds, reaches for the mask with a hoof that slides down the window frame instead, and goes over against the harness. Luther pulls him out of the seat without letting any part of him touch a thrust lever, O'Donnell works him for six minutes on the stripped-bay floor with Reacher on compressions and Odile Ripley on the airway, and stops. Reacher carries him aft as far as his shoulders allow, and the cabin crew belt him into 11A and cover him to the shoulders. Into the voice recorder, with the water coming up, Luther puts on the record that Quirke ran the procedure correctly, that he was twenty-nine, and that he was right about the go-around. After the ditching the purser counts ten of eleven, and Reacher goes back into fifteen feet of water for him; the third dive brings him over the rail of the Marie Delphine. Ines Baruk, who never heard his voice, is given his name by Pawbert on a hospital bench. His mother and his brother are told the next day in their own house, with Pawbert as the social worker who stays for the part after the telling, and Perkins says his name at the memorial wall as the one mammal the sabotage cost who was never part of any of it.
Key Relationships
Luther Pawthorne
Quirke treats the ZSI passenger as a student worth the trouble, and Luther asks him to say the go-around rule a second time so that he has it. It is Quirke's line that Luther quotes into the cockpit voice recorder, with a request that it be written down somewhere that he said it, and Luther is the one who takes his weight out of the right seat.
Ilva Drossen
His captain lets his habits stand, and her name opens the last thing he says. Told at her bedside that he was gone in the seat, her first thought is who will tell his family.
Key Quotes
| Quote | Context |
|---|---|
| "Because the landing's optional." | On why the go-around is briefed first ("Souls on Board") |
| "Brief the go-around first, because it's the only part of the plan that's always available." | To Luther on the flight deck; Luther later repeats it into the voice recorder ("Souls on Board") |
| "It's the whole job." | Closing the lesson ("Souls on Board") |