Lowery took over when she'd gone. The monitor's glow deepened the lines in his face as he bent over the keyboard. He entered commands, and a new pattern filed the screen, looking like a Seurat in primary colors.

'First we established a set of general guidelines to describe the condition of the recovered seats and seat units.'

He pointed out colors in the pattern.

'Seats with minimal damage are indicated by light blue, those with moderate damage by dark blue, those with severe damage by green. Seats classified as "destroyed" are shown in yelow, those classified as "fragmented" in red.'

'What do the categories mean?' I asked.

'Light blue means the seat legs, back, pan, and armrest are intact, as is the safety belt restraint system. Dark blue means there's minor deformation to one or more of those components. Green means both fractures and deformation are present. Yelow indicates a seat with at least two of the five components fractured or missing, and red indicates damage to three or more components.'

The diagram showed a plane interior with lavatory, galeys, and closets behind the cockpit, eight seats in first class and eighteen rows in coach, double on port, triple on starboard. Behind the last row, which was double on both sides, was another set of galeys and lavatories.

A child could have interpreted the pattern. The colors flowed from cool blue to flaming red as they spread from forward to aft, indicating that seats closest to the cockpit were largely intact, those in mid-cabin more damaged, those behind the wings largely demolished. The highest concentration of red was at the rear left of the plane.

Lowery hit the keys and a new chart came up.

'This shows passenger seat assignments, though the aircraft wasn't ful and people might have moved around. The cockpit voice recorder indicates that the captain had not turned off the "Fasten Seat Belt" sign, so most passengers should have been seated with their belts fastened. The voice recorder also indicates that the captain had released the flight attendants to begin cabin service, so they could have been anywhere.'

'Wil you ever be able to tel who was seated and who wasn't?'

'Recovered seats wil be examined for evidence of belt restraint, things like belt loading, belt cuts, occupant-related deformation. With data from the medical/anthropology group we'l try to correlate seat damage with body fragmentation.'

I listened, knowing the bodies would be coded, just as the seats had been. Green: body intact. Yelow: crushed head or loss of one extremity. Blue: loss of two extremities with or without crushed head. Red: loss of three or more extremities or complete transection of body.

'The autopsy reports wil also show where passengers with penetrating materials, thermal burns, or chemical burns were seated within the cabin,' Lowery went on. 'We'l also try to correlate right-versus-left-side injury patterns with right-versus-left-seat deformation.'

'What does that tel you?' Ryan asked.