The port arm had reached the back. He positioned it to bring up a good image of the auxiliary unit on the monitor and held his breath. He sagged, he couldn’t see anything wrong. Then something caught his attention: a small irregularity in the profile of one of the nozzles that shouldn’t have been there. He zoomed in and there it was: a piece of twisted metal caught between the side of the outermost nozzle and part of the engine housing. He looked carefully, adjusting the direction of the light from the port robot arm. If it had been just a piece of metal outer skin it would have been crushed when the nozzles started to change direction. It had to be more substantial than that to stall them completely. That’s all he could tell. There was no point in trying to reach it with the twin forceps on the robot arm either; the arm simply wasn’t designed to extend that far.
There was no way of avoiding it. The problem could only be tackled outside.
51
First he accessed the flight plan again. It was all there on the screen: the end-for-end manoeuvre, the long deceleration burn of the plasma engines, and the final turn-and-burn to enter an orbit synchronized with Station Saturn. He simply handed control over to the computer so that it would carry out the entire sequence automatically. Now wherever he was and whatever he was doing – in fact whether he was dead or alive – the computer would complete the mission, assuming he’d managed to fix the problem with the APUs. He left the light from the port robot arm trained on the engine housing. Then he accessed the starboard robot arm that had got stuck in the rails and directed its light across the living pod towards the port cargo pod; at least it would provide some weak general illumination. Finally he synchronized his wrist communicator with the program clock that was making the countdown. They would stay synchronized as long as reception was good. If reception wasn’t good the communicator would run off its own internal clock. The screen of the communicator told him he had forty-four minutes left.
He went quickly to the equipment room, took out a soft bag, and pushed a nylon rope and some straps into the pockets. He hesitated over the tools, but finally unclipped a couple of wrenches, a stout screwdriver and a battery-powered oscillating saw. If he couldn’t fix it with those it was beyond him anyway. Then he added an emergency propulsion torch together with its belt and holster. He went to the lockers and took out a suit, helmet, and the air tanks with their harness.
In zero gravity the kit didn’t weigh anything but it was awkward to handle, so he suited up right away. He went through the familiar process, donning the suit, connecting the air tanks to the helmet, putting on the helmet and checking the seal, cinching the harness, and pulling the air tanks off the magnetic holder. All the time he was aware of the seconds ticking away but he daren’t cut corners. He took the extra belt out of the tool bag, put it on, then pushed the emergency propulsion torch into the holster and fastened the retaining strap. Then he grabbed the tool bag, closed it, and pushed quickly away to float towards the open door of the locker room. In his haste he bumped into the doorway and that sent him tumbling and cursing into the central corridor of the living pod. He managed to turn his body in time to get his feet to the ceiling and kicked off downwards, careened off the floor and the wall, then came to a clumsy stop. He was within reach of the open trolley that ran the length of the corridor. Moving more carefully now, he boarded the trolley and used his elbow to throw the control lever. The linear motor whirred into life and the trolley set off on the monorail towards the back of the ship. There were four airlocks that communicated directly with the outside of the ship: two at the front and two at the rear. The trolley hummed through the living area, through the cryodorm, and past the long succession of doors that sealed the access tubes to the cargo holds.
Six minutes later he stopped the trolley at the rear airlock and dismounted. Before he got into the airlock he glanced at the wrist communicator, which he’d replaced on the outside of the suit.
Not bad. I’ve got all of thirty-one minutes left.
The airlock was located between the access tubes to Cargo Holds 101 and 102, the last two cargo holds on the port side. When the outer door of the airlock opened he emerged into total darkness. He moved carefully up the side of the living pod. There was a dim level of illumination at the top, cast by the beam from the distant starboard robot arm. As his eyes adapted to the low light level the first thing he became aware of was the huge bulk of the plasma engines, their twin nacelles rearing up and extending well beyond the end of the living pod. The second thing he noticed was the state of the outside of the ship. The oblique lighting from the robot arm threw into relief hundreds of pits and dents and craters in the outer metal skin, palpable evidence of the damage it had sustained in his encounters with the pirate ships and the asteroids. Around to his right he could see the massive port cargo pod, and as he ran his eyes over its smooth outline his gaze was arrested by a sinister shape, an eruption of torn metal. Maybe that was the hold that had shown up as badly damaged on the pressurization report. Beyond the cargo pod there was nothing but the blackness of space, out of which hundreds of the brighter stars were shining, in defiance of the feeble light from the starboard robot arm. The only sound was his own breathing.
He worked his way carefully to the back, taking care to push along the surface and not away from it. Progress was slow but it wasn’t worth rushing when one mistake could see him floating helplessly in space. He stared down the side of the living pod into total darkness, then scanned with his helmet-mounted light until he located the last access tube bridging between the living pod and the port cargo pod. Ant-like, he crawled down the side of the living pod, along the access tube, and then slowly up the side of the cargo pod. When he reached the top he found the port robot arm, its high-intensity light still directed downwards and illuminating his objective: the aft port auxiliary propulsion unit. Before going any further he took the rope out of the tool bag and knotted it to a girder at the base of the robot arm, which was locked securely by the drive mechanism onto one of the rails. He tied the other end to his belt and paid out the rope behind him as he descended to the power unit. As soon as he got there he checked the wrist communicator. There were eleven minutes to go to the deceleration burn. Before that the APUs would fire for the end-to-end manoeuvre. He actually had just six minutes to shift a lousy lump of metal and get clear.
The metallic surface of the piece of debris reflected back the intense shaft of light from the port robot arm with a grey-blue sheen. It was badly torn and the jagged edge gleamed like a razor. He would have to be very careful: one slip and it could slice through his gloves or into his suit. He opened the tool bag, removed two self-clamping wrenches, attached them to the metal and pulled. Nothing happened. He looked more closely. The metal was indeed a piece of the outer skin, probably from that port cargo hold. But behind it was a reinforcing metal rib and that was what was keeping it from buckling. If he could cut through that rib he should be able to shift the whole thing. He took the oscillating saw out of the tool bag, switched it on, and applied the diamond-coated blade to the rib. The metal was very hard, the saw kept skidding. He pressed harder and felt it bite. On Earth the metal would be screaming; out here in the vacuum of space it made no sound. He turned his wrist slightly to get a glance at the communicator; four minutes to go. Slowly the saw ate into the metal rib, then suddenly it went through and jammed. He worked it back and forth impatiently, trying to free it, cursing the delay. Finally it came loose. The wrenches were still attached. He gripped one in each hand and tried to fold the metal. Still it wouldn’t yield – the cut edges of the rib were bracing against each other. He would have to make another cut to take a piece out. This was crazy! He was standing next to the nozzle of a rocket engine that would fire in less than two minutes and he had to make another cut!
The saw bit into the rib again. This time when it went through it didn’t jam; instead the section between the cuts came free. He threw the saw away from him, grabbed the two wrenches and closed them together with all his strength. Th
e metal gave and came free. It floated in front of him. At that moment he felt a slight vibration and the whole set of nozzles started to rotate slowly into the horizontal position, ready for the 180-degree turn. He detached one wrench, stood off and whacked the piece of metal as if it were a baseball. The impact spun him round and off the surface of the ship. He caught a satisfying glimpse of the metal turning over and over and disappearing into the darkness. Then without hesitation he unholstered the emergency propulsion torch, directed it towards the ship and blasted himself into space.
52
As he spun slowly around, stabs of white fire from the auxiliary engines flashed brilliant reflections off the inside of his visor. Moments later he felt a tug at the rope. The computer had initiated the flat turn to the right and now he was being towed along behind the ship. He holstered the emergency propulsion torch, which had fired its single charge, and started to haul himself in, hand over hand, towards the girder on the robot arm where he’d tied the other end of the rope. Finally he stood on the rails of the robot arm, stars flowing past him with dizzying speed as the ship manoeuvred for the crucial deceleration burn.
He’d known all along that he’d never be able to get back inside Solar Wind in time for the deceleration phase. He was going to have to ride it out where he was. In less than five minutes the plasma engines would fire up. At that instant his body would suddenly acquire the weight it would have in Earth gravity. Not just his body either, the suit and other equipment he was wearing would treble his body weight. He had to secure himself properly and he had about three minutes in which to do it.
At least he’d chosen a good spot. The rails of the robot arm provided a reasonably flat area and there were plenty of structures around to tie himself to. He took one of the straps out of the tool bag, slipped it through the rails and secured it. That would act as a sling for his feet. The heaviest items of equipment he was carrying were the air tanks; he had to get them off his body and he had to do it without the help of the magnetic holder. He hooked the toes of his boots under the rails to stop himself lifting off, loosened the harness, and struggled out of it. Then he released what spare air hose there was in the junction box between the tanks and secured the tanks themselves to the robot arm with another strap. He would have to move very carefully from now on so as not to overstretch the air connection to his helmet. There was one minute to go.
He was still wearing the extra belt carrying the holstered emergency propulsion torch. He unfastened the belt, fumbled with the adjustable slack to lengthen it, and passed it through the rails. Then he lay down on the rails with his boots in the sling and fastened the belt around his waist. To stabilize his upper body he reached both arms above his head and grasped the lowest girder on the robot arm. As his gloved fingers closed around the girder his visor was lit up by a blue glow. There was a violent pull on his arms and his boots slammed into the restraining sling. The deceleration burn had begun and the sheer force of it took him by surprise. He lay there, bracing himself as best he could. He maintained a tight grip on the girder in case the straps gave way, because without them he’d be catapulted off the ship.
The forces seemed immense and he struggled to understand why. When the plasma drives had lit during departure he’d done an hour’s exercise under conditions like this. Why did it feel so different? There was the weight of the suit, of course – and then it dawned on him. His whole perception of normal gravity had been changed by months of weightlessness. His muscles, bones, tendons, ligaments were all weaker. If he’d been sitting up when the thrust started he’d have been ripped apart. He gritted his teeth and tried to get comfortable. There would be an hour of this.
Beyond the captive boots of his space suit the big plasma engines were hurling a blue hurricane of charged particles into the blackness ahead, a blackness that now contained the glowing ball of Saturn. It seemed to go on for ever. The muscles of his arms and shoulders were shouting with fatigue. He started to alternate his grip on the girder, taking each arm down to his side in turn to rest it. It went on, and on, and on.
Surely it must be over soon?
He brought the communicator on his left wrist up to his visor. Counting up instead of down now, it read plus forty minutes and seven seconds. Twenty minutes to go. He changed arms again and as he reached up for the girder he noticed something that sent a cold shock through him. The air tanks had moved. The force of the deceleration must have loosened the strap and inch by inch the tanks were working their way up the sloping base of the robot arm. There was very little slack in the air hose. Soon it would start to pull on the helmet and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it. He couldn’t reach the tanks and if he tried to change his position he would be folded in two under his own weight. He was breathing fast now, the sound hissing in the helmet.
He watched the tanks edging upwards in little jerks and then he felt a tweak at the back of his helmet, small at first but getting more and more insistent. Sweat ran in rivulets down his neck and patches of mist spread on the visor. The helmet started to tip forward. He brought up the communicator, manoeuvring it with difficulty into a position where he could see it: there were still twelve minutes to go. He took the girder with both hands again, trying to relieve that dreadful traction.
The tanks were pulling harder now. He could picture the corrugations in the air hose opening and flattening as it was stretched. The weakest points were the two junctions where the hose entered the connectors, one at the air tanks and the other on his helmet. They weren’t designed to take a strain like this. Any moment now one would give way, the hose would fly free like a demented snake and he would die horribly in the vacuum of space.
The pull increased still more. The sealing collar between the helmet and the suit tilted, pressing his head and neck forward. The muscles in his arms were burning and he could barely breathe. And still that terrible pull increased. There was nothing more for him now; this was how it ended. Well, no one could have tried harder. The company had been insane to send a man on a journey like this single-handed. There was a limit to what any person could achieve on their own and after this they’d have to rethink the policy. Did he regret his decision to take it on? No, he didn’t. It had given him a sense of purpose, enabled him to regain his self-respect. And without it he would never have had those precious weeks with Neraya – the loving, the sense of belonging, of worth, of total commitment to one another – how could he regret any of that?
His mission was accomplished. Thanks to him Solar Wind would complete its journey even though he wouldn’t live to see it. He pictured the cargo shuttles going back and forth, unloading the pilotless ship; then the moment of discovery, the shuttle pilots shouting into their intercoms and pointing to a crumpled figure strapped to the pod – a figure in a space suit, the visor spattered with blood – and neither they nor anyone else would have the slightest idea what it was doing out there.
The helmet gave a little jerk. He closed his eyes tightly, tensing his body, like a man with a gun to his head, waiting for the pistol shot of the air hose snapping.
Now there was a new force, one that was trying to roll his body out of the rails, straining at the belt and putting even more tension on his aching right arm. The ship was turning. Somewhere in the back of his mind he registered that the computer must have initiated the manoeuvre that would insert them into orbit.
Abruptly everything went slack. The pressure on his boots, the drag of the belt around his waist, and the pull on his arms vanished. He remained motionless, blinking sweat out of his eyes. It took him several moments to register that the burn must have ended. Moving slowly, he relinquished his grip on the girder and lay there, limbs floating. Then, every move made with extreme caution, he unfastened the belt and eased himself up into a sitting position. He’d taken the tension off the air hose and the helmet came back to its normal position. In front of him, through the blur of the misted visor, was the blackness of space. There was no torrent of plasma and there were no blue reflections
. It was over. He swallowed hard, then continued to breathe deeply and loudly through his mouth.
Nothing he’d ever done in his life had prepared him for how utterly drained he felt. He was baffled rather than relieved. He’d come so close to the certainty of death that survival seemed unreal. He floated without sensation, detached, feeling as if he’d been transported at the last moment into a parallel universe where none of this had happened. Minutes passed, and reality crept in. It occurred to him that nobody had ever done what he’d just done – ridden out a plasma burn on the back of a spacecraft – let alone live to tell the tale. He allowed himself a wan smile.
It gives you a silly sense of achievement to do something as completely daft as that.
The self-deprecation stirred his spirits again. His thoughts coalesced and his instinct for preservation began to override his exhaustion.
Get back inside the living pod.
He pushed off slightly with one foot, rose and turned towards the robot arm. He unfastened the strap, releasing the tanks, held the harness up so that it floated free, and put his arms into it. Then he cinched the harness tight. With that one movement he got himself together in every sense. He removed the belt from the rails, the holster with the emergency propulsion torch still attached to it. It was worth hanging on to the torch; it was a useful item and he had replacement charges in the equipment locker. He stowed that and everything else in the bag, straightened up, and turned to make his way back to the living pod.
And was confronted by an amazing sight.
There, visible above the dark outline of the starboard pod, was a gleaming mixture of solid and strangely skeletal structures, dish antennae and solar panels. Station Saturn! He paused, still anxious to get back inside, yet unable to tear his eyes away from the man-made satellite that had been the objective of this entire mission.
Saturn Run (The Planetary Trilogy Book 1) Page 24
