Pluto's Ghost- Encounter Edition

by B. C. CHASE

  “No, we don’t need you. Not at all.” The way he says it makes it clear he means it. He doesn’t want me on this mission. He wishes I wasn’t here.

  “Okay,” I say, “Let me know if that changes. I’ll be in my CQ.” I slip down a tunnel, hang a right to the port side of the station, and glide past the entrance of the Centrifuge Module on my way to my crew quarters.

  Before I leave, though, I stop by Katia. “I’m turning in for the night.”

  “Night?” she grins. “It’s night every ninety minutes, here.”

  Quietly, I say, “You know, Katia, you’re young. You have your whole life ahead of you. You don’t have to do this. I wish that you wouldn’t. It’s not too late to get out.”

  To my surprise, Commander Sykes, who was standing nearby, chimes in, “He’s right. No one would criticize you.”

  She smiles and shrugs, “I am lucky to go. It’s the chance of a lifetime.”

  The station is kept at seventy-two degrees Fahrenheit. I like it cooler than that for sleeping, so when I reach my cabin I pull off my pants (cartwheeling as I do so) and slip off my shirt. I stow Old Glory in one of the compartments. I realize that I’m still wearing the diaper I was so anxious not to soil. I shove it into the trash receptacle and throw off my shirt. Getting into my sleep pants and shirt in zero-g is kind of a fun experience. Then I switch off the light and slink into the sleeping bag hanging on the wall. It’s a strange sensation, just floating there. I can hardly tell that the sleeping bag is around me. They said astronauts have a tough time sleeping and usually only manage five or six hours a night. As tired as I am, I don’t think I’ll have that problem. I glance at my watch. It’s 2:30 p.m. in the afternoon, Florida time. I guess I can be forgiven for being this tired since I was up all night prepping for the 4:27 a.m. launch.

  My cabin is illuminated by the soft light of the Earth coming in through the little round window. Tomorrow is the last time I will see Earth this close. I hope I have a chance to get a good, long look at it before we launch out of orbit.

  ∆v∆v∆v∆v∆

  The softly beeping equipment watched over us as I sat by my daughter’s bedside in the dim light.

  She was beat up really bad. Weakly, she said, “You would have done something amazing with your life if not for me.”

  I struggled to get the words out, “You are my life.”

  The monitor beeped long and loud.

  As I thought about my Betsy’s life, I decided that at the end of your days when you take stock of your life and what it meant, there’s really only one thing that matters, and that’s how much you loved. My Betsy hardly ever had two dimes to rub between her fingers, and nobody would have called her a whiz, that’s for sure, but she was a kind and caring soul. Cheerful, smiling, and optimistic, it seemed like she wasn’t satisfied unless she was bringing a little warmth and sunshine to others. Many people came to her funeral, but only one of them was family.

  I grieved.

  Then I got to thinking.

  See, a semi-truck’s computer-operated radar assist cruise control happened to malfunction and kill my daughter right after I refused to go on the expedition to meet the aliens on Pluto. If these aliens were able to access enough information that they chose me and the other members of the crew by name, what limit was there to the access they had to the computers on Earth? And if they had access, they probably also had control. Which made me think that my daughter’s death was not an accident.

  Crazy idea?

  I don’t know. But it made just enough sense to me that I gave a last-minute call to Administrator Hogarth and told him I’d changed my mind.

  He said, “You’re late to the party, Mr. Perkins. We have been training your replacement. It would be very difficult to slip you in so late.”

  “I know. But you said you wanted to do what they asked, and they asked for me. I am available.”

  “All right. To tell you the truth, I don’t think Wiggins is going to be very disappointed not to go.” (Wiggins was my replacement.) I thought that my phone call that day to Hogarth was probably the best thing that ever happened to Wiggins.

  If the aliens had killed my daughter, I wanted to meet them face to face. I wanted to tell the bullies “No.”

  And I wanted to pull their throats out of their necks and send them to hell, if possible.

  ∆v∆v∆v∆v∆

  I wake up to a blaring alarm. I feel tremendous g–force on me like the worst roller coaster I’ve ever ridden. But I’m not being pulled back, I’m being pulled forward, with my chest pressed against the inside of my sleeping bag and my head hanging forward. I lift my head and find I am facing the curved exterior wall that has the little window. Brilliant light floods in for only a second or two and then slowly dims to black. After about six seconds, the light returns. I’m a little dizzy.

  The station is spinning fast, about ten times a minute. I might not be a rocket scientist, but I know that’s not right.

  My sleeping bag snaps free and I fall to painfully slam onto the wall, my face against the window. The Earth, close and filling my vision, disorientingly sweeps into view from one side and then out of view in the space of three seconds. Then, with a loud thud, something smashes into the outside of the window. As it drifts away, I realize that it is Sanjiv in his tattered space suit. A shard of metal is sticking out of his shattered visor so I can’t see his face, but I know it’s him because the pants have red rings around them, where Maria’s suit had no rings. I have barely an instant to look at him before he’s out of my line of sight. By the time he appears again, he is surprisingly distant. Pieces of debris are glistening in the sunlight against the blackness of space.

  I look at my watch. It is 6:42 p.m.

  The g-force is starting to get to me. It won’t be long before I black out. I have to get out of here.

  I struggle to pull myself along the wall towards the portal. Once I reach it, it’s pretty tough to hoist myself up to it and labor through, but I manage it. On the other side, where there are the sofas, TV, and big windows, I can do nothing to stop myself from flopping from the portal onto the outer wall. The exit of the module is at the bottom of the room. Since I can’t float there, I’ll have to crawl along the wall to it. This makes me a little nervous because I’ll have to cross the big windows. I’m not light. Raising my arm feels about six times harder than it would on Earth, so I estimate I’m probably four times heavier now than I am on Earth. That would be 780 pounds. I wonder if the window can withstand that much weight? Surely they wouldn’t stick big windows like that on a space station heading to Pluto if they weren’t virtually impenetrable. Would they?

  Seven

  Moving across the wall is intense work. I feel like I am crawling with an elephant on my back. In a way, I guess I am, but I’m the elephant, and I wasn’t designed to carry this much weight. As I creep out onto the glass, my heart races. Pulling myself over the Earth as it flies in and out of view every eight seconds[3] is not only terrifying, but also nausea-inducing. I’m getting really faint and dizzy. I have to reach the exit fast so I can move towards the center of the station and get away from this centrifugal force. The computer’s female voice blares from speakers in the walls, “Automatic launch sequence initiated. Launch T-minus two minutes.”

  Launch sequence? What launch sequence? I think.

  The glass doesn’t creak or crack beneath me, as I feared it might. Even so, I’m relieved when I reach the other side. Fortunately, I don’t have to try to climb the wall to get to the exit as it’s right by the edge of the outer wall. I pass through it and, with my vision dimming, look up the tunnel. The blue handlebars will be difficult to use as I try to climb the tunnel because they were ideally placed for floating. I will be going in the starboard direction, but my body feels like I’m looking up.

  “Launch T-minus one minute, thirty seconds.”

  I strain to pull myself up the first bar one hand over the other. I try to find places to brace my feet as I go: the rim of
the entrance to the Habitation Module, a lip between two tunnel segments, and the mounting brackets of other bars.

  I reach the centrifuge entrance. The centrifuge is the last place I want to be right now. I straddle the opening and pull myself across, feeling a bit more agile as I get closer to the center—now I feel like I’m only having to strain three times as hard as I normally would. All I have to do is go along one more tunnel segment to a node, then up a segment into the Russian section. Problem is, I’m blacking out. Darkness is closing in around me and my grip on the handlebars is weakening.

  “T-minus one minute.”

  Ahead where the tunnel meets the node that leads up to the Russian section, someone suddenly drifts down head first. It’s Katia. “Jimmy! Hurry, the computer initiated launch from Earth orbit. We can’t abort!”

  “What?” I sleepily say.

  She is floating down to me, but the farther she comes from the center of the station, the stronger the artificial gravity pulls her out towards me and she has to grab the bars and spin around so her legs swing down. Once she is stable, she exclaims, “Someone started the automatic launch sequence. We’re getting out of orbit. You have to be in your seat or you could die!”

  This mission is getting off to a safe start, I think. I’ve only been here a couple hours and already I’m in deadly peril.

  I try to pull myself towards her, but instead my hands slip and I slide down the vertical bar like a fireman down a pole. Knowing that I’ll probably fall off the pole at the bottom and my body will squish at the end of the tunnel, I intertwine my fingers. My hands hit the bottom of the pole where a sharp-edged brace secures it to the wall. It feels like a 585-pound brick has crushed my fingers.

  She hurries down, shrieking, “Jimmy!” but the sudden weight throws her off and she ends up sliding down the pole on top of me. Now we’re both hanging here. I can’t hold on. I lose my grip. I’m falling. I’m going to be pancaked at the far end of the tunnel.

  But unexpectedly the opposite wall comes sailing towards me and I hit it with a big thump. My shirt rolls up and my skin squeaks loudly on the metal as I slide down the wall towards the tunnel termination. Katia, still dangling from the pole high above me, is being swung out with her feet in the middle of the tunnel. My slide slows to a stop before I reach it and, suddenly, I’m weightless.

  “Good! The station is stabilized,” Katia remarks with relief. “Hurry, come!”

  I’m extremely dizzy now, but at least I don’t feel faint. I pull myself through the air after her as we travel through the tunnel to the node, go up a segment to the Russian node, and hang a left towards the forward section of the station. She is moving very fast and I clumsily struggle to keep up, banging against the walls and grabbing at anything to propel myself along. A claustrophobically narrow Russian storage module leads to a joining piece between the American and Russian areas. After that, we squeeze through a small portal and make it to Node 1.

  The astronauts are all there and in the American Science Lab beyond, and are struggling to put on their launch suits. It is chaos, with gloves and helmets floating around and everyone oriented differently. The computer’s voice says, “Launch in T-minus sixty seconds.”

  Commander Sykes, from his position near the forward-most part of the Node, says firmly, “With all due respect, we don’t have time for the suits. We should take launch positions now.” He is staring directly at Commander Tomlinson, who is fumbling with his gear.

  Commander Tomlinson says, “Suiting up is a prerequisite. You should know that. It’s in the flight manual.”

  “I wrote that manual,” Commander Sykes says. He exchanges a glance of frustration with Commander Filipchenko. Then he shouts, “Sarah and Kurt, you’ll be joining me in the shuttle.” To Commander Filipchenko, he says, “Viktor, if your guys want to come with us, we have space.”

  The cosmonauts follow Commander Sykes as he pulls himself forward into the American Science Lab.

  “What are you doing?” Commander Tomlinson shouts. “You can’t disconnect the shuttle! There isn’t time!”

  “I’m not disconnecting. You have thirteen people on this station, Commander, and launch restraints for only seven. Some of your crew will have to sit in the shuttle.”

  “That’s not procedure!”

  “If not there, where do you want us to sit?”

  Commander Tomlinson replies, “The cosmonauts should go to the Russian segment, and the shuttle crew should stay with me.”

  Commander Sykes says, “Everyone needs to be restrained. It will be very dangerous during launch.”

  “I said the Russians should go to the Service Module and your crew should join me. That’s an order.”

  Everyone is just floating there, staring at the two commanders as they face each other down, motionless.

  The computer’s voice says, “Launch in T-minus thirty seconds.”

  “You are putting the lives of your crew in danger,” Commander Sykes says, his voice low.

  Commander Filipchenko puts a hand on Commander Sykes’ shoulder, “It’s okay. We’ll go back.” Then he and the two other cosmonauts shoot through the portal back into the Russian segment.

  Commander Tomlinson’s lips curl with a smile of victory. He says, “Everyone with me!” and leads the way forward through the American Science Lab to Node 2.

  The seven spartan seats I had seen earlier line the circumference of the node. Commander Tomlinson calls, “Tim, Shelby, Shiro, Nari, Katia, and Sarah, take a seat. The rest of you hold onto the handlebars and brace yourselves as well as you can.”

  Sarah hesitates, and protests, “But Jim was one of the original crew. One of those seats is for him.”

  “Sarah,” Commander Tomlinson says, “take a seat, I said.”

  The voice says, “T-minus ten, nine, eight…”

  Avoiding my eyes, Sarah obliges and starts to fasten the restraints. A sign above the seat reads, “Jim Perkins.”

  “That seat is for Jimmy!” Katia firmly exclaims.

  “Katia, fasten your seatbelt!” Commander Tomlinson orders.

  “I’ll be fine,” I say, gripping a handlebar. Commander Sykes and Kurt do their best to get ready for the impending launch. They are better situated than I am, with their feet buttressed on the rim of the entrance to the Science Lab, but I don’t have time to make any adjustments because there is a deep rumble as the engines fire and the station starts to shudder.

  The voice says, “…One...and Launch of the International Space Station out of LEO for the planet Venus.”

  I heard somewhere that to get out of Earth orbit, we will use almost as much fuel as the Saturn V rocket did when it launched from Earth. Despite the considerable buttressing, I wonder how capable the station really is of surviving this catapult to 38,977 kilometers per hour.

  Groans and creaks echo up from deep within the hull, and the vibration is intense. My feet swing aft and I tighten my grip on the bar. Just as the force of the launch really starts to pull me, I manage to press the tips of my toes on a piece of metal that’s holding some wires together. That doesn’t work too well, because my feet slip and I’m dangling from the bar by my hands. I feel kind of like I’m hanging onto a roller coaster for dear life as it falls down the first big drop and I’m just counting the seconds until it is over. But this roller coaster isn’t on a hill, and there’s no end in sight to the big drop. My hands are sweaty and my grip is loosening. Looking down, I am impressed with just how long the station is. It must be about 120 feet down to the place where I might land if I fall: the back wall of Node 1. I get a foreboding sense of inevitability. I know that my fingers will slip and I will fall. I think Katia senses it too, because her face is really distraught as she looks at me from her seat across the node. “Hold on, Jimmy!” she cries. There is nothing she or I can do.

  Commander Sykes shouts, “Jim, hold on!”

  But my hands come apart and I fall. On my way down, my feet hit the edge of the Science Lab and I tumble backwards. In th
e blink of an eye as I’m flipping end over end, my head strikes the exercise machine and everything goes black.

  Eight

  Through blurred vision I see a Japanese flag. White all around with a big, red spot, the flag is waving slowly and strangely in an unearthly breeze. We made it to Pluto, and Shiro planted a Japanese flag, I think.

  No, my vision is clearing, and I see the walls of the lab, tangled with wire and equipment. The red spot, undulating in and out like a giant amoeba, is growing. I am drifting backwards towards the center of the module from the corner where I was lodged, and the blob is following me. My head is throbbing, and I feel a strange tingling sensation in my left arm. Halfway down my forearm is a bend where it must be broken. Blood is shooting out of my other arm in bubbles and streams that quickly join to the blob. It is a rather surreal thing to see, one’s blood flowing out and creating a floating blob that looks almost alive. In my delirious state, I kind of want to poke it and see what happens.

  But suddenly I feel intense, searing pain and it jolts me fully awake like a lightning bolt.

  “Jim!” I hear Shelby’s voice behind me. She maneuvers me around and when she sees the trauma to my arm, concern creases her face, “You’re pretty badly hurt.” She moves quickly to stop the bleeding from the gash in my left arm by pressing a towel on it. “C’mon, we need to get you to the European Lab.” She pulls me past Commander Tomlinson, who just stares at my injury, kind of shell-shocked.

  Commander Sykes scowls at Commander Tomlinson and says, “I’m going to check on Viktor and the guys.” He sails back through the American Lab into Node 1.

  Shelby, Katia, Tim, Nari, Shiro, and Kurt maneuver me carefully through Node 1 and to the left into the European Science Module. There, Shelby flips down an operating table and straps me onto it. She says, “I need to stitch you up and set the bones. I’m going to give you some anesthesia.”