Pluto's Ghost- Encounter Edition

by B. C. CHASE

  They are inching towards the station. “We are coming back,” Valentin says.

  “Great job, Valentin!” Commander Tomlinson praises.

  “Well done!” Tim exclaims.

  Inching closer, they close the gap slowly. We all breathe a sigh of relief as Valentin reaches the airlock and pulls himself and Commander Sykes in.

  The minute we have to wait for pressurization seems like an hour. When it comes to an end, Commander Tomlinson and Tim slide up the hatch and set to work removing Commander Sykes’ helmet. Shelby says, “Lie him down! I’ll need to do CPR!”

  The helmet comes off, revealing that his head is covered in a globe of water. “Get the vacuum!” Shelby exclaims to me. Kurt and Tomlinson pass her one after another of the little, compressed towels we have onboard. She uses the towels more to slap the water away than to sop it up. I rush for the vacuum cleaner in the European Lab. By the time I return, I am surprised by how little of the water is gone, but they have succeeded in removing the pants and pulling him out of the suit. He is floating in a disconcerting way, his arms limply stretched out from his body. I plug the vacuum in and hand the hose to Shelby, who quickly sucks most of the water up, revealing Commander Sykes’ ashen face. “I need to start chest compressions. I need leverage. Stand on top of me,” she commands. Kurt puts his feet on her back and pushes his hands on the ceiling. She starts to powerfully compress Commander Sykes’ chest. Liquid dribbles from his mouth and floats away as bubbles. Then she raises his chin and blows into his mouth two times. She resumes the compressions, and he suddenly starts to cough, spewing liquid everywhere. She turns him to his side, and he coughs more, then inhales.

  It takes him a few minutes to come back to reality, but once he does, he sees Valentin in the Olan space suit and earnestly says, “Thank you.” They emerge from the airlock and Commander Sykes asks for his tool bag. Producing a piece of wire, he says, “The wires are insulated by plastic.”

  “Yes? And?” asks Commander Tomlinson.

  Tim says, “Plastic evaporates in space.”

  Commander Sykes seconds, “Yes. Friction has accelerated the process in this case. And the wires have fused together.”

  “Why would the wires fuse together?”

  “Cold welding. Two pieces of metal of the same type have a tendency of sticking together when they’re in the vacuum of space. Usually it requires some pressure or fretting. In this case, I bet the fretting was caused by the launch from LEO.”

  “So this is why the array hasn’t been working since we launched from LEO?” asks Commander Tomlinson.

  “Yes. But how could this ordinary wire possibly have slipped through the checks during construction?”

  “That array is one of the components that was added,” says Tim. “Probably the speed to manufacture caused the issue. With everything coming together so quickly, there were bound to be problems.”

  “Problems, yes, but really poorly sourced parts? That is almost unbelievable negligence. The first thing a space engineer does is make sure he’s designing a product that will work in space.”

  “I guess if we had a working antenna array, we could ask Houston how it might have happened,” says Nari. “But we don’t.”

  “The question is,” Commander Tomlinson says, “can we fix it?” He is assisting Kurt to extract Valentin from his space suit.

  “Do we have good wire in stowage?” Commander Sykes asks Tim.

  “Maybe a little,” Tim replies.

  “We’ll need at least 120 feet, I think.”

  “Not a chance.”

  “Do you think there’s any way we can repair it?”

  Tim replies, “I wish we could, but I highly doubt it. It would require disassembling parts of the American Lab and probably Node 1. With the hydrogenated boron nitride nanotube (BNNT) shielding that was added, I don’t see how we could even get access. Even if we could, we’d be talking about depressurizing the modules, and we still need good wire, which we don’t have.”

  “Shelby,” says Valentin, his voice strange. He is floating above her in his blue pajamas. “I don’t feel so good.”

  She says, “The bends. Let’s get you back in the airlock with some oxygen.” She floats to the European lab while he enters the airlock. When she returns, she has handfuls of supplies. She joins him in the airlock and says, “Shut us in. Standard decompression.”

  Commander Tomlinson and Kurt slide the hatch into place. Through the window in the hatch, Shelby can be seen peering into Valentin’s ear with an otoscope. Over the radio, she can be heard saying, “He has perforated eardrums.”

  Suddenly, Valentin keels over and retches. The fluid jets out all over the chamber, splattering the floor, walls, and even the window. He is clearly in agony and groans. She inserts an IV, which she connects to a bag that she releases to float above him. He vomits once more, then stretches back. Shelby doesn’t seem fazed and unzips his pajama outfit in order to listen to his chest with her stethoscope. “He’s in cardiac arrest. I need help with CPR again.”

  “Should I come in?” Kurt asks.

  “Yes,” she says.

  Kurt unwinds the crank handle as fast as he can and he and Commander Tomlinson once again slide open the airlock. Kurt braces above Shelby just like he did when she did CPR on Commander Sykes. This time she places the back of her hands on Valentin’s breastbone and starts compressing. She pauses to provide breaths into his mouth, then starts again. “Kurt, I might not be strong enough!” she says. “You need to do it.”

  She slides away while Commander Tomlinson braces above Kurt. She points to the middle of his chest and looks at him earnestly, “Put your hands here. Push as hard as you can. Don’t be afraid of cracking his ribs.”

  The force with which Kurt pounds Valentin’s chest is very unsettling to me. It is violent, and Valentin’s body flails and batters against the floor in the microgravity.

  But he starts breathing.

  Shelby cries, “Good job!” and listens to Valentin’s chest. She says, “He has tension pneumothorax. I have to decompress it.” She prepares a syringe with a long, thick needle and feels along his top rib. Pressing firmly with two fingers on either side, she inserts the needle all the way into his chest. Even from where I am in Node 1, I can hear the hiss of escaping air. After a moment or two, she withdraws the needle, leaving a small plastic nob, which she tapes in place.

  “Close the hatch,” she says. “We need to resume oxygen and decompression.”

  I help Tim to close Valentin, Shelby, Kurt, and Commander Tomlinson in the airlock.

  Shelby listens to Valentin’s heart again. He opens his eyes. His skin is blotched with pink bruising. He tries to smile. “Am I okay, doctor?”

  She smiles back, “I think you’ll be fine.” She presses the mask back over his face. “Now breathe.”

  ∆v∆v∆v∆v∆

  They have been in the chamber for almost an hour. Shelby says that two hours should be all he needs. I go about my trash collection duties, thinking that as soon as the decompression treatment is over, I will start work cleaning the airlock. It’s the least I can do to help.

  Now I’m in the Habitation Module. The trash bin is a nylon box that sits near the entrance to the mess area. Having emptied the trash into the bag I am carrying, I turn around to find Shiro floating there. He says, “That was an interesting assessment you made the other day.”

  “Assessment?” I say. “I think you’re giving me too much credit. I don’t assess anything around here.”

  “About Martin Babcock and the discovery of Eris.”

  “Ah,” I say, “You’re the psychologist. What do you think?”

  “Being a psychologist makes me no better than anyone else at discerning someone’s motives. Do you really know why you do the things you do?”

  “I’m no Mother Teresa, I can tell you that.”

  “Was Mother Teresa really a Mother Teresa? Did she understand her own motivations? I doubt it. She felt compelled to do something, so
she did it. Why was she compelled? That is something I don’t think science will ever be able to explain. All science can do is group certain behaviors together and give them names. But the why we do what we do…that’s in the same category of questions such as ‘why are we here?’”

  “But can’t some behaviors be curbed by medication?”

  “Sometimes. The medication seems to close the door to the symptoms. But there is no explanation for why a schizophrenic would think he’s talking to someone who isn’t there or a sadist would find pleasure in inflicting pain. Do you know why sadistic personality disorder was removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders?”

  “I didn’t know it was a disorder at all until now.”

  “They removed it because it was feared sadists would use it as a legal defense for their brutal crimes. In other words, psychologists still believe it exists and it is, indeed, a disorder. But it cannot be reconciled with the acknowledgement that inflicting harm upon others is morally wrong and, as such, should be punished. So which is it? Do people have a choice for their bad behavior and, therefore, should be punished? Or do they have no choice and, therefore, should be allowed to do as they wish? You made a moral judgement about Martin Babcock. You think that he wanted to be the last person to discover a planet and so cleverly pushed for the death of all potential new planets. You think that was wrong.” He pauses, then says, “Let me ask you, have you made any similar assessments closer to home?”

  “Closer to home?”

  “Yes, for example, about the members of our crew?”

  The way Shiro is looking at me, I feel a chill go up my spine. “I don’t think I know what you mean.”

  “I am asking you if you have found fault with any member of our crew. Have you made moral judgements?”

  Of course I find fault with Commander Tomlinson. But should I admit that to Shiro? He keeps his cards very close to his chest. I have no idea where he stands. For all I know, Commander Tomlinson could have sent Shiro here to question me. Two more people who would disagree with Commander Tomlinson about whether we should abort the mission have nearly died today. I don’t want to be the third. Being a solitary truck driver, I’m not used to cutthroat office politics like this where someone drops dead every other day. I guess I’m just not cut out for it, and that makes me want to keep my mouth shut and hope for the best.

  On the other hand, I know what a coward is, and I don’t want to be one of those.

  I tell Shiro, “As you said, who can really point to a motive for any behavior? But I will say this: too many lives already have been lost or threatened for it to be a coincidence, and, it seems to me, if I were Commander Tomlinson and I wanted to continue the mission at any cost, things are lining up just the way I’d want them right about now.”

  A dark smile spreads across Shiro’s face.

  Over the radio, I hear Valentin scream.

  “What is it?” says Shelby.

  “Pain! My back!”

  “Lower or upper back?”

  “Lower back.”

  She asks, “How is your vision?” Her voice is atypically strained.

  “There are holes!”

  I hear a strange sound and then Shelby says, “His heart stopped again. Kurt, CPR now!”

  Kurt starts counting compressions.

  “Let’s go,” I say to Shiro.

  We float through the modules. Kurt counts to thirty, then stops. Shelby says, “Again!” He starts counting from one, his voice belying his increasing exertion. He stops again at thirty, and there is a moment of silence. Shelby says, “I need my AED. Open the hatch.”

  Under the sounds of Kurt’s counting, I hear scuffling and some grunts. The AED says, “Analyzing rhythm. Everyone stand clear. Shock advised.” Then, Kurt stops counting and Shelby says, “Get clear!” The AED says, “Charging. Everyone stand clear.” There is a loud, long beep from the AED. Shelby says, “Continue the compressions. I’ll give him a shot of epinephrine.”

  Shiro and I reach Node 1, where Yury is standing at the entrance to the airlock. He is wiping away the tears that are forming bubbles over his eyes. I drift up behind him and see that Valentin’s skin is horribly blotched, but the blotches are now blue instead of pink. His eyes, gaping open, are blood red.

  While Kurt is pumping his chest, Shelby takes a small cylinder with a label that says “Intraosseous Device” and presses it up against Valentin’s shin. She pulls up on the cylinder and a smaller, blue cylinder emerges. She then presses her palm on the end and there is a click. She pulls the whole thing away, revealing a syringe that has punctured into the bone. This she uses to inject the epinephrine. By the time she is finished, Kurt has completed thirty compressions.

  Shelby and Kurt continue the CPR. It goes on and on and on, but seems more and more futile. Finally, after what seems like half an hour, Shelby says, “Stop.” She and Kurt cease their movements. They are covered in beads of sweat. She looks up at Yury, “I’m sorry.” Yuri’s mouth starts to quiver and he breaks into sobs.

  Commander Tomlinson’s face is hard to read, but it almost looks like he is hiding a grin.

  Commander Sykes floats down and gently takes Valentin’s hand in both of his. He says, “Friend,” his face wrought with agony.

  Fifteen

  The Japanese Experiment Module has a small airlock that, in the space station’s heyday, was used for dispatching small satellites or placing vacuum-oriented experiments outside the station. All the members of the crew are gathered in the module.

  Commander Tomlinson says, “Now we will send Valentin Gorbatko into the depths of space, a fitting end to a career spanning four decades as one of Russia’s finest cosmonauts. There have been many casualties in man’s quest to explore the solar system. But his heroic rescue of a fellow spaceman today was the pinnacle of all mankind’s best achievements in spaceflight, and one that will doubtless be remembered as the most honorable sacrifice we have ever made as we reach for the heavens. May he rest in peace.” Commander Tomlinson, without an iota of emotion, asks, “Did you have any words, Eric?”

  Commander Sykes stares at Commander Tomlinson with a look that could freeze molten lava.

  Commander Tomlinson says, “Send him off.”

  It falls to Tim to push the controls that will open the hatch and catapult Valentin’s body into space. There are two round portal windows with shutters, but nobody seems to want to open the shutters and watch. Instead, we hear the sound of the chamber decompressing and then a mechanical grind. When it is over, Commander Tomlinson says, “Thank you for coming, everyone. I felt it was important to have an appropriate ceremony. Unfortunately, the schedule must proceed and now we only have twenty minutes to eat dinner.”

  ∆v∆v∆v∆v∆

  “Guys!” someone is shouting outside the hatch. There are bangs on the walls and I recognize Yury’s voice. “We have a message from MCC! We have a message from Houston!”

  I look at my watch. It is midnight.

  Within seconds, I and everyone else have slipped out of the crew quarters into the lounge, where Yury is there, smiling. “The antenna on the Service Module was not removed after all. They have reached us through the old system!”

  We all hurry through the tunnel up to the Russian Node and into the Service Module, where Yury points at one of the laptop screens. There, in white against a black background, are the words:

  MCC: ISS this is MCC. What is your status?

  “Unbelievable,” Commander Sykes smiles. “We won’t have to fix the big array after all.”

  “Well, not yet, at least,” says Commander Tomlinson. “This old antenna is too small to receive messages if we head for Jupiter.”

  “What should I say?” asks Yury, his fingers over the keypad.

  Commander Tomlinson dictates to Yury, who types:

  ISS: Antenna array is down, Canadarm2 nonfunctional but all other systems check out. Antenna array has faulty wiring, doubtful we can fix. We need your help to diagnose Cana
darm. Filipchenko and Marakov lost.

  We wait, but there is no response. I say, “Maybe they fell asleep.”

  Commander Tomlinson says, “They are somewhere between seven and eight million kilometers away. That means it’s almost thirty seconds before they receive our message and thirty seconds before we receive theirs.”

  Finally, we get something back.

  MCC: Glad to hear from you, ISS. How were they lost?

  ISS: Filipchenko: EVA to inspect array. Canadarm2 spun out of control. Marakov: decompression sickness.

  MCC: We will formulate plan to address the array and Canadarm2. Stick to flight plan for now.

  Commander Sykes says, “Ask them if we will be aborting the mission at Venus.”

  ISS: Should we plan to abort at Venus, return to Earth?

  MCC: Communications were our priority. We will evaluate. Food, water, oxygen are problems with proceeding. What are the sentiments of the crew?

  Commander Tomlinson says, “Tell them I will have each crew member discuss it with them privately.”

  ISS: Cmdr Tomlinson says each crew member will speak with MCC privately.

  MCC: We will diagnose Canadarm2 program ASAP. Communications array will be a bigger problem. Are you on GMT?

  ISS: Yes, we are on GMT.

  MCC: Flight surgeon says goodnight. Go back to bed. See you in the morning.

  We all seem a little reluctant to leave the Service Module. Fortunately for Yury, he sleeps there. Shelby and I are the last ones to exit, but before we do, Shelby asks Yury, “Are you all right?”