Pluto's Ghost- Encounter Edition

by B. C. CHASE

  Twenty-six

  Glancing up at the monitors, Commander Sykes says into the station-wide intercom, “We have depressurization in HCL-4, HCL-3, HCL-2, Node 1—it’s spreading to the whole station. We need to evacuate to the Service Module!” He pulls away towards Node 1.

  I feel a current of air starting to blow past me in the direction he went. Some loose pieces of debris flow that way with the air as if a giant vacuum cleaner is powering up.

  “Jim!” he shouts, back. “Come with me!”

  We encounter a breeze that is flowing down the Node 1 nadir exit into the tunnel. A horrible, ear-splitting suction noise screams from below us. With help from the handlebars, we make it across and enter the narrow corridor that leads to the Russian Storage Module. From there, we reach the Service Module, where Commander Tomlinson and Nari already are. He is speaking over the intercom, “Everyone to the Service Module now!” Looking up at Commander Sykes, he demands, “Where’s the Emergency Operations Book?”

  “It’s in here,” Sykes says, and retrieves the binder from a cubby. “Everyone put on the oxygen masks!” He retrieves a set of masks with 6-inch oxygen tanks attached to them. When he hands me one, I fumble with it as I try to put it on. It seals around the whole front of my face, but the straps that should tighten it to my head are loose. After she has put her mask on, Shelby helps me with mine and adjusts the flow of oxygen. She shows me that I must squeeze two valves on the front of the mask. “You only have seven minutes of oxygen from this bottle,” she says.

  While Commander Tomlinson rifles through the pages, Commander Sykes says urgently, “We need to isolate the leak! It’s severe.”

  Commander Tomlinson says, “What about the IMV valves?”

  “Look at the PSIs! That won’t buy us any time!”

  “It’s standard procedure! We need to do it.”

  Clenching his teeth, Commander Sykes tears the book from Commander Tomlinson’s hands and hurls it towards the corner, “It’s pointless to close the valves if the pressure is less than ten point five! It’s three and falling. We need to close the hatches!”

  Shelby, Tim, and Shiro enter the module.

  “Has anyone seen Katia or Sarah?” Commander Sykes asks.

  “They were on horticulture,” says Commander Tomlinson.

  Commander Sykes shakes his head grimly. “Jim, Shiro, let’s get in the flight suits.”

  Shiro says, “They were stored in Soyuz. Yury took them when he—”

  “Okay, we don’t have time anyway. Let’s go!” Commander Sykes growls. Looking back at Commander Tomlinson, Tim, and Shelby, he says, “You have to seal yourselves in here just in case.”

  “But what about you guys?” Shelby questions.

  “We have to isolate the leak. Otherwise we’re all in trouble.”

  We all have our masks in place. The way we look makes me feel like I’m at the site of a dangerous chemical spill or something. Commander Sykes leads Shiro and I back through the Russian segments to Node 1. At the top of his lungs, he shouts down the nadir exit, “SARAH! KATIA!” His voice is muffled through his mask despite his effort, and there is no response.

  With the wind whipping our clothes and threatening to suck us away, we climb down the shaft to the tunnels that lead to four of the Horticulture Modules. My skin is red and I’m starting to feel strange.

  Close to the top of the starboard side tunnel, Katia is gripping a handlebar, her body buffeted by the wind. At the end of the tunnel, behind a hatch, is Sarah, barely hanging on.

  “THAT HATCH SHOULD BE CLOSED!” shouts Commander Sykes.

  “KATIA, SARAH!” I bellow.

  Katia lifts her eyes, looking desperate. Pieces of debris streak through the tunnels and out the last hatch into Horticulture Module 4.

  “I’m going to help them!” I holler to the others, and start climbing down the tunnel. Katia isn’t more than 80 feet down, but it’s 120 feet to Sarah’s position. The wind is ferocious, and I feel like I’m fighting a tornado as I go. Commander Sykes is staring up at a monitor that shows the pressure dramatically falling. The look in Commander Sykes’ eyes tells me how bad our situation is. “Jim, we need to close the hatch!”

  I know what he means. We need to close a hatch right away or everyone onboard the station could die. The lack of pressure will cause our blood to boil in our bodies, not to mention the fact that we won’t have any air to breathe.

  But I ignore him and continue lowering myself down the tunnel. Shiro follows me closely. As we near Katia’s position, I shout down to Sarah, “Hold on!” Her tears have streaked from the corners of her eyes and her gray hair is fluttering in the fierce wind. She shakes her head, crying out. Her strength is waning.

  The long rails that run the length of the tunnel are hard to hold onto. Every breath requires effort and doesn’t seem to have much payoff. I’m about three feet from Katia when Commander Sykes shouts, “Close the hatch!” He points to the opening near the end of the tunnel. In order to close the hatch, I’ll need to leave Katia and forgo any hope of holding onto her. Even worse, Sarah is on the other side of that hatch. If I close it, I will be sealing her out forever. I hesitate.

  “We’re out of time! Close the hatch,” Commander Sykes commands, “or I’ll have to close this one!”

  I know he’s right. If I linger to try to pull Katia up, precious time will be lost and it will jeopardize everyone else’s lives. I bellow, “Hold on, Katia!” and watch her sadly as I move around her. The farther down I go, the deeper my heart sinks, knowing that I’ll have to close the hatch on Sarah. When I reach the hatch, I turn around. The air is so thin that I’m feeling lightheaded. Sarah is there, clinging to the bar with the ends of her fingers. “Jim!” she screams. “Close it!” Her face is unbelievably enflamed, and her eyes are blood red. Her fingers are black and blue. The latch is an arm’s length away, but for the second she is staring up into my eyes, I can’t bring myself to reach for it. I feel my heart rip in two as she closes her eyes and releases the bar. She tumbles down end over end. Her head cracks on the rim of the horticulture module when the vacuum of space sucks her backwards through the opening, and her scream is silenced.

  It happened in the mere blink of an eye, but a whole lifetime has been lost. I can’t move, and a sense of hopeless futility washes over me.

  Katia screams from above me. She is about to fall. Bracing my feet around the rail, I stretch out my arm, but I’m just a hair short of reaching the latch with the tips of my fingers. Above me, Katia’s grip fails and she screams as she falls. I release the latch and the door swings closed with a violent bang. Katia hits the back of the tunnel, but with the airflow stopped, she quickly rebounds in the near-weightless environment.

  “Are you okay?” I ask, floating down to her.

  She breathes heavily and cannot speak. Her skin is inflamed. As she catches her breath, she grows teary-eyed.

  Commander Sykes sails down and grips Katia’s arm, “Anything broken?”

  “No,” she shakes her head, still gasping for air. “But Sarah!”

  “She…she let go for us,” I say.

  ∆v∆v∆v∆v∆

  Once the computers confirm pressurization is normal in all modules, we move into the lounge to peek out the windows and get a sense of the damage. There, the 1.5 rotation-per-minute spin of the station creates about half a g of gravity. Outside is a tremendous field of debris, shimmering and sparkling in sunlight like tiny snowflakes in a streetlight. Among this are some larger pieces of metal and warped material, doubtless the walls of the Horticulture 4 Module. There are lots of pieces of dirt and plant material, dry and frosty. Most chilling and heart wrenching, however, is the sight of Sarah Foreman’s body, stiff and lifeless as it drifts in the void of space.

  The cause of the disaster is obvious as it tumbles away from us, trailed by the shattered pieces of our home: an asteroid the size of a car.

  Katia starts to cry.

  In a grave voice, Shiro says, “We’re not supposed to
be here.” His eyes are dark and foreboding as he turns to the rest of us, “Mankind was not meant to come this far.”

  Shelby indignantly retorts, “I don’t think Sarah would have said that if she were still alive.”

  “But that’s ultimately the point, isn’t it? Every day we get farther from Earth, and every day they remind us that Earth is where we belong. That’s why they brought us. They’re showing us how incapable we really are. No matter how hard we try, they will never allow us to leave. They are sending us a message: know your place.”

  For a few moments, there is silence. I put a comforting hand on Katia’s back as she continues to sob. Then, Commander Sykes says, “Quiet, please.” He is cocking his head a little, listening for something.

  We all curiously stare at him until he shakes his head and says, “Hmm. Did anyone else hear a thruster firing?”

  “No,” says Commander Tomlinson. We all agree.

  Commander Sykes asks, “Tim, we shouldn’t have any thrusters firing now, should we?”

  “No, not now. If a thruster is firing, that’s bad news. We might run out of fuel in them before we perform all the maneuvers we need to.”

  “I could swear I heard a thruster. Let’s check the computer.”

  In Node 2, we watch Commander Sykes and Tim hover over a notebook computer that is embedded in the ceiling. “There’s nothing,” says Tim. “Nothing was fired.”

  “I heard a thruster,” says Commander Sykes.

  Commander Tomlinson skeptically questions, “Which thruster did you hear?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Which direction?”

  “It was behind us,” says Commander Sykes.

  Commander Tomlinson says, “Can you check that we are where we should be, Tim? If a thruster fired, we would have deviated at least slightly.”

  “Sure,” says Tim. “Give me a minute.” He pulls up a screen that says ‘Star Tracker’ and has dozens of lines of green text and numbers. It makes absolutely no sense to me, but Tim quickly scans it before saying, “No deviation.”

  Commander Tomlinson summarizes, “So, according to the log no thruster was fired and we are still exactly where we should be?”

  “Yes,” Tim replies.

  Commander Tomlinson says to Commander Sykes, “So you’re wrong. A thruster didn’t fire.”

  “It was a thruster. I’d bet my life on it.”

  Commander Tomlinson suggests, “We’ve had a traumatizing day. Maybe the stress is causing you to…” he doesn’t finish the sentence.

  “Causing me to what?” Commander Sykes asks, stone-faced.

  “Well, whatever you heard, it wasn’t a thruster.”

  Without blinking, Commander Sykes says, “I’ve spent eight hundred ninety-six days on this station over the course of my NASA career. I know what I heard.”

  “And therein lies the problem,” says Commander Tomlinson. “You’ve been out here too long. You’ve spent more time in space than anyone here. When they sent you for that year-long mission in 2015, you came back looking like a corpse. I think all the time you’ve put in might be getting to you.” With a paternal tone, he suggests, “Maybe you need some rest. Have I been working you too hard, Eric?”

  “I think,” says Commander Sykes with a cool smile, “you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

  Commander Tomlinson asks, “Shelby, did you hear a thruster firing?”

  Shelby looks torn as she answers, “No.”

  “Nari, what about you?”

  “No,” she emphatically replies.

  “Shiro?”

  “No.”

  “Jim?”

  Upset with the way Commander Tomlinson is treating Commander Sykes, but not wanting to escalate the situation, I say, “My hearing’s bad. I wouldn’t hear a piglet squeal if I stepped on one.”

  “So, you didn’t hear a thruster,” Commander Tomlinson asserts with satisfaction.

  I retort, “I don’t know what a thruster sounds like.”

  “You’ve been on the station this long and you don’t recognize the sound of a thruster?” Commander Tomlinson questions, with a quick roll of his eyes. Then he states, “Nobody here heard a thruster. The computer shows that no thruster fired. The odds are stacked against you, Eric. Is there really absolutely no doubt in your mind that what you heard was a thruster?”

  Placing her hand on Commander Tomlinson’s arm, Shelby says, “Commander, I don’t think we need to turn this into an issue.”

  “Really?” Commander Tomlinson fires back. “The most senior astronaut we have insists he heard something despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.” He incredulously demands, “You don’t see an issue, here?”

  Suddenly, I find myself angry. Not only is Commander Tomlinson questioning Commander Sykes’ sanity, but now he is shaming Shelby because Shelby had the audacity to wisely suggest he should show some restraint. Knowing that I am about to cross a point of no return, I growl, “You need to shut the hell up before you get yourself into trouble, son. That’s what Shelby’s saying.”

  Commander Tomlinson turns to me, his eyes widened in fury as if he wants to tear my guts out. But then, in a flash, his rage evaporates, and he says, “What trouble, Jim? Are you threatening me?”

  Through clenched teeth, I utter, “You have a more experienced officer giving you the best information he has, and instead of listening to him, you’re acting like he’s lost his mind. You’re so stuck on your books and procedures that you can’t see the danger that’s right in front of your face. I don’t think you care a lick about the safety of this crew.”

  Calmly, Commander Tomlinson states, "Frankly, you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. It’s obvious you wouldn’t have survived the astronaut selection process. People who make irrational, emotional outbursts are not who NASA is on the lookout for.”

  “You’re right,” I say. “Apparently they want arrogant little pricks.”

  “You are totally out of line, Jim,” Commander Tomlinson warns.

  Shelby nods in agreement, casting me a warning glance.

  By the look in Commander Tomlinson’s eyes, I sense the cold-blooded machinations of his mind have concluded I am a threat, a threat that must be eliminated as soon as possible. He speaks patronizingly, “I am open to commentary on my leadership, but I prefer that it come in private and without the embellishment of ad hominem attacks. You are dismissed. I’ll see you in your CQ.”

  Written all over my crewmates’ faces is the fact that, with my brazen insubordination, I have crossed a line into territory that they cannot be expected to defend. Well, I think, at least they all know where I stand. I wonder for a split-second what would happen if I refused the order to go to my quarters. Commander Tomlinson would need to use force, and he would need help. But I don’t think it’s fair to put my crewmates in that difficult position. So, I turn around and drift away.

  I don’t make it very far on my way to my quarters, of course. Instead, I stop to listen to the ensuing conversation.

  Commander Sykes is saying, “Give him a break. He’s going to say what he thinks. He doesn’t have any reason not to. What’s NASA going to do? Ground him?”

  Commander Tomlinson says, “NASA isn’t here. Until we hear from them, I am NASA. I’m gonna go talk with Jim. I’ll be back.”

  As quickly as I can, I fly through the station to my quarters and quietly shut myself in. I try to look as casual as possible when, seconds later, the hatch opens and a SPHERES floats in, followed closely by Commander Tomlinson. It isn’t lost on me that he didn’t knock politely before he entered.

  He slams the hatch shut behind him and says, “You don’t get a pass, you know. It’s no excuse that you haven’t had the training everyone else has, or that you’re older than everyone else, or that you’re just plain dumber than everyone else. On this station, I’m in command, and that means you will show respect. Do I make myself clear?”

  He’s staring at me with two eyes, and the SPHERES is s
taring at me with one. “Yes, sir,” I say, half expecting him to pull out a belt and wallop my behind like my father did when I was a whippersnapper with a little too much gumption.

  “You are confined to quarters until I say otherwise. Shelby and Tim will be picking up your slack while you’re in here.”

  “I don’t think that’s fair,” I say.

  “Neither do I,” he agrees. “And that’s the beauty of it. You will be in here filling your time with entertainment while they are out there working double time. By the time this is over, they’ll be pretty pissed at you for crossing the line. Does that make sense?”

  “I suppose so,” I say, “if you’re a conniving, manipulative jackass.”

  “You’re getting in way above your head, old-timer. Just remember that before you mouth off.”

  “Yes, sir,” I nod. Then I ask, “Say, do you know what a prairie dog is?”

  “Of course I know what a prairie dog is.”

  “There are a lot of them in Kansas. Many of them end up as roadkill. Dumb little critters—don’t know how to cross the road safely. They’re not much match for mankind’s greatest technologies.”

  “And your point is?”

  “They must be among the stupidest animals on Earth. Munching on grass all day long. Just munch, munch, munch. That is until a hawk or coyote arrives. Then they squeal and scamper into their holes. They don’t have the brawns or the brains to fight back.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Poor little things,” I shake my head. “They’re just food for the stronger animals of the plains.”

  “Well,” says Commander Tomlinson, “someone has to serve that purpose.”

  He turns for the hatch and, just as he opens it, I say, “You haven’t heard of Con Slobodchikoff, have you?”

  He pauses. As I suspected, he hasn’t heard of him, but he doesn’t want to admit it. His curiosity gets the best of him, though, and he turns around, “Who is he?”

  I shrug, “Ask Shiro. He would know.”