Blue Darker Than Black

by Mike Jenne

  Now, the oxygen cylinder intended to buy him roughly thirty minutes—more than adequate time to transit the airlock—was spilling its precious contents into the vacuum. It was a momentous wager, the biggest bet that he would ever place. Would the exterior hatch seal? Would there be sufficient pressure to equalize the chamber and allow the interior hatch to open? Will I get to Russo in time?

  He unexpectedly found himself jammed against the wall of the airlock and then realized that the gas swiftly jetting from the purge port acted like a runaway maneuvering thruster. As the residual oxygen in his suit ran out, he gasped and then held his breath. In moments, he felt lightheaded, his fingers tingled, his vision started to dim, and his heart pounded in his chest. Anxiously watching the pressure gauge needle creep up the scale, he waited until it indicated five pounds per square inch before unlocking and opening his helmet visor. Still holding his breath, he gratefully listened to the weak whooshing sound of oxygen flowing from the supplemental tank. It was unbelievably cold inside the small chamber, at least a hundred degrees below zero, probably much colder.

  He exhaled through his nose; he heard a faint crackling sound as his warm breath instantaneously exploded into a cloud of minute ice crystals. He hesitantly sucked in a frigid mouthful of air. Even though his lungs ached immediately, he savored the breath, promising himself that he would never again take precious oxygen for granted. Seconds later, he heard a hissing sound and faint pop as the airlock’s pressure equalized with the MOL cabin’s, and the interior hatch spontaneously opened.

  He scrambled though the hatch and swiftly shed his helmet, gloves, and the ELSS chest pack. His face burned and his eyes watered. It was uncomfortably hot inside the MOL’s main cabin; the chilly air flowing in from the airlock quickly dissipated. He was taken aback by the transition; it was like being transported from the arctic to the tropics in an instant.

  He opened the transfer case, tore away an insulation layer, switched off a battery-powered heating element, and yanked out the handheld UHF radio. He turned it on, adjusted the volume, and reported, “Drew, I’m inside.” He was amused at the sound of his voice; in the MOL’s mixed atmosphere of helium and oxygen, it bore a slightly squeaky and high-pitched tone.

  A moment passed before Carson replied, “Excellent. Now I can breathe again. Any problems with the airlock?”

  “Nothing significant,” replied Ourecky, almost nonchalantly. He rubbed his tingling nose and smiled to himself. “I still have to locate Russo, so I’ll be off-air for a while.” As he bled off suit pressure, he took a moment to orient himself to his new surroundings. Compared to the cramped Gemini-I, the MOL was lavishly spacious. He was filled with a sense of euphoria; after seven trips into orbit, crammed into the Gemini-I cabin, he was finally able to float free. And the freedom was not just a brief interlude, like the half-minute spells of weightlessness he experienced on the Vomit Comet parabolas. It was the stuff of his childhood dreams, and despite the urgent circumstances, he reveled in it.

  Simultaneously, he was aghast. The station was in shambles, like the aftermath of a raucous frat party in orbit. A revolting stench permeated the stiflingly warm air. A grubby constellation of waste and debris—crumbs, litter, discarded food wrappers, and clumps of hair—floated in the cabin. It was disgusting and eerie at the same time.

  Strange orbs, most about the diameter of a finger, hovered in the midst of the clutter. Curious, he looked closely at a few and realized that they were globules of vomit; some had already dried, while others—glistening, undulating yellow-green spheres tinged with blood—were very new. Overcome by spasms of nausea, he retched; he tasted a surge of sour bile, but managed to retain his last meal. His every movement set the air into motion, and the blobs drifted to and fro, many splattering into the walls and yielding yet many more projectiles.

  In addition to the airlock, the MOL’s forward area contained the occupants’ closet-like sleeping compartments. One enclosure was open and vacant; the curtain was tightly drawn on the other. Ourecky yanked open the flimsy curtain and gasped as he encountered Cowin’s lifeless body. Despite his medical briefings on what to expect, what he saw appalled him. If he didn’t know that Cowin was human, he might have guessed that he was some sort of alien.

  He had never met Cowin, so he was curious what the Navy astronaut looked like when he was still alive. Cowin’s chest and abdomen were grossly distended with edema, and his hairless head was swollen like a child’s balloon. Set deep in his grotesquely bloated face, his eyes were wide open, locked in a perpetual stare of bewilderment. His swollen arms were extended in front of him, as if he was grasping for an answer to his untimely demise.

  Cowin wore long underwear. Stretched to the breaking point, the cotton fabric was drawn absolutely taut over his inflated body; it looked as if his carcass was squeezed into a white sausage casing. Ourecky briefly contemplated zipping Cowin into his cocoon-like sleeping restraint. He squeamishly reached out and nudged one of Cowin’s outstretched arms, and realized that stuffing the corpse into the bag would be a futile waste of time and energy. Rigor mortis had long since set in, and the stiff body would not be moved.

  He didn’t linger to pay his respects. He could do nothing for Cowin and had yet to find Russo. He remembered that one of his more ghoulish tasks was to photograph Cowin’s corpse—and Russo also, if he found him dead—but he decided that the macabre chore could wait. He pulled the compartment’s curtain closed. Dodging odious blobs, he gradually worked his way aft, traversing the filthy galley space, and found Russo in the operations module. Although he was still alive, if only marginally, Russo didn’t look much different than Cowin.

  Russo still retained most of his hair, although there were several bald patches on his scalp. Purple blotches marked his swollen face. Gradually emerging from a stupor, he tried to speak, but voiced nothing but incoherent babble. Ourecky examined his eyes; the pupils were slightly opaque, like cataracts. Ourecky now understood why no one had heard from Russo lately.

  Turning away from Russo, Ourecky made his way to the reactor control station located in the next compartment aft. He pulled out a reference card prepared by the Navy’s reactor specialists. Comparing the numbers to the reactor’s controls, he verified that the nuclear furnace was functioning within acceptable parameters.

  According to his cursory assessment, everything was in order; the reactor was perfectly healthy, and could probably continue operating for months. Then he worked his way forward to the stern compartment, retrieved the medical bag from the transfer case, and returned to Russo.

  He keyed the handheld radio and spoke. “Drew, I’ve checked the reactor and it’s secure. I’m with Russo, and I’m commencing the treatment protocol.”

  “I’ll relay the reactor status to the ground,” replied Carson. “How does Russo look?”

  “Much worse than I expected. I doubt he’ll survive reentry. He’s pretty damned frail.”

  “Roger,” answered Carson. “I’ll pass the news on.”

  Using a strap, Ourecky anchored Russo to a bulkhead. After four attempts, he successfully threaded a catheter into a vein in the crook of Russo’s elbow and connected it to a Viaflex infusion bag of whole blood. Lacking the assistance of gravity, Ourecky patiently kneaded the bag to force the blood through the intravenous line and into Russo’s circulatory system.

  Once he drained the first bag, he replaced it with another, and then another until he administered four units altogether. Next, he injected Russo with pre-loaded Tubex syringes that contained antibiotics, potassium iodide, Valium, and morphine.

  As he monitored his patient’s vital signs, Ourecky laughed to himself; although he was not a physician, he was fairly certain that he was performing the first house call in orbit. The watershed moment would be yet another unseen entry in the annals of human spaceflight.

  After receiving the serum and drugs, Russo was slightly more lucid. “Can’t … see … well,” he mumbled. “You … you … Ourecky?”

  “Yeah.
It’s me, Ourecky. I’m here to bring you home, Russo.”

  “But … you’re … not a pilot.”

  “True, but this is hardly the time to quibble over technicalities,” answered Ourecky, stowing away the depleted IV bags and expended Tubex cartridges. “But if it makes you feel any better, you’ll be sitting in the left-hand seat on the ride down. Besides, I’m more comfortable flying from the right side, anyway.”

  Smiling feebly, Russo faded back to sleep. Ourecky paused long enough to climb out of his cumbersome space suit. The action wasn’t listed on the flight plan, but with the pervasive heat in the cabin, he knew he wouldn’t last long otherwise. Stripped down to his long underwear, which were already soaked with perspiration, he went to work.

  On Orbit

  1:43 p.m. Friday, August 18, 1972 (Rev 11 / GET: 15:28:03)

  For an instant, Ourecky found himself suspended in the ethereal twilight between sleep and wakefulness. For the second time today, he was a child again, soaring over Wilber, and he had finally succeeded in grasping an elusive object of his dream world, a souvenir he could take with him into consciousness, a secret talisman that would allow him to fly while he was awake.

  Suddenly, he realized that he wasn’t dreaming that he could fly; he was flying. It was a painfully disconcerting sensation, something like what a dozing driver feels when waking at the wheel of a speeding car. He looked at his hand and saw that the object he had snatched over from the dream realm was in fact one of the many errant tape cartridges he had been chasing.

  He had been aboard the MOL for over six hours, toiling against a deadline, agonizing over everything that had yet to be accomplished. He was operating at the ragged fringes of his endurance; the sleep deprivation was definitely taking its toll. For some inexplicable reason, his chest was terribly sore and he was developing a persistent cough; he attributed both to the putrid air that was likely heavily laden with bacteria and other forms of unhealthy crud.

  There were hundreds of tape cartridges to collect and account for. He had to hand it to Russo; even as he was losing his sight, he still managed to change out the surveillance data cartridges on schedule. Unfortunately, most of them—especially those bearing the data collected in the past few days—weren’t labeled, so they were woefully disorganized.

  To make matters worse, Russo had crammed the loaded cartridges into mesh storage bags, but apparently had not realized that one of the bags had ruptured a seam. At least fifty or more tape cartridges floated free, jumbled from one end of the station to the other.

  As he alternated between frantically packing tape cartridges into storage cases and keeping watch on Russo, he heard Carson’s voice on the radio.

  “Hey, Scott, can you bump to Channel Three?” asked Carson. “We need to chat.”

  “Bump to Three? Yeah. Wait.”

  Still groggy, Ourecky dialed in the new channel, paused, and then transmitted. “Drew?”

  “Busy over there?”

  “Busy? I’m busier than a one-armed paperhanger,” replied Ourecky. Surely Carson knew better than to call him up just to have a conversation.

  “Yeah. Hey, something just came up that might ease your workload considerably. If nothing else, you can at least slow down, maybe even grab some sleep.”

  “If that’s the case, I’m just dying to hear anything you might have to say,” replied Ourecky.

  “Virgil sent us a message on my last contact. He, Mark Tew, and Tarbox apparently had a long powwow after you sent down your medical assessment of Russo. Are you sticking with your conclusion that he’s not going to make it down alive?”

  Ourecky looked towards Russo, who was still apparently unconscious, and then curtly replied, “Yes. Drew, I don’t think he’s going to make it home.”

  “Okay. You should be aware that the flight surgeons at Wright-Patt concur with your diagnosis, based on the vitals you’ve sent. They don’t think he’ll survive the G-load on reentry.”

  So what’s the point? thought Ourecky. “I guess I should have gone to medical school instead of becoming an engineer.” He paused to cough repeatedly. Wheezing to catch his breath, he keyed the radio and said, “I’m missing something here, Drew. Can you clarify?”

  “Yeah,” replied Carson. “Based on what the docs say, Virgil and Tarbox are recommending that we shift the priorities of the mission. They want you to stay up for another twenty-four hours, to ensure that you can recover all the data from the SAR and signals intercept gear. Right now, they want you to cease what you’re doing, snatch two or three hours of decent sleep, and then resume work. Once you’ve salvaged all the tape cartridges, you should still have time to grab some more rest before reentry.”

  As he contemplated the prospects of staying up another day, Ourecky gazed at the chaos. As horrible as he felt right now, and as disgusting as the conditions were, he liked it up here. While he would have preferred a more pristine environment than a metal-walled petri dish filled with floating trash and exploding globs of puke, he found the experience of prolonged weightlessness exhilarating.

  And a chance to sleep? The daylong extension was almost more than he could hope for, to be able to enjoy this unfettered world rested and without having to rush. Then he looked towards Russo. Reflecting on his bloated and discolored face, things came more clearly into focus. Ourecky had come up here on a mission, not for a field trip or pleasure cruise. He resolved himself not to yield to temptation.

  He coughed several times, cleared his throat, blinked his tired eyes, keyed the radio and said, “Hey, Drew, since Cowin is dead and Russo is incapacitated, that leaves me as the only functional officer aboard this Can. I suppose that formally makes me the MOL mission commander, right?”

  “Yup,” replied Carson. “That’s correct. Congratulations on your command of a naval vessel. That’s quite an accomplishment for an Air Force guy.”

  “Good. If that’s the case, I’m making my first command decision.” He paused to cough several times and then caught his breath before continuing. “Please convey to Virgil that we are reentering for White Sands on Rev 15, as currently planned. I’ll do my best to salvage all the tape cartridges that I can grab, but my first priority is to carry Russo home.”

  “Aye, aye,” replied Carson. “Good decision. I’ll relay to Sheriff Wolcott, and maybe he can talk some sense to the Ancient Mariner. Hey, Scott, your coughing is starting to sound really bad. Are you sure you’re okay to continue?”

  “Do I have a choice?” asked Ourecky, wheezing as he struggled to breathe. “We came up here to give Russo a lift home. That’s what … I’m … going to … do.”

  “Okay. Be aware that I am going to let the flight docs know that you’re under the weather. Maybe they can come up with some magic potion to make you feel better.”

  “Sure. Can’t hurt.” Ourecky smiled weakly, coughed deeply, and keyed the microphone twice. As he stuffed a rubber-banded batch of cartridges into a storage case, he heard a weak groan. Floating effortlessly in the air, he turned his head to see that Russo was awake, although just barely so.

  “Scott,” muttered Russo weakly. “Thank … you.”

  Realizing that it was the first time Russo had ever addressed him by his first name, Ourecky grinned and replied, “You’re welcome, Ed.”

  3:31 p.m. (REV 12 / GET: 17:16:20)

  Ourecky was in the cramped Gemini-B, working to stow a storage case that he had filled with tape cartridges. On his third attempt, he successfully slid the awkward case into its tight slot and clicked shut the latches that locked it securely in place for reentry. As he began to worm his way back through the circular hatch opening to return to the MOL cabin, the radio interrupted him. Coughing, he turned up the volume and pressed the handheld transceiver to his ear.

  “How are you holding up, Scott?” asked Carson. His voice carried a very concerned tone. “Feeling any better?”

  “Uh … no. The coughing is just getting worse … and … now I’m coughing up crap. My chest is really sore, I feel l
ike I’m running a high fever, and I’m really … weak.”

  “Okay. I’m relaying all this down to the docs. Wait.” The radio was silent for several seconds, and then Carson asked, “You said you had a productive cough?”

  “Huh?”

  “You’re coughing up crud?”

  “Yeah. It’s pretty damned ugly.”

  “The flight surgeons want to know what it looks like.”

  Ourecky coughed deeply, spit out the results, and then examined the resultant lump hovering before him. “Uh, it’s greenish-yellow mucus, really thick and lumpy, tinged with spots of blood. And there’s other stuff in there … like little particles.”

  “Are you nauseous?”

  “No. Not … nauseous … at all.”

  “Okay. I’ll get back to you shortly.”

  Aerospace Support Project

  5:35 p.m.

  With his Tony Lama cowboy boots on the edge of his desk, Wolcott leaned back in his chair and reviewed the remaining details of the flight plan. He heard a faint tapping and looked up to see a young captain poking his head into the glassed-in office space. He immediately recognized him as a flight surgeon newly assigned to Blue Gemini. At present, he was the only physician in the mission control facility; the more experienced doctors had been dispatched to the different recovery sites in anticipation of Russo’s return to Earth.

  “Is General Tew here?” asked the bespectacled flight surgeon.

  “He’s indisposed, Sawbones,” replied Wolcott. “Something on your mind? I’ll pass it on to him when he gets back.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the flight surgeon. Bearing a clipboard, he stepped inside the enclosure and closed the door. “May I be candid, sir?”

  “Tarnations! Of course, son. If you’ve got something to say, then just spit it out. Savvy?”

  The flight surgeon nodded gravely and said, “I’m really concerned about the prospects of your man making it safely to Earth.”