Gravity: A Novel of Medical Suspense

by Tess Gerritsen

  The air-lock hatch swung open, and a wide brown face grinned at them from the other end of the vestibule connecting Atlantis with ISS. “They brought oranges!” Luther Ames called out to his station mates. “I can smell ’em!”

  “NASA home delivery service,” deadpanned Commander Vance. “Your groceries have arrived.” Bearing a nylon sack of fresh fruit, Vance floated through Atlantis’s air lock into the space station.

  It had been a perfect docking. With both spacecrafts traveling at a speed of 17,500 miles per hour above the earth, Vance had approached ISS at the delicate rate of two inches per second, lining up Atlantis’s docking module to the ISS port for a good, tight lock.

  Now the hatches were open and Atlantis’s crew floated one by one into the space station to be greeted with handshakes and hugs, and the welcoming smiles of people who have not seen new faces in over a month. The node was too small to hold thirteen people, and the crews quickly spilled into the adjoining modules.

  Emma was the fifth to cross into the station. She popped out of the vestibule and inhaled a mélange of scents, the slightly sour and meaty odors of humans confined too long in a closed space. Luther Ames, an old friend from astronaut training, was the first to greet her.

  “Dr. Watson, I presume!” he boomed out, pulling her into a hug. “Welcome aboard. The more ladies, the merrier.”

  “Hey, you know I’m no lady.”

  He winked. “We’ll keep that between us.” Luther had always been larger than life, a man whose good cheer could fill a room. Everyone liked Luther because Luther liked everyone. Emma was glad to have him aboard.

  Especially when she turned to look at her other station mates. She shook hands first with Michael Griggs, the ISS commander, and found his greeting polite but almost military. Diana Estes, the Englishwoman sent up by the European Space Agency, was not much warmer. She smiled, but her eyes were a strange glacial blue. Cool and distant.

  Emma turned next to the Russian, Nicolai Rudenko, who had been aboard ISS the longest—almost five months. The module lights seemed to wash all the color from his face, turning it as drab as the gray-flecked stubble of his beard. As they shook hands, his gaze barely met hers. This man, she thought, needs to go home. He is depressed. Exhausted.

  Kenichi Hirai, the astronaut from NASDA, floated forward to greet her next. He, at least, had a smile on his face and a firm handshake. He stammered a greeting and quickly retreated.

  By now the module had emptied out, the rest of the group dispersing to other parts of the station. She found herself alone with Bill Haning.

  Debbie Haning had died three days ago. Atlantis would be bringing Bill home, not to his wife’s bedside, but to her funeral. Emma floated across to him. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I’m so sorry.”

  He merely nodded and looked away. “It’s strange,” he said. “We always thought—if something ever happened—it would happen to me. Because I’m the big hero in the family. The one who takes all the risks. It never occurred to us that she would be the one . . .” He took a deep breath. She saw that he was fighting to maintain his composure, and she knew this was not the time for words of sympathy. Even a gentle touch might destroy his fragile control over his emotions.

  “Well, Watson,” he finally said. “I guess I should be the one to show you the ropes. Since you’ll be taking on my load.”

  She nodded. “Whenever you’re ready, Bill.”

  “Let’s do it now. There’s a lot to tell you. And not much time for the changeover.”

  Though Emma was familiar with the layout of the station, her first interior glimpse of the actual structure was a dizzying experience. The weightlessness of orbit meant there was no up or down, no floor or ceiling. Every surface was functional workspace, and if she turned too quickly in midair, she instantly lost all sense of direction. That, and the twinges of nausea, made her move slowly, focusing her eyes on one spot as she turned.

  She knew that the core of ISS had as much inhabitable airspace as two Boeing 747s, but it was distributed among a dozen bus-sized modules, plugged together like Tinkertoys into connecting points called nodes. The shuttle had docked on Node 2. Attached to that same node were the European Space Agency lab, the Japanese lab, and the U.S. lab, which served as the gateway into the rest of the station.

  Bill led her out of the U.S. lab into the next connecting point, Node 1. Here they paused for a moment to look out the observation cupola. The earth slowly spun beneath them, milky clouds swirling over seas.

  “This is where I spend every spare moment,” said Bill. “Just looking out these windows. It feels almost sacred to me. I call this the Church of Mother Earth.” He tore his gaze away from the view and turned to point out the other node hatchways. “Directly opposite is the EVA air lock,” he said. “And the hatchway below us leads into the hab module. Your sleep station’s in there. The CRV is docked at the other end of the hab, for quick evac access.”

  “Three crew members sleep in this hab?”

  He nodded. “The other three sleep in the Russian service module. It’s through this hatchway here. Let’s head there now.”

  They left Node 1, and like fish swimming through a maze of tunnels, they floated into the Russian half of the station.

  This was the oldest part of ISS, the section that had been in orbit longest, and its age showed. As they passed through Zarya—the power and propulsion plant—she saw smudges on the walls, the occasional scratch and dent. What had been only a set of blueprints in her head now took on texture and sensory detail. The station was more than just a maze of gleaming labs; it was also a home for human beings, and the wear and tear of constant occupancy was evident.

  They floated into the Russian service module, and Emma confronted a disorienting view of Griggs and Vance, both of them upside down. Or am I the one who’s upside down? thought Emma, amused by this topsy-turvy world of weightlessness. Like the U.S. hab, the RSM contained a galley, toilet, and sleep stations for three crew members. At the far end, she spotted another hatchway.

  “Does that go to the old Soyuz?” she asked.

  Bill nodded. “We use it for storing junk now. That’s about all we can do with it.” The Soyuz capsule, which had once served as an emergency lifeboat, was now obsolete, and its batteries had long since drained.

  Luther Ames popped his head into the RSM. “Hey, everyone, it’s show time! Group hug in the media conferencing center. NASA wants the taxpayers to see our international love fest up here.”

  Bill gave a weary sigh. “We’re like animals in a zoo. Every day it’s smile for the damn cameras.”

  Emma was the last to join the exodus to the hab module. By the time she reached it, a dozen people were already crowded inside. It looked like a tangle of arms and legs in there, everyone bobbing, trying not to collide with each other.

  While Griggs struggled to get things organized, Emma hung back in Node 1. Drifting in midair, she found herself slowly turning toward the cupola. The view beyond those windows took her breath away.

  The earth stretched below in all its magnificence, a rim of stars crowning the gentle curve of the horizon. They were passing into night now, and below, she saw familiar landmarks slipping into darkness. Houston. It was their first passover of the night.

  She leaned close to the window, pressing her hand to the glass. Oh, Jack, she thought. I wish you were here. I wish you could see this.

  Then she waved. And she knew, without the slightest doubt, that somewhere in the darkness below, Jack was waving back.

  EIGHT

  July 29

  Personal E-mail to: Dr. Emma Watson (ISS)

  From: Jack McCallum

  Like a diamond in the sky. That’s what you look like from down here. Last night I stayed up to watch you pass over. Gave you a big wave.

  This morning on CNN, you were being touted as Ms. Right Stuff. “Girl astronaut blasts off, doesn’t chip a nail,” or something equally hokey. They interviewed Woody Ellis and Leroy Cornell, and both of
them were beaming like proud daddies. Congratulations. You’re America’s sweetheart.

  Vance and crew made a picture-perfect landing. Bloodsucking reporters were all over poor Bill when he arrived in Houston. I caught a glimpse of him on TV—he looks like he’s aged twenty years. Services for Debbie are this afternoon. I’ll be there.

  Tomorrow, I’ll be sailing on the Gulf.

  Em, I got the divorce papers today, and I’ll be honest with you. It doesn’t feel good. But then, I guess it’s not supposed to, is it?

  Anyway, they’re ready for us to sign. Maybe now that it’s finally over, we can get back to being friends again. The way we used to be.

  Jack

  P.S.: Humphrey’s a little shit. You owe me a new couch.

  Personal E-mail to: Jack McCallum

  From: Emma Watson

  America’s sweetheart? Puh-leeze. This has turned into a high-wire act, with everyone on earth watching and waiting for me to screw up. And when I do, I’ll be the shoulda-sent-a-man Exhibit #1. I hate that.

  On the other hand, I do love it up here. How I wish you could see this view! When I look down at the earth and see how incredibly beautiful she is, I want to shake some sense into everyone living down there. If only they could see how small and fragile and very alone the earth is, surrounded by all this cold black space. They’d take much better care of her.

  (Uh, oh, here she goes again, getting tearyeyed about the home planet. Shoulda sent a man.)

  I’m happy to report the nausea’s gone. I can zip around from mod to mod with scarcely a twinge. I still get a little woozy when I catch an unexpected glimpse of earth through a window. It screws up my sense of up and down, and it takes me a few seconds to reorient. I’m trying to keep up the exercise, but two hours every day is a big chunk of time, especially when I’ve got so much to do. Dozens of experiments to monitor, a zillion E-mails from Payload Operations, every scientist demanding top priority for their pet projects. Eventually, I’ll get up to speed. But this morning I was so tired, I slept right through Houston’s wakeup music. (And Luther says they blasted us with Wagner’s Valkyrie!)

  As for the divorce being final, it doesn’t feel good for me, either. But, Jack, at least we had seven good years. That’s more than a lot of couples can say. I know you must be anxious to finish this business. I promise I’ll sign the papers as soon as I get home.

  Don’t stop waving.

  Em

  P.S.: Humphrey never attacked my furniture. What did you do to upset him?

  Emma turned off her laptop computer and folded it shut. Answering personal E-mail was the last task of the day. She had looked forward to hearing from home, but Jack’s mention of the divorce had stung her. So he’s ready to move on, she thought. He’s ready to “be friends” again.

  As she zipped herself into her sleep restraint bag, she was angry at him, at how easily he’d accepted the end of their marriage. Early in their divorce, when their arguments were still raging, she’d felt strangely reassured by every noisy disagreement. But now the conflicts had ended, and Jack had reached the stage of calm acceptance. No pain, no regrets.

  And here I am, still missing you. And I hate myself for it.

  Kenichi hesitated to wake her. He lingered outside her sleep station privacy curtain, wondering if he should call out again. It was such a small matter, and he hated to disturb her. She had looked so tired at supper, had actually dozed off still clutching her fork. Without the constant pull of gravity, the body does not crumple when you fall unconscious, and there is no warning jerk of the head to startle you awake. Tired astronauts had been known to fall asleep in the midst of repairs, while still holding a tool in their hand.

  He decided not to wake her and returned, alone, to the U.S. lab.

  Kenichi had never needed more than five hours of rest a night, and while the others slept, he would often wander the labyrinth of the space station, checking on his various experiments. Inspecting, exploring. It seemed that only when the human crew slept did the station assert its own gleaming personality. It became an autonomous being that hummed and clicked, its computers directing a thousand different functions, electronic commands zinging through its nervous system of wires and circuits. As Kenichi drifted through the maze of tunnels, he thought of all the human hands that had worked to fashion just a single square inch of this structure. The electronics and metal workers, the molders of plastic. The glassmakers. Because of their labor, a farmer’s son who had grown up in a mountain village of Japan now floated two hundred twenty miles above the earth.

  Kenichi had been aboard the station for a month, and the wonder of it all had not left him.

  He knew his stay here was limited. He knew the toll now being exacted on his body: the steady seepage of calcium from his bones, the wasting of his muscles, the declining vigor of arteries and heart, now freed from the challenge of pumping against gravity. Every moment aboard ISS was precious, and he did not want to waste a minute of it. So, during the hours scheduled for sleep, he roamed the station, lingering at windows, visited the animals in the lab.

  That was how he had discovered the dead mouse.

  It had been floating with legs frozen and extended, pink mouth gaping open. Another one of the males. It was the fourth mouse to die in sixteen days.

  He confirmed that the habitat was functioning properly, that the temperature set points had not been violated and the airflow rate was maintained at the standard twelve changes per hour. Why were they dying? Could it be contamination of the water or food? Several months ago, the station had lost a dozen rats when toxic chemicals had seeped into the animal habitat’s water supply.

  The mouse floated in a corner of the enclosure. The other males were bunched at the far end, as though repulsed by the corpse of their cage mate. They seemed frantic to get away from it, paws clinging to the cage screen. On the other side of the wire divider, the females, too, were bunched together. All except one. She was twitching, spiraling slowly in midair, her claws thrashing in seizurelike movements.

  Another one is sick.

  Even as he watched, the female gave what looked like a last tortured gasp and suddenly went limp.

  The other females bunched even tighter, a panicked mass of writhing white fur. He had to remove the corpses, before the contagion—if it was a contagion—spread to the other mice.

  He interfaced the habitat to the life-sciences glove box, snapped on latex gloves, and inserted his hands through the rubber dams. Reaching first into the male side of the enclosure, he removed the corpse and bagged it in plastic. Then he opened the females’ enclosure and reached in for the second dead mouse. As he removed it, a flash of white fur shot out past his hand.

  One of the mice had escaped into the glove box.

  He snatched her in midair. And almost immediately released her when he felt the sharp nip of pain. She had bitten right through the glove.

  At once he pulled his hands out of the box, quickly peeled off the gloves, and stared at his finger. A drop of blood welled up, the sight of it so unexpected, he felt nauseated. He closed his eyes, berating himself. This was nothing—barely a prick. The mouse’s rightful vengeance for all those needles he had stuck in them. He opened his eyes again, but the nausea was still there.

  I need to rest, he thought.

  He recaptured the struggling mouse and thrust it into the cage. Then he removed the two bagged corpses and placed them in the refrigerator. Tomorrow, he’d deal with the problem. Tomorrow, when he felt better.

  July 30

  “I found this one dead today,” said Kenichi. “It is number six.”

  Emma frowned at the mice in the animal habitat. They were housed in a divided cage, the males separated from the females only by a wire barrier. They shared the same air, the same food and water supply. On the male side, a dead mouse floated motionless, limbs extended and rigid. The other males were clustered at the opposite end of the enclosure, scrabbling at the screen as though frantic to escape.

  “
You’ve lost six mice in seventeen days?” said Emma.

  “Five males. One female.”

  Emma studied the remaining live animals for signs of illness. They all appeared alert, their eyes bright, with no mucus discharge from their nostrils.

  “First, let’s get this dead one out,” she said. “Then we’ll take a close look at the others.”

  Using the glove box, she reached into the cage and removed the corpse. It was already in rigor mortis, the legs stiff, the spine inflexible. The mouth was partly open, and the tip of the tongue protruded in a soft flap of pink. It was not unusual for lab animals to die in space. On one shuttle flight in 1998, there had been almost a hundred percent mortality among newborn rats. Microgravity was an alien environment, and not all species adapted well.

  Prior to launch, these mice would have been screened for a number of bacteria, fungi, and viruses. If this was an infection, then they had picked it up while aboard ISS.

  She put the dead mouse in a plastic pouch, changed gloves, and reached into the enclosure for one of the live mice. It squirmed with great vigor, showing no signs of illness. The only unusual feature was a tattered ear that had been chewed by its cage mates. She flipped it over to look at its belly and gave an exclamation of surprise.

  “This is a female,” she said.

  “What?”

  “You had a female in the male enclosure.”

  Kenichi leaned close to peer through the glove box window at the mouse’s genitals. The evidence was plain to see. His face flushed deep red with embarrassment.

  “Last night,” he explained. “She bit me. I put her back in a hurry.”

  Emma gave him a sympathetic smile. “Well, the worst that can happen is an unexpected baby boom.”

  Kenichi slipped on gloves and inserted his hands in the second pair of glove box armholes. “I make the mistake,” he said. “I fix it.”

  Together they examined the rest of the mice in the enclosure, but found no other misplaced specimens. All appeared healthy.