Vessel

by Andrew J. Morgan

  The Director didn't have much time for his muses, though. Following a last minute instruction from NASA via the RFSA, the cargo was to be modified. The Soyuz rocket usually carried one of two capsules: the first, also called Soyuz, was a seven-metre-long transport ship made of three sections. At the front was a pressurized sphere two-and-a-half metres in diameter, used as a docking module and storage space for a small amount of cargo. The middle section, shaped like an egg with a flattened bottom, was home to a maximum of three crew for the short journey to the ISS, and was also capable of withstanding the destructive friction of the atmosphere during re-entry. The rearmost section contained instrumentation and propulsion, including two folding solar panels that stretched out on either side like wings.

  The capsule he had been instructed to dismantle was called Progress, an unmanned, automated tug that simply acted as a cargo transport to and from the ISS. It was not designed to cater for life on its trip; it acted as a hollow space to hold the supplies and equipment needed by the station and its crew, lacking the vital middle section of the Soyuz craft in favour of an additional fuel tank for refuelling the ISS.

  As a Soyuz capsule was not ready for immediate replacement, the best possible solution was to reconfigure the Progress craft by replacing the second module. The silver sheath was retracted, and the craft deconstructed, ready for its adaptation. The Director reported that the additional workload would delay the launch by two weeks and four days, pushing it back to three weeks from now. It was going to be tough, but he knew his team could do it.

  * * *

  'What we intend to do,' the instructor said through a treacle-thick Russian accent, 'is train you in three weeks, what most mission specialists learn in two years.'

  'I thought it was normally a six-month course?' Sally asked.

  'Six months is the intensive course.'

  Sitting at her desk in the musty classroom, Sally said nothing further, waiting for her new mentor to continue. All of a sudden, the weight of her burden seemed a whole lot heavier.

  'This, as you may realise, is an impossibility. We can only teach you what is necessary. You must be prepared.'

  The first day was easy: she was taken on a tour of an ISS mock-up and shown the basic emergency medical and fire procedures. Then they showed her how the facilities worked, from the bathroom to the galley to the gym. A brief tour of her soon-to-be workplace, the Columbus module, followed. She hoovered up the knowledge and by the time evening rolled in, she was feeling confident about her ability to become space-ready in such a short amount of time.

  The next day was physical training, and with it an early start. Still groggy from sleep, she slipped on one of the provided tracksuits, then left the dormitory. Wandering down the deserted main strip, guided by the first few glimmers of morning, she headed for the gym, building up a quick pace to fight off the chill.

  'Have you had breakfast?' That was the first thing her instructor asked her as she entered the gym.

  'No …' she said. 'Breakfast doesn't agree with me this early in the morning.'

  'You need to eat,' the instructor said, hands on hips. 'You need your strength.'

  They warmed up and went for a run around the centre. Within a hundred metres Sally's lungs felt full of molten lead, and after a hundred more her tracksuit was thick with sweat. Fifteen minutes later, they were back at the gym and Sally collapsed onto a bench, gasping for breath. She wasn't given long to recover before weight training began.

  'Space may seem serene and pleasant on television,' the instructor told her as she forced out another repetition, 'but it has a terrible effect on your body. Muscles, bones, your internal organs — they all need exercise to stay healthy and strong.'

  Sally wasn't sure how she made it back to her dormitory by the time the day was done, late into the night. Between setting her alarm for the next day — an hour earlier this time, she was starving — and waking up again, it seemed like a mere blink. A week and a half more of strength and fitness training followed, and at the end she almost whooped with joy when she saw that the first activity on the next day was not until noon. There was a note alongside the entry that told her to have breakfast, but to avoid lunch. She was so tired she didn't give it a second thought.

  Chapter 6

  It was a warm day, the warmest yet, and the sun beamed down from high in the sky as Sally trudged along to the great domed building at the far end of the centre. Close up, it was bigger than she expected, and its sheer scale took the warmth straight from her body as she was sucked into its encompassing shadow. Her instructor's gym kit had been exchanged for a long, white lab coat. He was joined by two others as she met him in the foyer.

  'Follow me please,' he said, and they walked in silence up two flights of stairs into what looked like a small air traffic control room, its desk space dominated by dials and lights and switches that were original from the Cold War era. More frightening was the view outside the letterbox window above the desk: a room, as high as the top of the dome itself and almost as wide. Mounted on a central axle and spanning the radius of the room was a thick blue tube that ended in a sphere. It looked big enough to hold a person. Sally could feel her legs going weak as primal terror rushed into her and a screaming voice bellowed Run away! Run away! But all she could do was stand rigid, feeling the blood run from her head to her accelerating heart.

  'Don't worry,' said one of the lab-coated people, a smart, square-jawed woman. 'You are fine. We watch; we keep safe.'

  She squeezed Sally's arm, and Sally did her best to smile back without vomiting. They led her to a door at the end of the desk, and she followed, semi-dazed and unresisting. Although fear was consuming her every step, a small amount of pride and stubbornness — the same stubbornness she had exhibited since she was a child — carried her forwards, determined not to let her fail.

  Behind the door, a skinny gantry cantilevered out to the sphere, which hung open and waiting, ready to devour its human prey. She stepped into the cramped sphere and sat in the deep, curved seat. It hugged and pinched her body from head to toe, although it was quite comfortable once she was in. The lady buckled her up, pulling the nest of harnesses tight across her body, pinning her torso flat against the seat with not a millimetre of give.

  'Hold this,' she said, taking Sally's hand and placing it on what felt like an upright tube. 'You press button.'

  Sally, feeling for a button, found it and pressed it.

  'For if you fall asleep,' the lady said, not being as reassuring as she seemed to think she was. 'Oh, and keep mouth tight closed.'

  She left, closing the sphere after her, leaving Sally in near-darkness. Only a small, dim light glowed above her, casting a dribble of yellow on the cramped space. The seat didn't seem quite as comfortable any more, and the tight harness restricted her breathing. She could feel a clammy sweat forming on her palms, sliding her grip from the tube and forcing her to squeeze even tighter. A thought came to her as sudden and confusing as her arrival in Russia: was this what being in the womb was like?

  'Please nod your head if you are ready to go,' a loud voice asked her through a speaker above her head. Her eyes hunted through the gloom for a camera lens, which she found just above her. Without knowing why, she nodded. A muted whirr and a rumble shuddered through the sphere, and she felt it droop as she listened to what sounded like the gantry being retracted. When the sound finished — culminating in a solid clunk — the echo left behind seemed to carry through the vast room for an eternity. Then, another deeper more electrical whirr began, building to an unsettling whine.

  'Beginning acceleration to one G,' the speaker said, and the whine grew louder, more intense, carrying the sphere forwards with it. The acceleration was gentle, but the disorientation of the darkness made Sally's head light. The button's spring felt stronger under her thumb, but she clung onto it, keeping it pinched down. As she span faster and faster, an invisible pressure grew, building with the volume of the whine and flattening her into the seat. It was like
she was turning into a corner that became tighter and faster with each passing moment. It was uncomfortable, but not unbearable.

  'One G,' the speaker informed her.

  It struck her then that she did not know when the test would end. Would it stop at a certain number, or would it keep going until she gave in? She grimaced under the weight of her own body as it increased with each revolution of the circular room.

  'Two G.'

  Her breathing became short and fast, partly because she could feel the clutch of panic constricting her throat, and partly because her lungs struggled to inflate against twice the force of gravity. It surprised her that, although she was not entirely calm, she felt better than she thought she would.

  'Three G.'

  The light in the cabin seemed to be dimming, but at the same time her eyes felt strange — as though she was falling asleep without being tired. She blinked to try and regain her vision, which worked for a few seconds before it sank back into a dull, misty version of what was in front of her. The weight on her body was worrying; a sickening thought that this was like being buried alive slipped into her head, the crushing weight rising and rising with each spadeful of dirt added to the growing mound. She could feel her soft tissue, both inside and out, trying to find the path of least resistance around her inflexible skeleton. Her face was heavy and numb, doped up with the anaesthesia of the relentless sphere.

  'Four G.'

  This must be it, she thought, surely this must be it?

  Her vision had almost faded to nothing. She was at the mercy of the overwhelming forces that ground her into the seat — all except for her hand, which gripped so hard to the button that her fingers stung. Her eyes watered as the crushing power became unbearable, but even her tears couldn't fight the god-like control of the sphere over her body as it thundered round and round.

  'Five G.'

  A small moan escaped her lips, but the scream of the motor as it slung her into the ever-tightening corner sucked it away, a tiny drop in the sea of rushing wind and roaring electricity. Where she was calm before, almost enjoying the multi-million dollar merry-go round at the expense of the Russian government, she now felt a horrible shroud of mortality smothering her tight and still, suffocating the life from her, straining her blood away from the organs that needed it most. True, real and terrifying death hung over her eyes, blinding her from the only connection she had to the real world: the dim yellow light above her head. Backwards she fell, falling deeper into a bottomless pit that had no rushing wind to whistle through her hair, the yellow light growing smaller and smaller until it was a tiny pinprick that twinkled for the last time.

  A hiss of hydraulics and a pool of stinging whiteness cascaded into Sally's body as consciousness hit her with a sudden jolt. She blinked, clarity washing away the dirty smear that streaked her vision.

  'How are you feeling?' the lady in the lab coat asked as she stepped into the sphere to help her. 'You did very good.'

  Sally tried to get up, but the harness pushed back hard. She exhaled, exhaustion pummelling every muscle in her body, and let the lady unbuckle her.

  * * *

  Floodlights clicked on one by one as the purple night took over from the last dying rays of the desert sun, and an exhausted Director congratulated himself on a job well done. His team had excelled themselves in the conversion of the Progress resupply craft and had completed the task one day ahead of schedule; all there was to do now was complete the residual checks and begin launch preparations. Progress M Eighteen M, modified for a human payload, was go.

  * * *

  The last week of training had become just a few short days, and the expedition to the International Space Station — to actual space — was hanging over Sally as an ominous shadow. Her stomach lurched every time it crossed her mind, but her stubborn refusal to give up and run away — a trait that seemed as much a burden as it was a benefit sometimes — kept her pinned to Russian soil. Even sitting cold and naked on an uncomfortable bed in the mission doctor's room could not deter her. Velcro ripped as the doctor finished reading her blood pressure and removed the inflatable armband.

  'That all looks good …' the doctor muttered to herself, noting the results on her computer. Turning back to Sally, she looked atop her thin-rimmed glasses, her deep-set eyes hard, but friendly.

  'Are you on any medication?' she asked, to which Sally shook her head.

  'Do you have any history in your family of mental illness?'

  Again, Sally shook her head.

  'Do you have any history in your family of strokes?'

  A shake of the head.

  'Diabetes?'

  'No,' Sally said.

  'Heart disease?'

  'I don't think so.'

  The doctor stared back at her.

  'Are you sure?'

  'Actually, I think my great-uncle might have died of heart disease,' Sally said. 'But I can't really remember.'

  'I'm sorry to hear that.'

  'Does this mean I can't go?'

  The hardness faded a fraction. 'No, that's all fine. You can go.'

  * * *

  Word that SETI expert Sally Fisher had joined the team in Korolyov had seeped through to the global media, and the dissipated interest reignited into a roaring flame of excitement that caught the ear of journalist Sean Jacob. Although he did not know that Fisher was to join the crew of the ISS, or that communication with the ISS had ceased, he had noticed the tell-tale marker of a re-scheduled mission when the plumes of hot smoke had failed to leave Kazakhstan two-and-a-half weeks before. Despite NASA sticking to a shortly-worded press release about the recent solar storms, his speculation ran wild, and the more NASA dug in its heels, the more he suspected something was up.

  'I'm telling you, that rocket's taking a crew up with it,' Sean Jacob said, satellite phone pressed to his ear. He waited for a response over the rising desert wind, binoculars trained onto the uppermost module of the Soyuz craft standing tall in the open landscape.

  'How can you be sure?' the reply came.

  Sean lowered his binoculars and retreated back into his camouflaged tent, where the wind noise died down.

  'The Progress module is now a Soyuz module. It's obvious.'

  'How obvious?'

  'Bloody obvious. One has a stonking great launch escape system sprouting out the top of it and the other doesn’t.'

  'Alright, alright — I get your point. So they're sending a crew. Why do I care?'

  'This is supposed to be a resupply mission.'

  'So?'

  'So they don't spend millions sending a crew up without reason, do they?'

  'Get to the point, Sean.'

  Sean sighed, not quite sure if he was battling disinterest or ineptitude.

  'It's simple — NASA have flown a UFO expert to the other side of the planet and now they're sending up a crew. She's going with them. There's something up there.'

  'That's a bit of an assumption.'

  'Then why didn't they just phone her?'

  The tent flapped as a strong gust blew through. Sean checked the phone to make sure the signal was still strong.

  'I suppose you're right,' the response came. 'Note down your findings and get them sent over to me right away. And keep digging — when we find out what's going on here, this story will go straight to press, front page.'

  'Will do.'

  * * *

  'I want you to meet Robert Gardner,' Bales said, introducing a smart, keen-eyed gentleman to a nervous Sally Fisher.

  'Hi ma'am,' Gardner said in a strong, Virginian accent, holding out a hand. Sally hesitated, took it, and they shook.

  'Robert here will be piloting you to the International Space Station. He's a superb astronaut, and we're very lucky to have him.'

  Gardner grinned, straight white teeth beaming underneath tanned cheeks. 'You're too kind, John. I'm just thankful you brought me along for the ride.'

  Bales ushered the pair into the corridor and they wandered along, Bales taking t
he lead.

  'What do you think of Kazakhstan?' Bales asked Sally.

  'It's okay,' Sally said. When they'd arrived at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, it was deserted; now it was full of staff busying themselves in preparation for tomorrow's launch.

  Bales led them into a large room at the end of the corridor, a space similar to the Mission Control room in Korolyov — except instead of three large screens, there was a single window. A huge window. Outside, a wide expanse of dusty-grey desert filled the view, impossibly blue skies resting atop a horizon that seemed to stretch to infinity. In the middle of the window, at the end of a narrow road, a tube, flared at the bottom, pinched at the top, stood tall.

  'It's a beauty, isn't it?' Gardner grinned, hands on hips, taught arms flexing under his navy blue polo shirt. Sally nodded, not wanting to be rude. To her, the rocket seemed spindly and delicate, an ugly thing.

  'Please, take a seat,' Bales offered, gesturing to an empty row of chairs. They sat, and Bales took out his touch pad.

  'Gardner has been fully briefed in his role to transport you to the ISS. He will also serve to assist you in your duties and protect you if —'

  'Wait,' Sally said, sitting up in her chair, 'protect me?'

  Bales looked to Gardner and back to Sally. 'We haven't had any kind of communication with the crew of the ISS for weeks now. Chances are the solar storm disabled the antennae array and that everything else is fine, but we need to be certain that you remain unharmed. The ISS can be a lonely, claustrophobic place, and it may have had an adverse effect on some of the crew. It's just a precaution — there's no need to worry.'

  Sally relaxed a fraction, but nevertheless she found it hard to continue concentrating on what Bales was saying, her mind conjuring up all sorts of dire scenarios that involved her inevitable death.

  'The current crew are a good crew, but they are not the right crew for this mission. You, Sally, are the right crew for this mission. The ISS is endowed with some of the world's best research facilities, and your primary focus — your only focus — is to make contact with UV One.'