Habitats

by Laurence Dahners

  It was silly for her to talk to them when they were in a vacuum, sound wouldn’t transmit. Instead of pointing that out [tin/span>

  “Oh, no they’ve got atmosphere on the flight deck; it’s airtight from the cabin.”

  “Oh… Then why do they have their helmets closed?”

  “Standard emergency procedure I suppose. Maybe some panic over the main cabin’s decompression? I’m sure they’ll calm down and figure this out any minute now… Oh wait… my AI found a back door into the plane’s controls. Thank god. Hold on, we’re going to maneuver now.”

  Surprised that there would be any back doors into a plane’s software, Carter nonetheless felt some tugging from the seatback and saw the stars that had been rapidly swimming past outside the windows slow, then stop.

  “OK,” she said, “A little more maneuvering as we start back toward the habitat.”

  Carter felt the push but it was gentle so he started pulling himself along the seatbacks toward the back of the plane to check on the man wedged there.

  He heard Donsaii say, “You have any ideas on how to communicate with them? I don’t think this speaker is transmitting enough vibration through the door for them to hear it.”

  “Alex,” Carter said, “are you near the space plane?”

  “About to come in.”

  “Fly around to the front window and motion to the pilots to put their earpieces in.”

  “OK, dropping off the Kevlar first,” he said. Carter glanced toward the front of the plane and saw their big spool of Kevlar strapping coming in the hole where the airlock adaptor had been.

  Carter and the wide eyed man in the emergency bubble wedged into the back looked at each other. He tugged tentatively on the arm of the bubble to see if he could get it loose. The man looked alarmed and shook his head vigorously. Thankfully the material was fairly translucent; the man pulled his arm in out of its sleeve in the rigidly inflated suit and pointed urgently to a corner of a dropdown table that bulged into the ballooned material. Eyes widening Carter could understand why the man looked worried. If that corner ripped the bag, the guy would be done for.

  Of course, Carter thought, the material had to be very strong to withstand the air pressure. But, he thought, that didn’t mean that the sharp corner couldn’t rip a hole in it. How are we going to get it loose?

  Donsaii’s voice came on, “Hello, this is Ell Donsaii. My AI believes that it has established an audio connection for all of us here in the vicinity of the space plane. Since our situation seems stable at present I’d like to make sure of our communications. Mr. Anders, you’re listed as our pilot, are you able to hear me now?”

  “Yes.” The pilot’s voice sounded on the edge of hysteria.

  [nt idly infl“And, Ms. Wade, you’re our co-pilot?

  “I hear you.” Carter observed that the copilot sounded calm, but he wondered why the woman hadn’t been aware enough to put on her headset without Alex reminding him.

  “Dr. Shelton, I assume that’s you in the back of the plane?”

  Carter saw the man speak, “Yes, but I’m stuck! I don’t think you can get me loose without breaking my suit!”

  Donsaii responded calmly, “We’ve got a lot of very smart people out here Doctor, we’ll figure something out. Don’t forget we’ve got plenty of time, the port in your suit can keep you supplied for an extended period.”

  Carter saw the man gulp, then nod nervously, “OK, but please hurry!”

  Donsaii said, “OK, I want to make you aware that the other passengers are being placed in the airlock of the habitat as we speak. Right now we have five waldoes here at the plane. Mr. DeWitt, you go by ‘Carter,’ and you’re running the lead waldo, correct?”

  “Yes Ma’am.”

  “And we also have Alex, Megan, Will and Raj?”

  A chorus of responses came back.

  OK, as I see it, our first task is to get Anders, Wade and Shelton out of the plane and into the habitat. In order to do that we’ll have to depressurize the flight deck so we can get its door open. Also we must somehow get Dr. Shelton loose without tearing his suit. Ideas?”

  A babble broke forth that Carter feared would degenerate into hysteria. Each of the people demanded that their own ideas be used. They expressed panicked objections to other’s proposals. He heard some shouting that “that won’t work” before ideas were even fully presented.

  “OK, shut it!” Donsaii bellowed, in a good imitation of Carter’s drill sergeant from back in the day. He felt astonished that such a young, feminine voice could be so commanding and, even more, that everyone had immediately fallen silent as told.

  “Thank you. Pilots, we are going to have to decompress your cabin and move you in your emergency suits at some point. Dr. Shelton, we understand you are worried, but if you can’t make a constructive suggestion, please remain quiet so our team here can do its job. Carter, you have more experience working in space than anyone else and I heard you start to say something before you were cut off?”

  Astonished that she’d been able to sort the pilots’ and Shelton’s conversations out of the babble, Carter said, “Uh, yes Ma’am. Looking at the size of Dr. Shelton’s inflated suit, I don’t think we’ll be able to get the pilots out of their cabin if we depressurize it. The door’s too small.”

  Carter saw her waldo look at the door beside her, then back at Shelton. “You’re right. Do you have a suggestion?”

  “We’ll have to repressurize the main cabin Ma’am. Once it’s pressurized Dr. Shelton will be able to get free as well.”

  “Mmm, how are we going to pressurize with that huge hole?”

  “Well we can’t weld patches over the holes because all the plating we have is steel and we don’t currently have equipment that will weld steel to aluminum. However, we do have that large roll of Kevlar strapping,” he waved to the big spool. “We just need something that we can strap to the holes. It doesn’t have to be perfect, nor to hold very long, just long enough for us to get the pressure in here up high enough for Shelton and the pilots to get into the main cabin.”

  “Great thinking. Let’s give it a try. If it doesn’t work we won’t have lost anything but a little time.”

  “OK,” Carter said, falling immediately into his comfort zone—bossing waldoes. “Raj, Alex, go get us several of the lighter gauge curved plates from the other end of the habitat. Will, Megan, start unspooling several circuits of the Kevlar strapping around the plane so it will be ready to hold the patch over both holes. I’m going to the habitat to scrounge materials to gasket the patches. Ms. Donsaii, would you mind staying here in the plane in case we need to ask you to measure or otherwise assess?”

  “No problem,” she said. He felt like she was amused at him for bossing her around, but he couldn’t take time to be embarrassed right now. As he shot over to the big airlock he got Chuck and Annie on the line and brought them up to speed on the situation. “Any ideas on materials to plug the holes with?”

  “Just a minute, we’ll talk to the scientists in here.”

  When Carter opened the inner door of the big airlock to the habitat Chuck Lane was there by the entrance with some big silicone pads. “Here, Dr. Pace had these wrapped around some his fragile equipment for the ride up.”

  “Thanks,” Carter said, taking them and telling the airlock to close again. “Keep looking for other possibilities in case these don’t work.”

  Back at the plane Carter began directing his team of waldoes to get the silicone pads over the holes. They were too small for one to cover the airlock hole by itself, so they would need to put two there, closely fitted next to one another.

  Donsaii said, “Holes? There’s more than one?”

  “Yeah,” Carter described the dorsal hole near the tail. “I think a meteor or piece of space junk ripped a chunk out of the fuselage with a tangential shot. The jet of atmosphere out of the hole torqued the plane against its connection to the habitat airlock and that’s what pulled the lock out of the plane’s fuselage.
”

  “Damn!” she said. “Sounds like we need a redesign on the airlock’s mounting. But, first priority is to get these folks to safety.”

  Carter entered the space plane’s cabin with Donsaii and they worked together to position the pads while the team outside put a big sheet of lighter gauge steel over the pads and began pulling the Kevlar strapping tightly over it. One of the waldoes was a large, high power model with arms more than strong enough to pull the plate down hard against the hole using th [holer it. One straps. Carter watched the silicone pad bulge where it was squeezed against the fuselage, first in the middle and eventually all the way around the hole as the straps slowly bent the plate down against it.

  With a seal there, they left one waldo holding the single throw knot in the strapping and moved back to the small hole in the aft fuselage. The plane wasn’t exactly cylindrical there as the tail fin had started to rise out of the fuselage. After a couple of failed attempts they stacked three silicone pads on top of one another. That thick pad covered by a smaller steel plate achieved a seal as they snugged it tight.

  The ports that supplied the cabin with air had never been closed, so as soon as the holes were sealed, the cabin began to pressurize. After a bit, Dr. Slater’s emergency bag began to soften and a little while later he pulled himself free. With Slater drifting free in the cabin, Donsaii simply opened the door to the cockpit.

  “Hey,” Anders’ voice protested, “Hey, you aren’t supposed to be able to open that door without our permission.”

  Calmly Donsaii said, “Sorry sir, when you panicked and left yourself offline we had to resort to a brute force computer attack to take over the plane’s AI. We had to be able to do this in order to stop the plane’s motion and rescue you. You no longer have control.”

  Carter grinned to himself. She didn’t sound sorry, she sounded like she was just a wee bit irritated. Not anything like as irritated as he would have been if he were in charge.

  Anders said in a hostile tone, “We want that door closed until the situation here is secure. There shouldn’t be any way for you to override our AI.”

  Wade lifted herself out of the copilot’s chair and pushed off toward the main cabin. “Come on Mike, don’t be ridiculous. We need to get to the habitat if we want to be ‘secure.’ The only way to get there is through the cabin.”

  A minute passed with Anders sitting motionless in the pilot’s chair, then he drifted up out of it and pushed himself into the main cabin without saying anything.

  With the pilots and Slater in the main cabin, they slowly decompressed the plane’s interior so that they could be sure the three suits were functioning safely. Then they pushed the three emergency bags through space to the habitat’s big airlock. Carter wound up pushing Anders and, watching the pilot’s stricken face, thought to himself that Anders probably wouldn’t want to fly any more missions. Not that Carter thought D5R would let Anders fly for them again, even if he wanted to.

  Eventually Carter and his team got the damaged plane strapped to the habitat and the airlock adaptor removed safely from the habitat’s airlock. Fortunately, an inspection showed the lock itself hadn’t been injured. Aluminum sheets and welding equipment were ordered to do a temporary repair of the fuselage so the space plane could be flown back down to the island un [there isder AI control. The other small spaceplane was already on its way up to take the pilots and anyone else who wanted to leave the habitat back down to terra firma. It would have to make another trip back up with the aluminum patches.

  When Carter and his team finally pulled loose from their waldo controllers he found Ell Donsaii standing behind him. She cleared her throat, “Hey, guys.”

  When he and his team had turned to her she said, “Thanks for some truly excellent work out there. You guys,” she tilted her head, “I’m including you Megan, where I grew up we include girls in the term ‘guys,’ when referring to a group.”

  Megan nodded.

  Donsaii continued, “You guys,” she winked at Megan, “really saved our bacon out there. I’ll be asking the directors to put a bonus in your next pay deposit. Especially you, Mr. Dewitt,” she said looking at Carter, “for your excellent leadership in a time of crisis.”

  “Thank you Ma’am,” Carter and the others chorused.

  Chapter Eight

  Ell’s AI, Allan said, “You have a call from Mr. Kinrais.”

  “OK.” Ell put on her Raquel accent, “Hey Shan! What’s up?”

  “I’m hoping to take my best girl out to dinner tonight? You up for that?”

  “Sure! Well… wait. How many girls’ve you got that you have to designate me as your ‘best’ girl?”

  “Aw shucks, you’re so far ahead of the pack that I don’t actually recall ever knowing any other girls!”

  “Good answer, where are we going?”

  “Spanky’s. See you there at 7?”

  “Sounds good.”

  Ell stepped into Spanky’s, and when stopped by the hostess, pointed to Shan sitting along the side wall. When she dropped into the chair she saw he already had a Coke for her, “Sorry I’m late.”

  “Three minutes, Ms. Blandon, I’m so disappointed.” Shan grinned slyly at her.

  “You just keep busting my chops Mr. Kinrais, I might have to demote you to ‘worst’ boyfriend.”

  Shan put his hands up in a fending motion, “No, no, not that!”

  Ell leaned forward, “So what’s the occasion?”

  Shan leaned back, a dismayed look on his face, “What? I can’t just take my girl out to dinner?”

  “Nope,” she grinned, “broke ass students don’t do that unless they are either in hot pursuit, or celebrating something. Since you’ve already overtaken, I assume you must be celebrating.”

  Looking chagrined, he said, “You’re right, I ampan> celebrating something.”

  Ell raised her eyebrows, “What?!”

  Shan leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, “I am no longer a ‘broke ass student.’” He put his hand on his heart, “I, Madam, am now a junior member of the Math faculty at the University of North Carolina.”

  With a squeak, Ell leaped to her feet, and, once he stood too, threw her arms around Shan. “Congratulations!” she whispered in his ear; then gave him a long kiss.

  As they sat down again, Shan thought to himself that his getting a job really didn’t seem like much compared to the amazing things she’d achieved as Ell Donsaii. The fact that, despite this, she could be so happy and proud for him was both weird and wonderful.

  Shan leaned back, “Guess who was on the big sports feed over the bar while I was waiting for you?”

  Suspiciously she said, “Who?”

  “That Ell Donsaii girl.”

  “You’re not about to ruin our date talking about another woman are you?”

  “No, no; she was just a run in to another interview with Michael Fentis.”

  Ell raised her eyebrows, “And what did the redoubtable Mr. Fentis have to say?”

  “Well first they ran a clip of Donsaii reacting to Fentis saying that gymnastics wasn’t a sport and Donsaii had just ‘gotten lucky.’”

  Ell nodded.

  “And she just agreed she’d been lucky, then ‘begged to differ’ on whether gymnastics was a sport. Very ladylike, I must say.”

  “And what did Fentis have to say?”

  “That he was glad to see that she understood how incredibly lucky she’d been. But then Donsaii’s interviewer asked her about the video showing she ran faster than Fentis and told her that Fentis said there had been a mistake interpreting the video. Fentis just went off about that! The video analysis had been wrong, it was easier to run in the gym, the distance was short, and no one would ever break his hundred meter speed.” Shan paused and raised an eyebrow.

  Ell raised both of hers, “Well, he’s probably right.”

  Shan grinned, “That’s what Donsaii said, to quote, “He’s probably right don’t you think? It just doesn’t seem reasonable that a girl
could have outrun him. He is the ‘world’s fastest man’ after all.”

  Ell shrugged in acquiescence.

  “But then the interviewer pointed out to Fentis that she’d acknowledged him as the, ‘world’s fastest man,’ not the world’s fastest person. It looked like Fentis’ head was gonna explode! A lot of bleeping of the conversation, in which Fentis essentially said there was no way that girl could outrun any man in modern track and field, much less himself.”

  Ell grinned, “He does have a very high opinion of himself doesn’t he?”

  Shan leaned forward and whispered, “Could you outrun him?”

  Her eyes widened in shock, “Of course not!” Then she raised an eyebrow and leaned forward conspiratorially, “Donsaii might be able to though.”

  ***

  Stacy looked over at Bart, “Well, I almost got you a port today.”

  “Really? What happened?”

  Stacy told him about tossing it in her purse but someone seeing it. “She told me that the FBI’s involved in making sure no one makes off with any flammable ports. Apparently, they’re so careful with those ports because they’re worried about terrorists getting them.” She glanced at Bart out of the corner of her eyes.

  He looked frustrated. “That’s crazy!” a beat later, “Do you think you can figure out a way to get me one next time?”

  Stacy tossed back her beer, “Hey, sweetie, how ‘bout you show me this racing hot rod I’m stealing a port for?”

  “Uh, I’d love to, but it’s in the shop right now… Getting a new… header.”

  “Humpf,” Stacy leaned against him, “How about we head back to your place?” She turned to him and lifted an eyebrow, “Where we can have a little bit of privacy?”

  Bart got pretty flustered. They left the bar, but not before Bart went back to the bathroom.

  It wasn’t lost on Stacy that he might have called someone during his little trip to the boy’s room. She rode with him, her car following them. His car pulled into an apartment complex. She thought he’d told her he lived in a house, but now she couldn’t remember for sure that he’d definitely said that, maybe just implied it. She wondered just where he would be keeping that hot rod though. No garage after all.