by Glenn Damato
Paige decides to help after all. She passes us the insulated coveralls. There are four pockets and one of them is the perfect size for my rosies.
I call, “Jessica, com check.”
“Hear you perfectly, Cristina.”
I want Mikki by the airlock, but she’s still rattled about the whole thing, so it will be Paige. Ryder enters the equipment bay first so he can guide me and pass me the tracker. I cradle it in my gloved hands much like I used to hold newborn Isabel years ago.
Paige twists the handle on the airlock equalization valve. The master panel indicates the same pressure as the cabin, thirty-five kilopascals, but the meter-wide inner hatch will not open. Ryder gives the handle a mighty tug and the soft seal releases with a pfssst. The tiny circular window on the outer hatch is coated with silver frost. I can’t help glancing at the signatures, the Live Free and the Lord is my shepherd messages printed neatly on the pale green walls.
Ryder squirms through the airlock hatch. There’s barely room for one let alone two. He activates the control panel and nods. The lack of gravity makes it difficult to position every part of my body. Ryder’s legs, torso, and arms kept bouncing against me, and the confined space guarantees I can’t move out of the way.
Paige connects our safety tethers to a metal loop inside the airlock. She passes me an adhesive applicator and I slide it into the pocket opposite my rosies.
“Closing the hatch.” Paige taps my helmet. “Just get it done and get back inside.”
I feel a thud and we position the six latches. Ryder touches the front of his helmet to mine. “Cozy, huh?”
I spit out, “Yup!” Dumb answer. Childish, too. If our chests touched he’d feel a heart pounding way too hard, so I don’t let that happen. Focus on the airlock panel. A horizontal bar indicates steady pressure. There’s also a round mechanical pressure gauge. Is that in case power is lost?
“Ready?” Jessica’s voice startles me. “Go ahead and vent down to about thirty kp. The suit will sense the drop and trigger the activators.”
Ryder grips a red handle and rotates it before she’s done talking. The panel flashes DECOMPRESSING in bright yellow letters. I yell, “Suit getting tighter!”
“Breathe normally,” Jessica tells us.
There’s a clutching sensation all over, strange but not horrible. Inhaling requires a bit more effort than normal. Here comes the cold, just as if someone sprayed my whole body with an icy mist. Skin moisture evaporating, and fast.
“Getting chilly!” I report, teeth chattering.
“Keep venting,” Jessica tells us. “Take it down to twenty, then hold. You’re going to feel some warmth. The actuators will heat up as they learn to evenly compress to your exact body shape.”
A hot, gentle embrace—wonderfully warm against the chill.
Ryder sighs. “Oh, this is good.”
“Move your limbs as much as you can,” orders Jessica. “Flex your joints, including your fingers. How does it feel? Any resistance to motion?”
“Noticeable stiffness,” reports Ryder. “But I can move everything.
“Same, and a little easier to breathe,” I tell her.
“Ahhh!” Ryder barks. “Crushing my damn . . . crotch! Jess, this thing gonna castrate me?”
“No worries! That’s a common discomfort. Just move your hips and legs to help the suit adjust. Ready for full vacuum? Not as scary as it sounds.”
“Easy for you to say!” I blurt. Estúpido! Everyone’s listening.
Ryder turns the handle again. “Venting!”
Ten kp, then five, then less than one. Ryder doesn’t move. He stares out from his helmet with a little smile as the pressure drops to just above zero. What was the pressure below which David said blood would boil? No matter; we’re way past it.
Eric’s husky voice fills my helmet. “Cristina, the venting put a spin on your spacecraft. The GNC didn’t react because you overrode it, so I’m firing a couple of your attitude jets to stop the rotation.” The airlock jerks sideways and a narrow sunbeam pokes inside.
There’s sharp pinching between two of my fingers, as if someone’s squeezing with needle-nose pliers.
“Flex if you get more pinches,” Jessica says, as if she can read my mind. “It happens, especially with a new suit. Also, the fit won’t be as good as it should be because you’re doing this under weightless conditions. The suits printed on your body dimensions in your hospital scan. They allow for the lower gravity on Mars by slightly increasing your upper body volume. That effect is more pronounced in space, so it’ll be tighter than in should be from the waist up.”
Ryder stretches his arms and legs, which means rubbing them against everything in the airlock. A weird quiet settles behind the purr from the backpack and the rhythm of breathing.
The panel flashes OK TO OPEN HATCH three times.
Zero pressure.
Ryder flicks off the main light and we’re in darkness except for the soft red glow of the airlock control panel. “Let our eyes adjust. Better to see the stars.”
Pounding heart, be calm. “Not important. Just want to get it mounted and plugged in.”
“You’re not nervous, are you?”
“Just pinchy. Sooner we’re done, the better.”
The thermal coveralls act as insulators. That’s their purpose—but here, crammed into the airlock, there’s no place for body heat to radiate. My face is sweaty, but the perspiration can’t fall away; each bead grows larger then breaks free and speckles my visor or gets sucked up my nose. None of this crap was mentioned in the Apollo book.
“I’m holding your sun angle at ten degrees,” Eric reports. “You’ll have a nice warm surface temp so the adhesive should set in under a minute.”
Ryder announces, “Jessica, we’re going to poke our heads out.”
“Check your tethers. Make sure everything’s secured.”
Ryder presses our helmets together. “Ready?”
I nod and he pumps a stubby lever that simultaneously opens eight latches. A ring of light—the edge of the hatch catching the sun. Beyond that is utter blackness without a single star.
Eric’s reminds us, “Remember, put it within fifty centimeters of the port. Cable’s gotta reach.”
I ask him, “You sure it doesn’t need to be mounted facing a specific direction?”
“It orients itself using celestial bodies. Just needs to be exposed to space and attached to something solid.”
Ryder is closer to the hatch, so he pushes it completely open. I’m not letting him completely out. I’m not letting myself out, either—I can do this with just my upper body outside the hatch. That worries me less than the idea of him going out there and losing his mind.
He asks, “Why don’t you leave the tracker with me?”
“You’ll just have to pass it out to me, and that’s a risk of losing it. Steady my legs.”
Can’t lose the tracker. Should have tethered it too! We can print another, but that would eat up time. The outside surface of Liberty is intensely white even at the low sun angle. The helmet visor adjusts and the light dims to a comfortable level. I see the com port, an oval indentation just an arm’s length away.
“Push me out a bit further, just a bit, so I can reach it.”
Ryder’s hands wrap around both of my calves. I’m not bouncing around, both my hands are free, and that’s all I need. I hold the tracker against my chest and withdraw the adhesive applicator. The thermal gloves make it awkward, but the applicator is designed to be easy for fat fingers.
I announce, “Putting on the glue.”
Jewell asks, “Is the tracker optical surface completely covered?”
“Wrapped with loving care. Here it comes, one big spoonful.” I squeeze the applicator with the tip about twenty centimeters from the port, and a big golden glob spreads out on Liberty. Torr-Seal Epoxy, the stuff is called. The pretty color glistens in the sunlight. I press the base of the tracker firmly into the adhesive.
“Hold it until i
t sets,” says Jewel.
“Feels pretty firmly glued on.”
“Hold it for one full minute.”
I pass the absorbency garment to Ryder. He hands me the cable and I connect the tracker to the port, careful to push both sides completely in until I feel a click.
Paige shouts, “Main panel shows we have a connection!”
Done. I push against the edge of the hatch but Ryder doesn’t release his grip on my legs. “Let me get back in.”
He ignores me. “Eric, my friend, sorry about putting the GNC in local mode without telling you.”
“Yeah.”
“Can you do us a favor? Put the sun angle down to, say, negative sixty?”
“What are you talking about?” I demand. “We’re finished. Get out of the way so I can get back in.” I twist my legs but he isn’t letting go.
Ryder asks, “Don’t you want to see what it’s really like out there?”
I jerk sideways and shadows drift across Liberty’s white surface. The sun moves, or rather, the spacecraft slowly turns. The light fades quickly and the helmet visor goes clear to reveal the red glow from the airlock.
Ryder shifts his body and blocks the glow. Nothing but black, a total black.
I’m spinning again.
Ryder says, “Let your eyes—”
“Stop!”
The hatch drops from under me and twists. Rotating, spinning, the whole spacecraft spins out of control. We’re both about to be pitched into the blackness!
“What’s the—”
“Eric, stop the spin!”
There’s nothing to hold, nothing to grab on to, just the black space, and my legs are sliding further out of the hatch. It’s the centrifugal force from the spin pulling me outward.
Something grabs my left arm.
“Eric!”
“There is no spin,” he responds. “No spin! You’re steady in pitch, roll, and yaw.”
I’m quivering and I might throw up.
“I’ve got you,” Ryder tells me, his tone gentle. “You’re on a tether and I’ve got a good grip on you. I’m pulling you back in now. Ready?”
Jessica says, “You’re experiencing vertigo, Cristina. Control your breath. I’m reducing your O2 so you don’t hyperventilate. Let’s call it a day.”
“Come this far,” I pant out. “Let’s see some fucking stars.”
My eyes were closed. Red glow, the outline of Ryder’s helmet. There’s the edge of the hatch behind my left knee, the bulk of Liberty under my feet. I’m adjusted, oriented, some sense of where I am and where I’m pointed.
“Good girl. Now turn your head to your right.”
It takes a moment to see Ryder’s arm in the near total darkness. His fingertip hovers near a speck of orange.
“Mars. Seen it before.”
“Let your eyes adjust.”
The cold soaks through the thermal coveralls and my shivers won’t stop. I point my helmet toward Liberty’s side and the temperature display sinks to minus eighty degrees. In the other direction, a brilliant field of stars. Millions and millions of stars of various intensities and hues. There’s a white triangle over my right shoulder—one of the other spacecraft, about a kilometer distant. It looks close enough to touch.
Ryder swings his arm. “The Pleiades. See ’em?”
Yes! And there’s the V-shape of Taurus, and Orion with his three-star belt. I can see the wisp of the Milky Way, an impossibly gorgeous wilderness of distant suns, crisp, wild, pristine, beckoning.
I had no idea.
Isabel, Nathan. If those niños could see this! And Faye. And Paco. I grip Ryder’s arm before I can stop myself. “One of your better ideas.”
The warm air of the equipment bay is like dropping into a hot bath. Everyone stares as if something is different. Alison giggles. “You got a happy new face!”
“I am happy,” I tell her. “This will work.”
◆◆◆
It doesn’t work. The GNC won’t recognize input from the newly installed hardware. When the signals from the three bad trackers are cut, the panel flashes angry red.
OPTIMIZED SIGNAL NOT FOUND
I ask Paige, “Didn’t you say it connected?”
“Connected, but not communicating.”
“The default admin account,” Eric mutters. “The optimizer isn’t going to talk to anything until I reset it.”
Mikki folds her arms. “This is bullshit.”
Nerves. I offer a pouch of juice which she waves away. “I’ll drink when this is over.” Like Ryder, her forehead beads with sweat when she’s stressed. They understand. If the idea fails, we are navigating blind and that’s a fatal situation—regardless what Jürgen tells us.
The GNC panel goes dark, then awakens with flickering icons and scrolling messages, almost all of them yellow or red.
PLATFORM ALIGNMENT FAILED
OPTIMIZED SIGNAL NOT FOUND. ERROR 031 R3056b
AUTHORIZATION FAILED
“I’m getting closer,” reports Eric.
Ryder reaches for Mikki’s neck. She knocks his hand away. Tiny drops of sweat fly from her head. Alison’s breath gushes out strong enough to feel a meter away. She wedges herself between me and Ryder, both hands on our shoulders.
Eric mumbles, “Permissions, damn permissions.”
More yellow messages, then green.
PERFORMING PLATFORM ALIGNMENT
I exhale. “Eric, you’re a genius.”
His vid shows fingers stroking reddish-brown chin stubble. “I acknowledge the accuracy of the preceding observation.”
The panel flashes a gorgeous shade of green.
ALIGNMENT COMPLETE
02:12:35 PCT 23 Taurus 53
“That just means it found the nav stars and it knows which way we’re pointed, that’s all.” Eric tells us. “The trans-Mars program isn’t running yet.”
“Can you help Indra with the time sync?”
“That’s why I blocked the TMP. Now that the GNC has a signal describing our orientation in space and the location of the Earth, the sun, and Mars against the celestial sphere, all it needs is a good time signal to calculate our position and velocity.”
“Would have been better to do this two days ago,” I tell him, despite that it’s useless information now. “Indra, go ahead and run your script.”
The GNC swims with a hundred scrolling lines of red. Bad, really bad. The walls of the control center move in a little tighter.
Mikki utters something under her breath and launches herself through her sleeper door. I follow her and pull her out by the upper arm. Her eyes are wet with tears that can’t run. I whisper, “Stay with me. We’re in this together.”
Everyone watches the panel. No green. I hold Mikki’s shoulders and wrap my legs around a table brace to keep from moving away from the others.
FIXING POS-VEL
Position? Velocity? Who cares? A green message! I wrap my rosies around my fingers. Ryder stares at the burgundy beads.
TMP LOADING . . .
TMP INITIATED
Mikki mutters, “Is the fucking thing gonna work or not?”
The sweet, gentle voice of the GNC calls out, “Maneuvering in three, two, one.”
Distant bangs ring out and the control center rotates. A sunbeam creeps across the sleeper doors.
“Setting up for a burn,” says Eric. “It wouldn’t do that unless it’s happy.”
Paige mumbles, “Somebody ought to tell Jürgen, right?”
I answer, “Jürgen wanted to run the GNC broken. Let him comment on his own.” I press Mikki’s head against my shoulder.
PENDING MIDCOURSE TRAJECTORY CORRECTION
02:35:00 PCT 23 TAURUS 53
ESTIMATED DURATION 00:23:40
“I’m linking everyone’s GNC to Liberty,” Eric announces.
Completely changed his mind. He knew he was full of shit. Why did he go along with Jürgen? What’s wrong with Jürgen, anyhow?
The thrusters fire. The control center blu
rs, the walls move. After days of weightlessness, the one-twentieth G acceleration is strange and heavy. My feet bounce off the new floor and I sway sideways into Ryder’s arms.
He touches the rosies, still finger-wrapped. “You can put these away now. Don’t want to lose ’em.”
Success means time to eat and pee. We wolf food, take turns in the hygiene pit, watch the timer on the GNC count down to zero, and speak little. The master panel calls out, “Thruster shutdown in three, two, one.”
A slight bump, barely noticeable. Food wrappers and empty drink packs tumble through the air. Just a few seconds of head swim. All eyes turn to the GNC.
ETA PROTONILUS MENSAE PM1
09:26:00 PCT 3 GEMINI 54
Ryder clasps Mikki’s hand and puts his other arm around my neck. A touch of body odor, but that’s fine.
Alison lets out her breath. “We got our arrival time back.”
Mikki mumbles, “Never a doubt.”
“Just over one percent propellant remaining,” Eric says. “Let’s hope that was a near perfect correction. We got six minutes of thruster time left for all future corrections, and this is only day six.”
Shuko’s been quiet for a while. He positions himself toward Eric’s vid. “Thank you for reminding us we may still die before we feel solid ground again.”
I say to no one in particular, “We’re all tired. Need a good sleep.”
Shuko points to the block of red messages on the warning panel:
OXYGEN GENERATOR 3
HIGH O2/H2 DIFFERENTIAL PRESSURE SHUTDOWN
OXYGEN GENERATOR 1
HIGH ELECTROLYTE TEMPERATURE SHUTDOWN
UNIT 2 IN BACKUP MODE
“I checked the docs,” Shuko tells me as soon as everyone clears from the control center. “We have forty-eight hours of compressed oxygen. Then six hours in our suit backpacks.”
I study the display. “But unit two is running and producing oxygen?”
“Yeah, but it’s supposed to be a triple-redundant system! Now we have no redundancy at all.”
