Enoch's Challenge

by Warren W Ward

"Get out the voltmeter and check the voltage to the motor," Jason suggested.

  "Aye, aye, Captain." Cris floated over to the supply room, and shortly afterward Jason heard a thump and a line of profanities coming from Module B. “Stupid zero-G!” Cris cried out.

  Jason knew what had happened. He also knew better than to respond.

  Two minutes later Cris brought out the prototype Fluke multimeter in one hand while rubbing his head with the other.

  "Captain, can you help me take this panel off, so that I can get to the motor?" Cris said a bit grumpily. “It’s your turn to bang your head for a while.”

  "Sure, Cris. Let me get a Phillips."

  "I brought two. Here." Cris offered him one.

  The two of them took off the access panel to the CO2 scrubber and carefully attached the screws to a magnetic plate that was included with the tool kit. Cris grabbed the Fluke multimeter.

  He didn't have to check for any voltage. With the panel off, it became apparent what the problem was.

  "Captain, we have a mouse problem,” Cris said as if it was a normal occurrence.

  "What was that?" Jason said.

  "I'm afraid we need a non-vegetarian cat."

  Jason looked up to where Cris was pointing, and he could see that there was a mess of insulation, shredded paper, and miscellaneous other pieces of Florida flotsam and jetsam stuffed into the fan’s electrical box. The confluence had jammed up against the motor blade, so it had stopped turning. Evidently when the capsule was in Florida a mouse, or mice, had decided to set up home in Module A. Had they set up home in Module B or C the mice would not have survived liftoff. Those modules were originally not pressurized. But here in Module A they had found a home. The nest must have shifted into or got sucked into in the fan blades.

  "Well, what are we going to do, Captain? If I clear away the mouse’s home and get the fan un-jammed, then we still have a mouse problem. At least it wasn’t a possum!” Chris chuckled.

  Jason said, “We better ask Houston if they stored any rat poison. Or maybe a .22 pistol with some bird-shot!"

  Cris turned off the breaker and then they carefully removed the mouse’s domicile. They had to be careful, as little shreds of material would go off floating into the air during the removal process. They didn’t want to be inhaling this stuff later. It took a while, but they seemed to have gotten every bit of it. They hoped! Cris turned the breaker back on.

  Just then, "Frodo 1, this is Houston. We have some things for you to check. Start with the exit port from the CO2 scrubber and see if there is airflow. We are compiling a list of other things to try and will send a check list by data transfer. Houston out."

  Jason and Cris chortled to themselves. Since the motor was now functional, the CO2 levels were starting to fall. The CO2 alarm decided to go off just before the CO2 level meter returned to the 'safe' position.

  "Well, that thing is useless," Cris muttered. "We could have died, and when our bodies quit using oxygen and the plants brought the CO2 level down to safe, the alarm would have fallen on our cold, deaf, dead ears!"

  "You are probably right. However, the mice would probably have enjoyed the extra oxygen. We still need that problem fixed. Let me tell NASA," Jason volunteered.

  “Wait a minute, Captain. How about I get to do the honors. After all, I was the one to find it/them,” Chris said with a fake pleading look on his face.

  “By all means,” Jason said. “This might just finally make you famous!”

  “Thanks, Commander. I was thinking this could just be my 15 minutes of fame–the astronaut who discovered Mighty Mouse’s hideout!”

  "Houston, Frodo 2 here. Gentlemen, we solved the problem. But it still presents a bigger problem. I have discovered mice. I repeat, we have space mice-rats-rodents of some sort. One or…some… built a nest in our CO2 scrubber, and it finally got tangled up in the motor blades and stopped the motor. There is a distinct possibility that Mighty Mouse caught up with us and set up home in our scrubber. We aren’t sure, of course, as we have not seen the critters yet. However we are back to normal now, thanks to my enviable hunting and tracking skills. But we still have a mouse issue. Plus, the CO2 warning alarm didn't go off until it would have been too late. We really would like to get that working again."

  There was silence for about one minute.

  "Frodo 1, this is Houston. We are stumped on this right now. We have several ideas, but first, is there power to the blower motor on the scrubber? We need that before we can proceed. Houston out."

  Cris had jumped the gun with the radio report. They had just received the answer to the last question. The delay really was a pain in the neck.

  Jason said, "Well, they are a little late on that one. I guess we have to wait until they get your last transmission. In the meantime, maybe we can chase the wiring of the CO2 alarm. That really worries me. I'm afraid to fall asleep until we catch that mouse, or meeces, and find out why the alarm didn't go off."

  "Roger that, Commander. I worry about that as well. Let me get the schematics," Cris offered.

  As Cris checked the drawings, Jason did a visual inspection. The control console was latched, so they didn't need tools to get to the wiring inside. NASA tried to make it as easy as possible to fix things in the field, or in space, as the case was. But when he opened the panel and looked inside, his heart dropped. There was more evidence of rodent deeds. There was more mouse debris–and droppings. He could see that something had been chewing on the wire insulation. That was not a good sign. It was evidence that the problem was not confined to the scrubber motor compartment. He quickly closed the console until they could find a way to capture the fragments before they floated all over the cabin.

  "Cris, the mice must be everywhere! There are droppings in the control panel and I can see that wires have been chewed. I don’t know how old these droppings are. With luck, they’ve finished eating the wires here in the console."

  "Captain, are any cut all the way through?"

  "I can't tell exactly, but I think not. However there is a lot of bare wire exposed," Jason said.

  Cris called out, "Can you trace the one from the CO2 alarm? Maybe it has been chewed through or down to the bare wire and one or both wires are touching something it shouldn't."

  "I'll have to spend a little time on this. Why don't you check the store room for mouse holes in the food containers? I know they are in plastic sealed boxes, but you know a mouse can fit through the smallest crack."

  "Roger that, Commander. I'll go through stores while you check out the panel. Captain, they could be anywhere chewing through anything right now."

  "I know Colonel, I know…"

  So Jason and Cris went to work. First, they cleaned out the mouse droppings and other mouse-related paraphernalia. Fortunately, there was electrical tape on board. Jason carefully reinsulated each bare wire with the electrical tape as he worked his way down the console. There weren't a lot of chewed wires, but some were worse than others. As he got down to the floor level he called out, "Cris, I think I found it."

  "Let me see," Cris replied.

  He floated over as quickly as he could to the command Module A and looked over Jason's shoulder.

  Jason pointed a finger and said, "See here? This is the hot wire for the emergency CO2 alarm. You can see where it was rubbing up against the chassis ground. There must have been a slight vibration where it stopped shorting to ground just as the CO2 levels started dropping making us think its operation is erratic."

  "I think you are right. I don't know how to test it, though,” Cris said. “Maybe NASA can tell us what to look for. Let's make a list."

  Just then, "Frodo 1, this is Houston. I tell you guys, we are really embarrassed down here. We never thought about a mouse problem. This could have shut down the whole program! I don't know what you have been doing while we were checking things here, but you should look for more evidence of mice. You know how pervasive and insidious they can be. We better be sure we don’t take mice to the Moon
with us on Apollo 11. There is all that green cheese! Let us know your status. Houston out."

  "Houston, Frodo 1 here. We also found mouse droppings and some chewed wires in the main console. I have used electrical tape to cover the bad wire sections, but there is more to this. They chewed the wire for the CO2 alarm, so that it was shorted to ground. It must have vibrated loose temporarily to allow it to go off just before we reached safe levels, but we don't know of a way to test it out here. What suggestions do you have? Frodo 1 out."

  Silence.

  Silence.

  Again, they forgot about the delay.

  Jason and Cris spent the next hour checking wiring, stores, and looking wherever they could. They found mouse droppings in the storage area, but none in Module C, the Zero-Contained garden room. They had simply started calling that room The Garden.

  Jason suggested, "Let's seal up the garden and maybe we can stop them in these two rooms."

  Cris responded, "Good idea. But what else can we do? We don't have any traps. And if we see a mouse, the odds of catching it, or them, are slim. They could be anywhere. I guess we have to wait and see what happens next. Not only that, we are in zero-G and I suspect the mice have mastered space travel ahead of us. In fact, I'm a little surprised we haven't seen flying mice."

  Jason looked around the cabin, "That's a good point. How do these mice get around in zero-G?"

  Cris said, "We aren't very nimble, but these guys must be well adapted."

  "Good speculation, Cris. But I’d still like to know how they are managing it!”

  "It's funny that we haven't heard from Houston. Surely it doesn't take this long for them to respond!" Jason said irritatingly.

  Jason went to the radio module to check it out.

  "Cris. We have another problem. The radio is on, but I can tell there is no signal getting through. The normal background radio noise from space is not giving me any readings on the signal power meter. It’s flat-lined!"

  "How could that be?"

  "Well, either something in the radio has died, or something has happened to the antenna connection. I won't know more until I take the panel off the communications unit."

  "Oh, great. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, but I didn't think it would be our only link to Houston. What if we are stuck here, the rest of the way, with no comms?"

  "Well, let's not panic just yet. We’ll just take a look, and see what we can find. Then we will have to come up with a procedure on our own."

  "I think it's time to pray, Commander."

  "What do you think I have been doing since we left Earth, Colonel?"

  Chapter 12–Space Vermin

  A week had gone by without any way to communicate with Mission Control. The crew had opened all the boxes in the storage room, Module B, but found no additional radio. And, fortunately, no evidence of mice entry was found in the boxes. However Cris did find the candy. They made sure it was re-wrapped very well. The universe doesn’t want a bunch of disappointed Martians! Each morning, they would check where the mice had been found before, and there would be new droppings. The droppings seemed to stick, so they didn't appear to be floating around too much, but they knew this was not really the case. As they started looking very carefully, sure enough, there were tiny mouse droppings floating around the room.

  "Yuck." Cris said.

  "Ditto that," said Jason.

  They spent the next two hours looking for and capturing mouse feces. It wasn't the ickiest job in the world, but it was still awful–mainly because of the idea of it being in the air they were breathing!

  Suddenly Cris started choking and hacking.

  "What's wrong, Cris. Are you OK?" Jason asked. He already knew the answer.

  Cris looked dismayed at his shipmate and spitting into a cloth said, "I think I just inhaled one!"

  "Oh great. 60 million miles from home, and we can't call an exterminator. Maybe we should open all the windows and air this place out!" Jason said with a smile. “Then again… maybe not…”

  Cris recovered from the shock of being a mouse toilet and said, "We have to find these buggers or we will have to start wearing masks, or at least find some way to not breathe this stuff in."

  They had no idea what the mice were eating or how they moved about. The old nest in the CO2 scrubber assembly did not appear to have the mouse home restored. They guessed that they had pulled up stakes and moved on. Unfortunately the ‘on’ they moved to was still in Module A or B. Only Module C still seemed to be unaffected.

  "Jason, maybe we should set up hammocks in the garden and sleep there?"

  "Not a bad idea, Cris. At least until we solve the rodent problem. Can you believe we are having a mouse problem in space? This should be in a Sci-Fi novel!”

  "Nah. No one would ever believe it, Captain. You Navy guys are used to rats. We Air Force are used to fast-food joints just minutes off of the base serving food that contains who-knows-what?"

  "Hmmm," was all Jason could say.

  "Commander, it has been a week since we've been able to talk to Earth. Maybe we need to start over on the radio thing and try again to find the problem."

  Jason replied, "I spent half my time this last week trying to figure out why the blasted thing wouldn’t work. I'm stumped and frustrated and angry. Why is there no backup? What in the world is wrong with it? And why the heck didn't they tell us we were going to Mars? Now I would have told them no way!"

  "I strongly suspect that is why they didn't tell us, Commander…"

  Another few days went by without any improvement, either with the mouse situation or the radio communication disaster. Without communications the tension between the two astronauts had increased. It was more frustrating than anything. The mouse problem they felt they could deal with. They had even named them the Viet Cong or the VC. A little dry humor did help some, psychologically. So, in effect, they spent time each day scouting for the VC.

  As for the radio problem, the two of them decided that maybe they should sit down and analyze the situation one more time.

  Jason said, "OK. Once again. The radio has several parts. The antenna, which receives and transmits the radio signal to and from the radio. The cable, which goes from the antenna to the radio or switching system. Wait a minute! This is not the radio that was designed for the Apollo 6 capsule. This is a secure radio from the CIA. There must be an interface box somewhere to allow their fittings to match what Apollo was designed for. I didn't think of that before. Let's start with the antenna wire out of the back of the radio. I don't think it goes straight to the antenna. There must be a junction box somewhere in between."

  "Captain, that's brilliant! Where do we look?"

  "Why don't you look from the bulkhead where the antenna comes into this module? I'll start from the radio and work toward you."

  "Roger that."

  So they went to work. The wiring was not behind an inside wall because there were no inside walls. This was not the Ritz Hotel. Who cared that you could see every wire, tube, and whiskey bump in front of the insulation material? It was a wonder that they could never find the mouse or mice. There weren't all that many hiding places. But for troubleshooting, it was the perfect environment.

  Cris said, “Jason, what if they set up home behind the insulation?”

  Jason shook his head and said, “Then we will never find them!”

  It took about three hours, but they found the junction box–and the mouse's headquarters. The junction box was behind the CO2 scrubber module. It was no wonder they didn't find the mouse, he was hiding right where they first discovered him. Or them.

  "Jason, I saw something run along the cable and jump into the storage room. It must have been a mouse."

  "Drat. We forgot to close the door. And how is he able to run in space? There is no gravity!"

  "Look. There goes another one. I think they can get a grip on the wires, and evidently they have learned to jump in zero-G to get to where they need to go. It’s amazing!"

 
"Doggone it! Close the door to Module B now! But obviously we are too late for those two, and we don't know if they are the only ones."

  "Well, let's finish this job and we will see what we can do about the Viet Cong, later. I bet there are some scientists that would like to study these little monsters. They get along better in zero-G than we do!"

  "Roger that. But it won't be us. I'm going to kill and cook those little stowaways. Just look at this switch box! It seems that the mice made more room for themselves by chewing through and rearranging the wires that got in their way. Smart fellows. Get me the solder gun and some wire strippers out of stores, and I will get this back to normal. You better bring me the small crescent wrench too, and don't forget to close the door in case those are the only two."