Lifeline

Chapter 16

KIBALCHICH—Day 12

All the reckless I-won’t-care-until-tomorrow singing had stopped. Anna Tripolk wondered if she would ever hear it again. The others stood silent now, shifting uneasily. A few of them broke into forced jokes or flat conversation, but that quickly petered out. Tripolk smelled a haze of nervous sweat in the Kibalchich’s recycled air.

The big lab space had been converted into a giant infirmary and medical center. At another time, a better time, they had done delicate engineering work here—precision laser applications. None of that mattered anymore.

Tripolk raised her eyes as the line moved forward. Standing in line again, she thought. Even to the end, we must stand in line for everything. High above in the curved ceiling of the research station, she could look through the slitted windows. The suspended saucer-like mirror hung over the rotating torus of the Kibalchich like a giant silver dinner plate. The two lower decks were lit by yellowish artificial light, but Rurik had decided that this was best done in sunlight. Tripolk agreed with him.

The station’s walls were metal, cold, sterile—fabricated from Moon rock, but with no concessions made for the appearance of comfort. All the rooms had been enameled a dreary eggshell white—walls, floors, ceilings, doors. It hurt the eyes after a while.

A few months ago, one of the other researchers, Danskoy, had painted a broad mural along one wall in the recreation hall. It broke up the Kibalchich’s monotony in a startling way.

Danskoy had been sent home soon afterward. Tripolk couldn’t figure out how anybody Earthside had learned of it.

As the next man in line stepped forward, Tripolk took another clean syringe and filled it with the vile-looking yellow chemical. She smoothed her doctor’s uniform, tried to look professional and strong. She, of all people, had to show confidence now. The testing phase had ended; this was for real.

Tripolk didn’t want to look at the man shuffling up, but she did anyway. He had mouse-brown hair, cut too short to be attractive; two days’ growth of beard bristled on his chin. A week before that lack of attention to personal hygiene would never have been tolerated.

A name patch sewn to the man’s uniform said Sheveremsky. Tripolk had never bothered to learn the names of all five hundred people on the Kibalchich. She could have done it, of course, but it had not seemed a necessary effort … and her own work kept her busy enough.

Tripolk started to say something inane, something encouraging, out of habit, but the man cut her off. “Just get it over with. No speeches.” Sheveremsky stared at her. “We all know what we are doing.”

Tripolk clenched her teeth, resenting Sheveremsky’s attitude. Did he think she enjoyed this? The Party wasn’t paying her a bonus for it. It was nothing she wanted to do. She hated to be pushed into such a desperate situation. But this was their only hope, and necessary things had to be done.

“What do you want me to say, then?” She held the syringe in her hand and locked her eyes with Sheveremsky’s. “Do you want me to say everything will be all right? Yes? So—everything will be all right. Now, give me your arm.”

She grasped his bicep and jabbed the needle into his arm. Deep behind the man’s eyes, Tripolk could see a startled wince, but the man himself did not cringe.

The next person came up, a thin woman, silent and looking very frightened. Tripolk gave her the injection.

At the other end of the wide, echoing room, several people looked groggy and disoriented—the first visible effects of the drug. A team of de facto orderlies wheeled them out of the room before they could grow cold and still.

More workers came and went, each receiving an injection, not daring to let pride slip while in the presence of comrades.

Tripolk looked down at the medical cart beside her. She had known of a slaughterhouse just south of Moscow; as a child she had often thought of the lines of animals marching in ignorance to their deaths, trusting and unconcerned. Now, the Kibalchich seemed like that slaughterhouse to her: lines of workers in the vast infirmary, waiting for a pinprick to send them off on a single hopeless chance.

On the supply cart, she saw so many vials left, so many people. A film of tears flashed across her eyes and she looked down, not daring to meet anyone’s gaze. She drew a deep breath and tried to burn the moisture away with determination.

As the hours ticked by, the numbers of people in the infirmary room diminished. She knew this was going to require more than a day. She and two assistants had been working without a break, but the strain was growing. Tripolk found her hands shaking. The large chamber began to take on a funereal air.

When a tech named Orvinskad went into convulsions after receiving the injection, Tripolk found herself startled and scared. That was not supposed to happen, she thought. It is supposed to be peaceful and painless. But considering the circumstances, how pushed to the edge they all were, there were bound to be surprises.

Two men wrestled Orvinskad to the ground and held him still until the seizure left him drained and motionless. They hauled him out. After a few nervous moments, the remaining people fell into an uneasy quiet again, and shuffled forward to face Tripolk’s needle. She wished they would start singing again.

The war on Earth had put an abrupt end to her project, her life’s work. It had vanished, never to be completed. Tripolk felt like a starving man who’d had a fine roasted chicken snatched out of his grasp.

ARES 2 would be indefinitely postponed now. Tripolk might never see cosmonauts land on Mars. She had wanted to watch the live transmissions, to shake her fist in triumph and know that she, Anna Tripolk, had helped her people get there. But not anymore. Patriotic accomplishments for the pride and glory of the Soviet people had fallen by the wayside.

Mars—how she longed to go there. But that would never happen.

The first Soviet manned Mars mission, ARES 1, had been launched seven years previously, before Tripolk had become involved with the program. But that first mission had ended in disaster.

Though the flight time was long, Soviet cosmonauts had spent many times that duration alone in orbit in their own stations. No one expected the isolation to be a factor. But when the small crew of ARES 1 had reached interplanetary space, they had crumbled.

It seemed that in an Earth-orbiting station or in one of the Lagrange colonies, people still had a sense of perspective, a feeling of home. They could look out the window and see the Earth sitting there in space, filling a huge portion of their view. They could still see the Moon, accompanying them.

But in the deep space between Earth and Mars, the cosmonauts had no such landmark. Earth shrank to a bright blue-green light, with the Moon a much smaller dot beside it. Mars itself was only a reddish disk. Even the Sun itself grew smaller, while the blackness of space grew bigger. Everything seemed a yawning ocean of vacuum, infinity itself staring them in the face—with no place they could go to get away from it all.

Transmissions had grown sporadic and baffling, hard to interpret. The ARES 1 crew had severed communication. The captain’s final transmission, accompanied by nervous laughter from her crew mates, had said that they were abandoning their ship.…

But the Soviet Union still needed to put a manned mission on Mars—for their own glory, for international prestige. It was mankind’s next logical step, and the United States had never bothered even to make the attempt. The Soviet people would be the ones to push forward, to take that step.

Tripolk, a biophysicist, had thrown herself at the task. Somehow, the trip to Mars had to be shortened—either the distance, the actual flight time, or the time perceived by the cosmonauts. The mission planners could not screen candidates for the disorientation and pick psychologically stronger crew members; that held too few guarantees.

Tripolk had made great progress in the suspended animation process. She had found a workable solution, and had developed almost everything they needed. Only a few tests remained to prove its feasibility.

And then the War had put an end to everything.

Now, fewer and fewer people remained in the infirmary room. They came, Tripolk gave them an injection, and other workers took them out to the waiting area. Waiting area, she thought ironically. What a ridiculously poetic way to think of it. We are going to be waiting a long time.

Tripolk realized with a kind of uneasy horror that she was doing this mechanically, by rote. Doing this to people, to human beings, had become run-of-the-mill? She was not even certain it would work for all of them! She tried to swallow, but her throat was too dry. She drew a deep breath, and motioned for the next man to come forward.

Only seven remained now—herself, Commander Rurik, the political officer, Cagarin, and the four men who had acted as orderlies to cart away the groggy and listless men and women. Her assistants had given each other the injection an hour before and were now resting quietly, she hoped.

“Should we all go off to the big room now?” Rurik suggested.

Grekov, a big Ossetian—like Stalin—stood up. His hair was thick and full, but even so, his head looked too small for his broad shoulders. “If you please, Commander, Doctor,” he said in his heavily accented voice, “I don’t want to see them all … there. I would like mine here. Please.”

He thrust his arm toward Tripolk. The doctor gathered up the remaining ampoules, filled a hypodermic needle, and as gently as she could, injected Grekov.

“How long will it take for me to feel it?”

“It is different for everyone.” Tripolk shrugged. “You can feel it as soon as you want to. Don’t worry.”

Rurik paced back and forth. “Thank you all for what you have done. You are being very brave.”

Tripolk admired him more than ever before. She didn’t know how Rurik could be so stoic, so optimistic even now.

“Shall we go?” Rurik stood up, took a deep breath, and marched toward the door. Tripolk gathered the four remaining hypodermic needles and looked at the mess she had left behind—wrappers, empty ampoules, discarded needles, the stained and dirty cart. Cleaning up didn’t matter. In years, when the next generation of Soviet survivors finally made it back to the cold and silent Kibalchich, they would have to take Tripolk to task for the poor housekeeping. For now, she wouldn’t let it bother her rest. It was easier to think of it like that. Perhaps Rurik would clean it up or, better yet, he would have Cagarin do so.

Rurik and Cagarin each draped one of Grekov’s arms around their shoulders and helped the Ossetian walk out of the empty infirmary room. Tripolk followed, flanked by the remaining two orderlies.

They walked down the wide, barren-looking corridor. Overhead, the fluted windows let sunlight and starlight in. Many of the louvers had already been closed, sealing down the Kibalchich for its dormancy. The station was already looking like a tomb.

Rurik and Cagarin were going to be very lonely and very bored. They didn’t even seem to like each other in the first place. Anna Tripolk wished Rurik had allowed her to remain with him.

Down the hall they reached the other main lab room. The doors were propped open into their sockets, but the inside of the room had been dimmed to thick shadows. Tripolk felt thankful for that at least. The orderlies themselves had perhaps been spooked from looking at all the bodies lined row upon row, each in its neat enclosure. Rurik and Cagarin carefully laid Grekov’s body inside one of the empty cubicles, straightened his arms and legs, then inserted another needle into each brachial artery.

The two orderlies looked around themselves uneasily, then pulled crucifixes from their jumpsuits. Rurik glanced at them, but said nothing and turned away. Cagarin scowled and seemed about to snap at them, but Rurik grabbed his arm. Tripolk could see how hard he squeezed.

Tripolk removed her three hypodermic needles and looked at them in odd fascination. She blinked. “Are you ready?”

Sullenly, the first man put away his crucifix, then bared his arm. The other received his injection as well, and they went to lie down in their glass compartments. Tripolk waited for them to grow somewhat groggy, then hooked up the artificial circulatory system, jabbing needles inside their elbows.

Cagarin scowled and walked out, leaving Tripolk and Commander Rurik alone.

Tripolk had one hypodermic needle left, for herself. “You will take care of everything else?”

Rurik squeezed her shoulder. “You know I will.”

“And there is no way I can talk you into joining us?”

The commander pressed his lips together and shook his head. “Later. It must be later. You know that two of us must remain to watch the station.”

“But why Cagarin?” she asked, unable to suppress a whine in her voice. “Why not me?”

“He is the one I chose.” Rurik refused to raise his voice, which upset Tripolk.

“Are you sure you’re not just being a coward?” Tripolk surprised herself with this comment, and realized that she didn’t mean it—she was just trying to provoke Rurik into changing his mind.

“Anna. Let us not debate who is making the bravest choice. The answer is not clear-cut. I do what I must, and you do what you must. Only the future will tell how we are all remembered … if we are remembered at all.”

Rurik smiled a little, as if trying to lighten the air. “Without me, you would be the acting commander of this station.”

Tripolk forced a smile of her own. “And without me, you would be in charge of a station without a purpose!” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Mars was so close.”

Rurik pursed his lips. “Anna, the Kibalchich has strategic uses beyond mere scientific research. That point has not been lost on the military or State Security. You know as well as I that some of our ‘assistants’ are KGB.”

She smirked, annoyed to hear the reactionary paranoia she had encountered so often, but never from Rurik. “You and Cagarin will have to go under. There aren’t enough supplies to last even the two of you.”

“Enough for a while,” Rurik said.

“Not long enough.”

“Enough … for a while.”

Tripolk stared at the long silver point of the last hypodermic needle, then turned her head away. She injected herself with the yellow drug.

She had stepped across the line now. No turning back. Onward, ever onward—even to this. She couldn’t call for help.

Her body began to feel as if it were turning to ice water, flowing away from her brain stem. She felt dissociated, apart from it and drifting. Her arms and legs flopped listlessly, like mannequins’ limbs.

Rurik gently helped her to lie down in the glass-walled cubicle. He smiled down at her. “I saved one bottle of brandy for myself. Tonight I will drink a toast to you—without Cagarin.”

“Thank you,” Tripolk managed to whisper. She found it hard to move her lips.

Rurik reached down and brushed a strand of hair away from her forehead. “Yes. No need to worry. Everything will be all right.”

Yes, she thought, everything will be all right. It would take years and years for anyone to come up and find them. She wondered what it would be like.

Her vision began to grow black and she couldn’t tell if she had closed her eyes or not. With a twitch, she moved her arm and bumped the smooth glass wall of the cubicle. At least I’ll have a coffin if anything goes wrong.

Then the cold of space seemed to reach through her veins, through her limbs, and into her heart.

Maybe she would dream about Mars.