Skyfall

28

GET 15:08

“This is a crew meeting,” Patrick said. “I want you all to know what's been happening with the engines, with everything…”

He was surprised to find himself stumbling over his words. In his years of test piloting he had become used to long hours, even long days of work. Fatigue was something he had learned to control. But he had never been as tired as this before; if he had not been floating in free fall he would have been collapsed on the couch. Not that the others looked any better. If his eyes were as red as Nadya's, he did not want to look into the mirror. Ely's skin was pale with strain and fatigue, the dark marks under his eyes looked as though they had been brushed on with soot. Only the other two looked remotely human. Gregor, still looking dim after his drugged sleep, fought to keep his head erect. Coretta was calm and relaxed. If she was feeling any strain she was not showing it. And she was looking at him with deep concern.

“You look like hell, Patrick,” she said. “And you know you're having difficulty talking?”

“I sure do, doctor. Because I'm plenty tired.”

“I suppose you wouldn't try to get some sleep.”

“You suppose correctly.”

She kicked off to the wall and opened her medicine locker. “In any other circumstances I would not be doing this. But I've plenty of uppers here, Benzedrine, Dexedrine. Do you want something? You know you'll only feel worse afterwards?”

“There may be no afterwards. Let me have a handful of them.”

“What do you mean?” Coretta was shocked at the sudden brutality of his words.

He swallowed the pills and washed them down with water before he spoke. They were all listening now, rigid with attention; even Gregor snapped out of his drugged haze.

“Let us lay all the facts out, get them absolutely straight,” Patrick said. “We cannot afford to kill ourselves by making any mistakes. The chances are slim as it is. Right now” — he looked up at the GET — “it is 15:11. We're still in a low orbit that it is estimated will terminate at forty-three hundred hours, about halfway through our twenty-eight orbit.”

“How can they be so sure?” Coretta asked. “I mean we'll be slowed by the air, won't we? That will be sort of a gradual thing.”

“Not really,” Patrick told her. “We're already being slowed now by the traces of the atmosphere at this altitude, slowed just enough to drop us lower and lower all the time. But you must remember that our orbit is not really circular, but more like a big ellipse in space. At apogee — that is our highest point in the orbit, when we are furthest from Earth — we are about a hundred kilometers higher than at perigee, the closest. On our twenty-eighth orbit when we hit perigee we will hit the atmosphere and that will be that. End of the voyage.”

“The engines,” Gregor said abruptly. “You must start the engines.” The tension was back in his face again, his fists closed so tightly the knuckles were white.

“We'd like to, Gregor, believe me we would. But the four good ones can't be fired until we find some way to disconnect the broken one. Ely, you have any ideas about that?”

“I do.” He shook out a complex diagram he had been studying. “Mission Control is doing this in more detail, but I've been trying for myself. The trouble is that the five engines are interconnected. They share a common supply of hydrogen, for both moderator and the fuel supply as well. Theoretically it's possible to seal off engine four. It would mean a space walk and closing a lot of valves, cutting pipes and wires and isolating them, sealing them. But it's dangerous. Cut the wrong pipe and that is the whole ballgame. Plus the fact that when you're through with the spatial plumbing job and the engines get fired up, if they do, what kind of thrust do you get? Can the off-center thrust be allowed for? I don't know, but I hope the boys in Houston do. Plus one final and vital factor.” Ely stared around at the circle of watching faces and could not look them in the eyes. He turned away abruptly. “You tell them, Patrick. You're captain of this sinking ship.”

“Not quite sunk yet,” Patrick said. “But the final difficulty is that even if we fire up the engines — will we have time enough to break out of this orbit before the twenty-eighth orbit? The upper atmosphere is a strange area about which nothing can be predicted precisely at any given time. We might have time enough, we might not. But all we can do is try.”

“Is that really all?” Gregor asked, his voice too loud.

“No. I've already contacted Dillwater, and the President, about getting us off Prometheus before the twenty-eighth orbit if the worst comes to the worst.”

“It can be done?” Gregor asked eagerly.

“It's a long shot, but a possibility. The space shuttle that was supposed to change crews in a month's time is not ready. However there are US military shuttles and Soviet ones. All the possibilities are being looked into. So that's the situation. As soon as Mission Control tells us it can be done we try to isolate the knocked out engine. Then fire up. Then, with luck, get up into our correct orbit. In case it can't be done alternative plans are now being made to get us off.”

“And if we don't get off…?” Coretta asked, her voice very low.

“I just don't know,” Patrick said. “If you mean do we get out of this alive, why then the answer is no, we don't. This thing may burn up, or it may ride in in one lump. In either case we won't be walking away from it.”

“But — couldn't it be landed, somehow?”

“Negative. No chance at all.”

“But, if Prometheus hits, could something horrible happen like with that English city?”

“The chances are against it,” Patrick said, as calmly as he could. “The odds are well against it. Two-thirds of the Earth is water, so Prometheus will probably impact the ocean. And about three-quarters of the land areas are mountain, jungle, desert, things like that. I doubt if there's another disaster in the making---”

“You doubt it!” Gregor shouted hoarsely, turning in the air as he tried to push himself erect. “The disaster is for us, is that not bad enough? We are going to die and that is the end of it!”

“You're going to have to keep your cool, Gregor. For your sake as well as for ours…” The radio contact signal beeped and he turned towards the hatch.

“I will take that,” Nadya said, and pushed by him and was at the hatch before he could respond. She was right, his place was here.

“It is tough on all of us, Gregor,” Patrick said. “I know how you feel, shut in here with nothing to do. But we may get through yet and if we do you're the indispensable man. Don't forget that. All this effort is to get you up there, not us, into orbit with the generator. You are the guy who has to do the job.”

Nadya came floating back into the group and they turned to her.

“Mission Control says there is a good possibility that the faulty engine can be isolated and the others fired. It will have to be done from outside the ship.”

“I knew it,” Ely said, and sighed. “Back to the salt mine.”

“They think it will all work out well,” Nadya told them. “They're sure that the eccentric thrust can be compensated for. And that there will be enough thrust to lift us out of this orbit. But firing must begin as soon as possible.”

“You can bet your sweet bippy on that,” Ely said, warmly.

“Mission Control has worked out a program of step-by-step procedures that are to be done, and they'll relay it one item at a time. They ask if two people can space walk at the same time. They know we only have one operational umbilical.”

“The answer is yes,” Patrick said. “I'm going to break out one of the Astronaut Maneuvering Units from the cargo hold. Ely, suit up and stay on the flight cabin umbilical until I get back. Then you can use the long umbilicals and I'll fly the AMU. It's going to work.”

“It better,” Ely said. “Let's get suited up. Coretta darling, let me have some of those pills before we tackle this last one.”

“Of course. How about you, Nadya?”

She started to shake her head no, then stopped. “Normally, I do not like stimulants, but I feel this situation is very different.”

“About as different as they come, dooshenka,” Ely said. “Join the junky brigade.”

“You will seal the hatch again?” Gregor asked. “Seal us in once more?”

“I'm sorry,” Patrick said, hearing the fear in the man's voice, but unable to help him any more. “This should be our last space walk. So let's get it over with.”

“I could wear my suit as well,” Gregor said. “I could help.”

“He could do something, couldn't he?” Coretta asked, trying with her tones to tell Patrick how she felt. As a doctor she was well aware of Gregor's borderline state. Patrick shook his head no.

“Sorry. I don't want to have to evacuate the entire ship — and there is just no room for anyone else in the flight cabin. And really no need for anyone. Nadya will relay instructions to Ely and me — and we'll do the work. We'll be as quick as we can.”

Then they were suited up and out of the hatch. Coretta and Gregor looked up as the hatch closed and the wheel spun and locked it. Soon after the red light came on beside it showing that the air was gone on the other side.

Coretta turned around to find that Gregor was sitting, hunched over, his arms clasped before him and his head bent. Of course he couldn't sit, but was floating a few feet above his couch.

“Would you like something to eat, Gregor?” she asked, but received no answer. “There are some nice things here. I must say you Russians do things with your space food that we would never consider. Look at this — caviar! This little jar is easily twenty-five dollars on Earth, and here we are with a dozen or more. It's worth going into space for this.”

“Nothing is worth it. It is too terrible.” You did not need to be a doctor to hear the terror in his voice.

“Well, it hasn't really been exactly a pleasure trip so far. But do have some of this, I've opened it.”

“No, nothing. I shall never eat again, for life is at an end.”

He was raising his voice to shout above the sound from the wall speaker, hooked into the radio circuit and repeating the instructions from Mission Control about the spacewalk. She turned it off, it was too distracting and too much of a reminder of their plight. On impulse Coretta turned to the music bands, flipping through them until she found a pleasant piano concerto, Rachmaninoff it sounded like. In one of the cabinets a microminiaturized tape player ran continuously, producing six channels of music that could be tapped at will. The clear piano notes and the warm sound of the strings filled the compartment.

“It should not have ended like this,” Gregor said. “Too many mistakes have been made, too much was rushed. We were pushed into space too quickly, more care should have been taken.”

“Can't cry over spilt milk, Gregor,” Coretta said. “This caviar is delicious. Too bad there's no champagne to go with it. Hey, wait a minute. I have some two-hundred proof surgical alcohol in there. Cut that in half with water and you have one-hundred proof vodka. How about that, tovarich, does a shot of vodka sound interesting?”

“There were mistakes, and they rushed too fast and we are going to die.”

Gregor was pounding his fists together. He had not heard her. He needed something a lot stronger than the vodka. Coretta looked into the medicine cabinet, then back at the distraught Russian. There seemed to be no effect left of the sleeping pills she had given him, which should have been strong enough to put him under for hours. Could she get him to take any more? Unlikely, he seemed unaware of her, uncaring. He had deteriorated very rapidly.

She opened a metal box and removed, the pressure hypodermic, then rooted out a plastic bottle of noctex. Enough of this would put an elephant to sleep. And the advantage of the pressure hypo was that you didn't have to have a needle to break the skin. Just press the device against the body anywhere and a blast of high pressure air sent the droplets of chemical right through the skin. She would have to put the big Russian under whether he liked it or not. A good shot to keep him down until the danger was past. Or all over — but she wasn't going to think about that. He was a patient and she had to do her best for him. Very quietly she closed the locker and held the silver bulk of the hypodermic behind her leg. Then pushed off towards Gregor. He had his back turned, his head lowered, was unaware of her. The back of his neck with the curly blond hairs was the right spot. Just place and press. She floated close, raising the hypodermic.

“It is a crime what they are doing to us!” Gregor shouted, straightening, his legs banging against the couch — just as Coretta pushed the hypodermic at him.

The nozzle slammed into his shoulder, jarring it, sending a gust of droplets past his face.

“What is this?” he roared, seeing the apparatus extended like a gun towards his head. “You are trying to kill me! You cannot do that!”

He lashed out with his hand, slapping the hypodermic from her grasp, sending it hurtling across the compartment to crash into the wall, the force of his blow sending them both tumbling and turning. They collided and he struck again — this time at Coretta.

“You want to kill me!”

The slap was clumsy, the reaction of his movement spinning him about even as he struck. A fist fight would be impossible in free fall. But the flat of his palm struck her forehead and his wedding ring gashed her skin; small droplets of blood formed in the wound. The sight of the blood angered him even more and he lashed out again, but with little effect.

His eyes were blank, his temper overwhelming. He clutched madly at the fabric of Coretta's jumpsuit to pull her closer, punching with his free hand, clumsy blows that she twisted away from.

“Gregor, stop it,” she shouted. “Stop it, please!”

They drifted and spun, bouncing from the couches, drifting towards the wall, their insane ballet in space accompanied by the soaring music of the concerto. Gregor was panting now with the effort, still wild with fear and anger. To avoid his blows Coretta pulled him close to her, put her arms around his body and buried her head in his chest so he could not strike her face.

His anger spluttered out. He sobbed deeply and placed his hands over his eyes.

“My God, what am I doing. . I did not know. . There is blood on your face. I did that.”

“It's not important, it's all over now.”

“No, I'm so sorry. Very sorry. I ask you to forgive me. I have hurt you, I have broken bones.”

“No, nothing, really.”

Gregor was distraught now, his anger forgotten, running his hands down her arms, holding them, as though expecting to find the bones broken there. Pulling her to him, wrapping her in his arms.

His breath loud in her ears, coming faster now. She reached to disentangle his arms.

“I'm sorry,” he said softly, “.. sorry.”

“Don't be,” she said, equally as quiet, aware that his hands were on her back, moving lower, pressing his body tight to hers. The passion of his anger turning suddenly to another kind of passion.

Coretta knew it had gone far enough and knew how to stop it. Yet, even as she thought of that she wondered why she should stop it. She was a woman, and had been married. She found that this big, gloomy, passionate Russian attracted her. And — she fought hard not to laugh at the thought — turning the laughter into a smile instead — by God, this was a first in space; one for the books. Gregor saw the smile on her lips and touched it with his fingertips, whispering soft Russian terms of endearment as he did. A single, long zipper closed the jumpsuit she wore and he slid it open slowly, revealing the brown warmth of her bare skin inside.

She wore no bra — what need without gravity? — and her breasts were full and round. He bent his face, burying it in their warmth, kissing her over and over. She held his head tightly against her. Helped him to open the long zipper, all the way. She slipped out of her suit and helped him from his.

It was good, strangely good, floating weightless in space as though deep in the ocean. The waves of the music broke over them… and broke again…