Skyfall

30

GET 17:08

“It looks like a chicken wrapped up for the oven,” Ely said, looking at the great mass of crumpled aluminum foil that was wrapped round the stern of Prometheus, around the nuclear engine. There seemed to be acres of it, a mound fifty feet wide with only the mouths of the engines projecting from it. He was clipped to the hull with Patrick floating nearby in the AMU.

“Well it's a chicken we are going to have to unwrap before we can get at the engine's guts. Which one is it?”

“On the far side, that one, there.”

Patrick worked the AMU's controls and drifted across the base of the ship while Ely worked his way around from clip to clip. By the time he reached the site Patrick had already peeled free a great sheet of foil and was digging deeper. They labored in silence, tearing at the aluminum foil, hurling it aside so that lengths of it were soon floating away in all directions. They were panting before they were done.

“Are you ready to proceed with instructions?” The voice sounded in their ears.

“No, we're not and we'll tell you when we are.”

Ely snarled the words, then gasped to get his breath back. Mission Control had enough sense not to answer. His back ached, every muscle in his body was sore, and he panted heavily, close to exhaustion. He couldn't wipe away the sweat because of the pressure suit and drops of it ran down his nose, itching and annoying. He shook his head to clear them away but it didn't work.

“Are you all right?” Patrick asked, touching the control on his AMU so that a jet of gas puffed out and floated him along the base of the engine; he grabbed a support to stop his motion.

“No I'm goddamned well not all right.” Ely choked out the words. “I don't know how much longer I can go on.”

“I'm bushed too — but we have to stick with it. Right now it takes two of us. Let's finish it then you take a rest while I go on to the hydrogen-helium heat exchanger.”

“If I could only get out of this suit for a few minutes….”

“Negative. We don't have the time to repressurize and start the whole thing over again.” Patrick tried to keep his voice cool, keep composed, but he was just as tired as Ely. Or more so, his nerves stretched taut. “No time, do you understand that? We've got to stick to this, there's nothing else we can do.”

“Are you ready to proceed, Prometheus?”

“No fucking lectures, Patrick, I can live without that. And shut up, Mission Control, we'll tell you when we're ready. I don't know if I can do it, my eyes won't focus….”

“I'm sorry about the lecture. This is getting to us all.”

Patrick floated close to the other man, until their faceplates almost touched, reaching out a hand to Ely's shoulder. Through the layers of fabric and plastic he could just feel the human being inside when he closed his fingers hard. They were alone there in space, in the vacuum of eternity that reached away on all sides, the sharp points of the stars just markers along the way. The steel shell of Prometheus was next to them, a capsule of life in the terrible emptiness, while filling half the sky was Earth.

“We've no choice, Ely,” Patrick said. “It took billions of dollars to get us up here and millions of hours of labor. And it's all a waste if we don't finish this job. There's really nothing else we can do.”

“Right,” Ely said. “Sorry about that. Let's get on with it. What's next, Mission Control?”

They had been waiting in Houston, listening in silence, powerless to help. All they could do was describe what had to be done and hope that the two exhausted men in space would do it correctly.

“The plate before you, it should have a stencilled number Peter Alfred seven six on it. There are four duz fasteners.”

“Roger. Can I have the screwdriver, Pat.”

Patrick undipped the safety line and passed the bulky form of the machine to Ely. “I have the big blade in it. Set for extract, minimum speed. Ready to trigger.”

“Right.”

Ely swung about, braced against the clip he had fastened to the hull and put the blade into the slot of the first fastener. When he pressed the trigger it whined rapidly, the flywheel inside spinning against the torque of the head, turning swiftly.

“What is the. .” Ely started to say just as the blade dug into the aluminum and was torn from his hand. “Too fast!”

The power screwdriver floated away from them, a mote of light in darkness.

“I'll get it — hold on,” Patrick shouted, kicking the AMU about and levering the gas for forward flight. He soared out after the power driver, grabbing it to him as he passed, then braked to a stop. His return flight was much slower.

“You had it on high,” Ely called out angrily. “It pulled right out of my hand when it dug in.”

“I'm sorry, a mistake, but you should have attached the safety line. If you did this wouldn't have happened…”

“Ely, Patrick, the time on the GET is 17:34,” Nadya said, her quiet words cutting through their angry ones. “How is the work proceeding?”

Patrick took a deep shuddering breath. “Proceeding as planned. Thanks Nadya.”

“Would you like me to relieve one of you?”

“A very good idea. As soon as we get this plate off I'm sending Ely in. If he transfers to the flight cabin umbilical you can take his place out here.”

“I'm all right, “Ely said.

“No, you're not. Neither am I. As soon as you feel better you can take my place. If we work in turns like this it should help us all. Now get on with the plate.”

“Right.”

The plate was finally free, disclosing a maze of pipes and cables below.

“Can you see a black cable with a green tracer?”

“It looks like a lot of spaghetti,” Ely said, moving his head closer. “This looks like it, yes, green markings.”

“You are going to have to cut it. You'll find if you pull up there is some give and you can work a loop of it up high enough.”

“It's… not easy…”

“Let me set if I can get a hand on it,” Patrick said, drawing himself close.

Each pulling, they managed to get a black arch of the cable up from the others below, two, three inches high.

“It'll be a bitch to cut,” Patrick said. “Too thick for any of the tack we have. We'll have to burn it through.”

“Isn't that dangerous, with the other wires just behind?”

“Our only choice. Fire up the torch and pass it down to me.”

Ely pulled himself back to the engine support to which they had clipped the tools. He detached the oxyacetylene torch and fastened it to a loop of his own umbilicals. Then he turned on the automatic gas regulator and thumbed the spark switch. The shining exhaust of frozen gas particles turned to a lance of flame.

“Here it is — “

“WATCH OUT!”

Patrick shouted the words — too late.

As he turned with the flaming torch Ely did not see the top of his own umbilicals floating up before him. The umbilicals seemed to have a life of their own as the slightest motion started them moving, the motion passed along their length like some half-sentient serpent.

The loop reared up and the flame burned into it.

Patrick grabbed the torch, turned it off — and they both looked in frozen horror at the blackened oxygen hose. It had been half burnt through, the wire-wound outer casing penetrated, the flexible inner rubber lining swelling out in a great blister. Only for an instant did it stay like that for even as they reached to contain it, it burst.

Ely screamed as his air bubbled out in a torrent of crystals, the sound of his voice getting weaker and weaker as the air that carried the sound ebbed away.

“Hold your breath!” Patrick shouted. “Hold your breath, I'll get you inside.” He grabbed the burst hose in his glove but could not contain the gas which bubbled out between his fingers. “Inside! Nadya, start pressurizing now, we need every second.”

He seized Ely with his free hand and worked the jets on the AMU, a short hard blast, then a course correction, full on. It was a crawling pace, a drift towards the distant safety of the open hatch, floating forward with the loops of the umbilical trailing out behind. Patrick had his faceplate close to Ely's and could see his mouth shut, then his eyes, slowly, with ice crystals already beginning to form on them.

The open hatch. Brake, grab the edge. Then shove the unconscious man through it, pushing the loops of trailing umbilicals after him.

“Get him near the air inlet,” he called out, fumbling with the belt that held him to the AMU, disentangling himself from it and forcing himself to take the time to clip it to a ring in the hull before diving through the hatch. The very last thing he did was to close the valves and disconnect himself from the air supply of the AMU. Holding his breath, not taking the time to reattach inside, closing the hatch.

The white snow of the air turned to invisible gas as the atmosphere was pumped into the flight cabin. Nadya was bending over the still form on the floor. Patrick jumped to the pressure gauge. Quarter atmospheric, good enough. Then he was rotating the wheel of the hatch to the crew compartment — was blown back as the air rushed into the only partially pressurized cabin.

Nadya was turning Ely's helmet, removing it. Patrick realized that he was still holding his breath so took off his own helmet as well, gasping in welcome lungfuls of air.

“Coretta, in here at once,” Patrick shouted.

“The air, what happened to the pressure?” she said, coming out through the hatch.

“It's Ely, his hose was cut.”

“Let me see him. Someone bring the big green metal case from my locker.”

“Prometheus, you have an emergency with Dr. Bron,” Mission Control's voice rattled from the wall speaker. “Medical monitoring reports no pulmonary activity, heart functions weakening.”

“Give me running reports on respiration, pulse and heart,” Coretta called out as she put the oxygen mask over Ely's face and triggered the valve. “Get this suit off him so we can use artificial respiration.”

She let the oxygen tank drift away and bent her lips to his, sealing his nose with her hand, giving him the kiss of life. Aware of the crystals of frozen perspiration on his icy skin.

“We have treatment suggestions from the medical team, Prometheus, are you ready to copy?”

“Copying,” Nadya said, taking the notepad from the pocket on her leg. Patrick slumped, he would have fallen if there had been gravity, totally exhausted by the last spurt of effort. Coretta bent over the unconscious man while Gregor looked on in shocked silence.

“What. . will happen to him?” Gregor asked. No one dared to answer.