Skyfall

35

GET 24:39

“I can't tell them this. You can't expect me to tell them this!” Flax shook his head so emphatically that his heavy cheeks flapped. He was almost shouting into the phone and he realized that the men at the other consoles were turning to look at him. That didn't matter. Nothing mattered any more; tragedy was closing in from all sides. He could not cope with it all. Simon Dillwater was still speaking when Flax hung up the phone. This was no way to treat your boss, but nothing did really matter very much any more. He turned slowly, blinking through fatigue-sore eyes.

“Mike,” he called to the man at the nearest console, and waved him over.

“What's up, Flax? Not more trouble?”

“You'll hear about it. Look, take these keys, they unlock the big desk in my office. Bottom drawer. There's a bottle of slivovitz there. Get it and bring it to me.”

“Shliv-o-what?”

“Plum brandy. It's the only bottle there. Get cracking.”

“Flax, you know the rules about drinking, you wouldn't want to…”

“I would. Screw the rules. My people are dying up there.”

He was surprised, shocked, to find tears in his eyes. They ran slowly down his cheeks and he really did not mind. He was mourning the dead. This last thing about the solar flares was almost too much to handle. How could he tell them? Nothing had gone right with this mission from the beginning and it wasn't over yet.

He sighed tremulously, not even realizing he had made the sound, a tired fat man at the end of his tether. He mopped away sweat and tears with his sopping handkerchief. And stared at nothing until the slivovitz arrived. It was transparent and moved like oil in the bottle and appeared harmless. So was nitroglycerine and it looked the same way. He uncorked the bottle and inhaled deeply of the rich odor of decay. It smelled even worse than tequila, which he also adored. There was a half-empty container of coffee at his elbow and, scarcely aware he was doing it, he poured the cold remains onto the floor, then filled it halfway with the slivovitz.

Marvelous! It cut a track down his throat and exploded like a bomb in his stomach, sending waves of warmth out to his extremities. Marvelous, and while the effect still lasted he threw the microphone switch.

“Come in, Prometheus, Mission Control here.” He had to repeat the call twice before there was a response.

“Hello, Flax.”

It was Patrick, his voice thick and slurred. “Yes, Flax here, is that you, Patrick?”

“Yes. Coretta's given me a shot, for the pain. Can't talk too well. Pain is A-OK. I told her to give Nadya a bigger one and she did and Nadya is sleeping. No change with Ely. Our eyes are bandaged. The doctor does not know if the blindness is temporary or permanent.” There was no alteration in his voice as he said this. “Did you find out yet who threw that thing at us?”

“Negative. You'll have the news as soon as I hear.”

“I hope so. Gregor is suited up and ready to go out. I'll relay from the engine team. Coretta will handle his umbilicals from inside the hatch.”

“That is contraindicated.”

“What the hell do you mean, Flax? If that engine isn't fixed there goes everything.”

“Look, Patrick, it looks like there isn't enough time to get the engine firing before atmospheric contact.”

“According to my clock we have about eighteen hours yet before we are due to hit.”

“The clock's been changed…”

“What!”

“Listen to me. I've been talking to a Professor Weisman who is a solar physicist, a high atmosphere specialist. Solar storms are due soon that will raise the top of the atmosphere, change everything.”

“When are they due?”

“Almost any time now.”

“This is straight, Flax? No chance of error?”

“No chance of error on the sun's rotation. The storms were just small ones when he observed them about two weeks ago. If they follow the normal solar activity pattern they should be full-blown by now.”

“Give me the odds, Flax. The sun is no goddamn oven that goes on and off with a timer. What are the odds of a major eruption?”

Flax hesitated, but in the end he had to speak. “Eighty to ninety percent that there will be a major solar flare.”

“Well, that's nice. “ There was more than a little bitterness in Patrick's voice now. “I'm going to tell the others. Out.”

Flax switched off the radio connection and hooked through to the communication desk. “Get Professor Weisman back. Ask him who the people in Europe are who are doing continuous solar studies. I want names and phone numbers. Then contact them. I want a continuous report here on these solar flares, levels of radiation. Hook them through to astronomy who can record the data. Do it now.”

“I have an incoming call for you.”

“No calls.”

“This is one you asked for. A Mr. Wolfgang Ernsting.”

“Yes, right, put him on.”

Flax sipped at the slivovitz but it didn't seem to help any more; he threw the container into his wastebasket. “Hello, Wolfgang, is that you? Flax here.”

“I've heard about your trouble. Terrible…”

“That's the least of it.” He pressed his forefingers hard into his forehead. “I'm sorry to bother you. It's too late now for what I wanted to know.”

“I'll be glad to help, in any way.”

“I know, thanks. But I don't think we will be able to kick Prometheus into a higher orbit now. So it doesn't matter. I was going to ask you how long it will be before your Air Force shuttle can be readied for launching. I know you have a week countdown and I was wondering how far into it you were.

Originally I hoped we could maybe get a few more days in a better orbit and there might have been a chance of a rescue launch. Get those people off there.”

“Yes, well as you say, there is no chance now. If it is any consolation remember the old German expression. 'Rufen Sie mich zu Hause in dreissig Minuten an.' Goodbye.”

“Goodbye, Wolfgang.”

Flax slowly broke the connection and wondered just what was going on. That was really some old German folk saying. Phone me at home in thirty minutes. He looked at the clock and scratched a note on his pad. Why couldn't Wolfgang talk now? Someone listening, security? It could be anything. The only way he could find out would be by making the call, but why should he bother? But maybe it was important. Some hush-hush business with the Air Force shuttle. Not that it made any difference now. Still, he hated to leave ends untied. The thoughts whirled around and around in Flax's head, whirling like snowflakes around the hard black central core of realization that Prometheus was doomed. He crumpled the note and aimed it towards the wastebasket.

Then smoothed it out and clipped it up before him where he could see it. At least he owed Wolfgang the courtesy of returning the call. The Communications Console light blinked and he made the connection.

“Mr. Dill water for you, Flax.”

“Right. Flax here.”

“Ahh, yes, Mr. Flax, President Bandin has a personal message for the astronauts…”

“They've shut down.”

“It is a matter of some urgency.”

“It always is. Hold on and I'll see if I can raise them.”

The makeshift oxygen tent was made of plastic bags that Gregor had patiently glued together at the edges. It billowed out like a crumpled balloon, holding its shape from its own internal oxygen pressure, slightly more than the ambient air pressure of the compartment. Ely's face was sallow, his respiration so slight it was scarcely noticeable. Coretta had to look at the bio readouts next to his head to reassure herself that he was still alive. Heartbeat steady but weak, the same for his breathing. He was alive — but barely. She adjusted and pressurized glucose drip in his arm vein and realized that there was little else she could do. What use was it all in the short time remaining? Whenever she remembered they had but short hours, perhaps just minutes, to live the same jolt of fear passed through her. She did not want to die and it was becoming harder and harder to keep up a front.

“How is he?” Gregor asked, coming close.

“The same, no change.”

“Perhaps he's the lucky one. He will never know when it happens.”

“Oh, God, it's just too terrible to believe.” She clutched him, buried her face in his chest — but could not cry. You can weep at others' deaths, not at your own to come.

“This is Mission Control, come in, Prometheus.”

The call was repeated over and over — but it was not answered. On the other couch Nadya stirred in her sleep.

“Why doesn't Patrick answer it?” Coretta asked.

“We should look, find out.”

Patrick had fallen asleep. The total exhaustion of the past days, the pain, the drug to kill the pain, all had taken their toll. Topped by the news that all their efforts were in vain, that there was no time left, it all had just been too much for him. There was simply no reason to stay awake now, he could die just as easily awake as asleep, so he had simply let go.

“Come in, Prometheus, come in please. The President is on the line.” The call sounded over and over from the wall speakers.

“Shouldn't we awaken him?” Gregor asked, looking down at the sleeping Commander. Coretta was next to him. Their hands were clasped together, both to keep from floating apart and for the pleasure of the human warmth. She shook her head.

“I'm not sure. Patrick needs the rest — and what could they possibly tell us of interest after the last good news that the trip was about over?” She said the words lightly, or at least tried to, but within she was overwhelmingly afraid.

“But it is your President who wishes to talk to you.” She smiled at his worried look.

“You respect the mere idea of authority too much, Gregor darling. Bandin is a political hack, always was, always will be. When he was still a congressman he was on the committee for school bussing — and his district was split, half white half black. That was when they first started calling him Rubber Bandin. He could stretch to reach anything, any side, and never lost a vote. Or accomplished anything. Anyone that adroit had to be elected President.”

“Coretta, please, you should not talk about your leader in that manner….”

“For a revolutionary you make a damn good bourgeois, my leetle Russian bear. Isn't your Polyarni the last of the old Stalin gang? Wasn't he involved with all those camps?”

“You should not talk like that,” he said, worried, looking over his shoulder. Coretta saw the gesture and burst out laughing, uncontrollably, over and over, tears rolling down her face. She was still laughing when she spoke.

“You should have seen your face! Looking about to see if you could be overheard — in a rocket in space about to blow up. I'm sorry, I'm not really laughing at you. But at us, all of us. With all our little nationalisms and fears. At least we few, here, can forget about them in the little time we have left.” She pulled herself close and kissed him warmly. “I'm glad I met you, really I am. It doesn't make all this worthwhile — but it sure makes it feel better.”

“And I, you…”

“The call, take the call. .” Patrick said, thickly, twisting against the restraining strap. His hands went to his bandaged eyes; he had forgotten what had happened, wondered why it was dark. Then unwelcome memory returned and he let the air out of his lungs and dropped his hand to the con switch.

“Prometheus here, come in Mission Control.”

“The President would like to talk to you all. Are you ready for this call?”

“Put him through,” Patrick said, uncaring. After a few moments Bandin spoke.

“This is the President of the United States speaking…”

“He can even make a phone call sound like the Gettysburg Address,” Coretta said, turning her back in a gesture of defiance.

“… it is with a heavy heart that I address what might be a final message to you brave astronauts, citizens of two countries, united in the bond of brotherhood in this great mission that seems to be terminating so disastrously. It is my sad duty to tell you the details of the atomic explosion that so recently occurred near your vehicle….”

“They found out!”

“Be quiet!”

“I have talked with Premier Polyarni at length and he wishes me to extend his heartfelt regrets that such a terrible accident could have occurred. For that is what it was. A single man, deranged, in the Soviet Defense Command, launched the missile…”

“One of ours, no,” Gregor said, shocked.

“He has been apprehended, but the deed was done. His breakdown was understandable since the world is filled with fear at this time. After the unbelievable catastrophe in Britain the rest of the world beneath the track of Prometheus has lived with the terrible knowledge that their turn might be next. We should understand this officer, though of course we cannot condone the dastardly action he has taken. I join Premier Polyarni in his pleas for understanding, his depth of sorrow at your plight, his unhappiness at what appears to be a disastrous end to this beginning of a new era, his hope that others will carry on the gallant battle you brave few have begun. Goodbye.”

In the silence that followed the end of the President's message Nadya could be heard calling out from the crew compartment.

“Where are you? I can't get free of this couch.”

“I'll help you,” Coretta said, pushing towards the hatch.

“Is that you, Coretta? That voice, it woke me up. I heard what he said. Please, take me to the others.”

They emerged together, Nadya with her hand protectively before her blind eyes.

“Did you hear it, Gregor?” she asked. “Do you believe it?”

“What are you asking, Nadya?”

“You know perfectly well. This story of the mad officer with his finger on the button. Is it true?”

Gregor took a deep breath — then shook his head despairingly. “No, it cannot be true. This sort of thing does not happen in our country. This now is, what do you call it? A cover-up. That missile was ordered to be launched. If there was panic it was closer to the top. Now they attempt to hide the truth. I am ashamed for my people, I apologize….”

“Forget it,” Patrick said. “It's not going to make any difference in the long run — or the short run — in any case.”

“He's right,” Coretta said. “It'll all come out the same way. And I'll bet we have a couple of generals who're jealous of your boys and wish they could throw some of their bombs around too….”

“That's enough, Coretta,” Patrick said sharply. “I'm a military officer. I won't hear that kind of talk.”

“I'm sorry, Patrick. Nerves I guess.” True or not, she knew she shouldn't have spoken that way. At least they could have peace in their last moments. “You're right. It just won't make any difference, will it?”

“I'm afraid not. What is the time?”

“The GET says 24:59.”

“We should be into the Sunspot time now. Does it look any different, Coretta — “

“I'm no astronomer….”

“Doesn't matter. Could I have a drink, that stuff you gave me makes me thirsty.”

Flax glanced at the GET. 24:59, and no rise in solar radiation yet. The piece of paper caught his eye and he noted the time. Wolfgang would be home by now. So that was the official excuse, the old madman and the button routine. Would anyone in the world believe it? Probably not. But it would save face, very important to big nations and small. Maybe they were still thinking of keeping Prometheus going. Why not. The energy need was still there, growing larger every day. Another launch, another attempt. What could Wolfgang possibly want? Flax put the call through. The phone rang and rang, but there was no answer. The hell with it. Flax crumpled the scrap of paper for the final time and threw it away.