Titan

28 May 2096: Rebirth

Gaeta sank to his knees as another beam of intense green light flashed past him.

“The chingado laser’s shooting at me!” he repeated. Goddam plug must’ve worked loose out of the mounting, he added silently. He realized his left arm was flaming with pain. The life-support displays were going crazy. The suit had been penetrated and the automatic safety system had sealed off the whole arm.

Down on all fours in the soupy black muck, he found that he couldn’t put any weight on his left arm. Must’ve broke my friggin’ arm, he groaned to himself. He dragged himself behind the return pod’s bulk. Maybe the laser can’t see me back here, he hoped. But I gotta climb up into the rig before I can light off. The whole arm was numb now. He could feel the pressure cuff squeezing tightly on his shoulder but below that, the arm was frozen.

“What is your situation?” Fritz sounded testy, alarmed.

“Climbing into the return pod.”

It took a painful effort, with only one working arm. Even in the relatively light gravity of Titan, and with the servomotors amplifying his muscular strength, the suit was desperately heavy. Sweat popped out on Gaeta’s brow, stinging his eyes. He could feel cold perspiration soaking his coveralls.

“Habib has turned off the laser,” Fritz said. “The lander is accepting commands from the control center now.”

“Glad … to hear it.” Gaeta puffed, as he climbed into the pod and slid his boots into the slots on its flooring. It was like standing in an open coffin, narrow, confined. Through the spattering rain Gaeta could see Alpha, a squat blocky shape sitting on the mushy ground. It looked alien, completely out of place.

“Ready for launch,” Gaeta said, his shoulder flaming with agony, his breath rasping. Without waiting for Fritz to confirm it, he reached for the toggle switch that would ignite the rocket engine. “Initiating launch sequence,” he said, grateful that the switch was on the side of his good arm.

Pancho looked across the cramped bridge of the transfer vessel at Wanamaker. “We’re gonna have company in half an hour,” she said.

“Less,” Wanamaker replied. “Timeline calls for rendezvous twenty-three minutes after he lifts off.”

“Hairsplitter,” Pancho sniffed. “I know—”

“Ms. Lane,” von Helmholtz’s voice crackled from the comm speaker. “This is an emergency situation.”

“Don’t I know it,” Pancho snapped. Then she had to wait nearly twelve seconds, fidgeting nervously and staring at Wanamaker.

“Gaeta’s air tank is leaking badly,” von Helmholtz replied at last. “Down on Titan’s surface, under the heavy pressure of the atmosphere, the leak is bad enough. Once he launches and gets into the vacuum of space the tank will degas in seconds.”

“So he’ll be breathin’ the air inside his suit,” Pancho said. “How much time’s he got?”

Again the agonizing time lag.

“No more than fifteen minutes,” von Helmholtz answered at last. “Closer to ten.”

“We’ll hafta pick him up soon’s he pops up above the atmosphere,” Pancho said.

Wanamaker nodded once, then ducked out into the passageway that connected with the cargo bay. And the suit lockers, Pancho realized. Sure enough, Jake came back with a nanosuit in his arms and began unfolding it.

“Yes,” von Helmholtz said. “It is imperative that you capture him at the earliest possible moment—without endangering the rendezvous itself, of course.”

“Sure,” Pancho said cheerily. “Grab him quick but make sure we don’t miss him. No sweat.”

Wanamaker was pulling on the nanosuit. Pancho grinned at him and said, “Hurry up and take your time, that’s what that peckerwood wants.”

“Just like the Navy,” said Wanamaker. But the expression on his face was dead serious.

Standing in the coffinlike return pod, Gaeta thought that Berkowitz would want him to say something. But he had to conserve his air. Let ’em hear my heavy breathing, he decided. Zeke can fill in with all the commentary he wants.

The launch sequence for the pod was only thirty seconds long, yet it seemed like hours as Gaeta stood there, his arm as dead as a chunk of marble, chest heaving. Maybe the air tank’s already empty, he thought. He remembered that he’d switched off the computer’s voice. The computer control keypad was on the left side of the suit. I’m not gonna even try to move that arm, he told himself. Yet he tried to wiggle his fingers. A lance of pain shot up the arm.

Arm’s not completely dead yet, he told himself. That’s something. Now if the air holds out long enough … Why haven’t we lifted off? Maybe the launch sequencer’s malfunctioned, he thought. Or the rocket’s no-go. It’s more than thirty seconds now. Got to be. Maybe—

The rocket lit off with a thundering roar and the pod lurched into the air; the surge of thrust would have buckled Gaeta’s knees if he hadn’t been standing in the suit.

“Yahoo,” he said in a throaty whisper that hadn’t the faintest trace of excitement in it.

“How low can you go?” Wanamaker asked nervously as Pancho maneuvered the transfer craft closer to the orange-gray clouds of Titan.

She realized her tongue was between her teeth, a sure sign that she was keyed up. “Won every limbo contest I ever was in,” she answered.

“That isn’t a dance floor down there,” said Wanamaker.

“Don’t sweat it, Jake. Just get yourself zipped up in that suit and open up the cargo bay. We’re gonna pick up Manny just like a frog snaps up a fly.”

Wanamaker pulled the nanofiber hood over his head and sealed it the collar of his suit, thinking that a fly really doesn’t do so well when a frog snaps it up.

Gaeta realized he must have passed out briefly from the strain of the launch. One moment he was lifting off Titan’s surface, the next he was up above the clouds, in space, with nothing but the cold and distant stars around him.

He coughed. Air must be getting sour, he told himself. Sure, he realized, the tank would blow out completely once I’m in vacuum. I’m breathing the air inside the suit now.

“Hang in there, Manny.” Pancho’s voice, he recognized. “The cavalry’s chargin’ in to the rescue.”

Pancho stood alone on the bridge now that Wanamaker had gone to the cargo bay. She focused her attention on the display screen that showed Gaeta’s planned trajectory, a thin green curve that rose from the surface of Titan and bent into a graceful elliptical orbit around the frozen moon.

The red dot that revealed where Gaeta actually was showed that he was almost exactly on the nominal trajectory. Pod’s guidance system works pretty good, Pancho thought. Farther along the curving green line was a yellow dot that marked where the transfer craft was calculated to rendezvous with Gaeta. Too far, Pancho knew. He’ll be suffocating on his own carbon dioxide by then.

She had already instructed the guidance program to lay out a plot for the earliest possible intercept of Gaeta’s trajectory. Now she was flying that course, one hand on the T-shaped control yoke that projected from the instrument panel. She felt the craft yaw to the right, making her sway slightly in the plastic loops that held her soft-booted feet to the deck.

The cargo bay hatch’s monitor light turned red.

“Hatch is open.” Wanamaker’s voice came through the control panel’s speaker.

“You tethered?” Pancho called.

“Double length,” said Wanamaker. “Ready to go out on your command.”

I’m givin’ orders to an admiral! Pancho thought. Then she shook her head disapprovingly. No time for silly crap, she said to herself sternly. A man’s life is on the line.

Clicking the communications switch, she called, “Manny, how you doin’ out there?”

She heard him cough, then his voice came through, sounding weak, tired. “I’m on … a wing and a … prayer, kid.”

Despite it all Pancho grinned. Been a long time since anybody called me kid, she said to herself.

Timoshenko felt astoundingly calm as he slowly took off his space suit. It took a while to do it all alone. After making certain that the airlock was properly sealed he had walked to the lockers where the suits were stored. Sitting heavily on the bench in front of the lockers he had disconnected his life-support lines, lifted off his helmet, and took a deep double-lungful of the habitat’s air. After the canned air of the space suit it tasted like spring wine. Then he wormed out of the backpack. Next came the gloves, and after them the boots. All very calmly, carefully. He laid the items on the bench in a neat row.

I’m alive, he told himself. From now on I appreciate every moment of life, every breath I draw. Slowly he lifted the hard shell torso of the suit over his head and rested it against one of the lockers. Then he tugged off the leggings.

Once he had the entire suit properly stowed in its locker he took another deep breath, then started along the passageway that led back to the green and spacious interior of the habitat. It’s not a prison, he told himself. It’s my world. Heaven or hell, it’s the only world I have. My world. My life.

Her eyes fixed on the display screen, Pancho saw that the red dot representing Gaeta’s position and the blue dot showing the transfer craft’s position were overlapping. She was getting a good blip from his suit on the ship’s radar, too.

“You see him?” she asked Wanamaker.

“Not yet.”

She had left the comm line open, but Gaeta hadn’t said anything for the past few minutes.

“Manny,” she called. “Can you see us?”

No reply.

“Damn. He must be out cold by now.”

“I see him!” Wanamaker yelled. “He’s still in the pod.”

Pancho punched up the radar data and began to adjust the transfer craft’s velocity to match Gaeta’s.

“Too far to reach,” Wanamaker said, his voice high with strain.

“Manny,” Pancho called. “Can you maneuver?”

She thought she heard a moan. Maybe a cough. “Hang in there, pal,” she said. “We’ll come and getcha.”

With the deftness of a concert pianist Pancho worked the keyboard that controlled the craft’s maneuvering thrusters. Easy now, she told herself. No big moves. Jest a leetle touch …

“I think I can reach him!” Wanamaker sang out.

“Go for it, Jake,” she said. “I’ll nudge us closer while you’re out there.”

The mission control center was absolutely silent. Cardenas held her breath as she listened to Pancho’s radio chatter. Manny’s suit must be filled with carbon dioxide, she thought. No oxygen left. How long can he go without brain damage? Or dying?

Wanamaker glided out of the transfer craft’s airlock, unreeling the double length of tether that was clipped to the waist of his nanofiber spacesuit. In his mind he rehearsed the procedures for unlatching the grips that held Gaeta in the narrow confines of the escape pod.

“Hey, Manny,” he called. “How’re you doing?”

Nothing. Wanamaker didn’t even hear breathing in his earphones.

He reached the pod and unlocked the grips as swiftly as he could, then wrapped the tether under Gaeta’s shoulders and hauled his weightless bulk out of the pod.

“Just like we did at the rings,” he said to Gaeta. “We’ll have you back in the cargo bay in a few seconds.”

It seemed to take forever to work their way back to the transfer craft, and then even longer to close the airlock hatch and wait for the pumps to fill the cargo bay with air.

As soon as the keypad lights turned green, Wanamaker tore open the hatch at the rear of Gaeta’s suit. “Breathe, Manny,” he urged. “Take a good, deep breath.”

Reaching awkwardly inside the suit, Wanamaker wrapped his long arms around Gaeta’s chest and squeezed. Then he relaxed, then squeezed again. Three times. Four …

Gaeta gagged and coughed. Wanamaker pulled his arms out of the suit, banging both elbows painfully on the edges of the hatch. But he heard Gaeta sucking in air, wheezing, coughing.

“He’s alive, Pancho!” Wanamaker shouted happily. “Let’s get him back home.”