Gravity. Part 10

"We've already got cultures incubating," said Emma. "All the dead mice appear to be decomposing more quickly than they should. Based on the condition of the corpses, I'm concerned for clostridia or streptococcus infections."

"Dangerous bugs like that on the station? That would be a serious problem."

"Exactly. Especially in a closed environment like ours. We'd all be vulnerable."

"What about autopsying the dead mice?"

Emma hesitated. "We're only set up to deal with Level Two contamination up here. Nothing more dangerous. If this is a pathogen, I can't afford to risk infecting other animals. Or people."

There was a silence. Then Loomis said, "I understand. And I guess I have to agree with you. So you'll be safely disposing of the corpses?"

"Immediately," said Emma.

For the first time since he'd arrived on ISS, Kenichi could not sleep. He had zipped himself into his restraint bag hours ago, but he was still awake, still mulling over the puzzle of the dead mice.

Though no one had uttered a word of reproach, somehow he felt responsible for the failed experiment. He tried to think of what might have done wrong. Had he used a contaminated needle, perhaps, when he'd sampled their blood, or a bad setting in the rack's environmental controls? Thoughts of all the possible mistakes he might have made kept sleep at bay.

Also, his head was throbbing.

He had first noticed the discomfort this morning, when it had started as a vague tingling around his eye. As the day wore on, tingling had become an ache, and now the left half of his head hurt. Not an excruciating pain, just a nagging annoyance.

He unzipped his bag. He was getting no rest in any event, he might as well check on the mice again.

He floated past Nicolai's curtained sleep station and headed through the series of connecting modules that led to the U.S. of the station. Only when he'd entered the lab did he realize someone else was awake.

Voices murmured in the adjoining NASDA lab. Silently he floated into Node 2 and peered through the open hatch. He saw Diana Estes and Michael Griggs, limbs tangled together, mouths locked in hungry exploration. At once he backed out unnoticed, face burning with embarra.s.sment at what he'd just witnessed.

Now what? Should he grant them their privacy and return to his sleep station? This is not right, he thought with sudden resentment. I am here to work, to fulfill my duties.

He floated to the animal habitat. Deliberately he made a great deal of noise as he opened and closed the rack drawers. A moment later, as he'd expected, Diana and Griggs suddenly appeared, of them looking flushed.

And well they should be, he thought, considering what they've been up to.

"We had a problem with the centrifuge," lied Diana. "I think it's fixed now." Kenichi merely nodded, betraying no sign that he knew the truth.

Diana was cool as ice about it, and that both appalled and angered him.

Griggs, at least, had the decency to look a little guilty.

Kenichi watched as they floated out of the lab and disappeared through the hatch. Then he turned his attention back to the animal habitat. He peered into the cage.

Another mouse was dead. A female.

August 1

Diana Estes calmly held out her arm for the tourniquet and squeezed her hand open and shut several times to plump up her antecubital vein. She did not flinch or look away as the needle pierced her skin, indeed, Diana was so detached, she might have been watching someone else's blood being drawn. Every astronaut was poked and prodded many times during the course of his or her career. At selection screening, they endured multiple blood draws and physical exams and the most probing of questions. Their serum chemistries and EKGS and cell counts were on permanent record, to be pored over by aeros.p.a.ce physiologists. They panted and sweated on treadmills with electrodes attached to their chests, body fluids were cultured, their bowels probed, every inch of skin was examined. Astronauts were not just highly trained personnel, they were also experimental subjects. They were the equivalent of lab rats, and while in orbit, they resigned themselves to a sometimes painful battery of tests.

Today was specimen collection day. As the physician on board, Emma was the one wielding the needles and syringes. No wonder most of her crewmates groaned when they saw her coming.

Diana, though, had simply held out her arm and submitted to the needle.

As Emma waited for the syringe to fill with blood, sensed the other woman's gaze appraising her skill and technique.

If Princess Diana had been England's rose, went the joke at JSC, then Diana Estes was England's ice cube, an astronaut whose poise never cracked, even in the heat of real calamity.

Four years ago, Diana had been aboard Atlantis when a main engine failed. On tapes of the crew transmissions, the voices of shuttle commander and pilot had risen in alarm as they scrambled to guide the shuttle in a transatlantic abort. But not Diana's voice.

She could be heard coolly reading the checklist as Atlantis hurtled to an uncertain landing in North Africa. What had sealed her icy reputation were the biotelemetry readings. On that particular launch, the entire crew had been wired to record their blood pressure and pulse. While the heart rates of everyone else had skyrocketed, Diana's had barely accelerated to a leisurely ninety-six per minute. "That's because she's not human," Jack had joked. "She's really an android. The first in NASA's newest line of astronauts." Emma had to admit there was something not quite human about the woman.

Diana glanced at the puncture site on her arm, saw that the bleeding had stopped, and matter-of-factly turned back to her protein crystal growth experiments. She was indeed almost android perfect, long-limbed and slender, her flawless skin paled to white from a month in s.p.a.ce. All that plus a genius IQ, according to Jack, who had trained with Diana for the shuttle mission he had never completed.

Diana had a doctorate in materials science and had published over a dozen research papers on zeolitesa"crystalline materials in petroleum refinementa"prior to being accepted into the astronaut program. Now she was the scientist in charge of both organic and inorganic crystals research. On earth, crystal formation was distorted by gravity. In s.p.a.ce, crystals grew larger and more elaborate, allowing thorough a.n.a.lysis of their structure. Hundreds of human proteins, from angiotensin to chorionic gonadotropin, were being grown as crystals aboard ISSa"vital pharmaceutical research that could lead to the development of new drugs.

Finished with Diana, Emma left the ESA lab and floated into the hab, to find Mike Griggs. "You're next," she said.

He groaned and reluctantly held out his arm. "All in the name of science."

"It's just one tube this time," said Emma, tying on the tourniquet.

"We've gotten so many needle sticks we look like junkies." She gave his skin a few gentle slaps to bring out the antecubital vein. It plumped up, blue and cordlike on his muscular arm.

He had been compulsive about staying in conditiona"not a simple thing while in orbit. Life in s.p.a.ce took its toll on the human body.

Astronauts' faces were bloated, swollen by s.h.i.+fts in fluids, thigh and calf muscles shrank until they had "chicken legs," out pale and scrawny from their bloomerlike shorts. Duties were exhausting, the irritations too numerous to count. And then there was the emotional toll of being confined for months with crewmates who were under stress, scarcely bathe, and wearing dirty clothes.

Emma swabbed the skin with alcohol and pierced the vein.

Blood shot back into the syringe. She glanced at him and saw his gaze was averted. "Okay?"

"Yeah. I do appreciate a skillful vampire." She released the tourniquet and heard his sigh of relief when she withdrew the needle. "You can eat breakfast now. I've drawn everyone's blood but Kenichi's." She glanced around the hab.

"Where is he?"

"I haven't seen him this morning."

"I hope he hasn't eaten. That'll screw up his glucose level." Nicolai, who'd been floating off in a corner, quietly finis.h.i.+ng breakfast, said, "He is still asleep."

"Strange," said Griggs. "He's always up before everyone else."

"His sleep is not so good," said Nicolai. "Last night, I hear vomit. I ask if he needs help, and he tells me no."

"I'll check on him," said Emma.

She left the hab and headed up the long tunnel to the RSM, where Kenichi's sleep station was. She found his privacy curtain was closed.

"Kenichi?" she called out. There was no response. "Kenichi?" She hesitated a moment, then opened the curtain and saw his face.

His eyes were a brilliant blood-red.

"Oh, my G.o.d," she said.

The flight surgeon manning the console for ISS Mission Control was Dr. Todd Cutler, a physician who was so fresh-faced and youthful astronauts had dubbed him "Doogie Howser" after the TV show about a teenage doctor. Cutler was, in reality, a ripe old thirty-two and known for his cool competence. He acted as Emma's personal physician while she was in orbit, and once a week, during their private medical conference, she spoke to him on a closed communications loop, reporting the most intimate details about her health.

Emma trusted Todd's medical skills and was relieved that he was the surgeon on duty at that hour in the ISS control room at Johnson.

"He's got scleral hemorrhages in both eyes," she said. "It scared the h.e.l.l out of me when I first saw it. I think he got them from vomiting so hard last nighta"the sudden changes in pressure popped few vessels in his eyes."

"That's a relatively minor concern right now. The hemorrhages will clear up," said Todd. "What about the rest of the exam?"

"He's got a fever of thirty-eight point six. Pulse one twenty, blood pressure one hundred over sixty. The heart and lungs sound fine. He does complain of a headache, but I can't find any neurologic changes. What really worries me is the fact he has no sounds, and his abdomen is diffusely tender. He's vomited several times in just the last houra"so far, it's negative for blood."

Emma paused. "Todd, he looks sick. And here's the bad news. I just checked his amylase level. It's six hundred."

"Oh, s.h.i.+t. You think he's got pancreat.i.tis?"

"With a rising amylase, it's certainly possible." Amylase was an enzyme produced by the pancreas, and its levels usually skyrocketed when the organ became inflamed. But a high amylase could also indicate other acute abdominal processes. A bowel perforation or a duodenal ulcer.

"His white blood cell count is also high," said Emma. "I've drawn blood cultures, just in case."

"What's the history? Anything worth noting?"

"Two things. First, he's been under some emotional stress. One of his experiments is cras.h.i.+ng on him, and he feels responsible.

"And the second thing?"

"He was splashed in the eye two days ago, with body fluids from a dead lab mouse."

"Tell me more." Todd's voice had gone very quiet.

"The mice in his experiment have been dying, for reasons unknown. The corpses have decomposed at an amazing rate. I was concerned about pathogenic bacteria, so I took samples of the body fluids for culture. Unfortunately, all those cultures are ruined."

"How?"

"I think it's fungal contamination. The plates have all turned green. No known pathogens can be identified. I had to discard the plates. The same thing happened to another experiment, a cell culture of marine organisms. We had to abort that project because fungi got into the culture tube."

Fungal overgrowth, unfortunately, was not an uncommon problem in closed environments like ISS, despite the continually recirculating air. Aboard the old Mir station, the windows were sometimes coated with a fuzzy layer of fungi. Once the air of a s.p.a.cecraft has been contaminated by these organisms, it is next to impossible to eliminate them. Luckily, they were by and large harmless to people and lab animals.

"So we don't know if he's been exposed to any pathogens," said Todd.

"No. Right now, it looks more like a case of pancreat.i.tis, not bacterial infection. I've got an IV started, and I think it's for a nasogastric tube." She paused, then added reluctantly, "We need think about emergency evacuation." There was a long silence. This was the scenario everyone dreaded, the decision no one wanted to make. The Crew Return Vehicle, which remained docked to ISS whenever personnel were aboard, was large enough to evacuate all six astronauts. Since Soyuz capsules were no longer functioning, the CRV was the only escape vehicle on the station. If it left, they would all have to aboard it. For the sake of one sick crew member, they would be forced to abandon ISS, ending hundreds of in-flight experiments. It would be a crippling setback to the station.

But there was an alternative. They could wait for the next shuttle flight to evacuate Kenichi. Now it came down to a medical decision.

Could he wait? Emma knew NASA was relying on her judgment, and the responsibility weighed heavily on her shoulders.

"What about a shuttle evac?" she asked.

Todd Cutler understood the dilemma. "We have Discovery on the pad for STS 161, launch minus fifteen days. But her mission cla.s.sified military. Satellite retrieval and repair. One sixty-one's crew hasn't been prepping for ISS docking and rendezvous."

"What about replacing them with Kittredge's team? My old crew from 162? They're scheduled to dock here in seven weeks. They're fully prepared." Emma glanced at Mike Griggs, who was hovering nearby, listening to the conversation. As ISS commander, his primary goal was to keep the station up and running, and he was firmly opposed to abandoning her. He joined the conversation.

"Cutler, this is Griggs. If my crew evacuates, we lose experiments. That's months of work down the drain. A shuttle makes the most sense. If Kenichi needs to get home, then you come pick him up. Let the rest of us stay here and do our jobs."

"Can a rescue wait that long?" asked Todd.

"How soon can you get that bird up here?" said Griggs.

"We have to talk logistics. Launch windowsa""

"Just tell us how long."

Cutler paused. "Flight Director Ellis is standing by. Go ahead, Flight."

What had started as a closed and confidential loop between two physicians was now open to the flight director. They heard Woody Ellis say, "Thirty-six hours. That's the earliest possible launch."

A lot could change in thirty-six hours, Emma thought. An ulcer could perforate or hemorrhage. Pancreat.i.tis could lead to shock and circulatory collapse.

Or Kenichi could recover completely, the victim of-nothing worse than a severe intestinal infection.

"Dr. Watson's the one examining the patient," Ellis said. "We're relying on her judgment here. What's the clinical call?"

Emma thought about it. "He doesn't have an acute surgical abdomena"not at the moment. But things could go bad fast."

"So you're not sure."

"No, I'm not."

"The instant you give us the word, we'll still need twenty-four hours for fueling."

A whole day's lag between a call for rescue, and the actual launch, plus additional time for rendezvous. If Kenichi suddenly took a turn for the worse, could she keep him alive that long? The situation had turned nerve-racking. She was a physician, not a fortune-teller. She had no X rays at her disposal, no operating room.

The physical exam and blood tests were abnormal but nonspecific. If she chose to delay rescue, Kenichi might die. If called for help too soon, millions of dollars would be wasted on an unnecessary launch.

A wrong decision either way would end her career with NASA. This was the tightrope Jack had warned her about. I screw up, and the whole world knows. They're waiting to see if I've got the right stuff.

She looked down at the printout of Kenichi's blood tests.

Nothing she saw there justified hitting the panic b.u.t.ton. Not yet.

She said, "Flight, I'm going to keep him on IVS and start NG suction. Right now his vital signs are looking stable. If I just knew what was going on in his belly."

"So in your opinion, emergency shuttle launch is not yet indicated?"

She released a deep breath. "No. Not yet."