Gravity. Part 29

"And what's the importance of Archaeons?"

"That's the question, isn't it? That's what we do here. Study an organism until we learn its usefulness." He pointed toward his research facility, now shrouded in mist. "You'll notice it's by sea. All my buildings are by the sea. It's my oil field. That's where I look for the next new cancer drug, the next miracle cure. It makes perfect sense to look there, because that's where we come from. Our birthplace. All life comes from the sea."

"You haven't answered my question. Is there a commercial value for Archaeons?"

"That remains to be seen."

"And why send them into s.p.a.ce? Was there something she discovered on those KC-135 flights? Something to do with weightlessness?"

Gabriel rolled down his window and signaled to the men. The back doors swung open. "Please step out now."

"Wait," said Jack. "Where is Helen Koenig?"

"I haven't heard from her since she resigned."

"Why did she order her own cell cultures incinerated?" Jack and Gordon were hauled out of the backseat and shoved toward their rental car.

"What was she afraid of?" Jack yelled.

Gabriel did not answer. His car window rolled shut, and his face disappeared behind the s.h.i.+eld of tinted gla.s.s.

August 18

Luther vented the last air in the crew lock to s.p.a.ce and opened the EVA hatch. "I'll go first," he said. "You take it slow. It's the first time out."

That first glimpse of the emptiness beyond made Emma grasp the edge of the hatchway in panic. She knew the sensation was common, and that it would pa.s.s. That brief paralysis of fear gripped almost everyone on their first s.p.a.cewalk. The mind had trouble accepting the vastness of s.p.a.ce, the absence of up or down.

Millions of years of evolution had imprinted in the human brain the terror of falling, and this was what Emma now struggled to overcome.

Every instinct told her that if she released her grip, if she ventured out the hatchway, she would plummet, shrieking, in an endless fall. On a rational level, she knew this would not happen.

She was connected to the crew lock by her tether. If that tether broke, she could use her SAFER jet pack to propel herself back to the station.

It would take an unlikely series of independent events to cause a catastrophe.

Yet that is exactly what has happened to this station, she thought.

Mishap after mishap. Their own t.i.tanic in s.p.a.ce. She could not shake the premonition of yet another disaster.

Already they had been forced to violate protocol. Instead of the usual overnight camp-out at reduced air pressures, they had spent only four hours in the air lock. Theoretically, it should be long enough to prevent the bends, but any change in normal procedures added an element of risk.

She took a few deep breaths and felt the paralysis begin to melt away.

"How ya doing?" she heard Luther ask over her comm-unit.

"I'm just a taking a minute to enjoy the view," she said.

"No problems?"

"No. I'm A-OK." She released her grip and floated out of the hatch.

Diana is dying, Griggs stared with mounting bitterness at the closed-circuit TV monitors showing Luther and Emma at work outside the station.

Drones, he thought. Obedient robots, leaping at Houston's command. For so many years, he, too, had been a drone. Only now did he understand his position in the greater scheme of things. He, and everyone else, were disposable. On-orbit replacement units whose real function was to maintain NASA's glorious hardware. We may all be dying up here, but yes, sir, we'll keep the place in s.h.i.+pshape order.

They could count him out. NASA had betrayed him, had betrayed all of them. Let Watson and Ames play the good little soldiers, he would have no more of it.

Diana was all he cared about.

He left the hab and headed toward the Russian end of the station.

Slipping under the plastic sheeting draped over the hatchway, he entered the RSM. He didn't bother to put on his mask or goggles, what difference did it make? They were all going to die.

Diana was strapped to the treatment board. Her eyes were swollen, the lids puffy. Her abdomen, once so flat and firm, now bloated. Filled with eggs, he thought. He pictured them growing inside her, expanding beneath that pale tent of skin.

Gently he touched her cheek. She opened her blood-streaked eyes and struggled to focus on his face.

"It's me," he whispered. He saw that she was trying to free her hand from the wrist restraint. He clasped her hand in his. "You need to keep your arm still, Diana. For the IV."

"I can't see you." She gave a sob. "I can't see anything."

"I'm here. I'm right with you."

"I don't want to die this way." He blinked away tears and started to say something, false rea.s.surance that she would not die, that he would not let her.

But the words wouldn't come. They had always been truthful with each other, he would not lie to her now. So he said nothing.

She said, "I never thoughta"

"What?" he prompted gently.

"That this is a how it would happen. No chance to play the hero. Just sick and useless." She gave a laugh, then grimaced in pain. "Not my idea of going out a in a blaze of glory." A blaze of glory. That was how every astronaut imagined it would be to die in s.p.a.ce. A brief moment of terror, and then the quick demise. Sudden decompression or fire.

Never had they imagined a death like this, a slow and painful ebbing away as one's is consumed and digested by another life-form. Abandoned by the ground. Quietly sacrificed to the greater good of mankind.

Expendable. He could accept it for himself, but he could not accept Diana's expendability. He could not accept the fact he was about to lose her.

It was hard to believe that on the first day they'd met, during training at JSC, he had thought her cold and forbidding, an icy blonde with too much confidence. Her British accent had put him off as well, because it made her sound so superior. It was crisp cultured compared to his Texas drawl. By the first week, they disliked each other so much they were scarcely speaking to each other.

By the third week, at Gordon Obie's insistence, they'd reluctantly declared a truce.

By the eighth week, Griggs was showing up at her house. Just for a drink at first, two professionals reviewing their upcoming mission. Then the mission talk had given way to conversations of more personal nature.

Griggs's unhappy marriage. The thousand and one interests he and Diana had in common. It all led, of course, to the inevitable.

They had concealed the affair from everyone at JSC. Only here, on the station, had their relations.h.i.+p become apparent to their colleagues. Had there been even a whiff of suspicion before this, Blankens.h.i.+p would have scrubbed them from the mission. Even in this modern day and age, an astronaut's divorce was a black mark against him. And if that divorce had resulted from a liaison with another member of the corpsa"well, so much for any future flight a.s.signments. Griggs would have been reduced to an invisible member of the corps, neither seen nor heard.

For the last two years he had loved her. For two years, whenever he had lain beside his sleeping wife, he had yearned for Diana and plotted out the ways they might be together. Someday, they would be together, even if they had to resign from NASA. That was the dream that had sustained him through all those unhappy nights. Even after these two months with her in close quarters, even after their occasional flares of temper, he had not stopped loving her. He had not surrendered the dream. Until now.

"What day is this?" she murmured.

"It's Friday." He began to stroke her hair again. "In Houston, it's five-thirty in the afternoon. Happy hour."

She smiled. "TGIF."

"They're sitting at the bar now. Chips and margaritas. G.o.d, I could do with a stiff drink. A nice sunset. You and me, on the lakea" The tears glistening on her lashes almost broke his heart. He no longer gave a d.a.m.n about biocontamination, about the dangers of infecting himself.

With his bare hand he wiped away the tears.

"Are you in pain?" he said. "Do you need more morphine?"

"No. Save it." Someone else will need it soon, was what she didn't say.

"Tell me what you want. What I can do for you."

"Thirsty," she said. "All that talk of margaritas." He gave a laugh.

"I'll mix one up for you. The nonalcoholic version."

"Please." He floated across to the galley and opened the food locker. It was stocked with Russian supplies, not the same items as in the U.S. hab. He saw vacuum-packed pickled fish. Sausages. An of unappetizing Russian staples. And vodkaa"a small bottle of it, sent by the Russians, ostensibly for medicinal purposes.

This may be the last drink we'll ever have together.

He shook some vodka into two drink bags and restowed the bottle. Then he added water to the bags, diluting hers so that it was barely alcoholic. Just a taste, he thought, to bring back happy memories. To remind her of the evenings they had spent together, watching sunsets from her patio. He gave the bags a few good shakes to mix the water and vodka. Then he turned to look at her.

A bright red balloon of blood was oozing from her mouth.

She was convulsing. Her eyes were rolled back, her teeth clamped down on her tongue. One raw and ragged slice of it was still hanging on by a thread of tissue.

"Diana!" he screamed.

The balloon of blood broke off and the satiny globule drifted away. At once another began to form, fed by the blood pouring out of the torn flesh.

He grabbed a plastic bite block, already taped to the restraint board, and tried to force it between her teeth, to protect her tissues from any more trauma. He could not pry the teeth apart.

The human jaw has one of the strongest muscles in the body, and hers was clamped tight. He grabbed the syringe of Valium, premeasured and ready to inject, and shoved the tip into the IV stopc.o.c.k. Even as he pressed the plunger, her seizure was starting to fade. He gave her the whole dose.

Her face relaxed. Her jaw fell limp.

"Diana?" he said. She didn't respond.

The new bubble of blood was growing, spilling from her mouth. He had to apply pressure, to stop it.

He opened the medical kit, found the sterile gauze, and ripped open the package, sending a few squares flying away. He placed himself behind her head and gently opened her mouth to expose the torn tongue.

She coughed and tried to turn her face away. She was choking on her own blood. Aspirating it into her lungs.

"Don't move, Diana." With his right wrist pressing down on her lower teeth, to keep her jaw open, he wadded up a bundle of gauze in his left hand and began to dab away the blood. Her neck suddenly jerked taut in a new convulsion, and her jaw snapped shut.

He screamed, the meaty part of his hand caught between her teeth, the pain at once so terrible his vision began to blacken. He felt warm blood splash against his face, saw a bright globule fountaining up. His blood, mingled with hers. He tried to pull free, her teeth had sunk in too deeply. The blood was pouring out, the globule inflating to the size of a basketball. Severed artery! He could not pry her jaw open, the seizure had caused her muscle to contract with superhuman strength.

Blackness was closing in on his vision.

In desperation, he rammed his free fist against her teeth. The jaw did not relax.

He hit her again. The basketball of blood flew apart in a dozen smaller globules, splas.h.i.+ng his face, his eyes. Still he could her jaw. There was so much blood now it was as though he were swimming in a lake of it, unable to draw in a breath of clean air.

Blindly he swung his fist against her face and felt bones crack, yet he could not pull free. The pain was crus.h.i.+ng, unbearable.

Panic seized him, blinding him to anything but making the agony stop. He was scarcely aware of what he was doing as he hit her again. And again.

With a scream he finally yanked his hand free and went flying backward, clutching his wrist, releasing swirls of blood in ribbons all around him. It took him a moment to stop caroming off walls, to shake his vision clear. He focused on Diana's face, on the bloodied stumps of her teeth. The damage done by his own fist.

His howl of despair echoed off the walls, filling his ears with the sound of his own anguish. What have I done? What have I done?

He floated to her side, held her shattered face in his hands. He no longer felt the pain of his own wound, it receded to nothing, overshadowed by the greater horror of his own actions.

He gave another howl, this time of rage. He battered his fist against the module wall. Ripped the plastic sheeting that covered the hatchway.

We're all dying anyway! Then he focused on the medical kit.

He reached in and grabbed a scalpel.

Flight Surgeon Todd Cutler stared at his console and felt a stab of panic. On his screen were the biotelemetry readings for Diana Estes. Her EKG tracing had just burst into a sawtooth pattern of rapid spikes. To his relief, it was not sustained. Just as abruptly, the tracing reverted back to a rapid sinus rhythm.

"Flight," he said, "I'm seeing a problem with my patient's heart rhythm. Her EKG just showed a five-second run of ventricular tachyvardia."

"Significance?" Woody Ellis responded briskly.

"It's a potentially fatal rhythm if it's prolonged. Right now she's back in sinus, around one thirty. That's faster than she's been running. Not dangerous, but it worries me."

"Your advice, Surgeon?"

"I'd give her antiarrhythmics. She needs IV lidocaine or amiodarone. They've got both drugs in their ALS pack."

"Ames and Watson are still out on EVA. Griggs'll have to give it."

"I'll talk him through it."

"Okay. Capcom, let's get Griggs on comm." As they waited for Griggs to respond, Todd kept a close eye on the monitor. What he saw worried him.

Diana's pulse rate was increasing, 135, 140. Now a brief burst of 160, the spikes in a flutter of patient movement or electrical interference. What was happening up there?

Capcom said, "Commander Griggs is not responding."