Pluto's Ghost- Encounter Edition

by B. C. CHASE

  “I don’t think you realize how serious a mistake you are making,” says Commander Tomlinson icily. “They chose me as commander. When they see what you are doing, they will not be happy.”

  “They couldn’t possibly be any less happy than I am right now,” I say, cocking my head. “Give Tim the manual.”

  “All right,” says Commander Tomlinson, reluctantly passing the manual to Tim. “But you will regret this.”

  “If we do, we can always change our minds,” I say, smirking just a little.

  Tim says, “Okay, Commander Sykes? Katia?”

  “We’re still here,” Commander Sykes says. “I’m working on the bolts. Katia is on the arm. We need Shelby to move the arm over to ESP1.”

  “Shelby, do you copy?” Tim says.

  “Yes, I copy.”

  “Okay,” says Tim, “let’s do this.”

  Thirty

  On a monitor in the American Science Lab, I can see Commander Sykes working on one of the bolts using his pistol grip tool. I notice that each of the bolts is tethered to the structure so that it doesn’t fly away when he finishes unscrewing it. On another monitor, Katia is riding the Canadarm, moving slowly over the American Lab module towards External Stowage Platform One. She seems so far away on the monitor; it is odd to think that she is actually drifting right above our heads. I am amazed to see how large Jupiter is looming, now dominating the field of view beyond her. It fills a fuzzy eighth of the monitor. This glimpse makes me wish I could see it through the windows.

  “Shelby?” Katia suddenly says.

  There is no response.

  “What’s wrong, Katia?” Tim inquires.

  “I stopped,” Katia replies.

  Tim says, “Shelby, do you copy?”

  But there is no response.

  Tim directs, “Jim, go down and see if you can find out why we can’t hear Shelby.”

  “Sure,” I say. As I make my way back through the nodes, I am reminded of how noisy the station can be. It’s a bit like a commercial jetliner, but not quite as loud. Inside Node 3, beyond the outhouse, I see a pair of legs slowly drifting up out of the nadir opening that leads to the cupola. “Shelby!” I exclaim, pulling myself towards her. When I reach her, I see that she is floating freely, her head in the cupola. Her eyes are closed. “Tim!” I shout, knowing the mic will pick me up even if my voice isn’t loud enough to travel through the station.

  “What is it, Jim?”

  “Something’s happened to her! Come, quick!”

  “Coming,” Tim says.

  I float down into the cupola and see that her right temple has a black mark on it. The acrid smell of singed hair is strong. “Shelby!” I cry, grasping her shoulders. She seems lifeless. I ineptly check for a pulse. I don’t sense anything, but she doesn’t feel dead. I put my hand in front of her mouth and nose to see if she is breathing, and I feel warm breath on my palm. “I think she’s unconscious!” I shout.

  I back out of the cupola and extract her by her legs. Just as I do this, Tim arrives. His face creased with concern, he checks the pulse of her neck with a heck of a lot more skill than I had, and nods, “Her heart’s definitely still beating.” Examining the black mark on her temple, he murmurs, “What the devil is this?” Brushing it with his hand, he says, “A burn?” He peers down into the cupola. “I think it’s an electrical burn.”

  “What are you looking for?” I ask.

  “Bare wires…anything that could have shocked her. Listen, you take a look while I get her back to the lab, will you.”

  “Okay,” I say.

  “Be careful,” he warns as he leaves, tugging Shelby with him.

  I kick down into the cupola and look around for anything that might have burned her.

  Commander Sykes comes over the radio, “Is Shelby okay? What’s going on?”

  “She’s unconscious,” I say. “Looks like she was burned. We’re trying to find out what happened.”

  Commander Sykes says, “Burned? How?”

  “We have no idea.”

  “Will she be all right?”

  There’s no response until Tim says, “Unknown. I’ll get somebody to maneuver the arm in her place, though. I can’t allow this to stop the EVA.”

  My first thought is to look for exposed wires, and that’s what I’m doing. But it doesn’t take long to ascertain that there certainly aren’t any. And the idea of there being any is kind of ridiculous. The only way for wires to be bared here is if Shelby had disassembled something, and clearly she didn’t do that. So what in the heck could have produced such a burn? My eyes are darting around frantically, but there just isn’t anything here that looks dangerous. And then it occurs to me that maybe what burned her isn’t here anymore. As soon as I think that, I realize that something is missing. Two things are missing, in fact.

  “Hi, Jim,” a voice says above me. It’s Commander Tomlinson, the last person in the world I want to see right now. Or ever. “I’m here to take over for Shelby.”

  “Well don’t let me get in your way,” I say, pushing myself back up out of the cupola.

  He has an odd, smug look on his face, like he knows something I don’t know. He moves down into the cupola and puts his hand on the Canadarm’s joystick.

  “You sure you know what you’re doing?” I ask.

  “Oh yes,” he says. “I know exactly what I’m doing. The question is, will all of you?”

  Thirty-one

  As I make my way from Node 3 to the Japanese Lab, I hear the chatter as Tim resumes the spacewalk checkout with Commander Sykes and Katia. Tim: “Okay we have you back on your way to the ESP, Katia. You’ll be there in no time. Commander Sykes, how’s it going?”

  “I’m still working the first bolt.”

  “Copy that.”

  In the Japanese Lab, I find what I’m looking for: the SPHERES. They have been faithfully following us around all the time, and yet when I went to check on Shelby, I noticed that there wasn’t one with her and mine had also disappeared. But here they are, in sleep mode, charging themselves on their docks. They look harmless enough, but I still feel the need to be cautious as I approach them. As I look at their cameras, I have the disconcerting feeling that I am in the presence of sleeping giants. Their little arms are innocuously protruding out from their round bodies. They have three grasping “fingers” and an opposing “thumb.” The hands are about the size of a two-year-old’s. Probably not very useful. The cell phone display underneath the camera is off. I wonder to myself if I can see what these guys were doing before they came to charge. I tap the display and it comes to life. Among several icons is one for a camera, and I tap that. A live video of my own mug suddenly appears onscreen. I am squinting and appear remarkably ignorant and hulking, rather like a caveman seeing fire for the first time. I am surprised and disheartened by this glimpse into how I appear to the SPHERES, and probably to everyone else. Can I really expect anyone here to take me seriously when I look like such an ignoramus in the face of technology?

  I see a box with what looks like an old image on it, and I tap this. A matrix of videos is displayed, and I tap the first one. It shows Shelby in the cupola manning the arm’s controls. The SPHERES turns away and then moves up into Node 3 and back through the station to the Japanese Lab, where it backs into its charger.

  Nothing questionable about that, I think.

  I pull up the video logs from the SPHERES that was monitoring me and find that it, too, innocently turned away and floated to its docking station.

  Suddenly, the SPHERES’ arm moves and I start. With a click, it disconnects from its dock and moves forward, towards me. It hovers just in front of my face, seeming to stare me in the eye with its single camera. I back away a little, but my head bumps into something. I turn around to see another SPHERES right behind me, staring with its little arm outstretched.

  Before they have the chance to zap me, I strike the first one, sending it sailing across the room to smash into the miniature airlock. The second moves tow
ards me and I clobber it, too. It flies to the floor and gets entrapped in some cables. The first one is coming at me again, and I grasp it by a handle on the top of its head and smash it against the airlock until its frame cracks. I release it and it limps through the air, slowly spinning around aimlessly.

  “What are you doing?” Shiro suddenly asks from behind me.

  I turn around to see Shiro staring at me and the disabled SPHERES.

  “They were attacking me,” I said.

  He raises his eyebrows. “Attacking you?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “How?” he asks.

  “Well…” I say, realizing that I’ve probably made an error in judgement, if nothing else than for the sake of appearances. “Their arms were reaching for me.”

  Shiro drifts into the lab and frees the second SPHERE from the cables. Pointing to the SPHERES’ little arm, he questions, “These arms?”

  “Yes,” I nod, seeing how ridiculous the assertion sounds.

  He takes the smashed SPHERES and turns it over in his hands. “This is destroyed,” he says.

  “I thought it was going to zap me. I think they zapped Shelby.”

  “Zapped Shelby? You mean with electricity?”

  “Yes,” I confirm.

  Tim’s voice comes over the speakers, “They’re not capable of producing enough voltage to make someone go unconscious.”

  “But they can create an electric discharge?” asks Shiro.

  “Yes,” says Tim.

  I ask, “Why in the world would they be able to do that?”

  Tim replies, “It’s for the plasma experiments. Listen, Jim, I know you don’t consider yourself technically savvy, and that probably makes you suspicious, but you could have damaged pivotal equipment. Don’t be afraid of the machines.”

  “Somebody hurt Shelby. This wasn’t an accident.”

  Tim’s voice is calm, almost soothing as he says, “There’s no evidence for that, Jim.”

  “There’s no evidence it was an accident, either,” I utter.

  Tim says, “Duly noted. Why don’t you go to the European Lab to check on Shelby? Commander Sykes, how’s that bolt coming?”

  As Commander Sykes responds that he’s making good progress, Shiro looks at the SPHERES in his hands and comments, “You really beat the crap out of this.”

  “Yep,” I agree, “I did.”

  “Well if you think a CDRA is attacking you, please don’t destroy it. We’d all die of carbon dioxide poisoning.”

  Thirty-two

  The lights have been lowered in the European Lab. I approach the table where Shelby is. Nari hovers nearby, watching her. It’s an unholy thing to see our only doctor strapped to the table, unconscious and burned. “Is there anything we can do?” I ask Nari.

  “I wish I knew,” Nari replies. “We don’t even know what happened to her.”

  “But she does,” I observe. “If only she was awake.” I touch Shelby’s hand and say, “Shelby?”

  “I don’t think you should try to wake her,” Nari warns.

  Ignoring Nari, I brace my feet on a bar and lean down to gently shake Shelby’s shoulders. “Shelby!”

  Nari gasps when Shelby’s eyes suddenly flutter open.

  “Shelby! How do you feel?” I ask.

  “Tired,” she groggily responds. “What happened?”

  My heart sinks. “You don’t know?” I ask.

  “I know I was in the cupola. And now I’m here.”

  I say, “You have two electrical burns on your head. We think something shocked you.”

  “Shocked me?” Shelby asks, feeling for the burns and looking puzzled. “What was it?”

  “I think it was the SPHERES,” I say.

  Nari quickly corrects, “We don’t know what it was.”

  “Jim, Nari?” says Tim over the intercom.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “How is Shelby?”

  “She’s awake,” I say.

  “Because you shook her,” Nari asserts.

  “Just call me Dr. Perkins.”

  Shelby abruptly asks, “Who’s controlling the arm?”

  “That would be Commander Tomlinson,” I say.

  “Oh no,” Shelby exclaims. “I have to get back.”’

  Shelby starts to unbuckle the straps, but Nari stops her, “You rest. Josh can handle it.”

  “He can handle it my ass,” says Shelby. “He’s the one who got us in this mess. Had we replaced number three when it first went down, we would be fine.”

  “You guys aren’t being fair,” says Nari, evidently infuriated. “He has been the best commander NASA ever had.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Shelby says. “He has been the worst commander imaginable. Had Commander Sykes been in charge, I don’t think half of the stuff we’ve been through would have happened. And Josh almost killed poor Jim.”

  “You will all see,” Nari says. Her eyes are shadowed by a deep rage. “You’ll wish you had listened to him. What happened to Shelby is nothing. It will be much worse.”

  I demand, “What do you mean? Do you know how Shelby got hurt?”

  “No,” Nari haughtily replies.

  “Then what are you talking about?”

  “Karma,” she smiles eagerly and darkly. “Karma will find you.”

  Shelby angrily unbuckles the restraints and kicks off from the table, “I'm going to take over for Josh.”

  “I'm coming with you,” I say, worried that what happened to her before could happen again.

  As we travel through the station, Katia’s voice can be heard over the intercom, “The MLI cover is removed.”

  Tim says, “Great work. Now you must release the FRAM.”

  “Copy,” Katia says.

  Commander Sykes says, “CMG3 is free. I’m going to push it in the zenith direction to avoid hitting anything.”

  Tim says, “Good thinking.”

  “It doesn’t seem very nice to send it away without saying some words,” Katia says.

  Tim remarks, “We never said anything nice to the trash we jettisoned.”

  “This isn’t trash,” counters Katia. “It’s a part of our home.”

  “Off it goes,” Commander Sykes says. On a monitor I’m passing, I can see him shoving it away.

  As it slowly drifts into the blackness of space, Tim says, “Live long and prosper, CMG3.”

  “Live long and prosper,” repeats Katia.

  Commander Sykes says, “We’re losing time. I’m going to head over there and help you release the new CMG, Katia.”

  “I’ll probably be finished by the time you translate here.”

  “I’m not going to translate. I’m going to use my SAFER.”

  “But no!” Katia says, alarm straining her voice. “It’s dangerous!”

  “I’ll shut it down if anything goes wrong,” Commander Sykes reassures her. He is also reassuring me, because I don’t trust the SAFERs any more than I trust the SPHERES.

  “Commander Sykes,” Commander Tomlinson’s voice comes over the speaker.

  “Yes, Josh?”

  “Good luck.” He says it with a kind of dark glee.

  “Thank you,” Commander Sykes says, sounding very aware that good luck is the last thing Commander Tomlinson wants to give him. “Heads up, Katia. Comin’ your way,”

  We reach the cupola and Shelby calls down, “I’ll take it from here, Josh.”

  His feet are pointed at us. He looks up, “Fine.” He pushes himself up out of the cupola and Shelby and I take his place.

  “Make sure you get back to Tim right away,” I warn.

  “Yes,” Commander Tomlinson says, slinking away and out of view towards Node 1.

  Outside, I see Commander Sykes floating across the blackness for ESP1 where Katia is busy with the bolts that are securing the new CMG. ESP1 is affixed to the outside of the U.S. lab no more than twenty-five feet away. For Commander Sykes, it isn’t a straight shot. He will need to use his SAFER to navigate up from underneath the U.S. la
b and to the right. He will also need to stop his motion or he will drift away from the station with nothing to prevent it. He has holstered his Pistol Grip Tool so that he can control the joystick of his SAFER.

  “Oh no,” Katia says. As big and bulbous as her suit is, she looks as ungainly as a manatee out there next to the station. “Having some trouble with this bolt, Timmy.”

  “Okay, not a problem,” Tim reassures her. “That can happen. Just keep at it.”

  Commander Sykes says, “I’ll be there in a minute if you want me to give it a—.” Suddenly, one of his SAFER’s thrusters starts to fire, the white nitrogen visible in a constant stream. He starts to spin in a cartwheel. “My joystick isn’t responding,” he says. His rate of spin is increasing rapidly.

  “Shut off your SAFER!” Tim says.

  “Tried that,” Commander Sykes says, his voice strained. He is rotating so fast that his blood must be pooling in his head. The U.S. Lab is a silver cylinder above him with nothing to grab onto. Commander Sykes starts to groan, a sound which blares over the speakers in the station until it morphs into a yell. He is spinning so fast I am alarmed that the force being exerted on his body could kill him—and fast.

  Katia shouts, “I’m coming to get you!”

  “Katia no!” Tim commands. “We need you to finish the EVA!”

  Commander Sykes is screaming, an agonizing sound, and then stops.

  “Sykes?” Tim yells.

  There is no response.

  “He’s lost consciousness,” Shelby says.

  “I have to help him!” Katia shouts.

  “There’s nothing you can do without jeopardizing the mission,” Tim says. “If you touch him you’ll both hurl into space.”

  “There must be something we can do! There has to be something!” she shrieks.

  Shelby says, “Get off the arm, Katia. I’ll use that.”

  Katia quickly tethers herself to ESP1 and slips her feet out of the restraints on the end of the arm.

  Abruptly, Commander Sykes’ thrusters begin to alternate and he starts spinning on all axes, making his movement wild and nausea-inducing. As he rotates, he is slowly drifting up and forward, towards the Japanese Experiment Module.