Frozen Orbit

by Patrick Chiles

  “Something, ain’t it?” Jack said.

  “Yeah. Something.” He was only a few meters away now. That cold, wet feeling on her neck returned. Might even be spreading.

  “I mean, you look in any direction and all you see is the universe falling away from you.” Jack was enjoying not having a Houston flight controller micromanaging his every move. “It draws you in, like—”

  He was enjoying it too much. “I get it,” she snapped, handing him the new torque driver. “Let’s just do what we came here for.”

  “Aye, skipper,” Jack said, and shucked down the driver’s collar over the pesky bolt head. “Take that extractor and jimmy it underneath while I work this sucker out.”

  Traci eased in next to him and grabbed a handhold. The extractor wasn’t much more than a pry bar. “We’re fixing this by the caveman method?”

  “I don’t like it either,” Jack said, “but this junction is our last task. Check it and we’re back inside, sitting pretty.”

  “I like the sound of that.” She braced against the hull with the extractor handle in her free hand.

  Jack muttered in frustration as he wrestled with the stuck bolt. “It’s always the last one.” Three similar pieces floated at the end of retaining tethers above each corner of the panel cover.

  She could hear the power tool whir, a dull grind carried through the module’s outer skin and into her suit. “What can I do?”

  “Don’t know,” he grunted. “Need to create some space under this bolt head. I’ll cut the sucker out if I have to.”

  “I’ve got the tube cutter,” she said helpfully, and reached down to tear open the flap of her satchel. “Right here . . . ”

  With that, the extractor slipped out of her free hand and into the void. Traci let go of the handhold and kicked her feet free of their restraint, again unevenly. This time she tumbled away with nothing to stop her. Jack lunged for her safety tether as it unwound behind her, just out of his reach. “I got this,” she protested. “I got this!” The EMU began pulsing again, and while its internal gyros might be able to sense an out-of-control tumble, it had no way of knowing when her umbilical might run out. As it did, the inertia from her thrusters snapped her back toward the ship.

  Traci hit hard, bouncing off the hull and back into space with her safety line snaking behind. One loop tangled around her foot, sending her spinning again. And again, her EMU tried to correct and began firing its cold gas jets against her varying directions of motion. As it did, she felt the chill on her neck move with her suit’s motion. A rippling, transparent mass wormed its way around her helmet and spread across her faceplate.

  Oh no.

  “Leak!” she cried. “I’ve got a coolant leak in my suit.” Water seemed to come from everywhere now that her gyrations had stabilized. Must have knocked something loose back there . . .

  “Abort EVA,” Roy’s voice barked in her ears, immediately followed by Jack’s: “Disable your EMU! I’ll pull you in!”

  “Can’t see controls.” She reflexively batted at her visor, wiping at a growing pool of water she couldn’t hope to reach. It was so hard to work those controls by touch.

  Stars wheeled, their ship flashed by, then nothing as Pluto’s silhouette rolled past. Over and over, as she spun and rolled at the end of her line. Something turned in her gut, roiling and hot. Don’t puke, she told herself. Don’t . . .

  The bile came up, globs of the stuff quivering inside her helmet and plastering itself against the polycarbonate visor. She reflexively pawed at her face, unable to move the various liquids that now threatened to asphyxiate her. Drowning in my own vomit. That only happens to rock stars.

  Jack’s voice still called to her. Couldn’t he see she was too busy trying to not drown?

  What’s Jack worrying about? I got this, she thought. Don’t they know I’ve got this?

  The stars disappeared as she gasped around the fluid in her throat.

  Jack rushed to reel Traci in. Too fast and she’d ram him or take a hard bounce off the hull. Even encased in the suit, he could see she’d gone limp. When she was within arm’s length, he turned her to face him. Hard to see through the undulating glob of water in her helmet, but it looked like her lips were turning blue.

  “Jack, she’s going into respiratory arrest.” Noelle tried to be soothing but her voice held an urgent edge. “Get her to the utility node. Roy will meet you there. I’ll have the crash cart and ICU pod ready for her.”

  “Utility?” Jack took a deep breath, fighting to keep his mounting fear at bay. Of course. The utility node was closer now than the MSEV and its cargo airlock gave him more room to maneuver her in the suit. “Okay, I copy. On the way.” He snapped a carabiner to her waist, lashing her body to his back. “Hang on,” he said, hoping she could somehow hear him as he scrambled hand-over-hand down the railing along the side of the crew modules. Ahead, amber beacons began flashing as a rectangular door about two meters wide slid open.

  Jack looked down at the watch strapped to his wrist ring and marked the time: Traci had already been drowning for one minute. He looked back up toward the open entrance. Making his aim certain, he unhooked his safety line and leapt across the remaining gulf. It broke every single EVA rule there was, except that it was the single fastest route to safety.

  With no time to waste on a graceful landing, he barreled into the compartment and fired his suit thrusters to cancel most of their momentum before absorbing the rest with his arms and legs. Traci’s mass, doubled by the suit, crushed into his back and knocked the wind out of him before bouncing them both off of the bulkhead. Jack scrambled for a handhold before they both went careening back into open space and slapped the emergency controls. Above them, the hatch drew shut silently and a hiss of air grew steadily louder.

  Two minutes.

  Jack unclipped the waist harness and turned to face her. She was as lifeless as a porcelain doll and there was no mistaking the cyanosis spreading around her lips. He glared at the pressurization gauge, willing it to hurry up into a safe range. This was taking too long. Roy looked in through a small porthole in the inner door, shouting into his mic and pointing at something. Jack could hear him but wasn’t comprehending. Then he got it.

  A full-coverage fire mask was mounted to the wall by the inner door. He snatched it free, wrapped a gloved hand around her helmet lock, and muttered a quick prayer to whoever was listening. “Sorry, kiddo,” he said, and snapped open the neck ring.

  Her helmet flew away like a popped cork and bounced off the far wall as the collected air and moisture in her suit vented in a cloud of ice crystals. Her lungs did the same as they sought equilibrium, violently expelling everything she’d aspirated. Jack snugged the mask down over her face and started oxygen flow.

  It was a crude, brute-force solution but it was the fastest way to clear her airway and scrub any leftover gunk from her lungs. Jack didn’t even bother looking for the warning lights to go green, just slammed down a red emergency release by the inner door and it flung open, spilling loose papers and whatnot into the lower pressure bay. Cleanup would have to come later. “Is Noelle ready?” he shouted as he tore his own helmet free.

  “Ready,” Roy said as he reached for Traci. “Good job out there.”

  Jack checked his watch. Three minutes. “Not good enough.”

  “You got her inside and cleared her airway. Right now we have to get her out of this suit in case she needs chest compressions.”

  Jack found the nearest foot restraints and shoved her boots into them before shedding his gloves. Roy unlocked the waist joint of her suit and roughly pulled the top over and away, tearing off her cooling garment and the biomed sensors underneath. While the top half of her EVA suit drifted away, Jack yanked her out of the bottom half, leaving it to stand sentry while he cradled her in his arms. His first look at the damage from her brief vacuum exposure was alarming: eyes bloodshot, the petechiae of burst capillaries just under the skin still blooming into a field of mottled crimson agains
t the chalky blue of her face.

  He pushed away to fly across the open deck and into the med bay with Roy close behind. Noelle quickly strapped Traci’s limp form into the open ICU pod, checking her airway and shining a pen light in her eyes while the men attached her bio leads. “Nonresponsive, eyes fixed and dilated. She’s in respiratory arrest. I’m putting her on the vent.”

  The pod was an encapsulated bed that could be configured to administer any medicine they had aboard and monitor vital signs. It had been used to test a number of techniques for keeping humans functioning on extended-duration flights, but now was the first time it was being used for real. For all of the weak links that had been judiciously engineered out of spacecraft systems over the decades, the human component still remained the most fragile.

  Roy cut down the length of Traci’s undergarment, attaching leads across her chest and torso while Noelle moved to intubate her and kept one eye on the monitors. A strident alarm sounded.

  “Cardiac arrest,” she announced. “Start chest compressions.”

  Roy slipped his feet into restraints beneath the ICU pod and began counting out his movements. An electronic whine grew in volume until it reached a shrill constant.

  “Clear!” Noelle shouted, and pressed the paddles onto Traci’s chest.

  Traci jerked from the discharge and went limp.

  Jack watched the monitor, then checked his watch again. Five minutes. No change.

  Noelle kept the paddles in place while the unit built up another charge and pulled the trigger as soon as it signaled her.

  Zap. Another spasm, followed by nothing. Again.

  Roy resumed pumping her chest as the next charge built. It was almost comical in zero-g—with every thrust of his arms, her body pressed into the gel padding and rebounded, pushing back against him. He rose up against the floor restraints with each push.

  Beep . . . clear . . . zap. They looked for any hiccups in her trace. A bump—what did Noelle call it—a p-wave? Maybe nothing. Maybe her heart skipping at the one hundred twenty volts they’d just pumped through her.

  “Clear!”

  35

  Mission Day 347

  “I can do this,” Traci protested, despite a nagging headache.

  “So can Roy and Jack,” Noelle said. “Don’t worry yourself.”

  “Jack’s in my seat and I’m not supposed to be worried? Who’s going to navigate?”

  Daisy chimed. i have been continuously updating our trajectory for multiple injection opportunities.

  “They’ve spent the last four days working out how to do it themselves with Daisy.”

  “We were supposed to be burning for home two days ago. We can’t wait forever. Every day out here is one less day of air and rations on the other side. I’ve held us up.”

  “You also had a coolant leak in your suit,” Noelle reminded her. “You drowned for nearly five minutes.” She gripped Traci’s hand. “You’re lucky to be alive.”

  “Not luck,” Traci said, squeezing back. “Thanks, Doc.”

  “It’s my job,” Noelle demurred. “For the first time in ages, I might add. I’d almost forgotten how much I missed practicing.” She leaned forward and placed a stethoscope bell against Traci’s chest. “How do you feel?”

  The cold metal bell distracted from the nagging headache at the edge of her senses. “Fine. The usual zero-g head congestion, that’s all.”

  “That will go away soon enough once we’re under thrust.” Noelle’s brow furrowed in concentration. “Your lungs sound clear.” She pressed a thermometer to Traci’s forehead. “Been feeling any chills?”

  She shook her head no.

  “The last round of X-rays were clear. I think you’re past danger for aspiration pneumonia.”

  “Then I can get back to work?” She reached for the zero-g straps.

  Noelle gently pushed back. “Not yet. I want you prone when we start burning. Roy and Jack are going to need a break eventually. You’ll have plenty to do when the time is right. Besides,” she smiled, “I’m enjoying our girl time.”

  “You mean your M.D. time?”

  “That too,” she admitted. “All that’s left is to wait for the boys to take us home.”

  Traci relaxed. “I suppose we could put on a couple of chick flicks while they work.”

  “Ladies and . . . well, both of you ladies, this is your captain speaking,” Roy announced over the intercom. “Welcome to our nonstop redeye service from the Kuiper Belt to Earth. Just outside your windows is Pluto, which is about to start shrinking into the distance. Please make sure your tray tables are locked and seat belts are fastened.”

  “Nice,” Jack said, floating next to him at Traci’s normal station. “Practicing for your post-NASA career?”

  “Good Lord no,” Roy said, glancing back over his shoulder. “The wife would kill me if I took a flying job.”

  “You’re getting too old for this anyway.” After a subtle buzz from Daisy, Jack returned to their Trans-Earth Injection checklist. “Two-minute warning.”

  Acceleration was firm with all three engine cores burning again, settling in at a little over one g as Magellan easily climbed out of Pluto’s shallow gravity well. With so much of its original mass in fuel already expended, the lighter spacecraft added velocity at a rapid clip.

  Traci felt her body press into the ICU pod’s gel mattress. The return of gravity was like a blanket enveloping her in increasingly heavy layers. Not a bad way to ride, she thought.

  She lifted her head to see Noelle strapped into a flight chair on the opposite corner of the med compartment when what had been a budding migraine surged in full force. She felt a heaviness that made her head swim. Noelle called for her but Traci couldn’t understand what she was saying. In one final flash of pain, the compartment seemed to twist around itself before going dark.

  Noelle called over the intercom. “Traci’s in trouble.”

  Roy shot a glance at Jack and jumped on the microphone. “What’s happening?”

  Noelle’s voice was a distant echo, as if her headset was disconnected. “She’s unresponsive. Pupils are dilated—” there was a shuffling noise in the background as she said something indistinctive “—and irregular breathing.”

  “Wait a minute. Are you on your feet?”

  “It’s only one g. I can handle it.” It was closer to 1.2 but Roy wasn’t ready to argue. “But I need an extra set of hands.”

  Jack reached for the clasp on his harness, paused, and looked to Roy. “We’re stable,” he offered.

  Roy glared at the overhead speakers. “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” he said. “Daisy, take over flight engineer and navigation functions for Jack.”

  Jack’s monitors blinked in rapid succession, subtly changing color as the AI assumed control. Daisy chimed in a second later:

  control of spacecraft systems and guidance confirmed.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” Roy said. “Get your butt back there.”

  Months in low or zero gravity turned his short trip down the ladder and across the lower deck into a workout. Jack was already breathing heavy and wiping perspiration from his forehead when he stumbled into the med bay. He could see Noelle was having the same trouble, leaning heavily against the ICU pod while tending to Traci.

  “I should have anticipated this,” she said without prompting. “Zero-g masked the symptoms. Acceleration shifted the fluids—”

  “A heads-up from the flight surgeons in Houston would’ve been nice too,” Jack said, wondering how many were left on the job.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Noelle said, “we have to move quickly.”

  Jack looked up at the monitor above the pod and the EKG trace caught his attention. He couldn’t remember the particulars but he could recognize patterns well enough. Had that trace just gone upside down? “What’s happening to her?”

  “Inverted T waves, prolonged QT intervals,” Noelle said, leading him through the unchanging trace, “all indicate dangerously incre
ased intercranial pressure.”

  “What can we do?” It was too late to just cut the throttles and coast while Traci recovered.

  “Out here? Our options for treating cerebral edema are limited.” Noelle tapped her chin impatiently until she arrived at a conclusion. “On Earth, we’d induce a coma to stabilize her and limit the damage. Give her time to heal.”

  “Damage?” he asked warily. “As in . . . brain?”

  “Yes,” Noelle said. “There’s a real danger of it.”

  “You said ‘on Earth.’ We can’t do that here?”

  “Not in this environment. I don’t know how she’ll adapt to a constantly changing acceleration profile. Our best action is to put her into therapeutic torpor until we can get her home.”

  “Hibernation,” Jack fretted, “as if that’s somehow less dangerous.”

  “It’s our last-ditch protocol,” Noelle reminded him. “We have enough IV nutrients for half the crew.”

  “I know,” Jack faltered. “I just never—”

  “Never thought it would actually be necessary?”

  He nodded.

  “It’s been done before, in one case for almost a year on a motorcycle accident victim. The patient mostly recovered.”

  “Mostly?”

  Noelle looked down at Traci. “Fine motor skills were permanently damaged. As were some cognitive abilities.”

  “So she could come out of this clumsy and confused?” Jack chewed on his lower lip as he thought through their options. Would she want to try this? She might never be able to take another mission again, assuming she didn’t end up a vegetable. Or dead.

  “Not that you need my consent anyway,” he sighed, “but I do appreciate it.” He placed a hand on Traci’s cheek. “Looks like you get to sleep through the trip home, kiddo.”