Exo: A Novel (Jumper)

by Steven Gould

The phone rang and I answered, “Space Girl.”

  “Sterling. I’ve got mission control at Johnson patched in. They, uh, want to interface with your control systems so you can safely approach the ISS.”

  “Oh, really?”

  Another man’s voice came on. “This is Flight Director Grimes. We have you at ten kilometers on the Warden system. We didn’t see you enter our no-fly sphere. What is your propellant?”

  I rolled my eyes and jumped.

  The ISS went from thumbnail size held at an arm’s length to bigger than my spread fingers.

  In the background I heard a voice say, “—under a thousand meters!” and Flight Director Grimes said, “Abort your approach! Abort your approach!”

  “General? Do they want assistance or not?”

  Sterling sounded exasperated. “It’s not just Grebenchekov. There’s seven other people on the station and a hundred and fifty billion dollars in infrastructure investment.”

  I closed my eyes. I knew I could get there without breaking things. “What does the crew want?”

  The flight director said, “They are, of course, very concerned for their crewmate, but it’s our job to weigh all the factors when—”

  I just disconnected.

  My next jump took me to fifty meters under the Destiny module just as the station passed the terminator. Sunlight ran golden fire down the length of the solar panels and I flinched, flipping down the visor and blinking my eyes.

  I’d seen photos, but really, just like everything else, the photos don’t do it justice.

  All the shutters were open on the observation cupola on the Tranquility node, making it look like an exotic six-petaled flower. I could see two faces in the central circular window, both looking down—out?—at me. I added a few meters per second velocity in that direction, adjusting sideways as the entire station tried to slide away from me.

  Go fast to raise. Slow down to drop. Moving in orbit is not intuitive. I killed all relative velocity one meter away from the cupola.

  A woman whose wildly spreading hair was constrained by the headset she was wearing was waving at me, grinning widely. The man next to her was shaking his head, but not, I think, in disapproval.

  The phone rang.

  “Space Girl.”

  General Sterling sounded amused. “The flight director has given up on the official docking procedures. Commander Elliott reports that you’re right outside the cupola?”

  “Yes. Am I good to enter?”

  “One second. They’re going to patch—”

  A woman’s voice came over my headset. The words didn’t quite sync with the woman’s lips on the other side of the glass, but I could tell it was her, her words lagging as they were routed through multiple satellites and ground stations.

  “—can hear her. Can she hear me?”

  I held up my thumb. “Loud and clear.”

  “Hey! Ditto that. I’m Flight Engineer Alis Nagata. This is Commander Ken Elliott. Where is your spacecraft?” She craned her neck to look through the side ports, scanning.

  Ah, well, I knew it would come out eventually.

  “I’m wearing it,” I said.

  They looked at each other.

  She said, “How is that—”

  “Even possible?” I channeled Matapang. “That’s a very good question. First things first—didn’t you declare a medical emergency?”

  “Uh, roger that. We’re clearing the suits out of the Quest Joint Airlock so we can depressurize it for your entry. Shouldn’t take more than—”

  I jumped.

  The call dropped as the metal skin of the ISS cut out my satphone signal. My ears popped and the automatic feed valve buzzed loudly, jetting oxygen into my helmet to raise it above the station’s one atmosphere.

  I’d jumped past Elliott and Nagata in the cupola into the middle of the Tranquility node. I put my hand on a bright blue handrail and twisted back toward them.

  They were staring, wide-eyed, and a buzzing alarm was audible even through my helmet.

  I flipped up the visor and held up my hand with a “Wait,” motion. It only took me ten seconds to shut off my oxygen feed, purge the helmet, and disengage the flange. The alarm was louder now and I left the headset on to protect my ears. Despite knowing it was okay, it felt dangerous to let go of the helmet, but when I finally did, it just hung there, above my head.

  Commander Elliott turned and spoke into an intercom box, “Override the depressurization alarm and double-check it with ETHOS.” The alarm cut off and he said, “Un-fucking-believable!”

  I removed the headset. “What was that?” I pointed at my ear.

  “Rapid depressurization alarm, when you, uh, came aboard,” he said. “For a second there, I thought we’d left the screen door open. The pressure drop stopped as soon as it started, though.”

  Flight Engineer Nagata said, “I … guess we don’t need the air lock after all. Welcome to the International Space Station.”

  *

  Even without the alarm buzzing, the space station is noisy. There’s coolant pumps and control moment gyroscopes and humidity control and CO2 scrubbers and water reclamation and motors for pointing the solar panels. But mostly it’s fans, everywhere, circulating air, their whirr and whine echoing off of every metal and plastic surface.

  I shucked my life-support pack, helmet, headset, and gloves in the Tranquility node, and left them secured, tucking one of the harness straps, doubled, under a handrail. Flight Engineer Nagata led the way and Commander Elliott brought up the rear.

  I was trembling.

  First of all, it was the International Space Station. Sections of it had been up longer than I’d been alive. I’d sat on dark mountainsides or in the middle of deserts, watching it burst through the terminator into sunlight and streak across the night sky.

  Then there was the weightlessness. Yes, I’d been experiencing microgravity for a while now, but never without a helmet on. I wanted to shed the rest of the suit and bounce from bulkhead to bulkhead, unrestricted.

  We floated into the Unity node and hooked a rail to turn, ninety degrees, into Destiny, the U.S. Lab. For a second I thought we were floating down, but then Alis changed her orientation, and when I twisted to match her, the far wall wasn’t down anymore, but level, like entering any room back on Earth.

  “That’s Grebenchekov on the CMRS,” Nagata said. The man was loosely strapped to what looked like a cot, fastened to the “floor.” He was tucked into a thin sleeping bag with armholes, but the zipper was pulled down to expose his abdomen and upper legs. He was wearing boxer briefs and a T-shirt.

  Commander Elliott said, “Crew Medical Restraint System.”

  Another woman “stood” beside him, one foot hooked into the frame of the “cot.” She had a blood-pressure cuff on Grebenchekov’s upper leg and a stethoscope pressed to his inner thigh, listening intently as she bled the pressure from the cuff. She wrote a number down on the clipboard Velcroed to her pants leg.

  Her eyes went wide when she saw me, but then she patted Grebenchekov on the shoulder. “Hey, Misha! There’s a pretty girl to see you, you lucky bastard.”

  Flight Engineer Grebenchekov did not look good. His color was pasty white and his eyes were unfocused, but he made an effort, twisting his head and then shaking it slightly as he took in the neck flange on my suit, the coveralls, and my face.

  “Chyort voz’mi! I must be sicker than I thought.”

  I trotted out one of my few phrases of Russian, “Ya ochen rad poznakomitsya.” I’m very glad to have met you.

  “Kozmos devushka?”

  Wow. So “Space Girl” was getting Russian coverage, too? I turned my shoulder to show him the Space Girl patch. “Da.”

  The other woman held out her hand. “I’m Kate Rasmussen.” When I shook it, she held onto my hand, staring at me. “My daughter is older than you are.”

  “Probably. How old is she?”

  “Twenty-two.” She released my hand.

  I held it up and
extend all five digits.

  “Five years older?” she said.

  I nodded.

  Commander Elliott was using a communications handset near the hatch into Unity node. “Hey, Space Girl. USSPACECOM says you can deliver Mikhail to Stanford Hospital—is that their med school?”

  “Yep. Whenever you’re ready.”

  “Without deceleration?”

  “Well, there’ll be a one-time change to one G.” I shrugged. “Can’t avoid it. It’s what we use down there.”

  Commander Elliott’s lips twitched and he said, “Right. He’s been up here for one hundred and fifty-six days. There’s going to be some stress, regardless.”

  Three more men floated into the room, one of them coming from the Harmony node at the far end of the lab and the other two from the Unity node, behind us. They’d probably come from the Russian end of the station. That’s the language they were speaking, anyway.

  Both of them did a double take when they saw me. The one in front held out his hand, but when I tried to shake it, he began examining the suit fabric, bending my fingers and wrist.

  His English was excellent, with an accent more British than Russian. “That’s all?” He tried to push up the sleeve of the coveralls. “Just the one layer?”

  “That’s the important layer. I’ve got a pair of overgloves back with my helmet for thermal and abrasion protection.” I pulled my hand gently out of his. “They don’t hold pressure.”

  “But it allows transpiration? Cooling by evaporation?”

  I nodded. “Yes. A mechanical counterpressure suit. It keeps me quite comfortable.” His companion was reaching out to touch the helmet flange, peering over it at the neck seal. I waved them off. “Guys!”

  Nagata said, “Oleg! Pyotr! Vesti sebya!”

  They backed off, abashed.

  “Izvinyayetsya,” said Oleg.

  “Sorry,” said Pyotr.

  I looked at Commander Elliott and motioned at Grebenchekov. “Are they ready for us at Stanford?”

  “They don’t believe it, but, yes—they’re ready. They have a vascular surgical team scrubbing and mission control sent them the video of the ultrasound exam.” He turned to the Russian who’d been palpating my hand. “Oleg, will you get Mikhail’s Orlan suit?”

  I shook my head. “He won’t need it. We’ll go directly.”

  Kate Rasmussen said, “Directly.” Her voice was flat, her eyebrows raised.

  Nagata said to her, “You felt the pressure drop?”

  “Of course.”

  The other Russian—Pyotr?—said, “Everybody felt the drop. Everybody’s ears popped.”

  I blushed. “Sorry. That was me.”

  “Did you cycle through the air lock before it was fully equalized?” asked Rasmussen. “I mean, you couldn’t, really. The pressure would hold the door closed.”

  Commander Elliott said, “She didn’t come through the air lock. One second she was outside the cupola, the next she was in the middle of Node 3.”

  Both the Russians looked extremely doubtful. So did Rasmussen

  “Like this,” I said, and jumped back to Node 3—Tranquility—where my life-support pack was.

  I heard the combined shout—well, part gasp, part shriek, part yell—come around the bend, even over the ventilation fans.

  I slung the pack and tightened it, put the headset around my neck, and returned to the U.S. Lab, pulling myself along one handed, holding the helmet and gloves under my arm.

  Commander Elliott was floating through the hatch from the U.S. Lab, looking toward me. “Ah. Good.” He turned back into the lab, clearing my way and calling out, “She went for her gear in Node 3.”

  As I floated back into Destiny, Rasmussen’s mouth was open. Even Grebenchekov was staring.

  “See?” I said. “Directly.”

  Flight Engineer Nagata asked, “Why wasn’t there a pressure drop when you did that?”

  “Why do you think?”

  She narrowed her eyes and then said, “Because there’s no pressure differential between here and Node 3?”

  “Yes.”

  Nagata nodded. “Unlike when you came in from vacuum—seven hundred forty-eight millimeters of mercury difference.”

  “Sorry? Millimeters of mercury? Like fourteen point seven psi?”

  She laughed. “Close. One atmosphere is seven hundred sixty millimeters of mercury. Call it a quarter-of-a-pound difference.”

  “Ah. Well, the transition isn’t instantaneous, so I leak a bit between locations.” Or a lot. I was definitely not going to describe twinning to them. “So, you’ll get a bump in pressure when I take him to Stanford. That’s sea level.”

  Before they could get started on the phenomenon—I could see the questions forming in their eyes—I lowered the helmet over my head.

  Rasmussen held up one hand, stopping me. “I thought the suit was unnecessary since you’re going directly.” She was unwrapping the blood pressure cuff from around Grebenchekov’s thigh.

  I paused with the helmet flange just above my eyes. “If I don’t put this back on, it will drop to the ground, or, worse, land on Mikhail here, when we’re in gravity again.” I made an ‘X’ over my heart. “I promise I won’t expose him to vacuum.”

  Commander Elliott said, “I think we’re going to have to trust her, Kate.”

  Rasmussen bit her lip. She zipped the sleeping bag three quarters of the way up, then took the sheet of paper off her clipboard and tucked it inside, over Grebenchekov’s chest, before pulling the zipper up the last bit. “These are my notes on his initial symptoms, his vitals, and his history and medications.” She pulled herself down and kissed Grebenchekov on the lips. “Ya lyublyu tebya, Misha.”

  His lips twitched and he said, “Ya tozhe moy dorogoy doktor.”

  I latched my helmet but I didn’t bother turning on the oxygen—the rebreather fans were still running. Pulling on my gloves, I tucked one of my hiking boots into the frame of the CMRS and crouched down, putting my other knee against the bulkhead.

  Rasmussen unstrapped Grebenchekov and floated him into my arms. I put one arm under his shoulders and the other across his chest. She locked eyes with me, staring through my helmet, searching for something—reassurance, I guess.

  I winked at her and jumped.

  *

  I arrived crouched, cradling Grebenchekov’s head and shoulders, then fell backwards, onto my rump, still holding him, and he ended up across my lap. His legs bumped into the sidewalk and his eyes went wide as he felt gravity for the first time in 157 days.

  I twisted off the helmet one handed and lifted it slightly. “Are you all right?”

  He stared blankly ahead and seemed to be having trouble breathing.

  “Misha! Okay?” I said, louder.

  He blinked and focused on my face. “Da.” He reached up and patted my arm weakly.

  Then the ER’s automatic doors opened and organized chaos wearing multicolored surgical scrubs descended upon us.

  “Let me,” said an orderly, sliding a backboard under Grebenchekov. Others stooped and I was edged back. “And LIFT,” a women’s voice said and they all stood in unison, raising him waist high. A gurney rolled under the backboard and he was lowered to it.

  I lifted my helmet all the way off.

  Grebenchekov turned his head toward me and reached out his hand. “Kozmos devushka!”

  I grabbed his hand. “What?”

  “Tell Kate!”

  I leaned closer. “Yes?

  “Mne nuzhny ochki!”

  They started rolling him back into the building and I took quick steps to keep up with them. “Chto? Vo angliyskiy!”

  I saw him grope for the words, then he pointed two fingers toward his eyes. “My glasses!”

  “Oh! Okay.” I grinned and he smiled back, then the glass doors swallowed him and his attendants.

  I was thinking about following them in when a camera flash went off to my right. A man with a massive DSLR camera stood two yards away, clickin
g madly. Behind me I heard a screech of tires and I turned to see a television news truck bump over the curb from Pasteur Drive, parking illegally on the grass. A reporter jumped out of the passenger seat with some sort of audio recorder in his hand. Equally quick, the driver pulled out a pro video camera from the rear compartment and tossed it up onto his shoulder.

  I heard the hospital door open again. Two men were approaching me—one in a suit and tie, the other in Military BDUs.

  For a brief moment I considered snatching both cameras and jumping away, then saw a closed-circuit camera mounted above the door.

  Dad was going to kill me.

  I put the helmet on, took three steps sideways to clear the overhanging roof, saluted toward the news camera, and launched, adding two hundred miles per hour velocity straight up.

  It was loud in the helmet.

  I hope it looked good on TV.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Cent: Avtoruchka

  I made a satphone call from the roof of Stanford Hospital two hours later. I wasn’t exactly revealing anything if they tracked the location. They knew I’d been here, after all.

  “Sterling.”

  “Any news on Grebenchekov?”

  “Yes—good news.”

  I took a deep breath. Relief, I guess. I was surprised; I wasn’t aware of how tense I’d felt until then.

  Sterling continued. “The aneurism was as big as a grapefruit with a dime-sized hole on one side. Fortunately the pressure from the ballooning vessel pressed that opening against the wall of the abdomen so it was seeping, rather than gushing.

  “They clamped and did an aortic resection with a Dacron graft, restoring blood flow to the legs in under ten minutes. They took another twenty minutes to close him back up but the urgency was gone, at that point.

  “The surgical team confirmed that a high-G reentry would’ve been fatal. Or, for that matter, even just waiting a few hours. You definitely saved his life.”

  I felt my ears get red. “Well, then, uh, good on you, General. You’re the one who thought of asking.”

  “I could ask all day. It wouldn’t make me capable of the mission. Thanks. That’s unofficial, but I’m working on getting permission to formally thank you on behalf of U.S. Space Command. What can I do unofficially to show my appreciation?”