Satellite

by Nick Lake

  “so slow it down,” says Singh. then he seems to cut off.

  we wait for a moment.

  he comes back online.

  “ok, listen.” there are other voices in the background. loud voices, urgent voices. “wait. right. ok. here are some input variables for the cargo container boosters. plug them in. we can’t control the container from down here—u have the deck.” he reels off numbers & letters.

  Virginia moves between terminals, like the Road Runner, typing. she sighs. i don’t know if it’s fear or relief or both. “ok, t minus 50 minutes to docking now,” she says. “that’s bought us some time. now what?”

  “now power down the loose gyro manually.”

  “ok.”

  she floats to the other side of the bridge, flips up a monitor with an attached keyboard, a glowing green background. she presses some keys.

  “oh fuck,” she says.

  no one is pressing the comms button. “what’s happening up there?” says Singh.

  my mother presses the button. “we seem to have a problem.”

  “oh god, oh god,” says Brown. i had forgotten he was there.

  “quiet,” says my mother. not angrily. more like: this is business—we don’t have time for that.

  Virginia pushes off from the other wall & drifts back to us, backward. the cargo container continues to grow on the screen, tho more slowly now.

  “it won’t shut down,” she says. “control is gone. maybe a severed cable, i don’t know.”

  “u’ve tried—”

  “yes,” says Virginia. “whatever u’re about to say i’ve tried it.”

  “vibration’s at 4.5 g,” says my mother.

  “from which we can assume automatic shutdown has also failed,” says Singh.

  “yes, i deduced that,” says Virginia; snaps Virginia, really. she looks at the other screens. “control program can’t take it,” she says. “the shaking is too great; it’s more than the inputs on the container can deal with. i’ve got all the boosters in law but it’s not helping enough.” she hits a button. “program output says docking is impossible now. please advise.”

  “wait there,” says Singh.

  “well,” says Virginia, “it’s not like we have anywhere to go.”

  “unlike that container,” says Brown, pointing to the screen where it is gradually growing, like some kind of stop-motion animation.

  “what kind of effect is that going to have if it hits us?” asks my mother calmly.

  Virginia takes a breath. “an external torque like that? it’s going to throw off our attitude, maybe even threaten our orbit; plus, that thing has a mass of, like, 500 tons. it’s full of spare fuel for us & equipment & supplies, so it’s going to hit us with some serious force, maybe rupture our air supply, or the cooling…we could fry. or run out of oxygen.”

  “oh god, let it be the oxygen,” says Brown. he’s gripping a handrail on the desk & his fingers are white. “i don’t want to cook.”

  “it’s not multiple choice,” says my mother. “u don’t get to decide ur death.”

  he blanches even further.

  just then Singh comes back online. “ok. so u have nearly 50 minutes, correct?”

  “correct,” says Virginia.

  “the only scenario we can c is that Freeman & Brown EVA from the station & disconnect the gyro by hand,” he says. “then ur perturbation is gone & u should be able to control the station’s position with the remaining 3 gyros & the boosters, right?”

  “right,” says Virginia.

  “wait,” says my mother. “we haven’t done any prep. what about camp out? standard prep is 24 hours in 10 lb/sq-in in the low pressure chamber & 30 minutes pure oxygen for any out-of-station activity.”

  “Russian protocol was 1 hour pure oxygen,” says Singh. “u’ve got…30 minutes. maybe.”

  “is that enough?” says my mother.

  a voice i recognize comes over the intercom—Dr. Stearns. “there’s no hard & fast,” he says. “but u should avoid the bends. & if u get them…u have a chamber on board.”

  “ok,” says my mother.

  “ok?” says Brown.

  “u want to wait here for the cargo container to make impact?” says my mother.

  he goes quiet.

  there’s silence for a moment.

  then:

  “well,” says my mother, turning to Brown again, “it looks like u do get a choice after all. how do u feel about dying on a poorly planned space walk?”

  Brown doesn’t answer for a long time. well, it feels like a long time, but we don’t have a long time so it’s probably 10 seconds.

  “better than dying in here,” he says eventually.

  “ok,” says my mother. “let’s go breathe some oxygen.”

  i stay in the command module with Virginia while my mother & Flight Officer Brown go to the end of the portside x-axis—there’s an air lock & a hatch at the end of every arm of the space station. this 1 will bring them closest to the faulty gyro. they’ll use the external remote control vehicle to move quickly along the truss to get to it.

  Libra & Orion both appear a few minutes later. “problem?” says Libra.

  Virginia nods. “Leo’s mother & Flight Officer Brown are doing an EVA to try to shut down a malfunctioning gyro. u feel that?” she puts her hand on the hull.

  Libra & Orion stretch out their fingers. “oh, yeah. it’s shivering.”

  it’s shivering, & i’m shivering.

  i’m watching my mother on 1 screen, climbing into her liquid cooling suit, then beginning to put on the bulky outer space suit. all the time she is breathing pure oxygen from a tank. she & Brown are in the air lock, where Virginia has dumped some of the pressure to bring them down to about 10 lb/sq-in. soon she’ll take it down even farther to 4.7 lb/sq-in, to match the internal pressure system of the suits themselves.

  it has to be done gradually, of course, otherwise the astronaut can suffer the bends when going out into space, where the atmospheric pressure is 0 & the pressure inside their suit is a third of that of the space station. tho, as my mother said, 24 hours of prep would be preferable. a space walk is a carefully choreographed thing—not a rush emergency job.

  well, in an ideal world.

  another expression that feels strange, growing up here. we’re not in any world, let alone an ideal 1. we’re in a sky.

  “that the cargo ship?” asks Orion. he’s pointing to another screen, the 1 showing the big cylinder that’s slowly moving toward us, the vast moon behind it, shadowed by the earth.

  “uh-huh,” says Virginia.

  “& it’s going to dock automatically? cool.”

  “not if we don’t turn off this gyro,” says Virginia.

  “& if we don’t?”

  Virginia doesn’t answer. Orion gives me a look that says: oh. Libra is nervously twisting the vial of earth around her neck.

  “still,” says Orion. “ur mother is the best, right?”

  “yes.” this isn’t boasting, it’s true. she was top gun at the Air Force Academy. PhD at 19.

  15 rotations on Moon 2.

  the minutes go by slowly. i watch the seconds ticking down on the clocks. meanwhile Singh is constantly on the intercom, checking in for updates, relaying suggestions to Virginia.

  on the screen, my mother & Brown snap their golden visors down & my mother floats over to the camera. “ready as we’ll ever be,” she says.

  Virginia checks some readouts. “oxygen ok,” she says. “suit pressure ok. no leaks detected. right. u’re ready to go outside.”

  Brown doesn’t say anything.

  “Freeman. confirm status,” says Virginia.

  “status ok,” says my mother.

  “Brown. confirm status.”

  pause.

  “status ok,” says Brown finally.

  Virginia nods to herself. then she flicks a switch to unlock the hatch. my mother & Brown still need to manually open it—they put their gloves on the wheel & rotate—they
’re clumsy in their huge suits & it takes some time, but eventually it twists open & they pull back the hatch & head into the air lock.

  Virginia tilts & pans the camera—earthrise on the screen, blue ocean below filling the circular aperture of the door onto space. both astronauts lean out, clip their lines to the rail that runs along the station, & then float out into space.

  to my shame, the emotion that i feel at that moment is jealousy.

  they’re out there, in the emptiness, in the inky blackness, & i’m in here. like always. like my whole entire life.

  Virginia switches to an external camera & we c my mother & Brown on the surface of Moon 2, their suits very white against the gray of the hull. they make their way inch by inch to the RCV. this is like a flatbed assembly with little wheels that run along the truss. Virginia will control it, driving the astronauts to where they need to be.

  Brown holds my mother’s arm while she unclips from the rail & on to the vehicle. then she does the same for him. they grab hold of the frame of the RCV—technically it’s a translation aid, this little truck. translation as in movement, not as in language, of course.

  “ready?” says Virginia into her mic.

  “ready,” says my mother. “a-ok so far.”

  Virginia takes a joystick & nudges it gently. the RCV rolls along the truss, taking the 2 astronauts with it. they have boosters on their packs too, little rockets they could use, in theory, to fly around space, but those are really just for emergencies—like if they get separated from the station.

  Virginia turns to the monitors & calls up every external camera she can, so we’re seeing everything from multiple angles. on 1 screen we can c the cargo container very, very close to the station now. Virginia is constantly adjusting its boosters & speeding up the space station itself, which was a suggestion of Singh’s, to keep the 2 apart for as long as possible. the only problem is that speeding us up increases our altitude respective to the earth, because in space, speed equals height, but we’re just going to have to re-adjust our whole attitude when the thing has finally docked.

  meanwhile my mother & Brown have reached the site of the gyro, & Virginia zooms in on them. we can actually c the gyro juddering—that whole arm of the station is shaking with the force. the astronauts unclip from the RCV & clip back onto the truss itself; then they approach the cables & circuit boards for the gyro.

  “this thing is really bouncing around,” says my mother over her mic.

  “tell me about it,” says Brown. we can c that they are being jolted by the vibrations; it’s like they’re attached to a building in an earthquake. except that they’re surrounded by nothing but empty black space.

  “can u still disconnect it?” says Virginia.

  “we can try,” says my mother.

  from the tool station on the translation aid, she takes out a wrench. More than a wrench, really—it’s a powered multitool with a built-in electric motor, which astronauts can use for all kinds of tasks. she motions for Brown to do the same & then they start unscrewing bolts on a plate next to the gyro, presumably to get at the electronics controlling the device.

  when the panel is unsecured, they lash it to the RCV.

  “command, u have a circuit diagram for this thing?” asks my mother.

  “yes,” says Virginia. “i’m looking at it now. u want to cut the red power line at top left. or pop out the motherboard at bottom right.”

  my mother selects a different function on her wrench & uses the workstation stanchion to lean over the exposed workings, legs floating in space.

  “ready?” she says. “when this powers down, u’re going to need to compensate.”

  Virginia brings up several monitors of code. “boosters & alternate gyros ready,” she says.

  “10-4,” says my mother. “Brown, hold on. this is going to jerk the arm, most likely.”

  Brown is clipped on but he grips a truss rail anyway, as my mother lowers the wrench.

  then…

  she twists…

  &…

  it works.

  the shuddering on the image, which has been like a motion blur the whole time, disappears as the gyro shuts off & the spiking g graph that is running on 1 of the screens flattens to 0.

  Virginia types furiously, telling every other torque generator on the station to work overtime, keeping the station steady.

  my mother & Brown twitch, like marionettes, then get their equilibrium. they high-five each other. “job done,” says my mother.

  which is when i c something from the corner of my eye. i turn. a flame is spouting from the rear of the cargo container, & i say to Virginia, “Virginia,” & Orion says, “oh my god,” & Singh is suddenly on the intercom saying, “what is that? what the hell is that?”

  & u have to imagine that all of this is happening at the same time, & also simultaneously the cargo container is powering forward, unstoppable, & it was less than 700 ft. from us anyway, almost co-orbiting, held at bay by Virginia’s codes & commands that are totally useless at this point because that’s a rocket flaming, burning pure fuel, & the massive unmanned cargo container is now a colossal bullet heading tow—

  crash!

  the station rocks. Libra is thrown into me & i catch her & she buries her head in my chest, as Orion hits the table & clings on to it. Virginia’s face slams into the desk & she lifts her hand again, nose & mouth bleeding, but she doesn’t seem to notice.

  she taps & taps & taps but 2 screens are gone & on 1 of them we c the cargo container rotate about its own axis where it has hit the lower y arm of the station, bits of panel & hull & god knows what else scattering into black space like confetti, the huge metal cylinder turning like a lever, inevitably, & then spinning toward the x arm.

  toward my mother & Brown.

  broken pieces of the space station, small & large, float silently.

  inside, alarms start to go off.

  “Moon 2, please come in. Moon 2, please come in,” says Singh, over the intercom, but no one is listening to him.

  somehow, Virginia is still focusing. she is watching all the screens. monitoring what is going on. “Leo!” she says. “i think it’s just the end of the arm. shut the secondary air-lock doors. we have to contain this.”

  “Duncan!” says my mother.

  “yes, so listen—” Virginia starts to speak to the astronauts & waves a hand at me, to say, u do ur bit.

  “ok,” i say. i’m stunned, reeling, in a kind of world where air has been replaced by something thicker & harder to navigate, but her instruction finally breaks thru it.

  i bring up the pressure & atmosphere system, & initiate the protocol to close off 1 of the station’s 4 arms, the 1 the cargo container hit, which i think is 1 of the infrared array sensors pointing at deep space.

  “done,” i say.

  “pressure normalizing in the rest of the ship?”

  i watch the screen.

  12 lb/sq-in.

  12.5 lb/sq-in.

  13 lb/sq-in.

  “yes,” i say.

  words are linear but events don’t work like that, so what u have to imagine is that everything that follows is happening simultaneously, all the words superimposed on each other, overlapping, interleaving like playing cards.

  from multiple angles, from multiple cameras, a feed comes in of the cargo container, which, now subject to massive rotational force due to the full firing of 1 of its rockets & the fact of hitting the space station, spins thru the gap in the plus sign of Moon 2, &—

  the part that i c when i look up from the pressure management system—

  bears down on the place where Mother & Brown are clipped on—

  “unclip from the station & grab the RCV!” says Virginia into the intercom—

  Mother & Brown grab it—

  Virginia leans on the joystick, & the vehicle slides down the arm, pulling my mother with it, quickly down toward the middle of the plus sign where we are, inside the heart of the station, & Brown’s hand is yanked from it
because he left himself clipped to the truss, next to the gyro—

  the cargo container scrapes against the truss, with its long end, trailing broken pieces of metal & insulation foam as it goes, & spins on into empty space, & Brown just isn’t there anymore, from 1 split second to the next, he’s gone. the g-force goes crazy as action & opposite reaction do their thing, & we spin, & for once, as something—a rail?—collides with my back, i feel the truth of our situation: that this is a very, very heavy thing that we’re in, lunged by air & buoyed by 0 g but fundamentally, deep down, where the rules are, the rules that keep things together: massive.

  the rules that keep things together, & apart.

  & then Virginia pulls up another screen & there’s the cargo container, rapidly moving away from us, still flipping around & around like a juggler’s baton.

  & the tiny figure of Brown, arms & legs outstretched, drifting away into blackness, pierced with bright stars.

  “Brown!” says Virginia into the intercom. “Brown!”

  no answer.

  we’re 8, maybe 9.

  Libra, Orion, & i are sitting in the cupola, looking down on the arctic ice as it spins below us.

  “u think they felt anything?” says Libra.

  a rocket blew up on launch the previous day. it was taking 3 astronauts to fix a comms satellite.

  “no,” says Orion. “probably didn’t even know about it.”

  the explosion was very dramatic. a ball of fire engulfing the launch site. we saw it on a screen, before Virginia turned it off & sent us away to play.

  “i wonder what happens if u die without realizing,” i say. “i mean, do u know u’re dead?”

  Orion shrugs. “maybe everything goes black, like when u turn off a screen.”

  Libra shakes her head. “i think it’s the same as dying any other way. i think…u just find urself in the next place.”

  “which is what?” i say. “heaven?”

  now it’s her turn to shrug—the movement is exactly like her twin’s. “Mom said in the old days they thought people turned into angels. that they went up into the sky & looked down on the earth & kept watch over people.”