Satellite

by Nick Lake

  i c ice floes breaking, in the cold blue waters 250 miles below. we are coming up to the dark line of night. aurora borealis shimmers, crowning the earth, greeny waves, silky.

  “like us,” i say.

  we all shiver.

  we huddle up closer together. Libra & Orion put their arms around each other.

  we watch the world spin.

  we watch over it.

  “Brown’s gone,” says my mother, “Brown’s gone,” as if now that he is, indeed, gone, someone has to fill his role of stating the self-evident, & i don’t know why i have such a mean thought, crossing my mind like a falling star, maybe it’s the shock.

  “fuck,” says Virginia. “fuck. what went wrong with the program? what did i do?” she is crying. i don’t know if she realizes. the tears are just leaking out into the 0-g module, forming bubbles, floating around.

  “stop crying,” i say.

  “what? how can u tell me to—”

  “no,” i say. i point to the spheres, tiny shining teardrops in the light of the moon, drifting like little bright planets.

  “oh. shit.”

  Singh’s voice comes thru the intercom. it sounds shaky. “sitrep,” he says.

  i press the button. “i’m ok…um, Leo here. Virginia—i mean, Officer Duncan is ok. my mother appears to be ok.”

  “i’m…ok,” says my mother. i can c her on the screen, clinging to the RCV she is clipped to. there are still pieces of metal out there, moving unpredictably—she ducks as a bolt of some kind flies past her. “but Brown—”

  “Brown is dead,” says Singh. but not flatly, not unkindly. “i…his vitals have gone. from our screens.”

  “i’m sorry,” says Virginia. “i’m sorry. i don’t know what went wrong. i went over this code a million times, maybe 2 million, i—”

  “not u,” says Singh. “data says the booster fire was a mechanical issue. it wasn’t the software. something…some spark ignited the fuel.”

  “oh my god,” says Virginia. “oh my god.” she lets out a long breath.

  “crew,” comes a new voice over the intercom. it’s Boutros. the boss. “this is a devastating loss, crew, but we need to focus. Duncan, our screens have u heading for reentry. the impact has knocked u badly off equilibrium attitude. we can help from here but u’re going to have to get on it too.”

  “yes,” says Virginia. “yes, of course.”

  “we also need to get Freeman back inside. right now the perturbations are too great for her to effect reentry.”

  Virginia looks at me. i know what she’s thinking because i am thinking the same thing: it hadn’t occurred to me. it hadn’t even occurred to me that my mother couldn’t get back in.

  “ok,” says Virginia. she switches comms. “Freeman? are u secure?”

  “clipped on & holding on,” says my mother. “i’m as secure as i’ll ever be.” there is something hollow in her voice. i think it’s probably seeing her colleague swept off the station by a huge metal cylinder weighing the force equivalent of hundreds of tons.

  “nitrox levels?”

  “1 hour left,” says my mother.

  “50 minutes,” says Dr. Stearns, over the intercom.

  “1 hour,” says my mother, in a tone that brooks no argument. “i can turn it down.”

  Virginia bends over her instruments. “ok, i’m going to use the boosters to try to cancel out most of the external torque, but we don’t have a lot of fuel—”

  “do it,” says my mother. “u’ll burn up otherwise.”

  “shit,” says Virginia. “shit. atmos drag is crazy. the gyros are saturating from trying to automatically absorb the momentum…i can try to desaturate 1 or 2 of them with a gravity gradient, but…”

  she works for a long time, firefighting, luckily not literally, but that is about the only thing that is lucky at this moment. she goes from monitor to monitor, pushing between 1 wall & the other.

  “can we help?” Orion says.

  “no.”

  “not even Leo?”

  “no.”

  half an hour later, Virginia floats back from a keyboard & blows out a long stream of breath. “attitude reestablished,” she says. “Freeman, come back in.”

  we watch as my mother drives the RCV herself using the hand brake, until she’s back at the hatch at the end. Virginia opens the hatch & lets her in, then starts to repressurize the air lock. my mother curls into the fetal position & spins slowly in the tubular space.

  “Freeman’s safe,” says Virginia into the intercom. “but i’ve got 2 desaturated gyros & i’ve burned most of our booster fuel. we’ve also got that 1 gyro off grid, which…”

  “…places a reliance on the boosters to maintain attitude,” says Singh over the speakers. “because u need 4 gyros for full gyro control.”

  “yes,” says Virginia. “even without a massive torque like that on the whole system.”

  “shit,” says Singh. a pause. “sorry,” he says.

  “so?” says Orion. he is hanging on to a handrail, a wild look in his eyes. “what does that mean?”

  “it means we need more fuel, or we need to get a new gyro online,” says Virginia.

  “can we get more fuel?” says Libra. “where would we get fuel?”

  “from the cargo container,” says Virginia.

  “oh,” says Libra. she looks to be close to tears but she’s been up here all her life, she knows about the not crying.

  “& the extra gyro?” says Orion. “what about that?”

  “we have 1. it’s in 1 of the storage hubs. but it’s a 2-astronaut job. EVA only. & we’ve just lost Brown.”

  “so…,” says Libra. “what are the options?”

  “i don’t know,” says Virginia. “fly home? take the module Leo’s mother & Brown arrived in & get off the station. but we can’t abandon the station. this place cost billions of dollars. it was the life work of so many people. we can’t just—”

  “or? what’s the alternative?”

  “or, after an hour or so, we find out what happens to hard objects when they hit the atmosphere at the wrong angle.”

  silence.

  i seize Virginia’s hand & pull myself toward her. “i’ll do it,” i say.

  “what?”

  “i’ll do it. i’ll go, now.”

  “where?”

  “i’ll EVA. with my mother. she’s already suited up, we can install the new gyro. where is it?”

  “right by the failed 1, as it happens. x-axis truss. in a storage bay. but—”

  “but nothing. come on. i know the protocol. i can do it.”

  Orion frowns at me. “Leo, i mean, come on…”

  “u don’t have time to prep,” says Virginia. “u’ll get the bends.”

  this is the big problem with EVAs. it’s a bit like diving. or the opposite of diving maybe, because when u’re diving the problem is coming up, transitioning from high pressure to lower pressure. when u’re doing an EVA, the problem is going out. u go out into 0 pressure, & u’re breathing a mixture of nitrogen & oxygen, which means that if u don’t prebreathe oxygen for long enough, & preferably compress too, u get little bubbles of nitrogen in ur blood.

  it can make the blood vessels in ur skin burst, in ur eyes too. the bubbles can pop in ur joints, causing excruciating pain, causing immobility. it can make u pass out, even fall into a coma. or suffer long-term neurological damage.

  none of which is going to stop me.

  “come on, V,” i say. “we can cure that. an hour after in the hyperbaric chamber on pure ox & i’ll be ok.”

  she stares at me. “u’re going to give urself the bends & then just…cure urself?”

  “yes. come on, i’m young. i’ve literally just had a medical. i’m not going to have a heart attack or anything.”

  “Leo…,” says Libra. Virginia starts to say something but Libra puts her hand up, then swims over to me. she puts her hands on my shoulders, her eyes on mine. “Leo. u don’t have to do this. u don’t have to
try to impress ur mother.”

  i keep a lock on her eyes, genuinely bemused. “i’m not,” i say.

  “u’re not? then what? u want to be the hero?”

  i shake my head. “i just want to help. &…”

  “& what?” she is looking at me with a look that says: truth, now.

  “& i want to get out there.” i point to the window. to the sky beyond.

  Orion shrugs. “a wider space,” he says.

  “exactly,” i say.

  Libra nods slowly. she turns to Virginia. u can almost c thought processes running behind her eyes, script rolling, like code. “he’s right,” she says. “not his whole crazy getting-outside-into-space death-wish thing. but about the situation. it’s the only option. either Leo EVAs with his mother or we die.”

  pause.

  “unless i do it,” says Virginia.

  “no,” says Libra. “we need u on the programs. on the flight deck.”

  another pause.

  “fuck,” says Virginia. she thumbs the button on the intercom. “Boutros? Singh? we have 2 options here. either we all take the landing module & fly home, right now, or Leo EVAs with his mother to install the new gyro. he’ll get decompression sickness but we can put him straight into hyperbaric when he comes back in.”

  she doesn’t mention a third option, which is: we die.

  pause.

  “returning is not an option,” says Boutros eventually. “we need Moon 2 functioning. u come back, it’s coming down behind u in flames. we & NASA & the Russians didn’t work 80 years for that.”

  “u’d prefer we die up here than come back?” says Libra slowly.

  silence.

  “returning is not an option,” says Boutros again. “not until the station is secured & in stable orbit.”

  “ok,” says Orion. “so option 2.”

  “option 2,” i say. i start to move toward the hatch.

  “wait,” says Virginia. “don’t we need to tell ur mother?” she reaches for the comms switch.

  “no,” i say. “i’ll tell her myself.”

  i torpedo across the station, thru modules & hatches, until i come to the end of the line, to the air-lock door beyond which my mother is waiting, still curled up.

  i press the intercom button installed next to the door. “Mother?” i say.

  she looks up. i motion to her to float to the intercom on her side.

  “yes?”

  “u & i are going out. to install a new gyro. we don’t have enough fuel to maintain attitude without it.”

  with my mother, long conversations are a rarity. she is already working out all the angles, is already ten steps ahead. there’s no need to talk it all thru.

  “who’s we?” she says.

  “me & u.”

  she eyes me. “u have no experience.”

  “i’ve been out there.”

  “with Chang?” she says. “yes. for 2 minutes.”

  ok—FINE—it was 2 minutes. but 2 minutes is more than nothing.

  “2 minutes is more than nothing,” i say.

  for a long moment she just looks at me. “what’s the plan?” she says. “compression immediately after? hope u don’t get too sick? hope u don’t have a stroke?”

  i shrug. “yes.”

  her eyes shift as she calculates. “u’re 15,” she says eventually. “elastic muscles. good blood pressure. strong veins.”

  “yes.”

  “we burn up otherwise?”

  “yes. all the spare fuel was on the container.”

  “installing a gyro is not easy. especially with debris floating everywhere. u do everything i say, when i say it. everything.”

  “yes sir.”

  “ok then,” she says, apparently not detecting the irony in my address. “suit up.”

  so i do.

  there’s a kind of closet next to the air lock, & i open it & take out the water-cooling suit. it’s like a giant set of pajamas, but full of clear plastic tubes that run all around my body, piping cold water to my every extremity. space suits get very hot from the sun & from the lack of moving air to cool them—without the water suit i’d cook in it.

  then i put on the bulky space suit. i suppose it’s more accurate to say i step into it, into the hard upper torso of it, because it has a kind of door at the back—it’s more like an exoskeleton than a suit. mounted to the back is a huge pack that contains my oxygen & nitrogen, the feedwater tank for the cooling suit, which i couple up, a C02 removal cartridge to get rid of my waste air, & a dozen other sensors & systems to keep me alive.

  Virginia has depressurized the air lock again, & i open the door & float thru to my mother—i say that in 1 sentence but it takes a while, maneuvering in this thing that is more like a vehicle wrapped around me than clothes. every movement has to be deliberate, has to be careful.

  my mother takes my hand. or my glove, i should say. not affectionately; just to keep me steady. for a moment we bob, gently, in the air lock.

  our umbilicals snake behind us, hooked up to the comms & the power, tethering us to the ship. we are both in the station & outside of it, no longer subject to its pressure. we check our LED displays, making sure our oxygen levels & pressure indicators are reading correctly. a tiny mistake means death out there.

  everything is ok.

  we check again.

  everything is ok.

  “open the outside hatch, Duncan,” says my mother.

  & she does.

  there’s a hiss & it irises open & we’re looking down on arctic tundra, under swirling clouds, on a blackness beyond that goes on forever. now to get out. we lower our golden visors to block the too-bright light of the sun, to save our corneas from being burned from our heads, & worm our way thru the hatch, until we’re on the outside of the ship.

  “clip on,” says my mother, & i clip to the braided cable on the surface of the station. i am focused on this little task, & then i turn around.

  i turn around.

  & my heart stops.

  not because any of my systems have failed, but because of where i am.

  it’s the beauty.

  it’s the beauty.

  u can grow up inside of a place & know it’s right there, on the other side, but it won’t prepare u for the height of it, for the scale of what surrounds it, when u’re outside. i’ve been out here before, briefly, with Chang, but even that isn’t enough—there are some things that are simply beyond human comprehension, no matter where u are born, & space is 1 of them.

  in like 30 minutes it’ll be dark again, but now everything is flooded with light, light u can’t believe, total & absolute & so bright it seems metaphorical, some kind of revelation.

  below us, the earth. perfect & spinning, its curvature clearly visible, lit by the sun. silver threads of river ribboning into dark. & in every direction, space. but space is the wrong word, because this is something that goes on forever & is full of worlds, billions of them, pinpricks sparkling in the endless darkness.

  for a long moment i am just in shock.

  i knew it was coming, but i’m still in shock.

  it’s like—let me think what i can compare it to. imagine u’re in a bathtub & u put ur head under the water & open ur eyes, & instead of seeing the inside of the tub, u’re in the deep ocean, the water going light blue to dark blue as u turn ur eyes down, jellyfish pulsing, a whale swimming by below. that’s what open space does to u, even if u’ve grown up in space.

  then i hear a beeping & i focus on the green LEDs on my heads-up display & i c my heart rate spiking.

  “Leo. Leo, talk to me.” it’s Dr. Stearns’s voice.

  “i’m ok,” i say. i check my systems. “systems normal. just…just so big.”

  “we get it, Leo,” says Boutros. his tone is like a loving dad’s but also like the boss of a huge multibillion-dollar scientific & explorative initiative. “but pull urself together. u have a job to do.”

  “yes sir,” i say, without any irony this time.


  “check suit,” says my mother.

  i look at my HUD—my heads-up display. suit pressure ok. air supply ok. “ok,” i say.

  “check again.”

  i check again. EVAs are all checking all the time. a leak in the suit would mean the vacuum outside getting in. which would mean: ruptured lungs, burst eardrums, & our saliva & sweat starting to boil. not a nice way to die.

  when she’s satisfied, my mother tells me to move my clip over to the RCV & clip onto it. we have to move quickly because nitrogen bubbles will be entering my bloodstream already—the quicker i get back inside & into the hyperbaric chamber, the better.

  “Virginia, take us down,” says my mother. “& activate the Dextre arm too. get it over to the gyro.”

  “already done,” says Virginia.

  “good.”

  there’s a clunk, & then the motored vehicle starts to slide down the truss on the outside of the station. we’re clipped to it—Mother’s feet are also in the footrests at the front end of the RCV, so she’s pointing forward, like the carved figure on the prow of an old ship. i’m drifting behind, 1 hand gripping a handle on the flat truck.

  at the moment, the arm we’re on is parallel to the earth. so i can c blue ocean turning below, the occasional island. i think it’s the Pacific, Japan swinging into view. between us is 250 miles of emptiness. & on the other side of the earth is the moon, some of it visible over the arc of the earth’s curvature, gray & pockmarked.

  the moon is always there, somewhere, outside the station’s portholes. spinning around the earth, endlessly. an orbit of devotion.

  nothing in the universe loves like the moon loves the earth.

  “focus, Leo,” says my mother.

  we’re coming up to the gyro. it doesn’t look like much. a kind of hooded square shape. u can’t even c the spinning part or the gimbal—it’s all inside a round white cover. to keep it protected from micrometeoroids. tho it seems like something has damaged its bearings anyway.

  “clip to the truss,” says my mother. & we both hold on with 1 hand, before moving our clips onto the station’s cable.

  positioned on the other side of the gyro, the portside, is the Dextre robotic arm. “Virginia, u have Dextre control?” says my mother.