ISS

by Mains, L Valder

  “The air smells funny, are you sure it’s alright?” she said

  “This is spacecraft air,” he said smiling, “twenty years of B.O. and stale farts.” He smiled thinking how cute she was when she wrinkled her nose.

  “We need to search for the crew,” he said.

  In a very short time they were good at streaming through compartments, they talked as they searched.

  “What will happen to all this when we leave?” she said.

  “It will eventually fall back to earth.”

  “I wonder if there will be anyone left on earth to see it?” she said.

  “Probably lots of people will see it but they won’t understand what they are seeing. The ISS will burn up on re-entry and it will be a fiery streak across the sky like a big meteorite,” he said.

  “Are we going to make it back to earth?” she said.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Alive?” she said.

  “Of course alive, you and I are going to be a couple of wrinkled old farts living in Florida in our RV,” he said.

  “Please don’t make me live in Florida,” she said seriously.

  They found the crew in a biology lab. Looking in through the tiny port hole he saw the weird tableau of four dead astronauts suspended in odd positions within the small chamber. Jack saw the glove box where they’d begun taking samples from the diseased head he brought for them to work on but when he tried to point it out to Sara she turned away from the window refusing to look.

  “Can’t we leave them in there?” she said. He heard the anguish in her voice and he was concerned that she might be reaching her breaking point. This much death and sadness would affect anyone. It was affecting him though he was trying hard not to show it. He was worried about her but also concerned that the decomposing bodies would foul the air and overload the scrubbers and as awful as the task would be they would need to deal with the bodies. If they were delayed in leaving or worse unable to return to earth they would want to have as much uncontaminated air as possible. He did not really want to go in there and touch them and the thought of doing so made him feel queasy but it had to be done.

  “Maybe there is a way to release this module. If we can do that wouldn’t it float away into space?” she said.

  He studied the pod door system. According to the diagram it was indeed possible to release the module but he was aware of the inherent danger of setting something that big loose. If the module crashed into the ISS and put a hole in it that would be bad; any kind of hull breach would release the breathable atmosphere from the ISS.

  While he studied the hatch Sara went in search of water and food. When she came back with an assortment of foods she screwed up her courage and looked inside the lab when she looked at Jack there was a quizzical look on her face.

  Jack was about to pull the lever to unlock the module and set it free from the ISS when she said.

  “Wasn’t there six astronauts on board?”

  They put their faces to the window and counted the bodies; there were four in the lab and the one outside made five.

  “Maybe there were two outside and one floated away,” he said.

  She shrugged her shoulders it did not really matter where the sixth one was he must also be dead, she thought, and we will eventually find him if he is aboard.

  They put on their helmets as a precaution and Jack looked at her solemnly and she nodded her assent but before he released the module, which was sad, and all the more so for knowing that they caused their deaths he said.

  “Do you think we should say a prayer or something?”

  “No, I never believed in any of that stuff, how about you?” she said.

  “No,” he said.

  They felt a bump as the module released and the compressed air between the seals gently pushed the lab away from the ISS and it began the slow tumbling journey back to earth. They went to the cupola and watched the lab drift away for a long time. He told her that the lab and crew would eventually return to earth thinking that might make her feel better. It didn’t. When they could no longer see it they turned away from the window. It was time to make a decision; do they stay on board the ISS and try to create an anti-virus themselves or do they attempt the return trip to the earth without the aid of the astronauts.

  They needed to decide what to do while the memory of flying Jericho One was fresh in their minds but they were exhausted from what had already been a long sad day and they needed sleep. He went to the environmental control room and determined that though there were bodies decomposing for the last twelve hours and possibly there was one on board, the air was scrubbed and safe for them to continue breathing so they took their space suits off and ate their meal in silence.

  He watched her eating her meal and at one point she dozed off and drifted away. He finished eating and strapped them into a small sleeping alcove to try and rest before making the decision about returning home. There were lots of sleeping bunks but they shared one. They felt the need to be close to each other more now than ever.

  “Do you think if we stayed here we could figure out an anti-virus?” he spoke into the semi-darkness.

  “No,” she said, “I failed science even with the help of the tutor my dad hired.”

  He was quiet thinking about their situation it was clear to him that staying on the ISS was not an option. His understanding of biology was limited and the high level at which they would have to try to understand the problem, never mind solve it, was inconceivable. When he saw the lab with the dead astronauts the equipment inside it looked as complicated as the flight deck of Jericho One. Even if all the information they needed to solve the problem was in the onboard computers it did not mean they could learn to understand it. They would have to go back to earth.

  “When we go back where do you want to live?” he asked.

  “I don’t know, I haven’t really thought about it. It doesn’t matter I suppose there is no one waiting for us, we can go anywhere we want,” she said.

  “We will need to go someplace we can grow food. The food in the stores will eventually become inedible, even the stuff in cans will rot. Maybe north west California or Oregon, we will need to find a place where there is good water,” he said.

  They did not talk about the flight home the plan to fly Jericho One without the aid of the astronauts was scary and they were both exhausted. It served no purpose to worry about it beforehand; they would either make it back or not. If not they would burn up in the atmosphere and, hopefully, not suffer long.

  “Do you think we should look for other people when we get back?” she said.

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea. There are no laws and if someone wanted to kill us or worse…” he said leaving the thought unfinished then added, “you would be at greater risk than me.”

  “Why, what do you mean?” she said.

  She was not angry she knew it was not a slight against her but she did not really understand why she would be at more risk.

  “For sex,” he said bluntly.

  “Oh,” she shivered against him at this new understanding. She did not need him to explain it further so much had happened so quickly she hadn’t thought about that.

  This was not something she’d had to think about much in her life but she remembered how she felt when she first met Jack and found his porn magazine. For a brief period, until she got to know him, she worried about exactly that.

  “I can make myself look like a boy,” she said.

  He did not say anything but he doubted she could do it convincingly. She has a pretty face with feminine features and her jeans fit her very well.

  “What are you thinking about?” she said.

  “I was thinking you are too pretty to be a boy,” he said.

  She put her nose under his chin and nuzzled him.

  “I can do it you will be amazed,” she said, “I will look like your ten year old brat cousin from Minnesota.”

  He laughed, “I don’t have a ten year old cousin. Anyw
ay what about your breasts? Not many ten year old boys have those,” he said.

  “Don’t worry about that, they won’t show believe me they barely show as it is,” she said.

  “I like the way you look,” he said, “I don’t get what the big deal is about breasts anyway.”

  She did not say anything but she kissed the hollow of his neck and the kiss felt like thank you.

  “When do you want to go back?” she said.

  “I think we should go right away in case the batteries begin to die on Jericho One,” he said.

  “Do you think there is anything here we should take back to earth? We are probably the last people who will ever be on ISS,” she said.

  “We should take whatever is on the main computer maybe there is some useful research or something. I can’t think of anything else to bring back I mean what would be the point. There are no museums or scientists to give it to.” She sighed and wrapped her legs around him to keep from drifting away. The ISS was not as quiet as the Jericho One there were systems running all over the craft pumping air or adjusting solar arrays but the background hum of technology was somehow soothing.

  “Removing the strap will be the difficult part. If we simply cut it the strap might catch on some part of the spacecraft when we try to maneuver away and if it ripped a panel off it would be a disaster. It is also unclear if we will be able to start the main rocket engine. If we have to re-enter the atmosphere on thrusters alone it would take a long time and we would have no control over where and when we would re-enter or land,” he said.

  Clearly they wanted to return to North America. The prospect of landing or more likely crash landing in some strange wilderness in a foreign country was not appealing. The spacesuits on the ISS were much better than the commercial pilot suits they wore on the way up. The suits held lots of extra equipment and power and a longer lasting air supply but the trade-off was that they were bulky and cumbersome in confined spaces. In theory they could wear them all the way back to earth and not run out of air. This might be necessary because the space ship was no longer pressurized and it was unclear if they could transfer enough from the ISS to re-pressurize the craft manually. This issue was important because he was concerned that hull integrity might depend on pressurization.

  He kissed the top of her head as she slept in his arms and he wondered if they would make it back to earth and what life would be like if they did.

  Chapter Twelve

  They awoke and held each other for a long time before donning the bulky ESA spacesuits. They spent the next few hours searching for and shuttling the few compressed oxygen tanks they’d found between ISS and Jericho One. Jack noticed after a few trips that Sara was getting good at using the jet-pac. She was a natural space jockey and she admitted to him that weightlessness was a lot of fun once you got used to the weirdness of it. After a few more trips she stayed on Jericho One to begin stowing the tanks. It would be a disaster if air tanks started flying around the cabin during re-entry. She used the wire they stripped from the seats and the four part passenger restraints to tie them into their seats. When she looked back at her handy work the single row of tanks looked like a group of weird alien tourists going on vacation.

  Jack flew back to ISS to look for more tanks but this time when he passed through the airlock he heard a sound coming from one of the commercial sections they had not explored yet. He followed the sound to a group of modules and found a hand written sign above the entry portal which read ‘Corporate American’. Cautiously he glided down the section that appeared to be devoted to astro-tech and orbital mining corporations. He heard another bang, louder this time the sound sharp, like metal on metal, coming in regularly spaced intervals. He followed the sound to a closed off hatchway that bore a TimeForm Corporation Logo on it. There was a hand drawn sign above it that read ‘MARTY’. The banging was coming from within. Jack slapped his hand against the hatch and listened. The clanging stopped then started again this time with a more recognizable pattern.

  dot dot dot

  dash dash dash

  dot dot dot.

  S.O.S.

  Someone is alive in there, he thought. He did not remember the Morse code alphabet but he recognized S.O.S. when he heard it. He tried yelling through the door to whoever was inside but there was no way anyone would hear him through all that steel. He saw what appeared to be an intercom on the overhead bulkhead.

  “Can you hear me?” he said, holding the button.

  There was a pause and then, “Hi I’m Marty.”

  ***

  Back on Jericho One

  “He can’t open the door. He will die like the others,” Jack said.

  “We can’t leave him there. He will die for sure,” Sara said.

  They were resting after another round of hauling stuff across from ISS.

  “We can figure this out,” she said.

  She was right they could not leave him behind but how would they get Marty off the ISS without him becoming infected?

  “I don’t understand why he is not infected already maybe he is immune to the virus,” he said.

  “The problem is the only way to find out will kill him if we’re wrong,” she said.

  They were startled when their conversation was interrupted by a blast of static and then the eerie far off sound of Marty’s voice.

  “Hi Guys, I found the Jericho One communications channel. Please save your energy I won’t be going back to the surface with you. There are things you do not understand about my situation here. I am unable to return to earth gravity, the trip would kill me,” he said.

  “We can’t leave you here alone what will you do?” Sara said.

  “There are no other options. Fully two thirds of my body was destroyed in a terrorist attack a decade ago. The doctors managed to save my life and almost put me back together but I lost my entire lower torso and I only have my right arm and vision in my right eye. At this point I am more ‘machine’ than man and as such I’ve been living on borrowed time for years. Zero gravity has allowed me to continue living but from the moment I arrived on ISS five years ago I knew that returning to earth’s gravity wasn’t an option. The pressure would crush my internal organs and kill me within minutes. So you see there is no choice as things stand right now I can only be disconnected from my life-support pod for short periods of time and those periods are becoming shorter all the time. I was lucky that I was in isolation when the crew began work on the virus sample you brought to them, being in my pod is what saved me from the virus.”

  “How will you manage alone,” Jack said. There was a pause in the conversation as a blast of static disrupted communications.

  “I will be okay there are enough provisions onboard for my lifetime and then some.”

  He did not mention to them that his life expectancy was at best six months though, without the crews support, he would likely not live that long.

  “I don’t understand something, “said Jack,” why would TimeForm risk your life by bringing you up here in that… condition? Weren’t they worried the flight would kill you?”

  “The managers were worried but I wasn’t. While I was recovering from my surgeries I designed this life-support pod, and made it just small enough to fit inside the Chinese space shuttle. There are specialized devices in here that cooled my body down and immobilized me for transport and now it maintains my life-support systems. It all worked as designed. The reason the virus did not kill me is the pod is a completely self-contained living space separate from the ISS life support system. As for the reason TimeForm allowed me to come up here? I am, or perhaps I should say I was, the principal shareholder in TimeForm Corporation. Being an extremely wealthy man allowed me to use my money and influence to by-pass the regulatory hurdles and arrange for a lifetime pass on board the ISS.”

  Jack looked at Sara and shrugged. It solved their dilemma, if what he was saying is true, there really was no alternative. Marty will not be traveling back to earth with them.

  �
�We are planning to return to Earth as soon as we can. Is there anything you need us to do for you before we leave?” Jack asked.

  There were a few moments of dead air in their helmets while Marty thought about that.

  “I will need your help to put ISS into a higher orbit, one that will take longer to decay and, I know this will be difficult, but I need you to remove the crew’s bodies from the ISS. They have to be jettisoned soon because they will foul the air supply as they decompose. I know the time will come when I will need to leave this pod and I will need clean air to breath,” Marty said.

  “We have already done that Marty. I released them and the science pod they were in a few hours ago,” Jack said.

  There was another pause.

  “Are you saying you jettisoned number eight science module?” Marty said. He sounded anxious at this news and somewhat breathless.

  “Yes, I guess so, if that was the module they were working in; I never looked at the number.”

  “Oh my God,” he said.

  “What’s wrong Marty? Sara said.

  “We need that lab…. to counter-act the virus, they were depending on me,” he said. There was a pause and Jack looked at Sara confused and said.

  “Who was depending on you? Do you mean you were going to try and make an anti-virus after it killed everyone in your crew and everyone on earth, what would be the point?” said Jack.

  “It is needed on earth for humanity to ….recover. There are people waiting for it, they’re on an island near Vancouver. They need the anti-virus to start the renewal.”

  “The few people that are left on earth are not going to recover Marty. Those that aren’t dead soon will be,” Sara said.

  “Not all of them will die,” he said, “out of eight billion there will be millions of people all over the planet who will survive just like you and Jack did but they will never be able to reproduce without the anti-virus.”