A Step Beyond

by Christopher K Anderson

  “Slow down,” he yelled, but to no avail. The sky became fuzzy and blurred and swirled as if he had drunk too much. Moments later he lost consciousness.

  When he awoke he could not feel his leg. He attempted to sit up but his space suit would not move; he realized he was still tied to the rover. The sky had turned blood red. He attempted to look down his space suit at his leg, but all he could see was the tip of his boot. It was crusted with red dust. The boot itself appeared undamaged, and that comforted him somewhat. He wondered what life would be like if he lost the leg and had to be fitted with an artificial limb. He recalled there had been some recent advances in the field. The limb was attached to the bone at the joints and special plastics were fused to the ligaments and skin. Embedded in the plastic were microsensors that responded to signals from the brain. He would be able to move his leg and toes as if they were real.

  After a while he began to wonder if he would live. At least he was still alive, which gave him something of a chance. How far had he fallen? Two hundred meters? That could not be— even at two-fifths gravity, he would never have survived such a fall. He had a vague recollection of being pulled upward by a rope. That could only mean he had not fallen the entire distance—something short of two hundred meters. He could taste blood.

  As he ran his tongue along the inside of his mouth in search of the source, half-hoping to find a missing tooth, he noticed the rover had come to a stop. His teeth seemed to be intact. A dark mass blotted out the stars in the sky above, and for a brief moment the only thing he could see was the neon pattern at the bottom of his helmet. And then a bright, blinding light paralyzed his eyes. He shut his eyes and attempted to raise his hands to block the intruding glare, but the rope held them tightly in position. He shook his head back and forth to protest his discomfort. The light blinked off, and a white, reddish spot appeared in its place. It floated to wherever he looked and blocked from view everything but his peripheral vision. He attempted to make out the form moving beyond the spot. The ropes loosened around him and two arms grabbed him from underneath. As he was being lifted into the air, the lander swung briefly into view.

  At first it felt like someone was tapping gently on his leg. With each step the tapping became more pronounced, and the nerves in his leg began to tingle with sensation. Once again, he could feel the pain. His muscles contracted tightly. He could feel the world slipping away. His final recollection was of a metallic gray ladder ascending toward the sky. He was being carried upward.

  Carter was sprawled semiconscious on the floor of the crew quarters. He had not lost that much blood. The bone had barely broken through the skin, and the liquid cooling garment had contained the bleeding. Still, the sight under the thermal blanket covering his naked body was grotesque. His leg was multiple shades of purple and blue and was nearly twice its normal size. A weak, painful moan passed through his lips.

  The sound stopped Nelson midstride. He bent down and examined Carter’s eyelids and watched for disturbances in his breathing. When he had removed Carter’s helmet, Carter asked if he would lose his leg. The question caught Nelson by surprise, and his somewhat startled reaction undermined the confidence he had attempted to convey as he told Carter not to worry. Carter grinned painfully before slipping back into unconsciousness.

  Nelson stuck the ampule containing morphine sulfate in the injection gun and pulled the blanket away from Carter’s body. His eyes were drawn to the bloodstained wrapping that held Carter’s leg together. The leg felt unusually hot.

  “I think he has a fever,” Nelson said.

  “That is to be expected,” Dr. Endicott replied. He was looking down at the two from the screen on the wall.

  The muscles in Carter’s body visibly relaxed as the morphine entered his bloodstream.

  “You’ll need to set the leg now,” Endicott said.

  Nelson paused to gather his strength. The most difficult part was about to begin. He forced himself to look at the leg, and to think of it only in terms of what had to be done. The bone, one end of which he could see pressed against the wrapping, had to be positioned back in place. He recalled how detached Endicott had been during Brunnet’s operation. It was then he noticed that Carter’s eyes were partially open and that the black balls behind the lids were rolling back and forth as if the muscles that held them steady had been severed.

  A sense of well-being came over Carter, and he no longer felt any pain. He was floating in a bed of feathers. His body tingled with pleasure. He could see Nelson in the distance and wondered why he looked so concerned. Oh yes, his leg, it was broken. A compound fracture Endicott had said. It would be better soon. No need to look so concerned, Tom. His mind drifted to more pleasing things, the girl Tatiana and her pointy breasts and how they poked against the thin fabric of her blouse. He descended to the warm wonderful wetness between her legs and lingered. He desired to be next to her, and wondered, half-amused, how she was taking the separation from her husband. A healthy, young woman like that should not be away from her husband for too long, he said to himself. Nature abhors a void, he giggled. His eyes floated over to Nelson, who was in desperate need of humor. He decided to share his insight.

  “What?” Nelson asked, gliding forward.

  His second attempt to speak met with even less success. He giggled at the sounds that bubbled from his mouth and his own inability to make sense of them.

  “He’s trying to say something,” Nelson said, looking up at Endicott for guidance.

  “The morphine has impaired his motor skills. It’s a perfectly normal reaction.”

  Carter listened as the two men talked. He couldn’t understand why they didn’t talk directly to him. Music would be nice, he thought, and closed his eyes. He was pleasantly surprised by the explosion of colors that greeted him.

  Candor Chasma

  As Vladimir Mikelovich Pavlov emerged from the airlock, he looked down past his dangling feet and saw floating beneath them a golden red ball. The ball seemed unreal. His eyes focused at the point he knew his crew members to be, the western edge of the canyon Valles Marineris. He thought of Tatiana and wondered what she would think if he simply fell out of the sky and crashed into the ground. But he knew that would be impossible. Even if he could somehow break orbit and swan dive toward the surface, his body would be nothing but ashes by the time it reached the ground. Perhaps a few would blow in her direction. The pain it would bring was tempting. He detached his safety tether and released his hold from the spaceship, but nothing happened—he remained stationary relative to the spaceship. This could go on for some time, he thought with a wry grin as he gazed down at the red ball beneath his feet.

  He reattached the tether and twisted around until he was facing the interior of the airlock. With both hands gripped tightly around the metal handholds, he looked up. Fifty meters away, darkened by the fires of aerocapture, the supply ship of the ill-fated Volnost hung above him. It looked cold and dead. Vladimir did not believe in ghosts or even in life after death; all the same, the ship loomed overhead as if it might be haunted by the spirits of the dead cosmonauts. He knew this to be irrational. The objective of the EVA was to board the supply ship and photographically record its condition and determine, if possible, why the power supply had died two years earlier.

  Hand over hand, Vladimir pulled himself toward the manned maneuvering unit. He had been looking forward to this moment. It would be like entering an abandoned house or a wartime submarine that had been scuttled and forgotten. It rekindled memories of his childhood, when he and his best friend had explored the wreck of an old train. The interior had been a labyrinth of twisted metal and broken glass. He remembered the rusty springs that poked through the fabric of the cushions and how when touched they wobbled back and forth with a low, vibrating tone that sounded like the moans of a dying man. That was how his best friend described the sound. There were decomposed beams that would break apart when kicked, and they made a great show of their karate skills. It wasn’t until later in the day�
��the sun had already started to set and the air was growing cold—that they discovered the old crate with holes drilled into the sides. It did not appear to have ever been opened. They peered into the holes but could not see anything but a musty darkness. They imagined great treasures and told each other what they would purchase first and promised they would never let the other fall upon hard times. They took turns striking the box with a large metal rod, which required most of their strength just to lift. It was Vladimir who delivered the destructive blow. The box crumbled inward with a large roar and produced a mushroom cloud of dust that made them wonder if he had set off a hidden explosive. At first it appeared to be empty, so they kicked the rubble, and to their horror they discovered a skeleton. It was the remnants of a dog and strands of wiry hair still clung to the skull. They ran from the train screaming, but soon lost their breath and collapsed on the ground laughing. The discovery excited them tremendously. They felt they should notify the local authorities or a museum curator, but decided against either because they feared they might get into trouble. Vladimir, who had no religious inclinations but had been to several funerals, decided it would be proper to bury the bones.

  Upon reaching the manned maneuvering unit, Vladimir slipped his boots into the foot restraints. The MMU was attached to the wall of the airlock. It stood 123 centimeters high, 82 centimeters wide, and 68 centimeters deep, and looked, with its metallic latches and assortment of interfaces and modules, as if it would be more appropriately worn by a robot. Its total mass with full propellant load was 143 kilograms. An inspection checklist popped onto Vladimir’s heads-up display. He flipped the main power switch in the top left-hand corner of the MMU. Several small lights and an active-matrix display flickered on. He verified that the battery was fully charged and the fuel tanks had sufficient nitrogen. He methodically went through the remainder of the list.

  “Visual inspection complete,” he announced several minutes later.

  “Proceed,” Komarov replied.

  Vladimir extended the arms of the unit by pulling down on them. He removed his boots from the foot restraints and turned around until he was facing away from the MMU. He stepped backwards into the outstretched arms of the unit. A message appeared on his heads-up display indicating the MMU was secured. He undid the safety tether. He walked to the edge of the portal and, looking down at the planet beneath him, jumped out into space. The sensation reminded him of skydiving. He was floating away from the spacecraft and would continue floating until some force intervened. In grade school, Vladimir’s teacher had used marbles to demonstrate the Newtonian laws of motion. But the marbles, once launched, would always stop rolling within a few short seconds. He, on the other hand, would fall into orbit and would not stop revolving around the red planet for several years—not until his orbit decayed. He felt cheated that he would only be able to enjoy the first seven hours, the point at which his primary life-support system would fail.

  “Pitching upward.”

  He pushed up on the joysticklike knob that controlled the pitch and yaw of the MMU. His body rotated until it was facing the supply ship. He then pressed the left-hand control, which controlled straight-line motion, and several tiny thrusters at the rear of the MMU fired. He released the control, the thrusters stopped, and his body continued forward at a constant velocity. There was nothing to do but wait and perhaps make an occasional adjustment.

  As the supply ship slowly grew larger, he had time to contemplate what he might find inside. It should look much the same as it had when it was launched. The exterior, of course, would be dented with the impact of micrometeoroids, but the inside should not have changed. The food would not be safe to eat because of its long exposure to radiation. He was to bring a few packages back for study by the scientists on Earth. He was also to bring back water and samples of the plants. They wanted him to determine why the power had failed. He was curious himself. The most critical system on a spaceship was its power supply—many of the other systems were dependent upon it.

  The supply ship, which required only a fraction of the power necessary to run the Druzhba, was powered by photovoltaic blankets mounted on arrays outside the ship. The energy captured by the solar cells in the blankets was stored in series of sodium-sulfur batteries located underneath the flooring. The system was simple—there were no moving parts—and should not have failed. But it had.

  As the details of the ship emerged, now twenty meters distant, he searched the hull for damage from micrometeoroids, even though the ship was still smaller than the enlarged image he had viewed through the telescopic systems on the Druzhba. At ten meters, he started firing small bursts of nitrogen to send him to the far side. As he circled the dead craft—it had no more life than an asteroid—his breathing grew shallow. He was unable to detect any visible evidence of damage and decided he needed to move in closer.

  “Approaching the ship,” he announced. He pushed the left-hand control forward, and a burst of nitrogen sent him in the direction of the spacecraft. At three meters from the hull he was able to make out one or two dents that had been inflicted by micrometeoroids, but none so deep they might have damaged the power supply. “Commencing close inspection.”

  “Very good,” Komarov replied.

  With his hands, he pushed back from the ship and made his way around it with the MMU, maintaining a range of one to two meters. He inspected the hull for thirty minutes, the time allotted by the mission planners, and found nothing more than a few dents. He was not surprised. The Russian Space Agency scientists had said the answer would most likely lie inside.

  “No evidence of external damage,” he said.

  “Proceed with entry,” Komarov instructed.

  There was something about Komarov’s tone that annoyed Vladimir. It sounded somewhat smug. He wondered how close Tatiana was standing next to him, if she was close enough that her skin touched his. A burst of nitrogen sent him toward the hull. Using the metallic rungs that served as handholds, he worked his way toward the airlock hatch. In a cavity next to the hatch was a long red lever with a warning stenciled beneath it.

  “Perhaps you should knock first,” Komarov said jokingly.

  “I’m afraid someone might answer.” Vladimir could distinguish Tatiana’s voice from the others as she laughed. He gripped the lever firmly in both hands and pulled down. The hatch moved slightly as the lock disengaged. Pausing to consider what he might find, he recalled the abandoned train and the box with the dog’s skeleton. He pushed open the hatch. A cone of light, originating from his left shoulder, revealed a compartment almost identical to the one he had just left.

  “Anyone home?” he said. Although they all knew there was no reason to wait for a response, they all did. The compartment seemed remarkably new, as if it had never been used. He turned his back to the mounting frame for the MMU and grabbed the large mushroom knobs on either side of him. He pushed himself backward into the locking mechanism.

  A message appeared across his visor indicating the MMU was properly mounted. He threw the latch to unlock the MMU from his space suit. Drifting into the middle of the compartment, he swiveled his upper torso to look back through the portal. There were several stars and a blue dot he knew to be Earth. The blue dot looked a long way away. He closed the hatch and pushed himself toward the other end of the airlock. He would have to raise the pressure in the airlock to match that of the main compartment—the pressurization system was mechanical and did not require electrical power to function. He adjusted the pressure knob to one hundred kilopascals, and thought of Tatiana as he watched the gauge rise. It took about three minutes.

  “Opening the hatch to the main compartment,” he said as he slipped his boots into the floor restraints.

  The compartment beyond the portal was a cylindrical corridor, just large enough to accommodate a man, and ran the length of the ship. It was identical to the full-scale model he had practiced with on Earth. Along the walls of the corridor were rows of white drawers, each neatly labeled in black Cyrilli
c type. The type formed long thin lines that stretched the length of the tunnel and converged at the far end. It created an optical illusion that made the corridor seem much longer than it actually was. No end was up, and that was disorienting. To Vladimir the neatness of the compartment seemed out of place. It reminded him of a crematorium.

  He was to open only certain drawers. They had been selected by the Russian Space Agency for their scientific value. There was not time to open them all, and for the most part it would have only been redundant. Most of the drawers contained food supplies that did not vary much from one to the next. He was to inspect their condition and bring back samples. The first drawer slid open without resistance. Inside were silver and gold packages immaculately wrapped. They appeared undisturbed. He held a gold package up to his visor and slowly turned it around until the label was facing him. BELUGA CAVIAR.

  Now that was something he had not eaten in quite some time, and the thought of the Russian delicacy appealed to him. Next to it he found some black bread and pickled mushrooms.

  “I could prepare quite a feast with all of this,” he said. “Vladimir,” Tatiana said disapprovingly.