Starclimber

by Kenneth Oppel

  The Russian scientist shrugged. “Damaged traction arm can be repaired once we get back to earth. Remember, external rollers are supplementary grip only. As long as internal rollers function, we are fine.”

  “We need to assess those internal rollers,” Shepherd said.

  “Difficult,” I said. The shaft was no more than three feet across, and taken up entirely with the roller mechanics.

  “We’ll need to go outside and shine some light into the cable shaft,” said the captain. “See what kind of shape they’re in.”

  “The ship’s still holding on, though?” said Sir Hugh nervously.

  “Yes, yes, of course,” said Dr. Turgenev. “But we are still weightless. Once gravity takes hold, we need excellent grip to make safe descent.”

  This was a sobering thought. As we got closer to earth, the Starclimber would get heavier. It would want to accelerate and plummet.

  “We’ll need to clear it all away,” said Shepherd. “Some of those barnacles on the cable look wickedly sharp.”

  “How much of it is there?” Tobias asked.

  “We won’t know till we go outside,” I said.

  “Must we disturb it?” Kate asked, frowning.

  “It depends if you want to get home, Miss de Vries,” I said. She didn’t seem to understand how serious this could be.

  “We won’t get much done, floating around and swatting at the stuff,” said Shepherd. “We need some way of gripping on so we can get some leverage.”

  Everyone thought about this for a moment.

  “I know,” said Tobias. “The spare roller grips. You could clamp a set onto the cable, wherever you want to work, then tether it to your suit harness. That should hold you steady. Pretty easy to rig up. Half an hour, tops.”

  I nodded in admiration. “That sounds good.”

  “Excellent, Mr. Blanchard,” said Captain Walken. “Can you get two ready, please. Mr. Cruse and Mr. Shepherd, start your prebreathe.”

  “We forget something very important,” said Dr. Turgenev suddenly. “We cannot have astralnauts touch cable.”

  I looked at Tobias and let out a breath. Of course Dr. Turgenev was right. We’d be electrocuted instantly.

  “I’ll radio Ground Station and ask them to shut down the current,” said Captain Walken.

  “Is that wise?” asked Miss Karr.

  “Our batteries can take care of the ship for six hours,” I told her. “Ground Station can turn off our power for a few hours without any problem.”

  I meant to be reassuring, but I can’t say I liked the idea of our power being flicked off twenty thousand miles away. What if nothing happened when they flicked it back on?

  “Can you bring back some samples, please?” Kate asked Shepherd. I noticed she didn’t ask me.

  “Yes,” agreed Sir Hugh. “That would be most valuable indeed.”

  “I’m sure we can manage it,” Shepherd said.

  Chef Vlad poked his head out from the kitchen. “And perhaps an extra smattering of something for me. I would like very much like to try working them into a new recipe.”

  Shepherd and I glided away from the Starclimber. Our homemade cable-gripping rigs trailed from our suits. It was now midmorning above the Pacificus. The sun was behind us and provided all the light we needed. We had an excellent view of the cable directly beneath the ship, enveloped in a coral reef in the midst of an endless black ocean.

  “Seems to trail off after about fifty feet,” I said to Shepherd over my radio.

  Why it had formed right here I had no idea; I was just relieved it didn’t stretch out for hundreds of miles. With little bursts from our air pistols we carefully propelled ourselves closer. It was difficult to see the cable itself, the astral vegetation was so thick and bristly. We came to a complete stop a foot or two from the outer tendrils.

  “Let’s see how strong these things are,” said Shepherd.

  From our tool pouches we extracted crowbars. Very lightly I tapped the end of mine against a vermillion tendril. Soundlessly a large section snapped off, twirling like a baton through space.

  “Brittle,” I said.

  Shepherd smashed a few tendrils. “Should be able to clear this away pretty fast,” he said confidently.

  “It’s the barnacle things that worry me,” I said.

  “My concern as well,” came Captain Walken’s voice from the bridge. “But first inspect the internal rollers, please.”

  It seemed a shame to cut down the crystalline flora, but there was no other way to get to the ship’s stern. In ten minutes we’d cleared a path. I remembered to push a few tendrils into the small specimen pouch clipped to my belt.

  “We’re at the stern,” Shepherd reported to the captain. “Could you confirm the power’s shut off?”

  “The power is off, Mr. Shepherd,” said the captain. “You’re safe to make contact.”

  I looked at the cable, a gold ribbon no wider than my hand. Seeing it up close, I felt a spasm of unease. This was all that kept us tethered to earth. It looked like something you could snip with a good pair of scissors.

  All along its surface sparkled pale astral barnacles, some no bigger than blisters, others the size of my fist. Sea barnacles, I knew, used strong cement to fasten themselves. I hoped these ones wouldn’t be so hard to dislodge.

  Holding my breath, I gripped the cable. Through my thick glove I could actually feel a faint warmth, the residue of the powerful current it had carried just moments ago.

  “I’ll take a look inside the shaft,” I said.

  “I’ll get started cleaning up,” said Shepherd

  Using the cable as a guide, I pulled myself up to the opening and peered inside. My helmet lamp illuminated the complicated system of rollers that gripped the cable as it passed through the Starclimber’s center. I could properly see only the first set of rollers, since they blocked my view of those behind.

  “How does it look, Mr. Cruse?” Captain Walken asked.

  “I’m seeing some scoring on the treads,” I told him. “But they don’t look too bad.”

  “Any cracks or tears?”

  “No. There’s a bit of debris in there, ground-up astral flora, but I can’t see any broken machinery.”

  “Very good, Mr. Cruse. Proceed with the cleanup.”

  I turned myself around. About ten feet down, Shepherd had already clamped Tobias’s rig onto the cable and was sitting astride it, facing the ship. He was hooking the tethers from the rig to his space suit harness, front and back. The back one was a bit tricky, but he got it after a couple of tries.

  It took me about five minutes to get my own rig fastened, closer to the ship. I decided to sit on the opposite side of the cable from Shepherd, so we could clear both surfaces at the same time.

  I got to work with my crowbar, knocking away the spindly stuff first, then the spongy stuff, and leaving the barnacles for last. There were plenty of them.

  Dr. Turgenev had promised that the cable could take all our scraping and chopping. But I still felt hesitant as I chipped away at the sloped sides of the barnacles. I didn’t want to break anything.

  “These things are really glued on,” Shepherd muttered across from me. “Hang on…I think I’ve got it…“He gave a grunt as one of the barnacles shot off. “There we go,” he said with satisfaction.

  I pried hard and one of mine popped off too.

  “How are you two making out?” Tobias asked from the air lock.

  “Good progress,” Shepherd said, which I thought was quite optimistic since there were fifty feet of barnacles to clear.

  We worked away. By now I’d cleared about a foot of barnacles and noticed that the cable underneath looked strangely tarnished. Probably it was just discolored by the glue. I bent closer.

  The normally smooth surface was pockmarked.

  Panic bloomed within me. I stared at the cable, and a little bit of it sparkled. It took me several seconds to realize the light wasn’t coming from the cable but through it. There was a tiny
pinprick hole in the astral cable, and starlight was blinking through from the other side.

  “Shepherd,” I said.

  “I think I can get this whole bunch off at once, Cruse,” he said.

  I looked over in horror to see him with his crowbar wedged deep into a big barnacle cluster, ready to lever it up.

  “Shepherd, wait!”

  Too late. He brought his force down on the crowbar, and the entire colony of barnacles snapped off as one and went sailing into space.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “There’s a hole in the cable.”

  “Mr. Cruse, will you repeat that please?” came Captain Walken’s voice.

  “The barnacles, their glue, or whatever it is, it’s corrosive. It’s…”

  “Damn it…” murmured Shepherd, peering at the stretch of cable he’d just exposed between us. “It’s like it’s been scored with acid.”

  I now saw little fissures in it, like cracks in ice.

  “Mr. Cruse, is the cable intact?” the captain asked urgently.

  “It’s intact, but badly damaged,” I said, not recognizing my own numb voice. “We pried off some barnacles, and the surface underneath is splintered….” I wasn’t thinking clearly anymore. “We’re going to need Tobias out here to do some welding. It…. it doesn’t look at all strong….”

  “Return to the ship now!” said Captain Walken. “Mr. Blanchard, bring them back in.”

  “Hold up, Blanchard,” said Shepherd. “We’ve got to get out of our rigs.”

  We both started fumbling with our harness tethers.

  I couldn’t keep my eyes off the cable. It had always seemed terribly thin to me, but now, pitted and cracked, it looked as frail as cobweb. I thought of the counterweight whirling around the earth, and Ground Station anchored in the earth’s bones, and the tremendous strain upon the taut cable in between.

  And as my eyes skittered nervously along its surface, I saw one of the whisker-thin fissures stretching out across the cable’s width.

  “It’s breaking!” I shouted.

  Shepherd looked down just as the cable split, and we both instinctively reached for it with our gloves, clumsily trying to hold it together. For one impossible moment it seemed to work.

  We gripped the cable from opposite sides with our hands, holding heaven to earth.

  But then a gap opened, at first no more than a finger’s width—and it was almost comical, for the gap seemed such a little thing. You could mend it with needle and thread.

  The two ends began to slide away from each other, for the Starclimber was bound to the counterweight, which was moving much faster than earth, and now it had broken free.

  Shepherd and I were still tethered to the cable—me on the ship’s side of the gap, Shepherd on earth’s side.

  “Your straps!” I shouted. “Just cut them!”

  I reached my hand out to him, but he was already too far away.

  I saw his umbilicus, racing out from the air lock to keep up with him. He fumbled for his knife.

  “Shepherd’s getting left behind!” I shouted.

  He was already so far away from me.

  “His umbilicus is running out!” I heard Tobias yell.

  “Shepherd, hurry!” I gasped.

  “Help!” he cried out, his voice hoarse with terror.

  I saw his umbilicus stretch taut, then recoil, looping back on itself, the end ripped clean out of Shepherd’s suit. His oxygen spewed into outer space. His silver suit crumpled as it lost all its pressure.

  “Stop!” I shouted madly. “We’ve got to go back for Shepherd!”

  “Matt, get inside!” commanded the captain. “He’s gone!”

  I heard Shepherd call out again for help, his voice crackling with static.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Matt, I’m going to reel you in, are you ready!” Tobias barked. “Are you ready?”

  My shaking fingers couldn’t manage my harness tethers, so I just unclamped the entire roller rig from the cable. I thought I heard Shepherd’s voice once more over the radio, but I was sobbing and could not make out his words. I felt the tug on my umbilicus, drawing me back toward the Starclimber. I couldn’t see Shepherd anymore, but I could not stop myself imagining what was happening to him, his body losing heat and oxygen and going cold as ice and colder still as he was dragged homeward.

  CUT LOOSE

  As the air lock pressurized, I started shaking so badly inside my suit I thought I was going to fly apart. Tobias placed his hands on my shoulders. I couldn’t see his face, and he couldn’t see mine, but his steady grip calmed me, and my trembling eased.

  “His umbilicus ripped right out,” I panted when Tobias removed my helmet. “He couldn’t get out of his harness fast enough.”

  “I should’ve made the straps easier to undo,” he said, looking as sick as I felt.

  “It happened so fast. The cable snapped and he was already out of reach, like he was being dragged. There was no way of stopping it.”

  “It’s really broken?” Tobias said.

  “It’s really broken.”

  When we got up to B-Deck, Kate and Miss Karr and Sir Hugh were in the lounge, chatting, and I realized they didn’t know what had happened yet. For them, everything was still all right, and I shut my eyes and wished I could be them, even for just ten seconds.

  Captain Walken and Dr. Turgenev floated hurriedly down from the bridge, both looking very grave.

  “What’s happened?” Kate demanded.

  “Where’s Mr. Shepherd?” Miss Karr asked.

  “The barnacles ate through the cable,” I said.

  “You mean it’s broken?” Sir Hugh said, his voice rising.

  “Yes,” said the captain.

  “Well, can it be fixed?” asked Miss Karr. “And where is Mr. Shepherd?”

  “Mr. Shepherd—” I began, and could not speak. I felt like a fist had tightened around my throat. Tears sprang to my eyes and drifted through the air in tiny spheres.

  “Oh, no,” Kate gasped, her hands flying to her mouth.

  “Mr. Shepherd died outside,” the captain said. “When the cable broke, he was dragged away from the ship. His lifeline snapped.”

  “How horrible,” whispered Miss Karr.

  “Poor man,” said Dr. Turgenev.

  “Did he have any family?” Sir Hugh asked. “He never talked much about himself.”

  “I know he was engaged,” I said, choking out the words.

  For a few moments no one could say anything. I kept seeing Shepherd’s space suit crumpling up, hearing his voice dissolve into crackles over my radio.

  “And what’s to become of the rest of us?” Sir Hugh asked quietly.

  “This moment,” Dr. Turgenev said, “we are still attached to counterweight. Only now, counterweight is not attached to earth. It has flown free.”

  “Will it stay in orbit?” Kate asked.

  Dr. Turgenev shook his head. “It has great deal of velocity and will soon break out of orbit.”

  “And take us with it,” I said numbly.

  “You mean deeper into space?” Miss Karr asked.

  “Correct,” said Dr. Turgenev. “Eventually out of solar system altogether.”

  Sir Hugh’s face lost all its remaining color, and his chest rose and fell heavily, as though he were sobbing.

  “We need to get off the cable,” said Captain Walken.

  Sir Hugh looked at him, horrified. “But then nothing will be holding us up!”

  “We don’t need holding up right now,” I said, starting to feel more in control of myself. “We’re still weightless.”

  “Why can’t we get ourselves back onto the other half of the cable?” said Sir Hugh. “That’s what we should be doing!”

  “This would be unwise,” said Dr. Turgenev. “It will be swiftly dragged back to earth. With us riding it, it falls out of control all the faster. No. Captain is correct, we need to get off cable.”

  “Will w
e keep orbiting earth?” I asked the scientist.

  “We are at twenty thousand miles now,” he said. “No longer in geosynchronous orbit. Even as we speak we accelerate into decaying orbit.”

  “Decaying?” said Miss Karr, sounding fed up. “Dr. Turgenev, I’d like a little more plain talk here. Meaning what?”

  Dr. Turgenev started polishing his spectacles with great ferocity. “Meaning eventually we get pulled back into earth’s atmosphere at enormous velocity and burn up like shooting star.”

  “No…” moaned Sir Hugh, his large hands gripping his head.

  “How long will we have?” Captain Walken asked.

  “Perhaps several days, but battery will run out long before.”

  I swallowed. I’d not thought of this. Severed from Ground Station, we were no longer getting electricity. At the end of six hours we’d be without light, or heat, or the power to pump oxygen through the ship. We’d freeze to death and suffocate before Earth pulled us back to her.

  “Can we radio Ground Station for help?” Kate asked.

  “The cable was our antenna,” I said. “We’ve lost contact.”

  “Start shutting off everything that’s not necessary,” said Captain Walken. “Lights, any machinery we don’t absolutely need. Mr. Blanchard, come with me, please. We need to move the Starclimber off the cable.”

  The two of them jetted up to the bridge, and I was left with the others. We silently floated about, switching off all the lights on B-Deck. Dr. Turgenev and Kate went down to the lab to turn off any scientific apparatus that wasn’t essential.

  I heard the ship’s rollers humming and felt queasy, for I knew exactly what was happening. I saw it all in my mind’s eye. The severed end of the astral cable was disappearing up into the Starclimber’s central shaft, past the rollers in C-Deck, past B-Deck and A-Deck. And now the cable was coming out through the bow, where the spidery external arms had their final grip on it before it slipped through into empty space. It hung above the glass dome for a moment, forever out of reach, and then swiftly disappeared. My heart pounded.

  Nothing held us now.

  We were all alone, adrift.