by Bonnie Doran
The do-not-resuscitate order was in place. He and Laura had written their living wills a long time ago. Didn’t think he’d need it this early, though.
Laura held his hand. She knew him well enough to give him—both of them—time to regroup. They’d expected this news, but hearing it from the doctor solidified its reality.
Worth took a shallow breath so he wouldn’t cough. “Guess we need to plan my funeral.”
Laura’s grip tightened. A tear crept down her cheek.
His mind cleared just a little, enough to reflect on his regrets and on the way God had redeemed them. God had restored his wife to him. And now God had restored his son. The miracle of their reunion awed Worth. Guess he shouldn’t have been so surprised with the miracle of forgiveness God had worked in his own life. He knew what to do to seal that forgiveness. He cleared his throat. “Give my tie to Chet. Tell him what it means.”
She nodded, accepting his last wish.
How would she cope with his death? She’d grieve, of course, but she’d bounce back, like she did in every crisis. Even with his infidelity. He’d broken sacred vows and shattered her trust, yet somehow, she’d overcome all that. She’d stuck by his side despite the media circus after Worth confessed his sin and resigned from the pastorate.
Worth stroked her hand. “It’s been a good life.” In spite of all their heartaches, it had been a good life.
There was a little money in savings and some in a retirement plan. And of course the death benefit. She’d be okay.
Before he could tell her again how much he loved her, George walked in, required mask in place.
Worth reached out, but the IV inserted in the back of his hand kept him on a short leash. He grumbled. “Can’t give you a proper greeting.”
“That’s OK.”
Laura hugged their friend. “Thanks for coming.”
“Betty’s outside. The nurses have gotten a little fussy about the rules.” George turned to Worth. “So what’s the good word?”
“Uh, I’m dying.”
Laura stood, mumbled something about needing a break, and fled. George gripped Worth’s shoulder, his eyebrows drawn down. He claimed the chair Laura vacated. “So, Laura said you wanted to talk to me.” George brandished his Bible. “You know the Scriptures better than I do, but I’m sure I could find a passage to read to you.”
The IV site throbbed. Worth rubbed the tape covering it. “No. Want to talk.”
George waited.
Worth harrumphed. George was using the same method Worth used in counseling. He sighed. It was effective.
“Well, I…uh…feel guilty.” He gasped. “Having to cancel the seminars.”
“Guilty?”
Worth gathered his sluggish thoughts. “I’ve done these seminars to atone for my sins.” He fought for another breath. “I failed God. He gave me everything.” Worth coughed until his lungs felt like they were falling out. “A loving wife, a successful ministry”—cough—“good health, even a good income. I threw it away.”
“So you think you can do better than Jesus did on the cross?” George paused a moment. “Do you believe Jesus’s sacrifice was sufficient for everything you’ve done, past, present, and future?”
Worth wheezed, hating himself. He was supposed to be a paragon of faith. Yeah, right. “Yes, but—”
“No buts. Sounds to me like you have a tiny grain of doubt in your mind.”
“More like the Sahara Desert.”
“God never condemns us for that. You changed lives through your marriage seminars. Through your preaching. Even through your public confession.” George gripped his shoulder again. “You’ll never know how many until you talk to our Lord face to face.”
Worth turned his head away. “Sooner than I expected.”
“None of us knows when we’ll die. Our job is to do what God has set before us. You have to leave it at that.”
Worth turned back to his friend. “I failed.”
The pulse ox machine beeped an alarm. Cindy the nurse stomped in, hands on hips. “You stop talking right now, Worth. Your oxygen levels are dropping.”
Cindy seemed a bit pale but otherwise recovered from the flu. Her mother-hen attitude amused Worth. She turned and strode out.
“Stubborn, aren’t you?” George’s mouth quirked. “God never gives up on us. And He has a habit of using broken vessels. You taught me that.”
His friend continued his reassurance of God’s relentless love. Worth listened. He started to drink in the grace in small sips, and his parched soul responded.
Maybe his life had counted after all.
****
Annie poked her head into the room. “May I come in?”
“Sure.” George’s exhortation had drained Worth, but he felt at peace. A weight had lifted off his spirit. If only it had removed the elephant on his chest.
Annie took a tentative step. Had she heard the conversation? He spoke in a stern voice. “Just don’t poke me with another needle.”
She chuckled. “No poking this time, I promise.” She frowned as she recorded his vitals and checked his IV drip. “Hmm. Your oxygen level is down. Have you been talking too much again?”
“Just a nice conversation with a friend.” Worth’s Bible lay on his lap. He’d read and re-read the passages George had pointed to.
“What are you reading? The Bible?” Annie grimaced.
“Trying to read a passage in Isaiah.”
“When I was a little girl, I could recite all the books of the Bible,” she murmured. Her voice softened. “Be easy on yourself. It’s the drugs.”
Worth raised a hand then dropped it. Just too heavy. “Not only the drugs.”
Annie shifted the conversation. “Do you need anything?”
“Got that new pair of lungs?”
Annie shook her head.
“Maybe some pain medication. It hurts to breathe.”
“I’ll speak to the doctor.” She headed to the door, hesitated, and walked back. “May I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“Well, I’ve been watching you, your wife, and your friends. Your attitude seems…well…different than most patients. You’re not fighting death.” Annie said it in a rush, her words tumbling like water from a broken dam. “You almost seem to welcome it.”
Worth blinked. “I’m not afraid, if that’s what you mean. I know I’ll be in Heaven the moment I leave here.”
“What if someone doesn’t believe in Heaven, or God?” A giant neon question mark punctuated her comment.
“Someone like you?”
Annie nodded.
“What do you believe?”
Annie shrugged. “You die and go into a kind of limbo. I don’t see how Heaven can be a real place. You can’t see it, and no one’s come back from the dead to talk about it, except maybe through séances, and I don’t believe in them either. How do you know Heaven exists?”
“Jesus talks about it. Look.” Frowning, he thumbed through his Bible, laid it open, and turned it toward Annie. She bent down to read the tiny print.
He pointed at one of the paragraphs. “See, it says here—”
Diane interrupted them. “Annie, I need you. Now.” She wheeled a new patient past Worth’s room.
“Sorry. Gotta go.” She brushed the page of the Bible.
“Here, take this.” He closed the Bible and held it out, arm trembling. “Read…Gospel of John.” He grunted. “New Testament.”
Annie backed away. “I can’t take your Bible.”
“Yes, you can. Please.”
Annie grasped it and mumbled her thanks.
Worth sank into his pillows, but his spirit rose. Annie would soon learn the truth about Heaven, Jesus, and a little thing called faith.
38
“Abort! Abort!”
Shorty’s finger remained poised over the abort button. He locked eyes with Dan. “We have twenty seconds to comply.”
“No way.” If NASA wanted a standoff, Dan itched t
o give them one. He’d fly through a meteorite storm if he had to.
“I’m ordering you to abort, people.” Steve’s voice boomed in Dan’s headset. “Now.”
Dan gulped. Fifteen seconds. Valiant rattled as she soared heavenward.
Ten seconds. They left the thunderclouds behind.
Five seconds. Blue sky deepened into the black of space.
The Launch Abort System had only a narrow window in which to hurl them from the main rocket. The window slammed shut. They were committed. They were gambling their lives that the instruments would stop their stubborn malfunction.
Steve growled into the mic. “People, that was a stupid decision. Your instruments are dead, and that’s just the beginning. We have no idea what else that lightning might have done. Valiant,” Steve continued in a calmer voice, “please report the instruments you show as nonfunctional.”
“Affirmative, Houston.” Shorty acknowledged the request as if his wife asked him to pick up milk and bread at the supermarket.
Dan smelled his own sweat as he glanced at the dark gauges. Maybe the flight director was right. The sole purpose of the Launch Abort System was to avoid another catastrophe like the Challenger explosion. The LAS would have rocketed them away from danger. After that, they would have jettisoned it, deployed the parachutes, and landed safely on either dirt or ocean. They would have been safe. The astronauts on the station would have been dead.
NASA could still order them to return to Earth after one orbit if the instruments didn’t come back. And the gauges hadn’t. Shorty reported the grim news to Mission Control. “Houston, I still show all instruments as nonfunctional. Everything was nominal before the strike, though, and there’s no reason to think they won’t reset. Sir.”
Dan steeled himself for a volcanic eruption. “I’m not going to lose two stubborn astronauts because they think their instruments are OK.” He wasn’t disappointed as Steve’s voice sizzled in the headphones.
Dan tried not to crack the eggs he was stomping on. “Do we really have a choice?”
Steve’s heavy sigh was Valiant’s only answer.
Dan knew they were taking a huge risk that Valiant hadn’t sustained serious damage, but the hero in him wouldn’t keep its mouth shut. “We have to keep going. We—”
“Hold it, Houston.” Shorty’s voice jolted Dan’s attention back to the instrument panel. “Looks like they’re coming back.”
“We confirm that, Valiant. Give us a minute to assess the situation.”
“Yes, sir. Awaiting orders.”
Dan’s stomach squeezed into a hard lump, even as gravity lessened its hold and stars appeared against the black of space. Now Mission Control would give them the go-ahead or calculate a trajectory for splashdown. He whispered, “Shorty, you know we have to do this.”
Shorty expelled a long breath. “Yeah. I just don’t want to become the first court-martialed astronaut.”
“You’ll have company.” Dan pursed his lips in stubborn resolve.
All the instruments flickered into existence except one. Shorty stared at the disobedient light. “Don’t know how they can clear us without that one.” He tapped the altitude display as if it were a stuck gas gauge on a sputtering Model T.
“I can fly this baby blindfolded if I have to.” Dan hoped he wouldn’t have to. His bravado was as thin as the veneer on cheap furniture.
Shorty snorted. “You’re good, but not that good. We’re so overweight with this payload, it’s a wonder we’re not making loops in space.”
“How do you know we aren’t?” Dan delivered his comment so deadpan that it took a moment for Shorty to groan.
“Very funny. You’ve been hanging around Jasper too long.”
The display light popped on just as CAPCOM Pete spoke. “Valiant, this is Houston. You are GO for rendezvous.”
Dan breathed again. “Guess we don’t have to turn renegade after all.”
Shorty signaled two thumbs up. “Roger, Houston.”
“Godspeed, gentlemen.”
We’re going to need it.
39
Hildi knocked the cobwebs out of her head as she struggled into her jumpsuit. Drug-induced slumber always left her groggy. She couldn’t have heard right. “What did you say?”
Leonid grinned. “Your brother is on the phone.”
Hildi scratched her head. This wasn’t a social call. She huffed as she glided to the radio, wondering how much extra oxygen this conversation would cost.
“Chet?”
“Hildi?”
“What’s up?” Her question came out as a challenge, but she was at her limits of endurance. Lack of sleep and air, Frank’s suicide attempt, Dan’s nearly aborted launch. Then there was the virus…
“Just listen. I’m calling from a cruise ship in the Atlantic, and I don’t know how long this ship-to-shore…uh…ship-to-shore-to-space connection will last. NASA rigged it.”
“OK.” Where in the world was this leading?
“The virus NASA’s sending you is a Canadian strain. H4N6.”
Hildi’s stomach knotted. “The one derived from reassortment?”
“Yes. The swine and avian flus.”
The one every epidemiologist dreaded would reappear. They’d been lucky last time when the strain was confined to one farm. She glanced at the blue-green Earth below her, imagining the disease spreading across the continents like the stain of death.
“Listen. I did some work on it.”
“What?” Hildi wrote furiously as Chet told her what he knew about the virus.
“One more thing. I’m apparently immune. If you are, too, you might be able to isolate the gene responsible and work on the vaccine from that angle.”
Hildi nodded. It might help. She still puzzled over his sudden desire to talk to her after avoiding her for months.
“Anything else you can tell me?”
“It’s extremely contagious, of course. You’ll need to maintain Level 4 protocol.”
Now how could she do that? Even with the new lab module installed last month, it wouldn’t be easy. “I’ll do what I can. Dan will be docking soon with the virus sample and additional equipment.”
Hildi waited for Chet’s response. Did the lull in the conversation mean he was done? Her heart sagged that she couldn’t think of anything to talk about with her own brother other than diseases.
“I took it. I took the sample,” he whispered.
Hildi’s emotions flashed between a rolling boil and sharp, icy crystals. “You stole it? What were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t.”
“You know that taking anything out of the lab is a federal crime.”
“I know.” Chet gave a defeated sigh. “It’s worse than that. I released it. I released the virus.”
“What?” Hildi’s eyes widened. She panted, not just from lack of oxygen.
“I sprayed it on the napkins at one of Dad’s seminar luncheons.”
“You idiot.” Her blood pressure rose. Francine had been right. Microbe didn’t begin to describe her brother.
“I thought I’d taken a harmless strain, just something to make him—and the other Christian hypocrites—miserable. But I picked up the wrong virus. I killed him, Hildi. Dad has HIV. He’ll die from it.” His voice had that choked sound from held-in tears.
Hildi’s anger deflated. Dad had done well with treatments, but she’d known he lived on borrowed time. She swallowed the sob that tightened her throat.
“Will you…forgive me?”
Hildi frowned, trying to understand her brother’s words. Forgive? The word was foreign to Chet’s vocabulary.
“I’d better go. Bye.”
“I do forgive you,” Hildi whispered but heard only dead air. Chet was never one for long farewells.
Joe turned to her. “Swine and avian flu together? How could that happen?”
Jasper’s mouth quirked. “Maybe they should call it the flying pig flu.”
“That’s not funny.”
Jasper ducked his head. “Sorry, Joe.”
Hildi surrendered the mic to Leonid, who gripped her shoulder before he updated Mission Control on their deteriorating condition. Then he handed the mic to Jasper. “Personal call. Your wife.”
Hildi frowned. Why was NASA suddenly arranging calls from family members? Her stomach plunged into a pit. Because NASA didn’t expect them to survive.
She looked at the notes in her hand. Chet’s information would give her a jumpstart, but creating a vaccine wouldn’t be easy. Assuming they survived until the cavalry rode to the rescue. Shorty and Dan. Dan…Enough introspection. Enough dreaming of a relationship that might never be, rescue or no rescue.
Time had turned into an enemy. We could use a couple of miracles, Lord.
Hildi rubbed her eyes. Her fun excursion into space had become a nightmarish drive on a dark, abandoned road. They’d just hurtled past the barrier marked “bridge out.”
Jasper finished his call. “Love you.” He signed off and pulled himself toward his room, sadness trailing him.
“So, you think you can hogtie this virus?” Joe’s Texas drawl was in full force despite an occasional wheeze. As if he wasn’t worried. He should be.
Hildi hovered next to a yawning Maria just emerging from slumber. “I don’t know. The powers that be think microgravity will help. We have plenty of that.” She sighed. “Doing this in weightlessness in an unfamiliar lab makes me squirm.”
Frank sped into the room. “Chet was responsible for all this? What kind of madman would poison his own family and then let death loose on the world?”
“He said he didn’t know it was lethal.”
“How can you believe that?” Frank’s face strained at the anger seams.
“C’mon, you know my brother. He’s as bitter as they get, but he’s honest.”
Before Frank could respond, another radio call interrupted them.
“ISS, this is Mission Control.” Hildi didn’t recognize the CAPCOM’s voice. Leonid handed the mic to Joe.
“Mission Control, this is ISS. Go ahead. I hope this isn’t the Astronaut Benefit Fund. I already gave at the office.” Joe’s mouth curled into a semblance of a smile.