Sea of Crises

by Marty Steere

  With mere seconds before unconsciousness, Cartwright levered his feet against the engine cover, pushed up and rammed the hatch closed. With his left hand, he dogged the handle shut, with his right, he rotated the dump valve to Auto. As he dropped to his knees, he gripped the cabin repressurization lever and switched it to the Open position. Then he reached back and flipped over his backpack. He wasn’t sure how much oxygen remained in the Personal Life Support System that made up the bulk of the pack, and he wasn’t going to take a chance. On top of the PLSS was the small compartment housing the Oxygen Purge System. He grabbed one of the flexible hoses extending from the OPS and shoved the end into one of the oxygen intake valves on the front of his suit. Then he picked up his helmet and lifted it over his head, quickly rotating it and snapping it into place. As the darkness began to descend, he pulled an actuator on the control unit mounted to his chest, heard the whir of the recirculation motor, and, after a couple of seconds, felt the most wonderful breeze he’d ever experienced, as oxygen began to fill his helmet.

  He may have blacked out for a time. He wasn’t sure. He lay slumped against the rear wall of the cabin for at least a couple of minutes, gathering strength. Finally, he raised himself and awkwardly turned, checking the readout on the ECS panel. Cabin pressure was passing through 3.5 psi. Safe enough. He shut off the emergency oxygen flow from the OPS and removed his helmet. He was going to need to deal with Gale before the man came to. If, indeed, he did actually come to.

  There was, of course, every chance Gale’s lungs had ruptured or his brain had been deprived of oxygen for too long. A selfish part of Cartwright’s mind said neither would be the end of the world. The rest of his mind knew though that he couldn’t simply leave the man to die.

  And, he thought bitterly, Gale was as strong as an ox.

  Gale had landed face down on the deck. With some effort, Cartwright rolled him over and, removing his right glove, checked for a pulse in the man’s neck. Steady. The rise and fall of Gale’s chest told Cartwright that his crewmate was still breathing regularly. It figured.

  Cartwright patted down the man’s body. He found what he was looking for almost immediately. On the right leg of Gale’s suit was a large utility pocket. Cartwright had one on his own suit, in which he carried, among other things, the emergency patch kit that he would use if either of them experienced an unexpected suit rupture. Gale’s pocket contained none of the usual equipment. Instead, it had been fitted for the handgun that Cartwright had seen at the Soviet base, padding cleverly used to conceal its shape. Cartwright withdrew the weapon and turned the thing over in his hand.

  As a boy growing up in rural Indiana, Cartwright had been exposed to guns at an early age. He’d shot his first deer when he was thirteen. It wasn’t until he arrived at the Naval Academy, however, that Cartwright had an opportunity to fire a handgun. And, it turned out, he was quite proficient at it. In the summer after his second year at the Academy, he’d shot scores that qualified him for the Marine Corps Expert Marksmanship badge in both pistol and rifle. That, however, had been a long time ago. It had been years since he’d picked up a weapon.

  This one, as he’d noticed when he first saw it at the Soviet base, was unlike any he’d seen before. There were two barrels, one on top of the other. And he now understood the reason for that. One of the barrels fired a conventional bullet, while the other was for the tranquilizer dart. He guessed that the latter was the barrel on top, as the gauge was smaller. There was, however, only a single trigger, surrounded by an oversized trigger guard shaped so as to accommodate the bulky fingers of an EVA glove. A lever on the left side of the grip could be slid up and down by a right handed shooter using his thumb, and he guessed that this set the weapon to conventional or tranquilizer mode. At the moment, the lever was down, suggesting that it was ready to fire a regular bullet. He slid the mechanism up. It moved easily, and he felt it lock in place.

  One of the most unusual aspects of the weapon was the fact that the rear of each barrel was open ended. He puzzled over that for a moment, then realized why. This gun had been designed to be fired in the vacuum of space. The recoil of a pistol was already bad enough. If a conventional handgun were fired in a vacuum, Cartwright guessed that it might hurl the shooter backwards, or worse. This weapon was designed to fire in both directions at the same time, probably a harmless discharge of gas to the rear, so as not to injure the shooter. It was a practical solution to a unique challenge.

  He hoped he wouldn’t have to use the thing, but he knew …

  A vice abruptly clamped around his throat, and his head was thrown back. Gale, his face contorted into a feral grimace, had lunged upward with both hands, flung them over the rigid ring collar of Cartwright’s suit, and locked them on both sides of his neck. The suddenness and ferocity of the attack took Cartwright completely by surprise, and the gun flew out of his hand, clattering to his left onto the metal deck. Instinctively, Cartwright reached up with both hands, gripping Gale’s wrists and pulling at them.

  Gale dug his thumbs violently into the flesh at the front of Cartwright’s neck, forcing the Adam’s apple toward the back of his throat and cutting off his windpipe. Starbursts of light flashed in the back of Cartwright’s eyes, and his body began to shake. The harder he pulled on Gale’s wrists, the stronger the man seemed to become.

  Cartwright let go with his left hand and flung it out to his side, slapping the deck in a desperate attempt to locate the gun. Nothing. His vision began to blur. He slid the gloved hand along the deck surface, searching frantically. Still nothing. He lunged and threw his hand out as far as possible, wildly sliding it back and forth in a wide arc. The tips of his fingers brushed against something hard, knocking it further away. He kicked out with both legs, trying to extend his reach. One of his boots found purchase on the side of the engine cover and, with as much force as he could muster, he pushed against it. The two men tipped sideways toward the front of the module, and Cartwright’s outstretched hand fell across a solid object. The pistol.

  The agony in his throat was unbearable. His lungs screamed for air, and darkness began to descend. His hand shaking uncontrollably, he rotated the gun on the floor until he could wrap his fingers around the grip. But, when he tried to put his index finger into the trigger guard, it wouldn’t fit, and he realized through his panic that, because the gun had been designed for a right-hander, the opening from the left side was not as wide as the right. He felt his energy wane. In desperation, he lifted the weapon and slammed it down on the deck as hard as he could. Thankfully, his finger slid in. With his last bit of strength, he yanked his hand around, pushed the gun up against the side of Gale’s head and pulled the trigger.

  #

  When Cartwright came to, he was lying face down on the deck, his right cheek pressing into cold metal. His throat burned, and his head throbbed. Moving slowly, less by choice than necessity, he slid his left hand under his shoulder, realizing as he did that the pistol was still locked in his grip. With a considerable effort, he pushed himself up.

  He had fallen across Gale’s body, which lay motionless beneath him. He turned to look at the man, idly wondering as he did whether he’d discover that the gun had blown Gale’s head off. But, no, the damned thing appeared to be intact. The man’s eyes were closed, and he looked to be sleeping, though not peacefully. A vestige of the animal-like grimace remained and his breathing was ragged. From the side of his cheek, just in front of his right ear, a small orange object protruded. The tail end of a tranquilizer dart.

  Awkwardly, Cartwright lifted himself off the unconscious man, using the edge of the engine cover for leverage, and he half threw himself onto the shallow landing, collapsing back against the two EVA backpacks. His own breathing was difficult, and, when he probed gingerly with his fingers, he found his neck raw and sore to the touch. He couldn’t say how long he lay there. A few seconds maybe. Perhaps a few minutes.

  Eventually, he made himself focus. He was, he knew, damn fortunate to be alive. He consi
dered his options. In reality, he had none. He knew exactly what he had to do. But he was going to need his strength. Just a few more minutes he told himself, and he closed his eyes, trying to will away the pain.

  Finally, he took a deep breath, forced himself up, and got to work.

  11

  Bob Cartwright had pushed the rover to its maximum speed, and, as it hit each bump in the uneven terrain, the vehicle became momentarily airborne, sailing in slow motion over the lunar surface. Then, each time the large steel-woven wheels dug back into the regolith, a fine spray of dust shot out to each side, forming perfect parabolas that remained suspended in the moon’s partial gravity until long after the vehicle had passed. Under other circumstances, Cartwright would have marveled at the sight. But he was in a hurry and had too much else on his mind.

  After he’d pulled himself together following Gale’s attack, Cartwright had set about performing a series of tasks. First, he’d recharged the oxygen and water tanks in the astronauts’ two backpacks. Then he’d tackled the difficult process of suiting up the unconscious Gale. When he was done with that, he’d awkwardly climbed into his own backpack. The exercise had taken almost an hour and had served to underscore his unwillingness to believe that the decision to tranquilize him at the Soviet base made any sense. Even given the fact that, in the Soviet enclosure, Gale would have had more room to maneuver the equipment than Cartwright had in the cramped module, it would still have been a major distraction. For that reason alone, he didn’t buy Gale’s story.

  But it begged the question: Why would Gale have shot him and then lied to him? Cartwright thought he knew the answer. The only way to be sure, though, was to return to the Soviet base.

  After he’d pressurized both of their suits, Cartwright had again dumped the atmosphere in the module, this time in a more conventional and controlled manner. Then, with difficulty, he maneuvered himself and the unconscious Gale out of the forward hatch and down the ladder to the moon’s surface. He had considered leaving Gale in the module, tethered to his hammock. He liked the symmetry the gesture would have represented. But he’d given it some thought and decided not to do it.

  He didn’t know how long Gale would be out. He figured that the tranquilizer must be fairly long-acting, because, though he couldn’t say how long Gale had lingered at the Soviet base or how long it had taken for the drug to wear off after the astronauts had arrived back at the module, he knew there had been at least enough time while he was unconscious for the man named Arthur Spelling to have made it from Alamogordo to Houston. He hoped whatever that amount of time was, it would allow him to make it to and from the Soviet base before Gale came around.

  Still, he couldn’t be sure Gale wouldn’t awaken while he was gone, and, though he felt confident he could tie Gale up sufficiently to keep him immobilized after coming to, in the back of his mind Cartwright couldn’t shake the notion that there was something unstoppable about the man. The last thing Cartwright wanted to have to do on his return was stick his head into the module not knowing whether Gale might be standing just inside the hatch with a heavy tool ready to bash in his helmet, bringing a quick and painful death.

  So he had decided to truss up Gale outside the module, where the man would be in full sight when Cartwright returned. As further protection, Cartwright had taken the pistol with him. If, by some miracle, Gale did manage to slip his bindings, Cartwright would be aware of it and at least have that advantage.

  He used the same tethers Gale had employed, the ones that had held the two astronauts in place when they were manning their crew stations during descent to the moon’s surface. He’d tied the restraints around Gale’s midsection and ankles, using knots he remembered from his second and first class summer cruises at the Academy, and he’d left the man lying by the forward leg of the lunar module.

  Ahead of him now, the sets of tracks he’d been following curved around the side of a gently sloping hillock, and, as he crested the short rise, the Soviet base came into view. At first glance, it looked the same. The exterior door to the air lock was closed, and the vessel that Kruchinkin had called Rodinia sat nearby on four stubby legs. When he looked more carefully, however, he noticed something very different. On the side of the capsule, in place of the first “C” in the initials “CCCP,” was a jagged hole, about a meter across at its widest point. Then he realized that, below the vessel, there were items that had not previously been there. As he closed the distance, those items revealed themselves to be irregularly shaped pieces of metal that appeared to be embedded in the ground. Cartwright knew immediately what had happened.

  Gale had obviously planted an explosive charge in the Soviet space ship. The blast must have been directed mostly downward, through the rocket’s engine, destroying the thing. But the explosion had also ripped a hole in the side of the vessel.

  Lying on the ground in front of the capsule were the bodies of two suited cosmonauts.

  He brought the rover to a stop in front of the enclosure and climbed out. As he bounded over, he realized that what he’d seen weren’t bodies at all, but a pair of empty space suits.

  Unlike the U.S. version, the Soviet space suit, known as the Krechet, was a one-piece affair with an integrated helmet permanently attached. The suit was entered from a rear hatch, the cover of which contained its life support system. These two suits looked to be intact, but, when Cartwright rolled one over, he saw that the helmet had been crudely caved in with a heavy object. He rotated the second suit and found it similarly damaged. If the fabric had been punctured, there might have been the possibility of patching the tears. But there was no way to repair the helmets. These suits would be of no further use to anyone.

  Cartwright straightened and turned toward the enclosure. From this side, he could now see that it, too, had a jagged hole. Apparently, whatever debris had been blown out the side of the vessel had ripped through the structure at its rear corner. Because of the angle at which the debris had struck, this hole was even larger than the one in the capsule. Knowing what he would find, but needing to see it himself, Cartwright stepped over to the side of the structure and peered in.

  Sprawled on the floor below him was the large body of Petrov, lying face up, glassy eyes staring toward the heavens. Cartwright leaned in further and turned toward the front of the enclosure, looking for the body of Kruchinkin that he knew would also be lying on the floor. To his surprise, however, he saw nothing.

  That made no sense.

  Cartwright stepped back and moved to his right, maneuvering around the damaged corner of the structure to get a better angle. He leaned in again and studied the interior. There was, he confirmed, no second body. He did notice, however, that where he’d expected to see the body was a dark stain on the floor. Could have been blood, though it was hard to tell against the dark background. Then he saw that, whatever it was, it had been smeared across the floor to a point just in front of the closed air lock hatch.

  Above the dials at the top of the hatchway, a blue light glowed.

  Cartwright took in a sharp breath and stood motionless for several seconds, considering the ramifications of what he was seeing.

  With a renewed sense of urgency, Cartwright hurried back to the rover. From the tool kit mounted behind the right seat, he withdrew a small rock pick, which he carried to the air lock hatch. With the blunt end of the tool, he tapped three times on the metal door. Then he knelt down and placed his helmet up against the door, listening intently. Nothing. In the vacuum of space, the tapping had made no sound that Cartwright could hear, but he felt certain that, from within the air lock, if it was indeed pressurized, the sound would have been audible. He wondered, though, whether the sound would be transmitted through his own helmet. He tried again, this time with his helmet still against the door, and he could, indeed, hear the sound of metal striking metal. If he could hear tapping generated from this side, he assumed he’d be able to hear it coming from the other side. There was, however, still nothing but silence.

  He
repeated the process twice more, each time receiving no reply. As he knelt in front of the hatch straining for a response, it dawned on him that, if anyone could actually see him, he’d probably look a little absurd, knocking in vain on the front door of a dwelling on the moon. Nobody’s home, Bob. He shifted his position, the pressure of the suit uncomfortable against his knees. He raised the pick to strike one more time, but, before he could do so, he stiffened. He’d heard a sound.

  Three faint taps.

  He quickly gave the door another three taps with the pick, and, again, after a few seconds, heard three more in response.

  He took a couple of steadying breaths, thinking hard. At the Naval Academy, he’d learned Morse code. As part of survival training, he’d received a series of refresher courses over the years. The code was an international form of communication. That didn’t mean the cosmonaut would be familiar with it, but there was nothing to lose. Using the head of the pick for dash and the handle for dot, he slowly tapped out a message. Do you understand me?

  There was a long delay. Then he heard a series of replying taps. They made no sense.

  He tapped again. Please repeat.

  Another long pause, then more taps. It took him a moment to process what he was hearing. Then it clicked. The Russian had signaled, I understand.

  With the pick, Cartwright inquired, Are you injured?

  The reply was short. Yes.

  Afraid of the response, Cartwright tapped, Do you have a pressure suit?