by Tom Abrahams
The boys were in the tent a few feet away. They’d fallen asleep after some resistance and negotiations for an early wake-up call.
Rick only relented to their demands because none of their watches or phones were working. There was no way they’d wake up early. At least he hoped that was the case.
“Hey,” a timid voice whispered through the trees behind Rick. “Sorry to bother you. You got a second?”
Rick squinted to see an older man standing at the clump of pines separating his campsite from the one next to it. His hands were stuffed into his pockets. His eyes were peering over the tops of reading glasses, and he was bald. The red aura reflected off the smooth dome of his head.
Rick pushed his boot onto the tire and forced himself straight onto both feet. He moved toward the visitor.
“What’s up?” Rick asked. “You need something?”
The man pulled up his loose-fitting pants with his hands still in the pockets. His long-sleeved shirt was buttoned to the collar. “I don’t reckon I need anything,” he said in a slow, deliberate drawl. “I just wanted to take a survey.”
“Yeah?”
The man pulled his hand out and offered it to Rick. “I’m Mumphrey,” he said. “I’m here all the time. Grandkids love the place. I come on my own sometimes.”
Rick shook the man’s bony, frail grip. “I’m Rick.”
The man let go of Rick’s hand and fingered his glasses higher onto his thin nose. He stretched his face, making a perfect oval with his lips as he adjusted the frames. His movement, like his speech, reminded Rick of a wise old turtle working as fast as it could.
Rick folded his arms across his chest. “A survey, you said?”
Mumphrey’s forehead wrinkles deepened. “I’ve got some concerns, that’s all. I already checked with my neighbor on the other side and figured I might pick your brain too.”
Rick shrugged. “Go ahead.”
“I’ve got a camper,” said Mumphrey, nodding toward his site. “It’s a little pop-up. Ain’t much. But it’s enough space for me and the grandkids. Like I said, they come with me most times.”
“I saw it earlier,” said Rick. “Looks nice.”
A sheepish smile stretched across the old man’s face. “Thanks,” he said. “I try to keep it up. You know, clean and all. It’s easy to let something like a pop-up go to pot.”
“I’m sure.”
“It’s got an icebox, a little microwave too. The grandkids like popcorn. So it’s good for that.”
“I’ll bet.”
Mumphrey leaned toward Rick, his eyes big behind the slipping black frames of his glasses. “Well,” he said, “none of it’s working. Plum broke. Icebox, microwave, everything. Nothing’s working. I checked fuses; I tried shore power on them little posts they got at the sites. Nothing.”
“You have a generator?”
Mumphrey nodded. “It’s a nice little Honda EU 2000. Got a computer inverter on it for laptops and whatnot. It won’t start.”
Rick glanced back to the aurora. “Huh.”
Mumphrey crossed his arms and scratched his pointy elbow. He looked like he was playing an instrument. “I’m asking if you got any problems like that. I asked the other neighbor too.”
“What did he say?”
“She.”
“What did she say?”
“She’s by herself,” he said. “I think she’s an athlete or something. She was sitting at the picnic table, looking at the sky. I think I might have startled her. But I asked her.”
Rick took a deep breath through his nose and bit the inside of his lip. Mumphrey seemed like a nice enough guy. “What did she say?”
“Her car wouldn’t start. Her phone was dead. She was a tick nervous, I think. That’s why I think I startled her. She does have a flashlight that works, though.”
“Our flashlights are working too. You said she was an athlete?”
“Yeah. She’s real fit looking. She has one of them stickers on the back of her car. It’s got numbers on it, like a marathon or something.”
“What about your phone, Mr. Mumphrey? Is it working?”
The old man smiled and raised a finger into the air. “Come to think of it,” he said, “I ain’t checked it yet.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a phone. He flipped it open and stared at it.
“Doesn’t work?”
Mumphrey looked over the tops of his glasses. “I’ll be,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s deader than a doornail.”
“My phone doesn’t work either,” said Rick. “None of ours do.”
The old man cocked his head to the side. “Ours? You got somebody with you? Sorry if I’m intruding and all. Just wanted to take a survey.”
“My boy and his friend.”
“I bet they like it here.”
“They do.”
“All right then,” said Mumphrey. “Just wondering what’s going on. That’s all.”
Rick smiled. “No problem. If you need anything, you let me know.”
“Nothing yet,” said Mumphrey. “I might need help starting that woman’s car in the morning. You got jumper cables?”
“I do,” said Rick. “Happy to help.”
Mumphrey nodded and waved goodbye. He trudged back to his pop-up. Rick rubbed his chin with his hand, the idea of an EMP sparking again in his mind.
The lines in his forehead deepened as he considered the implications of an EMP, of a prolonged loss of power. There were various causes, a nuclear attack being one of them.
He couldn’t, didn’t want to, wrap his head around the idea of war. It couldn’t be that. They’d already know if the Russians, the Chinese, North Koreans, or Iranians had bombed them.
Wouldn’t we?
He pushed the thought from his mind and looked back at the aurora. Maybe this wasn’t a foreign power exerting its will, but rather Mother Nature. It was some sort of geomagnetic storm. That would explain the aurora.
Wouldn’t it?
Rick felt the sting of fatigue in his eyes. He yawned. There was nothing he could do. He might as well try to sleep.
He walked over to the tent and unzipped the entry flap. Inside, hanging from the center of the pitch on a vinyl tab was a circular LED light. It was attached with a carabiner and swung a bit when Rick spread the flap open and squeezed into the space.
The swinging light gave Rick a good look at both boys. They were neck deep in their sleeping bags. His son wore a beanie to cover his head.
Rick lowered himself onto all fours and rolled over to sit on the edge of his sleeping bag. He slipped off his hiking boots one at a time and pushed them to the corner of the tent before reaching up to turn off the light.
He slid into his own bag and pulled it up to his chest and closed his eyes, feeling the bubble of air seep from the quilted polyester. Regardless of the cause of the power outage, his gut told him it wouldn’t be short-lived. He’d need his rest.
Saturday would be a long day.
CHAPTER 4
MISSION ELAPSED TIME:
72 DAYS, 4 HOURS, 23 MINUTES, 43 SECONDS
249 MILES ABOVE EARTH
Clayton was sick of waiting. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t give physics and biology the time they needed. His friends were in danger of dying, if not dead already, and his family was grappling with an apocalypse. The faster he got outside, the faster he could get back and go home.
He stared at the Russian Orlan suit, an MKS model. It was semirigid, which made it easier to don. He could suit up by himself. If he’d had to use an American suit, he’d be stuck. Those took two people to outfit. With the Orlan, he could prep alone in a half hour.
Clayton considered the task ahead and cursed. He could die by trying to rescue to men who might already be dead. An image of Jackie flashed in his mind. He could hear her voice pleading with him to forego the rescue mission and climb into the Soyuz.
The astronaut always buried the black rot in his gut that told him he was selfish. He was an adventurer, an
adrenaline-seeker, an avid outdoorsman. Those were all code words for someone who cared only about himself, without thinking about the consequences his needs had on those around him.
His mind drifted to a conversation he’d had with Jackie a couple of weeks before leaving for Moscow. He could remember every word, the glisten in her eyes, the tight grip of her fists as she spoke through a clenched jaw.
“I didn’t ask for this,” she’d said. “I didn’t marry an astronaut. I fell in love with an engineer. A safe, boring, brilliant engineer. This wasn’t part of the deal. You blowing up in a rocket wasn’t written in our vows.”
He’d been sitting on the foot of the bed, listening without interruption. He knew better than to argue. He’d been married long enough and she’d been making salient points.
She was standing as far away from him as she could and still be in the room. “I knew you liked parasailing and hiking and crap like that, but that’s not space travel.”
Against his better judgment, he’d put a finger to his lips. “The kids will hear you.”
Her eyes widened with rage. “I don’t care if the whole neighborhood hears me!” she’d blasted. “The children are more frightened than I am. Chris keeps talking about Apollo One and Challenger and Columbia. Marie has asked what we do if you die in space and there’s nothing to bury.”
Clayton had slumped where he sat, each word stinging more than the last.
“It doesn’t help that they watch these stupid movies with astronauts dying on asteroids or on Mars,” she’d said. “And with YouTube…”
Her face had gone from anger to worry. Tears had streaked down her face. Without saying anything, Clayton stood from the bed and moved quietly to her, his arms outstretched.
She’d backed away, then relented, the tight balls of her fists relaxing and then gripping his shoulders when he embraced her. They’d cried together. Clayton could still feel the syncopated rise and fall of their chests and backs as they’d wept.
Seconds had turned to minutes before they’d let go of one another. Jackie had searched his eyes, he remembered. He’d wondered then, and now, what she’d hoped to find.
He’d swallowed hard and fought the warble of his voice before he spoke. He’d measured his words, not wanting to make promises he couldn’t keep.
“You are as selfless as you are strong,” he’d said. “You are what grounds our family. You ground me.”
She had chuckled through her tears. “Not well enough.”
“You have every right to be afraid. The kids do too. I get your anger. You’re right, you didn’t sign up for this.”
“That wasn’t entirely fair,” she’d admitted. “You did ask if you could apply for the corps and I did say yes. I just never thought they’d take you.”
Clayton had started to laugh, but saw she wasn’t joking.
“We’ve been training for a long time. We wouldn’t be going up there if I thought for a second I wouldn’t be coming back,” he’d said. “I plan on living a ridiculously long life with you and our children and our grandchildren.”
“You need to talk to the children,” she’d said. “They need to hear the same thing. They won’t tell you how they’re feeling.”
Clayton had agreed. He’d talked with Marie and Chris. He’d told them to stay off of YouTube. He’d told them no American had ever died in space. He’d told them there were a zillion safety measures designed so he’d get home safe and in one piece.
He’d never promised them he’d be back though. He’d never promised them he’d survive the mission. Their frightened faces were the ones seared into his mind as he glanced over at the Orlan helmet and refocused his attention as best he could on the task ahead.
Its gold reflective visor reflected his image as if he were looking into a funhouse mirror. The patch on the suit was triangular. It was the Expedition patch the Russians had designed. In its center was the ISS encircled by yellow sun rays. The names Voin, Greenwood, and Shepard were stitched across the top of the station. Expedition 58, written in English and in Russian, was embossed along the bottom of the patch in a semicircle.
“Ek-spe-dit-see-ya,” Clayton said in his best central Russian dialect. “Pee-aht-des-yat vosem.” He laughed at himself. “More like, Ek-spe-dit-see-ya pos-led-niy,” he said, recalling one of the few Russian words in his vocabulary. Posledniy. In English it meant last.
Clayton chastised himself for not having studied enough Russian before his trip. Jackie had bought him Rosetta Stone as a Christmas gift a year earlier. He’d listened to the first couple of hours before procrastinating on the rest. Then time ran out and he was on his way to Moscow. He could read the language better than he could speak it, although that wasn’t saying much. And really, the words he could read were bastardized English forced into Cyrillic lettering.
He was able to pick out some of the sounds because the letters were similar enough to the Greek alphabet. Still, all in all, he had the vocabulary of a two-year-old.
Fortunately for him, donning an Orlan MKS EVA suit was relatively self-explanatory in any language. The suit had a fully automated thermal control system and a built-in computer. Incredibly, the suit was undamaged by the magnetic blast.
The MKS was a brilliant piece of engineering. Its pressurization layer was much more durable than the American suits. It was a Belgian polyurethane that was so strong, it enabled the Russian designers to lose a backup layer, making the suit lighter and more flexible. It was also height adjustable. Most importantly for Clayton, a crew member could suit up without any help.
He slipped into his LCG, the periwinkle blue liquid cooling garment that was laced with tubing along his arms and thighs. With a pneumohydraulic control panel on the outside of the Orlan, he could adjust the level and temperature of water circulating through the LCG. It would help prevent him from freezing or overheating during the EVA.
Unlike the American extravehicular mobility unit, the EMU spacesuit, the Orlan was one size fits all. The EMU was built like clothing and was customized for each user. The Orlan had custom gloves. That was it.
Clayton looked at the timer; he had twenty minutes left before he could open the airlock to the outside. It might take him that long to finish outfitting himself.
To put on the suit, he opened a door on the back of it. With a little help from the microgravity environment in the airlock, he floated into the suit feet first and sat on the lower ledge of the doorframe. He slid his arms into the sleeves and then ducked into the suit, his head fitting into the affixed helmet.
He took a deep breath and reached down to his right side. He pulled a lever to close the back of the suit, and with his right hand reached across to his left side to connect a metal hook that sealed the door. The arms were too big, his fingers barely reaching into the cuffs at the end of the suit. At each bicep there was a crank lever he could spin to shorten or lengthen the arms. One turn at a time, he shrank the arms until his wrists were free of the suit and his fingers slid into the attached, custom gloves.
At his waist dangled a pair of tethers, one white and one orange. He’d use them to attach to handrails once he exited the airlock. They’d allow him to slide along the edge of the station with some modicum of safety should he lose his footing.
The specialists on the ground, who’d trained him in the use of the Orlan and the EMU, called the movements along the outside of the ISS “translating.” He shook his head. NASA and its vocabulary.
Clayton held the orange tether in his hand and rubbed it with his gloved thumb. He chuckled thinking about it.
“Just call it floating,” he mumbled. “Translate? Seriously?”
He looked down at his chest. On the right was the ECP, the electronic control panel that regulated the fans and pumps inside the suit. There was also a small computer there with a digital display for error messages.
At his ribcage, on the left side, was the pneumohydraulic control panel, which controlled the oxygen that kept him alive, and the lever that regulated the
liquid inside the LCG.
The suit was lightweight. Clayton thought it less clunky than the EMU. The Russians were always a step or two ahead technologically. They weren’t as afraid to take risks.
Maybe it was because they’d never had a Challenger or a Columbia. Maybe it was because they didn’t lose Apollo astronauts to a devastating fire on the ground.
Whatever it was, the Russians were better at space. They were the cowboys Americans once were and that Clayton wished they still were.
It wasn’t NASA’s fault, Clayton reasoned. It was bureaucrats in Washington who turned over every four to eight years and couldn’t think beyond their own reelections.
They hamstrung the ingenuity and genius of the people at NASA and her contractors. They bombed JSC and KSC with eggs and then forced the brilliant, hardworking dreamers who put men and women into space to walk on the broken shells for fear of losing everything related to exploration.
It was as simple as an iPod or a Nikon. NASA would take months or years to test the off-gassing of some new work-enhancing product they could employ in the Shuttle, when it existed, or on the ISS.
Russia would fill the Progress supply vehicle with the latest and greatest techno-toys and tell their people to have at it. They didn’t worry about the minutia of if the big picture made sense.
The Orlan was the perfect example. The Russian brass listened to their people, the operators in space who knew what it was like to live in orbit, and they adjusted.
The Americans didn’t. They tested and retested and retested on Earth. While the Russians were using the rear-door entry suits for decades, the Americans were still working on one for future missions to the moon and Mars.
The moon. A place they’d gone a half-century earlier and hadn’t returned to.
Mars might as well be outside the Milky Way. If they couldn’t cope with a burst of radiation in low Earth orbit, how would they function two hundred and twenty-five million kilometers away?