Gravity

by Tess Gerritsen

  She said, “I never thought…”

  “What?” he prompted gently.

  “That this is…how it would happen. No chance to play the hero. Just sick and useless.” She gave a laugh, then grimaced in pain. “Not my idea of going out…in a blaze of glory.”

  A blaze of glory. That was how every astronaut imagined it would be to die in space. A brief moment of terror, and then the quick demise. Sudden decompression or fire. Never had they imagined a death like this, a slow and painful ebbing away as one’s body is consumed and digested by another life-form. Abandoned by the ground. Quietly sacrificed to the greater good of mankind.

  Expendable. He could accept it for himself, but he could not accept Diana’s expendability. He could not accept the fact he was about to lose her.

  It was hard to believe that on the first day they’d met, during training at JSC, he had thought her cold and forbidding, an icy blonde with too much confidence. Her British accent had put him off as well, because it made her sound so superior. It was crisp and cultured compared to his Texas drawl. By the first week, they disliked each other so much they were scarcely speaking to each other.

  By the third week, at Gordon Obie’s insistence, they’d reluctantly declared a truce.

  By the eighth week, Griggs was showing up at her house. Just for a drink at first, two professionals reviewing their upcoming mission. Then the mission talk had given way to conversations of a more personal nature. Griggs’s unhappy marriage. The thousand and one interests he and Diana had in common. It all led, of course, to the inevitable.

  They had concealed the affair from everyone at JSC. Only here, on the station, had their relationship become apparent to their colleagues. Had there been even a whiff of suspicion before this, Blankenship would have scrubbed them from the mission. Even in this modern day and age, an astronaut’s divorce was a black mark against him. And if that divorce had resulted from a liaison with another member of the corps— well, so much for any future flight assignments. Griggs would have been reduced to an invisible member of the corps, neither seen nor heard.

  For the last two years he had loved her. For two years, whenever he had lain beside his sleeping wife, he had yearned for Diana and plotted out the ways they might be together. Someday, they would be together, even if they had to resign from NASA. That was the dream that had sustained him through all those unhappy nights. Even after these two months with her in close quarters, even after their occasional flares of temper, he had not stopped loving her. He had not surrendered the dream. Until now.

  “What day is this?” she murmured.

  “It’s Friday.” He began to stroke her hair again. “In Houston, it’s five-thirty in the afternoon. Happy hour.”

  She smiled. “TGIF.”

  “They’re sitting at the bar now. Chips and margaritas. God, I could do with a stiff drink. A nice sunset. You and me, on the lake…”

  The tears glistening on her lashes almost broke his heart. He no longer gave a damn about biocontamination, about the dangers of infecting himself. With his bare hand he wiped away the tears.

  “Are you in pain?” he said. “Do you need more morphine?”

  “No. Save it.” Someone else will need it soon, was what she didn’t say.

  “Tell me what you want. What I can do for you.”

  “Thirsty,” she said. “All that talk of margaritas.”

  He gave a laugh. “I’ll mix one up for you. The nonalcoholic version.”

  “Please.”

  He floated across to the galley and opened the food locker. It was stocked with Russian supplies, not the same items as in the U.S. hab. He saw vacuum-packed pickled fish. Sausages. An array of unappetizing Russian staples. And vodka—a small bottle of it, sent by the Russians, ostensibly for medicinal purposes.

  This may be the last drink we’ll ever have together.

  He shook some vodka into two drink bags and restowed the bottle. Then he added water to the bags, diluting hers so that it was barely alcoholic. Just a taste, he thought, to bring back happy memories. To remind her of the evenings they had spent together, watching sunsets from her patio. He gave the bags a few good shakes to mix the water and vodka. Then he turned to look at her.

  A bright red balloon of blood was oozing from her mouth.

  She was convulsing. Her eyes were rolled back, her teeth clamped down on her tongue. One raw and ragged slice of it was still hanging on by a thread of tissue.

  “Diana!” he screamed.

  The balloon of blood broke off and the satiny globule drifted away. At once another began to form, fed by the blood pouring out of the torn flesh.

  He grabbed a plastic bite block, already taped to the restraint board, and tried to force it between her teeth, to protect her soft tissues from any more trauma. He could not pry the teeth apart. The human jaw has one of the strongest muscles in the body, and hers was clamped tight. He grabbed the syringe of Valium, premeasured and ready to inject, and shoved the tip into the IV stopcock. Even as he pressed the plunger, her seizure was starting to fade. He gave her the whole dose.

  Her face relaxed. Her jaw fell limp.

  “Diana?” he said. She didn’t respond.

  The new bubble of blood was growing, spilling from her mouth. He had to apply pressure, to stop it.

  He opened the medical kit, found the sterile gauze, and ripped open the package, sending a few squares flying away. He positioned himself behind her head and gently opened her mouth to expose the torn tongue.

  She coughed and tried to turn her face away. She was choking on her own blood. Aspirating it into her lungs.

  “Don’t move, Diana.” With his right wrist pressing down on her lower teeth, to keep her jaw open, he wadded up a bundle of gauze in his left hand and began to dab away the blood. Her neck suddenly jerked taut in a new convulsion, and her jaw snapped shut.

  He screamed, the meaty part of his hand caught between her teeth, the pain at once so terrible his vision began to blacken. He felt warm blood splash against his face, saw a bright globule fountaining up. His blood, mingled with hers. He tried to pull free, but her teeth had sunk in too deeply. The blood was pouring out, the globule inflating to the size of a basketball. Severed artery! He could not pry her jaw open; the seizure had caused her muscle to contract with superhuman strength.

  Blackness was closing in on his vision.

  In desperation, he rammed his free fist against her teeth. The jaw did not relax.

  He hit her again. The basketball of blood flew apart in a dozen smaller globules, splashing his face, his eyes. Still he could not open her jaw. There was so much blood now it was as though he were swimming in a lake of it, unable to draw in a breath of clean air.

  Blindly he swung his fist against her face and felt bones crack, yet he could not pull free. The pain was crushing, unbearable. Panic seized him, blinding him to anything but making the agony stop. He was scarcely aware of what he was doing as he hit her again. And again.

  With a scream he finally yanked his hand free and went flying backward, clutching his wrist, releasing swirls of blood in bright ribbons all around him. It took him a moment to stop caroming off walls, to shake his vision clear. He focused on Diana’s broken face, on the bloodied stumps of her teeth. The damage done by his own fist.

  His howl of despair echoed off the walls, filling his ears with the sound of his own anguish. What have I done? What have I done?

  He floated to her side, held her shattered face in his hands. He no longer felt the pain of his own wound; it receded to nothing, overshadowed by the greater horror of his own actions.

  He gave another howl, this time of rage. He battered his fist against the module wall. Ripped the plastic sheeting that covered the hatchway. We’re all dying anyway! Then he focused on the medical kit.

  He reached in and grabbed a scalpel.

  Flight Surgeon Todd Cutler stared at his console and felt a stab of panic. On his screen were the biotelemetry readings for Diana Estes. Her EKG tracin
g had just burst into a saw-tooth pattern of rapid spikes. To his relief, it was not sustained. Just as abruptly, the tracing reverted back to a rapid sinus rhythm.

  “Flight,” he said, “I’m seeing a problem with my patient’s heart rhythm. Her EKG just showed a five-second run of ventricular tachycardia.”

  “Significance?” Woody Ellis responded briskly.

  “It’s a potentially fatal rhythm if it’s prolonged. Right now she’s back in sinus, around one thirty. That’s faster than she’s been running. Not dangerous, but it worries me.”

  “Your advice, Surgeon?”

  “I’d give her antiarrhythmics. She needs IV lidocaine or amiodarone. They’ve got both drugs in their ALS pack.”

  “Ames and Watson are still out on EVA. Griggs’ll have to give it.”

  “I’ll talk him through it.”

  “Okay. Capcom, let’s get Griggs on comm.”

  As they waited for Griggs to respond, Todd kept a close eye on the monitor. What he saw worried him. Diana’s pulse rate was increasing: 135, 140. Now a brief burst of 160, the spikes almost lost in a flutter of patient movement or electrical interference. What was happening up there?

  Capcom said, “Commander Griggs is not responding.”

  “She needs that lidocaine,” said Todd.

  “We can’t get him on comm.”

  Either he can’t hear us or he’s refusing to answer, thought Todd. They’d been worried about Griggs’s emotional health. Had he withdrawn so completely he’d ignore an urgent communication?

  Todd’s gaze suddenly froze on his console screen. Diana Estes was going in and out of V tach. Her ventricles were contracting so rapidly, they could not pump with any efficiency. They could not maintain her blood pressure.

  “She needs that drug now!” he snapped.

  “Griggs is not responding,” said Capcom.

  “Then get the EVA crew inside!”

  “No,” Flight cut in. “They’re at a delicate point in repairs. We can’t interrupt them.”

  “She’s turning critical.”

  “We pull in the EVA crew, that ends all repairs for the next twenty-four hours.” The crew could not pop inside and go right back out again. They needed time to recover, additional time to repeat the decompression cycle. Though Woody Ellis didn’t say it aloud, he was probably thinking the same thing as everyone else in the room: Even if they did call the crew inside to assist, it would make little difference to Diana Estes. Her death was inevitable.

  To Todd’s horror, the EKG tracing was now in sustained V tach. It was not recovering.

  “She’s going downhill!” he said. “Get one of them inside now! Bring in Watson!”

  There was a second’s hesitation.

  Then Flight said, “Do it.”

  Why isn’t Griggs responding?

  Frantically Emma pulled herself from handhold to handhold, moving as fast as she could along the main truss. She felt slow and clumsy in the Orlan-M suit, and her hands ached from the effort of flexing against the resistance of bulky gloves. She was already weary from the repair work, and now fresh sweat was soaking into her suit lining, and her muscles quivered from fatigue.

  “Griggs, respond. Goddamnit, respond!” she snapped into her comm link.

  ISS remained silent.

  “What’s Diana’s status?” she demanded between panted breaths.

  Todd’s voice came on. “Still in V tach.”

  “Shit.”

  “Don’t rush, Watson. Don’t get careless!”

  “She’s not going to last. Where the fuck is Griggs?”

  She was breathing so hard now she could barely keep up the conversation. She forced herself to concentrate on grabbing the next hand rung, on keeping her tether untangled. Clambering off the truss, she made a lunge for the ladder, but was suddenly snapped to a halt. Her sleeve had caught on a corner of the work platform.

  Slow down. You’re going to get yourself killed.

  Gingerly she unsnagged her sleeve and saw there was no puncture. Heart still hammering, she continued down the ladder and pulled herself into the air lock. Quickly she swung the hatch shut and opened the pressure equalization valve.

  “Talk to me, Todd,” she snapped as the air lock began to repressurize. “What’s the rhythm?”

  “She’s now in coarse V fib. We still can’t get Griggs on comm.”

  “We’re losing her.”

  “I know, I know!”

  “Okay, I’m up to five psi—”

  “Air-lock integrity check. Don’t skip it.”

  “I don’t have time.”

  “Watson, no fucking shortcuts.”

  She paused and took a deep breath. Todd was right. In the hostile environment of space, one must never take shortcuts. She completed the air-lock integrity check, finished repressurization, and opened the next hatch, leading into the equipment lock. There she swiftly removed her gloves. The Russian Orlan-M suit was easier to doff than the American EMU, but it still took time to swing open the rear life-support system and wriggle out. I’ll never make it in time, she thought as she furiously kicked her feet free from the lower torso.

  “Status, Surgeon!” she barked into her comm assembly.

  “She’s now in fine fib.”

  A terminal rhythm, thought Emma. This was their last chance to save Diana.

  Now clad only in her water-cooling garment, she opened the hatch leading into the station. Frantic to reach her patient, she pushed off the wall and dove headfirst through the hatch opening.

  Wetness splashed her face, blurring her vision. She missed the handhold and collided with the far wall. For a few seconds she drifted in confusion, blinking away the sting. What did I get in my eyes? she thought. Not eggs. Please, not eggs… Slowly her vision cleared, but even then, she could not comprehend what she was seeing.

  Floating all around her in the shadowy node were giant globules. She felt more wetness brush her hand, and she looked down at the blackish stain soaking into her sleeve, at the dark splotches blooming here and there on her water-cooling garment. She held her sleeve up to one of the node lights.

  The stain was blood.

  In horror she gazed at the giant globules hanging in the shadows. So much of it…

  Quickly she closed the hatch to prevent the contamination from spreading into the air lock. It was too late to protect the rest of the station; the globules had spread everywhere. She dove into the hab, opened the CCPK, and donned protective mask and goggles. Maybe the blood was not infectious. Maybe she could still protect herself.

  “Watson?” said Cutler.

  “Blood…there’s blood everywhere!”

  “Diana’s rhythm is agonal—there’s not much left to jumpstart!”

  “I’m on my way!” She pushed out of the node and entered the tunnellike Zarya. The Russian module seemed blindingly bright after the barely lit U.S. end, the globules of blood like gaily colored balloons floating in the air. Some had collided with the walls, splattering Zarya a brilliant red. Popping out the far end of the module, she could not avoid one giant bubble floating directly in her path. Reflexively she closed her eyes as it splattered her goggles, obscuring her view. Drifting blindly, she wiped her sleeve across the goggles to clear away the blood.

  And found herself staring straight at Michael Griggs’s chalk-white face.

  She screamed. In horror she thrashed uselessly at empty air, going nowhere.

  “Watson?”

  She stared at the large bubble of blood still clinging to the gaping wound on his neck. This was the source of all the blood—a slashed carotid artery. She forced herself to touch the intact side of his neck, to search for a pulse. She could not feel one.

  “Diana’s EKG is flat line!” said Todd.

  Emma’s stunned gaze shifted to the hatch leading to the RSM, where Diana was supposed to be isolated. The plastic sheeting was gone; the module was open to the rest of the station.

  In dread, she entered the RSM.

  Diana was
still strapped to the patient restraint board. Her face had been battered beyond recognition, her teeth smashed to splinters. A balloon of blood was oozing from her mouth.

  The squeal of the cardiac monitor at last drew Emma’s attention. A flat line traced across the screen. She reached over to turn off the alarm, and her hand froze in midair. Glistening on the power switch was a blue-green gelatinous clump.

  Eggs. Diana has already shed eggs. She has already released Chimera into the air.

  The monitor alarm seemed to build to an unbearable shriek, yet Emma remained motionless, staring at that cluster of eggs. They seemed to shimmer and recede out of focus. She blinked, and as her vision cleared again, she remembered the moisture hitting her face, stinging her eyes as she had dived through the air-lock hatch. She had not been wearing goggles then. She could still feel the wetness on her cheek, cool and clinging.

  She reached up to touch her face, and stared at the eggs, like quivering pearls, on her fingertips.

  The squeal of the cardiac alarm had become unbearable. She flipped off the monitor, and the squeal ceased. The silence that followed was just as alarming. She could not hear the hiss of the vent fans. They should be drawing in air, pulling it through the HEPA filters for cleansing. There’s too much blood in the air. It has blocked all the filters. The rise in the pressure gradient across those filters had tripped the sensors, automatically shutting off the overheated fans.

  “Watson, please respond!” said Todd.

  “They’re dead.” Her voice broke into a sob. “They’re both dead!”

  Now Luther’s voice broke into the loop. “I’m coming in.”

  “No,” she said. “No—”

  “Just hang on, Emma. I’ll be right there.”

  “Luther, you can’t come in! There’s blood and eggs everywhere. This station is no longer habitable. You have to stay in the air lock.”

  “That’s not a long-term solution.”

  “There is no fucking long-term solution!”

  “Look, I’m in the crew lock now. I’m closing the outer hatch. Starting repress—”

  “The vent fans have all shut off. There’s no way to clean this air.”