“I understand.” Hui didn’t hesitate. “You will, of course, use mine.”
“Of course.”
Hui at that moment realized what she was committing to. Without power, not only would the temperature in the suit start to drop, but also the air would stop circulating. Unlike deep-water suits, spacesuits didn’t just let compressed air from the tanks in the backpack diffuse into the suit. That would have been too wasteful and would severely limit how long astronauts could remain in them. Spacesuits had fans and carbon-dioxide scrubbers that required continuous airflow—and power. Without power, the air in her suit would slowly become poisoned by carbon monoxide, and she would suffocate. That is, if she didn’t freeze to death first.
“Dr. Xu, get Ming ready to travel. We will need to move quickly.”
Zhi was good. In less than ten minutes he had the access panel open, some insulation removed from the wires providing power to the pump that would vent the cabin’s air, and had found the connectors and wires he would need to send power from Captain Hui’s spacesuit battery to the pump.
“Captain Hui. Step over here and face away from me. I need to connect your batteries to the pump.”
“Understood.” She complied, and he continued his work.
“I’m first going to shut off the power to the rest of your suit. Once I’ve done that, I’ll connect the pump, and we’ll see if it works. Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
The next thing Hui heard was the sound of silence. She’d been hearing the spacesuit fans since sealing herself in as the Harmony’s cabin began to freeze, and she’d gotten quite used to their reassuring white noise. Now there was silence. The suit was well insulated, so she did not yet feel any colder. It was too soon for that.
Behind her was the rustling of the engineer as he scrambled to make the necessary connections. When he was on a technical task, it was easy to forget that he was also the ship’s political officer. All signs of his previous defeatist demeanor were now absent.
“Here goes,” the engineer said. The next thing they all heard was the whirring sound of the vent pump. As the air pressure began to drop, the crew could see some of the lighter objects in the cabin flutter in the ensuing wind. After just a few moments, the sound began to drop in frequency as the pump slowed and the air pressure dropped to the point that sounds would no longer propagate. The cabin pressure was now essentially the same as that of the lunar surface—zero.
Hui felt the engineer fiddling with something in her backpack. Then he tapped her on the shoulder and said something she could not hear.
“I can’t hear you! The air is gone, and we’ll have to use our suit radios.” She tried to turn on her radio, the one she’d used to speak with Tony Chow, and nothing happened. She was completely out of power. Her heart sank. Her life had only tens of minutes remaining unless she could either get more power or out of her spacesuit.
Hui moved quickly to the door and once again tried the emergency exit handle. This time it moved, and after just a few seconds the door was open. Standing on the other side was an American astronaut wearing a grin that only an American could possibly have conjured up under the circumstances.
He said something she could not hear. He then said it again, emphatically.
Not knowing the specifics, but understanding what he was probably saying, she turned and pointed toward Dr. Xu and the wounded pilot. She then made the universal hand motion indicating that they should leave first.
Not waiting for additional prompting, Stetson moved toward the doctor and the wounded pilot. He reached down and helped Dr. Xu lift Ming so that they could carry him out the door. With some effort, and guidance from Captain Hui, they were able to get him outside the cabin for the first time since they landed.
Captain Hui looked out and down at the remains of her beautiful lander and sighed. We will be back, she thought. But for now, we will get home! She shivered, and then she realized that her fingers and toes were starting to get cold.
She followed Stetson out and around the side of the lander and down what remained of the stairs to the lunar surface. This was the path she and Zhi had taken when they had built the makeshift furnace. This time it was much more difficult because Dr. Xu and the American astronaut were burdened by the limp mass of Ming Feng. Taking care to not drag Ming’s deadweight across anything sharp enough to puncture his suit, they finally reached the ground.
Hui’s feet were getting very, very cold, and she could no longer feel her fingers. Her head was also noticeably colder. She realized that her entire body was cooling rapidly, but the relatively poorly insulated extremities were the first things she noticed. In her mind, the pace was on one hand too slow—she would surely freeze to death or suffocate before getting to the American lander at this rate. On the other hand, if they were to rush and injure someone, then it could be a death sentence. She would have to be patient.
It was then that she noticed that Zhi was not with them. He was still in the lander. She ran up and tapped Dr. Xu on the shoulder to get his attention. He looked back at her as she pointed up to the lander’s now-open door and waved her arms. Xu looked back at her and grimaced. She could tell that he understood. There was nothing they could do. He could not go back because of his need to help carry Ming. If she went back, it would be a death sentence—she simply did not have time to spare.
“If he wishes to remain here and die, then that is his choice,” she said aloud to herself.
The group of four made their way around the boulders that separated them from the Altair and began their march across the lunar desert toward it.
In the distance sat the Altair, dimly illuminated from above by the reflected Earthlight and brightly lit from below by its own floodlights. To Hui, it was beautiful. It looked safe and warm. It was how they were going to get home. It was also intact. The four legs were upright, and there were no signs of any of the problems experienced by the Harmony.
Hui was now very cold. She was also getting light-headed. For a brief moment, she even forgot where she was. Hypoxia, she thought. Oxygen deprivation. But she was too relaxed to panic.
“Help!” she said aloud. “I’m starting to poison myself on my own carbon dioxide.”
No one could hear her.
Still, she trudged on toward the lander. Consciously putting one foot in front of the other, she kept up with the group. Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot, right foot…” A nap about now would be nice. Darkness overcame her.
“Tony! We’ve got a problem. Captain Hui just collapsed. I’m about one hundred feet away, helping to carry one of their injured, and now we’ve got two down. I’m going back to see what happened,” Stetson said into his radio.
Stetson released his hold on the wounded pilot, forcing Dr. Xu to stop moving and simply hold him. Even on the Moon, carrying a limp deadweight like a person was almost impossible without help. This was especially true if the deadweight was encumbered with a two-hundred-pound spacesuit. Stetson cautiously quickly moved back toward the fallen Chinese captain, wondering what had happened.
He reached her and bent over to see if she was conscious. He then tried to figure out what might be the problem. Using his headlamp, he peered through her visor and saw that she was not conscious. She looked very pale. It was then that he noticed the status lights on her suit—they were not powered on.
“Tony! I’m with Captain Hui, and her suit is completely out of power. I don’t know how long it’s been that way, but long enough for her to pass out from oxygen deprivation. She has to be getting pretty damn cold. I’ve got to get her into the ship now. Can you talk to the other Chinese on the radio?”