Slide your hands up the seatback rail.
She did as she was told and reached the jammed helmet.
Now pull.
She pulled. Her lower body was firmly anchored by harness and foam, and she pulled as hard as she could. Nothing happened.
Cabinet says that Eleanor says to visualize it coming loose.
Ellen laughed in spite of everything. Visualization was a pet theory of her mother’s from an earlier century. But the message meant that Eleanor was watching her and not devoting full attention to her own safety. So Ellen tried again, for her mother’s sake as much as her own. She forced everything else out of her awareness and focused the force of her will on the helmet. “Come here,” she demanded, pulling with all her might, “I want you.” There was a mechanical snap that reverberated through her bones. Grudgingly, the helmet yielded to her, one stripped cog at a time. Soon her forehead reached inside it, and its collar flange was level with her nose. But the ship vibrated so hard it slammed her face against the helmet collar. When she tried to protect her face, the helmet hammered the back of her head. She saw splashes of light behind her eyes, and she slumped in her seat.
Ellen, Ellen. Wee Hunk’s voice drifted to her as from a distant place. She didn’t reply. She was curiously numb. She was growing tired of this whole dreary affair. Why couldn’t things just straighten themselves out?
Settling into the cottony comfort of cerebral hematoma, Ellen wondered about nothing in particular as the ship continued to break up around her. After what seemed like a very long time, something flew down the aisle and bounced off her shoulder. She looked for her mother, but Eleanor’s seat podule was empty.
Ellen, listen to me, Wee Hunk was saying. You must stretch yourself up into the helmet.
“It’s stuck!”
You’re right, it’s stuck. So you must stretch yourself up to it!
It took Ellen a long moment to see what her mentar was driving at. She found it fascinating how a few blows to the head could so immobilize one. That was a fact she must remember to use in a future novella. She looked around again. “Where’s Eleanor?”
Eleanor insists you concentrate on your own survival.
“Where is she? Is she all right?”
Cabinet is assisting her. It’s your job to stretch up into the helmet.
Ellen raised her head just below the collar flange and thought, The helmet is a bell, and I am its clapper. She grabbed the helmet and pulled. It was no good; she only managed to raise herself enough for the helmet to smack her in the teeth.
Your seat harness restrains you, said Wee Hunk. Release your harness.
“I don’t want to go flying off.”
You won’t; the arrestant will anchor you in place.
Ellen wiggled a loose tooth with her tongue.
Ellen! Unbuckle your harness!
“Don’t presume to tell me what to do!” she shouted, spitting blood.
Ellen H. Starke, you will do as I say!
Ellen wiped sweat from her eyes with a clean patch of sleeve. Something was different; something had changed. The violent shaking had stopped. The ride was smoother. For a wild moment she imagined they were safely on the ground, but no, there were clouds streaking by her window. And her stomach told her that they were in free fall.
“We jettisoned!” she said.
We didn’t jettison; the ship has burned off us. Now do as I say and stretch up into the helmet.
“But we’re safe now, aren’t we? We’re a glider now. We’ll glide down.”
Cabinet and I disagree. Too many fail-safes aboard this ship have already failed. We don’t trust the glider core. Already our descent is too steep and too fast.
Just by the free-fall sensation she knew he was right, and when they fell below the clouds, and she saw how quickly the land below was rising up, it finally dawned on her that someone was trying to kill them.
Ellen, use your helmet. We have only moments left.
Ellen craned her neck to look up at the helmet. Years ago, to earn her spaceflight passenger certificate, she’d had to endure an hour-long course in safety protocols aboard LEO spacecraft. She easily met all the requirements but one. There was simply no way that she was going to stick her head into one of these so-called safety helmets. She had tried to talk her way out of it. Donning a helmet took no skill, she argued. All one must do was insert one’s head. And if the need ever arose, unlikely as that was, she was sure she could do just that—insert her head.
The certifying program had been a particularly inflexible subem with a checklist to complete. It didn’t seem to care who she was and simply told her to don the safety helmet or fail the certification.
“Wee Hunk,” she pleaded, “if everything else is sabotaged, what makes you think the helmet isn’t too?”
The Cryostat Safety Helmet is an autonomous, completely self-contained unit. Whatever has taken over the ship cannot compromise it—except by keeping it out of reach.
Well, that made sense. Count on a mentar to make sense. “Wee Hunk, promise me that you won’t—you know—deploy the helmet unless you absolutely have to.”
Ellie, we have less than 180 seconds to impact.
Ellen unbuckled her harness and put her head into the collar. It was easy now with the smooth ride. She reached up and grasped the helmet, which felt hot to the touch. The cabin was a dry sauna, and her upper body was slick with sweat. As she pulled herself up, the arrestant hugging her waist didn’t let go of her, but it stretched, centimeter by centimeter, until she had pulled herself just clear of the collar, and she heard a sharp click. The cincture inflated explosively around her throat, and the collar dogs locked. She was in.
It was strangely quiet inside the helmet; the roaring din of the cabin was replaced by an insect whine of tiny pumps and motors as the machine that had swallowed her head charged its systems. A fine, cool mist of peppermint-flavored talc covered her face, and a very pleasant voice said, “Your safety helmet is functioning normally. You may abort it by saying the word ‘release’ out loud twice, like this, ‘Release release.’ No other abort order will be recognized.”
The helmet repeated its message several times and would go on repeating it until she acknowledged it, but she couldn’t. Her sweaty hands were slipping, and the arrestant was pulling her down against the cincture which, in turn, was strangling her. She was being stretched like a rubber band, and when her grip slipped completely, she felt her vertebrae wrench all up and down her spine. Not that her spine mattered much at this point.
Help I’m choking! she tried to say. Release release! she tried to say, but her throat was squeezed shut against the collar.
Ellen, your vital signs are degrading. What’s happening in there? Speak to me.
Desperately, she wiped her hands on the front of her jumpsuit and grabbed the helmet again. She pulled until she could breathe, but her hands were already slipping.
That’s better, Ellen. Hold on.
Her larynx was bruised; her voice cracked, “How long?”
Another sixty seconds from the surface.
An eternity, she thought. “Foam?”
Top level jets won’t deploy.
That was bad news. She needed either the harness or a podule completely filled with arrestant to hope to survive a crash landing over land. “Fix it.”
Attempting.