“The autopilot does,” Cooper replied, thinking about how screwed they were. There was simply no way to beat him there…
“Not since TARS disabled it,” CASE said.
Cooper looked over to the airlock and the singed robot that occupied it. He felt a blaze of newfound respect.
“Nice,” he said. “What’s your trust setting?”
“Lower than yours, apparently,” TARS replied.
“Dr. Mann?” Cooper’s voice came again. Mann ignored him. What point would there be in answering him? Instead he studied the navigation panel.
“Dr. Mann, if you attempt docking—”
Mann switched off the receiver. What he didn’t need now was any sort of distraction. Not when he was this close.
Murph looked around her old room, the room that had once been her mother’s. The bookshelves that had spoken to her. Would they speak to her again? Was her ghost still here?
She waited, but the books remained in their places.
Murph spotted the box of her stuff. Cautiously, as if she feared it might contain a snake, she went to it and looked inside.
THIRTY
Mann breathed a sigh of relief as he came up on the Endurance. According to his instruments, he had a significant lead on the lander, giving him plenty of time to secure his position. He drew up to the larger ship, and then switched on the autopilot so it could finish the tricky business of docking.
“Auto-docking sequence withheld,” the computer said.
Mann blinked at the screen. Why on earth would the docking sequence be withheld?
“Override,” he told the machine.
“Unauthorized,” the computer answered.
Well, that was a problem. He didn’t know the sequence himself—he hadn’t been trained for this. But with the Ranger coming up behind, it didn’t look like he had a choice.
He had to do it manually.
As they climbed into orbit, Cooper could see Mann was in position to dock, but that wasn’t as easy as it might appear. The ring ship wasn’t spinning, but it was still moving in orbit, and Mann had to match that. Getting a general velocity match wasn’t a problem, but it couldn’t just be in the ball park.
He tried the transmitter again.
“Dr. Mann, do not attempt docking,” he said. “Dr. Mann?”
Static was his only reply.
Mann knew he had the closest thing he was going to get to a synchronic orbit, so he left the controls and went quickly to the airlock, which was fast lining up with a hatch on the Endurance. He began working the mechanical grapple, seeking to grip the other ship and keep the two airlocks aligned so they could be coupled.
It was working. The ships bumped together. He was starting a sigh of relief when the computer spoke up again.
“Imperfect contact,” it said. “Hatch lockout.”
Mann paused, thinking furiously.
How perfect does the latch need to be? he wondered. All it has to do is hold together for a few seconds. That was all the time it would take for him to cross. Then he could seal up from the other side. If he had to cut the Ranger loose—well, there was a spare, and another lander, as well. He might lose a little air in the process, sure, yet there would still be plenty, and he would be the only person on board.
He needed to get on board now. The lead he had built was quickly diminishing.
“Override,” he commanded.
“Hatch lockout disengaged,” the computer informed him.
Thank God. He was starting to think he was locked out of everything.
He drifted toward the airlock controls.
So close…
Cooper stared at the joined ships.
Looks like the sonofabitch did it, he thought.
“Is he locked on?” Cooper demanded, knowing CASE had a running telemetry feed from the Endurance.
“Imperfectly,” CASE replied.
Cooper grabbed the transmitter.
“Dr. Mann!” he yelped desperately. “Dr. Mann! Do not, repeat, do not open the hatch. If you—”
Mann looked at the grapples. They were opening and closing, trying to complete the seal, but he knew he didn’t have time to get it perfect. The lander was almost there, and if he lost the partial lock he already had, he might drift off and have to start over again, which would be a disaster. Cooper doubtless knew the docking sequence, and he had both robots at his disposal. He would dock easily, and then he would be in control.
That was not going to happen.
“What happens if he blows the hatch?” Cooper asked CASE.
“Nothing good,” CASE replied.
He considered the tableau. Would Mann go through with it?
Crap—of course he will, Cooper knew. Mann wasn’t really a pilot—KIPP had taken care of that. But whatever flight training the scientist had been through, it wouldn’t have included the skills needed for manual docking. There wouldn’t have been any call for it at any point during the Lazarus mission.
Cooper, on the other hand, had it drilled into him—over and over—that you never, ever open the locks without a perfect seal. Whatever his merits, Mann was—like the rest of them—a theory man. If he thought through the physics of opening the hatch, he probably wouldn’t take the chance—but he wasn’t thinking about that now. His only goal was to get onto the Endurance, and fast.
“Pull us back!” Cooper ordered.
CASE hit the thrusters, and the Endurance began to dwindle in their windscreen.
Then there was silence. Cooper realized he was hardly breathing.
“CASE,” Brand said, snapping out of it. “Relay my transmission to his onboard computer, and have it rebroadcast as emergency P.A.”
Finally, Cooper thought. Brand was back in the game. That was good, because he sure as hell needed her.
“Dr. Mann,” Brand said. “Do not open the in—”
Mann was reaching for the lever to release the inner hatch when Brand’s voice suddenly burst from the computer.
“—peat,” she said. “Do not open inner hatch!”
Startled, he moved over to the transmitter and switched it on.
“Brand,” he said, “I don’t know what Cooper’s told you, but I’m taking control of the Endurance, then we’ll talk about continuing the mission. This is not your survival, or Cooper’s—this is about mankind’s.”
He turned back and pulled the lever.
THIRTY-ONE
It all happened in silence, of course, and at distance, so to Cooper it seemed unreal. It was as if he was watching some of his model spaceships, suspended on fishing line in front of a star field.
First he saw a flare of flame and then a cloud puff from the spot where the two ships were joined, followed by a steady stream of white vapor. He didn’t need to ask what it was—it was air gushing out from both the Ranger and Endurance, crystallizing almost instantly in the vacuum of space.
The loss of air was a problem, but the secondary affect was a disaster. The air in both ships was pressurized at around twelve pounds per square inch, so it was jetting out with enough velocity to act like a steering rocket. As Cooper watched, aghast, the angle of the air stream began turning the wheel that was Endurance—ponderously at first, but with gathering speed, like a pinwheel firework on the Fourth of July. He watched the partially joined airlocks twist and shatter, and then the Ranger was ripped away, tearing itself apart in the process and rupturing one of the Endurance’s modules as it went. Venting more air to freeze in the void, adding more thrust to the ship’s spin.