“Manny? Problem?” It was Travis.
“None, Trav. Kelly, did I tell you I love you?”
“Not today,” she laughed, “but it’s been a busy day.”
“I love you. Will you marry me?”
“Yes. Yes, Manny, I will.”
“Duly witnessed and recorded,” Travis said. “Dak, have a cigar.” I could hear Dak laughing in the background. I drifted along the rope [377] and into Kelly’s arms. You can’t kiss in a space suit, and even hugs leave a lot to be desired, but we did the best we could.
AFTER WE’D CYCLED Jubal’s and Dak’s suits through the lock Kelly got in and I shoved everything else in with her. She knocked on the wall with a wrench and the barrel of the lock began to turn. She smiled and waved at me, then she was gone, and the cracked window rotated into my view. I could see why they were worried. What Alicia had described as little icicles had grown into white starbursts a foot long, what I guess you’d call free-fall icicles. I had to knock them away with my glove before I could get to work.
Anybody in Florida knows what to do when there’s a hurricane alert. I’d lived through two near misses. Each time Mom and Maria and me had taped up the windows. This won’t stop them from breaking, but it stops them from shattering in such a spectacular way. This window was about to get a total taping with our alternative patching material, duct tape.
We’d tested, and found that ordinary gray duct tape stood up to cold and vacuum for something between six and eight hours, after which it could turn brittle and lose its gumminess, or adhesive qualities, whatever you want to call it. I had a big roll of it tied to my belt. I started peeling off three-foot strips and pasting them over the window.
Not a fun job. If you’ve ever been frustrated trying to lift up the end of a roll of sticky tape, try it wearing mittens. If I ever order another space suit, I’ll be sure it has something that can be used as a thumbnail.
I struggled for ten minutes, strips of crumpled duct tape clinging to my suit, feeling like Br’er Rabbit fighting with the Tar Baby. I covered the whole surface of the window with long strips, much longer than needed to cover the one-foot diameter circle. Then I put on another layer, at right angles to the first, and for good measure, a third layer, diagonally. Then I knocked on the metal of the hull and the lock rotated. I got in, and repeated the process on the inside of the window. When I was satisfied I knocked again, and the inner lock door was [378] opened by Kelly. She had her helmet off and her nose was red and dripping a little, and she was the prettiest girl I’d ever seen.
I got quick introductions to Holly and Cliff. Both were shivering uncontrollably, though wrapped in layers of cloth. I had brought a couple of big fluorescent camp lanterns, which we switched on. They gave out a ghastly light, making our skin look like sour milk, except Cliff’s, whose dark skin looked almost bluish.
First order of business, get them into suits.
There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all space suit, but the Russians had come about as close as possible. The torso can be expanded and the arms and legs lengthened or shortened a full six inches. This was accomplished with a design a lot like those bendable plastic soda straws, a bellows arrangement. We figured to fit Captain Aquino into Jubal’s suit, as he was a short man, like Jubal, though not nearly so bulky.
Captain Aquino almost proved to be my undoing. I guess I hadn’t realized that “compound fracture” meant a sharp point of bloody white bone sticking right out of the meat of his thigh. I felt sick, quickly removed my helmet just in case… and the cold slapped me in the face so hard I was shocked right out of my nausea.
I was breathing hard, and so was everyone else. The air felt thin and sour. But I’d brought an alarm that would scream if the oxygen content fell to dangerous levels, and so far it was silent.
You don’t really know what chaos can be until you’ve seen it in free fall. Things were drifting around, things as small as tiny frozen droplets of water and blood, and as large as tables and chairs. You could shove them into a corner but they’d just drift right back out again. One of the things that kept floating about and getting in the way was the body of Dr. Brin Marston. Aside from some blood coming from her mouth she seemed almost unhurt. She did seem to be bent backwards more than normal.
“She died peacefully,” Holly said to me. “She never woke up. After an hour she stopped breathing.”
Holly Oakley was in shock, like Alicia had said. I had to stifle a laugh [379] that would have been horribly inappropriate. But think about it. She’s sitting in total darkness, she and Cliff. They know they are doomed. They know the air is going to kill them in a few hours, the only question is how. By getting too cold, too thin, or too oxygen-poor? Then there’s a knock on the door, and who is it but your ex-husband, the one your lawyer screwed so badly in the property settlement, the alimony, and the child support.
For the record, Travis said the property settlement had been more than fair, she had never asked for alimony, and he’d never begrudged a nickel of the child support.
Now she seemed to be only partially aware of what was going on. Kelly was helping her into the suit Alicia had brought in, the one that had been on the rack beside Vasarov’s corpse, and it was like dressing a toddler. Holly’s attention wandered, often to the body of Dr. Marston.
“Manny, can you do something with her?” Kelly asked, jerking her head toward Marston. I shoved the body against a wall, then tied one of her legs to a stanchion. I tried to close her partially opened eyes. Big mistake. Her eyelids were frozen in that position.
Cliff had managed to struggle into Dak’s suit. He was about the same height as Dak, but quite a bit huskier. “It’s going to cut off the circulation in my legs,” he said, teeth chattering, “but I can handle that if I have to.”
“It’ll only take ten, fifteen minutes,” I told him. I showed him how to adjust the systems on the Russian suit. He sighed as the heating elements warmed up.
“God, I hate being cold,” he said. Then we both went to help Alicia.
I really had to hand it to Alicia. Liquids won’t drip in free fall, so how do you make an I.V. work? She had brought some broad rubber bands. By winding them a few times around one of the bags of type B positive blood I’d brought over, she could produce enough pressure to force the blood into Captain Aquino’s veins. But that was about all she could do for him until we got him over to Red Thunder.
“Setting the bone will be easier once we’re under way,” she decided. “Right now, I want to disturb that wound as little as possible, or he’ll [380] start bleeding again.” She got a big pad of sterile gauze and packed the wound, then wrapped it tightly in sterile tape. The gauze turned red almost immediately.
“Let’s get him in the suit, pronto,” she said.
We got the body of the suit on him, the I.V. tube nestled against his chest. Got the arms and gloves on, then one leg. Then, very gingerly, eased the other leg over the wound. Aquino began moaning and tossing his head, so Alicia jabbed him with more morphine. We got his helmet on and turned on all suit systems. All lights were green.
But not on Holly’s suit. No sooner had we buttoned her down and turned the suit on than we got a big red light for pressurization. A quick inspection found two holes one inch across in the right lower leg. Something had passed right through the tough fabric.
“Okay,” Alicia said. “We’ll get Cliff and the captain across, then I’ll come back with Kelly’s suit. It should be a pretty good fit.”
“No!” Holly grabbed my arm and squeezed hard. Her eyes were wild. “I can’t stay here in the dark, alone. Please don’t make me do it.”
“It won’t be dark,” Alicia soothed.
“I can’t do it.”
“I’m not sure this place will stay pressurized much longer,” I said.
“You’re right. Okay. Do you think we can patch it so it will hold?”