“Ely, you stupid…” Patrick broke off the shout and called to Coretta who was in the flight cabin above. “Coretta, down here at once!”
He shoved Ely aside rudely, in fact using the other man's shoulder to launch himself across the compartment. Nadya was floating in a small circle, holding her wounded calf in both hands as the blood seeped through the fabric. Patrick reached her, pulled her down towards the couch.
“It's not much,” she said. “I was just surprised at the suddenness…”
“Let's see it.”
He clipped her to the couch and took the clasp knife from the pocket on his leg, then carefully slit the fabric of her suit. The wound was bleeding freely but did not look bad. Coretta floated next to him, the first-aid box ready in her hands.
“Let me see that,” she said, pressing a sterile pad over the cut. “It's not big at all, won't even need stitches. I think a butterfly here will do. Will you hold the box please, Patrick.”
She worked swiftly, professionally. Patrick turned and looked at the other two men, Ely shame-faced and hangdog, Gregor shocked at the suddenness of the accident.
“Listen to me carefully, all of you,” Patrick said. “You have just seen an accident. It didn't amount to much — but it might have been fatal. We have already had one death on this mission. Colonel Kuznekov died to correct someone's error, someone back on Earth. Malfunctions do not happen by chance in space. They are caused by human mistakes, things people have done wrong or do wrong. I want an end to it. We cannot afford any more trouble, do you understand? We have only one thing to do now, nothing else matters. We have to get that engine fired up. So you will all stay here, clipped to your bunks. It may be uncomfortable for a while — but you'll be out of the way. And that includes you, Ely.”
“Bull…”
“Shut up. We have no time for explanations or recriminations or even any goddamn conversation. Shut up and stay that way. Every one of you. I'm going to take off that hatch and stow it. I'm going to go through the tube to the bottom end and remove the hatch there. When I've done that I'll plug in my intercom and call you. You'll join me, Ely, and we'll start the engine. The rest of you will stand by here in case you're needed.”
He was irritable and abrupt and knew he should be more politic. But he was too tired to make the effort, too single-minded about what he knew had to be done. Nadya was an experienced cosmonaut. Even while he had been speaking she had clipped Coretta to the couch beside her and was sitting quietly waiting for further instructions. Coretta was finishing bandaging the wound — but she had heard. Ely was livid with rage, yet he kept his mouth shut. Fine. Only Gregor was out of it, turning away sullenly. He was cargo, useless, in the way and with nothing to do. Well he would just have to stay that way until they were in orbit and he could get on with his job.
Patrick lifted the hatch cover and stowed it in its clips against the bulkhead. Then, with the wrench clipped to his belt, he floated headfirst into the tunnel. It was little wider than his shoulders and claustrophobic. If he let himself give in he could feel the walls pressing against him, his breath growing shorter and shorter. He kicked away the sensation, knowing he felt this tension, this incipient claustrophobia, only when he was very tired. Like now. How long had it been since he had slept? He had lost track with the seemingly endless holds. A day or more at least. Best not to think about it. The hatch cover that he was drifting towards, that was what was important. He bent his arm as his outstretched fingers touched it, slowing his movement to a stop. He clipped to the nearest ring and swung up the wrench. He was working in his own shadow from the single bulb behind him. Another wonderful bit of applied technology, but he could see well enough to remove the nuts one by one. Slowly. Stop wrench. Nut into the bag. The next one. The hatch floated free and he turned its oval shape sideways so he could push it ahead of him into the engine compartment. When it was safely stowed in the clips he plugged in his intercom.
“Ely, down here with me.”
The nuclear physicist floated out of the tube and neatly checked himself on a handhold, swinging about. They were all getting more facile in free fall, after a few hours in space. Ely smiled, despite himself.
“What a lovely machine. Look at that thing, seven million bucks worth of fission reactor powered by a small fortune in uranium dust.”
The engine itself was invisible, outside in space, beyond the hydrogen tank and the 25-ton biological shield that would protect them from its radiation when it was operating. Al! that was seen inside NTECS was the complex control station with its many readouts. Ely pushed over to it, smiling happily, and strapped into the chair facing the console.
“Now let's fire this thing up and get it operational as soon as possible.”
When he touched the proximity switch the controls came to life. He ordered the computer to display the starting sequence on one screen while the main screen lit up with the many-colored schematic diagram that showed the status of all the valves and control circuits. Ely ran through them all very quickly, then turned off the safety inhibit. One by one he went down the list. Propellent status showed the hydrogen tank full. Start-up system motors and valves ready, nozzle throttles closed, heat exchanger operational, pipes purged…
Patrick watched in silence until Ely went through the last display of the neon-closed loop, then settled back, satisfied. He made a thumbs-up sign to Patrick.
“And that takes care of the check-list. All in the green, A-OK, oh-chio gay. Plug into Mission Control and tell them we are ready to fire when they are.” He looked at the GET readout on the wall. “09:16 and they gave us about twenty-four hours in this orbit before things warmed up. Fourteen hours and forty-four minutes to go, which is not very much time. Tell them we're in a hurry and have an orbit to catch.”
21
GET 05:45
Academician A. A. Tsander was an old man and well aware of it. He looked the picture of the frail octogenarian, with his wispy white beard and crown of floating hair. Never a large man, he had been bent by age so that he walked now with a perpetual stoop that forced him to bend his head back to look up at people. Yet he was neither as weak nor as frail as he appeared, as many had discovered through the years. Reaching his now exalted rank in the Academy of Sciences had taken a good deal of scientific skill — as well as a wicked talent for political infighting. He was liberally endowed with both, but he was eighty-three and knew it, so he husbanded his energy for the times it would be needed.
He was asleep now, lying on his back on the leather couch in his office, his long white fingers laced together on his chest. His breathing was so unnoticeable that he could have been a corpse. Yet, deeply asleep as he was, his eyes opened instantly when the doorknob turned silently and a beam of light came into the room.
“What time is it? “he asked.
“Almost midnight, Academician. The American colonel is here, you asked that you…”
“Of course. I will be down.” Three hours' sleep, more than enough preparation for what was sure to be a long night ahead. He poured some water into the basin from the jug, bathed his face and hands then dried them. Then he lighted a papirossi, one of the thin cigarettes he favored, more paper than tobacco, shoved the rest of the package in his pocket and went out. The halls in the office floors were dark and quiet and he walked through them slowly, gathering strength. He had a feeling he would need it.