He wrung his large hands. “It will be difficult without Vladimir,” he said.
“Gregor, you are just going to have to snap out of this.” She was totally professional now. Opening the medical cabinet she took out a small tube of pills. On her way back to the couch she grabbed up a squeeze bottle of water as well.
“Take these,” she said, holding out two white capsules. “Wash them down with water, and I'll give you two more in six hours.”
“What are they?” he asked suspiciously.
“The pharmaceutical industry's answer to the rigors of the age of technology. Tranks. Tranquilizers. They file the thin edge of hysteria off life.”
“I do not take medicines, thank you. They are not needed.”
“Don't be afraid of these pills, Gregor. They are to help, not hurt.” She saw the signs of strain around his eyes and lips. “I feel in the need of a little tension-relieving myself.” She put the pills in her mouth, showed them to him on her tongue, then swallowed them with a mouthful of water. And took two more from the vial.
“Your turn now. No arguments.”
This time he took them without protest and she sighed with relief.
Ely, in the nuclear engine control station below, felt no relief at all. In fact, even in the controlled environment of the ship he was sweating. From tension, not from physical effort. The checkout was almost done, the preparation for starting up the nuclear engines almost finished.
“Ready to go, “he said.
“Begin,” Patrick said. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Negative. We're in the green so far. This engine is complex — but theoretically simple. The uranium dust is trapped in a vortex of neon inside the light bulbs. The quartz tubes with this mix are surrounded by hydrogen, mixed with some tungsten so it won't be too transparent to the heat. Hydrogen moderates the U-235 plasma which heats up to twenty-three thousand degrees Kelvin which really warms up the rest of the hydrogen and sends it blasting out of the reaction chamber. So we move to the last step in the start-up, power to the turbopumps in the secondary hydrogen closed loop….”
His voice cut off suddenly as a buzzer sounded and red lights appeared on the board before him. He threw switches quickly.
“Is that normal?” Patrick asked.
“No, that is not normal,” he answered, lips peeled back from his teeth in a most unhumorous grin. “We have had shutdown. Something is wrong.”
Their eyes moved to the GET clock at the same time.
13:03.
Now it was less than eleven hours before they were due to run out of room in space and have first contact with the sea of atmosphere waiting below.
“How wrong? What do you mean?” Patrick asked.
“I don't know yet.” Ely had programmed the computer to display an eight-color diagram of the relevant circuits and controls and was tracking through it. “There are five engines out there, but they function as a single unit and are far more interconnected than the chemical engines. We're having a malfunction in one of them. That's what I am trying to track down now. Let me alone, will you Patrick, I have to do this alone.”
“Right. I'll be in the flight cabin. Plug into the intercom when you need me.”
Patrick kicked up off into the lower compartment. He saw that Gregor was lying face down on his couch, really floating a few inches to it and held in place by the clips. Patrick started to speak but Coretta raised her finger to her lips and shushed him, then waved him to the far side of the compartment and went to join him.
“Gregor is sleeping,” she said in a whisper. “I don't want him disturbed. Emotionally he's not in very good condition. The fatigue and strain have been almost too much for him to handle. I gave him some sleeping pills, told him they were tranks. Had to take two myself to con him into it, but I managed to spit them out without swallowing them.”
“How bad is he?” Patrick asked, looking at the sleeping figure.
“I can't say. Back home I would give you a guess, but this is different. He must have been stable enough or the Soviets wouldn't have him on this project.”
“Don't bet on that. The report I saw said that he was the only microwave transmission authority fit enough to go on this flight. I have a feeling he was drafted.”
“If that's true it would explain a lot. He doesn't seem to have the right temperament or the right constitution for this kind of work. But he's going to be needed when we're in orbit. With the Colonel dead, Gregor is now our only authority on getting the generator working. So if I can get him to sleep, to relax now, he should be functional when we need him. Once he's doing that I don't think there'll be any problems.”
“Thanks, Coretta. You're right. Let me know if you need any help---”
“He doesn't like to take pills.”
“He can be ordered to. I'll take care of that.”
Patrick started for the flight cabin bat Coretta caught his sleeve and pulled him back.
“Just a minute. You're under doctor's orders too.”
“Pills?” he asked, looking grim.
“Food — and drink. And bring some up for Nadya when you go.”
“Of course, thanks. Hunger and thirst strike like lightning as soon as I think of it.”
He took the plastic meal bags and squeeze bottles from the locker before he went to join Nadya. He strapped down next to her and passed over her ration.
“Doctor's orders. Chow time,” he said.
“Thank you, I am thirsty.”
“Eats too.”
Patrick forced himself to finish most of the pulverized beef stew before calling Mission Control. “A little engine trouble,” he told Nadya as he sent out the call.
“No! Not more, it cannot be.” She was horrified, her hands-clasped against her breasts.
“I'm sorry,” he said, reaching out to take her hands in his. Her skin was cold. “I hope it's something small. Ely is checking it out now….”
“Prometheus, Mission Control here.”
“Hello, Flax, Patrick here. I am reporting an apparent malfunction with the fission engines. Checklist fine, but barrage of red lights when we tried to fire it up.”
There was the slightest delay before Flax spoke again. Fatigue and tension were just as bad on the ground. “Do you know the extent of the malfunction, Prometheus?”
“Negative. Dr. Bron is on that now. Are the fission engine team standing by in case we need them?”
“Absolutely, all here. They want to know if you will transfer engine housekeeping data dump?”
“Roger. I'll set it up.”
All the steps Ely had followed in starting up the nuclear engine had been recorded by the ship's computer. Patrick used his Commander's controls to retrieve the information. When he was satisfied he pressed the transmit button and all the details were radioed at high speed back to Mission Control on Earth. While he was doing this he was aware of the intercom bleeping and Nadya taking a call. She tapped his arm.
“Yes,” he said, turning towards her.
“It was Ely. He thinks he knows what has happened. I told him you were on to Mission Control so he's on his way up here.” Patrick nodded and turned on his microphone again.
“Mission Control, I have more information on the malfunction. Dr. Bron will report shortly. He appears to, have located the source of the malfunction.”
“You better believe I have,” Ely said, coming in. He saw the squeeze bottle of water in Nadya's hand and realized suddenly how dry his mouth was, how thirsty he had become without knowing it. “Can I have a swig of that? Thanks.” He drained half the bottle before sighing and passing it back.
“It's not good, Patrick, not good at all. I'll check with the team in Mission Control and they can run it through their mock-up, but I'm pretty sure about what has happened. You know that the hearts of these nuclear engines are heavy quartz tubes — which is why they are called light bulb reactors. That quartz is good stuff and the way the engine is set up the tubes are immune to thermal shock. But the pogoing and the abortive separation of the core booster must have done something…”