“I don't know, and I'm afraid to guess,” Patrick said, his hands touching the bandages over his eyes, lightly. He hated the blindness, the handicap it put upon him now. “Something very strange is happening or Flax wouldn't have patched us through to the White House that way. He was forcing someone's hand over something. But we can worry about that some other time. We have more pressing problems.” He touched the bandages again. “Doctor, don't you think we can loosen these, maybe take them off for a quick look? You don't know until you try.”
“We know, Patrick,” Coretta said, working to keep her voice calm and professional. “Whatever the final result is, that shock you and Nadya had to your eyes will render you sightless for a day at least. You gain nothing by removing the bandages — and may even cause more damage. I'm sorry I can't be more specific. But that's the straight of it.”
“It could be permanent then?” Nadya asked quietly.
“Perhaps, though I doubt it strongly. There is a very good chance that the blindness is only a temporary thing.” She spoke flatly and emphatically because she was lying; she had no idea of the extent of the damage. But morale building was more important than truth at this moment.
“All right,” Patrick said. “We'll put that aside for the moment. Gregor, did the entire HOOPSNAKE program come through on the printer?”
“It did. I have cut it into sheets and put them into a binder as you directed,” Gregor said.
“Get it, will you?”
“Why?” Coretta asked, surprised. “If a rescue ship is on the way we surely can forget about blowing Prometheus up.”
“The basic situation has not changed,” Nadya said. She lay, strapped in her couch next to Patrick on his. Just as blind, just as calm.
“That's the truth of it,” Patrick agreed. “There are still too many bugger factors in the equation. Our orbit may hold out the hours needed for rescue. Or end any minute now. The observatory is sending a running report on solar activity. Minor flares, no excess radiation. But the sun is still rotating and we've no idea of what's coming next. One big flare and that's the end.”
“It's terrible!” Coretta cried out.
“It is only the truth,” Gregor said, going to her and holding her. The two pilots could not see them, and even if they could — it would not matter. There were only a few vital things that mattered any more.
“Gregor's right,” Patrick nodded into his private darkness. “We have to proceed as though the Shuttle will never arrive. If it does get here in time, well then well and good. But if it doesn't then all our reasons for going ahead with HOOP-SNAKE still hold. It will take some time, so I suggest you start at once.”
“How long?” Coretta asked.
“Considering the fact that neither of you has had EVA experience it could be three or four hours.”
“What do we have to do? I still have no real idea of the whole thing.”
“The program is explained here in great detail,” Gregor said, holding up the sheaf of printout.
“For you maybe, baby, but that stuff is worse than Greek to me.”
“I better take the time to explain,” Patrick said. “You should grasp the principles before you proceed. Are you acquainted with the operating principle of the nuclear engine?”
“Just the theory,” Coretta said. “Hydrogen is used as a nuclear moderator as well as fuel. Those quartz tubes, some of them were broken, are what they call the light bulb. The uranium isotope in granular form is mixed with neon gas in the tubes, that's where the reaction takes place. This heats the tubes up, how hot…?”
“Three thousand degrees.”
“A little on the warm side. Outside the light bulbs is a hydrogen atmosphere which gets hotter, meaning it gets bigger, meaning it gets pressurized in the chamber and goes squirting out the hole in the back and we get pushed along and that is that. Right?”
“Perfectly right, nice and simple. The whole process is much more complex and detailed but that doesn't matter a damn right now, since all you and Gregor have to do is bugger it up and turn it into a bomb.”
“How do we do that?”
“In four stages. First you will have to space walk and make an access to the pressure chamber. This will mean cutting into one of the cones. It will be hard, but it can be done. One of you will have to use the Astronaut Maneuvering Unit, the AMU, in order to reach the area. Then, Gregor, what comes next? My memory is shot.”
It wasn't memory, it was pain. The drugs were wearing off and his eyes ached so much it was difficult to think. Gregor had read the program to him once, he remembered it clearly.
Patrick just had difficulty talking. He would need another shot soon, but had to put it off as long as possible. He was too groggy afterwards. Gregor flipped the pages and touched a line with one long finger.
“Entrance must be made and the quartz tubing broken away to enlarge the chamber. Although very resistant to heat the material of the light bulbs is most frangible. When this has been done a four-meter section of U-235 storage tubing is removed and rolled upon itself until its diameter is approximately forty centimeters in diameter…”
“You lost me with that one, Gregor.”
“It's plastic tubing,” Patrick explained. “It is the container for the uranium fuel. You can't store the stuff in a tank or it goes critical and goes bang. So it's in this plastic tubing that's wrapped around the base of the ship. A section of the tubing, with the fuel, has to be cut off and rolled up into a compact mass.”
“Just a minute,” Coretta said. “If I recall my atomic medicine crash course that can be dangerous. Won't it blow up?”
“Not yet. There will be greater activity, but it won't go critical.”
“Whoever is doing the rolling is going to be mighty sick.”
“Whoever is doing that is going to be dead,” Patrick said grimly. “A lethal dose in minutes. But it won't really matter.”
“I guess it won't,” Coretta said, trying to match his calm. “It will take hours for even that kind of dose to kill someone. But the whole ship will blow up well before that.”
“That is correct,” Gregor said, turning to the last page. “When the fuel is ready the flow of hydrogen must be turned on from the controls here. Then the mass of fuel is thrown forcefully into the pressure chamber. That is all.”
“All?” She was puzzled. “What happens next?”
“The hydrogen in the chamber acts as a moderator, slowing down the radiation that has been escaping up to this point. The mass of U-235 goes critical…”
“And goes bang. An atomic explosion. I get the picture. So when do we get started?”
“Now,” Patrick said. “Someone please tell me the GET time.”
The Payload Changeout Room was just being locked into place against the Orbiter when the Launch Controller, Gordon Vaught, climbed onto the spidery steel framework. He was a big, solid man, with muscles and tendons furrowing and cording his bare arms. Born and raised in Dothan, Alabama, just a few hundred miles from Cape Canaveral, he was used to the damp tropical climate, was scarcely aware of it. He pushed through the airlock into the cooled and sterilized atmosphere of the Room. The clamps were being thrown that sealed the entire structure tight against the body of the Orbiter. Colonel Kober was supervising the operation. Kober was a short, nasty type who was always in uniform, always fresh-pressed and spotlessly clean. Vaught knew that he had a good mind, had an engineering degree as well as his military rank, yet he still disliked him immensely. The feeling was mutual. They worked together because they had to, but that didn't mean they had to enjoy it.
“You preparing to remove your payload, Colonel?” Vaught asked.
“We are, Mr. Vaught.”
“How long before you get it out and we can seal the doors?”