Harry heard yelling in his helmet earphones, then a high-pitched scream. He spun himself around and pushed off as far as his tether would allow. Nothing seemed amiss as far as he could see along the immense curving flank of the habitat. But voices were hollering on the intercom frequency, several at the same time.
Suddenly the earphones went dead silent. Then the controller’s voice, pitched high with tension: «EMERGENCY. THIS IS AN EMERGENCY. ALL OUTSIDE PERSONNEL PROCEED TO ENDCAP IMMEDIATELY. REPEAT. EMERGENCY AT ENDCAP.»
The endcap, Harry knew, was where the rest of the crew was working.
Without hesitation, without even thinking about it, Harry pulled himself along his tether until he was at the cleat where it was fastened. He unclipped it and started dashing along the habitat’s skin, flicking his gloved fingers from one handhold to the next, his legs stretched out behind him, batting along the curving flank of the massive structure like a silver barracuda.
Voices erupted in his earphones again, but after a few seconds somebody inside cut off the intercom frequency. Probably the controller, Harry thought. As he flew along he stabbed at the keyboard on the wrist of his suit to switch to the crew’s exclusive frequency. The super warned them never to use that frequency unless he told them to, but this was an emergency.
Sure enough, he heard the super’s voice rasping, «I’m suiting up; I’ll be out there in a few minutes. By the numbers, report in.»
As he listened to the others counting off, the shakes suddenly turned Harry’s insides to burning acid. He fought back the urge to retch, squeezed his eyes tight shut, clamped his teeth together so hard his jaws hurt. His bowels rumbled. Don’t let me crap in the suit! he prayed. He missed a handhold and nearly soared out of reach of the next one, but he righted himself and kept racing toward the scene of the accident, whatever it was, blind with pain and fear. When his turn on the roll call came he gasped out, «Twelvetoes, on my way to endcap.»
«Harry! You stay out of this!» the super roared. «We got enough trouble here already!»
Harry shuddered inside his suit and obediently slowed his pace along the handholds. He had to blink several times to clear up his vision, and then he saw, off in the distance, what had happened.
The flitter that was carrying the endcap girders must have misfired its rocket thruster. Girders were strewn all over the place, some of them jammed into the skeleton of the endcap’s unfinished structure, others spinning in slow motion out and away from the habitat. Harry couldn’t see the flitter itself; probably it was jammed inside the mess of girders sticking out where the endcap was supposed to be.
Edging closer hand over hand, Harry began to count the spacesuited figures of his crew, some floating inertly at the ends of their tethers, either unconscious or hurt or maybe dead. Four, five. Others were clinging to the smashed-up pile of girders. Seven, eight. Then he saw one spinning away from the habitat, its tether gone, tumbling head over heels into empty space.
Harry clambered along the handholds to a spot where he had delivered emergency oxygen tanks a few days earlier. Fighting down the bile burning in his gut, he yanked one of the tanks loose and straddled it with his legs. The tumbling, flailing figure was dwindling fast, outlined against a spiral sweep of gray clouds spread across the ocean below. A tropical storm, Harry realized. He could even see its eye, almost in the middle of the swirl.
Monster storm, he thought as he opened the oxy tank’s valve and went jetting after the drifting figure. But instead of flying straight and true, the tank started spinning wildly, whirling around like an insane pinwheel. Harry hung on like a cowboy clinging to a bucking bronco.
The earphones were absolutely silent, nothing but a background hiss. Harry guessed that the super had blanked all their outgoing calls, keeping the frequency available for himself to give orders. He tried to talk to the super, but he was speaking into a dead microphone.
He’s cut me off. He doesn’t want me in this, Harry realized.
Then the earphones erupted. «Who the hell is that? Harry, you shit-head, is that you? Get your ass back here!»
Harry really wanted to, but he couldn’t. He was clinging as hard as he could to the whirling oxy tank, his eyes squeezed shut again. The bile was burning up his throat. When he opened his eyes he saw that he was riding the spinning tank into the eye of the monster storm down on Earth.
He gagged. Then retched. Dry heaves, hot acid bile spattering against the inside of his bubble helmet. Death’ll be easy after this, Harry thought.
The space-suited figure of the other worker was closer, though. Close enough to grab, almost. Desperately, Harry fired a few quick squirts of the oxygen, trying to stop his own spinning or at least slow it down some.
It didn’t help much, but then he rammed into the other worker and grabbed with both hands. The oxygen tank almost slipped out from between his legs, but Harry clamped hard onto it. His life depended on it. His, and the other guy’s.
«Harry? Is that you?»
It was Marta Santos, Harry saw, looking into her helmet. With their helmets touching, Harry could hear her trembling voice, shocked and scared.
«We’re going to die, aren’t we?»
He had to swallow down acid before he could say, «Hold on.»
She clung to him as if they were racing a Harley through heavy traffic. Harry fumbled with the oxy tank’s nozzle, trying to get them moving back toward the habitat. At his back the mammoth tropical storm swirled and pulsated like a thing alive, beckoning to Harry, trying to pull him down into its spinning heart.
«For chrissake,» the super’s voice screeched, «how long does it take to get a rescue flitter going? I got four injured people here and two more streakin’ out to friggin’ Costa Rica!»
Harry couldn’t be certain, but it seemed that the habitat was getting larger. Maybe we’re getting closer to it, he thought. At least we’re heading in the right direction. I think.
He couldn’t really control the oxygen tank. Every time he opened the valve for another squirt of gas the damned tank started spinning wildly. Harry heard Marta sobbing as she clung to him. The habitat was whirling around, from Harry’s point of view, but it was getting closer.
«Whattaya mean it’ll take another ten minutes?» the super’s voice snarled. «You’re supposed to be a rescue vehicle. Get out there and rescue them!»
Whoever was talking to the super, Harry couldn’t hear it. The supervisor had blocked out everything except his own outgoing calls.
«By the time you shitheads get into your friggin’ suits my guys’ll be dead!» the super shrieked. Harry wished he could turn off the radio altogether but to do that he’d have to let go of the tank and if he did that he’d probably go flying off the tank completely. So he held on and listened to the super screaming at the rescue team.
The habitat was definitely getting closer. Harry could see spacesuited figures floating near the endcap and the big mess of girders jammed into the skeletal structure there. Some of the girders were still floating loose, tumbling slowly end over end like enormous throwing sticks.
«Harry!»
Marta’s shriek of warning came too late. Harry turned his head inside the fishbowl helmet and saw one of those big, massive girders looming off to his left, slightly behind him, swinging down on him like a giant tree falling.
Automatically, Harry opened the oxy tank valve again. It was the only thing he could think to do as the ponderous steel girder swung down on him like the arm of an avenging god. He felt the tank spurt briefly, then the shadow of the girder blotted out everything and Marta was screaming behind him and then he could feel his leg crush like a berry bursting between his teeth and the pain hit so hard that he felt like he was being roasted alive and he had one last glimpse of the mammoth storm down on Earth before everything went black.