Parker sent the clear helmet floating toward the sleep station berths where it stopped against a reposing orange pressure suit which Parker had worn during launch. The AC moved a thick knob sideways at the base of Enright’s chestpack. The rush of air in the depressurized EMU suit stopped and the digital timer at the top of the chestpack stopped at 17 minutes.
“Endeavor, Endeavor: Colorado by Goldstone broadcasting in the blind. Negative contact. Listening secondary frequency 2217.5. Over.” Only the tense bunker of Mission Control in the Rocky Mountains heard the anxious call.
When Parker laid his ear over Enright’s red and peeling nose he noticed that the facial swelling had opened the snap of the chin strap on the Snoopy comm helmet. The little strap floated upward toward Parker’s sweating face.
“Thank God,” the Colonel whispered as Enright breathed shallowly and rapidly into his captain’s ear.
“Endeavor… Colorado at 04 plus 41.” The Goldstone, California, dish pointed eastward, following Shuttle as she crossed the Colorado River over the northeast tip of Lake Powell, Utah. “Acquisition of signal by UHF-only through Northrop.” The antennae at Endeavor’s alternate landing site on the gypsum sands in New Mexico ached to listen to the silent purple sky of a winter afternoon in the desert.
A pilot learns to recognize many things: the gentlest buffet from a wing about to stall; the feel in the seatbones of a runway one foot from the wheels which cannot be seen from the cockpit but which can be felt by a pilot’s special neurons. And flash burns. Any flier with friends who fly has logged time waiting for news from the burn ward. William McKinley Parker had looked too many times at this same puffy red face soon to fester into watery blisters. The Aircraft Commander winced, creasing deep furrows in his gaunt face.
“I’m here, Jack,” the tall man sighed as he floated close to the charred face of his brother.
Parker rose and floated on his side toward the galley unit by the painfully bright window in the mid-deck hatch. Outside, the gas cloud had boiled away in the fearsome sun to a faint haze of yellow and glistening snowflakes. He did not linger there.
“Endeavor: With you by Kennedy at 04 hours, 44 minutes. Still negative contact voice.” Shuttle flew 180 miles due south of St. Louis. “Please configure Number Two on your network signal processor. KSC listening.”
Parker fetched a hand towel from the galley’s accessories locker. He pulled out the cold-water nozzle which he buried in the little square of cloth. Floating upright beside the side window, Parker hovered with his knees flexed toward his middle. His feet were above the floor as he shot cold water into the towel. Bubbles of water rose and burst into tiny globules against the mid-deck ceiling beside the access hole which led upstairs to the flightdeck.
Returning to Enright, the AC found his shipmate levitating a foot above the floor. In his deflated EMU suit, Enright’s motionless arms floated upward in front of his swollen face already oozing serum from dime-size blisters.
Parker straddled the prone copilot and he laid the wet rag gently over Enright’s lips. He took care not to touch the open blisters and he waited and he perspired. His right leg up to his groin felt like Enright’s face looked.
“Endeavor: With you by BDA at 04 plus 47.” The antennae at Bermuda in the Atlantic listened to the western sky, where Shuttle cruised over the Great Smokey Mountains 200 miles northeast of Atlanta. “Negative contact. If you hear us, check your circuit breakers on Panel Overhead-Five, Row B, at signal conditioners Operational-Forward One through Four and Midships One and Two. Also check MDM breaker Flight Forward Three. Colorado listening by Bermuda…”
Parker laid a second wet towel upon Enright’s lips. The copilot sprawled on the mid-deck floor moved his mouth against the cool water globules clinging to his lips.
“Easy, pard,” the AC whispered. “Nod if you’re with me, Jack.”
The kneeling command pilot felt Enright’s enormous, beet-red face move slightly against his fingers.
“Can you open your eyes, Jacob?”
The burned airman creased his swollen forehead. His eyes blinked half open and Enright labored to focus. Tears welled in the outside corners of his bloodshot eyes. The droplets formed a growing globe of salty water on Enright’s blistered cheeks. In weightlessness, tears, like all liquids, do not run. Instead, the weightless molecules adhere to each other, held together by their surface tension.
“Welcome home, Number One,” the big man sniffed.
Enright nodded.
The AC knelt beside his crewmate. Parker held his position with one hand braced against an airlock handrail.
“Endeavor: You are feet wet at 04 plus 49. Still negative voice. If you are upstairs, configure to Pre-amplifier Two at Panel Aft-A1A2 on your S-band modulation. With you another three minutes.”
Shuttle crossed the East Coast over Wilmington, North Carolina, for blue water. It was nearly 3 o’clock down below on a chilly December afternoon.
Enright blinked the tears from his red hung-over eyes. His voice croaked dryly.
“Easy, Jack. You’re a might sunburned, second degree from the looks of it. God knows what you would look like without that visor on when you got hit. Can you move?”
Parker watched Enright slowly lift his boots. The AC’s free hand pressed his partner’s chestpack to hold him from floating away.
“Try your arms, Jack.”
Enright closed his thick eyelids as he slowly lifted his arms one at a time. When Enright felt Parker’s hand upon his chestpack, he closed both gloves upon his captain’s hairy forearm, which stuck out of his mesh woolies.
“Good, Jack. I want to move you, Okay?”
Enright nodded weakly.
Parker floated upright. He turned and for a moment fumbled with the sunshade for the hatch window. After he secured it to the round porthole, he returned to the dozing copilot. Gently, Parker pushed at Enright’s backpack near the floor. The copilot slowly floated off the mid-deck floor and his red eyelids grimaced in pain.
“Another few seconds, buddy. Follow me through.”
Enright nodded as the AC’s pilot-talk sank into his parched brain.
“Endeavor, Endeavor. You’re LOS by Kennedy. Bermuda still with you at 04 plus 52.”
Shuttle drifted under the Digital Autopilot’s firm hand 180 miles southwest of Bermuda Island.
The AC gingerly nudged the upright Enright toward the triple-decker sleep berths. He gently wedged the EMU-suited flier into a standing position against the bunk frame. From inside the middle berth, Parker pulled a long nylon strap used to restrain sleeping crewmen. He secured the long belt across Enright’s chestpack. Each end of the strap Parker cinched to a post on the berth frame.
“That’ll hold ya, Jack.” Parker hovered close to Enright’s face of oozing brown blisters.
“Don’t wander off, Jack.”
Neither pilot touched the floor with his feet.
“Thanks, Skipper,” Enright whispered without opening his eyes.
The Colonel swallowed. “Jack: Do you know where you are?”
The AC watched Enright move his red eyes across the bright mid-deck of Endeavor.
“Frat house,” Enright whispered hoarsely. “Goin’ to bring in Daisy… Little Daisy.” The copilot closed his watery eyes and a faint smile creased the comers of his swollen mouth.
“You got it, buddy,” Parker smiled as he floated to the narrow front end of the cabin. From one of the lockers, Parker pulled a wireless Snoopy communications helmet. He covered his head with the soft CCA and snapped the chin strap. He slowly somersaulted in mid-air as he flipped a power switch clipped to his mesh long johns.