“Skipper,” Enright began without pressing the mike button of the air/ground channel, “you’re not much better than me.” Colorado could not eavesdrop on the cockpit conversation.
Parker looked glumly at his purple shin and knee, which he rubbed with long, hard strokes. Enright waited.
“Endeavor,” the ground called. “One minute to…”
“Hold short, Flight,” Enright insisted.
“Will?” The copilot looked at his long captain.
The big man in the left seat squinted his battered face out the left window toward LACE slowly rolling in the lights from ever-mute Soyuz. William McKinley Parker fogged the triple-pane window when he spoke softly but firmly.
“One final moment of glory: A man is entitled to that.” The Aircraft Commander turned his haggard, pilot’s face to his partner. “Jacob?”
The copilot furrowed his blistered brow within his cheesecloth mask.
“Flight,” Enright radioed, “AC be going outside. I’ll take the con.”
The two airmen floated against their lap belts as they waited for the Flight Director 8,000 miles away to poll his controllers.
“We copy, Endeavor. You have a Go for EVA. Configure LOS Ascension Island at 05 plus 11. Botswana in 3…”
Ascension Island fell off the western edge of the world 900 miles behind the starship.
“Can you handle the RMS, Jack?”
“Got two good hands, Skipper.”
Parker nodded. Then the AC pulled his plugs and released his lap and shoulder harness.
“Stay put, Number One.”
“Suit up alone?”
“Doin’ it for years, Jack. Thanks.”
Parker floated out of his seat and he touched Enright’s left shoulder as he passed. He descended headfirst down the access hole behind Enright’s right seat.
The Colonel soared through the lighted mid-deck to the sleep berths. Holding his position with his legs pointed toward the ceiling, he reached into the berth for the leg pocket on his orange ascent suit. He pulled a rumpled paper sack toward his face. From the bag, he retrieved a vile of phenylbutazone labeled “veterinary use only.” Pausing, he contemplated the forward lockers stocked with powerful painkillers.
“Hell,” he mumbled as he flew toward the zero-gravity latrine. Three hundred milligrams of anti-inflammatory horse balm were fired through his mesh woolies below his right knee swollen to the size of his thigh.
“In the can, Jack,” the AC radioed topside as he swam into the airlock chamber.
“Take a magazine, Skipper.”
Inside the lighted airlock, the upside-down pilot worked the airlock controls beside the yard-wide hatch. As he went through the ten-minute protocol for a solo suit-up, Endeavor cruised the nighttime South Atlantic toward Africa. He followed his checklists carefully: On Shuttle Five in November 1982, a spacewalk by two crewmen was canceled when a space suit failed inside the airlock. Someone somewhere down below had left a tiny but critical part out of an oxygen regulator in the suit. Parker steered his body through the waist ring of the EMU’s lower torso after removing it from its wall brackets. He winced as his right leg pressed into the pants. To his inflamed right leg, the suit’s tight padding and insulation layers felt like hard fingers kneading raw dough.
Topside, Enright in the right front seat acknowledged Mission Control’s call through the Botswana tracking station. Inside the airlock, Parker floated in his 225-pound, extra-vehicular mobility unit suit. After he had sealed and double-locked the airlock hatch, he had unclipped his PLSS backpack from its wall brackets. The PLSS chugged on his back. His inner helmet was locked to his neckring. The portable oxygen system continued to purge the heavy EMU suit with pure oxygen to flush out cabin air. The POS hose connected Parker’s chestpack to the wall.
“Skipper: Flight wants you to do some vigorous isometric exercises when you’re sealed to speed up your nitrogen withdraw time.” Parker’s soft Snoopy hat heard Enright but not the ground.
The medics on the other side of the planet were concerned about Parker going outside without first pre-breathing oxygen for at least three hours to clean the nitrogen from his blood.
“Understand, Jack. With maybe a handstand or two for good measure.”
“Don’t hurt yourself, Will.”
“Negative,” the AC laughed. The throbbing heat in his right leg was retreating slowly before the horse medication which tasted slightly sweet in the Colonel’s mouth.
“Where are we, Jack?” Parker called as he disconnected the oxygen purge hose from his chestpack.
“Road map says over Namibia. No exit signs for any truck stops.”
Endeavor flew over sleeping southern Africa.
“ ’Kay. Purge complete, Jack. Helmet locked and lock-locked. Puttin’ on the outer visor. Real comfy in the suit.” The AC’s face within the plastic bubble disappeared inside the white outer visor with the gold-mirrored, laser-proof faceplate.
“Copy, Skip. Don’t forget your chin-ups.”
The AC already had his heavily gloved hands gripping a wall handhold. With all of his strength, one arm pressed the handrail away as his other hand pulled it toward him. He felt his face flush and his pulse quicken. He sweated.
“Workin’ out,” the AC panted over the intercom.
Endeavor crossed the east coast of Africa at Port Shep-stone, South Africa, twelve minutes after Parker had entered the five-foot wide airlock.
“Feet wet at 05 hours and 19 minutes, Will.”
“Got my slickers on,” Parker called, breathing hard of the cool, dry oxygen in the EMU suit pressurized to 4.3 pounds more than the inside of the bright airlock. The digital numerics on the top of the pilot’s chestpack ticked up past three minutes of air time on the PLSS backpack.
“Ground says your bio looks fine, Will. They say you’re working up a real lather. Hope you’re not doin’ anything that could make you go blind.”
“Wish…” The AC blew hard into his twin lip microphones.
“Hear you, Will. We’re LOS by Botswana at 05 plus 22. Radio silent for 15 till Australia. I’m real fine on the bridge.”
Parker grunted his reply over the voice-activated intercom. He momentarily freed one hand to crank up the coolant water flow through the soft piping of his liquid coolant garment, which was sticky against his body. Upon his sweating face, he felt a cool wash of pure oxygen blowing from the inner helmet’s vent pad behind his ears.
On the flightdeck, Enright in the right seat was feeling thirsty and vaguely lightheaded. He sucked at the plastic tube leading to a large squeeze bottle. He alternated sips of the tasteless, sterilized water with chugs of bitter electrolyte solution. The sweetner in the sodium drink could not dilute the aftertaste similar to warm sweat.
One hundred thirty nautical miles above the nighttime South Atlantic, Endeavor, Soyuz and LACE, all sped across a starry sky. LACE was bathed in the arc light from the silent Soviet ship. Shuttle had resumed her normal orbital attitude, flying upside down with her nose pointing into the direction of flight, now northeastward. Enright rolled the ship over while Parker was suiting up. Mother held trim. Facing Earthward, the space radiators secured to the open bay doors would be protected from the sun come daybreak in fifteen minutes.
“How goes it, Skipper?”
“Okay, Number One. Takin’ a break to let the PLSS catch up with the heat load. Upstairs?”
“Same. Just finished running through a checkout of the fuel cells. They’re purring away.”
Enright took his foggy mind off his throbbing face by conducting test protocols of the electrical subsystems managed from the right seat.
“Roger, Jack. You got this watch.” In the sealed airlock, Parker resumed his zero-gravity push-ups against the wall. He worked with his face close to the floor. As his bulky suit moved beside the hull of the round airlock, he tried out the EMU’s urine-collection reservoir. A faint whiff of ammonia seeped into his helmet.