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“Wish I had a creek,” the working AC mumbled.

“Say again, Will?”

“Nothing, buddy.”

Enright turned his attention outside. He reached over his head to Panel 0–8 where he dimmed the cabin lights in the forward cockpit. As the lights came down, he could see the green running lights on Soyuz through the far left window by Parker’s empty seat. Straight ahead, he could make out the hazy horizon of the black ocean 1,000 miles away. He sensed the curving, inverted horizon where the star field stopped, blocked out by the dark planet. A few bright stars were visibly growing brighter as they rose from beyond the eastern horizon and climbed through the Earth’s gossamer atmosphere. When the points of light emerged from the thin veil of air close to the sea, their twinkling stopped. Concentrating to focus his bloodshot eyes out the thick window, Enright could distinguish cool blue stars from hot white ones. He made out one or two, faintly red suns where solar systems were in their final death throes. He felt no weight except for the pressure of his inflated, tight, anti-gravity pants.

“You are orange, Endeavor.”

Enright was revived when the earphones floating upon his shoulders crackled. It should have been another two minutes before Shuttle was within range of the Australian Yarradee antennae.

“Say again, Skipper?”

“Didn’t say nothin’, Jack,” Parker panted from below.

Outside, visible through the two square windows in the rear wall of the flightdeck, Shuttle’s upside-down tail, 26 feet, 4 inches tall, glowed a neon orange as it plowed through stray oxygen ions loose in the vacuum of space 781,000 feet above the sea. Enright could not see the flickering energy 100 feet behind his bandaged head.

“Hello?” Enright called dumbly as he pressed the mike button to energize his air-to-ground FM radios.

“Hello, Endeavor! Your ion wake is quite brilliant.”

Enright’s swollen eyes blinked out the window beyond the Colonel’s empty left seat.

The voice crackling through Enright’s earphones carried a thickly Russian accent.

13

“Good morning,” Enright radioed ship to ship. He was thinking of sunrise ten minutes and 3,000 miles away.

“Lieutenant Commander Enright? Your face is better, yes?” The thickly accented words crackled over the flight-deck speaker by the copilot’s right shoulder.

“Yes, thank you… What is your status, Soyuz?” Enright got down to business after his initial surprise. His first hail from the black sky had sounded like a dream, like talking in his sleep.

“What’s all the chatter, Jack?” Parker called from the airlock where he rested. He could hear Enright but not the Soviet transmission which was not multiplexed to the airlock by Endeavor’s audio control electronics.

“Brother Ivan just dropped by to say hello, Will.”

“Oh,” the AC puffed below decks.

“The Colonel, he is preparing to go outside?”

“That’s affirmative, Soyuz. Probably this pass across the United States… What are your intentions? Are there two or three cosmonauts in your spacecraft?”

“Forgive my rudeness, Yakov Enright. We are two here. I am Alexi Karpov, commanding. Flight engineer is Uri Ruslanovich. We will provide whatever support you may require. We have been soft-suited and in oxygen five hours should you or Colonel need us outside.”

Enright was taken aback by the cordial exchange 149 statute miles into the black sky.

“Skipper, they’re Karpov and Ruslanovich. Here to lend a hand.” Enright used the ship’s intercom without pressing his air-to-air mike button. The circuit remained private.

“I’ll bet, Jack. They were on Salut-7, weren’t they?”

Enright looked outside toward Soyuz.

“You flew on the Salut space station, I believe?” Enright’s puffy face moved abrasively against his moist bandages.

“Yes, Yakov. Thank you. We are pleased you follow our program.”

“Well,” Enright smiled uncomfortably, “you are the only other game in town.”

Laughter followed from 100 yards away.

“I always enjoy what you Americans do with English.”

“Any time, Alexi,” Enright spoke around the water tube between his blistered lips.

“Endeavor, Endeavor. Configure AOS by Yarradee station at 05 plus 34. Your temperatures and pressures are stable. We see Will resting downstairs… Were we monitoring air-to-air?”

“Affirmative, Flight. Soyuz has broken radio silence on our primary frequency. They are Karpov and Ruslanovich.”

“Copy, Jack… Soyuz: U.S. Space Command via Yarradee. Radio check, over.”

“Loud and clear, Colorado. How me?”

“We have you, Soyuz. Welcome to the neighborhood, Major Karpov and Dr. Ruslanovich.”

Enright raised a singed eyebrow at the ground’s speed in shuffling dossiers.

“We thank you, Colorado,” a second Russian voice replied.

“Endeavor’s ion wake is still quite orange.”

The second Soviet pilot carried fewer Slavic accents.

“Copy, Doctor. Thank you. Jack, ask Will for his PLSS time, please.”

“Rogo.” Enright released his mike switch over open water 900 miles west of the Australian mainland. “Backroom wants your pack time, Will.”

“Ah, tell ’em 19 minutes used up.”

“AC says 19 on the PLSS, Flight.”

“Copy, Jack. Six until sunrise. Recommend you configure the sunshades.”

“Will do.”

Flying headsdown, Enright unfastened his lap belt. Standing out of his seat, he floated on his side across the center console toward Parker’s empty seat. Bracing himself with a hand against the glareshield, he snapped three tinted shades into Velcro adhesive above the AC’s seat. He took care to keep his floating legs close to his right seat and the air line to his balloon pants.

“You are in your underwear, Commander,” an accented voice crackled over the radio. Enright waved toward the portside, visored window. Through the sunshade, he saw Soyuz blink her arc light which illuminated LACE in the darkness.

Returning carefully to his seat, Enright erected three sunshades on the windows around his seat. He floated against his lap belt when he returned his biomedical plug to the wall jack.

“Back with you, Flight. Six visors in place.”

“Copy, Jack.”

“Endeavor: Ruslanovich here. On Colonel’s EVA suit, did he denitrogenate before entering the airlock?”

“Negative, Doctor. We have been depressurized to about 10 psi in the cabin for a few hours. The AC has been hyperventilating in oxygen for about half an hour now. We hope that should purge him.”

“Understand. Watch him closely. We can go outside if he saturates.”

“Thank you, Doctor.” Enright did not know what else to say.

At 05 hours, 39½ minutes into Endeavor’s mission, the three craft crossed the western coastline of Australia over Carnarvon. Enright returned to running his systems check of Shuttle’s three fuel cells. He worked the instrument panel at his right elbow as he followed the checklist printed upon the 6-by-9-inch television screen on the forward panel. The left and center screens were blank.

“Jack: We see you running down the electricals. Confirm Auto Trip in monitor position on AC Bus Two, Panel Right-One.”

“Monitor it is, Flight.”

“Understand, Jack. Your cryogenic pressures and quantities are nominal. LOS and sunup in one minute.”

“Rog…”

Below in the airlock, Parker rested in his EMU suit. As he floated in the can, his heavy boots pointed upward toward the flightdeck.

The AC felt vaguely uneasy inside his iron can, which became suddenly small. The sensation was familiar: first, the prickly discomfort between his shoulder blades. Then the moistness in his palms and the quickening of his pulse. He could feel his heart high in his neck. Parker’s mouth was suddenly dry and he licked his lips. Claustrophobia: the dread predator. And it was with him, breathing upon him in the can, in the stiff suit close to his wet face inside his two, doubled-locked helmets. The AC’s ears hummed.