The rocket lit off with a thundering roar and the pod lurched into the air; the surge of thrust would have buckled Gaeta’s knees if he hadn’t been standing in the suit.
“Yahoo,” he said in a throaty whisper that hadn’t the faintest trace of excitement in it.
“How low can you go?” Wanamaker asked nervously as Pancho maneuvered the transfer craft closer to the orange-gray clouds of Titan.
She realized her tongue was between her teeth, a sure sign that she was keyed up. “Won every limbo contest I ever was in,” she answered.
“That isn’t a dance floor down there,” said Wanamaker.
“Don’t sweat it, Jake. Just get yourself zipped up in that suit and open up the cargo bay. We’re gonna pick up Manny just like a frog snaps up a fly.”
Wanamaker pulled the nanofiber hood over his head and sealed it the collar of his suit, thinking that a fly really doesn’t do so well when a frog snaps it up.
Gaeta realized he must have passed out briefly from the strain of the launch. One moment he was lifting off Titan’s surface, the next he was up above the clouds, in space, with nothing but the cold and distant stars around him.
He coughed. Air must be getting sour, he told himself. Sure, he realized, the tank would blow out completely once I’m in vacuum. I’m breathing the air inside the suit now.
“Hang in there, Manny.” Pancho’s voice, he recognized. “The cavalry’s chargin’ in to the rescue.”
Pancho stood alone on the bridge now that Wanamaker had gone to the cargo bay. She focused her attention on the display screen that showed Gaeta’s planned trajectory, a thin green curve that rose from the surface of Titan and bent into a graceful elliptical orbit around the frozen moon.
The red dot that revealed where Gaeta actually was showed that he was almost exactly on the nominal trajectory. Pod’s guidance system works pretty good, Pancho thought. Farther along the curving green line was a yellow dot that marked where the transfer craft was calculated to rendezvous with Gaeta. Too far, Pancho knew. He’ll be suffocating on his own carbon dioxide by then.
She had already instructed the guidance program to lay out a plot for the earliest possible intercept of Gaeta’s trajectory. Now she was flying that course, one hand on the T-shaped control yoke that projected from the instrument panel. She felt the craft yaw to the right, making her sway slightly in the plastic loops that held her soft-booted feet to the deck.
The cargo bay hatch’s monitor light turned red.
“Hatch is open.” Wanamaker’s voice came through the control panel’s speaker.
“You tethered?” Pancho called.
“Double length,” said Wanamaker. “Ready to go out on your command.”
I’m givin’ orders to an admiral! Pancho thought. Then she shook her head disapprovingly. No time for silly crap, she said to herself sternly. A man’s life is on the line.
Clicking the communications switch, she called, “Manny, how you doin’ out there?”
She heard him cough, then his voice came through, sounding weak, tired. “I’m on … a wing and a … prayer, kid.”
Despite it all Pancho grinned. Been a long time since anybody called me kid, she said to herself.
Timoshenko felt astoundingly calm as he slowly took off his space suit. It took a while to do it all alone. After making certain that the airlock was properly sealed he had walked to the lockers where the suits were stored. Sitting heavily on the bench in front of the lockers he had disconnected his life-support lines, lifted off his helmet, and took a deep double-lungful of the habitat’s air. After the canned air of the space suit it tasted like spring wine. Then he wormed out of the backpack. Next came the gloves, and after them the boots. All very calmly, carefully. He laid the items on the bench in a neat row.
I’m alive, he told himself. From now on I appreciate every moment of life, every breath I draw. Slowly he lifted the hard shell torso of the suit over his head and rested it against one of the lockers. Then he tugged off the leggings.
Once he had the entire suit properly stowed in its locker he took another deep breath, then started along the passageway that led back to the green and spacious interior of the habitat. It’s not a prison, he told himself. It’s my world. Heaven or hell, it’s the only world I have. My world. My life.
Her eyes fixed on the display screen, Pancho saw that the red dot representing Gaeta’s position and the blue dot showing the transfer craft’s position were overlapping. She was getting a good blip from his suit on the ship’s radar, too.
“You see him?” she asked Wanamaker.
“Not yet.”
She had left the comm line open, but Gaeta hadn’t said anything for the past few minutes.
“Manny,” she called. “Can you see us?”
No reply.
“Damn. He must be out cold by now.”
“I see him!” Wanamaker yelled. “He’s still in the pod.”
Pancho punched up the radar data and began to adjust the transfer craft’s velocity to match Gaeta’s.
“Too far to reach,” Wanamaker said, his voice high with strain.
“Manny,” Pancho called. “Can you maneuver?”
She thought she heard a moan. Maybe a cough. “Hang in there, pal,” she said. “We’ll come and getcha.”
With the deftness of a concert pianist Pancho worked the keyboard that controlled the craft’s maneuvering thrusters. Easy now, she told herself. No big moves. Jest a leetle touch …
“I think I can reach him!” Wanamaker sang out.
“Go for it, Jake,” she said. “I’ll nudge us closer while you’re out there.”
The mission control center was absolutely silent. Cardenas held her breath as she listened to Pancho’s radio chatter. Manny’s suit must be filled with carbon dioxide, she thought. No oxygen left. How long can he go without brain damage? Or dying?
Wanamaker glided out of the transfer craft’s airlock, unreeling the double length of tether that was clipped to the waist of his nanofiber spacesuit. In his mind he rehearsed the procedures for unlatching the grips that held Gaeta in the narrow confines of the escape pod.
“Hey, Manny,” he called. “How’re you doing?”
Nothing. Wanamaker didn’t even hear breathing in his earphones.
He reached the pod and unlocked the grips as swiftly as he could, then wrapped the tether under Gaeta’s shoulders and hauled his weightless bulk out of the pod.
“Just like we did at the rings,” he said to Gaeta. “We’ll have you back in the cargo bay in a few seconds.”
It seemed to take forever to work their way back to the transfer craft, and then even longer to close the airlock hatch and wait for the pumps to fill the cargo bay with air.
As soon as the keypad lights turned green, Wanamaker tore open the hatch at the rear of Gaeta’s suit. “Breathe, Manny,” he urged. “Take a good, deep breath.”
Reaching awkwardly inside the suit, Wanamaker wrapped his long arms around Gaeta’s chest and squeezed. Then he relaxed, then squeezed again. Three times. Four …
Gaeta gagged and coughed. Wanamaker pulled his arms out of the suit, banging both elbows painfully on the edges of the hatch. But he heard Gaeta sucking in air, wheezing, coughing.
“He’s alive, Pancho!” Wanamaker shouted happily. “Let’s get him back home.”
30 May 2096: Infirmary
Gaeta opened his eyes slowly and saw that he was lying in a hospital bed. The sheets were crisp and smelled of disinfectant. Monitors beeped softly on the wall to his side.