Orbital Maneuvers (34 page)

“You’re probably right,” Paul said, as he cleaned his hands with a wipe.  “Jerry will be a lot more manageable if he knows that we are going back.  That seems to have been the biggest problem he had with everyone.  We did not leave the station soon enough to suit his liking.”

Susan surveyed their work.  Jerry was once again trussed up like an animal at the rodeo, and she felt more like a failure than before.  Looking at Ivan, she asked, “How is the station doing?”

“Everything is nominal.  Why?”

“I was just wondering.  I think I need a break.” She looked around the compartment again and said in a voice that betrayed her fatigue and frustration, “I’ll be back in a bit.” Susan left the compartment and exited the command module.

Paul and Ivan joined Alexander and Nicholas who were in the middle of a discussion about the current radar image on the screen.  Alexander brought them up-to-date on their approximate location and what was on the display. 

“Nicholas noticed that the distribution of the dust was becoming more even, there were less areas of high concentration and the average altitude of the dust layer was dropping also,” Alexander said.  “The other thing he noticed is the spreading of the dust layer is more evident.  It is getting wider as time goes by.”

Paul studied the display and agreed with Nicholas’ observations.  “I guess we are seeing what we thought we would see, that the dust layer would settle in and be distributed around the globe,” he said.  “As time goes by, this distribution should become more even.  The critical question is, how long will it stay suspended in a density that is thick enough to block a good portion of the sunlight?  The faster this stuff falls out, the better the chances that agriculture can resume at some essential level to sustain the population.”

Alexander stared at the screen, looking for something that might be used to gauge the rate of fallout on the dust cloud.  “I do not see any way that we can measure this from here, with this system.  Do you, Paul?” he asked.

Paul moved the cursor around the screen, tracing the outlines of the areas indicating the higher concentrations of dust as he thought about Alexander’s question.  “No, I don’t think we can do anything more than what we are doing now.  The best way to determine the change in density is to be on the surface where one can take measurements of the solar insolation and compare that to previously known values to get an idea of how rapidly it is changing.  At this point and time, it’s pretty obvious that there is a big reduction in the amount of solar energy reaching the surface, but as time goes by it should improve, and one could get an idea of what that rate may be.”

“What we need is a huge vacuum cleaner to suck all the dust out of the atmosphere,” Nicholas said.  After a moment’s reflection on the dust layer, he asked, “Will not rain remove much of this dust?”

“No, I do not think it will,” Ivan said, not quite sure of his answer.

“I think you’re right, Ivan,” Paul answered.  “A lot of this dust is above the troposphere, the layer of air in which most, if not all, of our weather originates.  The rain will help wash out the dust in this lower layer, but the dust that is suspended above the troposphere will hang around for a long time, slowly falling into the lower atmosphere to be deposited by gravity or rain on the surface.  I like Nicholas’ vacuum cleaner idea, if only we could build it!” They all agreed that that would be an elegant solution, if not a realistic one.

Ivan turned to Paul, and asked, “What about the larger rocks, have you seen any more evidence of that?”

“No, not really,” Paul said.  “I am guessing that most of it has fallen back to Earth, because it did not have enough tangential velocity to stay in orbit.  As far as I am concerned, that’s good.”

“Yes!” Alexander shouted.  “I have dodged enough space debris in my career, most of it in the last twenty-four hours!  I do not want to have to dodge any more.” After a slight hesitation, he added, “I hope that we have not just jinxed ourselves with these observations.”

Paul looked around the compartment.  “I don’t suppose that they used any wood in this station do you?” he asked.  Ivan smiled. 

Alexander and Nicholas looked perplexed.  Paul, seeing their reaction, realized that he needed to explain. 

“You know,
knock on wood
?” he motioned.  Slowly, recognition flowed across Alexander and Nicholas’ faces, as they finally understood Paul’s remark, which brought a smile to everyone’s face.

XXI
I

Susan left the control module and headed in the only direction available to her, toward the Kibo module at the other end of the station.  On her way, she passed through Node 1 and lingered outside of the cupola, watching the night side of Earth pass below the station. 

She felt angry and uncomfortable.  She was angry mostly with herself for not handling Jerry’s situation any better this time than last.  She was also feeling uneasy about what awaited them down on the surface of the planet. 

As she hovered outside the cupola, the discussion she had earlier with Paul played over in her mind. 

“Now that the tables have turned, can I see his point of view better?” She asked herself in a whisper. She wondered if maybe Paul was right; there was no good reason to return. 

While pondering these thoughts, she undid her hair and let it float freely.  It was a relief just releasing her hair from the tight bun she had it in.  Running her fingers through the tangle of brown tendrils, she massaged her scalp, bringing an easing of the physical tension she was feeling.  Susan indulged herself for a few minutes, closing her eyes and trying not to think of anything.  Her main goal was to enjoy the simple sensation she was feeling. 

She slowly opened her eyes and gazed down at the planet below.  It was still there, and to her dismay, so were all the problems she entered the cupola with, but at least her head felt better.  She gathered up her long, curly, brown hair and returned it to the confines of the bun she reconstructed.  In zero-g she disliked letting her hair float freely, she thought she looked like Medusa as it floated about her head. 

As Susan secured the last elusive strands, she was suddenly taken back to a childhood memory of her mother combing her hair after her bath.  Her eyes welled up with tears that she immediately fought to contain, and she cursed herself for being weak.  “I will not lose it again!” She commanded aloud.  Sheepishly, she looked about the compartment to make sure no one was nearby to hear her. 

Susan looked out the window at the scattered lights on the continent below and tried to determine what country they belonged to.  The sparse collection of lights seemed to indicate the southeastern coast of Africa, which is about where they should be, but it was very dark and difficult to see the landmass. 

Susan wondered if the tribal people who inhabited those lands were aware of what had happened to their planet.  Once they knew, how would they be affected?  Would they become victims, predators or just bystanders to the rest of the world’s madness?  These questions and their potential answers just served to depress Susan more.  She pushed herself out of the cupola and continued toward the Kibo module.

Floating silently through the empty Destiny module, Paul’s words were still echoing in her head, and she found herself more in agreement with them than she would admit to anyone, or even wanted to admit to herself.  Susan could feel her depression deepening with each passing moment, and she entered the Kibo module with a sigh of relief—the module had become a sanctuary in a way not easily put into words.  A quick check of the shimmering tomato bush brought a bit of reassurance that life wasn’t all bad.  She did not stop to question why something as simple as a plant brought her so much comfort.  Comfort was most important right now and how, or why, she got it was not important. 

Moving over to the computer station, Susan secured her feet and proceeded to bring up the files on aeroponics that she had discovered earlier.  Immediately the computer displayed the first document in the series that detailed the procedures for setting up the equipment.  Susan quickly paged through the beginning of the manual and was impressed with the elegance of the system’s design.  It was modular in construction and required no tools in the assembly of the aeroponics enclosures. 

She jumped to the document dealing with the experimentation procedures and read it more slowly and carefully.  When she skimmed through these documents before, she did not realize the scope of the experiment that the Japanese scientists had conceived.  Susan suddenly realized, to her amazement and increasing interest, that the experiment was to convert the Kibo module to a completely self-sustained ecosystem!  The real experiment was to begin once the aeroponic equipment was assembled, and the plants had begun to grow.  At that time, Kibo would become a closed system, recycling the water and carbon dioxide through the aeroponic system.  Any solid or liquid wastes also would be recycled.  The purpose of the experiment was to see if they would be able to create a self-contained system that could sustain the crew on a deep space mission, such as to Mars.

“What a neat idea!” Susan blurted out.  She thought about the entire concept for a moment and agreed that it made a lot of sense to do this on the station.  You were working in a zero-g environment already, and the module was easily isolated for the experiment, yet you had the station and crew right here for support. 
It was simplicity itself
, Susan thought. 

Susan read deeper into the document and learned that the experiment would support two people in an open-ended test of the system that would be fine-tuned as they went.  They periodically planned to rotate new crewmembers into the module, so as not to burn out the staff by keeping them in total isolation and to allow them the opportunity to participate in other experiments onboard the station.  Eventually, they would run a long-term test once the system had been completely tested and perfected, allowing them to simulate the duration of a typical Mars mission.  The crew had an ample list of tasks and experiments to keep themselves busy while they were sequestered in the module, so boredom would not be a problem.

Susan paused from her reading to ponder the entire concept and reflexively checked the time on the computer, noting that they should be hearing from NORAD any time now.  She wished she had more time to read through the rest of the documentation before the call came in from the ground and she would, once again, have to face the reality that she left outside the Kibo module.  Susan read on faster.

In the small compartment off the control room, Jerry floated about, his motion limited by his tether that was fastened to the wall that he occasionally bumped into.  As the sedative wore off, he drifted in and out of semi-consciousness, totally oblivious to his surroundings.  His world consisted of unrecognizable sounds and gauzy images when semi-awake and vivid, bizarre dreams as he dozed.  Eventually the noises he had been hearing became more familiar and distinct from the mechanical sounds of the station, and he realized that they were voices coming from nearby. 

Jerry focused harder on the voices trying to place a face, or a name to them, but his brain was still scrambled from the drugs in his system, and he lapsed back into a groggy sleep.  In his unconscious state, Jerry saw images that consisted of a menagerie of distorted faces of people that were familiar to him, yet he felt uncomfortable in their presence.  These disembodied faces floated about among tall trees, in green forests that were growing on chunks of earth floating above a large blue planet, which was speckled with puffy white clouds. 

Occasionally he would see the edges of these floating islands crumble, causing the faces, trees and dirt to fall from their perch high above the planet and disappear in flashes of light as they hit the atmosphere.  Jerry’s body convulsed as he witnessed each group of people and debris plummet into the atmosphere.  In his dream world, he clung even tighter to a tree branch he found himself holding onto, hanging precariously over the blue planet below him.  Sometimes the muscular spasms would shake him out of the dream world and back into the real world, but not this time.  This time Jerry could feel his sweaty hands slipping off the tree branch.  As he watched the nearest floating forest crumble and plunge toward the planet, he struggled and screamed as the branch slid out of his hands and he fell after the debris.  Jerry snapped out of his stupor to the sound of his own screams and was even more startled to see that he was safe inside a room, not falling to his death to the planet below.  He was so disoriented that he jumped again when Paul’s face suddenly appeared in the hatchway in response to his screams.

“Jerry!  Are you all right?” Paul asked breathlessly.  He darted over to Jerry to calm him down.  Not really knowing what to do or expect, he grabbed Jerry to hold him still.

“Paul?” Jerry asked in a scratchy, dry voice.  He relaxed and stopped struggling as Paul held onto him, but he was still not quite sure if the person holding him really was Paul.  The drugs were still working in his system.

Paul pulled back as he felt Jerry’s body relax, and as he wiped the sweat off Jerry’s forehead he said, “Yes, it’s me, Paul.  How are you feeling?”

Jerry closed his eyes to try to calm himself down, but opened them immediately as it worsened the falling sensation he still had.  Paul noticed the frightened look on Jerry’s face and tried to reassure him that everything was okay.  Jerry began to relax as gradually the sensation of falling began to ebb.  Looking at Paul and trying to get his eyes to focus, he pleaded in a raspy whisper, “Water…I’m so thirsty…”

“Hang on, I have some in the control room for you,” Paul said as he moved toward the hatch.  But before he made it through the hatchway, he heard Jerry struggling to say something more.

“Are we still on the station?”

Paul hesitated for a moment, not quite sure what the best answer would be at this time, “Yes, we are still on board,” Paul said, and then quickly added, “but we should be leaving shortly, on the next orbit or so.” He did not want to get Jerry riled up again if he could help it, but felt that the truth was the best answer. 

Paul watched for a reaction, but Jerry just floated quietly with his eyes closed.  Jerry heard the answer but it really did not register with him, especially because he did not remember that he had asked a question.  At this moment, he was simply glad that he no longer had the feeling that he was plunging to his death and relaxed knowing that water was coming.

Paul came out of the compartment looking over his shoulder to make sure that Jerry remained quiet.  He found Ivan, Alexander, and Nicholas waiting outside, anxious to hear about Jerry’s condition.  “He’s really disoriented, but he seems to be better than before.  I really don’t know how he’s feeling other than he’s really thirsty.  I hope he holds it down.”

“Do you want some help with him?” Ivan asked.

“No, I think I’d better stay with him.  At this time, I don’t know how he will react to someone else,” Paul said.

“Well, we are here, just call if you need help,” said Ivan.  Nicholas and Alexander nodded in agreement.

“Thanks,” Paul said, as he headed back into the compartment with the water bottle.

Jerry began to feel much better after he drank the water.  His head was beginning to clear; no more dizziness.  He no longer felt the intense grogginess that he had before.  He chose not to talk much, and as he floated there with his eyes closed, he tried to remember what had transpired in the recent past. 

Slowly, as if coming through a bank of fog, the memories of the preceding day came back.  At first they seemed more dream-like, and he was confused as to whether they were real or just remnants of the drug-induced hallucinations he had experienced earlier.  After Jerry thought about it for a bit, he concluded that they were real. 

Slowly, all the feelings he had up until the time Susan gave him the injection returned.  In addition to everything else that happened before, he now had to suffer the indignity of being hog-tied to the wall. 

Thinking that Jerry was asleep, Paul left the compartment to join the others.  Jerry heard Paul talking to Ivan outside and slowly opened his eyes to make sure that Paul wasn’t in the doorway.  With his guardian gone, Jerry seized the opportunity to test his restraints. 

He struggled against the tape, but was unable to move his hands, much less release the tape that bound his feet.  Frustrated, Jerry gave up, closed his eyes and floated there, quietly contemplating his situation. 
Maybe if I play nice they will let me go
, he thought.  From the few questions that Paul had asked him while he was in the compartment, Jerry had surmised that Paul was trying to feel him out—to get an idea of what his demeanor was.  Jerry decided that it was best not to be caught struggling against his restraints, and see if they would set him free for good behavior.  Closing his eyes and relaxing, he dozed off and on, listening to pieces of the conversation between Paul and the Russians who floated into the compartment.

Susan found herself anticipating the call from NORAD so much that she was frequently checking the time and could no longer concentrate on reading.  Surrendering to the distraction, she closed the open windows on the display and pushed herself away from the console to stretch.  Stretching her arms out in front of her and extending her fingers as far as she could to relax the tense muscles, she toyed with the new option she now had.  Instead of returning to Earth, she could live on the station; however long that might last. 

The system that was to be set up in Kibo could sustain her for years if maintained properly.  She knew that there were plenty of supplies to keep her going until the aeroponics system was self-sustaining, and then some.  However, there was something that might be more important than supplies for existence—what about the prospect of living all alone on the station without companionship? 

Would she go mad?  Was this isolation really better than returning to Earth and dying from starvation or cold, or worse?  She reminded herself that once the CRV leaves there was no second chance.