Sea of Crises (21 page)

“Wow,” he said in a slightly surprised, but groggy voice. “That wasn’t a very a smooth move.”

Blinking his eyes, he looked back at Gale, still seated on the engine cover. The man stared back, but said nothing.

Reaching for the unattached end of his hammock, Cartwright said, “I’m going to lay down for a little bit, until the dizziness passes.” He raised a gloved finger in Gale’s direction. “No more tethers.”

Gale shook his head slightly, then raised a hand as if giving an oath.

Cartwright hooked the end of the hammock into the eyelet near the front of the module and reached above his head for a grip on the overhead hatch handle to pull himself up into his bunk. Instead of grabbing the main handle, however, his hand closed around the smaller lever for the dump valve on the opposite edge of the hatch, the one that was used to depressurize the cabin when the astronauts were prepared to make an EVA. As he swung himself up into the hammock, Cartwright twisted his wrist, shifting the lever from its standard Auto position to the Open position, allowing air from the cabin to vent out into space.

Normally, the hiss of escaping air would have been detected by both astronauts, but, as Cartwright had suspected, the damage they’d suffered to their eardrums rendered the sound almost inaudible. Cartwright, who was aware the valve had been opened and whose head was now inches away, could barely hear it. If Gale’s audio faculties were as impaired as his, the man would not hear it at all.

Of course, the module was fitted with an alarm that would normally have sounded when the valve was opened, and that sound would have been quite loud and readily heard by both astronauts. But, as Cartwright had fallen against the bulkhead, he’d come in contact with the Environmental Control System mounted aft of the lunar module pilot’s station. With his right hand concealed from Gale’s view by his body, he’d hit the override switch on the alarm and had shifted the cabin repressurization valve from Auto to Closed. He’d hoped Gale, who, despite the man’s intense introduction to the workings of the module over the past several months, was still not nearly as familiar with it as Cartwright, would not notice either of the changed settings. To Cartwright’s relief, the man apparently had not.

Timing was going to be critical. What Cartwright intended to do was extraordinarily dangerous, and there was a very good chance he would end up killing the both of them. In his current state of mind, it was a risk he was willing to take.

He knew that, as the air bled from the dump valve, it would take approximately three minutes for the cabin pressure to drop from its normal 5.0 to a mere 0.08 pounds per square inch. When it got near the latter point, Cartwright, assuming he was still conscious, would be able to pull the hatch open against the remaining pressure. Then, all of whatever oxygen was still in the module would rush out through the opening into the vacuum that surrounded them. From that moment, Cartwright would have, at best, maybe ten seconds to do what he needed to do.

Heart beating fast, he counted. Twenty-one Mississippi, twenty-two Mississippi. He was banking on the notion that, as oxygen was sucked out of the module, it would vacate the areas farthest from the source of the leak first. Somewhat counter intuitively, therefore, he hoped the best place to be was where he was now, close up against the spot from which the air was escaping. It was a theory he’d never tested. Or ever imagined he would need to test.

As he passed through a hundred Mississippi, Cartwright felt himself growing faint, the light in the cabin dimming and his field of vision narrowing. He heard, or thought he heard, a grunt from Gale. Then a movement below his feet told him the man had realized there was a problem. Gale had risen and now lurched toward the ECS panel.

To reverse what was happening, Gale would need to diagnose the problem and hit several switches in the right sequence, all while in an already oxygen-deprived state. Cartwright didn’t think it was possible. Still, Gale reached for the panel, gloved fingers fumbling for the controls. As he slapped at the panel, he must have toggled the override switch because the alarm suddenly sounded, filling the cabin with an intense noise. A part of Cartwright’s mind not only registered the man’s actions, but marveled at his strength.

Cartwright knew he couldn’t wait any longer. Fighting against the oncoming blackness, his vision and focus entirely on the hatch above him, he planted his feet against the upper bulkhead, gripped the main handle on the hatch with two hands and twisted it. Then he pulled down with all his remaining strength. As he felt the silicone compound seal separate, he expelled what little air remained in his lungs, clamped his lips shut and allowed his legs to drop to the engine cover below him against the sudden rush of the remaining air escaping through the open hatch. The alarm stopped abruptly, and the module was plunged into absolute silence as it was exposed to the vacuum of space.

A common misperception, one promulgated over the years by bad science fiction, was that a human body when subjected to a vacuum, would either explode or instantly freeze. Neither was true. In reality, the body could continue to function in a vacuum for several minutes, skin holding in all the organs, heart still pumping blood to the extremities. The immediate problem for someone cast into the void was lack of oxygen. And it would do no good to hold one’s breath. In fact, due to the inevitability of gas expanding in a vacuum, that would be the worst thing one could do, as it would likely lead to a rupture of the lungs.

With mere seconds before unconsciousness, Cartwright levered his feet against the engine cover, pushed up and rammed the hatch closed. With his left hand, he dogged the handle shut, with his right, he rotated the dump valve to Auto. As he dropped to his knees, he gripped the cabin repressurization lever and switched it to the Open position. Then he reached back and flipped over his backpack. He wasn’t sure how much oxygen remained in the Personal Life Support System that made up the bulk of the pack, and he wasn’t going to take a chance. On top of the PLSS was the small compartment housing the Oxygen Purge System. He grabbed one of the flexible hoses extending from the OPS and shoved the end into one of the oxygen intake valves on the front of his suit. Then he picked up his helmet and lifted it over his head, quickly rotating it and snapping it into place. As the darkness began to descend, he pulled an actuator on the control unit mounted to his chest, heard the whir of the recirculation motor, and, after a couple of seconds, felt the most wonderful breeze he’d ever experienced, as oxygen began to fill his helmet.

He may have blacked out for a time. He wasn’t sure. He lay slumped against the rear wall of the cabin for at least a couple of minutes, gathering strength. Finally, he raised himself and awkwardly turned, checking the readout on the ECS panel. Cabin pressure was passing through 3.5 psi. Safe enough. He shut off the emergency oxygen flow from the OPS and removed his helmet. He was going to need to deal with Gale before the man came to. If, indeed, he did actually come to.

There was, of course, every chance Gale’s lungs had ruptured or his brain had been deprived of oxygen for too long. A selfish part of Cartwright’s mind said neither would be the end of the world. The rest of his mind knew though that he couldn’t simply leave the man to die.

And, he thought bitterly, Gale was as strong as an ox.

Gale had landed face down on the deck. With some effort, Cartwright rolled him over and, removing his right glove, checked for a pulse in the man’s neck. Steady. The rise and fall of Gale’s chest told Cartwright that his crewmate was still breathing regularly. It figured.

Cartwright patted down the man’s body. He found what he was looking for almost immediately. On the right leg of Gale’s suit was a large utility pocket. Cartwright had one on his own suit, in which he carried, among other things, the emergency patch kit that he would use if either of them experienced an unexpected suit rupture. Gale’s pocket contained none of the usual equipment. Instead, it had been fitted for the handgun that Cartwright had seen at the Soviet base, padding cleverly used to conceal its shape. Cartwright withdrew the weapon and turned the thing over in his hand.

As a boy growing up in rural Indiana, Cartwright had been exposed to guns at an early age. He’d shot his first deer when he was thirteen. It wasn’t until he arrived at the Naval Academy, however, that Cartwright had an opportunity to fire a handgun. And, it turned out, he was quite proficient at it. In the summer after his second year at the Academy, he’d shot scores that qualified him for the Marine Corps Expert Marksmanship badge in both pistol and rifle. That, however, had been a long time ago. It had been years since he’d picked up a weapon.

This one, as he’d noticed when he first saw it at the Soviet base, was unlike any he’d seen before. There were two barrels, one on top of the other. And he now understood the reason for that. One of the barrels fired a conventional bullet, while the other was for the tranquilizer dart. He guessed that the latter was the barrel on top, as the gauge was smaller. There was, however, only a single trigger, surrounded by an oversized trigger guard shaped so as to accommodate the bulky fingers of an EVA glove. A lever on the left side of the grip could be slid up and down by a right handed shooter using his thumb, and he guessed that this set the weapon to conventional or tranquilizer mode. At the moment, the lever was down, suggesting that it was ready to fire a regular bullet. He slid the mechanism up. It moved easily, and he felt it lock in place.

One of the most unusual aspects of the weapon was the fact that the rear of each barrel was open ended. He puzzled over that for a moment, then realized why. This gun had been designed to be fired in the vacuum of space. The recoil of a pistol was already bad enough. If a conventional handgun were fired in a vacuum, Cartwright guessed that it might hurl the shooter backwards, or worse. This weapon was designed to fire in both directions at the same time, probably a harmless discharge of gas to the rear, so as not to injure the shooter. It was a practical solution to a unique challenge.

He hoped he wouldn’t have to use the thing, but he knew …

A vice abruptly clamped around his throat, and his head was thrown back. Gale, his face contorted into a feral grimace, had lunged upward with both hands, flung them over the rigid ring collar of Cartwright’s suit, and locked them on both sides of his neck. The suddenness and ferocity of the attack took Cartwright completely by surprise, and the gun flew out of his hand, clattering to his left onto the metal deck. Instinctively, Cartwright reached up with both hands, gripping Gale’s wrists and pulling at them.

Gale dug his thumbs violently into the flesh at the front of Cartwright’s neck, forcing the Adam’s apple toward the back of his throat and cutting off his windpipe. Starbursts of light flashed in the back of Cartwright’s eyes, and his body began to shake. The harder he pulled on Gale’s wrists, the stronger the man seemed to become.

Cartwright let go with his left hand and flung it out to his side, slapping the deck in a desperate attempt to locate the gun. Nothing. His vision began to blur. He slid the gloved hand along the deck surface, searching frantically. Still nothing. He lunged and threw his hand out as far as possible, wildly sliding it back and forth in a wide arc. The tips of his fingers brushed against something hard, knocking it further away. He kicked out with both legs, trying to extend his reach. One of his boots found purchase on the side of the engine cover and, with as much force as he could muster, he pushed against it. The two men tipped sideways toward the front of the module, and Cartwright’s outstretched hand fell across a solid object. The pistol.

The agony in his throat was unbearable. His lungs screamed for air, and darkness began to descend. His hand shaking uncontrollably, he rotated the gun on the floor until he could wrap his fingers around the grip. But, when he tried to put his index finger into the trigger guard, it wouldn’t fit, and he realized through his panic that, because the gun had been designed for a right-hander, the opening from the left side was not as wide as the right. He felt his energy wane. In desperation, he lifted the weapon and slammed it down on the deck as hard as he could. Thankfully, his finger slid in. With his last bit of strength, he yanked his hand around, pushed the gun up against the side of Gale’s head and pulled the trigger.

#

When Cartwright came to, he was lying face down on the deck, his right cheek pressing into cold metal. His throat burned, and his head throbbed. Moving slowly, less by choice than necessity, he slid his left hand under his shoulder, realizing as he did that the pistol was still locked in his grip. With a considerable effort, he pushed himself up.

He had fallen across Gale’s body, which lay motionless beneath him. He turned to look at the man, idly wondering as he did whether he’d discover that the gun had blown Gale’s head off. But, no, the damned thing appeared to be intact. The man’s eyes were closed, and he looked to be sleeping, though not peacefully. A vestige of the animal-like grimace remained and his breathing was ragged. From the side of his cheek, just in front of his right ear, a small orange object protruded. The tail end of a tranquilizer dart.

Awkwardly, Cartwright lifted himself off the unconscious man, using the edge of the engine cover for leverage, and he half threw himself onto the shallow landing, collapsing back against the two EVA backpacks. His own breathing was difficult, and, when he probed gingerly with his fingers, he found his neck raw and sore to the touch. He couldn’t say how long he lay there. A few seconds maybe. Perhaps a few minutes.

Eventually, he made himself focus. He was, he knew, damn fortunate to be alive. He considered his options. In reality, he had none. He knew exactly what he had to do. But he was going to need his strength. Just a few more minutes he told himself, and he closed his eyes, trying to will away the pain.

Finally, he took a deep breath, forced himself up, and got to work.

11

Bob Cartwright had pushed the rover to its maximum speed, and, as it hit each bump in the uneven terrain, the vehicle became momentarily airborne, sailing in slow motion over the lunar surface. Then, each time the large steel-woven wheels dug back into the regolith, a fine spray of dust shot out to each side, forming perfect parabolas that remained suspended in the moon’s partial gravity until long after the vehicle had passed. Under other circumstances, Cartwright would have marveled at the sight. But he was in a hurry and had too much else on his mind.