NOTE: Yes, I do know I'm writing out my formulae pseudo-phonetically. I can't subscript, and this looks less ridiculous than full-sized numbers, a mon avis.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Al coughed. His lungs ached. It was so hard to breathe. The air was so hot.
He fought it. He had to fight it. It was all in his head. You could lick claustrophobia. Damn it, it had been almost a year since his last attack: why was it happening now?
A choking sound reached his ears. He looked up in surprise. Jim was massaging his chest. "Al?" he gasped. "Al, I… God, is there aspirin in here? My head…"
Al frowned. The kid had a headache too? Claustrophobia wasn't contagious.
Oh. He was psyching Jim into it. The young pilot was seeing his distress and picking up on it. Damn, he had to try harder to fight it. He floated back towards the seats and clapped Jim on the shoulder.
"We'll get you some aspirin just as soon as we're back onboard Enterprise," he said.
"You think we'll make it?" Jim asked anxiously.
"Sure we'll make it," Al said. "We've got the best damned computer programmer in the country down there looking for a way to fix us up. We've got plenty of fuel, plenty of oxygen, and—" A shallow, painful cough cut him off. "How'd you like a drink of water?" he asked.
"That'd be good," Jim croaked.
Al nodded bracingly and took two packets of water out of the cabinet. Thinking better of it, he put one back. They could be up here for a day or two. They would have to conserve their resources. There wasn't any food: they'd only brought four meals, and had polished off the last one before leaving the surface. That'd be rough on the kid. The early days of fasting were just about the toughest, until you were so near starvation that you started chewing hunks of sod to quiet the agonies of your empty belly.
He bobbed over to Jim and handed him the foil baggie. Jim smiled wanly. "Where's yours?" he asked.
Al shrugged. "Too lazy to play with bubbles," he said, draping himself over the pilot's seat. "I'll mooch."
Jim squeezed out two orbs of fluid, sending one towards Al and catching the other in his mouth. Al guided the other down, pecking at it like a fish. Funny how the world worked. Here was a game built around a concept he found most abhorrent—or had until these glory-days in space. He wafted the sphere down between his lips and closed his mouth, relishing the sensation as the cohesion failed under the pressure of his tongue. Catching water wasn't so bad this way! It seemed like every misery had its opposite, a joy proportionate to the wretchedness.
Every misery but one, because deep in his heart he knew that however wonderful Elsa or any other woman was, they would never be proportionate to Beth…
A cough startled him out of his dark thoughts, particularly when he realized it wasn't coming from his throat. Jim had his fist against his mouth. He wheezed as he inhaled. "Damn," he said. "I think I'm coming down with something."
"Yeah?" Al asked, sitting up.
"Yeah. One hell of a cold. I can hardly breathe."
Al's eyes flew to the oxygen gauge. Nope, they were still good for air. Maybe Jim was getting sick. Wouldn't be the first time that an astronaut came down with something in space. Jim was catching a cold, and his projected claustrophobia wasn't helping. He wiped the sweat out of his eyes and tried to suck in a good, deep breath. This time the cough sent him backwards over the chair and bouncing off the wall. Jim let go of the packet of water and launched himself over the pilot's chair after him.
"Al? You too?" he asked.
Al shrugged. "It's nothin'. I'm just… a little uncomfortable, that's all."
"It's pretty cramped in here," Jim allowed.
"Look, kid, it's all in my head, and I'm sorry. Breaking down like this… really, Jim, everything's fine. It's all in my head." Al hugged his abdomen and looked away, his cheeks burning with humiliation.
"But no, I'm feeling weird, too!" Jim protested. "Like I'm gonna pass out or someth—"
He coughed again.
"Tap the O-two gauge," Al gasped. His chest felt like it was being crushed. "Maybe it's stuck?"
Jim rapped the console and shook his head. "Nope. We're good."
"Damn," Al muttered.
"Hold on!" Jim cried. He slammed down the switch for the radio. "Houston, this is Excelsior. What's the status on our C-O-two filter?"
There was a moment of static before Pete Simmons cut in. "Excelsior, this is Houston. Uh…we've got a reading of twelve and rising."
Al cursed vociferously, coughing as he pitched himself towards the console. "What the hell? When were you gonna tell us this?"
"Soon as we had some kind of solution," Simmons said.
"Oh, great!" Al blustered. "Just fantastic. We're suffocating up here, and you don't even bother to tell us?"
"What good would that have done?" Simmons asked. "All that would've meant is you two would've been worrying for the last ninety minutes."
"At least we'd've known what we were up against, you nozzle!" roared Al. The diatribe was too vicious for his poisoned lungs, and he dissolved into a fit of coughing so violent that he somersaulted, crippled from the pain in his chest.
"Look, Al, I wanted to tell you," Pete protested. "But I don't give the orders down here: you know that. Now, just try to stay calm. Elsa's ripping apart the simulator as we speak, trying to find a way to bypass those circuits. We'll get you out of this. In the meantime—"
"In the meantime we can't breathe!" Al ranted. Jim gripped his shoulder as he coughed again.
"Listen, Houston, isn't there some way we can jury-rig a filter or something?" he asked. "I mean, we're two of the hottest minds in this organization. Surely we can figure something out?"
"The boys downstairs are working on that, too. So far, nothing."
"Nobody thought to pack a spare scrubber?" Al wheezed.
"Nobody thought of a lot of things," Pete said dryly. "Lemme tell you, Grumman is mud around here right now. Your little woman's swearing a blue streak that none of us can understand, but man, the sentiment's mighty plain."
"She's not—not my little woman," Al choked out. "She's a damned good scientist, and a—a hell of a programmer."
Pete's tone took on a tinge of annoyance. "Jim, see if you can't settle him down. Smokers. They're always the first to go."
"Cut me some slack," Al groused. "I quit for six years there." Nevertheless, he let Taggert maneuver him into the chair and rested his aching head on its back.
"Just sit tight," Simmons said. "We'll get you out of this."
"Hah!" Al said. "Any other problems we oughta know about?"
There was a long pause. Jim looked anxiously at Al, who was beginning to wonder what wicked fairy his parents had pissed off at his baptism. There were some people in this world who were just cursed, and he was one of them.
"Well," Pete said at last. "The computer was in charge of the coolant pumps. As it sits now, you either keep with the burns every half hour or so and superheat yourselves, or you cut out the compensation, and fall like a rock."
"Thanks," Al said dryly. "Thanks. I was feeling pretty good about the whole thing before, but now I'm positively giddy with optimism."
"Look, we'll get you out of there—"
"Would you stop saying that, please?" asked Al in some annoyance. "Because, really, it's not doing anything for crew morale."
"Uh—Excelsior, they want me in the simulator. I'll just… Winters will be here if you need anything."
"Yeah," Al grunted. "Knock yourself out."
The connection was severed.
"What are we going to do?" Jim asked.
"Nothing we can do," Al replied. "Why don't you try to get some sleep? You make less carbon dioxide when you sleep."
"Really?"
"How the hell would I know? Do I look like a doctor?" Al grabbed the front of Jim's white coverall. "Cough."
The younger man smiled, which was what Al had been hoping for. He closed his eyes and tried again to relegate the pain in his head to some distant part of his mind.
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM"What do you mean, you can't do it?" Elsa demanded, watching the astronaut contorting himself into the tiny space, picking at a wire no thicker than a strand of hair.
"Some of us… haven't got fingers… like chicken bones," Simmons grunted. "You think Al can get his hand up here?"
"Maybe. He's still too skinny." She paced the length of the floor. The simulator was all but dismantled, and still she had no real solution. "He has to. If he can reroute that circuit through the switchboard on the other side, perhaps—"
"Hang on, sugar, it's just a perhaps?" Simmons demanded. "Because your husband has got about forty minutes of good air left, and that's got to be long enough to rig this thing and dock with Enterprise."
"You think I do not know this?" Elsa snapped. "Why don't you try to do better?"
Elsa did not wish to admit it, but her fear was not solely for Jim Taggert anymore. She couldn't say why the prospect of Al dying frightened her so much. She was divorcing him, after all, and after the divorce he would be as good as dead to her. That was the plan. Still, somehow if Al died she felt that the world would lose something very important. How senseless, to live through all that he had lived through only to die four hundred thousand miles from Earth because four little tubes had failed! It could not be allowed to happen.
Yet, for all her knowledge, she did not know how to stop it.
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMThinking was a chore of monumental proportions. Al's vision was blurred and his thoughts thick and muddled. Across the cabin he could see Jim coughing, but somehow the sound wasn't registering.
It was ridiculous. They were sitting here, helpless and indolent, while down on earth somewhere other people were trying to solve their problem for them. That wasn't right. You had to do things for yourself. You had to help yourself, because in the end no one else was going to.
If only you could breathe…
Al almost laughed at his idiocy. Here they were, choking in an oxygen-rich environment because the LEM couldn't clear the toxins, and over in that cupboard by the hatch were two spacesuits. He made the mammoth effort of propelling his aching body towards the cupboard.
"What're you doin'?" Jim asked.
Al coughed miserably, then grinned. "Suit up, sailor!" he said. "Who says we can't wear these?"
Jim laughed. "Damn, Al, you're a genius!"
Getting into the suits took much longer than it should have, because they were clumsy from carbon dioxide poisoning, and had to keep stopping to gasp for air. In the end, though, Al pulled out the two oxygen tanks. He checked the gauges and had to fight back a curse of despair.
His was sitting just above the red, but Jim's read empty. The healthy young Air Force pilot must use more air than he did.
It wasn't a tough decision. It wasn't even really one that he had to think about. He was in command, and a commander's first duty was the safety of his men.
"Turn around and lemme strap you in," he said to Jim. The lieutenant obeyed, and Al took his own oxygen tank and began to affix it to the other man's back. When this was done, Jim did the same for Al.
That first breath was heavenly. Al drew in a deep inhale that seemed to electrify his chest, then exhaled violently, expelling the unfriendly gas that had been strangling him. He raised the shield on his helmet. Jim did the same, and Al could see that the kid was wearing a broad grin of relief.
"All right," Al said, switching on his radio. "Enterprise, patch me through to Houston."
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM"He's embarrassingly intelligent," Gene Kranz said, eyeing the boardroom full of rocket scientists. They nodded. Calavicci's solution was one of those obscenely obvious answers that made fools of geniuses. Solving insoluble problems was this group's forte. When it came to the easy way out, they were at a decided disadvantage.
The Flight Director brought his fist down on the table. "That doesn't let you yahoos off the hook!" he exclaimed. "Calavicci's bought us some time, but those engines are still going to superheat in two hours."
"We've got Orsós working on the computer," an engineer offered. "She isn't having any luck."
"Is there anyone else who knows those circuits?" Gene asked.
"Not as well as she does, unless you count the guys from Grumman."
The black look that Kranz cast him was enough to wither the boldest spirit. "Let's just keep them out of this. How long do we have?"
He was met with an uncomfortable silence. "Maybe an hour and a half, maybe three," someone said. "If they shut down the engines entirely they'll cool down enough to use them again in about five hours."
"In five hours their orbit will have deteriorated beyond recovery," another helpful voice offered.
The supervising flight surgeon didn't seem to be listening to any of this. He was bent low over a pad of paper, scribbling computations.
"Doc?" Gene said. "What now?"
"I think perhaps there's something Calavicci isn't telling us," the physician supplied.
"What? He can't do that!" Kranz blustered
"We did it to him," the doctor said mildly.
Gene closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Okay, okay. What isn't he telling us?"
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM"You sure this is a good idea?" Jim asked, strapping himself into the copilot's seat.
"Sure," Al said with much more bravado than he felt. Actually, he thought it was suicide, but at least they'd go down fighting.
"Shouldn't we at least ask Houston? I mean, their samples…"
"Our lives," Al said. "Look, kid, you're sitting on an almost empty oxygen tank. The air outside of that bubblehead of yours isn't breathable. And we either fall from the sky like a harbinger of doom, or we superheat and burn. You think this is a reasonable gamble, or not?"
"Sure," Jim said, trying to sound brave. "Sure, I guess so."
"Well, good. Excelsior to Enterprise."
"I read you, Al. What's the word?" Clem asked.
"Ha isten is úgy akarja," Al said.
"Huh?"
"It's Hungarian," Al told him. "Means God willing."
Jim turned awkwardly to look at him. "I thought you didn't believe in God."
"Believe? Hell, sure I believe in God: I'm a cradle Catholic," Al said. "I just don't have much faith in Him, that's all."
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM"What the hell are they doing?" Kranz asked, snatching the Cap Com headset away from Winters. "Calavicci, what the hell are you doing?"
"No good," the operator said. "Enterprise has cut your feed to the LEM."
"Enterprise! What's going on up there? We've got an unauthorized burn…"
"Yeah, Al's taxiing her into range for EVA," Jacobs's voice said.
"What? Why? When were you going to tell us this?"
"After we got them inside," Jacobs offered.
Gene smacked the console so that Winters' coffee shuddered. "What we have on this mission is a chronic communication problem!"
"The way I see it, that goes both ways, Houston," said Jacobs. "Calavicci didn't want to tell you till it was done 'cause they're abandoning the LEM."
"He thinks he and Taggert can just float over and hop into the capsule?" Kranz clarified.
"You got a better idea?" Jacobs countered.
Gene scanned the room. One of the EVA experts shrugged helplessly. "It could work," he said.
"Hell, yes, Enterprise, they should abandon the damned capsule!" Gene cried. "Priority one is getting those men home safely!"
Unexpectedly, Calavicci's voice crackled in, wry and vaguely mocking. "Glad to hear your heart's in the right place, chief!" he said.
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMAl looked gravely at his crewmate.
"The LEM wasn't designed for EVA," he said. "You know what that means?"
"No depressurization sequence," Jim said.
"Right. Even if there was it'd probably be computer-operated, but that's beside the point. No depressurization. So…"
"So when we open that hatch everything's gonna get sucked out."
"Blown out, yeah," Al said. "And we can't. Which means we're going to hold onto these cupboard doors."
"But the pressure of the jettisoning air'll propel us away from Enterprise," Jim said.
"Yeah, and that's why the second we've got a vacuum in here we're bailing," Al said. "This is gonna take some fancy footwork. You up to it?"
"I have a choice?" Jim asked skeptically.
"Nope, sure don't!" Al said brightly. Then something occurred to him. "The film!"
"What?" Jim said.
"The film and the tapes from the cameras." Al bobbed over to the cupboard and pulled out the tote that had held the baseball mitts, left behind to adorn the little shrine to their passage. He began to fill it with the rolls of film they had shot on the surface. "We risked our lives, and I'm not coming home empty-handed," he said fiercely.
Jim scrambled to help him. Al stole a surreptitious glance at the kid's oxygen gauge. Still in the red. He wondered how much air was left in those things when the gauge read empty. There had to be a safety margin, right?
A thought struck him abruptly. "Where're the rocks we picked up for the kids?" he asked.
Jim gave him a blank look.
"The rocks. The rocks we picked for Jeremy and Clem's kids," Al said.
"Oh!" Jim cried. "Here… why?"
Al took the package and shoved it in on top of the photographic evidence, then zipped the tote closed. "NASA's got plenty of samples, but where else is your little guy going to get a rock his dad picked out for him on the moon?" he asked.
Jim made a tiny, choking sound deep in his throat. "You know, Al," he confessed; "I didn't get that scholarship fund set up for Jeremy."
That wasn't good. The kid didn't think they could do it. Al reached out one insulated hand to grip an equally padded shoulder.
"You listen to me, kid," he said viciously; "you're going to set up that fund just as soon as we get back to Florida—I'll contribute the first grand myself! That boy'll be able to go to Harvard if he wants to!"
"But what if we don't get back?" Jim asked, his voice wavering. "Mission Control thinks we're crazy, nothing like this has ever been done before, everything's gone wrong right from the start of the mission, and—"
Al shook him. "You listen to me! You listen to me!" he cried. "Sometimes you have to do something crazy! Sometimes you have to do something stupid! And lemme tell you, kid, there are times when nobody's going to help you! Maybe they want to, but for whatever reason they can't, and that's just when you've gotta be craziest! Hell, I know what we're trying's insane, but we've gotta try! We can't just sit here and suffocate! You hear me, mister?"
"Y-yes, sir!" Jim shouted back. "Yes, sir! We can do this!"
"Damned right!" Al cried. "We can do it!" He switched off his radio in haste, because his lips tripped out; "Or we'll die trying."
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMAt last Clem gave word that he was depressurized and ready to receive them. Jim took a firm hold of one of the stainless steel handles of the equipment cupboards, gripping it with both hands. Al wrapped his left arm around another. It was still thin enough, despite the bulk of the suit, that this was a viable position. He had the tote bag shoved up on that shoulder. His temples were throbbing. He didn't have much air left…
"Ready?" Al asked, ashamed of the hoarseness of his voice.
"Ready," Jim replied.
Then Al reached out and blew the hatch.
It was unlike anything he had ever felt before, as if the universe was rushing by and leaving him plastered against the wall like a fly on a windshield. The pain of his body pulling on his arms was terrible, but Al was accustomed to such pain. He was grateful for the protection of the suit as the detritus of their voyage swept past and out of the capsule. He could hear Jim cry out in surprise and agony, and then suddenly the pressure was gone. Al released his hold on the wall, grabbed Jim's hand, and hauled them both out of the module.
For a moment Al was overcome by the wonder of hovering in absolute nothingness, a naked and vulnerable white speck in a vast black sky. Nothing could touch him. Nothing could hurt him. There was nothing… nothing…
"Al? Jim? Any time now…"
Clem's voice brought Al back to reality, and he realized the flaw in the plan. Excelsior was speeding away behind them, propelled by the force of the equalization of pressure. Below them, maybe twenty feet away, was Enterprise. They were all but stationary. He hadn't pushed off of the LEM with nearly enough force to close the gap.
Jim saw the problem, too.
"We're not moving!" he hissed. "Al—Clem—we're not moving!"
Al released his hold on the LEM pilot and tried to dive, as if he could swim through the vacuum. All he did was bob ridiculously in place, his muscles useless without something to offer inertia or resistance.
"What are we going to do? What are we going to do?" Jim exclaimed, his voice raised in panic.
Al coughed, gasping for air. His tank was empty. They were out of time. They were out of time.
"Kid," he choked out. "Kid, you think you can push off of me hard enough to get down to her?"
"But if I push off you, you'll go the other way!" Jim cried.
"You've got a wife and a kid, family, friends, a bright future ahead of you," Al said. "All I've got is a head full of terrors and a soon-to-be ex. If one of us has to die out here, it's better if it's me."
"No!" Jim declared valiantly. Stupidly. "Either we both make it, or we both don't!"
Al sucked in his absolute last breath of viable air. "Damn it, Lieutenant, that's an order!" he roared.
"B-but—" Jim sobbed.
"An order!" Al wheezed. "Now!"
Jim didn't move. Angered and driven by desperation, Al kicked the boy in the stomach with all the force he could muster. Jim floated down, and he shot away. He couldn't breathe. Black stars filled his vision as Jim's fist closed around a bar on the outside of Enterprise.
The thought that his problems were finally over flashed briefly through his mind before oblivion surged up to swallow him.