Gravity (33 page)

“Then we both know where we stand.” Profitt took a deep breath and turned to face the row of consoles. “Now. Go ahead and get that man to his wife.” Jack hung poised at the edge of eternity.

No amount of EVA training in the WET-F pool could have prepared him for this visceral punch of fear, for the paralysis that seized him as he stared into the emptiness of space. He had swung open the hatch leading into the open payload bay, and his first view, through the bay’s gaping clamshell doors, was of the earth, a dizzying drop below. He could not see ISS, she was floating above him, out of view. To reach her, he would have to swim down past those payload doors and circle around to the opposite side of Apogee II. But first, he had to force himself to ignore every instinct that now screaming at him to retreat back into the air lock.

“Emma,” he said, and the sound of her name was like a murmured prayer.

He took a breath and prepared to release his grip on the hatchway, to surrender himself to the heavens.

“Apogee II, this is Capcom Houston. Apogee—Jack—please respond.” The transmission over his comm unit caught Jack by surprise.

He had not expected any contact from the ground. The fact Houston was openly hailing him by name meant all secrecy had been shattered.

“Apogee, we urgently request you respond.” He remained silent, uncertain if he should confirm his presence in orbit.

“Jack, we have been advised that the White House will not interfere with your mission. Provided you understand one essential fact, This is a one-way trip.” Capcom paused and then said quietly, “If you board ISS, you can’t leave it again. You can’t come home.

“This is Apogee II,” Jack finally answered. “Message received and understood.”

“And you still plan to proceed? Think about it.”

“What the hell do you think I came up here for? The fucking view?”

“Uh, we roger that. But before you proceed, you should be aware of this. We lost contact with ISS about six hours ago.”

“What do you mean, ‘lost contact’?”

“Emma is no longer responding.”

Six hours, he thought. What has happened in the last six hours? The launch had been two days ago. It had taken that long for Apogee II to catch up with ISS and complete the rendezvous maneuvers. In all that time, he’d been cut off from all communication, from any knowledge of what was happening aboard the station.

“You may already be too late. You might want to reconsider—”

“What does biotelemetry show?” he cut in. “What’s her rhythm?”

“She’s not hooked up. She chose to disconnect her leads.”

“Then you don’t know. You can’t tell me what’s going on.”

“Just before she went silent, she sent you a final E-mail.” Capcom added gently, “Jack, she was saying good-bye.” No. At once he released his grip on the hatchway and pushed out of the air lock, diving headfirst into the open payload bay.

No.

He grabbed a handhold and scrambled up over the clamshell door, to the other side of Apogee II. Suddenly the space station was there, looming above him, so big and sprawling he was momentarily stunned by the wonder of it. Then, in panic, he thought, Where is the air lock? I don’t see the air lock! There were so many modules, so many solar arrays, fanned out across an area as large football fields. He could not orient himself. He was lost, overwhelmed by the dizzying spread.

Then he spotted the dark-green Soyuz capsule jutting out. He was underneath the Russian end of the station. Instantly snapped into place.

His gaze shot to the American end, and he identified the U.S. hab. At the upper end of the hab was Node 1, which led to the air lock.

He knew where he was going.

Here came the leap of faith. With only his SAFER jet pack to propel him, he would be crossing empty space without tethers, without anything to anchor him. He activated the jet pack, pushed off from Apogee, and launched himself toward ISS. It was his first EVA, and he was clumsy and inexperienced, unable to judge how quickly he was closing in on his goal. He slammed into the hab hull with such force he almost caromed off, and barely managed to grab onto a handhold.

Hurry. She is dying.

Sick with dread, he clambered up the length of the hab, his breaths coming hard and fast.

“Houston,” he panted. “I need Surgeon—have him standing by—”

“Roger that.”

“Almost—I’m almost to Node One—”

“Jack, this is Surgeon.” It was Todd Cutler’s voice, speaking with quiet urgency. “You’ve been out of the loop for two days. You need to know a few things. Emma’s last dose of HCG was fifty-five hours ag,. since then, her labs have deteriorated. Amylase and sky-high. Last transmission, she was complaining of headaches and visual loss. That was six hours ago. We don’t know her current condition.”

“I’m at the air-lock hatch!”

“Station control software has been switched to EVA mode. You’re a go for repress.” Jack swung open the hatch and pulled himself into the crew lock. As he twisted around to close the external hatch, he caught glimpse of Apogee II. She was already moving away. His only lifeboat was going home without him. He’d passed the point of no return.

He closed and sealed the hatch. “Pressure-equalization valve open,” he said. “Beginning repress.”

“I’m trying to prepare you for the worst,” said Todd. “In case she—”

“Tell me something useful!”

“Okay. Okay, here’s the latest from USAMRIID. The Ranavirus does seem to work on their lab animals. But it’s only been in early cases. If it’s given during the first thirty-six hours infection.”

“What if it’s given after that?” Cutler didn’t respond. His silence confirmed the worst.

The crew lock pressure was up to fourteen psi. Jack opened the middle hatch and dove into the equipment lock. Frantically he detached his gloves, then doffed his Orlan-M suit and wriggled out of the cooling garment. From the Orlan’s zippered pockets he pulled out various packets containing emergency medications and prefilled syringes of Ranavirus. By now he was shaking with fear, terrified of what he would find inside the station. He swung open the inner hatch.

And confronted his worst nightmare.

She was floating in the gloom of Node 1, like a swimmer adrift in a dark sea. Only this swimmer was drowning. Her limbs jerked in rhythmic spasms. Convulsions wracked her spine, and her head snapped forward and back, her hair lashing like a whip. Death throes.

No, he thought. I won’t let you die. Goddamnit, Emma, you are not going to leave me.

He grasped her around the waist and began to pull her toward the Russian end of the station. Toward the modules that still had power and light.

Her body twitched like a live wire jolted by electric shocks, thrashing in his arms. She was so small, so fragile, the strength now coursing through her dying body threatened to overpower his grip on her.

Weightlessness was new to him, and he bounced drunkenly off walls and hatchways as he struggled to maneuver them both into the Russian service module.

“Jack, talk to me,” said Todd. “What’s going on?”

“I’ve moved her into the RSM—getting her onto the restraint board—”

“Have you given the virus?”

“Tying her down first. She’s seizing—” He fastened the Velcro straps over her chest and hips, anchoring her torso to the medical restraint board. Her head slammed backward, her eyes rolling up into the orbits.

The sclerae were a brilliant and horrifying red. Give her the virus. Do it now.

A tourniquet was looped around the restraint-board frame. He whipped it free and tied it around her thrashing arm. It took all strength to forcibly extend her elbow, to expose the antecubital vein. With his teeth he uncapped the syringe of Ranavirus.

Stabbing the needle into her arm, he squeezed the plunger.

“It’s in!” he said. “The whole syringe!”

“What’s she doing?”

“She’s still seizing!”

“There’s IV Dilantin in the med kit.”

“I see it. I’m starting an IV!” The tourniquet floated by, a startling reminder that in weightlessness, what was not tied down would quickly drift out of reach. He snatched it from midair and reached, once again, for Emma’s arm.

A moment later he reported, “Dilantin’s going in! IV’s running wide open.”

“Any change?” Jack stared at his wife, silently demanding, Come on, Emma.

Don’t die on me.

Slowly her spine relaxed. Her neck went limp and her head stopped battering the board. Her eyes rolled forward, and he could see her irises now, two dark pools ringed by blood-red sclerae. At his first glimpse of her pupils, a moan rose in his throat.

Her left pupil was fully dilated. Black and lifeless.

He was too late. She was dying.

He cupped her face in his hands, as though by sheer will he could force her to live. But even as he pleaded with her not to him, he knew that she would not be saved by mere touch or prayer.

Death was an organic process. Biochemical functions, the movement of long across cell membranes, slowly ceased. The brain waves flattened.

The rhythmic contractions of myocardial cells faded to quiver. Just wishing it so would not make her live.

But she was not dead. Not yet.

“Todd,” he said.

“I’m here.”

“What is the terminal event? What happens to the lab animals?”

“I don’t follow—”

“You said Ranavirus works, if given early enough in the infection. Which means it must be killing Chimera. So why doesn’t it work when given later?”

“Too much tissue damage has occurred. There’s internal bleeding—”

“Bleeding where? What do the autopsies show?”

“Seventy-five percent of the time, in dogs, the fatal hemorrhage is intracranial. Chimera’s enzymes damage blood vessels on the surface of the cerebral cortex. The vessels rupture, and the bleeding causes a catastrophic rise in intracranial pressure. It’s massive head injury, Jack. The brain herniates.”

“What if you stop the bleeding, stop the brain damage? If you get the victims past the acute stage, they might live long enough Ranavirus to work.”

“Possibly.” Jack stared down at Emma’s dilated left pupil. A terrible memory flashed into his head, Debbie Haning, unconscious on a hospital gurney. He had failed Debbie. He had waited too long to take action, and because of his indecision, he had lost her.

I will not lose you.

He said, “Todd, she’s blown her left pupil. She needs burr holes.”

“What? You’re working blind. Without X-ray—”

“It’s the only chance she has! I need a drill. Tell me where the work tools are kept!”

“Stand by.” Seconds later, Todd came back on comm. “We’re not sure where the Russians stow their kit. But NASA’s are in Node One, in the storage rack. Check the labels on the Nomex bags. The contents are specified.” Jack shot out of the service module, once again colliding with walls and hatchways as he clumsily barreled his way into Node I. hands were shaking as he opened the storage rack. He pulled out three Nomex bags before he found the one labeled

“Power drill/bits/adapters.” He grabbed a second bag containing screwdrivers and a hammer, and shot back out of the node. He’d been away from her only a moment, yet the fear that he would return to find her dead sent him flying through Zarya and back into the service module.

She was still breathing. Still alive.

He anchored the Nomex bags to the table and removed the power tool. It was meant for space station repair and construction, not neurosurgery.

Now that he actually held the drill in his hand and considered what he was about to do, panic seized him. He was operating in unsterile conditions, with a tool meant for steel bolts, not flesh and bone. He looked at Emma, lying flaccid on the table, and thought of what lay beneath that cranial vault, thought of her gray matter, where a lifetime of memories and dreams and emotions were stored. Everything that made her uniquely Emma. All of it dying now.

He reached into the medical kit and took scissors and a shaving razor.

Grasping a handful of her hair, he began to snip it away, shaved the stubble, clearing an incision site over her left bone. Your beautiful hair. I have always loved your hair. I have always loved you.

The rest of her hair he bound up and tucked out of the way, so it would not contaminate the site. With a strip of adhesive tape, restrained her head to the board. Moving more quickly now, he prepared his tools. The suction catheter. The scalpel. The gauze.

He swished the drill bits in disinfectant, then wiped them off alcohol.

He pulled on sterile gloves and picked up the scalpel.

His skin was clammy inside the latex gloves as he made his incision.

Blood oozed from the scalp, welling into a gently globule. He dabbed it with gauze and sliced deeper, until his scraped bone.

To breach the skull is to expose the brain to a hostile universe of microbial invaders. Yet the human body is resilient, it can survive the most brutal of insults. He kept reminding himself of he tapped a nick into the temporal bone, as he positioned the tip the drill bit. The ancient Egyptians and the Incas had performed skull trephinations, opening holes in the cranium with only the crudest of tools and no thought of sterile technique. It could be done.

His hands were steady, his concentration fierce as he drilled into the bone. A few millimeters too deep, and he could hit brain matter.

A thousand precious memories would be destroyed in a second. Or a nick of the middle meningeal artery, and he could unleash an unstoppable fountain of blood. He kept pausing to take a breath, probe the depth of the hole. Go slow. Go slow.

Suddenly he felt the last filigree of bone give way, and the drill broke through. Heart slamming in his throat, he gently withdrew the bit.

A bubble of blood immediately began to form, slowly ballooning out from the breach. It was dark red—venous. He gave a sigh of relief. Not arterial. Even now the pressure on Emma’s brain slowly easing, the intracranial bleed escaping through this new opening. He suctioned the bubble, then used gauze to absorb the continuing ooze as he drilled the next hole, and the next, a one-inch-diameter ring of perforations in the skull. By the time the last hole was drilled, and the circle was complete, his hands were cramping, his face beaded with sweat. He could not pause to rest, every second counted.