Pillar to the Sky (53 page)

The first time Malady left her alone to go in and resupply on air, fuel for his small backpack, and water to keep hydrated, she did have a moment of terror. Only a few meters away, the reel was spinning out ribbon at blinding speed. The background chatter of Kiribati Control, which had taken over primary command of the final descent, kept running off the figures of descent rate and deviation from target, then suddenly, in a heart-skipping moment, reported that some space debris of unknown origin had passed within twenty meters of the ribbon.

She cautiously held the two ribbons together as Malady stapled them. It was all strange; she had a flashback memory to the day her father was humiliated by Proxley, calling it all an absurd dream; then, only days later, they were off to Kiribati:
Did I actually get airsick on a lousy helicopter ride?
she wondered. She tried to force the thoughts away, to stay focused on the mission. Hours passed, the only breaks the rotations when one went back inside to replenish oxygen, get more water for hydration, eat a tasteless energy bar for food, then come back out again. The recycling and climate control unit of her EVA suit had long since overloaded; she was drenched with sweat one moment, but then if she stayed in the shadow of the space station for too long, she felt a shivering chill.

The dreams of her parents; the years in which it was an abstraction; as she matured, went to college, learned to fly; the first internship with Franklin, which had firmly hooked her into the dream; the final words her father said to her, and then his last words to the world far below, stayed with her, and pushed her on, in spite of exhaustion beyond anything she had known before, while Kevin, indeed now a superman in her eyes, ordered her about like a roustabout on a construction crew, and she never once objected. The wisdom of keeping him up here aloft was now so clearly evident.

And now it was coming down to this. Stapling together strips of ribbon made of carbon-60 nanotubing, then securing the other end of that last reel of ribbon to the remnants of the first tower, the long strand of wire and discarded equipment which would act as a counterweight as the ribbon, moving with the earth in its orbit, would become a rigid pathway to the stars.

“Hold it steady, damn it,” Malady whispered, and she obeyed without question, but she did smile at such a total reversal of roles between the two of them, and respected and loved him for it.

“Last stitch,” he finally announced. “That’s done. Now we secure the other end of the ribbon to the old wire.”

She floated nearby, a few meters away, as he sharply cautioned her to stay well clear of the wire, which was a damn sight more dangerous. He was the one who had devised the scheme of actually weaving the wire through the perforations on the last strand of the ribbon, crosshatching it back and forth for a dozen meters, muttering to himself about his grandmother and how he never dreamed he would become a seamstress, while in the next breath explaining to Victoria what he was doing in case something went wrong as he worked the stitching—meaning that if he punctured his EVA suit, she was to take over while he made it back to the airlock because there wasn’t time to screw around with taking care of him while the ribbon was still spinning out.

He finally reached the last stitching, taking the handheld unit from Victoria to “staple” a final seal across the ribbon.

It was amazing to her even now. They were working with what her parents first dreamed of before this project existed and even now, on earth, would fetch thousands of dollars per pound, a fraction of the weight of tungsten steel or titanium alloys, and yet magnitudes stronger. The very tools they used to manipulate it had to be of the same material, otherwise it would be like trying to use a knife made of butter to cut a wire of steel. Without her father and mother, Erich and the team at NASA that nurtured them and then Franklin, would any of this exist now? She knew the answer, and knew her life was on the line at this moment if she made a mistake. And even if she did make a mistake that cost her her life, as long as the ribbon kept spinning out to its final destination … it was worth it.

She thanked God for all of them, and for NASA as well, that in the end, resurgent, had come through for this moment, at times her comm channel whispering with some sage advice from an old astronaut, one who had worked on Hubble, of simple reassurance that she was doing just fine and to keep at it. His words were like a dream, a generation of former dreams encouraging the next, and she thanked God for it. She hoped that someday she would have the chance to shake his hand and thank him for his calming words at a moment when she did have to struggle not to panic.

“That does it,” Kevin finally said, and then carefully reached across to grasp her hand.

“Time to head in?” she gasped, hovering on the true edge of exhaustion.

“Not yet. Your oxygen supply?”

She looked at the heads-up display projected onto her faceplate.

“Two hours ten minutes.”

“OK, with reserve time, that still gives us an hour and forty minutes. Hand off the stapler to Jenna.”

They drifted back to the station, where Jenna stood in the open hatchway, and she did as ordered.

“Now hold my hand tight.”

Again she did as ordered as he gave a gentle push to his EVA backpack—not much acceleration, just several meters a second, but enough to move them away from the security of the tower and the station module.

“Switch to private comm channel,” he said, as he reached over with his free hand and punched the frequency into the link mounted to her forearm.

“You reading me?” he asked.

“On line with you, Kevin.”

“Just stay with me for this,” Kevin said.

“I’m with you.”

Somehow, in this last day of EVA, she had learned a sense of security by being only meters away from the space station. But now? Kevin seemed to just be heading off into deep space, and for a moment it was disorienting, frightful. Earth was “below,” or was it above? The sun to “one side,” or was it the other? The moon? She decided for the sake of her sense of equilibrium that it was overhead.

And they floated on. Ahead, a small dot of light was resolving itself. It was Maury.

She took a deep breath. She had thought across the hours what to do for him. She had decided he should be returned to earth for a fitting burial. His family would want that.

His slowly tumbling form drew closer. Kevin fired a retro thrust to slow, the last few meters barely closing on him as he finally reached out and took hold of Maury’s backpack, joining the three together.

He did not turn him around, and Victoria was grateful for that; she did not want to see his face. Maury … the one who had broken the ice between the two crews with his smuggled offering; who had bonded with Kevin; who had the respect of all; who could outswagger Kevin one minute but be as quiet, introspective, even poetic, as Jenna the next as he gazed out at the universe …

“Would you join me, Victoria? We’re switching to comm link 122.9.”

She did as requested; a moment of static.

“Commander Hurt, are you with me?” Kevin asked.

“With you, son.”

My God,
Victoria realized,
it’s Maury’s father.

“And his mother is with me as well.”

No one spoke for a moment.

“And your request stands, sir?” Kevin asked.

“That it does, son, and thank you.”

Whatever had been agreed to had transpired without Victoria’s knowledge.

“Sir, you’ll have to help me. Do you have someone who can read the service?”

“We have our minister Father Thomas Allen here, son, he’ll help us.”

Victoria took a deep breath, punching the keypad on her arm to block off her own voice while still listening as the minister far, so very far below read the traditional Anglican service for burial at sea, but changing the last words to “commend his mortal remains to the universe above…”

“Rest with God my good friend,” Kevin whispered, and, powering up his backpack thrust, he pushed forward; then, while holding tightly to Victoria’s hand, he let go of Maury and reversed his thrust.

She was glad her comm link was silenced.

They watched for a moment as Maury drifted away.

“Son, thank you.” It was Maury’s mother. “Miss Morgan, God be with you and your venture, and thank you as well. Now, return safely to us.”

That hit her far too deeply, and she clicked open her comm link only long enough to offer her condolences.

“Commander Hurt, Mrs. Hurt, your son will forever journey to the stars. I hope when my time comes I have such a fate. My condolences, for he was my friend.” Her voice was breaking as she clicked off. Kevin held her hand as she broke down in sobs; then, finally drawing a deep breath, she switched back over to their private comm channel.

“OK, my friend,” she whispered, “take us back.”

Kevin turned the two about, and started back to the station a kilometer away. It could be recorded that the two had just embarked on the longest space walk ever, but she would cut dead with an icy glare any who would ever dare to mention that.

Not a word was spoken between the two as they ventured back, Victoria at least gaining some orientation and even a touch of the old wonder as she floated across the heavens between earth, moon, sun, and stars, the future her father had dreamed of and which she now lived.
Was this your final glimpse, Daddy?
she wondered, and knew that it was.

Jenna helped to guide them back through the airlock, and Victoria was so grateful to get the EVA suit off. A brief argument ensued between her and Kevin, who had been in his suit without relief for nearly three days, and he had finally conceded that he would shower first while Victoria just floated in silence in the station, looking over at Jenna from time to time, Jenna giving her a thumbs-up and whispering that Sanders was stable and resting comfortably.

And for a moment she did wonder. Was this really worth the price? Haunted by the last words of her father, the stoicism of Maury’s parents, the moving words of the burial service, the pale features of Sanders, in drugged sleep while Jenna floated beside him—even the nervous glances of Fredericks, who, once everything was sealed up and repressurized, had finally come out of the replacement crew’s capsule, but it was obvious he utterly cracked under the strain and would now have to live with that.

Was it really worth it?

What would my father say of all this sacrifice?
she wondered.

But as soon as she asked that question of herself, she already knew the answer.

Perhaps the fate of the entire world in the not-too-distant future would rest on what they did here this day. Was that not worth it? All that they took for granted, especially in flight and then space flight, had been paid for by the lives of others or by the actions of those such as Glenn, Leonov, and Armstrong, who came back, but also the crews of the lost Soviet missions, of
Challenger
and
Columbia
, and others who knew the risks but took those risks. For those who lived, and those who gave their lives for what they believed in, would any complain of their fate or demand a retreat from what they had accomplished?

That was what gave Maury’s parents strength, what had given her father strength, and what now must give her strength.

“The descent ribbon is 1,000 meters from docking,” Singh announced, but she barely looked over; instead, her gaze focused on the large porthole and the distant earth below.

“All systems nominal. This one is going smoothly: fuel still at 6 percent, more than enough reserve. Two hundred meters, five meters down per second, four meters off target at 322 degrees but adjusting.

“On target, fifty meters … forty meters, retro fire decreasing descent rate. Ten meters … Five …

“We got dock and latch secure! Pillar Two is secured!” Singh cried, actually rising up out of her chair, looking back at Victoria.

And at nearly the same moment her friend Kevin unlatched the door to the shower and floated out, smiling, at least wearing shorts to be decent, his beard shaved off.

“The shower is all yours, Miss Victoria,” he said softly.

“Thank you, Kevin.”

23

Twelve hours later they had Sanders strapped into the capsule along with Fredericks, who seemed to stir enough to understand Singh’s briefing on what to do. As the capsule pilot they hoped at least those instincts would kick in correctly. Singh had reviewed with Dr. Bock on the ground what she had done, and there were a few suggestions about ensuring the artery clamps were well secured and Fredericks briefed on what to do if bleeding resumed. On a private channel Franklin had flat-out ordered Victoria to come down, an order she refused, with Franklin muttering about mutinies and perhaps even firings but she did have a trump argument that she was now thoroughly trained in stitching ribbon, that without her Kevin was the only one with experience and there would be zero backup if Jenna was pressed into that service instead.

“Besides, I want to be up here for the first test run of my project,” she said, and felt she had trumped Franklin with that one. Thus she stayed on.

Sanders made it down safely, with Fredericks all but silent throughout the descent, yet another drama that held the world’s attention.

Even as his module descended, the ground team at Kiribati carefully adjusted the tension on the tower, ran through the calculations yet again with regard to potential impacts—there would not be a major threat for another four months—and the following day hooked on the first stitcher, which would double the width of the Pillar up five hundred miles from the surface. Another two stitchers would then laminate additional ribbons on top of the first two, doubling the thickness, and then the process would gradually work its way up the pillar. Kevin and Victoria began stitching ribbon from the top down. With only one more expensive rocket-powered supply launch to go, additional supplies after that could go up the Pillar.

They had a highly stable ribbon in place; now it was just a question of strengthening it to handle the first loads that would go up and down its entire length. The next challenge then: to try the experiment that Victoria had designed and insisted must go forward, and she would stay aloft until that was accomplished.