The Glass Lady (34 page)

Endeavor flew in pitch blackness halfway between Brazil and western Africa.

“With you another 2 by Dakar, Endeavor. We're not getting any bio from Jack. Check his plugs, please.”

Before Parker could look sideways, the copilot pulled a cable from his coolant long johns and plugged it into a wall jack.

“Got Jack's vitals coming down now. Thank you.”

Enright nodded. He could hear the ground over a wall speaker mounted in the upper right corner of the forward instrument panel.

“Will: We're looking at Jack's bio harness digitals. His pulse and pressure look stable. Doc wants you to keep close watch on both when you're out of ground contact. Pay close attention to his BP especially. If you see any sign of neurogenic shock, get an electrolyte IV into him immediately. We also recommend the anti-G pants for Jack for the rest of the mission.”

“I'm ahead of you, Flight. Not to worry. Jack is doin' fine.”

“Good news, Endeavor. Doc is right here if you need any assistance.”

In the right seat, Enright fumbled with a CCA headset. Carefully, he put the Snoopy headgear around his neck like a scarf. Snapping the chin strap in front of his throat, the CCA floated upon his shoulders without touching his gauze face. He positioned the microphones to rest near his swollen lips.

“I'm with you, Flight,” Enright said with a dry mouth. He spoke as through a mouth full of cotton.

“Super to hear your voice, Jack. Doc Gottwalt is at a Canaveral console listening if you need him. How goes it?”

“Afternoon, Mike. I'm uncomfortable but okay. Real stuffy in my nose. Skipper shot me up with the good stuff and I'm feelin' no pain. Could sell that on the street . . . Safer way to make a living.”

“Copy that, Jack. But you wouldn't get a room with such a view.”

Enright looked through his wet and sticky eyeholes toward his right window. He saw the red-and-green running lights along the afterbody of Soyuz against a star field borrowed from a Christmas card.

“Guess not, Flight.”

“Endeavor: At 05 plus 05, you're crossing the Equator. You are LOS Dakar and now AOS by Ascension Island.”

“Roger, Flight.”

Endeavor cruised southeastward 1,800 nautical miles west of Libreville, Gabon, on the west African coast. Missing the African mainland well beyond the eastern horizon, Shuttle would not make another landfall for 2,600 miles.

“For your burn pad, Will: Your next deorbit burn opportunities are coming up fast at 05 plus 33 plus 21 for Edwards and 05 plus 42 plus 11 for Kennedy landing. Can you set up for getting down that quickly?”

Parker glanced toward Enright at his right.

“Jacob?”

Enright raised his left hand. He gave an airman's thumbs-up.

“Ah, negative on that, Colorado . . . Ain't quite got 'em all in the corral yet. Jack and I are not done here yet.” The voice of the Aircraft Commander was full of Go.

“Will, backroom says no joy with Jack. We want you down this revolution.”

The tall flier's left hand gripped the glareshield overhanging the instrument panel. His free hand worked his microphone button.

“Tell your backroom to . . .” Parker felt a hand lightly upon his right shoulder. “. . . to put their re-entry plots away till a little later.”

“Hear you, Will. Understand. But Jack cannot possibly go outside.”

The command pilot stroked his right leg, throbbing and swollen.

“Jack won't.”

“Endeavor,” the ground began.

“Stand-by one, Flight.” Enright called softly over the microphones floating beneath his wet chin.

“Okay,” the black boxes crackled.

“Skipper,” Enright began without pressing the mike button of the air/ground channel, “you're not much better than me.” Colorado could not eavesdrop on the cockpit conversation.

Parker looked glumly at his purple shin and knee, which he rubbed with long, hard strokes. Enright waited.

“Endeavor,” the ground called. “One minute to . . .”

“Hold short, Flight,” Enright insisted.

“Will?” The copilot looked at his long captain.

The big man in the left seat squinted his battered face out the left window toward LACE slowly rolling in the lights from ever-mute Soyuz. William McKinley Parker fogged the triple-pane window when he spoke softly but firmly.

“One final moment of glory: A man is entitled to that.” The Aircraft Commander turned his haggard, pilot's face to his partner. “Jacob?”

The copilot furrowed his blistered brow within his cheesecloth mask.

“Flight,” Enright radioed, “AC be going outside. I'll take the con.”

The two airmen floated against their lap belts as they waited for the Flight Director 8,000 miles away to poll his controllers.

“We copy, Endeavor. You have a Go for EVA. Configure LOS Ascension Island at 05 plus 11. Botswana in 3 . . .”

Ascension Island fell off the western edge of the world 900 miles behind the starship.

“Can you handle the RMS, Jack?”

“Got two good hands, Skipper.”

Parker nodded. Then the AC pulled his plugs and released his lap and shoulder harness.

“Stay put, Number One.”

“Suit up alone?”

“Doin' it for years, Jack. Thanks.”

Parker floated out of his seat and he touched Enright's left shoulder as he passed. He descended headfirst down the access hole behind Enright's right seat.

The Colonel soared through the lighted mid-deck to the sleep berths. Holding his position with his legs pointed toward the ceiling, he reached into the berth for the leg pocket on his orange ascent suit. He pulled a rumpled paper sack toward his face. From the bag, he retrieved a vile of phenylbutazone labeled “veterinary use only.” Pausing, he contemplated the forward lockers stocked with powerful painkillers.

“Hell,” he mumbled as he flew toward the zero-gravity latrine. Three hundred milligrams of anti-inflammatory horse balm were fired through his mesh woolies below his right knee swollen to the size of his thigh.

“In the can, Jack,” the AC radioed topside as he swam into the airlock chamber.

“Take a magazine, Skipper.”

Inside the lighted airlock, the upside-down pilot worked the airlock controls beside the yard-wide hatch. As he went through the ten-minute protocol for a solo suit-up, Endeavor cruised the nighttime South Atlantic toward Africa. He followed his checklists carefully: On Shuttle Five in November 1982, a spacewalk by two crewmen was canceled when a space suit failed inside the airlock. Someone somewhere down below had left a tiny but critical part out of an oxygen regulator in the suit. Parker steered his body through the waist ring of the EMU's lower torso after removing it from its wall brackets. He winced as his right leg pressed into the pants. To his inflamed right leg, the suit's tight padding and insulation layers felt like hard fingers kneading raw dough.

Topside, Enright in the right front seat acknowledged Mission Control's call through the Botswana tracking station. Inside the airlock, Parker floated in his 225-pound, extra-vehicular mobility unit suit. After he had sealed and double-locked the airlock hatch, he had unclipped his PLSS backpack from its wall brackets. The PLSS chugged on his back. His inner helmet was locked to his neckring. The portable oxygen system continued to purge the heavy EMU suit with pure oxygen to flush out cabin air. The POS hose connected Parker's chestpack to the wall.

“Skipper: Flight wants you to do some vigorous isometric exercises when you're sealed to speed up your nitrogen withdraw time.” Parker's soft Snoopy hat heard Enright but not the ground.

The medics on the other side of the planet were concerned about Parker going outside without first pre-breathing oxygen for at least three hours to clean the nitrogen from his blood.

“Understand, Jack. With maybe a handstand or two for good measure.”

“Don't hurt yourself, Will.”

“Negative,” the AC laughed. The throbbing heat in his right leg was retreating slowly before the horse medication which tasted slightly sweet in the Colonel's mouth.

“Where are we, Jack?” Parker called as he disconnected the oxygen purge hose from his chestpack.

“Road map says over Namibia. No exit signs for any truck stops.”

Endeavor flew over sleeping southern Africa.

“ 'Kay. Purge complete, Jack. Helmet locked and lock-locked. Puttin' on the outer visor. Real comfy in the suit.” The AC's face within the plastic bubble disappeared inside the white outer visor with the gold-mirrored, laser-proof faceplate.

“Copy, Skip. Don't forget your chin-ups.”

The AC already had his heavily gloved hands gripping a wall handhold. With all of his strength, one arm pressed the handrail away as his other hand pulled it toward him. He felt his face flush and his pulse quicken. He sweated.

“Workin' out,” the AC panted over the intercom.

Endeavor crossed the east coast of Africa at Port Shep-stone, South Africa, twelve minutes after Parker had entered the five-foot wide airlock.

“Feet wet at 05 hours and 19 minutes, Will.”

“Got my slickers on,” Parker called, breathing hard of the cool, dry oxygen in the EMU suit pressurized to 4.3 pounds more than the inside of the bright airlock. The digital numerics on the top of the pilot's chestpack ticked up past three minutes of air time on the PLSS backpack.

“Ground says your bio looks fine, Will. They say you're working up a real lather. Hope you're not doin' anything that could make you go blind.”

“Wish . . .” The AC blew hard into his twin lip microphones.

“Hear you, Will. We're LOS by Botswana at 05 plus 22. Radio silent for 15 till Australia. I'm real fine on the bridge.”

Parker grunted his reply over the voice-activated intercom. He momentarily freed one hand to crank up the coolant water flow through the soft piping of his liquid coolant garment, which was sticky against his body. Upon his sweating face, he felt a cool wash of pure oxygen blowing from the inner helmet's vent pad behind his ears.

On the flightdeck, Enright in the right seat was feeling thirsty and vaguely lightheaded. He sucked at the plastic tube leading to a large squeeze bottle. He alternated sips of the tasteless, sterilized water with chugs of bitter electrolyte solution. The sweetner in the sodium drink could not dilute the aftertaste similar to warm sweat.

One hundred thirty nautical miles above the nighttime South Atlantic, Endeavor, Soyuz and LACE, all sped across a starry sky. LACE was bathed in the arc light from the silent Soviet ship. Shuttle had resumed her normal orbital attitude, flying upside down with her nose pointing into the direction of flight, now northeastward. Enright rolled the ship over while Parker was suiting up. Mother held trim. Facing Earthward, the space radiators secured to the open bay doors would be protected from the sun come daybreak in fifteen minutes.

“How goes it, Skipper?”

“Okay, Number One. Takin' a break to let the PLSS catch up with the heat load. Upstairs?”

“Same. Just finished running through a checkout of the fuel cells. They're purring away.”

Enright took his foggy mind off his throbbing face by conducting test protocols of the electrical subsystems managed from the right seat.

“Roger, Jack. You got this watch.” In the sealed airlock, Parker resumed his zero-gravity push-ups against the wall. He worked with his face close to the floor. As his bulky suit moved beside the hull of the round airlock, he tried out the EMU's urine-collection reservoir. A faint whiff of ammonia seeped into his helmet.

“Wish I had a creek,” the working AC mumbled.

“Say again, Will?”

“Nothing, buddy.”

Enright turned his attention outside. He reached over his head to Panel 0-8 where he dimmed the cabin lights in the forward cockpit. As the lights came down, he could see the green running lights on Soyuz through the far left window by Parker's empty seat. Straight ahead, he could make out the hazy horizon of the black ocean 1,000 miles away. He sensed the curving, inverted horizon where the star field stopped, blocked out by the dark planet. A few bright stars were visibly growing brighter as they rose from beyond the eastern horizon and climbed through the Earth's gossamer atmosphere. When the points of light emerged from the thin veil of air close to the sea, their twinkling stopped. Concentrating to focus his bloodshot eyes out the thick window, Enright could distinguish cool blue stars from hot white ones. He made out one or two, faintly red suns where solar systems were in their final death throes. He felt no weight except for the pressure of his inflated, tight, anti-gravity pants.

“You are orange, Endeavor.”

Enright was revived when the earphones floating upon his shoulders crackled. It should have been another two minutes before Shuttle was within range of the Australian Yarradee antennae.

“Say again, Skipper?”

“Didn't say nothin', Jack,” Parker panted from below.

Outside, visible through the two square windows in the rear wall of the flightdeck, Shuttle's upside-down tail, 26 feet, 4 inches tall, glowed a neon orange as it plowed through stray oxygen ions loose in the vacuum of space 781,000 feet above the sea. Enright could not see the flickering energy 100 feet behind his bandaged head.

“Hello?” Enright called dumbly as he pressed the mike button to energize his air-to-ground FM radios.

“Hello, Endeavor! Your ion wake is quite brilliant.”

Enright's swollen eyes blinked out the window beyond the Colonel's empty left seat.

The voice crackling through Enright's earphones carried a thickly Russian accent.

“Good morning,” Enright radioed ship to ship. He was thinking of sunrise ten minutes and 3,000 miles away.

“Lieutenant Commander Enright? Your face is better, yes?” The thickly accented words crackled over the flight-deck speaker by the copilot's right shoulder.