The Glass Lady (40 page)

At the instant Parker pulled the grapple fixture's release lever, Karpov pushed off LACE with his knees while his forearms gripped Parker's helmet. Had Parker's MMU backpack not fit him behind like an old chair, his spine would have ruptured his stomach.

“Skipper!” Enright shouted hoarsely into empty space.

Parker was held in a headlock by Alexi Sergeovich Karpov, twice decorated Hero of the Soviet Union. The pilots rolled end over end through the sky toward Shuttle. Where no wind blows and where no bird flies, the Siamese airmen joined at their visored faces tumbled toward a white sun against a black sky at the leading edge of Endeavor's right wing.

Although Karpov had kicked mightily off LACE, he had worked against the mass of 1,200 pounds of pilots, pressure suits, life-support packs, and tether cable. His leap had heaved the pair slowly into the vacuum.

“Thrust, Will! Thrust!” Enright's cry was joined by a torrent of Russian from a shouting Uri Ruslanovich in Soyuz.

As the two shipbound airmen shouted to their soaring partners, Parker furiously fired his MMU jets to stop the tumbling and the flight of the two pilots who pitched slowly toward Endeavor's right wing. Like a wall of white, the glass-covered wing pointed straight up. Parker and Karpov tumbled slowly through space in an orbit of their own directly above the Equator and Pulau Obi Island east of Borneo.

The starboard wing of Endeavor is 60 feet wide where its root joins Shuttle's body and 5 feet thick. Its trailing edge behind is 26¼ feet long. Covered by inch-thick aluminum skin beneath its heat-resistant glass tiles, the four-spar wing is built by Grumman, the old Ironworks on Long Island.

When Karpov and Parker slammed into Endeavor's starboard wing, Shuttle's 100-ton mass did not twitch from the collision. Shuttle budged no more than the windshield of an 18-wheeler absorbing the impact of an insect.

Enright stood at the aft flightdeck station in the port-side corner. He looked through the rear window across the open bay toward the starboard wing pointing skyward. Because Parker and Karpov had slammed into the thick inner wing where the bay door drooped over the sill, Enright could not see them on the far side of the 13-foot-high wall of the payload bay.

“Skipper!”

Parker did not reply. In his pain-wracked arms, he clutched Alexi Karpov, who did not move.

As Enright held his breath, he floated off the floor to put his swollen and blistered face close to the rear window.

“Will?” he repeated. Enright watched the coiled, shining, umbilical tether of the Russian float above the bay edge. Like a cobra rising, the end of the lifeline floated upward.

The tether line was attached to nothing. Air rushing from the open end made the umbilical sway like a loose fire hose.

“Endeavor: Configure AOS by Guam at 07 plus 20. We do not have the AC on the television. And we see his pulse at 140. Status, please! . . . Standing by.” The voice radiated from Guam to Shuttle 966 statute miles southwest of the island antenna.

“Stand by one, Flight!” Enright demanded breathlessly over the Sonsorol Islands. “Will!”

Enright was already steering the remote arm across the bay to peek over the edge with the RMS elbow camera.

Loaded with the heavy plasma diagnostics package, the arm moved slowly at its loaded rate of 2½ inches per second. Pilots earn their pay by making pilots' decisions. Enright made one.

With a squeeze on the pistol-grip trigger in his right hand, the arm's end effector let go of the 350-pound plasma package. The expensive experiment from the University of Iowa spun free twenty feet above the sunlit bay into its own lonesome orbit. Its inertia carried it past Endeavor and upward. There, the PDP's systems would die by suffocation where it would circle the planet. Instantly and automatically, the whole arm stopped against its emergency brakes. Mother felt the arm lighten when the PDP can veered away. The computer stopped the arm to await the end of the limber arm's oscillations induced by the sudden loss of the heavy canister. Immediately, Enright assumed full manual control of the mechanical arm, ordering it to continue toward the bay wall. The arm's Caution and Warning lights—DERIGIDIZE and RELEASE—both illuminated red, and the computer's television screen flashed RATE LIMIT ALERT to demand the pilot's attention to the bending moments straining the fragile arm. Enright ignored the alarms.

“Jack, Colorado has rate C and W on the RMS, a high-rate alert on the plasma package, and a derigidize indication on the end effector . . . What's up? Over!”

“I dumped the PDP and rammed Will and Karpov. Stand by, damn it!”

Enright fumed through clenched teeth behind his bandages as he steered the twanging arm over the edge of the bay. Colorado Springs waited quietly as stunned controllers watched their television monitors. They saw Endeavor's starboard bay wall grow larger as the arm's camera approached the white wing.

Enright steered the remote arm by hand. He flew it by reference to the view from his window and from the elbow camera.

Over the island of Ulithi, 600 nautical miles north of the Equator, the television by Enright's right shoulder was filled with two white-suited figures. The figure nestled within the manned maneuvering unit moved his thick arms.

“Thank God,” Enright sighed. “I have you, Will! Wave if you read me.”

Will Parker delivered a stiff salute against his mirrored, faceless visor.

“Gotcha, Skipper. Negative radio. Ground is with us by Guam . . . Flight? You got the video?”

“Affirmative, Jack. We're at 07 plus 23. With you another 5. We do not see Karpov's umbilical.”

“Yeh. He lost it. Went out to pry Will from the target. Think the AC saturated out there. We had no joy on separation of the grapple fixture. When Karpov pushed Will off the target, they pranged into our starboard wing, just beyond the deployed door. I dumped the PDP to get the arm out there.”

“Roger that, Jack. We concur with the PDP jettison.”

“And we're negative reception on the AC, Flight.”

“Copy.” Guam was only 100 miles east of Endeavor's ground track at 07 hours 23 minutes. “Ask Will the status of Major Karpov. We have Kaliningrad on the line here.”

“Skipper? Is Karpov alive?” Enright watched the two pilots in the monitor screen. The Russian floated in a ball in Parker's lap, touching the wing. Karpov's gloved hands pressed against his suit's belly inlet where the tether had been torn loose.

Parker gave a slow thumbs-up sign.

“Copy, alive, Will . . . You got that Soyuz?”

“Yes. Thank you. The suit inlet valve automatically seals when the hose is disconnected. He should have maybe five minutes of oxygen trapped in the suit. You must get the Major inside immediately.” The voice of Uri Ruslanovich was anxious.

“We have lots of room, Doctor . . . Did you catch that, Will?”

Enright saw another thumbs-up on his monitor screen.

“Can you move, Will?”

Enright's question was answered by Parker's left hand, which moved the left hand controller on his MMU backpack. As Parker slowly climbed upward from the vertical wing, Karpov appeared to hug the American's neck. The legs of the Soviet pilot trailed limply.

“Two in motion, Colorado.”

“We're watching it, Jack. So is the Soviet center. Do you see any wing damage?”

Enright had not thought about the wing. As Parker and Karpov ascended to the level of the bay sill, Enright focused the zoom lens past them toward the wing. In his monitor, he saw a foot-wide section of the wing which was black in the midst of the otherwise white glass tiles. The dark area was bare skin covered only by the heat-resistant glue which holds the tiles in place. Perhaps a dozen tiles, each the size of a bar of soap, were missing.

“You see that, Flight?”

“Affirmative, Jack.”

“Goin' back to Will on the CCTV.”

“Copy.”

Enright cranked the arm slowly around until the distant, elbow section camera found Parker's backside in the forward bay close to the closed airlock hatch. Because Enright had been watching the wing in the monitor, he missed the two fliers when they drifted under his rear windows.

“Goin' downstairs, Flight. I'm leaving DAP in loop B.”

“Roger on the autopilot. Plug in at earliest opportunity in the mid-deck, Jack. After we lose you in 2 minutes, we'll be with you by California in 16 minutes. Before you leave the flightdeck, advise if grapple fixture is still on the target.”

“That's affirmative, Colorado. Target still real tight in gravity gradient. No motion of any kind.”

“Good news, Jack. Go below and get Will and Alexi inside. Moscow indicates no more than one minute of breathable air in Karpov's suit.”

Enright pulled his plugs. He left the remote-arm television trained on the airlock hatch so the ground could watch. As he swam toward the floor hatchway, his pounding and swollen head felt dizzy and congested. He ached for sleep. When the thin pilot's stocking feet followed his sweat-soaked body into the square hole behind the left front seat, Mother held the bridge. Outside, Parker's ten-million-dollar manned maneuvering unit floated up past the rear windows of the flightdeck. No pilot was attached to the MMU as it tumbled slowly out of the bay.

Enright executed a slow somersault in the bright middeck. He floated beside the large airlock can as he plugged his communications plug into a ceiling jack.

“With you from below, Flight.”

“Copy, Jack. Our video has the airlock hatch closing. Both the AC and the Major are inside. No apparent movement from Major Karpov that we could see from here. LOS in 2 minutes this station.”

“Understand . . . Will?”

Enright squinted and he blinked his blurry eyes to focus upon a control panel on the outside of the airlock. The air-pressure meter slowly climbed past five pounds, halfway to mid-deck pressure.

“Here, buddy.” Parker's voice was mainly air, heavy with fatigue and pain.

“One beautiful sound, Will! . . . You got a copy, Colorado?”

“Sweet music, Jack. He must be plugged into the intercom. We hear him.”

“Ah yeh, Flight. Comin' to you by hardwire. I'll crack my visor when I get to niner pounds. Karpov is out of it just now.”

“Hear you, Skip,” Enright acknowledged as the pressure meter pointer showed seven pounds per square inch in the airlock. Soyuz was silent.

“You with us, Soyuz?”

“Yes, Yakov. The Major is time-critical on air by now.”

“Working on it, Doctor . . . Will: You're up to 8 point 7 psi.”

“Uh huh. Gettin' Karpov's helmet now . . . Ah, ask 'im if it's a left or right twist as I look at it?”

“Anti-clockwise,” a Russian voice interrupted from Soyuz.

“ 'Kay, I hear him . . . And helmet is off the Major . . . He's out, Jack. Breathin' though. Barely . . . He's definitely cyanotic.”

“Nine and a half, Will.”

“ 'Kay . . . Upper torso waistring open here. Climbing the wall now.” Parker panted over the intercom as he floated to the wall-bracket housing for his PLSS backpack and the upper half of his EMU suit. “. . . Okay, Jack. Upper torso stowed . . . And . . . I'm free!”

Inside the five-foot-wide airlock, Parker's PLSS backpack was locked to the wall. The AC eased himself downward and out of the upper torso of the EMU. He had not bothered to remove his inner bubble helmet which remained attached to the suit. When he raised his arms to slide out of the suit, the pain in his shoulders was blinding. Since the suit carried his communications cable, the AC was disconnected from the intercom when he slid weightlessly from the upper torso. He still wore the massive EMU lower torso and his soft Snoopy headgear around his wet and wasted face.

“Will? You're at 10 point 1 . . . Will? Will?”

Enright's voice rose in pitch. He felt faint and his face throbbed like a broken ankle.

“Easy, Jack.” The Colonel was plugged in again as he wrestled in the airlock with his heavy pants. He labored to avoid floating into the unconscious Karpov who dozed bare-headed upside down.

“Endeavor?” A Russian voice pleaded over the audio electronics.

“Stand by, Uri,” Enright said softly as he tried to keep his eyes open inside his facial bandages.

“Thirty seconds,” the ground called as Shuttle approached the northeast limit of Guam's radio range 780 nautical miles west of Wake Island.

“Comin' out, Jack.”

As the airlock hatch opened with a slight pop close to the mid-deck floor, Enright's feet were well off the deck. He was close to losing consciousness and his dry mouth was full of tongue.

Karpov's tranquil face emerged slowly across the floor from the open hatch. His lips were blue and deep creases contorted his wet, ashen face where the cheek pads of his helmet had pressed tightly.

“Major Karpov is out of the airlock,” Enright radioed. He felt as if someone else's lips had moved inside his gauze mask soaked with penicillin and cold sweat.

“Understand, Jack. Guam is losing you at 07 plus 28. Next network contact by GDX in 16. Advise when . . .”

The limp Russian floated on his back in his deflated white pressure suit inches off the floor. Parker steered the Major's legs from inside the airlock.

After Karpov's heavy boots cleared the hatchway, the AC floated headfirst from the airlock. Halfway out and wearing only his soaked, liquid coolant drawers, Parker rolled over. When his long johns and socks were through the hatch, he floated into a kneeling position beside the reposing Russian. The AC lifted his face toward Enright's grossly swollen head. The copilot hovered dopy-eyed in mid-air beside the airlock. Enright blinked lazily at his captain. He hardly recognized the tall pilot's face.

Like Moses when he descended from the sacred mountain with his hair newly white, Parker had aged visibly while outside.

“Afternoon, Jacob,” the AC smiled feebly. He held his long arms close to his wet chest to ease the pain in his shoulders.