Vessel (14 page)

Sally felt an odd sympathy for him, seeing this
strong, confident man reduced to a fragile child. 'Are you talking about UV One?'

'
I want to do what he's asked me to do,' Gardner continued, ignoring Sally. 'But I don't think I can do it. I'm too weak …'

'Hey, are you both ok
ay?' a voice said from above, making Gardner jump. Sally looked up to see Novitskiy hovering overhead, his pasty face reflecting concern back down at them. 'I heard screaming.'

'We're fine,' Sally said, but as she did Gardner pushed passe
d Novitskiy and out of the MLM.

Novitskiy watched him leave, and when he turned back to Sally his look of concern had grown into one of fear.
'I don't think he's holding up well. He's doing even worse than Chris.'

'I'm not sure any of us are doing
particularly well,' Sally said, folding her arms to try and mute a shiver. 'How long until Progress is fixed?' Novitskiy didn't answer. He looked guilty; Sally knew he was hiding something. 'Tell me!
How long?
'

Novitskiy fiddl
ed with a seam on his coveralls. He seemed to be orchestrating an internal debate, determining whether or not he would tell her something. He stopped fiddling. The debate was won. 'We can't fix Progress,' he said, looking down at himself.

'
What?
' Sally breathed, the chill in her veins now ice cold.

'There'
s too much damage to the airlock seal. There's no way to repair it without replacement parts.'

'W
ell what about the comms — they still work, right?'

'The batteries have frozen because of the decompression. They're dead.'

'How long have you known this?'

'Two days.'

'So why didn’t you tell me then?'

Novitskiy scratched at his stubbly beard.
'We didn't want you to give up hope.'

'
Give up hope?
What do you mean? NASA knows what happened to Progress, surely they'll be sending a rescue mission?
Right?
' Sally realised she was yelling, her chest rising and falling as hot anger boiled within her. 'Sorry …' she said, unballing her fists. 'I didn’t mean to shout at you.'

Novitskiy came a little closer, and as he did, Sally could see that it wasn't fear in his eyes after all, but sadness.
'They're not coming.'

What was left of
Sally's anger fell away, leaving her hollow. '
What?
'

'There is no rescue vehicle. Progress was our only chance.'

'But — why?'

Nov
itskiy took a deep breath, as if preparing himself for something. 'Because of Gardner.'

Chapter 15

Aleks felt sick. He had woken up that morning after a few measly
hours' sleep with fever, nausea — the full works. But he still turned up for his shift. At his station, he drained his fifth cup of water to dampen his dry throat, but the churning feeling all the way from his oesophagus to his bowels persisted. He wasn't actually sick, however — he knew that for sure. He felt terrible because he knew he was about to risk all he had ever worked for. His job was his life and his family, replacing what life and family he ever had outside of these walls. It was everything to him, and there was a strong chance he was about to throw it all away.

The minutes
had stretched to hours, everything and everyone passing by as if in slow motion. He filled his cup again at the water cooler, returned to his desk and waited. The days since his meeting with Sean had gone by as a blur. He had put off what he needed to do until he thought the time was right, and today was that day because Bales was not here. The man himself had told him about a week ago that he would be attending a meeting off site. When he'd first heard the news, Aleks looked forward to Bales' absence for his own reasons, but after his meeting with Sean he realised it was a chance that offered so much more. He downed his cup of water in one go.

'CAPCOM to all
stations,' he said into his mic. 'I'm handing over. I'll be back in five.'

'Copy, CAPCOM,' came the plethora of responses. A
NASA lad twenty years his junior appeared beside him to cover his post.

'Thanks,' Aleks said to him. '
My bladder's not what it used to be.' He forced a laugh, regretting it as soon as he heard it. His replacement didn't seem to suspect anything, or at least his polite smile didn't suggest so.

'No problem,
sir,' he said.

Aleks fought the urge to run as he left Mission Control, and even the breeze as the double doors swung shut behind him seemed to push him onward. He turned a corner, heading in the direction of the toilets, and as he neared th
em he checked over his shoulder and kept on walking. He exited the corridor into a dank concrete stairwell and started climbing. The stairs were meant for use as a fire escape, so he didn't expect to meet anyone on his way. With each step grinding at his hips, two floors up and one more to go, he wished he
had
stopped off at the toilets after all, his bladder ripe and ready to burst. Too late now — onwards and upwards. A tingle of adrenaline spurred his steps and he skipped the last few a pair at a time, pausing just inside the door to catch his breath.
Nearly there
. Taking a last deep lungful to calm his nerves, he burst through into the empty corridor and resumed marching. Not this door, not this one, a couple more — he stopped outside a door that looked no different to the others, apart from its number. He entered.

Inside
was a meeting room, seldom used because of its compact size. Two small desks filled the space, one of which bore an old computer. He sat down, and the dust that puffed from the chair's padding confirmed how long it was since anyone had been here. He clicked the mouse and the computer came to life; a barrage of update warnings lit up the screen which at first he mistook for some kind of alarm.
Don't be ridiculous
, he thought, heart racing.
Bales has no idea what I'm doing.
He inserted Lev's key card into the appropriate slot, opened the RFSA's intranet page and navigated to the secure log in. Two empty boxes appeared, a cursor flashing in the first. His heart skipped again, his confidence in Bales' ignorance wearing paper-thin.

Retrieving Sean's
hand-scrawled note from his pocket, he turned it over to read the login details and punched them in key by key. He hit return and waited, the stale air of the room feeling warmer and closer by the second. A loading bar appeared and when it reached completion, the screen went black. Aleks' heart sank. But then it lit up again with an unfamiliar window that was emblazoned with the US Department of Defence logo. The page read:
Bales, Major John R.
Below that, a series of options presented themselves. Aleks clicked
Mailbox
and waited. The screen refreshed and a list of messages appeared. The inbox count was 2,438. Scrolling through, scanning the subject lines, he looked for something useful in among the weekly reports and general communications.

Footsteps and two muted voices plodded past and he stopped scrolling, hovering the cursor over the close bu
tton, skin prickling with horrible anticipation. The footsteps receded and he continued to browse. And there it was. Marked as confidential, it was the order for the RFSA to step down and re-assign Bales as Flight Director for the International Space Station. It was sent by Bales himself, and the response was a disgruntled but non-resistant acceptance. Aleks scrolled on. There was another message, confirming Gardner's place on board Progress M Eighteen M. The email chain started seven years earlier with a simple message from Gardner that read:
He's here.

What the hell?
There were more messages, recounting details of Sally's flight to Russia, technical requirements for launch, training schedules and shift patterns at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. It was all very strange Bales getting so involved in the intricacies of the mission, to be engaging on such a front-line level, but yet he had sent confidential emails stipulating all sorts, right down to the specification of the Progress conversion —

Aleks clapped
a hand to his mouth. Taking his mobile phone from his pocket, he fumbled out a text message, but before he could finish, the door burst open. As quick as a flash, he clicked off the page and yanked out the key card, then looked to the open doorway to see none other than John Bales himself. His expression was grim. With Bales was the young NASA guy who'd covered his post, his expression also grim.

'What are you doing, Aleks?'
Bales said, watching him from the doorway.

'I
— nothing,' Aleks said, slipping his phone into his pocket, trying hard to reduce the tremor in his voice.

Bales
strode towards him, looking at the blank desktop on the computer screen. 'What are you doing?' he asked again.

Aleks' mind raced
, thinking hard for a way out. There was only one thing for it. 'I was … I was looking at pornography. I came here for a bit a of privacy.'

This
off-the-cuff excuse seemed to take Bales by surprise, and he recoiled, as if in embarrassment at disturbing Aleks at such a personal moment. But it didn't last long. Bales leaned across Aleks to take control of the mouse, which he steered towards the RFSA intranet icon. He clicked it. The home page opened and he clicked the button to log in. The screen refreshed and Aleks' heart sunk: in the username box, Bales' details had been remembered, and they burned in bright, digital letters as clear as day. The game was up. Bales stood tall, triumphant, and gestured to the security guards that had also appeared in the doorway.

'Take him,' he said
, and left the room.

Just before the guards got to him, Aleks put his hand in
his pocket, found his phone and squeezed the button he hoped was
SEND
.

* * *

'Because of Gardner?
Why?
' Sally said, grasping Novitskiy by the lapels.

Novitskiy
pulled himself free and moved away from her. 'Maybe you should ask him,' he said. 'It's his fault, not mine.'

A scuffle from the MLM entrance made them both look up to see Chris making his way towards them. He was out of breath.
'Guys, come quick. You need to see this.'

Without another word, he flipped around and shot back out again. Novitskiy followed, and Sally after him. She tried to keep up with them as they darted from module to module, but at this speed she kept crashing into things as she
misjudged her trajectory. She kept close enough to see Chris and Novitskiy disappear left into Node Three, where the Cupola was. She had been in there once before: it was a viewing module that bulged downwards and had the best view of Earth on the station. She tumbled in to find all three of the others looking out in the same direction.

'What is it
?' she said, scrambling over to look. Through one of the Cupola's many windows, she could see what looked like a metal can with a ball at one end and squared off wings at the other.

'It's TMA
Ten M,' Gardner said. 'It’s the Soyuz capsule that Romanenko took.'

It drifted on a path that seemed
to be taking it close by them.

'Mikhail …' Novitskiy whispered
.

Both hope and horror stirred inside Sally at once. She tried
to dismiss the thought that TMA Ten M had become a floating coffin. 'Can we use it for spares?'

'We can do better than that,' Gardner said, staring out at the spacecraft. 'We can use it to go back
home straight away.'

'
If it's in good condition we just need to fuel up and we're out of here,' Chris said.

They all looked at it in dreamy silence
.

'So how do we get it?' Sally
said, her voice sounding loud after the quiet.

'We'll have to
do an EVA,' said Gardner. 'The robotic arm won't reach. Two of us in EMU suits should have enough thrust to dock it. At a rough guess, it looks like it'll pass by in about an hour, so we need to move fast.'

Sally and Novitskiy stayed in the Cupola as Chris and Gardner left to suit up. Soyuz seemed to be moving
quicker than Sally had first thought, and she wasn't sure they even had an hour. 'How long does it take to get outside?' she asked.

'About
half an hour at a rush. It's very risky doing it so quickly, but they've done it many times. They should be okay with the buddy system checks.'

Now Sally was alone again with Novitskiy, she couldn't help but ask the question burning in her mind
. 'Why is it Gardner's fault that NASA aren't coming for us?'

Novitskiy
made a noise in his throat. 'NASA don't send astronauts like him. Not unless — well, lets just say his being here is a bad omen.'

'You
're talking about TMA Eight, aren't you?'

'Yes
.'

'We
re you on it?'

'Yes.
We were lucky to get out alive.'

'T
his is a suicide mission, isn't it?'

Novitskiy was staring out a
t Soyuz, the Earthlight soft on his face. 'It's called
forlorn hope
. When they send someone like Gardner, it's because they don't expect them to come back.'

Sally looked at Soyuz with him. Its foil shell and paper-thin solar wings made it look so delicate she could crush it between her thumb and forefinger.
'Do you think he's still alive in there?'

Novitskiy
didn't answer.

Soyuz had drawn level with
the station when two white figures came into view. Their gleaming gold visors twinkled as they directed their bulky EMU jetpacks towards the craft. They negotiated a path that intercepted the vehicle, and as it passed by the Cupola, they used their EMUs to steer it towards the MRM Two docking module. Working together, they pivoted the vehicle onto its end, slowing it as it drew level with MRM Two. Watching the slow, graceful manoeuvre was mesmerising, every gentle change of speed and direction fluid and controlled, every metre closer causing Sally's chest to flutter with anticipation. The journey home was within their grasp. 'Come on …' she whispered.

With the
nose of Soyuz in line with MRM Two, all they needed for a safe docking was a straight line. Sure enough, the two white-suited men directed Soyuz's guide probe into the mating adaptor, where it locked in and came to a rest.

'Ha haaaa!' Novitskiy cried out, and Sally hugged him
, charged with excitement. Novitskiy pushed her away, and she looked at him, hurt, only to see that his face had become pale. Fearing the worst, she looked back out the Cupola window where one of the astronauts was grasping at his helmet, writhing and spinning out of control away from the station. The other, on the opposite side of Soyuz, hadn't seen, and was making his way back to the station in the opposite direction.

'Follow me!
' Novitskiy yelled, and Sally sprang after him, paddling as hard as she could to chase him down the station. She reached Harmony where her sleeping quarters were; just beyond, Novitskiy had stopped, pulling at Velcro tabs holding a sheet of wall panel to the module's frame.

'Help me pull this off,' he said, but Sally was already on it, peeling the sheet away to reveal the bronze head and white body of
the R Two GM robotic astronaut. 'Grab an arm and lift.' Sally did as she was told. Together they hoisted the strange, legless figure from its cradle. They headed back towards the Cupola with it, turning into the opposite module, Quest, where Sally and Gardner had first entered the station. The room seemed bigger, as the two space suits were missing. Novitskiy opened the inner airlock and they fed the robot in, shutting the door behind it.