CHAPTER 16 “GEO Station”
Friday 28 October 2811
I was like trying not to be late to my Extra Vehicular Activity class – E.V.A. class for short – when the damn yellow warning lights started blinking in my corridor. I set them off again. There is a five km/hr speed limit that I keep exceeding. Once again I’ll have to complete a “Reason for Speeding” form. Sucks. I do understand that a head-on collision with another person or even with a wall could cause real injuries, but in the 70+ hours I’ve been in GEO Station, I’ve become pretty skilled at flying through the corridors in point five percent g. Besides, with my mass – less than anyone else who has ever been here – I’m less a threat to others and even to myself. Regardless, I slowed down to avoid getting an R.I.R. – Reduction In Rations – which probably doesn’t apply to Trillium crew, but I don’t really want to like test that premise.
“Hi,” Xingxing greeted me as I entered the classroom. “We’re still waiting for Danika.”
So much for breaking the speed limit.
“Go ahead and suit up except for gloves and helmet,” said Alexi Zemlya, our E.V.A. instructor. “Danika should be here shortly.”
Xingxing and I located our monogrammed suits from row upon row of hanging suits. We sailed over to the sets of boot locks bolted to the floor and as we secured the boots, Danika arrived. “Hi guys. ¿Did I like miss much?”
“Nope. Suiting up is the first thing,” I answered.
I finished sealing my suit and turned on the A/C to keep cool. Xingxing and I then helped Danika seal up.
Alexi then quizzed us. “Ramirez. ¿What is the procedure for loss of A/C while outside?”
“One: Cycle A/C switch. If that fails, then Two: Switch Life Support circuit to back-up power bus. If that fails, then Three: Select emergency frequency and announce that I’m returning to the airlock with an A/C failure.”
“Very good, Ramirez. ¿But what are you to do if A/C starts working when you switch to the back-up power bus?”
Oh, yeah. “Announce on assigned mission frequency that my A/C is on back-up power and that I need to return to the airlock in … thirty minutes.”
“That’s 20 minutes, Ramirez. A/C draws nine amps and backup is only rated for five amp-hours. One-half amp-hour at the airlock is below acceptable limits. Remember that.”
On and on went the E.V.A. class, sometimes with helmets and sometimes not. He even made us pee into the suit diapers and then had us go through the process of diaper disposal, suit cleaning, and inserting a fresh diaper. Yuck.
After a break with cheese, apple slices, and tea, Alexi chose me to go outside with him for one-on-one instruction in the vacuum of space. I locked my helmet onto the suit and the two of us went through the safety checklist together. I then slipped on my left glove and locked it in place. I slipped my right hand into the other glove and fumbled with the stupid glove lock for almost a minute before I got a green light.
Alexi’s voice sounded in my ears, “It will get easier with practice.”
We stepped into the airlock and I turned to see Xingxing and Danika give me a wave and a thumbs-up.
Alexi walked me through the process. “Pull the Station-side handle up and lock. Good. Now unlock and toggle the Evacuate switch.”
Red lights blinked as air was pumped out of the airlock and into the classroom. I watched the air pressure gauge bleed down while feeling pretty darn grateful that these suits are so reliable. The red light stopped blinking, a green light shone steadily on the outer door, and Alexi pulled the door open before I had the chance to freak myself out. I followed him out the door; not into the infinite vastness of outer space but into a corridor of metal latticework. I could see stars shining through gaps in the lattice.
“Careful, Ramirez. Don’t scrape your suit. Now lock your boots here.”
Alexi ran me through the very same exercises that we had just mastered back in the classroom – except for the peeing part.
“Ramirez. ¿Are you asleep?”
“¿Sir?”
“Your pulse rate and blood pressure are the lowest I’ve seen on a first-time E.V.A. ¿You aren’t bored, are you?”
“No, sir. It’s just that – except for being in a vacuum – it’s like the classroom lesson.”
“That’s the idea, Ramirez.” Alexi paused before asking, “¿Would you like to go outside – in the open?”
“I’d love to, sir.”
“OK. After I’m standing on that platform up there, I’ll beckon you to climb the ladder and join me. To go outside, however, we must be tethered.”
“Yes sir.” I’m pretty sure my pulse rate was speeding up.
Soon I was next to him on the platform. I picked a tether reel, pulled out a length of bright orange line, and clipped the connector to the receptacle in the front of my suit – just like in the video. Well almost. I couldn’t find the receptacle. The helmet doesn’t afford a view of my front, and the gloves prevented me from feeling the slot for the tether connector. I’m certain my blood pressure is way up now – out of sheer frustration and embarrassment. Alexi was just silently standing there. I couldn’t see his expression through his helmet’s reflective visor. After a long frustrating minute, Alexi asked, “¿What are your options, Ramirez?”
“Sir, if you squat down, I could use your helmet visor as a mirror to find the receptacle.”
“Not bad, Ramirez. ¿Another option?”
“You could clip it in, sir.”
“¿And if you were alone?”
“I could tie the tether around my arm or leg, sir.”
“Not very wise. ¿Another option?”
I briefly thought about tying the fucking tether around his pedantic neck and strangling him. “None that I can think of, sir.”
“You can call me Alexi, and you can take off a glove.”
“¿Sir? ¿Alexi? ¿Seriously?”
“There’s some risk of subcutaneous hemorrhaging but you’re young and your hands are small. Go ahead and try it.”
I unsnapped the lock on my right glove and immediately felt the wrist cuff inflate to create a pressure seal. I flipped open the lever and pulled my hand out. My fingers were slightly stiff but all-in-all it was pretty cool to meet the vacuum of space with bare flesh. Feeling with my fingers, I quickly found the tether receptacle and clicked the tether into place. I then used my gloved hand to grab the loose glove – which has its own little tether – and slipped it on my bare hand. Again it took me several tries to get it locked to the suit.
“Well done, Ramirez. ¿How was that? ¿Any pain?”
“No, sir. Alexi, I mean. It was way cool. You may call me Esty.”
Alexi unlatched the platform gate and we walked – if you can call point-five percent g pedal locomotion ‘walking’ – onto the roof of the classroom module. We were outside. Awesome. It was at once humbling and empowering. To my right were modules and solar arrays but off to my left was nothing but the cosmos. Incredible.
Some distance farther on, Alexi pointed to a pair of boot locks as his voice sounded in my helmet. “Lock yourself here and we’ll do some tool exercises. Remember, though, you could lose a tool out here and it would be a real pain to retrieve it.”
I imagined a Space Junk specialist assigning the name, “Estrella’s Wrench,” to a deadly piece of orbiting titanium.
After removing and replacing some practice bolts, nuts, washers, spring clips, electric and fiber-optic connectors, we retreated to the platform, closed the gate, and removed the tethers.
Alexi looked down and said, “An elevator car is just arriving. That’s odd.”
Sure enough, I saw the illuminated Passenger Pod of an elevator car approaching slowly from below. “¿What’s odd about that?”
“The next car isn’t due for another couple of days. But I think I can guess what happened. One of the freighters at Zero Station had an accelerator magnet fail during countdown. If they don’t get started soon they’ll miss a really low energy I.T.S. opportunity. I bet that car has an accelerator magnet in its storage pod.”
I nodded my helmet.
We descended the ladder and entered the airlock. There was no pumping this time as classroom air quickly filled the airlock. As soon as the green light on the classroom door blinked on, we rejoined Danika and Xingxing.
“Lo, your turn,” Alexi announced without removing his helmet. A minute later they were in the sealed airlock.
“You may call me Alexi,” Danika said in a deep-pitched-voice. Then much higher, “You may call me Esty.”
“Well. ¿So what?” I responded a bit testily.
“Well, he’s had his wolfish eyes on you since we got off the elevator. Next he’ll invite you for a drink and then you’ll find yourself in his private quarters admiring his artwork.”
“Danika, I do believe you’re jealous. Besides, I’m not old enough to drink. ¿And haven’t you and that radio tech been together a lot?”
We bantered and gossiped good-naturedly until it was Danika’s turn to go outside. I noticed from the intercom chatter that both Xingxing and Danika were also on a first name basis with Alexi before their E.V.A.’s ended.
“Take a lunch break and be back here at thirteen thirty hours for suit repair training,” Alexi announced and then he was gone from the classroom and floating down the corridor. The three of us must have formed a humorous triptych at that moment because I, at least, was hoping to be invited for lunch. We turned back to each other and broke into sheepish grins.
I broke the silence with, “Johansson. ¿May I call you Danika? Come on, guys. Let’s get some lunch.”
The three of us flew, sailed, bounded, and pulled ourselves along corridors following the purple arrows to the dining commons. We joined Hvezda who had just sat down with her Velcro tray. Everything was Velcro. Velcro held the trays to the table; it held plates and cups to the tray. Velcro on the seat of our pants held us to the chairs that were bolted to the floor. We learned that when cafeteria food was sub-par here, people referred to it as ‘very Velcro.’
Sitara came by as we were talking about our GEO Station experiences. She handed me a shoebox-sized container with an FSA logo and an FSA security seal. “Whoa, that’s a lot of mass,” I exclaimed.
“It’s from your mom. Hard to imagine FSA would allow her to send such a heavy personal package on the elevator.”
I was way curious since all I was expecting was dental floss. I gobbled down the last bit of sandwich, stuck the pudding dish to the velcroed table, and said, “If you don’t mind, I’d like to open this in private.”
Danika advised, “Don’t take it back to our bunks or you’ll like be late for triple-timing Alexi.”
“Good thinking. I’ll open it in the classroom.”
The extra mass made negotiating the turns a little tricky at first until I got used to it. The classroom was empty of people, but the space suits looked like silent troops standing in formation along two of the walls. I sat at a desk, broke the FSA seal, and opened the package. A jewelry box and a new dental floss dispenser lay cushioned in packing peanuts. The jewelry box held diamond earrings and a note from mom.
Dear Estrella,
My mother’s earrings were in a bank box and it took weeks to get them here at ISTRI base. Wouldn’t you know it; they were delivered to our house during the ceremony. The nice people on the base let me send them up to you.
I want you to pass the earrings on to my granddaughter and she to her daughter.
Love,
Mom
The earrings somehow were able to sparkle even in the uniform lighting of the classroom. ¿But what was in the bottom half of the box? Certainly not one of those wretched fruit cakes. I tore out the paperboard that separated the two box compartments. I stared at a digital display with changing numbers. WTF?
Then it clicked. Out loud I voiced a strained pathetic “Oh no, no, no. Oh shit, oh fuck. It’s a freaking bomb!”
Just like in the videos, it was counting down time to detonation. It had just slipped past eight minutes and was ticking off the seconds toward seven minutes. Fortunately, my mind clicked into an emotionless, very visual, and accelerated state that operated without language, without words.
Immediately I visualized the bomb’s purpose. In my mind’s eye, I saw the elevator car noiselessly and swiftly balloon out 50 meters with a searing white light. All nine ribbons were severed by the car’s zillion pieces of shrapnel. But in reality, thankfully, the elevator car had arrived early.
In my mind during the next fraction of perhaps the same second of real time, I saw the bomb detonate on this desk; many died immediately, me included. I saw the nine ribbons strung through GEO Station and out to ZERO Station and finally out to the counterweight. I saw that they passed near this classroom. I saw those ribbons disintegrate as they were pummeled with supersonic debris – including shredded over-cooked meat that once was me.
I saw myself standing outside in a baseball uniform with “Ramirez” embroidered on the shirt, pitching the box toward the stars. Soon, in my accelerated time, the box became a brilliant flash and pieces of its casing sliced through my uniform and through me and through almost every corridor and room in GEO Station.
In the next quantum of time I saw a circus cowboy whirling a lasso around and around over his head before he released the loop. It sailed exceedingly fast and encircled the neck of a speeding horse.
I glanced at the fire alarm box on the classroom wall, but activating it would only bring more crew into the vicinity of the bomb.
The dental floss dispenser said 50 m. I pulled out and tied the end around the deadly box, jammed the box between chairs and literally flew to a desk on the far side of the room, feeding out the dental floss as I went. I routed the floss around the far side of the desk and vaulted back to the box – the bomb. I tied floss around the box again.
Seven minutes and 11 seconds remained.
I flew off for another circuit and estimated the loop length at about 8 meters. Back to the box and I tied floss around it again.
Six minutes, 57 seconds.
After circuit number three, I sliced the floss and tied the end to the box. I then cradled the box, vaulted to the far side of the loops, and tied that end around the box as well.
Six minutes, 17 seconds.
I launched myself at my hanging space suit and fastened it up smoothly and in record time. I powered up the A/C and locked the helmet in place. Screw the gloves.
I tripped the recessed emergency button on my suit and said, “Mayday, Mayday. Bomb in E.V.A. Lesson Room.”
I put several twists in the floss making it into a twelve-stranded four meter rope. I looped that around my upper arm at my elbow and through my hand between thumb and forefinger.
“Detonation in four minutes, 52 seconds.”
The pumps started up as I toggled the ‘Evacuate’ switch. Then I noticed another locked switch, ‘Emergency Vent to Outside – Danger.’ I unlocked and flipped it. POOM!! The explosive decompression sent me flying slowly out of the airlock and into the metal latticework. I righted myself and pushed off over to the ladder. I leaped up and grabbed a railing at the top of the shaft.
“I will hurl it away from station. There will be damage.”
I secured a tether to my suit and passed through the gate. Walking to the boot locks would take too long but I’d already visualized my next move. I shoved off nearly horizontally from the gate post while holding the tether in my free hand.
A voice joined me inside the helmet, “GEO Control to Ensign Ramirez, status please.”
“Prepare for possible pressure breaches like on the east side of GEO Station.”
I waited until I passed the boot locks on top of the building and then gave three quick tugs on the tether. With the third tug the tether reel locked. The tether jerked me to a stop, and I slammed onto the roof. The bomb crashed into my helmet which then bonked my head. I saw stars; real and neurochemical. The boot locks were right next to me.
“GEO Control to Ensign Ramirez. ¿What was the loud noise?”
“I bashed my helmet with this fucking bomb. My head is clearing.”
I got both boots locked in.
“Three minutes, 53 seconds. Get everybody shielded from an explosion to the east.”
I started the box spinning over my head with only a meter of rope fed out. I made certain my other hand was still in the little loop I left at the end of the rope.
“You do the countdown now. I’m like spinning up the bomb on a four-meter rope.” I almost said, “rope of dental floss,” but hearing that, they might conclude the whole thing was a joke.
Damn. Without air resistance it’s spinning up fast and it’s hurting my hand, my arm, my torso, even my legs. Got to let go this time as it comes around or I might lose control. OK.
“RELEASED!!” I shouted.
With its release, my knees twisted, and I painfully toppled over backward.
“¿Time?” I asked.
“Three thirty-one & counting. ¿Have you like an estimated velocity for the bomb?”
I put my mind to calculating the approximate velocity. It was a helluva lot better than thinking about the pain.
“Twenty-five meters per second, 85° compass, zero inclination.”
“Roger that, Ramirez. You have three minutes ten to find shelter.”
“Thank you.”
My fingers were squirting blood as I freed my boots and gave the tether a little jerk to start it reeling me in across the classroom roof.
“Ramirez. We copied twenty-five meters per second, 5° north of east, and level. ¿Would you confirm?”
“That’s like my best estimate.”
It was taking too damn long to get back to the gate and ladder. I tried to give the reel another three tugs so that I could try hauling myself along the tether. Shit! My hands were now useless. I couldn’t grip the tether.
“Ramirez, you have two minutes to detonation. We have you located outside and moving slowly.”
“Shit, you guys. This morning you bitched about my speeding and now you’re bitching about my going too slow.” I hoped they knew I was joking; or at least I think I was joking.
“We’ll dismiss your speeding ticket if you live through this. Alexi Zemlya is on his way to accompany you back inside. We’ve sealed most pressure doors throughout GEO. And by the way, we’ve started a pool on the range of the bomb at detonation. At twenty-five meters per second that would be five kilometers. No one is betting that high.”
“My mom would,” I shouted as I reached the gate and fumbled with the latch. I finally managed to open it by pushing my right thumb up against the latch with the heel of my left hand. I left blood on everything.
“And so would Captain Perry!”
There was no point in even trying to uncouple the tether. I looked down the ladder shaft and stepped into it. I bounced down the shaft in slo-mo. At least I won’t be going fast when I hit bottom.
“Sixty seconds and counting,” rang the voice in my helmet.
Alexi caught me on the way down and carried me to the airlock. He stopped, uncoupled the tether from my suit, and we entered the airlock. My numb hands began to hurt again as air hissed in. Then he carried me into the classroom and let me drift to the floor.
“Lie here.”
He tipped a desk and set it on its side so that the desktop was between me and the east side of the room. Then he hopped over the desk in slow motion and settled on top of me; all half a kilogram of him in his space suit.
“GEO Control, Two…One…Zero…Minus One… Wow! What… Damn. We’ve got failed power conduits and solar panels, and I’ve got a big pit in my viewing port.”
Sunday 30 October 2811
Lying in sick bay sucks. At least with low g there’s no danger of bedsores. Captain Perry did in fact win the pool with a guess of five km. The actual distance of the bomb from the boot locks when it detonated was 4.79 km.
I really should have released it one rotation earlier. I tore ligaments in my shoulders, back and knees. My fingers still look like chorizo. The airlock resembled an abattoir and some of my blood is going to orbit Earth for decades. The station’s micro-meteorite padding prevented air leaks except for one lucky hit; or should I say one un-lucky hit. A few solar panels had to be replaced and relatively unprotected data and power conduits are still being repaired. And I’m still being repaired.
I’m tired of this crap.
Once again, I made the splash page of the Times and most other webnews sites. I’m definitely ready to quietly sit in a little space module for the rest of my life. Pain hurts. I’ll probably have nightmares for the rest of my life featuring a time bomb and spurting blood.
FSA is holding an ISTRI base guy who worked in warehousing after his DNA was found on the inside of the box lid. And, duh, it was discovered he had connections to the Goots who kidnapped me. Oh, and I can buy more dental floss at the GEO Station Commissary.