Red Thunder

I got quick introductions to Holly and Cliff. Both were shivering uncontrollably, though wrapped in layers of cloth. I had brought a couple of big fluorescent camp lanterns, which we switched on. They gave out a ghastly light, making our skin look like sour milk, except Cliff’s, whose dark skin looked almost bluish.

First order of business, get them into suits.

There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all space suit, but the Russians had come about as close as possible. The torso can be expanded and the arms and legs lengthened or shortened a full six inches. This was accomplished with a design a lot like those bendable plastic soda straws, a bellows arrangement. We figured to fit Captain Aquino into Jubal’s suit, as he was a short man, like Jubal, though not nearly so bulky.

Captain Aquino almost proved to be my undoing. I guess I hadn’t realized that “compound fracture” meant a sharp point of bloody white bone sticking right out of the meat of his thigh. I felt sick, quickly removed my helmet just in case… and the cold slapped me in the face so hard I was shocked right out of my nausea.

I was breathing hard, and so was everyone else. The air felt thin and sour. But I’d brought an alarm that would scream if the oxygen content fell to dangerous levels, and so far it was silent.

You don’t really know what chaos can be until you’ve seen it in free fall. Things were drifting around, things as small as tiny frozen droplets of water and blood, and as large as tables and chairs. You could shove them into a corner but they’d just drift right back out again. One of the things that kept floating about and getting in the way was the body of Dr. Brin Marston. Aside from some blood coming from her mouth she seemed almost unhurt. She did seem to be bent backwards more than normal.

“She died peacefully,” Holly said to me. “She never woke up. After an hour she stopped breathing.”

Holly Oakley was in shock, like Alicia had said. I had to stifle a laugh [379] that would have been horribly inappropriate. But think about it. She’s sitting in total darkness, she and Cliff. They know they are doomed. They know the air is going to kill them in a few hours, the only question is how. By getting too cold, too thin, or too oxygen-poor? Then there’s a knock on the door, and who is it but your ex-husband, the one your lawyer screwed so badly in the property settlement, the alimony, and the child support.

For the record, Travis said the property settlement had been more than fair, she had never asked for alimony, and he’d never begrudged a nickel of the child support.

Now she seemed to be only partially aware of what was going on. Kelly was helping her into the suit Alicia had brought in, the one that had been on the rack beside Vasarov’s corpse, and it was like dressing a toddler. Holly’s attention wandered, often to the body of Dr. Marston.

“Ma

Cliff had managed to struggle into Dak’s suit. He was about the same height as Dak, but quite a bit huskier. “It’s going to cut off the circulation in my legs,” he said, teeth chattering, “but I can handle that if I have to.”

“It’ll only take ten, fifteen minutes,” I told him. I showed him how to adjust the systems on the Russian suit. He sighed as the heating elements warmed up.

“God, I hate being cold,” he said. Then we both went to help Alicia.

I really had to hand it to Alicia. Liquids won’t drip in free fall, so how do you make an I.V. work? She had brought some broad rubber bands. By winding them a few times around one of the bags of type B positive blood I’d brought over, she could produce enough pressure to force the blood into Captain Aquino’s veins. But that was about all she could do for him until we got him over to Red Thunder.

“Setting the bone will be easier once we’re under way,” she decided. “Right now, I want to disturb that wound as little as possible, or he’ll [380] start bleeding again.” She got a big pad of sterile gauze and packed the wound, then wrapped it tightly in sterile tape. The gauze turned red almost immediately.

“Let’s get him in the suit, pronto,” she said.

We got the body of the suit on him, the I.V. tube nestled against his chest. Got the arms and gloves on, then one leg. Then, very gingerly, eased the other leg over the wound. Aquino began moaning and tossing his head, so Alicia jabbed him with more morphine. We got his helmet on and turned on all suit systems. All lights were green.

But not on Holly’s suit. No sooner had we buttoned her down and turned the suit on than we got a big red light for pressurization. A quick inspection found two holes one inch across in the right lower leg. Something had passed right through the tough fabric.

“Okay,” Alicia said. “We’ll get Cliff and the captain across, then I’ll come back with Kelly’s suit. It should be a pretty good fit.”

“No!” Holly grabbed my arm and squeezed hard. Her eyes were wild. “I can’t stay here in the dark, alone. Please don’t make me do it.”

“It won’t be dark,” Alicia soothed.

“I can’t do it.”

“I’m not sure this place will stay pressurized much longer,” I said.

“You’re right. Okay. Do you think we can patch it so it will hold?”

“Yes.” I sounded surer than I felt… but the duct tape hadn’t failed us so far.

So we wrapped tape, round and round and round some more. We used the rest of my roll, making a thick, tight band from her knee to her ankle.

It should hold, I thought. It had to hold. We couldn’t bring her dead body to Travis after coming so close.

I’m not a praying man, but I prayed. Please, just ten minutes. Let it hold for ten minutes.

SINCE AQUINO SEEMED to be more or less stabilized, we moved Holly up to priority one. I crowded into the air lock with her and I pressed the button… and nothing happened.

[381] “Please don’t tell me it’s stopped working now!” I shouted.

“Calm down, Ma

It seemed slower than it had when I entered the ship, a thousand years before, but it was turning.

We had worked it all out before we got into the lock. As soon as there was enough space, I squeezed through the door and snapped onto the lifeline attached to Red Thunder. No time for any rapture during this crossing. I pulled myself along, talking on the radio the whole way, alerting Dak and Travis that we would be in a hurry when Holly came over. I only started slowing myself when I was twenty feet from the ship. I soaked up my momentum with my legs, got turned around just in time to catch Holly as she came speeding along the line. I quickly unsnapped us from the crossing line and attached us to the line leading back to Red Thunder’s air lock. Hand over hand, with me in the lead, we made our way around the ship.

I got her in the lock and started it cycling. Elapsed time: five minutes flat. Okay, God, we didn’t need the whole ten minutes, so hang on to the surplus and let me use them for the rest of this stunt.

I looked back at the wreck and saw Alicia starting across, hauling Aquino at the end of a short rope. Trying to hurry slowly, I pulled myself back to the crossing rope and waited for her. You go back for the fox, row him across the river, bring back the goose…

When she was safely on her way to the lock I pulled myself across the gap once more. The lock was just finishing its rotation, bringing the taped-over window into view again. I didn’t like the looks of it, I thought it might be bulging. It stopped. Cliff would be letting it flood with stale Ares Seven air. It bulged even more. Nothing I could do about it, it would hold or it would not.