Orbital Maneuvers (25 page)

Susan moved closer to Paul and suddenly had second thoughts about telling him.  Finally, she decided that it was better that he knew what had gone on, than to torment himself about Jerry’s mistreatment. 

“Paul, while you were down here, I was doing some reading on the CRV—the emergency procedures, just to familiarize myself with the procedures.  Well, to make a long story short, I discovered that the file had been accessed earlier today.”

Paul was a little foggy and did not quite understand what Susan was getting at.  “Yes?  What is unusual about that?”

“Well, I guess under normal circumstances, nothing.  But the strange thing about it is the file was accessed about an hour after we docked with the station.” Susan hesitated to see if Paul was catching on.  He wasn’t.  “I’m convinced that the file was accessed by Jerry, while we were unloading the shuttle.”

Paul looked skeptical.  “How do you know that it was Jerry?” he asked.  “He was unloading the shuttle along with all of us.  In fact, I was a little surprised that he was as helpful as he was.”

Susan squirmed. This was uncomfortable, she knew that Paul and Jerry were close and Paul has come to his defense before.  “There was one time that we, Nicholas and I, came into the Habitation module and found Jerry there.  He was acting stranger than usual, almost like he was trying to cover up something.  You were not around, and he left very quickly once we entered the module.  I didn’t think too much of it until a little while ago, when I saw the time stamp on the file.  It had to be him.  Everyone else was accounted for and worked together and stayed together in teams.” She stopped and watched Paul’s reaction.

“So, what it seems you are saying is that Jerry was planning to leave this station from the start.  He may have been just checking out the CRV—out of curiosity.” Paul realized that in light of everything Jerry did this was a feeble excuse and wished he had not said anything.  Taking a deep breath, he paused for a moment to think before he made another remark he would regret.

“Jerry has been a good friend since we came together for this mission.  I guess the person, that I see, that did these things, was not the Jerry we trained with all these years.  I guess it doesn’t surprise me that he did that.  He seemed very intent on leaving the station.  I’m surprised that he did not try to take the CRV sooner.  He might have made it if the engines were not engaged.” Paul was quiet for a moment and then, shaking his head, he said with much sadness, “It was as if the asteroid not only took Jill when it came by, it took Jerry, too.”

Susan flinched at Paul’s remark.  It was a point she had not considered.  “I guess we are all victims of that monster, in one way or another.  I’m sorry, Paul.  I know how you feel about Jerry, and I can’t deny that we got along and worked well together.  I agree with you, this is not the Jerry we know.  I just hope when he wakes up, he will be his old self.”

“Me, too,” Paul said, as he quickly checked his watch.  “Well, I’d better get going or we may miss this opportunity to take a look at what our next orbit holds in store.” Paul shoved off from the bulkhead, and as he passed through the hatch he gave himself a big push to sail on to the command module.  Susan watched him leave and contemplated what their next orbit might bring.

XVIII

The station was rapidly moving over South America on its way north toward the mid-Atlantic.  The sun was reflecting off the scattered clouds, showing patches of brown tossed about the green carpet that was the Amazon basin.  The patches were man-made areas of deforestation, created by farmers to provide grazing land for their cattle.  Every now and then, the sunlight would glint off a lake or a river and flash back at the station, as though someone were taking pictures with a camera and a gigantic flash bulb.  By the time Paul got to his jury-rigged observation post, the space station was now over the warm, open waters of the equatorial Atlantic.

Paul had Nicholas and Ivan at his elbows, watching intently as he powered up the radar system and brought the telescope online.  The display showed the view from the telescope of the planet below.  In the lower left of the display was a colorful image from the radar system. 

Paul aligned the telescope with the radar dish; the image showed a blue ocean through breaks in the clouds.  The radar image now was not very colorful, light blue.  It indicated light concentrations of moisture in the clouds, apparently these clouds were not harboring heavy rain or thunderstorms. 

Paul entered a few commands on the keyboard and a small, multicolored bar appeared above the radar image.  “The density of the water vapor is indicated by color, from light blue, being the lowest concentration, to red, indicating the highest.  I haven’t found the absolute numbers for those gradations, so don’t ask me how much red means.”

Paul pointed to some numbers on the display.  “Also, the number in the lower right corner gives distance from the station to the point marked by the cursor on the screen, and below that, the altitude of the cloud structure above ground level.  I’m not sure if it is still accurate, seeing as we have moved the station to the higher orbit.  I couldn’t find a way to check the calibration in the quick search I did.”

“So the picture we are seeing is indicating very low water content?” Nicholas asked looking at the clouds on the visual display and comparing them to the radar image of the same view.  Paul nodded.

Ivan looked closely at the picture and then at the radar display. “Paul, do you think these altitude numbers are really wrong?” Ivan asked, realizing how important those numbers would be to them on their next few orbits. 

Paul turned to Ivan.  “I’m not sure,” he said.  “I think they are accurate, but without knowing what they did to calibrate the system, I can’t be sure that it is still reporting accurate numbers.  I’ll dig a little deeper to see if I can find anything more.  I wish we had found this before we boosted the station.  We could have imaged a cloud structure and then looked at it again on the next higher orbit.  If the altitude number changed from one orbit to the other, then we would definitely know that this was calibrated for the orbit we were in.”

“Yes, that would have been useful,” Ivan said.  “For now, we will make the assumption that these numbers are good.  Let us hope that we do not see anything that is of concern to us.”

Susan made her way back to the control module, but stopped by the Joint Airlock to see how Alexander was doing.  As she entered the lock, she saw that he was still sleeping.  She hesitated about interrupting his sleep, but decided that it was better to wake him and make him aware that they had one more small burn to adjust the orbit, and then he could do his final space walk.  She went over to the intercom, adjusted the transmit volume to its lowest setting and called to Alexander through his headset. 

Alexander did not respond in any way, so she increased the volume a couple of notches and repeated her call.  This time she saw his hands move.  She repeated the message again and was rewarded with Alexander’s left eye slowly opening and staring at her.

“Who calls?” Alexander muttered in a sleepy voice.

“It’s getting near the time for your EVA, Commander.” Susan wasn’t sure if he was awake or just answering her in his sleep.

The right eye slowly opened.  Now she had two eyes blankly staring at her.  “Alexander, are you awake?” she asked.

“I am now,” he said, trying to stifle a yawn with his hand only to have it stopped by his helmet’s visor.

“I’m sorry to wake you, but we are about twenty minutes from the last burn.  I thought I would give you a chance to wake up before we pushed you out of the airlock!” She smiled at him and was pleased to see that his sense of humor was awake too, as he smiled back.

“That is good.  Thank you.  I would rather wake up in here first, than to find myself outside, asleep.  I hate it when that happens,” Alexander smiled, and Susan laughed.

“Is there anything you need before I go back to the control module?”

“No, I am fine.”

“Okay.  I will send Nicholas down when it’s time.  Thank you, Alexander, for your help.” Susan patted his arm.

“Do not mention it, Susan.  We are in this together.  If it were not for you, I would not be here now, sleeping on the job!” Susan smiled and waved goodbye as she left the lock.

When Susan arrived at the command module, she found the rest of the crew gathered at Paul’s station.  She was greeted with Paul exclaiming, “Oh, no! That doesn’t look good!” Her pulse quickened and she rushed over to join them.

“What doesn’t look good, Paul?” Susan looked at the display, but was having trouble making sense of the patchwork of colors.

“This,” Paul answered, as he pointed to the radar display.  “You see this solid red band here?”

Susan watched Paul trace out an arc that was cutting diagonally across the display.  “Yes, I see it.  What does it mean?”

“The color indicates that the system is recording maximum signal return.  Meaning that the stuff that is in the clouds we see on the main display are one hundred percent water…or something really dense.”

Susan looked at the display and tried to relate it to something she was familiar with, the typical weather radar on the evening news.  “So, this is indicating severe thunderstorms?”

Paul thought about what he had read about the radar system relative to the weather radar comparison Susan had made.  “Well, it’s not quite like that, at least I don’t think so.  I think that we are seeing the eastern-most edge of the debris cloud formed from the impact off the coast of Florida.  See, look at this,” Paul typed in some commands on the keyboard, and the display went into an animated loop, continuously showing the last ten minutes of data. “As the loop begins, the color is this light blue, very little moisture in the cloud layer and then…here.  We start to see this solid wall of red coming across the screen.”

Ivan added, “That makes sense from our location.  We are, or were, due east of Florida, about fifteen hundred miles.”

Susan felt a chill shoot up her spine, and she shivered.  It was hard looking at the reality of what seemed like a bad dream.  She wished that it were just a severe thunderstorm.  That would be much easier to handle.  “Can you tell how high the cloud layer is with this?”

“The display shows some returns that indicate that it’s about a hundred and fifty miles, or so.  But, I am not sure that this is accurate.  It may have been affected because of the change in the station’s altitude.  The bulk of the layer seems to be much lower than that.” Paul switched the display back to real time, and they caught the jagged edge of the red zone just as it dropped off the bottom of the display.  “See, we must have just passed the northeastern edge of it, the intensity has come back down to light blue and green.”

Susan had a bad feeling about the images she just saw, but could not decide if it was just a trace of fear from her encounter with the asteroid, or a harbinger of something worse happening.  She could not dwell on it now and asked Ivan when the next burn was scheduled.

“We should do it in about five minutes, for a duration of approximately fifteen minutes.”

“Okay.  So I want to have Alexander ready to do his EVA immediately after the last burn.  Nicholas, will you give Alexander a hand with his checkout list?”

“No problem, Commander.  Would you mind keeping an eye on the radar display for Ivan?” Nicholas asked, as he left the group.

Ivan said, “That is okay, I will check it.” Turning to Paul, he said, “Paul, see what more you can learn on this system.  We need to be sure about those altitude numbers.”

“I’ll get right on it.”

The next twenty minutes flew by as they monitored the station’s last major orbital adjustment, and Nicholas and Alexander prepared for the next space walk.  Paul was busily trying to learn how to operate the radar system that they were now counting on to give them information on potential obstacles ahead.  He was not having much luck in finding what he was searching for. 

Nowhere in the documentation could he find information about how the system calculated the altitude of the targets that the radar was imaging.  The main focus of what he was able to find was to guide the user in configuring the display and recording the specific data they were interested in. 

He grumbled to Susan and Ivan.  “It’s like using my VCR!  No useful information on how it works, but tons of information on how to program it twenty ways from Sunday!”

“I guess it must have been set up as an experiment and not really part of the normal station equipment.” Susan volunteered.  “So, whoever was using it knew what had to be done and how to do it.”

“Well, I’m not giving up on this yet!  It may be in here, someplace.  I just have to figure out the right questions to ask in my search.” Paul turned to the display again and resumed his searching.

Susan switched on the intercom to inform Alexander that he only had about forty-five minutes to do the EVA to reconnect the power to the comm system, before they would be approaching the impact zone off the coast of Florida. 

“Commander,” Alexander said reassuringly, “Since I know what I need to do, the walk will only take about twenty-five minutes to complete.  It will take longer to get there than it will to reconnect the cables.”

Susan thought about it, going over the routine in her mind.  She knew it would probably be quicker than the first time, but she also knew that things often don’t go by the book. 

“No, Alexander,” she said.  “I think it would be wiser to wait until after we pass over the Florida impact zone.  That will give you ninety minutes to complete the task, instead of the forty-five you would have now.”

“Commander,” Alexander argued, “If I go now, and we finish this up, then you will be able to establish a communications link with Korolev, or maybe one of the other NASA stations.  If we run into trouble passing over Florida, at least they will know that we are here, and if we use the CRV then they will know to track us.” Silence filled the intercom while Susan weighed the proposal.  She did not like being pressured to make a decision but knew that the longer she took to decide, the smaller the window Alexander would have to safely complete the EVA.  Alexander waited patiently, but he also knew that his window was getting smaller with each minute they delayed.  “Commander, what is your decision?”

“Twenty-five minutes, Commander Orlov?” Susan asked hesitantly, knowing what his answer would be.

“Twenty-five minutes,” came the expected reply.

Susan bit her lip.  “Go.  But!  If you have not completed the task by then, you are to come back in, no questions asked.  Clear?”

“Perfectly, Commander Corin.”

“Susan! Please!” Susan demanded, but Alexander was already too busy getting into the airlock to hear her.

Alexander, with Nicholas’ help, made his way into the airlock and shortly was back into the harsh void of space.  He secured his new tether and quickly made his way to the top of the truss, then propelled himself toward the communications node.  Realizing that he was moving quite fast, he cautioned himself not to get careless.  It is easier to get going than it is to stop. He learned that lesson the hard way, the first time he was on MIR.

Alexander forced himself to slow down and tried to remember the procedure he would have to go through to reconnect the communication system.  He suddenly realized that he did not leave the electronics bay in an orderly fashion and wondered what condition the cables were in, being that Jerry yanked him out of there while he still had them in his hands.  He hoped that they had not been damaged.

While Alexander was making his way to the P6 truss, Susan used the time to review the checklist to reconnect the power cables and close up the electronics bay.  Paul was still looking for more useful information on the radar system, but took a few minutes to review his end of the task in reconnecting full communications.  Nicholas stayed by Susan’s station in case there were any language problems.

The intercom crackled.  “Commander, I am almost there.”

“Alexander, you have the tools you need?” Susan asked, as she suddenly remembered that he would need the power hand tool.

“Yes, I was amazed that they did not come off my suit when I took my ride.  I have everything I had before,” Alexander’s voice dropped off as his eyes caught a glimpse of two snake-like objects dancing back and forth near the access panel where he was working.

“Alexander, are you all right?” Susan asked in a very tense voice.  She had become very intolerant of sudden, unplanned changes.

“Yes, Susan, I am okay.  The cables are hanging out of the electronics compartment, and…the way they were moving, they looked like two cobras dancing out of the box!…I am back in touch with reality.  I think!” Ivan and Nicholas chuckled with Alexander, while Susan let out a sigh of relief.