The Glass Lady (10 page)

When ordinary men close their eyes, there is only darkness. When fliers close their eyes, they see white sun against purple sky or August clouds which from above appear firm enough to support a pilot's body in solitary peace. Such reverie makes the daily risk of incineration a small price to pay.

The tall man's chin with its gray stubble touched his chest, which rose and fell with a steady, even rhythm. Behind his eyelids, Will Parker flew. It is the pilot's way.

“MMU is set. Ready, Chief.”

“Okay, Jack. Clear to affix the PAM to the target.” The deck chief and Colonel Parker studied the poolside instrumentation console. The submerged pilot's heart rate showed 95 after two hours under water. “Stay cool, Jack.”

“ 'Kay. Keepin' clear.”

Enright twisted his weighted ankles while three safety divers hovered above the top of his bulky backpack.

Inside the flightdeck of the submerged shuttle mockup, a diver directed the remote manipulator system's 50-foot arm out of its cradle on Shuttle's portside sill in the open payload bay. The diver carefully steered the dummy arm's three joints toward the payload assist module nestled in the rear of the sunken bay. The arm's far end, the end effector unit, EEU, snared the grapple post atop the PAM package.

“PAM in motion, Chief.” Enright flexed his ankles, secured to the bay-floor restraints. He faced the rear of the open bay. The pilot, in pressurized flightsuit, helmet, chestpack, and large MMU backpack, stood stooped under the weight of his gear. Beside the boilerplate vertical tail, the PAM cylinder rose secured to the deployed RMS arm, which had hoisted the garbage-can size PAM from its pallet in the bay.

“At pilot's discretion, Jack.”

Enright's left hand jockeyed the hand controller with an upward motion.

“And man can fly, Chief.”

The divers in the huge pool gave way for the cumbersome white space suit which slowly floated upward and forward to the dangling PAM at the end of the remote arm.

“Watch the plasma package, Jack,” the diver behind the aft flightdeck windows gurgled.

“Gear up.” Enright lifted his boots as he floated over and past the canister secured in the midsection of the payload bay.

“Clear of the plasma sniffer, Chief.”

“We see it, Jack. When you're on station aft, take a breather. Suit outlet temp is eighty. Don't want you to fog your visor, Jack.”

“ 'Kay, Chief.”

Four divers followed the pilot to the tail section.

The pilot moved his left hand forward, a water jet squirted from the manned maneuvering unit's wing beside each of the pilot's ears and beside each of his thickly suited knees.

“All Stop.”

The pilot flicked the control handle in his right hand. He rotated to his left and stopped, facing the black target which hung suspended beside the Shuttle three feet from the PAM package fastened to the deployed RMS arm. Beneath Enright's boots, the shuttle's orbital maneuvering system, OMS, pods protruded long and round, one on each side of the base of the nearly three-stories-high-tail fin.

“Watch the OMS pod, Jack,” the spotter diver gargled by hydrophone near the floating pilot.

“See it. I'll catch my breath here for a minute.”

“Take your time,” the deck chief radioed with his hairy fingers touching the pilot's pulse monitor, which read 110. “No rush, Jack.”

“Yeah,” the pilot blew into his two lip microphones underneath his sweating nose.

“Colonel there, Chief?”

“Right beside me.”

“Let's take the burritos out of Endeavor's pantry, Skipper.”

The Colonel waved at Enright's upturned face within his fishbowl helmet 30 feet under water. A lame chuckle rolled out of the wall loudspeaker.

“How we lookin', Chief?”

“Eighty on heart rate. Suit outlet temp down to seventy. Carry on, Jack.”

“Okay. Take her in.”

Enright flicked his left hand on the translational hand controller's T-handle. He jetted closer to the large black target motionless beside the shuttle.

Carefully, the simulated RMS arm was maneuvered closer to the target. The PAM rocket package hung from the end effector unit at the arm's end. The PAM stopped six inches from the target's midsection seam where the small flying grapple fixture was still attached from Enright's “space walk” in the water before lunch.

“To your left . . . easy. Plus Z . . . 'Kay.” Enright beside the huge target spotted for the diver who flew the remote arm. “Another four inches . . . Steady . . . Okay. Clear to go in.”

The RMS arm moved the PAM unit until it touched the 10-foot-long, 4-foot-thick target. Four grapple latches on the side of the PAM unit engaged the grapple fixture secured to the long target's side. “You got it! Rigidize.” The PAM firmly gripped the target's middle.

“Ready to arm the PAM, Chief,” Enright called close to the simulated rocket motor.

Colonel Parker pointed to a checklist clipped to the deck chiefs console.

“Challenge and read back, Shuttle,” the chief radioed with his fingers touching the checklist.

“I hear the skipper coaching, Chief,” Enright chuckled. “Waiting.”

The submerged pilot floated beside the target where the PAM unit gripped it still attached to the deployed RMS arm.

When the Chief read each item from his checklist, the flier between two safety divers listened to the gargled words repeated by the diver behind the aft flightdeck windows.

“Encryptor alpha, enable.”

“Encryptor bravo, enable.”

“Ku-band tracking beacon to auto.”

“Master pyro alpha, armed.”

“Master pyro bravo, armed.”

“Squibs one, two and three to command enable.”

“Master Sequencer, locked command and double-locked.”

“Interlever set.”

“Checklist completed, Chief,” the man in the sunken flightdeck called.

“Okay, Jack. Clear for PAM release.”

Firing his MMU water jets, Enright backed away from the target toward Shuttle's 26-foot high tail fin.

The diver in the Shuttle cabin cycled the End Effector snare wires wrapped around PAM's grapple post. He attempted to separate the RMS arm from the PAM unit affixed to the target.

The wire snare did not open at the arm's end. The PAM package did not separate from the remote arm.

“Negative jettison, Chief,” the diver in Shuttle radioed. “Going to Loop Two.”

Two divers converged to Enright's side above the payload bay.

In the cockpit behind the two windows opening into the payload bay, the diver again cycled the arm's electronics.

The end effector's wire fingers budged only slightly. Topside, Colonel Parker leaned over the water's edge.

“Looks like it's loose on one clamp, but not free on the other,” Enright radioed over his umbilical line.

“We're with you, Jack. Maneuver clear of the target.”

The pilot's left hand jerked backward and four jets squirted a high pressure burst of water. The pilot beside the target lurched backward. With another push on the THC T-handle, he stopped and floated between the target secured to the RMS arm and Shuttle's tail.

“No joy, Chief. It's still attached.”

The high tail fin stood 2 feet from the MMU's backside, where two long nitrogen tanks protruded. In the watery simulation, the tanks carried only ballast.

An instant after the pilot stopped with his feet 3 yards above the sill of the shuttle's payload bay, the manipulator arm pivoted inboard. The arm carried the 10-foot-long target cylinder and the attached PAM unit smack into Enright's body. The arm forced the pilot over the bay's wall as it slapped a safety diver off the bay's sill.

“I'm on it! Brakes direct!” the voice shouted from the submerged flightdeck as the arm made a slow swing across the open bay toward the tail fin with Jacob Enright in between.

“Full manual!” the chief called loudly. “Nulling rates from up here with brake drive direct!”

As the manipulator arm swung slowly out of control toward Shuttle's tail, Enright's left hand commanded the MMU backpack jets to thrust long and hard toward the tail which the RMS boom, the target, the PAM, and Enright slowly approached.

“We have oscillation building, Jack,” the chief shouted. “Pull him out, Number Four!”

Immediately, a NASA safety diver built like an Olympic wrestler reached for the space suit's ankles. He jerked Jacob Enright down, but not fast enough. The swaying target slowly ground the pilot into Shuttle's thick tail plane.

A burst of bubbles exploded from the top of the MMU, totally obscuring Enright's helmet. The grotesque gurgle of a man spitting water bubbled over the wall speaker.

On his hands and knees at water's edge, Will Parker labored to peer through the foam gushing to the surface.

Thirty feet below, the pressure of two atmospheres pushed a wall of ice water into the EVA suit's torso and limbs.

With Enright on his back in a cloud of bubbles upon the floor of the payload bay, a diver straddled the pilot. The diver pulled hard on a wire ring at the pilot's crotch. The foaming, heavy MMU backpack dropped away from the limp pilot's backside. A diver at each of Enright's arms pried his gloved hands from the MMU's handles.

At the pilot's head, the fourth diver carefully pulled the flier's fishbowl helmet from his pale face. A rush of bubbles rose from the inverted helmet as it sank quickly to the floor of the Shuttle bay.

The diver at Enright's head forced the mouthpiece from his scuba air tank into Enright's open lips. Bubbles percolated from the tank on the diver's back. While bubbles rose from the neckring of Enright's suit, the diver squeezed Enright's nostrils closed.

The pilot opened his eyes and thrashed his thick white arms at the mask of the diver leaning over his face.

A second diver restrained the pilot's arms.

Jacob Enright inhaled deeply from the mouthpiece in his face and he relaxed his arms. He opened his eyes wide and he nodded on his back. The diver straddling the pilot's waist released Enright's arms.

Jack Enright gave a thumbs-up sign into the face of the diver beside him, who held his breath. Enright touched the mouthpiece between his teeth and pointed to the diver with the purple, bulging cheeks.

Enright took the tube from his mouth and he handed it bubbling to the diver kneeling over him. The diver put the mouthpiece into his mouth as Enright flexed his body and floated to his feet in the bay. His hair swayed in the chilly water.

The diver at the pilot's side handed the mouthpiece to Enright, who took a long drag of air before he handed it back. Buddy-breathing with the pilot, the diver put his hands under Enright's armpits as two other divers held each of the pilot's elbows.

Slowly, Jacob Enright and the four divers clinging to him rose toward daylight.

The five men surfaced at the pool's edge beneath Colonel Parker's crouching body. Behind Parker, six anxious men leaned over his shoulders.

Jacob Enright spit out a mouthful of water. Colonel Parker ran his long, bony fingers through his partner's wet and matted hair.

The pilot in the water choked out a soggy cough.

“So how'd we do, Skipper?” Jack Enright grinned weakly.

“You alright, sir?” asked a distant voice as warm fingers firmly grasped the shoulder of the dozing man in the corner.

Will Parker opened his eyes wide as he gasped for air like a drowning man. His eyes focused upon a young, bearded physician close to his face.

“Excuse me?” the tall man said groggily.

“You okay?” repeated the young intern.

“Yes . . . Yes. Thank you. A dream, I guess . . . What time is it?”

The intern straightened and looked at his watch.

“One-thirty in the morning.”

“Oh,” the Colonel mumbled as he ran his fingers through his short, graying hair.

The sitting man looked past the physician standing before him. He searched for the young woman who had been seated nearby. She and the old man had gone.

“I'm waiting for Dr. Casey.”

“Trauma Room One. That way.” The Colonel followed the young man's arm down the dim hallway.

“Thanks.” The Colonel rose a head taller than the thin man in white. “Thanks.”

By the time William McKinley Parker reached the windowless door enscribed TR-1, he had fully recovered his bearings. His right leg at the knee throbbed as did each of his sore hips inside his baggy trousers.

“Damn,” he whispered rubbing his backside where he had been recently shot.

He leaned with his back propped against the tile wall in the hall beside the closed, heavy door.

“Help you?” inquired a fragile nurse at his elbow.

“Dr. Casey.”

“In there. You a doctor?”

The weary pilot's mind mulled over his two doctorates in electrical engineering.

“Yeh.”

“Then you may go in.”

“Dr. Casey isn't with a patient, is she?”

“No. Don't think so. A staff meeting, I think. An M and M.”

“Thanks.”

Colonel Parker pushed open the massive door. He entered the bright examination room and found Dr. Casey and four men in white huddled around the exam table.

The tall airman blinked at a delicate young woman who sat upon the table. Her legs dangled barefoot over the table and a paper gown was crumpled about her sides. From her small waist upward, she was naked in the harsh glare.

Colonel Parker shrank into a corner. Dr. Cleanne Casey stared coldly at his haggard face. He could not retire with honor.

“You the consult?” asked an elderly man in a long white coat. The Colonel recognized the old physician as the figure who had comforted another young woman in the lobby 60 minutes earlier.

“Guess so.”

“Well . . . Your patient, Doctor,” the old man ordered as he and his colleagues in white backed away from the examination table.