The Glass Lady (35 page)

“Yes, thank you . . . What is your status, Soyuz?” Enright got down to business after his initial surprise. His first hail from the black sky had sounded like a dream, like talking in his sleep.

“What's all the chatter, Jack?” Parker called from the airlock where he rested. He could hear Enright but not the Soviet transmission which was not multiplexed to the airlock by Endeavor's audio control electronics.

“Brother Ivan just dropped by to say hello, Will.”

“Oh,” the AC puffed below decks.

“The Colonel, he is preparing to go outside?”

“That's affirmative, Soyuz. Probably this pass across the United States . . . What are your intentions? Are there two or three cosmonauts in your spacecraft?”

“Forgive my rudeness, Yakov Enright. We are two here. I am Alexi Karpov, commanding. Flight engineer is Uri Ruslanovich. We will provide whatever support you may require. We have been soft-suited and in oxygen five hours should you or Colonel need us outside.”

Enright was taken aback by the cordial exchange 149 statute miles into the black sky.

“Skipper, they're Karpov and Ruslanovich. Here to lend a hand.” Enright used the ship's intercom without pressing his air-to-air mike button. The circuit remained private.

“I'll bet, Jack. They were on Salut-7, weren't they?”

Enright looked outside toward Soyuz.

“You flew on the Salut space station, I believe?” Enright's puffy face moved abrasively against his moist bandages.

“Yes, Yakov. Thank you. We are pleased you follow our program.”

“Well,” Enright smiled uncomfortably, “you are the only other game in town.”

Laughter followed from 100 yards away.

“I always enjoy what you Americans do with English.”

“Any time, Alexi,” Enright spoke around the water tube between his blistered lips.

“Endeavor, Endeavor. Configure AOS by Yarradee station at 05 plus 34. Your temperatures and pressures are stable. We see Will resting downstairs . . . Were we monitoring air-to-air?”

“Affirmative, Flight. Soyuz has broken radio silence on our primary frequency. They are Karpov and Ruslanovich.”

“Copy, Jack . . . Soyuz: U.S. Space Command via Yarradee. Radio check, over.”

“Loud and clear, Colorado. How me?”

“We have you, Soyuz. Welcome to the neighborhood, Major Karpov and Dr. Ruslanovich.”

Enright raised a singed eyebrow at the ground's speed in shuffling dossiers.

“We thank you, Colorado,” a second Russian voice replied.

“Endeavor's ion wake is still quite orange.”

The second Soviet pilot carried fewer Slavic accents.

“Copy, Doctor. Thank you. Jack, ask Will for his PLSS time, please.”

“Rogo.” Enright released his mike switch over open water 900 miles west of the Australian mainland. “Backroom wants your pack time, Will.”

“Ah, tell 'em 19 minutes used up.”

“AC says 19 on the PLSS, Flight.”

“Copy, Jack. Six until sunrise. Recommend you configure the sunshades.”

“Will do.”

Flying headsdown, Enright unfastened his lap belt. Standing out of his seat, he floated on his side across the center console toward Parker's empty seat. Bracing himself with a hand against the glareshield, he snapped three tinted shades into Velcro adhesive above the AC's seat. He took care to keep his floating legs close to his right seat and the air line to his balloon pants.

“You are in your underwear, Commander,” an accented voice crackled over the radio. Enright waved toward the portside, visored window. Through the sunshade, he saw Soyuz blink her arc light which illuminated LACE in the darkness.

Returning carefully to his seat, Enright erected three sunshades on the windows around his seat. He floated against his lap belt when he returned his biomedical plug to the wall jack.

“Back with you, Flight. Six visors in place.”

“Copy, Jack.”

“Endeavor: Ruslanovich here. On Colonel's EVA suit, did he denitrogenate before entering the airlock?”

“Negative, Doctor. We have been depressurized to about 10 psi in the cabin for a few hours. The AC has been hyperventilating in oxygen for about half an hour now. We hope that should purge him.”

“Understand. Watch him closely. We can go outside if he saturates.”

“Thank you, Doctor.” Enright did not know what else to say.

At 05 hours, 39½ minutes into Endeavor's mission, the three craft crossed the western coastline of Australia over Carnarvon. Enright returned to running his systems check of Shuttle's three fuel cells. He worked the instrument panel at his right elbow as he followed the checklist printed upon the 6-by-9-inch television screen on the forward panel. The left and center screens were blank.

“Jack: We see you running down the electricals. Confirm Auto Trip in monitor position on AC Bus Two, Panel Right-One.”

“Monitor it is, Flight.”

“Understand, Jack. Your cryogenic pressures and quantities are nominal. LOS and sunup in one minute.”

“Rog . . .”

Below in the airlock, Parker rested in his EMU suit. As he floated in the can, his heavy boots pointed upward toward the flightdeck.

The AC felt vaguely uneasy inside his iron can, which became suddenly small. The sensation was familiar: first, the prickly discomfort between his shoulder blades. Then the moistness in his palms and the quickening of his pulse. He could feel his heart high in his neck. Parker's mouth was suddenly dry and he licked his lips. Claustrophobia: the dread predator. And it was with him, breathing upon him in the can, in the stiff suit close to his wet face inside his two, doubled-locked helmets. The AC's ears hummed.

The Colonel closed his perspiring eyelids and he forced his arms down to his sides. Wincing with effort, he worked to send his mind downward. His disciplined brain plunged through space, through the night without air, to an unseen and faraway rail fence white in morning sunshine and to air heavy with the smell of fresh cut Timothy hay. Parker's nostrils flared as he sniffed new grass tasting wetter and sweeter than his first love.

Slowly, the beast retreated, gaining speed as Parker backed away. His heart descended from his throat as his white, wet hands relaxed their death-grip on the waistring of his suit. He opened his eyes, which immediately burned with sweat.

“I'm ready to go outside, Jack.”

The strange urgency in the Colonel's voice distracted Enright from sunrise, which comes furiously in orbit. Endeavor plunged into daylight like a train erupting from a mountain tunnel at noon. Shuttle, upside down in broad daylight over the King Leopold Mountains of northern Australia, flew over ridges still in darkness. Endeavor would fly in harsh daylight over an Earth still in nighttime for five more minutes. So high did she fly.

“Understand, Skip. Hang loose a while longer. We're in daylight now at 05 plus 42. LOS Yarradee a moment ago.”

“Hangin', buddy. Hangin'.” The AC was anxiously calm in the can which had shrunk visibly in upon him.

Enright continued his fuel cell checks and Parker labored to levitate his mind elsewhere for the 2½ minutes required to overfly north central Australia toward the sea. At 05 hours 45 minutes out, Shuttle left Australia behind for the fourth time. In broad daylight, the ocean below was still dark as the starship crossed the 250-mile wide Arafura Sea between Australia and the island of New Guinea in 50 seconds.

Over New Guinea, Enright saw the lush green island become illuminated by morning twilight. The island's tropical rain forests, 420 nautical miles wide, were crossed in daylight in 90 seconds. Enright, flying upside down, watched the land recede over the upper sill of his inverted window. Five minutes after losing contact with Australia's antenna, Endeavor left New Guinea in her wake as she made for blue water stretching unbroken for 7,200 statute miles and 24 flying minutes toward San Francisco.

“Skipper: At 05 plus 49, we're into Rev Five,” Enright called by intercom as Endeavor crossed the Equator for the eighth time over the Admiralty Islands in the brilliant Coral Sea.

“Endeavor: Configure AOS by Guam station. With you four minutes.”

“With you, Flight,” Enright acknowledged 900 miles south of Guam.

“Five-by, Jack. Your vitals are Go. We would like the AC outside by California acquisition in 19 minutes.”

“Okay, Colorado.”

“Also want to remind you that after your Atlantic Ocean transit and after you lose Botswana station at 06 hours 53 minutes, you will be out of ground contact for half an hour . . . Sunset this pass in 41 minutes at 06 plus 32. Sunrise follows at 07 plus 11.”

“Got it, thanks,” Enright said with fatigue in his voice as he scanned his own Crew Activity Plan text secured to a small cranny on the center console at his left.

“How do you feel, Jack?” the ground asked gently.

“Oh, okay. A bit tight in my face. Dry mouth, too. Takin' both the water and the sodium solution PRN-PO.”

“Copy, Jack. Must be a nurse in your sordid past some-where . . . Soyuz on the phone?”

“Listening, Colorado,” a thick Russian accent crackled.

“Roger, Major. We remind you to watch your attitude thruster plumes when we go outside.”

“We understand. We use only cold gas jets during the Colonel's work outside.”

“Excellent, Alexi. Thank you.”

Endeavor cruised upside down over the Caroline Islands.

“After we lose you, Jack, you are cleared to maneuver to the target and to power up the RMS. Rockwell people say your air line for the pressure pants should reach from the portable O
₂
to the aft station, if you don't do any backflips.”

“ 'Kay. No danger of any aerobatics just now,” the copilot at the helm replied with his dry mouth. Behind his clammy face mask, his blistered face was sore.

“Losing you, Endeavor. Back with you in nine by Hawaii. Good . . .”

Shuttle went over Guam's horizon above the Truk Islands at 05 hours 53 minutes, MET.

Enright completed his evaluation of the ship's triple electrical lines. After disconnecting his biomedical and communications cables, he unbuckled his lap and shoulder belts. Slowly, he floated out of his seat. Tucking his legs toward his chest, Enright drifted over the center console. With a gentle push off the ceiling, he guided his body into the left seat, the captain's position on every flying machine since the days of white scarves and goggles and iron men on wooden wings. He plugged his cables into their wall jacks on the left side of the cockpit.

“With you from the left seat, Skip.”

“So how does it fit, buddy?” the AC drawled over the intercom.

“Too big,” the thin copilot replied seriously.

“Not to worry, Jacob. I know for a fact they come in 37 short.”

“Hope so, Will.”

Although both forward stations have a rotational hand controller for changing Shuttle's position in-place, only the left seat has a translational hand controller, THC, for changing Shuttle's orbit.

Any orbit for any spacecraft is an ironclad rail in the black sky. Although Shuttle, Soyuz, and LACE flew only fifty yards apart, each cruised in its own private, orbital energy state as peculiarly unique as a fingerprint. For Endeavor to move only one foot closer to her target requires a complex change of Shuttle's delicate orbit. Otherwise, the starship would simply veer off on a new trajectory leaving LACE and Soyuz behind.

Enright could not merely point Endeavor toward LACE and fire his RCS engines to push his ship toward LACE. Even the slightest maneuver requires meticulous budgeting of fuel and kinetic energy within the balance of the laws of orbital mechanics.

A perfectly horizontal burst from Shuttle's engines would not propel her in a horizontal direction. Orbital physics is more demanding. Instead, a forward thrust in the direction of the orbital track (called the Velocity Vector) would send the ship not forward and faster, but upward into a slower orbit. And a horizontal thrust backward against the direction of the orbital path would send Endeavor not backward and slower, but downward into a lower, faster orbit. The higher the orbit, the slower the speed.

So Enright commanded Mother to consult her warm black boxes to sort out the most fuel-efficient course to be flown toward LACE.

Working his computer keyboard, Enright ordered Mother to prepare to use her RCS jets to maneuver closer to LACE in such a way that Endeavor and LACE would assume tandem orbits.

“Stand-by for maneuvering, Skipper.”

“You got the helm, Number One. Okay down here. Don't bend nothin'.”

Mother winked her READY light and Enright depressed the illuminated EXEC key on his little keyboard.

Instantly, Mother popped a battery of Endeavor's small Reaction Control System thrusters. Enright did not know which RCS jets were triggered. The two heavy OMS rockets in the tail are used only for more massive maneuvers.

Slowly, Shuttle closed in on LACE as Enright watched his Range and Range-Rate displays on the forward television screens. Through his tinted sunshades, he watched as LACE approached the upside-down starship. As the range-to-go ticked down from 40 to 10 meters, Mother fired combinations of her 38 primary RCS thrusters and her 6 tiny vernier thrusters.

Ten meters from LACE, Mother brought Endeavor to a stop. Using his square-handled translational hand controller in his left hand, Enright pushed the ship a few feet closer by eyeball. Mother still flew the jets with him. Using the rotational hand controller between his knees in his right hand, he kept Shuttle on an even keel, belly up in the piercing sunshine. Though the pilot handflew both control sticks, Mother rode shotgun over his shoulder.

“All stop,” Enright sang out over the intercom.

“Then shorten sail, Jack, and bring her into the wind.” Four minutes past Guam and four hundred miles west of Wake Island, the AC was full of GET IT UP—GET IT DONE—GET IT DOWN.

“Done, Will. Eight meters and sitting pretty.”