Gravity Well, Page 3

sounded like he's saying he's too old," said his mother.

  "Old?" repeated Val. "Sir, could you please repeat?"

  "Ol... "

  The sound that followed was a cross between an intake of breath and a soft chatter.

  "Oh, no," said Debra. "It's the death rattle."

  "Sir? Sir?"

  "Lieutenant Gilman," said Simon, "please respond."

  Silence.

  Val mulled Gilman's last transmission. "Old? Ol?" He looked "up" to where Io should have been almost directly overhead. It was overhead, but slightly left. He looked back "down." When they first started working on the plate, Jupiter had been completely hidden by the bulk of the ship. Now a sliver of the giant planet appeared to his right below the ship.

  "Roll!" cried Val. "He said 'roll.' We're rolling. I have to stop the roll or we'll be pulled into Jupiter even faster!"

  "What can we do?" asked his father.

  "I have to go back in to activate the roll thrusters. Mom, Dad, please stay here to adjust the plate. Look! It's already out of position. The ship is slowly rolling beneath the plate."

  "We'll get it, Son. You go inside. And talk to us. Let us know what we have to do."

  "Roger, Dad."

  Val spurted his suit thrusters to maneuver back to the airlock. In his awkwardness, it took him several minutes. As he cycled through the lock, the lights dimmed even more. Val felt a sense of dread as he watched the inner airlock door grind closed all too slowly.

  He equalized the pressure on his suit, then snapped off the oversized headpiece, and squirmed free. At the flight deck, he felt Gilman's carotid artery. There was no pulse. He tried joy-sticking the roll thruster, but he couldn't quite get a grip on it because Gilman's body was in the way. He pulled the body up and let it drift overhead. He tried the roll joystick again.

  Meanwhile, Jupiter had rotated in its position, or rather the ship had rotated.

  He commanded the computer to take over roll stability, but it wouldn't respond.

  Val reasoned that the black hole's gravity, positioned as it was on only one side of the ship, was gradually being attracted to the much larger mass of Jupiter and away from Io. This made the ship roll. Val would have to manually maintain roll position.

  "Mom, Dad, I'm about to try reversing the roll. Brace yourselves."

  He fired the roll thruster, but he had made a mistake; he had increased the roll towards Jupiter. He quickly reversed the thruster direction and the ship lurched to a stop, then began to roll correctly.

  "Are you okay out there?"

  "We're okay," said his father. "We almost lost the plate, but everything's fine now."

  The long-range radio crackled to life. "Argosy, are you there? This is Captain Hunter of the Jovian Storm. You seem to be moving into a higher orbit, an orbit we can intercept in probably, oh, about four hours. Are you there?"

  "We're here," said Val.

  "Cargo intact?"

  "Yes," said Val. He explained to Captain Hunter what they had done to save the Argosy.

  "Incredible. We can't wait to see you."

  "Thank you, sir. Argosy out."

  Val switched over to the space suit frequency. "Mom, Dad, we're going to be okay. Don't worry about the shielding plate. Come on in. I'll meet you at the airlock."

  "Roger that," said Simon.

  Val pushed off from the flight deck, floated through the hatch, and stopped at the airlock. He looked at the readout near the airlock controls. Electric power was down to 60%. Val pushed the button that started the pump that flushed the airlock.

  "We're outside the airlock," said Val's father.

  "Okay, hold on, I've started the cycle manually."

  The pump whined as Val watched the power reading with apprehension. It slowly dropped to 47% before a dim light came on that indicated it was safe to open the outer lock.

  Val mashed the button. Another electric motor groaned as the outer lock rolled back slowly. Power went down to 34%, then 29%. The outer lock stopped, half open. Val mashed another button that promised auxiliary power. The power indicator briefly spiked, the outer lock trembled, then all lights went out.

  Val fought down his panic. "Can you squeeze through the outer door?" Then he realized he was talking to a dead radio channel on the airlock control panel.

  In fact, as Val could see through the inner lock's porthole window, his parents had already squirmed into the airlock proper.

  He held up his index finger, a gesture for them to "wait." He jumped into the suit in record time and snapped on the headpiece

  "Dad, Mom, can you hear me?"

  "We hear you, Val," said his mother. "Is there anything we can do from out here?"

  "You have to close the outer lock by hand."

  As they tried to roll the lock closed, Val realized that he would somehow have to pump air into the chamber, then, only when the pressure was equalized, would he be able to open the inner lock. Assuming he could open it without power.

  He watched his parents strain against the outer lock with growing alarm. It wouldn't budge. Val pushed off once more, returning to the airlock with a large steel footlocker.

  "What are you doing, Son?" asked his father.

  "How much air do you have?" asked Val.

  "Sixteen minutes," said his father, who looked at his wife as he said the words. She nodded.

  "First," said Val, "I'm going to break this port window with this footlocker. When the ship's air escapes, all three of us can work on the inner lock. I can probably find a crowbar, some kind of lever-"

  "Wait, wait, wait," said his mother. "We can't do that."

  "What? Why not? Once you're in the ship, we have seven O2 bottles. That's plenty enough for three people until Captain Hunter rescues us."

  He watched helplessly as his parents stared into each other's eyes for a long moment.

  "Your mother is right, Son. We can't depressurize the ship. The vaccine wasn't packed for a vacuum. Every ampoule is pretty much like those pain ampoules we used on Lieutenant Gilman, poor man. They have sealed rubber diaphragms so that you can push a hypodermic into the ampoule. Under a vacuum, the diaphragms would rupture. The vaccine would boil away in minutes, if not seconds. The ship cannot be depressurized."

  Val felt like he was being crushed by an invisible weight. "It doesn't matter! I don't want to lose you."

  "Val-" began Debra.

  "Wait!" said Val. "The O2 bottle for the cutting torch is out there. The fittings are the same. See how much is in it. Check it, please!"

  "Okay, Val," said Simon calmly.

  He swam through the half-open outer lock. With quivering lips, Val tried to smile at his mother. She placed her gloved palm on the glass. Val matched it on his side.

  His father was back in a few minutes.

  "Well?" demanded Val.

  "I'm sorry, Son. The bottle's almost empty.

  Val punched the alloy bulkhead. "If only we had all come into the ship at the same time. I'm so stupid! We have to get you in here, whether the vaccine is lost or not!"

  "Listen to me, Val," said his mother. "You are certainly not stupid. This situation is not your fault. We are here to save the Europa colony. That is our mission, our only purpose. You are a good man. You would do the same, Val."

  Val sobbed. "I can't leave you out there."

  "You're not leaving us, Val," said his mother. "We'll always be with you."

  His father smiled. "You're bravery and resourcefulness make us proud, Son. If it hadn't been for you, the vaccine would be lost. Whatever you do, wherever you go, you'll succeed and we'll be there."

  Val slowly lowered the footlocker. He swallowed hard. He wasn't sure he could control his voice. "Mom, Dad... "

  His parents looked at each other, then at Val. "We love you, Son," said his father. "We love you," repeated his mother.

  "Goodbye," they said in unison. They turned, and Val saw for the first
time that they were holding hands. They lowered themselves so that he could no longer see them.

  "Goodbye," said Val, "goodbye, goodbye, goodbye... "

  Val heard the soft click of their radios being switched off. He stood frozen at the port window for a long time.

  ####

  Val saw the blinking running lights of the Jovian Storm. He switched on his suit radio.

  "-Storm here. Is anyone alive on your ship? Please respond. Jovian Sto-"

  "I'm here. Had to conserve batteries on my suit radio. All ship power systems are down."

  "Thank God someone's alive. This is Captain Hunter. You must be Val."

  "Yes, sir. I have the vaccine."

  Val heard cheering in the background.

  "In case you didn't know it, Val, you're a hero."

  "No sir, not me. I know some things about engineering and I'm clever, but that's about it. When you get here, I'll tell you a thing or two about heroes, because now I know what a hero is. But I'm not one of them, Captain, no sir, not today. Argosy out."

  Peace folded her arms around Val like a comforting mother as he watched the rescue ship approach, a growing beacon in the infinite night.

  THE END