Hightower slept while Gillory and I ticked off every detail on the pre-flight checklist, sending Ryong photos of the wound for forwarding to our greeting party. I was dying to know where we’d splash down, totally not figuring on the Florida or Gulf coasts, given their proximity to the probable mission saboteurs. I pegged Alexander Sparks for the crime; Gillory was leaning rogue NASA official or unsavory government cover-up, like what happened with Space Shuttle Columbia, when “mission management decision-making operated outside the rules.”
“The robot did it,” Hightower muttered, reminding me we hadn’t seen our automated nemesis for over an hour. “You know he contaminated that agar.”
Ryong checked in every ten minutes or so. He had no idea where Randi was, either, but told us he was safe and barricaded against harm. Then I looked out the window.
“Randi’s outside,” I almost screamed.
“What? Where?” Gillory asked.
“By the escape module. The actual escape module.”
“I haven’t seen anything on the monitors,” Ryong said.
I looked out the window again, calling out what I saw. “Looks like he’s doing something to the thermal tiles,” I said.
“You’re gonna have to leave now,” Ryong said.
“We’re not—” Gillory said.
“Now! He damages your back shell tiles, and it’s Columbia Two.”
The Orion modules had two thermal protection skins: an Avcoat ablator heat shield on the bottom, famous for its Frisbee-on-fire-during-atmospheric-re-entry look; and the “back shell” around the rest of the capsule. Named for a special material that takes heat away, the Avcoat ablator shield would take the brunt of our three-plus-thousand degree Fahrenheit re-entry temperatures. Upgraded versions of the old space shuttle tiles, the thousand or so back shell tiles were more vulnerable. A ding could still cause a re-entry disaster, all while we were roaring toward Earth on our backs at thirty two thousand kilometers per hour (twenty thousand mph). We would never again be more vulnerable to a blip, let alone a saboteur.
Gillory roused Hightower. “Randi’s fucking with the thermal tiles,” she said.
“Huh?” he said groggily. “Shoot the bastard.”
“You guys gotta go.” She grabbed his helmet and stopped and leaned down to kiss him. “You are so high maintenance.”
“Part of my charm,” he said.
She secured the helmet on him and before she helped me on with mine, hugged me.
“Anything happens to him—” she said.
I buckled into my seat and pulled down the touch screen control suite. Gillory checked us both. She kissed Hightower on his glass visor and I thought I saw tears. She paused at the hatch into the corridor. It shut behind her.
“Final departure check,” Ryong said. And I responded as he recited the litany in my headphones. I saw red, yellow, and blue lights outside our window flashing.
“Module detachment sequence initiated,” Ryong said. I heard locks open, servomotors surge, air swoosh, and felt a modest acceleration, as we started moving away from the station.
“Service module panel detachment,” Ryong said.
I heard loud creaking and out a window, saw one of the three panels that surround the service modules jets fly off into space. I saw jet streams pushing us farther away.
“Randi,” I heard. “Don’t go there. They want to hurt you.” Mama again.
“Commander Ryong,” I said. “Randi may be headed our way.”
“Can you see him?” Ryong asked.
“No,” I said. “I’ve got limited vision out two windows.” Nothing but deep space and Mother Earth. Until Randi was looking right at me. “Shit!” I jumped and yelped and barely remembered to look away from his face. “Shit, shit, shit, shit—”
“What’s he doing? What’s going on?” Ryong said.
“He’s at our window,” I said. “But I can’t look at him.”
“You’re gonna want to see this,” Ryong said.
I heard a loud snap. Hightower motioned toward the window where Randi turned his head and grabbed CanArm’s Dex hand. Ryong was apparently in the CanArm cupola, the one place on DSG where the hatch doors are like a bank vault.
“They won’t hurt you,” mama said. “I won’t let them. I won’t let them.” Between mama ranting and Randi raging, I could barely hear Ryong.
“Is he detached from the hull?” Ryong said. “Is he still grabbing anything?”
“I can’t tell.”
“Get out of your seat. Get up to the window.”
I unbuckled myself and slipped under the control suite and over to the window. I raised my eyes. Randi was groaning in the most god-awful way. He sounded like a sick cow. But he wasn’t looking at me so I looked up, down, right, left. Randi’s hands were locked in battle with Dex, his feet floating freely.
“He’s detached,” I said. The android turned and looked straight at me, childlike, confused, and harmless. “Fuck you, Randi.”
I turned away and heard rending and tearing and artificial screaming that reverberated like a canned sound effect as the robot’s circuit boards and microchips and speaker drivers blew apart. Then I heard nothing. I looked out the window. Tubes and wires and hydraulic fluid: There wasn’t much left.
“You just made my trip, Commander,” Hightower said.
“Maybe. Maybe not,” Ryong said. “We’ve gotta inspect for damage.”
I was buckling myself back in but stopped. “How?” I said.
“Gillory’s volunteered.”
“Space walk?” Hightower said.
“Yes,” Ryong said. “I’d do it, but I gotta run the arm.”
“Get me up,” Hightower said. “I’ll do it.”
“No way,” I said. “Obviously.”
“I don’t want Rhonda out there,” he said.
“Rhonda will be fine,” Ryong said. “She’s a spacewalking veteran.”
“I don’t want her out there, goddamn it,” Hightower said.
“Coast is clear,” Ryong returned. “Got video again.”
“Why don’t you go?” mama said.
“Now the voice in my head is trying to kill me,” I said.
“You’ll be just fine,” mama said. “Do you see that large bolt on the wall? See it? The large, chrome-plated bolt. Unscrew it.”
Ridiculous. I couldn’t budge it.
“Do it, please.”
“Why?” I said.
“Wrap your hand around it, squeeze, and turn.”
“Get out of my head.”
“If you don’t do it, you won’t leave,” mama said. “Captain Gillory cannot fix what needs fixing.”
I resisted.
“Turn the goddamn bolt.”
I got out of my seat and wrapped my gloved hand around the bolt, got a grip, and turned. And turned. It started turning. What the hell?
“Now tighten it and get out there,” mama said.
“I’ll go,” I told Ryong.
“You? You’ve never walked.”
“Saved a guy’s life during sim,” I said. “Let me go.”
“No way.”
“I’ll pop the hatch and go anyway,” I said. “Please.”
Crickets.
“Let her go,” Hightower said. “I don’t know how she did it, but she’s pretty damn strong.”
“Did what?”
“Turned a huge bolt.”
“What bolt? Why?” Ryong said.
“Nothing,” I said.
“I hope you didn’t break anything,” Hightower told me.
“How’s your head?” Gillory asked. “Over.”
“I’m fine,” I said, following her lead into spacewalk speak. “Over.”
“She’s good,” Gillory said. “And she’ll be making notes, not repairs.”
“Foot restraint will be waiting for you,” Ryong said finally, referring to CanArm’s astronaut support attachment. “Over.”
I equalized the pressure between the crew module (capsule) and space and opened the side hatch to the awaiting CanArm, where a tether hung like a lasso in waiting.
“Use the straws when you need hands free,” Ryong said.
I buckled my feet into the restraint, attached the tether to my suit, and looked over at the cupola, where I could barely see Ryong, and waved. CanArm took me around the capsule, where I looked at every tile. I blew into the flashlight straw on the sip-and-puff assembly, each puff adding lumens. It was tedious. Then mama intruded and made it stressful.
“See,” she said. “You’re doing fine.”
“That bolt was loose,” I said.
“That bolt was factory tightened,” she said. “Did they really make you that unaware?”
“I need to focus,” I said.
“I’ve turned off your microphone. We can speak freely.”
“Turn it back on,” I said. “And shut the hell up.”
“No idea why only you and Randi can hear me? No questions about why you survived that accident and your father, who was buckled in when you, dear girl, were not, perished?”
“He was drunk,” I said.
“No.”
“I wanted to drive. He could barely change gears. He wouldn’t let me.”
“He wasn’t drunk.”
“Coroner—”
“Was never involved. Wasn’t your father cremated, like your brother?”
“Get out of my head.”
“I’m not in your head,” mama said. “Not like Randi. You don’t need me. At least, that’s what they said. I’m doing you a favor.”
“By harassing me? Out here?”
“By restoring your identity. All you are to them—all you’ve ever been—is proof of concept.”
“What concept?”
“Oh, sure. You were their eyes and ears—how do you think they knew what was going on in all your little meetings? In your little apartment? Your...mother?”
“What concept am I proof of?”
“Are you really this dense? You really don’t know?”
“No! I don’t know. I don’t know you, I don’t know why you’re hounding me. I don’t know why Randi just tried to kill us.”
“We don’t either,” Ryong said. My microphone was back on.
“He hated Rob,” Gillory said. “That much I do know.”
I finished the tile scan without mama, and found nothing more than a couple smudges on the window Randi looked through.
“Hey all. I’m at the flight engineer’s control suite,” Gillory said into my headset. “I’m picking up something attached to the service module. Can you see anything, Ryong? Over.”
“No. Video fuzzy. Cam might be out.”
“See if I can get a visual.”
“You want me to check it? Over,” I asked.
“Not without a visual first,” Ryong said.
“What if you can’t get one?” I asked. “Over.”
A pause. “You’ve got a point,” Ryong said.
“On my way. Over and out.”
Attached to the capsule’s bottom heat shield, the service module, our temporary navigation and engine system, would break away from us once we were in re-entry position. CanArm brought me around to the problem: one of the three side panels that should have detached and spaced out (my term for drifting away) was hanging on by some kind of thread. Our jets were under these panels, and needed full exposure to function properly. I reached for the panel when something grabbed my wrist. I tried to jerk it back. Randi’s torn face emerged. I freaked out, pulling and jerking my wrist as hard as I could.
“Randi. Let her go,” mama said. “Let her go now.”
But he moved toward me, the panel creaking above him. I couldn’t tell if he was somehow attached to it, but it looked like he might have grabbed it just before it disengaged, to keep from spacing out himself. I pressed my shoulder against the panel and pushed against his grip. My feet were attached to CanArm, so I couldn’t use them to push off anything.
Randi tightened his grip on my wrist. His face was disheveled, frozen.
“I didn’t know he was here,” mama said, almost regretfully. “I didn’t know he was here.”
“Randi, you’re hurting me,” I said.
“Randi’s out there?” Gillory said.
“He’s got my arm,” I said.
“Shit,” Ryong said. “Can we do anything? Over.”
“No,” I said. “This is on me.”
I leaned around the other side of the panel as far as I could, refusing to panic in Randi’s grasp. He was keeping the panel in place. He wasn’t much more than a leg, part of a torso, and some long wires and fibers (titanium, I guessed). But with his remaining hand he’d apparently wrapped what was left of him around the panel and its service module moorings. I needed to get my hand free to even have a chance of untangling the mess. I wasn’t skilled enough to use Dex on something like this (never got past basic plugging in of detached hydraulic lines). Even if I could use Dex, if the panel came free, Randi—and by extension, me—would space-out with it.
“Jennifer? Over,” Ryong said.
“Randi—or rather, the remains of Randi—is tethering the third panel to the service module,” I said. “And I’m tethered to Randi. Over.”
“He’s powered down,” mama said. “Dead, with you in hand.”
I looked at Randi. His absent eyes were open, his expression blanker than even resting blank face, his arm rigid, his grip solid, robotic rigor mortis. I tried releasing his fingers, but each was its own little vice. So much for the “great strength” I’d supposedly exhibited with the turn of the screw. Then it dawned on me. I had another hand here, and releasing his fingers from my wrist—if I didn’t injure myself in the process—would be less complicated than releasing him from the service module with which he was so entwined.
“Can you bring Dex close to my wrist? Over.”
“Yeah,” Ryong said. “Then what? Over.”
“Put Dex in neutral. I’ll take it from there.” With my free hand, I positioned Dex’s thumb and forefinger over Randi’s forefinger and blew into the straw that controlled Candarm, tightening Dex’s nimble digits in increments of puff.
“Can you transfer Randi’s grip to CanArm?” Gillory said. “I got a visual on the mess he’s made. We might be able to wrench the panel free.”
If I could transfer his grip, CanArm could then drag Randi and the panel away from the capsule.
“Not sure I like that idea,” Ryong said.
“You have visuals on that side of the panel?” Gillory asked.
“No,” he said.
“Well, I do. If you can, transfer his grip to some amenable part of the arm,” she told me. “Whatever you do, don’t break his fingers. Over.”
Dex opened Randi’s fingers just enough to free me. Ryong pulled CanArm closer and I used Dex to close Randi’s fingers around it. But in freeing me, we had loosened his grip permanently. It wasn’t like a spring that would snap shut whenever.
“It’s not holding. His grip is too loose. Over.”
“How about cup his hand with Dex to keep it tight? Over,” Gillory said.
“Panel might crash on them.” That was Ryong.
“Pull CanArm toward DSG. Over.”
“Risky. Hate the idea.”
This back and forth would not do. I looked around for alternatives. “What if I unlatch my feet? I’m tethered,” I said. Variations on “you’re out of your mind” came from both navigators.
While they were thinking, I wrapped Dexter’s hand around Randi’s hand as Gillory suggested, tethering the deceased android to CanArm, to which my feet were also latched. “Try pulling on it now,” I suggested.
“We could do it gently. See if anything happens,” Gillory said.
“The panel might fall on her,” Ryong said.
“How?” I said. “It’s weightless, right?”
“Could still recoil and hit you,” Gillory said. “I understand the worry.”
“Thank you,” Ryong said.
“I’m outta the way,” I said. “And I can duck.”
“Okay. Get ready for a slight tug,” Ryong said. CanArm started moving, with me and Randi attached. I heard the panel creak, watched it sway.
“Jen? Over,” Gillory said.
I craned my neck around the panel. “I don’t see any change,” I said. “Over.”
“We can’t risk hitting you,” Ryong said. “It’s incremental tugs or nothing.”
But two more tugs did nothing. I unlatched my feet, careful to avoid the CanArm video camera Ryong was monitoring. Gillory couldn’t see me from here, either. Tethered but free, I glided around one of the service module’s three solar panels, and clung to some scaffolding between it and the capsule. The two jets exposed when the first two side panels separated periodically fired low, safe spurts, to steady the assemblage. Lots of panels here, but just remember: solar panels absorb the sun’s rays and stay with the service module; the side panels temporarily protect the service module and until Randi got wrapped up in one, are supposed to burst away when we depart.
“It’s done,” I said. “Over.”
“What’s done? Over,” Ryong said.
“I’m out of the way. You can tug the panel free. Over.”
I knew he wanted to say something, but Gillory interjected and next thing, CanArm was pulling on Randi and the panel he was attached to in short, smooth bursts. I heard creaks and groans and titanium cable rubbing against steel. Then I saw the panel break free of Randi and space-out. Ryong brought CanArm—and the remains of Randi still gripping it—around to me. I strapped my feet back in, released Dex from Randi’s hand, and pushed Replicated Artificial Native Design Intruder into space.
“Finally,” mama said, startling me.