The radio watch finally paid off. We learned that we weren’t all alone in orbit around the planet. There was another manned object in orbit when the asteroid hit. Positioned nearly opposite of us on the other side of the Earth, we didn’t talk to them often. This was a Chinese space venture and they claimed to have very little English and we, of course, had even less Chinese. But we did have translation programs, though those sometimes left something to be desired. Once they had translated hydraulic rams as water lambs . . . well, in a bizarre way, that did make some sense.
Sheila spoke to them first and I listened in, hearing the electronic voice that was quite pleasant, and sounding not at all like Stephen Hawking announce, “We are going back to Earth.”
Sheila answered. “How soon?”
“We go soon. Our station is damaged and is beginning to fail us.”
David, who had rushed in as soon as he learned we had made another contact, leaned close and was going to ask Sheila to ask a question but realized that he could do it himself. He leaned toward the mic and asked, “What happened?”
“Meteor impact. Solar panels damaged, one pod damaged. Two people killed. We have shuttle here that is undamaged.”
This sparked a great debate with us. They had a shuttle and they had, at the very least, two spaces available. Docking with another orbiting object was one of the first things that the old space programs had practiced, and now it was really a matter of routine. We space walked all the time, without tethers, we repaired the exterior of our craft without much trouble, and we docked with all sorts of other things while in space, all with little or no help from the ground. It was a simple maneuver.
David said, quietly, calmly, “We don’t know that they would take any of us even if they can. Our relations with China have never been real good.”
“That was long ago,” said Sarah from the rear. She had heard the commotion and arrived. “There are no Chinese, or Japanese, or Australians now. There are only humans and too few of us as it is. Besides, these are educated people above political influence of the party.”
“You don’t know that,” said David.
“I know that China moved into the twenty-first century along with the rest of us and that there were trade agreements, and exchange programs, and lots of Chinese living in the US and more than a few Americans in China. There are Chinese billionaires and traffic jams and all sorts of private ownership. They say they’re a communist country but they don’t act like it very often.”
I said, “I don’t want to throw a wet blanket on your parade, but this whole argument might be moot.”
“Yeah,” said Sheila. “We don’t know what their plans are so it might not do us any good.”
David pointed at the radio and said, “Ask them a few questions.”
Jason appeared, looking dirty, as if he had just changed the oil filter on an old fashioned car and had used his clothes as the rags to clean up the spilled oil. I hadn’t realized it was possible to get that dirty on the station.
He asked, “What have we got?”
Sheila waved him to silence and then asked, “Where are you going to land?”
“Emergency space port inland.”
David said, quietly, “They’re sure chatty. I’m not sure I’d want to answer that question.”
“Why not? There is nothing anyone can do to stop them. Security doesn’t mean much now. And there’s no one on the ground they need to worry about.”
I was going to protest that but then thought I understood what he meant. You needed security to protect yourself, your mission, and your secrets, but only if there was someone in a position to steal them and use the information against you. We knew there was an inland space port used by the Chinese for emergencies, just as we had the one in New Mexico. That was such a big secret that it was printed on maps in the late twentieth century.
So, we knew where they were planning to land. Could we intercept them and destroy them, even if we wanted? No. Could we send someone to disrupt the landing? No. Even if we were in communications with someone on the ground, those people couldn’t get to China any more than we could get to Mars. The asteroid had rendered all that obsolete.
Still, for a people who thrived on secrecy for centuries, they seemed to be suddenly opened and unconcerned with what we knew.
Sheila asked them, “Are you in communication with the ground?”
“We have talked to them two days ago and they said that preparations were being made to receive us. They are pleased that we have survived.”
Sheila grinned broadly. That answer meant that space flight was still possible. Someone was operating a space program even with all the destruction that had fallen on Earth. It meant that someone on the surface had survived the initial destruction. It meant that they still had power and were thinking beyond their personal survival because they had time to worry about a craft in orbit. It meant there was someone around to help them. Sheila turned and smiled up at both David and me. I wished that I believed them.
“How badly damaged is your station?” asked Sheila. She thought about that and realized she already knew the answer and changed the question. “How stable is your environment?”
A moment later we heard, “Slow oxygen leak and slow power drain. We believe we have a week before we run out of one or the other. We lose our heat too. We are preparing for our departure soon.”
“Best of luck to you. Please let us know when you break orbit and after you have reached the ground.”
“We will do our best,” said the electronic voice.
The radio fell silent and we didn’t expect to hear any more from them at the moment. It was just enough to know that they were up here, with us, in a sense. It made our plight a little less severe, though if you had asked, I couldn’t have told you why. Maybe it was just something about a shared experience and our understanding their need to return to the surface quickly. We had more air and power than they did and if they didn’t do something, they’d be dead inside a week. We had time to think things through. Our future, for the next couple of months was rosy. After that?
David looked at us and said, “Let’s go over to the lounge and discuss this.
I didn’t know what he wanted to discuss, but I turned and moved out of the way.