ISS (13 page)

That the virus would spontaneously mutate. The active part of the virus was designed to have a limited lifespan, ten iterations, and then disappear but it must have mutated because the ISS crew was, without their knowledge, inoculated and they were supposed to be immune to the virus. The sample you brought up killed the crew which is a problem for my personal survival but a much worse problem is the loss of the antidote to the reproductive enzyme within the virus. It was in the lab you jettisoned.” Marty said.

Sara looked at Jack and raised her eyebrows as she silently mouthed the words, ‘
is he dangerous?’
From what Marty was saying she was convinced that he was delusional. Jack shrugged. He might be dangerous but not to them. He was obviously afraid to leave his life-support module. Whether the story he told them was true or not really did not matter. If he left the module while he and Sara were on board the virus they carried within their bodies would kill him like the rest of the crew.

His story about intentionally poisoning the population of the planet was unbelievable but Jack had to admit there was something within his madness that lent him a sense of believability. The idea that they would deliberately massacre billions of people to save themselves was simply unreachable and, for the moment at least, Jack chose to not to think about it.

“Okay Marty we will help you raise the ISS orbit then we are going home. Tell us what you need us to do?” he said evenly. If the man was insane he did not want to set him off before they could safely leave the ISS.

“Go to the flight control center and I will explain what to do when you get there,” Marty said.”

Jack took Sara’s hand and they headed back over to the ISS. Once inside they glided along to the flight deck. It took them two hours to raise the ISS to a higher earth orbit. Marty was satisfied with the results but the stress of everything had caused his life-support unit to malfunction.

“I have to shut down for a few hours I need to make repairs,” he said.

“When you come back we will be gone,” Jack said, Marty did not hear him he was already off-line.

They talked little as they prepared to leave the ISS. The plan they’d worked out was simple. He would remove the strap that bound Jericho One to the space station and stow it safely out of the way on board ISS before making his final jet-pac ride to the ship for the trip home.

“Can you see me?” he said.

Sara looked out the cockpit window and gave a ‘thumbs up.

” Yes I see you.”

“I am releasing the strap now get ready with the thrusters if you drift away.”

“Roger that, I am powering up the cockpit now,” she said.

As he was pulling the strap in she said,” What do you think about what Marty said…I mean about the virus being intentional?”

He was turned away from Jericho One pulling and then pushing the long strap into the hatch behind him. It took a long time because there was a lot of it and it floated around maddeningly when he tried to shove it inside.

“I don’t know,” he said puffing from exertion,” he has experienced a lot of loss. Losing half your body in a terrorist attack can’t be easy maybe it did something to his mind, like post-traumatic stress, or maybe he was always nuts. The main point of all of this is karmic; if he and his rich friends infected and killed billions of people then Marty deserves this fate,” he said.

He was working intently and talking and did not notice that the nose of Jericho One was slowly drifting outward away from ISS. The spacecraft was rolling seaward like a sounding whale slowly rotating and turning away from him.

He looked up and yelled,” Hey!”

“What is it?” Sara said. She’d been absorbed in powering up and checking gauges.

“You are drifting,” he said.

“Oh shit,” she said and she reached over and gave the starboard thruster a small squirt but the craft did not respond so she gave it another longer shot and it slowed but did not stop. When she tried to give it more nothing happened.

“I don’t know what’s wrong I can’t stop it.”

Jack watched the huge craft move further away from him and he made a snap decision. It was not really a decision so much as a panicked reaction. He dove for the Jericho One using his jet pack and tried to catch up to it. He saw Sara standing in the open hatch urging him on and he seemed to be gaining on it.

Then his jet-pac ran out.

Sara watched him fall further behind and there was only one thing she could do. She stepped out into space and used her jet pack to fly back and get him.

When she grabbed him he was facing the other way and she pulled him back to the rolling spacecraft using full thruster all the way. After less than a minute the thrust from her jet pack faded. Cold fear rose within her as she watched Jericho One roll further away. In that instant she knew that they would not catch it nor could they return to the ISS.

The realization that they were going to die surfaced in her mind and tightened her throat, she could think of nothing to say. Words would not convey the despair she felt take over her, he would learn their fate soon enough.

“What’s happening?” he said.

The sound of his voice crackled in her helmet and she blinked back tears. “We aren’t going to make it,” she said the last word spoken with a catch in her voice.

He said nothing. He knew from her voice that they were adrift in space and no longer able to catch up to Jericho One.

“Are you okay?” she said.

He turned himself so he could face her. He saw the fear in her bright eyes. He smiled and put his face as close to hers as their helmets would allow.

“I’m okay, we are together, that makes it easier,” he said.

There was no need to talk about what was going to happen to them. There was nothing useful to be said they would either freeze to death or run out of air and suffocate.

They floated silently lost in their reflections and strangely there was no panic or struggle, they simply held each other as they slowly drifted over Brazil. After a long while he said.

“If you could do one thing…,” he paused, “before the end, what would it be?”

“I would hold you in my arms,” she answered truthfully.

“Me too,” he said.

They watched the blackness of deep space come into view as they slowly turned away from the earth. Magnificent stars rotated into their field of vision and though it was sad it was also beautiful. They did not speak as they held onto each other and drank in the cold empty grandeur of the universe.

It seemed like they had been drifting forever, time stopped having meaning for them, and they simply existed as part of the universe. Then something grabbed Jack’s arm and spun them both around and slammed them hard onto the large solar array of the ISS.

They were caught like insects on a massive screen door. Sara was stunned by the impact but when she heard Jack let out a wild whoop of excitement she realized that this meant they were not going to die.

He led the way as they crawled across the solar array to the hatch and he opened it and he pulled her inside. When they were through the airlock and it was sealed behind them he helped her take off her helmet and he saw that she was crying. He took off his helmet.

“It’s okay we’re safe now,” he said.

“I thought we were going to die,” she sobbed and he awkwardly put his arms around her and held her to him.

“We are safe now,” he repeated.

“We are not safe we lost Jericho One! What are we going to do now?” she said, and cried some more.

“We will use the Soyuz escape pod.”

“What?” “It is a re-entry vehicle for astronauts to escape from the ISS if there is an emergency. We find it, get in, strap ourselves down and push the button. Next stop planet earth.”

“Is it safe?” she said.

He looked at her and laughed, “Are you freaking kidding me? Is anything we do safe?”

She smiled through the tears and then laughed and then they were both laughing hysterically.

“I guess you are right. What have we got to lose?” she said.

“Exactly,” he said.

He reached out and wiped tears from her cheek and then he drew her close to him and kissed her. It was spontaneous and neither of them expected it, he surprised himself by doing it and he was surprised when she responded.

The huge emotional drain of being responsible for the deaths of the people of ISS and then almost dying themselves and being saved cashed in all their emotional reserves.

They found themselves crying, kissing and holding each other while floating in a strange ecstatic upside down way. They stayed that way for a long time, floating, existing and being together.

***

The escape pod was designed for a maximum of six astronauts but with only two of them on board it seemed tight. Jack could only imagine what having six adults wearing space suits crammed inside would feel like. Sara spent her time recharging their suits while he prepared and read the operations manual for the escape pod. It was designed to be used in emergencies and it really was simply a matter of climbing inside strapping down and pushing a red button.

While they were loading supplies he said, “The bad part is we have no control over where we will land. The best we can do, as far as planning goes, is to eject as we approach North America and hope we don’t end up in the center of some big body of water.”

“Do you mean this thing won’t float?” she said, a look of panic crossed her features.

”No, it will float okay, but I don’t think it will sail very well. We might be stuck off-shore for some time. We should load more food and water just in case.” Jack finished strapping her into the escape pod and was working on his own belt when he caught a glimpse of something moving out the view port. It was JERICHO ONE, it circled the earth and it was heading towards the ISS.

Jack quickly secured the hatch and punched the launch button. He felt the spring-loaded lock gently push Soyuz away from the space station as Jericho One smashed into the main section of the International Space Station. They did not hear the impact but they both watched through the view port as the spacecraft tore the International Space Station into two pieces sending them spinning away from each other.

One section was speeding towards them and Jack reached for Sara’s hand as the automatic re-entry program lit the Soyuz rocket. It was a white knuckle ride but they managed to out-run the chunk of damaged ISS.

Re-entering the earth’s atmosphere was bumpy but in a way it almost felt like an embrace to travelers coming home as they streaked towards North America.

They landed with a bump four hours later on a grassy slope in a clearing by a lake near the town of Duncan on Vancouver Island.

Jack opened the hatch and they crawled out on wobbly legs after thirty hours in zero G feeling heavy and disoriented. They lay on the ground to wiggle out of their spacesuits and then stood up and tried to recover their earth legs. It started to rain and Sara turned her face up to welcome moisture.

“There’s a town in that direction,” he pointed south east. He was looking at the map from the escape pod.

“I don’t know how far I can walk,” she said, “I feel weak all over and my legs are shaking.”

“We’ll take it slow, but I think we need to get away from the escape pod. If Marty’s story was true there might be people coming to look for us,” he said.

“Do you think it was true? Would a group of people really kill everyone on the planet to make it a better place for themselves to live? Is that even conceivable?” she said. “When people convince themselves that they are right about something they can and will do damn near anything. Look at all the gods and deity beliefs. They all have someone they hate. Wars are started all the time for profit they bring and the main purpose of politics is to cover-up corruption.

All conflicts are based on the idea that one group is better or more deserving than another and the rich and powerful sit back and laugh. The real difference now is, until this century, no one possessed the technical capability to destroy all of humankind. Science has made it possible. I’m certain that Hitler or some other crazy would have done it long ago if the means were available to them,” he said.

“But if it kills everyone, including those who did it, how does that make sense?” “They weren’t planning to kill themselves but oddly the risk of self-annihilation was obviously not a limiting factor. For people who believe they have the right do things like this nothing would stop them,” he said.

“Okay so the atomic bomb has been around for years and no one destroyed the world,” she said, “why is this different?”

“The difference is that after a nuclear war the earth and atmosphere would be contaminated for hundreds maybe thousands of years. This virus they created would simply run its course and those who were inoculated would come out of hiding and start living their entitled lives again and it would be business as usual.”

Sara shuddered and her tears mixed with rain as she closed her eyes and bowed her head.

”If that is what humans are, we do not deserve to survive we are little more than a virus ourselves.”

“I can’t disagree with you about that but I want to live,” he said.

“Why, what is the point? We are part of the problem,” she said.

Jack went to her and put his arms around her.

“I want to live because I want to be with you.”

She put her arms around him and tried to turn off her thoughts. She felt within her the seeds of her own destruction if she allowed herself to dwell on this madness. It was easier to wrest herself away from it within his embrace. Maybe he was right, maybe this was the answer. She wanted to be with him too and maybe they could find a way to live.

“If members of his group survived why would they look for us? Do you think he had time to communicate with anyone before he died?” she said.

“I don’t know and he might not have died in the collision. If his story is true and there are survivors from his group they might be searching for us now.”

“But why, we are not involved, what do they want from us?”

“There is something I didn’t tell you,” he leaned away from her and looked into her eyes, “the lab with the dead astronauts, the one Marty was so worried about, it was not lab eight. I searched lab eight while you were recharging our suits and I found this,” he said.

He held up a small silver cylinder about the size of a pop can.

“What is it?”

“I think this is the anti-virus Marty was talking about,” he said.

He was grinning when he said this and she smiled too, though she was not sure why she was smiling, because at this point nothing made any sense to her.

“So what good does that do if everyone is dead?” she said.

“We’re not dead. I’ll bet Marty was right about millions of people surviving all over the planet. It makes sense. Not everyone would die from exposure to the virus.”

She wore a quizzical look on her face. “So what do we do with it?”

“We stash it away until…”

“Until what?” she said.

At this point Jack’s face coloured and he stammered.

“Until it is time to …you know…have babies,” he said.