Authors: Ben Bova
Venus (12 page)
Akira Sakamoto, our dour life support technician, personally helped me into my spacesuit. It was the same one I had used when we transferred from
Truax
, but now its exterior had been sprayed with a special heat-resistant ceramic. The suit seemed stiffer to me than before, although Sakamoto insisted the ceramic in no way interfered with limb motion.
Truax
, but now its exterior had been sprayed with a special heat-resistant ceramic. The suit seemed stiffer to me than before, although Sakamoto insisted the ceramic in no way interfered with limb motion.
Without a word, without any discernible expression on his chunky broad face, he slipped the safety harness around my waist and clicked it in place, then made certain both its tethers were properly looped so they wouldn’t trip me as I tried to walk.
Dr. Waller helped to check out Rodriguez, who got into his suit unassisted. But you had to have somebody go around to make certain all the seals were okay and the electrical lines and life support hoses hooked up properly from the backpack.
Marguerite came down to the airlock, too, and watched in silence as we suited up. I was trembling slightly as I wriggled into the ungainly suit, which was now sort of silvery from its new ceramic coating. But I realized with some surprise that my trembling wasn’t so much fear as excitement. I knew I should have been scared out of my bleeding
wits, but somehow I wasn’t. I was going to
do
something, something that had to be done, and even though it was dangerous I found myself actually looking forward to it.
wits, but somehow I wasn’t. I was going to
do
something, something that had to be done, and even though it was dangerous I found myself actually looking forward to it.
In the back of my mind, a jeering voice was saying, Famous last words. How many fools have looked forward to the adventure that killed them.
But with Marguerite watching me I didn’t seem to care. I thought I saw a hint of admiration in her eyes. At least, I hoped it was admiration and not amusement at the foolish machismo I was exhibiting.
O
kay, we do it just the way we did in the sim.” In my helmet earphones, Rodriguez’s voice sounded harsh and tight, definitely more tense than his usual easygoing attitude.
kay, we do it just the way we did in the sim.” In my helmet earphones, Rodriguez’s voice sounded harsh and tight, definitely more tense than his usual easygoing attitude.
I nodded, then realized he couldn’t see me through the tinted fishbowl helmet, so I said, “Right.” Just like a real astronaut, I thought.
He went into the airlock ahead of me, cycled it down, and then went outside. Once the outer airlock hatch closed again and the ’lock refilled with ship’s air, the inner hatch indicator light turned green.
My spacesuit was definitely stiff. Even with the servomotors at my elbow and shoulder joints grinding away, it took a real effort to move my arms. Before I could reach the airlock control stud with my gloved hand, Sakamoto pressed it, his beefy face dour as usual. But he made a little hissing bow, the first sign of respect I had ever seen from him.
“Thanks,” I said as I stepped into the airlock, hoping he could hear me through the helmet.
As the airlock cycled down and the outer hatch slid open, I had to remind myself that this was going to be different from an EVA in space. This would be more like doing steelwork at the top of a tremendously tall skyscraper. If I made a false step I wouldn’t simply float away from the ship, I’d plunge screaming to the ground, fifty kilometers below.
“Take it slow and easy,” Rodriguez told me. “I’m right here. Hand me your tether before you step out.”
I could see his spacesuited form clinging to the hand-grips set into the gondola’s outer hull, beside the hatch. Both his tethers were clipped to its rungs.
I handed him one end of my right-hand tether. He clipped it a rung beside his own.
“Okay now, just the way we did in the sim. Come on out.”
The good thing was we were enveloped in the cloud, so I didn’t have to worry about looking down. There was nothing to see out there except a blank yellow-gray limbo. But I could feel the ship shuddering and pitching in the currents of wind.
“Just like rock climbing,” Rodriguez said, with an exaggerated heartiness. “Piece of cake.”
“When did you do any rock climbing?” I asked as I planted one booted foot on a rung of the ladder.
“Me? Are you kidding? When I get up more than fifty meters I want an airplane surrounding me.”
I had never gone rock climbing, either. Risking one’s neck for the fun of it has always seemed the height of idiocy to me.
But this was different, I told myself. There was a job to be done. I was making a real contribution to the mission now, not just cowering in my quarters while others did the work.
Still, it was scary. I suppose Rodriguez could’ve done it all by himself, but long decades of experience dictated that it was far safer to have two people go out together, even if one of them was a neophyte. Besides, with me out there we could cut the time for the inspection almost in half; that in itself made the whole job a lot safer.
In a way, the pressure of the Venusian atmosphere helped us. In space, with nothing outside a spacesuit’s fabric but vacuum, a spacesuit tends to balloon up and get stiff. That’s why we had the miniature servomotors on the suits’ joints and gloves, to assist our muscles in bending and flexing. Even at this high altitude, though, the atmospheric pressure was enough to make it almost easy to move around in the suits. Even the gloves flexed fairly easily; the servomotors of the spiny exoskeleton on the backs of the gloves hardly had to exert themselves at all.
One by one, Rodriguez and I checked the braces and struts that held the gondola to the gas envelope. All the welds seemed solid, to my eyes. Neither of us could find any sign of damage or deterioration. One of the hoses that fed hydrogen from the separator to the envelope seemed a bit looser than Rodriguez liked; he worked on it for several minutes with a wrench from the tools clipped to his harness, dangling from a support strut like a monkey in a banana tree.
As I watched Rodriguez working, I checked the thermometer on the wrist of my suit. To my surprise it read only a few degrees above freezing. Then I remembered that we were still fifty-some kilometers above the ground; on Earth we’d be high above the stratosphere, on the fringe of outer space. Here on Venus we were in the middle of a thick cloud of sulfuric acid droplets. Not too far below us, the atmosphere heated up quickly to several hundred degrees.
Dangling out there in the open reminded me of something but I couldn’t put my finger on it until at last I remembered watching a video years ago, when I’d been just a child, about people hang gliding off some seaside cliffs in Hawaii. I had burned with jealousy then, watching them having so much fun while I was stuck in a house almost all the time, too frail to try such an adventure. And too scared, I’ve got to admit. But here I was, on another world, racing in the wind fifty klicks high!
“That’s done,” Rodriguez said as he returned the wrench to its place on his belt. But he fumbled it and the wrench
dropped out of sight. One instant it was in his hand, then, “Oops!” and it was gone. I realized that’s what would happen to me if my tethers failed.
dropped out of sight. One instant it was in his hand, then, “Oops!” and it was gone. I realized that’s what would happen to me if my tethers failed.
“Is that it?” I asked. “Are we done?”
“I ought to check the envelope for any signs of ablation from the entry heat,” Rodriguez said. “You can go back inside.”
Without even thinking about it I replied, “No, I’ll go with you.”
So we clambered slowly up the rungs set into the massive curving bulk of the gas envelope, with that hot wind gushing past us. I knew the atmospheric pressure was too thin up at this altitude to really push us, yet I felt as if I were being nudged, harried, shaken by the wind.
It was slow going, climbing one rung, unclipping one tether and snapping it on a higher rung, then stepping up again and unclipping the other tether. Just like mountain climbers, we never moved a step until we had both tethers locked on safely. I could hear Rodriguez’s breathing in my earphones, puffing hard with each step he took.
Duchamp was listening in on everything, of course. But I knew that if we got into trouble there was nothing she or anyone else could do about it in time. It was just Rodriguez and me out here, on our own. It was frightening and kind of exhilarating at the same time.
At last we got to the long catwalk that ran along the top of the envelope. Rodriguez knelt down and activated the switch that raised the flimsy-looking safety rail that ran the length of the metal mesh walkway. Then we fastened our tethers to the rail; it stood waist-high all the way down the catwalk, from nose to tail. A row of cleats projected up from the edge of the walkway, like the bitts on a racing yacht where you tie down the lines from the sails.
“Top of the world,” Rodriguez said cheerfully.
“Yeah,” I said, my voice definitely shaky.
Together we walked to the bulbous nose of the envelope, where the big heat shield had been connected. I could see the stumps of the rods that had held the shield in place,
blackened from the explosive bolts that had sheared them off. Rodriguez bent over and examined the nose region, muttering to himself like a physician thumping a patient’s chest during a checkup. Then we walked slowly back toward the tail, him in the lead, our tethers sliding along the safety rail.
blackened from the explosive bolts that had sheared them off. Rodriguez bent over and examined the nose region, muttering to himself like a physician thumping a patient’s chest during a checkup. Then we walked slowly back toward the tail, him in the lead, our tethers sliding along the safety rail.
I saw it first.
“What’s that discoloration?” I asked, pointing.
Rodriguez grunted, then took several steps toward the tail. “Hmm,” he mumbled. “Looks like charring, doesn’t it?”
I suddenly remembered that these clouds were made of sulfuric acid.
As if he could read my mind, Rodriguez said, “Can’t be the sulfuric acid, it doesn’t react with the cermet.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
He chuckled. “Don’t worry about it. It can’t even attack the fabric of your suit.”
Very reassuring, I thought. But the charred stains on the cermet skin of the gas envelope were still there.
“Could it be from the entry heat?”
I could sense him nodding inside his helmet. “Some of the heated air must’ve flowed over the shield and singed the butt end of the envelope a little.”
“The sensors didn’t record a temperature spike there,” I said.
“Might’ve been too small to notice. If we expand the graph we’ll probably see it.”
“Is it a problem?”
“Probably not,” he said. “But we oughtta pressurize the envelope to make certain it doesn’t leak.”
I felt my heart sink. “How long will that take?”
He thought before answering. “The better part of a day, I guess.”
“Another day lost.”
“Worried about Fuchs?” he asked.
“Yes, of course.”
“Well, he’s likely got problems of his—
Hey!
”
Hey!
”
The safety rail alongside Rodriguez suddenly broke away, a whole section of it flying off into the yellowy haze, taking one of his tethers with it. He was yanked off his feet, flailing his arms and legs, the remaining tether anchoring him to the still-standing section of rail, the other one trying to pull him off the ship.
I lunged for him but he was already too far away for me to reach without taking off my own tethers.
“Pull me in!” he yelled, his voice bellowing in my earphones.
“What’s happened?” Duchamp asked sharply in my earphones.
I saw him unclip the one tether from his belt. It snapped off into the clouds. I grabbed the other and began hauling him in.
But the railing itself was wobbling, shaky. It was going to tear away in another few seconds, I realized.
“Pull me in!” Rodriguez shouted again.
“What’s happening out there?” Duchamp demanded.
I unclipped one of my own tethers and fastened it onto one of the cleats set into the catwalk. Then, with Duchamp jabbering in my earphones, I unclipped Rodriguez’s remaining tether before the railing broke off and he went sailing into oblivion.
“What the hell are you doing?” he yelled.
His sudden weight almost tore my arms out of their sockets. Squeezing my eyes shut, I saw stars exploding against the blackness. With gritted teeth, I clumped down onto my knees and used all my strength to clamp the end of his tether to the cleat next to mine.
I saw that the broken end of the railing was fluttering now, shaking loose. And my other tether was still hooked to it. Instead of trying to reach its end I simply unsnapped it from my belt and let it flap loose, then turned back to hauling in Rodriguez’s line.
He was pulling himself in as hard as he could. It seemed like an hour, the two of us panting and snorting like a couple of tug-of-war contestants, but he finally planted his
boots back on the catwalk. All this time Duchamp was yelling in my earphones, “What is it? What’s going on out there?”
boots back on the catwalk. All this time Duchamp was yelling in my earphones, “What is it? What’s going on out there?”
“We’re okay,” Rodriguez gasped at last, down on his hands and knees on the catwalk. For an absurd instant I thought he was going to pull off his helmet and kiss the metal decking.
“You saved my life, Van.”
It was the first time he’d called me anything but “Mr. Humphries.” It made me feel proud.
Before I could reply, Rodriguez went on, in a slightly sheepish tone, “At first I thought you were going to leave me and go back to the airlock.”
I stared at the blank fishbowl of his helmet. “I wouldn’t do that, Tom.”
“I know,” he said, still panting from his exertion and fear. “Now,” he added.
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