Twenty-Four

The door swung open again, and Mike took his hand out. He was beyond screaming now, and just looked straight ahead for a second, and fainted. I caught him as he went down, and yelled to Michele, "Okay, close the door and get air in here as fast as you can!" I tried gently to work him, cumbersome in his space suit, into a position where I could carry him through the inner door to his mattress. Fortunately, he weighed almost nothing, but the space suit was all over the place as he hung from my arms. I reached over and lifted his right hand and put it on top of his breast, trying to jar it as little as possible; and I cursed the slowness of the process of removing the hydrogen from this little chamber.

"Michi, radio earth that we're going to have to leave right away. His hand is definitely crushed, and we'll have to get him to a doctor or he might lose it. Tell them to find the nearest minute we can leave."

And that would take a half hour--and were we on the edge of a blackout? It would be lovely to have to wait five hours now. I wanted to look at my watch, while I held him and waited for the inner door to open, but of course it was on my wrist, under him. Well, my knowing what the time was wouldn't make it any different.

The worst part of an emergency wasn't the emergency itself, it was the fact that you usually had to spend most of your time waiting instead of doing anything about it.

Finally, the door swung open, and I said, "Okay, I've got him; just stay back and I'll carry him through." This wasn't as easy as it had been with Michele; she was much smaller, and I wasn't so concerned about not jarring her.

We barely made it; and then I carried him over to his mattress and laid him gently on it, almost in a sitting position because of the oxygen pack and the propulsion system on his back. I propped him up a bit more and Michele took them off, a look of great concern on her face, and got the helmet off so he could breathe. We then laid him back down.

"Should we cut the suit off?" she said. "It's going to be hell to try to pull him out of it."

"Too tough. We'd be a week doing it. It's only his hand, and he's unconscious now, so let's undress him."

We unzipped the suit and slid him as well as we could out of it. His sleeve was already full of blood.

When she finally got a look at his hand, Michele said, "It's not as bad as I thought from all the blood that was there. I can stop the bleeding." She was suiting the action to the word. "But his fingers are a mess; I don't know how many bones are broken. I'll have to feel my way and try to put the pieces back together again, and hope it'll knit back; we can't wait for someone who knows what he's doing. Thank God he's unconscious. Listen: You go back down and tell earth exactly what I'm doing--I'll shout it down to you--and ask if there's anything else."

As I was descending the hatch to the space craft, I heard her say softly, "Oh, God, Mike, I'm so sorry!"

As soon as I got down into the space craft, I realized we wouldn't be able to leave Mike up there in the first stage, in case the force of our takeoff separated us. And if he was going to be brought down, it had better be right away, while he was still unconscious. I called this up to Michele, and she agreed; and so I carried him down and laid him in his seat, which probably would be more comfortable than the mattress anyway. At least we'd be ready to leave as soon as the word came.

Michele didn't have much room down here, but sitting on the edge of my seat, which was in the middle, she managed fairly well. Meanwhile, I was radioing instructions, and waiting impatiently for the half hour to go by to hear from earth. I looked at the clock. Twenty minutes left of communication time. We should begin hearing in ten minutes, so that left us ten minutes of instructions before everything stopped. If they knew this too--as they did--that should be enough.

Suddenly, Mike said, "What has happened?"

We looked at him. He was still unconscious. Bewildered, we glanced at each other, and then both realized at the same time that it was Galileo's voice coming over the speaker. He was at one of the windows, looking in.

"Mike's been hurt," I said. "The door of the airlock closed on his hand. It's been broken."

"Broken?" he said. "Of course! It never occurred to me that you could be injured. Will he die?"

"We hope not. We don't think so. Michele knows a little about this, and we're getting advice from earth. But we don't have the equipment to do a good job, so we're going back to earth right away."

"May I come in?"

Michele looked up, and I said, "No, Galileo; I'm sorry, but we're busy. You'd be in the way."

"I might be able to help."

"You'll help most by not distracting us. We're expecting word from earth." And at that moment, Jonathan's voice came over the speaker, telling us that we were still in a launch window for an hour, but that he had only a few minutes left, so we'd have to get everything down right now.

The first thing he did was tell how to handle Mike, which turned out to be mostly what Michele had already done anyway, and then said, "All right; here are the parameters for the launch. I'm assuming that it'll be within the next fifteen to twenty minutes after you get this. The numbers'll be valid for plus or minus an hour, and we can catch you when you come round again after you take off. If it's any more than this, wait until we get into communication again. We'll work out an acceleration plan that could get you back here in three days. Here goes."

I fed the numbers directly into the navigational computer, which left me free to radio back to him that I'd heard him, and that we should be leaving well within the hour and twenty minutes we had to do it in.

As I was finishing this, I heard him say, "Well, that's all for the next five hours. I hope you'll be on your way home when I talk to you again. Good luck." Something else, probably that they were praying for us, faded out.

"What'd he say about when we could leave?" asked Michele. She had been concentrating on working on Mike's hand. I told her.

"The sooner the better," she remarked.

"I'd better program in an hour from now," I said. "I don't see how we could get all the preparations made in less time, especially if you're not available." I was already making calculations and plugging in numbers as the screen display started asking questions. The whole pre-launch check list would be coming up soon.

"I'll be able to help in a minute; I've done all I can for him for now. I think his three middle fingers will be all right, but I don't know about the thumb and little finger; the bones there seem all pieces. They'll probably have to be amputated. Thank God he's left-handed. Now. What should I be doing?"

I told her, and we began the lengthy process of checking things out.

"May I talk now?" came Mike's voice from Galileo.

"What do you want?" I said.

"How is Mike?"

"Still unconscious. He's in bad shape."

"Will you be leaving soon?"

"In about an hour."

"Take me with you."

Michele looked over at me, and I said, "Galileo, Mike's being injured changes things. The two of us are going to have to do the work of three going back, and take care of him too. I don't see how we could take you under the circumstances."

"I could help you. I can learn to do those things very quickly."

"You probably can," I answered, "but our minds are going to be so occupied with just flying this thing and with Mike that we wouldn't be able to handle having something else to worry about. I'm sorry, but no."

"Paul," he said, "you have destroyed my whole reason for living here. Mike introduced me to oxygen, and I want it--I need it. And suppose it is true that I can't die, am I to go on existing on this planet forever, useless, when I know that there is a place that can profit by my knowledge? It would be worse than killing me. You would be condemning me to an eternity of despair."

"I'm really sorry, Galileo. I really am. But you know that Michele doesn't want you to come, and we just can't afford to have dissension here on the way back. We're so far away from earth that the least mistake would mean we'd never get back, and that will require all our concentration."

"I told you he had no intention of performing his little experiment," said Michele to me. "All he really cares about is oxygen."

"What did she say?" said Galileo. He could see that she was speaking, but couldn't distinguish the words.

"She said she agrees with me."

"Then you will not let me in."

"I'm afraid not. I'm sorry."

"Then I am sorry, but I will not give up. I am not very good at obeying orders, Paul."

"You can say that, but you won't get in here unless we let you in, and we're not going to."

"I won't try to break in. But I think--" he came over to the ship, and we heard the click of his body touching it. "Yes, I thought as much. I can attach myself to the ship, and ride there on the outside. It will probably kill me, but death would be better than staying here. You understand, Paul, that I bear you no malice, and appreciate your dilemma. But on the chance that you and St. Peter are correct, and that I cannot die, then I will be the first to greet you when you emerge on earth; and afterwards you will be grateful that I chose to accompany you."

"Can he do it?" whispered Michele.

"How should I know?"

"Don't be afraid that I will slide off when you accelerate," he said. "I will attach myself to the front of the ship, and then the force of the acceleration will serve to keep me on. Well, Paul, I hope you and St. Peter were right; I have no desire to die. If you were, then I'll be seeing you, as Mike would say. I hope you harbor no resentment against me for this; but if you do, and I survive this ordeal, I suspect that I will be able to tolerate it. I have already lowered myself so far as to reason with you and even plead with you. It should serve me as good practice for my stay on earth; I learn quickly. Tell Mike that I hope he recovers, and that I hope to see him soon. Now, you have things to do to prepare for our journey, so I will leave you alone." And he vanished upwards, and we heard a faint click from the top of the first stage.

"What do we do now?" asked Michele. "We can't go with him on there."

"What are we supposed to do? Stay here and die?"

"If it comes to that. You heard him. Would you wish him on earth?"

" . . . I suppose you're right."

"Is St. Peter around?"

"He might be. St. Peter!" I called over the microphone. "Can you hear me?"

"I am here, Paul. Galileo is on the top of your ship, did you know?"

"I know. That's the problem. Mike got his hand hurt, and we have to leave for earth right away to get him to a doctor. And Galileo wants to come with us, and we wouldn't let him in, and so he says he's attaching himself to the ship and riding with us on the outside. Can you get him off?"

"I can try." We heard a scuffling up on the first stage, and then a series of blows against it that rocked the whole ship.

"He's trying his sports rushes," I said. The blows continued.

"Neither Cleopatra nor I can dislodge him," said St. Peter, appearing at the window. Cleopatra was with him. "We can barely move him at all. How long can you stay here before you must depart?"

"The computer's set to go in fifteen minutes. If necessary, we could wait another fifteen, but not much more, and then it's seventeen hours, which would be really bad for Mike."

"Thank you for your effort, St. Peter. And Cleopatra." said Michele. "I want to talk to Paul for a minute so Galileo can't hear us. Pardon us."

"I understand," each of them said.

"Paul, how strong are the welds holding us to the first stage? Would they wreck our skin if we tried to twist ourselves free of it?"

"I see what you're saying. I can't imagine they'd do us any real damage. And if they do--well, we die here anyway, because you're right. We can't go and bring him with us."

I switched the microphone back to On and said, "St. Peter, do you think you could make sure that Galileo stayed right where he is? That he couldn't move back down here?"

"That should be no trouble. I think I see the solution you have in mind. Good luck, Paul, and Michele and Michael, and bon voyage." Cleopatra then wished us farewell also.

"Goodbye, St. Peter and Cleopatra," we both said. "We'll always remember you; and say goodbye to Newton and Washington and all the others for us, and explain why we couldn't." The two of them disappeared in the direction of the first stage.

"Let's hope they can hold him," I said, as I shut the hatch closing us off from the first stage. "Get the mass-reducers on this part of the ship ready, Mich, and I'll give a burst of the roll thrusters. As soon as we look like we're free, give us full mass for a second or two."

I gave a burst. There was a wrenching sound.

Suddenly, we began to spin, and Michele deactivated the mass-reducers, and we fell like a plummet. "Turn 'em on again! Quick!" I cried.

Still we were falling; all our momentum had turned now into velocity. "Full thrust!" I said, not realizing that I had the main rocket engine under my control. We fell another dozen kilometers, it seemed, before I realized it and started the engines.

We slowed, stopped, and began to rise. Faster and faster.

"There's the first stage!" Michele cried as we shot past and up through the surface, free and headed for home!